Syria and Ukraine: Interconnected Wars
Today, for The National Interest: Crisis is often opportunity
It's easy to forget about Syria in light of Ukraine, but we shouldn’t. It was Russia’s “training ground” for the conflict—especially for the Russian air force, though, as we now see, the experience of bombing a jihadist militia is quite different from that of fighting an army with modern air defenses. It is also the arena in which Russia, Turkey, and the United States, the three countries best able to project force into the Black Sea region, have engaged in an odd trilateral game of military and diplomatic chess ever since Russia and America entered the Syrian Civil War. The United States has generally been losing that game since our partial withdrawal of troops in 2019, but the war in Ukraine has generated a set of conditions that allows us to regain lost leverage.
At first, I planned to explain them here, but the topic is an important one, so I wanted to share it with a broader audience. The National Interest kindly agreed to publish my analysis of the situation and recommendations for American action. You can read it here.