Russia, Ukraine and ‘Hybrid Conflicts’ – The New York Times

The purpose of the Russian incursion in Syria was in large part to assert its standing as a “great power,” Ohannes Geukjian, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut, asserts in THE RUSSIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA (McGill-Queen’s University Press, paper, $39.95). … As the United States scaled back its military presence in the Middle East in recent years, Geukjian concludes, “the vacuum was filled by Russia and Iran, the new masters in the region.”