The Objectives of Russia’s Military Intervention in Syria
Journal: The Maghreb review/Maghreb review
Year: 2017

There has been much speculation about Russia’s motives for intervening in Syria in September 2015. Certainly, Russia’s direct military intervention in the Syrian civil war was a foreign policy objective in order to shore up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian regime, Moscow’s ally since the Cold War period, and keep Syria together as a unified state and maintain the Russian foothold in the Middle East. We argue that Russia projected force beyond its periphery to confirm Russia’s stat