The Small Wars Journal has a short article on Russia bringing to Syria their model of counterintelligence or pacification, proved in the Chechen region of Russia. The main Russian COIN thrust appears to be picking a faction among the combatants and backing it to brutally dominate all other factions.
Americans don’t much like this approach - it is anything but democratic - but it appears to work. There are times when our values get in the way of achieving our goals, COIN appears to be an example of this.
People who’ve never experienced representative government can’t be expected to fight and die on its behalf, Putin’s insight: they will do so in pursuit of simple stability and order when those are missing. Hat tip to RealClearDefense for the link.
