Military presence in Syria had already took a heavy toll on Russia's economy. I doubt thet could afford anything more than limited deployment of special forces.
Great argument for why the CIA (who clearly don't give a f[inks] about Trump and will operate entirely independently of him) need to step it up in these countries as well. Start funding local groups to hit the Russian special forces and any advisors or diplomats they send HARD. Make them bleed. Make it be like Afghanistan all over again.
And I'll preempt any idiot who says that doing that in Afghanistan led to al Qaeda or the Taliban: No it didn't, do your research. The Taliban did not exist at any point during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, nor did any group that could accurately be described as a predecessor of them get US backing (outside of perhaps indirectly, as the US gave Pakistan tons of military aid). Most of the groups the US backed went on to become the Northern Alliance. And al Qaeda was a small, mostly irrelevant group at the time not even on the US's radar, whether to support or oppose, and Osama bin Laden played virtually no role in Afghanistan while the Soviet Union existed.
Honestly if you wanted to accuse the US of supporting al Qaeda, you'd have a better case in the former Yugoslavia than in Afghanistan.
I agree with this. Good, solid insight.
