Turkey has become an accessory ‘to the ISIS terrorist movement’, which is why, despite the US getting their pants in a knot, Putin bombed what was presumed to be the good guys when in fact they were taken over by terrorist's for the most part....the so called New Syrian army is actually ‘resting’ in Europe as refugees.
Putin placed “infiltrators” in the terrorists groups long ago to see where they were...where operating and all the “other” strategic place-cards he'd need when he went in... Putins not called a master strategist by 'our' military leaders for nothing....he wasn't about to get bogged down like happened in Afghanistan and Chechnya......been there done that....
Putin fascinates me because he's so unpredictable....and there are many of our "modern" military leaders who watch him as well with the same intrigue....they know he's not operating according to the die hard cold war mindsets....Until we get the likes of those like McCain and the other cold war mindsets in rest homes we'll never stop Putin...
I've had some pretty interesting conversations with some of the military minds...and the better ones get very frustrated with the old war horses because Putin is not operating at all in that mindset...which is why nobody's stopping him from doing what he wants.
Surely part of his calculus is a petulant POTUS who would do something stupid to save face.
Risky business.