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Russia Giving Syria the S-300 Is More Message than Menace
(The Hill) Anna Borshchevskaya - Why did the Russians give a more advanced version of an anti-aircraft system to Syria, an incompetent ally who just shot down their plane? Wouldn't the delivery only raise the risk for Russians operating in Syrian airspace? For the Kremlin, the delivery of the S-300 is about assertion of further dominance in Syria. It is a political statement to the West, and everyone else in the region: Russia is here to stay. The S-300 gives Assad (and therefore Moscow) options they didn't previously have to undermine the U.S. position in Syria. It potentially will provide additional cover to Iran's and Assad's activities in Syria. It could also complicate U.S. and coalition operations against ISIS. Learning to operate an S-300 takes months of serious training. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced it will take three months to train Syrians to operate the S-300. Yet the Syrians have been deploying the Soviet-provided S-200 for over 30 years, and still managed to shoot down a Russian plane. Putin's confidence in Syrian military competence is undoubtedly low and casts doubt on Shoigu's deadline. The S-300 is a powerful weapon but it has limitations. It has been around since the 1970s. U.S. and Israeli militaries have studied it for years and know its capabilities. Air surveillance and battle management also matters. If the air surveillance system is too slow to see an aircraft, for example, it doesn't matter how strong the S-300 system is. The writer, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is a former analyst for a U.S. military contractor in Afghanistan.