The Russian Federation’s flagrant military intervention in Syria is by no means an isolated incident.  This intervention comes as the result of a rather recent line in Moscow’s policy of expansionism that had previously manifested itself in Russia’s intervention in the Caucasus and Ukraine; and it has been conducted in order to bolster and improve Russia’s position in the wider Middle East.  However, although this line of policy seems to be a recent development, I believe it pretty much follows in the footsteps of the historical model of expansionism by the Tsarist Empire / The Soviet Union. This model of expansionism is by no means just some crude form of military intervention as it might be thought in the first glance.  Rather, this intervention comes as a result of, among other things, the historically ingrained “Russophilia” in the Middle East that comes as a consequence of Russian “cultural hegemony” in that...(Read Full Article)