What is Vladimir Putin's true Syria game? Russia has now ensconced a meaningful mini-air force of fighters, bombers and helicopters in an airfield near Latakia, where its sole plausible purpose is to prop up President Bashar Assad's regime. But keeping Assad's government alive and prolonging the Syrian civil war isn't an end in itself for Putin, who naturally wants to enhance Russia's presence in the region.
It's much more likely that the Russian president's true objective is to broker a solution to the Syrian quagmire, one involving a rump Syrian state in which the Alawite minority would be transformed into a majority. Put another way, Putin is backing Assad so that he can sell him out.
It's sometimes said that Putin is getting involved in Syria to distract attention from his continued expansionism in Ukraine. That explanation may be much too simple. Putin is looking for something to trade in exchange for the West allowing Russian consolidation in Ukraine to continue. The name of the game isn't distraction — it's leverage.