Military expert Igor Korotchenko has said that Russia’s successful campaign against ISIS in the Middle East has surprised and intimidated both NATO and the United States. In an interview with Sputnik, the editor of National Defense Magazine told them what the game-plan in Syria is all about. “This is a matter of our commitments. Syria has been our historical ally, and Russia could not leave Syria to the mercy of fate. But again, the main motives of our president was the destruction of our potential internal and external enemies,” he told Sputnik. Pravdareport.com reports: “It took Russian military men months to develop the Syrian operation. Everything was elaborated in detail on maps. We started delivering military hardware and ammunition to Syria, the Hmeimim airbase had to be reconstructed. The base had to be protected too, so we had to redeploy several groups of the Black Sea Fleet to Syria. Surprisingly, the US intelligence and intelligence services of other NATO countries missed all that out of their attention.” “They missed the Crimea as well.” “Of course, they have their problems and errors. The Russian General Staff took measures to deceive the enemy. In general, the West was literally flabbergasted, when only [...]