The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....
“Russia's military intervention in Syria that began on September 30, 2015, is its first major intrusion into the Levant since June 1772 when "Russian forces bombarded, stormed, and captured Beirut, ….Then as now, the Russians backed a ruthless local client; then as now, they found themselves in "a boiling cauldron of factional-ethnic strife, which they tried to simplify with cannonades and gunpowder.”….
In 1971, President Hafez Assad, father of the present Syrian dictator, signed an agreement permitting Moscow to use Tartus in return for selling advanced weapons to Syria, thus turning the quiet fishing port into a logistical facility for materiel and technical maintenance of smaller ships in Russia's Black Sea fleet. Two years later, Hafez, a Soviet-trained pilot, joined Egypt in preparing an attack on U.S. ally Israel with the help of Russian advisors and arms….
The White House on Friday backed top aides' comments that the United States is not now focused on making Syrian President Bashar al-Assad leave power, saying the U.S. focus is on defeating Islamic State militants.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday drew criticism for playing down a long-standing U.S. goal of persuading Assad to leave power to help end the six-year-long Syrian civil war.
Tillerson said Assad's future is up to the Syrian people to decide, while Haley said "our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out."
“Warplanes were bombing a rebel-held town in Syria for a second day amid increasing international tensions over an apparent chemical attack that killed more than 70 people…..Bashar al-Assad’s government has categorically denied using poisonous gases in Khan Sheikhoun or possessing the banned munitions, while his ally Russia claimed Syrian jets conducting legitimate strikes had struck a “rebel weapons facility”…..Major General Igor Konashenkov, from the Russian defence ministry, claimed “a destroyed warehouse” was used to produce and store shells containing toxic gas to be sent to Iraq…Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, called the Russian statement a “lie”…..“Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas,” he told Reuters.”
The concept of military deception, or maskirovka, is a permanent feature of Russian interventionism. But, it encompasses a broader definition than the Western one. Deception may include camouflage, disinformation, traps, blackmail, and diplomatic cunning. As such it enables strategic surprise and/or timing that will stun the enemy, thus ensuring the success of the mission……
Along both its pre- and post-1991 borders, Russia has continually sought to effect regime change whenever the leaders of the non-Russian republics within Russia (e.g. Chechnya) or at its new periphery (Ukraine and Georgia) tilted toward the West. In 2005, having decisively won the second Chechen war with the complete destruction of its capital Grozny, Putin was able to focus on possible regime change in Tbilisi (Saakashvili) and Kiev (Yushchenko). Unlike with landlocked Chechnya, both Ukraine and Georgia were littoral states of the Black Sea. A main geopolitical concern of the Kremlin was regaining ports and access for its navy. But the primary issue was Sevastopol—the traditional site of the Black Sea fleet. Getting rid of Ukraine's Yushchenko and Georgia's Saakashvili, thus meant regaining essential coastlines for the Russian navy. Its lease was up in 2017, and Moscow needed to find another suitable warm water port.
Russia has sought to effect regime change whenever the leaders of the non-Russian republics within Russia tilted toward the West.
Hafez Assad's successor, son Bashar, was quick to seize the opportunity. He visited Moscow in 2005 and succeeded in having three-fourths of Syria's external debt to Russia for arms sales written off.[11] The move became an impetus for renewed Russian-Syrian military cooperation in upgrading the port of Tartus for larger ships.
At around the same time, Putin began to seriously consider plans for the invasion of Georgia with particular interest in the province of Abkhazia, occupying half of Georgia's eastern Black Sea coastline. Analysts have mistakenly viewed Georgia as just another Caucasus country, but from the Russian navy's point of view, it is precious real estate on the Black Sea littoral…..http://www.meforum.org/5876/why-putin-wants-syria