A senior official in the Russian General Staff has described the military’s plans for constructing a new base in Syria, a strong indication that Russia intends to establish an expanded and permanent military presence there.

Col. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov, Chief of the General Staff’s Operations Directorate which plans military missions, describes in an interview in the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda that Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved construction of a “unified” base which would create the opportunity for the military to consolidate “sea, air and ground components.”

Nations vote with their resources and Russia’s commitment to a new and presumably major installation in Syria would provide the Putin government an expanded range of military options in the short and long-term and almost certainly is calculated to challenge the U.S. military presence in the area.

The current U.S. footprint includes aircraft based in Incirlik, Turkey, a large naval facility in Bahrain where the Fifth Fleet is based and 15,000 US military personnel stationed in Kuwait.

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  expanded presence in Syria, Geostrategy-Direct..com, Russian military plans ‘unified base’, WorldTribune.com