Garry Kasparov explains Putin's interest in Syria

Garry Kasparov Says We Are Living in Chaos, But Remains an Incorrigible Optimist | The New Yorker:

There is a war in Syria? Excellent. Obama has washed his hands of it? Great: I go in, displace people, they flee to Europe, this creates problems, the right rises.

A brilliant, in-a-nutshell summary.

... they made a conscious decision to create not a Chinese-type system of blocking access to information but its opposite: a flood of information. They created a deluge. For example, they create entire troll debates. You think that there is an argument raging on the Internet, when in reality it’s a script.

There's much more, well worth reading.