[ikalugin]

"reduction" appears to be more of a rotation. With the Kuznetsov rotating out of Syria new ground attack aircraft rotate in. Same thing happened the last time, with fixed wing aircraft being replaced by additional helicopters and special forces operatiors. The change in the specifics of our deployment appears to depend on the various local conditions - such as weather or the overall military-political situation (or the need to combat test the carrier).

My assesment for the mid-term future is that we should expect one by one reduction of the smaller rebel enclaves in various areas, ie around the country's capital, not the all out drive onto the Iblib area (which btw lacks the major pre-war cities on the scale of Alleppo or Damascus). After all those enclaves are removed and the Assad's domain becomes more cohesive we could expect pushes elsewhere - be that ISIS or other rebels.

Long term effects are hard to predict - because in order to resolve it we need to find a political solution we can push through (especially with the local players). Such a solution would be hard to attain due to the different interests of the local players, but in my opinion a return to a situation close to the pre-war status que would work out for the majority of them.