The Russians have a huge logistical advantage in Syria, it is in their border zone and they can essentially drive anything they want there. For us it's at the ass end of an around-the-globe supply chain and no way to get directly into it without getting the whole thing signed off by several other countries whose territory, national waters, or airspace we have to transit to put anything there.
Sad fact is that it is actually in Russia's natural sphere of influence and only the expenditure of vast amounts of money and effort enable us to play there at all, an exercise for which the US electorate has demonstrated a rather limited patience or even attention span which has already pretty well been exhausted. Without that national political will, no amount of military capability is going to tip the balance in our favor, and even our military capability seems to have peaked and be drifting down.
The US military and political leadership has been in love with special operations forces for twenty years, for divergent reasons, but in addition to the sexy factor, the politicians regard them as a way to fight far-flung wars on the cheap. Within certain parameters and conditions of uncertainly fighting third-world regimes, that works, at least for a time, but special operators are essentially raiders and trainers and can't provide the long-term tangible ground presence that it takes to exercise national influence. Any strategy that forbids commitment of a substantial regular ground force is ultimately doomed to fail. It DEFINITELY doesn't work against large ground forces committed by other second- and first-world forces, who have real intelligence capabilities, do not leave the airspace uncontested, and have special operations forces of their own to counter any attempts to piss into that particular wind.
Also, what Perky said about Russian 'Rules of engagement' is right on the money. That BS isn't going to hold them back.
