Putin’s clever plan to keep NATO in Afghanistan

Marc Champion, Bloomberg (USA)
Putin may detest NATO and distrust the U.S. such that it colors his judgment -- for example on Libya and Syria. Even in Afghanistan, before NATO's planned 2014 withdrawal became imminent, he played games by giving transit rights to only a few NATO members and not to NATO as an organization. But Russia's president is neither paranoid nor irrational. He knows Russian interests can only be damaged when Western troops pull out of Kabul.