Understand also the importance of the oil industry to Russia's strategic economic interests. Gazprom is critical to the Russian economy. The war in Iraq was really about stealing Iraq's known estimated oil reserves of some $200 trillion dollars. The oil is in the ground untapped, and it's the highest quality and easiest to obtain oil on the planet. This is more than Saudi Arabia has, and Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer. (Currently Russia is the world's second largest oil producer.) This Iraqi oil secures America's entire long term financial debt... because long term America owes just about $200 trillion, depending on how you count it. (George Bush jr.: "you will thank me later.") After taking the oil, how does America sell it, and more importantly, to whom? The two major customers are China and Europe. So take Afghanistan (and expected Iran,) for a pipeline to China; and take Syria, for a pipeline to Europe. (Go look at the maps, especially the geology, pipeline routes require flat terrain for optimum performance, and economy of construction.) Just as importantly, overthrow the Ukraine and cut off Russia's main oil pipeline to Germany. Russia, of course, sees all of this go down, especially the overthrow of Ukraine in 2014. That's when Russia intervened in Syria to kick the shit out of ISIS - Obama's pet mercs. However, Russia could not intervene in Ukraine without risking their pipeline to Germany. So Putin built a new pipeline to Germany, Nordstream 2 - which they just finished in December 2021. Now Putin can finally retake the Ukraine, and he is doing so. Carbon fuels are the largest industry on the planet, by far. They dominate almost all of the modern wars, and strategic moves.