Archibald said:
this are the same russian forces that faced Chechen resistance in Grozny, and just razed the city from the face of Earth instead of fighting house-to-house. They don't care about precision strikes or "colateral damage"
Maybe they have kept the basic value that they care about the lives of their own soldiers more than about the lives of anyone else, especially the very terrorists they are fighting against and the populace that produces them.
Western political correctness looks fine and dandy when you are sitting in a Californian university office, but on the terrain it got long ago to the point where it is the single largest weakness and source of casualties in our own ranks. And therefore is leveraged systematically by the bad guys everywhere who do not give a damn about such political correctness.
Especially when faced with different cultures with different values, at some point the West will need to get its act together again. History doesn't teach that we defeated the Nazi & Japanese aggressors by being politically correct. At best it is wishful thinking to hope to preserve our virginity while defeating such vicious opponents as the worldwide radical Islamistic wave. At worst, it is wholesale jeopardizing of lives on our own side, civilian and military alike.
It feels like the Russians have simply kept much more practical.
And with huge success too: they just turned the tables in Syria, saved their pawn Assad, and made the involved western powers look even more weak and non-credible than before. Which will be noticed by all the local warlords looking for a credible protector ally.
Even for those who do not support Putin or his dictatorship regime, force is to observe that his practical conduct has just scored him huge successes, and given black eyes aplenty to US FR UK and all the other politikorrect westerners.
It should be a basic lesson that before going to war, a power should ask itself: Am I really ready to do what it takes to win? And if your blessed values can't handle the heat, then stay out of the kitchen. It will avoid more unnecessary defeats like Lebanon '82, Somallia '93, A-stan and Irak.
War is not clean. Especially so when between different civilizations. Defeating another civilization will not be achieved without massive amounts of deaths.
Theoretically we should avoid such wars, but if the other side starts it, too bad. Your only choice is to do what it takes and win, or to totter and get nowhere.
In Syria and the Middle East, so far Russia has chosen one path and the West the other.