Military history of France intervention in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi. The year after, France intervened in Mali during that country's civil war, as Islamist militants appeared to threaten the south after seizing control of the arid north. Changes in the government of France, including Socialist François Hollande becoming president in 2012 after years of center-right governance, have done little to alter Paris' foreign policy in Africa. Hollande also proposed French military involvement in the Syrian civil war in the wake of chemical attacks French intelligence reports linked to the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in mid-2013. France has encouraged military cooperation at an EU
Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War over 9,000 sorties over the course of five and a half months, while helping the Syrian Army capture 400 towns and acquire 10,000 square kilometers of territory. In January 2016, a few months after Russia's involvement in Syria, diplomat Ranjit Gupta wrote, in an article published by , that the Russian reinforcement was "godsend for Assad, greatly boosting the regime's sagging morale and that of its armed forces." Gupta continued: In February 2016, Professor Fawaz A. Gerges of the London School of Economics opined the Russian military intervention had turned out to be a game-changer in the Syrian Civil War: