he spoke with margaret warner. >> reporter: marvin kalb, welcome. >> thank you. >> reporter:Ñi in thisutin has won his gamble. you also recently wrote, putin has won ukraine. is that where we are? >> i think that what he has done from the very beginning was have a far more limited goal in mind than what a number of people felt at the very beginning when this all started. he never wanted all of ukraine. he wanted for historical purposes to take crimea. he did. then he wanted a part of ukraine that he could always use to advance russian interests, and he has now -- he is now at a point where nobody in the west is shouting, hey, stop, give us back crimea. it's all accepted. so he has won. >> reporter: and you write that the u.s. and the west grossly miscalculated and have even been shocked he made this play for crimea, violated international borders. >> there is no question he violated the borders. there is no question he's used to getting his way. we had in the west a very romantic vision of russia back in 1991 when soviet union died and whatever is russia began to emerge, and we began t

marvin kalb has a book out that gets into putin's held the war in the ukraine, a war that he won and trying to figure out what he's trying to do now in syria. he identifies with leaders when the populations rise up against them because there for the grace of god goes putin. pat: russia has also -- always had an alliance with syria. that's been alive. they're the easiest people to understand in the world if we would only try to understand the russians. they're looking out for their national interests. eleanor: before that it was the state of russia and before that the state of the soviet union. he's going to do everything he can to bolster assad. pat: why not? eleanor: why not? fine, as long as they then operate against isis. john: ok. europe mounts up. i havethis is reason why asked the minister of defense, already starting tomorrow to carry out reconnaissance fights over syria so as to be able to envisage the possibility of striking daesh. john: france, australia and the u.k. are extending their military intervention against isis in syria. this week, as a result of the migrant crisi