The US has resorted to 15 months of spotty airstrikes "backed" by a hodgepodge of loosely organized ground troops that in many cases are tasked with battling fighters the US also trained and equipped at one time or another. The results of this "strategy" have been a disaster. ISIS remains and the latest group of US "trained and equipped" troops was systematically dismantled and embarrassed by al-Qaeda, the latest in a string of boondoggles that reached a humiliating crescendo in the summer of 2014 when everyone involved suddenly realized that allowing Sunni extremists to form "a Salafist principality" (as predicted by The Pentagon in 2012) was a very, very bad idea. 

The Russian strategy is far simpler and goes something like this: if you are an anti-Assad element operating in Syria, you're a terrorist or at the very least you have the potential to become one and so we're going to bomb you and instead of resorting to shaky alliances with unreliable rebel groups for ground cover, we'll just partner with Iran and Hezbollah. 

While it's true that Russia hasn't rolled up ISIS, al-Nusra, and the FSA as quickly as Moscow predicted, The Kremlin has been more effective than the White House at combatting extremists and now, Baghdad and Kabul are reconsidering whether they want to be aligned with the US if it means the Russians can't participate in routing militants in Iraq and Afghanistan.