If you take any interest in the Syrian war and international diplomacy, you may well experience a disturbing sense of deja vu this week. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Moscow. His visit is part of a renewed American campaign to make Russia rethink its strategy of support for the regime in Damascus, which could culminate in talks between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the June G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Kerry is reportedly optimistic that he can make some progress. But this new push is reminiscent of earlier, unsuccessful efforts to win over the Russians. Last June, Obama and Putin discussed Syria in the margins of the G-20 in Mexico, but Putin refused to make any serious concessions. Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton went to Moscow later in the same month to parley with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. This paved the way for talks in Geneva with the other permanent members of the Security Council and a communique outlining steps toward a “Credible Political Agreement” (.pdf) in Syria. The document has proved to be worthless.

The mere fact that the U.S. continues to court Moscow over Syria one year later represents a considerable diplomatic victory for Putin and Lavrov. Even if the Russians are by some miracle now ready to compromise, which most observers still think is very unlikely, they have used this war to make themselves look indispensable. And while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot hold out forever, Russia is likely to leave the U.S. and its allies to fix the mess when he falls.

Since the start of the crisis, Moscow’s policy has been based on two main factors. The first, and most widely noted, has been the need to assert Russia’s status as a great power on a par with the U.S. The second has been a realistic assessment of the durability of the Assad regime. While Western analysts have on numerous occasions convinced themselves that the regime was on the verge of collapse, the Russians have been less easily persuaded. They have direct access to the Syrian government and have continued to arm it. To date, they have been correct about Assad’s ability to fight on.

Even when Assad’s position has temporarily looked weak, Russia has refused to make any major compromises. Last December, officials in Moscow as well as their counterparts at the United Nations and in Western capitals believed that the rebels really were near victory. One diplomat warned that Assad was “progressively losing control” of his territory. As I noted in these pages, it seemed that Putin and Lavrov would now have “to manage the consequences of a lost war.”

Russia subsequently announced large-scale naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean that looked like preparations for the evacuation of its citizens from Syria. But it did not initiate a face-saving diplomatic initiative at the U.N. to manage the fallout of a potential defeat. Once again its obduracy was rewarded, as Assad and his forces regained their footing. Although the ebb and flow of battle inside Syria is hard to track, observers believe that the Syrian military has regained the initiative in recent months, which could well complicate Kerry’s diplomatic arguments in Moscow.

Conversely, Kerry will refer to, and probably outline in detail, the evidence that the Syrian military has used chemical weapons. As I observed in this column last week, last month’s revelations on this issue briefly introduced a new element of uncertainty into diplomacy over the conflict. Israel’s airstrikes against Syria, apparently targeting arms destined for Hezbollah, have also ratcheted up regional tensions. But while there is increased talk of the U.S. arming the rebels, Obama has effectively defused talk of intervention, stating that he cannot foresee a situation where a U.S. deployment “would not only be good for America but also would be good for Syria.”

So whatever Putin and Lavrov think of the latest American diplomatic overtures, they can remain reasonably confident that the U.S. will not pursue a military option if diplomacy fails. And while Russia might prefer Washington to refrain from sending the rebels weapons—which could, after all, be used against Russian military advisers inside Syria—they could also exploit the decision politically. Here, they could say, is final proof that the U.S. is not engaged in Syria for humanitarian reasons but is instead following an agenda that will destabilize the region.

In the short term, it probably suits the Russians to respond to the U.S. overtures very much as they have dealt with previous initiatives. This largely involves offering opaque indications of some willingness to compromise while refusing to shift on real policy issues. The optimal outcome of Kerry’s visit from Moscow’s perspective might be some new format for talks that could defuse the chemical weapons episode—and ease Russian-American diplomacy on other matters, such as arms control—while not binding Russia to any hard commitments or actions.

Russia can keep spinning this game out almost indefinitely. But this tactical approach does not answer the basic strategic question that Western officials and commentators have put to their Russian counterparts over the past two years: What will you do when Assad goes?

Earlier in the war, it was easy to argue that Russia would eventually have to do a deal with the West if and when Assad’s position collapsed, if only to secure its residual interests and protect its citizens inside Syria. Yet the question of what to do after Assad falls is now arguably a greater headache for the U.S. and its allies than it is for Russia. The Western powers still do not have a credible vision of how to consolidate a decent post-Assad government, let alone ensure the safety of those Syrians, especially the Alawite minority, that stood by the regime.

Whereas Russia will surely lose its remaining stake in Syria eventually, the responsibility for managing the aftershocks of the crisis, or at least for coordinating the international response, will probably fall to the West. Moscow’s approach to Syria has not only brought it short-term diplomatic gains but also created a fearsome strategic dilemma for Washington in the Middle East. And if Syria proves to be a long-term drain on the U.S., that may be a lasting strategic victory for Russia.

Richard Gowan is the associate director for Crisis Management and Peace Operations at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. His weekly column for World Politics Review, Diplomatic Fallout, appears every Monday