The ominous Russian military buildup in Syria represents the most significant projection of force beyond the territory of the former Soviet Union since the old Cold War. It will allow Russia to keep the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria, effectively negating the new diplomatic path toward resolution of the regional sectarian war that has been opened up by the Iran nuclear deal.
In addition it will further enable Russia to build and retain a major forward operating base for Russian military forces. At first it will be used to keep Assad in power. Then, as a cover, Russia likely will initiate sustained use of force ostensibly against ISIS, but actually to act as if Russia is in vanguard with the West and Middle Eastern powers in combating the world’s most dangerous insurgent group.
Beyond this, there is little guarantee that Russia won’t use its most high end military weaponry in other destabilizing ways that are contrary to western interests, such as attacking U.S.-backed opposition fighters (alarmingly, Russian drone flights have been scouting those areas, not ISIS areas). Offensive hardware including fixed wing Su-24, 25, and 27 fighter jets, attack helicopters, drone aircraft, main battle tanks, and SA-22 surface-to-air missile batteries have already been deployed at Russia’s new base in Latakia Syria in the backyard of Assad’s stronghold.
With the U.S., Turkey, the Gulf States (and now the UK and France) already engaging in air operations against ISIS in Syria, can Russia actually be trusted to merge with this air campaign in a fully allied operational manner or will it stir up trouble in the process by not being cooperative, therein potentially endangering allied aircraft and pilots whether intentionally or unintentionally? Russia has been playing a dangerous cat and mouse game with allied planes and ships across Eurasia for many months already.
Another part of President Putin’s motivation for his Syria buildup is to use mild subterfuge to try to make it look to the rest of the world that Russia is being a “responsible” and contributing member of the world community just in time for the UN General Assembly in New York. While military to military talks are necessary and should continue for deconfliction purposes, President Obama should not meet with Putin at the UN. This will be perceived as additional weakness, and not just by the Russians.
In fact, the U.S. and its western allies should not have been caught so off-guard by Putin’s shrewd but destabilizing move. Since the Russia invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine Putin has been poking and prodding the West, seeking ways in which a militarily and diplomatically resurgent Russia can subvert western security interests and force them to deal with it again as a major world power with its own unique set of interests that can be “legitimately” defended.
But the West is guilty of something even more blameworthy and directly harmful to its interests: it is largely to blame for this distressing Russian chessboard move. By not confronting Putin and Russia sufficiently over its illegal and unwarranted invasion and occupation of Ukraine, the U.S. and its western allies effectively gave Putin a green light to project force in other key geostrategic hot spots.
By being stared down by Putin over Ukraine and effectively blinking, the West lost its credibility in the eyes of the Russians: its ability to deter further destabilizing projections of Russian force evaporated in the process. But this was not considered by most western security experts, who myopically stayed focused on their views that Ukraine in and of itself was not worth fighting for. The wider strategic ramifications were ignored.
The major inside-the-beltway argument against arming Ukraine properly was that Putin would only up the ante, and therefore it would be ineffective. Actually the U.S. and its western allies would only have needed to do just that, up the ante further with an announcement of additional arms. More than likely, the mere announcement would have gotten Putin to back down.
The use of force is about the only form of statecraft Putin respects. Anything short of it, or the credible threat of its use, Russia effectively shrugs off. With the major social and public media manipulation it is carrying out inside Russia, Putin’s government has not been deterred from its foreign shenanigans by the seriously negative effect that western economic sanctions have had on Russia’s economy. It has been predictably impervious.
The West did do a better job deterring Russian incursions into other parts of Europe. The U.S. fairly rapidly provided security assurances to Poland and the rest of East-Central Europe, building up deterrence against Russia forcibly pushing into these former Soviet satellites in the process. But it blatantly failed to deter Russia from going much further in its invasion and destabilization of Ukraine. The most fundamental pillar of international law and civilization—nonviolation of sovereign borders–was torn down in the process.
The U.S. and Europe should have armed Ukraine. By not forcing Russia to stand down and respect Ukraine’s border and sovereignty—let alone give up its annexation of Crimea—it not only allowed bedrock international norms to be undermined: it squandered what modest deterrence had been in place at the time.
Once depleted, deterrence is decidedly difficult to build back up. Deterrence is even more crucial to sustain in the context of asymmetrical interests by opposing parties. In this instance Russia has a stronger set of interests involving Syria and the Assad regime compared to the U.S. (and Europe). Thus, as it is less likely to intervene directly, deterrence is even more vital for the U.S. to establish and maintain. It is both strategically effective and cost-effective, but it is difficult to establish and maintain and quite simple to lose. At such junctures when the U.S. is either less able or less inclined to intervene in a given crisis, deterrence is at a premium.
And now the West has a significant new Russian forward operating base on its hands in a pivotal part of the world. The seeds of this buildup were sown when Putin deftly inserted himself into the Syria equation over two years ago when the U.S., UK, and France failed to enforce their no-use-of-chemical-weapons red line. But it was the failure to force Putin’s hand over Ukraine that emboldened him to make this newfound far-reaching move.
The U.S. had done itself a great favor by successfully negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. Contrary to the sensationalist accusations coming from the current crop of U.S. presidential candidates, Iran has initiated two ceasefires in the war in Syria, backed down from supporting the Houtis in Yemen, and reined in the forward-leaning general of the Quds Force (the external arm of the Revolutionary Guards). But already the U.S. is watching an earlier misstep come back to bite it.
With the advent of this preventable incursion into Syria, Russia has deftly changed the operating equation. Bashar Assad will not be going anywhere soon. Nor will the war in Syria be winding down. And with Russia’s trademark unpredictability–a la the intelligence accord with our ally Iraq, Syria, and Iran– its choosing yet another place to subvert western interests is not a matter of whether, but when.
“By not confronting Putin and Russia sufficiently over its illegal and unwarranted invasion and occupation of Ukraine, the U.S. and its western allies effectively gave Putin a green light to project force in other key geostrategic hot spots.”
Provide some evidence. We have very good explanations for the timing of Putin’s intervention. They have little to do with Ukraine, and much to do with the facts on the ground in Syria.
“The U.S. and Europe should have armed Ukraine. By not forcing Russia to stand down and respect Ukraine’s border and sovereignty—let alone give up its annexation of Crimea—it not only allowed bedrock international norms to be undermined: it squandered what modest deterrence had been in place at the time.”
And the US would do this how?
I’m sorry, but I’ve spent years arguing against this kind of #resolvefairy analysis at the Duck. I’m happy to see you provide some actual warrants for these kinds of claims, but this reads like a straight op-ed, which isn’t what I ever expected to see here.
I honestly have to wonder why these kinds of posts appear in an academic IR blog. There’s just no serious argument here, it’s all a jumble of speculation and conjecture about what Putin/Russia wants, completely illogical calls to up the ante and escalate tensions over issues which (as the author himself admits) the Russians care a great deal more about than the West does, and purely reflexive opposition to any Russian initiative without considering the possible benefits of a limited cooperation.
Yes, Putin is hardly a trustworthy character, and his push into Syria is likely motivated by an interest in maintaining Russian influence in that region rather than humanitarian concerns. So what? Does that mean that his interests are invariably opposed to Western ones? What is this supposed „diplomatic path towards resolution of the war opened by the Iran nuclear deal“ that the author accuses Russia of „negating“? What’s wrong about Russia using force against ISIS? Why would it be required to fully merge its campaign with the Western one, do we somehow have a monopoly on waging war in Syria’s airspace, despite the absence of any official legitimation? How is this further „destabilizing“ in a war that has already gone on for years and displaced most of the country’s population?
One also gets the impression that the author would prefer for the war to go on rather than giving Putin even the slightest hint of a success at the international stage. There’s not even an attempt to discuss what interests both sides may have in common here, and then to see if there’s an overlap or not. Is Russia likely to insist on restoring Assad’s rule over the whole country, do they have the means and motivation to do so unilaterally if necessary, are they open to political negotiations that might involve a formal or effective division of the country? These are key questions that would need answering before anyone can make a recommendation on how to respond to this initiative. Instead, I get the impression that the mere mention of Putin’s name in the news is enough to send the author into a sputtering rage. If this kind of thinking is prevalent in US policymaking circles, it’s very worrying.
sent my stupid info to this stupid site to give you a STUNNING round of applause. talking to any american about russian and you have decades of hardcoded propaganda that leaps up. its incredible.
Too much bulls–t about piss poor Ukrainian army performance Pentagon advising didn’t help too much. The Ukrainian 30th brigade was virtually annhilated near Saur Mogila by Russian arty and GRAD fire in late July/early August 2014. The entire wreckage of Ukrainian bodies and charred armor (go look at it on Colonel Cassad’s website) looked like the Highway of Death cerca February 1991. Did you hear about in Western media? Hell no, everyone keeps their mouths shut about Ukraine’s massive losses.
Someday, maybe, the likes of Reuters will stop sitting on the story that thousands more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are dead from the Donbass war than admitted by Kiev or reported by them. Someday.
https://thesaker.is/seeing-through-the-doublethink-primary-evidence-on-losses-of-the-combatants-at-donbass/
If the Russians had wanted to march all the way to Kiev or at least establish that much touted ‘land bridge to Crimea’, they would’ve done it. And it probably would’ve only taken them two to three weeks to wipe out the Ukrainian Army. Ditto if they’d done it in the initial phase when Ukraine had maybe 8,000 active duty and trained servicemen under arms in April 2014 when Kiev was sending ‘Ukrainian’ mercenaries to Slavyansk outskirts who spoke Italian or Polish accented English to try and put out the brushfires of insurgency. Russia didn’t do it because it doesn’t really want the Ukraine much less Galicia and Kiev. It just wants to make the Ukraine a huge liability for the U.S. and make Washington own every stupid, economically failing or human rights violating thing that happens in that territory. That’s Putin’s strategy, ‘you broke Ukraine on the Maidan, you own it now’ (yes everyone will start screaming about Kremlin propaganda and only trolls believe CIA had any hand in the Maidan, spare us the insults to our intelligence).
Thank God Putin has learned from the USSR’s mistakes in Afghanistan or Washington’s in Iraq and Afghanistan. We hope.
The barrel-bombing Putin apologists are out in force
I’m a “Putin apologist” now? You might want to go back and read what I’ve written below and elsewhere. But it just goes to show that you’re primarily interested in making an ideologically predetermined point rather than defending your arguments on evidence or logic. How some people make it in academia, I’ll never know.
Great analysis, thank you for sharing.
So by granting Russia the key prize of being bogged down in a sectarian conflict in eastern Ukraine, we have given them the even bigger prize of getting bogged down in an even worse sectarian conflict in Syria?
While I understand the general advisability of not wanting Russia to feel like it can project power around the world, this argument still seems to fail on the “what should we have done instead” question. Get into a proxy war in Ukraine? I’m not sure the downsides of that strategy are better than the current one.
Nexon links to useful critiques, but even just staying with this post: the West’s “ability to deter further destabilizing projections of Russian force evaporated”—but not really, because it “did do a better job deterring Russian incursions into other parts of Europe. The U.S. fairly rapidly provided security assurances to Poland and the rest of East-Central Europe, building up deterrence against Russia.”
Also, peculiar conception of deterrence:
“Russia has a stronger set of interests involving Syria … compared to the U.S. (and Europe). Thus, as it is less likely to intervene directly, deterrence is even more vital for the U.S. to establish and maintain.”
I’d replace the “vital” with “difficult/unbelievable/etc”: deterrence doesn’t compensate for weak interests. Also Walt https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/04/no-contest/
As IF the Russians had any idea of risking nuclear destruction by invading Poland or Latvia where they’d be hated occupiers for no particular reason in the first place.
If they wouldn’t take Kharkov or Mariupol where much of the population hates the Ukrainian government and its SS Das Reich Wolfsangel lightning bolt wearing Azov battalion enforcers (sorry but I’m sick of the bullshit propagandizing for those REMFs a–wipes who let the regular Ukrainian Army do all the bleeding and dying at Donetsk Airport and Debaltsevo while they sat on their asses safe), why the hell would they invade a NATO member?
The only way we would see Russia invade Ukraine for real, and not this proxy war BS but real air strikes on Ukrainian CPs full of NATO advisers or contractors who thought they were safe is if Washington does something crazy stupid like putting American missiles in Ukraine or permanently stationing U.S. troops east of the Dnieper.