Syrian air strikes: Russia demonstrates its strategic superiority
When it comes to international politics, the United States might still be the world’s greatest power, but Russia’s intervention in Syria has proven yet again that it is more accomplished at strategic manoeuvring.
Russian war planes are now bombing anti-Assad regime targets in Syria. But unlike the US, they are doing so at Syria’s official invitation and hence entirely within the framework of international law.
Ironically, Russia’s intervention – seen very much as the decision of president Vladimir Putin – has been portrayed in the US and the UK as “defying” the West and its warnings not to intervene. Yet the pro-US position of air strikes in Iraq under the rubric of “collective self-defence” is marginal, especially compared with Assad’s direct invitation to Russia.
There are currently urgent talks being held to try to ensure that US and allied planes do not come into contact with Russian aircraft. The saving grace of the situation, in that there is one, is that the Russian planes are not yet targeting Islamic State positions, as they had initially claimed they would, but rather other anti-Assad forces in the north of Syria.
A high level of coordination would likely be required if Russia was to also target IS forces, given the common proximity.
The war in Syria is, however, an opportunity for Russia to continue to demonstrate its strategic influence in the region. Along with involvement in Ukraine, this is part of a larger narrative about reasserting Russian “greatness”. However, Russia is unlikely to want a full-scale military involvement, along the lines of the US in Iraq.
Russia is also very much unlikely to want to inadvertently clash with the US. Brinksmanship is a finely judged game and Russia has shown that it can be adept at it. But it does have limits and the price for pushing boundaries too far can be high. Putin is pushy, but not stupid.
The civil war in Syria has for some time been a proxy war, with Russia, Iran (and its client Hezbollah in Lebanon), the US and its allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey each backing competing participants. Putin was clever when, in New York, he invited the US to join Russia in the spirit of combating a common evil, invoking the cooperation of World War II.
The United States, however, is not yet ready to take up this offer, not least because at this stage it would require accepting Bashar al-Assad and his regime as part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Of the more than 200,000 who have been killed in the war to date, the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that around 95 per cent have been killed by the Assad regime, with IS being responsible for less than one per cent of total deaths and all other anti-Assad groups responsible for less than 3 per cent.
Taking up the Russian offer would also place Russia – and Putin – as an equal or dominant actor in the Middle East, with Iraq having signed a surprise deal with Russia giving it permission to attack IS forces in Iraqi soil. The US is very unlikely to hand over its regional strategic mantle, along with the loss of face that would imply. However, some type of transitional arrangement involving the Assad regime and longer term protection for Alawite and other minorities is likely to be a part of any longer term solution.
Assuming there is an end in sight to the Syrian – and Iraqi – civil wars and that IS is ultimately defeated, Russia is now positioning itself as a critical actor in the future political shape of the region, just as France and Britain were in 1916 when they developed the Sykes-Picot Agreement that led to the drawing up of the contemporary regional map.
When this conjoined conflict finally ends, one question will be whether Syria and Iraq will continue in their present form, as devolved federations, or whether there will be new states in the region.
When France and the UK determined the shape of the region, they did so as allies. Russia and the US are a long way from being allies, even if they can come to some agreement about how to address the existing conflict. And the US would be loath to see Russia again being a more or less equal actor on the world stage, which such an eventual outcome would imply.