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The Russian Operation in Syria – a Success Story?

Marek Czajkowski

ZBN Analysis

No. 2 (16) / 2017

22 November 2017

 

Many observers maintain that Russia is currently riding the wave of success, skillfully carrying on a well–developed, comprehensive strategy poised to enlarge the Kremlin’s leverage in the world. This plan is more or less centered on exploiting weaknesses and cracks in the international system and domestic troubles of the individual states. And so, Moscow moves everywhere it sees opportunity to create some commotion, even if it does not always mean gaining a direct advantage. From the involvement in the U.S. 2016 elections, through alleged hostile interference in many regions like Europe or Middle East, to the de facto wars in Ukraine and Syria, Russia is advancing its interests, the narrative goes, as the West’s power and international sway dwindle.

This is true to a certain extent; as abundant crises have undermined the international order, Russia is indeed able to exacerbate them, and thus Moscow seems to be gaining ground either by adding up to the weakening of its perceived foes and competitors, or by directly benefiting from an open or clandestine involvement (or both). However, one must note that none of these favourable situations is of Russia’s own making, the Kremlin is only dexterously catching opportunities as they come. It is also often said that all those wins are rather short-lived and do not have the potential for long-term decisive gains, especially in the light of Russia’s difficult internal situation. In brief, Moscow does demonstrate to be highly proficient in setting tactical goals and achieving them, but the overall strategy pertaining to the Russian Federation’s place in the world is highly vague, especially  in terms of sustainable instruments and methods of achieving long-term objectives. We tend to concur with that line of argument.

Syria has been one of the arenas, where we can observe the Russian policy that is successfully exploiting advantageous circumstances which leads to many tactical but fewer strategic gains. So, the operation on the ground have unfolded swiftly but without a clear vision of long-term solutions – unless the lack of solution itself is the strategy preferred. The latter is in fact very plausible, we will argue.

As the Russian involvement in Syria has entered its third consecutive year, we are going to sum up some earlier predictions in order to verify them. Then we will attempt to devise a new set of forecasts regarding both the situation in the Middle East and the broader background of the Russian foreign and domestic policies. To do so, we will revisit the forecasts that the author of this piece produced since the Fall of 2015. Of course we are not going to address every detail, we will rather concentrate on the most important and general perspectives.

 

The Forecasts Concerning Russia’s Syrian Involvement – a Summary

The first finding of the former predictions was that the Russian operation had multiple goals that were supposed to be achieved in various fields – from a  local, tactical to general long-term strategic perspectives, from those centered on Middle East to the ones related to the foreign policy in general and the overall internal situation as well. This assessment is surely valid as before. On the other hand, we mentioned many times that while the specific short-term goals seemed precise and achievable, general perspectives were much more vague and elusive. This opinion also holds firm, adding up to the general notion that Russia probably does not have a clear strategic concept of a new Middle Eastern international system at all. The more specific points of the earlier estimates were as follows.

1. The single most visible goal of the Russian intervention, the one clearly declared and legitimizing the whole adventure, was to keep Bashar al-Assad, Syrian president, in power. But since the very beginning it was not exactly clear if Russians were determined to “liberate” whole Syria in one big effort. We thought that they were rather interested in cantonizing the country, because the whole process of recapturing the territory would have been too expensive and too long, not giving much in an exchange. This prediction seems to be correct. After securing al-Assad in his office and their own beachhead in Syria, the Russians concentrated effort on strengthening their own position, allowing Syrians to advance in fact only against the Islamic State (IS). On the other hand, we also expected the IS to hold longer and be of a greater problem to Russia and the Syrian army – at this point we were wrong. A year ago, it was not so clearly visible how vulnerable the Islamic State was after the American air campaign and the U.S.–led crackdown on its financing. That was why the Syrian army together with the Kurds took over the IS territory much faster than we had expected. However, from the point of view of forecasting the developments in Syria it does not change much, mostly because thanks to the cease-fire and Russians targeting the IS the other sides to the conflict grew stronger and entrenched deeper.

2. If Russia had a wider goal of achieving a decisive role in the Middle East, as it might have looked like two years ago, it has not been achieved in full. It is noticeable that Russia controls only a part of Syria, and this does not give it a region-wide leverage. It might even be argued that the relative success in Syria was possible just because the real goals were limited. Meddling in Libyan civil war or the Egyptian, Saudi or other diplomatic overtures do not change this picture. The regional leaders have approached Russia with great caution because it is widely considered an unreliable partner and the one who’s hand might be too heavy to bear, and in fact less potent than the Americans. We also predicted that Russia wanted to gain some economic advantages in the Middle East, but it is too early to tell if this goal was achieved.

3. Moscow’s general goals within the international realm concerned two broader issues. One of them was a short-term perspective related to the state of Russian foreign relations after the dramatic shift of the Winter 2013/2014. The second applied to the general appraisal of the situation by Russian authorities that the country was endangered in its very existence by an ongoing encroachment of the Western countries which crossed the last fault lines in Ukraine – in fact, an aggression against Russia. From the first perspective, the successful emergence in the Middle Eastern arena was supposed to make Russia became an indispensable partner and the power to be reckoned with, what would compel the West to come to terms with Moscow in other places. Syrian gambit was in that sense a part of a broader offensive against the West, which encompassed increased interference in internal affairs of many countries, saber rattling, flexing muscles, aggressive military actions, and hostile cyber operations. Currently it looks like this goal has been achieved to a certain extent, although not entirely the way Russia wanted it to. The West was indeed forced to accommodate with Russia in the Middle East, but on the other hand it got scared by a scope and bluntness of the whole Russian aggression. Currently it appears that the main western countries are not going to step back too much under the Russian pressure. On the contrary, the West is seemingly in a phase of consolidation against Moscow (which of course may not be accomplished), because it recognizes that Russia moved too far in questioning the basics of the world order. In a generally shared opinion the Kremlin became not just the competitor but it rather got close to the status of the threat. From the second perspective, the Syrian operation as a sort of a offensive defence bound to repel the western trespassing surely worked, along with other means that the Kremlin undertook. So, the West is now generally in the defensive mode, but this success is also due to internal problems that above all include the European economic woes and self-destruction of the U.S. foreign policy. 

4. There were also some goals regarding the international and internal image of Russia. On the external plane, the operation was supposed to rise the overall prestige of Russia by showing its military might and the efficiency in execution of the complex strategy in a difficult area. This worked well, especially among the undemocratic governments that might seek some rapprochement with Russia as it proved to be able to staunchly oppose Washington on its supposedly own turf. It was also expected that well televised advertising shows of the effectiveness of the Russian weaponry facilitated by the Syrian operation would prove advantageous for the arms exports. Russia did demonstrate to be able to do things which were until now reserved almost solely for the U.S. military, but we will have to wait until it translates into actual contracts. On the propaganda front, the successful operation was also supposed to distract internal and external public from the real problems of Russia, a weakening and vulnerable country unable to become a real superpower, but desperately willing to look like the one. This goal has also been partially achieved, as expected, especially with regard to the domestic public addressed mostly by tightly controlled media outlets. But in the global information sphere there have been also a lot of comments that seem to take the notion of Russian renewed power face value. On the other hand, there is of course strong anti-Russian alarmism and frequent experts’ and politicians’ remarks on Russian military advantages. This tone is mostly bound to mobilize a public support for the defensive effort, but also to heat up the political atmosphere in order to induce gains by persons or organizations interested in ongoing securitization of the relations with Russia.

5. Probably the most important dimension of the Syrian intervention was internal politics. We argued on many occasions that an essential task of the Russian foreign policy as a whole was to create and maintain a limited conflict with the West in order to rally the society around the authorities, since a previous legitimization, the so called “Putin’s consensus” started to wane by the end of the first decade of the 21st  century. The external threat seemed to be a good legitimization for the authorities, and the Syrian gambit had its role in this strategy. It was supposed to demonstrate the internal public a power of the country, a strength and proficiency of the military, together with a resolution and skills of the authorities. It was very important for the rally-under-the-flag strategy to prove that those in charge were really capable to defend frightened people. So far it has worked very well.

6. Since 2014 we have also frequently pointed out to one of the important drivers behind the Russian foreign and security policy which we may call “the realist-futurist” mindset. It is a general conviction, apparently present in Moscow’s thinking, that stems out of an appraisal of the world situation as a whole and specifically of the direction it has been evolving. The narrative came primarily from the assessment that the western-centric world order was crumbling, and the rule-based international environment was swiftly declining. The power politics made a powerful come back and another reshuffle in the international relations commenced. Those actors who got to understand it and would be ready to throw away constrains soon enough would take part in the shaping of a new world order and benefit the most from it. If this narrative is correct, the Russian strategy as a whole, and the Syrian gambit specifically, has been paying off, but it is rather difficult to appraise it in full at the moment.

7. Last but not least, Syria was supposed to become a live-fire proving ground for armaments and tactics of the resurgent Russian army in its newly appointed role of the long-range instrument of the foreign policy. Apart from a long-standing conventional military presence in the post-soviet space Moscow wanted to create a new tool of intervention in more remote regions in order to emulate the American capacity to do just that. The military in its expeditionary function was supposed to become Russia’s indispensable instrument in the unstable world, capable to be effectively used when necessary. This goal is rather a long-term in nature, but no doubt the Syrian operation has already yielded many positive gains with respect to that, as the Russian chain of command and the logistic systems matured, together with the innovative tactics and effective use of various weaponry.

 

Current Forecast

Looking from the most general perspective we maintain that Russia’s goals and aims in Syria are manifold, and if accomplished they are supposed to positively impact many fields of the Russian interest. However, as there is no single reason of this involvement, the most immediate, tactical gains are easier to identify than the strategic ones. They are also more achievable, because the short-term planning is apparently one of Russians’ best assets.

1. With regard to Syria itself, we uphold the view that Moscow is ready to cantonize Syria, at least de facto and at least for the time being. It is rather not in its interest to promote any lasting or final solution and there are four reasons to think so. Firstly, the experience gained in the post-soviet space demonstrates that conflicts deliberately left unresolved (frozen) allow to maintain the influence at a relatively low cost. Secondly, any final solution including the re-unification of Syria would have to involve important players, such as Iran or Turkey, and probably Israel as well as the other Middle Eastern powers and maybe even the U.S.; all of them have their own agendas and none could be either accommodated or outmaneuvered easily. Thirdly, cease-fire allowed the Syrian rebel groups of different kind to strengthen, especially the Kurds gained ground in expense of the IS – to break them now would require a great effort and probably would be very difficult in the foreseeable circumstances; it would then require either the enormous increase of Russian involvement or maintaining and possibly expanding the alliances – both perspectives are rather not attractive in terms of the possible gains. And fourthly, there is no need to force the permanent settlement as the partial solution seem to serve well enough the other goals transcending the regional perspective at the reasonable price. Therefore we think that the state of flux in Syria is probably what Russians see as their best interest, as we explained it in more detail before, and this prediction stands firm. However, we also hold on to the conviction that such a situation is very difficult to sustain and may yield a lot of unforeseeable surprises.

2. The further widening of the influence in the Middle East would need more instruments and would be much more elusive than the limited military intervention in tactically favorable circumstances. Hammering its military action into the long standing and comprehensive political influence, Russia would have to prove the ability to construct lasting outcomes, not only to exploit opportunities with short term gains in sight. To build the system of relations is not easy, especially if it would need to accommodate many partners and to address many difficult and intertwined problems. Such a process would also be long and costly with rather vague outcome. It is therefore possible that Russia will still seek a greater influence in the Middle East but only by exploiting emerging opportunities and not through a concentrated long-term effort based on the broad and detailed strategy.

3. The wider context of the Syrian operation does not change. For many reasons Russia is more and more fiercely fighting for its world position as a superpower. It is rather sure that the Kremlin will use its newly acquired Middle Eastern position in the game against the West. As we already noticed Russia pursues the politics of limited confrontation, but it gradually looks less limited and more a confrontation. It is very probable that the initial goal just to warn the West and bring it to the co-operation on Russian terms has been effectively abandoned, and Moscow does not seek a long-term accommodation but is rather gearing up for the long-term conflict. This notion corresponds with the goals 4, 5 and 6 below, so it seems very plausible.

4. Russia will surely rise its prestige among selected countries in the world. It also draws and will draw an envious look from the western right-wing, as it is televising the narrative of being firm and effective against disruptive forces of the Islam – contrary to soft and weak governments of the West. But on the other hand, constant warmongering and destabilizing will contribute to the negative image of Russia in the eyes of the mainstream western public – though this is probably what Moscow does not care for. But the more important is that the strategy policy of destabilization could also bring discontent of some important partners, especially China. Whatever are Beijing’s long-term goals, probably it does not seek a rapid deterioration of the world order – current one fits China’s ambitions relatively well.

5. The Syrian intervention, as the component of the internal power conservation strategy, will continue to play its part as long as it is the limited war for the limited price, even if the strategic goals are also limited. What counts in that perspective is only a positive appraisal of the government’s strength and ability by the Russian public. It will surely play this role in future, but there is some potential to lessen its actual influence on the audience. As the Russian presence in Syria will become more and more common thing, this trump card in a measure will wear off. This positive impact may even completely evaporate if some of the key circumstances change; there may be many unexpected events of that sort, like increase in causalities in Syria or quick deterioration of the situation in Russia.

6. The “realist-futurist” logic has not been falsified yet, but it did not pass a clear verification either. We still do not know if the current world order really crumbles completely or not. The most probable is that it rather transforms from western-centric to polycentric, but it is not entirely obvious if this new shape will be based on the sheer force alone. It is quite likely that crucial players, especially the new world class powers like China and India will prefer a stable, rule-based environment for their own development. That is why it is possible that Russian strategy of betting on a destruction will finally not pay off well.

7. Striving to enhance its new approach to warfare, Russia will continue to test the newest weapons, tactics and operational concepts in Syria. But on the other hand it will be more and more visible from the outside and thus it will give the West opportunity to assess and prepare against possible Russian actions.

 

Conclusion

The most general assessment related to the Russian’s adventure in Syria is that they are there to stay. On the other hand, it seems that this involvement will remain limited, as its goals are in fact limited in the region itself, paying off in the other perspectives. Russia seems to prefer the economic way to achieve a multitude of the specific goals at relatively low price rather than to try to costly reshape the whole Middle East. So, the Kremlin is prepared most of all to react to the changing situation for tactical advantages, and the general aim of Russian authorities is to stay in power and fend off any dangers to it, everything else comes as a consequence.

 

Photo credit: Sputnik, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/410530-syria-russia-iran-war-isis/