MESOPOTAMIA NEWS TODAYS ANALYTICAL SUMMARY – Is Russia’s Syria War a Strategic Trap?

Moscow’s shifting goals during three-year involvement – THE MIDDLE EAST COUNCIL

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2018 – We are pleased to offer a preview of the featured essay from the new Summer 2018 edition of Middle East Policy: “Russia’s Syria War: A Strategic Trap?” The essay is written by Dr. Emil Aslan Souleimanov, associate professor of political science at Charles University, and Dr. Valery Dzutsati. The full essay can be accessed here.

In the three years since Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, momentum has turned clearly in Assad’s favor. Yet despite these gains, Drs. Souleimanov and Dzutsati question where Moscow goes from here. Russia’s global reputation has suffered significantly, and leaving Syria with low-intensity civil warfare still simmering could erode Russia’s global standing further. At the same time, Russia has been dragged into unintended conflicts due to its presence in Syria, and these entanglements risk limiting further Russia’s ability to maneuver politically.

To provide context, the authors divide Russia’s involvement in Syria into three distinct phases, each with differing goals:

• In the first phase (2015-16), Russia sought to distract international attention from their presence in Ukraine and to bring the various rebel factions into negotiations with the Assad regime. Yet Western powers – most notably the United States – refused to cooperate with Assad still in power, denying Russia’s goal of improving its reputation with the international community.

• In the second phase (2016-17), Russia fortified its military position in Syria, projecting the idea that it was the main fighting force against ISIS. Yet the reality was quite different, as 70-90% of Russian airstrikes in the period targeted non-ISIS groups. These strikes used highly controversial methods, attracting further international criticism, and deepened Russia’s support for the Assad regime.

• In the ongoing third phase (2018), new risks are emerging from the possibility of unintended conflicts with the United States, Israel, Turkey or Iran. While a Russian withdrawal from Syria as part of a grand bargain with the West may have been a possibility in 2015, no such scenario is realistic today. Russia may have overstretched its forces already in Syria, and it remains to be seen how any end to the conflict improves Russia’s position compared to three years ago. www.mesop.de