Is Moscow’s entry a game changer?
Russia’s abrupt Syrian raid jars needle of bloody conflict in a different direction
Just two days after President Vladimir Putin’s contentious appearance at the UN, Russia fired its first airstrikes in Syria, aiming them at targets that may not have included Islamic State militants.
As western leaders wrung their hands over Russia’s dramatic entrance into the Syrian war, questions as well as accusations loomed.
Will Moscow’s military role be a game changer in the bloody conflict, or a gambit in the geopolitical chess game for influence in the region?
Russia has deployed at least 500 troops at an airbase near Latakia, along with advanced weaponry and two dozen combat aircraft. It is reportedly expanding the base to house at least 1,000 personnel.
NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Phillip Breedlove, said that the type of weapons assembled in Syria could create an anti-aircraft “bubble” to block access of aircraft into Syrian air space, protecting the regime from attack.
The strikes came at a time when Putin was tussling with U.S. President Barack Obama over the endgame of the Syrian war, with the Russian leader insisting that President Bashar Assad remain in power, while Obama maintained that Assad’s hands were too blood stained for him to be a partner in a peace deal.
Although the West was shaken by the airstrikes, “they cannot create some kind of breakthrough in the war,” says Alexander Golts, an independent Moscow journalist and commentator on military affairs.
“The Americans and others conducted three times as many flights with no results. And (Russian) ground forces would be more or less useless in this kind of fight.”
Nevertheless Russia’s abrupt action has jarred the needle of the conflict in a different direction.
“What you have now is an intense bargaining process that’s presumably happening at multiple levels,” said Dominic Tierney, an associate professor at Swarthmore College. “Russia, the U.S. and Iran are bargaining over what regime they would be willing to accept” when the war ends.
“It may take months or years, but they are inching toward a compromise. It doesn’t just happen in faceto-face talks. When Russia moves its military assets to Syria it’s part of that process, a way of improving its leverage.”
Golts said it was “an amazing diplomatic victory for Putin. He managed in one moment to overcome international isolation (from) Crimea and Ukraine. The whole goal of the operation isn’t to fight Islamic State, but to overcome that isolation.”
Russia’s military intervention is unlikely to turn the tide for Assad, who has been losing territory steadily to Islamic militants and autonomyseeking Kurds, but it can alter the strategic balance, said Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute.
“It can be a game changer on certain battlefields. It can make the Syrian army more effective and increase the rate of attrition for the enemy.”
Russia has an advantage over the U.S. because its view is “unified and determined to help Assad survive” while Washington has a “strategic disconnect” between its military strategy and objectives, he added.
While Russia can help Assad hold territory, says Dmitry Gorenburg of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, “I don’t think it can defeat the rebel forces without a serious ground force, which I really doubt they’d be willing or able to deploy.”
In spite of Moscow’s ramped-up military presence, there’s little indication that an Afghanistan-style operation is planned for Syria.
However, Russia’s choice of targets has worried the U.S., which is hoping to form an eventual moderate coalition to replace the Assad regime.
Russia said it did target Islamic State militants. But U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told reporters Wednesday that Russia is “seemingly taking on everyone who is fighting Assad,” adding that “we believe at least some parts of the anti-Assad opposition belong as a transition going forward.”
Assad has been manoeuvering to avoid that, says Tierney. By attacking the moderate opposition, and reportedly allowing jihadists to exit Syrian jails, he has benefited from the escalating atrocities.
As Syria’s ally, Russia is co-ordinating its strategy with Assad. The coming days will tell whether it is aiding a scheme to remove alternatives to the regime that has set in motion years of catastrophic warfare and sent millions fleeing for their lives.
It’s a dilemma facing western countries already chastened by the chaos in Iraq and Libya that followed the ouster of ruthless dictators.
Assad’s “devil’s gambit” has succeeded, Tierney said.
“It’s brutal, Machiavellian and highly effective. But faced with this logic, the West has moved toward allowing him to stay.”