The article from The National Interestwe publish below is one of the clearest and most straightforward accounts of why Russia intervened in Syria, and what it plans to achieve there.
Importantly, it is fully consistent and in line with what the Russian authorities themselves say.
The article is of course written by a Russian scholar, based at one of Russia’s most prestigious international affairs institutes, not one of the usual Western “experts” on Russia, whose writings can be relied upon to amount to nothing more than a recitation of the usual cliches.
It is striking that the moment a Western media agency reaches out to a genuine Russian scholar to explain Russian strategy, what it gets is a factual article that makes sense.
Compare that with the usual fantastic fare we usually get from the Western media, based on groundless and unwarranted speculations of Russian motives, utterly detached from anything the Russians themselves say.
We would add that the author is absolutely right when he says the Russians are engaging the Islamic State out of considerations of national interest, not as part of some noble cause. It is precisely because Russian policy is pragmatic and hard headed rather than quixotic that it commands support at home and tends to be successful.
The Islamic State is indeed a threat to Russia for exactly the reasons the writer says, whilst Russia’s intervention is carefully calibrated to serve Russia’s interests at an affordable cost.
The National Interest is one of the better - or perhaps we should say one of the less bad - international affairs magazines in the US that writes about Russia. Even then publication of such an article by a Russian scholar is unusual.
All we can say to that is: well done to the National Interest, and more of the same please.
Originally appeared in The National Interest
Russians are once again proving to be cold-blooded strategists. The Kremlin’s recent move in Syria has caught off guard not only ISIS, but also most Western intelligence services and analysts. Russia’s ability to alter the strategic situation on the ground with minimum efforts and maximum maskirovka deserves appreciation. However, Moscow fights ISIS not out of noble consideration. It is a practical issue of Russian national security.
Russia was weighing its involvement at least since 2013 when it first proposed to replace outgoing Austrian peacekeepers with Russians at the Golan Heights. Since 2013, Moscow took a major role in disarming Syria of chemical weapons – and the first serious contacts with Damascus on battling Islamists started then. Parallel to this Russia engaged in a strategic military dialogue with Iraq, reaching a 4,2 billion USD weapon deal with Baghdadin 2012 and supplying much needed Su-25 fighters in 2014. In July 2015 Russia reach agreement with Iran to joint efforts in securing victory for Syria in the battle against ISIS. From that time question of assaulting ISIS was not “if”, but “when” and “how.” The Ukraine crisis did not change the calculus, but postponed the move.
Security interests at stake motivated Russian agitation.
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