Mary Dejevsky writes:
When
the US and USSR were engaged in their proxy conflicts during the cold war – in
Central America, in Africa, even in Afghanistan – there was always an
ideological element and the forces of the two countries never confronted each
other directly on the battlefield.
The risk of a superpower conflagration was
kept at one remove.
It is tempting to see the first Russian airstrikes in Syria and Russia’s recently increased military presence in and around Latakia as an old-style proxy conflict, shorn of its ideological aspect and replayed as raw geopolitics.
On the one side are the US and its allies, including the UK, who have the ultimate objective of removing Bashar al-Assad, to which they have added a mission to turn back Islamic State.
On the other side is Russia, determined not to lose its last remaining foothold in the Middle East to the west, and using the fight against Isis as a cover to keep its ally, Assad, in power.
But it does not make the current situation, in the short-term at least, any less fraught with risk. On the contrary.
Yesterday’s airstrikes by Russia, of which Washington received an hour’s notice via a Russian general in Baghdad, held out the very real possibility of an air clash by accident not design.
No wonder the US swiftly agreed to top-level military talks with Russia about coordinating action in Syria.
Nor can it be excluded that this was one reason why president Vladimir Putin gave the order for the first airstrikes within 24 hours of the Russian parliament giving the political go-ahead. Russia wanted to show that it was an equal player with the US in the region, and that it was not going to fit into whatever Washington decreed.
It wants a say.
If one interpretation of Russia’s action is a concern to maintain national dignity and not be seen to take orders from Washington, another could well be Putin’s desire for post-Soviet Russia to be treated as a state with global interests, not confined to a “mere” regional role in and around Ukraine.
Russia’s involvement in Syria is, to be sure, a convenient distraction for the Russian public at a time when Moscow may be looking to disengage from Ukraine.
But it is not just that.
But statements by Russian military figures and by Putin himself, including in his speech to the UN general assembly earlier this week, suggest a slightly different rationale – and it is worth listening to what they actually say.
Putin indeed wants Russia to be seen as a global player, but as a player with interests that are not inimical, but which overlap to a degree with those of the US and others.
He sees Syria as an opportunity to be part of a collaborative effort, and Isis as the same sort of cultural and terrorist threat to Russia as it is perceived by the west.
If anything, Putin sees the potential threat to Russia from Isis as bigger and more urgent, because of the number of Russians (many of them Chechens) thought to be fighting with Isis and the threat of jihadism in and around Chechnya.
Russia’s desire to combat Isis need not be seen as a pretext for protecting Assad; the converse may rather be true.
In Russia’s view, as Putin set out at the UN, the Assad government is all that stands in the way of complete victory for Isis and the de facto disappearance of the Syrian state.
For Putin, the priority is the preservation of the Syrian state. He looks at Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and sees western interventions that have resulted in anarchy.
He foresees the same for Syria if the west sees toppling Assad, rather than combating Isis, as the priority.
It was possible, after what both Barack Obama and Putin said at the UN, to divine some shifting towards a sliver of common ground.
Obama said Russia (and Iran) could be involved and hinted at some flexibility about the timing of Assad’s departure. Putin allowed that Assad might eventually go.
Those verbal nuances have been lost in the sudden outbreak of competitive air strikes.
It is just possible that the US-Russia military talks, now agreed, and the small hints of convergence over Assad could produce a cooperative approach.
The alternative – the risk of a US-Russia military clash over Syria by accident – cannot be what either Moscow or Washington wants.
It is tempting to see the first Russian airstrikes in Syria and Russia’s recently increased military presence in and around Latakia as an old-style proxy conflict, shorn of its ideological aspect and replayed as raw geopolitics.
On the one side are the US and its allies, including the UK, who have the ultimate objective of removing Bashar al-Assad, to which they have added a mission to turn back Islamic State.
On the other side is Russia, determined not to lose its last remaining foothold in the Middle East to the west, and using the fight against Isis as a cover to keep its ally, Assad, in power.
But it does not make the current situation, in the short-term at least, any less fraught with risk. On the contrary.
Yesterday’s airstrikes by Russia, of which Washington received an hour’s notice via a Russian general in Baghdad, held out the very real possibility of an air clash by accident not design.
No wonder the US swiftly agreed to top-level military talks with Russia about coordinating action in Syria.
Nor can it be excluded that this was one reason why president Vladimir Putin gave the order for the first airstrikes within 24 hours of the Russian parliament giving the political go-ahead. Russia wanted to show that it was an equal player with the US in the region, and that it was not going to fit into whatever Washington decreed.
It wants a say.
If one interpretation of Russia’s action is a concern to maintain national dignity and not be seen to take orders from Washington, another could well be Putin’s desire for post-Soviet Russia to be treated as a state with global interests, not confined to a “mere” regional role in and around Ukraine.
Russia’s involvement in Syria is, to be sure, a convenient distraction for the Russian public at a time when Moscow may be looking to disengage from Ukraine.
But it is not just that.
But statements by Russian military figures and by Putin himself, including in his speech to the UN general assembly earlier this week, suggest a slightly different rationale – and it is worth listening to what they actually say.
Putin indeed wants Russia to be seen as a global player, but as a player with interests that are not inimical, but which overlap to a degree with those of the US and others.
He sees Syria as an opportunity to be part of a collaborative effort, and Isis as the same sort of cultural and terrorist threat to Russia as it is perceived by the west.
If anything, Putin sees the potential threat to Russia from Isis as bigger and more urgent, because of the number of Russians (many of them Chechens) thought to be fighting with Isis and the threat of jihadism in and around Chechnya.
Russia’s desire to combat Isis need not be seen as a pretext for protecting Assad; the converse may rather be true.
In Russia’s view, as Putin set out at the UN, the Assad government is all that stands in the way of complete victory for Isis and the de facto disappearance of the Syrian state.
For Putin, the priority is the preservation of the Syrian state. He looks at Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and sees western interventions that have resulted in anarchy.
He foresees the same for Syria if the west sees toppling Assad, rather than combating Isis, as the priority.
It was possible, after what both Barack Obama and Putin said at the UN, to divine some shifting towards a sliver of common ground.
Obama said Russia (and Iran) could be involved and hinted at some flexibility about the timing of Assad’s departure. Putin allowed that Assad might eventually go.
Those verbal nuances have been lost in the sudden outbreak of competitive air strikes.
It is just possible that the US-Russia military talks, now agreed, and the small hints of convergence over Assad could produce a cooperative approach.
The alternative – the risk of a US-Russia military clash over Syria by accident – cannot be what either Moscow or Washington wants.
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