Russia's Geostrategic Outlook And The Syrian Crisis (St. James's Studies In World Affairs)

Hicham Tohme

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781680539769
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this groundbreaking study, international relations scholar Hicham Tohme offers a critique of current academic, scholarly, and public understandings of Russia's geostrategic outlook through the lens of the ongoing Syrian crisis. This critique is based on a reassessment of four key concepts that shape our knowledge of Russia's foreign policy. First, the Westphalian state system is an inadequate a point of reference when applied to a country that still perceives itself and behaves as an empire. Second, justifying aggressive foreign policy as a counterweight to a perceived deficiency in the legitimacy of Russian President Vladimir Putin's leadership oversimplifies Russian political culture and public values, which do not overlap with Western norms and institutions. Third, analysis of Russian foreign policy, as well as of Russia's global role, remains restricted to what can be best described as a "post-Cold War framework, ", a static image of global history for the past thirty years. Finally, most geopolitical and foreign affairs analyses focus on diplomatic and foreign policy rhetoric, rather than foreign policy praxis, as the primary data on which to draw conclusions.Offering an alternate explanation, this study examines Russia's intervention in the Syrian crisis to reveal practices that have come to characterize its global strategy and outlook for the past decade. As such, Russian policy in Syria will be presented as part of a praxis that can describe many facets of Russian global disposition. This clearly places geopolitical practices, not rhetoric, at the heart of the analysis.Further, this book relies on the concept of habitus to explain how these practices inhere in a long tradition of Russian behavior, advancing the notion that they must be understood as part of a historical continuum of Russia's political culture, mainly when it comes to its perception of its neighbors. By adopting a non-Westphalian framework and escaping the epistemological and methodological foundations of traditional foreign policy analysis, this book seeks to answer two key questions: How can we best describe Russia's geostrategic predispositions? And how can we understand Russia's involvement in the Syrian crisis in light of this analysis?

CHAPTER I

Rearranging the Chessboard

This chapter contextualizes Russia’s involvement in the Syrian crisis within post-Cold War space. The Cold War itself can be defined as “a state of extreme hostility between the superpowers, associated with arms races, diplomatic conflict, and hostile measures of every kind short of overt military action.”¹ The post-Cold War era has generally been understood to mean the end of this state of affairs, ushered in by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its dependent bloc of communist nations. But while Cold War history has been subject to revisionism,² the post-Cold War world is still generally perceived to be monochromatic, a victory of the United States and the uncontested institution of a Pax Americana. This chapter challenges this traditional view and argues that the “post-Cold War era” would be better understood if divided into three phases. The first phase, from 1991 to 2003, saw the United States dominate the global chessboard without challengers. The second phase began with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, dragging the United States into a protracted war which could not be won, at least not in the way it was fought. This singular event not only weakened the United States’ global presence, but also allowed for the rise of regional hegemons, most notably Iran. The third phase started in 2008 with Russia’s invasion of Georgia. For the purposes of this book, this event symbolized the return of Russia to the role of a regional strategic contender.

An undisputed hegemon?

A proper reading of the post-Cold War world cannot be accomplished without considering Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997). In the book, the former U.S. National Security Advisor, himself a major actor in the Cold War as it transitioned toward its end and also the educator of many Cold War and post-Cold War actors, attempted to grapple with a newly arising concept in global history and politics, that of the global unipower. Indeed, prior to 1991, there had never existed a political entity that could lay claim to absolute global dominance. Even at the peak of its power, the British Empire still had to contend with serious competition from France, Russia, and a new German Empire. And even while the Romans were, for all practical purposes, masters of their own world, they existed alongside many worlds where regional hegemons equally reigned supreme. ³ How to rule the entire world, or police it for the more liberal-minded, was the biggest puzzle of the early 1990s. Many thought the solution simple. “In 1991, one of the Superpowers collapsed. The other remained alone, unchallenged. ‘So, fall in line now, folks!,’ cried many.”⁴

Others, like Brzezinski, considered the end of the Cold War as a possibility rather than a state of being. History had not ended; the global hegemon was not eternal. To remain the world unipower would require wisdom and calculation. Furthermore, the United States possessed an asset that Brzezinski claimed no previous hegemon had enjoyed: overwhelming soft power and unmatched cultural influence. Consequently, its fate would have to differ from the empires that preceded it. He emphasized economic, military, technological, and cultural superiority and how that would allow the U.S. to rule by influence rather than force. One must not also forget the moral superiority that the victor of the Cold War enjoyed and how much political capital that earned it on the global stage.

But, according to Brzezinski, to maintain this global preeminence, the endgame for the United States had to involve braking the emergence of competing geostrategic players. The possibility of contenders achieving supremacy over the Eurasian continent, the most important area of the grand chessboard, should remain nil,⁵ a constant in U.S. diplomacy even before the Cold War. Among his key suggestions was that Russia needed to be contained rather than opposed. The United States ought to take a moderate stance so as not to alienate Russia, forcing it into a corner where its only option would then be to lash back in Central Asia and East Europe. At the same time, Russia should not be provided with enough support and resources to make it possible for the giant to reawaken.⁶

Brzezinski predicted that failure to act as such promised an even bigger threat to American dominance than a mere resuscitation of a Russia that, even in a much larger form and with a definitive rival ideology, had already proven to be no match in a strictly bilateral contest. The greater threat he anticipated was when grievances, similar to those that would be experienced by the Russians, would unite several regional, yet very potent geostrategic players, into a coalition that would oppose American interests worldwide. He saw severe risk if Russia, China, and Iran formed an alliance based not on a shared disdain of American hegemony.⁷ He saw the early signs of such an alliance in the appointment of Evgeny Primakov, a trained Arabist and secret police operative, to the post of foreign minister of Russia. In his two-year tenure, from 1996 to 1998, Primakov tried to implement what he called a “multi-vector” approach to foreign policy, trying to create an “anti-hegemonic” bloc with China, India, and Iran.⁸ To the old spymaster’s dismay, his attempt seemed to have failed at the time, and was opposed internally by others who favored greater engagement with the West.

Indeed, none of the actors involved was prepared to confront the United States. Russia was still in absolute disarray. Iran and China were both seeking closer ties with the rest of the world, especially with the accession of Mohammad Khatami and Jiang Zemin to the presidencies of their respective countries. Both men sought rapprochement with the West, and their foreign policies were far less aggressive than those of their predecessors. But even if they were to opt for a coalition against the United States, these countries still had no effective means or even clear plans as to how they should proceed in establishing a strategic alliance; it would have to be slowly built and highly improvised. Brzezinski still saw the potential danger that such an alliance might cause for the United States. In his words, it “could, at least theoretically, bring together the world’s leading Slavic power, the world’s most militant Islamic power, and the world’s most populated and powerful Asian power, thereby creating a potent coalition.”⁹ Still, he argued that achieving such an alliance was farfetched. It would need the United States to prove “shortsighted enough” to provoke all three parties, especially Iran and China, into finding common ground. Russia, in his eyes, was constantly governed by its imperial ambitions and thus required only opportunity rather than motive.

Brzezinski’s account is relevant in four major ways. First, as a former National Security Advisor during the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), he had unique insight into how a superpower understands geostrategic imperatives and executes them through its foreign policies. His analysis is, therefore, not strictly academic but based on real-time understanding of geostrategies and practice of geopolitics. Second, his assessment of potential threats to American global dominance was extremely insightful, especially in his consideration of a Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis of resistance to U.S. hegemony. Even today, these states remain the sole competitors to the United States on the Eurasian chessboard and, as will be argued later, they have come to a very clear arrangement as to how they manage that competition. Third, the failure of the United States to follow Brzezinski’s advice on how to handle potential rivals on the geopolitical scene has, to a large extent, validated his analysis. In effect, one could even argue that it was Washington’s choices and behaviors internationally that proved to be a catalyst for the rise of geostrategic contenders in alignment.

The fourth and most important aspect of Brzezinski’s analysis is the way in which he formulated American geostrategic imperatives. The way he identified those imperatives is a major foundation of this attempt to explain Russia’s own geostrategic vision and geopolitical imperatives. Indeed, throughout his analysis, Brzezinski made it clear that the most important obstacle for the United States was to restrict Russia’s return to the status of geostrategic player. The latter should be left with one option, which is to adhere to the new global order and the Pax Americana imposed by the United States. But what Brzezinski refused to see was that containing Russia necessarily contradicted its self-perceived interests. Simply put, what great power, irrespective of strength, would accept being contained and forced into submission under the guise of cooperation?

Nevertheless, Brzezinski’s rare case of shortsightedness is explicable, given the state of global affairs in the mid-1990s. Russia had been defeated and, for all practical purposes, destroyed as a geostrategic player. It is understandable that many saw in post-Cold War Russia an equivalent to post-World War II Germany and Japan. The United States could manage and steer them, and the rest of the world, at will. It was, as a result, reasonable for Brzezinski to expect that Russia would follow the herd and accept American hegemony quietly, if only because it was inconceivable that, at the time, it had any other choice. Twenty years after The Grand Chessboard was published, however, the whole Eurasian chessboard had changed. Russia in 2020 is no longer the same Russia that emerged right after the end of the Cold War.

Two decades of American hegemony

Most of Brzezinski’s recommendations went unheeded. From 1991 onward, American foreign policy grew increasingly aggressive, supported by a large network of states bandwagoning behind it. The First Gulf War sent a clear message to the international community that no form of dissent against American interests would be tolerated. In the Middle East, American identification of national interest with energy procurement accentuated this heavy-handed approach. Stability was required to maintain oil prices at an acceptable level, and any state that jeopardized this status quo would either be eliminated from the equation, as was Iraq in 1991, or completely ostracized, as was Syria after it opposed the peace process with Israel.¹⁰

The United States was no less assertive in the rest of the world. Despite attempted rapprochements with Iran and China, the United States never truly conceded anything in return for the opening up of its potential regional rivals. Iran was further alienated with the open declaration of Clinton’s “dual-containment” policy. China’s regional claims, especially in the South China Sea, were still opposed. Russia, on the other hand, was treated in an entirely different manner. It was not only about keeping the former Cold War rival in check, but there was also a certain degree of humiliation involved in the way the United States handled it. Facing economic collapse in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian government requested humanitarian aid to feed its starving population. The United States could have shown goodwill had it answered the call for seventy million tons of food aid annually, possibly gaining much sympathy from Russia. Instead, it sent three million tons in 1998 and five in 1999. ¹¹ The once mighty empire, whose lands were once considered to be the granary of Europe, was being treated like a beggar. Furthermore, food distribution remained unmonitored when channeled through the Russian government, effectively promoting the already rampant corruption, in addition to undermining the prospects for the development of successful private farming in Russia.

The United States also sought to disgrace Russia internationally, most notably during the Kosovo War. The conflict between Serbs and Albanian Kosovars took place on Russia’s doorstep, in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Russia looked favorably upon the Serbs, with whom they shared a common Slavic and Orthodox culture, but the United States would not have it and led NATO in the effort to destroy the Serb military forces, creating the Kosovo Force, KFOR, and establishing a standing peacekeeping mission, led by NATO. There is no denying that there was public pressure for a humanitarian mission in former Yugoslavia, especially after the West blatantly disregarded the Rwandan genocide and took only limited steps to prevent earlier genocides in the former Yugoslavia itself. In fact, this was the specific excuse given by the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and NATO. ¹² However, the way American foreign policy developed toward Yugoslavia left little doubt that one of their aims was to put Russia in its proper place. Primakov, now Russia’s prime minister, was on his way to Washington for an official visit when the American bombing of Yugoslavia started. All throughout the war and the ensuing peacekeeping process, Russia was publicly relegated to a third-rate player, marginalized and disregarded on the international scene.¹³

The 1990s was a decade of unrivaled American global dominance, during which the United States repeatedly proved that, first, it wanted to act as the global policeman, and, second, that no other state could contradict its will. The seismic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 would not immediately alter this state of affairs. The global support the United States received in its “War on Terror” and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan was still a testament to the moral and ethical leadership that it represented for most of, if not all, of the West.

Unlike the invasion of Afghanistan, which had an all too obvious justification given the Afghan government’s harboring of Al Qaeda terrorists, the invasion...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter I: Rearranging the Chessboard
• Chapter II: The Four Pillars of Russia’s Geostrategy
• Chapter III: Rearranging the Chessboard
• Chapter IV: The Roads Yet To Be Taken
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index