The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

74 JULY-AUGUST 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The turning point came in September 2015, when it appeared that Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad was losing the civil war, and the Obama administration made it clear that its involvement in Syria would remain limited. Russia began a bombing campaign to support Assad and used this initial foray to establish ties with all major players in the region in pursuit of Putin’s broader goal of restoring Russia as a great power. By returning to the Middle East, Putin was able to escape the isolation that the West sought to impose on Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and launch of a war in the Donbas region of Ukraine. Unlike in Soviet times, Russia’s involvement in the Middle East today is nonideological, pragmatic and flexible. Russia is the only major power that talks to all sides in all the conflicts in the region. It has close ties to Iran, to all the major Sunni states—and to Israel. Indeed, its newest partners are two close U.S. allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Both countries believe that Russia can act as a restraining influence over their chief adversary, Iran. Russia has managed to dissuade Iran and Hezbollah from taking certain actions against Israel. And Russia and Saudi Arabia formed an alliance in 2016 to restrict oil production and keep oil prices as high as they can—until it broke down in March 2020. Many governments and groups in the Middle East now view Russia as an honest broker in the region, while U.S. policy is largely focused on containing Iran and promoting regime change there. The U.S. withdrawal from Syria has presented Russia with new opportunities. Indeed, some argue that Russia is the “win- ner” in Syria as the United States retreats from the region. But that may be a premature assessment. Domestic Determinants Russian policy toward the Middle East has deep domestic roots. Russia’s population is declining overall, but its Muslim population is growing; and the demographic balance between Muslims and Slavs will shift significantly over the next 30 years. Since Russia itself has faced challenges from domestic extrem- ism and terrorism, a major goal is to ensure that no outside power in the Middle East exacerbates these problems. More- over, the second-largest contingent of foreign fighters for ISIS in Syria came from the Russian Federation—either Russian citizens or Central Asian migrant workers living in Russia who became radicalized. Vladimir Putin has tied Russia’s involve- ment in Syria directly to the desire to defeat terrorists in Syria rather than having to deal with them at home. There are also economic reasons for Russia’s return to the Middle East. At a time of domestic economic difficulties caused by the failure to modernize the economy and exacerbated by Western sanctions and falling oil prices, the Middle East is an attractive market for Russian exports of military hardware, nuclear power plants and hydrocarbons. Putin has also used Russia’s return to the Middle East to reinforce his popularity domestically. The Russian popula- tion is increasingly feeling the effect of the country’s economic challenges, and the Kremlin appeals to its citizens by evoking their pride in Russia’s role as a great power that once again has a seat on the global board of directors. But, in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mobilizing effect of Russia’s role in the Syrian civil war has declined as Russia’s economic situation has deteriorated. More Russians ask why resources are being expended for foreign military campaigns when they could be better deployed domestically. Nevertheless, public opinion data show that the majority of Russians do believe that Russia is a great power once again. The Syrian Opportunity and Challenge During the Obama administration, American and Russian policies in Syria were not aligned. Washington insisted that Bashar al-Assad must go and supported forces fighting the regime in Damascus, while Russia was determined that Assad stay in power. Russia was, in fact, less concerned about defeating ISIS than defeating anti-Assad groups. However, since the Trump administration came in, promising to extricate the United States from wars in the Middle East and not insisting that Assad must go, American and Russian goals have not diverged as in the past. The United States and Russia have been deconflicting their air operations in Syria since the beginning of the Russian bomb- ing campaign, one of the few remaining regular channels of communication between the two countries. Indeed, before the United States bombed Syrian chemical weapons facilities in early 2018, it coordinated with Moscow to ensure that no Rus- sians were hurt. And in February 2018, when U.S. forces came into direct conflict with Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, who were trying to take over an oil field in Deir al-Zour, and reportedly killed up to 200 of them. The Russian official response was muted. Russia is the only major power that talks to all sides in all the conflicts in the region.