Syria

When we come to place the Russian intervention in Syria into this comparative perspective we have to accept that here the foreign policy elements in our framework take exclusive presence since there is no chance of Syria becoming part of Russia. Neither is there an effort to impose secularization or any other form of religious observance or secularism upon potentially pro-Assad elements in Syria.   In fact quite the contrary is the case in Syria.  Since Assad’s enemies hail largely from the Sunni population and his regime is one strongly composed of elites who share the Alawite persuasion, i.e a form of Sunni Islam that is quite untypical and even close to Shia Islam his regime has apparently gained the support of Syria’s religious minorities, Shiites, Christians, etc. who have good reason to fear a militant or at least strongly assertive Sunni regime, not to mention one influenced if not led by ISIS.   Reports from Syria indicate that religious minorities, Shiite Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Ismailis, and Kurds may not be fond of Assad but they clearly fear ISIS and Sunni extremists more.[i] 

These groups may have had to form their own militias to protect them from the Hobbesian state of nature that Syria has progressively become, but those militias are evidently not fighting on behalf of the opposition but for ethnic or ethno-religious self-protection.[ii]   By the same token, Syria’s Kurds have a great deal to lose from any overthrow of Assad as a Sunni state would suppress their efforts to form some form of an independent Kurdistan or ties to one elsewhere in the Middle East.  Seeing Assad’s weakness and dependence upon their support and Turkey’s opposition to him as both an opportunity and a threat they are clearly ready to cooperate with Moscow and anyone else for that matter who can give them what they want.  Naturally this situation provides a ready-made and threatened elite and mass recruits to some degree for Assad and who will support those who support him, in this case Russia, and even Iran.  Therefore there are ample areas of opportunity in Syria among its ethno-religious minorities with which Moscow can work.  Moreover, it has the inestimable advantage of being on the side of the government and at least having the rudiments of an army (not to mention Iranian and Hezbollah elements) on its side.  And this situation plus the continuing existence of the government and the rudiments of the armed forces plus Hezbollah and Iranian forces have proven strong enough to regain the initiative from the insurgents who, in 2015, appeared to be on the way to victory.

One clear commonality between Russian strategy in Chechnya and Syria, for example is combining overwhelming force, extensive information operations (as defined by Moscow, not Western scholars) and Moscow’s ability - a common operational thread in all its ventures – to isolate the theater from foreign support, this blending of force and cooptation has generally succeeded in advancing Russian imperial objectives, most recently in Syria and in Chechnya.[iii]  Another commonality between past experiences in COIN and Chechnya and Syria is the resort to overwhelming brutality as part of the Russian way of counterinsurgency.  Let us remember, for example that in Tambov Gubernia in the peasant revolt of 1920-21 Tukhachevsky used chemical warfare against the peasants to quell the insurgency.[iv]  Similarly in both Chechnya ands Syria Moscow has used thermobaric weapons and in Syria not only did it provide the chemical weapons used by Assad, its pilots have been accused of flying missions that dropped those weapons and Moscow certainly refused to condemn Assad’s use of them.[v]  And these points leave out the brutal destruction of Aleppo.[vi]

Russia’s actions in Syria fall squarely within the counterinsurgency paradigm of both US and Russian thinking despite the big differences between those paradigms.[vii] To note that Russia’s Syrian campaign is or should be analyzed as a COIN operation according to both Russian and Western paradigms should not lead us to overlook the uniqueness and longevity of the Russian paradigm as defined here.[viii]  In Syria, as in Chechnya and the Islamic territories of the USSR Russian and Soviet tactics aimed directly at imposing a specific kind of socio-political and ideological order in those territories.  In Syria the goal is at restoring Bashar Assad’s rule and state order  (at least until now) throughout all of Syria.  Yet Western commentaries continue to refuse to examine or consider Russia’s counterinsurgency approach.  As Lukas Milevski wrote recently,

For example, the relatively successful ancient Roman or modern Russian ways of counterinsurgency do not appeal to the liberal West, despite their arguably greater success when compared to the West’s unenviable record of the past few decades.  The liberal West is politically unwilling to generate strategic and political effect out of the counterinsurgent tactics prevalent at other time or in other places, even if the cost of this reluctance may be policy failure as has frequently been the case.[ix]

 This shortcoming is not at all the case in Russian practice in Syria or Chechnya and certainly could not be described as the Soviet approach in the 1917-27 period.

So while there are differences between the domestic COIN operations in Central Asia and Chechnya and now Syria there are commonalities and links.  For example we should remember that throughout the early Soviet period and even into the Brezhnev years there was the belief that a weak un-Sovietized Central Asia was at risk, as were other borderlands, from “imperialists” across the border many of whom, like Poland and Nazi Germany did have programs to exploit nationality tensions in the USSR and that this alarmed Stalin a great deal.[x]  Second, particularly after the modernization of the USSR and Central Asia, Moscow saw it as an example that it could showcase abroad demonstrating its “progressive” achievements to other Muslim countries and used Central Asian and religious leaders in its Middle Eastern policies on tours abroad as propagandists for Moscow.  In this connection it also used Central Asia as a supposed model of the achievements of Socialism.[xi]  

Second, Moscow, even before the insurgency began had seized every opportunity to ingratiate itself with Arab and other Muslim countries as a fellow Muslim country based on its sizable Muslim minority.  For example, it has long sought to become a member of the Organization of Islamic countries (OIC) and in 2014 signed a framework agreement for cooperation with it.[xii]  Already in 2003 Putin told the OIC that Muslims were “an inseparable part” of the multiethnic Russian nation.”[xiii]  And in 2014 Russia even hosted The 6th International Economic Summit of Russia and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan.[xiv]  And having established connections with the OIC, Moscow then initiated “a tango with Islamists,” “defining some as bad and others as good.”  It may be doing so to elicit concessions from the West or form Muslim governments but clearly it is attempting to coopt external Muslims in support of its domestic policies and foreign policies.[xv]  Third, Moscow’s ties to the Syrian Kurds (YPQ) who not only are supporting Assad but who also serve as a useful check on Turkey’s ambitions here are not a new phenomenon as Russia’s previous support for them going back to the 1890 shows.[xvi]