Putinist Russia and the Strategy of Emerging from the Cocoon...In this atmosphere, Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the (KGB), came to power, through a deal with Boris Yeltsin,

10 May 2017

Putinist Russia and the Strategy of Emerging from the Cocoon

Policy Studying Unit

Harmoon Centre for Contemporary Studies is an independent, nonprofit, research, cultural and media institution. Its main focus is to conduct studies and researches about the Arab region, especially Syria. It also works towards cultural and media development, enhancing the civil society performance, and spreading democratic awareness and values of dialogue, as well as respect for human rights. The Centre also provides consultation and training services in political and media fields to all Syrians on the basis of Syrian national identity.To achieve its objectives, the Centre conducts its activities through five specialized units, (1) Policy Studies Unit, (2) Social Researches Unit, (3) Books Review Unit, (4) Translation and Arabization Unit, and (5) Legal Unit.A set of action programs are also adopted, such as the program for Political Consultations and Initiatives; Program for Services, Media Campaigns, and Public Opinion Making Program; Program for Dialogue Support and Civil and Cultural Development Program; Syria Future Program. The Centre may add new programs depending on the actual needs of Syria and the region. In implementing its programs, the Centre deploys multiple mechanisms, including lectures, workshops, seminars, conferences, training courses, as well as paper and electronic press.

HARMOON CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES

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Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 2

First: Russia and the West, an open conflict relationship ................................................................. 4

Second: Russian-American relations under Obama .......................................................................... 5

Third: America - Russia – China, the triangle of the future conflict ............................................... 8

Fourthly: Syria is a tough testing ground ............................................................................................ 10

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 12

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Introduction

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the Cold War, which prevailed

after World War II between two politically, ideologically, and productively contradicting

worlds, the Western-led world of the United States and the Soviet-led world of the East, each

with its defensive military arm, the NATO and the efficiently parallel Warsaw Pact. In this

protracted war, all means of media propaganda, economic, intelligence and the arms race

have been exploited, leading to an extreme polarization that casted its shadow over the entire

world. It was a war that was cold in the centres and hot on the boarders, costing humanity

millions of victims, devastation, and economic losses, and disrupting development in

developing countries, in addition to curbing wars that prevailed between the two poles, from

the Korean Peninsula to Cuba, Latin America, the Congo, Vietnam, Angola, and Afghanistan,

as well as the Middle East and the African Horn.

With the departure of Brezhnev, after decades of secrecy and disinformation, collapsing

symptoms of the Soviet Union and its socialist system began to emerge. After two general

secretaries of the Soviet Communist Party leaving hastily, Mikhail Gorbachev took power in

the Kremlin in 1985, who with his Perestroika and the Glasnost, secured a smooth and

strange transition in the world of tyranny, where the Soviet Union collapsed and

disintegrated, without one single shot being fired by the Red Army, taking down with it the

Warsaw Pact and the system of socialist countries in Eastern Europe, opening the doors widely

for division and ethnic cleansing wars in the former Yugoslavia and the countries of the

Balkans - the southern soft flank of Europe.

The double polarity that ruled the world collapsed in front of Western capitalism, which

had managed to renew itself and adapt to the changes of the world, and to globalization. The

United States led and dominated the world, declaring its hegemony in the liberation war of

Kuwait in a wide exhibition of power and control, followed by thirty-four countries within a

new pattern of strategies in positional alliances of time and place, seeking political legitimacy

for the event rather than a military one.

Russia inherited the Federal Soviet Union and its former obligations, including the

permanent membership of the UN Security Council, under pressure from the United States,

contrary to the organisation’s International Law, and up till now nobody knows what was the

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wisdom of the United States’ actions and accounts of this incident; it could have something to

do with China's permanent membership as a possible future enemy.

The years of Boris Yeltsin, who took over the presidency of the Russian Federation from

Gorbachev, were years of misery and severe economic crises, widespread corruption and

Mafias, and a decline at all levels; accompanied by the wars of Yugoslavia and Chechnya,

which exposed Russia as a sick and weak man begging the West for help, and dreaming to

catch up with it, as did the Eastern European States, who looked forward to a future of

Eurasian cooperation and coordination and even alliance. They also hoped that the NATO

would disintegrate as the Warsaw Pact no longer existed. However, the Atlantic increased its

expansion and strength, and claimed Eastern European states one by one, but refused to

include the Russian Federation, and the maximum that was given to the Russians was to have

their communication delegate to attend NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In this atmosphere, Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the (KGB), came to power, through

a deal with Boris Yeltsin, including the protection of the latter and his gang from prosecution

on corruption charges. Carried by his nationalist party (Russia Beiteinu), which was lively with

the spirit of the past tsarist Russia, he presented himself as someone who wanted to restore

Russia’s former glory to play a key role in the international arena, tickling the dreams and

feelings of the Russian nationalists, who were disappointed with the West that has failed

them. Therefore, he ended the Chechen war after erasing Grozny with his explosive barrels,

occupied some of Georgia, followed by the occupation of Crimea, and intervened militarily in

Eastern Ukrain, than in Syria, moving from war to war, just to tease the West, whose alliance

crawled in the Russian rear gardens and choked it with harsh economic sanctions. What

strategy does this man who rules Russia with an iron fist have? Does he have the conviction

and the ability to return Russia as a major ruler in international conflicts over influence and

hegemony? Or is he a cynical and cautious intelligence man trying - through war or threat,

based on his nuclear and military arsenal - to cut the strings of the cocoon that the West was

threading around Russia and its geopolitical space, and push it to sit at the bargaining table

and recognize Russia's vital interests? If so, what are Putin's chances of succeeding in a world

where it is hard to predict the changes and trends of power and influence struggles that are

driving it?

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First: Russia and the West, an open conflict relationship

The history of relations between Tsarist Russia and the West in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries was a history of conflict. Russia often aspired to dominate the Eurasian

arena in the face of the existing or emerging empires, including the Ottoman Empire, which

occupied part of the arena in its southeast, but the Russian efforts did not yield much success,

apart from some gains at the expense of the Ottomans during their slow fading phase affected

by the international balances that existed at the time.

In the early 20th century, with the advent of the Soviet Union, Russia was preoccupied

with restoring its miserable internal situation on more than one level. But after the Second

World War, the Soviet armies invasion of Eastern Europe, taking over the greater part of the

Eurasian plain from Poland to the south, Russia emerged as a decisive great power in

international conflicts among the victors over the Axis Powers in the Second World War, and

established the Berlin Wall, which was a title for the start of the Cold War, and stimulated the

West on both sides of the Atlantic in the face of the Soviet rise armed with an ideology that

contradicted the universal capitalism, and with a great military power. The West considered

the Soviet Union the greatest existential threat it had ever faced, prompting it to mobilise all

its military, economic, scientific, and media capacities, to face it on many fronts, but the people

of the third world paid dearly for that, and the people the Soviet Union and of its socialist

system paid a heavy price, on the expense of their livelihood and opportunities for

development.

Finally, this war ended in 1991, and the long and costly confrontation concluded with the

defeat of the Soviet Union, and the victory of the West. The West, and the United States in

particular, did not reach out to help the enemy of yesterday in the face of the consequences

of that collapse, but left the Russian Federation floundering in its emerging crises, not to

mention their part in activating them; while Western Europe absorbed the Eastern European

countries that emerged from the grip of communism, included them in its economic system,

and bore the cost of restructuring their underdeveloped economies, with Germany bearing

the largest part of this cost, and so far it has the largest Western investment in Russia.

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In the Western strategy, Russia is no longer the number one enemy, but a potential one,

which means that Russia will remain under Western scrutiny, and relations between Russia

and the West remain volatile and susceptible to tension at every turn in international politics.

However, there is a distinctive difference in the Western strategy towards Russia between its

European and American brethren. While the American vision is keen to keep the pressure on

Russia, whether tough or soft, European countries, especially the Germans and the French, see

that Russia should not be entrenched in the corner, and its aggression, which can be harmful,

should not be provoked. They prefer the diplomatic act over the military without excluding

the latter.

Second: Russian-American relations under Obama

The eight years in which Barack Obama led the US politics were very important, as he

excluded power from US policy and also curtailed the policies of his allies, in keeping with his

vision of leadership from behind the scenes and with strategic patience. This period could

shed light on the mechanism and progress of the Russian-American relationship, and helps to

touch on the general threads of the development of Russian strategy under Putin.

On the American side, Obama's coming to the White House in 2008 coincided with the

serious financial crisis that hit the US economy on the backdrop of the mortgage crisis, and

that was an important factor in shaping Obama's vision of managing US policy, which was

characterized by avoiding effective intervention in international affairs. Less important factor

is the attempt to absorb the implications of the policy of strategic expansion and wars waged

by the administration of his predecessor George W. Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, that was

another cause in the financial crisis.

This apparent American reluctance towards the Middle East was accompanied, in the

Obama administration, with the Arab Spring revolutions that violently ignited the existing

geopolitical reality, and opened the region to international and regional interventions, which

was largely demanded or facilitated by the authoritarian regimes.

Obama also launched the concept of "axis of Asia", strengthened US alliances with South

Korea, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, intensified cooperation with India, ended

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hostility with Burma despite the horrendous human rights abuses, expanded relations with

Vietnam, and increased military presence the South China Sea; however, this concept

remained largely theoretical throughout Obama's tenure, but it prompted many international

observers and thinkers to conclude that "the US role and the fate of international policies will

be determined in Southeast Asia."

The Iranian nuclear file has captured the attention of the American president and, in order

to reach an agreement on it in 2015, he has ignored Iranian interference in the Arab region

and all the devastation caused by its sectarian militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and

Bahrain.

But, in return for Obama's downfall, he has turned Kiev from Moscow’s ally into its fierce

enemy, mobilized more troops in Eastern European countries, and his intervention in Libya

was crucial. The question that arises in the context of introverted Obama's policies and easing

international tensions is whether he was working on laying the strategic foundations for

qualifying the US leadership to the international system, and how successful was he in that?

Or was the damage done by his policies to the prestige and reverence of the United States too

large to be covered by theoretical plans? This will be revealed in the years to come and the

mechanisms of conflict that these policies have kept open.

On the Russian side, after the Georgian war in 2008, and the arrival of Dimitry Medvedev

to the Kremlin in an exchange of roles between him and Putin, who remained in control of

Russian policy, and in light of the repercussions of the financial crisis, Russia chose an

approach to allow rapprochement with the West. The most prominent achievement towards

this end was the (SALT 2) Treaty to control the strategic armament, and the (Atlantic)

suspending its plan to deploy the missile shield in Eastern Europe, with its commitment to

control the Iranian player, it agreed to the UN resolution 1929 of 2010 on the Iran's nuclear

file, and helped make the US withdrawal from Iraq calculated and organized. But this

relaxation in the Russian-American relations did not stop Moscow from closing down the US

base in Kyrgyzstan, which played a strategic role in the US war on Afghanistan in 2001.

The years of calm with the West did not last for long. After the Western intervention in

Libya, which Moscow perceived as a deception, it did not forgive Washington, Putin decided

to reconsider the whole Russian strategy in the relationship with the West, and perhaps chose

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Syria as a theatre to launch his new strategy, which called to turn towards China. The first

manifesto of this turn was the Russian - Chinese veto in February 2012 against a Western-

backed Arab draft resolution to end the war in Syria with a UN cover. The Kremlin chose to

partner with Tehran in Syria starting from the battle of Qusayr in 2013, believing that the

conflict in Syria carried risks to Russia's strategic interests, not because it threatened its base

in Tartous, its last foothold on the Mediterranean, but also because it believed that Iran was

involved in the Syrian conflict, and has little confidence from Putin, leaving it with two options

only, either to agree to share influence with America in the Middle East, or to be weak in the

US grip, if Washington exerted heavy pressure, benefiting its competitors Turkey and Saudi

Arabia, with Russia losing its investment in Iran.

In Putin’s strategic vision to manage his conflicts with the West under the banner of

bringing Russia to the international arena, which took a noisy form, he adopted naked force

in Syria, and in Ukraine to some extent; and adopted the style of hybrid war that worried the

West - a combination of threats which use military and non-military means, in particular

electronic warfare, which is in fact anti-intelligence, increasing Western complaints about the

Russian "hackers" - under the direction of the Kremlin directly, began to launch cyber-attacks

against political parties in order to steal information prior to elections, according to the

German news agency DPA; the accusations that emerged in the recent US elections and

caused a state of confusion on the legitimacy of Trump, is one example. Available data on the

growing use of this type of warfare, by Russia and China in particular, indicate trends in the

coming wars, since electronic warfare is no less dangerous than the forms of wars managed

by military means.

If it is true that the United States has disabled the recent provocative North Korean missile

of by this kind of e-war, the strategic conflicts between the major powers possessing such

technologies, especially in America, Russia and China, has entered a new phase of strategic

concern that could cause global catastrophes, because it would make nuclear deterrence,

which is currently a valve for conflict control among nuclear Powers, a memory of the past,

and would make the ability to destroy enemy weapons on its own land indiscriminately a

possible and terrifying reality.

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Third: America - Russia – China, the triangle of the future

conflict

The repositioning policy adopted by Obama during his two terms in office, allowed

Vladimir Putin and Chi Gining to improve the positions of their countries on the international

scene. While Russia was roaring back through the Syrian portal, China - to highlight its rise to

international power - chose to launch a series of regional projects Including the land-to-land

belt project across Asia and the Middle East to Europe (the revival of the Silk Road), as a

compensation for its navy power, where US fleets dominated the high seas of the world; as it

is well known that it depends on economy and providing aid and loans especially in the

African continent, as a lever to consolidate its global dominance and role. However, Chinese

leaders are well aware of the historical contradictions that characterize their relationship with

the Russian neighbour, who they describe as "the hungry land", refereeing to the imperial

tendency the Russians have. This explains the Chinese-Ukrainian cooperation touching on

sensitive aspects for the Kremlin, where China invests in the infrastructure of Ukrainian

military industries of strategic nature; China, along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, fuelled the

Ukrainian war, fearing Russia's aggression and its imperial resurgence.

China, as a rising power, realizes its precise position on the scale of world power, so it does

not rush into conflicts of a strategic nature, relying on economic power as an outlet for

influence so far, but it tries to exist in all hot or escalating battlefields, like the Middle East,

where it wants to play a role that is independent of Russia; it is not comfortable to share the

influence with the Russians and the Americans in the fertile Crescent region which could

exclude it from the region and impede its free access to Europe.

On the Russian side, its understanding of relations on the international stage is making it

believe that the talks with Washington must be based on recognizing the changes on the

international stage, which means that Russia must regain the status of the world's

superpower. Therefore, any settlement of a regional or international problem that does not

take into consideration such change is doomed to fail, and it seems that there is a difficulty in

ascertaining the certainty of this belief among the Russians and their ability to convince

Washington of it. This is evident from Lavrov's speech before a meeting of Russian diplomats

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two days after Tilerson's visit to Moscow on 12 April, in which he said in a triumphant tone

that "the problem of the West in general and Washington in particular lies in the tendency to

deny reality, because the other side does not want to admit that they lost the leadership of the

world," he continued:" In the West, they have to be convinced of the new fait accompli, despite

their bitterness. They have been accustomed for centuries to keep leadership positions and

they do not want to recognize that the world has changed and has become multi-polar."

Lavrov's words are spoken with bitterness that is damaging the Russian certainty and making

it more like a claim.

Many strategists and analysts say the hotbeds of tension are concentrated around the

South China Sea, Afghanistan, the Fertile Crescent, the Black Sea, Ukraine, the Arctic, and the

Caucasus, and that Washington under the new administration may have to draw up a

comprehensive strategy for Eurasia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and secure the

requirements for the possibility of having to fight more than one war at the same time. If

America was following Brzezinski's advice to do everything necessary to prevent a

confrontation with Russia and China at the same time, they have not been very successful so

far. Russia will not ally itself with the Americans in their confrontation with China, and

Moscow's greatest promise in this regard as to contribute to the economic pressure on Beijing.

China, which is more tolerant to make compromises, is likely to respond to the US effort to

calm tension in the South China Sea in exchange for helping to restrain the North Korean

renegade, a very difficult thing to do, but if such events go well, the United States is preparing

to confront the Russians in the Eurasian arena, based on the strategic rule that whoever wants

to control the Eurasian arena has to control the geographical arch extending from the Zagros

Mountains down to the north of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and therefore, we

can understand the determination of the United States to establish a series of air bases in this

arc, four of them in Iraqi Kurdistan and one to the west of Anbar, and another four in the north-

east of Syria, in addition to the huge Turkish Incirlik base. As for what is said about America

being inclined to accept the sharing of influence in the Middle East, it is farfetched, and it will

remain deferred until its conflict with Russia and China on Europe and Asia reveals its

outcomes.

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Fourthly: Syria is a tough testing ground

Perhaps the most important motivation for Russia's massive military intervention in Syria

from 30 September 2015, was to bargain the Americans to obtain a comprehensive deal to

resolve the regional crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Lebanon, the Ukrainian issue,

and the other outstanding issues with the West. But the Obama administration rejected this

offer, perhaps because Obama would have preferred a deal with Iran over its role in the region

in parallel to the nuclear negotiations, but that was thwarted by Iran because of its adherence

to Assad and its allies in Lebanon and Yemen. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that

the former administration refused to link the files sought by Moscow. Assuming that Moscow

would accept a deal on Syria, in the light of the offensive policies of the new US

administration, Putin would delay it until he re-ignites the Ukrainian war and takes over on

Kiev in line with the requirements of Russia’s return as a key player in international politics.

The American missile strike, which was not expected, on Al-Shaerat military airport, came

in response to the chemical attack of Khan Sheikhon. It carried political messages to the

Russians, the Iranians and the Syrian regime to change the rules of the game. The American

inaction that characterises the Obama era no longer exists, and the US presence in Syria and

the region will expand. Despite the fact that the Republican administration of the Trump era

has set its priorities in confronting Daesh, the Iranian influence, and the Assad regime, but the

confusion it caused was not limited to the three parties concerned, but rather Moscow, and

the Russian stalemate deepened. Russia could not interrupt the American missiles, which has

shaken its reverence that was built in Syria on the skulls of Syrian civilians to protect its ally.

"Russia does not intend to use the space air force against US missiles if Washington launches

new missile strikes against the Syrian regime," said Vladimir Jabarov, First Vice-President of

the International Committee of the Russian Federation. "Moscow cannot be involved in an

armed confrontation, that could extend to a widescale war", at the same time McMaster, head

of the US National Security Bureau, said:" Trump, when he decided on the third option that

was presented to him in response to Khan Sheikhon, implied that the head-off option was on

the table." Apart from the Russian media's clamour about Russia's capabilities and

determination to confront, the truth seems to be closer to what Igor Sutiagin of the British

Institute for United Services said: "Putin always stirs bets, but he dodges, he knows very well

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that he cannot do anything militarily against America," the thing that a hawkish group of US

military elite is betting on in the new administration, which also sees that Russia will take the

military equation as a negotiating tool.

Moscow rejected the offer of the G7 summit held in Rome on 12 April 2017, with what

the Italian president proposed to return Russia to the group, including the possibility of lifting

economic sanctions gradually if it accepted a settlement in Syria, and applied the Minsk

Agreement on Ukraine; This indicates the narrowness and difficulty of the options before

Moscow, especially since Putin does not accept to abandon Assad, clinging to the pretext of

refusing to change the ruling regimes by foreign powers, because it could be him next time,

and that he cannot give up his ally Iran free of charge, at the same time it does not seem that

the US administration is ready in light of its declared offensive strategy. Thus, the post-Obama

world's strategic conflict will be fiercer than the geopolitical rivalry among the major powers

throughout the post-Cold War period.

Mikhail Gorbachev said, after Tillerson's recent visit to Moscow, that he was "monitoring

the signs of the outbreak of the new Cold War." He sees in the intensification of military build-

up in Europe, the deterioration of relations between nations, and the growing alliance policies

"Negative signs of the world entering a tunnel of confrontation, Russia and the United States

stand nose to nose. "

Moscow did not accept the leaked news about the offer - the deal offered by Tilerson in

his recent visit "to respect the interests of Russia" instead of the recognition of full partnership

in all regional and international files, which Washington does not seem ready for. Therefore,

the question arises about the options for Moscow, which holds a set of keys, including Syria.

The Kremlin spokesman said that Putin was "patient enough, so he was ready to wait until the

new American vision was clear, no deal in Syria alone nor a partial agreement, either a full

partner or we will wait" . This answer, and other relevant indicators, reveals that at this turn

and change in US policies during the Trump era, Syria has become a difficult test ground for

Putin, and it is uncertain that his patience will help him achieve the goals he aspires to. At the

same time, it will be a harsh test ground for the intervening regional parties.

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Conclusion

When Putin chose, in the course of his response to the West, to be Syria's gatekeeper to

return to the international arena, taking advantage of the American repositioning, he was in

the face of the West in a defensive offensive war, in which he tried to strengthen his

relationship with Iran and to form an alliance with Turkey, that was still fragile after Erdogan's

rotation of 2016, with the Israeli interests largely respected.

Russia had all the chances under Obama, but failed to present itself as a major force that

respected the obligations of such a position, resorting to naked violence, misleading, and

vetoing the Security Council eight times so far, in an irresponsible way leading to disrupting

the international community and not respecting the right of unarmed civilians to life and

safety, a barbaric force operating in traditional ways in a modern world, and missing the

chance of winning a deal under Obama, won’t make it easy to win under Trump.

Many data indicate that Russia is not in a position to engage in a major military

confrontation in Syria, nor does it have the capacity to do so, nor will it. It realizes that its real

interests, and the real threats to its national security, are there in Europe, not in Syria. It is also

not in its interest to venture for the sake of its "ally" Al-Assad in the end. It seems that the

strategy adopted by Putin in the face of the West, will fail in Syria first. Putin tried to emerge

from the cocoon, but its threads seemed to be too hard for his teeth.

harmoon.org

IntroductionFirst: Russia and the West, an open conflict relationshipSecond: Russian-American relations under ObamaThird: America - Russia – China, the triangle of the future conflictFourthly: Syria is a tough testing groundConclusion