With Ukraine not going the way of Russia, Moscow will try to take advantage of the Syrian crisis.
Post Date – 12:30 AM, Saturday – 12/10/22
stefan wolf
Hyderabad: Syria, largely overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, remains a deeply divided and violent country, with military conflict recently reignited. This new period of conflict in Syria, with attacks from Russia, Turkey and Israel, also mirrors some fronts in the war in Ukraine — and has the potential to have implications for both theaters.
After more than a decade of war, there are already large numbers of Russian, American and Turkish troops in Syria. Russia supports the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States and Turkey support their rival local allies.
Syria has seen a highly flammable mix of local, regional, and global security risks over the past decade, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Global and regional power has been an important factor, and Russia has used the war to showcase its military might to the world.
turkey as an ally
Now, Russia may be the biggest beneficiary of Turkey’s recent military gamble with airstrikes against the US’s local allies in Syria. It could help strengthen Vladimir Putin’s relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when Russia is desperate for an influential ally.
Turkey blamed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia based mostly in Syria, for a bomb that exploded in a busy pedestrian zone in Istanbul on Nov. 13, killing six people and injuring dozens. The Workers’ Party has ties, the PKK. The SDF, which denies any link to the Istanbul bombing, is also Washington’s main ally in Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS).
Subsequent Turkish airstrikes on SDF targets in Syria and continued threats of ground invasion are bad news for the war against the Islamic State and for relations between Washington and Ankara, which are also NATO allies. Warnings, including from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have so far prevented Turkey’s ground operations in Syria.
The combination of Turkish attacks and threats led to the suspension of joint U.S. and Kurdish anti-ISIS patrols in Syria, at a time when the latest U.S. assessment of ISIS points to a significant increase in its activity in Syria.
as a result of
ISIS is not the only potential beneficiary of Turkish airstrikes against U.S. allies in Syria. Any disagreement among NATO allies would also have broader implications for the war in Ukraine. Turkey remains one of only two NATO members — the other being Hungary — that have yet to agree to Finland and Sweden joining the alliance.
Turkey’s opposition to their membership has also been linked in part to Finland and Sweden’s alleged support for Kurdish militants. The possibility of vetoing their accession gives Ankara more room to follow its own agenda in Syria and limit the pressure Washington can exert.
Along with the United Nations, Turkey has been instrumental in helping to broker, maintain and extend a major agreement to boost Ukrainian grain exports. President Erdogan remains one of the few NATO leaders with an open line of communication with Putin, which will be crucial if Russia and Ukraine begin talks to end the war.
Turkey may be Russia’s closest ally within NATO, and Ankara’s break with its NATO ally would be a big hit in Moscow. While the Kremlin has been warning Turkey against military action in Syria, it has also sought to promote rapprochement between Erdogan and Assad.
Erdogan has shown some openness to the idea, even though it is unlikely to lead to a credible transition from war to peace in Syria. But if such a reconciliation becomes possible, the return of some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey to Syria is possible and could give Erdogan his long-demanded safe zone on the Turkey-Syria border.
That formed the basis of a 2019 deal with Washington and Moscow that ended Turkey’s earlier military intervention in Syria, after which Russia and the United States were expected to help clear Kurdish militants from Turkey’s borders. Turkey recently claimed they had not done so. As Erdogan seeks re-election in 2023, strengthening border security and easing the refugee problem will improve his re-election prospects.
what russia needs
But not only is it crucial for Russia to support Ankara’s key quasi-ally, but it cannot afford to make a bigger commitment in Syria given the severity of the fighting in Ukraine. A rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus, and between the Syrian regime and the Kurds, would cement Russia’s role as a key power broker in Syria, thereby bolstering its presence and influence in a strategically important state in the Middle East.
Strengthening the Assad regime would also allow Russia to maintain good relations with Iran, which recently became a supplier of armed drones that Russia uses to attack Ukrainian infrastructure.
Russia is very good at playing this multi-layered game and connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated and geographically distant theaters. The fact that the war in Ukraine hasn’t been moving in Russia’s direction recently makes it all the more likely that Moscow will try to exploit crises like the current one in Syria to its advantage. It will only succeed if the West is not paying attention.
(The author is Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham. theconversation.com)
