Russian Policy in the Levant/ Rusya'nin Levant Politikasi.

• Author: Zvyagelskaya, Irina
• Position: Report

Introduction

Russia's interests in the Levant cannot be separated from its global interests and calculations. The increasingly diverged interpretation of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the role of military interference as advanced by the main actors in the international arena, has posed a particular challenge to Russia, as well as to other nations.

The current processes underway in the Middle East and Levant result from the impact of a number of global trends, which include the crisis of the ruling elite and states, aggravation of socioeconomic problems, increasing exclusivity within the ruling strata and lack of social mobility, and crisis of global secular ideologies. The situation in the region has had a direct bearing on the global balance of forces. The main divisive features of the modern international landscape are the uncertainty associated with the high level of conflict risk, involvement of external forces in conflicts with varying interests, and the growing activities of the local and transnational terrorist organizations. Historically, the Middle East has been exposed to the influences and/or control of external forces, a history which has left the region with a fairly loose structure of interstate relations devoid of powerful and trusted leaders, (1) forcing the countries of the region to continually search for legitimization.

The region is called the Near East in Russia and, because of its geographic proximity, its various military threats, conflicts, and terrorism are sources of particular concern in Russia. The Levant, as a part of the wider Middle East region and comprised of modern Asiatic Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and possibly Egypt (but not necessarily Cyprus), (2) can be seen through the same lenses.

Different roles have been assumed by the jihadist extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS and al-Qaida, under the conditions of civil war with the involvement of external countries in Syria, continuing tribal clashes in Libya and protracted internal confrontations in Iraq. Their activities have had an impact on Russia, as they are also a source of radicalization for some Russian citizens (around 14% of Russian citizens are Muslims). They also have affected the situation in Central Asia, where radicalization is on the rise. (3) Several thousand Russian and Central Asian residents left their homes to join jihadists in Syria, Iraq, and more recently, in Afghanistan. (4) A containment of these threats is obviously a priority for Moscow.

This said, Russian interests in the region cannot be narrowed to the regional agenda. Russia's global interests can better explain the country's new activist behavior in the region. The Middle East has become a testing ground for Moscow for a more prominent role in the international arena, presenting itself as a powerful global player, and an indispensable partner in the fight against international terrorism.

This article examines the policies of the Russian Federation in the Levant by examining the country's approach to two of the region's most intractable sources of instability: The Syrian Civil War and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the former, Russia has been an active player capable of making unexpected decisions. In the latter, Russia is a traditional participant in the international efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict, exhibiting a more predictable behavior. These two conflicts are the focal points of Russian policies in the region. The conflicts provide opportunities for the author to present Russian policy towards the different countries of Levant, to accentuate its approaches, while at the same time allowing to avoid the description of the routines of bilateral relations.

Shaping Russian Approaches

Reviewing the policies of the Russian Federation in the Arab world in general, one cannot lose sight of the Soviet period, which, while substantially different from today, is still responsible for the formation of Russia's image in the region today.

The Soviet Union came to the Middle East in the second half of the 1950s and gained a strong foothold there during the following two decades as Arab national liberation movements were on the rise. At the time, Moscow was ready to sacrifice some of its most rigid ideological perceptions in favor of pragmatic considerations. Thus, Russian scholar and political figure Yevgeny Primakov explained the reasons underlying the decision of the Soviet leadership to ignore the blatant ideological and political flaws of the new regimes in the Arab states:

Life compelled us to ascribe the leading role in the national liberation movements to the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, who denied the proletarian dictatorship, the class struggle, even the division of society into classes ... The term 'revolutionary democrats' was coined to refer to those who had nothing to do with democracy, and in some cases were regenerating into Nazi style rulers ... Over the period, when the Cold War was raging, the military and political dimension of the Soviet policies in the Middle East assumed primary importance. A decisive factor in the USSR approach to dealing with this or that Arab state was its foreign policy outlook, its attitude towards military alliances, especially the Baghdad Pact. (5) For Russia, unlike for the Soviet Union, the ideological component has not had much relevance in the context of its Middle East policies. The differences between Soviet and Russian policies in the Middle East has not meant, however, a total lack of continuity and consistency. Developing relationships with Arab partners continued even after the Soviet Union's collapse, yet Russian policies became more diversified as the country began developing a relationship with Israel, establishing closer ties with Turkey and Iran, improving contacts with Saudi Arabia, and maintaining liaison relationships with a number of non-governmental actors. (6)

Russian leaders have thought to consolidate the nation's presence in the Levant, thus creating a more favorable environment for the country to act independently elsewhere in international arena. According to the authors of a monograph, entitled "Russia's Foreign Policy", Russia has been confronted by new challenges thanks to a more structurally complicated and competitive world order:

Russia was building up its policies under conditions of an increasingly complicated environment. Yet, as the manifestation of polycentric tendencies became more conspicuous, which was reflected in the more dynamic activities of other traditional and growing global players, as well as in the change of behavioral pattern of non-governmental actors, it was more difficult and more challenging to maintain the status of a great power, to facilitate and protect the national interests in all spheres, including economy and security. (7) Within this context, a successful and confident regional policy was an indication of Russia's place among the most powerful of international players. Nevertheless, it was believed in Russia, long before the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, that the West harbored a disparaging attitude towards the country and that it's opinions on the key security issues were simply ignored. This belief was bellied by a NATO expansion that would reach as far as the Russian frontier if the planned inclusion of Georgia and the Ukraine to the alliance ever materialized. (8) Moreover, Russia itself was increasingly regarded as a simply a regional power. Barack Obama said this openly in a response to a reporter's question at The Hague in March 2014: "Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors; not out of strength but out of weakness". (9) Thus, Vladimir Putin's address delivered at the Valdai Forum in October 2017 was in no way an exaggeration, and reflected the basic Russian perception of the causes of a serious controversy between the Russian Federation and the West: "The biggest mistake that we made while dealing with the West was that we trusted you too much, and you made a mistake when you took that trust for a weakness and misused our trust." (10)

As Russia did not possess as much power or as strong of a resource base as the former USSR, it sought to present its foreign policy as a symbol of success. The Middle East offered unique opportunity for this. Middle Eastern states, who felt nostalgia for a time when a nation played the part of a counterweight to the US, were also interested in Russia's return not only as an ally, but as an honest broker. However, the Middle East was not a foreign policy priority for the Russian Federation, so the stakes for it were not as high as, for instance, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). (11)

Apart from maintaining security and emphasizing its geopolitical status, Russia was also guided in its activist policies in the Levant by the desire to display itself as an indispensable partner in the struggle against the common enemy of international terrorism. By doing so, Russia hoped to achieve a certain degree of cooperation with the West and set up the conditions for an improvement of its relationship, which had been severely impaired since the Ukrainian crisis.

Syria: Military and Political Aspects

Looking retrospectively at Russia's policies in Syria, which have impacted the overall situation in the region, it can be concluded that they were influenced by the failures of the Libyan intervention. The UN Security Council's resolution establishing a no-fly zone in Libya on 17 March 2011 (12) and the severe NATO bombardment of the country were met with much criticism in Russia. (13) Even the then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev did not see eye to eye on the issue. According to the BBC, the rare rebuke came after Putin pronounced the resolution resembled a "medieval calls for crusades" while Medvedev...