Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was never meant to be long-term. Now that Russia has been successful in saving the regime of Bashar al-Assad, what's next for Russia's Middle East strategy? Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR).
Russia's decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war in September 2015 was consistent with its belief that the Syrian state represents the only viable and legitimate actor in the country, and its forces are the only ones worth supporting. Moscow has always been willing to pay a political and military price to prevent a Syrian army collapse.
From the outset, Russia’s intervention was a multilayered gambit, but its purpose was straightforward: changing the facts on the ground and imposing new realities to leverage a different political outcome in Syria, not necessarily at the expense of the U.S., but almost certainly at the expense of its allies in the region.
What motivated the operation was the increasingly desperate military situation of Assad’s forces after territorial losses in northwestern Syria, close to the regime’s coastal stronghold around Latakia. Assad sounded the alarm, compelling Russia and Iran to come up with a military plan to rescue both the Syrian army and, as a consequence, their own ability to maintain a deciding hand in the war.
As Russia Vilified The Islamic State, Its True Agenda EmergedFrom the outset of its intervention in the Syrian Civil War, Russia tried to portray its campaign at home and abroad as a push against the self-declared Islamic State. That narrative, while deliberately misleading, made a good cover story. Amid the current fog of Middle East conflict—with tangled alliances, conflicting agendas and partially overlapping geopolitical objectives—the Islamic State is the only actor whose behavior and objectives are universally reviled by the civilized world. The terrorist group earned universal ignominy with its self-styled caliphate, replete with videotaped decapitations and public slave markets. Who could challenge the moral value of fighting against it? But while Russian President Vladimir Putin consistently claimed his goal was to defeat the Islamic State, his true objectives all along were something altogether different, and that was visible as the carnage in Syria intensified and the incipient peace process crumbled.
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