Russia’s veto of the UN resolution on Syria is much in the news, with most commentators (of whom Ian Birrell is perhaps the most incisive) highlighting the nature of the relationship between the two countries as the explanation for this apparently subversive action.
They are right: Syria is, and for the last 60 years has been, Russia’s client state. Strategically, the Russians feel about Syria the way Americans feel about Israel: it’s their most reliable ally in the region. Moreover, it’s home to their only military base outside the erstwhile borders of the Soviet Union.
Economically, Syria is the major purchaser of Russian arms, from infantry weapons to missile systems, from sophisticated fighter-bombers to tanks. That gives the Russians a vested interest in warfare there, civil or otherwise: the more materiel is used up, the more the Syrians will buy.
And it’s not just weapons: as Russia has invested billions in the exploration, production and processing of Syria’s hydrocarbons, it’s only natural that it should want to protect its investment. After all, if Assad’s government is replaced, it’ll probably be by a revolutionary Islamist regime (I’ll let American neocons fantasise about the likelihood of Jeffersonian democracy there), and those have been known to be rather fickle in their commitment to existing treaties and contracts. Moreover, in Syria’s case, a revolutionary regime can only take over with the West’s help, so it’ll be more likely to buy F-16s than SU35s.
All these factors have been commented upon, but it’s worth mentioning a few omissions. The most important of them is that Russia has a vested interest in any Middle Eastern turmoil, regardless of the specific parties involved. This interest is again twofold, both economic and strategic, and it’s no longer easy to see where one ends and the other begins.
As far as the Russians are concerned, any Middle Eastern conflict, the more calamitous the better, will drive up the price of oil. While ruinous to the West, this would be like a Christmas present to the Russians: about 40 percent of their revenues come from hydrocarbons. That’s why, for example, Russian scientists have been working for Iran’s nuclear programme from its inception — just imagine what would happen to oil prices if NATO and Israel were to attack Iran or, conversely, Iran were to become a nuclear power equipped with ballistic missiles.
Russia also has a geopolitical or, if you will, geopsychological need to stir up trouble in the Middle East. Great-power aspirations are built into the country’s DNA regardless of its current standing in the world. This has been the case at least since Ivan III (d. 1505) married the daughter of the last Byzantine emperor and declared Russia to be the natural messianic successor to the empire, ‘third Rome’ in the words of the monk Philoteus (‘and there will not be a fourth’).
Though Russia is of course unrecognisable compared not only to the 15th century but even to 100 years ago, this aspiration has remained constant. To fulfil it these days Russia has to oppose — and to be seen to oppose — the West in any conflict brewing anywhere in the world. Whether Russia is run by a totalitarian or merely authoritarian regime (other possibilities are a pie in the sky), this will always be the case.
At times Russia will form ad hoc alliances with the West, as it did during the Second World War. Thus if we were to plot the country’s hostility to the West on a curve, it would have a jagged shape. But, for all the peaks and troughs, the overall direction is as unmistakeable as it is inexorable: up and up.
In today’s Syria, Russia’s economic and geopolitical desiderata converge: Putin and his acolytes don’t want a resolution to the conflict, one way or the other. Given the choice, they’d take Assad over the rebels, but what they really crave is a smouldering conflict, a state of dangerous-looking uncertainty.
This puts the West in an invidious position. Our politicians, backed up by much of the media and academe, feel ideologically duty-bound to be nice to the Russians. The triumphalist outburst in the wake of all those glasnosts and perestroikas is still spreading shock waves, however attenuated. The received opinion is that, certain growth pains notwithstanding, the Russians either are our friends already, or desperately wish to be.
While a Russia run by the communist party may have been an ‘evil empire’, in Reagan’s phrase, the assumption is that a Russia run by the KGB has found religion. So, for all the friendly, ‘constructive’ criticism in our press, the KGB clique fronted by Col. Putin is having a free run in the West.
Given the history of the passionate affair between the Soviet Union and Western intellectuals, which affair reached its ecstatic stage post-1991, this situation is unlikely to change. But our general ignorance of what Russia stands for shouldn’t mean we can’t assess each situation on its merits.
In the Middle East generally and Syria in particular the situation is crystal-clear. Given the choice between a good war and a even bad peace, the West has not just a vested but a vital interest in the latter. The Russians, on the other hand, will take a bad — and preferably prolonged — war over even a good peace. That’s what they want; that’s what they are working to achieve.
And if China’s decision to go along with Russia’s veto hints at the possibility of a long-term strategic alliance between the two, we have more to fear than a steep rise in the price of oil. Russia’s military and natural resources would dovetail naturally with China’s endless supply of cannon fodder and loose cash. It’s a marriage made in heaven — or, if you are a Westerner, in hell.