The Syrian trap

So, an exchange of Syria for Ukraine, predicted by many political analysts and politicians to happen at the UN General Assembly session in New York, did not take place. However, the chances of success of such a combination were non-existent to begin with. For the time being, Vladimir Putin is not going to give up on either Bashar al-Assad or the Donetsk separatists. And Barack Obama is not going to opt for a direct military intervention in Syria, which he refused to authorize even after al-Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels and civilians.

Meanwhile, only a military intervention in Syria by the Western powers led by the US and complemented by the return of US troops to Iraq can help end the war in Syria by effectively dividing it into zones of military control and civilian governance between the different ethno-religious groups and destroying the ISIL. However, President Obama has long been showing complete weakness in the field of foreign policy, so rare in American presidents. The current occupant of the White House appears to have neither any significant and specific foreign policy objectives, nor, consequently, any clear strategy to achieve them. Secretary of State John Kerry is also no help here, because he has no independent foreign policy line to suggest to his boss.

With regard to Ukraine, the most that Obama can dare do is, probably, allow shipments of lethal weapons to that country later, in 2016, on the eve of the November presidential and congressional elections in order to increase the chances of Democratic candidates. After all, the position of Ukrainian immigrants and other immigrants from Eastern Europe could seriously affect the outcome of the vote in some districts.

Under these circumstances, it would seem that Putin has got a free hand both in Ukraine and in Syria. However, the resources of Russia are too limited and being gradually reduced further now, in the context of the ongoing decline in oil prices and the economic sanctions. They are not even enough for one major war, and certainly not enough for waging two wars at once in the Donbas and Syria. Even as the Kremlin makes great effort to obscure the former issue, trying in every way to disguise the involvement of Russian military forces in the conflict in Ukraine, and never acknowledging these facts publicly, Russia makes as great a show of its air operation in Syria. Putin does not hide the fact that Russian aircraft and other equipment are supplied to President al-Assad’s troops.

Although there have long been Russian soldiers in the country, the Council of Federation gave the president permission to use the Russian Armed Forces in Syria immediately after his return from New York. This was done to ensure that the world thought the presidents of Russia and the US had just agreed on it. It is unlikely that such an agreement has actually been reached. Most likely, the only thing happening between the two leaders in New York was that claimed by Echo of Moscow’s editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov: “Putin proposed to Obama the Russian Air Force participation in the coalition’s strikes in some form. That did not work, and Putin told us about this almost immediately after the meeting with Obama. Following that, Putin arrived in Moscow and asked for the permission to use military forces abroad.”

In short, Putin saw that Obama would not oppose him in Syria and actively fight al-Assad, while Obama, lacking a clear strategy in Syria and throughout the Middle East, did not contradict hints by Russian officials that America had tacitly agreed to Russian actions in Syria. The response was limited to Kerry making another statement to the effect that the Russian air strikes did not contribute to the achievement of peace in that tormented country’s civil war. Accordingly, the president of Russia has decided to raise stakes by using the Russian Air Force to bomb Syrian territory. At the same time, as expected, they did not bomb positions of the Islamic State militants, but rather parts of the provinces of Hama, Homs, and Latakia where moderate Syrian opposition operates.

Any precision strikes on rebel positions, despite the assurances of Russian propaganda, were out of the question. Targeting units that wage guerrilla warfare, are spread over a large area and have almost no heavy military equipment is very difficult and requires low-altitude flights, which are relatively easy prey for air defense systems, which are available to al-Assad’s opponents. Putin, of course, really does not want to see captured Russian pilots shown-off in propaganda videos of the ISIL and other opposition groups, where the unfortunate prisoners will ask the president to release them and stop the war in Syria, and then be subjected to public and torturous executions. Therefore, Russian air strikes will be primarily for show, which does not rule out, of course, hitting certain military facilities as well.

It should be borne in mind, though, that the bulk of the Russian aviation presence in Syria is made up by Soviet-built Su-24 bombers, lacking high-precision munitions that are in short supply in Russia, but mainly armed with unguided bombs and missiles capable of hitting large area targets, such as urban areas, but not pinpoint targets. The real fight against insurgents will still be carried out mainly by al-Assad’s pilots, whose numbers are decreasing because of the inevitable losses. Meanwhile, the purely Russian bombing effort will have an effect only in increasing the number of Syrian refugees in Europe, which the Europeans, of course, will not be happy with. However, the activity of the Russian Air Force will never reach the levels achieved by the US-led anti-Islamist coalition.

Putin’s strategy is to keep al-Assad in power as long as possible and to try to come back as one of the major players in the Middle East through becoming one of the members of the anti-ISIL coalition. However, the impotence of American foreign policy in this case can play against the plans of Putin. Obama does not want under any circumstances to actively get involved in Syria, as well as in the Iraqi conflict, which would require sending large contingents of US troops in and conducting large-scale ground operations. Still, if not the American president, absolutely uneducated in the field of foreign policy, then at least his foreign policy advisers certainly understand that in the event of the fall of al-Assad’s major strongholds Damascus, Latakia, and other coastal cities, a massacre of the Alawite and Christian population becomes a real prospect. To prevent it, a major Western military intervention led by the US will be needed, followed by the war with the Islamic State until it is no more. This will require 150,000-200,000 troops to be deployed.

A smooth transfer of power in the country from al-Assad to a hypothetical coalition government is totally out of the question, not least because it is very difficult to imagine a coalition including the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds, al-Qaeda, and the ISIL. The US hopes that Putin’s support will help the Syrian president to keep his Latakian bridgehead for at least the next year. It will then fall to the next American president to solve the Syrian issue.

Putin has long felt that Obama has become a lame duck, and used his weakness first in Crimea and the Donbas, and now is trying to get a full-fledged naval base on the Syrian coast. However, Putin’s options in Syria are not limitless. Deliveries of arms and bombings can prolong the agony of al-Assad, but not change the course of the war in Syria. The Syrian dictator sorely lacks not bombs but soldiers. And very soon, even holding the Latakian bridgehead may require an entire Russian division, which Putin is not inclined to send to Syria so far.

Analysts who believe that Putin beat Obama on the Syrian issue in New York ignore the fact that Obama did not want to win that much. America in this case has the opportunity to wait, avoiding major responses to Putin’s Syrian move, but at the same time eschewing any concessions either in terms of the recognition of the legitimacy of al-Assad’s regime, or on the Ukrainian question that the Kremlin feels particularly strongly about. While the world’s media criticize the Syrian government army for killing civilians, it has virtually no impact on the reputation of the regime, which is already well below zero. But it will be quite another matter when CNN and Euronews will broadcast footage of Syrian women and children who definitely died after Russian air raids. It will then make Putin’s reputation as bad as that of al-Assad, and “useful idiots” in the West will find it much more difficult to continue to defend his policies.

By getting directly involved in the Syrian conflict, Putin may have put himself in a no less dangerous trap, and as hard to escape, as that created by the war in the Donbas. In the meantime, if the Russian president continues to pretend that he is ready to exchange his participation (or lack thereof) in the Syrian war for an acceptable to him settlement in Ukraine, the truce in Donetsk and Luhansk regions could hold for some time, and an agreement on the withdrawal of weapons can be observed, partially at least. That, however, does not mean that in the absence of effective control by rather numerous, well-armed and impartial peacekeepers, widespread clashes along the line of actual control in the Donbas cannot restart at any time.