David J. Kramer & Lilia Shevtsova / The American
Interest, July 11, 2012
55Why Russia Doesn’t Hold the Keys to Syria
and his knee-jerk reflex to resist American policy first and ask questions later. Putin also wants to remind the world that global problems can’t be resolved without Moscow and his personal participation.
All this is true, but there is something else at work as well. To discover it, we must look to the systemic factors that explain why the Kremlin is trying to save Assad (or for that matter any other dicta-tor, especially in Russia’s so-called sphere of influence), even if he is a liability for Russia.
Here we must recognize that foreign policy is an instrument of Pu-tin’s domestic agenda. The domestic priority for the Kremlin is to pre-serve a status quo supported by three pillars: personalized power, its legitimation by superpower aspirations (or at least their imitation), and the attempts to consolidate society by seeking out an enemy and using that enemy to turn Russia into a besieged fortress. The more Putin’s re-gime is confronted with problems at home (and since last December, it has been challenged more than at any other time after 1999), the more actively it looks for foreign policy means to support the Russian Matrix.
This translates in concrete terms to blocking the United States whenever and wherever possible. Thus, the Kremlin switches to vocal anti-Americanism and seeks to block the United States at the UN Secu-rity Council or in other fora. This switch has been most vividly on dis-play in the endless harassment of U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. Neither random nor a reflection of Putin’s personal likes or dislikes or phobias, this behavior is simply how the Kremlin survival mechanism works. To reproduce personalized power with global aspira-tions, the Kremlin has to contain America and undermine the American order wherever possible – in Russia’s own neighborhood or in other parts of the world. This is how Russian authoritarianism differs from other regimes of this type: In order to preserve and reproduce itself, the Russian personalized power system needs to demonstrate global reach. If the Russian ruling team can’t force or persuade the world to en-dorse its stance, it tries to at least undermine the American and Western positions. Accordingly, the Kremlin’s last client state in the Middle East became an arena of conflict geared toward bolstering the Kremlin’s survival strategy, and toward demonstrating that Russia can still impose limits on the West. Sadly, in the process of doing these things, the Krem-lin has shown utter indifference to the suffering of the Syrian people, for it is more focused on its own future than it is on the welfare of others.
The Kremlin’s survival strategy revolves around the concept of to-tal and “unbreakable” sovereignty, commitment to non-interference, and rejection of any intervention, including intervention for humani-tarian reasons. In the context of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (a scenario that is still a nightmare for Putin) and the Arab Spring, the Kremlin’s concept of sovereignty guarantees its future (a fact that is indirectly a nod to the fragility of the Russian system and Putin’s
56Crisis: Russia and the West in the Time of Troubles
regime). Focused on sustaining itself, the Kremlin wants to avoid a sce-nario on Russian soil similar to those in Egypt or Libya, where, through Western interference, Mubarak and Qadaffi were brought down (even if such a scenario seems unthinkable). Ironically, in declaring its ad-herence to the concept of “spheres of interest,” the Kremlin does not recognize the true sovereignty of its neighbors. In short, this concept is in essence a warning to the West: “You have no right to dictate your rules to other states!”
Indeed, the concept of “total sovereignty” means that Moscow de-mands that the West forget about the principles of the Council of Eu-rope and Chapter VII of the UN charter (expanded in 2005) – first of all the “responsibility to protect” in case of threat to civilian life.
Putin has openly confessed his major concern regarding Syria:
“Russia will oppose attempts to use the concept of human rights as an instrument of political pressure and to intervene in the internal af-fairs of other countries.” Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgenii Pri-makov, at the St. Petersburg World Economic Forum last month, reaf-firmed the Kremlin’s major headache: “Democracy can’t be transferred.
This is where we differ with the U.S.” Thus, Syria, for Putin’s regime, is not about Syria in itself. Nor is it about the threat of an unraveling in the Middle East, or atrocities, or geopolitical goals. No, Syria is about Russia and the Kremlin’s control over the situation. To strengthen his rule, Putin must weaken the West’s influence. This is why Putin will not endorse a peaceful transfer of power from the leader to the opposition when he believes that power belongs only to the leader.
The West, however, clings to the hope that Moscow will help per-suade Assad either to leave or to behave in a more civilized way. Alas, this is unlikely to work, for Assad is beyond redemption, and pushing him out would contradict the Kremlin’s attitude to power. A “managed transition” does not exist in the Russian political vocabulary. We liked Adam Garfinkle’s metaphor: To depend on Putin to save the situation is like depending on the services of Monica Lewinsky as a marriage consul-tant. Moreover, there are no signs that Moscow has sufficient leverage to force out Assad, even if it were to change its position.
The Kremlin’s call for a “solution through political dialogue” between Assad and the opposition has a specific meaning. In Russia, “political dialogue” means carefully selected people appointed to play the role of “opponents” – that is, “managed opposition.”
What is really puzzling is the belief of Western leaders that Putin has come around to their side. During the Los Cabos summit, UK Prime Minister David Cameron hurriedly announced that Putin had shifted his view of Assad during his talks with Obama and accepted the idea of a transition of power in Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after the Geneva talks also sounded hopeful. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared that the Geneva meeting was the beginning
57Why Russia Doesn’t Hold the Keys to Syria
of Assad’s end. Russia “supports Annan’s unity government plan,”
the global media announced.
Really? Why do they not listen to Putin’s mantra that “nobody has the right to decide for other nations who should be brought to power or who should be removed from power?” Have they missed Lavrov’s statements to the effect that some powers “misinterpret” the results of the Geneva talks, and that Moscow never said that Assad should go?
Western optimists either don’t hear (or don’t really want to hear) what the Kremlin is truly saying. Or perhaps they don’t understand that Putin’s acceptance of the Western plan for Syria would leave him without leverage and would not allow him to enjoy the role of a spoiler, which he plays with evident relish.
One can’t avoid the impression that all sides in the “Syria Concert”
are taking part in a game of “Let’s Pretend!” Western leaders pretend that they are looking for a breakthrough, and pretend that Russia is on board.
The Kremlin’s obstinacy with respect to the Assad regime winds up being an excuse for doing nothing, as well as a demonstration of the West’s no-ble inclinations. The Kremlin pretends that it has leverage over Damascus and is helping to find a solution. The Kremlin in this game has a much stronger position: It does not care about Syrians’ lives or its own reputa-tion. And it has learned how to drive two horses in opposite directions, pretending to agree and disagree at the same time.
Does this mean that the Kremlin will never betray Assad? No. Putin does not care about Assad personally; rather, they care about what As-sad represents. Putin is no friend to the end; he is a friend only so long as it serves his own purposes inside Russia.
But Putin would perhaps agree to play along if doing so could help the Kremlin to strengthen the Russian Matrix. The list of possible entice-ments could be long, starting with demands like “don’t meddle” in Rus-sian and EuraRus-sian affairs and ending with things like concessions over oil transit routes and a central role in the privatization of Syrian com-modities. Sadly, the West might even agree to play such a trading game with Putin.
Of course, the “responsibility to protect” provision gives the West the right to proceed without arguing that “Russia has the keys to Da-mascus.” If the Western powers continue to wait for such keys, they may in fact be looking for excuses to do nothing.
Nearly twenty years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said, “Rus-sia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both…
Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine sub-orned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an em-pire.” Uninterested in becoming a democracy, today’s Kremlin has not given up the hope of regaining a facsimile of its old empire, with Ukraine at its core. To be sure, the Kremlin today is pragmatic enough to understand that it can’t revive the corpse of the USSR (though Georgians may beg to differ), but it would like to create the Eurasian Union – a new version of “satellites along its periphery.”
Russia’s leaders sure have a strange way of pursuing this agenda, as illustrated by the most recent meeting in July between the lead-ers of Russia and Ukraine. Vladimir Putin kept his host, Viktor Yanu-kovych, waiting three hours – not due to any dramatic circumstances but out of sheer rudeness. Putin left Moscow late, but then, to add insult to injury, after arriving in Crimea he stopped first to meet with a bunch of bikers. Only after that did he make time for an official visit.
Such appalling lack of diplomatic etiquette was a direct slap in Yanu-kovych’s face, an intentional gesture of both impudence and intimida-tion (albeit one Putin has made to other foreign leaders and CEOs).
Big Russia was teaching Yanukovich and Ukraine a lesson – or so the Russian leaders thought!
This incident demonstrated not only the personal animosity be-tween the two leaders but also the mutual suspicion and distrust that plagues the relationship between the two states. Russia’s leaders never hesitate to remind Ukraine who the big boy on the block is – a strange way, to say the least, to win over friends and allies. Indeed, one should not underestimate Moscow’s ability to alienate potential partners through its arrogant, aggressive approach to foreign policy, especially when its immediate neighbors are involved.
Of all the states in Eurasia, Ukraine is the most important test of the Kremlin’s neo-imperialistic longings and of Russia’s readiness (or not) to be a modern state. It is also is a test of the West’s interest in expanding its normative principles eastward, which can best be