What Is Russia’s Game in Syria?

Sukhoi Su-24M: Russian workhorse in Syria    
Wikimedia Commons/Alexander Mishin, © A. Mishin

If you have been paying much attention to what is going on in the Middle East, you have almost certainly heard Vladimir Putin last Monday ordered a partial Russian pullout from Syria. This is after more than seven months since Russia made a significant commitment of troops,  aircraft, and naval assets keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. Yet ISIS is far from defeated in Syria and Iraq. What exactly can Putin be thinking?     

The Situation in Syria

The most important Russian accomplishment with this intervention has been to make the Assad regime more secure. Before they intervened, many thought the regime was on the verge of complete collapse under the twin attacks of indigenous Sunnis and the Islamic State (ISIS, also referred to as ISIL and DAISH). With the aid primarily of Russian air support, Assad’s forces have recaptured a large chunk of Northwestern Syria around Aleppo and in Idlib province that had been under the control of the Sunni Free Syrian Army, Assad’s indigenous opposition supported by both the U.S. and Turkey. At least the U.S. said it supported the Free Syrian Army, although the Free Syrian Army could be forgiven for thinking this support was mostly verbal. In addition, Russian air support aided Assad’s regime to recapture a lot of ground from the Free Syrian Army in Southwestern Syria just south of Damascus.

It would appear the Russians have been paying considerably more attention to the Free Syrian Army than to ISIS, although as shown in the map above the Russians have been pounding ISIS to some extent, particularly around Deir ez-Zour in Eastern Syria. In addition to the Russians, the Assad regime has been getting assistance from Hezbollah fighters, Afghan allies of Iran, and Iraqi Shiite militia, all led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force from Iran.

Nevertheless, the war between the various combatants is largely stalemated, with advances by the regime small compared to the total field of combat. A large part of the reason for this is the parlous condition of Assad’s Syrian Army after five years of combat. Julien Barnes-Dacey, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a February 2016 report, Aleppo under siege,

And the regime is not on the verge of outright victory. Certainly, the Russian-facilitated advance has made a huge difference, consolidating the regime’s position and putting it back on the offensive. The removal of Assad in the near future, whether militarily or politically, is now off the table – whatever Western diplomats may choose to read into Russian messaging suggesting greater flexibility over his position during recent ISSG talks. For Russia and Iran alike, Assad remains the immediate guarantor of their interests, even if they are not tied to him for the long term. … But still, Assad’s forces remain over-stretched and it is not clear that the regime has the resources to maintain activities on multiple fronts, let alone engage in a long siege of Aleppo or move towards actually taking control of the city. 

There is one additional notable change in Syria brought about by the introduction of Russian forces: a Russian alliance with Syrian Kurds in Kurdish-held parts of northern Syria. The Kurdish YPG militia holds the areas of Syria colored purple in the map above, and has just opened an overseas representative office in Moscow. Although an alliance with the YPG could be of great assistance to Assad, particularly in fighting ISIS, such an alliance also presents a great danger of worsening already very bad Turkish-Russian relations. The Turks believe the Kurdish YPG are direct off-shoots of their very own Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK. The PKK has restarted an insurgency against the Turkish government since last summer. Turkey’s president, Recap Tayip Erdogan, says he will never tolerate a de facto Kurdish state in Syria. He so dislikes Kurds of any persuasion he thinks nothing of directing artillery fire on the YPG across the Turkey-Syria border. With Turkey favoring the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army, and with Russia and Assad favoring the Kurds, there is a very real possibility of all-out war between Turkey and Russia – and Assad’s regime as well of course, but they do not count for much. The fact Turkey is a full member of NATO means all the other members of NATO – including the United States – would be obligated to help defend Turkey.

What Russia Has Left in Syria

There is a very real question of just how much the Russians have pulled from Syria. On the very first day on which Putin declared a partial withdrawal, some Russian aircraft and crews had left from the Hmeymim air base at Latakia. There are indications that while Russia has pulled Su-25 close air support planes, which look somewhat like the U.S. Warthog (even with only a single tail and engines under the wing), and Su-34 fighter-bombers, the Russians will be leaving

some SU-24 fighter-bombers, Mi-24 and Mi-35 attack helicopters, and Su-30SM and Su-35 multirole fighters.

The aircraft that remain will continue operations, and have already been used in operations to support Syrian Army attacks to retake Palmyra from the Islamic State. According to the Pentagon, this is the very first time Russia is focusing predominantly on ISIS.

In addition, the Russian military remains very much in control of both the Hmeymim airbase and the Naval base at Tartus. Taking all of this into account, it would appear the Russian withdrawal from Syria is more of a rumor than an actuality. The Russian changes are more a restructuring of forces than a major redeployment.

What Is Russia’s Game?

So in announcing a partial “withdrawal” from Syria, what was Putin trying to accomplish? With the job of safeguarding the Assad regime not even half done, Putin is definitely not thinking about simply declaring victory and going home. The Russian situation in Syria is not anywhere close to the nightmarish quagmire President Obama foretold. Instead, Putin’s plans for outposts on the eastern Mediterranean appear to be rolling along unhindered.

Initially while thinking about Putin’s motives, I thought he might just be displaying the stresses of a very poorly behaving Russian economy on his military effort, much as I discussed in Achilles Heel of Autocrats: Their Economy. There may indeed  be some of that effect on what Russia is doing. One reason for a commander to restructure forces in one theater is to economize on the use of assets to provide them in other theaters. However, this restructuring looks more like tailoring forces more to the task at hand.  For all the hullabaloo in the media about the Russian withdrawal, I do not believe anything fundamentally different has happened.

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