حرب بوتين في سوريا السياسة الخارجية الروسية وثمن الغياب الأمريكي

by Anna Borshchevskaya, قيس قاسم العجرش (ترجمة)

ماذا يحصل حين تنسحب الولايات المتحدة من المنطقة ؟
إن حرب بوتين في سوريا ، وحصول روسيا لأوّل مرة على قواعد بحرية ثابتة ودائمة في طرطوس واللاذقية ، هو الاعلان الرسمي عن انتهاء عصر القوة الامريكية المتفردة .
حتى إسرائيل بدأت تتعامل بطريقة عملية وواقعية مع هذا الغياب الاميركي في مقابل الوجود الروسي .
بوتين لا ينطلق من أحلام دكتاتور ، انما هي الروح الروسية المستندة الى ارثوذوكسية لها جذر في الشرق الاوسط ، وتوق لمقاومة الخنق والوصول الى المياه الدافئة ، اقتضت مصلحة موسكو أن يبقى بشار الاسد ، لان أهداف روسيا أكبر بكثير من يعرقلها الفراغ المحتمل الذي لا تعير له واشنطن أي اهتمام

Genres: Russia, History, Middle East, War, American, Politics

380 pages, Paperback

Published August 11, 2022

About the author

Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute's Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, focusing on Russia's policy toward the Middle East. In addition, she is a contributor to Oxford Analytica. She was previously with the Atlantic Council and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. A former analyst for a U.S. military contractor in Afghanistan, she has also served as communications director at the American Islamic Congress and was a fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy. Her analysis is published widely in publications such as Foreign Affairs, The Hill, The New Criterion, and Middle East Quarterly, as well as peer-reviewed journals. She is the author of the 2021 book, Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence (I.B. Tauris, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing). Until recently, she conducted translation and analysis for the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office and its flagship publication, Operational Environment Watch, and wrote a foreign affairs column for Forbes. She is the author of the February 2016 Institute monograph, Russia in the Middle East. She holds a doctorate from George Mason University.

Education
PhD, George Mason University; MA, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); BA, State University of New York at Geneseo.

Reviews

[Steffi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I clicked 'order book' a little too fast here but, obviously, I am quite interested in the subject matter of the very recently published book 'Putin's War In Syria. Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence' (IB Tauris, 2022) by Anna Borshchevskaya.

Actually, the sub title says it all 'the price of America's absence'. I know my foreign policy leanings are probably unbearably simplistic anti-imperialist and full of cliché anti-Americanism rhetoric (happy to admit as much) but can we all agree that the problem of the Middle East is NOT America's absence. lol.

The author is a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy so that should have been another clue as to what to expect. I am reading plenty of these ever same think tank papers, always calling in one way or another for greater US involvement vis-a-vis this or that evil to bring peace and prosperity to the world. So there wasn't really that much new stuff in here. It's this kind of horrid 'International Relations' analysis that manages to ignore the political economy context entirely and reduces foreign policy to the machinations of a bunch of evil power hungry guys and 'rogue states' that need to be dealt with by the free world!

So, all in all a little disappointing but here and there some interesting facts while I don't share the overall premise of the book. Chapter 6 included some interesting stuff on Russia's actual military campaign in Syria starting in 2015 (for a self-proclaimed pacifist, I am quite interested in military strategy) and the following chapters on Russian diplomacy, including chapters on Moscow's relationships with Israel, Turkey and Iran, respectively. I am not going to really comment on any of this for the time being.

It remains difficult to make sense of the Syrian crisis and this one-dimensional pro US 'rules-based international order' that is the premise of this book isn't able to address the complexity. The most enlightening analysis of the crisis I have read so far is Christopher Philipps 'The Battle for Syria' (2016) and literally anything by Joseph Daher - but, sure, it doesn't hurt to add to the various layers of understanding a deep dive on the Russian perspective.

[Steve Hahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was hoping for more. Some interesting facts/ insights here and there but didn’t paint the picture , for me anyway, of the grand strategy. And how that grand strategy acts or reacts with the rest of the world.

The book could have used a good edit or two to correct spelling and grammar in many spots.

Overall interesting and glad I read this book.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book looking at Russian involvement in the Middle East more generally, and at its involvement in Afghanistan during the 1980s and Syria during the 2010s. The first half of the book sets the stage with an in-depth history of Russian involvement in the region going back to the Tsars. The second half of the book concentrates on Russian involvement in Syria, and is more tactical. The book is useful for anyone interested in either history or contemporary politics in the Middle East or the post-Soviet space.

[Usman Butt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It turned out that Syria is our sacred land," wrote a Russian blogger sarcastically in 2016 following attempts by some public figures to recast Syria as part of Russia following Moscow's military intervention in the country's civil war in 2015. Before then, the idea of Syria being part of the Russian homeland would have seemed absurd to most of us, but as part of the propaganda effort to drum up support for Russia's Mediterranean war "narratives emerged that Syria is intrinsically connected to the very creation of Russia," writes Anna Borshchevskaya in Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence.

Indeed, according to Russian parliamentarian Semyon Bagdasarov, "If there was no Syria, there would be no Russia." The first monks in Russia were Syrian by birth, he told state television, and without them there would be no Orthodox Church upon which the Russians base their historic identity. Whether or not Bagdasarov's claim has any merit, it underscores the point that Russia regards Syria as being very important for its national security.

We in the West tend to misunderstand Russia's strategic culture. Analysts assume that Russia is fixated only with Western Europe and the United States, but while relations with the West are key for Moscow, it worries equally, if not more, about its so-called "soft underbelly" in Central Asia and the Middle East.


Borshchevskaya notes that Russia's interests in the Middle East are rooted deeply and are not merely a product of relatively recent events. Russia clashed constantly with Persia and the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, in 1770 after defeating the Ottoman navy, Russia captured and occupied Beirut briefly. For Russia, the Middle East and Central Asia are connected to the country's identity.

Unlike Britain and France, whose empires were completely detached both physically and metaphorically, Russia's imperial expansion was mostly at the cost of its neighbours' independence. Thus the empire was Russia and Russia could not exist without it. This characteristic difference has led to the development of a strategic culture where the line between offensive and defensive warfare is at best blurred. Such matters need to be considered, says Borshchevskaya, when thinking about Russia's actions in Syria.


Playing off the US failure to intervene against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, and trying to achieve great power status in the eyes of Washington in the process, is a key motivation for Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, Moscow has been keen not to repeat its past mistakes. When Russia entered the Syrian conflict, US officials claimed that it would be another Afghanistan for the Kremlin. However, as Borshchevskaya points out, the same officials failed to consider what Russia had learnt from its Afghan invasion and occupation in the 1980s; the goal in Syria was to save the Assad regime, but not at any price. Moscow opted to focus on air and naval power with a limited number of boots on the ground, leaving that to Iran and its militia proxies. Moreover, Russian army officers rotated with their Syrian counterparts so that they could learn about the dynamics of the ground war at first hand. This approach allowed Moscow to sustain its campaign in Syria and avoid a repeat of Afghanistan.

Syria is not yesterday's issue, as Borshchevskaya warns: "A more explicit Russia-Iran-Assad nexus will only hurt Western interests beyond the Middle East. And Syria will remain a driver of regional and international instability for the foreseeable future." Her book is well-written, well-researched and well worth a read, because it provides us with useful insights into Russia's strategic thinking and what Syria means to Putin, although I think that she could have offered more about the internal clashes between pro-Iran and pro-Russia militias in Syria, as well as the tensions between Moscow, Damascus and Tehran.

Nevertheless, Putin's War… should be essential reading for policymakers and anyone interested in regional and global issues. It provides a much broader context than usual, and an important analytical framework which can only enrich discussions on foreign affairs.