What Brezhnev Era Soviet Military Thinking Can Tell Us about Syria Now

I spent almost two years from the latter part of 1979 to the latter part of 1981 writing my Ph.D. dissertation on Soviet military thinking about conflict in the Third World during the Brezhnev era. A revised version of the dissertation was published in 1982 as a book (my first!): The Third World in Soviet Military Thought.

Because this was a topic of great importance at the time, my book received a fair amount of attention when it first came out. After Gorbachev began the Soviet withdrawal from the Third World, however, the subject of this book became less important. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the Yeltsin-era retreat from engagement in the Third World, the book became largely irrelevant for understanding ongoing international relations.

Putin, of course, has pursued a more active foreign policy toward what used to be known as the Third World, but not really a more active military one. To my amazement, though, a paperback version of The Third World in Soviet Military Thought was published in June 2013. However, with a list price of $44.95, I don’t anticipate that there will be many who will buy and read it.

But I did. It seemed like a journey back to a distant time. The book focuses on subjects that were of importance to Soviet military thinkers then. Many of these—such as the categorization of wars in ideological terms (including wars between imperialism and socialism, civil wars between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, wars between bourgeois states, national liberation wars)—now appear quaint and irrelevant for understanding today’s (and perhaps even yesterday’s) world.

There was, however, one theme discussed back then by Soviet military thinkers that impressed me as being highly relevant for understanding certain conflicts now—especially the one in Syria. Some of the Brezhnev era Soviet military thinkers were making a genuine effort to accurately understand the new types of conflict that were then occurring. One of these they termed: wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction. What they understood about these conflicts between a dictatorial regime and its opponents was that they were not conflicts between two parties, but among three. Here’s what I wrote in my book’s conclusion about the implications of their envisioning these conflicts in this way:

“In wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction…[b]oth communists and non-communists united to fight the dictatorship, with each group hoping later to establish its preferred form of government (dictatorship of the proletariat or republican democracy). The communists in such a civil war may well initially be a relatively small and weak group compared to the non-communists fighting the dictatorship. However…the communists stand a good chance of eventually coming to power despite their initially weak position. For while the United States is supporting the dictatorship, the Soviet Union will support the communists, making them stronger compared to the non-communist opposition….When the dictatorship eventually falls, the communists are often in a position to take power since they have received outside support from the USSR and its allies while the non-communists have received nothing…. Either of these could come to power, and so Soviet support of the communists increases the communists’ chances of actually doing so. The Americans, of course, also have the opportunity of supporting the non-communist opposition, but because of the rigidity of American thinking, the U.S. does not do this. This is an error that the Soviets can take advantage of.” (pp. 129-30)

While re-reading what I had written over thirty years ago, it struck me that the same logic—with updated terms—could be used for understanding the current conflict in Syria: In wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction, both radicals and moderates unite to fight the dictatorship, with each group hoping later to establish its preferred form of government (radical Islamist rule or some form of democracy). The radicals in such a civil war may well initially be a relatively small and weak group compared to the moderates fighting the dictatorship. However, the radicals stand a good chance of eventually coming to power despite their initially weak position. For while some external forces are supporting the dictatorship, others will support the radicals, making them stronger compared to the moderate opposition. When the dictatorship eventually falls, the radicals are often in a position to take power since they have received outside support from their allies while the moderates have received nothing. Either of these could come to power, and so external support of the radicals increases their chances of actually doing so. The Americans, of course, also have the opportunity of supporting the moderate opposition, but because of the rigidity of American thinking, the U.S. does not do this. This is an error that the radicals can take advantage of.

There are, of course, some important differences between the conflicts that Soviet military thinkers were describing back in the 1970s and Syria now. Back then, it was the U.S. supporting regimes of extreme reaction whereas now it is Russia and Iran who are doing so. Also back then, it was the Soviets and their allies who were supporting the radical opposition whereas now it is Sunnis outside Syria that are doing so. But both then and now, the U.S. did or is doing little or nothing to support the moderate opposition.

There are other similarities between then and now: the U.S. was and is reticent to support the moderates for fear that they may actually be radicals. External radical forces, by contrast, always seem able to distinguish between their allies and rivals within the internal opposition fighting against the dictatorship.

Studying what Brezhnev era Soviet military thinkers had to say about conflicts between the people and a regime of extreme actions has lessons that both Washington and Moscow would do well to heed.

For Washington: If external support goes to the radical opposition but not to the moderate opposition, then the radical opposition will be in a stronger position to take power after the dictatorship falls.

For Moscow: Supporting regimes of extreme reaction is a losing proposition since (as Brezhnev era Soviet military thinkers clearly understood) they are “doomed to failure.”

And for both: Moscow’s support for a regime doomed to failure and America’s unwillingness to support the moderate opposition in Syria only increases the likelihood that it is the radical opposition that will eventually prevail there.

Finally, I cannot help but note: since at least part of this 1982 book of mine does seem to be useful for understanding the present, surely it was prescient of my publisher to bring it out in paperback now!

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Syria: What Can Obama Be Thinking?

Far from being on the verge of collapse as many in the West and the Arab World had hoped, it now appears that the Assad regime in Syria has gained the upper hand against its internal opponents.  With Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese Shi’a movement Hezbollah all strongly backing Assad while the opposition is only receiving mainly light arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, perhaps this was inevitable.  The European Union allowed its arms embargo on Syria to lapse and could now aid the Syrian opposition, but it seems unlikely that any European government will do so unless the U.S. takes the lead.

So far, though, the Obama Administration has refused to provide the Syrian opposition with anything but non-lethal support.  Considering that the Assad regime is a brutal dictatorship based on Syria’s Alawite minority which has long oppressed the majority of the population, is virulently anti-Israeli and anti-Western, and is a close ally of Iran’s, it would seem that actively supporting the Syrian opposition’s efforts to bring about the downfall of the regime would be in the interests of America, its allies, the majority of Syrians, and humanity in general.  Why, then, has Obama not done so?

It may be that President Obama’s approach toward Syria is guided by a cautious logic that includes the following elements:  First, Obama wishes to avoid the possibility of getting the U.S. mired in a long, inconclusive, and costly military conflict in Syria such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Obama, after all, did not withdraw American forces from Iraq and arrange for their withdrawal by the end of 2014 from Afghanistan just to send them into a similar situation in Syria.

Second, while the Assad regime is indeed truly awful, it is not clear that its downfall will lead to the rise of anything better.  Indeed, Sunni radicals appear to be playing an increasingly dominant role within the fractured Syrian opposition.  The Obama Administration understandably wants to avoid undertaking any action that leads to the replacement of the Assad dictatorship with a radical Sunni one.

Third, while it is unfortunate that Russia is backing Assad so strongly, the Obama Administration has good reasons to avoid offending Moscow over Syria.  With the souring of Pakistani-American relations as well as continued instability inside Pakistan, the U.S. is highly dependent on cooperation from Russia in order to safely extract American troops and equipment from Afghanistan via the Northern Distribution Network.  Further, the Obama Administration still hopes to persuade Moscow to more fully join in Western-sponsored efforts to induce Iran to halt its worrisome nuclear efforts.  Russian-American differences over Syria are simply not as important as the need for Russian-American cooperation on Afghanistan and Iran, as well as the need for Russian-American cooperation more generally.

Yet while it is a cautious logic such as the one outlined here that may underlie Obama’s unwillingness to get the U.S. involved in Syria, it is also possible that his decision-making is informed by a more Machiavellian logic which includes considerations such as:

First, even if the Assad regime is now doing better vis-à-vis its opponents than previously, it is probably not going to be able to vanquish them completely.  Continued support from Moscow and Tehran to Damascus will not only increase Sunni Arab and Muslim hostility toward Russia and Iran, but also be a continuous drain on the resources of these two American adversaries.  It is better for the U.S. that Russian and Iranian resources be expended in Syria, and not America’s.

Second, while there may have been past instances in which the Shi’a fundamentalist Iranian government and the Sunni radical Al Qaeda (or its affiliates) have cooperated against the U.S. in the past, in Syria they are on opposite sides.  Iran has sent both men and materiel in support of the Assad regime.  The Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front is one of the most effective groups fighting against Assad.  America and its allies benefit from the fact that Iran and the Al Nusra Front are at cross purposes in Syria.  This conflict between them also increases the prospects that Iran and Al Qaeda-linked groups will be in conflict elsewhere.

Third, the broader Sunni-Shi’a division over Syria has already yielded some important positive results.  Sunni Arab public opinion, which once lauded the Lebanese Shi’a movement Hezbollah for opposing Israel, now reviles it for supporting Assad.  The Arab League (consisting mainly of predominantly Sunni-led governments) has recently condemned Hezbollah for supporting Assad.  Similarly, Iran has dramatically cut back its funding for the predominantly Sunni Palestinian opposition movement, Hamas, because of the latter’s support for the Syrian opposition.  Both of these developments benefit America and its allies.

Finally, the shale revolution in North America means that the U.S. will become much less dependent on petroleum supplies from the Middle East.  To the extent that the U.S. and Canada can export their non-traditional petroleum resources or America’s allies in Europe and elsewhere develop their own, then they too will be less dependent on the Middle East.  There will, thus, simply be less need for the U.S. to concern itself as much with events in this turbulent region in the future than there was during the past several decades.  In fact, if turbulence in the Middle East leads to higher petroleum prices, this will hasten the development of more expensive North American petroleum resources that the previous availability of relatively cheap-to-produce Middle Eastern oil has done much to prevent.

What is interesting about the cautious and the Machiavellian foreign policy logics vis-à-vis Syria outlined here is that they are by no means mutually exclusive—especially regarding the question of American intervention or greater involvement.  While the cautious logic seeks to avoid the problems that could arise from greater American involvement in Syria, the Machiavellian one seeks to exploit the problems that Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda  are experiencing (or are likely to) as a result of their involvement there.

Could it be, then, that the Obama Administration is pursuing both the cautious and the Machiavellian logics toward Syria simultaneously?  Is Obama’s avowal of a cautious foreign policy toward Syria merely a cover for the pursuit of a more Machiavellian one that he does not want to acknowledge publicly?

This seems highly unlikely.  Obama’s aversion to intervention appears to be something deep-rooted.  The problems resulting from America’s involvement in Vietnam taught him at a young age that military intervention is highly problematic.  Iraq and Afghanistan only served to confirm this view.  And while Obama did countenance American participation in the multilateral intervention in Libya in 2011, the limits he placed on American involvement at the time showed just how uncomfortable he was with this operation.  Further, the messiness of the post-Qaddafi Libyan political scene may have only raised doubts in his mind about whether any better outcome would occur in Syria if America took steps to bring down the Assad regime there.

Obama, then, probably believes in the efficacy of the cautious foreign policy logic vis-à-vis Syria, and is highly likely to continue pursuing it.  His doing so, however increases the risk that the minority Alawite dictatorship remains in power in much (if not all) of Syria and wreaks brutal retaliation upon the Sunni majority; the Sunni majority blames America and the West for not helping them when they could have, and so falls increasingly under the sway of radical groups linked to Al Qaeda; and Sunni-Shi’ite conflict intensifies in and spreads to other countries of the region.

If this is what Obama’s pursuit of a cautious foreign policy logic toward Syria leads to, then the next American president may have to pursue the Machiavellian logic of playing on differences among America’s adversaries in the region while working to end American and Western dependence on Middle Eastern petroleum not because he or she wants to, but because these will be the best of the bad options remaining for American foreign policy in this region.

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Is Moscow Shifting on Syria?

While still firmly opposed to any form of Western military intervention in Syria, there have recently been signs that Moscow is trying to dissociate itself from the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Although Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov stated on November 6 in Amman, Jordan that, “we have no plans to change” Russian foreign policy toward Syria, three days later an unnamed “high-level” Russian diplomatic source told the Russian daily newspaper Izvestia that “Assad’s departure” was one possible outcome of the ongoing conflict.

During Lavrov’s visit to Saudi Arabia on November 15, he insisted that, “Russia does not defend Assad.”  He also stated that the Syrian internal opposition should be involved in the settlement process in Syria.  In his press conference in Riyadh, he noted that, “We…advocate the unification of the Syrian opposition and we are meeting with all its representatives—of the internal and external opposition.”

Lavrov further stated on November 28 in Moscow that, “Russia’s involvement in the armed conflict is just out of the question.”

It has not just been the Russian foreign minister who has made statements such as these.  In his December 3 visit to Turkey, President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia and Turkey have differences over Syria, but insisted that, “We [the Russians] are not attorneys of Syria’s current government.”

Statements such as these from Russia’s top leadership can hardly be welcome to the Assad regime and its supporters in Syria.  Even less so was the statement reported by The Moscow Times by Russian Middle East expert Alexander Shumilin that, “Putin likely traveled to Istanbul with a serious proposal, possibly including the evacuation of Syrian President Bashar Assad to Russia.”

What explains this increasing Russian diffidence toward the Assad regime?  There are several possible factors.  One is an increasing sense in Moscow that the Assad regime is going to collapse at some point in the near future.  While Moscow may not welcome this, it will want to try to establish good working relations with a new Syrian government in order to retain Russia’s naval facilities at Tartus, arms contracts, petroleum investments and other interests in Syria.

Another factor is that the Obama Administration (I was told by a senior Defense Department official) has launched a quiet diplomatic campaign to persuade Moscow that Washington is willing to allow Russia to retain its military and economic interests in Syria after the downfall of Assad.  While such assurances are not binding on a new Syrian government, Moscow does not have to fear that the U.S. will actively attempt to exploit the downfall of Assad to expel Russia from Syria.

In addition, Moscow has grown increasingly concerned (as Russian observers have noted) about the highly negative impact that the Kremlin’s support for Assad has had on Russia’s image in Arab and other Muslim countries.  Lavrov’s November visits to Jordan and Saudi Arabia in particular appear aimed at restoring the cooperative relations that Moscow had built up with these two governments before the Syrian uprising.  Similarly, the hope expressed by Putin and Turkish President Erdogan that Russian-Turkish bilateral trade would grow from an already large $32 billion last year to an ambitious “$100 billion in a year” is an indication that they have no intention of allowing differences over Syria to undermine this profitable prospect.

These changes in the Russian approach toward Syria do not mean that Moscow is about to repudiate Assad and join with America and others in actively seeking his ouster.  What they do suggest, though, is that Moscow is now more realistically assessing the prospects for the survival of the Assad regime, and is more pragmatically preparing to pursue Russian interests in both in Syria and the broader region in the increasingly likely event that Assad does fall.

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The “Yemen Solution” Won’t Work in Syria

After Russia joined the rest of the Security Council in condemning Syrian government forces for killing so many people in Houla, hope has arisen in the West that Moscow can now be enlisted to bring about a resolution to the ongoing crisis in Syria in a manner similar to what occurred in Yemen.  As the headline of a May 26 New York Times article put it, the “U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out with Russia’s Aid.”  Such expectations, though, are utterly misplaced.  Moscow is neither willing nor able to persuade Syria’s President Assad to step down like Yemen’s President Saleh did at the beginning of 2012.

There are several reasons for this.  First of all, there is one extremely important difference between Yemen and Syria.  One of the reasons why President Saleh stepped down was because he was severely injured in June 2011 and has had to spend long periods of time outside his country for medical treatment since then.  He has simply not had the strength to rule as he had previously.  President Assad, by contrast, has not been injured and is able to continue devoting his full attention to remaining in power.

Second, Russia did not play a significant role in the transition from Saleh to his vice president in Yemen.  It was the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries—especially Saudi Arabia—that were the most important external powers that facilitated this.  Some in the West hope that because Russia provides important support to Damascus, Moscow is in a position to persuade Assad to step down like Saleh did.  Leaving aside whether the Putin administration would even be willing to try doing this, it is by no means certain that Moscow has the ability to do so.  Russia, after all, is not the Syrian regime’s only external supporter.  Iran is another—and an arguably more important one.  Tehran will back Assad whether or not Moscow continues to do so.  Moscow understandably fears that if it tries to persuade Assad to step down at the West’s behest, Damascus will simply expel the Russians from their naval base in Tartus and turn all the more toward Iran and possibly China.

Third, the Western expectation that Russia will now seek political change in Syria because it is somehow embarrassed by the number of people that the Assad regime has killed is completely unrealistic.  It must not be forgotten during Putin’s first term as president, Russian security forces killed over 150 people to end the Chechen takeover of a Moscow theatre in 2002, and over 380 people to end the Beslan hostage crisis in 2004.  The Putin administration, then, does not share Western outrage over the killing of large numbers of civilians, but sees this as just part of the cost of defeating armed opponents.  Moscow’s support for the Security Council condemnation of Syrian actions does not signal that it is moving toward the Western view of the Syrian government, but may instead be an attempt to show the West that Moscow is “reasonable,” and that its prevention of Security Council action against the Assad regime is not partisan but “considered” and “balanced.”

Finally, the “Yemen solution” doesn’t seem likely to work in Syria when it hasn’t even worked out yet in Yemen itself.  It is true that Saleh stepped down, but much of his regime remains intact.  His son is still in command of (partly thanks to American support) the best armed and trained security force in the country.  Although the new president has dismissed some of them, Saleh loyalists remain in many key positions.  Whether there will be a true political transformation in Yemen, then, remains to be seen.

At least in Yemen the armed forces are divided with important elements supporting the transition.  In Syria, though, the leadership of the armed forces largely belongs to the same minority Alawite sect as the Assad family.  Even if Assad steps down, then, the security forces will act to preserve Alawite minority rule in Syria.  Indeed, the Alawite leaders of the military and security forces very much fear that they will be treated much like they have treated the Sunni majority if the latter ever comes to power, and thus are determined to prevent it from doing so.

 The “Yemen solution,” then, is simply not an option for Syria.  Russian leaders are undoubtedly aware of this, even if their Western counterparts are not.

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Do Russia and America Really Disagree on Syria?

While America (along with many others in the West and the Arab World) have called for the imposition of UN Security Council economic sanctions against Syria’s Assad regime, Russia (along with China) had blocked them.  This is just one more sign that Syria is becoming an increasingly serious bone of contention between Washington and Moscow.

But is it really?  The level of Russian-American recrimination over Syria has certainly increased dramatically.  The Kremlin, however, may have several reasons to believe that the Obama Administration does not actually want to see the downfall of the Assad regime—and that Washington thus finds Russia’s opposition to Security Council resolutions against Syria, which the U.S. supports publicly, to be quite useful.  There are three reasons why Moscow might well think this:

First, America’s ally, Israel, is extremely wary of what the downfall of the Assad regime would mean for it.  Israeli leaders are fearful that the Arab Spring will not result in a friendly democratic government, but a hostile Sunni radical regime arising in Syria instead.  And Israel, as Moscow well knows, has considerable influence in Washington.  An Interfax report of February 15 about Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov’s consultations with Israeli Foreign Ministry and National Security Council officials suggested that Russia and Israel do not disagree on Syria.  Indeed, Gatilov’s insistence that the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict “should not be neglected amid political changes ongoing in the Arab world” is a viewpoint that the Israeli government strongly agrees with.

Second, the Obama Administration has made clear that it does not want to intervene militarily in Syria.  Obama has withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq and has announced that they will leave Afghanistan in 2014.  Although Moscow loudly complained about the degree of U.S. intervention that took place in Libya last year, it undoubtedly saw that Obama, under the guise of “leading from behind,” handed the mission off to Britain and France as soon as he could.  Especially in an election year, Obama does not want to risk getting bogged down in a conflict in Syria.  Republican politicians on the campaign trail might say that they are willing to intervene—but when it comes down to making a decision to do so would probably be even more sensitive than the Obama Administration to Israeli concerns about destabilizing Syria.

Third, however effective they sometimes may be in the long run, the Russians are well aware that economic sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council are unable to induce authoritarian rulers to halt the use of force against their opponents in the short run.  Therefore, they regard the call by the U.S. and other governments for economic sanctions against Syria as being largely symbolic and not substantive.  By Washington calling for economic sanctions and not military intervention, Moscow understands that the U.S. wants to be seen as “doing something” about Syria when in fact it really does not want to do anything.

It was not surprising, then, that Sergey Karaganov, chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, told Interfax on February 10 that, “It is the Sunni Arab regimes, and not the West…who are trying to ‘overturn’ Syria.”

For if the U.S. was serious about toppling the Assad regime, Russian observers have noted, it would assemble a “coalition of the willing” to intervene in Syria without waiting for UN Security Council approval—just as it did in Kosovo during the Clinton Administration and Iraq during the Bush Administration.  A Nezavisimaya gazeta editorial of February 14 speculated that if Russia and China had vetoed the UN Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya last year instead of abstaining on it, the U.S. and some of its allies would have intervened anyway.

While fully aware that Russia cannot block the U.S. from taking stronger measures to oust the Assad regime, Moscow is happy that the Obama Administration cites Russian (and Chinese) opposition as an excuse for not doing so.  For this public American deference makes Russia (and China) appear stronger and more influential than if the U.S. acted unilaterally instead.

This Russian view of the Obama Administration’s policy toward the Syrian crisis is highly cynical.  Most unfortunately, it may also be highly accurate.

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