Post-Putin Russia: Five Potential Pathways

Just as it is uncertain when Putin’s hold on power will come to an end, it is also uncertain how much or even whether Russia will change after it does. This article will explore the likelihood of five possible post-Putin pathways for Russia: 1) Putinism without Putin; 2) democratization; 3) prudent authoritarianism; 4) Chinese overlordship; and 5) the breakup of Russia.

Read the full article at: https://www.e-ir.info/2023/07/04/post-putin-russia-five-potential-pathways/#google_vignette

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The Russo-Ukrainian War of Attrition: How Will It End?

Russian president Vladimir Putin appears to have initially calculated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine which he launched in February 2022 would quickly result in the surrender or even downfall of the Zelenskyy government. This did not happen due to fierce resistance on the part of Ukraine and large-scale Western (especially American) arms transfers to Ukraine. Six months on, the war has become a grinding war of attrition. As Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged, Russian forces occupy approximately 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. But while Western-backed Ukrainian forces may prevent the Russians from making further advances, Kyiv appears unlikely to be able to push Putin’s forces back over the border into Russia either. Neither side, though, seems ready for a ceasefire, and so the war continues on—perhaps for months or even years.

Eventually, though, wars do come to an end. How might this one do so? Read the full article at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/russo-ukrainian-war-attrition-how-will-it-end-204435

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Putin’s Persian Pilgrimage: Some Prayers Answered, Others Not

On July 19, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Tehran with Iran’s top two leaders—Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi—as well as with President Recep Tayyib Erdogan of Turkiye (the new official name for Turkey).  While Putin’s interaction with the Iranian leaders was largely successful, his dealings with Erdogan were less so. 

At the summit, Putin received a wholehearted endorsement of his war effort in Ukraine from Supreme Leader Khamenei, who stated, “In the case of Ukraine, had you not taken the initiative, the other side would have taken the initiative and caused the war. NATO would know no bounds if the way was open to it. And if it was not stopped in Ukraine, it would start the same war some time later using Crimea as a pretext.” 

With this statement as well as reports that Iran is not only selling drones to Russia but also providing training on how to use them, Iran has now become closely associated with Putin’s war effort against Ukraine. 

Yet despite Khamenei’s endorsement of Putin’s war, Iran has been hurt since it began by Moscow selling Western-sanctioned Russian oil at an even steeper discount than Iran had been doing, taking market share away from Iran in both China and India in particular.  Moscow, though, has sought to mitigate the losses it has imposed on Iran through a deal whereby Gazprom will invest $40 billion in the Iranian energy sector which was announced at the Tehran summit.  Whether Gazprom can make good on this promise, however, remains to be seen.

Iranian government officials had previously made statements which steered a more even-handed position on the war in Ukraine, calling for its peaceful resolution.  But if Raisi ever had had any hope of playing Russia and the West off against each other, like Turkiye’s President Erdogan has done, Khamenei appears to have foreclosed this possibility.  Then again, Khamenei may have made his statement because the U.S. recently increased sanctions on Iran aimed at limiting its ability to sell Iranian oil even though the West is desperately seeking extra supplies to replace the Russian oil that it is no longer buying.  Whatever the reason for Khamenei’s endorsement of his war effort against Ukraine, Putin has cause to be pleased with it.

Putin, though, does not appear to have been pleased with his interactions with Turkish President Erdogan.  In addition to their bilateral meetings in Tehran, the three presidents held a meeting of of the Astana Forum—the ongoing Russian-Iranian-Turkish effort to resolve the conflict in Syria which excludes America and the West.  The Russian news agency, TASS, made clear before the summit that Russia hopes to dissuade Erdogan from undertaking a military move against Kurdish forces inside Syria which Erdogan had signaled that he would do.  Erdogan was unsuccessful in gaining Russian and Iranian support for a Turkish incursion against the Syrian Kurds, but indicated that he might militarily intervene in Syria anyway. 

One of Putin’s goals for the summit was to show that despite the war in Ukraine, Russia will continue to play the role that it has been playing in Syria.  Erdogan’s unwillingness to back down from his threats to intervene in Syria against Kurdish forces there, however, indicates that he may see Putin’s preoccupation with Ukraine as creating an opportunity for Turkiye to act in Syria. 

Putin’s visible discomfort with Erdogan’s keeping him waiting in Tehran (apparently in retaliation for Putin’s having kept Erdogan waiting at a previous meeting) was an indicator that there is some tension between the Russian and Turkish leaders.  Still, Putin may not be willing to do too much to thwart any move Erdogan might make in Syria for fear of driving Turkiye back toward America and Europe, thus undoing the trend toward more contentious Turkish-Western relations that Putin has sought to encourage.  Khamenei may not be willing or able to play Russia and the West off against each other, but Erdogan is. 

Finally, the Tehran summit may have been counterproductive for Putin by showing Israeli and Arab leaders that despite Russian professions of friendship toward them, Israel and the Gulf Arabs cannot count on him. With Iran now supporting Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, it is doubtful that Putin will seriously oppose Iranian hostility toward Israel and the Gulf Arabs.

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Discordant Note? Iranian Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian’s Ambiguous Statement

Before and during the January 19, 2022 summit meeting between Russian President Putin and Iranian President Raisi, the two presidents and top officials from both countries expressed great satisfaction with how close Russian-Iranian relations have grown. Both predicted that they would grow even closer still.  Yet amidst all this bilateral bonhomie, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, made a statement to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that raised doubts about how close the Russian-Iranian relationship is now or will grow in the future.   

According to IRNA, “At the end of his remarks, Amirabdollahian underscored that the Iranian foreign ministry as the country’s diplomatic apparatus is dutybound to defend Iran’s political independence.  He said the policy of ‘No to West, No to East’ lies at the hardcore of Iran’s political independence, stressing that his ministry will zealously pursue the policy of creating a balance in its ties with both western and eastern countries to safeguard the nation’s interests.”  This went well beyond Amirabdollahian’s subsequent, more well publicized statement that Iran would now “consider” direct talks with the U.S. instead of indirect contact via European mediators at the ongoing talks in Vienna about the resumption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the 2015 Iranian accord that the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018 is known. 

What did Amirabdollahian mean by this?  “No to West, No to East,” of course, is similar to the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s, “neither East nor West” dictum.  When Khomeini was alive, though, Tehran was very much at odds with Moscow as well as Washington. Soviet forces were occupying Afghanistan to Iran’s east and Moscow was supporting Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran during most of the 1980s.  So Khomeini’s “neither East nor West” formula made sense back then.  Now, though, Tehran and Moscow are both emphasizing how good their relations are with each other, as well as how bad both their relations are with the United States. 

So why would Amirabdollahian now say, “No to West, No to East,” and stress how his ministry will, “zealously pursue the policy of creating a balance in its ties with both western and eastern countries”? 

Was this an indication of Tehran offering an olive branch to the U.S.?  Or was he referring to the West more broadly?  Perhaps he was referring to the West ex-U.S. (ie, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, etc.)?  In Khomeini’s time during the Cold War, the West unequivocally meant the U.S. and Western Europe while the East meant the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.  Perhaps now, though, Amirabdollahian said, “East,” in reference to China, which has become an economic superpower and is well on its way to becoming a military one.  Russia, of course, is north of Iran, and so Amirabdollahian might not have been referring to it at all here.  But this seems unlikely. 

It is also possible that Amirabdollahian made his “No to West, No to East” statement more in deference to Khomeini’s legacy and did not intend it as a comment on the current state of Russian-Iranian relations. 

But whatever the reason why Amiraabdollahian said what he did, it was probably not what Moscow wanted or even expected to hear him say. 

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Putin’s Best Case Scenario in Ukraine

President Biden has been strongly criticized over his statement that there would be disunity in NATO over a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki sought to “clarify” his remarks by insisting that, “Russian aggression will be met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response.”  But however deplorable many consider Biden’s statement about NATO disunity over a Russian incursion into Ukraine to have been, the truth is that it might be accurate analysis.  Indeed, despite Biden’s warnings of Russia suffering “severe consequences” for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin may well have reason to believe that he will not. 

Predictions about how Russian forces would become bogged down in Ukraine and that the Russian economy would be crippled by increased Western sanctions may more reflect wishful thinking in Washington than reality.  Instead, a Russian invasion of Ukraine might not only be successful in reasserting Moscow’s influence over that country, but in causing serious divisions within the NATO alliance. 

With the buildup of over 100,000 Russian troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine, Putin has obviously lost the possibility of launching a surprise attack.  But a Russian attack on Ukraine with such an overwhelming force might not need surprise in order to prevail.  And if Russian security services somehow manage to set up a replacement or alternative to the existing Ukrainian government (as the British government has warned that Moscow is trying to do, Moscow will not need surprise since that pro-Russian government will invite Russia to intervene and “restore order.” 

The Ukrainian military has greatly improved since Russia first annexed Crimea and intervened in eastern Ukraine in 2014.  But while it might initially put up a valiant fight, it may simply be unable to withstand superior Russian forces.  And Moscow knows that NATO is not going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.  A fast and furious Russian attack, then, may force Kiev to quickly choose between agreeing to peace on Moscow’s terms or risking both the destruction of Ukraine’s army and the loss of even more territory to Russia.  

If Putin intervenes in Ukraine, Washington will indeed impose a raft of sanctions on Russia and insist that its allies—especially those in Europe—join it in doing so.  But Moscow knows that the Europeans are divided on this issue.  While there will undoubtedly be some such as the U.K., Poland and the Baltic states that call for European Union and other sanctions on Russia, many other European countries—especially Germany—may prove unwilling to halt or even lower their purchases of Russian gas when no replacement for it is readily available and winter is upon them.  Neither might they be willing to heed American calls to cut Russia off from the international bank payment system, SWIFT, or seriously curtail their trade with Russia.  

More specifically, Washington will expect Germany to cancel the opening of the now completed but not yet functioning Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline running directly from Russia to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea.  Although the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has recently indicated that he “may consider” halting the Nord Stream 2 project if Russia intervenes in Ukraine, he (as well as many others in Germany) is clearly unenthusiastic about having to do so.  A “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine is likely to increase his unwillingness to halt this expensive project.  Even if Berlin does comply with Washington’s demands to halt Nord Stream 2, Moscow would be pleased by increased German resentment toward the United States over being pushed to take this step. 

In addition, many have predicted that guerrilla resistance against Russian occupation may emerge in Ukraine, and point to how this occurred in Ukraine both during and after World War II.  It should be recalled, though, that Moscow defeated that Ukrainian resistance then, and that it could well do so again now.  Indeed, Moscow may calculate that many Russians and Russified Ukrainians would welcome Russian intervention, and that more nationalist Ukrainians may not prove as willing or able to fight against Moscow’s forces as their forbears did in the World War II era.  Western willingness to support them may also be limited due to the fear of a wider conflict with Russia. Finally, as former U.S. Ambassador James F. Jeffrey of the Wilson Center pointed out, Russia’s willingness to conduct a truly ferocious counter-insurgency campaign against any attempt at armed resistance in Ukraine should not be underestimated. 

In short, Putin may calculate that he can reassert Moscow’s influence over Ukraine quickly, divide Western governments over how to respond, and show the world—including the West itself—how ineffective NATO is. 

Would such calculations by Putin be overly optimistic?  Maybe or maybe not.  Ukraine and Ukrainians, though, will suffer mightily either if these calculations prove accurate or by the effort that will be needed to disprove them if Russia does indeed intervene.

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How Would Brezhnev Have Assessed Putin’s Foreign Policy?

Judged by the foreign policy accomplishments made by the reputedly unsuccessful Brezhnev, Putin’s achievements appear far more modest.

Read the full article at: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-would-brezhnev-have-assessed-putin%E2%80%99s-foreign-policy-188778

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Why Trump’s Approach to Making Deals with America’s Adversaries Has Failed

The recently published memoir by former National Security Advisor John Bolton (The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, Simon & Schuster, 2020) provides an extraordinarily detailed account. In it, Bolton underscores that there have been three main features in Trump’s approach to foreign policy.  First and foremost is that while Donald Trump is both woefully ignorant about international relations and is largely uninterested in learning about the subject, he is unwilling to defer to expert advice on it.  Second is that Trump does not really value America’s traditional allies, and indeed he often sees the democratically elected ones in particular more as adversaries seeking to take advantage of the United States.  Third, while Trump is concerned about how America’s actual adversaries (including Russia) are acting to America’s detriment, he is firmly convinced that he can make mutually advantageous deals with them—and that they are all eager to do so with him.

Bolton deplores all three of these features in Trump’s foreign policy approach.  I certainly agree with him about the first two.  Presidents need to become deeply knowledgeable about foreign affairs since so much of the job requires dealing with this set of issues.  And while presidents should not accept uncritically everything told to them by the foreign policy and intelligence community, they need to recognize and respect the depth of its expertise and have a far more serious reason for rejecting its advice than that their “gut” tells them otherwise, as Trump has all too often done.  In addition, America’s interests are not well served by treating our allies as adversaries.  The world will be a far more difficult place for the U.S. to navigate if democratic governments lose confidence in it.

However, the desire to reach mutually beneficial agreements with America’s adversaries, and convert them into partners or even friends, is not a bad thing.  Further, this is something that previous presidents have done—including Republican ones—and so Trump’s desire to make deals with adversaries is hardly outside the norm of American diplomacy.  But whether or not he should have pursued deals with these particular adversaries (and Bolton is doubtful on this score about most of them), none of Trump’s efforts in this regard have proven to be successful.

Bolton’s account describes Trump’s efforts to “make deals” with six authoritarian adversaries:  Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Iran’s Islamic leadership, elements of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  There was variation, though, in what each of these attempted deals sought to accomplish.  The deal Trump sought with North Korea was a straightforward trade about Pyongyang’s foregoing nuclear weapons in exchange for the U.S. removing economic sanctions.  In Iran’s case, a nuclear deal had already been reached with Tehran by the Obama Administration and five other governments, but Trump withdrew from it and sought a “better deal” over the nuclear issue as well as Iran’s regional behavior in exchange for economic sanctions relief.

The deals Trump sought in Venezuela and Afghanistan, by contrast, related to internal conflict resolution, but in opposite ways.  In Venezuela, Trump sought the negotiated departure of the anti-American president, Nicolas Maduro, through a deal with the leaders of Maduro’s security forces co-opting them to support a transfer of power to the democratic leader, Juan Guaido.  In Afghanistan, by contrast, Trump sought a deal with America’s longtime adversary, the Taliban, in which U.S. forces are reduced and ultimately withdrawn in exchange for this group behaving moderately afterward.

The deal Trump sought with China focused mainly on trade issues, while the one with Russia appeared more a classic great power bargain involving several politico-military issues, but not trade (since there isn’t much between the U.S. and Russia).

In each case, according to Bolton’s account, Trump convinced himself that the top adversary leader or leadership was “dying to do a deal” with him.  Trump even saw his getting tough with them through increased sanctions and other measures as increasing their desire to do so.  Trump also seemed to think that good personal relations with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un in particular would help make this possible.  Much to the disgust of Bolton (a longstanding Iran hawk), Trump repeatedly sought meetings with Iranian leaders, and blamed their unwillingness to meet with him on what he saw as the malign influence of former Senator John Kerry, who had helped negotiate the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord when he was Obama’s Secretary of State.  With regard to Venezuela, Bolton relates how Trump not only had a negative view of the democratic opposition leader Guaido (and of his wife) whom U.S. policy sought to support, he sometimes expressed admiration for Maduro, the authoritarian leader whose departure his administration was seeking.  Bolton also relates with disgust how Trump sought a Camp David meeting between the Taliban and Afghan government leaders whom the Trump Administration had earlier excluded, per the Taliban’s request, from the U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Doha about an American drawdown and withdrawal.

Although he did not say so, what Bolton’s account suggests is that, despite Russian interference in support of Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and Trump’s aversion to criticizing Putin publicly, Trump has not really treated Putin differently than he has America’s other authoritarian adversaries.  Indeed, during the Trump Administration, Washington has increased economic sanctions against Moscow, sent arms to Ukraine, withdrawn from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, and so far refused to extend the New Strategic Arms Treaty (which expires February 2021)—all of which has displeased Putin.  Yet Trump still seems to think that reaching a deal with him is what Putin wants and needs.

Indeed, this is the hallmark of Trump’s approach to authoritarian adversaries:  pile on sanctions and other negative measure, but offer to come to more moderate terms in face-to-face meetings.  Perhaps this is how Trump conducted his private business dealings before he became president, and so believes that this formula would also work for him as president.  And indeed, some authoritarian leaders (Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and most especially Kim Jong-un) have been willing to flatter Trump as well as meet with him.  In addition, some Taliban leaders and (as Bolton relates) some of Maduro’s top security officials have either met or communicated with Trump administration officials.  The Iranian leadership is the outlier in refusing to do so.  But with the partial exception of a partial trade truce with China (which seems shaky), none of these diplomatic forays by Trump have succeeded.

Why is this?  To begin with, personal chemistry (or Trump’s attempted pursuit of it) with authoritarian leaders may be useful in helping reach a deal, but it is not enough to induce leaders to change their long-held views of what their interests are.  Indeed, they may be bold enough to think that the more personal chemistry they build up with Trump, the more likely it is that they can change his mind about them and their countries.

In addition, while Trump himself prioritizes trade issues, America’s authoritarian adversaries often do not.  Trump, then, may think that piling on economic sanctions should be sufficient to induce rational actors to change their policy in order to get them removed, but authoritarian leaders often have other priorities.  Indeed, for some such as Vladimir Putin and the Ayatollahs in Tehran, the prospect of increased trade and other contacts with the U.S. may actually appear more threatening than beneficial since what they really fear is that the U.S. seeks their downfall through increased societal contact which might more easily lead to “color revolution.”

Further, America’s authoritarian adversaries may have good reason not to take Trump’s tough talk seriously after seeing how (as Bolton ruefully pointed out) when Trump was on the point of retaliating militarily against Iran for shooting down a U.S. drone, he suddenly—and with needless publicity—canceled his order to do so.  It is also difficult for them to take Trump’s tough talk seriously when he himself repeatedly raises the prospect of withdrawing U.S. troops from various allied countries in several parts of the world.  In other words, Trump’s talk of withdrawal only shows them that they may not have to make any concessions to Trump to get him to do what they want the U.S. to do anyway.

Finally, given how rudely and disdainfully Trump treats America’s longstanding allies compared to how (relatively) solicitous and accommodating he has been toward America’s adversaries, Trump may unwittingly be giving the latter strong incentive to remain adversaries.  For Trump has given them reason to wonder whether increased cooperation with him will result in his eventually treating his new friends like he does America’s old ones.

Bolton made clear in his memoir that he disagreed with most of Trump’s efforts to make deals with America’s adversaries.  But one does not have to agree with Bolton’s much harsher policy preferences to appreciate how his description of the erratic and idiosyncratic manner in which Trump pursued his hoped for deals with adversaries was self-sabotaging.

Diplomacy is hard enough to succeed at even for those leaders who have a thorough knowledge of international relations.  For those who do not have such knowledge and refuse to take advice from those who do, it is impossible.

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How Putin Views the Iranian Role in Syria: Insights from Bolton’s Memoir

There has been tremendous press coverage about what former National Security Advisor John Bolton had to say about President Trump and other top administration officials in his recently published memoir, The Room Where It Happened.  Bolton’s book, though, also offers insights into the thinking of many others, including numerous foreign leaders.  Especially fascinating is Bolton’s account of his June 27, 2018 meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they discussed (among numerous other subjects) the Iranian role in Syria.

In response to Bolton’s statement of the Trump Administration’s desire to see Iranian forces withdraw from Syria, Putin asked Bolton, “Who would accomplish that?”  Putin then told Bolton to convey the following points to Trump (pp. 130-31):

–Moscow did not need Iranian forces to be in Syria, and there was no advantage to Moscow of them being there;

–Iran’s policy agenda with regard to Lebanon and the Shi’a were not the same as Moscow’s, and in fact, Iranian policy was causing problems both for Russia and the Assad regime;

–But while Russia wanted to see an Iranian withdrawal from Syria, Putin could not ensure that this would happen;

–And if Iranian forces did withdraw from Syria, there would be “large-scale aggression” against Assad regime forces;

–And Putin had no intention of substituting Russian forces for Iranian ones;

–Putin, though, did want a U.S.-Russian agreement on their respective military dispositions in Syria;

–Putin warned that up to 5,000 “locals” near where U.S. forces were at Al Tanf were actually ISIS fighters who would “ostensibly” follow U.S. direction, but then betray Washington when doing so suited them;

–These Syrian opposition forces were not reliable allies for the U.S., and could not be trusted;

–Instead, the U.S. should support the (Russian-led) peace process in Syria.

There are several observations that can be made from this set of statements which Putin made to Trump.

First of all, there appears to be a logical inconsistency in them.  Putin’s statement that Russia did not need Iranian forces to be in Syria and that there was no advantage to Moscow of them being there is directly contradicted by the later statements about how if Iranian forces withdrew, Assad regime forces would come under attack that Putin had no intention of substituting Russian forces for Iranian ones.  Iranian forces remaining in Syria, then, clearly do have some utility for Russia.  For Putin, the level of effort Iran is making to defend the Assad regime is not one that he wants Russia wants to undertake.

Second, whatever the merits of Iranian forces remaining in Syria, Putin seemed quite clear that Russia was not in a position to get them to withdraw.  And for Putin, there would be no benefit in attempting something that was bound to fail. Indeed, if Putin believed that Bolton understood this to be the case, then the Russian president may have suspected that Bolton was urging Russia to move against the Iranians in Syria not because he thought Moscow could succeed at this, but because the U.S. thought that the attempt would bring about a worsening of Russian-Iranian relations.  This might be in Washington’s interests, but not Moscow’s.

Third, if and when Assad’s opponents were ever completely defeated, then the differences between Russia and Iran in Syria might come to the fore.  Putin’s call for the U.S. to support the Russian-led Syrian peace process seemed to suggest that the best way for the U.S. to limit, if not remove, Iranian influence in Syria would be for Washington to cooperate with Moscow.

Bolton response to this last point of Putin’s was, “I said our priorities were to destroy ISIS and remove Iranian forces.”

This exchange revealed not just a difference in policy, but in how to analyze the situation.  Bolton’s statement suggested that he thought it was possible to remove both ISIS and Iranian forces from Syria.  Putin’s statements, by contrast, indicated that at present, the only way to weaken ISIS was for Iran to remain in Syria, whereas ISIS and other jihadists would only grow stronger in Syria if Iran withdrew.  In other words, Bolton’s preference—“destroy ISIS and remove Iranian forces”—were mutually incompatible goals if they were being pursued simultaneously.

Putin’s support for the Assad regime in Syria is appalling.  But his July 2018 comments to Bolton indicate that Putin may have a more accurate assessment of what Russia can and cannot accomplish in Syria than the Trump Administration has about what the U.S. can do there.

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Putin, Trump, and the Game in Syria

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated on several occasions that he sees Russia as an ally in Syria against Islamic extremists there.  Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, has indicated a desire to cooperate with Trump on Syria.  But will Trump and Putin actually be able to come to an agreement on what to do about Syria?

The answer to this question may not become clear until quite some time after the Trump Administration comes into office.  To test whether such a deal might be possible, though, I conducted a role playing game in my undergraduate course on Russia that I am teaching this semester in the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

Role playing games, of course, do not necessarily predict what will actually happen.  They can be useful, though, for suggesting an outcome for the scenario being examined that was not anticipated in advance, but does seem possible (though not inevitable)  in retrospect.  And this is what happened in the role playing game that my students played in class.

The time of the scenario was set for just after Trump’s inauguration.  The class was divided into several teams:  USA, Russia, the major NATO allies (UK, France, and Germany), the Assad regime in Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.  (We clearly could have had many more teams, but the line had to be drawn somewhere to make the game manageable).  The game started simply with the American and Russian teams contemplating whether they could come to an agreement on Syria, and how the various other teams reacted to this possibility.

What quickly became apparent was that most of the other teams were apprehensive about how any deal reached by the American and Russian teams might negatively affect their interests.   These other teams also started to plan (often in cooperation with each other) how to prevent or thwart any such deal, even though—and perhaps because—they did not know what it might consist of.

While it was not clear at first whether the American and Russian teams could reach a deal on Syria, by the end of the game they did.  The main element of the Russian-American deal they came up with was essentially a trade:  in exchange for the American team acquiescing to the Assad regime remaining in power “temporarily” (i.e., indefinitely), the Russian team agreed to limit and reduce Iran’s role in Syria.  The agreement also involved intelligence sharing between the US and Russia, America taking over from Russia the targeting of the jihadist opposition (in order to alleviate the NATO team’s concerns about human rights), and Russia and America both agreeing to reduce support for the Syrian Kurds (in order to mollify the Turkish team).  The Saudi and Israeli teams were satisfied since they were more concerned about Iran’s continued presence in Syria than about whether Assad remained in power.  The Assad regime was also happy, since it now had not only Russian, but also American support, as well as general regional acceptance, for its remaining in power.

In contrast with all the others, though, the Iranian team was not at all happy with this agreement.  In the class discussion about how realistic the game had been after it was over, members of the Iranian team argued strongly that Iran would not leave Syria just because America and Russia agreed that they wanted it to, and that Iran would strongly any effort to force it out.

What the outcome of the game revealed to me was that the Trump Administration, Israel, and Saudi Arabia might well regard Russia as a partner both in Syria and the Middle East if Moscow could not only work with them in defeating the Sunni jihadist opposition in Syria, but also limit and reduce Iranian influence.  Similarly, Turkey would regard Moscow as a partner if it acted to limit Kurdish influence in Syria as well.  Iranian press commentators have often complained that Moscow is always willing to sell out Tehran’s interests in exchange for a mutually satisfactory deal with Washington, and so the outcome of this game would not have surprised them.

Putin might well prefer that the Assad regime become mainly dependent on Moscow and not be in a position to get help from Tehran in resisting policy advice it doesn’t like from Russia.  But would Putin be willing and able to limit or even reduce Iranian influence in Syria?  This is not clear since he values good relations with Tehran, but Putin might be willing to do this if he calculated that Iran could not afford to retaliate against Moscow when the Trump Administration is far more likely to be hostile toward the Islamic Republic than the Obama Administration ever was.  But even if Putin did think this way, the reality is that Iran has a much larger military presence in Syria than Russia does, and so Moscow is in no position to force it to leave.  Nor is the Assad regime likely to ask Iran to leave since this would mean sacrificing the possibility of playing two patrons off against each other, resulting in Damascus becoming far more dependent just on Moscow.

What the outcome of my class’s role playing game suggests to me is that even if Putin and Trump are genuinely interested in reaching an agreement on Syria, Iran will probably be in a position to block it.  Like it or not, the U.S. and Russia are going to have to negotiate with Iran if the Syrian civil war is ever going to be resolved.  But just as with the American team in my classroom, this is not something that the incoming Trump Administration appears willing even to acknowledge, much less undertake.

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Georgy Mirsky on Putin, Ukraine, and Russia

The extraordinary Russian scholar, Georgy Mirsky, passed away on January 26, 2016. He was an exceptionally warm human being, and also a relentlessly honest observer of Moscow’s foreign policy and international affairs broadly.  I first became acquainted with his work while working on my dissertation at the beginning of the 1980’s.  I remember thinking then that unlike so much Soviet writing that portrayed the world in very simple, ideological terms, Mirsky understood and sought to explain the world in all its complexity. 

I first met him, thanks to my colleague Karen Dawisha, in Moscow in 1986. I met with him on numerous occasions afterward, including in Washington, Moscow, Tehran, and elsewhere.  He once came to George Mason University to speak to one of my classes. 

I last met him at his apartment in Moscow on May 28, 2014. He was not well, but he had several things about the “present situation” that he wanted to convey, and he insisted that I take notes.  I am posting these notes here as a remembrance to him and the way in which he thought.

There are four reasons why Putin is acting as he has done in Ukraine: 1) age-old Russian complexes; 2) Soviet mentality; 3) KGB conspiracy; and 4) Putin’s fear of being humiliated.

Russian complexes regarding the West consist of: 1) the view that life is better in the West than in Russia; and 2) the belief that despite this, Russians are more warm hearted, open, hospitable, and spiritual than Westerners.  Thus, while Russians have an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West, they console themselves with the idea that Russian people are better than Western people.  Russians want to visit the West, but Russians have long believed that the West is hostile to Russia.

In the 19^th century, there was in Russia wide distrust of Queen Victoria.  In Soviet times, the West was seen as besieging Russia.  There is, then, an age-old distrust of the West in Russia.  Russians believe that the West will harm Russia if it can.

The USSR collapsed, but the Soviet mentality has remained. Inside the Soviet mentality is an inbuilt mechanism for anti-Western, anti-American feelings.  This only disappeared for four years during World War II.  On Victory Day in May 1945 (which Mirsky described from personal experience), Americans were genuinely popular in Red Square.

Putin does not see the possibility of war with the West, but he is not afraid of war occurring.  Putin and his supporters believe that America and the West want to hurt Russian interests wherever they can.  They feel strangled by NATO expansion.  Russians see NATO expansion as NATO coming closer to Russia, making the situation for Russia more dangerous.

But what, Mirsky asked, is the actual danger to Russia? Who cares if Poland and the Baltic states belong to NATO?  The answer is not clear, but Putin sees their belonging to NATO as bad.

The NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990’s negatively affected Putin’s and Russian attitudes toward America. Mirsky was in Princeton when this occurred.  When he returned to Moscow, he saw what damage this war had done.  Serbs were seen as fellow Slavs.  Bombing them was seen as part of a plan for aggression against Russia.  “Yesterday Belgrade, today Baghdad, tomorrow Moscow,” was a common view after the U.S. intervened in Iraq.

Many saw the heat wave that occurred in Russia in 2010 as being due to deliberate American efforts at climate change (America had been blamed in the past as being somehow responsible for Soviet agricultural shortfalls). One third of Russian people believed that that it was possible that the U.S. introduced AIDS into Russia in order to harm it.  This was the sort of thinking that the KGB fostered among Russians, and succeeded in getting them used to.

Anti-Americanism in Russia is a popular, spontaneous sentiment resulting from the loss of superpower status and feeling of humiliation that Russia had been pushed out of world situations everywhere. Russia was feared in the past, but disrespected now.  This view is similar to anti-Americanism in Europe and Asia.  In fact, this form of anti-Americanism is universal, like anti-Semitism.  Even Israelis have this sort of anti-Americanism.   The only people who do not are Poles and Iraqi Kurds.

Putin exploits these feelings. After the Beslan attacks in 2004, Putin said that “certain forces” who were unhappy that Russia was still a nuclear power were responsible.  He also said that “some forces” want a part of Russian territory.  This, of course, must be the Americans.

Putin’s fear of being humiliated is based on his belief that American leaders have betrayed him. Putin supported Bush after 9/11, and so Putin expected reciprocity from the U.S.  Putin thought Bush had double-crossed him when he strengthened U.S. forces in Europe and pulled out of the ABM Treaty.

Putin took all this badly. He saw the U.S. as deceiving him and Russia.  Putin was further upset by the 2004 “color revolution” in Ukraine.  (Mirsky noted that this was not a real revolution in the Marxist sense.)

The Arab Spring was seen by Putin as a color revolution, as an American scheme to instigate color revolutions to weaken Russia. Especially after Bolotnaya (the anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow in May 2012 at the time Putin resumed the presidency), Putin and his supporters were upset and apprehensive.  When Medvedev was president (2008-2012), Putin saw his popularity decline.  He saw this as part of an American plot to bring color revolution to Russia.  This contributed to his bad feelings toward the West.

The capture of Crimea in early 2014 was not planned in advance. The pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Yanukovich, had disappointed Putin.  But Putin feared what would happen after he fled and a pro-Western government came to power in Kiev.  Even though it belonged to Ukraine, Crimea was the home of the Russian Navy.  Putin wanted to eliminate the possibility that the Russian Navy based in Crimea would be taken over.

Putin is a Russian nationalist. He described the breakup of the USSR in 1991 as a geopolitical disaster, but he also regarded the 1917 revolution and the subsequent federalization of the Russian Empire into separate union republics as a disaster too.  Putin saw turmoil in Kiev as giving Russia the chance to recapture Crimea for Russia.

After Ukrainians voted for independence in December 1991, Ukrainians were seen as untrustworthy. The recapture of Crimea, then, was seen as justified.  Putin denied that Russian troops were involved in this, but of course they were.

On February 21, 2014, an agreement had been signed between Yanukovich and the Ukrainian opposition on elections to be held in Ukraine. But the next day, the agreement collapsed and Yanukovich fled.  At this point, Putin saw acquiescing to the rise of a pro-Western government in Kiev as being a sign of weakness.  In his view, Yanukovich’s opponents saw him as weak for signing the agreement, and so they pressed further.

Putin saw Russia as about to lose Ukraine, and believed that the West had double-crossed him yet again. The agreement had simply been a Western ruse.  He thought that after Crimea, the West would try to take the rest of Ukraine.  Putin hadn’t yet decided on annexation; Crimea could have been made into an independent state.  But once Yanukovich fled, Putin decided on annexation.

Eastern Ukraine: Putin was unhappy that the pro-Western Poroshenko won the Ukrainian presidency.  Putin then hoped Poroshenko would compromise regarding secessionist eastern Ukraine, with its large Russian population.  But Poroshenko decided to crush the pro-Russian rebels there instead.  Putin felt compelled to help “the people” in eastern Ukraine resist this.

But according to Mirsky, the Russian public isn’t really as concerned about eastern Ukraine as it is about Crimea. Crimea and eastern Ukraine were not regarded as the same by them.  But if Poroshenko succeeded in retaking eastern Ukraine, this would make Putin look bad.  And Putin did not want to look weak.

By this time, Russian relations with the West had deteriorated badly. The West was surprised and disappointed by Putin’s actions in Ukraine.  The West had expectations that Putin would play by Western rules, but these proved false.

In the short term, Putin has won. His ratings are high, and he hopes to be president for life.

Syria: Putin can’t be seen as backing down under Western pressure.  Thus, Putin is stuck with Assad.  If Putin stopped supporting Assad, he fears that he would be seen as a loser.

Putin is popular in Russia now, but he has lost most of Ukraine for Russia. Putin is not afraid in the short-term, but what he has done will result in a long-term loss for Russia.

RIP, Georgy Mirsky.

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