2/2019 Russia in the Middle East — Aron Lund PUBLISHED BY THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | UI.SE Abstract It may be a cliché, but that does not make it any less true: Russia has returned to the Middle East. Since intervening militarily in Syria in 2015, Russia has transformed the battlefield, saved its allies, and established itself as the driving force in international diplomacy on Syria. Meanwhile, Moscow is selling arms worth billions of dollars to Algeria and Egypt, and has teamed up with Saudi Arabia to put its thumb on the scale of global oil prices. Russia is working closely with Iran, Turkey, and Israel in Syria, and maintains relations with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and a host of other nations – many of which are hostile to each other but friendly to Russia. Looking back at Russia’s rise to influence in the Middle East since the 2011 Arab Spring, it seems clear that President Vladimir Putin’s successes stem less from a consistently applied strategy than from the effective, pragmatic exploitation of new opportunities and unforced Western errors. Nonetheless, there are limits to how far Russia can rise, and Putin will need to watch his step as he moves deeper into a region riddled with complex, interlocking conflicts. Even today, Moscow’s regional footprint remains small next to that of the United States and, mired in economic and structural dysfunction at home, it is far from certain that the Kremlin’s swelling global ambition can be sustained in the longer term. As Russia’s appetite for influence increases, so do the risks. This UI Paper traces Moscow’s role in the Middle East and North Africa through Soviet times to the present day. It seeks to shed light on what drives the Kremlin’s engagement with the region, how local actors respond to Russian policy, and the role Russia is carving out for itself in the Middle East.1 Aron Lund Associate Fellow, UI 1 I gratefully acknowledge the assistance with Russian-language translation and research provided by Liliia Makashova, intern at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs 2018. © 2019 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs Language editing: Andrew Mash Cover photo: Shutterstock Content The Soviet Union and the Middle East ...................................................................................... 4 Post-Soviet Russian Middle East Policy .................................................................................... 8 The Chechen Trauma ..................................................................................................................... 9 Reasserting Russian Particularity ................................................................................................ 11 Middle East Engagement under Putin ......................................................................................... 12 Talk to All, Trade with All ............................................................................................................ 13 The Medvedev Interregnum ........................................................................................................ 16 Russia and the Arab Spring ....................................................................................................... 17 The Libyan Turning Point ............................................................................................................. 18 Nationalist-Authoritarian Retrenchment .................................................................................... 20 Syria as a Problem and an Opportunity ...................................................................................... 21 The Russian Intervention ............................................................................................................. 23 Flipping Turkey ............................................................................................................................ 24 After Syria: Taking Stock of Russia’s New Role ....................................................................... 25 Economic Interests Remain Key ................................................................................................... 35 Russia’s Increasing Appetite: The Cases of Libya and Lebanon................................................... 37 The Authoritarian Advantage ...................................................................................................... 39 Who Runs Russian Middle East Policy? .................................................................................... 41 Kadyrov: Proxy or Freelancer? ..................................................................................................... 42 The Wagner Phenomenon ........................................................................................................... 44 Conclusions: Strategy or Improvisation? ................................................................................. 45 Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Books and Reports ....................................................................................................................... 47 Interviews .................................................................................................................................... 49 © 2019 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs 3 harmful to Moscow’s strategic position. The The Soviet Union three nations regarded in Moscow as the Middle East’s northern tier – Iran, Turkey, and the Middle and Afghanistan – were consistently prioritized in Soviet geopolitical thinking East over the mostly Arab nations further south.7 As a result of Stalin’s policy blunders, however, Moscow would remain at a Russia is no newcomer to the Middle East. crippling disadvantage in Turkey and Iran For centuries, Imperial Russia traded and for the duration of the Cold War. fought with Persia and the Ottoman Empire, while the Arab World “lay just The growth of Soviet influence across the outside the limit of St. Petersburg’s Arab World in the 1950s and 1960s provided geopolitical ambitions.”2 some recompense. Communist doctrine remained unpopular for its atheism, but the The Soviet Union would eventually reverse Soviet Union’s outspoken support for Third that order, albeit more out of necessity than World liberation struggles struck a chord choice. Bursting into the region like a bull in with Arab nationalists.8 Anti-colonialism a china shop after the Second World War, it mingled with dreams of social equality, and took Soviet dictator Josef Stalin only a few Arab politics already bristled against the years to alienate every regional power of West over a host of grievances: Israel’s significance. In the late 1940s, a short-lived 1947–1949 expulsion of the Palestinians, the Soviet flirtation with Kurdish and Azeri 1954–1962 Algerian War, the 1955 Baghdad separatism tipped Iran into the pro-Western Pact, and the 1956 Suez Crisis, to name just camp;3 military saber-rattling set neutral a few. Turkey on the path to NATO membership;4 and support for Israeli independence By loosening the shackles of ideology, repelled the rising regional force of Arab offering assistance to new and struggling Nationalism.5 Stalin then turned against nations, and latching on to popular Israel, too.6 nationalist causes such as the Palestinian struggle, Stalin’s successor, Nikita Although these were mostly self-inflicted Khrushchev, was able to leapfrog the wounds, they were nonetheless extremely Turkish-Iranian wall and establish new bases 2 aborted only by Stalin’s death. Primakov traces the anti-Jewish Dmitri Trenin, What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East?, Polity campaign to a cynical ploy by feuding party chiefs. See Yevgeny Press, 2018, p. 16. Primakov, Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the 3 Middle East from the Cold War to the Present, Basic Books, Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of 2009, p. 254–259. Revolution, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 110 ff; Alexey 7 Vasiliev, Russia’s Middle East Policy: From Lenin to Putin, Afghanistan had served as an arena for great power conflict Routledge, 2018, p. 23. Vasiliev notes that Soviet-Iranian already in the 19th century, during the Russian-British “great relations improved after 1963, when the Shah promised not to game.” The significance accorded to Iran and Turkey is not allow US missiles to be based in Iran. Vasiliev 2018, p. 52. difficult to understand. Both are regional powers with 4 considerable cultural influence, whose imperial pasts are closely Talal Nizameddin, Russia and the Middle East: Towards a intertwined with Russia’s own. Their combined population is New Foreign Policy, St Martin's Press, 1999, p. 221–222; larger than that of modern Russia and each is strategically Vasiliev 22–23. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, in what Trenin located in its own way, dominating the opposite shores of the calls “a major coup for the West in the Cold War.” Trenin 2018, Black Sea and the Caspian. Iran has large hydrocarbon p. 19. resources and overlooks the world’s most oil-rich region, the 5 The Soviet Union was the first country to recognize Israel, and Persian Gulf, and the oil trade chokepoint at the Hormuz Straits. Communist Czechoslovakia delivered much-needed arms to the Turkey’s Bosporus Straits control access to the Black Sea, Jewish forces. Aryeh Dayan, “The Communists Who Saved the which, to quote the British specialist on Soviet strategy Michael Jewish State,” Ha'aretz,