With over 90,000 Syrians dead and confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, President Barack Obama and his administration have taken the first step toward military intervention in Syria. However, given the legacy of misjudged intelligence in Iraq and the complexity of achieving a positive outcome in Syria, it is unlikely that the president will rush forward unilaterally. Instead, he will likely work toward a multilateral policy requiring the elusive support of Russia.
Thus far, Russia has remained loyal to the Syrian regime, equipping it with much-needed arms and vetoing three United Nations resolutions calling for international intervention in the conflict. However, previous frustrations with Russia cannot stop the search for a compromise between Russia and the United States regarding Syria.
Russian economic and military interests in Syria are relatively minor obstacles for a U.S.-Russian stance toward the Assad regime. With persistence, a U.S.-Russia approach to the Syrian conflict can help put an end to over two years of civil war.
Russia holds an estimated $5 billion in weapons agreements with Syria, which represent 10 percent of Russian arms exports. However, the rapidly declining ability of Assad’s regime to pay these contracts limits their realistic value. Moscow was forced to write off more than $10 billion in unpaid debts owed by Syria only six years ago.
Russia also has a naval base in the port of Tartus, its only remaining base in the Mediterranean and the key to Russia’s ability to maintain a strategic presence in the Middle East. Russia’s interest in saving the base is valid, but the port’s continued operation depends not on the particular survival of the Assad regime, but rather on the stability of Syria in general. As David Gardner from the Financial Times points out, “Tartus is a long-term strategic asset. The Assads are no longer a long-term proposition.”
Russia’s perception of its strategic interests in Syria are more complex. There has been a strengthening consensus that Russian President Vladimir Putin views the Syrian crisis through the lens of the ongoing conflict in Chechnya. According to this perspective, any battle between a secular state and the forces of Islamism empowers new jihadist groups that pose a threat to civilian populations in the region. Putin himself has often adopted a hard line approach to dissidents in Chechnya and is supportive of Assad’s similar response to the armed opposition in Syria. Although the threat of armed groups with advanced weapons cannot be ignored, policymakers must make the distinction between jihadist insurrection and armed resistance from the civilian population themselves.
Perhaps the most significant point of contention for a unified U.S.-Russia stance is the fear of setting a precedent for intervention in a sovereign nation’s domestic affairs. In the minds of Russian leaders, this precedent could be used to threaten the stability of Russia’s own regime, which shares some dictatorial tendencies with Assad’s regime, such as repression of dissidents and harsh crackdowns on specifically Islamist demonstrations. Samuel Charap of the International Institute for Strategic Studies claims that Russia sees the string of U.S.-led interventions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as a threat to the international system’s stability and in particular, to Russia’s control over the Caucuses. In the eyes of the Kremlin, Charap explains, these cases substantiate the idea that Washington eliminates governments that are a threat to its foreign policy interests, which is not conducive to a Russia that is striving to maintain its own superpower status.
Ultimately, Russia’s most serious concern seems to be setting the precedent of foreign nations’ unlawful intervention in another country. Here, the Geneva Agreement can be useful for consensus-building. One of the fundamental points of the agreement is that the international community should work to develop a Syrian government by the Syrian people. Although the language is still laden with Western democratic ideals, the U.S. should not be the primary driver of nation-building in Syria. Furthermore, the agreement makes it clear that the inclusion of regime members in the transitional government is a possibility. This means that ongoing contracts with the regime can continue to be honored. As a starting point for the combined interests of both Russia and the U.S., the Geneva Agreement offers a strong framework for a bilaterally supported plan to stop the violence and rebuild an accountable governance structure in Syria.
Maithili Bagaria, a rising sophomore at Rice University, is an intern for the Baker Institute Middle East Program. She is majoring in political science with an emphasis on international relations.