The Syrian War in Russia’s Intensifying Discourse Against the Unipolar World
https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2022-13-4-111-128
Abstract
This essay examines five possible reasons for Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian War. These reasons under consideration are an anti-terror policy, resistance to the unipolarity, domestic populism, overcoming Russia’s isolation after Crimea crisis, and defence of the B. Assad government. I conclude that only the anti-terror and anti-unipolar world motivations were relevant and merged into a single cognitive framework that is prone to launching Syrian military operation.
Other factors, such as a paradigmatic shift of the image of the post-unipolar world, as well as overconfidence in air force and artillery, also confirm that the Syrian War cognitively prepared Russia for its future military operation in Ukraine. Russian policymakers became convinced that the unipolar world was coming to an end. In the case of Syria (2015), the ill-fated US-led anti-terror operations intensified Islamic terrorism, which created an existential threat for Russia. In the case of Ukraine (2022), the United States, whose grip on world hegemony they believed was on the decline, was trying to use Ukraine as a bridgehead for military aggression against Russia. This study is a result of an extensive survey of the relevant literature and my own expert interviews conducted in Moscow in March 2020.
Keywords
About the Author
K. Matsuzato
Lomonosov Moscow State University; Shanghai International Studies University; University of Tokyo
Japan
Competing Interests:
Japan
Kimitaka Matsuzato, PhD. Honorary professor of the Political Science Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University and Shanghai International Studies University. Professor at the Graduate School for Law and Politics
7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku , Tokyo, 113-0033
Competing Interests:
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
References
1. Vasiliev, Alexey. Russia’s Middle East Policy: From Lenin to Putin. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2018 [In Russian].
2. Zviagelskaya, Irina D. “Vospriyatie v Rossii sobytii v arabskom mire (na primere situatsii vokrug Sirii).” In Blizhnii Vostok, Arabskoe probuzhdenie i Rossiya: chto dal’she?, edited by Vitaly V. Naumkin, Veniamin V. Popov, Vasily A. Kuznetsov, 530–539. Moscow: IOS RAS, 2012 [In Russian].
3. Ugroza IGIL: Puti protivodeistviya natsional'noreligioznomu ekstremizmu: sbornik informatsionno-analiticheskikh materialov. Moscow: Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, 2016 [In Russian].
4. Khodynskaya-Golenishcheva, Maria S. Siriya: trudnyi put’ ot voiny k miru. Mnogostoronnyaya diplomatiya siriiskogo uregulirovaniya. Moscow: Abris/OLMA, 2019 [In Russian].
5. The Syrian Frontier, edited by Maxim Yu Shepovalenko. Moscow: Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2016 [In Russian].
6. Chamov, Vladimir V. “Liviiskaya drama: videnie rossiiskogo diplomata.” In Blizhnii Vostok, Arabskoe probuzhdenie i Rossiya: chto dal’she?, edited by Vitaly V. Naumkin, Veniamin V. Popov, Vasily A. Kuznetsov, 564–575. Moscow: IOS RAS, 2012 [In Russian].
7. Allison, Roy. “Russia and Syria: Explaining Alignment with a Regime in Crisis.” International Affairs 89, no. 4 (July 12, 2013): 795–823. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12046.
8. Charap, Samuel. “Is Russia an Outside Power in the Gulf?” Survival 57, no. 1 (2015): 153–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2015.1008309.
9. Charap, Samuel, Elina Treyger, and Edward Geist. Understanding Russia’s Intervention in Syria. RAND Corporation, 2019. https://doi.org/10.7249/RR3180.
10. Gerges, Fawaz A. Obama and the Middle East: The End of America’s Moment? New York: Macmillan, 2012.
11. Ibragimov, Magomed-Rasul, and Kimitaka Matsuzato. “Contextualized Violence: Politics and Terror in Dagestan.” Nationalities Papers 42, no. 2 (2014): 286–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2013.867932.
12. Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017.
13. Matsuzato, Kimitaka, and Magomed-Rasul Ibragimov. “Islam and Local Politics in Counties of South Dagestan under Governor Ramazan Abdulatipov (2013–2017).” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 27, no. 4 (2019): 497–523.
14. Naganawa, Norihiro. “Elusive Piety: Hajj Logistics and Local Politics in Tatarstan, Dagestan and the Crimea.” Religion, State and Society 47, no. 3 (2019): 307–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2019.1605777.
15. Obama, Barack. A Promised Land. New York: Crown, 2020.
16. Parker, John W. Putin’s Syrian Gambit: Sharper Elbows, Bigger Footprint, Stickier Wicket. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2017. https://inss. ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/1239403/putins-syriangambit-sharper-elbows-bigger-footprint-stickier-wicket/.
17. Phillips, Christopher. The Battle for Syria. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300262032.
18. Trenin, Dmitri. What Is Russia up to in the Middle East. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.
19. Ulrichsen, Kristian Coates. “Qatar and Its Rivals in Syria’s Conflict.” In The War for Syria, edited by Raymond Hinnebusch, and Adham Saouli, 101–19. London: Routledge, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429201967-7.
20. Wasser, Becca. The Limits of Russian Strategy in the Middle East. RAND Corporation, 2019. https://doi.org/10.7249/PE340.
21. Yudin, Greg. “The War in Ukraine: Do Russians Support Putin?” Journal of Democracy 33, no. 3 (2022): 31–37. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2022.0037.
Review
For citations:
Matsuzato K. The Syrian War in Russia’s Intensifying Discourse Against the Unipolar World. Journal of International Analytics. 2022;13(4):111-128. https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2022-13-4-111-128
Views:
782
Email this article 