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1482. Rising Tensions and Security Chaos in Syria’s Deraa Province
- Author:
- Jonathan Spyer
- Publication Date:
- 06-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- A four-way contest under way between the Assad regime, Russian interests, Iranian interests, and unreconciled former rebels.
- Topic:
- Security, Conflict, Regionalism, and Strategic Interests
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and Syria
1483. Idlib, the next phase of the Turkish-Syrian conflict
- Author:
- Jonathan Spyer
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Russia’s desire to woo Turkey from the West likely to prevent all-out war.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Syria
1484. Do Syria-Turkey clashes presage a wider confrontation in the Middle East?
- Author:
- Jonathan Spyer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Despite Syrian-Turkish clashes this week, Moscow is set to remain the key arbiter in Syria.
- Topic:
- Hegemony, Conflict, Peace, and Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Syria
1485. Putin’s surprise visit to Syria
- Author:
- Micky Aharonson and Aiman Mansour
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Meeting with Assad sent clear messages to the countries of the region.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Bilateral Relations, Hegemony, and Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Middle East, and Syria
1486. The Impact of COVID-19 on Russia’s Middle East and Syria Policies
- Author:
- Leonid Isaev and Andrey Sakharov
- Publication Date:
- 06-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- May 3 rd, Russia’s COVID-19 infection rate resembled that of the United Kingdom. This situation has the potential to significantly impact the country’s financial situation, influencing the country’s foreign policy toward the Middle East. By the beginning of the lock-down period, the most optimistic forecasts for 2020 predicted a fall in the Russian economy by 4-6% of GDP.1 However, after four weeks of confinement, a decline of 6-8% was considered to be the most positive scenario, provided that it is possible to avoid a second wave for the epidemic in the autumn as predicted by the Higher School of Economics forecast. The Russian situation is complicated by the fact that the outbreak of COVID-19 coincided with the dramatic decline in oil and gas prices. The federal budget’s breakeven price for 2020 was set at $42.4 per barrel.3 However, prices by the end of March and the beginning of April went significantly lower. This means that Russia may not be able to match the predicted government spending for 2020. Moreover, its leadership may not be able to spend money as generously to advance projects serving the country’s foreign policy. Moscow, short on revenue, will unlikely take foreign policy and domestic political adventures. Foreign policy projects, primarily those that require significant budgetary expenditures in the Middle East and specifically in Syria, will be frozen. A passive Russian international engagement is expected to dominate until the end of 2020. The exception to this policy will be when a response is unavoidable. Domestic policy is likely to be just as reactive. The baseline will likely be to maintain the current state of affairs and absorb any shocks to stability given the scarcity of financial resources.
- Topic:
- Security, International Cooperation, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Middle East, and Syria
1487. The Battle for the Tribes in Northeast Syria
- Author:
- Nicholas Heras
- Publication Date:
- 11-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- Northeast Syria (NES) is fragmented under the control of different powers that are all seeking to gain the support of the local Arab tribes. Those seeking to upset the status quo include the Assad regime and its allies (Russia and Iran), Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies, and ISIS —all seeking disruption with different motivations, yet working side by side. Those seeking to maintain the status quo include the U.S.-led Coalition, the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES), and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Often, earning the support and alliance of the tribes is a transactional process whereby the tribes seek direct financial support and community investment, employment opportunities, military support, and autonomy to run their own affairs. Currently, most local tribal groups are calculating that a tenuous U.S.-protected order in northeast Syria provides better security and provisions than the alternatives from the Assad regime and its allies, or by Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies. However, ISIS remains a threat to all the powers involved in northeast Syria, and it is the major spoiler seeking to create the conditions for a return to the old order which was established under ISIS’s territorial Caliphate from 2014-2019.
- Topic:
- Security, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Rivalry
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America
1488. Russia and Issues of HTS and Tanzim Hurras ad-Din
- Author:
- Anton Mardasov
- Publication Date:
- 11-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- Moderate Syrian opposition includes some natives from Russia’s North Caucasus, although they are a minority. Caucasian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) natives were, in large part, members of the Islamic State (IS) or in some way linked to the forces formally led by Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN) and later by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Those who went to Syria and Iraq to fight can be roughly divided into two generations. The first one includes Caucasus Emirate members who responded to the call of Salafi sheikhs from Arab-Islamic centres. Natives of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia, and Turkmenistan (migrant workers, for the most part) were mainly recruited for jihad in Russia or within various diasporas across Europe.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Alliance, Conflict, and Opposition
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Middle East, and Syria
1489. There Goes the Neighborhood: The Limits of Russian Integration in Eurasia
- Author:
- Paul Stronski
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Eurasia is squeezed between a rising China and an aggressive and unpredictable Russia. The United States should remain engaged with the region to help it resist Russian advances. Since 2014, Russia has redoubled its efforts to build a sphere of influence, operating frequently under the flag of Eurasian integration. Its undeclared war in Ukraine and hardball tactics vis-à-vis other neighbors demonstrate the lengths to which it is willing to go to undermine their independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Moscow has pushed hard to expand the membership and functions of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the formal vehicle for cross-regional integration of political and economic activity. However, Russia’s limited economic resources and lack of soft-power appeal; the engagement with the region by other outside powers, including the European Union, China, Turkey, and the United States; and societal change in neighboring states are creating significant long-term obstacles to the success of Russian neo-imperialist ambitions and exposing a large gap between its ends and means. Russia’s ambitions in Eurasia are buffeted by unfavorable trends that are frequently overlooked by analysts and policymakers. Russia’s own heavy-handed behavior contributes to both regional upheaval and instability as well as to the creation of diplomatic headwinds that constrain its own room for maneuver.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Geopolitics, and Regional Integration
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America
1490. Russia’s Stony Path in the South Caucasus
- Author:
- Philip Remler
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- As the battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan heats up, Russia struggles to contend with a vastly more complicated landscape in the South Caucasus. Since shortly after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia’s aims and policies in the South Caucasus have been constant, but its capabilities to project power and influence have fluctuated. Russia’s engagement with the entire Caucasus region is best characterized as a tide. Its power and influence began to ebb at the start of the Karabakh conflict—with the February 1988 massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumqayit being the key galvanizing event.2 After that, the tide receded rapidly, leaving even Russian possessions in the North Caucasus without effective central control. The First Chechen War marked low tide, which only began to rise with the Second Chechen War, beginning in 1999. Until about 2004, Russia was too weak and internally divided to project power and influence in the wider Caucasus region in a meaningful way. To be sure, Russian influence was never gone completely, even during the lowest ebb of the tide. Russia still marshaled greater resources than the new states of the Caucasus could muster, and it threw its weight around. But in the 1990s, Russia did not have a unified governing apparatus, but rather a mass of competing clans among which regional actors could maneuver. For example, after the Soviet collapse, Moscow left the Russian military units in the Caucasus to their own devices. Those units served as mercenaries, arms suppliers, and logistics providers to both sides in the Karabakh conflict. It took a decade for Moscow to reassert its so-called power vertical in the Caucasus, symbolized by President Vladimir Putin’s success in 2004 in finally ousting chief of the general staff Anatoliy Kvashnin.3 Russia’s assertiveness in the region grew steadily thereafter, with sharp upticks after the 2008 war with Georgia and Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, History, Territorial Disputes, Conflict, Elites, and Soviet Union
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and South Caucasus