Corona Conversations 2021: Russia's Relations with the Non-West; Middle East

Moderator: Julie Newton

Guests: Roy Allison, Mark N. Katz, Vitaly Naumkin

Listen to the audio recording here.

Summary:

Julie Newton: Welcome to the latest episode of the University Consortium’s Corona Conversations. This time we will look at Russia and the Middle East and implications for Russia-West relations. I will start with a broad question about strategy: the United States has steadily withdrawn from the greater Middle East over the past years, culminating in the most recent withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the same time, Russian involvement across the region has steadily increased. If I may start with you, Vitaly, what role does the Middle East play within Russian overall foreign policy strategy?

Vitaly Naumkin: I think I have to start with what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the importance of the Middle East on the list of Russian foreign policy strategies decreased dramatically. Only during the last two decades has it started growing again. Russia’s standing in the region has improved and continues to improve. Russia has demonstrated its ability to adjust to the shifts in regional balances of power.

It is interesting to look at the term “greater Middle East”; it is actually an American design and Russia was initially very suspicious about it. But now I think given what happened in Afghanistan, we have to use this term. As a result, Afghanistan has almost became part of this “greater Middle East” because the impact of events in Afghanistan is so strong that we cannot ignore it when discussing the role of the region for Russia and other powers.

Russia has successfully adjusted to the recent changes, including the probably too fast withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, and now demonstrates its readiness to engage with various players in the Middle East. And Russia is successful with this strategy, having, for example, good relations with both Iran and Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and so on. Even some non-state movements, blacklisted in Russia, such as the Taliban or the Muslim Brotherhood, have been in contact and in dialogue with Russia over the years. Russia was also successful in establishing relations with new partners like the Gulf states, despite their close security and economic ties with the US. I would also like to stress the role of Russia in international mediation in the regional conflicts. On a basis of non-intervention and respect to territorial integrity and sovereignty, Russia became more active especially after 2015, when the Russian contingent came to Syria at the invitation of the government, which we consider legitimate. The main goal of Russian efforts in this regard is to prevent the spread of terrorism into Russia – Russia believes it is better to eliminate the radical jihadist groups outside Russia rather than inside after they have infiltrated into Russian territory.

Julie Newton: Thank you Vitaly! I would like to turn to Mark now, if you want to add anything to what Vitaly just said. And if I may, I would like to add another follow-up question to this: if you were to list Russian foreign policy objectives in the Middle East, how would you rank them?

Mark N. Katz: I think that Vitaly summarized the situation very well. I agree with him on most issues. I think I would dispute whether the Assad regime can really be considered a legitimate government, as I am not sure whether he won in free and fair elections, but, well, there are many American allies in the same category.

To your questions about the priorities of Russia in the Middle East: I think the mail priority is stability and to be able to work with all major actors. While in Europe Russian foreign policy is sometimes described as revisionist, in the Middle East Russia is the status quo power.

One thing I would like to react to was when Vitaly mentioned Soviet foreign policy and I think it is worth pointing out that whatever problems Soviet foreign policy had in the Middle East, the Soviets were able to at least align themselves with the forces of change. But I think what we see now is that there is no great power operating in the Middle East that is in fact interested in doing so, whether it is the Europeans, the United States, the Russians, the Chinese; they are all aligned with the status quo. But as we know, sooner or later a change will occur and all the great powers can be caught out. It strikes me, for example, if we are witnessing the change from a petroleum economy to other forms then the Middle East will be experiencing some changes in the near future, as the source of employment and wealth either disappears or declines. And I am not sure that any of the great powers operating externally has an answer to this. I think it may be more a general phenomenon and that all the Brexit attitudes and Trump attitudes may be just outcomes accompanying economic decline and we may observe similar developments in the Middle East in the future.

Another thing which I would like to mention is that one of the great successes of Russian foreign policy is that Russia does talk with absolutely everyone. I think that Russians learned a lot from breaking relations with Israel in 1967, which gave the Americans an advantage in negotiating the Arab-Israeli peace agreements. What we see now is that while the Russians talk to everyone, obviously the Unites States does not, especially with regard to Iran, and I think that no matter how much the United States dislikes Iran, it is a factor there in the region and it has to be taken into account. The Russians have been much better in dealing with parties that oppose each other than the US. Moreover the Russians have not allowed any of their Middle Eastern allies to define their policy towards the region, and the US has tended to allow its closest allies to define theirs to the exclusion of working with others. That is, I think, a real difference.

Julie Newton: You hit on issues of revisionism versus the status quo and I think that aligns very nicely with Roy’s work and I want to ask Roy if he wants to comment on this and on Vitaly’s remarks about challenges and constraints of Russian policies in the area.

Roy Allison: The Middle East is not quite like any other region for Russia. If you consider Russian involvement outside its neighbouring states, the Eurasian states, there is no other theatre of this kind which has become really available for Russia to project itself into. And that is important on itself. Of course the Middle East is not a new theatre; we talked about the Soviet period, so it is a traditional area of concern, but it is also new in the post-Cold War period because of the disengagement which Vitaly mentioned. It is significant, because it is viewed as a region which is close to Russian and southern Central Asian state borders, it is an adjacent area where security issues are seen to have the potential for spill over in a way which Africa or Latin America don’t.

In the most recent period there is also a connection in terms of security and strategy between the Black Sea region and the Eastern Mediterranean which has been reinforced significantly, and this is the area where Russia is most involved now, especially in Syria. There was always a link and communication between the two regions, but in these terms, I don’t think it was entirely coincidence that the 2015 operation in Syria followed the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Obviously, the timing depended on the situation on the ground in Syria. Nevertheless, I think Russia developed and is still developing power projection capacities which depend upon Crimean resources – such as reopened Soviet bases. This also suggests that it will be an enduring focus for the Russian Federation. Some in the Russian military may have more ambitious goals; they may think about connections through the Red Sea, about how to use the base which is discussed with Sudan, but that is probably a bridge too far. I think Russia cannot realistically currently develop a proper blue-water navy. But the eastern Mediterranean has become very important.

To mention just a couple other things: so far there was no referral to the economic dimension. If you look at the overall role of the region in Russian trade statistics, it’s quite significant in niche areas, in particular in the nuclear and hydrocarbon industries. I think it has become disproportionately important since 2014, not just because of sanctions or reduction of trade with the EU, but also since Russia is aware that it does not want to rely too heavily on China. At the moment that is the direction of readjustment and Russia feels that it can develop significant financial and investment relations with countries like Qatar, potentially Saudi Arabia. They do large-scale, long-term, and strategic projects such as civil nuclear energy with countries such as Egypt. Those increasingly matter and there are hopes that countries like Saudi Arabia can orientate themselves in trade and investment terms more towards Russia. The arms trade is part of this of course; the Middle East is a very significant partner here. Algeria alone accounts for a significant portion of Russian arms sales, and there are hopes for building significant arms trade relations with countries like Turkey and also Iran. The UN sanctions against Iran will relapse and it has been clear that Russia is interested in developing quite a significant arms trade relationship with them.

Finally, Vitaly mentioned Russian concerns about radical Islam, and I think this is very real. The statistics around this show that there is not an insignificant number of Russian citizens, especially from North Caucasus or Central Asia, in Syria and around. Perhaps up to 15,000 in total. Trying to get at these people in Syria was clearly a priority for Russia and there is a concern that now perhaps Afghanistan may be seen as potentially inviting for them to move into as it becomes increasingly difficult for them to operate in Iraq or Syria. This is a complementing interest for the West and Russia and it will surely be discussed going forward.

Julie Newton: This leads me to another fairly broad question, whether the three of you believe that America’s failure in Afghanistan and its other setbacks in the region over the last few years have finally meaningfully shifted the balance of power and if so, in what way?

Vitaly Naumkin: I don’t think that this American failure has led to any deep shift in the balance of power. There are still a lot of states and forces that rely upon the United States, and, as I said before, Russia has neither the willingness nor the readiness to replace the United States as a security provider. But what is extremely significant in my view is the loss of trust. There is deep disappointment by some with the US. I have even heard some saying that whatever we think about the Assad regime, Russia is it’s friend and supports it despite our differences. Russia in this sense seems trustworthy and loyal to its partners. American partners in the Middle East think about the fate of American collaborators in Afghanistan and what may happen to them in a similar situation. For example, many of those who supported the American military presence in Syria now think differently. And it is the same in Iraq. The impression is that the Americans do not think enough about their allies and partners. The United States will have to work hard to regain that trust.

At the same time, if we look at the Russian reaction, it is very calm. Russia is determined to build some, at least limited, partnership with the United States in the region. It still works in areas like the struggle against radical Islamists, and there is still some exchange of information between American and Russian militaries and there are no collisions between American and Russian forces in Syria despite different political priorities. We even have the same friends in the region like Israel and Saudi Arabia. So I think the balance of power is not changing dramatically.

Mark N. Katz: I think that in the immediate aftermath of the American withdrawal, there was a widespread feeling that it means some tremendous change. But we have seen these kinds of things before. Certainly in Indo-China in 1973 it seemed that the Americans are in decline and the Soviets on the rise, yet eventually it was communism which collapsed. Also, after the downfall of the Shah in Iran in 1979, there have been doubts expressed about American commitment to its allies. I think that both, America and Russia, have experienced retreats of influence followed by advances of influence, so I don’t see what happened in Afghanistan as a withdrawal from the region as a whole.

At the end of the day, I think that these cases are exceptions and that the US has remained committed to most of its allies. In any case, most of our allies in the Middle East are pretty capable of keeping themselves in power without a large American military presence. This is important, as it is very difficult to support a regime which cannot or will not defend itself. So I don’t think we are going to see a comparable situation in the region. The only possibility I see now is if the French leave the Sahel, as it could lead to jihadists gaining strength there.

In sum, the United States has somewhat withdrawn in one case, but it remains present in the region. And as we are pivoting towards China, I would like to say that during the Cold War the main adversarial relationship was between the US and the Soviet Union and that was the adversarial relationship everywhere including in the Middle East. If in fact the US-China adversarial relationship is going to dominate, it will also become the adversarial relationship in the Middle East. So I think the US is going to stay there for that.

Julie Newton: So it is clearly wrong to suggest, as many people have, that there is some kind of power vacuum in the region. Roy, I would like to turn to you with that topic. I think it is also wrong to assume that there is a power vacuum in the region because there is a whole array of relatively new multilateral structures led by Russia or China. My question to you, Roy, is how successful has Russia been in using these multilateral platforms to exert real geopolitical weight, especially vis-à-vis China’s geoeconomic power in the region?

Roy Allison: Sure, if I may just add one point to the conversation we just had on withdrawals? Clearly a small American military presence in Syria is a major irritant for Russia, not least because it denies the regime access to the oil fields there. But it is not a black and white issue. If you consider Idlib province and the fact that it is dominated by the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly the Al-Nusra Front, and links between that and Al-Qaeda, and concerns about Al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, I wonder whether there really is not some meeting of the minds in American and Russian perspectives?

Another point I was going to make was that at least from the European perspective it seems that the American administration is under domestic pressure, after the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, not to hastily do the same with the remaining forces in Syria and Iraq.

Now turning to multilateral structures: Russia is a key player in a number of these regional structures, but in the ones which relate to the Middle East more specifically, it’s presence is much more limited. In the recent period, Russia actually has not played much of a role in a number of conflict resolution processes, such as Saudi-Iranian talks, Qatari reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, or the future of the Iranian Comprehensive Plan of Action. Of course, Russia has to be involved, but the process has not been driven by Russia.

There is a Russian proposal on management of security processes in the Persian Gulf. This seems to be a Russian attempt to be involved in thinking about the regional security architecture, but the proposal is too detailed and too broad at the same time, and some of the key participants would probably be unhappy about it from the start, so I am not very optimistic about how far this plan can go.

As for the other organizations, the Collective Security Treaty Organization has hardly been involved. Russia would have liked it to have been involved and did encourage Kazakhstan to be active in Syria, for example. But the Kazakh response was that they would only do that if it was part of their mandate under the UN. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has not had much role in the region, if fact its central gravity has been pulled towards South Asia with the inclusion of Pakistan and India as members. And with the recent inclusion of Iran, I think it has only become more diverse with too many diverging interests in it, and so it is difficult to reach a common agenda and policies. There is a possibility that Iran might be drawn into the Eurasian Economic Union, but that has more to do with the effort to revive the north-south infrastructure corridor from Russia through the Caspian region to Iran than it does with security issues.

Julie Newton: Vitaly, how would you rate Russian success in using these multilateral instruments, especially vis-à-vis its relations with China?

Vitaly Naumkin: I think the success is limited. Russia only takes cautious steps to avoid irritating other states in the CSTO and SCO. There are of course competing interests within these structures, but there is a common interest to maintain them and keep them working. What happened in Afghanistan strengthened the desire of many states to become closer to Russia. For instance, Russia expressed its readiness to protect Tajikistan in case it would be attacked by some jihadist groups. There are thousands of jihadists of Central Asian origin in Syria and Iraq and some of them are coming to Afghanistan and some of them are close to the borders of Central Asian states. Under the CSTO charter, Russia would be obliged to assist Tajikistan if it were attacked from outside, which makes this organization very useful for Central Asian states in this unstable situation.

Regarding the competition with China, I would not exaggerate it. First of all, there is a division of power between Russia and China. China is much more powerful than Russia in terms of economic might, and it invests a lot in the region. There are also some political activities of China, for example now they are much more active in Afghanistan and they provide some help to the new regime there. China is also a good friend of Pakistan and uses Pakistan as someone who can be helpful in neutralizing certain aspects of competition between China and India. In this region, Russia has demonstrated the same ability to work with different players, and it keeps good relations with India as well as Pakistan. But over the last years and months China, is also developing its military might very quickly, which makes our Western colleagues a bit nervous. But for Russia it is another reason to have good relations and partnership with China regardless the state of Chinese relations with the West.

Julie Newton: Thank you Vitaly. I would like to turn to our audience now, where we have Ambassador Laurie Bristow, British Ambassador to Afghanistan, who kindly agreed to come in and join our conversation. I would like to ask you whether you think that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan could make Western states more willing to cooperate with other actors in the region and with institutions led by, for example, Russia.

Laurie Bristow: I would like to bring us back to the topic of what conclusions do we all draw from the events of last summer? It is perhaps too early to say, but there are few things to think about which I will try to address in no particular order.

Let’s start with alliances. There are questions asked legitimately about what lessons the US and their Western partners should draw from Afghan events. I would like to make a point here that all alliances are situational, with shifting priorities on all sides, and we should have this in mind. It relates to the underlying logic behind the decision of both the Biden and Trump administrations which made similar decisions for different reasons, but essentially what they were trying to do was to move on from a conflict which they no longer considered essential to US interests. They wanted to refocus their resources, political energy, and so on on things which they consider essential to US interests and security.

Then, going right to the beginning of this discussion, is Afghanistan a Middle East-shaped problem or something else? And from Kabul it felt like it is much more a south Central Asia-shaped problem than Middle Eastern. For example, the most powerful external influence here, aside from the United States, is Pakistan, not Iran, not Russia, and certainly not China. Here, I think, the Pakistani government and military should have been really careful about what they wished for, because now you have got it and we will all see how this will be playing out in next few years.

My final point is a question, a big and important one: I think almost everybody looking into this sees a lot of things which they don’t like. At the top of the list is violent Islamist extremism, narcotics and the political economy of narcotics, concerns about regional stability. My point here is that it would be foolish not to understand why Beijing, Moscow, or Tehran would see a geopolitical dividend in what happened over the summer, but things which these countries fear the most are not a million miles from what we most fear here in the West. So, the question for me is: will we find, can we find, ways to be cooperating on those issues? I think there is no question to which for example the CSTO is the answer, or the Taliban is the answer. But there are questions to which a properly functioning international security system based on the UN would potentially be the answer, but we are so far down the route now of being unable to find cooperative ways forward in the UN system, that I fear we cannot actually achieve much.

Vitaly Naumkin: If I may comment on this, I think I would agree with a lot of what you said. I think that the United States has already learned lessons from what happened. President Biden formulated one of them when he said that the era of regime change is over. It means that what we said about revisionist and status quo powers here is not that clear cut; the difference is much more blurred now. The United States will probably move to some new strategy, from the spread of democracy or regime change. It will probably employ some assertive policies to make these regimes behave in a desirable manner. This may influence American willingness to engage again with Iran in the JCPOA negotiations without prior conditions which Iran should accept in advance. Another lesson is that the alliances are less stable than previously thought. Look at, for example, American relations with Turkey.

I agree that the issue of narcotics is extremely important, and it is important for Russia too. I think it may be an area of cooperation for Russia and the West, especially the Europeans. Narcotics is a common threat and everyone now wonders what the new regime in Afghanistan will do about it. Whether the Taliban is determined to stop it and whether they can do that, or whether they want to use it as a source of income? What should be our and your policies towards the Taliban in order not to encourage them to use narcotics to compensate for economic losses?