Carnegie Moscow Center
Cooperation between the United States and Russia has essentially halted, and contact between Washington and Moscow has decreased dramatically. At the same time, the attention each country pays to the other in their respective domestic debates has increased significantly.
A first strike with nuclear weapons in a conflict between the great powers is bound to be catastrophic. At a time when speculation on nuclear weapons use has increased Russia and the United States should restate their commitment to the nuclear war prevention on which they had agreed in the Cold War era.
Russia sees the renewal of diplomacy on Syria as a chance to lose the status of international pariah. It has found relevance by getting involved in a crisis where Western strategy is full of holes.
Vladimir Putin takes advice from three distinct groups of foreign policy ideologists who can be labeled warriors, merchants, and pious believers. Each of them serves a role, but they have very different views of how Russia should develop.
The proponents of the Petersburg Dialogue believed that cooperation between Germany and Russia would increase stability in Europe. But today expectations are self-deluding.
The Assad regime is Russia’s main stake which allows the Russians to influence the situation in Syria and demonstrate their importance in the international arena by positioning Moscow as one of those players without whom the crisis cannot be solved.
In Syria, as elsewhere, Russia is acting according to a system whereby it escalates a crisis so as to claim a role in the world and challenge “American leadership.” This pattern of behavior dangerously simplifies the complexities of world politics. When one intervention ends, Russia is forced to look for a new one.
Shoring up the Assad regime and killing jihadi fighters are not the only objectives that Russia is pursuing in Syria. Moscow’s intervention is as much about Washington as it is about the Islamic State.
Moscow is likely to come to grips with the idea that a political solution for the Syrian conflict would include a post-Assad Syria. But the real question may be whether outside players can join diplomatic forces with Moscow to finally end the crisis.
Vladimir Putin is making a bid to regain global respectability by leading a fight against ISIS and evoking the anti-Hitler coalition of World War II. The West is yet to be convinced that the appeal to be “brothers-in-arms” is serious.