The Kremlin succeeded in making its presence in Syria stable, financially affordable and generally acceptable to the Russian public. The White House failed to do the same in Afghanistan
The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was launched in October 2001 to be nearly two decades long. Russia’s military ...
... mentioned before, Russia has lost interest in Libya for practical reasons. For some time, the country was considered a Western fiasco; and as such, it was apodictically left for the West to deal with. This is especially true for the period since 2015, when Syria has stolen all the available effort. The Syrian file left a lot of room for speculation. Many “specialists” posited that Russia entered Syria to make itself indispensable as a party to the regional mediation process and, which is much more exotic,...
The situation in Syria has not been resolved and is not yet close to a geopolitical equilibrium
The world community survived the UN vote on the mechanism for delivering cross-border aid to Syria. On the agenda was the issue of the Bab al-Hawa checkpoint, which stopped ...
... pressed to choose, Russia should side more with Egypt and the UAE, especially since the latter can open doors for Russia in other regions if their partnership reaches the strategic level through cooperation here and elsewhere.
Levant: Resolving the War in Syria
Russia must somehow resolve the Syrian dilemma, ideally by pairing an Iranian withdrawal with the nuclear deal, sanctions relief for Syria, and some form of decentralization that is acceptable to Damascus. Moscow must also ensure that Turkish influence ...
... dependence on Eastern Eurasia (China).
It is yet to be articulated and—perhaps—is not consciously understood even by most Russian policymakers as it began in a somewhat
ad hoc
fashion after the country’s decisive anti-terrorist intervention in Syria in 2015. What is therefore needed is a clear understanding of what is happening in this broad swath of geostrategic space with a special attention paid to the challenges, opportunities and narrative engagement for optimizing Russia’s grand strategy ...
... According to the current constitution, this term will be the last for the president. But in the next seven years of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, the constitution may change, and it is far from certain that this will happen as a result of the work of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, with UN mediation. The victory of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was accompanied by congratulations from allies and a lack of recognition of the election results by Western countries. In any event, what is the attitude ...
If the cry “Never Again” is to retain any meaning, the Caesar Sanctions against Syria must be immediately lifted
As the Biden administration is recklessly expanding the sanctions regime—something that has become a routine response from Anglo-American officials to any government they accuse of violating the “rules-based order”—Helga ...
A one-year extension to the current aid arrangements would be no one’s first choice—but would ensure civilians in Idlib continue to receive help
The next international showdown on Syria is quickly coming into view. After ten years of conflict, Bashar al-Assad may have won the war, but much is left to be done to win the peace. This is nowhere more so than in the province of Idlib, which is home to nearly 3 million people who now ...
... The mechanisms ... to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present” (pp. 188-189) [
3
]. Cohen cautions that the new Cold War is “more fraught with the possibility of a hot war”—on three fronts: Ukraine, Syria, and the Baltics (p. 67)—and that the only way to avert a hot war or “another prolonged Cold War” is through a new U.S.-Russia “détente,” i.e. the expansion of cooperation and radical reduction in the possibility of violent and potentially ...
... was attended by leading Russian and European experts
On March 15, 2021, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) held an off-limits online workshop on the situation in the Middle East and Syria. The event was attended by leading Russian and European experts.
Opening remarks were made by Andrey Kortunov, RIAC Director General, and Julien Barnes-Dacey, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the European Council on Foreign ...