... order was complete. The takeover of Crimea and support for separatism in Donbass did not presage a policy of reconquering Eastern Europe, as many in the West feared, but it clearly set Ukraine and other former Soviet republics off limits to any future NATO enlargement. The security buffer was back. If the use of force in Ukraine, from the Kremlin’s standpoint, was essentially defensive, Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015 was a risky gambit to decide geopolitical outcomes in the Middle East — a famously treacherous area for outsiders vacated by the Soviet Union at the time of the Persian Gulf war of 1991. Since then, the results of the military operation and diplomatic maneuvering have not only confounded early critics but ...
... Yevgeny Buzhinsky (Ret.) speaks on the prospects for a collective security system in the Middle East, regional divergences and the influence of external forces in an interview... ... accept a role as second in command. For this reason, US plans to establish some form of NATO in the Middle East are doomed to failure. Eventually I don’t see any streamlined... ... security system in the Middle East.
The main goal today is to end the conflict in Syria and embark on economic recovery there. Russia will not be able to do this single-handedly...
... nations had grown irrelevant [
12
]. Serious discussions began within NATO as to the future of nuclear warheads in Europe; these talks were largely related to the very sense of retaining the alliance now that the “communist adversary"was gone. NATO started looking for new “threats,"eventually identifying a number of Middle Eastern states, such as Iran, Syria and Iraq [
13
]. As Western rhetoric about the danger of the Iranian nuclear program and the need to “deter” Iran gained pace, many observers, including those in Turkey, began to believe that nuclear weapons were still of political and military ...
... American interests in the Middle East. However, the U.S. has also been clear that it would not seek direct confrontation with Tehran, relying instead on cooperation with other regional players. This renders it imperative to assess what role Turkey, a major NATO ally, is going to occupy in the future with regards to U.S. plans to limit Iranian expansion in the Middle East.
Yulia Sveshnikova, Hamidreza Azizi:
War of Interests for Peace in Syria
Washington's concerns over rising Iranian influence following the nuclear deal were prompted by several trends. The primary issue was Iranian
technological advancement
that could likely improve the regime's strike and deterrence capabilities. A ...
... global war on terrorism? Will the Islamic State movement really be destroyed in Iraq and Syria? Or will it simply drift like a nomad to other regions, into the Russian Caucasus... ... will the entry of the Islamic State into Afghanistan impact the ongoing war between NATO and the Taliban? The U.S. refused to participate in the third round of a conference... ... major and regional powers of the spread of terrorist activities throughout the ‘wider Middle East’, with periodic attacks in countries throughout much of the world? How...
... and reinforce the case made in our previous Position Paper regarding the need to work on a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and the Russian Federation on the Rules of Behaviour for the Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters. [
4
]
Finally, we believe ... ... work towards reconciliation.
II. Re-focus on fighting ISIS and preventing its re-emergence
We deplore the savagery of ISIS in Syria, Iraq and in other parts of the Middle East, and also note that our own citizens have been the target of ISIS-linked terrorist attacks, including the ones in ...
... will not oppose the viewpoint that, theoretically, Russia has the capability to pose a military threat to the USA and other NATO members. But first and foremost, Russia’s actions jeopardize the U.S. political influence. Washington fears that Russian operation in Syria is not a one-time response to the threat posed by the self-proclaimed “Islamic State”, but the beginning of a long-term consolidation of Russian position in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Strengthening of Moscow-Damascus, Moscow-Tehran and Moscow-Baghdad relations, their ...
The incident that occurred in the skies over Syria when a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 got the whole world talking about how close we came to an all-out conflict in the Middle East. Some commentators have suggested that today we are closer to an open conflict between Russia and NATO than ever before since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Quite surprisingly while Russia watchers have insisted that if a conflict between the alliance and Moscow is to erupt it will take place in Eastern Europe, yet now it’s the Middle East ...
Interview
The Syria situation seems quite unpredictable. Some countries seek to perform a military ... ... increasingly anxious that a military attack on Syria may be the harbinger of a big Middle Eastern war. How would you assess the scale of the crisis, and what are your... ... provoke Western states to attack Syria. A lot of activity is coming from certain European NATO members, especially France, which is investing a remarkable level of effort in...
