Marks of Weakness, Marks of Woe: When the United States Goes Weak, Russia Strikes
Editor’s Note: This piece on the War on the Rocks Hasty Ambush blog is published in partnership with the Hoover Institution’s Military History in the News.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is piling on military support for the faltering Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. And Washington is shocked — as Washington’s always shocked when the predictable-but-distasteful becomes reality. Unlike the current U.S. administration, Putin doesn’t abandon embattled allies. What’s more, Russian leaders, whether in Soviet or neo-imperialist guise, always strike when the United States and the West are distracted or weak.
After being forced to back down by the Berlin airlift, Soviet leaders paid more attention to timing their actions. They cracked down in Berlin in 1953 when the United States was trying to end the Korean War. In 1956, Russian tanks moved into Hungary while the British and French were flubbing the Suez Crisis and getting spanked by the United States. Twelve years later, the Soviet Army rolled into Prague while Washington was mesmerized by Vietnam’s swelling casualty lists. And Soviet desantniki seized key locations around Kabul, spearheading a “fraternal” invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, while President Carter was reeling from a series of crises and failures (Christmas was coming, too).
Should we, then, be surprised that the new czar of all the Russias has moved to shore up a strategically useful ally while America’s president lies curled up in a ball? That Putin has taken and continues to take advantage of the most weak-willed and indecisive administration in American history?
Much has been made in the media of Russia’s rust-bucket naval yard at Tartous on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. But Putin’s commitment is about far more than post-modern “coaling stations.” Deepening his strategic partnership with Iran (meetings in Moscow with key Iranian operators preceded Putin’s dispatch of forces to Syria), Putin foresees a wall of Russo–Iranian influence stretching from the Mediterranean into western Afghanistan (and, perhaps, beyond) … a wall that would shut out U.S. influence and cow our regional allies.
Before sending in his troops, Putin waited, artfully, until President Obama concluded his deal with Iran — a deal the White House cherishes and will not jeopardize by confronting Iran. The Iran nuclear accord is Moscow’s shield, as well as Teheran’s.
Putin succeeded in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. He’ll also succeed in propping up “President” Assad — although the cost may prove higher than Moscow anticipates, given that Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, does not share President Obama’s dread of confrontation. Meanwhile, Putin cynically presents his support for the Assad regime as putting Russia in the vanguard of the struggle with fanatical Islam.
The additional human tragedies won’t even register.
The question now isn’t how we will respond. We won’t. The question is “What will Putin do next?” Given his record and the historical pattern of Russia’s shape-shifting empire, the answer is “More.”
Ralph Peters is the author of twenty-nine books, including works on strategy and military affairs, as well as best-selling, prize-winning novels. He has published more than a thousand essays, articles, and columns. As a US Army enlisted man and officer, he served in infantry and military Intelligence units before becoming a foreign area officer and global scout. After retiring in 1998, he covered wars and trouble spots in the Middle East and Africa, and remains Fox News’s strategic analyst. His recent New York Times best seller, Cain at Gettysburg, received the 2013 Boyd Award for Literary Excellence in Military Fiction from the American Library Association.
Photo credit: kremlin.ru
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Assad’s Syria has been a Russian and Iranian client for decades, and such has been inconvenient but not a fatal threat to our interests. So were Russia to successfully end the Syrian civil war, thereby ending the refugee crisis, would such be a serious hit to our interests?
Russia lacks the ability to end the Syrian civil war but unfortunately has means to prolong it.
Spot on article! As Putin grows we shrink . It is a simple and deadly equation. As such, “Obama & Friends” continue attempts to convince us that 2+2=5
Good luck propping up Assad. The Russians and the Iranians will be doing very well if he can hold onto Assadistan in the western part of the country.
Why – because the Al Nusra and ISIS logistics supplies all come from where?Turkey. A NATO member. The takfiri sunni extremist muslim militias in Syria are funded by Saudi Arabia and logistically propped up by Turkey – the USA’s allies, yet in Iraq the USA claims the same people are terrorists. The US also assists command and control centres for many of these ‘rebels’ in their bases camps in Southern Turkey, where Pentagon types disseminate satellite images of Assad’s SAA military positions to them to aid their attacks (how else would they know without any air means , what is vulnerable). If the Russians choose to hit the Turkish controlled takfiri’s logistics supply lines as they cross into Syria (with the Sukhoi Frogfoot aircraft now lined up in Latakia ) then the ‘rebels’ will wither away on the vine – stripped off Saudi sponsored munitions and cash.
“Unlike the current U.S. administration, Putin doesn’t abandon embattled allies.”
The Russian Federation didn’t do anything to protect Saddam Hussein in Iraq, gaddaffi in Libya, or Mubarak in Egypt. This just a back handed snipe at the current administration by the author.
There are many comments of this sort in the article. I am very disappointed that WotR decided to publish an article so hostile in tone, especially just after calling for more civility.
You have it right, Mr. Peters, Putin will do anything and everything to try to restore Russian ‘greatness’ that never was. He will chase this chimera whenever and wherever he can. But it’s very likely that, as you suggest, he will not directly confront ISIS.
But I take exception with the euphemism, “weak-willed and indecisive,” you use to describe Obama’s foreign policy. There’s a definite pattern there that seeks to benefit Russia. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing and by now we should call him exactly what he is: traitor.
As you see it “weak-willed and indecisive,” is unacceptable to you not because it is a pat cliche phrase or because it is a lazy overstatement, but because it is insufficiently extreme. If you feel Obama isn’t just wrong but that he actually seeks to promote foreign interests what do you suppose is Obama motivation? Which of Obama’s predecessors as president were also foreign agents at heart?
While Obama is nothing like a traitor there are 47 members of the United States Senate that can be more accurately described as traitors. And their actions were more clearly unconstitutional than anything Obama has done that has been called unconstitutioinal. But I’m sure you see that incident as you wish to see it rather than as it was.
It may not be intentional, but the U.S. has allowed the Russians to now enter a conflict that will be expensive and painful to win. This siphoning of Russian power will only benefit the U.S. On the (extremely) off chance Putin does somehow reorder Syria, it just returns things to the way they were prior to 2011, hardly a decisive shift against the United States.
“It may not be intentional, but the U.S. has allowed the Russians to now enter a conflict..”
What exactly is the difference between un-intentionally allowing something and being too weak or slow to prevent it?
Stopped reading at “most weak-willed”.
Whatever I think of “the current US administration”, the author hits the spot in at least one respect: However effective JSOC operations may be (?), they can’t match the psychological effect of having the 6th fleet show up and flex its muscles… This is what an old Tunisian told me last week, when discussing the barbarians just across his frontier. Why is this young, struggling democracy not being protected by the US, or anyone else, for that matter ? No oil ? Is that morally acceptable ?
Image is an important part of US interests; Losing sight of this is a VERY big mistake.