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Russia’s Military Intervention in the Middle East: Why Syria, But
Not Libya?
By
CHHENG Sotharath
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
at the
ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF PHNOM PENH
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
2017
Permission-to-Copy-Page for Bachelor of Arts in
International Studies
I hereby grant the Royal University of Phnom Penh the nonexclusive right to use this
work for the University’s own purposes and to make single copies of the work
available to the public on a non-profit basis if the copies are not otherwise available.
_______________________
CHHENG Sotharath
The thesis of CHHENG Sotharath is approved by the Thesis Examining Committee:
________________________________________
Dr. NHEM Boraden (Supervisor)
________________________________________
Lecturer YUN Kea (Examiner)
ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF PHNOM PENH DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
2017
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………i
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………..ii
Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………….….iii
Abstract of the Thesis……………………………………………………………….iv
Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………….1
1 Background………………………………………………………………..1
2 Research Problem and Questions………………………………………..2
3 Research Objectives………………………………………………………2
4 Significance of the Study……………………………….…………………3
5 Research Methodology……………………………………………………3
5.1 Study Design……………………………………………………..3
5.2 Measurement Procedures………………………………….……3
5.3 Sample Size and Sample Procedures……………………….…..4
5.4 Data Analysis…………………………………………………….5
6 Scope and Limitation………………………………………………………5
Chapter Two: Literature Review…………………………………………………...7
Chapter Three: Comparison of Geopolitics of Syria and Libya for Russia……12
1 Libya’s and Syria’s Natural Boundaries………………………………..12
1.1 Russia’s Geostrategic Interest in the Middle East…………….12
1.2 Geographical Location of Syria………………….……………14
1.3 Geographical Location of Libya………………………………17
1.4 Analysis of Syria’s and Libya’s Natural Boundaries…………19
2 Russia’s Military Base in Syria and Libya………………………………20
2.1 Russia’s Military Base in the Middle East……………………20
2.2 Russia’s Military Base in Syria………………………………..22
2.3 Libya’s Military Base Offer to Russia…………………………27
2.4 Analysis of the Russian Military Base in Syria and Libya…..29
3 Can Syria and Libya Assist Russia to Get Access to Warm Water in the
Mediterranean Region?......................................................................................30
3.1 Russia’s Pivotal Interests to Get Access to Warm Water……30
3.2 How Russia Can Make Use of Tartus Port in Syria………….31
3.3 How Russia Can Make Use of Libya’s Ports………………….35
3.4 Analysis of Syrian and Libyan Ports from Russia’s Perspective
to Get Access to Mediterranean………………………………………………..35
Chapter Four: Comparison of Economy of Libya and Syria for Russia…….37
1 Economic Relations between Russia and Libya………………………...37
2 Economic Relations between Russia and Syria…………………………39
3 Analysis of Economic Relations between Russia and Libya and Those
between Russia and Syria…………………………………………………..….41
Chapter Five: Perceptions of President Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir
Putin, and Russia’s Reactions on Libyan and Syrian Crisis…………………43
1 President Dmitry Medvedev’s Perception and Its Influence on Russia’s
Reaction on Libyan Crisis……………………………………………...………43
1.1 Russian Foreign Policy under Dmitry Medvedev’s Presidency
toward the West………………………………………………………...………43
1.2 President Dmitry Medvedev’s Speech on Libyan Crisis…...…46
2 President Vladimir Putin’s Perception and Its Influence on Russia’s
Reaction on Syrian Crisis……………………………………………………....48
2.1 Russian Foreign Policy under Vladimir Putin’s Presidency
toward the West………………………………………………………………...48
2.2 President Vladimir Putin’s Speech on Syrian Crisis………….50
3 Analysis of Dmitry Medvedev’s and Vladimir Putin’s Perceptions……53
Chapter Six: Conclusion……………………………………………………….55
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………58
i
List of Abbreviation
EU European Union
IS Islamic State
ISIS Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
UN United Nations
US United States
UNGA United Nations General Assemble
UNSC United Nations Security Council
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WMD Weapon of Mass Destruction
ii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Syria Map………………………………………………………………16
Figure 2: Libya Map………………………………………………………………18
Figure 3: Russia’s Military Base in Syria………………………………………..22
Figure 4: The Mediterranean Region Map………………………………………32
iii
Acknowledgement
This section is wholeheartedly dedicated to all the good people around
me that have directly and indirectly contributed to the very existence of this paper in
addition to my mental and physical efforts in writing day and night. Without their help
and support, I would not have completed this nerve-racking, academic task on time.
First of all, I would like to express my immeasurable appreciation and
sincere gratitude to my respected supervisor, Dr. NHEM Boraden for his constructive
advice and feedbacks, practical guidance, persistent efforts and valuable time to assist
and supervise me to complete my thesis research in spite of his busy schedule. My
research paper would not have come into existence without his supervision.
Additionally, I would like to show my deep thank to my thesis examiner, Lecturer
YUN Kea, for his critical comments on my defense which are important inputs
correcting the flaws in my thesis. I also would like to give my wholehearted gratitude
to all the lecturers of the Department of International Studies for providing me
necessary background knowledge to carry out this thesis paper.
Second of all, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my
respected mother who has always had faith in me and has always taught me to embrace
every struggle I have encountered in life. Without her, I would not know how to
construct full determination to confront all the challenges throughout the whole
process of this thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellow honor students for
accompanying me throughout this bittersweet journey. Furthermore, I would like to
extend my great appreciation towards all seniors who have given me useful advice and
recommendations as well as all good friends who have provided me direct and indirect
support during this four-year academic journey, especially those who spent their
precious time proofreading my writing and helping me get access to some reading
sources, and those who always alerted me about progress test dates and the deadlines
of assignment when my to-do list got out of hand. Their presence is a blessing, and I
am thankful for that.
CHHENG Sotharath
iv
Abstract of the Thesis
Russia’s Military Intervention in the Middle East: Why Syria, But Not Libya?
By
CHHENG Sotharath
Bachelor of Arts in International Studies
Royal University of Phnom Penh,
2017
Dr. NHEM Boraden, Supervisor
Looking from Russia’s perspective, this paper aims to understand the
rationales behind Russia’s military intervention to support Assad’s regime in Syria and
the absence of such intervention to support Gaddafi’s in Libya. Moreover, this research
also intends to compare relations between Russia and Syria, and Russia and Libya in
terms of geopolitics, economy and the perceptions of the leaders. In order to fill in the
loopholes of the previous research papers than focus only on explaining why Russia
intervened in Syria, this study will focus on explaining why Russia militarily
intervened in Syria to support Assad, but not in Libya in Gaddafi’s regime. This paper
examines the geopolitics of both Syria and Libya based on their geographical
locations, Russia’s military base in their countries and whether the two countries can
assist Russia to get more access to the Mediterranean. In terms of economy, this paper
studies the trade relations, specifically weapon sales, pivotal investments and
outstanding projects between Russia and Libya and Russia and Syria. In terms of
perceptions, this paper analyzes Russian foreign policies under the presidency of
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, and their speech on Libyan and Syrian crises
respectively. This study yields the result that the leaders’ perceptions, contingent upon
constructivism, are the important reasons behind Russian’s military intervention to
support Assad’s regime and the absence of such intervention to help Gaddafi’s regime.
1
Chapter One: Introduction
1. Background
Historically, USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew its power from
the Middle East at the start of the first Gulf War, marking the decline of USSR’s
superpower status. As Vladimir Putin restored Russia’s role back in the Middle East,
this region has become an important arena for Russia’s attempt to return to
international stage (Trenin, 2016). After cold war, very few Arab countries remained
more or less under Russia’s foreign policy influence. However, the tumult of Arab
Spring, the so-called Arab revolutions brought a clear threat, and expended this
influence (Kostyuk, 2016).
Libya and Syria are the two countries among others that underwent the
protests and revolutions inspired by Arab Spring. While the revolutions in Tunisia,
Yemen and Egypt finished quickly, those in Libya and Syria turned to be bloodstained
and unrelenting (Lenarz, 2012). In both scenarios, the international community and the
regional actors strongly condemned the attacks and signified crimes against humanity.
Russia who has a critical interest in Libya turned out to be quiet, abstaining from voting
in UNSC while others especially Arab league were voting for resolution 1973 to
impose a no-fly zone in Libya (Shrivastava, 2011). As a result, with military support
from the West and some Arab states, the rebels took Tripoli, Capitol city of Libya,
after six months of fighting and Gaddafi, leader of Libya, was killed in August 2011
(BBC, 2013). In contrast to Libyan case, Russia is quite reactive in Syrian crisis.
Russia opposed to any kind of military intervention in Syria and used veto power to
2
block any resolutions to sanction Syria (Buckley, 2012). Moreover, Russia has
escalated its air campaign in Syria since September 2015, demonstrating some of its
most advanced weapon systems, changing the nature of the battle in Syrian Civil War
(Lister, 2015).
In the light of the aforementioned accounts, the question arises why
Russia decided to support Assad’s regime in Syria, but not Gaddafi’s in Libya.
2. Research Problems and Questions
Given the interest to advance the knowledge regarding to Russia’s
intervention in the Middle East, this research aims to study the rationales behind
Russia’s military intervention to support Assad’s regime in Syria and the absence of
such intervention to support Gaddafi’s regime in Libya by comparing Libya to Syria
from Russia’s perspective. Since many scholars have focused only on explaining why
Russia intervened in Syria, this study will focus on explaining why Russia militarily
intervened in Syria to support Assad, but not in Libya in Gaddafi’s regime.
Main Question: Why did Russia take military intervention to support
Assad’s regime in Syria, but not Gaddafi’s in Libya?
Sub-questions:
1 Is Syria more important than Libya for Russia in terms of geopolitics?
2 Is Syria more important than Libya for Russia in terms of economy?
3 Do perceptions of President Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry
Medvedev influence the military intervention in Syria and the absence of such
intervention in Libya?
3. Research Objectives
3
This research aims to understand the rationales behind Russia’s military
intervention to support Assad’s regime in Syria and the absence of such intervention
to support Gaddafi’s in Libya. Moreover, this research also intends to compare
relations between Russia and Syria, and Russia and Libya in terms of geopolitics,
economy and the perceptions of the leaders.
4. Significance of the Study
The finding of this research is relevant to the existing literature related
to the discussion of Russia’s military intervention in the Middle East specifically Syria
and Libya which are the two countries whose domestic unrests have been influenced
by the Arab Spring and were intervened by the superpowers. This study fills gaps of
the previous researches that focus only on Russia and Syria by comparing Syria’s and
Libya’s importance for Russia based on geopolitics, economy and perceptions of the
leaders. Therefore, this study will add up new knowledge in this issue. In addition, the
finding is important and useful to professionals in this field.
5. Research Methodology
5.1 Study Design
Qualitative and retrospective approaches will be used in order to
analyze qualitative data as well as look into the events that have already happened in
the past in an attempt to draw conclusion from such information to find valid answers
to the research questions.
5.2 Measurement Procedures
4
Geopolitics: By looking from Russia’s perspective, this study will
analyze the strategic position of both countries, Syria and Libya, whether which one
has more influential regional power to be a geo-strategic foothold of Russia to gain its
power and security in the Middle East region, contingent upon realism theory, taking
into account their natural boundaries, military base, and access to the Mediterranean
Sea.
Economy: Looking from Russia’s perspective, this study will focus on
economic interests of Russia on both countries, Syria and Libya on the ground of
realism theory, including pivotal investments, trade relations and outstanding projects
ranging from oil, gas and other natural resource exploration to infrastructure.
Perceptions: Based on constructivism theory, this study will examine
foreign policies of both Presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin as well as
their speech regarding Libyan and Syrian crisis respectively to see if their perceptions
have influence over their decisions on the two countries’ issues.
5.3 Sample Size and Sample Procedures
Primary data will be extracted from news including Russia Today, The
Moscow Times, Sputnik International, Russia Insider, Aljazeera, Reuters, BBC, CNN,
The Guardian, Middle East Institute, Middle East Monitor, CNBC, the Economist, the
Diplomat, Foreign Policy, the Presidents’ interviews with the media, government
speech, official documents and statements, government press release, related
government institution websites such as The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation, Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, local media and other
relevant primary sources.
5
Secondary data will be extracted from scholarly publications including
journals, articles, news, and books from selective institutions such as Russian Institute
for Strategic Studies, Russian International Affairs Council, Jstor, the Diplomat, the
Economist, Middle East Institute, The Washington Institute and other relevant
secondary sources.
5.4 Data Analysis
Data analysis will be employed by using techniques for data collection
such as document-based research, internet-based research, content analysis and
discourse analysis, focusing on Russia’s relations with Libya from 2008 when Dmitry
Medvedev came to power until 2011 when the international community started to
authorize resolutions to respond to Gaddafi’s regime and Russia’s relations with Syria
from 2012 when Vladimir Putin came to power until Russia’s intervention in Syria in
September 2015.
6. Scope and limitation
As mentioned in research questions, this study will focus only on
geopolitics, economy and perceptions. This study is scoped on relations between
Russia and Libya from 2008 when Dmitry Medvedev became Russian president
throughout the Libyan civil war bursting out until 2011 when international community
authorized the resolutions responding to Gaddafi’s regime and between Russia and
Syria from 2012 when Vladimir Putin came to power until 2015 when Russia decided
to intervene to support Assad’s regime so the data collected during this period will
contribute to answering the research questions.
6
Two challenges to this study include the inability to analyze related
articles written in Russian and the lack of interviewing with experts since the Russian
embassy does not seem to have clear policy allowing for academic interview.
7
Chapter Two: Literature Review
After USSR collapsed, Russia underwent political and social instability
as the Warsaw Pact fell down and NATO integrated some Eastern European states,
making Russia seek to restore its role as a major state. As Russia is back in the game,
it needed to decide whether to step down to the role of minor partner with the West or
to adopt an independent policy guided by its own interests. Russia chose the second
option, putting the main focus on the Central Asia and the Middle East (Gresh, 1998).
Russia took renewed interests in defending its “near zone” as well as
restored its global role. To bring back its role as a superpower, Russia adopted state,
sovereignty and vital sphere as if they were ideology. Russia also sought to create
alliance with Iran and other states that have similar nationalist ideology such as Syria
and Libya (Bishara, 2015). Due to the fact that Russia wanted to be back to
international stage, the question is where to put its focus on. There’s no point in playing
the role in the zones that the US was already deeply rooted such as Saudi Arabia and
Latin America. What was left for Russia was the traditional spheres of influence and
the “rogue states” including Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria to an extent. Russian specialists
categorized three zones of interests in the Middle East in order of importance including
the republic of central Asia and the Caucasus, the ring of countries on the Common
Wealth of Independent States’ southern borders, and Arab countries and Israel (Gresh,
1998).
Regarding Russia’s military intervention in Syria, Azmi Bishara argues
the aim of Russia’s policy to save Assad’s regime from collapse is a means of self-
8
assertion and the goal of becoming a global superpower in the Arab World this time.
The author summarizes the aims of Russian intervention into three points. First, Russia
aims to support Assad’s regime for long enough for Moscow to accomplish its desired
diplomatic breakthrough. Second, it is a message for Turkey and the West alike. Third,
with Russian intervention, it is difficult to make any decision on Syria without Russia’s
express participation (Bishara, 2015). Similarly, Stephen Covington argues that
President Putin’s aim of Russia’s campaign in Syria was to establish a new system,
limiting Western institutions and the US power in the 21st century to reduce the US
role in key regional security arrangement and world’s security system. Putin’s
decisions in Syria reflected Russia prioritizing changing the regional and global
security system to prevent itself from losing great power status and Putin’s personal
power (Covington, 2015). Likewise, Azuolas Bagdonas argues that reasons behind
Russia supporting Assad’s regime were not motivated by material interests but rather
by multi-polarity foreign policy doctrine and desire for reputation and influence in the
region. Russia saw Western move to condemn Assad as an effort to impose Libya
scenario in Syria. Learning Libya’s lesson, Russia vetoed the resolution aiming to
overthrow Assad. There are two crucial points of Russia’s strategic interests in
supporting Assad including reestablishing itself as a global actor and preventing the
model regime change from being legitimized, and expanding its influence in the
Middle East (Bagdonas, n.d.). In addition, Roy Allison explained the alignment of
Russia and Syria based on three reasons: identity and shared historical affinity,
material interests in bilateral relations and implications of Syrian crisis for Russian
state order. The author in his paper found that Russia’s stance in Syria was influenced
by the strategic implications in the Middle East region of gains and losses while
9
commercial relations are of secondary importance. Also, military-security
establishment as well as nationalist opinion view Russia-Syria relation as a vital trace
for regional geopolitical advantage to keep Russia’s global status (Allison, 2013).
Furthermore, according to Markus Kaim and Oliver Tamminga, Russia aimed to
achieve several different goals through intervening militarily in Syria. On the
operational level, Russia is recently pursuing the goal of stabilizing Assad’s regime,
legally recognized government, from all opposition members, not just from IS to
preserve an Alawite “core Syria”. On the political level, Russia uses its military
intervention to show the international community that it is a central actor in solving
Syria crisis (Kaim & Tamminga, 2015). Another paper, Russian Deployment to Syria:
Putin’s Middle East Game Changer, described that Russia’s presence in Syria aims to
achieve multiple objectives including securing its military interests on the Syrian coast
where the port of Tartus is Russia’s only remaining Middle East base and providing
timely support to the wavering Syrian regime that may preserve Russia’s only Arab
ally, viewing that Assad’s regime is the only safeguard against the expansion of ISIS
and other militant groups in the Middle East (Spaulding, et al., 2015)
In contrast to Assad’s regime in Syria, Gaddafi’s regime in Libya was
not provided much supports by Russia. Mark Katz examines Russia’s reaction to Arab
Spring and compare its policies to those of the West. For the uprisings in Libya, unlike
those in Tunisia and Egypt, it was influenced by the outside. The discussion
concerning the possibility of Gaddafi’s regime being overthrown by the military
intervention arose in the West. Medvedev suggested that the West was causing trouble
in these uprisings and its ultimate intention was to bring political change to Russia.
Putin also warned that the West attempting to impose democracy could lead to the rise
10
of Islamists that could affect other regions including Russia’s North Caucasus.
However, despite its irritation of the West’s military intervention, Russia abstained
from voting on resolution 1973 concerning no-fly zone in Libya allowing it to pass.
During the US and NATO’s intervention, though, Russia criticized their actions. While
Putin criticized military action against Libya as crusade, Medvedev responded that it
was unacceptable to use the term crusade which reflects the disagreement and
contradiction between Putin and Medvedev (Katz, 2011 & Kaczmarski, 2011). Alexey
Malashenko described that during the uprisings in Libya, Russia was in a dilemma
between the desire to keep Gaddafi in power and the pressure from the West to allow
international support to the rebels. Eventually, Russia decided to join the arm export
embargo on Libya and abstained the resolution 1973 allowing NATO to execute the
military operation in Libya (Malashenko, 2013).
As the countries that encountered the Arab Spring and were intervened
from the superpowers, but were reacted to differently by Russia, Libya and Syria will
be the focus of this research by comparing the two countries from Russia’s perspective.
As we can see, the existing literatures seem to explain foreign policies
of Russia by looking through realism, the main theory considering state as the principal
actor in the international arena, concerned with their own security acting in an attempt
to achieve national interests and struggle for power. In this research paper, I will
analyze the rationales behind Russia’s reactions to Libyan and Syrian crises by looking
from both realism and constructivism. In this paper, we will see whether realism,
focusing on rational thinking to gain national interests based on geopolitics and
economy, or constructivism, concerning the perceptions of both presidents Dmitry
Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, can better explain the decisions of Russia to intervene
11
in Syria to help Assad’s regime and the absence of such intervention to support
Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.
12
Chapter Three: Comparison of Geopolitics of Syria and Libya for Russia
1. Libya’s and Syria’s Natural Boundaries
1.1 Russia’s Geo-strategic Interest in the Middle East
USSR started its active involvement in the Middle East in the mid-
1950s, and for a period of time, a variety of countries in the Middle East such as
Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, South Yemen and Syria used to be Soviet clients and
quasi-friends during the Cold War era. These historical experiences are what Russia’s
foreign policies toward the Middle East have been building upon (Trenin, 2016 &
Barmin, 2017). Throughout the last decade and a half, Russia’s foreign policy toward
the Middle East has been portrayed as a combination of elements from the old-style
Soviet playbook which defined the Middle East as a region of confrontation between
USSR or Russia and the West, and its opposite, the strategy under President Boris
Yatsin which was “first economics, then politics” (Shumilin, 2016). The presidency of
Boris Yatsin contributed a lot to the uncertainty of Russian foreign policy toward the
Middle East.
When Vladimir Putin first came to power, the Middle East ceased to be
a priority for Russia. However, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, Russia started
to realize how the social unrest was easily dispersing over the region and can directly
affect Russia itself. The security challenges within the region can turn into security
risks for Russia including the potential proliferation of the WMD and the diffusion of
extremist ideologies to the North Caucasus and Central Asia. To deal with this, Russia
has to renovate its military strength in the region, proving the strategy of restoring old
13
bases in the Middle East and also rebuilding its position as a leading weapon provider,
and supporting Russia’s ambitions in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic (Barmin,
2017).
In the present day, there are a variety of experts on the Middle East in
Russian foreign and security policy community. By re-emerging once again as a player
in the Middle East, Russia under President Vladimir Putin strives for restoration of the
country’s position as a great power outside of the former USSR (Trenin, 2016 & Assl,
2011). The key characteristics of the recent Russian foreign policy in the Middle East
has remained pragmatism and willingness to selectively cooperate with the regional
powers even there have been tensions between them (Stepanova, 2016 & Shumilin,
2016). To be precise, Russia might oppose to Saudi Arabia in Syrian issue, but Russia
still cooperate with Saudi Arabia in terms of energy and arm sales (Shumilin, 2016).
Arm sales to the region serves a geopolitical purpose of buying favor with anti-Western
governments, and turning the region’s politics more into that direction. And by
restoring relations in the Middle East region, Russia is looking for naval and air
stations in Syria, Libya and Egypt, said Vladimir Frolov, Russian Foreign Affair expert
(Bodner, 2017). In addition, in geopolitical terms, Russia works to construct a power
alliance of its own, aiming to be the principal outside player in the South Caucasus,
the Caspian and Central Asia which is just north of the Middle East. Russia is aware
of the growing significance of countries such as Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia as main
regional partners, and the expansion of the US military presence in the region which
is crucial security threat to Russia. However, after a while, Russian strategists have
overcome the threat and learned to take advantage from the US and NATO operations.
Russia keeps on opposing to the US military presence in the Central Asia (Trenin,
14
2010). Furthermore, strategically, for Russia, the Middle East region, the world’s most
volatile and conflict-ridden one, can be used on its global chessboard that can serve as
a spoiler of Western policy while Russia has been succeeded in carrying out its
economic and geopolitical interests to the detriment of the United States as well as its
allies.
Russia is taking advantage of the US’ failing foreign policies and its
less influential role in the Middle East to re-take the international prestige of
Superpower and spread out its area of influence. As a permanent member of UNSC,
Russia has used its veto power to block any resolutions and the Western efforts from
being succeeded. The US failing in the region is a personal victory to improve Putin’s
image since for the first time since the Cold War, Russia re-appeared as an equal player
against the US. As the air campaign, up until today has been accepted as being one of
the most successful, it gave the world impression that Russia is the only international
player, yearning to do whatever it takes to make the region become stable (Pisanò,
2017 & Solutions 2016, n.d.). Russia’s intensification of military in Syria has
accelerated its position of greater importance in a region that is often dominated by the
US (Devry, Janicki, Tryon, & Szul, n.d.).
1.2 Geographical Location of Syria
Due to the fact that President Vladimir Putin has strived for restoration
of Russia as a Great power since 2000, Russia shaped its policy as anti-American zero-
sum game to position its country as counterbalance to the West in the Middle East. For
Russia, Syria is too important to lose since Syria is an important base for Russia in the
region and a key to Russia’s calculus (Borshchevskaya, 2013).
15
The name Syria was used to identify a piece of land which is
surrounded by the Taurus mountains in the north, the Mediterranean in the west, the
Sinai Peninsula in the south and the desert in the east prior to the 1916 Sykes-Picot
agreement drawing an awkward collection of nation-states in the Middle East region
(Goujon, 2015). The natural features of Syria itself make further difficulties for the 6-
year-old civil war to stop. Taking into consideration the deserts in the south and the
great plains of fertile crescent in the east, there are only two areas of strategic
importance in Syria which include the coastal plains and mountains of the west, and
the Euphrates river region in the east. The coastal plains and mountains of the west are
controlled by the regime of President Bashar Al Assad while the Euphrates river region
is under the control of the Islamic State. The two areas came across one another in the
north around Aleppo which is the front line of the civil war. Western-backed Sunni
Arab rebels dominate Aleppo and the surrounding regions (Baron, 2015).
As one of the counties in the Middle East region, the Syrian Arab
Republic today is geographically located along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
Sea (Fisher, 2013). It is in the Southwest Asia which is the heart of the Middle East
(Syria Facts, n.d.; Drysdale & Hinnebusch, 1991). Positioned at the crossroads
between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as well as between Africa and Eurasia,
Syria shares borders with 5 countries that can be considered as the key regional actors
such as Israel and Jordan in the south, Turkey in the north, Iraq in the west and Lebanon
in the west. Such location in the very heart of the Middle East allows Syrian to enjoy
exceptional strategic significance within the region, making it too important to lose for
Russia (Drysdale & Hinnebusch, 1991; Bock, 2015; Borshchevskaya, 2013 &
McDonnell, 2012).
16
Figure 1: Syria Map
Source: CIA, 2017
Despite the fact that Syria is not really a crucial oil producer of the
region, Syria’s borders share with many of the important oil suppliers and has long
been used as a host for pipelines linking the Gulf to the Mediterranean. “Syria has a
geopolitical importance out of proportion to its relatively small population, area,
resource base and economic wealth because of formidable military power… and its
location at the heart of the Middle East, as a result it plays a central role in most of the
Middle East’s key disputes.”, written by Alasdair Drysdale of the Australian National
University in the Oxford Companion to World Politics (Klare, 2013). Moreover,
according to Amos Guiora at the University of Utah law school, Syria is very
prominent from geopolitical perspective due to the fact that Syria offers the Iranian
navy the ability to tie up in Syrian ports and to sail in the Mediterranean. And Syria’s
17
backyard also borders Israel which is American number-one Middle Eastern ally
(2013). Due to the fact that Syria is able to provide a passage for a number of gas
pipelines, Russia, having an intent to maintain high prices for oil and gas and to have
a hold over the exports of hydrocarbons to Europe, is interested in an interruption of
this situation, including direct participation – controlling the supply in the future
(Syria: A geopolitical dossier, n.d.; Ahmed, 2015; Valenta & Valenta, 2016).
1.3 Geographical Location of Libya
Unlike the case of Syria, Libya has little geopolitical significance;
Russia has little to gain from getting involved in Libyan crisis.
Libya, best known for its former 42-year-rule dictator Muammar
Gaddafi, is the most inclined to internal divisions and chaos of all states in the North
African continent. The key impediment for this African country to establish ethnic and
tribal unity and national identity is its own geography (Ionescu, 2014). Lying in the
Sahara desert, this North African country is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea in
the north, Egypt in the east, Sudan on the Southeast, Niger and Chad on the south, and
Tunisia and Algeria in the west (Cordell, Brown, Buru, Fowler, & Barbour, 2016).
18
Figure 2: Libya Map
Source: CIA, 2017
With an estimated population of 6 541 948 in 2015 (CIA), Libya has
the highest per capita income in Africa while oil revenues still remain as the most
important source of income (National Geographic , n.d.; Cordell, Brown, Buru,
Fowler, & Barbour, 2016 & OPEC, n.d.). Due to the fact that Libya is located in
deserted environment, Libya used to be seen as poor and limited natural resource
country prior to the discovery of oil in the late 1950s (Cordell, Brown, Buru, Fowler,
& Barbour, 2016). Apart from oil, Libya possesses other natural resources such as
natural gas and gypsum. According to 2013 Resource Governance Index, estimated oil
reserves in Libya are 47 billion barrels which is considered as the largest in Africa and
the ninth-largest in the world. In 2010, Libya generated 1.8 million barrels per day;
however, due to the instability and civil war in 2011, the production decreased by more
19
than two-thirds (Revenue Watch Institute , 2013). As a remarkable oil and gas supplier,
Libya provided sufficient amount of such production to the EU countries up until 2011.
And right after the overthrow of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi by the US and
NATO operations, the position of Gazprom, a large Russian company holding the
world’s largest natural gas reserves, started to be strengthened in the European Market
(Balmasov, 2017). Taking into consideration the fact that Libya is the largest oil stock
in the Africa, there could be claim that external intervention in the Libyan crisis could
be attracted by petroleum. In spite of this, Russia does not need more oil given that it
has large reserves and oil exporters are at present suffering from low prices as well as
oversupply. Libya has little geopolitical significance; countries like Russia do not
strategic interests to gain and have a lot to lose from involving in the Libyan crisis
(Gehrke, Russia’s Role in Libya, 2017).
1.4 Analysis of Syria and Libya’s Natural Boundaries
Taking into account the geographical locations of Syria and Libya, we
can see that looking from Russia’s perspective, Syria can better help Russia in
strengthening Russia’s sphere of influence in the Middle East region and can be a
better geo-strategic foothold for Russia to gain its power and security in the region. As
already mentioned previously, Syria shares borders with regional power such as
Turkey, Israel, Iraq and so on; if pro-Russian Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad was to be
overthrown by the West just like in the Libyan case, Russia would lose its significant
position to influence the region and counterbalance again the West and the United
States. As located in the very heart of the Middle East region and at the intersection of
the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, Syria to too strategically important for Russia
20
to lose. Despite the fact that Syria is not an important oil supplier in the region, Syria
is able to provide a gas pipeline pathway from the Arab peninsular to Europe; hence,
strategically, Russia can gain from this by influencing his fellow friend, Assad.
In contrast to Syria’s geographical conditions, Libya is situated in the
North African continent which is of secondary importance to Russia if compared to
the Middle East region. In addition, Libya does not share borders with many regional
powers like Syria does. Even though Libya is rich and full of natural resources, Russia
has little strategic interests to gain from this. And while Libya is an important oil
supplier for Europe, it can also interrupt the Russia’s supply to European market. As
we already know, after Gaddafi’s regimes collapse, Russia started to gain better
position as an oil supplier in the European market. Therefore, Libya is not just
insignificant to Russia, but can also be an obstacle for Russia to supply its production
to the market as well.
In conclusion, regarding the natural features, Syria is much more
important that Libya for Russia due to what I have explained above. Therefore, that
can be one of the reasons that motivated Russia to actively involve in Syrian crisis
while remain silent in Libyan crisis.
2. Russia’s Military Base in Syria and Libya
2.1 Russia’s Military Base in the Middle East
For Russia, the Middle East region is its near neighbor, and Russia is
in the early steps of carrying out a long-term strategy with the intention of restoring
itself to the powerful status and influence it used to have in the Middle East during the
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Cold War period. Russia is working out to undermine the long-lasting US relations
with the Middle East countries as well as to restructure the regional order. As a matter
of fact, Russia’s plan in the region is not much different from that to weaken NATO
and the EU in Europe (Smith & Goldenberg, 2017).
Access to the Mediterranean means access to the world, for Russia.
However, after the collapse of Berlin Wall, USSR’s 5th Operational Squadron guarding
the Mediterranean to watch out what The US and NATO were actually doing in this
region during the Cold War was disbanded and until today, Russia’s maritime presence
in the Mediterranean is still limited. President Vladimir Putin has made the
Mediterranean Sea its priority for the Russian navy while his ambition is to bring
Russia back to its imperial ways. “The Mediterranean region was the core of all
essential dangers to Russia’s national interests.” said Russian Defense Minister Sergey
Shoigu during a visit to Crimea. A new Russian naval task force in the Mediterranean
was announced to be set up, possibly based on the 5th Operational Squadron. President
Putin saw the US disengagement from the region an opportunity for the Russian navy
to try to fill the space left by the US navy (Coffey, 2016).
While Russia rises on the international stage, it is prioritizing the effort
and funding to rebuild its navy, reflecting the latest achievements of Russian advances
in science and technology as President Vladimir Putin said on Russian Federation
Navy day, on 26 July 2015:
Thanks to the bravery of sailors, the talent of shipbuilders, and the daring of
explorers, pioneers, and naval leaders our nation has held fast as a great
maritime power. This status is a huge responsibility for us as we face history,
22
our ancestors who created Russia’s maritime glory, and, of course, future
generations to whom we must pass a modem and strong navy. (The Russian
Navy - a historic transition , 2015, p. iv).
According to the Maritime Doctrine of Russian Federation 2020, a key
strategic planning document setting out Russian naval policy, to strengthen position of
Russia as a sea power, Russia is also planning to restore its own naval presence in the
Mediterranean (President of Russia, 2015). Securing a naval in this region might not
be the only motivation for Russia to militarily intervene in Syria, yet it must be at least
a part of it strategic calculus since Russia has clearly revealed that restoring a strong
naval presence is of national priority while the Mediterranean has been an important
maritime center for Western civilization for all of written history. Safeguarding
ongoing access to the Mediterranean for the Russian navy must be at the forefront of
any strategic thinking in this region (Chuma, 2016).
What Russia can gain from its military presence in the Middle East
region is that Russia can somehow keep the situation in the Middle East as well as the
Mediterranean under control as well as improving its geopolitical standing and its
sphere of influence given NATO’s increased assertiveness.
2.2 Russia’s military base in Syria
23
Figure 3: Russia’s military base in Syria
Source: Anadolu Agency 2015
Russia’s naval facilities have been presented in Tartus, a city on the
Mediterranean coast of Syria since 1970s. Tartus was also used for maintenance of the
Soviet navy in the Mediterranean region (Sisoev, 2017) (Harmer, 2012). It is the only
naval base situated outside of the former Soviet Union which is still occupied by
Russian military. And the country has emphasized the port’s strategic importance as
the port acts as Russian secured position to accomplish political goal (Harmer, 2012).
Tartus has been used since 1971, for refueling and maintenance when its warships visit
the Mediterranean so without Tartus those warships would have to go back more often
to the Black Sea through the Bosporus, Turkey (Cohen, 2014). This naval base was
recognized as a main port serving the warships of USSR’s 5th Mediterranean squadron.
USSR was able to maintain its sustained presence in the Mediterranean through this
5th operational squadron. But then USSR collapsed and the unified Syrian is also gone.
As Russia is back on the game, the country is starting to re-construct Tartus as a
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maritime base in an attempt to carry out Russia’s largest nuclear-powered ships (Peck,
2017).
On July 25, 2012, Viktor Chirkov, Russian Navy Chief of Staff Vice
Admiral, mentioned in the interview that Russia needs that base and it will continue to
carry out as it has until now (Harmer, 2012; Gardner, 2012 & Delman, 2015). In
addition to this statement, two days later, Russian Academy of Geopolitical problems
President, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said that the modernization would be
needed at Tartus. The development including plans to search the harbor and spread out
piers to support aircraft carrier port visit, and command and control facilities may be
built up with the aim of planning and controlling operations from those facilities
(Harmer, 2012). The Tartus base is probably less important than its base in Sevastopol,
Ukraine; however, the location of the Tartus base carries some weight due to the fact
that Tartus helps set up Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean (Delman, 2015). Even
though Tartus is less important compared to the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol,
Ukaine, but Tartus naval base can still serve Russia’s strategic and geopolitical
interests due to the fact that it’s the only Russia’s Mediterranean base beyond the
Bosphorus Strait which is under Turkey’s control nowadays and since Tartus a deep
water port, it can also dock nuclear submarines (Synovitz, 2012). “A big part of their
continued interest in Syria and in Assad has to do with the Tartus base. I think Russia
does have a bigger geopolitical view of the world, regards the eastern Mediterranean
as an area of importance, and wants to be sure that it can secure its interests there.”
Said Jeffrey Mankoff, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. To add up, Tartus is probably a part of a Russian effort to build an anti-
access/area denial bubble over Syria in order to prevent NATO from conducting
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offensive actions against Russia and its allies in the region, as stated by General Philip
Breedlove, NATO’s top commander (Delman, 2015). While Russia has been trying to
maintain its position in the region, NATO has also established its constant
Mediterranean Dialogue with some former client states of USSR. The members of the
Dialogue include NATO and its seven partners such as Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan,
Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia (NATO, 2004 & Harmer, 2012). Due to the fact
NATO has an active formal cooperation with such countries in the region and those
countries are able to observe and contribute to NATO operations such as Operation
Active Endeavor while Syria is the only Arab client state of Russia, it is reasonable
that Russia’s core interest is to sustain direct influence in both the Mediterranean sea
and in the Arab world, having Tartus as a foothold (Harmer, 2012).
“The Middle East and Syria are of crucial importance for Russian
national interests, primarily for national security. Russia needs to have a naval base in
there to repair ships, to supply them with fuel and also to represent Russia’s interests
in that region, which of much importance to us.” said the speaker of the upper house
of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko. In addition, she mentioned that having Russian
group set out in the Hmeymim air base in Syria was significant for Russia-Syrian
relations as well as Russia’s positions in the region. The agreement was signed on 26th
of August, 2015, and submitted to the State Duma for ratification on 9th of August,
2016. As requested by President Bashar Al Assad, Russia launched an operation of
anti-terrorist on September 30, 2015. (TASS, 2016). Finally, the lower house of
parliament, the State of Duma, ratified the agreement on Russia’s air task force
deployment on October 7, 2016. “The agreement is most favorable to Russia and its
military contingent without infringing upon Syria’s interests. The deployment of
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Russian military aircraft to the Hmeymim airbase for an indefinite period of time is
the first but far from the last step towards consolidating Russia’s positions not only in
Syria and in the Middle East, but also in the whole world.” Said Franz Klintsevich, the
first deputy chairman of the upper house’s defense committee (Grishankin, 2016).
Regarding the maritime base, Frants Klintsevich, the first deputy head of the
Federation Council Committee for Defense and Securiy told TASS, a major Russian
news agency, that the initiation of Russian naval base in Tartus will improve the
Russian militaries’ prestige in the region as well as the quality of the combat tasks
implementation. Moreover, the legality of the military base in Tartus would protect
their armed forces under the international law. The head of the Russian State Duma
Committee for Foreign Affairs, Leonid Slutsky also mentioned that the lower house of
the parliament was willing to take into consideration the agreement to deploy a Russian
military base in Tartus as a matter of priority. The ratification of the agreement will
help enlarge Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean region and will help deal with
geopolitical tasks related to terrorism (Smityuk, 2016).
As a result, on January 20, 2017, an agreement on expansion and
development of Russia’s naval base in Tartus as well as the protocols specifying the
conditions for Russian Aerospace Forces’ aircraft deployment was signed by Russia
and Syria (TASS, 2017; Sputnik International, 2017; TASS, 2017 & Reuters, 2017).
The Tartus agreement is supposed to stay in effect for 49 years and will be
automatically extended for another 25-year period unless either party informs the other
through diplomatic means no less than one year before the expiration date of a regular
period about its intent to terminate it (TASS, 2017 & Sputnik International, 2017). The
agreement allows Russia to present 11 Russian vessels at a time in the harbor of Tartus
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which include the ships with nuclear marine propulsion, given that nuclear and
environmental safety guidelines are respected (LaGrone, 2017). The Russian ships in
based in Tartus are able to reach the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal
and the Atlantic via the Gibraltar Straits in a few days (Kreutz, 2010). Regarding to
the agreement on Aerospace group at Hmeymim, Latakia, Russia is able to use part of
the Hmeymim aerodrome and ground facilities on disinterested terms (TASS, 2017).
According to Sergei Zheleznyak, State Duma member, the agreement is strategically
important and will strengthen the stability in the Middle East and influence the political
dialogue in Syria (TASS, 2017). Meanwhile, Igor Korotchenko, a Russian expert of
National Defense journal also mentioned that the agreement will allow Russia to
control the entire Mediterranean region including the Middle East, North Africa and
NATO’s southern borders. With regard to military strategy, owing to the agreement,
Russia has the opportunity to control the most important processes in the region
(TASS, 2017).
Such official agreement is obviously a crucial benefit Russia gained
from playing as a major role in keeping President Bashar Al Assad in power.
2.3 Libya’s military base offer to Russia
Libya under the ruling of Muammar Gaddafi was never been in good
relations with the United States. As Gaddafi saw that the presence of Russia’s military
in his country would have counterbalanced with the US’ and Western’s aggression,
Gaddafi, Libyan former leader, was willing to provide a military base for Russia in
Libya.
28
During Muammar Gaddafi’s first visit to Russia since 1985, Libya
offered Russian President Dmitry Medvedev an opportunity to build Russian military
base on its coastline in Benghazi port as Russia has been seeking for building its
military presence in the Mediterranean region; Russia permanent base on the North
African coast will secure the non-aggression from the US (Parfitt, 2008; Fasanotti,
2016 & Solovyov, 2008). However, Kremlin officials would not give any comments
on this matter while Russia already made a promise with Syria regarding a permanent
naval base establishment at Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean, but according to
Interfax news agency, Admiral Ivan Kapitanets, a former deputy navy commander of
USSR and Russia said that the plan would open up the operational potential of the
navy (Parfitt, 2008). In addition, according to Dmitry Peskov, Putin Spokesman, he
was not aware of any formal proposals regarding to this issue, and it would only matter
to talk of such an offer when there were official proposals. But Peskov also mentioned
that Libya would likely to try to play Russia off against the US since Gaddafi wasn’t
a kind of politician that would throw himself into your arms while Bagrat Seiranyan,
senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental
Studies, said that it would be very convenient for us since it is at the center of the
Mediterranean (Smolchenko, 2008). Moreover, according to Kommersant, Russia’s
business daily, it said that the military base in the port of Benghazi offered by Libya
was a move to ease Russia’s little progress in weapon deals with Libya itself while
Libya would also visit Ukraine, after his visit in Russia, in an attempt to give Libya a
hand in bargaining with Moscow over the price of weapon sales (Aljazeera, 2008).
There was no Russia’s military base built in the port of Benghazi since
this offer until the collapse of Gaddafi’s regime.
29
2.4 Analysis of the Russian military base in Syria and Libya
Talking about Russia’s naval base in the Mediterranean region, Tartus
is the only base situated outside the former USSR and controlled by Russia in this
region with the formal agreement signed by both the leader of Syria, Bashar Al Assad
and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. In addition to naval base, Russia is also
allowed to use part of the Hmeymim aerodrome and ground facilities as its air base in
Syria. This agreement is supposed to be in effect for 49 years and will be automatically
extended for another 25-year period unless either party informs the other through
diplomatic means no less than one year before the expiration date of a regular period
about its intent to terminate it. While Russia has formal agreement with Syria regarding
the military base establishment in Tartus and Latakia, such base in the Mediterranean
region provides Russia with the potential to counterbalance with the United States and
NATO and strengthen its own sphere of influence in the Mediterranean as well as in
the Arab world. Tartus acts as a strategic foothold for Russia and is of crucial strategy
to maintain Russia’s military presence in the region. Therefore, from Russia’
perspective, it will be too costly to lose Tartus which is why Russia is still trying to
help sustain Assad’s regime as the opposing government replacing Assad regime
would possibly impede the use of the only Russia’s naval base in the region.
In contrast to military base in Syria, that of Libya has never been
formally agreed by both leaders in any official agreements since the offer from Gaddafi
until Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO and the United States even though Russia has
been keen on strengthening its military presence in the Mediterranean Sea to boost up
its national prestige and whereas there was also opinion saying that it would be very
30
convenient for Russia to have a military base at the center of the Mediterranean to
increase its operational potential of its navy.
In conclusion, regarding the establishment of military base in the
Mediterranean region, obviously Russia was interested more in building one in Syria
rather than in Libya though Benghazi port could also open up the operational potential
of their navy. And at the present time, Tartus in Syria under Assad’s regime is clearly
a strategic foothold for Russia to influence its own power in the region as well as
counterbalance the United States and NATO, which is too costly to lose. However,
there is one important thing to notice. It was Russia under the leadership of President
Dmitry Medvedev that did not take the opportunity of expanding its own military
presence in the North African country that would have somehow provided Russia some
benefits regarding the guarantee of non-aggression from the US, and it is Russia under
the leadership of President Vladimir Putin that have decided to build a permanent base
in Syria. In this sense, the different decisions on building such military base in the
region could have also been influenced by the different leadership which will be
elaborated more comprehensively in the fifth chapter of this paper regarding the
perceptions of both Russian Presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.
3. Can Syria and Libya Assist Russia to Get Access to Warm Water in the
Mediterranean Region?
3.1 Russia’s Pivotal Interests to Get Access to Warm Water
If we look at Russia from maritime point of view, Russia is a very large
country, yet it is geographically disadvantaged to some extent. Unlike other
superpowers such as the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan and so on that
31
have access to oceans and sea of the world, Russia in contrast is pretty unfortunate due
to the fact that most of its enormous territory is by nature landlocked and partially ice-
locked, limiting its country from getting access to warm water. Whereas warm water
is strategically significant in terms of geopolitical as well as economic interests, Russia
as a matter of fact is in need of access to warm water ports.
A warm water port refers to the port which does not freeze in the winter
season. That is why warm water ports can provide much of geopolitical as well as
economic interests of a country owing to their constantly year-round availability.
Despite the fact that Russia is the first largest country in the world, its partially
landlocked territory does not provide much favorable conditions for Russia to connect
to such warm water ports. In the north, Russia’s access to the world is frozen during
winter season while in the west, Europe blocks Russia’s gate to Atlantic Ocean and
the Mediterranean Sea. And whereas in the south, Russia’s entry to Arabian Sea is
impeded by Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it also lacks access to South China Sea,
being blocked by China and Korea in the east (Global Security, n.d.). Up until the 20th
century, Russia’s Europe-facing ports were obstructed; despite the fact that there has
been the invention for ice breaker, all these ports still could not provide easy and
favorable connection to the Mediterranean which is of significant economic and
military importance to Russia. As a result, the best alternative for Russia was and has
been to borrow from the other countries and make use of their ports in order to spread
out its global reach. Hence, Russia’s contemporary aggressive interventions were
virtually motivated by the needs to access to the world’s warm water (Pitts, 2016).
3.2 How Russia can make use of Tartus port in Syria
32
In the past two years, there were two main military actions conducted
by Russia including the operations in Eastern Ukraine as well as the military
interventions in the Syrian Civil War on behalf of the Syrian President Bashar Al
Assad beginning in September 2015. While Russian military operations in Ukraine
was seen by many as a responsive actions to NATO expansion, Russia’s military
intervention in Syria can be seen as a tool to assert great power influence in the Middle
East, a place where the US as well as the West are withdrawing their influences. The
assessments of Russia’s intervention in both countries are at least correct to some
extend; yet there is one common thing that both scenarios share which is the access to
the Mediterranean provided by the warm water ports, Tartus in Syria and Sevastopol
in Ukraine either directly or through the Black Sea and the Dardanelles (Chuma, 2016).
Figure 4: The Mediterranean Region Map
Source: World Atlas
33
Talking about Maritime access, Russian strategic decisions even before
Peter the Great have been influenced by the desire to get access to the sea especially
ice-free year round ports. Russia was once almost able to have unrestricted access to
the Mediterranean during World War I when the United Kingdom and France agreed
to give Russia control of Istanbul and the Dardanelles as well as the Bosphorus straits
in the Constantinople Agreement for a victory by the Entente. Russia was once almost
able to have unrestricted access to the Mediterranean during World War I when the
United Kingdom and France agreed to give Russia control of Istanbul and the
Dardanelles as well as the Bosphorus straits in the Constantinople Agreement for a
victory by the Entente. Between 1676 and 1878, Russia waged twelve wars against
Turkey in an attempt to build an unrestricted access to the Black Sea and to establish
a direct access to the eastern Mediterranean. As a result, by 1812, Russia had
safeguarded access to the Black Sea; however, the direct access to the Mediterranean
was still puzzling due to the fact that the transit from the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean still needs to go through the Dardanelles as well as the Bosphorus straits
which is even now under the control of Turkey (Chuma, 2016).
Assad’s regime provides a strategically important asset which is a deep
warm-water port at Tartus. Even it might not be as important as it was in Soviet era,
the free access to the high seas is still a key motivation in Russian strategic thinking
due to the fact that main ports in Russia are either ice-locked for much of the year or
landlocked by straits controlled by other countries. Tartus is significant for Russia for
it defends Russia’s growing Mediterranean fleet. The recent arm delivery to the port
highlighted Russia’s commitment to its multi-billion dollar arms deal while ignoring
the EU arms embargo (BRODE & BEINGLASS, 2012). The port is also used as the
34
transport hub for weapons that need to be returned back to Russia for repair as it is
connected to a well-developed of roads and highways (Synovitz, 2012). In addition,
having gained strategic position in the Mediterranean through the acquisition and
development of Syrian Tartus port, Russia is able to control essential transfer point for
natural gas into Europe as Syria’s geographical location is likely a crossing point for
any pipelines access from the Middle East to Europe. In the case that the pipelines go
through Syria, specifically the Tartus port, Russia can have significance control over
this (Carlson, 2017). However, most of the military supplies, weapons, ammunitions,
and equipment that Russia provides to Assad’s regime are transported from the ports
on the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to Tartus and Latakia.
Though according to the 1936 Montreux convention, Russia and the Black Sea states
are allowed to move warships with few restrictions through the Turkish Straits, Turkey
have set up obstacles for Russian vessels passing through the Bosphorus Straits. As
stated by article 2 of the convention, merchant vessels shall enjoy complete freedom
of transit and navigation in the Straits, by day and by night, under any flag and with any
kind of cargo, without any formalities. In addition, in times of peace, Turkey must
allow the passage of small and medium-sized vessels of all nations to pass through the
Straits while in war time the warships must be entirely subjected to the discretion of
the Turkish government (Sputnik International, 2015). The tensions between Russia
and Turkey over Syria might be a challenge to the delivery of Russian weapons and
troops via the Turkish Straits. If the route is prohibited for Russia, there is still passage
through Gibraltar which normally takes 13 to 14 days rather than through Bosphorus
(Sputnik International, 2015). However, in legal terms, Turkey has no rights to create
obstacles for Russian vessels carrying cargo, including military cargo. It can prohibit
35
non-friendly vessels from going through the Straits only in the case of war, according
to Vladimir Morkovkin, Russian lawyer (GlobalResearch, 2015 & Sputnik
International, 2015).
3.3 How Russia can make use of Libya’s ports
As I already mentioned in the previous section, during the first ever
meeting in 2008 since 1985 between Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi and Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev, Gaddafi did offer Russia access to the port of Benghazi
for its fleets while at the same time Russia was also seeking for strategic ports in the
Mediterranean.
With a coastline of 1100 miles along the Mediterranean Sea and port
cities such as Benghazi and Tobruk, Libya can be seen as strategically important.
Despite the fact it has Mediterranean ports, to make use of such ports in Libya, Russia
would have to have extensive naval power in the Mediterranean. While Russia could
theoretically supply ports in the region through the Black Sea, such case is not really
practical due to the fact that Turkey would not provide more access for Russia to the
Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus than it presently does for commercial
purposes (Gehrke, 2017).
According to Russian media report, the opening of a naval base in
Benghazi port in Libya was one of the main issues being discussed during Libyan
leader Muammar Gaddafi’s visit in Moscow in October 2008 (Reuters, 2009).
However, Kremlin official would not comment on the report (Parfitt, 2008).
3.4 Analysis of Syrian and Libyan ports from Russia’s perspective
to get access to Mediterranean
36
Looking from maritime point of view, Russia’s geography does not
provide much favorable conditions for its own country to get access to warm water,
specifically the Mediterranean Sea. From legal perspectives, even though Russia can
get access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea conveniently from the Turkey
Straits during peace time under the Montreux Convention, Turkey can still make any
excuses as obstacles to prevent Russia to get access to the Mediterranean Sea.
Therefore, whether Russia can get into the Mediterranean or not somehow depends on
the relations between Turkey and Russia. Even though Syrian Tartus port can play a
significant role for Russia for repair and resupply naval maintenance, Russia still
cannot gain direct access to the Mediterranean. Same thing applies to Benghazi and
Tobruk ports in Libya. If Russia were to invest in the development of the warm water
ports in Libya, Russia would still face the same obstacles if it passed through from the
Black Sea to the Mediterranean via the Turkey Straits. But the fact that Russia tried to
militarily intervene to keep Assad in power and was absent in such intervention in
Libya during Gaddafi’s regime while Gaddafi also granted Benghazi port to Russia
might have been again influenced by the different leadership of Russian Presidents.
Thus, to see how the perceptions of the two Presidents influenced the foreign policy
of Russia toward Assad’s and Gaddafi’s regime, I will elaborated more
comprehensively in chapter five of this paper.
37
Chapter Four: Comparison of Economy of Libya and Syria for Russia
1. Economic relations between Russia and Libya
Russia and Libya have a long history of on-again-off-again
relationship; however, in this paper, I will only take a look at their economic relations
during the era of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev up until the operations of NATO
and the US on Gaddafi’s regime which resulted from the abstention of Russia over the
UNSC resolution 1973.
In November 2008, there was a state visit by Libyan Leader Muammar
Gaddafi to Moscow to raise their bilateral relations by focusing on deepening
economic cooperation, specifically oil and gas sector, expending mutual investments
and coordinating particular aspects of foreign policy (President of Russia, 2008 &
President of Russia, 2008). A number of major agreements regarding oil and gas
production, construction, railways and weapons were signed in 2008 between Moscow
and Tripoli which were estimated to be approximately $ 10 billion (Smagin, 2017).
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was also willing to terminate the 4.5-billion-dollar
debts that Libya had owned Russia since the Soviet Union era in exchange for trade
agreements between the two countries. The deals included weapon sales and railway
construction between Sirte and Benghazi, and the railway construction contract alone
was already worth around $ 2.2 billion (Fasanotti, 2016). According to Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin again, in 2010, Libya and Russia signed an arms deal which was worth
$ 1.8 billion, and it’s not only small arms, quoted by RIA Novosti. However, he did
not specify which types of weapon Libya wanted to purchase (Soldatkin, 2010; RT,
38
2010 & CNN, 2010). But according to Interfax News agency quoting a military-
diplomatic source, Libya intended to purchase around 20 fighter planes and S-
300PMU2 air defense system, and may acquire T-90S tanks and modernize more than
140 T72 tanks and other weapons (Soldatkin, 2010).
Despite all these breakthrough deals and agreements, the influence of
Arab Spring as well as the Libyan Civil War made Russia, the world’s second-biggest
arm exporter and one of the main suppliers of weapons to Libya, experience the loss
of billions of dollars. According to a senior Russian arms official, Russia lost 4 billions
of dollars in the deals with Libya (Aljazeera, 2011). Arms deals agreed under
Gaddafi’s regime made up 12 percent of Russia’s 2010 arms exports which was worth
$10 billion. “The figure of $4 billion is only nominal, the real lost revenue could top
tens of billions of dollars” said the head of Russia’s Federal Service on Military and
Technical Cooperation, Mikhail Dmitriyev. The Russian government was criticized
for its unclear position on the Libyan crisis by backing sanctions against Muammar
Gaddafi and allowing NATO and the US operations, but failing to support the
Western-backed revolt against Gaddafi as Russia stood up for an initial UNSC
resolution imposing sanctions against Gaddafi’s regime, and abstained from a
resolution in that authorized military intervention in Libya. Such ambiguous stance
was caused by the disagreement between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President
Dmitry Medvedev (Anishchuk, Gaddafi fall cost Russia tens of blns in arms deals,
2011). A kremlin statement was released showing an order by President Dmitry
Medvedev “bans the export from Russia to Libya as well as the sale, the delivery and
transfer of all types of arms and related materials including weapons and ammunition,
combat vehicles and military hardware.” As Russia was a party to the UN resolution
39
passed on February 26 2011 that prohibited arm sales to Libya, such a decree from
Kremlin government seemed to be a reinforcement of that embargo (Aljazeera, 2011).
2. Economic Relations between Russia and Syria
Economic relations between Russia and Syria also have a long history
going back to Soviet era just like those between Russia and Libya. Russia has been a
greatest ally to Syria under the control of Bashar Al Assad, and even before that when
Syria was under his father’s power. However, in this paper, to compare economic
relations between Russia and Libya and Russia and Syria under the same Russian
presidency, I will examine the trade relations between Russia and Syria under the
presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. And to be precise, I also study relevant events under
President Vladimir Putin to see if there is any significant difference to draw conclusion
from the influence of different leadership on the trade relations between the two
countries.
The economic cooperation between the two countries stretches back
decades and there have been a number of contracts from Russian corporations from
even before the Syrian crisis. Syria has long been a Russian arms customer, and the
weapon sales between the countries started to intensify after President Bashar Al Assad
and Vladimir Putin came to power. Russia’s weapon sales made up 78 percent of Syria
arms purchase from 2007 to 2012, according to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (Borshchevskaya, 2013). In addition, as stated by Congressional
Research Service, Russia’s arms sales to Syria increased from $2.1 billion in 2007 to
$4.7 billion in 2010 compared with 2003 to 2006 which is more than twice the figure
of the previous 4 years (HERSZENHORN, 2012; Borshchevskaya, 2013 & Yeates,
40
2017). In addition to weapon sales, Russian companies since 2009 have invested $20
billion in Syria (Borshchevskaya, 2013). Along with profitable arms deals, Russian
firms have involved in Syrian infrastructure, energy and tourism industries; the
investment in the country was worth $19.4 billion in 2009, Professor Daniel Triesman
of the UCLA Department of Political Science (Amos, 2011 & Benammar, 2013). In
addition, a number of high-level visits to Moscow by Bashar Al Assad, his minister of
foreign affairs and other government officials have discussed Russian companies such
as Gazprom, Soyuzneftegaz, Lukoil and Zarubezhneft to further involve in Syria’s oil
production (Global Risk Insights, 2016). Director of a gas facility construction
business, Stroitransgaz, that shares the largest Russian operation in Syria, Sergei
Makarov, mentioned that despite the instability and chaos in Syria their work was
continuing without any crucial interruptions. The company engaged in project valued
$1.1 billion was establishing a natural gas processing plant 200 km east of Horms in
the Al-Raqqa region and technically supported the Arab gas pipeline and another
natural gas processing plant in the center of Syria. Moreover, other Russian companies
said that the protests in Syria had little effect on their operations while Nikolai
Grishenko, director of Sovintervod, a water engineering company said that his
business had no disruption. Tatneft, the most important Russian energy firm in Syria
started its oil pumping operations in Syria in April 2010 and would spend $12.8 million
drilling exploratory wells near the Iraqi border. According to Moscow Defense Brief,
more than $ 40 billion in active arms deals with Syria included MiG-29 fighters,
Pantsir surface-to-air missiles, artillery systems and anti-tank weaponry (Amos, 2011).
Beside arms sales and other significant investment projects, Syria is
economically important to Russia to prevent competing pipeline. In 2009, President
41
Bashar Al Assad rejected a gas pipeline proposal proposed by Qatar, to help protect
his ally, Russia (Ahmed, 2015 & Bjorn, 2016). The pipeline would run from Qatar
through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey to supply European market
which is a big consumer of Russia’s natural gas (Carlisle, 2009; Ahmed, 2013 & Bjorn,
2016). If such pipeline was possible, Europe would substantially reduce large amount
of gas from Russia.
Despite the international outrage, Russia has continued its arms sale to
Assad’s regime, and President Vladimir Putin has rejected any arms embargo against
Syria and any UNSC resolutions calling Assad to step down (Simmons, 2017 &
HERSZENHORN, 2012).
3. Analysis of Economic Relations between Russia and Libya and Those
between Russia and Syria
After describing all the significant economic relations between Russia
and Libya and Russia and Syria, we can see that the trade relations, specifically arms
sales as well as other crucial investment projects invested by Russia in Syria is
quantitatively larger than those invested in Libya. Hence, based on economic interests
of Russia, if we compare Libya to Syria, as a matter of fact, Syria is more important
than Libya to Russia. Russia’s economic interests in Syria really matter if we want to
understand why Russia decided to launch military intervention to support Assad’s
regime which is its long lost ally. However, back to Libya, even Libya is economically
less important to Russia compared to Syria, that could not be the motivation behind
the absence of such intervention to support Gaddafi’s regime due to the fact that the
decision of President Dmitry Medvedev to support the sanctions again Muammar
42
Gaddafi and the UNSC resolutions allowing the NATO and the US operation to
overthrow Gaddafi’s regime led to loss of approximately $4 billion dollars for Russia.
Even Libya is less important to Russia compared to Syria, it does not mean that Libya
is economically useless to Russia. Therefore, just because Syria is more important than
Libya for Russia in terms of economy, that was not the only driving force that push
Russia to conduct military intervention to help Assad, and to stay quiet in Libya’s
Gaddafi case. Again, we have to take a look at the perceptions of both Presidents,
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin on such decisions which will be
comprehensively elaborated in the very next chapter of this paper.
43
Chapter Five: Perception of President Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin
and Russia’s Reactions on Libyan and Syrian Crisis
1. President Dmitry Medvedev’s Perception and Its Influence on Russia’s
Reaction on Libyan Crisis
1.1 Russian Foreign Policy under Dmitry Medvedev’s Presidency
toward the West
Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, Russia had had a
persistent foreign policy of opposing military intervention in foreign countries and
following the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states
which is somehow contradictory to the Western concepts that justify their intervention
operations for moral reasons. However, Russia under Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency
demonstrated quite a different track compared to Russia under previous presidency. In
contrast to his predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev managed to lessen the tensions with the
US, the EU and even NATO.
Due to the fact that the economic sphere of Russia was hit by the great
economic crisis in 2008-2009, Dmitry Medvedev believed that to become a great
power again Russia had to modernize in broader terms which not only involved the
development of infrastructure, economic diversification and technology expansion,
but also institutional progress. This new approach was revealed in the doctrine of the
four I’s: Institutions, Infrastructure, Innovation and Investment. He believed that to
deal with technological difficulties, Russia needed to politically collaborate with other
44
countries and to expose Russia to foreign capital and technology transfer; hence, the
improvement in relations with Western partners was a crucial move (Rousseau, 2015).
This is consistent with what had been mentioned in Russian Foreign Policy Concept
approved by Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 stating that “Russia builds its relations with
the US taking into account not only the vast potential of that country for mutually
advantageous bilateral trade, economic, scientific, technological and other
cooperation, but also its key influence on the state of global strategic stability
and international situation as a whole.” (President of Russia, 2008). For instance,
Dmitry Medvedev visited Silicon Valley in June 2010 and the Partnership for
Modernization launched at the EU summit in Stockholm in November 2009, admitting
that the US and the EU could be important partners for Russia’s modernization project
(Rousseau, 2015; President of Russia, 2010 & President of Russia, 2009). The
president mentioned in the visit that Russia not only looked for best possible relations
with the EU but also strengthened relations with individual country (President of
Russia, 2009). In addition, since Barack Obama had taken over the White House,
another improvement of the stance between Russia and the US regarded Iranian
Nuclear Program. The US’s goal of reset wanted to make sure that Russia would
support the limitation on Iranian Nuclear Program. Consequently, an executive order
was signed by Dmitry Medvedev to implement UNSC Resolution 1929 to ban transit
and export from Russia to Iran and transfer to Iran outside Russia by ships and aircraft
under Russian flag of any battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large size artillery
systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile system, for
the purpose of the UN Register of Conventional Arms, S-300 air defense systems, or
any related equipment to the above-named items including spare parts (President of
45
Russia, 2010). The signing of the new START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) in
April 2010 by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama was also an important
achievement which would reduce American and Russian nuclear warheads to 1550
over seven years, about a third less than the 2200 currently allowed (Tran, 2010).
Another significant achievement was Russia helping the US and NATO in Afghanistan
campaign. Russia had been active in speed up the train route to Afghanistan through
Russia that carried approximately one quarter of non-lethal supplies as of mid-March
2010. Regarding air transit, President Obama and Medvedev signed an agreement in
2009, allowing for up to 4500 flights a year and could save up to $133 million every
year. Plus, further Obama-Medvedev relations can be seen in a joint statement to
prevent the flow of narcotics and the spread of extremism (Charap, 2010). In regard to
Libyan crisis, Dmitry Medvedev endorsed the military intervention by abstaining on
UNSC resolution 1973 authorizing the establishment of no-fly zone and all necessary
measures to protect Libyan civilians and enforce the arms embargo (RT, 2011). NATO
then commanded a significant force of a number of ships and hundreds of airplanes
and conducted military operations, grounding Gaddafi’s air defense and watching
Libya’s coast. The US played a chief role, taking out Libya’s air force system,
providing the significant enablers that granted other NATO countries and partners
major share of burden (DAALDER & STAVRIDIS, 2011). As a result, with military
support from the West and some Arab states, the rebels took Tripoli, after six months
of fighting and Gaddafi, leader of Libya, was killed in August 2011 (BBC, 2013).
In short, Russian foreign policy under Dmitry Medvedev looked for
modernization in economic, technological and institutional aspects, paving the way for
46
making friendlier and less confrontational with the West as he claimed that the West
were the important partners in any effort to modernize the economy (Rousseau, 2015).
1.2 President Dmitry Medvedev’s Speech on Libyan crisis
After examine Russian foreign policy toward the west under Dmitry
Medvedev presidency, in this section, we will take a look at the speech given by the
president over the Libyan crisis.
Regarding the situation in Libya, the president mentioned that Russia’s
stance to support the UNSC resolution 1970 and to abstain on the UNSC resolution
1973 aimed to protect Libyan civilians and prevent conflict from escalating. In respond
to the question why Russia did not use veto power since we could after all used it to
veto one of the resolutions mentioned above, according to the statement released by
the president on the situation in Libya, Medvedev said:
Russia did not use its power of veto for the simple reason that I do not consider
the resolution in question wrong. Moreover, I think that overall this resolution
reflects our understanding of events in Libya too, but not completely. This is
why we decided not to use our power of veto. This, you realize, was a qualified
decision not to veto the resolution, and the consequences of this decision were
obvious. It would be wrong for us to start flapping about now and say that we
didn’t know what we were doing. This was a conscious decision on our part.
Such were the instructions I gave to the Foreign Ministry, and they were carried
out. Let me say again that everything that is happening in Libya is a result
of the Libyan leadership’s absolutely intolerable behavior and the crimes that
47
they have committed against their own people. Let’s not forget this. Everything
else is the consequences of these actions (President of Russia, 2011).
Moreover, Dmitry Medvedev mentioned in a news conference after G8
summit, emphasizing solidarity with Western partners that
If you saw the (G8) declaration, it says that Gaddafi's regime has lost its
legitimacy. He must go, it was adopted unanimously.The world community
does not see him as the leader of Libya, If he takes this responsible decision --
and it would be helpful for the country and the Libyan people -- then it will be
possible to discuss how to do this: what country could take him in and under
what conditions. And what he could keep and what he must lose (Anishchuk,
2011 & Sputnik Internattional, 2011).
There was also disagreement between Medvedev and Putin over Libyan
crisis as Putin criticized the UNSC resolution, allowing the attack on Gaddafi’s regime
as deficient and flawed. “In general, it reminds me of a medieval call for a crusade,”
said Putin. Medvedev then called a news conference where he indirectly rejected
Putin’s language without mentioning his name, “Under no circumstances is it
acceptable to use expressions that essentially lead to a clash of civilizations — such as
‘crusade’ and so on” “It is unacceptable,” “Otherwise, everything may end up much
worse compared to what’s going on now. Everyone should remember that.”
(SHANKER & LEVY, 2011).
As a Russian president, Medvedev’s statements talking about
supporting the West’s decisions on intervening in Libya’s internal affairs matching
48
with his actual pro-western foreign policy obviously demonstrated that the president
himself perceived the West as his partners, establishing good relations with the West
which is contrasted with the previous presidency, specifically Vladimir Putin’s.
2. President Vladimir Putin’s Perception and Its Influence on Russia’s
Reaction on Syrian Crisis
2.1 Russian Foreign Policy under Vladimir Putin’s Presidency
toward the West
Since Vladimir Putin became Russian President for the second time, he
has chosen a foreign policy that obstructs the cooperation between Russia and the US
and hinder the Obama’s reset policy with Russia. Obviously, foreign policy of
Vladimir Putin is dissatisfied with the way the West, specifically the US, have been
acting in the international system.
Russia’s assertive stance in international arena is a reaction to the unfair
treatment by the West, the West expansionism and their arbitrary use of force
throughout the previous two decades which is what President Vladimir Putin spoke
about in his speech in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference. Russia since 2012 has
begun actively resisting to what Putin perceives as dominance by the US and NATO,
thus launched an immense media campaign against the alleged Western threat
including alleged designs to gain control of Russian natural resources, possible
enlargement of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia and attempt to deploy ballistic missile
defense and conventional prompt global strike systems (Arbatov, 2016). Moreover, in
2012, Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian
49
children, making the strained diplomatic relations even worse (HERSZENHORN &
ECKHOLM, 2012 & Carbonnel, 2012). Regarding Syrian crisis, in 2013, the US
insisted Russia to condemn Assad’s regime for using chemical weapons on its own
citizens; however, Putin showed doubts on western claims and put the blame on Syrian
rebels for the violence in the country. Plus, in the same year, Russia granted asylum to
Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, leading to the White House canceling one-on-one
talk between the two leaders in St. Petersburg (Hughes, 2014). Another issue that
worsened the relationship between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin was the
annexation of Crimea by Russia. Putin’s move in this issue involved around three
interpretations, according to Daniel Treisman including Putin as defender which was
perceived as a response to the threat of NATO expansion along Russia’s western
border, Putin as imperialist and Putin as improviser (Treisman, 2016). As a result, the
US and the EU imposed a collection of sanctions on Russian individuals and
businesses. The sanctions also targeted a number of senior officials in the pro-Russian
separatist in eastern Ukraine including Crimea and organizations linked to them while
some individuals targeted are close to Vladimir Putin (BBC, 2014). To add up, another
event that deteriorated the relations between Russia and the West was Putin’s decision
to launch military intervention in Syria on 30th September 2015 which was a major
military action conducted outside the former USSR since the Cold War ended. Russian
president order to militarily intervene in Syria has helped Assad to stay in power,
irritating the international community (Quinn, 2016 & Osborn & Stewart , 2015). In
addition, Russia also used its veto power to block any resolutions condemning and
threatening sanctions against Assad’s regime.
50
Russian foreign policy under Vladimir Putin presidency is obviously
not pro-western and even upset the reset policy of Obama administration. During
Putin’s era, Russia looks unfriendly and more confrontational with the West,
especially the US and NATO.
2.2 President Vladimir Putin’s Speech on Syrian Crisis
In addition to the examination on foreign policy of President Vladimir
Putin, I will take a look at his speech related to Syrian crisis in this section.
In the 70th session of the UNGA session in New York, Vladimir Putin
appeared in the UN for the first time in a decade, criticizing the US intervention and
unilateralism that had gone wrong in the Middle East (Collinson, 2015). Putin said in
the 70th session of the UNGA:
We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one
center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid
were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they
know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with
the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often
stands in their way. That’s why they say that the UN has run its course and is
now obsolete and outdated. Of course, the world changes, and the UN should
also undergo natural transformation. Russia is ready to work together with its
partners to develop the UN further on the basis of a broad consensus, but we
consider any attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the UN as extremely
dangerous. They may result in the collapse of the entire architecture
51
of international relations, and then indeed there will be no rules left except
for the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than
collective effort, by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly
independent states we will have protectorates controlled from outside. What is
the meaning of state sovereignty, the term which has been mentioned by our
colleagues here? It basically means freedom, every person and every state
being free to choose their future. By the way, this brings us to the issue
of the so-called legitimacy of state authorities. You shouldn’t play with words
and manipulate them. In international law, international affairs, every term has
to be clearly defined, transparent and interpreted the same way by one
and all…….It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people’s
mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only
now these are “democratic” revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle
East and Northern Africa already mentioned by the previous speaker.
Of course, political and social problems have been piling up for a long time
in this region, and people there wanted change. But what was the actual
outcome? Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention rashly
destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead
of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters
and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life. I’m urged
to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve
done? But I’m afraid that this question will remain unanswered, because they
have never abandoned their policy, which is based on arrogance,
exceptionalism and impunity. Power vacuum in some countries in the Middle
52
East and Northern Africa obviously resulted in the emergence of areas
of anarchy, which were quickly filled with extremists and terrorists. The so-
called Islamic State has tens of thousands of militants fighting for it, including
former Iraqi soldiers who were left on the street after the 2003 invasion. Many
recruits come from Libya whose statehood was destroyed as a result of a gross
violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973. And now radical groups are
joined by members of the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition backed
by the West. They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join
the so-called Islamic State …….. Russia has consistently opposed terrorism
in all its forms. Today, we provide military-technical assistance to Iraq, Syria
and other regional countries fighting terrorist groups. We think it’s a big
mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian authorities and government
forces who valiantly fight terrorists on the ground. We should finally admit that
President Assad’s government forces and the Kurdish militia are the only
forces really fighting terrorists in Syria. Yes, we are aware of all the problems
and conflicts in the region, but we definitely have to consider the actual
situation on the ground……… Above all, I believe it is of utmost importance
to help restore government institutions in Libya, support the new government
of Iraq, and provide comprehensive assistance to the legitimate government
of Syria (President of Russia, 2015).
By examining his speech, we can see, in contrast to Dmitry Medvedev,
Vladimir Putin in his statement was not satisfied with the West’s actions regarding the
intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, specifically those in the Middle
53
East such as Iraq and Libya, violating the sovereignty principle. Putin also compared
the West policy to what is based on arrogance, exceptionalism and impunity that have
led to violence, poverty and social disasters in the Middle East and North Africa. Putin
is also willing to provide support to the legitimate Assad government of Syria in order
to fight terrorist on the ground which implies that Putin is obviously not on the Western
side.
3 Analysis of Dmitry Medvedev’s and Vladimir Putin’s Perceptions
Taking into consideration the foreign policy as well as his speech
regarding Libyan crisis, President Dmitry Medvedev was obviously pro-western
politician. Given that Medvedev prioritized his modernization policy in order to deal
with economic difficulties of the country, he aligned his own position with the West
to seek support from them for his modernization project. Such stance influenced his
decision in conducting foreign policy with the West, supporting the US’ and NATO’s
actions in the international arena. As a result, regarding the Libyan crisis, Medvedev
supported the resolution imposing sanctions on Gaddafi’s regime and abstained on the
resolution imposing no-fly zone in Libya, allowing the US and NATO launched
military operations to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime, mentioning that Gaddafi’s regime
was illegitimate and committed crimes against its own people. Therefore, his non-
aggressive-toward-the-west perceptions played an important role to influence his
decision on Libyan crisis.
For Vladimir Putin, since he came to power, he has been showing
negative perceptions toward the US’ and NATO’s actions in the international arena
54
such as invasion in Iraq, Libya and so on. Contradicting to Medvedev, Putin did not
side with the West and even worsened the reset policy of Obama administration.
Implied from his speech, Putin saw the West as the troublemaker, specifically in the
Middle East and North Africa region, leaving poverty, social unrests and disasters in
the countries that they interfered. Moreover, he also called Assad as a legitimate
government which can be implied that Russia is an ally to Assad and he is willing to
work with this government to fight terrorist on the ground. Such negative perceptions
toward the West played a significant role in Putin’s decision to launch military
operations to help Assad’s regime against the West.
55
Chapter Six: Conclusion
The purpose of this paper is to find the answer to a main question which
is “why did Russia take military intervention to support Assad’s regime in Syria, but
not Gaddafi’s in Libya?” by focusing on three important dimensions including
geopolitics, economy and perceptions of leaders.
In terms of geopolitics, if we compare Syria and Libya from Russia’s
perspective, Syria does have more strategic importance to Russia due to the its
geographical location, Tartus military base and access to Tartus port (warm water).
Surrounded by regional power in the Middle East such as Israel, Turkey, Iraq and so
on with the location of the very heart of the Middle East, Syria is unquestionably
important to Russia in terms of geopolitics. Compared to Syria, Libya is less
geographically important to Russia due the fact that it is located in the North African
region and is not surrounded by regional power like Syria is. In addition, with the naval
as well as air bases in Tartus and Latakia in Syria, Russia can gain even more
geopolitical benefits from this country to secure its power and counterbalance with the
West, specifically the US and NATO while in Libya there is no Russia’s military base
located there though Gaddafi used to offer Benghazi port as a military base for Russia.
However, regarding the access to the Mediterranean Sea, Tartus port in Syria cannot
provide Russia the direct access to the Mediterranean due to the fact that Russia still
need to go through Turkish straits to go to Tartus in Syria while Russia didn’t accept
port offer from Libya. In short, in terms of geopolitics, Syria is more important than
Libya to Russia only because of Syria’s strategic location and the limited benefits of
the military base and Tartus port. Hence, I can draw a conclusion that Syria is
56
geopolitically significant to Russia, but if we compare Syria with Libya, geopolitics
alone cannot be the reason behind Russia’s military intervention in Syria and the
absence of such intervention in Libya.
In terms of economy, as we can see in chapter four of this paper, Russia
can benefit more from economic relations with Syria than Libya including variety of
arms sales as well as significant investment projects and how Russia could control the
decision of Assad’s regime on the proposal of pipeline construction proposed by Qatar
that could consequently hinder Russia supplies to European market. However, the
decision of Dmitry Medvedev not to do anything in respond to the West regarding the
Libyan crisis made Russia lose at least $4 billion dollars in terms of economic relations
with Libya. In this sense, I can draw a conclusion that, in terms of economy, even
though Syria is more important than Libya to Russia, that is not the reason behind the
decision to militarily intervene in Syria and the lack of such action in Libya.
Regarding the different perceptions of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir
Putin, taking into consideration Russian foreign policy under the two presidents as
well as their speech in regards to Libyan and Syrian crisis respectively as described in
chapter five, we can see that Dmitry Medvedev is pro-western due to the fact that he
believed that taking side with the West would help his modernization policy to develop
Russian economy while Vladimir Putin has negative position toward the US and
NATO since he saw the West as a troublemaker, specifically in the Middle East and
North Africa region, leaving social unrests, poverty and disasters in the countries that
they intervened. Such perceptions toward the West are the significant driving forces
behind the military intervention in Syria and the absence of such intervention in Libya.
57
In conclusion, to answer the main research question of this paper,
according to what I have comprehensively described in the previous chapters, the
reason why Russia took military intervention to help Assad’s regime, but not Gaddafi’s
is the different perceptions of both Russian presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir
Putin, implying that constructivism can better explain the decisions of Russian foreign
policies regarding the two cases.
58
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