Journal of International Studies

The problem Vladimir Putin has faced is how to convince the West that Russia means business when it offers a solution to the chemical weapons issue. After all, for well over a decade Russia has been a naysayer and spoiler, either protesting against US military interventions or seeking to obstruct Washington’s policies. Why has Russia now stepped forward and offered an alternative solution, tentatively accepted both by Damascus and the Americans? By reaching out to Barack Obama at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Putin was hardly seeking either to ‘humiliate’ the US President or to ‘save’ him. The personal relationship between the two leaders is missing; it is all business. In offering his plan to Obama, Putin had important interests in mind. The Russian leader’s short-term goal was to prevent US military strikes against Damascus. Putin admitted to having been surprised by the vote in the British Parliament ruling out UK participation in US-led attacks. He must have been no less...

More than ever before, the Syrian war is being played out in Moscow, Tehran, and Washington. After a series of actions taken by Russia and the United States, the current situation is somewhat hopeful. The positions of the three major players have begun to evolve: Russia may have started looking at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as an unpalatable ally. U.S. President Barack Obama, although criticized for inaction, is strongly influencing developments. And the return of Iran, which has long been a supporter of the Assad regime, to the regional stage might come along with mutual concessions on Syria. If further progress is to be achieved, the three capitals cannot avoid working together on a diplomatic solution. THE VIEW FROM DAMASCUS Syria is not a classical state, which significantly complicates dealing with the regime. Since 1970, when Hafez al-Assad seized full power after a 1966 military coup, the country has been in the hands of the Assad-Makhlouf clan members: they ...

Professors Tom Nichols and John Schindler have   responded  to   my critique  of   their contention  that Russia is now a “peer” to the United States when it comes to influence in the Middle East, and that, indeed, Washington has “outsourced” the management of regional security to Moscow. The dispute is in part over empirical factors, but more broadly it represents a distinct set of normative assumptions and policy prescriptions regarding America’s role in a changing Middle East. It is easier to address the dispute over empirical “facts”; or rather, it might be, had the authors directly responded to them. But almost nowhere do they address the substantive points I made, dispute the historical examples, or provide any specific evidence to support their claim. Nor do they show how the Syrian deal directly advances Russian influence in the region. Where, for example, will Moscow go from here? Has it convinced other actors to adopt its point of view? Has it...

When people in the west seek to explain Moscow’s approach to the crisis in Syria, they often refer to Damascus as Russia’s “last remaining ally in the Middle East”. They also frequently include Russia’s interest in the Syrian arms market and the Tartus naval facility. Finally, a seemingly powerful argument is made about the Syrian people’s fight for democracy – which sends shivers down the spine of authoritarians, including President Vladimir Putin. These explanations are generally misleading. True, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, was a Soviet ally, but Moscow de facto withdrew from geopolitical competition in the Middle East in 1990, when it joined Washington and many others to oppose its other nominal ally, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Bashar al-Assad, in calmer times, was a more frequent visitor to Paris and London than to Moscow. Mr Putin himself never visited Damascus. The Syrian arms bazaar has been dominated by Moscow merchants since the 1960s, but the proceeds from it, whi...