Putin’s Goal in Syria Is Chaos. By Garry Kasparov. Newsweek, October 7, 2015.
Kasparov:
One year ago, the Russian military expanded its push into eastern Ukraine once it became clear that Europe and the United States had no interest in standing up to Vladimir Putin’s latest gambit—at least
not in
any way that would deter him. The core of the problem with the West's response
is that economic
and
political measures cannot stop a dictator's tanks or defend a commercial
airliner from a Russian
missile.
Putin consistently responds to words with action and he has done so again in
Syria, where
Russian
airpower is now bolstering the murderous regime of Bashar Assad by hitting
rebel forces,
including
those trained and supported by the United States. The Kremlin’s official
pretexts, that the
strikes
are against ISIS and part of the global war on terror are, like most Kremlin
statements, blatantly
false,
as can be seen by a glance at a map of Russia's targets.
As in
Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no
long-term strategic goals
beyond
creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free world wherever possible.
This allows him
to play the big man on the international stage, an essential element of his domestic
appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned Putin's invasion into
a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast,
Russians
have no interest in Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the
leaders of
Europe,
the U.S., and other democratic countries, Putin doesn’t have to worry about how
popular his
foreign
adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian
government, no free
media
to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of
well-armed riot police.
This
security allows dictators like Putin to move opportunistically into any breach
as the White House
dithers.
Yesterday Ukraine, today Syria, and what about tomorrow? Africa provides
inviting targets,
such as
Benghazi in Libya, another hot-spot where the United States has retreated.
Putin is happy to sell
or even
make gifts of Russian weapons far and wide, especially where he smells oil.
Despite
looting Russian retirement funds for cash and all his bluster about changing
the world order at
the
United Nations last month, Putin isn’t interested in waging a big war himself.
The one thing Putin’s
dictatorship
couldn’t stand is for its hero to look like a loser. He cannot risk a military
confrontation he
might
lose, hence his habit of finding targets NATO isn't willing to defend, such as
Syrian rebels and
Ukrainian
farmers. Putin’s military pokes and prods the borders of NATO to provoke division among his
opponents.
He does
it in the Baltics and now he’s doing it in Turkey, a NATO member with the
second-largest
military
in the alliance. Will America and Western Europe defend Turkish airspace or
will they tell the
Turks
to stand down? It’s a question Putin may soon demand an answer to. Meanwhile,
he’s helping
Assad
flood Europe with refugees while at the same time supporting anti-immigrant
parties there. The cynical calculus is that when the time comes for the
European Union to renew sanctions on Russia over
Ukraine,
perhaps a few of his allies will be in power to block them.
When I
said last year that Putin was more dangerous than ISIS it was not a reference
to the immense
Russian
nuclear arsenal, at least not directly. ISIS is dangerous and growing more so,
but it is regional
and
would quickly be beaten down without Putin and his clients in Iran and Syria
stoking civil war and
creating
fertile ground for ISIS's recruiting by slaughtering Sunnis. Obama is already
scurrying to avoid
contact
between Russian and U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, allowing Putin to function
as a nucleararmed
guarantor
of Assad's massacres.
Every
Putin action that catches the West flat-footed leads to another round of what a
brilliant “chess
master”
he is, a metaphor that annoys me more than most, as you might imagine. For
years I’ve said that
Putin
doesn’t play geopolitical chess, and if he did he wouldn’t be very good at it.
He is, however, good
at
playing poker with a weak hand against anxious opponents who fold against his
every bluff.
The
greatest danger isn’t in confronting Putin, it’s in waiting so long to do so
that the stakes will be
incredibly
high. The longer we wait, the more confident he becomes and the more dangerous
the
eventual
confrontation will be. Stopping Putin will be harder now than it would have
been two years
ago,
but easier than it will be a year from now.
Putin
is trapped in a downward spiral of hatred and violence. His survival at home
depends on it. It will
end
only with a major conflict abroad and when Russians are willing to shed their
blood to free
themselves.
When the end comes for Putin it will be the way that most dictators fall:
abruptly, violently,
and as
a result of the economic and moral bankruptcy of the state he has created in
his image.
