By Dr Ghassan Shabaneh/Al-Jazeera Center for Studies

The Russian military intervention in Syria came as a reaction to four changing power dynamics in the Middle East. Operation Decisive Storm and the Salman Doctrine, the Turkish military intervention in northern Syria, the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 and to the ill-planned departure of the US from the Middle East.
The Russian military intervention in Syria marks Vladimir Putin’s third military attack in the last seven years. Putin invaded the Republic of Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015.
The three aforementioned countries have one common denominator: water basins essential for Russian naval power and economic growth, so that Russia might regain its role as a global power.
In addition, acquiring water from fronts in the three countries minimises the geostrategic distance between Western Europe, on the one hand, and Russia and the Middle East, on the other.
Furthermore, the three incursions secure Russia’s semi-complete hegemony over European energy markets, Russia’s main economic source, by controlling the water routes adjacent to the continent; also allow Russia the ability to monitor and intervene in any global or regional transition of power Russia deems dangerous; and forcing the US and other regional powers to recognise the rising Russian role in global politics.  
The Russian ability to deploy with efficiency and speed suggests a revival of its military power and reflects its desire to resume a new global role similar to its role during the Cold War, when the Soviets deployed in Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and many other countries to balance the US and force their opponents to succumb to their demands.
Many factors will affect the success or failure of the Syrian military operation: first, the extent to which the US and other regional countries will surrender to the Russian position and allow it to continue; second, the economic and domestic durability of the Russian Federation, given the current oil prices and level of political opposition to Putin’s policies inside Russia; and third, the reaction of regional powers to the operation and their ability to survive its ramifications.

Why now?

The Russian military operation in Syria attempts to counter the Sunni revival and the Sunni coalition that began to surface after King Salman assumed office in Saudi Arabia. The Salman Doctrine, which called on the Sunni powers to unite and present a counter narrative to the Iranian one, shook the balance of power in the Middle East and presented both Russia and Iran with unprecedented challenges.
The Saudi-led coalition’s message to both has been that the Arabs are able and willing to define their goals and protect their own security and will not accept outside meddling in their affairs. Therefore, Decisive Storm against the Houthis in Yemen began with a loud bang in Moscow, Sanaa and Tehran.
The message has been that Yemen is not Syria; Syria is not Iraq; Iran will not be allowed to expand in the Arab World uncontested; and Russia will not be permitted to agitate the political and security situation among the Arab countries or between Iran and the Arabs.
Decisive Storm ushered in a new hope for many Arabs that outside powers would no longer be allowed to determine the outcome of Arab-Arab politics. A Saudi-led victory in Yemen would mark the first Arab triumph since Iraq forced Iran to declare a ceasefire in 1988; and if the Saudi-led coalition succeeded in restoring President  Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government, this would symbolise the first victory over Iran’s creation and support of shadow governments in key Arab countries.
On the other hand, a political or military failure in Yemen would derail the Sunni revival for the foreseeable future and open the gates for Iran and Russia to divide the Sunni Arab countries between themselves to counter any Sunni political rise.  
In addition, Putin launched his military operation in Syria to circumvent any Western victory after the Iranian deal and to block Iran, Turkey or any Western European country from translating the nuclear agreement into any economic gains at the expense of Russia, especially in the energy sector.
Therefore, Putin rushed his military intervention to prevent Turkey from controlling the northern part of Syria and block any possible, Iranian-Western, energy pipeline passage through the Mediterranean in-route to Europe.
Putin has been witnessing the excitement of many Western leaders to visit Tehran and begin joint economic and political ventures there. For instance, the foreign ministers and business leaders from Britain, France and Germany have all professed their interests in visiting Tehran or have already visited the Iranian capital since the nuclear agreement was reached in mid-July.
Russia feared the emergence of a Turkish/Western/ Iranian economic coalition that would deprive Russia of its main source of cash: energy.  
Putin was compelled to launch this military intervention to ensure the survival of the Russian economy, to keep Russia relevant in any future global deal over Syria and to circumvent the domestic uproar against him and his failing domestic economic, social, and political policies.
Furthermore, the Russian entry into Syria has to do developing events on the ground in Syria after Operation Decisive Storm. Decisive Storm raised the morale of the opposition and helped them gain unprecedented territories in key strategic areas, such as Jiser al-Shughour, Aleppo, Idilb, Daraa and the Southern front.
Putin aims to destroy all these accomplishments and it is up to the Arab-led coalition to continue to present a united front to face Russia’s military ambitions in the Arab World.  
The reluctance of Western powers has been another factor in Putin’s decision to invade Syria. Putin witnessed the hesitancy of the West especially the US to take any decisive stand or honour any red lines in the Syrian conflict.
Therefore, Putin chose to intervene and capitalise on the exhaustion of all the factions on the ground. Putin knows that no faction can decisively win the war. Thus, it will be very easy for Putin to declare a fast and decisive victory given the Western passivity at this stage.
Such a victory, if maintained, would be Russia’s first since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Any perceived military victory for Russia in the region would redefine Russia’s role in the Middle East and allow Russia to reformulate the region and its alliances in its own image.
The Russian moment in the Middle East is similar to that of the US after World War II. Russia will argue that it stabilised the Middle East and therefore it deserves the Middle East as its “backyard”.
Therefore, the Russian military intervention can be a game changer and a strategic coup for the Putin administration unless other regional and global players intervene to block Russia from harvesting the sacrifices of the Syrian people and shape the Middle East in Putin’s image for years to come.
Russia saw the Arab Spring, which resulted in the revival of Sunni Islam in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Tunisia, as a grave risk to its national security.
Thus, Moscow committed itself to supporting counterrevolutionary forces, as in Egypt, or by supporting the existing regimes, as in Syria.  
Moscow was doing this while counting on the Iranian nuclear issue to remain unresolved and insisting on Russia’s right to keep building nuclear reactors inside Iran and beyond.
Russia’s ultimate objective in all of this has been to keep the US distracted and to force it to stretch very thin in the region, in order to limit the US’ ability to block Russia from pursuing or achieving its political goals.
But after a nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1, Russia was taken aback and Putin realised that the West had deprived him of one of the most crucial political leverages at his disposal: Iran.
Putin has utilised the Syrian conflict to present Moscow as an indispensable regional middleman and to legitimise Russia’s global standing after the Ukrainian debacle; to shore up Russia’s credibility; and to pressure the West to concede on many of its demands, especially for sanctions and against the annexation of the Crimea.
Putin has been successful in dodging two major crises in the last two years: the crumbling oil prices and the harsh economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the West after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Putin’s strategy has been to deceive and surprise his nemesis with bold and very well-articulated moves to protect Russia’s credibility and image in the Middle East.
Furthermore, he has enhanced Russia’s credibility and prestige by preserving the ability to successfully mediate and deliver on behalf of his allies. For instance, Russia convinced and pressured the Syrian regime to give up the majority of its chemical weapons to avoid a military showdown with Washington.
Similarly, Russia has been playing a positive and critical role between the West and North Korea. The West has acknowledged that Russia can pressure North Korea to sign a treaty or an agreement regarding its nuclear arsenal or its missiles.  
But the West, led by the US, has not been able to bring Israel to agree to a two-state solution or return the Golan Heights or Shibaa farms to Syria and Lebanon, respectively. Furthermore, the West has not been able to persuade Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or respect any global norm regarding the occupation of Arab lands.
However, Russia under Putin has been able to deliver its allies to implement and abide by their own commitments. Thus, Russia has been building a reputation as a rising power that values its own prestige and is sensitive about its credibility.
Putin has been eager to convince his allies and his nemesis of his serious attempts to rescue his fellow Russian nationals, regardless of their location, and his uncompromising stand on fighting radical Sunni Islam.
In the last five years, Putin has presented himself as an uncompromising force against radical jihadists; a willing and able force to fill the military and political vacuums created by the US and the West at large in the Middle East; a protector of the Christian community and other minorities in the greater Levant region; a fierce defender of Russian interests; a protector of the Russian nation regardless of the location; and not as a trigger-happy player always eager to fire at anyone around the world.
On the other hand, the US and its Western allies have invaded, occupied and used force against many countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. America and the West have been using drones relentlessly against soft and hard targets indiscriminately in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and many other places in Africa.
Russia, in Putin’s view, stands out as a country that has not used force beyond its sphere of influence since the Cold War ended in 1991, and that distinguishes the Russian position from many in the West. Therefore, Russian diplomats and pundits constantly cite international law and norms to justify and explain their country’s behaviour.
The military invasion of Syria is the first real military and political test of the Putin administration. This is Russia’s first real foreign military engagement since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
In Syria, Russia is leading a war beyond its comfort zone and in a land to which Russia cannot claim territorial rights or protection of Russian ethnic groups, as in the Crimea, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and where Russia is most likely to encounter a significant popular resistance from the majority of the locals.
Russia can count on the Syrian regime and some other minorities to facilitate its operations, but the majority of the Syrian people view the Russian presence as a colonial mandate against their country.
Many Syrians believe that Russia’s intention is to divide Syria along ethnic and religious lines, thus reviving confessional politics in the Levant in order to redefine and re-engineer the ethnic/sectarian component of Syria.
According to many, Russia’s ultimate goal is to secure the existence of an Alawite state alongside the Mediterranean sea to protect Russia’s economic interest at the expense of the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Putin wants to apply the Crimean model in Syria by creating and protecting a Russian friendly zone next to the Mediterranean sea.

Confessional politics

The Russian military intervention in Syria will have grave social and political complications for the region. The Russian military intervention, if allowed to stand in Syria, will redefine sectarianism and will revive the mandate system, imposed by the United Kingdom and France between 1830-1940s, in the Levant for decades to come.
It will revive the French colonial past in the hearts and the minds of many in the region, and it will deepen the conflict between all the ethnic and religious groups inside the Syrian Arab Republic.
The majority of the Syrian people reject the Russian plan to divide their country along ethnic and religious lines. The policies of the French and their colonial past still divides many neighbourhoods in the Levant until now.
The Arab Spring has been the first indigenously-engineered socioeconomic and political move to counter the colonial past and end the Sykes-Picot influence.
However, Russia, some regional powers and many Western countries have vetoed the aspirations of the locals by supporting the counterrevolutions or accepting the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by certain regimes against the democratic forces in their own countries to protect the status quo.
The Western inaction in Syria suggest that the majority of the Western countries are leaning toward reviving confessional politics in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, over any transition to democracy.
Encouraged by its success in supporting the counterrevolutions in the Arab World and by the West’s failure to commit to any clear policy, the Putin administration began testing the resolve of its opponents on all fronts.
Beginning with Ukraine and now Syria, the Putin administration is not wasting any time in challenging the West and pursuing its own interests regardless of the cost.
Putin wants Russians and their descendants to feel safe, proud and protected irrespective of their location. The Moscow patriarchy has blessed the Syrian operation and provided religious cover to the Russian government to pursue similar policies to protect Russians and Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
The significance of this blessing on the Syrian case could be seen in Russia providing protection to the mixed Russian community in Syria.
Many Syrian top brass, especially Alawites, are married to Russians, and they hold key positions in the Syrian army. Many of them could face crimes against humanity or war crime charges. Putin’s intervention in Syria could be explained through this prism, too.
Putin desires to extend protection to the Russian Syrian community so that they face no harm in any future transition. Russia will attempt to destroy any material evidence that implicates Russia, Putin, or any of the Syrian top brass who are married to Russian women in the massacres, chemical attacks and systemic ethnic cleansing of the Syrian population that occurs before any global peace conference is convened to end the war.
Therefore, Putin extends Russia’s hand to all of the counterrevolutionary forces and assists them in violently putting down popular movements in order to protect the old regimes. Putin prefers conflict over stability in the Middle East so Russia can continue to export arms to the region and keep oil prices high.
Putin’s confessional politics, at its core, goes hand in hand and serves the clash of civilisations ideology put forth by neoconservatives and their ilk in the Western media against the Muslim World after the 9/11 terror attacks in New York.
The Obama Administration is keen on reducing the tension in the Middle East in order to pivot to Asia; the Putin administration is determined to block that from happening and to derail any easy exit of the US from the Middle East.

Putin’s legacy

President Putin wants to be remembered as the Russian leader who restored the credibility and the prestige of the Russian people and the Russian State.
He wishes to be known as the Russian leader who defeated the Jihadi movements around the world and ended their threat and the one who stood to the West and the one who helped resurrect the Russian state and brought it back to the Middle East.
Putin considers Sunni Muslims as arch-enemies of the Russian people due to their stand with the West to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, and their attempt to break away from Russia and seek independence in Chechnya and Dagestan in the last two decades.
Therefore, Putin has sided with the secular counterrevolutionary forces in the Arab Spring countries and has been defining all the democratic movements in the Arab world through the narrow prism of political Islam and as “Western-supported chaos” that has led to terror, instability, and violence.  
Putin’s reduction of the democratic movements that swept the Arab World since December of 2010 to Western-engineered madness is an insult to the region and an intellectually degrading description of all the sacrifices in the Arab World.
Putin is doing all of this to bolster the image of Russia in the region among certain countries. Also, to provide Russia with an unprecedented public relations opportunity rarely experienced in the Arab World about credibility.
Western leaders have sacrificed many of their own allies and have not honoured many of their commitments in the Middle East. Putin provides a different approach and introduces a strong and different model of relations to the region. Thus it is no wonder that many Arab leaders have been visiting Moscow in the last few months.
Putin knows that victory in Ukraine and Syria will bring back to Russia the prestige of the old days. Putin is mindful of the days when Russian technology was capable of defeating the American technology on the battle field.
For instance, the Egyptian-Israeli war of 1973, better known as the October War, was won technologically by the Soviets, who provided the Egyptians with surface-to-air missiles (SAM) that shut down many American-made Israel fighter jets and destroyed many American-made tanks on the frontline.
The inability of the Israeli army to have total supremacy in the air and on the ground is a testament to Russian technology and military planning back then. The US revenged its technological defeat against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Pentagon provided the Mujahedeen with the Stinger missiles and the Soviets were defeated and were forced to withdrew from the country.
Putin is facing the same test right now. Can he secure the Russian re-entry into the club of the most influential powers around the world and legitimise Russia’s policies and position as he begins to carve a new role for Russia in the twenty-first century? Or will the Syrian debacle diminish Russia’s chance to any invitation to the G7,and end Russia’s aspiration to play any major role in global politics?
The Russian military intervention will provide an answer to this in sooner or later. The Russian military intervention will demonstrate whether Putin rushed his military operation or Russia is ready for such a move.
Judging from the first real test of Russian military technology, Russia failed in its first experiment. The inability of the Russian military to precisely fire missiles from the Caspian Sea to hit targets in Syria demonstrates the fragility of Russian technology. According to many reports the four missiles landed in Iran.
Henceforth, Putin cannot claim or brag to be the one who revived Russia and transformed it from a regional to supper power.

Political implications

The Russian military intervention could delay the American withdrawal from the Middle East and could convince the US to revitalise and enhance its alliances again. For instance, the American decision to delay the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan is but the first reaction to the Russian military intervention in Syria.
But, the question remains, is this a strategic shift in the US policy or just a reaction. In addition, the Russian military intervention, could provide the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) and other Arab countries the opportunity to rethink their steps as they begin to formulate their alliances after the Iranian nuclear deal.
The potential for Iran to be weakened is very strong, especially if Russia fails to have a decisive victory in Syria at the speed it intends.
In addition, Syria could become Putin’s Afghanistan. All it takes is the downing of a few airplanes, the destroying of a few tanks and the capturing of a few Russian soldiers.
If a decision to supply Stringer missiles or their equivalent to the fighters on the ground is made, then Russian air supremacy would be compromised and its value for the Syrian regime would be diminished.
Once that happens, Putin will have monumental pressure at home and will bring the Afghanistan experience back to every Russian home.
Therefore,the Arab leaders who rushed to Moscow ought to wait and see the resolve and ability of the new rising power. Is the Russian hardware rusty? Can they pull a fast victory in Syria? Or will they be drained from the first round?
Time will tell if Russia deserves its invitation to the G7 or if Russia merits the Sunni trust it has been working so hard to defeat at every opportunity.
The turn of events in Syria will demonstrate whether Russia will be forced to abandon Syria and Ukraine based on its military performance or if Russia will be able to define the power structure of the Middle East, Ukraine and beyond as the US continues its ill-planned withdrawal from the region.

- Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh is a senior researcher at Al-Jazeera Center for Studies, Doha.