Russian-Syrian Relations: Past and Present

Abstract

Drawing heavily on Andrej Kreutz’s Russia in the Middle East and Robert Freedman’s “Russia and the Arab Spring: A Preliminary Appraisal” along with numerous news sources, this essay serves a twofold purpose of sketching out a broad history of Russian-Syrian relations and of analyzing in depth Russia’s response to the recent conflict in Syria. The purpose of this essay is to update and synthesize a broad-butscattered literature on Russian-Syrian relations and to combine it with recent works examining the influence of Russia on the Syrian Civil War. The author ultimately asserts that for better or for worse Putin’s Russia has decided to risk significantly damaging the relationships it has built with the broader Arab world, Israel, and the West in order to maintain its strategic and historic ties to Iran and Syria, protect its economic interests in the Middle East, and hamper Western efforts to orchestrate Middle- Eastern politics.