The United States assumed that Russia would be
scared of the risks to go into Syria. That is a mistake that should not
be made when it comes to Ukraine.
Senior
U.S. national security officials, diplomats, and military officers are
all sounding similar warnings. “If Russia intervenes, they face a
difficult fight.” “Russian forces will have to cope with an insurgency.”
“As the bodies of dead soldiers return home, Vladimir Putin will come
under increasing public pressure.” “Russia will not be able to achieve
its objectives—and will become bogged down in a quagmire.”
You
might think this is referring to ongoing statements coming out of
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ national security
team trying to warn the Kremlin over starting a military adventure in
Ukraine, but these comments echo pronouncements that were being
delivered in September 2015 by the Obama/Biden administration prior to
the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war.
There are some important lessons from how the Russian military and
security establishment has pursued that operation that are relevant if
the Kremlin decides to choose military force as its option for coercive
diplomacy against Ukraine. These lessons may lead to a different type of
fight than the United States is expecting and has been training and
equipping Ukrainian forces for.
First,
the Russian intervention in Syria focused primarily on destroying
capabilities and fighting formations of the anti-Assad opposition,
rather than on occupying territory. The Kremlin made the decision to
become directly involved in the Syria conflict when, in the late summer
and early fall of 2015, opposition forces acquired sufficient
capabilities and momentum to push on Damascus and attempt to dislodge
Bashar al-Assad. By focusing on airpower, missile strikes, and unmanned
systems, the Russian task force concentrated on breaking up and
degrading opposition military formations.
The
subsequent reoccupation of much of Syria’s territory by Assad’s
military was a byproduct of the massive pounding the opposition took,
rather than the initial purpose of the intervention, which was to stave
off Assad’s collapse.
Second,
the Russians have maintained a relatively light footprint on the ground
in Syria. They chose not to focus on occupying territory or taking on
the responsibilities of governance. Indeed, in a number of cases the
Russians brokered a series of ceasefires that left local leaders and
notables in control of their immediate territory in return for accepting
overall government control. To the extent that the Russian military has
defined areas of control in Syria, they are focused on a few pieces of
critically strategic real estate.
Third,
whenever ground forces were needed, the Russians turned to private
military companies or other irregular formations, limiting as far as
possible the exposure of uniformed members of the Russian armed forces.
As in the United States, Russian public opinion seems to draw a very
clear distinction between “soldiers” dying for the motherland versus
contractors who signed up and took the risks.
Finally, the Russians demonstrated, particularly in the launch of Kalibr cruise missilesfrom
the Caspian Sea Flotilla, Russian capabilities to deliver lethal
strikes from assets based inside Russian territory. The subtext of the
use of the Caspian ships was to subtly demonstrate that key Russian
capabilities did not need to be sent out and “exposed” but could be
utilized without fear of reprisal or counterattack.
So,
in contrast to the predictions that Syria would be “Putin’s
Afghanistan,” where a large land-based Russian force would be ground
down by insurgent attacks and eventually Putin would risk popular unrest
at home as casualties mounted, the Russians focused on delivering
strikes to disrupt and degrade Assad’s opponents. Watching the Russian
campaign unfold, I was reminded of comments that Sergei Ivanov, then
Russia’s defense minister, delivered at a U.S.-Russia dialogue in
2006—in perfect English with a command of American military jargon—about
how the Russian military was closely studying and learning from the
U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Avoiding large-scale land
deployments seemed to be one of them.
I
do not know whether the Russians will go into Ukraine, or whether U.S.
assessments are correct that the Russians will seek to occupy and
control large pieces of Ukrainian territory and send personnel and
systems into Ukraine to engage in close combat. The Syria campaign,
however, would suggest that if the Russian government decides to use
military force against Ukraine, it would focus on long-distance strikes
to destroy Ukrainian equipment, particularly its stockpiles of drones,
and try to break up organized military formations. The Syria case also
suggests that the Russians would try to avoid having people cross the
border, whenever possible, and direct fire from across the line. (This
might be part of the hair-splitting on sanctions to suggest to the
Germans and others that the promise that economic and energy sanctions
on Russia would come only if Russia “invaded”—that is, sent large,
organized formations across borders—and that this would qualify as a
more limited “incursion.”) It would also raise the cost of any response,
because the United States and other NATO countries would be very
skittish about any Western weaponry crossing the border in return to
strike at Russian artillery or airfields. And the Kalibr strike in Syria
from the Caspian Sea could easily be replicated with no one willing to
respond by returning fire into the heart of Russia. Finally, with
Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov already talking about sending Chechen
auxiliaries to Ukraine, the pattern, as we have seen in Syria, Libya, Mali, and the Central African Republic may
hold here as well: any ground personnel needed to take strategic sites
or important nodes of communication would not be formal Russian forces.
Again, the Russian gamble may be that some of the European states will
hair-split and that private military contractors would not constitute a
formal Russian military intervention.
Preparing
Ukrainian special forces for partisan warfare, or assuming that
U.S.-supplied Javelins would be used against Russian tanks and armored
vehicles making the rapid dash to Kyiv, is not going to be effective
against the type of campaign Russia used in Syria. We have been
expecting a ground campaign to occupy territory, but the Russian General
Staff may be looking to destroy capabilities, demoralize the Ukrainian
military, and create conditions for political upheaval. And if
operations begin anytime soon, the types of military aid and training
that would be needed would come too late.
The
United States assumed that Russia would be scared of the risks to go
into Syria. That is a mistake that should not be made when it comes to
Ukraine.
Nikolas
K. Gvosdev is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed are
his own.