PAUL R. GREGORY
STANFORD – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in the Syrian
conflict has been welcomed by some as a moment for the Kremlin to “come in from
the cold.” Russia’s conflict with the Islamic State, the argument goes, has
aligned the country’s interests with those of the West. Even Turkey’s downing
of a Russian warplane does not seem not to have deflated this optimism.
Indeed, at a recent press conference, US President Barack Obama again urged Putin to join the alliance
against the Islamic State. And French President François Hollande billed his recent visit to Moscow as an effort to build a broad international
coalition against the terrorist group.
At first blush, the idea that Russia is a natural ally against Islamist
terrorists seems to make sense. The country has suffered horrific terrorist
attacks by Islamist extremists, including the bombing in November of a plane
above the Sinai Peninsula, which killed 224 passengers and crew, nearly all of
them Russian.
Around 20 million Muslims, most of them Sunni, live within the Russian Federation, and the
country’s security officials report that some 7,000 fighters from the former
Soviet republics and Russia have joined the Islamic State.
On deeper examination, however, it becomes clear that an anti-terror
alliance with Russia is wishful thinking. Putin has not gone into Syria to
defeat the Islamic State. He has intervened to save the regime of Russia’s
client, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Putin may sometimes give the
appearance that he is ready to abandon Assad, but ultimately he will defend
him. Leaving Assad to his fate would be a sign of weakness – and thus anathema
to Putin.
Ordinary Russians may be in danger of attacks by Islamic extremists, but
they pose little threat to Putin or his allies. Russia has indeed suffered a
number of terrorist attacks, including the 2004 Beslan massacre, in which 334
people, most of them schoolchildren, were killed. In nearly every case, the
response to the attacks was brutal, inept, and costly in terms of civilian
lives lost. And yet the Putin regime has emerged unscathed each time. Indeed,
terrorist attacks at the turn of the century solidified public opinion against
Chechen rebels and gave Putin the public support he needed to raze Grozny,
Chechnya’s capital.
Putin’s confidence in dealing with terrorism reflects the design of
Russia’s security state. Russia spends more on internal security than it does
on national defense. It has interior ministry troops, federal security agency
(FSB) special forces, OMON (mobile special service) troops, military
intelligence troops, and a vast network of internal spies and informants.
Regime opponents are not allowed to run for office, their rights to demonstrate
are restricted, and they are subject to a legal arbitrariness in the courts.
Citizens have virtually no protection from wiretaps or the interception of
their electronic communications.
Every society must balance civil rights against national security.
Putin’s Russia has swung to one extreme of the spectrum, while the United
States and Europe (despite the protests of civil libertarians) have chosen to
occupy the other end. Indeed, Russia is an example of the upper limit of what
state power can do to control terrorist activity. It would be a rare extremist
group that had not been infiltrated with an informant who reports to Moscow.
There is even evidence that those who carried out the Beslan massacre were infiltrated by Russian
intelligence. Moreover, any terrorist group knows that their operations will be
met with the most extreme use of force. In Beslan, for example, Russian special
forces used thermobaric weapons.
As the reaction to the attacks in Paris illustrates, the seemingly
random murder of 130 civilians has monumental resonance in the West –
especially when the religious and ideological motives are difficult to
understand. But the Kremlin places a lower value on human lives than Western
societies do. In Putin’s calculations, the loss of lives in extremist attacks
is unwelcome, but ultimately acceptable if it does not threaten the regime.
The Russian people might be horrified and frightened. But the Russian
regime is primarily concerned with its own survival – and with how it might use
the public’s horror to its benefit. Working with the West to combat the Islamic
State serves neither of those purposes.
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