Russia’s Security Balancing Toward the Syrian Crisis (2011-2018)

There are different narratives of the reasons for Russia’s engagement in Syria, but one of the main fears of Russia is its concern about the growing presence of the United States in West Asia, which could spread to Eurasia. This has led Russia to pursue a policy of confronting the West and supporting the ruling government in the Syrian crisis. Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, Russia has carried out a range of measures to protect Bashar al-Assad: from diplomatic, political and even media support to direct military intervention. Some analysts who consider Russia as historically militarist and expansionist, emphasize Russian military presence, considering it in the same fashion as Soviet intervention in other countries. Other analysts who pay attention to developments in Russian foreign policy and the country’s recent attention to soft power and diplomatic procedures, view non-military dimensions of Russia’s presence as more important. Accordingly, the main question of this article is what has been the main strategy of Russia in supporting the Syrian government and preventing the United States and its allies from achieving their goal of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad? The answer is that Moscow’s prevailing security approach during the 2011-2018 period has been soft security balancing vis-à-vis the Syrian opposition groups and their global and regional supporters, and has only resorted to hard balancing in conditions of necessity and urgency. This is also due to a change in Russia’s behavioral pattern in recent years. It has paid attention to the importance of the soft and diplomatic dimensions of regaining its international status, adopting this approach in Syria and generally in West Asia.