Within the ongoing Syrian crisis there is a central debate concerning
the involvement of international and regional powers, mainly Russia and
China. Since the beginning of the crisis, many analysts and politicians
predicted that both Russia and China would abandon the Syrian regime
and accept to support the “Yemen Model” as a solution for the conflict
in Syria. However, it is now more than a year on and the two powers seem
more committed than ever to the Syrian regime. To understand the
position of the two powers a broader approach is needed, an approach
that includes the changes in international dynamics and balances of
power, the strategic calculations against the US role, the reflections
of the Arab uprisings and regional politics.
Since the end of the Cold War, realists have faced many challenges to
their theoretical arguments concerning the “balance of power.” The
early 1990s did not witness serious attempts from major powers to
balance the American hegemony as realists used to claim. Second-tier
major powers such as China and Russia have mostly abandoned traditional
"hard balancing" based on countervailing alliances and arms buildups-at
the systemic level. Many theories were presented to explain this absence
of “balancing” against the US, such as the incompatible US primacy,
many major powers preferred to “bandwagon” the US rather than to balance
it, economic interdependence between the US and these powers, and most
importantly, the absence of concern about territorial security for major
powers. According to Professor of International Relations at McGill
University, T.V. Paul, the US was perceived as a defender of the
international status quo and an opponent of forced territorial
revisions.
However, since the US invasion of Iraq 2003, major
powers began to feel threatened by the US, which was perceived as
attempting to reinforce its hegemony with total neglect of the interests
of other major powers. This “neo-imperial grand strategy" as recognized
by John Ikenberry in the Foreign Affairs magazine, provoked
China and Russia – and even some European powers – as they thought the
US victory in Iraq would encourage the Americans to practice unlimited
imperialism, intensive military interventions and total unilateralism in
international affairs. The Bush administration aimed to completely
change international law as Noam Chomsky argues, because it considered
international law as a system of principles modified continuously by
international practice, which means only by American practice. A
powerful state has the capacity to create what is called a new norm and
the Iraq war was an attempt to create a the doctrine of “preventive
war”.
Both Russia and China are losing their strategic spots in the region,
they lost the Iraqi regime in 2003, and then Libyan regime in 2011 by a
limited military Western intervention under the cover of the “Arab
Spring.” The two powers are adopting an increasingly “soft balance”
strategy against the US, this is clearly revealed in their handling of
the Syrian crisis. Soft balancing can be described as actions that do
not aim to challenge the American military primacy directly, but to
delay, hinder, and postpone US unilateral policies by using non-military
methods such as coalitions in international organizations, economic
tools and diplomatic initiatives.
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Even this “balance” will not prevent the US from achieving some of
its interests and goals, but it will make such achievements more
expensive, will bring more damage to US legitimacy and deeper tensions
with major powers and allies, and even may cause an economic power shift
against the US, according to political scientist Robert Pape. US policy
toward the Syrian crisis indicated that Obama is still ignoring Russian
and Chinese vital interests in the Middle East.China and Russia had no choice but to strengthen their
strategic spots on the Middle Eastern chess board, namely in Syria and
Iran.
The American decline led the US to transfer many regional
responsibilities to its regional allies, mainly the Gulf States and
Turkey, in order to enhance regional balance of power against Iran
through regional tools. China and Russia even cooperated with Obama by
approving sanctions against Tehran in the Security Council (2010),
however, they concluded that the US was pushing its regional allies to
take a lead in the Syrian conflict without considering their vital
interests. Both powers had no choice but to strengthen their strategic
spots on the Middle Eastern chess board, namely in Syria and Iran.
The Chinese and Russian policy toward the Syrian crisis can be
described as a “soft balancing” strategy against US, that includes their
coalition within the Security Council, using vetoes, building wide
agreement about the crisis within the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, offering logistical military support to the Syrian army,
and presenting economic aids and technical support with which to face
the international sanctions. The political position declared by both
countries is constant, a refusal of military intervention and regime
change by force and sanctions, while supporting the option of a
political process that includes a national dialogue and international
guarantees toward a new regime as the Syrian people want it. These are
the guidelines for both countries which they will commit to whilst
engaging in the regional and international efforts to find a solution to
the crisis.
There is the possibility that soft balancing will evolve into hard
balancing. Both Pape and Paul argue that the mechanisms of soft
balancing become “harder” when American unilateralism increases, and it
may change to hard balancing, especially with the US decline at the
international level. How and when Russia and China may seek hard balance
against the US in the Middle East depends partly on how the Syrian
Crisis will end, but what is obvious is that both countries do not have
the option of retreating now.
Hosam Matar is a Lebanese researcher of International Relations
