Russia and the Syrian Civil War - Essay Example

?First Lecturer’s Homework Russia and the Syrian Civil War The Syrian civil war began in and was heralded bygeo-political experts as the next port of call for the so called Arab Spring that swept through northern Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt and then on to Libya, overturning long-standing authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, has continued on unabated for over two years now and there still seems to be no end in sight to the conflict (Shalashniy 7). None of the combatants appears to have enough firepower to deal a final in this war that continues in the form of a long-smoldering fire that has so far resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, as well the displacement and humanitarian sufferingamong hundreds of thousands of Syrian people – viable estimates are hard to come by. Russiahas a long-standing history with the Syrian rulers, which prospered during the authoritarian reign of Hafez Al Assad, the father of the current Syrian president Bashar Al Assad. There is need for the Russian government to support the Syrian Army and government and a plan is needed for this to happen as quickly as possible. The elder Assad’s relationship with the Russian leadership saw him being invited to Russia by Leonid Brezhnev and firmly installed Syria’s position as a defender of the USSR during the Cold War, a tradition that continued with the Russian republic after the breakup of the Soviet Republics. Russia is Syria’s largest supplier of arms, with annual arms sales between the two countries topping more than US$1.5 billion. The countries also have a lot of trade links and have over the years established very strong bonds, based especially on the supply of arms and cold war and post-cold war anti-American stance. This stance saw the Russian Republic - together with China - veto allUN resolutions calling for military intervention in Syria by the international community (Carpenter 3). Russia has also been very vocal in defending the Syrian administration of Bashar Al Assad and taken their side in the conflict with what they refer to as Islamic terrorist rebels. It is on the basis of the longstanding history of the relationship between the two countries that the first reason why Russia should arm the government of Syria. This ongoing relationship has been between the governments that rule the two countries and therefore remain in place no matter which government is in place in Syria. There is need for Russia to arm Syrian and provide a decisive winner in this battle in order to stop the humanitarian and political tragedy that has taken place and continues to take place in Syria today. Russia has to support Syrian in this conflict in order to stem the growth and spread of radical Islamist revolution that has continued under the guise of an America-supported Arab Spring (Tenin 6). Russia also needs to arm Syria in order to stop this spread of Islamist radicalism that Russia had to deal with in Chechnya and to prevent Islamist terrorists using Syria as another from to attack Russia. This plan presented herein is a plan to arm the Syrian government forces by Russia in order to provide a decisive completion to the civil strife in Syria once and for all and to protect the sanctity of the Syrian regime. The first part of this plan is the identification of the kinds and range of weapons that the Russian Republic can supply to Syria to ensure that the tide of the war in that country turns in favor of the Syrian government and to ensure that the region is stabilized and that the Syrian country does not disintegrate into tribal or ethnic enclaves, as has happened in all the other countries where international intervention usually in the form of American and American-aided invasion has taken place. One only has to look at the effect of American intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and most recently Egypt to see how their intervention only results in more complex internal conflict and deterioration of law and order. In Syria, the situation is further compounded by the fact that the so-called Rebels are also supported and influenced by elements of Al Qaeda, which the western countries seem have no difficulty in embracing and arming, just as they armed the Taliban against the Russians in Afghanistan. The kind of arms that will be required will be arms that will change the style of the war and ensure an effective and immediate deterrent of the rebel forces. The intention is to provide the type of arms that will give the Syrian Army the ability to finish this war (Slavo, 2013). The type of arms that the Syrians require are the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles which are much more advanced than the Patriot missiles that the Americans used against Iraq and which have been deployed by NATO to guard Turkey airspace. These missiles have a 150 km range and with a full battalion of these has 2448N6 missiles that have a response time of only five minutes from vehicle stopping to missile firing. These will obliterate all the rebel forces whose arms are mainly small arms and who are in areas of the country that are well known. The other range of military equipment that will be required will be military aircraft. Though the Syrian army already has about 143 helicopters and over 2,000 other aircraft they require some of the latest fighting jets that will also be used to target the rebel locations. In addition the Syrians require other arms such as Kalashnikovs and especially AK47s and bullets for them in order to win the infantry fighting and also to arm strategically placed snipers (BBC Reporter 4). Russia will therefore supply helicopters and other military aircraft that have been ordered by Syria (Schuster 3). A lot of these arms will be supplied to Syria under already existing contracts which the Syrian government and the Syrian Army already has in place with the Russiansuppliers and negotiated with the support and some funding by the Russian authorities. So these arms supplies will not in any way break any of the international arms restrictions have been placed on Syria. In 2011, more than $1 billion worth of arms were traded between Russia and Syria with at least half a billion more dollars’ worth expected to be supplied in 2012 and more for this year (Grove 5). In addition, the fact that the Americans and the British have already started putting into place plans for supplying arms to these Syrian “rebels” who are nothing more than the remnants of the Al Qaeda fighters that have been knocked out from Chechnya and Iraq and Afghanistan and all these other places that have suffered from American and “international” invasions(Neistat 2). A lot of the arms that they are being supplied with are small arms that will be no match for the Russian supplied missile launchers as well as the air firepower that the Russian aircraft will provide the Syrian Army and Air Forces. These small types of arms not only have the effect of increasing the amount of civilian suffering in this civil war, but they also do not stand a chance of reducing the fighting in Syria ("Moscow tut-tuts arms supplies to Syrian ‘liberated areas’ citing Hatla massacre.", 2013). The plans for the transport of the arms to Syria are also well advanced. There are several routes through which the arms will get to the Syrian Army. The traditional route for transporting heavy artillery is through the Black Sea and via the port of Tartus. The route basically goes from the Russian port of Novorossiysk and goes from there through the Dardanelles straits onto the Mediterranean and up to the Russian naval base in the Syrian Tartus port. The large Russian landing ships, Alexander Shabalin and Kaliningrad will be used for this purpose (Solomon 3). The Russians can also utilize the Caspian Sea ports and transfer the weapons from there by land through Iran and Iraq who also have enough problems with the American to support any efforts that will be aimed at fighting any American backed rebels. These routes can all be utilized to transport the heavy artillery equipment while any other non-bulky equipment can be transported by air through the air corridors that have been established through Turkish airspace. These corridors have been established to escape the flight restrictions that have been put in place by the American and British backed UN resolutions. The other route involves going by air through Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan which will also bypass all the countries that have a weapons embargo against the Syrian government (Schuster 5). The major reason for this supply of arms, which will ensure that the Syrian Army is able to put down this rebellion and win this war once and for all is to ensure that there is stability in the region and reequip the Syrian Army in a way that ensures that they can deal a decisive and winning blow in this war. It will ensure that the war stamps out all these rebels and stops this so called Arab Spring uprising once and for all (Neistat 4). There are obviously going to be obstacles along the way, the most serious one of which is the danger posed by the Syrian rebels if they get a lot more arms from their American, British and other NATO supporters. The other major obstacle is the international embargo on the sale of arms to the combatants in the Syrian conflict which includes the Syrian army. This opposition may lead to the interruption of supplies to the Syrian government. The other major obstacle, especially on the Middle East supply routes is the Israelis who would like to stop the convoys and ensure that the Russian arms do not reach the recipients. The danger of the Israelis actually entering this conflict to stop the Russian arms reaching the Syrians is very real and they could also be the conduit through which American heavy artillery will be used against the Syrian army in this conflict. By trying to cut off the supply routes to the Syrian army the Israelis and their American backers will try to ensure that the rebels try to win this conflict. The way to combat this will be not only through very careful reconnaissance while the arms are being transported but also ensuring that the public support for the Syrian rebels starts going downhill. This will ensure that the public opinion does not go in favor of the rebels. One especially vital tool of propaganda in this way is pointing out the links that these rebels have with Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist forces, the same extremist forces that Russia successfully fought in the Chechnya war. In conclusion, it is imperative for the Russians to be able to supply the arms to Syria in order to ensure that order and stability is restored to this vital part of the Middle East and so as to also deal with the threat of Islamist terrorism as well as clip the wings of radicalism that has taken place in the region resulting in the upending of regimes that are considered unfriendly to the Americans and their Western allies. These forces have formed an unholy alliance with Al Qaeda elements and have exploited the instability, the fragility and the cinder box tendencies in these countries to further their expansionist agenda and are a threat to longstanding and stable governments in this region. This rebellion needs to be stopped militarily and the key to doing so is for Russia to supply Syria with the arms that it needs. Works Cited BBC Reporter. “Russian arms to deter foreign intervention in Syria”. BBC News, 28 May 2013. Web. 18 July 2013. . Carpenter, Ted G. The Syrian Civil War’s Global Implications. N.P., 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 18 July 2013. . Grove, Thomas. "Russian ships carrying arms en route to Syrian port." The Globe and Mail, 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 July 2013. . "Moscow tut-tuts arms supplies to Syrian ‘liberated areas’ citing Hatla massacre." TV - Novosti 14 June 2013. Web. 23 July 2013. . Neistat, Anna. Welcome to Russia’s Syria doublespeak. N.P., 19 June 2013. Web. 19 July 2013. . Schuster, Simon. "Is Russia Running a Secret Supply Route to Arm Syria’s Assad?" Time 29, Nov. 2012. Web. 19 July 2013. . Shalashniy, Alexander. A Collapsing Syria: Russia’s Foreign Policy Problem. N.P., 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 18 July 2013. . Slavo, Mac. "Russia: “Syria Will Be Armed with Weapons That Have Never Been Seen before in the Middle East”." inforwars.com 22 June 2013. Web. 23 July 2013. . Solomon, Ronen. "The Weapon Route from Russia to Syria: How it Works." Israel Defense,6 June 2013. Web. 19 July 2013. . Tenin, Dmitri. The Mythical Alliance: Russia’s Syria Policy. N.P., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 July 2013. . Read More