Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa PDF
Preview Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa
Russia Rising ii Russia Rising Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa Edited by Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, Stanislav Secrieru, and Contributors, 2021 Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. Cover design by Holly Bell All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-7556-3663-1 PB: 978-0-7556-3664-8 ePDF: 978-0-7556-3666-2 eBook: 978-0-7556-3665-5 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters Contents List of Illustrations vii List of Contributors viii 1 Introduction 1 Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru Part I: Russia in the Middle East: From the Soviet Union to Putin 2 The Soviet Union in the Middle East: An Overview 13 Dimitar Bechev, Florence Gaub, and Nicu Popescu 3 What Drives Russia’s Policy in the Middle East? 21 Dmitri Trenin Part II: Russian Policy in Action 4 Russia in Syria: A Military Analysis 31 Anton Lavrov 5 The Nonwar on Daesh 39 Florence Gaub 6 Russian Arms Exports in the Middle East 45 Timofey Borisov 7 Russia’s Energy Diplomacy in the Middle East 53 Carole Nakhle Part III: Regional Partnerships 8 Russia and Iran: It’s Complicated 67 Carol R. Saivetz 9 Russia and the “Resistance Axis” 77 Julien Barnes-Dacey 10 Russia and Turkey: The Promise and the Limits of Partnership 85 Dimitar Bechev 11 Understanding Russia–GCC Relations 97 Dmitriy Frolovskiy vi Contents 12 Russia and Egypt: A Precarious Honeymoon 107 Alexey Khlebnikov 13 The “Comrades” in the Maghreb 117 Dalia Ghanem 14 Russia and Israel: An Improbable Friendship 123 Mark N. Katz 15 Russia in the Middle East and North Africa: A Balance Sheet 131 Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu, and Stanislav Secrieru Notes 137 Bibliography 173 Index 203 Illustrations Map 5.1 Approximation of Russian strikes in Syria (September 30 to October 28, 2015) 40 Figures 7.1 OPEC crude oil production share by country (January 2020) 55 7.2 Reserves-to-production ratio, 2017 58 Contributors Julien Barnes-Dacey is director of the Middle East & North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. His work focuses on European policy toward Syria and the wider Mashreq. He has worked as a researcher and journalist across the Middle East, including in Syria from 2007 to 2011 where he reported for the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor. Dimitar Bechev is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, as well as a fellow at Europe’s Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. He is the author of Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (2017). He has held positions with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Oxford, and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and has published widely on Turkey, Russia, the Balkans, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Timofey Borisov has been a research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow since 2016. He previously worked as a market research analyst in the Russian defense industry. He holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He is a regular contributor to Eksport Vooruzhenii (Arms Exports) and Moscow Defense Brief. Dmitriy Frolovskiy is a political analyst and consultant. He is a contributor to the Carnegie Moscow Center, Middle East Institute, and many other think tanks. He is currently a private consultant on policy and strategy in the Middle East with official and private entities. He has also written extensively about Russia’s foreign policy toward the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Florence Gaub is the deputy director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), where she is in charge of research coordination. In addition to her work on the Middle East, she focuses on foresight and future studies. She holds degrees from Munich University, the Sorbonne, the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and a Ph.D. from the Humboldt University of Berlin. She was previously employed at NATO Defense College. Her latest coauthored book is The Cauldron: NATO’s Campaign in Libya (2018). Dalia Ghanem is a resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, where her work examines political and extremist violence, radicalization, Islamism, and jihadism with an emphasis on Algeria. She has been a guest speaker on these issues Contributors ix in various conferences and a regular commentator in different Arab and international print and audiovisual media. Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London during January–March 2018 and the Sir William Luce Fellow at Durham University during April–June 2018. Alexey Khlebnikov is an expert on the Middle East at the Russian International Affairs Council and a strategic risk consultant. He received his master’s degree in global public policy from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and both bachelor’s and master’s in Middle East studies from Lobachevsky State University in Nizhni Novgorod. He was a research fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2013. He has published on international relations topics, in particular on the Middle East, in academic journals and media sources in Russia, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. His research interests are focused on the “Arab Spring” failure, current intraregional tensions (within GCC, intra-Sunni, Sunni-Shiite), and great powers’ policies in the region. Anton Lavrov is a graduate of Tver State Technical University. He is an independent defense analyst affiliated with the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST). His major fields of expertise are Russian military reform, the Russian defense industry, the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recent Russian operation in Syria. In 2018 he was a visiting fellow in the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Carole Nakhle is the founder and CEO of Crystol Energy. She specializes in international petroleum contractual arrangements, fiscal regimes and regulations; sustainable development of the petroleum sector including revenue management and governance; capacity building; energy policy, security, investment, and market developments. Dr. Nakhle has worked with oil and gas companies (NOCs and IOCs) at the executive level, governments and policy makers, international organizations, academic institutions, and specialized think tanks on a global scale. She has published two widely acclaimed books: Petroleum Taxation: Sharing the Wealth published in 2008 and reprinted in 2012 and used as a primary reference in leading universities and industry training courses; and Out of the Energy Labyrinth (2007), coauthored with Lord David Howell. Nicu Popescu is director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2019 he served as minister of foreign affairs and European integration of Moldova. Prior to becoming a minister, Dr. Popescu worked as a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (2013–18); senior advisor on foreign policy and EU affairs for the prime minister of Moldova (2010, 2012–13); head of program and senior research fellow at ECFR in London (2007–9, 2011–12), and research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005–7). He holds a Ph.D. in
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