To date, Russia has managed to keep Turkish ambitions in check, but for how long? 13 terrorist attack in Istanbul, Erdogan intensified threats to launch another incursion into northeast Syria amidst a heightened barrage of air and drones strikes. An emboldened Turkey is seeking to press this advantage in Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s adroit maneuvers since the Russian invasion - positioning Ankara as a mediator between Russia and the West, arming Ukraine with drones, providing a safe haven for Russian businesses and citizens, and leveraging Turkey’s NATO membership to hold Swedish and Finnish accession hostage - has shifted the power dynamic with Russia in Ankara’s favor. forces out of northeast Syria, as well as the possibility of intensified clashes between Israel and Iran within Syria. This means planning for the possibility of Turkey, Russia, and the regime working together to push U.S. In the wake of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the United States should anticipate the Syrian conflict’s shifting power dynamics. So far, Washington seems unprepared for the challenges this could create for its efforts to combat the remnants of the Islamic State, diminish tensions with Turkey, contain Iran’s regional activities, and manage its expectations of Israel. Over the past 10 months, three strategic shifts hold the potential to reshape the conflict landscape in Syria and beyond: an empowered Turkey seizing the upper hand over Russia an opportunistic Iran exploiting tactical advantage on the ground while deepening strategic ties with Russia and a conflicted Israel, navigating a precarious balance between its interests in Syria and its support for Ukraine and the West. While the tactical shift in Russia’s military footprint in Syria - never large - is relatively small, the reordering of power dynamics on the ground is far more significant. Russia has also redeployed a Syria-based S-300 air defense system to Ukraine and may be forced to withdraw additional military assets.
Moscow also has recruited from a pool of generals known for their brutality in Syria to prosecute the war in Ukraine, drawing down Russia’s Syria expertise just as new challenges on the ground emerge. Yet it has been compelled to consolidate its forces, withdrawing some of its Wagner Group mercenaries and pulling back from some areas in southwest and far eastern Syria. Amidst feverish jockeying among regional stakeholders, Washington should at the very least have a plan for the disruption that is likely to come. Squeezed by its strategic blunder, Moscow’s shrinking strategic bandwidth and its diminished capacities in Syria have disrupted the conflict’s complex power dynamics, potentially imperiling the relative calm that has prevailed since March 2020 and undermining U.S. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reverberating more than 1,000 miles away in Syria.
0 kommentar(er)
