Chris Luenen
Associate Director & Head of Geopolitics Programme
Global Policy Institute (GPI)
London, United Kingdom
With the war in Ukraine entering its second year and increasingly heating up, the geopolitical and geo-economic contest between the West and Russia is both deepening and widening. While all eyes are currently focused on the European theatre, as well as on the Baltics and Balkans, it is the Middle East that is once again set to become one of the major battlegrounds between the West and Russia.
As a result of the serious global supply chain disruptions, not least in energy markets, caused by the worldwide pandemic and especially the war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions regime, the strategic importance of the Middle East as a key supplier of crucial oil and gas resources to the global economy, and bordering some of the most important strategic maritime routes, has once again exponentially increased.
Despite already starting to reengage more broadly with the region for over a decade prior to the Syrian war, its decision to insert itself directly into this conflict in 2015 marked the definite return of Russia to the centre stage of Middle Eastern geopolitics. Russia has since used the Syrian conflict as a staging ground to re-engage with all the main players in the region, and has established itself as a formidable power broker and integral participant in regional geopolitics.
This is increasingly paying off, as can be gleaned from Turkey’s recent decision to engage in high-level talks with the Russian and Syrian governments in order to finally resolve the Syrian crisis. It can be seen in the fact that not a single country in the region decided to join the western-led sanctions regime against Russia. It was apparent when the Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan declared at the recent World Economic Forum that Saudi Arabia is open to trading in currencies other than just the US Dollar, thereby threatening to undermine the petrodollar system. Moreover, it is evident from Russia entering into a strategic partnership with the UAE, cooperating increasingly closely with Egypt, or joining in a de facto energy alliance with Saudi Arabia as part of OPEC+. Perhaps most important of all, especially for the longer term, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt, and likely also the UAE, seeking membership in the Russia-China led BRICS alliance that, at the behest of Russia in particular, is now considering creating its own gold-backed BRICS reserve currency, the success of Russia’s renewed engagement in the region is obvious for all to see.
Despite these significant diplomatic wins, it is important to also understand Russia’s broader strategic goals in the Middle East – and how the above developments are likely to help Russia pursue them. Russia’s strategic designs for the region go well beyond merely challenging US power in another important global theatre and reducing as much as possible US strategic dominance in the region. There are in fact two long-term strategic considerations that appear to motivate Russia’s substantial re-engagement with the region, and which flow from Russia’s overarching grand strategic aim of creating a more multipolar world order, but one in which Russia will represent a geopolitical pole in its own right, and not just in partnership with strategic partners such as China.
Russia’s first goal in the Middle East is to secure its southern flank for a prospective military confrontation with NATO in Europe. Although Russia’s focus in this regard has been first and foremost on its three main southern seas, i.e. the Caspian, Azov, and Black seas, Russia has also viewed these as critical routes allowing it to project power into the Mediterranean and the Middle East (as well as the Balkans) and even the Indian Ocean. But since Russia’s ability to project naval power into these areas could potentially always be curtailed by Turkey and NATO, which could deny Russia access from the Black Sea to the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean via the Strait of Istanbul and the Dardanelles Strait, Russia has been trying to gain enhanced access to ports and bases in the Mediterranean (in particular in Algeria, Libya and Egypt), but also in the Red Sea (especially Saudi Arabia and Sudan, but also Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland) as well as the Gulf of Aden (Yemen) and the Arabian Gulf (Iran and the UAE).
The second aim that Russia appears to be pursuing in the Middle East is its intention to carve out its own sphere of influence, large and significant enough to allow it to further deepen its burgeoning strategic partnership with China, but from a position of strength rather than that of a mere junior partner. Since the size and potential strategic value of Russia’s own Eurasian Economic Union project is insufficient, it has increasingly looked to the Middle East as a launch pad for its efforts to carve out a more significant sphere of influence for itself. Achieving its goals in the Middle East would also put Russia in a situation where it could threaten to cut off the still crucial regional energy supplies from reaching both Europe and, if necessary, also China. This explains the time, money and effort that President Putin has expended on engaging the region’s leaders, helping to negotiate and mediate in regional conflicts and rivalries, providing economic and other assistance, but also on creating new trade routes, for example in the form of the International North-South Trade Corridor, which it is building to increase connectivity and trade between itself, Iran and India.
What Russia has lacked in terms of prior strategic positioning in the Middle East, but also in the form of money and military capabilities, it has made up through active, skilled and persistent diplomacy. If the US and its NATO allies want to avoid a scenario where most of the world’s leading second and third-tier regional powers eventually decide to join an increasingly potent Russia-China and emerging market BRICS alliance, it is high time for a much more active, imaginative and less ideology-driven Western diplomatic effort in the Middle East and beyond.
As a result of the serious global supply chain disruptions, not least in energy markets, caused by the worldwide pandemic and especially the war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions regime, the strategic importance of the Middle East as a key supplier of crucial oil and gas resources to the global economy, and bordering some of the most important strategic maritime routes, has once again exponentially increased.
Despite already starting to reengage more broadly with the region for over a decade prior to the Syrian war, its decision to insert itself directly into this conflict in 2015 marked the definite return of Russia to the centre stage of Middle Eastern geopolitics. Russia has since used the Syrian conflict as a staging ground to re-engage with all the main players in the region, and has established itself as a formidable power broker and integral participant in regional geopolitics.
This is increasingly paying off, as can be gleaned from Turkey’s recent decision to engage in high-level talks with the Russian and Syrian governments in order to finally resolve the Syrian crisis. It can be seen in the fact that not a single country in the region decided to join the western-led sanctions regime against Russia. It was apparent when the Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan declared at the recent World Economic Forum that Saudi Arabia is open to trading in currencies other than just the US Dollar, thereby threatening to undermine the petrodollar system. Moreover, it is evident from Russia entering into a strategic partnership with the UAE, cooperating increasingly closely with Egypt, or joining in a de facto energy alliance with Saudi Arabia as part of OPEC+. Perhaps most important of all, especially for the longer term, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt, and likely also the UAE, seeking membership in the Russia-China led BRICS alliance that, at the behest of Russia in particular, is now considering creating its own gold-backed BRICS reserve currency, the success of Russia’s renewed engagement in the region is obvious for all to see.
Despite these significant diplomatic wins, it is important to also understand Russia’s broader strategic goals in the Middle East – and how the above developments are likely to help Russia pursue them. Russia’s strategic designs for the region go well beyond merely challenging US power in another important global theatre and reducing as much as possible US strategic dominance in the region. There are in fact two long-term strategic considerations that appear to motivate Russia’s substantial re-engagement with the region, and which flow from Russia’s overarching grand strategic aim of creating a more multipolar world order, but one in which Russia will represent a geopolitical pole in its own right, and not just in partnership with strategic partners such as China.
Russia’s first goal in the Middle East is to secure its southern flank for a prospective military confrontation with NATO in Europe. Although Russia’s focus in this regard has been first and foremost on its three main southern seas, i.e. the Caspian, Azov, and Black seas, Russia has also viewed these as critical routes allowing it to project power into the Mediterranean and the Middle East (as well as the Balkans) and even the Indian Ocean. But since Russia’s ability to project naval power into these areas could potentially always be curtailed by Turkey and NATO, which could deny Russia access from the Black Sea to the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean via the Strait of Istanbul and the Dardanelles Strait, Russia has been trying to gain enhanced access to ports and bases in the Mediterranean (in particular in Algeria, Libya and Egypt), but also in the Red Sea (especially Saudi Arabia and Sudan, but also Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland) as well as the Gulf of Aden (Yemen) and the Arabian Gulf (Iran and the UAE).
The second aim that Russia appears to be pursuing in the Middle East is its intention to carve out its own sphere of influence, large and significant enough to allow it to further deepen its burgeoning strategic partnership with China, but from a position of strength rather than that of a mere junior partner. Since the size and potential strategic value of Russia’s own Eurasian Economic Union project is insufficient, it has increasingly looked to the Middle East as a launch pad for its efforts to carve out a more significant sphere of influence for itself. Achieving its goals in the Middle East would also put Russia in a situation where it could threaten to cut off the still crucial regional energy supplies from reaching both Europe and, if necessary, also China. This explains the time, money and effort that President Putin has expended on engaging the region’s leaders, helping to negotiate and mediate in regional conflicts and rivalries, providing economic and other assistance, but also on creating new trade routes, for example in the form of the International North-South Trade Corridor, which it is building to increase connectivity and trade between itself, Iran and India.
What Russia has lacked in terms of prior strategic positioning in the Middle East, but also in the form of money and military capabilities, it has made up through active, skilled and persistent diplomacy. If the US and its NATO allies want to avoid a scenario where most of the world’s leading second and third-tier regional powers eventually decide to join an increasingly potent Russia-China and emerging market BRICS alliance, it is high time for a much more active, imaginative and less ideology-driven Western diplomatic effort in the Middle East and beyond.