The developments around tiny Syria are bringing us back to the times of confrontation between the great powers. NATO countries, the Gulf tyrannies, Russia, Iran and China are already involved in the conflict to varying extents. It’s becoming fairly obvious who their “support groups” are. Formally, Russia, China and Iran are not fighting for Syria against the United States and its allies in Europe and the Gulf. However, they are involved in a proxy war by directly arming, funding, training or providing fire support to embattled Syrian groups, including, of course, government forces. In addition, all of them are waging a war against ISIS, an “ideal third force” that is banned in Russia.
Since the very start of the domestic conflict in Syria in 2011, Western countries and their friends in the Gulf placed their bet on overthrowing the Syrian regime, whereas Tehran sought to preserve it. Needless to say, the sides are not comparable in terms of power, but the Syrian regime has proved its durability. As a result, by the fall of 2013, fearing that time was slipping away, Western countries began considering strikes against government forces. In other words, they were rapidly preparing to use in Syria the concept of “punitive peacemaking” that was elaborated in the 1990s during the so-called settlement of the Balkan conflicts.
The gist of this method is not to waste time trying to understand what is going on, consider the consequences of various actions and offer terms for reconciliation that are acceptable to all, but rather simply decide who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, issue terms of surrender to the latter and use force if these terms were not accepted. Nobody particularly cared that this would lead to the expulsion or physical destruction of thousands of Alawis, Yazidis or Kosovo Serbs. After all, Europe underwent a host of such tragedies in its turbulent history. European peoples were butchered and forced from their lands until the middle of the 20th century, resulting in the Europe of today – the only ideal system of interstate relations in the world. Russians, who have never been expelled from their lands, find it hard to understand why Europeans accept this so calmly.
However, events took a different turn. What happened in Syria in the fall of 2013 was impossible even to imagine after the end of the Cold War. Russia’s vigorous diplomatic intervention kept the United States and its allies from bombing Bashar al-Assad. After Syria’s chemical weapons were removed, Russia’s next intervention a year ago fundamentally changed the situation. The great power directly intervened in the conflict at the request of the Syrian government.
Meanwhile, the United States and its allies are intervening in Syria at the request of no one. The presence of Shia fighters from neighboring Lebanon on Syrian soil is no secret. It is rumored that Iranian volunteers are also there. Last summer China’s military announced that they were helping to train Syrian government troops. The Russian-US diplomatic battle over Syria has reached unprecedented intensity. It seems likely that in the near future Moscow will be subjected to “Syrian” sanctions or that the existing “Ukrainian” sanctions will be linked to Russia’s support for the Syrian government.
The endgame of this tragedy remains unclear. Nobody knows what consequences the multi-level confrontation will have and how many more Syrians will pay the price. However, there is one more important point that must be made regardless of the outcome. This marks the end of the period when a limited group of countries could act proceeding from their own interests rather than the requirements of international morals and law. This conclusion is very important for understanding what the world will be like the day after and what must be done to make it, if not safe, at least less dangerous.
It’s doubtful anyone will be able to “restore discipline” without resorting to radical measures, which would have deadly consequences even for leading powers, not to mention their regional clients, even if Russia crumbles under domestic economic pressures and attempts are made to resurrect the policy of the late 20th century. A large part of the elite in China - maybe even more than in Russia – is drawn to the idea of friendship with the West as a junior partner. According to experts, these people own enterprises and almost whole industries in the United States. However, China will no longer be able to pursue the policy bequeathed by the great Deng Xiaoping. Enormous investments abroad, growing prosperity and demand for resources, as well as a stronger sense of national pride and readiness to rule rather than obey are bound to push China to fight for its rights in accordance with its own domestic views, as all countries do. This fight is already underway over the South China Sea.
That said, China will not try to challenge the West or enter into hostile relations with it. Naturally, this is not going to happen. In fact, Russia had no intention to clash with the United States either, to say nothing of Europe. Moscow was being tested and ignored. China will feel the same before too long.
Other countries will follow suit later. They will not challenge the West in the clownish style of the late Venezuelan leader. They will simply start acting in the world arena as they see fit and in their own national interests. This will work against the international order that took shape after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the principle that “only one country is allowed to violate international norms” is unlikely to be restored, even if Russia, “the disturber,” lies in ruins, obeys the World Bank and carries out its reforms. The world’s ongoing regionalization will lead to the emergence of Syrian-style conflicts. Several years ago Henry Kissinger observed that problems are becoming increasingly global whereas their solutions are becoming increasingly national. This has not changed. The international community has only one major achievement to its credit in countering global challenges in the past few years – the signing and ratification of the Paris climate change agreement. Despite its many drawbacks, this agreement proved that countries are able to act together in principle. The fact that the main polluters – China and the United States – have ratified it is especially important. But there has been no progress on tackling other global challenges.
Quite the contrary, the trend towards regional solutions is gaining momentum, particularly in international economic management. Corporations and American and Japanese government experts have drafted the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a brilliant document in all respects. While its ratification is being delayed for the time being, if it enters into force, we will see an entirely new international economic reality in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership have been extremely tense. They are even more complicated because Europe’s experience of trade negotiations and its interests are not comparable to those of US partners in Asia. However, the top experts predict that both partnerships will happen, in one form or another. The economies of the countries involved need them to succeed.
Similar attempts in Eurasia look less sure, but some progress has been made there as well, and we will probably witness the formation of yet another macro-region. This wouldn’t be bad at all. Regional solutions are becoming the only sensible alternative to purely national ones. They make it possible to implement policy on the basis of a relative consensus among a group of countries, that is, a certain community in which relations are governed by law, since this is becoming increasingly untenable on the global level.
Preparations for a meaningful agreement or treaty between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China, seemingly a technical matter, are the most important task for Eurasia. The experience of the Trans-Pacific Partnership – the most interesting regional trade and economic agreement – may be useful in this respect. Although it goes much further than simply free trade, it is necessary to go even further than that. Eurasia should create an institutional basis for long-term integration by putting some sovereign goals on the interstate level. So, any EAEU-China agreement should be a starting point and allow its participants to revise and supplement it.
International institutions and law are the most important legacy of the 20th century insofar as they underpin the relative orderliness and governability of the international system. Their main goal is to gradually curb the negative manifestations of national sovereignty and the spillage of domestic political issues outside national borders. Today these institutions alone formally ensure the legal foundation of international relations. Ending them would return humanity to the state that existed before this system took shape. It is already dangerously close to this point – yet another lesson of the dreadful events in the Middle East.
Timofei Bordachev is Director of the Eurasian Program at the Valdai Discussion Club and Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS) at the Higher School of Economics.
