Most speeches at diplomatic gatherings aren’t worth the time it
takes to listen to them. On rare occasion, a speech is delivered
that needs to be listened to carefully. Russian President Vladimir
Putin gave such a speech over the weekend in Munich, at a meeting
on international security. The speech did not break new ground; it
repeated things that the Russians have been saying for quite a
while. But the venue in which it was given and the confidence with
which it was asserted signify a new point in Russian history. The
Cold war has not returned, but Russia is now officially asserting
itself as a great power, and behaving accordingly.

At Munich, Putin launched a systematic attack on the role the
United States is playing in the world. He said: “One state, the
United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way
… This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to
get nuclear weapons.” In other words, the United States has gone
beyond its legitimate reach and is therefore responsible for
attempts by other countries — an obvious reference to Iran — to
acquire nuclear weapons.

Russia for some time has been in confrontation with the United
States over U.S. actions in the former Soviet Union (FSU). What the
Russians perceive as an American attempt to create a pro-U.S.
regime in Ukraine triggered the confrontation. But now, the issue
goes beyond U.S. actions in the FSU. The Russians are arguing that
the unipolar world — meaning that the United States is the only
global power and is surrounded by lesser, regional powers — is
itself unacceptable. In other words, the United States sees itself
as the solution when it is, actually, the problem.

In his speech, Putin reached out to European states — particularly
Germany, pointing out that it has close, but blunt, relations with
Russia. The Central Europeans showed themselves to be extremely
wary about Putin’s speech, recognizing it for what it was — a new
level of assertiveness from an historical enemy. Some German
leaders appeared more understanding, however: Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier made no mention of Putin’s speech in his
own presentation to the conference, while Ruprecht Polenz, chairman
of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Putin’s stance
on Iran. He also noted that the U.S. plans to deploy an
anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic was cause for
concern — and not only to Russia.

Putin now clearly wants to escalate the confrontations with the
United States and likely wants to build a coalition to limit
American power. The gross imbalance of global power in the current
system makes such coalition-building inevitable — and it makes
sense that the Russians should be taking the lead. The Europeans
are risk-averse, and the Chinese do not have much at risk in their
dealings with the United States at the moment. The Russians,
however, have everything at risk. The United States is intruding in
the FSU, and an ideological success for the Americans in Ukraine
would leave the Russians permanently on the defensive.

The Russians need allies but are not likely to find them among
other great-power states. Fortunately for Moscow, the U.S.
obsession with Iraq creates alternative opportunities. First, the
focus on Iraq prevents the Americans from countering Russia
elsewhere. Second, it gives the Russians serious leverage against
the United States — for example, by shipping weapons to key
players in the region. Finally, there are Middle Eastern states
that seek great-power patronage. It is therefore no accident that
Putin’s next stop, following the Munich conference, was in Saudi
Arabia. Having stabilized the situation in the former Soviet
region, the Russians now are constructing their follow-on strategy,
and that concerns the Middle East.

The Russian Interests

The Middle East is the pressure point to which the United States is
most sensitive. Its military commitment in Iraq, the confrontation
with Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oil in the Arabian
Peninsula create a situation such that pain in the region affects
the United States intensely. Therefore, it makes sense for the
Russians to use all available means of pressure in the Middle East
in efforts to control U.S. behavior elsewhere, particularly in the
former Soviet Union.

Like the Americans, the Russians also have direct interests in the
Middle East. Energy is a primary one: Russia is not only a major
exporter of energy supplies, it is currently the world’s top oil
producer. The Russians have a need to maintain robust energy
prices, and working with the Iranians and Saudis in some way to
achieve this is directly in line with Moscow’s interest. To be more
specific, the Russians do not want the Saudis increasing oil
production.

There are strategic interests in the Middle East as well. For
example, the Russians are still bogged down in Chechnya. It is
Moscow’s belief that if Chechnya were to secede from the Russian
Federation, a precedent would be set that could lead to the
dissolution of the Federation. Moscow will not allow this. The
Russians consistently have claimed that the Chechen rebellion has
been funded by “Wahhabis,” by which they mean Saudis. Reaching an
accommodation with the Saudis, therefore, would have not only
economic, but also strategic, implications for the Russians.

On a broader level, the Russians retain important interests in the
Caucasus and in Central Asia. In both cases, their needs intersect
with forces originating in the Muslim world and trace, to some
extent, back to the Middle East. If the Russian strategy is to
reassert a sphere of influence in the former Soviet region, it
follows that these regions must be secured. That, in turn,
inevitably involves the Russians in the Middle East.

Therefore, even if Russia is not in a position to pursue some of
the strategic goals that date back to the Soviet era and before –
such as control of the Bosporus and projection of naval power into
the Mediterranean — it nevertheless has a basic, ongoing interest
in the region. Russia has a need both to limit American power and
to achieve direct goals of its own. So it makes perfect sense for
Putin to leave Munich and embark on a tour of Saudi Arabia and
other Persian Gulf countries.

The Complexities

But the Russians also have a problem. The strategic interests of
Middle Eastern states diverge, to say the least. The two main
Islamic powers between the Levant and the Hindu Kush are Saudi
Arabia and Iran. The Russians have things they want from each, but
the Saudis and Iranians have dramatically different interests.
Saudi Arabia — an Arab and primarily Sunni kingdom — is rich but
militarily weak. The government’s reliance on outside help for
national defense generates intense opposition within the kingdom.
Desert Storm, which established a basing arrangement for Western
troops within Saudi Arabia, was one of the driving forces behind
the creation of al Qaeda. Iran — a predominantly Persian and
Shiite power — is not nearly as rich as Saudi Arabia but
militarily much more powerful. Iran seeks to become the dominant
power in the Persian Gulf — out of both its need to defend itself
against aggression, and for controlling and exploiting the oil
wealth of the region.

Putting the split between Sunni and Shiite aside for the moment,
there is tremendous geopolitical asymmetry between Saudi Arabia and
Iran. Saudi Arabia wants to limit Iranian power, while keeping its
own dependence on foreign powers at a minimum. That means that,
though keeping energy prices high might make financial sense for
the kingdom, the fact that high energy prices also strengthen the
Iranians actually can be a more important consideration, depending
on circumstances. There is some evidence that recent declines in
oil prices are linked to decisions in Riyadh that are aimed at
increasing production, reducing prices and hurting the Iranians.

This creates a problem for Russia. While Moscow has substantial
room for maneuver, the fact is that lowered oil prices impact
energy prices overall, and therefore hurt the Russians. The Saudis,
moreover, need the Iranians blocked — but without going so far as
to permit foreign troops to be based in Saudi Arabia itself. In
other words, they want to see the United States remain in Iraq,
since the Americans serve as the perfect shield against the
Iranians so long as they remain there. Putin’s criticisms of the
United States, as delivered in Munich, would have been applauded by
Saudi Arabia prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But in 2007, the
results of that invasion are exactly what the Saudis feared — a
collapsed Iraq and a relatively powerful Iran. The Saudis now need
the Americans to stay put in the region.

The interests of Russia and Iran align more closely, but there are
points of divergence there as well. Both benefit from having the
United States tied up, militarily and politically, in wars, but
Tehran would be delighted to see a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq that
leaves a power vacuum for Iran to fill. The Russians would rather
not see this outcome. First, they are quite happy to have the
United States bogged down in Iraq and would prefer that to having
the U.S. military freed for operations elsewhere. Second, they are
interested in a relationship with Iran but are not eager to drive
the United States and Saudi Arabia into closer relations. Third,
the Russians do not want to see Iran become the dominant power in
the region. They want to use Iran, but within certain manageable
limits.

Russia has been supplying Iran with weapons. Of particular
significance is the supply of surface-to-air missiles that would
raise the cost of U.S. air operations against Iran. It is not clear
whether the advanced S300PMU surface-to-air missile has yet been
delivered, although there has been some discussion of this lately.
If it were delivered, this would present significant challenges for
U.S. air operation over Iran. The Russians would find this
particularly advantageous, as the Iranians would absorb U.S.
attentions and, as in Vietnam, the Russians would benefit from
extended, fruitless commitments of U.S. military forces in regions
not vital to Russia.

Meanwhile, there are energy matters: The Russians, as we have said,
are interested in working with Iran to manage world oil prices. But
at the same time, they would not be averse to a U.S. attack that
takes Iran’s oil off the market, spikes prices and enriches Russia.

Finally, it must be remembered that behind this complex
relationship with Iran, there historically has been animosity and
rivalry between the two countries. The Caucasus has been their
battleground. For the moment, with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, there is a buffer there, but it is a buffer in which
Russians and Iranians are already dueling. So long as both states
are relatively weak, the buffer will maintain itself. But as they
get stronger, the Caucasus will become a battleground again. When
Russian and Iranian territories border each other, the two powers
are rarely at peace. Indeed, Iran frequently needs outside help to
contain the Russians.

A Complicated Strategy

In sum, the Russian position in the Middle East is at least as
complex as the American one. Or perhaps even more so, since the
Americans can leave and the Russians always will live on the
doorstep of the Middle East. Historically, once the Russians start
fishing in Middle Eastern waters, they find themselves in a greater
trap than the Americans. The opening moves are easy. The duel
between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems manageable. But as time goes
on, Putin’s Soviet predecessors learned, the Middle East is a
graveyard of ambitions — and not just American ambitions.

Russia wants to contain U.S. power, and manipulating the situation
in the Middle East certainly will cause the Americans substantial
pain. But whatever short-term advantages the Russians may be able
to find and exploit in the region, there is an order of complexity
in Putin’s maneuver that might transcend any advantage they gain
from boxing the Americans in.

In returning to “great power” status, Russia is using an obvious
opening gambit. But being obvious does not make it optimal.

By George Friedman at www.StratFor.Com

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