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History As It Happens
Russia and Syria
00:34:07
for ad-free listening, bonus content, and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes. Major changes are afoot in the Middle East, but there are continuities with the past. One is Russian influence in Syria. Moscow remains involved in this country on...
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- [00:00]
Jeff
Morning Zoe. Got donuts.
- [00:02]
Zoe
Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?
- [00:05]
Jeff
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me.
- [00:11]
Zoe
So Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [00:24]
Jeff
Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
- [00:31]
Hannah Nota
Nice.
- [00:32]
Zoe
Je free.
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Narrator
You heard them.
- [00:33]
Jeff
T Mobile is the best place to.
- [00:35]
Martin DeCaro
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on.
- [00:37]
Jeff
Us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch?
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Zoe
Dude, my work here is done.
- [00:44]
T-Mobile Announcer
The 24 month bill credit on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier Cancel Finance Agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs 1099.99 A new line minimum 100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oklahoma Speed Test Intelligence Data 182025 Visit t mobile.com hey everybody.
- [01:02]
Martin DeCaro
You know you never have to listen to ads again. Become a subscriber. You'll get ad free listening bonus content and access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes, all for $5 a month. Plus you can say you're supporting the important work we're doing here. Go to historyasithappens.supercast.com history as it happens October 14, 2025 Russia's not done in.
- [01:28]
Hannah Nota
Syria the fall of Assad's regime in.
- [01:32]
Zoe
Syria has been faster than anyone imagined.
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Hannah Nota
Long last, the Assad regime has fallen. In December, the rebel commander, 42 year old Ahmed Al Shada, proclaimed a new and free Syria. A stunning turn because the country's liberator had once been a member of Al Qaeda.
- [01:50]
Martin DeCaro
If you expected Russian influence in Syria to end with the fall of the Assad regime, you were wrong. Moscow remains involved in this country on the Mediterranean, although the civil war is over and a former jihadist is president in Damascus, a man who led the revolt that toppled Moscow's client. So what's going on here? History is part of the answer. That is next as we report History as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [02:15]
Hannah Nota
We understand the strong desire of the Syrian people that no foreign country should intervene in their struggle and we respect their wishes.
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Martin DeCaro
I do, however, believe it's important to engage with Syria because Syria is going to be an important part of building a peaceful and stable future in the Middle East.
- [02:36]
Hannah Nota
What the Russian military intervention in Syria and Russia, entrenching sort of its foothold in Syria, did for Russia and for Russian projection of status in the region went beyond hard power. Russia made itself an actor that argued that it had to have a seat at every table of every conflict in the region, that prided itself on this ability to navigate between these different, mutually anti antagonistic players to play these complex balancing acts. And so Russia doesn't want to lose that kind of stature, that kind of position in the Middle East.
- [03:12]
Martin DeCaro
I come to you from Damascus, the capital of history and the cradle of civilizations. On September 24, for the first time in nearly 60 years, a Syrian president addressed the UN General Assembly. It was Ahmed Al Shara, a former jihadist and rebel now trying to consolidate power in Damascus under repressive rule that disregarded the value of the territory it ruled over for long years. We've suffered injustice and deprivation. Major changes are afoot in the Middle east, but there are always continuities with the past historical, geopolitical, economic. And one continuity is Russian influence. In An Essay in Foreign affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, Hann Nota writes, when armed factions led by the group Hayat Tahrir al Sham overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad last December, many observers believed Russia's days in Syria were numbered.
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Hannah Nota
Military intervention in Syria came as a surprise. For the first time in 70 years, the US and Russia were flying combat missions over the same airspace.
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Expert Commentator
An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire.
- [04:29]
Martin DeCaro
Nota goes on to say. For decades, Moscow had nurtured close ties with the Assad family. Less than a year ago, it bombed areas controlled by Hayat Tahrir al Sham. Since then, however, Russia has defied expectations, holding onto its main bases on Syria's coast, including the Tartus naval facility, and even entrenching itself in the country's northeast. As Nota says, there are no permanent enemies. There might be permanent interests. And it is not only Russia seeking leverage in the new Syria. The United States and Europe, Turkey, Israel, the Kurds all have their own interests to pursue that could destabilize a country trying to recover from a horrendous civil war. Hannah Nohta is an expert in Russian foreign policy, the Middle east and arms control and non proliferation at the center for Strategic and International Studies. I'll share a Link to her essay in my weekly newsletter on Substack. It is also in the show notes. Hannah Nota, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me joining us from Berlin. It's great to have you here your first time. Your fascinating essay in foreign affairs about Russia influence in Syria. What I liked most about it was how you stitched together the eras, how continuities are always so important. And you also managed to untangle the Gordian knot of Syria, a place of enormous complexity right now. So many competing countries and interests there as the new government tries to consolidate power. When did the Soviet Union become interested in Syria and why it's great to be with you?
- [06:04]
Hannah Nota
Maybe before I start with the Soviet Union, I want to go back even a little further and just talk for a second about Imperial Russia.
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Martin DeCaro
Sure.
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Hannah Nota
Because I think it's great to start there. I mean, if you look at Imperial Russia and its interest in the Middle east, there was always this aspiration to solve the quote unquote Eastern question, meaning taking control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which required unimpeded access to the Mediterranean. And so you had Peter I engaged with the Ottomans in the Black Sea. Catherine I annexed Crimea in 1783, sent the Russian navy into the Mediterranean. So there was this interest in the broader region and a perceived necessity to defend the sort of vast land borders of Imperial Russia also meant that Russia always had an interest in what we call the northern tier states. So today's Turkey and today's Iran, that had to be managed. But interestingly, Russia had relatively little interest and little presence in the Arab populated lands of the Ottoman Empire, maybe with an exception of an interest by the Russian Orthodox Church in Syria and Palestine, because the Russian emperors had sort of emerged as the protectors of the Christian Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire. The Russians or the Soviet Union only really properly entered the Arab world in the early Cold War.
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Narrator
At Amman, Jordan, native troops, United States Ambassador Lester Mallory and Jordanian officials await the start of Operation Equalizer in the Middle East. Five Air Force globemasters from Dover, Delaware appear in the Jordan sky with the first transfusion of US arms designed to counteract the Russian buildup in Syria. Jeeps with tank killing recoilless after the.
- [08:00]
Hannah Nota
Death of Stalin in 1953, which also coincided with the rise of anti colonial and nationalist sentiments in the Arab world. For example in Egypt. And it was a time when the USSR abandoned under Khrushchev the two camp theory, the theory that had barred the USSR from cooperation with anyone but socialist regime and Marxist forces. And so that is what sort of opens an opportunity for Russia or for the Soviet Union to engage more with the Arab world.
- [08:33]
Martin DeCaro
That's a great point, because in the search for clients, many of the Arab states who became Soviet clients, at least for a time, they weren't communists. And this wasn't really about ideology. It was about geopolitics and competition with the U.S. and I'm glad you glad you brought up imperial Russia because in some ways that history is more relevant, certainly when it comes to Mr. Putin's thinking as he tries to restore Russian greatness, Russian power, Russian spheres of influence. But in Syria, you look at a map and it's not an obvious match between the two countries. It would seem that the 1960s, 1970s is when Syria really needed Russia just as much as Russia wanted Syria for weapons, because this is when Hafez al Assad needed weapons to take up the mantle of the leader of the Arab world against Israel. Right?
- [09:25]
Hannah Nota
That's right. So you have a few things sort of going on at the time that bring the Soviet Union and the Syrians closer together. You do have the Eisenhower administration at the time trying to push back Soviet influence in the Middle East. You know, we have the Baghdad Pact that Iran and Iraq enter. And so it becomes more important for the Soviets to build these ties with these nationalist Arab regimes with Syria, then also with Iraq after the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958 and with a bunch of other countries. And I would say, you know, an important factor here, Martin, is also the Arab Israeli conflict, which draws in the superpowers on opposing sides, with the USSR supporting its Arab allies. And indeed, Syria becomes especially important, especially after the Arabs overwhelming defeat by Israel in the 1967 war. So you have Hafez al Assad going to Moscow in 1971. He signs a $700 million arms deal with the Soviets. He signs a treaty of Friendship and cooperation later in 1980. And I would note here that Anwar Sadat's turn towards the west in Egypt and he expelled Soviets military advisors in the 1970s, that probably makes Damascus even more important to the Soviet Union. I will just say one last thing about that period, because I think it's also instructive for the Russian Assad relationship more recently, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Syrians wasn't always rosy and there were disagreements and Moscow was sometimes unhappy with its Syrian client. And I'll just give one example here, which is in 1976, when Hafez Al Assad expels a number of Soviet military Advisors and instructs the Soviet Navy to remove its submarines from the port of Tartus because he's angered by KGB support for the Lebanese Communist Party. So, you know, these kinds of frictions, they go back decades.
- [11:28]
Martin DeCaro
As you say in your essay, there are no permanent enemies. And often when you think two sides will be working together in a certain situation, you find them at odds with one another. I mean, that's what's going on in Syria today. Unusual allies, unusual enemies, or just expediency driving temporary partnerships. A couple more notes about the history here before we jump ahead to the current moment. It is correct that Syria, after the Egyptian Israeli peace treaty in 1979, Syria became concerned that Jordan, Lebanon, even the PLO might make a peace with Israel. So Syria wanted to control influence those countries and it sought help from the Soviet Union in the area of arms. I have a history of the modern Middle east by William Cleveland here. This is one of my favorite reference books. Hafez al Assad launched a huge buildup of the Syrian armed forces, saw them grow from 50,000 in 1967 to 225,000 in 1973 to over 400,000 in the early 1980s. An unprecedented expansion of the military was costly. By the early 1980s, Syria was devoting over 20% of its GNP to military expenditures. And, you know, going back even to Russian imperial times, the Russian need for warm water, a warm water port, that's also attracted it to Syria. I think their first base. Their first base in Syria was the Tartus base in 1971.
- [12:54]
Hannah Nota
Exactly. And they're still there today, which we'll. We'll talk about in a bit.
- [12:58]
Martin DeCaro
Yes, that is on the Mediterranean. I always tell people to open up a map when they're listening to this show to see what we're talking about. So how did the end of the Cold War affect the relationship between these two countries? I mean, it's not the Soviet Union anymore, but Russia is the substitute.
- [13:14]
Hannah Nota
It's a fascinating time that period, because you don't just have momentous domestic changes in Russia, but also big changes in the Middle East. We have the first Gulf War, US Forces expelling the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. And incidentally, the Syrians sided with the United states in the first Gulf War. You have George H.W. bush promulgating a new world order for the Middle east.
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George H.W. Bush
And we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation out of these troubled Times our fifth objective, a new world order can emerge, a new era freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.
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Hannah Nota
And it's a time where Russia is very much preoccupied with its domestic issues and where you have a President Yeltsin and a foreign minister, kf, who initially pursue a strategic alignment and partnership with the west that eventually changes, I would say, from the mid-1990s, when Yevgeny Primakov also reinvigorates the Russian interest, I would say, in the Middle East. But the Russians don't have all that much bandwidth for the Middle east in the 1990s. And I would also say that the Levant Syria loses sort of the central relevance that it had for Russia during the Cold War, because it becomes more important to also build relationships with other countries that had been neglected with Turkey, with Iran, even with Israel. You have some issues riddling the Russian Syrian relationship in the 1990s, especially the question of Syria repaying its Soviet era debt, the continuation of Russian arms supplies. A situation where Russian Syrian cooperation in the 90s is a shadow of what it was during Soviet times. And that changes, I would say, with Putin coming to power. But we'll talk about the 2000s in a second.
- [15:27]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, we'll get to that next. It seems that there are continuities, but there's also plenty of upheaval. Preparing for this conversation, I was trying to figure out what were Russia's material interests in Syria. Was it just geopolitics? It certainly wasn't ideological, it didn't seem. But was there natural resources at stake, or was it simply having a foothold on NATO's eastern flank? Maybe geopolitics and military power projection were more important during this time.
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Hannah Nota
I would agree. And they stay most important even today, later. And as Russia eventually becomes engaged in the Syrian civil war after the uprising after 2011, I think the geopolitical trumps the economic interest for Russia throughout.
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Martin DeCaro
So it was the Syrian civil War then that really brings Russia back into Syria. Why did Moscow want to keep Bashar Al Assad in power?
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Hannah Nota
I don't think it's fair to say that the 2000s up until 2011, that there's nothing happening in the Russian Syrian relationship. You do kind of see Putin, who comes to power in the same year as Bashar al Assad, take a greater interest in the relationship with Syria. Again, I think this is about preserving the remnants of Soviet influence in the Arab world. I mean, this is a country where you have military bases.
- [16:44]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, there's a historical connection there. Go ahead.
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Hannah Nota
It's about balancing US Power in the region. It's about retaining a market for the Russian military industrial complex. And Syria continues to buy Russian arms. So that is important. Now comes the Syrian uprising and the Civil War in 2011. And I think what you have from the beginning, of course, is Russia trying to shield the Assad regime on the UN Security Council from sanctions, from UN Chapter 7 intervention. And I think the drivers of that Russian support for the Assad regime. I think it's worth unpacking this a little bit, because I don't think it's a simple story. There are several factors at play here. So, I mean, this is the last base in the Middle east for Russia to project power into the region. So you want to preserve a friendly regime there, because you don't know what would follow after it. But there is also this broader interest in, I think, preserving the existing state order in the country, because the Russians are worried about a spillover of instability that could ensue if Assad is driven from power. Russia has its own history of extremism and terrorism with some nexus to the Middle East. So there's this general worry about sort of centrifugal tendencies emanating from Syria. What happened in Libya with Gaddafi before is very first and foremost on Putin's mind. The Russian abstention from Resolution 1929 in March 2011 on the UN Security Council, which then paved the way for the intervention in Libya, is a very vexing issue for the Russians and how that played out in Libya. And so that is the prism through which they look at the situation in Syria as well.
- [18:32]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, apparently Putin was really, really bothered by what happened to Gaddafi. Rumor has it that he watched the video of Gaddafi's murder when he was dragged out of the hole he was hiding in. So it was a concern with general instability in this part of the map that was important to Russia strategically. Was there also a concern with radical Islam? Because you mentioned before, Russia has had concerns with terrorism closer to its own borders, really, coming from Central Asia, the former Soviet republics there, too.
- [19:01]
Hannah Nota
Right. It was both. I think both of these issues drove the Russian concern. You know, I once spoke with a Russian diplomat about the situation, and he sort of likened statehood in that part of the world, including in Syria, with a Mercedes engine. He said, it's kind of easy to take it apart, but it's very hard to put it back together. And that is sort of how they looked at the situation in Syria. They thought if you sort of remove the regime Then God knows what is going to happen and it's going to be an unpredictable situation. But there was also a desire, I think, to preserve a friendly regime and to thwart quote, unquote, color revolution or regime change supported by the West. Right. Because that was another Russian obsession, this idea with domino effect of popular uprisings during the Arab Spring and what that might mean for Russia's own neighborhood. So I don't think this is unicausal story here that explains the drivers for Russia. What is important is that the Russians got to the point in September 2015, just over 10 years ago, where they were even willing to launch a military intervention to save the Assad regime from falling. I think the Assad regime was controlling barely 22% of territory at the time. I think this was the primary driver of the Russian military intervention. And I lived and worked in Moscow at the time, so I sort of saw the conversations among Russian experts on this. There was also this desire or this notion at the time that by going in and creating facts on the ground, Russia will compel the United States under Obama at that time to deal with Russia on a sort of equal level, eye to eye. You know. And so I think there was this short lived window for cooperation even in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State, but that didn't pan out. And then Russia went another way in Syria and cooperated increasingly with Iran and Turkey.
- [20:59]
Martin DeCaro
I think Russia's intervention in the Syrian civil war, you know, Russia did try to and Putin tried to piggyback on the US global war on terror. Look, we're fighting Islamists here, right? Their involvement in that war is best remembered for the carpet bombing of Aleppo and bombing areas that were controlled by the Al Qaeda faction or offshoot whose leader is now dressed in a western suit and running the country. But you also argue that in addition to doing these brutal things, Russia gains some things from its involvement that were beneficial to it as a regional power. That's how Barack Obama dismissed Russia around 2014 during the Crimea crisis. Russia is a regional power, but you say here it deployed its military police in 2017 to certain so called de escalation zones as part of an initiative also backed by Iran and Turkey. By maintaining a military presence in the country and later negotiating evacuation deals, rebels Russia amassed valuable experience dealing with different armed groups. It settled local tensions, imposed security arrangements throughout the country and cultivated relationships it could benefit from. Today you write Hanna Nota. So I guess then it is surprising that Russia didn't do more to try to save Assad when he was really on the line last year when his regime was toppled. But maybe Russia wasn't capable of saving him anymore.
- [22:21]
Hannah Nota
Yeah, thanks for that. I mean, yes, I argue that Russia got quite a bit out of its intervention. You just noted the relationships that it cultivated that go way beyond the Assad regime. It became a key player in shaping the trajectory of the conflict, which gave it leverage with a host of regional actors. Israel, Iran, Turkey, the Gulf Arab states, the West. It expanded and upgraded its military bases in the country to project power. Now, what happened, I think, is that with the full scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia's bandwidth to deal with Syria became constrained. I think there was also a degree of complacency on the Russian side where they thought that the situation that had largely prevailed since 2019 with a frozen conflict or at least major combat operations, had died down. The political process wasn't really moving anywhere, though you did have a constitutional committee whose work, though, was largely stalled. You had economic crisis. I think the Russians hoped that status quo could be preserved without blowing up. It's a complex story why the Assad regime fell and we don't have. Maybe that's a topic for a separate podcast. But with the widening of the Israeli campaign against the Iranian backed axis of Resistance after the October 7, 2023 attack, it increasingly targeted Hezbollah and also Iranian targets in Syria. You sort of see Russia becoming nervous, but not really able to do all that much about it. And it is my sense, Martin, that in late 2024, when it was clear that the rebels were going to attempt an offensive, that Russia made a political decision. It wasn't worth trying to muster the resources that it would have required at this point to save Assad, especially as it seemed like the Iranians were not in a place to help much either. And so a decision was made sort of to cut Russia's losses and then hustle to preserve ties with the new leadership, Iran.
- [24:25]
Martin DeCaro
True. Iran did not really help Assad. It didn't do enough. If you ask, maybe the leaders of Hezbollah didn't do enough to help Hezbollah when it was under attack from Israel recently. Also, Hamas feels it's been abandoned by Iran. There's a lot going on here. As I said at the top, you do a great job of entangling all these kinds of complexities in your essay. So many observers believe that when Assad's regime fell, that would be it for Russian influence in Syria. That is not the case. Although they only have a modest presence today, it turns out, as you say, there are no permanent enemies. Ahmed Al Shara, he was the head of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham. That was the lead Islamic rebel group, Islamist group, leading the revolt against the Assad regime. Why does he believe he needs Russia?
- [25:11]
Hannah Nota
It's a great question. I think the key reason that he believes he needs Russia at this time is that Russia is a permanent member on the UN Security Council where it has a veto right. You still have UN sanctions on hts in place, including on Shadow. Personally, you want a friendly Russia on the UN security accounts, both for that reason, but also I think going forward, you know, there's other things that Russia can give you. Grain, fuel, possibly arms to the future Syrian army. But I think those are more secondary. I think it's really the kind of the great power status and the permanent seat on the UN Security Council. I think the Syrians understand that Russia does not have the economic capacity at the moment to fund Syrian reconstruction with their resources being sunk into Ukraine. So I don't think there's an expectation there. Having said all that, Martin, I do think it's important to think a bit broader and look at the challenges that Charter faces in navigating this period in Syria. He, I think, also wants to not antagonize Russia as a hedge. There's maybe Assad loyalists in the country and he wants to send a signal to them that they should not try to play Moscow and him off against each other. He maybe hopes that Putin can leverage his relationship with Netanyahu to, you know, at least rein in Israeli action in Syria. That all being said, I do also think that he's being quite cautious not to be too forward leaning in embracing Russia. Right. I mean, we've had a Syrian delegation going to Moscow in the summer. It took quite some time for them to make the visit to Russia. Shada himself is now expected in Moscow, I think, in mid October for the Russia Arab summit. This is also 10 months after the fall of Assad. The Syrians, recently on the sidelines of the UN General assembly, established diplomatic relations with Ukraine. The only country, as I understand it, that is not welcome at all in this new Syria today is the Iranians. The Russians are welcome, but with caveats.
- [27:23]
Martin DeCaro
Alshara is, of course, keeping all of his options open here with all the powers in the region and across the Atlantic, the United States. In a way, he has some leverage here because all these outside powers have an interest in Syria, which in a way is a throwback to a bygone imperial era and maybe in the long run, bad for today's Syria when you have so Many competing interests in the country. This may not wind up to be in Syria's long term interest. So there's another group called the Syrian Democrat Forces. They're not Syrian, they're a Kurdish led militia. They operate on the northern part of Syria on the border with Turkey. They also want Russia on their side. Why is that?
- [28:05]
Hannah Nota
They're not the only ones who want Russia on their side. So I think the Israelis and the Turks. So you have this situation where Shara wants a highly centralized government, and I think so does Turkey, because Turkey hopes to quash the Kurds hopes for autonomy in northeast Syria, which is on the.
- [28:23]
Martin DeCaro
Border with Turkey, where there are Kurds who also want. Yeah. Who also want their own autonomy or even a Kurdish state. But go ahead.
- [28:29]
Hannah Nota
You also have the Druze community in the southwest of Syria and Sweda. So you've had sort of tensions in that part of Syria and in the northeast. That is something that the shadow government has to manage. And this is sort of where Turkish and Israeli interests sort of come to a head. Because the way I look at it is Israel is highly concerned over Sharra's intentions, his closeness to Turkey, Turkish ambitions in Syria, and might therefore calculate that a fragmented Syria rather than a highly centralized Syria is one in which Israel can manage threats better. So in that context, Russia keeping its bases on the coast might be to Israel's interest. Turkey hopes for a highly centralized Syria and wants to project more power into Syria. It might also hope to use Russian influence to keep the Israelis at bay. And then it's the Kurds, you know, who are also potentially looking, at least to some extent, to the Russians. I don't think one should overstate this, but the Kurds, you know, they are worried about the sustainability of the US Military presence in the country. Let's not forget that we do have US Forces in northeast Syria. President Trump threatened to withdraw them during his first term. There might well be a U.S. drawdown in his second term. So they fear that abandonment. They are in negotiations with Damascus over the future status of their region. And so having a certain engagement with Russia, a certain Russian presence might give them some better leverage, both vis a vis Turkey and vis a vis Damascus. And so you have sort of a situation where these different actors all pursue different interests and they all hope that playing the Russia card can give them some leverage. And they all have some basis to believe that that might be true because of Russia's past maneuvering of the Syrian landscape.
- [30:23]
Martin DeCaro
But as you're explaining here, these competing interests are not compatible. Not all of them are compatible with one another. Do they have the potential to erupt into conflict?
- [30:33]
Hannah Nota
It's a great question, Martin. I think the big question that most Syria observers, Middle east observers, are debating at this moment is over the risk of Israeli, Turkish military confrontation over Syria. I think that is the greatest concern at the moment.
- [30:48]
Martin DeCaro
Do you share that concern? Because that would be explosive. Turkey is a NATO.
- [30:52]
Hannah Nota
That would be very explosive. I would hope that both sides understand that this is not where they want to go, and so it's not going to go that far. But there's concern, certainly.
- [31:03]
Martin DeCaro
And Al Sharra has to try to hold all this together.
- [31:06]
Hannah Nota
He calls it a zero problem strategy. That is how he tries to deal with all these external actors. And, you know, I mean, I think so far the Syrians are navigating fairly well what is a very complicated landscape. But they certainly have their work cut out for them. They just had first parliamentary elections with a lot of challenges. I do think it's quite understandable at this time that this new government is trying not to antagonize any of the main foreign actors, including. Including Russia.
- [31:36]
Martin DeCaro
Last thing here, Hannah. I've spent a lot of time on my podcast with historians like Sergei Radchenko and Vladislav Zubak trying to unlock the riddle of Soviet or Russian foreign policy. Really? Cold War, the Cold War. Why? Why the interests in these small countries? What was so important about them? Part of this is prestige, isn't it? Putin is interested in maintaining prestige, not just a foothold in Syria to project power into Africa. From reading your essay, I learned that Russia has interests even in West Africa. I did not know that. So there are realpolitik, geopolitical, material interests, but also these abstractions that operate on another level of statecraft, prestige. Can you address that here?
- [32:21]
Hannah Nota
I do agree with you. I think it is both about hard power and it is about status and prestige. Because what the Russian military intervention in Syria and Russia entrenching sort of its foothold in Syria did for Russia and for Russian projection of status in the region went beyond hard power. Russia made itself an actor that argued that it had to have a seat at every table of every conflict in the region, that prided itself on this ability to navigate between these different mutually antagonistic players, to play these complex balancing acts. And so Russia doesn't want to lose that kind of stature, that kind of position in the Middle East. And so the leverage and even the sort of the status and the power projection that will emanate from Russia still being in Syria will not be what it was while Assad was in power because Russia's reputation has taken a hit. But at the same time, the Russians have not been expelled from the country and they are probably managing to preserve at least their bases in the country. And I do think that is important to Russian prestige.
- [33:24]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, Syrians remember who was bombing them not long ago, even just last year. You know, this is an issue I talk about in a US Context, the difference between core and peripheral national interests, being able to determine the difference between the two. So is Syria a core or a peripheral interest to Vladimir Putin at this time?
- [33:44]
Hannah Nota
It is a peripheral interest because the only core interest of Russian foreign policy right now is to stand firm in the war against Ukraine vis a vis the West. And everything else in Russian foreign policy is currently being subordinated to that major strategic objective.
- [34:03]
Expert Commentator
Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness. Ukraine has been a country in which Russia. Russia had enormous influence for decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union. And we have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them.
- [34:42]
Martin DeCaro
On the next episode of history as it happens. Germany and the end. End of history. Why is the most important country on the European continent feeling so insecure about what's happening to its east under the burden of its own history? That's next. As we report history as it happens, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Just go to substack and search for history as it happens.
- [35:07]
Jeff
Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.
- [35:09]
Zoe
Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?
- [35:12]
Jeff
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.
- [35:18]
Zoe
Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [35:30]
Jeff
Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
- [35:38]
Hannah Nota
Nice.
- [35:38]
Zoe
Jeffrey, you.
- [35:39]
Narrator
You heard them.
- [35:40]
Jeff
T mobile is the best place to.
- [35:41]
Martin DeCaro
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.
- [35:46]
Jeff
So what are we having for launch?
- [35:48]
Zoe
Dude, my work here is done.
- [35:50]
T-Mobile Announcer
The 24 month bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax and 35 device connection charge credit sending balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs 1099.99 A new line minimum 100 plus a month plan without a pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oklahoma Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025Visit t mobile.com Marketing is.
- [36:07]
Libsyn Ads Narrator
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