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Russian Roulette
BONUS EPISODE: What the Iran War Means for Russia
00:18:44
Max sat down with Michael Kimmage for a rapid fire session running over the potential implications of the ongoing war in the Middle East for Russian foreign policy.
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, director of the Stewart center and Europe Russia Eurasia Program at csis.
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B
And I'm Maria Snigavaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia.
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And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the center for Strategic International Studies. Hi, I'm Max Bergman, here with a rapid response bonus episode to discuss the war in the Middle east and what it means for Russia. I'm joined today by longtime friend of the POD and director of the Kennan Institute, Michael Kimmage. Stay tuned for in the coming days we'll also be recording and releasing a more in depth conversation on this topic featuring experts on Russia's foreign policy towards the Middle east and what turmoil in global hydrocarbon markets will mean for Russia's economy. But before diving in with those experts, Michael, I thought, you know, we'd have on the podcast to sort of pretend like we're back in, in the State Department policy planning office. And I'm walking into your office and the ceiling tile, you know, abruptly falls on the floor and we're saying, oh God, what does this war mean for Russia? What, what's going to happen? And so maybe just to start off like what do you think this war means for Russia, what it means for Ukraine? How are you assessing this?
- [01:26]
C
Well, I think that there's a risk at the moment of going too far in one direction or the other analytically to argue in a simple sense that this is a bonanza for Russia, which up to a point it is with oil prices and the possibility that the US could get pinned down in a long conflict, or alternately to argue that it's some kind of catastrophe for Russia because Russia is a close partner of Iran's and Iran is getting beaten up in the course of this war. It feels to me like neither of the two extremes is particularly convincing. You know, I think that two points come to mind which are by no means comprehensive, very much in the spirit of policy planning spitballing. But one is that the growing global anarchy, and many people have argued this. One of your non resident fellows, Hannah Nota, has done it really well, made a really good argument in this, in this, in this regard that the growing global anarchy which is coming in many cases from the White House is very hard for Russia to manage. And it's hard for Russia to manage in the same way that it's hard for China to manage and hard for Europe to manage. How do you make economic predictions? Who's going to be next? Perhaps, you know, is it Cuba, which would be problematic for Russia. And you know, Russia has made this bid since 2022 to be one of the rule makers or going back to 2015 when Russia moved into Syria, that Russia was supposed to be a co equal rule maker with the US and China. And it just doesn't look like that at all. At the moment. Russia is responding as many countries are responding to a really tense, difficult and dangerous situation. And Russia looks to be on the sidelines, which I think is hard for Putin to accommodate. On the other hand, Putin the opportunist, and that's certainly who he is, he's a flexible opportunist, is no doubt going to see certain opportunities here, potential rifts in the transatlantic relationship, you know, resource constraints on the United States that could make it very difficult to send certain kinds of armaments to, to Ukraine. Global public opinion that's looking to incline, that seems to be inclining away from the US and in some cases toward China, as quote, unquote, the responsible actor in the international system while the US is, is setting fires. I think that that you know, offers opportunistic advantages to Putin and no doubt he'll, he'll jump on them. So the overall climate for Russia, I would say at the present moment thinking about Iran is bad and yet wily Putin, who's certainly one of the many Putin's you can see, is going to navigate and adjust and seek, you know, certain kinds of short term tactical advantages and I think he'll find them.
- [03:48]
A
That's a really, I think, interesting take and a good kind of corrective to a lot of the narratives. I'm going to sort of disagree with some of it though. Maybe disagree, but I do think that it's hard for me to find a lot of silver linings for Ukraine in this. And I think maybe to start with one positive for Ukraine is that there was sort of a broad recognition of oh my God, the war in Ukraine has actually a lot of relevance to, to U.S. war fighters and learning about this war, how this war is sort of shap future conflicts. The idea that the United States was sort of caught unaware or really unprepared for a lot of the Iranian drone strikes and other things on, on its facilities as well as Gulf states that have spent all this money on very high end missile defense systems, but haven't really invested in the Ukrainian systems or the systems that Ukraine has begun to maybe not perfect but really deploy against Shahid drones. And so one benefit for Ukraine I think may be that there could be a lot of money from Gulf states potentially pouring into parts of the Ukrainian defense sector. This is a very sort of niche point, but Ukraine has been needing capital to expand its production of some of its defense industrial sector. So maybe there's some. Some, you know, a lot of Gulf money that may. May come pouring in. And if you're going to extend that, I would say that perhaps, you know, the Gulf states had been playing footsie with Russia, had sort of. Russia had become an actor in the Middle east when it intervened in Syria. And, And I could see, you know, this sort of tilting Gulf states from being very neutral in the conflict, if not sort of perhaps shading toward Russia. You know, we're seeing it in their interest to sort of back Ukraine more. So that's maybe one sort of positive silver lining. I do think that this is going to be a huge economic windfall for Russia. I mean, just oil prices going from $40 to above $100 to potentially much higher. I think it's very hard for me to see how the Strait of Hormuz reopens anytime soon. And I think Russia has an interest in actually Iran being able to continue the fight. And so I think going to, you know, and all the talk of the Russian economy is going to feel squeezed this year. This is the year where it really starts to the. The gears start to grind. I think they will feel flush and perhaps so flush that I think the one thing to maybe watch out for is whether they are going to supply Iran with some sorts of weapons. Now, I think this is where Russia is going to look for the opportunities. They want to both sort of maintain their relationship with the Trump administration. That is like, you know, I think a key impulse. On the other hand, this is an opportunity to get back at the Americans who are, you know, targeting Russians that are helping to kill Russians. Just hard to see that, you know, the FSB and others just really just sort of like, oh, well, we don't really want to, you know, anger, you know, the CIA and Donald Trump. So I think the Russians are going to provide a degree of support for the Iranians under the table. I mean, it seems like the reporting has already indicated that on the intelligence side, but I think they have a real economic interest as well in hoping this war goes on as long as possible.
- [07:00]
C
Yeah, no, it's impossible to disagree with that. You know, of course, there are lots of scenarios that are thinkable. You're projecting a long conflict, which I think is entirely plausible, where the Strait doesn't reopen. You know, a little bit of signaling in the last 48 hours from both Israel and the US that there might be a pulling back of engagement. And of course, the very unpredictable nature of Trump means that he could change gears, you know, very, very quickly and try to seek an exit from this conflict where it's very difficult to see what the actual American interests are and where the pocketbook effects are already kind of, kind of profound. But it's impossible to disagree with the point that you make. I mean, I guess this is a very modest point in response. Even if the Russian budget is flush and that allows for more conscripts to be paid and, you know, more money to be spent on the defense industrial base of, of Russia, it does not change the fundamental dynamic of the war. And if you look back at 2025, it's not a great year for Russia. Very marginal advances. And actually, in the last couple of weeks, Ukraine has been taking a bit of territory, and it's not impossible that the next few months could show a swing onto the Ukrainian side of the war. So, you know, this is Putin's fundamental dilemma of the war in Ukraine is that it's very hard for him to achieve a strategic breakthrough. I struggle, maybe you can see it, Max, but I struggle to see a scenario in the Iran war that could help Putin out to that degree. But definitely a protracted conflict for the US with not only positive consequences for the Russian economy, but potentially very negative consequences for the European economy, where the guns butter argument is going to become a new argument in Europe, especially because the guns are going to Ukraine. Possible resurgence of the populist right in Europe. And that, of course, would be quite helpful to Russia.
- [08:45]
A
Maybe a quick thought on the war and then on the populist right, because I think both are somewhat concerning, at least from the military perspective. For me, the astonishing thing in the first few days of this war in Iran was the amount of air interceptors that were launched by Gulf states, by the United States. These are air interceptors used in their Patriot missile systems thaad, which are, you know, high altitude. And the expenditure rate is just unfathomable. Right. Basically an entire years of production of Patriot missile interceptors were used in one or two days. More were expended in this conflict than Ukraine has used in the entire war. So the problem for Ukraine is that, as we know, Ukraine was getting pummeled throughout the winter by Russian cruise missiles and ballistic missiles as well as by drones. But Patriot is really used against the cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, and there's just going to be no supply. Right. It's basically it's all been used up. And the United States is going to need its factories to be providing Patriot missile interceptors for the United States. And then your Ukraine is now going to also have to compete with the Israelis and with the Gulf states for supply. And so the Europeans, through Mark Ruta last summer, set up this initiative through NATO called EARL is the acronym. Basically, Europeans were going to buy the precious American weapons that they themselves could not produce. And I just don't think that's going to deliver anything for a very, very, very, very long time. And so if you're Ukraine, you're like, how do we defend our cities? And I think what we're going to see is Russia keep launching lots of missile attacks against Ukraine to see if they can continue to sort of draw down and deplete Ukraine's missile defenses with the idea that, you know, at some point they're going to just be run, they're just going to be out. And, you know, it's probably a ways away from potentially bringing Russian air force into the, into the fight. But like, if you just keep going and Ukraine has to is expending more air defense munitions than it's getting, then you, Russia may feel like it's on the right side of the equation. So I think suddenly the air war, which Russia, you could say Russia was sort of winning, is I think, a really problematic. We have a paper that's going to come out soon at csis, basically saying that the EU needs to do something about this. Europeans have domestic air defense systems that they haven't really been investing in is they all buy Patriot and they're not going to be getting these missiles. So that is one area where I'm very concerned at. Just quickly on the far right, I think this is going to be also a problem. I'm always skeptical of arguments so that the far right, you know, the far right sort of like soccer in America, they're always rising, you know, it's always the next big sport. And I'm, you know, very optimistic about soccer's future in the United States. But I think this is something that has to be watched out for because I think for European politicians, suddenly the far right will have a clear argument about how you solve the energy crisis. It's like, let's just make peace with Russia. Donald Trump got rid of Russia sanctions. Why aren't we buying Russian gas? I don't think Europe is going to return to buying Russian gas. In fact, the EU has just doubled down, says that it wouldn't. But if you're the far right in looking to gain an extra 5%. This is actually a credible argument as opposed to those, you know, center left Greenies saying, like, let's just build out solar. Now it turns out actually the Hungarians really built out solar and it's quite effective as, as did Spain. But I think that's going to be an argument that Russia, well, you know, will use their ability to influence European politics. It's going to stoke that argument. And I think it's one that, that might land.
- [12:28]
C
Well, you know, again, it's, it's hard to argue with you. I don't have the confidence to address your first point. I just find it very persuasive, very persuasive what you say. But perhaps if you dig into the second point about the rise of far right parties, and I love the analogy to soccer in the United States. The, the ball that never somehow rolls over the goal line but is always rolling forward. And it's a great analogy to, to far right parties. They're going to be countervailing pressures as well. You know, I don't know if the European voter thinks in highly strategic terms about all of this, and this may be a more academic way of phrasing it than would work for electoral politics, but Europe, and this has been the case now for a couple of years in a way, or especially since the beginning of the, of the second Trump term. But, you know, there's a major war in Europe, the war in Ukraine. Russia's possibilities for escalating and taking that war outside of Ukraine and onto NATO territory are not minimal. And I think the drone warfare that we're seeing in the Middle east is very worrisome in terms of NATO's capacity to push back against that. You have a United States that's unpredictable. And let's not forget the Greenland crisis of just a few weeks ago, which has been eclipsed by a bigger and, you know, more dramatic crisis. But, you know, that's another source of uncertainty for Europe. And now you have the potential for migrant flows from the Middle east or indeed, you know, we had some Iranian missiles going into Turkish aerospace. I mean, there are lots of ways that this conflict could spread big and small, could spread from the Middle east into Europe. And so the demagogic answer that you could solve all three of these problems by normalizing relations with Russia is an answer. I agree it could kind of do well if you put it forward in a, in a sort of bad faith way. But it's also not a very convincing answer. I mean, the convincing answer which I know I don't have to convince you of Max, is that Europe will probably have to in a spirit of real sobriety, take, take note of how dramatic this moment is. You know, sort of recognize that the scale of these multiple crises is very considerable and that as much agency as Europe has, you know, the greater the chance that Europe can keep some of this or all of this under control. And that agency means probably rapid and innovative defense spending. So, you know, Chancellor Merits is going to make this argument. He's made it already. He's going to keep on making it. Macron is making this argument. You know, maybe Starmer is as well. Of course, from, from outside the club. But, you know, whether it really succeeds politically is anybody's guess. But it's going to be a pretty cogent argument, I think.
- [14:52]
A
Michael, maybe one final question for you. I'm just curious for your thoughts on the balance that the Kremlin now has to make between wanting to get into this war support Iran, cause payback against the Americans that have, you know, caused so much destruction in Russia and are there are their main enemy versus the kind of broader political play that I think we both agree that Putin and the Kremlin have been trying to do vis a vis Trump and the Ukraine negotiations, of trying to cultivate kind of a side relationship there, a bilateral relationship, and to sort of see if you can get US Russia relations to sort of decouple from Ukraine, decouple from NATO and the transatlantic alliance. How do you think they're going to approach that?
- [15:37]
C
Yeah, no, it's a great question and it's the crucial question because I think implicit to it is that Iran is secondary to all of this, which I think for Russia, it is the big game, of course for Russia is the war in Ukraine. And I don't think that this is a big change from the last 14 months. I don't think Russian expectations are particularly high about the Trump administration being able to deliver peace or whatever, you know, peace and quotation marks to, to Russia. I don't think that Moscow believes that this is going to happen, that Trump has the wherewithal and the ability to deliver that. But that really wasn't the crux of your question. This conflict, in addition to Venezuela, in addition to Greenland, in addition to tariffs, in addition to people like the vice president going to Europe and worrying about civilizational erasure, all of it is, you know, let's say that the transatlantic relationship is the camel and, you know, these pieces of straw keep getting put on the camel's back. And so how many pieces of straw can the camel accommodate before the back breaks? And I don't think that that's going to happen anytime soon. I think there are lots of reasons why the transatlantic relationship is going to muddle through. And you can argue that freedom of navigation is a shared transatlantic interest, and that's true. But still, you know, it's sort of maxim. I can't remember, is it Sun Tzu or who it is. But you don't get in the way of your adversary when the adversary is screwing up. And so the screw ups with the transatlantic relationship have been extraordinary over the last 14 months. They don't seem to be diminishing, they're increasing. And I think on the Russian side, you just don't criticize Trump too much while trying to gain this and that marginal advantage in Iran, because what you really want is for Trump to botch completely the transatlantic relationship. And if you can push this situation into that, and I'm sure Russia will be blaming the US for high oil prices and gas prices in Europe and will use its sort of media propaganda apparatus to do that and sort of hope that the far right parties will do the rest of the job, I think we're going to see a great deal of that going forward. It's actually a low probability success for Russia, I would still say, but that's what they're going to drive at.
- [17:35]
A
Michael, thanks so much for jumping on the podcast on short notice to talk about this war. There's going to be much to talk about in the days, weeks and months ahead. And thanks so much for being back on Russian Roulette.
- [17:47]
C
Always a great pleasure. Max,
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B
You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you've enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.
- [18:01]
A
Russian Roulette releases new episodes every two weeks and is available wherever you get your podcasts. So please subscribe to our show, share our episodes online and give us a five star rating. Also, be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Europhile, where we talk Europe through a Washington lens. The show is made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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B
Also, don't forget to subscribe to the CSIS channel on YouTube for live and recorded video events featuring leading experts. Finally, you can read all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the center for Strategic and International Studies website csis dot org.