The Cipher Brief spoke with Mark Kelton, former Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Counterintelligence at the CIA, about the possible ceasefire deal in Syria. According to Kelton, Russia ended up with the “better of the deal” and Moscow will continue to conduct military operations in Syria until the ceasefire commences in order to achieve “the best possible terms for itself and its Syrian client.
The Cipher Brief: While many experts remain skeptical of a ceasefire in Syria holding, does the fact that an agreement was reached say anything about how the dynamics of the conflict have changed?
Mark Kelton: The dynamics have changed to the extent that all rational actors involved—which, by definition, excludes Islamic radicals affiliated with ISIS, Al-Nusra and their ilk—want, at minimum, to give the appearance of being open to a political solution. The first step of agreeing to a ceasefire that no one believes will hold sets the stage for a real ceasefire once one or more sides have achieved their military and political goals or exhausted themselves.
TCB: While most pundits are skeptical that the ceasefire will hold or accomplish much, can you imagine a scenario in which a ceasefire could create space for a shift in the dynamics of the conflict?
MK: The most likely scenario is that the Syrian rump state, backed by its Russian and other allies, will have achieved enough of its apparent goals of establishing a viable and defensible territory; sufficiently degrading its adversaries in military terms; and gaining de facto international acknowledgement of continued rule of Bashar Assad, to prompt those supporting the Syrian rump state to promote a political process leading to a more lasting cessation of hostilities.
TCB: What types of things would we expect to see on the ground if the ceasefire were to hold? What indicators or “signposts" should analysts be watching?
MK: The obvious military indicators aside, the most likely indicator of an effort to end the fighting would be a Russian push to couple a cessation of hostilities with at least tacit acknowledgement by the international community of the continued sovereignty of its Syrian client state. That Russian effort would almost certainly incorporate some form of great power agreement on such an outcome, perhaps in the form of a UN Security Council agreement followed by a peacekeeping arrangement.
There is likely to be an interregnum between any call for a ceasefire and its implementation. This would allow a last push by Russian-backed Syrian government forces to maximize their military gains, and at the same time, enable Moscow to launch a campaign that would ensure that Washington in particular is sufficiently anxious for a ceasefire’s conclusion. This would give Russia to get the best possible terms for itself and its Syrian client.
TCB: What’s your take on the Russian angle here? A cynic might say that if Russia and the US agree on something, chances are Moscow got the better deal. Do you agree? What are the Russians getting out of the agreement, and how do you expect them to use the deal to their advantage?
MK: I do agree the Russians got the better of the deal. This is not surprising, as the Russians have clearly defined goals in this conflict. Chief among them is ensuring the continued viability and international acceptability of the Syrian state, thereby underscoring Moscow’s ability to protect its clients. In getting the U.S. to enter into a ceasefire agreement, Moscow went a good ways towards achieving its aims. Washington’s support for the ceasefire amounts to a de facto American shift in policy away from the idea of regime change in Syria. Further, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as indicated by the size and combat capacity of the force he has committed to his expeditionary fight in Syria, surely sees his military aims as limited to supporting the Syrian armed forces in sufficiently damaging their adversaries to assure the defensibility of the Syrian state. As such, conclusion of a more permanent ceasefire arrangement timed to coincide with the maximum degradation of those adversaries is a necessary precondition for Russian achievement of its goals in the conflict.
TCB: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev recently said the U.S. and Russia are now engaged in a new Cold War. Generally speaking, do you agree? Should we view the Syrian conflict through the prism of the Cold War?
MK: We are not in a new Cold War in a sense where roughly equivalent adversaries stood on either side of the great ideological divide between two armed camps that marked the latter half of the twentieth century. We are, however, in an era of asymmetrical competition between Washington and Moscow. That rivalry is asymmetrical because while the former views Russia as one of many powers with which it must engage, the latter sees almost every major issue confronting it as a zero sum game in which Moscow’s interests can only be advanced at Washington’s expense.
Seen in that context, Medvedev’s claim regarding the existence of a new Cold War is reflective of the Russian leadership’s mindset. The Moscow regime, and Vladimir Putin in particular, would like nothing more than a rematch of the Cold War struggle they lost. Indeed, Putin and the former intelligence and military officers surrounding him refuse to acknowledge there was a victor in that conflict, much less that the outcome validated the idea of freedom as a universal human aspiration. The Russian President deeply resents the loss of great power status and tangible state power that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the concurrent emergence of the U.S. as the preeminent power of the post-Cold War world. Not coincidentally, redress of those losses and hindering the exercise of American power in pursuit of its interests are driving factors in the national security policy of the new Russian State.
In substantive terms, that policy has manifested itself in a reassertion of Russian influence in former Soviet space (the so-called “near abroad”), to include the use of “hybrid warfare” in the Ukraine; increased pressure on the newer NATO members, particularly the Baltic States with an eye towards degrading, if not fatally undermining, the cohesiveness of that hated Alliance; modernization of Russian conventional and nuclear forces; and a return of Russian power to the Middle East, to include particularly propping up of a Syrian regime not so long ago declared anathema by Washington. Russian government actions in all of these arenas have been made demonstratively more effective by American irresolution in its response to them, an uncertainty of purpose that would have been unimaginable during the real Cold War.
Finally, Medvedev’s statement is in keeping with an ongoing stream of anti-U.S. and anti-Western invective coming out of Moscow. The purpose of this agitprop, which has manifested itself in Putin’s speeches and the recently announced Russian National Security Strategy, is to allow Moscow to re-direct any public ire engendered by the deleterious impact of Western sanctions and the collapse in oil prices on the Russian economy against foreign powers supposedly interfering in Russian affairs and their purported internal allies. That such Cold War tactics have also proven effective in post-Cold War Russia ought to reassure Putin that some things, at least, are as they always were and as he thinks they should be. One could only wish the bulk of the Russian people saw it otherwise.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication or information or endorsement of the author's view. This material has been reviewed for classification and compliance with legal obligations.
