Putin’s strengthening geopolitical hand

Putin is deliberately targeting hospitals in Syria, to terrorise civilians into leaving their homes, and to add to the refugee stream that is threatening to buckle the European Union. Fractures in the EU will reassure Putin that Russia’s former vassal states are less likely to drift to the west.

Ask Medecins sans Frontieres

It’s not that Putin had the clairvoyance to see all this from years back, but the cards are certainly falling in his favour – for now. Seizing eastern Ukraine not only strengthened Russia’s energy hand and stopped Ukraine sliding smoothly into the EU, but Crimea’s naval facilities gave Putin much more reach into the Med and Syria.

And now these strikes are creating the gravest refugee crisis in Turkey – whom Putin loathes – and only a slightly lesser emergency in the EU. Putin can see the cracks in the western alliance ranged along his borders, and he’s only biding his time before he has a go in the Baltic States, Moldova and so on.

And Putin is wooing the Kurds. The one group in the region that Washington could count on may be their go-to guys no longer. Putin is taking advantage of the fact that the Kurds hate Turkey even more than he does, and seeks to prise them away from the US camp, giving him a strong grip on the Syrian-Turkish border and the potential to develop Russian bases here.

Proving explicit Russian intent to bomb hospitals is hard without a transcript of a commander’s orders, but here’s Médecins Sans Frontières:
http://www.msf.org/…/syria-msf-supported-hospital-hit…

http://www.msf.org/…/syria-least-11-killed-another-msf…

The latter article states that ‘The hospital in Ma’arat Al Numan was hit by four missiles in two attacks within a few minutes of each other, according to staff from the hospital.’ Not barrel bombs, and no accident – only one aerial power is credibly responsible – with conscious intent.

A fundamental difference of focus in the way America and Russia have played the Mid East is the divide between a consciously moral view of the world, and the realpolitik view. Obama’s a nice guy, but he and Washington have allowed a warmly fuzzy view of how the world should work to befuddle their every policy in the region. Putin doesn’t make mistakes like this – morality be damned, he has seen much more clearly that the Assads, Saddams and Gaddafis stand between the region and the atomised slaughter that would fill their vacated space. In a way, the US needs a Kissinger right now. But Putin could probably see Kissinger, and raise him.

I have no beef about the EU – very boring, I know, I see pros and cons about the whole project. I’m more interested in how the tensions within the EU play in respect to Putin and the Mid East. Turkey are no saints in the affair, and moreover Putin didn’t clairvoyantly plan all this years ago – but yes, I think Putin is happily conscious of the fact that the refugee tide is fracturing the EU/NATO alliance that lines his western borders, and of whom he is understandably filled with anxiety and loathing.

Putin – the strongest, smartest operator

I remember the first time I saw Putin on TV – Yeltsin ushered him in as his anointed successor, and I thought, what a bland little man…  We know better now.  Forbes has crowned Putin the most powerful person on earth – no other major power has a leader with anywhere near the personal freedom to operate that he enjoys. Obama will be gone in a few months, and a US President is more constrained by Capitol Hill, constitution and electorate. China’s government is more corporate and collective. And so on to Germany, Japan and the rest.  Forbes is right.

If, when Russian airstrikes began, you had listened carefully, you might have heard the sound of hundreds of Washington jaws hitting the floor. He has made the US look lumpen-footed in its foreign affairs. The dude is smart.

Obviously, he wants to shore up the Assad regime, and Russian strikes have rapidly borne fruit – Syrian government forces are on the march and reportedly close to ensnaring Aleppo. Don’t be surprised if a year from now Assad has retaken most of Syria.

And then what?  Putin is still smarting from Russia’s loss of two spheres of empire – the outer sphere of eastern Europe was cast off in 1989, and the inner sphere of the Baltic states, Kazakhstan and so on in 1991.  Putin wants a muscular expansion of the Russian hegemony – eastern Ukraine was an excellent start, requisitioning the old Soviet naval bases of the Crimea and allowing Russian naval power to project into the Mediterranean and the Mid East. As long as Turkey allows those ships through the Bosphorus…