Russia's War Plan in Syria
RUSI Analysis, 2 Oct 2015
By Dr Igor Sutyagin, Senior Research Fellow, Russian Studies
https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C560E9A3D1FCD8/#.VhL-Pf_ouM-

As the pattern of Russian air strikes on Syria becomes clear, we can now
discern Putin’s campaign plan.

The third day of Russian air strikes in Syria finally offers some clarity
about the possible war plan the Kremlin may have for its Syrian campaign.
Some pieces of the jigsaw now seem to fit together:

-President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced that the military operation in
Syria will not last for long as it has limited objectives; Russia will
withdraw its forces – or a major share of them – as soon as those objectives
are achieved.
-Eighty per cent of Russian targets so far are associated not with Daesh
(ISIL), but with other armed opposition groups fighting against the Syrian
regime.
-President Putin publicly stated that Russia would never join the US-led
coalition in Syria.
-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia had promised to
fight all terrorist groups in Syria, not only Daesh. All groups fighting
against Bashar al-Assad’s regime – such as the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat
al-Nusra and Daesh – are terrorists according to Damascus policy.
-Iranian troops have started arriving to Syria en masse.

Taken together, these produce a clear picture. There are solid reasons to
argue that the supposed ‘War Plan Syria’ agreed during the talks between
Russian and Iranian commands in Moscow in August, and later with the Syrian
regime itself, involves a trilateral offensive of joint Syrian–Iranian land
forces along with the air support provided by Russia. The strategic
objective is to secure an Alawite ‘safe zone’ on the territory of ‘useful
Syria’ – the densely populated Western part of the country where the major
share of Syrian industry and agriculture is concentrated – leaving the
eastern, desert part of the country to Daesh. As Alawites constitute
approximately 12 per cent of Syrian population, and the rest of the country
is at the very least moderately critical of the Assad regime, control of the
whole country is politically impossible and perhaps not even considered
necessary for Damascus any more.

The obvious immediate operational goals of the offensive include defeat and
dispersal of the armed opposition groups in the northern and northeastern
parts of Syria, as well as extermination of the opposition-controlled
enclaves in the central part of regime-controlled zone between Homs and
Hama – four in five Russian air strikes are concentrated in precisely those
two areas. Re-establishing Damascus’s control over the territory currently
controlled by Kurds is not the part of the plan as there is no Russian
activity in that zone. Securing the eastern border of regime-controlled
territory is also a task: the approximately 20 per cent of air strikes
devoted to targets in the narrow sector around Palmyra – the only area where
Daesh forces immediately contact with regime troops – indicate this. Taking
into account the narrow area of contact between Daesh and regime forces, one
can conclude that fighting the jihadist group is only a secondary task of
the Syrian–Russian–Iranian coalition. Other nationalist and Islamist armed
opposition seem to be the major targets of Russian strikes; Daesh forces
serve as a secondary target, and a way to legitimate Russia’s actions.

After re-establishing control over the northern/north-eastern part of Syria
currently lost to the armed opposition, Moscow and Tehran will hand over
responsibility to Damascus. Moscow will withdraw the majority of its forces
(most probably securing the Khmeimim air base near Latakia, where Russian
air strikes originate now, for use in the future). The immediate implication
of such the plan for the West and Arab countries is this: while the West
bears moral responsibility for the fate of the Syrian moderate opposition
against Assad, it is doomed to sit idle and watch them be hit by Russian
bombs. The Kremlin’s quite correct calculation was that the West would be
unwilling to use the only tool – military power – capable of immediately
stopping Russian operations targeting groups the West supports; Russia would
be able to achieve its goals unopposed. In this sense, the Syria campaign is
the next step in development of Russia’s modus operandi after Eastern
Ukraine, thus marking the general direction of Russian policy in disputed
areas around the globe in the future.

The feeling is rapidly spreading among the Western-backed armed opposition
that they have been betrayed by their supporters: to them, it looks like the
West has secretly made the deal with Russia and washed its hands, letting
Russian and Syrian forces methodically destroy them. This means a general
weakening of the Western credibility and soft-power influence, both in Syria
and elsewhere – outcomes very much welcomed by the Kremlin too. From Putin’s
perspective, this is a quite reasonable war plan; and one very promising for
future conflict as the West’s unwillingness to use decisive military tools
is likely to remain. It may be time for the West to wake up to the
recognition that the task of developing measures which might put limit of
the Kremlin’s assertive activism is rapidly becoming the urgent need.