CNN is reporting that Russia is threatening to attack U.S. forces based in Al Tanf, eastern Syria, but don’t call it fake news. A Russia-U.S. exchange of gunfire isn’t as crazy as it might sound.
As reported last December, Russia retains a longstanding interest in forcibly dislodging U.S. forces from various bases in northern and eastern Syria. Of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that to overtly target and attack American citizens in Syria would open his nation up to a world of trouble. At a minimum, it would mean significant new sanctions on the Russian economy from the U.S. and its global allies. But it might also lead to U.S. military retaliation of a kind that would cause havoc for Russia’s military. While Russia’s military is potent in proximity to its home territory, it is far less powerful in and around Syria. The Russian naval flotilla deployed off Syria’s coast, for example, would be exceptionally vulnerable to any U.S. retaliatory strikes.
The question, then, is how Russia could drive the U.S. out of Syria without incurring grave risks?
And the answer is twofold: either pretend that any attack on U.S. forces is the result of mistaken identity, or launch an attack with deniable assets that are not directly linked to the Russian government. Think either scenario is inconceivable?
Think again. In February, Russia’s GRU intelligence service employed deniable mercenary forces to attack a U.S. garrison located in an area of Syria’s Euphrates River Valley. While this attack ended badly for Russia (U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered the Russian formations “annihilated”), the threat of new attacks has risen as Putin has grown frustrated at Trump’s retention of U.S. forces in Syria. Al Tanf is also of specific interest interest to Iran. Located along the Iraq-Syrian border, the Iranians hate America’s position in Al Tanf in that it allows for the monitoring of Iranian supply convoys to Iranian forces targeting Israel in southern Syria. Russia also hates the Al Tanf garrison for its fraying of Putin’s broader strategic narrative in the Middle East. Namely, Putin’s effort to shape himself as the only external actor of determination and thus the only actor worth dealing with.
Yet the basic point is this: Putin will do whatever he believes is in his interests, if he believes that he can do so without suffering excess costs. In turn, there is great risk in Putin’s belief that he has wide latitude to confront America’s position in Syria.
