“Hellfire awaits you. Europe is shaking. Russia is dying.” These words uttered in an Islamic State (DAESH) propaganda video in November 2015 projected a new vision of DAESH ideology.
With this statement DAESH pledged that it wished to overtake the Kremlin by any violent means necessary. No longer are wars fought by means of attrition and territorial gains. Rather, they are fought by influencing the minds of impressionable individuals through strong religious identities and extreme ideologies. And while the United States and many other Western powers have been engaged in the War on Terror for the last decade and a half, the Caspian Five have remained somewhat free of these extremists’ grasp. But perhaps no more and this demands new strategic partnerships and cooperation.
We know that out of the Caspian Five, Russia is home to the smallest Muslim community overall. Russia’s citizenry is composed of about 75% Russian Orthodox Christian, 11% Muslim, and the remaining 14% consisting of Protestant Christian, Roman Catholic, or having no religious affiliation. This demographic breakdown illustrates how Russia is less alike culturally than the rest of its neighbors in the Caspian Region. For example, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan are all Muslim majority nations. Iran, the nation most influenced by its religious heritage, has been issued threats by DAESH. This is because Iran is the regional Shia power and DAESH regards followers of the Shia sect of Islam to be heretics who should be eliminated. Kazakhstan houses a slightly smaller percentage (63%) of citizens following the Islamic faith, with another 25% of the population being Russian Orthodox. Russia is therefore isolated, Islamically speaking, and lacks this major common identity unifier with the other Caspian littorals. While remaining the religious outlier in the Caspian Sea region is not necessarily a Russian disadvantage, it does pose certain strategic obstacles. Fighting DAESH, an organization that bases its actions off of its own perverted version of Islamic discourse, poses unique challenges to Russia’s preferred method of engagement.
For instance, on September 30, 2015, Russia began its air campaign inside Syria. While the Assad regime welcomed the blankets of bombs, a vast majority of the international community rejected them, believing that the Kremlin was only looking to satisfy its strategic goals: namely, to preserve the Assad regime while confirming the Kremlin’s position in the world as an indispensible power. Moreover, Russia has engaged with Iran in its support for the Assad regime. While I do have to applaud President Putin for taking action against a vile extremist organization such as DAESH, the move was not strategically calculated or adequately coordinated amongst all the players currently participating in military operations against the group. In order to achieve victory, prevent political fallout, and reclaim some of its pride, Russia will need to cooperate with the other players involved, most importantly the United States, due to its leading investment in the fight. In addition, without this necessary coordination, Russia would remain an international scapegoat and receive too much criticism for a conflict that is not entirely of its own devising.
Air strikes alone have become the preferred instrument with which a nation engages the fight. While winning them political points on the international stage, it does not necessarily commit whole-heartedly to permanently eliminating actual enemies. It is almost as if this new trend has become the exclusive norm for declaring war in the 21st century. Moreover, following a strategy that only commits localized air strikes, rather than a combination of air and ground forces, is a half-hearted attempt at best for countering such capable zealot organizations like DAESH. Take for example in January 2015 when DAESH members burned Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh alive. Jordan commenced a bombing campaign that lasted only a few weeks. Again in November 2015, as we all watched in horror the murders across the streets of Paris, it was only in the wake of such heinous violence that French authorities committed multiple air assets for a bombing campaign against DAESH strongholds. These maneuvers are reactive rather than proactive in the fight against zealots and ultimately wane as time progresses.
Relating back to Russia, it was only in October 2015 when militants in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula bombed a Russian civilian airliner, killing all 224 passengers. Only then did the DAESH extremism in Syria hit close to home. Russia is a prideful nation, one that I think will attempt to not only commit more forces to the fight just to spite the United States and Western powers, but also so as to not project weakness in the face of tragedy. While swallowing some of its pride in order to coordinate better counter-terrorist efforts may be hard for the Kremlin, a perceived defeat in the Middle East would be far more detrimental to Russian power and domestically generate undesirable socio-political effects. The Kremlin has now received heinous aggressions as well as direct threats from DAESH. It has more to lose from backing out of the fight now or straying from the most cooperative and advantageous course. This is not only due to the increased threat level and prevalence of attacks across the Middle East, but also because this danger potentially threatens Caspian partners as the expansion of DAESH operations increase in scope and frequency. Turkmenistan worries about increasingly new security challenges which may spill over into the Russian Federation. The same worry at least peripherally applies to Azerbaijan as well.
This begs a final important question: could a U.S.-Russian partnership provide the necessary leadership and direct military cooperation to inspire the world to eliminate the growing threat of violent religious extremism? Such a partnership could hold this potential if only old traditions of rivalry and mistrust can be broken. Going it alone does not guarantee victory and may de facto ensure defeat. The wolves of Islamic zealots can only be overcome by the American bald eagle and Russian bear teaming together.
