PUTIN’S RESET

spread of terrorism beyond the North Caucasus and ultimately eliminating it are
major state priorities. Russian leaders’ endless reiterations that they intervened in
Syria to prevent terrorists from returning home clearly has a basis in Russian policy
and implicitly underscores the connection from internal to external security even if
Moscow helped terrorists move to Syria to reduce terrorism in the North Caucasus. 36
Domestic instability clearly impedes realization of restoring Russia’s
acknowledged great power status, not only in the former Soviet sphere but beyond it,
particularly in the Middle East, an area that Moscow still maintains is close to its
borders despite the Soviet collapse in 1991. Therefore Moscow’s actions in Syria
strongly represent the much broader phenomenon of commingling of both internal
and external means of ensuring security in order to realize this great power program.
According to Luke Chambers, a foreign affairs analyst for the UK Conservative Party,
Endogenous and exogenous behavior and processes in the last decade relating to
Russia should not be viewed as discrete: instead there is analytical value in
evaluating the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign agendas as part of a wider, unitary
strategy to restore Russia’s role as a global actor. The design pursued
domestically exerts a strong influence on foreign policy; accordingly, the longterm
goals of Russian foreign policy are lodged within the Russian state as well
as without. 37
Imperialism and power projection abroad, most recently seen in Ukraine and
Syria, are intrinsic to the great power project and inherent in the structure and nature
of the Russian state. 38 Indeed, the long-standing desire to restore Russia to its
previous Cold War prominence in the Middle East at Washington’s expense
dovetailed in the wake of the “Arab Spring” in 2011. As Prime Minister, Putin very
quickly expressed fear that the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya would “inevitably”
engender greater violence in the North Caucasus. 39 Similarly, then-President
Medvedev openly expressed the Kremlin’s belief that these insurgencies were direct
result of a foreign conspiracy against Russia. 40 Since then, this justification for acting
in the Middle East has continued uninterrupted and Russian officials continually
claim that their bombing raids are eliminating the terrorists. Evidently, for Moscow
all opposition to Russian allies and/or interests is inherently terrorist in nature and
justifies virtually any response.
Additionally, there are several other important domestic goals that a short,
victorious war in Syria might serve. Dmitiri Trenin, Director of the Moscow office of
the Carnegie Endowment, states that an “expanding Russian presence in the region’s
arms, nuclear, oil and gas, food, and other markets,” will reward key interest groups in
28