The Russia-China Axis. Douglas E. Schoen

Assad and his terrorist allies to go on the offensive.

      American policymakers need to understand how the Russians see the situation in Syria. To the U.S., Assad is a bloody dictator who has to go. But the Russians have much at stake in keeping Assad in power. Moscow stands to lose up to $5 billion in arms sales if or when the regime falls. Russian companies have major investments in Syrian infrastructure and tourism. Taken together, Russia has close to $25 billion worth of interests in Syria. Syria is not only home to the Russian naval base in Tartus; the two countries have also agreed to return the former Soviet naval base in Latakiye to Russian control.⁹⁵ Currently, more than 600 Russian technicians are working to update these Soviet-era bases.

      Russia also sees compelling geostrategic reasons to support Assad. These include fear of “the spread of Islamic radicalism and the erosion of its superpower status in a world where Western nations are increasingly undertaking unilateral military interventions,” as Russian defense analyst Ruslan Pukhov explained it in 2012.⁹⁶ There is no question that Russia and China remain bitter that Western forces ignored their opposition to intervention in Libya and the ousting of Colonel Qaddafi. Desperate to stay in power, Qaddafi offered China and Russia a stake in the Libyan oil industry in exchange for support in 2011. For years before Qaddafi’s fall, Moscow had close military and commercial relations with Libya⁹⁷—and since Qaddafi’s demise, Russia has lost $4.5 billion in contracts.⁹⁸ Both Russian and Chinese representatives told the Financial Times that they would have vetoed UN Security Council Resolution 1973—the one establishing a no-fly zone over Libya—if they had known how broadly it would be interpreted. Then-President Dmitri Medvedev publicly stated that the West “simply deceived Russia” with its Libyan intervention.⁹⁹ “Russia’s current Syria policy,” wrote Pukhov, “basically boils down to supporting the Assad government and preventing a foreign intervention aimed at overthrowing it, as happened in Libya.”¹⁰⁰ Forcing Assad to turn over his chemical weapons through the UN resolution does nothing to change the fundamental calculus.

      Some, like Georgy Mirsky, say that Russia’s anti-Western animus is like a reflex, a resurgence of the old Soviet mentality.¹⁰¹ It’s not all anti-Westernism, though. The Russians are pragmatic skeptics, contemptuous of American democratic aspirations. What they see in Assad is a secular (if brutal) dictator fighting off forces of radical Islam that, if they prevail, could destabilize the entire region. Its long experience with Islamists in Chechnya and elsewhere has motivated Moscow to protect Assad from that outcome. “In Moscow,” Pukhov wrote, “secular authoritarian governments are seen as the sole realistic alternative to Islamic dominance.”¹⁰²

      Finally, the Russians know that if Assad falls, then Iran, their most important ally in the region, will be weakened—as will Russian influence. Moscow has already seen the ouster, over the last decade, of its allies Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi. It cannot afford to stand by and watch another Western intervention weaken its regional interests.

      Beijing’s support for Assad, meanwhile, seems comparatively mysterious to outside observers. China enjoys a healthy $2.2 billion annual trade relationship with Syria—no match for what it does in trade with the other Gulf Arab states (roughly $90 billion annually). China’s Iran commitments dwarf its Syrian investments. But China opposes a repeat of the Libyan model as strongly as the Russians do, and Beijing vetoed the UN resolutions alongside Russia in order to stand in solidarity against the West generally and the U.S. more specifically. Beijing also worries about the repercussions of regime change in Syria, as an op-ed in the Chinese People’s Daily newspaper, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party, made clear:

      Though China has a less direct stake in Syria than Russia, the collapse of Syria will result in the West further controlling the Middle East, and Iran taking direct strategic pressure from the West. If war broke out in Iran, China would have to rely more on Russia for energy, bringing in new uncertainty to the Sino–Russian strategic partnership.¹⁰³

      Like Russia, then, China backs Assad for self-interested reasons that have little to do with actual support for the Syrian president. But while Russia has major economic and strategic interests to protect in Syria, China’s stake is less vital. Rather, Beijing is standing in solidarity with Moscow in their mutual opposition to interventionism, while also supporting Russia’s notion of regional “stability.” Beijing knows what it’s getting in Assad, and it is content with his remaining in power. Finally, in blocking U.S. and Western efforts to intervene, the Chinese help support a regime that, at little cost to themselves, causes their American rivals nothing but trouble.

      VENEZUELA

      “I like kitties and puppies and little animals,” Vladimir Putin said matter-of-factly in 2012. It’s true: The Russian strongman has a soft spot for animals, as a trove of Web photo galleries makes clear. And so it stands to reason that he wouldn’t give puppies as gifts to someone unless he felt strongly about them—and Putin felt very strongly about Hugo Chávez, the longtime Venezuelan dictator. In the last year of their long partnership, Putin gave the Latin American strongman a three-month-old Russian black terrier puppy, along with a private message. When Chávez died in March 2013, Putin’s condolence telegram was striking for its heartfelt praise: “He was an uncommon and strong man who looked into the future and always set the highest target for himself.”

      Although it’s too early to predict the shape of post-Chávez Venezuela, the early signs are for continuity—and that means a strong Venezuelan relationship not only with Russia but also with China. Both countries have sent signals that they wish to work closely with Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro. The feeling seems to be mutual.

      “We are not going to change one iota of the fundamental themes of President Chávez’s policies,” Venezuela’s energy minister, Rafael Ramirez, told a local TV station not long after Chávez’s death. “We have a very important strategic relationship with China, which we’re going to continue deepening and cultivating. It’s the same with our cooperation with Russia. . . . Chávez’s policies are more alive than ever, and we will push ahead with them.”¹⁰⁴

      During his tenure, Chávez made Venezuela an archenemy of the U.S., and he possessed the means and the motivation to harm the United States like few others could. He built strategic alliances not only with Russia and China, but also with Cuba, Iran, and Syria. While much of the international community was busy condemning Bashar al-Assad for massacring his own people, Chávez sent large shipments of oil to the Syrian leader, in defiance of international sanctions. Venezuela became deeply involved in drug trafficking and money laundering while providing staunch support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Chávez severed ties with Israel in 2009 to protest its offensive against Hamas, and in 2010, he hosted an extraordinary secret summit in Caracas for senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.¹⁰⁵ “Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America is growing significantly with the support of the Chávez regime in Venezuela,” Roger F. Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President George W. Bush, told the Committee on Homeland Security.

      Chávez called Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his “brother,” partnered with him in a joint Iranian-Venezuelan bank, and declared that he would consider any attack on Iran an attack on Venezuela. And indeed, should the U.S. take military action against Iran, the quickest route of retaliation would be through Venezuela—close enough to the U.S. that intercontinental missiles wouldn’t be needed. Ahmadinejad placed agents from the Iranian intelligence apparatus in Venezuela to advise the army as well as the intelligence service. For years, Venezuela operated a weekly flight from Teheran to Caracas, bringing untold numbers of Iranians into the country.

      Chávez’s Venezuela had few stronger allies than Putin and Russia. The two countries forged a joint Russian-Venezuelan bank venture in 2009 to pursue bilateral projects, especially involving energy; Pdvsa, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, partnered with Russia’s Gazprom. The bank was headquartered in Moscow with an office in Caracas. On military matters, cooperation was close. Before Chávez died, Russia granted Venezuela a $4.4 billion loan to purchase Russian weaponry and “defend its sovereignty,” in Chávez’s words. Venezuela pursued a separate $6 billion loan for infrastructure. Russia also sold Chávez battle tanks and