The Russian government lead by Vladimir Putin will not admit to anything, and will deny every allegation put forth, even when there is clear evidence. The Russians meddling in our social media during an election cycle, Crimea, and now Russian’s denying that forces were on the ground in Syria. This disinformation campaign is a new way of warfare, especially now, since these claims involve evidence that had taken place during a war. This is the second time in five years since the Russian government has openly co-sponsored Russian separatist and mercenaries. What I mean by openly is that they do not even care that their citizens are going to Syria; they openly know this and do nothing about it. This should be very alarming to the United States since Syria is foreign policy nightmare. If Russian mercenaries are on the ground and the United States are backing Syria rebels then this officially a proxy war. This action taken by the Russian government also raises many questions. For example: If there weren’t as many that have been killed, would we know about this? Does Putin care if the United States knows? How long before this proxy war becomes war?
I find it very interesting that Russian citizen are doing this, it would be like if private citizens went and fought in Iraq during that war. Even though in recent history private contractors are profiteers on conflict, and the United States being a main beneficiary, this will be escalating. The criticism of Putin shouldn’t be in a form of a question of, “are or is” he doing it, it should be what he is going to do about the 300 Russian citizens that were killed or injured fighting in Syria by United States and Syria Rebels. This information is publicly available, Moscow admits it. I have not seen one politician say this, the United Nations can assert itself, and maybe it will since they are having a security council meeting soon, but It looks pessimistic.
The United States is also handling this situation terribly, for it is us who are escalating too, for if it was on the flip side, and United States citizens were killed fighting Russian rebels. The international community or at least the United Nations would flare up. We continue to push in that region because our cause seems just. However, this is naive, I can officially say that since my conception the United States military has been in the Middle East, and it doesn’t even come close to a short end. Escalating has been the status quo, and both sides are engaging in an arm wrestle over something that won’t and will never be theirs. At Least in America it is perceived that the public expresses deep resentment toward the military industrial complex, I wonder if in Russia it’s the same.
What we should do about this is to develop an isolationist approach to the Middle East; these have certain conditions that I hope to see. The first is that Isis has to be taken care of soon, second that Kurdish people have some autonomous region, and third that the territory that was taken by Isis or are uninhabitable due to war be redrawn by the international community at large. Then slowly step back from the region, we can still sell them guns, they can still have conflict but we don’t have to be involved, or be responsible for provoking another Cold War. Since Putin will deny anything, the current government must have a tactical approach with micro and macro implications, or in other words stop getting pushed by Putin.
Right now the Syrian conflict has the biggest implications for foreign policy in America since 9-11. To many actors are involved in this dangerous play, the people of that region are mere puppets to the elites of the world. Hopefully this next United States Security Council meeting goes well enough to provide humanitarian aid, since that seems to be the last thing on Trump and Putin’s mind, in that regard they are similar.
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