Since 1991, American military interventions have begun not in secret but with great fanfare – the thunderous launches of cruise missiles from US navy ships, with orange and white flashes lighting up the night sky. Astonished goatherds watch as the missiles streak through the sky towards their destination.
At least two things have changed: now the local people record the passing missiles on their mobile phones. And America and its allies are not alone in deploying these weapons. A generation later, Russia has joined the cruise missile club.
Russia's first use of cruise missiles in conflict – launched from ships in the Caspian Sea to strike targets 1,500 kilometres away in Syria – was announced on the 63rd birthday of president Vladimir Putin. Every year this is celebrated with unctuous praise from all sections of society, ranging from rappers to politicians. To demonstrate his undimmed virility, he takes part in a celebrity ice hockey match, scoring seven goals this year.
This year the message is even clearer than usual: Russia is back as a power capable of projecting military force abroad, and has a leader who – unlike Barack Obama – can take decisions and act upon them. After the successful annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, Mr Putin has doubled the stakes.
But the timing of the missile strikes raises the question of what exactly Mr Putin is planning. Is this PR for Russia’s arms industry while diverting domestic attention from the gathering economic crisis caused by low oil prices and westerns sanctions? Or the precursor for a Russian-American war by proxy?
Every student of Mr Putin knows that when he was training for the KGB, he was assessed as having a “diminished sense of danger” – a negative trait in a service where Bond-style recklessness was discouraged. We do not actually know if this is true – it comes from Mr Putin himself, in a campaign biography that was rushed out to turn a man who had been a grey bureaucrat into a national political figure, with a dash of recklessness. True or not, it serves to keep the world guessing whether he is a careful planner – as he often appears – or a gambler.
The reckless side is apparent in the Russian fighters based in Syria encroaching into Turkish airspace, a bullying tactic which could lead to confrontation with a Nato member. There is no justification for this at a time when the Kremlin’s official position is that it wants all sides to unite in a common front against ISIL.
The careful planner in Mr Putin is evident in the false narrative laid down for the Russian intervention. Supposedly the goal is to destroy ISIL. Yet almost all the bombing targets have been in the centre and west of the country – areas where the non-ISIL opposition has made gains, threatening the coastal heartland of the Alawites, the power base of the regime. Strikes against ISIL are a veneer of justification for an operation to bolster the regime of Bashar Al Assad.
It is clear that the Russian intervention was worked out in coordination with the Iranians, who convinced the Russian military that the Syrian army was about to collapse in the face of more cohesive and better armed opposition groups.
It is not just cruise missiles that have transformed the conflict. In recent months the venerable RPG anti-tank missile – dating from the 1960s but still deadly at 200 metres – is being replaced by US-made TOW missiles, a guided weapon with a range of up to 4km. According to one estimate, 17 regime tanks and armoured vehicles were destroyed during the Russian-backed Syrian army offensive on Wednesday.
Already the outlines of a superpower proxy war in Syria are becoming clear: the Syrian army, with support from the Russian air force, is fighting a rebel alliance whose key weapons are supplied by the US and its allies. The Russian air force has attacked and killed US-trained so-called “moderate” opposition forces, though these generally work in alliance with more extreme factions including the Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda franchise.
So far the Russians have gambled on the Americans accepting these attacks, for fear of escalating the conflict. The outrage felt by the US military is expressed by General Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the US army now at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. He told the BBC: “We should have cratered their airfield and told them: ‘Don’t do that again’.”
So far so good for Mr Putin. He has correctly judged the operational paralysis of Washington. The question now is how far he pushes his advantage. If his goal is to stabilise the front lines in Syria and then use Russia's enhanced position in the region to push for a diplomatic settlement, then his gamble will have paid off. As part of the settlement, he could earn an easing of the sanctions imposed for Russian aggression against Ukraine. But the chances of any kind of Syrian settlement that would end the war and please Russia are extremely slim.
The alternative is not good for Russia, the economy of which is like a cartoon character that has gone over the edge of a cliff but, legs spinning furiously, has yet to fall. Next year most of the population – but not the super-rich – will notice a serious decline in living standards. Having bet and won in Crimea, Mr Putin has moved his chips to Syria. But he cannot keep winning.
For all its demonstration of power in recent days, the Russian military has suffered decades of underinvestment. It could never match the might of the United States if the Russian escalation lead to real confrontation. Mr Putin needs to accept that the Russian-Iranian axis is not going to dominate the Middle East. He should accept an incremental improvement in Russia’s influence in the region, and use it for peaceful purposes, not warlike grandstanding.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
On Twitter: @aphilps
