Commissioned Book Review: Dmitri Trenin, What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East?
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920935332 |
| Author | Houssem Ben Lazreg |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Reviews |
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(4) NP1 –NP2
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
935332PSW0010.1177/1478929920935332Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2020
Commissioned Book Review
What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East? by
Dmitri Trenin. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018.
144 pp., $62.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781509522316
By the mid-2000s, and as Russia had recovered
from its post-Soviet Union domestic crisis, so did
its global ambitions. Particularly, the Middle
East is back on its radar screen. Interestingly,
Moscow has restored political ties with its for-
mer allies, such as Syria and Egypt, brought
Turkey back to its camp, engaged in a cautious
dialog with Israel, maintained a cooperative but
complex relationship with Iran and promoted
trade with energy-rich countries such as Algeria
and the Gulf States. In a radical reversal of the
old, rigid Soviet ideological alliances and rival-
ries, Russia engages simultaneously in relations
with conflicting sides to preserve its interests in
the region. So, how did Russia manage to do the
trick and mastermind its return to the geopolitical
top table of the Middle East?
In ‘What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East?’,
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow
Center, does not directly answer the question in the
book’s title, but rather he delves into the historical
ties between Russia and the Middle East region
since the times of the Tsars. On a deeper level, he
examines the interstate relations that emerged over
time regarding conflict of interests, economic
opportunities and a series of regional/international
upheavals. In this concise, lucid account, Trenin
argues that Russia’s return as a major independent
geopolitical player to the global stage, and specifi-
cally to the Middle East, does not aim at ‘displacing
America from the region [The Middle East]’ (p. 63).
This coming back, most obviously through the
Syrian ground, is distinctly connected to Moscow’s
discontent with the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. In this
regard, Trenin asserts that the Kremlin abhors the
revolutionary movements that swept several coun-
tries in the Middle East, especially after the
humiliating death of the Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi by the Western coalition (France, Britain
and the United States). Russia deems these revolu-
tions as a direct threat to its internal stability and
regional interests. Moreover, Trenin implies that
possible influence on Russia’s Sunni minority of
extremist groups, such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda affili-
ate, Jabhat Al Nusra, provides several justifications
for the Russian military engagement.
This book, which is made up of four chapters,
is not organized chronologically but themati-
cally. After a brief but instructive and informa-
tive historical overview, the author presents his
analysis of Moscow’s involvement with/in the
Middle East in three key areas: ‘War’,
‘Diplomacy’ and ‘Trade’ (pp. 9–10). Chapter 1,
titled ‘History’, sheds light on the historical
interactions between the Old Russian Empire
and the nations of today’s Middle East. From the
marriage of Moscow’s Grand Duke Ivan to the
niece of the Byzantine Emperor and the demise
of the Byzantine Empire, Moscow ‘began to
imagine itself as the political and spiritual heir to
Constantinople’ (p. 12). Moreover, major global
upheavals and events, such as the Arab–Israeli
wars, the Iranian Revolution, the Afghan War,
the dissolution of the USSR, the 9/11 attacks, the
Arab Spring and ultimately the Syrian Civil War,
are analysed and assessed from the perspective
of the Kremlin and its interstate relations with the
United States, European powers and regional key
players in the Middle East. Although Trenin does
not provide a detailed historical account of
Kremlin’s involvement in the region, this chapter
can be considered a succinct introduction to
Russian–Middle East relations.
The second chapter, titled ‘War’, examines the
ongoing Russian military intervention in Syria
and its (geo) political outcomes. As Russia stepped
into the Syrian conflict in 2015, Trenin asserts that
Russia’s military engagement constitutes a ‘very
different kind of warfare’ (p. 54). While being ‘an
expeditionary’ and ‘predominantly air war’, this
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