Now that the GOP is riding in to rescue Obama’s war plans, the stage is set for a week of video game coverage of the attacks on Syria. It’s always hard to know if this is just media blather or real preparations for an attack. What we see with Obama is the strange habit of confusing talk with actions. That’s why the managerial class hated Dick Cheney. He did not confuse talk with action. This is how we ended up in two pointless wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq, so there is something to say for talking rather than acting.
Anyway, lost in the run-up is the questionable relevancy of Russia’s opposition in world affairs. Putin keeps making noises one would expect from a tough guy with some punch, but he is slowly coming to the realization that words speak louder than actions. Syria’s main patron, the one moving ships into the area and providing arms to Assad is now on the fence. Rather, Russia appears to be on the fence. It’s hard to know as Putin is doing as much talking as Obama, who is probably bluffing about all this.
Regardless, the US, with or without support from Europe, can launch an attack on Syria knowing Russia will do nothing but complain. Obama could take out Assad if he chooses, knowing that Putin is not going to war over it. He can help facilitate waves of Muslim migrants flowing into Europe and he can choke off energy supplies, but he can’t stop the US from doing what it wants. He just has to hope Obama gets cold feet, so he has no choice but to talk out of both sides of his mouth to buy time and let Obama sweat.
There are two reasons why Russia is becoming a peripheral player in world affairs. The first is Russia simply lacks the military resources to do much outside her territory. One of the things we learned after the fall of the Soviet Union is that their technology was very crude compared to what the West was using. The years since the Cold War have given greater access to technology, but military tech is as much a part of culture and the Russian culture is still deeply warped from 70 years of communism.
In the case of Syria, the Israelis probably have terrific intelligence about Syria’s air defense systems, as well as her missile locations. The Israeli missile defense system is more than enough to ward out the ad hoc attacks that could come from a full-on attack on Syria by the US. Then there is the fact the US can own the airspace within hours of a conflict and deliver missile attacks anywhere it wants. We could take out the Russian naval assets deployed to the region. Putin certainly knows this.
The second reason is money. The wealth of nations is now controlled by central banks, specifically the Federal Reserve and the ECB. Those two banks control the world’s financial system. Putin and Gazprom may have hundred of billions in energy resources, but that’s not worth a whole lot when the Fed can destroy their currency. Russia, like China, needs to be connected to the grid and that means remaining on good terms with the United States, which is the world’s banker and money exchange.
That’s the big reason the Russians have to tread lightly. Of course, geography plays a big role here too. While vast distances have protected the Russians from invading armies from the West, it keeps her on the periphery of European life. As a result, these sorts of adventures are not really meant to confront the United States, but to keep western government from ignoring the Russian. If the Russians took on the attitude of the Swiss or the Swedes, there would never be a reason to think about them.
