Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 20 – So much
energy has been devoted to the issue of just how many Russian mercenaries were
killed in Syria on February 7-8 by American forces, Vladimir Pastukhov says,
that the far more important question of who is to blame for this loss of
Russian lives has not received the attention it deserves.
But if one considers all the
circumstances including tbe remarkably subdued response of Russian officials
and media to this event, the St. Antony’s College historian says, it is clear
that the Russian command, military and ultimately political, is completely to
blame for these Russian losses (republic.ru/posts/89608).
Moreover,
he continues, that is going to be increasingly obvious to ever more Russians
who then will be compelled to draw conclusions about their military and their government.
“The
first thing which strikes the eye is the unprecedented tolerance of the Russian
foreign ministry and means of mass propaganda,” Pastukhov says. After the
deaths, “it is surprising” given how these have responded to such things in the
past that “no one threatened to reduce America to radioactive ruble.”
The
explanation lies right on the surface, he continues. It involves not the attack of US forces on
Russian mercenaries but rather in the fact that this attack occurred only after
the US military had communicated to the Russian one that it was planning to attack.
The Russian side did not warn the Americans off as it could have and the US “wiped
the column from the earth.”
The
Russian failure to tell the Americans that the forces were Russian prompts the question:
“who gave the order which in fact permitted the opening of fire ‘on one’s own’?”
Obviously, the decision not to warn the Americans off and thus prevent the loss
of Russian lives was “not simply a military but a political-military decision.”
It
was “from all points of view an act of betrayal.”
There
are really only two explanations for the behavior of the Russian military
command, Pastukhov says. It could either be the product of “a pathological lack
of knowledge” of what would happen if it said nothing or alternatively be “a conscious
and intentional [interest in] mass murder.”
The former is “theoretically possible”
but highly unlikely in this case. “Therefore, the more probable version”
explaining why the Russian command didn’t try to stop the Americans as that the
action reflected a full awareness by its officers that it was “condemning
Russian citizens to inevitable death.”
There are various reasons why the
Russian side might have acted in this way. It may not have wanted to provide
confirmation of what it has long denied, that the Russians are still fighting
in Syria, or it may have wanted the Americans to do the dirty work of killing the
Vagner forces and thus removing them from the scene.
The Russian side may have been only
too glad to see the Vagner forces, many of whom had been fighting in the Donbass,
killed because they are a problem for Russian policy there and potentially in
Russia as well, and the more of them who are killed off in Syria, “the calmer
will be the life of the regime in Russia.”
At the same time, Pastukhov continues,
“the behavior of ‘the victor’ looks no less strange than that of the losing
side. The Americans didn’t make loud declarations or protest. “Why? Because everything
that American wanted to say, it said, not in words but in actions.” And its message
was clear: “a hybrid war is a fine thing if you are fighting with Ukraine.”
Russia’s hybrid approach worked well
in Ukraine in 2014, and it works when “your people kill but you remain [officially]
uninvolved.” “But this doesn’t work well
against those who are capable of defending themselves. Everything looks not so
pleasant when your people are killed in massive numbers.”
The Kremlin still hasn’t fully integrated
“this principle difference” in its thinking; and it is going to have to because
“the catastrophe on the Euphrates is only the start of a very serious set of
events which will have far-reaching consequences,” events that are already pushing
the whole notion of hybrid war “into a dead end.”
The US isn’t frightened by a crowd
of poorly armed men and “will kill them by the hundreds if needed and do this
without fear of a response.” And that means the “only thing which remains for
the Kremlin to do in this situation is to smile and betray people it has sent
to their deaths.”
“Suddenly, it turns out that hybrid
war is not so smart if this is a war with a real opponent,” Pastukhov argues.
“We are witnesses of the birth of
the Syrian syndrome,” he continues. That
is shown by the shift in “the tonality of the commentaries in the press” and
the attempt to shift public attention to the question of the number of victims rather
than the issue of why there were any in the first place.
But that latter effort isn’t going
to work, and once people start asking “who is guilty” of this adventure in the first
place and “who is guilty” of sending Russians to their deaths when that could have
prevented, the situation changes in fundamental ways.
“In the near future,” Pastukhov suggests,
“the direction of public opinion will begin to shift every further and the
incident on the left bank of the Euphrates will begin to be considered not
simply as a human tragedy and not only as a political betrayal but as a
national humiliation” especially if no investigation occurs and no one is held
accountable.
“Deir-ez-Zor potentially can become
the Port Arthur of the 21st century,” the loss to Japan that ultimately
played a key role in triggering the 1905 revolution that shook the Russian
imperial state to its foundations. This
is no “black swan” as some imagine; it is “an ugly duckling.” And its features
are going to come out because too many have come back from Syria.
Like the veterans or relatives of
the victims of the Vietnam, Afghan or Chechen wars, these people are going to
seek “an investigation of the incident precisely as a crime which requires
justice and the punishment of the guilty and, if they do not receive the one or
the other, will draw the necessary conclusions, including political ones.”
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