The international stand-off concerning action in Syria, as is widely known, revolves around two factions: One led primarily by the U.S. and Israel and the other by Russia and China. The latter group believes that armed intervention should be avoided at all costs, that the civil war should play itself out or, more preferably, that the two sides should come together and decide on a peaceful resolution. But this stance is somewhat hypocritical. Russia is a long-time ally and supplier of arms to President Assad’s regime and, if the rumors are to be believed, they may have just been ready to send the Syrian government more than a hundred surface-to-air missile defense systems.
The rumor was called out by the Israeli government, which makes it somewhat suspicious considering their recent air strike against a Syrian convoy (a strike, by the way, which may turn out to have more serious consequences than Israel would like). If Russia were to provide Syria with the high-tech systems that are being rumored, it would cause serious trouble for anyone that wanted to fly anywhere near the country, let alone those that would commit to air strikes. The piece of technology in question is the S-300, an anti-missile and aircraft system that is on par with what the military in the west has. Russia, naturally, denied the rumor, despite their existing $5 billion contract for arms sales to Syria.
And though the movement of a battery of S-300s into Syria may not be on the table, Russia has said nothing about ceasing arms sales in general. If anything, they've confirmed that they still have a contract to complete and that they are unwilling to halt the sales. They did explicitly say that they will not be transferring any S-300s, which is good news for Western forces and their allies. The S-300 has a 125-mile range and the ability to knock down both aircraft and other missiles. Should things turn more aggressive between international forces and Syria, people would not be happy to have Russian equipment killing their soldiers. Of course, the existing air defense systems in Syria are also Russian, although they’re not on quite the same level.
The entire affair seems more like some sort of Cold War game, whereby Russia arms the enemies of the West in order to ensure that they do not become victim to attacks. The U.S., in turn, tries to arm the rebels. Syria becomes some sort of perverse chess board with super powers moving the pieces and encouraging the sacrifice of lives in the name of victory. Things may be changing, however, in that Russia is beginning to side with the US more and more. They are currently, with the help of Western allies, trying to get yet another round of peace talks going between Assad’s regime and the rebels. While still firmly against armed intervention, this is at least a step in the right direction.
Ultimately, the question of how to get peace in Syria is secondary to the question I’m raising. Is it acceptable to be feeding weapons into a country during a civil war? Are the loss of lives simply collateral damage in creating stability? And is the continued sale of weapons for the sake of profit an act that is anything less than pure evil? Russia calls for peace but encourages war. And, if Russian accusations are accurate, the West is no better, merely more subtle in selling their weapons to neighbors and allies of the rebels so that they will find their way into Syria without direct intervention.
The only argument that seems valid to me is that the S-300 defense systems do need to be kept out of Syrian hands. The threat of air strikes against the country, no matter how brutal that may seem, it one of the only advantages outside peacekeepers have to force Assad to even consider peace talks. If he were able to secure the S-300s or anything equally as powerful, there would be no need for him to do anything other than continue the conflict until he won or until the entire country lay scorched from war. And, most likely, both the U.S. and Russia would continue to feed weapons into the country, betting on their team to win and ignoring the count of innocent lives lost.
Russian S-300 photo courtesy of Vovan via Wikicommons
Syrian soldier/Russian AK-47 photo courtesy of Scott Bobb via Wikicommons
