Will the civil war in Syria begin a second Cold War?

One of the pre-conditions for the Cold War was the existence of nuclear weapons, and the knowledge of mutually assured destruction. Another of the pre-conditions for the Cold War was the resolute leadership (and populace) of the opposing post-World War 2 powers, the USSR and the USA.

In other words, the awareness of each other's nuclear capability acted as deterrent to outright hostilities, while each nation's depth of commitment to its political and social ideology meant that withdrawal or capitulation was not an option.

Is Syria the first proxy war of Cold War 2.0?

No, not really.

Nuclear weapons remain a potent deterrent, now and prior to 1991. Russia has replaced the USSR as one of the two powers, with greater strength than the USSR in some ways (no longer socialist, religiously tolerant), but less in others (equally or more authoritarian leader, loss of Soviet bloc nations in eastern Europe and central Asia). Russia certainly has resolute leadership. A cold war requires two antipodal powers though.

The USA's presidential leadership under the Obama administration is weaker than that of any president during the Cold War years. Putin is described in many unflattering ways--as a thug and a former KGB agent--but never as effete. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is intelligent and perceptive. He is a formidable counterpart to our recent secretaries of state, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

The Syrian Civil War and containment of ISIS cannot be a US versus Russia proxy war if US foreign policy is indecisive, slow-moving, and undermined by the belief that Russia's need to retain its sphere of influence (even though primarily for its own domestic security) is "on the wrong side of history" thus should be ignored.

Artistic rendering of Marie Harf

Another example of the Obama State Department cluelessness is provided by US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf: She said that unemployment was a primary motivation for the formation of ISIS. 

I found the not-so-nice drawing of her above.

Had a good job, still committed jihad

The BBC could not have phrased it better in this 19 February 2015 article, #BBC Trending: No jobs causes jihad

US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf, has been ridiculed for her comments about fighting Islamic State through employment... Harf told MSNBC that... jobs and opportunity would dissuade people from joining - and thus prevent terrorism.

The notion was met with derision by conservatives, and has led to a flood of online memes. Everything from mock hashtags like #jobsforISIS to pictures of known terrorists like Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, with captions like "had a good job, still committed jihad" to personal attacks against Harf herself, making jokes about her age, appearance and intellect.

Cognitive egocentrism: Jobs for Jihadis

Harf chose to share her policy proposal during the White House Counter Violence Extremism Summit, with 60 countries in attendance, discussing how to counter radical ideologies and stop terrorist networks. 

Harf chose to double down, speaking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN the next day: 

“We cannot win the war on terror, nor can we win the war on ISIS, by killing them. We need to find them jobs. We need to get to the root cause of terrorism and that is poverty and lack of opportunity in the terrorist community.”

Blitzer noted that "some of the best-known terrorists out there came from wealth and privilege, with higher education, degrees, whether Mohamed Atta or bin Laden himself..."

Maybe she convinced someone: A few days later, in his speech at the summit, President Obama emphasized the need to tackle economic frustrations.

The BBC article noted the resulting brouhaha:

The US State Department is not generally known to be a news-making machine. On a normal day, getting anyone at the podium to even remotely veer from their talking points is a feat. Getting the attention of Americans outside of Washington, DC is almost impossible.

Whether inadvertent or not, Harf's comments turned out to be a highly publicised roll out of a bit of foreign policy.

Anything but Islamic extremism

"Study after study has proven that there is no connection between Islamist terrorist recruitment and poverty, unemployment and lack of education," writes Clarion's National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro. "This was the conclusion of a survey of 400 Al-Qaeda members all the way back in 2004... Simple observations and basic logic falsifies this Marxism-rooted theory that terrorism is basically the result of class warfare and social inequality...

The U.S. government publicly grasps for straws to find any explanation for the Islamic State other than Islamic extremism."

Here's a real photo of Marie Harf, she of the blonde hair, enormous black horn-rimmed eyewear, and former CIA intelligence analyst, at the time.

Marie Harf speaking to the press

Putin tests the waters

Prior to the US-instigated, Victoria Nuland/Kagen-coordinated Ukrainian color revolution and regime change in 2014, Russia provided medical and financial support to many ethnic Russians of the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk as well as separatists in Crimea.

Russia annexed or more accurately,"liberated" South Ossetia and Abkhazia in January 2015. Both are regions of Georgia, bordering Russia, see Russia’s Quiet Annexation of South Ossetia. Russia is now flying bombing missions with its own air force over Syria, its client state.

Purple region is South Ossetia

Image source: United Nations (2015)

The fact that Russia is using its own air force seems significant. During the Cold War, Warsaw Pact states were guided by Soviet advisors. Direct intervention by Soviet military forces was uncommon and only used in crisis situations such as the 1956 Hungarian revolution.

We can respond in various ways:

• defuse the situation with explicit support for the legitimate elected leader of Syria, Al-Assad, against ISIS;
• challenge Russia's extraterritorial use of military force through diplomatic channels of communication.

Instead, Joe Biden and the Kagen-Nulands of the Institute for the Study of War, as well as John McCain and Lindsey Graham, do neither. Marie Harf makes risible statements about how the barbaric Caliphate can be defused. 

Immoderate insurgency

I talked to a Syrian refugee in the British Isles, on Twitter, after he read this. He doubted that Russia's use of its own planes, pilots, and crew was tactical. Instead, he told me that Assad had purged all Sunni and non-Alawites from the Syrian Air Force, as he was too uncertain of their allegiance to him. As a result, there were few capable pilots remaining.

I asked my Twitter friend why Alawites would be less competent pilots, but I haven't gotten a reply yet.

In response to my questions, he confirmed that yes, Russia bombed Syrian rebel forces and ISIS-controlled areas to help Assad retain control of Damascus.  However, he claimed that Putin and Assad's ties were fraying: Russia defended Syria as much to ensure its only access to a Mediterranean port as to support Assad.

If non-state actors (I think that's the terminology, i.e. ISIS or the fragmented, chaotic "moderate Syrian insurgents") captured Damascus, there would be total breakdown of the city's port and infrastructure, analogous to what happened to Libya's port cities, post-Khaddaffi. That would be terrible.

But... I am still puzzled, as I thought Russia DID consider Assad a close ally.

EDIT  November 2023

I wrote the above in 2015. I have learned a lot since then! 

Syria could have been the first proxy war of Cold War 2.0. For various reasons, mostly because ISIS was not controllable in the way Zelensky is, Project Ukraine became the first proxy war of the West and NATO versus Russia. Russia is every bit as dangerous as in 2015 if not more so, including nuclear weapons. I hope an end to it will be soon.