The Soviets, Their Successors and the Middle East: Turning Point (Rusi Defence Studies)

This book documents a turning point in history. It traces the evolution of relations between the Soviet Union and its successor states on the one hand, and the Middle East on the other, during the decade which saw the transformation of the Soviet Superpower into a collection of troubled and fractious independent states. This brief period has brought fundamental changes not only for the peoples of the former Soviet Union itself, but also for the international balance of power and hence for the political and military configuration in the Middle East. When the breakup of the Soviet Union was formally acknowledged, at the end of 1991, an attempt was made to transfer some power to the collective membership of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In effect, the Russian Federation inherited the Soviet seat at the United Nations Security Council and ultimate responsibility for the Soviet nuclear arsenal. In the interests of maintaining at least a semblance of continuity in international affairs, the leading Western powers favoured this transition rather than a complete reorganisation of the UNSC. Also, they did not want to abandon agreements reached with the Soviet Union on nuclear arms control. Moscow was obviously not averse to the new arrangements and, ostensibly, took up where the Soviet Union had left off, with joint sponsorship of the Middle East peace process, in partnership with Washington. Formalities could not, however, disguise the fact that Russia, consumed with problems on the domestic front, lacks the international weight to act as a counterbalance to the United States. In the Middle East in particular, Russia has neither the ability nor the will to defend Introduction: Sliding into a New Era the interests of Arabs, formerly allied to the USSR, in a confrontation with Israel. In reality, the USSR has been replaced by not only the Russian Federation but some eleven different states, comprising a mix of ethnic groups and divided by borders designed by the Soviets to undermine rather than bolster internal unity in the separate republics. All face problems of political dislocation and economic malaise. In the Transcaucasus, Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan are at war over control of the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, inside Azerbaijan. In Central Asia, the traditionally Muslim peoples of the new states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kirgizistan and Kazakhstan are caught up in a battle for their hearts and minds. The contenders for influence, and access to resources and potential markets, are secularist Turkey and theocratic Iran, along with Arab Muslim states and Israel, as well as business and political interlopers from further afield. The fact that the successor states of the Soviet Union can no longer act as one, and have limited power to wield, has spelt the demise of the bi-polar world, dominated and ordered since the Second World War by competition between the two Superpowers. The significance of the end of the Cold War was starkly apparent in the Middle East even before the final break-up of the Soviet Union. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the Soviets raised no insuperable obstacles to United States military deployment to the Gulf, or to US and allied initiatives at the UNSe, sanctioning the use of force to oust Iraq from the Emirate. The Gulf War of 1991, in effect the first Arab-American war, transformed the regional balance of power in the Middle East. The diminution of Iraq raised the military profile of Iran on the one hand, and Israel on. the other, by default. The extent of US political and military involvement in the region was enhanced. As pointed out by the contributors to this work, the successor states of the Soviet Union may have lost their old ideological reasons for antagonism with the US, but geography dictates that they retain an interest in influencing developments on their doorstep, including in the Middle East. For Russia, historical Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Sliding into a New Era....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 The Soviet Union, Israel and the PLO: Policy Shift in the 1980s....Pages 19-54 The Soviets and the Gulf: Changing Priorities in the 1980s....Pages 55-80 Front Matter....Pages 81-81 The Soviet Union and Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait....Pages 83-114 Front Matter....Pages 115-115 Russia’s New Priorities and the Middle East....Pages 117-141 Whither Central Asia?....Pages 143-178 Back Matter....Pages 179-206 Traces developments in Soviet policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict and toward the Gulf region during the last years of the Cold War, as a prelude to analysis of the Soviet role in the 1990-91 Gulf conflict. Background material on Central Asia dispells commonly held myths about Islamic identity.