Russlands militære intervensjon i Syria - bakgrunn, gjennomføring og konsekvenser

Russia’s military intervention i Syria, which was carried out in the period from September 30, 2015 to March 15, 2016, has been the country’s first major “out of area” operation since the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As a military operation, the Russian intervention in Syria has been radically different from the interventions in Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia in 2008, for instance with regard to the size and location of the area of operations, the legal justification of the operation, and the scope, scale, intensity, and duration of Russia’s use of force. In the Syria operation, Russian ground, naval, and air forces have operated far from home, in support of, and based on a formal request from, the ruling regime in a country ravaged by a long-lasting civil war. The “hybrid war” dimension has been less prominent than it was in Ukraine (Crimea and Donbas) in 2014 and Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) in 2008. In Syria, Russia’s means of air power have largely played the main role in the campaign. In the course of their five-and-a-half-month campaign in Syria, Russian air forces have conducted more than 9,000 sorties. The Russian forces have had the opportunity to test – and demonstrate – many of their new or recently modernized sensors and effectors. Precisionguided munitions (PGMs), including satellite-guided aerial bombs and land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), have been used for the first time in a combat operation by Russian forces. Some of the cruise missiles have been launched from the air by long-range strategic bombers operating from the Russian mainland. Others have been launched from the sea, by surface vessels positioned in the Caspian Sea, more than 1,500 kilometers away from the theater of operations, and from a conventional diesel submarine of the Kilo class, operating in the Mediterranean. The Syria intervention has been described as “Russia’s first USA-style war”. Russia’s military capability has clearly been strengthened in the period from 2008 to 2016. Still, one should be careful to conclude that the country is now militarily on a par with the U.S. and NATO. Many of the Russian weapon platforms are still less sophisticated than their Western counterparts. Russia does still not have unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) and many other kinds of weaponry that the U.S. and others have in their arsenal. Russia has in recent years acquired more, better, and longer-range precision-guided weapons, but there is little doubt that older, non-guided weapons still play an important role in the Russian air operations concept. Most of the munitions used during the Russian air campaign in Syria were non-guided. With regard to the political aspects of Russia’s intervention in Syria, it seems that Russia may have been eager to overcome the international political and economic isolation that the country has found itself in after the 2014 intervention in Ukraine. In the West as well as in Russia, the Islamic State (IS) is seen as a grave threat to the security of Europe and Russia. Russia wants to play an active role in shaping the future of Syria and the Middle East at large, and turn itself into an “indispensable” conversation partner for leading western nations. Russia has also had some degree of success with this strategy. At the same time, it is clear that Russia’s military intervention in Syria, and the downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015, have led to a significant worsening of Russia’s relations with Turkey. The latter incident has also further complicated Russia’s already strained relationship with NATO.