Wagner: A Prong of the Trifurcate Russian Strategic Failure (Part II)

Historically, for a coup to succeed in Russia, several factors needed to happen simultaneously: generals from the army had to conspire with both the security and political elite in the main power centers, funded by economic oligarchs, public opinion shaped and their actions justified by intellectuals and ideologues (during the era of the Soviet Union) or blessed by the authority of the Orthodox Church (in the Russian tsarist period or after). The rebellion of the Wagner Company and its resolution to overthrow the authorities in Moscow lacked many of these factors and elements that have customarily realized the ultimate goals of these coups and secured their success in seizing power and ruling over the state.

Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion meeting the wishes and the thoughts of most Russians and the Russian political, intellectual, and economic elites, the Wagner commander-in-chief could not persuade any significant figures from the political or security upper crust in Moscow, entice an elite of Russian nationalist thinkers, or secure the blessings of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church. He could not win them over or organize them into a single movement, which caused his rebellion to fail. Security, military, and political circles remain aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, necessarily obedient and submissive. So far, no one from the centers of power has shown opposition, dissent, or determination to resist executing orders or hesitation to enforce measures ordered by President Putin. Theorists of Russian nationalism still have their bets on President Putin to restore the glories of the Russian Empire, spread its influence in Eurasia, and reconfigure the geopolitical sphere in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic and Black Seas, stretching to Greece, the Balkans, Bulgaria, and Central Asia to what it was at the height of its expansion and historical glory, or to match the Russian nationalists’ hopes and aspirations for Russia in the upcoming historical cycle of the international order. The Orthodox Church’s clergy believes Putin to be the protector of Orthodox Christians around the world, their only refuge and safe haven to be Russia under President Putin. Russian nationalist thinkers such as Alexander Dugin and Vladislav Surkov, supported by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, combined efforts to refine and embellish these ideas for President Putin. In 2013, President Putin held a meeting attended by the heads of 13 Orthodox churches around the world, in which President Putin addressed them, attacking the spread of moral decadence in the West in his speech, stressing that a family is composed of a male and a female, in direct rejection of the homosexuality that has spread in the West unopposed by political parties, political forces, civil society, and even some Western churches. In his speech, Putin went to declare himself as the protector of Orthodox Christianity in the world. However, when Turkish President Erdogan turned the historic Orthodox Church in Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, to a mosque where he held the first Friday sermon in the summer of 2020, it did not provoke any response from President Putin, and it did not make the Russian Orthodox Church incite President Putin to face Turkey and President Recep Erdogan after he offended Orthodox believers around the world. Quite the contrary: Dmitry Peskov, the official spokesperson for the Kremlin, said that converting the historic Orthodox Church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque, is an internal Turkish affair that will impact Russian-Turkish relations! It is important to contrast this to the Russian Orthodox Church’s vehement opposition to the establishment of the Kyiv Orthodox Church in 2019 and its separation from the Russian Church. Although the historical Ukrainian Church remained affiliated with the Russian Church, the Russian Church likened this separation to the schism of 1054 A.D. that created an Oriental and Occidental churches, while refusing to comment on Erdogan’s action regarding Hagia Sophia, that amounted to a greater offence than that of Kiev.

This Russian policy is a quantic case inexplicable through classical political analysis. Similarly, other geopolitical facts and events that led to the strategic Russian failure are quantum cases, unreasonable and impossible to interpret using the prevailing traditional political analyses.

The most blatant forms of strategic Russian failure are based on three incidents: the war that Russia launched against Ukraine and the magnification of the Wagner phenomenon, refraining from interfering in Libya at the beginning of the crisis in 2011, and then interfering with it since 2016 by colluding with the forces of Major General Khalifa Haftar in the failed 2019 siege of Tripoli and and the retreat from Tripoli to the Al-Jufra-Sirte axis, and finally the inability to resolve the war in Syria despite partaking in it since September 2015.

The strategic Russian failure in Ukraine is the result of many factors, the least of which is the failure of Russian intelligence apparatuses to accurately assess the situation in Ukraine, ending with poor strategic planning and a weak tactical military operation. On the other hand, the strategic Russian failure in Lybia and Syria is the result of Putin’s delusion about a Russian-Turkish partnership or a strategic relationship.

Perhaps the Russian geostrategic intervention in Ukraine is a quantic geopolitical reality as will be demonstrated later. Meanwhile, the strategic Russian failure in Libya and Syria as a the result of the illusion entertained by Putin of a possible Russian-Turkish partnership is a meta-quantic geopolitical reality and an unreasonable political situation.

• In Libya:

In 2011 in the Security Council, Russia abstained from voting on a proposition by the Arab League to protect civilians in the city of Benghazi from an imminent attack by the Libyan Army, ordered by Mu’ammar Al Gaddafi, that threatened to destroy the city and exterminate its inhabitants. It was impossible to avoid this eventuality except through a decision to establish a no-fly zone in Eastern Libya to secure the civilians from air strikes by the Libyan Airforce. Arabs made this proposition to the Security Council because of their inability to establish it on their own. Russia feared it might be accused by Arab countries of civilian bloodshed in Benghazi in case it resorted to using its veto power. Instead, when the resolution was voted on, Russia abstained, and the resolution passed to establish a no-fly zone in Eastern Libya enforceable under Chapter VII, article 42. Russia did not keep its alliance with Gaddafi and the Libyan-Russian common defense and cooperation agreement. Russia betrayed Gaddafi after learning that France – the leader of the war on Gaddafi – promised Russia to secure its strategic and financial interests and Russian investments in a post-Gaddafi Libya. Russia then claimed that it was duped by the West who crossed the boundaries of protecting civilians through the establishment of a no-fly zone in the East to the destruction of Libya and deposing Mu’ammar Gaddafi’s regime after an air campaign launched by NATO to destroy the Russian-made Libyan air defenses. The West also destroyed the Libyan Army, which relied on Russian weaponry since the 1970s, and the Libyan infrastructure. The West defaulting on its promises angered Russia, with French Total, Italian Eni, American Shell and Chevron, and British BP investing in and starting production in the oil and gas fields in the oil crescent and Libyan refineries and ports.

When Russia decided to make up for its financial and strategic losses in Libya, it failed to devise a correct and sound strategy to follow. It pushed the Wagner Company to work and design plans and field tactics. Wagner started shady military and financial alliances and business and investment deals with Khalifah Haftar and his two sons. They sourced mercenaries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, bringing the Janjaweed and the Rapid Support Forces from Sudan to Eastern Libya. They benefitted from the Emirati air cover that shelled and prepared the terrain for the advancement of this amalgamation of forces led by General Khalifah Haftar until it faced the forces in Tripoli in a battle of liberation that they launched to control it and oust Fayiz Al Siraj’s national accord government. This was through a strange limited tactical alliance and cooperation between Russia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, and Egypt. Meanwhile, through the AFRICOM command, the United States and Turkey, Italy, Algeria, and Tunisia supported the Consensus Government in Tripoli. The war in Libya was a bizarre quantic geopolitical event. In Syria, along with the Syrian Army, Russia fought the opposition factions supported by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, and others. At the same time, Russia cooperated with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and France in Libya and supported General Haftar’s forces to enter Tripoli in 2019. This pushed the national accord government led by Al Siraj to sign a defense and economic agreement with Turkey in 2019, approved by the US to ensure Tripoli does not fall into the hands of Russian allies. Turkey pushed thousands of Syrian mercenaries into Tripoli through an air campaign. The Turkish Army designed the strategy and forced Russia’s allies to withdraw from Tripoli and its surroundings, especially from the strategic Al-Watiyah airbase and from the cities of Tarhunah, Surman, and Sabratah. Turkish Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) shelled Haftar’s supply corridors and his ammunition depots, destroying two Pantsir S1 air defense systems in February and March of 2020, which forced Haftar to retreat to the Al-Jufrah-Sirte axis, thereby disintegrating the temporary and local Russian-Egyptian-Saudi-Emirati-French alliance supporting Haftar. The Russian strategy in Libya failed because of its weakness and because of Putin’s reluctance to face Turkish president Erdogan, preferring to reconcile with him rather than defeat him- led by Putin’s delusional strategy to seek to sow discord and strategic confusion among NATO members, and his idea that Erdogan and Turkey could instigate this. Putin lavished Erdogan with strategic advances in Libya, Syria, and the Caucasus, chasing chimeras of pulling Turkey away from the West and having it exit NATO. This made Putin conclude the sale of the S400 Russian air defense system, funded by a Russian loan to the Turkish government, looking to stir functional chaos within NATO’s strategic apparatus because this Russian system cannot be connected and operated with NATO air defense systems. Putin’s move confused NATO for a short while, after which his S400 system went to Turkish Army repositories, and it became long forgotten without causing any “functional disruption” among the opposing NATO systems, as Putin had wished. Erdogan presented Russia only with chimeras in return for real geopolitical wins for Turkey from Russia in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus. It is, therefore, astonishing why Russia trades strategic illusions with geopolitical wins for Russia.

• In Syria:

The fundamental characteristic of Russian strategy during Putin’s rule is hesitation and waiting until it is too late for its interests and at a loss of time. This tendency will lead to the waste of its strategic endeavors. Russia was late to intervene in Libya, failing in its strategy there. It also postponed its campaign and war on Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, allowing the Ukrainian forces to train for battle during the conflict with the separatist forces in Donetsk and Luhansk. Had Russia waged war when it annexed Crimea in 2014, it would have drained the power of Europe, the United States, and NATO, reinstated deposed president Victor Yanukovich, and guaranteed Ukraine’s allegiance for a long time. When chaos and strife spread in Ukraine in 2014, NATO was weaker than organizing the ranks of the Ukrainian Army to face the Russian Army, and it could not provide it with regular ammunition like it has been happening since February 2022. Russia missed a historic chance for easy and swift deployment of its army in Ukraine and securing the inability of Kyiv to organize a fierce resistance like in the present day. The Ukrainian Army took the Kremlin by surprise with its good organization, its patience, the quality of its defense tactics, its vigor, and its high fighting spirits. Russia was late to use its nuclear weapons. Over a year into the war and the exposing of the Russian Army’s weak strategy and its flimsy tactical planning and functioning, the Russian Army’s prestige stands defaced. This allowed Chinese President Xi to warn Russian President Putin against using nuclear weapons in the war on Ukraine.

Russian President should have resorted to using tactical nuclear weaponry to destroy command, communication, and control centers in Kyiv, Lviv, and other significant axes of war as soon as the Russian Army’s weakness became apparent to him and before his allies and enemies realized the fall of the prestige of the Russian Army. Having failed to do so made his allies, ahead of his enemies, warn him against resorting to nuclear weapons. He lost a strategic chance to settle the war promptly, to reinforce the prestige of Russia in the hearts and minds of observers, and to pave the way for Russia’s return to the position of a world pole. China learned a lesson from Russia’s tactical and strategic failures and the weakness of the Russian army personnel in operating weapons: it will now likely resort to using tactical nuclear weapons early on in its coming invasion of Taiwan as soon as it detects a weakness in the performance of the Chinese Army in the battlefield. This will prevent a strategic failure similar to what happened to Russia.

In Syria, the prevailing characteristic of Russian strategy was its late intervention in the geopolitical spheres where its strategic interests lay. The Russian strategic occurrence is unique among all other occurrences in its supra-quantic, political impossibility.

The strategic physical presence of Russia came late in September 2015. For a year prior, Russia was content with providing political and diplomatic support for the Syrian government in international assemblies. It used its veto right several times to halt Security Council resolutions that have endangered the Syrian government since 2011. This did not change until the situation on the field in Syria reached a critical point when opposition factions encircled Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs. They had also seized Idlib, Jisr al-Shughur, almost reached Salanfa, and separated the interior from the coast. The state was on the brink of disintegration, and the government nearly fell. Only then did Russia see the dangers posed by Islamist factions seizing Syria and the Collective Security states. Too many mercenaries from Central Asia had joined the opposition factions. Russia found fighting them on Syrian soil better than in these republics, Chechnya, and other Russian regions with a Sunni Muslim Turkic majority. Iranian general Qassem Suleimani elaborated on these dangers during his 2015 Moscow visit, presenting facts and evidence supporting his claim that it is an imminent danger to Russia and its neighboring countries if Islamic factions seize Syria.

Late Russian intervention in Syria coincided with many geopolitical and strategic repercussions and results:

• It halted the advancement of armed opposition factions toward major Syrian cities such as Aleppo, Hamah, Latakia, and Homs. Russian air cover and SU24, SU25, SU34, and SU35 bombers provided solid support to the Syrian Army and its allies fighting on the field to prepare for military battles and to switch from a defensive position to a position of attack against these factions.
• It protected the Syrian state from disintegration, with its precursor being Jabhat Al Nusra establishing its Islamic Emirate over some regions. Other factions took control over other areas, such as Ahrar-u-Shaam, the Islamic Army, Failaq ar-Rahman, and the Zinki movement. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant founded an Islamic Caliphate state between Syria and Iraq. “Syrian Democratic Forces” initiated self-rule in several cantons. This appeared to be the precursor to the disintegration of the Syrian state, and partially, Russian intervention prevented that and stopped the Syrian government and authority from crumbling.
• Syria became a ground for newly developed Russian weapon testing in real battlefield combat. President Putin stated several times that the Russian military-industrial complex benefited from the war in Syria to address defects in Russian weaponry.
• Turkey ascended to the position of a major regional pole as the second prong in Russia’s strategic failure. Turkey lost the pivotal geopolitical status it had garnered due to the competition during the Cold War and, later, the era of balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States was obligated to maintain a presence in the Incirlik air base, where it deployed medium-range Jupiter nuclear missiles in 1959 aimed at Soviet soil. Turkey lost that position after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkey could not regain its position despite its keenest efforts. Instead, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated in 2005 that Turkey is not a strategic ally to the United States after Turkey had refused to open its borders for the US Army to invade Iraq in 2003. Republican President George W. Bush refused to meet with then-prime minister of Turkey Erdogan in the White House, despite the latter’s insistence. Bush only agreed to meet him briefly for a mere 8 minutes at the margins of the general annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2007. Similarly, Obama refused to meet Erdogan during his second term up until 2016. Obama cited the degrading situation of democracy, public freedoms, and human rights in Turkey since the Justice and Development Part’s takeover of power in Turkey in 2002.

Turkish President continued to constantly criticize US and EU policies, denouncing their strategies in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, and their collaboration with Kurdish forces in the fight against Da’esh in Syria and Iraq since 2015 in an effort to coax them into giving him a role in the war and the establishment of a safe zone along the Syrian border. They continued to ignore him, denying his army – their NATO ally – entrance to Syria until the Russian intervention in 2015. Turkey mobilized substantial military support for the armed opposition factions in Syria, allowed thousands of mercenaries to enter Syria, and downed a Russian SU25 aircraft in November 2015, all of which angered Russia. Russia, consequently, threatened Turkey with retaliation. Turkey then demanded the activation of NATO Article 4 in the hope of dragging NATO into the Syrian war, deposing the Syrian government, and installing an opposition government allied with Turkey. However, the Turkish plan failed, and President Erdogan realized his NATO allies let him down. Russian President Putin surprised his allies even ahead of his enemies, as Erdoan surprised himself, when Putin offered Erdogan an unjustifiable strategy that allows the latter to achieve his strategic goals and gave him generous geopolitical gains. Putin opened for Erdogan doors that were shut by his Western allies and supported him after his NATO allies let him down in an incredible Russian strategy. Putin surprised his Russian and Syrian allies with a joint press conference with Erdogan in June 2017, during which he announced the establishment of de-escalation zones in Syria without discussing it with them first. Erdogan rushed to ratify the decision, and Putin allowed the Turkish Army to enter Syria through tradeoff deals according to which the Turkish Army took control of Northern Syria and Turkish soldiers could have observation posts as far as the city of Hamah, where they remained until 2019. The Turkish Army is still deployed in vast areas of Syria, from Ra’s Al ‘Ain to the East, and to Khirbet al-Joz in Jisr Ash-Shughur in Idlib to the West.

After drowning in the draining war in Ukraine, Russia cannot coerce Turkey out of Syria anymore. And after the fall of the might of the Russian Army that used to scare Turkey, Erdogan is no longer wary of angering Russia and Putin, especially after Prigozhin’s rebellion against President Putin.

To clarify the supra-quantic, inconceivable Russian-Turkish relationship, we present the following evidence:

• NATO removed its Patriot air defense system from Turkey in 2016, leaving Turkey unprotected. Russia offered Turkey the Russian S400 air defense system, funded by a loan from Russia.
• NATO prohibited the entry of Turkish forces into Syria until 2016, while Russia allowed Turkish forces to occupy vast swathes of land in the governorates of Aleppo, Al Riqqa, Al Hasakah, Idlib, Latakia, and Hamah.
• The West banned Turkey from developing a nuclear program, while Russia rushed to build the 4-reactor Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Mersin at a total cost of $ 20bnUS$. Putin presided over the plant’s opening with Erdogan in 2023 before the Russian elections in May 2023 to bolster Erdogan’s chances at winning. Rosatom built the plant with a loan from the Russian government. It will constitute the nucleus of the Turkish nuclear program despite the possibility of provoking the West.
• Allies of Turkey in the West imposed economic sanctions on Turkey to obstruct some of its policies, causing a deep economic crisis in which the Turkish Lira lost 300% of its value between 2018 and today. Putin accelerated his plan to turn Turkey into the center for gathering Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline and from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan through the TANAP pipeline to liquefy and export it to the European Union. Putin ordered the building of a Russian gas center in Istanbul, the price of which Turkey determines and re-exports. Erdogan promptly issued the decrees to build a Turkish gas center. Russia also contributed 5bn$ to the Central Bank of Turkey to halt the plunge of the Turkish Lira in 2022.
• Turkish Baykdar, the designer and manufacturer of the Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicle, concluded many deals to sell tens of BT2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles to Ukraine before and during Russia’s war against Ukraine. These UAVs destroyed the string of Russian tanks coming in from Belarus in March 2022 that had arrived in the surroundings of Kyiv, which forced the Russians to retreat at the beginning of April 2022. This retreat constituted the start of the Russian strategic defeat in Ukraine.
• Until today, the Turkish President calls on NATO to have Georgia and Ukraine join the ranks of NATO, despite Russia’s war against Georgia in the summer of 2008 to prevent the latter from joining NATO. Erdogan told the Ukrainian President, during his July 6, 2023 visit to Turkey, that Ukraine deserves to join NATO, and that he will give NATO advice to that effect during NATO’s July 11^th summit.
• Turkish Parliament agreed to allow Finland to join NATO, which facilitated obtaining this membership, despite Erdogan having alluded to Putin that Turkey would prohibit Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. Finnish-Turkish borders stretch 13,000 Km, which makes it a more dangerous strategic threat to Russia’s national security than Ukraine joining NATO.
• In 2022, Turkey put in effect Article 19 from the 1936 Montreux Treaty between the USSR and Turkey, organizing the influx of naval fleets and civilian ships into the Black Sea, which gives Turkey the de facto capability to control its presence in it in peace and war since Turkey also controls the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits. This prohibited the Russian fleet in Crimea from joining the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean and obstructed the arrival of military supplies from outside the Black Sea.

Through his “Fourth Political Theory,” nationalist thinker Alexander Dugin gave Putin the illusion that Turkey would leave NATO, arguing that it is a Eurasian state, not an Atlantic state and that its withdrawal from NATO will trigger the disintegration of NATO after which Turkey will join Russia since Russia is the leader of Eurasia.

Accordingly, Putin is still presenting Turkey and Erdogan with real geopolitical gains in the hope of realizing the illusion that Turkey would withdraw from NATO, sowing discord and animosity among its members. However, what is clear, is that Erdogan is attached to NATO now more than ever before, having witnessed the strategic benefits of being a member after the Russian-Ukrainian war and Finland’s and Sweden’s attempts to join after 200 years of strategic neutrality.

In the coming years and decades, Turkey’s elevation to a regional pole by Putin’s unsound strategy will prove disastrous to Russia. If Russia loses the war and political chaos spreads, Russian republics will start seeking independence from the center in Moscow. Turkey will likely incite Muslims in the Ural, Northern Caucasus, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Ingushetia to separate from Russia and become independent states.

Russia satisfied everyone in Syria except for the Syrian government. It gave Turkey influence and presence in Northern Syria, disregarded Israel’s air raids on Syrian Army and its allies’ bases, put effort into containing Iranian influence in Syria before the war on Ukraine to appease the United States and Israel, and gave Washington and its allies what they needed East of the Euphrates. It only ignored the interests of the Syrian state.

Russia is attempting to reconcile Turkey and Syria, knowing that no country in history has witnessed the extent of destruction and bloodshed that Syria suffered at the hands of its Turkish neighbor since 2011.

The strategic Russian failure in its relations with Turkey will prove to be more disastrous than its failure in Ukraine because Putin is still surrounded by the same political and intellectual entourage that misled and lied to him with opinions and strategic plans backed by false reports. Only then will they realize the fatal mistakes they made in their strategies.