Russian Model for the Management of the Syrian Crisis

پژوهش نامه ایرانی سیاست بین الملل

Article 9, Volume 8, Issue 2 - Serial Number 16, June 2020, Pages 215-248   

Document Type: مقالات

DOI: 10.22067/irlip.2021.21258.0

Authors

Mohammad Javad Fathi^{* 1}; Abdolvahab Yosefinezhad²

¹PhD Student in Political Science (Futurism of Political Studies of the Islamic Revolution), Shahed University, Faculty of Humanities

²Graduate of Central Asian and Caucasus Studies, ECO Insurance Higher Education Institute, Allameh Tabatabai University,

Abstract

The Syrian crisis has threatened the interests of the Russian Federation more than any other transregional actor; therefore, to protect its interests in the strategic region of the Middle East and the Mediterranean subsystem, it has sought to manage the developments. The central question of the research is what are the characteristics of the Russian model of crisis management in Syria? To answer this question, Charles Hermann’s Crisis Cube theoretical model and the three components of “threat”, “time”, and “awareness” have been used. The crisis has left Russia with a choice between three management models: peaceful and software, coercive and aggressive, and intelligent management. In the Syrian crisis, the threat to Russia's core values is insignificant and on the other hand, there is plenty of time to respond to threats, and of course, there is a lack of awareness of the events and where they occur; hence, according to the Crisis Cube model, the Russian Federation's interpretation of the developments in Syria is that the crisis is slow, so there is no urgency for aggressive and coercive actions. The findings show that the Russian officials, based on the type of inference and interpretation of the three main characteristics of the Crisis Cube, concluded that the model of intelligent crisis management with the priority of using software levers will bring about better results for them. This research has been done qualitatively using a descriptive-analytical approach and the method of data collection has been documentary-library method.

Keywords

intelligent management; Russia; the Syrian crisis; Crisis Cube

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