Students of international relations and history find it easy to study the foreign and military policies of czarist Russia, the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia under Vladimir Putin. Whatever the regime's ideology, its actions are quite predictable. The idea is to put spokes in the enemy's wheels, whoever that enemy may be, to exhibit a strong presence, and to cynically and aggressively hold on to their clients, even if they abandon them when their imperialist interests make it convenient for them to do so.
On the eve of the First Gulf War in 1991 and the Second Gulf War in 2003, Russia made sure to send Soviet and Russian diplomacy's can-do man, Yevgeny Primakov, to try to forestall a Western attack hours before it began.
Every time Primakov landed, it disrupted the planned path of the West's cruise missiles, just as Russia's current intervention is disrupting the West's planned steps to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But if the Russians are in the habit of drawing parallels, Primakov's buddy Saddam Hussein did not exactly emerge unscathed and it is possible that the same fate will befall their current ally, the man slaughtering his own people in Syria.
The Russians also tried to disrupt NATO's measures against Serbia in 1999 when they sent senior officers on impromptu visits to Serbia and tried to emphasize the common Slavic roots and Orthodox Christian culture of the two nations.
This intervention quite frequently came close to confrontation, when the landing of a Russian delegation in Kosovo disrupted the landing of NATO forces.
Almost a generation has passed since what has inaptly been defined as "the end of the Cold War," but Russia continues to present challenges in the Middle East to Western powers, chiefly the United States. It presents positions that prove that it is part of the problem, and therefore part of the solution.
Russia has invested massively in the current Syrian regime. Syrian contracts with the Russian weapons industry are estimated at about $4 billion. It is in Russia's interest that Assad be able to uphold regular payments. Beyond that, moving Russian warships to the area of the eastern Mediterranean harkens back to a long history of Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean.
Russia's message is clear. It's potentially belligerent navy will sail alongside the Western ships, and can also provide high-quality intelligence to the Syrians. The Port of Tartus is the only Russian port in the Mediterranean and if the area fell into the hands of the rebels, not to mention if Assad's regime fell, this would represent a strategic loss of the greatest importance for Russia.
Of course, should Russia lose this strategic ally, they will quickly recover and find new forces that will be of use to them in the centuries-old great superpower game in the Middle East, and not only there.
The writer teaches Eastern European history at Tel Aviv University.
