hotel-rwanda.com

Chapter 35: The Spoils of War: A Mediterranean Fortress and an Emboldened Kremlin

The final scene is not one of battle, but of quiet, permanent, concrete consolidation. The camera pans across the sparkling, sun-drenched waters of the Eastern Mediterranean to the newly dredged and massively expanded harbor at Tartus, Syria. The once-sleepy Soviet-era supply depot is gone, replaced by a sprawling, state-of-the-art naval base. Brand-new Admiral Grigorovich-class missile frigates and Kilo-class submarines of the Russian Navy, gleaming with fresh grey paint, are docked at reinforced concrete piers, their crews moving with the easy, unhurried confidence of men at a home port, not on a temporary foreign deployment. Towering cranes, emblazoned with the Cyrillic logo of a Russian state-owned construction firm, methodically lift Kalibr cruise missile canisters into the vertical launch tubes of a waiting warship. A new Orthodox chapel, its small golden dome glinting in the sun, has been constructed near the barracks to tend to the spiritual needs of the garrison. Overlooking it all is a new, sprawling port command center, a fortress of steel and reinforced glass from which the Russian tricolor flutters in the warm sea breeze. These ships are no longer temporary guests in a friendly port; they are the permanent masters of a sovereign Russian deep-water fortress on Europe's vulnerable southern doorstep.

The scene hard-cuts to the hushed, cavernous chamber of the UN Security Council in New York, a world of polished wood, leather chairs, and practiced, empty diplomacy. The topic is yet another damning report from a human rights organization, this one detailing the systematic and deliberate use of barrel bombs and cluster munitions on residential neighborhoods in Idlib. A representative from a European nation gives a passionate, pleading speech about the "sanctity of the UN charter," the "sacred duty to protect civilians," and the "stain on our collective conscience." One by one, ambassadors from around the world express their grave concern and their profound regret. Then, it is Russia's turn. The Russian ambassador adjusts his microphone. His face is a mask of cynical, reptilian composure, utterly unmoved by the pleas that preceded him. He speaks not of the report, but of a "brave fight against international terrorism" and the "hypocrisy of the West." Then, the vote is called. He raises his hand. Without a hint of irony, without a flicker of shame, he vetoes the resolution that would have condemned the use of the very weapons his own air force had just helped to deploy, perfect, and profit from. The camera holds on his impassive expression as the resolution dies, a quiet, procedural murder of accountability that is just as devastating, in its own way, as any bomb.

The final shot is in the Kremlin, in the vaulted, sepulchral silence of the presidential office. Vladimir Putin sits, not at his grand desk signing decrees, but in a deep armchair in a quieter corner of the room. A large, silent television screen on the wall is tuned to a Western news broadcast. The screen shows the leaders of the free world at yet another chaotic international summit, their faces a mask of public anguish as they bicker and struggle to form a consensus on the latest crisis his policies have fueled. He sees their hesitation, their paralyzing fear of risk, their naive belief in a "rules-based order" that he knows is a fiction. He had seen it in Syria, and he was seeing it again now.

There is no triumphant smile on his face, nothing so crude or theatrical. Instead, there is the cold, confident, and deeply satisfied expression of a laboratory scientist who has just reviewed the unambiguous, conclusive results of a long and highly successful experiment. The hypothesis had been simple: in the modern era, is it possible for a great power to use overwhelming, systematic brutality in a proxy war to achieve all of its strategic objectives, and pay no significant price on the international stage?

Syria had provided the answer. He had intervened where they had dithered. He had leveled a city and broken every rule of modern warfare. He had tested his new weapons, blooded his new army, and outmaneuvered his rivals at every turn. He had cemented his power, established a permanent strategic fortress, and saved his client. The world had complained, had wrung its hands, had expressed its grave concern, but it had done nothing. It had imposed no new sanctions of any meaning, it had not isolated him, and it had actively avoided any military confrontation. He had learned the most critical lesson of the 21st century: the price of victory through calculated atrocity was zero.

A faint, almost imperceptible smile finally touches his lips. The Syrian experiment was over. The playbook was now proven. The cost was acceptable. The ground, he knew, was now prepared for a much larger, more ambitious, and far more important project much closer to home.

The Discourse 35: A Green Light for Aggression

35.1 The Tangible Spoils: A Fortress and a Salesroom
The Russian intervention in Syria was an unequivocal and stunning strategic success that yielded significant, tangible rewards. The primary spoils were military and permanent. Moscow secured formal, long-term, and legally binding agreements with the Assad regime—leasing the Tartus naval base for 49 years and granting outright sovereign control over the Khmeimim airbase. See [citation 1]. These were not minor outposts; they were transformed into permanent fortresses. The consolidation of these bases fulfilled a centuries-old Russian strategic ambition for a year-round, warm-water port with direct access to the Mediterranean. This allows its navy to permanently challenge NATO on its vulnerable southern flank, monitor U.S. and allied military activity, and project power and influence across the Middle East and into North Africa.

Beyond the bases, the war served as a brutally effective live-fire sales demonstration for the Russian military-industrial complex. New and modernized weapon systems, from Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea to advanced electronic warfare suites, were tested, refined, and showcased in a real-world combat environment. As noted by analysts at the Royal United Services Institute, this provided invaluable "proof of concept" for Russia’s modernized military, boosting international arms sales and allowing Moscow to market its hardware as "battle-tested" in direct competition with Western suppliers. See [citation 2]. A more critical spoil, however, was the perfection of Russia's model of hybrid warfare. Syria became the primary laboratory for the Wagner Group, where the Kremlin refined the use of "deniable" mercenaries to conduct savage ground assaults, absorb politically sensitive casualties, and seize valuable economic assets like oil fields and phosphate mines. See [citation 3]. This model of deploying a private army as a tool of statecraft, tested and professionalized in Syria, was then exported across Africa and deployed on a massive scale in Ukraine.

35.2 The Diplomatic Spoils: A Seat at the Head of the Table
Diplomatically, the intervention achieved Vladimir Putin's long-held goal of shattering the post-Cold War, US-centric unipolar world order and re-establishing Russia as an indispensable global power. By decisively and brutally intervening where the West would not, Putin became the central actor in the Syrian conflict. He proved that Russia was a more loyal—and more ruthless—ally to its clients than the United States often was to its own partners. See [citation 4]. He demonstrated this newfound power by successfully sidelining the West's diplomatic efforts, creating his own parallel diplomatic forum—the Astana peace process—alongside Iran and Turkey. This vehicle effectively supplanted the UN-led Geneva talks, forcing all regional powers, including U.S. allies like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, to come to Russia's table to protect their interests, thereby legitimizing Moscow's role as the ultimate arbiter of the conflict.

35.3 The Ultimate Lesson: The Moral Hazard of Impunity
The most important and catastrophic outcome of the Syrian intervention was the lesson it taught the Kremlin about the West. The complete failure of the international community to impose any meaningful, long-term consequences on Russia for its documented war crimes and its blatant violation of state sovereignty was interpreted in Moscow as a clear sign of weakness, division, and a profound lack of resolve. See [citation 5]. This created a massive "moral hazard." Russia had road-tested a doctrine of victory through atrocity, and the West had graded the experiment a success by failing to impose any significant punishment.

The price Russia paid for leveling cities was effectively zero:

• No Military Cost: The West, particularly the U.S. military, went to great lengths to "deconflict" with Russian forces in Syria's crowded skies, signaling clearly that avoiding a direct confrontation was the paramount goal, regardless of the level of atrocities being committed below.

• No Lasting Economic Price: While Russia was already under sanctions for its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, no new, crippling sectoral sanctions were ever applied specifically for its conduct in Syria. The global outrage over the siege of Aleppo did not translate into any significant, long-term economic punishment.

• No Diplomatic Isolation: Far from becoming a pariah, President Putin continued to be courted by Western leaders. French presidents hosted him at the Palace of Versailles, German chancellors pursued new, lucrative gas pipelines (Nord Stream 2), and the desire for "dialogue" consistently overrode any impulse for sustained isolation.

By demonstrating that the price for waging a war of annihilation on behalf of a client state was negligible, the West gave Russia a clear and unambiguous green light to contemplate future, more ambitious acts of aggression against a sovereign state in its near abroad. The impunity granted in the ruins of Aleppo was the down payment on the invasion of Ukraine.