Russia in the Middle East

There is an outpouring of reporting on Russian activities in Syria, and to a lesser degree other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. But until now, there has been no single effort to analyze the totality of Russian objectives there as well as its instruments of power, tactics and strategy or their implications for US foreign policy. Russia in the Middle East rectifies that gap by providing the basis and material for a multi-dimensional analysis of Moscow’s regional strategy and tactics.

Based on the insights that emerged out of a series of three workshops headed by Theodore Karasik and Stephen Blank, this study addresses the hole in Western and, more specifically, US understanding of Russia’s goals as well as the pathways to the Kremlin’s success. Russia in the Middle East brings to bear the best expert assessments of the full range of Russian objectives and the strategies involved in realizing them throughout the Middle East from various perspectives, while exploring Russia’s political, economic and energy plans in the region out to 2025. The book is a must-have resource for all policymakers and experts working on understanding how Moscow is leveraging its relative strengths in this complicated corner of the world.