Strengthening Russia's position in the arms market in the Middle East helps to strengthen Russian political influence and authority in the region, writes the China Daily newspaper.
For many years the Soviet Union, and the last quarter of a century Russia, have been considered the second exporter of weapons after the United States. Moscow's annual income from arms sales in 2012-15 the average is estimated at $ 14.5 billion. A distinctive feature of the past ten years has been a significant increase in Russian arms sales in the Middle East. It serves the strategic goals of Moscow's policy in this oil-rich, but very "hot" region of the planet - to become a key player in the region, the Chinese newspaper notes.
According to Chatam House expert Nikolai Kozhanov, cited by China Daily, until recently Russia has been extremely cautious about using arms exports as a means of achieving political goals. Now everything has changed. Russia's rapidly growing role in the Middle East arms market has added decisiveness and confidence to the Kremlin.
Instability in the region gives every reason to assert that this region will remain one of the main arms markets for the foreseeable future. Of course, the Middle East arms market is not new for Russia, Kozhanov notes. The Soviet Union supplied weapons to Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Yemen. However, the collapse of the USSR led to a sharp drop in Russian arms exports. The Russian military-industrial complex was greatly weakened by privatization, which was carried out during the leadership of the country by Boris Yeltsin. In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of important enterprises of the military-industrial complex ended up on the territory of independent states, which had recently been former Soviet republics. The loss of such important ports as Odessa and Ilyichevsk was a particularly strong blow.
By 2012, Russia's position in the Middle East arms market had weakened greatly. The fall of the regimes of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 resulted in the loss of important long-term clients. Just because of the regime change in Libya, Russia's losses in the arms trade amounted, according to Rosoboronexport analysts, to $ 6.5 billion. Despite the fact that Russia managed to maintain its presence in Syria and Algeria, the overall volume of weapons sold was not impressive. At the same time, several attempts by Russian exporters to enter the arms market of the Persian Gulf countries ended in failure. Western competitors managed to repel the attacks of competitors from Russia.
The turning point, according to Nikolai Kozhanov, was the war in Syria. Russian arms exporters got a second wind, because Russian weapons demonstrated their high qualities in practice, and not at the test site. The events in Syria have drawn the attention of all Middle Eastern countries to our weapons, including the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, which traditionally focused on arms exporters from the West.
Bahrain, for example, ordered a large batch of AK-103 assault rifles in 2011, and three years later became the first state in the region to buy Kornet anti-tank missile systems from Moscow. These deals were small, but they helped open the door to the Gulf arms market.
The volume of contracts between Middle Eastern countries and Russian exporters increased significantly in 2011-14. At the same time, Kozhanov notes, Russia has returned to arms markets in Egypt and Iraq, which have been dominated by American firms in recent years. Two years ago, Russia signed an agreement to supply Egypt with MiG 29M2 fighters, Mi-35M attack helicopters, S300 anti-aircraft missile systems and Bastion coastal missile systems worth 3.5 billion dollars. In addition, last year a contract was signed between Cairo and the Irkut corporation for the supply of 12 modernized Su-30K fighters to Egypt.
In May, the Turkish newspaper BirGun reported that countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are also going to switch to Russian weapons. Algeria, for example, in 2015 signed an agreement on the purchase of 12 Su-32 fighters, IL-76MD-90A transport aircraft and Mi-28 attack helicopters for $ 500-600 million.
At the same time, the Chatam House expert draws attention to the fact that Russian companies sold weapons to all states of the region without restriction, while American companies, for example, suspended supplies to Bahrain in 2011 so that the government would not suppress opposition protests during the Arab Spring. Likewise, they were discontinued in 2013-14. arms sales to Egypt in order to put pressure on Cairo.
The extremely cautious and slow delivery of American weapons to Iraq at a time when Baghdad especially needed military equipment to repel the offensive of the Islamic State, banned in Russia, showed the Middle East countries that Washington's hegemony in this area had come to an end.
Of course, Moscow's interest in the export of weapons, Kozhanov emphasizes, is not only economic in nature. With the help of arms sales, Russia is trying, not without success, to change the balance of power in the region. She has tried this before. For example, the decision not to sell S-300 missiles to Syria in 2012 improved relations with Israel, and missile shipments to Iran this year helped bring the dialogue between Moscow and Tehran to a new, higher level.
The exact share of the Middle East in the structure of Russian arms exports is unknown. The range of estimates is very wide - from 8, 2 to 37, 5% (1, 2 - 5, 5 billion dollars). Despite the obvious successes achieved in recent years, Russia's position in the Middle East arms market cannot yet be called unshakable. In this regard, the difficulties of the Russian military-industrial complex and the economic crisis have a negative effect.
Arms trade is good in geopolitical terms also in that it “ties” buyers to the seller for a long time, because the purchased equipment needs to be monitored, it needs to be repaired and modernized, it needs spare parts, and so on. This means that the return of Russia to the Middle East has taken place and that hardly anyone will be able to knock it out of there in the coming years, the China Daily concludes.
