The Soviet Roots of Putin’s Foreign Policy Toward the Middle East

There are significant differences between the former Soviet Union’s Middle East foreign policy and that of current Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the Soviet era, Moscow strongly supported revolutionary regimes at odds with pro-Western conservative ones in the region. But during the Putin era, Moscow has established good working relations with all governments in the Middle East, including those traditionally aligned with the West.

The two eras’ policies also appear vastly different to those of the late Mikhail Gorbachev/early Boris Yeltsin years, when Moscow’s foreign policy toward the Middle East was pursued more in cooperation with the West than in opposition to it. Two of Moscow’s leading Middle East experts, Yevgeny Primakov and Alexey Vasiliev, whose careers lasted from the Cold War into the Putin era, both criticized the ideological nature of Soviet foreign policy toward the Middle East. They believed that it undermined Moscow’s influence in the region, and they regarded Putin’s pragmatic policy of seeking good relations with all Middle Eastern governments, including those traditionally allied with the United States, as being far more successful.

Primakov was the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, then foreign minister, and then prime minister in the Yeltsin era. Putin also assigned him important tasks related to the Middle East before Primakov’s death in 2015. Putin’s own thinking on not just the Middle East but foreign policy more generally was said to be influenced by Primakov’s ideas. In his 2009 memoir, Primakov wrote, “Although the Soviet leadership of the 1950s and 1960s was inclined to support the Arab countries’ local communist parties, nothing could mask the reality that communism was a lost cause in the Middle East. . . . It took a while for this to be understood in Moscow, and the Kremlin was slow to show support for the Arab revolutionary nationalists.”¹

Vasiliev, a senior Russian scholar who has also been involved in advising policymakers, wrote one of the most comprehensive accounts of Russian foreign policy toward the Middle East. In it, he criticized the “messianism” of Soviet policy toward the region, noting how “the Bolsheviks who took power in Russia neither knew nor understood the East. . . . Mired in incompetence and dogmatism they attempted to adjust the highly complex realities of the Asian and African countries to fit Marxist slogans and ‘theories.’”²

While praise of Putin’s Middle Eastern policy by these two as well as by other Russian scholars might be seen as a means to preserve their job security, it appears to reflect their actual assessment that Putin’s policies have been more successful than Soviet era ones (and, of course, than the pro-Western interlude of the late Gorbachev and early Yeltsin eras).

Yet despite the clear dichotomy between Moscow’s ideologically driven Soviet-era support for anti-Western regimes on the one hand and its more interest-driven Putin-era support for both pro- and anti-Western regimes on the other, there are several similarities between Soviet policy and Putin’s more recent policy toward the region. Indeed, Putin’s Middle East policy could even be said to be a continuation of several aspects of Soviet era policy.

This article discusses three such policy similarities, identifies the problems that the Soviets encountered in trying to pursue their policies toward the region, and explores whether or not Putin-era foreign policy is subject to similar problems.

Pursuit of Good Relations Even With Pro-Western Governments

One key similarity between Soviet-era and Putin-era Middle East policies is that despite Soviet support for revolutionary regimes, the USSR also sought to have good relations with both revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes.

Even in the 1920s, Moscow established good working relations with monarchical governments in Iran, Hejaz (a kingdom first ruled by the Hashemites and then by the Saudis), and (North) Yemen—all of which shared some of Moscow’s anti-British interests.³ Moscow also had cooperative relations with the post-Ottoman Turkish republic during the 1920s and 1930s.⁴ Soviet involvement in the Arab world attenuated in the late 1930s due to Joseph Stalin’s purges (which also affected Soviet diplomats) and in the early 1940s due to Moscow’s need to cooperate with Britain and the United States in World War II.⁵

The Soviet Union voted in favor of the creation of the State of Israel at the UN General Assembly in November 1947 and was one of the first states to recognize Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948. Prior to this, Moscow established relations with King Farouk of Egypt in 1943 and maintained friendly relations with him—much to the dismay of the Egyptian Communist Party—until his overthrow by the revolutionary Arab Nationalist Free Officers in 1952.⁶ Indeed, the initial Soviet reaction to the coup that overthrew Farouk was negative.⁷ The Soviet Union also succeeded in reviving its relations with the monarchical regime in North Yemen during the mid-1950s—relations that were maintained until its imam/king was ousted in a Nasserist coup in 1962.⁸

Moscow had very bad relations with both Iran and Türkiye shortly after the end of World War II, when both countries became early flashpoints in the emerging Cold War. However, Moscow was able to restore cooperative relations with both countries in subsequent years. The Soviet Union provided economic assistance and even sold arms to the Shah’s government in Iran in the 1960s. And despite Türkiye’s membership in the NATO alliance, Moscow provided economic assistance to Ankara. Soviet-Turkish trade relations grew stronger during the Cold War era.⁹

A 1986 CIA report noted that “Moscow has long sought . . . to cultivate ties with ‘moderate’ Arab regimes,” and that the “Soviets have had their most success with” Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia.

Moscow’s Soviet-era support for revolutionary regimes in the Arab world even had a pragmatic aspect in that Moscow usually looked the other way when anti-Western but also anticommunist Arab nationalist regimes suppressed Arab communist parties, as occurred in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.¹⁰ In an anomalous case, the Soviets supported Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s policy of backing the Arab nationalist opposition to British rule in South Yemen. Britain’s military focus on this opposition group before departing the country in 1967 allowed the rival Marxist opposition to prevail (which Moscow, not surprisingly, began supporting soon after South Yemen’s independence.)¹¹

In short, Soviet foreign policy toward the Middle East during the Cold War (and before) was not always ideologically driven and was often opportunistic; Moscow sought to cooperate with “moderate” governments that worked closely with the United States but also had significant differences with it—especially over the Arab-Israeli conflict. As the 1986 CIA report put it, “Although the Kremlin’s long-term objective is developing Soviet influence in these countries, its more immediate and realistic goal is eroding US influence.”

The Soviets, of course, generally welcomed anti-Western political transformations in the Middle East since these were seen as geopolitical losses for Washington and gains for Moscow. But even when Moscow gained influence with new anti-Western regimes, these political transformations also had a harmful effect on the Soviet effort to cooperate with some “moderate” regimes. Several Gulf Arab monarchies feared that the Soviets would welcome their overthrow—a fear that was exacerbated by varying degrees of Soviet support for their internal opponents (for example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman, the Saudi Arabian Communist Party, and the Bahrain National Liberation Front). Even the leaders of anti-Western Middle Eastern governments sometimes feared that the Soviets were seeking to replace them with someone more pliant—including Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1971 before the Egyptian-American rapprochement, Sudan’s then anti-Western Arab nationalist regime also in 1971, and Iraq’s Ba’ath regime in 1978.

Simultaneous Support for Opposing Sides

Another key similarity between Soviet-era and Putin-era policies toward the Middle East is that, like Putin’s Russia, the Soviet Union often (though not always) sought to maintain good relations with opposing sides simultaneously in the Middle East’s many conflicts. For instance, while the Soviet Union supported the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, it tried to maintain good relations with both sides in many other disputes, including those between Algeria and Morocco,¹² North and South Yemen,¹³ Somalia and Ethiopia, Ba’athist Syria and Ba’athist Iraq, Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Iraq and Kuwait (even after Gorbachev gave his approval for the U.S.-led military effort to push Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait).

This practice was often successful for the Soviets. While various Middle Eastern governments were not pleased by the fact that Moscow was aiding their adversaries, they often maintained cooperation with the Soviet Union anyway. Incentives for doing so (as Moscow was undoubtedly aware) included the fear that not cooperating with Moscow could result in more Soviet support for its adversary, the desire to continue or increase the support it was receiving from Moscow, and the fear or even conviction that the United States and its partners would not initiate or increase support even if they lost Soviet support.

The problem with this practice, though, was that even while it was successful for several years in some instances, sometimes one Soviet partner sought to alter the dynamics of the situation through launching a surprise attack on an adversary that was also a Soviet partner. Moscow’s effort to maintain good relations would then experience a serious setback. In 1977, for example, one of Moscow’s long-standing partners, Somali president Siad Barre’s regime, invaded Ethiopia, where Moscow was courting a new Marxist regime. Moscow was unable to maintain good relations with both countries: while the Soviets firmed up their relationship with Marxist Ethiopia, Somalia became a U.S. partner.

In 1980, another long-standing partner of Moscow, Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, invaded Iran, where Moscow was seeking to improve ties with a new anti-Western government. Here again, Moscow was unable to maintain good relations with both sides: its strong support for Saddam after Iranian forces crossed into Iraqi territory confirmed the anti-Western Iranian revolutionary regime’s anti-Soviet stance. In 1990, Saddam (again) invaded Kuwait, where Moscow’s enduring cooperative relations with this Arab monarchy were held out as a model for what the Kremlin wanted to have with Saudi Arabia. Gorbachev was unable to capitalize on Moscow’s hitherto good relations with Saddam to persuade him to withdraw from Kuwait and thus avert the U.S.-led intervention.

Advocacy of Ambitious Conflict Resolution Efforts

A third similarity between the Soviet-era and Putin-era foreign policies toward the Middle East is that both the Soviets and Putin have advanced ambitious conflict resolution proposals—which, while unsuccessful at resolving conflict, were mainly intended to strengthen Moscow’s diplomatic role in the Middle East as well as weaken or limit Washington’s. The Soviets touted a “comprehensive” settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict that would resolve all disputes, including the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, simultaneously. This differed from the piecemeal American approach, which sought to resolve those issues that could be resolved even if others—notably those relating to the Palestinians—were not.¹⁴

The Soviet approach to Arab-Israeli conflict resolution was viewed more favorably by Arab publics at large and revolutionary governments than the piecemeal American approach.¹⁵ Indeed, the great utility of the comprehensive approach for Moscow was that the Soviets did not actually have to deliver on it to win widespread approval in the Arab world. However, once the Sadat government in Egypt decided that it could not defeat Israel (blaming insufficient military support from the Soviet Union), it then sought a diplomatic solution in order to reopen the revenue-generating Suez Canal and regain the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied following the 1967 war.¹⁶ Ironically, when Moscow demonstrated its solidarity with the Arab world by breaking diplomatic relations with Israel just after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Soviet Union became less useful to Sadat than the United States, which could talk with both Arabs and Israelis. Sadat’s decision to prioritize Egypt’s narrower interests over broader Arab as well as Palestinian aspirations vis-à-vis Israel also made his approach more compatible with the more piecemeal American approach to Arab-Israeli conflict resolution.¹⁷

What the Soviet Experience Portends for Putin’s Middle East Policy

Putin’s policy toward the Middle East has avoided some of the problems experienced by the Soviets, but Russia still faces some of the same problems as well as several new ones.

Soviet support for revolutionary movements and regimes often undermined Soviet efforts to establish and maintain relations with conservative, pro-Western Middle Eastern governments. Even anti-Western Arab nationalist leaders sometimes thought that Moscow was trying to replace them with their more pro-Soviet internal adversaries. But this is a problem that Putin’s policy does not suffer from. Putin has been successful at portraying his government as the defender of the status quo in the Middle East while portraying the United States and the West as the destabilizers of the status quo (with their emphasis on democracy and human rights). Remarkably, he has managed to maintain good relations not only with anti-Western Middle Eastern actors, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and Syria, but also with all of America’s traditional partners in the region, including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and even Israel (though Russian-Israeli ties have been strained ever since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Jewish state). Unlike in the Soviet era, traditionally pro-Western leaders and governments in the Middle East do not fear that Putin seeks their replacement or downfall.

Putin’s ability to have good relations with both anti-Western and pro-Western actors in the Middle East has enhanced Moscow’s ability to support opposing sides simultaneously. In fact, he may be more successful at this than the Soviets were. But just as in the Soviet era, Putin’s attempts to simultaneously maintain good relations with opposing parties can be undermined by one party attempting to unilaterally alter the dynamics of the situation to the detriment of the other.

While Putin’s degree of cooperation with Iran and Israel is not the same, his efforts to continue cooperating with both countries have been challenged by their trying to undermine each other in Syria and elsewhere. Should wide-scale conflict between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah erupt, Moscow might be faced with the choice of either backing Iran and Hezbollah (thereby losing what influence it has with Israel) or keeping out of the conflict (thereby exacerbating its relations with Iran while not gaining influence with Israel). Indeed, Russia’s criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack but not giving material support for Hamas has resulted in Russia’s not being able to prevent Israel from severely damaging the military strength that Hamas has been building up over many years.

The weakening of Hamas might not have much impact on Russia, but a similar Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon may result in Hezbollah redeploying its fighters from Syria, where they have been protecting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to Lebanon in order to ensure survival in its home base. An Israel-Hezbollah war, then, could negatively impact the stability of the Assad regime, which Russia has worked with Iran and Hezbollah to uphold. How Putin would respond is not clear, but it is doubtful that he would be able to simultaneously maintain good relations with opposing sides under this scenario. Moscow’s ability to take such an approach would also be seriously challenged by the eruption of a Saudi-Iranian or Emirati-Iranian conflict, especially considering Russia’s dependence on Iran for drones and other weapons for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Putin’s policy of supporting opposing sides simultaneously, then, runs the same risks that the Soviets encountered in pursuing it during the Cold War.

Also like in the Soviet era, Putin’s ambitious conflict resolution efforts do not actually resolve conflicts. By contrast, the ambitious 2021 Russian Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf, as Russia-Middle East analyst Nikolay Kozhanov observed, “clearly does not appeal to Iran or the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] (or anyone else).” Similarly, although the Russia-sponsored Astana process launched in 2017 was billed as bringing peace to Syria, it turned out, as Faysal Abbas Mohamad noted, to be “a mechanism for normalizing the military presence of its sponsors, while minimizing interstate friction.” This may have met Putin’s immediate goals of stabilizing the Assad regime, but because the Astana process did not actually bring about peace, the many conflicts taking place in Syria could reignite—especially if Hezbollah forces there return to Lebanon to fight Israel.

Putin’s ambitious Middle East peace proposals thus face the same challenges that the Soviets’ proposals faced: they do not gain traction with all parties concerned, do not achieve peace, and therefore leave the door open for America’s more piecemeal approach of not trying to resolve all issues but just those that are more easily addressed.

One problem not experienced by Putin’s predecessors is that Russian mediation is no longer the only serious alternative to American mediation. Middle Eastern states can now turn to Beijing—and they have already begun doing so. In early 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran turned to China for mediating an agreement to restore Saudi-Iranian diplomatic relations. As Samuel Ramani observed, “The notion that China infringed on Russia’s traditional turf and outmaneuvered the Kremlin features in Russian media outlets.” But while Moscow regularly criticizes what it sees as the defects of American conflict resolution efforts, Russia’s growing economic dependence on China since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022 has meant that Putin is not in a position to complain about China’s involvement.

In sum, not supporting revolution like the Soviets did, or were feared that they might do, has helped Putin’s foreign policy toward the Middle East avoid some of the problems that his Soviet predecessors encountered. However, Putin still faces a host of other problems, both old and new.

In this series on Russia in the Middle East and North Africa, Carnegie scholars and external experts analyze how Russia has used various foreign policy tools to mount a recent comeback in the region after years of absence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contributors to the series also examine the impacts of Russian policies on questions of peace, security, and democratic development in the Middle East and North Africa.

Notes