TITLE:
When Politics Allied with Religion: Russia’s New Strategy to Dominate the Middle East under the Pretext of Fighting Terrorism
AUTHORS:
Hichem Kadri, Elmira Akhmetova
KEYWORDS:
Anti-Terror Front, Sphere of Influence, Terrorism and Extremism, Middle East, ROC, Russia’s Foreign Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.10 No.2,
March
5,
2020
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to provide a critical approach to Russia’s
new policy of alliance with its dominant religion that is embodied in the Russian
Orthodox Church (ROC), which Russia has thus far embraced to fight terrorism
and extremism in the Middle East and to determine the extent to which religion
stands with politics in Russia’s foreign policy. Syria is taken as a case study
and as an eminent example of Russia’s anti-terror front strategy. The main
argument of the paper is that Russia’s leading role on the anti-terror front in
the Middle East is a security-oriented and national identity-founded strategy
under the pretext of fighting terrorism, while it looks forward to being a
dominant power in regional, then world affairs. It finds that Russia employs
the ROC in political terms as a soft power tool for promoting its foreign
policy, as a way to achieve its national interests and to guarantee its
national security.