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by Matthew Rusling
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. relations with Russia have already been frosty for more than a year, but after Moscow's deployment of an air force contingent into Syria, the relationship has turned even more frigid, U.S. experts said.
The relationship became strained more than a year ago over Russia's annexation of Crimea, which led to Western sanctions on Russia.
Last month, Russia raised U.S. hackles once more when it launched airstrikes in Syria.
"I think the relations (between the U.S. and Russia) are quite strained," William Courtney, a RAND Corp. research fellow, told Xinhua. "The crisis is fairly severe now."
Russia's deployment of military force in Syria without coordinating with the U.S.-led coalition poses risks for the coordination of aircraft and other activities, said Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia.
James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation, said the chill in U.S.-Russian relations is likely to result in the U.S. ratcheting up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While U.S. President Barack Obama has been extremely cautious and slow-moving when it comes to the use of military power, Obama may now respond by heightening military aid to rebels, as well as ramping up sanctions on Russia, he said.
"I think the administration is likely to ramp up indirect pressure on Putin by expanding military aid to Syrian rebels and increasing economic sanctions on Russia," Phillips said.
Rising tensions could also spill over into other areas of the relationship, he added.
Russia's deployment of an air contingent in Syria came as a surprise to many experts and observers, and begs the question of Moscow's motives.
Courtney noted that Russia has long viewed itself as a great power, having fought off Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1800s and fighting off Adolf Hitler's invasion during WWII. But for Russia to continue to be a global player, Moscow needs to exercise its power beyond its immediate neighborhood.
While Syria is not the only place outside of Russia's backyard that it can play a great-power role, it may be the most significant place where Moscow can play a role involving military and political power, he said.
Russia's joining the fray in Syria also prompts the question of whether Moscow's forces may collide, accidentally or perhaps even on purpose, with U.S.-led coalition forces.
David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua that there is such a possibility, but both sides are going to try to avoid that and are in touch with each other at relatively low levels among military professionals to prevent that from happening.
"But I think probably the biggest danger is not directly between Russian and American forces but between Russian and other forces who are being supported or supplied by the United States, whether it's Syrian opposition groups or maybe Turkey," Pollock said.
The United States is directly operating fairly far away from the Russians, although the Turks and some of the internal Syrian militias are right in the same areas where the Russians are focusing their military efforts, he added.
With regard to the settlement of the Syrian crisis, Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that what is needed is a confederation of autonomous regions that are mostly associated with individual sectarian groups and that allow for most of the government and security to be provided locally or regionally within Syria.
That, he said, is far more realistic than trying to negotiate a successor government when President Bashar al-Assad clearly has no interest in stepping down and when there is no mechanism to enforce a peace at a time when the army is distrusted in the eyes of many Syrians.
"I don't think that the current strategy for trying to negotiate (a) government of national unity and somehow figure out who's going to police the agreement and enforce it has any real hope whatsoever," O'Hanlon told Xinhua.
The Sunni groups are also unlikely to be interested in protecting a multi-sectarian government, but rather more likely to be interested in exacting revenge against Assad and his cronies if the Sunnis ever have the opportunity to do so, he said.
Pollock said: "There's really no clear path (out of the conflict) anytime soon. And I'm afraid the most likely thing is a lot more fighting and bloodshed and refugees."
He added that the war is becoming more of a narrowly defined contest between Assad and his supporters on one side and IS on the other, and that some of the other players are probably dropping out.
"So in a way you could say that that simplifies the equation, but it doesn't make it any easier to solve," he said.
