Why won’t Russia deliver the S-300s?

RIA Novosti recently reported that Russia is addressing technical issues which have long delayed the delivery of five S-300 Anti-Aircraft batteries to Iran. No doubt Tehran will be encouraged by this, but five years after the contract for the potent AA system was signed, they must be beginning to wonder if the weapons are ever actually going to arrive.

The deal was agreed in 2005, at the height of Bush’s anti-Iranian rhetoric, when an attack on the Islamic Republic seemed like an imminent possibility, and made perfect sense for both sides at the time. Putin was beginning to lose patience with Bush, and didn't want to see another US puppet established in the Gulf. Iran’s armed forces had nothing that could stand up to an American or Israeli strike, and needed some form of deterrent. Enter the S-300, the Russian equivalent of Patriot missiles.

But the AA systems never materialised. Moscow realised that the threat of delivering to Iran could be used as leverage against the US. Putin decided that this card would be best kept up his sleeve, only to be played when an ace was needed.

Then Obama got elected. For the first few months of his presidency, there was genuine optimism that US-Russia relations could improve, so the Kremlin reasoned that irritating Iran was a risk worth taking if the pay off was a workable, if not friendly, relationship with the US. Gradually though, the ‘reset’ petered out, and although some progress was made on START 2 talks, Russia has only ever expressed vague support for weak sanctions on Tehran, and knows full well China will block even that. There was no serious rapprochement. Still, why hadn’t the AA systems arrived in Iran?

Russia basically wants to have its cake and eat it. Its position has dramatically improved in the last ten years, but it still needs diplomatic leverage and sees the US as its principal adversary. While the US is making noises about deploying a new missile shield in the Balkans, Russia will hold on to its ability to respond in kind. While America still has a presence in central Asia, Russia will want to keep an ally in the Gulf. Russia’s foreign policy is more anti-American than any other major player, including China. Providing the US’ biggest enemy in the region with the means to defend itself is completely in line with Putin’s drive to squeeze the US out of central Asia. On the other hand, if it can secure an implicit assurance from Washington that NATO won’t be expanding any time soon, or work with the Americans to limit Chinese power, it won’t aggravate its adversary needlessly. If Dmitry Medvedev has more power than most people think, this may be a serious possibility.

But it can’t keep all sides dangling for ever. Some recent events indicate it may have decided to drop Iran and try and cultivate a serious relationship with Saudi Arabia. Russia has no ideological qualms about arming one theocracy, so it would be quite comfortable switching to another. However, that may be just an insurance policy, or a means to make Iran more pliable. There are serious dangers involved in reneging on the S-300 sales to Tehran.

First, it would seriously harm Moscow’s reputation as an arms supplier, and the timing of this would be disastrous, coming as it does just as Rosoboronexport’s hardware is finding new markets. Venezuela, Vietnam and other countries will think twice about placing orders which may not be filled. Sales of the new 5th generation PAK FA fighter, Russia’s most prestigious military project in years, would likely suffer.

Secondly, Iran could increase the volume of gas it sells, depressing prices and harming Russia’s economy. There would be no good time for this to happen, but now would be a particularly bad one, with Russia taking a long time to emerge from recession and the Kremlin still trying to find funds to modernise Russian infrastructure and the military.

For almost seven years now, we have heard an Israeli or American air strike on Iran will happen any day. But this situation cannot go on indefinitely; Israel must soon decide whether it can live with a nuclear, if not a nuclear-armed Iran. Russia must decide where to place its bets. If S-300s played the major role in successfully repelling an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Russian-American relations would plummet. If, on the other hand, Russia allows Iran to be bombed, its can forget about its relationship with Tehran. It’s not as if Iran doesn’t have anywhere else to turn; it has a potentially far more powerful patron to the east whose appetite for energy and investment potential could be the long-term solution to Tehran’s economic problems.

My guess is that Iran will be allowed to dangle for a while yet, but unless the US can offer some serious compensation for leaving Iran open to attack, the S-300s will find their way across the Caspian Sea sooner or later. It's hard to imagine what that compensation could be; Georgia and Ukraine aren't going to be joining NATO for the foreseeable future no matter what happens, the WTO will eventually admit Russia in even if the US doesn't particularly like it, and the days when the White House could hint at a 'colour revolution' being funded in the Russian Federation are long gone. For a country supposedly in terminal decline, Russia has a lot of sway over the most important region in the world.