Abstract
This article explains the shift in Russia’s foreign policy strategy towards the Middle East. Particularly, it aims to address the question of why Russia supported the UNSC Resolution 1970 towards Libya in 2011 but refused to cooperate with the West in Syria. In this article, it is argued that the West’s use of the authorization of the no-fly zone as a green light for military intervention in Libya paved the way for Russia’s obstinacy in Syria. To test this hypothesis, this article focus on the foreign-policy decision-making mechanism in Russia regarding these two events. In this article two decision-making processes are compared to provide an alternative explanation of Russia’s Middle Eastern policy. This article contributes to the existing literature on Russian foreign policy and Foreign Policy Analysis literature.
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