Russia Threatened to Shut Down the “Deconfliction” Hotline. Here’s Why That’s Terrifying.

“The risks of escalation are pretty huge.”

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Following the US attack on a Syrian airbase overnight, Russian officials expressed outrage. Russia, which is allied with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, denounced the missile strikes as a “violation of the norms of international law.” Russia also took an even more ominous step, announcing that it would be shutting down the “deconfliction” hotline it shares with the United States.

The deconfliction hotline may sound obscure, but it’s actually a key channel through which the two countries communicate about their military activities in Syria. The US and Russia are backing different sides in Syria’s civil war; the US and its allies are attacking ISIS (and now Assad), while Russia is attacking Syrian rebels. This creates the potential for an unintended incident between US and Russian forces to escalate into a larger conflict between the two powers. The hotline helps prevent that from happening by allowing both sides to coordinate their planes in Syria’s crowded airspace, avoiding collisions.

“This would have a very real impact on the US strategy against ISIS in Syria.”

After the US missile strikes—which President Donald Trump ordered in response to Assad’s latest chemical weapons attack on civilians—Russia declared that it was suspending the hotline. “While previous initiatives of this kind were presented as efforts to combat terrorism, now they are clearly an act of aggression against a sovereign Syria. Actions undertaken by the US today inflict further damage to the Russia-US relations,” said a statement issued Friday morning by the Russian Foreign Ministry. “Russia suspends the Memorandum of Understanding on Prevention of Flight Safety Incidents in the course of operations in Syria signed with the US.”

But on Friday afternoon, US military officials speaking anonymously to the Associated Press said that Russia and the US were still in regular communication. Referring to the deconfliction line, a senior official told reporters at the Pentagon that for now, it remained operational. “Our communication line is still open and they are answering on the other end,” the official said, according to The Hill.

It is unclear what will happen with the hotline in the coming days. But experts says that if it does shut down, it could lead to heightened conflict between the US coalition and Russia.

“How this actually evolves remains to be seen, but the risks of escalation are pretty huge,” said Olga Oliker, the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That’s especially true now that the US has positioned itself in direct opposition to Russia in Syria, says Oliker. Prior US airstrikes in the war-torn country had been directed at ISIS. But the latest US strike, which involved 59 cruise missiles fired at a Syrian airbase, was a direct attack on the Russia-backed Assad regime.

“When both sides were saying they were going after ISIS, deconfliction made it possible for them to collaborate. If you’re on the same side, deconfliction also has that important purpose,” Oliker says. “But if you’re on opposite sides, then it prevents things from getting worse.” (Russia initially claimed it was entering the Syrian conflict to fight terrorist groups; US officials have said the vast majority of Russia strikes have targeted moderate anti-Assad rebels rather than ISIS.)

In addition to the escalation issue, gutting the deconfliction agreement could hurt US efforts in Syria to target ISIS, a top goal of the Trump administration.

Having to operate with constant concerns about potential collisions or other run-ins with Russian forces would complicate US missions, says Nicholas Heras of the Center for New American Security.

“It boxes in the US ability to move against targets of opportunity,” Heras said. “This would have a very real impact on the US strategy against ISIS in Syria.”

Heras calls the US missile strikes a “red line” event that has created a “delicate dance” for the administration going forward as it tries to mount the counter-ISIS campaign that Trump has long prioritized.

“President Trump has said that the US wants to conduct a counter-ISIS campaign with Russian and Assad buy-in,” Heras says. “So how do you send messages in one area of the country in the context of that civil war, while being allowed to have a relatively free hand in another part of the country that you’ve stated is your policy priority?”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate