So far, Russia has not become a participant in hostilities between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the US on the other. Before the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, though, I had thought there was a possibility that it might.
This is because, back in early 2004, I participated in two different role-playing games about a crisis over Iranian nuclear facilities. One of these took place in an undergraduate class I was teaching at George Mason University and the other elsewhere in a Chatham House rule format (meaning that what was said can be revealed, but not who said it or where it was said – even over two decades later).
Both role playing games were about a crisis in which Israel and the US believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons, Israel wanted to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities but could not do so on its own, and so Israel called upon the US to destroy them. The US teams in both games then had to decide what to do. In both games, attempts to reach a diplomatic solution failed and the US was just on the point of launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But in both games, this action was forestalled by the Russian teams announcing that Moscow had dispatched small numbers of Russian soldiers to Iranian nuclear sites. Both games ended with the US teams calling off their attacks out of concern that Russian casualties in any US attack on Iran would lead to a US-Russian confrontation that the American and European teams believed simply had to be avoided.
In the acrimonious follow-up discussions (as occur at the conclusion of most role play-games I have been involved in), the US teams were criticized for pursuing policies that brought Russia and Iran closer together but did not succeed in curtailing the Iranian nuclear enrichment activities that the US, Israeli, and Gulf Arab teams were all so worried about. The European teams were also angry that the US had not consulted them, but just collaborated mainly with the Israeli teams instead.
Role playing games, of course, do not necessarily predict the future accurately. But the fact that two games involving entirely different people (except for myself) had the same outcome made me wonder whether, in a real crisis, Russia would indeed deploy troops to Iranian nuclear facilities to deter a US attack on them.
As we now know, of course, this has not happened. Russia has not deployed any of its troops to Iranian nuclear facilities. In fact, Moscow has done nothing to help Tehran fend off attacks by Israeli or American forces – even though Iran had earlier sold armed drones and missiles to Russia for use in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
At the St. Petersburg Forum just prior to the US attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointedly stated that the Russian-Iranian strategic cooperation agreement signed this past January did not include a mutual defense clause.
So why has Putin not intervened to protect Iran now like the two Russia teams did back in 2004? There may be several reasons:
Some of these have to do with the difference between role playing games and real life. The participants in role playing games do not themselves incur negative consequences for engaging in risky behavior, while actual decision-makers can incur highly negative consequences both for their countries and for their own careers. Decision-makers in real crises are also limited by resource constraints and the need to manage other ongoing problems in ways that the participants in role playing games are not. Russia’s war against Ukraine is obviously a far greater priority (and one that consumes much of Russia’s available resources) for Putin than Iran’s conflict with Israel and the US
But another reason why Putin has not done more to help Iran in this crisis is that he may see what has happened so far as less harmful than other outcomes, and possibly even beneficial for Russia. Putin may not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and Moscow is far better off if the US undertakes the forceful actions that postpones (if not prevents) Tehran’s doing so since this leaves Russian-Iranian relations in a far better place than US-Iranian relations.
In contrast, if Iranian-US negotiations had led to the peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue without the US resorting to force, this might have led to an overall improvement in those relations, which Putin might have feared would result in Iran becoming less supportive of Russia.
Whatever Putin’s actual calculations may be regarding the ongoing Iranian nuclear crisis, there is an important difference in how the US role-playing teams thought Putin would move in 2004 versus the moves Putin has actually made in 2025.
The teams playing Russia in 2004 assumed that Putin would come to the defense of an Iran under threat. What Putin has actually done in 2025 is avoid coming to Iran’s defense, even though Iran had helped Putin in his war against Ukraine. Other governments which have aided Putin – including China and North Korea – should take note that Putin might leave them in the lurch as he has done with Iran.
Mark N. Katz is a professor emeritus of government and politics at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.