Dynamics of Intervention in the Syrian Civil War

• In Event: Armed Group Agency during Civil Wars

Abstract

The Syrian civil war – like many complex civil wars – has been characterized by a great deal of direct and indirect foreign intervention. As a result, for the past decade Syria has served as a proxy conflict for a range of international, regional, and local rivalries. In seeking to better understand the complex dynamics of the Syrian conflict and current trends in international intervention in civil war more broadly, this paper therefore maps out the major international rivalries which drove intervention in the war and explores the ways in which they have shaped the conflict.

There are three broad types of rivalries driving intervention in Syria: international rivalries, including those between the United States and Russia, the US and ISIS, and within transnational jihadist networks themselves; regional rivalries, such as those between Iran and Saudi Arabia or Turkey and the PKK; and domestic political rivalries in countries outside of Syria, such as Kuwait and Lebanon. I argue that the nature of proxy conflict in Syria has been driven by two additional factors: the asymmetry in how much each side of the rivalry cares about the other relative to other concerns, and the role of social media.

Author

• Ora B. Szekely, Clark University