Intervention In Syria Research Articles

Iranian Involvement in Syria and Lebanon: From the Establishment of Hizballah to the Intervention in Syria

ABSTRACT These two works together offer a comprehensive perspective on Iranian involvement in the Levant in recent decades. They shed new light on important chapters in the Iranian involvement in Syria and Lebanon during the formative period of Iran’s efforts to export of the Islamic revolution. Also, they provide new details about how Iran formed the “Axis of Resistance,” which came to be led by Hizballah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. These books also help us understand how the Iranian axis has expanded its operations in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, and how it implements Iran’s regional strategy against Israel and the United States. These memoirs provide valuable insider accounts of how the Islamic Republic of Iran has built its influence on the ground in Lebanon and Syria.

Syria: Moscow's Game of Poker: Russian Military Intervention in Syria, 2015–2017, by Tom Cooper

Moscow's Game of Poker: Russian Military Intervention in Syria, 2015–2017, by Tom Cooper. Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2022. 96 pages. $29.95 paper

Political economy dynamics of Russia's intervention in Syria

This article aims to place the issue of economic benefits obtained by Russia by military intervention in Syria in the larger perspective of its role as a global player shaping Middle East affairs. The essay aims to answer the following question: How much have Russia's economic interests been impacted by its military involvement in Syria? Russian objectives in Syria extend beyond its geostrategic location to encompass national interests in various strategic areas, particularly maintaining its economic power and bolstering its worldwide influence in Middle Eastern politics. The article will explore the additional advantages that contributed to the expansion of Russian commercial ties in the region, beyond Syria's geostrategic location. This article assumes that Russia is steadily investing in building its influence and creating geo-economic dynamics to boost its economic national interests. The study examines how Russia has been translating its military participation into economic benefits across several sectors, including arms transactions, oil businesses, economic networking, trade facilitation, and resilience. The paper will rely on signed contracts, official papers, reports, menus, speeches, press releases, declaratory statements, and reports on official visits as primary data. This article focuses on the political economy of Russian military involvement in the Syrian crisis to provide detailed insights.

Humanitarian Intervention in Syria: A Critical Analysis

In academic and intellectual circles, Humanitarian Intervention (HI) and the duty to protect have historically been seen as morally and ethically right because of its contentious practices have been at the forefront of international relations discourse in recent years. Having failed to come up with a consensus set of rules, parameters and principles to justify intervention, the Just War logic of Humanitarian Intervention falls flat on the face of the sovereign rights of the states. In this milieu, this article critically examines the rationale of humanitarian intervention in Syria and evaluates the concept of just war to claim that it is outdated and its application in the name of humanitarian intervention needs to be assessed. This study adopts the theory of social constructivism to decode the liberal perspective of Humanitarian Invention as a just war or socially constructed to manipulate world public opinion and address the inherent national interests of involved countries or the diplomatic failure of the United Nations Organization.

Foreign Intervention and Internal Displacement: Urban Politics in Postwar Beirut

Abstract Uneven democratization is a common yet poorly understood legacy of civil war. In the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), wartime processes of displacement interacted with Syria's intervention to transform local postwar political orders. In Beirut's suburbs, the bonds built between armed actors and displaced populations created opportunities for displaced people to extract responsiveness from local institutions, despite their vulnerability. But the power of displaced populations in their host community hinges on the fate of the locally dominant armed actor. If the armed actor is an ally of the intervening power, it can maintain political control over its strongholds, marginalizing traditional local elites while empowering its core constituents, displaced people. By contrast, if an armed actor is repressed by the intervening power, the ensuing power vacuum creates an opportunity for pluralistic party politics to emerge. Traditional prewar elites reassert their role in local political life, empowering their core constituents, the prewar residents. Drawing on dozens of in-depth interviews with key informants in the suburbs of postwar Beirut, the findings show how displacement transformed localities in ways that transcend religious identity. Over 80,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon because of fighting since October 7, 2023. If Hezbollah provides services and security to these displaced persons, the current conflict will strengthen Hezbollah's grip on the south of Lebanon when the displaced populations return, or further consolidate its influence in those localities in south Lebanon where displaced populations settle.

The legitimacy of the Security Council in the humanitarian step in Syria

The international humanitarian intervention in Syria portrays the protection of civilians in armed conflicts and the overall international humanitarian law, especially the concerns of the security council which aims to reduce human rights violations suffered by the Syrian people. The difference between the definitions is that there are multiple reasons for maintaining international peace and security or humanitarian reasons that is, excessive violence against civilians and subsequent arbitrary arrests mass killings and displacement. Supporters and opponents have different views on international humanitarian intervention. As for the increase of the suffering of the Syrian people the security council is left with the problematic presence of coercion that limits the international humanitarian intervention, especially the sovereignty of the state and under the internal jurisdiction of the hand, and justifies the exclusion contained in the text of article 2/7 of the UN charter, which authorized intervention under chapter VII of the order to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people as aresult of human rights violations.

The Rise of Neo Ottomanism in Turkey for Strategic Autonomy in Liberal World Order

This research paper aims to investigate Turkey's quest for strategic autonomy in the Liberal World Order. As per these ambitions, Turkey has increasingly distanced itself from the European Union (EU) and the transatlantic alliance and has shifted its focus towards China, Russia, and the Global South. These developments are a direct consequence of the 2023 termination of the Treaty of Lausanne, along with the shift to multipolar world order. Turkey has viewed these shifts as a chance to gain strategic autonomy in the region and proclaim itself as the leader of the Muslim world. As a result, intervention in Syria, Libya, and the Black Sea was utilized to assert influence, and the atrocities of Israel and India against the Muslim community were also called out. Turkey's ambitions to cash on the shifting international system and redirect its foreign policy can be associated with neo-Ottomanism, implying that the Turkish state aspires to regain the lost glory of the historic Ottoman Empire and its regional dominance. US is creating hurdles in this process however, Turkey is adamant about its goals and continues to invoke strides in that direction.

Turkey's Extraterritorial Use of Force against Armed Non-State Actors

AbstractThe use of force in foreign territories has been contained in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, with the authorisation of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, in ‘cases deemed legitimate by international law’ and where required by international treaties to which Turkey is a party. Yet Turkey's extraterritorial use of force against armed non-state actors lead to the most important question of identifying the circumstances under which the Turkish authorities have long justified military intervention in foreign territories. This article aims to assess whether Turkey's use of force and alleged extraterritorial self-defence contravenes international law. In order to address how Turkey interprets the right to use armed force and the right of self-defence, and to bring clarity to the state's approach to international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum), the article explores Turkey's practice based on the assessment of the Turkish military intervention in Syria, in line with both bilateral security or defence treaties to which Turkey is a party and the use of force in self-defence. The aim is to determine whether Turkey's justifications are compatible with the jus ad bellum criteria.

The Russian military intervention in Syria

The Russian military intervention in Syria

Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence by Anna Borshchevskaya, and: Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa ed. by Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru (review)

Reviewed by: Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence by Anna Borshchevskaya, and: Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa ed. by Dimitar Bechev, Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru Robert O. Freedman Borshchevskaya, Anna. Putin's War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America's Absence. I. B. Tauris, London, New York and Dublin, 2022. ix + 242 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £20.00; £18.00 (e-book). Bechev, Dimitar; Popescu, Nicu and Secrieru, Stanislav (eds). Russia Rising: Putin's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa. I. B. Tauris, London, New York and Dublin, 2021. x + 209 pp. Map. Figures. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £65.00; £21.99; £19.79 (e-book). The Russian military intervention in Syria in 2015 sparked renewed interest in Russian policy in the Middle East under Vladimir Putin, and these two books, among others, are a result of this. In Putin's War in Syria, Anna Borshchevskaya presents a long history of Russia's involvement in the Middle East, while Bechev, Popescu and Secrieru's edited volume collects a series of essays on different aspects of Russian statecraft in the region, from Russian arms sales to Russia's relations with Israel. Anna Borshchevskaya's book offers a very useful summary of Russian policy in the Middle East which is both very readable and very analytic, as it examines first tsarist, then Soviet and then Russian Federation policy, leading up to Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015. Borshchevskaya is highly critical of US inaction in the Middle East, particularly former US President Barack Obama's failure to follow through on his threat to use force against the regime of Bashar Assad if it used chemical weapons against its opponents in the Syrian civil war. She also offers a timely reminder of how early tsarist Russia got involved in the Middle East, recounting how Catherine II seized Beriut in 1772 in an effort to pressure the Ottoman Empire. In addition, she recounts the Russian Empire's territorial conquests in Iran in the early part of the nineteenth century, something Iran's current leaders should keep in [End Page 189] mind as they seek closer relations with Moscow. Borshchevskaya also quotes Catherine II's famous comment: 'I have no better way to protect my borders than to extend them' (p. 12) — an argument Putin has similarly used to justify his actions in Georgia and Ukraine. In her discussion of Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015, Borshchevskaya notes that in addition to preserving the Assad regime, which was facing major difficulties during the Syrian civil war, Russia's goal was to create an 'anti-access/area denial' system to keep NATO out of Syria and strengthen the Russian position in the Mediterranean (p. 72). She also asserts, quite correctly, that in Syria Putin was actively competing with the United States and the West, even if the West did not see it that way (p. 79). In sum, this is a very rich book and one I would strongly recommend for use in college courses on Russian foreign policy. The only area in which I disagree with Borshchevskaya is where she asserts that the Russian armed forces gained valuable experience from their intervention in Syria. It is clear, however, that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has underlined the failures of the Russian military to properly deploy its forces. More importantly, in Syria Russia did not find itself up against a well-armed and well-trained adversary, as in Ukraine, but rather a divided and poorly-armed Syrian opposition. Consequently, the lessons Moscow may have learned from the fighting in Syria were probably the wrong ones. This assertion of the positive military experiences gained by Russia in Syria is also madе — falsely — by a number of contributors to Russia Rising. Thus, in his analysis of Russia's arms exports to the Middle East, Timofey Borisov asserts that '[d]uring its intervention in Syria, Moscow had tested about three hundred new types of weapons and military equipment in real combat conditions' (p. 48). Here again I would ask...

Global and Local Challenges Facing Syria and Russia in the Light of the Resolution of the Syrian Crisis

Since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in March, 2013, the United States of America and the European Union have exerted various pressures on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad’s regime to step him down from power, but all their efforts were in vain due to the supporting stance of both Russia and China to al-Assad through the use of veto power to block several international resolutions. The significance of the current paper lies in the fact it tackles those challenges facing Arab region, particularly Syria, in addition to the Russian position supporting Syria. The aim of the present paper is to adopt an analytical background of the Russian position regarding the Syrian crisis and the political as well as the strategic dimensions for such a move on the regional and international levels. The research comprises three sections in addition to an introduction and a conclusion. Section one investigates the reasons behind the Syrian crisis and the Russian interests in the region; Section two tackles is devoted to the Russian position towards the crisis, while the third section studies the Russian military intervention in Syria. From this perspective, we find that Russia seeks to ensure its influence over Syrian politics after a peaceful settlement. It aims to safeguard its strategic interests, restore its position, and end its international isolation, presenting itself as a major power on the global stage.

Russian Policy Toward Turkey Since the 2010s

ABSTRACT: Historically, the Ottoman Empire and Russia have had recurrent conflicting relations since the eighteenth century and, particularly, from the beginning of the "Eastern Question". Indeed, almost all the wars to which the Ottoman Empire was a party had Russia as an opponent. However, Russia's relations with the Republic of Turkey have been evolving. Indeed, the Soviet Union was one of the first countries to recognise the young Republic of Turkey. Then, during the Cold War, Turkey, which joined the Transatlantic Alliance in 1952, played a strategic role as NATO's Middle Eastern bulwark against the USSR. After the break-up of the USSR, the return of Russian regional dominance in the first decade of the twenty-first century led to competitive relations between Russia and Turkey. However, they have intensified and diversified since the 2010s. We will consider the evolution of Russian policy towards Turkey since the 2010 decade by analysing its stakes and the highlights of a complex strategic alliance. Russia's intervention in Syria in 2015 generated developments in its relationship with Turkey. From 2017, a turning point in the relations between Russia and Turkey has been the issue of the war exit and the future of Syria. In addition, in order to diversify its military logistical arms purchases and move away from a relationship of dependence on NATO, in 2017 Turkey intensified its rapprochement with Russia. Indeed, Russia procured S-400 air defence system missiles for Turkey and negotiated a nuclear energy agreement. This rapprochement between Russia and Turkey irritates the US and NATO, generating collateral effects.

The Syrian Crisis in The Perspective of the (Principle of the Responsibility to Protect)

The responsibility to protect(R2P) is defined as “an international norm that seeks to guarantee the no failure of international community once more to confront heinous collective crimes like genocide, war crimes, racial extermination and crimes against humanity” This concept emerged due to failure of the international community to respond to these atrocious crimes that took place in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s. The idea of ​​the R2P appeared in 2001 by an international commission on intervention and state sovereignty, and it was developed to remove the barrier standing in the way of humanitarian intervention. It was expected that the crimes of genocide draw the attention of the international community. The Syrian crisis is considered one of the biggest catastrophes of the twenty-first century lasting more than ten years, which violated all international laws, using chemical weapons and the immigration of millions of civilians. The role of United Nations for humanitarian intervention in Syria is not worth mentioning because of non-agreement of international community, especially Russia’s support for the Assad regime by using its veto in decisions of Security Council. The paragraph of the “R2P” law (particularly the first column, the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens) has been voted on and called for five times since 2011, due to human rights violations in Syria. In conclusion, the term R2P was not overall successful because of the weakness of the international community in confronting the international crimes, therefore the human tragedy of Syria is now one of the clear and apparent failed models in implementing the paragraph of the R2P law.

The Geopolitics of Returns: Geopolitical Reasoning and Space-Making in Turkey’s Repatriation Regime

ABSTRACT Despite growing interest in the return of rejected asylum seekers, irregular migrants, and refugees, we do not know enough about how geopolitics affects returns governance. This article addresses this knowledge gap by analysing the case of Turkey, exploring how positions in the global migration regime and relations with countries of origin influence return policies. It first argues that Turkey’s geopolitical reasoning has led it to design an asylum regime, including repatriation and deportation procedures, centred on temporariness. Second, it contends that Turkey’s extraterritorial space-making strategies – namely, military intervention in Syria and humanitarian/development projects in Afghanistan – guide return policies. Examining the Turkish case contributes to our understanding of national returns governance in transit-turned-host countries, which increasingly emphasise repatriation over long-term protection. Finally, the paper contributes more generally to our understanding of the geopolitics of returns by focusing on specific mechanisms that link geopolitical concerns with policy instruments at the state level.

Religious Narratives and Russia’s Soft Power in the Middle East

The article investigates how Russian state and non-state actors promote religious narratives in the Middle East and what influence these narratives have on foreign policy. Adopting the interpretivist perspective, it combines critical discourse analysis and process tracing for the period 2011–2018. Two major narratives are identified: a specifically Orthodox narrative and a narrative grounded in Christian and broader spiritual values as well as inter-religious dialogue. The findings show that these religious narratives target strategically Middle Eastern and international audiences, generating various interactions and legitimising Russian foreign policy, including its military intervention in Syria.

Saving the YPJ, saved by the YPJ: ambivalent agency and the legitimation of intervention in Syria

ABSTRACT Feminist and postcolonial international relations scholars have demonstrated that representations of Middle Eastern women are used to legitimize wars. This article explores a recent, novel instance of this phenomenon that occurred in Syria. The article argues that Western representations of Kurdish female fighters (members of the Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ) helped to legitimize Operation Inherent Resolve. The article first uses content analysis to demonstrate that Western media reporting about the group, which rendered the YPJ hyper-visible, reflects a change in the discourse, which, I argue, made this foreign policy possible. This is followed by a discourse analysis of English-language documentaries, supported by Turkish-language sources, to show how specifically gendered and Orientalist narratives legitimized Western intervention. I find that rather than being depicted as they are typically, as passive, silent victims (requiring liberation), YPJ women are instead depicted atypically as agentic (as liberators). I then contrast this discourse with original translations of YPJ members’ counter-articulations about their identity in their own words, and show that Kurdish female militants propose radically alternative, non- and anti-Western accounts of their politics. In light of the tension between these two discourses, the article suggests that Western accounts, although endowing agency, suppress possibilities for more subversive (postcolonial) forms of agency.

RUSSIAN ELECTRONIC WARFARE CAPABILITIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR EUROPEAN STRATEGIC STABILITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE SYRIAN CONFLICT

The Russian intervention in Syria, as well as the associated deployment of electronic warfare systems, generated alarm among NATO members linked to the possibility that a strengthening of electronic warfare capabilities by Russia could reduce the current technological asymmetry in favor of NATO. Such reduction would come from the use of electronic warfare systems to hamper the command and control capacity of attack and defense systems. This paper analyses the Russian intervention in Syria in order to define whether it can be understood that there is an increasing risk to Euro-Atlantic security stemming from Russian advances in electronic warfare.

Взаимодействие России и США в сирийском конфликте через призму внутриполитической борьбы в период второго президентства Б. Обамы (2012-2016 гг.)

The research objective is as follows: to identify specifics of US-Russia interaction during the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, taking into account internal aspects of decision-making process by the second administration of Barack Obama. The main focus of the study concentrated around periods of Syrian conflict and its dynamic. This approach made possible to find out how flexible US’s and Russia’s positions were when it came to making decision on intervention in Syria, especially in terms of scale and instruments required for that purpose. Scientific originality of the study lies in new methodological approach towards great power politics analysis in regional conflicts. US behavior during the Syrian con-flict was placed at the core of the study. Levels of analysis were used in order to find out how different factors (both internal and external) influenced decisions made by Obama administration. The findings are as follows: contrary to demands of war protagonists who called the US president to intervene in Syria, Barack Obama vigorously resisted the decision to use force against regime of B. Assad in order to avoid mistakes made by George W. Bush, who dragged the United States into a protracted war in Iraq.

Protocooperation as a Model for the Russia-UAE Partnership

Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015 marked the Russian Federation (RF) return as a key player in the Middle East and North Africa. In this context, the relations between Russia and the UAE are of utmost importance for both entities, for the region, and globally. This article seeks to fill a gap in scholarly knowledge by answering questions about the nature of the emerging cooperation between Russia and the UAE. How Russia seeks to use the UAE to expand its sphere of influence in the MENA region and how the UAE uses this cooperation to achieve its foreign policy goals. The article applies protocooperation (an analogy to the ecological relationship) as a model for the Russia-UAE partnership. The RF is strengthening its position in the MENA regarding the UAE as a key partner for regaining its political, economic, and military influence in the MENA region. Russia-UAE’s partnership aims at achieving conjunctural geopolitical interests benefiting from diminished Western, mainly the US, presence in the region.

The United States, Israel and the 1976 Red Lines in Lebanon

During the first half of 1976 the United States mediated Israel’s indirect dialogue with Syria on de facto spheres of influence in Lebanon. This work analyzes those understandings, drawing on U.S. and Israeli archival records to assert that of Israel’s stipulations regarding Syrian intervention, the demarcation on a map it transmitted via Washington was the boundary the crossing of which would have provoked a violent response. Israel evinced flexibility regarding several of its conditions, but Syria clearly understood that the geographic line in southern Lebanon was the limitation it must not violate.