Search

Begin New Search Author Nicholas Heras Publication Year within 10 Years

1. Security Scenarios for Syria in 2021-2022

Author:
Serhat Erkmen, Nicholas Heras, and Kirill Semenov
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Syria is a geographic entity divided into three main zones of control, each ruled by local actors with the strong and seemingly indefinite support of powerful foreign actors. These three zones are one zone in western, central, and eastern Syria controlled by the Syrian government, a second zone in northwest and northern Syria along the Syrian-Turkish border controlled by the Syrian opposition and supported by Turkey and a third zone in northeast Syria controlled by the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES) and its military the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - which is supported by the United States and several of its allies that are part of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The common perception by observers of the Syrian conflict is that it is frozen; that Syria will be indefinitely divided into these different territorial zones of control. This assumption obscures the fact though that a significant amount of fluidity on the ground within Syria's three main zones of control is possible. Each of these zones has its own unique characteristics and local customs that must be understood to draw broader assessments on how the wider Syrian conflict might be resolved one day.
Topic:
Security, Military Strategy, Governance, and Local
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

2. Countering Iran in the Gray Zone: What the United States Should Learn from Israel’s Operations in Syria

Author:
Ilan Goldenberg, Nicholas Heras, Kaleigh Thomas, and Jennie Matuschak
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and especially since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran has become highly proficient in using its surrogates and proxies across the Middle East as a tool to achieve its interests while avoiding direct conflict with the United States. Successive U.S. presidents have sought options for pushing back against this Iranian strategy but have struggled to find approaches that could deter Iran’s actions or degrade its capabilities. In most cases U.S. administrations have been hesitant to respond at all, for fear of starting a larger conflict. The recent killing of Qassim Soleimani represents the opposite problem, in which the United States and Iran came unnecessarily close to a much larger war. In contrast, Israel’s “campaign between the wars” (the Hebrew acronym is mabam) against Iran and Iranian-backed groups in Syria has been one of the most successful military efforts to push back against Iran in the “gray zone.” Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and especially since early 2017, Israel has conducted more than 200 airstrikes inside Syria against more than 1,000 targets linked to Iran and it’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGCQF), and against IRGC-QF backed groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah. This campaign has slowed Iran’s military buildup in Syria while avoiding a broader regional conflagration that would have been damaging to Israel’s interests.1 This study examines Israel’s mabam campaign and asks what lessons the United States can draw and how they may be applied to future U.S. actions in gray zone conflicts, both against Iran and more broadly.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Military Affairs, Conflict, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Syria

3. The Battle for the Tribes in Northeast Syria

Author:
Nicholas Heras
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Northeast Syria (NES) is fragmented under the control of different powers that are all seeking to gain the support of the local Arab tribes. Those seeking to upset the status quo include the Assad regime and its allies (Russia and Iran), Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies, and ISIS —all seeking disruption with different motivations, yet working side by side. Those seeking to maintain the status quo include the U.S.-led Coalition, the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (AANES), and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Often, earning the support and alliance of the tribes is a transactional process whereby the tribes seek direct financial support and community investment, employment opportunities, military support, and autonomy to run their own affairs. Currently, most local tribal groups are calculating that a tenuous U.S.-protected order in northeast Syria provides better security and provisions than the alternatives from the Assad regime and its allies, or by Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies. However, ISIS remains a threat to all the powers involved in northeast Syria, and it is the major spoiler seeking to create the conditions for a return to the old order which was established under ISIS’s territorial Caliphate from 2014-2019.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

4. Escalation or Negotiation? Conclusions of a Tabletop Exercise on the Future of U.S.-Iran Relations

Author:
Elisa Catalano Ewers, Ilan Goldenberg, Nicholas Heras, and Kaleigh Thomas
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
On May 21, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) hosted an all-day tabletop exercise (TTX) in Washington, D.C., to game out three scenarios related to the crisis surrounding U.S.-Iran tensions over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and destabilizing regional policies. The intent was to understand how key players would respond and act in these potential scenarios. The TTX included seven teams: the United States, Iran, Europe (representing primarily France, Germany, and the United Kingdom but also the European Union), China, Russia, Israel, and the Gulf Arab States (one player as Saudi Arabia/UAE and the other player as Oman). Teams featured American and foreign regional and functional experts with a deep experience in their respective areas. Players were asked to play the most realistic version of their government.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

5. Slow and Steady: Improving U.S.-Arab Cooperation to Counter Irregular Warfare

Author:
Ilan Goldenberg, Nicholas Heras, and Kaleigh Thomas
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Since 9/11 the United States has struggled with how to respond to the challenges posed by ungoverned spaces in the Middle East, from which terrorist attacks and destabilizing mass refugee flows emanate. The collapse of state authority in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya has created security vacuums that extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al Qaeda have used to develop local presence, to organize, and eventually to conduct attacks both inside these countries as well as in Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, the refugee flows that have resulted from these conflicts have put tremendous pressure on neighboring countries and also caused a massive wave of refugees into Europe. The question facing the United States and other Western allies is how to deal with these challenges without getting sucked into complex and costly civil wars that the United States has little ability to end on its own. Full-scale American-led counterinsurgency, stabilization campaigns, or other resource-intensive nation-shaping interventions attempted in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven to be unsustainable models given the high costs, indecisive outcomes, and lack of political support at home. However, completely withdrawing U.S. forces and counting purely on intelligence collection to monitor threats and local partners to address them has been ineffective, as this approach leaves the United States vulnerable to attacks. The most successful effort the United States has launched to deal with these challenges in recent years has been the counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria, where it has succeeded in protecting U.S. interests at a reasonable cost by working “By, With, and Through” local actors. In this model the United States generally: (1) uses a comparatively small number of troops to train, equip, advise, assist, or accompany local forces with legitimacy on the ground; (2) provides airpower and some enablers and logistics; (3) uses its limited military investment as leverage for a broader diplomatic effort; or (4) invests in building local governance and providing aid on the ground.
Topic:
Civil War, International Cooperation, Counterinsurgency, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arab Countries, Syria, North America, and United States of America

6. Solving the Syrian Rubik’s Cube: An Instruction Guide for Leveraging Syria’s Fragmentation to Achieve U.S. Policy Objectives

Author:
Kaleigh Thomas and Nicholas Heras
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Eight years since the start of the Syrian crisis, the conflict in that country has transitioned from a war between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and its rebel opponents into an interstate competition among different foreign actors that have intervened in the war. The United States is a party to this competition because, through the campaign to counter the Islamic State group known as ISIS, Washington and its coalition partners have assembled a zone of control in northern and eastern Syria that encompasses nearly one-third of the country’s territory. Through this coalition zone, the United States has strong influence over the distribution of several key natural resources—oil, agricultural land, water, and electricity production—that are essential to stabilizing Syria and that are coveted by the Assad regime and its allies. Syria’s fragmentation therefore provides the United States and its partners with significant leverage to influence the end state that emerges as the outcome of the conflict. This potential leverage would be a powerful complement to the current American strategy to work toward the irreversible progress in the Geneva process through sanctions and maintaining an international consensus to deny Assad’s regime reconstruction assistance. Currently, the United States has committed to retaining a residual military presence in northern and eastern Syria to combat the re-emergence of ISIS or a successor organization, but without the United States investing financially in the rehabilitation and stabilization of those areas. Simultaneously, Washington seeks to force changes in the Assad regime’s behavior, policies, or composition by applying economic pressure via U.S. sanctions and closing off the regime’s access to reconstruction funding. This study examines how the United States can leverage Syria’s fragmentation to achieve U.S. policy goals through several policy options. The options are based on two key metrics: first, the level of U.S investment in Syria, and second, whether the United States should seek to change Assad’s behavior, remove Assad, or resign itself to the reality that he will stay and to re-engaging with him.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Syrian War, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

7. Iraq’s Fifth Column: Iran’s Proxy Network

Author:
Nicholas Heras
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
As Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (I.R.G.C.) campaigns against ISIS, the Islamic Republic is strengthening its Shiite militia proxy networks in Iraq. The I.R.G.C.’s expeditionary wing, the Quds Force, is using political connections in the Iraqi government and historical links to veteran Shiite groups to influence Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (P.M.U.s). P.M.U. groups that express support for Khomeini’s wilayat-al faqih and hold the closest ties to the Quds Force are led by commanders that worked with the Quds Force as fighters in the Islamic Resistance of the 1980s and 1990s. However, Iran’s extensive Shiite militia network does not extend to all P.M.U.s. Differences amongst P.M.U. groups will shape the future of Iraqi Shiite socio-political development as P.M.U. groups transition from active militia activity to participation in mass politics.
Topic:
Politics, Military Strategy, Armed Forces, and Islamic State
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

8. Gray Zones in the Middle East

Author:
Nicholas Heras
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and trans-Sahara regions are undergoing a period of instability and state collapse, with active civil wars raging in four of the most important countries in the region: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. As witnessed during the Arab uprisings of 2010–2011, the MENA region has begun to grapple with the once and future challenges of instability as the regional population grows and skews younger, economies stagnate and start to collapse, and resources become scarcer. U.S. national security policy toward the MENA and trans-Sahara regions is at a point of high uncertainty, with a new administration developing strategies to address the security threats to the United States and its partner nations being caused by the region’s civil wars.
Topic:
International Relations and International Security
Political Geography:
Middle East

9. Slow Thaw: Testing Possibilities for Cooperation with Iran After a Nuclear Deal

Author:
Ilan Goldenberg, Jacob Stokes, and Nicholas Heras
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
With nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States restarting today, Center for a New American Security (CNAS) Middle East Security Program Director Ilan Goldenberg, CNAS Bacevich Fellow Jacob Stokes, and CNAS Middle East Program Research Associate Nicholas Heras have produced a new policy brief on potential cooperation with Iran in the wake of a nuclear deal. The authors argue any thawing of the relationship would face tremendous challenges.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East