Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Syria Publication Year within 25 Years

451. Israel, Europe and Russia: A New Paradigm?

Author:
Emmanuel Navon
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
Israel is expected by its European interlocutors to condemn Putin over his misdeeds, yet Israel wants to avoid frictions with Russia in order to maintain a free hand to operate against Iranian targets in Syria.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, Foreign Interference, and Regional Power
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Syria

452. Making the Best of US Withdrawal from Syria

Author:
Aiman Mansour
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
Given Iran’s presence in Syria, Israel must employ focused, operative rhetoric and policy versus the strategic threats it faces.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Hegemony, Foreign Interference, and Regional Power
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Syria, North America, and United States of America

453. Settling Kurdish Self-Determination in Northeast Syria

Author:
Will Todman
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
When President Trump declared on December 19 that U.S. troops in Syria were “all coming back and coming back now,” it plunged the future of the East of the country into uncertainty.1 Dynamics in Syria were already shifting against the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration (AA) in Northeast Syria, as threats from Turkey and the regime increased. The impending withdrawal of U.S. forces eliminates the AA’s main source of leverage over the Assad regime and increases its vulnerability to the Turkish invasion President Erdogan has threatened. Scrambling to avoid conflict, AA officials have turned to Russia to mediate a political deal with President Assad, hoping to restore regime control to Syria’s eastern borders in exchange for self-administration.2 However, the lack of clarity over the timeline of the withdrawal means the United States maintains important influence in eastern Syria.3 Shaping the outcome of the Kurdish question at this critical juncture and preventing a new conflict in Northeast Syria are among the few remaining positive steps it can take in Syria. Although the Kurdish issue seems tangential to U.S. interests, the United States should invest in its diplomatic and military tools to facilitate a limited autonomy settlement in Northeast Syria when the area is formally reintegrated into Assad’s territory. To do so, the United States should work to discourage potential spoilers to such a deal and then forge an international coalition to act as guarantors to the agreement. Failing to secure an autonomy settlement could sow the seeds of long-lasting instability in Northeast Syria. The experience of autonomy has fanned the flames of Kurdish self-determination, and although the position of Syrian Kurds is now precarious, they are nonetheless stronger and more united than they ever have been. Throughout the conflict, they have won freedoms which Damascus long denied them and built a formidable army: the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reportedly numbers over 60,000 troops.4 Such self-determination movements do not flare out so easily. A new CSIS edited volume, Independence Movements and Their Aftermath: Self-Determination and the Struggle for Success,” shows that from Bangladesh to East Timor, governments’ attempts to curb a minority’s rights have often accelerated their push for independence.5 A U.S. abandonment of Syrian Kurds without facilitating a negotiated settlement could therefore ignite another bloody, long-term struggle for self-determination in the Middle East, with wide-reaching regional implications.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Governance, Self Determination, Settlements, and Foreign Interference
Political Geography:
Middle East, Syria, North America, Kurdistan, and United States of America

454. Access for What? Elevating Civilian Protection and Quality Access for Humanitarian Action in Syria

Author:
Melissa Dalton and Hijab Shah
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The Syrian conflict has produced humanitarian consequences of harrowing and tragic proportions. With an estimated 500,000 Syrians killed, the war has prompted the world’s greatest refugee flow since World War II.1 There are 6.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Syria and 5.3 million refugees in neighboring countries (a total 13 million people affected—for context, the total population estimate for pre-war Syria was 20 million). From January to December 2018, there were an estimated 1.6 million population movements.2 Civilian protection is the most important focus for international humanitarian efforts given the complexity of the Syrian conflict, myriad state and non-state armed actors involved, and continuing incentives for parties to the conflict to use humanitarian access as a political tool.
Topic:
Political Violence, Humanitarian Intervention, Conflict, and Civilians
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

455. ‘Peace’ in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
In fairness, peace almost always consists of a pause in the fighting that becomes a prelude to war. Taking modern Europe as an example, the Napoleonic wars were punctuated by failed peace attempts, and then led to the rise of Germany and a whole new series of wars with Austria, Denmark, and France. The repressive peace settlements following Europe’s upheavals in 1848 set the stage for decades of new rounds of conflict and revolution. World War I led to World War II, and then led to the Cold War and now to the Ukraine. Nevertheless, the current U.S. efforts to support peace negotiations in Afghanistan and the Middle East seem remarkably weak even by historical standards. In the case of Afghanistan, “peace” is being negotiated without even the same cosmetic level of local government participation that occurred in Vietnam. It is being negotiated when there is no political stability to build upon, and no apparent prospect that the coming election can bring real unity or effective leadership.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, Middle East, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Gulf Nations

456. The Return of ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and the Middle East

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Abdullah Toukan
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The U.S., its European allies, and its Strategic Partners in the Middle East achieved a significant victory in breaking up the ISIS protostate – or “caliphate” – in Syria and Iraq. This break up has sharply reduced the fighting against ISIS in Iraq, and in Eastern Syria. The U.S.-led Coalition did not, however, fully defeat ISIS in either Iraq or Syria or eliminate ISIS and other forms of extremism as serious threats. It did not bring lasting stability to Iraq or end the Syrian civil war, and it did not eliminate the threat from ISIS and other extremist groups in the rest of the MENA area. This analysis covers two important aspects of the crisis in Iraq and Syria since the break of the “caliphate.” First, it summarizes key official reporting on the resurgence of ISIS as a serious threat in both Syria and Iraq. Second, it puts ISIS in perspective – showing that it did not dominate the violence and levels of terrorism in Syria even at its peak, and noting that ISIS is only one of the major threats to stability in Iraq.
Topic:
Terrorism, Military Strategy, ISIS, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Syria, and United States of America

457. U.S. Complicity in the 2014 Coup in Kiev as a Violation of International Law

Author:
A. Vyleghanin and K. Kritsky
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
FIVE YEARS AGO, a coup d’état took place in Kiev. Following demon- strations and arson attacks, a mob seized several government institutions, including the administration building and residence of the constitutional- ly elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich. Some members of the Ukrainian president’s security detail who were protecting his residence from illegal seizure were wounded and killed.1 Alexander Turchinov, one of the coup leaders, began serving as the president of Ukraine even though no Ukrainian presidential election had been held. The coup in Kiev led primarily to the U.S. assuming a leading role in Ukraine’s governance – something it had neither during the period of the Russian Empire nor the Soviet era. The February 2014 overthrow of the president in Kiev that took place without elections and in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution de facto divided the country into regions that recognized the new authorities in Kiev and those that opposed the coup (primarily the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine). This occurred not only because the Ukrainian presi- dent was unconstitutionally removed from power but primarily because the “installation” of the putschist government was accompanied by vio- lence, and ethnic and linguistic persecution. In March 2014, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea left the new, “post-coup” Ukraine in accordance with the provision of the UN Charter on the right of peoples to self-determination. Subsequently, following a referendum in Crimea, a treaty on Crimea’s reunification with Russia was signed. A confrontation between the new regime in Kiev* and residents of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions turned into a protracted armed conflict. The forcible replacement in Kiev of a constitutionally elected head of state (Yanukovich) with an unconstitutional leader (Turchinov) directly impacted Russia’s national interests. Russians and Ukrainians lived together within a single state, the Russian Empire, from the 17th century until 1917. During the Soviet period, the border between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic did not have international legal significance. It was an administrative bor- der. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent UN member states (Russia and Ukraine) that replaced them continued to maintain close economic and other ties. Their continued integration, including through joint participation in the Customs Union, objectively met the strategic interests of Ukraine and Russia. A friendly Ukraine is also important to Russia from a national securi- ty standpoint, considering NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s borders that began in the early 1990s – i.e., NATO’s absorption of all former member states of the Warsaw Pact, including Poland and even the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Russia’s leadership has repeatedly stressed the inadmissibility of dragging Ukraine into NATO. Words about “fraternal” relations between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine are no exaggeration: Millions of family members (both Russians and Ukrainians) live on opposite sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border,2 and at least one-third of Ukraine’s population speaks Russian as a native language. In this context, it is not surprising that Moscow considered the U.S.- orchestrated seizure of power from the head of state in Kiev an event affecting its vital interests. Something else is remarkable: The U.S. administration said that the events in Ukraine, far away from the American mainland, “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”4 Westerners promulgated a very different assessment of the forced ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. The U.S. called it a “people’s rev- olution” and said that the mob action organized in part by the U.S. ambas- sador in Kiev (including the killing of Berkut fighters, the state guard of the Ukrainian president) was a legitimate way of expressing the will of the “Ukrainian people.”
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Law, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Middle East, South America, Syria, Venezuela, North America, and United States of America

458. Turkey’s Refugee Policy under the Shadow of the Neo-ottomanism: A Source of Silent Conflict?

Author:
Gülsen Kaya Osmanbaşoğlu
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
Along with Turkey’s changing refugee policy from the Eurocentric, secular nation-state ideology to the neo-Ottomanist one on the state level, there also exist main handicaps on the micro power level concerning the successful coordination of the refugee issue with full respect of the human rights. Economic, cultural and especially political factors play a role in the relationship between Syrians and Turkish residents. Fragmentation within the Syrian community living in Turkey is also evident. On the other hand, different from the state policy, Turkish people implicitly show their reluctance towards this migration wave without creating a social turmoil. In this line, it is suggested here that Neo-Ottomanism, as a rising trend, helps a considerable majority of the society to take a moderate stance towards the immigration flux.
Topic:
Human Rights, Migration, Syrian War, and Neo-Ottomanism
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Syria

459. Iran’s Land Route: A Strategic Threat

Author:
Yossi Mansharof
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
Iran is taking advantage of the crises created by ISIS and the Arab Spring to advance its land route project from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The American withdrawal from Syria will remove one of the obstacles that stand in Iran’s path, yet Israel has demonstrated its determination to prevent the establishment of this route.
Topic:
Security, Military Strategy, Economic Cooperation, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Syria, and Mediterranean

460. Iran’s Strategy for Control of Syria

Author:
Jonathan Spyer
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
One way Iran’s efforts are taking place are below the official Syrian state structures – in the arming and sponsoring of Iran-controlled paramilitary formations on Syria soil.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Hegemony, and Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Syria