Divide and conquer: the consolidation of Hafiz al-Assad's policy toward Lebanon – the early stages

This article examines the attitude of Syria toward Lebanon during the first years of Hafiz al-Assad's regime. Assad adhered to the policy of ‘divide and conquer’, in which Syria purposefully prevented any Lebanese figure from becoming too powerful in the political arena. The article will analyze two cases of prominent Lebanese leaders in which Syria applied this policy, President Suleiman Frangieh and the Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt. Both were close allays of Assad, but this fact did not prevent the latter from acting against his friends. The article's main claim is that by using this policy, Assad paved the way for Syrian intervention and increasing influence in the land of the cedars.     

PAX SYRIANA: THE STAYING POWER OF BASHAR AL ASSAD

The staying power of Bashar al Assad and the ability of his state to outplay their regional and international enemies have come as a surprise to many. Rather than just the Russians and Iranians being responsible for this there was a coherent strategy to win back not just the territory but also the alliances that it temporarily lost during the course of this war. And unlike Saddam after the first gulf war, Bashar al Assad is already remerging fast as a regional player again. Veteran diplomats such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski had cautioned against a fight against Assad, so had seasoned academics such as David Lesch and Patrick Seale. Whilst many experts had predicted the fall of Assad within weeks in 2011 a careful reading of the Lebanese war and Syrian regional policy would act as the best guide to answer how Assad has managed to stay in power despite all the odds. A combination of his father's legacy and regional alliances has helped him a great deal. The ethnic and sectarian fault lines of Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Palestine have all contributed to his success including receiving support from virtually all stake holders of relevant neighbours such as the Shia and Christian of Lebanon, the Palestinian factions, the Alevi and Arabs of Turkey, the Sunni or Iraq. An ability to divide his opponents both on the battlefield and diplomatic table was the main factor that turned the tide in favour of Assad along with the obvious military support from Russia and Iran, but also by key Arab states such as Egypt and Algeria.     

Populism and Peasant Iconography: Turkish painting in the 1930s

The Six Day War is renowned for its impact on the shaping of the Middle East. In the last few decades, much research examining the reasons for the outbreak of the Six Day War, its development and its ramifications has been published. Most of the research has focused on an examination of Israeli government policy before and after the war, on the Egyptian regime's hatred of the ‘Zionist entity’ and on the involvement of the superpowers during and after the war. Some research has also touched on Syria's role in the outbreak of the war. Researchers such as Eyal Zisser and Moshe Maoz have shown Syria's decisive role in initiating the war and suggest that various factors, such as a lack of government stability in Syria, precipitated the conflict. This research continues, to a great extent, in the line of those researchers: indeed, it points to Syria as being the main factor behind the outbreak of war through an examination of the changes that occurred in the character of its government from 1966. However, unlike other research so far, this attempts to show that the unique character of the neo-Ba'ath regime is what brought war to the region and that, had the Ba'ath coup not occurred in 1966, it is doubtful whether Syria would have entered the conflict. This article seeks to emphasize that the Syrian regime went blindly into the war despite military unpreparedness and a lack of political and military cooperation with other Arab countries and with the Soviets. It also exposes, for the first time, the state of the Syrian troops on the front and in the cities, as well as the feelings of the senior officers on the eve of the war, and reveals documents about the military and political cooperation between Syria and Egypt that would eventually force President Nasser to enter a war he did not want to get involved in. Moreover, the research exposes the deep rift – which many believe pushed Syria to take rash independent measures –between the Soviet leadership and the Ba'ath regime before the war. And, finally, the research exposes the atmosphere in Syria following the war, and the administrative and military steps the Syrian regime took immediately after the defeat in order to consolidate its power.     

俄罗斯对叙利亚政策中的东正教因素

俄罗斯在叙利亚乱局中的表现,近期再次成为国际热点。自2011年介入不断升级的叙利亚危机以来,俄罗斯目前已经成为主导叙政治进程的主要外部力量。在俄罗斯此次应对叙利亚危机的外交中,东正教因素起到了重要作用。早在帝国时期,俄国就持续介入叙利亚事务。俄罗斯与叙利亚自古以来的东正教文化交往,影响着沙俄对安提阿教会和叙利亚东正教徒的情感,成为沙俄加入中东大国角逐的突破口。此次介入叙利亚危机,是历史的延续。俄罗斯东正教会领导人的公开发言、其附属机构在国际组织对叙基督徒问题的宣传以及提供人道援助,起到了公共外交的效果,一定程度上使俄罗斯的介入和军事行动合法化,获得了俄罗斯国内外民众的理解与支持。东正教因素的上述多重影响,是俄罗斯介入此次叙利亚危机、并成功实现其外交策略和目标的重要因素之一。     

What Drove Syria Back into the Arab Fold?

After more than a decade of brutal civil war, which is still not resolved and has left Syria divided in thirds, regional states welcomed President Bashar al-Assad back into the fold in May 2023. The Arab League's decision to reinstate Damascus's membership was the culmination of a slow and fitful process that accelerated when Saudi Arabia took the lead. Still, it is too soon to know whether and how Syrian normalization will evolve beyond its Arab core, especially due to the West's continued sanctions regime. This article analyzes how the evolution of the Syrian crisis, the changing calculus of Arab powers, and American inaction have contributed to Assad's rehabilitation. In conclusion, we consider four areas that will determine the next phase of the normalization process.     

盟友还是对手?俄罗斯与伊朗、土耳其在叙利亚问题上的关切与挑战

在叙利亚问题上,俄罗斯被视为最关键的一方。俄罗斯在2015年9月直接出兵叙利亚,帮助叙利亚政府收复大片土地,并与伊朗和土耳其一起,通过阿斯塔纳和平进程、索契和平进程,逐渐稳定了叙利亚的国内局势。此外,俄罗斯还积极促成叙利亚"宪法委员会"的成立,推动叙利亚开启战后政治重建进程。随着叙利亚国内局势逐渐缓和,俄罗斯在叙利亚问题上面临着新的挑战。一方面,俄罗斯需要面对伊朗和土耳其在叙利亚的关切。俄、伊、土三国在叙利亚问题上分歧犹存,很可能会导致叙利亚局势再度紧张。另一方面,俄罗斯需要处理好叙利亚一些敏感的政治和安全事项,维系叙利亚国内战局稳定,推动叙利亚政治重建进程实现突破。     

Persistence and change in Soviet and Russian relations with Afghanistan

This paper examines persistence and change in the Soviet Union's and then Russia's relations with Afghanistan with respect to development and security. First, a detailed analysis of the promise and reality of Soviet development assistance reveals conceptual shortcomings in their attempt to induce economic development in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union's heritage is then revealed in order to understand Russia's current perception of post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as Russia's emerging interests and commitment to Afghanistan's economic development. This paper argues that Russia will most likely replicate standard industrialization development approaches in contributing to Afghanistan's development. Therefore, Russia will probably run into problems similar to those that led to the failure of the Soviet modernization project, which consisted of large-scale development projects that were inappropriate to the country's institutions and the lives of most Afghans. It is questionable whether such reiteration will induce economic development now, in the complex setting of a fragmented and fragile state with a multitude of external players looking out for their own interests.     

The Islamist Uprising in Syria, 1976–82: The History and Legacy of a Failed Revolt

The Islamist Uprising in Syria between 1976 and 1982 remains understudied in view of the growing availability of new primary sources on the subject. The present article explores the unfolding of the Revolt, examining the causes for its eventual defeat and the long-term legacy of the Uprising. It argues that the Islamist Uprising in Syria failed for a variety of reasons, first and foremost internal disunity and indecisiveness, leading to a lack of military preparedness, planning, and coordination at critical junctures, and a lack of mass mobilization for the Revolt. Failure to rally sufficient foreign support made the Uprising crumble in the face of the regime’s unrestrained brutality. Rather than serving as a rallying cry for the Syrian opposition, the defeat at Hama has had a divisive effect, illustrated by the contradictory narratives embraced by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadi opponents.     

Notes and news

Russia and Asia have an ambiguous relationship. More than half of Russia is geographically in Asia and much of its history, too. Peter the Great switched Russia's main focus to Europe. But by the middle of the 19^th century the “Slavophiles” were contesting that “Westernising” view as the Russian Empire expanded. After World War II, the USSR played an important ideological role in Asia, until the failure of the invasion of Afghanistan. The ensuing collapse of the USSR resulted in a smaller, much more “European” Russia, which the West was nonetheless not eager to embrace. Today, the dynamic economies of Asia offer opportunities, not least as a market for Russia's energy exports. But the legacy of Peter the Great lives on.     

The Syrian conflict and public opinion among Syrians in Lebanon

Whom do ordinary Syrians support in their civil war? After decades of repression, the Syrian uprising unleashed an outpouring of political expression. Yet the study of Syrian public opinion is in its infancy. This article presents survey evidence from a large, diverse sample of Syrian refugees in neighbouring Lebanon, one of the first of its kind, and examines their support for the different factions fighting in the civil war. In so doing, it demonstrates that many conventional narratives of the conflict are oversimplifications of a more complex reality. The survey shows that the majority of Syrian refugees support one faction or another of the opposition, but a large minority sympathizes with the government. In line with existing accounts of the war, the government draws its popular support base from wealthier and less religious Syrians, as well as minorities. Nonetheless, large numbers of Sunni Arabs also side with the government, belying sectarian narratives of the war. The survey also finds that supporters of the opposition Islamists and non-Islamists are similar in many regards, including religiosity. The main distinction is that the non-Islamist support base is far more politically attentive than are Islamist sympathizers, in contrast to existing narratives of the war.     

Can ‘Citizen in Uniform’ Survive? German Civil–Military Culture Responding to War

This article points out the role of perceptions, hereafter referred to as ‘civil– military culture’, that German society holds about the German armed forces. Analysing the discourse in German newspapers concerning Bundeswehr missions abroad since the early 1990s, and the engagement in Afghanistan in particular, it is argued that options to use the military abroad were circumscribed mainly to humanitarian tasks. This was so because German soldiers have been perceived in accordance with the official concept of a ‘citizen in uniform’, which has strong ethical implications, and consequently the Bundeswehr was seen as a humanitarian and rescue organisation. However, since the discourse in 2009 made it clear that the internalised civil–military culture no longer provides adequate guidance regarding how to approach a war-like situation such as that in Afghanistan, the entire German civil–military culture is challenged.     

The ‘Missing Dimension’: Britain's Secret War against France in Syria and Lebanon, 1942–45 – Part II

The article provides the ‘missing dimension’ in the historiography of Syria and Lebanon in the Second World War. It is based on secret British and Syrian documents obtained by the French intelligence from their agents in the British Legation in Beirut and the Syrian government in Damascus, never published before. These documents, recently discovered by the author, shed new light on the activities of the British intelligence agencies in the Middle East during and after the war. They reveal that these agencies played an important role in shaping Britain's policy in the region by securing the tacit collaboration of prominent Arab nationalists in Syria and Lebanon and other Arab countries. In Syria (and Palestine), Britain conducted a ‘dual policy’: one purported to mediate between the French and the Syrians, details of which are found in British archives, and a tacit policy aimed to evict France, of which few traces remain in official documentation. Hence de Gaulle's accusations that Britain secretly engineered the expulsion of France from the Levant were indeed justified, and that the Syrians' claim that their country was the first Arab state to secure complete independence is questionable. The article also discloses that Britain was behind the Hashemite schemes to integrate Syria in a Greater Syria or an Iraqi-led Hashemite confederation. Copies of more than one hundred of the documents are annexed to the article, including a secret agreement from 29 May 1945 revealing that President Quwatli was coerced into granting Britain a dominant position in Syria.     

The war in Georgia and the Western response

This article considers Western, and most particularly American, policy towards Tbilisi in the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008. The article does not accept the view of Russian leaders that the United States actively promoted the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. It does, however, argue that Washington's alliance with Georgia was sufficiently close to make President Saakashvili believe he would receive American support in the event of war with Russia. The war, however, was not in America's interest since it threatened its position in the South Caucasus and provided Russia with an opportunity to re-emphasize its growing power in the world.     

Imperial nostalgia or prudent geopolitics? Russia's efforts to reintegrate the post-Soviet space in geopolitical perspective

After stagnating throughout most of the 1990s and 2000s, Russia's efforts to reintegrate the post-Soviet space are finally gathering momentum. According to President Vladimir Putin, Russia's goal is to establish a Eurasian Economic Union “capable of becoming one of the poles in a future multi-polar world.” Most existing studies see Russia's imperial and post-Soviet legacies as the driving forces behind these efforts. Although they offer valuable insights, these studies fail to explain the timing of Russia's push for deeper regional integration. This article examines these developments from a geopolitical perspective and compares Eurasian regionalism with the regional integration projects of other great powers (more specifically, Brazil and Mercosur/Unasur and China and ASEAN+1). All three efforts are occurring at a time when the international system is in flux and the ability of the USA and other Western powers to deliver key global collective goods is being called into question. Regional integration must ultimately be seen as a strategy by Russia and other great powers to respond to these challenges and prepare themselves for an unpredictable future.     

Russia's energy governance transitions and implications for enhanced cooperation with China,Japan, and South Korea

A Tokyo-based economist and a noted western economic geographer, both specializing in the hydrocarbon resources of Russia, apply the framework of governance studies in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the recent changes in the country's energy policy-making. The authors argue that, unlike the international relations paradigm prevailing in studies of Russia's energy policy, the country's multiple roles in the international energy arena (as producer, consumer, exporter, importer, and transit state) warrant a more nuanced approach, reflecting Russian energy policy's flexibility over time and diversity across space. This paper endeavors, therefore, to apply a political economy and governance perspective to an understanding of the significant changes in Russia's energy policy-making regarding its dynamic energy relations with the Northeast Asia (NEA; China, Japan, and South Korea). In exploring the complex interactions between Russia's internal energy policy-making and its emerging energy relations in NEA, the authors addresses three key questions, namely: (1) how Russia's Asian energy policy corresponds to its domestic needs, (2) how much coherence in energy governance and cooperation exists between Russia and the Northeast Asian states at the institutional and organizational levels, and (3) the extent to which Russia's expectations for increased energy cooperation with the Northeast Asian states are likely to materialize.     

Abd al-Karim Qasim and the kurds of Iraq: Centralization,resistance and revolt, 1958–63

Despite the presence of women's migration from Syria to Egypt, until recently the extent of their contribution and influence has received insufficient attention. This paper aims to feminize the narrative of migration from Syria to Egypt by positioning women more centrally in this narrative through their cultural activities, especially the establishment of women's magazines. The Syrian/Lebanese and Egyptian phases of these women's lives are treated as a continuum and it is shown that their home life experience in Syria shaped their later life in Egypt. Conceptually, the paper envisions the diffusion of ideas resulting from the migration of Syrian women to Egypt towards the end of the nineteenth century as a process of regionalization, which is termed cross-glocalization.     

The EU and the Syrian Crisis: The Use of Sanctions and the Regime's Strategy for Survival

The Syrian crisis has from May 2011 and onwards been met by the EU with rounds of tightening sanctions attempting to put pressure on the Syrian regime and the elites surrounding it. Based on a typology for the sanctions and a periodization showing how the measures have proceeded, the article discusses the EU sanctions and to what degree they have influenced the situation in Syria. Furthermore, the article sheds light on regional and international dimensions of EU policies towards Syria and demonstrates how the policies are met with the Syrian regime's ability to adapt to conditions related to changing internal and external challenges. The article concludes that what in the first phases of the EU sanctions against Syria represented a deviation from the traditional pragmatic EU policies vis-à-vis the Middle East, seems during the latest phase to be followed by a more cautious approach, which also takes security concerns into consideration.     

Russia and the Kurds: A Soft-Power Tool for the Kremlin?

Russia has been the Kurds’ patron for more than two centuries, motivated primarily by the cynical desire to use them against adversaries in broader great-power games while casting itself as a champion of the Kurdish cause. Russia's longstanding and multifaceted relationship with the Kurds demonstrates that when it comes to geopolitics, the United States has more than brute force to contend with. The Russian state also utilizes soft power as an authoritarian state defines it: a tool of pragmatic leverage. While the Kurds are not a monolith, they are anxious about the trajectory of US politics and feel they cannot rely on anyone. The Russian state has opportunities to undermine American interests in places such as Syria and Iraq through its connections with Kurdish groups. This article reviews tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet policies toward the Kurds, including Kurdish communities in Russia. It concludes with a discussion about implications for the United States, given that Moscow will not let go of its Kurdish card, including in the context of the Ukraine invasion.     

Coming to terms with neopatrimonialism: Soviet and American nation-building projects in Afghanistan

The author examines how patrimonial forms of domination, as conceived in a Weberian sense, came to pervade the formal bureaucratic apparatuses developed under both Soviet Marxist–Leninist (from the late 1970s) and American-coalition liberal designs (since 2001), creating hybrid states defined by neopatrimonialism. Drawing lessons from the survival and eventual collapse of the Najibullah regime following the 1989 withdrawal of Soviet forces, the article finds that the continued extension of aid and arms, and not the presence of foreign military forces, proved most effectual in sustaining the Afghan leader's patronage-based grip on power. Arguing that the contemporary regime of Hamid Karzai has likewise adopted a neopatrimonial-type rule, these findings have clear implications for current American policy in Afghanistan. America, Afghanistan's ultimate patron, can better ensure stability in the region by extending aid to Karzai than by continuing a large and costly military occupation of the region.     

Russia,the death penalty,and Europe: the ambiguities of influence

Studies of capital punishment worldwide investigate how international influence affects the death penalty. We analyze European influence on the death penalty in Russia over the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods, using two parameters: the changing mechanisms of influence in each period and the death penalty's significance in the broader spectrum of punitive violence. On the first parameter, in the tsarist period, European influence on Russian policy was “productive” – exercised through prestige, moral suasion, and “diffusion.” In the Soviet period, European influence was blocked. In the post-Soviet period, European influence is coercive, as the Council of Europe has unsuccessfully sought to compel Russia to abolish its death penalty. On the second parameter, the death penalty in Russia has always been only one of many forms of state-sanctioned punitive killing. In consequence, the Council's involvement in Russia's death penalty has produced an incoherent policy outcome and has entangled the Council in Russia's authoritarian politics. Russia thus exemplifies the hazards of external involvement in death penalty abolition.