Suchergebnisse

"Known as the "beating heart" of the Arab World, Syria has held high geographic and political importance in the Middle East and has been the battlefield of superpowers for centuries. Since the outbreak of the "Arab Spring", its central role has been reinforced by its civil war, one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts since World War Two, causing significant humanitarian disaster. With American power diminishing and European power in the region emerging, Europe has begun to exert its impact on Syria and this book analyzes the diplomatic policies of European countries on Syria from the perspective of Chinese scholars. Starting with a review of the European Union's policies in the Middle East and North Africa as a whole, the authors analyze the Syrian policies of France, the United Kingdom and Germany, the three most influential and representative countries on the European continent. The authors argue that the favoured "humanitarian intervention" concept failed to achieve the expected results, increased the bloodiness of the Syrian civil war and undermined the European Union's advantage in the region. Researchers and students of international relations as well as Middle East Studies will benefit from this volume"--

AbstractHow do civilians respond to civil war narratives? Do they react to ethnic frames more strongly than to alternatives? Governments and rebels battle for hearts and minds as well as strategic terrain, and winning the narrative war can shift legitimacy, popular support, and material resources to the sympathetically framed side. We examine the effect of one‐sided and competing war discourses on ordinary people's understandings of the Syrian civil war—a conflict with multiple narratives, but which has become more communal over time. We conduct a framing experiment with a representative sample of Syrian refugees in Lebanon in which we vary the narrative that describes the reasons for the conflict. We find that sectarian explanations, framed in isolation, strongly increase the importance government supporters place on fighting. When counterframed against competing narratives, however, the rallying effect of sectarianism drops and vanishes.

This paper looks at small arms transfers to non-state actors in the Syrian conflict as an under analyzed aspect of intervention in intrastate war that is both globalized and potentially destabilizing. I challenge the dominant narrative that the international community has failed to intervene in Syria, by pointing to the manifold government-funded arms transfers to opposition groups beginning in 2012. I find that there are two significant networks of arms trafficking: one through Jordan with Saudi Arabian and American support; the other through Turkey with Qatari support. These patterns and rivalries between donor countries have contributed to three processes within the transformation from revolution to civil war: militarization, increased sectarianism, and fragmentation of the opposition. I review two mechanisms of international arms control: multilateral embargoes and the recent Arms Trade Treaty. Their weaknesses, as evident in the case of Syria, are related to the problems of self-monitoring and enforcement by states that have contradictory incentives. Next, I address the related issue of surplus arms by looking at how the failure of disarmament measures in Iraq and Libya had a direct impact on arms proliferation in Syria. I conclude with a discussion of the legality of arms transfers to non-state actors and the need to focus on political rather than military solutions to globalized conflict.

The Syrian conflict has strongly exacerbated regional sectarianism. This chapter examines the rhetoric of Saudi 'ulama (clerics) against Shi'ism and Syria's minority Alawite regime. Potentially influential as a conservative force against Islamist radicalism, 'ulama of different persuasions (establishment, non-establishment, traditionalist, or progressive) are caught between opposition to regime oppression of Syria's Sunnis and the politically motivated desire not to be seen supporting radical anti-regime groups like ISIS. Difficult questions thus arise, especially regarding the permissibility of jihad in Syria. Overall, some 'ulama may have indirectly encouraged donations to radical groups, and as militants defect, Saudi money may even have ended up with ISIS. But this chapter finds no evidence of direct clerical support and argues that this would not be in their interests.

How does the international system impact a civil war? Does polarity affect the war's outbreak, character and how long it lasts? Systemic Realists argue multipolarity makes inter-state war more likely, but is this also true of intra-state war? Using the Syria conflict (2011-present) as a case study, this article suggests a connection can be found. It argues that the end of US-dominated unipolarity, and its interaction with a new multipolarity in the Middle East region impacted the behaviour and calculations of foreign states involved, contributing to the outbreak of war and how it progressed. The same interacting multipolarity paradoxically also shaped Russia's decision to intervene in 2015, ultimately edging the war towards a conclusion, something that Systemic Realists would not expect. This study of the systemic effects in the Syria conflict suggests that the Neo-Realist concept of polarity continues to have relevance and can be useful in understanding intra- as well as inter-state conflict. It points to the importance of the interaction between regional and global systems in generating these effects, and it suggests a reconsideration of the Neo-Realist view that multipolarity always makes wars harder to end.