This document touches upon the Case Study Syria that is given in the first years of Security Studies (Leiden University). It covers the lectures, and all the readings that are mandatory for this course. Good luck with your exam!
Lecture 1
→ this case is not about Syria, but it’s about interdisciplinary thinking
- UN report states that the war in Syria will continue in the future
→ Graffiti: ‘now it’s your turn doctor’ → march 2011, it was meant for Assad
→ arrested → protests
- Assad worked as a doctor in a hospital
→ Arab Spring: large scale protests in the Middle East
→ a man put himself on fire
- the conflict has been going on for a long time and it also affects our environments in
the Western world
→ multi-level and multi-actor
→ much of the conflicts in Syria are aligned with the ones in Iraq
- the roots of ISIS → Iraq
Haffez al-Assad → dictator & stability in a nation that has been unstable for a long time and
ended the political coups
Sykes-Picot → a border creation which caused instability in the Middle East
→ a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the
Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of
influence and control in an eventual partition of the
Ottoman Empire.
Syrian war map →
Case study Syria:
- Humanitarian conflict → people are
killed/missing
- Involvement of international/non-state actors
- Terrorist propaganda
- Physical and narrative (?)
- The global and local effects of this case
- Social & material aspects
→ refugees fleeing to other countries in Europe →
protests
- American involvement
→ Obama’s red line → the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable
- Dutch involvement
,→ Not sending weapons but they send cars etc.
→ actively supporting terrorist organisations (?)
Different dimensions of war conflict:
- Dealing with diseases
- Dealing with refugees
- Dealing with people growing up with ISIS
Lecture 2
W1L2: Regional history and power relations
1. regional history
- People peacefully demanding more civil rights and
freedoms → evolved in multiple conflicts
- The levant → the region where the sun rises
- The Middle East/The Arab (speaking) World
- Everyone means something different when talking
about the region
The pottery barn rule: you break it, you
buy/remake it.
- Couple of countries that played a huge
role in their conflict & tension:
→ Iran
→ Saudi Arabia
Studying a security conflict:
- local, national, regional, international
→ vast amount of actors
- Regional and International (power)
Relations constantly change
- Parties have many (sometimes
contradicting) interest
- Are not united themselves
- Power relations exist at various levels
- Are fought ….
- ……
2. IR theory
IR Theory: how states interact with each other
- it’s not the way of thinking of the actors themselves
- it’s a way of academics to explain the action of actors of states
, → a branch of political science concerned with relations between nations and
primarily with foreign policies
How does IR THeory relate to the War in
Syria?
- local fighters are supported
- International Factions are involved
- Mix of local and foreign fighters
- International Intervention
- indirectly (financial support, material
support)
- directly (with forces on the ground or
air strikes)
- International Organisations (Aid,
Peace Plans)
3. power relations
Proxy warfare = A proxy war occurs when a major power
instigates or plays a major role in supporting and directing a party
to a conflict but does only a small portion of the actual fighting
itself → video about Iran and Saudi etc.
- a war fought between groups or smaller countries that
each represent the interests of other larger powers, and
may have help and support from these larger powers.
Motives:
→ Coercion: supporting a group to let the other actors act in a
way you want
→ Disruption: to weaken the military
→ Transformation: to cause a transition in the enemy government or regime
Security vacuum = an important ruler disappears → not clear who will be the next one
“Different Conflicts”
- Original Core conflict (Assad vs Opposition)
- Kurdish minority in Northern Syria
- Islamitic State (vs. the rest)
- Foreign interventions and proxy wars
- Large power geo-politics
Main Points:
1. The conflict in Syria became a stage for proxy war and even one for great poer
politics (US-Russia)
2. The advantages and disadvantages of proxy war - the purposes of proxy war -
coercion - disruption - transformation
3. IR theories can help understand the interactions between states
4. But IR theories are widely divergent
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