Interview: What Syria Did Wrong, and What its Defeat Means For Russia, Israel and Wider Global Security
From Military Watch Magazine.com
World War in Syria: Al Nusra Front and Syrian Army Forces
In the aftermath of the decisive defeat of the Syrian Arab Republic on December 8, which marked an end to the 13 year insurgency in the country, we interviewed expert on international security A. B. Abrams to provide insight into both the causes of Damascus’ sudden fall, as well as the longer term consequences for international security. Abrams is the author of the book World War in Syria: Global Conflict on Middle Eastern Battlefields, which provides a comprehensive study of the first ten years of the Syrian War, as well as an extensive background into the history of Damascus’ longstanding conflicts with the Western world, Turkey and Israel. Abrams’ work on Syria has been strongly endorsed by prominent figures including former Senior Adviser in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama State Departments David Philips, British Army Major General and Director Special Forces (ret.) John Holmes, former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, and former Netherlands Special Envoy for Syria Nikolaos van Dam.
Military Watch: What do you project will be the future of Syria itself?
A. B. Abrams: Syria draws multiple close parallels to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, as a socialist state closely aligned with Moscow which was assailed effectively by Western Bloc states and their allies through support for Islamist insurgents. Indeed, many of the Islamist groups that have played a central role in the Syrian War can trace their origins back to the Western-sponsored war against the Afghan state, with the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham originating as Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria. Much as was the case in Afghanistan, Syria is likely to devolve into conflict between the multiple rival jihadist groups in the country. The Syrian Idlib governorate, where Hayat Tahrir Al Sham and other groups that now control Syria are based, previously saw extreme repression of minorities and women, including ethnic cleansing of Shiite areas. This mirrored the large scale attacks on Afghan minorities, such as the Shiite Hazara, after similar Islamist groups took power in 1992. The consolidation of defensive militias from minority groups, most notably Kurds, Christians and Shiites, remains a very high possibility to defend their communities. Much like Afghanistan, and more recently Libya where jihadist groups were also empowered by Western and allied intervention, human development indices ranging from healthcare to life expectancy are expected to diminish. The United States, Turkey, and Israel are expected to maintain military presences in the country and close ties with various Islamist groups.
Military Watch: What are the primary factors which made the Western Bloc and their allies take over 13 years to defeat Syria, while they managed to defeat Libya in just eight months?
Abrams: While the Western and allied campaigns to overthrow both governments have strong parallels between them, a significant difference is that Western and Turkish air support for anti government insurgents in Libya were a central part of the war effort, and allowed the insurgency to gain ground far faster than it did in Syria. Two primary factors influenced this, including the fact that Libya for multiple reasons posed a much more immediate threat to Western interests, and the fact that Syria maintained a powerful air force, air defence network, ballistic missile arsenals and chemical weapons stockpiles. This allowed it to deter direct Western or Turkish intervention by air in ways that Libya could not. The insurgency in Libya was considerably weaker on the ground and had far less popular support, but benefitted from tremendous air support that more than compensated for this. The Libyan government’s decision to relinquish its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in the 2000s, and to neglect investment in its air force or air defences, contrasted sharply with Syria’s significant investments in these areas.
MW: What are the consequences of Syria’s defeat for Israeli security interests?
Abrams: Syria’s defeat marks one of the most significant gains for Israeli interests in the country’s history. Syria has been Israel’s oldest consistent adversary, with Syrian forces having played central roles in the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War, before becoming Israel’s primary state adversary during the Lebanon War. Syria’s large air force and air defence network, as well as its significant arsenal of North Korean ballistic missiles, allowed it to challenge Israeli forces despite the decline of its conventional forces in the 1990s. The destruction of the Syrian Arab Army takes significant pressure off Israel’s armed forces, while also isolating the country’s primary remaining adversaries Hezbollah and Iran. As the only Israeli adversary state bordering Lebanon, Syria was vital to the transfer of supplies to Hezbollah, with its defeat leaving the paramilitary group isolated. The empowering of jihadist militias, which Israel has played a central role in supporting alongside Turkey and multiple Western states, could allow these groups to play a more active role in supporting the collective security interests of Tel Aviv and its strategic partners in Ankara and the West, most significantly by opening a second front against Hezbollah which Israeli forces have struggled to themselves counter.
MW: Why didn’t Syrian forces perform better in their last two weeks of engagements with Islamist insurgents?
Abrams: This remains highly uncertain, but there are multiple reports from a range of sources of varying reliability. One significant possibility is that the effective use of psychological warfare against Syria frontline units, namely the issuing of orders on secure channels calling on units to withdraw. Any of Syria’s adversaries, including the United States, Israel or Turkey may have been responsible for such operations, which would follow the precedent of highly effective American psychological warfare against Iraqi units both in 1991 and in 2003. The Syrian Arab Army has proven to be a highly effective fighting force in the past, not only historically such as during its clashes with Israeli forces in Lebanon, but also more recently when combating Islamist insurgents. This was seen in 2011-2015 when Syrian forces prevailed without Russian support. Islamist militias were far from heavily armed, and were facing a force that had defeated them multiple times, and against far worse odds, in the past, which makes the effective collapse of Syrian government forces highly unusual.
MW: What will be the immediate geopolitical consequences of Syria’s defeat?
Abrams: The consequences are wide ranging and far reaching. Syria’s defeat could lead the United States and its allies to support the creation of a Kurdish state in the country’s oil rich northeastern regions, much as was done in Iraq, with the U.S. having maintained a large military presence in the region since the mid-2010s. Such a state could be a particularly valuable ally for Western and Israeli interests in future, with the Syrian government having been the only significant obstacle to its creation. It is expected that a priority target will be the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, which was previously targeted extensively by Islamist groups on Syrian territory. The recent frustrations Israel has faced in its war with Hezbollah, much as it did in 2006, creates a strong incentive for its Western and Turkish strategic partners to press for a jihadist offensive to open a new front against the paramilitary group from Syria. The cutting off of Hezbollah’s land bridge to Iraq will also limit its access to armaments.
Russian investments in expanding Khmeimim Airbase on the Mediterranean, including to host Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and MiG-31K/I fighters with ballistic missiles, will be set back considerably. As jihadist groups now controlling Syria’s Latakia province are under the strong influence of NATO member Turkey, it is likely that once their control of Syria is fully cemented they will request that Russian forces depart. This will represent a further major gain for NATO and Israeli interests. Much as was the case after the defeat of Libya, Syria’s large arsenals may well be diverted to support future war efforts in line with Western Bloc interests, possibly to Ukraine. Plans to build a Qatari gas pipeline through Syria and Turkey for exports to Europe, thus reducing Western reliance on Russian gas, is also likely to be considered depending on how stable the situation within Syria becomes. The trans-national jihadist groups could be emboldened to use Syria as a base of operations for terror campaigns abroad, with a notable example being the Turkish-backed East Turkestan Islamic Party which seeks to wage a jihad against China and ethnically cleanse its Xinjiang region.
MW: How can Syria’s defeat be interpreted in the context of broader geopolitical trends?
Abrams: During the Cold War multiple Arab states moved out of the Western sphere of influence, with various coups and revolutions from the early 1950s toppling Western aligned governments. From the mid-1970s, however, this trend was reversed beginning with an internal coup in Egypt that realigned it as a Western client state. The defeat of Soviet aligned South Yemen in 1990, U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the successful NATO campaign against Libya in 2011, were followed by the overthrow of the Sudanese government in 2019 in Western backed riots. Syria is thus one of the last Arab states outside Western influence to fall, with only Algeria remaining as a major Arab actor that is not aligned with Western Bloc interests. Thus in contrast to Africa, and particularly West Africa, where Western domination is increasingly challenged, the trend in the Arab world has been highly favourable for Western interests, with Syria’s fall representing a part of this trend.
MW: How would you summarise some of the policies which the Syrian government could have pursued differently to better ensure its security?
Abrams: The Syrian state made a number of serious errors in its conflict with the Western Bloc, Turkey and Israel, many of which date back to the 2000. The most significant failure was that it did not exert sufficient control of its information space, which in turn allowed Western countries and Turkey to use social media and other means of communication to win over large segments of the population. This information campaign used a wide range of messages, with different segments appealing to different constituencies within Syria, from radical Islamists to westernised liberals, promoting different idealised futures should the Syrian state be overthrown. The dangers that stemmed from complacency towards information security were exacerbated by the effects of economic policies in the 2000s, including large scale privatisations, which worsened economic conditions for many of the most vulnerable. Following the outbreak of the insurgency, tremendous Western and allied economic sanctions combined with the U.S. Military’s control and appropriation of Syrian oil fields further deprived the country’s economy, and allowed the message to be further propagated that the only way for the Syrian population’s economic hardship to end was for the Syrian state, which resisted Western interests, to be overthrown.
Other errors included failing to invest sufficiently in the armed forces, and particularly in counterinsurgency capabilities, as before 2011 the Syrian Arab Army was heavily focused on deterring Israel and the West. Although Syrian forces were too weak to effectively manage escalation, launching some form of retaliation using its missile arsenals against Turkish, Israeli and Western attacks may have served to deny them a free hand in launching further strikes on the country. Surrendering the country’s chemical weapons arsenal in 2013, which had added new levels to the country’s missile deterrent, was also arguably an error. Nevertheless, the causes of Syria’s fall can be more heavily attributed to the shortcomings of many of its strategic partners, including Egypt and Iraq which realigned against Damascus in the 1970s, the Soviet Union which disintegrated, and Russia which allowed the insurgency in Syria to gain momentum for four years before providing support to the Syrian state. As a relatively small country without significant natural resources, and surrounded by Western-aligned adversaries on all sides, the Syrian state’s security situation was highly unfavourable from the outset.
