METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY PRAGUE

MASTER’S DISSERTATION

2017 Viktoriia Nasypova

METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY PRAGUE

International Relations and European Studies

Alliances in Syrian War: Changes and Continuity

Author: Viktoriia Nasypova

Dissertation supervisor: PhD. Mitchell Belfer

2017

AFFIRMATION

I hereby declare that the following dissertation is my own work; I used exclusively the sources and literature indicated in the text. All used sources are included in the bibliography. I give my consent to Metropolitan University Prague to make this dissertation available in the Jiří Hájek Specialized Library so that it can be used for study purposes pursuant to the Copyright Act.

In Prague,

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor PhD. Mithcell Belfer for his untiring encouragements, assistance and guidance. In addition, I would like to give thanks to my family, which gave me support and positive attitude that have enabled me to complete this work.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Neorealism Theory as theoretical basis of study.

   1. Main features of Neorealism

   2. Neorealism and modern conceptions of defense and security

3. Modern approaches in exploring military conflict in context of Hybrid War.

   1. Modern approaches in exploring military conflicts

   2. Modern approaches in understanding the Hybrid War phenomena

4. Syrian crisis: main actors, unions and alliances

   1. Main conflicting parties in Syrian War

   2. Major characteristics of unions and alliances in Syrian War

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction

The modern world order is characterized by large number of confrontations. Middle East crisis, confrontation between India and Pakistan, wars in western and eastern Africa all could be described as “traditional” seats of military tension, while war in Yugoslavia, conflicts in the post-Soviet area (Transnistria, Nagornyj Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and now war in east of Ukraine) became new spots of armed confrontation. Besides that, North Africa to date is also a new “hot spot” on the world’s map, as a consequence of Arab spring 2010-2011 and military intervention of international community in to the civil war in Libya. Obviously, the number of conflicts in which military solution were applied have not shown signs of decreasing. Accordingly, more and more states implement their foreign policy based on military factors. However, the increasing degree to which Non-governmental (“nontraditional”) actors are involved in wars and armed disputes should be taken into account. These might include terrorist and extremist groups, radical opposition, insurgent military groups, as well as private military companies. Trans-border crime could be also added to the list. Due to an increase in the role of non-state actors, the significance of nonmilitary threats (terrorism, criminal activity) to state security is increasing as well.

It is crucial to define that according to Russia Military Doctrine military conflict is a form of resolution of interstate or intrastate conflict with the use of military force (the term covers all types of armed confrontation, including large-scale, regional, local wars and armed conflicts), while an armed conflict – armed conflict between the limited scope between states (international armed conflict) or the opposing parties within the territory of one state (the internal armed conflict). ¹<3> According to the opinion of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz: “Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions”² <38, p. 400>. The modern science of international relations contains different approaches and concepts of understanding the changing nature of modern wars and military conflicts. One of them is the conception of “Hybrid War”, developed by western military theorists based on analysis of U.S.A hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also after events in Second Lebanon War (2006). Despite this, the term “hybrid war” is propaganda and has politicized nature, since many states are blaming their geopolitical opponents in waging “hybrid war”, scientific methods, which link to this concept are of paramount interest for analysis of modern military disputes and wars and in particular Syrian conflict, in which various governmental and non-governmental actors are involved.

Over the past six years parties to the conflict have created and are still creating different unions and alliances, which have strategy and an ad hoc nature. From this perspective analysis of events in Syria is of a great interest, since conflict in Syrian Arab Republic is a vivid example of modern military conflict, in which regional and global actors are involved, as well as trans-boundary terrorist and extremist groups. Crisis in Syria began in 2011, as partial manifestation of the wider process of Arab Spring, expressed in a series of excitements and revolutions, which occurred in the Middle East. Due to internal features of development of Syrian State and society, as well as involvement of external factors, mass riots overflew to full-scale armed conflict³ <73>, which is still ongoing. Participants are governmental forces and various armed and terrorist groups resisting Bashar Asada's government, and are also struggling against each other. States that are seeking to realize their interests in the Middle East region are also involved and that is why they help in different ways to conflicting parties. Consequently, these countries are involved in certain unions and alliances as well. That fact greatly extends conflict’s borders. It is noteworthy that territorial confrontation impinges Iraq territory on the basis of Kurds and Daisy involvement, but from political perspective these boundaries a far wider.

Theoretical framework of this study is the Neorealism paradigm within theory of International Relations, which allocates systematical reasons of occurrence of international conflicts, recognizing leading part of states in possessing and implementing their military capability. Besides that, neoclassical realists, acknowledge the primacy of structural reasons of states development and international system development, draw attention to domestic affairs of States, and take into account the specificities of the country and its development, which affects state’s reaction to different threats. Hence, international and interstate conflicts can be caused both by internal and external reasons.

In a study, analysis of the sources and scientific literature devoted to the subject matter was conducted. Concerning official documents, analysis of Russia Military Doctrine (2005)⁴<3>, and Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States <1> is scientifically valuable because definitions of base concepts such as military conflict or armed conflict are given. Konyshev's monograph devoted to American neo-realism <39> significantly influenced this work as well. In his work the author describes the origin, guidelines and critique of neo-realism. Furthermore, the author mentions features of modern military conflicts: today there are a lot of ways to use military force in international politics, the military factor does not lose, but on the contrary, gains importance against a background of increase of military conflicts and occurrences of new types of wars: asymmetric and hybrid. Work of British scientist Williams D.P. Security studies: An introduction⁵ <23> focused on modern problems of safety, and includes critical analysis of neorealism as well as various directions within theory.

Significant contribution to emergence and development of the “hybrid war” concept were made by western military theorist studies. Scientific research of Hoffman’s Conflict in the 21-st century: the rise of hybrid wars⁶ <9, p.14> is a fundamental work when it comes to hybrid war concept. The author mentions historical causes of “hybrid war” emergence, and considers specificities involved in improving military idea across countries, which led to creation of the concept. Collective monograph ““Hybrid Wars” in chaos world of the XXI century”, edited by P.A.Tsygankov provides comprehensive analysis of approaches and conceptions, related to “hybrid war” concept⁷ <54>. This book in particular is focused on theoretical approaches which consider the nature of “hybrid wars”; historical development of given phenomena is studied, followed by comparison of the concept with other modern concepts of studying military conflicts and wars. Furthermore, authors analyze the existence of the main elements of the “hybrid war” concept in official military - political documents of various countries.

There are many scientific articles published on the same topic as this work. Work of Tatiana Romanova “Neoclassical Realism and Today’s Russia”⁸ <48> is focused on neoclassical realism as Kenneth Waltz's concept of structural realism. This article shows advantages of neoclassical realism, which acknowledge the primacy of the international system and emphasizes the internal factors of structures of foreign policy of the states; internal reasons are also considered together with structural mechanisms when studying international conflicts. Syrian problems take an important place in scientific discourse. The article of Georgi Asatryan “Syrian zugzwang” ⁹<25> sheds light to historical, cultural, political and ethno-religious causes of crisis in Syria, gave rise to bloody confrontation. Articles of Stephen Walt ¹⁰<20>, Boris Dolgov and Omar Mahmood¹¹ <34> and Fedor Lukyanov ¹²<43> are focused on analysis of the situation in Syria through the prism of a wide context of the last years, characterized by establishment of the new world order. Authors are trying to determine the reasons for dramatic events in Syria, the role of external players in crisis development, as well as how Syrian crisis could affect development of international system in the future.

While reviewing existing literature it was found that, despite the huge amount of publications focused on military conflicts and Syrian problematics, scholars are using concept of “hybrid war” referring to conflict in Syria with limitations, that, in turn, does not allow faithful definition of all deeper reasons of changing alliances in the Syrian war. In that connection, relevance of the problem and existence of “white stains” in the analysis of the chosen topic had defined aims, objectives, subject and object and also timeframes of this research.

The aim of the work is to characterise military conflict in Syria from the neorealism theory perspective based on the “hybrid war” concept. In order in achieve that it crucial to meet the following tasks:

1. To examine the main feature of neorealistic paradigm in international relations theory

2. To consider modern ideas of neorealists towards defense and security

3. To identify the roots of emergence of “hybrid war” concept

4. To identify main parties in Syrian conflict

5. To analyse main alliances and their evolution

6. To determine main feature of modern (2017) alliances in the developing military conflict in Syria, specific to “hybrid wars”.

The subject of study - military conflict in Syria from the changing alliances perspective. Study object - military conflict in Syria. (что то из это должно быть CASE STUDY)This work covers the period from March 2011 to early 2017. Such timeframes resulted from the fact that already from spring 2011 between Syrian government forces and opposition active fight actions had begun, repeated attempts of peaceful adjustment did not succeed till our time.

Methodology. In this research general logic scientific methods were used. When considering main features of neorealism theory, the historical method, the method of analyzing literature and sources, was used. In addition, in the final work, a comparative method was used to describe various directions within the framework of the theory of neo-realism. When considering modern approaches to the study of military conflicts, the method of comparison, analysis of literature and sources on the topic was applied. For the analysis of the conflict in Syria, historical, systemic and functional methods were used, as well as indirect and instrumental observation. The comparative method is used at the stage of identifying the "hybrid war" in the Syrian conflict.

Hypotheses. It is necessary to mention that as the conflict in Syria reached regional scope, and its consequences are global, we cannot study all parties of these events, that’s why this research will concern the most significant actors of these events. On this basis, the main hypotheses were formulated.

Hypothesis 1. The conflict in Syria is unprecedented in terms of the number of levels (religious, political, ethnical), therefore there is a large number of changing unions and alliance, which however didn’t resolve the situation in Syria.

Hypothesis 2. The approach of the main players displays the logic of “cold war”, that under the present circumstances of Hybrid war has not succeeded.

Hypothesis 3. The alliances are changeable and not effective enough because of unclear position of USA (approach transition of Obama’s and Trump’s administration), opportunistic position of Russia, and

1. Existence of political opposition in Syria, struggling for authority;

2. Kurds involvement;

3. Political instability in Turkey.