Foreign Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War

The Role of Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United States

Abstract

The Syrian crisis, which began in 2011 with anti-government protests (that formed part of what is referred to as the Arab Spring), has been at the center of regional power rivalry in the Middle East over the past eight years and it has escalated into one of the most complex civil wars of the 21st century. To shape the course of the domestic armed conflict, several external state actors got involved, supporting proxies or even direct military intervention. Iran has been supporting government forces loyal to President Assad since the beginning of the civil war, but in the end only Russia’s military intervention could save the regime from collapsing in 2015. Due to the pragmatic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow, the course of the civil war took a clear direction, while the expansion of the Islamic State and Turkey’s operations against the Kurds in Northern Syria made the conflict even more complex. The United States, with its strategy of focusing narrowly on the eradication of the Islamic State and explicitly avoiding widespread US military engagement, practically gave up Syria. This paper briefly summarises the history of the escalation of the Syrian Civil War, sheds light on the importance of the Russian military intervention and the Russian–Iranian cooperation, then outlines the role of Turkish operations against the Kurds in Northern Syria, and finally touches on the United States’ Syria strategy. By discussing the role of the major external state actors, this paper points out the complexity of the external dimensions of the Syrian civil war, which is only one of several perspectives.