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.

This book provides an analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war. Most accounts of Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war focus on a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the escalating violence. The book argues instead that the international dimension was never secondary but that Syria's war was, from the very start, profoundly influenced by regional factors, particularly the vacuum created by a perceived decline of U.S. power in the Middle East. This precipitated a new regional order in which six external protagonists — the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar — have violently competed for influence, with Syria a key battleground. Drawing on a plethora of original interviews, the book constructs a new narrative of Syria's war. Without absolving the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, the book untangles the key external factors which explain the acceleration and endurance of the conflict, including the West's strategy against ISIS. It concludes with some insights on Syria and the region's future.

Abstract Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a ‘regional cold war’ involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the ‘content’ of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present ‘battle for Syria’, a local conflict that became a theatre for multiple proxy wars involving actors emphasising identities on various levels, most notably national, religious/ sect and ethnic. It suggests that identity content does matter, with global powers more reluctant than regional players to back groups identifying at sub-national level, while foreign non-state actors are enthusiastic backers of sub-national identity.

Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a 'regional cold war' involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the 'content' of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present 'battle for Syria', a local conflict that became a theatre for multiple proxy wars involving actors emphasising identities on various levels, most notably national, religious/sect and ethnic. It suggests that identity content does matter, with global powers more reluctant than regional players to back groups identifying at sub-national level, while foreign non-state actors are enthusiastic backers of sub-national identity.

Post-uprisings Middle East politics is frequently described as a 'regional cold war' involving proxy warfare that emphasises the role of shared identities linking external and local actors. But does the 'content' of identities impact proxy war dynamics? This article considers the present 'battle for Syria', a local conflict that became a theatre for multiple proxy wars involving actors emphasising identities on various levels, most notably national, religious/ sect and ethnic. It suggests that identity content does matter, with global powers more reluctant than regional players to back groups identifying at sub-national level, while foreign non-state actors are enthusiastic backers of sub-national identity.

Middle East PolicyVolume 24, Issue 1 p. 35-35 Chatham House Special Section: SYRIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS Syria and Its Neighbors: Chatham House Special Section Christopher Phillips, Christopher Phillips Chatham House and Queen Mary, University of LondonSearch for more papers by this author Christopher Phillips, Christopher Phillips Chatham House and Queen Mary, University of LondonSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 March 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12249Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume24, Issue1Spring 2017Pages 35-35 RelatedInformation

Middle East PolicyVolume 24, Issue 1 p. 36-47 Chatham House Special Section: SYRIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS Eyes Bigger than Stomachs: Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Syria Christopher Phillips, Christopher Phillips Senior lecturer in the International Relations of the Middle East at Queen Mary University of London and associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program.Search for more papers by this author Christopher Phillips, Christopher Phillips Senior lecturer in the International Relations of the Middle East at Queen Mary University of London and associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program.Search for more papers by this author First published: 19 March 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12250Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume24, Issue1Spring 2017Pages 36-47 RelatedInformation

This chapter looks at the early multilateral efforts to pressure Assad, such as economic sanctions and the peace plans of the Arab League and the United Nations, and the reasons for their failure. It particularly notes the role that Russia played in defending Assad. For a long time, Syria's oppositionists rejected the term ‘civil war’, arguing that what was happening was state oppression of peaceful protesters. However, at some point, Syria's uprising became a civil war. The evolution from uprising to civil war was not neat, with both protests and reciprocal violence occurring at the same time in different parts of Syria. The chapter seeks to answer why the international institutions charged with upholding international order proved unable to prevent it.

This chapter considers the circumstances in which unrest began in Syria, profiling President Bashar al Assad's regime and explaining the logic behind its repressive strategy. It examines Syria's eruption into revolt to assess how similar or different it truly was. Below the facade of a modernising young ruler leading populist foreign polices, the same economic disparity, political disenfranchisement and social resentment existed as in other protesting Arab states. However, the structure of its ruling regime and the complexities of its relationship with society would mean that Syria would not mimic Tunisia and Egypt in the swift exit of their leaders. It was similar enough to be caught up in events, but different enough to have far bloodier outcomes.

Extract Perhaps no group better reflected the West’s uncomfortable diversity than the Shakers, a sect of charismatic Christians who counted thousands of members from New England to the Ohio River valley during the mid-nineteenth century. And perhaps no people suffered the middle border’s uncivil war more than the Shakers of Kentucky. The utopian faith, originated in England in the eighteenth century, was formally known as the United Believers in the Second Appearing of Christ. Brothers and sisters referred to themselves as Believers, but neighbors called the curious group “Shaking Quakers” after their ecstatic worship services, which included nighttime public group dancing and singing. Their tenets included communal property, strict celibacy and taking in orphans, and racial and gender equality. Shaker families soon established communities in New York and other northern states, and by the early 1800s they had established staid western enclaves that stretched southwestward from Ohio’s Western Reserve into southern Ohio and Indiana and into central and southern Kentucky. There were two main Shaker communities in Kentucky: South Union, with 223 inhabitants, located on the Logan County prairie where the state’s southwestern tier gave way to the Mississippi’s floodplain, and Pleasant Hill, a village of 347 people in the Bluegrass’s Mercer County on a meadowed plateau above the looping Kentucky River’s steep palisades.1Close