Syria Civil War

This study addresses the effectiveness of political advertising in an extreme context, during wartime. A self-administered cross-sectional survey was used to collect data during the 2016 parliamentary elections in Syria. Structural equation modelling was utilized to test the hypothetical model and its invariance related to political involvement. The results indicated that beliefs are a four-dimensional structure consisting of information, veracity, sarcasm, and cynicism. Furthermore, wartime perceptions were found to negatively affect attitude towards political advertising via sarcasm among less politically involved voters. Negative attitude was found to be linked to lower levels of veracity among such voters and to higher levels of cynicism for those who are highly involved in politics. Negative attitudes regarding political advertising were found for lowering the chances for watching advertisements, for supporting a candidate, and for willingness to vote. The results also revealed that paying attention to political advertising does not relate to voters' intention to vote. This study is the first of its kind to empirically validate a conceptual model predicting voters' turnout behaviour based on voters' wartime perceptions, beliefs and attitudes regarding political advertising in an authoritarian setting. In addition, this study investigates whether the effects of the proposed model may be moderated by voters' political involvement.

The documentary depicts the journey of a teenage girl and her mother who move to California in 2012 because of the Syrian civil war. Together they learn to live in a different culture and face challenges to their traditions - ­all while endeavoring to build a better future.

I. PROSPECTS FOR PEACE OR WAR II. MAJOR TRENDS IN FORCE STRENGTH III. COMPARATIVE LAND FORCE STRENGTH: ACTIVE VERSUS MOBILIZED STRENGTH IV. COMPARATIVE AIR STRENGTH: QUALITY OVER QUANTITY V. COMPARATIVE NAVAL STRENGTH: PERIPHERAL MISSIONS VI. TOTAL RESOURCES: RECAPITALIZATION, FORCE MODERNIZATION, AND IMPACT ON EFFECTIVENESS VII. THE MILITARY FORCES OF ISRAEL VIII. THE MILITARY FORCES OF SYRIA IX. WAR ON THE GOLAN HEIGHTS X. CONTINUING EXTERNAL ASYMMETRIC WARS SOURCES AND METHODS OTHER BOOKS BY ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

What is hybrid warfare?  And what role does information play in today's conflicts? In the context of the technological/information revolution of the last two decades--which has greatly amplified the danger posed by nonmilitary means of political struggle--Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare addresses these questions from the perspectives of both Western and Russian experts. Incorporating both theory and contemporary realities, including the case of the Islamic State, the authors offer a unique dialogue on the nature of conflict in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Civil War in Syria created a large scale humanitarian crisis causing a mass human migration up to seven million in total. The largest neighboring country-Turkey has the greatest number of Syrian refugees exceeding 2.7 million. In the expectation of a quick resolution for the conflict and sending the immigrants back, the host country has taken only palliative temporary actions. This study investigates the options that Turkey has for the immigration problem. Elaborating on integration techniques for immigrants, the paper suggests possible policies for implementation of social integration in the future decades. Based on strategic management principles, the author presents advantages and disadvantages of integration, maintenance of status quo, and prevention of immigration.

The war in Syria initially was an intrastate conflict between the Syrian government and internal armed rebel groups. However, the conflict escalated into an internationalized intrastate conflict when regional and global powers split into pro- and anti-Assad blocs and inserted themselves into the conflict.

In the context of rapid developments in Turkey and its broader geopolitical environment over the past decade, this book examines and conceptualises Turkey’s changing foreign policy towards a more assertive and revisionist paradigm. More specifically it details the rhetorical and practical-political content of what is termed ‘Lausanne Syndrome’; namely, Turkey’s efforts in recent years – under the AKP government – to revise the geopolitical status quo brought about by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) in its broader neighbourhood.

By employing a Neoclassical Realist theoretical framework and paying particular attention to ideational factors, the book argues that, contrary to the more widely known ‘Sèvres Syndrome’, which predicts a more cautious brand of Turkish foreign policy, the ‘Lausanne Syndrome’ is associated with a different political-ideological current and predicts a more revisionist type of foreign policy behaviour, even though it has emerged out of the same historical circumstances and been triggered by the same external geopolitical factors. The impact of the ‘Lausanne Syndrome’ on Turkey’s foreign policy behaviour is subsequently tested in four case studies from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East: Cyprus, Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

After conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, the IS undertook an aggressive sectarian campaign in which they not only enacted horrific violence against the Shia people, but also damaged or destroyed several key Shia mosques and shrines. Drawing on Social Movement Theory (SMT), this article analyzes the response by various Shia nonstate actors—militia leaders, religious clergymen, populist preachers, and seminal poets. It argues that they used the IS threat to Shia holy sites to develop and deploy a mobilization frame that has come to be referred to as the “shrine protection narrative.” The article also documents the manifold consequences of the shrine protection narrative: it underpinned a mass recruitment drive that saw tens of thousands enlist; it legitimized foreign Shia militias to enter the conflicts in both Syria and Iraq; it justified the formation of entirely new militias who declared the centrality of shrine protection to their mandate; and it mobilized them to enact political violence. In doing so, this article extends existing studies of SMT to demonstrate that “sacred spaces”—and particularly the need to protect religious sites from specific threats—can serve as a powerful mobilization frame towards political violence.

On first entering Syria, the observant traveler will probably be startled to go through passport control and notice a military map of Syria on the wall, for this map contains several anomalies. It shows the Golan Heights under Syrian control, though they have been occupied by Israel since 1967. Syria's boundaries with Lebanon and Jordan appear not as international borders but as something called "regional" borders. Israel does not even exist; instead, there is a state called Palestine. And Palestine is separated from Syria by a line designated a "temporary" border. Finally, the province of Hatay, a part of Turkey since 1939, appears to be included in Syria; only on close inspection can one see the "temporary" border between it and Syria...

Nikolaos van Dam: The Alawis sided with the regime … and al-Asad did not win. Interview with Nikolaos van Dam, by Ahmad Sallal for Orient-News.net Nikolaos van Dam, is one of the best informed contemporary European figures concerning Syrian realities and the nature of the al-Asad regime. He is a Dutch orientalist and former ambassador of the Netherlands to several countries including Iraq, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and Germany. Van Dam, born in 1945, and now 77 years old, studied Arabic and Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Recently, the book "Destroying a Homeland / The Civil War in Syria". He lived for a period of time in Syria and wrote his famous book "The Struggle for Power in Syria. Sectarian, Regional, and Tribal Politics" and recently published his book, "Destroying a Nation, the Civil War in Syria".
This is the English version of the published Arabic text.

Türkiyeli ve Suriyeli kadınların ev dışı ücretli işgücüne katılımlarının belirleyenlerini ve etkilerini toplumsal cinsiyet ve gruplar arası ilişkiyi odağına alarak anlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu anlama  çabası, makro politikalar, politik ve ekonomik bağlam ve toplumsal cinsiyet rejimleri kesişiminde oluşturulan bir analiz  çerçevesinden yapılıyor.
Bu  çalışma, Türkiye’de yoğun politik kutuplaşma ve baskı, yükselen
ekonomik krizin ve artan yoksulluğun ülkedeki atmosferini şekillendirdiği bir dönemde gerçekleştirildi. Eş zamanlı olarak, Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik nefret söylemi, ayrımcılık, ırkçılık ve saldırıların da sürekli yükseliyor. Dahası, Covid19- pandemisinin etkisinin tüm dünya toplumlarını derinden etkilediği ve yaraladığı bir sürecin de içindeyiz.

Little about Syria’s natural endowments would lead an analyst to
predict that it would have such a central role in Middle Eastern
affairs. By most indicators of strategic importance—including size,
internal cohesiveness, and wealth—Syria would seem destined to be no
more than a minor player, relatively easy for greater powers inside and outside the region to marginalize and ignore.

Despite these apparent manifestations of insignificance, vulnerability,
and weakness, Syria has long been an important consideration in U.S. foreign policy toward the greater Middle East. Understanding this paradox is essential to understanding the challenges that Syria poses for U.S. policymakers. To that end, this chapter offers an overview of Syria’s strategic place in the greater Middle East as well as an overview of the principal analytic questions surrounding Bashar al-Asad’s presidency.

Dom Toplumu, Ortadoğu coğrafyasında diğer halklarla birlikte yaşayan, Çingene, Nawar, Ghajar, Kıpti gibi jenerik isimlerle adlandırılan, peri-patetik topluluklardandır. Peri-patetik topluluklar tarihsel olarak sanayii üretimi öncesi toplumlarda, birlikte yaşadıkları halklara, iş aletleri üreten, çoğu zaman sözlü ve müzikal kültürlerinin taşıyıcısı olan, dişçilik, sünnetçilik, gibi geleneksel halk hekimliği, sirk, hayvan terbiyeciliği, cambazlık, müzisyen, dansçı gibi eğlence alanında çalışan, demircilik, kuyumculuk, kalaycılık, sepet, kalbur, deri işlemeciliği, gibi pek çok farklı alanda geleneksel zanaatları icra edip, hizmet veren ve bu hizmetlerin karşılığında besin – gıda maddeleri alan, göçebe – yarı göçebe topluluklardır. Özellikle son 50 yılda, üretim ilişkilerinin gelişimi,  sanayi devrimiyle birlikte hızlanan seri üretim ve atölyeler, fabrikalar gibi üretimin kurumsallaşması Peri-patetik toplulukların geleneksel zanaatlarını büyük ölçüde geçersiz kılmıştır. Topluluklar yeni iş alanlarına yönelmiş, hurda-atık toplayıcılığı, mevsimlik tarım işçiliği, ayakkabı boyacılığı, hamallık, çiçekçilik, seyyar satıcılık gibi, gündelik işler yaparak, çoğunlukla kayıt dışı alanlarda çalışarak, yeni yaşam stratejileri geliştirmişlerdir.

“Carnivalesque” is perhaps the best, if not the only way to describe what was going on at the Bab al-Saghir Cemetery that hot summer afternoon in 2008.  In front of the graves of the Prophet’s wives, Shi‘i pilgrims could buy Viagra, sex-enhancement creams, and massage oils.  Sexual mores were normally strictly guarded in Syria and medicines were usually available only at pharmacies.  Yet, there in one of the most historically and religiously significant cemeteries in Damascus, makeshift vendors sold an array of sex-related items.  In order to analyze this phenomenon, this article draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the “carnivalesque.”  First, it provides a short background of Twelver Shi‘ism in Syria and explains how Shi‘i religious tourism encouraged the development of black markets.  Then, it examines how Shi‘i pilgrimage, which occurred all year around, but peaked during Muharram, fostered an attitude that liberated Shi‘is from prevalent social norms and emphasized “grotesque” imagery and practices, including blood, death, and sex.  In short, it follows Michael Taussig’s call for anthropologists to attend to the transgressive aspects of religious ritual.

According to Giorgio Agamben, a “state of exception” is established by the sovereign's decision to suspend the law, and the archetypical state of exception is the Nazi concentration camp. At the same time, Agamben notes that boundaries have become blurred since then, such that even spaces like refugee camps can be thought of as states of exception because they are both inside and outside the law. This article draws on the notion of the state of exception in order to examine the Syrian refugee camp cum shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab as well as to analyze questions of religious authority, ritual practice, and pious devotion to Sayyida Zaynab. Though Sayyida Zaynab and many of her Twelver Shiʿi devotees resemble Agamben's figure of homo sacer, who marked the origin of the state of exception, they also defy Agamben's theory that humans necessarily become animal-like, leading nothing more than “bare lives” (or zoē) in states of exception.

Previous literature explains peace negotiations mainly with country-level factors or events related to the countries where the peace efforts take place. This closed polity approach contrasts with contemporary peace processes where the actors and demands transcend nation-state boundaries. This paper challenges this dominant understanding in the peace process literature and focuses on the role of the rebel groups’ transborder kin connections in affecting peace process dynamics. By studying the Kurdish Peace Process conducted between the Government of Turkey and the PKK, the paper argues that the transborder kin connections can both remedy and exacerbate bargaining problems acute to peace processes.

During the onslaught of the Islamic caliphate on Kobanî, Syria, media outlets across the globe broadcast pictures of brave and often unveiled Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a quintessentially male force of destruction. The images of women fighting Islamist male aggressors aroused outrage, admiration, and pity among observers. But had all Kurdish fighters been male or had women fought for ISIS, viewers might have reacted differently. To examine some of the most widely disseminated gendered pictures and videos of the Syrian uprising in the media, this article draws on Mohja Kahf’s three categories, which typify how Muslim women, Arab women, or both are perceived by the Anglophone reading and viewing public: the first is victims; the second, escapees; and the third, pawns of patriarchy and male power. While this typology helps in examining gendered images of the Syrian uprising, it also obscures the socioeconomic realities on the ground.

The main purpose in this project is neither to make false promises nor to portray the refugees as victims. The purpose is to present the truth without any bias, to provide accounts of what the employees of a non-governmental organisation experienced, and how the Syrian refugees were assisted regardless of their religion, language and race.
This project certainly has limitations, such as the avoidance of using the real names of any Syrians regardless of whether they are non-profit volunteers or refugees receiving help. Because they all still have concerns for their own security and also fear and uncertainty regarding their future. They tell their stories bravely, yet their fear of ‘being labelled’ by a certain section prevents them from attaching their names to these stories. This fear is not only limited to names. Although the confidentiality of their information is of the utmost importance for this NGO, those refugees with a serious fear of ‘being labelled’ are not among those helped by the “Association of Support to Life” and therefore did not participate in this Project: The Arab Alawites, who were targeted by some opponents during the war because of sharing the same origin with the Assad family, and the Nusayris. The Nusayris, who came to Hatay from Syria, are contacted despite its difficulty, but they wanted neither to be recorded nor to tell about what they have gone through. Therefore, only Sunni Arab, Kurd, Turkoman, and Christian families are included in this project.
It is an honour for us to communicate a part of these people’s life stories without any discrimination. These stories are usually presented to the public as mere numbers for the ease of general consumption by news agencies in which all sides provide skew the facts to suite their agenda. The individual blinded by the engrained ideologies of Turkey engages with the mass media with the confusion and suspicion of alternative views.

In Fall 2015, following a formal request by the Assad government, Russia intervened in Syria to support a friendly regime that was on the brink of collapse. Within three years of direct military involvement in the Syrian civil war, Russia – along with Iran and Iran-backed Shiite militia – has succeeded in stemming the tide of the local insurgent groups, helping to bring under Assad’s control most of the war-torn country. Yet parallel to tangible military successes, Russia has been increasingly dragged into “alien wars” which adversely affected its capacity for political maneuvering. Tied as it is to Assad and his Iranian allies, Russia’s commitment to the brutal regime not shunning of deploying chemical weapons against its own population, as well as to safeguarding its hard-won positions in Syria has dramatically isolated Moscow from the rest of the world.
The chances of Russia’s military confrontation with the United States, its NATO allies, and possibly also Israel have reached unprecedented heights, with Moscow putting its global reputation on the line to support a cause that is far from being vital to it. As the allied strike of April 2018 has shown, determinate rhetoric notwithstanding, Moscow has done nothing to protect its Syrian protégé. While Moscow has a lot to lose should the Syrian conflict escalate internationally, it has little to gain from a continued presence in this Middle Eastern country that is likely to go through a period of low-intensity civil war. At the same time, given how much Russia has invested in the war following Moscow’s lukewarm reaction to the April strike, a Russia’s withdrawal from Syria would lead to the failure of its initial goal to enter the war, and an even more dramatic loss of reputation both domestically and internationally.

Em outubro de 2015, após atender um pedido oficial feito pelo governo da República Árabe da Síria, a Federação Russa inicia uma robusta, complexa e planejada intervenção militar no país árabe, arrasado por cinco anos de guerra civil contra grupos rebeldes seculares e islamitas, muitos deles armados, financiados e apoiados por atores regionais e até pelas potências ocidentais, além do grupo extremista intitulado “Estado Islâmico do Iraque e do Levante”. Sendo a maior campanha militar russa desde a breve Guerra na ex-república soviética da Geórgia em 2008.
Assim, a partir da atuação das frotas navais do Mar Negro e Mar Cáspio, e a instalação de contingentes das Forças Aeroespaciais em território sírio, as forças russas, em conjunto com aliados sírios, iranianos, as milícias do grupo libanês Hezbollah e até articulados tacitamente com tropas iraquianas e curdas, passarão a empenhar-se no combate aos grupos opositores ao regime sírio e ao Estado Islâmico, trazendo uma série de inovações táticas e estratégicas no uso de armas combinadas, o emprego de novos vetores e tecnologias de combate, e a renovação e reaparelhamento das forças sírias e iraquianas, desgastadas por anos de conflito. Paralelamente, ocorrem grandes esforços diplomáticos, na finalidade de atenuar a beligerância e animosidade entre o governo sírio e os opositores mais “moderados”, inclinados a uma possibilidade de reconciliação nacional. O objetivo desse trabalho é analisar os objetivos, interesses e estratégias, nos campos geopolítico, militar e diplomático que levou a intervenção direta russa e sua condução e papel durante o conflito, além das implicações e resultados obtidos para a política externa russa e os atores regionais e mundiais, ainda que tais dinâmicas estejam em curso.

مجتمع الدوم, هو واحد من المجتمعات المتنقلة التي تعيش في الشرق الأوسط مع الشعوب الأخرى ويطلق عليها أسماءا مختلفة مثل الغجر, النور أو الأقباط. تاريخيا فإن المجتمعات المتنقلة هي شعوب رحالة أو شبه رحالة تعمل بتزويد أدوات العمل للشعوب التي تعيش معها في مجتمعات ما قبل الثورة الصناعية وعادة يحافظون على ثقافاتهم الشفوية والموسيقية ويعملون بالطب الشعبي مثل طب الأسنان والختان وفي مجالات الترفيه مثل السيرك وترويض الخيول والألعاب البهلوانية والموسيقي والرقص والحرف التقليدية الأخرى مثل الحدادة والصفيح وصنع المجوهرات وصنع السلال وصنع الغربال وأعمال الجلود ويتلقون المواد الغذائية مقابل تلك الخدمات. خصوصا في الـ 50 عاما الأخيرة, ومع الثورة الصناعية والمصانع والورشات الكبيرة ومأسسة التصنيع أصبحت الصناعات الحرفية التقليدية للمجتمعات المتنقلة بالية. وقد طورت هذه المجتمعات إستراتيجيات جديدة للحياة وتحولت إلى مهن أخرى مثل جمع الخردة والمخلفات والعمالة الزراعية الموسمية وصبغ الأحذية وكحمالين وبائعي زهور أو كباعة متجولين لقاء أجور يومية وبشكل غير رسمي.

خلال السنوات الـ 50 الأخيرة بدأ كثير من الدوم الذين يعيشون في الشرق الأوسط في الإستقرار في "مناطق الهجرة" على أطراف المدن حيث أقاموا مخيماتهم لعدة قرون وكان هذا بسبب تقلص أسواق حرفهم التي تتطلب الترحال. كانت الحروب والنزاعات والعنف التي إستمرت في المنطقة لسنوات سببا في تشريد مجتمعات الدوم.

أجبرت فترة النزاعات والحروب الداخلية التي استمرت لعشرات السنين في الشرق الأوسط مجتمعات الدوم على الهجرة من أماكنهم رغم أنهم لم يكونوا طرفا في أي حرب. بشكل خاص كانت النزاعات التي تحدث في سوريا سببا في سعي مجتمعات الدوم والمجتمعات المتنقلة الأخرى للجوء إلى الدول المجاورة. تعرضت هذه المجتمعات التي لجأت إلى لبنان والأردن والعراق وتركيا لظروف غير ملائمة وفق برامج وسياسات الهجرة السائدة في تلك الدول مقارنة مع مجموعات اللاجئين الأخرى, وأصبحوا يتعرضون للإقصاء والتمييز بسبب المعاداة للغجر. وأصبحت هذه المجتمعات الضعيفة والمهمشة من قبل البلد المستضيف والمجتمع وأيضا من قبل اللاجئين الموجودين في البلد التي يعيشون فيها؛ تواجه مشاكل في الوصول إلى الخدمات, كما أصبحت تتعرض للإقصاء والتمييز من قبل المجتمع.

أدت إنتفاضات الشعوب التي بدأت عام 2010 والتي أطلق عليها إسم "الربيع العربي" والتغيرات التي تأثرت بها دول الشرق الأوسط بسبب الحروب الداخلية والبيئة المتضاربة والتغيرات السياسية والإجتماعية إلى جعل حياة هؤلاء الناس أكثر صعوبة. فبعد أن تحولت هذه المجتمعات إلى حياة الإستقرار ومع الإستيلاء على أماكن هجرتهم التي إعتادوا عليها لمئات السنين وأحيائهم ومنازلهم أجبرت هذه المجتمعات على العودة إلى حياة الترحال من جديد.

In this exchange in International Security, I contest Barbara Walter's thesis that groups like ISIS benefit from being super extreme. I argue that extremism is counterproductive -- a point developed in far greater detail in my book, Rules for Rebels, which comes out in fall 2018.

This report analyzes the effects of US and European unilateral measures (sanctions) imposed upon the Syrian economy since 2011 - more specifically, the impact on its agricultural, small and medium private enterprises (SMEs), and private banking sectors. The report does not address the unilateral measures imposed on individuals, but those related to state institutions and networks of the Syrian private economic sectors. The report assumes that the impact of unilateral measures on the Syrian economy and livelihood was unintended.
Through the analyses of each sector’s evolution since the early 2000s, the report attempts to distinguish between the various influencing factors, in order to demonstrate where the principle of “no harm to the population” was breached.

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on 26th September 2007

Republished in the Aramaean portal as per below

http://www.aramaic-dem.org/English/Aram_Naharaim/070926.htm

A while back, the Arameans of the Aram Naharaim Foundation sent a Letter to the Presidents of the United States and France, and the Premier of the United Kingdom with the respect to the critical issue of the Aramaeans of Iraq. The letter focuses on the false identities projected by Western missionaries among the Aramaean Eastern Christians, who have subsequently been partly divided into ‘Assyrians’ and ‘Chaldaeans’, although their real identity is Aramaean. This criminal act of Spiritual Genocide is at the epicenter of all problems pertaining to Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, as it generates the riparian environment on which flows the river of Islamic Extremism.

In fact, all the Muslim populations of the aforementioned countries, as well as the Arabic speaking populations of Turkey and Iran, plus the totality of the populations of Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates and the northern edges of Arabia are not Arabs, but Aramaeans of the Late Antiquity and the Early Christian times who got linguistically arabized because they accepted gradually Islam.

Contrarily, the Ancient Chaldaeans (Kaldu), who lived in Southern Mesopotamia, were just one of the various Aramaean tribes who had settled in Mesopotamia in the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian times ((12th – 11th centuries BCE). Naming some Aramaeans today after a name that refers to a subdivision of the Ancient Aramaeans is an act of absurdity or anti-Aramaean hatred.

Absolutely paranoid is the effort to name other modern Aramaeans as ‘Assyrians’, despite the fact that the Ancient Assyrians left no trace in Mesopotamia, following the extinction of the Assyrian Empire (614 – 604 BCE). This effort is undertaken through vast misinterpretation of sources from the Late Antiquity, and in order to distinguish the Aramaeans, who contrarily to pro-Catholic ‘Chaldaeans’, accepted Protestant missionaries’ preaching and distorted versions of bogus-History.

The shocking fact that linguistically and culturally the modern pseudo-Assyrians have no relations with the Ancient Assyrians makes no sense to these extremists, who by sharing the same area (Northern Mesopotamia, and North-Western Iran) with the Kurds are definitely exposed to Kurdish expansionism.

Adding to this is the incredible paranoia to claim the same past as the Kurds (Assyrian Mesopotamia); only a perverse plan that wants to push these Aramaeans to frontal clash with the Kurds would stipulate such a controversial national name for the Aramaeans.

A queda do Tupolev TU-154 sintetiza as contradições do esforço militar russo em tempos de vacas magras na economia.

Ao buscar protagonismo geopolítico em meio a severos constrangimentos materiais (desvalorização dos combustíveis fósseis e declínio econômico), a Rússia tem imensa dificuldade em competir com os Estados Unidos e com a ascensão simultânea de China e Índia

Ao intensificar a presença militar em regiões nas quais a Rússia é um agente político fundamental, Putin foi obrigado a confiar em equipamento soviético desgastado (além de buscar reativar antigas bases militares soviéticas).

Uma corrida armamentista é um pesado fardo para uma economia em recessão – isso se mostrou fatal para a União Soviética.

By Nikolaos van Dam * @nikolaosvandam on Twitter More than 50 kinds of war crimes are defined in the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court. All 50 of those crimes have been committed by various combatants during the war in Syria. Some examples of prohibited acts include: murder and torture; taking hostages; employing chemical weapons; pillaging; any form of sexual violence; conscripting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces; and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population and civilian objects, such as schools, mosques, hospitals or historical monuments. 'Intentionality' is important. It implies that if the same act were carried out unintentionally it might not be a war crime. If, for instance, an inhabited city is bombed, one can assume the probability of killing civilians will be high. The bombers may argue that 'they did not know' that they would kill civilians, but realistically, 'they should have known.' Therefore, any war that takes place within inhabited cities will most probably have collateral effects which can be defined as war crimes. Military battles which have taken place in, for instance, uninhabited deserts, like the well-known Second World War battle of El Alamein, did not result in such collateral damage. However, the bombing of Syria's urban centres, such as Aleppo or Raqqa, inevitably caused many civilian casualties. It is clear that a lot went wrong with the Syrian Revolution. Not only did it fail to achieve its proclaimed goals, but the number of killed and wounded has been huge. Almost half the Syrian

In November 2015, the United States and the Russian Federation convened the main international stakeholders engaged in the Syrian conflict to broker the Vienna Accords. The unfolding political process culminated in the issuing of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Since then the situation has evolved rapidly, ushering in a new outlook for the resolution of the six-year-old civil war. The conflicting parties in Syria have not yet fathomed the momentum of this deal. Some progress has been made as part of successive attempts to establish a “cessation of hostilities,” but there have not yet been any major breakthroughs because the negotiating parties, supported by regional allies, are resisting the process every step of the way. The war has created new geographic realities: governance structures, political economies, and cultural paradigms. These geographies will not be easily bypassed. Dealing with the fragmented situation will hinder the prospects of a top-down solution, particularly because none of the negotiating parties has full control over its constituency. This article focuses on understanding this new geography. Arguing that the emergence of radicalized actors on the scene is not an accidental feature of the conflict dynamics, it shows how, instead, the territorial patterns of control by the different actors have used and exploited the territory to advance their positioning. Subsequently the article argues that these patterns, intended or not, have fostered the radicalization of the armed actors on all sides, imposing in the meantime asymmetrical patterns of territoriality that will seriously undermine the top-down approach of the Geneva process.

During the history of humans, much effort has been done for wars and conflicts. International humanitarian law, which is called the laws of armed fight regulates the management of the war. It is a department of international law which searches for impacts of armed fight.