Intersecting interventions of global and regional powers in the Syrian civil war: motives, methods, and timing

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2018
Bilgin, İnci
Following the spread of the Arab Uprisings to Syria, a civil war broke out between Syrian opponents and government; consequently, thousands of people have died, injured, and been displaced. The Syrian Civil War paved the way for the emergence of various local armed groups which have claims over the Syrian territory. In the meantime, the world has witnessed multiple-interventions of global and regional actors in the conflict in Syria through diplomatic, economic and military means. This thesis focuses on the interventions in the conflict in Syria by Russia, US, Turkey, and Iran and aims to show the impact of a current/potential intervenor on the others’ motivations, methods, and timing, in other words interaction among intervenors. To do this, this study explains the motivations of intervenors to intervene (self-interest and/or humanitarian concerns), the methods they used (unilateral or multilateral, biased or neutral, diplomatic-economic or military), and the timing of their interventions. The result of the study indicates that each actor has ability to change the others’ motivations, methods, and timing of intervention. Indeed, it is seen that neither of the aforementioned four countries was immune from the impact of the others’ intervention preferences.

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Citation Formats
İ. Bilgin, “Intersecting interventions of global and regional powers in the Syrian civil war: motives, methods, and timing,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2018.