What next for Syria after Ukraine?

Whilst the eyes of the world are focused on the carnage in Ukraine, this week marks the 11th anniversary of Syria’s bloody conflict. Unlike previous years the emergence of relative quiet along the fractures of the divided country and the seeming stability of Assad’s rule has meant that for some the conflict is no more and that discussions about reconstruction or the return of refugees should be in the order of the day.

Yet for many we see in Ukraine what has already past in Syria. The horrors of urban warfare, of high explosive shells decimating the schools, homes and hospitals of civilians. Images of mass displacement and of emergency crews desperately digging for survivors amongst the rubble of once proud cities. Both conflicts have of course been fundamentally shaped by the Russians, and for those surprised by Ukraine they are rightfully accused of not paying attention to what was happening in Syria.

We can learn from Syria as we see what unfolds in Ukraine. Siege warfare, humanitarian corridors, the use of illegal weaponry or legal weapons fired with disregard to the harm to the civilian population all part of the day to day of Syria’s last decade. The laws and norms of the global post- World War Two architecture haemorrhaged in Syria. “Red Lines” around chemical weapons or the mass slaughter of civilians appeared and then disappeared taking with them ways of fighting modern conflict that have moved elsewhere.

Syria has set the scene for Ukraine. Global inaction, disinterest and inability to grasp the conflict and its complexity is the chapter that proceeds a Moscow policy designed to push in areas when there is least resistance. Yet what is happening in Europe is not isolated from the Syria of today and tomorrow and the reverberations from Ukraine could have serious impact on the country.

Firstly, will Assad rush to offer practical support to his Russian allies? Syria has already done this in votes at the UN General Assembly but could be about to significantly change the mode of its support. Reports have emerged of Syria’s military recruiting troops from its own ranks to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, promising payments of $3,000 a month – a sum up to 50 times a Syrian soldier’s monthly salary. Syrian soldiers with experience of fighting in the rubble of Aleppo or the Damascus suburbs could offer valuable tactical advantage to Russian forces whose involvement in the Syrian conflict was mainly in the air war.

If Damascus reinforces Russia’s forces in Ukraine – it poses the interesting question as to whether the current lines of the map in Syria could change? Could a reduced Syrian military presence inside its own country embolden armed actors in the northwest to go on the offensive or disregard the agreements that have kept the recent peace? Will regional and global actors decide that now is the time – with Russia focused on Ukraine – to see if they can undermine what Moscow has established in the country? Syria has long been a chessboard for powers beyond its borders within its time at war and there is no reason to see that the Russian dominated status quo will be sustained in the new world that is emerging following the Ukraine invasion.

There are also the secondary impacts of events in Ukraine for Syria. The country’s economy and ability to feed its population will be challenged by the likely huge reduction in grain coming from the breadbasket of the world. This will also impact on Syria’s neighbours with the situation in Lebanon already extremely vulnerable before this latest turn of events. The rise in oil prices on both sides of the Atlantic could see the Syrian regime having to handle wholesale prices jumping for heating oil and other commodities in addition to wheat.

The only positive that can be imagined at this point is whether the Ukraine invasion signifies such a paradigm shift in our geopolitics that States, and the international system will no longer tolerate the existing of such devastating prolonged conflicts such as Syria’s. That there is consensus that being accepting of such violence and resulting suffering is a gateway act for even worse acts to follow. If Syria is the chapter that proceeds Ukraine, then it must be the chapter that follows it.