Overview

World War in Syria provides a comprehensive study of the first ten years of the Syrian War, as well as an extensive background into the history of Syria's longstanding conflict with the Western world and its regional strategic partners such as Turkey and Israel. It offers an analysis of the conflict through the paradigm of an international 'world war, ' albeit centered in only one country, rather than a civil war, and provides information vital to understanding the conflict's implications for international security and the motivations and interests of all major parties involved. Much as the Korean War saw multiple countries from the world's two major power blocs commit to supporting opposing sides, the Syrian War has similarly been a key event in what is increasingly being termed a new Cold War between the Western world and its adversaries. Like the Afghan War of the 1980s, the early stages of the conflict in Syria saw Western powers and their Islamist leaning partners in the Middle East extensively supporting a Muslim fundamentalist insurgency to overthrow a Moscow-friendly secular government. The campaign against Damascus included not only military efforts, but also extensive information and economic warfare campaigns which brought the country close to an Afghan-style collapse and Islamist takeover. As the war escalated the number of active participants on Syrian soil increased on both sides, with Turkish, U.S., European and Israeli boots on the ground and fighters in the sky backing the insurgents while Russian, Iranian, North Korean and Hezbollah units supported the government. The Syrian War evolved into a world war reflecting the macrocosm of multiple international conflicts in the microcosm of the small country's territory. World War in Syria answers questions that will have continued relevance beyond the country's borders for years to come. What were the West's motives for pursuing the Syrian state's overthrow? How will precedents set in the conflict impact international norms with global reverberations? Why has Syria been vulnerable to instigation of insurgency, to information warfare and later to economic sanctions in a way that other Western adversaries are not? How has the conflict reflected the way warfare has evolved over recent decades, and under what conditions is it likely to conclude in the coming ten years?

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9781949762464

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Reviews

A. B. Abrams explores the widening scope of the Syrian conflict in his important book. Solving Syria's civil war will require a regional approach engaging stakeholders whose interests are fundamentally opposed. --DAVID L. PHILLIPS, Director, Program on Peace-building and Rights, Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Former Senior Adviser in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama State Departments, and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Impressive in its scholarship, pondered in its judgements, above all searing in its dissection of Western powers' war on Syria waged over many decades, the book is a must-have on the bookshelves of any serious fair-minded student of Syria. --Peter Ford, British Ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006 Abrams is a meticulous guide to the labyrinth of Syria's modern political history. --Richard W. Murphy. U.S. Ambassador to Syria, 1974 to 1978. Consul in Aleppo, Syria, 1960 to 1963 This is a sad tale of betrayal and conspiracy. Not just theory but facts meticulously uncovered by Abrams. The conspiracy was part of broader trends in the United States and Europe towards the non-Western World. Since its fight for independence from French rule in 1946, Syria's struggles to remain free of Western hegemonic ambitions have continued to play out for decades culminating in the crisis which emerged in 2011 and became a proxy war of international proportions. -- Dawn Chatty, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. Fellow at the British Academy and author of Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State.

... a superb narrative dealing with tactical, operational and strategic matters of that war, in as fine military history writing as any by the first rate military historian, and also shows a horrendous toll this war exerted on the people of Syria. It is a superb book which makes a great contribution to the field of study of the Middle East and of global politics and balance of forces. --ANDREI MARTYANOV, frequent contributor to the U.S. Naval Institute Blog and author of The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs

This book should serve as a primer for anyone in the West trying to navigate through western media's lies and propaganda about the war in Syria. The author provides a superb narrative dealing with tactical, operational and strategic matters of that war, in as fine military history writing as any by the first rate military historian, and also shows a horrendous toll this war exerted on the people of Syria. It is a superb book which makes a great contribution to the field of study of the Middle East and of global politics and balance of forces. --ANDREI MARTYANOV, frequent contributor to the U.S. Naval Institute Blog and author of The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs

Author Information

A. B. Abrams is the author of Power and Primacy: A History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific and Immovable Object: North Korea's 70 Years at War with American Power. He has published widely on defence and international politics, and holds Masters degrees in related subjects from the University of London. Abrams is proficient in several Asian languages including Arabic, and has closely studied the Syrian War for close to a decade due to its international strategic significance. He is based out of London.

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