What began due to the killings of a group of Syrian teenagers, who drew revolutionary slogans on the wall of a school, has inarticulately turned into a catastrophic bellum, which is not likely to end soon. Syria has turned into a battlefield, whereby weapons, belligerents and strategies have come from foreign countries. While Syrian forces are continuing to fight for regaining control over the country, the story of the “civil war” continues. With no doubt, from the very beginning, this war is carried out by foreign powers. Therefore, to name this war solely as a civil war would be misleading. Because of that, the war in Syria, which is presumed to be a local conflict, rather fits in the context of a global geopolitical struggle whereby significant powers are involved with convergent interests.

Destabilization of Europe

Incompetent tinkering on how to approach Syria by European elites has resulted in a zone of chaos and disorder in Europe. Due to global shockwaves of the conflict, not only countries such as Greece and Italy, which form the borders of the EU, have been seriously affected, but also Eastern- and Western European countries. Wars waged in the Middle East have caused millions of people to flee their countries to enter Europe. Especially Eastern European countries have rigorously reacted against the influx of refugees. For example, the foreign minister of Hungary Peter Szijjarto answered the question, “Why has the Hungarian government used racist slogans”? by saying the following: “We can be hypocritical, we can continue being politically correct, so I think it is a stupid debate whether uncontrolled migration has led to the increase of terror in Europe or not, because it did. There were hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants entering the territory of the EU without knowing who they are, without any kind of registration.”

When compared to ten years ago, clearly, there is a world of difference now. Although Middle Eastern and North African states were regarded as authoritarian, at least, they had been stable dictatorships where people who were not involved in politics had decent lives. Europe had good relations with Russia, and Ukraine was a country in peace. Currently, Syria has gone up in flames and has become a source of millions of refugees.

Nevertheless, the Syrian Civil War has not only bothered EU member states with the mass influx of refugees. Prominent member states have been confronted by bloody terrorist attacks by DAESH, which has caused persistent anxiety among their citizens. Heavy responses from terrorist groups have come against the air attacks carried out by states such as France, Germany and Belgium. Subsequent to the Paris attacks, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right National Front party stated the following: “France and its citizens are no longer safe. Accordingly, emergency measures need to be taken. Islamic fundamentalism must be annihilated. France must ban Islamist organizations, shutter radical mosques and deport foreign hate preachers, as well as immigrants who have no business being here.” The right-wing leader in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders said the following after the Brussels attacks: “It is time to act. First of all, we must close our national borders and detain all the jihadists whom we have foolishly allowed to return from Syria. We must also tell people the truth. The cause of all this bloodshed is Islam. We need to de-Islamize the West. That is the only way to safeguard our lives and protect our freedom.”

European capitals might have considered that appealing for sanctions via the UN would have no impact on the attitude of the Assad regime. Moreover, due to the fact that the situation in Syria is incredibly complex due to the myriad of organizations and fronts involved in the war, it is feasible to predict possible backlashes.

Besides, a steady increase in far-right politics is observable in European countries in general. Mainly domestic issues, such as high rates of criminality and failed integration are regarded as the leading causes. Nevertheless, EU countries have taken these conditions into account before adopting an attitude towards the refugee crisis. In the end, Europeans are acknowledging that they are fed up with ethnic minorities and are putting the blame of faltering economies and segregated living on them. Therefore, while rightist senses are on the rise, many governments have not applied an open door-migrant policy. The ones who have applied it, have either regretted their decision, or have experienced a serious decrease in support for their parties. The consideration that migrants have not succeeded in integrating into the society, or the idea that states have failed to apply integration policies properly, brings within itself the assumption that certain parts of the society were excluded. In this respect, people who regard themselves as ‘outsiders’, express themselves in radical manners to have a voice, which again leads to harsher reactions from European states.

There is a big difference with regards to the situation of Europeans and Americans when taking the shockwaves of this conflict into account. European states are directly affected because of their geographical location. It is not astonishing that the EU has signed an agreement with Turkey to keep refugees attempting to enter the Union. The EU has received much criticism for being cynical about its adopted attitude towards the refugee crisis. In fact, practice of the Union that consists of 27 member states has nothing to do with ethics. The initial reaction of Europe on the increasing migration flow caused a blind panic. Not only were policymakers under pressure hounded by the envious eyes of far right people, but also the media did not have any idea how to approach the issue, which had obvious effects on the general public. Cancelling legal options for asylum seekers to enter Europe led to human traffickers making a serious profit while engaging in fatally dangerous activities. Also the internal solidarity within Europe has suffered after Eastern European states refused to equally allocate refugees in the continent.

What is predictable is that the shockwaves of this conflict will affect Europe as long as the war continues. Under the pressure of public opinion and right-wing parties, European states put forward statements, which appear as if there is no space for refugees on European soil. The main arguments for not accepting asylum seekers are related to the assumption that refugees will pose a threat to their prosperity and social security. They advocate for the settlement of Syrian refugees in their neighboring countries, however they are not even thinking about their own reception capacities while they are already causing serious tensions. All in all, the EU politics towards the Syrian crisis has not been a sustainable one as they continuously attempt turning a deaf ear to the main problems. Keeping a distance to the refugee crisis and at the same time seeking to maintain domestic stability will lead to a failure, if not to a catastrophic success.

It has been six years since the uprising in Syria has begun. When protests met with a brutal response from the regime, the process quickly became a full-fledged civil war. From 2011 onwards there has been many twists and turns in the conflict and many atrocities were committed. Civilians were killed on a mass scale, millions of homes were destroyed, war crimes have been committed on more occasions than one can count. Year after year, Syrians hoped that the world would hear them and come to their help. Yet, nothing would encourage ‘the world’ to step in decisively and put an end to the injustice. The help never came. Quite the contrary, some nations opted to weigh in on the side of the regime and the gains of the opposition were reversed quickly.

It is very hard to perceive how we got here in Syria and, why does not this brutal war end despite widespread repulsion by the international community and endless outcries of the Syrian people. It makes one think that the world is increasingly becoming a place where criminals, be they individuals or states, get away with their wrongdoings. Yet, the world has always been this sort of a place. John Mearsheimer, an American professor of political science, says “The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way”.

The History of the Peloponnesian War, the seminal work of Thucydides which is considered to be one of the first and best examples of both history and international relations might help us understand the basic principles of the world we live in better. The Melian Dialogue in the book is a part of the negotiations between the representatives of Athens and Melos. The piece is among the very first realist writings. Faced with the Athenian siege, the representatives of Melos make pleas of justice and morality. In response, Athenians say “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. Granted it is a morally unacceptable statement, the world still operates that way.

The anarchical nature of international politics makes states behave in a selfish way. They make their decisions to increase their security and further their interests. Helping out to other nations without an obvious interest can either be called an anomaly in the system which probably could be explained with ulterior motives or a luxury that is not perceived to be too risky. Power politics necessitates states to be excessively simple in their analysis. States consider the consequences of their actions in terms of their relative positions at the end. Seemingly, delivering real help to Syrians by putting in real effort would not further states’ interests. Since we presume that we are live in a ‘civilized world’, in which leaders do not abstain from issuing condemnations but, there is no help from the world beyond the lip service.

We spend too much of our time and energy to invoke other states or international institutions to pity and hopefully take action. Yet, international politics does not work that way. Endless efforts to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians bore no fruit. Conversely, the Zionist appeals to the power base with promise of financial support to war efforts of Allied powers ended up in the Balfour Declaration. Without offering an interest in return, no help will come from the world.

The preservation of the balance of power would be the interest that would incite the world powers, primarily the US, to help Syrians. However, the Obama administration failed to recognize the US interest in the balance of power when it signaled that the Russian entry to the war in Syria would go without a response. The Russian decision to intervene in 2015 is one of the biggest reasons for the prolongation of the Syrian civil war. Under the pretext of the regime’s demand for help against ‘the terrorists’, Russia brought big guns into the conflict. Its aerial support for the Assad regime caused the downfall of the opposition. Under the protection of the Russian shelling, the regime advanced as far as Aleppo.

International systems are secure the most when actors understand the rules and consequences of their actions. It requires principal actors to show that they are serious in upholding the international order.
The perceived justice in the international system and the reason of the adherence to the rules is the fear of a backlash from the principal actors. If it is revealed that proponents of the current order do not have the stomach to stand up against the violations of the spoken or unspoken rules, revisionists understand that they can go unpunished and start to disrupt the order where they can. After World War I, the unwillingness of the Allies to tackle the Japanese and German aggression in its early phases, ended up in the collapse of the international order in the worst way possible.

The war in Ukraine was a terrible test for the US in that sense. The US inaction and lack of resolve resulted in the annexation of Crimea. When Russia started bombing Syria in 2015, it clearly expected little reaction from the rest of the world aside from verbal protests. It happened exactly that way. Russia gained more ground in the Middle East, expanded its bases in the Eastern Mediterranean and became a significant military actor there.

Rules of international politics are often heartbreaking. The Syrian civil war has been an instance where the world has witnessed the ruthlessness of the game once again. The notion of justice is often disregarded and millions are left in resentment. Syrian people received no serious help while the regime was staunchly supported by revisionists and saved from utter collapse. The US and other adherents of international order gave a free hand to Russia in Syria at the expense of the status quo for stepping in was not in their immediate interest. Had they observed history more closely, they would know the irreversible results of taking the easy way out in the long term. The pillars of international order have already begun to crack.