Assad's Ragnarok? On Systems Collapse In Syria
The explosive rebel assault on Assadist positions in Syria has transformed an otherwise stagnant conflict into a dire threat to one of the world's more persistent dictatorships. Another Putin fail.
I’ve lost count of the number of times in my life that I’ve encountered some variation of the phrase “US intelligence sources were blindsided by developments,” and I’m only in my forties. I suspect that readers who have been around longer than myself are even more familiar with the sorry tale.
But hey - if military intelligence as a whole has been said to be an oxymoron, then what what about russian intelligence? On yet another front, Putin’s global agenda faces humiliation.
What’s happening in Syria is a case study in adaptive cycles applied to military affairs. To ease explanation here’s my cartoon diagram describing the pattern produced by two interacting variables:
To understand this, all you have to do is remember the metaphor of plant growth exploding in spring as daylight hours increase. But eventually species are forced into competition for space, and the possible configurations narrow. Eventually the system becomes so internally efficient that any major shock, like the onset of autumn, breaks the equilibrium and forces adaptation. After a settling period, the cycle repeats. Controlling the magnitude of each turn is the heart of systems management.
Another graphical representation that I didn’t come up with (way too neat, and not as directly reduced to math), is also helpful. Here it is:
For those into the resilience angle, this other one is useful:
Resilience is often mistaken for a good thing, when in fact it’s only a parameter locked in a consistent relationship with potential and connectedness. Any sufficiently resilient system will eventually prove maladaptive.
In military affairs, which are just ordinary human conflicts escalated to extreme levels, the basic goal is always to attack the enemy when your own forces are in Spring and the enemy’s Autumn or Winter. These phases are defined by the relative availability of resources, which are easier or harder to come by depending on the season.
The seasonal cycle is a metaphor here, but an apt one, describing how people in a system experience changes, prompting shifts in behavior. Opportunity to change the broader system’s basic function - in military terms, imposing your will on an adversary - comes when substantial asymmetry can be exploited. If timed right and of sufficient power, the enemy will lack the internal reserves and flexibility required to respond to a targeted attack. The first success leads to sequels, unraveling more and more of their organization.
After years of biding their time, holding a few fringe territories outside of Assadist control, Syria’s rebel groups managed to put together an effective alliance with what appears to be a coherent strategy for collapsing Assad’s regime if presented an opportunity. In a matter of days cities that were once strongholds of Assad’s forces have fallen, the Syrian Army abandoning huge stocks of equipment.
The brilliance of this assault is mostly in the timing, though some best practices involving using drones as democratized air support appear to be involved as well. At no point during the past ten years, when Putin’s intervention and Obama’s refusal to enforce red lines on the Assadist regime’s use of chemical weapons - to say nothing of mass destruction of civilian sites on a level only Israel and the orcs have managed since - has the tenuous alliance that props up Assad been more vulnerable.
Back when the rebellions against Assad had still only just emerged from the broader Arab Spring movement - itself in part a systemic consequence of the Iraq War - their attempt to overthrow the regime was thwarted by Hezbollah, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Putin’s ruscist empire. An influx of raw combat power, along with utterly brutal assaults on civilians and infighting among rebel groups, slowly sapped the rebellion, which was organized in haphazard fashion and lacked a coherent strategic approach. Eventually, Aleppo was carpet bombed by the orcs in what turned out to be practice for Mariupol.
Now it’s the turn of Assad to face confusion and exhaustion in the ranks of an army weary from over a decade of fighting. So far, the rebel groups are making a show of negotiating with anyone who will lay down arms and preventing atrocities, and if this pattern holds their bid to form a legitimate opposition capable of taking Damascus should push Assad to the limit. While seizing Aleppo was probably the goal of the operation, the opportunity presented by the collapse of Assadist military resistance across Syria’s north makes now a natural moment to pursue a lasting victory.
On Monday my normal weekly brief mentioned that if the rebels pushed all the way to the city of Homs through Hama, the regime would be in serious trouble. Well, the rebels have now blown right through Hama, a city that has been all but wiped out by the Assad family twice in my lifetime. They are on the verge of laying siege to Homs.
If Homs falls, the Assad regime in Damascus will be physically cut off from Syria’s coast, including the old Soviet base at Tartus where Putin currently keeps a flotilla to threaten NATO’s southern flank in the Mediterranean. They’ve already been forced to fire missiles inland to back Assad’s troops as they retreat - now the orcs have fewer to threaten Europe with. A nearby airbase has long been heavily used by the orcs as a forward firebase, the whole Latakia region being basically a colony for Moscow hosted by Assad’s Alawite tribal alliance at this point.
I don’t mean tribal in a negative sense, by the way. Tribes are present in every society; in the Middle East their role tends to be pivotal, as these extended kinship-based alliances offset the lack of effective governance provided by their state. Rebel groups of whatever ideological disposition rely on these networks to maintain support in the face of government attacks.
Syria, like Lebanon, is both ancient and diverse. The stalemate lines that defined the four-year Winter phase following the last major Assadist offensives cut along geographic lines, both in physical and ethno-religious terms. Kurds in the northeast, Islamic State remnants in the southeast, Sunni and Druze groups in the southwest, and Shi’a Alawite and Christians in the northwest: and that’s only a cartoon overview of the complex demographics.
Assad’s grip on power has long depended on keeping Druze, Christian, and Shi’a communities terrified of their Sunni neighbors. The Islamic State, which everyone fought on the ground, was particularly useful in this regard. Keeping its remnants in check is also the excuse the US gives for maintaining several dangerously exposed bases in the region. To all the personnel serving there - stay safe!
Only the constant support of outside allies kept enough combat power in Assad’s hands to maintain the balance of what is proving to be a deeply fragile equilibrium. As the rebels were slowly building up their own strength, Iran’s Republican Guard Corps, Hezbollah, and Putin all turned to other matters.
Many are playing the game of trying to figure out who the Syrian rebels are acting a proxy for, but this is a mistake: like any good entrepreneurial start-up, they seem to take resources where they can find them and build an alliance based on shared interest and clear objectives. Many outside powers back one or more members of the mosaic, but none appear to be directing it. In fact, the destabilizing effect is nothing any power wanted right now - all outside forces like Turkey and Israel are doing is taking advantage and securing their own interests. In Turkey’s case, that means the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
I have no doubt that Ukrainian interests have been in touch with a wide array of armed groups, in the Middle East and elsewhere. I’d happily work for Ukraine if I could earn a living wage remotely - I’m more or less a brain in a jar: don’t travel well, but provided the family and pets are always near I can’t not be productive. I mean, what would I do, play video games all day? There aren’t enough good ones for that yet.
In geopolitics, all relationships are inherently speculative bets at first - information is shared, an understanding of mutual positions is established, but direct close coordination just isn’t feasible. It sometimes not advisable even once you’re as close as the Five Eyes countries (USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand). Look at how the Pentagon and White House leak like sieves when it comes to Ukraine: that’s just one more channel that insiders can use to exert control in the pursuit of their own narrow interests.
I mean, how many friendly fire incidents have there been involving US forces hitting allied troops? Coordination is never easy, but especially when lines of accountability are snarled and different cultures haven’t been adequately bridged.
Where Ukraine has quite clearly influenced Syria’s rebels is in using drones to punch above one’s weight on the battlefield. It has been almost eerie watching reports from Syria over the past week, where basically homemade drones conduct rigorous surveillance of regime assets and launch devastating attacks on command and logistics nodes. Unprepared for democratized air support in the hands of their enemies, the flailing attempts by orc aircraft to effectively intervene stands in stark contrast to Syrian troops running in panic as drones drop grenades.
It’s a testament to how infrequently the average fighter has to worry about getting bombed by orc jets that the response of civilians and fighters in a targeted column captured on video was almost nonchalant. Air attacks aren’t to be taken lightly, but sortie rates are painfully limited when compared to what drones can accomplish at far lower cost.
Just more evidence that crewed aircraft are still extremely valuable, but certain roles need to be handled by drones. A crewed A-10 controlling - even launching - numerous attack drones from far behind the lines can do more damage than in strafing attacks that would expose the aircraft to way too much hostile fire - including interceptor drones.
I know this probably sounds crazy, but an effectively trained and equipped light infantry force could probably seize control of a huge chunk of the USA before the military bureaucracy worked out how to respond. An inherent danger of large, centrally managed organizations is that they can find themselves paralyzed by the right kind of chaos if it wasn’t a form they planned and trained to handle.
Now, it’s definitely premature to predict the fall of Assad’s regime. The road to Damascus remains long, even if Homs falls. Reinforcements from battered Hezbollah are on the way, though so far Iraq’s Iran-backed militias aren’t entering the fray. And it does not appear likely that the rebels were truly prepared for more than seizing Aleppo in their best case planning. Other groups, like the Kurds and Islamic State remnants, have been slow to seize the moment, though they’re moving now, but the rebels are advancing in flying columns in hopes of seizing ground before Assadist forces can mobilize. Ukraine did much the same to begin the Kursk Campaign.
Assad almost has to throw everything he’s got into the battle for Homs. If cut off from the coast, the viability of the regime itself will be in question. Already rebel groups are advancing fast through the Syrian desert to the east, and if they, the Kurds, and US troops cooperate to prevent the Islamic State from expanding, in a matter of weeks or even days Syrian government control could be reduced to Damascus and Latakia. But will the rebel advance run out of steam?
What may prove the deciding factor in preventing the regime from successfully holding on in Homs is what looks, at the moment, to be a series of uprisings south of Damascus. Groups that had been semi-reconciled with the Assadists after being badly battered during earlier phases of the Syrian Civil War appear to be mobilizing. Along the border with Jordan and near the Israeli-occupied Golan heights, there are reports of towns falling out of government hands, possibly to rebel sleeper cells, maybe local civilian groups. If it’s rebel cells, that would imply a much deeper level of preparation, or at least standing capabilities held ready to move if the Aleppo campaign was a success.
If Assad loses control here and in Homs, he’ll be down to defending two disconnected strongholds. The fall of Damascus would become a very real prospect. Assad might be forced to flee to the coast under orc protection. Ideally he’d be taken out in a body bag, surviving regime elements would negotiate, and Syria’s territorial integrity would be preserved. But it hasn’t been for over a decade, so making the Assadists the ones clinging to a rugged province seems reasonable to hope for.
It’s definitely possible that a government counterattack will drive the rebels back, but at this stage it appears that what’s happening in Syria is a classic case of regime collapse. Unwilling to make peace, Assad’s regime has been propped up for years by an inflow of outside resources sent by allies whose main interest is not the welfare of Assad or Syrians. Rigid, inflexible, and exhausted, the control Assadist forces believed they had over Syria was proven ephemeral in the most painful and public way possible. Soldiers in one area are watching their comrades in others walk away from the fight in another or simply feeling abandoned by Damascus, so they’re hedging bets.
The signal has now been sent, clear as Putin’s nuclear bluster whenever things go particularly badly for him in Ukraine: this regime is too hollow to last. It is only a matter of time before it dies - that and how much blood has to be shed before enough people accept the inevitable. A remnant may emerge, or a new mutant form if the rebel advance collapses, but the Syria of a few weeks prior is gone.
I felt the need to post this short analysis both because the situation is so well described by theory and numerous case studies, but also because it was the pathetic failure to adequately respond to Assad’s use of chemical weapons during the Obama years that told Putin it was probably safe to seize Crimea. Many of the very people who today try to make apologies for the ruscist empire were the first to insist that the allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria were a western lie. Their arguments then even seemed plausible because the US had only recently lied about Saddam Hussein’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to justify a war of choice which shattered the Middle East.
Only in retrospect is it clear that they had already joined the russian world. That sure explains poor Tulsi Gabbard, someone who could have been promising but instead went weird. It’s been incredible watching more than a few former members of the progressive left joining Trump these past years. And the more they were accused of being Putin’s useful idiots, the more they started acting like it. Americans unable to understand that Muscovites always try to play all sides are pure comedy.
The World System throws the outcomes it does for reasons that quality science can reveal. There’s nothing mystical or even mysterious about it: surprises are a function of insufficient creativity. That sooner or later Syria would explode again should have been obvious: when, how, and which direction the blast would be channeled were not so predictable. Hence the need for resolving conflicts, not trying to freeze them. It rarely works. A lesson for those who want to push Ukraine to accept a bad deal.
Now that the delicate temporary equilibrium has shattered in Syria, several potential futures are on the table. In the short term, the big question is how far the rebels can go before their offensive runs out of energy. These always do; then the season turns inexorably to winter. Denial will not change this. What’s essential is avoiding becoming over-extended and vulnerable to the enemy pulling the same trick on you.
It is possible that a counterattack will salvage the situation for Assad yet. But this is a situation where reaction time, what a lot of folks like to call the decision loop, is the driving variable. The physical process of amassing resources to change the trajectory of the situation is far from simple. A great deal of what is happening now is the almost invisible process of each side trying to limit the enemy’s resources at the point of decision. This can transform an exponential process into a linear one, much as was seen in Ukraine as the battle lines firmed up.
Can Syria’s rebels restore their combat power along the front faster than the enemy? Will the use of drones continue to hinder Assadist efforts, leaving the notoriously officer-driven conscript force paralyzed? That so much gear is being abandoned does not bode well for Assad at this point. This is usually a harbinger of worse defections to come. Smart Assadist commanders should already be willing to consider switching sides to secure a place in the regime to come.
This much seems clear: the Assad regime will come out of this either visibly weakened, no better than a ruscist colony as long as Putin’s empire lasts, or fall completely. In the latter case it might hold a rump region along the coast, or it could go all at once, Afghanistan style.
Best of luck to the Syrian rebels, Kurds, and any others who step up to end the nightmare of this brutal family’s dynasty. Here’s hoping the spring to come can bring a just and lasting peace to this ancient land.
Finally, as I won’t be covering this conflict closely unless the course of the thing dramatically shifts in an unexpected direction, here are some solid sources to keep an eye on if you’d like to:
Liveuamap has an excellent Syria section. It aggregates media reports.
Geoconfirmed is also excellent, all footage georeferenced. Videos usually come with warnings if they’re graphic.
Tom Cooper’s blog is a great source for Middle East analysis.
As for legacy media, BBC is good if you want the official UK government line - still beats anything from the US. Australia’s equivalent always offers a fascinating perspective from a country where the default take on foreign affairs appears to be a kind of polite disbelief at what everyone else gets up to. Canada’s is like America’s NPR, only run by professionals who appear comfortable with the idea of different provinces having different cultures and that being normal. France24 offers concise and balanced English-language perspectives from the Francosphere.
Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye are both solid when it comes to their coverage of affairs in the region - not so much Ukraine. Lots of ruscist propaganda slips through. Side note to the colonial studies and decolonization universe - just because a country is in Europe does not make it a colonial oppressor. Lumping Ukraine and Poland in with France and Britain is a mistake.
There are others, of course, but that’s enough to get anyone started. I’ll be back Monday with a regular post on the fighting in Ukraine.