Syria and Balancing: A Case Study in Great Power Politics

By Max Franz Knight
Commentary

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In line with a series of disruptions in the Middle East, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) overthrow of the Assad regime remains important. Now in power after winning the civil war, former al-Qaeda operative and HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is presented with the challenge of not only rebuilding Syria but also its foreign policy strategy. Most interestingly, Syria’s geographic position and resource wealth have placed the country on a tightrope, requiring it to balance between regional powers, such as Israel and Turkey, and great powers, like the United States and Russia. All of Syria’s neighbors have competing goals, especially regarding the treatment of various Syrian minorities, which further complicates al-Sharaa’s balancing act. Understanding how al-Sharaa navigates this complicated position and executes a new foreign policy sheds light on the role of global and regional powers in the Middle East.

Great Power Politics
Great power politics refers to the idea that international politics revolves around hegemonic powers, like the European states during World War I or the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. Lesser powers must ally with these great powers in one way or another to survive within the international order. There is a similar phenomenon with regional powers, where lesser states align themselves with one regional power or another to avoid being trampled or sidelined in regional politics. A lesser power cannot risk upsetting an opposing regional power, due to potential threats of invasion or trade sanctions, and it cannot upset allied regional powers because it will lose its protection against opposing powers.
In the case of Syria, al-Sharaa has to handle the interests of regional powers, like Turkey; Israel; and the Gulf states, and global powers like the United States and Russia, both of whom maintain military bases in Syria. Playing great power politics is a necessary path to achieving legitimacy in the international community because it shows that the new state understands the rules and stakes of international politics. While understanding great power politics may not be enough to have a fully functioning state, it’s an important step in developing legitimacy in international politics.

Syria and the Gulf States
The Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have all recognized the new Syrian government. These actors were exhausted by the more than decade-long civil war and resulting regional instability. Qatar has long supported Islamist factions in the region, and having an allied government in Syria allows it to exert power through investment. After al-Sharaa’s rise to power, Qatar has legitimized the Syrian government by funding the construction of critical infrastructure, which is desperately needed after decades of civil war. The Saudis and the Emiratis have also legitimized the new government diplomatically, which may come as a surprise given prior hostilities towards Islamist movements. However, when considering that these actors are already dealing with conflict in Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, Israel, and Iran, this makes sense. One less active conflict zone and an opportunity to cement regional power are worthwhile investments for the Gulf states.

Syria and Turkey
Sharing a border, Turkey and Syria have had a contentious relationship for decades, and the new government of Syria has chosen to align with Turkey in a shift from previous governments. This is because Turkey and the new Syrian government share two main goals: the continued subduement of the Kurds and maintaining Islamism as a dominant regional ideology.

 Turkey supplied the weapons and funding that helped enable al-Sharaa's survival and rapid ascension. In many photos of the offensive, HTS fighters can be seen wearing Turkish military uniforms and using Turkish vehicles and weapons. While Turkey has never openly stated its support of HTS, the material evidence is undeniable. Turkish vehicles, arms, and funding were critical in enabling the rapid pace of HTS’s November-December push down the Syrian coastline. 

Turkey supports Islamist factions in the Middle East, like HTS, because they align with Turkey’s sphere of influence more than other ideologies. The ruling party in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), maintains a platform of Ottoman-inspired nationalism and wishes to keep its neighboring states dominantly Muslim. Turkey is interested in cementing regional hegemony in the Levant and the Gulf, which would include Syria. That regional dominance will come more easily when neighboring states have a shared ideology with Turkey.

The Syrian government also stands at odds with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which is controlled by libertarian socialist Kurds and allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is a socialist party that promotes Kurdish autonomy from Turkey and has committed attacks on the Turkish state in its efforts to achieve that goal. Turkish distrust of a Kurdish state underpins Turkey-Syria relations because the PKK is still an obstacle to Turkey’s domestic and regional goals. Kurdish politicians with sympathies for the PKK have won elections in eastern Turkey as recently as 2024, which threatens the stability of the ruling AKP. Both AANES and the PKK are significant issues for both leaders: they are an obstacle for al-Sharaa, who wants to control the whole of Syria, and for Erdogan, who wants to get rid of the PKK. Absorbing AANES back into the main Syrian administration would likely lead to a cessation of overt Turkish military operations in northern Syria. In this policy towards the Kurdish minority, al-Sharaa has struck a balance between the interests of Turkey and Syria's own domestic interests by moving towards re-incorporating Eastern Syria while not causing an international upset.

Israel and Syria
Israel is set up as a regional power opposing Turkey; Syria must contend with this carefully because it is situated geographically between both countries. Israel and Syria have been at odds over the ownership of the Golan Heights since the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel captured the area from Syria. The international community still recognizes the Golan Heights as Syrian, but Israel contests this. Israel would later officially annex the Golan Heights in 1981. Israel has since openly claimed the Golan Heights as its territory, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even visiting Israeli-controlled areas within Syria. Israel continues to push the boundaries of what it can do to Syria before provoking a significant reaction, going so far as to conduct airstrikes deep in Syrian territory. Most of these actions are conducted under the guise of protecting Syrian minorities, predominantly the Druze, and have not received any militant reaction from the Syrian Government. al-Sharaa’s government is not strong enough to take on Israel and must keep its forces outside of Israel’s buffer zone in southeastern Syria to avoid provoking a prolonged conflict. Israel isn’t looking for a conflict either, given its engagements with Iran, Gaza, and Lebanon, but it must project strength to continue being seen as a regional power. Again, al-Sharaa toes the line between allowing ethnic persecution to continue and drawing further attention from Israel.

Balancing The Regional Powers of Israel and Turkey
Israel and Turkey are the two major regional powers and have competing visions for the region and Syria. Israel says it is interested in protecting Syrian minorities like the Kurds and the Druze, whom HTS has been historically violent towards. Turkey is interested in maintaining Islamist political dominance and keeping the minorities politically weak to prevent them from threatening Turkish power both regionally and domestically. Both powers occupy Syrian territory, with Turkey on the northern border to buffer the Kurds and Israel on the south to buffer Syria itself. This creates a classic power-balancing dilemma, with a friendly power on one end and a hostile power on the other, both with competing agendas. 

In southern Syria, rogue HTS units attacking Druze communities gave Israel the green light to seize more territory for a buffer zone, with the argument that protecting the Druze community is a just reason for encroaching on Syrian sovereignty. In the north, Turkey consistently attacks Kurdish regions and maintains an occupied region encompassing much of the northern border between Syria and Turkey.

al-Sharaa has chosen to align himself with Turkey, but has intentionally delayed any policy towards AANES, making any deal between the two polities vague and denying Israel just cause for further encroachment. This navigation of a tense situation has also netted the new government more international legitimacy because these actions signal to other states that al-Sharaa understands and is willing to work within the aims of the regional powers. With this in mind, al-Sharaa’s foreign policy is a perfect example of power balance theory.

Great Power Relationships
As the new President, al-Sharaa has met with leaders of global and regional states to build relationships, including Russia and the United States. These meetings with competing powers legitimize the rule of HTS, as it demonstrates a willingness to cooperate with the international order. Notable here is that Russia was a major ally of the previous regime, and Russian assets fought against HTS in the civil war. Despite these previous hostilities, Russia has reopened its military bases on the Syrian coast. The US has also maintained its bases in AANES territory as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the ongoing operation to defeat ISIS. Both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are interested in regional peace and aligning Syria within that framework is a positive for all involved parties. By meeting with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and even Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Ahmed al-Sharaa has cemented himself as a neutral figure in great power politics by showing his willingness to meet with actors who are at odds with each other, deliberately presenting himself as an interested party in regional stability. To the great powers, the Syrian Civil War had been a source of frustration and crises since its onset, causing millions of refugees to move into Europe and even putting Wagner PMC forces into a firefight with US coalition forces. The great powers are more than happy to legitimize HTS so long as al-Sharaa nominally moves towards a stable Syria, showing that his power-balancing policies have so far been successful.

Conclusion: The Lesson From Syria
Ahmed al-Sharaa has capitalized on Syria’s position to present himself as a regional stabilizer, setting up alliances with powerful states. His hesitant attitude towards AANES regarding any potential peace deals has also supported his image as a potential stabilizer, while not alienating Turkey as a critical ally. This careful balance of relationships and diplomatic vagueness while executing domestic goals is exactly what characterizes balancing complicated inter-state relationships. This dual-faced policy is an absolute necessity for a state like Syria, and al-Sharaa has been able to pull it off while also centralizing power around himself and his forces. The new government also allows ethnic persecution to continue, but handles this within the reality of a tense regional political situation in which Syria is subject to the interests of greater powers. As such, the conduct of Syrian foreign policy gives us a great example of how a modern state can balance between adversarial actors and come out intact.

​​Max Franz Knight is a graduate of the University of Washington and is pursuing graduate study at the University of Chicago's Committee on International Relations.