Geopolitics in Syrian Political Awareness

Geopolitics is considered a science that studies the influence of geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics is defined as the study of conflicts over geographic entities with international and global significance, such as places, regions, and territories, and how these entities are used by countries and corporations to achieve various political gains through control over them.

Different developments in concepts and theories have been recognized, especially after the Cold War era. One notable development is the rise of what is known as critical or alternative geopolitics, a result of global transformations at the time, as well as the impact of philosophical and epistemological debates between positivists and post-positivists on all theories and fields of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.

The importance of classical geopolitics, which focuses on the centrality of the material geographic factor as a deterministic explanation shaping the fates of nations, has declined to the point where some voices declared the death of geography and the end of the era of geopolitics, signaling the beginning of a new era where nations control their destinies. However, despite these developments, geography and classical geopolitics still retain significant explanatory power in analyzing current global politics and behaviors of states and relations between nations in the twenty-first century, as they did previously in analyzing interactions in the old world, before globalization and advanced technologies.

It is essential not to overlook the limits of the geographic factor’s influence in a new world where concepts of time and space have changed due to advanced communication technologies among humans and regions, leading to serious calls, especially from liberals, for the death of geography and the end of the geopolitics era. Nevertheless, despite all these current structural transformations, the influence of geography has increased more than before, according to a paper published in the Arab Journal of Political Science, Issue 4, 2021, titled “The Return of the Thucydides World,” by the Algerian researcher specialized in geopolitics and international politics, Jalal Khasib. He argues that the twenty-first century will witness a revival of classical geopolitics with new concepts and theories, referred to as “new classical geopolitics,” meaning a return to the old world, the Thucydides world, with its familiar and stable laws.

The authoritarian tendency that grew with Hitler is primarily attributed to the curse of geography, which placed Germany surrounded by enemies, forcing decision-makers to focus on security, armament, and unifying power in their hands to ensure unity of opinion and territory. In this context, Alexander Hamilton argues that if Britain were not an island protected by waters that impede enemies, its military institutions would be as arrogant as those in continental Europe (Germany), and despite all odds, Britain would become “a victim of the absolute power of one man.”

In another perspective, Alexander Dugin, in his book “Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” discusses Russia’s geographic location as the heartland of the globe. The Russian theorist calls for reassembling the Russian Empire and preempting threats from China, the West, or Islam. According to his vision, he advocates integration with Central Asia through three applications: Berlin, Tokyo, and Tehran, concluding that the way to achieve this is through reassembling the Russian Empire and returning to nationalism, religion, and military and economic prospects.

Dugin’s vision is firmly based on the stability of geography, starting from a fixed geopolitical view leading to a deterministic vision. Thus, it is necessary to pause at each analysis and reading that resonates between each political statement, sometimes between every news and marginal position, to return to a stable ground in understanding the Syrian political reality through the geopolitical lens. Based on this, Nizar Salloum, in his geopolitical article “Syrian Geopolitics: A Differential Advantage or a Historical Curse,” states that “Shin Nigi Nunini,” whose name is inscribed on the last tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, was the one who established the first circular drawing founding the journey of Syrian geopolitics in history by describing Gilgamesh’s journey, especially his determination of its path starting from Uruk eastwards to the cedar westwards. Sargon the Great of Akkad (2279 BC) then drew the first political outline for this geopolitics when he crossed the Euphrates River westward and expanded his kingdom to match and sometimes exceed the natural geography of Syria.

Internal conflicts within Syrian geography since the time of the Sumerians to the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Canaanites-Phoenicians, and Arab Muslims, along with external conflicts that never left the region, have historically proven that geographical Syria is a necessary natural complement to ancient and modern empires.

In contemporary Syria, agreements in Astana with Turkey and Iran regarding Syria represent, for Russia, an international equation that essentially means, according to a study by the Middle East and North Africa Media Research Center, “a realistic application of a theoretical subject in geopolitics, implying in its content: Russian regional superiority, connecting it with on-ground realities militarily, with an agreement of interests and influence between Turkey and Iran ensuring its central and pivotal political presence in its third geopolitical circle, linking its political project with what is called the Eurasian living space of Moscow, connecting Europe with Asia through Syria, which again positions Russia to return to global polarity alongside the United States, as theorized by the Katechon Center for Studies and headed by the extremist Russian Alexander Dugin in his Fourth Political Theory.”

It is clear that Syria could not have reached its current state of lost sovereign power without foreign interventions that internationalized the Syrian crisis, scattering it regionally as political cards in the hands of neighboring regimes and dominant regional powers. The Russian, Iranian, and Turkish roles became proxies for both the Syrian opposition and the Syrian regime. Returning to the pre-Syrian revolution state is no longer possible, as the weakness of the Syrian state and the loss of its authority resulted from the crisis of ending Syrian influence in Lebanon and the problem of eliminating Hezbollah. Syria now faces a significant crisis leading to widespread chaos due to state failure, resulting in issues of terrorism, illegal migration, refugees, and humanitarian aid, transforming the Syrian problem into a humanitarian catastrophe and a real Arab issue.

Therefore, we in the political office of the Syrian Future Movement (SFM) call on Syrian political entities to carefully study the geopolitical situation, increase discussions and meetings to develop a consensual vision of Syria’s size and role through its geography, and build on this to outline a new Syrian role in the region, stemming from its place on the regional and global map.

Elias Abd Al-Massih
Political Office
Research and Studies Department
Syrian Future Movement (SFM)

References:

• Alexander Dugin, Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, New Book House, 2004.
• Syrian Geopolitics | A Differential Advantage or a Historical Curse? | Sergil (sergil.net)
• Syria: Three Geopolitical Axes.. Will the Astana Battle End? – MENA Research and Study Center (mena-researchcenter.org)
• Geopolitics of the Syrian Crisis After the Revolution – A Study of Regional Actors’ Roles in the Syrian Conflict | Download Free PDF | Syria | International Relations (scribd.com)
• Geopolitics in the 21st Century: The Triumph of Geography and the Return of Thucydides’ World (*) – Arab Unity Studies Center (caus.org.lb)
• Robert Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What Maps Tell Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, translated by Ihab Abdul Rahim Ali (Kuwait: National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 2015), p. 51.