Syria is attracting a growing cadre of foreign fighters from the West, who could potentially return home with the capability to conduct attacks against the United States and its allies, says Seth Jones.
Less than two years since the beginning of the uprising in Syria, localized protests have morphed into full-blown civil conflict, and external actors have become involved as well. RAND conducted an analytic exercise to generate a greater understanding of the parties and issues in play, including the actors, their motivations, and potential impact of their activities.
The U.S. and its European allies have a strong interest in Assad's fall, largely due to that regime's alignment with Iran. Syria provides the main bridge by which Iran is able to support Hezbollah and Hamas, influence Lebanon, outflank its Sunni Gulf adversaries and threaten Israel.
Reports on a conference entitled The Middle East: Changing Strategic Environment, held jointly by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy.
This report highlights points of vulnerability in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan that could lead to future internal and regional instability.
In the future, NATO forces must be prepared to respond quickly to events in regions within and beyond its borders. This research addresses how this requirement will affect the organization of NATO forces, particularly airpower, by postulating two scenarios that would stress NATO to the extreme.
In the past few years, the many-faceted problem of water in the Middle East has received increasing attention. Issues of scarcity, management, ownership, and use have been discussed in their own right, as well as in relation to the politics of the re...
The September 1993 signing of a Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization is likely to affect profoundly the future course of events in the Middle East.
In the wake of the turbulent events of 1990 and 1991, the states of the Middle East are in the process of redefining their political agendas, their relationships with each other, and their visions of the future. This paper describes the political cli...
Examines (1) the incentives for Soviet-client cooperation and the limits to their effectiveness and (2) how the Soviets manage their relationships with their Third World allies, focusing particularly on the Soviet ability to induce ...
There is a growing awareness that Soviet influences pose a particularly acute problem in the area of the Middle East. In the Middle East the potential freedom of action available to the Soviet Union and its allies to exploit their military advantage...
Assesses the contributions of improvement in manpower and organization quality to military effectiveness of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, plus Iran and Turkey.
A look at past economic development in Syria and a discussion of expected future growth, along with potential obstacles. Syrian oil production will be the most expansive factor in the economy, coupled with anticipated industrial agricultural benefit...
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