Executive Summary

The Syrian conflict began in 2011 as a mass uprising, with protesters gathering in one small town after the next to demand the end of a 40-year dictatorship. It quickly morphed into a complex, multi-sided war. By 2014, the conflict was simultaneously a revolution, a civil war, and a proxy war involving nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan. Why did a peaceful uprising for democracy militarize and internationalize so rapidly? Why were some states able to intervene in the uprising with relative (albeit temporary) success, while others failed?

This report attempts to answer these questions by exploring how local social networks and socioeconomic class influenced the origins and trajectory of Syria’s proxy war. Social networks represent an important way through which individuals engage in political collective action: People occupy squares, join armed groups, and track down funding through friends, relatives, business partners, political allies, and coreligionists. An important factor in network formation is class because an individual’s economic position not only influences their worldview, it also defines the horizons of their opportunities. In Syria, social networks and class played a key role in determining which segments of the rebellion were more susceptible to forming transnational linkages, and when those linkages allowed foreign patrons to wield effective control over their proxies.

Much of the analysis of the Syrian war has prioritized the interests of sponsors and the level of control they hold over their proxies. While important, such analysis misses the way in which local context intersects with the designs of outside powers. A sponsor’s success in achieving its aims depends in part on the degree to which its interests overlap with that of the client, and in part, on its capacity to direct client behavior. While many factors influence a patron’s capacity, variables such as the nature of a client’s social networks and their class positions play an important and unheralded role.

• Proxy relationships are governed by an overlap in interests between patron and client, as well as the capacity of the patron to direct client behavior. The prewar social life of clients is an important and overlooked factor shaping both the extent of overlap in interests and patron capacity.
• In Syria, the social networks through which clients engaged in collective action and the economic positions of those clients were essential aspects of this social life.
• Social networks and class played a key role in determining which segments of the rebellion were more susceptible to forming transnational linkages and when those linkages allowed foreign patrons to wield effective control over their proxies.
  • Where prewar client networks were cohesive and transnational, the patron enjoyed a greater capacity to direct client behavior. Where prewar client networks were fragmented or sub-national, patrons were unable to mold clients into an effective fighting force.
  • Where clients were well-capitalized independent of outside funding, they were able to better withstand the vicissitudes of foreign aid.
  • Class position also influenced the geographic reach of a network. Where clients belonged to the merchant class, transnational networks and ties were more likely to develop.
• In Syria, six prewar social networks played the preponderant role in shaping how clients engaged in collective action during the war: liberal, tribal, Muslim Brotherhood, activist Salafi, loyalist Salafi, and Salafi jihadi networks.
• Of the six networks, only two—the Brotherhood and activist Salafis—emerged from pervasive and cohesive pre-2011 networks.
  • These two networks overlapped with transnational merchant networks, giving them copious start-up funds and effective command and control.
  • These networks also harbored longstanding ties to foreign states, priming them for a proxy relationship.
• Liberal and tribal networks, on the other hand, generally lacked a cohesive pre-2011 structure, nor did they have meaningful transnational links.
  • Liberal and tribal networks were fragmented and sub-national.
  • Most liberals were middle class professionals who did not have extensive prewar ties to each other or to foreign states.
• By late 2012, the rebel movement against the Assad regime broadly fell into two camps—a U.S.-Saudi-Jordanian axis, and a Turkish-Qatari axis.
• The U.S.-Saudi-Jordanian axis generally relied on networks not conducive to effective patron capacity.
  • The U.S.-Saudi alliance backed three types of actors in the uprising: liberals, loyalist Salafis, and tribal figures.
  • In general, their proxies were poorer and more fragmented pre-2011 than those supported by Turkey and Qatar.
• In contrast, Qatar and Turkey chose to back Islamist forces that were built upon, or descended from, networks related to the Muslim Brotherhood and activist Salafis.
  • These networks were more cohesive, with stronger transnational ties and greater prevalence in prewar Syria.
  • These networks were also wealthier, belonging predominately to the merchant class.
  • In some cases, individuals in these networks maintained business and political ties with foreign states like Qatar. After 2011, Qatar leveraged these preexisting ties to mobilize a cohesive network—in effect, Qatar’s capacity to influence battlefield dynamics was a reflection of the nature of the networks it chose to support.
  • While U.S.-Saudi proxies were generally poorer (prior to infusions of funding) than Qatar’s proxies, that did not mean that Riyadh or Washington could more easily buy allegiance or their ability to act as an effective proxy. Instead the relative wealth of Qatar’s proxies helped Qatar exercise influence.
• The two foreign axes had diverging interests from each other, and often, from the rebel groups they backed.
  • The U.S.-Saudi-Jordanian axis policy was driven by a desire to avoid collaboration with activist Salafis and the Brotherhood and to reach a negotiated settlement with the Assad regime.
  • The Turkish-Qatari axis’s policy was precisely the opposite, supporting activist Salafis and the Brotherhood.
  • While the two sides collaborated for a time, before long they were in open competition, leading to a confused and divided battlefield.
• The Syrian war passed through four phases. These phases and their shifts were structured not only by shifts in external state policy, but also by the character of the social networks comprising the client groups.
  • From the start of the protests until late 2011, the uprising witnessed diaspora mobilization, in which funds trickled in through family networks. Because of prior political orientation, class position, and the way they were embedded in transnational networks, ex-Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members dominated this phase of funding.
  • From late 2011 until late 2012, the uprising went through a period of open competition, when various non-Syrian individuals and entities began to channel funds into the country, and foreign states began to intervene. Funding in this stage was distributed widely, driven by revolutionary actors’ ability to traverse solidarity networks to attract cash and weapons from all possible sources.
  • By late 2012, the uprising entered a period of structured competition, by which point a sharp distinction had arisen between Qatari and Saudi-backed funding networks, and most factions were forced to orient to this divide.
  • After 2015, global priorities shifted with the rise of ISIS, while the Russian intervention tilted the balance decisively in the regime’s favor. Gulf funding dried up, leaving Turkey as the main patron, inaugurating an exploitative phase in which the client rebel factions had little room for independent action.
• No foreign actor—whether the United States, Saudi Arabia, or Qatar—had interests fully aligned with the majority of the Syrian opposition.
  • The revolutionaries sought to overthrow the entire regime, not just Bashar al-Assad, whereas the policy of outside powers wavered between supporting a negotiated settlement to subordinating revolutionary objectives to other interests, such as fighting ISIS or the PKK.
• Even if patron interests had been aligned with the goal of Syria’s opposition, success for the revolutionaries would not have been guaranteed.
  • Ultimately, the outcome of the interventions had as much to do with the structure of pre-2011 Syria as it had with the interests and strategies pursued by foreign actors.
  • Though foreign funding shaped the battlefield, the key factors influencing the conflict ultimately depended on the nature of the prewar networks.
  • The lack of rebel cohesion was not simply a strategic error on their part, but rather a reflection of the way the 40-year Assad dictatorship fragmented Syrian society.