Conclusion

Raqqa’s experience offers lessons that extend beyond the city as a case study and beyond specific issues related to Syria. The chaotic proxy war conditions in Raqqa created an opening for ISIS to capture its first city. The absence of unified leadership among groups trying to govern Raqqa was representative of the dysfunction of those leading the Syrian opposition: the national opposition (the “Etilaf”) and the FSA. These groups’ internal divisions were exacerbated by regional patrons who were unwilling to compromise with each other. The international community, though increasingly involved in Syria, either lacked or failed to employ meaningful tools to force regional actors to work together and thereby to help their Syrian proxies unify.

Meanwhile, ISIS focused on hyperlocal mapping of the human terrain and individual-level targeting in order to infiltrate groups present in Raqqa and turn them on each other. It built links with the community and used those connections for social and political support. It embedded itself into Raqqa’s tribal system and established a logic of violence that supported its campaign for competitive control. This, and not superior firepower, allowed ISIS to take over Raqqa. Later, as ISIS grew, it added a large arsenal to its tactics for taking over new territory.

ISIS’ hyperlocal strategy highlights the tendency of traditional conceptions of proxy warfare to ignore or downplay the complex mesh of individuals, social networks, and movements at work in civil wars. Actors ranging from the Syrian government, to Ahrar al-Sham, to the Etilaf and its varied state sponsors repeatedly viewed Raqqa as a peripheral or economy-of-force area, governable with limited investment in local influence. ISIS demonstrated that, far from being a peripheral site into which armed forces could be moved like chess pieces with a little bit of foreign backing, Raqqa was a complex region alive with local politics that could rapidly shift given changes in a delicate balance of power.

ISIS’ hyperlocal strategy highlights the tendency of traditional conceptions of proxy warfare to ignore or downplay the complex mesh of individuals, social networks, and movements at work in civil wars.

ISIS was perhaps the only fighting force in Raqqa, with the possible exception of JAN, that was neither a proxy nor a patron. The Syrian regime was a patron who paid tribal proxies to monitor the situation in Raqqa. Once threatened, SARG withdrew its troops to bases outside of the city and the tribes capitulated. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition was both a sponsor and a proxy. As a proxy, it was unable to maintain unity under pressure from competition among its international donors, mainly from the Muslim Brotherhood-supporting faction in Qatar and Turkey, other conservatives supported by Saudi Arabia, and liberal secularists supported—albeit extremely half-heartedly—by western powers. The opposition’s reliance on external patrons resulted in key figures being promoted for their external political connections, rather than their local ties, like Etilaf’s representative for Raqqa, al-Nawaf. This crippled the Etilaf’s own utility as a patron in Raqqa, a utility already at risk due to its general predisposition to treat Raqqa as peripheral.

Raqqa’s experience suggests that proxy warfare is unlikely to be useful as a strategy for stabilization or state building operations, especially when multiple patrons or sponsors compete with each other, encouraging proxies to “patron-shop” and promoting disunity among forces in the field. Proxy forces may be able to take territory temporarily, but they often are focused more on maintaining ties to their foreign patrons than on governing effectively.

This conclusion has resonance for other conflict zones. In Yemen and Libya, warring factions inside the country—the proxies—profit from foreign funding. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the foreign patrons providing most of the funds that fuel these conflicts have a realistic end-game strategy or whether they are simply content fighting their real opponents (other sponsors) in another country’s battlefield. In all three theaters, jihadist insurgents with a focus on providing local services, rather than exclusively soliciting international funds, found safe havens.

Raqqa experienced rapid shifts of control between armed groups in 2013. This was partly because the Syrian regime and its opponents took the city for granted, believing they could buy local support with minimal commitment. Meanwhile, ISIS executed its plan to play warring factions off one another in Raqqa and destroyed the nascent effort to govern the city by locals. ISIS’ plan was well designed, but it was easier to execute because local power brokers in Raqqa, and their patrons, could not agree to unify in the face of a common threat.

In places like Raqqa, sponsors did not understand what was happening and therefore paid little attention to events on the ground. This meant that their proxies either did not care, or were not supported enough to deal with threats like ISIS. This gap in knowledge and interest gave ISIS the opportunity to capture its first town and launch its own conflict-changing insurgency.

Raqqa’s critical lesson is about the Syrian war in general: the United States, and others, can no longer take for granted an understanding of proxy warfare based on knowledge developed during the Cold War. Syria’s intractability underscores that the international system is not bipolar, as it was during the Cold War, nor unipolar, as it was during America’s brief window of global dominance in the immediate post-Cold War era. Today’s multi-polar international system means that regional powers have greater freedom to project power and influence events in their own regions because they can appeal to multiple global powers for support. In turn, local proxies also have the freedom to appeal to a range of regional actors, patron-shopping among a larger selection of sponsors while exploiting greater ease of access to technologies and capabilities of warfare.

Raqqa’s place within these conflicts was forgotten by nearly everyone in Syria except one group, ISIS, which recognized this weakness and exploited it—with devastating consequences.

That is why Syria was not only a battleground between global powers, but also a place where regional conflicts were fought. Saudi Arabia and Iran fought a regional proxy war in Syria, along with the ideological war between Sunni Arab nations who either supported or opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. Proxy warfare is sometimes characterized as moving pieces on a chessboard.¹ Syria’s conflict was a multi-dimensional mesh of networks with competing interests. As these competing interests fought their wars across Syria, Raqqa’s place within these conflicts was forgotten by nearly everyone in Syria except one group, ISIS, which recognized this weakness and exploited it—with devastating consequences.