burke chair in strategy The Military Balance in a Shattered Levant Conventional Forces, Asymmetric Warfare & the Struggle for Syria By Aram Nerguizian June 15, 2015 Request for comments: This report is a draft that will be turned into an electronic book. Comments and suggested changes would be greatly appreciated. Please send any comments to both Anthony H. Cordsman at
[email protected] and Aram Nerguizian at
[email protected]. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy
[email protected] The Shattered Levant Military Balance 06.15.15 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study focuses on how regional military competition is affected by the political upheavals in the Middle East, economic and demographic pressures, sectarian struggles and extremism, ethnic and tribal conflicts, and how these tensions all combine to produce new complex patterns of competition. The civil war in Syria in particular has complicated relative stable long-term trends in both regional conventional and asymmetric forces. The conflict also challenges both the US and Iran to find new ways to compete in spite of regional unrest, albeit with the risk of further deepening both regional instability and the overall level of strategic competition. The Impact of Radical Changes in the Regional Military Balance Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria have all built up strong conventional forces, but their relative capacity for asymmetric warfare has become steadily more important as non-state actors have come to play a growing role in the region, and both state and non-state actors have come to rely on asymmetric warfare and threats. Moreover, the civil war in Syria, the overthrow of Mubarak, and increasing tensions in Jordan and Lebanon are all having a major impact on the conventional balance while internal struggles are empowering non- state actors.