In line with GA!’s aspiration to connect current events with history, you can find this week’s headlines below, provided with additional commentary from a historical perspective.
“The Day After Assad”
While last week we wrote about the Syrian Civil War having restarted, events in the Arab country this weekend led to the demise of the Assad regime with astonishing speed. Father Hafez and son Bashar ruled the country for 54 years with brutal repression. The rebel group HTS, along with various other Arab militias, rolled into Damascus over the weekend without any resistance from the government military which simply disappeared. Assad himself has supposedly fled to Moscow, where President Putin will grant him asylum. What caused this rapid collapse of the regime and what does the future hold for Syria?
As we described last week, Syria’s Civil War had somewhat ended in a stalemate whereby the Assad regime was being kept alive through support from Russia and Iran. Russian aerial bombardments during the civil war in support of Assad’s army resulted in an estimated 500 thousand Syrians killed by the Assad regime and its allies, while half the population, some 14 million, were displaced. A million Syrian refugees arrived in Europe, sparking a surge of right-wing parties, while millions of other refugees fled primarily to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
However, the global geopolitical upheaval of the past years has meant that Assad’s allies were all weakened and distracted. Russia has had to use all of its resources to fight in Ukraine, meaning it withdrew forces from its Syrian naval and air bases. Hamas’ attack of October 7 2023 eventually resulted in a full confrontation between Iran and Israel. Iran’s most powerful proxy Hezbollah was severely weakened during the military campaign in Lebanon over the past few months and Israeli air attacks on supply routes for Hezbollah through Syria kept going even after the ceasefire. However, Assad had recently been admitted back into the Arab League and was actually in negotiations with the US and UAE over sanctions relief which might have completed his reacceptance on the international stage.
Furthermore, negotiations between Assad and Turkey for the return of Syrian refugees were ongoing. These negotiations failing a few weeks ago though, seem to have been the final trigger for the HTS offensive. The group had been planning an offensive for longer and now it got a green light from Erdogan to attack. So as the rebels attacked a regime whose international allies were all weakened and preoccupied, the final nail in the coffin presented itself to the world. The Syrian Army was poorly paid and poorly supplied and the conscripts deserted en masse, refusing to fight for a regime which had been treating it so badly. Rule number 0 for rulers remains: keep the army on your side.
As HTS rolled into Damascus on Sunday morning, Syrians around the world took to the streets to celebrate this liberation. The fall of Assad will have serious geopolitical consequences. The Russian bases may close, which means Russia can no longer supply its Africa Corps in several African countries with which it tries to sow upheaval in that region. Iran has lost a key ally, meaning Hezbollah and Hamas will be significantly more difficult to supply and support too. This has already been obstructed by the Kurdish SDF taking over the borderpost of Abu Kamal on one of the main routes between Iraq and Syria. In fear of this power vacuum, the Americans have carried out large scale bombings on remaining ISIS hold outs and together with Israel have also bombed suspected storage sites of chemical weapons to prevent these from falling into the wrong hands. Israel has also destroyed most of the Syrian army’s ships and planes in opportunistic attacks, reoccupied the demilitarised zone on the edge of the Golan Heights and has even advanced slightly into Syria.
The domestic situation in Syria meanwhile, is anything but stable. The HTS rebels have released thousands of prisoners, some of which may be dangerous. While fighting in some areas stopped, clashes occurred between Kurdish and pro Turkish forces in the north of the country. Turkey and Europe will have a strong interest in a stable Syria however, so these clashes may be resolved. If Syria becomes stable again, Turkey and European countries will be able to force Syrian refugees to return, which would mean a significant political triumph in their countries. Last week we wrote about the jihadist origins of HTS and what this could mean for the Syrian people. HTS has over the past years and the past days tried to rework its image and some Western countries seem to accept this rebranding, as Macron and Scholz have now announced they are willing to work with HTS. Whether this will in the long run mean a hopeful future for the Syrians themselves will have to be seen.
“South Korea President Yoon banned from foreign travel as leadership crisis deepens”
In South Korea, the government and its political system are still dealing with the aftermath of the failed attempt by President Yoon to establish martial law in the country. Now, President Yoon has been banned from travelling abroad and will likely face criminal investigations. He remains in office after he survived an impeachment procedure this weekend but his future is anything but certain as his own ruling party is deliberating on what to do with this president who has so obviously discredited himself.
South Korea has a history with martial law, military coups and dictatorships. The Korean peninsula had been occupied by the Japanese since 1910. After World War two, the peninsula was split between an American and Russian zone of occupation. When these zones eventually became two separate countries, the Korean War broke out as the North attacked the South in 1950. The ceasefire which has been in place since 1953, has tied the US to South Korea as a key strategic ally. The US still has nearly 30 thousand troops in the country. After the Korean War, several coups and semi authoritarian governments ruled over South Korea. The longest of these periods was from 1961 until 1979, when the country was ruled for 18 years by Park Chung Hee, who kept increasing his own powers until he was assassinated. After the reforms following his death, South Korea has developed into a prosperous and democratic country, often referred to as a model for Western style development.
This reputation took a severe dent then last week, when President Yoon declared martial law, meaning the military under his direction would rule. The reasons for his decision remain quite unclear, but there were investigations ongoing into corruption he and his wife may have been involved in. Yoon tried dissolving parliament and soldiers occupied the parliament building in Seoul. Parliamentarians quickly gathered in the middle of the night and voted to undo Yoon’s decision. Thousands of protesters also gathered outside and have remained there over the past days to demand the exit of President Yoon. The soldiers sent to occupy parliament withdrew peacefully
This crisis then seems to have been averted by strong democratic institutions. While it seems President Yoon will soon be removed from office, he remains in power at the moment. The South Korean experience with military leadership may have been both the cause for Yoon believing he could get away with his actions and the cause for the opposition reacting so fiercely to prevent martial law being reinstated. Either way, this episode in South Korea has shown the world once again how brittle a democracy and the rule of law can be.
“After toppling French government, far-right National Rally loses by-election seat”
Political unrest has encapsulated France, after a vote of no-confidence made Prime Minister Barnier resign last week. It was the first time in sixty years that a government had been made to leave office by parliament. In a by-election this week however, one of the parties supporting the vote of no-confidence, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblant Nationale, lost one of their seats. French political history may prove that with the vote of no-confidence, the opposition overplayed their hand. In 1962, Charles de Gaulle called a referendum to change the French constitution. He wanted the president to be elected by universal suffrage, not by parliament. These were the early days of the Fifth French Republic, established in 1958 in which De Gaulle attempted to enlarge the powers of the executive branch. Parliament, opposing the referendum, voted no-confidence in De Gaulle’s Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and called for new elections. However, a few weeks later De Gaulle won the referendum convincingly and three weeks after that, Pompidou won the parliamentary elections, increasing the number of seats for his party. The vote of no-confidence thus backfired dramatically. While France is currently without a Prime Minister, the question which thus looms is who the voter will blame for the political instability and which effects the second ever successful vote of no-confidence in the Fifth Republic will have on French politics.
“Haiti gang massacres at least 110 people in Cite Soleil, rights group says”
Tragic and brutal gang violence continues to dominate Haiti and its capital Port-au-Prince. The troubled western half of the island of Hispaniola has seen gruesome gang violence stop any form of normal life in its capital, particularly in the poor slum of Cite Soleil. The modern history of Haiti is messy and full of military coup d’etats and foreign interventions. The country which already was unstable politically, has been near the abyss ever since the large earthquake in 2010. Hundreds of thousands of Haitains lost their lives, millions became homeless and the capital city was almost entirely levelled. Some of the damage has since been repaired, but the scars of the natural disaster still affect the country. Since 2022 and particularly in the past years, gang violence has once again gotten a hold over the country. In 2022, violence was of such extreme levels, civilians could not leave their homes. This March, gangs attacked multiple prisons and set other gang members free while the Haitian president was on an overseas trip. Some of these gangs aim to overthrow the government. The US and Canada have sent material aid in the form of armoured vehicles to help authorities fight the violence, but the government really needs more and has called for a UN peacekeeping mission. Efforts to establish this mission have however been vetoed by Russia and China in the UN Security Council. As with many other hotspots of violence around the globe, Haiti is simply and painfully less significant than the major conflict in Ukraine and Gaza, which are taking up the attention of the broader international community.
“From Apple to Starbucks, Western firms’ China dreams are dying”
Ever since China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, Western companies have experienced incredible profits and growth when being active on the Chinese market and when placing part of their production in China. Now however, the time of unbridled growth seems to be over, despite China claiming the opposite. The Chinese economy remained closed off from the rest of the world until the early 1980’s. Ever since the Chinese economy began opening up, Western businesses found they could move the whole or parts of their production there and decrease labour costs. As a bonus, Western businesses could now sell their products in China and to their enormous population. Several factors now seem to have definitively put an end to this unmatched growth. China is facing an economic crisis of its own due to a housing bubble, so the Chinese consumer is not spending. The escalating tradewar and the election of Donald Trump have sparked fears over the return of large tariffs on import and export which would hamper economic activity. Furthermore, Chinese companies now rival Western ones in price and consumers often choose the Chinese alternative, such as in the case of EV’s and Chineses wages are no longer of a sufficiently low level for Western businesses to profit. The Chinese consumer has also turned against brands which in their eyes discredit China, such as several clothing companies which are openly stating they will not use fabric from the province of Xinjiang because of human rights concerns and the likelihood fabric is produced using forced labour. For decades, the West and China have enjoyed the advantages of China’s low wages and large market. But now the West and China face one another in a geopolitical competition, the shared growth has come to an end.
“The Russian Economy Remains Putin’s Greatest Weakness”
The Russian economy seems to be finally coming under pressure due to a combination of the Western sanctions, and the war in Ukraine it has to finance. On a macro level, the Russian economy seems to be performing well. Its GDP had grown with 3,6% in 2023 and is expected to grow similarly in 2024. Russia is exporting 60 billion USD worth of products more than it is importing, up from 50 billion USD in 2023. However, underneath the surface, there are some seriously worrying signs the economy may be heading towards rougher seas. While inflation in the West has gotten back to normal levels, inflation in Russia is up to 8% and interest rates are at a whopping 20%. The large losses and troop numbers at the front, averaging 1500 casualties per day, have resulted in labour shortages, meaning unemployment is almost impossibly low at 2%. This has resulted in a large rise of wages, which is what is believed to be driving inflation. The influx of hard currency has dropped dramatically from 34 billion USD to 2 billion, which has resulted in a strong devaluation of the Ruble last month. Meanwhile, 6% of Russia’s GDP will now go towards war expenditures and a third of its government budget, which is double what Russia spends on social services. All of these factors indicate an ‘overheating’ of the Russian economy, which is vulnerable if revenues from its oil and gas exports decrease. Historically, sanctions have generally not resulted in states greatly altering their course. If anything, it has given regimes under heavy sanctions, such as those in Iran and North Korea, an easy scapegoat to explain to their people why they are suffering. Another painful matter to observe is that the wealth of the regime is generally not hurt a great deal by sanctions, while the livelihood of the people is heavily damaged. When the sanctions were imposed at the start of the war, the West’s goal was to prevent Putin from funding this war. This has not happened. But in his efforts to keep his economy running, some signs are now signalling the sanctions may cripple Russia’s economy in the long run.
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