In his article published by the Middle East Institute at the National University Singapore, BSIS PhD student Moritz Pieper analyses the policies of external actors in the Syrian civil war. Shedding light on the complex interactions between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, the U.S. and Russia, Pieper shows where their interests clash and overlap in Syria and how the involvement of these influential external actors has transformed what started as a civil uprising in 2011 into a regional and international proxy war. His article argues that the world witnesses the effects of a deep-seated malaise in Great Power interactions over political conceptions not only of the geopolitical mapping of the Middle East, but of international security governance at large. Pieper argues that especially the U.S.-Russian divergence of interests and the necessary inclusion of Iran in talks on Syria is at the interstice of a broader phenomenon of U.S. hegemonic decline and paradigm changes in Middle Eastern politics.
The article can be accessed here: http://nus_mei.theadventus.com/publications/the-singapore-middle-east-papers/the-syrian-civil-war-regional-ramifications-global-disharmony-and-hegemonic-decline.