Until recently, every defection from the Syrian army was hailed as another sign that the collapse of the Syrian army, and by extension the regime as a whole, was nearing. In a dramatic public countdown, Al Jazeera installed an animation on its website featuring all the defectors, as if to show that it was only a matter of time before the army was exhausted by deserters and low morale.
Today, the Syrian army not only still exists, but is gradually reconquering lost territory. How is it possible that a military organization plagued by defectors, doomed by its pluralistic nature, and mired in civil war is still fighting?
First of all, desertion does not break the military’s neck. Indeed, the Syrian army has undergone abandonment, with estimates varying between 20,000 and 100,000 soldiers, or 15 to 50 percent of its original strength. However, desertions during combat occur very often in any unit.In Napoleon large armyin the Prussian army, and on both sides of the Civil War, some people 20-30% of combatants I decided enough was enough. In modern-day Iraq, even before the emergence of the Islamic State, the peacetime desertion rate of the country’s military was as high as 25%. 50 percent In a combat situation.
Even in highly professional forces, desertion remains a phenomenon. 6% of the US military and 5% of the British Army They were abandoned during the years they spent in Iraq. In civil wars, the number of soldiers going AWOL always increases.
Desertions primarily indicate that the military is out of sync with the organization’s mission and how that mission is accomplished. However, fugitives do not necessarily jeopardize a unit’s ability to operate. The desertion of a high-ranking officer may damage morale, but it is not catastrophic.
in Syria, high-ranking and low-ranking officers, including former defense minister and general Ali Habib Mahmoud, deserted, as did the general public. However, the officers did not take their troops with them, which would have had major repercussions. More dangerous than the personal decision of desertion is disintegration.
Entire units leaving the unit indicate that the military’s backbone, its cohesiveness and command-and-control structure, is no longer functioning. Examples of military collapse occurred in Libya in 2011, Lebanon in 1984, and more recently in Iraq.So far, no such trend has been observed Syria.
In an effective measure to prevent collapse, the Syrian army disbanded several low-strength brigades and blockaded units it deemed vulnerable. Desertions left the army with its most dedicated elements, which paradoxically strengthened rather than weakened the cohesion of the remaining troops. The Syrian army may have lost personnel, but its structure remains.
Moreover, the Syrian army does not utilize all its forces, but always those aimed at internal repression and regime protection, namely the Republican Guard, special forces, and the first two of the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions. depends only on These are effectively directed by Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger brother. Perhaps 50 to 80 percent are members of Syria’s ruling Alawite sect, and these forces are said to be made up of 50,000 troops, reinforced by volunteers from Hezbollah and Iran.
However, the sectarian factors in the Syrian conflict should not be overemphasized. The goal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father, who was president before him, was not to spread the Alawite faith, but to protect it. administration. Assad Sr. ousted Salah Jadid, another Alawite and de facto former leader, and did not hesitate to imprison, execute, or fire distrusted Alawite officials.
Instead, the regime successfully played the military card to promote unity. Damascus has glossed over the Alawite overrepresentation in the officer corps by appointing a Sunni chief of staff, linking officers in highly personal ways, often directly to the president. While the current civil war has dragged Syria further into sectarianism, the regime itself is surviving on the opposite myth: Syrian nationalism.
The fact that no unit of the Syrian army has responded to repeated calls for a coup does not indicate a lack of desire within the military to oust the regime. Asad Rather, it means that the regime has succeeded in “preventing a coup” by the military and has kept relevant forces in close contact. As long as you have the right troops in the right places, just 2% of your army or one brigade is enough for a successful coup. As it happens, all such forces are under the control of the regime.
All things considered, the Syrian army is well adapted both tactically and doctrinally to the challenges of civil war. Although the military is battered and injured, it appears capable of crushing the rebels. But peace enforcement is a much more human-resource-intensive undertaking than war, and it would be numerically impossible for the remaining military to maintain peace in a country the size of Syria. The Syrian army may win the war, but it cannot win peace.
Florence Gaub is a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies.
