ABSTRACT
Syria’s civil conflict is simultaneously an internal struggle and an international proxy war. Yet it is not a domestic civil war that has become a proxy war, but rather had an international dimension from its very beginning. Syrians have not been puppets controlled by foreigners, but external actors have played a vital role in framing, enabling and facilitating the war. This chapter outlines how those external factors have played out, drawing on past scholarship on civil wars. It considers the international and regional environment in which Syria’s Uprising began, arguing that this structural context was key in the transformation to civil war. It then examines the agency of leading foreign states in the first year, suggesting these governments helped the escalation to violence. Finally, it explores how external actors then shaped and prolonged the war, contributing to years of destructive stalemate.
