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Ideological Tensions in the Ranks of Syrian Officers: the Trigger of Military Circles Transformation in the Country?

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dc.creator Jana Kostrounova
dc.date 2012-06-01T00:00:00Z
dc.identifier 1214-6463
dc.identifier 1802-7199
dc.identifier https://doaj.org/article/65614b69063c49feb3652649be305f0b
dc.description Despite the research by some authors on the Syrian Arab Republic and its stand in the Middle East Region, little is known about the perspective of the Syrian military, unofficially called the “elder statesman”, who rules this country. The overall image that emerges not only from the Arab media during the revolutionary year 2011 is ambivalent: lazy, corrupt, unpatriotic, apathetic soldiers with poor fighting spirits versus the Free Syrian Army newly formed in July 2011. This paper recovers some perspectives of the Syrian revolt and tries to answer, whether or whether not is the newly based military opposition in the country a real threat to the Assad regime. An analysis of historical background, Syrian veterans, relation between the official political doctrine and Islam brings new perspectives and own explanations that could even challenge some of the widely held assumptions about the Syrian military: 1) There is and won’t be any “civil war” in the Syrian Arab Republic at all; this conflict should be viewed as Islamic fitna and its roots come from the 1970’s. It is a regime strongly connected to rife corruption at the top ranks, hurting the morale of the lower, but stronger Islamic ranks; 2) Doctrinal relations between the Syrian army and official religious authorities in the Muslim world have been always tense; and 3) The Syrian army would have found the necessity of its own, inner transformation despite of the so-called “Arab Spring 2011”. This paper suggests that the character of the Syrian national revolt may be intended to reflect a deeper ideological antagonism between the Sunni and Shia Islam.
dc.language Czech
dc.language Slovak
dc.language English
dc.publisher University of Defence
dc.relation http://www.defenceandstrategy.eu/en/current-issue-1-2012/forum/ideological-tensions-in-the-ranks-of-syrian-officers-the-trigger-of-military-circles-transformation.html
dc.relation https://doaj.org/toc/1214-6463
dc.relation https://doaj.org/toc/1802-7199
dc.source Obrana a Strategie , Vol 12, Iss 1, Pp 073-078 (2012)
dc.subject Syria
dc.subject Syrian military
dc.subject Free Syrian Army
dc.subject Arab Spring 2011
dc.subject fitna
dc.subject Military Science
dc.subject U
dc.subject DOAJ:Military Science
dc.subject DOAJ:Technology and Engineering
dc.title Ideological Tensions in the Ranks of Syrian Officers: the Trigger of Military Circles Transformation in the Country?
dc.type article
dc.provenance Journal Licence: CC BY-ND


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