Position estimation. Geostrategic experts analyze
The rapid developments witnessed in Syria over the past hours indicate the country’s entry into a critical phase of power realignment, where political understandings intersect with military shifts and regional and international pressures. The announced arrangements between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces, alongside changes in control over strategic resources and the persistence of security fragility, reflect an incomplete transitional process. This process offers opportunities for the reassertion of state centrality, yet simultaneously carries serious risks of reproducing conflict in new forms, particularly if the Kurdish question continues to be treated as a security file rather than a structural political issue.
General Context of Developments
The rapid developments witnessed in Syria over the past hours indicate the country’s entry into a critical phase of power realignment, where political understandings intersect with military shifts and regional and international pressures. The announced arrangements between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces, alongside changes in control over strategic resources and the persistence of security fragility, reflect an incomplete transitional process. This process offers opportunities for the reassertion of state centrality, yet simultaneously carries serious risks of reproducing conflict in new forms, particularly if the Kurdish question continues to be treated as a security file rather than a structural political issue.
General Context of Developments
These transformations are unfolding amid a decline in direct international engagement with the Syrian file, replaced by pragmatic approaches focused on managing balances rather than pursuing comprehensive solutions. This context has compelled local actors to reassess their strategic options, as the cost of maintaining previous modes of control has become increasingly unsustainable on military, economic, and political levels.
Implications of the Understandings between Damascus and the SDF
The announced understandings signal a shift from prolonged confrontation toward a logic of containment and reintegration. For Damascus, they represent an attempt to gradually restore sovereign legitimacy over Syrian territory and dismantle autonomous military structures. For the Syrian Democratic Forces, they constitute an effort to avoid total loss by accepting a settlement that preserves their role as a local actor within the framework of the state. However, this trajectory remains fragile unless accompanied by a clear vision of center–periphery relations that goes beyond security arrangements toward genuine political and administrative partnership.
The Kurdish Question in Syria: A Test of the State, Not Its Margin
The Kurdish question constitutes one of the key lenses through which the current transformations in Syria must be understood. The emergence of Kurds as a political and military actor during the conflict was not a temporary anomaly, but rather a consequence of state collapse and the erosion of the social contract. As Syria enters a phase of understandings and repositioning, Kurds face a complex dilemma between preserving the political and administrative gains achieved during the conflict and avoiding becoming victims of regional settlements that bypass them.
Reducing the Kurdish presence to a temporary security or administrative arrangement risks reproducing the crisis in a different form and ignores the reality that Kurds are an integral and indigenous component of Syrian society. Any settlement that fails to provide clear political recognition and guarantees for cultural rights, administrative participation, and fair representation will remain inherently unstable and vulnerable to collapse.
Regionally, the Kurdish question in Syria intersects with entrenched Turkish security concerns and with international calculations that often treat Kurdish actors as instruments of leverage rather than long-term strategic partners. This reality underscores the necessity of redefining the Kurdish role within a comprehensive Syrian national project, viewing Kurdish inclusion not as a threat to state unity but as a prerequisite for sustainable stability.
Military Shifts and Control over Strategic Resources
The recent changes in control over oil and gas fields highlight the centrality of the economic dimension in reshaping the Syrian landscape. Control over resources is no longer merely a means of financing, but a tool for asserting political authority and reorganizing local loyalties. The erosion of SDF control over these resources weakens its bargaining position, while granting Damascus additional leverage. Yet the recovery of resources without structural economic reform risks deepening systemic imbalances and fueling renewed social grievances.
Security Fragility and the Persistence of Violence
Despite talk of ceasefires and political arrangements, violence continues in several areas, reflecting the depth of Syria’s security crisis and the multiplicity of power centers. This fragility represents not only an immediate threat, but also a structural indicator of the absence of a unified national security project capable of managing the transitional phase and preventing renewed fragmentation.
Regional and International Dimensions
Internal Syrian developments remain closely tied to complex regional and international dynamics. Reduced direct U.S. engagement, persistent Turkish anxieties, and the consolidation of Russian and Iranian influence collectively shape a context that favors short-term, partial settlements over comprehensive resolution. Without insulating the Syrian file from proxy conflicts, any internal stabilization effort will remain vulnerable.
Potential Strategic Scenarios
One possible trajectory involves the success of political containment, whereby local actors, including Kurdish forces, are integrated into a modified centralized state structure, accompanied by a gradual decline in violence. A second trajectory entails the failure of current understandings, turning them into temporary truces followed by renewed escalation driven by internal disputes or regional interventions. A third trajectory points toward prolonged stagnation, characterized by neither full-scale war nor genuine peace, with Syria remaining a fragmented state of overlapping spheres of influence.
Overall Conclusions
Current indicators suggest that Syria is undergoing a phase of repositioning rather than a comprehensive structural transformation. The success of any stabilization process depends on moving beyond narrow security arrangements toward a renewed political contract that addresses the root causes of the conflict, foremost among them the nature of the state and its relationship with its societal components, particularly the Kurdish component.
Conclusion
The present moment represents a rare opportunity to reconfigure the Syrian political landscape on more sustainable foundations. Squandering this opportunity through exclusionary or superficial settlements would likely reproduce the conflict in more complex forms. Integrating the Kurdish question within a national Syrian framework is not a political concession, but a strategic necessity for long-term stability and unity.
