Capital Globalization and Syria

The impact of globalization has an incisive impact of security at the individual, state, regional, and systematic levels, and that impact does not always produce a climate of harmony or collective agreement. In most occasions since the end of War World II and the establishment of the UN Security Council veto, especially after the demise of the Soviet Union and the eastward expansion of capital globalization, the most powerful of the industrialized states in the Security Council have generally been on the same page when it comes to so-called security issues, which usually holds global economic benefits for states and the private sector, that require military intervention. The case with the civil war in Syria has not been so cut and dry, and economic and political interests have been split within the permanent members of the UN Security Council in a way that has been reminiscent of the last years of the League of Nations.

Individual level:

As in any similar scenario, a civil war is a serious threat to the citizens of a state, and in the case of the Syrian Civil War “more than 115,000 people have been killed in Syria's two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, including tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians” has been reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [1]. This situation is greatly aggravated when foreign industrialized states, permanent members of the UN Security Council, and the private sector corporations within their borders, are arming different sides of the domestic civil conflict. One recent example was apparent when “Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport (ROE)” lost a deal with the U.S. after it “was revealed that the company was still supplying arms to Syria”[2]. On the other side of the spectrum, the U.S. has been arming Syrian opposition groups in order to weaken the Assad regime. According to a September 2013 report by the Washington Post, “the CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration [3].

State level:

The civil conflict in the Syrian state, intensified if not perpetuated by foreign industrialized states with economic and political interests in establishing a new regime or maintaining the current regime in the region, has caused physical and economic destruction to the state. Before the Syrian war “unemployment was below 10 percent; now every second Syrian is without a job” and “overall economic costs of the war already surpass the [country's] annual economic output”, not to mention economic investment in Syria has plummeted [4]. Of course, regardless of which regime controls Syria after the conflict dies, the IMF and World Bank will be prepared to issue the victorious regime so-called humanitarian loans in order to open the Syrian state to foreign private sector investment (exploitation).

Systematic level:

The United Nations Security Council works well enough when the economic and political interests of the Permanent members of the UN Security Council are on the same page (or in a majority), but reminiscent of the League of Nations, it does not provide international security when the member states are at odds concerning economic and political interests.

1. Reuters, “Syria Death Toll Tops 115,000, Group Says,” Huffington Post, October 1, 2013, accessed November 17, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/syria-death-toll_n_4022414.html

2. Christopher Haress, “Russian Arms Deals: US Scraps Plan To Buy 15 Russian Helicopters Amid Syrian Disagreement,” International Business Times, November 15, 2013, accessed on November 17, 2013, http://www.ibtimes.com/russian-arms-deals-us-scraps-plan-buy-15-russian-helicopters-amid-syrian-disagreement-1472372

3. Ernesto Londono & Greg Miller, “U.S. Weapons Reaching Syrian Rebels,” Washington Post, September 11, 2013, accessed on November 17, 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-11/world/41972742_1_lethal-aid-syrian-rebels-chemical-weapons

4. Hilke Fischer, “Civil War Shatters Syrian Economy,” DW, October 31, 2013, accessed November 17, 2013, http://www.dw.de/civil-war-shatters-syrian-economy/a-17196882