The Syrian conflict began in January 2011 and still continues. The conflicts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that started around the same time did not last long because the incumbent leaders of the three countries were either killed or resigned and the West (particularly NATO) intervened forcefully, while the non-West (particularly BRICS) did not actively support the incumbent leaders. 

Since World War II, civil wars have happened more often than international wars. In terms of geographic location, civil wars have broken out most commonly in Africa, followed by Asia, the Arab world and Latin America. In terms of severity and duration, civil wars have been more severe and lasted longer. More importantly, these conflict-prone countries are politically non-democratic, economically underdeveloped and less globalized, and culturally non-Western. From the Western perspective, they are pre-modern states.

Most scholars agree that when certain primordial groups (racial, ethnic, regional, religious and sectarian) or social strata are deprived of power sharing in government and suffer from wealth disparity for a long period of time, they are most likely to revolt against their government. Particularly, when a large primordial group in a country is excluded from power sharing for a long time, it is likely to challenge either the existing leadership or to seek separation and independence. If the opposition forces are supported by other domestic groups or foreign powers, the former are more likely to challenge the existing leadership.

But the single most important cause of civil wars is the political leadership. If the political leadership is highly dictatorial or corrupt, those victimized by it will revolt. The reason why Western states are almost immune from rebellion is that they have democratic rule and a highly centralized political system.

Because of this, Western states preach to non-Western states that they should adopt Western democracy and the values of Western civilization. In concrete terms, they tell non-Western leaders that the best way to maintain political stability is the peaceful transfer of power through the democratic election process, and that the best way to realize rapid economic development and the general welfare of the people is to transform the traditional way of life into the Western way of life. Because they are so confident that the Western way of life is the future course of human history, they will never allow non-Western countries to challenge their way of life. Therefore, it is not surprising why the West, particularly the U.S., is determined to protect its sphere of influence and maintain the hierarchical international order.

The above description of the current world order, which is divided into the zone of peace and the zone of chaos, can explain the nature of the Syrian crisis, because Syria is the microcosm of this world.

The Syrian civil war started as a protest movement against the oppressive government. But it turned into an outright rebellion, because it was not simply the expression of some individuals’ grievances against the al-Assad regime, but the revolt of Sunnis (the largest Muslim religious sect) against the Alawites (a Shiite sect) monopolizing power. In other words, the rebellion in Syria is not so much a pro-democracy movement as a challenge to the ruling religious sect.

Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to achieving the goal of replacing Alawite rule with non-Alawite rule, preferably by Sunnis. Of course, the opposition forces need the democratic election process for leadership change but are not so interested in the fundamental freedoms and human rights that the West preaches. The two-thirds of the Syrian National Coalition recognized by the U.S., the U.K. and Turkey are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Jihadi fighters connected with al-Qaida are in the majority.

All Shiite states in the Middle East are pro-government, and all Sunni-led states, antigovernment, because the al-Assad regime is Shiite-dominated. On the other hand, the U.S. and the EU support the rebel forces, while Russia aids the government and China is in favor of it. The division of the Middle East into two sectarian groups and the division of the world into two ideological groups reveal that in the Middle East, religion (a primordial identity) is the determining factor for national behavior, while outside the Middle East geopolitics and geo-culture determine national behavior. Syria is important for the U.S., Western Europe and Russia in these two respects. For China and other non-Western countries it is important particularly for geo-cultural reasons.

In concrete terms, the U.S. and Western Europe consider Syria as strategically important for the control of the Eurasian continent. The same is true for Russia. From a geo-cultural point of view, the Syrian civil war is a civilizational and ideological contest between the West and the non-West ― the West advocating humanitarian intervention as a universal value and a legal norm and the non-West rejecting it and defending the age-old principle of national sovereignty. This is not only a clash of Western and non-Western civilizations but also a clash between modern states and pre-modern states.

The West has gone through the pre-modern to modern ages, and the non-West is now undergoing modernization. The West started modernization much earlier than the non-West mainly because the values and norms of Western civilization served as the driving force for modernization. The West had also started and practiced democracy earlier than the non-West mainly because the values and norms of Western civilization require a democratic political system. In contrast, non-Western civilizations are often incompatible with Western democracy.

But both civilizations reject oppression of any form. The West might say that rejection of oppression is rooted in Western democracy, but the non-West argues that oppression is against human nature and no civilization condones it, and that otherwise it is impossible to explain why most non-Western states have gone through the same kinds of popular revolts throughout their history.

Ironically, the Syrian civil war has united the two civilizations into one to establish a democratic government but for different reasons: the West to transplant Western democracy and the non-West to use the democratic selection method of the political leadership. In this sense, the West and the non-West do not collide with each other but complement each other. On the other hand, the Syrian crisis divides the non-West into two factions: one supporting humanitarian intervention and the other, the principle of national sovereignty. The Syrian rebel groups and the Sunni Arab states represent the former, while the pro-government forces and the Shiite Arab states as well as Russia and China belong to the latter.

Since the end of the cold war, the world has been preoccupied with the question of whether China will replace the U.S. as the next superpower, but it should pay more attention to the question of whether the West’s mission civilisatrice will eventually prevail over the world.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is professor of the Graduate Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.