Small Wars Journal

Foreign Fighters in Syria and Beyond

Mon, 10/14/2013 - 8:44pm

Foreign Fighters in Syria and Beyond: A Symposium and Webcast Sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Reserve Officers Association.

Wednesday, October 23
1:45 ET registration
2:00 ET to 4:00 ET program
Reserve Officers Association
One Constitution Avenue, NE Washington D.C. 20002-5618

Panelists:
William McCants, Brookings Institution
Barak Mendelsohn, Associate Professor of Political Science,
Haverford College, and Senior Fellow, FPRI
Clinton Watts, President, Miburo Solutions, and Senior Fellow, FPRI
Moderator: Michael Noonan, Director, FPRI Program on National Security

Free and Open to the Public
Reservations required
Also available via video webcast

Register to attend in person: events@fpri.org
or telephone: (215) 732-3774 x303

Register for the webcast: webcast@fpri.org

For all registrations please provide name, affiliation and contact info.

As the pyre that is Syria continues to burn there is an increasing amount of attention being paid to its proxy war nature. In particular, attention is increasingly being paid to the foreign volunteers that have come to fight either on the side of the rebels or for the government of Bashar al-Assad. What impact are these third party nationals having in the conflict in Syria? What impact will they have when they return to their home countries with advanced
training and skills acquired while fighting abroad? Will they be more or less destabilizing to their home country or other countries than the previous foreign fighters that fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, in Bosnia or Chechnya in the 1990s, or those that fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan in the 2000s?

Building on the work of two previous conferences dealing with the problem posed by so-called “foreign fighters,” FPRI’s Program on National Security brings together an excellent panel of relevant subject matter expertise to discuss the questions posed above and more.

For additional event information and updates:
http://www.fpri.org/events/2013/10/foreign-fighters-syria-and-beyond