All the King’s Men: Authoritarianism, Loyalty and the Syrian Collapse

All the King’s Men: Authoritarianism, Loyalty and the Syrian Collapse

Brandon C. Patrick

While the true social and economic origins of the Syrian civil war stretch back decades, the longstanding culture of government corruption and purchased loyalties hastened the final spiral toward war. Like in pre-war Iraq under Saddam Hussein, loyalty and favor had been traded like currency among the upper echelons of Syrian society since the early days of Hafez al-Assad’s rule.[i] Positions of sensitivity, high responsibility and public trust in the Syrian government (and other authoritarian systems of its kind) are often doled out to co-religionists, friends and family members on the basis of (and in exchange for) personal loyalty.[ii] This is the “loyalty exchange,” where personal allegiance is purchased away from the state by the authoritarian. What results are rickety and mismanaged government institutions run not by experts or “career officers” in their respective fields, but by dilettantes focused more on leveraging their newfound prominence into personal gain.[iii] The same can be true in the military sphere[iv] where promotions are often awarded based on personal association with the authoritarian, rather than merit or skill.[v] In this way “loyalty exchange” which stems from Assad’s authoritarianism actually weakens both the authoritarian and the state rather than truly strengthening them. 

The Syrian government grappled with the consequences of such nepotism in the opening stages of the civil war. In early 2011, discontented officers from units throughout the Syrian military, citing various motivations behind their decisions, began to defect. Competent and formally-trained battlefield commanders entered the ranks of the fledgling rebellion, from a young relative of former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass[vi] to Hussein Harmoush, a career officer of the Syrian army and a Colonel in the 11th armored division of Syria’s Third Corps. Frustrated by the dysfunction of a military that now served Assad’s instead of the state,[vii] Col. Harmoush would go on to launch the Syrian Free Officers Movement, a progenitor of the Free Syrian Army.

The link between the Assad regime’s authoritarianism and Syrian state fragility is evident in situations like these: the loyalty-exchange drives resentment and discontent among the out-groups (in this case, officers loyal to the state, but not bought into the authoritarian’s loyalty exchange) while government systems stagnate under an increasingly amateurish leadership class­. The government is often left with a mixed bag of sycophants, market barons and (some) competent professionals. The nascent rebellion, meanwhile, (the Free Syrian Army in this example) benefits from the recruitment of experienced military professionals ready to give training and direction to the fledgling rebellion. The military is therefore weakened and was weakening throughout the arc of this loyalty-exchange. The state is made more fragile and vulnerable as a direct result.  

Abandoning the State: Military Loyalties and the loss of Apoliticism

Though absent from popular definitions[viii] for state stability, an apolitical and socially representative military would seem to be crucial to the stability of any state. In the models of many democratic and stable countries, militaries (like their states) stand distinct from other government structures because of their apolitical nature; their dedication to the national good and lack of political motivation leave them widely trusted by the public and regarded as a symbol for national unity and identity. Such was not the case in Syria[ix].

Contrary to the Syrian model (and others[x]), a military’s long-term functional cohesion is predicated on its shared interest in safeguarding the national wellbeing. Often overseen by political bodies and directed by political will, the non-authoritarian state’s military none the less maintains its apolitical character by performing its duty irrespective of who in power issues its direction. The forces of the loyalty-exchange and state-replacement in Syrian governance have preempted the possibility of military cohesion by compromising command unity, cultivating out-groups and fomenting distrust between the Syrian armed forces and its constituent population.

The deleterious effects of the loyalty-exchange and state replacement on the Syrian military’s apolitical character reach back to the early days of the first Assad regime;[xi] little has changed in these respects beyond the sophistication with which the methods are exercised.[xii] As was the practice under Hafez al-Assad, the loyalties and decision-making of Syrian military officers in Bashar’s military are driven by reward, promotion and benefit (and not, therefore, by the unifying concern for the nation or its people). Writing for the Carnegie Middle East Center in 2015, nonresident scholar Kheder Khaddour described a glaring example: Dahiet al-Assad (the suburb of al-Assad).

Dahiet al-Assad is noteworthy as an exemplar of the loyalty-exchange system in the Syrian military. Located immediately northwest of Damascus, Dahiet al-Assad is an isolated housing development provided by the government to military officers who are (and remain) loyal to President Assad. Khaddour describes residency in Dahiet al-Assad as a prestigious perk with a high price: in relocating to Dahiet al-Assad, the lifestyles and fortunes of Syrian officers and their families assume a direct relationship with Assad’s own fate. The self-interest of these officers comes into alignment with that of President Assad, thus cementing the officers’ loyalty once and for all. This arrangement was not implicit: Khaddour describes the presidential succession of 2000, following Hafez al-Assad’s death as a period of uncertainty for the suburb’s officers. Families throughout the development were sent back to their home villages to await the succession’s outcome and as Khaddour puts it, “Officers had understood that their life in Damascus was contingent on the Assad regime’s survival, rather than on their status as state employees or military personnel.” The loyalty exchange, defined.

Like all perks offered by the regime, not every officer earned a property in the suburb of al-Assad. Such rewards are reserved for true-believing Assadists and to Assad’s Alawite co-religionists whose loyalties, in many cases, were never seriously questioned. Being neither Alawite nor sufficiently proven, the outgroup of enlisted soldiers, career officers who had been passed over for reward and Syrian idealists continued to grow.[xiii] This outgroup was more concentrated in the lower ranks than in the officer ranks to be sure, but (as mentioned previously) its subsequent birth of the Free Syrian Army defined the very character of the civil war for years.

There is some strategic novelty to the regime’s effort at Dahiet al-Assad, however: by isolating these officers and tying their livelihoods to that of Assad, the Syrian officers came to look upon the people (active rebels or otherwise) as personal threats to their existence. Khaddour describes[xiv] the development of a feedback loop in Syrian society, in which this suspicion among the officer corps bred suspicion among the citizenry and vice-versa. This sort of divisionism is routine in the Assad regime[xv] (and others) and may serve Assad’s short-term interests in retaining Syria’s presidency. To give the Dahiet strategy (or any other example of the loyalty-exchange) long-term credit, however, would be to ignore the greater damage done to a government’s viability when the people distrust their armed forces, and the armed forces distrust their people. This mutual distrust will not simply evaporate when the dust in Syria finally settles; like the uprisings of the early 1980’s under Assad Sr. and Hussein, this dynamic will likely set the tone for decades of mistrust and dysfunction between the Syrian political leadership, its military and the people whom both would exist to serve.

The various means by which Assadi authoritarianism drained the military of expertise, sprit de corps and unity of purpose almost certainly contributed to the military’s failure to institute order in the early years of the war (as Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Mara Karlin notes in much of her work[xvi] on rebuilding partner militaries, these intangible items are crucial to the function and cohesion of military structures). This failure is a noteworthy example of authoritarian self-harm, but its effect is multiplied when considering what it led to: by turning to Iran, Hezbollah and Russia for military assistance against the rebellion (assistance which Assad credits[xvii] with turning the tide of the conflict), the Syrian President risks further complicating the State’s geopolitical status and subjecting it to exterior leveraging and pressures. As we can see, the serious problems which arise when a military’s unity and political independence have been compromised can lead to state-weakening dysfunction and instability. A clear line can be drawn between Assad’s authoritarian posture, the undermining of the Syrian military’s political independence and subsequently, its increased instability in the nation as a whole.

Although the outcome of the civil war in Syria would seem to be decided, Bashar al-Assad won’t escape the long-term consequences of the loyalty exchange system and the Syrian people will continue to suffer under it. Scholars can know very little about the character and shape of the Syrian Arab Republic as it drags itself away from the civil war which destroyed it, but one thing is clear: a higher price will be paid for the loyalty which endured it, and state institutions will continue to erode as a result. Bashar al-Assad has survived despite the system he helped build, but the state will continue crumbling long after the guns have gone quiet.

End Notes