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This overview, or retrospective, has two objectives. The first is to demonstrate how the principles of 'mountain geoecology' were applied in an attempt to counteract the political and socio-economic impacts of a major and misguided environmental orthodoxy-the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (henceforth to be referred to as the 'Theory'). The second is to explore the difficulties of transferring the results of on-going scholarly mountain research into the public and political decision-making process. In this sense the paper should be regarded as a case study of the potentially serious effects of exaggerated and emotionally based responses to orthodoxies founded on assumptions and latter-day myths. A third objective, reserved for the companion paper in this issue, outlines the origins of mountain geoecology and explores how academic research influenced the inclusion of high level concern for mountain problems within AGENDA 21, one of the principal results of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit) and declaration of 2002 as the International Year of Mountains. The original environmental orthodoxy (the Theory) has been eclipsed since the turn of the Millennium by a new populist alarm proposing that the current climate warming will cause all the Himalayan glaciers to disappear in the near future. From this it would follow that, as the glacier melt progresses, numerous large glacial lakes, forming as a consequence, would burst and the ensuing floods would annihilate many millions of people. Eventually, as the glaciers disappeared vital rivers, such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra, would wither to seasonal streams heralding further massive loss of life due to desertification and starvation. This current environmental alarm could be regarded as a present day parallel to the original Theory and will be examined in the final section of the paper. Between 1970 and about 1985 it was almost universal wisdom amongst scholars and development specialists, as well as conservationists, that the Himalaya were on the brink of environmental, and hence socio-economic and political collapse. This theme of gloom and doom was taken up avidly by journalists, politicians, and diplomats; it influenced the expenditure of large sums of aid and development money, and augmented periodic international confrontations. In concise terms, in the early 1970s an assumed approaching environmental disaster was perceived to be driven by relentless growth in the population of subsistence hill communities and their dependence on mountain forests for fuel, fodder, building materials, and conversion to agricultural land. The assumption of rapid and catastrophic deforestation of steep hillslopes under a monsoon climate (the World Bank predicted that there would be no accessible forest remaining in Nepal by the year 2000) led inexorably to a series of dependent assumptions: increasing soil erosion and worsening landslide incidence; accelerated flooding and siltation on the plains of Gangetic India and Bangladesh; social and political unrest, if not serious armed conflict – the notion of a world super-crisis, considering that the region in question contained about ten percent of the world's entire human population and about thirty percent of its poorest. As will be emphasized later, none of this all-embracing construct was based on reliable evidence, but it was accepted world-wide as a given. It represents a prime example of the dangers associated with convenient adoption of environmental myths, or environmental orthodoxies, especially where the myth is a Western 'scientific' construct. I characterized it as The Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (Ives, 1985). ; Esta perspectiva global, o retrospectiva, tiene dos objetivos. El primero es demostrar cómo se aplicaron los principios de la "geoecología de montaña" en un intento por contrarrestar los impactos políticos y socioeconómicos de una errónea ortodoxia ambiental, la Teoría de la Degradación Ambiental del Himalaya (en adelante referida como la "Teoría"). El segundo es explorar las dificultades para transferir los resultados de la investigación científica en montaña a los procesos públicos de decisión. En este sentido, el artículo debería ser contemplado como un estudio de caso de los efectos potencialmente serios de las exageradas respuestas a las ortodoxias basadas en suposiciones y mitos de última hora. Un tercer objetivo, reservado a otro trabajo publicado en este volumen, subraya los orígenes de la geoecología de montaña y explora cómo la investigación académica influyó en la incorporación de la preocupación por los problemas de la montaña en la AGENDA 21, uno de los principales resultados de la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas de 1992 sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo (popularmente conocida como la Cumbre de Río), y la declaración de 2002 como el Año Internacional de las Montañas. La ortodoxia ambiental original (la Teoría) ha sido eclipsada desde el cambio de milenio por una nueva alarma populista que propone que el actual calentamiento climático hará que todos los glaciares del Himalaya desaparezcan en un futuro próximo. De ahí puede deducirse que, a medida que la fusión glaciar progrese, numerosos lagos glaciares reventarían y las consiguientes avenidas aniquilarían a millones de personas. Eventualmente, tras la desaparición de los glaciares, algunos ríos fundamentales, como el Ganges y el Brahmaputra podrían convertirse en ríos estacionales ocasionando la pérdida masiva de vidas humanas debido a la desertificación y el hambre. Esta alarma ambiental podría ser vista como paralela a la Teoría original, y será examinada en la parte final de este artículo. Entre 1970 y 1985 se mantuvo la opinión entre los científicos y especialistas en desarrollo, así como entre los conservacionistas, de que el Himalaya estaba al borde del colapso ambiental, socioeconómico y político. Este pesimismo y predestinación fue adoptado ávidamente por periodistas, políticos y diplomáticos, e influyó en la dedicación de grandes sumas de dinero y ayudas. En pocas palabras, a comienzos de los años setenta se asumió la ocurrencia de un desastre ambiental determinado por el crecimiento demográfico de comunidades que dependían de los bosques de montaña para la obtención de energía, forraje, materiales de construcción y expansión de los terrenos agrícolas. La asunción de una rápida y catastrófica deforestación de laderas pendientes bajo clima monzónico (el Banco Mundial predijo que no habría bosques accesibles en Nepal hacia el año 2000) condujo inexorablemente a aceptar otras suposiciones: aumento de la erosión del suelo y acentuación de la incidencia de los deslizamientos; incremento de la magnitud y frecuencia de las avenidas y del transporte de sedimento en las llanuras del Ganges en India y Bangladesh; conflictividad social y política, cuando no serios conflictos armados, es decir, la noción de una supercrisis mundial, teniendo en cuenta que la región en cuestión contiene alrededor del 10 por ciento de la población mundial y alrededor de la tercera parte de los más pobres. Como se pone de relieve a continuación, ninguna de esas ideas se basaba en evidencias fiables, pero fueron aceptadas mundialmente como un hecho. Representan un ejemplo claro de los peligros asociados a la adopción de mitos u ortodoxias ambientales, especialmente donde el mito es una construcción "científica" del mundo occidental. Yo la definí como la Teoría de la Degradación Ambiental del Himalaya (Ives, 1985).

This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy continues to reflect the structure and approach of the core national security strategy and policy curriculum at the War College. The fourth edition is published in two volumes that correspond roughly to the Department of National Security and Strategy's core courses: "Theory of War and Strategy" and "National Security Policy and Strategy." Like previous editions, this one is largely an expansion of its predecessor rather than a major rewriting. About a quarter of the chapters are new, and several others have undergone significant rewrites or updates. However, approximately half of the book remains unchanged. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America's future senior leaders. The book is not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategic theory or the policymaking process. Both volumes are organized to proceed from the general to the specific. Thus the first volume opens with general thoughts on the nature and theory of war and strategy, proceeds to look at the complex aspect of power, and concludes with specific theoretical issues. Similarly, the second volume begins by examining the policy/strategy process, moves to a look at the strategic environment, and concludes with some specific issues. This edition adds several short case studies that can be used to illustrate the primary material in the volume. ; "July 2010." ; Includes bibliographical references. ; V. II. National security policy and strategy -- The national system and environment. Crafting national interests in the 21st century / Alan G. Stolberg -- The national security community, revisited / Walter H. Leach -- Making national security policy in the 21st century / Alan G. Stolberg -- National security and the interagency process / Gabriel Marcella -- PDD-56 : a glass half-full / John F. Troxell -- National security powers : are the checks in balance? / Marybeth P. Ulrich -- National military strategies : 1990-2009 / Richard M. Meinhart -- Present at the counterrevolution : an essay on the 2005 national defense strategy and its impact on policy / Nathan P. Freier -- Securing America from attack : the Defense Department's evolving role after 9/11 / Frank L. Jones -- The appropriate role of intelligence in the making of national security policy / Anthony R. Williams -- The international system and environment. The international system in the 21st century / Alan G. Stolberg -- International relations theory and American grand strategy / Janeen M. Klinger -- Multilateralism and unilateralism / James A. Helis -- Regional studies in a global age / R. Craig Nation -- "Lawyers, guns, and money" : transnational threats and U.S. national security / Paul Rexton Kan -- Ethical issues in war : an overview / Martin L. Cook -- Strategic issues and considerations. Ethics and war in comparative religious perspective / David L. Perry -- International law and the new world order : redefining sovereignty / Thomas W. McShane -- A nationalist's view of lawfare / David G. Bolgiano -- The United States and the International Criminal Court / Thomas W. McShane -- Retooling U.S. public diplomacy as a strategic instrument of foreign policy / Marybeth P. Ulrich -- A primer on civil-military relations for senior leaders / Marybeth P. Ulrich -- New requirements for a new challenge : the military's role in border security / Bert B. Tussing -- Creating strategy in an era of change : the Plains Indian wars / Clayton K.S. Chun -- U.S. relations with North Korea, 1991-2000 / J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. -- Painting yourself into a corner : conflict termination, unconditional surrender, and the case of Japan / Clayton K.S. Chun -- The guerrilla warfare problem : revolutionary war and the Kennedy administration response, 1961-1964 / Frank L. Jones. ; V. I. Theory of war and strategy -- Introduction / J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. -- Strategic theory. Why is strategy difficult? / David Jablonsky -- A survey of the theory of strategy / J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. -- Toward a theory of strategy : Art Lykke and the U.S. Army War College strategy model / H. Richard Yarger -- The strategic appraisal : the key to effective strategy / H. Richard Yarger -- Managing strategic risk / James F. Holcomb -- A theory of victory / J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. -- Toward a strategic theory of terrorism : defining boundaries in the ongoing search for security / Frank L. Jones -- Thucydides and contemporary strategy / R. Craig Nation -- The elements of power. National power / David Jablonsky -- National power / R. Craig Nation -- Strategic communication : wielding the information element of power / Dennis M. Murphy -- Diplomacy as an instrument of national power / Reed J. Fendrick -- Theory and practice of modern diplomacy : origins and development to 1914 / Louis J. Nigro, Jr. -- Economic diplomacy : views of a practitioner / Constance Phlipot -- Economics : a key element of national power / Clayton K.S. Chun -- Political economy and national security : a primer / Janeen M. Klinger -- Military power and the use of force / John F. Troxell -- Strategic issues and considerations. Systems thinking in campaign design / Charles D. Allen and Glenn K. Cunningham -- Intelligence as a tool of strategy / John Aclin -- Air power theory : an analytical narrative from the First World War to the present / Tami Davis Biddle -- John Warden's five ring model and the indirect approach to war / Clayton K. S. Chun -- Naval theory for soldiers / J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. -- The network-centric warfare journey : realizing the power of information / Jeffrey L. Groh -- Space power : a strategic assessment and a way forward / Jeffrey A. Farnsworth. ; This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy continues to reflect the structure and approach of the core national security strategy and policy curriculum at the War College. The fourth edition is published in two volumes that correspond roughly to the Department of National Security and Strategy's core courses: "Theory of War and Strategy" and "National Security Policy and Strategy." Like previous editions, this one is largely an expansion of its predecessor rather than a major rewriting. About a quarter of the chapters are new, and several others have undergone significant rewrites or updates. However, approximately half of the book remains unchanged. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America's future senior leaders. The book is not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategic theory or the policymaking process. Both volumes are organized to proceed from the general to the specific. Thus the first volume opens with general thoughts on the nature and theory of war and strategy, proceeds to look at the complex aspect of power, and concludes with specific theoretical issues. Similarly, the second volume begins by examining the policy/strategy process, moves to a look at the strategic environment, and concludes with some specific issues. This edition adds several short case studies that can be used to illustrate the primary material in the volume. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Previously titled: U.S. Army War College guide to national security policy and strategy.

This study seeks to address a gap in the study of nonviolent action. The gap relates to the question of how nonviolence is performed, as opposed to the meaning or impact of nonviolent politics. The dissertation approaches the history of nonviolent protest in South Asia through the lens of performance studies. Such a shift allows for concepts such as performativity and theatricality to be tested in terms of their applicability and relevance to contemporary political and philosophical questions. It also allows for a different perspective on the historiography of nonviolent protest. Using concepts, modes of analysis and tropes of thinking from the emerging field of performance studies, the dissertation analyses two different cases of nonviolent protest, asking how politics is performatively constituted. The first two sections of this study set out the parameters of the key terms of the dissertation: nonviolence and performativity, by tracing their genealogies and legacies as terms. These histories are then located as an intersection in the founding of the nonviolent. The case studies at the analytical core of the dissertation are: fasting as a method in Gandhi's political arsenal, and the army of nonviolent soldiers in the North-West Frontier Province, known as the Khudai Khidmatgar. The study begins with an overview of current theorisations of nonviolence. The approach to the subject is through an investigation of commonly held misconceptions about nonviolent action, such as its supposed passivity, the absence of violence, its ineffectiveness and its spiritual basis. This section addresses the lacunae within existing theories of nonviolence and points to possible fertile spaces for further exploration. Section 3 offers an overview of the different shades of the concept of performativity, asking how it is used in various contexts and how these different nuances can be viewed in relation to each other. The dissertation explores how a theory of performativity may be correlated to the theorisation of nonviolence. The correlations are established in four boundary areas: action/inaction, violence/absence of violence, the actor/opponent and the body/spirit. These boundary areas allow for a theorising of nonviolent action as a performative process. The first case study is Gandhi's use of the fast as a method of nonviolent protest. Using a close reading of his own writings, speeches and letters, as well as a reading of responses to his fast in British newspapers and within India, the dissertation asks what made fasting into Gandhi's most favoured mode of protest and political action. The study reconstructs his unique praxis of the fast from a performative perspective, demonstrating how display and ostentation are vital to the political economy of the fast. It also unveils the cultural context and historical reservoir of body practices, which Gandhi drew from and adapted into 'weapons' of political action. The relationship of Gandhian nonviolence to the body forms a crucial part of the analysis. The second case study is the nonviolent army of the Pashtuns, Khudai Khidmatgar (KK), literally Servants of God. This anti-imperialist movement in the North-West Frontier Province of what is today the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan existed between 1929 and 1948. The movement adopted the organisational form of an army. It conducted protest activities against colonial rule, as well as social reform activities for the Pashtuns. This group was connected to the Congress party of Gandhi, but the dissertation argues that their conceptualisation and praxis of nonviolence emerged from a very different tradition and worldview. Following a brief introduction to the socio-political background of this Pashtun movement, the dissertation explores the activities that this nonviolent army engaged in, looking at their unique understanding of the militancy of an unarmed force, and their mode of combat and confrontation. Of particular interest to the analysis is the way the KK re-combined and mixed what appear to be contradictory ideologies and acts. In doing so, they reframed cultural and historical stereotypes of the Pashtuns as a martial race, juxtaposing the institutional form of the army with a nonviolent praxis based on Islamic principles and social reform. The example of the Khudai Khidmatgar is used to explore the idea that nonviolence is not the opposite of violent conflict, but in fact a dialectical engagement and response to violence. Section 5, in conclusion, returns to the boundary areas of nonviolence: action, violence, the opponent and the body, and re-visits these areas on a comparative note, bringing together elements from Gandhi's fasts and the practices of the KK. The similarities and differences in the two examples are assessed and contextualised in relation to the guiding question of this study, namely the question of the performativity of nonviolent action. ; Die Dissertation widmet sich einer bislang wenig untersuchten Frage in der Forschung zur gewaltfreien Aktion, nämlich der Performativität des gewaltfreien Protests, im Gegensatz zur viel untersuchten Frage der Wirksamkeit von gewaltfreien politischen Ansätzen. Woraus besteht ein gewaltfreier Akt, wenn man ihn als Handlungsfeld und nicht im gängigen Sinne eines Zustands der Abwesenheit von Gewaltanwendung sieht? Was können theaterwissenschaftliche Theorien zum Verständnis gewaltfreien Handelns beitragen? Die Studie hinterfragt die Geschichtsschreibung des gewaltfreien Protestes in Südasien durch die Einbeziehung von theaterwissenschaftlichen Begriffen, Analysemethoden und Denkfiguren. Die ersten zwei Abschnitte der Studie erläutern die begrifflichen und interdisziplinären Parametern der Dissertation, und zwar einerseits die Gewaltfreiheit und andererseits die Performativität. Die Genealogien der beiden Begriffe werden kritisch beleuchtet und durch wiederkehrende Bezugsfelder in Verbindung zueinander gesetzt. Zwei Fallbeispiele ermöglichen eine tiefergehende Untersuchung von der Performativität der Gewaltfreiheit: erstens das Fasten als Protestwaffe in Gandhis politischem Arsenal und zweitens die Khudai Khidmatgar, die Armee der gewaltfreien Soldaten in der Nordwestfrontierprovinz von heutigem Pakistan. Die Dissertation beginnt mit einem typologischen Überblick von Theorien der Gewaltfreiheit. Die Theorien werden zusammengefasst im Hinblick auf häufig vorkommende Missverständnisse über Gewaltfreiheit, wie beispielsweise die Opposition zwischen passivem und aktivem Handeln, die Infragestellung der tatsächlichen Abwesenheit von Gewalt oder die mangelnde Wirksamkeit des politischen Ansatzes. Dieser Abschnitt zeigt die Lücken in existierenden Theorien der Gewaltfreiheit auf und weist auf potentielle Erörterungs- und Forschungsmöglichkeiten darin. Kapitel 3 bietet einen Überblick über die verschiedenen Begriffsabschattungen des Begriffs der Performativität, und stellt die unterschiedlichen Anwendungsfelder kritisch in Bezug zueinander. Die Dissertation fragt nach dem Potential des Begriffs der Performativität in einer Theoriebildung zur Gewaltfreiheit und schlägt dann vier Grenzfelder vor: Handeln/ Handlungsunfähigkeit, Gewalt/ Abwesenheit von Gewalt, der Akteur/ der Gegner und Körper/ Geist. Diese Grenzfelder ermöglichen eine theoretische Annäherung von Gewaltfreiheit als einen performativen Prozess. Das erste Fallbeispiel der Dissertation ist Mohandas Gandhis Gebrauch des Fastens als Methode des gewaltfreien Protestes. Mithilfe einer Lektüre seiner eigenen Äußerungen zum Thema, seiner Reden und Briefe sowie durch eine Diskursanalyse der Reaktionen zu Gandhis Fasten in der britischen Presse untersucht die Studie wie das Fasten zu einem der erfolgreichsten Methoden in Gandhis politischer Kommunikation wurde. Der Abschnitt erläutert den kulturellen Kontext und die historischen Bezugsquellen, aus denen Gandhi seine Methoden geschöpft und neu interpretiert hat. In der kritischen Analyse liegt der Schwerpunkt auf Gandhis performative Körperkonzeption. Das zweite Fallbeispiel ist die gewaltfreie Armee der Paschtunen, Khudai Khidmatgar (KK), wörtlich die Diener Gottes. Diese anti-imperialistische Bewegung in der Nordwestfrontierprovinz des heutigen Pakistans existierte zwischen 1929 und 1948. Die antimilitaristische Bewegung adoptierte die Organisationsform einer Armee. Ihre Aktivitäten variierten zwischen Protestaktionen gegen die britische Herrschaft und Sozialreformaktionen innerhalb der eigenen Bevölkerung. Die KK war formal mit der indischen Kongress-Partei verbunden, in ihrer Praxis und in der Konzeptualisierung von Gewaltfreiheit war sie jedoch von einer ganz anderen Tradition inspiriert als Gandhi, nämlich vom Islam und von der Paschtunkultur. Die Studie erforscht die Aktivitäten der gewaltfreien Armee durch eine Neulektüre des existierenden historiographischen Materials, besonders im Hinblick auf ihr Verständnis von gewaltfreier Aktion und Konfrontation. Von besonderem Interesse ist die Art, wie scheinbar gegensätzliche Ideologien und Haltungen in der KK performativ miteinander kombiniert wurden. Das Beispiel der KK dient zu einer dialektischen, sich aus Gegensätzen hervorhebenden Beschäftigung mit dem Begriff der Gewaltfreiheit. Das letzte Kapitel der Dissertation bietet eine vergleichende Interpretation von Gandhis Fasten und die Aktionen der KK. Die Unterschiede und die Gemeinsamkeiten werden in Bezug auf die Grundfrage der Dissertation erläutert, nämlich die der Performativität der Gewaltfreiheit.

The history of German migration policies was a growth industry during the 1990s. The political battles of the present, such as asylum legislation, integration, and citizenship reform, created growing interest in the German historical experience of migration, migration controls and citizenship law. At the time, the only major work to tackle the subject was Klaus Bade's pioneering study of Prussian migration policies before the First World War, recently republished in an updated edition.[1] Initially, interest in German migration policies was guided largely by two leading questions. Histories of citizenship in Germany tended to adopt a long or a comparative perspective, which sought to test the hypothesis that German citizenship law and its implementation in practice reflected a particularly ethnic German conception of nationhood.[2] Histories of migration policy, by contrast, tended to focus on particular episodes in which a German tendency to view migrants primarily with regard to their usefulness, and not as potential immigrants and future citizens, clearly emerged, especially with regards to histories of the German Empire, the First World War, National Socialism, the Second World War and the post-war treatment of Gastarbeiter. The Weimar Republic, in contrast, was usually passed over in a few pages that highlighted the continuity of labor market control.[3] This state of affairs was remarkable because research on other countries highlighted the interwar period as an epoch of massive change in international migration policies. Race and ethnicity loomed larger than they had before, as indicated by the implementation of a quota system and barred zones in the United States. Moreover, with the First World War came the introduction of documentation requirements and the creation of labor-management bureaucracies that facilitated the distinction between citizens and aliens, as well as attempts to match labor supply to labor demand. Gérard Noiriel had even gone so far as to argue, largely with a view to migration and documentation policies, that the practices of Vichy had their roots in republican reforms of the late 1920s and 1930s.[4] Jochen Oltmer's magisterialHabilitationsschrift closes this gap all but completely. Based on a thorough reading of the archival record and contemporary public debate, his book shows that the transition from the politics of the First World War to the politics of National Socialism in the years of a labor shortage was more complicated previously assumed. He also highlights that migration policy was a field in which the Weimar Republic's problems emerged with particular poignancy. Oltmer's account is organized thematically rather than chronologically, though his subjects are arranged in the order in which they emerged as the main foci of internal administrative and public political debate. In the Weimar Republic's early years, these topics concerned ethnic Germans left outside the Empire's post-Versailles borders, prisoners of war and political refugees. In the later years, the position of migrant workers gained more prominence. While publicly committed to aiding fellow Germans, the republic's practice was ambivalent. The arrival of former residents of Alsace--mostly skilled workers in industries where labor was in demand, from a territory unlikely to be re-conquered soon--was welcome, but emigration of ethnic Germans from areas under Polish control was actively discouraged. The official view of these potential emigrants was less positive, their numbers were larger by several orders of magnitude and maintaining a visible German minority outside Germany's eastern borders seemed a good way to bolster the German case for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. Migrants from Poland who could not prove they had been persecuted could therefore only expect accommodation in forbidding refugee camps in remote locations. As Oltmer's third chapter shows, this attitude also shaped the Weimar Republic's response to ethnic German emigration from Russia, which peaked during the famine years of the 1920s. Individual ethnicity was, therefore, not a dominant factor in the treatment of refugees; aliens of all ethnic backgrounds remained in a precarious position in the Weimar Republic, regardless of whether they were former prisoners of war who had opted to stay, or Jewish refugees from eastern and southeastern Europe who loomed relatively large in public debates or refugees from Soviet Russia. Ethnicity and race also loomed large in debates on the desirability of labor immigration. In general, the attitudes of state governments had more or less come full circle since the days of the empire. Whereas Prussia had been most concerned about the impact of Polish immigrants on national homogeneity before 1914, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg proved most rigid after 1919. However, the majority of migrant workers were interested in jobs in Prussia, in the industrial areas of the Ruhr and, more prominently, in the agricultural east, which continued to rely on the access to Polish labor markets, particularly for potato planting and harvesting. In theory, the states and the empire had a powerful new tool to control labor migration: the obligatory work permit, issued only if no German applicants could be found for a job. Things were, however, not so simple in practice. Political interest in ethnic homogeneity was equal to interest in increasing the supply of food, a goal that could only be achieved, East Elbian landowners claimed, if Polish seasonal workers remained available to German employers. Immigration was, however, regarded with distaste by the völkisch right, Prussia's conservative bureaucracy and the Social Democrats, who viewed Polish laborers as an obstacle to the long-overdue modernization of rural Prussia through mechanization and unionization. The solution, fixed quotas for migrant laborers set to decline every year, proved unworkable, as rural employers turned to undocumented laborers. Moreover, the German government did its bit to undermine respect for legality in immigration matters. Seeking to reimpose a de facto policy forcing Polish migrants to return home for part of the year to prevent their settlement in Poland, German officials came into conflict with Polish determination to cut the state's ties to long-term emigrants, and were frequently forced to aid migrants in clandestinely crossing the border, before an unequal agreement could be concluded with Poland in 1927 that confirmed the status of Polish workers as second-class migrants excluded from social insurance and subject to a forced return for part of the year. Oltmer's comprehensively documented study does more than simply fill a gap in existing research. He unearths a striking pattern to Weimar policies, which could be found in many other fields of policy and may contribute to explaining why successive Weimar governments had such a difficult time in gaining the population's respect. Public pronouncements frequently contradicted secret or semi-secret policies. Official quotas for foreign workers, for example, were unofficially raised and little attempt was made to sanction employers of undocumented workers. Such actions exposed the Republic to criticism from the right and created a climate in which even more restrictive National Socialist policies could acquire broad popular support. Oltmer's book thus treats a question at the center, not the periphery, of the Weimar years.

Civis oeconomicus e civis communis, sono le due figure antropologiche, animate da un eterno polemos figurato, attraverso cui in questo lavoro di ricerca abbiamo provato a raccontare la frattura tra due modelli dicotomici di cittadinanza e a ricostruire le trasformazioni dell'economia, delle istituzioni e delle tecniche di governo in era neoliberale nonché la crisi della cittadinanza politica moderna e le possibilità di reazione, resistenza, conflitto che si affacciano sul pianeta. Quella che abbiamo sottolineato a più riprese è in effetti proprio la novità drammatica di queste due figure antropologiche. Da una parte quella che racchiude nella sua stessa definizione i risultati della progressiva subalternazione della politica all'economia e dall'altra quella che alla luce di una inedita ridefinizione dei criteri d'inclusione in chiave economico-finanziaria, decide di sottrarsi e di scrivere, simbolicamente e non solo, nuovi statuti di cittadinanza. Di fatti, ripercorrendo le fasi di lenta affermazione delle tecniche politiche neoliberali e della retorica da esse generatesi, abbiamo ricostruito le forme della distruzione del vincolo biunivoco in cui erano stretti governanti e governati. Quello per cui un contratto sociale prevedeva, in cambio del rispetto di una serie di doveri, l'ottenimento di una serie di diritti. Abbiamo certo sottolineato come la stessa modernità, alcova di questa idea di cittadinanza fondata sulla scambiabilità tra diritti e doveri, sia stata influenzata dalla definizione liberale dell'homo oeconomicus, autocentrato, autoreferenziale, concentrato sul proprio interesse e sull'accumulazione di profitto singolare, anche a scapito del benessere della collettività. Abbiamo in effetti individuato, con l'aiuto di alcuni autori e autrici del pensiero politico contemporaneo, la presenza della frontiera economica, vale a dire di un criterio d'accesso alla cittadinanza assolutamente monetizzato già dalle prime formulazioni della cittadinanza moderna, proprio perché essa era del tutto influenzata dal paradigma antropologico legato all'individuo proprietario. Il liberalismo e la sua retorica di promozione della libertà controllata del soggetto proprietario, è di fatti lo sfondo che ha circondato la scrittura di una parte consistente delle costituzioni occidentali moderne ed ovviamente contemporanee. La civitas oeconomica è dunque il terreno di sperimentazione delle tecniche governamentali più spregiudicate, la preda di tutte le forme di bio-potere, la destinataria della costruzione del bio-iritto, la vittima delle pratiche di sacrificio collettivo e al contempo la protagonista dell'utopia della salvezza. Contro di essa, senza più tenere in conto la negoziazione con le carte dei diritti degli stati, si costituisce una cittadinanza di segno assolutamente opposto, la civitas communis. Essa, partendo dalle condizioni drammatiche che abbiamo elencato, sceglie delle linee di fuga differenziali, certamente condizionate dallo spazio materiale su sperimenta la propria inedita forma di legame sociale. La cittadinanza comune, come si legge nell'ultimo capitolo, appare sempre più spesso nei contesti urbani e si organizza, sempre collettivamente, per ritessere le fila dell'accesso ai diritti. Non chiedendo allo Stato, ma costruendo da sé nuove condizioni di accesso, di uso e di valorizzazione non monetaria. È evidentemente una figura non egemonica ma costante sullo spazio planetario. È la figura che difende innanzitutto con il proprio corpo le risorse primarie dalla privatizzazione e dunque dalla monetizzaizone dell'accesso, ma è anche la figura che ri-abita interi pezzi di città votati all'abbandono e ne fa erogatori di diritti e servizi che non hanno bisogno della ratifica del pubblico. Essa è tuttavia anche la condizione di cittadinanza che è la risultante del conflitto tra verticalizzazione dei processi decisionali e pratiche di disobbedienza delle istituzioni di prossimità. È la figura che prova a raccontare le resistenze collettive alla solitudine e all'atomizzazione neoliberale, la rivendicazione di qualunque diritto sottratto dalla mercatizzazione, la cittadinanza che ricostruisce il rapporto con il territorio e gli restituisce voce e dimensione. Non si muove in uno spazio vacuo come il cittadino economico. La civitas communis è di fatti una pratica di cittadinanza iperattiva, legata radicalmente alla prassi e all'azione politica. Il suo campo d'azione è pieno di corpi e di vita. ; Civis oeconomicus and civis communis are the anthropological figures, moved by a continous and figurative polemos, through which in this research work we've tried to narrate the fracture between two dichotomous models of citizenship and to reconstruct modern and contemporary traformation of politica economy, of istitutions, of government techniques in neoliberal era, as well as the crisis of modern poltical citizenship and the social reaction to this crisis. What we have underlined the dramatic novelty represented by these two figures. On the first hand the one that encloses in its own definition the subission of politics to economy (civis oeconomicus) and on the second hand the one which, according to the redefinition of inclusion's criterias, decide to write new citizenships statutes. Following the steps of slow affirmation of neoliberal techniques of government, we have registered the total destruction and decostruction of the bijective act between rulers and ruled. The act which provided poltical and social rights in exanghe for political and social duties. We have also noticed how the modernity, alcove of this idea of citizenship focused on exchangeability of rights and duties, has been influenced by the liberal definition of homo oeconomicus, self-centered, selfreferential, concentrated on its own interest and on the accomulation on its personal profit even if at the expense of the community. The research work for these reasons signal the existence of a "economic border" as criteria of access to citisìzenship, since from the earliest formulations of acts social right and duties just because of the influence of liberal paradigma focused on the anthropological figure of indidividual-proprietor. The liberalism and its rethoric of promotion of controlled freedom is the background which had surrounded the writing of a big part of the modern and conteporary costitutions. So civis oeconomicus is the experimentation ground of unscrupulous governamntal techniques, prey of alle the forms of bio-power, victim of all the practices of collective sacrofices. Against this form of citizenship we have individuated an opposite one, civitas communis. Starting from the dramatic features of civitas oeconomica, decide for the escape. Commune citizenship, as is possibile to read in the last chapter of thins work, appears in urban context and subverts access criteria to social rights. It doesn't ask anything to the State, but creates alone new conditions of inclusion. Is obiviously a not economnic figure but permantent in the planetary space. Is the figure which defend with its body primary sources from the privatization, but also the figure which recover abbandoned spaces in the city and returns themselves to collective use, providers of social services and rights. Its is the result of the conflict between verticalization of decisional processes and disobedient practices.

In a recent interview with Jordan's government-backed broadcaster, America's top military officer lavished praise on the country's armed forces.


"We have common interests and common values," said Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The Jordanian Armed Forces are very professional. They're very capable. They're well led."


Milley's view represents the most common American line on the Jordanian military, which has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Pentagon. There's just one problem: It's dead wrong, according to Sean Yom, a political science professor at Temple University.


Where Washington sees a small-but-mighty army, Yom sees a "glorified garrison force," as he wrote in a chapter of the recent edited volume, "Security Assistance in the Middle East." The Jordanian military, he writes, is "more accustomed to policing society to maintain authoritarian order at home than undertaking sophisticated operations."


As Yom notes, the regime that the Jordanian military defends has become increasingly autocratic in recent years. King Abdullah recently approved a cybercrime law that would allow the government to jail its citizens for promulgating "fake news" or "undermining national unity" — terms that the law largely leaves undefined. The crackdown on expression comes just three years after the government crushed the country's teachers' union, which had previously acted as a primary vehicle for political opposition in Jordan.


So what does the U.S. have to show for its decades of lavish support for Jordan's military? And what can that tell us about how Washington should approach security aid? RS spoke with Yom to find out. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.





RS: The conventional story of U.S. security assistance is that, even though some of the countries that we help are authoritarian in nature, our aid tends to lead to greater respect for democracy, and if it doesn't do that, it at least will strengthen partner militaries. But in your chapter, you describe a different story in Jordan. Can you walk me through that a little bit?


Yom: U.S security assistance is typically justified through the doctrine of "building partner capacity." There has been a lot of ink spilled on the importance of modernizing the Jordanian Armed Forces and ensuring that it is a capable, coherent and interoperable armed force that can seamlessly work with the U.S. military or conduct operations on its own in the service of defending Jordan, or bolstering regional stability, for instance, by undertaking counterterrorist operations or contributing to peacekeeping missions.


The problem is that there is very little historical evidence that the Jordanian military is actually a capable fighting force, and I think a few key pieces of evidence underlie this. Number one, Jordan really hasn't fought a major armed conflict in a half century. It's undertaken peacekeeping abroad through the moniker of the UN, and it occasionally conducts one-off missions such as its airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria back in 2014. But there is very little evidence on the battlefield that the Jordanian military is what the U.S. would call a capable and competent partner military. The other piece of evidence is that much of Jordan's defense structure has partly been offshored to the United States. The border surveillance system between Jordan and Syria was built by Raytheon Company through U.S. military and economic grants, and much of Jordanian airspace is monitored as closely by the United States as it is by the Jordanians themselves. The significant U.S. military buildup in Jordan is part and parcel of the United States interest in defending the sovereignty of Jordan and ensuring that foreign aggressors — whether they are terrorists or militant organizations or even foreign states — do not penetrate very far into the Hashemite Kingdom.


We don't see a military that is being built to be capable and modernized and independent and combat ready. Instead, the overriding justification — internally at least, seldom mentioned publicly — is that U.S. security assistance in Jordan is designed not to build partner capacity but to ensure political access to the Hashemite monarchy and to lubricate U.S.-Jordanian relations to make sure that this bilateral alliance is smooth and allows both sides to achieve their mutual interests. In Jordan's case, [its interests are] to remain stable, to receive aid and arms from the United States, and to preserve its sovereignty, and in Washington's case, it's to make sure that there is a pro-Western oasis of moderation in the heart of the Near East.


RS: A question that's underlying a bunch of this is whether the monarchy and the system as it exists in Jordan could even continue to exist without American support. To put it bluntly, does U.S. aid underwrite autocracy in Jordan?


Yom: I think it does, but with a few caveats. The first is that, in comparative perspective, Jordan is not unique in being a middle-income country whose autocratic regime needs foreign aid to survive. The other caveat is that I don't necessarily think that U.S. support and aid is the only reason why the current system of government in Jordan is able to endure. It has its own survival mechanisms, whether it is rallying support from certain constituencies in society, such as some tribal communities, or leaning heavily on other partners in the region.


But I will say this: U.S. support may not be the only reason, but it is a major reason why the Hashemite monarchy and its regime has been able to maintain its current political strategy of maintaining power, which is not to democratize or alleviate repression but rather to maintain an authoritarian status quo. And I think U.S. support is also a major reason why the Jordanian leadership has very little incentive to grant meaningful political reforms such as curtailing corruption and granting more democratic freedoms, which clearly a majority of Jordanians desire. And we know this from public surveys. Jordanians are very explicit in what they are unhappy about the current political system, but they also feel that, because the U.S. often refuses to pressure the Jordanian government to grant or concede more of these reforms, they feel that the U.S. is complicit and preserving the authoritarian status quo.


Geopolitically, Jordan plays an important function to U.S. grand strategy as a critical part of its war-making infrastructure in the Middle East, as well as diplomatically a pro-Western oasis or island of stability in the heart of a "shatterbelt" of the Middle East. Because of these factors, Washington has very little problem providing such profuse amounts of military assistance to the Jordanian Armed Forces. Above all else, of course, Jordan abuts Israel. Jordan's role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its primary purpose as a peace partner of Israel validates in the eyes of many American policymakers why they should continue supporting the modernization and the arming of the Jordanian Armed Forces under the guise, of course, of building partner capacity but knowing full well that Jordan is not going to be fighting a war anytime soon.


RS: At some level, you've painted a picture of a big win for U.S. interests here. There's a sense in which America gets a huge plot of land in the middle of a region that it deems vital, and the only downside is that that support doesn't really square with our stated values. But in your article, you had a different conclusion. Can you tell me more about that?


Yom: By helping to maintain [Jordan's] political infrastructure, the United States is complicit in the continued economic and social stagnation of Jordan. For every dinar that the Jordanian leadership spends on security or military items — money that many Jordanians feel it does not have to spend — the less money there is to spend on, say, social programs or economic development.


If you look at the Jordanian economy, it is astounding how much of a crisis that it has fallen into. We're looking at, right now, 22 to 23 percent unemployment overall, which is probably a vast understatement of the real statistic. We're looking at nearly 50 percent youth unemployment. We're looking at poverty, which is between 25 to 30 percent depending upon which estimate we take as reliable. And this is all in a country that also spends approximately a third of each annual budget on military and security spending. So essentially, what you're looking at when you think about the Jordanian economy today is a wartime economy. The Jordanian government positions itself and maintains an army as if it were about to wage a war it doesn't have to wage, and that has a destructive effect on the economy and often justifies draconian security measures to regulate and police society. The United States, I would argue, is complicit in that arrangement.


Washington has had very similar experiences in the past with other countries where regimes have some kind of deep economic or political crisis, and yet they believe that having a well-armed coercive apparatus is going to immunize them from any sort of domestic unrest or popular overthrow. Now, that may be the case in Jordan, because the future is hard to tell. But that certainly wasn't the case in, say, Iran under the Shah. It wasn't the case in South Vietnam. It wasn't the case in some of our Central American client states in the 1970s and the 1980s.


One of the things I wish U.S. policymakers would reconsider is whether or not the current arrangement is fundamentally in the interest of the Jordanian people. If we define stability as a country having not just a legitimate political system, but a sustainable economy and a relatively satisfied population, then Jordan is failing on some of these key fronts.


History shows us that [this] kind of strategy seldom works, and it's one of the dark consequences that I fear the most in Jordan, since obviously instability in Jordan doesn't help anyone. But the current vision of stability that has encaged itself in the minds of American lawmakers is not one that I think is going to be fruitful over the long term.

n/a ; Timeline of key events: March 2011: Anti-government protests broke out in Deraa governorate calling for political reforms, end of emergency laws and more freedoms. After government crackdown on protestors, demonstrations were nationwide demanding the ouster of Bashar Al-Assad and his government. July 2011: Dr. Nabil Elaraby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States (LAS), paid his first visit to Syria, after his assumption of duties, and demanded the regime to end violence, and release detainees. August 2011: LAS Ministerial Council requested its Secretary General to present President Assad with a 13-point Arab initiative (attached) to resolve the crisis. It included cessation of violence, release of political detainees, genuine political reforms, pluralistic presidential elections, national political dialogue with all opposition factions, and the formation of a transitional national unity government, which all needed to be implemented within a fixed time frame and a team to monitor the above. - The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was formed of army defectors, led by Col. Riad al-Asaad, and backed by Arab and western powers militarily. September 2011: In light of the 13-Point Arab Initiative, LAS Secretary General's and an Arab Ministerial group visited Damascus to meet President Assad, they were assured that a series of conciliatory measures were to be taken by the Syrian government that focused on national dialogue. October 2011: An Arab Ministerial Committee on Syria was set up, including Algeria, Egypt, Oman, Sudan and LAS Secretary General, mandated to liaise with Syrian government to halt violence and commence dialogue under the auspices of the Arab League with the Syrian opposition on the implementation of political reforms that would meet the aspirations of the people. - On October 26, the Ministerial Committee held discussions in Damascus with President Assad. - The establishment of the Syrian National Council (SNC) in Istanbul, the first opposition coalition of different groups, but failed to gain international recognition because of deep divisions. November 2011: Syrian government agreed to implement a new Arab Action Plan (attached) endorsed by LAS Ministerial Council to end all acts of violence, release detainees, withdraw Syrian military and armed forces from cities, and ensure freedom of movement for journalists and observers throughout the country. -LAS Ministerial Council suspended the membership of Syria (November 16), and imposed economic sanctions (November 27) and some member states withdrew their ambassadors from Damascus, as it failed to comply with the Action Plan. December 2011: Negotiations with Damascus were resumed and an agreement is finally reached on the implementation of the Action Plan. LAS Observer Mission was deployed in Syria to monitor the implementation of the plan (December 24). - The Mission later submitted a report (attached) covering the period from 24 December 2011 to 18 January 2012 in accordance with the mandate conferred by the protocol concluded between the Syrian government and LAS. The report was divisive among the members of the Arab League, as it blamed both the regime and the opposition for the violence. January 2012: LAS Ministerial Council adopted resolution 7444 (attached) which called on the Syrian President to immediately hand over power to his deputy in order to begin the process of a political transition, which would include negotiations with the opposition, the formation of a national unity government, and the holding of elections. The resolution also, requested the Chair of the Arab Ministerial Committee and the Secretary General to brief the United Nations Security Council on the developments and get it to endorse the plan. - On January 22, Saudi Arabia withdrew its monitors, followed by the other GCC members on January 24. - On January 28, the Secretary-General of LAS announced the suspension of the activities of the observer mission, given the serious deterioration of the security situation. - On January 31, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar, Chair of the Arab Ministerial Committee and Dr. Nabil Elaraby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States briefed the Security Council (attached) on Arab efforts and called on the council to adopt a draft resolution submitted by Morocco, supporting Arab League resolution 7444 (which called on the Syrian President to hand over power to his deputy) February 2012: - On February 4, Russia and China vetoed a draft Security Council resolution (attached), tabled by Morocco (the Arab member of the Security Council) and others. - On February 12, the Arab League adopted its resolution 7446 (attached), practically "transferring the file" to the United Nations Security Council. - On February 16, the issue was taken to the General Assembly, which adopted its Resolution 66/253, calling-among other things- for the appointment of a Special Envoy. - On February 23, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was appointed as the Joint Special Envoy (JSE) of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis, to facilitate a peaceful Syrian-led and inclusive political solution. - On February 24, and upon the initiative of President Sarkozy of France, the first meeting of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People was held in Tunis, with the participation of more than 60 countries and representatives from the United Nations, the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab Maghreb Union and the Cooperation Council for the Arab Gulf States to discuss the worsening situation in Syria. The group noted the Arab League's request to the United Nations Security Council to issue a resolution to form a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping force following a cessation of violence by the regime, and called on LAS to convene a meeting of all disparate opposition groups to agree on a clear statement of shared principles for a transition in Syria. The meeting recognized the SNC as a legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change. Text of the Conclusions of the Meeting. March 2012: The SNC formed a military council to organize and unify all armed resistance. - The JSE, Kofi Anan, submitted a six-point peace plan to the UN Security Council (which the council adopted in April in its resolution 2042), that called for commitment to a Syrian-led political process, achieve an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties, ensure provision of humanitarian assistance, intensify the release of arbitrarily detained persons, ensure freedom of movement for journalists and respect the freedom of demonstrating peacefully. It was later approved by the Syrian government, and the opposition remained skeptical. April 2012: United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was established by United Nations Security Council resolution 2043 (attached) initially for a 90-day period, to monitor a cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties and to monitor and support the full implementation of the Joint Special Envoy's six-point plan on ending the conflict in Syria. June 2012: The Action Group for Syria, with the participation of the Secretary Generals of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, the Foreign Ministers of China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the European Union High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, chaired by the JSE, met in Geneva and adopted the Geneva Final Communique (attached) which called for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers, as part of the agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition. July 2012: The Syrian Opposition meeting was held under the auspices of LAS in Cairo, and reached an agreement on a national compact and a detailed transition plan. The two documents complemented the guidelines and principles laid out by the Action Group in Geneva. August 2012: UNSMIS mandate came to an end owing to an intensification of armed violence and use of heavy weapons. - Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected, and US President Obama's first direct threat of force against Syria, if Assad's regime deploys or uses chemical or biological weapons, calling such action a "red line" for the US. - Joint Special Envoy, Kofi Annan announced his resignation because of the Security Council failure to reach binding resolutions; Lakhdar Brahimi succeeded Annan as the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab states for Syria (JSR). September 2012: Egypt hosted the high level preparatory meeting of the regional Quartet on Syria on September 10, which included Turkey and Saudi Arabia key backers of the Syrian Revolution, and Iran the major supporter of al-Assad regime, in an initiative to bring together regional powers to voice their positions on how to end the Syrian conflict. - On September 17, the Quartet's ministerial meeting took place in Cairo; Saudi Arabia opted out while Iran proposed a peace plan which called on all parties to cease violence and stop all financial and military support to the opposition, and suggested the deployment of observers from the quartet's nations to Syria. The participants failed to reach an agreement. October 2012: a four-day ceasefire attempt was announced towards late October, in respect to Eid al-Adha Holiday, which was breached on the first day in Homs, Aleppo and Damascus. November 2012: National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SOC) was formed in Qatar, responding to repeated calls from their Western and Arab supporters to create a cohesive and representative leadership, it excluded Islamist militias. December 2012: US, Britain, France, Turkey and Gulf states formally recognized SOC as "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people. January 2013: the Emir of Kuwait hosted the first pledging conference on Syria, international donors pledged more than $1.5bn to help civilians affected by the conflict in Syria. March 2013: LAS Ministerial Council adopted resolution 7595 (attached) to recognize SOC as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Syrian people and called on the SOC to establish an executive body to take up Syria's seat. April 2013: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State, released a recorded audio message announcing Jabhat al-Nusra as an extension of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. The leader of al-Nusra, Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, refused the merger. Divisions among the jihadists emerged. - Hezbollah's involvement deepened when it led the ground assault on Al-Qusayr, a Sunni town in Homs province by the Lebanese border. August 2013: The Assad regime was accused of using chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta to kill hundreds of civilians. The government denied using chemical weapons. President Obama sought congressional authorization for the use of force. September 2013: UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2118 (attached) requiring the Syrian regime to dismantle its chemical weapons arsenal by mid-2014, and avoid military strikes. December 2013: US and Britain suspended "non-lethal" support for rebels in northern Syria after reports Islamist rebels seized some bases of Western-backed Free Syrian Army. January 2014: the Geneva II Conference on Syria was held in Montreux on January 22, and attended by 37 states, 4 organizations and both Syrian parties. Iran was invited by SG Ban Ki- Moon on January 19, the Opposition declared its refusal to attend if Iran was not excluded, the US viewed Iran's invitation "as conditioned on Iran's explicit and public support for the full implementation of the Geneva Communique"; Iran refused any preconditions to the talks, and refused to endorse the Geneva Communique specially the transitional governing body. February 2014: two rounds of negotiations to discuss: 1- ending violence and 2-combating terrorism, 3-transitional governing body, national institutions, and 4- national reconciliation and national debate. The Syrian government refused to discuss a transitional government and insisted on discussing combating terrorism. The talks came to a halt. May 2014: JSR Brahimi announced his resignation because of the lack of progress and failure to agree on an agenda. - Iran proposed a political settlement of four points; a comprehensive cease-fire at national level, forming a national unity government consisting of the regime and the internal Syrian opposition, by transferring presidential powers to the government whereby the government will enjoy wide-ranging powers in years to come, and preparation for presidential and parliamentary elections. - Syrian rebels withdrew from the Old City of Homs, under an Iranian brokered deal and facilitated by the UN, after three years of Syrian government bombardment and siege. June 2014: President Assad held presidential elections, he was re-elected for another seven-year term allegedly winning 88.7% of the votes. July 2014: UN Secretary-General announced the appointment of Staffan de Mistura as his Special Envoy for Syria (SE)- NOT as a joint envoy with LAS. August 2014: US-led coalition began its airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and expanded its strikes to Syria the following month, focusing on the city of Raqqa. September 2014: SE held his first round of consultations with concerned capitals, since taking up his office, it included his a visit to Damascus where he met with President Assad, senior officials and the tolerated internal Syrian opposition. October 2014: SE focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires, "freeze zones", starting with Aleppo, which aimed at the de-escalation of violence and allowance of the return of normalcy to it. February 2015: SE briefed the Security Council members on the 17th, announcing Syria's willingness to halt all aerial bombardment over Aleppo for a period of six weeks. It was not clear when would the freeze go into effect, reporting that a date would be announced from Damascus. June 2015: Egypt hosted the second Syrian Opposition meeting in Cairo, which excluded the National Coalition and announced a new road map to resolve the crisis which did not abolish Assad's government. July 2015: SE announced that his office would facilitate intra-Syrian working groups to generate a "Syrian-owned framework document" on the implementation of the Geneva Communiqué. Main themes of the groups were Safety and Protection for All, Political and Constitutional Issues, Military and Security Issues, and Public Institutions, Reconstruction and Development. September 2015: Russia conducted its first airstrikes against IS in Syria. The US and the Syrian Opposition claim it is targeting rebel-held areas instead. October 2015: First meeting of International Syria Support Group (ISSG) took place in Vienna, it included China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States. They agreed on a nine-point plan, but still had substantial divisions on the future of Assad. It was the first time Iran and Saudi Arabia were brought to the same table. November 2015: Second meeting of the ISSG was held in Vienna adding LAS to its members. They set a time frame to prepare for a parallel ceasefire and political process by January 2016 that would lead to credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance within six months, followed by the drafting of a constitution and elections within 18 months. Jordan was tasked to develop a list of groups and individuals identified as terrorists, and Saudi Arabia to hold a meeting to unify the Syrian opposition and prep for the talks with the government. December 2015: - Syrian political and armed opposition factions met in Riyadh, to agree on a common position to negotiate with Syrian government, and resulted in the formation of the High Negotiating Committee (HNC). The main Kurdish group was excluded, while Islamist hardliners such as Jaysh Al-Islam and Ahrar Al-Sham were present. - The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) joined the follow-up meeting of the ISSG in New York, Saudi Arabia and Jordan briefed the group on their tasks. There was no agreement on the list of identified terrorists, especially with Russia's insistence on adding Ahrar Al-Sham to the list, which is considered pivotal to the unified Opposition bloc. - UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2254 (attached) which reaffirmed the road map set out by the ISSG and urged the Support Group to apply pressure on the Syrian parties to put an immediate end to the indiscriminate use of weapons against civilians, and allow unimpeded access to humanitarian aid convoys. January 2016: the SE sent out invitations to the Syrian participants, in accordance with the parameters outlined in Security Council resolution 2254, to start on the 25th with proximity talks and had expected to last for six months. The HNC requested assurances of goodwill from the government as precondition to beginning of talks, such as release of prisoners or lifting of sieges. February 2016: Talks were delayed and lasted two days before they were suspended for three weeks. - The ISSG met on the margins of the Munich Security Conference and decided that humanitarian access will commence same week of meeting to besieged areas, and an ISSG task force would elaborate within one week modalities for a nationwide cessation of hostilities. - The US and Russia announced the adoption of the terms for a cessation of hostilities in Syria, and proposed that the cessation of hostilities commence at 00:00 (Damascus time) on February 27, 2016. The cessation of hostilities does not apply to "Daesh", "Jabhat al-Nusra", or other terrorist organizations designated by the UN Security Council. - The Security Council endorsed the announcement in its resolution 2268 (attached). March 2016: SE announced March 9 set as target date of resumption of talks in Geneva. On March 14, SE resumed the intra-Syrian proximity talks in Geneva, which mainly discussed procedural matters to reach a shared list of principles and relied on Security Council resolution 2254 as its agenda. - SE briefed the Security Council on the cessation of hostilities which lowered overall levels of violence and more than 238,000 people had been reached with humanitarian aid. - On the same day, President Putin announced the withdrawal of most Russian forces from Syria, after it had largely fulfilled their objectives in Syria, and SE stated that it would have a positive impact on the negotiations. - On March 17, the PYD announced the establishment of a federal system in Kobane, Afrin and Cizire cantons in northern Syria, and its Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria-Rojava (DFNS) announced its final declaration. Both the Syrian government and other opposition affiliates denounced the plan, as well as the United States. - On March 24, the SE ended the first round by submitting a paper on the commonalities between the Syrian sides regarding the future of Syria and would help structure the next round that would address political transition. - Syrian government forces retook Palmyra from the Islamic State, with Russian air assistance. April 2016: The SE paid visits to Amman, Beirut, Damascus and Tehran ahead of the new round of talks. - The third round of proximity talks were set to start on April 13, which coincided with the parliamentary elections in the government-controlled areas in Syria. The SE met with the High Negotiations Committee delegation (Syrian Opposition) in Geneva and was expected to meet with the Syrian Government delegation within the following days. - During the 13-27 April round of negotiations, the SE developed a Mediator's Summary that identified eighteen points necessary to move forward on political transition arrangements. - on April 28, airstrikes in Aleppo on al-Quds hospital supported by both Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which killed dozens of civilians and medical personnel. May 2016: The Security Council adopted unanimously resolution 2286 (attached) which called for the protection of civilians and medical facilities during armed conflict. - On May 4, the US-Russia brokered a 48-hour ceasefire in which helped reduce the violence, and was later extended for another 72 hours. - On May 9, France held a ministerial Friends of Syria meeting in "Paris Format", attended by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan, and issued a statement that called on the resumption of negotiations, unimpeded access of humanitarian assistance and the implementation of international law obligations to the protection of civilians. - Later on the same day, the United States and Russia issued a joint statement on Syria to reconfirm their commitment to intensify their efforts to implement a nationwide ceasefire and promote humanitarian assistance in accordance to security council resolution 2254. - On May 17, the fourth meeting of the ISSG took place in Vienna and reaffirmed its determination to strengthen the cessation of hostilities, to ensure full and sustained humanitarian access in Syria, and to ensure progress toward a peaceful political transition. Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and Spain joined the group. June 2016: The SE announced that the time is not yet right for a resumption of the intra-Syrian talks because of the escalation of violence in Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia and other rural areas around Damascus, but the intention is to begin an official third round as soon as possible. - Riad Hijab, the Coordinator of the Opposition High Negotiations Committee, proposed a nationwide truce throughout the month of Ramadan. - On June 16, Jan Egeland Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria announced that 16 of the 18 besieged areas have been reached since the humanitarian taskforce started in late February. - On June 21, the SE briefed the United Nations General Assembly on the situation in Syria regarding the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian assistance access, as for the resumption of talks, it is yet to be decided and the OSE currently holds technical meetings with the parties on core issues. July 2016: - On July 6, the Syrian army declared a three-day nationwide "regime of calm" in respect to Eid al-Fitr holidays nonetheless pro-regime forces continued to engage in clashes and airstrikes across the country, particularly near the flashpoints of Damascus and Aleppo City. - On July 14, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a proposal for bilateral military cooperation in the Syria; The proposal calls for the establishment of a 'Joint Implementation Group' (attached) based in Amman, Jordan to "support deliberate targeting" of Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and "maximize independent but synchronized efforts" against ISIS in Syria, according to a draft memorandum leaked by the Washington Post. - On July 25, Stephen O'brien, the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the security council (attached) on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Aleppo due to the escalation of violence over the Castello Road, the last access route in and out of eastern Aleppo, and the continuous attacks on medical facilities. O'brien called on the security council not to allow turning Aleppo into another besieged area where 250,000 to 275,000 people reside, and called to establish a weekly, 48-hour humanitarian pause to enable humanitarian aid deliveries across borders. - On July 28, the Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced, right after the Syrian government announced it has cut off the Castello Road and encircled the city of Aleppo, setting up three humanitarian corridors in Aleppo City to allow in food and medical aid, and help people flee the besieged city; the fourth corridor would be established in northern Aleppo near the Castello Road to allow the withdrawal of armed insurgents, and appealed to the Syrian government to provide guarantees to the amnesty provided to rebels to lay down their weapons. - On the same day, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, Jabhat al-Nusra's Leader announced split from al- Qaeda and mentioned that its new name would be Jabhet Fateh al-Sham, in order to get the group off the terrorist list and "to remove the excuse used by the international community – spearheaded by America and Russia – to bombard and displace Muslims in the Levant: that they are targeting al-Nusra Front, which is associated with al-Qaida". - On July 29, the SE commented on the Russian initiative in a press stakeout, that it should take into consideration a few improvements such as putting the 48-hour humanitarian pause into place on a sustainable basis irrespective of the humanitarian corridors; and suggested "to actually leave the delivery of aid through corridors to the UN and its partners"; and stressed that civilians should leave voluntarily, and given the option of leaving to areas of their own choice. August 2016: - On August 1, a Russian helicopter was downed near Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province, on its way back to Russia's main air base in Hmyeim in the western province of Latakia, killing the five Russian military personnel on board. The downing of the helicopter marked the single deadliest event for Russia since its air campaign began in Syria on September 29, 2015. No group claimed the shooting down of the helicopter. - Since then, Russian warplanes conducted retaliatory airstrikes against several small opposition-held areas in the vicinity of Saraqeb. Syrian rebels accuse Russia of using incendiary munitions while conducting airstrikes against Idlib City on August 7, suggesting that Russia intended to achieve punitive and deterrent effects against opposition forces in the province. - In the early weeks of August, rebel forces launched a major assault, known as the "battle for Aleppo", on government-held southwestern towns of Aleppo City, to break the siege, and control supply lines in the south connected to eastern Aleppo. They claimed breaking the siege and capturing Ramouseh Artillery Academy, parts of the cement plant and Khan Touman-Ramouseh road. Intense fighting between warring parties continues to claim control over previously lost vicinities. - On August 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan in St. Petersburg, after the Turkish President officially apologized for the downing of a Russian military aircraft on June 27, 2016, and announced during a press conference that they discussed lifting of Russia's ban on imports of Turkish products, resumption of charter flights, the Turkish Stream project, Syrian settlement, and anti-terrorism efforts. - On August 10, Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian Defence Ministry official, announced a daily three-hour ceasefires in Aleppo, starting August 11, to allow humanitarian convoys enter the city safely, and would run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time. - On August 16, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Russian aircrafts took off from Iranian airbase Hamedan to carry out airstrikes on ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra-held facilities in the provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Deir ez-Zour. - On August 18, the SE adjourned the HTF meeting as humanitarian convoys could not reach any of the besieged towns during the month, and called for at least a 48 hour humanitarian pause in Aleppo to deliver UN humanitarian assistance, through the Castello Road, to all parts of Aleppo City. - Also, on August 18, the Syrian government forces, unprecedentedly, launched strikes against Kurdish forces in Hasakeh in Northern Syria, after pro-government National Defense Forces (NDF) were engaged in clashes with the military wing of the Kurdish Workers Party, known as Asayish. The Syrian government claimed that "Asayish had escalated their acts of provocation attacking state establishments, stealing oil and cotton, disrupting examinations, carrying out abductions, and causing a state of chaos and instability, in addition to targeting positions of the Syrian Arab Army which required a suitable response by the Army as it targeted the sources of artillery fire and the gatherings of armed elements responsible for these criminal actions." - On August 19th, while the Kurdish fighters pushed back government forces and their allies, the Pentagon threatened to shoot down Syrian government aircrafts as they pose a threat to the US Special Forces deployed in the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) area. - On August 21, it was announced that a truce agreement had been reached between YPG and NDF, through Russian mediation, to start on August 21, 2016 at 17:00, which involved evacuating the wounded and transporting them to hospitals in Qamishli, and restore the situation to how it was prior to the clashes and hold talks on August 22 to resolve the remaining unresolved issues. - On August 22, most likely the ceasefires agreement failed as fighting escalated. - On August 24, Turkey and the International Coalition Air Forces launched "Operation Euphrates Shield" offenses to support the Free Syrian Army aligned with U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces SDF against IS militants in Jarablus, in northern Syria. - On August 26, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing a joint press conference after their meeting in Geneva, announced that they failed to reach a breakthrough deal on military cooperation and a nationwide cessation of hostilities in Syria, saying they still have issues to resolve before an agreement could be announced. - On August 27, Kurdish militias targeted Diyarbakir airport in southeast Turkey, near the borders with Syria. Turkey retaliated by warplanes and artillery on targets held by Kurdish-backed forces the following day, despite US pentagon's criticism of the fighting. September 2016: - On September 4, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildrim announced that Turkish military forces and Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) had successfully purged the border region, from Azaz to Jarablus, from "terrorist organizations." - On September 9, the US and Russia reached a deal which called for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria, and unimpeded humanitarian access to all besieged areas starting on September 12th. If sustained for seven continuous days, the U.S. and Russia would establish a Joint Implementation Center (JIC) in order to share intelligence and coordinate airstrikes against both ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). - On September 21, the cessation of hostilities deal was implemented with regular violations, while the Syrian government continued to block humanitarian access to opposition-held districts of Eastern Aleppo City despite the agreement. - On September 17, the US-led coalition accidentally launched an air strike on Syrian government forces in Deir ez-Zour. - On September 19, a UN humanitarian convoy was shelled near Urum al-Kubra near Aleppo, killing 20 humanitarian aid workers and drivers, and destroying 18 out of 31 trucks. The US blamed Russia and the Syrian government for the attack; the latter declared unilaterally the end of the ceasefire agreement. - On September 20, the UN temporarily suspended its humanitarian aid to Syria after the attack, while international powers failed to reach a consensus to restore the ceasefire during an acrimonious UN Security Council Meeting on September 21st as well as two separate meetings of the International Syria Support Group on September 20 and September 22. - On September 22, the Syrian government announced a new military offensive in the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, and further escalation in a bombing campaign by Russian and Syrian airstrikes that had already intensified the day before. - On September 25, the Security Council Meeting discussed the recent escalation of violence in Aleppo after the Syrian government announced its intention to retake all of Aleppo City, and the SE called on the Security Council to "to press for a cessation of violence, and for the protection of civilians, and the civilian infrastructure; secondly to press for weekly 48-hour pauses in the fighting to ensure that the United Nations and its partners can reach eastern Aleppo, without preconditions from either the Government or the Opposition; and thirdly to press for medical evacuations of urgent cases." - On September 27, the Syrian government launched a large scale ground offensive in eastern Aleppo, and state media announced that it recaptured the central district of Al-Farafirah northwest of the Aleppo Citadel. - On September 29, the YPG set conditions to participate in operations to seize IS-held Raqqa City: the US provides arms to the YPG, recognizes its autonomy of the Federation of Northern Syria, and ensures that the Syrian Kurds are officially invited to participate in peace talks. October 2016: - On October 1, continuous airstrikes in eastern Aleppo damaged a major hospital codenamed M10, which was partially closed because of the raids. - On October 2, Stephen O'brien, the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, urged warring parties and their supporters to bring about a cessation of all hostilities, a medical evacuation system for eastern Aleppo, and regular unimpeded humanitarian access to eastern Aleppo, and he reiterated his plea to the Security Council for a 48-hours weekly humanitarian pause in fighting, at the very least. - In an official statement, the Syrian Army offered amnesty to fighters and their families to leave Aleppo under guarantee of safe passage to other rebel-held areas, after the Syrian regime forces recaptured strategic areas on the northern outskirts of the city. - On October 3, the EU announced an emergency humanitarian initiative for Aleppo, in cooperation with the United Nations and civil society organizations, in order to facilitate the urgent delivery of basic life-saving assistance to civilians in eastern Aleppo, and ensure medical evacuations with focus on women, children and the elderly. The EU has mobilized 25 million euros to support its humanitarian partners' response to cover medical, water and sanitation, and food assistance in Aleppo. The HNC issued a statement welcoming the European initiative to protect civilians in Aleppo. - The Security Council began negotiations over a draft resolution, circulated by France and Spain, which demanded all parties to the Syrian conflict "implement and ensure full implementation of cessation of hostilities, including an end to all aerial bombardments", and called on the US and Russia to "undertake joint efforts to stabilize the situation in Syria, with special measures for the Aleppo region", as well as the UN Secretary-General to propose options for a UN-supervised monitoring mechanism of the ceasefire and to "take further measures" in case of non-compliance of any party, without invoking chapter 7 of the UN Charter. The French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault headed to Moscow and Washington to push for a vote on the draft resolution. - The United States suspended talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria and accused Moscow of not complying with its commitments under the ceasefire agreement and would withdraw all personnel that were dispatched to prepare for military cooperation with Russia. - On October 4, Prince Zeid Ra'ad, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned over the use of incendiary weapons in Syria, and demanded bold initiatives such as limiting the use of the veto by the permanent members of the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Russia rejected Zeid's call. - The Russian Defense Ministry declared its deployment of S-300 missile system to its Tartus naval base in Syria. - On October 6, the SE offered in a press conference to escort up to 1000 al-Nusra fighters to bring an end to the bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces to Idlib or anywhere else of their choice. While the Russian Defense Ministry announced it would shoot down US-led coalition jets if the US launches airstrikes against pro-government forces in Syria, after American officials had discussed using limited airstrikes to force government forces to halt its raids on Aleppo. - On October 7, Russia called for a Security Council emergency meeting to hear the SE's briefing (attached) on the situation in Aleppo, while the Russian Parliament ratified Moscow's deal with Syria on its "indefinite" deployment of forces. - On October 8, the Security Council held a meeting on Aleppo, and voted on the Russian-drafted resolution calling for the revival of the ceasefire deal, without mention of ending military fights in the city, and on the French-drafted resolution. The French draft received eleven votes in favor, China and Angola abstained, while Russia and Venezuela voted against. The Russian text only received four votes in favor of China, Egypt and Venezuela, Angola and Uruguay abstained, while the remaining nine council members voted against. - On October 9, France announced its intention to call the ICC for war crimes investigation in Syria, and shall contact the ICC Prosecutor on how to launch these investigations, putting into consideration that the only way is through the Security Council referral, which had been vetoed before by Russia in May 2014. - On October 13, the Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy confirmed the Syrian Government's approval of the October aid plan and for convoys to reach 25 of 29 besieged and hard-to-reach areas across Syria, but not to eastern Aleppo and three parts of the rural Damascus province. - On October 15, US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a meeting on Syria in Lausanne, with the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and seven foreign ministers from the region, from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt, with the presence of the SE. The meeting failed to reach a joint statement on how to end the bombardment of Aleppo or on the aid delivery to the besieged towns. - On October 16, the UK's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held a meeting with his US, French and German counterparts and "like-minded" Gulf Arab states on the Syrian conflict in London. The UK and the US announced their consideration of imposing more sanctions against Russia and the Syrian Government to halt their ongoing raids on Aleppo. - On October 17, the European Council condemned the Syrian regime and Russia for their deliberate and indiscriminate bombardment of civilians and infrastructure in Eastern Aleppo, and called for a monitored cessation of hostilities, lift of sieges, and a nationwide sustainable humanitarian access. - On October 18, the Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced the cease of Russian and Syrian airstrikes on Aleppo to hold an 8-hour humanitarian pause on October 20th, in order to allow civilians and medical evacuations through six humanitarian corridors, and expected militants would withdraw with their weapons through two corridors, one via the Castello Road and the other near the souq al-Hai area in the south of the city. It was later announced that the eight-hour pause will be extended to eleven hours for four days. The armed opposition groups (AOGs) rejected the proposal in a joint statement claiming that "the initiative came at the same time as forced displacement operations are being carried out by the Assad regime in the Damascus suburbs of al-Mouadamiya, Qudsiya and al-Hama, and before that in Daraya." - On October 20, in conclusion of the EU summit, the EU failed to reach an agreement on imposing sanctions on Russia for the escalation of violence in Aleppo, and stated that "the EU is considering all available options should the current atrocities continue." The unilateral ceasefire took effect, and the Syrian Army declared that it would last for three days while artillery exchanges erupted around a crossing point near the rebel-controlled Bustan al-Qasr district shortly after the pause began. The Secretary-General and the SE briefed the General Assembly in an informal session on the situation in Syria, in response to an initiative led by Canada, after the Security Council failed to take action to end the aerial bombardment on Aleppo and revive peace efforts. - On October 21, the United Nations Human Rights Council held a special session on the deteriorating situation of human rights in Aleppo, upon the request of Britain (letter attached) that was submitted on behalf of a core group of 11 Western and Arab states. The Council adopted a resolution by a 24 in favor vote, seven against and 16 abstentions. It urged "the immediate implementation of the cessation of hostilities, and demanded that the regime and its allies put an immediate end to all aerial bombardments of and military flights over Aleppo city. The Council demanded that all parties, in particular the Syrian authorities and its supporters, promptly allowed rapid, safe, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access, including across conflict lines and borders." The Council further "requested the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to conduct a comprehensive, independent special inquiry into the events in Aleppo, and identify all those responsible for alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law. It further requested the Commission of Inquiry to support efforts to ensure that perpetrators of alleged abuses and violations be held accountable, and to provide a full report of the findings of its special inquiry to the Human Rights Council no later than its thirty-fourth session." - On October 22, the humanitarian pause expired without any evacuations made and without further renewal despite the UN request. No medical evacuations had been made as no security guarantees had not been granted as requested by the UN. - On October 23, Turkey intensified its strikes targeting IS militants and Kurdish YPG forces in the town of al-Bab, in an attempt to sweep them away from its borders. The Turkish-backed FSA gained control over three areas of Tuways, al-Gharz and Tlatinah south of Akhtarin in northern Aleppo two days later. - On October 25, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov stated Moscow's willingness to restore the ceasefire in Aleppo and that the Western-backed opposition forces should be separated from terrorist groups in order to be able to move forward; after the UN had blamed all parties for the failure of evacuating injured people in Eastern Aleppo during the three-day ceasefires and called for "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire so that life-saving humanitarian activities, including medical evacuations, can resume," meanwhile the Syrian Ambassador to Moscow ruled out any opportunity to restore the ceasefires. - On October 26, a school in the village of Haas, in rebel-held Idlib, was hit by a raid of airstrikes, causing the death of twenty-two children and six teachers. The UN Secretary-General called for an immediate investigation on this attack, as it could amount as war crimes if deliberate. Russia denied its responsibility and claimed that the damage was not consistent with an airstrike. - On October 27, Virginia Gamba, the head of the UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism, presented the mechanism's findings to the Security Council. The report indicated that of the nine cases the JIM investigated, the Syrian regime used chlorine gas against civilians in three cases and the IS used mustard gas in one case. In the remaining five cases, the JIM investigated allegations that the government dropped chlorine bombs in rebel-held areas. While the JIM could not make a conclusive determination in three of these five cases, it was able to establish that government airstrikes had occurred and the presence of a toxic substance, but it was unable to fully determine the link between the two, or the actors responsible. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin questioned the JIM's findings, and expressed reservations over the US-draft resolution to extend the mandate of the mechanism for another year, which would end on 31 October 2016. - The EU added ten top Syrian officials to its sanctions list who are held responsible for "violent repression against the civilian population in Syria." - On October 28, Syrian rebels relaunched Aleppo counter-attack aiming to break the siege imposed on Eastern Aleppo. The factions included the FSA and Jaish al-Fath targetting government-held Western Aleppo. - Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem met with his Russian and Iranian counterparts in Moscow to discuss counterterrorism, the cessation of hostilities and improvement of humanitarian operations, and the resumption of the intra-Syrian talks. The three ministers held a joint press conference following their meeting. - On October 30, SE condemned Syrian rebels for the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Western Aleppo, raising the number of casualties in the last 48 hours. - On October 31, the Security Council extended the mandate of the UN-OPCW JIM until November 18, 2016. November 2016: - On November 1, in a teleconference with the leaders of the Russian Armed Forces, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu mentioned that Russia had halted air strikes on eastern Aleppo for 16 days, following western criticism over a Russian-Syrian government assault that killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure. - On November 2, DM Shoigu announced that it would enforce a 10-hour humanitarian pause in Aleppo on November 4, to allow civilians and fighters to exit the city through eight safe corridors. - On November 4, despite the announced unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo, there were no sign of civilians or fighters leaving the city, and opposition fighters vowed to continue fighting to break the siege. - On November 6, the SDF declared the launch of Operation "Wrath of the Euphrates" in the IS capital of Raqqa, which aimed at surrounding and isolating the city as an initial phase, in coordination with the US-led coalition airstrikes. The SDF had rejected any Turkish role to liberate the city. - On November 8, the Russian Defense Minister Shoigu announced that the first attack from the Admiral Kuznetsov, the aircraft carrier, and heavily armed escort ships were to bomb rebel positions in Aleppo. - On November 10, Jan Egeland, Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria, declared in a press stakeout following the weekly HTF meeting that Eastern Aleppo had run out of food rations, and that the UN had proposed an initiative of four elements which included delivery of food and medical supplies, medical evacuations and access for health workers. - On November 11, the OPCW Executive Council condemned all parties for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, after voting on a US-tabled text in a closed session. The text was supported by 28 members, including Germany, France, the United States and Britain; it was opposed by Russia, China, Sudan and Iran, and there were nine abstentions. - On November 15, Russia launched its "major operation" targeting the IS and Jabhat al-Nusra's positions in Idlib and Homs provinces. Heavy airstrikes and barrel bombs pounded Eastern Aleppo after the pause declared by Russia and the Syrian Government on October 18. It is considered the first mission operated from the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. - The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a draft resolution tabled by Saudi Arabia on the human rights situation in Syria, by a vote of 116 in favor, to 15 against with 49 abstentions. It called upon the Syrian regime and the IS to cease using chemical weapons, and stop their attacks on civilians. - On November 17, the UN Security Council adopted the US-draft resolution to extend the mandate of the UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism to 18 November 2017. - On November 20, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem held talks with the SE in Damascus, on the latest escalation of violence, the targeting of medical facilities and infrastructure, and the humanitarian initiative in Eastern Aleppo. The UN proposal of the withdrawal of al-Nusra fighters while maintaining the opposition's local administration of Eastern Aleppo; the proposal was rejected by the Syrian Government and called it a violation of "national sovereignty". - On November 23, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean Ayrault announced that France would hold a meeting on Syria early December 2016. - On November 24, Jan Egeland Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria briefed the press on the HTF meeting and the assistance deliveries of the month of November, not being able to reach besieged areas because of the absence of government approvals for convoys to enter and the escalation of violence. Egeland stated that the UN had received written approvals of the AOGs in eastern Aleppo and Russian support of the UN four-point plan, and still waiting for the government's approval. - On November 27, the rebels in Khan al-Shih town, in the outskirts of Damascus, handed in their weapons, as part of a local agreement with the Syrian government to withdraw to rebel-held Idlib province, so as government siege would be lifted. It was the only town not under government control on a major supply route from Damascus to Quneitra, in southern Syria. - On November 29, Egypt, New Zealand and Spain put in blue their draft resolution calling to put an end to all attacks on Aleppo, and allow unimpeded humanitarian access for the period of 7-days with consideration of further extension. The draft was later vetoed on 5 December by Russia and China, Venezuela voted against, and Angola abstained. It is Russia's sixth veto on a Syria draft resolution, and China's fifth veto. - After the Acting High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo briefed Council members during Syria's chemical weapons consultations; the P3 announced they would circulate a draft resolution to impose sanctions on Syria for its use of chemical weapons against its own population. - On November 30, upon the request of France and the UK to hold an emergency meeting on Aleppo, SE Staffan de Mistura, USG Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'brien and UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere briefed the Security Council on the situation in Aleppo, who agreed on the growing number of civilians fleeing eastern Aleppo and the dire need for safe humanitarian access. December 2016: - On December 1, ten AOGs announced the formation of 'Jaysh Halab' in Eastern Aleppo, in an attempt to unite their efforts to lift the siege and restore the districts where the pro-government militias took over in northeast and east Aleppo. It was led by Abu Abdul Rahman Nour, a senior commander in 'Jabhat al-Sham'. While Jan Egeland, Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria, and the SE briefed the press on the humanitarian situation in Aleppo after the HTF meeting; they mentioned that over 400,000 IDPs are in west Aleppo, and UN convoys reached reached all towns under the Four-Towns Agreement, including Madaya, al-Foua and Kafraya, and Zabadani, and that the December Plan was yet to be approved by the Syrian government. - On December 3, the Syrian armed forces and its supporting militias advanced into east Aleppo, taking over 60 percent of the city that was once under rebel control since mid-2012. More than 80,000 civilians fled the area since the beginning of the regime's offense on November 15. - On December 7, AOGs called for a five-day ceasefire in Aleppo, and medical and civilian evacuations without mentioning the withdrawal of their fighters as demanded by Moscow and Damascus. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Germany to discuss the evacuation of opposition-held districts of Eastern Aleppo, and no agreement was reached. While leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the United States released a joint statement on the situation in Aleppo calling for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of political negotiations. - On December 8, the SE briefed the Security Council in closed consultations after the Russian announcement that it paused its operations in eastern Aleppo to allow the evacuation of civilians. Jan Egeland had said, after the weekly HTF meeting, that the co-chairs are "poles apart" on a united humanitarian diplomacy. IS launched a major offensive on Palmyra, seizing a number of gas fields in the north and few mountains in the south. - On December 9, the General Assembly adopted the Canadian-drafted resolution A/RES/71/130, which calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the implementation of resolutions 2268 and 2254. The resolution passed by a vote of 122 to 13, with 36 abstentions. Russia, Iran and China opposed the resolution. - On December 10, Paris hosted a meeting of "like-minded" counterparts on Syria; it brought together US Secretary of State John Kerry, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, along with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They discussed the humanitarian situation, and called for a ceasefire and a post Aleppo plan, as Syrian government forces neared victory over rebels there. - On December 11, ISIS recaptured the city of Palmyra in Eastern Homs Province forces despite heavy air support provided by Russia. - On December 13, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the Security Council on the situation in Aleppo, the growing number of IDPs and allegations of torture and executions. Meanwhile, AOGs agreed to evacuate their remaining positions in eastern Aleppo after the Syrian government recaptured the city and following an agreement between Russia and Turkey. The evacuation was initially scheduled to take place on 14 December, but was delayed after Iran called for simultaneous evacuations from the besieged Shi'a-majority towns of Fu'ah and Kafraya in Idlib Province. - On December 15, the LAS held an emergency meeting at the level of representatives, based on Qatar's request, and adopted resolution 8105 condemning the attacks on civilians in Eastern Aleppo. - On December 19, the Security Council unanimously adopted the French-drafted resolution 2328 which demanded that the UN and other relevant agencies to carry out adequate and neutral monitoring of evacuations from eastern Aleppo, ensure the deployment of staff members for this purpose, and emphasized that the evacuations of civilians must be voluntary and to final destinations of their choice. Also, the LAS Ministerial Council welcomed resolution 8106 reiterating the necessity to establish a full cease-fire in Aleppo in accordance with the Security Council resolution 2328, and condemned terrorism in all its forms and crimes committed against civilians by ISIS, Fateh al- Sham Front, and that actions of both the Syrian regime and other militant groups may amount to war crimes. - Following the adoption of resolution 2328, the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria announced "the intention of the United Nations to convene the intra-Syrian negotiations mandated by Security Council resolution 2254 in Geneva on 8 February 2017." - On December 20th, the foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran held parallel trilateral meetings in Moscow, despite the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov on December 19, and adopted the "Moscow Declaration" by which they agreed to act as guarantor powers for a peace accord between the Syrian government and the opposition. - On December 21, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing a mechanism to assist in the investigation of serious crimes committed in Syria since 2011. The resolution received 105 votes for, with 52 abstentions, and 15 votes against (Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, China, Cuba, DPRK, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, Russia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe). The UN Secretary-General submitted the report of the UN Headquarters Board of Inquiry that was established to investigate the humanitarian convoy incident in Urum al-Kubra on 19 September 2016., which stated that there is no enough evidence to conclude that the convoy was deliberately attacked. - On December 22, the Syrian army announced its full control over Aleppo, after the evacuations of the remaining rebel fighters. Evacuations had faced many delays because of Iran's demands to evacuate 1500 individuals from the opposition-besieged towns of Zabadani and Madaya. On the following day, the Russian military deployed a battalion to clear the city from improvised explosive devices. - On December 23, USG Stephen O'brien briefed the Security Council, upon the request of France, "on the modalities of the evacuation of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid in East Aleppo." Meanwhile, Syrian government forces bombed the water pumping station during its raid on opposition-held Wadi Barada, disrupting water supply to Damascus. - On December 26, Kazakhstan accepted the Russian proposal to host peace negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition forces to find a solution to the Syrian crisis, in January 2017. - On December 27, the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers agreed to implement a nationwide ceasefire in Syria, separate moderate opposition groups from UN designated terrorist groups, and prepare for the Astana talks. - On December 28-30, the DFNS met in the city of Rmeilan to approve the draft constitution, known as the social contract, which was adopted on January 29, 2014 to form its administrative system and prepare for elections. Kurdish leaders voted to drop the word "Rojava" from the official name to include other ethnic and religious components in northern Syria. - On December 29, Russia and Turkey submitted the countrywide ceasefire plan to the warring parties, which had taken effect at midnight on 30 December 2016 Damascus time. - On December 31, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2336 in support of the Russian- Turkish agreement and the meeting to be held in Astana on 23 January 2017. January 2017: - On January 2, the Russian and Turkish air raids targeted IS militants in northern Syrian city of al-Bab; while 10 rebel factions threatened they would suspend talks regarding Astana until the ceasefire is fully implemented because of "major and frequent violations" in the rebel-held areas of Wadi Barada and Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. - On January 5, the SE welcomed the nationwide ceasefire, and the Security Council resolutions on Aleppo and Astana talks, in a press briefing after the weekly HTF meeting. Jan Egeland Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria, voiced disappointment over the government's denied aid access to 5 out 21 locations including places in Rural Damascus, Homs and Hama. - On January 6, the Russian military started to cut down on its presence in Syria, Military Chief Valery Gerasimov mentioned that the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov would be the first to withdraw from the Mediterranean. - On January 8, Syrian government airstrikes resumed on Wadi Barada after failing to reach an agreement with opposition groups to repair the damaged water springs. Later on January 14th, the retired army officer Ahmad al-Ghadban who negotiated the deal to restore the water was killed amid heavy clashes between rebels and pro-regime forces. Both sides accused each other. - On January 12, the US imposed sanctions on 18 senior Syrian officials who were connected to the development and use of chemical weapons including chlorine gas against civilians. It marked the first time the US sanctioned Syrian military officials. While Russia and Turkey signed an agreement to coordinate their airstrikes against terrorists in Syria. - On January 13, the Syrian state television accused Israel of targeting Mezzeh Airbase outside of Damascus. - On January 14, IS launched a major offensive against pro-regime forces (Hezboallah) in Deir al-Zor Province, cutting the communication between the military base and the city. - On January 16, the High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini will host an international conference on the future of Syria in Brussels, which "aims to identify with regional partners common ground on the post-conflict arrangements and examine the scope for reconsciliation and reconstruction of Syria." - On January 19, an agreement was reached in Wadi Barada, allowing regime maintenance teams to enter the area to fix the water pipes and grant rebels amnesty or safe passage to opposition-held Idlib. - On January 20, IS militants destroyed Palmyra's Tetrapylon with only four of sixteen columns still standing, and the facade of its Roman Theatre. The UNESCO condemned the act as a new war crime. - Russia and Syria concluded a bilateral agreement on expanding and modernizing of the Russian Naval Facility in Tartus. The agreement extends the current lease for the next forty-nine years with automatic extensions and permits the simultaneous deployment of up to eleven warships to the port. - On January 23-24, indirect talks between the Syrian government and opposition were held in Astana; the delegations refused to sign the joint declaration issued by Russia, Turkey and Iran, on setting up a "trilateral mechanism" to monitor and enforce the ceasefire. The new US administration was invited, despite Iran's objection, and was represented by its ambassador to Kazakhstan. The UN SE was present, and hoped Astana talks would support the intra-Syrian negotiations to be held in Geneva in February. - On January 24, the Russian delegation shared its draft of the Syrian Constitution with the Syrian delegations, and advocated the creation of a Constitutional Committee consisting of members of both delegations. - On January 23-24, Finland and UN agencies hosted the Helsinki Conference on Supporting Syrians and the Region, which launched the 2017-2018 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP). - On January 25, the US President Donald Trump called for establishing safe zones for refugees in Syria, after suspending visas for Syrians and other middle eastern states. President Trump later held telephone conversations with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz and United Arab Emirates Armed Forces Deputy Supreme Commander Mohammed bin Zayed on January 29 to seek their support for his unidentified initiative. - On January 28-30, 1100 opposition fighters and 750 civilians evacuated Wadi Barada to Idlib Province, after reaching a reconciliation deal with pro-regime forces. The Syrian Forces reached Ain Fijeh spring to restore water to Damascus. - On January 30, the US delivered armored vehicles, medium and heavy weapons to SDF, in an attempt to isolate IS in al-Raqqa City. - On January 31, the SE briefed the Security Council in a closed session on the outcomes of the Astana talks and the upcoming intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, which was pushed to February 20. He mentioned if the Syrian opposition could not form an inclusive delegation by 8 February, he would select its representatives himself. The Council members welcomed the International Meeting on Syria in Astana, in a press statement. February 2017: - On February 6, high-level experts from Russia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan and the UN held their first technical meeting in Astana to discuss the implementation of the ceasefire mechanism, and cooperation on humanitarian issues; they agreed on the Concept Paper on the Joint Group. The Joint Group held its first meeting and managed to identify all areas controlled by IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham; the participants received two draft documents prepared by the Russians to be discussed in future Joint Group meetings, which are the Protocol to the Agreement on the mechanism to record violations of the cessation of hostilities in Syria announced on December 30, 2016 and the Procedure for imposing sanctions on violators, as well as the Regulation on Reconciled Areas. - On February 7, Amnesty International released its report (attached) on mass executions of as many as 13,000 detainees at Saydnaya Military Prison. Syrian authorities rejected the accusations. - On February 9, Russian airstrikes mistakenly kill three Turkish soldiers and injured eleven others near al-Bab city held by Turkish Armed Forces as part of Operation Euphrates Shield. Both sides agreed to strengthen their coordination. - On February 10-11, the HNC met in Riyadh and formed a delegation of 21 members, headed by Nasr al-Hariri; it included one representative each from the Cairo and Moscow groups. The HNC stated (Arabic statement attached) that the goal of the negotiations was a political transition under U.N. auspices in which Assad had no role in the future of the country. - On February 12, Turkish President Recep Erdogan stressed that the Operation Euphrates Shield aims to establish a five-thousand square kilometer 'safe zone' that includes Al-Bab, Manbij, and al-Raqqa City in Northern Syria. The safe zone would require the implementation of a no-fly zone, mentioning that he had discussed the issue with both the U.S. and Russia. - On February 13, the SE sent out invitations to the Syrian delegations for the intra-Syrian negotiations set to begin on February 23. - On February 15-16, the second round of talks took place in Astana a day later than scheduled; the opposition delegation was represented by only 9 armed groups from 14 groups which attended the first meeting; no direct meetings between the Syrian delegations were held and it ended without a final statement. The three guarantor states agreed to the Concept Paper on the Joint Group of the trilateral mechanism to observe the ceasefire, share information regarding the investigation of violations and promote confidence-building measures such as the release of detainees and abductees. - On February 17, a meeting between the "like-minded" states on Syria was held on the margins of the Bonn G20 Summit, and discussed Syria peace talks in Geneva. - On February 18, Turkey offered the US two proposals for an offensive against IS in al-Raqqa City that excludes the YPG. The preferred proposal calls for the insertion of opposition groups backed by Turkey into Tel Abyad in Northern al-Raqqa Province in order to advance against al- Raqqa City through a twelve-mile-wide corridor through terrain currently held by the SDF. The second proposal calls for opposition groups in Operation Euphrates Shield to advance more than one hundred miles from Northern Aleppo Province to Western al-Raqqa Province. - On February 21, the US CIA froze assistance to the FSA and its affiliated factions fighting in Northwestern Syria, after they came under an attack from Hay'at Tahrir al-sham HTS (successor of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) in January. The aid included salaries, training, ammunition and in some cases guided anti-tank missiles. - On February 23, a fourth round of the intra-Syrian talks commenced in Geneva with no expectations of a breakthrough; the SE reiterated that that resolution 2254 sets the framework of the negotiations, which calls for the establishment of credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance, and sets a timeline for drafting a new constitution and holding free and fair elections within 18 months. A day before in the ISSG Ceasefire Task Force meeting (CTF), Russia had called on the Syrian Government to halt aerial bombings during the discussions. - The Opposition groups backed by the Operation Euphrates Shield fully seized al-Bab in Northern Aleppo Province, after three months of clashes. - On February 24, the SE shared a paper on procedural issues, in bilateral meetings with the Syrian parties. The HNC held the Cairo and Moscow platforms responsible for the delay of direct talks, as they participated separately. - While Iraq conducted its first cross-border airstrikes against IS in Deir ez-Zour Province on the Syrian-Iraqi Border. The F-16 airstrikes were coordinated with the Syrian Government through a joint intelligence-sharing unit in Baghdad that includes Iraq, Syria, Russia, and Iran. Also, The U.S. provided intelligence in support of the operation. - On February 25, HTS claimed responsibility of a suicide attack on the State Security and Military Intelligence Offices in Homs City, killing at least forty pro-regime officers including Military Intelligence Branch Chief Brig. Gen. Hassan Dabul, so as to undermine the ongoing peace talks. The attacks prompted heavy airstrikes on al-Waer District, the Opposition's last strong-hold in the city. The HNC condemned the terrorist attack as per the Government's ultimatum. - On February 28, the UN Security Council voted on the French-British draft resolution which sought to ban the sale or supply of helicopters to the Syrian Government, and to blacklist 10 government and related entities involved in the production of chemical weapons. Nine countries voted in favor; Bolivia voted against the text, while Ethiopia, Egypt and Kazakhstan abstained. Russia casted its sixth veto backed by China. Britain and France had circulated the text in mid- December 2016, in response to the OPCW report findings proving government use of chlorine gas in three cases of the nine investigated cases. It was put on hold to asses US policy on Syria, the US later became a co-penholder after its unilateral sanctions on 18 Syrian senior officials on January 12. March 2017: - On March 1, the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued its report on the violations committed by warring parties in the last battle of eastern Aleppo, and considered the targeting of vital civilian infrastructure, withholding the distribution of humanitarian aid, and the use of civilians as human shields and forced evacuation agreements amount to war crimes. - On March 2, the Syrian forces backed by Russian airstrikes and Shi'a militias recaptured the city of Palmyra for the second time after heavy clashes. - On March 3, the fourth round of talks concluded with a political agenda for the upcoming round, which comprises of three baskets addressing the establishment of credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance, drafting a new constitution, and holding free and fair elections within 18 months. A fourth basket was added upon the request of the Syrian Government to address "strategies of counter terrorism, security, governance and also medium-term confidence building measures." - On March 6, Russia announced a ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta until March 20, despite the continuation of airstrikes and mutual shelling. - On March 7, the US-allied SDF agreed to handover six villages near Manbij, on the frontline with Turkey-backed rebels to Syrian government control, under a Russian-brokered deal, in an attempt to stop further Turkish incursion. - On March 8, the SE de Mistura briefed the Security Council on the course of the talks, which aims to address the aforementioned baskets in parallel, and concluded that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed unless the sides decide otherwise." The Syrian groups are invited to resume talks on March 23. - Meanwhile, Russian, US, Turkish high-level military officials met in Antalya to discuss additional coordination measures and "operational de-confliction of military operations" in northern Syria. - On March 13, a Russian-brokered agreement was reached to evacuate rebel fighters from Homs city, which would be carried out within six to eight weeks, between 10,000-15,000 people were expected to leave Homs in weekly batches. The neighborhood was besieged by regime forces since 2013. - On March 14, the EU unveiled its plan in Syria "in contributing to a lasting political solution under the existing UN-agreed framework and in helping to build resilience and stability in the country, as well as supporting post-agreement reconstruction once a credible political transition is underway." - On March 14-15, the third round of talks was held in Astana, even though the AOGs had called for the postponement of the meeting to assess the commitment to the declared ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta. Invitations were sent to the United Nations, the United States and Jordan. On March 14, preliminary consultations were held while a plenary meeting was due on March 15. The results of the intra-Syrian consultations were expected to be discussed. Talks failed to reach any significant agreement, and the three guarantor states issued a joint statement, and scheduled the next high-level meeting in Astana on May 3-4, 2017 and agreed to hold preliminary expert consultations on April 18-19, 2017 in Tehran. - On March 15, two suicide bombs targeted Damascus on the sixth war anniversary; one of them hit the main judicial building, and both killed 74 people and wounding a hundred other. It was later claimed by Fateh al-Sham Front. - On March 18, rebels began to evacuate al-Waer neighborhood in Homs City, to the opposition-held northern town of Jarablus on the borders with Turkey. - On March 20, the EU imposed sanctions against four Syrian high-ranked military officials related to the use of chemical weapons. The ban includes assets freeze and travel ban, and it is considered the first time the EU blacklists military officials. - On March 21, the US-led coalition dropped the SDF fighters on the southern side of the Euphrates to to cut the Aleppo - al-Raqqa Highway. the SDF launched an operation to seize the Tabqa Dam west of al-Raqqa City on March 22 with extensive support from the US. - On March 22, a US-led coalition strike on a center for displaced families in al-Mansoura town held by ISIL in northern Raqqa, killed 33 people. Earlier this month, the coalition declared that its raids in Syria and Iraq unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians. - On March 23-31, the fifth round of talks in Geneva was held despite of the escalation of fighting in Damascus and Hama; the SE shared non-papers with all Syrian sides with some political principles reached during the five rounds, and received their comments and amendments. - On March 24, Russia proposed a draft resolution on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq, that was reviewed in April 2016 and the UN Security Council did not support it. It was co-authored by China and Russia. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the indiscriminate attacks against civilians, forced displacement of populations, and called to hold all those responsible to account. - On March 27, the second phase of evacuations from al-Waer neighborhood took place, moving 466 citizens and 129 fighters. Meanwhile, the UN SE briefed the LAS Ministerial Council on the recent developments of the Geneva intra-Syrian talks and the Astana process. - On March 28, Russia condemned the US-led coalition airstrikes on the Tabqa Dam, and accused it of trying to "completely destroy critical infrastructure in Syria and complicate post-war reconstruction as much as possible." It further claimed that the coalition destroyed four bridges over the Euphrates river. - On March 29, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the annual Arab Summit, which was held in the Dead Sea, Jordan. He appealed to the Arab leaders to set aside differences and end the Syrian war. - An agreement was brokered by Iran and Qatar to swap Shi'ite citizens from the two pro-government towns of al-Foua and Kafraya, in the northwestern province of Idlib besieged by rebel fighters, with Sunni fighters and their families from the opposition-held towns of Zabadani and Madaya besieged by pro-government forces. The agreement was due to start on April 4 and would last 60 days; it included a ceasefire in the areas south of Damascus, aid deliveries, and the release of 1,500 prisoners held by the government. - On March 31, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disclosed during his visit to Ankara that "longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people" and defeating ISIL is its priority, while U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the priority was no longer "getting Assad out"; it was later reiterated by the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's briefing. April 2017: - On April 3, the European Foreign Affairs Council chaired by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini took place in Luxembourg, and adopted the EU Strategy on Syria. It held the Syrian regime responsible for the violations against human rights, and reaffirmed that "there can be no lasting peace in Syria under the current regime." - On April 4-5, the EU and its co-sponsors hosted the Brussels Conference on Supporting the future of Syria and the region. The co-chairs declaration took note of UN appeals requesting $8 billion in 2017 to cover the required needs inside Syria and its neighboring countries, and announced pledges raised worth about $11 billion for humanitarian aid programs. - On April 4, an alleged chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun in the province of Idlib was carried out during a Syrian government air raid on the city, which claimed the lives of at least 72 civilians. Russia denied its responsibility and claimed that Syrian airstrikes targeted a rebel chemical weapons warehouse which leaked poisonous gas. While the implementation of the evacuation deal of 30,000 people from the four towns of Kafraya, al-Foua, Madaya and Zabadani was delayed because of reservations of their residents. All 16,000 residents of al-Foua and Kafraya are expected to leave under the deal. - On April 5, the UN Security Council was briefed on the attack by the Acting High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo on the reported use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun. The US, UK and France had informally circulated a draft resolution which demands that the Syrian government must provide the JIM and the FFM with flight plans and logs of April 4, the names of all helicopter squadron commanders and provide access to air bases where investigators believe chemical attacks may have been launched. Russia criticized the text, and produced its own draft; it did not condemn neither the attack nor the Syrian government, but rather expressed deep concern over the alleged "incident with chemical weapons" and called for a full-scale investigation. Later on April 6, the ten elected members (E10) of the Security Council met at ambassador level to express their frustration for not being included in the negotiating process and discussed an alternative text which would substitute language in the P3 draft on the Syrian government's obligation to provide information on its activities with agreed language from resolution 2118. Neither resolution were tabled for a vote. - On April 6, the US waged retaliatory airstrikes against al-Shayrat airbase outside of Homs, where the chemical attack was launched. 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles had hit the airfield in Syria. The missiles were aimed at Syrian fighter jets and other infrastructure. - On April 7, Bolivia called for a Security Council briefing after the US airstrikes, and Russia announced its suspension of "the Memorandum of Understanding on Prevention of Flight Safety Incidents in the course of operations in Syria signed with the US." - On April 11, the White House released a declassified report drawn up by the National Security Council which confirmed that the Assad regime used sarin gas on its own people, and accused Russia for shielding for its allies. - On April 12, the Security Council held a meeting to vote on the P3 revised draft resolution (4th draft), which incorporated the language from resolution 2118 proposed in the E10 draft; after the SE had provided the council with his monthly briefing on the assessment of the intra-Syrian talks held in Geneva. Ten members voted in favor of the text, China, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan abstained, while Bolivia joined Russia in voting against it. It is Russia's eighth veto against a Syria-related resolution. - On April 14, the evacuation of residents from the Shi'ite towns of al-Foua and Kafraya (besieged by opposition groups) began and their convoys headed towards the government-held Aleppo; meanwhile rebel fighters and their families left the town of Madaya (besieged by government forces) and headed towards Idlib. While the evacuation from Zabadani was delayed and expected to begin later the day. The four towns agreement began with the exchange of thirty prisoners and nine bodies on April 12. The evacuations resumed after a suicide attack that targeted a government loyalties convoy killing some hundred people including women, children and rebel fighters on April 15. - On April 19-20, over 2000 opposition fighters and civilians were evacuated from the besieged towns of Zabadani and Madaya in exchange for the evacuation of nearly 8000 pro-regime fighters and civilians from the besieged towns of al-Foua and Kafraya in Idlib Province. - On April 24, the US sanctioned 271 Syrians employed by the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, related to the development of chemical weapons. The sanction froze the individuals' assets and prohibited US companies to conduct business with them. May 2017: - On May 3-4, military experts from the three guarantors held technical consultations ahead of the two-day fourth round of the Astana process, with the participation of the Director of the UN Mine Action Service Agnes Marcaillou. The SE de Mistura and Nawaf Uasfi Tel, Political Adviser to Jordan's Foreign Minister attended as observers, and the US was represented at a higher-level (for the first time) by US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs Stuart Jones. - Despite the Syrian Opposition delegation suspended their participation in opposition to the ongoing bombardments across Syria, the three guarantors signed the Memorandum on the creation of de-escalation areas in Syria, setting up four "de-escalation zones" in Idlib, parts of Homs, Eastern Ghouta, and parts of Deraa and al-Quneitra provinces in southern Syria. The Syrian government welcomed the Russian initiative while the Opposition rejected Iran's involvement as a guarantor. - On May 5, Russia sought UN endorsement to the agreement reached in Astana, and circulated a draft resolution calling on member states to contribute to the implementation of the Memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones in Syria. The resolution failed to pass for a vote on May 8, as western member states had reservations on the draft. - On May 6, Riad Seif was elected as the sixth president of the SOC, beating Khaled Khoja with 58 votes from the 102 member coalition. He would replace the current head Anas al-Abdeh, who was elected in March 2016. Also, Abdulrahman Mustafa and Salwa Ktaw were elected as vice presidents. - On May 8, the evacuation process of the government-besieged Damascus suburb of Barzeh began, around 1,022 people, including 568 rebels, headed towards Idlib and northern town of Jarablus near the Turkish borders; the second convoy of 700 rebels moved on May 12. While Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister, rejected any international forces under UN supervision to monitor the de-escalation zones deal. Meanwhile, the White House approved providing arms to Kurdish fighters as support to their operation to retake al-Raqqa City, despite Turkey's strong opposition. - On May 16, the FFM's report confirmed the use of sulfur mustard in the attack on Aleppo on Sept. 16, 2016, and was made public. The report was raised to the UN Security Council on May 5. The FFM, also, confirmed in its report, regarding its investigation of the April 4 attack on Khan Shaykhun, the use of sarin-gas or a sarin-like substance. The FFM is only mandated for indicating whether chemical weapons were used, while the JIM is mandated to determine responsibility for the attacks. - While the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned ten additional entities for providing support to the Syrian regime. - On May 16-19, the UN SE held the sixth round of the Intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, which ended without covering the four baskets of the agenda, only focusing on the constitutional issues. The SE shared a proposal with the parties to establish "a Technical Consultative Mechanism on Constitutional and Legal Issues;" the proposal would identify "options for the process of constitutional drafting, and for the conduct of a national conference/national dialogue, and identify for review specific options for ensuring a sound constitutional and legal basis for any framework agreed in Geneva embodying a package and including providing for credible, all-inclusive, non-sectarian governance," and that is through UN-facilitated expert-level meetings with both Syrian sides. - On May 18, while the EU Parliament adopted a resolution pertaining the EU Strategy on Syria, which the European Council for Foreign Affairs had passed on 3 April 2017; the US-led coalition's airstrikes destroyed a pro-Syrian regime convoy of the Iraqi Shi'ite militia of Kata'ib Imam Ali, that advanced along the Damascus-Baghdad Highway towards al-Tanf base (where the US, UK and Jordan train fighters of Jaysh Mughawir al-Thawra against IS in Eastern Syria). - On May 20-21, the evacuation of nearly 3000 people, some 700 fighters and their families, was completed from al-Waer district, the last opposition-held district in the province of Homs. According to Talal Barazi, Governor of Homs, more than 14,000 people had left al-Waer in several phases since the "reconciliation deal" began to be implemented in March. Among them were some 3,700 rebels, allowed to leave with their light weapons. Russia later deployed 50 to 150 Military Police into the district. - On May 22, the SE briefed the Security Council on the latest developments, and on the last round of the Intra-Syrian talks. He commended the Astana process for the reduction of violence in the agreed de-escalation areas, and urged its guarantors to finalize their agreement addressing the subjects of detainees, abductees and humanitarian demining. The SE asserted that the rounds' focus on legal and constitutional issues does not rule out "the principle of parallelism" in addressing the agenda, and that a new consultative process at a technical level was introduced to discuss relevant constitutional and legal matters. - On May 25, NATO leaders agreed in Brussels to become full members of the Global Coalition against ISIS; the organization would not engage in combat operations, but would provide air refueling to the Coalition's aircrafts, capacity building through the deployment of special forces to train local partners, and would establish an intelligence information cell to ensure information-sharing on foreign fighters. - On May 29, the final convoy of fighters and their families moved from the opposition-held besieged district of Barzeh in Damascus to Idlib Province; estimately more than 4000 fighters and civilians were evacuated from Barzeh and Eastern Ghouta under the Russian-brokered deal. - On May 30, the US delivered its first shipment of arms to the Kurdish-led SDF, which had advanced against IS in the eastern outskirts of al-Raqqa, seizing eight villages and taking control over the Ba'ath Dam. - On May 31, Russia's Grigorovich-Class Frigate Admiral Essen and Kilo-Class Submarine Krasnodar launched four cruise missiles targeting IS near Palmyra; it targetted arms depots of fighters relocating from al-Raqqa to Eastern Homs. Russia had notified the US, Turkey, and Israel of the strikes-On June 2, EU High Representative Federica Mogherini met with newly-elected President of the Syrian Opposition Council (SOC), Riad Seif, and Syrian Interim Government (SIG) Prime Minister, Jawad Abou Hatab, to discuss the political process and EU support for Syrian resilience. Both parties reiterated their commitment to the UN-led Geneva process. June 2017: -On June 4, pro-government forces gained control of Maskanah city, the last remaining ISIS stronghold in Aleppo governorate. The advances brought pro-government forces within 10 km of Raqqa's provincial border. -US-backed SDF captured a hydroelectric facility (Baath Dam) from ISIS militants, securing the final of three major dams along the Euphrates river. -On June 5, pro-government forces captured the areas of al-Alb, Bir Dahlon and Sharot Dahlon in Eastern Homs governorate, reportedly capturing over 6,000 sq km of ISIS-held territory. -On June 6, US-backed SDF announced the launch of the fifth phase of the campaign to capture Raqqa, ISIS' self-declared capital, with forces advancing from the north, east and west and the US-led Coalition supporting the offensive with air and artillery strikes. - The US-led Coalition conducted airstrikes against pro-government forces advancing near al- Tanf, a de-confliction zone in southeastern Syria. This marks the second strike in the area in less than a month, amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran-backed forces over control of Syria's southeastern frontier. - On June 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with the UNSE de Mistura in Moscow to discuss "the consolidation of the cessation of hostilities, the fight against terrorism, the continuation of the political settlement on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 2254," according to the Russian Presidential Envoy for the Middle East and North Africa and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. The consultations were held prior to the fifth round of the Astana Process, which was set to take place in June, but was later postponed till the month of July. -On June 9, during a press briefing in Geneva at the conclusion of a meeting of the humanitarian task force set up by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), the SE declared that the time was not right to resume the UN-led intra-Syrian talks. -On June 13, the WFP delivered food to more than 80,000 displaced people in seven hard-to-reach areas in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor governorates in northern Syria, where regular deliveries of humanitarian assistance had been suspended for over three years. -On June 14, Chairman of the CoI, Paulo Pinheiro, expressed concern for the "staggering loss of civilian life" caused by US-led Coalition airstrikes as part of the Raqqa campaign, stating that airstrikes had led to the displacement of 160,000 civilians. He also stressed that the Astana agreement had led to a reduction in violence in just one of the four zones outlined in the memorandum. -On June 15, during a briefing to Council members, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, noted that "some progress" had been made in the implementation of resolution 2118 (2013) on the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria. However, she highlighted the continued lack of safe access to two above-ground stationary facilities scheduled for destruction under OPCW supervision. -Pro-government forces targeted the opposition-held neighborhoods of Jobar and Eastern Ghouta in the first major attack since the announcement of four "de-escalation zones" at the Astana talks in May. Syrian Armed Forces seized the Arak gas field in the region of Badiya, which had been captured by IS since 2015; the SAF declared that it recaptured 20 percent of the Badiya region. -On June 16, the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria declared that it had facilitated a meeting of technical experts from three opposition groups: the High Negotiating Committee, the Cairo Platform and the Moscow Platform as part of a technical consultation process announced at the end of the sixth round of intra-Syrian talks. The meetings focused on the timeline and process for drafting a new constitution. -On June 17, the SE announced that the seventh round of intra-Syrian talks would begin in Geneva on July 10, with further rounds tentatively planned for August and September. -The Syrian government declared a 48-hour ceasefire in the southern city of Daraa. The agreement, reportedly brokered by Russia, the US and Jordan, comes after an escalation in violence between pro-government forces and AOGs in Daraa. -On June 18, US-led coalition forces shot down a piloted Syrian government aircraft in southern Raqqa province. According to the Coalition statement, the aircraft was downed after it displayed hostile intent and advanced on coalition forces. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) released a statement following the incident claiming that the US shot down the Syrian jet while it was conducting an offensive against ISIS, and accusing the US of failing to use the "de-confliction channel". The MOD statement announced that Russia was cutting off participation in the de-confliction channel pending an investigation and that all kinds of airborne vehicles operating in combat mission zones west of the Euphrates River would be tracked by Russia as air targets. -Iran launched several ballistic missiles targeting ISIS positions in eastern Syria, reportedly carried out in retaliation for a terrorist attack in Tehran two weeks prior. This was Iran's first missile attack abroad in 15 years and its first in the Syrian conflict, representing an escalation of its role. -On June 19, the Syria Institute and PAX published the Sixth Quarterly Siege Watch Report, covering events from February to April 2017. -On June 20, an American fighter jet downed an "Iranian-made" armed drone in southern Syria after it "displayed hostile intent" when it approached coalition forces stationed at a base located in a de-escalation zone. It marked the second time in a month that the US had shot down an armed drone near Tanf camp. -On June 21, after opening a new front to the south of Raqqa, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came within several kilometers of fully encircling the city after having already surrounded Raqqa to the north, east and west. - Turkey deployed reinforcements to the towns of Azaz and Marea in northern Syria, held by turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces, in preparation of anticipated battles with its rival Kurdish forces. - French President Emmanuel Macron, contradicting previous French policy, that France sees "no legitimate successor" to Assad and no longer considers his departure as a precondition to resolve the ongoing conflict. On July 5, the president met with Riad Hijab, Head of the HNC, to reiterate France's support to the Syrian Opposition. -On June 22, Turkish and Russian troops were deployed to Syria's northern Idlib province as part of a de-escalation agreement brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran in May. - WFP announced that the first aid convoy had reached 15000 civilians in the city of Qamishli by land route, since it had been inaccessible in 2015, and humanitarian aid was sent through air drops instead. -On June 24, the Syrian government released 672 detainees in a move it said was aimed at bolstering the reconciliation process. -On June 27, the SE briefed the Council on the situation in Syria, expressing his readiness to facilitate direct talks between the Syrian government and opposition either at a formal or technical level. -On June 28, OPCW-JIM published its sixth report updating the SC on the status of its review of two cases identified by the FFM concerning incidents reported in Umm Hawsh in Aleppo Governorate in September 2016 and Khan Shaykhun in Idlib Governorate on April 4, 2017. -On June 29, OCHA head Stephen O'brien briefed the Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria, noting that despite a reduction in violence in some areas of the country, humanitarian convoys remained unable to reach civilians in besieged and hard-to-reach places due to bureaucratic restrictions. O'brien also detailed the Secretary-General's monthly report on the situation in Syria, released June 23, that highlighted the Astana memorandum signed by Iran, Russia and Turkey in May and the escalation of anti-ISIS operations in Syria. -The OPCW released a report on progress in the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons program, verifying the destruction of 25 of the 27 chemical weapons production facilities previously declared by the Syrian government. However, the OPCW continues to express consideration that the initial declaration was incomplete. July 2017: -On July 1, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a strike against pro-government positions near al-Baath in Quneitra governorate in response to two stray artillery shells fired from Syria that landed in the Golan Heights. This is the fifth Israeli strike on pro-government positions near the area of al-Baath within a week. -On July 3, the UNSC appointed Catherine Marchi-Uhel to head the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, the UN legal team tasked with collecting and preserving evidence of the most serious crimes committed in Syria since 2011 to be used by national courts or an international tribunal. The Mechanism was established by the General Assembly on December 21, 2016 despite fierce resistance from Russia, which had previously used its veto status to block criminal investigations into the conflict. -The Syrian Army announced the suspension of all combat operations in the southern governorates of Daraa, Suweida and Quneitra for four days ahead of upcoming peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. It is the second unilateral ceasefire by the Syrian Army; it had announced a ceasefire in Daraa along the border with Israel on June 17. -On July 4-5, the fifth round of Astana talks co-sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, convened in the Kazakh capital. The talks failed to finalize details on the boundaries and monitoring mechanisms of the four safe zones agreed to during the fourth round of Astana talks in May. In a joint statement, the guarantors welcomed the establishment of an expert-level joint working group tasked with finalizing the operational and technical parameters of the de-escalation zones, and scheduled the next Joint Working Group meeting in Tehran, on August 1-2. -On July 6, Edmond Mulet, head of the three-member leadership panel of the OPCW-JIM briefed Security Council members on the June 28 report of its investigations into the culpability for chemical attacks in Syria and urged the international community to allow the Mechanism to conduct its work in an independent and impartial manner. -On July 7, the United States, Russia and Jordan reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation" agreement for southwestern Syria to take effect July 9. The specificities of an enforcement mechanism and the precise boundaries of the ceasefire zone. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the ceasefire would cover the areas of Daraa, al-Suweida and Quneitra governorates without providing exact boundaries. The ceasefire agreement in southwestern Syria is separate from the Astana memorandum, and was reached during the meeting between US President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg. The SG welcomed the ceasefire announcement, calling it a significant step towards reducing violence and humanitarian access in Syria; while Israel voiced its objections on the deal. -On July 10, the seventh round of UN-led intra-Syrian talks convened in Geneva. The UN-sponsored talks were scheduled to focus on four points: drafting a new constitution, combating terrorism, governance and elections. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed hope that the talks would help solidify de-escalation zones created through the Astana process. The SE stated that de-escalation zones can be beneficial but must only be interim measure to avoid the partition of Syria. The Geneva talks ended July 14 with no apparent progress. Representatives of the HNC accused the Syrian government of refusing to enter into serious negotiations. The SE noted that there had been "no breakthrough, no breakdown" during the talks and expressed hope that recent international momentum would push the parties face-to-face for substantive discussions. -On July 11, SOHR reported that it had "confirmed information" that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi had been killed in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. US-led Coalition Spokesperson Colonel Ryan Dillon could not confirm the report, nor could various media sources or Iraqi or Kurdish officials. -On July 12, following the opening of a land route connecting Aleppo to Hasakah governorate, WFP announced that it had successfully delivered food aid to two locations in the Raqqa governorate for the first time in three years. -On July 13, Brett McGurk, US Special Envoy for the Global Coalition fighting ISIS, revealed that Russia had expressed willingness to deploy military police to monitor compliance and prevent violations of the recently implemented ceasefire in southwestern Syria. -On July 14, Russia's parliament approved an agreement between Russian and Syrian officials that provides for the long-term deployment of Russian aircraft and personnel to Syria. Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov said the deal will help legalize Russia's military activities in Syria "within an international framework". -France proposed the creation of a contact group comprised of permanent members of the UN Security Council and regional actors to support UN efforts to formulate a political road map after the conflict ends. -On July 17, the EU added 16 scientists and military officials to the list of those targeted by sanctions against the Syrian regime due to their suspected involvement in a chemical attack against civilians in April. - The Syrian army, backed by Iranian-militias managed to seize oil fields of Wahab, al Fahd, Dbaysan, al-Qseer, Abu al Qatat and Abu Qatash and several other villages in the southwest of Raqqa province, while Russian strikes targeted the town of Sukhna, the gateway to Deir ez-zour. - The Turkish state-run Andalou Agency exposed ten US military locations in northern Syria, giving exact numbers of US and French special forces stationed there. The US-led Coalition against ISIS condemned Turkey for "leaking sensitive military information shared between two allies." -On July 19, it was made public that President Donald Trump ended a covert CIA program that provided arms and training to Syrian rebel groups. The program was a central feature of the Obama Administration's policy in Syria. -On July 20, 150 fighters from the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield operation had crossed from Turkey through Bab alhawa to support Ahrar al-Sham in its fight against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), dominated by the Fateh al-Sham faction formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, in Idlib. -On July 21, the SG submitted to the Security Council the forty first report on the humanitarian situation in Syria for the period from 1 to 30 June 2017, highlighting the approximately 20,000 people displaced across northeast Syria in June due to the Raqqa offensive. According to the report, the Syrian government removed medical supplies sufficient for more than 84,000 treatments. -Hezbollah and the Syrian Army launched a joint offensive against militant groups in the town of Arsal and the western Qalamoun mountain range along the Lebanon-Syrian border, an area purported to hold over 3,000 militants, including al-Qaeda-linked insurgents and members of ISIS. -On July 24, 14 heads of mission in Geneva signed a letter addressed to Security Council President, Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi, raising "serious concerns" about the implementation of seven Security Council resolutions on humanitarian access and urging Liu to raise the issue at the upcoming Council meeting. The signatories include the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France Turkey, Qatar, Japan, Australia, the European Union, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada and Italy. -General Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Russian General Staff, announced the deployment of Russian military police to monitor compliance after a ceasefire, mediated by the Egyptian government, was declared in the Eastern Ghouta area of Damascus on July 22. Despite the reported ceasefire, part of the four proposed "de-escalation zones" outlined in the Astana memorandum, Syrian government forces continued to attack several towns in Eastern Ghouta. -On July 26, fighting on the Syrian-Lebanese border near the town of Arsal halted after a ceasefire agreement was reached between Hezbollah and HTS. The cessation of hostilities ended a six-day campaign to drive al-Qaeda-linked militants from the border region, which is also home to tens of thousands of refugees. The agreement included the evacuation of some 1000 HTS fighters, along with more than 6000 Syrians (in nearby refugee camps) from the Lebanese border town of Arsal to rebel-controlled Idlib province, as well as exchange of prisoners between Hezboallah, HTS and the Lebanese Armed Forces, which later took place on August 1. -On July 27, Ursula Mueller, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, briefed Council members on the humanitarian situation in Syria, noting that despite reduced violence, there had not been a noticeable increase in areas reached for aid delivery. -The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates addressed two letters to the UNSG and the Security Council calling for immediate action in the militant-besieged towns of Kefraya and al-Foua. -The US-led coalition fighting ISIS told its local Syrian allies that they must exclusively fight ISIS, a directive that prompted Shohada al-Quartyan to depart a joint coalition base in Southern Syria to carry out independent operations against Syrian regime forces. -On July 28, the OPCW released its monthly report, noting that the security situation now allows safe access to confirm the condition of the final two above-ground facilities with planning underway to verify their destruction. -On July 30, for the first time in five years, UN aid was delivered to almost 7,2000 people in besieged al-Nashabiye located in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus. August 2017: -On August 2, the evacuation of at least 7,000 people, including al-Qaeda-linked fighters and refugees, from Lebanese border enclave of Arsal for rebel-controlled Idlib province commenced. The transfer agreement, the largest formal repatriation of refugees to Syria since 2011, was carried out without the involvement of aid groups generating concern about the welfare of the refugees. -On August 3, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced a ceasefire in northern Homs and southern Hama, in what is being billed as the third of four planned ceasefires agreed to under the Astana memorandum. Russia deployed police military to several checkpoints in northern Homs, later on August 4. Opposition groups called for a guarantor role for Turkey. According to SOHR, the ceasefire, which covered territory populated by more than 147,000 people, held for the first 10 hours before experiencing repeated violations by pro-government and rebel forces. -The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria of the Human Rights Council (CoI) called on the international community to recognize the crime of genocide being committed against the Yazidis in Iraq. -On August 8, experts from the guarantor states met in Tehran to discuss ways to strengthen the de-escalation zones and determine the agenda for the upcoming sixth round of Astana talks. -On August 8-11, twenty-four FSA-affiliated groups formed new group "Liwa Tahrir Deir ez- Zour" to liberate the province of Deir ez-Zour from IS; the new faction welcomed any cooperation with local and international parties, ruling out the SDF. -On August 9, OCHA expressed concern about the safety and protection of an estimated 10,000- 25,000 people trapped inside Raqqa without access to safe drinking water for 48 days. Due to the fighting on the ground, the UN has currently no access to Raqqa city. - Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya briefed the Security Council on the progress of establishing de-escalated zones in Syria, behind closed doors, and called on the UN to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance in those areas. -On August 10, SDF US-backed forces encircled ISIS militants in central Raqqa, effectively cutting off ISIS' last remaining route to the Euphrates. -On August 12, the Syrian government captured al-Sukhna, the final ISIS stronghold in Homs governorate, as part of its multi-pronged campaign to take eastern Syria. The recent gains position the pro-government coalition 50 km (30 miles) away from Deir ez-Zour province, the last major ISIS foothold in Syria. -On August 14, approximately 300 FSA-affiliated Saraya Ahl al-Sham fighters and 3,000 refugees began evacuating the Lebanese border town of Arsal as part of a repatriation agreement brokered in early August between Lebanese and Syrian officials. Lebanon's Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, who is overseeing the transfer, said that civilians will head to the government held area of Assal al-Ward. The rebel fighters and their families are destined for the rebel-held town of al- Ruhaiba in the Eastern Qalamoun region where, according to Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, they have been granted amnesty by the Syrian government. Their departure leaves the Islamic State as the last militant force straddling the border near Arsal. -Nearly 50,000 people remain stranded on the Jordanian border, in an area known as the berm, and are facing an increasing scarcity of food, healthcare and other basic services. The UN stressed that it will continue to support Jordanian authorities in the protection of affected Syrians. -On August 17, the UNSC adopted a presidential statement, read by Council President for August and Ambassador of Nigeria, Joy Ogwu, in support of a political transition process in Syria in accordance with the principles of the Geneva Communique. The adoption of the text signals, for the first time in two years, the consensus of the Council and its five permanent members on the need to establish a transitional government. -On August 17-20, Damascus hosted the 59th International Trade Fair, for the first time since 2011, and involved hundreds of delegations and private companies from at least forty-three states including Russia, Iran, China, and Egypt. -On August 20, President Assad announced in a speech before Syrian diplomats that Syria would not work with any Western nations until they ended their support for opposition and insurgent groups. -On August 21, UN experts launched an investigation into purported weapons deals between Syria and North Korea after two shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for its chemical weapons program, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), were intercepted. -Saudi-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC) met with delegations from the moderate Cairo and Moscow camps in Riyadh in an effort to establish a unified front for upcoming peace talks. Despite pressure from international allies calling for a more pragmatic approach, the HNC refused to accept a transition scenario in which Assad retained power. -On August 22, the next round of Astana talks was pushed back from late August to mid- September to allow the guarantor states to hold a technical meeting to set the meeting agenda. -On 23 August, a joint monitoring center was established in Amman for the southwestern de-escalation zone, which is located in the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra. The center is tasked with ensuring ceasefire compliance, ensuring humanitarian access and other forms of civilian assistance. -On August 24, the UN called for a humanitarian pause in US-led Coalition airstrikes on Raqqa to permit civilians to leave the city. This comes after the release of an Amnesty International report calling for greater protection efforts for the estimated 20,000 remaining civilians in Raqqa. -On August 25, the Russian army announced that it had dismantled the two remaining Syrian chemical weapons facilities targeted for destruction by OPCW. The OPCW has not confirmed the Russian report. -On August 28, hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families were evacuated from the Lebanese- Syrian border to militant-held eastern Syria following simultaneous Lebanese army and Hezbollah campaigns against ISIS positions. The transfer marks the first time ISIS agreed to a forced evacuation from territory it held in Syria. - The Secretary-General presented his monthly report on the situation in Syria, highlighting the recent efforts to reduce violence through de-escalation agreements and expressing hope that the Astana guarantors will reach an agreement on the finalization of operational and technical modalities for all de-escalation areas. -On August 30, Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura briefed the Security Council on the political path forward which includes a new round of Astana and Geneva talks. The SE highlighted the important role Syrian opposition allies stand to play in fostering cohesion and unity among the AOGs. - In his final address to the Council after two years as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien appealed to members of the Council to take action to end the civil war in the name of common humanity, calling for a referral to the International Criminal Court. -On August 31, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, stressed that the protection and assistance of citizens must take priority before defeating the Islamic State, citing reports of heavy civilian casualties in Raqqa as evidence of the threat the remaining 20,000 civilians face. -US airstrikes stalled a convoy of 300 ISIS fighters and their families in a government-controlled part of the Syrian desert in an effort to prevent their advancement into ISIS-held territory near the Iraqi border. The convoy was traveling from the Syrian-Lebanese border to Syria's eastern province as part of an evacuation deal brokered between ISIS, Hezbollah and the Syrian Army. -Pro-government forces captured strategic al-Bishri mountain overlooking ISIS-controlled Deir Ezzor province, bringing government coalition forces within close range of ISIS positions. September 2017: On September 1, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian rejected a role for Assad in a political transition in Syria. -The Syrian Islamic Council called for Syria's AOGs to end their fragmentation and unite as one armed body under the Ministry of Defense in the Syrian Interim Government. Ahrar al-Sham, Failaq al-Sham, Liwa Ansar al-Sunnah and Jabha al-Shamiya supported the initiative. -SDF spokesperson, Jihan Ahmad, announced that the SDF had gained control over an estimated 65 percent of Raqqa city after capturing the Old City, the Great Mosque and al-Dariya neighborhood. SOHR reported that the SDF were still fighting to gain control over pockets of the Old City but added that the US-backed opposition forces held more than 90 percent of the surrounding area. -On September 2, Russian Aerospace Forces reported they had destroyed a convoy of 12 ISIS trucks carrying ammunition and weapons in Deir Ezzor province. -It was made public that the British Ministry of Defense had quietly halted its FSA training program and called back its training forces from Syria in late June 2017. -On September 3, pro-government coalition forces gained control of the remaining ISIS stronghold in Hama Governorate after capturing the town of Uqayribat and its surrounding areas. -On September 4, Syrian Interim Government Prime Minister Jawad Abu Hatab was appointed interim Defense Minister as part of a unification initiative launched by the Syrian Islamic Council in early September. Free Syrian Army factions formed a committee to select a Chief of Staff in consultation with the Prime Minister. -On September 5, the Secretary-General submitted the OPCW's forty seventh monthly report on the progress to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria to the Security Council. The report highlighted the preparations underway to confirm the status of the two remaining stationary above-ground facilities now that the security situation allows safe access and the upcoming high- level consultations with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, Dr. Faisal Mekdad, to clarify outstanding issues regarding the Syrian government's initial declaration. -Pro-government coalition forces reached the western perimeter of Deir Ezzor city, breaking a three-year ISIS siege of the government-held areas that had impacted 93,500 people. In support of the offensive, a Russian warship located in the Mediterranean Sea launched cruise missiles at ISIS positions near Deir Ezzor. -On September 6, SE Mistura said he expects a national ceasefire to follow shortly after ISIS has been pushed from its strongholds in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. Although he stressed that the government "cannot announce victory", he called on opposition forces to accept defeat and focus on winning the peace through negotiations in October. -The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a report on the major human rights and humanitarian law violations committed between March and July 2017. The Commission accused the Syrian government of using sarin gas in the April 4 Khan Sheikhoun attack and found US forces culpable of not taking "all feasible precautions" to protect civilians in the March 16 attack on al-Jinah Mosque. -According to Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, experts from Russia, Iran and Turkey made progress towards an agreement "on the parameters, configuration and methods of ensuring security in the de-escalation zone in the Idlib province" in Syria. -On September 7, Israel conducted airstrikes on the Scientific Studies and Research Center, a facility believed to house a chemical weapons manufacturing center, and a military base storing surface-to-surface missiles near government-stronghold Masyaf in Hama province. The Syrian Foreign Ministry called on the Security Council to denounce the airstrikes. -US-led coalition forces fighting ISIS announced that airstrikes had killed two ISIS leaders near Mayadin in the Deir Ezzor province on September 4, 2017. -The Head of the High Negotiations Committee, Riyad Hijab, rejected the SE Mistura's call for the opposition to accept defeat, declaring the UN mediation process a failure and calling on Syrians to demonstrate in support of the continuation of the revolution. On September 8, a convoy of 42 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for 80,000 people reached Deir Ezzor for the first time by land in three years. -US-led coalition surveillance aircraft departed its position monitoring an 11-bus convoy of ISIS fighters and their families after attempting to prevent its advance into ISIS-held territory in Deir Ezzor since August 29. The surveillance aircraft departed the airspace at the request of Russian military officials who were conducting an operation with pro-government forces close to the convoy's position. -The Syrian National Coalition (NCSRF) condemned calls from "regional and external parties" for Western-backed opposition groups Ahmed Al-Abdu and Ussoud Al-Sharqiya to cease fighting government forces in southeastern Syria and withdraw to Jordan. Both groups refused the request. -On September 9, pro-government forces broke a years-long siege of Deir Ezzor airbase and captured the Damascus-Deir Ezzor highway from ISIS. -SDF launched Operation Jazeera Storm to liberate Deir Ezzor province from ISIS. -On September 10, SDF reached the industrial zone to the east of Deir Ezzor city putting the US-backed coalition within 15 km (10 miles) of pro-government forces positioned to the west of the Euphrates river. -On September 11, the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, and Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, declared the ceasefire brokered by Jordan, Russia and the United States in the southern Syrian provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Suweida on July 9 a success and reiterated their commitment to the establishment a de-escalation zone in the area as a step towards achieving a comprehensive cessation of hostilities and a political solution to the crisis. On September 12, pro-government coalition forces continued their push into ISIS-held territory in Deir Ezzor city. Russia and Syria warplanes conduct heavy bombardment in support, killing an estimated 69 people over the course of 72 hours. -Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, declared the war in Syria over, referring to the remaining fighting as "scattered battles". -ISIS defectors have massed in Syria's Idlib province with many planning to cross into Turkey before continuing to other parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. -Iran and Syria sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in Syria's electricity sector. The arrangement, part of a series of bilateral deals formalizing Iran's role in Syria's reconstruction process, provides for the establishment of a new power generation station in Latakia and the rehabilitation of gas units and power generating plants in Damascus, Aleppo, Deir Ezzo and Homs. -On September 13, the remaining buses of the convoy of ISIS fighters and their families stranded for over two weeks in the Syrian desert reportedly reached Mayadin, in militant-held Deir Ezzor province, following the withdrawal of US surveillance aircraft on September 8 in respect of de-confliction arrangements with Russia. -The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that pro-government coalition forces controlled 85 percent of Syrian territory. SOHR disputed the claim, saying government forces held 48 percent of Syria. -Experts from Russia, Iran and Turkey met ahead of the sixth round of talks in Astana, Kazakhstan to "lay the groundwork" for negotiations on the establishment of de-escalation zone in Idlib province. -On September 14, Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesperson for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS, said SDF forces will not enter Deir Ezzor city, and will instead focus operations on areas south of the city along the Euphrates river. He also said US-backed SDF was in control of 63 percent of Raqqa city. -On September 15, Ahmad Abu Khawla, commander of the SDF-affiliated Deir Ezzor Military Council, declared that it will not allow government forces to cross to the eastern banks of the Euphrates river. -Representatives from Russia, Iran and Turkey reached an agreement on the delineation and monitoring mechanism for the implementation of a de-escalation zone in Idlib province and agreed to position observers in "safe zones". Russia circulated a draft resolution among the permanent members of the Council to welcome the outcome of the Astana talks. -On September 16, the SDF and US Coalition officials accused pro-government forces of attacking one of their positions in the industrial zone east of Deir Ezzor city, injuring 6 SDF fighters. According to US Coalition sources, Russia conducted the airstrike after the United States had denied its request to target the area. Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov rejected the allegations, saying warplanes carried out "pinpoint strikes only on Islamic State targets that have been observed and confirmed through several channels." -High-level consultations commenced between the Syrian government and the OPCW aimed at clarifying all outstanding issues regarding Syria's initial declaration of its chemical weapons facilities. -On September 17, a convoy of 80 Turkish military vehicles deployed to Turkey's southern border, close to the Bab Al-Hawa and Rihaniyah crossings with Syria's Idlib Governorate, ahead of the implementation of a de-escalation zone agreement brokered at the recent Astana talks. -On September 18, pro-government coalition forces crossed to the eastern bank of the Euphrates river to within five kilometers of SDF positions. In the first sign of direct contact between the SDF and the pro-government forces, US-led coalition spokesperson Col. Ryan Dillon said "open lines" of communication were being maintained to prevent clashes between the two forces as they converge on ISIS positions. -After capturing the Deir Ezzor Military Airporst from ISIS fighters, pro-government forces began operating combat and supply missions from the airport. -The World Food Programme (WFP) reached formerly besieged parts of Deir Ezzor city by land for the first time since May 2014. WFP has discontinued its high-altitude airdrop operations in favor of road deliveries which will allow for more affordable, sustainable humanitarian access. -In a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Members of the "Friends of Syria" Group agreed they will not support reconstruction in Syria until there is a political transition "away from Assad." -During its 36th session, the Human Rights Council held an interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to discuss the continued targeting of civilians and the use of chemical weapons in the conflict, appealing to all parties to redouble their efforts to protect civilians and preserve civilian infrastructure. -On September 19, AOGs led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Turkistan Islamic Party and Free Syrian Army affiliates launched an offensive against pro-government forces in northern Hama province in an effort to dismantle the de-escalation zone agreement on Idlib province brokered at the recent Astana talks. The offensive sparked intense Russian and Syrian bombardment of opposition-held territory in Hama and Idlib Governorates. Syrian government forces claimed the airstrikes targeted "terrorist supply lines" but SOHR alleged the strikes hit hospitals and towns, killing civilians. -The Syrian government asserted it will not accept Turkish forces on Syrian soil, effectively contradicting

If there is a "Chekhov's gun" in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, it consists of circa $300 billion worth of central bank assets sitting in the coffers of the U.S. and (more so) its close allies. Frozen at the outset of Moscow's invasion, the money represents both the object of the strongest sanctions taken so far against a state outside of a UN-authorized regime, and, at the same time, the possible target for even more dramatic further escalatory measures.The question at the moment is whether G7 states will make the crucial transition from "freezing" to "seizing" – i.e., liquidate the funds and then reallocate them to assist Ukraine. The issue has gathered urgency amidst flagging support in the U.S. and in Europe for continuing to expend funds on shoring up Ukraine's struggling defenses.At home in the U.S., the bipartisan REPO Act endorsed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would empower the President to "confiscate ... Russian sovereign assets'' and to then deposit them into a "Ukraine Support Fund" that would aid in reconstruction, recovery, and the "welfare of the Ukrainian people." Those goals, if vague, are hardly objectionable. But using seized sovereign assets to promote them is, as a matter of law, untested and problematic. As a matter of economic statecraft, meanwhile, it is still more inadvisable, for several reasons. These include the significant risk of alienating allies, further discrediting U.S. "dollar power", boosting China's prestige and its own "yuanization" aims, and endangering U.S. assets abroad.Piercing the Veil of SovereigntyThe legal objections are quite simple to summarize. The norm of sovereign immunity is one of the most well-established customs in international law. In the eyes of many experts, it is precisely the firmness of this bedrock principle that has allowed exceptions, such as litigation for commercial disputes involving states, to become reliable.The rule is reflected in the law of countries around the world, including in the U.S.'s own Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. China, notably, has only as of this year finally implemented legislation for immunity that clearly separates commerce from matters of state, putting foreign businesses and investors on equal footing as litigants — which should be seen as a victory for U.S. interests in its market.Despite immunity's inarguable applicability to central banks, advocates of asset seizure have pointed to the custom of "countermeasures'' to justify their project. These are illegal acts taken by states injured by a previous wrong of another state, and intended only to induce the latter to cease its misbehavior. Usually, only a directly injured party (here, Ukraine) can take such actions, but emerging arguments for "collective countermeasures"would extend the field of retaliators for some core wrongs to include any state in the global community.Experts critical of asset seizure have pointed out, however, that doctrinal support is lacking. As Vanderbilt Law School's Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk rightly summarizes: "There is little or no state practice on countermeasures for reparations ... There is little practice of third-party countermeasures, little or no practice of countermeasures used to deny immunity, and no practice that provides clear support for denying central bank immunity as a countermeasure."Meanwhile, given that most of the funds currently lie in special accounts at the financial services company Euroclear, any repercussions would also be primarily borne not by Washington, but rather by its European allies. That fact has prompted considerable opposition to the initiative among European policymakers, despite their willingness to join earlier rounds of sanctions. After all, Europe's leaders are, in effect, being deputized to carry out a policy of financial warfare whose costs they will have to bear right along with that policy's targets.First of all, the precedent of a geopolitically-motivated confiscation could threaten the euro's hard-won status as the world's second reserve currency. The euro's attractiveness has been based on numerous ingredients, obviously including Europe's economic productivity, stability, and growth potential; however, its apparent security for asset-holders as compared with the more thoroughly weaponized U.S. financial system is also a key factor. And then there is, of course, European states' relatively far greater vulnerability than Washington in the case of any escalations of the broader NATO-Russia conflict.It is understandable why the EU has so far balked on agreement to a plan of outright confiscation of Russian funds. It has, instead, begun to implement a much more moderate approach of reallocating to Kyiv the sizable interest payments being generated by the frozen assets. However, the G7 is still due to discuss the proposal for seizure at its next meeting. The Biden administration, along with Canada and Japan, remain strong backers of this idea.A Financial Coalition of the Willing?Debates are intensifying. For example, when Swiss lawmakers discussed reparations involvement this month, the motions were adopted in the Senate by 21 votes to 19, with three abstentions. Some senators worried about "weakening" international law protections, which "exist to protect small states." Those misgivings are still more widely shared beyond Europe, of course, as large swathes of the Global South know precisely how vulnerable they can already be to Western sanctions. A dubious new practice of asset confiscation would make U.S. dollar power, already a subject of widespread discontent, even more unpalatable.If the G7 financial offensive provokes as much backlash as it seems poised to, could China stand to benefit? Certainly, Beijing is likely to reap diplomatic dividends from perceptions that Western financial warfare has become too extreme. Xi Jinping's Party center has emphasized portraying China as a law-abiding global power, especially by embracing UN institutions (where it, of course, exerts great influence at little cost). The contrast with a G7 maneuvering around the UN at every turn makes a potent impression in the Global South.A separate question is whether China's vision of a "de-dollarized" world could receive a boost from Western confiscation efforts. Certainly, Beijing has long sought to increase the yuan's share of global foreign currency reserves and cross-border usage, and has made some recent progress. The RMB would indeed become more attractive as dollar and euro accounts began to look ever more vulnerable to seizure.But it has a long way to go. Currently, the yuan is only the fifth global reserve currency, still narrowly trailing the yen and the pound. It is also limited by domestic economic issues and, especially China's strict capital controls and heavily managed exchange rates. As a recent article produced for a PRC Ministry of Education research project phrased it, given all of the current obstacles to international use of the RMB, even for Russia itself, "de-dollarization cannot be a complete renminbization."Still, intensified weaponization of Western currencies could indeed boost China's yuan efforts, and, more significantly, provide a major stimulus to plans for a BRICS basket reserve currency. The move would simultaneously improve Beijing's reputation as an apparently more responsible actor with respect to foreign assets, while also perversely incentivizing it to further experiment with its own nascent unilateral sanctions regime.A managed process of de-dollarization with cross-bloc participation could be a good thing, but a chaotic transition triggered by Western hubris, provoking similar ventures by great power rivals, would not be. Like the "coalition of the willing" that supported the illegal Iraq War in 2003, arguably helping to normalize behaviors like those of Russia today, the coalition now aligning for ever-escalating financial warfare may ultimately weaken international law protections for everyone, not only their intended targets. It is time to put a freeze on the transition to seizure.

It's official — the Pentagon is becoming a bank. Well, sort of. At a March 8th event on dual-use technology at SXSW in Austin, Texas, director of the Office of Strategic Capital Jason Rathje announced that his team has officially received the internal authority to grant executive loans and loan guarantees, a first within the Pentagon.
The Office of Strategic Capital, or OSC, was created in response to growing concern over China's investment in next-generation technology. According to its investment strategy, released Friday, March 8th, the OSC will invest in firms researching and developing 14 "critical technologies," including hypersonics, quantum computing, microelectronics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence.
After surviving a rocky first year — punctuated by allegations of conflicts of interest from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and hard questions over its funding — the OSC is now close to licensing its first funds as part of a joint lending program with the Small Business Administration. OSC loans require private funding to match their loans, giving a pathway for smaller defense tech companies with aggressive investment strategies to enter the mix.
Venture capitalists have poured money into many of the items now on the "critical technologies" list, making them well-poised to benefit from OSC loans. By one New York Times estimate, venture capital firms went from spending around $6.7 billion on military tech in 2016 to $34 billion in 2022.
However, they have generated relatively few government contracts so far, leading some tech entrepreneurs to accuse the Pentagon of paying lip service to innovation without actually funding innovative ventures. According to Palantir, a "unicorn" of the defense tech world founded by Peter Thiel, the top 100 venture-funded military start-ups have only generated somewhere between $2-5 billion in government contracts. Part of this is because of Silicon Valley's"move fast and break things" approach, which sees the Pentagon's bureaucracy as little more than a straightjacket.
Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz and an investor in many defense tech firms through his American Dynamism initiative, embodies this psyche, defined by an infatuation with new technology and a repudiation of the precautionary principle, which urges prudence in the face of uncertainty. In an essay Andreessen authored entitled "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," he writes, "We believe the techno-capital machine is not anti-human – in fact, it may be the most pro-human thing there is. It serves us. The techno-capital machine works for us. All the machines work for us."
This is where the message of defense tech venture capitalists differs from that of the prime contractors like RTX (previously known as Raytheon) and Lockheed Martin; instead of waxing lyrical about security, tech stalwarts evangelize about wielding artificial intelligence to overcome the frailties of human nature itself. Buoyed by their "yes, and…" theater-kid ethos, their beguiling promise is to usher in a near-utopia at the hands of the "Techno-Capital Machine."
That is, if the government steps aside. "Silicon valley is a builder culture, and Washington is never going to be a builder culture," argued Katherine Boyle, the co-founder of Andreessen's American Dynamism initiative. "I think people just have to come to terms with that."
So what does this "material philosophy" look like in practice? Shield AI, a company Andreessen has invested in through American Dynamism, offers AI-powered autonomous swarms that claim to own "the kill chain from start to end" like a "scene from Top Gun 2." Palantir has demonstrated a language model that analyzes battlefields and generates courses of action for a human operator. As defense analyst Van Jackson puts it, the OSC has "created various regulatory exemptions and federally guaranteed loans to incentivize VCs to go big on death-tech."
Even if their promises are more grandiose, the business model of capitalizing on instability remains familiar. On a panel about public/private partnerships at SXSW, former Olympian turned venture capitalist Larsen Jensen said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a "tremendous catalyst" for changing the national security investing environment.
"There have been many other catalysts that have occurred, if you think back prior to that, 9/11 was a catalyst," Jensen said. "Many companies that otherwise would not exist in the defense industry, such as General Atomics, probably owe a big portion of their success due to a geopolitical catalyst that was, you know, unfortunate for the United States obviously, but the Predator probably wouldn't be as prolific as it is now, and the early innings of autonomy wouldn't be as important as it is now, were it not for that tragedy."
It doesn't take a Luddite to realize that the Pentagon should exercise caution when partnering with VC firms on exploring technologies such as AI-powered language models and autonomous weapons. As Craig Martell, the head of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office at the Pentagon, warns, AI chatbots "speak authoritatively, so we just believe them," despite the fact that these devices often spit out misleading or outright false answers. In a new report from Public Citizen, Robert Weissman and Savannah Wooten argue that autonomous weapons can lead to dehumanization or even loss of human control. "AI-driven swarms involve autonomous agents that would interact with and coordinate with each other, likely in ways not foreseen by humans and also likely indecipherable to humans in real-time," Weissman and Wooten write.
The Pentagon has some guardrails in place that urge caution with technology like artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons. A Pentagon directive, issued just a month after the creation of the OSC in January 2023, requires autonomous weapons to be designed to allow human operators to exercise "appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force," establishes testing and evaluation standards for autonomous weapons, and mandates a chain of review for approval, among other requirements.
But a number of critics outside of the department question whether this approach goes far enough. A Human Rights Watch/Harvard Law School International Human Rights clinic review of the policy noted that the directive allows for significant loopholes, among them allowing the senior review of autonomous weapons to be waived "in cases of urgent military need." Weissman and Wooten argue that the "biggest shortcoming of the directive, however, is that it permits the development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons at all."
Venture capital firms are looking for more buy-in on the back end, an issue the OSC can't quite solve. As adjunct professor at Stanford University Steve Blank explains, "There's a demand problem, not a funding problem." For the venture capitalists, this requires convincing the U.S. government to sideline concerns they may have about emerging technologies and buy into the techno-utopian vision they are selling.
In order to persuade the government to be more in line with the brash futurism of Silicon Valley, venture capital-backed defense tech firms are ramping up their lobbying operations. In 2023, Palantir spent over $5 million on their formal lobbying operations, lobbying Congress against "the regulation of AI." Shield AI, which spent over $1 million on lobbying in 2023, lobbied the Department of Defense directly on "issues around autonomy and artificial intelligence." Anduril, another defense technology company backed by Andreessen, spent over $1.5 million lobbying Congress on issues related to "unmanned and autonomous systems," including autonomous sentry towers on the U.S.-Mexico border.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has also signaled it may want in on Pentagon dollars. As the Intercept reported, earlier this year OpenAI quietly removed language that prohibits the military from using its technology. This week, former Sen. Norm Coleman registered as a lobbyist for OpenAI.The OSC is Silicon Valley's biggest step toward molding the Pentagon in its own image, a sign they are making inroads with top brass leaders. But should the venture capitalists continue to rush the development and deployment of untested, risky technologies, even as they cash in massively in the process, someone needs to commit the cardinal sin of prudence by stepping in and setting some rules.

The military and economic balance in war has shifted strongly against Ukraine, and it is very hard to see how this tendency can now be reversed. There is still time for Ukraine to win a qualified victory against Russia; but only if the United States commits itself strongly to a compromise peace.
Russia's population is at least four times that of Ukraine, and its GDP is 14 times greater. Western attempts to cripple Russia through economic sanctions have failed. The Russian economy grew by around three percent in 2023, as a result of increased energy exports to non-Western countries and a massive and successful effort to invest in military industrial production. Ukraine is making desperate attempts to boost its own military production, but from a far lower industrial base coupled with an acute shortage of skilled labor.
The Biden administration is therefore correct to warn that without continued and massive U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Russia will quickly win. It is however equally clear that U.S. aid — still less at the levels sustained to date — cannot be guaranteed even in the medium term. Partly due to the new U.S. commitment to Israel created by the Gaza war and the threat of it spreading, the United States is also failing adequately to replenish Ukraine's dwindling stocks of air-defense missiles, which are crucially important both on the battlefield and in the protection of Ukrainian infrastructure and industry. Both the United States and Europe are failing to meet their targets for increased production of artillery shells, which Russia is firing at some three to five times the Ukrainian rate.
And even if the West could vastly increase its military production (highly doubtful given the pressure on Western budgets, supply chain problems, and skilled labor shortages), we cannot provide Ukraine with more soldiers. Ukrainian manpower shortages are becoming increasingly acute, and are leading to increasingly draconian conscription measures and bitter disputes within the Ukrainian government over how to enforce conscription, which is faltering in the face of growing public resistance.
Following the failure of last year's Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Biden administration and the Ukrainian government and military have all shifted to a defensive strategy, including trying to fortify Ukraine's long northern border with Russia and Belarus. This region has been quiet since Moscow withdrew its troops in the spring for 2022, after the failure of its initial invasion from the north. However, Russia's growing advantage in numbers means that at some point in future, its army may be able to attack again along this front.
While smart, and even if successful in the short term, a strategy of standing indefinitely on the defensive has two colossal disadvantages for Ukraine. Politically, it brings with it the obvious implication that Russia will go on holding the areas it now controls. This being so, more and more Ukrainians and Westerners will obviously begin to call for a compromise peace. The danger is that if we leave this too long, the balance will have shifted so decisively against Ukraine that Russia will have few incentives left to compromise.
For militarily, a permanent defensive strategy commits Ukraine to an indefinite war of attrition in which Russia has huge long-term advantages. It is quite true that as in the First World War, recent developments in military technology strongly favor the defensive. This was shown in the defeat of the Russian offensive of 2022 and the Ukrainian offensive of 2023, and the very slow progress that Russia has made in its effort to capture small towns like Avdiivka in the Donbas. However, we should also remember that in the First World War, great superiority in numbers, munitions and economic strength did eventually lead to victory for the Allies.
Faced with this reality, the Ukrainian government and Western backers of complete Ukrainian victory are resorting to a set of optimistic stories, which might be unkindly described as stretching from the doubtful to the magical. One of these is to take the highest possible estimate of Russian casualties in its recent offensives, and on this basis to argue that through repeated failed offensives, the Russian army will exhaust itself to the point where Moscow seeks peace on Western terms. However, unless the Ukrainian army could attack successfully in turn, this would still leave the territories now occupied by Russia in Russian hands.
It is also not at all clear on what basis Western analysis is making these "estimates." In some cases, they come straight from the Ukrainian military. According to Ukrainian military veterans with whom I spoke last year, the belief that in the Donbas, Russia is launching mass "human wave" attacks in the style of World War II appears to be largely wrong. Rather, the Russian army has sought to force the Ukrainians to fight in relatively small, clearly defined areas where they can be pounded incessantly by Russian artillery.
The goal at present seems not to rapidly seize large amounts of territory, but to rely on Russia's advantage in artillery to kill large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers, while trying to keep Russian casualties as low as possible. If this picture is correct, then while Russia's approach will take time, in the long run Ukraine's shortage of troops means that it will simply not have enough left to cover its entire front.
The other hope of the Ukrainian government and pro-war Westerners rests in long-range missiles. If the West can be persuaded to provide many more of them, then it is argued firstly that by knocking out the Kerch bridge and driving off the Russian navy, Ukraine can isolate Crimea and force Russia to sue for peace. This hope is empty. The one major success of the Russian invasion of 2022 was to conquer the land between Russia and Crimea. It was this "land bridge" that last year's Ukrainian offensive was intended to break — but failed to do so.
The other Ukrainian plan — as demonstrated by the latest Ukrainian attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod — seems to be missile strikes on targets in Russia in an effort to put pressure on the Kremlin. As a military strategy, this is also hopeless. The vast size of Russia means that in terms of damage to Russia's economic capacity, even greatly expanded Ukrainian attacks would be mere pinpricks. In terms of civilian casualties, they will anger ordinary Russians without killing anything like enough to produce a mass movement for peace.
It may be however that angering Russians is precisely the Ukrainian intention. A strike by a Western-supplied missile that caused very large civilian casualties or destroyed a high profile target could lead to massive pressure on the Kremlin to retaliate against the West, whether by hitting Western targets in Ukraine or by providing its own missiles and satellite technology to enemies of America in the Middle East. This could in turn provoke much more direct Western involvement in the conflict — which Kyiv desires but the Biden administration and European governments have been anxious to avoid, and which the United States can desperately ill afford given the dangers it is facing elsewhere in the world.
If this picture is correct, then Washington and Kyiv both have a strong incentive to open peace talks while we still retain significant leverage; for if we wait, the terms that we will get in the future are likely to be much worse for Ukraine and much more humiliating for the West. In terms of Putin's goals when he invaded Ukraine, and of the past 300 years of Russian domination of Ukraine, a war that ended today with 80 percent of Ukraine independent and free to seek membership of the European Union should be seen as a very important victory for Ukraine. It would not be a complete victory — but complete victory is simply no longer possible.

The Gulf – where petrostates and psychodrama hold sway – is a critical field for jockeying in the global shift to multipolarity, and the Ukraine war is recasting what each player wants, and thinks it can get.To wit: The Biden Administration wants to extend the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, so it can point to a key foreign-policy win before next year's presidential election while moving Riyadh back inside the U.S.-Israel tent. Saudi Arabia's Mohammad Bin Salman (Crown Prince MBS) wants instead to distance Riyadh from Washington so he can lead non-aligned talks and take the credit for resolving Ukraine's war with Russia — though, as an aside, he has demanded a nuclear enrichment plant and a fleet of F-35 fighter jets to consider Washington's request in return.Iran, which came in from the cold after the past year's "Women, Life Freedom" protests by signing a China-brokered normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, wants to stymie any Abraham Accords expansion beyond Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and is working hard on becoming everyone's best friend outside the West — read: Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia.Israel wants to expand the Accords to include Riyadh, seeing it as a rare foreign policy opportunity to both balance Netanyahu's domestic woes triggered by his controversial far-right government and to promote the anti-Iran U.S. alliance in the Gulf.The Gulf's oil and staggering wealth, its divide down the middle between Iran and pro-Western states, and its unwieldy balance of two global energy producers facing each other across the absurdly narrow and strategic Strait of Hormuz all make the region one of the highest-stakes playing fields in the world. And the Ukraine war is shifting the goalposts. The Russians have arrived; China is quietly offering prizes, like nuclear plants, to regional actors; and the Gulf Cooperation Council states are flexing new muscle in the ongoing geo-strategic realignment.Russian Moves Russians are flooding the Gulf. They are buying up everything from lampshades to heavy equipment in Iran's bazaars and avoiding sanctions by shipping them over land and across the Caspian Sea. Saudi Arabia is in talks with Russian weapons manufacturers sanctioned by the U.S. Meanwhile, the hotels in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and down the Omani coast have seen a 200-percent jump in Russian bookings this year (376,000 guests a month in Abu Dhabi alone, triple last year's average) despite the weakening ruble.Both MBS and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's Emir, have entered the field to negotiate a peace accord between Moscow and Kyiv. MBZ, as he is called, visited Russia in June presenting his mediation skills to President Putin, while MBS hosted a round of peace talks in Jeddah in early August, while voluntarily cutting oil output in July to boost prices, upsetting Washington (yet again) as the move will likely shore up Russian oil revenues.U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's attempt during his trip to Riyadh in July to promote the Abraham Accords and convince MBS not to move the goalposts, as well as to join the sanctions regime against Russia fell well short of success.MBS, touting ties to both Ukraine and Russia, instead drew his own line in the turf, gathering 42 countries to his "peace" summit, including the U.S. and China while excluding Iran and Russia. Western critics dismissed it as a soapbox for MBS to parade his new-found role as peace broker (and Moscow blasted it as pointless). But, with China floating a revised 10-point peace formula at the meeting, it established the kingdom's credentials as an emerging power offering new avenues for global conflict mediation, creating more daylight between Riyadh and Washington.Iran ReconstructedWith a new round of protests to mark the anniversary of the women's demonstrations that began last September, the clerical leadership marks a year of surprising rehabilitation in the Gulf as well as wider afield.Saudi Arabia and Iran have reestablished embassies in their respective capitals, offering a green light to warmer (and more substantive) relationships between Tehran and capitals up and down the Gulf's western littoral. For Riyadh, Tehran's warming relations with Moscow and its military support to Russia's war effort have not posed major hurdles, as its own diplomatic proximity to Russia has grown. Both states recognize that their relations with Moscow are pragmatic, if not entirely problem-free, and, as with much in their own ongoing detente, are more focused at the moment on compartmentalizing points of contention to build, rather than damage, goodwill. Despite their respective reputational black marks for human rights, the two oil heavyweights were just warmly welcomed into the BRICS (along with the UAE). This signals the Global South's growing clout and diversity, as well as a clear willingness to challenge established great power rules, prompting White House National's Security Advisor Jake Sullivan seemingly to dismiss the BRICS after the meeting as geopolitically inconsequential.Israel and the U.S. seeking purchaseAlthough U.S. military engagement and financial commitments remain dominant in the Gulf, Washington is no longer leading the action, and is often caught up short these days by Beijing moving the goal posts behind its back. Following its diplomatic coup with the surprise Iran-Saudi normalization deal, China just last week offered to build a nuclear plant on the Saudi border with Qatar and the UAE without including the same conditions demanded by the U.S. to prevent enrichment and possible nuclear weaponization.This comes hard on the heels of Blinken's trip to Riyadh to promote the Abraham Accords, which he described as the "cornerstone" of the Biden administration's Middle East policy on the basis that "Israel's further integration into the region contributes to a more stable, a more secure and more prosperous region." But with tensions still rising between Netanyahu's far-right government and the Palestinians, Riyadh is unconvinced that a public declaration of amity with Israel is politically wise or would contribute to stability in the Gulf, especially as trade, trust and diplomacy between the two countries have grown steadily without the fanfare of normalization. For MBS, the risks of joining the Accords include not only outraging the kingdom's own population and the wider Muslim community if it is seen as downgrading the Palestinian issue. But it could also stymie progress with Tehran, which would view such a move as Riyadh buckling to U.S. pressure and rejoining the anti-Iran camp. As the kingdom spreads its wings, it is clearly prioritizing Gulf neighborliness and détente over U.S. chumminess.Where Washington has made progress, albeit without Israel's support, is in backroom arrangements with Iran to tone down its nuclear enrichment in exchange for access to $6 billion of its frozen reserves held by South Korea.Under the umbrella of a prisoner swap, which Washington hopes to finalize in two or three weeks, bank transfers have been prepared and Iran has quietly slowed its uranium enrichment to 60 percent and is in the process of diluting its stockpile. It's the first breakthrough on the nuclear front since Donald Trump withdrew from the six-party JCPOA in 2018. And, although it means negotiating with a sworn enemy — and only then through intermediaries, notably Oman and Qatar — it shows that Washington can maneuver adeptly even when the Gulf's goal posts are shifting. What's less clear is whether the U.S. can be as flexible in expanding the Abraham Accords, with both China and Israel nipping at its heels, its hopes for a Libya-Israel rapprochement now dashed, and its erstwhile Team USA — aka the GCC states — heading off in different directions.Though the Ukraine war is playing out in the European arena, its repercussions in the Gulf are striking. It has opened new horizons for Russia and China to engage meaningfully in the region's security and energy, while giving new impetus to the region's mid-level powers to pursue not only their own expanding agendas, but to find common cause in a Gulf-centered community that can sidestep the vicissitudes of Great Power competition.

Satisfied with some important progress being made in health care reform on the home front, these past few days President Obama turned his full attention to foreign policy. In a week packed with international speeches, bilateral meetings and joint declarations, he succeeded in establishing a new ambitious agenda for international cooperation and wasted no time in getting started. In his speech to the UN, he outlined his main foreign policy goals based on four pillars: non-proliferation, climate change, Middle East peace and economic stability. He spoke clearly about his determination to put an end to the international skepticism and distrust the United States faced during the Bush years and enumerated the changes already made: banning the use of torture, closing the Guantánamo base, drawing down forces in Iraq, renewing efforts in the Arab-Israeli conflict by naming a special envoy, seriously addressing climate change and abandoning plans for a land-based missile defense in Eastern Europe. He challenged other leaders to respond in kind by joining US efforts at non-proliferation, fighting terrorism, taking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combating poverty. A day later in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit, the President, flanked by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Sarkozy, revealed a new nuclear facility built by Iran in the city of Qum and called for further sanctions on the Islamic Republic. This well-timed revelation is supposed to give the administration some more leverage when talks with the Iranians start later this week. As it happens, the US had known about this new uranium enriching plant for more than a year but had kept the information secret for later use. In Pittsburgh, with France and Britain safely on his side, the President had further opportunity to press the other two members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, to cooperate with the new sanctions regime that will most likely include imports of refined oil into Iran. While Russia appears to be leaning towards cooperation (perhaps as a quid pro quo of Obama's decision not to deploy the anti-missile defense system in Poland and Czech Republic), it is not as yet clear whether the Chinese will too. This week has been a good one for China, which seems to be coming of age as an international player both in climate change and as a partner for economic stability in the G-20. But the revelation at Qum was certainly a pre-emptive coup that put the Iranians on the defensive, and gave Obama an opportunity to publicly test the other Permanent Members of the Security Council to prove their commitment to non-proliferation.As the United States moves aggressively to engage with the rest of the world and vows to renew its pledge to international law and institutions, the expectation is that others will take their share of responsibility and respond to global challenges. Obama's moral authority flows not only from what he says, and how he says it, but also by virtue of who he is: in his case, the man is the message and the intended drastic cut with his predecessor could not be more apparent. However, as Realists constantly remind us, foreign policy is about national interest defined as power, and while the change of tone and of emissary is well-noted, we are likely to see some change, but also a lot of continuity in US foreign policy. Barack Obama's first speech at the United Nations General Assembly was well-received around the world but had less impact on a home audience whose main concerns are unemployment, health care reform and economic recovery. Inevitably, the usual suspects accused him of treason for recognizing America's past mistakes in public and for socializing with tyrants. Others denounced his narcissistic impulses, for trying to portray American foreign policy as "all about Obama". While it is easy to dismiss the extreme critics, it is important for the rest of the world to realize how much the United Nations' legitimacy and prestige has suffered in the United States during the last ten years, and not only due to derisions by Bolton and Bush. TV images of the UN headquarters in New York seem distant and irrelevant to most Americans, who view the organization as an anachronistic shibboleth that embodies all fluff and no substance and whose activities are hard to take seriously in most cases, be it when it deals with Rwanda, Darfur or with Iranian sanctions. At this year's opening session, the General Assembly room, with a badly lit podium and a very unbecoming blue-greenish background, was showing its age in spite of a 2002 facelift (it was built in 1952). And while Obama was as dynamic and articulate as usual, his televised speech was followed by that of Mohammad Khadafy from Libya, which lasted one hour and a half and included bizarre statements and phrases that can only be accounted for by a serious onset of senility. Besides calling for a UN investigation of John F. Kennedy's assassination, and surreally complaining about how far most of those present had had to travel to get to New York (was jetlag his excuse to explain away his own state of mental confusion?), he repeatedly called President Obama "my son" (I cringed at imagining the right wing blogs reaction to that) and referred to the UN Security Council as the "Terror Council". His difficulty to find a place in New York where he would be allowed to pitch his tent was followed with amusement by the media and further added to his own oddity, and by extension, to the inadequacy of the UN as a serious forum. While later Prime Minister Netanyahu's excellent, Churchill-like speech brought the audience back to the 21st century and restored some respectability to the venue, the UN lost credibility again when Iranian president Ahmadinejad went on a new rant later in the day and again and proceeded once more to deny the Holocaust's existence. In addition to this rarified atmosphere, the main foreign policy topic that is of concern for the American public, and the one that would have made them pay attention, namely, the war in Afghanistan was hardly mentioned by Obama in this occasion. After eight years of war in Afghanistan, the effort seems to be unraveling on all fronts. European NATO members, whose soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, are unwilling or unable to commit more troops; the Taliban has renewed its offensives with new intensity in the south and the east of the country, and the Afghan election was plagued with corruption, proving what many already suspected, that President Hamid Karzai is an extremely unreliable partner and a corrupt leader who will not be able to hold the country together. At the same time, Al Qaeda has found refuge in neighboring Pakistan so the US initial counterterrorist mission, namely to hunt down and exterminate Al Qaeda, has mutated into one of counterinsurgency against an indigenous group, the Taliban, fighting against the government and the foreign forces to regain its power. All this in a country that has never been a nation, a narco-state whose economic base is the production and trafficking of opium, and where several empires, from the Macedonians to the British and the Soviets were once defeated. The President's plan so far has been to train the Afghan army so that it can hold off the Taliban, support government institutions, gain the trust of villagers and create structures of governance in rural areas so that Al Qaeda won't be able to move in again. This week a Pentagon memo by General Crystal was leaked by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame. Published in the Washington Post on September 21st, it presents a grim picture of the war and warns that success is uncertain. It calls for new resources and a new counterinsurgency campaign. While the number of troops requested is not specified, it warns that "under-resourcing" the effort could be fatal. Woodward, never one to sell himself short, has called his leaked memo the equivalent of the 1971 Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in the New York Times, which revealed the expansion of the Vietnam War from 1965 on, that had been kept secret from the American public. Of course the memo is not the equivalent of Ellsberg and Russo's revelations, but still, it refocused attention on the intractability of this war. The President's response has been that after the Afghan election, the White House is re-assessing its strategy and that until he is satisfied with a new strategy he will not send more troops. It is clear that the administration is having doubts about a conflict it once called a war of necessity. Public opinion is also turning against what will soon be the longest war in American history, as casualties continue to increase and there is no end in sight. As the term "military surge" is being increasingly used to denote McCrystal's new demands, comparisons with the war in Iraq are inevitable. Similarly to the Iraq war, elections have represented a turning point. But the surge in Iraq began with the so-called Sunni awakening, when the Iraqis themselves decided they had had enough of the violence and organized against those that insisted on it (mainly outsiders, Al Qaeda-in-Iraq). Also, in Iraq's leader Al-Maliki, the US found a relatively reliable and legitimate partner, one who instigated the political class to resolve their differences by political means. Finally, Iraq had an economic base that could be restored to produce substantial national wealth, and a mostly urban, well-educated population with some institutional experience. In contrast, Afghanistan is a mainly rural country, a tribal society which repudiates any attempts at centralization and profoundly distrusts the government in Kabul more, in some cases, than the foreign troops. The central government is rotten and weak, Karzai an unreliable leader who stole the election and whose brother is the head of the drug mafia. Can more US troops make up for all these weaknesses?Obama is thus in a delicate situation: he can't be "at war" with his own generals (indeed, General McCrystal was appointed by Obama only in March, after he dismissed the previous general in charge). On the other hand, if he allows more troops to be deployed, there is danger that Afghanistan may become his Vietnam. He therefore needs to choose between continuing a counterinsurgency operation, training more Afghan forces, protecting the local populations, getting into their villages and gaining their trust, or withdrawing ground troops and focusing on counter-terrorism, using drones and other off-shore means and special forces to go after the terrorist bases. Vice-President Biden is advocating a middle ground strategy: leaving enough troops on the ground to prevent Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan, but redefining the mission as one of narrow counter-terrorism and move away from nation-building and a protracted counter-insurgency operation that would signify more US casualties and more discontent at home. After all, the main reason why the US went to Afghanistan was to confront and eliminate Al Qaeda, which has since then moved across the border to the tribal areas of Pakistan. As several domestic arrests have demonstrated this week, Al Qaeda threats are just as likely to come from Springfield Illinois, Queens New York or Dallas Texas as from abroad or from the virtual Al Qaeda organizing through the worldwide web. Recalibrating his approach to Afghanistan is thus imperative, and it must be done for the right reasons, regardless of personal gain or saving face.Obama has had a very successful September, but his ambitious agenda both at home and abroad faces many pitfalls ahead. A youthful president, brimming with self-confidence, with a huge electoral mandate and with the best team of experts in history, can still be thwarted by unsolvable problems, domestic and foreign enemies and by serendipity itself. As a student of history and a John F Kennedy admirer, Obama knows this, and he should measure his decisions and temper his ambitions accordingly. Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Robert Fico has long been a dominant figure in Slovakia, having served as prime minister from 2006-10, 2012-18, and then 2023-present. He has upset many believers in transatlantic unity for various reasons — chiefly his opposition to the West's arming of Ukraine, which shares a 60-mile border with Slovakia. Depicting the war there as an "American-Russian conflict," Fico campaigned last year on giving Kyiv "not another bullet." Often characterized as a "pro-Kremlin" politician, he has criticized Western sanctions on Moscow.On May 15, Fico was the target of an assassination attempt. A gunman shot him five times at close range in Handlová, a small town in central Slovakia. Fico survived albeit in critical condition. The attack marked the first assassination attempt on a European prime minister in 21 years. According to Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, the alleged assailant, Juraj Cintula, was politically motivated and possibly not acting alone. The attempt occurred shortly after presidential elections, which one of Fico's allies, Peter Pellegrini, won in the second round.Political and social divisionsSlovakia's politics are extremely polarized. Among Slovaks, many staunchly support Fico while many others loathe him. There are those in the country who embrace Western-style liberalism and believe Bratislava's foreign policy should be closely aligned with its Western allies in NATO and the EU, both of which Slovakia joined in 2004. On the conservative end of the spectrum, a majority of Slovak voters support Fico's government as a defender of Slovak traditions by, for example, rejecting "gender ideology.""Each group not only holds different visions for Slovakia's future but also perceives the other's agenda as a direct threat to their way of life and values, and this is exaggerated and weaponized as a means of political capital," Zuzana Palovic, co-author of "Czechoslovakia: Behind the Iron Curtain," told RS.The murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée in 2018, the government's COVID response, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 all deepened polarization in Slovakia. Fico's government routinely criticizes the opposition for serving the Western liberal order while his opponents attack him for being too Moscow-friendly and rolling back media freedoms. Many point to Russian propaganda as a significant driver of polarization in this former Soviet satellite, which is the case in other EU member-states too.In the 2020-23 period, a number of Fico's political allies were indicted for corruption and subsequently convicted. "While some of the cases were half-baked, Fico's defense always has been that everything is just a political witch hunt—yes, he sounds like Trump here," according to Andrej Matišák, a journalist who works for the Slovak daily Pravda. "By undermining the work of policemen, prosecutors, and judges, he created another piece of the polarization puzzle," he told RS."The Slovak politicians themselves contributed to the status quo in Slovakia. Political accusations are never ending in Slovakia," said Lívia Benko, a research fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy. "The recent political landscape reveals that the number of hateful statements from politicians is on the rise," she added.The assassination attempt has exacerbated tensions within Slovak society. Outgoing President Zuzana Čaputová has emphasized the need to prevent further escalation. But her appeal thus far appears to be ignored by both sides of the political spectrum."The appeal for calmness and unity is not being respected to the extent it should be by either the polarized society, in which family members do not speak to each other over politics, nor by the coalition and opposition," Benko noted."The current political landscape in which politicians and their family members are getting threatening letters is very complex," she added. "Slovak politics are full of conspiracy theories and disinformation. This is all reflected on social media platforms."Talk of 'civil war'Following the assassination attempt, Eštok warned that the country is "on the edge of a civil war" due to the rhetoric on social media. According to Palovic, such language coming from the minister "reflects concerns about the stability and unity of Slovakia — mentally, emotionally, and socially."Matišák said Eštok's talk of civil war was understandable given the powerful emotions at that moment. But he also described it as a "very unfortunate statement.""Only the government has the means to start the civil war, and, in that case, it wouldn't even be a civil war; it would be some kind of putsch against the democratic regime in Slovakia. I don't believe that will happen, so I read the minister's words as an attempt to communicate with his own electorate to suggest that first of all the 'other side' is responsible for what happened. As I said, it is unfortunate, and he should know better," Matišák said."It's the rhetorical equivalent of firefighters starting their job by throwing a canister of gas into the fire," Matej Kandrík, a co-founder of Adapt Institute, a Bratislava-based think tank, told RS."It's both irresponsible and dangerous. Slovakia is nowhere close to a civil war. Unfortunately, [Eštok] is speaking like he is a candidate running in the election and not as a minister of the interior."The road aheadUnsurprisingly, this month's assassination attempt has clearly raised serious concerns about the trajectory of Slovakia's deep-seated societal and political divisions. What comes next will depend heavily on the government's actions, according to Benko, particularly regarding how the state may use the attack as a pretext for cracking down on the opposition and independent civil society groups and media.Doing so, on the other hand, could negatively affect its standing with the EU, an important source of financial and development assistance."The terrible shape of public finances increased the relative importance of EU funds for Slovakia. Suppose the European Commission will stay adamant about protecting the rule of law and the quality of democracy. In that case, it should prevent the most aggressive moves to solidify the power of the government," Kandrík told RS. "Still, I expect the situation to worsen for all pro-democratic actors.""In a normal country, the normal reaction would be for all political elites to lock themselves around the principles of democracy and the rule of law. However, it seems that some people in Slovakia, especially from the pro-government spectrum, are intensifying the polarization," said the Slovak journalist."I am afraid that the main aim of the majority of the players from the governing coalition is to use the current events to strengthen their grip on power [rather than] to calm down the situation. On the other hand, I very much hope I will be proved wrong."Implications for US foreign policyBack in the 1990s, when the autocratic leader Vladimir Mečiar was independent Slovakia's first prime minister, the Slovak government basically ran the country like a mafia state. In the mid-1990s, NATO delayed Slovakia's membership application due to the country's domestic issues. By 1998, then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright called Slovakia a "black hole in the center of Europe." That was only six years before it joined the transatlantic alliance and the EU.Today, Washington has much at stake in the future of Slovakia, which sits on the fault line of a divided Europe. Having militarily cooperated closely with the U.S. since 1993, Slovakia remains an important U.S. ally on NATO's eastern flank at a time of intensified hostilities between Russia and the West.Amid a period in which Fico and Hungary's Viktor Orbán increasingly align their countries with Moscow in ways that many Western policymakers believe is a thorn in the EU's side, debates over how Washington and Brussels should try to influence these "renegade EU leaders" in Bratislava and Budapest are sensitive. There is reason to consider how Western pressure on these Russia-friendly NATO and EU members has potential to backfire in ways that further erode the West's unity against Moscow.This month's attempted assassination risks manifesting in an exacerbation of Slovakia's internal tensions, as well as those between Bratislava and Brussels. This would be especially so if Fico's government pushes through initiatives that weaken the rule-of-law. Although the immediate implications of the attempt on Fico's life for Washington's interests are currently difficult to assess, instability in Slovakia could have major ramifications for U.S. foreign policy interests in this part of Europe, particularly within the context of the continent's evolving security architecture.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in December 2011, once seen as a triumph for the Obama administration, became a cautionary tale as the rise of ISIS prompted their return in 2014.
This is one reason why U.S. troops have remained in Iraq, despite the successful dismantling of ISIS by the end of 2018. Since then, the degradation of ISIS has continued, and any benefits of keeping U.S. troops there as a stopgap against its resurgence are now overshadowed by the risks of exposure to the tit-for-tat game of face-saving exchanges of fire, with Iran-aligned militias.
In Iraq, Washington cannot have it all, but with a touch of creativity and realistic expectations, it can still adequately safeguard its interests after U.S. troops leave, likely with reduced cost and better outcomes.The United States remains the most important enabler of Iraq's security forces and largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to Iraq. Congress has approved $1.25 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Iraq — allocated at $250 million annually — from 2019 through 2023. Since 2014, the U.S. has delivered a total of $3.5 billion in humanitarian aid to Iraq. This aid extends well beyond self-serving interests to tangibly improve the lives of Iraqis, including rehabilitating nine water treatment plants in Basra, a stronghold of Iran-aligned militias, providing clean water to 640,000 people, and offering cash assistance to those displaced in Erbil due to the war with ISIS. The U.S. has invested tens of millions of dollars in other projects, too, from the maintenance of the Mosul Dam to the preservation of historic and cultural sites, to financing higher education. In many other countries, such investments would earn Washington's leaders great respect. Not so in Iraq, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken wore body armor during his visit to Baghdad last November. But this measure is aimed at protecting against a specific segment of Iraqi society, namely certain Iran-aligned militias and largely stems from the Trump administration's choice to assassinate Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was accompanied by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), outside Baghdad's airport in 2020.
Other underlying issues that haunt the relationship include lingering resentment from the early years of the U.S. occupation (of which the younger generation has no recollection), real and perceived violations of Iraqi sovereignty by U.S. strikes, opportunistic blame-shifting by Iraqi politicians, and a significant gap between the expectations of ordinary Iraqis for U.S. commitment to their country and the actual level of U.S. investment. This dynamic has created, at times, an antagonistic attitude towards the United States, notwithstanding substantial aid.
The dynamic is further complicated by the ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. While some Iraqis genuinely desire the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the arrangement serves the Iraqi government and certain quasi-integrated Iran-aligned militias quite well. The U.S. troop presence helps contain ISIS, ensures ongoing U.S. aid to Iraq, and provides Iran-aligned militias with a new self-serving adversary in place of ISIS, while they enrich themselves with corrupt business schemes.
Another reason Iraq is willing to accommodate U.S. troops is the influence exerted by the U.S. Federal Reserve over its economy given Iraq's lack of a functional banking system. There is also a widespread concern that if Iraq were to expel U.S. troops, the U.S. might cease permitting dollar transactions, thereby isolating its economy. Although the Iraqi government will periodically express concerns over U.S. strikes violating Iraqi sovereignty, it stops short of expelling U.S. troops. However, with each attack on U.S. troops by Iran-aligned militias and the subsequent retaliatory strikes, the U.S. military mission in Iraq encounters challenges shaped by Iraqi and U.S. domestic politics, along with the potential for U.S. casualties.
The more pertinent question for U.S. policymakers is how this arrangement serves U.S. interests?
Washington lacks the troop numbers, capacity, political will, or plain foolishness to try to defeat the Iran-aligned militias, and retaliatory strikes only deter them temporarily. Washington is poorly placed to fully understand let alone influence Iraq's intricate politics and elite bargains. Thus, it's time to envision ways to protect U.S. interests in Iraq without a prolonged deployment of troops.
Acknowledging some hard truths is the initial step. Iraq will always be a more vital interest to Iran than it is to the United States. Most Shi'a stakeholders, spanning the Iraqi political spectrum, would prefer to be independent of pressures exerted by either the U.S. or Iran; they think of themselves, after all, as Iraqis. If forced to choose, they would hitch their wagons to Iran rather than the United States — Iraq will always be on Iran's border and, for the foreseeable future, will depend on Iran to meet Iraq's energy needs.
The presence of Iran-aligned militias in Iraq is a lasting reality. The primary U.S. objective in Iraq should be a politically stable Iraq, averting significant sectarian violence and territorial losses to groups like ISIS. As David Schenker, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently argued, the latter can be achieved by leaving a modest U.S. presence in the Iraqi Kurdish region to aid counterterrorism efforts. What proponents and critics of withdrawal often get wrong is that they view Iraq as an adversary. It doesn't have to be if relations are normalized.
Polls indicate that economic development and corruption are more significant concerns for the average Iraqi today than security. A considerable number of Iraqis desire a more assertive U.S. stance against corruption, increased engagement in development initiatives, and a more candid critique of their political system's shortcomings. Washington should leverage its strengths, such as establishing robust anti-money laundering frameworks, implementing technical projects, maintaining infrastructure, and promoting human development.
These tangible forms of aid prove more impactful than other efforts dedicated to nurturing media and civil society, domains better suited for homegrown development. U.S. troops grant insights into the political and security developments of the country, but Washington should still be able to focus on areas where U.S. assistance is genuinely desired and needed after their withdrawal and potentially with less risk.
U.S. Ambassador Alina Romanowski is venturing into Iraqi society as much as possible, considering the restrictions she faces. In March of last year, she visited Mosul for the first time — a city liberated in part by overwhelming U.S. airpower and largely undergoing reconstruction with help from the U.S. after the ISIS conflict — a trip long made impossible due to security restrictions. She has engaged with various political leaders, including former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Shi'a theologian Ammar Al-Hakim.
However, her freedom of travel is limited compared to European counterparts, and she faces obstacles in meeting certain political and military figures for various reasons, not the least of which is that some are Specially Designated Nationals under U.S. sanctions. Removing U.S. troops could make it more politically tenable for U.S. diplomats to engage with Iraq as it is.
The low U.S. troop presence is invisible to most Iraqis. This doesn't mean it can't be used as a political football in intramural Iraqi games. But it is no accident that in the wake of each groundswell for ending the U.S troop presence, no action is ever taken. The Iraqis, who recognize the fragility of their state building enterprise, are not eager to experiment with a landscape devoid of U.S. troops. Many Iraqis outside of the Iran-aligned militias also see the U.S. military presence as a counterweight to Iranian influence. Some also fear that if U.S. troops leave, the benefits they receive through U.S. management of their monetary system will also go away.
It is not the U.S. military presence per se that is the problem from a restraint perspective. It is rather the fortress mentality of the official U.S. civilian presence. This imposes a heavy cost on the sustainability of diplomacy worldwide.
The U.S. Embassy operations in Baghdad cost about $1 billion per year. If this were a Defense Department responsibility, this figure would merit a shoulder shrug. But in comparison, the State Department's budget is miniscule — a vivid illustration of U.S. priorities — and its outlays in Iraq crowd out diplomatic initiatives elsewhere. The U.S. can withdraw militarily from Iraq, while continuing to facilitate temporary training missions. Most importantly, the U.S. should engage more broadly with Iraqi society and leave behind the fortress mentality that has hobbled U.S. diplomacy in Iraq.

This guide is designed to ensure that a comprehensive overview of the relevant provisions of the acquis communautaire is available to policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders in countries with a European vocation or those simply wishing to take the European Union (EU) regulatory model into account when devising their own national approaches. This guide outlines and summarizes the EU legislative framework governing corporate sector accounting and auditing. The guide begins by giving a brief history and overview of the EU, its institutions, and legislative processes in section one. In section two, the guide focuses on the development of the internal market, particularly in the areas of financial market integration and company law harmonization. Section three addresses the harmonization of accounting and auditing in the EU. Section four looks at the most pressing accounting and auditing issues for the EU.