The State Must Govern In Order To Rule

Syrians want order and economic recovery. Assad did not give it to them.

Photo by Aladdin Hammami on Unsplash

Bernard Fall’s observation that “When a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered” exposes a central truth about war and statecraft in a long-term civil conflict: the battle for governance eclipses the struggle for territory. Governance—the capacity to establish order, deliver services, and legitimize authority—forms the backbone of state resilience, especially in prolonged conflicts. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Syrian civil war, where the Assad regime’s failures in post-victory governance left the state brittle, vulnerable, and largely dependent on external patrons. This neglect has reshaped the region’s geopolitical balance, weakening Syria’s allies and opening opportunities for rivals like Turkey to consolidate power. Assad got lazy.

The Syrian Civil War started in 2011 as protests and civil disobedience, and by 2012 was a real shooting civil war. So it has been over twelve years. That is a long time. For example, the American Civil War was around 4.5 years, and the Spanish Civil War, which acted as a prelude to the Second World War, lasted three years. That's it, three years for Franco to win the Spanish Civil War. The Syrian conflict has been particularly protracted, meaning that you had to run a government or enforce some sort of functional order in the territory you ruled, whether you were the Assad government or a rebel force. It was just too much time not to have to administer a state.

It did not have to be this way. Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war granted the Assad regime a crucial military lifeline. Yet, once the battlefield victories were secured, Damascus failed to leverage them into political and economic recovery. Instead of rebuilding state infrastructure or addressing grievances that fueled rebellion—rampant corruption, lack of services, and economic decay—Assad presided over a government reduced to narco-corruption and brutality. The regime failed the most fundamental test of governance: restoring normalcy to recaptured areas.

For Russia, Syria was meant to be a showcase of Moscow’s influence and military acumen. And it was. Vladimir Putin’s forces took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then deployed to Syria and started smashing the rebels. Russian troops were feared again. A decade later, Assad’s governance vacuum turned this alliance into a liability. While Russia’s airstrikes, ground troops, and military advisors shifted the balance of power on the ground, they could not impose governance from above. Moscow’s frustration has become increasingly evident. Reports of Russian forces scaling back their operations in Tartus signal a quiet retreat from a faltering client state. Effectively Russia has abandoned its Middle Eastern naval base.

This failure is more than a tactical setback. Tartus, a critical node in Russia’s naval strategy, symbolized its ambition to project power in the Mediterranean. Losing its utility underscores the cost of aligning with a regime incapable of governing. Russia’s reliance on Assad has not only squandered resources but also diminished its prestige in the Middle East, signaling to other partners that Moscow cannot guarantee the stability it promises while still fighting in Ukraine, and with Ukrainian forces also attacking Russia itself, the war against Ukraine will always be the top priority for Putin’s military.

The Sultan’s Triumph

As Assad’s Syria fades into history and Russia recalibrates, Turkey has seized the moment to assert itself as the region’s most capable state actor. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has navigated the complexities of the Syrian conflict with precision, balancing competing alliances while consolidating Turkish influence. Unlike Assad, Erdoğan has grasped the value of governance as a strategic tool. In power since 2002, he rivals Putin for longevity and experience.

In the areas Turkey controls in northern Syria, Ankara has invested in partners who can bring stability to their areas of control. This governance-first approach not only stabilized its occupied zones but also set Turkey’s allies apart from Assad’s mismanagement. Turkey’s ascent as a regional hegemon owes much to its ability to out-administer rivals, proving Fall’s dictum: wars are won not by force alone but by the effective exercise of state power. Turkey now will seek to return the Syrian refugees who fled earlier during the conflict.

Syria’s unraveling fits a broader historical pattern: states that fail to govern ultimately fail to endure. The U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed not for lack of funds or weapons but because it could not deliver basic governance to its people. In fact, while Americans have complained about problems with the US-backed Afghanistan air force, the Pentagon has not answered why America’s ally could not beat the Taliban, which had no air force. Conversely, insurgent groups like the Taliban and ISIS, while repressive, understood the power of administration, offering their own grim versions of order and services. ISIS is largely defeated, but Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which partially began as an al Qaeda affiliate, is now the force in charge of the Syrian capital. Let me be clear about a fact that has not been emphasized in much of American media: the Taliban, which protected al Qaeda after 9/11, is now back in control of Afghanistan, and a group that once was a part of the al Qaeda network has ended the Assad regime and now bids to claim the position of the legitimate government of Syria by right of conquest. There can be no clearer indicator that the foreign policy of George W. Bush, the neocon foreign policy adopted by Biden, has completely failed. And now the Israelis have unwisely chosen to attack Syria, thinking that it will help them to beat them while they are down, but that is short-term thinking. Nothing will better unify people around a new jihadist-aligned government than the idea that their old enemy, Israel, is kicking Syrians while they are down.
Furthermore, Turkey, the most powerful government and military in the Middle East and a NATO member, is backing HTS while the US remains opposed is an additional headache for the USA. Turkey has played a careful double game, at one point designating HTS as a terrorist group while, on the other hand, it has supported HTS, helping it to establish independence from al Qaeda and defeat other jihadist groups to consolidate power. Now the test is whether they can remain aligned as the leader of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Abu Mohammed al-Julani, attempts to govern Assad’s former capital. Some have already speculated that al-Julani will seek to retaliate against Israel as his nom de guerre “al-Julani” is a reference to the Golan Heights, the plateau internationally recognized as a part of Syria and overlooking northern Israel and 2/3s which Israel took from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War, claimed in 1981, and then invaded the rest as the Assad regime collapsed. Abu Mohammed al-Julani is unique among jihadists, he was born in Saudi Arabia to a Syrian family from the Golan, and he has presented himself as a Syrian nationalist more than an international jihadi.

But governance is the hinge upon which legitimacy turns. Whether in war-torn Syria or post-conflict Afghanistan, no state can survive indefinitely as a kleptocracy or a gangster regime while potent rebels remain in the field. Without order and stability, military victories are hollow, temporary gains. The Syrian is a warning to dictators reduced to petty tyrants about the perils of ignoring the need for good government. In the end, Bernard Fall’s insight remains a stark truth: states that fail to govern will collapse under the weight of their own dysfunction. Dr. Bashar al-Assad, the British-trained ophthalmologist, should probably see if Putin will give him a license to practice. At the least, from exile in Moscow, he can visit his son, who recently completed his studies at Moscow State University; every parent's dream is to live closer to their kids.