Threats

Threats by People

Threats to Syria by people is the 2nd of 17 dimensions in Syrian society that influential local, regional, and international actors assessed and discussed through 3 rounds of interviews and feedback, beginning in January, 2016. Taken together, the 17 dimensions of the x-axis offer a comprehensive, holistic view of Syria and its people. Interview participants assessed the capacity of each dimension, represented by the y-axis; higher levels indicate greater capacity within that dimension for Syrians to respond effectively to existential global threats.

Threats by people are important because, like any threat, they compel a response. Every threat the country reacts to is an opportunity to strengthen Syrian national identity, sovereignty, and national capacity. Based on the 8-level hierarchy described in the question below, participants from 27 influential organizations assessed threats to Syria by people at different levels at this time in history, from as low as Level 1 to as high as Level 6. (At the bottom of this page, you can read statements interview participants gave to support their assessments.)
 

The Question

Other countries or non-state actors (international governmental organizations, businesses, NGOs, terrorists) can help a country, or damage it. Also, a country’s own government, or subgroups of its citizens can threaten the survival, stability, and development of the country as a whole. Whether from outside or inside the country, we are looking at threats from people. In the next twenty years, which level best describes how serious the threat is to the population, by outsiders, the government, or other residents? (If two seem equal, name the higher level.)

1.     Mass murder of part of the population.

2.     Ethnic cleansing or forced deportation of part of the population without mass killings.

3.     Violent harassment, but not killing or forced relocation, of part of the population.

4.     Nonviolent legal discrimination against part of the population. Strong informal pressure against social diversity—by other countries through sanctions, boycotts, or travel restrictions; or by the government.

5.     Significant pressure by outsiders or the government to conform to certain expectations.

6.     No threat to citizens, but the country would not help any other country, if the people of that country were attacked or there was a civil war in that country.

7.     No threat to citizens, and if the people of a closely allied country were attacked or a civil war emerged, the country would respond as if the threat were to itself.

8.     No threat to citizens, and if the people of any other country were attacked or a civil war emerged, the country would respond as if the threat were to itself.

WORK WITHIN SYRIA & THREATS BY PEOPLE

The thick brown line represents violent harassment of the population

The thick brown line represents the most conservative assessment of Syria's capacity to respond to threats by people, in which the violent harassment of parts of the population is tolerated. Any organization operating in Syria should be aware of the danger of violent harassment as a tolerated tool to express opposition to the work of the organization. 

STRENGTHENING SYRIAN CAPACITY TO HANDLE THREATS BY PEOPLE ONE STEP AT A TIME

If you aim too high: destructive overreach

Projects and agreements in the red area of the chart are overly ambitious and, at best, will be a waste of time. More likely, they will drive confusion and corruption into the country. An example is of initiatives that seek to create a society free of violent harassment by the government or other residents (level 3). If implemented in Syria, this attempted leap from a society in which large citizens and residents are being killed by the government, opposition groups, ISIL, and foreign air strikes (level 1) to one in which citizens have legal and practical protections against violent harassment (level 3) would be too much to do at once! Without first establishing a society that is free from massacres (level 1) and forced relocations (level 2), efforts to stop violent harassment would not be effective.

The vulnerability of post-invasion Iraqi society to human threats was similarly underestimated in the spring of 2003, as the United States and its partners operated on the faulty assumption that Iraq could successfully selectively filter the influence of foreign powers—including U.S. and its coalition allies (level 6).  As a result, inappropriate practices and projects drove confusion and corruption into Iraqi society with disastrous results.

The overall failure to recognize the human threats facing Iraq following the invasion in 2003 was implicit in the way that U.S. and coalition forces attempted to reconstruct the country. Assuming that the country was capable of pushing back against poorly designed foreign projects (level 6), reconstruction was carried out with the unrealistic vision of creating a country that would be capable not only of caring for its citizens, but also of transforming other countries in the region into stable and secure actors that would share its institutions and values (a level 7 goal). As our INCA platform reveals, however, this assumption was misguided and led to waste, corruption, and confusion. Reconstruction programs regularly overreached due largely to Iraq’s inability to effectively manage outside pressures by donor countries. Without incorporating Iraqi knowledge, well-intentioned projects were ineffective or ultimately harmed the country in some way. It was from this failure that Sovereignty First’s built its shared information platform and these INCA dimensional analyses, to make it easier for those who would help a country to listen effectively to counter-parties and Iraqi "ground truth" while choosing, designing, and implementing projects.