The international community is failing Syria, again

A view through the lens of systems theory

Assad is gone and the Geneva process is history. Yet the international governance system that failed Syria for more than a decade has largely survived by adapting itself to a new diplomatic script while leaving its underlying incentive structures intact. Beneath the rhetoric of a new beginning, its business as usual, with many of the shortcomings that characterised international engagement before Assad’s fall persisting, regardless of where one stands on Syria’s new authorities.

30. August 2026