In the wake of the downfall of Syria’s Assad in December, 2024, that he had used chemical weapons against civilians in rebel areas against international law not only means that the victors of the coup would have ready access to chemical stockpiles, but also justifies other governments in breaking Syria’s national sovereignty by bombing the locations at which the noxious chemicals were being stored. This does not justify, however, governments hostile to Syria invading the country and destroying its military. Otherwise, the norm could be established, as valid, that any time there is a coup in a country, it is “open season” (a hunting expression) for any government in the world to snatch up territory and destroy the military. Although absolute sovereignty, which ignores international law, is too much, presuming a country with a new government to be valid prey goes too far in the other direction. I contend that both absolutist and nullified national sovereignty are contrary to the interests of the whole—the global order—wherein the protection of human rights (and thus international law) is in the interest of humanity especially given the horrendous destructiveness that a government can have against its own people and other countries in the nuclear age.
Just after the Assad regime folded, the BBC reported, “Israel has confirmed it carried out attacks on Syria’s naval fleet, as part of [Israel’s] efforts to neutralize military assets [in Syria] after the fall of the Assad regime.”[1] Fifteen vessels were docked at the port of Latakia. Israel also announced, moreover, that “its warplanes had conducted more than 350 air strikes on targets across Syria, while moving ground forces into the demilitarized buffer zone between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights.”[2] Just three days after that announcement, CNN reported that Israel had struck "nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out . . . 90% of Syria's known surface-to-air missiles."[3] Essentially, the Israeli government was taking advantage of the momentary weakness of a transitioning foreign goverment to rid a sovereign nation of its right to a military.
Israel’s defense minister said Israel wanted to “destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel.”[4] Because Syria had not been militarily active against Israel, the threat was not actual, but only potential. Israel said it invaded Syrian territory “to prevent attacks on its citizens.”[5] Israel had “a long history of seizing territory during wars with its neighbors and occupying it indefinitely, citing security concerns.”[6]
It seems that Israel no longer felt the need to bomb and invade another country during a war, as neither the media nor Israel would admit that bombings and an invasion constitute war. The implication, should Israel’s actions to rid another country of its military become the norm internationally, is that it is ok to eliminate the entire military (i.e., not just chemical weapons) of any country that finds itself in a brief interregnum following a coup (or power dispute) and whose military is even just potentially a threat or even just a security concern. This essentially opens the door to unfettered aggression anytime another country’s government is temporarily weak. Is it not the case that national sovereignty includes the right to have a military, or is that right conditional on the approval of the Israeli government?
Such a squalid, opportunistic
norm would not only violate international law, but would fall under the theory
of political realism wherein states follow their own strategic interests
unfettered by international norms or law. Hobbes’ state of nature is also
relevant, as Israel’s military aggression against another sovereign country
follows the dictum that might makes right. Syria had not ceased being a
country, and the mutually-agreed-upon demilitarized zone was so
obviously contracted, and thus violated, by Israel’s ground invasion that
situated military forces in the zone that no justification save the law of the jungle
could be sited by the Israeli government.
That Russia had unilaterally invaded Ukraine in 2023 and was still doing so as Israel was attacking and invading Syria could be enough to give the underpinning norm some de facto grounding to potentially become de facto valid, or at least more widely acted upon and with impunity. During Israel’s invasion of Syria, the media in both the E.U. and U.S. notably did not refer to the military action as a war, as would be expected when one country bombs and invades another country. With both Russia and Israel acting as kingdoms seeking empire militarily, it could be concluded that the “modern” twenty-first century was not fundamentally different than world history, as evinced by the Qing Dynasty (especially Emperor Kangi) in China, the ancient Romans, the Mongols, Alexander the Great, and the various European colonial empires.
After all, even with the promise of genetic engineering, human nature was still pretty much unchanged since the incremental changes through the process of evolution during the long, prehistoric hunter-gatherer stage. Put another way, human nature has been a constant from the ancient military invaders to Russia and Israel in the (technologically) “advanced” 21st century. In political-military matters, the raw power opportunism in modernity belies any claim to political development in international relations, even taking into account the impotent UN.
It seems unfathomable even to contemplate whether international relations were gradually returning to the dark ages of the state of nature in which aggression and political realism—essentially self-interest--are the only real guidelines. The trajectory unleashed by Russia and Israel in the century following two world wars—the second having ended with two nuclear bombs—does not bode well for humanity, whose exploding population and related energy pollution could render the question of unfettered international aggression moot.
At the very least, it is not at all antisemitic to label bombing and a military invasion as a war—and an unprovoked one at that, seeking the total destruction of another (sovereign!) country's military. A world of preemptive strikes based on security concerns to rid undesireable countries of their very defenses may be what humanity may be heading for since the U.S. invaded Iraq at the beginning of the “post-modern” century ostensibly to remove weapons of mass destruction. It seems to me that the emerging norm being foisted on the world by Israel and Russia is itself a weapon of mass destruction.
2. Ibid.
3. Mick Krever, "Why Israel Captured Syria's Tallest Mountain Just Hours After Assad Fell," CNN.com, December 14, 2024.
5. Rory E. Armstrong, “Israel Strikes Syrian Military Sites While Troops Move into Golan Heights Buffer Zone,” Euronews.com, December 10, 2024.
6. Ibid.