Competing Allies: How Russia and Iran Jousted for Influence over the Syrian Armed Forces in 2015–2024

This paper considers two main questions: why Russia and Iran end up competing so much in Syria and the factors that hampered efforts to cooperate more smoothly. The paper is organised into four sections. The first section details the evidence of friction between Iran and Russia over the Syrian military and the Syrian economy and discusses the two countries' efforts to coordinate nonetheless. The second section looks at the impact (in terms of generating friction) of Iran and Russia’s favouring two very different approaches to fixing the crisis in the Baathist state in Syria. The third section discusses the struggle for influence over the Syrian armed forces. Finally, the fourth section looks at how this competition ended, with Iran emerging as dominant but ultimately lacking the resources to keep the Assad regime afloat at the end of 2024, when what turned out to be the final, victorious offensive of the opposition forces was launched.