On the 8th of December 2024, Bashar Al-Assad fled Syria under the cover of night as Syrian rebels gained major ground in an offensive that overthrew the nearly 6 decade Baathist system of rule. This raises key concerns over how the country will operate without an internationally recognised government and the inevitable power vacuum that will emerge from Assad’s departure. 

As the War Politics Review has indicated, the challenges ahead for Syria are broad. The WPR note ‘The first challenge that is becoming immediately visible is the scale of the atrocities committed in Assad’s brutal prison system, which predates the civil war but grew in size and severity once the conflict began. That also raises the broader question of transitional justice. The caretaker government led by HTS said it plans to hold officials from the Assad regime accountable, but the degree to which Syria’s institutions will be capable of doing so remains an open question. New institutions will also need to be formed as part of the transition process, and ensuring that those are inclusive will go a long way toward establishing domestic legitimacy. That will be complicated, however, in a society as fragmented as Syria’s, as well as by the fact that the internal conflict is not fully resolved. There’s also the broad challenge of reconstruction. Syria has been ravaged by the civil war, leaving millions of Syrians in poverty. In the short term, the country will require enormous amounts of humanitarian assistance. In the longer term, it will need to rebuild its entire economy from the ground up. Syria may get a boost from the return of refugees, of which there are millions living outside the country, who could contribute productive forces—as well as potentially capital, depending on where they are coming from—to reconstruction efforts. But reintegrating them will also soak up resources that are in short supply. Meanwhile, Assad’s fall also has significant implications for great power competition and for the external actors who have been involved in the country. Russia is likely to take the biggest hit from the transfer of power. After all, the effectiveness of the HTS-led surprise offensive was already in part attributable to Russia’s weakened ability to project force to the region the way it did prior to having focused its attention and resources on its invasion of Ukraine. Should the new government end Russia’s military presence in the country, Moscow stands to lose a naval base on the Mediterranean Sea and an airfield that it has used as a logistical hub supporting its operations across the Middle East and Africa.’ (WPR.2024) As the authors observe, the immediate challenge will be transitional justice. This will be needed to account for the years of human rights abuses perpetrated by Assad’s government. Furthermore, the return of refugees to Syria will give it a boost, but the nation will need an extensive rebuilding process, both economic and infrastructural, following over a decade of civil war. Russia will undoubtedly take a significant hit following the change of power in Syria and may even see their military bases disbanded in the region. 

Another implication of Assad’s fall in the region is a scramble for Syria’s illicit drugs market. As Emir Nader of the BBC explains ‘When Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Damascus and gave a victory speech on the heels of a lightning military campaign that swept through the country and toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime, one remark went widely unnoticed. That was his reference to an illegal narcotic that has flooded the Middle East over the past 10 years. "Syria has become the biggest producer of Captagon on earth," he said. "And today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God." Mostly unknown outside of the Middle East, Captagon is an addictive, amphetamine-like pill, sometimes called "poor man's cocaine". Its production has proliferated in Syria amid an economy broken by war, sanctions and the mass displacement of Syrians abroad. Authorities in neighbouring countries have struggled to cope with the smuggling of huge quantities of pills across their borders. All the evidence pointed to Syria being the main source of Captogan's illicit trade with an annual value placed at $5.6bn (£4.5bn) by the World Bank … Now, as Syria's rebel leaders consolidate their power over the organs of state, it seems they are fully aware of positive signals they are sending to wary neighbouring states when they promise to crack down on the Captagon trade. But it might be a steeper task for them to wrest the country away from a lucrative criminal enterprise after so many years when it was encouraged by the state itself.’ (BBC.2024) As the authors ascertain, the proliferation of the drug Captagon has exponentially increased in recent years following the deteriorating economic conditions of Syria. The new rebel governance that is occupying Syria will need to effectively transition from illicit to licit markets and crack down on the supply lines to prevent full scale narco-wars from surfacing in the nation. 

Overall, the Syrian people have reason to be optimistic—nearly 6 decades of brutal Assad dynasty rule has come to an end. However, the transitional government must effectively manage the developing power vacuum created by Assad’s departure, the drug proliferation crisis in the region and the reconstruction of the Syrian economy and infrastructure in the years ahead.