Kelman Seminar: When Wars End Without Settlement: Syria and the Crisis of Post-War Bargaining

This talk examines how the Syrian war formally ended through a military campaign in late 2024 without producing a political settlement. While large-scale fighting concluded, the conflict did not close with a negotiated bargain over power, authority, or the future structure of the Syrian state. Drawing on field engagement, Track II dialogues, and the author’s recent research, the talk shows how military victory, selective normalization, ceasefire arrangements, and external economic and diplomatic opening have substituted for genuine political bargaining, locking in fragmented and informal power structures rather than generating an agreed political order.