The Fall of the Assad Regime: A Balance-of-Power Perspective

The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 has drawn widespread attention. Using realism as an analytical lens to examine the causes, two hypotheses can be made: First, the original balance of power in Syria had been disrupted; second, the Assad regime ­performed poorly in power balancing, while Hayat Tahrir al-Sham performed well. Both hypotheses are empirically validated. The findings indicate that the Assad regime’s collapse resulted from the following factors: the disruption of Syria’s existing balance by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the spill-over of the Israeli-Palestinian ­conflict, and US sanctions; the Assad regime’s failure in internal balancing (weak military building and poor economic and political governance) and external balancing (disunity among allies, over-reliance on allies, and misguided attempts to act as a balancer); and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s superior performance in both internal balancing (military buildup and quasi-state governance) and external balancing (pragmatic diplomacy and flexible alignment).