Proxy war and US's smart power strategy (the case of Syria, 2011-2016)

‌Frequent application of the term “proxy war” indicates its prominent place in academic researches on international relations. Separate implementation of soft power and hard power proved to be unsuccessful in recent years. Accordingly, great failures in classic wars increased tendencies towards proxy wars. By the outbreak of Arab Springs in the early 2011, Syria was devastated by different opposition groups and driven into terrible violence. Obama administration, refraining from the bitter experience of Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, avoided direct intervention and managed to afford for the largest logistic support for rebel groups in Syria. The United States this time, tried to realize its policies in Syria by means of proxy war. The research, aims at analyzing the reasons for applying proxy war in the US policy in Syria in a general framework of Offensive realism. As a hypothesis, it seems that the new approaches towards proxy war can generally be interpreted according to the brother concept and the logics of smart power.