Introduction
When Bashar al-Assad’s system collapsed in December 2024, Washington and Moscow were forced into the same uncomfortable position: Syria was no longer a fixed arena structured around regime survival, but a moving target defined by transition politics, fragmented security landscapes, and a leadership whose legitimacy was simultaneously “revolutionary,” coercive, and contested. The rise of President Ahmad al-Sharaa sharpened the paradox. A figure once treated through the lens of counterterrorism became, almost overnight, an indispensable address for counterterrorism.
What followed was not a clean diplomatic “normalization.” It was a competitive, risk-managed re-entry into Syria by external powers, each using different instruments. The U.S. rebuilt its Syria policy around conditional engagement and reversible economic relief tied to security deliverables. Russia, having lost its client but not its assets, shifted from patronage to managed relevance, trying to preserve basing rights and economic footholds while adjusting to diminished political control.
