Proceedings of the 24th International Academic Conference, Barcelona

ARAB SPRING-A PROXY WAR?

DENIZ ALCA

Abstract:

This paper will argue the concept of “Arab Spring” which has been used as a tool for perception management to cover up a multi-dimensional Proxy War that is ongoing within the borders of Middle East. Being an allusion to 1848 revolutions, which is known as “Spring of Nations”, Arab Spring is ought to be a grassroots movement. It is accepted as a breaking point for Arab Peninsula by western scholars, intellectuals and policy makers. However Liberte-Éqalite under the concept of democracy seems to be the subject matter of the process, the debate was rounding about establishment of legitimate governments immediately. Therefore, until the government of Syria’s unexpected resistance to so called social movements, Western countries insisted on the existence of the uprisings autonomous character in Middle East. After the challenge of Syria it became harder to claim autonomy or civility for the movements at the region. The direct intervention of western countries to the process made it even harder. In light of these developments building an intellectual argument on what is happening or expected in Middle East became more and more blurry. To clarify the process we propose a new point of view which suggests to rethink the Arab Spring starting from scratch. Can the so cold autonomous revolt against authoritarian regimes in Middle East be a proxy war which is sponsored by international actors? The Western Governments’ publicly discussions of some vital issues which includes direct violations of a “sovereign states” sovereignty rights such as weapon supplying to rebellions, can be considered as an indicator for such a hidden agenda. Likewise the refugee inflow to other countries can be a supporting indicator of this theory. The people who were so determined to take over the authoritarian regimes in their countries by revolution are now fleeing to Europe. What has changed and why those revolutionist are not holding the lines. Were they ever? This process is either a Global Civil War, which seems unlikely since nation states still exists and international law protects their existence, or more likely a Proxy War which makes it possible to fight war in a foreign country without any declaration. The ongoing Proxy War in Middle East is an example of post-modern warfare. The new wars will not seem to be fought by national armies. To ovoid the political and legal consequences of modern war, using proxies seems to be the future of new warfare.

Keywords: proxy war, proxy-agent, conflict, Global Civil War, modern state, modern warfare, new wars, human rights, authonomy, Arab Spring

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2016.024.004

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