By Reva Bhalla

Syria is clearly in a state of internal crisis. Protests organized on Facebook were quickly stamped out in early February, but by mid-March, a faceless opposition had emerged from the flashpoint city of Daraa in Syria's largely conservative Sunni southwest. From Daraa, demonstrations spread to the Kurdish northeast, the coastal Latakia area, urban Sunni strongholds in Hama and Homs, and to Aleppo and the suburbs of Damascus. Feeling overwhelmed, the regime experimented with rhetoric on reforms while relying on much more familiar iron-fist methods in cracking down, arresting hundreds of men, cutting off water and electricity to the most rebellious areas, and making clear to the population that, with or without emergency rule in place, the price for dissent does not exclude death. (Activists claim more than 500 civilians have been killed in Syria since the demonstrations began, but that figure has not been independently verified.)

A survey of the headlines would lead many to believe that Syrian President Bashar al Assad will soon be joining Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in a line of deposed Arab despots. The situation in Syria is serious, but in our view, the crisis has not yet risen to a level that would warrant a forecast that the al Assad regime will fall.

Four key pillars sustain Syria's minority Alawite-Baathist regime:

* Power in the hands of the al Assad clan
* Alawite unity
* Alawite control over the military-intelligence apparatus
* The Baath party's monopoly on the political system

Though the regime is coming under significant stress, all four of these pillars are still standing. If any one falls, the al Assad regime will have a real existential crisis on its hands. To understand why this is the case, we need to begin with the story of how the Alawites came to dominate modern Syria.

The Rise of the Alawites

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Assessing the evolving role of maritime power: How does the Royal Navy fit into the overall Defence Strategy?

By Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, First Sea Lord

 
"Futurology" is big business nowadays; you can hardly read a newspaper or watch a news programme at the moment without being given the benefit of somebody's assessment of the next 12 months. Everything from house prices to the stock market, from the outcome of the Champions League to the likely design of Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

But have you noticed how relatively few people are prepared to step up to the mark and make predictions on the bigger and more long term issues? Such as the potential strategic and geopolitical landscape in the coming years, or the UK's defence and security needs for the future.
 
This is hardly surprising when you consider how rare it is for analysts and commentators to predict correctly the strategic shocks that end up dictating our security responses; the collapse of communism, 9/11, and the current situation across the Maghreb to name but a few. As Harold MacMillan once said, "Events, dear boy, events."

So, you might be left wondering how I can possibly make assessments on the evolving role of maritime power and the Royal Navy of the future.

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