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List of contents
PREFACE
GLOSSARY
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
1.CHRONOLOGY OF THE CONFLICT IN NORTHEASTERN SYRIA, 20111-2020
2.BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE SDF
3.SUPPORTING FROM AFAR: KOBANI TO AL-HAWL
4.ON THE GROUND: SHADADI TO MANBIJ
5.SCALING UP: THE RAQQA CAMPAIGN
6.OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE: THE DEIR AL-ZOUR CAMPAIGN
7.STABILIZATION “BY, WITH AND THROUGH” THE SDF
8.ASSESSING AMERICA’S “BY, WITH AND THROUGH” CAMPAIGN IN NORTHEAST SYRIA
ANNEX 1: ANNOTATED ROSTER OF BATTLES AND CAMPAIGNS IN NORTHEAST SYRIA, 2014-2020
ANNEX 2: YPG/SDF CLAIMED COMBAT LOSSES IN 2013-2019
Index
About the author
Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is an expert on “by, with and through” military operations that blend U.S. and partner forces. Knights worked on campaign assessments for Operation Inherent Resolve, the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and has published a number of articles and reports on the war.Wladimir van Wilgenburg is an analyst of Kurdish politics and a journalist living in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.
Summary
The U.S.-led effort to fight the Islamic State in northeastern Syria since 2014 has been as controversial and poorly understood as it has been significant. Advocates of fighting “by, with and through” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) view the campaign as a near-ideal case study of a cost-effective U.S. military intervention that should be duplicated in the future. Critics of the campaign say that the U.S. allied itself with a terrorist group and endangered its ties with Turkey, a long-stranding NATO partner; losing sight of strategic priorities in order to win tactical victories at low cost.
This book combines general research with 50 interviews gathered in Syria with Kurdish, Arab and Christian SDF officers, and 50 interviews with U.S. and French officials and military officers with on-the-ground involvement in the war. It provides an unprecedented window into how the war was really prosecuted, in the eyes of the participants at all levels, uniquely looking not only at how U.S. soldiers view their partner forces, but how the local partners view them in return. This is a unique and essential insight into US strategy in Syria and beyond.
