Can Israel preserve the Druze Mountains?
On July 16, 2025, the Syrian army left the city of Sweida, as well as every other piece of land it controlled within that region, having held them for just two days. This was due [...]
Geography of the Alawites Massacre
The early-March 2025 massacres against the Alawites caused the deaths of thousands of people. Analyzing these events helps to understand the motivations of their perpetrators and the sequence of operations. Published in French in Revue [...]
Syria’s Islamist leader wants to make example of Alawites
The wave of sectarian violence that gripped Syria last week has marred the image of the country's new Islamist president, Ahmad al-Sharaa. Could the government have done more to prevent it? French academic Fabrice Balanche [...]
Trump’s Middle East Vision: Stability, Strategic Alliances, and Regional Power Dynamics
DeFacto, November 13, 2024 On the global stage, Donald Trump’s key objective remains ensuring the United States retains its status as the preeminent world power in the 21st century. At the core of this vision [...]
Fabrice Balanche Winner of the Conflits Award 2024
I am very proud to be honored with the Conflits Award 2024 for my last book: Lessons from the Syrian crisis, published by Odile Jacob, in March 2024. Conflits is in line with the French [...]
What we did not understand in Syria
Original article from Le Figaro written by Charles Jaigu CHRONICLE – Geographer Fabrice Balanche offers a powerful analysis of the Syrian war. This excellent teacher of a confusing reality dismantles once and for all the faults [...]
From Kirkuk to Deir ez-Zor: Threatened Kurdish Autonomies
Can the riots in Kirkuk be compared to the insurrection in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, where Arab tribes from the Euphrates Valley took up arms to oust the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces? An analysis by Fabrice [...]
Syrian mercenaries against Karabakh
Syrian mercenaries against Karabakh Article published in Haut-Karabakh: le livre noir, edited by Eric Denécée and Tigrane Yégavian. Ellipses, French Center for Intelligence Research, Paris, 2022 During its offensive against Karabakh, Azerbaijan used Syrian mercenaries. [...]
World Bank: “Building for peace in North Africa and the Middle East” 2018-2020
In 2018, the World Bank in cooperation with GIZ (German cooperation) launched an applied research program on reconstruction in countries affected by conflict in North Africa and the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya). [...]
Iraq and Syria: Kurdish Autonomous Regions Under Threat
Published on March 4, 2023 in Groupe d'Etudes Géopolitiques In November of 2022, Turkey bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) in Northern Iraq in retaliation for the attack in Istanbul [...]