One War, Two Countries: Syria and Ukraine
A Crown Seminar with Deborah Amos in conversation with Wendy Pearlman
Wednesday, March 29, 2023 (Video Available)
How has Russia's invasion of Ukraine impacted the situation in Syria? In the Syrian exile community of Germany, the accounts of Ukrainian cities besieged by Russian forces are tragically familiar. The bombardment of Mariupol, Kharviv and Kherson, seem like a repeat of the 2016 bombing of Aleppo. The tactics, and some of Russia’s soldiers and officers, had come directly from the war in Syria, which Moscow joined in 2015 to prop up President Bashar al Assad. The links between these conflicts, however, are not well understood by many international observers. Drawing on her decades of covering the Middle East as an international correspondent for NPR, Deborah Amos, in conversation with Wendy Pearlman, will examine how Syria was the prelude to Ukraine. Not only was the Syrian intervention the first military action outside the former Soviet Union but it also gave Russia a revived role in the Middle East and a path to assert Russian power globally.
Deborah Amos is the Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence at Princeton University and an award-winning international correspondent for National Public Radio. Her reporting on the Middle East and refugees in the U.S. is regularly featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered.
Wendy Pearlman, moderator, is a professor of political science, Crown Professor of Middle East Studies, and the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University.
Naghmeh Sohrabi, chair, is the director for research at the Crown Center and the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History.
Co-sponsored by the Journalism program, the International and Global Studies program, and the Department of Politics at Brandeis.