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Why the U.S. chose YPG to fight ISIS: a crucial test for (neo)-realist notions

Hajo, Rewend LU (2019) STVM20 20191
Department of Political Science
Abstract
The U.S. decision to partner with the Kurdish militia YPG to combat ISIS in Syria has caused its longstanding ally Turkey to align with Russia and Iran, and risks doing permanent damage to the NATO-alliance, ostensibly to the detriment of U.S. national interests. Taken at face value, this seems to contradict standard notions in neo-realist theory about state behavior. Given this seeming paradox, and the aberrant nature of the U.S.-YPG partnership, I apply the crucial-case method of the least likely version to test neo-realist theory in highly unfavorable circumstances. The theoretical framework is condensed to three units of analysis: security, alliance formation and national interest. The analysis is systemic, discarding effects of... (More)
The U.S. decision to partner with the Kurdish militia YPG to combat ISIS in Syria has caused its longstanding ally Turkey to align with Russia and Iran, and risks doing permanent damage to the NATO-alliance, ostensibly to the detriment of U.S. national interests. Taken at face value, this seems to contradict standard notions in neo-realist theory about state behavior. Given this seeming paradox, and the aberrant nature of the U.S.-YPG partnership, I apply the crucial-case method of the least likely version to test neo-realist theory in highly unfavorable circumstances. The theoretical framework is condensed to three units of analysis: security, alliance formation and national interest. The analysis is systemic, discarding effects of individual leaders in the decision-making process. I conclude that security and national interests do not explain the U.S. decision to partner with YPG convincingly, and have weak explanatory force. However, alliance formation captures the complexities unleashed by the U.S.-YPG partnership rather well. The findings do not fully refute/confirm the theory, but show that the crucial-case method is useful for pushing theoretical concepts to their limit. Lastly, I conjecture that applying non-systemic concepts to the case, allowing for notions such as tactical errors and miscalculations, might prove insightful. (Less)
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author
Hajo, Rewend LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVM20 20191
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
YPG, security, national interest, alliance formation, crucial-case
language
English
id
8976070
date added to LUP
2019-09-06 09:16:56
date last changed
2019-09-06 09:16:56
@misc{8976070,
  abstract     = {{The U.S. decision to partner with the Kurdish militia YPG to combat ISIS in Syria has caused its longstanding ally Turkey to align with Russia and Iran, and risks doing permanent damage to the NATO-alliance, ostensibly to the detriment of U.S. national interests. Taken at face value, this seems to contradict standard notions in neo-realist theory about state behavior. Given this seeming paradox, and the aberrant nature of the U.S.-YPG partnership, I apply the crucial-case method of the least likely version to test neo-realist theory in highly unfavorable circumstances. The theoretical framework is condensed to three units of analysis: security, alliance formation and national interest. The analysis is systemic, discarding effects of individual leaders in the decision-making process. I conclude that security and national interests do not explain the U.S. decision to partner with YPG convincingly, and have weak explanatory force. However, alliance formation captures the complexities unleashed by the U.S.-YPG partnership rather well. The findings do not fully refute/confirm the theory, but show that the crucial-case method is useful for pushing theoretical concepts to their limit. Lastly, I conjecture that applying non-systemic concepts to the case, allowing for notions such as tactical errors and miscalculations, might prove insightful.}},
  author       = {{Hajo, Rewend}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Why the U.S. chose YPG to fight ISIS: a crucial test for (neo)-realist notions}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}