Was the United States’ withdrawal of support for Kurdish armed formations in Syria merely a situational response to shifting realities on the ground - or are we witnessing a deeper turn in American regional strategy, a move away from proxy warfare toward a reconfiguration of the Middle East through the restoration of state hierarchy and the dismantling of parallel centers of power?
Framing the question this way matters. It pushes the analysis beyond the familiar narrative of “betrayed Kurds” and situates recent events within a broader transformation of U.S. security policy in what might be called the post-proxy era.
From Proxy Warfare to State Centralization: A Shifting Framework
Since the early 2010s, U.S. policy in the Middle East has rested on a doctrine of limited engagement, one that placed non-state armed actors at the center of its operational playbook. Widely deployed in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, this model promised to minimize direct costs while preserving Washington’s ability to project power.
Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria - eventually institutionalized as the Syrian Democratic Forces - became one of the clearest embodiments of this logic. They served multiple purposes at once: the ground force against the Islamic State, a mechanism to constrain Damascus and Tehran, and a pressure point on Ankara.
But the proxy model has built-in limits. It works in the heat of active combat, yet it begins to generate strategic liabilities once the shooting subsides. Chief among them is the emergence of quasi-state entities - lacking international legitimacy but claiming the attributes of sovereignty, from territorial control to resource management and armed institutions.
By 2020–2024, the United States had walked straight into this trap in Syria.
An Institutional Signal: Tom Barrack’s Statement as a Paradigm Marker
The remarks delivered in Ankara by Tom Barrack, the U.S. president’s special envoy for Syria, were less diplomatic messaging than doctrinal signaling. His assertion that the SDF’s mission had run its course, coupled with a direct call for their full integration into the Syrian state, amounted to a rejection of the earlier assumption that autonomous armed formations were an acceptable long-term arrangement.
Such language is not improvised. In the American foreign-policy system, an ambassador - especially one carrying a special envoy’s mandate - speaks for a coordinated interagency consensus. What was on display, then, was not a tactical adjustment but a reassessment of the foundational premise underpinning the U.S. presence in northeastern Syria.
The White House’s Role: Locking in the Shift at the Highest Level
The decisive moment came with a public statement by President Donald Trump identifying Damascus as a new U.S. partner in the fight against the remaining structures of the Islamic State. In Washington’s institutional logic, presidential pronouncements serve as strategic anchors: they do not merely reflect consensus, they define the framework within which all other agencies operate.
Crucially, the statement made no mention of the SDF as a party to future arrangements. That omission carried more weight than any explicit rebuke. In American politics, silence often signals exclusion from the strategic map.
The message from the White House was unmistakable: the era of cooperation with non-state Kurdish forces was over, and the new bet was on rebuilding the vertical of a recognized state - regardless of who sat at the top.
Historical Context: The Kurdish Alliance Was Always Temporary
In hindsight, this turn should not come as a shock. As early as 2017, State Department officials openly emphasized the tactical nature of cooperation with Kurdish formations. Public assurances about the temporary character of these ties and the absence of long-term commitments were baked into the official U.S. position.
From the start, the Kurdish project in Syria was viewed as an instrument, not a partnership. Its value was defined entirely by immediate utility - defeating the Islamic State and holding territory after the collapse of the so-called caliphate.
Once those tasks lost urgency, and once Damascus reemerged as a viable alternative channel, Washington’s choice became largely predetermined.
Legitimacy Versus Efficiency: Washington’s Core Dilemma
In the post–Cold War era, U.S. foreign policy has repeatedly oscillated between two competing imperatives: operational efficiency and international legitimacy. Proxy structures tend to deliver the former but undermine the latter. States do the opposite.
The formation of a new administration in Damascus and its reintegration into international counterterrorism mechanisms fundamentally altered that equation. The United States gained the option to operate through a formally recognized state, reducing both legal exposure and political risk.
Seen through this lens, the abandonment of the SDF was not a moral judgment but a cold institutional calculation.
The Regional Dimension: Why Turkiye Became the System-Defining Variable
Any serious analysis of Washington’s pivot is impossible without accounting for the Turkish factor. For Ankara, the Kurdish question has always been existential, extending far beyond the Syrian theater. Turkish strategic thinking for decades has rested on a core assumption: any political or military structure linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party constitutes a threat to the integrity of the state, regardless of the banner under which it operates. The emergence along Turkiye’s southern border of an entity rooted in the PKK’s military and political infrastructure was treated as a red line - one whose crossing would render not only trust, but the very logic of alliance relations, untenable.
By the mid-2010s, the Kurdish issue had become the primary source of structural tension between Washington and Ankara. U.S. support for the SDF - viewed in Turkiye as a direct extension of the PKK - was interpreted by the Turkish establishment as a blatant disregard for its sovereign interests and a violation of basic alliance ethics within NATO. This contradiction was not tactical but systemic: America’s reliance on Kurdish forces amounted, in Turkish eyes, to de facto backing of an organization Ankara officially designates as terrorist. Turkiye’s response went well beyond diplomatic protest, triggering a series of actions that reshaped the region’s strategic landscape.
The military operations Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), and Peace Spring (2019) were the practical embodiment of Turkiye’s doctrine of active defense. They not only blocked the formation of a continuous PKK-controlled corridor stretching from Iraq to the Mediterranean, but also created new security zones where Ankara entrenched its administrative, economic, and humanitarian presence. In doing so, Turkiye demonstrated that its position was not rhetorical posturing but a long-term strategy backed by the full weight of national institutions - from the General Staff to the Foreign Ministry.
Washington was slow to absorb this reality. Efforts to preserve a balance between Turkiye and Kurdish partners produced mounting distrust on both sides. But as the U.S. strategy in Syria began to lose effectiveness and Turkiye’s influence over regional dynamics became decisive - particularly on energy, migration, and defense - the White House made a pragmatic call to de-escalate confrontation.
Removing the Kurdish irritant automatically opened space for rebooting the U.S.–Turkiye strategic dialogue. For Ankara, this was more than a diplomatic win; it was validation of a line pursued consistently since 2015. For Washington, it offered a path to restoring Turkiye’s status as a key partner and regional stabilizer. The American pivot thus reflected not only fatigue with confrontation, but an acknowledgment of a hard truth: any Middle East strategy that sidelines Turkiye is destined to fail.
Seen in this light, the U.S. abandonment of the Kurdish proxy project in Syria should not be read as improvisation or a moral “sellout,” but as part of a broader reconfiguration of American regional strategy - a shift from fragmented conflict management toward restoring a hierarchy of state responsibility and legitimacy.
The next section examines in detail the mechanics of integrating the SDF into the Syrian state, Ankara’s role in shaping the new security architecture, and the long-term implications of this turn for the Kurdish question and regional stability in the Middle East.
Dismantling by Design: Integration as Strategic Disarmament
The 14-point agreement on full integration between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces, brokered by the United States, is not a compromise in the classical sense. It is a carefully engineered mechanism for dismantling an autonomous armed actor.
Its defining feature is asymmetry. Kurdish structures relinquish political and military subjectivity, while the Syrian state assumes no reciprocal obligations toward federalization or any redistribution of sovereignty. In international practice, such arrangements are typical of “post-proxy reintegration” phases, when an external patron deliberately downgrades a former partner, shifting it from actor to object of governance. Comparable models were applied by the United States in Iraq after 2008 with the Sunni Sahwa forces, and in Afghanistan during attempts to absorb local militias into national security institutions.
Formally, SDF integration entails:
– the transfer of heavy weaponry to central authorities,
– incorporation of personnel into Syrian security bodies on an individual rather than collective basis,
– dismantling autonomous command structures,
– abandonment of external funding channels and political representation.
In essence, this is a phased dismantling of proxy architecture - not through a single violent rupture, but via a controlled loss of autonomy.
Damascus’ New Administration: Conditional Legitimacy as a Strategic Asset
The formation of Ahmed al-Sharaa’s administration in Damascus became the key structural precondition for Washington’s pivot. Despite internal contradictions and a limited international reputation, it solved a problem of first-order importance for the United States: it created a workable interface for engagement. For a Washington seeking to minimize the risks inherent in reliance on non-state armed actors, a manageable partner in the form of the Syrian state was a rational choice driven by pragmatism, not ideology.
This is not a full political rehabilitation of Damascus in Western eyes. Neither Washington nor Brussels is prepared to treat al-Sharaa’s government as a fully legitimate partner integrated into global institutions. Yet in the realm of security policy, this configuration proved functional. It became a “minimally sufficient” model - one that allowed the United States to replace unreliable proxies with a state actor operating within a legal framework.
Al-Sharaa’s administration meets three criteria Washington considers decisive. First, controllability: unlike decentralized Kurdish structures, the Syrian government can enforce commitments vertically and is not hostage to autonomous field commanders. Second, legal subjectivity: agreements with Syria’s central authorities fit within international law, sparing the United States the need for opaque arrangements that undermine its own legal standing. Third, regional compatibility: the new administration has built pragmatic working relations with Ankara, Baghdad, and Amman - three capitals critical to cross-border security architecture and future regional logistics.
For Washington, these factors were sufficient to justify a symbolic but strategically consequential move: replacing the SDF as a proxy partner with a state actor, however politically problematic. This choice reflects a broader trend toward the institutionalization of chaos - prioritizing manageability, accountability, and minimal predictability over ideological alignment. In doing so, the United States gained room to construct a new system of checks and balances in which Damascus, for all its limitations, became part of an emerging framework of regional stability.
Turkiye Recast: From Obstruction to Co-Author of the Security Architecture
For Ankara, the unfolding shift represents more than threat removal - it is institutional recognition of a strategic line pursued since 2015. From the outset of the Syrian conflict, Turkiye consistently opposed any form of Kurdish autonomy along its southern border, viewing it as an extension of PKK infrastructure. That conviction drove a series of military operations - from Euphrates Shield to Peace Spring - aimed not only at expelling PKK-linked forces, but at creating a secure corridor under Turkish control.
Crucially, Turkiye’s position was never reactive. It was doctrinal, enshrined in national strategic documents. In Turkish strategic culture, the Kurdish issue belongs to the category of “indivisible threats,” where compromise is seen not as diplomatic success but as deferred defeat. Ankara has always maintained that any PKK-linked autonomy constitutes a long-term danger - not only to Turkiye’s territorial integrity, but to regional stability as a whole.
This belief underpinned Turkiye’s systematic investment in dismantling federalist and quasi-state projects in northern Syria. Military operations were paired with diplomatic pressure, negotiations with Moscow, Washington, and Tehran, and an active policy of local stabilization in reclaimed areas. The creation of local administrations, infrastructure projects, and humanitarian programs was designed to demonstrate that security and governance could exist without separatism or external patronage.
Washington’s current pivot - signaled by the withdrawal of support for the SDF - amounts to recognizing Turkiye as a co-author of the new regional security architecture. U.S. policymakers concluded that attempts to balance Ankara against Kurdish forces had reached a dead end. The contradiction between alliance with a NATO member and support for forces tied to a designated terrorist organization became unsustainable.
As a result, Turkiye is shifting once again from “problematic ally” to anchor state - capable of acting as stabilizer and security guarantor. This marks a qualitative change. For the first time in years, Turkish strategy has not merely aligned with the interests of major players; it has been integrated into their long-term calculations. Ankara has gained not only moral vindication but political confirmation that its line on preventing Kurdish autonomy was strategically justified - and, in the context of the new Middle Eastern reality, effectively unavoidable.
The End of Parallel Power Centers as a Regional Trend
Washington’s decision to abandon support for the Syrian Democratic Forces should not be read as an isolated episode. It is a symptom of a far broader shift in the Middle East’s security architecture, one in which major external players are moving away from a strategy of “control through chaos” toward a model of managed stabilization.
Since the 2010s, the region has operated under a system of fragmented security - a web of armed groups functioning as proxies for outside powers. The United States, Iran, Russia, Turkiye, and the Gulf states all relied on these actors as instruments of influence. That model has now run its course. In Iraq, steps are underway to fold the Shiite formations of Hashd al-Shaabi into the Ministry of Defense, stripping them of autonomous status. In Lebanon, international pressure on Hezbollah is intensifying: after the weakening of Iran’s regional network and amid deep internal crises, Beirut is being forced to confront the question of curbing its military independence. In Syria, Moscow and Damascus are methodically eliminating the remaining “gray zones” where local militias and parallel administrations once operated. In Yemen, negotiations between Riyadh and the Houthis revolve around postwar centralization and the subordination of armed structures to a unified state authority.
The driving force behind this transformation is exhaustion. Parallel centers of power - once seen as convenient levers - have mutated into sources of uncontrollable risk. Regional economies slid into criminalization: oil, arms, and drug smuggling hollowed out legal markets. Transnational terrorism, with fighters moving between Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, produced a self-sustaining ecosystem of violence. The investment climate collapsed; no serious capital flows into territories where authority is fractured. Even the external sponsors themselves came to realize that “managed chaos” had stopped being manageable.
The region is now entering a phase of what might be called limited state reconstruction. The new wager is on restoring vertical authority - imperfect, often unattractive, but centralized. This is not a return to the old authoritarian order, but an attempt to build minimally functional states capable of delivering basic security and predictability. For the United States, it is a way to reduce costs and refocus on competition with China. For Russia, it offers a channel to lock in influence through state institutions. For Turkiye, it creates an opportunity to secure its borders and stabilize northern Syria.
From this perspective, the abandonment of the SDF is not a sign of weakness or retreat. It is a signal of an era change. The age of non-state armed groups as the preferred tools of foreign policy is ending. What follows is a slower, messier, but ultimately unavoidable process: the reconstitution of statehood on the ruins of decades of disorder.
The Kurdish Question: A Strategic Trap with No Exit
For Kurdish elites in northeastern Syria, the current moment has brought a painful but inevitable awakening. The illusions are gone. What remains is classic, hard-nosed international politics - without sentiment, moral credit, or the romanticism of “values.”
The core strategic error of Kurdish political and military structures lay in a fatal substitution: a tactical, temporary alliance was mistaken for a durable strategic partnership. That misreading of how great-power foreign policy actually works is at the heart of today’s crisis.
History is unforgiving in this regard. For decades, the Kurdish factor has been used as leverage, rarely as an end in itself. In the 1970s, Iraqi Kurds became expendable currency in a shifting regional balance, losing support the moment interests realigned. In 1991, after the Gulf War, they were again offered hope - but no guarantees. Each time, Western backing proved conditional and reversible, withdrawn as soon as the configuration of interests changed.
Northeastern Syria was no exception. The military and political reliance on the United States was driven by a strictly utilitarian objective: fighting terrorist networks and containing unwanted actors. There were never any legal commitments to Kurdish autonomy, let alone statehood - and none exist today. In that sense, Kurdish elites became hostages not of broken promises, but of their own expectations.
At this stage, room for maneuver is virtually nonexistent. Resistance to integration would trigger a predictable chain reaction.
First, the loss of American cover. Washington operates with ruthless pragmatism: once an instrument ceases to be useful - or begins to generate added risk - it is removed from the board. This is not betrayal; it is calculation, and it should never have come as a surprise.
Second, direct confrontation with Turkiye. Ankara views any quasi-state Kurdish entity on its borders as an existential national security threat. Unlike abstract international statements, Turkiye’s position is backed by real military, intelligence, and political power, embedded in a long-term strategic doctrine.
Third, international isolation. No serious actor today is prepared to underwrite an autonomous Kurdish project in Syria. Lack of recognition, sanctions exposure, and a deficit of legitimacy would turn the region into a gray zone with no sustainable development path.
Fourth, gradual military exhaustion. Even the most motivated forces cannot hold territory indefinitely without external backing, steady financing, and access to modern resources.
Against this backdrop, integration - however costly - remains the only rational option. This is not about victory, but damage control. The price of abandoning political autonomy is the preservation of some social, administrative, and кадровый capital; the physical survival of elites and civilians alike; and a chance, however constrained, to participate in Syria’s future order.
International politics rarely rewards idealism. It favors those who can read signals early and adjust course in time. For Kurdish structures in northeastern Syria, that moment has arrived. Further defiance will not change reality - it will only raise the cost of adaptation.
The American Logic: Minimizing Commitments, Maximizing Control
From Washington’s perspective, the new line offers a set of clear advantages. It
– reduces the direct costs of U.S. presence,
– shifts the burden of security onto regional actors,
– lowers the level of friction with Turkiye,
– and formally reinforces the principle of territorial integrity.
Crucially, this is not a “return” to classical interventionism, nor is it a full-scale U.S. withdrawal from the region. What we are seeing instead is an evolution toward a model of remote governance through formally legitimate states - one in which the United States preserves leverage but avoids the role of a direct security guarantor.
Long-Term Consequences: A Window for Stabilization or a Deferred Crisis
For all its internal logic, the current pivot carries substantial risks. Integrating former proxy forces into weak state systems is always fraught with the danger of fragmentation, sabotage, and renewed violence.
Several variables will be decisive:
– Damascus’s real capacity to control integrated forces,
– Turkiye’s willingness to stop at the achieved outcomes rather than expand its military footprint,
– the extent to which the United States maintains political and intelligence monitoring,
– and the socio-economic reintegration of Kurdish-majority regions.
Even so, compared with the alternative - preserving a quasi-state entity - the current model appears less risky for external actors.
Final Assessment and Strategic Takeaways
The U.S. withdrawal of support for the SDF is part of a systemic transition from proxy-based conflict management toward the restoration of state hierarchy.
The pivot was driven primarily by a combination of sustained Turkish pressure and the emergence in Damascus of a partner Washington deems manageable.
From the outset, Kurdish structures were treated by the United States as a temporary instrument, not a strategic ally.
The region is entering a phase of dismantling parallel centers of power - a process that may reduce chaos but does not guarantee durable stability.
For external investors and diplomatic actors, the new configuration offers greater predictability while preserving deep structural risks.
Strategic Recommendations
– The United States should retain a political monitoring mechanism for the integration process.
– Turkiye should consolidate the gains already achieved and avoid expanding its military objectives.
– International institutions should prioritize the economic reintegration of northeastern Syria.
– Regional states need to develop multilateral security formats that do not rely on proxy actors.
What is unfolding is not a clean resolution, but a recalibration. Washington is narrowing its obligations while seeking to preserve influence - accepting imperfection in exchange for control, and predictability over permanent improvisation.