For a lengthy period following the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. national security priorities focused largely on counterterrorism. That emphasis has waned slightly in the past few years, with American rhetoric shifting toward Great Power competition, given an emboldened China and a revisionist Russia seeking to upset the current order. This rhetorical change has been mirrored in a reallocation of U.S. funding.

Whatever the current focus, counterterrorism and Great Power dynamics converge in one country in particular—Syria—site of the greatest counterterrorism threat to the U.S. homeland and Russia’s largest play to reassert its global influence. It is also the location of Washington’s greatest regional power challenge, deriving from Iran’s push for regional primacy. These dynamics are at play within Syria, involving a number of actors: the United States and Russia, Turkey and Russia, Turkey and the United States, Iran and the United States, and Iran and Israel, among others. In contrast to the position that casts counterterrorism and Great Power competition as either/or challenges, a closer look shows that they are instead related. Only by understanding this can policymakers hope to resolve the underlying problems in Syria, which has suffered over the past several years due in part to Washington’s neglect.

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