In war-torn Syria, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime has exploited conscription to control the society and extract financial resources. This further impoverishes the society while favoring corruption and the president’s centralization efforts.

History and legal framework

Conscription was imposed in Syria for the first time in 1947, more than a year after the country became independent. Later, the new geopolitical atmosphere that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948 imposed the need for strong military institutions. Therefore, conscription and adhering to it represented an essential way to deal with the emerging threat and strengthen the military.

The military has played a key role in shaping the Syrian approach to governance, including the current regime. Conscription is one of the decisive issues that will shape the military institution in the future, especially when the 2011 conflict will end.

The conscription law, promulgated by Legislative Decree 30 of 2007 and its amendments, governs all matters related to conscription. This law includes provisions, rules, and regulations for conscription and reserve military service, as well as duties, rights, guarantees, financial provisions, and penalties. Since its promulgation, the law has been amended nearly 25 times: with most of the amendments coming after 2011.

The conscription length is one of the most important issues defined by the law, and it has varied because of political and military conditions in Syria and the region. For example, in 1947 the duration was 18 months, then it increased to 24 months in 1956 and to 30 months in 1968, in 2005 it was shortened to 24 months, then to 21 months in 2008 and finally it became 18 months in March 2011.

The Syrian regime has always managed to impose more service on compulsory military personnel, such as military retention or reserve service, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967, the October War in 1973, and the Syrian intervention in Lebanon in 1982. This continued following the Syrian revolution in 2011, and it became almost impossible to finish one’s service. In many cases, the compulsory draft lasted for 7-9 years or more, representing a direct reason for evading service or defecting.

Dealing with conscription in a war-torn country: exemptions and ambiguities

Another topic of utmost importance after 2011 –although existing before- is the military service exemption fee (allowance) which is permitted only to Syrians residing abroad. In 2020, the value ​​of the military service exemption fee for residents abroad included in the conscription law was amended: $7000 to be paid for those who stayed abroad for a period of no less than four years, $8000for no less than three years, $9000 for no less than two years, and $10.000 for no less than one year. This amendment allowed, for the first time, to also accept exemption fees for reserve service: Syrians who stayed abroad for at least one year now have to pay $5,000 to be exempt from serving.

The regime resorted to this amendment due to its dire need for foreign exchange and the value of the exemption fees increased with short periods of staying abroad. Obviously, the law considers some exemptions, such as postponing the service if the mandated person has a brother already in the service, if he is the only child of his parents, plus the postponement for academic purposes.

Moreover, the mandated person who was placed in fixed service, such as a person with poor health conditions that prevent him from field service, is entitled to pay $3,000, or equivalent local currency, as a service exemption fee. Draft dodgers, when they turn 42, must pay $8,000 or they are at risk of an executive seizure of their property even without being notified. This has allowed the regime to seize the property of many Syrians under the pretext of not serving or paying the service exemption fee. The law also contains loopholes in some articles, allowing a certain ambiguity in the interpretation of the text. This paved the way for the emergence of corruption networks from the highest to the lowest levels, until some conscription law articles were amended based on Russian directives. Compulsory conscripts continue to be treated like a prey to the needs of the regime’s leadership to cover the human shortage in the army. Many conscripts are kept in service for several years without even allowing the Parliament to consider the possibility of ending their military service. In addition, the conscription law lacks a framework for parliamentary oversight by the Parliament. Conversely, the President of the Republic monopolizes the implementation of essential amendments to the law, while the role of the Parliament is limited to implementing minor amendments that do not fall within the essence of conscription.

The Regime’s goals and the social fallout

Conscription is supposed to form an inclusive framework for all groups of people to increase the sense of national belonging. However, the unbalance of social composition and the strong sectarianism in selecting officers and permanent corps had a significant impact on the conscript corps as well, and was an additional reason for the societal division. This was very notable after 2011, as a result of defections from the army due to the reluctance to join the service.

In addition, the Syrian regime used conscription as a multifaceted tool to put pressure on the Syrian society and drain it through imposing a set of paths in front of any person charged with conscription, whether in the country or abroad. Citizens in Syria must perform the service de jure, as the law does not allow the payment of an exemption fee inside the country, except for fixed service. This has paved the way for financial and administrative corruption in the Ministry of Defense and the medical examination committees.

The Syrian army suffers from a scarcity of human resources that it is not going to regain its pre-2011 recruitment momentum over the next few years. A large part of Syrians has become refugees abroad, while another part lives in areas outside of regime control. While the Autonomous Administration of North Eastern Syria and its military arm, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), imposes conscription under the guise of “self-defense“, compulsory military draft is not implemented in areas controlled by the National Army or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS): here military service is optional, with non-state actors competing with the Syrian regime for recruits.

The scarcity of the army’s manpower and the long period of conscription and reserve service created several crises in the public sector, with particular regard to health and engineering positions. This prompted a large number of degree holders to emigrate or seek asylum abroad. Thus, conscription also constitutes a social problem resulting in serious consequences for a society lacking human resources due to the war.

This was especially evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the latter half of 2022 and beyond, the regime has attempted to mitigate the damage through a set of decisions issued by Bashar al-Assad in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces. The new legislation ended the retention of doctors and demobilized them from conscription, in addition to ending the retention and call-up of reserve officers and students by demobilizing them as well. Additionally, the regime accepted a number of students and graduates of medical and health colleges who committed to servein specific public entities for a 10 year-period rather than being conscripted.

Conscripts in compulsory or reserve service continue to face many challenges, primarily with regard to the length of service, as well as the poor conditions in which they perform their service. As a matter of fact, conscripts suffer from a permanent lack of food in addition to low monthly salaries, which do not exceed $5 at best. Consequently, many conscripts often violate the law by performing”looting” and “plundering” operations (Arabic Ta’feesh), under the protection and supervision of their officers. For instance, some conscripts impose royalties during their service at military checkpoints in roads and between cities and towns. Some conscripts opt for paying a bribe to corrupted officers in exchange for doing their service at home. This bribery process is called “Tafyeesh”, and it is not a phenomenon that emerged in 2011 since it predated the revolution.

The conscription issue and Assad’s powers: redrawing civil-military relations

In Syria, the legal and social frameworks of conscription are interlinked and affect each other. The conscription law is used by the regime to put pressure on social carriers in order to collect additional financial income of foreign exchange. For Syrians living abroad or in the areas under regime’s control, conscription remains a nightmare.

The regime adapted conscription to serve its ends, exploiting the military in order to subjugate the society. This explains the shift occurring in civil-military relations which benefits the Assad regime. In fact, the President/Commander-in-Chief has been centralizing his powers not only on the conscription law –at the detriment of the Parliament- but also on the whole defense sector which falls within his sovereign scope.