Middle Powers and Limited Balancing: Syria and the Post-October 7 Wars

This article contends that to explain the grand strategies of states in the Middle East, we must employ the concept of middle powers. Analyzing the case of Syria between 2011 and 2021, it finds that these actors preferred a strategy of limited balancing against direct threats to their national security. We support this theory through two methodological steps. First, we define a boundary for a subregional sphere focusing on a conflict, and, using material criteria, we identify the middle powers engaged in that conflict. Second, we employ the neoclassical grand-strategy model to analyze their identities, auxiliary threats, goals, and significant military operations. We argue that the main goal of these middle powers is to adopt limited balancing to curtail immediate and proximate threats. We illustrate this by examining how four middle powers—Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—acted in the context of the Syrian civil war. Finally, we show how this theory applies to the post-October 2023 wars between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.