by Syed Hammaad Mehraj

War is often viewed as a localised and destructive phenomenon, affecting specific territories while leaving broader political orders intact. However, war is not confined to physical battlefields. Its effects transcend borders, reshaping societies, identities, and political truths. The wars in Palestine and Syria exemplify this. They have exceeded the artificial boundaries of nation-states and generated their own myths, narratives, and ontologies. The events that began on 7 October 2023 in Palestine were not limited to its geographical limits and had a direct bearing on the civil war in Syria. Hence, a reconceptualisation of war is necessary to understand its transformative impacts fully.

In this regard, critical war studies scholars argue that war is both constitutive and generative. It dissolves the boundary between war and society, emphasising conflict’s transformative and productive effects. Barkawi and Brighton (2011), doyens of this tradition, conceptualise war as a site of ontological transformation. They contend that the violence of war ‘reworks social and political orders’, producing new ways of understanding political authority and society, while generating new configurations of power and political authority, thus disrupting established norms. The ontological significance of war lies in its ability to challenge the political and social orders taken as given. As Bartelson (2018) observes, our moral and legal responses to war are conditioned by inherited definitions, yet war itself often redefines those meanings. As with previous wars, such as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, their influence expanded beyond the immediate site of conflict, influencing entire regions and having a snowball effect on further events. Similarly, contemporary wars in Syria or Palestine have reconfigured geopolitical alliances, challenged long-standing territorial arrangements, and produced unforeseen knowledge about societies and power relations.

War’s effects transcend its immediate violence, producing myths and truths that permeate political and societal memory. The ongoing war in Palestine, for instance, not only altered the state internally but also destabilised the broader region. It set into motion a larger turn of events that has structurally altered the power dynamics in the Middle East. As Barkawi and Stanski note, war conjoins societies and leadership in intricate webs of interaction. Beyond physical destruction, it disrupts identities, producing new roles and myths that redefine relationships within and beyond the state. Similarly, the performative attributes of war, as explored by Mulaj (2017), challenge existing political and territorial constructs, urging us to reimagine boundaries, sovereignty, and the limits of political authority. Mulaj (2017) emphasises the performative dimension of war, which arises from the centrality of bodily injuries. War’s performative violence generates new imaginaries of political boundaries. For instance, the protracted Palestinian resistance movement has reconstituted the idea of territorial sovereignty. War generates truth not as an abstraction but as a lived reality – myths forged through conflict become part of societal and political memory, strengthening the bonds of collective identities. A critical war studies perspective nudges us to think beyond the assumptions of the nation-state, which are deeply engrained in international relations. These assumptions are a result of the modern state system that emerged through colonial and racial hierarchies, which persist within IR theory. Wars, such as those in Palestine and Syria, highlight that war cannot be contained in geographical boundaries, and its excess and generative powers affect other conflicts as well. 

The generative effects of war also underscore its capacity to unsettle long-standing assumptions about territorial sovereignty. Clausewitz’s observations on war’s unpredictable and chaotic nature emphasise its ability to dissolve established certainties. The ongoing war in Palestine demonstrates this break with territorial assumptions. The violence following 7 October has spread far beyond Gaza. The war in Palestine weakened the so-called ‘Resistance Axis,’ involving players like Iran and Hezbollah. The certainty that Assad had finally won the civil war and defeated the opposition, especially after his acceptance into the Arab League, eventually proved to be highly tenuous – with events beyond the geographical boundary of Syria heralding his demise. Inadvertently, it was events that started in October 2023 that eventually resulted in the fall of the Assad regime. With Iran and Hezbollah weakened by the war in Palestine and Russia already bogged down in Ukraine, Assad’s primary benefactors were not able to rescue his situation as they did in 2015. This sequence of events demonstrates how conflicts in one region can precipitate political upheaval in another, exemplifying war’s transnational generative power.

The Syrian war, likewise, will not end within its geographical limits. It will destabilise neighbouring states, create transnational networks of militants and refugees, and redraw geopolitical alliances. The collapse of Syria as a cohesive territorial entity marked a profound disruption in the politics of sovereignty. Meanwhile, public discourse repeatedly questions, ‘Who is next in the Muslim world?’ – a reflection of anxieties about the unpredictability and expansiveness of modern conflicts. These dynamics underscore the inadequacy of viewing wars as geographically bounded events. So much so that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, during a meeting with journalists, media representatives, and the head of the State Information Service on Sunday, stated that ‘he has never been involved in bloodshed or taken anything that did not belong to him’, demonstrating the reverberations that the successful culmination of the Syrian revolution generated. This points to the fact that what has happened in Syria will be an inspiration for people in the broader Middle East region who are suffering under autocratic rule. 

The cases of Palestine and Syria show that war challenges the very foundations of modern political authority and territorial sovereignty. As events in Syria spread across the region and the violence of 7 October resonates beyond Palestine, it becomes clear that localised understandings of war are inadequate. Breaking free from the territorial trap requires a re-evaluation of sovereignty, identity, and justice. Unless we resolve conflicts based on equitable principles, no region remains untouched by war’s generative and disruptive power. The wars in Palestine and Syria demonstrate that the territorial trap of nation-states no longer holds. No state’s interests are secure unless broader regional disputes are resolved on principles of justice. As conflicts bleed across borders, territorial sovereignty appears increasingly fragile. Critical war studies also highlight that it is time to question ‘our presuppositions underlying disciplinary practices’. 

A peaceful Middle East requires us to recognise war’s generative effects and address its root causes – colonial legacies, territorial impositions, and unresolved historical injustices. We can reimagine regional stability by shifting beyond a territorial ontology of war and embracing transnational solutions. In this light, what began in Palestine or unfolded in Syria will inevitably transcend their origins, reshaping the future of the region and its political landscape.