Strategic Dimensions of Forced Migration in Syria

Of the estimated 22.5 million refugees worldwide, nearly one quarter are Syrians. The country’s civil war, now in its sixth year, has left as many as 500,000 people dead and has displaced another 11.5 million, more than half the country’s pre-war population. The scale of this human tragedy has sometimes obscured the political and strategic calculations underpinning forced migration. Throughout the war, multiple actors have sought to manipulate the movement of people to serve their own ends. What do these strategies tell us about the prospects for refugee return? Now that many analysts have concluded that President Bashar al-Assad has won the war, will Syrians begin to go home?