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Experts say training police and army units could take years and billions, while Ankara seeks to curb SDF influence and expand its regional role.
Turkey has begun a new military cooperation program with Syria aimed at modernizing the country’s security forces, but experts warn it will take years and billions of dollars before the war-ravaged country can build independent and functional armed forces.
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler and Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra signed the “Memorandum of Understanding on Joint Training and Consultancy” in Ankara on Aug. 13. The deal includes several provisions aimed at modernizing Syria’s military capabilities, including through the exchange of military staff, advanced training for Syrian personnel in counterterrorism, mine clearance, cybersecurity, engineering, logistics, general technical assistance and weapons transfers, according to the Turkish Defense Ministry.
Turkey’s training of Syrian troops has begun, a high-level Turkish Defense Ministry official told reporters in Ankara on Thursday during a press briefing.
While the agreement gives Ankara influence over Syria’s security apparatus, experts warn its ambitious scope demands not just money and time but also political stability.
Ankara and Damascus’ military cooperation will also likely focus on tackling the Islamic State primarily amid US military’s drawdown from Syria, despite Ankara’s increasing threats against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) over the latter’s refusal to lay down its arms.
Costs and funding
While the exact costs and timelines required to implement the full military cooperation agreement remain unclear, Turkey’s investment in training and equipping Syrian police forces in areas under its control since 2018 could provide some insight into the funding required for the establishment of full-fledged security forces.
A Turkish national security official, speaking to Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity, used Turkey’s experience establishing a police force in Syria’s northwestern city of Afrin to illustrate what it might take to build a regular Syrian security service.
The official pointed out that the Turkish government paid $400 per month to each member of the roughly 500-member Syrian police force it established in Afrin after Turkish troops gained control of the region in 2018 from the Kurdish-led SDF.
If Syria’s population, currently roughly at 24 million, which includes returning refugees, reaches 30 million in the next five years — and using the average standard of one police officer per 250 citizens — the country would eventually need 120,000 officers.
Taking a more modest target of 30,000 officers for initial deployment across the whole country, training for one year at Turkish standards would cost roughly $60 million, not accounting for inflation. Salaries alone would total about $144 million annually, assuming each officer is paid $400 per month, similar to Afrin.
The official then added that equipping each officer with a service pistol — even at the highly optimistic rate of $125 through bulk purchase — would cost nearly $4 million, not including bullets.
“Finding service rifles — say AK-47s — would not be a problem in Syria after the civil war,” the official said.
“That’s for a dedicated police force,” the official added cautiously. “A land army would cost more than that and a combined-arms military — army, navy, air force — would cost several times even more.”
In addition to donating equipment, Turkey is seeking Gulf funding or to jointly produce armaments with Gulf countries to cover at least the initial costs of rebuilding Syria’s defense and security apparatus.
Building an army for all of Syria
According to Omer Onhon, who was Turkey’s last ambassador to Damascus until the Turkish Embassy was closed in 2012 due to the Syrian civil war, several challenges beyond cost complicate the formation of a “new army” in post-civil war Syria.
“What Syria currently has is not a combined-arms force but a mainly HTS body supported by some other groups that tackle domestic security crises where they emerge,” Onhon said.
Syria’s army remains a fragmented force, with roughly 100,000 troops drawn from various factions, including the Turkish-backed group known as the Syrian National Army and foreign fighters, many under the command of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) officers. Despite nominal oversight by the defense ministry, most of these groups still do not operate under a single command and control structure.
Although the Syrian government has folded dozens of armed groups into the chain of command, true cohesion remains elusive, with HTS officers occupying most senior posts. More than 1,000 Alawites were killed after violent clashes erupted in March between forces loyal to Sharaa and remnants of the Syrian regime in the country’s coastal regions. Last month, clashes in the town of Suwayda in southern Syria between the Druze minority and government-allied Bedouin forces left about 1,500 dead.
“A national military must include all aspects of its society, but Syria cannot integrate Kurds, Druze or the Alawites into that military at the moment due to political conditions,” Onhon added.
The Turkey-Syria defense pact comes as Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Kurdish-led SDF chief Mazlum Abdi have made little progress on their March 10 deal to disarm the group and fold it into the Syrian army.
Ankara insists on disarmament, noting that the SDF’s core militia is the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and EU.
The PKK announced in May that it was prepared to disband as part of peace talks between Ankara and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan. The SDF, however, argues that disarming would leave it vulnerable to Sunni Islamist militias loyal to Sharaa, pointing to last month’s deadly clashes in southern Syria between Druze militias and Sunni Bedouin tribes as proof that Damascus cannot guarantee protection for minorities — and, by extension, for Kurds in the north. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has warned that if the deal continues to stall, Ankara will act unilaterally.
According to Oytun Orhan of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, an Ankara-based think tank, Turkey’s growing military support for Sharaa is partly motivated by Ankara’s aim to increase pressure on the SDF to force it to disarm.
Nonetheless, he argues that the Ankara-Damascus defense pact is not primarily designed to pave the way for a Turkish military intervention, but rather to gradually build up Syria’s defense and security institutions.
“At present, the agreement focuses on things like anti-terrorism, mine-clearing, public order and training, but it could set the ground for deeper cooperation and military and security partnership against outside interventions and even a security pact in the future,” he told Al-Monitor.
Tackling ISIS
The SDF has been the Pentagon’s top ally against the Islamic State in Syria, but the roughly 1,500 US troops that are stationed in the country to fight against the extremist group have begun withdrawing as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to extricate Washington from foreign military entanglement.
Taking on ISIS instead of the SDF could also buy the Syrian president more political capital at home and abroad at a time when some of his detractors still refer to him as a “radical jihadi,” a label he and Turkey vehemently deny.
Under the new pact, Turkey is expected to provide training and expertise and equipment support to reorient Syria’s security forces toward counterterrorism and organized crime.
“The main duty of the Syrian national security mechanisms under the Assad regime was guarding the regime, » Orhan said. « Now, the priority will be tackling ISIS, PKK as well as organized crime networks that used to control the drug trade with the Assad regime’s backing.”