Abstract:
Turkey’s goals in northern Syria and its incompatibility with the Kurdish armed
forces had led to an armed conflict between them as Turkey conducted two military
operations—Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation Olive Branch—into
northern Syria in order to achieve its goals in confronting PKK-affiliated Syrian
Kurdish groups and conducting territorial expansion for refugee relocation. These
operations proved to be successful as they provided Turkey favourable outcomes
that contributed to the process of achieving its goals. This was followed by another
military operation, Operation Peace Spring, to attain more success after the
successes of the previous military operation, providing implications of their
influence towards conducting Operation Peace Spring. This brought forth the
question on the influence of successes in Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation
Olive Branch towards motivating Turkey’s conflict escalation with the Kurdish
armed forces through Operation Peace Spring. Through a case study qualitative
method of research guided by the theory of escalation by Forrest Morgan et al. as
well as Otomar J. Bartos and Paul Wehr, particularly on the influence of positive
outcomes in conflict towards the decision to escalation. This research finds that the
favourable outcomes of Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation Olive Branch—
specifically on increased resources in land, authority, and support—motivated
Turkey to escalate its armed conflict with the Kurdish armed forces by conducting
another military operation, Operation Peace Spring, as Turkey gained an advantage
over the Kurds with possibilities to gain more.
