As the Syrian conflict enters its fourth year with no end in sight at least in the near-term, the macroeconomic situation in the country continues to degrade.
Little remains of pre-war Syria: the country is split, in some places block-to-block, along lines foreign to Syrians as recently as 2011. The extremists of the Islamic State control large swathes of territory in the east of the country. Kurdish militias have carved out enclaves for their constituents. The regime controls the capital, the coast, and several of the key cities along the Damascus-Aleppo corridor, while an array of mostly Sunni militias fights for strips of territory in between. If there was ever one unified Syrian economy before the war, it has since collapsed into an untold number of fiefdoms and black markets: the economy is itself a reflection of the civil war. (CONTINUED - 648 WORDS)
