Limited US action against Syria suggests conflict unlikely to escalate

theguardian.com

Limited US action against Syria suggests conflict unlikely to escalate | World news

Ewen MacAskill

7-9 minutes

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The US-led operation against Syria, which included contributions from the UK and France, was a modest one, limited to a short, sharp attack against targets alleged to be linked to chemical weapons.

It is intended as a one-off, with no further strikes planned unless the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, conducts chemical attacks in the future.

There had been speculation in advance of the attack that there was a risk it could lead to world war three. It was far from that.

The operation involved more weapons than the strike the US conducted unilaterally against a Syrian airbase last year. On that occasion, 20 Syrian planes were destroyed, estimated at 20% of the Syrian air force. The US fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles in that attack: no planes were used, to minimise the risk of American losses.

What you need to know about the Syria strikes – video report

The attack in the early hours of Saturday morning involved almost twice as many, 110 missiles. That is not a major escalation. There were only three targets, including a research and scientific institute on the outskirts of Damascus and a storage space west of Homs, alleged to have been used to store precursors, which was hit by the RAF.

The main overall aim, apart from sending a message to Assad to desist from chemical weapons attacks, was to keep as far away as possible from Russian and Iranian positions, to avoid widening the conflict by directly drawing in Russia or Iran.

In spite of Russian rhetoric during the week of potential retaliation in the event of the attack, in reality Russia is far short of the military strength it enjoyed as part of the Soviet Union, with Moscow as anxious as Washington to avoid conflict. In almost every area other than nuclear weapons, Russia is heavily outnumbered in terms of defence spending and equipment compared with the US.

The US spends about $550bn annually on defence compared with Russia's $70bn. To take just one indicator, Russia has one ageing aircraft carrier while the US has 20.

To help avoid conflict, the US warned the Russians in advance that the attack was coming and the air corridors that would be used, but not the targets.

'A strong deterrent': Trump announces strikes on Syria – video

The US aim in Syria, as Donald Trump indicated before the Douma attack, is to leave Syria as soon as the US judges Islamic State to have been totally defeated. The attack does not change that. It was not used to attempt regime change. Assad's presidential palace, exposed on a high hill above Damascus, was left off the target list.

Assad could well be relatively happy with the outcome and the impact on him may be even less than the US raid last year. Most of his air force, as well as helicopters allegedly used to deliver the chemical weapons, remains intact.

The US, British and French escaped unscathed. There was a risk from the relatively sophisticated air defence system that Russia has or even from the more antiquated Syrian ones. An Israeli plane crashed in February, which the Syrians claimed they had downed. The RAF had four Tornados in action, but at no point did they enter Syrian air space, instead flying close to the the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, and firing the Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 300 miles.

Another potential risk that failed to materialise was that an attack on chemical weapons might spread the poison, engulfing Syrian military personnel and civilians. Chemical weapons inspectors suggested such an outcome was unlikely, as a missile would blow up chemical weapons.

The other risk was for a miscalculation that led to high civilian casualties. Although the US and UK military insist missiles are more precise and intelligence better, mistakes happen. In the 1991 Iraq war, the al-Amiriyah bomb shelter in Baghdad was hit killing more than 400 civilians, and there was the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

Amateur footage shows missiles falling over Damascus as airstrikes begin – video

To try to avoid Russian or Iranian or civilian casualties, the US, British and French planners opted for targets they believed were far enough away to avoid such an outcome.

Trump contributed to the hysteria that the world was on the verge of WWIII with his tweet: "Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!"

In spite of rhetoric on the Russian side to match Trump's hysteria, claiming they would shoot down incoming missiles and retaliate against US and other targets, they settled only for monitoring the incoming missiles and did not attempt to shoot them down.

Moscow could respond, as it has threatened, by upgrading Syria's air defence systems, which could worry Israel. And they could yet retaliate in some other region or by using deniable hybrid warfare, such as a cyber-attack. But equally, looking to showcase the upcoming World Cup, they might opt for a period of calm.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, had warned just hours before the raid that the cold war was back with a vengeance, potentially more dangerous because the old mechanisms for managing conflict seemed to have disappeared.

But, as the night demonstrated, the mechanisms are still in place, still intact and worked as they were meant to. The US was in communication with the Russians. And the Russians did not retaliate.

In the end, this raid was about as modest a one as the US-led coalition could mount, more symbolic than anything else.