What military options does Trump have in Syria?
(CNN)US
President Donald Trump faces perhaps his toughest foreign policy
challenge yet amid calls for the United States to take a stand following
a chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria that killed scores of civilians.
Trump
said that Tuesday's attack "crossed a lot of lines" for him and that
his "attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much." And Trump
told some members of Congress that he's considering military action in Syria in response, a source familiar with the calls told CNN on condition of anonymity.
Trump has not yet spelled out what his administration will do,
if anything. But inevitably, speculation is focused on whether he might
embark on military action where former US President Barack Obama did
not.
So what are the possible military options for the US in Syria?
Strategic airstrikes
The
US could seek to carry out punitive airstrikes against Syrian military
assets or even its leadership, said Justin Bronk, a research fellow in
the military sciences team at the UK-based RUSI think tank.
But
a major obstacle lies in the way: Russian air defense systems within
Syria which effectively give Moscow control of the airspace over much of
Syria.
US: Russia ships new anti-missile system into Syria 00:54
Russia
has been building up its air defenses in Syria since intervening in
support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, with bases in
Hmeimim, Latakia and Tartus. It has moved advanced S-300 and S-400
missile defense systems into place and also has its own fighter jets to
deploy.
Since it is highly unlikely
that Russia would allow US strikes against its ally, the US would have
to use stealth aircraft such as the F-22 or B-2 Spirit to try to evade
detection by the Russian air defenses, said Bronk. That would be a very
expensive option with a limited number of aircraft available.
If strikes went ahead, potential targets could include military depots, storage sites or Syrian air defenses, Bronk said.
A
complicating factor is that Russian specialists could be embedded with
Syrian forces, he said. The Trump administration would have to weigh
whether it is willing to risk any Russian casualties, given the
potential to escalate hostilities.
A
Russian Sukhoi Su-35 bomber lands at the Russian Hmeimim military base
in Latakia province, in the northwest of Syria on May 4, 2016.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov warned in October against any strikes from the air against Syrian troops.
"Operators
of Russian air defense systems won't have time to identify the origin
of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate," he told reporters.
"Any illusions about 'invisible' jets will inevitably be crushed by
disappointing reality."
"With the
Russian military as a dominant power in Syria, the options for the
United States are limited," said Ambassador Nicholas Burns, former US
Under Secretary for Political Affairs and now professor of international
politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
"In
2013, I think President Obama should have used American air power
against the Syrian Air Force. It would have taken away the ability to
use chemical weapons against their population. That was an opportunity
that was missed nearly three-and-a-half years ago."
Daniel
Serwer, director of the Conflict Management Program at Johns Hopkins
University, said the US could explore a number of options.
These
could include identifying and destroying the aircraft or artillery
involved in launching the chemical weapons, or launching an air attack
on the Syrian and allied ground forces advancing on
opposition-controlled areas, he said.
"So
far, Donald Trump has said this cannot be ignored by the civilized
world, but has done nothing," Serwer said, adding that "Trump's failure
to act is a green light for Assad to do as he likes."
Cruise missiles
Another option is the launch of cruise missiles from US destroyers deployed in the Mediterranean.
Syria attack survivor's plea to Trump 01:46
Back
in August 2013, Obama considered deploying cruise missiles against
command and control targets in Syria, as well as chemical weapon
launchers, US officials told CNN at the time. Shortly after, however,
Syria agreed to a Russian proposal to relinquish its chemical weapons,
leading Obama to retreat from threats of military action.
Two years earlier, US and allied forces had carried out missile strikes against Libyan air defense and other military targets in an intervention that aided Libyan rebels as they fought the forces of strongman leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Both
Russia and the US have previously used cruise missiles to strike inside
Syria, said Bronk, but they are less useful for hitting moving targets
and carry a greater risk that they will go astray and kill civilians.
"Particularly
with the recent collateral damage-heavy attacks that the US has
conducted in Iraq and Syria, that's already a very sensitive topic," he
said. "Whether the Trump administration particularly worries about that
or wants to take a harder approach to how many civilian casualties are
justified ... is open to question."
'No-fly' zone
Modern Panstri-S1 anti-aircraft battery at Russia's new base in Palmyra.
There
could be talk of the US imposing "no-fly" zones on the Syrian air
forces, said Bronk, but this would again largely depend on whether the
Russians want to play ball.
The
Russian air forces in Syria fly a lot of the same aircraft as their
Syrian counterparts, he said, which makes identifying who is in the air
very difficult even with advanced radar.
"A
no-fly zone would either mean the Russians in effect agreeing to
constrain and turn on their own ally or the United States accepting that
it's basically unenforceable -- unless they are willing to risk
shooting down Russian aircraft, of course, which again seems unlikely."
Safe zones
The US could go forward with a plan to declare and defend safe areas, said Serwer, of Johns Hopkins University.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month that the administration backs the idea of creating "interim zones of stability"
within Syria where refugees could go. But he didn't offer any detail on
a plan that would require defending those zones, and therefore heighten
the risk of military clashes with Russia.
The
Obama administration had hesitated to establish "safe zones" because of
the military commitment required to defend such areas from Syrian
government forces and the possibility of a run-in with Russian forces.
Safe zones also would not have a great punitive effect on Syria and would be expensive and difficult to enforce, said Bronk.
Tillerson
is due to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, next week
in Moscow for talks likely to be dominated by Syria.
Sen.
Gary Peters, a Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told CNN that
it is "time to take a very strong stand against Assad" and that the
Syrian President "simply cannot stay there." After Assad is pushed out,
through pressure from the international community, the provision of safe
zones would give the Syrian people some security and stability, he
said.
Ground forces
US Special Operations Forces, Marines and Army Rangers are on the ground in Syria,
US officials told CNN last month. US forces are supporting local
fighters as they prepare to launch an assault on Raqqa, the
self-declared capital of ISIS in northern Syria.
However,
it is "extremely unlikely" that there would be any kind of large scale
US boots-on-the-ground operation as seen in Iraq in 2003, said Bronk,
"because I think even the Trump administration would be able to see that
that would lead to an endless quagmire, not to mention (the US) would
be invading areas where Russian forces hold ground."
He added, "Russia has sent a lot of signals on the military-to-military level that it really isn't messing around in Syria."
Republican
Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told CNN that "obviously the United States doesn't want to get sucked
into some long ground war, but there are ways that we can send signals
to Assad and I'm sure those plans are being developed."
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