The futility of U.S.-Syria policy, how the Israel-Gaza war affects Ukraine, China's naval ambitions, and more.

Strategy check

American boots still on the ground in Syria

U.S. military intervention in Syria's civil war has long since dropped out of the headlines. But while foreign affairs attention focuses on elsewhere—first Afghanistan, then Ukraine, now Israel—the intervention continues.

There is very little reason to think, more than a decade into this brutal conflict and the humanitarian crisis it has fostered, that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be ousted. And there is even less reason to think that core U.S. security interests will be significantly affected whether he stays in power or not.

So why are we still intervening? Why are American boots still on the ground? That's what DEFP Fellow Daniel DePetris explores in a new explainer arguing for a reset of U.S.-Syria policy.

Key points

Assad's government has consolidated its power and defeated credible threats to its rule. The anti-Assad armed opposition, which once controlled half of Syria, is relegated to the northwestern province of Idlib.
While the Biden administration recognizes that Assad will likely remain in office, U.S. policy remains punitive, maintaining comprehensive sanctions on Syria without a realistic endgame. This policy amounts to collective punishment of ordinary civilians and won't advance U.S. interests.
Meanwhile, approximately 900 U.S. troops remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to train and assist anti-ISIS fighters. But ISIS lost its territorial caliphate more than four years ago, and keeping U.S. forces in Syria in perpetuity brings serious risks without reward.
Neither the sanctions nor the occupation of eastern Syria serves U.S. security interests. The latter embroils the United States in a risky mission with no security payoff and no evident exit plan.

Read the full explainer: "Reset U.S.-Syria policy"

Sober analysis

The Israel-Gaza war means hard choices for Ukraine

[NYT / Ross Douthat]

[W]ith the massacres in Israel and the unfolding Israeli assault on Gaza, we have a new front of engagement for American power, a new demand for U.S. resources, a new stress point for our stressed imperium and new risks of a wider war.
With this new challenge, the Ukraine hawks' answer is the same: "The False Choice Between Ukraine and Israel" runs theheadlineof a Wall Street Journal editorial. And the Journal editors are correct in the narrow sense that the United States should not simply cut off Ukraine tomorrow and redirect that aid to Israel, as Senator Josh Hawley recently suggested. Our interest in restraining Russian ambitions does not dissolve the instant a Middle Eastern ally goes to war.
But in a larger sense, of course there are real strategic choices here, potential trade-offs in hardware shipped and dollars delivered …

Read the full analysis here.

Mapped

America’s naval sprawl—and China's naval ambitions

China has just one overseas naval base—the solid blue square in the Horn of Africa above—and several militarized artificial islands, a markedly smaller and more regionally constrained footprint than America's sprawling network of naval bases across the Eastern Hemisphere. But U.S. officials believe Beijing may be interested in establishing new bases abroad, CNN reports, mostly around the Indian Ocean, but perhaps as far as Africa's Atlantic coast.

For a deep dive into what this possible maritime expansion would mean for Chinese ambitions and U.S. security, read this explainer from DEFP's Mike Sweeney: "Assessing Chinese maritime power"

Questionable

"America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel's military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia."

– Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, making the case that the U.S. can afford another war. [Sky News / James Sillars]

In the most literal sense, of course, Yellen is correct: Washington can raise enough funds—via taxation, borrowing, or both—to continue to send large amounts of money and other aid to Ukraine and Israel. And, sure enough, President Joe Biden is soon "expected to ask Congress for at least $100 billion in supplemental funding to address Israel, Ukraine," and other projects, Politico reports.

But the fact that our government can get its hands on some cash does not address the more important matter of grand strategy. The first question is not: Can we afford this? But rather: Does this serve U.S. interests? And maybe it does—but the answer can't be given with Yellen's breezy confidence.

Learn more with these analyses from DEFP experts:

A futile policy