US defense secretary Chuck Hagel (R) listens as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey testifies at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the President's FY2014 Defense Budget Request on June 12, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]John McCain, a Republican senator and America’s most prominent interventionist on Syria in the United States Senate, warned the White House last week that he would hold up confirmation hearings on Gen. Martin Dempsey’s for another term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why the obfuscation? Senator McCain was using the threat as leverage to ensure that his repeated public requests to see the military options presented to President Obama to stem the rising violence in Syria were not ignored.
In response, General Dempsey wrote a letter to the Senate’s Armed Forces Committee, which McCain sits on, outlining the US’s military options in Syria.
Dempsey’s letter, the first public assessment of America’s military options in Syria by the Pentagon, offers a cautionary warning on American military action in Syria and notes that any option taken should be considered and treated as “no less than an act of war.” Reflecting on America’s recent experience in the region, Dempsey warns, “We have learned from the past 10 years . . . that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without carefully consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state. We must anticipate and be prepared for the unintended consequences of our action.”
Questioning what would come next in the event of a military action, Dempsey cautions: “Should the regime’s institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the chemical weapons we seek to control.” Also acknowledging America’s fiscally constrained situation, Dempsey notes, “We must also understand risk—not just to our forces, but to our other global responsibilities. This is especially critical as we loose readiness due to budget cuts and fiscal uncertainty.”
Dempsey provided the Senate with five military options that US could consider, ranging from limited training for Syrian rebels, to targeted air strikes or establishing protection zones. (The protection zones would likely come in the form of much-discussed “no-fly zones” or “buffer zones,” similar to America’s protection of the Kurds in northern Iraq after the Gulf war.) He also details how the US could secure chemical weapons in Syria.
While most of these military options have been widely discussed before in public policy circles, Dempsey’s letter details their substantial risks and costs. Even in the most restrained options, he warns that they could end up empowering those in the Syrian opposition that the US has sought to marginalize. In considering limited air strikes, Dempsey calculates that the bill for the US would be in the billions of dollars, with limited guarantee of its effectiveness. Offering a deeper warning on protection zones, Dempsey concludes that a “no-fly zone” would cost initially USD 500 million, then grow to a steady bill of more than a billion dollars per month. He warns that this option would have limited effect, because “the regime relies on surface fires—mortars, artillery, and missiles” much more than jet bombers.
In establishing “buffer zones” along the Turkish or Jordanian border or securing chemical weapons, Dempsey emphasizes that “thousands” of US forces and a great amount of equipment would be needed to accomplish both of these tasks. In the case of securing chemical weapons, the Pentagon concludes that even with the commitment of US forces, the “impact would be the control of some, but not all, chemical weapons.”
This letter starkly illustrates why President Obama is cautious about engaging militarily in Syria’s civil war after over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan: When it comes to Syria, there is no such thing as limited military intervention. American public opinion, in every survey conducted, has also shown a deep wariness towards US engagement in Syria beyond diplomatic efforts for a political solution. Understandably, Syria’s civil war has never been considered a substantial enough threat by President Obama to America’s national interests to warrant a forward military posture in Syria, despite its carnage and cost to the region.
