International Airstrikes on Syria
On April 13th, the United States with help of Britain and France launched airstrikes against Syrian research, storage and military targets as President Trump sought to punish Bashar Al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack near Damascus last April 7th that killed more than 50 people.
The US president tweeted “If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!”
The strikes were intended to show Western resolve in the face of what the leaders of US, Britain and France called persistent violations of international law.
Should we have to be scared? Is this the start of the Third World War?
No. These attacks are 'limited strikes'. US presidents such as Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Trump have taken actions that could be defined as limited strikes for different missions like ending a war, punishment for attacks, among others and those haven’t started a new world war
A study by Mycah Zenko, an expert in this subject, looked at 36 instances of limiteds strikes between 1991 and 2009. He found out that only 16 of them achieved their military goals or in other words the targets were destroyed. He also found that 25 of them achieved “ mixed-success” for their political goals. But at the end he found that only 2 of this 36 strikes were out-right successful in all counts.
Meaning that only 6% of the strikes that US president launched are succesful.
Helene Cooper, T. (2018). U.S., Britain and France Strike Syria Over Suspected Chemical Weapons Attack. [online] Google.com. Available at: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/middleeast/trump-strikes-syria-attack.amp.html [Accessed 18 Apr. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Why Trump's "limited strike" on Syria probably won't work. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/Tc90I4FrLqM [Accessed 20 Apr. 2018]
