U.S. troops are currently stationed at three locations in Syria. The first two, the so-called Green Village and Mission Support Group Conoco, are located in Deir ez Zor province, just east of the Euphrates River. The third site, the small al Tanf garrison, is approximately 300 miles to the south,…
U.S. troops are currently stationed at three locations in Syria. The first two, the so-called Green Village and Mission Support Group Conoco, are located in Deir ez Zor province, just east of the Euphrates River. The third site, the small al Tanf garrison, is approximately 300 miles to the south, straddling the Iraq-Syria-Jordan tri-border area. Some 1,000 U.S. personnel operate in Syria, about 3 1/2 years after the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate lost its last chunk of land.
According to U.S. officials, the purpose of the strikes was twofold: 1.) to destroy the infrastructure used by these militias in order to degrade their capability and 2.) to deter similar rocket and drone attacks from occurring in the future. Deterring future attacks, however, is a whole other story. And it should be abundantly clear by now that these U.S. strikes aren’t deterring anything. We know this because the United States has had to conduct similar operations against militia groups multiple times in the past. If deterrence was working as intended, Washington wouldn’t have to bother.
Armed nonstate actors, however, don’t have the same set of concerns. Entities that aren’t responsible for governing or administering territory are, in a sense, free to act more callously than they would be if one of their top goals was sustaining political dominance. Nonstate actors can sustain a lot of damage before dissolving or negotiating. Indeed, it took the FARC about a half-century before it pursued serious talks with the Colombian government.
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