Possible Threats That Russia Poses For U.S. Security

Possible Threats That Russia Poses For U.S. Security

Subject: U.S. Airstrikes on Syria

As you know, the United States and Russia brokered a nationwide ceasefire in Syria that began on Monday, September 12^th, at sundown. John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, and Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister agreed to the deal, on Friday.

 

On Saturday, the United States led airstrikes in Eastern Syria, in a part that was not included in the ceasefire agreement. Russia’s defense ministry said that the airstrikes killed 62 Syrian troops, and wounded 100 more.The U.S. claims that the strikes on Syrian troops were not intentional; they were targeting what was thought to be an ISIS regime. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the aircraft that carried out the bombings had entered Syrian airspace from the territory of Iraq.  Two F-16 jet fighters and two A-10 support aircraft performed four strikes against Syrian positions, thought to be ISIS regime sites.

 

However, the strikes did not set well with Russia, as they stated they would call an emergency United NationsSecurity Council meeting to discuss Saturday’s strikes. It was said that there was a furious row between U.S. and Russian ambassadors at the meeting. Samantha Powers, who is a U.S. ambassador to the UN accused Russia of pulling a “stunt” by calling the meeting.The Syrian government believes the strike to be intentional, saying that it was “a very serious and flagrant aggression” that aided the Islamic State and proved its assertion that the United States supports the jihadist group as part of an effort to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

 

While the United States government and military have expressed regret for the strikes, the Russian Foreign Minister says that isn’t enough. He believed the U.S. simply acting in close cooperation with Russia could have prevented the attacks. He stated, “I ask the United States if they truly mean to target terrorists, where is the problem in coordinating their efforts with Russia, with the Syrian-Arab army, with anyone who is targeting terrorists? After all, this is the target for all of us, so why are they prolonging the agony of the Syrian people and allowing the terrorists, all this time, and all this space, to slaughter our people?”

 

This recent act poses a great problem for the U.S., as it seems we are slowly losing our ally’s and potentially making new enemies. Aaron David Miller, who is a Middle East analyst at the Wilson Center, said the attacks will certainly “feed conspiracy theories that Washington is in league with ISIS.” He added that it might cause President Putin of Russia “to blast the U.S. on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly.” This in-turn could cause other allied nations to disapprove of the recent actions by the U.S. and slowly break off their friendships with our country. Although the U.S. was not the only nation involved in the airstrikes, it seems as though we have received the brunt of the blame.

Not only could we lose valuable allies, but we could get ourselves into a great war with Russia and even Syria, simply because they are now under the belief that this was an intentional attack and that we are joining forces with ISIS to bring down Syria. Assad has made it clear that his belief is that the attacks were “serious and blatant aggression” against Syrian forces, and said it was “conclusive evidence” that the US and its allies support Islamic State militants. The Assad regime recently became great allies with China, has been a long-time ally of Russia, and is growing in power. I believe that our future actions must be clear and concise, and show our devotion to a peaceful ending of the war in Syria.

I recommend combatting this issue by enforcing ample coordination with allied nations during any military fire. The entire situation could have been avoided by this one simple action. When entering any foreign state to conduct military fire, our officials should ensure that it is a safe attack, and that they are targeting the correct group. We must prove our devotion in the coming months to avoid another, much larger, fight against Russia, Syria, and all of their allies.