Naivety in the US approach to Syria

Another strategic surprise; another flat-footed, perplexed response. Repeatedly blind-sided, chasing the latest crisis, reacting to new realities established by others, and trying to find silver linings in the storm clouds (the latest: Putin will have an Afghanistan experience in Syria), the Obama administration has failed to adjust its grand strategy of restraint, a strategy which has demonstrably reached beyond the point of diminishing returns.

The costs in Syria are apparent. As its options become progressively less viable, we are nearing the point the administration mistakenly thought it was at three years ago, with no effective options for containing the war in Syria.

Was any of this foreseeable? In broad outlines, yes.

I ran an alternate Syria futures exercise at New York University in February 2013, when Assad’s demise seemed imminent to many (though not to the Syrian participants in the workshop). ‘Light footprint’ was the easiest strategy choice at the time, as it minimized the risk of being sucked into another Middle East quagmire and avoided the potential delegitimization of the secular opposition from too close an American embrace.

We developed three scenarios: contained civil war, political settlement, and regionalized conflict. The third, with an escalating stalemate and spill-over into the region, was deemed most likely of the three. The narrative for this scenario, published shortly after the workshop, asked the following questions:

• Can US interests tolerate this degree of regional turmoil?
• When will the damage to regional stability and Great Power relations outweigh the risks of more direct participation inside Syria?
• Is the United States capable of protecting its Middle East interests—defense of allies, prevention of terrorist safe-havens, WMD non-proliferation, containment of Iran, security of oil flows—as the regional map is violently redrawn?
• Can it do so if the Russia/Iran/Hezbollah/Assad coalition prevails?

To quote from the scenario narrative, “It is clear that the metastasizing Syrian civil war is a game changer for the region, and possibly for the global system. The management of these shocks is hard to imagine without the presence of American power. Without US leverage to shape events, adversaries will be emboldened. Allies will protect their interests by cutting deals, expanding support for Syrian factions of choice, or, if they have the capacity, by intervening directly—possibly resulting in state-to-state conflict in the region and inviting intervention by Great Powers. The humanitarian crisis will deepen. The already shaky global economy will suffer as the security of energy trade is compromised. Permanent damage will be done to both the region and the structure of international stability and accountability.”

The value of alternate scenarios is in providing a futures-oriented context for thinking about the risks and benefits of a range of strategy choices. The President’s choice to restrain the use of American power in Syria appeared to fit the early stages of the anti-Assad rebellion and the civil war, when Assad’s days appeared numbered, the existing alternatives to Assad were acceptable, and the war was largely contained within Syria. What was missing was clear-eyed observation as the facts changed, and as the risk/benefit of restraint vs. intervention changed along with conditions on the ground. By imagining, in a plausible and intellectually responsible way, just how threatening Syria could become to regional and great power relations, our most likely, “Regionalized Conflict” scenario could have provided both an incentive to reconsider the commitment to restraint and a more accurate context for evaluating the meaning of ongoing events.

In order to command this degree of legitimacy and impact, alternate scenarios must emerge from a transparent and defensible process. There is, in fact, an art to scenario construction, as well as a value proposition that rests not on predictive accuracy, but on an opening of minds to the plausibility of futures that contradict the assumptions underlying current strategy. Alternate scenarios must meet tests of plausibility (not necessarily likelihood), distinctiveness (from each other), and relevance (for the user). Useful scenarios begin with research; are based explicitly on drivers of change and emerge from the future intersection of these drivers; are thoroughly debated by experts with diverse skill-sets and points of view; and are further vetted with policy makers to assure relevance.

Having the right grand strategy is essential in shaping and executing foreign policy decisions. All such strategies rest on operating assumptions about how the world works, but also require a willingness to re-examine these assumptions as inconvenient events occur. The recent string of consequential surprises and passive responses indicate an overcommitment to a view of the world at odds with unfolding reality. It will be left to the next administration to apply these lessons.

Image Credit: “Lightning” by Amer Jazaerli. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.