Russia will soon kill Americans in Syria unless President Trump issues a clear and definitive red line against such action. He must warn Russian President Vladimir Putin that even if Moscow uses a proxy to carry out an attack, Russia will be held directly responsible.
Last Tuesday, a number of United States military personnel were injured when a Russian Army convoy rammed its vehicle. Over the weekend, there were reports that Syrian proxies mortared a U.S. base just north of the Euphrates River. In mid-August, Syrian forces under Russian control opened fire on a U.S. patrol. In February, another U.S. patrol rightly forced a Russian Army vehicle off the road when it obstructed the U.S. route of travel. And as proven by a failed February 2018 Russian GRU attack on U.S. forces, we know that if he believes he can get away with it, Putin is willing to kill Americans in Syria.
The threat is now particularly great.
Moscow is deeply frustrated by Trump’s retention of a few hundred ground forces in Syria in order to protect joint U.S.-Kurdish oil field development and to obstruct an ISIS territorial revival. That presence prevents Russia from unilaterally locking in the political situation north of the Euphrates River in eastern and northeastern Syria. In turn, Putin has been unable to do what he really wants to do in Syria: Force all parties to accept Russian political hegemony. Such hegemony would allow Putin to finish off the last holdouts of the Syrian rebellion, securing Bashar Assad’s long-term rule. It would also give Putin complete control over what measure of Iranian arms supplies transit from Iraq into Syria and down into Lebanon. That’s a great way to extract political concessions from Israel, which is most threatened by those arms.
Finally, Putin views his prospective hegemony in Syria as the key to persuading wealthy Sunni Arab monarchies that Russia, not the U.S., is the Middle East power broker to deal with and defer to.
Then there’s the Trump factor. Recognizing that Trump is skeptical of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, Putin hopes to persuade his counterpart that the benefits accrued by U.S. oil field developments are outweighed by the costs of America’s presence in Syria.
Yes, it’s true that any attack on U.S. forces, even if conducted by semideniable Russian proxies, would carry risk for Putin. The upcoming U.S. presidential election gives both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden special cause to show resolve against Russian aggression. Still, the election also informs why Putin has an impetus to act now rather than later. After all, if Biden is elected, the U.S. is likely to retain an even larger ground presence in Syria than what Trump might retain. Delay also carries a cost for Putin, given his rising economic and military losses in Syria.
All of this informs why Trump must warn Putin off. Given that the Russian leader would use proxies in any lethal attack on U.S. forces, Trump must make clear to the Russian president that any attack by Russian-associated forces that kills American service personnel will result in direct U.S. military retaliation. If Putin sees that red line, he’ll back off. If he doesn’t see it, he’ll keep needling U.S. forces with small attacks until he spills American blood.
