Syriac ack ack

"The President’s erratic approach to Syria is not a strategy," Senator Elizabeth Warren said.

"Within a week, Trump’s Admin went from asserting they wouldn’t intervene to launching Tomahawk missiles against Assad. That’s erratic."

— Elizabeth Warren blasts Trump's erratic handling of Syria, Raw Story

Following the President's unilateral decision to throw $100 million dollars worth of ordnance in the form of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an airport in Syria, Senator Warren wonders whether any consideration at all of the strategic value of such a stroke was undertaken by the Trump Administration prior to the attack.

Clearly certain tactical considerations were made prior to launch. A decision to alert the Russians, for example, who had troops in the area to be bombed, encouraged them to stay well clear of the target. A courtesy call, as it were.

The Russians alerted the Syrians immediately, of course, so they were able to remove troops and materiel from the scene as well.

The American strike was quite careful to avoid targeting buildings on the airport thought to house chemical weapons recently used by the Syrian regime on its own people.

The Syrian Air Force sent out a sortie from the airfield the very next day to bomb the same place that had been gassed the week before.

That is to say, the attack had, purposely, no tangible goal. It did not seek to achieve the normal military reward of imposing dominance through the organized obliteration of the objective's ability to resist.

It did achieve the destruction of 20% of something, per media reports, with referents made to 20% of the Syrian Air Force, or 20% of one of the wings of the Syrian Air Force, or 20% of the aircraft at the targeted airport, or 20% of the targets of 59 Tomahawk missiles or maybe just 20 planes. Twenty, though.

The strike killed a handful of people, who may or may not have been party to the supposed chemical attack launched from the airport. Regrets have not been forthcoming from the United States.