ABSTRACT
This chapter examines US military actions – those threatened, and those carried out – relative to Syria during both the Obama and the Trump Administrations. Locating these events within the broader context of US interests in the Middle East, the chapter highlights the role in coercion of internal administration processes and interpersonal jostling, of the consequences of uncertainty about a target actor’s interests and motivations and – in the form of Russia’s capitalizing on Secretary of State John Kerry’s off-the-cuff suggestion that chemical disarmament might resolve the dispute – of the occasional benefits of accidental diplomacy.
Keywords: Syria, chemical weapons, deterrence, coercive diplomacy, international relations, U.S. foreign policy, military strategy.
