US-World Relations

One of the few things virtually everyone in the US knows about the Near East is very similar to what they know about a lot of problems facing the country today: it's very complicated. The history behind the Syrian regime, the rebel group opposing it, and ISIS is not easily understood at a glance, and one of the only things everyone can agree on is that the thing that makes US involvement in Syria so tricky is that there is no good answer, no correct tactic to take in order to solve all of the problems in the region. Let's face it, if there were someone would have tried a long time ago.

For starters, the key difficulty in simply backing the Syrian rebels begins with Russia. Much like many of the conflicts the US and Russia have gotten involved in since World War Two ended, they find themselves supporting the opposite sides either openly or through indirect support. Russia currently backs the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad, which everyone knows from recent news has been committing war crimes against its own citizens - noncombatants - for many years. US involvement is currently very hard to pin-point as there is no unified message on the topic. Some have suggested that the US's primary objective in the region is to first defeat ISIS, but with the recent missile barrage by American President Trump it now seems as though that focus has shifted to ousting President Assad. And this barrage has made matters with many international discussions infinitely more complicated.

For starters, while campaigning then-candidate Trump had repeatedly bashed NATO due to the disproportionate amount the US was paying into the system compared to many of the other member-states, and the countries who are paying the agreed upon 2% of their GDP into the system may surprise you - they are the US, Greece, Britain, Estonia, and Poland. However, this organization comes to the forefront with the issues at hand, and Trump himself has recently come forward saying that "NATO is no longer obsolete," which is a strange and unexpected flip from his earlier stance - one that fired up a base eager to see America turn its attention away from policing the world, and toward improving itself on the home-front. This is significant because NATO is a critical component to checking Russia's increasingly aggressive and expansionist tactics under President Putin, tactics that have only become more raw and abrasive with the recent missile strike in Syria.

Adding to the tensions in an extremely counter-productive fashion is the UN. US representative to the UN Nikki Haley has become an upcoming focal point on matters involving Syria and Russia, however her message is difficult to decipher as it seems to emphasize more finger-pointing and conspiracy weaving than typical UN discussions. Over the course of this past week Haley has claimed that Russia knew about Assad's plans to use chemical weapons ahead of time, and that even made fun of the country, saying it was 'nervous' and an 'island,' referencing the lack of international support Russia seems to be getting amid the tensions.

An additional matter that cannot be ignored would be North Korea. For reasons unbeknownst to most, there is currently a US strike force en route to the Korean peninsula. North Korea held yet another major missile test April 5th, to which the US responded by sending the USS Carl Vinson (an aircraft carrier), USS Wayne E. Meyer (destroyer), USS Michael Murphy (also destroyer), and USS Lake Champlain (a cruiser) to the region as a show of force. The group had been previously stationed in Singapore. The primary catch in this case would be the incredible amount of tension surrounding the North Korean state-run media on this movement. The North Korean people are told very frequently that the western world and specifically the US will attack again, keeping the Korean War in the back of the peoples' minds. Therefore, this move has given the state media an incredible amount of evidence to point to, legitimizing everything that the people had been told already. Adding to the conflict is the fact that the South Korean capitol of Seoul is a mere 35 miles away from the demilitarized zone between the nations, still technically at war. This combines to make the decision to send a strike force to the region very dicey, as it is guaranteed only to dramatically increase tensions in a region where a lot of tension has existed for decades already.