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The Logic of U.S. Engagement 95
– just as leaders once flew to this city” 7 . At the same time, as
Henry Kissinger said in February 2015: “I’m uneasy about
beginning a process of military engagement without knowing
where it will lead us and what we’ll do to sustain it […] I believe
we should avoid taking incremental steps before we know how far
we are willing to go… This is a territory 300 miles from Moscow,
and therefore has special security implications” 8 . Political scientist
John J. Mearsheimer put it succinctly: “Such a step is especially
dangerous because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and
is seeking to defend a vital strategic interest” 9 .
The strategy of Western victory and adversarial defeat in
diplomacy came to a breaking point over the 2013 Syria crisis.
Syria used chemical weapons to kill about 1,300 civilians
including hundreds of children. After the British Parliament
rejected participation in a U.S. cruise missile attack to punish
Syria, a window opened in which diplomatic engagement with
Russia led to a better outcome. The United States and Russia
negotiated an intrusive international inspection regime to
successfully remove all declared chemical weapons from Syria.
The prospects for an even modest success of weapons inspections
were more substantial than the utility of a limited cruise missile
strike (as had been the announced plan). As military historian
Edward Luttwack wrote, weapons inspectors “might miss quite a
few chemical warheads and bombs if they are hidden well enough.
But that’s no less true of any attempt to eliminate Syria’s chemical
weapons by bombing depots and bases – some are bound to escape
detection and destruction, not to mention the potential for a
dangerous dispersal of chemical agents in a strike”. Moreover,
Luttwack concluded: “Tehran’s greatest fear is American and
Russian cooperation. Especially now that economic sanctions have
actually been effective, Iranian leaders might finally accept real
7 J. Huggler, “Ukraine Crisis: U.S. Officials Compare Peace Efforts to Appeasing
Hitler”, The Telegraph, 8 February 2015.
8 “Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev Separately Warn about Ukraine Crisis
Blowing Out of Control”, National Post, 30 January 2015.
9 J.J. Mearsheimer, “Don’t Arm Ukraine”, New York Times, 8 February 2015.