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U.s. Military Intervention During The War Of The United States Essay

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If it is accepted then, that Washington should have taken stronger action earlier in the conflict, the question becomes whether there are any practical, more decisive approaches that could have been employed earlier in the war to greater success. This essay examines three alternative measures that could have been adopted by the US at the outset of the conflict, in light of existing commitments, foreign policy and attitudes. The most controversial option is direct military intervention. Current American-led airstrikes have exclusively focused on ISIS, however, the current Russian intervention can provide clues as to whether earlier American air strikes against Assad would have impacted the conflict. Russia intervened on the basis of creating “new realities” upon which to build a political settlement, but the true effect of these measures is to essentially keep the Assad regime from collapsing (ACRPS, 2015). This intervention has helped “turn the tides” of the conflict for the regime (Heistein, 2016). There are questions as to whether, at the outset of the conflict, The Administration could have realistically engaged in airstrikes. Even those who advocated a more “muscular” policy early in the war such as Hilary Clinton, Leon Panetta and David Patraeus, were not proposing any where near the kind of military involvement that would have been large enough to re-shape the conflict or even provide enough leverage to negotiate a settlement (Miller, 2016). However, it can be

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