How the Paris Attacks May Change the US Strategy Against ISIS

The French president said today that "France is at war."

President Obama said as much in a news conference today in Turkey at the G20 Summit.

"We have the right strategy and we're going to see it through," said the president, who added that his senior civilian and military advisers have cautioned him that sending in large numbers of ground troops into Syria "would be a mistake."

There are 3,550 U.S. military personnel authorized to serve in Iraq and soon 50 U.S. special operations forces will serve in northeastern Syria working with rebel groups fighting ISIS, according to military officials.

On Sunday, France launched retaliatory airstrikes targeting against ISIS's de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria. Using targeting information provided by the U.S. military, 10 French military aircraft dropped 20 bombs on an ISIS command center and training camp in Raqqa.

Over the past 15 months coalition aircraft have already conducted more than 8,125 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, with U.S. aircraft conducting more than 6,353 of them.

The Paris attacks "should not lead us to overreact with the notion that we have to immediately ourselves squelch ISIL with an invasion," said O'Hanlon. "I think that would be an overreaction because it would probably do as much harm as good."

"It would take a while to carry out, take a while to implement and we've learned from Iraq and Afghanistan it's probably not optimal," he said, but cautioned: "We should also not also go to the other extreme and just conclude that we can entirely minimize our role."

Instead, he favors a political transition in Syria that could lead to a confederational government where the U.S. could provide special operations forces to help train opposition forces and possibly provide humanitarian relief.

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