The US, British and French jets that took off from the British base in Akrotiri in Cyprus, France, the Mediterranean and perhaps other bases in the Middle East never came close to the Russian or Syrian air defence systems.
The cruise missiles fired by the US B1-B Lancer heavy bombers, French Rafales and UK Tornados GR4s – as well as from frigates in the Mediterranean – were among the world’s most modern. They had ranges of hundreds of kilometres, designed to be fired from a distance to avoid the risk of aircraft being targeted by Syria’s largely Soviet-era anti-aircraft missile systems.
In the space of around 45 minutes, perhaps $50m (£35m) worth of weapons were fired. How effective the strikes in the early hours of Saturday were in targeting the chemical weapons facilities of the Assad regime is an open question, as are the claims by the Russian military that Syria took down 71 of more than 100 missiles launched.
For its part, the Pentagon countered that assessment, saying no missiles were intercepted and calling the strikes “precise, overwhelming and effective”, adding that it successfully hit every target.
The missiles launched were among some of the most sophisticated in the countries’ arsenals and included the US military’s JASSM cruise missile, which was used in combat for the first time, according to reports.
As a demonstration of military firepower, it appears to have been as staged (with ample prior warning to Russia and, in that case Syria as well, as France admitted) as it was extremely limited in its scope, leaving most of the Syrian military’s key assets untouched.
Prime minister Theresa May conceded as much by describing the strike as “limited and targeted”, with no intention of toppling Assad or intervening more widely in the war.
In the circumstances, Russian forces, particularly those manning the sophisticated S-400 anti-aircraft missile batteries at the naval base at Tartus, were forewarned of the strikes and tracked the incoming missiles but did not engage their systems to prevent them.
That was left to the Syrian air defences, the most modern of which is the Russian-supplied, short-range Pantsir S-1 system, which has an anti-missile capability and which some reports suggest Russia may have recently upgraded for the Syrian military.
The claims to have intercepted such a high proportion of the missiles were made by colonel general Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s general staff, who insisted that the strikes had not caused any casualties and that the Syrian military facilities targeted had suffered only minor damage.
Although Rudskoi added that Moscow had “completely overhauled” the antiquated Syrian systems, the Russian claims over the success of the Syrian air defences still appear unlikely.
Among the sites believed to have been struck were Barzeh, near Damascus, which fills chemical shells, according to western intelligence. Other facilities near Homs suspected chemical weapons store were also reportedly struck.
But despite the use of chemical weapons on multiple occasions in Syria, the death toll from those attacks has been tiny in comparison with the wider death toll, not least that from crude and indiscriminate munitions such as the widely used barrel bombs.
The real question now is not what damage the strikes have done to the Assad regime’s remaining chemical stockpiles but its wider calculus for the ongoing war.
In the immediate aftermath, Assad strongly suggested that he intended to continue his war against the groups opposing him. Indeed, after an even more limited strike by the US in April 2017 aimed at deterring Assad from further use of chemical weapons, Syrian forces returned to episodic use of chlorine and perhaps other chemicals. Assad vowed to continue “fighting and crushing terrorism in every inch of the nation”.
An equally significant, if perhaps more subtle, threat as the smoke cleared on Saturday morning was Moscow’s warning that it would reconsider whether to supply Syria and others with the far more modern S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. This system put on hold by Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2013 after talks with European Union leaders.
While the supply of S-300s to Syria would be unlikely to trouble the US military, their widespread deployment would make it much more hazardous for Israeli jets to target Syria as they have done with relative impunity until recently, amid evidence that Russia is taking an increasingly tough line on Israel’s own strikes.
“Considering what has happened, we consider it possible to reassess this question and not just as far as concerns Syria, but other countries too,” Rudskoi said.
All of which points to the greatest unknowable of all in the aftermath of the strikes: what the longer term consequences will be in a febrile region amid escalating proxy conflicts and a rapid military buildup, with multiple tensions bubbling to the surface.
The latest raids have starkly underlined once again how – despite the huge humanitarian cost of the war in Syria – the country has become the proving ground for some of the world’s most advanced weapons systems, deployed by the US and Russia.
Trump and Putin have been engaged in something of a rhetorical arms race over weapons systems and their capabilities, with Putin boasting of new hypersonic nuclear missiles and high-speed submarines before the recent Russian elections.
For its part, Russia earlier this year deployed its most advanced fighter jet to Syria, the stealth-capable Su-57, which is a fifth-generation, multi-role combat jet.
What seems almost certain is that the war in Syria will grind bloodily on, becoming more complicated than ever. The biggest victims – as they have always been – will be Syria’s own citizens.
Full of sound and fury – contrary to Donald Trump’s “mission accomplished” tweet – the strikes may not signify much in Syria’s wider war.