This chapter explores the foreign policy discourse of the old Anglosphere coalition during the second phase of the crisis and civil war in Syria. First, the chapter analyses Obama’s warning of a ‘red line’ over chemical weapons use. Second, it explores the route out of the rhetorical entrapment enacted by this phrase. Third, it maps out the discursive debates on war and peace that divided the international community and ran through the Anglosphere in 2012 and 2013. The analysis of this second phase establishes the context in which Islamic State would shoot to prominence at the start of 2014, altering the nature of the crisis and civil war, as well as the language and calculations of Anglosphere states.

The conclusion revisits the book’s three principal themes: language, the Anglosphere and Syria. First, it maps out the significant theoretical implications for understanding the way in which language, discourse and policy intertwine across the transnational political space of the Anglosphere. Second, it notes that military intervention in Syria has once again served to reinforce the ties that bind together the old Anglosphere coalition. Third, it reflects on the scale of the crisis in Syria, as well as the prospects for the country and its people going forward.

This chapter explores the underpinnings, development and impact of an ‘old Anglosphere coalition’. First, the chapter considers the nature of a coalition of the English-speaking countries at two levels: the Anglosphere, and its core USA–UK–Australia alliance. Second, the chapter explores the Anglosphere’s various underpinnings, linking nuanced but overlapping identities to shared language, cultural commonalities and intertwined histories, including racialised narratives and an enduring proclivity for expeditionary warfare. Here, the drivers of the Anglosphere are considered in full, despite the limitations of mainstream norms in the study of Politics, International Relations, and their subdisciplines. Third, the chapter considers the recent and contemporary implications of this alliance, setting the ground for the subsequent analysis of Anglosphere foreign policy in Syria.

The Introduction asks three questions: (i) Why study Syria? (ii) Why focus on the foreign policies of the USA, UK and Australia? And, (iii) Why analyse language? First, the case is made for the study of Syria as the principal crisis on the planet today. Second, the case is made for the study of three of the world’s leading interventionist states, intimately connected through a sense of shared values, culture and identity, which propels them into repeated patterns of coalition warfare. Third, the case is made that policy responses and possibilities are contingent upon their discursive architectural foundations. Finally, the Introduction maps out the structure and arguments of the book.