Transcript for What's next for the US after military strike in Syria?

Terry Moran in London, let's break down what may come next with Steve ganyard who flew missions over Iraq and retired admiral Robert Harward a Navy S.E.A.L. And deputy commander of forces under James Mattis and, Steve, let me begin with you. A targeted strike as Martha was pointing out. 59 tomahawk missiles. More about sending a message than seriously harming the Syrian military. I thinks that sis exactly right. It's where the launches of the chemical attacks against civilians were made and so this was the statement the president wanted to make. He certainly didn't do anything to degrade the military capability of T Syrian army by picking this target. This was something that was very contained and jigs within the airfield. Admiral Harward, you know there's so many complications on the ground right now, the Russians are on the ground. The United States had to make sure not to hit any Russians, have to worry about possible retaliation and heard from the Russians they're suspending that agreement they had with the Americans to avoid incidents in the air between Russian and U.S. Aircraft. Well, George, this is a calibration and, again, the intent here wasn't just to punish, it was to deter future use. So, everyone is assessing what happened last night, the impact. There are going to be some knee-jerk reactions but at the end of the day it's going to be tough to argue that the use of chemical weapons against civilians is condoned by anyone. So, the president has the high ground and that will have a big impact with Russia so give it a few days, a week or so to stabilize, I think it's going to be in everyone's interests to ensure there's no escalation beyond that objective. So, if it's in everyone's interests, then that's what everybody is hoping for. What possible next steps could the U.S. Military pursue? Well, the message has been sent, George. Remember back in 2013 that the Pentagon offered president Obama a whole wide range of military options. Two days of campaign that would have used B-2s and other aircraft in addition to these cruise missiles so there's lots more military firepower available to the president. We'll just have to see how Mr. Assad reacts to the smaller strike. Admiral Harward, you were aware of the plans when serving back in 2013. If the president did decide to escalate and talk about the policy of regime change against Assad what kind of an operation would that take? Again, I don't think they're focused on regime change but we do have the capability to take out all of their military capabilities if that's what we feed and that's very valuable to Assad as he's fighting a tough insurgency so he can't afford those losses. Not because of us, but because of the problems he's got going on in the country. And I think he knows that. So, I think the effectiveness of this strike will play out here in short order. And, George, I think one of the things we are all looking at is what the strategy going forward? We can listen to Steve and admiral Harward about the military strikes and what you do but if bashar Al Assad reacts, then do we do another military strike and a military strike after that? What is the overall plan and I think that's what everybody is waiting to hear. It's very unclear right now. Okay, thank you all very much.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.