KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Early this week in Germany, President Obama announced a big increase in U.S. ground forces in Syria, which currently number around 50.
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BARACK OBAMA: I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria, including special forces, to keep up this momentum.
MCEVERS: Today, Russia's deputy foreign minister called that a violation of sovereignty because it's being done without Syria's official permission. Russia's condemnation actually echoed criticism made hours earlier in the U.S. Senate. NPR's David Welna has the story.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday on the war against the Islamic State, John McCain, the panel's Republican chairman, playfully bestowed a new title on a fellow senator.
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JOHN MCCAIN: Vice President Kaine.
WELNA: That would be Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who's been widely mentioned as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton. Kaine is a strong supporter of President Obama, but yesterday he lashed out against Obama's war on Islamic State.
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TIM KAINE: I am deeply concerned about the legal basis for this war, both domestic and international.
WELNA: Kaine then compared the U.S. incursion into Syria with another military campaign: Russia's move into eastern Ukraine.
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KAINE: It's a clear violation of international law because Ukraine has not invited them in. They are carrying out military operations in a sovereign nation without the support of that sovereign nation.
WELNA: But Kaine said it's another story when it comes to Russia's military move last fall into Syria.
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KAINE: I'm sorry to say this, but there is also international legal justification for Russian military activity in Syria.
WELNA: That's because, like it or not, Kaine said, Damascus welcomed Russia. He then put Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who was a witness at the hearing, on the spot.
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KAINE: I am correct, am I not, that Syria has not invited us to conduct military operations within the nation of Syria?
ASH CARTER: You're correct.
WELNA: But Pentagon lawyers, Carter said, had assured him international law does back up U.S. actions in Syria. Besides, he added...
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CARTER: If there's a difference between what we're doing in Syria and what the Russians did in Ukraine, we're trying to fight real terrorists. We're not trying to destabilize a stable situation, so we're trying to return order and decency, not the other way around.
WELNA: Kaine warned such thinking could lead to what he called a "wherever, whenever" war-making policy that could haunt the nation in the future and allow other nations to justify all kinds of undesirable actions.
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KAINE: And basically, we've decided that if our motives are OK, we can incur into the sovereignty of another nation because we're doing the right thing. But then that takes away our ability to effectively criticize other nations that get into the sovereignty of other nations, as Russia is doing in the Ukraine.
WELNA: Kaine vowed he'll keep urging his colleagues to do what they have so far avoided doing - vote to authorize the war against the Islamic State. David Welna, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
