>>Sounds like a huge waste of money to me. Certainly more costly to the Americans than to the Syrians. (Cost around $80 million).<<
The strong message it sends to North Korea and others makes it worth that and more.
I do love to think of Kim Jong-Un and his generals crapping their pants. The Norks will give some thought to how much force was just deployed from only TWO US destroyers, in a matter of minutes. Then they can count up how many more warheads the US can deploy from many different delivery systems.