I think the 1990s were all about how to contend with failed states, irregular warfare, insurgencies, and so forth. Van Creveld's On Future War suggested that such conflict as we face in Iraq would be the norm -- ironically, by arguing that the conflict we faced against Iraq in 1990/1 was "the last scream of the American eagle." Certainly Mogadishu was a prelude to Fallujah. Because of everything that was going on, I and a few others tried to put together a course on American experiences in small wars in m final semester at SAIS (1995) -- the bureaucracy couldn't handle it, so we did it as an ad hoc brown bag.
I seem to recall that the military was not entirely keen to divert their attention from the primary mission of preparing for conventional war to pay much attention to this end of the conflict spectrum.
Fast forward to 2003, and I would submit that Euro experience in the various missions of the 90s was a basis for their reticence re taking action in Iraq -- they knew the problems of trying to simply take care of a broken Humpty, let alone trying to put him back together again.
Best,
Jill
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