Quote Originally Posted by MattC86 View Post
... But I guess my question off the top of my head would be "have things really changed that much since 1994?"

We're doing some "peacekeeping"-like work in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. But I would argue we're doing it as a necessary tactic, I suppose, for the accomplishment of the missions which began as definitely something other than civilian-protection.

Would western militaries be anymore willing or able to take on such a task today than they were in 1994?

Matt
We got into A'stan and Iraq because of circumstances that were clearly in the province of National Interest: in A'stan because they harbored people who attacked us; in Iraq because we had intelligence (faulty, as it turned out) that they were pursuing WMDs which we believed would dramitically destabilize an already unstable region.

If I could rephrase your second question, "Would western governments and their militaries be anymore willing or able to take on such a task today than they were in 1994?" To answer that, I'd say look at the Western/US response in Darfur, to the piracy off the coast of Somalia, to the list of crises in central Africa, etc. With those in mind, I'd have to conclude the answer is "No."