Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
I'm not saying it was effective in resolving the situations completely, but like I said, you do what you can afford to when it isn't an existential threat.
I agree with that last but suggest that both your cases cite minor aims and part way solutions to the problems -- and the Kosovo thing is subject to the qualification of the KLA entry on the ground. Not to mention that in that operation the US -- indeed, the West in general -- got totally snookered by the Albanian Kosovars...
Agree that WWI probably wasn't, Civil War definitely was. I stand by my words on WWII - I don't think we would have co-existed with the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Third Reich for long. I agree that in 1941 we were not threatened with immediate destruction... but how long before someone pulls the trigger do they become a deadly threat to you?
I think you just made my point.

IMO WW II was, for the US as opposed to many others, not existential -- in our case it was a contrived, indeed almost forced, entry (by FDR, devious old Dude...) into an ongoing war where we were not at the time threatened but which we entered in order to insure the removal or at least disruption of potential threats of great significance.

Both points more academic than of real import...