Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
This situation and others disproves the completely unfounded idea that because the U.S. has a standing Army it is prone to rapidly get involved in other people's fights.
I think there is a tendency to intervene, and also a tendency to not intervene. These tendencies exist in constant opposition to each other, and we often oscillate between them. After a period of intervention we extricate and swear we won't do that again. Time goes by, we forget, we convince ourselves that this time will be different, and we do it again. Then we repeat the process. One of the reasons intervention in Syria was from the start unlikely is that the Syria situation emerged after a series of previous interventions, at a point when the nation was moving back into it's non-intervention mode.

My own feeling is that pushing into other people's fights is inherently a messy business best avoided in the absence of some compelling national interest. JMA seems to feel (I trust him to correct me if I'm wrong) that pushing into other people's fights doesn't have to be messy if only you do it right. I'm still not quite sure what would constitute doing it right, what action would be "right" and what the expected response to that action would be, but maybe he'll tell us. It seems to be largely a matter of early involvement, which of course raises the issue of political viability: jumping into other people's quarrels as soon as they emerge isn't likely to be popular, and I've some doubt as well over it's efficacy.