Mission Accomplished?: The Crisis of International Intervention

Why do politicians send troops to foreign soil, to fight battles they rarely win? Is it old—fashioned imperialism tainted with a crusader complex? Or is the West a partisan for the helpless? The fall of the Soviet Union left the West aimless. With no conflicting dogma to reinforce its sense of justice the West assumed the role of global policeman — aid graduated from charitable to economic and, finally, military. Ideological struggle was replaced by a vague and confused concept of internati...