Kevin Stephens

Professor Juliana Anselmini

English 101
8 December 2015
Should the US Intervene in Foreign Wars?
Due to the ongoing fighting between multiple factions 14,600 Syrians have been killed in
2015 alone. Everyday there are calls from all over the nation for the United States to intervene
and finally end the 4 year long bloodshed. However, there are others begging for the United
States to stay out of the worlds business for once. And then there are others who come to think
everything can be solved with drones instead of US soldiers (The Good Society). The American
people need to realize that the world will be a safer place if well executed military interventions
continue to happen. The United States should take action in wars as long as they use the
appropriate response to the situation they are facing. History has shown us that the US military
has proven time and time again that it is able to successfully intervene in foreign wars, even
though there have been a few blemishes. History has also shown us the horrible result of not
intervening and if we dont got involved in Syria we may see history repeat itself.
On August 2, 1990, the small oil-rich nation of Kuwait was blindsided by a large number of
Iraqi troops and armor crossing their border. Within 12 hours the Iraqi army had quieted most of
the Kuwaiti resistance and were already threatening nearby Saudi Arabia. Americans were
disgusted by the illegal invasion and President George Bush knew that something had to be done
and simply stated "This will not stand."(Operation Desert Storm) In the first post-Cold War
foreign crisis America would experience, President Bush ordered 500,000 (Operation Desert

Storm) along with thousands of other foreign troops in a multinational coalition to be placed in
neighboring Saudi Arabia and gave Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to leave Kuwait
or else the US military would take him out by force. In order to counter the Iraqi airpower and
armor the US military amassed their brand-new high tech gear such as stealth bombers, Abrams
tanks, and laser guided bombs on the border ready to intervene and free the Kuwaiti people. The
ultimatum came and passed with Iraqi troops still in Kuwait. In the following days the US
military unleashed a massive amount of firepower from the air and decimated the Iraqi military
in an amazing show of force. A month later the ground war started and within twelve hours it
was suddenly over with Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait in any vehicle they could find. Most
Americans expected to see an American death toll in the thousands after facing off against Iraqs
lethal military, however there were only 148 American combat deaths (Rokke). Most importantly
thousands of Kuwaitis were saved from the hands of Iraqi troops. The largely successful
operation gave the government confidence to intervene in the worlds foreign issues.
On the morning of October 4, 1993, the American people turned on their TVs to see crowds of
Somali people dancing on crashed helicopters and dragging the bodies of American bodies
through the streets. Many were shocked as it seemed the last time they turned on their TV the
Somali people were hugging and cheering on the American soldiers they encountered, which led
the American people to ask what went wrong? In 1992, a civil war coupled (Stewart) with a
drought in the East African nation of Somalia created a historical famine. The United Nations
attempted to deliver food shipments but were repeatedly attacked. The US military fresh off the
success in the Persian Gulf decided to step in and protect the food shipments and restore order.
President George H. W. Bush felt it could not ignore the situation, despite the obvious risks of
intervening in a country still at war with itself.(Stewart). On December 8, 1992 US Marines

landed on the Somali coast and immediately began to make a difference they started to disarm
Somali militia and clear the way for food distribution. Life seemed to be going back to normal
with markets reopened, travel became more common, and there was even some hope of
restarting a Somali national police force with promising initial results(Stewart). Instead of the
show of force and airpower seen in Kuwait the soldiers in Somalia were in a purely
peacekeeping role instead of combat. However, the mission slowly changed into a combat role as
the US targeted the militia leader, Aideed, due to his groups continuous attacks on American
soldiers. As the US got more involved in combat and the manhunt the number of casualties on
both sides began to rise. A Special Forces task force was sent to snatch Aideed. The raids by
this task force proved to be disruptive to the civilian population and they quickly turned against
the American forces. On October 3, 1993, two task force helicopters were shot down on a raid
the soldiers were trapped in a city of people that wanted to kill them for over 18 hours. By the
next day 18 Americans were dead and some had their bodies dragged through the streets and
mutilated. The new Clinton admiration saw the Somalia intervention as a failure and quickly
pulled American soldiers out. The situation in Somalia taught us that full on combat, like what
was seen in Kuwait, is not always the answer.
The Military was still recovering from the failed intervention in Somalia when the
genocide in Rwanda began. The horrific ethnic cleansing campaign caught the eye of the Clinton
administration. Diplomats were given daily updates on the rising death toll in the African
country, so unlike the Holocaust in which the genocide was known about after the fact, the
American government knew before, during, and after the fact (Baldauf). Though President
Clinton was reluctant to send Americans into a situation where they would have to pick sides
again and risk the lives of even more Americans. Instead Clinton suggested that the under

armed, overstretched UN peacekeeping mission on the ground was the right group to lead the
way (Baldauf). In the end, 800,000 Rwandans were dead and President Clinton never
committed troops even though congress would have supported a rapid-reaction force if the
Clinton administration had called on one. (Baldauf). This was the first instance of America
minding its own business in the post-Cold War era and the results were not pretty.
When news spread of ethnic cleansing occurring in the world once again, Clinton decided
to act. To help save the lives of Croatians and Muslims being massacred in Bosnia while also
lessening the risk of the loss of American lives with a new type of intervention method. Instead
of full on combat Clinton opted for the use of airpower. Dubbed Operation Deliberate Force, US
airpower in conjunction with NATO began an intense 24-hour bombing campaign on Serbian
forces over the course of two weeks (The War in Bosnia). On the ground, United Nations,
Croatian, Muslim, and a small rapid reaction force quickly covered ground and forced the Serb
forces out. A peacekeeping force was later deployed to help train the local police and military
forces. This combination of strong airpower and limited peacekeeping troops seemed to be the
perfect use of force needed in a foreign intervention as this method also worked to perfection a
few years later in an almost identical situation. This operation could be the perfect blueprint for
an intervention in Syria.
The most recent military intervention occurred in Libya. Just coming off the quagmire in Iraq
the American public no longer wanted to hear about American soldiers dying. So in order to
support the rebel group trying to oust the dictatorship government, the military used the new no
boots on the ground strategy. With this method the military used only its devastating airpower
without peacekeeping or combat troops. The method worked in ousting the regime but in the

long term failed as Libya has fallen into total anarchy that peacekeeping forces may have been
able to avoid.
Even though there is such a large divide between those Americans that want to intervene and
those who dont, recent history has shown us that when US troops get involved in foreign wars
and they are executed right, unlike the intervention in Somalia in 1993, there will be positive
consequences. If the military can combine the tools used to successfully intervene in conflict of
the past I can see an operation in Syria that could potentially go off without a hitch.