Our world is safe. Our world, of course, means upper middle class America and the State Department-approved international destinations we tend to visit. I trust not many Kenyon students have recently made Mogadishu a spring break destination, or popped over to Kashmir for some backpacking. In fact, philosophically and historically speaking, war is here to stay. Not just American soldiers, but American ground troops.
American pilots flying American planes and dropping some bombs in far-off places somehow seems safe.
And to a large degree, it is. The prospect of ground troops in combat, however, conjures up Saving Private Ryan-type images. Foreign affairs shouldn't be so foreign. Analysts from both the right and the left often criticize the Clinton administration for its reactive tendencies when it comes to policy abroad. The Economist criticized Mr. Clinton's handling of the Kosovo crisis as appearing like an undergraduate cramming for an exam.