Merely wanting to do something does not mean that something can be done. Moral obligations are easy to assume. They are sometimes impossible to carry out. This is a hard lesson to learn. Put differently, talk is cheap.
War is hard.
We expect two parallel processes to emerge after Kosovo. We will see a much more passive, indeed, isolationist United States. The hair-trigger assumption of responsibility for Eurasian problems will be replaced by a much more cautious calculation not only of moral considerations, but also of costs and the national interest. The second process, paradoxically, will be a substantial increase in American defense spending. The Kosovo exercise has clearly demonstrated that the draw-down in U.S. military forces has limited American military effectiveness.