When to Jump In: The World's Other Wars

Can the U.S. draw the line at Kosovo? The world is speckled with dangerous ethnic conflicts, often with death tolls that are already tens or hundreds of times the estimated count in Kosovo. The U.S. has pursued a hodgepodge policy in the past, picking and choosing involvements based on both the humanitarian need and the geopolitical importance. The National Journal recently cast an eye back at the ethnic and civil wars that have bedeviled the past decade. Here we offer a similar look at the relationship between human cost and U.S. intervention.

HAITI [***]

CONFLICT The 1991 military coup led to...