The Nonintervention DelusionNovember/December 2019 97U.S. engagement. Additionally, the costs o redeploying to these
countries after a descent into terror-ridden chaos—as happened in
Iraq after 2011—would almost certainly be higher than the costs o
remaining. Simply ignoring the emergence o terrorist sanctuaries
could be even more catastrophic.
Several practical changes would help policymakers evaluate possi-
ble military interventions. To ensure that cost-beneÄt analyses are as
accurate as possible, for example, they must be based on the entire
range o possible costs down the line—not just the expected casualties
and direct expenses associated with operations but also those o con-
tractors and intelligence personnel, as well as longer-term costs, such
as veterans’ care. They should also include the likely eect o military
action on civilians living in the country in question and the likely ef-
fect o military inaction on the U.S. population.
Congress must also play a role far beyond its power o the purse
and its ability to authorize force. For all the focus on the outdated
2001 Authorization for Use o Military Force, which permitted the
use o U.S. military force against the
perpetrators o 9/11, legislators would
do better to concentrate on the conduct
o the wars themselves. That means in-
vestigating on-the-ground conditions,
measuring progress, interrogating poli-
cymakers and military leaders, and of-
fering alternative strategies. To do that,
Congress would have to use the full panoply o its informal powers to
engage in oversight: conducting hearings and brieÄngs, sending con-
gressional delegations, initiating investigations, and so on.
Ironically, it is the counter- mission in Syria—the one that so
frequently elicits calls for its end—that provides a reasonably success-
ful example o how U.S. military intervention can work in practice.
With the deployment o roughly 2,000 special operations forces, the
United States armed, trained, and advised up to 70,000 local Arab and
Kurdish Äghters. The operation has banished Iran, Russia, and Syrian
government forces from a third o the country, eliminated ’ physical
caliphate and forestalled its resurgence, deterred a Kurdish-Turkish
clash, and kept refugee Áows in check. U.S. casualties and Änancial
expenditures have been relatively low, and international support rela-
tively high: fewer than ten U.S. troops have lost their lives in Syria, and
It’s often said that generals
are always ¥ghting the last
war, and the same can be
said of policymakers.