ABSTRACT
The history of US intervention overseas is instructive; a few of its more powerful lessons might have guided us profitably in Somalia, and in deciding when to go in and when to leave. Those lessons are also relevant when we argue for a new humanitarian impulse and against a resurgence of isolationism. The United States can act more responsibly and more effectively for peace, taking on only the most important tasks, if the UN can play a supportive and a cooperative role, especially in the crucial arena of preventive diplomacy. The US national interest has been defined as preserving the American way of life as a nation. If US policymakers refuse to take to heart the true lessons of Somalia and of recurring ethnic, religious, and intercommunal conflicts, the world will remain the poorer for their failures. Ultimately, each crisis ignored leads to crises that affect the United States or its partners more directly.
