There is an excellent piece over at Obsidian Wings discussing how to get the decision to go to war right.. As I wrote in the comments there, the rules summarize how I think about these sorts of foreign policy questions. It’s necessary, but it requires thoughtfulness. There are some things about the set of rules together that’s bothering me, but each individual point makes very good sense.

In the end, it reminds me of the things we learned in college about foreign policy and international relations. Neoliberalism influenced, maybe? (I’m reaching back too far into a dark corner to get that right…)

Like Hilzoy and others, I got all three wars discussed “right,” at least in that the end result matched my estimation of the results. On the other hand, I think the outcome is, in part, dependent on the actual execution of the plan to go to war (both militarily as well as diplomatically). A key part of my hesitance with this war in Iraq was that the administration didn’t seem to be doing any of the due diligence required to actually prepare for war.

Critics of the U.S. involvement in Kosovo focus on our decisions to fight nearly the entire conflict from the air rather than on the ground. We also didn’t necessarily have the international community on our side, as we had to go to NATO to secure international sanction. Of course, at least we bothered getting international sanction.

Anyway, enough rambling. Go read this. It’s long, but worth it.