U.S. Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War Era

During the post--World War II era, American foreign policy prominently featured direct U.S. military intervention in the Third World. Yet the cold war placed restraints on where and how Washington could intervene until the collapse of the former Soviet Union removed many of the barriers to -- and ideological justifications for -- American intervention. Since the end of the cold war, the United States has completed several military interventions that may be guided by motives very different from t