What Should Americans Die For?

"The American people are weary. They don't want boots on the ground. I don't want boots on the ground. The worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground in Syria."

That was the leading Senate hawk favoring U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war. But by ruling out U.S. ground troops, John McCain was sending, perhaps unintentionally, another message: There is no vital U.S. interest in Syria's civil war worth shedding the blood of American soldiers and Marines.

Thus does America's premier hawk support the case made by think-tank scholars Owen Harries and Tom Switzer in their American Interest essay, "Leading from Behind: Third Time a Charm?"

There is in the U.S.A. today, they write, "a reluctance to commit American blood."

A legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan "is an unwillingness of the American public to take casualties on behalf of less than truly vital challenges. ... While such concerns may be admirable ... they are incompatible with a superpower posture and pretensions to global leadership."

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