How and When to Intervene Militarily

Mark Helprin had an excellent column in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, which you would require a subscription to read. Fortunately, the article is also available without subscription here on the Mastermind Century Group website. Helprin lists six rules for involving U.S. troops overseas, see his article for the explanation of each:

Maintain overwhelming reserves of military power.
Make the argument, speak the truth, and strike with maximum consensus.
Strike in time.
Strike with overkill in relation to the objective.
Abstain from nation building, transformation, and counterinsurgency.
Approach war with the mind of a general, but the heart of an infantryman.

There is much wisdom here.