Correct. I'd add that deploying to countries like Syria creates a moral element to this flytrap effect: Once our troops are in a country and affecting the political landscape, we become morally responsible both for what happens while we are there -- and what happens as a result of our leaving. I think we should get out of Afghanistan, but I am distressed by what might happen to women in that country as a result. I think the U.S. has no business being in Syria, but it's also true that getting out screws the Kurds over. Those are lives lost and destroyed because we walked away. (I lost a friend, in fact, because I thought it correct to leave Syria -- he felt that doing so was a moral abomination because of the Kurds.)
The answer, as Larison suggests, is not to go to war in countries where American interests aren't all that clear in the first place. And I still think we should get out of Syria and Afghanistan. The advocates of a more humble foreign policy often find themselves having to justify the moral burden of non-interventionism in a way that hawks don't. But drifting toward a confrontation with Russia for no good reason could end up creating a higher moral cost -- in terms of shattered lives -- than leaving. Sometimes, when there are no good answers, the best answer is restraint.
The answer, as Larison suggests, is not to go to war in countries where American interests aren't all that clear in the first place. And I still think we should get out of Syria and Afghanistan. The advocates of a more humble foreign policy often find themselves having to justify the moral burden of non-interventionism in a way that hawks don't. But drifting toward a confrontation with Russia for no good reason could end up creating a higher moral cost -- in terms of shattered lives -- than leaving. Sometimes, when there are no good answers, the best answer is restraint.
