Military Intervention During the Clinton Administration: A Critical Comparison

This study reviews the Clinton administration's approach to military intervention by examining the Rwandan genocide crisis of 1994 and the Kosovo crisis of 1999. It seeks to answer to the question of why the U.S. intervened militarily to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo but did not intervene to stop genocide in Rwanda. Before looking at the two cases, the paper provides background discussion on U.S. national interests and a discussion of the Clinton administration's National Security Strategy formulation, citing salient points of its published strategies. After providing a background for each crisis, it applies a framework of five interrelated criteria to examine the two crises. The paper concludes that four of the five interrelated areas (ideology, convictions, global systems, and policy inertia) shaped the Clinton administration's reactions to both crises. It also concludes that the mass media had little effect on the administration's response to either crisis.