The so-called Powell Doctrine was the military’s response to the catastrophe of the Vietnam war.  It mandated using maximum military force to deal with a threat to a vital national interests only after all other options have been exhausted, smashing up whatever necessary to achieve a decisive result, departing as quickly as possible after the smashing is over in line with a clearly defined exit strategy, and then leaving it up to the natives to sort things out.  It was best exemplified in Desert Storm back in the now legendary days of George H. W. Bush.

By way of comparison, Libya is a humanitarian mission with no vital American interest at stake that was entered into virtually without any attempt to negotiate, it was designed to use minimum force and maximum assistance of allies even if those allies do not have the resources to be effective, it has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan civilians, and its only exit strategy is to hopefully disengage if and when Gaddafi is forced from power.  President Obama has vowed that no American boots on the ground will follow the air attacks, which have already cost around $1 billion, but several senior military officers have already questioned that commitment.  It is a fiction anyway as US spec-ops in mufti and also CIA special operations officers are on the ground and working with the rebels.  Mission creep is sure to follow as it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and Gaddafi has the whip hand.

Now that the president of the United States has indicated that Washington is willing to fight wars based on humanitarian principles and furthermore that president prerogatives make it unnecessary to go to congress for a proper declaration of war, it is possible that more interventions will take place as the administration becomes more comfortable with throwing its weight around overseas.  It is a formula for failure and is particularly discouraging in that candidate Barack Obama clearly saw the problems with the policy and has done a flip flop to become little more than a Democratic version of George W. Bush.  But perhaps sliding into stalemate in Libya will have a restorative effect, reminding Obama that the commitment of military forces to a conflict between foreign factions is not a solution, only a distraction that inevitably turns out badly.