[jm951]

I was not commenting on who would make the best soldiers, but on who in general is most likely to volunteer.

Some of what you term "vanity wars" could also be looked at as preventative measures. I would hope we learned our lesson in WW2 to not let things get to a point where it takes massive intervention, loss of life and capital to solve a problem that could have been avoided much earlier. Suppose that we had left SH totally alone, just shook our heads over Kuwait and fired off diplomatic communiques in response. Suppose then SH has decided to make Saudi Arabia vote JA on the Anshluss and then controlled a very significant part of the world's oil supply. Carry it a tad further and then the smaller states of Jordan, Syria and Leabanon fall to SH. Then SH attacks Isreal to quell Arab unrest about his activities, what better way to distract the street than the evil Jew? If these events had occured in this order, do you think that the rest of the world would stand by and let Isreal go it alone and almost assuredly go nuclear? How much loss of life and treasure then on both sides, not to mention the environmental consequences. I would hardly call this one a vanity war in light of what could have happened had we left SH alone. Where I have problems is sending US troops in as "peace keepers", their job is to protect the US, not play cop in a third world sqabble.