This provokes a final thought.  The American Civil War was a profoundly destructive experience for the United States, north and south.  In 2014, many Americans regret its excesses, such as General William Tecumseh Sherman’s brutal burning of Atlanta and his self-consciously terrifying March to the Sea.  More important, however, is that no small number of Americans would likely support U.S. military intervention in someone else’s civil war to stop similar conduct today while simultaneously believing that our own civil war, however bloody, was necessary and that the united country—north and south—is the better for it.  Indeed, while no one can know what could have happened instead, it is not difficult to envision admittedly speculative outcomes that could have been much worse.  Taking all of this into account, Americans would do well to remember their own experience with civil war  and to employ a degree of moral humility in forming judgments about today’s global conflicts—particularly if they think that General Sherman turned out to be “on the right side of history.”

Paul J. Saunders is executive director of  The Center for the National Interest and associate publisher of The National Interest. He served in the State Department from 2003 to 2005. Follow him on Twitter: @1796farewell.

Image: Wikicommons.