The war in Kosovo, a conflict that lent itself to varying interpretations from the start, has been neatly divided now in American memory, as bifurcated as the Serb and Albanian sectors that now loom in the province itself.
For the public, or "the American people" as the commentators are fond of calling them, the war in Kosovo is barely a memory at all. There was a bad guy named Milosevic and, like Saddam Hussein, he was doing some really bad things to all those poor Albanian refugees, so we went in and bombed him without losing a single soldier.
It seems we won. Sure, like Hussein, he's still there, but he is crippled and harmless now. Kosovo itself? Well, now the Albanians, the same sweet beleaguered people we sent our charity dollars to, are killing the Serbs. Well, anyway, it's the UN's problem, not ours. We've done our bit and moved on.
And that's that. There was no interest in getting involved in subsequent skirmishes. East Timor was too far away. Chechyna is one of those Russian things, none of our business. In fact, in a recent Newsweek magazine poll of their concerns, Americans rated "America's role abroad" last.
But there is the other side of the post-Kosovo equation, and that territory is inhabited by a minority population of scholars, policy-makers and foreign policy experts. The topic now is the subject of a near-war itself: what exactly did America accomplish in Kosovo? Why were we there in the first place? What doctrine determines that the US should intervene in one region and yet not in another?
As Russian troops attack Chechen rebels, hordes of refugees now huddle in the Russian winter, shivering at the border without the benefit of humanitarian aid, much less worldwide outcry. A bloodless coup has overturned a democratically elected government in Pakistan, one of the world's nuclear powers, and currently one its of crankiest. The rogue state of Afghanistan is harbouring terrorist exporter Osama bin-Laden, and has instituted severe measures that outlaw schooling or appearing in public for half its population . . . women.
What is the difference?
These are the questions being debated in the US, among the minority who care about such things, and there is no consensus to be found.
"Europeans have suckered us in again," US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher complained. "If Kosovo is so important, the alliance should step forward and take over." But not so fast.
"Plan for Europe Strike Force Worries US", blares a headline in the Los Angeles Times. The European Union vote in Helsinki for a 60,000-troop rapid deployment force, aimed only at humanitarian, rescue and peacekeeping missions, was greeted by US policy-makers with suspicion and concern. In diplomatic speak, US Defence Secretary William Cohen opined: "We would not want to see the development of a separate capability which is not compatible with the NATO capability."
If Europe finds America's attitude confusing - join the club. With 100,000 troops based in Europe, another 100,000 in Asia, and some 20,000 in the Persian Gulf, the US feels strongly about the need to, in the words of the Penatgon's Quadrennial Defence Review, "shape the environment". But when to actually intervene in the affairs of other nations - and indeed whether the concept of national sovereignty is even viable in today's world - remains at the core of the debate.
Some policy-makers argue that a redefinition of what defines the US national interest should be listed according to a hierarchy. A List threats would include threats to US survival such as the Soviet Union once presented. B List situations would include threats to US interests, but not survival, such as Iraq or North Korea. Finally, C List threats could be defined as contingencies that indirectly affect US security but do not directly threaten US interests . . . a category that would include Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti, for example.
The problem with this approach, argues Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and an assistant secretary of defence in 1994 and 1995, is that C List concerns now dominate US foreign policy, in part because they usually dominate the media and are more easily understandable than the B List abstractions.
Moral concerns, driven by evening television newscasts that depict human suffering, may be compelling, but they are often "non-vital" to US interests, and draw attention away from more important global issues.
"There are certain rules of prudence that may help the integration of such issues into the larger strategy for advancing the national interest," writes Nye in Foreign Affairs, a quarterly. "There are many degrees of humanitarian concern and many degrees on intervention to reflect them, such as condemnation, sanctions targeted on individuals, broad sanctions and various uses of force. We should save violent options for the most egregious cases."
But what constitutes the most egregious cases? The word genocide is thrown around liberally these days.
A novel formula for intervention has been proposed by former US Congressman Stephen Solarz and Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon. They propose US military intervention whenever the rate of killing in a country or region exceeds the US murder rate, which is roughly 1,000 people per 10 million. Their moral premise is, firstly, that the US and other countries should devote their resources to where the most lives can be saved and, secondly, that the "United States cannot be politically or morally expected to try and make other countries safer than its own domestic society".
Under their formula, eight cases between 1992 and 1997 would have absolutely qualified for their criteria; conflicts in Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Angola, Bosnia and Chechnya. Wars in Algeria, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Congo, Ethiopia-Eritrea, and Iraq would not have. North Korea and Kosovo are marginal calls, they suggest, though they themselves would have favoured it.
Despite such discourse, the reality seems to be at the moment that the US guidelines for foreign involvement are decided on a case-by-case and frequently inconsistent basis by a handful of Washington policymakers, led by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. US interests, on any given day, are what she says they are, and what she is able to convince President Clinton and the Pentagon they are. As early as 1993, according to the New Republic, she wrote a memo to Mr Clinton entitled Why America Must take the Lead, that called for the bombing of Serbia.
Indeed, last February, Mr Clinton made a speech in San Francisco in which he outlined the dictates of his foreign policy inclinations, and they were broad indeed: "The question we must ask is, what are the consequences to our security of letting conflicts fester and spread. We cannot, indeed, we should not, do everything or be everywhere. But where our values and our interests are at stake, where we can make a difference, we must be prepared to do so."
Mr Clinton and Mrs Albright continue to celebrate US "victory" in Kosovo. The American people are less certain. One thing is sure, however. They are not eager to get involved again, no matter how appealing the refugee faces look on the evening news.