![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/fordscholars\/files\/2015\/07\/6426694123_eae11f03e3_b-2.jpg\")
<\/a>President Clinton Addressing an Audience at the McClellan Air Force Base in October 1993. Photograph courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.<\/p><\/div>\n
However, from discussions with Professor Brigham, it became clear that the next question to ask was: What caused the Clinton administration to be so hesitant to intervene in Rwanda?\u00a0 From my findings, it has become evident that President Clinton\u2019s reaction encompasses several decades of U.S. foreign policy that fears intervention and stems from America\u2019s failure in the Vietnam War.\u00a0 The U.S. learned several lessons from the Vietnam War that include: a need for clear and achievable objectives, Congressional and public support, the need for a focus on human rights, and that a successful military strategy requires an immediate, not gradual, attack.\u00a0 In addition to these lessons, presidents following Vietnam were forced to deal with a distrust of civilian leadership that emanated from the military and made the military more hesitant to support political objectives abroad.\u00a0 It was extremely interesting to research how each president dealt with the public\u2019s new dislike for foreign intervention, such as President Carter who emphasized human rights and President Reagan who utilized a realist interpretation of the Vietnam War to restore American confidence in its foreign presence.\u00a0 Surprisingly, I found my research regarding changes to the military since the Vietnam War to be extremely interesting, such as the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 that reorganized the Department of Defense and promoted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the role of primary military advisor to the president.\u00a0 Additionally, the Act mandated that the Executive Branch submit an annual National Security Strategy Report, which became a useful primary source for understanding an administration\u2019s foreign policy outlook.\u00a0 Ultimately, from my research, I concluded that despite the growing confidence of the U.S. in foreign intervention (from the Reagan administration and primarily the success of the First Gulf War), the U.S. military\u2019s humiliation in Somalia during the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) II caused memories of Vietnam to return to the minds of many citizens, including President Clinton.\u00a0 Thus, a year after UNOSOM II and with the publication of Presidential Decision Directive 25, which revealed the United States\u2019 more selective approach to peacekeeping operations, President Clinton was paralyzed by fears of foreign intervention and unable to responsibly intervene in Rwanda.<\/p>\n