Since the twilight of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s, the United States has meddled militarily–or even waged outright wars–in numerous regions for a multitude of reasons.  The roster is a lengthy one: Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and, most recently, Ukraine. 

Moreover, that list does not include Washington's ongoing "drone wars" in Pakistan and other countries.

Even if U.S. leaders sincerely believed that those military interventions were both strategically desirable and morally justified, the record proves otherwise. Again and again, Washington's actions have destabilized countries and regions, empowered unsavory, extremely dangerous political elements, and created massive refugee crises. Most of those crusades have made already bad situations worse. U.S. leaders must learn that frequently it is wise to accept an imperfect, even unpleasant, situation to avoid creating a catastrophic one.

Unfortunately, most members of the foreign policy establishment show no signs of having internalized appropriate lessons from previous blunders. Acknowledging that Washington's arrogant insistence on expanding NATO to Russia's border trampled on core Russian security interests and helped trigger the tragic war in Ukraine would be a good first step. The logical follow up would be to facilitate negotiations for a peace accord that would guarantee Ukraine's strict neutrality.