In this readily accessible study, political scientist Glenn J. Antizzo identifies fifteen factors critical to the success of contemporary U.S. military intervention and evaluates the likely efficacy of direct U.S. military mediation todaywhen it will work, when it will not, and how to undertake such action in a manner that will bring rapid victory at an acceptable political cost. Antizzo then tests his abstract criteria by using real-world case studies of the most recent fully completed U.S. military interventionsin Panama in 1989, Iraq in 1991, Somalia in 199394, and Kosovo in 1999. Finally, he considers how the development of a Somalia Syndrome affected U.S. foreign policy and how the politics and practice of military intervention have continued to evolve since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, giving specific attention to the current war in Afghanistan and the larger War on Terror.