After two wars, Americans are exhausted financially and morally. We have pulled out of Iraq completely and are drawing down from Afghanistan. Though Iraq technically was not a failed state, at least not until we entered it, our involvement there appears part of our desire to change regimes and rebuild nations.

Michael J. Mazarr wrote an article in Foreign Affairs discussing our involvement with “failed states.” (“The Rise and Fall of the Failed-State Paradigm; Requiem for a Decade of Distraction,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 2014.)

At the conclusion of the Great Power struggles of the Cold War, we confronted the “non-state” terrorist. Our entry in the 1990’s into Somalia and our intervention in other failed states since then came about, Mazarr suggests, because we wanted to cut the poverty and corruption out of which terrorists come.

Certainly, many terrorists come from failed economies and societies. The leaders, however, are more likely to emerge from a fairly well-off middle class. Often they are incensed at government corruption or at decadent habits (pornography, broken homes, etc.) that they perceive as drifting in from Western cultures.

In the current world scene, the United States is unlikely to engage in invasions of other countries or to become embroiled in land wars, because we perceive that these policies haven’t worked. Should we than turn our backs on violent human rights abuses, as is happening in Syria?

Perhaps we should choose a more patient path. That includes working with other nations in painstaking efforts to build trust between enemies. Efforts include talks that seem endless—in other words, in tasks that may continue into our grandchildren’s time. But sometimes if we stand in the wings, we can take advantage of war weariness to find workable solutions. We have to be present. We do not have to invade.