As in Kipling's day, military deployments are needed to prevent unknowable threats

[basquebromance]

They are never likely to provide clear end-points like Hitler’s suicide in the bunker or Japan’s surrender on the Battleship Missouri or optimal results like the establishment of democratic, rule-of-law governments there. Critics of these deployments got that much right

But that doesn’t mean such conflicts are always useless, or not worth the cost. In a world where the costs of dangers averted and disasters avoided are unknowable, it’s wise to bet that such deployments are needed to foster, in Mattis’s words, “an international order ... conducive to our security, prosperity and values.”