Shortly after the Clinton administration's 1993 military fiasco in Somalia, these criteria were corrupted to fit a different agenda. In a supposed reform of United Nations-sponsored operations, the administration issued Presidential Policy Directive 25, which tried to adapt Weinberger's guidelines to "peace operations." Rather than securing our "vital interests" through "clearly defined political and military objectives," Clinton's directive formulated the idea of an "endpoint for U.S. participation." Thus, the term "exit strategy." Clinton, who protested the Vietnam War in his youth, thereby returned us to the Vietnam syndrome that Reagan sought to overcome.
Asking about our exit strategy became commonplace during the Clinton administration because of its profligate use of U.S. military power for conducting peace operations. It was also a good question to ask as virtually none of the peace operations since the end of World War II have ever ceased. But ending participation in an U.N.-led operation is not a strategy, exit or otherwise. claremont - PDD#25
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