600 U.S. troops will be flying out of Vicenza, Italy next month to Ukraine to help train National Guard troops, a Pentagon spokesman told Fox News this week. 

Over the last year, Ukraine has distanced itself from the European Union. With this distance came a rise in crime in the past several months. As diplomatic efforts have proved ineffectual and crime continues to rise in the unstable nation, the U.S. has decided to intervene. The U.S. will aid Ukrainian forces with “its law enforcement capabilities, conduct internal defense and maintain rule of law,” according to Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Vanessa Hillman in her statement to Defense News.

But this decision to send troops to another nation in peril has some questioning whether or not the United States is heading for another conflict similar to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts we have been part of for the past decade. Its recent actions beg the question: does the U.S. have a savior complex? 

With U.S intervention, it seems that they are trying to prove themselves under the guise of working for the greater good. In Ukraine, violence has claimed 5,300 lives since April 2014. In a sense, this intervention parallels both Afghanistan and Iraq in which tragic events and statistics were used to justify military intervention. Our most recent intervention must be viewed in light of the deaths of thousands of American troops. In a sense, are we putting ourselves in this same position again in the name of the greater good?  

A Congressional Research Service report from Feb. 2013 estimates that at least 200,000 civilians have died as a result of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This does not include the 6,500 or more U.S. military forces that have died and the 50,000 that have been wounded during these wars. 

Outside of the immediate casualties, coming home from war is emotionally and psychologically taxing. Over 100,000 service members have been diagnosed with PTSD between December 2002 and 2012.  In that same period, 250,000 have been diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The difference between TBI and PTSD is that TBIs are caused from an external force that does physical damage to the brain. PTSD, on the other hand, is a psychological disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder. In addition, hundreds of service members have had to have limbs amputated, the majority being major limbs such as legs or arms. 

So the question now is, can we justify intervention in the face of these statistics? Are we really helping others? Or are we so worried about our reputation that we are willing to put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk? 

We must think about the consequences of these actions. Sending forces to yet another unstable region is not the best decision. If the past ten years have taught us anything, they have taught us that force does not bring about stability; rather it breeds hatred and more violence.

As we are a relatively young nation—and new to power/hegemony—we have something to prove. But this is not the way to prove ourselves. Force only results in more anger and resentment in the nation that is being “saved.” Postcolonial relations in MENA with the support of dictators and the failings of neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus support this claim.  

We must stop using our military as an example of our power. If we truly wish to prove our place in this world, we must do what hasn’t been done before, supporting multiculturalism, understanding language and strengthening diplomatic ties without the use of force or economic power. 

America may be a young nation, yet Angie Chuang tells us in her book, The Four Words for Home, it is “the last, not the first, who will be the one who carries the past and writes the future.” America must be the last to use military force, and the first to change the methods used to help nations in peril.