Over the past decade and a half, the U.S. has been embroiled in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it has played a supporting role in counter-insurgencies in a number of other countries as well. Counter-insurgencies are a textbook example of the kind of mission the U.S. ought to avoid if possible. Unfortunately, the U.S. needs to be prepared for counter-insurgencies, as countries can’t always pick and choose the wars they fight. As the global population grows more urban, and as the threat of state collapse continues to grow more pressing than the threat that one state will openly invade another, it is all but certain that the U.S. and its allies will be called upon to restore order.

And restoring order is extremely expensive, because restoring order can’t be done by drones. High-tech weapons can work wonders when your goal is to wipe out your enemy. But if your goal is to win over a population, and to carefully distinguish between friends and enemies who can be hard to tell apart, you can’t just rely on high-tech weapons—you need intelligent people, including intelligent people who speak the local language, who are capable of making friends and influencing people. In an ideal world, it would be our allies who could take on these tasks. The trouble is that counter-insurgency and peacekeeping aren’t the same thing. Counter-insurgency requires that you have a full complement of capabilities, from the heavy firepower you need to decisively win a conflict to the soft skills you need to avoid a conflict in the first place. Peacekeeping is what you do when peace has already been established. Part of the reason the U.S. needs to spend more on its military is that the U.S. needs well-trained women and men with the skills and the talent to handle chaotic situations, and they need the best tools money can buy.

The world is a dangerous place, but it is far less dangerous than it would be in the absence of a uniquely powerful United States.