Avoiding National Wars

Very seldom do I agree with the programs of Pres. Obama. However, the Washington Times reports that "Obama [is] ‘determined’ to avoid prolonged military action in Iraq", and I agree completely.
The reason I agrees is that the nature of war has changed. In the Middle Ages, wars of aggression were started by nations with financial advantages primarily in mind. If an enemy country was defeated by the war, all of the assets reverted to the winner. This included natural resources, gold and silver in the national treasury, and taxes from the defeated inhabitants. Even from the defeated party point of view, there are now advantages to having been defeated.
The primary change occurred with World War II. Japan, Germany, and Italy initiated the war from the previous traditional viewpoint. Great Britain, US, and other allies also defended their position from the previous traditional viewpoint. That is, they were attacked and needed to retaliate to avoid being taken advantage of as losers. However, the defendants prevailed militarily and the change came about with the defenders actually spending there money to rebuild infrastructures of the defeated enemy. Historically this was known as the Marshall Plan.
Subsequent wars, in which the US wise engaged, were the Korean War, Vietnam War And the Iraq War. All these wars were four on the same new basis. That is, they were fought with no potential spoils in mind. They were not being fought from a defensive position. Rather, they were ideological wars involving a US inflated ego of believing that it was the US's God-given right to protect other people of the world from political and military action contrary to the ideology of the US. History shows that the US attitude was not sufficiently strong to carry through with success, and all those world wars were lost. Since they were lost and the US never had intention of obtaining spoils, a great burden of financial loss to conduct those wars fell upon the US populace.
With respect to current conditions, I don't believe that Pres. Obama has any real concern about additional wall costs to the US populace. In fact, I don't know what he believes, but he is appearing to stay out of the ridiculous wars in which we have been involved in the recent past. From Obama's point of view, the idea of nationbuilding, such as was our intention in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be out. This leaves only the necessity of defending ourselves against aggression. That aggression now exists not in the form of a country such as Germany or Japan, but rather a subset of militants within various countries. The best way we can protect ourselves is by use of high technology to control the so-called jihadists at the source. Pres. Obama appears to be doing that.
In addition , Pres. Obama is demonstrating some compassion for underprivileged persecuted minorities in various countries of the Middle East; particularly Iraq, by some strategic bombing. I am not a person of particularly high compassion. My attitude is generally that the underprivileged have usually brought themselves to negative conditions, primarily through their own efforts of negligence, or lack of foresight and desire to defend themselves. However, I will not fault Pres. Obama for his show of compassion, which is consistent with normal American attitudes. However, compassion can be abused, and we must guard against that abuse to avoid our own self-destruction.