More than 200,000 people have been killed in nearly two months of ethnic warfare and massacres in Rwanda.

That means, primarily, deterring a return to open ethnic warfare.

American troops have served in Bosnia since that country's ethnic warfare ended in 1995, and now total 4,200.

By February 1998 the Kivus were engulfed in ethnic warfare.

The case for stationing soldiers rests on the role they might play in deterring new ethnic warfare.

Tens of thousands have since died in ethnic warfare and terrorism.

The army would also reopen its ranks to Hutus, who were purged from it after the ethnic warfare of 1972.

In recent months, Rwanda has sunk further into ethnic warfare.

But evidence is building that it is at least in the early stages of ethnic and sectarian warfare.

If the situation deteriorates further, it could approach low-key ethnic warfare as in the case of Burundi.