Chris, you make an interesting point. I definitely think there is this perception in the US now that war is neat and tidy, a lot of which is attributed to technological advances. However, I question how much of this idea is due to actual technolgocial advances and how much is due to the government/media's attempts to make the technological advances seem far more substnatial than they are (ie. strategic missle defence system). Undoubtedly, a lot of this is still fallout from the Vietnam conflict, which showed that US popular opinion no longer supports long, bloody wars fought on foreign soil, hence the need for tidy, no-casulaty wars.

As Trineesh alludes to with the Rwanda situation, while on the one hand we like to think wars are neat, tidy and bloodless, in actuality the technology that exists now enables us to have far greater potential for bloodshed than at any other time in world history. A somewhat dangerous popular misconception.