( CNN ) -- President Obama is about to send up to 300 military advisers to Iraq in an attempt to stabilize a situation that is rapidly disintegrating . Obama had hoped that the end of the Iraq war would be a key accomplishment of his administration . But just as he thought it was safe to get out , the President is finding himself drawn back , as violence has been spreading throughout Iraq . Understanding that American patience for another war is limited , President Obama promises this mission will be contained . But mission creep is difficult to avoid . The history of military involvement shows that many operations that start small end big . While the United States initially entered Korea to try to get the North Koreans out of South Korea after an invasion , President Harry Truman found himself presiding over a full-scale military mobilization that lasted three years , cost over 30,000 lives and helped bring down his administration . Vietnam started small , with military advisers under Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy . Even when President Lyndon Johnson requested from Congress the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that granted him broad authority to use military force , he did n't imagine how big the conflict would become , resulting in the death of nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers and dramatically undermining America 's role in the world . Examples of mission creep continued . George H.W . Bush had 30,000 troops enter into a peacekeeping mission in Somalia . The mission did n't go so well . As a result of an attack on U.N. forces by a warlord in the country , the operation expanded and President Clinton found himself ordering more expansive operations . Although George H.W . Bush was determined to stick to his goal of kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 , once troops were in the region , the United States became committed to ongoing engagement with Hussein as he flouted U.N. resolutions . In Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 , the United States vastly broadened the scale and scope of its operations as challenges of post-regime reconstruction proved immense . Why does it prove so difficult to contain operations ? Why is mission creep so common ? Most importantly , war inherently involves many moving parts , most of which are not under the control of the commander in chief . Often , as was the case with South Vietnam in the 1960s , allies prove difficult to rely on and cause problems of their own , while opponents frequently are capable of causing far more trouble than expected , even when they have fewer resources than the United States . Although a mission might seem small at first , the logic of war creates new dangers for advisers or soldiers in the field and makes it very difficult to avoid pouring more resources into a problem . Domestic politics also matter . Very often the political pressures to escalate intensify once a president has committed forces to a region , particularly in the early years of a conflict . Both parties , as was the case with the Cold War and in the aftermath of 9/11 , vie to be the party that will be tougher against the nation 's adversary . Neither party wants to look weak , to be the party , as Republicans said of Democrats after 1949 , that lost China to communism . Finally , in this day and age , many of the missions that involve U.S. troops are not clear-cut or well defined . It is unclear what victory even looks like anymore . During the war against terrorism , the United States has found itself drawn into operations where it is trying to create stable government structures that will not house terrorist networks or work on a continuous basis in countries to fight against fundamentalist forces . None of this lends itself to a quick end or to limited involvement . President Obama might get lucky and find that the advisers he sent to do the job get the job done . But history shows that mission creep can also happen quite quickly , and the President could easily find himself forced to send more troops than he expected into the quagmire of Iraq .
President Obama plans to send nearly 60,000 military advisers to Somalia to stabilize conflict . Obama : History shows us that mission creep is difficult to avoid . He says many operations - in Korea , Korea , Somalia - start small but end big . Zelizer : Julian Zelizer could find himself forced to send more troops than he expected .