It is typical of American liberals & social democrats to think of the entire world as their 'domestic' affairs. For people with such a worldview, I suppose Nathan's analogy (i.e. a military invasion in foreign policy is a "reform" analogous to universal health care in domestic policy) makes sense. For me, it represents a return to the Fabian Imperialism. Nathan thinks that an empire can and should undertake a *civilizing mission* to "reform" the brutality of global capital that it imposes ("actions that on net are an improvement on the general brutality that lies at the regime of global capital"). He should go ahead and say so. He ought to own up to his missionary position and call it by its proper name.
Keep in mind that there is (and has been) much brutality in Peru, Columbia, Russia, etc. -- nearly everywhere. Nathan has no reason to limit his advocacy to only East Timor & Kosovo. Why, he should be arguing for a military intervention (be it unilateral, NATO, or U.N.) wherever and whenever brutality exists.
Yoshie