This work addresses questions about why the United States did not get involved in intervention efforts during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. To answer this, the work will analyze the history of Rwanda leading up to and through the genocide and changes in American policy towards Africa and military intervention. After presenting and analyzing the information, this work will argue that the United States did not send military aid to Rwanda because American policy makers did not hold Rwanda as a key foreign interest, there was no large-scale call to assist the Rwandans coming from the American public and that American policy makers did not want to involve American combat personnel in future civil wars after the devastating failure of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. The conclusion of the paper will analyze how American-Rwanda relations have changed in the years since the genocide.