A company like Boston Dynamics? Absolutely yes.
They were working on next-gen robotics that would directly save American soldier lives - both while in combat and during rescue operations. Their technology was also being tested for domestic search-and-rescue operations where it was too dangerous to send in humans.
Stopping a genocide, inserting a military "buffer" in-between two hostile nations, general peace keeping, hostage rescue, VIP protection, bomb location/defusal, hijackings, and more come to mind.
The fact is, soldier's lives are going to be put into harms way, even in a perfectly at-peace world (which none of us live in).
Perhaps I'm biased, as I come from a military family, but I'd far rather a walking circuit board take a bullet over a human soldier.
The US military is not interventionist - the US politicians are.
The military has little-to-zero say in what military actions they participate in, rather the politicians decide what is politically advantageous for themselves, the country, or the world - and give the orders. The military must then carry out those orders - and I'd still rather they have the option to send a robot instead of humans.
> they will be even more gung-ho about sending in firepower to places where it is going to end up causing a lot of civilian "collateral damage"
Part of the goal of robotics is to reduce "collateral damage". Humans make mistakes all the time in the field, which can and does result in friendly fire, civilian casualties, and more.
There are many good reasons not to make war too easy or efficient. Too often politicians trend toward groupthink and acting en masse, like a faceless feckless mob. Making invasion as easy as sending spam would be very bad.
If politicians make bad decisions, perhaps you should try fixing that instead of sacrificing the lives of young men for a small chance of making those decisions more painful.