Based on interviews with political decision-makers involved in post-Cold War case studies, this research reassesses the prevalent conclusion in the academic literature, according to which American public opinion has limited influence on military interventions, by including the level of commitment in the study of the decision-making process.
Based on interviews with political decision-makers involved in post-Cold War case studies, this research reassesses the prevalent conclusion in the academic literature, according to which American public opinion has limited influence on military interventions, by including the level of commitment in the study of the decision-making process.
Recent qualitative studies of the relationship between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy put decisions into the following two categories: the President tends to lead or to follow public opinion; public opinion influences decision-making, constrains the decision, or has no impact. These studies typically research the initial decision to intervene, but fail to examine the subsequent decisions to sustain and win a war: financial and human means, conduct, objectives, duration, and communication. I argue that these elements of a winning strategy are impacted by concerns with public support at home. The impact of public opinion on the decision whether to use force is better understood when analyzing the compromise between the perception of anticipated public opinion and the necessities of a military campaign. Public opinion impacts the strategy, the timing, and length of an intervention, and inversely, those elements impact the anticipated public opinion and ultimately the decision to use force or choose a different course of action. The president can expect to influence public opinion and raise the acceptability of an intervention through various means. As a consequence, there is a back-and-forth process between anticipated public support for a given intervention and the consideration of the use of force. Contrary to the current literature, which tends to conclude that the president enjoys a substantial margin for maneuver, an analysis of post Cold War cases of interventions, limited interventions, and military escalations shows that anticipated public opinion limited the president's margin for maneuver and influenced not only the decision to intervene but also the military strategy and in the end, the result of the intervention. These findings contradict the realist paradigm for which only the structure of the international system matters and domestic politics are irrelevant in the study of international relations.
Based on interviews with political decision-makers involved in post-Cold War case studies, this research reassesses the prevalent conclusion in the academic literature, according to which American public opinion has limited influence on military interventions, by including the level of commitment in the study of the decision-making process.
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy in Western democracies. This international board of contributors examine the ways in which the connection between public opinion and the use of military force has developed since the end of the Cold War. In doing so, it also addresses the crucial and topical question of whether, and to what extent a democratic foreign policy is possible.
Publisher Fact Sheet Draws upon case studies - including Iraq, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, & Lebanon - & suggests political & military guidelines for potential U.S. military interventions ranging from peacekeeping & humanitarian operations to preventative strikes & all-out warfare.
The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in American global hegemony in world affairs. In the post-Cold War period, both Democrat and Republican governments intervened, fought insurgencies, and changed regimes. In America's Wars, Thomas Henriksen explores how America tried to remake the world by militarily invading a host of nations beset with civil wars, ethnic cleansing, brutal dictators, and devastating humanitarian conditions. The immediate post-Cold War years saw the United States carrying out interventions in the name of Western-style democracy, humanitarianism, and liberal internationalism in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Later, the 9/11 terrorist attacks led America into larger-scale military incursions to defend itself from further assaults by al Qaeda in Afghanistan and from perceived nuclear arms in Iraq, while fighting small-footprint conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Arabia. This era is coming to an end with the resurgence of great power rivalry and rising threats from China and Russia.
Since the end of the Cold War, the international community, and the USA in particular, has intervened in a series of civil conflicts around the world. In a number of cases, where actions such as economic sanctions or diplomatic pressures have failed, military interventions have been undertaken. This 1999 book examines four US-sponsored interventions (Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia), focusing on efforts to reconstruct the state which have followed military action. Such nation-building is vital if conflict is not to recur. In each of the four cases, Karin von Hippel considers the factors which led the USA to intervene, the path of military intervention, and the nation-building efforts which followed. The book seeks to provide a greater understanding of the successes and failures of US policy, to improve strategies for reconstruction, and to provide some insight into the conditions under which intervention and nation-building are likely to succeed.
One of the most contentious issues in contemporary foreign policy—especially in the United States—is the use of military force to intervene in the domestic affairs of other states. Some military interventions explicitly try to transform the domestic institutions of the states they target; others do not, instead attempting only to reverse foreign policies or resolve disputes without trying to reshape the internal landscape of the target state. In Leaders at War, Elizabeth N. Saunders provides a framework for understanding when and why great powers seek to transform foreign institutions and societies through military interventions. She highlights a crucial but often-overlooked factor in international relations: the role of individual leaders. Saunders argues that leaders' threat perceptions—specifically, whether they believe that threats ultimately originate from the internal characteristics of other states—influence both the decision to intervene and the choice of intervention strategy. These perceptions affect the degree to which leaders use intervention to remake the domestic institutions of target states. Using archival and historical sources, Saunders concentrates on U.S. military interventions during the Cold War, focusing on the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. After demonstrating the importance of leaders in this period, she also explores the theory's applicability to other historical and contemporary settings including the post–Cold War period and the war in Iraq.
Using an original data set of 145 ground, air, and naval interventions from 1898 through 2016, this report identifies those factors that have made U.S. military interventions more or less successful at achieving their political objectives. While these objectives were often successfully achieved, about 63 percent of the time overall, levels of success have been declining over time as the United States has pursued increasingly ambitious objectives. The research combines statistical analysis and detailed case studies of three types of interventions -- combat, stability operations, and deterrence. The research highlights that the factors that promote the successful achievement of political objectives vary by the nature of the objective and the intervention. For example, sending additional ground forces may help to defeat adversaries in combat missions but may have a more contingent effect on success in institution-building in stability operations, where nonmilitary resources and pre-intervention planning may be especially vital. The report offers five main policy recommendations. First, planners should carefully match political objectives to strategy because factors that promote success vary substantially by objective type. Second, sending more forces does not always promote success, but for certain types of objectives and interventions, greater capabilities may be essential. Third, policymakers should have realistic expectations regarding the possibility of achieving highly ambitious objectives. Fourth, pre-intervention planning is crucial. Finally, policymakers should carefully evaluate the role that might be played by third parties, which is often under appreciated.
