The Evolution of US Military Interventions and State-building Projects

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This paper panel will examine international military interventions, their outcomes, and their historical evolution. Over the past decades, foreign military interventions have become commonplace occurrences in interstate relations. We can no longer view this phenomenon as an outlier in the international system, but as a main tool of foreign policymaking, especially in the context of humanitarian and civil conflicts (Pickering and Mitchell 2017). For instance, according to the Intervention Project (MIP) dataset, the U.S. has undertaken over 500 international military missions since 1776, with more than half of these missions undertaken between 1950 and 2017. Furthermore, over 25% of the missions have occurred in the post-Cold War period.
Yet even the most common understanding of these military interventions as promoters of geopolitical national interests does not sit well with the dynamics of the post-Cold War era, which was less prone to great power conflicts. In other words, if the U.S. and other powerful states only militaristically intervene when their security interests are threatened, why do we see so many military interventions in an era where fewer vital interests are arguably at stake?
The papers presented in this panel will examine the drivers and outcomes of military intervention through a broad range of lenses, methods, and key factors. A set of these papers will focus on post-intervention state building, particularly in the aftermath of civil war. Ultimately, the panel will bring together research on theoretical and policy implications of military interventions in the 21st century, with an eye towards creating new definitions of the evolving phenomenon and measuring direct and in-direct outcomes of these increasing missions.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 19: International Security

Individual Presentations

• Introducing MIP: A New Dataset on U.S. Interventions, 1776-2017 - Monica Duffy Toft, Tufts University; Sidita Kushi, Tufts University

• The Art of State-Building: Why America Succeeds - Karim Elkady, Center for Strategic Studies, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

• The Fog of Intervention: Uncertainty, Local Institutions, and Foreign Rule - Benjamin Denison, Tufts University

• Civil War Diffusion through Military Intervention: Syria and Lebanon - Nils Hagerdal, Tufts University; Peter Krause, Boston College

Chair

• Robert A. Pape University of Chicago

Discussant

• Thomas P. Cavanna Tufts University