Military Interventions: Historical Trends and Contemporary Challenges

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable will discuss the patterns, drivers, and consequences of Great Power Military Interventions, particularly as applied to the stability of the international system, state national interests, and the behavior of non-state actors. Over the past six decades, foreign military interventions have become commonplace occurrences in international relations. Thus, we can no longer discuss the phenomenon of military intervention as an outlier in the international system, but as a main tool of foreign policymaking. The United States (US) remains the leader of such usage of force abroad. According to the Military 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.
But the trend of military interventions extends beyond the U.S. Since 2002, the European Union (EU) has intervened over thirty times across three different continents. Currently, European leaders are debating the European Intervention Initiative (EI2), with the hopes of transforming Europe into a highly capable defense player in the international arena, carrying out effective and urgent joint military operations outside of E.U. security frameworks.
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 US 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 roundtable will serve as a platform for dialogue on the trends, nature, and costs of the usage of force abroad. Topics of discussion may include: US military missions, covert and drone strikes, international humanitarian interventions, non-Western interventions, historical trajectories of intervention, post-conflict involvement, UN interventions, civil wars and intervention, and the costs of military intervention. By promoting a broad historical lens of military intervention, the roundtable can also speak to long-term trends, dramatic changes, and lasting costs and benefits to domestic and international politics. The discussion will pay special attention to drones and covert special operations missions undertaken since 2001, which remains a highly underexplored topic in both academic and policy circles.
The key questions of the roundtable discussion are:
1.) What are the top trends in military intervention across decades and state actors?
2.) What is an appropriate definition of military intervention for the 21st century?
3.) How do we define and measure drone warfare and covert operations as part of the phenomenon?
4.) How do we measure the costs and benefits of military interventions?
5.) Which theories or frameworks are best equipped to explain the empirics of contemporary military intervention?
6.) How do we bridge the gap between academic research and policy implications of military interventions?

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 19: International Security

Chair

• Monica Duffy Toft Tufts University

Presenters

• Benjamin Denison Tufts University

• Peter Dombrowski Naval War College

• Jacqueline L. Hazelton Naval War College

• Sidita Kushi Tufts University

• John J. Mearsheimer University of Chicago

• Robert A. Pape University of Chicago

• Kori Schake Stanford University