American Military Intervention Research Articles

The United States, the People’s Republic of China, and the Defence of Taiwan

ABSTRACT This article examines the current rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China with a focus on the issue of Taiwan. A central question is whether Washington should change its current deterrence approach towards a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, moving from a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ about the potential of American military intervention to one based on ‘strategic clarity’ that commits US forces in advance to Taiwan’s defence. The article draws on deterrence theory, notably the so-called three Cs of deterrence (capability, commitment, and communications), and makes the case that a shift from strategic ambiguity to clarity will be necessary to uphold deterrence against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The Traumatic Mirror and the Asymptote: Cinematic Representations of American Intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan

This article explores cinematic representations of American military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, examining documentary and fiction films from American, Iraqi, and Afghan perspectives. The article argues that these films often fail to communicate meaningfully with domestic and international audiences effectively, instead remaining ‘asymptotic’ or ‘uroboric’ in their rhetorical and communicative impact. I highlight the ethical challenge faced by filmmakers, whether situated in the West or in the Middle East, of turning the ‘traumatic mirror’ back on themselves, and the difficulties in achieving successful communication and self-reflexivity. The post-9/11 era is marked by a complex intersection of realpolitik, public performatives, and moral commitments, with long-standing tensions between West and non-West persisting in new forms. Cinematic representations of these interventions serve as a window into the traumatic legacies of these conflicts and the ongoing struggle for ethical representation, as well as a lens on the rhetorics of cinema.

Introduction: Transnationalism and the War Film Genre

ABSTRACT This introduction offers a comprehensive context for this special issue of the Journal of War and Culture Studies. I define the concept of transnationalism as it is reflected in the scope of the articles included, all of which discuss non-American film productions about the American military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also argue that our understanding of the war film genre can only benefit from taking into account an array of different national cinematographies. The introduction contains summaries of the articles which discuss Iraqi, Afghan, British, German, Danish, Polish, Spanish, and Australian depictions of the American wars in the Middle East.

Ronald Steel and the American Century

The late Ronald Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century chronicled the era of American ascendence though which Steel himself had lived. Like Lippman a sophisticated realist, he remained critical of US foreign policy, including, as he made clear in the pages of Survival in 2007, the Iraq War, which he speculated would produce an ‘Iraq syndrome’ that would discourage subsequent American military interventions. But the US, he added, would not be weakened ‘so grievously as to retreat into its shell. Such a retreat reflects neither America’s global interests nor the American character.’ Steel expected continuity in strategic affairs. On its face, the Biden administration’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine supports this assessment, but given the genuine possibility that Donald Trump will again be the US president, we really do not know if the American Century will be extended or come to an end.

Afterlife of the Theatre of the Absurd: The Avant-Garde, Spectator-Ship and Psychoanalysis by Lara Cox (review)

Reviewed by: Afterlife of the Theatre of the Absurd: The Avant-Garde, Spectator-Ship and Psychoanalysis by Lara Cox Arka Chattopadhyay AFTERLIFE OF THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD: THE AVANT-GARDE, SPECTATOR-SHIP AND PSYCHOANALYSIS. By Lara Cox. Dramaturgies Vol. 37. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2018, pp. 216. The avant-garde introduces a break in the history of established aesthetic traditions, but its interruption becomes a norm and gets subsumed within the same traditions with the passage of time. Does [End Page 110] this mean, the radical edge of the avant-garde is momentary? Can we think of its afterlife beyond temporal exhaustion? This is the central question that Lara Cox’s Afterlife of the Theatre of the Absurd addresses with European absurdist theatre as corpus and psychoanalytically inflected arguments on identity categories like gender, race, and ethnicity as methodology. The intention is to think through the lasting and renewable political impact of the absurdist avant-garde, and, to its credit, it doesn’t let go of the specificity of theatre as practice. Cox blends psychoanalytic theory with questions of spectatorship that lie at the core of the conceptualization of theatre as performance. Cox chooses to begin from a historical vantage with what is usually considered the first absurdist play: Eugene Ionesco’s The Bold Soprano (1950). Her reading revolves around a perverse idea of spectatorship that tilts the work from tragedy to farce, converting anxiety into pleasure through the pervert’s fetishistic logic of ‘disavowal.’ In Cox’s readings, here and elsewhere throughout the monograph, the existentialist universal of the human condition gets challenged by particulars like queer sexuality in this case. She shows how Ionesco parodies masculine and feminine stereotypes and critiques the heterosexual institution of marriage. Taking into account the production history of the play (including queer stagings and amateur high-school performances) enhances the point of evolving parody in performance. From gender, we come to nation and ethnicity in the chapter on Arthur Adamov’s critically neglected play Off Limits (1969) that engages with the politics of the Vietnam War. Cox argues that the play critiques the American military intervention by introducing a psychotic spectatorship (unlike perverse spectatorship, as studied in Ionesco) of anger and resistance through the logic of ‘foreclosure.’ Though the post 9/11 contextualization of the play as a satire of patriotism remains speculative for lack of current-day productions, Cox manages to offer a convincing reading of how the play can have continuing political significance in the 21st century. The third chapter undertakes an analysis of Samuel Beckett’s 1972 play Not I as a disruption of gender exceptionalism with a focus on race, while it continues with the thread on psychosis. In this context, gender exceptionalism refers to a discourse that women in the non-Islamic West are more liberated than the Muslim women in the non-Western countries. The reading anchors itself on the implied racial and religious alterity of the djellaba-clad Auditor vis-à-vis Mouth. Cox argues for a female Auditor to balance the representation and suggests that the play trashes gender exceptionalism as it evacuates the ideology in the Real via the extreme tempo that turns Mouth’s speech into blah-blah for the audience. There is a psychotic repudiation of language that consolidates the ideology of exceptionalism. But, she complains about the absence of the Auditor in recent productions and how the white performer playing Mouth risks cultural appropriation. The critical thread on subverting gendered racism becomes more radical in the interpretation of Jean Genet’s The Blacks (1958), read against the backdrop of the Algerian war of independence and French de-colonization. The spectatorial mode here is that of “supplementary enjoyment” halfway between pain and pleasure as the audience watches a theatrical portrayal of “black community’s emancipation from white hegemony” (Cox 123) and a deconstruction of white female victimhood. There is both fear and enthrallment in watching the play, as she shows by attending to the 2014 performance in Paris that evoked a strange bafflement. The idea of incomprehension plays into the supplementary enjoyment that doesn’t signify anything. The argumentative slant is towards the a-signifying Real. The high point of the chapter...

Prelude to the Columbus Raid of 1916: The Battle of Naco

Prelude to the Columbus Raid of 1916: The Battle of Naco Heribert von Feilitzsch (bio) When “constitutionalist” revolutionaries ousted the Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta in July 1914, the political situation in Mexico was far from stable. The rivalry between the victorious Mexican rebel commanders Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza coincided with the outbreak of World War I. Because of its oil wealth and proximity to the United States, Mexico became a strategic interest in the war. German agents, most notably Felix A. Sommerfeld, Dr. Arnold Krumm-Heller, and Frederico Stallforth, infiltrated the inner circles of the Villa and Carranza factions, as well as the large community of exiled Mexican leaders.1 In the fall and winter of 1914, the imperial German government had not yet decided upon a strategy to use the unsettled political situation in Mexico against the United States. However, as the United States began supplying Germany’s enemies on a massive scale at the beginning of 1915, the German naval intelligence agent Felix Sommerfeld proposed to his German superiors in May to single-handedly create an American military intervention in Mexico.2 Sommerfeld argued that the intervention would cause the American military to consume arms and munitions for its own forces, thus curbing the exploding exportation of military supplies to Germany’s enemies. American military operations along the border with or within Mexico would have also limited the United States to actively participate in the European war on the side of the Allies. Sommerfeld stated to the former German colonial minister turned propaganda chief in Washington, D.C., Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, that he, Sommerfeld, had had the chance to create such an intervention in the winter of 1914–1915, at the height of the border tensions between the U.S. and Mexico at Naco, Arizona.3 The only reason he refrained, declared the agent, was that he was unsure of German intentions. Dernburg wrote to Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, “Felix A. Sommerfeld had misgivings at the time to force an intervention through [End Page 473] General Villa since he did not know the intentions of Germany towards the United States.”4 Historians have indeed overlooked Sommerfeld’s central role in the standoff at Naco.5 He used his connections to the highest echelons of the U.S. government as well as his status as Pancho Villa’s representative in the United States to precipitate the end to the crisis. One year later, between January and June 1916, after the German government had accepted Sommerfeld’s offer to create a U.S. military intervention in Mexico, the German agent used his experience and connections from Naco to the opposite effect, namely to bring the two countries to the brink of war.6 After the ouster of the common enemy Victoriano Huerta in the middle of July 1914, the rivalry between Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza ignited later in the summer of that year.7 The revolutionary factions in Mexico split along several political lines. Pancho Villa, now at the zenith of his power, commanded the largest army of the revolution. Although he personally had no interest in becoming president of Mexico, Villa deeply mistrusted Venustiano Carranza’s commitment to land reform, redistribution of wealth, and constitutional government.8 In 1914, the governor of Sonora, José Maria Maytorena, aligned himself with the fortunes of Pancho Villa against Carranza’s regime.9 The large northern Mexican state played a critical strategic role in the renewed civil war because of the proximity to the United States. Maytorena was less a military man than a cunning political boss.10 After Victoriano Huerta toppled President Francisco Madero in February 1913, Maytorena declared himself against the usurper. He did not await the fate of his colleague in Chihuahua, Governor Abraham González, who was brutally murdered by Huerta’s henchmen. Rather, Maytorena fled to Tucson, Arizona, and from there to Los Angeles. He returned to Sonora in July 1913 and reclaimed the governorship after the forces of Álvaro Obregón liberated Chihuahua from Huertista control. Widely regarded among revolutionaries as a coward, the Sonoran politico now depended largely on the military power of Obregón’s army. Even while in exile the governor only...

Reflections on the “Other Crisis” of 1962: China and India

John F. Kennedy confronted a second major crisis in 1962: the Chinese invasion of India, which threatened the territorial integrity of the world’s largest democracy. India appealed for and received US military aid in a major airlift. Kennedy also constrained Pakistan from opening a second front against India. At the peak of the crisis, India appealed for direct American military intervention against China. The 1962 crisis still resonates; the border is in dispute, fueling a trilateral arms race.

Revisiting the remoteness of remote warfare: US military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency

ABSTRACT This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare’s constitutive “remoteness.” It proposes a novel definition of remoteness as the degree of the American public’s socio-psychological detachment from the realities of political violence fought at a physical distance from the continental United States, as mediated through spectatorship of the use of military force. The remoteness of remote warfare has physical, psychological, and social properties. We argue that it exists on a continuum subject to change over time and should not be approached as a fixed condition measured solely by the physical distance separating combatants involved in armed fighting or as the use of various weapons technologies. The numerous dynamics associated with the remoteness of remote warfare are illustrated through an examination of American military intervention in Libya during Obama’s presidency. From the height of the 2011 NATO intervention in the country onwards, US military operations in Libya became more “remote” for the American public. Whilst other contextual factors contributed toward this outcome, we argue that the diminished spectacle surrounding the 2016 Operation Odyssey Lightning helps explain the American public’s increasing remoteness from military intervention in Libya.

Formation of the foreign policy course of US president J.F. Kennedy on the Peoples Republic of China (january-october 1961)

The article investigates the formation of the foreign policy course of US President John F. Kennedy on China in January-October 1961. There were characterized the election statements of the US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party J.F. Kennedy on China. The practical implementation of pre-election initiatives by the administration of the President John F. Kennedy in the Chinese direction in January-October 1961 was studied. There were analyzed reasons, course and consequences of intensification of Washington’s foreign policy strategy towards Beijing during the during investigated period. The role of various groups in the American establishment in the process of forming the foreign policy course of the new administration towards China in January-October 1961 is outlined. It is described the specific US foreign policy actions towards communist China at the beginning of J.F. Kennedy presidential period. The victory of J.F. Kennedy in the presidential election in 1960 was accompanied by a series of changes in the system of geopolitical and military priorities of the United States. The new administration’s more realistic approach to China was due primarily to the fact that Beijing, which renounced its alliances and claimed the role of a “third force”, was a weak player in the international arena and therefore minor, insignificant deviations from traditional policies of “containment and isolation” seemed acceptable. Moreover, the policy of “isolation” did not justify itself, as China has intensified its foreign policy, established relations with many countries, including the US allies. Gradually, the number of states that supported China’s demands for a seat in the UN grew, which created a real prospect for broad recognition of communist China. At the beginning of the presidency of J.F. Kennedy in January-October 1961, his administration was unable to quickly develop and begin to implement a holistic concept of “new frontiers” for China. His Chinese policy was inextricably linked to the US foreign policy in Asia and reflected the clash of American and Chinese interests in the region. At the same time, the representatives of the American establishment did not have a clear idea of how they could influence Soviet-Chinese relations in order to deepen the rift between the USSR and China, and what concrete benefits they could derive from this. This was due to a number of reasons. First of all, when he was elected, the administration of J.F. Kennedy joined the more important events at that time in terms of the US military and political interests than the policy towards China (European problems, issues of Atlantic unity, the Berlin crisis). Secondly, Washington still viewed communist China as a state that threatened American interests in Asia and was eager to expand its influence and strengthen its military power. An important influence on the formation of the foreign policy course of the administration J.F. Kennedy also had at the beginning of his presidency the fact that, having won the election with a minimal advantage, he did not risk starting a major change in Chinese policy and abandoning the policy of “containment”. In such way, the 35th President of the United States tried, at first, to show that he respected public opinion within the country, which was negative about communist China. Secondly, by demonstrating his propensity for the heredity of politics, he hoped to strengthen his vulnerable foreign policy position. That is why J.F. Kennedy, who did not rule out the possibility of changing China’s US policy, saw in his own practical actions toward China at the time no reason to abandon the doctrine of “containment”. Particularly, the idea of “containment” of China was the basis of a number of decisions of the John F. Kennedy administration, which eventually led to the escalation of American military intervention in Indochina.

THE POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE US PRESIDENT J. F. KENNEDY ON CHINA (september 1961 – november 1963)

The article surveys the evolution of foreign policy of the administration of the US President J.F. Kennedy on China in September 1961 - November 1963. The reasons, course and consequences of the intensification of Washington's foreign policy strategy on China during the investigated period are described. There is analyzed the practical implementation of the foreign policy initiatives of the administration of the President of the United States John F. Kennedy on communist China in September 1961 - November 1963. The role of various groups in the American establishment in the process of implementing the Chinese policy of the US Presidential Administration J.F. Kennedy in September 1961 - November 1963 is studied. The victory of J.F. Kennedy in the presidential election in 1960 was accompanied by a series of changes in the system of geopolitical and military priorities of the United States. The new administration's more realistic approach to China was due primarily to the fact that Beijing, which renounced its alliances and claimed the role of a «third force», was a weak player in the international arena and therefore minor, insignificant deviations from traditional policies of «containment and isolation» seemed acceptable. Moreover, the policy of «isolation» did not justify itself, as China has intensified its foreign policy, established relations with many countries, including the US allies. Gradually, the number of states that supported China's demands for a seat in the UN grew, which created a real prospect for broad recognition of communist China. A number of objective and subjective factors prevented the administration of the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, from fulfilling his election promises to China and radically changing Washington's Chinese policy. Communist China continued to be recognized as a powerful factor in the US-Soviet dialogue. However, the significant influence on the formation of the US foreign policy of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese lobby, which advocated the preservation of the Eisenhower-Dulles line, significantly limited the activities of supporters of the softening of US-China relations. Eventually, this led to the fact that in 1961-1963, the Chinese strategy of the administration of the US President J.F. Kennedy will be zigzagged, as foreign policy actions were often spontaneous and dependent on various factors. In a strategic context, Washington's policy toward China remained hereditary and unchanged: relations with Beijing were confrontational, and Taipei continued to receive support from the White House. Meanwhile, it is in the last months of John F. Kennedy's presidency that there is a growing trend that will lead to a transformation of the US foreign policy toward China from «containment with isolation» to «containment without isolation». That is why J.F. Kennedy, who did not rule out the possibility of changing China's US policy, saw in his own practical actions toward China at the time no reason to abandon the doctrine of «containment». Particularly, the idea of «containment» of China was the basis of a number of decisions of the John F. Kennedy administration, which eventually led to the escalation of American military intervention in Indochina.

Legality and Legitimacy in American Military Interventions

Debates about the sources of presidential power in wartime often turn on constitutional separation of powers questions about where executive authority ends and legislative authority begins. Such legal premises of presidential power are both ambiguous and contested, however, lending credibility to alternative theories of presidential power that hinge on political considerations such as public support, a source of legitimacy rather than legality for particular actions. This article builds on the distinction between legality and legitimacy in presidential power in wartime and develops a legitimacy framework that identifies rational‐legal, traditional, and charismatic sources of legitimacy. An examination of the historical record of American military force from 1798 to the present suggests that executives have often pursued a legal basis for intervention and obtained legislative authorization for the use of force, but have also acted as though sources of legitimacy are viable substitutes for legality. Early in American history, those sources consisted of traditional authority such as Manifest Destiny; in the early half of the twentieth century, they took the form of charismatic authority such as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine; and since 1945, rational‐legal authority through international organizations. Analyzing the argument in light of the historical record shows that the turn to unilateralism is not a new feature of the executive–legislative balance of power, but rather an undercurrent of intervention politics, atop of which rest efforts at legitimation for the use of force.

Vietnam's Lost Revolution: Ngô Đình Diệm's Failure to Build an Independent Nation, 1955–1963

Vietnam's Lost Revolution employs newly-released archival material from Vietnam to examine the rise and fall of the Special Commissariat for Civic Action in the First Republic of Vietnam, and in so doing reassesses the origins of the Vietnam War. A cornerstone of Ngo Đinh Diệm's presidency, Civic Action was intended to transform Vietnam into a thriving, modern, independent, noncommunist Southeast Asian nation. Geoffrey Stewart juxtaposes Diem's revolutionary plan with the conflicting and competing visions of Vietnam's postcolonial future held by other indigenous groups. He shows how the government failed to gain legitimacy within the peasantry, ceding the advantage to the communist-led opposition and paving the way for the American military intervention in the mid-1960s. This book provides a richer and more nuanced analysis of the origins of the Vietnam War in which internal struggles over national identity, self-determination, and even modernity itself are central.

The patterns and implications of American military interventions in the post-September 11 era

ABSTRACTSince 2001, the United States has made major military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as leader of the anti-Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) coalition. Now, it is possible to compare the full scope of the Bush and Obama presidencies. Accordingly, this article will address patterns of continuity and change in approaches to American military intervention between 2001 and 2016. It asks two questions: What are the patterns of continuity and discontinuity in military intervention since September 11? And what do these patterns suggest about the future of American military interventions? In general, there is far more continuity than not in post-September 11 military interventions with regard to patterns of presidential commitments to domestic law, international institutions and multilateralism. The article then addresses major implications of American interventionism and what it portends in the age of Donald Trump.

Vietnam. Crossing the street in Hanoi: Teaching and learning about Vietnam By Carol Wilder Bristol: Intellect Books, 2013. Pp. 258. Figures, Afterword, References, Index.

Vietnam Crossing the street in Hanoi: Teaching and learning about Vietnam By CAROL WILDER Bristol: Intellect Books, 2013. Pp. 258. Figures, Afterword, References, Index. As Carol Wilder explains it, the act of crossing the street in Hanoi serves as a metaphor for 'moving forward hopefully and unscathed in many aspects of life in Vietnam' (p. 3). The engagement with Vietnam that led her to Hanoi and to her new book dates from her days as a university student and her opposition to United States' involvement in the conflicts that engulfed the country after the end of colonial rule in 1945. In the 1980s she began teaching a class entitled 'Vietnam: Rhetoric and realities' at San Francisco State University. She visited Vietnam for the first time in 1993, and has since returned multiple times, helping to develop a Media Studies class at Hanoi University and in 2007 spending a year in the country as a Fulbright Scholar. The book's lively prose and its generous use of illustrations reveal it as intended to be read as part of an undergraduate course or by the general audience of readers with an interest in Vietnam. Much of its content is based on lectures Wilder first wrote for her classes in the 1980s and '90s, supplemented by several new chapters emerging from her time in Vietnam, and all interspersed with personal experiences and anecdotes. Chapters juxtapose different representations of the conflict with more personal accounts intended to 'put a human face on what was an inhuman experience' (p. 23). Topics include the Hoa Lo prison, Ho Chi Minh, returned American veterans, and Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American. The results are uneven. The chapter describing her students' projects on the Long Bien Bridge, for example, is one of the freshest and most engaging; by contrast, her analysis of the Rambo phenomenon, despite references to recent reinterpretations, feels dated. After all, even Sylvester has moved on and John Rambo's angst has mellowed into Barney Ross's resigned--and mercenary--expendability. This orientation towards the 1980s and '90s deprives Wilder not only of the opportunity to reflect on the evolving nature of American military interventions, but also of the opportunity to engage with more recent films such as Randall Wallace's We were soldiers (2002), a film of considerable relevance to the 'revisionist' school of right-leaning American scholarship on the conflict that the author criticises. Despite her description of the book as 'a work with no particular ideology' (p. 9), Wilder is clearly partial to what has been described as the 'orthodox' school of American scholarship on the conflict in Vietnam (for a thorough treatment of the two positions see Andrew Wiest and Michael Doidge, eds., Triumph revisited: Historians battle for the Vietnam War). Her sources on Vietnam are few, and generally limited to scholars prominent in the 1980s, and '90s such as Frances Fitzgerald, George Herring, Marilyn Young, and William Duiker (repeatedly misspelled as 'Druicker' in pp. 64, 65, 250). For Wilder, the 'American War in Vietnam was a catastrophic blind date set up by the French and fuelled by a toxic fear of communism and a near-psychotic avoidance of losing face' (p. 5). Ho Chi Minh was a 'mysterious hero of Vietnamese independence' who 'looked to the West and to the United States in particular in support of his country's freedom' (p. …

Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I

Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I

The Future of Forced Regime Change and Democracy

Recent scholarship on the efficacy of the role of American military intervention in the post-World War II period has shown that this strategy has not been successful, as a rule, in bringing about democracy in target states (Gleditsch et al, 2007, Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006). In this paper, I argue that despite its shortcomings, this strategy has not been discarded as a policy option for bringing about democratic change in hard to crack authoritarian regimes. Moreover, I argue that the lack of plausible democracy promotion alternatives, along with a set of powerful domestic and international incentives for intervention, mean that the United States is not likely to dismiss the possibility of using miltary intervention as a justification for forcing democracy for many years to come.

Pax Romana/Pax Americana: Views of the “New Rome” from “Old Europe,” 2000–2010

The English-language press and current affairs literature often drew parallels between the modern United States and ancient Rome during a period of robust American military intervention, particularly in the Middle East, between 2000 and 2010. How was the Rome–America parallel deployed in similar literature in western European countries? Did commentators in the major Eurozone nations—in particular, France, Germany, and Italy—use the parallel with different purposes in mind? Was this commentary mostly positive or negative? This paper aims to answer these questions.

A New Age of Empire? Arab ‘Anti-Americanism’, US Intervention, and the Lebanese Civil War of 1958

The U.S. decision to send 14,000 marines to Lebanon during the civil war of 1958 exasperated Lebanese peoples. The American military intervention, as a result, contributed to a cultural process in which many Lebanese began to imagine the United States as an “imperial” force, inheriting the legacy of Empire in the Middle East and stepping into the shoes of former European imperial powers, Britain and France. While admiring U.S. values and cultures, Lebanese anti-colonialists, nationalists, and pan-Arabists expressed their antipathy vis-à-vis the “imperial” nature of Washington's involvement in their internal affairs. Others, primarily content with and invested in the socio-political status quo, stood by and exalted the American presence in their country. Using Lebanon as a case study, this paper examines popular perceptions of and experiences with U.S. global power during the 1958 crisis. As a result, it goes beyond traditional interstate relations and combines top-down and bottom-up approaches in order to illuminate power negotiations between a global superpower, the United States, and the Arab masses of Lebanon. In this spirit, the voices and actions of national and local leaders, as well as everyday men and women are integrated into the global story of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

American Military Intervention in Unconventional War: From the Philippines to Iraq by Wayne Bert.

American Military Intervention in Unconventional War: From the Philippines to Iraq by Wayne Bert.

The Cause of Baseball: Baseball and Nation-Building in Revolutionary Cuba

Sports have long been a source of national pride for Cubans. Today, in a country lacking shopping malls and other commercial forms of entertainment, youths can be found playing pick-up games of soccer, volleyball, and baseball at any given hour of the day or night. Older aficionados gather at places such as the famous Esquina Caliente, or Hot Corner, in Havana's Central Park to discuss and debate the particulars of sporting events. While Cubans have embraced niche sports chess and fencing, baseball has always occupied a rarified stratum in Cuba's sporting culture despite its historical association with American imperialism. This has continued to be the case despite drastic changes to the way the game was organized and presented to the Cuban public after 1959. In the wake of the Revolution, the sport came to have great importance to the state as a symbol of revolutionary ideals and defiance. nature of the game leant itself to politicization by state actors. British anthropologist Thomas F. Carter writes that, like all sports, baseball is all about the increasingly refined and controlled movement of bodies--a concern of all state-building projects as well. (1) In order to better capture the hearts and minds of the Cuban public, the revolutionary government set about shaping baseball into a spectacle that was equal parts training program and patriotic theater. Postrevolutionary Cuban baseball, rather than a game that was integrated with its American counterpart as a sort of farm system for potential major leaguers, became an insular system, retaining its finest players to represent Cuban self-sacrifice and patriotic fervor. Even the biggest stars renounced the material rewards of professionalism in favor of the purity of amateur play. Furthermore, producing athletes who could compete on the international stage served as proof that the island nation stood on equal ground with the United States, the country against which Cubans measured their progress and standing in the world. idealistic image of Cuban players as altruistic defenders of national honor has been challenged, however, by the Cuban stars who have heeded the siren call of American Major League Baseball and the wealth it bestows on the select few with the physical gifts to compete in its ranks. flow of Cuban baseball talent to the US market is, in part, an expression of the persistent bond between the two countries, cemented by a shared history and passion for the game of baseball. This connection posed a conundrum to Cuban revolutionaries who sought to reshape the game to conform to the revolutionary national project despite its history as an American invention. BASEBALL BETWEEN EMPIRES, 1860-1959 As Louis Perez argues in On Becoming Cuban, the United States had an integral role in the formation of a Cuban national identity as the island distanced itself from Spanish norms in the nineteenth century. Perez writes, The two cultures converged on each other, interacting and merging, and fused in dynamic adaptation and accommodation. Cubans and North Americans occupied a place in each other's imagination and in their respective fantasies about each other. (2) US material culture had flooded Cuba well before the American military intervention of 1898. American capital and consumer products steadily poured into Cuba, bringing with them myriad cultural trappings. (3) Among the many American institutions introduced to Cuba was baseball, a sport that was burgeoning into an iconic American cultural touchstone. Cubans' enthusiastic embrace of baseball was a product of this affinity for all things American. According to Thomas Carter, the game was introduced to Cuba by university students returning home from the US in the 1860s--around the same time that the sport was becoming the national pastime in the United States itself. (4) Long covetous of Spain's remaining Caribbean colonies, the US saw Cubans' adoption of baseball as a sign of America's waxing influence in the region and the hemisphere as a whole. …