Force Short Of War Research Articles

The human consequences of foreign military intervention

The empirical international conflict literature has given much recent attention to interstate armed force’s impact on human well-being. While empirical research has advanced our understanding of the phenomenon considerably, we argue that one conclusion that many studies have reached is preliminary. Some recent research contends that only full-scale war, and not force short of war, has a discernable impact on human welfare or physical quality of life (PQOL). We develop theory on one type of force short of war, large-scale foreign military intervention (FMI), and its potential effects on PQOL. Using interrupted time series and panel corrected standard error methodologies, we find that from 1960 to 2005 large-scale FMI had a statistically and substantively significant impact on the PQOL of populations in 106 developing countries. The specific effect that this type of armed force has depended in large part on the regime type of the target country.

Drones, Risk, and Perpetual Force

This article contributes to the debate among just war theorists about the ethics of using armed drones in the war on terror. If violence of this kind is to be effectively restrained, it is necessary first to establish an understanding of its nature. Because it is difficult to conceptualize drone-based violence as war, there is concern that such violence is thus not captured by the traditional jus ad bellum (just resort to war) framework. Drone strikes probably do not constitute a law enforcement practice, so the peacetime ethics of criminal justice do not apply either. One possible solution is to develop and apply a legitimization framework of jus ad vim (just resort to force) in which vim is “force short of war,” although this depends upon a vim–bellum distinction being a sustainable one. Moving beyond discussion of these three alternative concepts of drone-based violence, the article suggests a fourth—vis perpetua (perpetual force)—and explores the ethical implications thereof. As a form of violence that presents no physical risk to individual users of force, a program of drone strikes poses a moral problem if it is intended to continue indefinitely, leading to the systematic endangerment of innocents without the eventual promise of peace.

Rethinking the Criterion for Assessing Cia-targeted Killings: Drones, Proportionality and Jus Ad Vim

According to US government statements, drones succeed in killing terrorists while minimizing the risk to noncombatants, thus suggesting that they satisfy the jus in bello proportionality criterion. Scholars, however, are divided on whether drones are truly proportionate. What does it really mean to say drones are, or are not, proportionate? How are we to judge the proportionality of the CIA's drone program? We expose the fallacy of drone proponents who claim they are proportionate by repudiating what we call proportionality relativism – the use of impertinent comparisons to argue that drones are proportionate because they cause less collateral damage than other uses of force. We then analyze the existing data on drone strikes to expose problematic differences in how the US military and the CIA understand proportionality balancing. Finally, we employ what Walzer calls the category of jus ad vim – the just use of force short of war – to assess the ethics of drones. Jus ad vim demands a stricter relationship between the use of force short of war and the jus in bello principles of proportionality and discrimination, as well as human rights concerns of civilians not usually considered in the proportionality calculus, that severely restricts the scope of proportionality balancing. Assessing the CIA's use of drones in Pakistan according to this standard casts a dark shadow on claims that CIA drones are proportional.

Nonparametric Estimation of Duration Dependence in Militarized Interstate Disputes

A militarized interstate dispute (MID) involves military conflict between states with diplomatic ties and exists because two or more states have failed to resolve their differences through diplomatic channels. Jones et al. (1996) characterize an MID as the threat, display or use of military force short of war. They analyze over 2000 disputes spanning two centuries across the globe and conclude that disputes tend to be persistent once established. In this paper, I find that the passage of time can be a favorable factor in dispute resolution, and thus historical mechanisms for dispute resolution favor ending, not extending, militarized disputes. I emphasize the use of non-parametric procedures first to estimate the hazard function and then to estimate the benefits of negotiated settlements.

The Short Path and the Long Road: Explaining the Duration of US Military Operations

US presidents have used military force short of war many times since World War II. While some military operations are finished in a fairly brief period of time, such as the evacuation of US citizens from an unstable foreign capital, other deployments may last much longer, as the US military is charged with accomplishing more ambitious foreign policy goals, such as promoting peace, democracy, or maintaining US influence. What explains why some of these uses of force short of war are fairly brief, while other military operations last much longer? The authors contend that the duration of such missions depends on the military resources available, the president’s political support at home, and crisis-specific factors. Using duration modeling techniques, they find that the availability of military resources and the characteristics of the international crisis matter a great deal, while US political and economic conditions mostly do not explain the duration of US military operations. As research has shown with regard to interstate wars, elected leaders prefer short and ostensibly decisive engagements, owing in no small part to the increased risk of not surviving in office over the course of long wars. Thus, this study broadens our understanding of the preferences of democratic leaders in conflict decisionmaking about a larger and increasingly more important set of events in international relations - the use of force short of war.

The Dynamics of Diversion: The Domestic Implications of Presidential Use of Force

Several studies report evidence of diversionary behavior by presidents, while others dispute findings that suggest domestic politics are part of the use of force decision calculus. We argue that previous studies of U.S. force short of war have failed to articulate what diversion actually means. We approach this important debate from a perspective that brings to bear presidential agenda-setting theory. Rather than treating the use of force solely as a dependent variable, we assess whether the use of force diverts attention by modeling the percent of the American public identifying the economy as the nation's most important problem. We also include presidential approval in the model. We treat the public opinion measures as endogenous variables that may or may not affect the decision to use force. We employ Vector Autoregression (VAR) methods to evaluate the causal direction of force and public opinion while controlling for the state of the economy and war. VAR is a multiple-lagged time-series approach that allows us to test a variety of hypotheses derived from diversionary and agenda-setting theory. Our results indicate that uses of force by the president have a notable agenda-setting effect, shifting public attention away from the economy. The shift in attention also causes a long-term effect on the president's public-approval rating.

International legal norms and the preservation of peace, 1820–1964: Some evidence and Bivariate relationships

The purpose of this study is to determine whether changes in international legal norms have historically been associated with changes in the frequency of war, uses of force short of war, and arbitral activity among major powers. International legal norms are conceptualized as quasi‐authoritative statements that communicate the prevailing attitudes held by members of the state system regarding the acceptability of certain types of behavior. The results from a time‐series regression analysis of data collected under the auspices of Correlates of War and Transnational Rules Indicators Projects indicate that while there is a substantial positive association between the importance attributed by these norms to arbitration and the frequency with which major powers arbitrate their disputes, there is only a weak association between norms regulating dispute settlement through self‐help and the frequency with which major powers resort to war and uses of force short of war.

Force in Peace. Force short of war in international relations

Force in Peace. Force short of war in international relations