Civil Wars & the Structure of World Power

The “policy science” of civil wars, which emerged in the early 1990s, included deeply embedded assumptions about the nature of the international political system. It was taken for granted that the United States would remain the strongest power by a wide margin, and that it would lead a liberal coalition that included virtually all the other strong states in the world. Some students of international politics believe that the nature of the system is changing. Though the United States is likely to remain much more powerful than its global competitors, several consequential powers have emerged to challenge U.S. leadership and produce a multipolar system. As power begins to even out at the top of the international system, the influence of middle powers may also grow. This new constellation of power seems likely to magnify disagreements about how states suffering civil wars should be stabilized, limit preventive diplomacy, produce external intervention that will make for longer and more destructive wars, and render settlements more difficult to police

Pragmatism over principle: US intervention and burden shifting in Somalia, 1992–1993

The conventional wisdom about the 1992 US intervention in Somalia is that it was a quintessentially humanitarian mission pushed by President George H. W. Bush. This article challenges that interpretation, drawing on newly declassified documents. The Somalia intervention, I argue, was largely a pragmatic response to concerns held by the US military. In late 1992, as the small UN mission in Somalia was collapsing, senior American generals worried about being drawn into the resulting vacuum. Hence they reluctantly recommended a robust US intervention, in the expectation that this would allow the UN to assemble a larger peacekeeping force that would take over within months. The intervention ultimately failed, but the military learned useful lessons from this experience on how to achieve smoother UN handoffs in the future and thus effectively shift longer-term stabilisation burdens to the international community.Open access publication was made possible by an EC Career Integration Grant

Military maladaptation : counterinsurgency and the politics of failure

Tactical learning is critical to battlefield success, especially in a counterinsurgency. This article tests the existing model of military adaption against a ‘most-likely’ case: the British Army’s counterinsurgency in the Southern Cameroons (1960–61). Despite meeting all preconditions thought to enable adaptation – decentralization, leadership turnover, supportive leadership, poor organizational memory, feedback loops, and a clear threat – the British still failed to adapt. Archival evidence suggests politicians subverted bottom-up adaptation, because winning came at too high a price in terms of Britain’s broader strategic imperatives. Our finding identifies an important gap in the extant adaptation literature: it ignores politics.PostprintPeer reviewe

La maîtrise des espaces, fondement de l'hégémonie des Etats-Unis

Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of US Hegemony, by Barry R. POSEN The United States controls alone, at the present time, the shared "spaces" of sea, sky and space. This mastery, which is made possible by its huge economie power, is the basis for its military hegemony. This allows it to project its capabilities throughout the world and prevents any adversary from doing likewise. It also guarantees a high degree of security to the air and sea ways - used by all states - which means that many countries consider that the hegemony of the US is also in their interests, particularly economie ones. But this domination, as global as it is, is not total. There are some areas in which it can be competed with, and the last ten years have shown that a lesser adversary in technical, economie and military terms can rival the U.S., either in street or mountain fighting, air defence below 15 000 feet, or with terrorism.Les Etats-Unis disposent seuls, aujourd'hui, de la maîtrise des « espaces communs » : la mer, le ciel, l'espace. Cette maîtrise, rendue possible par une immense puissance économique, fonde leur hégémonie militaire. C'est elle qui leur permet de projeter leurs capacités dans le monde entier et d'empêcher tout adversaire potentiel de le faire. C'est elle aussi qui assure un haut degré de sécurité aux routes aériennes et maritimes utilisées par l'ensemble des Etats, ce qui fait que nombre d'entre eux estiment que l'hégémonie des Etats-Unis sert leurs intérêts, notamment économiques. Mais cette domination, aussi globale soit-elle, n'est pas pour autant totale. Il existe des domaines dans lesquels elle peut être contestée, et les dix dernières années montrent qu'un adversaire inférieur techniquement, économiquement et militairement peut rivaliser sur le champ de bataille avec les Etats-Unis, qu'il s'agisse du combat de rue ou de montagne, de la défense anti-aérienne au-dessous de 15 000 pieds ou du terrorisme.Posen, Jaquet Christophe. La maîtrise des espaces, fondement de l'hégémonie des Etats-Unis. In: Politique étrangère, n°1 - 2003 - 68ᵉannée. pp. 41-56