No red lines: the question of western military intervention

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Early Formative ◽  
Formative Years

This chapter analyses the question of western intervention and why no state deployed its military to bring about regime change in Syria. It explores why the Syria conflict attracted so little direct military intervention in its early, formative years, especially by the US. The ‘nonstrike’ of late summer 2013 was something of a watershed in the Syrian civil war. Until that point, some form of military intervention led by the US, modelled on the actions in Libya in 2011, seemed a realistic prospect to many of the key actors and impacted their behaviour. But afterwards, most recognised that US military action against Assad was unlikely. While Obama did eventually authorise direct military action in Syria in September 2014, it was against ISIS, not Assad.

Enter Russia: Putin raises the stakes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
Fundamental Structure ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
Military Victory

This chapter details Russia's decision to send its air force to directly support Assad in late summer 2015 — what motivated this dramatic mobilisation and what impact it had on the conflict. Russia's involvement suddenly raised the stakes and the consequences for the Syrian civil war. The rebel resurgence of spring 2015 provoked real fears of Assad's collapse in Moscow and Tehran, resulting in the Vienna Process along with ceasefire and peace talks. However, while Russia's intervention likely prevented any prospect of sudden regime collapse, it did not change the fundamental structure of the civil war and thus was unlikely to lead to a decisive regime military victory. What it did was create a better negotiating position for pro-Assad forces — which may have been Putin's intention all along.

Iraq versus the United States

Tempting Fate ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 40-62
Author(s):  
Paul C. Avey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
Saddam Hussein ◽  
Political Dispute

This chapter provides a background for Iraqi behavior during the period of American nuclear monopoly beginning in 1979 when Saddam Hussein was officially Iraqi president, focusing most heavily on events in 1989–1991. In an intense political dispute, Iraqi leadership took actions they believed would fall below the threshold of nuclear use. Most of the limitations that Iraq exhibited were due to its own weakness; it could do little more. For Iraq as a weak actor, war with the United States was possible precisely because it would pose such a low danger to the United States. Even then, Iraqi leadership incorporated the US nuclear arsenal into their decision making in 1990–1991. That confrontation is the most important to examine because it involved Iraqi military action that Iraqi leaders believed would invite some form of US response, and US compellent demands did not center on Iraqi regime change. In 1990, Saddam and his lieutenants held their own unconventional weapons in reserve and discounted an American nuclear strike because of the high strategic costs that such a strike would impose on the United States. They also undertook various civil defense measures to minimize losses from nuclear strikes. Fortunately, the Americans had little intention of using nuclear weapons and did not face a need to resort to nuclear use.

A White Man’s War?

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Brian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Army ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Founding Principle ◽  
Proper Response

This chapter looks at the first two years of the Civil War, when black men were barred from serving in the US Army. It follows the debate that black Northerners conducted about the proper response to the call to serve in the US military, which they were sure would come at some point. Immediate enlistment advocates sparred with those who counseled withholding enlistment until African Americans’ demands had been met. Black Northerners began to articulate the terms under which they would serve the Union, among which citizenship emerged as central, as well as the changes necessary to bring lived reality in the United States in line with the founding principle of equality.

US counterterrorism in the Sahel: from indirect to direct intervention

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-893
Author(s):  
Stephen Tankel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Cooperation ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

Abstract The massive expansion and evolution of United States security cooperation under the auspices of the ‘war on terror’ remains overlooked in the counterterrorism and interventions literature. The Sahel provides a useful region in which to explore the constitutive effects of such cooperation and its evolution because the US has always pursued an ‘economy of force’ mission there. In this article, I focus mainly on the constitutive effects of US indirect military intervention in the Sahel after 9/11, and subsequent more direct military intervention following the outbreak of civil war in Mali. The indirect intervention by the United States to build the capacity of local forces in Mali, where jihadists were based, failed because of the dissonant relationship between the two countries. This led the United States to intervene more directly in the region, including through its cooperation with and support for French and Nigerien forces. The nature of this more direct military intervention was also informed by evolving US experiences working by, with and through partner forces in other parts of the world.

“Something Went Wrong”

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Joseph B. Atkins
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Family ◽  
The City ◽  
Early Formative ◽  
Formative Years

Harry Dean Stanton spent early formative years in West Irvine in central Kentucky, a land explored by Daniel Boone, torn by the Civil War, long dependent on tobacco, textiles, and for a time oil, first carried to markets by flatboats and later by railroad. Sheridan "Shorty" Stanton was a North Carolinian who grew tobacco and operated a barbershop. The much younger Ersel Moberly married him at least in part to get away from her crowded household only to find herself soon in another with three strapping boys and later Shorty's two daughters from an earlier marriage. It would be too much, and she abandoned the family, leaving a nearly lifelong legacy of tension in her relationship with her oldest son, Harry Dean. However, he inherited from her and his father's family a love of music, expressed in his early years in a barbershop quartet that included his brothers. After a disastrous stint down in Shorty's native North Carolina, the family returned to Kentucky, this time to the city of Lexington, where Harry Dean would attend high school and after military service college. By that time, Ersel had left, and Shorty was barbering fulltime.

The Iraq War, 2003–2011

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-118
Author(s):  
James H. Lebovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Coalition Provisional Authority ◽  
Donald Rumsfeld

The George W. Bush administration showed signs of biased decision-making before and after the 2003 Iraq invasion, which it claimed was necessary because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. With Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, the administration focused narrowly on regime change and failed to plan for the aftermath of war. With the fall of Baghdad, the administration expanded US goals under the Coalition Provisional Authority without the capabilities to pursue them. Although the administration adjusted course in 2007, its new “surge” strategy, based on counterinsurgency principles, had the US military pursuing modest goals to suit available capabilities. Then the administration benefited unexpectedly from an alliance with Sunni insurgents (the Anbar Awakening) and the stand-down of the principal Shiite militia opposing US forces. US strategy finally amounted to staying the course through 2011, when the Obama administration chose to leave Iraq rather than seek a negotiated compromise.

Introduction

The Last Card ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Timothy Andrews Sayle ◽  
Hal Brands
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
The Us ◽  
Saddam Hussein ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Desperate Attempt

This introductory chapter provides a background of George W. Bush's decision to deploy more American troops to Iraq in 2007, a desperate attempt to bring order to chaos, and to salvage his administration's signature foreign policy achievement: the ouster of Iraq's tyrannical despot, Saddam Hussein, nearly four years before. Bush's speech on January 10, 2007, and the change in policy it announced were hardly the work of spontaneous initiative, but instead marked the end of a long and secretive process designed to determine whether and how to change the course of a failing war in Iraq. The president's decision had not been easy. In fact, it had been resisted by most of his advisors, including many of his top military commanders, who feared greater loss of lives and treasure, and ultimately defeat. That was a sentiment Bush shared as well. Iraq stood on the precipice of civil war as 2007 began, but it was hardly certain that more American troops and a new strategy could improve conditions on the ground. Many advisors feared that putting more US forces in Iraq would not turn the war around and would instead weaken American positions elsewhere around the globe while straining the US military to the breaking point. Bush and his top aides thus recognized that “the surge” constituted a major strategic gamble, as well as their final chance to restore a floundering US project in Iraq.

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