Defensive necessity versus war of choice: the United States- led military action against Iraq

2009 ◽  
pp. 134-164
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Action

Ukrainian officials downplay Russian invasion fears

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
Defense Department ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Action

Significance Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on November 29 called for action "now, not later" to "deter" Russia. The same day, US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the Pentagon was watching Russian troop movements near Ukraine "with great concern". Fears of imminent conflict stem not just from the number of troops and tanks moved closer to Ukraine, but from Moscow's more than usually hostile rhetoric and its deliberate ambiguity, through hints that Ukraine may provoke it into some form of action. Impacts The threat of Russian action will accelerate and expand the defence assistance Ukraine gets from the United States and other NATO members. Moscow would hope its importance as a gas supplier mitigates EU sanctions imposed for military action against Ukraine. The Ukrainian government will be tempted to use the Russian threat to curb domestic opposition.

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.

Iraq sees rising risk of a US-Iran clash in 2020

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
Warning Services

Significance These have caused the United States to begin the process of shuttering its Baghdad embassy -- while signalling that it could reverse the process if the government moves more aggressively against pro-Iran groups within the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) that are blamed for the strikes. Impacts Groups will step up attacks designed to lever the US-led coalition out of Iraq, while seeking to mask their identity. The United States will have greater latitude for military action to weaken Tehran in November or December, if it closes the embassy. Japanese, Saudi, Emirati and some European embassies relying on US evacuation and warning services might also be forced out. Washington might opt instead to downsize the embassy, which cannot operate normally due to COVID-19 and security threats. Even if the US embassy closed, some coalition military sites and the US consulate in the Kurdistan region would remain open.

The Desperate Diplomat Revisited

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-333
Author(s):  
Masako R. Okura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Far East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pearl Harbor ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Original Memoir ◽  
International Military Tribunal ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Military Tribunal

This article, an elaboration on The Desperate Diplomat (2016), reexamines Japanese Special Envoy Kurusu Saburo’s mission to the United States before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, presenting a new “concurring opinion” in support of his innocence. The u.s. government firmly believed that Kurusu had been informed of the impending attack prior to coming to the United States and thus acted as a smoke screen. And so, the myth of the deceitful ambassador was born. Nevertheless, Kurusu insisted that he had no prior knowledge of Japan’s military action. Misunderstanding of his role in the Pearl Harbor attack and harsh remarks about it upset him. Utilizing Kurusu’s unpublished and previously unused materials in both Japanese and English housed in the National Diet Library in Tokyo, records from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and The Desperate Diplomat, based on his original memoir, this article helps Kurusu tell his side of the story to initiate scholarly debate on this insufficiently researched diplomat. This reassessment also presents excerpts from Kurusu’s unpublished personal correspondences with E. Stanley Jones, Bernard M. Baruch, and Joseph C. Grew.

scholarly journals Terrorism, The use of Force and International Law After 11 September

2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Us

The United States response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 was encouraging for those who worry about a tendency towards unilateralism on the part of the single super-power. The US deliberately engaged a number of international organisations and built an extensive coalition of supporting States before engaging in military action.

scholarly journals Speeches and declarations: a war of words

2006 ◽  
pp. 365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Reyes Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Phases Of Development ◽  
Power Of Words

The use of language is always manipulated to convey a goal of the speaker in order to have an effect on the hearer. Symbolic power is always present in speech. Politicians understand and harness the power of words to explain or justify acts in order to encourage, perhaps even force, people to support them, even if this support implies a risk to their lives. Following Bourdieu's (2001), Elster's (1986, 1994) and van Dijk's (1993, 1997a, 1997b, 2005) ideas, in particular, amongst others', this paper analyzes the speeches and declarations of George W. Bush, President of the United States, from September 11,2001 leading up to the 2003 attack on Iraq, in an attempt to decode the underlying intentions of the messages and strategies which he has used to justify military action, in what he and his administration call 'the war on terrorism'. This paper focuses on the linguistic representations of war and their implications (van Dijk, 2005), on the way in which war is linguistically and rhetorically constructed, particularly in the period of build-up to action. This study will propose a theoretical model of the chronological discursive phases of development of a rhetoric of war, culminating in military action with general public support domestically. Finally, I would like to introduce the term 'ideologically suggestive co- placement' as a linguistic power tactic to link factually unrelated objects (persons, nations, events, concepts) by presenting them within a simple clause or sentence, to intentionally create a link between these objects, between their connotations in the listener's mind, simply by their simultaneous mention. This term is presented as a new tool for future discourse analysis studies.

Israel’s Syria strike may precede a new US operation

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Regional Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
International Norm ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Chemical Attack ◽  
Us Military

Significance Initial reports blamed the United States, which had been expected to react strongly to allegations of a devastating chemical attack on the last rebel outpost in Eastern Ghouta, attributed to forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, Israeli planes seem to have carried out the strikes, which are therefore related to a separate set of strategic calculations. Impacts The centrality of Syria to Iran’s regional policy means it is unlikely to be deterred by repeated Israeli military actions. Ultimately, Israel may face a full ‘northern front’ conflict against Iran-linked forces in Lebanon and Syria. US military action cannot save the international norm banning chemical weapons, which has seen too many breaches.

scholarly journals Civilian Casualties and Public Support for Military Action: Experimental Evidence

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Johns ◽  
Graeme A. M. Davies
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Model ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Civilian Casualty ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Casualty Aversion

In contrast to the expansive literature on military casualties and support for war, we know very little about public reactions to foreign civilian casualties. This article, based on representative sample surveys in the United States and Britain, reports four survey experiments weaving information about civilian casualties into vignettes about Western military action. These produce consistent evidence of civilian casualty aversion: where death tolls were higher, support for force was invariably and significantly lower. Casualty effects were moderate in size but robust across our two cases and across different scenarios. They were also strikingly resistant to moderation by other factors manipulated in the experiments, such as the framing of casualties or their religious affiliation. The importance of numbers over even strongly humanizing frames points toward a utilitarian rather than a social psychological model of casualty aversion. Either way, civilian casualties deserve a more prominent place in the literature on public support for war.

Egypt versus Israel

Tempting Fate ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 63-87
Author(s):  
Paul C. Avey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sinai Peninsula ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Nuclear Arsenal ◽  
Six Day War ◽  
Political Dispute

This chapter focuses on the Egyptian–Israeli dispute following the 1967 Six Day War. Egypt had an intense political dispute with Israel centering on the Sinai Peninsula that Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War. Egyptian leaders settled on force when diplomatic and military trends seemed to make recovering the Sinai less likely. Conversely, when the diplomatic situation improved after 1973, particularly with more direct American involvement, Egypt avoided military action. Egypt's strong interests, rooted in recovering territory, did not cause its leaders to ignore the Israeli nuclear arsenal. They believed that so long as they executed only limited campaigns, the benefits to Israeli of using its nuclear weapons would be low. At the same time, Cairo sought to raise the costs of Israeli nuclear use by developing its own unconventional weapons and relying on the superpowers, in particular the United States, to constrain Israel. Thus, while the Israeli nuclear arsenal did not deter a conventional attack, it is not the case that Egyptian leaders ignored the Israeli nuclear arsenal in 1973.

Global Petro-Politics: The Foreign Policy Implications of the Bush Administration's Energy Plan

2002 ◽  
Vol 101 (653) ◽  
pp. 99-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Klare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Political Economic

The United States cannot increase its intake of foreign oil by 50 percent, as called for under the Bush energy plan, without involving itself in the political, economic, and military affairs of the states from which all this petroleum is expected to flow. This involvement may take financial and diplomatic forms in most cases, but it will also often entail military action.

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