Unilateral and Multilateral Military Intervention: Effects on Stability and Security

Abstract

The success rate of military intervention has traditionally been judged by its ability to end conflict and/or serve intervener security interests. However, contemporary military intervention in troubled or collapsing states is often intended not only to increase security but also to establish conditions in which political reform or reconstruction can proceed. Judging the success of intervention therefore means isolating and measuring its impact on internal change. Scholars and policymakers have staked many assumptions on the belief that the motivation and form of military intervention might improve conditions for peacebuilding over time. Among these are expectations that multilateral interventions undertaken for purposes of social reconstruction and reform might be the best hopes for security and long-term stability. The data tested here generally give reason for pause in such assumptions. Our findings only slightly support neoliberal arguments and assumptions about the superiority of multilateral or neutral interventions in promoting postintervention peace, reform, and stability. Rather, our findings indicate that regardless of type of intervener, target state governance, physical quality of life, and economic growth are not much impacted by intervention.

Keywords:

• Military Intervention
• Multilateral
• Stability

Notes

1. See the United Nations Charter, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml (accessed July 27, 2011).

2. See http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_52122.htm (accessed July 27, 2011).

3. Andrea Kathryn Talentino, Military Intervention After the Cold War: The Evolution of Theory and Practice (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005); note that multilateral interventions have encountered some disillusioning problems in the ensuing years, as for example in Somalia, where initial involvements under UN and US auspices proved frustrating and deadly, and later interventions, despite UN and African Union involvement, were stymied by a shaky and unpopular local government subject to overthrow by militant Islamic forces.

4. Barbara Walter, “The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,” International Organization 51, no. 3 (1997): 335−64; Marie Olson Lounsbery and Frederic Pearson, Civil Wars: Internal Struggles, Global Consequences (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).

5. Multilateral interventions were indeed seen in the past, notably in places such as Korea and Vietnam. The pattern in cases of ad hoc multilateralism often entails a core major power intervener that convinces a set of clients to join in its effort. The clients, however, generally lack the central power's level of commitment to the cause and are notably likely to leave the mission before the major core power leaves, as was seen in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. This may be less likely in the case of IGO missions, where the parties operate under an organizational mandate and framework and generally commit to stay as long as the enabling council deems it worthwhile.

6. See Patrick Regan, Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Interventions and Intrastate Conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Patrick Regan, “Third Party Interventions and the Duration of Intrastate Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 55−73. See also Frederic Pearson, “Foreign Military Interventions and Domestic Disputes,” International Studies Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1974): 259−90; Robert Cooper and Mats Berdal, “Outside Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts,” Survival 35 (1993): 118−42.

7. Jeffrey Pickering and Emizet Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences of Foreign Military Intervention,” Political Research Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2006): 363−76.

8. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War,” International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 297−337; Edward Newman et al., New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2009).

9. Regan, “Third Party Interventions”; Pearson, “Foreign Military Interventions.”

10. Regan, “Third Party Interventions”; Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences.”

11. Regan, “Third Party Interventions.”

12. Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences.”

13. Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Stephen Stedman et al., eds., Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreement (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Chester A. Crocker et al., eds., Leashing the Dogs of War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007); Charles Call and Elizabeth Cousens, Ending Wars and Building Peace, CWC Working Papers Series (New York: International Peace Institute, 2007).

14. Cooper and Berdal, “Outside Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts”; Regan, “Third Party Interventions.”

15. Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, “International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis,” American Political Science Review 94, no. 4 (2000): 779−801; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace.

16. Regan, Civil Wars and Foreign Powers.

17. Barbara Walter, “Designing Transition from Civil War,” in Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, ed. Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 38−72; Barbara F. Walter and Andrew Kydd, “Sabotaging Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence,” International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 263−96; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace; Frederic S. Pearson et al., “Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement,” International Interactions 32, no. 2 (2006): 109−28.

18. Caroline Hartzell et al., “Stabilizing the Peace After Civil War: An Investigation of Key Variables,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (2001): 183−208; Virginia Page Fortna, “Inside and Out: Peacekeeping and the Duration of Peace after Civil and Interstate Wars,” International Studies Review 5, no. 4 (2003): 97−114; Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace; Pearson et al., “Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement.”

19. Cooper and Berdal, “Outside Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts,” 139

20. Regan, Civil Wars and Foreign Powers.

21. Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars; William Maley et al., eds., From Civil Strife to Civil Society (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2003); Crocker et al., Leashing the Dogs of War.

22. Newman et al., New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding.

23. Roland Paris, At War's End (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Roger MacGinty, No War, No Peace: The Rejuvenation of Stalled Peace Process and Peace Accords (New York: Palgrave, 2006).

24. Paris, At War's End; Newman et al., New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding; Mansfield and Snyder, “Democratic Transitions.”

25. Charles Call, “Knowing Peace When You See It: Setting Standards for Peacebuilding Success,” Civil Wars 10, no. 2 (2008): 174−95.

26. Edward N. Luttwak, “Give War a Chance,” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 4 (1999): 36−44; Edward N. Luttwak, “Stay Home,” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 2 (2000): 140

27. Kimberly Zisk Marten, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

28. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace.

29.Nicholas Sambanis and Jonas Schulhofer-Wohl, “Evaluating Multilateral Interventions in Civil Wars: A Comparison of UN and Non-UN Peace Operations,” in Multilateralism and Security Institutions in an Era of Globalization, ed. Dimitris Bourantonic, Kostas Ifantis, and Panyotis Tsakonas (New York: Routledge, 2008), 252−287.

30. As Paris and a variety of other authors make clear, liberal intervention does not always yield the outcome hoped for by international actors. See Paris, At War's End; Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars; Anna Jarstad and Timothy Sisk, eds., From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Edward Newman and Oliver Richmond, eds., Challenges to Peacebuilding: Managing Spoilers During Conflict Resolution (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2006).

31. Andrea Kathryn Talentino, “Nation Building or Nation Splitting? Political Transition and the Dangers of Violence,” Terrorism and Political Violence 21, no. 3 (2009): 378−400.

32. Paris, At War's End; Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations, 1995); Crocker et al., Leashing the Dogs of War; Charles T. Call and Vanessa Wyeth, eds., Building States to Build Peace (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2008).

33. Early evidence indeed casts doubt on the ability of multilateral intervention (as well as unilateral) to fulfill expectations. Newman, Paris, and Richmond show that excessive focus on political liberalization leads to the negligence of other factors and creates negative social trends that undermine successful political development. Newman et al., New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding.

34. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs, “Intervention and Democracy,” International Organization 60, no. 3 (2006): 627−49; Frederic Pearson et al., “Military Intervention and Prospects for Democratization,” International Journal of Peace Studies 11, no. 2: 63−86.

35. Frederic S. Pearson and Robert Baumann, “International Military Intervention, 1946−1988” (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Data Collection 6035, University of Michigan, 1993); Jeffrey Pickering, “War Weariness and Cumulative Effects: Victors, Vanquished, and Subsequent Interstate Intervention,” Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 3 (2002): 313−37.

36. Pearson and Baumann, “International Military Intervention, 1946−1988,” 2.

37. Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences.”

38. For this reason the Balkan cases are excluded from the data, as they were for the Pickering and Kisangani study.

39. Rafael Reuveny and William R. Thompson, “World Economic Growth, Systemic Leadership and Southern Debt Crises,” Journal of Peace Research 41 (2004): 5−24; Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences,” 363.

40. Dursun Peksen, “Foreign Military Intervention and Women's Rights,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 4 (2011): 455–468.

41. Analyses also were completed defining multilateral interventions as only those occurring under the auspices of an international organization with similar findings to those reported below.

42. Peksen, “Foreign Military Intervention and Women's Rights.”

43. In years where multiple interventions occur, all types are coded. Therefore, if both a multilateral and a unilateral intervention occur in the same year, both dichotomous measures will be coded as 1. Similarly, if a unilateral intervention begins as such, then becomes multilateral with the extension of that intervention to an international organization, that subsequent multilateral intervention is coded as a new event in the year of onset.

44. Polity 2 produces a state regime score by subtracting its autocracy score from its democracy score (both ranging from −10 to 10). See Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences,” 366−67, regarding modification of these scores for interruptions (−66), interregnums (−77), and transitions (−88). We recognize that there are other crucial aspects of democratization, including such factors as civil liberties protection, press freedom, and independence of judiciary; however, following many of the existing studies, we focus especially on institutional and procedural factors for the present.

45. World Bank, World Development Indicators (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004).

46. Morris D. Morris, Measuring the Condition of the World's Poor: Physical Quality of Life Index (New York: Pergamon, 1979).

47.Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences”; UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook (Paris: UNESCO, 1960; 1970; 1997).

48. United Nations General Assembly, Sixtieth session. “Resolution 60/180. The Peacebuilding Commission.” Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, December 30, 2005; M. Ali Taiser and Robert O. Matthews, eds., Durable Peace: Challenges for Peacebuilding in Africa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Newman and Richmond, Challenges to Peacebuilding.

49. F. F. Alt, “Distributed Lags,” Econometrica 10 (1942): 113−28.

50. We recognize that the longer one extends the analysis the more likely other factors potentially intervene resulting in potentially spurious findings. Nonetheless, the need to examine both short- and long-term intervention impacts outweighs this potential.

51. The finite distributed lag model as employed by Alt was not applicable given the structure of our dependent variables designed to measure change. See Alt, “Distributed Lags.”

52. Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences,” 268.

53. Pearson and Baumann, “International Military Intervention, 1946−1988,” 15.

54. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace; Andrew J. Enterline and J. Michael Grieg, “Against All Odds? The History of Imposed Democracy and the Future of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy Analysis 4, no. 4 (2008): 321−47.

55. James Fearon, “Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country,” Journal of Economic Growth 8, no. 2 (2003): 208.

56.Roy Licklider, “The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945−1993,” The American Political Science Review 89, no. 3 (1995): 681−90. Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace; Enterline and Grieg, “Against All Odds?”

57.Michael Colaresi and William R. Thompson, “The Economic Development−Democratization Relationship: Does the Outside World Matter?,” Comparative Political Studies 36, no. 4 (2003): 381−403; Dan Reiter, “Why NATO Enlargement Does Not Spread Democracy,” International Security 25, no. 4 (2001): 41–67.

58. Colaresi and Thompson, “Economic Development−Democratization Relationship.”

59. Adam Przeworkski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950−1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

60.Adrian Karatnycky, “Muslim Countries and the Democracy Gap,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (2002): 99−112.

61. Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences.”

62. Robert J. Barro, “Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study” (NBER working paper no. 5698, NBER Programs, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1996).

63. Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences”; World Bank, World Development Indicators on CD-Rom.

64. It is possible that intervention selection issues (i.e., the argument that certain states are more likely to experience intervention) may potentially bias our estimates. Limiting our analyses to developing states was one way of dealing with selection bias. We also, however, examined a series of two-stage Heckman models using civil war/conflict presence, GDP per capita, composite index of national capability developed by COW, and polity 2 scores as predictors of intervention. Results indicated that the presence of civil war/conflict was the only reliable predictor of intervention onset. Including statistically insignificant variables created instability in the models, often resulting in insignificant independence tests. As a result, we present panel corrected standard error analyses while controlling for the presence of civil war/conflict in all models.

65. Peter Kennedy, A Guide to Econometrics, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).

66. Additional analyses were completed for the Cold War period and the post-Cold War period. Results do not appear specific to a particular time period. As a result, we present the full models for the entire time period under study.

67. This includes models that focused on the composition of the multilateral force (i.e., Western involvement versus those without).

68. Erin Jemcyzk, “Norms and their Effect on Humanitarian Aid. Atlantic International Studies Organization,” 2010, http://atlismta.org/online-journals/0506-journal-government-and-the-rights-of-individuals/norms-and-their-effect-on-humanitarian-aid/ (accessed July 27, 2011).