Buy now, pay later: American military intervention and the strategic cost paradox

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the notion that US efforts to evade the political costs of war paradoxically contribute to the subsequent exacerbation of costs over time. Leaders seek to purchase political capital in the short term by limiting the costs and requirements of military operations, but in doing so cause strategic and political liabilities to mount in the long run. While identification of such behaviour is not new, insufficient attention has been devoted to explaining its causes, dynamics, and manifestations in relation to key decisions on and in war. Evidence derived from studies of recent American discretionary campaigns is analysed to advance an argument with respect to this pattern of self-defeating strategic behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• US military strategy
• modern warfare
• intervention
• politics of war

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Professor Caroline Kennedy, Professor Benjamin Schreer, Matthew Waldman, and the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Waldman

Thomas Waldman is a lecturer in security studies at Macquarie University. He has experience working in and on Afghanistan, having conducted research there in 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2014. His work currently focuses on American military strategy and contemporary warfare. He is author of two books: Understanding Influence: The Use of Statebuilding Research in British Policy (with Waldman, Barakat, and Varisco, 2014) and War, Clausewitz and the Trinity (Ashgate, 2013b).