The Implications of Reconceptualizing Military Intervention

• In Event: External Interventions in State Militaries and Domestic Security Forces

Abstract

Even with the increased scholarly attention paid to military intervention over the last thirty years, we lack a clear and shared conceptualization of the phenomenon. Currently, existing definitions raise a host of questions that have implications for both theory and practice. This paper identifies and analyzes these implications by taking two important steps. First, I advance a novel reconceptualization of military intervention that permits the inclusion of more activities and actors. Existing definitions underlying datasets largely exclude the efforts of United States special operations forces (SOF), a community whose efforts have served as the foundation of American warfighting in the 21st century. As such, I engage in a data collection effort focused on detailing U.S. SOF- specific interventions from 2001 to 20221 and merge that information into the Kushi and Toft (2023) Military Intervention Program Dataset. I take the second step of analyzing and comparing the statistics from the original and the updated dataset and highlighting the implications of SOF efforts being excluded due to conceptual limitations. Ultimately, the benefit of updating this dataset to include SOF efforts is twofold. First, we have a more accurate understanding of the projection of U.S. military force to make informed policy decisions regarding stress on the force. Second, we have a clearer understanding of military intervention as a social science phenomenon in ways that allows us to build upon the literature body rather than expanding it.

Author

• Meg K. Guliford, Drexel University