Warkeeping: Intervention in Lebanon, 1982–1984

Name: Warkeeping: Intervention in Lebanon, 1982–1984
Start: 2020-02-20T12:15:00-0500
End: 2020-02-20T14:00:00-0500

Open to the Public

Emily Whalen, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This presentation examines a period of direct U.S. participation in Lebanon's war, the eighteen months during which U.S. Marines were deployed in Beirut as part of a Multinational Peacekeeping Force (MNF). Existing scholarship on the MNF intervention in Lebanon tends to focus on the infamous barracks bombing of October 1983, overlooking how the securitization and militarization of U.S. policy in Lebanon changed both the Lebanese state and the U.S. foreign policy process. Juxtaposing discussions in Washington with events on the ground in Beirut during the months preceding the barracks bombing, this presentation uses the intervention in Lebanon to cast light on the relationship between intentions and outcomes in U.S. foreign policy.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Date: Thu, Feb 20, 2020 Time: 12:15pm - 02:00pm Location: Room 350

The USS New Jersey fires a salvo from its 16"/50 guns during a deployment off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon, 9 January 1984

Emily Whalen, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

When is a civil war no longer a civil war? For fifteen years, armed forces from at least five nations joined warring Lebanese factions as active combatants in Lebanon's civil war. Many wars ran together in Lebanon: the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, the struggle for regional dominance between Syria and Egypt (and later Iran), the global ideological battle between the United States and the Soviet Union, and an ongoing internal contest within Lebanon's élite for political supremacy. Foreign involvement increased sharply during the first decade of the conflict and reached its apogee in 1982. Syrian, Israeli, Palestinian, French, Italian, and U.S. military presence in Lebanon between September 1982 and February 1984 reinforced the common belief among Lebanese civilians that their civil war was, in fact, an interstate conflict playing out on Lebanese soil.

This presentation examines a period of direct U.S. participation in Lebanon's war, the eighteen months during which U.S. Marines were deployed in Beirut as part of a Multinational Peacekeeping Force (MNF). During this time, the Reagan administration, caught between the civil and international dimensions of Lebanon's war, struggled to define strategic goals for the MNF. Existing scholarship on the MNF intervention in Lebanon tends to focus on the infamous barracks bombing of October 1983, overlooking how the securitization and militarization of U.S. policy in Lebanon changed both the Lebanese state and the U.S. foreign policy process. Juxtaposing discussions in Washington with events on the ground in Beirut during the months preceding the barracks bombing, this presentation uses the intervention in Lebanon to cast light on the relationship between intentions and outcomes in U.S. foreign policy.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

For more information, email the International Security Program Assistant at susan_lynch@harvard.edu.