Articles

17 Items

Soldiers marching with national flags in parade

AP Photo/Ron Edmonds

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Buying Allies: Payment Practices in Multilateral Military Coalition-Building

    Author:
  • Marina E. Henke
| Spring 2019

Many states have been paid to join multilateral military coalitions. These payments are largely covered by “pivotal states”—those that care the most about an operation’s success—and take the form of deployment subsidies and political side deals to attract critical contributors to the mission.

Laurent Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu, center, shakes hands with Rwandan Military Chief of Staff Sam Kaka in Kigali, Monday, September 8, 1997.

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

You Can't Always Get What You Want: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Seldom Improves Interstate Relations

| Fall 2016

In recent decades, the United States has attempted to overthrow the regimes of several other countries in the hopes that the new regimes will be friendly toward Washington. Does foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC) succeed in making target states more accommodating to interveners’ interests? A new dataset and an analysis of foreign interventions in the Congo Wars show that FIRC damages relations between intervener and target state more often than it improves them.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe presents medals to soldiers who have fought in the Congo, Tuesday, August 13, 2002.

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Origins of Transnational Alliances: Rulers, Rebels, and Political Survival in the Congo Wars

    Author:
  • Henning Tamm
| Summer 2016

Alliances between local combatants and neighboring rulers played a crucial role in the Congo Wars. Yet the transnational dimensions of the conflicts remain understudied. Case studies reveal that the rulers of Angola, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe intervened in Congo to secure their own political survival. They forged alliances to thwart domestic rebels supported by foreign rulers or to gain access to resources that could ensure the loyalty of domestic elites.

This frame grab taken from an August 5, 2007 video message carrying the logo of al-Qaida's production house as-Sahab and provided by IntelCenter, a U.S. government contractor monitoring al-Qaida messaging, purports to show Ayman Zawahri.

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Delegitimizing al-Qaida: Defeating an 'Army Whose Men Love Death'

    Authors:
  • Jerry Mark Long
  • Alex S. Wilner
| Summer 2014

Al-Qaida has established a metanarrative that enables it to recruit militants and supporters. The United States and its allies can challenge its ability to do so by delegitimizing the ideological motivations that inform that metanarrative.

Refining crude oil in Al Mansura, east of Al Raqqah, northern Syria, May 8, 2013.

Rex Features via AP Images

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Fueling the Fire: Pathways from Oil to War

    Author:
  • Jeff D. Colgan
| Fall 2013

While the threat of "resource wars" over possession of oil reserves is often exaggerated, between one-quarter and one-half of interstate wars since 1973 have been connected to one or more of eight distinct oil-related causal mechanisms. Understanding these mechanisms can help policymakers design grand strategy and allocate military resources.

The newly renovated United Nations Security Council Chambers, also known as the Norwegian Room, is seen before the reopening ceremony, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at U.N. headquarters.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Permanence of Inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect

    Author:
  • Aidan Hehir
| Summer 2013

Many observers heralded the Security Council–sanctioned intervention in Libya in March 2011 as evidence of the efficacy of the responsibility to protect (R2P). Although there is no doubt that the intervention was significant, the implications of Resolution 1973 are not as profound as some have claimed. The intervention certainly coheres with the spirit of R2P, but it is possible to situate it in the context of a trajectory of Security Council responses to large-scale intrastate crises that predate the emergence of R2P. This trajectory is a function of the decisionmaking of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5), a group guided by politics and pragmatism rather than principles. As a consequence, the Security Council’s record in dealing with intrastate crises is characterized by a preponderance of inertia punctuated by aberrant flashes of resolve and timely action impelled by the occasional coincidence of interests and humanitarian need, rather than an adherence to either law or norms. The underlying factors that contributed to this record of inconsistency—primarily the P5’s veto power—remain post-Libya, and thus the international response to intrastate crises likely will continue to be inconsistent.