Geographic Proximity and Foreign Military Intervention

Abstract

Proceeding from assumptions about interests and costs, two basic questions about the relation of foreign military intervention and geographic proximity are examined: (1) whether various types of intervening countries usually send troops to distant or nearby states; (2) whether certain types of military intervention are more likely to occur near to or far from the intervener. Data on categories of foreign military intervention in all regions from 1948-1967 were collected from the New York Times, regional chronologies, and scholarly accounts. Analysis of these, along with geographic distance data shows: (1) large powers were most likely to intervene far from home and rarely intervened close by; (2) small and middle powers were most likely to undertake intervention hostile to the target government; (3) hostile interventions in domestic disputes were rare, and hostile military interventions abroad generally were close to the intervener's capital; (4) the bulk of distant interventions were friendly to target and occurred when intervening country had power advantage over target country; (5) intervener's power disadvantage did not necessarily deter friendly or hostile interventions in nearby states; (6) large and small power interventions seemed related to regional power balance and ideological interests, but European great powers were concerned with economic interests, and small powers were more likely than large to intervene for territorial or social interests; (7) there was little consistent relation between contiguity and military intervention probability.