The Short Path and the Long Road: Explaining the Duration of US Military Operations

Abstract

US presidents have used military force short of war many times since World War II. While some military operations are finished in a fairly brief period of time, such as the evacuation of US citizens from an unstable foreign capital, other deployments may last much longer, as the US military is charged with accomplishing more ambitious foreign policy goals, such as promoting peace, democracy, or maintaining US influence. What explains why some of these uses of force short of war are fairly brief, while other military operations last much longer? The authors contend that the duration of such missions depends on the military resources available, the president’s political support at home, and crisis-specific factors. Using duration modeling techniques, they find that the availability of military resources and the characteristics of the international crisis matter a great deal, while US political and economic conditions mostly do not explain the duration of US military operations. As research has shown with regard to interstate wars, elected leaders prefer short and ostensibly decisive engagements, owing in no small part to the increased risk of not surviving in office over the course of long wars. Thus, this study broadens our understanding of the preferences of democratic leaders in conflict decisionmaking about a larger and increasingly more important set of events in international relations - the use of force short of war.