ORCID

5413082

Keywords

War Opinion Congress Constraint Political-Military Sustainment

Abstract

Public opinion predicts American small war sustainment through institutional causal mechanisms of Congress and political-military relations. An increase in general public disapproval (not necessarily connected to a war) predicts the time when Members of Congress look to their constituents for policy changes to appease broad frustration. Constituent discontent toward a U.S. small war is absorbed by individual legislators, translated into legislative constraint, and projected onto the Department of Defense that is highly attentive to Congress. America abandons war aims, despite its military advantage over adversaries, when the ways and means available for military operations are constrained by a threat or actual reduction of authorization or appropriation. The method used to test this theory is process tracing, supported by interviews and descriptive statistics. This research includes interviews with 34 decision-makers along the key causal mechanisms between Congress and the Department of Defense, and is cross-referenced with archival data from the congressional and military record since the late 1970s. The interview sample represents perspectives of Members of Congress, their legislative staff, professional staff of the defense committees, legislative liaisons in the Pentagon, and policy advisors who develop American small war policy. The research analyzes 140 public opinion polls to track the change in national opinion between 1992 and 1994 to test the relationship between independent and dependent variables in a historic case – America’s small war in Somalia.

Completion Date

2024

Semester

Fall

Committee Chair

Dolan, Thomas

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs

Format

PDF

Identifier

DP0029708

Document Type

Thesis

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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