Ideology,ballots, and alliances: Canadian participation in multinational military operations

The decision to employ force abroad is often a contentious political decision, where partisanship plays a crucial role. Prior to military intervention, political parties usually make their ideologically distinctive preferences clear and seek to implement them once in power. What remains unclear, however, is how ideology affects the decision to use military force. This article contends that alliance and electoral calculations constrain the ability of political parties to implement their ideological preferences with regards to the use of force. It examines a “most likely” case for the partisan theory of military intervention, namely Canada’s refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq and its decision to commit forces to the war against the Islamic State. It finds that only in combination with alliance and electoral calculations does executive ideology offer valuable insights into Canada’s military support to U.S.-led coalition operations, which contributes to our understanding of allied decision-making.     

Moral Aspects of “Moral Injury”: Analyzing Conceptualizations on the Role of Morality in Military Trauma

In clinical circles, the concept of “moral injury” has rapidly gained traction. Yet, from a moral philosophical point of view the concept is less clear than is suggested. That is, in current conceptualizations of moral injury, trauma’s moral dimension seems to be understood in a rather mechanistic and individualized manner. This article makes a start in developing an adequately founded conceptualization of the role of morality in deployment-related distress. It does so by reviewing and synthesizing insights from different disciplines into morality and trauma. This discussion will lead to three positions: (1) values and norms are by definition characterized by conflict, (2) moral conflict may entail important social dimensions, and (3) moral conflict may lead to altered beliefs about previously held values. These insights provide important steps in further developing conceptions of the role of morality in deployment-related suffering.     

Anarchy’s anatomy: Two-tiered security systems and Libya’s civil wars

ABSTRACT

No issue deserves more scrutiny than the mechanisms whereby popular unrest unleashes civil wars. We argue that one institution – two-tiered security systems – is particularly pernicious in terms of the accompanying civil war risk. These systems’ defining characteristic is the juxtaposition of small communally stacked units that protect regimes from internal adversaries with larger regular armed forces that deter external opponents. These systems aggravate civil war risks because stacked security units lack the size to repress widespread dissent, but inhibit rapid regime change through coup d’état. Regular militaries, meanwhile, fracture when ordered to employ force against populations from which they were recruited.