The uptonian paradox and the Cardwellian conundrum: A comparison of United States and British military-strategic cultures and peace operations doctrine, 1990--1995

The scope of the problem. The end of the Cold War witnessed more cooperation in the Security Council, coupled with an upsurge in intrastate conflict. As a result, an increase in the number of 'gray-area' peace operations resulted in situations where the mandates and doctrinal guidelines for such operations were confusing and incongruous, combining peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian action, and disarmament in ways which have often brought about disastrous results.; Because moral and political factors often impelled the Security Council to act prior to the development of workable new national doctrines, many states embarked on these new enterprises within the context of a doctrinal void. In addition, although the U.S. and British doctrines for peace operations were developed concurrently, they represent two different conceptual approaches to peace operations: the American doctrine reflects a more forceful approach whereas British doctrine lies closer to the lower end of the spectrum of intensity.; My aim is to determine where the doctrines converge and diverge and to test hypotheses to explain how the new demands of the security landscape caused two states to develop two different doctrinal approaches to PO. The doctrines of these two militaries seem to reflect the cultural-historical propensities toward the application of force in operations short of war.; Hypotheses. The central question is: Why do these two political democracies that essentially comprise a security regime, with shared norms and rules, have different military doctrines for peace operations? Two research questions derived from this central question are: how did each military develop doctrine to meet new international security demands and what variables shaped these developments? Corollary and critical questions that to assess the differences in emerging doctrine are: what were the national approaches to consent, impartiality, and the use of force? This study will examine several central hypotheses. It will investigate how these two military institutions developed doctrines for 'gray-area' operations. Moreover, this study attempts to determine whether different military-strategic cultures help account for the different approaches to peace operations doctrine. In other words, this research seeks to find out whether organizational preferences represent the intervening variable between the changing roles and demands for the use of military force (independent variable) and the outcome---a peace operations doctrine for training and operating in a new milieu (the dependent variable).