Military Responses

3. Factors That Make Conflict Intractable

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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Military force is one of the most powerful tools a government can use, and therefore one of the most legitimacy-sensitive. In a democracy, the military is supposed to defend the country, protect constitutional government, carry out lawful orders from civilian authorities, and use force only within legal and moral limits. It is not supposed to be an independent political actor, a tool for partisan advantage, or a substitute for diplomacy, law enforcement, or democratic problem solving. Military responses become a conflict overlay problem when citizens disagree not only about the policy goal, but also about whether the decision to use force was lawful, wise, necessary, proportionate, and competently carried out.

Procedural problems can arise at many levels. Civilian leaders may set unrealistic goals, give bad orders, ignore intelligence, fail to plan for likely consequences, or use the military for symbolic political purposes. Military leaders and units may also make mistakes in planning, discipline, rules of engagement, logistics, intelligence assessment, or treatment of civilians. Military personnel are required to obey lawful orders, but the Uniform Code of Military Justice only punishes failure to obey a lawful order, not every order regardless of legality.

The Afghanistan withdrawal illustrates how responsibility can be spread across administrations and institutions. The 2020 Doha Agreement set the framework for U.S. withdrawal, and the final evacuation and collapse occurred in 2021. The State Department's After Action Review on Afghanistan said that the decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to withdraw U.S. forces provided the overall context, while SIGAR's report on why the Afghan government collapsed identified multiple contributing factors. The lesson is not simply that withdrawal was right or wrong, but that military decisions require serious planning for second- and third-order consequences.

Questions of legitimacy also arise over who has authority to use the military. The Constitution divides war powers: Congress has the power to declare war, while the president is Commander-in-Chief. The Library of Congress's overview of the Declare War Clause explains the continuing tension between congressional authorization and presidential initiative, and Cornell's war powers overview summarizes the shared constitutional framework. The War Powers Resolution was intended to give Congress and the president a structured process for decisions about sending U.S. forces into hostilities, though presidents of both parties have often resisted limits on their discretion. Domestic deployment raises a different set of concerns. The Posse Comitatus Act generally bars federal troops from civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorized by law, while the Insurrection Act creates an exception for extreme circumstances such as insurrection, domestic violence, or situations where ordinary law enforcement cannot enforce the law. Using the military inside the United States to advance a president's policy preferences would therefore raise especially serious legitimacy concerns.

The peace community has often been skeptical of military action because war kills civilians, destroys infrastructure, escalates hatred, empowers hardliners, diverts resources from human needs, and often produces unintended consequences. Many peace advocates argue that conflicts should be addressed earlier through diplomacy, mediation, development, human rights protection, trauma healing, and institution building.

Still, the relationship between peacebuilding and the military is not simply one of opposition. Some peacebuilders accept that military force may sometimes be needed to stop mass atrocities, protect civilians, deter aggression, keep armed groups apart, or create enough security for diplomacy, peacebuilding, reconciliation, and reconstruction to work. The United Nations' discussion of the Protection of Civilians mandate shows how peacekeeping can involve civilian, police, and military components working together. Other examples include this article from the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame and this article from Accord.

Constructive conflict handling does not require either glorifying the military or dismissing it as inherently illegitimate. It requires asking disciplined questions before, during, and after the use of force: Is there lawful authority? Is the goal clear and achievable? Have nonviolent alternatives been seriously considered? Are the expected benefits proportional to the likely harms? Is there a plan for civilians, allies, exit, accountability, and post-conflict stabilization? Are orders lawful, and are service members trained to protect civilians and obey the law of armed conflict? Military force may sometimes be necessary to defend democracy or protect vulnerable people, but it is always dangerous. In a democratic society, its legitimacy depends on civilian control, constitutional authorization, strategic competence, moral restraint, transparency, and accountability for mistakes and abuses.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page