Thesis (M.A. in International Security and Civil-Military Relations)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2000. / Thesis advisor(s): Paul Stockton, Letitia Lawson. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis--School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., 1998-99. / Title from title screen (viewed Oct. 9, 2003). "November 2000." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. in Information Systems and Operations)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Steven J. Iatrou, Karen Guttieri. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-220). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Donald Abenheim, Daniel J. Moran. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-92). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-220). Also available on the Internet.

States that sponsor terrorism pose one of the greatest policy and security challenges of the 21st century. Over the past decade, the United States and coalition allies have invested over a trillion dollars in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both waged, in part, to end their support for terrorism. Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas makes negotiations over its nuclear program tremendously difficult and the prospect of an Iranian nuclear umbrella, under which these groups could operate, especially concerning. Likewise, Qaddafi's overthrow and the siege on Assad's regime in Syria have both been justified in the context of their historic support for terrorists, as well as the more recent normative concern for the repression of their people. This paper moves beyond a simple explanation of state sponsorship as covert war or way to persuade target states to concede policy objectives. Rather, it models state sponsored terrorism as a leader survival strategy that leaders choose when facing simultaneous internal and external threats. By investing a portion of the state's military power outside the control of the military and into terrorist groups and the security services that arm and train them, the leader is able to signal competency to other elites in his coalition and insulate himself from existing threats of coup d'état from the military while avoiding defeat in external conflict. Using a newly constructed dataset on state sponsorship that uses the leader-year (1968-2001) as the unit of analysis (N=5139), this study finds that many existing explanations for state sponsorship do not withstand empirical testing and that the combined level of high external threat and elevated threat of coup d'état are key determinants of a leader's decision to sponsor terrorist groups. This work has tremendous implications for US security policy as current practices, such as regime-targeted sanctions, may have the unintended effect of increasing the level of threat that the leader experiences and thus the likelihood of state sponsorship. These insights highlight a major reason why military strikes and economic sanctions are less successful than regime change for ending state sponsorship. Furthermore, it suggests that carefully reducing the external and internal levels of threat the leader faces may be the most effective method to end state sponsorship of terrorism. / text

How does interservice rivalry affect American civil-military relations? In three essays, I develop theoretical propositions about the relationship between interservice rivalry and civil-military outcomes; propose a two-stage model of civil-military interaction surrounding use of force decisions; and investigate the correlates of interservice rivalry with a focus on budget pressure.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, [2008].

United States military interventions commonly attempt to generate a post-conflict political order congenial to American national interest, that is, to shape a usable peace. The Clausewitzian imperative, that the use of force must serve policy, points to the strategic significance of the postconflict environment. The civil dimension is the arena where US policy succeeds or fails. This study examines US military doctrine and practice of civil affairs in order to address a strategic problem: how to translate the use of force into a usable peace? Civil affairs or civil military operations cope with civilians during operations, control populations and facilitate US military exit. This study offers theoretical, historical, and policy analysis of US civil affairs. Theoretically, if war is a continuation of policy by other means, civil affairs effect a transition back to a mode of policy. Over time, US doctrine adjusted to different conflict environments and policy imperatives provided by civilian leadership, shifting emphasis to military government, civic action, counterinsurgency, and finally, to peace operations. Because US military culture disdains involvement of soldiers in governance, and in order to expedite transitions, two principles are consistent features of the US approach: civilianization, to transfer authority to civilian agencies; and indirect rule, to nurture friendly indigenous regimes. Civil affairs implements policy. US interventions in the Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989) imperfectly translated political goals into military objectives; suffered from inconsistent goals from Washington; and failed to plan adequately for the civil dimension. The study identifies a number of factors that influenced the American approach to civil affairs in these cases, including analogical reasoning behind the US interventions, orientation toward low-intensity conflict at the time of the intervention, the impact of combat operations during interventions, and the availability of local resources for reconstruction after intervention. The civil dimension of military operations has become more prominent in last decade of intervention in internal conflicts, under limited rules of engagement, in the service of humanitarian objectives. As operations have become more multilateral and multi-agency, cultural tensions have become more pronounced. This study provides a basis for further exploration of the fundamental, but increasingly complex strategic imperative for US military forces, to shape a usable peace.