"Force doesn't equal legitimacy By declaring its intent to govern Venezuela, the United States is creating a governance trap of its own making - one in which external force is mistakenly treated as a substitute for domestic legitimacy. I write as a scholar of international security, civil wars and U.S. foreign policy, and as author of " Dying by the Sword," which examines why states repeatedly reach for military solutions, and why such interventions rarely produce durable peace."
"The core finding of that research is straightforward: Force can topple rulers, but it cannot generate political authority. When violence and what I have described elsewhere as "kinetic diplomacy " become a substitute for full spectrum action - which includes diplomacy, economics and what the late political scientist Joseph Nye called "soft power" - it tends to deepen instability rather than resolve it."
"The Venezuela episode reflects this broader shift in how the United States uses its power. My co-author Sidita Kushi and I document this by analyzing detailed data from the new Military Intervention Project. We show that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has sharply increased the frequency of military interventions while systematically underinvesting in diplomacy and other tools of statecraft."
Force can topple rulers but cannot generate political authority. When violence and "kinetic diplomacy" substitute for full-spectrum action—including diplomacy, economics, and soft power—instability deepens rather than resolves. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has increased the frequency of military interventions while systematically underinvesting in diplomacy and other tools of statecraft. Intervention missions have expanded from short-term stabilization to prolonged governance and security management, as seen in Iraq after 2003 and Afghanistan after 2001. Detailed data from the Military Intervention Project shows these trends, and institutional dynamics further reinforce the shift toward overreliance on military power.
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