Intrusive interests: when subversion fear triggers military intervention

Why do governments initiate foreign military interventions to shape the internal political composition of other states? Foreign military intervention, defined as the mobilization of troops to affect the internal politics of another state, is often costly and unsuccessful. Answering this question, much of the International Relations (IR) scholarship focuses on how governments carry out interventions to address perceived strategic threats to their states. This logic is useful for understanding many cases of intervention yet glosses over an alternative reason why government leaders intervene. Because leaders often view their authority as vulnerable to political outcomes inside surrounding states, they may use foreign military intervention to create conditions abroad perceived as advantageous to their authority at home. Interventions to shape the internal conditions of other states serve to reduce the risk of foreign-inspired subversion at home. This dissertation develops and tests hypotheses to predict when fear of internal political threats from abroad triggers foreign intervention. Utilizing archival material from Jordan, online archives, and expert interviews, the project compares cases of intervention and non-intervention in the context of the North Yemen Civil War (1962-1970). This analysis is complemented by shadow case research into third-party interventions in the Angolan Civil War (mid-1970s) and the Tajikistani Civil War (early 1990s). The project finds that fear of foreign-inspired domestic subversion is a recurring driver of foreign military intervention.