Despite the widely circulated post-Cold War thesis about the declining role of force in global politics, states still often resort to force, but do it in the form military interventions.
In fact, the post-Cold War order originated from an intervention, the First Gulf War, and over the next 30 years, military interventions affected a vast number of actors. The majority of military interventions occur in Africa, but they also took place in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe. A quarter of the world’s countries (49) became targets of interventions, while two-thirds (119) participated as intervening actors, including non-Western states. However, most of these participants acted as junior partners in such operations. Fifty-one interventions were conducted under the aegis of various regional and international organizations, while 58 were states-led. It is noteworthy that military interventions did not always resolve the conflicts they were ostensibly aimed at ending. At the same time, it has become common practice for interventions to continue even after the initial conflict has been resolved, with intervening forces often transforming into long-term military presences. The popularity of military interventions as a foreign policy tool is accurately illustrated by the accompanying map. It was created based on the «International Military Intervention Correlates«, a database on international military interventions, developed as part of the research project funded by the Russian Science Foundation Project No. 22-18-00664.
In thecontemporary world, states tend to avoid classical wars, instead opting to pursue their interests by intervening in ongoing conflicts. Military intervention serves as a convenient tool for increasing political influence, aiding or consolidating allies, and eliminating rivals.
According to prevailing views in academic and expert circles, decisions to use force in international relations (in any form) are influenced by roughly the same set of factors: the dynamics of domestic political processes, national interests, international law, and ethical considerations. Since military intervention has effectively become the dominant method of using force, these same factors should form the foundation for modern studies of interventions. The significance of intervention as a contemporary tool for projecting military power underscores the need for its systematic and empirical analysis.
The «International Military Intervention Correlates» database addresses this need for systematic and empirical research. Its key competitive advantage compared to other databases lies in its multifactorial approach to studying interventions, which allows to integrate all significant variables into a unified dataset. The database is organized into three main sections: National Interests, Ethics, and Law. The National Interests section contains data on political, economic, and other interests driving interventions. Ethics covers value-driven aspects, including national moral and ethical frameworks and narratives shaped by non-state actors such as media, international NGOs, and think tanks. Law documents the legal justifications for interventions as well as legal assessments of these actions. One standout feature of the database is its unique methodology for selecting cases of both actual and potential interventions. This methodology enables a highly accurate analysis of the reasons driving interventions. The database’s diverse data structures also allow for the study of patterns in the duration of interventions and the logic behind coalition-building for intervention efforts. Moreover, it facilitates the examination of the effects of interventions on the dynamics and outcomes of civil conflicts, as well as the international community’s responses to these results. Beyond addressing major theoretical questions, the database serves as a practical tool for creating various visualizations and summary statistics. These can complement expert analyses, making the database a versatile resource for both research and policymaking.
Such a diverse analytical functionality is made possible by the impressive technical characteristics of the database. The «International Military Intervention Correlates» database consists of 45 tables containing information on 428 cases of actual interventions and 150 cases of potential interventions (where intervention was possible but did not take place), encompassing several hundred variables and various data structures.
The database is published and available on the Harvard Dataverse platform. It is managed using the PostgreSQL database management system (DBMS), which provides features for automated updates and extensive opportunities for exporting. The Harvard Dataverse repository also includes a Codebook that acts as a manual on how to use the database.
The compilation of the «International Military Intervention Correlates» database represents a significant step in the systematization and study of contemporary uses of force in international relations. Thanks to this resource, researchers gain access to a powerful tool that enables a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of military intervention and the use of force in the international relations.
