RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON BRITISH MILITARY INTERVENTION
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Research Proposal on British Military Intervention
Introduction
Britain’s involvement in foreign policies is driven by ideologies and self-preservation. The leaders of the country have always championed for military intervention into troubled but wealthy countries, such as Libya and Afghanistan. Since Blair’s leadership, succeeding governments have been involved in military activities as a way of strengthening Britain’s influence in foreign affairs (Davidson 2013; Davidson 2017). As such, understanding why Britain deployed its military to various countries is important. Knowing the drivers of Britain’s foreign policy can explain why the nation was involved in the political activities of countries like Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. The motivations will also reveal what Britain stood to gain from intervening in these nations. At the same time, exploring the success and failures of the strategies is crucial. The analysis explains the mistakes that Britain made and whether the country learned lessons from past engagements. Similarly, it elaborates on the success the country gained from military intervention.
Accordingly, the paper analyzes several literature sources to explore three themes of the research. The themes include the ideological underpinnings of Britain’s foreign policy, empirical understandings of British foreign policy, and the evaluation of Britain’s foreign policy. After the review, the paper will discuss the methodology the researcher will use in the research, which is mixed methods. The paper concludes by outlining the expected benefits and limitations of the research design.
Literature Review
The Ideological Underpinnings of British foreign Policy from Blair onwards
Ideologies supporting liberation prompted Britain’s intervention. Holman (2016) argues that democratisation prompted Britain to spread its ideas on independence and freedom for Libyans who were keen to regain their freedom from Gaddafi. Comparatively, Davidson (2013) notes that Cameron’s intervention was motivated by constructivism, which justified Britain’s involvement in Libya to curtail human rights violations. Cameron felt that Britain had a responsibility to protect (R2P) the Libyans from the ruthless Colonel Gaddafi (Davidson 2013). Ralph, Holland, and Zhekova (2015) found that Britain legitimised its interference using a liberalism approach, in which the government was to spread democracy in the Arab world by removing Assad from leadership in Syria (Ralph et al. 2015). Clements (2013) states that Cameron publicly acknowledged that intervention in Libya was necessary, legal, and right because it was in the interest of democracy.
Comparatively, realism also dominated foreign relations. Daddow and Schnapper (2013) claim that Cameron’s government in the spirit of the “bounded liberal” tradition whose components include scepticism to remake the world so that Britain would emerge the leading nation. Similarly, Ralph et al. (2015) found that the conservative ideology entailed protecting Britain’s interest in Syria and creating the image of a powerful nation. Britain wanted to use its military capabilities to influence foreign policies that would improve its position in the Arab world.
Empirical Understandings of British Foreign Policy
Failure shaped Britain’s military strategy. Clements (2013) explains that the successes and failures of the New Labour governments in Blair’s term had destroyed Britain’s image, and it was essential to Cameron to control the damage by partaking in Libya’s crisis. Holman (2016) and Daddow and Schnapper (2013) state that Cameron’s humanitarianism was to clear any issues that Britain committed in Iraq under Blair’s administration. In the wake of the Arab Springs, Cameron wanted to recreate Britain as a country that supported citizens in championing democracy. Cameron argued that being a key player in resolving Libya’s crisis was instrumental in restoring Britain’s image.
Other experiences also influenced Britain’s activities. Davidson (2013) adds that Cameron wanted to correct the mistake of not intervening in the murder of 8,000 civilians in Srebrenica in 1995, by taking an active role in solving Libya’s political problems (Davidson 2013). Conversely, Davidson (2013) explains that past victories motivated Britain to invade Gaddafi. Britain had intervened in Benghazi and Tobruk successfully, dismantling Gaddafi’s plans to destroy these regions. The victory was despite little help from other Arab countries. With regards to Syria, Buckley (2012) states that Cameron did not want to use direct military intervention as had been the case in Libya because he feared it would not be effective. Of note is, using force would not have guaranteed adherence to policies within Syria. Past victories and lessons were valuable to Cameron when choosing the best approach in Syria and Libya.
Evaluations of British Foreign Policy
Britain’s strategy did not completely fail. Daddow and Schnapper (2013) argue that Britain’s foreign policy succeeded in returning the country to its ethical roots by ingraining the liberal approach in foreign relations. Nonetheless, the interventionism caused tensions between the Prime Ministers and their Cabinet, with the latter accusing Cameron of misusing his power regarding military expenditure. Additionally, Clements (2013) agrees that Cameron’s strategy improved Britain’s image and position in international affairs. Moreover, with the new strategy, Britain was active as part of the NATO forces, and they succeeded in removing Gaddafi from power (Clements, 2013). Nonetheless, Britain’s strategy caused division within the country, with some people rejecting the nation’s military interventions as overreach. Again, Holman (2016) found that Cameron’s approach improved Britain’s acceptance in Libya. The military strategy would make Britain stand out from other European countries intervening in Libya (Holman 2016). Regardless of the popularity of the strategy, it was evident that Britain was only interested in enhancing its position, and did not engage in post-war efforts in Libya.
Britain’s leadership was responsible for its failure. Campbell (2015) notes Britain’s leaders were mistaken to rely on its military prowess to quell the escalating tensions in Afghanistan. Equally, Britain’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan was viewed as a form of failure, since the government did not care whether the objectives of the intervention had been met (Campbell 2015). Davidson (2017) adds that Britain’s parliamentary report eventually recognized its failure in Libya and blamed Prime Minister Cameron for not having a clear strategy for Libya. The report, which was called “Libya: Examination of Intervention and Collapse and the UK’s Future Policy Options,” indicated that Cameron’s decisions in the National Security Council were highly politicized and did not have any solid objectives for Britain’s intervention in Libya (Davidson 2017). Furthermore, a BBC report in 2016 found that Britain’s involvement in Libya was miscalculated and blamed Cameron. Gaskarth (2016) also found that Britain’s military action in Syria in 2013 was a fiasco because the House of Commons did not vote for military intervention in Syria, despite the likelihood of Britain losing face in the international community (Gaskarth 2016). The members of the house did not care that the inactivity in Syria would create a rift with the US. Britain’s leaders did not make the right choices for Britain.
Summary
The information from the literature review helps answer the research question by providing the ideological, empirical drivers of Britain’s foreign policies, as well as the results. However, the review heavily focuses on Cameron’s leadership, although Britain had other prime ministers, such as Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. Accordingly, this research paper is important as it will examine Brown, May, and Johnson’s participation in foreign affairs.
Research Question
What are the ideological and empirical reasons for Britain’s foreign policy strategy post-Blair, and how successful has the strategy been since its revision?
Methodology
Correspondingly, the research will use a mixed-methods methodology. To begin with, the mixed method combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques (Hughes 2016). In this research, the quantitative data comes from information from various polls on the issue, while the qualitative data will come from speeches and interviews given by prime ministers and policy documents. Accordingly, the qualitative and quantitative data will be collected and analyzed separately, and then the results will be integrated for a better understanding of the research question.
The mixed approach is appropriate for this research for various reasons. Firstly, the data from the quantitative and qualitative analyses will thoroughly answer the research question. Usually, whatever details one method does not outline clearly will be explained by the findings of the alternative technique (Hughes 2016). In addition, the researcher can form a theory from the findings, given that the qualitative results will build the theory, while the quantitative results will test the theory. The mixed-method also reduces the shortcomings that each technique has on its own. It is also possible to identify any contradictions between the qualitative and quantitative findings. Although the methodology can be complex and time-consuming, the results are comprehensive.
Data Collection and Analysis
Quantitative Data
The quantitative approach will focus on public polls on military intervention strategies in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya. In particular, the interest will be on Britain’s military expenditure in the three countries above and the level of intervention in the four countries. Polls are useful because they reveal what the public feels about a given topic (Gaille 2015). In this research, the findings can explain how people perceive Britain’s foreign policy. In addition, it is possible to obtain accurate results because a large number will be used in the research. Nonetheless, one is likely to get misleading answers because of insufficient education or interest in the topic among the respondents. Besides, since the topic is sensitive to the public, the respondents might not have been objective when giving answers. Moreover, since Blair’s tenure, the country has numerous polls on the issue, which could lead to much analysis work. It would also require a lot of effort to decipher which sources are credible and which ones to omit. For one, many organizations are conducted polls across the years, and it takes time to verify if the source is trustworthy.
Accordingly, the research will use polls from various sources, which adhere to the inclusion criteria. For one, the poll must be from reputable sources, such as news publishers, recognized institutions, or the government. For example, some news sources include The Guardian, BBC, and The Telegraph. Additionally, the polls should range from 2007-2020 because Blair’s tenure ended with the election of Gordon Brown in 2007. Again, the polls will be restricted to the UK population. Finally, the polls should focus on either Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Afghanistan.
Since the polls span different leaderships, the number required would be high. For this research, a total of 60 polls relating to the four countries will be examined. In this case, the research will analyze 15 polls relating to Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. All the polls will be within 2007-2020.
The analysis will use a correlational analysis when analyzing quantitative data. Specifically, the paper will focus on the linear regression analysis, which reveals the relationship between two variables (Franzese 2019). In this case, the dependent variable is the success of the strategies, while the independent variable is the reasons for Britain’s foreign policy. A high correlation will reveal a close relationship between the variables and vice versa (Franzese 2019). The use of linear regression will allow the researcher to explain the variables easily and is easy to use. Nonetheless, the technique is prone to overfitting and outliners, meaning that it requires keenness to avoid any anomalies. The linear analysis also assumes that a straight-line relationship between the variables is not a guarantee in this research. Regardless of the shortcomings, the analysis is still useful in the research.
The research has made efforts to minimize sampling bias, which may result from the polls. In this regard, the research will only use national polls, which represent citizens from all parts of the country.
Qualitative Data
As aforementioned, the research will use speeches, documents, and interviews. The sources have credible information because the statements, which will be analyzed in the research, are directly from the parties of interests that include the prime ministers and other legislators. Moreover, the documents and reports are trustworthy because they are government publications. Nonetheless, as Britain had several prime ministers who were involved in military intervention strategies, it will be strenuous to find the relevant speeches. In the course of their terms, the prime ministers and legislators have given different addresses on the interventions in different countries. It might also be challenging to access controversial information about the government’s poor strategies and shortcomings because leaders emphasize the strategy’s success, even when there is evidence of failure.
The speeches and documents must adhere to some criteria. To begin with, the policy papers should come from government websites, such as https://publications.parliament.uk/ or a library database. Equally, speeches and interviews should be from reputable news sources, library databases, or government websites. Moreover, all the materials should range from 2007 to 2020, which excludes Blair or his predecessors. The speeches will also be limited to the Prime Ministers since they are the most crucial players in foreign policy.
The data will come from different sources to comprehensively cover the topic. In this case, the total number of speeches will be 36, which will be distributed among the four Prime Ministers: Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson, and David Cameron. The speeches will cover Britain’s intervention in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan. Accordingly, the research will analyze two speeches per country (the four countries) for Brown, May, and Johnson. However, since Cameron is the most analyzed leader, his speeches will be three per country. The research will also look at 32 policy documents. In this case, the research will examine two policy documents relating to the military strategies in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan under the four prime ministers.
The qualitative analysis will entail content analysis. The content analysis technique is suitable for analyzing speeches, texts, and transcripts, and will reveal insights about Britain’s foreign policy. Moreover, the analysis will be useful when handling coded information (Sipe n.d.). However, this technique is too time-consuming, especially since the information needed spans a decade. It would take a lot of time to assess the numerous speeches given by multiple leaders on different occasions and subjects (Sipe n.d.). An error can also occur when the researcher uses relational analysis to highly interpret a text. Moreover, this technique does not consider the context for the speech or text, which is important to understand what drove an individual or group to say or write what they did. Failure to recognize the context could lead to inaccuracies and misinformation in the results. Despite the disadvantages, the approach is reliable in assessing qualitative data.
The research has eliminated some challenges that come with qualitative analysis. The first problem is sampling bias, which was eliminated by assessing an equal number of policy documents among each Prime Minister and Country. Except for Cameron, all the other Prime Ministers have the same number of speeches. Nonetheless, the research has explained why Cameron has more speeches.
Potential Contributions and Limitation of Research Design
The research contributes to the literature in various ways. The findings will comprehensively reveal the successes, failures, and motivations of Britain’s foreign strategy in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya after the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Analyzing the results of the polls and the speeches will reveal the attitude of the politicians and the public towards Britain’s intervention in the war-torn nations. In addition, the findings will help in the formulation of a theory on which other researchers can expound or further analyze. Of note is, the past researchers, as evidenced by the literature review, mainly focus on theories of international relations, but have not developed theories based on the outcomes of Britain’s intervention strategy. Accordingly, this paper will deduce a theory based on the qualitative and quantitative findings. Because the analysis techniques will be clearly outlined, other researchers can replicate this research. This means that future researchers may want to expound on this research or carry out a similar study easily by using the same methodology.
However, the main shortcoming is that the research is limited to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. For that reason, the findings cannot be used to judge Britain’s entire foreign strategy. As such, more research is needed to explain the military intervention strategy that Britain uses in other warring nations.
Reference List
BBC. 2016. MPs attack Cameron over Libya ‘collapse.’ [Online] Available at: < https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37356873>. [Accessed 11 July 2020].
Buckley, C.A. 2012. ‘Learning from Libya, acting in Syria.’ Journal of Strategic Security, 5(2), pp. 81-104.
Campbell, H. 2015. ‘Lessons to be learnt? The third Anglo-Afghan war.’ The RUSI Journal, 160(2), pp. 76-85. DOI: 10.1080/03071847.2015.1031527
Chin, W. 2017. ‘Anglo American military cooperation in Afghanistan 2001–2014.’ Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 15 (2), pp. 121-142. DOI: 10.1080/14794012.2016.1268790
Clements, B. 2013. ‘Public opinion and military intervention: Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.’ The Political Quarterly, 84(1), pp. 119–131.
Daddow, O., and Schnapper, P. 2013. ‘Liberal intervention in the foreign policy thinking of Tony Blair and David Cameron.’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26(2), pp. 330–349.
Davidson, C. 2017. ‘Why was Muammar Qadhafi really removed?.’ Middle East Policy, 24(4), pp. 91-116. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12310
Davidson, J.W. 2013. ‘France, Britain and the intervention in Libya: An integrated analysis.’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26(2), pp. 310-329. Doi:10.1080/09557571.2013.784573
Franzese, M. 2019. ‘Correlation analysis.’ In Encyclopedia of bioinformatics and computational Biology. Elsevier.
Gaille, B. 2015. 8 pros and cons of opinion polling. Brandon Gaille Small Business and Marketing. [Online] Available at: <https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/mixed-methods-research>. [Accessed 11 July 2020].
Gaskarth, J. 2016. ‘The fiasco of the 2013 Syria votes: Decline and denial in British foreign policy.’ Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (5), pp. 718-734. Doi: 10.1080/13501763.2015.1127279
Holman, Z. 2016. ‘The price of influence: Ethics and British foreign policy in the Arab Middle East after Iraq.’ Contemporary Levant, 1(1), pp. 12–24.
Hughes, A. 2016. Mixed methods research. Association for Psychological Science. [Online] Available at: < https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/mixed-methods-research>. [Accessed 11 July 2020].
Ralph, J., Holland, J., Zhekova, K. 2017. ‘Before the vote. UK foreign policy discourse on Syria 2011-2013.’ Review of International Studies, 43(5). DOI: 10.1017/S0260210517000134
Sipe. n.d. Advantages and Disadvantages of Content Analysis. [Online] Available at: < https://siped.org/sybmm/semester-4/mass-media-research/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-content-analysis/>. [Accessed 11 July 2020].