Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations - Softcover

The research reported here addresses the role of casualties indomestic support for U.S. military interventions. Its principal contributionis that it provides a systematic and integrated view of themajor factors that are associated with public support for U.S. militaryoperations: the operation's perceived benefits, its prospects for success,its costs, and leadership consensus or dissensus about thesefactors. This work should be of interest to policymakers, commanders,and planners who desire an understanding of domestic politicalsupport for the use of the U.S. Armed Forces and who are concernedabout the impact of casualties on support.The relationship between U.S. casualties and public opinion on militaryoperations remains an important yet greatly misunderstoodissue. It is now an article of faith in political and media circles thatthe American public will no longer accept casualties in U.S. militaryoperations and that casualties inexorably lead to irresistible calls forthe immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. If true, this would not onlycall into question the credibility of the U.S. Armed Forces in deterringpotential adversaries but would be profoundly important indecisions regarding the country's strategy, alliance and other commitments,force structure, doctrine, and military campaign planning.Ten years ago, RAND published two separate reports that addressedthe role of casualties in decisionmaking on U.S. military operations: Mark Lorell and Charles Kelley, Jr., with Deborah Hensler,Casualties, Public Opinion, and Presidential Policy During theVietnam War, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, R-3060-AF, 1985 Stephen T. Hosmer, Constraints on U.S. Strategy in Third WorldConflict, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, R-3208-AF, 1985.Much has happened in the intervening ten years, including the endof the Cold War, the Gulf War, and the U.S. interventions in Panama,Somalia, Haiti, and now Bosnia. This has resulted in a broader andricher set of cases to draw from in understanding the relationshipbetween casualties and domestic support.This report builds upon this earlier RAND work, as well as externalresearch. It shows that there has been a great deal of continuity andconsistency in the public's response to casualties in wars-includingWorld War II and the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars-and insmaller operations-including Panama and Somalia. The reportpresents a simple framework for understanding the correlates ofdomestic support and places the role of casualties in this largercontext of ends, means, and leadership.In 1994, as part of a broader study on regional deterrence, RANDpublished a report by Benjamin Schwarz entitled Casualties, PublicOpinion and U.S. Military Intervention: Implications for U.S.Regional Deterrence Strategies (out of print) that addressed the relationshipbetween casualties and public opinion. Because this reportgenerated significant interest in the defense and foreign affairscommunities, and in light of the complexity and importance of thisissue, RAND believed that a more in-depth look at the question waswarranted. The research reported here reveals a far more complexand subtle picture than that presented in the earlier study.Specifically, the findings that increasing casualties in Korea,Vietnam, and Somalia were associated with growing numbers ofAmericans favoring escalation-and rather constant low levels ofsupport for withdrawal-were found not to be supported by the data.Although support for an orderly or gradual withdrawal often receivedmajority support, the insight that majorities of the public tended notto prefer immediate withdrawal was, however, substantiated by the data. In light of this more complete analysis, RAND is replacing the1994 report with the one presented here.This work was sponsored by RAND corporate research funds.Jerrold D. GreenCorporate Research ManagerInternational Policy Department

Casualties and Consensus is a revealing new study of U.S. public opinion on U.S. military operations. Based upon an examination of U.S. experiences in the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Panama, and Somalia, it finds that, contrary to widely held belief, public support for U.S. military operations does not respond to casualties alone but ultimately reflects a sensible weighing of ends and means that is greatly influenced by events and conditions on the battlefield and by U.S. political leaders in Washington. Casualties and Consensus is an important and insightful discussion of the recurring patterns in the American public's support for wars and military operations, and seems certain to provoke renewed discussion and debate in U.S. academic, political and military circles about the prospects for a post-Cold War consensus on the role of force in American foreign policy.