Efforts to Weaponize Title VI against Pro-Palestine Speech on University Campuses

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

Conclusion

2025-12-30

Abstract Since 1989, the clearest determinant of where and for how long US presidents sent military forces was the ability of states and nonstate militants to impose costs that could trigger a domestic outcry. The higher those costs became, the more prone US officials became to shift from coercion to compromise. This logic carried across both major parties, numerous regions, and three and a half decades. The conclusion chapter charts the bipartisan path of US intervention as decision makers kept casualties to an absolute minimum, became more risk acceptant after 9/11, and then reverted back to low-risk operations in the 2010s and 2020s. The chapter considers how local conditions drove four different modal regime-change outcomes. It then looks at how US conduct incentivized rival states to fortify their own militaries as a deterrent (Iran) or carry out their own forms of primacy through territorial aggression (Russia). The book closes by noting that drone strikes and other elements of the “light footprint” spare the United States from casualties but are ineffective for advancing more complex preferences. Despite their convenience for US officials, this form of asymmetric warfare should be abandoned with diplomatic outreach.

Force Without Authority (2011–2014)

2025-12-30

Abstract Convinced that ground combat operations were too costly, Obama embraced airpower, especially drone warfare. UCAVs enabled the United States to kill enemies while safeguarding its service members. In foreign conflict zones, US pilots and targeters began firing stupendous amounts of munitions at their targets. As Obama expanded this low-risk application of force, he curbed American ambitions, repudiating any notion of US troops resolving other countries’ conflicts. With his “light-footprint” approach, the president scored a trifecta of wins in 2011—the location and Special Forces assassination of bin Laden in Pakistan, the drone assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, and the overthrow and death of Qaddafi in Libya—while also reducing the exposure of US servicemembers to combat. Obama remained cautious enough about the use of force that he even backed down from an earlier threat to punish Syrian President Assad if he used chemical weapons on civilians.

Force Without Authority

2025-12-30

Abstract Written for students and scholars, Force Without Authority explains the course of US interventions from the liberation of Kuwait to the withdrawal from Kabul. At a moment of global preeminence, US officials acted unilaterally against nearly defenceless regimes while abjuring serious confrontation with more formidable states. After the 9/11 attacks, American leaders and the public became unusually risk-acceptant, an attitude that drove the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The use of force to impose American preferences on the people of these countries provoked the deadliest anti-US resistance movements since Vietnam. The costs of the ensuing attempts at nation-building and counterinsurgency eclipsed the casualties of the initial invasions and compelled rethinking. By 2011, the United States was embracing airstrikes and renouncing large-scale ground combat. Through armed drones and Special Forces raids, US presidents could assassinate wanted terrorists. As for regime change and civil wars, they would let indigenous belligerents fight their own battles and build their own governments. Hence, the “light-footprint” strategy proved lethally efficient and politically unambitious. This reorientation dramatically reduced US losses to war without resolving the inner contradiction of a superpower trying to bluff independently minded states to submit to Washington’s agenda. Rather than projecting strength, US operations revealed an enduring sensitivity to casualties (the “Vietnam Syndrome”) and a glaring deference to foes with a proven ability to strike back.

Victory Without Invasion (2014–2018)

2025-12-30

Abstract This chapter focuses on the rise and defeat of Islamic State in the center of the Middle East. Even when domestic audiences and White House counselors clamored for bold action, Obama and Trump stuck to the light-footprint approach. Air power had carried the day in Libya and drone strikes had been effective in Yemen. Obama deemed these capacities sufficient to defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and without committing US troops to a new ground war. For the close-quarters combat that would be required to retake Islamic State territory, Obama and Trump relied on local surrogates, Iraqi soldiers, and Syrian irregulars (mainly Kurdish paramilitary fighters). This campaign proved effective against Islamic State because it renounced the nation-building and political tasks of the Afghanistan war, thereby aligning America’s goals with its physical capabilities.

Compelled to Compromise (2003–2011)

2025-12-30

Abstract Overthrowing Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein had been deceptively easy compared to the military occupation and nation-building that followed. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States did not collaborate with elements of the old regime, as it had done in West Germany and Japan. Instead, the Bush and Obama administrations tried to build the indigenous opposition into a self-sustaining governing elite while excluding supporters of the IEA and Saddam. Facing political and economic oblivion, these marginalized constituencies waged a campaign of armed resistance that steadily forced US policymakers to heed the indigenous interests they had tried to suppress. Chapter 5 follows America’s wars in Iraq from the outbreak of civil war through the reconciliation efforts US troops made with their recent adversaries in the Sunni Triangle. It then turns to Afghanistan, where an analogous effort at “counterinsurgency” lacked the political flexibility and context that had brought relative success in Iraq.

Cautious Goliath (1989–2001)

2025-12-30

Abstract In the post–Cold War era of American primacy, intervention outcomes traced the bounds of what the unrivaled superpower was able to achieve. Conducive local conditions enabled discrete successes. In Central America, the Caribbean and the former Yugoslavia, the White House aligned itself with demonstrably popular causes. Each of America’s intended beneficiaries had a substantial base. Further, they did not face an armed resistance movement in the territory they sought to govern. These factors streamlined the tasks borne by the United States and its allies. After major military operations ended, indigenous leaders took charge. There was no demand for political micromanagement and no impetus for further US or NATO combat missions. A combination of victories and retreats reinforced what the United States could achieve by applying massive force—and what it could not. Military force could help to disentangle belligerents (removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait, shielding non-Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo). An actual or impending invasion of a small country could also replace usurpers with rightful officeholders (Panama, Haiti). However, the White House could not dictate the course of other societies (Somalia). It also could not compel its governmental adversaries to relinquish power (Iraq, Iran, Serbia, Afghanistan).

Aggression and Resistance (1898–1989)

2025-12-30

Abstract The United States entered the twentieth century as an imperial power seeking to expand across the Pacific and throughout the Caribbean. As US presidents and their emissaries followed the example of European colonizers, they soon learned that invading countries was simpler than administering them. Accomplishing productive tasks required cooperating with indigenous leaders. Such partnerships depended on local circumstances that predated the arrival of US forces. During the post-WWII era, internal conditions enabled the United States to reform West Germany and Japan into stable pro-American allies. By contrast, vast amounts of firepower and human commitment were unable to sustain the artificial proto-state of South Vietnam against a resolute national movement for self-determination. While the United States grew in economic and military terms, the government’s use of force was circumscribed. First, in countries subject to US intervention, the preexisting authority of indigenous leaders limited what US forces could accomplish through pure coercion. Second, at home, the American public’s aversion to casualties served to check the scope of US military operations. These constraints endured even as the world inaugurated an era of American primacy.

Warpath (2001–2003)

2025-12-30

Abstract Until September 11, 2001, the Bush administration appeared set to reduce US intervention in Global South states. Chapter 4 covers how Bush embraced the use of force after 9/11, ordering the invasion and occupation of two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), in the span of just eighteen months. The hijacking and weaponization of four commercial airliners dispelled the traditional constraints of the Vietnam Syndrome, making the American public more risk tolerant than usual. Flush with domestic support, the White House quickly conquered largely defenseless countries. At the same time, US officials continued to treat more formidable adversaries, mainly Iran, with caution.

Introduction

2025-12-30

Abstract Chapter 1 introduces the problem of force without authority, differentiates the book from existing works, visualizes the political dynamic of imposed costs and foreign-policy shifts, then gives readers a road map of the chapters that follow. The restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) at the end of August 2021 re-exposed the enduring difference between physical might and political efficacy. From skirmishes to large-scale battles, brute force can suffice to eliminate combatants or compel their surrender. Coercion is of less use, however, if the attacking party’s goals extend beyond conquest. If the victorious country wants to establish a friendly postwar government, it must shift from repressing armed fighters to winning help from civilian communities. Occupying powers only elicit this cooperation when the needs and wishes of the populace are tended to. Such work requires negotiating with the country’s most popular and well-resourced figures, including, in some instances, notables of the vanquished government. When American administrators and their former enemies struck a mutual accommodation, postwar occupation was peaceful (West Germany, Japan). When the Americans did not anchor the formal end of hostilities in a political accord, their foes challenged the US-imposed order through armed struggle. The book develops this account with historical background (a chapter on US interventions during 1898–1989 and a chapter on 1989–2000), and then a close examination of the major turns in America’s post-9/11 wars (empirical chapters 4–8).