Uses of Force and Wilsonian Foreign Policy

Frederick S. Calhoun Examines the policies Woodrow Wilson pursued during the seven military interventions he undertook between 1914 and 1919 to develop a specialized vocabulary describing how force is employed as a function of international policy. Calhoun categorizes uses of force as 1) protection: a government's resort to armed power in response to specific threats, real or perceived; 2) retribution: a government's resort to armed power to resolve a problem with another government or organized group operating in a foreign country; 4) introduction: a government's resort to armed power to compel or inaugurate negotiations with another government or organized group operating in a foreign country, and 5) association: a government's resort to armed power to ally itself with specific governments or groups or in response to demands from its allies. This vocabulary allows for a concise description of most military interventions and presents comparative terms for analyzing interventions within a larger context.