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Replication Data for: The Tyranny of Distance: Assessing and Explaining the Apparent Decline in U.S. Military Performance

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: The Tyranny of Distance: Assessing and Explaining the Apparent Decline in U.S. Military Performance
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/6KHICW
 
Creator Hulme, M. Patrick
Gartzke, Erik
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description There is a growing sense that US military effectiveness has been on the wane in recent years. Is this the case? If so, what are the reasons for the decay in American combat performance? We first examine the available systematic evidence for American military decline, showing that the United States has indeed experienced a drop in the quality of outcomes of its military contests. Observers have offered a number of explanations for declining American military success, most predominantly an increase in intrastate conflict after the Second World War. After showing that a decline in performance is observed even after fully excluding intrastate conflict, we propose an alternative explanation: the increasing distance from home at which the United States has been fighting. Distance is tyrannical: it saps military strength and increases the cost of contests, even as it reduces US expertise and motivations to prevail. We then show that the distance from home at which the United States fights is the best predictor of the outcome of the conflict. We conclude by noting some avenues for future research and policy implications as the world returns to great power competition.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Combat Performance, US, Military Success, Distance
 
Contributor Prins, Brandon