Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2014, History (Arts and Sciences)

The American military fully realized a third dimension of warfare in World War II that sparked a post-war discussion on the development and employment of air power. Officers of the Army Air Forces lobbied for an independent service devoted to this third dimension and agreed on basic principles for its application. By the time the Truman administration awarded the Air Force its autonomy, the strategic bombing mission had achieved primacy among its counterparts as well as a rising position in national defense planning. Because of the emphasis on the Air Force's Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command found itself in jeopardy of becoming an irrelevant organization in possession of technology and hardware that American defense planners would no longer deem necessary. In order to thwart irrelevancy Tactical Air Command underwent a modernization process to align it with national defense policy, but in the process, developed systems ill-suited to meet the challenges of limited, conventional war.

Committee: Ingo Trauschweizer (Advisor) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Political Science

Why do states use secrecy? Specifically, why do great powers often seem to create a kind of “backstage” area around local conflicts? That is, why create a kind of covert realm where external powers can meddle in local conflicts to pursue their security interests? This project generally analyzes how secrecy is used in international politics and why states are individually and collectively motivated to use it. Existing scholarship suggests states use secrecy to surprise their adversaries or insulate their leaders from dovish domestic political groups. I develop an alternative logic rooted in the desire to control conflict escalation risks. In the context of interventions in local conflicts by outside powers, I find intervening states use covert methods to maintain control over the perceptions and interpretations of outside audiences whose reactions determine the magnitude of external pressure on leaders to escalate further. Intervening in a secret, plausibly deniable manner makes restraint and withdrawal on the part of the intervening state easier. It also creates ambiguity about their role which can give the political space to responding states to ignore covert meddling and respond with restraint. Escalation control dynamics therefore make sense of why states intervene secretly and, more puzzling, why other states – even adversaries – may join in ignoring and covering up such covert activity (what I call “tacit collusion”). Drawing on Erving Goffman and others, I develop an “impression management” theory for why states individually and jointly use secrecy and political denial to achieve their goals. To illustrate several new concepts and evaluate the theory’s value-added, I use a sophisticated comparative case study research design that leverages within- and between-case variation in the Korean War, Spanish Civil War, and the civil war in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Each conflict hosts se (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Randall Schweller Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Richard Herrmann Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Mitzen Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations; Political Science