Observations, Draconically.

Nice to see that Henrik’s back. Points to an updated CRS report on Instances of United States Armed Forces Abroad 1789-2007, which offers the sort of data set that makes social scientists rub their hands with glee.

POSTED BY Wiggins ON 02.26.08 @ 1:39 am |

5 Comments »

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  1. Indeed, it ought to. But just looking it over - noting decades and continents - makes you reconsider the Core/Gap, and, at least, the difficulties of isolationism.

    Comment by henrik — February 26, 2008 @ 10:30 am

  2. Oh - and thanks!

    Comment by henrik — February 26, 2008 @ 10:31 am

  3. How does its make one reconsider Core/Gap?

    Comment by Wiggins — February 26, 2008 @ 7:00 pm

  4. I didn’t mean reconsider in the sense of “thinking about discarding”, more like “think about again in broader/historical context”. The Map was made as an extrapolation of 1990-2003 deployed man-days; here we have data for a rough cut for a historicized version. Of course, one would have to add up the (other) great powers’ deployments and interventions … and you would wind up describing hard end trends in the colonial spread of the modern, industrial state. And thus, looking at the different interventions, get impressions about the relative size and frequency of industrial vs. colonial (or big vs. small) wars), in the vein of or supplementing Rupert Smith’s The Utility of Force. That kind of reconsidering.

    Comment by henrik — March 24, 2008 @ 12:53 pm

  5. Got it.

    Taking your historical Core/Gap perspective one step further, one could imagine drawing Core/Gap maps for Globalization I through IV and compare the incidents of industrial war (i.e. within the Core) vs. “colonial” (i.e. between Core and Gap).

    Of course, this mixes the maximal rule sets of 19th Century empire with the minimalist rule sets of 21st Century globalization, but it would still be an interesting to see what patterns emerged…

    Comment by Wiggins — March 24, 2008 @ 3:57 pm

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