Analysis Of Occupational Hazards

Analia Del Bosque
April 8th 2014
Balance of Power – Reading Response 2

In his essay Occupational Hazards: Why Military Operations Succeed or Fail, David Edelstein makes the case that though there is no perfect recipe for occupation, three factors do increase the likelihood of success. These are ensuring a necessity of occupation, having a commonly perceived threat and establishing credible guarantees, factors that all lend to cooperation from the occupied population, and thus ensure a more agreeable occupation. Thus, recent successful occupations are predominantly found in the post World War II, at the start of the Cold War, era, for at this time both a necessity of occupation was present (the occupied populations maintained hope that the occupying states would help them rebuild their territories) as well as a commonly perceived threat, that being the Soviet Union. However, since the end of the Cold War and the United States’ rise to being the sole great power, successful occupations have been scarce to come by. Edelstein notes that occupying powers need to make more of an effort to...