Negative Returns: U.S. Military Policy and Anti-American Terrorism

14 Pages Posted: 21 Nov 2017

See all articles by Eugen Dimant

Eugen Dimant

University of Pennsylvania; CESifo

Tim Krieger

University of Freiburg - Department of Economics

Daniel Meierrieks

WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Date Written: October 18, 2017

Abstract

We investigate the effect of U.S. military aid and U.S. troop deployments on anti-American terrorism, using a sample of 106 countries between 1986 and 2011. We find that greater military commitment leads to more anti-American terrorism. We study the underlying mechanisms using a mediation analysis and show that both U.S. military aid and troop deployments in foreign countries do not improve local state capacity. Rather, we find that more military aid (but not troop deployments) is linked to poorer political-institutional outcomes in aid-receiving countries, explaining the positive association between U.S. military aid and anti-American terrorism. Our findings suggest that U.S. military policy does not make the United States safer from transnational terrorism.

Keywords: U.S. Military Aid, U.S. Troop Deployments, Anti-American Terrorism, Transnational Terrorism, Mediation Analysis

JEL Classification: D740, F350, F500

Suggested Citation

Dimant, Eugen and Krieger, Tim and Meierrieks, Daniel, Negative Returns: U.S. Military Policy and Anti-American Terrorism (October 18, 2017). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 6693, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3074329 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3074329

Eugen Dimant (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/eugendimant/

CESifo ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich
Germany

Tim Krieger

University of Freiburg - Department of Economics ( email )

University of Freiburg
Wilhelmstr. 1b
Freiburg, D-79085
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.wguth.uni-freiburg.de

Daniel Meierrieks

WZB Berlin Social Science Center ( email )

Reichpietschufer 50
D-10785 Berlin, 10785
Germany

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