2001/12/01 by Cori E. Dauber · 41 citations
Social Sciences · Engineering · #Military History and Strategy #Shot (pellet) #One shot #Single shot #Political science #Aeronautics #Computer security #Computer science #Engineering #Physics #Mechanical engineering #Optics #Materials science
paper · doi:10.1353/rap.2001.0066
published in Rhetoric and Public Affairs 4(4), 653-687 (Michigan State University)
openalex publication_date 2001/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This essay argues that visual images of American casualties and POWs have had a profound effect on senior leadership's perceptions of what level of casualties the American public will and will not support during humanitarian interventions. The result is the current policy of "zero casualties," a policy that makes it virtually impossible to justify military operations in humanitarian crises because the policy is based on a profound misreading of the way the American public will interpret photojournalistic images. An argument- and rhetoric-based analytic provides a more viable and pragmatic basis for interpretation and hence for foreign policy decision making.