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Since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of US military aid flowing to foreign governments. What is the impact of this aid on human security? Drawing on recent research on the principal–agent relationship between state leaders and security sector actors, I develop a theory of the impact of security assistance on the use of deadly force against civilians. Using methods to account for the endogeneity of aid allocations, I find that the impact of security assistance on state violence varies based on the type of assistance provided and the institutional environment in the recipient state.

What determines a democratic public's willingness to tolerate the human and material costs of sustaining ongoing military operations to victory? Athough much literature has addressed the factors that affect public attitudes toward the use of military force, few studies adopt either a theoretical perspective or a research method explicitly designed to answer this question. In particular, existing research tends to focus on the costs of war fighting, while ignoring both the tangible and intangible costs of withdrawing from a foreign military engagement. I argue that many of the factors that the public uses to estimate the cost of prosecuting a war—troop strength requirements, whether or not troops are engaged in ground combat and, most importantly, casualties—are also measures of the extent of a state's commitment to achieving its war aims. If the public treats the cost of the state's military commitment simply as an expense , support for sustaining an operation should decrease as the cost of commitment increases. If, however, citizens have a tendency to see military commitments as investments that put the country's reputation on the line or can only be redeemed if the state is victorious in the war, an increase in commitment could actually strengthen the public's determination to sustain the fight. Employing a cross-sectional time-series design with data from 12 U.S. and British military interventions, I explore whether the costs of continuing to prosecute a war or the costs of withdrawing have a greater effect on public willingness to sustain ongoing military operations. The results suggest that public concern about the costs of withdrawing from a conflict can be a more important determinant of willingness to persevere than sensitivity to the costs of war fighting. As a result, there is a considerable disconnect between what the public claims it would support in hypothetical scenarios and the types of military operations the public actually shows a willingness to sustain once they are underway.

I extend the implications of a rationalist model of war initiation to explore the effects of uncertainty about the cost of prosecuting a war to victory on the duration and outcome of military operations. When the attributes of a potential armed conflict create uncertainty about the human and material costs of attaining a state's war aims, states are at risk of selecting themselves into long, costly, and ultimately unsuccessful military engagements. The more the actual costs of fighting exceed a state's prewar expectations, the greater the likelihood that it will eventually be pushed beyond its cost-tolerance threshold and forced to unilaterally withdraw from the conflict before it attains its war aims. At the same time, states must fight longer before they arrive at accurate estimates of what it will cost to attain their objectives when the attributes of a conflict contribute to high levels of uncertainty.

Why are states with tremendous advantages in capabilities and resources often unable to attain even limited objectives vis-à-vis much weaker adversaries? The theory I develop focuses on how the nature of a strong state's war aims affects prewar uncertainty about the cost of victory. I argue that the relative magnitude of the effect of military strength and resolve on war outcomes varies with the nature of the object at stake and that strong states become more likely to underestimate the cost of victory as the impact of resolve increases relative to that of war-fighting capacity. I evaluate the empirical implications of this theory against the historical record provided by the universe of major power military interventions since World War II. The results challenge both existing theories and conventional wisdom about the impact of factors such as military strength, resolve, troop commitment levels, and war-fighting strategies on asymmetric war outcomes.

Over the past three decades, Hong Kong has witnessed unprecedented economic prosperity, a decrease in family solidarity, an increase in social problems, and a dramatic rise in the incidence of divorce. Under colonial rule for 150 years, which ended with the return of sovereignty to China in 1997, the identity of the Hong Kong Chinese is a combination of traditional Chinese and modern Western culture. Despite Western influences, Chinese cultural heritage remains the major source of influence in all aspects of life. This article presents a summary of traditional Chinese culture, characteristics of contemporary Hong Kong society, factors believed to influence the high divorce rate, and the impact of divorce on Hong Kong families. The development, use, acceptability, and effectiveness of mediation in Hong Kong is reviewed, and suggestions for adapting it to Chinese families are proposed. Direction for future development of mediation in Hong Kong focuses on the need for further research to develop a scientifically sound knowledge base that will help to inform culturally competent mediation practice.