The Dual Engine of Power: Do Great Powers Use Foreign Invasions and Interventions to Advance Foreign Policy Objectives or Corporate Interests? A Case Study of the United States and Russia

Abstract

This case study analyzed the motivation of foreign military interventions by great powers evaluating it on whether it was mainly due to national security and geopolitics tactics or economic and corporate interest. The case study was on U.S. intervention in Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011) and hypothetical intervention in Venezuela (2026) and Russia interventions in Ukraine (2014 and 2022) and Syria (2015). Based on the comparative case study approach, government documents, scholarly research, and policy evaluations, the study have compared official justifications with the real-life findings and economic consequences. The results have shown that although the United States and Russia tended to cite security threats or humanitarian interests to justify their interventions, economic interest; access to energy resources, defense industry benefits, and market positioning were major factors that influenced the decision making. The paper concluded that the modern great power interventions were most appropriately viewed through a two-pronged perspective where the geopolitical and national security interests were tightly interwoven with the economic and corporate concern and the line between the strategic interests of the state and the impact of the private sector on the process became more blurred.

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