US military attitudes toward post-Cold War missions

In this article, we seek to determine whether officers support the post-Col d War's range of new missions and why. To this end, we examine the attitude s of U.S. officers at the command and staff colleges for each service branc h. On average, we find that while officers support traditional missions mor e than new missions, they do support these new missions and believe they ad dress the greatest dangers facing the U.S. We also find that officers are m ore likely to appreciate the importance of military participation in humani tarian assistance, antiterrorism, and drug interdiction when they serve in a noncombat role, and those who believe that their MOS leads to future care er success are more likely to support peace enforcement and peacekeeping. M ost significantly, officers' enthusiasm about new missions is linked to the ir beliefs about civilian attitudes. On average, officers believe that the president supports the entire range of missions. They see Congress and (esp ecially) the public as more suspicious of new missions. Officers are most l ikely to support new post-Cold War missions when they also believe there is both congressional and public support for them.