The impact of foreign military intervention on domestic political stability of intervened state: The United States invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq

Foreign military interventions under the blanket of providing stability cause long-lasting deleterious impacts on the intervened state making them weak and unstable and from which target states faced a difficult time to recover. The use of military force that breaks down the socio-political structure of the targeted state results in political instability of the intervened country which ultimately gives rise to other issues which lead to destroying peace in that targeted state. The core focus in this study was to assess that how a military intervention by global powers creates domestic political instability within the intervened state by narrowing down the lens of this study to the United States' military interventions in Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, that were driven by the pursuit of fostering democratic and stable governments. Supporting objectives were to examine that how foreign military intervention weakens the state institutions, destabilizes the economy and creates domestic insecurity within the target state which ultimately led to create political instability of the intervened state. The three hypotheses, offered in this study that represent the FMIs cause political instability. Firstly, FMIs substantially weaken the state institutions of the intervened state like in Afghanistan Iraq U.S. military intervention led to fragmentation, reconfiguration and destabilization of existing institutional systems, thereby changing the political environment of both countries. Secondly, the distortive impacts of FMIs on the intervened state's economy as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq where short-term economic advantages were sometimes evident but long-term economic outcomes were largely negative because of exploitation of economic resources, substantial consumption of national revenues and inequitable distribution of resources. Lastly, foreign military intervention increases the domestic insecurity of the intervened state, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, a substantial uptick in political violence after power vacuum created by U.S. intervention. The shifting power dynamics and heightened tensions contributed expansion of militant activities and to civil conflicts in both countries. The research proffers the deep dimensions of the foreign military intervention in order to give more effective and positively constructive strategies for the intervened states. The research methodologically relies on the conceptual framework that is complemented with qualitative comparative case study to assess the generalizability of the findings and provide insights into the conditions under which interventions may lead to different outcomes in terms of political stability.