How to Handle Offending Troops Overseas: The U.S. Military’s Legal Strategy During the Cold War

Abstract

The peacetime deployment of U.S. forces in foreign countries goes against traditional notions of sovereignty. How did such deployment become legitimate following World War II? This article examines the legal strategy that the U.S. military employed to make American troop presence more palatable to foreign publics and to critics at home: granting certain legal authority over offending troops to host countries, while seeking to shield troops from trials in host-country courts. The military also used local, informal ties with hosts to guarantee fair legal treatment for troops and worked to convince skeptics that U.S. troops faced no legal threat. The mitigating of legal tensions helped the military create conducive political conditions for its presence abroad and likely contributed to the durability of U.S. deployments. The Cold-War practice contrasts sharply with the contemporary desire of the United States to maintain complete jurisdiction over its troops.