Leveraging the Trinity: A Clausewitzian Framework for Genocide Prevention

: The twenty-first century has seen an increased interest in genocide response by the US military. Despite the development of these new approaches to dealing with the problem of genocide, gaps remain. Little research has been done on the role of the military in genocide prevention. Further complicating the development of military approaches to genocide prevention is the fact that the research on the causes and indicators of genocide is distributed across several different academic disciplines. This research examines the indicators and causes of genocide from the Clausewitzian perspective that genocide, like war and other forms of collective violence, is an extension of politics. It proposes extending the concept of Clausewitz's paradoxical trinity to the phenomenon of genocide and its corresponding roles of the genocidal population, genocide perpetrators, and genocide leaders in order to synthesize the existing body of research on genocide. Finally, the paper links the causes of genocide to military prevention capabilities, thereby proposing a framework for genocide and mass atrocity prevention in Phases 0 and 1. The work concludes with the risks and opportunities inherent in such a strategy.