The United States and counterinsurgency: 'political first, political last, political always'

According to the status of forces agreement signed by Iraq and the United States in November 2008, US troops are to be withdrawn entirely from Iraq by the end of 2011. A few days later it was also revealed that the British force in Iraq, numbering about 4,100 troops, will be reduced to a contingent of just a few hundred military advisors by summer 2009. The counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, on the other hand, is to be intensified in the form of a ‘surge’ in military and political effort. Counterinsurgency operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq have long been at the centre of the security policy debate in the United States and elsewhere; a debate which seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future. But what exactly is counterinsurgency? This article offers some reflections on the practice and the politics of an especially complex form of military engagement. All military activity should be understood through the prism of politics, and counterinsurgency particularly so.     

Why protect civilians? Innocence,immunity and enmity in war

The issue of civilians in war has risen to new heights in international political consciousness in recent years. The principle of civilian protection has been at once the justification for war and the main guide to the conduct of such wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan ands most recently in Iraq. The so-called new wars of the 1990s have seen a consistent pattern of massive civilian atrocity and the new policies of massive global terrorism are similarly intent on civilian attack. It remains to be seen how well those pursuing the war against terror will hold to the civilian ethic. In truth, the idea of the civilian is a deeply contested one and has more usually been rejected than embraced by those who pursue war, political violence and terror. The simple power of the idea itself and the humanitarian sentiment that accompanies it to produce the notion of 'innocent civilians' cannot be relied upon to make a reality of civilian protection. Instead, the case for civilian identity and civilian protection must be determinedly and continuously argued in war. This means recognizing the main sources of political, passionate and practical objection to the civilian idea and taking them on one by one as they arise. Repeatedly arguing the case for civilian rights must be at the very heart of political, military, humanitarian and religious endeavour. Arguments of prudence and self-interest must be made alongside much deeper and more difficult moral arguments about people's innocence, their identity and their relationship to war. Holding fast to the civilian ethic in the face of terror and war requires significant moral argument and moral leadership from politicians, military commanders and ordinary people alike.     

Does It Pay for US‐based NGOs to Go to War? Empirical Evidence for Afghanistan and Iraq

Apart from altruistic reasons, NGOs may engage in developing countries under conditions of conflict and war in order to secure funding and survive in the ‘market’ of humanitarian relief and development assistance. Applying difference‐in‐differences approaches, this article analyses empirically whether the presence of US‐based NGOs in Afghanistan and Iraq improved their chances of external funding. While there are some indications that NGOs active in Afghanistan had better access to official funding, the authors do not find statistically compelling evidence that it pays for NGOs to engage where the United States intervenes militarily.     

Gender Justice and (In)security in Pakistan and Afghanistan†

ABSTRACT

This article argues that gender justice becomes a politicised issue in counterproductive ways in conflict zones. Despite claims of following democratic principles, cultural norms have often taken precedence over ensuring gender-sensitive security practices on the ground. The rightness of the ‘war on terror’ justified by evoking fear and enforced through colonial methods of surveillance, torture, and repression in counter-terrorism measures, reproduces colonial strategies of governance. In the current context, the postcolonial sovereign state with its colonial memories and structures of violence attempts to control women’s identities. This article analyses some of these debates within the context of Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s security dynamics. It begins with the premise that a deliberate focus on the exclusion and limitation of women in Muslim and traditional societies sustains and reinforces the stereotypes of women as silent and silenced actors only. However, while the control of women within and beyond the nexus of patriarchal family'society'state is central to extremist ideologies and institutionalisation practices, women’s vulnerabilities and insecurities increase in times of conflict not only because of the action of religious forces, but also because of ‘progressive’, ‘secular’, ‘humanitarian’ interventions.     

Afghanada,or How to be a Good (Canadian) Soldier

The CBC radio show Afghanada, a “grunt’s-eye” view of the Canadian Forces’ deployment in Afghanistan (2006–2011), is one of the few fictionalized engagements with the conduct and consequences of the war. Despite its significance, Afghanada has only received limited critical attention and was usually interpreted as a symptom of the “militarization” of Canadian culture. This article argues that Afghanada is more adequately conceptualized as a cultural site where the most important issues brought up by war were negotiated and new boundaries of legitimacy and acceptability drawn. Afghanada tackles the question of combat versus peacekeeping as the primary task of the Canadian military, cooperation with the United States, and national unity. While the show extends the boundaries of societal acceptability by portraying combat as necessary, it also negotiates new limits within which combat is legitimate and enables multiple interpretations regarding the desirability and costs of the evolution of Canada’s military.     

Examining the Impact of Turkey's Approach Vis‐à‐Vis Syria into Turkey's Iraq Policy

The tension between “international order” and justice has long been a focus of critical attention of many scholars. Today, with the rise of the humanitarian crises, the debate is once again visible, and Turkish foreign policy is one of the most important areas of observation of this tension. Indeed, the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Turkey to actively engage in regional affairs. Meanwhile, the need to bring human justice into world politics makes Turkish foreign policy decision makers operate on a much more humanitarian basis. Nevertheless, active humanitarian engagement poses an important challenge to traditional Turkish foreign policy as it is mainly based on the notion of “non‐interference,” as well as on the elementary components of international order, by raising suspicions on the intentions of the Turkish authorities. This article aims to explore the challenges Turkey has been facing since the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq, and diagnose Turkish foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Iraq in the shadow of the Syrian civil war from Hedley Bull's framework of “order” and “justice.” It argues that Turkey's recent fluctuations in the Middle East could be linked to Turkey's failure to reconcile the requirements of “order” with those of “justice” and the Turkish governing party's (AKP) attempts to use justice as an important instrument to consolidate its power both in Turkey and in the Middle East.     

The Shiʿa Afghan Community: Between Transnational Links and Internal Hurdles

This article aims to present a political analysis of the relationship between the Shi?a community in Afghanistan and the new political system that emerged after the US military intervention of 2001. In light of the sectarian conflicts in the greater Middle East and the connection between South West Asia and the Syrian war since 2011, this article illustrates the limits of the social empowerment of the Shi?a communities in Afghanistan. The article outlines the internal religious scene and the connections between āyatollāhs (marāje?), mainly from Iran or Iraq, and Afghan Shi?ite believers. It also examines how the Afghan Shi?ite community differs from those of Iran and Iraq.     

Intersecting Identities: Race,Military Affiliation,and Youth Attitudes towards War

Abstract

African-Americans in the U.S. military encompass at least two distinct identity groups: a racial status associated with lower support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a military status which tends to be more ‘hawkish’ in perspective. This study examines the intersection of these two status characteristics utilizing survey data of American military academy cadets, Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) cadets, and civilian students (n = 5,051). Majorities of military cadets, regardless of race, supported both of these wars more than their civilian counterparts, but African-Americans are significantly less supportive of the wars relative to their peers within each group. African-American cadets support both wars less so than whites and cadets of other races, but African-American cadets supported both wars more than African-American civilians. It appears that racial and military affiliations combine to yield a unique perspective on war, adapting elements of both statuses. These findings support the concept of intersectionality.     

The desert of the real and the simulacrum of war

As the global war on terror bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new inter‐and intra‐service struggle emerged within the military, between what we might call the ‘transformationists’ and the ‘neotraditionalists’. The transformationists put their faith in network‐centric warfare and precision munitions to resolve the intractable political, civil and religious conflicts of the twenty‐first century. The neotraditionalists, in contrast, go back to the future for lessons, to the ‘low‐intensity conflicts’ of Malaya and Vietnam, the ‘small wars’ that Marines fought in Central America in the interwar period, and even the instructions given to American servicemen deployed to assist the British occupation of Iraq during the Second World War. Lumped together under the rubric of ‘irregular warfare’, two new watchwords have had emerged from the neotraditionalist camp: ‘counter‐insurgency’ and ‘cultural awareness’. As the neotraditionalists reach out to social scientists to assist them in their efforts, a secondary civil war has erupted in the universities over whether academics should become involved in the new war efforts. Based on a week spent embedded with the 1/25th Marines at 29 Palms and extensive interviews with key proponents and critics, this article maps (and reflexively questions the practice of mapping) the future of warfare as it is planned, taught, gamed and operationalized by the US military.     

All the way? The evolution of German military power

German strategic decision‐makers have to reconsider their approach to the use of force. In Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr is faced with the challenge of a growing insurgency. This situation requires a willingness to provide combat forces for the NATO‐led International Security Assistance Force. Hence, the conviction in German domestic politics that the Bundeswehr should only be employed for the purposes of stabilization and reconstruction is increasingly challenged by a changing operational reality in Afghanistan, and allies’ reluctance to continue to accept German policy. In essence, the issue is about German participation in counterinsurgency operations. To continue current policy undermines Germany's military credibility among allied partners and restrains Germany's ability to utilize fully military power as an instrument of policy. This article argues that while military force in recent years has become an integral part of German foreign policy to pursue national interests, political decision‐makers in Berlin and the broader German public will still have to come to terms with the reality of a new security environment in Afghanistan. For the German government the ‘small war’ in northern Afghanistan is a very politically exhausting undertaking. Both politically and militarily Germany seems ill‐prepared to sustain such an operation. Its political and strategic culture still promotes an aversion to involvement in war‐fighting. In addition, the government and the Bundeswehr lack vital strategy‐making capabilities. Still, there are indicators that the changing operational reality in Afghanistan might lead to a significant evolution of the German approach to the use of force.     

Just War or Ethical Peace? Moral Discourses of Strategic Violence After 9/11

Against the commonly held view that morality implies a critique or restraint of strategic violence, this article analyses a range of moral discourses that have been deployed to support the war on terror, including its extension to Iraq. It analyses the ambiguity between legal and extra-legal responses in Bush administration rhetoric and policy, and critically surveys the humanitarian costs–in civilian life, instability and suffering–sustained during the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This article places just war theory, in particular, under extended critical scrutiny, and finds its formalized system of moral rules and concepts–particularly civilian immunity and proportionality–deeply flawed in the light of actual US war-fighting strategies. By insisting on the acceptability of unintentional killing (as opposed to an alternative concept such as avoidable harm) just war theory may actually expose civilians to mortal danger and liberate war rather than morally restrain it. In the light of the flaws of current moral discourses on strategy, the article concludes by developing 'ethical peace' as an alternative conceptual framework that seeks to create a genuinely universal moral community in which it is never, in principle, legitimate to secure one group of citizens by placing others in moral danger.     

Stalinist Identity from the Viewpoint of Gender: Rearing a Generation of Professionally Violent Women‐Fighters in 1930s Stalinist Russia

Over the course of the Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945, over 800,000 Soviet women volunteered to the front and served in the field army. Among them were thousands of snipers, riflewomen, machine‐gunners and mortar women. Thousands of women were trained to serve as commanders and commissars of rifle, machine‐gun and mortar subdivisions. Women also mastered fighter planes, dive bombers and night bombers as well as light and heavy tanks. I pursue three questions in the article: how did this women's entitlement to fighting become thinkable in the first place, acceptable in the second, and thirdly, realisable in Soviet society? I argue that the conceivability of women's compatibility with combat, war and violence was a product of the radical undoing of traditional gender differences that Stalinist society underwent in the 1930s. By the late 1930s, combat duty in wartime became an acknowledged option for women in Stalinist political culture. The construction of alternative gender personalities enjoyed both public articulation in press and military expert approval. The alternative femininity encompassed and redefined the traditionally incompatible qualities: maternal love and military violence, feminine charm.     

Last charge of the knights? Iraq,Afghanistan and the special relationship

At the heart of the ‘special relationship’ ideology, there is supposed to be a grand bargain. In exchange for paying the ‘blood price’ as America's ally, Britain will be rewarded with exceptional influence over American foreign policy and its strategic behaviour. Soldiers and statesman continue to articulate this idea. Since 9/11, the notion of Britain playing ‘Greece’ to America's ‘Rome’ gained new life thanks to Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic. One potent version of this ideology was that the more seasoned British would teach Americans how to fight ‘small wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby bolstering their role as tutor to the superpower. Britain does derive benefits from the Anglo‐American alliance and has made momentous contributions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet British solidarity and sacrifices have not purchased special influence in Washington. This is partly due to Atlanticist ideology, which sets Britain unrealistic standards by which it is judged, and partly because the notion of ‘special influence’ is misleading as it loses sight of the complexities of American policy‐making. The overall result of expeditionary wars has been to strain British credibility in American eyes and to display its lack of consistent influence both over high policy and the design and execution of US military campaigns. While there may be good arguments in favour of the UK continuing its efforts in Afghanistan, the notion that the war fortifies Britain's vicarious world status is a dangerous illusion that leads to repeated overstretch and disappointment. Now that Britain is in the foothills of a strategic defence review, it is important that the British abandon this false consciousness.     

U.S. Financial Aid for Iraq Under the Engagement Policy, 1988–1990

Abstract

This article reframes our understanding of the pre-Gulf War U.S. policy toward Iraq away from the issue of why the Bush administration ignored evidence that Saddam Hussein was not reciprocating U.S. efforts to moderate his behavior. Rather, it asks why the Bush administration did not consider Saddam’s abuse of U.S. export credit programs as relevant for evaluating Iraqi intentions and the efficacy of the engagement policy. It traces debates among federal agencies about two export credit programs to show that strategic considerations drove decisions to preserve or suspend these programs even though Iraq’s financial behavior offered insights earlier in time about its strategic intentions. While the Bush administration intended for engagement to reward or punish Saddam depending on his behavior, my examination of export credit controversies shows that it did not establish a rationale for deciding when and how to punish Iraq for threatening or abusive behavior.     

NATO contracting in Afghanistan: the problem of principal–agent networks

Private military and security companies (PMSCs) play a growing role in international military and peacekeeping operations. Very little is known, however, about the fact that not only the United States relies extensively on contractors, but so do international organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article examines NATO's collaboration with PMSCs during its leadership of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF, 2001–2014). It argues that NATO's use of international prime contractors and holding PMSCs responsible for their own security contributed to the creation of a complex network of contractors and subcontractors with detrimental effects for control and accountability. In particular, this article focuses on the proliferation of local Armed Private Security Companies (APSCs) which were accused of a wide range of humanitarian and human rights abuses. Drawing on principal–agent theory, this article seeks to explain why NATO appeared unable to stop the ‘culture of impunity’ among these firms. It shows that multiple principals and long principal–agent chains undermined NATO oversight over armed security guards. In addition, some principals and agents avoided accountability for APSC misconduct through three strategies: blame‐shifting, back‐scratching and morphing. NATO contracting practices, thus, had serious negative implications for the security of the civilian population and the ability of ISAF to establish lasting peace in Afghanistan.     

‘Transformation in contact’: learning the lessons of modern war

The US and British armies have faced intelligent and adaptive enemies in Iraq and continue to do so in Afghanistan. While both armies have proved adept at fighting high‐intensity conflict, their initial performance against asymmetric threats and diffuse insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated how much each army had to learn about conducting counterinsurgency operations. This article examines one important means by which the US and British armies have transformed themselves into more flexible and responsive organizations that are able to harness innovation at the front effectively. It traces the development of the lessons‐learned systems in both armies from the start of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq to today. These changes have resulted in significant development within the organization of both armies. Reform of US and British army learning capabilities offers an important insight into the drivers of military change. The reformed lessons‐learned systems have been better integrated into training, experimentation, and doctrine and force development. While there are still challenges to be overcome, both armies have created robust structures that facilitate the movement of knowledge from recent experience at the front to the rest of the organization. As such, these reforms provide us with a useful case‐study that enhances our understanding of the role of ‘bottom‐up’ initiatives in military innovation.     

The German politics of war: Kunduz and the war in Afghanistan

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post‐Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico‐strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far‐reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis.     

Righting the course? Humanitarian intervention,the war on terror and the future of Afghanistan

The US‐led post 9/11 ‘intervention’ in Afghanistan was, by definition, not a humanitarian intervention. The intervention in Afghanistan was defined as an act of self‐defence by the US and it was one of the first steps in the ‘war on terror’ by the US and its allies: it had no intention or clear strategies for long‐term stabilization, state‐building or development. The US‐led international coalition failed to ‘find’ Al‐Qaeda in the short term and new arguments had to be made to justify continued international presence. The initial agenda was quickly blurred by a mismatch of intentions including those of long‐term stabilization and state‐building. The ideas developed through the Bonn Agreement (2001–5) and continued through the Afghanistan Compact (2006–10) have focused on building a centrally governed state (sometimes defined as democratic) that has a monopoly on the use of force. Their shortcomings are already well‐documented: the urgency of the Bonn Conference and of the adoption of the Bonn Agreement ostensibly meant trading expediency and stability for accountability and a clean slate, which is not to say that there were no good intentions at Bonn from stakeholders, but that Afghans and the international community put power‐sharing before progress. The choices made at Bonn may have contributed to the culture of impunity and the entrenched poverty that is gripping Afghanistan today. This article responds to the claims that state‐building and all that goes with it are not the responsibility of the ‘international community’ by addressing the accountability and humanitarian paradoxes. The question remains, however, about who should be responsible for reform and politically accountable in the aftermath of non‐humanitarian (and indeed even humanitarian) interventions?     

Normative,agitated, and rebellious femininities among East and Central African refugee women

This article discusses femininities among East and Central African refugee women self-settled in Nairobi, Kenya. It argues that while normative approaches to refugee studies depict a homogeneous refugee femininity inherently synonymous with vulnerability and ‘victimhood,’ femininity among refugee women in Nairobi is heterogeneous, fluid, and complex. It is premised on individual refugee women's marital statuses in relation to economic situation. The article argues that femininity is a constraint in some instances and a resource in others, such that what exists among the refugee women is not a single femininity but a continuum of femininities. Specifically, the article conceptualizes femininity under three categories, namely: normative, agitated, and rebellious femininities.     

From British mandate to post Anglo‐American invasion: Reproduction of ethno‐sectarian divides and the breakdown of social cohesion in Mosul

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 ushered in an era of great uncertainty and turbulence that left the country in an economically crippled, politically unstable, and socially desperate situation. While the built‐in ethno‐sectarian divides have been widely used as analytical categories to address the enduring violence in both Mosul and the rest of Iraq, little attention has been paid to the connection between the long‐term Anglo‐American invasion of Iraq and the ethno‐sectarian violence that currently characterizes Mosul. This study argues that while ethnic and sectarian loyalties have historically persisted in their social forms since the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the highly politicized and violent forms of ethno‐sectarian conflict are modern phenomena, produced and reproduced under the conditions of the decades‐long British and American interventions. The study retrospectively evaluates the current dynamics of ethno‐sectarian confrontations in Mosul through two stages in the long historiography of modern Iraq. The first section reveals how Britain’s mismanagement of colonial Iraq set the initial conditions for communal cleavages and instability in today’s Mosul. Later, the second section turns its attention toward the contemporary manifestation of ethno‐sectarian violence, particularly under the U.S.‐led occupation.