Closing the Neoliberal Gap: Risk and Regulation in the Long War of Securitization

Abstract: When US military commanders refer today to the “long war”, they could more instructively refer to the “long war of securitization”, involving both practices of war and reconstruction that have always been based on a therapeutic logic of preemption and an endgame of protection from global economic risk. Since the early 1980s, the centrepiece of US foreign policy has been the securitization of the Persian Gulf region, with the newly created United States Central Command (CENTCOM) given the task of effecting a grand strategy that has subsequently been consistently based on two interrelated tactics: first, the discursive identification and positing of the Persian Gulf as a precarious yet pivotal geoeconomic space, essential to US and global economic health; and second, the enactment of a dual military–economic securitization strategy to secure, patrol and regulate designated “vital interests” in the region. With the rhetorical power of “risk management” perhaps more palpable today than ever, this paper reflects on the neoliberal discourses of “risk” and “regulation” that sustain a “long war” in which the perennial potentiality of a volatile global political economy necessitates securitization by US military force.     

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According to the status of forces agreement signed by Iraq and the United States in November 2008, US troops are to be withdrawn entirely from Iraq by the end of 2011.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.     

Rape as a Weapon of War(riors): The Militarisation of Sexual Violence in the United States, 1990–2000

This article uses a transnational feminist lens to examine how accusations of sexual violence were mobilised by the United States (US) government to justify military intervention at the same time that the US military failed to address sexual violence perpetrated by and against its own service members. Drawing upon an archive of civilian representations ranging from the New York Times to G.I. Jane, the author explores US interventions in the Persian Gulf, Haiti and the former Yugoslavia alongside sexual assaults committed by servicemen at the Tailhook Convention, on Okinawa and at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. This article draws connections between feminism and neo‐imperialism, between Cold War and War on Terror ideologies, and between rape as a weapon of war and rape during times of ‘peace’ in order to better understand the relationships between sexual politics and geopolitics at the end of the twentieth century.     

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.     

Australia's relationship with the United States: the case for greater independence

A number of recent events—especially attempts to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement and Australia's participation in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq—have thrown Australia's relationship with the United States into sharp relief. While this relationship has historically enjoyed strong bilateral endorsement, such uncritical support is beginning to unravel. At the very least, the relationship is being subjected to a renewed, more critical scrutiny. This paper argues that a dispassionate analysis of the relationship is appropriate and overdue. Not only are the benefits that accrue to ‘Australia’ from the relationship debateable, even when judged within the limited calculus of the ‘national interest’, but Australia's uncritical support for US foreign policy is also helping to entrench potentially damaging aspects of American foreign policy and— somewhat ironically—undermining the legitimacy of its pre-eminent ‘hege monic’ position.     

'When the shooting starts': Atlanticism in British security strategy

The evolution in the international system from bipolarity to unipolarity has led to shifting patterns of alliances in world politics. Since 9/11, the United States has demonstrated a willingness to use its overwhelming military power to deal with potential or real threats. Contrary to its policy of embedded power in the economic and security institutions of the post‐1945 period, the United States increasingly views the multilateral order as an unreasonable restraint on the exercise of hegemonic power. What does this new context mean for Britain? Going back to 1997, the first New Labour government added an internationalist dimension to the traditional roles of acting as a loyal ally to the United States and serving as a bridge across the transatlantic divide. The Iraq war of 2003 showed that the bridge could not bear the weight of the disagreement between ‘Old Europe’ and the new conservatives in Washington. The Prime Minister's decision to be there ‘when the shooting starts’ shows that Britain continues to place the bilateral connection with the United States above all other obligations. This article questions whether the Atlanticist identity that underpins the strategic rationale for the special relationship is likely to succeed in delivering the interests and goals set out in the recent UK security strategy document.     

America as a European power: the end of empire by integration?

Is the postwar partnership between Europe and America now a historical artefact? Much depends on whether the notion of America as a ‘European power’ still holds. The US attained this status through a strategy of ‘empire by integration’, extending its postwar ‘empire’ through negotiation and support for European integration, and envisaging a collectively powerful Europe as fundamental to the health of its most important security alliance. The election of George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the war in Iraq are often seen as producing deep ruptures both in American policy towards Europe and the transatlantic alliance. Yet, the embrace of a new US policy of ‘disaggregation’ of Europe is unproven, and in any event unlikely to mark a permanent shift. The US and Europe are surprisingly close to agreement on ends for the international order. Conflict over Iraq has obscured a significant increase in policy cooperation and convergence of strategy in the war on terrorism.     

The Gulf war and the new world order: Economic dimensions of a problematic relationship

This paper investigates the durability of the economic underpinnings of the ‘new world order’ allegedly conceived in the Gulf war. Four substantive arguments are advanced: that the mechanism for allied burden‐sharing born in the Gulf war is inferior to its antecedents and inherently more political; that the historically acute economic vulnerability of America's allies to higher oil prices no longer exists; that the prospects for stable and low oil prices through the long run have not been enhanced; and that significant political opportunities for stability in the oil market are evaporating.     

Visions of Statesmanship Across The Atlantic: Presidential Masculinity and the American Response to Benito Mussolini

This article explores how hegemonic masculinity forged discourses of modern statesmanship in the United States and Italy in the first three decades of the twentieth century. It unpacks the ‘presidential masculinity’ of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and compares these gendered performances of political leadership in the United States to Benito Mussolini's Fascist rule in Italy during the 1920s. In doing so, this article contends that the manliness of these three modern leaders rested on a contrasting of pairs: if Roosevelt embodied the hegemonic ideal of the ‘frontiersman-as-president’, Wilson personified its ‘unmanly’, bourgeois-liberal countertype and thereby engendered the initially hospitable view of Mussolini's Fascist masculinity in the United States during the Jazz Age. The article covers the publications in The Atlantic Monthly to reveal how the American disillusion with Wilson's liberal internationalism transformed the Duce into a Fascist surrogate for Roosevelt. In a decade of political, economic and social upheaval, the transatlantic ‘public relations state’ in both the United States and Italy discursively positioned Mussolini as the personification of the masculine ideals of acumen, willpower and virility for the American public; a ‘Doctor-Dictator’ who, akin to Roosevelt, became a symbol of modern manliness that signified stability, progress and reform. In the process, the Duce's Fascist manhood shaped hegemonic ideals of statesmanship across the Atlantic while hinting at the paltry support for the liberal democracies of the West.     

The United States and the Question of the Greco-Turkish War, 1919–1922

Abstract

In the post World War II era, the strain in the trilateral relation between the United States, Greece and Turkey is one of the most disquieting and vexatious elements to emerge from American foreign policy. The so-called southeastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is currently beset with tensions that threaten to impede its contributory role in NATO's overall defense strategy for southeastern Europe (if they have not already done so). In this political drama, the principal antagonists, Greece and Turkey, have a number of outstanding differences which on occasion have brought them to the precipice of war. As a result, the United States has intervened as the protagonist and consequently has become the recipient of the enmity of these two NATO allies for not recognizing their ‘special’ claims or interests. As in the characteristic classical Greek drama, the chorus of NATO partners offer a common chant: they are united in proclaiming that the current state of affairs seems to portend failure to the concerted effort to defend Western Europe.     

Attitudes toward War in the United States and Iran

Understanding the determinants of attitudes toward war is important for the prevention of military conflicts and the promotion of peaceful conflict resolution. To examine American and Iranian attitudes toward war, questionnaires were administered to American and Iranian college students in the United States and Iran respectively. The results of the study revealed that American students generally have more positive attitudes toward war than Iranian students. Since most Iranians in the sample experienced eight years of war with Iraq whereas Americans never had direct experience of war, it was predicted that direct experiences of military action could explain this cross-national difference. Among Iranians those who experienced the Iran–Iraq war had more negative attitudes toward war compared to Iranians who did not have such experiences. The results further demonstrated that being authoritarian, religious and male were independently related to having positive attitudes toward war in both samples.     

后冷战时期马来西亚对美政策评析

后冷战时期,马来西亚与美国展开一连串激烈交锋,两国关系一度非常紧张。马来西亚对美采取强硬政策的原因,包括冷战后国际政治格局变化,美国东南亚政策的改变,以及金融危机后马来西亚的政治和经济安全面临的严重威胁等。但马美经贸关系继续发展,美国还跃升为马来西亚最大的出口市场和外资来源,这与马来西亚成功的外交谋略不无关系。对美政策有效地捍卫了马来西亚的政治和经济利益,提高了马来西亚的国际地位,基本体现了马来西亚当时的国家利益,充分显示了小国外交的智慧。     

The end of the West: the once and future Europe

Europe and the United States—the West—urgently need political leadership, economic fortitude and a clear vision of the future if they are to contend with the challenges posed by emerging regional powers and to resist the downward pressures of ‘relative decline’, the central focus of David Marquand's book, The end of the West: the once and future Europe. Central to this goal will be the West's ability to ‘rebalance’ between its institutions and democracy; its power and commitments; and its political and moral authority. Europe must ‘rebalance’ on issues related to ethnicity and identity, governance and authority, and civilization and territory. EU enlargement and its institutional reform processes have exacerbated this imbalance. American foreign policy objectives currently exceed its resources and are hampered by lack of strategic clarity and intellectual vision which keeps the United States from achieving an adaptive leadership model more capable of successfully operating in an increasingly complex and multipolar world. For Europe to become internally healthy and externally productive—both politically and economically—it needs to regain balance between its utopian, institutional objectives and democratic support for its future ambitions and policy course. Strong leadership and a powerful vision of prosperity from the West will be vital to return the transatlantic partnership to global economic and political advantage.     

United States–Mexico: The Convergence of Public Policy Views in the Post‐9/11 World

This article explores the state of public policy preferences between the United States and Mexico in the realm of foreign policy in the context of the post‐9/11 world, democratic change within Mexico, and the immigration protests within the United States. Specifically, we will analyze the differences and possible convergence of public policy views on the issues of terrorism, immigration, free trade agreements, drug trafficking, and foreign policy. We find that although there are differences of opinion, particularly in the application of force in Iraq and on the benefits of free trade, there still remains a significant degree of positive convergence within the policy issues of terrorism, immigration, and drug trafficking. Although there are institutional impediments to progressive policy change, future relations between the United States and Mexico do not need to be contentious as long as the focus is on the similarities, rather than the differences, in public preferences between the populations of the two states.     

Canadian Diplomacy and the 1982 Falklands War

As a case study, Canadian diplomacy during the Falklands War is emblematic of the confused, and at times contradictory, components of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's utopic and idealistic foreign policy. Canada's diplomatic actions during the war were based on four principles. The first, and most significant, was the safeguarding of what were deemed to be Canada's economic interests: chiefly nuclear exports. The second was Trudeau's ‘Third Option’ policy and the belief of ‘the vital importance of the North-South dynamic to Canada’. Third was the desire to distance Canadian foreign policy, economics, and military commitments from those of both the United States and Great Britain. Trudeau had mixed feelings about the Commonwealth and disliked both President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Lastly, during the war Canadian politicians and diplomats took the position of an ambiguous neutrality to protect and promote what they perceived to be Canadian interests. Many of the political and economic decisions made by Canada during the Falklands War were met by harsh criticism nationally and internationally in both public and political spheres.     

Ten years on: Obama's war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice

Ten years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, the United States remains embroiled in a long‐term struggle with what George W. Bush termed the existential threat of international terrorism. On the campaign trail, his successor as US President, Barack Obama, promised to reboot the ‘war on terror’. He claimed that his new administration would step back from the rhetoric and much of the Bush administration policy, conducting a counterterrorism campaign that would be more morally acceptable, more focused and more effective—smarter, better, nimbler, stronger. This article demonstrates, however, that those expecting wholesale changes to US counterterrorism policy misread Obama's intentions. It argues that Obama always intended to deepen Bush's commitment to counterterrorism while at the same time ending the ‘distraction’ of the Iraq War. Rather than being trapped by Bush's institutionalized construction of a global war on terror, the continuities in counterterrorism can be explained by Obama's shared conception of the imperative of reducing the terrorist threat to the US. The article assesses whether Obama has pursued a more effective counterterrorism policy than his predecessor and explores how his rhetoric has been reconstituted as the actions of his policy have unfolded. By addressing his policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, Guantánamo Bay and torture, the uses of unmanned drone attacks and domestic wire‐tapping, this article argues that Obama's ‘war’ against terrorism is not only in keeping with the assumptions and priorities of the last ten years but also that it is just as problematic as that of his predecessor.     

The democracy tradition in US foreign policy and the Obama presidency

This article proposes a three‐level analysis of the democracy tradition in American foreign policy that identifies its ideational, strategic and policy dimensions and situates Barack Obama's presidency to date within it at each level. At the heart of this approach is the understanding that the motivations and practice of the United States' democracy promotion are shaped by its ideas about national identity, political order, national interest and international relations. This is the ideational source of the democracy tradition, which, as US power has grown, has led increasingly to decision‐makers setting strategic goals that include democratization abroad as a facilitator of other US goals. Only slowly has this led to the development of specific policies to that end, though, and democracy promotion as a discrete policy field mostly developed from the 1980s onwards. Democracy promotion went through a ‘boom’ after the end of the Cold War as the United States enjoyed unparalleled power on the international stage. It is clear that Barack Obama and his administration belong firmly in the democracy tradition at the ideational, strategic and policy level, and they have given no cause to expect any major change in his second term as far as democracy promotion is concerned. It is in any case a mistake to think that changes in the democracy tradition come from particular leaders; rather, it is the changing international environment confronting US foreign policy that is more likely, in the longer term, to lead to a shift away from democracy promotion.     

The Islamic State lexical battleground: US foreign policy and the abstraction of threat

This article suggests that President Obama's consistent references to the extremist Sunni group as ‘ISIL’ (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is not a trivial matter of nomenclature. Instead, the Obama administration's deliberate usage of the ISIL acronym (as opposed to other commonly‐used terms such as ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ or ‘ISIS’, ‘Islamic State’, ‘IS’, ‘so‐called Islamic State’ and ‘Daesh’) frames the public perception of the threat to avoid engagement with the requirements of strategy and operations. Both the labelling and the approach could be defended as a response to the unique challenge of a transnational group claiming religious and political legitimacy. However, we suggest that the labelling is an evasion of the necessary response, reflecting instead a lack of coherence in strategy and operations—in particular after the Islamic State's lightning offensive in Iraq and expansion in Syria in mid‐2014. This tension between rhetoric, strategy and operations means that ‘ISIL’ does not provide a stable depiction of the Islamic State. While it may draw upon the post‐9/11 depiction of ‘terrorism’, the tag leads to dissonance between official and media representations. The administration's depiction of a considered approach leading to victory has been undermined by the abstraction of ‘ISIL’, which in turn produced strategic ambiguity about the prospect of any political, economic or military challenge to the Islamic State.     

Iran's Shortsighted Policies in Iraq: Between Inflaming and Containing of Radical Sunni Islam: 2003–2015

The main goal of the 2003 war with Iraq of the coalition forces led by the United States was to topple Saddam Hussein's regime and establish a new political system that would adopt democratic practices. Iran, a country that deemed Saddam's regime to be a threat, considered this war to be very helpful in many ways — first because it put an end to Clinton's “dual containment” approach and would thus help Iran to become a regional superpower at Iraq's expense. Second, a war with Iraq could put an end to the decades of oppression of the Shi'a community in Iraq. This article argues that Iran's involvement in Iraq's internal affairs created chaos in Iraq and contributed to the sectarian conflict against Sunni terror groups, notably the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known by the Arabic name Daesh, a terror group with the most extreme form of Sunni Radical Islam ever known. The sectarian conflict that resulted from the above is now taking place between the Sunnis and the Shi'a of both Persian and Arab backgrounds and this clash could not have become as radical as it is without Iran's aggressive foreign policy. It should, however, be noted that Iran is not the sole player in the country and therefore its part in inflaming sectarian conflicts should be viewed through a realistic prism that allows other forces — domestic and foreign — to be seen as having influenced the events for their benefit.