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.     

“Peace is Our Only Shelter”: Questioning Domesticities of Militarization and White Privilege

Abstract: This paper traces how Los Angeles peace activists tried to make visible the grave domestic effects of Cold War militarization. Women Strike for Peace went beyond a focus on the productive relations between the state, military and industry captured by the term “military–industrial complex” to analyze how reproductive spaces were part of this complex. In opposing war, they challenged what I am calling militarized domesticities: how war‐making shapes the ‘home front’ and home as the spaces national security states claim to protect. I build on feminist antiracist intersectionality theories to situate the military–industrial complex per se within broader processes of the militarization of society and daily life. The questions become how do gendered processes of militarization—that work in conjunction with relations of white privilege—produce and connect differently situated “private” spaces or home places? How might strategies for dismantling the military–industrial complex emerge from the contradictions of these processes?     

STRATEGIC THINKING OVER THE LONG CYCLE

The changing international environment for U.S. strategic policy formation is causing progressive uncertainty about the adequacy of threat assessment concepts and procedures. The concept of “strategic value,” which plays a central role in decisions to use and control military force, is defined and elaborated in terms of three key elements–territory, worth and access. This classification allows for a more coherent analysis of the nature of “strategic threat” in the changing international environment. It also provides a more realistic approach for making choices among available policy options and available means of implementing security policy.     

Out of Balance: Evaluating American Strategy in Vietnam, 1968–72

Abstract

This paper examines the ineffective implementation of American military strategy in the Vietnam War’s final years. While the Nixon administration conceived a comprehensive strategic concept aimed at winding down the war in South Vietnam, civilian and military leaders struggled to realize, in an effectual manner, Nixon’s wide-ranging political objectives. American officials in Saigon and Washington found it near impossible to balance the competing strategic imperatives of combat operations, diplomatic negotiations, Vietnamization, and the withdrawal of US forces from South-east Asia. This inability to reconcile imbalances within the American strategic framework helps explain more fully the outcome of US political and military efforts in South Vietnam.     

What You See Is (Not) What You Get? The Taiwan Question,Geo‐economic Realities,and the “China Threat” Imaginary

Abstract: Despite emergent trends of geo‐economic integration between nation‐states, the role of realist‐driven geopolitical calculation appears highly enduring. This paper explores the potential contradictions between state‐centric geopolitical concerns and transnational geo‐economic formation through an exploration of China–US tensions over Taiwan, a territory of indeterminate geo‐legal status and which China regards as its own province. I consider how the Taiwan Relations Act, a domestic public law of the US that frames US–Taiwan relations and has a major influence on East Asian geopolitics, could contradict emergent “China region”, and possibly even China–US, geo‐economic integration. This is because the US‐sustained arms sales to Taiwan rest on imagining and containing China as a “threat”, while geo‐economic integration entails enrolling China as a strategic partner, if not an ally. Consequently, the Taiwan issue could stifle the enhancement of Sino‐American relations at a historical juncture when the Chinese and American economies are more intertwined than ever.     

Making the Conspiracy Theorist a Prophet: Covert Action and the Contours of United States–Iraq Relations

Convert action is an inherently fraught undertaking. It can produce important diplomatic or strategic gains at a relatively low price, but it can also result in substantial “blowback” when it fails to remain covert. This article traces the impact of two covert operations–US support for a Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq in the 1970s, and US arms sales to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war–on Saddam Hussein's strategic perceptions of the United States. It argues that revelations of US covert action interacted symbiotically with Saddam's preexisting suspicions of the United States, helping to forge a legacy of mistrust and hostility that did much to shape his views of the relationship. Saddam's personality and worldview inclined him toward conspiratorial thinking; US policies made this outlook seem prophetic.     

Complex security and strategic latency: the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Whichever party or parties form the next UK government, a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is expected to begin soon after the general election in May. The review might be a ‘light touch’ exercise—little more than a reaffirmation of the SDSR produced by the coalition government in 2010. It seems more likely, however, that the review will be a lengthier, more deliberate exercise and one which might even last into 2016. For those most closely engaged in the process the challenge is more complex than that confronted by their predecessors in 2010. The international security context is more confused and contradictory; the UK's financial predicament is still grave; security threats and challenges will emerge that cannot be ignored; the population's appetite for foreign military engagement appears nevertheless to be restricted; and prevailing conditions suggest that the risk‐based approach to national strategy might be proving difficult to sustain. Two key questions should be asked of the review. First, in the light of recent military experiences, what is the purpose of the United Kingdom's armed forces? Second, will SDSR 2015–16 sustain the risk‐based approach to national strategy set out in 2010, and if so how convincingly? Beginning with a review of the background against which SDSR 2015–16 will be prepared, this article examines both enduring and immediate challenges to the national strategic process in the United Kingdom and concludes by arguing for strategic latency as a conceptual device which can complement, if not reinvigorate, the risk‐based approach to national strategy and defence.     

《战争论》中的军事地理思想初探

克劳塞维茨的《战争论》是资产阶级军事理论的经典著作。本文从《战争论》一书有关战争活动与地理因素之间关系的论述入手,考察了作者的军事地理思想。     

Over‐promising and under‐delivering? Ambitions and risks in US defence strategy

Recent changes to US defence strategy, plans and forces have placed the United States at greater risk of over‐promising and under‐delivering on its global security ambitions. In 2012, the Obama administration released a new defence strategic guidance document to adapt to a shifting security environment and defence budget cuts. The guidance upholds the two long‐standing American goals of global pre‐eminence and global reach, but seeks to apply this military power by using new planning and regional concepts. It revises the Department of Defense's force planning construct, an important tool used to size US military forces, and identifies the Asia–Pacific and the greater Middle East as the two regions where the US military should focus its attention and resources. There are three major risks facing this revised US strategy: emerging security threats, the role of US allies and partners, and domestic constraints in the United States. Included in these risks are the proliferation of advanced military technologies, the US response to the rise of China, the continued prevalence of state instability and failure, the capability and commitment of NATO and other US allies, additional US budget cuts, political polarization in the United States, and interservice competition within the US military. In light of these risks, the United States faces a future in which it will continue to struggle to direct its military power towards its most important geopolitical priorities, such as rebalancing towards the Asia–Pacific, as opposed simply to respond to the many security surprises that are certain to arise. If the past is any guide, American political leaders will respond to the aforementioned risks in the worst way possible: by maintaining the current US defence strategy while slashing the resources to support it.     

The “Warrior of the Lords”: Smbat Bagratuni at the Center and Periphery of Late Sasanian Iran

The Armenian general Smbat Bagratuni's remarkable rise to military and political preeminence in the late sixth- and early seventh-century Sasanian Empire presents a fascinating historical question: how did a liminal figure, a Christian from a frontier region, become the “Joy of ?usrō” and “Warrior of the Lords” of king ?usrō II Aparvēz (590–628 CE)? This essay argues that Bagratuni's accomplishments were rooted in Sasanian patterns of political decentralization, provincial regionalism and strategic politics. The Sasanians were ethnically Persian, but Parthian and Armenian aristocrats from the periphery of the empire played a central role in upholding the regime. Granting titles, wealth and personal support, the king sought to turn aristocratic families against each other to enhance royal authority. Simultaneously, regional aristocrats like Smbat Bagratuni used royal patronage to advance their local interests, often at the expense of the royal center. The life of Smbat Bagratuni illustrates how complex negotiations of individual and collective identity shaped relations of “center” and “periphery” in Sasanian Iran.     

The Unbearable Humanness of Drone Warfare in FATA,Pakistan

Abstract: This paper provides a critical analysis of how and why US‐led drone warfare is conducted in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. First, we provide detailed statistics on the scale and funding of US drone operations, noting a rapid acceleration of its adoption by the military. This is then situated within an overarching narrative of the logic of “targeting”. Second, we study a legal document called the “Frontier Crimes Regulation” of 1901 that defines the relationship of FATA to the rest of Pakistan as an “exceptional” place. In the third section, we argue that the drone is a political actor with a fetishized existence, and this enables it to violate sovereign Pakistani territory. In this sense, the continued violence waged by robots in Pakistan's tribal areas is a result of the deadly interaction between law and technology. The paper concludes by noting the proliferation of drones in everyday life.     

GIs and “Jeep girls”: sex and American soldiers in wartime China

ABSTRACT

This article examines how sex affected the larger politics of the Sino–US alliance during World War II. By early 1945, Chinese from across the social spectrum resented the US military presence, but just one issue sparked a violent backlash: sexual relations between American soldiers (GIs) and Chinese women. Two interrelated, patriarchal narratives about sex emerged that spring. Starting in March, government-backed newspapers began criticizing “Jeep girls,” an epithet coined to describe the Chinese women who consorted with American servicemen. Rumors also circulated that GIs were using Jeeps to kidnap “respectable” women and rape them. Each narrative portrayed women’s bodies as territory to be recovered and inextricable from national sovereignty. These narratives resonated widely, turning Jeep girls into the catalyst through which all variables causing resentment against the US military presence intersected and converged. With Japan on the ropes, China’s allied friends now stood in the way of irreversibly consigning foreign imperialism to the past. Sexual relations were not the Sino–US alliance’s seedy underside, but the core site of its tensions.     

Strategy and contingency

The determination that strategy should have a long‐term predictive quality has left strategy seemingly wanting when having to address what are currently called ‘strategic shocks’, such as the recent Arab Spring and the NATO commitment to Libya. The focus on grand strategy, particularly in the US, is responsible for this trend. Its endeavour to mitigate risk in the national interest is inherently conservative, rather than opportunistic, and it is favoured and probably required by powers that are committed to the status quo, that need to manage diminishing resources, and that are dealing with relative decline. Strategy as traditionally but more narrowly defined by generals for use in a military context, is much more exploitative and proactive. Precisely because it is designed to be used in war it presumes that its function is offensive, that it will have to deal with chance and contingency, and that its aim is change. Its task is to deal with the uncertainties of war, and to respond to them while holding on to long‐term perspectives. Clausewitz addressed the issue of ‘war plans’ in book VIII of On war, but the thinker who did most to inject planning into European strategic thought was Jomini. His influence has permeated much of American military thinking. The effect of nuclear planning in the Cold War was to ensure that strategy at the operational level became conflated with broader views of grand strategy—not least when the Cold War itself provided apparent continuity to strategic thought. Since 1990 we have been left with a view of strategy which fails to respond sensibly to chance and accident. Strategy needs context, and a sense of where and against whom it is to be applied. Its core task is to embrace contingency while holding on to long‐term national interests.     

Southern (Over) Exposure? Quebec and the Evolution of Canada’s Grand Strategy, 2002–2012

ABSTRACT

One of the most persistent themes in the debate on Canadian foreign policy over the past few decades concerns the influence Quebec is thought to possess over the design and implementation of Canadian foreign and defense policy. Our purpose in this article is to situate this general debate within a more specific context, of Canada’s grand strategic choices as they principally involve the country’s security and defense relations with the US. To do this, we adopt somewhat of a “counterfactual” tack; to wit, we inquire whether, in the absence of Quebec from the Canadian confederation, we should expect to have seen a fundamentally different grand strategy fashioned by Ottawa, one with different significance for relations with the US. We focus on two specific cases, both of which have figured prominently in recent Canadian–American strategic relations: the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. We conclude that while there is something to the claim that Quebec can and does boast of a certain “specificity” in the matter of Canada’s grand-strategic preferences, it is hardly the same thing as arguing that the country without Quebec would have adopted policies on both Afghanistan and Iraq that were fundamentally different from the ones it chose to follow.     

Government and Community Development in Ireland: The Contested Subjects of Professionalism and Expertise

Abstract: This paper historicises the recent and ongoing professionalisation of community development in the Republic of Ireland. The term professionalisation refers both to the designation and accreditation of a distinctive community work occupation and a wider set of processes that effect more strategic approaches to the planning, delivery and evaluation of community organisations. The paper reviews some tensions associated with professionalisation; tensions that closely relate to community work's reputation as a “bottom‐up” or “participatory” strategy. It also interrogates community development's place as a strategy of government in contemporary Ireland. In so doing it reconsiders the assumed separateness and distinctiveness of the state and community sectors, arguing that the state has been centrally implicated in calling the community sector into being. In their turn community development organisations have shaped and mediated policy delivery on the ground. It is these processes of hybridisation, co‐operation, antagonism and struggle that have given professionalisation its momentum.     

Empire and Cultures of Militarism in Canada and the United States

While Canadians have been described as an “unmilitary people,” their historic affections for empire have contributed to a conspicuous reluctance to criticize past military exploits. A tradition of anti-imperialism, meanwhile, has colored American attitudes to war, and produced a powerful current of antiwar sentiment throughout US history – even as that nation developed into a dominant imperial power. This essay finds the source of these national discrepancies in the founding myths of each country and in subsequent demographic, economic, strategic, and ideological transformations which have both reinforced and challenged each nation's traditional responses to empire. The result is a relationship between war, imperialism, and national identity that is multifaceted, often paradoxical, and in certain instances, surprisingly antiquated.     

Wandering identities in energy transition discourses: Political leaders’ use of the “we” pronoun in Ontario, 2009–2019

This paper explores the use of universalizing language as a discursive strategy to promote shifts in energy policy. Building on scholarship that seeks to understand the political nature of energy transitions, including resistance to transitions, the role of the state, and implications for justice, we examine three phases of energy transition in Ontario in the period 2009–2019, focusing on the ways that three successive ruling coalitions used the first plural pronoun “we” to promote contrasting energy policy orientations. Our analysis of policy documents and government news releases confirms that all three coalitions used the “we” form as a strategic device to define priorities, prescribe courses of action, and broadcast achievements. However, they also used the ambiguity of the “we” form to obscure alternative perspectives, claim credit for rivals’ accomplishments, and gloss over harmful and differentiated impacts of policy choices. The paper concludes by reflecting on broader questions about power and justice relevant to energy transition scholars.     

Complexity,strategy and the national interest

British strategy‐making has been subject to a sustained critique in recent years, from parliamentarians, retired members of the armed forces and scholars of strategic studies. This article examines the nature of this critique and the evolving character of strategic practice in Britain. It argues that the criticisms of British strategymaking are often misplaced, for two main reasons. First, many base their critique on a reductionist notion of unitary ‘national interest’ that fails to capture systemic patterns of complexity and contestation in the wider security environment and in Britain. Second, they underestimate or ignore the extent to which the UK strategic community is itself innovating in response to these themes, particularly since the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is not to argue that considerable challenges do not remain for strategy‐making in Britain. Most notably, these include: how to translate strategic innovation in departments and elsewhere into a coherent national strategic agenda; how to do this while maintaining institutional coordination and a shared sense of strategic purpose across government (and beyond); how to sustain and consolidate institutional expertise and experience in a rapidly changing civil service and at a time of continuing public austerity; and how to articulate and legitimate security policy decisions among a general public that is both disengaged from elite strategic discourse and sceptical of the efficacy of military force. Even so, the article concludes by arguing that it is possible to see the outline of an emergent and distinctive theory of action in contemporary British strategic practice, characterized by principles of adaptivity, anticipation, self‐organisation and nascent cross‐governmentalism.     

Estimating Rapidity of Change in Complex Urban Systems: A Multidimensional,Local‐Scale Approach

This study illustrates an exploratory approach based on a Multiway Factor Analysis (MFA) to estimate rapidity of change in complex urban systems, based on “fast” and “slow” variables. The proposed methodology was applied to 18 socioeconomic indicators of long‐term (1960–2010) transformations in 115 municipalities of Athens’ metropolitan area (Greece), including demography, land‐use/planning, and urban form and functions. Athens was regarded as a dynamic urban area with diversified structures and functions at the local scale, expanding through a self‐organized pattern rather than a centralized planning strategy. Athens’ urban system was described using nine supplementary (topographic and territorial) variables and 30 independent indicators assessing the local context in recent times. Exploratory data analysis found an increasing connectedness and redundancy among socioeconomic indicators during the phase of largest urban expansion (1960–1990). Only the rate of population growth was classified as a “fast” variable for all five decades investigated. The overall rapidity of change was higher in 1960–1970, 1980–1990, and 2000–2010, decades that coincided with specific phases of urban expansion driven by migration inflow, second‐home suburbanization, and Olympic games, respectively. Rapidity of change was high for functional indicators during all five decades studied, while demography indicators changed more rapidly in the first three decades and land‐use/planning indicators in the last two decades. Rapidity of change was highest in peri‐urban municipalities with a highly diversified economic structure dominated by industry. Our methodology provides a comprehensive overview of the transformations of a complex urban system, quantifying low‐level indicators that are rarely assessed in the mainstream literature on urban studies. These results may contribute to design policies addressing complexity and promoting resilience in expanding metropolitan areas.     

What after counter‐insurgency? Raiding in zones of turmoil

This article argues that the option of a military raid is becoming more relevant in the contemporary strategic environment. Two developments lead to this conclusion: the increase in the number of so‐called failed states and subsequently ungoverned areas; and the western inadequate response in the attempts to create zones of stability with clear strategic addresses. The efforts for statebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed, and the US and its allies have realized that foreign interventions, even after the commitment of much treasure and blood, are ineffective. This means that the West must adapt its strategic thinking to the new developments and devise ways to deal effectively with the situation. This article explores the concept of strategic raid and elaborates on its theoretical underpinnings. The raids discussed here are military operations conducted in order to weaken and/or deter a non‐state actor, at least temporarily. In the absence of diplomatic and economic leverage, the aim is limiting the actor's ability to harm others. The use of force is designed to degrade the military capabilities of the non‐state adversary and to influence its resolve. Subsequently, it discusses a few historical examples of raiding strategy and then analyses two contemporary cases, Israel and the United States, in order to demonstrate the utility of raids today. Finally, the relevance of raiding strategy for other states in the contemporary strategic environment is discussed.