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.     

Pakistan's foreign and security policies after the 2013 general election: the judge,the politician and the military

This article examines the consequences of Nawaz Sharif ‘s electoral victory in Pakistan's 2013 general election on the country's foreign and security policies. It analyses the relationships the new government is likely to entertain with the military institutions and the judiciary, and tries to identify the potential vulnerabilities of the new authorities. It concludes that the security situation will improve marginally, at best, and that a relatively smooth working relationship with the US, dictated by the constraints of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, can be anticipated. Relations with India are likely to constitute the real test of the political freedom enjoyed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vis‐a‐vis the military. The difficulty will be to calibrate the relationship to avoid provoking a backlash with the military.     

Why the Pakistan army is here to stay: prospects for civilian governance

This article explores the prospects for civilian governance over Pakistan's military in the policy‐relevant future. After reviewing the Pakistan army's past interference in the country's judicial and political affairs, it turns to the ongoing political maneuvering of the current Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, despite Pakistan's ostensible democratic dispensation. The article dilates on the impact of US engagement on the robustness of the Pakistan army's dominance and questions the newfound US commitment to promoting democratization and civilian control. The article argues that while conventional wisdom places the onus disproportionately upon the military's penchant for interventionism, the army has intervened only with the active assistance of civilian institutions, which are subsequently further eroded with every military takeover. It concludes with a consideration of whether or not genuine civilian control would result in a significant change in Pakistan's foreign and domestic policies, particularly Pakistan's well‐known utilization of Islamist militants in India and Afghanistan.     

Unlocking Australia's Relationship with the Middle East

Historically, Australia's interests in the Middle East related primarily to its role in the Commonwealth imperial defence system which resulted in the deployment of Australian forces in the Middle East during both the First and Second World Wars. Similarly, the current involvement of Australian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is driven by the country's strategic alliance with the United States. However, Australia's current involvement reflects a multifaceted relationship that spans economic, political and strategic spheres. Yet it is at the level of cultural and civilisational contacts that this relationship appears at its most vulnerable. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of this cultural dimension combined with a broader emphasis on good governance and human rights would be conducive to more robust ties in the longer term.     

The defence dilemma in Britain

The UK faces a pressing defence dilemma. The declaratory goals of defence policy are struggling to match the demands made by operational commitments and the financial and organizational capacities. The article examines how and why this situation has come about. While recognizing that existing calls for higher defence spending, reform of the Ministry of Defence, efficiency gains or a renewal of the so‐called military covenant between the military and society may address discrete elements of the defence dilemma in Britain, it argues that current problems derive from a series of deeper tensions in the nexus of British defence more widely defined. These include a transnationalization of strategic practice, in ways that both shape and constrain the national defence policy process; the institutional politics of defence itself, which encourage different interpretations of interest and priority in the wider strategic context; and finally the changing status of defence in the wider polity, which introduces powerful veto points into the defence policy process itself. It argues that while a series of shocks may have destabilized existing policy, prompted ad hoc organizational adaptation in the armed forces and led to incremental cost saving measures from the government, a ‘dominant crisis narrative’—in the form of a distinctive and generally agreed programme of change—has yet to emerge. The article concludes by looking forward to a future strategic defence review, highlighting the critical path dependencies and veto points which must be addressed if transformative change in British defence is to take place.     

Campaign disconnect: operational progress and strategic obstacles in Afghanistan, 2009–2011

Success in war depends on alignment between operations and strategy. Commonly, such alignment takes time as civilian and military leaders assess the effectiveness of operations and adjust them to ensure that strategic objectives are achieved. This article assesses prospects for the US‐led campaign in Afghanistan. Drawing on extensive field research, the authors find that significant progress has been made at the operational level in four key areas: the approach to counterinsurgency operations, development of Afghan security forces, growth of Afghan sub‐national governance and military momentum on the ground. However, the situation is bleak at the strategic level. The article identifies three strategic obstacles to campaign success: corruption in Afghan national government, war‐weariness in NATO countries and insurgent safe havens in Pakistan. These strategic problems require political developments that are beyond the capabilities of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In other words, further progress at the operational level will not bring ‘victory’. It concludes, therefore, that there is an operational‐strategic disconnect at the heart of the ISAF campaign.     

The unintended consequences of emergency food aid: neutrality,sovereignty and politics in the Syrian civil war, 2012–15

This article dissects the role of emergency food aid during the current Syrian conflict. Drawing on Séverine Autesserre's concept of frames and Giorgio Agamben's theory of sovereignty, we argue that the neutrality frame, which undergirds the majority of humanitarian relief efforts in Syria, obfuscates the impact of emergency food aid, both on sovereign power relations and local political dynamics. While neutrality appears benign, it has had a tangible impact on the Syrian civil war. Through close scrutiny of various case‐studies, the article traces how humanitarian efforts reinforce the bases of sovereign politics while contributing to a host of what Mariella Pandolfi (1998) terms ‘mobile sovereignties’. In the process, humanitarian organizations reaffirm sovereign power while also engaging in similar activities. We then analyse how and why ostensibly neutral emergency food aid has unintentionally assisted the Assad regime by facilitating its control over food, which it uses to buttress support and foster compliance. By bringing external resources into life‐or‐death situations characterized by scarcity, aid agencies have become implicated in the conflict's inner workings. The article concludes by examining the political and military impact of emergency food assistance during the Syrian conflict, before discussing possible implications for the humanitarian enterprise more broadly.     

System failure: the underlying causes of US policy‐making errors in Afghanistan

The United States intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 has brought progress in some areas, but the conflict has expanded, the Taliban remains powerful, and misgovernance and predation are widespread. Afghan national security forces—the linchpin of the coalition's exit strategy—offer no guarantee of future stability. Many accounts describe the mistakes that led to this predicament. This article attempts to explain why these mistakes were made by examining their underlying or structural causes. Based on 51 interviews with officials and experts, it identifies major US policy‐making errors with respect to state‐building, military activities and diplomacy. It argues that there are four principal underlying causes of such errors, relating to organizations, leadership and strategic thinking, psychology, and domestic politics. It finds that there were severe shortcomings in the acquisition and processing of information and a lack of institutional self‐evaluation; civilian and military leaders made major strategic misjudgements in mistaking the strategy for the goal, overestimating the efficacy of military force or resources, and drawing false lessons from history or analogous cases such as Iraq; leaders were predisposed to overconfidence and oversimplification; and, at the highest level, policies were distorted by domestic politics. The article contends that the cumulative impact of these shortcomings was sufficient to seriously disrupt the functioning of the foreign policy‐making system. It argues that action is required to improve US information gathering and assessment, systematize institutional self‐evaluation, build regional expertise, establish mechanisms to understand the motivations and perceptions of other actors, and increase awareness of decision‐makers’ cognitive flaws and biases.     

St John's Ambulance Brigade and the Gendering of ‘Passive Defence’ in British Malaya, 1937–42

The St John's Ambulance Brigade established itself in British Malaya in the 1930s, as part of efforts to mobilise and train the colony's subjects for civil defence as the geo‐strategic climate in the Pacific deteriorated. This article demonstrates how the provision of emergency medical care was a gendered and racialised undertaking in the colonial context. Unlike the military, comprising mainly European and ‘trusted’ ethnic Indian soldiers, the realm of ‘passive defence’ was identified as a feminised undertaking for women and ethnic Chinese men who were considered to be either too vulnerable or too disloyal to bear arms. The rapid advance of Japan's military in south‐east Asia violently shattered such social boundaries, as many women and non‐European volunteers found themselves exposed by retreating Allied forces to the Japanese offensive and took up duties at posts from which their European supervisors had been forced to desert. Mainstream military historiography has often been highly gendered towards what is considered as the male‐dominated public domain of the battlefield. In this respect, the involvement of the St John's Ambulance Brigade reveals the process in which colonial ethno‐gender identities and hierarchies were being established, appropriated and subsequently subverted by the exigencies of the war in British Malaya.     

The alliance echoes and portents of Australia's longest war

Afghanistan was Australia's longest war, yet the consensus between Australia's major political parties on the commitment never wavered over 12 years. The bipartisan unity held even as the nature of the war changed and evolved, Australian casualties rose and popular support fell away. The enduring centrality of the US alliance explains much—probably almost all you need to know—about the unbroken consensus of the Australian polity. Afghanistan was an example of the Australian alliance addiction, similar to Vietnam. As with Vietnam, the Australian military left Afghanistan believing it won its bit of the war, even if the Afghanistan war is judged a disaster. As Australia heads home it finds the USA pivoting in its direction; with all the similarities that can be drawn between Vietnam and Afghanistan, this post-war alliance effect is a huge difference between the two conflicts.     

An Exceptional Response? Security,Development and Civil Society in Spanish Policy after 11‐M

This article considers the ways in which Spanish state institutions responded to the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004 in the context of the global ‘War on Terror’. It examines three inter‐related arenas of Spanish policy after 9/11 in which security and civil society are invoked in ways that impact upon the country's development agenda toward its southern Mediterranean partners. The first relates to Spain's external relations with its North African neighbours, and in particular the place of migration in shaping these relations over the last decade. The second concerns Spain's political relations with the representative organizations of its own Muslim populations. A third area of analysis pertains to the juridical‐institutional reactions of the state to the 11 March attacks: how have public authorities and civil society been affected and refashioned in the face of jihadist terrorism on the peninsula? The author argues that in each of these domains, the post‐9/11 context generally, and the 11 March attacks in particular, have elicited a securitization of civil society, which has in turn been associated with the country's international relations and domestic politics. Such securitization, however, has only been partially successful, thus vindicating the continuation of ‘politics as usual’ among Spain's state officials and its civil society.     

State Power,Civic Participation and the Urban Frontier: The Politics of the Commons in Karachi

Abstract: A martial state's neoliberal policies opened the nation's frontiers to new forms of globalization. This article investigates the political process that undergirded the military and global capital's sequestration of common land in Karachi and the concomitant contestation by a key civil society organization. Using Foucault's conception of sovereignty and government as an assemblage of authority and strategies of rationalization, this paper analyses the role of state and non‐state actors and changing power configurations in a conflict that surrounded the enclosure of a common and its transformation into a securitized zone of consumption in Karachi's Civil Lines. The conflict highlights the nature of the politics of space and citizenship in Pakistan's primary metropolis.     

MILITARY ASSISTANCE,FOREIGN POLICY,AND NATIONAL SECURITY

From the inauguration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1950, until its termination in the early 1960s, Norway was among the main European beneficiaries of military assistance from the United States. Previous research on this subject has mainly seen the MDAP from the perspective of the recipient, analysing what effect the influx of large amounts of equipment had for the shape and development of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This article discusses the motives for US military assistance to Norway, and analyses this activity as an expression of US Cold War objectives concerning Norway and NATO’s northern flank. The article also explores how these objectives influenced policy making relevant to military assistance, and gives particular attention to the role of US representatives in Oslo. These actors played an important role in highlighting the political and strategic benefits of extensive aid to Norway.     

From soldiers to farmers: The political geography of Chinese Kuomintang territorialization in northern Thailand

This paper engages with the concept of territorialization through telling the story of the transformation of Chinese former Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers of Yunnanese origin and their descendants living in northern Thailand, from being opium and heroin traders and smugglers, to becoming mercenaries fighting against the Communist Party of Thailand in northern Thailand on behalf of the Thai military, to finally transforming into tea farmers and traders through receiving development aid support provided from the Republic of China (Taiwan). Taiwan's development aid was ostensibly only for humanitarian purposes, but in reality also had important underlying political objectives. We argue territorialization is a more-than-human political technology. In particular, it is argued that territorialization frequently combines both military politics and development politics, even though the literature often separates these two elements, as if they are not frequently intertwined and interrelated. Here, we show how these two forms of politics, one explicit and one much less so, can come together to create new social and economic realities, ones with important geographical and geopolitical implications.     

Diasporic assistance in authoritarian settings: Evidence from military Brazil

The study of diasporas in international politics concentrates on migrants and their descendants in liberal democratic host countries; however, diasporas in non-democratic states experience significantly different political relationships that warrant investigation. Such diasporas are not only numerous but can also be influential. Their participation in international politics and assistance to the homeland require navigating distinct political affiliations. This article explains what enables an authoritarian host country's consent to such diasporic assistance. It proposes that assistance is likely to be tolerated insofar as it does not conflict with the host country's interests, the diaspora member donors have powerful allies within the regime, and they are not identified with the opposition. This theoretical framework is illustrated by analyzing evidence from the Jewish diaspora in authoritarian Brazil (1964–1985). A comprehensive online appendix provides additional background, discusses refuted hypotheses, and details the research process toward making this article transparent and the research replicable.     

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.     

The rise of Nordic defence cooperation: a return to regionalism?

During the Cold War, Nordic cooperation blossomed and the region's identity was strong, yet defence was left outside the Nordic framework. After the end of the Cold War, Nordic cooperation waned and it was largely replaced by cooperation within the framework of the European Union. During the past couple of years, however, Nordic defence cooperation has been boosted by a number of initiatives and common projects. This article analyses this recent rise of Nordic defence cooperation. In terms of theory, it revolves around the question of how material and identity factors explain security cooperation in today's Europe. During the Cold War, identity was an easy explanation for societal cooperation between the Nordic countries, but geostrategic factors and national interests based on them determined (the lack of) defence cooperation. Even today, Nordic defence cooperation is justified more by cost‐efficiency and geographical proximity than by common identity. This article argues that Nordic identity nevertheless plays an important role in motivating defence cooperation. It is not driven by pure cost‐efficiency or strategic calculation. The role of identity needs to be understood, however, not as a kind of independent force but as part of the political process. Nordic identity explains the rise of the region's defence cooperation in two ways: it facilitates informal cooperation between defence officials at various levels; and it is easy to sell international defence cooperation politically to domestic audiences if it is done in the Nordic context. Yet Nordic cooperation is not seen as contradicting European or NATO cooperation.     

From ethnic outbidding to ethnic conflict: the institutional bases for Sri Lanka's separatist war1

Abstract. Beginning in the mid‐1950s Sri Lanka's politicians from the majority Sinhalese community resorted to ethnic outbidding as a means to attain power and in doing so systematically marginalised the country's minority Tamils. This article consequently argues that institutional decay, which was produced by the dialectic between majority rule and ethnic outbidding, was what led to Tamil mobilisation and an ethnic conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people over the past twenty years. It also analyses the influence informal societal pressures exerted on formal state institutions and how this contributed to institutional decay. Evaluating the relations that ensued between social organisations and the Sri Lankan state shows how institutions can prescribe actions and fashion motives even as it will make clear how the island's varied institutions generated a deadly political dynamic that eventually unleashed the ongoing civil war.     

General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942

During General Mario Roatta's tenure as commander of the Italian 2nd Army in Yugoslavia, he faced a mounting Communist insurgency. To defeat the partisan forces of Tito, he resorted to proactive politics and a strategy of counter-insurgency. Owing to Italian military weakness and his army's lack of training in guerrilla warfare, Roatta was not averse to enlisting the services of Orthodox Serbs in Croatia, who the previous year had asked for Italian protection after a fearful massacre had been unleashed against them by Mussolini's handpicked ruler in Zagreb, the Croatian Usta?a leader Ante Paveli?. Against the wishes of the Fascist government in Rome, Roatta armed Serbs (called ?etniks) because they agreed to assist the Italian legions in fighting the partisans, their common ideological foe. But as Yugoslavia descended into civil war – one triggered by the Axis invasion – Roatta paid a price for his freelance pro-Serb politicking by alienating Zagreb, irritating the Germans, and dismaying his superiors in Rome. Italian policy was reduced to a tug-of-war between the Fascist empire-builders surrounding Mussolini and the military command in Yugoslavia, and Roatta became enmeshed in a cobweb of intrigues involving Croats, ?etniks and Germans. Apart from political manoeuvring, Roatta, in the ineluctable necessity of defeating the partisans, devised a detailed strategy of counter-insurgency. On 1 March 1942, he circulated a pamphlet entitled ‘3C’ among his commanders that spelled out military reform and draconian measures to intimidate the Slav populations into silence by means of summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, internments and the burning of houses and villages. By his reckoning, military necessity knew no choice, and law required only lip service. Roatta's merciless suppression of partisan insurgency was not mitigated by his having saved the lives of both Serbs and Jews from the persecution of Italy's allies Germany and Croatia. Under his watch, the 2nd Army's record of violence against the Yugoslav population easily matched the German. Tantamount to a declaration of war on civilians, Roatta's ‘3C’ pamphlet involved him in war crimes.     

The idea of German cultural regions in the Third Reich: the work of Franz Petri

This article considers the German idea of the cultural region between the wars, with particular reference to the work of Franz Petri. Drawing on a self-consciously ‘modern’ integration of archaeological, historical and geographical research, Petri was a pioneering figure in the so-called Kulturraumforschung school. Petri's method involved an attempt to reconstruct Germanic cultural traditions and legacies in Belgium and northern France through a detailed investigation of Medieval field and place names, burial sites and skeletons. Although Petri's research had initially no explicit ideological or geopolitical objectives, his research into Germanic settlement and ‘soil’ beyond the nation's contemporary political and linguistic borders was used by those German political activists who rejected the Treaty of Versailles and who sought to re-establish a greater German Reich, including some leading National Socialists.