War and (the Democratic) Peace: Military Service,Citizenship, and the International Environment

Is there a significant relationship between military structure and political liberalization? If so, can military structure and organization be manipulated to influence the process of democratization for the purpose of enhancing inter-state peace? To test the implications of these questions, I will investigate a decidedly contentious premise. Military factors traditionally considered destabilizing in the international environment (to include large, well-trained armed forces organized for offensive or out-of-country operations) have, at critical junctions in the Western experience, had a distinctly positive impact on the emergence and maintenance of the liberal democratic state. If this is indeed the case, and liberal democracy can be shown structurally and normatively to produce inter-state peace, then the preferred policy of peace-desiring states should be to promote and implement military reform at home and abroad that most efficiently generates democratic structures and values, regardless of intuitive fears of international instability. In short, I will argue that if liberal democratic states do not go to war with each other, then the size, proficiency, and strength of their military forces should not be a security dilemma issue.     

Counterspace Operations and Nascent Space Powers

In twenty-first-century warfare, satellites have become indispensable for gaining dominance in battlespace. This highlights the need to protect space assets while countering the qualitative edge that space can provide to adversarial actions. Hence, “counterspace operations” continue to gain the attention of military planners and researchers around the globe. Although it is the major space powers that have developed requisite capability and are showing more concerns for space security, these concerns are global in nature. As such, there is a need to develop a framework that can be utilized by nascent space powers to ensure protection of their space assets. This research work is intended to draw the attention of policymakers, space-technology protagonists, and military personnel, particularly of nascent space powers, to these global concerns. It gives an overview of counterspace operations and explores the doctrinal view-point of major military space powers for safeguarding their own space programs and negating the advantage of space to the enemy. Based upon this, a step-by-step approach is proposed for nascent space powers for embodying of elements of counterspace operations to remain protected during peace, crisis, or war.     

The Dual Use of an Historical Event: ‘Rwanda 1994’, the Justification and Critique of Liberal Interventionism

This essay places the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in the context of the academic and political rise of liberal interventionism since 1990. It argues that this historical event is important for the debate about ‘humanitarian interventions’ in two different ways: on the one hand, as a signifier, ‘Rwanda 1994’ has been used (or, for that matter, misused) in order to justify an almost unlimited international agenda of liberal interventionism and social engineering; on the other, the genocide that could arguably have been prevented represents the exceptional case where military intervention can indeed be justified—but precisely because it is not in need of a specifically liberal justification. What would have made a military-based prevention of genocide justifiable in this particular case is precisely the aim to prevent something that is universally agreed to be unacceptable (genocide). The liberal twist in the justification narrative, in contrast, tends to emphasize the difference between the (liberal) ‘us’ and the non-liberal ‘them’, consequently claiming the legitimate right for the ‘us’ to decide about the use of force exclusively, that is, without the ‘them’. The continuation of the narrative into answering the post-intervention question ‘what now?’ then leads consequently into the necessity of imposing one's own system of rule as a general norm without due attention to the specifics of the situation ‘on the ground’. The exceptional features of ‘Rwanda 1994’ (the empirical event) thus point in a critical way to all those cases where ‘Rwanda 1994’ (the signifier) has been used to make the case for an ever-expanding agenda of liberal (‘just’) war.     

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan: Impartiality in New UN Peace Operations

Abstract

Set within the complex contemporary context of international interventions, UN peacekeeping operations have now evolved into peace operations. The emergence of the concepts of human security and the responsibility to protect have raised expectations that UN peace operations should deal with both macro and micro level insecurity in conflict and post-conflict situations, especially in the case of failed or collapsed states. Reflecting this development, the question of an appropriate framework in which to conceptualize peace operations has also been debated. This essay considers a conceptualization of UN peace operations from a conflict resolution perspective and analyses the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), using a framework of conflict transformation. It argues that the impartiality of UN operations has been reconceived in terms of the values of ‘human security’ and the ‘responsibility to protect’, making it vital to explicitly articulate the meaning and implications of ‘value-based’ impartiality.     

Revisiting the 'Responsibility to Protect'

The Declaration on 'the responsibility to protect' (R2P), unanimously endorsed by the Security Council in April 2006, identified both national and international responsibilities in relation to genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This was highly significant in appearing to accept that the prevention of mass atrocities was a legitimate international concern. Subsequently, there has been some disappointment about the limited practical impact of R2P, and also anxiety that its progress may be impeded by the fear that it is designed to legitimise military intervention. However, this article concentrates on a different concern. Arguing that an earlier version of R2P (in the International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty of 2001) linked the issues with those of human security and development, it suggests that the contemporary focus is far narrower, undermining its critical potential with regard to the policies of the global North and reducing its appeal to developing countries.     

Israel's violated republican equation

Historically, Israel's ability to sustain a situation of armed conflict for a long time was predicated on the republican equation in which the dominant group – the secular Ashkenazim – exchanged military sacrifice for social dominance. Nonetheless, an imbalance between military burden and social rewards, which emerged during the 1970s and1980s, led the middle-class Ashkenazim to undertake collective action aimed at reducing the burden of military service through protest and peace movements, along with more individual tactics. These modes of action, together with the attenuated status of the military, spurred on national-religious and Mizrachi groups to integrate themselves into the traditional equation, or to formulate an alternative one (the Gush Emunim and the Orthodox route). Arguably, the status of each group in the military, which itself saw an erosion in its social status, played a major part in shaping the nature, scope and strategy of each group's collective actions. The groups capitalized on the opportunities that the military offered them in accordance with their capacity to utilize the resources they had at their disposal.     

The United Nations and genocide: Prevention,intervention, and prosecution

Conclusion The UN has to date not been effective in preventing genocide, and has had only a slightly better record in stopping it. There have been occasions when its interventions has occurred only after a genocide has taken place, and even then its major focus has been on facilitating the provision of aid by non-governmental agencies rather than on the task of tracking down the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. The exceptions of the ICTY and the ICTR are so stark, in this regard, that they only serve to throw light on the many other genocidal events where the UN has not initiated measures against those responsible for carrying them out. In short, as a body the UN has no—until very recently—even approached the fulfillment of its mandate as articulated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and only rarely invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter in order to intervene physically for the purpose of countering threats to peace or stopping conflict. Its strengths, so far as there have been any, have focused on balancing great power interests with demands to intervene more forcefully. While in the years up to 1989 this could be seen as a way of maintaining the peace (albeit over the broken bodies of victims of genocide in places such as Biafra, Cambodia, and East Timor), since then the UN has been required to act with greater resolve and purpose. The failures of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo must thus be seen as having been brought on by a transition from one international regime to another; from a Cold War regime in which the UN—s main role was one of preventing a third (and possibly nuclear) World War from breaking out, to a post-Cold War regime which appears increasingly to be characterized by the UN searching for a new role in which humanitarian issues are to assume a higher priority than they once did. Whether or not this will continue, of course, will depend on an extremely wide variety of circumstances—and at this time it is likely that only a few of these can accurately be anticipated.     

Statebuilding and Force: The Proper Role of Foreign Militaries

Abstract

Recent military interventions, both peace operations authorized by the United Nations and actions by individual countries, have aimed at helping build new or reconstituted states. The legitimacy and success of these state-building interventions are often contested by local actors. Yet state-like structures are needed to ensure the rule of law and economic growth. This paper argues for a new approach: to direct the use of foreign force toward roles that helped states emerge as the most successful governance structures in historical Europe, by defending populations from outside attack, protecting them from banditry and violence, and enforcing predictable rules for commerce and civil life (while training local forces to assume these duties). This approach focuses attention on the practical need to prepare military forces for both traditional defence and police-like roles.     

Ethnic Peace in the Taiwan Strait

The Taiwan Strait has often been referred to as one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots and many dire predictions have been made about a military conflict between mainland China and Taiwan, likely involving the United States. Yet, despite several crises in the Taiwan Strait and numerous war speculations, there has been no major armed conflict between Beijing and Taipei since the 1950s. How do we explain the puzzle that an expected war across the Taiwan Strait did not happen after all? This paper first examines the explanations based on military balance of power. Having found the realist/rationalist explanations less convincing, however, this study explores the explanatory power of the “ethnicity” factor. It suggests that when the Chinese society is no longer divided by ideological differences, the “ethnicity” may provide a more convincing explanation of why a military conflict has not happened in the Taiwan Strait in the past four decades. This paper also considers several counterarguments, including the neo-liberal argument of economic integration as a driving force for peace in the age of globalization. The paper concludes with a discussion of some policy implications resulting from the “ethnic peace” thesis and proposes that when actively promoted by the both sides, the Chinese ethnic identity is likely to be the most important strategic guarantee of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for many years to come.     

The Dreyfus affair in the British press

Stone argues that, although German anthropologists were relatively liberal thinkers before 1900, they nevertheless advocated an understanding of race that encouraged hierarchical thinking. Such thinking saw colonized peoples as primitive and culturally inferior. When, around 1900, anthropologists became increasingly reactionary and drawn to social Darwinist and racist ideas, their work served as a scientific legitimation for colonial atrocity, as the case of the Herero genocide in German South West Africa (1904-5) demonstrates. At this point anthropologists, along with the colonial military, were more sanguine about the disappearance of 'backward races'.     

Military Integration,Demobilization, and the Recurrence of Civil War

ABSTRACT

Peace agreements often include provisions for the military integration of the conflict parties, involving an increase in government forces, and at the same time requesting demobilization and thus a reduction of military personnel. Depending on the modalities and magnitude both can be strong signals of a commitment to the peace process. However, tensions between these two concepts can also endanger post-conflict stability. The empirical analyses of 77 post-conflict societies show that civil war is more likely to recur if rebel forces are kept separate during the military integration process and if the military plays an important role in post-conflict economies.     

Viewpoint: Space System Negation in the Context of Space Policy and Law

For 21st century warfare, space is the unquestioned new high ground for military operations. The United States (U.S.) has relied on satellites for significant support to military operations and activities since Desert Storm in 1991. Indeed, the U.S. enjoys an asymmetric advantage in modern warfare utilizing our space capabilities. States with interests hostile to the U.S. believe that the significant dependence on space assets by the U.S. military could become its “Achilles heel” in future combat operations. What are the legal and policy bases for the U.S. to respond to threats to space systems that provide support to our military forces? Should the U.S. rely on space arms control initiatives to ensure security in space? This Viewpoint analyzes the international space law regime and U.S. National Space Policy framework applicable to the conduct of military space operations and activities, including the use of force in space to protect and defend our satellite networks as well as our military forces.     

Fighting for Liberal Peace in Mali? The Limits of International Military Intervention

The January 2013 French military intervention in Mali exposed the rising threat of ‘terrorist’ and illicit networks in the Sahel, but more importantly the intertwined limits of Malian politics and of the international politics of African conflict management. While much has been written about the ‘liberal peace’, this article argues that what is at stake in this debate is the consistency of the ‘liberal peace’ ideological form and what governance requirements it imposes. Such an ideology necessarily intersects with ongoing Malian peace-, nation- and statebuilding dynamics and competing normative orders that transcend state borders and nationalist projects.     

Information,Agreement Design,and the Durability of Civil War Settlements

Civil war is usually examined from the perspective of commitment problems. This approach provides considerable insight regarding which civil war agreement provisions reduce the chance of renewed fighting. Yet, additional insight can be gained by examining information asymmetries as a potential cause of civil war recurrence. We argue that significant uncertainty regarding military capabilities may persist after fighting ends and that this uncertainty may lead to the breakdown of peace. However, carefully designed peace agreements can guard against renewed civil war by calling for international monitoring, making the belligerents submit military information to third parties, and providing for verification of this information. Our empirical analysis of 51 civil war settlements between 1945 and 2005 shows that these provisions significantly reduce the risk of new civil war. Encouraging the adoption of these provisions may be a useful policy in the international community's effort to establish peace in civil‐war‐torn societies.     

Capacity-building at the Headquarter Level: The Case of EU Civilian Peace Operations

Abstract

This article traces the institutional evolution of the Council Secretariat that plans and supports EU civilian peace operations. During the early days of the European Security and Defence Policy in the late 1990s competing political priorities of big EU member states and a dominance of military structures put civilian administrators at a significant disadvantage. Between 2003 and 2007, however, the rising number and complexity of civilian missions generated pressure for reform, which eventually led to the creation of a civilian headquarters. The historical analysis provides the basis for assessing the EU's current institutional capacities for civilian crisis management. While some administrative capacity deficits have been addressed, increased institutional formalization and further politically motivated reforms may increase tensions and hamper the accumulation of expertise.     

Postmodern War in the Age of Bush II

This study charts the genealogy and development of new trends in high-tech warfare that have emerged in the past decade, focusing on both the challenges and dangers. Attention is devoted to the Bush administration's military program and foreign policy moves, highlighting the ways Bush II intensifies the dangers of high-tech war while undermining efforts at collective security, environmental protection, and global peace. The argument here is that the volatile mixture of highly regressive, unilateralist, and militarist tendencies combined with high-tech weapons provides a clear and present danger of a protracted and frightening period of war. This mixture dramatically erupted in Bush's military response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 and is currently intensifying dangers to world peace in the campaign some are labeling "World War III."     

Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management

This article examines how power-sharing institutions might best be designed to stabilize the transition to enduring peace among former adversaries following the negotiated settlement of civil wars. We identify four different forms of power sharing based on whether the intent of the policy is to share or divide power among rivals along its political, territorial, military, or economic dimension. Employing the statistical methodology of survival analysis to examine the 38 civil wars resolved via the process of negotiations between 1945 and 1998, we find that the more dimensions of power sharing among former combatants specified in a peace agreement the higher is the likelihood that peace will endure. We suggest that this relationship obtains because of the unique capacity of power-sharing institutions to foster a sense of security among former enemies and encourage conditions conducive to a self-enforcing peace.     

The political economy of the peace dividend

We develop a model of the peace dividend and use it to predict the fiscal consequences of a reduction in the demand for military spending. The model is based on the assumption that the political process responds to political demands and costs in a way that maximizes net political benefits. The predictions of our model on how a peace dividend will be allocated over nonmilitary spending, tax relief, and deficit reduction is tested against the experience of eight major wars in United States history.     

Challenges of Local Ownership: Understanding the Outcomes of the International Community’s ‘Light Footprint’ Approach to the Nepal Peace Process

This article investigates whether a ‘light footprint’ approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding by the international community more effectively addresses local drivers of conflict than the dominant model of large, multidimensional peace operations. It considers international engagement in the Nepalese peace process through the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), and argues that the international community’s approach to local ownership became more focused on non-imposition and therefore less politically engaged over time as a result of both local and international factors. This facilitated local elite ownership of the process, which fundamentally undermined the international community’s capacity to support peace consolidation as elites moved away from key transformational pledges of the peace settlement.     

The Purse Strings of Peace

This article examines how commerce promotes peace between states. It diverges from the commercial peace literature and its predominant focus on international trade by looking inside the domestic economy to see how its structure influences conflict. Drawing on selectorate theory, I argue that substantial quantities of public property generate fiscal autonomy for governments, strengthen their hold on the domestic reigns of power, and create opportunities to pursue more aggressive foreign policies. A series of statistical tests shows that greater quantities of publicly held assets increase the likelihood that a state will participate in military conflict. Given that the predominance of privately held property is one of the defining institutions of capitalism, these results support the claim that capitalism promotes peace.