Afghan Refugees in Pakistan: Not All Refugees, Not Always in Pakistan, Not Necessarily Afghan?

In 2001, there were estimated to be two million Afghan refugeesin Pakistan. In the past six years, however, over 3.5 millionrefugees have returned, and recent census data show that nearly2.5 million still remain in Pakistan. Three straightforwardexplanations for this monumental discrepancy have been posited:Afghans’ high birthrates, their history of cross-bordermigration, and increasing levels of urbanization in Pakistan.Yet the fact that none of these processes comes as a surpriseto researchers familiar with the history of Afghan refugeesbegs a still deeper question: how and why were these processesso utterly overlooked in 2001? The answer, it is argued, isa fundamental confusion not only in how we count refugees butin how we conceptualize them. The dichotomous distinction betweenrefugees and non-refugees, while possessing a certain legalclarity, does a poor job of describing the reality of individualswhose movements are influenced by numerous social, political,and economic factors.     

Whither Lafayette? French military policy and the American campaign in Afghanistan

During the American‐led military campaign against international terrorism, France has sought to preserve its special status and role as a global power. This effort continues longstanding French policies designed to maintain autonomy in security and foreign policy areas. Such policies create differences and discord with the United States over coalition warfare. This article examines the underpinnings of American and French preferences for coalition military missions in the context of national policy and past military operations. A case study of French participation in the operations in Afghanistan provides the framework for analysis.     

China-U.S. Military Relationship: Which Way the Wind is Blowing?

Military relations are the most sensitive and essential elements in bilateral ties between two countries. It is quite often when political and economic relations between the two sides turn warm, their military relationship is still at freezing point; and as misunderstanding in the military relationship melting away like ice,     

Development and Humanitarian Agencies Behind the Lines: Establishing Security in the Operational Space

It has been widely recognized that development and humanitarian agencies play a key role in post-conflict peace building. The an- archical and chaotic conditions of failing states are considered the sources of conflict. International military response is …     

Does the sequence of land reform and political reform matter? Evidence from state-building in Afghanistan

Property insecurity is associated with terrorism, insurgency and economic underdevelopment. For this reason, land reform is often implemented alongside political reform in post-conflict settings. In contrast, this article argues that political reform should be sequenced prior to land reform during state-building. Evidence from Afghanistan shows how land redistribution, legal titling, decentralisation of state-owned land and provision of legal services to resolve land disputes are unlikely to alleviate political violence or facilitate economic development without establishing or substantially improving political capacity, political constraints and inclusive political institutions at the local level. These findings suggest the importance of sequence in the process of land reform and political reform. More generally, political reform is a prerequisite for land reform to reduce violence and improve development prospects in post-conflict settings.     

Does Democratization Reduce the Risk of Military Interventions in Politics in Africa?

This article investigates whether there is an association between a trajectory of political liberalization, democratization, and military interventions. In what is arguably the ‘least likely case’ region in the world, this study analyzes the experience of 55 regimes in Africa between 1990 and 2004 and finds a striking regularity. Liberalizing, and in particular democratic, regimes have a significantly different track record of being subjected either to successful or failed military interventions. The analysis suggests that democratic regimes are about 7.5 times less likely to be subjected to attempted military interventions than electoral authoritarian regimes and almost 18 times less likely to be victims of actual regime breakdown as a result. Through an additional case study analysis of the ‘anomalous’ cases of interventions in democratic polities, the results are largely strengthened as most of the stories behind the numbers suggests that it is only when democratic regimes perform dismally and/or do not pay soldiers their salaries that they are at great risk of being overthrown. Legitimacy accrued by political liberalization seems to ‘inoculate’ states against military intervention in the political realm.     

Can you hear me Major Tom? News,narratives and contemporary military operations: the case of the Italian mission in Afghanistan

This research explores the relationship between public narratives and the Italian military contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (2001–2014). Despite attracting little attention in the literature, Italy has been one of the most crucial contributors of multilateral military missions around the world in the post-bipolar era. Italy has remained consistently engaged militarily in Afghanistan over the entire period of the ISAF mission. However, the country’s involvement has been characterised by differing and controversial views and perspectives among Italian political actors and the media. This study aims to reconstruct the core features of the strategic narratives and the media frames around the military intervention and it does so through a Qualitative Content Analysis on a collection of almost 200 articles published by four main Italian national newspapers. The goal of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we systematically retrace the main discursive patterns and frames employed by the newspapers on the ISAF. On the other, we evaluate whether in the case of military interventions, the Italian media unveil critical inconsistencies and competitive arguments or whether they function as a repeater of the dominant political discourse. Thanks to the case study, we find that the Italian media supported the mainstream narratives.     

Exploring the Civil–Military Interface and its Impact on European Strategic and Operational Personalities: ‘Civilianisation’ and Limiting Military Roles in Stabilisation Operations?

Abstract

The paper discusses a still more obvious foreign policy dilemma facing Denmark: On the one hand, Denmark has made a proactive foreign policy decision to pursue a strategy of influence with the European Union as the most important international forum. On the other hand, Denmark has chosen to stay outside the increasingly important cooperation on defence policy within the EU. As a small state, Denmark is opting for a multilateral strategy, but it has deliberately chosen to limit its commitment to the same forum. A combination of adaptation theory and theory of small states informs the analysis. It is argued that the Danish opt-out sends an unclear and inconsistent signal to Denmark's partners which again hampers the possibilities for using Danish coalition power within the EU. Nevertheless, contrary to both theoretical expectations and common sense intuition, there is little to suggest that the opt-out has had negative consequences for Denmark's influence on capabilities in the EU.     

Whack-a-Mole or Coup de Grace? Institutionalization and Leadership Targeting in Iraq and Afghanistan

Targeting the leadership of terrorist and insurgent groups has become a major component of US strategy since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite attracting modest scholarly attention, the conditions that increase or decrease the efficacy of leadership targeting remain unclear. A major limitation of current scholarly work is the lack of exploration of the internal organization of these groups and the relationship of that organization to leadership targeting effects. A close examination of leadership targeting of armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals that leadership targeting is highly effective against groups that are poorly institutionalized but has limited effects against well-institutionalized groups. This suggests that the level of resources devoted to leadership targeting should be inversely proportional to the level of institutionalization of the target.     

“Exporting Democracy”? Neoconservatism and the Limits of Military Intervention, 1989–2008

This article challenges the almost universal consensus that post–Cold War neoconservative foreign policy has been characterised by the objective of “exporting democracy” abroad for strategic or moral reasons or both. Instead, the article contends that the touchstone of neoconservatism was the attempt to preserve America's so-called “unipolar moment”—its apparent position as the single pole of power in every region of the world. Moving beyond the abstract and grandiose rhetoric employed by many neocons, the article points out that neocons made a distinction between the respective uses of military and non-military power, arguing that the former should be reserved only for situations where strategic interests were at stake rather than for the sake of ideals. The article goes on to argue that this focus on strategic interests facilitated a close alliance with other conservative nationalists who were also dedicated to maintaining America's position as the single pole of world power. Thus neoconservatism should be analysed and evaluated—by both conservatives and liberal interventionists alike—on the basis that it was a strategy dedicated primarily to preserving American unipolarity, not to the promotion of ideals.     

Which European Public Order? Sources of Imbalance in the European Area of Freedom,Security and Justice1

Abstract

The creation of the Single European Market has been accompanied by an intense discussion on whether market-creating measures have been privileged over market-correcting ones by the institutional system of the EU. The creation of an ‘Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’ (AFSJ) launched by the Treaty of Amsterdam poses a similar question which, however, has remained heavily under-researched: will the balance between policing competencies and individual rights shift towards the former at the expense of the latter? Recent work on the ‘new raison d’état’ and the strengthening of national executives in processes of Europeanisation points in this direction. This essay explores the parallels between the Common Market and the AFSJ with regard to the relationship between the structures and substance of governance. The balance between security and individual rights is scrutinised in the main pillars of the AFSJ: asylum cooperation, judicial cooperation in criminal matters and police cooperation.     

Give them toys? Military allocations and regime stability in transitional democracies

In contrast to the conventional wisdom that democratization reduces coups, 46% of coups targeted democracies from 2000–2009, twice the rate seen in the prior half-century. Efforts to explain coups have arrived at wildly varied conclusions regarding the vulnerability of democracies. We argue that this is attributable to regime type acting as a conditional influence. We theorize that democratization incentivizes old elites to veto the process, and these vetoes are more likely to occur when the new regime cannot credibly commit to the military’s corporate interests. Using cross-national data for 172 states for the years 1952–2009, we find that though young democracies are more vulnerable to coups than either civilian authoritarian regimes or older democracies, this vulnerability is mitigated when military expenditures are near or above the sample mean. We also find that commonly argued determinants of coups appear to be driven by their influence in democracies, suggesting the need for scholars to revisit commonly held assumptions regarding autocratic survival.     

When Does the Mission Determine the Coalition? The Logic of Multilateral Intervention and the Case of Afghanistan

Using the debate between the logic of appropriateness and consequences as a theoretical backdrop, I argue that neither is able to explain the United States' choices between unilateralism and multilateralism in post-Cold War military interventions. The logic of appropriateness is theoretically flawed because states are ultimately unwilling to compromise operational effectiveness on behalf of “oughtness,” and the logic of consequences has until now been insufficiently specified for the purposes of explaining military cooperation behavior. In this article, I suggest that “consequences” are best specified according to time horizon, which creates intertemporal tradeoffs between the long-term benefits of multilateralism and immediate payoffs of unilateralism, and the nature of the intervention, which affects the operational payoffs of multilateralism. I test this argument and the existing explanations against the case of Afghanistan. Its within-case variation—largely unilateral in combat operations and robustly multilateral in post-conflict phases—lends strong support to the logic of consequences as specified according to time horizon and operational payoff.     

Progressivism Armed? Reform and the Origins of the Modern U.S. Military

During the four decades before World War I, both the United States Army and the United States Navy underwent a massive transformation. What had been a frontier constabulary in 1880 became a world class army in 1918. What had been a hodgepodge of obsolete vessels in the 1880s emerged as a force second only to the Royal Navy during the same period. This article discusses the factors that help account for this remarkable change.     

Going on the Run: What Drives Military Desertion in Civil War?

Under which circumstances do soldiers and officers desert in a violent domestic conflict? This article studies individual military insubordination in the Syrian civil war, drawing on interviews with deserters from the Syrian army now based in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. A plausibility probe of existing explanations reveals that desertion opportunities originating in conflict events and the presence of safe-havens fail to explain individual deserters' decision making. Accounting for socio-psychological factors—moral grievances and fear—generates more promising results for an inquiry into the conditions under which military personnel desert. While moral concerns with continued military service contribute to accumulating grievances among military members engaged in the civil war, fear—that is, soldiers' concerns for their own safety—is a more effective triggering cause of desertion. The article presents a theory-generating case study on the causes of military insubordination and disintegration during violent conflict.     

Can Europe Fill the Void in U.S. Military Leadership?

This article lays out the case for why Washington's European allies are incapable, both now and in the foreseeable future, of replacing American military leadership. Despite recent substantial force contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan and small-scale interventions in Africa, European military capabilities are limited, declining, and unlikely to rebound, regardless of whether the United States is in strategic retreat. As a result, the United States faces a bleak choice: not whether to trade American global leadership for an equally benevolent European world order, but whether to give up its mantle of leadership and thereby create a void that may be filled by unfriendly, if not overtly hostile, actors.     

The UK response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: proposals for a neutral and non-aligned Afghanistan, 1980–1981

Although not unexpected, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was still largely a shock to the West. It was the first time since the Second World War that the Soviets had directly intervened in a country outside the Warsaw Pact. Despite the intervention eventually being seen as Moscow's ‘Vietnam’ the West was initially unsure about what the invasion meant for stability in the region or the future conduct of East–West relations. In response to the crisis the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) proposed that Afghanistan revert to a neutral and non-aligned status in an attempt to create the basis for a viable political settlement, one that would allow the Soviet Union to withdraw troops without losing face. It launched the proposal in early 1980, lobbying other countries to support and champion the idea, culminating in a visit to Moscow by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, in July 1981. In this early phase of Soviet intervention the British proposals were premature but not without merit. They anticipated the strategy the Soviets would eventually adopt in their attempt to achieve an orderly withdrawal.