The meaning of a militia: Understanding the civil defence forces of Sierra Leone

This article is an adapted, narrative version of an expert witnessreport the author wrote for the Defence of one of the accusedbefore the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The case againstthe Civil Defence Forces militia was predicated in part on theargument that the CDF was a military organization with military-stylecommand and control. Based on a close reading of the Prosecution'smilitary expert witness report and the author's ethnographicresearch with the militia, the article outlines a case for understandingthe CDF as the militarization of a social network rather thanas a military organization. This framing has implications notonly for post-conflict adjudication, but for how we think aboutand intervene in violent contexts throughout contemporary WestAfrica.     

The Return of Great-Power Competition to the Middle East: A Two-Level Game

Great-power competition has once again assumed primacy in the international arena. Facing a rising China and a resurgent Russia, the United States formally reoriented its National Security Strategy in 2017 to place more emphasis on the return of great-power politics and global multipolarity. With the resumption of such competition, the Middle East has rightfully been noted as a regional theater where Russia and China have sought to exploit US policy blunders and retrenchment (real or perceived) to push for increased regional multipolarity. Although the Middle East has been recognized as a prime theater for great-power competition, the approaches adopted by most existing studies are primarily one-sided: they examine great-power competition in the region from the outside, stressing how global powers are manipulating affairs in the Middle East in order to advance their own interests. Often missing from this conversation is how external engagement in the Middle East is being exploited and shaped by regional powers and endogenous developments. This study seeks to fill this gap by using the conceptual lens of omnialignment to examine how regional powers are manipulating the return of great-power competition to advance their own strategic imperatives, both at home and abroad.     

Deadly foreign terrorism and the rank-ordered tournament for foreign press attention: implications for counterterrorism

Limiting the attention countries receive from the foreign press is thought to reduce the incidence of deadly foreign attacks, but by how much? We show that the incidence of deadly foreign terrorism increases as a nonlinear function of the level of foreign press attention states receive. As a result, the benefits of reducing foreign press attention to prevent deadly foreign terrorist attacks are uneven: some states stand to benefit more than others. Nevertheless, we also show that reducing press attention produces, at best, only minor reductions in the number of deadly foreign terrorist attacks states experience. These results suggest that reducing foreign press attention may not provide as much security as governments expect.     

Dereliction of Duty Redux?: Post-Iraq American Civil-Military Relations

The protracted war in Iraq has exacerbated existing tensions and dysfunctional elements inherent in American civil-military relations. Many in the national security community were worried that civil-military relations were far from satisfactory well before the war.¹ For too long this dimension of “the American way of war” had been allowed to drift without resolution. The Iraq conflict could result in a further deterioration in this crucial component of strategic effectiveness due to mutual “scapegoating, blame-avoiding and willful institutional refusal to recognize and act on the sources of defeat.”² This essay explores the current precarious nature of civil-military relations in this country. It also explores the emergence of a “stab in the back” thesis among the military community, and various issues raised by the ongoing Long War. Based on this evaluation, the article concludes with some proposals to remedy or lessen the strains that exist today. These remedies seek to better define the compact and code of conduct that governs the overall relationship between the masters of policy and the dedicated servants we ask to carry out those policies.