NATO's Response Force: finally getting it right?

Abstract

At the Riga Summit in November 2006, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) declared the NATO Response Force (NRF) a fully operational capability. Yet only 8 months later – and behind closed doors – the Alliance's military authorities rescinded the declaration as it became increasingly clear that member states were unwilling to make the necessary commitments to the force. To this day, the force has been a qualified failure: while many allies have benefited from participating in the NRF, lack of concrete troop commitments and disagreement as to the force's operational role have largely eroded its credibility. This could change with the allies' recent adoption of a revised NRF-construct. However, as NATO is still in a state of strategic confusion, the NRF is likely to continue to be different things to different nations.     

Fit for what? Towards explaining Battlegroup inaction

Abstract

The thrust of this paper concerns the case of the European Battlegroup (BG) non-deployment in late 2008, when the United Nations requested European military support for the United Nations Organisation Mission peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The argument is built on the fact that when, in official documents, the EU approaches the European security and ESDP/CSDP's military crisis management policy and interventions, it makes strong references to the United Nations and the UN Charter Chapter VII's mandate of restoring international peace and security. Such references make it seem that supporting the UN when it deals with threats and crises is a primary concern of the EU and the member states. These allusions lead to the main contention of this paper, that there is much ambivalence in these indications. The paper develops its argument from one key hypothesis; namely, that the non-deployment of a European BG in the DRC, at the end of 2008, constitutes a useful case study for detecting a number of ambiguities of the EU in respect of its declarations in the official documents establishing the European military crisis management intervention structure.     

Public Opinion and Military Intervention: Afghanistan,Iraq and Libya

Britain has participated in several military interventions of varying duration, extent and political controversy in recent years. This article analyses public opinion towards the most recent intervention in Libya in 2011, looking at three different aspects of the topic. First, it examines differences in cross‐national attitudes towards military action in Libya amongst NATO countries. Secondly, it then looks in detail at which social groups were more or less likely to approve of British involvement, comparing this with group attitudes towards Britain's role in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirdly, it assesses how public opinion shifted during the course of the action in Libya, looking at three key indicators of the popular mood: whether Britain was right or wrong to take military action; how well the war is going; and assessments of David Cameron's handling of the conflict. Broader reflections are then made about public opinion towards British involvement in future military action.     

Resilient subjects: uncertainty,warfare and liberalism

Abstract

While resilience has been recognized as a new strand in the government of security, little attention is paid its associated subjectivities and technologies of the self. One of the key sites for such development has been the military. A principal attribute of traditional military subjects has been fortitude, an assemblage of moral strength, will-power and courage deeply inscribed in the soul. In the new military, fortitude is now seen as of only conditional value to the latest configuration of the ‘liberal way of war’. Instead, resilience is centred as appropriate to ‘warriors’, and resonates with an advanced liberal political environment. Resilience appears as a set of cognitive skills that anyone can develop with correct training. Founded in cognitive behavioural therapy, resilience centres innovativeness, enterprise, responsibility and flexibility. It now takes its place as part of a complex of scientifically grounded techniques of the self necessary to optimize autonomous subjects in an age of high uncertainty.     

Reviews

Adopting a comparative historical approach informed by Marxist theory of imperialism, this study demonstrates the tendencies toward conflict between past and present rising and declining imperial powers. In the present context the study compares and contrasts two types of imperialism: a highly militarised US empire based on wars and territorial occupations and a market-driven Chinese empire driven by an alliance of state, foreign and national capital. Both imperial systems are influenced by “overseas” diasporas. In the case of the USA, an internal Zionist power configuration loyal to Israel subordinates Washington's Middle East policies to the economically prejudicial interests of a militarist state (Israel), while in the case of China the overseas diaspora facilitates and promotes investments and trade enhancing China's dynamic economic expansion. The emerging contradictions between and within the two conflicting styles of empire building, point to the need for a social transformation, enhancing the power and position of labour against the Zionised state and speculative economy in the USA and the new plutocrats in China.     

Russia and the EU Ten Years On: A Relationship in Search of Definition

Russia and the EU have dramatically expanded their relationship over the last ten years ever since the 1997 Partnership Cooperation and Agreement entered into force. The four spaces of cooperation agreed upon in 2003 have provided a myriad of opportunities for dialogue and cooperation. Yet, quantity does not equal quality in a relationship that lacks a clear endgame perspective. Russia's new cockiness and the EU's internal divisions do not help bridge the strategic gap. Energy and the common neighbourhood are today the main spoilers in the relationship. They could however be turned into major opportunities in developing a strategic partnership.     

Razzia: A Turning Point in Modern Strategy

The razzia, a tactic of swift and brutal raids used by the French military against recalcitrant tribes in Algeria in the 1840s, was a necessary step in modern military thought. At first glance the destructive and violent razzias stand in stark contrast to the constructive and non-violent bureaux arabes—an institutional ancestor of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. But both were developed in the same conflict and by the same men. These two innovations, this article argues, were also flipsides of the same coin: what today is called war “among the people.” The razzia consequently appears as a necessary historic precursor for contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine.     

Rewriting the “dirty war”: State terrorism reinterpreted by the press in Argentina during the transition to democracy

Abstract

The Argentine press reinterpreted the period of dictatorial military rule (1976–1983) in terms of an interest in the continuity of democratic protections. La Voz del Interior, the newspaper of record in the provincial capital and second largest city of Cordoba, sought to censure, subordinate, and yet reintegrate the military within a democratic institutional ideology. This study uses discourse analysis to characterize 10 elements of a model of coverage of state‐sponsored terrorism: (1) perpetrators, (2) victims, (3) target population, (4) violence and violation, (5) motives or intentions of the perpetrators, (6) fear or terror among the populace, (7) outcomes or changes in the target population, (8) news sources, (9) remedies and projects, (10) and probable responses or appropriated uses by readers or the press. In 1985–1986, when the elected government sought to judge and castigate senior junta commanders, La Voz supported establishment continuity by legitimating societal actors, including the military, even though its members were perceived as having violated basic societal values.     

Military service,governance and the African Diaspora

Abstract

During World War II black soldiers who served in the United States Army and in the Caribbean colonial forces of the British military performed their duties within the constraints of a racialized governmentality. When black soldiers served in the military forces of either nation, they were regulated by policies meant to control and contain their participation. The institutional racism within both the War Department and the Colonial Office is representative of a political theory of racialized governmentality – the black body was inscribed with governance by those who exercised power. This paper outlines and defines the concepts and terms of engagement necessary to understand the mentalities and realities facing black soldiers in two colonial settings during the Second World War.     

Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers: Understanding Variation

While the literature on peacekeeping has mostly focused on whether peacekeeping actually keeps the peace, few studies have systematically addressed the question of what explains variations in unintended consequences of peacekeeping, such as sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA). This study presents the Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers data, a new dataset covering the 36 international peacekeeping missions by the UN, NATO, ECOWAS, and the African Union, active in the years 1999–2010. Using this dataset, it also presents the first statistical study that explores the issue of what can account for variations in reported SEA across peacekeeping operations. The systematic analysis of this data indicates that SEA was more frequently reported in situations with lower levels of battle-related deaths, in larger operations, in more recent operations, the less developed the country hosting the mission, and in operations where the conflict involved high levels of sexual violence. Our discussion and conclusion highlights data restrictions and identifies key challenges for future research.