Strife

The Academic Blog of the Department of War Studies, King's College London

You are here: Home / 2015 / Archives for February 2015

Archives for February 2015

Interview – Dylan Hendrickson on security sector reform

By Isobel Petersen:

Dylan Hendrickson speaking at a Conference in Kenya, June, 2014. Photo: APN/ Dagan Rossini (CC 2.0)
Dylan Hendrickson speaking at a Conference in Kenya, June 2014. Photo: APN/Dagan Rossini (CC 2.0)

Dylan Hendrickson is a Senior Fellow at King’s College Department of War Studies. He first joined King’s College in 1999 as Senior Research Fellow of the Conflict, Security & Development Group (CSDG) specialising in the study and practice of Security Sector Reform (SSR). He is currently a member of CSDG’s sister group, the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group (CSDRG) and acts as Senior Editor of the CSD Journal.

Security Sector Reform is a holistic approach to the transformation of security processes and organisations in conflict-affected countries. Dylan is a leading figure in developing this policy agenda, initially under the UK Department for International Development (DFID) but since for the UN, EU and donor-recipient bilateral partnerships on SSR programmes. His work has taken him across Africa and Asia, and he is currently doing major work monitoring the evolving situation in Burma.

Peace-keeping in post-conflict countries and regions is now a standard aspect of international relations and the globalised world. SSR endeavours to break down the barriers between security forces and human development in order to create long-lasting human security in fragile states. Dylan’s expertise in this field are unrivalled and here he provides insight and explanation that is applicable to the multitude of conflicts and peace-keeping operations going on today.

***

Your career path is a diverse and varied one, working from Cambodia, to the Congo to right here in London. It seems that you bridge the worlds of academia and policy-making smoothly and successfully. Looking back, has this been a challenge to bring the two together in practical terms?

It’s always a challenge. To be honest, I don’t really consider myself an academic. I edit an academic journal (Conflict, Security & Development), publish occasionally and I do a little bit of teaching. But what I really focus on is policy research and advice which is intended to inform the development assistance activities of the British government, the European Union and other donor actors. So in that sense, most of what I do is practically-orientated as opposed to academic.

Have you seen, with your own work, the two worlds as mutually dependent for issues such as foreign policy? Is the academic world more influential behind the scenes than we would see in politician’s speeches or press releases?

Yes I think it is, and I think that’s part of the reason why I’m still at King’s. The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG), of which I was a member from 1999-2014, was set up with a grant from the British government, precisely because they wanted a policy unit that was based in an academic institution. The whole point was to bridge academic thinking and real world policy-making and operational activity. The UK government wanted to benefit from the thinking that was taking place amongst academics. So yes, establishing the bridge was very important, and certainly the work that CSDG did at the time, along with similar units in other UK universities, has had a huge impact in the way that the UK government delivers development and security assistance in conflict-affected regions.

Security sector reform (SSR) is an example of this and is at the heart of your own research. Could you explain a little about the concept of SSR and its place over the past 15 years or so in British foreign policy?

Until the late 1990s development actors were not very involved in delivering assistance to security institutions. Instead, this was largely seen as as the responsibility of defence ministries and other security actors. This was partly a legacy of the Cold War where security assistance was very militaristic in orientation. Following the Cold War and the outbreak of conflicts in many different countries in the so-called developing world, there was a recognition that we needed to rethink the way that we provide security assistance. We needed a much more integrated and holistic approach to rebuilding the security sectors in countries that had been affected by conflict. So the basic idea of SSR is the need for an integrated international approach that brings together security and development thinking and policy.

Is there a particular case study that you have worked on that illustrates this need for a new way of thinking and that has seen success?

A good example is Uganda, though I would not qualify it as a pure success. I worked in Uganda as a King’s advisor between 2002 and 2004 on a UK government-supported defence review process. The purpose of this defence review was to get the Ugandan MoD to analyse their security problems in a more holistic way, to recognise that the country faced a broad range of both military and non-military threats. As a result they needed to develop a more integrated government response to these security challenges which involved other security instruments besides the military. This was an international assistance programme that brought together the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. I was brought on as a governance advisor, with a developmental background, rather than as a military adviser.

During the 1990s international conflict manifested as complex, lengthy intra-state wars which resulted in varying degrees of military, political and aid intervention. To what extent do you think that intervention has become a guarantee in international relations?

I think it depends very much on the country and region. Quite clearly the international community takes more interest in certain countries than in others. That was plainly the case of Africa in the 1990s, which was afflicted by a whole range of conflicts that were largely ignored by outside actors. As a consequence, the engagement in Sierra Leone by the UK government in the late 1990s was in part spurred by a frustration on the part of many people that the UK and other Western governments had invested so heavily in addressing the crisis in Kosovo, which is a tiny territory, but had largely ignored what was happening in West Africa. The UK government felt that they needed to do more in Sierra Leone, with which it had strong historical ties. This is an illustration of how strategic interests shape the engagement of Western countries in the developing world.

Do you think that’s a lesson to be learnt? Should there be a new way of approaching intervention? Do you think that if it’s going to keep happening, is there a way that it could be conducted more successfully?

Certainly lessons have been learnt. I think a key lesson that was learnt in the case of Sierra Leone is about the importance of addressing SSR early on. Clearly many of the underlying issues were ignored in earlier international interventions and there was no integrated, comprehensive approach to dealing with the country’s security apparatus. That’s why there were cycles of violence in Sierra Leone as well as neighbouring Liberia. This spurred DFID to think much more holistically about how to rebuild the security apparatus because for too long the UK and other donors had focused on simply demobilising soldiers.

You’ve advocated that military involvement can’t be treated in isolation from socio-political events. I was just wondering if you had any particular experience of this happening and causing problems, you’ve already mentioned Sierra Leone.

We see countries like Afghanistan and Iraq which admittedly are to some extent anomalies because they were serious conflicts that were directly impacted by American and European strategic interests. We didn’t really see SSR being promoted there; the focus was much shorter-term in nature – trying to win the war – which involved security assistance activities that were not very integrated in nature and certainly not long-term enough to make a substantive contribution to creating the new security institutions Afganistan and Iraq require. The activities involved working, for instance, with militia groups that were often part of the security problem for local populations. From an SSR point of view there were many contradictions in the way that the international community engaged in these countries, which of course in part reflected US and European domestic political factors.

Have you seen a real growth in post-conflict ideas such as civil society funding, transitional justice and civic education appearing separately to the grand concepts of security assistance?

Yes, those are certainly growth areas. In recent years there has been greater interest in the role of civil society, for instance, in security reform processes. But in many countries this has been an externally-driven agenda. That’s not to say that there is no foundation in developing societies for civil society to play a useful role, but I think one has to be realistic about how quickly localised non-governmental organisations or groups can have an impact on security reform processes in Africa and Asia, which are usually government-driven.

What role do you think that aid can play?

I don’t think that the solution is necessarily more aid; I think it’s about smarter aid. There’s always the assumption that with more aid we can change more things, but delivering aid effectively is not easy to do and sometimes countries need to resolve problems on their own. In my view we need to focus more on creating the space for countries to find their own solutions rather than always seeking to provide them with a solution. Just by doubling aid does not mean that we find a solution twice as quick. On the contrary, aid is often part of a problem. We often propose short-term solutions to countries which are not appropriate instead of letting them figure out what works best themselves. Conflict-affected countries need to chart a path to resolving their own problems.

The term ‘militarised development’ is floated around as a negative connotation of security assistance and development aid becoming too closely integrated. Have you experienced this? How do you propose tackling this problem?

Yes, I think that it’s a difficult balance to strike. Security is important in order for development and reconstruction to occur. The emphasis of the international community has often been on restoring stability predominantly through military means. This often leads to the strengthening of military actors to the exclusion of other security actors, including the civilian policy sectors. This can make it difficult to develop a more balanced, long-term approach to reforming the security sector. So yes, these are matters of concern.

Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) is a concept frequently associated with SSR. Has SSR evolved beyond DDR or are they still mutually reinforcing in post-conflict situations?

DDR should ideally be seen as an element of a wider SSR process. The problem is that DDR has often been approached as a means of reducing the size of armies and other armed groups without thinking about what we are going to provide as replacement. In such contexts, SSR looks at how we can create new security institutions that are better geared towards peace-time security needs. This may mean, for instance, strengthening the police and a whole raft of other civil security mechanisms in order to provide security that benefits the population and prevent a relapse of violence.

Finally, SSR has a mission to try and prevent the kind of recurring conflicts that we saw in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Are localised movements and contributions to the post-conflict environment a positive route to take in order to succeed in this mission?

Any time you have a conflict affecting society there are many different actors and interests involved. To end a conflict, all these groups – both at local and national levels – have to reach some kind of agreement. It has to be in their interest to cooperate and collaborate. But if they’re doing it primarily because they’re under huge pressure from the international community to sign a peace agreement,then ultimately the agreement will break down. Lasting political settlements cannot be imposed from the outside and so the question for me is: how do we create space for these groups to reach agreement amongst themselves? I think that’s one of the key challenges for external actors working in a post-conflict context, to create the space for local solutions to emerge without seeking to fill that space. It’s a difficult balance to strike.

Isobel Petersen studied International Relations at the University of Exeter and is currently reading for an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Her particular interest is post-conflict resolution with a specific focus on the Arab-Israeli crisis. Other distractions from her course are current affairs, aspirations of travel and writing. Isobel is a Guest Editor for Strife Blog.  

Putting ‘brains on the ground’: why is Britain sending military advisors to Ukraine?

By Thomas Colley:

David Cameron with President Poroshenko of Ukraine at the NATO Summit in Wales, September 2014. Photo: Paul Shaw / Crown copyright (CC)
David Cameron with President Poroshenko of Ukraine at the NATO Summit in Wales, September 2014. Photo: Paul Shaw / Crown copyright (CC 2.0)

One month after the US announced its decision to send a military training mission to the Ukraine, the British government has announced that 75 military advisors will also be sent to support the Ukrainian military. Backing the US is unsurprising for those familiar with British foreign policy in recent decades. Yet this decision, taken without parliament or the explicit backing of Europe, has surprised some.

But how significant is the decision to send military advisors to Ukraine, and what is its primary purpose? Is it a genuine attempt to alter the strategic situation in Ukraine or more a move for domestic political gain? Are the military advisors a serious attempt to deter further Russian aggression and if so, what can 75 military advisors be expected to achieve?

A domestic political move?

Despite the artificiality of separating the domestic and international effects of foreign policy decisions, it is tempting to view Cameron’s decision to send military advisors as domestically driven, rather than a genuine attempt to alter the strategic situation. Domestically, limiting military intervention to sending advisors polls well. Yougov recently found that almost two-thirds of people supported sending military advisors to Iraq to support forces fighting the Islamic State; less than a third supported sending regular troops.

There are several reasons for this relative popularity of sending military advisors. A primary military concern of many British citizens remains the risk of combat casualties for causes not deemed sufficiently justified. Direct combat with Russia would clearly be extremely costly, it was avoided throughout the Cold War for good reason.

Sending military advisors resonates with those on the right who believe Britain should take an active military role in world affairs, but baulk at the idea of combat casualties. Far from shying away from its consistently interventionist role, Britain can make a military contribution, supposedly enhancing Ukrainian military performance at minimal human cost. This reinforces the notion that Britain can still ‘punch above its weight’, the overused metaphor that is the explicit cornerstone of British foreign policy.

Even better, it demonstrates that Britain is willing to go a step further than Europe, for whom economic sanctions have been the limit thus far. This reinforces the narrative that Britain is the power willing to do what needs to be done, to act decisively while Europe dithers – from Europe in 1940 to Libya in 2011, Britain will act. This narrative is particularly significant after Britain was conspicuously excluded from the recent peace negotiations between Russia, France and Germany, after which many predictably bemoaned Britain’s waning international influence.

It is hard then not to read Cameron’s military response as an attempt to reassert Britain’s power and influence domestically and internationally, rather than a genuine attempt to alter the strategic calculus in Ukraine. In this sense, the 75 advisors hold a symbolic power far beyond their material capability. With the ceasefire faltering they symbolise, however erroneously, Britain’s wisdom and Europe’s naivety in thinking Putin could be negotiated with; they reinforce Britain’s international relevance domestically, and theoretically they signal to Putin (some of) NATO’s willingness to escalate matters if necessary.

Will the military advisors change anything?

Despite the domestic benefits of the decision, it is unlikely that the decision will have a significant impact on the military situation or on Putin’s strategic thinking. What can a meagre 75 advisors be expected to deter? After all, deliberately placing advisors ‘well away from the conflict zone’ could be read as signalling fear that they might come under attack as much as a demonstration of resolve.

The hope, of course, is that the move signals to the pro-Russian side that Western nations are prepared to escalate their actions to protect their allies. Yet it is doubtful how such a meagre move successfully does this. During the Vietnam War, the US’s steady escalation of targeted airstrikes was thought to be signalling to North Vietnam that the costs of continuing to fight would become unbearable if they refused to negotiate. Instead, they signalled that America was not willing to fully commit the resources required to overwhelmingly defeat the North Vietnamese.

The presence of British ‘brains on the ground’ also does little to alter Putin’s strategy of plausible deniability. The presence of distant military advisors cannot affect the involvement of Russian forces if, as Putin claims, they are not involved anyway. Even in the unlikely event that the advisors were harmed, Putin’s plausible deniability strategy remains intact.

Furthermore, arguably the main issue facing the Ukrainian military is not their lack of training but that they are simply being outgunned. This brings the issue of sending arms to the fore, but it also raises the important question of exactly how this latest British move is expected to actually change anything.

Again, domestic perceptions in Britain may matter more than reality on the ground. The assumption common in British public discourse of the superior capability of the British military implies that the advisors should significantly bolster the Ukrainian military effort. They will no doubt help, but the effect of such a small number is overstated, based as it is on the assumption of an incapable Ukrainian military that was losing until ‘our boys’ (and girls) turned up. This reinforces narratives of British military exceptionalism, but will not have a significant effect on the conflict.

Despite these concerns, Britain’s move is significantly bolder than the economic sanctions so derided by Putin, which have done little to alter his actions despite damaging the Russian economy. It should also not be seen in isolation, but part of a number of moves designed to steadily deter further aggression. With fears of Russia’s eye turning towards the Baltic States, a firm military signal of NATO’s intent to defend its member states decisively is important. In that sense Britain’s decision to send military advisors to Ukraine is a cautious, if insufficient, step in the right direction.

Thomas Colley is a doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and Senior Editor of Strife Blog. Twitter: @ThomasColley

Taiwan’s new ‘Carrier Killer’ shows both strength and weakness

By Jackson Webster:

Taiwan's new Tuo Jiang class corvette 'carrier killer' (Photo: Wikipedia)
Taiwan’s new Tuo Jiang class corvette ‘carrier killer’ (Photo: Wikipedia)

This January, Taiwan’s navy received the first order of its newest vessel, the Tuo Jiang. The Taiwan Navy has dubbed this twin-hulled corvette a ‘carrier killer,’ and the Taiwanese Minister of National Defence, Yen Ming, has announced his government’s intention to field an entire fleet of the new domestically-developed ships. The ship’s construction is an entirely unsubtle reaction to the People’s Republic of China’s launch of the Liaoning, the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) refitted ex-Ukrainian aircraft carrier. Though it will remain inoperable for at least another 5 years, the Liaoning is regardless seen as a symbol of growing Chinese regional power and extra-regional ambition.

The Taiwanese have given the Tuo Jiang its nickname of ‘carrier killer’ due to its stealth, speed, and armament of domestically-produced guided anti-ship missiles such as the Hsiung Feng III. The tactical concept is that a large fleet of such vessels could sneak up on a carrier battle-group and swarm the enemy ships’ Close-In Weapons Systems (CIWS) with so many anti-ship missiles that the defensive screen of anti-missile fire would prove inadequate. At a top speed of 44 knots (81 km/h) the new vessel is the fastest warship fielded by any Asian navy, and its composite material construction and angular surfaces – designed to deflect radar signals – make this corvette perhaps the most modern platform in the region. Additionally, the shallow draft of a twin-hulled ship is ideal for operating in the littoral coastal waters ofTaiwan, whose government-in-exile has, since 1949, claimed to be the true ‘Republic of China’ (RoC).

Whilst the vessel is an impressive show of domestic engineering, it could have been built in vain due to Taiwan’s inability to prepare for the modern battlespace. The problems facing a Republic of China Navy (RoCN) operation against the PLAN are threefold.

The first is in air power. The Strait of Taiwan is not a large stretch of water: it is only 180km wide at its longest stretch —plenty long enough for Chinese fighter-bombers to operate from bases on the mainland. Additionally, in 2004 the PLA purchased supersonic fourth generation strike fighters in the form of Russian-built Sukhoi 30 MKK2. This platform allows the People’s Liberation Army Navy to eliminate Taiwanese naval forces using an extensive arsenal of ‘access denial’ (A2/AD) anti-ship cruise missiles China has built domestically over the last three decades. These strike aircraft equally cannot be countered by Taiwan because Taipei’s air force possesses no high-altitude interceptors and consists entirely of outdated American-built F-16s and French-built Mirage IIIs, both of which would be outnumbered and outclassed by the PLA.

Secondly, due to the RoC’s lack of air superiority, Taiwanese surface vessels would not be able to exploit the 100km range of the Hsiung Feng guided anti-ship missiles, the primary armament of the Tuo Jiang. The Earth is round. Surface vessels can fire at targets over the horizon but they cannot use radar to locate these targets. Maritime reconnaissance aircraft are needed to acquire targets beyond the horizon. Taiwan only possesses 14 such aircraft, which they would be unable to use in any case due to Chinese air superiority. Above all, this air superiority would be provided by weapons platforms on mainland China, aircraft which do not need to be launched from an aircraft carrier because their operational range is twice the size of the Strait of Taiwan.

Thirdly, the Tuo Jiang itself is extremely vulnerable to air and missile attack. The corvette’s only defensive armament is a single 20mm Phalanx close-in weapons system (CIWS). To protect themselves from missile strikes, carrier strike groups will carry dozens of these weapons. There is a serious doubt as to whether the Tuo Jiang would be able to protect itself from a swarm of Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), even in large numbers. Taiwan’s Oliver Hazard Perry Class and Chi Yang destroyers, which possess the CIWS systems to defend against Chinese ASCMs, could be fielded in sufficient numbers to protect an anti-carrier strike force of corvettes —the RoCN operates about two-dozen such vessels— but these platforms have one serious weakness: they lack stealth capability. Whilst corvettes could avoid detection by Chinese land-based A2/AD anti-ship missiles, Taiwan’s destroyers would be unable to safely accompany the corvettes close enough to the Chinese coastline to provide sufficient cover. Taiwan could counter this by purchasing more “Frégates Légères Furtives” Lafayette from the French (the RoCN currently operates six), which have a reduced radar cross-section. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee this limited ‘stealth’ would prevent Chinese missiles from targeting the craft as it has never seen combat against advanced radar targeting systems.

Make no mistake, the Tuo Jiang is truly an impressive feat of engineering. It is fast, stealthy, and carries a mission-focused state-of-the-art weapons package. It shows technical prowess, but equally reveals a search for a silver bullet solution in the face of dwindling budgetary commitment to defence in the Taiwanese civilian polity. Taiwan may have acquired the capability to destroy a Chinese aircraft carrier, but this is not what Taiwan needs. The ‘Carrier Killer’ may be a wonderful public relations stunt for the Taiwanese defence establishment, but it is Chinese land-based aircraft, and the missiles these air platforms can deliver, which pose a real threat to Taiwanese surface forces, shipping, and national sovereignty.

Jackson Webster is a native of Manhattan Beach, California, and is currently reading International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Lessons from Algeria: counter-insurgency, commitment and cruelty

By Ethan Brooks and Thomas Giles:

French troops in Oran, northwest Algeria, 1956. Photo: JP Vasse (CC)
French troops in Oran, northwest Algeria, 1956. Photo: JP Vasse (CC)

In the Algerian War of 1954-62, the belligerents tore apart a society that had coexisted for a century. The wounds they left were too deep to heal. But the continuation of theviolence after the war and the spiraling civilian-targeted terror campaigns conducted by both French colonists and Algerian independence fighters was not inevitable. Avoiding this type of outcome is the point of counter-insurgency operations today. More than sixty years later, we can see that no counter-insurgency campaign can succeed with aggressive ‘search and destroy’ tactics against embedded insurgentsif the ultimate aim is peaceful coexistence in a divided society. The United States failed to take this lesson to Iraq and as a result had to adapt during its operations. Any country considering a counter-insurgency operation in the future must weigh up the extra costs of attempting it without this tool. France’s experience in Algeria shows that restraint and long-term commitment are vital if conflicts are to be resolved without the kind of fallout seen in Algeria in the 1960s and Iraq since 2011.

***

Even today there are parts of France that have been part of the country for less time than Algeria was. Fully incorporated as an extension of metropolitan France from 1881 under the Second Republic, it was organized into départements like continental France and was complete with all the trappings of the French state.[1] After the war, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan spoke of ‘Winds of Change’ drawing the imperial era to a close, but in French Algeria the reality was different. For the colons (the Europeans living there) Algeria could never be just another colonial outpost to abandon during the seemingly inevitable tide of decolonization.

The French Empire was a civilizational mission to make Algeria and the rest of the colonies part of France. By contrast, while India had been ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the British Empire and its loss in 1947 had meant a loss of prestige, Britain did not feel as if it was losing a part of itself. The opposite was true of France. In the words of the French Prime Minister at the start of the conflict, Algeria was “irrevocably French”.[2]

If we read history through the lens of its destination, the gradual build-up of Algerian nationalism after the First World War is plain to see. Our eyes are drawn to the violent elements we recognize as important later on. But this is a mistake. The savage war and terror campaigns can in no way be described as inevitable.

Up until the end of the Second World War, French Algerian society was able to function as normal. Terrible violence did occur in the Sétif massacre in 1945 that followed police clashes with Muslim Algerians celebrating the German surrender, but Algeria was to have another decade of the peaceful coexistence it had enjoyed for over a hundred years. The majority of Arab Algerians favoured – or at least saw as the only viable outcome – a variation on the status quo with more political rights and the accompanying economic benefits.[3] Demands for violent overthrow of French rule were limited to the fringes. Nor for that matter were the colons too worried about their future. The idea of having to flee for their lives across the Mediterranean with their worldly belongings in suitcases would have seemed absurd.

To find the cause of the horror story, we must point to decisions made by both sides. In this case, to blame are, on the one hand, the civilian-targeting tactics of the Algerian revolutionary National Liberation Front (FLN), and on the other the unrestrained response of the French army and their failure to control the illegitimate combatants on their side. These combatants included the colon paramilitaries and the French intelligence services which operated in secret via proxies. Aggressive ‘search and destroy’ tactics cannot succeed in the long-term if the insurgents cannot be separated from the population. Hearts and minds cannot be won later on when the force aiming at ‘pacification’ is indistinguishable from the insurgents in the brutality of its tactics. Seen in this light, the bulk of the population can be seen as bystanders who were gradually sucked into the conflict as it grew in intensity. Civilian-targeting forced people to choose sides. The resulting divide was unbridgeable after the fighting. The only option for the Pied-Noirs and the Harkis (the Muslim Algerians who sided with the French) was to flee to France.[4]

The spark for the war came in November 1954 when the FLN carried out its first attacks, a series of over thirty bombings that left seven people dead, five of whom were European civilians. This shocked the French and triggered the deployment of paratroopers to Algeria. But even this event is easily exaggerated in importance. It was the response that leant the attack its significance.

At this point, the FLN was estimated to have only around 500 fighters and was only one small, albeit very violent, group within the broader Algerian independence movement. Before FLN ascendency, there were many moderate parties. These included the Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which desired Algerian independence, but did not wish to achieve it by violence, the moderate republican party known as the Amis du Manifeste et des Libertés, and the Algerian Communist Party. The FLN rose to prominence because the French authorities allowed it to violently consolidate its dominance over other pro-independence groups, especially the MNA, a failure that stemmed from an unwillingness to distinguish between ‘good and ‘bad’ anti-French factions and engage with them politically before it was too late. Without the MNA, there was no Muslim Algerian voice arguing for a non-violent political solution. FLN dominance dictated the intensity of the conflict and the escalating response of the French authorities sealed Algeria’s fate. Fighting fire with fire, the French military establishment and the colons hit back hard, meeting the FLN’s terror war in Algiers with equal savagery.[5] The popularity of the FLN rapidly grew as ordinary Algerians turned against France.

While the aggressive French tactics were in part the result of existing military doctrine that advocated fierce repression, they were also a product of the military leadership. After humiliation in 1940 at the hands of the German Army, another defeat in Indochina in 1954, and the meekness that accompanied the Suez withdrawal in 1956, another military rout or feeble acquiescence would have shown France to be a cripple on the world stage.[6] The rot had to stop in Algeria. Left to their own devices by politicians in Paris stuck in the deadlock of the Fourth Republic, the generals took the responsibility for holding France together upon themselves. Political oversight should have led to tighter bounds placed on the use of force and long-term goals kept more clearly in mind. Without it, the army made its own decisions as to the lessons it believed it had learned in Indochina. Blaming defeat on a lack of toughness and panicked by the threat of communism, they resolved never to come second best in resolve or forcefulness again. The lack of restraint and the surprising cruelty of the French campaign was a direct result of this. A policy of summary killings, torture, intimidation and terror was carried out. By 1960-61, the FLN had been defeated militarily in Algiers and only small pockets of resistance remained. But during the fighting, aggressive tactics had turned the population of Algeria against the French.

In hindsight, it is difficult to imagine how France ever thought it could keep a peaceful hold on Algérie Française. The Arabs in Algeria were denied many of the political rights that the Europeans had and as a result felt treated as second-class citizens, but the anger and hatred that existed by 1962 did not exist in 1954. French rule could never have lasted in the long-term. However, the massacres, continued terror campaigns and the heart-breaking exodus of colons that followed Algerian Independence in the years 1961-1962 could have been avoided had a different approach been taken.

In looking back at the Algerian War, the goal is not to see how France might have held onto Algeria had it made better decisions. The goal must be to understand how western countries can carry out effective counter-insurgency efforts and avoid the level of suffering and bloodshed that is indelibly linked to Algeria’s independence experience. After the civilian-targeted violence of the war, there was no possibility that Muslim Algerians and the colons could continue to live together as they had done before. The precedent set by both the FLN and colon paramilitaries of targeting civilians with reprisals meant that the cycle of retaliatory massacres was and would have remained intractable.

Any mission that seeks to uphold a central authority against violent challengers must be willing to see the job through without allowing the fight to become personal in the way it was for the French in Algeria. Maintaining this sort of distance above the fray requires enormous sacrifice, restraint, and a willingness to let crimes against you go unpunished. On this last count the United States struggled in its Iraq mission and became the target of violence aiming to provoke a response similar to that of the French in Algeria. The sixty years that have passed since the Algerian War have seen many more counter-insurgency operations, including several in North Africa and the Middle East. Since the Arab Spring, we have seen that nearly every country in the region could find itself needing military help to avoid a drawn-out civil war and mass killings. Given this, it is probable that new counter-insurgency operations will be undertaken. Nor are they likely to be as easy as France’s mission in Mali, where the insurgents were mostly rural and the rebel fighters were geographically, religiously and ethnically distinct from the rest of the population. This especially applies today as events in Syria, Iraq and Libya progress. A lack of long-term commitment wrecked the mission in Iraq. The results of that failure are all too clear today.

Ethan Brooks is in his third year of a BA in International Politics at King’s College London. Thomas Giles is in his third year of a BA in War Studies, also at King’s.

NOTES

[1] Evans, Martin. Algeria: France’s Undeclared War, 2012, p.19

[2] Merom, Gil. How Democracies lose small wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon and the United States in Vietnam, 2003, p.90

[3]Evans, Martin. Algeria: France’s Undeclared War, 2012, p. 101

[4]Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace. p. 537.

[5] Branche, Raphaëlle. La torture et l’armée pendant la guerre d’Algérie. France: Gallimard (2001), p. 423-24

[6] De Saint Marc, Hélie. Mémoires les champs de braises. France: Perrin (2002), p.173

Made in prison: Copenhagen and the Paris attacks

By Charlie de Rivaz:

The cafe in Copenhagen where the gunman attacked. Photo: Benno Hansen (CC)
The cafe in Copenhagen where the gunman attacked. Photo: Benno Hansen (CC)

When news trickled through about Saturday’s attacks in Copenhagen, it was difficult to avoid a sense of déjà vu. Another Islamic extremist attacks another cartoonist. Then he targets Jews. Was this another Charlie Hebdo? Another gruesome episode in the increasingly depressing battle between radical Islam and the West?

This is not another Charlie Hebdo, there were important differences that should impact on the way we understand and react to the Copenhagen attacks. However, there were also similarities, one of which shines a light on a little-reported aspect of the Charlie Hebdo story: the importance of prisons in radicalising young Muslims.

Copenhagen is not another Charlie Hebdo

Why was Copenhagen not another Charlie Hebdo? First, unlike the gunmen in Paris, the gunman in Copenhagen, named as 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein by Danish media, was not a trained militant with links to al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East. He was a gang member with convictions for crimes like grievous bodily harm, burglary and dealing in weapons. There is no indication that El-Hussein had even travelled abroad, let alone to countries with terrorist training camps. Indeed, the Danish Prime Minister said she wanted to “make it very clear” that she had “no indication at this stage that [El-Hussein] was part of a [terrorist] cell”.

Contrast this with the gunmen in Paris: Said and Cherif Kouachi had both been known to police for militant Islamist activities since 2003, when Cherif was involved in sending would-be jihadists to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq. He was arrested in 2005 trying to escape to Syria and imprisoned in 2008. Two years later he was named in the plot to free Smain Ait Ali Belkacem from jail. Belkacem was serving life for the 1995 Paris metro bombing that wounded 30 people. Yemeni sources say that both Kouachi brothers had trained in camps run by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2011 in the deserts of Marib in Yemen. The other gunman in Paris, Amedy Coulibaly, had also been imprisoned for his role in the 2010 plot to free Belkacem.

The second important difference is that while the Paris attacks were coordinated and carried out with near-military precision, the Copenhagen attacks were carried out by a lone gunman and appear to have been somewhat haphazard.

The Kouachi brothers struck hard and fast in Paris. Armed with Kalshnikov assault rifles, they identified and killed their targets, mostly cartoonists, as well as killing two policemen in their escape. Coulibaly similarly succeeded in taking the shoppers in a Kosher supermarket hostage. He killed four of the hostages. The fact that some 80,000 police and security personnel were mobilised in response to the attacks shows just how effective the gunmen were.

By contrast, El-Hussein only succeeded in killing one man in his initial attack on the café, documentary film-maker Finn Noergaard. The person who was probably his real target, cartoonist Lars Vilks, escaped unscathed. Vilks has been targeted several times since drawing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad dressed as a dog in 2007. The café where Vilks was due to speak was being guarded by armed police and security agents, as well as Vilks’ own bodyguards, so it is difficult to see how El-Hussein ever thought that he might replicate the kind of mass killings seen in Paris. His later shooting of a synagogue guard seemed unplanned and opportunistic.

Copenhagen is not the same as Charlie Hebdo. It was not a well-planned attack led by trained gunmen with links to terrorist groups; on the contrary, it was a clumsy attempt to replicate the Paris killings by a lone gunmen without any terrorist links or training.

The prison connection

Of course, the intentions behind both attacks appear similar: to kill those cartoonists who have published depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (often in provocative poses) and to kill Jews. This is why the copycat theory is plausible.

But the more interesting similarity relates to where these intentions come from, and, in particular, where the motivation to kill is cultivated. This is where the role of prison is key.

El-Hussein attacked the café just two weeks after his release from prison, where he had served two years for stabbing a man on a subway train. It was while in prison that he became radicalised. The head of the country’s prison and probation service had become so concerned about El-Hussein’s radicalisation that he informed Danish intelligence. It is currently unclear exactly who was involved in turning this gangster into a religious extremist.

In France the key players are well known. In 2005 Cherif Kouachi found himself in the infamous Fleury-Merogis prison, the largest in Europe with 150% over-crowding and a culture of violence, drugs and decay. There he met Djamel Beghal, who would become his chief inspiration and mentor, and Coulibaly, the third gunman in the Paris attacks.

Beghal was halfway through a 10-year sentence for his part in a plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris. In the late 1990s he had visited the Finsbury Park mosque in London to hear the radical preachings of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, and by the turn of the century was considered one of al-Qaeda’s chief recruiting agents in Europe after returning from training in Afghanistan. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, the head of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, “Beghal was in direct contact with the highest ranking members of al Qaeda at the time.”

Beghal was the defining influence on Kouachi and Coulibaly, and they both continued to visit him in the south of France after Beghal had been placed under house arrest there in 2009. Although Said Kouachi never went to prison, it is safe to assume that what his brother learned inside was passed on.

The key role that prisons play in radicalising young Muslims was little reported in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. We heard much about the gunmen’s marginalised background, their difficult childhoods, their upbringing among the estates and the decaying parks of the banlieues; but we heard little about how their deep-seated sense of injustice and dislocation was moulded into the motivation to kill. The attacks in Copenhagen have now put the role of prisons centre-stage. It is while serving in prison that many of these young Muslims are turned from angry young men into religious extremists carrying the motivation to kill in the name of Allah.

The Copenhagen attacks were not the same as Charlie Hebdo, but it is important to recognise that the killers’ murderous motivations were formed in the same place: in the cold corridors of prison.

Charlie de Rivaz is an MA student on the Conflict, Security and Development programme at King’s College, London. For three years he worked in Argentina and Colombia as an English teacher and journalist. His main interests include the political economy of war, international human rights law, conflict resolution, and state-failure and state-building. Charlie is currently the Managing Editor of the Strife blog.