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Militarization and Accountability on the United States-Mexico Border

By Carly Greenfield

28 December 2018

A U.S. Border Patrol agent stands near a section of the U.S.- Mexico border fence while on patrol in La Joya, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)

 

On 21 November, a jury in Arizona found Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz not guilty in the involuntary manslaughter of José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, a Mexican teenager shot and killed by Swartz in October of 2012. Swartz fired from the United States side of the border in Nogales, Arizona, into Nogales, Mexico, killing 16-year-old Elena Rodríguez. Elena Rodríguez is not the first teenager to be killed by U.S. law enforcement along the border; a similar situation occurred with another Mexican national, 15-year-old Sergio Hernández Guereca. When he was killed in 2010, however, his killing did not result in a lawsuit. Both cases raise questions surrounding authority in border zones.

While the majority of shootings along the border have been by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, the military has also been involved in a similar incident. The killing of 18-year-old U.S. citizen Esequiel Hernández by U.S. marines deployed to the border in 1997, which resulted in no indictments for the marines involved, remains a blight on military involvement along the border. As active-duty troops are set to be deployed through the new year, the decades old case continues to inform military engagement in the region. The Elena Rodríguez case is not isolated, and the lack of clarity over who is responsible to whom in a national and joint-authority international space like the U.S.-Mexico border, now with both law enforcement and military bodies present, should bring considerable disquietude.

The role of the military on the border

In the wake of President Trump’s deployment of over 5,000 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of October, many pundits and commentators started mulling over the legality of the order in reference to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act is a misunderstood and largely non-enforced doctrine that enshrines, in the minds of many Americans, the separation between military and law-enforcement roles within U.S. territory.[i] The act itself, however, has many exceptions, and a 1981 reform further restricted its application. For starters, the law initially only applied to the Army, as it was created as a means to remove the Army from its role in the post-Reconstruction South.[ii] A 1956 reform brought the Air Force into the act, and a 1992 Department of Defense regulation folded in the Navy and the Marine Corps.[iii] The Posse Comitatus Act still includes allowances for National Guard forces operating under state authority, the role of the Coast Guard in peace time (through which the Navy can play a support role without breaching the Posse Comitatus act) or the Presidential power to use troops pursuant to subduing domestic violence.[iv] All of this to say Posse Comitatus has so many holes, and so few court cases holding up its authority, that it has had little influence on the use of the military in the interior.

The reform in 1981, called the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, was in many ways a death knell for the Posse Comitatus Act as it relates to border security.[v] The 1981 act created space for the military to cooperate with law enforcement as it related to the growing ‘War on Drugs.’ This quickly ballooned into aiding enforcement or supplying intelligence as it relates to immigration and customs offenses.[vi]

However, the myth persists that this act keeps the military from taking part in law enforcement roles like border security management and enforcement. A New York Times piece ran last month concluded that ‘[t]he Posse Comitatus Act, a Reconstruction-era law, prevents active-duty troops from engaging in law enforcement activities within the United States.’ This is patently false — or else the 1997 killing of Esequiel Hernández by active-duty marines, sent to patrol the border as part of an anti-narcotics mission, would have raised further consequences past the shooting of an American. The U.S. military has the legal and historical precedent to support law enforcement missions on the U.S.-Mexico border. The larger query is whether or not these deployments are effective; due to the 1997 case, most troops are unarmed and aid in constructing barriers. The purpose of their current deployment on the border, then, remains in question, as they are instructed not to come into contact with migrants or patrol with Border Patrol agents. Journalists have noted that while troops were rapidly deployed prior to the midterm elections in ‘Operation Faithful Patriot,’ the name surreptitiously changed to the much less inflammatory ‘border support’ post-election, reinforcing critics claims of performed militarization and misuse of the military. The politically fraught nature of their presence contributes to a hyper-charged environment along the border, which adds to the misconception of a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. This ‘crisis’ perception makes violence, including fatalities, all the more likely, and easier to justify.

The U.S.-Mexico border as a non-combat zone

Active duty troops currently deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border are not receiving combat pay as they are not taking part in a combat mission. As mentioned, the rules of engagement for the deployed troops have resulted in most soldiers and marines not carrying weapons and instead taking part primarily in constructing additional security barriers. Yet the border continues to be militarized even without armed, active military missions. Of the nearly 20,000 border patrol agents employed in fiscal year 2017, more than 16,000 served on the southern border,[vii] compared to fewer than 5,000 agents in the entire agency in 1992.[viii]  Notwithstanding, CBP is a civilian law enforcement agency, meaning they are meant to be held to account in the U.S. civilian court system, which handles cases involving U.S. agents on U.S. land. This is complicated when dealing with the area between the U.S. and Mexican fences and the distance a bullet can travel — namely, across a border.

The ramifications of an agency accountable to the U.S. government shooting and killing non-nationals on non-U.S. territory, then, remain unclear. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case of Sergio Hernández Guereca, the Mexican 15-year-old killed on Mexican territory by a border patrol agent,  upholding the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the teenager’s parents did not have a right to pursue the case in U.S. courts.[ix] This contrasts with the decision made in the case of Elena Rodríguez, where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Elena Rodríguez’s mother did have the right to sue. The conflicting decisions create an uneven application of the law at the border, one that recognizes U.S. responsibility in some cases and not others.

Rights of non-Americans on non-American soil

In the oral arguments made in Hernández Guereca’s case before the Supreme Court in February 2017, the petitioners’ lawyer Robert Hilliard claimed that the case was meant to:

‘(…) address the ongoing problem along the southwest border that has resulted in at least ten cross-border shootings and six Mexican national deaths. And every time the Constitution, according to the government, turns off at the border, even though all the conduct happens in the United States.’[x]

The justices, however, were skeptical of extending Constitutional rights to someone shot and killed on non-U.S. soil as it would cloud understanding over who has access to Constitutional protections.[xi] The conversation reached into hypotheticals comparing the space between the U.S. and Mexico border fences to Guantanamo Bay, the piloting of a drone strike from U.S. soil, or whether the case would be distinct if a military officer had shot and killed Hernández Guereca. This reveals the military and foreign policy implications for border shooting decisions, even if CBP is officially a civilian law enforcement agency. Ultimately, with Hernández Guereca’s case dismissed, the uneven application of the law stands.

It should also be noted that the agent involved was charged in Mexico for Hernández Guereca’s death — yet the U.S. government refused to extradite him, even with extradition agreements in place between the U.S. and Mexico.[xii]

So if the Constitution does not apply beyond U.S. international borders, and the U.S. government refuses to extradite border patrol agents charged in Mexico for the shootings, then what options do victims’ families in Mexico have to access a fair day in court? In the current system, very few.

Law enforcement accountability

The implications for allowing a case against border patrol agents into U.S. courts reach past border enforcement and risk granting victims of U.S. military missions abroad access to Constitutional rights in lands far beyond U.S. control. Still, the militarization of the border does not aid in preventing such cases— there continue to be border deaths with little recourse for border patrol agents. Like in other parts of the United States, calls for law enforcement accountability are occurring along the border, too. But since the population in question is primarily non-American and border patrol agents oftentimes work in barren areas with few possible witnesses, change is slow. The route to justice continues to be hazy as appeals drag on and cases are unable to move forward in Mexico.

What develops on the border has significance beyond the border — for military missions, Constitutional rights, and U.S.-Mexico relations. The dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico border raise large questions around how militarization contributes to violence and a lack of accountability for border patrol agents. When President Trump and the government espouse unfounded levels of fear around border work, agents are more likely to respond to incidences lethally and then be protected from prosecution by their government. The current dynamics should remind Americans that the armed forces are not required to militarize a space, and that tragic situations ensue on the border even when media attention is not focused on it. With President Trump escalating the rhetoric and looking to recruit more border patrol agents, the shared U.S.-Mexico border will likely become deadlier and hold less consequence for those who patrol it.

Carly Greenfield is a Dual Degree masters candidate between Sciences Po and the London School of Economics, currently studying international security at Sciences Po. She completed her BA in International Relations at King’s College London and is a former BA Representative for Strife. Her research focuses on securitization, migration, and the conceptualization of borders, particularly in the Americas. You can follow her on Twitter @carlygreenpeel.

Notes:

[i] Lindsey P. Cohn, “Come What May,” Bombshell, Podcast Audio, 20 November 2018: https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/bombshell-come-what-may/.

[ii] Charles Doyle, “The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: The Use of the Military to Execute Civilian Law,” Congressional Research Service, (1 June 2000).

[iii] Eric V. Larson and John E. Peters, “Appendix D: Overview of the Posse Comitatus Act,” from Preparing the U.S. Army for Homeland Security, (2001): RAND Corporation.

[iv] Nathan Canestaro, “Homeland Defense: Another Nail in the Coffin for Posse Comitatus,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy Vol. 12, (January 2003).

[v] Paul Jackson Rice, “New Laws and Insights Encircle the Posse Comitatus Act,” Individual Study Project, U.S. Army War College, (26 May 1983).

[vi] Richter H. Moore, “Posse Comitatus revisited: The use of the military in civil law enforcement,” Journal of Criminal Justice Vol. 15, (1987).

[vii] United States Border Patrol “Border Patrol Agent Nationwide Staffing by Fiscal Year,” Customs and Border Protection, (2017).

[viii] Christine Stenglein, “Struggling to hang on to 20K officers, Border Patrol looks to hire 5K more,” Brookings Institution, (7 July 2017): https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/07/07/struggling-to-hang-on-to-20k-officers-border-patrol-looks-to-hire-5k-more/.

[ix] U.S. Supreme Court, “582 U. S. Hernandez v. Mesa,” Slip Opinion (2017).

[x] U.S. Supreme Court, “No.15-118 Hernandez v. Mesa,” Oral Arguments (2017).

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] “Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and the United Mexican States,” (25 January 1980).

Image source: http://www.powerhousebooks.com/books/undocumented-immigration-and-the-militarization-of-the-u-s-mexico-border/

Gaza, Israel, and Netanyahu’s Latest Coalition Crisis

By Lauren Mellinger

21 December 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to avoid an early election for fear that he might lose due to the public’s displeasure with his handling of the Gaza crisis. (Photo credit: David Shankbone)

 

This past tumultuous month in Israeli politics challenged two key assumptions about Israel’s long-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. First, despite speculation in recent months that the Netanyahu-era is drawing to a close, it is certainly not over yet. Perhaps of greater significance is the second element to emerge from last month’s political crisis: Israel’s ‘Mr. Security’ — who recently said that ‘[t]here is no diplomatic solution to Gaza’ and compared Hamas to ISIS — is not going to topple Hamas in Gaza.

How Gaza precipitated Israel’s latest domestic political crisis

In November Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Qatar agreed to provide $90 million in cash to Gaza over the next six months, along with an immediate infusion of fuel into the Strip. The initial $15 million instalment was paid out to Palestinian civil servants in the Gaza Strip on November 11 and served to further bolster Hamas amongst its Gaza-based supporters. The deal was controversial for several reasons: first, whereas Israel has periodically allowed Gulf States to transfer materials for civilian projects and fuel to Gaza, it typically rejects cash donations due to concerns that it would reach Hamas militants. Hamas’s Gaza-based leader Yahya Sinwar responded to the first cash delivery by publicly allying himself with Hamas’s military wing. It is also noteworthy that Israel approved the terms despite having long regarded Qatar as a ‘terror-supporting state.’ Lastly, the move was heavily debated within the security cabinet, but was not coordinated with the Palestinian Authority, suggesting that the Netanyahu government was seeking some form of long-term compromise with Hamas in Gaza, despite a long history of stating the opposite.

Then the political crisis began. Shortly after images of the first suitcases of Qatari cash entering Gaza went public, news broke of a botched IDF raid near Khan Younis, followed by a 48-hour barrage of rockets from Gaza — for which Hamas claimed responsibility. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned, and withdrew his party from the coalition — arguing that the ceasefire, together with the Qatar arrangement, was ‘capitulating to terror.’ Then, Education Minister and Jewish Home Party leader Naftali Bennett threatened to quit the coalition unless he were assigned the defence portfolio. Given the likelihood that Netanyahu would reject Bennett’s ultimatum, both right and left-wing parties began to call for new elections.

As Israel’s government teetered on the brink of collapse, Netanyahu once again shrewdly outmanoeuvred his political rivals. Speaking from the Defence Ministry — a portfolio which Netanyahu currently holds, as well as that of prime minister and foreign minister — he rejected calls for new elections stating, ‘We are in the middle of a military campaign, and you don’t abandon a campaign to play politics.’ In an embarrassing about-face the following morning Bennett announced he would remain in the coalition — reneging on his prior ultimatum.

Though Kulanu leader and current Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon signalled to his faction that they should prepare for early elections, he too has not yet resigned from the government. For now, Netanyahu’s coalition stands with a fragile 61-seat majority.

Why delay early elections?

Early elections are routine in Israel’s domestic politics. In the 70 years since the country’s founding not one government has completed a full term. The current prime minister himself has engineered conditions for snap elections on more than one occasion. While it appeared that early elections seemed inevitable following Lieberman’s resignation, Netanyahu acted swiftly, doing everything possible to delay them.

Growing dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s Gaza policies left him open to a challenge by both the right-wing parties within his coalition, and the public. This latest political crisis had Netanyahu challenged by junior coalition partners from his right, and specifically on matters of national security. Netanyahu has long proclaimed himself to be the best protector of Israel’s security. Indeed his campaign slogan in the 2015 elections translates to ‘Only the Likud — Only Netanyahu.’ New elections under such circumstances would have forced Netanyahu to face his ‘worst-case election scenario.’

Public opinion was also a critical factor in Netanyahu’s efforts to avoid early elections. Following the events last month, polls showed that 74 percent of Israelis were dissatisfied with Netanyahu’s performance in the Gaza crisis. Likud remained in the lead in most polls, albeit with a record-low 29 seats — a significant drop from August 2018, when Netanyahu told a Likud faction that he anticipated winning between 35 and 40 seats in the next elections. Furthermore, by holding onto the defence portfolio, at least for now, Netanyahu made himself vulnerable to criticism by becoming the main target for the public’s outrage. This was evident from demonstrations in southern towns bordering Gaza, as well as outside of the defence ministry in Tel Aviv following Lieberman’s resignation, where protestors shouted ‘Bibi go home!’ among other slogans expressing disapproval with the prime minister’s Gaza policies. 

Can Israel’s ‘Mr. Security’ win another term?

With Israel heading into a definite election year, all politicians are officially in campaign mode. It is highly unlikely that this government will continue until November 2019, when elections are scheduled to be held. For the moment, if everything is held constant, the Likud remains in the lead to net the most seats in the next election. As political consultant Mitchell Barak remarked, ‘[Netanyahu’s] got no competition. . . He’s running against himself.’ Yet, the polls referenced above did not take into account the prospect of a viable centre or centre-left bloc forming ahead of the elections. Nor did they account for the likelihood that former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz will announce a new party. Though Gantz’s party may not be able to surpass Likud in the next elections, it is expected to chip away at Likud’s lead.

Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether Netanyahu’s efforts to outmanoeuvre his rivals did more to damage them electorally, than him. Shortly after the crisis was resolved, a poll found that 58 percent of Israelis did not believe Netanyahu’s claims that the government should not be brought down at present due to a ‘sensitive security situation’ for which he provided no further explanation. This is compared with only 31 percent who felt his concerns for Israel’s national security were genuine.

In a region with countless hostile adversaries popping up like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, Netanyahu’s reputation as ‘Mr. Security’ is a high bar to uphold. The public’s disapproval of his latest Gaza policies however, should be understood in the broader context. Despite a history of brash public statements calling for a tough response to Hamas, and terrorism in general, and having criticised his predecessors in office on numerous occasions for their handling of Hamas and Gaza, his actions in office indicate that he is risk-averse — in particular when it comes to employing military force, and is reluctant to commit to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. His past public statements stand in marked contrast to his actions in recent weeks, including working towards a ceasefire and allowing an influx of Qatari cash. Thus it is hardly surprising that residents of Gaza-border communities — a core base of Likud voters — and several of his coalition partners spent much of the past few weeks accusing him of being ‘weak’ on Gaza.

Moreover, in recent weeks Netanyahu has struggled to restore the public’s faith in his reputation as ‘Mr. Security.’ A Tel Aviv University poll earlier this month found 76 percent of Jewish Israelis thought that Netanyahu failed when dealing with Hamas. The increase in terror attacks in the West Bank in recent weeks has renewed protests against Netanyahu — once again, from members of his base, challenging his recent decisions regarding Gaza. Despite the recently launched Operation Northern Shield’s initial successes in uncovering Hizballah-built tunnels under the Israel-Lebanon border, many have raised questions as to whether the timing of the operation was politically motivated, in light of the hit to his reputation Netanyahu has experienced in recent weeks, and with the prospect of indictments hanging over his head.

Though polls indicate that Netanyahu averted the prospect of early elections for now and has, for the moment, avoided a referendum on his handling of Gaza, the situation with Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank has yet to be stabilised. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent Netanyahu can proceed with the arrangements with Qatar, absent broader public support. It remains to be seen whether Israel’s ‘Mr. Security’ can prevail in the next elections, or whether Netanyahu has run out of political life lines.

Lauren Mellinger is a doctoral candidate in War Studies at King’s College London and a 2018-19 Israel Institute Doctoral Fellow. She is also a former senior editor of Strife’s blog and journal. Her research specializes in Israeli counterterrorism, foreign policy, and national security decision-making, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can follow her on Twitter @Lauren_M04.

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Netanyahu_campaign_posters_in_Jerusalem.jpg

Who’s Driving This Train? Intelligent Autonomy and Law

By Jessica ‘Zhanna’ Malekos Smith

19 December 2018 

 

In August 2018 the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UN GGE) held their second session on autonomous weapons systems in Geneva. The delegation examined a variety of subjects on human-machine interface, accountability, and intelligent autonomy.

This article first describes the concept of intelligent autonomy and then offers a rather pointed critique of one view expressed in the UN GGE Chair’s Report on the delegation’s discussion, an advanced copy of which is available here.

Intelligent Autonomy

Autonomy refers to the ability of a machine to function without a human operator.

The UN GGE’s report describes autonomy as a spectrum; it notes that there are variations based on machine performance and technical design characteristics like ‘self-learning’ and ‘self-evolution,’ which is essentially machine-based learning without human design input.

Bearing in mind that autonomous systems function differently from automatic systems, the U.S. Department of Defense’s report Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY 2011- 2036 describes automatic systems as largely self-steering: ‘follow[ing] an externally given path while compensating for small deviations caused by external disturbances.’

In contrast to these systems, according to DoD Directive 3000.09, an autonomous system ‘can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator. This includes human-supervised autonomous weapon systems that are designed to allow human operators to override operation of the weapon system[.]’

Although fully autonomous weapons (FAW) systems operate according to control algorithms set by system operators, they do not require human command to perform combat and support functions. Currently, these specialized systems are being developed by the US, China, the UK, Russia, Israel, and South Korea.  The Congressional Research Service’s report U.S. Ground Forces Robotics and Autonomous Systems provides specific examples of how other states have integrated armed robots into warfighting. Per the report, ‘South Korea has deployed a robot sentry gun to its border with North Korea. Israel has sent an armed robotic ground vehicle, the Guardium, on patrol near the Gaza Border. Russia is building an array of ground combat robots and has plans to build a robot tank.’

A Critique of the UN GGE Chair’s Summary Report

One point of friction in the summary report concerns the vitality of the relationship between law and autonomous weapons.

For instance, section three, paragraph B(27)(e) reads:

‘Autonomy in the military targeting and engagement cycle has to be studied further keeping in view that autonomy can exist throughout or during parts of the targeting cycle and could start to be applied increasingly in other contexts as close combat.’ (emphasis added)

However, section three, paragraph E(33) states: ‘As IHL [international humanitarian law] is fully applicable to potential lethal autonomous weapons systems a view was also expressed that no further legal measures were needed.’ (emphasis added)

Really? No additional inquiry is necessary to develop legal measures addressing autonomous weapons, but we must continue testing these systems in military targeting?

How can ‘no further legal measures be needed’ if the summary report is silent on how international law applies to:

• Situations where a non-state actor uses an autonomous weapon system to harm persons, or objects.

• How the international legal principle of state responsibility extends to this technology.

• How the international legal principle of reciprocity applies here.

• How the use of FAWs influences the way states should inform their decision on ‘when to resort to force.’

• And how a state’s inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter might be challenged if proper and timely attribution to the FAWs attack is encumbered.

This simultaneous call for continued research and development, and the implicit support for the stagnation of international law, is befuddling. This situation is much like a train conductor urging travelers on the station platform to hop aboard the train before it departs, while at the same time barring all entry on or off.

Case in Point: Reciprocity and FAWs

Focusing on the challenges with reciprocity, while the functioning of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict (IHL/LOAC) is largely dependent upon states agreeing to be held accountable for their actions, how will the legal concept of reciprocity translate as a control algorithm for FAWs?

Reciprocity is the legal and diplomatic concept that whatever rules and customs states agree to, each shall abide by the terms. In jus in bello, reciprocity encourages combatants to abide by the state-sponsored customs of war. For example, a predominant feature of IHL/LOAC recognizes the need to reduce the means and methods of warfighting that risk unnecessary suffering to combatants and civilians. Human Rights Watch argues that FAWs risk unnecessary suffering because they ‘lack the human qualities necessary to meet the rules of international humanitarian law.’

Responding to this concern, international legal scholar Michael Schmitt provides countervailing evidence about FAWs capabilities. ‘Modern sensors can, inter alia, assess the shape and size of objects, determine their speed, identify the type of propulsion being used, determine the material of which they are made, listen to the object and its environs, and intercept associated communications or other electronic emissions,’ he explains.

To this issue of target discrimination, however, The Verge reports that military commanders are leery of ‘surrendering control to weapons platforms partly because of a lack of confidence in machine reasoning, especially on the battlefield where variables could emerge that a machine and its designers haven’t previously encountered.’ With these compelling counter-viewpoints and burgeoning areas of law to yet explore, how can the position that ‘no further legal measures are needed’ be reasonably supported?

Attempts to interpret the delegation’s intent are further muddled when read alongside paragraph C(b):

‘Where feasible and appropriate, inter-disciplinary perspectives must be integrated in research and development, including through independent ethics reviews bearing in mind national security considerations and restrictions on commercial proprietary information.’

This passage signposts that there are international legal issues yet to be grasped. And yet, the ‘train conductor’ in paragraph E(33) takes the stance that ‘none shall pass.’

Pressing Ahead – Intelligent Law

Discussions at the 2019 UN GGE meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems must include, and cannot sacrifice, examining how IHL/LOAC applies to the above-mentioned areas, to develop granularity here. ‘Reason is the life of the law,’ as the 16th-century English jurist Sir Edward Coke observed, and indirectly encouraging a lethargy in legal analysis is neither a healthy nor reasonable approach to driving this train.

 

Editor’s note: This article was earlier published in Lawfire on 7 December 2018.

Jessica ‘Zhanna’ Malekos Smith, J.D., the Reuben Everett Cyber Scholar at Duke University Law School, served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Before that, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center’s Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a J.D. from the University of California, Davis; a B.A. from Wellesley College, where she was a Fellow of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs; and is finishing her M.A. with the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Image source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/8/17833160/pentagon-darpa-artificial-intelligence-ai-investment

A Man’s World: Masculinity in International Politics

By Eve Gleeson

7 December 2018

There is a gender gap in having your voice heard (and listened to) in international relations. (Image credit: Ellen Weinstein for Politico)

International politics is a man’s world. The practice of international relations, defined by constant efforts to identify and solve bilateral, multilateral, and global issues, has historically been guided by initiatives reflective of the experiences, interests, and characteristics of Western hegemonic masculinity.  

Besides the practice itself, membership and leadership ranging from research institutions like The Brookings Institute and news outlets such as The Economist to governance bodies like the African Union are evidence of unequal gender representation that permeates through the field. Perhaps less obvious is the masculine nature of the content and character of such organisations and their traditional approach to addressing issues spanning from political economy to security and conflict.    

States as a reflection of the patriarchy

There are parallels between key topics in the field of international relations and the facets of masculine culture, such as power, hegemony, conflict and weapons development, colonialism, and the global economy. A popular theory argued by scholars across the board is that states themselves are an expression of patriarchal power; ‘Leadership itself is monolithic, hierarchical and violent,’ argues John Hoffman.[1] The idea of concentrating power in the hands of one person, regardless of gender, so that this individual may execute dominance over the all other actors is itself a masculine concept based on hegemonic masculinity, a characteristic that glorifies the essence of ‘manhood’ as physical power, heterosexuality, elitism, and sexual dominance.[2]  

These ‘manly’ states have been built by men around the interests of men. This is evident especially in older states, whose political structures were built when women had limited rights as citizens. From the beginning of organised statehood, a state was constructed and then led by a ‘hegemon.’ According to realists like John Mearsheimer, a hegemon is a nation-state at the pinnacle of security from external threats and is idealised for its capacity to manipulate actors both within and beyond the level of the state (for example, the United States is thought of as the current hegemon, following Great Britain’s decline after the Second World War. Many scholars believe China will be next).[3] This hegemon dictates the successes or failures of its subordinates through diplomatic maneuvers coupled with overbearing military and economic power, as Alfred Mahan discusses in his history of naval warfare.[4] The idolisation of this kind of power reflects the masculinity of the international community, as each state desires to rise high enough to dictate the proceedings of every state functioning below itself.  

The gender of war 

War, violence, and the military are archetypically masculine. The notion of the ideal man is equated to the ideal soldier– someone whose belligerence and physical prowess defines manhood.[5] In his case study on the US Navy, Frank Barrett emphasises the conflation of masculine identity with ‘autonomy and risk taking’, ‘perseverance and endurance’, and ‘technical rationality’ among US Naval officers.[6] While service in the military is applauded as a demonstration of defending one’s country, long term non-violent peacebuilding efforts geared toward sustainable progress are not equally as praised as exhibitions of courage, valour, or patriotism. The value of these efforts to their nation is indisputable, though doing so as a force preserving and enforcing peace rather than quelling and inciting violence is at odds with the masculine conception of a state’s power.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, weapons themselves are gendered to reflect traditional features of femininity and masculinity. Catastrophic weapons like nuclear bombs and warheads have historically been related to masculine characteristics. Carol Cohn, a feminist international theory icon and scholar in conflict and security, details that missiles carrying a nuclear payload are often spoken of in reference to ‘deep penetration’, ‘thrust to weight ratios’, and ‘vertical erector launchers’. Sexualising a weapon with phallic imagery suggests this decisive power that a weapon possesses.[7] The conviction that military capacity is a harbinger of a state’s power signals the primacy of ‘maleness’ in the social order, while an abundance of research suggests a state’s economic stability to be contingent on other factors such as quality of education and gender equality.[8]  

Security itself is a male-dominated field that concerns topics from military occupation and conflict to trade and energy — all of which are masculinised concepts that have preserved the technical jargon which insulates the field from a more humanistic narrative. Carol Cohn argues that by presenting information in a logical format using coded language, such as complex terminology and acronyms, harsh material is ‘softened’. One of her examples was a term applied to a type of bomb whose destructive explosive power destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This particular type of weapon is referred to as a ‘clean bomb’, referring to its lack of lingering radiation effects. This terminology avoids the emotional fallout associated with admitting plans for ‘mass murder, mangled bodies, and unspeakable human suffering.’[9] The vernacular used by security and defense intellectuals shows the exclusive and inaccessible nature of the content. When the conversation is driven by euphemisms, it’s easy to downplay the gravity of military mobilisations and hard to recognize the dynamic and intersectional nature of conflict.  

Security as a women’s issue 

Additionally, a state’s quality of security has been linked with women’s security; as gender equality improves (e.g. through political representation or civil rights), the security of the state improves. This results from increased productivity in multiple economic sectors, elections that provide gender-diverse political representation, and the safety and security of more demographics.[10] The way women are affected by insecurity may not be addressed by typical ‘malestream’ approaches to security issues, as their insecurity results from their roles in society which often differ from roles traditionally taken by men, as the textile, education, and social work industries indicate. These industries are often overlooked and even disregarded in male-dominated international political discussion. This gendered hierarchy exacerbates insecurity for women, who, in most states, make up half a state’s population and whose safety is contingent upon conscious efforts by the state.  

The ingrained masculinity of this field can be distinguished through trends of colonialism and military occupation that have been plagued with the sexual exploitation of native women in colonised and occupied countries. Feminist international relations scholar Cynthia Enloe details this in her review of American troops in the Philippines in the 1980s and their troubling relationship with native women.[11] Colonialism, a consequence of a strong state’s entitlement to “invade” or “penetrate” an unsuspecting weaker state, channels norms of masculine sexual aggression through the idea that the protector or conqueror can rightfully exploit the feminine, or feminised, object.[12]  

Women in the economy

The market and economy also reflect male-dominated spaces. The economy is propelled by productivity in labour and employment, but scholars often fail to consider how the exclusion of women from the labour market and the fields of work where female workers are most often exploited. The textile industry, on which many multinational corporations rely, has been criticized for labour exploitation, as substantiated with incidents at Nestlé, Nike and Coca-Cola. Abuse runs rampant through Bangladesh’s garment industry, where women of all ages and socioeconomic classes are exploited.[13] Established theories of economics have disregarded how women’s limited political freedoms, labour rights, and access to education stifle economic growth, especially since the study of economics began far before women contributed to economic prosperity. The field is also discussed by professionals who use structured arguments of supply and demand, which are undoubtedly critical, though a qualitative understanding of global economics considering the foundations of the marketplace reveal how traditional gender roles, like women in informal economic positions such as child care professionals and domestic workers, impact the economy.[14]  

By excluding the female perspective on important issues like security, the concerns of which are experienced differently by women than men, thought-leaders perpetuate an approach to problem-solving that focuses on more established approaches to international challenges that idealize power, subjugation, aggression, conquest, autonomy, and hegemony. Diplomacy, a practice among states to negotiate contrasting national interests to reach common goals, can be complicated by this illustration of hegemonic masculinity. A political ‘strongman’ has come to describe authoritarian political leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin whose leadership style derives from resistance to external suggestions, hostility towards opponents, and rejection of institutional authority. This is a culture of a ‘my way or the highway’ type modern diplomacy, indicating a hesitation toward collaborative or intersectional approaches, and resistance toward making concessions for fear of emasculation. However, intersectionality and a diversity of contributions to problem­-solving can create solutions that are more dynamic, amenable, and responsive to unpredictable environments.   

From the outside looking in, female professionals in international politics recognise the necessity for diverse opinions on issues, as Michèle Flournoy emphasised in an interview with Susan B. Glasser — ‘the more diverse the group around the table making decisions, the better the performance of the organization and the better the quality of the decision-making.’ As victims of exclusion from a system that determines how to mediate global issues, women are in a special position to criticize how their approach to and involvement with international politics differs from the established ways, and how it could improve the efficiency of the system. In reality, global issues impact both men and women, and often in very different ways. The tendency for discussion on these issues to be led by men — in systems constructed by men, that are reflective of the characteristics of men — makes it so that these approaches often fail to consider women’s issues and instead idolise masculine solutions.    

Eve Gleeson is a master’s student in International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, as well as the Communications Manager of Strife. Her courses focus on security challenges in the evolving global context, including cyber threats, nuclear and biological programs, and security in new states. Eve holds a BA in International Studies with a focus on conflict and security from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. You can find her on LinkedIn and on Twitter @evegleeson_.

Notes:

[1]Hoffman, John. “Patriarchy, Sovereignty and Realism.” Gender and Sovereignty: Feminism, the State and International Relations, Palgrave, 2001, p. 9.  

[2] Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. “Hegemonic Masculinity.” Gender & Society, vol. 19, no. 6, 2005, pp. 829–859. SAGE, doi:10.1177/0891243205278639.  

[3] Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014

[4] Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783. Dodo Press, 2009

[5] Mishkind, Marc E., et al. “The Embodiment of Masculinity.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 29, no. 5, 1986, pp. 545–562., doi:10.1177/000276486029005004.  

[6] Barrett, Frank J. “The Organizational Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity: The Case of the US Navy.”Gender, Work & Organization, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1996, pp. 129–142., doi:10.1111/14680432.00011.  

[7] Cohn, Carol. “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 12, no. 4, 1987, pp. 687–718. JSTOR, doi:10.1086/494362.  

[8] Global Gender Gap Report 2015: The Case for Gender Equality.” World Economic Forum, 2016, reports.weforum.org/globalgendergapreport2015/thecaseforgenderequality/.  

[9] Cohn, “Sex and Death” p. 696  

[10] Hudson, Valerie M., et al. “The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States.” International Security, vol. 33, no. 3, 2008, pp. 7–45. MIT.  

[11] Enloe, Cynthia H. Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. University of California Press, 2014.  

[12]  Youngs, Gillian. “Feminist International Relations: a Contradiction in Terms? Or: Why Women and Gender Are Essential to Understanding the World We Live in *.” International Affairs, vol. 80, no. 1, 2004, pp. 76., doi:10.1111/j.14682346.2004.00367.x.  

[13] Ahmed, Fauzia Erfan. “The Rise of the Bangladesh Garment Industry: Globalization, Women Workers, and Voice.”NWSA Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2004, pp. 34–45., doi:10.1353/nwsa.2004.0042.  

[14] Hochschild, Arlie, and Barbara Ehrenreich. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Owl, 2004.  

Image source: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/women-rule-politics-graphic/

Mexico City: Surveillance Technologies in New Urban Battlespaces

By Luis Losada Simón-Ricart

4 December 2018

This image shows one of the 21,000 surveillance cameras installed throughout Mexico City in an attempt to combat crime. (Image credit: Luis Losada)

 

Over the past few years, Mexico has significantly increased the number of CCTV systems in its security forces in an attempt to combat crime. This has led to a complicated discussion on the relationship between security and liberty in security studies, and it raises the question of whether Mexico has surrendered too much liberty in the pursuit of security. Mexico is using surveillance technology to create an illusion of security, and this is a norm that is unlikely to change.

Surveillance technologies, including CCTV,  are all based on ‘anticipatory seeing’ or what Bottomley and Moore defined as ‘the military goal of being able to know the enemy even before the enemy is aware of himself as such’[1]. CCTV is considered part of a process of securitization where urban areas, benefited from the liberal economy, are protected from the potential threats represented by the surrounding crowds, the ‘othering’. This process may be less obvious but not less significant and take place dividing the city into secure or non-secure areas, what Nelson Arteaga called ‘security archipelagos’ or ‘islands of order’. [2] As a result, cameras often ‘displace criminal behaviour to neighbouring areas something (…) that at a broader societal level hardly counts as progressive development’.[3] This process was already seen in past centuries when ‘cities were built with the idea of cutting out islands of order from a sea of chaos’. [4]

In Mexico, 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas, a number that is expected to increase to 89 percent by 2050.[5]The gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas takes place in parallel with growing insecurity and violence. In the mid-1990s, a number of aforementioned factors created a time of political and social instability that led the country into a wave of insecurity, resulting in the implementation of new militarised approaches to reduce insecurity. Today, the country and Mexico City are  suffering from growing insecurity as the numbers revealed through the last years. In Mexico, murder statistics show 2017 to be the deadliest year on record, with a murder rate of 20.51 per 100,000 inhabitants — that is 70 homicides a day. In Mexico City, the murder rate increased to 12.31 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, which is the highest rate since 1997. [6]

Homicides in Mexico City from 1990 to October 2018 (Source: Mexico Crime Report)[7]
Homicides in Mexico from 1990 to October 2018 (Source: Mexico Crime Report).[8]
 

The strategy implemented in Mexico City since the mid-1990s until today aims at permeating the police forces with the military-related technologies and tactics. The strategy followed two procedures to address the increased crime. On the one hand, it targeted some sectors from areas of the city where crime rates were higher, establishing checkpoints and control points under the authority of police or military forces.[9] On the other hand, it involved a strategy of securitisation that aimed to establish ‘a logic of monitoring, classification and control of the population´s movements’ dividing the city into quadrantsand establishing a video surveillance program. [10] For Nelson Arteaga, the strategy led to categorisation of ‘the citizens into sources of targets and threats’[11], in a time where ‘only seven percent of crimes committed in the city were solved’.[12]

The strategy received important criticism from some sectors of the population that were affected due to the sometimes-tricky processes to identify ‘potential targets’ affecting the check points or car searches, especially from the inhabitants that considered themselves victims and not threats. Consequently, the CCTVs were introduced to continue with the same securitisation process but through information technologies that are less intrusive. The so-called Surveillance Turn of Mexico City took place under the Lopez Obrador Administration in 2001. For the new government, the deployment of police forces based on military strategies was not proving effective and new approaches were needed. The technological response was seen as the ideal method to allow and ease the detection of criminals. The proposal was based on the rehabilitation of Mexico City downtown, through the installation of surveillance cameras in areas mostly occupied by low-income people and rough sleepers at that time.[13]

Today, 21,000 cameras[14] are installed throughout the city with 15,310 monitoring the highways and streets and approximately 6,000 in the underground with an estimated cost of US$4,000 per camera.[15] Further, during 2018, Mexico City authorities signed agreements with five shopping centres and the American retail company Walmart to connect their surveillance systems to C5, focal control center, and add one thousand new cameras.[16]

Official map showing in blue and red the current location of 21,000 cameras (Source: CDMX Report, 2013).

 

In order to increase the effectiveness of surveillance cameras, a deep reform took place within the police forces’ procedures aiming to improve the police response to different emergencies. The most significant reform was the division of the city into quadrants. The city is divided into 847 quadrants of 1.2 km, each under the authority of one police officer and a patrol.[17] The quadrants are selected based on route access, criminal incidence, population density and orography.[18] According to Victor Hugo Ramos Ortiz, Former Chief of Staff of Mexico City Police, ‘ their priority is to be present in less than three minutes in any reported emergency with more than one patrol’.[19] For the 15,310 cameras installed in the main highways and streets, there are 1,200 police officers’ monitoring 24/7, meaning that each police officer is responsible for monitoring approximately forty cameras.[20] Despite the number of cameras in Mexico City, they are still passive technologies that do not create alerts or patterns automatically.

Surveillance is here to stay having become a popular norm. The widespread use of CCTV is based on the role of cameras in promoting deterrence and detection; however, there is not conclusive evidence that this is effective, apart from the limited domain of car parks[21]. Further, we are part of a society ‘that constantly reminded us to feel afraid, to look fearfully around and take precaution’.[22] Our societies are raised in fear, and Bauman reminds us that ‘fear breeds fear’.[23] Since the end of the Cold War and following 9/11, our obsession with feeling ‘secure’ has grown in size and scope. Mexico City represents an example of how CCTV has permeated the security strategies implemented in urban areas as a technological solution with the intention of being perceived, creating an illusion of security. It must be remembered that there is no single or straightforward process to end criminality, and the only viable solution must be based on a holistic approach where the structural elements behind the growing insecurity and violence are taken into consideration.

Luis Losada is currently working at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Costa Rica and previously completed an MA in International Conflict Studies at King´s College London and a BA in Law and Political Science at Complutense University, Spain. You can follow him on Twitter @Luis_losada_.

Notes:

[1] Stephen Graham, “Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism”, Verso, London and New York, 2011, 66.

[2] Stephen Graham, “Cities Under Siege …”, 149.

[3] Kirstie Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty and David Lyon., “Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies”, Routledge, London and New York, 2014, 241.

[4] Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon, “Liquid surveillance: A conversation”, Policy Press (2012), 103.

[5] UN DESA, Country Profile: Mexico, Percentage of population in rural and urban areas”, World Urbanization Prospects 2018, Population Division. Available at https://population.un.org/wup/Country-Profiles/ (Accessed by 26/11/2018).

[6] Observatorio de la Ciudad de Mexico, Reporte Anual 2017: Incidencia de los delitos de alto impacto en México, 2017. Available at http://onc.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Reporte-Incidencia-delictiva-CDMX-2t2018.pdf (Accessed by 29/08/2018).

[7] Mexico Crime Report, Homicides Rate since 1990. Available at https://elcri.men/en/ (Accessed by 26/11/2018).

[8] Idem.

[9] Nelson Arteaga Botello, “Urban Securitization in Mexico City: A New Public Order”, Policing Cities, Urban Securitization and Regulation, Taylor and Francis Group, 231-245 (2013), 241.

[10] Ibid. 242.

[11] Ibid. 231.

[12] Nelson Arteaga Botello, “Urban Securitization in Mexico City”, (2013), 235.

[13] Ibid, 236.

[14] Some of the cameras in the streets are equipped with emergency buttons (10,074) and voice alarms speakers (12,364) [14] that in theory connects directly to a local police officer and aimed to ease the process of crime reporting.

[15] EL UNIVERSAL, “Más de 35 mdd, costo de cámaras de video vigilancia”, El Universal (2013). Available at http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/930851.html (Accessed by 29/07/2018) and Lucia Jasso- Personal Interview, Mexico City (22/05/2018).

[16]MILENIO, “Conectan al C5 Cámaras de cinco plazas en la CDMX”, GRUPO MILENIO 2018. Available at http://www.milenio.com/estados/conectan-al-c5-camaras-de-cinco-plazas-mas-en-la-cdmx (Accessed by 29/07/2018)

[17] Víctor Hugo Ramos Ortiz- Personal Interview, Mexico City (25/05/2018).

[18] Idem.

[19] Idem.

[20] Idem.

[21] Víctor Hugo Ramos Ortiz- Personal Interview, Mexico City (25/05/2018).

[22] Zygmunt Bauman and David Lyon, “Liquid surveillance”, (2012), 105.

[23] Idem.