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Normative Approaches versus Inclusive Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

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by Catharine Helmers

(Image credit: Casey Johnson)

Local ownership as a tenet of external intervention and peacebuilding has been a key point of debate for many years now, although its meaning and implications have long been contested. While many within the international community use the term as though it was universally understood, ‘local ownership remains remarkably understudied and, to date, understandings of ownership have been based primarily on assumptions and normative beliefs held broadly in both the policy and academic communities,’ as von Billerbeck notes.

The term must be conceptually flexible, adaptable to the situational and cultural context in which it is being applied, but can be understood broadly as mechanisms and systems by which some level of decision-making power and influence over ‘both the design and implementation’ of the peacebuilding process resides with domestic actors. In order for local legitimacy to exist, the primary audience and judgement-maker for legitimacy must be the local/target population. This article will establish and problematize the prevailing approach to local ownership in peacebuilding, examining the failures and ramifications of the peacebuilding process in Afghanistan in order to point to an alternative approach.

The prevailing approach to constructing local ownership in peacebuilding has been a normative one, noted by Zaum and von Billerbeck, often excluding local actors who may be representative of communities on the ground or have local authority but do not fit the Western image of a legitimate peacebuilder. By excluding illiberal actors from having a seat at the table, the international community severely limits who can take part in peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Although this normative approach is morally understandable, it undermines an intervention’s practical ability to build peace by denying local ownership in the process to key actors, thus reducing local legitimacy. As lessons from Afghanistan show, it is dangerous to exclude ‘bad actors’ from the peacebuilding process.

Case Study: Afghanistan

In 2001, after removing the Taliban from power in Kabul, the US-led coalition faced a new challenge: to rebuild the Afghan state. When it was decided what actors would be involved in these peacebuilding efforts as part of the Bonn Agreement, the Taliban was excluded, as it was not viewed by the international community (the UN and US in particular) as a legitimate actor deserving of ownership in the peace process in wake of its decisive military defeat.

Because of this, as Jonathan Goodhand and Mark Sedra discuss, the Bonn agreement ‘was a not a peace accord between belligerents, but an externally driven division of the spoils among a hand­picked group of stakeholders who were on the right side of the War on Terror.’ As illustrated by a study conducted by The Inclusive Peace & Transition Initiative, not only was the Taliban excluded from the peacebuilding process, but the very actors selected were chosen because of their opposition to the Taliban.

The reality, for better or worse, is that the Taliban, although fractured after the collapse of its regime, was still a crucial actor in the power dynamics of Afghanistan at the time of Bonn and thus should not have been ignored due to its apparent incompatibility with liberal values. Timor Sharan summarizes the failure of Bonn, which ‘did not necessarily reflect the general Afghan demographic balance, or even the political power of the factions, but the internationally sponsored military successes of the [Northern Alliance]’.

By excluding the Taliban, the interveners not only reduced the effectiveness of their reconstruction efforts, but also the legitimacy of the new governing system. To many Afghans, the normative justification given for excluding the Taliban must have seemed hypocritical, as other illiberal actors were included in the process, such as ‘Mujahedeen factions…many of whom were suspected to be guilty of human rights abuses and war crimes.’ Normative determinations of the legitimacy of local actors were not based on the values they were claimed to be, and were therefore not just ineffective and unrealistic, but contradictory.

What were the impacts of this approach to local ownership in peacebuilding? During the next nineteen years of war after Bonn, external interveners continued to lose legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan population as they focused on self-legitimizing their peacebuilding efforts instead of seeking local legitimacy, a problem extending to the UN as well. A 2009 poll showed that Afghan support for and confidence in the US-led intervention continued to decline as the intervention went on, and the Taliban continued to vie for territorial control year after year, threatening peace and security. The failure to understand the local context and to recognize the power dynamics on the ground lead to the overall failure of the peacebuilding intervention.

Today, the Taliban has gotten its day at the negotiating table, with arguably more bargaining power than ever. Even as peace talks continue, the Taliban continues to engage in ever-increasing levels of violence. Although the U.S. military stopped measuring the number of districts under insurgent control as of 2019, it has been estimated that the Afghan government now controls less than 50 percent of Afghan districts, with the rest either under Taliban control or contested. The future of Afghan peace remains uncertain, but what is clear that the Taliban will have a major role in shaping the post-war landscape. Perhaps if they had been included in the peacebuilding process from the start, the situation in Afghanistan would be a different one. In excluding the Taliban on normative grounds, the intervention undermined its own chances to create sustainable peace and security.

So how should external interveners decide what actors to bring to the table to construct real local ownership? The answer must lie in analyses of local power structures and systems of representation instead of in the norms and values of the outside intervening forces. External interveners must depart from the prevailing norms-based approach to constructing local ownership, instead of working within the existing ground-level dynamics of power and representation.

In a post-conflict context, this will often, if not always, mean the inclusion of illiberal actors. Although this approach may delay the pace of peacebuilding, a slower and more complicated peacebuilding process that includes tangible forms of local ownership is better than an externally imposed, norms-focused process that is unlikely to be viable in the long run. If future interventions are to have any hope of success, local ownership in peacebuilding must be constructed by prioritizing the inclusion of locally legitimate actors, regardless of the normative determinations of the external interveners.

Catharine Helmers recently completed her master’s thesis for the M.A. in International Conflict Studies programme at King’s College London, where she examined the role of emotional conditioning in facilitating atrocities by sub-Saharan African rebel groups. She currently serves as Coordinating Assistant for the Urban Violence Research Network. You can find Catharine on Twitter @cat_helmers

Book Review: ‘Breaking Hate’

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by Isabela Betoret Garcia

 

Christian Picciolini. Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism. Hachette Books, London, 2020. ISBN 978-0316522939. Pp. 272. Hardcover, £22.85.

Stories about the alt-right rarely have happy endings. Many associate the movement with white supremacists, those men and women who have left a path of violence and death in their wake. Connotations of ‘white supremacy’ tend to include men marching in a university campus in well-tailored trousers and neat haircuts chanting propaganda, such as the ones that marched in Charlottesville; or perhaps the young men who perpetrated unspeakable acts of violence in houses of worship, like Dylann Roof did in Charleston when he massacred nine people or the Christchurch Mosque Shooting where 51 were murdered. The image conjured up is that of hate, a hate that is so unforgiving to those in its path that it does not invite any kind of compassion. Yet, that is exactly what author and activist Christian Picciolini asks of us in his latest book: Breaking Hate.

Picciolini was born to Italian immigrants, in Illinois; by the age of 14 he had joined one of the most violent racist groups in the United States, the Chicago Area Skinheads. By 16 he had become the leader of the group, as well as formed a white supremacist punk band, W.A.Y (White American Youth). Even though he left the movement at 22, he had spent eight years helping it grow. Such a drastic U-turn came, he claims, from interactions he had with the people he had been conditioned to hate – black, Jewish, and homosexual people – and finding some common ground which left him unable to justify his hate. After leaving his former violent life, having spent some years in a dark space of apathy and depression by his own admission, he began to do what became his life’s calling: telling his story. His first book, White American Youth: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement— and How I Got Out, focused on his life. Picciolini seemed to understand that for people to truly believe that his theory of de-radicalisation could work, they had to understand how he had come to believe in them himself.

Breaking-Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism serves both as a culmination and as a new chapter. A culmination in that it is not only a collection of stories of men and women Christian has helped de-radicalise; it also allows Christian to share the steps of extremist disengagement he has come to believe. With each new chapter, however, it becomes clear to the reader that there is much work to be done, and that extremism really is an embedded cultural problem.

Christian’s proposal is clear: No one is born into hate, and violent ideologies are not what lead people down the road of extremism. When someone encounters what he calls ‘potholes’ in life, they will be in danger of never fulfilling their sense of identity, community, and purpose (ICP). De-Radicalisation is a contested concept with no single accepted process, and many doubt the effectiveness of it. In the field of de-radicalisation many scholars such as Daniel Koeher have pointed to ideology as a key aspect in the road to radicalisation. Picciolini’s theory differs significantly. It is when they trip on their search of ICP that extremism may find them, but ideology itself is the last step. Only by listening to their stories and identifying these potholes, presumably extraordinary patience and compassion, one can extend a hand to bring them back to a normal life. The process he uses includes 7 steps: Link, Listen, Learn, Leverage, Lift, Love, Live. These steps are meant to form a link with the subject, understand how their path in life brought them to radicalisation, help them make amends, and eventually life free. Though his argument is fascinating and compelling, Picciolini does not spend much time discussing alternative theories of de-radicalisation that have an ideological basis, which would lend more credibility to his argument.

“The answer is love”: the message could not be more clear (Image credit: Christian Picciolini)

The structure of the book relies on the reader connecting with the stories told within. From veterans and men recruited in prison, to a former ISIS fighter, to a seventeen year-old girl caught in a scam that seemed to lead all the way to the 2016 Presidential election— the stories Christian relates are raw and tender. They are simultaneously full of sorrow, anger, and hope. Yet there are underlining reminders that even if disengagement is successful, the subjects of the book may be atoning for their actions for the rest of their lives.

The message of the book is, for the most part, effectively conveyed and persuasive. Because most of the subjects Christian examines in the book were part of the Alt-Right we might ask if ideology truly does not matter as much as other experts say in the de-radicalisation process, and the book would benefit from exploring other theories for Picciolini to more effectively defend his own. The book’s persuasiveness does rely on the author himself, and on the anecdotal evidence he provides of the cases present in the text, which could be more effective if paired with quantifiable evidence of the success of his methods. Upon closing the book, however, a reader will likely reconsider any previously held notions on the psychology of radicalisation which rely on ideology and be willing to consider compassion, and in this point the book is undeniably successful.

Picciolini admits to sometimes almost losing patience, hope, and control when trying to help extremists disengage. But here is where he comes to the most important lesson of all: see the child, not the monster. This is not meant to excuse the actions of extremists because of the abuse they may have suffered, the severe lack of ICP that delivered them into the arms of hate. But rather to remember that basic premise, that no one is born into hate; and if they find their way into it, they can find their way out.

Isabela first completed a Foundation Programme in International Relations and is now a third-year War Studies and History BA. She also works as an International Relations and Politics Tutor for King’s Foundations. She is Mexican-Spanish and lived most of her life in Mexico until she moved to London, and this background has given her a keen interest in migration. She is also interested in how the every-day has become politicised through media, and what this means for the future of journalism and politics. You can follow her on Twitter @isa_betoret.

Call for Papers – KSLR-Strife Joint Edition

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The King’s Student Law Review and Strife are pleased to announce the publication of the third joint, special edition of our journal under the overarching theme of ‘Law and War’.

Submissions must be relevant to the subjects that relate to the intersection between ‘Law and War’. This overarching theme encompasses a vast range of topics such as challenging the effectiveness of ‘Jus in bello‘ (international humanitarian law) in light of the ‘war on terror’, ‘rogue states’, the historical origins of the laws of conventional warfare, or on broader themes such as the legal practice in international human rights, translation of legal norms within war and martial and strategic law. In particular, the editors would be interested in contributions addressing the implications for law and war of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit, protest movements, space exploration, and big data and AI. For examples of accepted works please see our second joint edition here.

All articles must be between 4,000 and 6,000 words in length. Articles must comply with extension OSCOLA Guidelines (4th edition). Please click here for a conclusive guide. Guidance can be provided to authors unfamiliar with OSCOLA referencing requirements.

If you are interested in submitting an article for this exciting joint publication, please send the full text, as well as the required information (outlined below) to the following email address: kslr.strife.jointedition@gmail.com

 

Required Information

  • Title of the article, set in bold, ranged left and unjustified.
  • Name of the author or authors directly below the title, followed by institution affiliation, if applicable.
  • Five or six keywords.
  • Abstract of around 350 words
  • Article of between 4,000 and 6,000 words

We will be accepting submissions until Monday 3rd August 2020 at 6pm (BST). We look forward to receiving your submissions.

 

The King’s Student Law Review and Strife

For any general enquiries, please contact: kslr.strife.jointedition@gmail.com

If you have any enquiries that are law-related or relate to KSLR’s work in this project or more generally, please contact: kclstudentlawreview@gmail.com.

If you have any enquiries related to the topic of conflict more broadly or that relate to Strife’s collaboration in this project, please contact: journal.strife@gmail.com

The Killing of Soleimani and its Implications for European Security

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by William Newland

Major General Qassem Soleimani was targeted and killing by a US drone strike on 3 January 2020 (Image credit: AP)

One will recall the airstrike launched by the United States military that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020. Initially, the response around the world was one of shock but this sentiment quickly shifted to fear as critics warned that the attack could trigger all-out war with Iran. In a press conference the next day, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the European response, stating that ‘what the American did, saved lives in Europe’ and Soleimani’s death ‘was a good thing for the entire world.’ While this assessment might prove to be correct for the immediate security of a small number of American and European troops, this piece argues that the security of European states has effectively decreased in the short- and long-term. Now, with a few months between us and the incident, it is time to take another look.

In the short-term, European security decreased for primarily two reasons. Firstly, Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes have already threatened the security of European and U.S. soldiers in military bases across the Middle East. It was sheer luck that only Iraqi soldiers were killed, preventing further escalation by the U.S. However, it is likely that Iran and its regional Shi’ite allies will continue to use their political influence to remove U.S. and allied presence from the region. In fact, only a few days after the attack, the Iraqi parliament chose to expel U.S. forces from Iraqi territory in a symbolic vote.

Secondly, Soleimani, in his role as commander of the Quds Force – subsidiary of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – was seen as an adversary by the West because of his role in training Hezbollah in Lebanon and using Shi’ite forces to attack U.S. soldiers during the Iraq War. Soleimani’s position also meant that he had a close relationship with Shi’ite militia groups such as the Popular Mobilisation Force, so much so that he became known to them as a ‘living martyr.’ Iran’s proxy forces have been among the loudest in calling for strong retaliation against the U.S. and its allies. Despite Iran’s close ties with these groups, the state’s lack of complete control over their actions creates the potential for a more dangerous, disproportionate, and prolonged response against allied forces in countries like Iraq.

European leaders have taken both these threats very seriously. Germany ordered the removal of thirty-five service members from Iraq, whilst other NATO member states have moved 500 of their personnel to safer areas in and around Iraq. Although these moves are certainly important for the immediate safety of European troops, they could enable the resurgence of the Islamic State which, in turn, would likely re-spark concerns of significant plans for terror attacks in Europe. If such fears bear fruit, then the consequences of the Trump Administration’s actions would have significantly contributed to European insecurity.

In the longer term, however, two other factors could further decrease the security of European states. The first is that of international law and norms which the US has prided itself on creating and upholding for over seventy years. Yet, for the international order to be effective and adhered to by others, it needs to be ‘visibly observed’ by its ‘principle and most powerful’ advocate. Here, the Trump administration has struggled to prove that the killing of Soleimani was a response to an “imminent” threat to US personnel, raising serious concerns as to whether it complied with international law. The fact that this killing was carried out by the US and that its legality is ambiguous casts doubts over the legitimacy of those laws and norms that undergird the liberal international order. Furthermore, the airstrike endangers European security because by targeting a high-ranking military official, the US has potentially set a new precedent that allows enemy states to engage in similar activity free from normative constraints. Simply put, adversaries now have an argument for targeting Western officials. We need only look at Russia’s justification for its invasion of Georgia in 2008 to show that states will point to US precedents to support their own actions. If the rules protecting states officials have changed, then the security of European officials has diminished.

The second point is that the Iranians have, in all but name, abandoned their compliance with the nuclear restrictions imposed by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran has stated that it will no longer adhere to the limits on the number of centrifuges it can install to enrich uranium or the level to which it enriches that heavy metal. This essentially brings Europe and the rest of the world back to the same place that they were ten years ago. Iran can now produce weapons-grade nuclear material and rather than the one-year warning period guaranteed by the JCPOA, the US, Europe, and the rest of the world could have as little as a few months warning of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

The very fact that Iran can once again produce its own nuclear weapons means that European guarantees of security have decreased, but that in itself is not the biggest worry. The greatest source of European insecurity would be caused by a US-Iran war. Despite the fact that both states have indicated a desire for de-escalation, tensions preceding the Soleimani’s death remain high and will only be compounded by the US becoming warier of Iranian nuclear proliferation going forward. Increased tension can increase the chance of the potential flashpoints in Syria, the Golan Heights, Iraq, or Yemen. Each of these separate boiling points can potentially trigger a larger military conflict that could see European citizens fighting alongside the US.

In conclusion, Secretary Pompeo may have been correct in his assertation that a small number of European lives were saved by the killing of Major General Soleimani. However, in the short term, there is an increased threat to NATO troops from proxy forces and an increased chance of a resurgent ISIS that could target European citizens. In the long-term, the US’s actions negatively impact the legitimacy of the international norms and set a dangerous precedent for states such as Russia whilst also increasing the chances of Iranian nuclear proliferation and the potential for a US-Iranian conflict in the future.

William Newland is a Master’s student in National Security Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on grand strategy, national security, and great power competition, particularly on China’s rise, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and the potential security implications for the United States, Europe, and NATO.

Book Review: ‘Dying to Serve’

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by Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu

Maria Rashid, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2020. ISBN 978-1-5036-1198-6 Pp. 267. Paperback. £19.41

Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice ...

Are military deaths in an armed conflict avoidable and prodigal or are they a necessary and sacred sacrifice required for the protection of the state and society? Maria Rashid’s new noteworthy book, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army, carries this sensitive and difficult debate forward through a study of the Pakistan military’s relationship with its soldiers and citizens. The Pakistan military’s use of religion and the idea of ‘shahadat’ (martyrdom) as a motivator for training, fighting, and dying for the nation are well established (p. 33). This book is a comparative study of narratives provided by the Pakistani state and military on the one hand and the subject soldier and his family on the other.

Pakistan is one of those states that thrive on a strong military spirit. This militarism establishes war as normal and necessary and, in turn, demands sacrifices from its subjects. Dying to Serve is an attempt to understand the mechanisms through which such sacrifices are made sacred by the military narratives of heroism, and meaningful, glorious, and honourable deaths. This mechanism, in turn, extracts legitimacy and unquestioned support from the citizenry. The book explores this phenomenon through the dead soldiers, considered as heroes, mourned for long periods by communities, and taken as social examples. The author also briefly examines the same through retired and disabled soldiers.

In Rashid’s own words, ‘the book examines the role of affect­—such as grief and its accompanying notions of death, dying and sacrifice as well as feelings of attachment, pride, and fear—in maintaining the military’s hegemony in Pakistan’ (p. 9). The study is based on fieldwork conducted in five villages in the Chakwal district of Punjab over a period of thirteen months where the author interviewed more than one hundred people.

The author begins the book by examining the Youm-e-Shuhada (Martyrs’ Memorial) and Youm-e-Difah (Defence Day) ceremonies, described as ‘spectacles of mourning’ (p. 23) that define the narrative and valorise military service. The story proceeds by comparing the narrative of Chakwal as the ‘land of the valiant’, a name the district has earned through its martial tradition since colonial times, versus its location in the Salt Range of Northern Punjab that lends it to an economic dependency on the armed forces for providing the main source of employment. The district is located between the valleys of Indus and Jhelum Rivers and its terrain is partly covered with scrub forest, featuring plains interrupted by dry rock. Approx. 96 per cent of agricultural demand for water is met by rainwater, which naturally leads to ‘gurbat’ (poverty) and ‘bhukh’ (hunger) amongst the inhabitants. It is from this economic deprivation that the author questions the authenticity of the ‘martial tradition’ narrative.

The author begins with the process of military training, where the bonds of kinship are broken to develop affective relationships with fellow soldiers, who signify their new family, and group leaders who stand in for father figures (p. 97). The affection thus sculpted by love and loyalty for the regiment and determination to uphold its honour prepares them to kill or die in combat. It highlights the depersonalisation that soldiers experience along with a sense of emotional distancing, a silencing from others who can no longer understand or relate to what soldiering is about (p. 106). The story also highlights how the military commands the right to ask you to die or kill in its name as a response of love, loyalty, and attachment of familial connections reimagined according to the concerns of the state (p. 207).

Rashid talks of the families of the dead soldiers gripped with grief, guilt, and regret who, yet, have to put on the mask of a social reality scripted with the themes of ‘pride in the act of sacrifice for the motherland and a belief in eternal life’ in order to make sense of the death of their loved ones. They must also accept the money and benefits offered because, after all, it was for material needs that the tribute to the nation was risked in the first place (p. 138). It explores the mechanisms through which a violent and preventable death is transformed into a necessary, honourable, and meaningful sacrifice (p. 149).

One chapter, in particular, brings out the hollowness of this narrative. Describing the disabled soldiers as ‘the bodies left behind’, Rashid argues that although in reality the maiming is socially induced as a result of modern war and armed conflict, it is managed by the military within some perfunctory and feeble attempts at promoting narratives of empowerment, pride in resilience, and sacrifice for the nation (p. 169). The author argues that the military’s ability to depict service and sacrifice as noble and draw foot soldiers from society will be sustained as long as ‘war’ is imagined to be glorious, and the dead to be heroes; whereas in reality, it is merely a viable source of ‘pakki naukri’ (permanent employment) (p. 217).

The author has articulated militarism and its effect accurately in the context of the Pakistan Army. It is a must-read for all, especially those who once believed in the narrative of militarism and the sanctity of military deaths but were confused when the layers of this social construct began to peel off. While Rashid provides a new humbling and soothing perspective on this issue, the one place the book falls short is in providing definitive answers or an equally acceptable alternative belief system.

Despite being a case study on the Pakistan Army, which has played a dominant role in state formation over the years, the arguments made here are applicable to the phenomenon of militarism across the globe. Hardly any society collectively calls its military deaths avoidable or unnecessary.

When viewed through Charles Tilly’s famous cyclic aphorism ‘war made state, and the state made war’ the comparison of narratives highlighted in the book holds firm within the context of ‘state makes war’. However, as this axiom shows that war is inevitable and ultimately perpetuated through the imperfection of human thoughts, whether the same arguments still hold when the ‘war makes state’ and the state merely takes advantages or is victim of its inevitability, remains debatable.

Kamaldeep Singh Sandhu is a PhD Candidate in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. His research interests include South Asian security, military culture, and defence diplomacy. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Pune, Army War College, Mhow and The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he has served as an Officer with the Indian army’s Parachute Regiment for ten years and currently serves as an Officer in the Reserve Army, UK. You can find him on Twitter at kamal_sandhu78.