Politics

Strife Feature – Political leaders with military backgrounds: a comparison of India and the US

June 25, 2018 by Strife Staff

by Saawani Raje

George Washington at the Battle of Monmouth

The US and India are similar nations in many respects. They have both had fairly stable trajectories of progress in the course of their democratic histories. Covering large areas of geographical territory, they are both nationalistic territorial nations with a colonial past. Significantly, they both have a history of successful civilian rule uninterrupted by military coups or takeovers. However, they appear to differ in one important aspect— in America, civilian leaders having military experience is common and politically advantageous. Multiple Presidents were serving Generals prior to ascending to the Presidency. In India by contrast, it is rare for political leaders at any level to have come from a military background.

This difference is interesting because it speaks to the civil-military ‘problematique’, which has been a central concern of civil-military relations theorists for the past several decades. This problematique is the challenge of reconciling a military strong enough to do anything civilians ask them to, with a military subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorise them to do.^[1] A key question in this civil-military debate is the role of the military in the polity of a nation, especially in its decision-making process. A brief survey of military involvement in political decision-making in two of the world’s biggest democracies— India and the US — brings forth an interesting distinction. The difference in American and Indian attitudes towards military participation in politics, I argue, stems from the role conflict has played in the creation of both these nations.

Military involvement in the United States

In a TIME article of April 2016, Mark Thompson discusses why Americans wanted a military general in the White House. Looking back at American history, the trend of military leaders eventually becoming civilian leaders is fairly typical. George Washington was the first general who went on to serve as the President of the United States, and twelve Generals have won American Presidential elections since. Significantly, only twelve out of the forty-three American presidents have never served in the military. In the 2017-2018 Congress, 102 members (18.8% of the leadership) had served or were serving in the military.

A 2017 Gallup poll shows that American society’s confidence in the military remains high, at 72%. Additionally, public endorsement of presidential candidates by retired Generals and military officers has become a mainstay of the presidential race. In the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, twelve retired generals and admirals endorsed Kerry, himself a military veteran. Kerry’s Vietnam war record became a matter of controversy, and General Merrill McPeak eventually appeared in television advertisements defending Kerry and his service in Vietnam. On the other side, retired General Tommy Franks who had the distinguished military record of being the architect of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, endorsed George Bush and went on to speak in support of his candidacy at the Republican National Convention. In 2008, Colin Powell , a retired four-star general and the National Security Advisor under George Bush (2001-2005) famously crossed party lines to endorse Obama on national television. Political endorsements from military leaders reached a fever pitch during the Clinton-Trump race. In September 2016, Clinton touted 100 endorsements from former military leaders after Trump displayed 88 retired military figures who backed his campaign. The involvement of military officials in American politics, whether as leaders or leader-makers continues unabated.

Civil-military gap in India

The situation in India could not be more dissimilar. The civil-military dissonance is so pronounced that there seems to be no evidence of polls, policy briefs or literature that even engage with the notion of a civilian leader with military experience taking office. This lack of any evidence points to how deeply entrenched the civil-military separation is in the minds of the Indian populace and political and military elites alike. Since 1947 (when India became independent), there has not been a single Prime Minister with military experience. Defence analyst Nitin Gokhale opines that the ‘havoc’ wrought by ‘an indifferent polity and insensitive bureaucracy’ to India’s armed forces ‘has hit the ordinary soldier hard….The Indian soldier today stands at the crossroads, confused about his status in the society and unsure about his own role in a nation led by “faux peaceniks”’. Retired military men make rare appearances on news channels— never the campaign trail— and restrict themselves to talking about military matters. In recent years, the military has shown an increased willingness to get involved in the polity. In 2007, for example, the Indian army opposed the demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier. The Army chief General J J Singh publicly expressed his views more than once in a country where it is extremely unusual for military leadership to vocalise their disagreement with civilian leaders. These instances are, however, not a mainstay of political debates around policymaking and certainly never crossing the border into civilian leadership, in sharp contrast to the US.

Role of military conflict as influencing factor

This poses an interesting question: What could be the factors that influence this significant difference in the way military involvement in politics is perceived in the US as opposed to India? I would argue that the role military conflict played in the formation of a nation and national identity is a significant factor in influencing attitudes to military involvement in politics. Military conflict played a significant role in the development of the US as a nation. The US has been in a state of either declared war or conflict for 79 of the 179 years, from just before the founding of Jamestown until 1785, nominally known as the end of the Revolution. It thus had a predominantly military experience of colonialism. The military also played a crucial role in the War of Revolution marking the end of colonial rule. The War was an event with mass participation— according to some historical estimates, two out of every five white American men who could serve did so either in the state militias or the Continental Army.

Royster proposes that military service was the source of an ‘American’ character.^[2] The Revolutionary War created a ‘dual army’ tradition that combined a citizen-soldier reserve (which was the militia) with a small professional force ‘that provided military expertise and staying power’.^[3] This democratised and nationalised military service has lasting legacies on the psyche of American society regarding attitudes to military service. Furthermore, Congress in 1775 created the Continental Army commanded by George Washington. This Continental Army was built on ideological motivation and a sense of loyalty that surprised most foreign observers. Baron von Closen of the French army exclaimed: ‘It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly!’^[4]

This and Washington’s appointment as General of the Continental Army despite the ‘hypersensitive fear of military ascendancy’ are significant.^[5] Washington remained deferential to Congress even when its inefficiency threatened the army’s survival. Despite the prominent position held by the military, Washington set forth an example of civil supremacy while commanding the army. This attitude and his later Presidency could have contributed to erasing civilian suspicion of ex-military men becoming civilian leaders. In sum, it can be argued that armed conflict and the military experience— whether for independence or for individual rights as Englishmen within the empire played an intrinsic role in shaping the American identity as a society and nation.

Transfer of Power from the British to Indian government on 15 August 1947

Indian independence and the military

The Indian experience of the handover of power was very different. First, unlike in America, the Transfer of Power from the British to the Indian government was a predominantly administrative procedure that did not involve physical military confrontation. The army was seen as a tool by the British and Indian civilian leaders who used it for their own political ends. Second, the British recruitment policy for the colonial Indian army focused on drawing recruits from select communities, alienating the armed forces from the rest of the population involved in the nationalist movement. This was in contrast to the experience of the US militias, which democratised and nationalised military service and experience. This also built a deep-rooted suspicion between the civilian leaders of India and the military (which was headed by British commanders-in-chief for a few years even after India became independent). This suspicion led to institutional arrangements separating civilian and military spheres. The position of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was abolished, soon after independence in 1947, and the President of India (a nominal civilian head) was made the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.^[6] Significantly, a Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs occupied the top tier of higher defence management in India. This was a purely civilian committee and included senior ministers from the Prime Minister’s Cabinet.^[7]

Additionally, lasting attitudes of civilian and military leaders also did not allow the overlapping of military and civilian leadership to the extent that was prevalent in America. In September 1946, a year before India became independent, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India) wrote to the Indian Commander-in-Chief Sir Auchinleck. As a ‘coup-proofing’ strategy, Nehru felt ‘the need to make the army firmly responsible to India’s elected representatives in the future’. This resulted in Indian institution-building regarding defence and military matters that continuously evaluates the army to prevent it from getting ‘out of control’. For example, the Commander-in-Chief was removed from the Cabinet in 1946— a privilege he had enjoyed thus far— to keep him out of political decision-making. Additionally, all significant communications and decisions have to go through civilian officials and politicians at the Ministry of Defence little or no military experience. Thus, decision-making in India with regard to military matters was firmly established as the preserve of the civilian bureaucrats.

Conclusions

It can be proposed that the stake of military conflict in the creation of an independent nation is a factor influencing social and political attitudes towards the mixing of civilian and military spheres. This is not to argue that this is the only factor. The time periods in which India and the US secured independence are drastically different. Furthermore, India follows the Westminster parliamentary system and not the Presidential system, which influences public opinion on political leadership in general. Additionally, while India has been involved in a protracted conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir since independence, it has not had the direct experience of experiencing the World Wars or Cold War as an independent state or major party. These factors contribute to civilian perceptions of military involvement in political spheres.

Lawrence Freedman in his recent work ‘The Future of War: A History’ emphasises the need to keep context central to the study of war and conflict.^[8] Differences such as the one identified in this article raise pertinent questions about the applicability of seemingly generalisable civil-military relations theories. This post makes a case for viewing these theories through specific historical contexts.

Saawani Raje is a Doctoral Candidate in the King’s India Institute. Her work focuses on civil-military relations in India and decision-making during military crises. She holds an MA in South Asia and Global Security from King’s College London and a BA from the University of Cambridge. Her other areas of research interest include security studies, strategy, diplomatic history and South Asian politics. You can follow her @saawaniraje

Notes:

^[1] Peter Feaver, “The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control,” Armed Forces and Society 23, no. 2 (January 1996): 149- 78.

^[2] Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People At War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1979).

^[3] Alan Millet, Peter Maslowski and William Feis, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States from 1607 to 2012 (New York: Free Press, 2012), 165.

^[4] Millet, Maslowski and Feis, For the Common Defense, 175.

^[5] Millet, Maslowski and Feis, For the Common Defense, 179.

^[6] Ayesha Ray. The Soldier and the State in India. (California: Sage Publications, 2013), 37.

^[7] Ayesha Ray in Harsh Pant (ed.) The Handbook of Indian Defence Policy (New Delhi: Routledge India 2015).

^[8] Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History (London: Allen Lane, 2017).

Image Source:

Banner/image 1: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~cjd327/military.html

Image 2: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/india/images/9/9f/Transfer_of_power_in_India%2C_1947.jpg

Decrypting the effects of the Russian Presidential Election

April 27, 2018 by Strife Staff

By Jackson Oliver Webster

This article is part of a two-part pre- and post-election analysis of the Russian elections and their significance for the country and region going forward. The pre-election break-down can be found here.

It came as no surprise that, late in the evening of 18 March 2018, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was announced as the clear winner of Russia’s Presidential Election, with 56,430,712 votes representing 76.69% of participating voters. This result represents more votes in real terms for any president in the history of the Russian Federation. The most important figure for the Kremlin however was not Putin’s score in terms of votes, rather his score in terms of turnout, which fell below the announced target of 70%. The runner up was the Communist Party candidate, billionaire Pavel Grudinin, who won 11.77% of the vote, performing slightly better than expected, possibly as a result of his personal notoriety compared to Putin’s liberal challengers.

This article will outline the performances and reactions of several opposition candidates, as well as the fate of the opposition following the election. The second part will briefly discuss how Putin’s victory and eventual succession might affect Moscow’s foreign policy and defence posture over the coming years.

Opposition Candidates

Liberal candidates performed particularly poorly, with Ksenia Sobchak, the self-styled “other choice against all” (“Sobchak protiv vsekh”), winning a whopping 1.68% of the vote, and veteran politician Grigori Yavlinski of the Yabloko Party obtaining only 1.05% of the vote, according to official results. Perhaps the best-performing liberal candidate was Abstention, with turnout rates especially low in the traditionally opposition-leaning city of Yekaterinburg, where, according to the Mayor’s office, only 434,000 of the city’s over 1,300,000 residents participated. Navalny will continue to claim abstaining voters as his own supporters, given his repeated calls to boycott the elections, having changed his campaign hashtag from #Navalny2018 to #NeVybory2018 (“non-elections2018”). Fraud occurred in multiple polling stations, and independent observers including Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) noted less-than-clandestine ballot stuffing on security camera footage. Grigory Melkonyats of the NGO Golos said fraud was “partly in reaction to Navalny’s boycott campaign.” In Chechnya, due to political repression and fraudulent polling, Putin won over 99% of the vote, duplicating his other strong showings in the Autonomous Republic against which he fought a war in 1999, his first action as Russia’s Prime Minister.

During the vote, Navalny and a campaign manager sat in Navalny Live’s studio with Sobchak and a member of her staff to watch the results roll in on a broadcast later replayed by Dozhd, Russia’s only non-state owned TV network. After it was evident that, to everyone’s surprise, Putin was to emerge the clear winner, Sobchak proposed that she and Navalny’s party form a united opposition for the upcoming State Duma elections. Navalny, in his typically direct style, launched into a speech ultimately condemning Sobchak as part-and-parcel of the system she claims to oppose, saying he wants nothing to do with her ‘opposition’ which he views as ‘permitted’ and ‘selected’ by the Kremlin. Some Russian political commentators have alleged that the Kremlin will begin reorganizing a straw man ‘opposition’ based on an engineered entente between nationalist and ‘liberal’ forces, with caricatures like Zhirinovksy and Sobchak serving as rhetorical punching bags for United Russia. This would be reminiscent of the early days of the Putin presidency, when Kremlin political technologists used rapid party creation and dissolution to engineer a surprise victory for pro-Kremlin factions over the Communist Party, and later reorganised these elements into United Russia. Though your author usually avoids conspiratorial thinking, he would be less than surprised if the Kremlin tapped Sobchak for some sort of role in a post-Putin political order, however this speculation will be left for another, much longer article.

Liberal movements such as Sobchak’s and Navalny’s are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either they follow Navalny’s model and refuse to take part in an unfair election process and exclude themselves; or they participate, thus legitimising an election campaign run by a politicised Federal Electoral Commission and influenced by highly-biased state-run media with rampant voter fraud. The despondent mood of the liberal opposition is best summarised by Yabloko political consultant Max Katz:

“The opponents of Putin have put forward many strategies. And none of them has worked. The boycott hasn’t worked: the turnout is very high and — it seems — will not be artificially propped. The calls to spoil bulletins haven’t worked — there are few of them. Voting for Sobchak hasn’t worked: her score is very low. Voting for Grudinin hasn’t worked . . . his score is lower than Zyuganov’s [the leader of the Communist party] in the last presidential elections. And our calls to vote for Yavlinsky haven’t worked either.”

Navalny for his part is falling back on his “political machines”, the Civic Platform Party and the FBK, to give him and his campaign longevity beyond the presidential election. His YouTube presence has been particularly active since the elections, attacking the government over its handling of a deadly mall fire in Siberia and denouncing the elimination of direct mayoral elections in Yekaterinburg. Most recently, he called for protests on 5 May in a video entitled “Putin is not our Tsar” (“Putin nam ne tsar’”).

Consequences

So what can be expected, particularly from a European perspective, in the coming months and years from a reelected Putin?

Before the elections, most Western media were fixated on Putin’s particularly bellicose State of the Federation address. He boasted of all sorts of first-strike, high-tech weapons clearly in development with Western conventional foes in mind: hypersonic intercontinental cruise missiles, underwater tactical nuclear platforms, and other weapons. Many defence analysts have argued that these systems are either not beyond the conceptual stage, and may not provide any significant strategic edge should they become operational. However, the spirit of the address seemed to mark a shift towards openly aggressive rhetoric which may come to define Putin’s fifth term foreign policy.

Russian historian Irina Pavlova argues that Putin’s comments represent his will to “raise the stakes” of his current confrontation with the West. This belligerence is, she continues, a demonstration of Putin’s confidence in his own competence and position relative to his adversaries. She concludes that this assertiveness follows the general framing of Kremlin foreign policy by state media, which sets Russian civilisation against a weak and decadent Western world. It also feeds into Kremlin talking points, namely the framing of the Ukraine conflict in terms of the fight against so-called ‘Ukrainian fascists’. This creates a “modern Stalinist’” confrontation with the West in which Putin himself is the hero. “As for the sanctions the West threatens, they only strengthen this regime above all in the eyes of its own population,” argues Pavlova.

NATO defence planners^[1], on the other hand, operate largely under the assumption that succession is, eventually, inevitable, and that this succession period will be extremely unstable. Many Western governments may view the current Russian regime as undesirable, but there is a general respect for the current Kremlin’s competence and strategic rationality. Thus, the key strategic goal for NATO in the east is to raise the cost of miscalculation for Moscow by strengthening Baltic defences. A legitimate concern is that, in the coming years, a succession battle within the Kremlin combined with long-term economic instability may cause Russia —or rather certain powerful actors in Moscow— to lash out in the ‘near-abroad’.

Conclusion

Moving forward, the most important developments in Russian politics worth following will be the fate of the ‘liberal’ opposition, in all its various forms, and eventually the succession process. The main question for the opposition is whether or not a united front will form between various factions —old liberals, Navalnyites, nationalists, communists, and so on. As for succession, there are multiple possible outcomes over the next six years. We will either see a reordering of the current elite as Putin steps down from power, or a constitutional amendment abolishing the two-term limit. Regardless, the West can expect an assertive stance from Moscow as Putin attempts to reinforce his domestic credibility in the face of a stagnant economy and shrinking European demand for fossil fuels.

Jackson Webster is a graduate of the Department of War Studies, and is currently reading for a master’s in International Security at Sciences Po Paris. His research focuses on Russia, its relationship with Central Europe, and cybersecurity. He is currently working on cybersecurity issues with a legal tech consultancy in Paris.

Notes

^[1] Section based on an off-the-record conversation between the author and senior NATO officials.

Image source

http://journalby.co m/news/navalnyy-protiv-rossii-rossiya-protiv-evropy-i-sobchak-protiv-vseh-1099 (in Russian)

This is the year of the nationalist reckoning

February 19, 2018 by Strife Staff

By Dr Pablo de Orellana, King’s College London

Lega posters for the upcoming 2018 Italian Election (Photo credit leganord.org)

Nationalism is back. In the last two years, nationalists have conquered the core of conventional politics in an electoral resurgence that has brought it back from the fringes. Its support, discourses and arguments draw on old logics but directly address grievances born out of global effects of the economic revolution that begun in the 1980s. While 2017 saw the consolidation of nationalist successes in the West, 2018 will see their ideas put to the test.

Nationalism is now a dominant political paradigm. In 2015 I predicted that identity politics and especially nationalism would burst into the global mainstream. In 2016, nationalist ideas were by far the most successful political offering, able to explain grievances including unemployment, future prospects, poverty and social change while suggesting solutions predicated on identity. The vote for Brexit and Trump’s victory also show that mainstream politics failed to address such grievances, particularly poverty. Furthermore, besides bringing some nationalists to power, in cases like the UK, France and Italy, nationalist ideas have conquered traditionally democratic establishment parties. In non-democratic states like Russia and China, nationalism is reinforcing their rulers’ grip on power, which might otherwise have run short on legitimacy and support.

As the short film accompanying this article explains, the core premise of nationalism is that if “patriots” win power, rights and services should be allocated on the basis of identity. Nationalists vary in their definition of identity, from citizenship to religion, race or ethnicity. Some nationalists define identity on the basis of biological differences, which is why the body can be so important for nationalist ideas of identity. Furthermore, this impacts on ideas of gender, with some nationalists, particularly in populist movements, drawing on biologically-framed arguments to determine the social or political role of genders. In this worldview, identity struggle is the result of “natural” difference, which is how nationalists can conflate patriotism with nationalism while accusing critics of treason. As seen in Poland over recent months, the radicalisation of such ideas can seriously jeopardise democracy. It is also crucial to note that nationalism is an extremely flexible political paradigm, able to live under right-wing as well as left-wing political umbrellas.

Nationalism has changed since its previous mid 19^th and 20^th century incarnations. A crucial difference in terms of political practice and dynamics is that nationalist electoral forces like Vote Leave in Britain, Republicans in the US, Front National in France and Forza Italia in Italy have come to depend on alignment or direct coalitions with loose extremist coalitions such as Leave.EU, the Alt-Right, Génération Identitaire and La Lega, which add vital votes to extremely narrow electoral margins. The international outlook of this generation of nationalists is not simply reducible to isolationism. Rather, it seeks to reshape international relations to allow “natural” identity conflict – read as Darwinian struggle for survival – to determine winners and losers. The antisemitism that characterised previous waves of nationalism has been replaced by anti-immigration sentiment and especially islamophobia. The consolidation of transnational alliances like the Europe of Nations and Freedom coalition between nationalist parties shows that, like the liberal, feminist and socialist ideals they revile, nationalism is also a remarkably transnational force.

2017 was the year of nationalist consolidation. Internationally, four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are now nationalists: Trump continued his conquest of Republicanism while overtly emboldening identitarian extremists and May’s Brexit has to a great extent became an anti-immigration endeavour. In France, however, while Le Pen convinced a staggering 33% of the French electorate, rival Macron decisively defeated her with 60% of the vote. Front National’s results in the subsequent parliamentary elections (8 MPs out of 577) show that French voters have rejected nationalism as a viable option for government. It is, however, likely that FN’s abeyance will to a great extent depend on Macron’s and possibly the EU’s performance in the near future. 2017 also witnessed mainstream politicians jumping on the “dragon of nationalism” for their own goals. The appeal of populist expressions of nationalism and movements has not only been evident in the US and France, but also elsewhere in Europe where it is having significant effects on all sides of the political debate. In Germany, the electoral surge of Alternative für Deutschland in the 2017 Federal Elections has led to attempts by mainstream parties to shift their policies towards the nationalist offering. In Italy, the current electoral campaign is witnessing the farce of Berlusconi proposing himself as a moderate while simultaneously promising to deport 600,000 migrants and disputing the elections in coalition with the extremist Lega and Fratelli d’Italia. A key development showing the broader appeal of nationalist politics in the last two years is the attachment of other agendas to a variety of nationalist ideas. In Britain, the Gove/Johnson wing of the Conservatives and the Corbynite side of Labour both regard Brexit as an opportunity to further their ideological models of the state, economy and society.

Nationalist rebels are no longer confined to fringe parties. In 2018, nationalists in power will need to prove that their solutions work or find ways to explain failure. It will be worth keeping a close watch on the success of Trump’s tax reforms and anti-immigration measures, whether difficulties in Brexit negotiations outweigh Brexiteer national liberation optimism, and the continued role of anti-immigration sentiment in polls such as Italy’s general election in March. Italy, still mired in the overtly racist debate as to the political rights of Italian blood, is also an excellent example of how the simple politics of birth and blood rights triumph in the face of complex economic problems and the failure or incapacity of mainstream politics to address them. In France, while Macron’s 2017 election is regarded as a centrist victory, Le Pen will indubitably benefit should he fail to address urgent grievances or please the complex “neither left nor right” coalition that brought him to power.

Crucially, the success of nationalists will not be assessed as an objective truth. As Trump, Putin, and the Brexiteers showed, one of the greatest successes of the contemporary nationalists is to link truth to identity rather than fact, expertise, reliability or science and treat criticism as sabotage or fake news. That is, as we have seen with Trump’s unwavering supporters, the believability of politicians will be determined by their identitarian credentials. In my assessment, this will aggravate the bubble effect where believability is determined by identity and political tribalism, leading to further radicalisation.

Much depends on the extent to which nationalists can address acute economic and social grievances on the ground as well as the sinking hopelessness for the future felt by the young. They might, as Trump has done over the past year, claim betrayal as an excuse for delay or failure. Ultimately, the future rests on whether the loose and small electoral constituencies forged by nationalists continue to believe in identity birthright as a political paradigm.

Nationalism: tales of love, fear, and hatred
A short documentary that explores the re-emergence of nationalism in our time, explaining how it works, why is it so powerful, and why it has returned. Written by Dr Pablo de Orellana of King’s College London and directed by Fernanda Marin of OuiShare Paris, the film introduces identityhunters.org, a student-led initiative to analyse and explore nationalist ideas and politics around the world.

Dr Pablo de Orellana is a Fellow of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and Co-Chair of the KCL Research Centre in International Relations. His research focuses on nationalism, identity politics and its effects on diplomacy and public political discourse. His Twitter handle is @drdeorellana. For more information about his research and teaching, please visit https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/teachingfellows/deorellana.aspx

Image Source

Banner: http://www.leganord.org/politiche2018

Image 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_cIAJn91M&feature=

Why Colombia’s Referendum Result Poses an Opportunity for Peace

October 12, 2016 by Strife Staff

By: Charlotte Manson

The ‘No’ vote in Colombia should be viewed as an opportunity to secure an inclusive agreement for a durable peace.

Results from Sunday’s referendum in Colombia have been described as astonishing and disappointing that will potentially throw the country into tumultuous uncertainty. Many journalists leapt to compare Brexit and recent referendums in Hungary and Thailand with Colombia denouncing the use of referendums as “messy, dangerous and not as democratic as they may seem” and as political tools for leaders. Other commentators pointed out that despite their rising popularity, referendums are continuously producing an unexpected and unintended result due to the problematic nature of reducing complex issues to a binary choice.

Yes, there are risks with referendums but there is one essential difference in the Colombian conflict as El Pais points out, “there are weapons involved.” In other words, the rejection of the referendum in Colombia should not necessarily lead to a rejection of using referendums to make peace.

The result of the vote on Colombia’s peace process by 50.2% – 49.8% with a voter turnout of 37.4% on Sunday 2nd October is therefore a wake-up call. This outcome was a declination of the particular deal that emerged from the peace process. Mass demonstrations have taken place across the country since the vote results were announced, demanding that the peace be salvaged, preventing any return to war. Both the Government and FARC have repeatedly vowed to maintain the ceasefire and press on with negotiations. Yet Colombia’s former President and leader of the ‘No’ camp, Alvaro Uribe has made clear that he wishes to amend the existing deal but he has ruled out any direct participation in talks with FARC rebels. A large number of Colombians remain sceptical of the current terms in the existing peace deal, hoping that Uribe will push for a tougher stance on prosecution and punishment of FARC members. The guerrilla group’s leader Rodrigo Lodono – better known under his alias as Timochenko – has the added pressure of having to sell the peace accord to all FARC members in order to avoid dissident activity. However, can the setback of the ‘No’ vote thus pose an opportunity for peace?

First, if peace negotiations are not inclusive, they will not produce a positive result. As negotiations in Northern Ireland prior to 1998 proved, excluded voices will find alternative ways to espouse their opinion. Uribe has thus far been exempt from all peace negotiations despite leading the “No” camp with support from millions of Colombians. His voice, along with his supporters who reject the current peace process, came to the fore through the referendum result.

Within days of the ‘no’ vote, President Santos and the FARC rebels announced that Uribe needs to be at the negotiation table. Speaking in the Senate, Uribe said his party “has the will for dialogue”, while President Santos has selected three negotiators for bilateral talks with Uribe’s Democratic Centre party. Going forward with the peace process, the inclusion of members of Uribe’s party will allow for more hard-line opinions, much of which the charismatic Uribe represents, to be represented in the negotiations. Still it remains to be seen whether Uribe sustains the willingness to enter talks with FARC.

However, President Santos has managed to make strides in re-engaging with the country’s second largest left-wing, rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN). Earlier this week, he announced that the Government-ELN formal talks will begin on 3 November 2016 in Quito, Ecuador after three years of stalemate. Earlier negotiations with the 2000-strong ELN were markedly different to talks with FARC as high-profile ELN-kidnapping activities forced the Government to cut off all discussions in May of this year. Although the rebel-group still hold a number of prisoners captive, recent prisoner releases – including Spanish journalist Salud Hernandez Mora – are viewed as a signal of the ELN’s desire to be involved in the peace negotiations. Thus it is the inclusivity of all future negotiations that is the deal-breaker. The referendum result provides the chance to correct this mistake.

Second, peace is not automatic even if overwhelming support is secured. Imagine the result of the vote had been different and the majority (50.2% based on the results of the recent referendum) of people voted ‘Yes’ – would it be fair for the peace agreement to be ratified despite 49.8% of voters rejecting the terms of peace plus more than 50% abstained voters?

In Northern Ireland, 71.1% of people voted ‘Yes’ in the Good Friday referendum of 1998. Despite significant changes that have occurred since, the power-sharing government in Belfast still faces serious challenges and 98 physical peace walls exist in Belfast today. In South Sudan an overwhelming majority of 98.8% voted for independence in 2011 ending Africa’s longest running civil war. Yet five years on, the euphoria of peace has perished as the country is embroiled in civil war, with millions of internally displaced persons and chaotic power-sharing governance

Remarkably, a minimum of 13% of the 4.4 million registered voters was required for the accord to be ratified. For such a decision after 52-years of conflict, the people need to have their say on a peace accord negotiated by the few. But the task of securing peace in any post-conflict society is formidable, even when majority support for peace is secured.

Third, finding out why people voted as they did is very important going forward, besides cumbersome weather conditions. Abstention in Colombia’s elections is usually higher than 50% – recent presidential elections saw 59.9% turnout – and the 37.4% turnout on Sunday is lower than was widely expected.

As Annette Idler correctly pointed out a substantial part of the Colombian population demonstrated with their votes they are ready to join ‘Pact of Reconciliation’ – it was just not enough to constitute a peace deal for all Colombians. But what about those who abstained, and did not put forward their opinion on the peace deal?

Civil society should organise, promote open dialogue and establish an equitable presence in the media. Uribe has the advantage of securing consistent media coverage due to his political machine and negotiations between the Government and FARC are rigorously followed by both Colombian and international media. There are diverse opinions in Colombia and as the high-level negotiators discuss the most contentious points, so too should civil society take part in the conversation.

Fourth, when analysing the geographic distribution of the vote, there is a large rural-urban divide in Colombia. Those further away from the zones of FARC activity, and those residing in urban areas voted ‘No’, with the exception of voters in Bogotá. In stark contrast, the country’s peripheries include many of the hardest hit provinces hardest hit by the ongoing FARC violence – for example those whom experienced bombings, hostage-taking and murders. Colombian newspaper La Silla Vacia reported that 67 of the 81 municipalities most affected by the conflict voted Yes in the referendum. In the town of Bojayá, where one of the FARC worst massacres was carried out in 2002 – after a rocket hit a church where more than 117 people sought refuge, all of whom were killed – the Yes vote won by 96%.

Colombia is highly divided on the issue of negotiating the conditions for peace, and it’s no wonder. The scale of the task towards reaching peace is immense: demobilisation, disarmament, reintegration, options of transitional justice, acceptance of FARC in everyday society including holding elected public office, scaling down the lucrative $30bn cocaine trade and the vast criminal networks associated with FARC.

No peace process allows for winners and losers, it is a compromise. Therefore all Colombians, particularly those at the negotiating table, are being tested on their commitment to ending the violence. So the setback from the referendum can be turned into an advantage. Reconciliation does not occur overnight and this referendum setback is part of the long process.

Therefore trust is key right now. Trust in the process, in the negotiators, in FARC sticking to their word, and in Santos and Uribe placing their personal and political differences aside and instilling confidence in the public, so that all parties are committed to moving forward. The potential for the peace process to ultimately result in an agreement that all sides can adhere to remains, despite the setback in the recent referendum. Indeed, when the Nobel Peace Prize Committee handed out the Prize to President Santos on Friday 7th October the Committee stressed “the fact that a majority of the voters said No to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead”.

Colombia held a peaceful referendum ending in a disappointing result. Yet there are so many opportunities for Santos, Timochenko, Uribe, civil society and all other stakeholders to get a better deal in which the majority of Colombians can accept. The ‘No’ vote should be viewed as an opportunity to secure an inclusive agreement for a durable peace.

Charlotte Manson is a conflict resolution specialist having worked on peace-building and reconciliation projects in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Bahrain, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories. She obtained a MA War Studies from KCL and is a Graduate of Sciences Po Paris and the University of Glasgow. Charlotte is currently a Policy Advisor in the European Parliament working on the Brexit negotiations following the UK’s referendum on the EU. You can follow her on Twitter @cemanson27.

Notes:

[1] ‘Why Referendums Aren’t as Democratic as They Seem’ New York Times October 4 2016; http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/world/americas/colombia-brexit-referendum-farc-cameron-santos.html

[2] ‘Colombia, like the UK, just sabotaged itself through a referendum The Independent, October 4 2016; http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/colombia-farc-brexit-referendum-sabotaged-itself-a7344866.html

[3] ‘Why Referendums are problematic yet more popular than ever’ The Guardian, October 6 2016; https://www.theguardian.com/politics/political-science/2016/oct/06/why-referendums-are-problematic-yet-more-popular-than-ever

[4] ‘Embattled Colombian government fights to save FARC peace deal’ El Pais, October 4 2016; http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/04/inenglish/1475582361_630819.html?rel=mas

[5] ‘Why the Colombian peace agreement failed, and what we can expect now’ The Washington Post, October 4 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/04/why-the-colombia-peace-agreement-failed-and-what-we-can-expect-now/

[6] ‘Thousands march for peace in Bogotá and throughout Colombia’ The City Paper Bogotá, October 6 2016; https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/massive-peace-march-takes-over-bogota/14834

[7] ‘Colombia’s peace deal in limbo after shock referendum’ Reuters, October 3 2016; http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1230BH

[8] Colombia’s Santos rival Uribe willing to work on peace deal’ Reuters October 6 2016; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-peace-idUSKCN1251MX

[9] ‘Colombie: la paix, les FARC et la <<théorie du genre>>’ Le Monde October 6 2016; http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2016/10/06/colombie-la-paix-les-farc-et-la-theorie-du-genre_5009083_3222.html

[10] ‘Defeat of FARC pact puts focus on Alvaro Uribe’s next step’ The Financial Times October 5 2016; https://www.ft.com/content/26149bda-8ac8-11e6-8cb7-e7ada1d123b1

[11] ‘Colombie: Santos et Uribe tentent de sauver l’accord de paix avec les FARC’ France 24 October 6 2016; http://www.france24.com/fr/20161006-juan-manuel-santos-alvaro-uribe-accord-paix-farc-guerilla-referendum

[12] ‘Colombia to begin formal peace talks with ELN in November while salvaging deal with FARC’ The City Paper Bogotá October 11 2016; https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombia-to-begin-formal-talks-with-eln-in-november/14912

[13] Colombia ELN rebels free Spanish journalist Hernandez Mora BBC News May 28 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36403957

[14] Results of the Referenda in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, Friday 22 May 1998, Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) Ulster University; http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/election/ref1998.html

[15] Official Southern Sudan Referendum 2011 Results, ; http://southernsudan2011.com/

[16] ‘Colombia’s president rushing vote on deal with rebels’ The Washington Post August 25 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/colombia-farc-rebels-reach-deal-to-end-half-century-war/2016/08/24/3d15425e-6a5b-11e6-91cb-ecb5418830e9_story.html

[17] ‘Colombia’s Referendum: Low Turnout and Activist Minorities’ Security Praxis October 3 2016; http://www.security-praxis.eu/article/colombia-referenda-low-turnout-activist-minorities/

[18] ‘Colombia Referendum: Voters reject FARC peace deal’ BBC News October 3 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37537252

[19] ‘Así es el país que votó No’ La Silla Vacía October 5 2016; http://lasillavacia.com/hagame-el-cruce/asi-es-el-pais-que-voto-no-58201

[20] ‘Colombia War Brings Carnage to Village Altar’ New York Times May 9 2002; http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/world/colombia-war-brings-carnage-to-village-altar.html?pagewanted=all

[21] ‘Colombia’s proof that democracy doesn’t work’ New York Times, October 7 2016;http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/colombias-proof-that-democracy-doesnt-work.html

[22] ‘The lessons of Colombia’s extraordinary peace process’ BBC News, September 29 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37498940

[23] ‘Nobel Peace Prize for Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos’ BBC News, October 7 2016 ; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37585188

[24] Image Source: http://topsy.fr/hashtag.php?q=%23PazColombia

Resource-Induced Conflicts, Part IV: Society, Resources, and Conflict in Yemen

September 21, 2016 by Strife Staff

By: Dr. Charles Schmitz

In Yemen, natural resources do not cause conflicts, people do. The relationship between natural resources and people is mediated by society such that a simple, causal relationship between resource abundance or scarcity and conflict does not exist. In Yemen, scarcity does not cause conflict; in fact, a better case might be made for the reverse, namely that conflict causes scarcity. Conflict drives investment and capital away from the country, destroys productive infrastructure, debilitates the state, and prevents the sustainable management of resources.

Talk of natural resource scarcity in Yemen focuses on oil and water. In the 2000s, Yemen’s economy and government depended heavily upon oil revenues. About a third of economic output and three quarters of government revenue came from oil.[1] But oil production peaked in 2002 and has declined steadily ever since.[2] What is more, Sana’a is often described as the first capital in the world to run out of water. Water levels in aquifers around the city and elsewhere in Yemen are dropping precipitously. Oil production is falling and water resources are dwindling and in 2015, Yemen collapsed into a devastating civil war. While natural resource scarcity appears to coincide with conflict, the causal relationship between scarcity and conflict is difficult to support.

Unnatural Scarcity

In Yemen, the political dynamics of the Saleh regime created scarcity by driving investment away from the country and failing to manage Yemen’s assets. Yemenis and foreign advisors alike were well aware of two fundamental realities. Firstly, Yemen’s oil and water resources were limited. Secondly, like some of the oil economies of the Gulf States – such as Bahrain, Oman, or even Saudi Arabia today – Yemen needed to invest its revenues from oil to harness the labour of Yemeni’s in economic activities that could produce wealth in a post hydrocarbon economy. Yet the Saleh regime used the economy not for enhancing Yemen’s productive capacities, but for bolstering its political position. It created informal political barriers to entry that allotted key positions atop the private economy to a select group of families; those not included invested their money elsewhere. The lack of private sector development outside of the hydrocarbon sector meant that when oil revenues declined, the economy was not equipped to offer alternative means of making a living. Additionally, the regime also exacerbated tribal and political conflicts preventing the sustainable management of water resources. Thus, the political strategy of the Saleh regime drove the economy into the ground, and created unnatural scarcity by failing to manage Yemen’s resource assets.

The Politics of Aridity

While it is true that water resources in Yemen are very limited, water is also a renewable resource. The majority of Yemen’s water comes from rain, which – given its geographic location astride the Indian Ocean and its mountainous terrain in the West – is plentiful. In addition to the rain, Yemenis exploited groundwater by digging wells. Beginning in the 1950s, but greatly expanding in the 1970s, bore wells enabled Yemenis to exploit groundwater at far greater depths. While traditional social institutions had been developed to regulate the water rights for farmers and herdsmen, they were ill-equipped to monitor and regulate the emerging bore wells that allowed much faster withdrawal rates. Thus, the country’s water problem is not the absence of water, but rather the inability to manage the available resources. In this case, scarcity is a matter of management and state capacity, not a lack of water.[3] When water is managed in a manner that takes into account the technological developments of the last half-century, Yemen’s water resources will consequently be restored.

Additionally, water is not a driver of conflict, at least not directly. Those that make Malthusian arguments about water in Yemen point to violent disputes over wells. While it is true that tribal groups do fight one another over the control of wells, water is not the sole focus of tribal conflict. Rather, the increase in tribal conflict was driven by the politics of the Saleh regime that exacerbated armed conflict in general in the northern highlands.

While tribes in Yemen are long standing traditional institutions that mediate conflict, the fractured nature of tribal society is also prone to conflict.[4] In the far north of Yemen, Saleh used tribal conflict to his advantage.[5] He ruled by the politics of chaos rather than direct control, supporting opposing groups in order to cause and nourish conflict, thereby preventing them from uniting in opposition to his regime.[6]- [7] Thus, conflict among tribes was not caused by resource scarcity, but by a conscious political strategy of the Saleh regime, particularly in the northern highlands. In a slightly different analysis, Lichtenthaeler shows how disputes over land and water in the northern governorate of Sa’adah were driven not only by population increase, but also by the attempts of the regime to alter the political composition of the region’s landowners by installing elements supportive of Saleh.[8]

Oil and Conflict

In our global economy, the relationship between people and the environment is mediated by markets. So while it is true that the quantity of oil produced in Yemen peaked in 2002 and declined every year since, government revenues rose dramatically in the post peak period. Average government revenue from exports of crude oil from 2003 to 2014 was 2.9 billion USD, whereas in 2002 revenues were 1.6 billion USD. Only in 2014 did government revenue from oil exports return to 2002 levels.[9]

The timing of the rise and fall of these oil revenues is important because those making Malthusian arguments for Yemen might point to the correspondence of the decline in oil production with the distinct episodes of conflict in Yemen’s recent history: a secession attempt in the south in 1994; an insurgency in the north from 2004 to 2010; a stubborn civil disobedience movement in the south from 2007; the overthrow of the regime of Ali Abdallah Saleh in 2011; a campaign against al-Qaeda in the south in 2012; and a civil war beginning in 2015 and still raging today. These episodes of violence, with the exception of the war of 1994, do correspond to declines in oil production, but they do not correspond to any scarcity of government resources or recession in the economy. In fact, oil revenues for the government and for the economy were highest in the period of the highest instability: 2004-2011. Thus, something other than resource scarcity was driving these violent outbreaks, namely political conflict over power and the nature of the state.

The war of 1994 is an important example because it is sometimes explained by arguing that the driver of the war was natural resources. However, the war of 1994 resulted from leadership disputes between the former rulers of the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the northern Yemen Arab Republic. The two republics were Cold War enemies, but the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed their leaderships to negotiate an agreement for unification. The agreement created a transitional government with equal power sharing while a new constitution was drafted for the united Yemen. The understanding of the leadership of the (much smaller demographically) southern state was that the two former ruling parties would form a coalition government following elections. However, the northern ruling party decided instead to form a coalition government with a third Islamic party in the north that was hostile to the southern socialist leadership.

In the interim period between the unification of Yemen in 1990 and the elections of 1993, significant oil was discovered in the region of the former southern state. Thus, some argued that the driver of the war was northern fear that the south would secede with its newfound oil wealth — a classic resource war. While oil revenues may have enticed the former ruler of the south to attempt secession and thereby secure the survival of his state, the war was not between the north and the south; it was between those that supported unification and those that supported secession. In the south, support for secession was not strong, as many distrusted the old socialist leadership and preferred to live under the liberal state (at the time) of unified Yemen. Moreover, half of the Yemeni Socialist Party also rejected the attempt at secession. In January 1986, the ruling YSP had been rocked by an extremely violent internecine conflict. The losing faction of the YSP and its associated military units fled to the northern Yemen Arab Republic. In the war of 1994, these southern refugees in the north led the war against the secession attempt. Their motivation was revenge. Among the military commanders of the southern forces supporting unity was Hadi, a southerner from the Abyan Governorate and the current president of Yemen. Thus the war was not a case of northerners taking over the south, but northerners and southerners determining the nature of the state and its leadership.

Similarly, the uprising in the south that began in 2007 was not a result of resource scarcity, but a failure of the political strategies of the Saleh regime. Following the war of secession in 1994, Saleh tried to build support in the south. However, rather than rebuilding southern politics, northern supporters of Saleh treated the south as war booty to be plundered. Southerners, including those who rejected secession in 1994, were consequently marginalized; a fate that led them to overcome their many differences in 2007 and unite in opposition to Saleh.

Significantly, the protests in the south came at a time when the Saleh regime was wealthier than ever. In 2006, revenues from state export of crude oil reached four billion USD. In 2007, revenues slid to three billion, but in 2008, state revenues from oil exports reached a record 4.5 billion USD [see charts]. The Yemeni state had more resources than ever, yet irrepressible conflict flared. Saleh tried to use his resources to calm the south by reinstating many southern military officers that had been dismissed after 1994. But the grievances ran deeper than Saleh’s patronage could mollify. Thus, when the state coffers were overflowing, protests raged – scarcity or abundance did not cause conflict, the state’s behaviour did.

Current Conflict

In the current conflict in Yemen, it was the conflict itself that shut down oil exports and drove the economy into the ground. And while natural resources may have played some role (for example, the Houthi movement overran Sana’a with the promise to roll back cuts in government subsidies to oil products), the primary driver is the ambition of the former ruler of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh, now allied with the leader of the Houthi movement, Abd al-Malek al-Houthi, to rule the country. Pitted against their ambitions is the hawkish regime of King Salman in Saudi Arabia who accuses them of facilitating Iran’s influence in Yemen. The Saudi air campaign and the naval blockade of the country crushed what remained of the oil economy and led to dramatic declines in the standard of living as well as a massive humanitarian crisis.

There is, however, one way through which scarcity drives the current conflict: poverty and desperation drives young men to enlist in the many different militias of the competing warlords. The Saudi regime (by proxy), Ali Abdallah Saleh, the Houthi controlled state, and al-Qaeda in the south all pay young men to join the fight. Were these young men not desperate to feed themselves and their families, Yemen’s warring leadership would have much greater difficulty filling the ranks of their militias, and a negotiated settlement would be much easier to accomplish.

The Yemen case shows that the relationship between natural resources and people is mediated by society, and that it is the people that drive conflict rather than resources. In some circumstances, conflicts occur along with resource scarcity, but in other circumstances, resource scarcity accompanies social harmony. People and their politics are the key variables, not the abundance or scarcity of natural resources.

Charles Schmitz is a professor of Geography and a specialist on Yemen at Towson University in Baltimore, MD, USA.

Notes:

[1] Central Statistical Organization (2012), “Annual Yearbook,” Sana’a: Republic of Yemen.

[2] Energy Information Agency (2016), “Yemen,” Washington DC: US Government http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/country.cfm?iso=YEM

[3] Lichtenthaeler, Gerhard (2010) “Water Cooperation and Conflict in Yemen,” MERIP Vol 40, no. 254; Schmitz, Charles (2013), “Geography,” in Steve Caton (ed.), Yemen, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO

[4] Dresch, Paul (1990), “Imams and Tribes: The Writing and Acting of History in Yemen,” Khoury, Phillip, and Joseph Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 287

[5] Adel Sharjabi ed. (2009), The Castle and the Chamber: the political role of the tribe in Yemen. Sana`a: Yemeni Human Rights Observer (Arabic)

[6] Blumi, Isa (2011), Chaos in Yemen: Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism, New York: Routledge

[7] Phillips, Sarah (2011), Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, London: Adelphi Books

[8] Lichtenthaeler, Gerhard (2003) Political Ecology and the Role of Water: Environment, Economy, and Society in Northern Yemen, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company

[9] Central Bank of Yemen (2015), “Monetary & Banking Developments,” January 2015, http://www.centralbank.gov.ye/App_Upload/Jan2015.pdf

[10] Hill, Ginny and Peter Salisbury (2015) Yemen: Corruption, Capital Flight, and Global Drivers of Conflict, Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press

[11] Alley, April (2010) “The Rules of the Game: Unpacking Patronage in Yemen,” Middle East Journal Vol. 64, No. 3, Summer 2010.

Image Source: http://www.zamzamwater.org/yemen-details.php

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