Strife

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

You are here: Home / Archives for Trump

Trump

Disinherited and Dispossessed: Relative Deprivation and the Rise of the Far-Right in the U.S.A

by

By Gideon Jones

Pixabay/Geralt, 2021.

The unforgettable images of a mob of Trump supporters invading the United States Capitol in January 2021 caused widespread horror and repulsion. Since then, there has been a scramble to explain the sieges’ immediate causes and its participants motivations. Undeniably behind each of these is the rise of the Far-Right in the United States.

So, who do we mean when we talk about the Far-Right? To define the Far-Right is no small feat, but at its most basic it can be thought of as an umbrella term for the Radical and extremist Right. Though the two are related, they are by no means the same.

For our purposes, it will be most useful to think about the Radical-Right as being defined by ‘ethno-nationalist xenophobia and anti-establishment populism’, as well as nativism, extreme-nationalism and authoritarianism. What differentiates the Extremist-right from the Radical-Right are their attitudes towards democracy and violence: generally speaking, we can view the radical-right as being willing to operate within the democratic system, whilst the Extreme-Right reject the democratic process and are more likely to undertake violence as a means of achieving their political aims. The great fear about the Capitol Siege was that the MAGA movement , being a Radical-Right grouping , was seeming to shift towards Extremist-Right methods to pursue their political ambitions.

Though there has been a great deal of theorising about the ascendance of the Radical and Extremist-right within the United States, one concept that has received little attention is relative deprivation.

Though there have been attempts to link a rise in extremism to absolute deprivation, the results have been mixed at best. For example, it is well established that a university degree and economic security are no barriers to radicalisation and extremism.

However, the same cannot be said of relative deprivation. So, what is Relative Deprivation, and what role does it play in fuelling radical and extremist-right movements?

Relative deprivation, contrary to absolute deprivation, is not necessarily based upon one’s objective socio-economic position within society. One can feasibly be relatively well off and still feel deprived. As the psychologists Kunst and Obaidi argue, since humans ascertain their position in society through comparing themselves to one another, and ‘relative deprivation involves the perception that oneself or one’s group does not receive valued resources, goals, ways or standards of living, which others possess and one feels entitled to’. This is what we need to understand when we begin to think about the rise of Far-Right in the United States - many Americans are feeling that their communities are worse off now relative to the past, that they have been robbed of what they considered to be theirs and are looking for someone to blame.

This can have some interesting implications when applied to the rise of the Far-Right in the United States. One theory behind the rise of Trump, and the Far-Right more generally, was the ‘left behind’ thesis: that it was those who were feeling the greatest level of economic hardship that fuelled his ascendancy to the presidency and made up the bulk of the MAGA movement. Whilst it has been observed that upward mobility was low and life expectancy was shorter in areas that leaned most towards Trump, there are several issues with this explanation. Firstly, when Trump won the 2016 election the United States was in the middle of an economic recovery, and manufacturing jobs were on the rise . Secondly, Trump supporters were generally not poor. In 2016, roughly two thirds of his supporter base had an average household income of above $50,000. Whilst economic factors undoubtedly played a role in the rise of the MAGA movement, the picture is more complicated than expected, and something more is needed to explain the populist rage that fuelled Trump’s rise in 2016 and which sustains the Far-Right today.

This is where relative deprivation enters the picture. The rise of the Far-Right was not about deprivation per se, but the perception that many in White America felt deprived relative to others, and thus that their status was diminished. This is especially true of White Supremacist organisations in the United States, who view the country as uniquely ‘theirs’. White America felt that for much of the United States’ history they had been justly dominant, and that this was something that should continue. With America’s growing racial diversity and the continued effects of globalisation, many white Americans felt, and feel, ‘ under siege by these engines of change’ . Understanding this, it is unsurprising that these anxieties and their political expression are finding increasing mainstream support, with many feeling that that their communities will face utter marginalisation unless the hierarchies of the past are re-established.

This feeling is no doubt partially responsible for the rise of the populist MAGA movement- that the elites, illegal immigrants, liberals and many more were to be held responsible for their plight, and to be opposed in order to ‘make America great again’. Far more concerning is the rise of those that are willing to attack the groups and forces that they see as taking away what they see as their rightful position in society. Events like Charlottesville and the Capitol Siege are now part of a worrying trend of Extreme-Right violence in the United States.

The rise of xenophobic, anti-establishment, and discriminatory politics is the end product of this anxiety, and like Donald Trump, it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. It may in fact become worse over time as the anxiety of white America only increases and the winds of change continue to blow.

Whether the narratives provided by the various Far-Right groups in the United States are factual or not is of little importance to their continued rise. They offer a narrative to explain world change, to frame and understand one’s anxieties and to offer a remedy. The great failure of modern liberal politics (in the US and beyond), as many are increasingly coming to realise, is that it’s narratives about the world have been ringing more and more hollow . To fail to tackle this fear head on, or to even mock it, is to allow it to grow ever more rampant, and allow extremism in the United States to grow.

The Capitol Siege should be a wake-up call to liberals the world over. There needs to be a counter-narrative, an equally compelling story that can be told that doesn’t lead people down the paths of racism, xenophobia, and violence. With the election of Joe Biden and the return of business-as-usual politics to Washington D.C, there is a fear that nothing will fundamentally change, on both the left and the right. If nothing is done to address these underlying anxieties, the worst may still be yet to come. Instead of denouncing the far-right’s supporters as being morally beyond the pale, more should be done to understand why people would even support that kind of politics in the first place.

 

Gideon Jones is a MA student in Terrorism, Security & Society at the War Studies Department, King’s College London, and completed his BA in History at the University of Warwick. Coming from Northern Ireland, he has been brought up in a country scarred by the issues of terrorism, conflict, sectarianism, and extremist ideology. Through this experience, he has been given valuable insight into how the legacies of such problems can continue to divide a society decades after the fighting has stopped, and how the issues left unresolved can threaten to upend a fragile peace. Gideon is a Staff Writer at Strife.

Cybersecurity from Trump to Biden: a triumph for cybersecurity?

by

USAF, 2017 - A cyber operator.

After what felt like a lengthy and tortuous transition period, Joe Biden became the United States’ 46th president on the 20th January 2021. Whilst some feel relieved and others disgruntled by the result, one thing is abundantly clear: the renewed and elevated focus on cybersecurity under a Biden administration is certainly promising.

It is not news that the United States is becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats; the recent SolarWinds and Microsoft attacks so aptly epitomises the extent of the vulnerability of, not only the US, but the entire world. Our ever-increasing dependency on technology also suggests that the impact of the threat will grow accordingly, which can be demonstrated by our reliance on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the survival and maintenance of our livelihoods, relationships and education, to name a few, currently depend on our access to technology. As both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) come to greater fruition and almost every part of our lives are inextricably connected to technology – from the appliances in our homes to our modes of transport – US citizens will also no doubt become dangerously susceptible to disruptive hacks. Looking forward, an elevated cybersecurity focus is absolutely necessary to appropriately protect US intellectual property, prevent psychological and physical damage to its people and their property and to preserve the US’ status as a major player on the world stage.

Four Years of Cybersecurity Under Trump

As one of the most serious threats facing the US, cybersecurity should be dealt with earnestly and should never have taken the backseat that it has in recent years. Despite this, skepticism surrounding cybersecurity in the US since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency was rife, and rightly so. Trump consistently failed to acknowledge or confront the Kremlin interference in the 2016 election – to the extent that it was considered a hallmark of his presidency – posing an enormous threat to the fabric of US democracy. The Mueller report conclusively found that Russia executed ‘a social media campaign that favoured presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’ and attempted to sow mass discord across the US.

To put it into perspective, when two Russian hacking groups, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Trump was quick to state that ‘’it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader’’ prior to any real investigation or analysis. This was soon found to be untrue. Worse yet, Trump had actively urged Russia to leak Hilary Clinton’s ‘missing emails’. Seemingly, Trump was more concerned with his relationship with Vladimir Putin than the security of the country he was presiding over. Or was he concerned that confronting and acknowledging this interference would highlight that his electoral victory was not so victorious after all?

More recently, Trump flippantly blamed China for the SolarWinds attack, in light of evidence that pointed to Russia, and tweeted ‘’Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant for when anything happens because Lamesteam is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).’’ Again, this is completely misaligned with what his own Secretary of State and intelligence community had said which demonstrates a complete lack of coherence in the administration where cybersecurity is concerned. Sadly, in many ways, cybersecurity clearly suffered grave negligence under the Trump administration.

The evolution of ‘’defend forward’’ under Biden?

Nonetheless, Trump’s cybersecurity strategy is likely to leave somewhat of a legacy and its more active and bold tone is likely to evolve under the Biden administration. This can be inferred from the Biden-Harris statement that was released in the wake of the SolarWinds attack whereby they echoed much of defend forward and stated that “a good defense isn’t enough’’. Specifically, one concept from the Trump administration’s cyber vision that is likely to mature is persistent engagement - that is, the idea that by continuously contesting an adversary and ‘forcing them to expend more resources on defence and rebuild capabilities’, the adversary becomes less effective and the offender achieves superiority. Persistent engagement could help in the construction of norms of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour in cyberspace through a process of tacit bargaining because states can gauge an understanding of adversaries’ so-called red lines. Therefore, it could prove to be a useful method for creating deterrence structures within cyberspace going forward. Although, as the Biden administration seeks to strengthen its offensive capabilities, it should consider that prepositioning and reconnoitring in an adversary’s network could also have undesirable escalatory effects. This raises the important question of how the US would de-escalate if escalation occurred?

Biden Takes the Baton: A Hopeful Future for Cybersecurity?

Even in the early stages of Biden’s presidency, Biden has demonstrated a much more earnest attitude towards cybersecurity. This is clear in Biden’s orchestration of a strong cybersecurity team which has been endorsed by many public and private sector individuals and was referred to by Tom Burt, the vice president of Microsoft, as ‘’world-class’’. Biden has also demonstrated a willingness to confront adversaries rather than ‘’sit idly by in the face of cyber assaults’’ which, as we have discovered, stands in direct contrast to Trump’s approach to confrontation (or lack thereof). Promisingly, Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has also made it clear that the administration is willing to use a combination of seen and unseen tools and ‘’ensure that Russia understands where the United States draws the line on this kind of activity.’’

Another reassuring factor is Biden’s desire to work with other countries and nurture stronger bilateral and multilateral partnerships after a period of neglect to help mitigate the threat. Due to the permeable nature of cybersecurity which ultimately knows no borders and is therefore an inherently team sport, this is a promising prospect. As Charlie Croom once said, “we all have knowledge and experiences that when shared make us better than we individually could be’’ and this is especially applicable where states and cybersecurity are concerned. In particular, the emergence of cyber diplomacy will be a crucial part of fostering a sense of team spirit among states by guaranteeing constant dialogue and in turn, preventing unnecessary escalation or wrongful attribution. However, under Trump, the US’ cyber diplomacy efforts were negatively impacted by Rex Tillerson’s decision to abolish the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues. Fortunately, it is likely that Biden will enlist Jen Easterly as National Cyber Director, as a part of the Executive Office of the President, raising the profile of cybersecurity as a clear priority. The hope is that Easterly will then be able to coordinate the government’s cyber capabilities and bolster the US’ cyber diplomacy through her efforts.

One aspect that could have made Biden’s cybersecurity approach more encouraging is the appointment of more private sector experts. Those set to be in leadership positions are largely from the public sector which is wildly disproportionate to how much of the US’ internet infrastructure is owned by the private sector, which is the vast majority of it. Therefore, a fusion of public and private sector expertise would be more representative of this dynamic and provide a richer pool of knowledge. It would also help to create a more effective channel of communication between the two whereby threat information can be shared more easily and effectively. Importantly, appointing more individuals from the private sector would likely provide an opportunity to bring greater clarity to the public-private partnership in the US, as ‘there are no clear statements outlining legal authority, responsibility and rights across the diverse set of relationships that the government maintain with the private sector’. Ultimately, this would provide direction and confidence to the public and private sector to make definitive decisions within their remits of responsibility.

Conclusion

Overall, if there is anything that we can conclude from this, it is that losing Trump will hopefully be a triumph for cybersecurity in the US. A revived focus on cybersecurity and the employment of offensive and defensive measures from a world-class team of experts means that projections for the future of cybersecurity in the US are largely optimistic. However, in the absence of private sector appointees, it is hoped that the Biden administration will make serious efforts to nurture a stronger public-private sector partnership in other ways going forward. Ultimately, the Biden administration’s responses to the SolarWinds and Microsoft attacks should paint a much clearer picture of what cybersecurity will look like for the US in successive years.

 

Harriet is an MA National Security Studies student at King’s College London and a recent Politics and International Relations graduate. Her final year dissertation explored the UK’s decision to renew Trident and was titled ‘Chasing Status: was status the dominant driver of the UK’s decision to renew its Trident nuclear deterrent in 2016?’ Her broader writing interests include cybersecurity strategy and policy, radicalisation, counter-terrorism, status and emotions in an International Relations context and non-proliferation.

Trump’s Pentagon: An Opaque Legacy

by

By Hannah Papachristidis

(Georgia Tech, 2020)

In August 2020, a letter was sent to Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) blocking a declassification appeal. The appeal in question referred to the classification of the War Powers Act notification following the drone strike which killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Until January 2020, all known previous War Powers Act notifications were unclassified (accompanied on occasion by a classified annex), making Trump’s act of war not only highly belligerent, but also a threat to the principles of transparency and public accountability in times of war and crisis.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to ‘declare war’, meaning that presidents cannot independently declare war. It is generally agreed, however, that the Commander-in-Chief role allows the President to initiate military action to repel attacks against the country. The distinction between low-level hostilities or other situations which may not count as war and war itself is blurry, and is the source of much controversy. The War Powers Resolution, therefore, was Congress’s move to stake their claim on the power to declare war in the face of presidents who waded into the grey areas. It requires that, if a president takes unilateral action, they must inform Congress within 48 hours and that such military operation can only continue for up to 90 days without congressional approval. These requirements, however, have been deemed an unconstitutional infringement of Congress on presidential powers by every President since 1973.

Trump justified the strike on Soliemani as an attack of ‘self-defence’, the first time a nation has invoked self-defence as justification for carrying out an attack against a state actor in a third country. Invoking self-defence requires evidence, in this case of the ‘imminent attack’ referenced by Trump. Trump’s failure to produce such evidence meant the attack was an unlawful, arbitrary killing by the US.

Much has been written debating the event, the legality of Trump’s actions, the effectiveness of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, and the validity of using the ‘2002 Authorisation for Use of Military Force’ to justify the drone strike. What receives less coverage, however, is the way in which the classification of the War Powers notification fits within a wider pattern of opacity and secrecy by the Trump administration, particularly with regards to issues of defence and security. Whilst it is not unusual for a sitting president to challenge the War Powers Resolution, the desire of the Trump administration to shroud such an outrageous act of war in secrecy and over-classification makes Trump’s actions more disingenuous than his successors.

Senator Murphy’s challenge of the classification of the notification outlined the irregularity of such an approach, and he wrote; “I suspect the Notification was classified to restrict debate, rather than for national security purposes”. Murphy reviewed the notification as an authorised clearance holder and, with this in mind, he outlined in his challenge that the information included in the notification was already public record, providing no grounds for classification. Classifying the notification, therefore, was not a matter of national security but a direct attack on transparency, a key principle of good governance.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent watchdog organisation that focuses on waste, corruption and abuses of power by the US government, put together a timeline documenting the changes to the Department of Defense (DoD) and national security policy that limited and undermined public access to information under Trump. The timeline starts with memos sent in 2017 from then Defense Secretary Mattis, the Chief of Naval Operations, and a Pentagon spokesman all warning staff against ‘over-sharing’. From there, a downward spiral into secrecy unravels, marked with long periods without televised press briefings, and the classification of data previously publicly available. The US Air Force, for example, ordered a freeze on media access and public outreach in 2018. In January 2019, the DoD stopped issuing ‘strike releases’, reports providing information on bombings targeting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The strike releases were previously highly detailed, and useful for cross-referencing claims of civilian harm by monitoring groups.

An important milestone was the decision to no longer publish the number of troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan announced by Trump in August 2017. These numbers were previously published every quarter. There is little evidence, therefore, that publishing these numbers would suddenly constitute an operational risk. Transparency around troop levels guides public understandings of ongoing conflicts and levels of troops at risk. Hiding the scale of the US military presence in war zones from the public, therefore, is a huge step towards undemocratic war waging. These policy changes illustrate how the Pentagon, led by Trump appointees, disengaged from the public and broke with previous information sharing practices. In doing so the DoD normalised secrecy without due justification, promoting a culture of over-classification in favour of transparency and accountability.

Much of this secrecy can be attributed to Secretary Mattis’ leadership; his successor, Mark Esper, reintroduced televised press briefings and was purported to favour greater transparency. Full transparency did not resume however, as the classified 2020 War Powers notification illustrated. Furthermore, in March 2020, the Department of Defense asked Congress to rescind the request for the Pentagon to provide an unclassified copy of the Future years Defense Program database, data which provides spending projections for five years in the future, key details which provide the public with outlines of DoD future investments. Although this hasn’t taken place yet, that the DoD would consider denying the public, civil society organisations, and independent watchdogs the opportunity to review and scrutinise projected expenditure, future acquisition plans, and personnel management plans, is a critical warning sign of continued desires to shut down important civil society oversight and dialogue on the use of taxpayer funds.

Transparency in the national security space is a constant push and pull, with those within defence and security institutions claiming defence exceptionalism and those outside pushing for greater accessibility. A balance is possible, in which classification is used as a tool for national security not a coverup for abuses of power, conflicts of interest, and corruption. Overclassification, as seen with the 2020 War Powers notification, is a pernicious issue, which not only threatens public understanding but ultimately undermines classification standards and information regulation.

With the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, there is hope that greater transparency and accountability will return to the US defence institutions. Biden has made some commitments to transparency but nothing specific regarding national security. He has the opportunity to reverse the policies and practices that emerged under Trump and to encourage a more transparent and accountable defence sector, and civil society should hold him to this.

 

Hannah Papachristidis is a project officer at Transparency International Defence & Security, where she manages research outputs for the 2020 Government Defence Integrity Index. She holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and is an Emerging Expert at Forum on the Arms Trade.

Europe’s Options for the Boogaloo

by

by Michael C. Davies

US Civil War redux? (Image credit: The Trumpet)

Moe: ‘Oh ho, an English boy, eh? You know we saved your ass in World War Two.’
Hugh: ‘Yeah, well, we saved your ass in World War Three.’
- ‘Lisa’s Wedding,’ The Simpsons, S6E19.

In the past few weeks, U.S. President Donald J. Trump, and the Republican Party more generally, have made it clear they are willing to do anything to remain in power in the aftermath of the 2020 election, including possibly starting a civil war. Both Trump himself and numerous Republican Party elected officials and apparatchiks have stated they will neither acknowledge the outcome of the election if they lose, an election Trump already decries as illegitimate, nor participate in it fairly. Even more concerning is that a contested result could light a spark many on the American right are hoping for. White supremacists groups have grown exponentially during his Administration, and declare any event other than a Trump victory to be grounds to start the Boogaloo—the white supremacists’ slang term for a second American civil war. The question therefore becomes, what will Europe do if America fractures? Should this happen, Europe, broadly, will have four options to consider.

The roots of a possible second American civil war have been identifiable since the end of the first civil war in 1865. While the Confederacy was military and politically defeated in 1865, it re-emerged soon after and took back control of the South, imposed Jim Crow laws and social regulations, and expanded into the West. Certainly not for the last time, the United States chose white supremacy and strategic failure rather than engaging in effective state-building to achieve a new birth of freedom. This time, with forty years of free-market fundamentalism having stolen $50 trillion from the American people and collapsing the American middle class, the lack of quality health care and student loans collapsing birth rates, and decades of sectarian media blaming it all on ‘others,’ a large percentage of the American populous is armed, ready, and willing to wash the country in a genocidal and politicidal cleansing fire, just as the Confederacy did during the Civil War.

In Donald Trump, the Confederate element of American society has found their saviour. Trump’s approval rating has rarely moved regardless of how many more failures pile up exactly because he treats politics as his favourite movie, Bloodsport. He antagonizes large swathes of the populous because they refuse to love him and treat him with the respect he believes he deserves. After all, this was the man who did not really care about the number of COVID-19 deaths until the virus started affecting ‘his’ people—citizens in Republican-leaning states. 225,000+ dead, ever-rising, and he is more than happy to say it ‘affected virtually nobody.’ To Trump, he is only the President of those who love him. And a pox on all others—now, literally.

It is precisely because far right-wing groups praise him that Trump has allowed them to flourish under his Administration and reach the mainstream. Individually and collectively, they all pine for the Boogaloo. Groups like the Oath Keepers, the Boogaloo Boys, the Proud Boys, and now, the incredible rise of the mind-melting QAnon conspiracy, together with the ever-present militia movements that all have their basis in white supremacist violence, give form to the battle lines being drawn. Their goal, broadly, is to impose a right-wing anarcho-capitalist white supremacist state in America using extreme mass violence. Their intentions are so clear even establishment centrists who bemoan any act of revolt against these groups and their political handmaidens have finally begun to see the writing is on the wall.

The question therefore remains, what will Europe do should conflict break out? During the last US Civil War, because of America’s distance and Europe’s own problems, it largely left the war alone, preferring to see who emerged on top. This time, distance and impact are meaningless. Should the US divide into a years-long brawl, Europe’s own security blanket—conventional and nuclear via the NATO alliance—will be torn asunder with it. European states, individually and collectively, therefore have a direct stake in the outcome. The closeness of Trump to Russia, after all, regardless of the causation, is a daily worry for those who share a border with Russia and rely on NATO, especially American, military forces for deterrence. Without it, RAND estimates, they will last barely 60 hours.

Under the worst scenario of a breakout of a new civil war, Europe has four basic options: First, Do nothing. As scholar Edward Luttwak previously suggested, the option always exists to just ‘give war a chance’ and see what happens and adapt to the new circumstances at the end. Second, Lend Lease. As the US did during the Second World War before it engaged, it provided material for the war effort. Third, volunteers. Like the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, Eagle Squadrons of the Second World War, The Crippled Eagles in Rhodesia, or more recently as the ISIS and anti-ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, Europe could allow its citizens to fight in America. Whether it would allow fighters for both sides is another question altogether, however.

Or, finally, would the satirical epigraph at the start of this post prove prescient—would Europe mobilize to defeat this new Confederacy? Would it make a stand on its own values and strategic interests? Suffering under a long history of continual strategic failure, with Iraq and Afghanistan only being the latest examples, it would take a significant shift in elite, military, and popular imaginations to make this happen. Regardless of what choice could be made, each option comes with its own risks and rewards. But with greater risk comes greater reward. And choosing the lesser options can mean Europe will further erode its ability to secure itself, and perhaps fall (further) into its own pit of darkness once more.

As Cathal Nolan made clear in his estimable history of battle, ‘moral and material attrition’ are the ‘main determinants of outcome in wars among the Great Powers.’ Simply, those who mobilise the most usually win. Without a doubt, the right-wing in the US, both government and non-government, remains the most ready, willing, and able to engage in large-scale violence. But they are also the smallest demographically, weakest economically, and the obedience of large parts of the US Government to Trump can no longer be counted on, let alone in the event of a full outbreak of violence. Thus, the choices Europe makes early on matters. And the decision, to reverse Churchill’s hope, for the Old World to ‘step forth to the rescue and the liberation of the [new]’ might be required if it is to avoid conflagration on its own soil.

Michael C. Davies is a Ph.D. candidate in Defence Studies at King’s College London, focusing on the theory and practice of victory. He previously conducted lessons learned research at the U.S. National Defense University where he co-authored three books on the Wars of 9/11 and is one of the progenitors of the Human Domain doctrinal concept. He is also the Coordinating Editor with the Strife Journal.

The Killing of Soleimani and its Implications for European Security

by

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.