Politics in the shadow of the gun: revisiting the literature on ‘Rebel-to-Party Transformations’ through the case of Burundi

Abstract

This article provides a critical review of ‘rebel-to-party transformation’ scholarship. It shows how three flawed assumptions have underpinned much of the literature: (1) an ideal-typical differentiation between rebel group and political party as distinct by their use or rejection of violence; (2) the analysis of armed conflict as breakdown of ‘normal’ politics, and the study of ‘rebel-to-party conversions’ as a gradual, natural shift from violence back to politics; (3) a failure to integrate the study of rebel legacies into an examination of broader authoritarian legacies. These assumptions have clouded our understanding of politico-military organizations in conflict-torn societies, which combine social protest, armed rebellion, political violence, and party politics throughout their history. Drawing on the ‘no peace, no war’ and ‘armed politics’ paradigms, this article revisits these assumptions through the case of Burundi.     

How do wars end? A multidisciplinary enquiry

ABSTRACT

The cessation of military confrontations rarely coincides with the end of war. Legal and political matters continue after the last shot has been fired, civilians driven from their homes try to rebuild their houses and their lives, veterans need to adapt to their new role in civil society, and the struggle to define the history and the significance of past events only begins. In recent years, in particular, the changes in the character of contemporary warfare have created uncertainties across different disciplines about how to identify and conceptualise the end of war. It is therefore an opportune moment to examine how wars end from a multidisciplinary perspective that combines enquiries into the politics of war, the laws of war and the military and intellectual history of war. This approach enables both an understanding of how ‘the end’ as a concept informs the understanding of war in international relations, in international law and in history and a reconsideration of the nature of scientific method in the field of war studies as such.     

The Rationality of Serb Leaders in the Bosnian War

This paper asks whether Bosnian Serb leaders’ choice to carry out a secession war in 1992–1995 was rational from the point of view of their stated goal of ethnic cleansing. We construct two indexes, one of ethnic purity and another of ethnic Serb concentration, and apply them to a counterfactual estimate of the outcome of ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing – what could have been achieved by population exchange based on pre-war territorial Serb power without war – in comparison to the actual outcome of the war. We find that the gross benefits of the chosen strategy of secession and war far exceed anything that could be achieved by the peaceful alternative. A conjectural assessment of perceived costs suggests that also net benefits were maximized by the war strategy. The implication for international deterrence policy is that credible judicial prosecution and punishment is the best way to alter the prospective perpetrators’ calculus.     

Nobody wins the victory taboo in just war theory

ABSTRACT

This article examines how scholars of the just war tradition think about the ethical dilemmas that arise in the endgame phase of modern warfare. In particular, it focuses upon their reticence to engage the idiom of ‘victory’. Why, it asks, have scholars been so reluctant to talk about what it means to ‘win’ a just war? It contends that, while just war scholars may have good reason to be sceptical about ‘victory’, engaging it would grant them a more direct view of the critical potentialities, but also the limitations, of just war reasoning.     

Worth many sins: Al-Shabaab’s shifting relationship with Kenyan women

ABSTRACT

What happens when the world’s ‘oldest profession’ interacts with history’s oldest form of war? In the Horn of Africa, a symbiotic relationship between prostitutes and terrorists has emerged, illuminating critical information about the group’s ideology and strategy. In this article, we argue that al-Shabaab’s differential treatment of Somali and other East African women reveals the group’s strategic focus on Somalia, despite its claims to be a globally focused Islamic extremist organization. Through original ethnographic fieldwork in Kenya, the authors explore al-Shabaab’s deliberate relationships with different groups of women and explain how this helps scholars better understand the group. This article suggests the next phase of scholarship on gender and terrorism, encouraging scholars not only to pay attention to the relationship between women and terrorist groups, but to also examine the nuanced relationships between different categories of women and terrorist groups.     

When are strategic narratives effective? The shaping of political discourse through the interaction between political myths and strategic narratives

Most research on strategic narratives has explored their creation, and their interaction with other elements of national power in the conduct of foreign policy. Yet, the issue of how the targeted political communities receive those strategic narratives, and thus how those narratives are likely to have a political impact, is understudied. This article argues that in order to understand the ways strategic narrative are received within a political community, political myths must be taken into account. It introduces a typology of political myths based on their degree of universality and their degree of coherence with other myths, and shows how those factors influence the reception of strategic narratives. These mechanisms are illustrated through a study of the reception of the Russian strategic narrative in France. This approach offers opportunities to assess the differentiated impact strategic narratives have on political communities.     

French intervention in Mali: strategic alliances,long-term regional presence?

The March 2012 coup in Mali opened the door to expanded territorial occupation in northern Mali by Tuareg separatists and subsequently armed Islamist extremists. French forces intervened at the behest of the interim government in Mali. This article examines how various actors frame the conflict to their advantage. While the Malian government and France are allies, the position of various Tuareg actors shift over time as they strategize and weigh the value of allegiance with the French. Local extremist organizations are labeled as terrorists and are targeted as enemies. This article argues that the conflict has been decontextualized and framed within the ‘war on terror’. France’s decision to intervene and to expand their regional military presence, rather than exit, is legitimized by the framing of their intervention as integral to counterterrorism efforts.     

Z and other cinematic tales from the 30-year Greek civil war

Greek cinema has documented and debated the civil war and its repercussions under different angles, largely defined by censorship, the general political climate, and cinematic trends. This article, first, offers a retrospective that traces the evolution of Greek cinema's ‘takes’ on the civil war vis-à-vis the political changes. Second, it provides an in-depth analysis of Costas Gavras’s film Z, examining its relevance to Greece and how political conflict, in general, is cinematically depicted. The article argues that Z and Gavras’s cinema have been affected and have affected the Greek political situation. However, while Z has spearheaded an international cinematic genre (political thriller), it had minimal effect on the Greek cinema.     

The Needs of Political Policy versus the Reality of Military Operations: Royal Navy Opposition to the Arctic Convoys, 1942

It has become commonplace, especially in the post-Vietnam strategic environment, to quote Clausewitz's dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means. We are told that military operations are dictated by, and must serve, clear political ends. Such thinking has been invoked to support everything from punitive strikes, to peacekeeping missions, to the ‘Powell’ doctrine and its political ‘exit strategies’, but at times political policy and military operations do not mix. In 1942 the Royal Navy bowed to political pressure and, against its collective better judgement, continued the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. These military operations culminated in the destruction of convoy PQ 17 in early July. This conflict between political policy and military strategy provides an object lesson of why in war issues of means and priorities must outweigh the importance of any given political policy.     

Clausewitz and the politics of war: A contemporary theory

ABSTRACT

This paper re-examines the theoretical underpinnings of Strategic Studies, proposing a novel theory and a new framework for analysing war’s fundamental relationship with politics in line with the Clausewitzian tradition. Throughout modern history, Clausewitz’s concept of politics has been misconstrued as referring only to policy whereas in fact, for him, ‘politics’ was a much broader concept, including domestic power struggles. The political logic of war is defined here as the convergence of the interrelating factors of power struggles and policy objectives within a given polity that restrains and enables these political forces. The analysis of the Clausewitzian political logic of war is conducted through the sociological ‘liquid modern’ lens. It is argued that with power increasingly shifting from centralised state-oriented political leadership towards market forces, non-state actors and other political bodies, the effectiveness of war has been reduced. This is evident in the fragmentation of Western political systems and, as a result, suboptimal strategy and the domination of domestic power struggles in political decision-making concerning war.     

Violent vs. Non-Violent Struggle: Investigating the Impact of Frames on Movement Strategies in Yemen

Why do some opposition movements escalate into armed conflict while others abide non-violently under very similar conditions? In order to account for this variance, the article proposes to transcend the limitations of existing structural theories within civil war studies by including a framing perspective. It accentuates and elucidates the agency component and the interactive dynamics of the construction and negotiation of meaning, which remain a ‘black box’ in current models. In a comparative study of two movements in Yemen, the article identifies and describes the respective collective action frames, establishes why and how strategic movement actors construct them in their specific particularity, and relates this to the question of why constituents take certain forms of action. The findings assert the theoretical contribution of an integrative approach.     

French war plans, 1914: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’

Historians have noted that both German and French war preparation in 1914 fell victim to the inadequacies of traditional threat-based planning: vulnerability to ‘threat deception’ which caused each to underestimate or mischaracterize the threat; a tendency to ‘mirror-image’ by fitting intelligence into preconceived notions of how the enemy was expected to behave; and ‘group think’ that discouraged a serious consideration of alternative scenarios. This article applies the ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ to explain why, at the dawn of the twentieth century, war planning in both Germany and France was driven by an acute sense of weakness which encouraged each side to fashion highly ‘risk acceptant’ strategies. In particular, he examines why and how French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre evolved and rationalized his audacious, and disastrous, Plan XVII to leverage French weaknesses and prevent the stronger German Army from bringing the full weight of its military strength to bear against France. The potential implication of this historical vignette is that leaders, and by extension military planners, of both strong and weak states focus on the constraints faced by their opponents, and assume that they can avoid the limitations of their position, while their opponent cannot.     

The long shadow of colonial cartography: Britain and the Sino-Indian war of 1962

ABSTRACT

This article examines British responses to the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. It illustrates how, in the years leading up to the war, Britain’s colonial legacy in the Indian subcontinent saw it drawn reluctantly into a territorial dispute between Asia’s two largest and most powerful nations. It analyses disagreements in Whitehall between the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office over the relative strength of India and China’s border claims, and assesses how these debates reshaped British regional policy. It argues that the border war was instrumental in transforming Britain’s post-colonial relationship with South Asia. Continuing to filter relations with India through an imperial prism proved unsatisfactory, what followed was a more pragmatic Indo-British association.     

Winning hearts and minds to lose control: exploring various consequences of popular support in counterinsurgency missions

The strategy of ‘winning hearts and minds’ is considered key to successful counterinsurgency, but it often works at the expense of political control over the course of war. This happens when the strategy requires the counterinsurgent to work with a local nationalist group that takes advantage of its lack of access to civilians. This exposes the counterinsurgent to a dilemma inherent in the strategy; because working with the group is a crucial part of the strategy, victory would be impossible without it. Yet when the strategy is implemented through the group, it compromises the policy it serves. I show how this dilemma undermined British political control during the Malayan Emergency.     

How to rethink war: Conceptual Innovation and AirLand Battle Doctrine1

This article examines the role of ideas in US Army innovation after the Vietnam War. It challenges the view that failure, changes in the strategic environment or technology are the sole drivers of military innovation and analyses the role of ideas and identity in the army's development of AirLand battle doctrine. It highlights how the reform in ideas led to a ‘re-conception’ of the strategic environment, the nature and dynamics of warfare and a change in self-understanding. The organisational reforms embodied these ideas and led to a new way of war practised in the first Gulf War.     

The ‘War on Terrorism’: What Does it Mean to Win?

Abstract

The war on al-Qaeda and its affiliates appears to be endless but every war must end. Winding down the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq has been difficult, but both were embedded in what was then called the ‘war on terrorism.’ What does ‘success’ in that war mean? With the death of bin Laden and the increase in drone operations, how far is the US from achieving it? Can this war end? The article analyzes the ongoing US response to the 9/11 attacks in historical context, revealing four patterns common to all prolonged wars: means become ends, tactics become strategy, boundaries are blurred, and the search for a perfect peace replaces reality. It concludes by laying out an effective strategy for ending the war.     

Regular and irregular forces in conflict: nineteenth century insurgencies in South America

ABSTRACT

In the decades following independence from Spain, ‘civil wars’ ravaged the newly established polities in South America. Former vice-regal capitals inherited a larger portion of the colonial administration and had larger economic resources and a hegemonic project they were able to have permanent and professional armed forces, capable of leading the offensive and giving battle following the European rules of military art. The central hypothesis of this work is that there is a necessary relationship between the shape of these asymmetrical conflicts, their outcome and the political territorial configuration of each country in post-revolutionary Spanish America. When permanent armies took over from local militias, the capital kept the integrity of its territories and there was a tendency towards political centralization. When this did not happen and the militias managed to find a way to defeat their centralizing enemies, the local powers had an opportunity to renegotiate their participation in the political body, and sought to maintain their independence, which was manifest in federal agreements, otherwise a process of territorial fragmentation began. More than a difference between regular and irregular forces there was one between intermittent, and permanent mobilization.     

Carlo Bianco and Guerra per bande: an Italian approach to irregular warfare

Since the end of the Cold War, a huge debate over how war has been changing has emerged; a common feature is that modern conflicts are not state vs. state wars, but ‘irregular wars’. In order to better understand modern irregular warfare, it is important to analyse past authors and ideas. Carlo Bianco’s concept of Guerra per bande highlights elements of mobility with different cooperating units, of terror, and of complex terrain. The present study offers the first English analysis of Carlo Bianco and underlines the similarities of his work to the hybrid warfare concept.     

Revisiting the rise and fall of the Somali Armed Forces, 1960–2012

The history of the Somali Armed Forces, principally the army, forms an important part of studying the Somali civil war. Two key themes are evident from 1960: the pursuit of an irredentist agenda beyond reasonable limits, which led to the downfall of Siad Barre’s regime, and the clan divisions and agendas that Barre used to shore up his rule in the 1980s and that have bedeviled the rebirth of the Somali Army in the twenty-first century. With the twentieth-century context covered, and in some places reinterpreted, this article then focuses on the uncertain rebirth of the Somali Armed Forces since 2008, using a host of primary and United Nations official sources. Assistance efforts have been focused on Mogadishu, but limited success has been made in forming truly national armed forces. Future prospects are uncertain, but there are some signs of hope.     

Building the Somali National Army: Anatomy of a failure, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Over a decade of security force assistance (SFA) initiatives to build an effective Somali National Army (SNA) failed because of the interrelated effects of political, contextual and operational challenges. The key political challenges were interest asymmetry between international actors and Somali elites, insufficient focus on institution-building and a lack of donor coordination. The principal contextual challenges in Somalia were the legacies of two decades of state collapse and the negative effects of clan dynamics. The main operational challenges were building an army while simultaneously fighting a war, the complexities of military integration, and the severe capability gaps afflicting the SNA.