Hizbullah’s Shaping Lebanon Statehood

Abstract

Since the end of the civil war in 1990, the Lebanese second Republic has experienced a dual security governance in the southern borderland region. Up to the Syrian military withdrawal in 2005, the territorial and functional ‘areas of limited statehood’ between the State and Hizbullah worked as a cooperation. After the Syrian withdrawal, various forms of cooperation appeared, raising the theoretical interest for the ‘mediated state’ framework. It is conceptualizing the cooperation between the state and the non-state actor as an interdependency – with case study ranging from the marking of the Blue Line to the struggle against the jihadists groups.     

Urban violence and the militarisation of security: Brazilian ‘peacekeeping’ in Rio de Janeiro and Port-au-Prince

Despite problems of violence domestically, Brazil has played a key leadership role as part of MINUSTAH peacekeeping operations in Haiti since 2004. This article addresses how Brazil's international military engagement is shaping domestic approaches to urban security, and what may be the implications of the use of military strategies, operations, and norms to address issues of public security in Brazilian cities. It is argued that current approaches toward urban security employing military-trained peacekeepers actually represent a continuation of old paradigms, yet these recent militarised approaches are likely evolving into newer and potentially more accountable forms by constraining indiscriminate use of force and establishing a positive state presence in marginal urban areas. As such, the article connects long-established issues of dealing with urban violence in Latin America with ongoing debates in the United States and beyond about post-counterinsurgency approaches to increasingly urban conflict settings. It reflects on potential lessons to be learned from the Latin American perspective, while showing also how these have changed over the last decade. The article concludes that despite the potential utility of force in some urban conflict settings, this approach could entail a normative shift towards legitimising forceful containment of violence, and hinder democratic consolidation in Brazil.     

The evolution of Hezbollah's strategy and military performance, 1982–2006

This article fills a gap in the research on Hezbollah by evaluating their military performance from their formation in 1982 and up till the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah war. This study tests the theses that Hezbollah had developed a very strong tactical proficiency in the late 1990s and that there are more similarities in their strategy and tactics during the 2006 war and the 1982–2000 insurgency in Southern Lebanon than previously assumed. Another central theme of this article is how Hezbollah has been constantly adapting and evolving for the duration of its existence.     

Ungoverned space? Examining the FARC's interactions with local populations in Northern Ecuador

The Ecuadorian state has long been absent from the regions along its northern border with Colombia. I argue that this lack of state presence has allowed non-state armed groups and criminal organizations space to not only operate from these areas, but also, to challenge and change the relationship between local populations and the Ecuadorian state. After reviewing theoretical approaches to concepts of changing security paradigms and ungoverned space, the article details the conditions that have allowed armed groups, specifically the FARC, to take advantage of the lack of state presence along Ecuador's northern border.     

Initiating insurgencies abroad: French plans to ‘chouannise’ Britain and Ireland, 1793–1798

Secret French plans to launch guerrilla-style raids on the British Isles devised in the spring of 1796 were referred to as ‘chouanneries’. The name and concept behind these small-war operations were modelled on the irregular tactics used by the Chouan rebels in the Vendée, which the French state army had brutally quashed, but some wished to transfer into their institutional practice. Part of France's ongoing military strategy in the war against Britain, which included fomenting insurrection in Ireland, these irregular operations were to be manned partially by pardoned deserters and released convicts and prisoners of war. Of these, only Tate's brief invasion of Wales in 1797 was realised, but the surviving plans provide insightful historical lessons into an Anglophobic mindset shared by a small network of practitioners and policy deciders on the effectiveness of such shock and awe tactics. Largely motivated by the desire to take revenge for Britain's support of counter-revolutionaries in the Vendée, these plans could more aptly be referred to as counter-‘chouanneries’.