What explains the failure of U.S. army reconstruction in Afghanistan?

ABSTRACT

This author wrote his doctorate thesis on post-conflict army reconstruction, submitting it in 2011. Continued research on the subject in the intervening seven years indicates that his theoretical propositions can be refined and improved. This article examines refinements to the model, and then applies those refinements in detail to the Afghan case. In so doing, it shifts the focus from potentially altruistic state-building to a case that was driven by pure national-strategic interests. Issues surrounding the liberal peace ideology dominate recent army reconstruction in conflict-affected states. The liberal peace underpinning is of supreme importance, so much so that in many discussions, it is internalised and accepted virtually without thought. This paper will advance the body of knowledge by establishing, for the first time, a theoretical basis for the widespread failure of army reconstruction in Afghanistan. The empirical basis builds on extensive previous research by other scholars. The resulting model can also be applied to better explain outcomes in other similar cases.     

Lesotho’s 2015 elections in the context of an ongoing security vacuum

After inconclusive elections in 2012, Lesotho had a coalition government for the first time, made up of three political parties that had a narrow majority in parliament. The new government, however, faced several challenges, some of which were of its own making. The agreement among the three parties was to literally divide the government into three parts, leading to a continuous stalemate in its operation; the most serious consequence was the prorogation of parliament and the resultant attempted coup. The flight of the prime minister to South Africa and his return under a Southern African Development Community (SADC) security detail provided a short-term solution to Lesotho's security crisis. Under Cyril Ramaphosa's mediation, the prorogued parliament was conditionally opened and the election date set for 28 February 2015. However, the security dilemma – whereby the prime minister, who is also minister of defence, has no control over the military – remains. When elections are held, there does not seem to be a guarantee that they will be held in peace; moreover, there are now fears that the losers will not accept the results of the elections because of the security vacuum in Lesotho. This article argues that peace can only be salvaged by enhanced SADC security before, during and after the elections. It argues that the SADC mission should remain beyond the elections to oversee the constitutional changes that are necessary for ensuring long-term stability. On their own, Lesotho politicians are unlikely to be able to work together in order to move the country forward.     

关于公安机关人民警察培训师资的思考

教师是决定培训质量高低与培训效果好坏的关键性因素。加强培训师资队伍建设,是公安机关人民警察培训工作的重中之重。要充分认识传统教师与培训教师的区别,明确公安机关人民警察培训师资队伍建设途径与方法。     

Synopsis of Community of insecurity: SADC's struggle for peace and security in southern Africa

This article presents a synopsis of Community of insecurity: SADC's struggle for peace and security in southern Africa, published by Ashgate in 2012. It focuses on SADC's efforts to establish a common security regime; conflict and peacemaking in southern Africa between 1992 and 2011; and the prospects of SADC becoming a security community. It summarises the reasons for SADC's difficulties in the sphere of regional security and politics, namely the weakness of member states, their unwillingness to surrender sovereignty to communal mechanisms, and the absence of common values among them. The main conclusion is that these problems lie primarily at the national level and cannot be solved at the regional level. SADC is a forum of states and it cannot do anything that these states will not permit it to do.     

A case study of gender and security sector reform in Zimbabwe

This article explores gender and security sector reform (SSR) in Zimbabwe from 2008 to the present. It firstly postulates that the purpose of gender-sensitive SSR is to transform security services so as to enhance human security, as opposed to having an exclusive focus on state and territorial security. A comprehensive analysis of the policy and legislative framework governing gender and SSR at the global, continental, sub-regional and national levels will be presented, followed by the argument that efforts to reform the partisan and oftentimes non-professional tendencies of the security sector – especially the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Zimbabwe Republic Police, Central Intelligence Organisation and Zimbabwe Prison Services – to promote democracy have met with firm resistance. However, gender-sensitive SSR has made significant headway in Zimbabwe since it is considered less threatening by the government. It should be noted, nevertheless, that gender-sensitive SSR has the potential to shift levels of professionalism and accountability within the sector as well as change attitudes to enhance security at the personal and communal levels. The process can gradually increase the percentage of women serving in the security sector. In conclusion, recommendations are made to broaden and deepen gender-sensitive SSR as the only viable alternative in the current political environment in Zimbabwe.     

Gender,feminism and food studies

Policy research and scholarship on food has rapidly increased in recent decades. The attention to ‘gender' within this work appears to signal important practical and academic efforts to mainstream gendered understandings of food consumption, distribution and production into expansive conceptualisations of human security. This article argues that the gender-related work on food has wide-ranging and often troubling political and theoretical foundations and implications. Often growing out of knowledge regimes for managing social crises and advancing neo-liberal solutions, much gender and food security work provides limited interventions into mainstream gender-blind work on the nexus of power struggles, food resources and globalisation. A careful analysis of knowledge production about gender and food is therefore crucial to understanding how and why feminist food studies often transcends and challenges dominant forms of scholarship and research on food security. This article's critical assessment of what food security studies in South Africa has entailed at the regional level and in global terms also focuses on the methodological and theoretical feminist interventions that can stimulate rigorous conceptual, research and practical attention to what has come to be understood as food sovereignty.     

警卫战斗本质刍议

警卫战斗是一种特殊的战斗,既具有一般战斗激烈的暴力对抗特征,也具有鲜明的自身特色。界定了警卫战斗的概念,探讨了警卫战斗的一般本质和“保卫安全,避免侵害”的特殊本质。     

POLITICAL SURVIVAL AND NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen. Princeton University Press, 2007. 404 pages, $26.95.     

The African Standby Force: The African Union’s tool for the maintenance of peace and security

Declared operationally ready in 2016, the African Standby Force (ASF) has not been deployed in its originally designed form. This is not for the lack of opportunities but rather a demonstration of the power of the Regional Economic Communities/Regional Mechanisms (RECs/RMs) – Africa’s sub-regional security structures – over matters of peace and security. Experience gathered from its short existence suggests that the ASF may never be deployed in its current form. It may instead evolve into a robust framework, adaptable mainly by the RECs/RMs, for addressing varied security challenges. Four things are critical to enhancing the utility of the ASF: the political willingness of the RECs/RMs, the strategic interest of the member states, predictable and sustainable financing, and clarity on the role of the African Capability for Immediate Response to Crisis, the temporary battlegroup that was created to provide the African Union with a rapid response capability, pending the ASF’s operationalization.     

Homes for heroes? Assessing the impact of the UK’s Military Covenant

The British Military Covenant can be located in and from many sources and from 2011 onwards in primary legislation. This article argues that the provision of military housing amounts to an early test of how the military covenant is understood and used by those involved in defence policy, and those in the armed forces affected by it. It finds that housing was a prominent feature of how service personnel understood how they were valued, but was not explicitly understood as a covenant issue by those personnel or the officials in charge of the Defence Estates. We locate three reasons for this: (1) the covenant has been poorly translated from aspiration into policy practice, (2) the covenant is unevenly understood across its stakeholders which has the effect of generating disappointment through misaligned expectations, (3) those engaged in the reform process surrounding the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) saw the covenant as a means to energise reform. Ultimately housing was seen as a dry and technocratic business area and thus an issue ripe for being refracted through the covenant was ultimately left outside of its remit.