Why the West Cannot Win.

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I believe that the West will never win a war again. Before I explain this statement, a brief explanation of what constitutes the ‘West’ and a review of the nature of ‘modern’ warfare is necessary so that I can explain why the West is fundamentally incompatible with the new face of contemporary warfare.

There are multiple definitions and perspectives of what defines the ‘West’, yet there appears to be consensus on a number of values and principles perceived to be intrinsic to Western identity. Samuel P. Huntington identifies Western ideas or values as “individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state.”[1] Unarticulated by Huntington but an important aspect of the ‘West’ is the concept of Freedom of Speech. The media in particular relies upon this right and plays an essential role in disseminating information and critiquing government policy. Roumeen Islam articulated the role of the media by explaining that it “potentially influence[s] political… outcomes” in that “media reporting can help garner support for government and for public policy…by raising awareness of potential benefits or costs associated with policy. Media reporting can increase the demand for change in public policy.”[2] Thus, we see in its power to influence public opinion, the media can set policy agendas by galvanizing the public to be for or against policies. Through its role as educator of the masses, the media plays an important role as a pillar of democracy – a perquisite required to be considered ‘Western’. For better or for worse, because a powerful media can be both harmful and beneficial, it is clear that in ‘Western’ societies, the media has an important role to play in public policy and opinion.

Another characteristic of most Western societies is found in the composition of its militaries and military doctrines. Using the United States as a prime example, we are able to understand the West’s doctrine, technological capacity, and overall ability to fight and win wars. During the Soviet-West confrontation, the United States’ military maintained over 2 million personnel in bases around the world and at home. [3] Early on, large formations of troops, machinery, and weaponry – including nuclear weapons- were held in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere as a doctrine of deterrence in regards to perceived Soviet aggression was maintained. [4] The lasting design of military hardware indicate a preponderance within American military doctrine towards grand battles, especially in contested areas like Germany, and massive confrontations.For example, the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank; the F16 Fighting Falcon; and the Los Angeles-class Nuclear Submarine are all pieces of hardware which were designed for a Cold War conflict, turned ‘hot’. Essentially, this hardware was primarily made for symmetric conflict i.e. a war with an opponent who is similarly equipped. With the exception of novel, and still unformed, modes of warfare such as cyber warfare and the use of drones, the United States’ military’s hardware remains basically the same as it was during the latter years of the Cold War.

There are two distinct trends in modern warfare in which this Western world must compete. First of all, according to Themner and Walensteen, intrastate conflicts or civil wars have steadily become the norm, replacing the inter-state wars of the previous centuries. [5] Furthermore, recurring, rather than new, intrastate conflicts have also become prevalent since the Cold War and the end of the anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century. [6] This indicates that deep-rooted tensions and grievances remain despite the emphasis of post-Cold War scholars like Francis Fukuyama who claimed that the end of Soviet-West dichotomy was the beginning of an age of greater globalization which would lead to greater security. Many scholars have attempted to explain the increase in intrastate conflict. As argued by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, a vital feature of intrastate conflict is a weak state that facilitates the formation of an insurgency whose aim is the removal of that state. [7] Laitin and Fearon characterize an insurgency as “small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas.” [8] However, another key aspect of insurgency is the use of asymmetrical warfare i.e. combat that enables those with few assets to damage a strong opponent. Terrorism is a form of asymmetrical warfare and the use of terrorism is often favored by insurgencies. Acts like hostage taking; targeting of civilians; suicide attacks; use of human shields; and booby traps enable a weaker assailant to inflict serious injury upon a stronger opponent. [9] It is unsurprising that, in line with the increase of intrastate conflicts, all of the above forms of assault steadily increased after 1990 and have risen dramatically since 2001 around the world. [10]

Clearly, there is a structural mismatch between the hardware of the West’s military with asymmetrical conduct of insurgencies. Additionally, the role of the media in the ‘West’ has over-influenced the public’s opinion towards counterinsurgency operations. As previously stated, the equipment used by  forces in the last two counterinsurgency campaigns, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, was not designed for this kind of warfare. For example, the Canadian Forces used pre-1991 tanks to fight a running counterinsurgency battle with insurgents in Afghanistan. Although these forces eventually prevailed, the “punch” of this armor was severely hampered by the hit-and-run tactics of the insurgents and the terrain of Afghanistan which is crisscrossed by canals and irrigation systems that makes this kind of machinery difficult to operate. [11] Furthermore, the use of Western airpower as a tool of counterinsurgency has limited effectiveness, as evidenced by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) continued survival and growth despite months of heavy bombardment. Airpower is a valuable asset when attacking supply-lines or removing the leadership of an enemy. However, due to the often decentralized, secretive, and dispersed nature of insurgent groups, the effectiveness of this method is limited. [12] Overwhelming airpower, originally designed to combat armies and other air forces, can also have an adverse effect upon the friendly population, as targeting fighters in a heavily populated area is difficult without incurring collateral damage, as evidenced by the 2006 bombardment of the Iraqi town of Tikrit. [13] [14] Consequently, this indiscriminate method of warfare can also anger the local population and galvanize them against counterinsurgency. As we can see, the West’s weapons of the past, armor and airpower, may not be the right tools for today’s method of conflict.

Almost as damaging as the antiquated Western style of warfare used abroad is the increasingly harmful effects of the media on Western populations in relation to conflict. Changes in Western media’s content and presentation have had an undue affect upon their populations. According to Jürgen Krönig, modern political journalism in the West has begun to “ignore context and complexity, presenting everything in black and white” and solicits demands for short-term solutions to issues of great complexity. [15] Furthermore, sensationalism and “disastertainment” have taken over, and journalists “present [the news] according to their own preferences and prejudices.”[16] Both of these changes are predicated on the need for greater ratings and circulation. In recent decades, the power of the media to shape the policy of the West towards this issue has only increased, often to the detriment of Western powers at war.

The West’s acceptance and understanding of war has changed since the dissemination of visceral imagery of conflict has risen. It is generally understood that the images of body bags, draped in American flags, and burned Vietnamese children brought home the brutal nature of the Vietnam War and caused public opinion to gradually oppose the war. Another example of this kind of power was the footage of American airmen’s bodies being paraded through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia as this act has been identified as the cause for the United States’ withdrawal from Somalia, and their subsequent boycott of intervening in the Rwandan genocide. [17] Despite rebuilding and development being a key component of counterinsurgency, these kinds of positive acts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq were rarely depicted on television. [18] Instead, according to the Canadian Journalism Federation, acts of violence from this area were shown by broadcasters as they are more “exciting” to the viewer. [19] Conversely, scholars like Roger W. Barnett point to the West’s love of “fair play,” with the “underdog” being the preferred winner. In almost all cases of modern warfare, the character of the “underdog” would be personified by these insurgency groups, going up against a heavily armed nation-state [20]. This means that the ‘West’ can be portrayed, through the often biased imagery of the media, as the ‘bad-guy’ and this inevitably impacts the morale of the public. Through the Western media’s ‘sensational-ization’ of conflict, only the negative aspects of counterinsurgency are highlighted and this serves to undermine the West’s public’s willingness to fight the modern ‘medium’ of war. Today, even if the West had the military capabilities to fight effectively in the new arena of warfare, they would sorely lack the public support needed to sustain a successful campaign.

Insurgency groups have come to realize and use this to their advantage. By showing the ease in which it is able to target Western forces and undo its operations, insurgents are able to impose costs on the West’s public’s morale by depicting wars as unwinnable. [21] Conversely, the distribution of footage can be used as another tactic – to provoke an adversary into overreacting or overextending. [22] This would explain the actions of ISIL’s beheading of Americans and Europeans. The aim of this stark footage is intended to create shock and revulsion which can cause the Western public to either feel angry, necessitating a response, or evoke a sense of defeatism. Insurgency groups now have the capabilities to use the West’s own democratic process, freedom of the press, against them.

In sum, there are two primary reasons for why the Western world, as it stands, cannot be successful in today’s arena of war. Firstly, Western weaponry and military tactics fail to be effective against 21st century opponents. What worked against the enemies of the 20th century will not work against the newer, amorphous insurgencies that characterize the new face of conflict. Secondly, the media’s overwhelming presence in the West’s decision making regarding war/conflict is problematic, both because it can lead to a critical or apathetic public, but can also be used against themselves by insurgency groups. Due to how entrenched these values are in the Western psyche, there is little hope of them being able to salvage their reputation as a formidable military opponent in the foreseeable future.

For more information, see:-

[1] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/48950/samuel-p-huntington/the-clash-of-civilizations.

[2]Roumeen Islam, Information and Public Choice: From Media Markets to Policy Making. http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-7515-0.

[3] Edward F. Bruner, “Military Forces: What is the Appropriate Size for the United States Military?” Report for U.S. Congress. http://fas.org/man/crs/RS21754.pdf.

[4] Stephen J. Cimbala, US Military Strategy and the Cold War Endgame. Pg. 27.

[5] Lotta Themner and Peter Walensteen, Armed Conflicts, 1946-2011, Journal of Peace Research, 568. http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/49/4/565.full.pdf+html.

[6] Human Security Report 2012, Figure 6.2 New verus Recurring Intrastate Conflicts, 1950-2009. http://hsrgroup.org/docs/Publications/HSR2012/Figures/2012Report_Fig_6_2_NewRecurringIntra.pdf.

[7] James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War, http://jstor.org/stable/3118222.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Roger W. Barnett, Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenge to U.S. Military Power. 2003, 18.

[10] University of Maryland, Global Terrorism Database, Browse by Attack Type. http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/BrowseBy.aspx?category=attack

[11] Douglas F. Baker, The Relevance of Armor in Counterinsurgency Operations. www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA562878.

[12] Paul Staniland, Defeating Transnational Insurgencies: The Best Offense Is a Good Fence. http://www.mafhoum.com/press9/264P2.pdf.

[13] Ben Buley, The New American Way of War: Military Culture and Political Utility of Force. 2008, 130.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Jürgen Krönig, A crisis in the fourth estate, The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/aug/16/mondaymediasection.politicsandthemedia.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Glen Beck, Offensive Air Power in Counter Insurgency Operations: Putting Theory in Practice, Royal Australian Air force. http://indianstrategicknowledgeonline.com/web/Offensive%20Air%20Power%20in%20Counter-Insurgency.pdf.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Canadian Journalism Federation, Canadian’s Assess the Canadian Media and its Coverage of the Afghanistan Mission. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2006/06/c4592.html.

[20] Roger W. Barnett, Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenge to U.S. Military Power. 2003, 87.

[21] Aden Dur-e-Aden, Class Lecture to Political Science 360. University of British Columbia. October 16, 2014.

[22] Ibid.

 

 

Uniquely Canadian: Perspectives on the Structure of the Canadian Forces and its Interoperability with Canada’s Partners

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The Canadian Forces is an important component of Canada’s sovereignty and its ability to project change in the world. Canada’s military, according to the International Institute of Security Studies, ranks as one of the largest militaries of the liberal democracies and Canada, itself, is ranked 14th in global military spending[1, 2]. The Canadian Forces has a specific mandate to protect Canada and its sovereignty; defend North America in cooperation with the United States; and contribute to broader international and domestic concerns such as disaster relief and NATO. However, today I would like to briefly examine the unique structure of the Canadian Forces and how this arrangement enables greater efficiency and capacity within Canada’s military and provides improved interoperability with Canada’s partners. While this could be considered as a dry or ‘unsexy’ topic, the changes to the Canadian Forces articulated by this paper and its aim to enhance its cooperation with international partners are important topics as these alterations and policies have had a profound affect on Canada’s military ability to operate; its relationship with Canada’s partners and reflect Canada’s perennial security interests.

In 1964, Canada’s government embarked on a ground-breaking structural adjustment of Canada’s military. This document and its implementation by the Government changed the traditional structure of Canada’s military from a tri-service agency with separate land, sea and air branches and separate command structures, to a service which held a “single Chief of Defence Staff and a single Defence Staff”[3]. The aim of this was to produce a fully integrated defence system that would “produce a more effective and co-ordinated defence posture for Canada” [4]. Thus the primary goal of this modification was to provide Canada with a strong, flexible, and efficient military that could adequately serve all of Canada’s defence policies, reflected by the mandate of the Canadian Forces outlined above. This process did not occur over night and it took decades to fully realize a completely revamped Canadian military.

It should be noted that the 1964 change to the command structure and overall make-up of the Canadian Forces led to “reduce[ed] overhead costs and achieve[d] savings in the areas of planning, support, finance and administration”[5]. Saving money is always considered an important task by governments but the affect of this process on the Canadian Forces’ overall efficiency came later. Under General Rick Hillier in the 2000s, this process gained a contemporary and strong impetus within the military as Hillier aimed to affect a major “transformation of the [Canadian Forces] existing command structure, the introduction of new operational capabilities, and the establishment of fully integrated units capable of a high-readiness response to foreign and domestic threats”[6]. However, this still leaves us with an important set of questions: how did this change affect the efficiency and capacity of the Canadian Forces, especially in regard to Canada’s commitments in Afghanistan, and did this unique organization provide better interoperability with Canada’s allies and partners?

It is often said that wars are won by those with access to a robust logistical support system and structure. Thus, an important part of military doctrine is the supply of armed forces within the field and it is in this context that Canada’s military excels. Due to process of unification inside the Canadian Forces, supply integration has improved and this has proven to be a boon for Canada’s military during its tenure in Afghanistan and elsewhere. For example, the creation of CANOSCOM or Canadian Operational Support Command in 2006 – an overarching civilian and military superstructure – merged logistics support to the Canadian Forces [7]. According to the Sheena Bolton of the Legion Magazine, this organization has proved to be “vital” in regard to the sustainment and support of missions in Afghanistan, Haiti, and Libya as communication, resource, and information sharing between the various land, sea, and air components of the military was dramatically improved [8].

To further emphasize this point, Captain Lisa Haveman, of the Canadian Forces, made it clear that, from her on-the-ground perspective as a Chief Administration Officer, she believed that the unified structure of the Canadian Forces enabled near-seamless operations, such as the repatriation of Canadian soldiers, and supplies in Afghanistan [9]. For example, Haveman explained that the ‘horizontal’ relationship, with a single chain of command, between operators in the air force and army elements of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan delivered greater communication and efficiency between the different components of the Canadian military [10]. This contrasts sharply with the United States’ military own difficulties in coordinating similar movement of troops and supplies as this military uses multiple structures – each of which is ‘vertical’ and has separate chains of command which all compete for finite resources and jealously guard operational independence. This problem was highlighted by the poor communication and resource sharing between the US military services, federal government, state governments, and US agencies during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the response to this disaster [11]. Furthermore, according to Haveman, the US military services’ divided structure continued to inhibit internal communications, resource sharing, and efficiency in its operations in Afghanistan  [12]. Through a comparison between the US and the Canadian militaries, we are able to see that structural differences can have a profound effect upon a military’s ability to coordinate with its various components and an inability to achieve sustained coordination can lead to greater inefficiency, miss-allocated resources, and miscommunication.

As part of its mandate, an important concern of the Canadian Forces has been the ability to operate in conjunction with Canada’s partners and allies – notably the United States and NATO. According to Hugh Segal, interoperability between Canadian Forces and its partners is a “central principle of [Canada’s] defence policy” and that interoperability, in this context, means the “ability of systems, units or forces to provide services to and accept services from other systems, units or forces and to use the services so exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together” [13] Essentially, this means that militaries with the same goal are able to share hardware, resources, and information between each other. NATO, for example, has standardized much of its hardware and institutional systems to encourage homogeneity across its members’ militaries. Canada’s International Policy Statement explains that interoperability is an important goal for the Canadian Forces and that the uniquely integrated structure of the Canadian military has aided the broad adoption of standardization, necessary for interoperability, and the specialization of Canadian Forces, with regard to the specific needs of partner militaries, in order to contribute to coalition, NATO, and joint Canadian-US operations [14]. Thus, the unified nature of Canada’s military enables Canada to operate with its partners, in accordance with its mandate, and further validates the structure of the Canadian Forces as it aids the implementation of interoperability, through standardization and specialization.

In this blog, I have attempted to show the unique structure of the Canadian military and how this structure has contributed to greater communication and efficiency. In contrast to other militaries, the Canadian Forces has subscribed to a doctrine that emphasizes uniformity and, in doing so, it has been provided with a capability to organize and coordinate efficiently. Furthermore, approaching this structure through a Liberal lens, a school in international relations which examines multilateralism, Canada’s military has been intentionally geared towards Canada’s multilateral role within NATO and as a partner of the United States as increased interoperability with these entities is a part of its mandate and is facilitated by the unified structure of the Canadian Forces.

For more information, see: –

[1] International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, James Hackett (ed.) pp. 51–53.

[2] The Economist, Military Spending: Defence Costs, http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/06/military-spending.

[3]White Paper on Defence, Department of National Defence, Canada. 1964. Pg 19.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Major-General Daniel Gosselin, Hellyer’s Ghosts: Unification of Canadian Forces is 40 Years Old: Part Two. http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no3/04-gosselin-eng.asp.

[6] Brigadier-General Daniel Gosselin and Dr. Craig Stone, From Minister Hellyer to General Hillier: Understanding the Fundamental Differences between the Unification of the Canadian Forces and its Present Transformation, http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo6/no4/trans-eng.asp.

[7] Government of Canada, Canadian Joint Operations, http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-org-structure/canadian-joint-coperations-command.page.

[8] Sheena Bolton, Logistics, The Legion Magazine, https://legionmagazine.com/en/2011/07/logistics/

[9] Captain Haveman, Presentation to Political Science 360: Security Studies, University of Biritish Columbia, October 02, 2014/

[10] Ibid.

[11] The White House, Katrina Lessons Learned, Chp 5, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/chapter5.html.

[12] National Security and Interoperability, The Canadian Forces and the Doctrine of Interoperability, http://irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/research/national-security-andinteroperability/new-research-artcile-7/pmvol3no2.pdf.

[13] Hugh Segal, Introduction, Institute for Research on Public Policy. http://irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/08/intro-segal.pdf.

[14] Canada’s International Policy Statement, Asean Regional Forum, 2005, http://aseanregionalforum.asean.org/files/library/ARF%20Defense%20White%20Papers/Canada%27s%20International%20Policy%20Statement.pdf.

The Ties That Bind: Metanarratives and Value Systems in Russia’s ‘Backyard’

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A key argument of John Mearsheimer’s article, “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault,” is that American and European policymakers in the 1990s and the 2000s were blinded by a liberal worldview that espouses the spread of Western values or “ideals” and have willfully ignored an entirely different “playbook” used by Putin and his regime – a doctrine that acts “according to realist dictates.” While the West views NATO’s and the EU’s enlargement as legitimate and democratic, Russia’s regime and large portions of its population believe that this expansion is aimed at damaging and removing its traditional sphere of influence. Rather than viewing this issue solely through a pure and narrow realist perspective, one that views the international system as anarchic and state/regime preservation as a premium objective, I would like to discuss the indelible mark that war, perceived civilizational values, and ethnic/cultural unity has had upon Russia’s society and state and why this has affected the Russian population’s and regime’s view of the Ukrainian issue.

Russia has had an intimate and longstanding relationship with foreign invasion. With an elderly population of over 5 million and a state-mandated policy to laud the Soviet Union’s role fighting Nazi Germany in the Second World War, the memory of invasion, occupation, and eventual resurgence has remained an important part of Russia’s culture, folklore and national narrative [1]. Few Russians are unaware of their country’s role and loss during this period. Casualty figures show that between 18 to 24 million Soviet citizens or 13.6-14.2% of the total population perished during the occupation of European Russia and the eventual liberation of Eastern Europe from 1941-1945 [2]. To imagine this kind of loss is almost impossible as an entire generation of Russians was nearly wiped out, creating a gaping cavity within the fabric of Russian society, and the enduring political and cultural response has been dramatic.

On the surface, this great human and material loss created a political and strategic imperative to secure Russia’s borders. Due to the enormity of the Russian domain and the absence of natural barriers, a constant theme for Russia’s rulers has been the palliation of both of these predicaments that had enabled the Western intrusion in 1941. By employing Russia’s harsh climate and ample landscape, strategic planning has been geared towards defence in depth. Therefore, a longstanding staple of Russia’s foreign policy has been the pursuit of a stable and defensible border. This has led to an expansion into Europe and an urge to gain access to the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Yellow Sea, and the Persian Gulf to create a strong cordon sanitaire. Thus, a central pillar of the Soviet, and later Russian, defence policy has been the undermining of neighbouring states, such as Ukraine, with the intention to introduce regimes which would remain pliable towards Russia’s specific security concerns. From a strategic point of view, the Soviet Union and Russia’s role in countries to its West has been driven by a need to defend its centres of industry and population from Western incursions. However, this is only one piece of the puzzle as ethnic and cultural affinities with those populations to its immediate West and a sense of unified “civilization” and a strong war narrative have also played a role in Russia’s regime’s policy and its population’s perception towards its neighbours.

The Second World War left a lasting effect upon the population of Russia and its diaspora. Wars in memory serve to provide narratives that can be employed by nationalist ideologies. For example, Canadian soldiers’ assault on Vimy Ridge in the First World War became part of the national founding narrative of modern Canada. A similar narrative was fashioned by Russians during and after the Second World War. According to E.A. Wood, the experiences of the Second World War still “serve as a morality tale of suffering and redemption and a foundation myth” and it “creates a collective sense of belonging and redemption” that enables the entrenchment of Russian identity [3]. Thus, the Russian narrative surrounding this war is reliant upon the huge loss suffered by Russia and its redemptive role in liberating Europe from Fascism. While Russia’s regime, particularly under Putin and Medvedev, has repeatedly cashed in on this narrative to shore up its own legitimacy, it has also used this narrative to provide a sense of belonging for the Russian ‘nation’ and diaspora that is spread across the Eurasian landmass.

So what has this got to with Ukraine? Igor Zevelev explains that many Russians view their society as a “civilization,” or ‘nation’ rather than a Westphalian state and this construct crosses boundaries and links peoples across a vast region. Ukraine, especially the East and the Crimean peninsula, and other parts of Eastern Europe have long be viewed by Russian society as an extension of this civilization and this perspective has often been called pan-Slavism. Many of these territories hold substantial Russian diaspora populations; contain large groups who observe the teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church; and share strong linguistic and cultural similarities. Importantly, it was the Red Army, during the Second World War, which fought a number of costly engagements, such as the Siege of Sevastopol in 1941-1942, to defend and later liberate these territories from the yolk of Nazism. Thus, Russia’s war narrative also plays a significant part in its claims to the area as countless Soviet citizens lost their lives to liberate this region. The cultural, ethnic, and historical ties of memory which bind Russia to these countries is incredibly powerful and states like Ukraine fit into Russia’s narrative of belonging, rooted in a shared appreciation of Russian values, and a collective rejection of occupation and liberation from foreign, notably Western, aggressors.

NATO’S and the EU’s encroachment into this region has been framed as not just as detriment to its strategic concerns but also as an attack upon Russia’s culture and its civilizational sphere of influence. Viatcheslav Morozov points out that both NATO and the EU, as Western institutions, are often perceived as Trojan horse devices of Westernization, believed by many be antithetical to the Russian values of the “individual being understood… as… belonging to a nation…[and]… a wider community,” which will subvert the cultural perimeter of Russia and eventually Russia itself [5]. Therefore, much of Russia’s reservations that surround Ukraine stems from the country’s perceived rejection of Russian values and its adoption of Western principles. Providing credence to Morozov’s claim, the Ukrainian government signed an agreement to cooperate with the EU in areas such as regulation, legislation, and justice in 2014 (Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement) [6]. This would effectively alter Ukraine’s political culture from a Russian set of values to a Western set. To further highlight this issue of Western cultural intrusion, the new government in Kiev has a number of Neofascist members who often use anti-Russian rhetoric. Fascism, like capitalism and liberal democracy, is a Western philosophy and the Russian state has made increasing attempts, especially in the newly acquired province of the Crimea, to equate the new Ukrainian government to the fascist regime of Nazi Germany and, in doing so, play upon the ties of pan- Slavic identity within this territory and upon Russia’s pervasive Second World War narrative.

In this blog I have attempted to provide both a realist, or strategic, and a constructivist rationale for Russia’s perceived role in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe. Personally, I believe that the realist perspective is slightly superficial since it only addresses the strategic rationales and does not address the concept of cultural and ethnic identification or the “civilizational” conflict stemming from Western encroachment. Furthermore, I wanted to emphasize the importance of memory in the formation of Russia’s perceived role in areas like Ukraine. I feel that only a constructivist approach, a paradigm that deals with the effects of historical and social constructs upon the international system, can come close to addressing the ‘human’ component to Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, it’s Eastern neighbors and the West.

See:

[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html

[2] Michael Haynes, Counting Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: Europe Asia Studies Vol.55, No. 2, 2003, 300–309

[3] E.A Wood, Performing Memory: Vladimir Putin and the Celebration of WWII in Russia*,  history.mit.edu/sites/default/files/SPSR_038_02_06_Wood.pdf

[4] Igor Zevelev, NATO’s Enlargement and Russian Perceptions of Eurasian Political Frontiers, http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/zevelev.pdf

[5] Viatcheslav Morozov, Russian Identity Politics and NATO Enlargement in the Baltic Sea Region, http://www.nnss.org/Morozov2.doc

[6]  EU-Ukraine Association Agreement -the complete texts, http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/assoagreement/assoagreement-2013_en.htm

 

 

What Constitutes a Hostile (Cyber) Attack?

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In my first blog, I posed a crucial question that remains at the heart of modern discourse surrounding security. “What Constitutes a Hostile Attack?” This article discusses the varying methods that hostile acts can be delivered and perceived. While acts like military force are obvious infringements of states’ sovereignty and require responses, there are still significant ‘grey-areas’ when it comes to what constitutes a hostile action. Whether the actions or tools associated with this new medium of warfare constitute a hostile act or not still depends on the motivations of the aggressor and its reception by the defender. So far, ‘cyber-attacks’ have been characterized as either a form of espionage, where information or data is stolen via the Internet, or as a type of sabotage, such as Denial of Service (DDos) attacks. Many of these attacks come in the form of a specially designed computer virus or through a coordinated attack by a network of hijacked computer systems. Furthermore, unlike other acts such as sanctions, a major feature of this kind of warfare is the level of anonymity and plausible deniability that is provided to the attacker and this further muddies the understanding of this new medium as a ‘hostile act’.

In the same manner that academia has struggled to clearly define what is, and when, a war is present, the discourse surrounding Cyber-warfare is equally fierce and is characterized by scholars who often take opposing stances in regards to this phenomena. Richard Clarke, a former U.S. bureaucrat, views Cyber-Warfare as a future mode of warfare in the toolkit of states, groups, and individuals. Clarke highlights the secretive nature of these weapons; the anonymity of actors within this field; and the inexpensive creation, maintenance, and use of these tools as enabling factors for groups and states, since cyber-warfare incurs low political and financial costs. Furthermore, the difficulty of defending against cyber-attacks and the indirect affect they can have on infrastructure make this cyber-warfare a potent weapon. Through his portrayal of Cyber-warfare, Clarke views this new mode of warfare as a serious threat to national sovereignty. Furthermore, Clarke believes that there has been a proliferation of this medium in the international system and that this will lead to war.

Another voice in this discourse is Thomas Rid, a security studies scholar, who claims that Cyber-warfare is more ‘hype than hazard’, as he believes that the media’s constant and uninformed coverage of this phenomena has caused the issue to become unduly ‘securitized’ and it will destabilize the international system if this issue is further publicized. Importantly, according to Rid, Cyber-warfare does not meet the minimum definition of “war” since no one has been killed or injured, due to this new medium of warfare, and collateral damage will not be suffered from cyber-attacks. Moreover, Rid maintains that cyber-attacks are neither easy nor cost effective to employ. In much the same way as Ole Waever’s warning that the securitization of issues can be manipulated by political elites, Rid makes a strong case against the oversubscription of this emerging medium in the discourse surrounding security in the international system, as he believes that this will lead to an assumption that Cyber-warfare poses a greater threat than it actually does.

In response to the above individuals, I believe that there are some errors and assumptions in their methodologies. Clarke’s understanding of how Cyber-warfare will affect the international system lacks nuance since he assumes that creation and maintenance of Cyber-warfare capabilities are relatively inexpensive. While Clarke may be privy to information and insight that we are not, he bases his claim on an understanding that those who wish to use or defend against this new medium of warfare maintain the willingness to direct sufficient resources to this new weapon. Entities that are without these resources are highly unlikely to expend finite and valuable resources to maintain an offensive or defensive capability in this area. While Rid is correct in pointing out that the use of Cyber-warfare has not directly or indirectly caused any deaths or injuries, as he unable to foresee any development in this medium of war that could further ‘lethal-ize’ it’s effects or how its employment may enter sectors that have not been targeted so far – such as key water or energy infrastructures. Thus, we can see that the discourse in the whether Cyber-warfare will make a profound impact in the international system is not without its flaws and there are many areas where there is no consensus.

In my opinion, I believe that there is a ‘missing link’ in these methodologies as the extent to which a country, industry, or individual is electronically integrated into, and reliant upon, the globalized international system will make a profound difference to whether Cyber-warfare will be useful as weapon or will be perceived as a threat. Thus, those states or entities that are highly reliant on integrated technologies will be more likely to perceive Cyber-warfare as a threat and be prepared to employ it as a method to spy or sabotage an opponent. For example, South Korea has one of the most integrated societies in the world and, therefore, it is most at risk from this new medium – as demonstrated by massive attacks in 2009 and in 2013 that targeted and damaged its key government infrastructure and its financial sector. Further down the scale, Estonia provides another example of a state that has been on the receiving end of cyber attacks as it suffered a large attack in 2007. However, states or groups which are low on the spectrum vis-à-vis their level of integration will not be targeted and, thus, will not fear the use of Cyber-warfare to the same extent. Eritrea, Nicaragua, and many others in the developing world do not exhibit a population or infrastructure that is heavily reliant upon integrated systems or the globalized system. Using the Digital Attack Map (www.digitalattackmap), we can see that attacks rarely originate from; travel through; or target the majority of developing states. Therefore, these states have less to fear from Cyber-warfare since they are not receiver, perpetrator nor accomplice to this new medium. However, the present situation is not static and it should be noted that many states in the developing world are rapidly modernizing their infrastructure and their population in order to integrate themselves into the global economy. In this case, this new medium of war will only become relevant to developing countries when they have reached a certain technological capacity and when they come reliant on the integrated system.

In terms of the aggressor, Cyber-warfare has many applications, such as stealing trade secrets or damaging systems, which will appeal to many states, groups and individuals who wish to cause harm to an adversary. Furthermore, the anonymous nature of Cyber-warfare makes this medium very attractive to aggressors. At the moment, it fair to say that the medium of Cyber-warfare is an indirect form of warfare and espionage. Yet the application of cyber attacks has proliferated and has presented itself as useful tool to attack key infrastructure and states that are highly integrated are expending large amounts of resources on cyber-warfare. For example, the United States, China, Israel and others now have dedicated cyber-warfare departments in their militaries.

In sum, the question concerning whether Cyber-warfare can be considered a “hostile act” or not is not easily penetrated or answered. In some ways, the discourse surrounding whether Cyber-warfare is a threat or not serves to further muddy the understanding of this phenomena as various scholars and individuals hold conflicting points of view toward this emerging mode of warfare. However, examining how Cyber-warfare is perceived, from an offensive and defensive position, can demonstrate who is threatened by the advent of this new threat and who will view it as a tool for strategic gain. By placing states on a spectrum of technological integration, we can see that those states that are reliant on integrated systems have the most to lose and to gain in this situation.

Shadow Company, Alan Ball, and PMCs in the Economy of Conflict – Movie Review

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In the same, often opaque, manner that society delineates the terrorist from the freedom fighter, Jason Bourque and Nick Bicanic’s documentary film – The Shadow Company – and Alan Bell, the President of Global Risk International, discuss Western society’s blurring of the line between soldier and mercenary. Private military companies now compose a significant segment of the security community and these groups have come to appropriate many traditional military roles. Similar to that of less acceptable or conventional non-state combatants, these groups are not subject to neither the limitations nor the protections afforded to traditional armed forces. In this blog, I will briefly discuss what I believe to be the fundamental differences between traditional armed forces and private military companies (PMCs), as explained by the documentary. Furthermore, I will discuss the moral and economic rationales for employing PMCs through a market-centric understanding of the modern security environment.

To understand the key differences between traditional militaries and PMC’s we must first examine and compare a number of attributes that each of these entities possess as explained by Bell and the film. Historically, soldiers-for-hire outdate traditional armies. Ignoring earlier professional armies like Rome’s legions, The Shadow Company emphasizes this discrepancy as it explains that mercenary companies in Europe, formed at the end of The Hundred Years War, dominated the military ‘economy’ within Europe until the 18th century. Despite this film’s omission of characters like Xenophon in its historical locating of mercenaries, it does establish the advent of the French Revolution and the rise of nationalism as the starting point for when European states began employing professional and nationally maintained armies.

Moving to the present, The Shadow Company explains that the end of the Cold War saw an increase in the use of PMCs. Furthermore, the film describes the three ‘levels’ or areas in which the private sector has been used as a substitute for traditional military branches – non-lethal services (logistics), military consultants (trainers) and private military contractors (protection). From my own knowledge, traditional militaries from countries like the UK, US, and Canada do have the capacity to fill the above roles but traditional armies have since left some or all of these roles to private military companies, this change is highlighted by the proliferation of PMCs since 2001. Bell highlighted a key difference between the roles of these two groups. On the one hand, PMCs are charged with the protection of “nouns” – specific infrastructure, equipment, and people. Traditional militaries, in contrast, usually take on an offensive role as they tackle adversaries head-on (offensive operations) or manage key areas or territories. There is one possible rationale for this division of labor. I doubt that the public and the media would accept the use of aggressive force upon an enemy by a non-state actor and would prefer a nation-state’s military to shoulder this responsibility.

This division is distinct; conversely, there is still blurring between the traditional military and PMCs. Bell recounts his unofficial meeting with members of the Taliban’s leadership in an attempt to relay his companies’ apolitical position and positive developmental role. However, the Canadian government, who had zero contact with the Taliban leadership up until this point, was unhappy with this meeting and refused to utilize Bell’s contacts. Here, Bell attempted to use diplomacy to provide a safer work environment but, in fact, he subverted the traditional leadership-leadership dialogue. Without background knowledge and consideration, Bell took matters into his own hands and his actions could have caused damage or loss of life. Furthermore, this action shows that PMCs will attempt to take on a greater role in conflict, such as arbiter, if there is a diplomatic vacuum. In terms of roles, the traditional military and PMCs are distinct but do share some functions, such as training.

With the advent of neoliberalism in the West, we now live in an economic construct that aims to provide efficiencies and economies in every section of our economy, including our ability to project force. Neoliberalism, in short, is an economic philosophy that demands the removal of the government’s role in the market and it trusts that the market can regulate itself. Through this economic paradigm, one that stresses supply-and-demand or market forces to be the core of human economic interaction, we can understand the rationale behind, and the paradox in, the use of PMCs by Western governments in the marketplace of security. To understand this paradigm, we must view the international system as a marketplace where, on the one hand, there is a ‘demand’ for low cost-to-benefit outcomes and, on the other, an ample ‘supply’ of conflict in the world. But, as we will see, these two facets are inconsistent with each other. The first inconsistency is that there is a moral demand from the Western public to be furnished with palatable military outcomes and a demand for the projection of Western interests and policies. However, despite this noble moral imperative and belief in the universalism of Western values, there is an insufficient willingness on the part of the West’s public to accept the kinds of losses, be it human or treasure, which comes with these policies. For example, the military spending of the UK and US has been cut dramatically since 2008 and these states have proved themselves to far less willing to act in the name of their universal values – such as the British Parliament’s rejection of airstrikes against Syria’s Assad regime in 2013. So, while publics in North America and Europe wring their hands over the loss of life in the world and wonder why democracy cannot flourish, there is little inclination among these societies to foot the human and material ‘bill’ for the policies or these values. Yet, there is still a rising a ‘demand’ in the global security marketplace for military training, logistics and protection as conflict, in particular intrastate, has steadily increased since the end of the 1990s. Thus, we can see there is a niche for non-state parties, like NGOs and PMCs, to provide services that Western states’ and publics refuse to undertake themselves. As stated by the documentary, PMCs can provide services which are fiscally inexpensive, as the contracts for these actors are usually significantly shorter than those of traditional soldiers. Plus, as Alan Bell reported, those contractors who are killed or wounded in the workplace are rarely discussed by the media and, therefore, there is no loss of political capital or prestige for Western governments. Thus, in the same way as development charities like Oxfam provide cheaper development, PMCs deliver an inexpensive alternative as traditional soldiers are costly to maintain and the political costs are lower for the loss of these contractors. This is due, in part, to the economic and moral obstacles springing from the West’s public, as these roles in can be only be partially fulfilled by their expensive militaries and PMC’s, which are less affected by public opinion, and provide a cheaper alternative to traditional militaries.

In sum, there are key differences between the conventional military and PMC’s roles but many other, often subsidiary, roles have been appropriated by the private sector. Both the documentary film and Alan Bell show that there is a niche for PMC’s within the security marketplace for an increasingly unstable and conflicted world. While conflict has increased, the willingness of the West to intervene or respond has decreased. Financial and political pressures are taking a toll upon the West’s governments and publics. Personally, I am not totally convinced that PMC’s are a welcome addition to the management of security as there is no formal statute or agreement which defines and limits their conduct. However, I can see, though a market orientated perspective, that PMC’s provide a much needed service. It is interesting to note, that PMC’s may be better positioned to deal with intrastate conflicts than traditional militaries. PMCs are not subject to the same bureaucratic limitations that governments IGOs are afflicted by. Action in conflicts like Rwanda’s in the early 1990s, where the UN was restricted by rigid bureaucracy, could be better tackled by PMCs who are not inhibited by crippling red tape and can provide a cheaper, fiscally and politically, alternative to conventional forces. There are still strong ethical and moral considerations which need to be examined before PMCs take on greater roles in the marketplace of conflict.

What Constitutes a Hostile Action?

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A salient issue from last week’s lectures was the varying attempts by scholars, in the past and present, to identify and define wars. Whether a ‘war’ is present in a given situation is a subjective condition as there are differing, legal and substantive, definitions that have been posited by said scholars who aim to point to a war’s presence or absence. For example, the substantive definition highlights the number of deaths – over 1000 battle-related fatalities – as a method to distinguish ‘wars’ from  ‘conflicts’ However, it was the incredible, almost arbitrary, subjectivity of this measurement that brought my attention to another, equally important, question. If we assume that state vs. state or group vs. group or state vs. group hostile acts can lead to a state-of-war, what kind of event or action constitutes an attack, particularly one that requires a response? In other words, is there really any specific set of conditions for Casus belli –“An act or event that provokes or is used to justify war” – in the modern world?

The legal definition of war has often been treated as a method to signal a state’s intention to pursue a stance of belligerence towards another. The first, genuine, ‘act of war’ was historically considered to be the announcement of hostilities or a declaration of war as expressed in Article I of The Hague Convention (III) Convention Relative to the Opening of Hostilities, 1907. In contemporary terms,the United Nations’ charter goes some way to specify the key ingredient of an attack that necessitates a response. The charter states that members reserve the right to “individual or collective self-defense” in the case of an “armed attack” (Article 51). Therefore, the key feature of an attack is that it must be ‘armed’ if it is to require a response. But does an attack need to be armed to cause similar conditions of destruction and loss of life? Don’t other forms of assault, which also aim to damage infrastructure and cause hardship, upon a state or a society constitute an attack and demand a response?

A frequently used method of projecting non-armed yet destructive force upon another state or group is sanctions. Sanctions are designed to disrupt your opponent’s economy and cause hardship upon a state’s population in order for that populace to place pressure upon their elites to alter the state’s policy to one that favors the state or group that initiated sanctions. For example, UN and the United States’ sanctions targeting Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 were aimed at coercing average Iraqis to demand policy change from Saddam Hussein’s regime. But rather than cause the regime to affect policy change, the exacting weight of these sanctions fell upon the Iraqi population. So do sanctions constitute acts of war since damage and harm were caused? While the substantive definition of war clearly states that ‘battle-related deaths’ separate wars from conflicts, I would counter, for the sake of argument, that sanctions can create a ‘state of war’ within a targeted country as they make no distinction between civilian and combatant. Rather than using guns and tanks to force an opposing society to acquiesce, sanctions generate a battle-scape where hunger and deprivation are harnessed to exact a population’s submission and undermine a regime’s integrity. Imperial Japan, for example, viewed American sanctions in 1941 as so damaging to its economy, the integrity of its regime, and the wellbeing of its society that it believed itself to be in a virtual state-of-war prior to Pearl Harbor. Iraq, equally, could have perceived sanctions against its economy, regime, and population as an act of war. Furthermore, if we were to extrapolate and expand the substantive definition of a war to include all fatalities and use its simple numerical parameters then sanctions could be regarded as a massive attack upon a society since hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a result of UN and US actions. Essentially, non-armed actions, such as the use of sanctions, could be interpreted as a hostile attack that requires a response since it negatively impacts a state’s economy, targets its regime, and harms its population.

In this blog I have attempted to demonstrate that there is more than one way to measure what constitutes an attack upon a state or society. Keeping in line with the traditional parameters of what makes a ‘war’, other approaches to projecting force can be viewed as ‘acts of war,’ which constitute a response. In this post, I have tried to show that war and ‘acts of war’ can be highly subjective and are up for interpretation, demonstrating the importance of language and definition in dealing with issues on an international scale.