This article by Chiara Oriti Niosi and Maud Farrugia originally appeared on openDemocracy on 19 December 2014.

A spate of violence against women in the eastern DRC shows that there is still a long way to go on effective implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, 14 years after its adoption.

There are very few roads accessible by car in the South Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One of these is around Bukavu, the provincial capital. The road is used daily by locals, government officials, non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Stabilization Mission for the DRC (MONUSCO), the world’s largest peacekeeping mission.

In this area, over a few months in 2013, at least 40 women were reportedly attacked, sexually assaulted and robbed of all their goods while taking shortcuts on their way to markets. As often happens, such incidents went unreported for a long time, mainly because survivors feared being stigmatised as victims, and had little faith that their assailants would be prosecuted.

What was happening? Too poor to afford basic transportation, heavily burdened Congolese women walk long distances to reach markets to sell their products. Congolese Armed Forces had obstructed the road to Bukavu with illegal barriers, forcing women who lacked the money to pay the tolls to choose the forest by-ways, risking attack.

But even if unreported, the risk of incidents should have been detected. The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road. This should have been striking considering how common it is to see women carrying large loads on their shoulders everywhere in this area of the DRC.The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road.

This indicates not only a terrible gap in recognising and preventing sexual violence, but also a lack of attention to women’s roles in society, and to women’s potential contributions to security, early warning and early response, and peacemaking. In other words, a lack of concern for what is stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which acknowledges the vital role women can and should play in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Losing direction: the gaps in adopting a gender perspective

In spite of growing efforts to raise awareness and knowledge of Resolution 1325 among international actors and national institutions, many peacebuilders are not yet used to applying a gender perspective. On one hand, the importance of gender is underestimated, and its potential to influence peace and conflict is not recognized. This is partly because gender is so rooted in each society’s behaviour that it is often confused with culture, or not even perceived at all–neither in the local peacekeeping environment, nor in the environment of origin of peaceworkers. Peaceworkers take great trouble not to ‘interfere’ with the culture of local people.

The difficulties associated with discussing gender norms, while remaining sensitive to the cultural autonomy of the local population, end up being used to justify not working with gender at all. On the other hand, those difficulties have also created the perception that working with gender is the exclusive responsibility of specialized experts, with a specific budget. While this can be true for the implementation of gender programs, it is not true for adopting a gender perspective. The transversal nature of gender necessitates acting with a gender perspective.

What dominates is a misinterpretation of ‘gender’, which for most practitioners is largely linked to reducing sexual violence. A shallow interpretation of gender inhibits this aspect of peacework. Although most strategies of civilian protection take into account threats, vulnerabilities, profiles of aggressors and attacks, and even indicators of conflict-related sexual violence, few consider the social roles assigned through gender alongside these other key elements. For example, if collecting water is a role traditionally taken on by women, and (male) armed actors have a record of sexual violence against women, it is crucial that local water points are secured away from them.

But understandings of gender are not only about reducing sexual violence; they are crucial to every aspect of peace and conflict life. The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution. The daily activities conducted by men and women are frequently determined by gender, and can sway and be swayed by conflict and peace contexts.

For instance, women’s and men’s daily activities will expose them to different knowledge. Where women are tasked with collecting water and wood, cultivating fields, childcare or visiting markets, while men maintain a breadwinner role, they will have access to different kinds of information which can be essential to recognize conflict patterns; information about a particular community’s needs, specific security threats, and local power brokers. Humanitarian situations can also challenge gender norms. It has been widely reported amongst Syrian refugees that, because men have been uncomfortable asking for assistance, women have added to their traditional responsibilities by looking for humanitarian aid outside of the home. Acquiring this breadwinner status has left some women on the receiving end of frustrations of their male partners, expressed through violence.The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution.

In other cases, working with women directly can be crucial to achieving a sustainable peace. In reintegration programs especially, working with ex-combatants’ wives can be very helpful. Social connections with the host community, which are crucial for a sustainable reintegration, are often created by women via childcare, visits to the market and so on. In all these senses, a gender perspective can provide opportunities to drive positive changes towards peace and gender equality.

Yet gender often is not included in peacekeepers’ observations. Why? One explanation is that in conflict situations, “hard issues”, such as armed attacks or massive destruction, are much more visible, easier to monitor and with immediate measurable impact, and so are more easily included in protection strategies. In contrast, gender issues come across as “soft issues”, and are often confined to the domain of “women’s issues”. Gender issues are not seen as priorities that must be considered for stepping towards peace; rather, they are considered ‘consequences’ of the conflict to which provide assistance.

Commonly, gender is very much associated with women, rather than the gendered roles of women and men; women in conflict situations are mostly seen as vulnerable objects of peacekeeping initiatives. This understanding of gender relegates women to passive victimhood–rather than to persons that are not vulnerable per se, but are in a condition of vulnerability. This misinterpretation is very costly: not only reducing peace operations’ capacity to prevent violence, but also the participation of key active elements able to promote a sustainable peace.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 suffers from this bias: it is often treated as an appendix to weightier matters, rather than being integral to conflict resolution or sustainable peace. The titular focus of Resolution 1325 on Women (rather than Gender), Peace and Security may itself be problematic. It risks being misinterpreted as advocating that the security of women be dealt with differently (and separately) from that of men; stressing the need to promote protection and participation of women, rather than highlighting the interdependence of women’s and men’s security for lasting peace. The existence of specific security threats towards a targeted group, for example the frequency with which sexual violence is directed against women and girls, or the forced recruitment into armed groups of children, does not mean that consequences will affect only that part of the population. Nor does it follow that the strategies of prevention should focus only on the ‘at risk’ group.

Rather, the consequences of violations affect the population as a whole, at all levels of society. Attacks against women on routes to market have not only consequences for the victim personally, but on family relationships, where the victim suffers discrimination, and the husbands frustration. The socio-economic stability of the community itself is put at risk when the markets are closed due to declining participation. Consequently, such attacks have consequences also at a regional and national level. Indeed, security does not mean only protection against threats, but the creation of a protected environment at all levels: domestic, community, institutional, and international. Each man and each woman has a role to play in all those levels of security.

Gender equality has further implications for security. If men and women do not have the same access to opportunities and rights, the security and peace of the society at large is compromised. An imbalance of rights and participation at the family level can have repercussions nationwide. What is essential is the interaction and participation of women and men together to build peace and prevent conflict.

The greater aim of Resolution 1325 to integrate a gender perspective into all aspects of conflict prevention and resolution is thus missed in many efforts to implement it. Indeed, this tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors. This is only part of the picture. Training all mission personnel in operating with a gender perspective is more important.

It is true that there is an immediate need to increase the number of women (military, police and civilian) deployed in peace support operations and to elevate their roles to those of their male counterparts. Female peacekeepers can play crucial roles in certain areas, including women’s protection: assisting women victims of violence, and patrols and community engagement in contexts where social norms restrict contacts between women and men. Female peacekeepers challenge broad conceptions around women’s–and men’s–roles in security. For instance, a Uruguayan female helicopter pilot with MONUSCO has aroused enormous interest among Congolese women, which has supported the mission’s engagement with local people. In Liberia, Indian female peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) have assumed a very high profile role guarding the President’s office. The percentage of women enrolling in the Liberian National Police rose from 13 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. The tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors.

However, the presence of female peacekeepers is often the sole emblem of the UNSC resolution. While this is indeed part of the solution, the key is for each actor–male or female, military or civilian–to learn and to act with a gender perspective in all situations. In order to achieve this, a gender perspective needs to be taught, continuously cultivated and practiced before, during and after peace operations.

Getting it right: South-South collaboration

Sharing similar experiences and lessons learned between regions is an excellent way to gradually adopt the gender perspective. Latin America and Africa, for example, are regions that share a number of structural characteristics and face comparable challenges: post-colonial states, corruption, insecurity, inequality, young governments, histories of long-lasting internal conflicts, and post-dictatorial contexts. South-South collaborations between these regions enables a thoughtful approach based on the experiences countries have acquired over the years. Such collaborations, moreover, are all the more pertinent as many Troop Contributing Countries to peace operations deployed in Africa are from Latin American countries. Currently, 12 Latin American and Caribbean states contribute over 1,500 peacekeepers to UN missions in Africa, with the Uruguayan and Guatemalan commitments to MONUSCO being the largest.

Resolution 1325 was originally neglected at the Latin American level. Since 2007, RESDAL’s investigations on women in the armed forces across the Latin American region have revealed a number of issues, including a lack of data on the subject, and a lack of discussion of gender issues within peace operations. The research papers promote collaboration between civil, military and police actors to improve gender equality within democratic institutions, and are an important resource for Latin American practitioners. As a result of such efforts, Resolution 1325 and related material were incorporated into the regional agenda within three years, notably in the IX Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas.

RESDAL has been uniquely positioned to use this regional advocacy experience to progress the Women, Peace and Security agenda in international peace operations. After conducting fieldwork in Haiti, DRC and Lebanon, where Latin American countries participate in United Nations peace operations, it became clear to RESDAL that it was necessary to carry out regular and pre-deployment training for military peacekeeping forces. To this end, RESDAL instigated a programme of classes on gender promotion in peacekeeping operations at various centers across Latin America that consider international legal frameworks and field experiences, as well as local understandings of gender.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 cannot take shortcuts: the path to adopt is that of a comprehensive, multi-actor and practical gender approach. The 15th anniversary of Resolution 1325 next year provides an opportunity to follow such a path, advocating for an approach based on fieldwork and South-South collaboration to work with women and men towards a lasting peace.

Chiara Oriti Niosi specializes in reducing sexual violence in conflict, with several years of experience at the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO). She currently works at RESDAL in the Women, Peace and Security program.

Maud Farrugia holds a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is Assistant Researcher for the Women, Peace and Security program of RESDAL. 

Featured image: A MONUSCO vehicle on patrol in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: Flickr | MONUSCO

This article by Chiara Oriti Niosi and Maud Farrugia originally appeared on openDemocracy on 19 December 2014.

A spate of violence against women in the eastern DRC shows that there is still a long way to go on effective implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, 14 years after its adoption.

There are very few roads accessible by car in the South Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One of these is around Bukavu, the provincial capital. The road is used daily by locals, government officials, non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Stabilization Mission for the DRC (MONUSCO), the world’s largest peacekeeping mission.

In this area, over a few months in 2013, at least 40 women were reportedly attacked, sexually assaulted and robbed of all their goods while taking shortcuts on their way to markets. As often happens, such incidents went unreported for a long time, mainly because survivors feared being stigmatised as victims, and had little faith that their assailants would be prosecuted.

What was happening? Too poor to afford basic transportation, heavily burdened Congolese women walk long distances to reach markets to sell their products. Congolese Armed Forces had obstructed the road to Bukavu with illegal barriers, forcing women who lacked the money to pay the tolls to choose the forest by-ways, risking attack.

But even if unreported, the risk of incidents should have been detected. The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road. This should have been striking considering how common it is to see women carrying large loads on their shoulders everywhere in this area of the DRC.The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road.

This indicates not only a terrible gap in recognising and preventing sexual violence, but also a lack of attention to women’s roles in society, and to women’s potential contributions to security, early warning and early response, and peacemaking. In other words, a lack of concern for what is stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which acknowledges the vital role women can and should play in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Losing direction: the gaps in adopting a gender perspective

In spite of growing efforts to raise awareness and knowledge of Resolution 1325 among international actors and national institutions, many peacebuilders are not yet used to applying a gender perspective. On one hand, the importance of gender is underestimated, and its potential to influence peace and conflict is not recognized. This is partly because gender is so rooted in each society’s behaviour that it is often confused with culture, or not even perceived at all–neither in the local peacekeeping environment, nor in the environment of origin of peaceworkers. Peaceworkers take great trouble not to ‘interfere’ with the culture of local people.

The difficulties associated with discussing gender norms, while remaining sensitive to the cultural autonomy of the local population, end up being used to justify not working with gender at all. On the other hand, those difficulties have also created the perception that working with gender is the exclusive responsibility of specialized experts, with a specific budget. While this can be true for the implementation of gender programs, it is not true for adopting a gender perspective. The transversal nature of gender necessitates acting with a gender perspective.

What dominates is a misinterpretation of ‘gender’, which for most practitioners is largely linked to reducing sexual violence. A shallow interpretation of gender inhibits this aspect of peacework. Although most strategies of civilian protection take into account threats, vulnerabilities, profiles of aggressors and attacks, and even indicators of conflict-related sexual violence, few consider the social roles assigned through gender alongside these other key elements. For example, if collecting water is a role traditionally taken on by women, and (male) armed actors have a record of sexual violence against women, it is crucial that local water points are secured away from them.

But understandings of gender are not only about reducing sexual violence; they are crucial to every aspect of peace and conflict life. The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution. The daily activities conducted by men and women are frequently determined by gender, and can sway and be swayed by conflict and peace contexts.

For instance, women’s and men’s daily activities will expose them to different knowledge. Where women are tasked with collecting water and wood, cultivating fields, childcare or visiting markets, while men maintain a breadwinner role, they will have access to different kinds of information which can be essential to recognize conflict patterns; information about a particular community’s needs, specific security threats, and local power brokers. Humanitarian situations can also challenge gender norms. It has been widely reported amongst Syrian refugees that, because men have been uncomfortable asking for assistance, women have added to their traditional responsibilities by looking for humanitarian aid outside of the home. Acquiring this breadwinner status has left some women on the receiving end of frustrations of their male partners, expressed through violence.The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution.

In other cases, working with women directly can be crucial to achieving a sustainable peace. In reintegration programs especially, working with ex-combatants’ wives can be very helpful. Social connections with the host community, which are crucial for a sustainable reintegration, are often created by women via childcare, visits to the market and so on. In all these senses, a gender perspective can provide opportunities to drive positive changes towards peace and gender equality.

Yet gender often is not included in peacekeepers’ observations. Why? One explanation is that in conflict situations, “hard issues”, such as armed attacks or massive destruction, are much more visible, easier to monitor and with immediate measurable impact, and so are more easily included in protection strategies. In contrast, gender issues come across as “soft issues”, and are often confined to the domain of “women’s issues”. Gender issues are not seen as priorities that must be considered for stepping towards peace; rather, they are considered ‘consequences’ of the conflict to which provide assistance.

Commonly, gender is very much associated with women, rather than the gendered roles of women and men; women in conflict situations are mostly seen as vulnerable objects of peacekeeping initiatives. This understanding of gender relegates women to passive victimhood–rather than to persons that are not vulnerable per se, but are in a condition of vulnerability. This misinterpretation is very costly: not only reducing peace operations’ capacity to prevent violence, but also the participation of key active elements able to promote a sustainable peace.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 suffers from this bias: it is often treated as an appendix to weightier matters, rather than being integral to conflict resolution or sustainable peace. The titular focus of Resolution 1325 on Women (rather than Gender), Peace and Security may itself be problematic. It risks being misinterpreted as advocating that the security of women be dealt with differently (and separately) from that of men; stressing the need to promote protection and participation of women, rather than highlighting the interdependence of women’s and men’s security for lasting peace. The existence of specific security threats towards a targeted group, for example the frequency with which sexual violence is directed against women and girls, or the forced recruitment into armed groups of children, does not mean that consequences will affect only that part of the population. Nor does it follow that the strategies of prevention should focus only on the ‘at risk’ group.

Rather, the consequences of violations affect the population as a whole, at all levels of society. Attacks against women on routes to market have not only consequences for the victim personally, but on family relationships, where the victim suffers discrimination, and the husbands frustration. The socio-economic stability of the community itself is put at risk when the markets are closed due to declining participation. Consequently, such attacks have consequences also at a regional and national level. Indeed, security does not mean only protection against threats, but the creation of a protected environment at all levels: domestic, community, institutional, and international. Each man and each woman has a role to play in all those levels of security.

Gender equality has further implications for security. If men and women do not have the same access to opportunities and rights, the security and peace of the society at large is compromised. An imbalance of rights and participation at the family level can have repercussions nationwide. What is essential is the interaction and participation of women and men together to build peace and prevent conflict.

The greater aim of Resolution 1325 to integrate a gender perspective into all aspects of conflict prevention and resolution is thus missed in many efforts to implement it. Indeed, this tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors. This is only part of the picture. Training all mission personnel in operating with a gender perspective is more important.

It is true that there is an immediate need to increase the number of women (military, police and civilian) deployed in peace support operations and to elevate their roles to those of their male counterparts. Female peacekeepers can play crucial roles in certain areas, including women’s protection: assisting women victims of violence, and patrols and community engagement in contexts where social norms restrict contacts between women and men. Female peacekeepers challenge broad conceptions around women’s–and men’s–roles in security. For instance, a Uruguayan female helicopter pilot with MONUSCO has aroused enormous interest among Congolese women, which has supported the mission’s engagement with local people. In Liberia, Indian female peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) have assumed a very high profile role guarding the President’s office. The percentage of women enrolling in the Liberian National Police rose from 13 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. The tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors.

However, the presence of female peacekeepers is often the sole emblem of the UNSC resolution. While this is indeed part of the solution, the key is for each actor–male or female, military or civilian–to learn and to act with a gender perspective in all situations. In order to achieve this, a gender perspective needs to be taught, continuously cultivated and practiced before, during and after peace operations.

Getting it right: South-South collaboration

Sharing similar experiences and lessons learned between regions is an excellent way to gradually adopt the gender perspective. Latin America and Africa, for example, are regions that share a number of structural characteristics and face comparable challenges: post-colonial states, corruption, insecurity, inequality, young governments, histories of long-lasting internal conflicts, and post-dictatorial contexts. South-South collaborations between these regions enables a thoughtful approach based on the experiences countries have acquired over the years. Such collaborations, moreover, are all the more pertinent as many Troop Contributing Countries to peace operations deployed in Africa are from Latin American countries. Currently, 12 Latin American and Caribbean states contribute over 1,500 peacekeepers to UN missions in Africa, with the Uruguayan and Guatemalan commitments to MONUSCO being the largest.

Resolution 1325 was originally neglected at the Latin American level. Since 2007, RESDAL’s investigations on women in the armed forces across the Latin American region have revealed a number of issues, including a lack of data on the subject, and a lack of discussion of gender issues within peace operations. The research papers promote collaboration between civil, military and police actors to improve gender equality within democratic institutions, and are an important resource for Latin American practitioners. As a result of such efforts, Resolution 1325 and related material were incorporated into the regional agenda within three years, notably in the IX Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas.

RESDAL has been uniquely positioned to use this regional advocacy experience to progress the Women, Peace and Security agenda in international peace operations. After conducting fieldwork in Haiti, DRC and Lebanon, where Latin American countries participate in United Nations peace operations, it became clear to RESDAL that it was necessary to carry out regular and pre-deployment training for military peacekeeping forces. To this end, RESDAL instigated a programme of classes on gender promotion in peacekeeping operations at various centers across Latin America that consider international legal frameworks and field experiences, as well as local understandings of gender.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 cannot take shortcuts: the path to adopt is that of a comprehensive, multi-actor and practical gender approach. The 15th anniversary of Resolution 1325 next year provides an opportunity to follow such a path, advocating for an approach based on fieldwork and South-South collaboration to work with women and men towards a lasting peace.

Chiara Oriti Niosi specializes in reducing sexual violence in conflict, with several years of experience at the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO). She currently works at RESDAL in the Women, Peace and Security program.

Maud Farrugia holds a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is Assistant Researcher for the Women, Peace and Security program of RESDAL. 

Featured image: A MONUSCO vehicle on patrol in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: Flickr | MONUSCO

This post by Oxford Research Group’s Global Security Consultant, Paul Rogers, was originally posted by openSecurity on 3 July, 2014.

The recharged war in Iraq that got underway in June 2014 is moving towards its second month. A remarkable feature of this phase is the formation of a largely unacknowledged coalition of four states opposed to the advance of the extremeSunni paramilitaries across much of northwestern Iraq.

Iran’s involvement is clear enough: senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers are active in Baghdad, and Iranian reconnaissance-drones are being used to aid Iraq’s troubled armed forces. Syria too is active, with Bashar al-Assad’s air-force conducting intermittent (and perhaps largely symbolic) strikes against jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets inside Iraq.

This reflects a shift in the Assad regime’s position. As long as ISIL could be considered little more than an irritant in Syria (even if occupying substantial ground), the group had a propaganda value for Damascus, which could project an image of being steadfast in the face of radical Islam and even secure tacit acceptance by western governments in the process.

Now that ISIL is getting stronger and more confident – symbolised in itsdeclaration of an “Islamic State” in the territory it controls – the potential challenge to Damascus’s as well as Baghdad’s security is evident. Assad may therefore continue to encourage periodic cross-border air-raids, but he will also work harder to damage ISIL within Syria.

The late shift

The two other states in this extraordinary anti-ISIL confluence are the United States and Russia. United States forces in the region are being steadily expanded, though it remains difficult to discern the full extent of personnel deployment in Iraq. This is partly because several thousand Americans in Iraq were already in Iraq before the new war erupted –  including diplomats, weapons-technicians and private military contractors. It is sure, however, that three further groups of military personnel are now entering Iraq.

The first is composed of security people (probably around 300 in total) assignedto guard diplomats and civilians; the second (at least 100) to safeguard Baghdad airport, among them probably specialist helicopter-crews available to retrieve aircrew (the potential need is highlighted by the US navy’s regular F-18 reconnaissance sorties off the USS George HW Bush carrier in the Persian Gulf). The third group is troops, mostly special-forces personnel, sent to Baghdad and elsewhere to boost Iraqi government forces in their operations. The key point here is that the overall authority, US Central Command, calculates that its operation is unlikely to yield results for several weeks (see Daniel Wasserbly, “US assesses mission in Iraq, considers military options”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 2 July 2014). US personnel may already be advising Iraqi army troops in their stalled attempt to retake the city of Tikrit, a political necessity for Nouri al-Maliki’s government to demonstrate that it was seen to be doing something to address a military disaster. But the US military is taking a longer-term view of its work in Iraq.

Russia completes this unlikely anti-ISIS coalition. Its main involvement so far is the provision of a number of Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft. The Su-25 is a robust if relatively slow-flying aircraft of the 1970s, roughly analogous to the US’s A-10 Warthog (though less heavily armed). It was widely deployed by the Iraqi air-force in the war with Iran (1980-88), and used by the Soviet air-force in the two Chechen wars (1994-96 and 1999-2002). Few if any survived in Iraqi air-force service after the 1991 war; so it is close to a quarter-century since any Iraqi pilots flew this aircraft – which like all ground-attack planes requires particular skills and much practice. The implication is that if Su-25s are used against ISIL and other militias in the coming weeks, it is near-certain that Russian pilots will fly them.

Thus, both US and Russian forces are preparing to aid the Maliki government at a quite significant level, and may even cooperate more closely than either Washington or Moscow will want to acknowledge. Indeed, that may already be happening: the hundred US troops inserted to help protect Baghdad’s airport will be guarding the very same base from which Su-25s are already flying, no doubt with Russian pilots.

The weeks ahead

If the war is creating strange alliances, a question of timescales may also become relevant as events unfold. Neither US and Russian support for Iraq, nor any from Iran, will have much effect on the situation until mid-July. This means that ISIL’s planners have a short window of opportunity to consolidate their recent gains. Several sources indicate that ISIL already has groups in place in western Baghdad to aid any assault on the city (see “The Iraq Crisis [Part 111]: Is Baghdad at Risk?“, 30 June 2014).

The next two weeks, then, are an acutely dangerous period (see Borzou Daragahi, “Iraqi capital nervously awaits Isis attack“, Financial Times, 1 July 2014). The aim of any ISIS attack will not be to take control of the whole city, for Shi’a militias in the eastern Baghdad districts are strong enough to contest that; instead it will be to damage and demoralise the regime to an extent that Baghdad can’t prevent the Islamic State consolidating itself.

That outcome would give ISIS a further lease of life. It would also be welcomed by many in the region, not least Saudi Arabia. But it would also be no more than a temporary gain in a war which may yet have far more dreadful human consequences.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University and Global Security Consultant at Oxford Research Group.  He is the author of numerous books including Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

In order to persuade its allies in Israel and Gulf Arab states to support the Iran nuclear deal, the United States is relying on inducements of weaponry sales; this regional militarisation is further destabilising the wider Middle East region.

The July 2015 international deal on regulating Iran’s nuclear programme, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), looks to be a triumph for international diplomacy in a region that all too often sees diplomacy lose out to military force. However, in order to persuade its allies in Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states to support the deal, the United States is offering ‘consolation packages’ of ever-higher quantities and qualities of weaponry.  This regional militarisation is further destabilising the wider Middle East region by fuelling an arms race and by increasing the attractiveness of hybrid or proxy warfare.

Arms Sales to Gulf Arab States

The six Arab monarchies that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE) are enthusiastic consumers of weaponry, which they overwhelmingly procure from the US, UK and France. Saudi Arabia is by far the largest military spender and arms importer among them. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Kingdom’s record military expenditure of over $80 billion in 2014 made it the fourth highest military spender in the world, overtaking the UK and France. It is now the world’s second largest arms importer. The other GCC states are also major spenders: Oman is probably the world’s highest military spender by percentage of GDP, averaging 12% between 2010 and 2014; last year the United Arab Emirates’ military expenditure reached $23 billion and it has been the world’s fourth largest arms importer for a decade. Together, the GCC states account for about 12% of global arms imports. Only India imports more weapons.

The Gulf States enjoy a close commercial and strategic relationship with the United States, which is manifested in the huge sums spent on US weaponry, and the fact that the US military overtly uses land, air and naval bases in at least five of the six Gulf Arab states; its ongoing presence in Saudi Arabia is much lower key. Despite this, there are limitations on the quality and quantity of weaponry that the US can sell to GCC states. This is because of the US’ ongoing commitment to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ (QME) over its regional adversaries.

A term coined by Israel’s founding leader David Ben-Gurion in 1953, QME was formally written into US law by Congress in 2008. Legislation now states that the US President must carry out an ongoing ‘empirical and qualitative assessment’ of Israel’s QME over military threats to Israel, and this must be brought into consideration when assessing applications to provide military hardware or services to other countries in the Middle East. As the GCC states could in the future become adversaries to Israel, whose statehood none currently recognize and which Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposed in the 1967 and 1973 wars, this has long restricted sales of the highest technology weapons, surveillance and targeting systems to Gulf Arab states.

QME and anti-Iran Alignments

Recent regional events, and the JCPOA in particular, have seen Israel and the Gulf States find themselves increasingly aligned against Iran. The Israeli leadership has been consistently critical of the deal while the Gulf States were hesitant to support it because of their fears that an economically, militarily and diplomatically resurgent Iran would dominate the Middle East region and potentially vie with them to become the US’ chief regional ally.

Relations between Israel and the Gulf have long been shrouded in secrecy, although that does not mean they have not existed. From 1950 until Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, for instance, there was periodic Israeli involvement in the operation of the ‘Trans-Arabia Pipeline’ (Tapline), and throughout the 1990s Israel and various GCC states began to set up trade offices; various Gulf States have, at different times and to varying extents, had a hand in the Arab-Israeli peace process. In the last few years, Israel and the Gulf States have increasingly found their regional interests aligning; this came to the fore during the 2011 Arab uprisings when they argued that American policy was exacerbating regional instability.

The coincidence of interests between Israel and the GCC was referenced by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in September; in a speech to the UN General Assembly he spent much of his time denigrating the Iran deal, but he also mentioned the ‘common dangers’ faced by Israel and Arab states, and his hope that they could build ‘lasting partnerships’ to counter such dangers. There has predictably been no discussion of any official agreement between Israel and any Gulf State, but rumours of potential partnerships have been germinating: one suggested that Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf, was looking to buy Iron Dome anti-missile defence systems from Israel; these reports were hotly denied by Bahraini officials.

GCC Support for the Iran Deal

Despite stiff and vocal opposition from the Republican majority in the Senate, Obama has recently signed waivers that would conditionally allow the lifting of US sanctions subject to Iran fulfilling its JCPOA obligations. An altogether different challenge for Obama was placating America’s allies in the Gulf.

Although Obama was not reliant on the Gulf Arab States to approve the Iran deal, it was sufficiently controversial to dent relations between them and the United States. This was demonstrated in May of this year when Obama invited GCC leaders to Camp David, where he attempted to persuade them personally of the merits of the deal: new Saudi monarch King Salman pulled out of attending at the last minute. Those that remained were hoping for a formal security treaty that would bind the US to support the GCC militarily in the case of an attack, but the Obama administration eventually won their support with promises of ‘support and capacity-building’, which essentially boiled down to bigger, faster arms deals.

King Salman has played a tough game with the Obama administration. After his no-show in May, the Saudis reminded the US that they do not rely exclusively on the American arms market when in June they conducted extensive talks with France, discussing the potential purchase of French civil nuclear technology and further arms deals, the immediate outcome of which was the French sale of $500 million worth of helicopters. Qatar and Egypt (likely financed by GCC patrons) have also made multi-billion dollar arms deals with France this year; as has Kuwait with Italy. There was also much talk of Saudi interest in Russian equipment during August.

Salman eventually reconciled with the Obama administration during a lavish state visit to Washington in September. Before talks between the two heads of state, Obama administration officials confirmed that Israel would be the only regional recipient of the forthcoming F-35 stealth fighter; they can thus claim to be considering Israel’s QME. However, officials also said that Obama would discuss ‘a range of other options meant to bolster Saudi defences’. Salman ultimately professed to come away reassured that the Iran deal would ‘contribute to security and stability in the region’. His price for this statement was a reassurance from Obama that US weapons technology and systems would be fast-tracked to Saudi Arabia, and a free hand to use such weapons in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

Arms Sales and Geopolitics

Obama’s solution to winning support for the Iran deal from the Gulf Arab States is inherently flawed. While Gulf Arab leaders, having been promised these deals, professed their conviction that the deal would lead to regional stability, the promise of further military hardware was nevertheless purported to be intended to help states repel potential attacks from Iran. Although the narrative of the Israeli and American right is that Iran wants nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, an alternative explanation is that it is the huge qualitative and quantitative superiority in conventional weapons by US-allied Sunni Arab states that has driven Iran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.

While the Iran nuclear deal may decrease the likelihood of a preemptive attack on Iran by either its Gulf Arab rivals or Israel, the escalating wars in Yemen and Syria indicate that Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab monarchies (Morocco and Jordan have joined GCC allies in both interventions) are increasingly willing to employ a more interventionist approach in the region, both directly and via proxies, wherever they see the expansion of Iranian interests. This is facilitated by US weaponry, intelligence and diplomatic support.

The war in Yemen has already had catastrophic humanitarian consequences, with at least 2,615 civilians killed and about 1.5 million people displaced. Reports suggest that larger quantities of US military hardware could be making their way to Syria after a 24 October meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi officials, including King Salman, to discuss greater support for ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels in response to Russian air strikes. The White House has claimed that Russia would not succeed in achieving a military solution to the conflict, but the United States is equally unlikely to enforce a military solution.

The JCPOA is a diplomatic breakthrough that will likely be far more successful in reducing Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons than air or missile strikes. However, while Iran can no longer look to the nuclear option to give it a military advantage, or parity, it may consider other options. The strategic alignment of Israel and the Gulf States means that Obama has greater leverage to use arms deals to maintain the support of his Gulf allies, but a result of these deals is that a huge amount of conventional weaponry is being poured into the Gulf and from there to regional conflicts.

Many of these conflicts involve Iranian proxies, and Iran may compensate for its lack of either nuclear or conventional leverage by increasing military support for these proxies, including those in Syria and Yemen. The United States’ method of securing regional support for the JCPOA thus adds fuel to the fire of regional conflicts and humanitarian crises, and makes diplomatic outcomes, whether in Syria or Yemen, ever more distant.

Finbar Anderson is Communications Intern with Oxford Research Group.  Having lived and studied in Egypt, he has recently completed a Master’s degree in History of International Relations, focusing on the politics of the Middle East, at the London School of Economics.