Scarred in recent years by questionable involvements in the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq – and by the casualties they wrought – risk-averse Western governments have begun to look to others to do the shedding of blood in their ‘wars of choice’. The risky boots-on-the-ground role that was once the proud preserve of NATO armies anxious to showcase their abilities is now politically unpalatable. Proxies appear to be the answer. Biddable local allies who are of a mind to work in collaboration with Western militaries are very much in demand: the former supply the troops, the latter the training and the technological support – if not, indeed, the weapons as well. A symbiosis based on the principle that my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend is the goal. This simple formula, though, is one that is not always bound to produce positive results. Proxies should always carry a health warning; they tend not to be as biddable as hoped.

Take the Kurds. They are an ethnic group inhabiting a region – Iraq and Syria – where suitable proxies for Western powers are very much in demand for use against Islamic State (IS). The Kurds appear to be ideal candidates as proxy fighters: they are numerous; of a warrior-caste; are politically acceptable to Western audiences, and have a natural enemy in IS. As a militant group intent on territorial expansion, IS threatens Kurdish communities. The case for synergy is thus obvious: Western militaries and the Kurds can work together for mutual benefit. Not quite so obvious, however, are the various reasons why the relationship between Kurd and Western militaries is one that has the ready capacity to go awry. The chief driver of any breakdown is that Kurdish proxies can and will have their own priorities that clash with those of their sponsors.

Image of Peshmerga replacing the ISIS flag with  the Kurdish flag by Kurdishstruggle via Flickr.

The first point to note here is that the Kurds are a people divided. A fractiousness has historically long been evident between the various clans, tribes and families that make up this nation. These differences may have now mellowed but they have never completely dissipated. And then there are the differences created by linguistic schisms – Sorani and Kurmanji – and sectarianism – Sunni and Shia. Differences also developed due to the politics of whichever state the Kurds found themselves in after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds within Syria developed under the tutelage firstly of French colonial rulers and then under a succession of socialist governments in Damascus. Both influences – or rather impositions – shaped a Kurdish community that was very much secular in make-up. It was the same in Turkey; Kemalist policies pushed secularism. In contrast, however, in Iraq, the laissez-faire approach of British colonial masters and then the inability of Iraqi governments to penetrate and shape attitudes in its northern Kurdish region left in place a largely tribal-based, conservative structure that is still today strong on religious (Sunni) influences.

Today, the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), is riven by a split between a Western region dominated by the party of President Masoud Barzani – the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) – and an eastern region where the party of former Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – holds sway. The KDP, dominated by the Barzani tribe and with strong links north to its political patron, Turkey, maintains the strings of power in the KRG. It is based in the ‘capital’ of Erbil. The PUK, more left-of-centre, modernist and leaning towards Iran, holds sway around Suleimaniyeh. These two parties, indeed, and using their peshmerga forces, fought a civil war in the 1990s. And while there is currently what might be seen as a national KRG peshmerga force, these two parties still maintain their own peshmerga units and there is thus always the possibility that tensions may lead to some renewed clashes. Moreover, with future independence in mind, one eye is constantly being kept on the need to prepare for a possible future conflict with the Iraqi army and its associated Shia militia. Here is one particular problem for the Kurds of Iraq – who is the real enemy? Is it IS; is it fellow Kurds, or is it Baghdad? This then also becomes a problem for any power that seeks to use these Iraqi Kurds as proxies against IS – as the United States and others do. Can they be made to keep their eyes focused on IS and not elsewhere? And will the training and weapons they might be supplied with be directed at IS, or could they be used against other US proxies – such as other groups of Kurds and/or the Iraqi army?

In Iraq, for instance, any future push on IS-held Mosul will, the US military hopes, involve the KRG’s peshmerga forces supported by US artillery and air power. Washington does not want the Shia-dominated Iraqi army to be seizing, on its own, the Sunni city of Mosul. Re-occupation of the city should be leavened, ideally from the US viewpoint, by the employment of Sunni Kurds. As things stand, however, there is a reluctance on the part of Erbil to push forward. The KRG has now, to a large degree, stabilised its own ‘borders’ (including the internal one within Iraq), which they see forming the basis of a future independent Kurdistan. Assaulting the Arab city of Mosul will doubtless involve a major loss of life and of treasure (in a cash-strapped KRG) that will produce little in the way of obvious gain for the Kurds while there is a bigger prize in mind.

Then there are the Kurds in Turkey. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê‎, PKK) is a left-wing Kurdish militant group that has long been fighting for more autonomy for the Kurdish-majority region of south-east Turkey. Ankara looks upon the PKK, not unnaturally, as a terrorist group. Recently, during the IS-generated chaos in northern Iraq, battle-hardened PKK units moved across the area and have proved to be some of the best fighters against IS; certainly better than the peshmerga. So here, logically, should be the ultimate proxy of choice for the US inside Iraq – the PKK. The idea, though, that US forces should assist the PKK in any way would bring paroxysms of protest from Turkey – a NATO ally. The KDP government in Erbil (with its own allies in Ankara in mind) is itself ardently agitating to prevent the PKK from setting up any zones within Iraq that it will come to control politically (such as around Sinjar). The PUK, on the other hand, has long supported the PKK, mostly because of the commonality of their left-wing politics.

There are also the Kurds in northern Syria to consider. There are dozens of bickering Kurdish political parties jockeying for control there. The only force there that is armed, though, is the militia – the People’s Protection Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) – of the main party, the Democratic Union Party (Kurdish: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat‎, PYD). The PYD – again, avowedly secular and actively left-wing – was formed mainly from PKK members who had fled from Turkey in the 1990s. The PYD is thus looked upon by Turkey as just an offshoot of the PKK and is, therefore, also a ‘terrorist’ group. But again, its YPG militia have proved very effective – certainly more effective than US-allied Arab groups in Syria – at confronting and besting IS. The YPG have also shown a penchant for actually taking the fight to IS by moving into Arab-majority areas of Syria (something the peshmerga in Iraq are reluctant to do). Here is another proxy that seems ideal. But how is the US to support the YPG effectively without incurring the wrath of Ankara? Moreover, there will probably come a time soon when Turkey will try and seize Kurdish areas of northern Syria in order to eliminate what it sees as the PYD’s terrorist threat. The PYD’s main enemy would then be Turkey, and not IS. What would the US do then?

And then there is the cross-border relationship between the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds. It would seem natural for the Kurds in Iraq to support their ‘compatriots’ in Syria. Beyond natural kinship would also be the fact that both are fighting IS. But the KDP in the KRG, having allied itself with Turkey and being more tribal and religiously conservative, wants no truck with the ‘communist’ PYD. Indeed, it has even tried to prevent any assistance reaching the PYD across the Euphrates. To this end, a large trench system has been built by KDP peshmerga to act as a physical barrier designed to prevent any help from the PUK – who do support the PYD (mostly, again, for ideological reasons) – being sent across the border into Syria. Thus the US military is providing assistance to two armed Kurdish groups – the YPG and the KDP’s peshmerga – who are highly likely to one day become engaged in combat with one another.

Thus when Western military organisations look to the Kurds to provide suitable proxies against IS, problems abound. The notion of a symbiosis created by a common enemy is tempered by the fact that the Kurds, of whatever ilk, tend to have more than just one enemy. This is not a good basis for the role of reliable proxy. But apart from the Kurds, who else is there?

Rod Thornton is a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London based in Qatar. He spent nine years in the British Army before moving into academia. His research interests focus on terrorism, low-intensity warfare and new forms of warfare – particularly, as a Russian-speaker, on Russian hybrid warfare.  He has lived in the Middle East for four years, including one year at the University of Hewler in Erbil, Kurdish region of Iraq. He is the author of many articles and a book, Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21^st Century (Polity Press 2007).

President John F. Kennedy once said:

“You cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.”

However a small group of states (including the state of which Kennedy was President) have done just this in relation to the possession of nuclear weapons for decades. Five of them (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) have held the position of being the privileged few allowed to possess nuclear weapons under the terms of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)  while all others agree to forego developing the ‘ultimate weapon’ in return for access to civilian nuclear technology. Three others have refused to sign the treaty (India, Israel and Pakistan) and instead developed their own nuclear weapons (overtly in the cases of India and Pakistan after 1998 and covertly in the case of Israel from the late 1960s) happy to free-ride on the lack of global proliferation ensured by the treaty. To paraphrase Kennedy, the decision of these eight states (nine if you include North Korea from 2003 onwards) to inflict mass destruction on an adversary is theirs, but everyone else’s decision to acquire the same capability can be negotiated away.

What is perhaps most extraordinary about the NPT ‘grand bargain’, as it is often called (although given that the five nuclear weapon states have exactly the same access to civil nuclear technology as the rest of the signatories, ‘bargain’ here really is a polite term for ‘scam’), is that it has remained largely intact for so long. For something built on such a seemingly unsustainable basis as an institutionalised double standard (particularly one that relates to the ultimate survival of nation states), the fact that its indefinite extension was negotiated in 1995 and that the treaty is still with us defies most conventional wisdoms about the ‘dog-eat-dog’ nature of self-help politics in an anarchical international system. Yes, the treaty may have been abused by some states and used as a cover to develop covert weapons programmes (Iraq, Libya, North Korea and possibly Iran) and one state has even withdrawn from the treaty under Article X (North Korea in 2003), but these are four cases in a treaty that boasts 189 signatories.

Challenging sustainable security

In many ways the success of the treaty regime provides one of the most robust challenges to the whole concept of sustainable security. Why bother addressing the root causes and underlying drivers of nuclear proliferation if you can effectively stem the flow of nukes by maintaining a treaty which promotes a ‘norm’ of non-proliferation as good international behaviour, and allows you to deflect charges of hypocrisy as long as you make encouraging noises about ‘eventual’ nuclear disarmament at some unspecified point in the future?

However, like a building with rotten foundations, it may be that what has appeared to be a relatively sustainable global non-proliferation regime is far less stable than many believe it to be. Recently, Egyptian negotiators walked out of the UN talks that are held in the lead-up to each five yearly review conference of the NPT. This dramatic move from Egypt was a public expression of the long-held private frustrations of its diplomats who, after being effectively promised serious negotiations towards a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ), in return for their support for the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 (and re-affirmed explicitly at the review conference in 2010), face the continued postponement of such talks. The problem is, Israel has no interest at all in such a zone – why would it? A combination of the NPT and Western action against would-be proliferators such as Iraq, Libya and Iran have meant that the construction of a WMDFZ in the Middle East would mean that Israel would either have to join and give up its position as the only state in the region with nuclear weapons, or be the one state in the region that refuses to join. Either way, it would also mean attracting global attention to its nuclear weapons arsenal, something Israel has managed to successfully avoid of late in all the focus on the weaponisation concerns over Iran’s civil programme.

Calling it like it is

Before leaving the NPT preparatory talks, Egypt’s Ambassador Hisham Badr explicitly referred to the resolution passed in 1995 that called for negotiations on a Middle Eastern WMDFZ, and called out those that thought they could get away with Egypt sticking to its side of the bargain and getting little in return. His comments challenged the idea that the double standard could be maintained indefinitely when he stated clearly that “we cannot wait forever for this resolution to be implemented.”

Perhaps the most worrying signs here are the responses to Egypt’s move. Israeli diplomats have effectively said that with the security situation in Syria, in Egypt itself and elsewhere in the region, a WMDFZ is the least of its concerns. The United States has referred to the episode as “theatrics” and in the meantime has pushed on with negotiating a nuclear trade pact with Saudi Arabia. These trade deal talks are taking place at a time when experts are tracking an increase in the acquisition of strategic ballistic and cruise missiles by the Kingdom. The other nuclear weapons states have been conspicuously quiet throughout.

So rather than seeing this as a sign of the potential unravelling of an unsustainable regime based on a double standard, those who have most to gain from the NPT arrangement (both inside and outside the regime), are betting on this being just another ‘NPT in crisis’ – a moment they assume will pass. Whether this storm will blow over (like a mushroom cloud over the Pacific Ocean…no, sorry that bad pun is stopping right there!) is now THE big question for those concerned about nuclear threats. If the regime falls apart and 189 states are no longer happy to give up nuclear weapons, the simple days of dealing with Iranian and North Korean nuclear ‘crises’ will be looked back upon with great fondness.

Time for regime change?

While the NPT regime story is one of a continuing death foretold, it is difficult to see how the all-important 2015 review conference can outrun the double standard that sits at the heart of the regime without all signatories applying some degree of what could be called a ‘sustainable security’ approach. As Egypt’s actions make clear, anything less than a regime specifically geared towards addressing the reasons why some states seek nuclear weapons  – including regional insecurity, conventional weapons imbalances and the prestige attached to nuclear arsenals by their possessors – is a regime existing on borrowed time.

Ben Zala is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester.

Image source: Wikimedia

Brexit has called into question Britain’s relationship with Northern Ireland. Whilst the possibility of sporadic inter-communal violence in Northern Ireland is small, the Brexit vote has certainly placed a strain upon the hard-won stability of British-Irish relations.

Introduction

Whilst the full implications of so-called ‘Brexit’ for the future of the United Kingdom (UK)’s relationship (if any) with the European Union (EU) remain profoundly uncertain, it is also the case that the UK-wide vote to Leave has exacerbated the already existing sense of fluidity regarding the future constitutional relationships between the constituent parts of the multi-national UK state. Of course, the majority votes to Remain in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not, of themselves, create a new constitutional arrangement, but if the new Conservative administration of Theresa May were to decide to push on with a UK-wide ‘hard Brexit’, perhaps involving leaving the single market in a bid to establish control over the free movement of persons, then it is difficult to see how the stability of the UK’s constitutional status quo could be guaranteed. As Brendan O’Leary has argued, ‘those who insist that a 52-48 vote is good enough to take the entire UK out of the EU would trigger a serious legitimacy crisis.’  A key lesson that needs to be understood by Westminster in the coming months or years of negotiation (with Brussels and the EU member states, particularly the Republic of Ireland, but also within the divided UK) is that, as O’Leary puts it, multi-national states are not usually ‘destroyed by secessionists alone’ (Ibid.). It is the ‘unilateral adjustment of the terms of the union by the centre’ that can provoke such an outcome. This may be an unintended consequence of such unilateralism, even if some at the centre profess the view (as David Cameron did after the Scottish referendum on independence in 2014) that the multi-national union is ‘precious beyond words’.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland: A ‘Place Apart’

Image by Miss Copenhagen via Flickr

It is unsurprising that during the campaign neither the public nor the political class in Great Britain (GB) appeared to give much serious consideration to the effect of a Brexit vote upon three crucial interlocking relationships: the fragile state of communal relations within Northern Ireland in the post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) era; the North-South relationships on the island of Ireland, and the questions Brexit was likely to raise concerning the 300-mile land border; the wider UK relationship with its closest neighbour. This ‘reflexive forgetfulness’ of the GB public with regard to the unloved province of Northern Ireland may have been unsurprising, but it was lamentable, and possibly destabilising, nonetheless. If there was engagement with the potential repercussions of a Leave vote on the internal, already fragile, relations between the constituent parts of the UK, the focus tended to be on Scotland, rather than Northern Ireland. This neglect, by no means benign, reflects a deep-rooted sense that Northern Ireland is, in Dervla Murphy’s phrase, a ‘place apart’.  In the short and medium-term the ‘peace process’ has not been jeopardised directly, and there is no immediate prospect of a return to widespread violent confrontation between Irish nationalists and British unionists in Northern Ireland. Aside from a number of weak and fragmented ‘dissident’ republican groups, there is no appetite for the resumption of an armed campaign among ‘mainstream’ republicans. There is always a possibility of sporadic inter-communal violence in Northern Ireland, but this looks remote at present. Nevertheless the Brexit vote has certainly placed a strain upon the hard-won stability of these relationships since 1998.

The Republic of Ireland and ‘Brexit’

For the Dublin government of Fine Gael (supported by several independent TDs), there was a fear that the critically important trading relationships with the UK would be damaged, and that any imposition of a ‘hard’ border (involving customs posts and possibly restrictions upon free movement) would further complicate and hamper economic activity. Allied to this hard-nosed economic concern, Dublin was also anxious that Northern Ireland’s fragile community relations and the institutional balance reflected in the GFA could be under threat, as ‘the border’ and potential constitutional change were placed, once again, on the agenda. Related to this anxiety was, perhaps, the unspoken fear of Taoiseach Enda Kenny that Dublin’s sense of being an equal partner with the UK in the lengthy years of the peace process might be compromised. The harmonious co-operation between the Dublin and London governments, built up over several decades stretching back to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, might begin to unravel, if London took the Brexit vote as a green light to marginalise the concerns of the Irish. Those concerns were three-fold: maintaining the open border between the Republic and Northern Ireland; keeping the ‘common travel area’ between Ireland and the UK (first agreed in the aftermath of partition in 1922); and, safeguarding the trading relationships (worth approximately £1 billion a week). As Pat Leahy argued in the Irish Times, ‘underpinning all these was the need above all else to protect the peace process.’

Kenny was keen to confirm that this bilateralism, and the ‘special relationship’ between the two states would survive Brexit, and his meeting with Theresa May in late July assuaged these doubts somewhat. But, as with that other fabled ‘special relationship’ between London and Washington, this one is also fundamentally asymmetrical, intrinsically of more significance for one side than the other. When it comes to tackling the enormous fallout from the Brexit decision, neither the relationship with Dublin, nor indeed the impact upon Northern Ireland, are at the top of London’s to-do list. It may even be the case that these issues are closer to the bottom of that list. Having said this, the new Prime Minister’s willingness to meet with Kenny, and her declaration in Belfast that ‘no-one wants to return to the borders of the past’ have calmed these fears to at least some extent.

However, hard choices remain to be made, and there is no guarantee that May’s government will be able to square the circle between impatient Conservative back-benchers and pragmatists in Whitehall who are concerned about softening the impact of the decision, both economically and diplomatically. The former group, buoyed by the momentum of victory, believe that Brexit should be swift, complete and irrevocable; they are watching hawkishly for any signs of back-tracking. This is the context in which Enda Kenny made a speech at the MacGill summer school in Co. Donegal, which speculated on the prospect, at some time in the indeterminate future (perhaps ‘10, 15 or 20 years from now’), that Northern Ireland might vote to join with the Republic. Of course, this was ‘controversial’, but almost certainly was designed to ensure that others, in the UK and Europe, take seriously the concerns of the Dublin administration. More parochially, Kenny perhaps felt that he needed to respond to the pressure being applied by opposition parties Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin (SF).

Sinn Féin and ‘Brexit’

Having campaigned for a Remain vote, on the basis of its ‘critical engagement’ position with respect to the EU, SF’s first response to the referendum result was to demand a border poll in Northern Ireland, as provided for in the GFA, if there is a realistic prospect of a majority vote in favour of constitutional change. Gerry Adams, SF President, claimed that the result meant that the ‘British government had forfeited the claim to represent the North at an EU level. Its policy has been rejected by the people.’ When this demand was predictably dismissed by the outgoing Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, SF quietly moved on, instead focusing its attention on a mooted ‘national forum’ (modelled on the New Ireland Forum of the early 1980s and the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation of the early years of the peace process) to discuss how ‘the vote of the clear majority of citizens in the North who want to remain in the EU can be respected and defended.’ Although this proposal was effectively adopted by the Dublin government, it was also immediately rejected by Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist First Minister of Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, SF senses that Brexit could present republicans with a real opportunity to break out of the sterile impasse that had threatened its ‘project of transformation’ in Northern Ireland. SF has always characterised the GFA as ‘transitional’ and the peace process as ‘dynamic’, reflecting the party’s teleological belief that the ‘natural’ end-point of the process will be a united Ireland. It remains to be seen whether or not Brexit helps to make this vision any more realistic, but for the moment it has certainly breathed new life into the notion that the ‘border’ continues to be a key issue for the peoples of the island.

Since June 23rd, there have been emollient words and symbolic gestures from Theresa May, but sooner or later some difficult and potentially painful choices will have to be taken. In a joint letter on August 10th to Theresa May, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness, the First and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive, argued that the UK government should take into full account four issues of particular significance for Northern Ireland: the border should not become an impediment to the movement of goods, people and services; both private and public sectors need to retain access to unskilled as well as skilled labour; the energy requirements of Northern Ireland should not be affected; the potential loss of EU funds (over 3.5 billion Euros during 2014-2020) needs to be addressed.  The Dublin government, and the parties in Northern Ireland, will be hoping to have a genuine input into this decision-making, but it looks highly improbable that all the political forces in play will, or can, be satisfied simultaneously. Despite the constructive initial discussions, the Foster/McGuinness letter recognises that ‘it cannot be guaranteed that outcomes that suit our common interests are ultimately deliverable.’ Will the centre hold, and if so, how?

Stephen Hopkins is Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, UK. His book, The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict, was published in 2013 by Liverpool University Press.

This article by Sustainable Security’s Richard Reeve was originally published on openDemocracy on 29 November, 2013.

Bab Amro, Homs
Source: Freedom House (Flickr)

All wars end, sooner or later. With an interim deal signed on Iran’s nuclear programme, the great powers, Middle Eastern diplomats and the mediators of Geneva are returning their attention to ending the war in Syria. As figures released by Oxford Research Group on 24 November reveal, at least 113,735 Syrians had been killed by August, one-in-ten of them children. No conflict is currently deadlier. The 25 November announcement that the so-called Geneva II conference would finally convene on 22 January is thus overdue but good news. But what are the chances of it bringing peace?

Securing Syrian participation

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the Syrian actors to the crisis, the Geneva process has not yet secured domestic participation, let alone commitment. Convened in June 2012, the original Geneva conference was a meeting of the Action Group for Syria, an initiative co-sponsored by the UN and League of Arab States and including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (‘P5’), the EU, Turkey and, as office-holders within the Arab League, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. The ensuing Geneva Communiqué set out a six-step plan to peaceful transition. But this was a commitment of the Action Group, not the Syrian parties to the conflict.

Geneva II, by contrast, is all about brokering agreement between Syrians. This has become very much more difficult since mid-2012, when up to 25,000 Syrians had died in the conflict. Based on data up to end of August 2013 analysed by ORG and ongoing casualties recorded by Syrian civil society, this casualty figure is now around five times higher. Levels of destruction, displacement and brutality have similarly multiplied.

The Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque south of Damascus is a major pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and beyond. Attacks on the shrine in 2013 have reportedly motivated many regional Shia to fight in Syria.
Source: Wikimedia

The character of the war has also changed since 2012. It has increasingly become sectarian and internationalised. Sunni militants from across the Arab world and beyond have transformed the nature of the armed resistance. Shi’a militia from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria’s Alawite community have played a decisive role in recent regime offensives. Secular Kurdish militia control the northeast.

Healing these divisions may take generations. Peace or a cessation of violence is an immediate imperative. Securing a deal in Geneva is likely to be a case of a ‘good enough’ compromise from an ‘inclusive enough’ coalition of interests. This is likely to have at least three dimensions.

First is the problem of securing meaningful participation in even initial talks. The largest and most widely recognised opposition political force, the National Coalition insists that President Bashar al-Assad must leave power. The regime insists it will neither ‘talk to terrorists’ nor negotiate surrendering power. The National Coalition faces greater internal resistance to negotiating, while the Assad regime is reassured by negotiating from a position of increasing strength on the battlefield.

Second is the problem of linking political settlement with battlefield realities: without the buy-in of combatants, no peace deal will be ‘good enough’ to hold. The National Coalition and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) have never coalesced the myriad of armed local resistance units into a capable force. Pulverised by regime armour, artillery and air power, opposition forces have increasingly rallied from secular to Islamist command to access more effective leadership and resources. The Islamic Front merger of the largest such groups on 22 November hugely undermines the National Coalition’s credibility. Conversely, association with the main armed Kurdish party has boosted the National Coordination Body, a moderate coalition of otherwise unarmed opposition parties still operating within Syria. The question of how civil society groups or minorities opposed to armed struggle can be involved in Geneva II remains unresolved. These should not be considered niche perspectives.

Third, ‘inclusive enough’ probably means side-lining some Jihadist groups that in 2013 have become dominant in the east and major players on the northern (Idlib and Aleppo) and southern (Daraa) fronts. Funded, organised and to a significant extent manned from abroad, the extent to which these groups represent Syrian interests is debatable. Affiliation with al-Qaida suggests these groups’ leaders are opposed to political compromise. As with AQ affiliates in Somalia and Mali, their radicalism may not be shared entirely by the Syrians who fight with them. The consolidation of the Islamic Front could serve to divert resources from al-Qaida affiliates.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on September 12, at beginning of Syrian chemical weapons talks.
Source: Wikipedia

Securing international commitment

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the international actors who have waged a war through armed Syrian proxies, the Geneva process so far looks equally constrained. Global rivals Russia and the United States play a leading role in the Action Group, but this leaves unrepresented the far more heavily committed (in military and financial terms) rivals for influence in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Qatar are also key supporters (and hosts) of the armed opposition but their presence adds to the sense that the Action Group is weighted against the Assad regime, which may count only Russia, Iraq and, more loosely, China as allies in Geneva.

Bringing the Iranians and Saudis into the process is thus crucial to the success of Geneva II. Iran’s opening to the west since the election of President Hassan Rouhani is partly driven by the draining of Iranian resources in Syria. With the Assad regime advancing on the battlefield, and Russia and the western powers sharing its concern over the rapid rise of Sunni extremists on the Syria/Iraq border, Iran is more likely to back peace in Syria. Its interests include a veto on Sunni dominance and continuance of its access to Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, with Shi’as and Alawites representing under 15% of Syria’s population, it is unclear how it can secure these interests without the Assads in charge.

Saudi Arabia looks a harder sell, not least because it feels its privileged status as US regional ally slipping as Iran pursues rapprochement. Recent Saudi tensions with Turkey and Qatar over influence in Egypt further undermine the unity of foreign pressure on the opposition. Yet reshuffles within the National Coalition and Islamic Front since July suggest that pro-Saudi elements have gained prominence in both. Riyadh may have the influence to bring these rivals together, but only if the Coalition assumes a more overtly Islamist identity. Reconciling Syria’s Sunni Arab majority and an Islamist agenda with either the Assad regime or western expectations is an enormous challenge, although the Geneva Process foresees a National Dialogue followed by constitutional and legal reforms to determine just such issues.

What way forward, then? It seems axiomatic that the rivalry between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbours needs to be addressed directly through talks and confidence-building rather than through proxies over Syria. This is of particular urgency as talk re-emerges of a Saudi nuclear weapons programme to counter Iran. It could also be that the National Coalition is overly constrained by its disparate backers’ demands for opposition unity. The divisions that have hampered it in making war may also hamper it in making peace. Representation in Geneva that allows disparate Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood, secularist and pacifist currents to express themselves may be beneficial.

Judicial pressure

While the parties and their regional backers remain far apart in their expectations, international judicial mechanisms have potential importance as leverage towards peace, in restraining the behaviour of combatant parties, and eventually pursuing post-conflict justice. Although Syria has not signed the Rome Statute, international war crimes prosecutions could be brought if the UN Security Council refers Syria formally to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Due legal process and systematic gathering of evidence, including data on casualties, is crucial if the threat of prosecutions is to be realistic. The UN Commission of Enquiry has been investigating a wide range of alleged crimes committed by both sides, with a view to future prosecutions. Growing P5 consensus on the need for conflict settlement could make referral to the ICC possible in the case of Syria, as it did over Sudan in 2005.

As with the now dissipated threat of military intervention, at least the threat of prosecutions could increase pressure on Syrian combatants to curb the most egregious atrocities and negotiate peace. With both Iran and Russia appalled at the use of chemical weapons in Syria, pressure of prosecution could even be used to unstick the question of whether Bashar al-Assad presides over any transition government.

Richard Reeve is the Director of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme. He works across a wide range of defence and security issues and is responsible for the strategic direction of the programme. Richard has particular expertise in global security, Sub-Saharan Africa, peace and conflict analysis, and the security role of regional organisations.

Increasingly, non-traditional threats to maritime security are linked to resource scarcity and conflict. An overriding challenge for policymakers is how to address these threats.

The relatively new concept of ‘maritime security’ has received increasingly greater attention both within the marine resource management and national security communities, particularly since the early 2000s.  While definitions of maritime security vary, there is broad agreement that maritime security generally encompasses the policies, regulations, and operations designed to secure the governance and management of a nation’s maritime jurisdiction (e.g., exclusive economic zones or territorial waters). This definition is broad enough to attract the relevant interest of and contributions from several fields of study, including: global policy; defense and security; natural resource economics; criminal justice; international development; and environmental management.

During the last two decades, a number of investigations have been conducted into the threats facing maritime security, particularly within the transnational waters of three regions: the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa in East Africa (see Sumaila and Bawumia 2014; Bueger 2013; Hansen 2011; Gilmer 2017); the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa (see Jacobsen 2017); and the South China Sea and Sulu-Sulawesi Seas of Southeast Asia (see Pomeroy et al. 2016; Chapsos and Malcolm 2017; Pomeroy et al. 2007).

Such research has encouraged careful analysis by the international community to identify relationships between relevant political, socioeconomic, and environmental factors with regional stability and maritime security.  Such investigations are of increasing interest to those addressing national security, international policy, and sustainable development concerns.

Linking Marine Resource Scarcity and Maritime Security

Maritime security can be viewed as a non-traditional security threat, defined by Caballero-Anthony as “challenges to the survival and well-being of peoples and states that arise primarily out of nonmilitary sources, such as climate change, environmental degradation and resource depletion, infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, people smuggling, drug trafficking, and other forms of transnational crime”. Increasingly, non-traditional security threats are linked to natural resource scarcity. Whether considering energy, food, or freshwater shortages, such resource scarcities exhibit common attributes.

• First, they share common drivers, or factors that influence and cause or exacerbate scarcity, such as poverty, food insecurity, ecological degradation, human population growth, and ineffective governance and enforcement.
• Second, they are linked to each other through feedback loops, which create a major risk of unintended consequences when one scarcity issue is tackled without reference to other scarcity issues.
• Third, they have common impacts. That is, they disproportionately impact poor and fragile states, cause economic stress, and result in the potential for increased and strategically-targeted resource competition and conflict.

Bueger identifies four, interrelated concepts as an analytical foundation of maritime security: national security; human security; economic development; and the marine environment.  Building from this economic-environment-security framework, other research has investigated the relationship between the relative abundance (or scarcity) of available marine resources, the type and degree of extractive effort for such marine resources, and the level of resource competition and conflict (see Pomeroy et al. 2016; Bueger 2015b; Pomeroy et al. 2007).  These studies highlight how various political, socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural factors are linked to and cumulatively influence maritime security.  This research also illustrates how maritime insecurity can influence broader trends related to civil unrest (nationally or locally) and regional peace and order.

In this work, there is growing recognition of how increasing fisheries scarcity, competition, and conflict exacerbates rates of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in central Indonesia, Liberia, eastern Malaysia (Sabah), the southern Philippines, and Somalia.  In turn, IUU fishing further increases scarcity, competition, and conflict over remaining resources, eroding peace and order and decreasing maritime security.  Declining marine resource availability and decreasing maritime security also threaten the conservation and sustainable management of in situ marine biodiversity within these regions.

The Role of Non-State Actors and Transnational Crime

Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard. Photo by Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers.

Investigations into marine resource scarcity, competition, and conflict have also highlighted how non-state actors and non-traditional threats are influencing maritime security.  Transnational crime has a notable influence on both marine resource scarcity and maritime security.  For example, illicit maritime commerce (such as human trafficking and the smuggling of narcotics or small arms via ocean vessels in Southeast Asia and West Africa) and piracy (including armed robbery at-sea, kidnapping for ransom, and oil bunkering off Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, and Yemen) committed by non-state (and in some cases, stateless) actors are linked both to marine resource scarcity (via both illegal fishing and piracy of post-harvest fishing vessels) and increased armed conflict and civil unrest (via increased rates of armed conflict/violence at sea and logistical and supply support for insurgencies and acts of terrorism).

As highlighted recently by an INTERPOL study (2016), 80% of the world’s nations today recognize environmental crime as one of their nation’s highest national security priorities (INTERPOL and UN 2016).  INTERPOL investigations reveal how environmental crimes are linked to both transnational criminal networks and terrorism.  Such crimes include the illegal exploitation of high-value natural resources from conflict areas (and in some cases, to fuel or sustain conflict in such areas).

Criminal supply chains trafficking in high-value natural resources (e.g., timber, oil, fisheries, diamonds, and gold) are documented as often converging under broader, networked operations of organized transnational crime.  Such transnational crime networks include actors operating within high-value fishery supply chains, including those for tuna, shark fins, and live reef fish.  Such criminal supply chains illustrate how closely linked marine resource scarcity and maritime security are.

Moving from Investigation to Prediction and Intervention

Building upon the recommendations outlined by INTERPOL and the UN, we propose that the international community move beyond investigating the relationships between political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors with maritime security (now documented), and move toward supporting three, focused interventions to bolster maritime security, particularly in sensitive or destabilized regions of transnational waters.

First, we propose the development of a predictive model of observed versus forecasted changes to the relative level of maritime security within a specific nation or region.  To do this, an empirical approach must be taken to build a predictive, multivariate model of national and regional maritime security trends (as the dependent or outcome variable), based on observable, real-time data related to political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that are known to be correlated (independent variables).

By periodically monitoring such multivariate models at the national and regional levels, ‘tipping points’ in maritime security and regional stability can be identified prior to being reached, thus allowing opportunities for timely and focused interventions.  Such a model would require identification and measurement of an adequate, sensitive, reliable, and practical set of maritime security indicators across relevant dimensions; for example, Germond identifies geopolitical indicators of maritime security.

Next, we argue that current and future maritime security operations be redesigned from being largely specialized, narrowly-defined efforts to becoming broader, multidisciplinary efforts that account for the correlation and interdependence of relevant political, socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural factors present.  This will require the deliberate and focused recruitment, consultation, and active participation of non-traditional actors (e.g., fisheries managers; resource economists; rural development experts) into national security operations and defense policy.

By redesigning such maritime security activities, they can interfere with the ability of such factors to converge and cumulatively exacerbate civil and environmental insecurity.  Such maritime security activities include: coastal defense and security operations or missions; national marine resource management policies and actions; ‘good’ governance programs relating to nautical jurisdictions; economic development programs for coastal and marine industries; international foreign aid and development programs.

To be effective, redesigned security activities must address a broad suite of relevant factors rather than narrowly focus in on a specific aspect of maritime security; e.g., redesigning counterterrorism activities within coastal areas of unrest to include targeted marine resource livelihood and community-supported enforcement projects.  Case studies of successful models of broader, multidisciplinary maritime security operations can be documented and shared across nations and regions.

Finally, we propose that maritime security operations move away from being largely single country-specific efforts that are driven by national security agendas to that of collaborative, multinational efforts that are driven by a mutual, regional maritime security strategy.  Addressing transnational maritime threats and regional criminal networks in the seafood supply chain requires a collaborative approach that relies on coalition building and shared (negotiated) tactical objectives.

In some cases, such regional processes and multinational policy fora already exist, and can serve as a platform for targeted, collaborative, multinational maritime security operations; e.g., transnational security forces patrolling regional seas under the Regional Plan of Action to Combat IUU Fishing by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  Such collaborative, multinational efforts to reduce marine resource conflicts and improve maritime security would be a logical, strategic, and high-value approach commensurate with addressing the multiple operating conditions.

Conclusion

Maritime security is an important but often overlooked dimension of the broader “sustainable security” framework.  A complex web of multivariate drivers influencing maritime security are increasingly documented and recognized as being interconnected with the emerging security challenges of the 21^st century, including by non-state actors through non-traditional threats.  Addressing the contributions of marine resource scarcity, competition, and conflict in eroding maritime security is an important step that must be taken to uphold the rule of law, strengthen national security, and promote regional peace and order.

Robert Pomeroy is currently a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Connecticut Sea Grant College Fisheries Extension Specialist at the University of Connecticut – Avery Point in Groton, Connecticut USA. Dr. Pomeroy has his PhD in Resource Economics from Cornell University. His areas of professional interest are marine resource economics and policy, specifically small-scale fisheries management and development, coastal zone management, aquaculture economics, international development, policy analysis, and seafood marketing. Dr. Pomeroy has worked on research and development projects in over 70 countries in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.

John Parks has worked, for more than twenty years, with local communities, indigenous leaders, resource users, government agencies, non-governmental groups, and donors to design and implement marine resource management solutions that strengthen both environmental and civil security within coastal communities around the world. He has served in a number of non-government and government organizations, including as a federal officer with the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and as senior staff with the Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund. John assists government and non-government clients around the world design and implement marine management solutions, including for fisheries management, marine protected area design and management, citizen-supported maritime enforcement, and climate change adaptation in coastal communities. John earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, with a dual focus on behavioral science and tropical coastal ecology. He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and has been a contributing or lead author on numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and other publications.

There is no region of the world that faces more threats from climate change than South Asia. Of particular concern is the littoral surrounding the Bay of Bengal, including the Eastern Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, Bangladesh, and coastal Burma. This region is uniquely vulnerable to a changing climate because of a combination of rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, and uncertain transboundary river flows. Away from the seashore, China holds the high ground in the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and complicates the geopolitical picture further by acting as the source of the region’s fresh water.

On the Bay of Bengal’s coast these problems of a changing climate combine with already existing social problems like religious strife, poverty, political uncertainty, high population density, and rapid urbanization to create a very dangerous cocktail of already security threats. Climate change has been called a “threat multiplier” or “an accelerant of instability” by military and intelligence communities because of how it will impact these already existing threats. With a population of more than 300 million people (91 million in West Bengal, 42 million in Odisha, 142 million in Bangladesh, 52 million in Burma), tense militarized borders, overlapping ethnic and religious communities, and uncertainty about the future, there is no region in the world that faces a more dangerous combination of threatsfrom climate change than here.

Rising Sea Levels

One of the key tenets of national security is the ability of a country to ensure the integrity of its sovereign territory. Yet, as glaciers far from South Asia melt, the sea rises and encroaches upon its farms, villages, and cities. As Hemingway wrote about going bankrupt, sea level rise happens “gradually, then suddenly.” Slowly, a rising ocean brings increasing intrusion of brackish water into groundwater, harming costal agriculture. Moreover, gradual ocean encroachment harms the coast’s natural protections, whether dunes, reefs, barrier islands, or mangrove forests. Then, suddenly, when a major cyclone blows in a storm surge will overcome previously unsurmountable barriers.

The shorelines of the Bay of Bengal stand to lose swaths of territory from sea level rise. Bangladesh, as a country predominantly composed of river delta, is most at risk. It stands to lose 11% of its territory – home to 15 million people – from a sea level rise of only 1 meter, a level that is not a particularly extreme prediction over the next 4 decades. Few invading armies could do worse damage.

Oddly enough, the world’s oceans do not rise at the same rate. With rising global sea levels, in some areas the sea level could actually fall while it rises in others. A recent study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that sea level rise will be particularly high along the Bay of Bengal, due to changes in currents caused by rapid surface warming of the Indian Ocean.

In the region, the cities of Dhaka, Kolkata, and Yangon all lie in major river deltas and are vulnerable to storm surges. In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) specifically listed cities in Asian mega deltas as “hotspots for vulnerability” because of sea level rise and changing patterns of river flow. Already straining at their infrastructure limits, these densely packed cities are becoming more vulnerable in a warming world.

Changing Transboundary Water Flow

Water does not stay within lines on a map. Instead, gravity draws it inexorably from the mountains to the sea. China, through its control of Tibet, controls the headwaters of almost all of the major rivers of Asia – only the Ganges lies outside of China’s control, originating in India. Of the major rivers that empty into the Bay of Bengal, all cross borders. Water is only plentiful during the monsoon season, so these rivers provide much-needed sustenance to agriculture, people, and ecosystems throughout their trip to the sea during the dry season – when they are fed by glacier and snow melt. Competition and tension over that flow is evident around the world when water crosses borders.

This is true of Bangladesh and India, for which the flow of the Ganges are a source of tension. The Farakka Barrage on the Ganges River, just 10 miles upriver from the Bangladesh border, allows India a measure of control over the river. The dam allows India to divert the flow of the Ganges down a canal to the Hooghly River and into the port of Kolkata. Since the dam was built in 1975, there have been allegations from Bangladesh that India diverts water in the dry season and releases too much in the monsoon season. In 1996, the two countries agreed to a 30 year treaty to share the Ganges’ flow, but tensions still remain.

The Brahmaputra River, meanwhile, provides a source of tension between the two regional powers, India and China. China recently announced that they are building a series of hydroelectric dams along the Brahmaputra’s upper reaches in Tibet, but they have forsworn any attempt to divert or hold back the great river’s flow. However, these assurances have not quieted all voices in India, who point to plans in China’s South-North Water Diversion Project to divert water from the Brahmaputra in order to ensure water for industry and the cities of China’s parched north. China’s leaders have denied these extravagant plans, but their engineers have lobbied for such a project. It would complete a dream of Chairman Mao’s, who said: “Southern water is plentiful, northern water scarce. If at all possible, borrowing some water would be good.”

Climate change exacerbates these concerns about transboundary water management in the region. Climate change is threatening both the glaciers that sit at the top of these mighty rivers, feeding them during the dry season, and the very viability and predictability of the Indian Monsoon rains. Temperatures in the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas have risen 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1982, a rate more than three times as fast as the global average. Meanwhile, changes in weather patterns due to climate change could cause repeated failures in the monsoon. While there is little likelihood of an immediate and total melting of the glaciers, uncertainty about their future flows is enough to stoke tension in the region.

The Potential for Conflict

Climate change is altering the environment of the region; the glaciers are retreating, the rivers’ flows are becoming more unpredictable, and the seas are rising. However, whether those changes manifest themselves into either civil or interstate conflict will depend upon how both the populations and the governments in the region react to those changes. How long governments have to adapt depends upon unpredictable weather and climate patterns – but as the Stern Review bore out, earlier action is almost always cheaper and more effective than waiting. How governments adapt is important as whether; some adaptations, like capturing water that would otherwise flow across borders in new reservoirs could actually make the threat of conflict worse. If countries do not work cooperatively, they could stoke conflict.

Throughout history, one of the most effective ways to deal with climate change has been migration – from a climate that is no longer hospitable to one where living is easier. However, modern borders do not reflect the historical ties between the regions. Migration is a natural response. However, in areas with already high population density and an overlapping patchwork of ethnic and religious communities, new immigrant communities often come into direct conflict with established communities. Last year saw ethnic strife in the Indian state of Assam between indigenous Bodos and immigrant Muslims, many of whom hailed from over the nearby border in Bangladesh. Over 75 people died, and over 400,000 people were temporarily displaced. In this region, it is impossible to say whether a group of migrants are “climate refugees” or simply moving to a place with better economic opportunity, but this is what we should expect in the future.

It is difficult to find examples of any interstate wars fought directly over water; to the contrary, water has been a catalyzer of cooperation. However, as countries realize that they can control and shape water flow through mega dams and water diversion projects, there is a danger that the claims of downstream countries could be ignored. Along the Mekong River, for example, China has proceeded to dam and control the river’s flow through its territory – leading downstream neighbors to complain that China is causing droughts. Yet because of the power imbalance between China and smaller countries like Laos and Cambodia, the Chinese have little to fear. Similar thinking by Chinese leadership over dam building along the Brahmaputra, their shared river with India, could lead both countries to stumble into a conflict that neither of them want.

In the age of climate change, conflict is more likely as threats are multiplied. Nowhere is this truer than around the Bay of Bengal. However, war is never pre-ordained. Instead, the threat of conflict is determined by how countries react. Good international governance can encourage countries to not simply pull up the drawbridge and think only of themselves, but will encourage them to see what their actions will mean for regional neighbors. Climate change is increasing the threat of wars and unrest around the Bay of Bengal; but foresight about its impacts can help the region’s leaders work together to solve a problem that knows no boundaries.

Andrew Holland is Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate at American Security Project, a Washington D.C based think tank. He is an expert on energy, climate change, and infrastructure policy. He has over seven years of experience working at the center of debates about how to achieve sustainable energy security and how to effectively address climate change.

Image source: amioascension

Following civil war, re-establishing the legitimacy of a state’s army is a crucial part of security sector reform and international actors can aid this process. The capacity-building work of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon provides a useful example of this.

Rebuilding a national army after civil war is an important part of security sector reform (SSR) to help ensure the survival of the institution and its effectiveness in the long-term. Based on a recent article in Contemporary Politics, this blog post discusses the strategies used by an international actor, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), to contribute to the capacity and legitimacy of a local institution, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). This case study revealed that a sustainable strategy for SSR requires a long-term, flexible, and pragmatic approach; and that successful capacity building can take place when the normative values of the SSR project are accepted by key stakeholders and the local population.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

The UNIFIL mission has been present in South Lebanon since 1978. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1701 (11 August 2006) is the mandate under which UNIFIL has operated since 2006 after the July war between Hezbollah and Israel. It clearly states that a key objective of the mission is assisting with the reintroduction of LAF throughout Lebanon; prevent violations of the line of withdrawal ‒ called the Blue Line ‒ that borders Israel and Lebanon, and clear unauthorised weapons from the area of operations.

UNIFIL has targeted three main areas in capacity building the LAF: building relationships through regular liaison and communication; lobbying for money and resources from the international community; and conducting a comprehensive strategic review of LAF’s operational capabilities. One of the biggest challenges has also been handling the political situation which UNIFIL has negotiated with a combination of flexibility and pragmatism. But underscoring UNIFIL’s success is the fact that the army is considered legitimate in Lebanon by the local population and at the national political level. Furthermore, the LAF share the normative assumptions of the international community in terms of how they wish to rebuild.

Whilst LAF was not present in the south until 2006, its popularity has increased since the Syrian withdrawal in 2005. The Lebanese Armed Forces is the only national institution that is genuinely regarded as non-sectarian, and has an approval rating of over 75 per cent amongst the Lebanese population. A survey of civilians in the south of Lebanon found that 91.5 per cent of civilians stated that they thought that LAF should be responsible for national security.

The Political Challenges

An Italian peacekeeper of UNIFIL patrols the “Blue Line” that demarcates the border between Lebanon and Israel. Image credit: UN Photo

The main challenge to both LAF and UNIFIL authority in South Lebanon is the presence of Hezbollah. LAF and UNIFIL must respect the legacy of Hezbollah’s military success in not losing the 2006 war, and its important role in ejecting Israel from Lebanon in 2000. Whilst Hezbollah agreed in 2006 to withdraw to positions north of the Litani River (outside the area of operations), it is commonly believed by many Lebanese, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and the Israeli government, that Hezbollah retains weapons caches within the area of operation.

For many Lebanese citizens, the continued presence of Hezbollah’s armed faction ‒ who use a combination of traditional and guerrilla warfare techniques ‒ is considered a necessary deterrent to Israeli aggression. LAF, whilst respected is regarded as underfunded and under-equipped and therefore not able to be fully in control of the security situation at the present time. Interviews for this case study, however, revealed that after years of living under foreign occupation, southern Lebanese are happy to see LAF patrolling the area with UNIFIL.

Whilst UNIFIL’s mandate requires the mission to rid the area of operations of all weapons not belonging to the Lebanese Armed Forces, it is not possible for either UNIFIL or LAF to aggressively hunt for weapons stored in the area without risking the loss of local support. Hence UNIFIL is pragmatic when negotiating the tension between its mandate and local perceptions of its role in relation to local security. When unauthorised weapons are found, UNIFIL interprets the mandate on this issue by asking LAF to retrieve the weapons. They report the findings to LAF and then wait for them to arrive and deal with the recovery. This means that UNIFIL does not have to deal directly with the removal of illegal weapons which may or may not belong to Hezbollah but which can be a contentious issue with the local population.

Building relationships

UNIFIL contributes to re-establishing LAF’s presence by conducting joint patrols, helping to build LAF’s CIMIC activities and ensuring LAF takes the lead in local disputes and in highly politicised situations. When patrolling alongside LAF, UNIFIL is careful to play the role of observer as much as possible. LAF is deliberately placed at the forefront of any Blue Line violations involving local civilians in order to empower LAF to deal with any situation in its own way and to help build its credibility. Furthermore, as UNIFIL is not allowed to physically restrain anyone who is violating the Blue Line, LAF plays a key role in deciding what measures (physical or verbal) they wish to take in regard to Lebanese citizens on Lebanese territory.

Time has played an important role in maintaining good UNIFIL‒LAF relations. Interviews with LAF officers indicate that long-term UNIFIL staff who understand the local political and social culture in the region are valued highly. Constant staff rotations frustrate the LAF as personal relationships are considered highly important to successful liaison and cooperation. Flexibility has also been of benefit in helping UNIFIL build strong relationships with LAF, officers gave very positive reports of their relationship with UNIFIL staff and in particular their commitment to helping to resolve problems when they arose.

Building capacity

UNIFIL works to try and build LAF’s operational capabilities in a number of ways as this is regarded as an essential part of UNIFIL’s eventual exit strategy.  First of all it lobbies the international community independently to gain support and donations for LAF and requests donations from current battalions for example UNIFIL vehicles at the end of their lifecycle. UNIFIL also seeks funding from the EU and internationally for LAF battalions based throughout Lebanon, not in the area of operations.  Since the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, the EU has been supportive of UNIFIL’s efforts to capacity build LAF. Furthermore, since the emergence of IS in 2014, Lebanon has been seen as a key buffer state, so interest in providing assistance to LAF has further increased.

Another example of UNIFIL’s flexible approach to interpreting its mandate is a joint project entitled the Strategic Dialogue. In recent years, UNIFIL Political Affairs Officers and LAF engaged in a full analysis of LAF’s structure and capabilities and produced a joint report that identified gaps in LAF’s structure. UNIFIL Political Affairs Officers have since organised a coordinating mechanism with UNSCOL and now work jointly to seek contributions from the US and European states to specifically fill these gaps. Finally, battalions within UNIFIL conduct joint exercises with the LAF which can include shooting, artillery, administrative tasks and computer exercises.

Future lessons

Lebanon’s SSR may carry useful lessons for the international community when looking to help other post-conflict countries transition into peace – namely Iraq, where the security environment remains both complex and challenging. The rise and territorial gains of so-called Islamic State in Iraq reflects a failed security sector reform policy which has seen 100 billion US Dollars invested in it. Implementing a more effective SSR policy in Iraq will be a crucial prerequisite for both long-term stability and peace.

When rebuilding a national army after internecine warfare, obtaining support from the domestic constituency is as important as capacity building the force in order to present as a credible deterrent. The Lebanese Army has worked very hard to minimalize sectarian differences within the institution both during and after the civil war and this has been very helpful in enabling it to build a largely positive image amongst the people of Lebanon itself. But the sectarian nature of the armed forces in Iraq will make the rebuilding of the army a great deal more challenging in terms of winning broad popular support in Iraq.  A key task therefore will therefore be for the Iraqi national army to become openly inclusive of multiple ethnicities and religious sects as quickly as possible.

Long term planning in SSR is crucial. One challenge faced in rebuilding the national army in Lebanon is ensuring a regular budget flow to the army and national political cover from politicians. Whilst UNIFIL has been successful in terms of identifying the gaps in LAF expertise and in seeking funding and training to assist in capacity building, the lack of a regular budget for the army still hampers the LAF’s ability to make long term plans for growth and development.

In addition, politicians in Lebanon are broadly supportive of the LAF, but ongoing political cover remains important especially when the national military is faced with domestic disturbances, particularly outbreaks of sectarian violence. It is imperative the LAF are viewed as impartial by the Lebanese to avoid being drawn into domestic political conflict and thus far the LAF have managed this extremely well. These are considerations that Iraq may face in the future.

Since the peace deal of 2006, UNIFIL has been successful in re-introducing LAF into the south of Lebanon. But this has required a nuanced approach because there is a delicate balance between the imposition of an agenda and local agency in peacebuilding projects. Ultimately the success of SSR depends on the degree to which the reforms resonate with institutional and local interests and ideas.

Faced with the aforementioned myriad of sectarian and security challenges, any future attempts to capacity-build the Iraqi army would do well to take a pragmatic approach and be prepared to sacrifice quick wins for the sake of long-term objectives. The first step will involve a careful focus on making the army representative of the Iraqi people and beyond that ensuring national financial and political support is maintained to allow the army the political space to rebuild trust with the all-important domestic constituency of the Iraqi public.

Vanessa Newby is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University. research focus is peacebuilding and peacekeeping in the Middle East. She has published on the normalisation of peace through everyday security practices, the role of time in successful peacebuilding and the use of technocracy and credibility to negotiate the politics of peacekeeping.  She holds a Masters and PhD in International Relations from Griffith University in Australia. She is an Arabic speaker and has spent over three years conducting research in Lebanon and Syria.  In 2013 she was a visiting researcher at the American University of Beirut.  Her undergraduate degree is in Psychology from the University of Westminster and she is trained in conducting quantitative and qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Dr Newby is currently writing up her book: Mission Impossible? Negotiating the Politics of Peacekeeping in the Middle East.