Security and Conflict

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Middle East Military Security and Conflict Terrorism

Pakistani Power Politics: Subversion, Deception and India in the GWOT

written by Alex Choy

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect any official policy or position of the US Government, the Department of Defense or the US Army.

For years, Pakistan, a ‘shadowy hand’ in Central Asian politics, has covertly aided the Afghan Taliban while nominally maintaining its status as a US lynchpin in the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Obfuscated by bureaucratic red tape, Islamabad’s infidelity was only brought to the public eye after the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which was suspiciously just around the corner from the Pakistani Military Academy. It is clear that Pakistan suffers from its share of devastating terrorist attacks, and for those who adhere to the liberalist school of political thought, or the diametric Cold War perception of America and its allies versus all things evil, this begets the question: Why does Pakistan play both sides? Perhaps fatalistic to some, the answer lies within neorealism and its conception that states are primarily concerned with the balance of power, and will engage in self-help behavior to not only preserve the status quo but will exploit ‘allies’ to acquire it, as long as the cost-benefit calculus reports a favorable outcome.

Pakistani interest in Afghanistan is rooted in the Indian-Pakistani power struggle. Fearing encirclement by India and its allies, Islamabad has consistently sought to cultivate a friendly Kabul government. According to former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), sought to cultivate a post-Soviet Afghanistan “so beholden to Pakistan” that no Afghan “would ever question Pakistan’s right to dictate to Afghanistan.” An Afghanistan beholden to Pakistan would not only but would cease long-standing border disagreements, which originated with the 1893 Partition of Afghanistan and former British India, but would also provide strategic depth in the event of an Indian invasion. Therefore, as India ramped up support for more secular Tajik groups such as the Northern Alliance, Pakistan, fearing a potential Afghan-Indian ‘pincer’ that an Afghanistan beholden to India could achieve, countered Indian influence by creating and cultivating the Pashtun Afghan Taliban. Subsequently, by the late 1990’s, with the support of the ISI, the Northern Alliance had been virtually defeated and the Taliban were firmly rooted in Kabul.

Enter 9/11:

On the surface, for Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, 9/11 marked an opportunity to repair diplomatic relationships with the West that had deteriorated since his ascent to power by military coup, and Pakistan’s crossing of the nuclear threshold. As a result, with his fingers presumably crossed behind his back, Musharraf publicly pledged his country’s “unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism” and agreed to provide intelligence and logistical support for Coalition operations in Afghanistan in return for US aid and a normalization of relations. Reciprocally, at a joint press conference held in November 2001, President Bush called Musharraf a “strong leader” of a “strong ally.” However, under the surface, “the way [Musharraf and the ISI] saw 9/11 was that it disrupted their little plan” for altering the regional balance of power in their favor. Because the Afghan Taliban had been elevated to a US enemy on par with al Qaeda for harboring Usama bin Laden, and the Northern Alliance was now a US ally, 9/11 thwarted Pakistan’s ambitions to fill the post-Cold War Afghan power vacuum. As a result, Musharraf’s support for the GWOT would prove to be only nominal.

By November 2001, Musharraf was nervous, and revealed his true intentions regarding Afghanistan when he warned President Bush of the “anarchy and atrocities” that would follow Northern Alliance control of Kabul, insisting “that the Pashtuns … be involved in a postwar political settlement.” While Musharraf was not wrong regarding the negative implications of ‘thuggish’ Northern Alliance warlords, it is clear that his motivations for ‘warning’ the US laid not within helping win the GWOT, but in regional power politics. Consequently, when US SOF and Northern Alliance fighters captured Kabul and encircled the Taliban holdout of Kunduz, Musharraf realized that given the presence of the US, Afghanistan, at least for the time being, could not be beholden to Pakistan. Subsequently, the ISI evacuated hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda leaders from Kunduz in an operation pejoratively termed: ‘The Airlift of Evil.’ As Coalition forces looked on helplessly from afar, what was sold to the Bush Administration by Musharraf as a “minor extraction [of Pakistani ISI personnel], turned into a major air bridge” of US adversaries. In a calculated gamble, Musharraf chose to bide his time.

Prior to the airlift, the Bush Administration was well aware of Pakistani support for terrorists. According to declassified State Department cables that predate 9/11, US foreign policy decision makers were aware that “large numbers of Pakistani nationals [had] recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban … with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani Government.” The existence of such documents raises the questions: Why didn’t the Bush Administration confront Pakistan? Why weren’t they more wary of Musharraf’s true intentions? In reality, while the US was aware of Musharraf’s double-cross, it could not easily address the threat without jeopardizing Pakistan’s cooperation in other areas of greater geopolitical strategic interest, such as the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program or support for covert US operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. At the height of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), if the US were to have taken corrective action, a destabilized Pakistan with nuclear capabilities would have proved disastrous.

As a result, to avoid national embarrassment, the Bush Administration refused to placate Pakistan, and publicly denied any such evacuation. From that point on, Musharraf and the ISI were confident that they could ‘hedge their bets’ between US and terrorist demands, because President Bush did not “ask the hard questions, and frankly, neither did the people working for him.” For the duration of the Bush and Obama Administrations, it seems that despite intermittent demands that Pakistan cease and desist its assistance to the Afghan Taliban, the US accepted the relationship as a necessary evil. Subsequently, for the duration of OEF, the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents were given sanctuary in Pakistan, as the nation itself, funded by US dollars, fought its own internal war on terror against an ‘unfriendly’ Taliban: the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP). For too long, the US has allowed Pakistan to have its cake and eat it too.

In 2018, the Trump Administration suspended 1.3 billion dollars in security assistance to Pakistan, citing its support for terrorists. In 2019, with the entrance of a new Pakistani government, led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, bilateral talks between the US and Pakistan were held in the Oval Office. When asked by a reporter if he would restore aid to Pakistan, President Trump replied: “The problem was Pakistan — this is before you [Khan] — Pakistan was not doing anything for us. They were really … subversive. They were going against us … To be honest, I think we have a better relationship with Pakistan right now than we did when we were paying that money. But all of that can come back, depending on what we work out.” With a new rapport established, four days later, $125 million in military aid was re-pledged to Pakistan.

It is essential to recognize the actor-observer bias. While it is easy to simply denounce Pakistan as a state sponsor of terror, which it is, one must recognize the root causes of its actions. To reiterate: Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban because it understands that a Kabul beholden to Islamabad shifts the balance of power in its favor, or at the very least, helps it maintain the status-quo against a much larger India. Therefore, winning the GWOT depends on relieving tensions between India and Pakistan as much as it does by preventing the Taliban from overthrowing the Government of Afghanistan (GIRoA). At the same bilateral talks, when asked by Prime Minister Khan if he would serve as a mediator between India and Pakistan, regarding territorial conflict in Kashmir, President Trump replied: “It’s impossible to believe two incredible countries … can’t solve a problem like that. But if you want me to mediate … I would be willing to do that. In response, Prime Minister Khan thanked President Trump and expressed his sincere desire for triadic talks.

In retrospect, with the planned US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and recent peace talks with the Taliban, it is clear that by evacuating Taliban and al Qaeda leadership in 2001, Musharraf and the ISI were correct in their assertion of the US’s limited resolve, and have kept the Afghan Taliban on retainer, ready to pounce. One can only hope that for the sake of Afghanistan, the GIRoA can withstand a reinvigorated Taliban offensive, this time without direct help from Coalition ground forces. President Trump’s use of an unconventional mixed bag of carrots and sticks on a new Pakistani Government will hopefully be enough to exact a real change in Pakistani foreign policy towards Afghanistan; following a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan. While India has since rejected offers of mediation, it is in the US’s interest to sell such offers, perhaps through linkage, with vigor.

July 23, 2020 0 comment

Nuclear Deterrence Security and Conflict

Relinquishing the Third Largest Nuclear Arsenal in the World: What Ukraine Teaches about Nuclear Proliferation

written by Taylor Fairless

President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk after signing documents whereby Ukraine agreed to dismantle all of its 1,800 nuclear warheads, Jan. 14, 1994, at the Kremlin in Moscow. Photo courtesy of the NPR.

The nuclear proliferation puzzle has long been thought of in relation to national security: states will build the bomb when they are placed in a significant military threat to which all other alternatives fail to suffice. Yet, Ukraine provides a counterfactual to security considerations by disinheriting one of the most powerful arsenals in the world amid military threats.

After the dismantlement of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly-formed state of Ukraine was “born nuclear” by inheriting about 4,000 of Moscow’s nuclear weapons, granting it the third largest arsenal in the world. This included some of the most technically-advanced weapons of the time: long-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers. Yet, in 1994, Ukraine committed to full disarmament.

The history of disarmament in Ukraine can be reinterpreted to explain why states, or more currently terrorist organizations, seek to develop nuclear weapons. This explanation is tied to long-term international security objectives and current foreign policy efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons entirely. This article will better explain the path to nuclear achievement and challenge conventional ideas of why states build the bomb by illuminating multiple causalities in that process.

Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security, Scott Sagan, believes states build the bomb for three reasons. He refers to the first as the “security model,” which alerts us to states seeking nuclear capabilities when they face a significant military threat. This is the case with North Korea, whose nuclear accumulation is most considerably a reaction to America’s long desire to overthrow the Kim regime. There is little quarrel against the security model as the best explanation to many past and present nuclear buildups: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Israel, and Pakistan almost immediately acquired nuclear weapons after facing security threats. Yet, the delay between security stimuli and nuclear buildup in some cases points to a flaw in reasoning that states build their arsenal simply for national security. India, for example, developed their arsenal nearly a decade after China had, and as Ukraine will exemplify, security threats alone are not always enough to motivate the creation of a nuclear arsenal.

The second “domestic model” is a street-light perspective on nuclear weapons. This invisions nukes as a political tool for credibility; for example, despite conventional perceptions that India built their arsenal in response to China becoming nuclear in 1964, Prime Minister Indira Ganhi instead reacted to domestic pressure to commence a nuclear program. An act of nuclear proliferation can divert turbulence within a state to gain public support. In this sense, bureaucratic actors created conditions that promoted the acquisition of nuclear weapons through bottom-up activity that propagated extreme views on foreign threats while lobbying for political favorability. The case of PM Ganhi shows her motivation for creating India’s nuclear arsenal stemmed from its conference of legitimacy and national prestige.

The last point is the “norms model.” Simply put, if nuclear weapons adhere to a state’s identity, that state will likely want to build an arsenal, given it has the capacity to do so. For example, France emerged from World War Two significantly weakened, and thus vigorously explored ways to reestablish their strength. The best path was through nuclear weapons, and once created, France paraded their arsenal vibrantly on the global stage. Today, quite literally, entire parades dedicated to displaying nuclear weapons in Pakistan, North Korea, and India exemplifies the close relationship that nuclear weapons have with nationalism and identity. On the opposite spectrum, if nuclear weapons defy a state’s image, nuclear arsenals will be avoided, as is the case with Canada.

Let’s suppose these reasons as to why states build nuclear weapons can be reinterpreted into why they don’t build, or in Ukraine’s case why they relinquish, their arsenals. Ukraine is quite puzzling from both a realist and a domestic politics perspective: Russia’s hegemonic behavior, burgeoning tensions over Crimea, and growing public support between 1992 and 1993 for keeping nuclear weapons, even in spite of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, make an anti-nuclear position unlikely. Though, that’s exactly what happened.

In large, the NPT is credited for this result in four critical ways. As I delineate, I will compare these scenarios to those of the present, or cases that are predicted to ensue. Early in 1990, Ukraine tried to accede the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state to separate itself from the Soviet Union and buttress their claim to national sovereignty. This was an expedient blueprint to independence that the majority conservative communists voted in a 355-4 adoption of the NPT. In the future, Hong Kong may adopt a similar tactic of establishing sovereignty vis-à-vis treaties if they continue to seek detachment from China.

Moreover, international prestige granted through the NPT also seeded Kiev’s anti-nuclear position. Pro-NPT officials insisted that this endeavor would enhance Ukraine’s soft power by separating it from what we call “rogue states,” such as modern North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. NPT norms birthed the idea that new nuclear weapons states were unstable threats, which by the 1990s effectively meant that they received international condemnation. Thus, Ukraine’s adherence to the NPT defanged their potentiality as a rising state, and instead invited partnership and security assurances between themselves and the members of the NPT. Moreover, joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state granted Ukraine the assurance of protection by nuclear weapon states in the treaty – a similar phenomena to the security assurances present in NATO.

Pipelining from this were economic pressures, which Ukraine certainly faced from America, and more generally NATO. The West maintained that failing to follow the NTP’s norms and regulations would result in economic restrictions, made easier by the NTP’s mobility and coordination of collective sanctions. Today, we can relate this to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 25-year nuclear agreement which limited the scope of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Last, the NPT created a sense of international responsibility. Ukraine was satisfying the global commitment to peace, which was being renewed at the conclusion of the tumultuous 20th century. Critically, America offered financial support for relinquishing Kiev’s arsenal, which made the negative proliferation decision a far easier endeavor and helped secure Ukraine’s position as a cooperative state. We may relate this today to China. Though the political future of a post-COVID China is uncertain, I think Beijing may be one to keep an eye out in this regard. The Trump administration is fighting to see China join the New START treaty as China continues to expand technologically and militaristically. Though, China’s long disapproval of joining has made this unlikely. In a world in which China may bear the international brunt of COVID’s spread, adopting this treaty may be a counterbalance as it would assume China as committing to shouldering a responsibility of international peace.

What’s of value with these four reasons is imaging Ukraine’s renunciation without the NPT. Though some case may be made for that, it’s nonetheless hard to imagine it being any easier. Nuclear treaties may be thought of as an investment into furthering the nuclear taboo and mediating the security dilemma. As was the case in the 1960s, testing nuclear weapons and acquiring an arsenal granted positive international recognition. Yet, today’s taboo causes immediate condemnation of any state attempting to do so. This signifies the progress of the nuclear taboo, and scholars today tend to view the NPT as a way to further it into one that eventually chastises the mere possession of nuclear weapons.

States build the bomb for many reasons, and at the same time, as Ukraine exemplified, states may also relinquish their arsenal for multiple purposes. No single policy can expedite creating a nuclear free world, nor advance international security measures. It suffices to say that multicausality best explains the nuclear existence present today and the troubles that policymakers face when formulating antiproliferation measures. What Ukraine’s deviation from conventional perceptions on the security dilemma shows is that future scholarship needs to be driven by comparative studies to determine the conditions that states fall under when acting against the nuclear taboo, and more presently should expand to single actors and organizations.

As Sagan puts it: “a focusing on how different governments assess the nuclear potential and intention of neighbors, on why pro-bomb and anti-bomb domestic coalitions form and gain influence, and on when and how NPT norms about legitimate behavior constrain statesmen will be extremely important.” For certain, the world may see a Ukrainian repeat in the future, but at the same time, the current nuclear tongue cannot dismiss the possibility of a rogue actor or state dismantling the nuclear taboo. It is thus imperative that scholars continue to expand their theories and look more deeply into the desire to acquire nuclear weapons and what shape that may take on in the coming decades. Moreover, we may look at the NPT’s furthering of norms as the argument for continual enhancement of the treaty and continuing to create new, comprehensive laws and regulations agreed upon by both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states.

July 9, 2020 0 comment

Middle East Military Security and Conflict Terrorism United States

Countering Violent Extremism in the Global War on Terror

written by Alex Choy

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect any official policy or position of the US Government, the Department of Defense or the US Army.

Despite being re-christened as ‘countering violent extremism’ by the Obama Administration, the Bush Administration’s Global War on Terror (GWOT) is nearing its twenty-year mark. While the GWOT has undergone several rebrands, it’s overarching goal to defend the homeland has endured. However, what these deliberate attempts at rebranding do illustrate are variances in the approaches of different presidential administrations. This article will analyze how public opinion, personal schemas, and bureaucratic politics shaped the Bush and Obama Administrations’ efforts to combat terrorist insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. I argue that the dysfunctional Bush Administration, haunted by previous foreign entanglements, embarked on a sweeping, yet externally focused, enemy-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign that neglected target-state domestic considerations. Subsequently, while the Obama Administration attempted to remediate with a more restrained, internally focused surge of population-centric COIN, constraints imposed by a war-weary public suffocated meaningful progress.

Within US military doctrine, there are two main paradigms of COIN: enemy-centric, and population-centric. The latter views the population of a target state as “the sea in which insurgents swim,” and reasons that if the target state’s civilian population and its surrounding environment can be controlled, pacified and stabilized, insurgents will be deprived of their support networks and subsequently will either be exposed or neutralized. Essentially, it is victory by winning the hearts and minds of civilians through nation-building. On the other hand, the former views insurgencies as unitary actors, and counterinsurgency as “more akin to conventional warfare [that] focuses on the defeat of the enemy as the counterinsurgent’s primary task.”

Post-9/11, despite the imminent threat of another attack, the Bush Administration would find it challenging to reconcile retribution with the ever-present ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ plaguing the nation. Georgetown Professor Elizabeth Saunders classifies leaders as either internally or externally focused. She asserts that internally focused leaders are interested in a target state’s domestic considerations and are resultantly more inclined to undertake nation building operations. Conversely, externally focused leaders are more likely to pursue strategies that aim to resolve a conflict with minimal involvement in a target nation’s domestic affairs. While Bush is frequently associated with unilateral interventionism, it is critical to recognize that he was externally focused. Accordingly, he held a personal aversion towards protracted involvement, and an aversion towards using conventional forces to engage in population-based COIN, because he believed that such an approach involved risky nation-building that would tie “up US troops indefinitely,” and stir up anti-American sentiments.

As a result, while it was evident that the public would support a use of force decision, the question at hand was: What form would a retaliatory use of force take? According to a public opinion poll, 17 percent of Americans would have opposed the use of force by conventional US ground troops. Representing Americans still afflicted with Vietnam Syndrome, the presence of this population reinforced President Bush’s schemas on risk aversion. Therefore, anticipating public opinion, President Bush decided on what he thought to be a militarily successful policy to end the war quickly and limit US involvement. The plan would be to take an externally focused, enemy-centric COIN approach, where small teams of special operations forces (SOF), supplemented by local Northern Alliance fighters, would hunt al Qaeda and the Taliban without engaging in nation-building to maintain a light footprint. After eliminating the Taliban and al Qaeda, the US would exit Afghanistan and hand over full authority to Northern Alliance warlords to form a new US friendly Afghan Government (GIRoA).

While this approach looked good on paper, enemy-centric COIN did not consider target state domestic considerations and contributed to the formation of a destabilizing insurgency. Unbeknownst to the Bush Administration, which was “woefully deficient in human intelligence” as per its external focus, the Taliban regime had actually been a source of regional stability, and Afghan civilians had been thrilled with Taliban rule, because it had ended the “corrupt and predatory behavior of warlord” society.In fact, pre-invasion, the Taliban did not want to fight the US and had even offered to extradite Usama Bin Laden (UBL), to a neutral third party. However, because the Bush Administration did not understand Afghan domestic politics, it viewed the Taliban and al Qaeda as a monolithic bloc, resulting in a missed opportunity for cooperation. Furthermore, while instant gratification was achieved by harnessing Northern Alliance manpower, the destabilizing effects of legitimizing warlords as authority figures became evident when the Northern Alliance allowed the escape of UBL at Tora Bora, and after it was discovered that the majority of the newly formed Afghan Government had ties to the criminal underworld.

Targeting al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts was part of the Bush Doctrine, a major innovation to existing US foreign policy. The Bush Doctrine emphasized that “any nation that continue[d] to harbor or support terrorism … [would be considered] a hostile regime,” and that preemptive strikes would be pursued unilaterally if multinational support could not be garnered.As a result, even though the Taliban had not been directly involved with 9/11, harboring UBL had elevated them to an enemy on par with al Qaeda. However, the Bush Doctrine presented a major contradiction to the President’s schemas on risk aversion. This was because its mastermind was not Bush, but Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. According to Pentagon insiders, Wolfowitz was more avant-garde on matters of foreign policy, while Bush was inexperienced. This enabled him to take control of policy and “push the whole Bush team to the right,” while Rumsfeld was left free to pursue bureaucratic interests.Wolfowitz, who was a firm believer in the ‘Munich Script,’ believed that dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein could not be pacified.Therefore, to garner support for regime change, he portrayed him as a dangerous state sponsor of terrorism. Accordingly, the US would expand the GWOT into Iraq, despite being warned that doing so “would undercut the [actual] US counteroffensive against terrorism” in Afghanistan.

Despite its ineffectiveness, the Bush Administration would remain externally focused and would retain enemy-centric COIN due to selfish bureaucratic politics. Even though Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had witnessed firsthand the failures of minimalist operations in Afghanistan, because they had developed personal ownership for the light footprint approach, admitting the need for a more intensive, internally focused approach would have been “an admission of personal fail[ure].” Subsequently, when confronted by dissenters who were subject matter experts, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were disingenuous and dismissive, labeling them as ill-informed.Therefore, to protect their own credibility and prestige, they refused to challenge pre-Afghanistan assumptions and update their externally focused approach to an internal one. Consequently, during the Iraq War, lacking an understanding of Iraqi domestic conditions, the Bush Administration practiced de-Ba’athification and disbanded the Iraqi Army, despite being advised that Iraqi government institutions should be kept intact, “because [they] could serve as a unifying force in a … highly diverse and fragmented society.”As a result, a vast pool of unemployed, humiliated and antagonized men would join insurgencies.

By adhering to the Bush Doctrine but remaining externally focused, the Bush Administration proclaimed an ambitious endstate but displayed an unwillingness to commit, creating a disconnect between discourse and reality. The origins of this discrepancy are most prominently illustrated by the Bush Doctrine’s legislative vehicle: The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). The AUMF granted the President the authority to use force against those who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the terrorist attacks on 9/11.As opposed to a Congressionally ratified, traditional declaration of war, the ambiguous wording of the AUMF indicated that the Bush Administration was about to embark on a crusade against not just al Qaeda, but an entire belief system. Therefore, the GWOT would “not end with a signing ceremony on the [USS] Missouri,” but with the utter destruction of extremist ideologies.Accordingly, while the AUMF was designed to provide hardline retaliation towards terrorists, its ambitious, carte blanche nature clashed with the Bush Administration’s aversion towards protracted involvement, resulting in policy mismatch.

In sum, the Bush Administration’s approach to the GWOT was contradictory and shortsighted. It attempted to juggle an aversion to protracted involvement, with an ambitious goal that would require a lasting commitment. What resulted was an enemy-centric approach that neglected domestic considerations and fueled destabilization. Foreign Area Officer, Gregory Roberts, maintains that “an open-ended goal necessitates an open-ended commitment.”Simply put, having proclaimed an ambitious goal, leaders must work towards that goal without limitation. Conversely, if there are second thoughts, a definitive policy update must be issued, lest ambiguity be generated. If a policy update is not disseminated, bureaucrats cannot form a unified strategy and may pursue organizational and personal interests instead. The Bush Administration never released a strategic update, and as a result, mixed messages prevented progress because “everyone was just thinking in terms of what [they] could do in the short term” to better organizational and personal standing.

By 2008, the American public, which was war-weary but reluctant to admit defeat in the GWOT, led the Obama Administration to combine a hard deadline for withdrawal, with an internally focused surge in US efforts. Upon entering office, President Obama inherited a renewed insurgency in Afghanistan that was exacting increasing tolls on public opinion, as well as a conflict in Iraq, where plans were already underway for a hasty withdrawal. As a result, he took the drawdown in Iraq as a blessing, and was determined to refute the Bush Doctrine and refocus onto Afghanistan, a conflict he deemed “a war of necessity” that was true to the original mission of the GWOT.In a speech at West Point, President Obama remarked that under the Bush Administration, “commanders in Afghanistan [had] repeatedly asked for support … but these reinforcements” never arrived thanks to the amorphous nature of Bush foreign policy. However, because Obama was determined to counter the atrophy of reconstruction efforts; under his watch, the requested troop increase would be fulfilled, to support a new internally focused, population-centric COIN strategy of clear-hold-build and transfer.

Unlike its predecessor, the Obama Administration encouraged and did not discount input from subject matter experts before deciding on a new strategy. During the Bush Administration, concerns “bubbled under the surface … but never went public, or into a formal dissent.”However, under the Obama Administration, for the first time, a US commander in Afghanistan felt comfortable to publicly describe the situation as deteriorating, and to recommend a complete strategic overhaul.This commander: GEN Stanley McChrystal, asserted that the principal problem facing Afghanistan consisted of two threats, the first being a resurgent insurgency, while the second was the weakness of GIRoA institutions. He argued that such conditions would “generate recruits for the insurgent groups.” Therefore, he recommended the revision of internally focused, enemy-centric COIN, into a “comprehensive and fully resourced mission focused on protecting the population.”According to McChrystal, population-centric COIN would involve clearing contested areas, securing them to create opportunities for local-based governance, and then developing the area economically to achieve lasting stability after a proper transfer of authority.

Furthermore, President Obama’s approach to conflict decision-making was substantially more analytical than that of his predecessor. While the Bush Administration was marred with contradiction, discounted expert opinions in favor of personal schemas, and was steered by bureaucratic infighters such as Paul Wolfowitz; the Obama Administration’s decision to turn to an internally focused population-centric approach was characterized by centralized control and careful deliberation. While former Bush Vice President Dick Cheney accused him of ‘dithering,’ Obama instructed his vice president, Joe Biden, to play devil’s advocate and “ask the toughest questions [he could] think of” to challenge any pre-existing assumptions.Nor would Obama allow others in his Administration to dictate policy as Wolfowitz had under the laissez-faire Bush management system. For example, when McChrystal attempted to ‘goldilocks’ him into approving an unrealistic troop increase, Obama called him out.The surge strategy that was produced collegially, would feature a troop increase and population-centric COIN to rectify the Bush Administration’s blunders, but Obama’s deadline.

While internally focused, population-centric COIN was intended to be the be-all-end-all strategy for ‘countering violent extremism,’ by instituting a hard deadline for reconstruction in Afghanistan; the breeding ground for al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Obama Administration demonstrated a lack of commitment to what should have been treated as an open-ended goal. Overwhelming Afghanistan with a tsunami of US aid to meet the deadline, the surge fueled destabilization by incentivizing GIRoA corruption. For example, as part of the build phase, Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) to develop infrastructure, were intended to increase Afghan confidence in the GIRoA. However, because the surge’s prevailing strategy was that “money expended equals success,” corrupt GIRoA contractors exploited the system because they knew the money would keep flowing.Subsequently, Afghan civilians ranked corruption as one of the top three reasons why they continued to support the Taliban.

Despite its shortcomings, the Obama Administration would retain the surge strategy until the end of its second term. However, this time, retention of an ineffective strategy would not be because of senior policymakers’ fears of losing prestige, but would be because of prestige-hungry junior players, anxious to demonstrate rapid progress towards the 2014 deadline. To do so, impartial third party evaluations of missions were substituted with self-assessment, thereby making “everyone involved look good” and to make it look like the surge was having its intended effects.Furthermore, because progress was only measured quantitatively, in terms of patrols conducted, villages cleared and dollars spent; junior bureaucrats were enabled to paint misleading pictures of personal and organizational success. Just as the ‘body count’ metric had misled President Johnson decades prior, the surge’s shortcomings were obfuscated from Obama.As a result, despite the Obama Administration’s efforts to legitimize the GIRoA and build Afghan infrastructure, insurgencies returned to Afghanistan in the summer of 2015, forcing US troops to once again engage in offensive rather than reconstruction missions.

After continuing to receive positive reports, but seeing little progress, President Obama would have experienced cognitive dissonance and subsequently updated his internally focused beliefs regarding population-centric COIN. As a result, with the 2014 rapid expansion of Daesh in Iraq and Syria, the Obama Administration returned to a more enemy-centric COIN strategy of targeted drone strikes against insurgents. Drone strikes did not differentiate between friend or foe, and exacerbated civilian casualties, thereby eroding what little trust remained between target state civilians, their governments and the US. With the end of the Obama Administration, COIN and the GWOT had been brought full circle, with little to show for it.

In conclusion, despite its attempt to shoot a trajectory completely opposite the Bush Administration to combat terrorist insurgencies, the Obama Administration still fell victim to the same pitfalls of bureaucratic politics and public opinion that had been the impetus for such problems under the previous administration. While the Bush Administration’s external focus and dysfunctional laissez-faire management system led to the pursuance of destabilizing enemy-centric COIN, the Obama Administration’s internally focused and collegially brainstormed population centric COIN, could not eliminate violent extremism either. However, what is clear, is that no matter the difference in strategy, leaders must treat the fight against terrorism as an open-ended goal and require from themselves, an open-ended commitment. As both the Bush and Obama Administrations have demonstrated, if constraints are placed on COIN to reconcile public opinion, target-state destabilization will follow.

June 14, 2020 0 comment

Middle East Print Article Security and Conflict Terrorism

International Law and Child Soldiers: Yemen’s Civil War

written by Abdus Najmi

This article originally appeared in The Generation Spring 2020 print edition. The theme for this edition is “Youth Voices.” A link to our online version of the print publication can be found here: https://www.flipsnack.com/thegen/the-generation-spring-2020.html

As the majority of Yemen’s population lies on the cusp of starvation and famine, urgent action in the field of international law is critical to set deterrents for future state actors and remedy the already inflicted harms from the current state actors involved in the civil war. My research will attempt to answer the following two questions: What is the status of current trends in international law regarding the use of child soldiers? Can international law offer pragmatic solutions to decrease the likelihood of conflict in Yemen, especially concerning child soldiers?

Part I of this essay will examine current recruitment strategies regarding child soldiers from both the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels. It will also analyze the role of the United States in the conflict, and offer some analysis on potential policy recommendations. Part II will explore the status of international law regarding the use of child soldiers. First, my discussion will engage international law from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence. Then, I will examine Western approaches and norms. Lastly, Part III will delve into potential solutions for domestic reform in Yemen as based on the model of the new Iraqi constitution.

Part I: The Status Quo

Saudi Arabia’s child soldier recruitment strategy in Yemen is an extensive operation. The Kingdom began recruiting children from war-torn Darfur around 2016, telling children that Saudi Arabia would pay “as much as $10,000 if [they] joined its forces.”[i] The statistics are appalling. Some fighters have testified that as much as “40 percent” of their unit has been made up of children. For the residents of financially ravaged Darfur, the offer of ten thousand dollars from Saudi royals could be life changing for residents of financially ravaged residents of Darfur. When one considers the fact that “a Sudanese doctor working overtime at multiple jobs might earn the equivalent of $500 a month,”[ii] ten thousand dollars may be the difference between life and death. Saudi Arabia, along with Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, and Sudan, has launched operations against the Zaydi Shi’i group known as the Houthis. Ansar Allah, another name the Houthis adopted, gained control of the capital of Yemen, Sana’a, in 2014. This was a devastating blow for former President Hadi.[iii] The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Al-Qaeda have also been critical actors in the Yemeni Civil War, routinely carrying out attacks against the Zaydi Shias on the basis of sectarian differences. ISIS and Al-Qaeda’s are primarily Sunni, abiding by a Salafist ideology, while Zaydi Shi’ism stands in direct opposition to Salafism theologically. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has attempted to securitize Zaydis as inherently violent, looking at every way to “reestablish a Zaydi Imamate,”[iv] which they believe is crucial to the soundness of political order, though much of this discourse are acts of hyper-securitization and fear-mongering.

However, child soldier recruitment is not a one-sided effort from Saudi Arabia. Though scholars may be quick to blame the Saudi-led coalition for violating international law as a state actor, they quickly forget that the Houthis are still equally guilty under international human rights conventions. The Houthis have “inducted 18,000 child soldiers […] since […] 2014.”[v] The strategy differs with every child, for some, it is promises of “money or the chance to carry a weapon […] But others described being […] abducted from schools or homes or coerced into joining in exchange for a family member’s release from detention.”[vi] The ability to protect one’s family or earn money are enticing opportunities for anyone living in a country with one of the worst humanitarian crises. The Zaydi Houthis have declined these allegations; however, on-the-ground journalism tells a different story.

Before diving into the legal issues at hand, it is critical to understand status quo levels of involvement from different state (and non-state) actors. The United States has an extremely important role in the Yemeni Civil War. Currently, US arm sales to Saudi Arabia total billions of dollars, as the “State Department has approved at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts.”[vii] Saudi Arabia has extensively used these weapons in their coalition against the Houthis. In terms of sheer statistics, US weapons from companies like General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin have directly killed “at least 434 people and injure[d] at least 1,004 in attacks.”[viii] The US can implement a number of policy measures to prevent further carnage and help end the use of child soldiers in the conflict. First, the United States “should end its provision of military aid to Saudi Arabia,”[ix] guaranteeing that the Saudis receive a signal of noncompliance with their behavior in the region. This will signal that the United States no longer exclusively backs Saudi interests in Yemen and will significantly lessen the number of casualties from the conflict. The US may benefit from using a quid pro quo approach, conditioning arm sales and military aid on the end of the use of child soldiers. This can be legally justified under the Child Soldier Prevention Act.[x] Empirically, the conditioning of military aid on the cessation of the use of child soldiers has been very effective – the United States has “in at least three cases, […] been instrumental in securing foreign governments’ agreement to enter into a UN action plan to end their use of child soldiers.”[xi]

In addition, it may be necessary to hold elected officials accountable. While the laws may be in place, political elites like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are able to manipulate moral questions into military ones. Pompeo “blocked the inclusion of Saudi Arabia on a list of countries that recruit child soldiers,”[xii] making it difficult to get the US legally behind any form of arms embargo against the Kingdom. Adding Saudi Arabia to that list may be the first step needed to pursuing conditional military policies with Riyadh. Establishing a quid pro quo relationship with Saudi Arabia bodes well as an effective mechanism in securing the rights of children and ending the use of child soldiers in the Middle East writ large.

Part II: Discussion on International Law

When one discusses customary international law, it is crucial to remember that not all states are as keen to adopt Western legal frameworks when dealing with issues like conduct in warfare. Though most Islamic countries do not follow word for word principles established in Sharia’, which may be broadly defined as Islamic jurisprudence, they still abide by large, overarching principles that can be found in the Quran, the Hadith, and through hermeneutic practices, including others like ijma (scholarly consensus) or qiyas (analogical reasoning). In order to make policy recommendations, it may be critical to examine Islamic law and jurisprudence in regards to child soldiers to better access frameworks that individuals in Yemen may be more inclined to adapt. It is imperative to abide by the frameworks of those who are most affected by the conflict.

Islamic fiqh in the context of family relations holds a deep literature base regarding the rights of children. Primarily, scholars contend that Islam necessitates “that children should be given a protective environment, and […] the right to have sufficient parental care, the right to have education, the right to healthcare, and the freedom of expression and thought.”[xiii] In fact, if a child does not have parents, it is encouraged greatly for the children to be “protected through sponsorship provided by people acting in the role of parents.”[xiv] Even when one looks at commentary concerning jihad from the most famous Muslim scholars, child recruitment for offensive jihad is explicitly denied. Ibn Rushd, known more famously as Averroes, stated that “the collective obligation lies with the freemen and adults.”[xv] Hanafi scholar and jurist al-Marghinani made clear that “jihad is not a requirement for the child.”

Islamic traditions would also contend that there are “two qualifications someone is considered to reach a majority age, namely, ‘âqil and bâligh.”[xvi] Reaching aqil and baligh set the benchmark for what being an “adult” constitutes. Aqil refers to being in possession of one’s mental abilities, while the latter means ‘physically grown up, bodily of age.”[xvii] Both of these benchmarks are hard to quantify; in many Islamic countries such as Indonesia, scholars can find indicators of adulthood in marital law, where it’s legislated to allow marriage without consent at the age of 21.[xviii] However, in Yemen, marital law might tell a different story. There is no formal age of consent in Yemen, and many cases have surfaced regarding child marriages as young as 8 years old.[xix] Theory and practice tell vastly different stories, making it very difficult to set a clear definition of what adulthood really is. Further research may be needed to understand the effect of culture as an alternative explanation for child marriages.

Even if we wanted to adopt a more conservative view of Islamic law regarding jihad for children, the story of ibn Umar would set the limit of child participation in war at fifteen years old. During the Battle of Badr, ibn Umar asked to fight alongside the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, who then forbade it. The hadith goes as such: “‘The messenger of God reviewed me the day [of the battle] of Uhud, when I was just a boy of 14 years, and I was not allowed [to fight]. Then he reviewed me the [day of the battle] of the Trench, I was 15 years old and he agreed.”[xx] This is strikingly similar to the age limit set in international law as well; “the age limit is set at fifteen in Article 38”[xxi] in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both Western, international law and Islamic law hold the age of fifteen as the proper age of participation in warfare.

Current trends in international law have attempted to raise the minimum age of child soldiers globally. Article 38 did not suffice, so in 1993, committee members attempted to push for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. On “May 25, 2000,”[xxii] the United Nations ended up taking on the new changes, raising the minimum age of child warfare “from fifteen to eighteen years.”[xxiii] There are loopholes to this though – states may still be able to benefit from the voluntary participation of children in the armed forces, “so the notion of a “straight-eighteen rule” has yet to be fully accomplished.”[xxiv] Though Saudi Arabia and Yemen are parties to the Optional Protocol, it is clear that both of these countries do not abide by the rules they have agreed to. The Optional Protocol lacks an enforcement mechanism, effectively negating the power behind international law.

Part III: Potential Solutions

Yemen may be able to model domestic laws in Iraq in regards to children in armed conflict to further ensure the safety of children. The new Iraqi constitution, which was drafted post US invasion in 2003, incorporates both Western legal doctrines and the Sharia’. It holds in Article 29 that “family is the foundation of society… and the state guarantees the protection of […] childhood.”[xxv] Articles 33 and 37 were home runs for legal innovation regarding the use of child soldiers. This article contains provisions and statutes that are critical to “children who have become child soldiers in armed conflict,” prohibiting the use of force on any “person to join any party, society or political entity or force him to continue his membership in it.”[xxvi] It is critical for Yemeni policymakers to examine the new Iraqi constitution as a potential model for future laws regarding conduct of warfare. Though the efficacy of the new Iraqi constitution has not yet been determined, as witnessed with the rise of ISIS and political instability, the constitution still provides a base frame for Yemen to build upon domestically. Due to the impending humanitarian disaster, it is crucial that policymakers not focus on the small details of legal innovations, but rather adopt a framework quickly to resolve status quo harms as fast as possible. An external agency that monitors enforcement may need to be established to ensure productive results. Without external enforcement mechanisms, Yemen may fall into the same paradigms of failure and noncompliance that Iraq has witnessed.

In addition, Yemen is unique from Iraq since Yemen is home to the Zaydi Shia group. Preservation of Zaydi identity, or at least an attempt at negotiation of it, is critical to ensure the freedom of worship and minority rights. In the new Iraqi constitution, it was held that the “holy shrines and religious sites in Iraq are religious and civilizational entities […] the State is committed to assuring and maintaining their sanctity, and to guaranteeing the free practice of rituals in them.”[xxvii] This did not matter whether the minority was a Chaldean Christian or a Yazidi, Iraq attempted to maintain the ability for its citizens to uphold the freedom of religion. However, in Yemen, the idea of freedom of religion is a different story, at least post-Saudi airstrikes. Saudi Arabia has deliberately attacked Zaydi sites, such as Al-Hadi mosque, “the final resting place of Imam al-Hadi ila’l-Haqq Yahya, the first Shiite Zaydi imam of Yemen.”[xxviii] The destruction of Shiite religious and cultural sites is a clear violation of international law, and begs the question: What Islamic principles can be maintained in a future negotiation between the Houthis and Saudis? If both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have different notions of Islam, then the potential for finding common ground severely diminishes. Adopting Iraq’s notions of religious freedom must be the stepping stone in Houthi-Saudi negotiation.

However, this conflict is much more difficult than it seems. Though sectarian differences regarding Zaydi Shi’ism and Sunni Islam are tantamount concerns, they are not the main drivers of the conflict. For one, Zaydi Shi’ism is actually considered “closer to Sunni Islam rather than to Twelver Shiism, which is the form of Shiism practiced in Iran.”[xxix] Theologically, there are critical differences regarding the status of the fifth Imam Zayd ibn Ali, but overall, Zaydi Shi’ism holds much more tolerant views of the earlier Sunni caliphs, granting them openness “towards other interpretations of Islam.”[xxx] The notion that this conflict is a new Cold War along sectarian lines between Iran and Saudi Arabia must be rejected and analyzed further. Economics, power politics, and the drive for natural resources may very well serve as alternative explanations for the ongoing proxy wars throughout the Middle East.

As examined in this essay, the recruitment of children as soldiers in Yemen goes against Islamic principles contained in the hadith and Western norms of international law broadly. As the Saudi-led coalition gains momentum and continues to pay children in Darfur to participate in war crimes, the world must attempt to restrain Saudi Arabia through means of coercion, whether that be economic sanctions or hardline military force. States must look at empirical examples and attempts at peace negotiations, such as the Stockholm agreement and the Riyadh agreement. Further research needs to examine the factors and conditions that led the Southern separatists to “have pulled out”[xxxi] of the Riyadh agreement near the beginning of this year. However, it is clear that an agreement that precludes any discussion regarding the use of child soldiers is problematic and destined to continue the suffering of many. The United States has a clear position in the conflict as Saudi Arabia’s guarantor of arms sales, and will need to serve a crucial role in diplomatic efforts with Saudi Arabia if it wants to see any resolution of the ongoing tragedies in Yemen.

[i] Kirkpatrick, David. “On the Front Line of the Saudi War in Yemen: Child Soldiers From Darfur.” New York Times, December 2018. Accessed 4 February 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/world/africa/saudi-sudan-yemen-child-fighters.html.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Waseem A. Qureshi, The Crisis in Yemen: Armed Conflict and International Law, 45 N.C. J. INT’L L. & COM. REG. 227 (2020).

[iv] King, James. “Zaydī revival in a hostile republic: Competing identities, loyalties and visions of state in Republican Yemen.” Brill, Arabica 59 (2012) 404-445.

[v] Associated Press. “Children as young as 10 fight, kill and die in Yemen’s war.” NBC News, December 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/children-young-10-fight-kill-die-yemen-s-war-n949721.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Kane, Alex. “Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen.” In These Times, June 2019 Issue, https://inthesetimes.com/features/us-saudi-arabia-yemen-war-arms-sales.html

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Lena Mizrahi, “The U.S. Must End Military Aid to Saudi Arabia – Berkeley Political Review”, Berkeley Political Review, https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2019/11/12/the-u-s-must-end-military-aid-to-saudi-arabia/, accessed 11-19-2019.

[x] Becker, Jo. “From Opponent to Ally: The United States and Efforts to End the Use of Child Soldiers, 22 Mich. St. Int’l L. Rev. 595 (2013), Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/ilr/vol22/iss2/5

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Seligman, Lara. “The Child Soldier Crisis: ‘Kids Are Cheap’,” Foreign Policy, November 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/08/child-soldier-crisis-kids-are-cheap-yemen-isis-my-star-sky/

[xiii] Anna-Liisa Jacobson, “Lambs into Lions: The Utilization of Child Soldiers in the War in Iraq and Why International and Iraqi Laws are Failing to Protect the Innocent,” Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business 8, no. 2 (Winter 2008): 161-194

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] https://www.oasiscenter.eu/en/sharia-law-does-not-call-child-soldiers

[xvi] https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/157450-EN-the-issue-of-child-soldiers-in-islamic-p.pdf

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/after-years-civil-war-child-marriage-rise-yemen/33762

[xx] https://www.oasiscenter.eu/en/sharia-law-does-not-call-child-soldiers

[xxi] Anna-Liisa Jacobson, “Lambs into Lions: The Utilization of Child Soldiers in the War in Iraq and Why International and Iraqi Laws are Failing to Protect the Innocent,” Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business 8, no. 2 (Winter 2008): 161-194

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid.

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Constitute Project, “Iraq’s Constitution of 2005.” https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iraq_2005.pdf?lang=en

[xxviii] Craig, Iona. “The Agony of Saada”: U.S. and Saudi Bombs Target Yemen’s Ancient Heritage.” The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2015/11/16/u-s-and-saudi-bombs-target-yemens-ancient-heritage/

[xxix] Perteghella, Annalisa. “Yemen: the Sectarianization of a Political Conflict.” Italian Institute for International Political Studies, March 2018. https://www.ispionline.it/en/pubblicazione/yemen-sectarianization-political-conflict-19933

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Reuters, “Yemen’s southern separatists pull out of Riyadh agreement committees,” Reuters, January 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/yemens-southern-separatists-pull-out-of-riyadh-agreement-committees-idUSKBN1Z01ZE

June 1, 2020 0 comment

Middle East Religion Security and Conflict Terrorism

The Evolution of Political Thought within the Muslim Brotherhood: Are Sisi’s Concerns Legitimate?

written by Abdus Najmi

In 2019, Egypt saw yet another wave of protests. This time, protestors from both the right and left targeted President Abdel Fattah Sisi on the basis of corruption. Though the reasoning behind criticisms differed vastly, Sisi responded with a simple answer – the issue was “political Islam.” In almost every pro-government media response to the protests, the core enemy was “the Muslim Brotherhood.” If one wants to understand current Egyptian politics today, it is critical to examine the past and study the foundational writings that make up the political goals of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. Hassan al-Banna’s writings on jihad will be of paramount concern. Understanding what exactly Hassan al-Banna meant by jihad may prove useful in sifting through legitimate security concerns versus government posturing. Hassan al-Banna’s work On Jihad holds no monolithic view on what jihad means, but rather adopts two different views proposed throughout history. For al-Banna, jihad is both militaristic and peaceful. This research essay will seek to explain how Sufism and colonialism were critical factors in shaping al-Banna’s views.

Regarding his Sufi interpretation of jihad, Hassan al-Banna writes that the main purpose behind jihad is that of dawah, or the spreading of Islam’s message. This proselytism was to bring people into righteousness not “to further their personal gains […] rather jihad is used to safeguard the mission of spreading Islam […] this would guarantee peace […] for Islam, even as it ordains jihad, it extols peace.”[i] For al-Banna, Islam’s original message was that of pure peace. Jihad became a mechanism for him and others to actualize eventual non-violence. This conceptualization parallels similar thoughts of earlier Muslims, especially Ahmadiyya thought. For example, Ghulam Ahmad and his followers urged to “continue this jihad of the pen by publishing religious books,”[ii] where the utmost concern of jihad was that of dawah. al-Banna then flips the script here – he takes on a complete Sufi interpretation when he argues that jihad is all about the intention of one’s soul. If one embarks on jihad, one must realize that the “love of pomp is forbidden to him, and the love of show is forbidden to him, and thirst for spoils is forbidden to him.”[iii] The jihadists must abstain “from indulging their personal desires and cravings,”[iv] just as the companions of the Prophet did. Al-Banna’s rhetoric choice is very Sufi-like here, and implies jihad al-nafs, a struggle against one’s baseline desires. Pursuing jihad with the wrong intent and for the wrong reasons was utterly wrong, according to al-Banna.

Sufism clearly influenced al-Banna’s views on jihad. Growing up, al-Banna “recalls that as a twelve-year old boy he was attracted to the dhikr ceremony of the al-Hassafiyya Sufi order, in which he later became a fully initiated disciple.”[v] A dhikr ceremony is a Sufi practice that involves the repetition of the names of God until one achieves a trance-like state. He gradually drew himself into more mystic practices, and went so far as to create an extension group called the Hassafi Welfare Society.[vi] This group’s sole purpose was that of dawah, which is precisely the same interpretation of jihad that Hassan proposes in his work On Jihad. The Hassafi Welfare Society’s main mission was to counteract the incoming Christian missionaries from the Christian Biblical Mission who proselytized under the pretense of medical help and nursing.[vii] Even when examining the group structure of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is easy to understand that it is derived from Sufi order structures. The youth group in the Brotherhood was called the “the Rovers,”[viii] or in Arabic as the Jawwala. These “boy scouts” focused on spirituality, “Sufi self-discipline, teachings about Islamic warriors, chivalrous masculinity and the importance of jihad.”[ix] Sufi teachings regarding intention and dawah were central to Hassan al-Banna’s development as a child, and it is clear that it influenced how he structured the Brotherhood and what he thought about jihad. Jihad was only a normal and necessary extension of proper Muslim practice.

Al-Banna showcases his Sufi thought more, especially when he basically becomes an apologist for Sufi leaders. He argues that since the beginning of the Islamic empire, “the Muslims […] never abandoned jihad nor did they ever grow lax in waging it, not even their […] mystics, […] Abd Allah b. al-Mubarak, the canon lawyer and ascetic, was a volunteer in jihad for most of his life, and Abd al-Wahhab b. Zayd, the mystic and ascetic, was the same […] Shaqiq al-Balkhi, the Sufi shaykh, used to dispatch himself and his disciples off to jihad.”[x] His defense of Sufi sheikhs during this time may have been due to increasing pressure from the rise of Salafi thought, originally established in Egypt by people like Muhammad Abduh. During this time, “Sufism was increasingly seen as backwards and superstitious […] Salafī shaykhs like

Muhammad `Abduh […] argued that Islam was in actuality a rational religion far detached from the superstition of the orders.”[xi] Hassan al-Banna thus had to engage in a balancing act; he could not completely accept Sufism but rather he had to switch sides constantly. In fact, it was this new Salafist “rejection of ‘Sufism as a phenomenon [that] may account for why al-Banna could not continue his professional relationship with the Cairene Salafīs like Rashīd Rida, who was a disciple of `Abduh.”[xii] This is all really interesting, considering the fact that the original Egyptian Salafist Abduh “was much drawn to Sufism”[xiii] as a young child. Al-Banna not only had to act differently in regards to his deep admiration and interest for Sufism, but also politically. It is clear that he played both sides when he attempted to persuade Sufi sheikhs of “the need for reform so that all might unite and work together for the salvation of Islam.’”[xiv] The drive for political cohesion and solidarity drove al-Banna’s actions within the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hassan al-Banna’s interpretation of jihad as militaristic is also apparent in his piece On Jihad. He begins his work with a litany of verses regarding warfare in the Quran, and states that God “conjoins warfare with prayer and fasting, showing clearly that it […] is one of the Pillars of Islam.”[xv] When he discusses who jihad can be waged against, he professes plainly that the People of the Book are excluded from his mercy. Citing Surah At-Tawbah, Ch. 9 verse 29, al-Banna argues that the People of the Book lie outside the “religion of truth” and must be submitted to the jizya to “humble” themselves.[xvi] He believes that there exists a “clear indication of the obligation to fight the People of the Book, and of the fact that God doubles the reward of those who fight them […] Jihad is not against polytheists alone, but against all who do not embrace Islam.”[xvii] His militant writings are extensive; they incorporate many sayings from the hadith literature as well as writings from the four leaders of the different madhabs. Hassan al-Banna comes off as extremely qualified, and his strict adherence to the bones of Islam, the Quran and hadith, strengthen the credibility of his arguments ten-fold. Regarding the conduct of war, he draws a bright-line and says that “it is forbidden to slay women, children, and old men, and to dispatch the wounded, or to disturb monks and hermits, and the peaceful who offer no resistance.”[xviii] It is clear here that his conduct of warfare rules are stated in relation to his Sufi thought – jihad was for dawah and dawah only. Any transgression in war was an overstep in what he believed to be proper jihad. He offers a snarky comment right after this, saying that Islam is much more peaceful than how Western nations perceive themselves as. Islam’s mercy stands nowhere close to the “murderous warfare of the civilized peoples and their disgusting atrocities.”[xix]

Western colonialism was a key factor influencing much of al-Banna’s thoughts on jihad. Just as Ibn Taymiyyah wrote in response to the Crusades and the Mongol invasions, Hassan al-Banna writes in a time where Egypt is responding to British influence. He hints at his qualms concerning Western encroachment when he says that Muslims “are compelled to humble themselves before non-Muslims, and are ruled by unbelievers […] Their lands have been trampled over, and their honor besmirched […] Hence it has become an individual obligation […] on every Muslim […] to engage in jihad.”[xx] Egypt and Britain’s relationship during his childhood played a key role in the shaping of this Islamic thought. Though it was clear that Egypt legally became independent post-1922, it was clear that “British control of the Egyptian military and influence on Egyptian politics lasted well beyond that date.”[xxi] For example, though Egypt nominally claimed to be free, the British still had the right “to retain control over Egyptian […] internal policy in the […] Suez Canal and Sudan […], Egypt remained a de facto colony.”[xxii] It is important to note that Hassan al-Banna’s anti-imperial thoughts concerning jihad did not just stay localized to Egypt’s struggle against the British. They would also later spill over to Palestine, which became a hot conflict soon after his passing. During al-Banna’s time in the Brotherhood, they actively played a role in the “pro-Palestinian campaign organized during the dramatic riots in Palestine in 1936–1937, and again behind the Brotherhood’s military and ideological contribution to the ﬁrst Arab–Israeli War in 1948.”[xxiii] The liberation of Palestine as part of a greater anti-colonial struggle was of great importance in al-Banna’s call to jihad.

Jihad is understood as both a militaristic and peaceful phenomenon in the writings of al-Banna. Though he wavered back and forth from supporting Sufi institutions, it is apparent that much of al-Banna’s conceptualizations of jihad had been influenced by his Sufi upbringing. Al-Banna attempted to play both sides as he witnessed a growing Salafi movement against Sufism in Egypt after the death of Muhammad Abduh. Additionally, his militant interpretations of jihad were strongly influenced by pervasive colonial control in post-independent Egypt. As Britain meddled in the affairs of both Egypt and Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood had to use jihad as a method to call Muslims into action.

This research and analysis may prove useful to understanding current uses of jihad in the Brotherhood as well. In the context of the modern-day Brotherhood, fear-mongering may prove suspect. Jihad, for many followers of the Brotherhood, may simply be that of the original Sufi interpretation by al-Banna. Polar extremes exist in every organization, so it would be no surprise to find many who harbor militant mentalities as well. However, evidence points to the fact that the “the Brothers have adhered to the beliefs of its founder Hasan al-Banna of non–violence and expansion of the ideals of Islam through education.”[xxiv] Sisi’s rhetoric may thus be understood as reductionist. It is reductionist in the sense that it boils all of Egypt’s problems down to political Islam, while ignoring massive amounts of corruption and political elitism. Sisi’s tactic of appealing to Western nations has proven effective. It is clear to note that this essay is in no way, shape, or form, a support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The purpose of this research is to provide a historical understanding of how the Brotherhood has interpreted jihad, and whether or not this interpretation necessarily warrants a violent approach. Most of the evidence points towards no. The Muslim Brotherhood is a complex organization, and must be understood in all of its complexity. Mere reductionism will only worsen Egypt’s political problems.

[i] Al-Banna, Hasan, and Charles Wendell. Five Tracts of Ḥasan Al-Bannāʼ (1906-1949): A Selection From the Majmūʻat Rasāʼil Al-Imām Al-Shahīd Ḥasan Al-Bannāʼ. Vol. 20. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Publications Near Eastern Studies, 1978. Page 151.

[ii] Hanson, John H. “Jihad and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community: Nonviolent Efforts to Promote Islam in the Contemporary World.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 2 (2007): 77-93. Accessed March 12, 2020. doi:10.1525/nr.2007.11.2.77. Page 78.

[iii] Al-Banna, Page 152.

[iv] Ibid, Page 155.

[v] LoSordo, John Joseph. “Is The Muslim Brotherhood Today The Same As The One That Existed Under The Autocratic Regimes In Egypt And Jordan?” Law School Student Scholarship (2014), Page 4.

[vi] Ibid, Page 5.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Larsson, Tommy. “The Islamist Ideology of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb: A Comparative Analysis.” Reprosentralen, University of Oslo (2017), Page 43-33.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Al-Banna, Page 151.

[xi] Elmansoury, Tammy. “Spirituality, Islam, and the State: The Origins and Disavowal of Sufism in

the Ikhwan al‐Muslimīn.” MPhil Thesis. SOAS, University of London (2012), Page 143.

[xii] Ibid, Page 144.

[xiii] Ibid, Page 143.

[xiv] Ibid, Page 145.

[xv] Al-Banna, Page 135.

[xvi] Ibid, Page 136.

[xvii] Ibid, Page 144.

[xviii] Al-Banna, Page 155.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Al-Banna, Page 150.

[xxi] LoSordo, Page 4.

[xxii] Mura, Andrea. “A Genealogical Inquiry into Early Islamism: The Discourse of Hasan al-Banna.” Journal of Political Ideologies (2012), 17:1, 61-85, DOI: 10.1080/13569317.2012.644986, Page 42.

[xxiii] Ibid, Page 69.

May 5, 2020 0 comment

Geopolitics Military Security and Conflict Terrorism

Could a Global Pandemic Pave the Way for an Iranian Retaliation?

written by Taylor Fairless

Its been four months since the United States ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) near Baghdad, an act that conjured rising fears of a severe Iranian retaliation. America prepared its troops for an assured attack, waiting steadily, all for what turned out to be an incredibly weak Iranian response. What came as a surprise to many top officials, it seemed like Iran yielded in the aftermath of the attack, leaving many to wonder . . . was that it?

Recent events have given reason to believe that this battle is far from over. With America’s attention on the coronavirus and the weakening of Iran’s regional enemies due to the pandemic, could this prove to be the perfect scenario for an Iranian retaliation?

“He’s probably the most powerful figure that is generally unknown outside Iran and the Middle East. He’s essentially Iran’s viceroy for Iraq.”
Jim Phillips, Middle East analyst for conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, was quoted as saying this about Soleimani in 2015

Who is Soleimani, and why is he important? The Iranian General rose rapidly through the ranks of Iran’s military forces at just 20 years old. During the Iran-Iraq war, his fierce tactics made him a war hero, and he emerged as a commander of his squad. Within a few years, he became the head of the IRGC’S elite Quds force — a unit that specializes in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.

Following America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Soleimani channeled money to Iran’s proxies to fund the creation of highly destructive weapons, including Improvised Explosive Devices. These would be used to kill over 300 American soldiers. The next decade would see war in Syria, where Soleimani was the lifeline that kept Bashar al-Assad’s power alive. “Tehran’s overseas visionary” propelled Iran’s expansionist agenda by directing deadly proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, where he took control of Hezbollah forces. By 2013, he was believed to be one of Iran’s most important figures, and a pressing threat for American officials.

At home, Soleimani was enigmatic and well-cherished, even by critics who acknowledged his dedication to fighting for the Islamic Republic for almost five decades. In the aftermath of his death, violent protests erupted across the Middle East, reaching Palestinians in Gaza and Pakistanis in Lahore.

“Soleimani’s martyrdom will make Iran more decisive to resist America’s expansionism and to defend our Islamic values…with no doubt, Iran and other freedom-seeking countries in the region will take his revenge.”
President Hassan Rouhani, January 3, 2020

Killed alongside Soleimani was Iraqi politician and highly influential military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who served with the General against the Saddam regime. With the death of two of Iran’s chief military figures and a precarious replacement, Iranian officials are fuming.

Making matters worse, many Iraqis believed this strike at Baghdad was a myopic move by America that caused severe strains to their relations. An Iraqi official told Newsweekly back in March that “America is supposed to be our ally, they are supposed to be different from Iran, that strike showed that they are no different than the Iranians.”

Iran responded to the murder by firing 15 ballistic missiles at a US Air Base station in Iraq, the long time battle ground for the two forces. No one was killed, but more than 100 American service members suffered head injury. Tehran framed the rather poor attack as the “conclusion” to their retaliation.

But, more recently, this proved to be false.

On March 11, IRGC proxies sent off a volley of rockets that killed American and British service members near Baghdad. The US responded by striking five Iranian militia logistical and military hubs. Foreign policy expert Philip H. Gordon wrote for the New York Times that Washington’s maximum pressure could pave a path to war with Iran, especially following their decision to no longer observe the nuclear restrictions outlined in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But, the change in global atmosphere due to the coronavirus has opened up new possibilities for Iran.

Despite burgeoning tensions, American officials are now seriously considering lifting sanctions made against Iran in light of the Covid-19 crisis, which could open the doors for a renewal of Iranian strength down the line. America’s incentive for lifting sanctions include providing greater health protection for American forces stationed nearby in Iraq and showing a sense of morality in light of a cataclysmic virus, something that could fortify international and domestic favorability for the Trump administration. American officials state there is little appetite in the White House for an escalation with Iran whose population is coping with the virus amid sanctions that limit their import of medical supplies.

What would this mean for the Iranian government if the sanctions are lifted? General Kenneth Mcenzie, head of the US Central Command and now at the top of Iran’s “hit list,” said last month that Iranian leadership has become fractured because of the virus, “and they’re having difficulty dealing with a number of things. So I think it probably makes them, in terms of decision-making, more dangerous.” He went on to state that Iran is prepared to use their emissaries in Iraq against American targets and targets in the Gulf.

Indeed, Iranian militia groups have been escalating tensions with the United States in hopes of extracting the remaining 5,000 American troops from Iraq, a prominent goal of theirs.

If Iran’s vengeful mindset persists among a lift of sanctions, it could possibly mean that they could carry out an attack after gathering more resources that had once been denied to them. At that point, what would stop Tehran, in its sensitive and unstable posture, from seeking further retaliation for the murder of Soleimani? And, would America’s distractions over reinvigorating their economy prove to be perfect timing?

It doesn’t seem to be outside the realm of possibility. And now, Iran has a new figure to admire, Soleimani’s own daughter, Zeinab Soleimani, who has become the public face for consolidating national unity and openly calling for Iran to avenge her father.

With an unstable government and new public figure, the risk of an emotionally-driven attack seems more and more likely in the wake of the virus. This environment can prove to play into the political hands of the Iranian government and their proxies by opening up a new channel for strength and recuperation from the sanctions and pandemic. There is now a gamble that Washington has to play. Should the Trump administration show diplomacy and shuffle aid to Iran’s hard-hit country which could prove to lessen tensions between Washington and Tehran, or should strengthen their threats and continue imposing sanctions?

It seems like a hybrid of the two choices, that is, providing temporary relief with strings attached that would prevent Iran from manipulating the circumstances, such as renewed negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal, would seem best. This could project an image of peace and rationale for the Trump administration, perhaps resolve some tensions with Tehran, and it would help to contain the virus in the Middle East which is also risking the lives of American troops stationed there. All of this could be done while still maintaining a heavy-hand with Iran. We will have to wait and see, but given the rapidly changing and hypersensitive environment, an answer should not be long-awaited.

April 18, 2020 0 comment

Geopolitics Military Security and Conflict Terrorism

The Proliferation of Undeclared Warfare

written by Alex Choy

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect any official policy or position of the US Government, the Department of Defense or the US Army.

The post-WWII international order has seen the relationships between states become more numerous, complex, and interdependent. In this new age, international institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and the Geneva Conventions have attempted to regulate how wars are initiated and fought. Naturally, these efforts have caused considerable friction with members of the international community, such as the United States, where many believe that the ‘right’ to go to war is an extension of state sovereignty. However, in recent decades, despite a hawkish foreign policy, the US has stopped issuing formal declarations of war. This change is not due to the domestic electoral costs of declaring war; rather, it is the result of the beneficial legal flexibility the US gains when it intentionally fails to formally classify hostilities as war while operating under the constraints of international law.

One outdated argument suggests that the lack of declarations of war is because domestic electoral costs are too high; politicians shy away from declaring war in fear of not being reelected. Proponents of this argument believe that the human cost of losing loved ones will translate into a negative voter opinion towards those who declared war. However, the fact of the matter is that whether America’s conflicts are declared or not, the majority of voters do not take into account foreign policy when placing their ballots. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara once mused about going “to war without … arousing the public ire.” In recent decades, his musings have become a reality. New technology and advances in medicine have minimized the domestic human toll of conflict. For instance, in ongoing conflicts, 10 % of US soldiers have died from their wounds, compared to 30% during the Second World War. Additionally, the overall number of soldiers exposed to direct combat has decreased, given the proliferation of unmanned drone strikes. The US’s ability to wage limited war has resulted in a constituency that is detached from American foreign policy. Therefore, an argument solely based on the electoral costs of declaring war is not sufficient.

Regarding the jus ad bellum conditions under which states may declare war, the UN Charter prohibits the use of force “against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” except in cases of individual or collective self-defense. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) enforces this through punitive resolutions that impose compliance costs ranging from economic sanctions to the use of force. However, given that the US is a permanent ‘P5’ member of the Security Council with veto power, UNSC resolutions regarding alleged US aggression are thereby nullified. Therefore, to hold the US accountable, less powerful nations can supersede the authority of a US veto by convening a special emergency session of the UN General Assembly.

Given the implications of blatantly violating the Charter, to fly under the proverbial radar of the UN, the US has altered the way it advertises military intervention to the international community. The precedent for doing so was established when President Truman sent US troops to Korea without a declaration of war and under the authority of an international UN treaty instead. Terming the conflict, a police action, Truman explained that under the Take Care Clause of the Constitution, international treaties “are laws of the land, and it becomes the President’s duty” to execute them faithfully.The distinction created between war and police action is poignant. While a declared war is “designed to crush and conquer another nation,” a police action is simply a limited military intervention to punish perceived aggressors and to restore the status quo.

To this day, the US has continued to use the convenient ‘police action’ model to justify military intervention abroad. For instance, when questioned about the lack of a war declaration in Vietnam, Secretary of Defense McNamara explained that doing so would imply a “dedication to the total destruction of the enemy,” when US forces were only concerned with restoring the status quo established by the 1954 Geneva Accords. In the same interview, he also acknowledges that doing so would “significantly reduce the flexibility” of US forces to bring North Vietnam to the bargaining table, given the illicit insertion of US special forces into neutral Cambodia to disrupt Viet Cong supply lines.

Post-Vietnam, with the introduction of the War Powers Resolution, which enables the presidential deployment of troops for up to 90 days before seeking a Congressional Authorization of Military Force (AUMF), these so-called police actions became even easier to conduct. Conflicts such as the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the 1990 invasion of Panama, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq have been authorized in this manner, claiming target nation noncompliance with existing international treaties. Concerning these operations, US officials have maintained that the absence of a formal declaration of war is not what makes military intervention unlawful. Rather, “the only relevant legal question is whether … [intervention] is justified.” Therefore, by painting its military incursions as ‘police actions’ and refraining from official declarations of war, the US generates the plausible deniability necessary to justify that it is not waging war, but merely ‘policing’ to enforce international treaties.

Regarding jus in bello conduct during hostilities, the 1949 Geneva Convention regulates the actions, strategies, and weaponry of military personnel during armed conflict. It does this by establishing standards of international human rights law (IHL). For example, captured military personnel are classified as prisoners of war (POWs) and cannot be tortured. In this context, the wording is critical since the existence of a state of war between two nations determines whether or not the Geneva Conventions apply, and therefore, whether or not war crimes have occurred. Consequently, in non-interstate conflicts, IHL does not apply to insurgents, since they are classified as unlawful combatants instead of military personnel. The useful implications of this distinction are illustrated by the US’s controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

At Guantanamo, captured insurgents were subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ during the post-9/11 scramble to bring its perpetrators to justice. Due to their classification as unlawful combatants, the insurgents occupied a legal gray area. In the context of IHL, declaring war is akin to crossing a line of no return. On the one hand, if a state issues a formal declaration of war, then it is forced to abide by IHL. On the other hand, when a state does not, it retains the legal flexibility necessary to justify noncompliance. Accordingly, if the US had issued a formal declaration of war against terrorists, it would have implicitly acknowledged their political legitimacy and, thereby, their POW status. However, because it did not, military and government interrogators were able to implement techniques that would have otherwise been illegal in the context of IHL.

With the recent killing of Quasem Solemani and subsequent Iranian missile strikes, the AUMF has again come under attack, with Representative Joe Kennedy III calling for its repeal. Kennedy reasons that by repealing the AUMF, legislators can redeem themselves by rescuing the power to wage war from Presidential abuse. However, while Representative Kennedy’s qualms are valid, it is essential to recognize that in the modern age, a world where insecurity is generated by threats from non-state actors, Congress is institutionally incapable of the celeritous decision making that such threats require. On the other hand, the President, by nature of his office, possesses the resources necessary to gather and analyze intelligence via his National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff, and therefore can act and respond to national security threats expeditiously.

Crises have illustrated that small, simple working groups focused solely on foreign affairs; i.e., the President and his Cabinet are better suited to address threats to national security than large, complex bureaucracies; i.e., Congress, which is primarily focused on domestic concerns. In addition, the introduction of the War Powers Resolution by Congress implicitly acknowledges the Congressional shortcomings regarding use of force decision making, and was designed to remedy Congressional indecision. Therefore, on top of the legal leeway that waging undeclared war affords, official declarations of war are anachronistic and only serve as a national security risk.

By not formally declaring war in an environment governed by carefully worded international guidelines, the US can afford itself flexibility when dealing with threats. As a result, when the US engages in hostilities without prior UN approval, it attempts to disguise its violations of the UN Charter by labeling its military intervention as something other than war, such as a ‘police action.’ While this is a risky endeavor, it has paid off tremendously, allowing the accomplishment of policy objectives and ensuring national security while walking the fine line between violation and compliance of international law.

April 14, 2020 0 comment

Asia China Military North Korea Nuclear Deterrence Security and Conflict Technology

China, the US, and THAAD: A Case for the End of Ballistic Missile Defense

written by Abdus Najmi

Imagine this: A nuclear-arms race between the US and China. Collapse of the “No First Use” doctrine of deterrence. North Korean missiles actually being able to reach the US mainland.

As frightening as these phrases sound, all of them are very possible within the next decade. China or America could easily break their pledge to not use nuclear weapons first in warfare. This may seem like mere alarmist rhetoric, but the empirical track record of actions by states foreshadows this scenario as plausible. Just seven months ago, China launched its very own Starry Sky-2, a hypersonic aircraft that moves at “six times the speed of sound.” High tech aircraft isn’t the only new development in Chinese military technology, as hypersonic glide vehicles (or HGVs) and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) put Chinese modernization at light years ahead of the US. The DF-ZF hypersonic vehicle has been successfully tested 7 times, and MIRV technology would allow China to launch multiple warheads from a single missile at a given time.

It would be misleading to characterize China as an irrational actor who seeks modernization as a means to revisionism. After all, the universal law of cause and effect would deem China’s actions as stemming as an effect. So – what is the cause?

US ballistic missile defense systems have elicited a hard-line response from China, and justly so. These systems attempt to intercept missiles during their trajectory in air, and some scientists and policymakers are even attempting to accurately take down missiles during boost phase. THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, is exactly that system – a form of ballistic missile defense (BMD) that is being deployed in South Korea to counter the North Korean threat, or so the US claims.

Wait – if the US deploys THAAD in South Korea, why would China care? Are we not just deploying it to protect our ally against a potential threat from the North?

Many would point to the necessity of THAAD as a resource to counter the North Korean threat. This argument is misleading, as THAAD is only “designed to intercept missiles within a range of 200 kilometers.” The unit’s location in Seongju County falls out of the range of Seoul, South Korea’s capital and most populous city.

In addition, THAAD doesn’t prevent a North Korean conflict – it causes it. There are three key reasons for this. To start off, the empirical track record proves so. When the Reagan administration proposed “Star Wars,” the Soviet Union responded by upping its nuclear stockpile. This is basic IR theory 101 – states respond to military threats militarily. Second, there are geographic limitations for why THAAD cannot prevent a conflict. The geographic dimensions of the Korean peninsula make it extremely difficult to shoot missiles down, as the peninsula is “mountainous and lack[s] spatial depth.” While this technology seems promising, physics tends to err on the side of caution – BMD has a “dismal flight test record of nine successful intercepts in 17 attempts since 1999.” Lastly, the status quo proves the uniqueness of the situation. Currently, the US already has BMD elsewhere in Northeast Asia and North Korea is still testing new missiles. If ballistic missile defense was such a good deterrent, why hasn’t North Korea ended its testing? There clearly is no fear of US capabilities or practices in the region. If anything, THAAD is just another match that ignites the larger flames of the North Korean threat.

THAAD is much more political than it seems. This system is strategically positioned in Korea for other reasons – specifically to bolster a US presence in Asia. THAAD’s AN/TPY-2 radar has such a long range that it can peer into the Chinese mainland, strong enough to even detect Chinese missiles in centimeters through electromagnetic reflection. China’s concerns “come not from the interception component of THAAD, but rather the detection capability” which renders its military secrecy useless. This is why China has been developing MIRVs and HGVs. Both of these forms of tech provide ballistic credibility by rendering the radar system obsolete, in case of a necessary attack.

In the long run, it might be necessary for the US to end ballistic missile defense in South Korea. It is uncertain whether a Trump presidency (which tends to be hawkish) would support this type of policy. In the meantime, it might be worthwhile for the United States to develop transparency and confidence building measures with China over the deployment of THAAD. These could include agreements about data collection and forcing the US to not “conduct engagements beyond the range of their […] radar.” This might give the US the best of both worlds – maintaining THAAD but assuring China of its non-encroaching use. If neither of these worlds are met, the US might have to prepare for a hardline world of Chinese revisionism.

April 2, 2020 0 comment

Featured Human Rights Middle East Military National Security Security and Conflict Terrorism

One of the World’s Most Silent Genocides: the Yezidis

written by Taylor Fairless

In August of 2014, ISIS fighters invaded the Iraqi city of Sinjar, the former home to about 8 million Yazidis.¹ Today, their population in Iraq stands at about 500,000.²

Who are the Yezidis? Perhaps one of the more violently-targeted, yet lesser-known groups, the Yezidis are ethno-religious minorities concentrated in Iraq. This group’s struggles with deportation, human trafficking, and terrorism are all too compelling, and articulates a wider, global phenomenon of inaction towards acts of genocide.

Discrimination and persecution of the Yezidis lies within their association with devil worship. This derives from their praise of the “Peacock Angel,” which in Islamic mythology is believed to be the Devil. Though in Yezidism, this is a God-like creature who manifests both good and evil traits, which Yezidis believe are integral parts of a whole.³ Violent militia groups, such as ISIS, have used this to justify Yezidi-extraction from Iraq or forced conversion to Islam.^⁴ With the latter, many Yezidis have been executed for resisting conversion, and this push back helped to catalyze the 2014 invasion by ISIS which the United Nations identifies this as an act of genocide and a crime against humanity.⁵

The extremists aimed to eliminate the Yezidi population by murdering their men and taking their women as sex slaves.⁶ Many of these women and girls are still missing today, and are only returned if ISIS members decide to sell them back to their families at a costly rate most cannot afford.⁷ Mosques and churches were continuously destroyed for almost a decade, meanwhile those who survived the attacks were forced into Arab and Suni assimilation, which often resulted in their deportation.⁸ About 40,000 Yezidis who managed to escape the encircling jihadists fled to the mountains of Sinjar, where some remained for years after this initial contact.⁹ To add to this, the Yedizis do not have a military to defend themselves, which makes it easier for terrorist groups to target their population.

Following the ISIS takeover of Sinjar, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia sponsored air drops of food and water to the captive Yezidi people.¹⁰ Although the Yezidis have now begun to construct their own army, they are still heavily reliant on foreign aid and makeshift militias who are sparsely manned and under-armed. Out of desperation, they’ve recently created an all-female militia, called Êzîdxan Women’s Units. For these reasons, they still remain a weak target in the eyes of violent extremist groups looking to rid the Middle East of their presence.¹¹

The ethnic cleansing of the Yezidis is only a short bit of their long history of oppression and discrimination. While suffering from unemployment, poverty, and violence motivates the Yezidis to seek safer grounds, they are unable to relocate due to their citizenship being tied to their homeland. To exacerbate these problems, variances within the Yezidi community itself have also factored into this group’s deteriorating stance. Disunity arises from differences in political affiliation, religious beliefs, language, and even discrepancies over their origins.¹²

Their confrontations with ISIS underscores two prominent components of discrimination. The first deals with how identity is projected onto minority groups and how groups respond to that encroachment. Members of ISIS or other ethno-religious majorities in the Middle East have identified the Yezidis as “devil worshipers,” despite limited and incomplete evidence, alongside the group’s steadfast denial. This projection of identity is inextricably linked to hostile ideas about character, merit, intellect, and civility, which have been used to justify malicious behavior towards the Yezidis. Their history of violence and discrimination, furthermore, have led to a pressing refugee and humanitarian crisis that continue to affect Syria, Turkey, Russia, and Greece. In recent years, this violence and migration have caused the Yezidis to focus more on creating an army. Yet, Iraqi-crackdowns on their illegitimate militias means the Yezidis have to operate covertly to fight ISIS, which extremely limits their capabilities to garner weapons and train their citizens.

The second point deals with domestic intervention into instances of discriminatory violence. The Yezidi genocide is only one of dozens of genocides that have taken place in Iraq.¹³ Iraqi officials have turned a blind eye to the Yezidis and have failed to effectively persecute any member of ISIS that participated in the 2014 attacks.¹⁴ This point ties to the falters of the Iraqi penal code in which crevasses have allowed for minority communities to not be granted the same protection under the law. Today, officials have restricted aid to Yezidi refugee camps, which face poor sanitation, food scarcity, and, perhaps worse, are even booby-trapped by ISIS fighters.¹⁵ The many who have been born in the refugee camps and will now grow in a territory that has stripped away their education, voting rights, and freedom of speech.¹⁶ Even more pressing, they will grow up in one of the most insecure and deadly regions in the world.

Although the Yezidis may be a lesser-known group for many Westerners, their history may still come across as familiar. Violence and oppression against minority groups transcends national borders. Just this past year, for example, Christian minorities in Sri Lanka were the targets of a deadly ISIS bombing. Smiliar events took place in Canada and New Zealand in 2017 and 2019, respectively, where Muslim minorities were mass-murdered for their beliefs. And, of course, other minority groups in the Middle East, such as the Armenians during their genocide, have faced similar acts of violent discrimination. The history of the Yezidis, although distinct in many ways, in its most rudimentary form is certainly not unique to this group, or even unique to the Middle East.

Now, Iraq must invest heavily into peace-building measures and a sustainable end to violence. Key challenges that arise post-conflict include rebuilding Yezidi communities, which comes with reconstructing the psychological idea of “community,” addressing grievances, and more importantly, providing adequate protection against another, and somewhat inevitable, invasion by extremist groups.

On a positive note, their story has captured attention by domestic and international NGOs who are now working to support Yezidi refugees and are focusing on locating and returning their captured women. These NGOs are now targeting the government and demanding that they improve legal rights and protection for this minority community. Importantly, other countries and global organizations, such as the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund, must amplify their disapproval of the Iraqi government’s furthering of this issue, and take measures to pressure their government to make improvements for these civilians.

E N D N O T E S :

[1] Katharine Holstein, author of “Shadow on the Mountain: A Yazidi Memoir of Terror, Resistance and Hope,” interviewed by Taylor Fairless. February 25, 2020.
[2] Raya Jalabi. Who are the Yazidis and Why is Isis Hunting Them? The Guardian. August 11, 2014.
[3] Devdutt Pattanaik. The Peacock Angel of the Yazidis. Articles World Mythology. 4 December, 2017
[4] Razan Rashidi. UN Human Rights Panel Concludes ISIL is Committing Genocide Against Yazidis. The United Nations. June 16, 2016.
[5] Birgul Acikyildiz-Sengul. The Yezidis: An Ancient People, Tragedy, and Struggle for Survival. Chapter 11. p. 149
[6] Ibid. p. 147, 149
[7] Ibid. p. 153
[8] Ibid.
[9] Raya Jalabi. Who are the Yazidis and Why is Isis Hunting Them? The Guardian. August 11, 2014.
[10] Birgul Acikyildiz-Sengul, p. 153.
[11] Birgul Acikyildiz-Sengul. p. 153
[12] Katharine Holstein, interviewed by Taylor Fairless.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.

March 18, 2020 2 comments

Featured Geopolitics Israel Middle East Military Security and Conflict United States

Water Politics: The United States’ Role in Israeli Water Security

written by Abdus Najmi

Part 1: Research Question

Located on the border between Israel and Jordan, the Dead Sea is a natural body of water high in salinity – in fact, the levels are so high that one can easily float on the surface. As a frequently visited tourist site, the Dead Sea holds is famous among the wonders of the Middle East. However, this reality is soon coming to an end. Scientists have noted that the “surface area has almost halved,” bringing the water elevation level to a new low.^[i] Though Israel and Jordan have agreed to combat this impending environmental disaster, little work has been done. Despite words of affirmation, the Red Sea-Dead Sea project is stuck at a standstill, as relations between the two countries “are at a historic low.”^[ii] As the crisis looms closer and closer, policymakers have been attempting to grapple with new and innovative modes of effective diplomacy over water resources.

New responses are not necessarily better responses. It is critical to examine the past to help illuminate previous mistakes administrations have made in the realm of water politics. This paper will examine the history of US-Israel relations in regards to water security and management. The amount of literature on the role of the US in Israel’s water policies is actually surprisingly large.

My analysis will focus specifically on Israeli-Jordanian cooperation and conflict, and the role of the US in mediating the allocation of water resources. I will focus specifically on the Johnston Plan in the early 1950s and the 1994 Treaty of Peace between Jordan and Israel. The question I will answer is: What conditions lead to the failure of Israeli-Jordanian water cooperation? In the conclusion, I will answer potential counterarguments and explain how understanding the conditions of failure and success over water security can help provide insights to policymakers for dealing with current failures of Israeli-Jordanian water projects, such as joint-desalination and the Red Sea-Dead Sea project discussed in the introduction.

Part 2: Thesis

My thesis is two-fold: first, I argue that a realist approach to water politics falls short of explaining historical collaboration between Israel and Jordan. Current realist approaches approach water as a commodity, arguing that the reason why cooperation is unsuccessful is because water security is seen as a zero-sum game, where the other opponent is reluctant to cooperate due to fears of losing out on greater access to that resource. In addition, the realist approach looks at that time period as a battle of competing influences between the United States and Russia.

Thus, cooperation fails insofar that policy decisions over water allocation affect the regional hegemonies of the United States and Russia respectively. However, I posit that a constructivist approach better explains the failure of cooperation, specifically focusing on Israeli/Arab identities as social constructs, including discussions of Zionism, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the Syrian conflict. Amity and enmity are determined by identity.

Part 3: Current/Main Approaches

Current approaches to water security have mainly centered around a realist approach. The approach is as follows: water, in and of itself, cannot be divided. For example, if two people are dying of thirst in a desert, and there is only one cup of water left, it either has to be shared or given to only one person. It’s a non-negotiable good in the sense that it is a rare commodity that directly necessitates a trade-off. If someone receives water, it is inherently at the expense of the other. For many international relations scholars, this is why water cooperation over the Jordan and Yarmouk river fail. Israel and Jordan lose if the other defects, as the scenario is depicted as “a zero-sum game in the national discourses and as a situation of interdependence and possible mutual gains.”^[iii] Scholars cite numerous empirical examples to demonstrate this. For example, after the Johnston plan negotiations failed, the Hashemite Kingdom “announced plans to divert the Yarmouk river […] through the construction of the East Ghor Canal,”^[iv] while Israel attempted to retaliate back by beginning the “construction of a National Water Carrier to transport the water of the Sea of Galilee to its arid South.”^[v]Water was seen as a resource that was mutually exclusive – just as nations race to proliferate for nuclear weapons, states race to secure the most amount of water. In fact, escalation from the rush to securitize water has actually produced conflict between these two states. Israel “bombed the East Ghor Canal,”^[vi] believing that Jordan had malicious intent and was bent on overusing the canal. Furthermore, realists also examine the status quo division of water to prove their theory as well, showing that negotiations focus on the nitty gritty details of water allocations. Post the Madrid talks that ushered in the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, Jordan was able to secure most of its water from the Yarmouk river, while Israel keeping most of the Jordan river.^[vii] Small caveats were made, with the treaty allowing the allocation “from the other river to each country […] Israel receives 25 million cubic meters (mcm) from the Yarmouk, and Jordan receives 30 mcm from the Jordan.”^[viii]

Additionally, realists would point to the way in which Israel and Jordan conduct and view water policies, especially in how they sell water to each other. The buying and selling of “water at a discounted rate to its neighbor […] reflects an understanding that the price of water is not just the marginal cost of its production but […] a political stability dividend.”^[ix] Water compromise is political compromise – political stability hinges on the zero-sum transaction of water allocation. However, I will argue that though these details may be true, the over-focus on the specifics of water allocation ignores the root causes of identity formation in constructivist theory which prevent effective compromise in the first place.

In addition, the realist approach prides itself in understanding this conflict in the context of the pursuit of hegemony. Because states pursue policies that maximize their self-interest, the US wanted to properly negotiate a solution to the water conflict between Israel and Jordan as a way to counter “communist influence spilling over to Jordan and spreading in the region.”^[x] Especially after the Soviets had managed to establish “a foothold in Egypt and Syria by supplying weapons to both countries,”^[xi] the US began to fear a growing Soviet Union presence in the Middle East writ large. The US attempted to expand its influence by appearing as a broker and friend between both parties, Israel and Jordan. This is why it initially attempted to broker the Johnston plan and provide “funding for both the Israeli National Water Carrier and the Jordanian East Ghor Canal Project.”^[xii] The US wanted to appease both sides, ultimately playing a balancing act between the favoritism of the Arabs and Israelis, but to no avail. Realists also look at the way the Soviet Union approached this conflict as well to see if the theory could be supported by the actions of both actors. When examining the actions of the Soviets, they found deep evidence of a Soviet pursuit of regional hegemony and establishment of a sphere of influence in Israeli-Jordanian water politics as well. For example, upon arrival of US ambassador Eric Johnston to the Middle East region, the Soviets “attempted to spread anti-Johnston mission propaganda and labeled the Main Plan US imperialism,”^[xiii] even going so far as to tell the Arabs that he is a “well-known Zionist.”^[xiv]

The battle of regional hegemonies and the idea of water cooperation as a zero-sum game clearly lend credibility to the realist approach. However, I will argue that though much of the theory is warranted, it falls short in explaining in entirety why cooperation fails, specifically in the context of the failure of the Johnston plan and the success of the Madrid talks. Identity formation and social constructions function as better explanations for the eventual demise of water cooperation.

Part 4: Discussion

Groups function as imagined communities, constantly constructing different identities which function as in and out groups. In a sense, there remains no possibility for the construction of one group without another; in order to first exist, something must exist in opposition to it. For example, many view the rise of Islam and the West as imagined communities; there is nothing that inherently makes them enemies besides constructions of what an enemy is and what interests they have. The same phenomenon happened during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. However, these constructions can be dangerous since “interests are neither primordial nor rational; instead, they emerge from the perceptions and interpretations of the respective groups.”^[xv] That framework is critical when thinking about what cooperation means in the context of constructivism. For the realist, cooperation over water would be about attempting to maximize one’s own self interests and power. For the constructivist, cooperation functions “as a social continuity, since cooperative – like conflictive – behavior is enabled and shaped by hegemonic discourses.” ^[xvi] Cooperation is thus about managing behavior in regards to identity negotiation, almost like negotiating which parts of social construction the other side is willing to cave in on. Seemingly, conflict is described by how dearly a group plans to stick to its social construction.

This actually manifests itself in a problematic manner – if this theory holds true, then cooperation is an extremely difficult process. It requires societal attitudes towards that social construction to change, easily proven true by these exact same water disputes. It took almost forty to fifty years after the Johnston Plan in 1953 for there to be any real progress on water management (since the Israeli-Jordanian peace settlement was in 1994). Identities naturally “cannot easily be manipulated by elites,”^[xvii] which illuminates why a realist approach of attempting to strike a balance of interests in water disputes doesn’t really make sense. It’s not necessarily about maximizing which side secures the most resources; it’s about how strong identities attempt to exist in opposition to each other.

This framework of identity formation is critical when examining water disputes between Israel and Jordan. Firstly, it’s important to understand the importance of the concept of water for Israeli/Jewish identity. For Jews, water is intertwined deeply with “the creation of a Jewish state and the Israeli identity […] water’s ideological meaning […] [lies] in political Zionism.”^[xviii] Driven out of their land starting with the Babylonian Exile to the Holocaust, Jewish people have linked water to their own survival, and naturally so. The ability to access water “is a question of existence for the Jewish state,”^[xix] as over half of the resources are “located outside its internationally recognized borders.”^[xx]Securitization of water is thus necessary for the security of Jewish existence. Especially given the track record of water used as a weapon in Israel’s past, securitization seems inevitable. For example, 1964 was the year in which Arab states “tried to divert the tributaries of the Jordan River,”^[xxi] which Israel responded to by regaining access during the Six Day War. Negotiations and questions of peace are necessarily tied to Israel’s access to water. Images of future Zionist possibilities also demarcated the securitization of water, since much of the discourse was filled with phrases like “making the desert bloom.”^[xxii] This gave credibility to the notion of Jews making Israel an agricultural paradise and settling the land permanently. Zionist propaganda and government statements supported this settlement ethos as well, as they mentioned the importance of “irrigating the deserts of southern Palestine.”^[xxiii] Statements by important figures such as Chaim Weizmann even stress the importance of linking water and security for Israel. For him, it was paramount that “the future Jewish state would […] ensure its control over […] water.”^[xxiv] He even wrote to the Prime Minister about the necessity to “ensure claims to territory in the North.”^[xxv] Water and security were framed as top issues in Zionist discourse, constructing Israeli identities in direct opposition to Arab access to water resources.

Moreover, as much as Zionist discourse stood in opposition to Arab control of water, Jordanian discourse equally advanced an anti-Israeli doctrine in terms of water policy, ultimately leading to the demise of the Johnston Plan of 1953-1955. Jordanians saw themselves as part of a broader Arab identity, which greatly hindered any progress on Johnston’s proposals. They followed the decision-making of the Arab League Council, who told them that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a conditional issue on which Israel needed to resolve before any agreement. Johnston’s shuttle diplomacy ultimately failed, as “two political considerations stood in the way of ratification.”^[xxvi] The first was the “plight of the Palestinian refugees, […] the other was the fact that cooperation with Israel could be interpreted as political recognition of Israel.”^[xxvii] For Jordan, Arab identity superseded any form of negotiation, no matter if the Johnston Plan would have actually been better for Jordan’s access to the water supplies of both the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers. Even though Jordan’s government may not have even liked the Palestinians, Arab constructions of identity were more influential than incentives to negotiate with the Israelis. Negotiation with Israel would also imply an acceptance of Israel as a nation-state. Media reports highlight that this wasn’t a favorable opinion among the people, as Jordanian “editorials went on to argue that it was better for Jordan to develop water within its own boundaries than ‘to cooperate with Israel.”^[xxviii]

As mentioned before, cooperation is difficult because it requires whole populations to shift their orientations about the social constructs they have created. This is clearly witnessed in the failure of the Johnston agreement. There were vast tensions between the Jordanians and Israelis, “notably at the level of the population.”^[xxix] The Jordanian people themselves felt as if the “treaty [was] unfavourable to them,” and when coupled with the “violence between Israelis and Palestinians,” it’s easy to understand the “lack of trust of Jordanians [have] towards Israel.”^[xxx] However, one can notice that these identities become problematic, especially considering the fact that the Johnston Plan would have actually been beneficial for the Jordanians. The plan would have allowed “Israel […] 30 per cent of the total water, Jordan 63 per cent, Lebanon 3 per cent, and Syria 4 per cent.”^[xxxi] This disproves the realist notion that states act in their own self-interest – if that were true, Jordan would have maximized their own access to water resources. It also disproves the notion that water security is a zero-sum game. Jordan would seek to attain the most amount of water, which they would have gotten with this plan, if it was at the expense of Israel. In addition, scholars note that the conflict should not be understood “as a zero-sum game […] if both parties were to apply joint management the potential benefits would be huge.”^[xxxii] Arab identity clearly took precedent over rational claims of maximizing self-interest. The fact that the Lebanese parliament speaker said that “rapprochement with Israel” would cause leaders to “be assassinated, as was Jordan’s King Abdullah,” really highlights how groups view opposing identities.^[xxxiii] Constructivism provides a better framework to understand the failed negotiations of the Johnston Plan.

Likewise, the evidence is bidirectional – the Israelis saw Jordanian support and sympathy with Palestine as a reason to forestall and hinder water cooperation post-Johnston plan. Specifically, in 1969, Israel failed to cooperate with the Jordanians under the banner of Jordanian support for the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israelis went ahead and “bombed the East Ghor Canal […] scholars also point out that this attack was […] linked to the fact that Jordan was supporting the PLO.”^[xxxiv] The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a huge concern for both sides in terms of cooperation, as Israeli-Jordanian cooperation is contingent on the way that Jordanians see themselves as the direct allies of Palestinians, just as Israelis see themselves as part of an exclusive, Zionist project. The same thing happened with the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. Though the agreement was successful, Arab versus Israeli identity became a central factor that severely hampered full-blown cooperation. The treaty included discussion of Palestinian refugees, but “left [it] for final-status negotiations.”^[xxxv] The issue of Palestinian refugees has yet to be resolved, however it bodes that any type of future water conflict is “instrinsically linked to the central issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict […] a regional water agreement will depend on the resolution of the entire conflict.”^[xxxvi]

My argument falls short when Syria enters the picture. If constructivism is about group identity, then why do Syria and Jordan also fail to cooperate when it comes to water allocation? Syria and Jordan are both Arab nations, yet both of them failed to properly divide water resources right after the Johnston plan. Surprisingly, “Jordan’s relations with Syria have not been very brotherly.”^[xxxvii] Syria violated a 1951 treaty between the two nations in regards to water security, by “constructing earthen dams on the Yarmouk tributaries inside its borders.”^[xxxviii] Even after that, Syria and Jordan remained even more divided as both supported “opposite sides in the Iraq-Iran War.”^[xxxix] Arab identity was not enough to illicit proper diplomacy – even to this day. Currently, Syrian attitudes towards Jordan regarding water policy “in the Yarmouk catchment did not change, and Jordan continues to be adversely affected.”^[xl] Further research will have to be done to understand what other factors besides identity are at play here. Constructivism may be able to explain why the Israeli-Jordanian cooperation over the Johnston plan failed, however falls short when it discusses conflicts among the same identity group.

The realist argument that water cooperation fails due to the pursuit of hegemony between the US and Russia definitely has strong backing, but it falls short very quickly when we examine how cooperation becomes a success during the Madrid Peace talks. If it was about rivalries and the pursuit of hegemony, then why do the Soviets and US end up collaborating to put on the Madrid Peace talks? By 1991, the Soviet Union leadership under Gorbachev changes drastically, so much so that the “Soviet transformation […] in the mid-1980s” ends up making “Russia a much more acceptable partner for joint conflict resolution in the Middle East.”^[xli] The Soviet Union switches over from competition to cooperation before their collapse at the end of the year, which realism can’t explain well enough. The sudden ideological shift does not make sense given the Soviet Union’s previous drive towards revisionism. If all states exist to maximize their hegemonic influence, then it makes even less sense that the Soviet Union would do this when it was still considered to be the United States’ greatest competitor at the time.

Part 5: Conclusion

Current approaches to understanding Israeli-Jordanian water security fall short because most of the discourse assumes a realist approach to IR. Policymakers tend to view water security as a zero-sum game, which treats water as a mutually exclusive good. The realist idea of states pursuing hegemony to expand their spheres of influence can offer some explanatory potential but not all. Instead, policymakers should adopt a constructivist approach that centers decision-making around issues of identity and social construction. This will help explain the failure of the Johnston Plan as a broader Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than a Jordanian-Israeli one. My research falls short when it comes to discussing the failure of cooperation between Jordan and Syria, but I believe that as a short-term heuristic, policymakers can adopt a constructivist approach to understand Arab conflicts with non-Arab actors. We may need to develop a new framework when it comes to in-group vs. in-group violence. Further research needs to be done on the role of water conflict and scarcity from an Arab identity perspective. My future research will examine why cooperation among Arab states fails in the realm of water security. This may be due to sectarian differences in faith, essentially creating out-groups within the in-groups. Given the analysis in this research paper, it is critical for the US to realize that if it wants to play any role in resolving the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal project, it needs to address the broader issue of Israel-Palestine first.

^[i] Surkes, Sue. “Sinking Israel-Jordan Relations Leave Dead Sea, a Natural Wonder, Low and Dry.” The Times of Israel, November 7, 2019. https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinking-israel-jordan-relations-leave-dead-sea-a-natural-wonder-low-and-dry/.

^[ii] Ibid.

^[iii] Tobias Ide and Christiane Fröhlich, “Water conflict or water cooperation? A discursive understanding of water conflict and cooperation in Israel and Palestine,” Institute for Peace Research and Security Politics (2014): 17.

^[iv] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[v] Ibid.

^[vi] Ibid.

^[vii] Mitha, Farooq. “The Jordanian-Israeli Relationship: The Reality of ‘Cooperation.’” Middle East Policy 17, no. 2 (September 2010): 105–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2010.00442.x.

^[viii] Ibid.

^[ix] Shay, Shaul. “Regional Water Security: Challenges and Opportunities in the Middle East .” IDC Herzliya: Institute for Policy and Strategy, (2017), www.idc.ac.il/he/research/ips/Documents/publication/5/ShaulShayWaterSecurity2.pdf.

^[x] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 250. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781849775809.

^[xi] Ibid.

^[xii] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[xiii] Sosland, Jeffrey. Cooperating Rivals: The Riparian Politics of the Jordan River Basin. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007. Page 46.

^[xiv] Ibid.

^[xv] Tobias Ide and Christiane Fröhlich, “Water conflict or water cooperation? A discursive understanding of water conflict and cooperation in Israel and Palestine,” Institute for Peace Research and Security Politics (2014): 4-5.

^[xvi] Ibid.

^[xvii] Ibid.

^[xviii] Ibid, page 7.

^[xix] Renger J. “The Middle East Peace Process: Obstacles to Cooperation over Shared Waters.” In: Scheumann W., Schiffler M. (eds) Water in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (1998): 50.

^[xx] Ibid.

^[xxi] Ibid.

^[xxii] Morag, Nadav. “Water, Geopolitics and State Building: The Case of Israel.” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 3 (2001): 179-98. www.jstor.org/stable/4284179.

^[xxiii] Ibid.

^[xxiv] Ibid.

^[xxv] Ibid, page 191.

^[xxvi] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 252-253. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781849775809.

^[xxvii] Ibid.

^[xxviii] Wishart, David M. “The Breakdown of the Johnston Negotiations over the Jordan Waters.” Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 4 (1990): 542. www.jstor.org/stable/4283397.

^[xxix] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[xxx] Ibid.

^[xxxi] Morag, Nadav. “Water, Geopolitics and State Building: The Case of Israel.” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 3 (2001): 194-195. www.jstor.org/stable/4284179.

^[xxxii] Jägerskog A. (2007) “Why States Co-operate over Shared Water: The Water Negotiations in the Jordan River Basin.” In: Shuval H., Dweik H. (eds) Water Resources in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2007): 116.

^[xxxiii] Sosland, Jeffrey. Cooperating Rivals: The Riparian Politics of the Jordan River Basin. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007. Page 40.

^[xxxiv] Ibid.

^[xxxv] Mitha, Farooq. “The Jordanian-Israeli Relationship: The Reality of ‘Cooperation.’” Middle East Policy 17, no. 2 (September 2010): 110. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2010.00442.x.

^[xxxvi] Renger J. “The Middle East Peace Process: Obstacles to Cooperation over Shared Waters.” In: Scheumann W., Schiffler M. (eds) Water in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (1998): 54.

^[xxxvii] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 253-254.

^[xxxviii] Ibid.

^[xxxix] Ibid.

^[xl] Ibid.

^[xli] Jägerskog A. (2007) “Why States Co-operate over Shared Water: The Water Negotiations in the Jordan River Basin.” In: Shuval H., Dweik H. (eds) Water Resources in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2007): 87-88.

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