Andreas Krieg

Externalizing the burden of war: the Obama Doctrine and US foreign policy in the Middle East

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring the Middle East has plunged into a state of instability. The United States has responded to these rising insecurities in a region of strategic importance with hesitation or half-hearted commitments. The Obama administration, plagued by the increasingly difficult decision of defining Americas role in an apolar world while managing the political and economic legacy of the Bush administration, has relied on a policy of delegation. Obama neither refrained from military options nor showed any willingness to commit American ground troops to one of the strategically and operationally most complex environments of the world. Instead, Obamas preferred way of war is one relying on surrogates—both human and technological—that allow the United States to externalize, partially or wholly, the strategic, operational and tactical burden of warfare. Unlike any other previous US administration surrogate warfare has become the principal means of protecting US interests in the Middle East that are perceived to be all but vital. The need for deniability and legitimacy, cost–benefit considerations as well as the lack of capability have made warfare by surrogate a preferred option in the Middle East. The consequences for US policy in the region are profound, as the lack of control and oversight have empowered surrogates whose long-term interests are not compatible with those of the United States. More severely, the US might have jeopardized its standing as the traditional guarantor of security in the Middle East— something that partners and adversaries alike have exploited.

Motivations for Humanitarian intervention: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations

Introduction. - 1.The Legal and Moral Legitimacy of Intervention.- 1.1 The Impact of Globalization on the International State System.- 1.2. Intervention in International Law since 1945.- 1.3. The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention.- 2. National Interests and Altruism in Humanitarian Intervention.- 2.1. Humanitarian Intervention and National Interest.- 2.2 Humanitarian Intervention and Altruism.- 3. The Motivation for Humanitarian Intervention.- 3.1. Research Design and Method.- 3.2. Case Analysis.- 4. Quantitative Analysis.- Conclusion.- Bibliography.

National Interests and Altruism in Humanitarian Intervention

In the following chapter I will discuss in detail how realist and cosmopolitan theories approach the motivation for humanitarian intervention. The first sub-chapter will clarify why and to what extend realism assigns considerable importance to national/self-interests in the decision making process surrounding the question of whether to intervene in a humanitarian crisis or not. The second sub-chapter will make an argument for the prevalence of altruism as the primary motivation for humanitarian intervention from a moralist point of view. This chapter will facilitate the understanding of the qualitative research presented in the subsequent chapter where the motivation for post-1990 humanitarian interventions will be presented.

Towards a normative explanation: understanding Western state reliance on contractors using Social Contract theory

The heavy direct or indirect reliance of liberal states on the military and security services of the private contractor in contemporary warfare is an undeniable reality. While the literature presents a wide array of different empirical explanations of why liberal states have come to increasingly rely on contractor support, this paper attempts to give a normative explanation to this development. This paper does not aim to refute the existing explanations but merely complement the most commonly stated reasons for outsourcing. It argues that the liberal states hiring of private contractors can be understood against the backdrop of a wider trend whereby liberal states, increasingly operating in non-trinitarian operations, attempt to replace the soldier as a trinitarian servant with non-trinitarian means of warfare. This correlation between liberal state commitments in non-trinitarian warfare and a growing employment of non-trinitarian means of warfare can be explained by Social Contract theory and lays the foundation for a normative understanding of why liberal states resort to non-trinitarian contractor support amid non-trinitarian crises.

Surrogate warfare: the art of war in the 21st century?

Abstract Airpower, drones and cyber-weapons are employed by states in conjunction with local armed non-state actors in an effort to coercively intervene in the crises of the twenty-first century. While the externalization of the burden of warfare is a return to pre-modern war, it is the change in the underlying socio-political relations between the state and its military agent that is a novel phenomenon in surrogate warfare. This article demonstrates that in a post-Westphalian era characterized by non-state violence, globalized conflicts, a prioritization of risk management in a mediatized environment, the state has to explore new ways to remain relevant as the primary communal security provider. Thereby, the organization of violence has departed from the employment of the state’s soldier as the primary bearer of the burden of warfare to a mode of war where technological and human surrogates enable the state to manage the risks of post-modern conflict remotely. In this article, we conceptually explore surrogate warfare as a socio-political phenomenon within the context of globalized, privatized, securitized and mediatized war.

Alternative Patronage Systems: From Old Regime Failure to New Security Providers

This chapter looks at how the failure of Arab regimes to cater for public security interests facilitated the rise of alternative transnational security providers. Decades in opposition against the patronage systems of authoritarian regimes had provided alternative patrons, most notably Islamists, with public appeal and a social base. As this chapter shows, these actors had set in motion a revisionary process gradually transforming the socio-political reality of the entire region. The Arab Spring, thereby, appears to be a mere milestone in a series of wider upheavals undermining the ill-constituted private patronages of Arab states. The rise of sectarianism on the back of a ‘Balkanization’ of the region’s socio-political landscape is presented in this chapter as a mere product of the individual’s pursuit of security.

A New Approach to Conceptualizing Security in the Arab World

This chapter lays out the conceptual framework for understanding the nexus between socio-politics and individual security in Social Contract theory and Islamic political thought. Applying the liberal concept of the Social Contract to a region in which governance is mostly neither liberal nor democratic, this chapter demonstrates that the core tenet of Social Contract theory, namely, socio-political integration for the purpose of providing inclusive security, is, nonetheless, compatible with the social, political and cultural heritage of the region. In particular, by linking the liberal theory of the Social Contract with Islamic political thought, this chapter shows that the core normative ambitions of both political theories widely overlap in defining legitimate governance on every level.

Traditional Civil–Security Sector Relations in the Arab World

This chapter explains how regimes in the Arab World have disrupted civil–security sector relations (CSSR) as a means of controlling individuals and communities. The privatization of CSSR has long been an important means for Arab regimes to protect themselves against a public they considered to be a threat. This chapter illustrates how the abuse of the statutory security sector for regime security does not only undermine individual security in the public but also eventually weakens regime security. The absence of physical security and the resulting societal distrust towards the security sector is an important root cause of the Arab Spring and needs to be understood in an effort to restore public security in the Arab World moving forward.

Battling for a New Post-Revolutionary Order: New Security Providers in Syria, Libya and Yemen

This chapter expands on the rise of alternative security providers looking at Syria, Libya and Yemen as three post-revolutionary countries for which the disintegration of the old socio-political order meant an overall degeneration into anarchy. Instead of achieving public consensus on how future legitimate governance could look like, social and political affairs in these countries have collapsed as alternative socio-political actors were rising. The future for all three countries will be determined by a competitive multipolarity torn along sectarian fault lines. This chapter demonstrates that within this state of public insecurity, those who can provide security on the lowest level most inclusively will be able to not only control socio-political affairs but also foster the development of alternative forms of socialization, loyalty and identity.

Iraq: The Privatization of Security and the Rise of ISIS

This chapter examines the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) against the backdrop of failing socio-politics in Iraq post-2003. Maliki’s attempt to privatize security in Iraq in an effort to protect his regime has exposed Iraq to rising levels of insurgency. Here, the chapter shows that the transformation of the new Iraqi socio-political order into a repressive authoritarian regime equipped with a private security sector led to widespread marginalization and intimidation. Those on the fringes of the regime’s protege network have abandoned the regime to look for alternative security providers among which ISIS has been the most powerful. Looking at ISIS as a socio-political narrative and organization, this chapter demonstrates that its rise can be attributed to the absence of legitimate governance.