Rob Johnson

Upstream engagement and downstream entanglements: The assumptions, opportunities, and threats of partnering

This article addresses Western recruitment and management of personnel from non-Western countries in armed forces as part of a strategy of state stabilisation, examining its risks and benefits. ‘SFA’ (Security Forces Assistance) to indigenous forces has long been practised by the West and seems to have returned in recent years in a new form with the creation of armies in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, while providing cheap, proxy substitutes for the West and offering opportunities for state-building, the policy creates its own problems and can have significant, negative consequences.

The de Bunsen Committee and a revision of the ‘conspiracy’ of Sykes–Picot

ABSTRACT The Sykes–Picot The Sykes-Picot Agreement is often cited as evidence of a Western conspiracy to carve up the Middle East and subordinate the Arabs. It is a prevalent view across the region, and has been a refrain repeated by critics. Yet very little is known of the far more significant conclusions of a Committee, formed by Maurice de Bunsen on the orders of the British government, which ascertained the options open to the Allies in 1915. Far from a nefarious conspiracy, the Committee came down in favour of a decentralised, ultimately independent region. The First World War compelled some revision of the original intent, but the essence of the Committees conclusions remained intact throughout the war, and after. Conversely, Sir Mark Sykes repudiated the ‘agreement’ he had made with the French diplomat Picot, and substantial revisions were made to that temporary scheme. Yet it seems that ‘conspiracy sells’, and generations have colluded with the theme of perfidy to reinforce particular narratives, including, most recently, the Da´esh movements claim to have ‘ended Sykes-Picot’.

The Changing Character of War

Several fashionable fallacies affect current assessments of the character of conflict. It is always difficult to discern what changes will affect the strategic level, especially when attention is focused on particular wars and technological novelties. In this article, Rob Johnson argues that an honest appraisal of what is unchanging offers one route to that evaluation. Strategically, revisionist geopolitics, an electronic arms race between encryption and access, and a greater focus on protecting populations and national wealth are anticipated. After a period when the West could intervene across the globe at will, it appears that escalatory, existential threats are back, demanding a strategic solution.

Out of Arabia: British Strategy and the Fate of Local Forces in Aden, South Yemen, and Oman, 1967–76

The British engagement with Oman from 1967–76 came at a time when other imperial and defence commitments were being reduced in the Gulf region and elsewhere. Following the ignominious retreat from Aden, the British chose to support the Omani regime in its conflict with Communist-inspired insurgents (1970–6). This article gives context to the dichotomy of outcomes in southern Arabia and examines the role of local military forces in the counter-insurgencies. It demonstrates that Britains domestic political considerations, regional strategic requirements, and concerns for its global reputation, rather than counterinsurgency operations and the local forces, were the main drivers of outcomes. Insurgents and local actors nevertheless responded to changes taking place in and around Oman, recalibrating their decision to co-operate or resist on their own terms, and changes in the international support for the insurgents were decisive. The key argument is that the dynamic combinations of international support, British strategic assumptions and miscalculations, and local agency, were crucially important to the outcomes in the region. The ‘fate’ of those who had allied with, or resisted, the British, needs to be set in this context.

Securing the Future of Open-Access Policies

See video of the presentation. Research Consulting undertook a study for Knowledge Exchange that looked at the relation between open-access policies and services. Drawing on a consultation with funders, institutions and service providers across the five Knowledge Exchange countries and beyond, it identifies the key services needed to successfully implement open-access policies, and suggests priorities for action in support of an open scholarly infrastructure. The study reviewed a wide range of OA policies from public research funders, private research funders and selected high education institutions from the five Knowledge Exchange countries; it finds that although policies vary considerably across countries, they generally share key requirements for green OA, gold OA and monitoring and compliance, with the clearest differences being in the emphasis placed on those requirements. The study also provided a thorough review and classification of OA services, and identified the ones that are indispensable for the successful implementation of all OA policies. In particular, it reviewed the importance for author, institutional and funders’ workflows of: (1) underpinning services such as standards, metadata and identifiers (e.g. ORCID and FundREF); (2) abstracting and indexing services, such as the Directory of Open Access Journal; (3) support and dissemination services such as SHERPA; and (4) green OA services encompassing a wide range of repository and related services designed to improve interoperability across the green OA landscape. Finally, we looked at critical challenges facing OA services, including uncertainties over their financial stability and governance models, that hamper – or can hamper in the future – their effective use and continued development, and we highlighted priorities for action from decision makers in the scholarly community. These include both specific recommendations to act in support of critical services, as well as strategic recommendations covering the actions and investments needed to create a coherent OA service infrastructure so as to allow more efficient and effective compliance with OA services.

At the end of military intervention : historical, theoretical and applied approaches to transition, handover and withdrawal

British decolonisation from India and Pakistan underscores some of the factors common to other transitions, such as domestic public opinion, the effect of one’s own casualties on that opinion, the limitations of force and the concerns about published timetables for withdrawal.

Managing Helmand province: From Bost to Bastion

A survey of the long history of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan suggests there are common patterns in the causes of violence amongst Afghans of the region. The hypothesis of this article is that there are three broad historical factors that influence outbreaks of violence and their resolution: patronage, control of land and preservation of local autonomy. Each element is in dynamic tension, and today the character of their inter-relationship has been altered by narco-profits, foreign military intervention and Afghan Government officials seeking to maximize their local power. The prospects for the province are linked intrinsically to these elements, so that, while foreign forces aim to provide a transition to Afghan Government control and security, there is every likelihood that traditional areas of dispute will reassert themselves.

‘Mizh der beitabora khalqi-i’: A Comparative Study of Afghan/Pashtun Perspectives on Negotiating with the British and Soviets, 1839–1989

This article compares the processes of negotiation in Afghanistan in two distinct eras in order to highlight the enduring characteristics of concluding wars and the unique specificities of history. The problem of obtaining reliable sources on the Afghan reactions to negotiations is to some extent offset by an awareness of theoretical approaches and common features of negotiations within the contexts of other conventional and civil wars. The two case studies presented in outline here suggest that there were peculiarities to Afghans based on cultural expectations, but, like their British and Soviet opponents, they took a pragmatic approach to fulfil their own interests. The article concludes with some observations on the potential for future negotiations.

UK Defence Policy: The ‘New Canada’ and ‘International by Design’

The EU referendum of 2016 was a landmark in Britain’s foreign relations. The decision to remain in or exit from the European Union caused a great deal of debate in the United Kingdom about its spending and austerity, economic policy, immigration, and identity. Post-Brexit, the British believed they could continue to influence the globe, being prepared to intervene, militarily if necessary, to uphold international humanitarian law and the ‘rules-based’ system exemplified by institutions such as the UN, Commonwealth, World Trade Organisation, and G9 group. They would do so, according to UK defence reviews, as a member of multiple partnerships. The only situation in which Britain anticipated independent action was in defence of its overseas territories, like the Falklands. Nevertheless, the sense that the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya interventions of 2001–2014 had not been successful, and even disastrous, pervaded the government and armed forces. There were severe cuts prior to the EU referendum which create uncertainty about UK capability, even though it was one of the few countries to meet the 2% defence spending targets announced at the 2014 NATO summit. This chapter assesses enduring UK national interests, its strategy, its capability and its continuing challenges. It evaluates the unfulfilled expectations about UK defence and the requirements of the near future, including those of counter-terrorism, domestic dissatisfaction with the Iraq legacy, information warfare and cyber threats. It concludes with a look ahead and posits that the UK’s defence relationship with Europe might resemble that of Canada, rather than any other scenario.

Future Stabilisation Strategy and the Changing Upstream Environment

Recent Western military efforts to stabilise failed or failing states have received substantial attention over the last two decades, but much of it is considered in isolation of civilian stabilisation efforts, which tend to be executed over a much more extended period compared with preferred military timeframes. The difficulty the armed forces faced in finding rapid solutions in conflicts in the early 2000s gave rise to a degree of frustration amongst Western military professionals, and they have found the degree of criticism levelled at their efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan problematic. It is unsurprising then that a search for ‘upstream’ and preventative approaches would be the result. This chapter considers what the future ‘upstream environment’ might look like and what factors military planners, and their civilian counterparts, would need to incorporate to achieve their ‘rational calculus’ of ends, ways and means. In essence, if Western militaries have learned how to conduct stabilisation missions more effectively for the early 2000s, Johnson questions whether these plans and principles will still be fit for purpose in 2035, and beyond.