The Deadliest Terror Group In Africa Seeks Alliance With ISIS
Armin Rosen.
The recent move by Boko Haram's leader to pledge the jihadist group's allegiance to ISIS caused widespread alarm and raised concerns that such an alliance would strengthen their ability to cause death and destruction and spread their ideology across the region. The oath certainly adds another layer to one of the most dangerous and consequential crises in Africa. Boko Haram has already killed thousands of people and jeopardized one of the world's biggest democratic elections. A partnership with ISIS has the potential to stretch the Islamic caliphate's borders, foster exchanges in operational expertise, and give both groups access to the other's streams of revenue. But it's unclear what this pledge actually means in practicality and how seriously Boko Haram and ISIS actually take it.
Boko Haram has waged an insurgency in northern Nigeria that's killed nearly 11,000 people since2011 and 6,000 people in 2014 alone. On March 7th, Africa's deadliest jihadist group released an audio tape in which Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau allegedly pledges the group's allegiance to ISIS. Nigeria is Africa's largest economy, and at 171 million citizens it's the continent's most populous country as well. It's a fragile democracy too, and transitioned away from military rule only 16 years ago. Boko Haram, which declared its own Islamic state in August of 2014 after taking over parts of northern Nigeria, was the ostensible reason for the postponement of a presidential election scheduled for Feb. 14. Some allege that the vote was delayed because incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan feared losing to opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari, himself a former military dictator.
In recent months, it has come under increasing pressure from the Chadian, Nigerien, and Cameroonian militaries, with troops from Chad and Niger crossing into Nigerian territory to attack the group's positions. And Jonathan has shown an increasing willingness to pursue the jihadist insurgency after a long period of baffling denial and disinterest.
"The Nigerian military in combination with the Chadians have actually had a lot more success than anybody thought they would," says Ohio University professor and Nigeria scholar Brandon Kenhammer. Boko Haram might be fracturing under this developing pressure and factions within the group may see an alliance with ISIS as a potential lifeline, or a means of undercutting enemies within the group. "I find it plausible that this reflects some kind of underlying problem with respect to Boko Haram's organizational structure," says Kendhammer.
At the same time, there were already signs that Boko Haram was edging into the Islamic State's orbit. Aaron Zelin, a terrorism researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Business Insider that in January, Boko Haram's propaganda began showing greater sophistication and even some evidence of ISIS assistance. "There were a lot of signs since mid-January that there was a huge change in methodology as well as production quality and capabilities, seemingly out of nowhere," Zelin explained. "A lot of it is reminiscent of the Islamic State." The resemblance was close enough for Zelin to write an analysis on the topic.
In order to upgrade that existing relationship, Zelin says that ISIS would need to formally accept Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance and then send emissaries to northern Nigeria to work out the terms of the relationship. If accepted, Boko Haram's domains would become a "valiyat" or province of the caliphate, and Shekau would assume the title of "vali," or provincial emir. ISIS has already incorporated affiliate groups into its caliphate, accepting pledges from hardcore jihadist fighters in Libya, and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in the Egyptian Sinai, so there's a rough model for how an affiliation would work. Zelin's doubtful that these operational ties could really amount to much in Boko Haram's case. He notes that he knows of only one Nigerian foreign fighter surfacing in Iraq and Syria. And while it would be possible for Libya-based ISIS operatives to travel across the Sahara to coordinate with their Boko Haram counterparts, affiliated groups are given broad leeway to make tactical decisions independent of ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State's Shura Council. "It's sort of like centralized decentralization," Zelin says.
Boko Haram's pledge might not reveal much about the group's strength. It might not even result in particularly improved ties between the Syrian-based jihadists and their new partners in west Africa. But it's still significant that Boko Haram, an incredibly brutal group that's declared its own Islamic state, is gravitating towards ISIS, rather than Al Qaeda, ISIS's main competitor for jihadist hearts and minds. "It's a big coup for the Islamic State in some ways," says Zelin, "highlighting the resonance of this idea of their so-called caliphate and this broader project." The pledge could also get the US more involved in Nigeria, since it might eventually lead to ISIS developing an African front in a populous democratic country. US security cooperation with Nigeria has been strained. The US has long been concerned that Nigeria's notoriously undisciplined military would abuse any American military aid and has been hesitant to increase its assistance. The feeling is actually mutual: Nigeria has been suspicious enough of the US to suspend forms of military cooperation, unexpectedly freezing a US military training program in December of 2014.
The US dispatched a team of 80 military personnel to southern Chad in May of 2014 to operate unmanned aerial vehicles assisting in the search for the 200 girls that Boko Haram kidnapped from the village of Chibok the month before. But Pentagon spokesperson Maj. James Brindle told Business Insider that that deployment ended sometime last year, since the Nigerian government stopped requesting surveillance flights and the mission's objectives could be "covered through other means."
Family Planning As A Means To Economic Development In Africa
Mahlet Woldetsadik.
Worldwide, nearly 800 women die every day due to mostly preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. More than half of these deaths occur in fragile states torn by armed conflict and generalized violence. For women living in sub-Saharan Africa, the adult lifetime risk of maternal mortality is the highest in the world—one in 38 births—compared to one in 3,400 for women living in high-income countries.
The United Nations Population Fund also reports that one in five women of reproductive age living in crisis-affected settings is likely to get pregnant. The chaos of conflict, the sudden loss of medical support, and the fracturing of families and communities make women more vulnerable to a range of sexual and reproductive health problems that include unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions, according to the fund. Even after displaced women make their way to a stable setting, they are at a much higher risk of dying from pregnancy-related complications because of a relative absence of family planning services and maternal health care.
In 2013, the sub-Saharan region accounted for 62 percent of global maternal deaths. Five countries in the region riven by different forms of internal conflict—Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—accounted for 80 percent of the 11.4 million internally displaced persons across 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, according to estimates from the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The relative absence of social protection—public policies that address the holistic needs of vulnerable populations—can expose women in conflict zones to forced marriages, sexual slavery, and systematic rape—all of which have been reported in Mali, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Women subjected to these practices are essentially defenseless against unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, and psychological injuries.
Misunderstandings about contraceptives are prevalent in South Sudan, where more than 1.5 million people are internally displaced and the maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world, at 2,054 deaths per 100,000 births. There is anecdotal evidence that women are discouraged from using contraceptives due to the desire to rebuild a South Sudanese population devastated by more than two decades of civil war. Moreover, persistent rumors that the use of modern contraceptives leads to permanent infertility reportedly dissuades women from using them.
Organizations working on the front lines, such as the United Nations Population Fund and the Women's Refugee Commission, provide emergency supplies (PDF) and training to support short-term medical interventions and reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. They also provide more comprehensive services after the crisis abates. But these approaches are not long-term solutions.
Despite the difficult conditions in countries involved in protracted conflict, a number of other organizations are also trying to provide better health care access. The SAFPAC initiative—for Supporting Access to Family Planning and Post-Abortion Care in Emergencies—is led by the humanitarian organization CARE. The initiative seeks to provide contraceptives to internally displaced people and refugees in countries like Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali.
A recent study suggested that the initiative is able to quickly provide high-quality family planning services in fragile settings. The interventions focus on increasing awareness of a range of family planning methods and challenge norms that restrict women's access to these services. Research has shown that once women learn about the options available to them, they are more likely to space out their pregnancies.
However, challenges remain. Women with access to family planning resources might not use them due to cultural constraints including religious teachings and the lack of sensitivity to the subject by community leaders. Health care providers also must reach out to adolescents and unmarried women, two groups that may be reluctant to seek such services but who would greatly benefit from access to private, non-judgmental care.
Providing access to family planning for displaced populations is the most cost-effective way of reducing maternal and newborn deaths—and must be a critical part of the humanitarian response.
Obama In Africa; Too Little, Too Late?
Charles Ellison.
Perhaps not, but there’s not much dispute on the reasons for President Obama’s most recent trip to Africa. It is actually growing economically, despite the incessant stream of conflict zone news and worries that militant Islamic terrorism could be on the rise there. And, as the first Black president who also struggles between two cultural universes within the Black Diaspora (one Kenyan, the other African American), there’s also acknowledgement that the Black migrant population from African and Caribbean countries is growing fast. Many experts predict the foreign Black population in the United States will increase to 16 percent by 2050.
Still, many countries in Africa are meeting, if not exceeding, economic growth goals and expectations. By the end of 2015, it’s gross domestic product growth should rise to 4.5 percent and many Africa analysts, including those at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the African Development Bank and the UN Development Program, all peg the continent’s 2016 growth rate at 5 percent or more.
“Some 20 of the continent’s over 50 countries have moved in democratic directions, usually with better economic policies and more accountable governance,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a co-Director for Brookings’ Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence.” Aided by groups like the Gates Foundation and many other philanthropic organizations, huge headway was made in areas such as child and maternal health. The African Union began to take more responsibility for conflicts on its own territory, with various members and sometimes the organization itself sending more effective peacekeeping forces to Somalia, Sudan, Congo, and elsewhere.”
And for the Obama administration, the geopolitical calculus is obvious: get in while it’s still hot. Skeptics will continue harboring doubts about the massive, resource-rich and ethnically diverse African continent, particularly in the wake of Ebola, raging civil wars and large scale terrorist attacks. But, for the first time in many years, Africa optimists such as President Obama are winning the argument on the need for investment and partnership. In recent years, Western countries have shifted the extent of Africa involvement from what was once a nearly exclusive economic and disaster aid model to an approach that’s now much more targeted and persistent on metrics. No one wants to simply throw money at distressed African countries anymore. Everyone from investors to policymakers demand empirically-proven returns on the investment.
Hence, most observers weren’t surprised by the White House selection of Kenya and Ethiopia to mark the last of several trips to the continent throughout the Obama presidency. The meanings behind each visit easily carried visible symbolic value, with the president comfortably embracing his Kenyan roots at the twilight of his two terms while then crossing into Ethiopia as a show of support for a nation once the leading global poster-child for world hunger and catastrophic drought.
However, there was just as much a mix of speculation and some cautious bewilderment over the countries he didn’t visit. Some hoped for a visit to the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria, particularly in the wake of its historic and comparably smooth presidential elections. Others assumed modern bastions of relatively violence-free democracy like South Africa would have been on that list, too.
But in a move perhaps designed to mute critics of the lack of a Nigeria visit, the Obama administration played host to newly-elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari a week before during a much hyped Washington visit. Better that, many foreign policy observers noted, than the massive security challenges presented by a sitting American president visiting a country still faced with mounting civil unrest in its Northeast responsible for the deaths of more than 13,000 since 2009. While hesitant to call it “civil war,” Nigerian officials were still figuring out ways to respond to a reconfigured militant Boko Haram recently re-branding itself as Wilayat al Sudan al Gharb and aligning itself as an Islamic State affiliate. The new Buhari administration, while deeply rooted in Nigeria’s military tradition, wouldn’t have been able to accommodate President Obama’s arrival.
And in the case of South Africa, few wanted the optical headache of an American president taking photo ops with controversial political boss-lite President Jacob Zuma, especially as an emerging crowd of new school black leaders hope to eventually unseat him. “Nobody should be president for life,” said President Obama during a speech at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas. I’m still a pretty young man, but I know that somebody with new energy and new insights will be good for my country. It will be good for yours, too, in some cases.”
What is evident is that the selection of Kenya and Ethiopia also represents a critical pivot point in long-term U.S. policy interests with respect to Africa. On a macro-level, it’s all about competition: U.S. policymakers and military planners worry heavily about growing Chinese interests in the region. Much of that is driven by resources, namely oil, with Beijing making certain that the bulk of its imports out of Africa – 80 percent – consist of raw resources. Today, Chinese trade with Africa is at $200 billion compared to $100 billion between the U.S. and Africa.
Fortunately, President Obama was able to arrive in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, the Kenyan and Ethiopian capitols, with a newly passed U.S.-Africa trade deal in hand recently passed by Congress. Yet, the administration finds itself playing catch up to Chinese economic and military interests. Even as President Obama spoke to the African Union in Ethiopia’s capitol, he did so well aware that it was Chinese money – some $150 million, in fact – that help erect the spanking new state-of-the-art AU headquarters facility there. Asking the AU to play a much more aggressive role in policing its continent is one thing, but African leaders were definitely seeking much more from the administration in the form of actual tangibles such as investments, promises of trade and future military transactions.
As a result, Kenya and Ethiopia were obvious choices. Kenya, with its rapidly growing middle class, is the core of an emerging economic union of Eastern African nation states such as Tanzania and Uganda. And while it has found itself wracked by occasionally fierce al Shabab-led violence such as the infamous Kenyan mall attack and a more recent bloody terrorist assault on a college campus, it is still the key to providing needed support in a larger effort to restore stability to neighbors such as Somalia.
Ethiopia, despite critics who blasted the president for meeting with a regime known for its human rights abuses, is also another such partner. With Western countries, especially the U.S., pressing African nations to take more responsibility over their continental businesses (particularly through the use of African nation peacekeeping troops in major conflict areas), Ethiopia plays a central role in that as the best trained military force on the continent.
And, as Brookings’ fellow Mwangi S. Kimenyi argues, “the leadership in Addis Ababa has demonstrated a willingness to reform… Although a work in progress, the reform process is on a positive trajectory and is a good example for other African countries. Second, the country is an important ally in the war against terrorism and has been pivotal in the war against al-Shabab.”
Questions, however, will remain as to how fast American influence can move in comparison to a robust Chinese presence that continues to spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them
By Joseph Stiglitz.
Reviewed By Brandon Wicks.
Once upon a time, not altogether too long ago, we talked about something called “class.” There was a lower and working class. There was an upper class. It was understood that these were different groups, with different amounts of power and different, often conflicting interests. Eventually, in the industrializing West, the chasm between these classes grew so great that something had to be done. In 19th-century Europe, workers formed unions and the modern welfare state was born. In the U.S., in the wake of the Great Depression, the New Deal massively expanded public-sector employment. After the Second World War, for the first time in history, the gap between the rich and poor shrank. These were essentially conservative developments. The minimum wage, the eight-hour workday, progressive taxation – all this arose, in part, to ward off the threat of revolution as the Soviet Union loomed and anarchists set off bombs. For the upper class, it was adapt or die, possibly literally.
We don’t talk much about class anymore. Beginning under Richard Nixon, Republicans in the U.S. launched the culture wars, decoupling class from income. Working-class values, oddly, became right-wing values. “Elite” came to denote aesthetics rather than wealth.
In the Reagan-Thatcher years, the assault on the welfare state, the war on organized labour and the dawn of neoliberal globalization began to undo the fleeting progress of the postwar era. This model was exported to most of the West. Now, the only class we mention is the middle class, because, as polls indicate, nearly everyone, no matter how rich or poor, considers herself a part of it. Instead, we use another term: “income inequality.”
There have been a lot of books about inequality lately. This can be traced to three interconnected phenomena: first, the Great Recession; second, the Occupy movement, after which mentions of “income inequality” spiked in the news media; and third, last year’s English-language publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a dense tome that became an unlikely bestseller. Everyone now understands that the gap between rich and poor is widening, that low and median incomes have stagnated or declined, and that the vast majority of wealth is concentrated at the very top.
In the United States, as Piketty famously documented, economic disparity has returned to levels not seen in a century; in places such as China and India, it has skyrocketed even as standards of living have improved, with the fruits of growth going to a select few. But there is a curious tenor to this discussion. In a recent New Yorker essay, the historian Jill Lepore identified it: “In the first Gilded Age, everyone from reporters to politicians apparently felt comfortable painting plutocrats as villains; in the second, this is, somehow, forbidden.” Our tale has no bad guys.
Is this starting to change? The language of Occupy – the 99 per cent versus the 1 per cent – avoided the supposedly Marxist overtones of “class” even as it divided the rich from the rest of us. Former chief economist of the World Bank and Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz unwittingly gave birth to this slogan in a 2011 Vanity Fair essay called “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,” which is included in his new collection, The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them.
Early in the book, he describes a party hosted by “a bright and concerned member of the 1 per cent.” The host had brought together an assortment of plutocrats worried about inequality – but not too worried. “I overheard one billionaire – who had gotten his start in life by inheriting a fortune – discuss with another the problem of lazy Americans who were trying to free ride on the rest,” Stiglitz writes. “Soon thereafter, they seamlessly transitioned into a discussion of tax shelters, apparently unaware of the irony.”
For Stiglitz, this encapsulates the problem. Here, the chief villains are the plutocrats whose astronomical wealth have isolated them from the realities of daily life, as well as a political class that has not just allowed this concentration of wealth, but actively encouraged it. But none of this would have been possible without a broader ideological shift, which, in the US at least, resulted in truly poisonous measures: tax cuts for the rich so extreme that they actually became regressive; a deregulated banking sector that turned profits from predatory lending practices into galling CEO performance pay; and, of course, a financial crisis from which the country has yet to fully recover.
“As has been repeatedly observed,” Stiglitz points out, “all of the economic gains since the Great Recession have gone to the top 1 per cent.”
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala On Nigeria's Empty Excess Crude Account And Sovereign Wealth Fund
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, former Nigeria's Minister of Finance, explains why Nigeria's Excess Crude Account and Sovereign Wealth Funds are empty - CASADE
(Watch full speech in the Video section)
Professionalism in Africa’s Militaries Is Indispensible to Growth, Development And Stability
Emile Ouédraogo at the African Center for Strategic Studies provides a must-read for African policy makers, and military leaders in his timely and well-researched work entitled ‘Advancing Military Professionalism in Africa.’
Vivid examples of weak military professionalism in Africa are regularly evident in news accounts of instability on the continent. Militaries collapsing in the face of attacks by irregular forces, coups, mutinies, looting, human rights abuses against civilian populations, corruption, and engagement in illicit trafficking activities are widespread. This pattern persists decades after the end of colonialism, despite billions of dollars of security sector assistance and longstanding rhetoric on the need to strengthen civil-military relations on the continent. The costs for not having established strong professional militaries are high: persistent instability, chronic poverty, deterred investment, and stunted democratization.
The reasons for the ongoing inability to establish effective, respected militaries in so many African countries are complex but largely stem from political incentives. African militaries created in the colonial era were intended to protect the government rather than the citizens. To do this, ethnic minorities were often disproportionately recruited into the militaries as a check on majority groups. These patterns persisted in the post-colonial period as military leaders from minority groups had strong incentives to resist a transition to democracy and majority rule. Lacking systematic checks and balances, the interweaving of political, military, and economic interests has endured and, in some cases, intensified in the decades since the end of colonialism. Control of the military has been seen as the vehicle to power and wealth in Africa. Corruption has flourished. This has fostered a politicization of the military and ongoing competition and collusion among politicians and security leaders seeking to gain the upper hand. In addition to systematically weakening the capacity of the military, these patterns have bred deep fear and distrust of the security sector by the general population, further fueling instability and limiting popular support in combating insurgencies.
Breaking this spiral of vested interests that undermines efforts to build military professionalism in Africa will require more than capacity building. Rather, sustained initiatives are needed to address the fundamental political disincentives to reform and establish constructive civil-military relations. Business as usual will not suffice. National security reviews that include the general public are required to redefine the mandate of Africa’s militaries in an era when many threats are internally based. Reorganizing security force structures to better match identified threats and integrating missions into a comprehensive and coherent defense policy will enhance the relevance, operational capacity, and prestige of Africa’s militaries.
As part of this process, the responsibilities of the nation’s armed forces to its citizens must be specified. A clear code of conduct, supported by a sustained effort to assimilate ethical values across the force, is needed to establish and reinforce norms of constitutionalism, integrity, service, and respect for human rights. To reinforce this, military ombudsmen, outside the chain of command, should be established and strengthened to ensure there is accountability for violations of military conduct. Likewise, stronger sanctions are needed for military and political leaders engaged in the politicization of the security forces. In other words, efforts to strengthen military professionalism must address political as well as military leaders.
More robust internal and external oversight mechanisms of the military are also needed to ensure funding is being appropriately expended in the interests of national security. Of particular priority is the need for more hands-on strategic oversight of the security sector by responsible legislative bodies. African legislators must actively debate the purpose, goals, policies, budget, spending, promotion practices, and performance of the military. Non-state actors, primarily civil society and the media, also have an important oversight function by raising awareness of the role of the military among the general public and drawing attention to areas of reform. Military professionalism is consistent with African values. This is clearly visible in select African countries where the ties between politics and the security sector have been broken and the military is a respected institution and welcomed as a defender of the people. It is the aspiration of nearly all African citizens that these attributes become the norm throughout the continent. Breaking the spiral of instability, poverty, and misgovernance depends on it.
A Litany of Challenges for African Militaries
The 2012 military coup d’.tat in Mali plunged the country and the West African region into a political and military crisis. It took just a handful of noncommissioned officers and other enlisted men to topple Mali’s elected president and derail 21 years of democratization and efforts to build professional military institutions. In addition to triggering a constitutional crisis, the seizure of the government by the military put at risk the territorial integrity of the Malian state, provided an inroad for radical Islamists across the region, and required the military intervention of French and West African forces to stabilize the situation. The economic costs and loss of private investment to Mali will be felt for years to come.
Unfortunately, a persistent lack of military professionalism has been a recurring theme across the continent. In some cases, the military directly interrupts the democratic process. Since independence, for example, no democratically elected leader of the former Portuguese colony, Guinea-Bissau, has ever completed a term in office. The People’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Guinea-Bissau, which is widely viewed as corrupt and heavily involved in the illicit drug trade,1 has a history of installing and ousting governments that threaten the military leadership’s interests, including a coup in 2012 on the eve of the second round of presidential elections. Revealingly, the militaries of both Mali and Guinea-Bissau asserted political power just prior to presidential elections when legitimately elected leaders would be empowered.
Other times, weak military professionalism is evidenced by repeated mutinies. The largest and most serious mutiny on the African continent over the last decade occurred in Burkina Faso. Turmoil caused by noncommissioned officers and other enlisted men lasted throughout the first half of 2011. The resulting pillaging, rapes, and other serious human rights violations created unprecedented fear and insecurity among the civilian population whom the armed forces were supposed to defend and protect. Madagascar was shaken by numerous military mutinies when Andry Rajoelina, the former mayor of the capital Antananarivo, took power from a democratically elected government in 2009 with strong military support. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, numerous military defections and mutinies put considerable strain on the process of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration.
Other examples of breakdowns in military professionalism in Africa abound. Allegations of human rights abuses against civilians by the Nigerian military in the course of their deadly battle with the Islamist fundamentalist group Boko Haram suggest weak command and control capabilities.2 They also undermine the broader objective of stabilizing Nigeria’s northern region. The alleged complicity of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces in wildlife trafficking reflects a lack of discipline in the face of economic opportunism.3 Allegations that the Kenyan Defence Forces engaged in massive looting of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi following the shocking terrorist attack by al Shabaab that left more than 60 dead in 2013 provide further cause for reflection about the state of military professionalism in Africa.4
To be sure, certain African countries have made laudable efforts to improve the professionalism of their militaries. However, half a century after most African states gained independence, African societies need to reassess how they can establish professional armed forces, not only to face their security challenges but also to help build and consolidate their nascent democracies and foster development. By examining the gap between aspiration and reality, this paper aims to delve into the obstacles of enhancing professionalism in African militaries.
Principles of Military Professionalism
Military professionalism is commonly grounded in several overriding Principles; these principles are enshrined in values that distinguish the actions of a professional soldier such as discipline, integrity,honor, commitment, service, sacrifice, and duty. Such values thrive in an organization with a purposeful mission, clear lines of authority, accountability, and protocol. Despite the disappointing track record, these same principles and values of professionalism resonate deeply with African military leaders and ordinary citizens alike. The problem has been that in too many African countries the adaptation and implementation of these concepts have been disrupted.
Democratic Sovereign Authority
A democratic political culture is typically the foundation of professional militaries. In Samuel E. Finer’s classic The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, the level of democratic political culture in a country is determined by the extent to which there exists broad approval within society for the procedures of succession of political power and a recognition that citizens represent the ultimate sovereign authority.5 Democratic processes also need to be protected by state institutions, such as the armed forces.
The notion of military professionalism in democratic states, therefore, must embody basic values such as acceptance of the legitimacy of democratic institutions, nonpartisanship in the political process, and respect for and defense of individuals’ human rights. In a strong democratic political culture, legitimately elected civilian authorities are fully responsible for managing public and political affairs. The armed forces implement the defense and security policy developed by civilian authorities.
A majority of African states have duly adopted these democratic values and basic principles of military professionalism in their various constitutions and military doctrines. They are shared and accepted by the majority of African countries that have transitioned or are in the process of transitioning to a democracy. Moreover, many military leaders have been exposed to these values and principles through trainings in Western military academies and staff colleges. It is important, too, to note that these values are rooted in African culture. Protection of the kingdom, submission to the king, loyalty, and integrity vis-a-vis the community were core values of African ancestral warriors. It was only during the colonial and neo-colonial eras that this civil-military relationship floundered and these values eroded. The newly created African states set up armies to symbolize their nations’ independence, but these militaries essentially provided security just to the new regimes. Since then, we have witnessed an ongoing struggle to recapture the historical values of military professionalism.
Allegiance
Building professional militaries is dependent upon establishing a clear and balanced allegiance to the state and respect for civil society and not interfering in the oftentimes robust political discussion between the two. Democratization is a turbulent process, one that can be exploited by certain actors to create temporary domestic instability. Without a military’s steadfast support for neutrality and democratic sovereign authority, the process of democratic self-correction and consolidation will be difficult.6
One African military that has adhered to this principle is the Senegalese Armed Forces. Since independence, Senegal has never experienced a coup d’.tat. The Senegalese democratic culture has been periodically tested by political tensions, but the military has not challenged the constitutional order. Having passed these tests, Senegal’s democratic culture has grown stronger over the years. In addition to Senegal, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and a few others are part of a small group of African countries whose governments have never been toppled by a military coup.7 Countries that have experienced a coup d’.tat pay a steep and longterm price for their militaries’ misplaced and sometimes cyclical interference in political discourse. Once the precedent of a coup has been established, the probability of subsequent coups rises dramatically. In fact, while 65 percent of Sub-Saharan countries have experienced a coup, 42 percent have experienced multiple coups.8 Most African coups were directed against an existing military regime that itself had come to power through a coup. Between 1960 and 2012, nine of the attempted coups in Sudan were against military regimes as were seven of the ten in Ghana during the same period. Once in place, such precedents become a burden that is difficult to throw off and have contributed to the collapse or destabilization of some states. Reflecting a degree of progress, while the threat of coups remains a real concern in Africa, the frequency of successful coups has diminished considerably (and has been concentrated in West and Central Africa).
Factors such as political and economic weakness, corruption, and a lack of institutionalized democratic structures create openings for military forces to justify overthrowing political leaders. Unsurprisingly, Sub-Saharan countries with low per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth since independence have experienced more military coups than countries with higher per capita GDP growth rates.10 Yet, with very few exceptions, military coup leaders fail to restore stability and hand power back to civilians. Unfortunately, military-led governance is likely to be ruinous for a country’s economy. Thus, the vicious cycle is perpetuated. Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria have all seen their real GDP shrink more than 4.5 percent following military coups.11
Repeated coups have thrownsome African countries, such as Burundi, the Central African Republic,Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Guinea-Bissau, into prolonged periods of economic contraction. Apparent exceptions likeEquatorial Guinea, in fact, reflect natural resource-driven growth that has not translated into improved living conditions for the general population. Instability deters investment and development. In contrast, non-resourcerich states that have realized the highest levels of sustained growth are almost uniformly those with few or no coups.
Samuel Huntington argued that military interference in governmental affairs was more a political than a military problem, an observation that remains particularly relevant for most African countries.13 In the absence of well-established rules and strong institutions regulating political processes, labor unions, students, clergy, lobbies, and the military all engage in political competition for the control of state power. This characterized the post-independence political environment in many African countries. Given their size and inherent influence, militaries in Africa thus became major players on the political scene—and held onto this privilege.
With the emergence of alliances between top military, political, and economic leaders (including, at times, foreign partners) around shared financial interests, militaries’ intrusion into the economic sphere also became more diffuse and complex. In Angola, for example, members of the military participate in contract negotiations with foreign companies, sit on corporate boards, and are majority shareholders of telecom companies. The various military administrations that governed Nigeria also entangled themselves in the economic sphere. Appointments of military officers to company boards of directors and to top political posts, such as state governors, made these individuals immensely rich and politically powerful. Even in retirement, many of these officers remain powerful actors in Nigerian politics.
In 1999, when the Nigerian people elected the democratic government of Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired general, they ended 16 years of military rule. The new government understood what years of military involvement in commercial enterprise had done to its reputation and effectiveness. The government quickly swept many officers into retirement, revoked oil licenses, and reclaimed plots of land suspected to have been illegitimately allocated to senior military officers. Such efforts to improve security sector governance in Nigeria are ongoing.
The subversion of the profession of arms for financial enrichment distorts the incentives for public service required of an effective, professional military. It simultaneously undermines a military’s commitment to protect the country and its citizens. Plato noted some 2,400 years ago that the meddling of soldiers into other professions will “bring the city to ruin.”16.
Notes
1 Camille Dubruelh and Mathieu Olivier, “L’Afrique n’est plus seulement un acteur passif dans le trafic de drogue. La consommation augmente.” Jeune Afrique, April 24, 2012.
Adam Nossiter, “U.S. Sting That Snared African Ex-Admiral Shines Light on Drug Trade,” The New York Times, April 15, 2013.
2 “Nigeria: Massive Destruction, Deaths from Military Raid,” Human Rights Watch, May 1, 2013.
3 Jeffrey Gettleman, “Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits,” The New York Times, September 3, 2012.
4 Daniel Howden, “Terror in Nairobi: The Full Story Behind al-Shabaab’s Attack,” The Guardian, October 4, 2013.
5 Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002).
6 Zoltan Barany, The Soldier and the Changing State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 1.
7 Habiba Ben Barka and Mthuli Ncube, “Political Fragility in Africa: Are Military Coups d’Etat a Never-Ending Phenomenon?” African Development Bank (September 2012), 3.
8 Stefan Lindemann, “The Ethnic Politics of Coup Avoidance: Evidence from Zambia and Uganda,” Africa Spectrum 46, No. 2 (2011), 4. For background on datasets used by Lindemann and other authors to identify the number of coups, see Jonathan Powell & Clayton L. Thyne, “Global instances of coups from 1950 to 2010: A new dataset,” Journal of Peace Research 48, No. 2 (2011), 249-259. Powell and Thyne identify the varying definitions of “coup d’.tat” to explain for the variances in reported instances of attempted and successful coups.
9 Barka and Ncube, “Political Fragility in Africa,” 4.
10 Ibid., 9.
11 Mathurin Houngnikpo, Africa’s Militaries: A Missing Link in Democratic Transitions, Africa Security Brief No. 17 (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, January 2012).
12 Barka and Ncube, “Political Fragility in Africa,” 9.
13 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
14 Rafael Marques de Morais, “The Angolan Presidency: The Epicentre of Corruption,” Pambazuka News No. 493, August 5, 2010, available at <http://www.makaangola.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/PresidencyCorruption.pdf>.
15 Emmanuel O. Ojo, “Taming the Monster: Demilitarization and Democratization in Nigeria,” Armed Forces & Society 32, No. 2 (January 2006), 254-272.
16 Plato, The Republic, tr. G.M.A. Grube (Hacket, 1992), 417b and 434a-b.
Wombs And Alien Spirits
Women, Men and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan.
By Janice Boddy.
Reviewed by Tanya Luhrman.
A woman in the Islamic northern Sudan lives what appears to be a beleaguered life. Before she is 10, a midwife circumcises her, snipping off her clitoris and stitching together the outer labia. In her late teens, she beautifies herself for marriage by removing all her body hair and scraping off the outer layer of her skin. Reliably virginal at marriage, she is soon abandoned by her husband for most of the year - he works in the city, she remains in the village with the children. Her marriage, in these circumstances, is fragile. Men divorce easily for other women, or take other wives, particularly if the first is barren. Throughout life a woman is legally under the control of her father, her brothers and her husband, and her behavior is tightly regulated.
But there are spirits who possess at least some of the women and force them into rude, wanton behavior. Such spirits attack fertility and cause illness. To cure herself, a possessed woman must appease the spirit through ceremonies in which the spirit descends into her and states its demands: new sandals, new clothes, a husband's acquiescence in a wife's desires. These women are then members of the Zar cult.
In ''Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan,'' Janice Boddy - a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto - has written a traditional ethnography, complete with kinship diagrams, Arabic terms, and many, many facts. By the end of the book you feel that you know her community of women well. The primary impact of post-modernism in anthropology - apart from some silliness - has been to sharpen and sensitize the ethnographer's eye. Ms. Boddy's language and authorial self-description betray the strong influence of post-modern theory. That influence leads her not to repudiate the business of writing ethnography, but to be highly aware of the multiple purposes and meanings that these women give to their activities. Such alertness lets her provide a better analytic explanation of spirit possession than most.
Many anthropologists would interpret a cult such as the Zar as the means through which subordinate individuals express their needs in public. Ms. Boddy argues that the cult does more, that it is the major form of symbolic play for these adults. The spirits that possess them are prostitutes, doctors, military men, gypsies, cannibalistic sorcerers and women of holiness and purity - a range of northern Sudanese cultural characters. This vividly imagined other world, Ms. Boddy argues, is in itself esthetically and creatively rewarding. And through the variety of these self-representations, the cult enables its women to reflect upon their actual world, so that the spirit possession becomes almost a satiric commentary upon their experience of the feminine. Through imaginatively playing at being other, the author suggests, these women become more adept at imagining themselves.
''Wombs and Alien Spirits'' is long and at times repetitive and overwritten. Yet much of it is fluent and vivid, and it left me intrigued.
Is Poverty Key To An Understanding Of Terrorism And National Security?
Carol Lancaster.
Imagine the following advertisement for Al Qaeda: “Wanted: Educated individuals (preferably with a graduate degree in a technical field) who have foreign-language skills (preferably fluency in English) as well as a deep antipathy to their own and others’ political leaders. Must be comfortable with violence and available for training and important assignments in foreign countries during a period of months or years.”
The terrorists of Al Qaeda were educated, from well-off families, and mostly from countries that have long ago graduated from the category of the world’s poorest. It was not poverty that motivated them. Indeed, we do not know for certain what led them to terrorism—perhaps disgust with their own often-corrupt governments; a sense of humiliation by the West; religious fanaticism, boredom, and alienation; or perhaps dim prospects for a fulfilling career. But their motivation was not fighting poverty. Nor, as far as we know, were they reacting to the vast disparities (both in wealth and in numbers) between the very poor and the very rich either in their own societies or in the world at large. The poor do not have the time, the resources, or often even the physical health to get an education, to experience ennui, or to fly airplanes into tall buildings. For the just over one billion people who each live on $1 per day, it is simply often an exhausting task to get an adequate meal or two every 24 hours.
Poverty does not produce terrorists. And eliminating poverty—something dearly to be desired by all civilized beings—is not likely to eliminate terrorism. Consider some of the world’s well known terrorist groups in recent years: the Irish Republican Army; the ETA in Spain; the Red Army and Aum Shinrikyo in Japan; the Bader-Meinhof Gang in Germany; Timothy McVeigh and militia groups in the United States; Hamas in Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon; the FARC in Colombia; the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka; the Pakistanis in Kashmir; and the Chechens in Russia. Few if any of these groups are rooted in poverty or have the goal of its elimination. In some circumstances, reducing poverty could well increase the pool of potential terrorists—if educated young people who are angry because they lack job or life prospects buy into ideologies or religious movements that urge them to violence.
This commentary first considers the causes of terrorism in the world today. Then it inquires into the precise relationship between poverty and terrorism. Finally, it asks what we can do to eliminate terrorism and insecurity.
Causes of Terrorism
The three elements common to all terrorism are: (1) a grievance that the terrorists are protesting and perhaps trying to resolve; (2) an ideology or set of beliefs that identify and explain the grievance and what to do about it; and (3) a belief that terrorism can contribute to that grievance’s solution. (I am including neither criminal and drug networks nor warlords in my collection of terrorists. Although categories may blur at times, these latter groups operate primarily for their own gain rather than to address a real or perceived societal wrong.)
Terrorist grievances are often over land, assets, or other resources—in essence, who should control them. Grievances can also be over values—for example, the perception that an ethnic, religious, or political organization is encroaching on others’ rights or that a society is flawed in some fundamental way and must be reformed. These grievances may be real (as in Kashmir or Israel) or imagined (as in the case of Timothy McVeigh or Aum Shinrikyo).
Terrorist ideologies may be based on ethnicity, nationalism, religion, or the worldview of a charismatic terrorist leader. And terrorists act because they think they can achieve their goals—usually in the hope that the state in which they act will be too weak to apprehend them or prevent such acts in the future.
Poverty And Terrorism
Despite the assumptions often made in the wake of the attacks of September 11 that world poverty was somehow a source or motivation for those attacks, terrorist grievances almost never include poverty. Others (especially in Europe) argue that poverty breeds the discontent that leads to terrorism. This argument is much like one heard during the Cold War—that poverty bred discontent and discontent increased the allure of communism, or led to chaos that opened opportunities for communist gains. Eliminating poverty was, therefore, important to eliminate the causes of discontent, violence, radicalism, and (now) terrorism. But if either of these causal chains were true, much of the world would surely now be communist-dominated or engulfed by terror and violence.
So the relationship between poverty, terrorism, and ultimately U.S. national security is not a simple and direct one. Might there be more subtle and indirect ties between poverty in the world and security in the United States? Certainly, the vast differences in wealth, education, health, and life prospects among and within countries can feed a general sense of social injustice and righteous anger on the part of those—often youth—who are sensitive to such issues. But while this sense of social injustice may trigger anti-globalization protests, it does not appear to be sufficient by itself to promote organized violence against symbols of wealth.
In some cases there does appear to be an indirect relationship between poverty and the poor governance (corruption, exclusion, and repression) that can lead to civil violence and state collapse. These conditions, in turn, can spread throughout a region, producing widespread insecurity and possibly creating havens for terrorists or criminals who can organize and attack targets elsewhere, including in the United States. These conditions of civil violence and state collapse do tend to concentrate in poor countries (especially in Africa) such as Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. However, not all cases of civil violence and state collapse occur in the poorest countries (see Colombia, Algeria, and Chechnya), and not all poor countries suffer from such violence—suggesting that poverty is far from being a direct trigger of these problems.
But it may be difficult to hold governments accountable in places where populations lack education and information and poverty is widespread. Such countries are vulnerable to crime and thuggery, to the evaporation of rule of law and political institutions, and to the repression of dissident groups (which are often ethnically or religiously distinct)—all factors which may provoke internal violence and chaos. Reducing poverty and improving education, health, and the economic well-being of a population may, all things being equal, lead to better governance over time and fewer opportunities for terrorist or criminal elements to operate in these countries. But there is still much we do not know about the interrelationships between poverty, governance, civil violence, and international terrorism and criminality.
The risk in justifying U.S. global anti-poverty policies and programs as anti-terrorist or as in the interests of national-security initiatives is that such labeling could ultimately be counterproductive for those policies and programs. If the United States spends more on foreign aid to help reduce poverty in the world in order to reduce terrorism and the threat of terrorism fails to abate, support for foreign aid (which can help promote growth, poverty reduction, and many other desirable changes) could well erode in Congress and among the public.
So if poverty is not a major or direct cause of terrorism, and if eliminating poverty will not eliminate terrorism, is there anything outside of military or intelligence options that the United States can do to fight terrorism?
A
Short of the use of force, policymakers have several options for addressing the underlying conditions that feed terrorism. The first is to address the disparate issues that are triggering terrorist activities. The United States and other countries can act as mediators for agreements between governments and discontented ethnic, religious, and other groups (as in the case of Northern Ireland). But such diplomatic efforts take time, energy, and resources—items things in scarce supply for United States and other governments.
A second approach is to press and persuade governments to relax their repressive policies, eliminate corruption, open up their political processes, and finance activities aimed at strengthening the rule of law, civil society, democratic political institutions, and elections. If this sounds like pie in the sky, it was U.S. policy in Central America during the 1980s—and that policy now appears to have contributed to improved security and human rights in the region. But policies promoting democratization and improved governance also take time, patience, and resources.
A third approach is to help strengthen the internal security of countries plagued by terrorist activities. It is clear, unfortunately, that no country is immune to such activities—not even the United States with its home-grown, violence-prone groups such as the Aryan Nation. When such groups sense that security is inadequate, they will act. Of course, when a government’s own corruption and repression has provoked civil violence and terrorism, strengthening the security forces of that government can exacerbate the underlying causes of dissent. But fortifying national security forces in selective cases can be an important and effective way to fight terrorism.
One further approach to reducing the underlying causes of terrorism and insecurity involves addressing stalled development instead of poverty per se. Societies that educate their youth but cannot provide them with jobs or the possibility of fulfilling lives create pools of vulnerable young men (and in some cases, young women) who can be drawn into terrorist networks. Algeria is an excellent example of this problem: while that country has made impressive strides in educating its young people, decades of economic mismanagement have resulted in large-scale youth unemployment. Other countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America show similar problems. All they lack are militant ideologies that might energize youths without purpose to violence. Policies and programs aimed at steering the educated-but-unemployed young—both in poor and not-so-poor countries—toward productive activities must be part of the strategy against terrorism. But Western governments and development agencies are in only the earliest stages of thinking about what these policies and programs should be.
In sum, the United States should and must work to eliminate poverty in the world. But U.S. policymakers and citizens should not fool themselves that reducing poverty will eliminate terrorism. Attacking terrorism is another important task we must address—but it is not the same task as poverty reduction.
Term Limits In Africa Matter
Joseph Siegle.
Africa has a problem of presidents not leaving office when it’s time to do so. The latest illustration of this is the maneuvering of Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza. After 10 years in office, he is attempting to stay on for a third five-year term – in contravention of Burundi’s constitution that limits presidents to two five-year terms. Nkurunziza’s determination to stay in power has brought the country to the brink of another civil war. (It’s estimated that 300,000 people were killed in Burundi’s ethnically-based civil war of 1993-2005). The government’s hardline response to protests against a third term has resulted in more than 100 deaths, the arrests of some 500 media and civil society leaders, a fracturing of the military, and the exodus of some 200,000 refugees since April.
Unfortunately, Nkurunziza is not alone among African leaders who defy the fundamental requisite of democracy that leaders must step down when their terms expire. In fact, the continent as a whole is in the midst of a wider battle over governance norms. Burundi’s relevance to this larger struggle compels assertive action on the part of key African and Western governments interested in upholding the rule of law.
A wider battle
Since 2000, a dozen African leaders have tried to circumvent term limits. Half of these, including Paul Biya in Cameroun, Idris Deby in Chad, and Ismail Guelleh of Djibouti have been successful in eliminating term limits. Even when African leaders lose elections, it is not assured that they will leave office. After being defeated in Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential elections in December 2010, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo rejected the outcome. Instead, he launched attacks against supporters of his political opponent, Alassane Ouattara, which set the country on a six-month conflict leading to the deaths of over 3,000 people and Gbagbo’s eventual arrest and extradition to the International Criminal Court.
After losing the first round of presidential elections in Zimbabwe in 2008, President Robert Mugabe mounted a nationwide campaign of violence against his political opponents causing the leading candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, to withdraw from the second round. Mugabe is now in his 35th year as Zimbabwe’s head of state. This capacity to perpetuate their stay in office explains why nine current African leaders have been in power for more than 20 years, (four of these for more than 30 years). Another 10 heads of state are now into their second decade in office. In addition to the detrimental impact these extended tenures have on building democratic institutions, countries with leaders who have been in power for more than a decade tend to have higher levels of corruption and poorer economic performance.
Several other sitting presidents, including Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo (already in power for 18 years), Paul Kagame in Rwanda (15 years), and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (14 years) are expected to try and override their term limit restrictions in the coming year.The trend is not uniform, however. Half of the dozen African leaders who tried to evade limits over the past 15 years were foiled by populations who rallied against these tenure extensions. Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso is the most recent case. In October, a legislative proposal to eliminate term limits would have allowed Compaoré to extend his 27 years in power. Instead, the announcement immediately set off massive protests. Within days Compaoré had fled the country. In Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan graciously conceded electoral defeat in March, facilitating the first democratic transition between political parties in Africa’s most populous country. Senegalese President Macky Sall declared earlier this year his intent to hold a referendum to limit his mandate by reducing presidential terms from seven to five years.
A key building block in the push for democracy in Africa has been the adoption of term limits. Establishing this precedent is crucial given the continent’s legacy of “big man” politics—the cult of personality surrounding many African leaders that supersedes the rule of law and efforts to establish checks on power. Once ensconced in office, many African leaders so control the levers of power that they are very hard to dislodge.
Through the efforts of reformers, roughly 20 of Africa’s 54 countries now limit presidents to two terms. Another 10 countries, including Burundi, have such provisions written into their constitutions, though they have yet to be implemented. Norms around term limits have been gaining momentum in recent years. Afrobarometer polls show 75 percent of African respondents favor two-term limits for their heads of state. The last successful circumvention of term limits was in Djibouti in 2010. The struggle to limit Nkurunziza to two terms in Burundi, consequently, has broader significance for Africa’s efforts to create legal parameters for their heads of state. African leaders contemplating extending their terms are watching Burundi closely.
A role for external actors
The African Union adopted the Africa Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance in 2004 setting out Africa’s commitment to strengthening democracy on the continent. Thirty-eight countries, including Burundi, have signed on to the Charter. To uphold these principles, the African Union and its leading members need to take an assertive stand, publicly and privately, when democratic processes are being violated. Failure to do so opens the door to a series of other extra-constitutional challenges to democratic norms across the continent. Western actors can reinforce the efforts by African reformers by instituting visa bans and asset freezes on African politicians who are deemed to be subverting the democratic process. Aid should be suspended as necessary, especially when these funds bolster the recalcitrant government.
International actors also have a role to play in protecting independent media and civil society, frequently a prime target of regimes wishing to extend their time in power. Any semblance of political dialogue and accountability requires independent voices. There can’t be genuine debate or legitimating elections, not to mention oversight or accountability, without a free press. In Burundi, some form of regional military intervention will also likely be needed, if only to guarantee a negotiated political settlement. Having this buffer force in place will be important since tensions and distrust are currently so high that any further provocation could trigger a return to full-fledged armed conflict.
Ultimately, democracy is something that must be earned country by country in Africa. Burundi’s civil society has been resilient in trying to sustain the gains toward a multi-ethnic democratic system made over the past decade. Overcoming the stranglehold on power exerted by Africa’s resistant strongmen, however, will require an assist from external partners. Tolerating unconstitutional extensions of power, on the other hand, rewards Africa’s bullies who are unwilling to play by the rules. This, in turn, only invites further political violence. If Africa can institutionalize respect for term limits, politics on the continent will enter a new era of predictability, with far-reaching implications for the rule of law and stability.
Death From Above
Reviewed By Chris Nelson.
Andrew Cockburn. Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins.
It’s not often that a book review coincides with current events. Books, particularly nonfiction, are usually written and published months, if not years after an event has occurred. That’s because good nonfiction is written in retrospect: writers have spent some time absorbing their subject, researching and analyzing the facts; authors are hesitant to be rash in judgment or thought.
However, there are exceptions. Some pieces of nonfiction, particularly journalists’ works, are appropriate now — not later. Andrew Cockburn’s new book, Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins, is one of them. Cockburn’s book is timely. In just the past few weeks there has been a flood of reporting from media outlets stating that a drone strike killed an American and an Italian hostage when targeting a group of Al-Qaeda members operating near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Suddenly, questions about drone strikes, the debate about targeted killing, and the transparency of the drone program are on the front page of print and online news media worldwide.
Yes, timely indeed.
Although Cockburn’s book cover is plastered with silhouettes of unmanned aerial vehicles — with what appears to be the X-47B, Predator, Global Hawk, and Fire Scout, among others — he is making a larger argument. Cockburn it seems, is arguing that all technology is suspect. It’s not simply unmanned aerial vehicles, but it’s the idea that human beings are continuously so bold as to come up with technological solutions that will win our wars. History, however, tells us a much different story.
Cockburn, then, starts his book with an interesting tale.
In 1966 the Vietnam War was not going well. Secretary McNamara, a man who was fond of scientific solutions to difficult problems, turned his attention to “The Jasons.” The Jasons, Cockburn says, were a small group of scientists and scholars, many of whom would go on to become Nobel Prize winners. These were also some of the same men — Carl Kaysen, Richard Garwin, George Kistiakowski — that were part of the Manhattan Project some twenty years earlier.
The Jasons tried to do what Rolling Thunder could not — they tried to figure out a way to defeat North Vietnam’s ability to use the Ho Chi Minh trail — to cut off their supply routes. They ended up deploying small sensors along the trail that could, presumably, pick up the noise, vibration, and in some cases, the ammonia of someone urinating, all in an attempt to locate men and machines moving goods to the South. Then, if they could hear them and find them, U.S. commanders could task air strikes against the communists on the trail. It didn’t take long, Cockburn says, for the North Vietnamese to find a work-around. How long? It took one week. Cockburn notes that all the North Vietnamese had to do was to use cows and trucks, often running over an area of the trail multiple times to create a diversion while the real logistical effort was moved elsewhere. So simple and so effective — and relatively inexpensive. However, Cockburn says the cost of the electronic barrier for the U.S. was around six billion dollars.
This formula is repeated throughout the rest of the book. That is 1) There is a military problem 2) Someone always tries to find a technological solution, and then 3) Spends a lot of money only to find out the U.S. has made the problem worse.
Now fast forward almost sixty-years to the age of drones, and Cockburn introduces us to Rex Rivolo, an analyst at the Institute of Defense Analysis. It’s 2007 and improvised explosive devices are a major problem; they are killing and maiming hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq. Asked to analyze the networks behind the IEDs, Rivolo, Cockburn says, discovers that targeted killings of these networks lead to more attacks, not fewer. This is because someone more aggressive fills the place of the leader who was recently killed. Rivolo would return to D.C., even getting the ear of the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, telling him that attacking high- value targets was not the right strategy — the IED networks and individuals setting them off were more autonomous then was initially thought. Going after the senior guy, Rivolo noted, was not the answer. But, as Cockburn says, nothing changed. Now people simply refer to the continous cycle of targeting and killing high-value targets as “mowing the grass.”
The idea of killing senior leaders or HVTs is not new, it’s been around for a long time (think Caesar). Cockburn, then, brings up one of the more interesting “what if’s” that military officers — or any student of military history — likes to debate. That is, what if someone had killed Hitler before the end of the war? Would the war have ended? Or would he have become a martyr and someone worse or someone better have taken his place? Cockburn tells us about British Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thornley, who argued during WWII that, no, the Fuhrer should not be killed. Thornley noted, that if Hitler was killed, his death would likely make him a martyr for national socialism. And that Hitler was often a man that “override completely the soundest military appreciation and thereby helped the Allied cause tremendously.” Therefore, the thinking went, we should let Hitler live and dig his own grave.
However, the problem with this debate is that context matters. Was it Germany in 1933? 1938? Or 1944? It matters because while Cockburn does not differentiate between the killing of a leader of a state and the leader of a terrorist network, they are indeed different systems that have different levers of power and legitimacy.
He is on firmer ground when he rightly notes how difficult it is for anyone to predict systemic effects when targeting a network. He reiterates these difficulties throughout the book. The most historical compelling case is WWII and the strategic bombing campaign. All one has to do is pick up the WWII U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and read the fine work done by John K. Galbraith, Paul Nitze, and others. Disrupting or destroying networks from the air — in this case, Germany’s economy — was incredibly difficult. In many cases, assumptions of German capabilities or weaknesses were far from correct. And as Cockburn notes, the term “effects based operations,” namely, operations that are military and nonmilitary that can disrupt complex systems while minimizing risk, was a term that was outlawed in 2008 by General Mattis while the head of Joint Forces Command.
Ultimately, the debate over drones — who should control them, what should they be used for, should the U.S. target particular individuals — will continue. It’s an important topic. There are, however, a few shortcomings in this book. One of the biggest questions that goes unanswered is this: If the U.S. should not strike identified enemies or high-value targets…then what? Do nothing? Allow a Hitler to simply remain in power? Is this not a form of moral ignorance?
The questions military planners and policy makers should ask is this: Do we understand the character of this war? And are these the right tools we should use to win this war? We should not blame a drone — or any other type of tech for that matter — for bad strategies, poor operational planning, and gooned up tactics.
Drones are the future. But we should read Cockburn’s book as a cautionary tale. We should disabuse ourselves of the illusion that future technologies will be our savior. And finally, we should not let those illusions crowd out the very difficult task of understanding our adversaries and the enduring nature of war.
Andrew Cockburn’s book is worth reading. But have your pencil ready — you’ll want to argue with him in the margins.