Sovereignty and Intervention in Iran

A great small but dense IR book is Simulating Sovereignty by Cynthia Weber, in which she semiotically explains how the United States had discursively constructed the meaning of intervention (and objectively defined violations of sovereignty) to exclude many foreign policies. In particular, Wilson is shown to describe American interventions as justified based on the fact that military rulers in Mexico and the Russian Bolsheviks were not considered to be representative of the people. Semiotically, the term sovereignty was defined in referent to popular legitimacy. Thus, Wilson framed his actions as non-interventionist (and therefore normatively justifiable) because implicitly recognized the sovereignty of the people and acted upon it, seeking to overthrow obstacles to ’sovereignty’ being realized.

We can think of the international response to the Iranian revolts in terms of sovereignty and intervention, and in particular, pay attention to how other states recognize the external sovereignty of Iran (following the principle of non-intervention) in relation to the popular legitimacy of the state among the people. Because political actors can construct sovereignty and intervention for their own purposes, both the regime and the opposition justify their actions with relation to the regime and other interaction actors, societies, networks, etc. In doing so, they discursively borrow and reinvent old narrative themes to mobilize enough support to overwhelm their opponents. How Iranian actors and interactional actors construct the socially understood meanings of sovereignty and intervention impacts their mobilization. This is why Obama refrains from forcefully supporting the Iranian opposition because it reinforces the narrative of foreign intervention in Iranian politics, one that specifically refers to United States and its support of the Shah. The expression of overt support to one side from a historically hostile hegemonic state might simply shift the focus of the crisis to new social relationships. Mossavi would be altercast as a collaborator and the regime would ride a nationalist backlash.

The problem is really how we recognize the boundaries of the Iranian nation, and discursively act on that definition to contribute to a desired outcome without our fingerprints on it. Hence, Obama says “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.” Implicit here is consent of the people, which obligates the government to recognize popular discontent in the form of protest. The inability to do so puts the moral onus on the regime, as it fails to recognize the sovereignty of its own people. We play up our soft stance in the name of non-intervention and sovereignty, but of course made sure Twitter kept running, thereby aiding popular mobilization against the regime. Thus, we define boundaries and take actions across them in reference to a popular sovereignty that has yet to fully materialize. Paradoxically, we can only support the Iranian resistance by not directly aiding it, but only by constituting the conditions in which it can fully emerge.

The Coup

Real slick.

The Senate GOP’s takeover has not only destabilized the Senate, but has also tested the leadership of Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith within his own conference.

Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., the Democrat who was tapped by Senate Republicans to serve as temporary president of the Senate, told reporters Monday evening that since the coup, he has received commitments from four or five Democrats to join his coalition with the Senate Republicans and Democratic Sen. Hiram Monserrate of Queens. He wouldn’t release the names, but said that he expects them to announce shortly. [Now minority leader Malcolm] Smith asserted Monday that he had the full support of the rest of the Democratic conference, beside Espada and Monserrate, but four Democrats were conspicuously absent from Smith’s press conference — former “Gang of Four” members Sens. Ruben Diaz and Carl Kruger, as well as Sens. Martin Dilan and Tom Duane.

With less than two weeks left in the regular legislative session, the leadership question leaves a number of policy issues in flux.

So the Republicans pulled this off all on their own? Hmm, don’t believe it.

In early spring, Tom Golisano went to Albany from his home in Rochester to meet with Malcolm A. Smith, then the Senate majority leader.

Mr. Golisano, a billionaire business executive, had spent heavily to help Mr. Smith and other Democrats win control of the Senate in the November election, and was angry to hear they were now planning to raise taxes on the wealthy. He expected an audience befitting a major financial patron.

Instead, he said, Mr. Smith played with his BlackBerry and seemed to barely listen.

“I said, ‘I’m talking to the wall here,’ ” Mr. Golisano recalled in an interview on Tuesday.

That meeting led to the dramatic collapse Monday of the Democrats’ grip on the Senate majority as a frustrated Mr. Golisano secretly planned with Republicans to persuade two Democrats to join them in ousting Mr. Smith…

Along with Mr. Golisano, a key figure who helped pull off the plan to overthrow Mr. Smith was Steve Pigeon, who is not only Mr. Golisano’s top political adviser but also a longtime friend of Mr. Espada’s…

After Mr. Golisano’s fruitless meeting with Mr. Smith in March, Mr. Pigeon and Mr. Golisano returned to Albany to meet with Mr. Smith’s top aide, Angelo J. Aponte, the secretary of the Senate. Mr. Golisano insisted that there had to be a way to balance the state budget without raising taxes, and at one point snatched a pad from one of Mr. Aponte’s aides and began scrawling back-of-the-envelope calculations.

One of Mr. Golisano’s aides asked whether the state could issue billions of dollars worth of bonds. Mr. Aponte said it was unlikely the bonds would find buyers in the economic slump. (Mr. Pigeon disputed that account. “We were there to hear their presentation and they didn’t seem to have any good answers,” he said.)

Mr. Golisano gave up on the Democrats and Mr. Pigeon moved quickly to set up a meeting with three top Senate Republicans. Secrecy was imperative, so they decided to meet at a small Albany rock club, Red Square, an unlikely locale for lawmakers.

Ok that is crafty, and apparently these ‘bipartisans’ are down with the whole reform thing, which is very not Albany politics (or really the whole city). How’s that going Senator Espada?

The New York Daily News has been doing excellent work reporting about some of the non-profit recipients of “member items” who then turn around and help the donating politicians with campaign labor, money and other favors. As a prime example, they cite Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. and his “Soundview Health Clinic.” Espada has also been fined for breaking the election laws.

Hmm, getting warm. Take us home Senator Monserrate!

One of the original Gang of Four, he joined with Espada to field the two defecting Democratic votes that enabled the coup. The trouble is he’s under indictment for allegedly slashing his girlfriend’s face with a glass bottle.

Yes! Now that’s the Albany politics I know! And kudos to now two-time minority leader leader Malcolm Smith for his shrewd political instincts on display as he let the plot thicken under his nose.

Of course, in a state where the governor is supposed to be all powerful (the official title is ‘His/Her Excellency’), a vacuum at the center means the rats can run free. Nice to see since we’re in great fiscal shape.

Kilcullen and Naveh: Operational Art in Counterinsurgency

The essential elements of Operational Art, according to Shimon Naveh’s In Pursuit of Military Excellence, consist of two concepts: udar and obkhod. Both terms are Russian and originate in the theoretical innovations of the Red Army leading up the purges of 1937-38. Naveh argues that the Russians were the first to understand that the complexity and increasing depth of modern warfare required thinking systemically about military competition. Operational thus thus exposed the limitations and weaknesses in traditional Clausewitzian military theory, with its emphasis on linear attrition and single battles of annihilation.

Udar embodies the concept of operational shock, an action that disrupts the goal-oriented function of an opposing military system. In terms of conventional war, udar is performed through the use of columnar strikes into the physical depth of the adversary’s rear positions. Doing so permits the fragmentation and isolation of the individual components of adversary’s military system, thereby preventing the system from achieving its operational aim.

Closely related is the concept of obkhod, meaning inversion, or a turning maneuver. Obkhod is the highest form of udar, and exists as an operational pattern that effects the aim of udar (fragmentation, disruption, isolation).

Mechanically, it represented the leverage effect, created by the sudden accumulation of a strike mass on the deep end of the penetration axis. Cognitively, it represented the reverse in the defending commander’s consciousness, that derived from recognizing his inability to control the situation. (212)

As created by the Russians and later put into practice by the United States military (see AirLand Battle), operational theory was conceptually developed for conventional warfare between state military forces. However, Kilcullen’s Accidental Guerrilla is replete with terminology and concepts entirely congruent with Operational Theory. In his case study of US counterinsurgency efforts in Kunar province from 2006 to 2008, Kilcullen repeatedly makes use of the term ‘maneuver’ in describing the political actions that must be taken by counterinsurgents to separate insurgents from the population. If we conceive of the insurgent military system as including both regular Taliban fighters and subversive elements within individual villages, then executing such a maneuver has the effect of disrupting and isolating that system.

In particular, Kilcullen explains how the US military used the process of road construction in Kunar to create political ties to local tribes. These are tactical actions that go well beyond simply the military application of force, but instead consist of a ‘full-spectrum’ of political and development actions that alter the configuration of loyalties and allegiances among Afghans.

[P]rojects like the road provided a source of patronage, employment, and income to the tribes, which traditional leaders, in conjunction with representatives of the Afghan state, were able to disburse to the people, thus cementing their positions of influence, reestablishing tribal cohesion and social norms, and undermining radicals in the tribal power structure and their external extremist sponsors. The road – not the road itself, but the process of constructing it – became for some the means of restoring and reintegrating the tribe’s honor and cohesion, regaining their status, and redressing the erosion of social structure caused by war and extremism.” (82)

The process of road construction thus reconstructs the social and political dynamics of local Afghan politics to the detriment of the Taliban. The emphasis here is not so much on engaging the enemy directly, as per a Clausewitzian approach. Instead, such tactics only inflame the insurgency and create more accidental guerrillas. This is trying to engage in attrition prior to attaining operational shock. Instead, the process of road construction and persistent presence among the people creates the conditions whereby contact with the enemy always put it a disadvantage: the Taliban’s own attacks against counterinsurgents embedded among the people always lead to their attrition. One colonel’s precise explanation:

It may seem on the surface to be less offensively oriented than repetitive raiding, but if you establish persistent presence in the correct places, the enemy has to come fight you…So, persistent presence, correctly done, can force the enemy to come to you on your terms – this is the true initiative.” (96-97)

Thus, embedding with the people – the organizational depth of the insurgency – constitutes the operational maneuver that creates attritional conditions leading to the destruction of the Taliban. Separated from the people, the insurgency cannot attain its organizational goal. Thus, persistent presence is the operational pattern, or obkhod, that inverts the insurgent military system. By stealing the initiative by protecting the people, counterinsurgents attack the cognitive foundations of the insurgent organization by denying it the ability to control the situation. The people are thus literally separated from insurgent consciousness. Political maneuvers in counterinsurgency, as described by Kilcullen, demonstrate the application of operational art in non-state warfare.

Critical Strategic Theory as Compliment to the Kilcullen Doctrine

Warning, this will a long post with lots of quotes, but if you’ve been following the reception to Nagl’s review of Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla in the blogs, much will be familiar. Zenpundit kicks it off:

First, Kilcullen’s three principles are an operational and not a genuinely strategic doctrine. In fairness, no major COIN advocate has ever said otherwise and have often emphasized the point. The problem is that a lot of their intended audience – key civilian decision makers and opinion shapers in their 30’s-50’s often do not understand the difference, except for a minority who have learned from bitter experience. Most of those who have, the Kissingers, Brzezinskis, Shultzes etc. are elder statesmen on the far periphery of policy…”

This lack of strategy is the principal critique offered by other commenters. First, Galrahn:

Toward what strategic national objective in national security do we participate in this doctrine? This is the question I ask myself when studying COIN…With the focus on doctrine, in the end we are building the military for managing the problems that result from a lack of coherent policy and an alignment of strategy to policy. What is it we are trying to achieve with our liberal use of military power in the 21st century? This is not a complicated question, but an answer is a mandatory requirement to avoid the perpetual long war scenario. Did anyone in the Obama policy office ever read Clausewitz? Ironically, the Bush administration knew what political objectives they wanted from the use of military power, they just had no idea how to do it. How does either war end when our national strategy has no end derived by a political objective expressed as policy?

Further critique is offered by Joseph Fouche, who suggests that formulating such a grand strategy to compliment an operational theory of counterinsurgency is a global imperial war:

If we’re looking for a rationale behind the Kilcullen Doctrine, perhaps this would suffice. America expects a world of nations. In many parts of the world, there are no nations. America’s grand strategy should be to make a world of nations. This means that grand strategy should aim to establish a global dictatorship of law. Any law will do, as long as it keeps a nation’s citizen out of other nations’ hair. The maximal expression of this grand strategy can be American soldiers going into every nook and cranny of the ungoverned world and using COIN-fu to magically subject the riotous locals to the power of law or it could be the global minimum of collectively punishing a group of tribesmen who don’t think of themselves as a nation as if they were a nation. It certainly encouraged the indigenous inhabitants of this continent to develop a sense of nationhood.

In response, Adam Elkus noted how formulating a grand strategy has been Tom Barnett’s central intellectual project as of late. Barnett’s solution involves looking towards American identity, and Adam suggests that this project should be continued, especially using the constructivist theory developed by scholars such as Alexander Wendt.

I want to continue from this point because conceptually linking Barnett with Wendt is an essential feat in demonstrating the strategic logic of counterinsurgency in relation to identity. If counterinsurgent success requires winning the hearts and minds of the people, then doing so necessitates persuading the people to identify with counterinsurgents and overcome any hostile perceptions of threat or enmity. It also requires that counterinsurgents realize that their own security practices can in fact contribute a popular perception that they are a threat. In this way, counterinsurgents must actively reflect on their own practices and understand them from the point of view of other social actors. Only then can counterinsurgents develop new practices that protect the population according to its own definition of security, thereby leading to counterinsurgent legitimacy. Wendt describes the same process on the level of the international system. By engaging in critical strategic theory, states can change the social structure of the international system and create greater cooperation:

“The fact that roles are ‘taken’ means that, in principle, actors always have a capacity for ‘character planning’ – for engaging in critical self-reflection and choices designed to bring about changes in their lives…“actors can engage in self-reflection and practice[s] specifically designed to transform their identities and interests and thus to ‘change the games’ in which they are embedded.” [1, p. 419]

Although this is termed critical strategic theory, it must be translated it into a concrete strategy that explains the means-end relationship between action and the achievement of policy. Barnett, however, provides a strategic outlook that is entirely consistent with Wendt. Barnett’s grand strategy revolves around the completion of globalization and locating America as the “source-code” for globalization. Identifying this as a grand strategy can be certainly criticized: for example, hasn’t globalization caused untold ills upon non-Europeans? Fouche identifies this with the perennial Wilsonian impulse to remake the world in America’s image through ‘clean’ social engineering. Of course, societies are not neat objects that can be be tinkered with to achieve only particular expected outcomes. Human societies are messy, and all grand social projects produce byproducts in their contradictions that ultimately confound the best-laid plans. Further, Fouche argues that American culture has never been so neatly formulated as to impart a coherent grand strategy.

These are all valid points. However, if American culture and its grand strategies are not so neatly formulated, then they are always up for amendment. The incompleteness of all cultural and strategic projects always opens up new possibilities, and this opening is where Barnett is seeking to reframe Wilsonian liberalism. I would argue that Barnett’s grand strategy does not seek to redraw the world in America’s image. Instead, Barnett wants to complete the institutionalization of the international state system by practicing recognition: demonstrating respect and understanding of other cultures. Doing so requires that we interact with and learn from those cultures to find the common humanity inherent in both of us. I quoted Zizek awhile back saying exactly this:

Instead of imposing our notion of universality (universal human rights, etc.), universality – the shared space of understanding between different cultures – should be conceived as an infinite task of translation, a constant reworking of one’s own particular position. [2, pp. 65-66]

Thus, instead of remaking the world in our image, we must recognize how others present themselves to us and actively demonstrate our empathic defense of that presentation. Recognition is thus the solution to solving competition and war in world politics:

“A precondition for recognition is a simple fact of difference or alterity. Individuals are given as different by virtue of their physical bodies, and states are given as different by virtue of the boundaries they draw between themselves and other states. These facts may or may not be recognized by other actors. Recognition is a social act that invests difference with a particular meaning – another actor (’the Other’) is constituted as a subject with a legitimate social standing in relation to the Self. The standing implies an acceptance by the Self of normative constraints on how the Other may be treated, and an obligation to give reasons if they must be violated. The other begins to ‘count’ (Williams, 1997: 199). Actors that are not recognized, like a slave or an enemy in the state of nature, do not count and so may be killed or violated as one sees fit.”[3, p. 511]

By recognizing our differences, we can thus transcend them. We have to relate this back to grand strategy in American foreign policy. While the overall goal of Barnett’s vision is the completion of globalization (Wendt would simply say this is a pivotal step on the teleological path to the world state), doing so requires engaging in critical strategic theory and reflecting on one’s own perspective by embracing the differences of others. Barnett’s writing epitomizes critical strategic theory, and thus (in my view) lends much credibility to his claim of grand strategy. The 5GWers are familiar with this:

But if you want to achieve real objectivity, you have to leave the fears behind. As long as you drag them along, they drag you down. You see only what you know and you know only what you see…

And here’s the most amazing/infuriating part: you can’t think systematically about the future until you master this most essential rule set–love your enemies more than yourself.

Not pity them. Not get inside their heads. Not access their worldview…I mean, really love them more than yourself. Connect in the worst way–humbling, humiliating, can’t-look-away.

To me, that sort of knowledge isn’t sympathy or empathy or any of the “-thies.” To me, it’s the most profound sort of understanding there is, making you capable of great intelligence and even wisdom in your strategic decision-making. You go way beyond the superficial understanding of his “loop” and how you get inside it. You really figure your opponent out in the deepest way. So this isn’t some goofy religious belief system I’m trying to enunciate here. This isn’t a form of intellectual withdrawal. I’m talking about a break-on-through-to-the-other-side type wisdom here–where the whole game slows down for you and you can see the entire playing field from a God’s eye view. I’m talking about serious control–you know, making the Matrix bend to your will.

This post gets to the heart of the strategic practice of reflection: by understanding the perspective of others (“connecting in the worst way”), we recognize the common humanity between us and create possibilities for cooperation that never previously existed. This, then, is the grand strategy that compliments Kilcullen’s operational theory. We aren’t remaking the world in our own image, but enable the world to emerge in concert with societies around the world and ensuring that our military practices do not perpetuate self-fulfilling prophecies of enmity and hatred. Thus, practicing reflexivity enables one to avoid activating the Accidental Guerrilla Syndrome. The Kilcullen doctrine embodies this self-critical outlook by seeking participation and cooperation with indigenous peoples. We seek to empower indigenous populations to govern themselves by reducing the uncertainty created by insurgents who intimidate and terrorize local peoples. Thus, by recognizing local norms and customs that define the people’s law, we create a common identity with them that constitutes insurgents as enemies of the people. Barnett’s strategy of globalization is thus complemented militarily by Kilcullen’s operational theory of counterinsurgency. To achieve true human universality (completing globalization), we must first recognize our differences. This is the only way to transcend them and develop a common identity. However, this doesn’t require that we invade every country for the sake of counterinsurgency. Most states already have functioning governments that represent their people. Further, weak states (like Colombia) may be able to learn counterinsurgency. However, in cases where no such state exists and an insurgency poses a direct threat to the international system of states, our grand strategy is threated. In these cases, counterinsurgency, state-building, and nation-building are all required. Hence the necessity for Kilcullen’s operational theory and the congruency between his doctrine and Barnett’s grand strategy.

[1] Alexander Wendt. 1992. “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The social construction of power politics.” International Organization. 46(2): 391-425.
[2] Slavoj Zizek. 2002. Welcome to the Desert of the Real! Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates. Verso, New York.
[3] Alexander Wendt. 2003. “Why a World State is Inevitable.” European Journal of International Relations. 9(4): 491-542.

Duh

Accidentally posted something before it was finished. If you caught that, ignore it cause the real post is coming soon.