class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Dirty Wars ## Twilight Conflicts ### Jack McDonald --- class: inverse # Lecture Outline .pull-left[ How can the study of dirty wars help us to understand important dimensions of contemporary conflict? Here we'll discuss the relationship between international order, strategic interdependence, and "new" means/methods of war associated with secrecy ] .pull-right[ - War and Great Power Competition - Secret Wars - Secret Warfare - Power and Secrecy - Conclusions and Connections ] ## Main Points International order doesn't have to be global, but implies a set of shared norms Gaming the rules of the international system is an important way in which both incumbents and challengers compete with one another Secret wars are less about absolute secrecy, and more about how states can utilise power to exploit the rules of international order ??? Lecture: Twilight Conflicts This lecture will draw together discussions of secrecy and warfare throughout the course to examine open-secret conflicts in the present day. We will be looking at the history of secrecy in war, and theories that explain the use of non-acknowledged military force by states. Building upon this we will consider how many of the issues covered in this course can enable us to analyse the epistemic dimensions of war itself. Lastly the lecture will look at some emerging bodies of work on proxy warfare and surrogates, as well as the key issue of regulating secret warfare in democracies. Discussion Questions: Would you support the use of special forces to detain war crimes suspects wanted by international courts? How does the interdependence of surrogate warfare affect accountability mechanisms in democracies? Readings: Van Veeren, Elspeth. “Secrecy’s subjects: Special operators in the US shadow war”. European Journal of International Security, 4, no. 3 (2019): 386-414. Farrell, Henry, and Abraham L. Newman. Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Struggle Over Freedom and Security. Princeton University Press, (2019). Chapter 1. --- class: inverse # Part 1: War and Great Power Competition ??? --- # Charting Recent Great Power Clashes .left-33[ ![Kennedy's Declinist Thesis](img/2020/kennedy.jpg) ![Thucydides Trap](img/2020/allison.jpg) ] .right-33[ > Kennedy detected an important but neglected causal relationship. His narrative concentrated on the long-term connection between, on the one hand, shifts in uneven economic growth and technological development and, on the other hand, altered military power and the relative positions of rival states within the international system. Alan R. Raucher, _The Recent American Declinism Controversy_ ] ??? Notes on 19th century competition, cold war, current --- # "Liberal International Order" .pull-left[ > Liberal theory has also failed to adequately grasp the liberal international system. The preoccupation of many liberals with building global institutions with universal scope, such as the United Nations, has ironically diverted their attention from understanding and building the liberal order within the West. Daniel Deudney and G John Ikenberry, _Nature and sources of Western political_ ] .pull-right[ ![Liberal international order diagram from Deudney and Ikenberry](img/2020/liberalorderdiagram.png) ] > We sit at the heart of the rules-based international order. The UK is the only nation to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council and in NATO, the EU, the Commonwealth, the G7 and G20, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OECD, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 ??? --- # Security, Strategy, and Interdependence ![Amred Drones 2017 CNAS map](img/2020/armeddronescnas.jpg) ??? CNAS map 2017 Israel and turkey Market Power/// --- # Dirty Wars and International Order > Britain’s reputation should be of vital importance to the government of the day. Our reputation sustains our interests. The Pinochet case has sullied that reputation. Senator Pinochet came here last September as a long-standing friend of Britain. Though I shall not go into the details, I can say that without President Pinochet’s considerable practical help in 1982, many more of our servicemen would have lost their lives in the South Atlantic. The country thus owes him a great debt. Baroness Thatcher, _1999 Statement on General Pinochet_ ??? Dirty wars and international order --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Consider the international dimension of a conflict that we have discussed on this course - how do international partners explain their support for allies violating norms that they supposedly uphold themselves?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 2: Secret Wars ??? --- # Novel Forms of Warfare > While military development is generally a continuous evolutionary process, the modern era has witnessed three watersheds in which change has been dialectically qualitative. Consequently, modern military development comprises three distinct generations... > First generation warfare reflects tactics of the era of the smoothbore musket, the tactics of line and column... > Second generation warfare was a response to the rifled musket, breechloaders, barbed wire, the machinegun, and indirect fire. Tactics were based on fire and movement, and they remained essentially linear... > Third generation warfare was also a response to the increase in battlefield firepower. However, the driving force was primarily ideas... Based on maneuver rather than attrition, third generation tactics were the first truly nonlinear tactics... > In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. William S. Lind et al, _The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation_ 1989 ??? --- # Clandestine Conflict .pull-left[ ![Nine dash line](img/2020/ninedashline.png) ] .pull-right[ - Covert Action - Active Measures - Unrestricted Warfare - Hybrid Warfare - Cyber Warfare? - Grey zone competition - Lawfare ] ??? --- # Constructing the Threshold of Conflict > When actors with a vested interest in the status quo are confronted with revisionist tactics, they face a choice. They may continue to comply with the rules that underpin the status quo, but at the cost of abstaining from employing the same illicit, but potentially effective, means used by their adversaries. Alternatively, they may attempt to beat revisionist powers at their own game and adopt their tactics, but at the expense of joining them in undermining the legal status quo. Law-abiding States must therefore mediate between both challenges: they cannot afford to counter lawfare, hybrid and grey zone challenges harmful to their national interests with identical means without chipping away at the international rule of law. Aurel Sari, _Legal resilience in an era of grey zone conflicts and hybrid threats_ ??? --- # Twilight Wars .left-40[ ![Screengrab from Google of US Special forces in Syria](img/2020/specopssyria.png) ] .right-40[ > In other words, ‘alluring’ subjects and magical or ‘revelatory’ secrecy practices trade, often literally, on the pleasures and feelings that come from the partial revelation of information. These practices are part of a broader set of cultural practices and processes that sees value in (partial) concealment, where to reveal all would be ‘obscene’ or ‘spoil it’. Elspeth Van Veeren, _Secrecy's subjects_ ] ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Do you think current approaches to acknowledging the use of special forces is sustainable?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 3: Secret Warfare ??? --- # Is Hybrid Warfare New? > The very nature of the Discourse on War dictates that it diverges from the Reality of War. In fact, the variety of these discourses within a single society ensures that no one reality could match the diversity of conception. > Different peoples can have dissimilar conceptions of war as it should be, and when they clash in battle, the fact that they are fighting by different rules creates a reality that neither adversary expected. John A. Lynn, _Battle_ ![John A. Lynn's Cultural Model](img/4/lynn.jpg) ??? little green men --- # The Transformation of War in the Information Age .pull-left[ ![Semi Automatic Ground Environment](img/r4/sage.jpg) ] .pull-right[ ![Syria Mobile Phone use](img/r4/syriamobile.jpg) ![Russians in Crimea](img/r4/crimea.png) ] ??? /// --- # Epistemic Consequences of Military Operations > Innovations, both technological and organizational, over the last few decades have created a potential for non-obvious warfare, in which the identity of the warring side and even the very fact of warfare are completely ambiguous... Although non-obvious warfare can be epitomized by cyber warfare, states can attack one another in many ways without the victim being certain exactly who did it or even what was done. Some, like electronic warfare (against nonmilitary targets) and space warfare, have yet to materialize in any strategically significant way. Others, such as naval/ land mining or sabotage, have long historical antecedents. What they share is ambiguity. Martin C. Libicki, _The Specter of Non-Obvious Warfare_ ??? unobservable means and methods cyber --- # Secrecy and Means of Warfare > As of 2020, USSOCOM consists of over 70,000 active duty, reserve, National Guard, and civilian personnel assigned to its headquarters (about 2,500 personnel), its four components, and sub-unified commands.3 USSOCOM’s components are the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); the Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC); the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC); and the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a USSOCOM sub-unified command. Congressional Research Service, _U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress_ ??? --- # Who Gets to Say a War Exists? > They keep talking of some Russian intervention in Crimea, some sort of aggression. This is strange to hear. I cannot recall a single case in history of an intervention without a single shot being fired and with no human casualties. Vladimir Putin, _Address by President of the Russian Federation_ > A key lesson learned for Beijing was that leveraging fishing militia forces was far less likely to trigger U.S. intervention in the matter even when the threatened neighbor was a U.S. ally. It is fair to say that this was the genesis of Beijing's strategy to routinely employ irregular forces in gray zone operations in the East China Sea and South China Sea... Following the Battle of the Paracel Islands in 1974, the PAFMM has been observed in nearly every major PLAN and CCG operation to harass maritime counter-claimants at disputed features or to seize the features from them. Derek Grossman, _A Short History of China's Fishing Militia and What It May Tell Us_ ??? Putin speech 2014 --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[How might distributed open source investigations be weaponised in future conflicts?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 4: Power and Secrecy ??? --- # Interdependence and Secrecy > Is it not disgraceful that Ministers refuse to allow Members of Parliament, who are elected public representatives, and all of whom take an oath of allegiance, to visit that American spy base in north Yorkshire? Is not that disgrace equalled only by the gagging order recently issued by the Secretary of State for Defence, stopping the courts and the public from hearing that the National Security Agency of America, which controls the base, is engaged in industrial and commercial espionage to the disadvantage of the United Kingdom, and that GCHQ staff also based there are illegally tapping telephones? Mr Madden > I must invite the hon. Gentleman to contain his entirely pathetic paranoia and to understand that the function of that important site is regarded by Her Majesty's Government as being of the highest importance to the United Kingdom's defence strategy. The work carried out there is extremely sensitive and valuable. Mr Soames Hansard, _Menwith Hill Station: debated on Tuesday 28 March 1995_ ??? --- # War Powers/Democratic Accountability > We have, as we have noted, seen the intelligence assessments regarding the threat and have been assured that the March 2015 intelligence assessment contains all the information which was presented to Ministers in the 1 April submission. We have also received the primary intelligence reports underpinning these assessments. But we have not been provided with the submission itself. Oversight and scrutiny depend on primary evidence: without sight of the actual documents provided to Ministers we cannot ourselves be sure – nor offer an assurance to Parliament or the public – that we have indeed been given the full facts surrounding the authorisation process for the lethal strike against Reyaad Khan. Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, _UK Lethal Drone Strikes in Syria_ ??? legal accountability --- # Coalition Problems > To July 31st 2016 – effectively two years into the Coalition’s air war against so called Islamic State – international powers had already conducted 14,000 airstrikes against ISIL targets. The 13 declared nations between them have shared a common purpose – the military defeat of ISIL in both Iraq and Syria. Yet this remained an ad hoc alliance at its heart. Members were free to pause or end their involvement – as Canada, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia had done. Rules of engagement were set at a national level, with partners free to choose which strikes they would prosecute and which they would not. Unilateral actions against targets of national interest were also permitted – with the US, UK and Turkey all at time prosecuting attacks outside the Coalition... there were no common rules within the Coalition for the monitoring or reporting of civilian casualties by member nations, leading to troubling variations between allies when it came to being held publicly to account for their actions. Airwars, _Limited Accountability_ ??? --- # Knowledge and Accountability for Killing > In the case of systemic collateral damage, actors have created effects opposite their intention because social structure—the rules and resources created by collectives, for example, the rules of engagement, may have compromised individual knowledge and agency. > the role of institutions in setting the conditions for systemic collateral damage is sometimes overlooked, while individuals are sometimes blamed for acts beyond their immediate control. > States and military organizations tend to abjure their responsibility for systemic collateral damage and proportionality/double effect killing, either by excusing the deaths of noncombatants under the doctrine of double effect or by displacing responsibility on the argument that it was the other side’s fault that civilians were in the way. Philosophers have tended to avoid the issue because the dominant paradigm in moral philosophy, as in criminal law, stresses individual agency and accountability. Neta C. Crawford, _Accountability for Killing_ ??? Low observability --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[If the importance of court cases and human rights law increases, how sustainable do you think military infrastructure cooperation is between states?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 5: Conclusions and Connections ??? --- # Key Issues .large[ Secrecy is fundamentally about shared and global rules as well as escalation concerns The sociotechnical context of war alters what can, and can not, be considered secret Secret warfare causes problems for incumbent powers attempting to support a rules-based system ] ??? --- # Key Questions .large[ How might one go about creating a taxonomy of secret wars, secret warfare, and secrecy in war? What is the most troubling use of special forces that you have so far considered? How might proxies and PMSCs fit into a state-centric schema of secret warfare? ]