1st Quarter 2014 Volume 5, No. 1

Editorial

From Praetorian Guards to National Armies

Rémy M. Mauduit

Articles

Changing the Player, Not the Game

Ennahda’s Homo Islamicus

Edward Webb, PhD

Building Bridges or Barricades

Considering Ethnic Identities in Africa

Temisanren Ebijuwa, PhD

The Swarm, the Cloud, and the Importance of Getting There First

What’s at Stake in the Remote Aviation Culture Debate

Maj David J. Blair, USAF

Capt Nick Helms, USAF

French European Defense Strategy and Its Relationship with NATO

Lt Col Arnaud Gary, French Air Force

The Military in Egypt

Peacemaker with Expiration Date?

Witold Mucha

Ahmed Khalifa

Essay

Sectarianism after the Arab Spring

An Exaggerated Spectre

Barah Mikaïl, PhD

From Praetorian Guards to National Armies

The greatest service they [members of the officer corps] can render is to remain true to themselves, to serve with silence and courage in the military way. If they abjure the military spirit, they destroy themselves first and their nation ultimately.

—Samuel P. Huntington

After African independences, new political authorities made the army the ultimate symbol of sovereignty—as a means of ensuring defense and territorial integrity as well as a foundation for nation building. Soon, however, this military institution went astray and vitiated the process of building a state of law, stifling in various countries all forms of political, social, and economic service to the people. Drifting away from its traditional mission of preserving the sovereignty and integrity of the territory, the army insidiously imposed itself as an instrument of power. Bullets instead of elections became the safest and quickest method of gaining control of the state: the coup d’état as violence for founding a new order became the norm. It is symptomatic that in Africa a successful coup is almost always greeted with enthusiasm by people affected by the old order, deceived by the junta’s promises for democratization and development.

Several presidents came to power through a coup d’état. They know that without the loyalty of the military, their powers are ephemeral. Therefore, they spend considerable money on presidential security brigades and other elite troops, giving command of these forces to people close to them. These units consist of individuals from the same clan, ethnic group, or party. The army becomes a tool not only for conquest but also for keeping power; for protecting regimes, not states; and for generating corruption that permeates all levels of command. Thus, more than half a century after independence—and with the exception of a handful of countries with actual military capabilities—almost no African army can defend its own national territory. As an institution, the military loses its constitutional function of protecting citizens and becomes a quasi-private security force that protects a system from which it benefits—in effect becoming a praetorian guard. The civilian population, whose constitutional rights and duties give it control of the military, has often become both the object and victim of armed dictatorship. This reversal of roles has had disastrous consequences for the political stability and development of nations. The fact that even today some leaders of the security sector are ready to shoot unarmed civilians clearly confirms that they continue to think of their duty in terms of defending the regime in power rather than the constitution. Such a stance goes against the basic codes of military conduct and democratic standards.

Clearly, democratic control of the security sector is essential for the rule of law. This may differ from one state to another, but the goals and principles are the same—transparency and accountability. Throughout history, no state’s military has remained completely separate from the political structure, but the objective is to have real armies and security forces effective in fulfilling their constitutional duties, subject to civilian authorities and transparent governance. African countries are trying to restructure and professionalize their armies, police, and intelligence services; however, the reform of African armies begins with good governance by the states.

International partners have a substantial role to play in these reforms. Africa is not threatened by a military invasion from foreign countries; furthermore, it is unlikely that interstate wars will reoccur. Nevertheless, armies prepare for conventional wars by Western countries even though the real threat is terrorism. Military training must address terrorism, which is gaining ground in Africa. The substantial military aid to states that have no enemies other than their own people is one of the anomalies of international relations. Paradoxically, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the guarantor of peace and development—are responsible for the majority of weapons sales, directly or indirectly, to these states, regardless of how they are used. International partners should focus more, or at least as much, on educating African officers in governance and accountability than on their military education. More specifically, partnerships in security matters should favor the more democratic countries because they are more likely to contribute to regional stability. Finally, the rule of law: although some coups d’état against a dictatorial regime became popular and accepted by the people as well as the international community, they remain unconstitutional. There are no legitimate coups. Military intervention in some cases allows building a democratic civil authority by organizing elections after the coup, but it is wrong in principle because such intervention involves falling back into the unconstitutionality from which Africa must free itself.

Rémy M. Mauduit, Editor

Air and Space Power Journal–Africa and Francophonie

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Changing the Player, Not the Game

Ennahda’s Homo islamicus

Edward Webb, PhD*

We’ve adopted in our program a system of free social economy: the same system of the market but within the framework of justice and humanity, not the system of brutal markets. Yes, we encourage free initiatives, but within the framework of humanity.

—Rached El-Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda

Interviewed on Al Jazeera’s Empire, 13 November 2011

One understudied aspect of the politics of Tunisia’s dominant political party, Ennahda, is its approach to the monumental task of meeting revolutionary demands for a more equitable economic order, with greater prosperity shared by a wider part of the population.1 This stance reverses the concentration of wealth seen in the latter years of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s regime. This article is a preliminary attempt to situate Ennahda’s economic philosophy within a broader universe of Islamic or Islamist thought on economic issues. It also makes a tentative projection about a likely limitation on economic policy if Ennahda finds itself in power after the current transitional period. The basis for this projection is the track record of the employers’ association MÜSİAD and the labor union Hak-İş in Turkey, whose core ideology appears consonant with that of Ennahda.

To the extent that Ennahda articulates a distinctive economic philosophy, it is one that operates only at the individual level. Although it shares with many political movements of the global south a rhetoric of resistance to the hegemony of neoliberal globalization, it does not posit any coherent alternative. The main tool offered by Ennahda to ameliorate Tunisia’s economic hardships is Homo islamicus, a more virtuous economic actor who will be disciplined enough to refrain from corrupt practices and who will inspire workers to greater productivity by engaging them in culturally appropriate ways.

The Regional Historical

Conjuncture as Context for Economic Ideology

How are Islamist parties responding to economic demands of uprisings that propelled them to power? A first cut at that question by Ibrahim Saif and Muhammad Abu Rumman for the Carnegie Middle East Center in May 2012 found commonalities across several cases but noted that Tunisia’s Islamists’ approach to economic questions was already more developed than that of their counterparts in Egypt, Morocco, or Jordan.2 On the other hand, some observers, such as Khalil al-Anani, see little or no difference between how Islamists in power approach economic policy and the neoliberal policies of the fallen regimes:

While in the program of the Freedom and Justice Party one can notice the overuse of terms and language that are based on what has become to be known as “the Islamic economic system,” the actual economic policy applied by the Party on the ground is not much different from the capitalist practices that prevailed during the era of the former regime. . . .

This is also the case with Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, whose leaders never miss a chance to call for more capital, stimulation of the private sector, and engagement in economic partnership that is based on international free market principles and commitment to international conditions, in reference to economic liberalization programs, which are often applied at the expense of the poor and low-income people.3

Al-Anani is a critic of the Islamists, but he is far from alone in noticing an essential continuity of policy. Stephen Glain reported in the Washington Post that the “mercantilist sensibility” of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) means that it combines “patronage systems that provide food, education and health care to Egypt’s poor” with “an ancient laissez-faire tradition” that it traces to the birth of Islam.4

So is there in fact any significant difference between Islamists’ preferences and neoliberal capitalism? Al-Anani notes that the MB’s critique of the previous regime “does not stem from the fact that there is a structural flaw in the prevailing economic system, but on the fact that the problem lies in those who are in charge of it.”5 This remark allows an entry point for understanding where the two approaches part company: the distinction between liberalism’s Homo œconomicus and Islamism’s Homo islamicus.

The influential nineteenth century Islamic reformist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani had concerns about the individualism of modern subjectivity: “The quality of egoism consists of self-love to the point that if a personal profit requires a man having that quality to let the whole world be harmed, he would not renounce that profit but would consent to the harm of everyone in the world” (italics in original).6 Liberal individualism can appear simply as antisocial: rights-bearing individuals capable of choosing moral ends for themselves stand in contrast to the dutiful followers of divine discipline, for whom moral ends are already chosen exteriorly. We will see below how Ennahda’s discourse on the economy echoes al-Afghani.

The self-interested chooser who concerned al-Afghani was the Homo œconomicus who is the basis of classical liberal economic theory and the dominant global economic order today. Islamic thought might reject the notion of a human being who chooses his or her own moral ends and an ethical order built upon that foundation; nevertheless, Islamists’ economic orientations have considerable overlap with liberalism. The distinction comes, as the short quotation from al-Anani suggests, not from the approach to economic structures but the nature of the economic actor. The name of the Islamic actor is found in the subtitle of a publication produced by MÜSİAD, the Turkish Muslim employers’ association: “Homo Islamicus.”7

Before we discuss the nature of this being, we should note that a different conception of the actor implies at least the possibility that the structure within which he or she operates might also be different. Indeed, we learn from Ayşe Buğra that in MÜSİAD publications, “the rules set out by the prophet himself to guide the exchange activity in the Medina market are often discussed as rules which clearly define a competitive system with minimum state intervention and regulation. This system is different, however, from a pure market economy in that it is clearly embedded in social relations mediated by a religious morality” (emphasis added).8 So Homo islamicus as a concept always exists within Islamic society.9

Saif and Abu Rumman identify seven core economic principles expounded by MB founder Hassan al-Banna and, they argue, broadly influential among Islamists:

[1] approving licit earnings and describing them as ‘the foundation of life itself’; [2] declaring the inviolability of private property; [3] affirming the need to narrow the gap between social classes; [4] supporting a social safety net for all citizens; [5] making the state responsible for achieving ‘social balance’; [6] forbidding the exploitation of political influence to further private economic interests; and [7] proscribing illicit sources of revenue.10

Clearly such principles are incompatible with Leninism (point two) but could otherwise accommodate a range of political-economic arrangements from democratic socialism to liberal capitalism, except of the most doctrinaire libertarian variety (due to points four and five). So it appears that the main distinctions between Islamic and non-Islamic economic systems are moral ones, at the level of the society and of the individual actor embedded in that society.

Ennahda’s Economic Ideology

The key question facing Ennahda is how it responds to the demands of party members and other citizens for a way out of Tunisia’s economic crisis within the constraints imposed by the international context and consistent with its own core values. What, in practice, is the “system of free social economy”?

One might wish to analyze policies enacted since the troika government, in which Ennahda is the leading partner, came to power. However, these offer at best a partial indication of the party’s priorities because Ennahda is forced to make compromises due to being in a coalition. Furthermore, the transitional nature of the government has tended to make national unity and consensus higher priorities than would presumably be the case were Ennahda governing alone and in a regularly elected government.

We also need to be very aware of external constraints on policy making as an important filter between preferences and outcomes. The Ennahda-led government has repeatedly reassured investors and others that there would be no major shifts in either macroeconomic policy or social policies likely to have a negative effect on the crucial tourism sector, such as bans on alcohol or bikinis. These constraints would presumably be the same for any government of postrevolutionary Tunisia.

More generally, it is hard to assess the government’s economic decision making due to low levels of transparency. The 2012 Open Budget Survey awarded Tunisia a remarkably low score of 11/100, showing how little budget data it releases for public discussion.11 Leaked documents related to negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a standby arrangement show disparities between publicly announced figures for growth and the budget deficit and the figures shared with the fund: growth is reportedly 3.2 percent rather than 3.6 percent, and the budget deficit is 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) rather than 5.9 percent.12

Saif and Abu Rumman do summarize some proposed policies covering 2012–16, based on Ennahda’s 2011 election manifesto. The goal for GDP growth is set at 7 percent annually (it is less than half that currently), with unemployment planned to decrease from 14 percent in 2010 to around 8 percent by 2016 (in 2012 it declined from 18.1 to 16.7 percent).13 The unemployment reduction was to come through job training for university graduates and incentives for the private sector to provide job opportunities. The platform pledged a reduced tax burden on medium- and low-income groups. It planned to make Tunisia a financial hub by encouraging development of a modernized insurance market with an emphasis on Islamic insurance. It would combat corruption and reduce red tape, seek to revive the North African Union, and enhance Tunisia’s status vis-à-vis the European Union (EU). With the exception of the reference to Islamic insurance, there is little here to distinguish Ennahda from a secular party of the center-right. However, in a supplementary budget submitted to the Constituent Assembly in April, after a few months in power, the government of Hamadi Jebali revised growth estimates for the year down to 3.5 percent and asked for an increase in the budget of 2.5 billion dinars (about US $1 billion) for short-term Keynesian stimulus through expenditures on housing and infrastructure.14 The overall impression is one of pragmatism, with more reliance on state intervention in the economy than classical liberal economics might countenance.

Ennahda is routinely described as a moderate Islamist party, associated taxonomically with the MB in Egypt and its various offshoots as well as Turkey’s Justice and Development Party. But it is not identical to either of them, having a distinct organizational history and sociopolitical context. A crucial element in its identity (going back to its predecessor movements) is opposition to secularist leaders Habib Bourguiba and Ben Ali in Tunisia. This history, though, is not a straightforward one of binary opposition; nor was Ennahda alone in opposing the more dictatorial elements of Bourguiba’s reign and the police state that followed a brief “Tunisian Spring” in the late 1980s after Ben Ali’s coup of 1987. It sits amidst an array of reasonably effective liberal and leftist opposition groups—part of the reason Ennahda finds itself governing in coalition now, unlike the MB in Egypt before the Morsy government fell. It was brutally repressed—like the MB—but unlike the MB, Ennahda could not organize extensively in the 1990s and the past decade. The Egyptian group took over professional syndicates and ran for parliament as independents, whereas such opportunities were not open to Ennahda. The movement’s leader, Rached El-Ghannouchi, and many of his closest associates spent the past two decades in exile, in common with activists, journalists, and others from across Tunisia’s political spectrum. The limited amount of organizing took place underground; thus, when El-Ghannouchi and others returned after the fall of Ben Ali, they took charge of a movement that had generational splits in experience and ideology. They also quickly encountered more conservative religious political groups emerging alongside the longer-established liberals, leftists, and other forces, including the important nationalist trade union UGTT and the emerging neo-Bourguibist Nidaa Tounes party. In brief, Ennahda is part of a diverse political space in which it maintains a plurality of influence but in which it is vigorously challenged from several directions.

So what is Ennahda’s approach to the economy? Saif and Abu Rumman quote El-Ghannouchi: “I believe that we must adopt the form of social democracy practiced in Sweden and the other Scandinavian states. Economics must be dominated by social values, and not simply the aggressive forces of the free market.”15 At that level of generality, not much daylight appears between the Islamist leader and the liberal-left interim president of Tunisia, Moncef El Marzouki: “To believe that the market economy, liberal or neo-liberal, will pull Tunisians out of poverty is . . . a false and stale idea.”16

Ennahda answers economic challenges in a way that can be seen as distinctive compared to how a secular party might approach the same questions, doing so primarily at the level of the individual economic actor. Its answers, in common with those of the other regional Islamist actors discussed in Saif and Abu Rumman, reach to the early Islamic community for their justification. As shown here in discussion of a statement on economic policy posted on the party’s official website, Ennahda does not offer concrete proposals on macroeconomic issues so much as identify mechanisms whereby “Islam’s men” will

1. 1. act in an uncorrupt way;

2. 2. bridge the gap between the rulers and the people, and between employers and employees;

3. 3. attract trust and confidence; and

4. 4. empower people to be better economic agents through discipline (moral training).

This last point invites interesting comparisons to Max Weber’s argument in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and, less obviously perhaps, to the attempts to harness private religious morality to economic efficacy in the mid-twentieth-century educational programs of Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia itself, at least under Bourguiba.17 In essence, Ennahda’s claim here could be taken as saying that on the economic front, it will succeed where Bourguiba failed since its ideology is more consonant with the culture of the masses: disciplining through religion will work better than its secular educational counterpart.

What follows is an analysis of a policy document posted on Ennahda’s official website (one of two under the heading “Thought”): “On the Problematic of the Islamists’ Economic Program.”18 The document seems to be derived from writings or statements by El-Ghannouchi, but its authorship is not explicit. It is composed of seven “observations,” each elaborated upon at some length.

In its first observation, the document notes that previous governments hid correct information about the economy and that the struggle has focused on removing dictatorships. This is by way of explaining why Ennahda has not hitherto set out a comprehensive economic plan: the emphasis has been elsewhere, and the information has remained unavailable. It is not that Ennahda has anything to hide: “Discussing the Islamic economic program is not discussing a secret or magical project, as some adversaries of the Islamic solution spread around . . . nor is it a matter of a moral project, even though morals have some role in societies’ renaissances.”

The Islamic economic program is integrative, embedded in a context whose most relevant circles are the cultural, social, and political, working complementarily with them to provide citizens the necessities of their society—their becoming civilized (tamaddun) and their self-respect or dignity (3azzah). “It is impossible to separate the economy and politics, particularly these days: economic and political issues do not exist in a vacuum but originate in an organized human society related to moral ideals.” This echoes the summary of al-Banna offered by Saif and Abu Rumman.19

The second observation develops a notion of congruence between state and people: “A regime certainly cannot succeed if it conflicts with the ideals the people believe in.” It draws a contrast between this approach and what it describes as the rule elsewhere: “Most governments of the Islamic world do not know Islamic ideals and do not wish to get to know them.” It describes a widening gulf between “the state and economic elite on the one hand and the mass of the people on the other,” which deepens mistrust and hampers effective development.

The third observation is essentially a criticism of dominant approaches to economics in the second half of the twentieth century, as the global south achieved independence. It argues that development projects of right and left have failed, leading to deepening poverty and indebtedness.

The fourth observation draws a stark contrast, making an argument for Islam as a better alternative to other development frameworks. Islam is a complete system. Islamic civilization reached its height when Islam led the world in cultural, legal, and economic life: “Markets of this life side by side with markets of the next gave physical form to the Islamic precept joining the material to the spiritual.”20 Evocation of the “golden age,” common to Islamist discourse, is here tied directly to economic issues: “Islam is still the most important ingredient in the identity of the umma and the motor of its energies if it is put to work in development projects, as happened in the experience of Malaysia, Turkey and Indonesia.”21 Aside from these positive examples, the Islamic movement (treated as a singular entity) remains mostly in opposition while secularists are in government, so the movement cannot be blamed for shortfalls in the production of necessities.

The next section appears crucial to understanding the individual-level foundations of a distinctively Islamic approach. Given that Islam led society well,

it is natural that its men would be most capable of mobilizing our peoples in any development project and bridging the enormous abyss opened up by the Westernizing/estranging (taghriibiiyah) curricula between the ruling and cultural elite on the one hand, and the mass of the people on the other, which made the elite as if they were calling to it from a far place so that scarcely anything of their pronouncements and directions could reach.

So the difference is primarily ethical at the individual level (better men will run things better) and social (they speak the language of the culture). The next section develops both of these ideas with reference to success stories from elsewhere. It is noteworthy that in the absence of a track record, due to being frozen out of power for so long and persecuted, they can only point to the records of other Islamists elsewhere, naturally cherry-picking the best news. This can be a temporary strategy only: as in all performance-based legitimization strategies, they will sooner or later need to reproduce these successes on their own terrain in order to substantiate their analysis of what factors have worked elsewhere.

The fifth observation, then, discusses Turkey’s experience in economic reform. It also mentions the growing interest in Islamic banking worldwide, including the part of non-Islamic institutions such as Barclays and Citigroup, and studies in institutions around the world—including the West—on Islamic finance and economics (it refers to the United Kingdom’s Loughborough University as a center of such studies). Both theory and practice have developed. Islamic banking is internationally competitive, including competing successfully with interest-based banking. The document also cites successes in development within civil society rather than at the state level, noting that the MB took over the running of many professional syndicates in Egypt, proving itself effective in delivering services.

In many ways, Turkey is the trump card here, particularly in light of its strong economic performance over the past few years. The document draws a contrast between Turkey’s experience in reducing debt and unemployment on the one hand and “capitalism” on the other: “Their economy escaped the collapses that afflicted the capitalist economies, and there is no clear reason behind these successes apart from Islam, since it is the distinguishing factor.”

So how does Islam do its work in these instances? Through its people. Islamists study with secularists in the same universities, take the same subjects, but they do better in business because “firstly, their speech is closer to the broadest sectors of the masses.” Here again is the argument that they are similar in culture to those they must lead and manage—that they can inspire them, unlike the secularists who speak as if from a distance. The behavior of the Islamist inspires more trust than others. He is among the community, praying with them and so on. This is a clear benefit to business.

Moreover, only Islamists are said to have a very important developmental factor: Islam imposes modesty, makes doing right a duty and forbids doing wrong, and curbs waste and excess. “Islam is a moral training agent” that gives capacity for self-control—the ability to curb a tendency toward waste, conserving a share for the needs of all and allowing growth. It is a hedge against corruption. The document notes that Tunisia’s first postrevolutionary prime minister said corruption was a significant drag on growth, exacerbating unemployment. Turkey’s mid-1990s Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan and his followers are held up as an example of successfully setting their country on a path away from corruption and achieving positive economic results. Because of the externally imposed constraints of the law, believing Muslims will conduct themselves in ways conducive to successful development, in implied contrast to the egocentric Homo œconomicus. Economic policy, then, is about disciplining productive economic actors. “The economic program is not just plans, however precise and whatever their good points, as much as it is above all a humanitarian, cultural training project” (mashruu3 thaqaafii tarbawii insaanii). In other words, it is about human capital development through the discipline of divinely sanctioned productive behavior.

But here the document takes a turn toward something straight out of liberal development orthodoxy: “Governments, if they want any reform, must be logical [consonant?] with themselves and marry together economic freedom and political freedom,” for without that they will not be able to realize plenty for the people: “freedom is indivisible.” This idea is developed more in the following observation.

The sixth observation argues that what Islam said in the seventh century CE agrees with what liberalism said in the nineteenth century CE and since then on the indivisibility of rights, so long as there is “balance between the material, spiritual and creative needs of the individual, and he is considered part of a family and a group and human collectivity and in a necessary and fateful relationship with the environment,” contrasting this to capitalist and socialist development. It follows, then, that development needs planning, legislation, investment, education, professional training, and so forth. “But probably before all of that, it needs an encouraging political climate, a helpful psychological atmosphere, calm social circumstances, just laws,” making these the key tasks of revolutionary governments. Here one finds a notion of substantive democracy, perhaps an echo of Amartya Sen’s influential work in which he argues that political development and economic development are essentially indivisible, that the goal of increasing the freedom and capabilities of individuals cannot be served effectively by a narrow focus on economic growth but must be approached holistically: “Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states.”22 The section is summarized as arguing for “democracy in its broad and complete sense, such that political life is transparent and clear, in which every individual, establishment, organization, and entity knows its place and its limits and its rights, and economic life and productive activities are likewise.” Although it is not enough on its own to produce goods and so forth, it is nevertheless indispensible that “an atmosphere of seriousness, trust, faith, and confidence reign in society.”

The seventh observation moves to populism or, at least, majoritarianism.23 Economic policy should be determined by what the majority of the people want, through transparent processes. Other routes “threaten balance and social peace, destroy a society’s institutions and the environment and throw the country into civil war or the edge of it.” To illustrate those other routes, the document recalls that dictatorships in most Arab states received Western support if they pursued structural adjustment under pressure from international financial institutions, even where this led to states of emergency, announced or not, and annulment of national or syndicate elections—“to facilitate the workings of international capitalist policies, crushing the hopes of peoples for independent development on behalf of the peoples and their freedoms and emancipation from dependence.” As at the global level, hegemony must be resisted, so a key task is to “end the hegemony of the state over society” and “to rebalance between state and society in favor of the latter.”

The piece ends in a burst of rhetoric (“economic work sees rebirth in the context of a complete renaissance, guaranteeing the liberation of the individual and society from state hegemony and from the greed of the globalist capitalist dragon”) and commitment to helping the poor, uneducated, and others. Finally, it offers a hadith about the Caliph Umar, reminding us of the duty to provide work and care for workers.

In summary, we do not see here any commitment to systematic redistribution but a plan for the remoralization of the economy at the individual level. If El-Ghannouchi wants social democracy, this statement does not offer a road map. It is long on the rhetoric of rejection of neoliberal globalization, along with broad criticism of both capitalism and socialism, but says almost nothing about macroeconomic alternatives. Rather, it is an argument that liberal economics work better when led by moralized agents embedded within a society whose language they speak and whose mores are theirs. The external discipline of religious law and divine sanctions against wrongdoing makes economic actors less wasteful, immune to the temptations of corruption, and harmonious with others in their society. It is a deeply idealistic vision.

Projections:

One Observation Based on Turkey’s Experience

One must be very cautious in making analogies between Turkey’s experience and likely future directions in Tunisia. However, there are some good reasons to do so. First, Ennahda itself clearly looks to Turkey as an inspiration and in some degree a model. Moreover, the commonalities of experience vis-à-vis the international context are important: both have crucial ties to the EU, in contrast to the more arms-length relationship between Egypt and the EU, for instance. So far, the troika government led by Ennahda shows every sign of maintaining emphasis on that relationship. Evidence from a number of domains indicates that the prospect of membership has imposed a salutary discipline on Turkish reform efforts. That degree of engagement is not in prospect soon, if ever, for Tunisia; nevertheless, the desire to increase access to the EU’s markets can serve as a powerful incentive to become a cooperative partner, indicating that a shift away from broadly liberal macroeconomic approaches is unlikely.

A thorough consideration of the trajectory of Turkey’s Islamist economic actors and ideas lies beyond the scope of this article. Studies of two key institutions, though, suggest where an economic philosophy built around Homo islamicus might lead. Buğra studied the most important Islamist business association and labor union in Turkey. She noted that Hak-İş and MÜSİAD share in an “Islamic politics of recognition.”24 Both criticize Turkey’s past statist model, but “a pure market society characterized by the ‘disembeddedness’ of the economy from society is not considered to be viable and desirable by either association.”25 She makes a persuasive case for the growing success of the two organizations since the 1980s due to their harmony with local and global economic trends:

Such traditional values comfortably fit in the information society which is characterized by the increasingly significant economic role of small and medium sized enterprises and, on the cultural plane, family values and religion contrast to large scale, capital-intensive enterprises, highly interventionist welfare state practices and a rationalist/positivist outlook which characterize Western industrial society.26

This all seems of a piece with Ennahda’s orientation as analyzed above. But the two organizations do not exist entirely harmoniously. From the perspective of the bosses’ organization, Islam suggests “a model where workers’ rights and entitlements, as well as responsibilities, are determined by informal and personal relations as opposed to redistributive/associative principles”—a patriarchal or patrimonial model of reciprocal relations, in other words.27 The leaders of Hak-İş, on the other hand, “do not at all share MÜSİAD’s enthusiasm for the East Asian model of ‘embedded economy’, which, according to them, is based on an authoritarian, undemocratic political system. The emphasis of flexibility that one finds in MÜSİAD’s agenda, too, is replaced by Hak-İş’s call for economic relations based on formal rules and regulations.”28

In their complementary study of 2005, Burhanettin Duran and Engin Yıldırım examine the evolution of Hak-İş’s positions over time. Until the early 1990s, the “basic tenet of Hak-İş was the principle of the commonality of employer and employee interests on the basis of Muslim brotherhood. Hak-İş declared that conflict between labour and capital was artificial because labour and capital complement each other.”29 Although labor relations are not discussed directly in the Ennahda document, this seems broadly consonant with its picture of economic relations built around Homo islamicus. However, the experience of trying to advocate effectively for workers within an Islamic framework has proven frustrating to the leaders of Hak-İş, including the times when their antagonists were members of MÜSİAD. The leadership is careful not to appear to be developing a class-based rhetoric or ideology, but frustration is clear in some of the quotations:

Muslims do not seem to be interested in problems of labour. Some Muslims see the cause of all problems in the lack of moral values, but the answer should not be to present traditional Islamic morality. Muslims should understand the question of class, and side with the poor. The powerful and the oppressor exploit sources of rızk by using the political and economic privileges Allah donated for the poor and the oppressed. Those who do not recognize workers’ rights are against God.30

They found that “approaching workers from a purely moralistic standpoint was not sufficient. Hak-İş had to imitate tactics of other unions if it was to survive. It was forced to recognize the reality of conflicting interests between workers and employers,” leading it to move away from a paternalist mode and toward an articulation of rights in universalist terms.31 Relations with the EU and the prospect, eventually fulfilled, of integration into Europe-wide labor organizations provided a further spur. Ultimately the authors credit the union with a key role in developing a democracy-friendly discourse within Turkish Islamism: “Hak-İş leaders have been articulating their arguments in universal terms since the early 1990s. It has been forced to reconsider democracy and secularism as universal values rather than regarding them as western products. Hak-İş leadership correctly judged that their fortunes were closely tied to the strengthening of democracy.”32

This is by no means automatically a cautionary tale for Ennahda. Democracy has already been incorporated into its discourse since the 1990s at least.33 However, relations between the two Islamist economic organizations, as well as their differing conceptions over time of what Islam requires of them, suggest that idealism about the invigorating potential of Homo islamicus as an economic project must be tempered by recognition that both the strong tidal pull of global and European liberalism and the concrete reality of class relations may act as constraints on its ability to promote an alternative, harmonious model of efficient and just development.

Conclusion:

Possible Future Directions of Ennahda’s Economic Policies

Ennahda’s priorities since coming to power as part of a transitional coalition have called for completing the process of writing a constitution and positioning itself well for future electoral competition while keeping the economy ticking over. Once elections take place for a nontransitional government—and if Ennahda is as successful as seems likely—we will see more clearly how it attempts to implement the vision articulated by El-Ghannouchi of free markets “within the framework of humanity.” The policy document analyzed here suggests that there will be little change at the macroeconomic level to the neoliberal approach pursued over the past decades but that an Ennahda government would seek to emulate Turkey in curbing corruption and more generally remoralizing economic life by promoting individual virtue. If the experience of Turkey’s Islamist organizations is a guide—and perhaps recent protests against commercialism and overdevelopment in Istanbul and elsewhere point in the same direction—the external discipline of piety may be insufficient to overcome or even disguise the harsh competition of material interests.

*The author is an assistant professor of political science and international studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in oriental studies from Cambridge University and an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He served in the British Diplomatic Service in the 1990s, including several years in Cairo. His research and teaching interests are mainly in the politics of the Middle East and North Africa, including authoritarianism, media and politics, and the politics of education, particularly in Tunisia, Turkey, and Egypt.

Notes

1. The name of the Renaissance Party is transliterated in several ways. I have fairly arbitrarily settled on this one, following the practice of some Western news outlets.

2. Ibrahim Saif and Muhammad Abu Rumman, The Economic Agenda of the Islamist Parties (Washington, DC: Carnegie Middle East Center, May 2012), http://carnegieendowment.org/files/islamist_econ.pdf.

3. Khalil al-Anani, “Islamists in Power Adopt Economics of Old Regimes,” translated from Al-Hayat, 22 August 2012, Al-Monitor, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2012/08/islamist-in-society-neoliberal-in-the-economy.html.

4. Stephen Glain, “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Adopting Caution on Economic Matters,” Washington Post, 24 January 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-24/world/35438204_1_muslim-brotherhood-tea-party-new-parliament.

5. Al-Anani, “Islamists in Power.”

6. Quoted in Michael J. Thompson, “Islam, Rights, and Ethical Life: The Problem of Political Modernity in the Islamic World,” Theoria 57, no. 123 (June 2010): 112–13.

7. Ayşe Buğra, “Labour, Capital, and Religion: Harmony and Conflict among the Constituency of Political Islam in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies 38, no. 2 (April 2002): 194.

8. Ibid.

9. The possible consequences of this for migrant communities are intriguing but outside the concerns of this article.

10. Saif and Abu Rumman, Economic Agenda, 4.

11. Clark Kampfe, “International Report Shows Poor Budget Transparency in Tunisia,” Tunisia Live, 2 February 2013, http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/02/02/international-report-shows-poor-budget-transparency-in-tunisia/.

12. Salma Bouzid, “Leaked Details of IMF Loan Throw Government Transparency in Doubt,” Tunisia Live, 29 March 2013, http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/03/29

/leaked-documents-on-imf-loan-raise-questions-of-transparency/.

13. Saif and Abu Rumman, Economic Agenda, 6–7; and “Tunisia Unemployment Rate,” Trading Economics, 2013, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/tunisia/unemployment-rate.

14. Saif and Abu Rumman, Economic Agenda, 6–8.

15. Ibid., 6, quoting an interview in Al-Hayat, 4 January 2012.

16. “Tunisia Needs New Economic Model to End Poverty: President,” Ahram Online, 30 March 2013, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/68058/World/Region/Tunisia-needs-new-economic-model-to-end-poverty-Pr.aspx.

17. See Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); and Edward Webb, “The ‘Church’ of Bourguiba: Nationalizing Islam in Tunisia,” Sociology of Islam 1, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 17–40.

18. Ennahda, accessed 22 October 2013, http://www.nahdha.tn/.

19. Saif and Abu Rumman, Economic Agenda, 4.

20. This section contains a historical mistake or, at least, an odd interpretation. It says that the victors of the First World War demanded that Turkey abolish the caliphate and shariah as part of the Lausanne Treaty negotiations. Those steps were taken independently in the first few years of the Turkish Republic by the Westernizing elite led by Mustafa Kemal, later Atatürk.

21. The umma is the community of all Muslims.

22. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 3.

23. One wonders whether the downfall of Egypt’s MB government, driven in part by resistance to its majoritarian rather than inclusive approach to governance, will cause a reconsideration of this aspect of Ennahda’s thinking. Thus far, Ennahda has expressed solidarity with the MB and condemnation of the coup that removed it.

24. Buğra, “Labour, Capital, and Religion,” 189.

25. Ibid., 192.

26. Ibid., 194.

27. Ibid., 195.

28. Ibid., 200.

29. Burhanettin Duran and Engin Yıldırım, “Islamism, Trade Unionism and Civil Society: The Case of Hak-İş Labour Confederation in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies 41, no. 2 (March 2005): 232.

30. Ibid., 238. Rızk is daily bread, sustenance.

31. Ibid., 243.

32. Ibid.

33. See Azzam Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Building Bridges or Barricades

Considering Ethnic Identities in Africa

Temisanren Ebijuwa, PhD*

Any contemporary discourse in Africa that undermines the postcolonial dimension in the explication of its experiences will run against that continent’s historiography. Postcolonial experiences here concern the activities of interrelated periods that, in concert, determine and shape the future and destiny of the African people, both within the continent and in the diaspora. The periods identified in this article include the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. Any discussion of the African condition without due recognition of the interrelated activities of these periods will obviously be wrongheaded. Therefore, the arguments in this work take into account the events of these periods and the way they have generated disappointment, frustration, despair, and, consequently, parochial identities in Africa today.

The article attempts to analyze the factors that, in concert, have contributed to multiple crises in the African sociocultural and political landscape. The most devastating of these—the political—concerns the inability to evolve a viable system suitable for the management of daily social experiences. This failure has produced many other problems in other spheres that have made the atmosphere in Africa one of frustration, which is largely responsible for the many crises of adversarial politics.

Truly, this has enabled the affirmation of parochial identities and ethnic strife to the detriment of the rather transcendental national identity in contemporary African states. But why have the affirmation of sectional identities and the attendant conflicts remained daunting, intricate, and resilient in spite of attempts to create a higher culture to transcend them? Why has the myth of common ancestry, religion, and tribes, among other primordial attachments, become the reason for sociopolitical alliances and thus the basis for the affirmation of narrow identities in contemporary Africa?

It is pertinent to examine these questions today, if only to offer an appropriate perspective to understanding the nature of Africa’s present sordid condition and how we reached this level of our predicament. The fact is that unless we know the real nature of our problems, we may not be able to provide appropriate solutions to them. Many have described the African state as one on the verge of collapse and in the same breath have considered the present generation of Africans failures. All of this results from the fact that African political leaders and their followers cannot manage themselves, their societies, and their resources. The question is, why are things falling apart in Africa?

This article asks these questions in a way usually ignored by scholars who have dwelled on African crises. They have done so because of their belief that the resources in ideas, techniques, and, in some respect, values offered by certain traditions may not suffice to explicate or unearth the complexities of the nature of the African predicament. That is, sometimes whatever we do may be controlled by—or at least affected by—our assumptions although most of the time, we are unaware of them.

We need to seek a local solution to African problems since they have become resilient in spite of the several attempts to address them. Such a solution is based upon the fact that cultural values do not operate in vacuum but are tied to other presuppositions in the society that can be understood and measured only after we have laid bare the systems of knowledge, values, and symbols that structure the minds of the people in Africa. The point here is the promotion of an understanding of African belief systems through the exposition of their logical structures and the assumptions on which they stand. This would explain that our values depend on certain societal beliefs and practices that provide the framework within which human experience is interpreted. In view of this fact and, in particular, the role that culture plays in the organization of our social and political lives, the application of external solutions in mediating African crises may be the reason for the daunting nature of the problems. What, then, is the local solution to this African predicament? Before proceeding, however, we must gain some insight into how these problems—especially ethnic crises—arise.

The Evolution of Ethnic Conflicts

In the discourse about African crises, the issue of ethnic conflict easily comes to mind. According to the literature, the cause of ethnic strife in Africa is the continent’s sociocultural configuration or the divisive tendency of ethnic or tribal plurality. Chris Uroh says that this tendency is the product of the way ethnocultural groups, as a result of colonialism, have become chaotically crammed within the various African states—a situation that has brought Africa to the boiling point. Against this background is the view that the divisive structure of ethnic groups is one of the several manifestations of a more fundamental problem on the sociopolitical landscape in Africa.1 This view presupposes that ethnic conflict in Africa is a product of the failure of African states to justify their existence by pursuing the common good of the people. That is to say, because the state has failed to meet its obligation, citizens must seek social fulfilment in their primordial enclaves.

This article addresses the development of these two dominant views on the question of ethnic conflicts in Africa. That is, regardless of the way we may want to look at these opposing views, they do not undermine the existence of diverse ethnic groups and the fact that from time to time, they come into conflict with one another. Our concern is not with the problem of what has been identified as regime legitimation but with how, in spite of the diversity of ethnic groupings and their attendant conflicts, we can harmonize our differences and live like brothers.2 Only after we have effectively managed our differences can the question of the legitimacy of the state become meaningful. Even if the state is responsive to the common good of the people, because of the sociocultural differences in African societies, social relations will not eliminate ethnic conflicts. In other words, “because our societies comprise a multitude of religions, ethnic groups with competing interests, values and needs, conflict is inevitable and natural to most societies.”3 If conflict is inevitable in this sense, then “the challenge is how to develop within African political processes, institutions and cultures that can mediate these competitions, peacefully, routinely, in a way that does not plunge our society into the spiral of conflict and violence.”4 This is because stable societies throughout the world are not those without conflicts but those that can manage them in stable ways. But how can we routinely and peacefully mediate ethnic conflict in Africa? We return to this question in the latter part of the article but now consider an explanation of how these conflicts come about.

It is significant to note from the outset that conflicts are inevitable and natural to all human societies as long as we are constituted differently and our attitudes and behaviors are shaped by our geographical and social systems. No doubt, many answers to how conflicts are generated in Africa vie for attention. This study concerns itself with what we may call the colonial dimension in the African predicament and its implications for social solidarity.

The Colonial Dimension in Africa’s Predicament

Undoubtedly, ideas vary regarding the structures and institutions bequeathed to us by our colonizers. Some have suggested that ethnic crises in Africa are not a product of the way ethnic groups were chaotically crammed into African states as a result of colonial conquest.5 To assert the above is to say that there is something inherently conflictual about social or cultural pluralism.6 Some culturally plural societies do not have crises or are not as crisis-ridden as those we find in Africa (e.g., Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, etc.). Nevertheless, it is equally misleading in the sense that if we examine the issue in this light, we are likely to overlook the intention of colonizers concerning state formation and its implication for social cohesion. For Olusegun Oladipo, with regard to state formation, the colonizers combined the “territories of formally distinct people to form colonial territories.”7 Eme Awa notes that “the colonial systems and the political processes of both the pre-and-post-independence era turned the normal cultural differences into debilitating ethnic cleavages. Poorly formulated and inefficiently executed economic policies over the past 50 years caused the retardation of certain areas and thereby tended to aggravate tension along ethnic lines in many countries.”8 The colonizers did this because they needed to separate the spheres of influence of different European rulers.9 That is, the colonizers did not seek to create new states in the colonies for social and economic development; rather, as Oladipo observes, the demarcation was meant to “ensure colonial control and dispossession could be achieved without undue rivalry among colonizers.”10 Hugh Clifford, Nigeria’s colonial governor in the 1920s, also attests to the fact that the ideas of the “cramming together of territories of formally distinct people to form colonial territories was deliberate policy of the colonizers.” He told the members of the National Council for British West Africa that he was “convinced of the rights, for example, of the people of Egbaland . . . of any of the great emirates of the north . . . to maintain that each one of them is a nation . . . (and that) it is the task of the government of Nigeria to build and fortify these national institutions.”11

The above indicates the colonizers’ recognition of the differences of the many ethnic groups they jammed together, the implication of which was the dispossession of people having those values and practices that hitherto had served as vehicles for social identity and solidarity. According to Yaya Abubakar, this situation is “characterized by the total collapse of moral consciousness or what he calls the result of a deep contamination of the original human-centered African communal philosophy, which unavoidably led to a continuous decay of the African sociopolitical framework that is now aggravated by exponential decline in economic viability.”12 This “cultural and social dispossession” put the “people of the colonies under a form of control that prevented them from questioning colonial practices and the assumptions on which they were based.”13 For the colonialists, to do the contrary would “mould one citizenry from the many people,” which would amount to the “formulation of policies geared towards development of a new consensus among the various peoples they brought together to form new colonial territories.”14 The colonizers were not prepared to accept this option because it could eventually be used to question the legitimacy of their authority. Hence, the colonizers adopted the divide-and-rule system in their territories, which sufficiently disunited the people in their colonies. Again, Governor Clifford presented this point when he said that his administration would seek to secure “to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality, its chosen form of government, and the peculiar political and social institutions, which have been evolved for it by the wisdom and the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers.”15 This emphasis on the separation of ethnic groups created a new sense of communal consciousness and identity for the people where none existed and provided a new symbolic and ethnocentric focus for each group. This, of course, not only complicated the task of molding diverse elements in each colony into a coherent whole but also became the “source of many life threatening conflicts, which were to proliferate, and consequently impede the process of community development and social solidarity, in many African countries, a few decades after independence.”16 We have examples of these conflicts in states like Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Zaire, Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, among others. In all, we can say that the divide-and-rule mechanism adopted by the European colonizers widened the social distance among the communal groups, consequently reinforcing the ethnocentric factor in the emergence of ethnicity.

Although colonialism as a system was exploitative and oppressed the African people and their resources, it also formed a bourgeoisie class in Africa in the form of nationalists whose policies and activities are partly the source of ethnic conflicts in Africa. When many African states gained independence, the nationalists who took over the mantle of leadership from the colonialists not only were “interested in replacing Europeans in leading positions of power and privileges” but also created opportunities for themselves and their cronies, enabling them to plunder the states’ resources and reserving existing opportunities and benefits in the states for themselves and people from their ethnic or tribal enclaves.17 As Nzongola-Ntalaja poignantly observes in The Crisis in Zaire, “It is the national ruling class itself that constitutes the principal obstacle to economic growth and development through the privatisation of the state, depriving it of those essential means and capabilities within which to generate economic growth [and] improve the living conditions of the masses.”18 Mobutu Sese Seko is one of those who plundered the economy of his state for personal gain: “Since he came to power, Mobutu has been alleged to hold about US $4 billion in a numbered Swiss Bank account he owns. Documentary evidence of the extent of corruption also attested to the fact that Mobutu, his family and friends own twenty-six extensive properties in Belgium and France.”19

In Nigeria, the story is not completely different from that of Mobutu. For a very long time, the North used its control of the seat of power to promote itself by the initiation and execution of policies and programs that secured key positions in the politico-economic spheres of the country. This move was supported by the much-disputed “Federal Character” clause in the 1979 constitution (section 14[3]a), meant to regulate any imbalance in the distribution of opportunities and benefits. The Nigerian situation, however, was unlike that in the United States where the principles of affirmative action were designed to compensate certain groups of people because of wrongs suffered in the past. Specifically, no group wronged another, and, as Peter Bodunrin declares, there were no victims of past discriminatory government or social policies by any other group. Here, we have no guilty group normally bound to make reparation for past misdeeds.20 Hence, to use the principle of the Federal Character clause to distribute opportunities and benefits as it is being done in Nigeria generates confusion in the sense that those not so placed or represented in the scheme of things inevitably feel alienated from and thus completely lack confidence in the state. Consequently, the state becomes derelict in its responsibility to citizens insofar as it cannot provide for their common good, and they gradually withdraw into their tribal or ethnic enclaves for social fulfilment. This withdrawal is occasioned by the conscious or sentimental connection of the people to their values, especially their communal way of life. When individuals recoil into their ethnic enclaves, we can then say that the “moral bond” that tied the citizens to the state—the real basis upon which the state could justify its power over them—has been weakened if not cut entirely.21 The state is no longer at ease, things have really fallen apart, and a kind of social dislocation has occurred.

In this circumstance, frustration, mutual distrust, and complete hatred become the order of the day. What follows is a complete disregard for the state, which becomes an arena of ethnic conflicts where social relationships can no longer produce “important common goals, interests and values in terms of which a sense of neighbourliness can be developed among them and national identity forged.”22

If the foregoing discussion of the social predicament of the African state is valid, then Africa’s current situation is one of uncertainty and despair. Thus, the question becomes, how do we generate these important common goals, interests and values that will lead to the evolution of national identity that transcends primordial attachments and other forms of sociopolitical alliances?

Beyond Ethnic Identities: Local Solutions

We must attempt to create a higher culture that transcends these plural identities. Central to the realization of the needs and interests of diverse groups is the healthy harmonization of the differences of all ethnic groups in Africa by allowing equal representation not only in decision making but also in the distribution of benefits and opportunities—what Kwasi Wiredu calls “formal representation.”23 This in itself, however, can also engender disaffection among the groups because one group will probably “place any one group of persons consistently in position of minority whose right to representation is periodically violated.”24 Here, representation in the decision-making body as we find in Western democracy cannot guarantee healthy relationships without ensuring representation of the will of the representatives in decision making. To do so, we must shift our platform of discourse.

Such a shift discourages the pursuit of individual or group interests through the oppression and exploitation of others. This is a type of consensual democracy, to use Wiredu’s terms, in which opinions of all the ethnic groups in the state can be harmonized. We may not be able to arrive at this form of consensus without the existence of a democratic atmosphere that will ensure the full representation of all ethnic groups. Here, we are not referring to the Western type of democracy in which the number game is highly prized. The conception of democracy that emphasizes majority rule constantly puts some groups “periodically to be substantively unrepresented minorities.”25 Thus, rather than promoting cooperation among ethnic groups, this form of democratic arrangement generates conflicts and disaffection among them.

The following approach, which follows Wiredu’s, reflects a shift from the Western model of democracy because the latter is inadequate and at variance with African democratic aspirations. The Western democratic tradition does not square properly with Africa’s “specific historical institutional forms of democratic practice.”26 Is there anything wrong, for example, with our devising creatively new institutional forms and practices relevant to African political experiences yet imbibing the values and principles of democracy? For example, it is possible for us to accept the necessity of pluralism without necessarily adopting the criteria for differentiating between the pluralities. The idea here is to say that we can conceptualize political formation that can be based on tribal or ethnic groups, communities, or nationalities rather than political parties. To say that political parties are in the interest of national solidarity, political security, and progressive consciousness flies in the face of the fact that African societies are notable for their primary group loyalty and multinationalities.

The problem one can imagine from this is whether such social formations are sources of social cleavages or group solidarity and potential conflict, especially since political elites can exploit them for their self-centered goals. One cannot dismiss the possibility of this problem. Yet, to ignore such important social pluralism is problematic for Africa’s sociopolitical development because it cannot be mediated if we do not see these formations as vehicles of political expression. Of course, to overlook it may elicit some form of “anomic interest articulation, communal violence and centrifugal tendencies” as we find in many African states today.27 Hence, any viable democratic arrangement for the resolution of conflicts in Africa must reflect the sociocultural and historical realities of its societies. As Wiredu suggests, we require a democratic framework based on the consensus practiced in many traditional African settings—for instance, the Akan of Ghana. By consensus, we mean “a condition in which two or more persons or group(s): concerned with decisions . . . about which conflict might occur, are in appropriate agreement in their belief about what decision should be made and have some feeling of unanimity with each other and with the society as a whole.”28 This idea of consensus presupposes, among other things, the “original position of diversity” or disagreement.29 The essence of the practice of democratic consensus is to transcend conflicting positions in such a way that all the parties involved in a dispute “are able to feel that adequate account has been taken of their point or view in any proposed scheme of future action of co-existence.”30

From the foregoing, we can identify two advantages of this form of political system based on consensus. First, the democratic arrangement must be representative of all such opinions. Second, since all ethnic groups will be duly represented, decisions made through “dialogic confrontation,” to use Mikhail Bakhtin’s phrase, will be based on consensus. Adopting this framework ensures that in “working out solutions in a situation of conflict of opinions or disagreement, account should be taken of all the interests involved.”31 Doing so “smoothes the edges” or sorts out differences to arrive at what Ali Mazrui calls shared images.32 This is possible, Mazrui says, because images grow, are modified, and interconnect with other images through what he refers to as rational discourse. In other words, through rational discourse we arrive at something suitable for everyone.

Suitable does not necessarily mean what everyone consents to but what is considered existentially beneficial through dialogue and mutual agreement among the parties in dispute. In this way, the agreement of all parties makes it impossible to exclude a minority in the process of decision making, as can occur in a multiparty system. Anke Graness writes that this practice secures a “substantial representation of interest” of members in a dispute.33

As mentioned earlier, basing decision making in plural societies on majority opinions places some people permanently out of the scheme of things, invariably leading to the imposition of majority views on minority ethnic groups and denying them basic needs, opportunities, and benefits. This majoritarian kind of decision making is responsible for the well-known inclemency of adversarial politics in Africa, such as the Niger Delta crisis in Nigeria. The minority ethnic groups in the Niger Delta, which includes a substantial amount of the country’s oil wealth, suffer socioeconomic and ecological problems because those who wield political power have neglected the “goose that lays the golden egg.” The powerful majority groups use their position to exploit the offices of the state rather than transform it. In spite of the palliatives of amnesty, this situation can hardly ameliorate the suffering of the people in the means of plenty, instead producing a kind of alienation that destroys the foundation of any social solidarity.

The point, then, of the management of ethnic conflicts through consensus is to eliminate the problem inherent in the practice of keeping some people or groups permanently out of schemes designed to resolve conflicts in which they are involved. Put differently, any state that adopts this principle of consensual democracy in the resolution of ethnic conflicts stands to benefit because doing so would ensure that all the “voices” of the diverse groups would be heard. Moreover, such a conversation (not confrontation), to use John Rawls’s phrase, would facilitate a unanimous decision. Here, “unanimity and all the rigorous processes and compromises that lead to it are all efforts made to contain the wishes . . . of the majority and the minority ethnic groups in the state.”34 In fact, it is designed to arrive at the “general will of the people in conflicts.”35 In other words, consensus becomes desirable not as a means through which the majority imposes its will on others but as the “process of regulating normal life among brothers.”36

Since our consensual model of democracy presupposes a situation in which claims and counterclaims can be heard, thereby resolving conflicting claims in a nonviolent manner, such a democratic arrangement is characterized by undistorted communication among the participants as well as tolerance of each other’s views. Furthermore, participants in this arrangement deliberate on issues under a condition of equal advantage. The fact that representatives of ethnic groups are equal, at least in terms of their status in the course of discussions, provides an opportunity for fair deliberation, the outcome of which will likely prove acceptable to all parties involved. Decisions can be reached through voting by all representatives. Wiredu emphasizes that the idea of voting should not be confused with the decision-making principle of the supreme right of the majority because that “consensus as a decision procedure requires, in principle, that each representative should be persuaded, if not of the optimality of each decision, at least of its practical necessity, all things considered.”37

This is to say, the parties whose views do not prevail come to understand the reasoning of those whose views are accepted. The latter “prevail upon them to accept the decision arrived at, not just to live with it.”38 This is not a case of the oppression of weak groups by the strong but a case of one group convincing the other to see the practical necessity of its points. Decisions made through rational conversation of this sort would enjoy the support of all ethnic groups because the whole process involves every representative operating under a condition of equal advantage and tolerating all shades of opinion in decision making. In fact, we can say that the decision reached is the whole and that the contributions of all stakeholders are the parts—the totality of the ideas. This view can be equated with postmodernist absolutes or metanarratives, for experience has shown that such totalizing views marginalize only certain cultures or sectors within a culture that holds such metanarratives. Wholeness, therefore, is simply a standpoint or a reference point in which various views about the issue at stake are perceived as interconnected and interdependent. They are not joined by a single metanarrative but by common human concerns with family semblance among them. We can depict this wholeness metaphorically: “The universe [can be] . . . described as a vast net, and at each junction where the meshes meet sits a jewel. Each jewel reflects the light of all the jewels around it; and all of those jewels reflect others around them. In this way, the whole universe of jewels is ultimately reflected in every single jewel.”39

Conditions for the Practical Realization of Agreement

What are the conditions for the practical realization of this form of wholeness? To put it in another way, what are the conditions that will create the atmosphere for a sustainable consensus of ideas? We stated earlier that the idea of rational consensus presupposes the existence of disagreement and that the resolution of this disagreement involves an encounter between the parties in dispute who are willing to transcend their differences to a position of consensus. Such an encounter cannot exist when one party dominates the other. In this dialogic situation, no privileged opinion can exist; rather, all opinions are subject to rigorous deliberation until the terms of truth are accepted: “Dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one party depositing ideas in another.”40 As an act that denounces the relation of domination, dialogue is a task of responsible people who operate in an arena of freedom.

Besides the issue of freedom to express one’s view, dialogue as the common task of transcending differences cannot exist without humility or what Francis Deng calls the “reaching out” principle in his essay “Reaching Out: A Dinka Principle of Conflict Management.” If a party considers itself over and above the other(s) or believes that it has a monopoly on knowledge or truth, that party will manipulate the discourse to its own advantage. For example, If I am tormented and disturbed by the possibility of being displaced or if I am close to and even offended by the contribution of others, how can there be dialogue? In an atmosphere of dialogue, we must develop the attitude of tolerance while admitting the possibility that previously held views can change. Note Deng’s discussion of the Missiriya Arab tribes of southern Kordofan in Western Sudan:

Chief Babo Nimir told of a peace conference between his tribe and the Rezeigat, another Arab tribe in the western province of Darfur. A Missiriya had killed a man from Rezeigat. According to the Missiriya custom, blood wealth was thirty head of cattle, while among the Rezeigat, it was one hundred. Negotiations on the price were deadlocked. “We spent that whole day without result.” Babo Namir reports, . . . “We spent the night. The following morning, we withdrew and reviewed our position. I was the one who spoke with the Mamour. I said, ‘Here we are, stuck at 30. Our position, I believe, is wrong. We are basing our argument on our own custom within our tribe. Conflicts within one tribe are not the same as conflicts between separate tribes.’ ” His position moderated the demands of the Rezeigat and a compromise was reached at 70 cows, with one bull for the burial cloth, setting a precedent at 71 cows.41

This resolution does not rest only on the humility of the Missiriya tribe; the principle of reaching out is a bridging function that involves magnanimity and generosity rather than weakness.

In addition to the above, dialogue requires an intense faith in one another. Without initial faith in the possibility of transcending our differences, there can be no dialogue. Faith in one another “is an a priori requirement for dialogue: the dialogical man believes in other men even before he meets them face to face.”42 Founding itself on freedom, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between discussants is the logical consequence. It would amount to a contradiction in terms if dialogue based on freedom, humility, and faith does not create the atmosphere of mutual trust that will eliminate the imposition of ideas. As Paulo Freire puts it, “Trust is contingent in the evidence which one party provides the others of his true, concrete intention; it cannot exist if any party’s words do not coincide with his actions. To say one thing and do another to take one’s word lightly cannot inspire trust.”43 Whereas faith in one another is an a priori requirement for dialogue, mutual trust is established by dialogue. Without these conditions, we cannot talk of any meaningful dialogue.

It is important to note that these conditions are given expression in different cultural settings in Africa. For example, the concepts of Ubuntu in the Zulu language of South Africa, Ujamaa in Kiswahili, and Parapo in Yoruba of Nigeria emphasize cooperation, mutual respect, and support as well as unity within and across the community. The prevalence of this vital force is manifest in our collective goal, which is peace. It points to the commitments of the community as men and women of all ages are allowed to participate meaningfully in cooperation.

Conclusion

The attempt thus far has been that, in spite of the differences of ethnic groups and their attendant conflicts, we can effectively control or resolve our ethnic differences. By doing so, we have deliberately avoided the question of whether ethnic crises in the African state are products of the sociocultural configurations of African society or of the state’s inability to fulfil its obligation to its citizens. This is because ethnic conflict is a human phenomenon, and as social beings who must of necessity interact with one another, we must seek viable ways of transcending our differences and live like brothers.

*The author is dean of the Postgraduate School, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. He earned a BA (Honors) and an MA in philosophy from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1987, 1990, and 1999, respectively. He is the editor of Philosophy and Social Change: Discourse on Values in Africa (2004) and the author of Postmodernism and the Conflict of Values (2004). Professor Ebijuwa has published several articles in both national and international journals.

This essay was previously published in the International Journal on Humanistic Ideology 5, no. 2 (Autumn–Winter 2012): 67–86, topic: Local-Global Dialectics, Cluj University Press, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, edited by Mihaela Gligor and Silviu G. Totelecan. Reprinted here with permission from the editors of the International Journal on Humanistic Ideology.

Notes

1. Chris Uroh, “Beyond Ethnicity: The Crisis of the State and Regime Legitimation in Africa,” in Remaking Africa: Challenges of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Olusegun Oladipo (Ibadan, Nigeria: Hope Publications, 1998), 94–105.

2. Ibid., 94.

3. West Africa Weekly Magazine, Special Issue on Conflicts in Africa, 17–23 June 1996, 939.

4. Ibid., 938.

5. Claude Ake, The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa, Occasional Publication, no. 1 (Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Centre for Research, Documentation and University Exchange, 1992), 32. Compare Uroh, “Beyond Ethnicity,” 98.

6. Temisanren Ebijuwa, “Ethnic Conflict, Social Dislocation and the Search for a New Order in Africa,” Indian Journal of Politics 34, nos. 3–4 (July–December 2000): 85.

7. Olusegun Oladipo, “Modernization and the Search for Community in Africa: Crisis and Conditions for Change,” in Oladipo, Remaking Africa, 108.

8. Eme Awa, Emancipation of Africa (Lagos: Emancipation Consultants and Publishers, 1996), 21.

9. Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi, “The National Question in Historical Perspective” (Fifth Guardian Newspapers Lecture, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Wed., 4 November 1992), 8.

10. Oladipo, “Modernization,” 108.

11. James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 194.

12. Awa, Emancipation of Africa, 1.

13. Oladipo, “Modernization,” 108.

14. Ibid.

15. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, 198.

16. Oladipo, “Modernization,” 109.

17. Georges Ngongola-Ntalaja, The Crisis in Zaire (London: Institute for African Alternatives, 1984), 76.

18. Ibid., 9.

19. Olutayo Charles Adesina, “The Debt Crisis and the National Question in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Oladipo, Remaking Africa, 83.

20. Peter Bodunrin, “Federal Character and Social Justice,” in Federal Character and Federalism in Nigeria, ed. Peter P. Ekeh and Eghosa E. Osaghae (Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books, 1989), 304.

21. Uroh, “Beyond Ethnicity,” 101.

22. Oladipo, “Modernization,” 115.

23. Kwasi Wiredu, “Democracy Consensus in African Traditional Politics: A Place for a Non-Party Polity,” in Wiredu, Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy, selected and introduced by Olusegun Oladipo (Ibadan, Nigeria: Hope Publications, 1995), 58.

24. Oladipo, “Modernization,” 116.

25. Wiredu, “Democracy Consensus,” 58.

26. Ake, Feasibility of Democracy, 6.

27. Ibid.

28. Edward Sills, “Consensus,” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 13 (New York: Macmillan and Tree Press, 1986), 260.

29. Wiredu, “Democracy Consensus,” 54.

30. Ibid., 57.

31. Ibid., 54.

32. Ali A. Mazrui, “Towards ‘Shared Images’ of Cultures,” in Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African Perspective (New York: Free Press, 1976), 399.

33. Anke Graenes, “Wiredu’s Ethics of Consensus: Model for Global Ethics,” in The Third Way in African Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Kwasi Wiredu, ed. Olusegun Oladipo (Ibadan, Nigeria: Hope Publications, 2002), 256.

34. Uzodinma Nwala, Igbo Philosophy (Ikeja, Lagos: Lantern Books, 1985), 168.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Wiredu, “Democracy Consensus,” 62.

38. Ibid.

39. “Faces of Compassion - Selections,” Wisdom Publications, accessed 4 December 2013, http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/faces-compassion/selections.

40. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1970), 61.

41. Francis M. Deng, “Reaching Out: A Dinka Principle of Conflict Management,” in Traditional Cures for Modern Conflicts: African Conflict “Medicine,” ed. I. William Zartman (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 96.

42. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 61.

43. Ibid.

The Swarm, the Cloud, and the Importance of Getting There First

What’s at Stake in the Remote Aviation Culture Debate

Maj David J. Blair, USAF*

Capt Nick Helms, USAF

It has been written that it is difficult to become sentimental about . . . the new type of seaman—the man of the engine and boiler rooms. This idea is born of the belief that he deals with material things and takes no part in the glorious possibilities of war or in the victories that are won from storms. This theory is absolutely false . . . for there is music as well as the embodiment of power about the mechanisms that drive the great ships of today.

—Capt Frank Bennett, USN

The Steam Navy of the United States, 1897

For all the ink spilled over remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) technology, knowledge of RPA culture remains in its infancy. Continuing the debate about culture, we argue first for the urgency of achieving manned-remote fusion in air warfare. Second, we maintain that the limiting factor in realizing that future is not technological but cultural. That is, until the RPA community finds its voice and place in the larger service, this evolution of airpower remains unlikely. The task at hand does not call for reinventing airpower but rediscovering it. Many of our Air Force greats have much to say about building a culture of technical warriors. We simply need to apply the ideas of Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold and those like him to the enterprise of remote aviation.

The Swarm and the Cloud: A Hypothetical Vignette

Above a future battlefield, the long-range-strike bomber Saber 01 runs FENCE checks, preparing to penetrate layered defenses of the enemy’s air defense system.1 A thick “swarm” of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) guards the leading edge of friendly airspace. When friendly aircraft pass through the swarm on the way to prosecute targets, a number of UCAVs join formation with the outbound strikers as escorts. Seamlessly, as Saber 01 transits through the front lines, seven small UCAVs join on its wing and swap data-link control from theater air battle managers to the bomber’s combat systems operator.

Saber 01 serves as equal parts bomber and mothership, its stealth complementing advanced radar and data links, enabling the aircraft to command an automated squadron deep behind enemy lines. As the bomber crosses into enemy territory, the combat systems operator brings the local swarm in closer as the UCAVs begin to contend with the enemy’s jammers. The tactical formation of these platforms, combined with a fully networked electronic warfare suite, enables Saber’s crew to triangulate a precise fix on the target—an advanced theater surface-to-air-missile site. The enemy’s air defense operators had long trained to defeat single antiradar missiles, but Saber 01’s payload of hundreds of swarming micro air vehicles overwhelms their defenses with a networked mix of inexpensive warheads, sensors, and airframes.

Simultaneously, air battle managers behind friendly lines note that the surface-to-air-missile system has dropped off-line and direct the “cloud” of persistent air-to-ground RPAs to expand into the airspace it once occupied. A mix of high-end, long-endurance aircraft and large numbers of smaller aircraft fills the skies over permissive airspace. Using a variety of satellites, ground-based data links, and air-to-air network relays, this cloud provides a jam-resistant intranet covering both the air and ground battlespace, backed up by a seemingly endless reservoir of fires. High-end RPAs fly from ground or airborne links, which tap into the battlefield intranet rather than the individual aircraft itself. Doing so not only overcomes the jammer problem but also allows their crews to operate a number of aircraft at a time.

Meanwhile, a cyber warrior parries attacks from a desperate enemy who needs to disrupt the cloud’s effectiveness but shows his hand with every attempt at cyber superiority. The enemy succeeds at corrupting data, but the cloud isolates the nature of the corruption and supplies visual feedback to gray-matter operators who decide to patch the tactical picture back together with old-fashioned radio communications. Meanwhile, our cyber warrior has successfully isolated the hack and goes on the counteroffensive with an attack ensuring that the enemy will have only a negligible chance of success on the same front for the rest of the campaign. The connectivity of the cloud and the capabilities of the swarm prove essential for the effective use of traditional platforms.

The smaller RPAs of the cloud revolutionize the role of Battlefield Airmen—instead of a radio, their primary armament becomes their data link to the cloud. Using a video-integrated helmet and a control system integrated into a glove, combat controllers can reach up and “grab” small RPAs with data links. Highly automated flight controls allow the controllers to task sensors and fires directly, right alongside the ground force commander. The combination of absolute information supremacy and inexhaustible fires proves devastating—air supremacy leads quickly to ground supremacy in this truly joint fight.

The enemy commander, however, is no fool. Knowing the American reliance on electronics, he plans to use electronic and space warfare to neutralize their technological advantages asymmetrically. Unfortunately for him, when jammers close down one link, information reroutes itself through unaffected parts of the network. Similarly, he hopes to use his tremendous numerical advantage on the ground, employing air defenses to hold American airpower at bay long enough to generate a fait accompli. This tactic proves no more effective as he soon learns that ground does not long remain red under blue skies. Air support has gone from retail to wholesale—the entire battlespace becomes a large-scale retelling of the battle of Al-Khafji, where torrents of persistent attack aircraft decimated entire ground-maneuver units in partnership with Marines and Rangers.2 As his defenses melt away and front lines crumble, like the French commander at Agincourt, he laments the unfairness of it all. “Had it not been for those robots,” he might say. But he would be wrong. Both sides had robots since missiles are as much robots as UCAVs. He simply used his less effectively.

Getting There First and Getting There Soon:

The Centrality of Culture

The future described in this fictional account waits for whoever “gets there first.” RPAs figure prominently in the spectrum of possible American security strategies. Offshore balancing, small-footprint engagement, air-land battle, and air-sea battle rely on aspects of airpower best provided by a synergistic mix of manned platforms and RPAs. We must, therefore, get RPAs right sooner rather than later.3 America entrusts our Air Force to fly, fight, and win in air, space, and cyberspace—RPAs do all of the former, making use of all of the latter. They fit squarely within our service’s raison d’être and rightly belong with Airmen.4 Thus, as Airmen it is incumbent upon us not only to get there first but also to get there soon.

“Why the rush?” one might ask. “We all know that RPAs are the wave of the future, and we’ll get there eventually.” Making the case for urgency, one of the greatest minds of our time pointed out that when elite privilege is on the line, “later” is a dangerous snooze button that can all too easily become “never.” Consider the following description by Maj Gene Bigham, a veteran fighter pilot, that appeared in an article published by Air University Review:

[Aircraft] controlled by men located not in the cockpits but rather in the basement of the Pentagon, each of them controlling multiple drones through the use of a satellite link. . . .

. . . As former Secretary of the Air Force John L. McLucas has written:

I believe we are entering an era when RPVs [remotely piloted vehicles] will play an increasingly important role in helping airpower to serve the nation. . . .

. . . Thus, the development of an Air Force position on drone roles and missions is not a future decision but one that must be made today.5

None of Major Bigham’s arguments are particularly surprising; indeed, they dovetail nicely with much of the recent literature on the increasing role of RPAs. But the date of publication, November–December 1977, is quite surprising. Similarly, on no less than V-J day, General Arnold commanded us to “go to work on tomorrow’s aviation,” which “may be fought by airplanes with no men in them at all.”6 He made that statement in 1945, less than a year after an RPA successfully attacked antiaircraft staging areas near Bougainville Island during the Pacific campaign. Twenty-six years later, the first RPA-launched air-to-ground missile successfully destroyed a test target in the Mojave desert.7 Yet, 64 years later, accounts of the RPA suggest it is in the Wright-Flyer stage of development.8 Remote aircraft and their crews have been part of the story of aviation since its early days. This is not a question of adopting a new technology into the family but of recognizing the right of a long-standing branch of aviation to bear the family name.

How, then, do we get there? We assert that culture, not circuitry, represents the true issue of today—we have had the hardware for a while.9 The Predator made its combat debut in 1995, two years before initial operational capability for the B-2 Spirit and four years before the Spirit joined the Predator in combat over the former Yugoslavia.10 Air Force MQ-1s and MQ-9s have logged almost 1.5 million flight hours. By accumulating more than 350,000 yearly, they will pass the F-15C’s/E’s current mark of 3 million hours within half a decade.11 According to Air Force Magazine’s Aaron Church, “Within two to three years, Air Force officials predict, drone pilots will outnumber F-16 pilots.”12 Despite top cover from key senior leaders hailing from diverse aviation backgrounds, RPA culture still needs to find itself and its place within the larger Air Force culture.13 The community needs leaders who will galvanize a creative RPA culture and embed those capabilities within the spectrum of air, space, and cyber power. Since remote aviation is no longer an emerging technology, its Airmen should not still be struggling to find cultural acceptance within their own service.

Major Bigham’s article rightly predicted that the Air Force’s challenge with RPAs would not be the hardware but how those who employ that hardware would find a home within the service. The hardware is here: the asymmetric needs of an asymmetric war brought about the RPA enterprise as we know it, and the new National Defense Authorization Act guarantees that it will not go away anytime soon. Despite the best efforts of Air Force leadership to normalize the enterprise, however, the place of the RPA community and the validity of its contribution remain a lightning rod within the larger service culture. We must work through this cultural tension together as a service if we wish to move forward, helping steer RPA culture between the extremes of an oppositional “chip on our shoulder” identity that will hamper synergies with manned aircraft and a demoralized “head held low” identity that fails to make full use of the platforms’ capabilities. RPAs have moved well beyond the “dull, dangerous, and dirty” jobs of early drone lore, and we hold that Airmen’s view of technical culture will move them even farther forward while avoiding this cultural Scylla and Charybdis.14

We assert that deep streams of airpower thought can answer the central questions of the evolution of RPA culture; moreover, we can largely attribute the broken elements of the RPA construct to neglect of the traditional Airman’s view of technology. Toward that end, we examine three great Air Force leaders, each of whom explains different aspects of the interplay between culture and technology. General Arnold describes how the culture of a given technology must come into its own if it is to realize its full potential; Lt Gen Elwood Quesada argues that Airmen view technology as an amplifier of integrated human agency; and Col John Boyd observes how our definitions of cultural membership shift over time. By way of these greats, we anticipate a future that fuses manned and remote platforms—one in which Airmen exert vertical dominance of the battlespace with new levels of persistence and mass.

Technology = Humans + Hardware:

General Arnold on Air-Mindedness

“It’s an important capability, but it’s not really what we do or who we are.” This sentence seems equally apt describing the zeitgeist of RPAs in our service at present and that of aircraft in the Army of the 1920s. “What we do” and “who we are” find themselves inextricably tied to the development of a capability within larger strategic and cultural frameworks. General Arnold noted a world of difference between aviator and aircraft operator even though the two terms may encompass the same set of actions. Aircraft operators apply the tool of an aircraft to a set of tasks. For aviators, the aircraft becomes an extension of their will, enabling them to move through a new domain. Aircraft operators perform their tasks well and honorably, but aviators grasp the possibilities inherent in the technology and its domain. This air-mindedness allowed General Arnold to advance aviation from a tactical-support capability to a transcendent strategic community.

MIT professor David Mindell refers to technology as a physical component paired with a cultural component: “Technology, right down to armor plate and turret bearings, is part of culture. . . . Technical reality does not exist independent of cultural significance. Each influences the other, to the point where distinctions between them become difficult to maintain. . . . Both constitute what we call technology.”15 General Arnold’s assertion was not simple service chauvinism or technophilic zealotry but an observation about the cultural embeddedness of technology.16 On a bureaucratic level, a capability will flounder without advocates; on the deeper level of identity, dreams of strategic futures are most often rooted in one’s own experience.

Dr. Dale Hayden describes air-mindedness as thinking of technology in terms of domains rather than tools.17 Immersed in a domain, one begins to realize the possibilities contained therein. Common sense is common only to a specific context. Air-mindedness is a common sense of the air. During our first year in the Predator, we found learning the domain a much greater obstacle than learning the aircraft. In manned aircraft, space was important—satellite communications and the Global Positioning System (GPS) served as critical mission enablers. In the Predator, though, space became part of our domain. Orbits and footprints turned into practical rather than academic concerns as we realized that losing a satellite link could cut our control cables. Further, cyberspace folded into our world; servers acted as the eyes with which we scanned for other aircraft. Simultaneously, our ability to interpret engine sounds and vibrations through a throttle quadrant atrophied. Our experience of aviation became more abstract as we adapted to our new domain—neither better nor worse but different as we gained a new common sense. For instance, in RPA common sense, it is commonsensical to “demand” effects (rather than “command” actions) from a number of aircraft at once through a multiplexer when doing so increases intelligence collection without degrading kinetic capabilities.

RPAs are far more than long-endurance flying cameras, but to realize many of these possibilities, we need a brand of air-mindedness specific to this technology. An infantry officer of the 1930s might consider an aircraft a tool of airborne artillery, but aviators saw the potential of destroying command centers deep behind front lines. An outsider might see a Predator as an 80-knot aircraft that takes two people to fly, but an aviator steeped in RPA culture would envision the possibilities of a flying focal point where the resources of the intelligence community intersect the needs of the tactical war fighter. Even though we have the hardware, we must think about the humans from which RPA culture will grow. Gen Wilbur Creech’s passion for developing leaders seems sage counsel for the base that bears his name and the service that bears his imprint.18

Capabilities versus Cybernetics:

General Quesada on Commanding Technology

As described by aviation bard Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviators do not stand outside their machine; rather, they step into another world in partnership with it.19 Any conception of a pilot necessarily includes both human and machine. Therefore, the “human versus machine” meme in the current RPA discussion fails to capture the issues at stake. The true conversation does not deal with competition between humans and machines. Instead, it concerns the nature of cooperation between them. General Quesada offered the best response to this issue in 1959: “The day of the throttle jockey is past. He is becoming a true professional, a manager of complex weapons systems.”20 We have already moved into a world where “diffuse agency” replaces “direct agency”—where we use automation as an amplifier for our own capabilities.

The folktale of John Henry retells the myth of man versus machine through a “steel-driving man” who wins a grueling race against a steam-powered hammer at the cost of his own life. Not to diminish the poignancy of this classic American story, but Mr. Henry uses a hammer—a machine—to translate the force of his muscles into blows upon railroad spikes. One might cynically reinterpret the fable as a dispute between the adherents of established and emerging machines. A deeper interpretation seems more appropriate, however: John Henry’s iconic hammer is a machine that amplifies human agency, whereas the steam-powered hammer diminishes the role of humans in the world.

This distinction transposes well into remarkably similar quandaries faced by surgeons and pilots. Trained at a great investment of time and expense in manual dexterity and encyclopedic procedural recall, these elite groups find that advances in computers and robotics diminish the value of their painstakingly developed portfolios.21 An apocalyptic battle between scalpel-wielders and computer engineers, however, would hurt the cause of medicine and serve neither group. Instead of digging in their heels, enterprising surgeons are finding ways to harness these advances, perhaps expanding their services globally to the disadvantaged through data links or employing robotics to access internal organs without major incisions.22 By getting out in front, surgeons transform a threat to their profession into an asset that extends their capabilities. In the same way, the fear that pilots are replaceable is best answered by using the lens of technology to amplify the things truly irreplaceable about them. Technology then ceases to be a threat, allowing us to magnify our distinctively human capacities of judgment, reasoning, and situational awareness across the battlespace.

The first truth of special operations holds that humans are more important than hardware. In other words, technology exists to enable people to fulfill the mission. This is the capabilities view of technology: machines are amplifiers of human will, better enabling them to make something of their world.23 By exercising dominion through technology, people gain greater command over their environment. The alternative is that humans are important to operate the hardware—that people are subsystems within larger sociomechanical constructs. This view, cybernetics, encloses people within closed control loops that regulate systemic variables within set parameters.24 Rather than human versus machine, the true discussion about the future of RPAs addresses capabilities versus cybernetics.

Many of the issues faced by RPA operators arise from unintentional cybernetic views of the crew. The demands of combat-driven explosive growth produced makeshift solutions, which became processes, procedures, and, ultimately, publications. As all too few crews struggled to meet geometrically increasing demands, the easiest answers sacrificed aircrew empowerment. The safest solution, given the circumstances, was closer supervision, but this choice had consequences.25 Once entrenched within a community, a sense of dependency becomes very difficult to exorcise.

A more sustainable solution calls for embracing the traditional approach based on the aircrew’s capabilities—assigning crews a mission and giving them all the resources to conduct it. From a capabilities view, crew members—in partnership with a fleet of maintainers and support personnel—take “their” aircraft into the fight to hunt down threats. Conversely, a cybernetics view uses a crew to supply a set of inputs that in turn produces x number of hours of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Traditionally, Airmen have taken a capabilities-based view of technology, yet because of the addicting (and potentially illusory) sense of “thereness” that the platform provides to higher-echelon commanders, elements of the present RPA structure reflect a cybernetics approach. The tremendous connectivity of the platform is its greatest strength, but it can also become its greatest weakness if we do not take measures to ensure aircrew empowerment.

Restoring the “command” to RPA aircraft commanders would empower them to tap the resources of the entire intelligence community to better accomplish the mission and support their comrades. This entails (1) training RPA aircraft commanders on the wealth of relevant resources and bringing all onboard sensors under their control, (2) ensuring that ground-force commanders pass history, intent, and priorities to the crew rather than attempt to direct sensors manually, and (3) guaranteeing that air command and control respects the prerogatives of RPA aircraft commanders as they would those of a manned aircraft. Ideally, this looks to a future in which aircraft commanders and ground-force commanders brief together, jointly building operational schemes of maneuver with authorities delegated from their respective chains of command.

To put forth one rule of thumb, horizontal connectivity between peer-level commanders is almost always beneficial. Vertical connectivity up and down the chain of command can become toxic in the absence of protections to preserve the initiative of tactical operators. In other words, never let your connectivity exceed your maturity. Lt Gen David Deptula’s synergistic model of indivisible ISR offers an intercept trajectory for this goal by placing aviators in conversation with analysts in nested sensor-shooter loops.26 Regardless of the implementation, the RPA must come into its own as a culture of Airmen by means of a capabilities-based view of technology that guarantees crew initiative, decentralized execution, and a say in the trajectory of the platform.

Pilot, Version 3.0:

Colonel Boyd on “Destruction and Creation”

In his masterwork “Destruction and Creation,” Col John Boyd synthesizes physics, cognition, and mathematics into the analytical engine that drives his observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) loop.27 Whenever we act, we change the world; in doing so, we must reframe who we are in reference to this now-altered world. We constantly destroy old frameworks and create new ones to “improv[e] our capacity for independent action.”28 This is no less true for pilots. When pilots burst on the scene over the trenches of the First World War, they changed the ways of fighting wars, but they too changed as the technical horizons of aviation advanced.

We could express the core idea of a pilot as “one who fights from the air” or “one who fights in three dimensions.”29 An RPA pilot belongs squarely within this category, yet his or her inclusion within the prestige-laden term pilot was at first a point of cultural contention within the service. Encouragingly, Air Force Instruction 11-401, Aviation Management, the regulation that governs aeronautical ratings for the Air Force, chose the term “RPA Pilots” to describe officers who command an RPA.30 The incorporation of RPA sensor operators into the prestigious category of career enlisted aviators is similarly provident. As always, advances in technology force us to consider how the core principles of identity intersect with the world of the possible and adapt our definitions accordingly. Tracing the evolution of the term pilot may help us grasp the issue at hand.

Colonel Boyd’s OODA loop distills the nature of aerial combat. Whether a P-51 pilot pulling lead with machine guns or an F-15 optimizing a radar, the name of the game is getting inside the adversary’s sensor-shooter loop before he does. Because sensor and weapon technology determines the derivation of this solution, our examination of the evolution of the term pilot touches upon the eras of cannons, missiles, and networks. With each evolution, the definition of flying becomes more expansive and enables greater capabilities, the OODA loop becomes more abstract, and the pilot’s “capacity for independent action” increases.

The Mark 1 pilot, a gunfighter, used his eyes as primary sensors, with some degree of off-board support from ground-based radar. This pilot’s primary weapons relied on the Newton guidance system, a mix of cannons, machine guns, and unguided bombs whose flight path intersected their intended targets only through the pilot’s aerial gunnery skill. The P-51 serves as an archetype of this era. With advances in sensors, beyond-visual-range combat grew in importance, and the critical skill set became arriving at a long-range sensor solution on a target while denying the same to an adversary. The archetypal F-15A Mark 2 pilot took control of a much wider swath of the battlespace, using electrons and an arsenal of semiautonomous unmanned aerial vehicles by the names of Sparrow and Sidewinder to wipe the skies clear. Maneuvering the aircraft into launch parameters for these rocket “drones” constitutes a far more efficient means of owning the OODA loop than spraying nine yards of machine gun rounds around the sky.

The war-winning pilot of the 1990s fights in three dimensions in a very different way than the war-winning pilot of the 1940s. The war-winning pilot of 2020 will fight in three dimensions in a way just as different as that of his or her predecessors—from lines of fire and arcing weapon-engagement zones to volumes of three-dimensional network space. For these pilots, the OODA loop is information supremacy: by first removing critical nodes and thus disrupting their adversary’s connectivity, the pilots of 2020 can easily destroy the remainder of the enemy network in detail.

The F-22 is an astonishingly capable aircraft precisely because it embraces the idea of this Mark 3 pilot. Although F-22 pilots spend less time chasing needles on “steam gauges,” advanced sensors and the power of two Cray supercomputers make them far deadlier than their predecessors.31 Mark 3 pilots have the defining characteristic of placing their craft at the schwerpunkt (focal point) of the battlespace and there exerting vertical dominance.32 According to the chief of the Israeli air force’s (IAF) long-term planning department, “The job of a pilot is vastly different from what it was. . . . The point is to see the enemy way before he sees you, and for that you need datafighters, not dogfighters.”33 It is intriguing, then, that the IAF adopted RPA technology early on. Abraham Karem, designer of what would become the Predator, formerly served as chief designer for the IAF.34

We hold that RPA pilots fit this Mark 3 definition well because they are cousins to the computer- and connectivity-enhanced C-17 and F-22 pilots.35 A Predator’s day-long endurance allows crew members to place their aircraft over critical nodes of an adversary’s organizational structure, whether those nodes move or stay put. Efficient engines and a lightweight structure let the crew members outlast patient adversaries and strike targets at a time and place of their choosing. Sensor acuity and long dwell permit the aircraft to generate its own awareness of the ground situation. The Global Information Grid connects the crew to a range of onboard and off-board resources, which they use to gain and maintain vertical dominance of the acre under their steady stare. Automated systems and data links are hardly unique to the Predator—those of the F-22 easily put it to shame. The factors that seem to estrange the RPA from the mainstream of “pilotness” are actually commonalities among our most recent redefinition of pilot.

Col Hernando Ortega, the Air Force ISR Agency’s chief flight surgeon and a leading expert on RPA human factors, coined the term telewarfare (from Greek telos [far] and the familiar English word) to describe the experience of fighting from afar.36 One of the most crucial implications of his term is that all air warfare in the era of long-range sensors includes some degree of telewarfare. Physical distance becomes less important than cognitive distance—entering coordinates into a GPS-guided bomb is a more abstract experience of combat than directing a laser-guided bomb on a high-resolution sensor. In one of the stranger turns of technology, early low-fidelity sensors made weapons employment more abstract, but advanced sensors make the act more cognitively immediate. A B-1 with an advanced targeting pod is likely more connected to the consequences of its weapons than is a B-17 bomber. This juxtaposition of increasing physical distance with decreasing cognitive distance in sensor-mediated combat reflects another commonality of Mark 3 piloting, manned and remote alike.

Folding RPA operators into the pilot category, along with F-22 operators and C-17 operators, does not dilute this evolving term but updates it to reflect the ways in which one fights in three dimensions with the technology of our day. True acceptance of this idea will require a reshuffling of privilege, and some individuals who find that the current state of affairs puts them at an advantage will likely resist such a reordering. The career of Gen Curtis LeMay demonstrates a higher road above these squabbles. Although he initially served as a fighter pilot, as one of a small cadre of navigation-qualified aircrew members, he instead filled the critically needed role of navigator in the run-up to the Second World War.37 In the same way, the needs of the service are exactly what drives the continued growth of the RPA community. Definitions should serve missions rather than the other way around. Pilot is a term of great prestige in the Air Force. In keeping with General LeMay’s example, instead of allowing that word to capture us, let us instead capture it and use its gravity to slingshot our service forward.

Conclusion:

Making Culture with All of Its Fixings

We began our discussion with the swarm and the cloud, a vision of an airpower strategy whereby Airmen gain and hold vertical dominance of the battlespace by fusing the best of manned and remote aviation. We argue that the primary challenge in achieving this future is not technological but cultural. Colonel Boyd closes the loop by describing how strategy and culture are bound together: “We must . . . eliminate those blemishes, flaws and contradictions that generate mistrust and discord . . . [and] that either alienate us from each other or set us against each other, thereby . . . paralyz[ing] us and mak[ing] it difficult to cope with an uncertain, ever-changing world. . . . We must emphasize those cultural traditions . . . that build up harmony and trust, thereby creat[ing] those implicit bonds that permit us . . . to shape as well as adapt to the course of events in the world.”38 To understand how one builds the cultural room for strategic evolution, we turn to history as an analogy for understanding the present.

In 1862 at the docks of the New York Navy Yard, the USS Monitor didn’t look much like a ship at all, according to the definition of the day. Boasting no tall masts with sails blowing in the breeze, no broadside arrays of cannons, and no ornately decorated bowsprit, the squat ironclad stood no risk of being mistaken for Vice Adm Horatio Nelson’s HMS Victory. The enlisted men who volunteered for service aboard “were made all manner of fun . . . for gooing [sic] to sea in a tank.”39 A year later, in the immediate aftermath of the pitched Battle of Hampton Roads, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy told the crew, “You don’t look as though you were just through one of the greatest naval conflicts on record.”40 In the age of sail, battles resulted in “torn uniforms stained with blood, [and] hollow faces stunned by shellfire” while the crew of the Monitor emerged from victory covered only in soot and powder.41

Herman Melville weighed in on the passionless mechanical power of the ship: “Hail to victory without the gaud / Of glory. . . . / War’s made / Less grand than Peace.”42 In considering the honor and glory of Appomattox Courthouse, he fails to mention the consuming, inhuman hunger and disease of the siege of Richmond that immediately preceded it.43 Poets and screenwriters may favor Thermopylae, but with their friends’ lives on the line, most warriors would prefer Plataea.44 The crew of the USS Minnesota, saved from destruction at the hands of the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia by the inelegant Monitor, surely preferred their survival to the sustenance of Melville’s sentiments about the trappings of warfare. The greatest honor lies in what works—in what completes the mission and brings friends home alive without compromising the values for which we fight.

As described by Maj Charles Kels, the point of warfare is to win, and the way to win is to make sure that the other side bears as much of the risk as possible.45 As a service, we would do well to remember that point. Admitting RPAs into the inner ring of our service culture is not a question of heroism but of simple effectiveness. An air force that perfects a fusion of manned and remotely piloted aircraft will dominate the skies (and the surface beneath those skies), but to build that force we must have people who understand both sides of that equation.

Toward that end, fostering RPA-minded aviators within the service will reveal airpower possibilities beyond those immediately apparent to traditional aviators. Ensuring some level of cross-fertilization between manned and RPA experience benefits both communities. As with any teamwork, these benefits must be built on a foundation of mutual respect. Putting this into practice, the Air Force has sent a number of young captains who have completed their first flying tour in RPAs into follow-on tours in manned aircraft. Units receiving these pilots might learn much about how RPAs can assist their platforms if they choose to view RPA experience as legitimate. If we think structurally, replacing cybernetic processes with capability-based models empowers RPA pilots, which improves performance, effectiveness, and job satisfaction. As a service, coming to terms with the evolving nature of pilots inducts RPA aviators into the rich lore of flight and allows Airmen to tell the chapter of the Air Force story written over the last decade in the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The most important aspect of martial culture, though, is pride—something we cannot transplant. It must be homegrown by the community out of a sense of shared values, accomplishments, mission, and purpose. The RPA community must take itself seriously—there is no room for being off altitude and hence becoming a hazard to other aircraft, and there is no excuse for watching a target for hours but failing to gain situational awareness of an upcoming operation on that target. The community must give no reason whatsoever to validate negative assumptions about it. This sort of seriousness comes from a passion for the mission. Thus, we return to the centrality of combat.

The rush of acceleration that accompanies an afterburning takeoff cannot motivate typical Predator or Reaper pilots—nor can the prospect of making assault landings on impossibly short dirt strips. Only one idea motivates them—that their actions help comrades in the line of fire and that their weapons help win the war and keep their countrymen safe. Combat occupies center stage for all Air Force aviators, but for RPA pilots it is the only thing on stage at all. A culture builds pride from what it does. RPA crews spend nearly the entirety of their flying time piloting aircraft in combat zones. Combat must be the deep soil from which the RPA community draws its pride. More than likely, no one will make a Top Gun movie about the glamour of long hours in a cargo container. There is, however, a long stream of headlines about al-Qaeda’s thinning command structure. A saying from the days “when Strategic Air Command was king” alluded to making movies and making history. RPAs are making history.

Mindell describes the mechanism by which new technologies are accepted into the military mainstream—victory in battle.46 This is hardly the scientific method since battles never take place in controlled conditions, and very rarely do we collect enough data points to attain statistical significance. But acceptance is as much a question of cultural narrative as of equipment optimization; thus, the retelling of a battle becomes as significant as the regression output from scientific testing. There is a certain logic to this—the crucible of uncontrolled conditions in the chaos of battle is a fitting final exam. Consequently, in the naval Battle of Hampton Roads during the Civil War, the duel of the Monitor and the Merrimack irrevocably inscribed the combination of steam power and metal-plate armor into the lore of the United States Navy. The gold standard of a military technology remains its ability to save lives. The Monitor saved the lives of the one remaining “wooden wall” at Hampton Roads from the Confederate ironclad that had already claimed two wooden frigates. This weighty discussion occurs in the currency of lives. The Monitor’s crew members were weighed and found worthy because they saved the people aboard the wooden USS Minnesota—despite the iron walls that gave them immunity.

The counter–improvised explosive device (IED) fight of Operation Iraqi Freedom represents the modern equivalent of the Battle of Hampton Roads. Although the RPA crews enmeshed in the struggle were not at risk, their actions radically reduced the threat to their friends on the ground by providing the ISR needed to dismember the IED network.47 As the Washington Post’s Rick Atkinson describes in “Left of Boom,” allied commanders realized that “if you don’t go after the network, you’re never going to stop these guys. Never.”48 The geometric growth of the RPA community was in the midst of this struggle to stem the killing tide. In partnership with intelligence professionals and special operations forces, the RPA’s unblinking eye proves uniquely adept at disrupting social networks.49 For all the talk of risk in the controversy over RPA culture, the threats to ground forces drove the remote-split-operations construct that allows RPA crews to fly from outside the combat zone. The steady stare of the Predator protected our comrades on the ground, and that stare remained fixed on target through countless flight hours—hours that could be generated in much greater numbers from the United States than from downrange.50 In Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, risk to ground forces proved far more acute than to aviators; therefore, almost all the lives saved by the Predators and Reapers were those of ground troops. This realization should restore civility and camaraderie to the discussion about RPA culture—virtues heretofore sorely lacking.

Over the course of the past decade, RPA aviators have clearly experienced victory in battle, the standard for acceptance into military culture. Our enemy’s own words testify to that fact. In war, the enemy always gets a vote. In this war, his vote was clear—Osama bin Laden himself confirmed the effectiveness of RPAs. Personal papers seized from his compound reveal a man left “distraught by drone strikes [and] al-Qaeda losses.”51 An astute airpower thinker described the link between victory and acceptance by joking that an RPA should sink the Ostfriesland, the vessel destroyed in a bombing demonstration by Gen Billy Mitchell in his quest to legitimate the role of aircraft in national security.52 Off the top of our heads, we’d pick about a dozen high-value al-Qaeda targets over that battleship.

*Major Blair, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the US Air Force Academy and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, is a PhD candidate at Georgetown University. He is an MQ-1B instructor pilot and an AC-130 pilot. Prior to beginning his doctoral research, he served as assistant operations officer (war fighting) for the 3rd Special Operations Squadron. Major Blair has authored works on the culture of remotely piloted aircraft, counterterrorism, deterrence, cybersecurity, and transnational criminal organizations for Air and Space Power Journal, Small Wars Journal, and the Department of Defense’s Strategic Multilayer Assessment Office.

Captain Helms, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the US Air Force Academy and a master of science degree from the US Air Force Test Pilot School, is the chief test pilot and assistant director of operations for Detachment 3, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Gray Butte Field, California. He is responsible for test and evaluation of medium-altitude remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) capabilities. He previously piloted F-16 aircraft with the 34th Fighter Squadron and served as a flight commander for the 42nd Attack Squadron, piloting the MQ-9 RPA. Captain Helms is a distinguished graduate of Squadron Officer School and the US Air Force Test Pilot School.

The authors would like to thank Prof. Daniel Byman, Dr. Peter W. Singer, Prof. David Mindell, Prof. Christine Fair, Prof. Daniel Nexon, Lt Col Lawrence Spinetta, Maj Charles Kels, Capt Christopher “Filter” Baughman, and the reviewers for their advice and suggestions.

Notes

1. FENCE checks are final combat checks conducted prior to entering hostile airspace.

2. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the Persian Gulf (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 94–95.

3. Specifically, we advocate a causal-constitutive view of the relationship between technology and culture. Technology shapes culture as culture shapes technology, and the evolution of this relationship depends upon initial conditions. Culture facilitates the effect of developing solutions, whether doctrine, training, or materiel. The most creative new-paradigm solutions are undoubtedly fostered by critically thinking, open-minded, interdisciplinary cultures. Thus, culture precedes capability. The other way around, where capability creates culture, risks doubling down on an exploitable paradigm or creating an infinite loop of inertia. We do not imply that capability does not create culture—probably a historical fact. However, technology does not automatically create culture of value. Sometimes capability opens the minds of its users to foster a culture that iterates high-value solutions. In this case, the acceptance of RPAs as a group itself, responsible for generating the “right” culture, symbolizes the last 80 years of RPA/manned-aircraft synergy—or the lack thereof.

4. This is not to lessen the tremendous advances that the joint community has made on behalf of RPAs, but the nature of that relationship lies beyond the scope of this article. We argue for Air Force leadership—not exclusivity.

5. Gene Bigham, “The Future of Drones: A Force of Manned and Unmanned Systems,” Air University Review 29, no. 1 (November–December 1977): 51–52, 64, http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1977/nov-dec/bigham.html.

6. Lawrence Spinetta, “The Rise of Unmanned Aircraft,” Aviation History 21, no. 3 (January 2011): 30.

7. Thomas P. Ehrhard, Air Force UAV’s: The Secret History (Arlington,VA: Mitchell Institute Press, July 2010), 34–37, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA525674.

8. Brookings Senior Fellow Peter W. Singer captures this zeitgeist well. See “Peter Singer: Drone Warfare,” YouTube video, 22:49, March 2012, http://www.youtube.com

/watch?v=gP3-TC3AMv8.

9. One of the most common misconceptions in the pop-culture discussion of “drones” is the “fetishization of technology.” Incorrectly assigning agency to the technical construct, this error misses the nature of remote combat (as if the ubiquitous Tomahawk cruise missile were any less of a “robot killer”). Between 1990s-era computers and a network of 10 or more pilots, sensor operators, and analysts, the latter carries the weight of the causality. RPA technology is very much a human story.

10. Walter J. Boyne, “How the Predator Grew Teeth,” Air Force Magazine 92, no. 7 (July 2009): 42–45, http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2009

/July%202009/0709Predator.pdf; “B-2 Spirit History,” Northrop Grumman, accessed 5 June 2012, http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/americas_bomber/history.htm; and “The B-2A Spirit: Kosovo and Beyond,” Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, 16 February 2000, http://www.northropgrumman.com/AboutUs/AnalysisCenter/Documents

/pdfs/B-2A-Spirit-Kosovo-and-Beyond.pdf.

11. Boeing and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., personal correspondence with the author, 29 May 2012.

12. Aaron Church, “RPA Ramp Up,” Air Force Magazine 94, no. 6 (June 2011): 60, http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2011/June%202011/0611RPA.pdf.

13. Such senior leaders include the following former Air Force chiefs of staff: Gen Michael Ryan, Gen John Jumper, and Gen Norton Schwartz. See Boyne, “How the Predator Grew Teeth.”

14. P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 273.

15. David A. Mindell, Iron Coffin: War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor, updated ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 15.

16. Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr., “Air-Minded Considerations for Joint Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” Air and Space Power Journal 21, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 63, 64, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/win07/win07.pdf.

17. Dr. Dale L. Hayden, “Air-Mindedness,” Air and Space Power Journal 22, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 44–45, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj08

/win08/win08.pdf. For C-17 pilot Mark Jacobsen’s well-argued critique of the contemporary use of air-mindedness, see “The Problem with Air-Mindedness,” Building Peace, 19 February 2010, http://buildingpeace.net/2010/02/the-problem-with-air-mindedness.html.

18. Lt Col James C. Slife, Creech Blue: Gen Bill Creech and the Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces, 1978–1984 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press in collaboration with the College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, 2004), http://www.dtic

.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA431075&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.

19. Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote that “the machine, which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature, actually plunges them more deeply into them. As for the peasant, so for the pilot, dawn and twilight become events of consequence.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars: By Antoine de Saint Exupéry, trans. Lewis Galantière (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1940), 20.

20. Quoted in David A. Mindell, Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 40.

21. For instance, see Herbert J. Rogove et al., “Barriers to Telemedicine: Survey of Current Users in Acute Care Units,” Telemedicine and e-Health 18, no. 1 (January/February 2012): 48–53.

22. Pamela Whitten and Frances Mair, “Telesurgery versus Telemedicine in Surgery—an Overview,” Surgical Technology International 12 (February 2004): 68–72.

23. Amartya Sen, Commodities and Capabilities (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999).

24. David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). The field of cybernetics is far more expansive than described here. This article uses the term to describe a structural view of the relationship between people and mechanical constructs (in contrast to a view focused on individual agency). The Apollo program tended toward a capabilities view of technology, empowering the crew and enabling collaboration with ground-based mission directors. This proved essential in the safe recovery of the Apollo 13 crew. The Soviet space program tended toward cybernetics, locking humans within heavily regulated parameters of behavior—witness the fact that ground crews padlocked Yuri Gagarin’s spacecraft controls to prevent unauthorized manual piloting.

25. For example, see the amount of leadership and overhead for combat air patrol requirements in Col J. R. Gear, “USAF RPA Update: Looking to the Future,” 3 June 2011, slides 38, 39, 43, http://www.theresearchcorridor.com/sites/default/files/Col-JR-Gear.pdf.

26. Lt Gen David A. Deptula, “Think Different,” Armed Forces Journal 148, no. 4 (November 2010): 20–39, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/11/4939123.

27. John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3 September 1976, http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf.

28. Ibid., 2.

29. One might argue that the term describes one who fights “in the air,” but doing so would exclude B-17s, P-47s, and any aircraft not intended to fight other aircraft (bombers and attack aircraft fight from the air to the ground).

30. Air Force Instruction 11-401, Aviation Management, 10 December 2010 (certified current 9 January 2013), 90, http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_a3_5/publication/afi11-401/afi11-401.pdf.

31. “F/A-22 Common Integrated Processor,” Raytheon Corporation, accessed 5 June 2012, http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/f22_cip/.

32. Clausewitz uses schwerpunkt to describe critical points of battlefield effort. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 485.

33. Amir Mizroch, “Nano Drones, Ethical Algorithms: Inside Israel’s Secret Plan for Its Future Air Force,” WIRED, 11 May 2012, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05

/israel-secret-air-force-plan/.

34. Peter Finn, “Rise of the Drone: From Calif. Garage to Multibillion-Dollar Defense Industry,” Washington Post, 23 December 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com

/national/national-security/rise-of-the-drone-from-calif-garage-to-multibillion-dollar-defense-industry/2011/12/22/gIQACG8UEP_story.html.

35. The AC-130H/U and the AH-64D, with which the Predator/Reaper share a persistent air-to-ground sensor-shooter loop, are closer relations in another sense. A common sensor lineage ties these platforms together; they all maintain station-keeping profiles above their targets; and they have all have been fitted with Hellfire missiles (though only experimentally on the AC-130). However, the automation and computer

-mediated control that figures strongly in the estrangement of the RPA do not play as strong a role in these platforms as they do in fifth-generation fighters. This commonality is one of mission rather than of the conception of “pilotness.” In fact, one of the reasons we reject the term drone is that it conflates autonomy with physical presence—by the standards of processor speed and algorithms, an F-22 is a much better “drone” than the MQ-1.

36. Col Hernando Ortega, personal correspondence with the author, February–June 2012.

37. Walter J. Boyne, “LeMay,” Air Force Magazine 81, no. 3 (March 1998): 63, http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/1998/March%201998/0398lemay.pdf.

38. Frans P. B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (London: Routledge, 2007), 216–17.

39. Mindell, Iron Coffin, 48.

40. Ibid., 1.

41. Ibid., 2.

42. “A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,” in Herman Melville, Battle-pieces and Aspects of the War (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995), 61–62.

43. Jay Winik, April 1865: The Month That Saved America (New York: HarperCollins, 2001).

44. The Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) pitted a force of several thousand Greeks against more than 100,000 Persians. During this archetypal last stand, the Greeks held for days against the Persian forces but ultimately succumbed to their overwhelming numbers. The Battle of Plataea (479 BC) saw the defending Greeks face a more manageable three-to-one numerical disadvantage against the Persian invasion force; surmounting this disparity, the Greeks emerged victorious. Herodotus, The Histories, further rev. ed., trans. Aubery de Selincourt (London: Penguin Books, 2003).

45. Maj Charles G. Kels, “Don’t Deride Our Drone and Cyber Operators,” Hill’s Congress Blog, 26 April 2013, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/296407-dont-deride-our-drone-and-cyber-operators.

46. Mindell, Iron Coffin, 9, 18, 45.

47. That is, risks comparable to “outside-the-wire” ground forces subject to IED attacks and direct enemy fire. Deployed RPA launch-and-recovery crews experience the same risk of residual indirect fire as other “inside-the-wire” personnel (the latter risk geometrically smaller than the former). The highest risks at present for manned aircraft are likely the accumulation of small amounts of daily risks associated with normal aviation mechanics along with regional and global potshot terror attacks, both of which bear heavily on questions of valor and heroism vis-à-vis RPA pilots as RPA crews share the terror-attack risk but not the aviation-mechanics risk. The relationship between risk and lethal force is not easily captured by the increasingly irrelevant geographic heuristic of a “combat zone.” One challenge of the present discussion is that heroism, driven by sacrifice and risk, is increasingly decoupled from combat—a function of direct, lethal responsibility. Therefore, a manned crew flying outside the combat zone that chooses to face these small risks day after day for years is heroic—but not in combat. An RPA crew employing lethal fires is in combat; although capable of extraordinary achievement, it is not heroic. An attack-helicopter crew in the combat zone is heroic and in combat—and ground forces even more so. Fully exploring the evolving relationship among risk, lethal force, combat, and heroism lies beyond the scope of this article. However, for a more complete discussion of risk-due-to-enemy-fire comparisons between RPA crews and manned aircraft, see the letters to the editor from Maj Christian A. Senn and Maj Dave Blair in the July–August 2012 issue of Air and Space Power Journal, 149–60, http://www

.airpower.au.af.mil/digital/pdf/articles/Jul-Aug-2012/RR-Senn.pdf.

48. Rick Atkinson, “‘If You Don’t Go after the Network, You’re Never Going to Stop These Guys. Never,’” Washington Post, 3 October 2007, http://www.washingtonpost

.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202366.html.

49. Michael T. Flynn, Rich Juergens, and Thomas L. Cantrell, “Employing ISR SOF Best Practices,” Joint Force Quarterly 50 (3rd Quarter 2008): 56–61, http://www.ndu.edu

/press/lib/pdf/jfq-50/JFQ-50.pdf.

50. David A. Deptula, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Taking Strategy to Task,” Joint Force Quarterly 49 (2nd Quarter 2008): 50, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA

516795.

51. Jordy Yager, “Brennan: Bin Laden Left Distraught by Drone Strikes, al Qaeda Losses,” Hill, 30 April 2012, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/2245

69-brennan-bin-laden-feared-drones-sought-to-rebrand-al-qaeda.

52. Interestingly, only 23 years later, RPAs punched holes in the hull of the Yamazuki Maru on 30 July 1944 with drones while manned aircraft remained no closer than seven miles to the target ship. James J. Hall, American Kamikaze (Titusville, FL: J. Bryant, 1984), 163–68.

French European Defense Strategy and Its Relationship with NATO

Lt Col Arnaud Gary, French Air Force*

From the stillborn European defense community in 1950 to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, France has held a leadership position in the construction of the European defense structure since its creation. This leadership role stood in contrast to the perceived position of France vis-à-vis the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), essentially after Gen Charles de Gaulle decided to withdraw France from the NATO command structure in 1966, an action that the United States always perceived as a challenge to its supremacy. Prior to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to completely reintegrate France into NATO in March 2009, France had always had a specific role both within and outside the NATO command structure and in European defense. This explains why observers often refer to France as a nonaligned ally in characterizing its behavior in international relations. Currently, European defense is at a standstill and needs a boost, but the European political, economic, and societal context has dramatically changed in the last few years, requiring France to implement a new policy to maintain its influence in both European defense and NATO.

In this challenging context and using the dividends of its reaffirmed role after the Libyan conflict, France will maintain its autonomy to act in developing a stronger European defense—based on small-group initiatives—while it influences NATO by employing the new “smart defense” concept and deals with the US shift to the Asia-Pacific region. In this manner, France will regain its leadership role in Europe and on the international stage.

European Defense: A Lack of Political Will?

Back in 1950, the beginning of the Cold War raised the question of European security. René Pleven, president of the French Council, invented the concept of a European Defense Community, designed to create an integrated military force founded by European countries and directed by a supranational authority. This project was never ratified because of French domestic political reasons. Between 1954 and 1992, the Western European Union was created to maintain, a minima, a mutual assistance, but the security of the European continent became rooted in the transatlantic relationship.1 In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty was signed in the context of the end of the Cold War and the perspective of German reunification. With it arose a willingness to develop a political community as well as an economic union—the European Union (EU). One of the pillars of the new organization became the Common Foreign and Security Policy, whose main objectives were to preserve fundamental European interests and independence, reinforce the security of the EU, and promote international cooperation.2 “The June 1992 ‘Petersberg Declaration’ was a key development in EU efforts to create its own defence capability. It was designed to avoid any confusion between the defence roles of individual EU countries, NATO and the Union acting as a bloc. The Petersberg Declaration set out three roles[:] . . . humanitarian and rescue operations, peacekeeping operations [and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking].”3 After the Bosnian War, France and the United Kingdom (UK) wanted the EU to become a credible actor on the international stage, and the Saint-Malo Summit in December 1998 was the starting point for an actual European defense project. It also set the stage for the creation in June 1999 of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), a formal organization designed to prevent conflicts and manage crisis missions. As a subset of the Common Foreign and Security Policy in the security domain, the ESDP became the Common Security and Defense Policy with the Lisbon Treaty, ratified in December 2009, which profoundly modified the ESDP by creating the Permanent Structure for Cooperation (PSC), as well as the mutual defense clause, and improving the European Defense Agency.4

These three points established the new foundations of European defense and quickly became its strength. The PSC allows member states to come together in small groups in order to bypass the obligation for unanimity in several domains. The PSC, “reserved for member states whose defense efforts are the greatest, includes countries who wish to pool their investment and bring together their defense tools.”5 Inspired by the NATO Treaty, the mutual defense clause means that “if a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.”6 The European Defense Agency was created on 12 July 2004 for countries that wanted to improve their military capacity. It “aimed to develop defense capacities in the area of crisis management and to promote and strengthen European cooperation regarding arms, and also aimed to strengthen Europe’s industrial and technological base in the area of defense.”7 It is in charge of coordinating capacity and industrial projects of the member states. Today, the agency is responsible for European tanker aircraft, the pilot-training project, and the A400M transport aircraft through the Organization for Joint Armament Cooperation.

The Common Security and Defense Policy allows the EU to use civilian and military means to conduct peace-support operations (i.e., peacekeeping, peace enforcement, conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peace building). Currently, 11 civilian operations have been completed, and eight are in progress. On the military side, three have been completed, and five are in progress—the most important one the EU Naval Force’s Operation Atalanta, which protects humanitarian-aid shipments and fights piracy off the Somali coast.8 France is the primary contributor to this operation. However, the experience of conducting these operations has highlighted the weaknesses of the EU defense policy.

Indeed, all missions so far performed by the EU as a security organization have been modest. A number of treaties, institutions, and procedures have been launched during the last decade to emulate the construction of European defense. Some industrial projects were convincing, such as the A400M transport aircraft, the FREMM frigates (Italy and France), the PAAMS Naval Missile System (France, UK, and Italy), and the Tiger helicopter. Several collaborative advances have been made in space observation. But the concrete improvements are slim, and no real dynamic has emerged.9 No military operation has been put in place since the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, and the EU had to reduce its operation center that activated in March 2012, as mentioned by Hubert Védrine in his report to the French president François Hollande.10 At present we have to admit that European defense is at a standstill. Each time attempts were made to give a new impulse to the organization, military conservatism, industrial competition, and a lack of funding thwarted political initiatives.11 The difficulty that European politicians now have to face is that the threats to European citizens do not demand military answers; that is, globalization, an unstable financial environment, unemployment, and ecology are distant from European defense issues. As a result, in 2011 EU27 defense spending was 40 percent of the US defense budget ($281 billion versus $711 billion, respectively).12 France and the UK, which spent 40 percent of the EU27 defense budget, are the only two EU countries to devote more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product to military expenditures.13 In light of these figures, Europeans have to remain pragmatic and reasonable about their collective defense ambitions. Even in the presence of a certain political goodwill, the overall process remains fragile due to financial and domestic political issues, and words are difficult to translate into practical efforts. Part of the problem comes from the countries that are both NATO and EU members: until recent times, they feared that the EU could represent any duplication with NATO, and they trusted the United States to guarantee the safety of the European continent. As a matter of fact (and somewhat ironically), a significant part of the problem and the possible solution to the European defense dilemma resides in its relationship with NATO.

The Full and Entire Return of France to NATO

On 4 April 1949 in Washington, DC, foreign affairs ministers signed the treaty creating NATO. Twelve countries signed this pact, which came into force on 23 August 1949, as a regional organism based on mutual support among member countries in case of an attack against one of them.14 NATO was created not only to protect the Northern Atlantic region against the Soviet threat but also to stabilize Western Europe—Germany in particular. In April 1951, the organization adopted a permanent political and military structure that included an integrated command structure for its members’ military forces. NATO sought to organize its Western European members’ military forces in peacetime so they could rapidly react and shift to war status in case of a Soviet attack. This implied full integration and control by the United States, accepted by all members, under authority of the Supreme Allied Command, Europe.15 Although France was a NATO founding member, its role in the organization evolved along with its relationship with the United States and its foreign policy, upon which General de Gaulle left his mark.

On 7 March 1966, General de Gaulle announced to President Lyndon Johnson that “France proposed to recover the exercise of its sovereignty on its entire territory . . . [cease] its participation in the integrated commands within NATO . . . and no longer [give] any permanent forces to NATO.”16 Far from expressing de Gaulle’s anti-Americanism, this decision was the result of three main considerations: de Gaulle’s attempts to establish a Franco-British-American Security Directorate had failed; “he sought a more independent role for France in order to maximise its global influence and status[;] . . . [and] President de Gaulle . . . disagreed with the United States’ intention to replace the strategy of ‘Massive Retaliation’ with ‘Flexible Response’ because he believed that this meant a weakening of the U.S. commitment to defend Europe with nuclear weapons.”17 Those three elements made de Gaulle believe that NATO was designed to ensure French subordination to US policy. France had developed its own nuclear weapon, and de Gaulle did not want to see US nuclear weapons on French soil without knowing anything about them, even their whereabouts; this would be an unacceptable loss of sovereignty. Finally, after more than eight years of fruitless attempts, France left the NATO integrated command structures.18 However, it stayed within the alliance and was ready to “get along with its allies in the event of the need to reach an agreement in case of a conflict.”19 Indeed, “a secret accord between U.S. and French officials, the Lemnitzer-Aillert Agreements, laid out in great detail how French forces would dovetail back into NATO’s command structure should East-West hostilities break out.”20 With the exception of an abortive attempt from Jacques Chirac in 1996, no government ever challenged de Gaulle’s decision until 2009. France’s position vis-à-vis NATO became the symbol of its independence and nonalignment with respect to the United States. It was advantageous on both the diplomatic and the political side, especially among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, for whom France’s position was a guarantee of independence.21 The full and entire return of France to NATO happened only on 3 April 2009 when Sarkozy was president.

What were France’s motivations to initiate a step back, and what might be the consequences of this decision? Between de Gaulle’s and Sarkozy’s decisions, France had come closer to NATO, step by step, but in strict secrecy. From the time of the Atlantic Council, held in Paris in 1983, to the presence of more French military officers in NATO structures, through participation in the NATO Response Force and weapon interoperability, the process was ongoing and continuous.22 Back in 2009, President Sarkozy could see only disadvantages to the French position. First, France’s allies did not understand it, and it cast doubt on his country’s goals and strategy: “[European] countries were reluctant to cooperate with France on such a force out of fear it would be interpreted as a split from NATO.”23 Second, France had a poor influence on the orientation of the military committee because no French general had an important position among NATO structures, and every member had doubts about French intentions.24 Even so, opponents of the full return to NATO were numerous in France. They feared an alignment of France with US policy and a loss of the status it had enjoyed for so many years. Finally, the Parliament backed Sarkozy’s decision with a vote of confidence and decided that France would be a full NATO member but would stay away from the Nuclear Planning Group. On the military side, the return meant a greater influence over NATO’s decisions on the use of military forces. Nine hundred French soldiers came to NATO headquarters, and French generals received a few prestigious assignments, such as the Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia. Normalization of the French position also reassured countries within the alliance about France’s intentions, role, and strategy. On the European side, and according to Hervé Morin, France’s position outside the unified command caused distrust among its allied partners about its European ambitions; they thought that France wanted to substitute NATO for European defense, while they themselves remained profoundly attached to NATO.25 The United States had always considered France’s behavior a challenge to its supremacy and influence, making European defense a threat to transatlantic ties. The return of France to the NATO command structures restored trust with the United States, reassured European countries concerning France’s intentions, and made clear to everybody that NATO and European defense did not have to compete but could be complementary. In sum, the construction of European defense could proceed. In April 2009,

NATO recognise[d] the importance of a stronger and more capable European defense, and welcome[d] the EU’s efforts to strengthen its capabilities and its capacity to address common security challenges that both NATO and the EU face today. These developments have significant implications and relevance for the Alliance as a whole, which is why NATO stands ready to support and work with the EU in such mutually reinforcing efforts, recognising the ongoing concerns of Allies.26

For France and President Sarkozy, this declaration was a success and the beginning of a new era in which France would play a greater role in NATO and renew its effort to construct European defense. Two years later, the Libyan conflict would challenge the new French position.

The Libyan Conflict:

A Test for Both NATO and the European Union

The Libyan conflict provides us with a good example of the difficulties in finding an agreement that would allow European countries to intervene independently, as opposed to NATO’s extreme reaction and its ability to find compromises in situations where European defense found itself stuck. After a European summit in Brussels on 11 March 2011, the EU found a compromise “to consider ‘all necessary options’ to protect civilians in Libya, and called on Gaddafi to give up power. The statement did not make reference to recent French and British calls for a no-fly zone.”27 After the meeting, German chancellor Angela Merkel was “‘fundamentally skeptical’ of military action” while France and Britain “were considering airstrikes in Libya.”28 Germany was one of the five countries that chose abstention to United Nations (UN) Resolution 1973, thereby showing to the rest of the world and to the European countries its disagreement with military intervention in Libya.29 Because the three main countries—Germany, the UK, and France—were unable to find a diplomatic agreement in favor of military intervention, Europeans could not act in Libya as an entity. On 1 April, the EU did announce EUFOR Libya, a military operation to support humanitarian-relief operations.30 This limited engagement, however, was far from convincing, coming from a continent that wants to be a major player in its area of interest. Later in the conflict, the European reaction as a whole remained mixed: some countries assumed an offensive role (France and the UK), some a noncombat role (the Netherlands and Italy [even if Italy offered important support by opening its bases to NATO aircraft]), and others chose not to be part of the fight at all (Germany and Poland). All of these European countries acted in the name of NATO, not as Europeans. Domestic political issues and public opinion were significant factors in the nations not engaged, as in Germany where its historical legacy makes people extremely reluctant to use force. In sum, Libya has offered the latest example of Europe’s political fragmentation regarding defense while at the same time, and despite numerous disagreements, NATO was globally quite reactive and effective.31

According to Michael Clarke, “Despite all the statements of unity, there were clear political differences of view over how far NATO nations should go in pushing for the defeat of the Gaddafi forces. . . . When the military operation began on 19 March with French, and then US and British air strikes, it was not clear whether or not the Alliance would be able to act at all.”32 In Brussels, alliance members could not agree on who would take the lead on military operations: “British prime minister David Cameron argued that responsibility for the no-fly zone should be transferred to NATO, while French foreign minister Alain Juppé argued, ‘The Arab League does not wish the operation to be entirely placed under NATO responsibility. It isn’t NATO which has taken the initiative up to now.’ ”33 France was pushing hard to intervene and, knowing the reluctance of several European countries to use force, did not want to see NATO dampen the operation. But divisions inside NATO were contained to some extent by ensuring that “a largely agreed on position had been established by those at the helm of the campaign.”34 For example, France, the UK and six other countries contributed to the actual strike operations even before the NATO ambassadors discussed them. This process allowed NATO to take over air operations only 12 days after the first strikes, with Lt Gen Ralph Jodice—the combined joint force air component commander—having the relative freedom to employ his air forces. Thus, NATO managed to overcome initial tensions at the political level and was efficient at the operational level through well-trained command structures, showing strong effectiveness, whereas European defense revealed its weaknesses. In the Libyan operation, France took its first steps as a fully reintegrated member of NATO.

Indeed, the Libya crisis was the first NATO military operation since France reintegrated into the NATO military command structure. Because France had always remained among the first five contributors to every NATO operation since Desert Storm, the new situation did not involve a significant change in its behavior.35 Nevertheless, “through the Libya operation, France has been able to confirm its ability to take a strong leadership role within the Alliance.”36 Moreover, France demonstrated both its capacity to be the first to enter a theater and its ability to perform an autonomous strike far from its territory.37 Today only three Western countries—the United States, UK, and France—can put together Airborne Warning and Control System, tanker, and fighter assets along with the intelligence that such a package requires. First, this situation reinforced the relationship between France and the UK: “Cooperation [between the two countries] . . . was desirable because it met two key criteria: the willingness to deploy and the willingness to spend on defence.”38 Second, it gave new momentum to the transatlantic relationship: the United States now sees France as a reliable ally on whom it can count while it transitions to Asia. Third, France reaffirmed its leadership role in Europe on the military stage, found a way to counter Germany’s pressure, and demonstrated its ability to use force when necessary. If the Libyan conflict was considered a test for France in its new role since its full reintegration into NATO, then one could assert that it was a success. With renewed influence and a new legacy, though, France is also committed to do all in its power to preserve its position by maintaining a leading role in the consolidation of European defense.

The French Perspective on

European Defense and Its Relation to NATO

France is ready to take on its leadership role in the construction of European defense. With respect to its closest allies, the ties between France and the UK—the two biggest military powers in Europe—will remain among the most important factors in the consolidation of European defense. The relationship between Paris and London has gone through years of rivalry and misunderstandings, yet “the 2010 Franco-British treaties have the potential to further bilateral strategic rapprochement and serve as a source of inspiration for other joint defence initiatives in Europe.”39 Indeed, the two countries found common ground for cooperation as set forth by the Lancaster-House Treaty, signed in November 2010. That document established a framework and a new potential for defense cooperation between the two countries, from nuclear and weapon systems programs such as remotely piloted aircraft to the new Combined Joint Expeditionary Force tested successfully in October 2012.40 The rapprochement also became obvious during the Libyan conflict when French and British forces came together on both the diplomatic and military fronts. Nevertheless, difficulties can quickly reemerge. On the procurement side, the recent British decision about the future carrier stopped all potential for further cooperation.41 More important, on the political side, the UK does not want to integrate the bilateral mechanisms into European defense; that is symptomatic of the UK’s reluctance with respect to any global EU project, preventing this country from being a European leader. Moreover, Cameron’s recent gamble with the EU referendum could complicate new ententes. Finally, the capacity to capitalize on recent progress will rely on “the United Kingdom’s ability to mitigate its own Eurosceptic fears in the treaties’ implementation process [and] France’s commitment to implementing the agreed measures and its capacity to leave behind its political and ideological aspirations when dealing with the United Kingdom.”42

The German equation is even more complicated. Thanks to the economic crisis, Germany has “enjoy[ed] a dominant position with regard to Paris and all the other member nations. Why? Because Germany has succeeded in setting up the euro to work in its favor, developing an export-oriented economy and making the necessary reforms in good time.”43 This dominating position on the economic side has repercussions on the political side since Germany tends to favor its own preferences in all areas; the Libyan conflict is the best evidence of this assertion, emphasizing the natural German reluctance to use its armed forces. Concerning its defense views, Germany has always preferred NATO to European defense (it is the second-greatest contributor to NATO spending) and has always had a core disagreement with France over nuclear deterrence.44 This state of mind prevents Germany from actually promoting European defense. Moreover, it recently refused the merger of the British defense contractor BAE and the Franco-German firm EADS, threatening one of the treasures of the European industrial and technological base in the area of defense.45 Today, one must ask whether German leaders have enough will to progress, at the European level, in the area of defense.

To strengthen European defense capacities, France will need the support of Germany as well as the other Weimar+ countries (Italy, Poland, and Spain). The five countries—the most credible European defense actors with the UK—first met on 15 November 2012 and sent an important political message concerning their determination to reinforce cooperation in the defense sector. They published a joint letter stating their willingness to reinforce European defense with the creation of common defense structures. Those countries also agreed on five areas of improvement: engagement in civil-military operations, a European comprehensive approach, equipment, the complementarity of NATO and European defense, and cooperation with international organizations such as the UN. But the UK could fight this project, fearing it might rival NATO command.46 In addition, each of these Weimar+ countries suffers from budget cuts that directly affect its military forces. Despite the necessity to cooperate, the countries’ economic difficulties could undermine their ability to implement actual strides. The ones more affected by the economic crisis will have difficulty affording any long-term and costly program such as the next-generation tanker. If France encounters less formal opposition and even some support from Italy, Spain, and Poland for the European defense implementation, it will have to make sure that the Weimar+ countries follow their words with actual facts regarding common projects directed by the European Defense Agency and their willingness to engage in military operations. The demanding economic context will help bring countries together but could also undermine long-term efforts. Indeed, in their desire to save money quickly, countries could be tempted to merge their forces and favor concrete, short-term objectives while the European structure and the importance of the issue at stake (i.e., the preservation of Europe as a power in a multipolar world) would need broader, long-term objectives with no immediate, tangible return. The implementation of European defense will have to be wise and progressive. If an immediate process involving the EU27 is impossible, the Weimar+ is the right example of the iterative construct Europe might choose: strong leadership from the most active countries to convince the others that European defense can work, encouraging smaller nations to join the group. In addition to the Weimar+ initiative, others could come together within small groups to begin pooling and sharing.47 To strengthen its structure, Europe will also need to preserve its technological and industrial base in the defense area, which is threatened by fiscal constraints such as the reduction of European spending; further, a more aggressive American defense industrial complex (to balance sequestration) could undermine efforts to preserve a strong European industrial base.

At the European level and in the context of an economic crisis, challenges are numerous. In the short term, small-group initiatives à la carte led by the most influential European actors, pooling and sharing, and preservation of the technological and industrial base in the defense area are essential. In the long term, European countries will have to remain reasonable and make compromises on their core views if they want to push forward. The issue at stake is nothing less than Europe as a credible international actor. Through its leading role, France has already shown its willingness to make progress. However, it will need countries to convert their political goodwill into concrete actions, and it will require the support of the United States. This can help European public opinion understand that with the US transition to Asia, Europe needs to take the responsibility of securing its sphere of influence and providing the assets formerly supplied by America.48 Finally, in this era of austerity, Europeans need to make sure that no redundancy occurs between European defense and NATO.

France decided to return to the integrated command structure in order to influence NATO. That means it is ready to contribute to the debate, as occurred during the last NATO summit in Chicago in May 2012. At the procurement level, it means that France wants the European defense complex to have a place in the smart-defense concept and to be associated with the Ballistic Missile Defense System program.49 It also means better deconfliction between NATO and European Defense Agency programs. Above all, and according to Mr. Védrine, France wants to make NATO and European defense complementary, refocusing NATO on its regional and military prerogatives as a military alliance based on Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and nuclear deterrence.50 While European defense would act in humanitarian, peacekeeping, and civil-military operations—and possibly in crisis management—Russia represents another good example of how this complementary role could be used: “Russia’s distrust of NATO has led it to adopt a more assertive foreign policy posture, in which it seeks to safeguard its traditional sphere of interest. . . . The EU could well become the mediator in the complex security policy relations between Russia and the West. The EU clearly provides a security policy agenda that Russia regards as more pragmatic and less confrontational than NATO’s.”51

Conclusion

President Sarkozy’s decision to return to the NATO command structure was necessary for the renewal of European defense. This action did not represent a realignment of French strategy with US policy, as some French politicians feared, but restored trust with Europeans and the United States, reinforcing European defense in the context of the US transition to the Asia-Pacific region. France is willing to give new momentum to the preservation of Europe’s credibility through small-group initiatives à la carte, pooling and sharing, and a preserved European industrial complex. Given the challenges and underlying tensions in a difficult economic context, the political goodwill among the EU27 will need to change into actions, and European countries will have to remain reasonable about their collective defense ambitions. Building on its reaffirmed role after the Libyan conflict, France has initiatives designed to maintain its influence as a European leader; they will enable France to recover its position as a major player on the international stage through a reinforced and complementary European defense and NATO.

France is ready to assume a rallying role in Europe—one that neither the UK nor Germany is ready to shoulder. After centuries of an extremely rich history marked by wars and conflicts, France has developed a true need for safety and independence through its own defense industry and influence. What could appear sometimes as arrogant French exceptionalism is actually an exaggerated pragmatism due to the trauma of the occupation and is designed to protect both French core interests and a European status of power in a multipolar world. A small number of Western countries can afford this global vision financially, ideologically, and culturally. This comprehensive vision shares common ground with American core interests, and France has proven in the recent past—in Libya and Mali—that it is willing and able to assume its part of the burden. Both countries are aware of this fact, making the bilateral relationship better than ever.

*The author, a fighter pilot with 2,400 flight hours, graduated from the French Air Force Academy in 1995 and earned his wings in 1999. His first operational assignment was with the 3/7 Fighter Squadron at Saint-Dizier Air Base (AB), flying the Jaguar. From 2001 to 2005, he performed four tours in operations over Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his latest assignment, he served as commander of the 1/3 Fighter Squadron “Navarre” at Nancy AB, flying the Mirage 2000D. From 2007 to 2012, he deployed twice to Afghanistan and to Operation Unified Protector (Libya) as a squadron leader. Lieutenant Colonel Gary currently serves as the military assistant for the vice-chief of staff of the French Air Force.

Notes

1. “Les Grandes Étapes de l’Europe de la Défense - L’Europe de la Défense - Dossiers - la Documentation Française,” La Documentation Française, 9 October 2012, http://www.ladocentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/d000131-l-europe-de-la-defense/les-grandes-etapes-de-l-europe-de-la-defense.

2. “Les Grandes Étapes,” Délégation aux Affaires Stratégiques, 9 October 2012, http://www.defense.gouv.fr/das/relations-internationales/l-europe-de-la-defense/les-grandes-etapes/les-grandes-etapes.

3. “Petersberg Tasks,” E!Sharp, accessed 18 October 2013, http://esharp.eu/jargon

/petersberg-tasks/.

4. “The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP),” Toute l’Europe.EU, 1 August 2013, http://www.touteleurope.eu/les-politiques-europeennes/diplomatie-et-defense

/synthese/la-politique-de-securite-et-de-defense-commune-psdc.html.

5. Ibid.

6. “The Lisbon Treaty, Article 42,” Eurostep, accessed 18 October 2013, http://www

.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-5-general-provisions-on-the-unions-external-action-and-specific-provisions-/chapter-2-specific-provisions-on-the-common-foreign-and-security-policy/section-2-provisions-on-the-common-security-and-defence-policy/129-article-42.html.

7. “Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).”

8. “EU Operations Centre,” European Union External Action, 23 March 2012, http://www.eeas.europa.eu/csdp/structures-instruments-agencies/eu-operations-centre/index_en.htm.

9. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine Remis au Président de la Republique: ‘Les Conséquences du Retour de la France Dans le Commandement Militaire Intégré de l’Organisation du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord, L’avenir de la Relation Transatlantique et les Perspectives de l’Europe de la Défense’ (14 Novembre 2012),” France-Diplomatie, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, accessed 11 December 2012, http://www.diplomatie

.gouv.fr/fr/enjeux-internationaux/defense-et-securite/otan/evenements-19904/article

/rapport-de-hubert-vedrine-sur-les.

10. Ibid.

11. Alain Ruello, “Les Promesses Jamais Tenues de l’Europe de la Défense,” Les Echos.fr, 21 November 2012, http://www.lesechos.fr/opinions/analyses/0202392393220-les-promesses-jamais-tenues-de-l-europe-de-la-defense-512862.php.

12. “Military Spending: EU Dwarf Shrinks as US Gets Bigger,” EUobserver.com, 17 April 2012, http://euobserver.com/defence/115906. “EU27” refers to the number of EU members in 2011.

13. “SIPRI Military Expenditure Database,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, accessed 11 December 2012, http://www.sipri.org/databases/milex.

14. The 12 countries include the United States, Canada, France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Italy, Iceland, Portugal, and Norway. “The North Atlantic Treaty,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, accessed 12 December 2012, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm.

15. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine,” 3.

16. Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1966, Tome 1 (Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006), 381.

17. “1966–1967: SHAPE Finds a New Home,” Allied Command Operations, accessed 21 October 2013, http://www.aco.nato.int/page1463252.aspx.

18. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine,” 4.

19. Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1966, 381.

20. Edward Cody, “After 43 Years, France to Rejoin NATO as Full Member,” Washington Post, 12 March 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100547.html.

21. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine,” 9.

22. Nicolas Sarkozy, “Clôture du Colloque sur la France, la Défense Européenne et L’OTAN au XXIème Siècle,” 11 March 2009, http://www.ambafrance-no.org/IMG

/pdf/11_1_.03__Conclusion_colloque_Defense_Otan.pdf.

23. Cody, “France to Rejoin NATO.”

24. Sarkozy, “Clôture du Colloque.”

25. Alain de Benoist, “Le retour de la France dans I’OTAN: Un cas de haute trahison?,” AgoraVox, 18 March 2009, http://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/international/article

/le-retour-de-la-france-dans-l-otan-53191.

26. “Strasbourg / Kehl Summit Declaration Issued by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Strasbourg / Kehl” (see no. 20), North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 4 April 2009, http://www.nato

.int/cps/en/natolive/news_52837.htm.

27. Emily O’Brien and Andrew Sinclair, The Libyan War, a Diplomatic History, February–August 2011 (New York: Center on International Cooperation, New York University, August 2011), 10, http://cic.es.its.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/libya_diplomatic_history

.pdf; and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Escalates Pressure on Libya amid Mixed Signals,” New York Times, 10 March 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/world/africa/11diplomacy

.html.

28. Stephen Castle, “European Leaders Don’t Rule Out Armed Intervention in Libyan Conflict,” New York Times, 11 March 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12

/world/europe/12diplomacy.html.

29. “Resolution 1973 (2011), Adopted by the Security Council at Its 6498th Meeting, on 17 March 2011,” S/Res/1973 (2011), United Nations Security Council, 17 March 2011, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1973(2011).

30. “Libya Conflict: EU Awaits UN Approval for Deployment of Ground Troops,” Guardian, 18 April 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/libya-conflict-eu-deployment-ground-troops.

31. Dr. Christian F. Anrig, “Allied Air Power over Libya: A Preliminary Assessment,” Air and Space Power Journal 25, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 94.

32. Michael Clarke, “The Making of Britain’s Libya Strategy,” in Short War, Long Shadow: The Political and Military Legacies of the 2011 Libya Campaign, ed. Adrian Johnson and Saqeb Mueen, Whitehall Report 1-12 (London: Royal United Services Institute, 2012), 9, http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/WHR_1-12.pdf.

33. O’Brien and Sinclair, Libyan War, a Diplomatic History, 12.

34. Alastair Cameron, “The Channel Axis: France, the UK and NATO,” in Johnson and Mueen, Short War, Long Shadow, 18.

35. Aaron Church, “France in the Fold,” Air Force Magazine 95, no. 2 (February 2012): 50–55, http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2012/February%202012/0212france.pdf.

36. Cameron, “Channel Axis,” 18.

37. Even if it occurred after the initial phase, US support with tankers and intelligence assets to this NATO operation allowed the alliance to reach its goal more quickly.

38. Anrig, “Allied Air Power over Libya,” 92.

39. Benoît Gomis, Franco-British Defence and Security Treaties: Entente While It Lasts?, Programme Paper ISP PP 2001/01 (London: Chatham House, March 2011), 3, http://www.francobritishcouncil.org.uk/data/files/reports/Franco-British-Defence-and-Security-Treaties-Entente-While-it-Lasts.pdf

40. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine,”18.

41. Joel Shenton, “UK Switches to F-35B over £5bn Carrier Cost,” DefenceManagement.com, 10 May 2012, http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=19704. In 2010 the UK and France considered sharing the next-generation aircraft carrier. Because of the £5 billion cost to convert the carrier from the “ski jump” to “cat and trap” launch system, the UK decided to reverse the decision in May 2012 and therefore stopped the bilateral project.

42. Gomis, Franco-British Defence and Security Treaties, 4.

43. Pierre Verluise, “The Geopolitical Consequences of the Economic Crisis for France,” diploweb.com, 2 July 2012, http://www.diploweb.com/The-geopolitical-consequences-of.html.

44. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine,” 18.

45. Robert Lea and Sam Coates, “Angela Merkel Blamed for Collapse of Proposed £28bn EADS/BAE Merger,” Times [London], 11 October 2012, http://www.thetimes

.co.uk/tto/news/uk/defence/article3564814.ece.

46. Bruno Waterfield, “Pressure on Cameron to Block EU Army HQ Plans,” Telegraph, 16 November 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9683539

/Pressure-on-Cameron-to-block-EU-army-HQ-plans.html.

47. “MEPs Push for Pooling and Sharing Military Capabilities in the EU,” press release, European Parliament, 10 October 2012, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en

/pressroom/content/20121010IPR53301/html/MEPs-push-for-pooling-and-sharing-military-capabilities-in-the-EU. One of the most emblematic examples of the pooling and sharing concept is the European Air Transport Command (EATC). The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France put major parts of their air transport and air-to-air refueling fleets under the operational control of this multinational command located in Eindoven, the Netherlands. Today, the missions of almost 150 aircraft are planned, tasked, and controlled out of the EATC.

48. “Rapport de Hubert Védrine.”

49. “Smart-defense is a concept that encourages Allies to cooperate in developing, acquiring and maintaining military capabilities to meet current security problems in accordance with the new NATO strategic concept.” “Smart Defence,” NATO Review, accessed 5 December 2013, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/topics/en/Smart-Defence.htm.

50. Ibid., 21.

51. Teija Tiilikainen, “The EU, NATO and Russia,” in What Do Europeans Want from NATO?, Report no. 8, by Sven Biscop et al. (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, November 2010), 21–22, http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Report_8-What_do_Europeans_want_from_NATO.pdf.

The Military in Egypt

Peacemaker with Expiration Date?

Witold Mucha*

Ahmed Khalifa

With the ousting of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013, the events that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation two years earlier seemed to recur. Resting upon very different political backgrounds, the two presidents had faced similar adversaries prior to their fall: both a growing popular movement on the streets and military leadership that would eventually side with the opposition. Policy makers, scholars, and media alike have critically discussed the latter’s role during the removal of the two presidents.1 In particular, Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, commander in chief of the Egyptian armed forces and Egypt’s de facto current leader, has given reason for distrust for two reasons. First, the military overthrew the formally elected Morsi and took power. Second, since then the army has taken action against Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, making use of violent force.2

To some observers, it seems that al-Sisi and the military have thus consolidated their power status quo, which had been seriously questioned by the Morsi government during the last year. Apparently, the army would not stop using violent force against the brotherhood in the name of the demonstrating people.3 Recent statements by Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak’s last prime minister, or Amr Moussa, former foreign minister, substantiate suspicions about the military’s striving for political power. Shafik and Moussa have publicly made their candidacy for the presidential elections of 2014 dependent upon al-Sisi’s own plans. For instance, Shafik stated that he would not run if al-Sisi stood in the election: “May God give him good fortune. We would all support him and I am the first one to support him.”4

Against this backdrop, this article analyzes the military’s role from the period leading to Mubarak’s resignation in February 2011 to the aftermath of Morsi’s ousting in July 2013. It seeks to understand to what extent the military contributed to the escalation and de-escalation of violent clashes in Egypt throughout that time. The analysis focuses less on political motivations than on actual decisions and official statements. In other words, the authors are interested in what the army did to escalate or de-escalate the onset of civil conflict rather than why the military acted that way. The overarching question is to what extent the military refrained from violent repression against the opposition forces and thus became a de-escalating force from the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011.

The article includes three sections. A brief review of the literature presents major findings on the military’s repressive and supposedly stabilizing function in authoritarian regimes, revealing a research gap concerning the nonrepressive and stabilizing responses by the armed forces. Next, drawing on empirical analysis of five escalation episodes in Egypt since the ousting of Mubarak in early 2011, the article traces the military’s specific role by investigating how much the armed forces actively contributed to de-escalation—if they did so at all. Last, it summarizes the findings and outlines the implications for future research. For the most part, the empirical results are based on field research in Cairo between 2011 and 2013.

Stability by Repression

The role of armed forces facing the onset of civil conflict has been dealt with in the context of the paradoxical “stabilizing” function of state suppression in autocratic systems. In particular, prominent work by the Political Instability Task Force has established the conventional belief that under pure autocracy or dictatorship, opportunities for insurgents to organize are too restricted. Thus, the probability of successful collective action is too low.5 Although pure democracies allow for the organization of peaceful collective action and pure autocracies suppress any form of such efforts, so-called semidemocracies have proved particularly conflict prone. Facing a volatile transition phase, former political and military elites are fearful of changes in the status quo as new (popular) factions emerge. Consequently, belligerent rhetoric and politics lead to fragmentation and radicalization processes that in turn are likely to spread violence cycles.6 Indeed, the threat of repression or even moderate repression has been seldom questioned as a stabilizing factor in a domestic setting.7 More recent studies identify the armed forces as pivotal actors for the success of peace-building efforts as far as the “local” and the “everyday” are concerned.8 Although the armed forces have been implicitly discussed as part of the autocratic regime in most of these studies, in particular the Arab Spring uprisings have shown that ruling powers eventually rely on the military’s repressive capacities on the ground.9

The state forces’ repressive capacities are thus used as the major argument rather than the actual decisions made by the stakeholders. This article questions such a linear understanding of the police and armed forces as actors primarily characterized by their repressive means. Empirically based on how the military has responded to the volatile situation in Egypt since 2011, it maintains that the army’s decision not to partake in the clashes de-escalated the beginning of the conflict. In contrast to the academic community’s conventional belief in the power of deterrence, a qualitative analysis addresses the active role of the armed forces in inhibiting further violence. The article argues that by not intervening militarily and thus de facto allowing the masses to openly articulate their demands to the ruling power, the armed forces contributed to the low intensity of clashes. This position is challenged the moment that military leadership decides to make use of violence against parts of those masses. The following section highlights to what extent the Egyptian military refrained from violent repression of the opposition forces and thus became a de-escalating force from the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Case Study Egypt, 2011–13

Three features justify the selection of Egypt during 2011–13 as a crucial case study. First, a heterogeneously composed and unarmed protest movement was capable of ousting the Mubarak regime, which had been in power for more than three decades. Second, unlike the civil wars in Libya (2011) or Syria (2011–ongoing), no large-scale escalation erupted despite violent clashes between supporters of the regime and opposition forces. With a death toll of 846 during the uprising in February 2011, another 150 or so in the aftermath, and several thousand during the ousting of Morsi in early July 2013, Egypt’s Arab Spring drew a different picture compared to 30,000 battle-related deaths in Libya and well over 100,000 fatalities in Syria. Third, during the interim phase prior to parliamentary and presidential elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed the responsibilities of the president. Despite ongoing tensions, the SCAF maintained relative peace within the institutional architecture of the post-Mubarak state. However, as implied above, the military became the driving stakeholder behind the ousting of Morsi in July 2013—violent force included. This behavioral change is useful for the present analytical purpose since it sheds light on the military’s temporal role as peacemaker in Egypt.

The case of Egypt is relevant because of its low intensity of violence on the one hand and fundamental changes regarding the status quo of political power on the other. Its moderate attitude during the initial transitional phase struck both scholars and political observers. This article’s overarching goal is to shed light on this interdependent puzzle (i.e., low-intensity violence and a moderate military). Why and to what extent did the armed forces contribute to the de-escalation of violent tensions in Egypt since early 2011? The authors examine path-dependency dynamics that allow for the identification of variances between the causal factors that either fueled or inhibited the commencement of conflict. Conflict-fueling (escalatory) factors are understood as those that increase the intensity of the fray and the severity of tactics used in pursuing it. Conflict-inhibiting (de-escalatory) factors are understood as those that decrease the severity of coercive means used in the wake of strife.10

The article focuses on measures taken by the armed forces in inhibiting violence throughout the country, taking a look at both the physical operations of the armed forces (e.g., breaking down protest masses) and their official statements (e.g., renouncing the use of force). Given the recent nature of the transition in Egypt, the analysis is applied to a short period of around 33 months covering the time between Mubarak’s resignation in February 2011 and the time of this writing (October 2013). Altogether, the article considers five escalation episodes: the uprising leading to Mubarak’s ousting in February 2011 (approximately 846 fatalities), the violent clashes related to the parliamentary elections in November 2011 (approximately 41 fatalities), the soccer riots of Port Said in February 2012 (approximately 86 fatalities), the reignited soccer-related clashes of Port Said one year later (approximately 66 fatalities), and the violent clashes in the context of Morsi’s overthrow in early July 2013 (approximately 1,200–1,500 fatalities).11

Beyond the high number of people killed (see the figure below), these five episodes have been selected as intracases because of two specific features. First, since both the SCAF (February 2011 to June 2012) and the Morsi government (July 2012–July 2013) administered the transition phase, a look into escalation episodes during the rule of each of these protagonists will help identify changes in the way the military responded to crises. Second, in addition to this top-level institutional layer, these episodes are useful for examining the different conflict actor constellations on the ground. For instance, while the former anti-Mubarak forces clashed with supporters of the SCAF in the wake of the parliamentary elections of November 2011, the Port Said incident in February 2013 occurred in the context of Morsi’s presidency. As such, one expects the different actor constellations of these episodes to better reveal the military’s responses with regard to de-escalation. Beyond these selection criteria, it is important to further consider that each episode per se is set against the backdrop of benefits that must be “distributed” after the fall of the Mubarak regime. Naturally, the old and emerging forces will compete for political, economic, and cultural “pieces of the cake.” It is not surprising, for instance, that the Port Said riots in February 2012 and 2013 coincided with the anniversary of President Mubarak’s fall in February 2011. As the figure shows, the 846 people killed during the January–February 2011 popular uprising and the fatalities in the wake of Morsi’s deposal in July 2013 seem exceptional. Indeed, before and after the removal of Mubarak, minor violent incidents occurred, yet none evolved to the extent seen in February 2011 or July/August 2013. Not surprisingly, the three-decade-long presidency of Mubarak was reckoned among the aforementioned stable autocratic systems.12

Figure. People killed in Egypt, August 2010–August 2013. (Data from “CrisisWatch Database,” International Crisis Group, 2013, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/crisiswatch/crisiswatch-database.aspx?CountryIDs={B915F536-D27C

-4FAC-A808-06B2551C8ADB}#results; “Egypt,” Amnesty International, 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/en/middle-east-and-north

-africa/north-africa/egypt; and “Timeline of Turmoil in Egypt after Mubarak and Morsi,” New York Times, 2 July 2013, http://www

.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/07/02/world/middleeast/03egypt-timeline-morsi.html?_r=0#/#time259_7834.)

Mubarak’s Fall, February 2011

During Mubarak’s last days in office in early February 2011, the military leadership clearly contributed to calming the growing protest masses throughout the country. On 28 January 2011, the so-called Friday of Rage, when Egyptian internal security forces failed to end the protests and the police disappeared from the streets, the military began to play a vital role in ending violence in Cairo and other cities. The army guaranteed it would not open fire under any circumstances, thus preventing any identification of the military with the Mubarak regime. Furthermore, the demonstrators greeted the army as a protector against the regime’s security apparatus.13 Very likely, repressive behavior of the military would have furthered activist considerations to arm themselves to defend their cause.14 Yet, the army leaders’ support of the “legitimate demands” of the people and approval of “peaceful” demonstrations signaled their break with the Mubarak regime.15 Despite their initial cooperation with the opposition, military forces still confronted demonstrators several times after the SCAF took power and ruled the country following Mubarak’s ousting.

Parliamentary Elections, November 2011

Following Mubarak’s departure in February 2011, the SCAF assumed the responsibilities of the president. However, by October 2011, the Egyptian people had become increasingly dissatisfied, and all political parties and activists accused the military of not handing over power to a civilian government. This demand grew after the SCAF’s declaration of the supraconstitutional principles in November 2011.16 In late September 2011, it was time for the SCAF to announce that elections for the People’s Assembly would start on 28 November 2011. The SCAF advised the High Election Commission to plan the elections in three stages due to security issues and the geographical size of the country.17 The first stage began on 28 to 29 November, with a runoff on 5 to 6 December, including the nine governorates of Cairo, Fayoum, Port Said, Damietta, Alexandria, Kafr El-Sheikh, Assiut, Luxor, and the Red Sea. The second stage took place on 14 to 15 December, with a runoff on 21 to 22 December in the nine governorates of Giza, Beni Suef, Menoufiya, Sharqiya, Ismailiya, Suez, Beheira, Sohag, and Aswan.18 The third stage began on 3 to 4 January 2012, with a runoff on 10 to 11 January in the nine governorates of Minya, Qalioubiya, Gharbiya, Daqahliya, North Sinai, South Sinai, Marsa Matrouh, Qena, and New Valley.19 The parliamentary elections for the Upper House (Shura Council) and Lower House (People’s Assembly) lasted for approximately three and a half months.20

Before and during the parliamentary elections, two violent confrontations between the military and protesters took place close to Tahrir Square, Parliament, and the Ministry of the Interior. Clashes in Mohamed Mahmoud Street erupted in November, followed by the Qasr al-Aini Street fighting in December 2011. The Mohamed Mahmoud clashes started 10 days before the elections in Cairo. On 18 November—“Friday of One Demand”—prominent political figures of all parties and activists demonstrated against the SCAF’s supraconstitutional principles. On this day, everything went peacefully. The next day, 19 November 2011, security forces attacked a sit-in in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where they used intensive tear gas and live ammunition against the protesters. The level of violence exercised by the security forces shocked many Egyptians before the elections, and their distrust in the ruling SCAF mounted. The conflict lasted four days, resulting in 45 deaths and hundreds of injuries.21 Surprised by the protesters’ response, the military started to build huge walls that blocked the streets leading to the Ministry of the Interior.22

On 16 December, after the second round of the parliamentary elections, clashes erupted again on Qasr al-Aini Street, close to Parliament. Street fights between the army and civilian protesters resulted in numerous injuries. The strife continued, with protesters and military forces hurling stones at each other.23 Young military officers and security forces were even throwing rocks, sheets of glass, and fire extinguishers at protesters. A group of activists was detained and held inside the People’s Assembly building by military and security forces. The SCAF denied any use of violence, claiming that third parties sought to destabilize Egypt.24

Similar to the setting during the 18 days before the ousting of Mubarak, the police forces failed to end the protests in Tahrir, and the army had to intervene once more. This time, in November and December 2011, the army was the aggressor and not the rescuer of the so-called 25 January Revolution.25 During the fray on Mohamed Mahmoud and Qasr al-Aini streets, security forces received their orders directly from the SCAF to clear Tahrir Square of protests. The generals did not want to risk anything and feared losing control of the security situation in Cairo. The only solution for the generals was to stop the demonstrations by any means, even violence. The SCAF tolerated Friday demonstrations but did not accept other days of the week for sit-ins.26

The Mohamed Mahmoud clashes severely affected public perception of the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood.27 The Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the brotherhood, received countless criticisms from the opposition and liberal forces for the strategic decision not to take part in either conflict. Members of the party were concentrating mainly on the parliamentary elections and avoiding any confrontations with the SCAF.28

During the election process, the SCAF intensified efforts to protect the polling stations and provide a secure environment for the voters, especially after the incidents on Mohamed Mahmoud Street.29 Thus, the SCAF played the role of protecting the revolution and leading Egypt to democracy. However, at the same time, international media presented the SCAF as the aggressor in the street clashes, refusing to fulfill the demands of the revolutionaries.30

The Ultras—football fans of the famous Premier League Al-Ahly team in Cairo—were yet another violent force involved in the street fighting during the parliamentary elections. When the Ultras, well known and highly respected among the protesters, entered the battlefield in large groups, armed with Molotov cocktails and pyrotechnics, the demonstrators celebrated them as heroes. This street popularity began to cause the military serious security issues. Members of the SCAF lost their image as icons of the 25 January Revolution, and the Ultras became more attractive to the young population.31 Violent confrontations between the Ultras and the military took place in the Mohamed Mahmoud and Qasr al-Aini clashes.32 The Ultras played a crucial role in the 25 January Revolution and have continued to do so in Egyptian street politics since the overthrow of Mubarak.33

In summary, the army’s biggest mistake was to intervene in the clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street. Despite the eruption of fighting on Mohamed Mahmoud and Qasr al-Aini, the armed forces managed to continue the election process since the SCAF considered it a top priority.

Soccer Riots in Port Said, February 2012

On 1 February 2012, at least 74 people were killed and many injured after a soccer game in the city of Port Said, 200 kilometers from Cairo at the Suez Canal.34 The Al-Ahly soccer team from Cairo was playing against the local Al-Masry team from Port Said. Directly after the game ended, the lights in the stadium were suddenly turned off, and armed thugs started to attack the soccer fans. Most of the victims in Port Said were Ultras (Al-Ahly fans). The military responded immediately to the riots by sending helicopters to Port Said to evacuate injured players and fans.35

News of the Port Said massacre spread quickly throughout the country, and many Egyptians believed that the SCAF had planned the violence in advance.36 Various opposition groups, including liberal forces and representatives of the Islamic political parties, accused the SCAF of having ordered the “mass murder” in Port Said. They claimed that the generals were part of the old Mubarak regime and that their main objective was to spoil the democratization process in Egypt by spreading violence and fear in society.37

In the following days, the Ultras began to avenge their slain comrades in Cairo. Everywhere in the country, mass demonstrations were organized by the Ultras, who had one main objective—to attack the Ministry of the Interior in Cairo. Although the street fights lasted for days in front of the ministry, the generals ordered an official investigation of the soccer riots in Port Said and promised to hold those responsible for the massacre accountable for their actions.38 Again, youth movements and the police were involved in continued violence after the Port Said riots. The tragedy of Port Said reflected very well the critical security situation in Egypt, which worsened drastically.39

The SCAF realized that it was time to hand power over to a civilian authority after the planned presidential elections; failing this, the security situation in the country would escalate.40 Eventually in June 2012, Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the majority of votes in the second round of presidential elections against his opponent Ahmed Shafik, the SCAF representative.41 In August 2012, President Morsi dismissed Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the country’s defense minister, and Sami Annan, his chief of staff, after the Sinai crisis. Both had been the leading personalities of the SCAF, which had ruled the country after the overthrow of President Mubarak. A drastic shift in power took place.42

In sum, the riots of Port Said mainly involved police forces and the youth movements—the army did not intervene. This time the army tried to play the role of supporter by sending helicopters to Port Said to evacuate injured fans and soccer players. Even though the army had shown solidarity with the families of the victims of Port Said, the people no longer trusted the generals because they had failed to provide security and did not admit responsibility for the massacres. The SCAF realized that its role as a ruling institution had come to an end and that the army had to hand over power to newly elected President Morsi to defuse the violence in Egypt.

Death Sentences, Port Said, February 2013

On 26 January and 9 March 2013, almost one year after the soccer riots in Port Said, a court sentenced 21 fans from the local Port Said soccer team to death and acquitted seven police officers.43 Two high-ranking police officers, one of them the former Port Said security director, were sentenced to 15 years in prison. After the judge announced the sentence, 15,000 Al-Ahly fans began celebrating in front of the court.44

Yet, not everyone accepted the controversial verdict, especially the people of Port Said. Friends and family members of those convicted started to take revenge on the police.45 In the following days, deadly violence erupted in Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal City, Ismailia, Port Said, and other industrial cities as the protestors targeted President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.46 The security situation spiraled out of control, and at least 30 people were killed and many injured.47

The date of the court case of the Port Said riot, 26 January 2013, was significant because it was scheduled one day after the second anniversary of the so-called 25 January 2011 Revolution. Yet, in 2013 the young people of Tahrir who toppled President Mubarak were not ready to celebrate this special day; instead, the protesters decided to continue their violence against Morsi’s regime. The security situation had already become critical before the Port Said verdict; afterward, protests at Tahrir Square continued to intensify.48

During the second anniversary of the revolution, the military did not intervene in the fighting since the violence was directed against the Muslim Brotherhood. Clashes erupted between the police forces deployed by the brotherhood and the youth groups.49 In Port Said, protesters tried to block the Suez Canal, controlled by the Egyptian military.50 In view of the critical security situation, President Morsi declared a curfew in Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez Canal City in an attempt to control the strife.51 Residents of the cities along the Suez Canal, however, ignored the curfew and began challenging the presidential order.52

This time the army cooperated with the protesters. For instance, military officers organized soccer tournaments with the residents during the curfew to defuse the situation in Ismailia.53 This tactic again distanced the military from the Morsi regime—the same strategy the armed forces used during the 18 days in 2011. Once more, it was the military’s turn to play a crucial role in providing security and stability in Egypt. The public changed its opinion about the military, again celebrating army officers as heroes in the streets of Port Said.54

Yet another factor contributed to the change of attitude towards the military. The referendum on the new constitution in December 2012 divided Egyptian society into two rival blocks—those against the Muslim Brotherhood and those supporting it. As of December 2012, the focus remained on the government of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, not on the role of the army. The military took advantage of the political struggle between the political Islam parties and the liberal forces.

Morsi’s Fall, July 2013

The polarization between Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition further intensified in March as fuel shortages sent food prices soaring and electricity blackouts occurred frequently.55 Part of the fuel problem was the government’s inability to pay the debts Egypt owed to foreign oil companies.56 Against this socioeconomic backdrop, the International Monetary Fund’s reluctance to increase its loan to Egypt further complicated matters for the Morsi administration. After failed negotiations in April, the fund’s stakeholders postponed talks until October 2013.57

With the economy in severe crisis and tensions growing between Morsi’s supporters and adversaries, the military again seemed to assume a mediating role. One week before Morsi’s anniversary as president, General al-Sisi publicly warned the political camps that the military was prepared to act decisively to prevent chaos and violence.58 Avoiding partiality, the military cast itself responsible for holding the country together by cautioning against “a split in society whose continuation is a danger to the Egyptian state.”59 Al-Sisi underlined the military’s responsibility against the backdrop of heightened tensions by reminding the camps of the army’s “patriotic and moral responsibility toward its people [which] compels it to intervene to keep Egypt from sliding into a dark tunnel of conflict, internal fighting, criminality, accusations of treason, sectarian discord and the collapse of state institutions.”60 Moreover, given the polarized setting, al-Sisi “‘[called] on all sides to reach a formula of real understanding, agreement and reconciliation to protect Egypt and its people’ . . . [within] one week, ‘during which much can be achieved.’ ”61

Notwithstanding the military’s warning, on 30 June millions of Egyptians took to the streets of major cities and demanded the resignation of President Morsi. The protesters’ agenda was primarily driven by the refusal of the growing Islamist influence on political, social, and cultural spheres.62 At least seven people were killed in battles between opponents and supporters of Morsi in Cairo.63 The military reacted one day later by publicly issuing an ultimatum to the Morsi administration.64 If the president did not take steps to address the protesters’ demands for a more inclusive government within 48 hours, the military “would impose [its] . . . own ‘road map’ ” for the future.65

After Morsi’s refusal of the ultimatum in an angry speech insisting on his legitimate, constitutional right to leadership, on 3 July General al-Sisi announced Morsi’s removal. By further suspending the Constitution and installing an interim government under Adly Mansour, the armed forces justified the intervention as a response to the millions of Egyptians who supposedly opposed the Islamist agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.66 After the arrest of Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders during the following days, the situation escalated on 8 July when at least 54 of Morsi’s supporters were killed and more than 300 wounded in Cairo.67 The protesters had been demonstrating outside the facility where they believed that Morsi was detained.68

Doubts about the military’s real motivations in ousting Morsi received new impetus after the energy shortages suddenly ended and the police reemerged in the streets on 10 July.69 At the same time, the military-led government started a public campaign accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of having incited the violent clashes before and after Morsi’s withdrawal from office.70 Accordingly, Mansour’s new government would not include the Muslim Brotherhood or any other Islamist political party.71

On 24–25 July, tensions between Morsi’s supporters and adversaries intensified when two important announcements coincided. On 24 July, the Obama administration declared that it could not definitely say whether Egypt’s military had engineered a coup d’état against Morsi. Thus, Egypt would continue getting $1.5 billion in American Official Development Assistance each year.72 Further, on 25 July allegations came to light that Morsi had supposedly conspired with Hamas to escape from prison in 2011.73 In the following two days, demonstrations resulted in more than a dozen people dead. Eventually on 27 July, in an attempt to stop the clashes, Egyptian authorities this time ordered security forces to attack the Islamist protesters, killing at least 72. Gunshot wounds to the head or chest indicated that those forces were not bound by orders to use nonlethal means only.74

The violence peaked on 14 August when the security services violently cracked down on two massive pro-Morsi sit-ins that included protesters who refused to disperse, setting off riots and confrontations in Cairo and throughout the country.75 Reacting to the killing of more than 600 people, mostly Islamists, and the injuring of at least 3,700, the Muslim Brotherhood mobilized its followers to take to the streets the very next day.76 Shortly thereafter, General al-Sisi declared a one-month state of emergency while Mohamed El Baradei, the interim vice president, resigned in protest of the disproportionate use of violence by state forces.77 Yet another 1,000 people died in fighting involving supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who were marching in Cairo to protest the use of indiscriminate violence by the authorities.78

The escalations did not abate until 20 August. Although state forces eventually refrained from lethal violence, the police systematically tracked down and arrested the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including prominent spiritual leader Mohammed Badie. With the leadership gone and Western states unwilling to cut the flow of aid, the brotherhood found itself isolated, and the mass protests came to an end.79

Conclusion

Despite the brief transition phase since Mubarak’s fall in February 2011, at first glance, the analysis of conflict episodes affirms the preliminary hypothesis. Indeed, the military was able to de-escalate the flare-up of violence during the November 2011 elections and in the wake of the soccer-related riots of Port Said in February 2012 and 2013. However, a differentiated look into the military leadership’s decisions similarly revealed an ambivalent record in that respect. Although the army’s stance clearly favored the protest movement during Mubarak’s last days in early February 2011 (i.e., support for people’s “legitimate demands”), its involvement with politics constrained the military’s autonomy significantly.

After the police forces failed to disperse the rising social unrest throughout the country in the run-up to the November 2011 elections, the SCAF sent armed forces to contain the direct confrontations. Given its interim ruling function, the military was quickly perceived as a stakeholder responsible for the clashes in the first place, contrasting the heroic image it had acquired in the wake of Mubarak’s ousting a couple of months earlier. Regardless of such ambiguity during this escalation episode, the SCAF managed to hold parliamentary elections. Consequently, the armed forces’ ambivalent record is best explained by political inexperience rather than the deliberate decision to suppress the electorate. In the Mubarak era, the army was not involved in the political arena; that role belonged to the former National Democratic Party.

The Port Said soccer riots in February 2012 drew a similar picture. Again, direct confrontations occurred between local police forces and protest groups while the army sent helicopters to the soccer stadium in an attempt to rescue the injured. However, after the SCAF was accused by large segments of society of having planned the violence in advance, the interim government announced formal investigations. Eventually during this phase, the military leadership decided to step down from formal rule and pave the way for a civilian government. After the presidential elections of 2012, the SCAF handed power over to Mohamed Morsi, the Freedom and Justice Party’s victorious candidate. Nevertheless, two days before the second round of presidential elections, Egypt’s highest court dissolved the Muslim Brotherhood–dominated Parliament and announced that Shafik, the favorite candidate of the SCAF, could stay in the race. Just before President Morsi was to assume power, these two direct provocations shocked the brotherhood. Though designed by the military to test the reaction of the brotherhood and the masses, the latter perceived the announcement as a provocation. Faced with an aggravated security situation, the army stepped back, defused the strained situation, and the civilian government under Morsi assumed power in June 2012.

Although the SCAF’s role in the context of the Port Said incident of February 2012 remains unclear, it seems that the opposition movement would have criticized any action initiated by the interim administration. Thus, one can only partly identify the sending of helicopters to the stadium and the formal call for investigations as conflict-inhibiting factors. In contrast to the November 2011 elections and the Port Said incident of February 2012, the military leadership benefited from the power transition to the Morsi administration in summer 2012. The fact that Morsi increasingly faced opposition from huge parts of the former anti-Mubarak forces and that the police still could not provide security made the military once again emerge as guarantors of domestic stability. The verdict on the Port Said soccer killings in January 2013 reflected this setting. The armed forces were perceived as mediators between the incapable police apparatus on the one hand and the frustrated protesters on the other.

Notwithstanding the military’s stabilizing function as mediator on the political level as well as on the ground, the way Morsi was overthrown in July 2013 demonstrated the temporality of that role. Two aspects in particular challenged the military’s function as peacemaker. First, the military leadership ordered the removal of the country’s first democratically elected president, thereby hazarding the consequences of the onset of polarized conflict. This is striking, given that General al-Sisi himself had warned the political camps about the explosive setting prior to Morsi’s anniversary as president. Second, the armed forces escalated the violence by authorizing the security services to take action against the protesters of the Muslim Brotherhood—witness the disproportionately high number of people killed by gunshot wounds.

In light of the qualitative change in the military’s use of violent force since Mubarak’s fall in February 2011, Egypt’s armed forces have proved a temporal peacemaker at best. Going beyond the official statements and military operations on the ground, one finds that the military’s involvement in the national economy is worth looking into. Some scholars argue that one of the principal motives of the armed forces’ support of the protest movement against Mubarak in early 2011 leads back to their strong position in the national economy.80 The military as an institution remains strongly involved in the private economy. The armed forces run various businesses, including hospitals, banks, companies, and farms.81 Historically, President Mubarak rewarded retired military generals with leading positions as cabinet ministers, governors, chairpersons of top state-owned companies, and managers in the private economy to keep them out of politics.82 Against this backdrop, it is important to take into account the fact that since the toppling of the monarchy in a 1952 coup, all four Egyptian presidents have come from the military, which is still seen as a respected institution that provides stability and security. It is far from surprising that, despite its handing power over to President Morsi in June 2012, the military had secured its position in the new Constitution.83 Given this historically rooted leverage, neither the ouster of Morsi nor the subsequent arrest of prominent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood came as a surprise.

With the military reconsolidating its power according to the Mubarak era, Morsi awaiting trial, and the Muslim Brotherhood having lost its leaders, political stability seems to have arrived in Egypt. However, as the analysis above has shown, the military’s excelling as peacemaker did not produce this relative peace. Quite the contrary, it seems that the armed forces took back political power by violent means and thereafter reestablished the state’s monopoly of violence for its own sake—that is to say, to maintain their material benefits provided by the decade-long involvement with the national economy. Clearly, then, the military would indeed act as “peacemaker” as long as this role served its political and economic interests.

It is probably impossible to trace decision-making processes within the “closed-shop” circle of the military leadership by using scholarly tools alone (e.g., access to expert interviews). However, this article holds three relevant implications for future research and policy making. First, the “stability by repression” argument proves double-edged. The provision of a state monopoly of violence on the ground may inhibit direct clashes between popular adversaries, but one-sided, indiscriminate measures will likely fuel grievances in the long run. Second, domestic stability and security depend upon the capability and willingness of the armed forces to provide the necessaries. However, military repression alone is unlikely to guarantee that road in the long run. For instance, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood continue to protest against the al-Sisi regime despite the detention of major leaders and violent means used by the security forces. Against this polarized backdrop, the Muslim Brotherhood should be included in the national reconciliation process. Otherwise, the historically rooted grievances felt by large segments of society during the Mubarak era will eventually surface and materialize into social unrest. Third, initiation of such a national dialogue is contingent upon the inclusion of a third party capable of bringing the adversaries to the table. Because neither Washington nor Brussels dared to label Morsi’s ousting a coup staged by the military, the credibility of the West has been seriously affected. Given that fact, the United States and the European Union should at least try to act on the respective allies to make both the Muslim Brotherhood (via Turkey and Qatar) and the armed forces (via Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) walk down their maximalist demands.84

*Witold Mucha is a political scientist with a development-policy background in the Andean region and Central Africa. Based at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, he is interested in peace and conflict studies with a focus on escalation and de-escalation processes in internal armed conflict. Currently in his last year of doctoral study, Mr. Mucha is a freelancer at the Institute for Development and Peace and holds a scholarship granted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Ahmed Khalifa is a peace and conflict researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, Germany. Currently, he conducts research on the economic positions and interests of political actors during and after the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, and Syria. He also combines research with photojournalism as a freelance photojournalist and documents political change in Egypt.

Notes

1. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Army Ousts Egypt’s President; Morsi Is Taken into Military Custody,” New York Times, 3 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world

/middleeast/egypt.html?_r=0; Abigail Hauslohner, William Booth, and Sharaf al-Hourani, “Egyptian Military Ousts Morsi, Suspends Constitution,” Washington Post, 3 July 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-03/world/40336012_1_president-mohamed-morsi-wednesday-night-morsi-rally; and Jeremy Bowen, “Egypt Crisis: Army Ousts President Mohammed Morsi,” BBC News, 4 July 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk

/news/world-middle-east-23173794.

2. Paulo Gerbaudo, “The Roots of the Coup,” Soundings 54 (2013): 104–14, http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/pdfs/s54%20gerbaudo.pdf.

3. Hauslohner, Booth, and al-Hourani, “Egyptian Military Ousts Morsi”; and Bowen, “Egypt Crisis.”

4. Michael Georgy, “Mubarak’s Last PM Backs Army’s Sisi for Egyptian President,” Euronews, 9 September 2013, http://www.euronews.com/newswires/2108632-mubaraks

-last-pm-backs-armys-sisi-for-egyptian-president/.

5. Jack A. Goldstone et al., “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability,” American Journal of Political Science 50, no. 1 (January 2010): 190–208; and James Raymond Vreeland, “The Effect of Political Regime on Civil War: Unpacking Anocracy,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 3 (June 2008): 401–25.

6. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack L. Snyder, “Pathways to War in Democratic Transitions,” International Organization 63, no. 2 (April 2009): 381–90; John Gledhill, “Competing for Change: Regime Transition, Intrastate Competition, and Violence,” Security Studies 21, no. 1 (2012): 43–82; and Marcus Alexander, “Democratization and Hybrid Regimes: Comparative Evidence from Southeast Europe,” East European Politics and Societies 22, no. 4 (Fall 2008): 928–54.

7. Daniel Stockemer, “Regime Type and Civil War—A Re-evaluation of the Inverted U-Relationship,” Global Change, Peace and Security [formerly Pacifica Review: Peace, Security and Global Change] 22, no. 3 (2010): 261–74; Ingrid Samset, “Building a Repressive Peace: The Case of Post-Genocide Rwanda,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 5, no. 3 (2011): 265–83; Francisco Herreros, “‘The Full Weight of the State’: The Logic of Random State-Sanctioned Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 43, no. 6 (2006): 671–89; Christian Davenport, “State Repression and the Tyrannical Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 4 (2007): 485–504; and Michael Colaresi and Sabine C. Carey, “To Kill or to Protect: Security Forces, Domestic Institutions, and Genocide,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 1 (2008): 39–67.

8. Samset, “Building a Repressive Peace”; and Oliver P. Richmond and Ioannis Tellidis, “The Complex Relationship between Peacebuilding and Terrorism Approaches: Towards Post-Terrorism and a Post-Liberal Peace?,” Terrorism and Political Violence 24, no. 1 (2012): 120–43.

9. Florence Gaub, “The Libyan Armed Forces between Coup-Proofing and Repression,” Journal of Strategic Studies 36, no. 2 (April 2013): 221–44; and Steven Heydemann and Reinoud Leenders, “Authoritarian Learning and Authoritarian Resilience: Regime Responses to the ‘Arab Awakening,’ ” Globalizations 8, no. 5 (October 2011): 647–53.

10. Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 152, 210.

11. Despite the relevant death toll (approximately 80), the authors did not select the Sinai crisis in August and September 2013 because of the different context of clashes. Unlike the confrontations between the mostly urban-based protest movements challenging the state, the Sinai crisis was handled by a military operation against suspected Islamists from Gaza. Although they ignored minor gas pipeline attacks in April and June 2012, the armed forces eventually intervened militarily in August and September after suspected “jihadists” had killed 16 policemen at a Rafah border post on 6 August 2012. See Yolande Knell, “Fighting Extremism in Egypt’s Sinai,” BBC News, 10 August 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19206931.

12. Beatriz Magaloni and Ruth Kricheli, “Political Order and One-Party Rule,” Annual Review of Political Science 13 (2010): 123–43; and Hamdy A. Hassan, “State versus Society in Egypt: Consolidating Democracy or Upgrading Autocracy,” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 4, no. 9 (2010): 319–29.

13. Mitchell Prothero, “Out of the Time: Egyptians Force Out Hosni Mubarak,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 23, no. 3 (March 2011): 8–11.

14. Sundus Balata, “The Egyptian Uprising,” Inquiry and Insight 4, no. 1 (2011): 72.

15. Sayed Khatab, “Egyptian Revolution and Its Impact on the Stability in the Middle East” (paper presented at the 24th Annual Conference of the International Association for Conflict Management, Istanbul, 2011), 5–7, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery

.cfm/SSRN_ID1872581_code1669085.pdf?abstractid=1872581&mirid=1.

16. Yasmine Fathi, “SCAF’s Proposal for Constitution ‘Abuses Will of the People’, Charge Critics,” Ahram Online, 3 November 2011, http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/25802.aspx.

17. Jeremy M. Sharp, Egypt in Transition, CRS Report for Congress RL33003 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 4 May 2011), 3, http://fpc.state.gov

/documents/organization/168035.pdf.

18. International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Elections in Egypt: Analysis of the 2011 Parliamentary Electoral System (Washington, DC: International Foundation for Electoral Systems, 1 November 2011), 4, http://www.ifes.org/~/media/Files/Publications/White%20PaperReport/2011/Analysis_of_Egypts_2011_Parliamentary_Electoral_System.pdf.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Human Rights Watch, “Mohamed Mahmoud Protester Killings a Test for President Morsi,” Ahram Online, 19 November 2012, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/58571/Egypt/Politics-/HRW-Mohamed-Mahmoud-protester-killings-a-test-for-.aspx.

22. Mona Abaza, “Walls, Segregating Downtown Cairo and the Mohammed Mahmud Street,” Theory, Culture and Society 30, no. 1 (2012): 5–11.

23. Amen Demos, “Ägypten: Tahrir Clashes,” Interpol.tv, December 2011, video file.

24. Ekram Ibrahim, “Mohamed Mahmoud Clashes, One Year On: ‘A Battle for Dignity,’ ” Jadaliyya, 19 November 2012, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/8499/mohamed-mahmoud-clashes-one-year-on_a-battle-for-d.

25. Carter Center, Final Report of the Carter Center Mission to Witness the 2011–2012 Parliamentary Elections in Egypt (Atlanta: Carter Center, 2012), 6–7, http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/election_reports/egypt-2011-2012-final-rpt.pdf.

26. Ahmed Khalifa, “Parlamentswahlen in Ägypten 2011–2012,” Transit, 17 January 2012, http://blog.goethe.de/transit/archives/384-Parlamentswahlen-in-AEgypten-2011-2012.html.

27. Ibrahim, “Mohamed Mahmoud Clashes.”

28. Ibid.

29. Khalifa, “Parlamentswahlen in Ägypten 2011–2012.”

30. Freedom House, Countries at the Crossroads 2012: Egypt (Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2012), 4–5, http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Egypt%20-%20FINAL.pdf.

31. James M. Dorsey, “Pitched Battles: The Role of Ultra Soccer Fans in the Arab Spring—Analysis,” Mobilization: An International Journal 17, no. 4 (2012): 411–18.

32. Khalifa, “Parlamentswahlen in Ägypten 2011–2012.”

33. Dorsey, “Pitched Battles.”

34. Ahmed Morsy, “Port Said on the Defensive,” Al-Ahram Online, 9–15 February 2011, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1084/eg1.htm.

35. Ulrike Putz, “Violence in Port Said: At Least 74 Dead in Football Clashes in Egypt,” Spiegel Online, 2 February 2012, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/violence-in-port-said-at-least-74-dead-in-football-clashes-in-egypt-a-812847.html.

36. Abdel-Rahman Hussein, “Egypt Football Match Violence: Dozens Dead and Hundreds Injured,” Guardian, 1 February 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012

/feb/01/egypt-football-match-violence-dead.

37. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Egyptian Soccer Riot Kills More Than 70,” New York Times, 1 February 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/middleeast/scores-killed-in-egyptian-soccer-mayhem.html?_r=0.

38. Hussein, “Egypt Football Match Violence.”

39. Putz, “Violence in Port Said.”

40. Maha Azzam, Egypt’s Military Council and the Transition to Democracy (London: Chatham House, May 2012), 8–9, http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Middle%20East/bp0512_azzam.pdf.

41. Abigail Hauslohner, “Islamist Morsy Wins Egyptian Presidency, but Will the Military Cede Any Power?,” Time, 24 June 2012, http://world.time.com/2012/06/24

/islamist-morsy-wins-egyptian-presidency-but-will-the-military-cede-any-power/.

42. Mona El-Ghobashy, “Egyptian Politics Upended,” Middle East Research and Information Project, 20 August 2012, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero082012.

43. “Egypt Football Violence Death Sentences Condemned,” Amnesty International, 11 March 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/MDE12/014/2013/fr/c32d83a3

-1241-4ede-b7c7-f84813e90ddb/mde120142013en.html.

44. Karim El-Gawhary, “Court Rulings in Egypt’s Soccer Stadium Riots: The Underhand Role of the Police,” Quantara, 2013, http://en.qantara.de/content/court-rulings-in-egypts-soccer-stadium-riots-the-underhand-role-of-the-police.

45. “Egypt Football Violence Death Sentences Condemned.”

46. Patrick Kingsley, “Riots as Egyptian Judge Upholds 21 Death Sentences over Football Disaster,” Guardian, 10 March 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013

/mar/10/riots-egypt-death-sentences-football-disaster.

47. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Egypt’s Leader Declares State of Emergency in Three Cities,” New York Times, 27 January 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/world/middleeast/morsi-declares-emergency-in-3-egypt-cities-as-unrest-spreads.html.

48. Zeinab El Gundy, “Egypt Revolution’s 2nd Anniversary: Rallies, Marches and Street-Cleaning Drives,” Ahram Online, 25 January 2013, http://english.ahram.org.eg

/NewsContentPrint/1/0/63194/Egypt/0/Egypt-revolutions-nd-anniversary-Rallies,-marches-.aspx.

49. Ahmed Khalifa, “Gewalt in Ägypten: Kinder des Aufruhrs in Kairo,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 31 January 2013, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/gewalt-in-aegypten-kinder-des-aufruhrs-1.1587815.

50. Kingsley, “Riots as Egyptian Judge Upholds.”

51. “Egypt Unrest: Morsi Declares Emergency in Three Cities,” BBC News, 28 January 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21224643.

52. Khalifa, “Gewalt in Ägypten.”

53. Salma Shukrallah, “Suez Canal Residents Defy President Morsi’s Curfew,” Ahram Online, 29 January 2013, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/63539/Egypt

/Politics-/Suez-Canal-residents-defy-President-Morsis-curfew.aspx.

54. James Montague, “Fear and Loathing in Egypt: The Fallout from Port Said,” CNN, 30 January 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/sport/football/port-said-egypt-football/.

55. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Short of Money, Egypt Sees Crisis on Fuel and Food,” New York Times, 30 March 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/world/middleeast/egypt-short-of-money-sees-crisis-on-food-and-gas.html; and Tajamul Yousuf, “Crisis and Unrest in the Arab World: Problems and Prospects,” International Journal of Innovative Research and Development 2, no. 7 (July 2013): 242–44.

56. Kareem Fahim, “Egypt Requests $4.8 Billion from I.M.F.,” New York Times, 22 August 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/world/middleeast/egypt-asks-for-4-8-billion-imf-loan.html.

57. Ibid.

58. Ben Hubbard and Mayy El Sheikh, “Egyptian General Warns against Violence as Anniversary Approaches,” New York Times, 23 June 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06

/24/world/middleeast/egyptian-general-warns-against-violence-as-anniversary-approaches

.html.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Egypt, Its Streets a Tinderbox, Braces for a Spark,” New York Times, 29 June 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/world/middleeast/egypt

-its-streets-a-tinderbox-braces-for-a-spark.html?_r=0.

63. Ben Hubbard, “Young Activists Rouse Egypt Protests but Leave Next Steps to Public,” New York Times, 1 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/middleeast/egypts-young-activists-rouse-protests-but-leave-next-steps-in-hands-of-public.html.

64. Ben Hubbard, “Military Reasserts Its Allegiance to Its Privileges,” New York Times, 3 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/Egyptian-military

-reasserts-its-allegiance-to-its-privileges.html.

65. David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim, “Morsi Faces Ultimatum as Allies Speak of Military ‘Coup,’ ” New York Times, 1 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07

/02/world/middleeast/egypt-protests.html.

66. Ben Hubbard and Kareem Fahim, “Bloody Day in Unrest Widens the Rupture among Ordinary Egyptians,” New York Times, 8 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07

/09/world/middleeast/bloody-day-in-unrest-deepens-rupture-among-ordinary-egyptians.html.

67. Ben Hubbard, David D. Kirkpatrick, and Mayy El Sheikh, “Crackdown on Morsi Backers Deepens Divide in Egypt,” New York Times, 4 July 2013, http://www.nytimes

.com/2013/07/05/world/middleeast/egypt.html.

68. Ibid.

69. David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard, “Morsi Defies Egypt Army’s Ultimatum to Bend to Protest,” New York Times, 2 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03

/world/middleeast/egypt-protests.html?_r=0.

70. Ben Hubbard and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi,” New York Times, 10 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html.

71. Ibid.

72. Mark Landler, “Aid to Egypt Can Keep Flowing, Despite Overthrow, White House Decides,” New York Times, 25 July 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26

/world/middleeast/aid-to-egypt-can-keep-flowing-despite-overthrow-white-house-decides.html.

73. Steve Wilson, “Egypt Accuses Morsi of Plotting Escape with Hamas,” Telegraph, 26 July 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean

/egypt/10204260/Egypt-accuses-Morsi-of-plotting-escape-with-Hamas.html.

74. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Hundreds Die as Egyptian Forces Attack Islamist Protesters,” New York Times, 14 August 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/world/middleeast/egypt.html.

75. Ben Hubbard et al., “Two Sit-Ins Tested New Egyptian Leadership,” New York Times, 15 August 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/09/world/middleeast/cairo-protests-video-map.html?_r=0.

76. Ibid.

77. Michael Georgy, “Mubarak’s Last PM Backs Army’s Sisi for Egyptian President,” Euronews, 9 September 2013, http://www.euronews.com/newswires/2108632-mubaraks

-last-pm-backs-armys-sisi-for-egyptian-president/.

78. Kareem Fahim and Mayy El Sheikh, “Soldiers Storm a Mosque in Cairo, as Egyptian Leaders Struggle for Order,” New York Times, 17 August 2013, http://www

.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/world/middleeast/standoff-in-cairo-as-security-forces-surround-mosque.html.

79. Rod Nordland, “Saudi Arabia Promises to Aid Egypt’s Regime,” New York Times, 19 August 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-vows-to-back-egypts-rulers.html.

80. Paul Amar, “Why Mubarak Is Out,” Jadaliyya, 1 February 2011, http://www

.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out.

81. Shana Marshall and Joshua Stacher, “Egypt’s Generals and Transnational Capital,” Middle East Report 262 (Spring 2012), http://www.merip.org/mer/mer262/egypts-generals-transnational-capital; Ahmed Hashim, “The Egyptian Military, Part Two: From Mubarak Onward,” Middle East Policy 18, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 106–28; and Zeinab Abul-Magd, “The Army and the Economy in Egypt,” Jadaliyya, 23 December 2011, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3732/.

82. Yezid Sayigh, Above the State: The Officers’ Republic in Egypt (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Middle East Center, August 2012), 4–6, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/officers_republic1.pdf.

83. Yezid Sayigh, “Morsi and Egypt’s Military,” Al-Monitor, 8 January 2013, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/01/morsi-army-egypt-revolution.html.

84. International Crisis Group, Marching in Circles: Egypt’s Dangerous Second Transition, Middle East / North Africa Briefing no. 35 (Cairo/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 7 August 2013), 17–18, http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Egypt/b035-marching-in-circles-egypts-dangerous-second-transition.pdf.

Sectarianism after the Arab Spring

An Exaggerated Spectre

Barah Mikaïl, PhD*

Sectarianism has experienced a boost in the aftermath of popular uprisings in the Arab world. Recent sectarian strife following the fall of Arab authoritarian leaders has been provoked by ideological rifts between Islamists and secularists and between conservatives and liberals, as well as by religious divisions between Sunnis and Shias, Muslims and Christians. However, the rise of sectarian strife in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings has also been stoked by geopolitical strategies as power vacuums create opportunities for political ambitions and agendas. While sectarianism is real and bears important risks, it is not the main driver of divisions in the region. The West must not lose sight of the fact that many regimes are stirring up sectarianism while neglecting other cleavages, such as regional agendas, a lack of respect for human rights, corruption, and poor economic conditions.

Yet, however manipulated it may be, the rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region risks undermining the prospects for building peaceful and stable democratic societies in the Arab world. This raises several questions. How are political players favoring and instrumentalizing the reawakening of traditional religious and denominational cleavages? How have governments in the region responded? And what could Europe and the international community do to reduce sectarianism’s potential to spoil peaceful democratic transitions?

Deepening Traditional Rifts

Even though sectarianism in the MENA region is not new, it has acquired alarming dimensions in a changing regional context. Many analyses of sectarianism in the MENA region concentrate on the religious and political divergences between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Saudis and Iranians are mutually defiant regional strategic rivals. In a similar vein, other Arab Gulf countries are preoccupied by Iran’s connections with Shia Arabs and Tehran’s growing influence in the region due to its strong presence in post–Saddam Hussein Iraq and its alliances with the Syrian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Naturally, when the Arab Spring opened new avenues of regional influence, tensions between Iran and the Gulf countries mounted. Tehran initially expressed its satisfaction over the toppling of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. From Iran’s point of view, the Arab people’s decision to oust their pro-Western leaders was good news. Tehran’s attitude changed, however, when riots erupted on the territory of its closest Arab ally, Syria. This confirmed Arab Gulf countries’ suspicions that Iran’s praise of the uprisings had only been in pursuit of its strategic interests.

Suspicions based on confessional divergences and the presumed political agendas behind them also prevailed in domestic debates in several MENA countries. In Tunisia and Egypt, the opponents of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Salafist parties deplored their presumed pro-Sunni Islamist financial support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In Bahrain, which is led by a Sunni minority, Shia-dominated antiregime riots led the Bahraini and several neighboring governments to accuse Iran of interference. Similar accusations were made by Saudi Arabia when riots erupted in the country’s Shia-dominated east.

Divisions also abound beyond the apparent Sunni-Shia rift. In the United Arab Emirates, despite the absence of demonstrations, the state apparatus alleged risks of a regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and criticized the speeches of the Qatar-supported preacher Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi. By doing so, Emiratis denounced the way some regional countries (Qatar and Saudi Arabia in particular) stood ready to support groups with religious-led agendas in order to strengthen their own regional influence.

The deepening of historic sectarian rifts in the region was accelerated by the Arab Spring, but its onset goes further back. In Iraq, sectarian strife has been rampant since the fall of Saddam in 2003. The Iraqi central government remains weak, struggling to ensure national unity. The rise of a strong Kurdish presence in the north and a Shia bastion in the south saw the Sunnis of the center squeezed between strong rivaling regional factions. During the Israeli-Lebanese war in the summer of 2006, several of Hezbollah’s critics, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and some members of the European Union (EU), judged Iran to be behind Hezbollah’s actions. In the Maghreb, diplomatic relations between Morocco and Iran were suspended in 2009 after Morocco accused Iran of attempts to convert Moroccans to Shiism. In the aftermath of the 2011–12 power shifts, several Arab countries now fear that such sectarian tendencies could reach and destabilize their own territories. Several governments in the region have therefore felt pressure to respond to these developments in order to avoid possible spillovers.

Between Containment and Instrumentalization

Since the toppling of some of their authoritarian peers, Arab leaders have been keen to avoid spillovers of two sorts: revolutionary regime change and a loss of social cohesion through sectarian strife. The Tunisia-originated wave of popular unrest has affected most Arab countries with only a few exceptions. By underlining their own importance for maintaining stability, threatened Arab leaders have contained and instrumentalized sectarian tensions at the same time.

Following Ben Ali’s fall and the spread of uprisings, Arab leaderships across the region adopted strict measures to contain demonstrations domestically, usually under the pretext of preserving national security. At the same time, Arab leaders’ overemphasis on the dangers of sectarianism conveniently served their purpose of safeguarding ruling elites’ hold on power. The risk of sectarian splits is real and present in several Arab countries. In Lebanon, sectarian strife between Sunnis and Alawites in Beirut and in the north of the country has resurfaced. Nevertheless, Arab governments have adroitly instrumentalized the tangible dangers of sectarianism to keep a lid on protests.

In Saudi Arabia, repression of timid uprisings in the east of the country was portrayed by the rulers as a struggle against Shia-led sedition. A similar public diplomacy strategy was adopted in Bahrain, where violence extended to a wider scale. Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh referred to tensions between communities as a plot aimed at destabilizing and dividing the country.

Sectarian tensions have assumed the most alarming proportions in Syria, where riots quickly turned to violence between Sunnis and Shia Alawites. The Syrian regime exerted harsh repression and justified its acts by the threat of a “foreign conspiracy.” The sectarian argument eventually served the Bashar al-Assad regime in its efforts to curtail the dynamics of protests by keeping people away from the streets. In Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, sectarianism was used as a pretext to criticize Iran’s growing role in the region. Most significantly, the Gulf Cooperation Council offered membership to Jordan and Morocco. Though still in abeyance, this intended “alliance of the Arab kingdoms” can be understood as a way of building a “Sunni alliance” in opposition to Iran and its supposed “pan-Shiite” regional expansion strategy.

Wielding the argument of sectarianism is a powerful tool as it frightens many communities in the Arab world—such as the Berbers in North Africa. Both sectarian and interreligious tensions between Christians and Muslims present threatening scenarios in several countries, including between Copts and Sunni Muslims in Egypt, as well as in Lebanon and Iraq, where sectarian divisions are reflected in public institutions.

Nevertheless, the instrumentalization of sectarianism could also turn against rulers and their interests. Drawing attention to sectarian tensions runs the risk that such schemes will be appropriated and reinforced by the population in a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same applies to the current overemphasis of media reporting and analysis on confessional, ethnic, and tribal affiliations. Overemphasizing these issues as a major source of regional identity questions the integrity of the nation-state and may potentially weaken national cohesion and favor disintegration.

How to Respond

Many international actors in the region have been taken in by the spectre of sectarianism. The United States and the EU were the first to buy into such a reading. In so doing, Western countries risk missing important nuances. Sectarian affiliations are a reality, and so is a certain conflict potential inherent to them. But sectarian strife is not the most pressing challenge faced by today’s Arab world.

The uprisings clearly show that political and socioeconomic grievances are at the center of people’s demands. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, initial demonstrations were based on demands for change from wide sectors of society—including youth, the unemployed, and regime defectors—without strong sectarian affiliations or considerations. The quest for a better future and for new political rules was the main fuel for their demands. Whatever tribe, clan, religion, sect, or ethnic group they belonged to, citizens asked for “dignity” before anything else. It was only over time that sectarian tendencies came to the forefront. As transitions appeared to be regressing, people increasingly chose to identify themselves along tribal or confessional lines rather than political ones.

The international community should have learned a number of lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. After being invaded, both countries experienced a deepening of internal sectarian tensions. This was largely due to an overemphasis on the role of sectarian communities in transition processes. Instead of placing trust in either country’s own potential for national transcommunitarian cohesion, the invading powers bestowed an equal share of political prerogatives on different communities. This triggered a deepening of the divisions between the various groups. Larger communities eventually came to consider it a great opportunity to strengthen their position. While Shias are dominant in Iraq’s current political process, the Pashtun people are a majority in Afghanistan’s government.

The Arab uprisings confirmed the West’s long-standing inclination to favor transition processes that attach high priority to ring-fenced “minority rights.” Western insistence on the rights of the Coptic community in Egypt is a case in point. In Syria, the United States regularly stresses that it wants members of the opposition (especially those forming part of the Syrian National Council) to commit more clearly to protecting the “rights of the minorities.” However, there is some inconsistency: in general, Western countries’ potentially laudable defense of minority rights seems to be less fervent when it comes to defending the rights of Shias. For example, the international community has played deaf to demands for change from Shia communities in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. In particular, violent clashes between the Bahraini/Saudi armies and Shia demonstrators in 2011 and 2012 have not led to international condemnations anywhere near as severe and determined as in the Syrian case.

In Libya, division between groups has been implicitly encouraged rather than avoided. Following Mu‘ammar Gadhafi’s fall, divisions have widened between the members of the Transitional National Council (TNC). Given that the country is comparatively homogeneous in confessional terms (Sunni), tribal, regional, and ideological divisions play a greater role. Since the beginnings of the anti-Gadhafi protests, Benghazi became a focal point for protests, somewhat to the detriment of regional priorities. Regional, ideological, and tribal rivalries have grown progressively since. Due to Libya’s decentralized history and societal structures, national cohesion has been more problematic here than anywhere else in the region. Moreover, no concrete steps for the organization of a post-Gadhafi transition had been defined before the fall of the Libyan leader. The result was further division among large parts of the population along ideological (Islamists versus secularists) or ethnic affiliations (Arabs versus Berbers as well as tribal rivalries).

Even though state protection of minority rights is important, foreign governments should stress the consolidation of the rule of law, citizenship, and human rights as a whole without a specific emphasis on any community or minority. By abstaining from distinguishing between one community and the other, the EU and the United States would gain credibility and trust in the region. While Russia and China may not be willing or able to give lessons in respect for minority rights, these two countries benefit from the perception (whether justified or not) that they are more reluctant to pick winners and play communities against each other. Western countries do not do themselves a favor when their actions arouse suspicions of divide and rule.

Conclusion

Genuine concerns over the dangers of sectarian conflict become confused with geostrategic considerations, often to the detriment of regional security. Some Arab leaders’ fears of being swept away by continuing uprisings lead them to instrumentalize sectarianism as a form of life insurance. The frequent reference to the Sunni-Shia rift presumably promoted by Iran is the most obvious example. Western actors need to move their sectarian-based reading of some events in the region towards broader interpretations. Both Western and local actors must stop viewing the MENA region through a sectarian prism and instead aim to strengthen the internal cohesion of nation-states.

Libya offers a concrete opportunity to do so. The TNC’s internal contradictions, combined with a rise in tribal and local tensions, provide room for the West to attach conditions to its support of the country’s reconstruction. Meanwhile, in Syria, the international community would be wise to broaden its sectarian interpretation of facts, according to which Alawites dominate and exclude all the other communities. It should move towards a more pragmatic, transconfessional narrative that calls on all Syrians, without reference to any community in particular, to define together a shared vision for Syria’s future.

*The author is a senior researcher at the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y El Dialogo Exterior (FRIDE), a Madrid-based think tank for global action that analyzes key debates in international relations. A specialist in geopolitical issues regarding water, he is part of a project dedicated to the study of politics and religion and their interactions in contemporary conflicts. Prior to joining FRIDE, he was senior researcher on the Middle East and North Africa and on water issues at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS) in Paris (2002–10), where he directed the master’s degree program in international relations and all seminars on the Middle East, North Africa, and geopolitical issues concerning water. He worked at the Secrétariat Général pour l’Administration (French Ministry of Defence), supervising the Paris-based Collège Interarmées de Défense’s training program on water issues (2005–7). Dr. Mikaïl is also a lecturer at the Institute for European Studies of the Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis. He is a member of the editorial boards of the French academic journals Revue internationale et stratégique and Confluences Méditerranée. He holds a PhD in political science from the Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis, an MA in political science from the Université Paris Dauphine, and an MA in international relations and an MA in Arab and Islamic civilizations from the Université Marc Bloch.

This article first appeared as Barah Mikaïl, “Sectarianism after the Arab Spring: An Exaggerated Spectre,” Policy Brief no. 131 (Madrid: FRIDE, June 2012). Reprinted with permission from FRIDE.

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