4th Quarter 2016 Volume 7, No. 4

Editorial

Civil Military Relations, International Norms, Question-Asking in Intelligence Analysis: Competitive Advantage or Lost Opportunity? Apocalypse Now?, and War and Peace in Our Genes

Rémy M. Mauduit

Articles

Civil-Military Relations and the Dynamics of American Military Expansion

Jeffrey W. Meiser, PhD

Question-Asking in Intelligence Analysis

Competitive Advantage or Lost Opportunity?

Charles Vandepeer, PhD

Interactions between International Norms

The Case of the Civilian Protection and Antiterrorism Norms

Alexandru Grigorescu, PhD

Sherri S. Replogle, PhD

Apocalypse Now

Colonel Klein and the Legitimacy of the Kunduz Air Strike Narratives in German Television Films

Axel Heck, PhD

Both War and Peace Are in Our Genes

Azar Gat, PhD

Civil-Military Relations, Question-Asking in Intelligence Analysis, International Norms, Apocalypse Now, and War and Peace Are in Our Genes

In recent years, influential field commanders have pushed for prolonged and expanded military strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prof. Jeffrey Meiser raises the question of whether this position is a characteristic of modern general officers or part of a broader attitude of military officers for the most part. His article “Civil-Military Relations and the Dynamics of American Military Expansion” uses the United States’ experience during its “imperial” era to test the hypothesis that military officials are more likely to advocate for political-military expansion than are civilian officials. This supposition is derived from the literature on civil-military relations, which has found that military leaders tend to favor military solutions to policy problems. The inference is that military officials will tend to see political-military control of foreign territory as the best solution to instability and will advocate for political-military expansionism. Professor Meiser’s study seeks to clarify the various arguments that link civil-military relations to foreign policy actions by analyzing 10 cases of American military intervention in the Caribbean Basin and the Asia-Pacific region during a particularly belligerent period of American foreign policy: the presidential administrations of presidents Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (1893–1913).

In “Question-Asking in Intelligence Analysis: Competitive Advantage or Lost Opportunity?,” Dr. Charles Vandepeer states that questions are central to intelligence analysis. As intellectual tools, they represent the most accessible, teachable, and broadly relevant approach to the development of knowledge, well-reasoned judgments, and identification of assumptions. He argues that intelligence analysts are expected to answer questions asked of them by policy makers, commanders, and operators. Furthermore, analysts are expected to proactively identify and ask the right questions that are critical to understanding the particular situation or problem at hand. Nevertheless, recent inquiries and investigations raise concerns over the degree to which intelligence organizations encourage analytic debate, dissent, or questioning. Without establishing cultures that actively encourage question asking, the risk is that intelligence organizations will lose the opportunity for analysts to identify the right questions to ask. Ultimately, if they are unable or unwilling to ask difficult, uncomfortable questions and pursue the answers, then the consequences could prove disastrous, resulting not simply in lost opportunities but perhaps in lost lives.

In “Interactions between International Norms: The Case of the Civilian Protection and Antiterrorism Norms,” Prof. Sherri Replogle and Prof. Alexandru Grigorescu help us understand how norms act upon each other. Their approach is based on a theoretical framework that focuses on actors’ efforts to reshape norms to promote their material interests. The authors argue that actors rarely accept norms and their prescriptions as they are originally promoted or that they simply challenge them. Most often actors attempt to reshape norms by using “narrowing” or “broadening” strategies that often connect them to other existing norms. Professors Replogle and Grigorescu assess the plausibility of their arguments by discussing the evolution of the civilian protection norm and the antiterrorism norm. They especially emphasize developments after 2001 when the United States reinforced the antiterrorism norm and, by doing so, inadvertently empowered the civilian protection norm. This result, in turn, put pressure on the United States to alter some of its policies in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prof. Axel Heck analyzes two docudramas about an air strike ordered by a German colonel on an area near the Kunduz River in Afghanistan in September 2009, killing more than 140 people—many of them civilians. In “Apocalypse Now: Colonel Klein and the Legitimacy of the Kunduz Air Strike Narratives in German Television Films,” Dr. Heck examines the hotly contested question of whether Col Georg Klein’s order should be considered an act of self-defense or a war crime. The two films take a crucial position regarding the interpretation of the incident in terms of its legitimacy. The central research question of Dr. Heck’s article, therefore, is how the Kunduz air strike is audiovisually constructed and narrated in these two productions. He maintains that docudramas are important sources for international relations research for three reasons: (1) television productions reach millions of people and tremendously affect public discourses on the legitimacy of military action, especially in cases in which knowledge is incomplete, limited, or even contested; (2) documentary films in general and docudramas in particular can contribute to the collective memory by rendering audiovisual narratives and interpretations of the represented military operations; and (3) docudramas deconstruct reality by assembling fictional and nonfictional elements. As such, they are aesthetic artifacts performing a mimetic claim. The authors’ empirical analysis draws on a semiotic theory about the audiovisual construction of legitimacy narratives and uses a film analytical methodology.

The potential for both war and peace is embedded in us, posits Prof. Azar Gat in “Both War and Peace Are in Our Genes.” He argues that the human behavioral tool kit includes a number of major implements geared for violent conflict, peaceful competition, or cooperation, depending on people’s assessment of what will serve them best in any given circumstance. Dr. Gat points out that conflict is only one tool—the hammer—and that all three behavioral strategies are not purely learned cultural forms. He asserts that this naive nature/nurture dichotomy overlooks the heavy, complex biological machinery necessary for the working of each of them and the interplay among them. Violent conflict, peaceful competition, and cooperation are close under our skin and readily activated because they have remained handy during our long evolutionary past. At the same time, they are variably calibrated to particular conditions through social learning; consequently, their use may fluctuate widely. Thus, state authority has tilted the menu of human choices in the direction of peaceful options in the domestic arena, and changing economic, social, and political conditions may be generating a similar effect in the international arena.

Rémy M. Mauduit, Editor

Air and Space Power Journal–Africa and Francophonie

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Civil-Military Relations and the Dynamics of American Military Expansion

Jeffrey W. Meiser, PhD*

It is the era of the political general.1 Our combatant commanders “own the battlespace” and have extraordinary influence on the resources that flow into their theater of operations. They seem just as comfortable briefing the public at high-profile think tank events and writing Washington Post op-eds as they are leading their troops in battle.2 The important resources for these modern-day warriors include their “Capitol Hill contacts and web of e-mail relationships throughout Washington’s journalism establishment.”3 Savvy American presidents give these men the time and resources they need and in return expect them to “prop up” administration policies.4 Their relationships with American presidents are the stuff of front-page headlines, as are their ethical failings and lapses in judgment.5 These commanders have also been strong advocates of expanding and intensifying combat missions by lengthening the US commitment, increasing the number of troops, and engaging in armed state-building.6 In sum, military commanders in-theater have a strong influence on military strategy, and they appear to use that influence to escalate, expand, and prolong America’s recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This trend is potentially problematic in a time when many prominent strategists are calling for restraint.7

The characterization of the modern general outlined above is based on a very small sample of general officers, mainly Gen David Petraeus and Gen Stanley McChrystal. Do these two generals exemplify a trend in civil-military (civ-mil) relations, or are they outliers? More generally, are military officers on the ground more likely to favor a militarized and expansionist foreign policy? According to the civ-mil literature, Generals Petraeus and McChrystal are typical of military leaders in their aggressiveness and optimism about military force. Qualitative and quantitative studies have found that military leaders tend to emphasize the effectiveness of military solutions to foreign policy problems, favor offensive military doctrines, and inflate the likelihood of war.8 Generally, military influence is correlated with an increased probability of militarized interstate disputes.9 However, less has been written about the specific type of influence exercised by combatant commanders.10 As recent history has shown, these commanders can be especially influential because of their firsthand knowledge of the situation on the ground, the perception that they are unbiased experts, and their willingness to engage with the media and civil society.

This article uses 10 case studies of the American experience during its “imperial” era to test the hypothesis that field commanders are likely to advocate for expansionist military policy or, more generally, political-military expansion.11 The methodology consists of both between-case comparison and within-case analysis. First, the cases are examined to determine whether field commanders advocated for political-military expansionism. Second, the within-case analysis compares the actions and advice of military commanders to the actions and advice of deployed civilians to distinguish the causal effect of being a military commander from the causal effect of being “the man on the spot.” Cases are taken from the height of the era of American imperialism because it is a fertile ground for studying expansionism and it is a period with certain similarities with the current era. Then, like now, American Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines were frequently deployed in stability operations that gave the United States increased political-military control over foreign territory. Then, like now, deployed military officers and civilian officials had considerable influence on policy. Finally, then, like now, there were strong debates in the United States about the efficacy and morality of political-military expansionism.

Civil-Military Relations and American Imperialism^12

This section examines civ-mil relations during the height of American imperialism under the presidential administrations of Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (1893–1913). It focuses primarily on cases in which US officials (civilian and military) were deployed in a position to advance American political-military expansion in word or deed. The guiding questions are as follows: Did military commanders deployed in foreign territory or offshore from foreign territory take actions to further political-military expansion or make arguments in support of such expansion? Did civilian officials stationed in foreign territory take actions to further political-military expansion or make arguments in support of such expansion? The answers to these questions are summarized in the table below, which shows that in the majority of cases, the military commander in the field was expansionist and that in a majority of cases in which civilian officials were present, they also favored expansionism. Therefore, the initial test of the militarization hypothesis is that field commanders do tend to favor political-military expansion, especially in the form of direct military intervention, longer and deeper military occupations, and annexation and colonial control of territory. However, evidence suggests that deployed civilian officials also tend to favor political-military expansion although influential civilians are less likely to be present during military operations. The main inference we can draw is that being on the front line tends to encourage expansionist attitudes regardless of whether an individual is military or civilian.

Table. Summary of cases

Cases

Deployed Military Commanders’ Policy Preference

Deployed Civilian Officials’ Policy Preference

1. Attempted Annexation of Hawaii, 1893

Highly expansionista

Highly expansionist

1. Annexation of the Philippines, 1898

Moderately expansionistb

N/A

1. Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, 1898

Moderately expansionist

N/A

1. Occupation of Cuba, 1899

Highly expansionist

N/A

1. Occupation of Beijing, 1900

Moderately expansionist

Moderately expansionist

1. Acquiring the Canal Zone, 1903

Neutralc

Highly expansionist*

1. Occupation of Cuba, 1906

Moderately expansionist

Moderately expansionist

1. Nicaragua Intervention, 1909

Neutral

Highly expansionist

1. Nicaragua Intervention, 1910

Highly expansionist

Moderately expansionist

1. Nicaragua Intervention, 1912

Moderate restraintd

N/A

*Foreign and American civilians played the highly expansionist role, but they generally were operating under a tacit understanding with American political leaders.

- aHighly expansionist = took independent action to facilitate additional political-military expansion, escalation of existing political-military intervention, or lengthening of intervention

- bModerately expansionist = took a position favoring additional political-military expansion, escalation of existing political-military intervention, or lengthening of intervention

- cNeutral = took a neutral position or followed orders to implement either expansion or restraint

- dModerate restraint = took a position against political-military expansion, escalation of existing political-military intervention, or lengthening of intervention

- The shading visually represents the spectrum from “Highly expansionist” (dark gray) to “Moderate restraint” (white).

- High restraint is a theoretical possibility, but is not present in the 10 cases analyzed in this article. High restraint is defined as taking independent action to prevent political-military expansion, escalation of existing political-military intervention, or lengthening of intervention.

The remainder of this section analyzes 10 cases of American expansion or attempted expansion. The cases are not exhaustive but focus on instances when military and/or civilian officials were deployed away from American shores and had a potential impact on decisions of whether or not to engage in political-military expansion. The concluding remarks following the case study analysis summarize the findings and discuss the implications of this study.

Attempted Annexation of Hawaii in 1893

After many years of conflict between American-Hawaiian plantation owners and the indigenous Hawaiian royalty, the owners staged a coup on 16 January 1893 with the support of John Stevens, American minister to Hawaii, and Capt G. C. Wiltse, the US Navy commander in Hawaii. The American officials were vital to the success of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. Stevens ordered US Marines to come ashore from the USS Boston in Pearl Harbor to protect American property, occupy government buildings, and intimidate the queen and her supporters. Importantly, US forces were deployed before the coup was completed, and therefore it took place under American protection. Queen Liliuokalani peacefully stepped down but made the point that she relinquished her authority to the “superior forces of the United States of America” until such time as she could be reinstated by that same force.13 Stevens immediately recognized the new government established by the annexationists under the leadership of provisional president Judge Stanford B. Dole and declared Hawaii an American protectorate. Stevens acted without orders from Washington and hoped that his superiors would accept his fait accompli.14

The actions of the Hawaiian-American annexationists and American minister Stevens and Captain Wiltse were for naught. Incoming president Grover Cleveland repudiated the actions of American agents and refused to support the annexation of Hawaii. Not until the wartime presidency of William McKinley did annexation in 1898 finally occur.15 Nevertheless, the important point is that the top civilian official and military officer deployed in Hawaii were strong proponents of political-military expansion and took actions that went well beyond their authority in order to facilitate the annexation of Hawaii.

McKinley’s Decision to Annex the Philippines, 1898

The Philippines was the largest, most important colonial possession of the United States. The opportunity to annex the archipelago emerged from the dynamics of the War of 1898. One of the most important battles of the war was fought at Manila Harbor where Commodore George Dewey’s fleet defeated Spanish forces on 1 May 1898. American forces then took the city of Manila on 14 August, two days after the war ended—the time lag was caused by slow communications.16 A cease-fire or “Protocol of Agreement” was signed on 12 August 1898 that settled the status of Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and Guam but left the status of the Philippines to be determined at the peace conference, which would last from 29 September to 10 December 1898.17

The crucial step in the annexation process examined here is President McKinley’s decision to order his peace commissioners to demand control of the Philippines during peace negotiations with Spain. McKinley’s position on this issue developed over the course of several months’ time. Between May and October 1898, the president slowly increased his territorial demands toward the Philippines. In May 1898, the official US position was to allow Spain to keep the Philippines except for a coaling station for the United States there or the Caroline Islands. By July the McKinley administration’s plan was to claim only a Philippine harbor (Manila) for a naval base and leave the rest to Spain. By September McKinley had modified his position to claim all of Luzon Island (where Manila was located). However, this position did not last long. Most of his advisers argued that it would be difficult and strategically unwise to attempt to occupy only Manila or Luzon due to the interdependence of the island chain and the idea that the Philippine people could not govern themselves and would rapidly be swallowed up by Germany or Japan. On these points, Gen Francis V. Greene is thought to have been particularly influential. After returning from the Philippines, where he led the attack on Manila, he gave a report to McKinley favoring annexation of the entire archipelago for the two reasons mentioned above.18 General Greene’s position was reinforced by Cdr Royal B. Bradford, chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Equipment, who had been to Manila to look for potential sites for naval and coaling stations. By October McKinley had decided to annex the entire archipelago.19 In February 1899, the Senate voted to ratify the peace treaty with Spain and complete the annexation of the Philippines.20

Although President McKinley received advice from many civilian officials and private citizens, the justification he gave for annexing the entire island chain closely mirrors the analysis he received from General Greene.21 The most authoritative and authentic statement given by McKinley himself was recorded on 19 November 1898—a month after he instructed his peace negotiators to gain the entire archipelago—by Chandler Parsons Anderson in a private discussion with the president and Thomas Jefferson Coolidge in McKinley’s office. According to Anderson’s written record of the conversation, McKinley stated that the United States had to maintain control of all the Philippine Islands because (1) they could not be returned to Spain “for the very reasons which justified the war” (i.e., humanitarian reasons), (2) they could not be transferred to another European power because doing so would cause a war and would go against American interests, (3) it was the “responsibility” and “duty and destiny” of the American people to accept control of the islands, and (4) the “strategic interdependence of the islands” was such that the United States had to keep all of them or none of them.22

McKinley’s initial position was simply to maintain a coaling station, but he shifted to a much more expansionist position after getting advice from military officers returning from the field. This case shows that military officers returning from the theater favored political-military expansionism and likely had a strong influence on the president’s decision to seek annexation of the Philippines. No important civilian officials were deployed in the Philippines at that time—at least no one important enough to make it into the history books.

Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, 1898

Following McKinley’s decision to annex the Philippines, the United States had to determine exactly how to exercise control over its new possession. Options ranged from a self-governing protectorate to a colony governed by American officials. The key issue was how America would choose to deal with the Philippine nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo.

US forces were concentrated in Manila following the Battle of Manila Harbor, and throughout most of 1898, they were on uncertain terms with Philippine nationalists who controlled most of the Philippines. The nationalists wanted Philippine independence and were suspicious of US intentions. American forces in the Philippines lacked clear orders and tried to muddle through the situation as best they could. The defining breaking point between the Americans and Filipinos was McKinley’s Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation of 21 December 1898, an executive order that established American sovereignty over the Philippines. Brian Linn notes two crucial aspects of McKinley’s proclamation: First, the VIII Corps mission was to establish control over the Philippines (i.e., any Filipino aspirations for independence were to be pushed aside). Second, McKinley established a benevolent policy of “protecting Filipino lives, property, and civil rights,” thus putting in place the first American experiment in trying to win the hearts and minds of a foreign people.23

Historian Grania Bolton argues that McKinley’s order to establish American sovereignty over the entire archipelago was the result of advice from Gen Wesley Merritt (the first Army commander in Manila), Gen Elwell S. Otis (Merritt’s replacement), and Commodore Dewey (the hero of the Battle of Manila Bay). They all assured the president that Filipinos were unable to govern themselves and would welcome American control of the islands. However, despite these assurances, Aguinaldo saw the proclamation as a betrayal, and subsequent events suggest that the executive order was “the last step toward violence” between US Soldiers and the nationalists.24 Hostilities began on 5 February 1899, a little over a month after McKinley issued his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation. The president’s decision to establish direct American control of the archipelago was supported and encouraged by Army officers returning from the Philippines and the naval commander who established the US foothold there. Again, no deployed civilian is described as having influenced McKinley’s decision to exercise direct control over the Philippines.

American Occupation of Cuba, 1899–1902

During the War of 1898, an American army invaded and occupied significant portions of Cuba. Following the peace agreement between the United States and Spain, the United States moved to occupy the entire island and build a new Cuban nation-state. Brig Gen Leonard Wood was appointed military governor of Cuba with the mission, in the words of President McKinley, “to get the people ready for a republican form of government. . . . Give them a good school system, try to straighten out their courts, and put them on their feet as best you can. We want to do all we can for them and to get out of the island as soon as we safely can.”25

Despite the president’s desire for a quick transition to Cuban independence, Wood hoped that a long-term transformation of Cuban public opinion could make annexation possible.26 Wood made it his goal to Americanize Cuba rather than prepare it for independence. The general’s purpose was to “create during the military government, while the island remained under American rule, the conditions leading to ‘annexation by acclamation.’”27 An important step in the process was gaining Cuban collaborators who could be made loyal to the United States and trusted to make the request for annexation. To increase the chances of American-friendly elites winning election to top positions in the Cuban government, US officials worked to foster a cohesive political party out of loyal Cubans and to shape the electorate through suffrage laws. Wood even went on the campaign trail for his favored candidates.28 He also instituted major infrastructure, education, and public health projects to increase the legitimacy of the occupation forces and Americanize the Cuban people.29

Although General Wood’s efforts to promote annexation convinced neither President McKinley nor the Cuban people, his last major assignment in Cuba was to ensure that the United States would maintain influence on the island nation for the foreseeable future. He led the effort to convince Cubans leaders to accept the Platt Amendment, which significantly curtailed Cuban sovereignty by giving the United States a right to intervene in Cuba as necessary “for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty.”30 The amendment also limited the size of the debt the Cuban government could assume and gave the United States the right to maintain naval stations in Cuban territory.31

In this case, Gen Leonard Wood went beyond official US policy to attempt to create the conditions for America’s eventual annexation of Cuba. In these efforts, he was far more expansionist than policy makers back in Washington. US policy did shift in an expansionist direction with the Platt Amendment, but strong Cuban opposition prevented Wood’s dream of annexing Cuba from becoming reality.

American Occupation of Beijing, 1900–1901

In 1900 the United States joined a multinational effort to pacify the Boxer Rebellion in China, centered on Beijing and the surrounding province. After the successful occupation of the city by international forces (including Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States), President McKinley had to decide whether he would order a quick withdrawal of troops from China or join in the partition of that country into spheres of influence. Secretary of War Elihu Root saw no good reason for American troops to remain in Beijing without a clear mission and advocated their withdrawal to the coast. But McKinley followed the advice of his field commander Lt Gen Adna Chaffee; Edwin H. Conger, the American minister to China; and Secretary of State John Hay to keep some of the troops in place in Beijing and continue to cooperate with the European powers and Japan. To appease anti-imperialist sentiment and to facilitate troop increases in the Philippines, McKinley ordered a gradual withdrawal of troops, cutting Chaffee’s force in half to about 1,900 men.32

As stability was being restored, the Department of the Navy and General Chaffee began to expand their ambitions for an American presence in China. By early winter, General Chaffee was arguing in favor of “acquiring military bases that would demarcate and safeguard an American sphere of influence in North China.”33 He believed that the United States should establish control of a port city and use it to support a permanent American base in Beijing. Chaffee worried that instability would continue in China and that America needed to maintain a strong position vis-à-vis other foreign powers. Rear Admiral Bradford, chief of the Naval Bureau of Equipment, and John D. Long, secretary of the Navy, were also strong proponents of acquiring a base in China and made a formal request to Secretary Hay to look into obtaining permission for a naval base in Samsah Bay in Fukien. Hay forwarded the request to Conger, but the American minister to China opposed attempts to obtain any territorial cession in China, reversing his previously enthusiastic support. Secretary Hay backed his man in China and rejected the Navy’s request; he also ignored subsequent appeals from Bradford. However, Conger did favor renewing the concession the United States had been granted in Tientsin in 1861 but never occupied. The McKinley administration, though, had little interest in gaining a territorial concession in China. The president’s goals were to strengthen the Chinese government, stay out of the competition for Chinese territory, and maintain the relatively favorable image the United States had earned in China.34

The American occupation ended in May 1901, well ahead of the other occupying nations. This early withdrawal went against the advice of field commander Chaffee and against the preferences of the Department of the Navy, both of whom wanted to expand the mission to include a permanent US military presence in China. The position of Conger, the top civilian official in China, was expansionist on the issue of US policy there but not quite as expansionist as that of his military colleagues. He favored extending the American troop presence in Beijing (contrary to Secretary Root’s advice) and favored renewing a lapsed 1861 concession; however, he opposed acquiring a naval base (contrary to General Chaffee’s advice and the request of the Department of the Navy).

Acquiring the Canal Zone, 1903

It appears to be engineer and entrepreneur Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla (representative of the New Panama Canal Company) who took the lead in connecting the strands of American expansionism and Panamanian nationalism in 1903. After consultation with American officials, he concluded that the United States would tacitly support Panamanian secession from Colombia. America would justify its actions by referring to its right to maintain transit across the isthmus, a right given to the United States in its 1846 treaty with Colombia. Bunau-Varilla then contacted Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero—a leader of the independence movement in Panama and physician for the Panama Railroad, owned by the New Panama Canal Company. The alliance formed by the canal company and Panamanian nationalists began planning for a new rebellion. In a personal meeting with President Roosevelt in October 1903, Bunau-Varilla made it known that revolution in Panama was certain. Roosevelt did not encourage the revolution, but Bunau-Varilla inferred that the United States would take advantage if it were to occur. US naval vessels were directed to take positions along the coast of the potential breakaway region to prevent the landing of any troops from either side and to establish control over the Panama Railroad. Bunau-Varilla was informed of these actions during conversations with American officials. On 2 November, after he learned that the American cruiser Nashville would be passing through Panamanian waters, the plan went into action. In a confused situation on 2 November, the captain of the Nashville allowed Colombian troops to land at Colón, on the Pacific Ocean side of Panama. Quick thinking on the part of Railroad Superintendent James R. Shaler (a former US Army colonel) prevented disaster for the rebels. Shaler offered to transport the Colombian officers to Panama City on a special rail car, promising that their troops would be following soon after. Once the officers reached their destination, they were arrested by bribed Colombian troops. The next day, American troops landed to establish control of the railroad and supervise the Colombian forces but did not offer support to the rebels. The revolution concluded on 6 November 1903 in an almost bloodless fashion—one civilian was killed accidentally in Colón. The United States, as well as European and Latin American countries, quickly recognized the new country of Panama, and work began immediately on a canal treaty.35

In this case, agency is murky. It is unclear to what extent US personnel were following explicit orders and to what extent they were improvising. At the very least, it seems American officers in the theater received general orders to prevent Colombian troops from putting down the Panama rebellion. However, the main instigators of and participants in the rebellion were a French engineer, Panamanians rebels, and an American employee of the French-owned New Panama Canal Company. Thus, in this case private citizens (American, French, and Panamanian) on the ground played the most important roles, but officials back in Washington supported those actions, which resulted in political-military expansion for the United States after the signing and ratification of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty.

Occupation of Cuba, 1906

After a fraudulent electoral victory by the Moderate Party in May 1906, Cuba descended into civil war. Both sides in the conflict (Liberal and Moderate forces) requested US intervention. In response, President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched the USS Denver to Havana and the USS Marietta to Cienfuegos.36 However, President Roosevelt wanted to avoid a new entanglement. He was reluctant to intervene, writing “on the one hand we cannot permanently see Cuba a prey to misrule and anarchy; on the other hand I loathe the thought of assuming any control over the island such as we have over Porto Rico [sic] and the Philippines. We emphatically do not want it.”37 Roosevelt had come to believe that “the American people were reluctant to support prolonged military involvement in other countries.”38

Despite Roosevelt’s desire to stay out of Cuban politics, the resignation of President Estrada Palma and his cabinet forced Roosevelt’s hand. With Roosevelt’s reluctant support, Secretary of War William H. Taft established a provisional government on 25 September 1906 and requested 6,000 American troops. Roosevelt was reluctant to take this step because of congressional and public opposition, and he continuously implored Taft to avoid using the word intervention. The United States would set up a provisional government, but it would be under Cuban law and Cuban cooperation.39

Charles E. Magoon was chosen to replace Taft, who returned to Washington to recommence his duties as secretary of war. Magoon, a lawyer and diplomat, was most recently governor of the Canal Zone in Panama. He took up his new post as governor of Cuba in October 1906. Magoon’s main strategy was to give the Liberals more voice in the Cuban government while increasing the quality of life for Cubans in general. He used Cuban finances to fund public works and create jobs, reversed some of the most clearly fraudulent elections, and transformed the Liberal insurgents into a Cuban army that would exist alongside the Moderate-dominated Rural Guard. Finally, Magoon expanded suffrage. Overall, he amplified the Taft pacification strategy of buying off the opposition.40

Despite his successes, Magoon was not optimistic about Cuba’s political future, arguing that the Hispanic race was culturally or biologically unfit for responsible self-government. Beyond the reforms listed above, he recommended a permanent American presence as military and legal advisers, but Roosevelt vetoed any extended American presence in Cuba.41 Army special investigator Lt Col Robert Lee Bullard and other officers also supported a long-term occupation of Cuba, lasting perhaps a generation.42 Roosevelt had no interest in prolonging the occupation, and Magoon departed on 28 January 1909, the same day that José Miguel Gómez was installed as the new Cuban president. As it happened, the occupation lasted longer than Roosevelt wanted because of the difficulties in carrying out a census as a precursor to a free and fair election.

This case shows that the civilian and military leadership on the ground in Cuba strongly favored intensifying and prolonging American occupation there. Civilian opposition to occupation at the highest levels in Washington, DC, ensured that it was shallow and short.

Nicaragua Intervention, 1909

American relations with Nicaragua were strong until the United States decided in 1903 to build an isthmus canal in Panama instead of Nicaragua. Relations deteriorated between 1903 and 1909 as it became clear that Nicaraguan Liberal leader José Santos Zelaya and American leaders had different visions of the future of Central America. Zelaya believed Nicaragua should be the dominant state in the region, but the United States was not convinced this was best for regional stability and American interests. It did not help that Zelaya also threatened to allow Europeans to build a canal in Nicaragua and displayed a hostile attitude toward the United States and Americans doing business in Nicaragua.43 Zelaya saw Guatemalan leader Manuel Estrada Cabrera as his main rival for regional predominance. By 1906 the region was “inflamed” by the rivalry as fighting broke out among Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.44 The Taft administration pursued a policy of diplomatically isolating Zelaya and supporting the sovereignty of El Salvador and Honduras. In October 1909, a rebellion against Zelaya was launched by Nicaraguan Conservatives led by Juan Estrada—a provincial governor, general, and disenchanted Liberal. The rebellion had support from Americans living in Nicaragua, including American consul Thomas Moffat, but lacked official US support. Some dispute exists over the position of US naval officers. Dana Gardner Munro states that Moffat’s interventionism was met with hostility by American naval officers deployed in the area.45 Benjamin Harrison, citing Moffat’s congressional testimony, notes that unnamed naval officers encouraged Estrada’s rebellion.46 Clearly, Moffat was so supportive of the rebellion that he was “virtually a revolutionary agent.”47 Evidence suggests that Moffat was pursuing his own interventionist foreign policy in Nicaragua as confidant and adviser to Estrada.48 Moffat’s hostility toward Zelaya was certainly shared by Secretary of State Knox, but the consul’s close ties with Estrada went well beyond official policy.49

During the fighting, two Americans serving Estrada’s forces as demolition experts were captured and executed by Zelaya’s forces. In response, the United States broke off relations with Nicaragua and threatened to use force to capture Zelaya, but the State Department declined to pursue further intervention due to concern that congressional approval would be required. Under American pressure, Zelaya resigned in December 1909 and sought asylum in Mexico.50

American actions in 1909 did not amount to much in the way of political-military expansion, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of American diplomats. Thomas Moffat, the American consul to Nicaragua, supported American military intervention and was a partisan of the rebellion leader Estrada. Deployed naval officers may have opposed intervention. Political leadership in the United States did not follow the expansionist advice of Moffat but did put sufficient pressure on Zelaya to force his resignation.

Nicaragua Intervention, 1910

The United States was not much happier with President José Madriz, Zelaya’s replacement, and dispatched the Nicaraguan Expeditionary Force to the waters off Corinto on the west coast of Nicaragua. Rear Adm William Kimball, the leader of the expeditionary force, requested authority to set up a provisionary government in Nicaragua, but his request was rejected; instead, the force was slowly withdrawn. The civil war (Madriz continued the civil war against Estrada’s forces) persisted through early 1910, and by May forces loyal to President Madriz surrounded a rebel force in Bluefields on the Atlantic coast, threatening to bombard the town. Capt William Gilmer of the USS Paducah deployed 100 Marines to prevent fighting from occurring in the town. This action was taken primarily to protect American lives and property but also had the effect of preventing government forces from finishing off the rebels—a result consistent with the preferences of the Taft administration. American naval forces also prevented Madriz’s troops from searching ships for contraband, thereby preserving Estrada’s supply route. Stymied in their attempts to end the rebellion, the government troops withdrew. The “neutral” US policy sapped the morale of the Madriz forces and undermined the government’s legitimacy. By August the rebel forces were victorious. American intervention fostered a rebel victory and an Estrada government.51

In this case, the United States did not formally take sides and only briefly landed a small number of Marines to establish a neutral zone in the town of Bluefields. However, even this small intervention had a significant impact on the outcome of the rebellion. Rear Adm William Kimball requested permission to occupy Nicaragua and set up a new government, and Capt William Gilmer sent Marines ashore to protect a rebel enclave. As in 1909, deployed officials held expansionist positions that went beyond the intent of policy makers in Washington. Unlike the events of 1909, the naval officers in command in 1910 took the lead in expanding US intervention in Nicaragua.

Nicaragua Intervention, 1912

In June 1912, a new rebellion engulfed Nicaragua led by Minister of War Luis Mena against the American-supported president Adolfo Díaz. In the initial phases of the war, Mena’s forces bombarded the capital of Managua, endangering the lives of many Nicaraguans, Americans, and other foreigners. President Díaz asked for and received American military assistance; by September 1912, approximately 2,700 US Marines were stationed in Nicaragua. After their arrival, the first priorities for the Marines and bluecoats were to protect American lives and property, stop attacks on the capital, and end rebel strikes along the rail line from Managua to Grenada. American forces were not involved in the fighting between government and rebel forces. Rear Adm W. H. H. Southerland, the commanding officer of American forces, took a neutral stance toward the combatants and saw no reason why US Marines should fight battles for the Nicaraguan government. Marines fought only to maintain the security of the railroad. In September, after several battles along the rail line between US forces and insurgents, Marine Major Smedley Butler convinced Mena to cease attacks on the railroad and respect American lives and property. This concession was followed quickly by the surrender of Mena, due largely to illness. However, Gen Benjamín Zeledón continued the fight and maintained control of the town of León and the hills above the rail line near the towns of Coyotepe and Masaya. Admiral Southerland was reluctant to attack the rebels but was ordered to do so by his superiors in Washington. On October 3–4, an estimated 850 US Marines and bluejackets attacked Zeledón’s forces dug in near Coyotepe. In the most difficult fight of the intervention, American forces defeated the rebels, suffering four dead and seven wounded. Nicaraguan government forces then defeated Zeledón at Masaya, killing him in the process. US Marines then cleaned up the remaining rebel forces at León.52

US forces remained to supervise the November election, after which the force level was reduced to around 100 Marines, which remained as a “legation guard”—a symbol of US commitment to peace and stability in Nicaragua. The continued American presence meant that no revolution would be tolerated and therefore the minority Conservative party would remain in power.53 The legation guard remained until 1925; after it departed, civil war again erupted in Nicaragua.54 The 1912 intervention marked the first time that “American forces had actually gone into battle to help suppress a revolution.”55

In this case, deployment and escalation occurred at the direction of Washington and contrary to the advice of Admiral Southerland, the military commander. Thus, the top military officer on the ground in Nicaragua seemed to oppose American intervention in the Nicaraguan civil war but followed orders to intervene in specific instances.

Conclusion

The findings of the case studies above suggest that Generals Petraeus and McChrystal are not much different from American military officers who participated in the previous era of American “small wars.” The cases suggest that field commanders tend to favor expansionist policy. An additional finding is that civilians on the ground exhibit similar proclivities for expansionism. Therefore it seems that participation in contingency operations and military occupations abroad tends to shape the beliefs of both civilian officials and military officers in a way that favors expansion. This finding brings into question conventional wisdom about the differences in attitudes between civilian officials and military officers. Previous findings in the civ-mil literature suggest that military officers are more likely to favor the use of military force than are civilians. Thus, we can infer that field commanders would be more likely than their civilian counterparts to favor the use of force to solve problems that emerge during military occupations and contingency operations. This is not what occurred in most of the case studies presented above. Instead, both military officials and civilians were likely to prefer an expansive political-military strategy—in some cases, civilians were more expansionist than military commanders.56

What is to be done if we want to foster a more restrained American foreign policy? First, the fewer deployments of boots and loafers on the ground abroad, the fewer advocates for expansionism. The act of deploying US forces seems to socialize deployed officials to the extent that they end up becoming the spokespeople for prolonged and deepened expansion. We should be aware that even “light footprint” operations might have a propensity for mission creep. Second, the only realistic method of effectively regulating the inherent expansionism of expeditionary civilian officials and military officers is constant and involved civilian oversight over military strategy and operations at the highest levels. This approach seems to have worked well for some of the most well-respected wartime leaders in British and American history.57 In sum, civilian leadership, either in the White House or in the Pentagon, must overcome the strategic-operational divide and provide consistent strategic assessment and revision if we are to successfully implement a more restrained US foreign policy.

Notes

1. Steven Lee Myers, “Generally Speaking,” New York Times, 6 April 2008, http://www.nytimes

.com/2008/04/06/weekinreview/06myers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0; and Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 219.

2. See David H. Petraeus, “Battling for Iraq,” Washington Post, 26 September 2004, http://www.washington post.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html; and Marybeth P. Ulrich, “The General Stanley McChrystal Affair: A Case Study in Civil-Military Relations,” Parameters 41, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 88–89.

3. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Voice of Bush’s Favored General Is Now Harder to Hear,” New York Times, 4 October 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/world/05military.html.

4. Mehdi Hasan “Rise of the Four-Star Deities,” New Statesman, 5 July 2010, http://www.newstatesman

.com/north-america/2010/07/iraq-military-war-petraeus.

5. Tom Curry, “David Petraeus: Battlefield ‘Hero’ and Savvy Washington Insider,” NBC News, 9 November 2012, http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/09/15056759-david-petraeus-battlefield-hero-and -savvy-washington-insider?lite; and Ulrich, “General Stanley McChrystal Affair.”

6. See Vali Nasr, “The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, 4 March 2013, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/04/the-inside-story-of-how-the-white-house

-let-diplomacy-fail-in-afghanistan/.

7. Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014); and John J. Mearsheimer, “America Unhinged,” National Interest issue 129 (January–February 2014): 9–30, http://nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639.

8. Stephen Van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9, no. 1 (1984): 58–107; Jack Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,” International Security 9, no. 1 (1984): 108–46; Todd S. Sechser, “Are Soldiers Less War-Prone than Statesmen?,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 5 (October 2004): 746–74; Seung-Whan Choi and Patrick James, “Civil-Military Relations in a Neo-Kantian World, 1886–1992,” Armed Forces & Society 30, no. 2 (Winter 2004): 229–31; and Seung-Whan Choi and Patrick James, “Civil-Military Structure, Political Communication, and the Democratic Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 1 (2008): 38–39.

9. Choi and James, “Civil-Military Relations,” 243–47. Choi and James, “Civil-Military Structure,” 45–50.

10. One exception is Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises, Morningside ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 240. Betts found that field commanders were usually just as or more aggressive than civilian advisers.

11. Political-military expansion is an increase in the degree of control over foreign territory or actions that appropriate sovereign powers of a foreign state. See Jeffrey W. Meiser, Power and Restraint: The Rise of the United States, 1898–1941 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015), xix–xx.

12. The case studies in this section draw on material from ibid.

13. Sylvester K. Stevens, American Expansion in Hawaii, 1842–1898 (Harrisburg, PA: Archives Publishing Company, 1945), 223.

14. Stevens, American Expansion in Hawaii, 217–29; H. W. Brands, The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 296–97; Walter LaFeber, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865–1913 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 94; Tennant S. McWilliams, “James H. Blount, the South, and Hawaiian Annexation,” Pacific Historical Review 57, no. 1 (February 1988): 33–46; David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Involvement: American Economic Expansion across the Pacific, 1784–1900 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 239–40; and Albertine Loomis, For Whom Are the Stars? (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976), chap. 1.

15. Pletcher, Diplomacy of Involvement, 272–75; and Merze Tate, The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom: A Political History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965), 301–6.

16. H. W. Brands, Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 24; and Pletcher, Diplomacy of Involvement, 276, 284.

17. Richard F. Hamilton, President McKinley, War and Empire: President McKinley and America’s “New Empire,” vol. 2 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 63–64.

18. Ephraim K. Smith, “‘A Question from Which We Could Not Escape’: William McKinley and the Decision to Acquire the Philippine Islands,” Diplomatic History 9, no. 4 (October 1985): 371–72; Hamilton, President McKinley, War and Empire, 75, 82; Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1980), 134–35; and H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America, rev. ed. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003), 308.

19. For a discussion of the evolution of McKinley’s position on annexation, see Julius William Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (New York: P. Smith, 1951), 329–38; Gould, Presidency of William McKinley, 133–42; Brands, Bound to Empire, 25–26; Paolo E. Coletta, “McKinley, the Peace Negotiations, and the Acquisition of the Philippines,” Pacific Historical Review 30, no. 4 (November 1961): 344–47; Pletcher, Diplomacy of Involvement, 275–76, 283–85; Hamilton, President McKinley, War and Empire, 69–82; Morgan, William McKinley and His America, 304–22; and Richard E. Welch, Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 6–10. During this period, McKinley sought advice from a large number of government officials and private individuals with various positions on the annexation issue. See Hamilton, President McKinley, War and Empire, 70–79.

20. Paolo E. Coletta, “Bryan, McKinley, and the Treaty of Paris,” Pacific Historical Review 26, no. 2 (May 1957): 139n23; and W. Stull Holt, Treaties Defeated by the Senate: A Study of the Struggle between President and Senate over the Conduct of Foreign Relations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1933), 169.

21. See Smith, “‘Question from Which,’” 371–72.

22. Quoted in ibid., 369. The phrase “strategic interdependence” is Smith’s (ibid., 372). Coletta’s analysis of McKinley’s logic is similar but puts more emphasis on commercial advantages gained from annexation and favorable public opinion. Coletta, “McKinley, the Peace Negotiations,” 345–47.

23. Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–1902 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 30–31.

24. Grania Bolton, “Military Diplomacy and National Liberation: Insurgent-American Relations after the Fall of Manila,” Military Affairs 36, no. 3 (October 1972): 103.

25. Quoted in Morgan, William McKinley and His America, 339. See also J. H. Hitchman, “The American Touch in Imperial Administration: Leonard Wood in Cuba, 1898–1902,” Americas 24, no. 4 (April 1968): 394.

26. Hitchman, “American Touch,” 393–94; Louis A. Pérez, Cuba between Empires, 1878–1902 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983), 272; and Lejeune Cummins, “The Formulation of the ‘Platt’ Amendment,” Americas 23, no. 4 (April 1967): 377–78.

27. Pérez, Cuba between Empires, 281.

28. Ibid., 274–318; and Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 144–46.

29. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 145; David Healy, The United States in Cuba, 1898–1902: Generals, Politicians, and the Search for Policy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963), chap. 15; and Hitchman, “American Touch in Imperial Administration,” 395–99.

30. Quoted in Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 148.

31. Ibid., 148–50.

32. Michael H. Hunt, “The Forgotten Occupation: Peking, 1900–1901,” Pacific Historical Review 48, no. 4 (November 1979): 514–15; and Marilyn Blatt Young, The Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy, 1895–1901 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 179–87.

33. Hunt, “Forgotten Occupation: Peking,” 515.

34. Ibid., 514–18; Young, Rhetoric of Empire, 204–6, 216; and Seward W. Livermore, “American Naval-Base Policy in the Far East, 1850–1914,” Pacific Historical Review 13, no. 2 (June 1944): 118–25.

35. Walter LaFeber, The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective, updated ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 23–26; Richard H. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 245–67; and Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 91–97.

36. Lester D. Langley, The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898–1934 (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2002), 30–31.

37. Quoted in Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 198. See also Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934 (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986), 98.

38. Langley, Banana Wars, 61.

39. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 200–201; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 534–39; Howard C. Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 99–100; Ralph Eldin Minger, “William H. Taft and the United States Intervention in Cuba in 1906,” Hispanic American Historical Review 41, no. 1 (February 1961): 77, 82–85; Ralph Eldin Minger, William Howard Taft and United States Foreign Policy: The Apprenticeship Years, 1900–1908 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 122–23, 130–31; Langley, Banana Wars, 32–35; Dana Gardner Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 133–35; Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 252–53; and H. W. Brands, T. R.: The Last Romantic (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 570, 572.

40. José M. Hernández, Cuba and the United States: Intervention and Militarism, 1868–1933 (Austin, TX: University of Austin Press, 1993), 145–56; and Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 136–39. See also Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 540–41; and Langley, Banana Wars, 42–43.

41. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 202–3.

42. Langley, Banana Wars, 41.

43. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008), 374; Thomas W. Walker, Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle, 4th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003), 18; and Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 167–69.

44. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 41.

45. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 173–75. At the time, some people suggested that American merchants hoped to trigger an American intervention that would increase the value of their investments in Nicaragua. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 212. It appears that the independent banana producers on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua had ongoing grievances with the Zelaya government regarding the monopoly granted to the Bluefields Steamship Company. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 172–73.

46. Benjamin Harrison, “The United States and the 1909 Nicaragua Revolution,” Caribbean Quarterly 41, no. 3/4 (September–December 1995): 53.

47. Lester D. Langley and Thomas D. Schoonover, The Banana Men: American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880–1930 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 82.

48. Harrison, “1909 Nicaragua Revolution,” 53.

49. Thomas M. Leonard, Central America and the United States: The Search for Stability (Athens: University Press of Georgia, 1991), 61.

50. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 212–13; Langley, Banana Wars, 56–59; Ivan Musicant, The Banana Wars: A History of United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama (New York: Macmillan, 1990), 138–39; and Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 175–79.

51. Musicant, Banana Wars, 139–42; Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 213; Langley, Banana Wars, 59–60; Walker, Nicaragua, 18; and Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 181–86.

52. Langley, Banana Wars, 64–69; Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 218; Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 204–10; and Musicant, Banana Wars, 144–56.

53. Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 218–19; Langley, Banana Wars, 69–70; and Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 216.

54. Walker, Nicaragua, 20.

55. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 215.

56. For similar findings during different historical periods, see Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen; and Christopher Gelpi and Peter D. Fever, “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick? Veterans in the Political Elite and the American Use of Force,” American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (December 2002): 779–93.

57. Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002).

*The author is an assistant professor at the University of Portland. Dr. Meiser was previously an associate professor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. His book Power and Restraint: The Rise of the United States, 1898–1941 was published in 2015 by Georgetown University Press.

This article is based on a paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, 20 February 2015.

Question-Asking in Intelligence Analysis

Competitive Advantage or Lost Opportunity?

Charles Vandepeer, PhD*

Everything we know has its origin in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.

—Neil Postman

Each year, governments around the world invest billions of dollars in civilian and military intelligence organizations with the expectation that intelligence will provide policy makers, commanders, and operators with a decisive edge in developing policies, formulating strategies, and fighting battles. Particularly within a military context, the ideal is that intelligence enables decision superiority over actual or potential adversaries. Over the last two decades, within the intelligence endeavor, the role of intelligence analysts has received more recognition as playing a central function in both intelligence and the decision-making process. In an age of an abundance of information and daily access to advanced information technologies, the collection of information is considered less of a problem than developing an understanding of what it means. Given this intensified focus on analysis, intelligence organizations and their analysts find themselves in incredibly challenging times.

In an era when increasingly advanced technologies and cyber capabilities are within the reach of even nonstate actors and individuals, intelligence agencies and analysts are finding that they cannot base their confidence solely on secrets, whether sources or technologies—at least not for any significant period of time. In addition to making sense of complex situations and supporting clients’ intelligence requirements, intelligence organizations face the problem of the loss of secrets and highly sensitive information through hacking, inadvertent disclosure, or deliberate release. Instead of basing confidence on secrets that can be lost, disclosed, or stolen, this article argues that intelligence organizations and analysts need to concentrate on the ability and willingness to ask any question, challenge assumptions, and pursue the answers wherever they lead. Questions represent the most accessible, teachable, and broadly relevant approach to the development of knowledge, well-reasoned judgments, and identification of assumptions. Developing questioning cultures in which analysts are actively encouraged to ask questions and pursue answers constitutes a competitive advantage that cannot be hacked or stolen. A questioning culture, an environment in which analysts are encouraged and rewarded for the ability to think critically and actively learn, offers a competitive advantage over potential adversaries who cannot or will not welcome such internal critiques.

Questions Are Central to Intelligence

One of the most important parts of an analyst’s job is to formulate questions that will provide timely insight and can be answered with available or obtainable information.

—Thomas Fingar

In scientific research and technological development, the questions that researchers ask determine problems and opportunities to pursue, solutions to identify, and resources and effort to expend. Intelligence analysis is no different. As a field of knowledge development, questions play a crucial role in intelligence, whose analysts are regularly involved in answering questions put to them by commanders, operators, or policy makers. Thomas Fingar defines questions presented to analysts as factual, analytic, or estimative:

Questions can be factual (for example, “When was the last time that North Korea staged a military exercise as large as those now taking place?”), analytic (“Why did Iraqi President Maliki decide to move against insurgents in Basra without informing the United States?”), or estimative (“What is likely to happen in Afghanistan over the next six months?”).1

According to Fingar, much of the intelligence community’s effort goes into estimative questions because these are the most important. As a result, “many of the questions . . . [the intelligence community] is asked to address—and all of the important questions—have unknown or indeterminate answers.”2 The importance given to answering estimative or future-based problems reflects a desire on the part of policy makers and military commanders to influence the future. That is, the priority is more on understanding what is going to happen than on what has already happened.3

It is not simply a matter of answering questions put to them. Analysts need to develop and answer their own questions and assess whether these are the right ones to be asking. As Richards Heuer notes, “intelligence analysts, too, are expected to raise new questions that lead to the identification of previously unrecognized relationships or to possible outcomes that had not previously been foreseen.”4 Intelligence analysts deliberately asking themselves questions about their own analysis is also seen as key to improving the rigor and accuracy of their judgments, whereas analysts’ disinclination to question existing assumptions is often identified as a critical factor leading to analytic failures.5

Whether or not intelligence organizations actively encourage question-asking by analysts is open to debate. Despite the recognized importance of these individuals going beyond the initial problems or questions that they are presented with, uncertainty remains regarding the actual practice of question-asking within intelligence organizations. When question-asking does occur, it is usually in relation to analysts properly defining the problem—namely, identifying the actual issue and the questions relevant to solving the problem.6 However, despite the importance of analysts asking these problem-definition questions, it is evident that they do not always do so.7 Doctrine might specify the questions analysts should ask, but there is still no guarantee that these inquiries are actually made. Indeed, even doctrine might not be clear about the questions to be asked but merely outline a process or formal structure to apply.8 Even when different intelligence agencies address the same problem, the questions that their analysts ask will differ, reflecting their organization’s particular emphasis, area of specialization, and understanding of the answers their “customers” are interested in.9 Of course, answering the questions that clients actually want answered requires that analysts and agencies have a strong comprehension of their clients’ requirements. However, it goes further, insofar as question-asking within hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations can be highly contentious.

Testimony by intelligence officials to the United Kingdom’s Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Inquiry) indicated the possible existence of questions that some government departments do not want intelligence agencies to ask. In this specific case, it appears that either another government agency or the analysts themselves ensured that the questions they felt should have been asked were both asked and answered.10 Recent allegations over the altering or influencing of intelligence analysts’ assessments within United States Central Command also raise concerns about the degree to which analysts are able to ask potentially difficult or awkward questions that might not adhere to accepted positions.11 For example, analysts might ask, “Why is threat X so effective?” This reasonable analytic question is at the same time likely to be a safe or acceptable interrogative within a hierarchical organization. Perhaps another important question that should also be asked, which directly relates to how analysts understand a threat, is, “Why are we so ineffective at dealing with threat X?” This question is perhaps more important, given the interrelationship between understanding a threat actor in reference to our own situation. However, it is a potentially difficult, uncomfortable, or even unacceptable question for an analyst to ask within an organization. If analysts are dealing with situations involving predetermined or acceptable answers, then asking questions will be discouraged. Allegations of political interference in intelligence analysis are of concern because they not only influence the answers that analysts are explicitly or implicitly encouraged to arrive at but also shape what questions analysts can and cannot pursue.

The issue of organizational culture is important in determining an analyst’s approach to asking questions. Organizational culture influences whether or not analysts are encouraged or discouraged from asking questions; whether there are questions that analysts can and cannot ask; and whether questions are welcomed as intellectual tools for examining assumptions or seen as distractions to the task at hand.12 Attempts at developing self-critiquing functions, whereby analysts and officials deliberately challenge and question the underpinning assumptions and evidence for assessments, appear to have met with mixed success. Considering the process for producing national intelligence estimates in the United States, James Bruce maintains that the coordination process, during which analysts meet to discuss the report line-by-line, is the only explicit, self-correcting step in the analysis. Unfortunately, he contends that rather than a debate on the evidentiary basis for judgments, the process often becomes a linguistic exercise in finding the right words to expedite the production.13

In response to the Butler Review (Review of Intelligence on [Iraqi] Weapons of Mass Destruction), the United Kingdom established a formal challenge function under a professional head of intelligence analysis to critique Joint Intelligence Committee products. The idea that questioning or challenge functions should be established as a formal step or function potentially underemphasizes the desirability of every analyst being able and willing to question and challenge what are often estimative assessments at any stage of the analytic process. Rather than encouraging every analyst to adopt such an approach throughout the entire process, by formalizing a challenge function, one risks simply reproducing the inconsistent results evident in efforts to introduce “contrived dissent” into organizations.14 However, evidence indicates that organizations might not encourage analysts to develop or express authentic dissent. Within the United States, the Congressional Joint Task Force investigating allegations of the manipulation of intelligence at Central Command noted in its interim report that the organizational culture and leadership within the Intelligence Directorate “ultimately chilled analytic dissent.”15 Following the Butler Review, the British Ministry of Defence established formal arrangements so that intelligence staff could “raise issues of conscience and professional concern, including dissent.”16 That a requirement existed to establish a formal process for staff to raise dissent within a knowledge-development context is of particular concern. Because many of the issues intelligence organizations deal with are debatable, one would hope such disagreements were standard and normal rather than the exception, but such appears not to have been the case.17

Arguments that intelligence analysts need to be able to think laterally, creatively, and “outside the box” occur frequently. Whether or not they can do so within intelligence organizations remains to be seen. Wilhelm Agrell contends that issues calling for creative thinking and imagination are impossible within traditional intelligence organizations or at least not without a more profound transformation than has been contemplated.18 Similarly, Steven Maiorano maintains that issues such as compartmentalization, narrow domains, data overload, and an infrastructure that fosters “within-the-box-thinking” makes “out-of-the-box-thinking” all but impossible, regardless of the number of creative thinkers.19 Whether or not existing intelligence organizations are able to develop creative thinking environments or whether alternative perspectives can come only from outside these environments remains unknown. Regardless, question-asking is one of the few intellectual tools that offers at least the possibility of analysts being able to break patterns of thought established within organizational structures. Question-asking appears essential to identifying assumptions, thinking critically, and arriving at considered and well-reasoned judgments. Whether intelligence organizations do develop cultures in which analysts are encouraged to ask difficult questions is open to debate. One reason for this uncertainty is that the field lacks the kind of empirical research needed to understand how analysts actually make judgments and how they formulate the questions they ask.

Absence of Empirical Research

As a newer field of academic and research inquiry, intelligence analysis still lacks empirical research into many of the aspects of the analytic process. This deficit applies to how analysts arrive at judgments and decisions as well as the best approaches for addressing the different kinds of problems that they must deal with. As Fingar observes,

Analysts work in many different ways (for many different reasons), but we lack an empirical basis to determine which ways are best in general and/or for the analysis of particular types of problems under different time constraints and so on. We could know this, and we should know this. What we discover should be fed back into training programs, mentoring arrangements, and guidance to analytic supervisors.20

One result of a lack of empirical data is that we fail to appreciate that intelligence analysis goes beyond simply processing data. As James Bruce and Roger George point out, analysis extends further than printed or electronic data and includes analysts’ numerous interactions with policy makers (and military commanders) through meetings, discussions, videoconferences, phone calls, and e-mails. These “analytic transactions,” involving information, hypotheses, and questions among analysts, decision makers, and experts, are “possibly where the most insightful cognition is occurring, rather on the page of a finished assessment or a PowerPoint slide.”21 This fact reinforces the argument that there is much we do not know about the process through which analysts reach conclusions, make judgments, and formulate assessments.

The lack of empirical data equally applies to understanding the actual questions intelligence analysts ask as part of the analytic process. Much remains to learn about how they make judgments and assessments, and the lack of empirical research does continue to limit development of the field. For example, despite statements on the importance of analysts asking the right questions, insufficient empirical data exists for determining what these right questions are for the many situations and problems that intelligence analysts make judgments about.22 Identifying the right questions to ask is difficult because every situation is different and the right question or questions will likely reflect the specific context of the particular problem at hand. Thus, it is not simply a matter of coming up with a generic list of “right questions” for every situation; otherwise, analysts probably would have done so by now, and the entire analytic process could simply be automated to answer this list of questions. Good questions might well be applicable for every situation: “What do we know?” and “What is the basis for our knowledge?” are two such examples.23 However, given the complexity and specificity of every situation, questions that provide the insight and cognitive breakthroughs are likely to be specific. As Maiorano observes, intelligence analysts’ real need “is to obtain specific answers to specific questions.”24 The significance of analysts identifying and asking the right questions is underscored by the increasing importance and influence of intelligence analysis as part of the decision-making process.

Intelligence Analysis Is Decision Making

The literature heavily emphasizes the role of intelligence analysts in supporting decision makers. Less often recognized is that intelligence analysis is itself a form of decision making. It is a continual process of forming judgments (i.e., making decisions) based on available information while dealing with inherent uncertainty. This analysis of information, together with the judgments and assessments made by analysts, represents the decision-making process of intelligence analysis. This fact is evident in the way that intelligence has shifted to a more central and less “subordinate” role:

Intelligence has now become an integral element of both the policy and military operational processes. . . . Increasingly-integrated military operations, in which intelligence directly drives operations, and command centers in which intelligence personnel are fully integrated, are tangible evidence of such changes. As a result, it is important that intelligence appreciate not only the centrality of its role, but also the increased obligations and responsibilities that such a role brings.25

That intelligence analysis is itself part of the decision-making process is apparent when we consider the consequences when even a relatively junior intelligence analyst decides that something or someone is or is not a threat. In recent years, a number of mass-casualty attacks in the United States and Europe have been carried out by people previously identified as potential threats by intelligence and security agencies, only later to be removed from watch lists or from further investigation because of insufficient evidence. These decisions had consequences: individuals were not monitored; resources were shifted elsewhere (or not increased); and, ultimately, lives were lost at the hands of these same individuals who were once considered a serious cause for concern.

Investigations following intelligence failures remove any doubt about whether or not intelligence analysis is decision making since these investigations are primarily focused on determining What information was available? and (if there was information) What was done with that information? and the often-unstated question Who is responsible? As one answers these questions about what was known and what was done, the focus quickly shifts to analysts—even relatively junior ones—who would have analyzed such information (if collected in some form). As becomes apparent, significant judgments are often made at relatively junior levels within organizations. In an era of an overabundance of information, increased pressures, and “busyness,” policy makers, commanders, and senior leaders simply do not have the time to review all the information that an analyst has read through before they make their assessment.26 Consequently, in addition to helping frame the way senior decision makers grasp a situation, analysts’ decisions and judgments can determine whether or not situations even come to the attention of senior decision makers.27

Common Characteristics of Intelligence Problems

Given the diversity of intelligence analysts’ roles and duties, it is difficult to generalize on characteristics of intelligence problems across the entire intelligence community. Acknowledging that not every analyst necessarily faces all of these problems, we note that the following characteristics occur frequently within intelligence analysis, which makes them worth highlighting. These traits relate to the nature of the problems facing many analysts as well as those relating to the practice of intelligence analysis itself.

People-Based

The difficulty in forecasting human behavior has been well documented.28 It is inherently unpredictable, yet most estimative problems presented to analysts involve people. The limiting factor of predicting human behavior is the issue of identifying cause and effect; people can react entirely differently to identical influences—even to the same situation. For intelligence analysts attempting to comprehend the causes or even forecast behavior, whether of an individual or on a collective level, the basis for such judgments can be entirely reversible—somebody might simply change his or her mind about a future course of action.29 Nate Silver, known for a string of successful predictions of election outcomes and voter tendencies in the United States, indicates that “there is no reason to conclude that the affairs of man are becoming more predictable. The opposite may well be true. The same sciences that uncover the laws of nature are making the organization of society more complex.”30

Future-Focused

Intelligence analysts supply assessments on past, present, and future situations: what happened (and why); what is happening (and why); and what will happen (and why). As discussed, estimative questions about the future consume much of an analyst’s efforts. Even understanding the past or present is given particular importance because commanders and senior decision makers are concerned with what this means for the future. If we accept the logic that if something is known, then it must be true and knowable, we can rule out future events being knowable because they have not yet happened.31 By the very nature of the subject, assessments about future actions, events, or situations involving people can be only speculative.

Complex

The term complex frequently appears within the intelligence field to describe any number of situations, operations, issues, and problems. We could define complexity as relating to a situation, issue, or topic that is inherently complicated, often because of multiple interacting actors and issues. Another layer of complexity for analysts is that they will attempt to understand the situation as it is as well as from an adversary’s perspective or a particular worldview. Even issues that appear relatively straightforward can be inherently complex for both operators and analysts. Recent military operations have underscored the difficulty experienced by military forces operating in urban environments in doing something as fundamental and critical as accurately identifying who is and who is not an adversary.32 The situation is made even more complicated for deployed forces in culturally unfamiliar environments, where power structures, roles, and allegiances might not be apparent, resulting in unanticipated actions or reactions.33 Intelligence analysts must deal with these complex problems because commanders and senior leaders do not have the immediate answers to them.

Unfinished

One of the terms regularly used in intelligence analysis is finished intelligence—the analytical product that analysts develop and distribute, usually in the form of a report, assessment, or brief. However, the idea of “finished” intelligence potentially hinders rather than helps in comprehending intelligence as a field of knowledge development. The questions should not stop with publication or release of an intelligence assessment because many of the situations that intelligence analysts deal with remain ongoing and unfinished long after their analysis has been published. Deadlines are often arbitrary, based on an organization’s own planning and timings requirements, rather than having anything to do with the situation itself. Furthermore, reporting timings usually reflect the time available to inform a specific decision rather than the amount of time needed to understand a problem. The situation is a little like guessing the outcome of an entire television series based on watching only the first 15 minutes of the first episode. Much like assessments of the weather, stock market, or betting markets, intelligence assessments should be in constant flux, based on changes in the environment and new information. When one deals with estimative questions, updating assessments on the basis of better understanding should be the norm, emphasizing the ongoing nature of many intelligence problems.

Interpreted Differently

Information can be interpreted differently—not a new problem for analysts. In her classic text Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, Roberta Wohlstetter identifies the issue of information supporting multiple hypotheses, observing in the lead-up to the Japanese attacks that “for every signal that came into the information net in 1941 there were usually several plausible alternative explanations, and it is not surprising that our observers and analysts were inclined to select the explanations that fitted the popular hypotheses.”34 Even if information can be confirmed as accurate (as it was actually said or written the way it was collected), the meaning and context of this same information can be interpreted any number of ways. A question as seemingly simple as “What does this information mean?” can have different answers, depending on an analyst’s own experience, current posting, and his or her service or unit. Again, as Wohlstetter writes, prior to the Japanese attacks, “it was not unusual for a signal to mean one kind of danger in Washington and another in the theatre.”35

Pressured to Conform

Rob Johnston identifies two types of conformity pressures facing intelligence analysts: the pressure to conform to a corporate judgment and the pressure to conform to their own previous assessments.36 Consequently, organizations and individuals actually encourage analytic conformity whether or not they intend to. The pressure to conform is often implicit and can exist from the outset of looking at a problem. As Johnston notes, when analysts are given a question or a problem to address, they first conduct a literature search, which principally involves looking at previous assessments. Thus, the corporate line becomes immediately apparent, resulting in a tendency to look for data that confirms the existing corporate judgment, which is the most time-efficient approach.37 If previous assessments have all agreed that an adversary is not preparing an attack, then there is pressure to maintain this assessment. A significant investment of time and resources, changes in plans, rethinking favored positions, and disagreeing with fellow analysts—all of these factors place implied pressure on analysts to agree with existing assessments. In addition to perceived pressure to adhere to others’ published assessments, analysts also feel pressured to adhere to their own previous assessments—even more so when these have been formally briefed or published.38

Pressured by Time

The issue of time pressure is a consistent theme within the intelligence literature, with analysts consistently identifying time as one of the most significant constraints on their jobs.39 Whether in the space of minutes, hours, days, or weeks, analysts are under pressure to deliver assessments to clients who are often waiting on these judgments to make their own decisions about policies, plans, and actions. These clients will likely seek to maximize their own time for decision making, therefore placing pressure on analysts for early closure on judgments of often complex, changing situations. Within this context, analysts might be tempted to avoid questions and concentrate on “the job at hand.” However, because time is such a scarce resource, asking questions to ensure that every minute is used most effectively to research the actual problem is the more effective—but not necessarily most adopted—approach.

Inaccurate

A consistent lesson from recent history is that intelligence analysts can and do make mistakes, irrespective of their experience, confidence, their organization, or the situation they are addressing. The future-based, human nature of many intelligence-analysis problems makes incorrect judgments a constant risk. To counter this possibility, an ongoing questioning approach is fundamental to avoid failure (wherever possible) and remind ourselves of the fallibility of our own limited judgments. To increase the potential for accurate judgments, analysts must consciously recognize that failure is always a possibility. Each of these characteristics reinforces the importance of intelligence analysts continually asking questions of the situation, the problem, the conventional wisdom, and their own analysis if they are to provide more insightful and accurate assessments.

A Questioning Approach

As an intellectual tool, questions are the most accessible, teachable, and broadly relevant approach to the identification of assumptions and development of knowledge. The ancient Greeks formalized the idea of questioning assumptions to arrive at a more grounded understanding of what is known and what is not. These questions are reflected in the concepts of ontology (addressing questions about the nature of things) and epistemology (addressing questions about the basis for knowledge). Clearly, asking questions to encourage critical thinking is far from new. A number of authors have emphasized the importance of intelligence analysts having at least a basic understanding of epistemology to enable them to deliberately consider the evidentiary basis of their judgments.40 At the same time, many references have been made to the scientific method and the applicability of scientific principles to intelligence analysis.41 Central to both epistemology (as a branch of philosophy) and the scientific method is the role of deliberately asking questions to arrive at well-reasoned answers. A criticism of such scientific or philosophical approaches could be that they are idealistic and that the problems that intelligence analysts work with can often be immediate and involve decisions that can have life-or-death outcomes. However, taking just one example, we can see what can be described as the application of a questioning culture in the most desperate of circumstances—national survival.

A Case Study of a Questioning Culture in Practice: British Operations Research in World War II

In March 1941, Britain was in a desperate battle for national survival in its war with Germany. Unable to produce enough resources to feed its population or support the war effort, Britain relied heavily on merchant shipping for supplies from the United States and Canada across the Atlantic Ocean. Presenting the biggest threat to these ships were German submarines (U-boats), which were sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant shipping. In desperation, the Royal Air Force (RAF) seconded British physicist Patrick Blackett to head an eclectic team of young scientists challenged to help Coastal Command aircraft defeat the U-boat threat.42 Because U-boats spent much of the time on the surface, cruising or recharging their batteries, they were vulnerable to being spotted by aircraft and attacked. The German submarine crews and British aircrews were both trying to spot each other first—the Germans to have time to dive and escape, the British to attack and sink the submarines. In March 1941, the U-boats were winning this battle, with very few submarines sunk by British aircraft.

In his book Studies of War, Blackett described how his team of scientists considered and recommended all sorts of solutions to resolve the issue, including the use of different flying patterns, better binoculars, and better lookout drills. The breakthrough came during a meeting that addressed the question of tactics when an RAF officer asked aloud, “What color are Coastal aircraft?” The question was simple, and the answer was obvious. Everybody knew that the airplanes were painted black because they were mostly night bombers and that black paint reflected as little light as possible against enemy searchlights. However, these same aircraft flying in daylight over the often overcast Atlantic would appear as dark objects against a lighter sky. Within months Coastal Command aircraft were redone with what was determined to be the best camouflage for the conditions—white paint. Blackett credited this simple solution as one of the contributing factors in the RAF’s rising success against the U-boats.43 Once the question was identified, the solution was relatively straightforward. The difficult part was identifying the right question to ask.

Getting to the Right Question

As previously discussed, many people emphasize the significance of intelligence analysts asking the right question or questions. Staying with Blackett and his team, we can see again the difficulty of identifying the right question. After his work with the RAF, Blackett and his team were tasked with addressing the U-boat problem from the naval perspective—namely, how to decrease shipping-convoy losses at the hands of these submarines. The accepted wisdom was that smaller convoys of ships improved the chances of slipping past the U-boats unnoticed and maximized the prospects for survival. Large convoys were considered dangerous, smaller ones safer, so a maximum of 60 ships was allowed in any one convoy, with the average in the early years of the war around 40 ships. This approach, however, derived from experience in World War I, which did not factor in technologies such as radio that allowed U-boats to communicate. After working on the problem, Blackett and his team recognized the importance of the question “What is the optimum size for a convoy?” Only after they evaluated the survivability of larger convoys (more than 40 ships) versus smaller ones (fewer than 40 ships) did they realize that larger convoys were safer. Smaller convoys had a similar chance of being detected but lacked the higher number of armed escort ships that accompanied larger convoys. After some convincing, from the spring of 1943 the Allies began increasing the numbers of vessels in convoys, and the safe arrival of a 187-ship convoy was publicly broadcast in 1944.44

Writing after the war, Blackett openly regretted that he and his team had not recognized the importance of the convoy-size question sooner. By Blackett’s own estimation, if his team had addressed the issue in the spring of 1942 rather than one year later, they could have saved around 200 ships and thousands of lives.45 Nevertheless, this breakthrough meant that the Allies were able to move escort ships from the Atlantic campaign to directly support the D-day landings. In contrast, the Germans never developed any equivalent operations research teams that could identify problems and bring broad scientific analysis and problem solving to support their U-boat operations. If the Germans had established such operations research groups, then the outcome of the U-boat campaign—even the entire war—might well have been different.46 This scenario strongly suggests that questioning cultures can provide a competitive advantage over an adversary—one with comparable (even at times superior) technological advantage.

If it takes such a talented team a year to identify the right question, how likely is it that intelligence analysts would immediately identify the right question or questions for the problem at hand? Instead, the issue appears to be more about developing a culture in which questions and questioning are encouraged and about cultivating a habit of asking questions that can lead people to the right question or questions. It might take several questions, considerable effort, and trial and error for even a highly intelligent and qualified group of individuals to identify what the right question is for a particular problem. Sometimes people recognize the right question only after it has been asked, and—as with the question about the color of the aircraft—the intellectual connection is made. In addition, placing too much emphasis on analysts asking the right question might actually act as a disincentive because people might be reluctant to ask questions until they think they have the right ones.

What Made This Culture a Questioning One?

How do intelligence organizations develop cultures that encourage a questioning approach whereby—irrespective of rank, status, or position—people have the confidence to ask questions and pursue the answers wherever they lead? A brief examination of these early operations research teams presents a number of characteristics that appear to assist in promoting a culture that encourages question-asking:

- Normal procedure. The scientific background of Blackett’s team considered asking questions the norm. People asked questions because they wanted to better understand the situation and the problem. Being asked a question was not a personal affront but a reflection of a genuine desire to know.

- Valued procedure. Scientists and researchers highly valued and rewarded the ability to ask a good question, to see a problem in a new light. This attitude carried over into their roles in World War II when asking questions was valued because it saved lives and meant the difference between victory and defeat.

- Common problems. Blackett and his team were invested in finding the questions and solutions to shared problems. They were part of resolving these problems, and their questions were not asked out of idle curiosity but in recognition of the fact that they themselves would be part of researching and finding the answers.

- Clearly defined problems. Blackett’s team had clearly defined problems that they were working on: prosecuting the air war against the U-boats and keeping convoys safe. They were not concerned about asking any question but about asking questions relevant to these problems. One of the most important parts of these teams’ work was defining the actual problem, which was not always what they first thought it was and often took longer to determine than expected. However, until these teams identified the right problem and the right question, they could not produce an accurate solution.

- Intellectual diversity. Because Blackett’s team consisted of people with diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences, they approached the same problem from different perspectives. Thus, they could think both deeply and broadly. In terms of thinking, they were a diverse group but united by a common purpose.

- Truth seeking. The operations research teams during World War II were truth seeking; they wanted to understand the actual problem and identify the best available solution. Consequently, even if the question did not come from within the team itself, they were still open to considering the question and its significance.

- Persistence. When they received a problem, Blackett and his team persisted until they understood it and came up with either solutions or ways around the problem. They diligently asked questions and pursued answers.

- Desperation. Gary Klein asserts that people can gain insight through creative desperation when the situation dictates that they have to try something different.47 Britain was at war and facing defeat; people were dying, and the country was desperate. The RAF was also desperate and willing to ask for the assistance of a team of civilian scientists to help solve military problems.48 That scientists themselves understood what was at stake is evident in Blackett’s open regret about the delay in identifying the convoy question and his estimate of the human and material costs of this delay. Within this environment, it appeared that people were more open to coming up with new ideas and trying out different approaches.

As Blackett’s operations research teams demonstrate, a questioning culture can offer a competitive advantage over an adversary. It came down to encouraging questions, challenging assumptions, and actively pursuing answers—all of which appear highly relevant to intelligence organizations avoiding surprise, providing warning, and enabling decision superiority. The characteristics identified appear broadly relevant to intelligence organizations. Interestingly, many of the breakthroughs of these operations research scientists were not the result of advanced mathematics or complex calculations but simply of asking questions and pursuing answers that helped them identify mistaken assumptions and flawed reasoning. Many intelligence problems are estimative, but these early operations analysts dealt with issues that were arguably better able to draw on cause-and-effect relationships. Consequently, without direct cause-and-effect relationships, one could argue that many of the problems facing analysts might even be more difficult than those facing Blackett’s team. This possibility only further underscores the need for a built-in culture of asking questions and challenging assumptions. Without asking their own questions, analysts are presented only with the answers to other people’s questions. Highly relevant to intelligence organizations is Blackett’s observation that the really vital problems were identified by the operations research teams rather than those provided by the services.49 Often redefining the original problem or question led these researchers to the actual problems that needed addressing.

Obstacles to Developing Questioning Cultures

If intelligence organizations do in fact have the desire to develop and pursue questioning cultures in order to identify assumptions, define the actual problem, and deliver accurate and insightful analysis, then it is worth considering ways that people can hinder or prevent the development of a culture that encourages questions. Just as one can disagree with or dissent from a group or a majority opinion, so can fear play a substantial part of people not raising issues or asking questions. They might be reluctant to raise issues because they fear being perceived as disloyal, the possibility of recrimination, the boss’s disapproval, being ostracized from the group, potential effects on their careers, and not actually making a difference.50 Increasingly, busyness appears to be a reason that questions are discouraged when the perception through words or actions is that “We don’t have time for questions.” However, as discussed earlier, if time is a critical limitation for intelligence analysis, then the most effective and efficient use of the time available appears to be defining the actual problem and dedicating available resources to resolving it. If organizations want to develop cultures in which questions are encouraged, then they need to ensure that these concerns and fears are dealt with and that people are not only encouraged but also rewarded for asking questions and pursuing answers. Are existing intelligence organizations capable of developing such questioning cultures, or are desperate circumstances a prerequisite for their emergence? As noted previously, some of the signs are not necessarily positive, but in the absence of any empirical research, we can only speculate.

Conclusion

A questioning culture is a learning culture. Questions are an intellectual tool that allows all analysts to critically examine a topic, identify what they do and do not know, and enable them to arrive at well-reasoned judgments. Whether or not intelligence analysts are actively encouraged to ask questions—even difficult or uncomfortable ones—is open to debate. Indeed, some evidence suggests that organizational cultures might actually discourage, or at least not encourage, this question-asking approach. If operations research provides any insight, it is that developing questioning cultures is possible, even in the most desperate of circumstances, and that the initial problems presented to analysts might not be the actual problems or questions that need answering. In an increasingly complex and contested environment where secrets cannot be guaranteed, questions continue to offer the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage over adversaries. Alternatively, if intelligence analysts are unable or unwilling to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions, then who will? The disturbing answer might be nobody.

Notes

1. Thomas Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 39.

2. Ibid., 67.

3. Roger Z. George and James B. Bruce, eds., Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners’ Perspectives, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014), 2.

4. Richards J. Heuer Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999), 75, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of

-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/PsychofIntel New.pdf.

5. For an example of deliberately asking questions, see George and Bruce, Analyzing Intelligence, 6. As just one instance of failing to ask questions, Tim Dowse, former chief of the Assessments Staff in the United Kingdom, notes that on the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, “we had got out of the habit of questioning ourselves and our assumptions. That is something that we certainly have given a lot of attention to since, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Tim Dowse, evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, transcript, 25 November 2009, afternoon sess., 46, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/94790/2009-11-25-Transcript -Ehrman-Dowse-S1-pm.pdf.

6. Martin Petersen, “What I Learned in 40 Years of Doing Intelligence Analysis for US Foreign Policymakers,” Studies in Intelligence 55, no. 1 (March 2011): 6.

7. Ibid., 17.

8. For example, Joint Publication 2-01.3, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment, 21 May 2014, provides a doctrinal and structured approach for the analysis of an adversary. Although the doctrine offers guidance and direction on the framework and steps for analysts to follow, it is almost entirely devoid of questions that they are expected to answer.

9. For a practical and historical example, see Catherine H. Tinsley, “Social Categorization and Intergroup Dynamics,” in Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations, ed. Baruch Fischhoff and Cherie Chauvin (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011), 200.

10. See Tim Dowse, chief of the Assessments Staff (2003–9), witness transcript to the Iraq Inquiry, 14 June 2010, 53–54, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/98181/2010-06-14-Transcript-Ehrman-Dowse-S1

-declassified.pdf.

11. US House of Representatives, Initial Findings of the U.S. House of Representatives Joint Task Force on U.S. Central Command Intelligence Analysis, 10 August 2016, http://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles

/house_jtf_on_centcom_intelligence_initial_report.pdf.

12. In reviewing Rob Johnston’s book Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community, Joseph Hayes argues that the US intelligence community “is a world in which the most fundamentally important questions—what if and why not—are too often seen as distractions and not as invitations to rethink basic premises and assumptions.” Joseph Hayes, “Afterword,” in Johnston, Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2005), 160.

13. George and Bruce, Analyzing Intelligence, 149–50.

14. Attempts to improve group decisions by introducing “contrived dissent,” such as having a devil’s advocate, have failed to produce consistent results. See Reid Hastie, “Group Processes in Intelligence Analysis,” in Fischhoff and Chauvin, Intelligence Analysis, 184.

15. US House of Representatives, Central Command Intelligence Analysis.

16. “Statement from Sir Gus O’Donnell and Sir Peter Ricketts,” submission to the Iraq Inquiry, 13, accessed 6 August 2016, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/221476/2011-01-19-statement-odonnell-ricketts

.pdf#search=statement%20from%20sir%20gus%20o%27donnell.

17. Additional testimony by Martin Howard raises further questions about dissent within intelligence organizations. Responding to questions from the inquiry panel into a number of judgments about postconflict Iraq that later proved incorrect, Howard maintained that “there was no one in DIS [defense intelligence staff] [who] would have at that stage, in April 2003, have [sic] dissented from those judgments.” This absence of disagreement over intelligence assessments is noteworthy and a matter of concern, particularly because these were judgments about future situations. Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence (2003–4), witness transcript to the Iraq Inquiry, 18 June 2010, 23, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/98193/2010

-06-18-Transcript-Howard-S1-declassified.pdf.

18. Wilhelm Agrell, “Intelligence Analysis after the Cold War: New Paradigm or Old Anomalies?,” in National Intelligence Systems, ed. Wilhelm Agrell and Gregory F. Treverton (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 112.

19. Steven J. Maiorano, “Question Answering: Technology for Intelligence Analysis,” in Advances in Open Domain Question Answering, ed. Tomek Strzalkowski and Sandra Harabagiu (Dodrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2006), 494, 496.

20. Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty, 131.

21. George and Bruce, Analyzing Intelligence, 4.

22. For an example of asking the right questions, see Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis; and Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty, 3–4. See also Charles Vandepeer, “What Are the Questions Intelligence Professionals Ask?” (paper presented at the International Studies Association 57th Annual Convention, Atlanta, GA, March 2016).

23. For a generic list of questions that is broadly applicable for analysts assessing the reliability of a judgment (i.e., “How do I know that X is true?”), see James B. Bruce, “Making Analysis More Reliable: Why Epistemology Matters to Intelligence,” in George and Bruce, Analyzing Intelligence, 149–50.

24. Maiorano, Question Answering, 477.

25. Jeffrey R. Cooper, Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2005), 14–15, https://www.cia.gov

/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/curing-analytic

-pathologies-pathways-to-improved-intelligence-analysis-1/analytic_pathologies_report.pdf.

26. “One of the most important of such lessons was that I had no option except to rely on the work and judgments of my colleagues and subordinates. There was simply no time—and I did not have the requisite expertise—to review the intelligence used in more than a tiny subset of the roughly 14,000 analytic reports that I approved during eleven years in the INR [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] front officer and four years as chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). I could review the tradecraft but not check the homework. I had to trust the people who had done the work.” Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty, 12.

27. For example, see Commonwealth of Australia, Martin Place Siege: Joint Commonwealth—New South Wales Review (Canberra: Australian Government, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, January 2015), https://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/170215_Martin_Place_Siege_Review_1.pdf.

28. For example, see James Shanteau, “Competence in Experts: The Role of Task Characteristics,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 53, no. 2 (February 1992): 252–66.

29. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), 395.

30. Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 448.

31. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 201.

32. This situation is not dissimilar to the challenge for security and police forces within civil societies in dealing with the current threat of mass casualty or “any casualty” attacks.

33. Ben Connable cautions against overly simplistic delineations of actors within an operating environment. This oversimplification is reflected in the designation of actors as either “red,” “white,” or “green” in recent operations despite the fact that the same actor has multiple identities. Connable, Military Intelligence Fusion for Complex Operations: A New Paradigm (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012).

34. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, 393.

35. Ibid., 73.

36. Johnston, Analytic Culture, 22–24.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., 23.

39. Ibid., 13.

40. See, for example, Matthew Herbert, “The Intelligence Analyst as Epistemologist,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 19, no. 4 (2006): 666–84; and Bruce, “Making Analysis More Reliable,” 135–56.

41. See, for example, Richards J. Heuer Jr. and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011), 147–48, 157, 160.

42. As Maurice Kirby notes, among Blackett’s first recruits were “three physicists, three communications experts, four mathematicians, two Canadian astronomers, and several physiologists and biologists.” Derman Christopherson and E. C. Baughan, “Reminiscences of Operational Research in World War II by Some of Its Practitioners,” Journal of the Operational Research Society 43, no. 5 (June 1992): 574.

43. The estimate was that a white aircraft would catch a U-boat on the surface 30 percent more frequently than would an aircraft painted black. Patrick Blackett, Studies of War (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1962), 216–17.

44. Ibid., 228–34.

45. Ibid.

46. This was the conclusion of J. G. Crowther and R. Whiddington, Science at War (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1947), 119.

47. Gary Klein, “Leverage: How We Spot Opportunities,” Psychology Today, 27 June 2014, https://www

.psychologytoday.com/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201406/leverage.

48. R. V. Jones, Britain’s chief intelligence scientist during World War Two, makes this observation. He compared Fighter Command, which sought scientific assistance (before World War Two started) with Bomber Command, which became serious about seeking such assistance only when it faced a significant loss of bomber aircraft and when photographs provided evidence of the inaccuracy of its bombing. R. V. Jones, Reflections on Intelligence (London: Mandarin Paperbacks, 1990), 193–94.

49. Blackett, Studies of War, 234

50. Charlan J. Nemeth and Brendan Nemeth-Brown, “Better than Individuals? The Potential Benefits of Dissent and Diversity for Group Creativity,” in Group Creativity: Innovation through Collaboration, ed. Paul B. Paulus and Bernard A. Nijstad (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), 63–84.

*The author is a senior lecturer in intelligence and security studies at Charles Sturt University, Australia. His career has included service in the Royal Australian Air Force and as a civilian defense operations research scientist. Dr. Vandepeer completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide, examining intelligence analysis and threat assessment within Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Completing his undergraduate degree at the University of the South Pacific (Fiji), he gained firsthand experience in understanding the power and influence that cultures, mind-sets, and perspectives can have on how we interpret and interact with the world around us. As a squadron leader, Dr. Vandepeer served as the senior Air Force lead for Australian and coalition analytic teams on deployment, gaining operational experience in the Middle East. He is the author of the book Applied Thinking for Intelligence Analysis: A Guide for Practitioners (Canberra, Australia: Air Power Development Centre, Department of Defence, 2014), and his next book, Asking Good Questions, is in the final stages.

This article derives from the author’s speech at the Five Eyes Analytic Workshop hosted by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command in Ottawa, October 2015, based on his book Applied Thinking for Intelligence Analysis.

Interactions between International Norms

The Case of the Civilian Protection and Antiterrorism Norms

Alexandru Grigorescu, PhD

Sherri S. Replogle, PhD*

How do international norms become more or less powerful? The rich international relations (IR) literature on norms has emphasized the means by which both structural factors and agents contribute to altering norm strength. However, this literature has tended to emphasize the role of the so-called norms entrepreneurs who seek to empower new norms.1 It rarely addresses actors who wish to limit the effects of norms by altering their interpretation.

This study uses a recent framework that concentrates on actors’ undertakings under “normative pressure.”2 It shows that when such pressures increase, rarely do actors simply challenge norms. Furthermore, they usually do not withstand the normative pressure (and do not react in any way to the promotion of that norm), as mainstream IR literature often implies. We posit that, in most cases, actors attempt to reshape the understanding of the norm and its prescriptions by narrowing or broadening them to fit their material interests. The study shows that such strategies have important practical and often unintended implications for actors due to the interactions among norms. That is, by narrowing or broadening a norm and its prescriptions, such actors may (purposefully or not) alter the content and strength of other related norms with which the original norm may overlap.

The article begins by expanding on the main theoretical arguments, summarized above. It then illustrates them by focusing on the evolution of two related norms: antiterrorism and civilian protection. The article demonstrates how throughout history, actors have tried to reshape the interpretation of these norms to fit their interests. Although the study discusses the evolution of the two norms over a long period of time, it primarily emphasizes the post-2001 actions of the United States, arguably the most influential international actor. Doing so allows us to explain some fairly unexpected changes in the United States’ approaches to its campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. Based on examples from the evolution of the two norms over the past century, we draw a series of generalizable conclusions regarding norm interaction.

International Norms

For a long time, the IR literature did not take into account the impact of norms in the international realm. Realism, the dominant theoretical approach to the field, explained IR as the result of great powers promoting their material interests, regardless of the perceived appropriateness of actions. With the English School and Regime Theory in the 1980s and especially with Constructivism in the 1990s, norms and their effects became an important area of research.

In the early-to-mid 1990s, the initial Constructivist literature primarily sought to show that norms affected actors’ behavior and, implicitly, outcomes.3 A second “wave” of Constructivist literature that emerged in the late 1990s began addressing more refined questions such as when and how norms affect outcomes. To answer these questions, this wave of literature examined the “evolution” of norms, emphasizing how they emerge, become more powerful, and eventually reach the international actors who shape outcomes.4

Moreover, this newer literature on norms reacted to critiques that Constructivism was too structural and lost sight of the importance of agency by emphasizing the role of “norms entrepreneurs” who promoted the norms.5 Much of this work sought to explain the characteristics of such entrepreneurs, their strategies, and the channels through which they worked to influence decision makers. To some degree, this type of analysis was revolutionary for IR because it shifted attention from the powerful actors who had been the subject of theoretical approaches, especially Realism, and paid greater attention to the actions of less powerful, theretofore unobserved actors such as small states, nongovernmental organizations, or even specific individuals.

Yet, by dwelling primarily on norms entrepreneurs promoting initially weak norms, this second wave tended to neglect other norm dynamics, such as those involving actors’ attempts to transform norms that were already strong. Further, much second-wave work assumed that the norms being empowered were “good” ones and left out important aspects of how all actors, whether seeking to empower or erode norms, were engaged in “strategic social construction.”6

The most recent (third) wave of the norms literature has begun addressing some of these problems. It has increasingly emphasized the dynamic character of norms showing how all sorts of actors—governmental and nongovernmental alike—promote both “good” and “bad” norms to advance their material and normative interests. 7 This third-wave literature has convincingly shown that such actors are just as likely to be involved in norm contestation as they are to be promoting norms.8

This study contributes to this third body of literature and aims to fill some of the gaps of previous work by addressing how actors desire to shape norms not only by empowering them but also by altering their meaning in order to promote their material interests. We draw upon a recent theoretical framework that has been used to explain the measures that actors take when they are under “normative pressure” to alter the rules of intergovernmental organizations.9 That framework is built on the argument that actors respond both to changes in the strength of norms and to shifts in perceptions that the status quo has departed from norm prescriptions. The interaction between these two factors (norm strength and departure from norm prescriptions) shapes the “normative pressure” that actors may face. Actors react to such pressures and not simply to changes in norm strength. More important for the purposes of this study, the framework classifies the possible reactions that actors may have to such normative pressures: yielding, withstanding, challenging, narrowing, and broadening. These strategies are illustrated in figure 1 and further explained below.

1. “Yielding” to pressure involves accepting Norm X exactly as it is being promoted by others.

2. “Withstanding” pressure involves not accepting Norm X (and not arguing against it).

3. “Challenging norm” involves arguing against Norm X.

4. “Narrowing norm” involves not accepting Norm X in its entirety but accepting Norm Z (a “subnorm”

of X).

5. “Broadening norm” involves simultaneously accepting both Norm X and Norm Y (that may have

both common and different prescriptions).

Figure 1. Actors’ possible reactions to normative pressures based on norm X. (Adapted from Alexandru Grigorescu, Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? Normative Pressures and Decision-Making Rules [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015], 32.)

Of course, by challenging, narrowing, or broadening norms, actors primarily seek to alter the prescriptions for specific actions (that can be understood as all the discrete “points” within the forms representing the norms X, Y, and Z in figure 1). It is through such prescriptions that norms affect outcomes. The norms are therefore important because they justify taking or not taking certain actions that support or run counter to their material interests. Above we offer some examples of such strategies.

A first obvious reaction to pressures is simply to yield to them and accept the changes promoted by norms entrepreneurs. For example, the 1965 reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that led to the increase in the organ’s membership from 11 to 15 can be seen as the result of the UN’s permanent five (P5) members yielding to the strong fair-participation normative pressures. These pressures had been boosted by the increase in the number of UN members and, implicitly, the greater number of states vying for nonpermanent seats in the UNSC. Although some of the P5 members initially opposed the reform of 1965, in the end, they all “yielded” to normative pressures and supported it.10

Of course, actors very often withstand normative pressures (without reacting to them even verbally) and continue to take actions counter to the norm’s prescriptions. For instance (to offer yet another example of the effect of norms on rules of intergovernmental organizations), although throughout the history of the UN, many small states have promoted fair-voting norms to convince great powers to do away with the veto in the UNSC—or at least to accept rules limiting its use—the P5 has not given in on such demands. Indeed, with a few exceptions, it has not even responded to them.11

Third, actors under pressure may use a challenging strategy that implies a rejection of the appropriateness of the norm or of the ability to apply it in that particular instance. It often involves invoking an alternative norm that clashes with the one being promoted. For example, the sovereignty norm has often been invoked to challenge human rights norms or transparency norms that were promoted for international arms-verifications agreements.12 Alternatively, actors may not challenge the norm itself but its application. For example, the United States and a number of other developed countries have argued that even though the norms underlying economic and social rights are important, it is virtually impossible to apply them internationally due to problems of “justiciability.”13 The difference between the strategy of withstanding and challenging a norm or its prescriptions is that although the former implies that those opposing the application of a norm simply ignore the normative pressure, the latter involves a verbal reaction emphasizing that the norm is not “as appropriate” as the norm entrepreneurs claim it is (primarily because it clashes with other norms) or that it cannot really be applied to the case at hand.

However, in most instances, those who oppose actions based on certain norms will seek more refined strategies than those mentioned above for defusing normative pressures (and emphasized by much of the norms literature). Specifically, we posit that most often they will either narrow or broaden the understanding of the norm or of its application. The narrowing strategy entails accepting only some interpretations of the norm. Broadening implies supporting other norms in addition to the one originally promoted by others.

There are many examples of such narrowing and broadening strategies. For instance, narrowing strategies have been used by those who suggest that, as a “group right,” the right to development is not a true human (individual) right and therefore does not carry the moral strength of more traditional rights.14 Conversely, actors promoting group rights, such as the right to development, are adding to the types of actors viewed as holding rights and therefore engaging in a broadening strategy.

Very often, narrowing strategies invoke practical problems involving complete acceptance of the proposed actions. For example, throughout the history of both the League of Nations and the UN, normative pressures based on the fair-participation norm intended to increase the size of the Council and UNSC, respectively, were answered by great powers with arguments that such increases would make these organs less efficient. In virtually all cases of Council and UNSC reform, great powers accepted smaller (“narrower”) changes than those originally proposed.

An example of actors using the strategy of altering the normative environment through “broadening” is the one through which states connected the issues of democracy and development in the 1993 Vienna Declaration of Program and Action at the World Conference on Human Rights. The conference was intended to reflect the agreement being forged in the human rights realm now that the ideological battles of the Cold War had ended. The declaration reaffirmed the right to development yet stipulated that lack of development cannot be used to justify the violation of other human rights. It also emphasized the idea of the “indivisibility of rights,” pointing out how democracy (promoted by developed countries) and development (promoted by evolving ones) complement each other.15

The strategies of broadening and narrowing are important beyond the simple purpose of establishing a typology for reactions to normative pressures. Each type of strategy leads to a different likely outcome. Specifically, when actors using the withstanding or challenging strategy are successful, we do not expect changes to the status quo. When they are successful using the narrowing strategy, the outcome will likely be a more modest change to the status quo than the norm promoters initially called for. Lastly, when the broadening strategy is successful, we expect that other changes to the status quo—in addition to the ones demanded by the norm promoters—will take place.

The following sections discuss the evolution of two norms: antiterrorism and civilian protection. We show that, like norms X and Y in figure 1, antiterrorism and civilian protection have both overlapping prescriptions and different ones. Because the common prescriptions of both of these norms were accepted by virtually all actors (and it was difficult to argue against them using challenging strategies), the most common approaches were ones of narrowing or broadening. The sections discuss broadly the role of multiple actors, but they tend to dwell primarily on the actions and reactions of the United States—the world’s most powerful country and, implicitly, the one was most likely to shape the two norms, especially over the past few decades.

The Civilian Protection and

Antiterrorism Norms prior to World War II

Civilian protection developed primarily as a reciprocal norm between European militaries in the Middle Ages, rooted in the widely respected virtues of military honor, chivalry, and fair play. Although the idea that some are innocent in war is perhaps as old as war itself, only with the emergence of the modern nation-state and natural law philosophy was the collectivization of guilt morally challenged. Emphasizing individual moral culpability and the rights of man, Emer de Vattel wrote, “As they do not resist the enemy by force or violence, they give the enemy no right to use it towards them.”16 By the nineteenth century, just war tradition had receded, and “customary law” emerged among “civilized” nations. In response to the growing violence of the US Civil War and in recognition of its effects on civilians, the first step toward codification of civilian protection occurred with the 1863 Lieber Code, which sought to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.17 The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 built on the Lieber Code by asserting the standard of common practice between “civilized” states with commonly held moral views.

The Martens Clause, in the preamble of the 1899 Hague Convention, which provided the foundation for the laws of armed conflict, serves as an early example of how material state interests figure into the construction of norms. At issue was how to treat resistant occupied populations, with a division between smaller, less powerful states that wanted them protected as “lawful combatants” and larger, more powerful states that wanted the freedom to kill them. With no single interpretation resulting from these early efforts, just war codes figured centrally in the development of the idea of “civilization” as a qualifier consulted to determine who deserved protection and who did not.18 Barbarism was defined as fighting without such civilized codes, and wars of colonization were taken as exceptional wars waged against societies that neither respected nor abided such codes. Yet, overall, up to World War II the norm of civilian protection referred almost entirely to the protection of civilians of one country from the military of another country. The most important difference between states’ views on this norm was whether it should be applied to all states or narrowed to apply only to “civilized” ones.

Terrorism as a political concept begins much later than civilian protection, tracing its roots to the French Revolution, when summary executions and other coercive actions were taken by the state, on behalf of “the people,” in defense of the newly established revolutionary order.19 Paradoxically, then, the rights of man—the same liberal philosophical concept that buttressed civilian protection by introducing individual guilt and innocence in war—produced what Dan Edelstein calls the “terror of natural right.”20

Even as late as the early twentieth century, terrorism was not yet closely associated with the killing of civilians. Rather, it referred to a disturbing pattern of widespread assassinations and antistate bombings. Separatist groups were often responsible, and they frequently enjoyed the support of foreign states. Serbia, for example, sought to weaken its neighbors by supporting the Black Hand, whose goals included freeing Slavic populations from Austro-Hungarian rule.21 In response to “political crimes” against state actors, the interwar era saw the first international efforts to create an antiterror norm, and “terrorism” became associated with the actions of nonstate actors though not yet with the state actors who supported them.22

The first formal attempt to codify the international antiterror norm took place in the mid-1930s through the League of Nations’ Committee for the International Repression of Terrorism. Despite three years of discussion, the antiterror norm failed to launch. Few incentives existed for states to cooperate on the issue since most of them desired to protect their own ability to support foreign insurgencies and therefore were not willing to accept any international treaties.23 Consequently, virtually all states desired narrow interpretations of the norm and its application. Moreover, the threat of terrorism as the practice of violence outside conventional war paled in comparison to the looming World War II.

The Civilian Protection and

Antiterrorism Norms in the Aftermath of World War II

The late nineteenth century is often hailed as the heyday of the civilian protection norm, but the period of the great wars marks a distinct departure. Industrialized warfare introduced previously unimaginable numbers of combatant casualties in World War I. Despite the hopes of those who believed that the development of airpower would make war less costly, more humane, and more decisive, the norm was exceedingly weak, reaching a low point during World War II.24 The strategies of both the Axis and Allied powers intentionally and directly targeted civilian populations. The carnage reached terrifying proportions as populations were slaughtered from the air in London, Tokyo, and Dresden, as well as the millions on the ground in the Holocaust in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere. The war culminated in the use of the most indiscriminate of all weapons to date—the atomic bomb—although Henry Stimson’s 1947 utilitarian narrative supporting its use has been increasingly challenged.25 John Horne explains the breakdown in the norm as an outcome of the prevailing thought of the times, whereby total-war mobilization efforts encouraged thinking about civilians in collective terms—as populations (rather than as individual human beings) and their innocence or guilt.26

The civilian protection norm’s greatest legal achievements began with the Geneva Conventions of 1949, largely in response to international normative pressures resulting from the great atrocities of World War II. The treaty contained only the seeds of civilian protection, minimally specified as duties incumbent on occupying powers. Although the sheer scale of strategic bombing conducted against civilian populations in World War II would not recur, the changing character of war continued to produce massive civilian casualties attributable to both sides.

In the aftermath of World War II, the issue of terrorism paled in comparison to interstate wars. Nevertheless, there were some attempts to create a consensus about the illegitimacy of terrorism—attempts that proved difficult to achieve, especially once the UN General Assembly became the center of such debates. The differences in perspectives played out primarily along Western versus non-Western lines. Ultimately, at issue in defining what constituted “terror” was what groups could claim as the legitimate use of violence in a changing international order. Notably, powerful Western states emphasized a broad norm against terror, focusing not on harm done to civilians but on the intended outcome of the violence, such as disrupting, overthrowing, or seceding from established governments. Only later did attention turn to the prohibition of specific actions such as political assassinations or hijacking.27 Little interaction took place between the civilian protection norm and the antiterror norm at this point; terrorism as an illegitimate form of violence was not yet linked to the killing of civilians since they had not yet become the primary targets. Moreover, states were heavily involved in the politics behind the terrorist acts. Differentiating between state and nonstate terrorist actors on this basis was thus not politically relevant, given the weak state of the civilian protection norm. World War II and the growing realization of the horrors of the Holocaust had demonstrated in starkest terms that the severest threat to civilians was states themselves, not nonstate groups.

The Civilian Protection and

Antiterrorism Norms during the Cold War

As the process of decolonization began to unfold, both sides in wars of national liberation targeted civilians as a matter of strategy: bombings, assassinations, and massacres of colonial settlers took place in Africa and the Middle East, and considerable violence against civilians has been attributed to colonial state actors who sought to maintain the status quo. Yet, during the first half of the Cold War, few changes occurred in the international civilian protection regime.

As expected, the push for change came from developments in the United States. Indeed, because media depictions of civilian suffering in Vietnam had attracted much American domestic criticism (and thus raised normative pressures for changes), the Additional Protocols of 1977—the legal specification and codification of the civilian protection norm—finally made it onto the international agenda.28 The atrocities at the time stood in stark relief to the rhetoric of the halfhearted “hearts and minds” counterinsurgency plan touted by US administrations in the 1960s and 1970s. The protocols were designed to strengthen the civilian protection norm by moving from general just war principles of discrimination, precaution, and proportionality to the codification and specification of practical constraints on harming civilians. The overarching political context for the 1977 Additional Protocols was the ongoing liberation movements (and the resistance to that struggle by incumbents). Although buttressed by strengthening human rights norms, the protocols had become politically controversial in response to attempts to account for the changing character of war—from interstate to intrastate “wars amongst the people.”29 The interaction between the civilian protection and antiterrorism norms was especially evident in struggles over the legitimacy of certain forms of nonstate violence in the service of the principle of self-determination, which had been included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The violence perpetrated in wars for national liberation and the civil wars that often followed did not, for many years, result in attempts to strengthen international cooperation in favor of the antiterror norm because such actions, undertaken by states and nonstate actors alike, did not register as terror in international forums.30 The ascendancy of the norm of self-determination led to a weakening of the antiterror norm and even the one of civilian protection.

The groundwork for interaction between the two norms had been laid in the early 1970s, when the development of mass communication technologies created a stage for what became known as the “theater of terror.”31 One highly covered event in particular marks a watershed for narrowing the antiterror norm: the killings of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants during the Munich Olympics. In response to this event, the definition of terrorism became shaped more by Western states as acts of violence against civilians (not against government actors), and “terrorist” became increasingly conflated with groups fighting for self-determination. Furthermore, as enhanced media coverage created opportunities for marginalized groups to fashion their own narratives through the spectacle of symbolic violence, the United States, Israel, and other states attempted to counter the narrative by pushing the definition of “terrorist” in the direction of an identity. This effort, however, was met with resistance by states that had won liberation through guerrilla warfare. When the UN secretary-general put the antiterror issue on the agenda in 1972, a significant fault line emerged that mirrored growing tensions within the changing postcolonial order between new and aspiring members of the international community on the one side and entrenched powers on the other.32

The understanding of terrorism as an identity (rather than just a tactic) of individuals, groups, and even states continued to grow after the Iran hostage crisis. In the 1980s, the United States abandoned efforts to develop an international norm, based on the consensus of a broad international community, and turned to the Group of Seven (G7).33 Thus, the ever-evolving antiterror norm increasingly reflected Western interpretations. Throughout the 1980s, the United States often used terrorism as a justification for the use of force against states that engaged in or supported violence against civilians, such as the air strikes against Libya in 1986 in retaliation for the La Belle discotheque bombing. In his address to the American people, President Reagan argued that the Libyan leader had ordered a “terrorist attack against Americans to cause maximum and indiscriminate casualties” and that “Colonel Qadhafi had engaged in acts of international terror, acts that put him outside the company of civilized men.”34 By doing so, the United States was broadening the antiterrorism norm to refer not only to nonstate actors but also to state actors supporting terrorist acts. Moreover, in the quotation above, Reagan invoked the centuries-old binary so prevalent in the civilian protection norm: “civilization versus barbarism.”

By the late 1970s and 1980s, the term “uncivilized” was invoked in common usage in support of the antiterror norm. Civilian protection and antiterrorism became more entangled as the binaries of civilization versus barbarism were commonly used to delegitimize states and groups during the Cold War.35 Because of the added strength of the civilian immunity norm, barbarism became a bridge linking the antiterror and civilian protection norms. The conflation of terror and civilian harm, however, was becoming a knife that could cut both ways. Israel, which in concert with the United States had steadily linked terrorism to the killing of civilians, suffered international condemnation for its brutal invasion of Lebanon and its role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982.36

Importantly, by the late 1980s, for the first time, the antiterror norm also had begun to overshadow the norm of self-determination. The United States, which at that time was deeply involved in the anticommunist insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in Latin America, explicitly linked the politics of civilian protection with those of antiterror. This action occurred not only at the level of rhetoric but also through America’s refusal to ratify aspects of the civilian protection norm’s legal codification found in the Additional Protocol I. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the main contribution of Article 1(4) is that it “provides that armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination, alien occupation or racist regimes are to be considered international conflicts.”37 The Reagan administration rejected this article on the grounds that it legitimized the political goals and identities of terrorists by offering combatant status to what the president saw as terrorists fighting in wars of national liberation:

I believe that these actions are a significant step in defense of traditional humanitarian law and in opposition to the intense efforts of terrorist organizations and their supporters to promote the legitimacy of their aims and practices. The repudiation of Protocol I is one additional step, at the ideological level so important to terrorist organizations, to deny these groups legitimacy as international actors.38

The United States’ official position created a strategy of legitimation by emphasizing Western identities as inherent protectors of civilians and thus champions of those parts of the Additional Protocols that strengthen the civilian protection norm. At the same time, the United States exploited the debates surrounding the politicized civilian protection norm to broaden the antiterror norm for the purpose of subsuming guerrilla fighters under the category of terrorism. Because the strengthened civilian protection norm now called on fighters to distinguish themselves from noncombatants, what had previously been considered the nature of guerrilla warfare—a strategy made famous by Mao Tse-tung—whereby the weak draws advantage by melting into the civilian population, was now in the same moral category with directly attacking civilians.39

Once the antiterror norm, still relatively weak and narrow, made common cause with the growing normative force of the civilian immunity norm, its potential as a tool in the struggle to shape the international order significantly expanded. The long process of negotiating and ratifying the Additional Protocols provided a key platform since “the shaping of the laws themselves were [sic] a means by which civilized nations and civilized men defined and defended their interests and identities.”40

The Civilian Protection and

Antiterrorism Norms in the Immediate Post–Cold War Era

With the end of the Cold War and the apparently closing ideological gap between the superpowers of that era, there was greater agreement on human rights norms. In the 1990s, ever-stronger human rights norms also empowered the “core” of the civilian protection norm. By that time, most states had ratified the Additional Protocols that specified the principles of discrimination, precaution, and proportionality. As always, the civilian protection norm was vulnerable to the contingencies of actual war and, in practice, limited by ideology and technology. Precision-guided munitions allowed for more discriminate use of airpower and represented to some a “new era” in warfare—in the sense that these weapons were thought to allow for urban targeting by lessening “collateral damage.” The greater strength of the norm was evident, however, in the US military’s frustration with what some saw as ever-increasing expectations generated by the norm and the weapons meant to satisfy it. In the best-known example from the Gulf War, well-publicized attacks against bridges in downtown Baghdad—coupled with a precision attack against the Al Firdos command and control bunker, which killed several hundred individuals using it as a shelter—generated a political reaction that included shutting down the strategic air campaign against Baghdad for 10 days.41

President George H. W. Bush’s justification for force in the Gulf War, ostensibly based on Iraq’s violation of the nonaggression norm, also drew on the “innocence” distinction, a key normative concept in civilian protection: “This brutal dictator will do anything, will use any weapon, will commit any outrage, no matter how many innocents suffer.”42 President Bill Clinton also justified the use of force on the grounds of humanitarian intervention in Kosovo, specifically employing the concept of the innocent civilian: “The mission of the air strikes is . . . to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo.”43

The strengthening civilian protection norm led to the emergence of the first international debates involving the responsibility to protect (R2P). Because R2P added obligations even for states that were not part of a conflict to act to assure civilian protection, it can be seen as a form of broadening the norm. Despite unease brought about by the tension between sovereignty and human rights, the new intervention component of the norm prescriptions appears to have paved the way for the justification of regime change in the ensuing global war on terror (GWOT).

Efforts to gain an international consensus on the antiterror norm were sparked by the end of the Cold War as the United States and Soviet Union began agreeing on a number of global issues. Russia’s support for the international norm was a result of its own bloody struggles with Chechen separatists, whom it labeled terrorists for multiple bombings in Moscow.44 The international agreement led to significant legal reforms that transformed acts such as hostage taking and hijacking, which had been criminalized in earlier decades into an expansive legal regime meant to increase cooperation on international terrorism.45 As the antiterror norm became more powerful, other states evidently “yielded” to the normative pressures and accepted the aforementioned international agreements.

The Civilian Protection and

Antiterrorism Norms between 2001 and 2004

In response to the sheer scale of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11), war plans began immediately. President George W. Bush engaged in a strategy of legitimation for his GWOT by using the moral and political language that would resonate broadly with Americans, invoking just war once again, buttressed by the discourse of civilization. In his 2001 State of the Union address, he stated, “This is civilization’s fight”; “the civilized world is rallying to America’s side.” Weeks later, in another speech, Bush said, “We wage a war to save civilization itself.”46

The threat was depicted as global. In itself, this claim was not out of line with what many were thinking. Some viewed al-Qaeda as challenging the very survival of the state-centered system.47 As the GWOT advanced, the Bush administration simultaneously employed the language of civilian protection and antiterror to legitimize the US identity and deny legitimacy to America’s enemies because “targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong.”48

Given the history of the increasing convergence between civilian protection and terrorism, it is not surprising that, in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, the United States invoked the normative power of the civilian protection norm to justify the use of force against groups labeled terrorists. The interaction of the two norms had proven useful for the delegitimation of nonstate actors who threatened the state monopoly on international violence and even for states who sponsored such groups. A new development was that the Bush administration conflated state and terrorist by broadening the antiterror norm to potentially include all actors who violate civilian protection. The rhetoric preceding the invasion of Iraq frequently referenced Saddam Hussein as a threat precisely because “any person that would gas his own people is a threat to the world.”49 Furthermore, Bush employed the antiterror norm when he asserted that Hussein and al-Qaeda were ‘’equally as bad, equally as evil and equally as destructive’’ such that ‘’you can’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.’’50

This was a milestone for the antiterror norm. No longer could small states defend or even turn a blind eye toward terrorism without risking their own delegitimation or even wholesale attack. Rogue states were deemed illegitimate based on their anti-human-rights, “terrorist” ideology: “We make no distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them.”51 Moreover, in attempting to blur the line between the identities of state and nonstate actors by conflating illegitimate violence against foreign civilians (terrorism) with illegitimate violence within a state (human rights violations), the Bush administration inadvertently strengthened the normative power of both human rights and civilian immunity. Conflating human rights with civilian protection encourages a broadened interpretation of the civilian protection norm. For example, the legal regime of international humanitarian law allows for unintended but foreseeable deaths in the service of military advantage, whereas human rights abide no such contingencies.

Once military action commenced—and particularly once the US military became an occupying force—the United States would soon find that, in rhetorically constructing the conventional campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the GWOT (and thus as a war meant to defend the international order of states from those whose very identity was premised on illegitimate violence toward civilians), America shaped its own identity and the legitimacy of its own power regarding the protection of civilians. It broadened both the antiterrorism norm and the civilian protection norm to the point where their common core seemed to be more important than their differences.

Evidence from those who helped to shape early policy support this assertion. For instance Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy in the early years of the administration, made the following statement in his congressional testimony: “[Our] position is dictated by the logic of our stand against terrorism. I argued: The essence of the Convention is the distinction between soldiers and civilians (i.e., between combatants and non-combatants). Terrorists are reprehensible precisely because they negate that distinction by purposefully targeting civilians.”52

This connection between the two norms would become particularly problematic as a gap emerged between principle and practice. Normative pressures resulted from strengthening the civilian immunity norm due to connections with the increasingly powerful antiterror norm while at the same time failing to live up to its prescriptions. The air strikes in the shock-and-awe campaign employed precise weaponry and careful targeting procedures that limited collateral damage, but cluster munitions were also used in residential areas.53 Civilian immunity considerations were thus institutionalized in airpower, but how ground troops behaved toward civilians fell to the ethical leadership exhibited (or not) by individual leaders. Although some units were expected to (and did) exercise ethical judgment in distinguishing between combatant and civilian, others describe a free-for-all environment in which, as one Soldier put it, the rules of engagement called for “kill[ing] anything that moves.”54 Others described the mood as vengeful and dark after 9/11, and all agreed that force protection was an absolute, unquestioned priority: “Better to send a bullet than a Soldier” was mentioned as a common slogan of the time.

Despite the words of Bush, who characterized the invasion as “one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history,” the reality of the war on the ground was experienced differently by many of those in uniform and the civilians with whom they interacted.55 In an address to the nation, Bush said, “The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military. In this conflict, American and coalition forces face enemies who have no regard for the conventions of war or rules of morality.” After condemning Saddam on the grounds of his violations of human rights, Bush added, “I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.”56 Yet, an initial damage assessment by Human Rights Watch estimated that the invasion killed thousands of civilians.57

The Civilian Protection and Antiterrorism Norms after 2004

The 2004 scandal surrounding the brutal, degrading, and sometimes deadly treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib struck an important blow to the legitimacy of the US war efforts in Iraq.58 As if Abu Ghraib were not bad enough, in the same month the United States became embroiled in the single most damaging battle of the war thus far: Fallujah. Initially friendly to US forces, Fallujah eventually became a hotbed of insurgency, fueled by antioccupation resentment. In response to the killing and burning of four American Blackwater contractors and the images of the cheering crowds surrounding the bodies, the US military hurriedly sent in troops. The goal of searching out and killing insurgents resulted in an estimated 700 to 2,000 Iraqi deaths (some claim 700 civilians) and 38 to 100 US Soldiers. The city was destroyed, and many of the people were displaced. Several military personnel interviewed for this study confirmed a “shoot anything that moves” mentality and noted that Fallujah is known for what was a common practice in the early days of Iraq: counting all males of a certain age as insurgents. The military denied that there were many casualties or that rules of engagement were broken, but according to an intelligence report, it was immediately recognized that the perception of civilian casualties had damaged the legitimacy of the American mission by creating what some called “political pressure” (a reflection of the normative pressure that we emphasize in this study) and building on anger already present from Abu Ghraib. The pressure created by perceptions of violating civilian protection in Fallujah was immense, and the report shows that it was decisive in stopping the battle, despite materially “winning.”59

In response to criticism, the administration narrowed the civilian protection norm as applicable to terrorists only. President Bush explained: “They want to kill innocent life to try to get us to quit.” He promised that “U.S. troops will use whatever force is needed to quell uprisings in the Iraqi city of Fallujah . . . [and that] we will deal with those who want to stop the march to freedom.”60 In response to the second incursion months later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded, “What’s going on are some terrorists and regime elements have been attacking our forces, and our forces have been going out and killing them.”61

By early 2006, Joseph Collins—Bush’s own former deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations—published an open letter in the Armed Forces Journal warning Bush that “if our strategic communications on Iraq don’t improve, the strategy for victory will fail and disastrous consequences will follow.’”62 A significant change in US behavior is evidenced through the adoption and implementation of Field Manual (FM) 3-24 / Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, a revised counterinsurgency doctrine that elevated the purpose of the military to population protection over killing insurgents.63

The crisis that ensued after Fallujah in Iraq overshadowed what was happening in Afghanistan, siphoning away resources, attention, and manpower, and thus creating the conditions for worsening civilian casualties over time. Not until after the surge, when the level of violence in Iraq began to cool, was serious attention paid to Afghanistan, and civilian casualties were addressed. The eventual outcome: Afghanistan’s short-lived version of counterinsurgency and its emphasis on the protection of civilians served as an attempt not only to reverse the previous strategic failure but also to repair the American image and rebuild the legitimacy of the American use of force by regaining what others have called its “moral highground.”64

The initial invasion in Afghanistan had produced less controversy than that in Iraq since it had enjoyed a wider base of international support.65 Although in the initial invasion, President Bush had not explicitly promised to minimize harm to civilians that would result from the use of force, he reinforced the identity of the United States as the protector of all—not just American—innocent civilians. Thus, the Afghanistan war had rested largely on the moral consensus garnered from the attacks on 9/11. The Bush administration had highlighted the illegitimacy of the terrorists’ use of force as opposed to that employed by the coalition led by the United States and later the International Security Assistance Force and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The identity dimension is clear in this statement by President Bush: “The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we’ll also drop food, medicine, and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan.”66

During the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, a mix of precision weaponry had been employed, and some interviewees characterized the initial air strikes as precise and careful while acknowledging that—as one person who was present in the early days of Afghanistan put it—“it was [sh--] for civilians.”67 The New York Times published an investigative report of 11 bombing sites over a period of 6 months and concluded that the focus on overwhelming force and force protection, along with a reluctance to rely on ground troops for better intelligence, meant that “the American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm’s-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians.”68 The report also documented that denying civilian casualties was often the first public response, even in the face of contrary evidence. Responding to the Times article in a Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld defended the performance of the military regarding civilian deaths, insisting that the campaign represented historical progress in minimizing civilian casualties.69

A prevalent idea held that civilian casualties simply needed to be explained in the appropriate context. For instance, one member of the House Armed Services Committee stated, “I think we have to underscore the fact that the terrorists have intentionally targeted civilian targets. They have intentionally done that, whereas we are making every effort not to hit civilian targets. So there is a black-and-white contrast. We feel so strongly on this principle that we are even assuming additional military risks.”70

The response from the administration echoed (or perhaps helped to construct) prevailing attitudes of some in the military at the time, who believed that because the enemy manipulated and propagandized civilian casualties, it garnered an unfair, even unjust, advantage. Emphasizing—even acknowledging in some cases—casualties was seen as feeding into the enemy’s illegitimate and distorted narrative.71 Nevertheless, the players were embedded in an identity contest, and the administration’s response was to place the moral onus on the enemy, claiming that it was responsible for the civilian casualties that did occur and implicating civilians as cooperators or supporters of the regime: “There’s no question but that people who were in close proximity to these isolated ammunition dumps, who very likely were there for a good reason, because they were part of that activity, may very well have been casualties. . . . They were not cooking cookies inside those tunnels.”72 Innocent civilians were the victims of the enemy’s unethical ways of war: “Rumsfeld said that while the U.S. has been ‘very careful’ about avoiding civilian casualties when possible, the Taliban is making it increasingly difficult not to hit civilians. ‘They are systematically using mosques and schools and hospitals for command-and-control centers [and] for ammunition storage.’ ”73

Even so, the administration recognized the need to sway the populace although early attempts at hearts and minds were crude and took for granted that the claim that killing was “unintentional” (a key concept in the civilian protection that narrows the understanding of the norm and permits the possibility of collateral damage) would absolve the United States from moral culpability in the eyes of multiple audiences, including the local population. Planes dropped leaflets to reassure Afghans that the bombardment was not aimed at them. One leaflet showed a Western soldier in camouflage and helmet shaking hands with a man in traditional Afghan dress in front of a mountain scene. Other attempts used war planes to broadcast news in Afghan dialects.74

In response to the feverish crisis brewing in Iraq, however, Afghanistan became a second priority at best. Nevertheless, three things happened in 2006 to put civilian casualties on the radar as a potential political problem: First, public and intellectual debates about the US use of torture reached a zenith. Second, rising civilian casualties accompanied a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Third, interested parties began to debate the question of civilian protection to confront the increased scope and urgency of the terrorist threat. The Bush administration, responding to the normative trap it had created through its use of both the torture and civilian protection norms, called for “new thinking” on international humanitarian law.

Initial resistance to the applicability of the norm eventually gave way to the decision to emphasize civilian protection. Once the administration was ready to acknowledge strategic failure in Afghanistan, it was faced with two choices. John Nagl—a key figure in the writing of FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, and along with Gen David Petraeus, one of its most visible public champions—explained that “you can either conduct the Roman method, where you kill everybody, sow the fields with salt and prevent anybody from living there again. That defeats the insurgency, but it’s illegal and immoral and absolutely not a solution we can think about.”75 Rather, he declared that population protection “is the only way to succeed in the modern era, in a CNN era.”76

That decision makers felt that the military could no longer revert to punitive population-centered strategies—considered permissible not so long ago—testifies to the strength of the civilian protection norm. Following the 2006 implementation of FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5 in Iraq, the United States adopted restrictive population protection measures in Afghanistan and by 2010 had begun implementing the new counterinsurgency strategy. Among other things, it called for “liv[ing] our values” because “this is what distinguishes us from our enemies.” Instead, Soldiers were instructed to “turn our enemies’ . . . indiscriminate violence against them. Hang their barbaric actions like millstones around their necks.”77 Of course, this directive limited the military’s options and overall made its tasks more arduous. Yet, the broader and more powerful civilian protection norm (buttressed by the powerful antiterrorism norm) made it difficult for the United States to do anything other than yield to the enormous normative pressures.

Conclusions

The table below summarizes the preceding narrative. It shows that multiple factors have altered the normative pressures to take actions for reducing civilian casualties and combating terrorism. Such changes in pressures sometimes took place slowly, with incremental increases in the strength of norms, as was the case toward the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century (when wars resulted in increasingly large numbers of casualties) or at the end of the Cold War (as democratic norms spread across states, empowering the civilian protection norm). Yet, the increases in normative pressures more often took place quickly because of rapid changes in perceptions that the status quo was departing substantially from norm prescriptions. Such was the case, for example, after World War II, when the staggering number of civilian casualties in bombings and in the Holocaust led to international indignation. It also happened after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Table. Evolution of civilian protection and antiterrorism norms

Period

Norm

Factors triggering change

Change in normative pressure (NP)

Reaction to change in NP

Result of actors’ actions to change NP

Interaction between norms

Before WWII

Civilian Protection (CP)

Era of “great wars” (number of civilians killed increases)

Increase due both to norm empowerment and to deviation from norm prescription

Narrow: does not apply to resistant, occupied populations; also applicable only to “civilized” states

Lieber Code (1863); Hague Conventions (1899–1907)

Very weak

Antiterrorism (AT)

Widespread assassinations and antistate bombings

Slight increase due to norm empowerment and deviation from norm prescription

Narrow only to nonstate actors’ violent actions against governments

Failed attempt for treaty in League of Nations (mid-1930s)

Very weak

Aftermath

of WWII

CP

New technologies had allowed targeting behind enemy lines; greater civilian contribution to war effort; Holocaust

Urgency of war efforts led to reduced salience of norm (and reduced NP); after war, strong deviation from norm prescription leads to increase in NP

Yielding to powerful pressures (especially as civilian protection “piggybacks” on powerful human rights norms)

Geneva Conventions (1949)

Weak

AT

Nonstate actors’ actions paled in comparison to state actions during WWII

Lower NP as state (rather than nonstate) actions more relevant immediately after war

Small states narrow norm to refer only to actions against civilians; powerful states broaden norm to also emphasize nonstate actors’ actions against government actors

No agreement

Weak

Cold War

CP

Wars of decolonization; mass communication technologies spread images (e.g., Vietnam)

Increased NP is due to stronger norm (due, in turn, to public seeing images of civilian casualties)

Norm broadened by decolonization to refer to wars with “liberation movements” and guerrilla fighters, not just with other states; norm narrowed by Western states to apply only to “civilized” actors; norm narrowed by Western states to not refer to those who fight without distinguishing themselves by using uniforms

Additional protocols of Geneva Conventions (1977)

Moderate

AT

Mass communication technologies spread images (e.g., Munich Olympics)

Increased NP due to increased visibility of terrorist actions and realization that status quo is departing from norm prescription

Powerful states broadened norm to refer not just to nonstate actor violence but also state support for them; powerful states also narrow norm to apply primarily to “noncivilized” state actors

No global agreement; G7 agreement focused on hostage taking and hijacking

Moderate

1990s

CP

Spread of democracy/stronger human rights norms; number of casualties in civil wars (e.g., Rwanda, Yugoslavia)

Increase in NP due to stronger norm (empowered by democratic norms) and greater perceived deviation from norm prescription

Broadening of norm by all by emphasizing not only obligations to not kill civilians but also obligations to protect them

R2P first mentioned in 2000

Strong

AT

End of Cold War leads to agreement between states on multiple issues, including terrorism

Increase in NP due to more powerful (more broadly accepted) norm

More states yield to pressure (acceptance of AT regime by more countries)

New international conventions on finance, plastic explosives, and terrorist bombings

Strong

2001–4

CP

9/11 attacks on United States

CP norm is strengthened by increasingly powerful AT norm; leads to stronger NP

Norm is broadened to refer to actions against civilians by nonstate actors (not just states); norm is broadened to refer to actions taken by states against their own people (e.g., Iraq)

Weak international support for US war in Iraq

Very strong

AT

9/11 attacks on United States

Increase of NP first due to visibility of deviation from norm prescriptions (after 9/11) and then from empowerment of norm itself

Broadening of norm to refer to actions both against civilians (New York) and government (Washington)

Strong international support for US actions in Afghanistan

Very strong

2005–present

CP

High number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan wars; visibility of events surrounding Abu Ghraib and Fallujah

Increase of NP as US actions were perceived to deviate substantially from norm prescriptions

United States narrowed norm to show CP does not apply to terrorists or those aiding terrorists; narrowed norm to show killing was “unintentional”; yielded to NP seeking to minimize civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

US adoption of revised counterinsurgency doctrine (FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, 2006)

Very strong

AT

Attacks in other parts of the world (e.g., United Kingdom, Spain).

NP remains strong

More states have yielded to normative pressures and have supported international antiterrorism initiatives

Strong AT regime

Very strong

As the normative pressure to “do something” to protect civilians and stop terrorism increased, states sometimes yielded to such pressures and reached agreements codifying the norms—as happened, for example, immediately after World War II through the Geneva Conventions. States also sought to empower international antiterrorist legal instruments in the immediate post–Cold War era through conventions on finance, plastic explosives, and terrorist bombings.78 Last, the US adoption of FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, after embarrassing events in the war in Iraq can be understood as an example of yielding to increasingly strong civilian protection norms.

Yet, in many cases, states and groups of states reacted to the additional normative pressure by either narrowing or broadening the norms to their advantage. When narrowing such norms, they accepted only the understanding of norms and the prescriptions that benefited them. By broadening the norms, they introduced more prescriptions that they felt were advantageous to them.

The main argument of this study is that, in some cases, the broadening of one of the two norms led to the empowerment of the second norm. That is, the norm of civilian protection and the antiterrorism norm, although sufficiently different from each other, have a common core: they both prescribe that nongovernmental actors should not use violence against civilians. Further, to this prescription the antiterror norm prescribes that nongovernmental actors should not use violence against state actors. Similarly, in addition to the common prescription of both norms, the civilian protection norm also prescribes that governments should not use violence against civilians (whether in other states or in one one’s own state).

Figure 2, illustrating the relationship between the two norms, is a specific case of figure 1. It explains the possible relations between the norms of civilian protection and antiterrorism. By suggesting that these norms have both common and differing prescriptions, the figure also shows the types of narrowing and broadening strategies (and offers some examples) that actors have used throughout history.

1. Civilian Protection (CP) has been narrowed to refer only (or primarily) to actions taken by state actors (e.g., position of most states before decolonization era): prescriptions deriving only from right side of CP norm in figure 2.

2. CP has been narrowed to refer only (or primarily) to actions taken by nonstate actors (e.g., US initial position in Iraq and Afghanistan): prescriptions deriving only from left side of CP norm in figure 2.

3. CP has been narrowed to apply only (or primarily) to “nonbarbarians” (e.g., most Western states before World War I and during the Cold War): prescriptions deriving only from part of left side of CP norm in figure 2.

4. CP has been narrowed to apply only (or primarily) when one can distinguish between fighters and civilians (e.g., US position during the Cold War): prescriptions deriving from part of the left side of CP norm in figure 2.

5. CP has been broadened to refer to actions of both state and nonstate actors (e.g., current position of most countries): prescriptions deriving from both sides of CP norm in figure 2.

1. Antiterrorism (AT) has been narrowed to refer only (or primarily) to violence used by nongovernmental groups against civilians (e.g., most states after World War II): prescriptions deriving only from right side of AT norm in figure 2.

2. AT has been narrowed to refer only (or primarily) to violence used by nongovernmental groups against state actors (most powerful states before World War II): prescriptions deriving only from left side of AT norm in figure 2.

3. AT has been narrowed to refer only to cases where nonstate actors are not “freedom fighters” (position of many developing countries during decolonization era): prescriptions deriving from part of left side of AT norm in figure 2.

4. AT has been broadened to refer to violence of nongovernmental groups targeting both civilians and state actors (e.g., US position after 9/11): prescriptions deriving from both sides of AT norm in figure 2.

Figure 2. Overlap between the civilian protection and antiterrorism norms and their prescriptions

Figure 2 also suggests that—whether adopting strategies of yielding, narrowing, or broadening as a reaction to normative pressures deriving from one norm—actors, in turn, altered (at least partially) the strength of the other norm. Indeed, the table above shows that, in time, the two norms have interacted with each other more frequently. Most recently, the purposeful broadening of the antiterrorism norm to serve US interests led to an inadvertent empowerment of the civilian protection norm, which, in turn, has constrained America’s possible actions and reactions in the GWOT.

What generalizations can we draw from this particular case of norm interaction? First, as expected, this study shows that normative pressures indeed are likely to lead to important changes in the dynamics surrounding norms and in the politics behind their codification in international agreements. Yet, even when under normative pressures, actors rarely accept norms and their prescriptions in the exact way they were originally promoted by norm entrepreneurs. They seek to shape the norm to reflect fewer or more prescriptions, based on their interests. As expected, the interests of great powers are more likely to shape international agreements.

Moreover, most norms do not exist in a vacuum. They can be seen either as broad norms that subsume other narrower ones or as narrow norms that are part of broader ones. In fact, more often, norms have some overlap with each other since they prescribe similar or even identical actions (as figures 1 and 2 suggest). Therefore, when applying strategies of broadening, actors may—willfully or not—empower other norms in addition to the one already being promoted. One can see such developments with regard to other recent normative evolutions, besides the ones connecting the civilian protection and antiterrorism norms discussed here. We should expect, for example, that the spread of minority rights norms, whether based on ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, has influenced each other’s strength—especially over the past few decades as the notion of “group rights” has developed. Similarly, it would be interesting to determine the degree to which the norms underlying the prohibition of using chemical weapons, biological weapons, or land mines has affected each other in the post–Cold War era.

In all of these cases of interactions, norms are likely to influence each other’s strength and perceived departure from prescriptions. Such inadvertent empowerment (or erosion) of other norms may have unexpected outcomes that can sometimes lead even powerful states to be caught in “normative traps.” The literature has discussed the existence of such traps before, but we suggest that the mechanisms of broadening and even narrowing that we emphasize here merit greater attention because they can offer a wider framework for understanding such developments.79

Notes

1. Cass R. Sunstein, “Social Norms and Social Roles,” Columbia Law Review 96, issue 4 (1996): 903–68; and Martha Finnemore and Katherine Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52, issue 4 (1998): 887–917.

2. Alexandru Grigorescu, Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? Normative Pressures and Decision-Making Rules (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

3. Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).

4. See, for example, Ann Florini, “The Evolution of International Norms,” International Studies Quarterly 40, issue 3 (1996): 363–81; and Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.”

5. Jeffrey T. Checkel, “Norm Entrepreneurship: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges” (paper presented at workshop on “The Evolution of International Norms and ‘Norm Entrepreneurship’: The Council of Europe in Comparative Perspective,” Wolfson College, Oxford University, 2012). See also, for example, Thomas Risse-Kappen, Stephen C. Ropp, and Katherine Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

6. Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro, “Norms, Identity and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise,” in The Culture of National Security, ed. Peter Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 451–97. Quotation found in Sabine Saurugger, “The Social Construction of the Participatory Turn: The Emergence of a Norm in the European Union,” European Journal of Political Research 49, issue 4 (2010): 472.

7. See, for example, Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power at the UN Security Council (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Clifford Bob, “Introduction: Fighting for New Rights,” in The International Struggle for New Human Rights, ed. Clifford Bob (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 1–13; and Checkel, “Norm Entrepreneurship.”

8. See, for example, Ronald R. Krebs and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, “Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric,” European Journal of International Relations 13, issue 1 (2007): 35–66; and Antje Wiener, A Theory of Contestation (Berlin: Springer, 2014).

9. Grigorescu. Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations?

10. Edward C. Luck, Reforming the United Nations: Lessons from a History in Progress, International Relations Studies and the United Nations Occasional Papers, no. 1 (New York: Academic Council on the United Nations System, 2003), 50, http://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/ebooks/files/373430132.pdf.

11. Dwight E. Lee, “The Genesis of the Veto,” International Organization 1, issue 1 (1947): 33–42.

12. Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2006); and Ann Florini, “Increasing Transparency in Government,” International Journal on World Peace 19, issue 3 (2002): 3–34.

13. See, for example, Aoife Nolan, Bruce Porter, and Malcolm Langford, The Justiciability of Social and Economic Rights: An Updated Appraisal, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Working Paper, no. 15 (New York: Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law, 2007), http://socialrightscura.ca/documents/publications/BP-justiciability-belfast.pdf.

14. Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2005).

15. See UN General Assembly, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, A/CONF.157/23, 12 July 1993.

16. Cited in Colm McKeogh, “Civilian Immunity in War: From Augustine to Vattel,” Civilian Immunity in War, ed. Igor Primoratz (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007), 77.

17. Helen M. Kinsella, The Image before the Weapon: A History of the Distinction between Combatant and Civilian (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 89.

18. Ibid.

19. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).

20. Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

21. James M. Lutz and Brenda J. Lutz, Global Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 2013), 56.

22. Upendra D. Acharya, “War on Terror or Terror Wars: The Problem in Defining Terrorism,” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 37, issue 4 (2009): 658.

23. Ibid.; and Rita Parhad, “Illegitimate Violence: The Creation and Development of the International Norm against Terrorism” (PhD diss., University of California–Berkeley, 2006).

24. Richard S. Hartigan, The Forgotten Victim: A History of the Civilian (Chicago: Precedent Pub., 1982).

25. See, for example, A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (New York: Walker & Co., 2006); Lt Col Peter W. Huggins, review of Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945, ed. Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, Air and Space Power Journal 22, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 111–13; and Katherine Cochran and Alexander B. Downes, “It’s a Crime, but Is It a Blunder? The Efficacy of Targeting Civilians in War” (paper presented at APSA 2010 Annual Meeting, Washington, DC). See also, for example, Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young, Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History (New York: New Press, 2009).

26. John Horne, “Civilian Populations and Wartime Violence: Towards an Historical Analysis,” International Social Science Journal 54, issue 174 (December 2002): 483–90.

27. Parhad, Illegitimate Violence.

28. “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977,” International Committee of the Red Cross, https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/States.xsp?xp_viewStates=XPages_NORMStatesParties&xp_treatySelected=470.

29. Gen Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New York: Knopf, 2007), Kindle edition, preface.

30. David C. Rapoport, Terrorism: The Second or Anti-colonial Wave (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2006), 23.

31. Brian M. Jenkins, A New Kind of Terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, June 1974), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P5261.pdf.

32. Parhad, Illegitimate Violence.

33. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

34. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike against Libya,” 14 April 1986, https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/speeches/1986/41486g.htm.

35. Parhad, Illegitimate Violence, 294.

36. See, for example, Seán MacBride et al., Israel in Lebanon: Report of International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law by Israel during Its Invasion of the Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1983), 191–92.

37. “Protocol Additional.”

38. Ronald Reagan, “Letter of Transmittal,” American Journal of International Law 81, issue 4 (1987): 912.

39. Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

40. Kinsella, Image before the Weapon, 106.

41. Richard P. Hallion, Precision Guided Munitions and the New Era of Warfare, APSC Paper no. 53 (RAAF Base Fairbairn, Australia: Air Power Studies Centre, 1995), http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys

/smart/docs/paper53.htm.

42. George H. W. Bush, “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” American Presidency Project, 29 January 1991, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=19253.

43. William J. Clinton, “Letter to Congressional Leaders Reporting on Airstrikes against Serbian Targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro),” American Presidency Project, 26 March 1999, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=57316.

44. See “Summit in Turkey; In Words of Yeltsin and Clinton: Examining Terrorism and Human Rights,” New York Times, 19 November 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/19/world/summit-turkey-words

-yeltsin-clinton-examining-terrorism-human-rights.html.

45. Parhad, Illegitimate Violence.

46. George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address,” Guardian, 21 September 2001, https://www.the guardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/september11.usa13; Bush, “Transcript of Bush Speech in Atlanta,” CNN, 8 November 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/08/rec.bush.transcript/; and Bush, “Address to the Nation Announcing Strikes against Al Qaida Training Camps and Taliban Military Installations in Afghanistan,” American Presidency Project, 7 October 2001, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65088.

47. Barak Mendelsohn, “Sovereignty under Attack: The International Society Meets the Al Qaeda Network,” Review of International Studies 31, issue 1 (2005): 45–68.

48. George W. Bush, “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” White House, 1 June 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html.

49. “Press Briefing by Scott McClellan,” White House, 31 May 2002, http://georgewbush-whitehouse

.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020531-1.html.

50. Quoted in Daniel Benjamin, “Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda Are Not Allies,” New York Times, 30 September 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/30/opinion/saddam-hussein-and-al-qaeda-are-not-allies

.html.

51. George W. Bush, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Strengthen Alliances to Defeat Global Terrorism and Work to Prevent Attacks against Us and Our Friends,” US Department of State, 14 September 2001, http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/wh/15423.htm.

52. House, Statement by Douglas J. Feith before the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., 15 July 2008, 4, http://judiciary.house

.gov/_files/hearings/pdf/Feith080715.pdf.

53. Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq (New York: Human Rights Watch, December 2003).

54. Interviews were conducted with approximately two dozen active and retired Department of Defense personnel and human rights workers. Interviews took place between 2012 and 2013. Because the discussion covered sensitive topics, the interviewees were assured that they would remain anonymous. It should be noted that none of those interviewed were in the actual battle but relied on the internal accounts and stories spread among Soldiers.

55. Quoted in Human Rights Watch, Off Target, 5.

56. George W. Bush, “President Discusses Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom: President’s Radio Address,” 22 March 2003, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/text/20030 322.html.

57. Human Rights Watch, Off Target.

58. International Committee of the Red Cross, Report on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons in Iraq during Arrest, Internment, and Interrogation (Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, February 2004), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/icrc_iraq.pdf.

59. See “Complex Environments: Battle of Fallujah I, April 2004,” referenced in Stephen Soldz, “Fallujah, the Information War and U.S. Propaganda,” Counterpunch.org., 27 December 2007, http://www.counter punch.org/2007/12/27/fallujah-the-information-war-and-u-s-propaganda/.

60. “Bush Vows to Win in Fallujah,” Washington Times, 28 April 2004, http://www.washingtontimes

.com/news/2004/apr/28/20040428-105735-1629r/?page=all.

61. “U.S. Forces Mount Strikes in Fallujah,” Fox News, 29 April 2004, http://www.foxnews.com

/story/2004/04/29/us-forces-mount-strikes-in-fallujah/.

62. “An Open Letter to President Bush,” Armed Forces Journal, 1 January 2006, http://armedforcesjournal

.com/an-open-letter-to-president-bush/.

63. Sarah Sewall, “Introduction,” The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). See also FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, December 2006, http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/Repository/Materials/COIN-FM3-24.pdf.

64. Peter L. Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (New York: Free Press, 2011), Kindle edition, chap. 7.

65. John R. Ballard, David W. Lamm, and John K. Wood, From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012).

66. Bush, Address to the Nation.

67. Department of Defense personnel, interviews by the author, 2012–13.

68. Dexter Filkins, “Flaws in U.S. Air War Left Hundreds of Civilians Dead,” New York Times, 21 July 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/21/world/flaws-in-us-air-war-left-hundreds-of-civilians-dead.html ?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

69. Thom Shanker, “Rumsfeld Calls Civilian Deaths Relatively Low,” New York Times, 23 July 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/world/rumsfeld-calls-civilian-deaths-relatively-low.html.

70. “Taliban Defenses Still Pose Threat, Rumsfeld Says: Official Stresses U.S. Efforts to Avoid Civilian Casualties,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), 12 October 2001, A11, http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics

/lnacademic.

71. Retired and active Department of Defense personnel, interviews by the author, 2012–13.

72. Julian Borger, “Rumsfeld Blames Regime for Civilian Deaths: Bombing US Planes Make Heaviest Daylight Strikes Yet,” Guardian, 15 October 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/16/afghanistan.terrorism8.

73. Esther Schrader and Rone Tempest, “Airstrikes Intensify, Focus on Taliban Troops,” Los Angeles Times, 29 October 2001, A6, http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/29/news/mn-62977.

74. Ibid.

75. “Obama’s War: Interview; Lt. Col. John Nagl (Ret.),” PBS Frontline, 1 September 2009, http://www

.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/interviews/nagl.html.

76. Ibid.

77. COMISAF/CDR USFOR-A, to the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of NATO ISAF and US Forces–Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, memorandum, subject: COMISAF’s Counterinsurgency Guidance, 1 August 2010, 3, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/2010/COMISAF-MEMO.pdf.

78. Giuseppe Nesi, ed., International Cooperation in Counter-terrorism: The United Nations and Regional Organisations in the Fight against Terrorism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2005).

79. Catherine Weaver, Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

*Alexandru Grigorescu is professor of political science at Loyola University Chicago. His research on international relations has been published in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, the Review of International Organizations, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Ethics and International Affairs. He is the author of Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? Normative Pressures and Decision-Making Rules (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Prior to his academic career, he served as a diplomat in the Romanian Foreign Ministry and was posted to the Romanian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Sherri Replogle is an instructional assistant professor of political science at Illinois State University. She has been published in Contemporary Political Theory, and her teaching and research interests include the intersection of international conflict and ethical norms in international relations.

Apocalypse Now

Colonel Klein and the Legitimacy of the Kunduz Air Strike Narratives in German Television Films

Axel Heck, PhD*

Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has established a culture of military restraint and a strong commitment to multilateral institutions.1 Hence, Hanns Maull has famously called the role model of German foreign policy “civilian power.”2 After German reunification, a debate among scholars and practitioners developed about the question of whether German foreign policy would follow the path of continuity mainly associated with the politics of military restraint and multilateral diplomacy established by Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher—the architects of the “Bonner Republik”—or whether it would be adjusted according to German unification, the transformations of the international system and the ongoing European integration. The latter processes are expected to alter the economic, political, and military position of Germany.3 Although some observers have already questioned whether Germany really acts according to the role model of a civilian power, others have argued that it hasn’t violated the commitment to multilateralism but has become a “normal” civilian power instead.4

The deployment of forces in Afghanistan was conducted as a stabilizing mission under the umbrella of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Several resolutions of the UN Security Council turned it into a large-scale counterinsurgency operation over the years and seemed to prove that Germany’s role in world politics has changed fundamentally in the last decade.5 Consequently, Afghanistan has strengthened Germany’s way to “normality,” but civil society remains skeptical regarding the use of force. Therefore, the term war has been excluded from political discourse on Afghanistan for a long time.6 That Germany was indeed fighting a “war” became most obvious in the early morning hours of 4 September 2009. The day before, two fuel trucks that were supposed to bring their load to the German field camp in Kunduz were hijacked by Taliban fighters. While the thieves tried to escape, the fuel trucks became stuck on a sandbank in the Kunduz River. What then happened has tremendously shaken German foreign policy discourse, and the juridical consequences are still an open issue. That morning, German colonel Georg Klein ordered an air strike to destroy the vehicles and to kill the alleged perpetrators. The strike was launched by US jet fighters on the scene providing close air support. Klein and his military advisers later justified the decision before a parliamentary investigation committee, saying that they were sure that the people on the sandbank were exclusively Taliban fighters preparing an attack on the German camp in Kunduz by using pickup trucks loaded with fuel. According to a NATO report, however, more than 140 people were killed—many civilians among them.7

Research Question

The events of 4 September have triggered a heated debate in Germany about the Afghanistan engagement and German responsibilities for the civilian casualties.8 Klein was called a murderer by left wing societal groups, and leading newspapers claimed that the air strike was a war crime. But not only newspapers and magazines reported on the strike. It became the subject of two docudramas aired on German television. These films are of further interest for this article because they depict the events in detail but offer two different interpretations of what happened and raise the question of whether the air strike might have been a legitimate action or must be considered a war crime. This article shows how the legitimacy of the Kunduz air strike is represented and negotiated in these films by specific narrative structures. Although both claim to tell a “real” story by referring to the known facts, the filmmakers come to different conclusions. These movies are important artifacts in the discourse on the legitimacy of the strike since they make things visible that have not been seen before. Thus, the article argues that docudramas are important sources for international relations (IR) research for two reasons: (1) television productions reach millions of people and tremendously impact public discourses on the legitimacy of military action, especially in cases where knowledge is incomplete, limited, and contested; and (2) documentary films in general and docudramas in particular can contribute to collective memory by rendering audio-visual narratives and interpretations of the represented military operations. With regard to the specific case, the selected films address fundamental questions concerning the legitimacy of the Kunduz air strike by creating different narratives about the political, strategic, social, and individual circumstances under which Colonel Klein and his advisers were acting. Moreover, both films draw a portrait of the colonel as a military leader although hardly any information about his personality is known to the public. Hence, the film not only seems to fill information gaps about the strike but also offers interpretations about the personality and intentions of involved people that go far beyond the known facts. This amplification of factuality is special to the genre of docudramas to which both films belong.

This article begins with a short review of the literature on films and how they have been used in IR research so far. Then, a theorization of the docudrama follows so that one may understand why this film genre is particularly interesting for IR researchers. Empirical analysis of the two films is guided by methodological considerations drawn from a narrative approach informed by the work of David Bordwell. The motion pictures have been analyzed in terms of how they create narratives that (de)legitimize the air strike. The analysis operates with a concept of legitimation based on the work of Theo van Leeuwen.

Visuality and International Relations:

Situating Docudrama Films

Traditionally, IR scholars have paid much more attention to language and verbal articulations.9 However, given the success of constructivism, poststructuralism, and postpositivist research in general, more and more IR scholars have begun analyzing images and other visual data—even pop-cultural artifacts.10 An important strand of literature refers to fictional films and specifically focuses on the relationship between popular culture and international politics.11 More recently, another element of IR literature has emerged that highlights the importance of documentary films.12 Still missing is the conceptualization of a film genre located in between fictional and nonfictional films: docudramas. This genre raises suspicion because fictional elements are intermingled with historic events.13 John Caughie asserts that “one of the defining characteristics of documentary drama is that it has a consistent televisual style, a visual appearance and a relationship to narrative space which is particular to it, which is recognisable, which circulates its own meanings.”14 Special about docudramas is that they take in an elucidating position as documentaries usually do, but in style and plot arrangement, they rely very much on genre conventions known from fictional films. The docudrama is a unique blend of fiction and nonfiction wherein common knowledge (or what is taken for it), ideas, and the imagination of script writers, directors, and actors are mixed together in an inextricable interpretation of the events. Thus, docudramas are narrative compositions of fact and fiction.15 For many reasons, IR scholars should consider films as research material in general and documentary motion pictures in particular. The most important one is that documentary films and other forms of visualized mass media are contributing to the production of common knowledge about society or, indeed, the world in which we live, as Niklas Luhmann has famously put it. We have “heard” about and in part “we do believe it,” but on the other hand, we have “heard” so much about mass media and television that “we are not able to trust these sources.” Luhmann further notes that even if all information in the world carried a warning sign that it is open to doubt, it would still serve as a foundation or starting point.16 Docudrama films are such starting points because they are not based on a purely fictional or an invented story; rather, they rest on actual facts that are amplified to make the story more comprehensible for the spectator or to fill gaps in common knowledge by offering an interpretation of “how it might have been.”

The empirical part of this article analyzes and compares two films about the Kunduz air strike that fit into the docudrama genre—but why should we care? The selected films are partly based on known facts and journalistic research; interviews with political decision makers, victims, and their relatives; and experts. Much of the dialogue and many quotations are taken from protocols of the parliamentary investigation and original documents to depict the events as realistically as possible. One could object that docudramas in general and the selected films in particular are made for entertainment purposes only. Nevertheless, such a position neglects the fact that these films are products of journalistic filmmaking and, as such, they are not free of moral or rational claims about the depicted incidents. The selected films address essential questions concerning the legitimacy of the Kunduz air strike by creating different narratives about the political, strategic, social, and individual intentions and circumstances under which Bundeswehr Colonel Klein was acting. They create specific narratives of his character and his abilities as a German army commander. Finally, they come to different conclusions in regard to the legitimacy of the attack.

Analyzing Docudrama Films: Methodology

This article considers film a narrative medium. As Edward Branigan observes, “We believe that a narrative is more than a mere description of place or time and more even than events in a logical or causal sequence. . . . Instead, narrative can be seen as an organization of experience which draws together many aspects of our spatial, temporal, and causal perception.”17

According to film and literature studies, narratives consist of four elements: (1) they require actions (i.e., subjects doing something and subjects telling something); (2) they need to be told by someone (i.e., people use narratives to construe their live world and to make sense of reality); (3) they consist of sequential, relational orders of actions and events, and sometimes the plot is arranged in a chronological order or refers to a cause-effect relationship; and (4) they are always based on stories of specific actors, actions, and events, but they never tell the whole story. Because narratives necessarily conceal a number of things, they reduce complexity by selection; consequently, they create certainty by blurring the contingency of social action.18

The analysis of narratives in films needs to take the specifics of filmmaking into account. Camera views, cuts, montages, genre conventions, and the production, distribution, and reception of the film are crucial elements as well. One of the most elaborate approaches in narrative film analysis has been developed by the neoformalism of the so-called Wisconsin School, mainly associated with the work of David Bordwell and Noël Carroll.

The Wisconsin School rejects psychological and ideological approaches—and has been criticized for being “anti-political.”19 In contrast to more ideologically inspired film theory, the Wisconsin School of Neoformalism has developed scientific methods to reconstruct the norms and conventions of a film, as well as to determine how it is made technically and how it “makes sense” for the spectator through a specific narrative structure of the plot. Bordwell treats “the narrative [not] as a message to be decoded . . . [but as] a representation that offers the occasion for inferential elaboration.”20 To analyze the selected films on the Kunduz air strike, this article draws on a narrative approach of film analysis associated with Bordwell’s work.

Detecting Legitimation Narratives: Category System

Theo van Leeuwen has offered a concept to identify various claims of legitimacy in multimodal discourses.21 Accordingly, “legitimation is an answer to the spoken or unspoken ‘why’ question—‘Why should we do this?’ or ‘Why should we do this in this way?’”22 Van Leeuwen’s concept of legitimation serves as the category system in order to identify the legitimation narratives in the films. Three major categories have been used to detect legitimacy claims in the films: authorization, moral evaluation, and rationalization.

Authorization

Van Leeuwen mentions different forms of authority, such as personal authority, expert authority, role model authority, impersonal authority, and the authority of tradition. Personal authority is “vested in a person because of their [sic] status or role in a particular institution.”23 In contrast to personal authority, expert authority rests more on the expertise of a person than on his or her status. Hence, the legitimacy of an action is created by reference to some expert who is probably well known within the specific context and whose judgments are widely accepted.24 Legitimacy could also be provided by the actions of so-called role models or opinion leaders. Referring to symbolic interactionism, van Leeuwen maintains that certain actions might appear legitimate because celebrities and other famous or socially accepted persons perform them.25 In contrast to personal authority, impersonal authority is linked to laws, rules, and regulations. The authority of tradition (“because this is what we have always done”) is rooted in cultural behavior, habit, and social practices that have been performed for a long time. Closely connected to the authority of tradition is the authority of conformity (“because that’s what everybody else does”) since it contains an explicit or implicit expectation of behavior.26

Moral Evaluation

Van Leeuwen’s concept of moral evaluation legitimation “is based on values, rather than imposed by some kind of authority without further justification.”27 Sometimes, moral statements can be expressed by actors using words such as good, bad, or evil. More often, though, legitimation for moral evaluation is linked to specific adjectives such as useful, healthy, or natural.

Rationalization

Rationalization is another form of legitimation opposed to moral evaluation. Theo Van Leeuwen identifies two different types of rationality: “Instrumental rationality legitimizes practices by reference to their goals, uses and effects. [In contrast,] theoretical rationality legitimizes practices by reference to a natural order of things, but much more explicitly than the kinds of naturalizations . . . discussed earlier.”28 Instrumental rationality refers to instances in which legitimation is linked to a specific purpose of an action. The action seems legitimized because the actor claims to achieve his goals: “‘I do x in order to do (or be, or have) y’” (goal orientation), or because the action is a means to an end (means orientation), or because the action is effective (effect orientation). Theoretical rationalization does not ask whether the action is “purposeful or effective, but . . . whether it is founded on some kind of truth, on ‘the way things are.’”29

In social reality, the mentioned legitimation practices might appear highly interconnected. Using van Leeuwen’s categorization enables the researcher to identify the semantic structures of legitimation narratives in the selected films. Therefore, the categorization serves as a coding guideline for the analysis of written/verbal and visual texts.

Representation of the Kunduz Air Strike in Docudramas—

Narrative of (De)legitimation: The ZDF Film

The film An einem Tag in Kunduz—Ein tödlicher Befehl (On a day in Kunduz—a deadly command) was part of a docudrama series aired on the German television network ZDF. Beside the Kunduz incident, the documentary series was also dedicated to the Love Parade catastrophe in Duisburg and a mining disaster in Chile. The director of the film was Winfried Oelsner, and the research team included Mathis Feldhoff, who is also known for his Afghanistan documentary The Afghanistan Lie, which received an award by the reservists association of the German army. The film is based in large part on reports of the parliamentary investigation and classified documents leaked to the film production company. Furthermore, the filmmakers had access to people involved in the parliamentary investigation, and parts of the interviews have been used in the film.

The film itself portrays the hearing of Colonel Klein before the investigation committee. Although these scenes are performed by actors, the script is based on the original documents as much as possible. Reconstruction of the events of 4 September, for example, requires that scenes show how Taliban fighters captured the fuel trucks or depict the situation on the sandbank. The dialogue and Task Force 47’s actions in the bunker, which served as the combat headquarters of Colonel Klein during the entire operation, are reenacted as well. Although records of communication between the task force and the pilots exist, much dialogue among soldiers in the headquarters is not verifiable. Beside the fictional scenes, which partly rest on original records, the film is enriched by interviews with high-ranking politicians such as former defense minister Franz Josef Jung; member of Parliament and chairman of the investigation committee Omid Nouripour; former general and supreme commander of NATO Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum Egon Ramms; Abdul Malek, the truck driver who survived the attack; and Dr. Markus Kaim, an expert in the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The film eschews strong visual effects. The scenes in the hearing room of the investigation committee are kept in a cold blue-green, as well as those in the bunker, creating a sterile and concentrated atmosphere. Colonel Klein is portrayed as a thoughtful, cautious, and conscientious commander. Members of the investigation committee are portrayed as professionally distanced from the colonel, not hesitating to ask bold questions. Other characters, such as Sergeant Westphal, who had contacts with an anonymous source, stay in the background. The film offers several legitimation narratives, which can be detected with van Leeuwen’s category system.

Narrative Analysis

Legitimation by rationalization—the narrative of an imminent threat. The most important narrative to legitimate the order was a rational one articulated by Colonel Klein during his hearing that is reiterated by Defense Minister Jung in his interview. According to Klein’s statement, the Bundeswehr had information that the Taliban were about to plan an attack on a German military base using “rolling bombs,” as they had done only two weeks before in the southern part of Afghanistan. On the visual level, the film shows images of the incident, obviously taken from original news footage. Klein explains to the investigation committee that just days prior to the incident on 4 September, a laundry company vehicle loaded with German and Afghan uniforms had been stolen, making him suspicious. He thought that the uniforms could serve as the perfect cover for an attack. Klein confirmed that this was the reason he ordered a search for the fuel trucks.

Later in the film, Klein was asked by a committee member why he first reported “troops in contact” but later shifted the command to “imminent threat.” Klein states that the insurgents had started to load fuel onto pickup trucks, so he expected an attack and ordered the air strike. The film shows this sequence and the decision-making process in detail. One of his advisers justifies this step, noting “that’s normal; everybody does it.” Here, the film develops a narrative that rationalizes the order of Colonel Klein and gives his action legitimacy based on the argument that no one would seriously doubt that a strike to prevent an attack on the camp would not be a legitimate action.

Delegitimation by moral evaluation—the narrative of fraudulent information. Although the claims of Minister Jung and Colonel Klein about the assumed plans of the Taliban might sound convincing, the film confronts this narrative with a counterarticulation made by members of the investigation committee, who wanted to know how and why Klein was so sure that no civilians were at the scene. The colonel refers to a local informant who provided one of his advisers with the intelligence. Accordingly, only Taliban had been on the sandbank with at least four known leaders among them. He had no reason to distrust the information because the informant had proven skills as a reliable source in the past. Asked whether he had cross-checked the information by using other sources, Klein said he had not. Only the images of the planes and the intelligence from the informant had been available, and he needed to make his decision using the intelligence at hand. While Defense Minister Jung claims that the source had the highest level of credibility, Nouripour says in his interview that much of the information supplied by the source turned out to be wrong. General Ramms questions the credibility of the source in general and puts forward the idea that the Bundeswehr had been played by local forces. According to him, the latter tried to use the Bundeswehr to get rid of competitors. Nouripour concludes that relying on limited information and trusting the informant were serious mistakes that finally led to the wrong decision. The film creates a narrative that delegitimizes the order of Colonel Klein and brands it naïve, arguing that the set of information he trusted was thin and probably fraudulent. To order such a devastating air strike based on the given information is characterized as illegitimate because the potential risk of killing bystanders or civilians was not calculable.

Legitimation by authority—the narrative of Colonel Klein’s integrity. Although the film develops strong narratives that raise doubt about whether the decision was legitimate under the given circumstances, in the end, the film offers a strong narrative referring to the integrity of the German soldier. Accordingly, Klein appears as a serious, prudent, and faithful soldier who has arrived at a decision after carefully considering the situation, which turned out to be deadly, as the title of the film suggests. Klein is not depicted as a hot-spurred warrior seeking revenge or personal honor. According to his authority as a colonel of the Bundeswehr, he could legitimately issue such an order although the results might be questionable from a moral perspective. But given the war-like circumstances in Afghanistan, the increasing number of attacks against German soldiers, and the situation on the sandbank, where insurgents were about to load pickup trucks with fuel—as the film suggests—the order seems legitimate after all.

Reception of the Film

The reception of the film was limited, probably due to changes by the program planners who rescheduled the broadcast. According to the web page Medienkorrespondenz, only 680,000 viewers watched it when it was finally aired in September 2011. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a review of the film by Stephan Löwenstein, who praises it for its multidimensional perspective that rejects the notion of a war crime put forward by an article in Der Spiegel.30 That article grouped Klein’s command together with war atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht. Critical voices were raised among peace activists, who labeled the film war propaganda.

Representation of the Kunduz Air Strike in Docudramas—

Narrative of (De)legitimation: The ARD Film

The second film, Eine mörderische Entscheidung (A Murderous Decision), subject to the analysis has had many more viewers (about 2.6 million) and was aired in 2013 by broadcaster ARD. Although this film falls into the genre of docudrama as well, the story not only covers the events of 4 September and the hearing but also includes Colonel Klein’s arrival as new commander in Kunduz. Nevertheless, van Leeuwen’s category system identified certain legitimation narratives in this film as well.

Production of the Film

The film is directed by Raymond Ley, a well-known German director who specializes in the genre. Ley casted several prominent German actors such as Matthias Brand as Colonel Klein and Axel Milberg as the fictitious character Henry Diepholz, a representative of the German intelligence agency. In contrast to the ZDF production, which was accused of being biased, the Bundeswehr refused to support the film in any way. As mentioned above, the story begins with Colonel Klein’s arrival at the Kunduz camp as new commander of the German troops. The film spends the first 30 minutes reconstructing the circumstances under which the Bundeswehr was acting in Afghanistan. The main plot is complemented by a subplot about the fate of Sergej Motz, the first German soldier killed in a gun battle by enemy forces after the Second World War. Like the former film, the ARD film supplements the main story with interviews. Subjects include Motz’s family; Inspector General Wolfgang Schneiderhahn; Omid Nouripour; member of Parliament and of the investigation committee Rainer Arnold; Christian Democratic Union chairman of the investigation committee Ernst-Reinhard Beck; and many eyewitnesses or relatives of victims. Moreover, extracts from news programs such as Tagesschau or other direct quotations from media interviews with Colonel Klein or the governor of the province Kunduz Omar are assembled into the main plot. In contrast to the ZDF production, which shies away from strong and powerful imageries, the ARD production contains shocking, original images of burn victims and vividly portrays the impact of the missiles by using powerful visuals of fire, burning, and lurching people. This visualization has effects on the legitimation narratives as well.

Narrative Analysis

Legitimation by rationality—the narrative of increasing violence. Similar to what the ZDF film suggests, the ARD production reiterates the narrative of increasing violence against the German troops in Afghanistan in the first months of 2009. The film spends the first 30 minutes reconstructing the months since Colonel Klein took command in Kunduz. The narrative of increasing violence is stabilized by cut-ins of original media reports about attacks on German soldiers and a direct quotation from the “real” Colonel Klein about the severe situation in Afghanistan, which the film portrays in several sequences. Most important is the one that shows Colonel Klein’s first briefing on the situation in Kunduz when he was informed about Abdul Rahman and his plans to fight the German soldiers with all means at his disposal. A videotape showing an interview that Rahman gave to the German media in which he pledges to kill Germans provides evidence that he is serious about his threat. Later the film takes time to narrate the personal story of Sergej Motz, mentioned above. The narrative of increasing violence bolsters Klein’s justification of the order, giving credence to his claims that his only intention had been to save his troops by preventing a deadly attack on the camp in Kunduz—which can be regarded as a rational legitimation.

Legitimation by moral evaluation—the narrative of the inhuman enemy. Closely connected to this narrative is another one created by a subplot about the recruiting of an Afghan boy trained to commit a suicide attack by steering a car close to a military convoy. The film introduces the boy and his desperate father, who begged the Taliban to release his son. Rather, the father was beaten down by the fighter, and the boy carried out the planned suicide attack. This narrative stabilized the notion of an inhuman enemy who abuses children as suicide bombers. Accordingly, the sharp distinction drawn by international law between civilians and combatants blurs. If even children, who are generally supposed to be innocent in nature, are turned into terrorists, then who actually qualifies as a civilian?

Legitimation by authority—the narrative of pressure from Berlin. The film suggests that Colonel Klein was under immense pressure to succeed. In one scene, Inspector General Schneiderhahn visited Klein in Kunduz, mocking him about the camp’s nickname of “Bad Kunduz” (spa town Kunduz). “Easy living” is over, Schneiderhahn tells Klein, “Berlin wants results.” Accordingly, the rules of engagement had been adjusted to the new developments and the increasing violence against German troops. Klein informs his soldiers about the new strategy, saying, “If necessary, you will shoot, and not just at their legs!” Klein appears as a scapegoat who was set under pressure by the government to deliver solid results. For Klein, the situation on the sandbank might have been appealing: two stolen fuel trucks that might be used as rolling bombs, the gathering of Taliban fighters—some of them high ranking—and the assumption that there would be no civilians because it was in the middle of the night and far away from the next village, as the secret source has claimed repeatedly. However, after the unfortunate realities of the situation became evident, Klein had to pay for Berlin’s greedy desire for quick results.

Legitimation by authority—the narrative of fraudulent information. The film takes time to develop another subplot that follows the story of the informant. The anonymous informant is introduced to the viewer in a scene in which a German convoy is driving down a street. The informant is sitting nearby but hidden, observing the scene and holding two cell phones in his hand. While he watches the convoy, he uses one cell phone, and suddenly the convoy stops. He has obviously reported a so-called improvised explosive device hidden near the street. Later, it turns out that the anonymous informant has had contact with Mohammed Omar, the governor of Kunduz. The film also shows how Klein is connected to Omar and visited him in his home. Although Omar pretended to feel fortunate that Germans were in Afghanistan, he forced Klein to hunt down the terrorists much more vigorously than his predecessors had done. After Omar’s brother is killed by a Taliban attack in Kunduz, his attitude towards Klein changes, and he accuses the weakness of the German army for the death of his brother. Later, the film shows that the informant and Omar stay in contact while he reports to the Bundeswehr what is happening on the sandbank. This narrative suggests that Klein has been played by Omar, who urges the informant to share fraudulent information about the situation on the sandbank, especially regarding the presence of civilians and children. “There are no innocents,” the informant tells the Afghan interpreter working for the Bundeswehr. Although this narrative does not legitimize the air strike as such, it refers to legitimation by authority in that sense—that Klein’s decision was based upon the information of a trusted source supposed to be nearby the scene, therefore having superior knowledge about what was going on. Hence, it was not Klein’s fault that he relied on information shared by a credible source.

Legitimation by moral evaluation—the narrative of the “humanist.” If Klein had known that civilians were at the scene, he probably would have stopped the operation, as he had done several hours before in another situation. Klein was informed that a vehicle stolen from the Bundeswehr was spotted, and he was asked whether it should be destroyed. The colonel asked whether or not civilians would be endangered, a fact that could not be confirmed; consequently, Klein refused the order to attack. The whole film develops a narrative about the personality of Colonel Klein—especially his humanity. Right at the beginning of the film, when Klein was introduced to the commanding staff of the camp in Kunduz, some of the soldiers were whispering about him, one telling another that the colonel liked classical music and opera. In another scene, Klein is sitting behind his desk, listening to classical music and conducting with his finger while watching out the window. His humanity appears again in another situation in which he talks to the pastor of the field camp about guilt and forgiveness. As already seen in the ZDF production, Klein is represented here as a faithful person. This narrative does not legitimize the order in the sense that it was the right thing to do, but it corresponds with van Leeuwen’s category of moral evaluation. The film characterizes Klein not as a killer acting cold-bloodedly; rather, he is a devoted, sensitive, faithful, and humanist commander who was acting with good and proper intentions.

Delegitimation by “moral evaluation”—the narrative of “civilian casualties.” The first sequence of the film shows a badly wounded boy, his head bandaged and his face burned, who tells the camera and people gathering around his hospital bed that he was supposed to collect fuel and that he stood right next to the tankers when the missile came. Then traditional music solemnly sets in and apocalyptic images of fire and lurching, burning people appear on the screen. The narrative of the civilian casualties is reiterated throughout the entire film, especially by the interviews with relatives of the victims or the eyewitnesses. The people mourn their losses, and the film indicates that most of them lost children, brothers, or nephews. The relatives express their desperation and helplessness, talking about how they are trying to move on. Some express anger and cry for revenge while others expect at least compensation for their losses. At the end of the film, another scene shocks the viewer by showing a man lying in a hospital bed almost completely bandaged and hardly able to move. Wordlessly, the film seems to ask whether destroying the tankers and killing a couple of Taliban fighters were worth all of the death and injury. This narrative clearly and undoubtedly delegitimizes Klein’s order with regard to the consequences it caused in terms of a moral judgment.

Delegitimation by authority—the narrative of the weak commander. Although one might reject this moral delegitimation, arguing that Colonel Klein could not have foreseen such catastrophic consequences, the film fosters another narrative that delegitimizes the attack. This narrative is connected to the already-mentioned pattern regarding the personality of Colonel Klein. Despite the fact that he is represented as a sensitive and faithful commander, the film also points to the flip side that these character skills might carry: naïveté and weakness in the eyes of others. On several occasions, the film suggests that Colonel Klein had an “authority problem.” After Motz was killed and the dead body returned to the camp, the film shows how Klein failed to express his condolences to comrades who survived the attack. His lack of authority is more vividly represented in the scenes of the Task Force 47 bunker. The colonel is surrounded by high-ranking commanders who served him as advisers, but according to the film, it seems obvious that they seek revenge, whispering behind his back and denouncing Klein as a “do-gooder.” The film represents Klein’s doubts about what to do in the forefront of the attack and suggests that his commanders might have taken advantage of this situation and urged him towards the decision. As the pilots of the bombers expressed their concerns that an attack on the tankers might not be covered by the rules of engagement, Klein was advised to shift the situation from “troops in contact” to “imminent threat” so he could release the order to attack, although this was obviously not the case.

What seems striking about this incident is that Klein, as a German army commander, does not seem to be in charge of this critical situation. In fact, this sequence suggests that he is a “weak” and easily influenced commander, not qualified for the job because he cannot cope with the responsibilities.

Delegitimation by moral evaluation—the narrative of vengeance. The narrative of the weak commander is connected to another one that delegitimizes Klein’s order. This narrative is deeply rooted in the film and expressed by one journalist directly in an interview. Schneiderhahn claims that because of the increasing violence against the German soldiers, a kind of frustration has spread among the troops. Accordingly, the most important subplot of the film concerns the tragic death of the German soldier Sergej Motz. The directors of the film weave his personal fate into the main plot on two different levels. First, the film introduces him and his squadron comrades, showing how they work and hang out together in the camp, joking and mocking each other until they go off for a routine patrol that ends up in a deadly ambush. During the exchange of fire, Motz is hit, and the film shows how he dies in the arms of his comrades. Second, the filmmakers interview Motz’s parents. His mother appears to be a warmhearted, caring woman full of sorrow over her lost son, and his father is portrayed as a veteran of the Russian army who had served in Afghanistan as well. In one scene, his father meets Inspector General Schneiderhahn at Sergej’s grave. Schneiderhahn, obviously struggling for words, attempts to explain to the father why his son had to die. The film continues showing images of attacks against German soldiers taken from German television news in order to foster the already-mentioned narrative of increasing violence.

In the critical situation shortly before Klein ordered the attack, his close secret service adviser Diepholz appears as a “diabolic” figure associated with Mephisto in Goethe’s drama Faust. The character of Diepholz was invented by the filmmakers. He perfidiously leads the doubting and struggling colonel into the decision, whispering to him, “Of, course, I can’t make the decision for you.” Diepholz’s suggestions are tacitly supported by the other soldiers involved. Connected to the narrative of increasing violence and that of Klein’s weak authority, the decision-making process enables the interpretation that the situation on the sandbank appeared as a window of opportunity to take revenge and restore the honor of the German army, which had been damaged by the insidious attacks of the Taliban to which Sergej Motz fell victim. Thus, the film puts forward the narrative that “vengeance” among his advisers might have been a central motive and that Klein, as a man of honor, was either too naïve to recognize it or too weak to stop it. From a moral perspective, however, vengeance can never serve as a legitimate justification for such a military order; therefore, the decision was in fact “murderous,” as the title of the film suggests.

Reception of the Film

In contrast to the ZDF production, which had disappointing audience figures and was nearly ignored by reviewers, the ARD film enjoyed an audience of more than 2 million the day it was aired. It produced disappointing figures in terms of market share but enough to indicate that it had been recognized by a larger public. The film also won the prestigious Grimme Award in 2013, thus triggering the controversy about the movie in German newspapers. Reviewer opinions were divided, especially with regard to the representation of Georg Klein. The newspaper Die Welt observed that Klein is shown as a frightened person, intimidated “if only a chicken is slaughtered on the street.”31 The reviewer is referring to a scene in which Klein is driven through Kunduz and passes by a market stall where a butcher is obviously slaughtering an animal, producing a terrified expression on Klein’s face. This sequence lasts less than two seconds, and it is not quite clear exactly what happens at the stall, but the scene insinuates that Klein is cowardly. In another review, director Raymond Ley self-critically remarks that he might have drawn the character of Klein as too friendly, admitting that he even started to like him. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Stephan Löwenstein, who also has reviewed the ZDF film, concludes that it offers a misleading pattern of interpretation.32 According to him, the decision was wrong but not murderous, as the film’s title suggests.

The film has inspired comments on the Internet as well. Some of the reviewers express their empathy with Klein and his decision. They accuse members of the German public of acting cowardly because they denounce Klein instead of praising his courage, which ultimately protected German soldiers. Others reject these notions and call Klein and the Bundeswehr murderers. Another group of viewers, especially those writing in soldier blogs, remains critical about the film, expressing reservations that too many details are not represented correctly—details such as vehicles, clothing, badges, ranks, and social practices like reporting procedures and the usage of technical terms. The film itself, the question of how order is represented, and its legitimacy play a subordinate role in these comments.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated how and why docudramas can be used in IR as primary material for analysis. The film analysis, based on a category system developed by Theo van Leeuwen that identifies legitimation claims in discourses, reveals that different narratives of legitimation and delegitimation arise from the television productions. The ZDF film An einem Tag in Kunduz tends to legitimize the order by referring to an imminent threat and establishes Klein’s integrity as an honorable, faithful commander who probably misjudged the situation but cannot be regarded as a killer or criminal. In contrast, the ARD film Eine mörderische Entscheidung, which attracted greater public attention, establishes strong narratives that delegitimize the order on the grounds of intentions such as vengeance. Klein appears as a weak commander who was probably cheated by the Kunduz governor and forced into the decision by his military advisers. Both films refer to the same event and are based on similar documents, such as the protocols of the parliamentary investigation. Nevertheless, the arrangement of the plot differs completely, as do style, aesthetics, enactment, and the creation of legitimacy narratives. Although the ZDF production keeps close to the assured knowledge and visualized reality, fictionalizations are used only to simulate reality that cannot be precisely known, such as the events in the command center or the situations on the sandbank. Hence, the ZDF film comes closer to being a documentary than does the ARD production, which adds entirely fictional sequences.

One might argue that both films are only films and therefore the fictional products of scriptwriters, directors, and actors. Both films, however, create strong reality constructions that immunize them against this kind of general denouncement. Hence, as the analysis has shown, these films, containing narratives of legitimation and delegitimation, contribute to a larger discourse and, as such, they qualify as discursive articulations that cannot be ignored. By bringing apocalyptic images of the missile impact and the dramatic circumstances and consequences of Colonel Klein’s order to the screen and to the German public, both films destabilize the notion that Germany was engaged in Afghanistan only in terms of a “civilian power.” Instead, they foster the narrative that the Federal Republic of Germany was waging a “real war” for the first time in its history.

Notes

1. Rainer Baumann and Gunther Hellmann, “Germany and the Use of Military Force: ‘Total War,’ the ‘Culture of Restraint’ and the Quest for Normality,” German Politics 10, no. 1 (2001): 61–82; and Gunther Hellmann, “Goodbye Bismarck? The Foreign Policy of Contemporary Germany,” Mershon International Studies Review 40, no. 1 (April 1996): 1–39.

2. Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns Maull, eds., Germany as a Civilian Power? The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2001); Hanns W. Maull, “Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers,” Foreign Affairs 69, no. 5 (1990): 91–106; and Anna Geis, “Burdens of the Past, Shadows of the Future: The Use of Military Force as a Challenge for the German ‘Civilian Power,’’’ in The Militant Face of Democracy: Liberal Forces for Good, ed. Anna Geis, Harald Müller, and Niklas Schörnig (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 231–69.

3. Sebastian Harnisch, “Change and Continuity in Post-unification German Foreign Policy,” German Politics 10, no. 1 (2001): 35–60; Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18, no. 2 (1993): 44–79; and Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 5–51.

4. Adrian Hyde-Price, “Germany and the Kosovo War: Still a Civilian Power?,’” German Politics 10, no. 1 (2001): 19–34.

5. Timo Noetzel, “Germany’s Small War in Afghanistan: Military Learning amid Politico-Strategic Inertia,” Contemporary Security Policy 31, no. 3 (2010): 486–508; and Timo Noetzel and Benjamin Schreer, “Counter–What? Germany and Counter-insurgency in Afghanistan,” RUSI Journal 153, no. 1 (2008): 42–46.

6. Timo Noetzel, ‘The German Politics of War: Kunduz and the War in Afghanistan,” International Affairs 87, no. 2 (March 2011): 397–417.

7. Noetzel, “German Politics of War”; John Goetz, Konstantin von Hammerstein, and Holger Stark, “NATO’s Secret Findings: Kunduz Affair Report Puts German Defense Minister under Pressure,” Der Spiegel, 19 January 2010, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/nato-s-secret-findings-kunduz-affair

-report-puts-german-defense-minister-under-pressure-a-672468-2.html.

8. Alon Margalit, “The Duty to Investigate Civilian Casualties during Armed Conflict and Its Implementation in Practice,” in Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law Volume 15, 2012, ed. T. D. Gill et al. (The Hague: T. M. C. Asser Press, 2014); and Tim Banning, “The ‘Kundus Incident’ of 4 September 2009: Was the Aerial Attack Ordered by German Colonel Klein Lawful under International Humanitarian Law?,” Bonn Research Papers on Public International Law 1 (2014).

9. Cynthia Weber, “Popular Visual Language as Global Communication: The Remediation of United Airlines Flight 93,” Review of International Studies 34, Supplement S1 (January 2008): 137–53.

10. Jutta Weldes, “Going Cultural: Star Trek, State Action, and Popular Culture,” Millennium—Journal of International Studies 28, no. 1 (1999): 117–34; David Shim, Visual Politics and North Korea: Seeing Is Believing (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013); Juha A. Vuori, “A Timely Prophet? The Doomsday Clock as a Visualization of Securitization Moves with a Global Referent Object,” Security Dialogue 41, no. 3 (2010): 255–77; Gabi Schlag, “Imaging Security: A Visual Methodology for Security Studies,” in Transformations of Security Studies: Dialogues, Diversity and Discipline, ed. G. Schlag, J. Junk, and C. Daase (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016); Lene Hansen, “Theorizing the Image for Security Studies: Visual Securitization and the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis,” European Journal of International Relations 17, no. 1 (2011): 51–74; William A. Callahan, “The Visual Turn in IR: Documentary Filmmaking as a Critical Method,” Millennium—Journal of International Studies 43, no. 3 (2015): 891–910; and Axel Heck and Gabi Schlag, “Securitizing Images: The Female Body and the War in Afghanistan,” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 4 (2013): 891–913.

11. Klaus Dodds, ‘Screening Geopolitics: James Bond and the Early Cold War Films (1962–1967),” Geopolitics 10, no. 2 (2005): 266–89; Daniel H. Nexon and Iver B. Neumann, Harry Potter and International Relations (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); and Daniel W. Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies, revived ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).

12. Rens van Munster and Casper Sylvest, eds., Documenting World Politics: A Critical Companion to IR and Non-Fiction Film (London: Routledge, 2015); Rens van Munster and Casper Sylvest, “Documenting International Relations: Documentary Film and the Creative Arrangement of Perceptibility,” International Studies Perspectives 16, no. 3 (2015): 229–45; and Martin Senn, “The Art of Constructing (In)Security: Probing Rhetorical Strategies of Securitization,” Journal of International Relations and Development (March 2016), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280930915_The_Art_of_Constructing_InSecurity_Probing

_Rhetorical_Strategies_of_Securitization.

13. Keith R. Beattie, Documentary Screens: Non-fiction Film and Television (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

14. John Caughie, “Progressive Television and Documentary Drama,” Screen 21, no. 3 (1980): 26.

15. Tom W. Hoffer and Richard A. Nelson, “Docudrama on American Television,” Journal of the University Film Association 30, no. 2 (1978): 97; and Derek Paget, No Other Way to Tell It: Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1998).

16. Niklas Luhmann, The Reality of the Mass Media (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 1.

17. Edward Branigan, Narrative Comprehension and Film (New York: Routledge, 1992), 74.

18. H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

19. Greg Singh, Film after Jung: Post-Jungian Approaches to Film Theory (Florence, KY: Taylor and Francis, 2014), 74.

20. David Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2008), 3.

21. Van Leeuwen offers a detailed concept of legitimation, but in this article only three of his four major categories are relevant. The fourth category he calls “mythopoesis” was not relevant for the analysis.

22. Theo van Leeuwen, “Legitimation in Discourse and Communication,” Discourse & Communication 1, no. 1 (2007): 94.

23. Ibid.; Branigan, Narrative Comprehension and Film; and David Herman, The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

24. Van Leeuwen, “Legitimation in Discourse and Communication,” 95.

25. Ibid., 96.

26. Ibid., 97.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 101.

29. Ibid., 103.

30. Stephen Lowenstein, “Der Oberst und seine Order,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 September 2011; and Lowenstein, “Ein deutsches Verbrechen,” Der Spiegel, 1 February 2010.

31. Barbara Möller, “Wenn‘s die Situation erfordert, dann schießen Sie!,” Die Welt, 30 August 2013.

32. Stephen Lowenstein, “Die Entscheidung war falsch, nicht mörderisch,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 August 2013.

*The author is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg, Germany. He is an expert in international relations, visual methodology, and political iconography. Dr. Heck has published in leading journals, such as the European Journal of International Relations and International Studies Perspectives. He is the principal investigator in the multidisciplinary research network Visuality and Global Politics, funded by the German Research Council.

Both War and Peace Are in Our Genes

Azar Gat, DPhil*

I am not a neurobiologist and can say nothing serious about DNA, neurons, or the brain. Still, because the biological underpinning of war and peace has been the subject of much confusion and heated controversy—among neurobiologists, anthropologists, psychologists, political scientists, and others—it is in great need of clarification.

The root of the confusion is this: people habitually assume that if widespread deadly violence has always been with us, it must be a primary, “irresistible” biological drive that is nearly impossible to suppress. Many find in this conclusion reason enough to object to the idea that human fighting is as old as our species while others regard it as compelling evidence that war is inevitable. Both sides are wrong. Contrary to fashionable 1960s notions, traced back to Freud’s latter-day theorizing about a death drive or instinct, violence is not a primary drive that requires release, like hunger or sex. The Swiss or Swedes, for example, who have not fought for two centuries, show no special signs of deprivation on this account. But try to deny them food for more than a few hours or sex for more than a few days, and their reaction would be quite predictable.

On the other hand, the fact that violence is not a primary drive does not mean that we are not hardwired for it. Studies on “warless” prestate societies usually intend to prove that, neither primordial nor natural to humankind, warfare was probably a late—and in any case, wholly contingent—cultural phenomenon. Margaret Mead’s framing of the problem in her 1940 essay “Warfare Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity” is the mother of all mistakes.1 It expresses the widespread assumption that violence must be either a primary drive or entirely learned, whereas in reality its potential is deeply ingrained in us as a means or tool, ever ready to be employed. People can cooperate, compete peacefully, or use violence to achieve their objectives, depending on what they believe will serve them best in any given circumstance. In cooperation, the parties combine efforts, in principle because the synergic outcome of their efforts divided among them promises greater benefit to each of them than their independent efforts might. In competition, each party strives to outdo the other in order to obtain a desired good by employing whatever means it has at its disposal except direct action against the other. Competition runs parallel. By contrast, in a conflict, direct action against the competitor is taken in order to eliminate it or lessen its ability to engage in the competition. If physical injury is inflicted, then a conflict becomes a violent one.

Cooperation, competition, and conflict are the three fundamental forms of social interaction. People have always had all three options to choose from, and they have always assessed the situation to decide which option, or combination of them, seemed the most promising. People are well equipped biologically for pursuing any of the above behavioral strategies, with conflict being only one tool, albeit a major one—the hammer—in our diverse behavioral tool kit. Furthermore, Homo sapiens is a social species whose local and regional groups—universally and uniquely bound together by ties of both kinship and shared cultural codes, including language and customs—cooperate within themselves in a variety of group activities. The latter include fighting, which is pursued for the attainment of collective goods—above all, hunting territory and other scarce sources of food.

Thus, neither a late invention nor a compulsive inevitability independent of conditions, group fighting is part of our evolution-shaped behavioral menu. It is in this sense that both war and peace are “in our genes,” which accounts for their widely fluctuating prevalence in different sociohistorical contexts. As the “Seville Statement on Violence” (1986), issued by an international group of scientists under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), rightly put it in rejection of the view that human biology makes violence and war inescapable, “There is nothing in our neurophysiology that compels us to react violently. . . . We conclude that biology does not condemn humanity to war.” However, the statement fell into the opposite fallacy, proclaiming that warfare “is a product of culture” and solemnly prescribing that “IT IS SCIENTIFICALLY INCORRECT to say that war or any other violent behaviour is genetically programmed into our human nature” (emphasis in the original). The statement carelessly concludes that “violence is neither in our evolutionary legacy nor in our genes.”2

In reality, the potential for both war and peace is embedded in us. Although activated interchangeably and conjointly in response to the overall environmental and sociocultural conditions, all three behavioral strategies—violent conflict, peaceful competition, and cooperation—are not purely learned cultural forms. This naïve nature/nurture dichotomy overlooks the heavy and complex biological machinery that is necessary for the working of each of these behavioral strategies and the interplay among them. Certainly, these deep, evolution-shaped patterns are variably calibrated to particular conditions through social learning. However, the reason they are all there, very close under our skin and readily activated, is that they were very handy during our long evolutionary history. They all proved highly useful and advantageous, thereby becoming part and parcel of our biological equipment.

Wars have been fought for the attainment of the same objects of human desire that underlie the human motivational system in general—only by violent means, through the use of force. Politics—domestic and international—is the activity intended to achieve these evolution-shaped human desires at the intra- and interstate levels. International relations theory has increasingly lost sight of human objectives as the engine of conflict and war, focusing almost exclusively on “enabling conditions” such as international anarchy (which in any case ceased to be conducive to war among countries that participate in the modern liberal political and economic order, as in North America and Western Europe). Nor is it true that all sides in a war lose, are “tragically” caught in some sort of a prisoner’s dilemma—a claim that constitutes another huge misstep taken by international relations theory. Although all sorts of prisoner’s dilemmas are found in conflict situations, throughout human history there have been many winners and losers in war.

On the other hand (and here I take issue with Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, with which I am otherwise in much agreement), particular human quests such as dominance or ideology are not “demons” with which the blame for war rests.3 Dominance or ideology, no less than the desire for love and sex, can just as well be counted on the side of the “angels” when pursued by peaceful means and for peaceful ends. Furthermore, the distinctions that Pinker draws between different categories of violence, respectively related to the above “demons,” are also questionable. He cites studies showing that separate parts of the brain may trigger violent behavior, which is true of nearly all behaviors. But this does not mean that all violent behaviors are not subject to, and regulated by, a unified evolutionary calculus originally designed to advance survival and reproduction.

The “problem” of war is not these or other human desires—desires that make us what we are, that are the stuff of life. Rather, violence and war occur when the conflictual behavioral strategy is judged to be more promising than peaceful competition and cooperation for attaining objects of human desire. Both our basic desires and the conditions that channel the efforts to fulfil them to the conflictual path are necessary for understanding why war occurs. Thus, state authority and coercion have tilted the menu of human behavioral strategies in the direction of the peaceful options in the domestic arena. Furthermore, changing economic, social, and political conditions are generating a similar effect in the international arena, most notably where a modern liberal economic and political order prevails and peaceful behavioral options become that much more rewarding than the violent option.

Notes

1. Margaret Mead, “Warfare Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity,” Asia 40, no. 8 (August 1940): 402–5.

2. “The Seville Statement” (Paris: UNESCO, 1986), http://www.unesco.org/cpp/uk/declarations/seville..pdf.

3. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011).

*The author is the Ezer Weitzman Professor of National Security in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, where he heads the International MA Program in Security and Diplomacy. He took his DPhil from the University of Oxford (1986). Among his many books are British Armour Theory and the Rise of the Panzer Arm: Revising the Revisionists (Macmillan, 2000); A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2001); War in Human Civilization (Oxford University Press, 2006); Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How It Is Still Imperiled (Hoover Institution, 2010); Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2013); and The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound? (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Professor Gat’s books have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Greek, Turkish, and Hebrew.

Table of Contents

00Contents-E

01Editorial-E

02Meiser-E

03Vandepeer-E

04Grigorescu-E

05Heck-E

06Gat-E