L13 Flashcards
intro / exam prep
2/3 mini essays (max 350 words)
focus on:
- can also focus on just 2
- Russia 2022 invasion Ukraine
- hybrid war/gray zone
- terrorism
- KENNETH WALTZ 3 LEVELS OF ANALYSIS (CAUSES OF WAR LECTURE)
-> investigate a bit more than the slides (if you want to, but he recommends it, be familiar with what they are and how they’re applied)
30mc
intro
bigger dick foreign policy quote (George Carlin): war (Persian gulf) is about manhood = psychological dimension
- will not likely see it in texts by e.g. Waltz as cause for war
from 1980s security issues through psychological/psychosexual lens
- Tickner: IR is a man’s world, a world of power and conflict in which warfare is a privileged activity
- is this still true?
also racism, comedy Carlin points out US only attacks brown people (and nazis bc they were tryin’ to cut in on our action. they wanted to dominate the world)
- race as crucial factor decision to bomb Hiroshima
- people weren’t thinking about this before the 80s, before that it was if it was to scare the Soviets rather than end the Japan war
the shift in security studies
cold war = research focus on traditional military/nuclear matters, alliance politics, crisis management
end of cold war: agenda broadens and increasingly emphasizes environmental issues, resource conflicts, HUMAN SECURITY
- towards end cold war, then explodes in the 90s
- shift in discourse towards human security (!!!!only emerges after 1994)
- no war for oil discourse emerges from this in the 70s
some of these issues had received attention in earlier decades but mostly at the periphery of the field (e.g. environmental effects of nuclear tests, 1970s oil shocks)
New range of issues such as role of private security actors, role of drones, algorithmic security
Feminist critics argue that threats to women’s security can and often do come from members of their own households or representatives of their own states
- Threats not only from guns and bombs but also from inadequate access to nutrition, health care and birth control
- E.g. during war in Afghanistan, female deaths during childbirth due to poor healthcare far exceeds combat deaths (yet compare relative amounts spent on fighting insurgency vs improving healthcare
2010s: critica discourse of the critical discourse = it is a racist approach (acc to them)
= different stages of the field: traditional - critical - criticism of the critics
- revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children
sex and death in the world of defense intellectuals - Carol Cohn
Most important feminist critique of nuclear strategy and broader community of defense intellectuals
Nuclear strategy encompassed within a particular technostrategic language that focuses on technical aspects of weapons, etc. but marginalizes the survival of human beings
When you learn the language your mode of thinking is transformed/militarized
!! article will not be on exam
important; says there’s something wrong: technical language gets you in a certain type of mindset
!
feminist scholarship on security
two principal approaches
- women and security (and in need of security)
= usually applies to other vulnerable groups - e.g. children, elderly, minorities - gendered understandings of security
= a set of socially constructed expectations about what men and women ought to be
seeing things through diff prisms (marginalized voices)
gender analysis and foreign policy
see things differently
- int’l relations through the prism of more than half the world’s population
gendered actors
- applies to both men and women
- deals with masculinity and femininity
- embedded in language and social structure (strength vs weakness, protector vs protected)
!be careful with language: look at it bc it frames how we see things
how have masculine values and worldviews shaped diplomacy and int’ relations?
e.g.
- Spanish-American War: those advocating war in the US were framing issues in their discourse (try portray Cuba as “rescueing”“child under threat” = rescue them from Spanish brutality)(going to war to safe someone else)
- believe if you don’t do something you’re not really a man (‘carry a big stick’ - Roosevelt) -> see similar things today in Russian discourse
viewing the soviets through gendered lens
George Kennan likens the relationship between Soviet citizens and their government to a wife who becomes gradually disillusioned with her husband and seeks a divorce from him but decides to stay together for the sake of the children
Soviet people stereotyped as feminine and Soviet government as masculine authority figure
Soviet government as rapist who tries to exert ‘unceasing pressure’ with ‘penetration’ into Western society
- are you framing the threat in such a way that something is the right thing to do (to go to war)
value of gender analysis
It is argued in the lead-up to the Spanish-American War, jingoistic discourse of masculinity pushed leadership into war it didn’t want
Kennan’s Long Telegram rationalized a view of Soviets as unreliable and threatening
Difficult to say gendered issue caused a foreign policy decision relative to other factors (economics, security, etc.)
But did it facilitate it?
- feminist hawsks? - case afghanistan (after 9/11) - justify war
- 2001: “Good morning. I’m Laura Bush. And I am delivering this week’s radio address to kick off a worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan, especially women, are rejoicing. Afghan women know through hard experience what the rest of the world is discovering: The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists.”
- linking welfare of women with reason to go to war
feminist foreign policy agenda
more general = feminist foreign policy agenda with important security component, e.g. focus on nukes
Initiative, especially in countries such as Sweden and Mexico, to prioritize gender equality, environmental integrity, peace, human rights; ‘disrupt colonial, racist, patriarchal and male dominated power structures and systems of oppression’
- Increase funds to promote gender equality abroad
- Correct gender imbalance in diplomatic service
- Use levers of power to pressure foreign governments (e.g. trade policy)
- Vet security assistance for its effects on women
- Inclusion of women in defense and peacebuilding
- Goal of demilitarization and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons
human security
= broader discourse, one of the biggest shifts
- emerges from UN report on human development in 1994
Traditional conception of security focused on securing states
- Assumption that this would mean people living in secure states were themselves secure
A broad concept that encompasses the security of people, including their physical safety, their economic and social well-being, respect for their dignity, and the protection of human rights
According to the 1994 UN Human Development Report, the list of threats to human security include the following categories:
- Economic security
- Food security
- Health security
- Environmental security
- Personal security
- Community security
- Political security
(“profound transition in thinking - from nuclear security to human security”
“the legitimate concerns of ordinary people (for whom) a feeling of insecurity arises more from the worries about daily life than from the dread of a cataclysmic world event”
“human security is a child that did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut, and ethnic tension that did not explode into violence, a dissident who was not silenced”
1994 UN Human Development Report (ul Haq))
questions human security
= is it to broad? -> critical discourse
- trying to extent boundaries of security
- could there be a hidden agenda behind this?
- use as propaganda? or actually serious about it?
Human security as universal principle or Human security one state at a time?
Global North human security prioritized over Global South human security?
Are there double standards?
Has the human security agenda been co-opted?
Intervention in Global South to prevent migration into Global North?
environmental security
= aspect of human activity
Environment is at risk from human activity
Environmental change can be a risk to the territorial integrity of states
Environmental change is unlikely to be a cause of war but can be a contributory factor
This also applies to other forms of conflict such as terrorism (i.e. environmental change doesn’t cause terrorism although some terrorist groups may have an environmental agenda – it can also exacerbate terrorist problems, in theory, by increasing recruitment pool from those negatively affected by climate change)
Some researchers have argued that damage to the Earth’s ozone layer should be considered a security threat because it causes cancer, blindness and death
Concerns about environment were present in 1970s and 1980s, grows in the 1990s, and explodes in the early 2000s (population growth etc)
- 1990s begins to take on bigger role, by 2000s explodes
BASIC = environment at risk bc human action
unlikely cause of war, but contributing factor
- how important is issue of debate
Robert Kaplan’s article presents environmental security as the national security issue of the 21st century and forecast a grim future of conflict, largely associate with instability and migration due to environmental crises
- Later expanded into a book, The Coming Anarchy, one of the most important security texts from the 1990s
- major shift in what future war will become: not major armies clashing in central Europe, it will be about anarchy, mainly outside of Europe
- idea that war is somehow shifting, about issues of depressed
- coming of anarchy: nations break up under flow of refugees from environmental and social disaster -> as borders crumble, another type of boundary is erected - a wall of disease
the environment and the military
To what extent are environmental issues military concerns?
(they take it seriously in peace time, but not in war time)
May affect risk/likelihood of future conflicts
Likely to result in more missions associated with public health crises
May have implications for procurement of military equipment
- !!!! Emphasis on may
- Limited evidence Western militaries are becoming more green
- No evidence non-Western militaries are becoming more green
- Must distinguish between peacetime policies and wartime policies
the environment and the war in Ukraine
War has had devastating impact on Ukraine’s natural environment
(scale we haven’t seen before, eg. not in Afghanistan and Iraq)
Most prominent example has been the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam
Adverse impacts on land-based and aquatic ecosystems have had detrimental effects on human health and well-being
- Negative impact on food production, air quality, water purification, support to natural ecosystem – soil formation/nutrient recycling
problem =
Environmental damage resulting from war can be both an unintended consequence of military activity and part of a military strategy
- Collateral damage from military actions, such as shelling leading to wildfires; deliberate damage from “scorched earth” tactics, such as flooding from the destruction of dams; defensive tactics, such as digging trenches and laying antitank mines; and military activities that are conducted in environmentally sensitive areas
- tearing natural environment apart
- scorch earth tactics = to make live in a region difficult
Limitations of international governance for protection of the environment during armed conflict and for accountability for those directly responsible for environmental damage
- Nevertheless, Ukrainian and international environmental agencies as well as nongovernmental organizations have been documenting the environmental damage caused by the war, with the goal of seeking reparation and restoration of both the natural environment and the built environment during the postwar reconstruction period
- now being talked about as war crime
demographics as a strategic issue
Mid-twentieth century: 3.5 billion
Early-21st century: 6 billion
Mid-21st century: 10 billion
Most of the population growth will occur in poorest countries
Most of the population growth will occur in urban areas (by 2050 75% of world’s population will probably live in urban areas, up from 50% in 2017)
Raises challenges for urban planners, government officials, military institutions
Megacities will potentially tax social and basic services beyond their limits leaving millions living in urban squalor and chaos
will it not be a war of states, but over resources (water, oil) by groups
Darfur - case
case where scholars try to link their theory (in part. climate change) with the war
- climate change exacerbating existing problems
War in Darfur/Sudan often cited as example linking mass violence with climate change
Devastating droughts in 1970s-1980s exacerbate internal problems, especially Arab-African ethnic tensions
In 2003 tensions result in secessionist attempts that central government violently repressed
Hundreds of thousands of deaths, more than 2.5 million displaced persons
Peace agreements acknowledge necessity to settle conflicts over arable land/water
UN-African Union peacekeeping strategies increasingly factor in implications of climate change
climate change as a strategic problem
Climate change influences submarine detection because of its effect on underwater sound propagation – the primary means for anti-submarine warfare
- climate change makes things harder to detect -> could invest in more submarines
Warming sea surface temperatures and melting Arctic ice may affect patterns of underwater sound propagation, and hence submarine and anti-submarine warfare operations
Study finds that acoustic detection will become more difficult in most areas but is going to become significantly more difficult in the North Atlantic than in the Western Pacific
Finding that submarines are becoming less detectable in many areas means that, in comparative terms, submarines are going to play an even more important role in the future, including for striking land targets
health security
= human security composes a shift of what we find important, e.g. health security
-> should we spend more time/money on terrorism or health security e.g.?
“access to health care and protection against diseases: including infections and parasitic diseases linked to malnutrition and environmental degradation (including pollution) and also those diseases lined to lifestyles (such as circulatory diseases or cancer)”
WHO Constitution (1946) = “health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security”
- Spanish flu (influenza): after WW1 (tens of millions of deaths) = more people dying after the war than during
-> still not much interest in labeling pandemics as security issue (is much more recent) - Sarin attack, Tokyo subway 1995
-> biological/chemical warfare have big effects on civilians - covid
health problems traditionally viewed as matters of limited importance in int’l politics
- covid seems to have changed this: widespread mobilization across the world, changes in people’s daily lives, radical shifts in gov policy, and prioritization of countering the pandemic above all other concerns
- but covid19 only 6th of WHO declaration of a public health emergency of int’l concern (PHEIC)
- previous ones were: H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic (2009-10), ebola outbreak in West Africa (2013-16), polio outbreak (2014), Zika virus pandemic (2015-18), Kivu Ebola epidemic (2018-20)
climate change and security
“a matter of life and death”
- UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
“the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”
- Sir David Attenborough
“a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet”
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2022
Identifying climate change as a security issue is far from universally accepted!!
- e.g. Trump
- China and Russia don’t want UNSC to go over climate change, bc it is more economic
- issue of short-term vs long term security issues
Some leaders deny the existence of a problem
For other leaders, it is not a security priority compared with more immediate concerns
Similarly some countries (Russia/China) have argued international attempts to counter climate change, for instance by the UN Security Council, impinge on their sovereign rights of economic development
food security
“adequate access to food, both physically and economically”
“food security is also about getting access to those foods that are important to culture, health and well-being”
personal security
“addresses threats from PHYSICAL VIOLENCE including threats from the state (including torture), from other states (war) and fro other groups of people (ethnic tension), as well as violence stemming from crime, gendered violence or threats against women, and threats against children”
- threats against women, children
- threats from state, other wars
economic security
Assured income, preferably through paid work, but also includes (in the last resort) public safety net measures ensuring income to those who are unable to obtain an income
political security
“affords individuals the freedom to be governed in a way that respects basic human rights, protected by democratic institutions in which individuals are given a voice.”
“Control over information and media, physical repression by militaries, and threat of prison or detainment (or worse) during political protests are all example of political insecurity”
all ideas from the 1990s (eco, personal, political security)
questions
- What difference, if any, does labelling climate change a security issue, or focusing on the security aspects of it, affect how the issue is dealt with?
- start to take it more seriously (but little evidence this is true)
- political perspective: shows you take it a lot more seriously (e.g. if you take on war on drugs you show you take it more seriously)
- is human security so broad as to be analytically meaningless?
- what other ways might we conceptualize/address these types of issues?
