The Global Making of Policing: Postcolonial Perspectives 9781138910201, 9781315680040

Citation preview

There is no better guide to policing’s place in IR and security studies. In rethinking how policing is made globally, the authors show that police institutions and practices are a core aspect of world politics. Their work makes clear that global policing is about much more than the transfer of knowledge across national boundaries. This is essential reading for anyone looking to develop the research agenda on policing and the production of social order in the international realm. Alice Hills, Professor of Conflict Studies, University of Durham, UK This exciting collection establishes an understanding of the emergence of global policing that challenges the usual notion of a diffusion of western concepts of making things, especially states, modern. It stresses that ideas about policing can move in both directions – from the west and, when recast, back again. The chapters embrace a range of disciplines and sweep the globe to provide stimulating case studies and illuminating theoretical perspectives. In sum, an important and valuable book. Clive Emsley, Emeritus Professor, Open University, UK

This page intentionally left blank

The Global Making of Policing

This edited volume analyses the global making of policing in our postcolonial world. The volume offers a deeper understanding of the global making of how security is thought of and practised, from US urban policing, and diaspora politics to policing encounters in Afghanistan, Palestine, Colombia or Haiti. It critically examines and decentres conventional perspectives on security governance and policing, offering a fresh analytical approach, moving beyond dominant, one-sided perspectives on the transnational character of security governance, which suggest a diffusion of models and practices from a ‘Western’ centre to the rest of the globe. Such perspectives omit much of the experimenting and learning going on in the (post)colony as well as the active agency and participation of seemingly subaltern actors in producing and co-constituting what is conventionally thought of as ‘Western’ policing practice, knowledge and institutions. This is the first book that studies the truly global making of security institutions and practices from a postcolonial perspective, bringing together highly innovative, in-depth empirical case studies from across the globe. It will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations and Global Studies, (Critical) Security Studies, Criminology and Postcolonial Studies. Jana Hönke is Assistant Professor and Rosalind-Franklin Fellow in International Relations at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Markus-Michael Müller is an Assistant Professor at the ZI LateinamerikaInstitut, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Interventions Edited by: Jenny Edkins, Aberystwyth University and Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick The series provides a forum for innovative and interdisciplinary work that engages with alternative critical, post-structural, feminist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic and cultural approaches to international relations and global politics. In our first 5 years we have published 60 volumes. We aim to advance understanding of the key areas in which scholars working within broad critical post-structural traditions have chosen to make their interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics. Titles in the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics and other disciplines and provide situated historical, empirical and textual studies in international politics. We are very happy to discuss your ideas at any stage of the project: just contact us for advice or proposal guidelines. Proposals should be submitted directly to the Series Editors: Jenny Edkins ([email protected]) and Nick Vaughan-Williams ([email protected]) ‘As Michel Foucault has famously stated, ‘knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting’. In this spirit the Edkins–Vaughan-Williams Interventions series solicits cutting edge, critical works that challenge mainstream understandings in international relations. It is the best place to contribute post-disciplinary works that think rather than merely recognize and affirm the world recycled in IR’s traditional geopolitical imaginary.’ Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’i at Mãnoa, USA

Critical Theorists and International Relations Edited by Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams Ethics as Foreign Policy Britain, the EU and the other Dan Bulley Universality, Ethics and International Relations A grammatical reading Véronique Pin-Fat

The Time of the City Politics, philosophy, and genre Michael J. Shapiro

Politics of Urbanism Seeing like a city Warren Magnusson

Governing Sustainable Development Partnership, protest and power at the world summit Carl Death

Beyond Biopolitics Theory, violence and horror in world politics François Debrix and Alexander D. Barder

Insuring Security Biopolitics, security and risk Luis Lobo-Guerrero Foucault and International Relations New critical engagements Edited by Nicholas J. Kiersey and Doug Stokes International Relations and Non-Western Thought Imperialism, colonialism and investigations of global modernity Edited by Robbie Shilliam Autobiographical International Relations I, IR Edited by Naeem Inayatullah War and Rape Law, memory and justice Nicola Henry Madness in International Relations Psychology, security and the global governance of mental health Alison Howell Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt Geographies of the nomos Edited by Stephen Legg

The Politics of Speed Capitalism, the state and war in an accelerating world Simon Glezos Politics and the Art of Commemoration Memorials to struggle in Latin America and Spain Katherine Hite Indian Foreign Policy The politics of postcolonial identity Priya Chacko Politics of the Event Time, movement, becoming Tom Lundborg Theorising Post-Conflict Reconciliation Agonism, restitution and repair Edited by Alexander Keller Hirsch Europe’s Encounter with Islam The secular and the postsecular Luca Mavelli Re-thinking International Relations Theory via Deconstruction Badredine Arfi

The New Violent Cartography Geo-analysis after the aesthetic turn Edited by Sam Okoth Opondo and Michael J. Shapiro Insuring War Sovereignty, security and risk Luis Lobo-Guerrero International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis Necati Polat The Postcolonial Subject Claiming politics/governing others in late modernity Vivienne Jabri Foucault and the Politics of Hearing Lauri Siisiäinen Volunteer Tourism in the Global South Giving back in neoliberal times Wanda Vrasti Cosmopolitan Government in Europe Citizens and entrepreneurs in postnational politics Owen Parker Studies in the Trans-disciplinary Method After the aesthetic turn Michael J. Shapiro Alternative Accountabilities in Global Politics The scars of violence Brent J. Steele Celebrity Humanitarianism The ideology of global charity Ilan Kapoor

Deconstructing International Politics Michael Dillon The Politics of Exile Elizabeth Dauphinee Democratic Futures Revisioning democracy promotion Milja Kurki Postcolonial Theory A critical introduction Edited by Sanjay Seth More than Just War Narratives of the just war and military life Charles A. Jones Deleuze & Fascism Security: war: aesthetics Edited by Brad Evans and Julian Reid Feminist International Relations ‘Exquisite corpse’ Marysia Zalewski The Persistence of Nationalism From imagined communities to urban encounters Angharad Closs Stephens Interpretive Approaches to Global Climate Governance Reconstructing the greenhouse Edited by Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe and Benjamin Stephan Postcolonial Encounters in International Relations The politics of transgression in the Maghreb Alina Sajed

Post-tsunami Reconstruction in Indonesia Negotiating normativity through gender mainstreaming initiatives in Aceh Marjaana Jauhola

International Politics and Performance Critical aesthetics and creative practice Edited by Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear

Leo Strauss and the Invasion of Iraq Encountering the abyss Aggie Hirst

Memory and Trauma in International Relations Theories, cases, and debates Edited by Erica Resende and Dovile Budryte

Production of Postcolonial India and Pakistan Meanings of partition Ted Svensson War, Identity and the Liberal State Everyday experiences of the geopolitical in the armed forces Victoria M. Basham Writing Global Trade Governance Discourse and the WTO Michael Strange Politics of Violence Militancy, international politics, killing in the name Charlotte Heath-Kelly Ontology and World Politics Void universalism I Sergei Prozorov Theory of the Political Subject Void universalism II Sergei Prozorov Visual Politics and North Korea Seeing is believing David Shim Globalization, Difference and Human Security Edited by Mustapha Kamal Pasha

Critical Environmental Politics Edited by Carl Death Democracy Promotion A critical introduction Jeff Bridoux and Milja Kurki International Intervention in a Secular Age Re-enchanting humanity? Audra Mitchell The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations Jessica Auchter European-East Asian Borders in Translation Edited by Joyce C.H. Liu and Nick Vaughan-Williams Genre and the (Post)Communist Woman Analyzing transformations of the Central and Eastern European female ideal Edited by Florentina C. Andreescu and Michael Shapiro

Studying the Agency of Being Governed Edited by Stina Hansson, Sofie Hellberg and Maria Stern Politics of Emotion The song of Telangana Himadeep Muppidi Ruling the Margins Colonial power and administrative rule in the past and present Prem Kumar Rajaram Race and Racism in International Relations Confronting the global colour line Alexander Anievas, Nivi Manchanda and Robbie Shilliam The Grammar of Politics and Performance Edited by Shirin M. Rai and Janelle Reinelt War, Police and Assemblages of Intervention Edited by Jan Bachman, Colleen Bell and Caroline Holmqvist Re-imagining North Korea in International Politics Problems and alternatives Shine Choi On Schmitt and Space Claudio Minca and Rory Rowan Face Politics Jenny Edkins Empire Within International hierarchy and its imperial laboratories of governance Alexander D. Barder

Sexual Politics and International Relations How LGBTQ claims shape International Relations Edited by Manuela Lavinas Picq and Markus Thiel Emotions, Politics and War Edited by Linda Åhäll and Thomas Gregory Jacques Lacan Between psychoanalysis and politics Edited by Samo Tomšicˇ and Andreja Zevnik The Value of Resilience Securing life in the 21st century Chris Zebrowski Political Aesthetics Culture, critique and the everyday Arundhati Virmani Walzer, Just War and Iraq Ethics as response Ronan O’Callaghan Politics and Suicide The philosophy of political self-destruction Nicholas Michelsen Late Modern Palestine The subject and representation of the second intifada Junka-Aikio Negotiating Corruption NGOs, governance and hybridity in West Africa Laura Routley

The Biopolitics of Lifestyle Foucault, ethics and healthy choices Christopher Mayes Critical Imaginations in International Relations Edited by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú and Reiko Shindo Time, Temporality and Violence in International Relations (De)fatalizing the present, forging radical alternatives Edited by Anna M. Agathangelou and Kyle Killian Lacan, Deleuze and World Politics Rethinking the ontology of the political subject Andreja Zevnik The Politics of Evasion A post-globalization dialogue Robert Latham Researching War Feminist methods, ethics and politics Edited by Annick T. R. Wibben China’s International Relations and Harmonious World Time, space and multiplicity in world politics Astrid Nordin Narrative Global Politics Theory, history and the personal in International Relations Edited by Naeem Inayatullah and Elizabeth Dauphinee

On the Greek Origins of Biopolitics A reinterpretation of the history of biopower Mika Ojakangas Insuring Life Value, security and risk Luis Lobo-Guerrero The Global Making of Policing Postcolonial perspectives Edited by Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller Cultural Politics of Targeted Killing On drones, counter-insurgency, and violence Kyle Grayson Europe Anti-Power Ressentiment and Exceptionalism in EU debate Michael Loriaux Refugees in Extended Exile Living on the edge Jennifer Hyndman and Wenona Giles

This page intentionally left blank

The Global Making of Policing Postcolonial perspectives

Add Add

Edited by Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

Add Add AddAddAdd AddAdd Add Add

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 selection and editorial material, Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller to be identified as author of the editorial material, and of the individual authors as authors of their contributions, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Hönke, Jana, editor. | Müller, Markus M., editor. Title: The global making of policing : postcolonial perspectives / edited by Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Interventions | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016002109| ISBN 9781138910201 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315680040 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Police. | Internal security. | Security, International. | Postcolonialism. Classification: LCC HV7921 .G584 2016 | DDC 363.2/3–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002109 ISBN: 978-1-138-91020-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-31568-004-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of figures List of contributors Acknowledgement 1 The global making of policing

xv xvi xix 1

JANA HÖNKE AND MARKUS-MICHAEL MÜLLER

2 Capillaries of empire: Colonial pacification and the origins of US global surveillance

20

ALFRED MCCOY

3 Laboratories of pacification and permanent war: Israeli–US collaboration in the global making of policing

40

STEPHEN GRAHAM AND ALEXANDER BAKER

4 Beyond the laboratory thesis: Gaza as transmission belt for war and security technology

59

LEILA STOCKMARR

5 Entangled pacifications: Peacekeeping, counterinsurgency and policing in Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro

77

MARKUS-MICHAEL MÜLLER

6 Associated dependent security cooperation: Colombia and the United States

96

ARLENE B. TICKNER

7 Securing the diaspora: Policing global order

114

MARK LAFFEY AND SUTHAHARAN NADARAJAH

8 ‘British cop or international cop?’ Global makings of international policing assistance, 2000–2014 GEORGINA SINCLAIR

132

xiv Contents 9 A translational perspective on police-building in Afghanistan: The enactment of ‘progress’ in the implementation gap

149

LARS OSTERMEIER

10 Unpacking ‘the global’

167

PINAR BILGIN

Index

178

List of figures

2.1 In this top secret document dated 2012, the NSA shows the Five Eyes allies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) its 190 ‘access programs’ for penetrating the Internet’s global grid of fiber-optic cables for both surveillance and cyberwarfare 4.1 Guardium UAV in the southern part of the Gaza-Israel Border 4.2 Live demonstration of the Guardium border control UAV at the Port of Ashdod, promotional tour during the HLS 2nd Israel Homeland Security Conference. Israel, November 2012

27 70

71

Contributors

Alexander Baker is a PhD candidate researching the securitization and policing of housing at Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Pinar Bilgin is Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University. She specializes in critical approaches to Security Studies. She is the author of Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical Perspective (2004) and The International in Security, Security in the International (forthcoming), and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of International Political Sociology (forthcoming). Stephen Graham is Professor of Cities and Society at Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Prof. Graham has an interdisciplinary background linking human geography, urbanism and the sociology of technology. He uses this to explore the political aspects of urbanism, infrastructure, mobility, digital media, surveillance, security and militarism. His books include Splintering Urbanism (with Simon Marvin), Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructures Fail, Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism and Infrastructural Lives (with Colin McFarlane). Prof. Graham’s latest research focuses on the political aspects of verticality. A book on this theme – Vertical: Sewers, Skyscrapers, Satellites (and Everything in Between) (Verso) – is currently in preparation. Jana Hönke is Assistant Professor and Rosalind-Franklin Fellow in International Relations at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her research revolves around economic, security and development interventions and their contestation, tracing the everyday production of new political geographies. Her publications include Transnational Companies and Security Governance. Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World (Routledge), Governing (In)Security in the Postcolonial World (co-edited, Security Dialogue) and articles in African Affairs, Security Dialogue, Governance, Business and Politics and elsewhere. Her latest research is a book in preparation on remaking economic governance from the margins, and a project on political geographies of large-scale economic infrastructures (www.newpoliticalgeographies.com). Mark Laffey is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of

List of contributors

xvii

London. His research focuses on international theory, international security, historical sociology and postcolonialism, with a particular emphasis on the politics of theory, imperialism, and North–South relations. He is the co-editor of Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger (University of Minnesota Press, 1999) and Democracy, Liberalism and War: Rethinking the Democratic Peace Debates (Lynne Rienner, 2001). His work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Millennium: Journal of International Studies and Security Dialogue, amongst others. Alfred W. McCoy holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. After earning his PhD in Southeast Asian history at Yale University in 1977, his writing has focused on two topics: the political history of the modern Philippines and the covert netherworld of illicit drugs, syndicate crime, and state security. He is the author, most recently, of The Politics of Heroin (New York, 2003), A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York, 2006), and Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation (Madison, 2012). His book Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Madison, 2009) was awarded the Kahin Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Markus-Michael Müller is an Assistant Professor of Latin American politics at the ZI Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on policing, knowledge production, transnational security governance and violence. He is the author of Public Security in the Negotiated State. Policing in Latin America and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), The Punitive City: Privatised Policing and Protection in Neoliberal Mexico (Zed Books, 2016) and co-editor (with Louise Wiuff Moe) of Reconfiguring Intervention: Complexity, Resilience and the “Local Turn” in Counterinsurgent Warfare (forthcoming Palgrave Macmillan). His work has appeared in journals, including, Government & Opposition, Security Dialogue, Geopolitics, Globalizations, Third World Quarterly, Alternatives, Journal of Latin American Studies, Postcolonial Studies and Social & Legal Studies. Suthaharan Nadarajah is a Lecturer in International Relations in the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS, University of London. His research focusses on international security, governmentality, global governance and North–South relations. His work has appeared in Review of International Studies, Security Dialogue, Third World Quarterly and edited volumes. He has conducted donor-funded policy research on Sri Lanka’s conflict, terrorism proscriptions, armed groups and war-to-peace transition, diaspora mobilization, and donor–recipient dialogue for the Asia Foundation, Berghof Foundation and European Commission. Lars Ostermeier has degrees in political science and criminology and is a Researcher at the Vienna Centre for Societal Security (VICESSE). His

xviii

List of contributors

research is focussed on Policing Studies, Security Studies, Criminology, and Science and Technology Studies. His PhD in International Criminology at Hamburg University is on knowledge production and translation in German police building projects in Afghanistan. Relevant publications: ‘Die politische Bedeutung von „Polizeihilfe“ in Afghanistan zwischen den fünfziger und siebziger Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts’ in Comparativ, Heft 3, (2013): 50–64; ‘Polizeireformdiskurs und Diskurs der Polizeireformer: Export und Wandel von Staatlichkeit im Rahmen der Polizeireform in Afghanistan’ in Behr, Rafael u.a. (Hg.): Offene Grenzen. Polizieren in der Sicherheitsarchitektur einer post-territorialen Welt, Frankfurt/M., (2009): 79–99. ‘Staatsaufbau verstehen: Die Polizeireform in Afghanistan aus der Perspektive einer Ethnografie der Staatlichkeit’ in Estermann, Josef u.a. (Hg.): Interdisziplinäre Rechtsforschung zwischen Rechtswirklichkeit, Rechtsanalyse und Rechtsgestaltung, Beckenried, (2009): 42–56. Georgina Sinclair is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, an Associate of the Scottish Institute for Police Research, and, a consultant working within the wider criminal justice sector with government, police, industry and academic partners in the UK and overseas. She has previously held academic lectureships in history at the Universities of Reading and Leeds, and a research post at the Open University. Her research interests and areas of publication have included British colonial policing, policing Northern Ireland; the internationalization of UK policing post 1945; law enforcement (global); international policing assistance and police-military cooperation within FCAS. Leila Stockmarr is a Post-doc affiliate with the Carlsberg Foundation and an advisor of the Danish Green Party. She holds a PhD in Global Studies from Roskilde University, Denmark. Her work focuses on Israel’s homeland security industry, Israeli security practices and Palestinian history. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Israel-Palestine and at arms and security fairs across the globe. Leila has previously been affiliated with the London School of Oriental and African Studies and the Danish Institute for International Studies, and has published her research in the Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies and Jadaliyya. Arlene B. Tickner is a Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Departament at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Her main areas of research include sociology of International Relations knowledge in non-core settings, Latin American security and Colombian foreign policy. She is the co-editor of the Routledge book series, Worlding beyond the West, and three of its edited volumes, International Relations Scholarship around the World (2009), Thinking International Relations Differently (2012) and Claiming the International (2013).

Acknowledgement

This book is the product of several years’ collaborative engagement with, and shared interest in, (post)colonial security governance. Its origins can be traced back to a workshop on “‘Glocal’ Practices of Security Governance in the Postcolony”, held at the Freie Universität Berlin in January 2010. Several of the ideas presented at this workshop were published within the 2012 Security Dialogue special issue: “Governing (In)Security in the Postcolonial World”. We extend our sincere thanks once again to Peter Burgess, the anonymous reviewers and the contributors for this fruitful initial collaboration. The concept for this book grew from these foundations and was further developed at conference panels and roundtables at the International Studies Organization’s annual conventions in 2012 (San Diego) and 2013 (San Francisco), the 2014 British International Studies Association conference (Dublin), and the 2014 Global Political Ethnography workshop at the Danish Institute for International Studies (Copenhagen). Throughout this period, many valued colleagues contributed to the project. In addition to our contributing authors, and the audiences at the above events, we are particularly grateful to Rita Abrahamsen, Desmond Arias, Pinar Bilgin, Peter Burgess, Anna Leander and Mustapha Pasha for thought-provoking inputs on the project as a whole and/or comments on draft chapters. We would also like to thank Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams as editors of the Interventions series, as well as our anonymous reviewers. Their collective comments allowed us to sharpen further the book’s argument. We are also thankful for the financial and logistical support by the Collaborative Research Center Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood, funded by the German Research Foundation and located at the Freie Universität Berlin. The Conflict Research Centre at Philipps-Universität Marburg and the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh also helped to make this project happen. Our thanks are also due to Carmen Altmeyer and Alexandra Engelsdorfer for their help with the final manuscript, as well as to Kathy Dodworth for her meticulous proofreading of various chapters. We would also like to thank the Routledge publishing team for the smooth editorial and production process.

xx

Acknowledgement

It is acknowledged that Chapter 2 is a slightly revised version of “Policing the Imperial Periphery: The Philippine-American War and the Origins of U.S. Global Surveillance”, published by Alfred McCoy in Surveillance & Society 13(1) in 2015. Chapter 3 builds on “Laboratories of War: United StatesIsraeli Collaboration in Urban War and Securitization”, published by Steve Graham in Brown Journal of World Affairs, XVII (1). We would like to thank both publishers for kindly granting permission for the reuse of this material. Finally, we are grateful for the commitment of all authors who have contributed to this volume. They made this project a hugely enjoyable and intellectually enriching collaborative process.

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

1

The global making of policing Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

In October 2011, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launched the Airport Communication Programme (AIRCOP). Although funded by the European Commission and the Canadian government, and working in close cooperation with Interpol and the World Customs Organization, this project aims at strengthening cooperation and intelligence-sharing within the realm of airport security and policing between Brazil and the West African states of Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and others. The stated objective is to confront what UNODC refers to as the ‘Brazil–Africa Narco Nexus’ (Brune, 2011). As such, the programme illustrates the global reach-out of contemporary policing. Yet contemporary policing not only has a global reach. It is also globally made. In 2013, for instance, Mike Katone, a police officer in Springfield, Massachusetts, designed and implemented a plan for the local police department to confront street gangs. Interestingly, he modelled his plan after the counterinsurgency police practices he had encountered during his time serving in the military in Afghanistan and Iraq. In an interview he explained the following: “Insurgents and gang members both want to operate in a failed area – a failed community or a failed state […]. They know they can live off the passive support of the community, where the local community is not going to call or engage the local police” (Washington Times, 2013). The policing of Springfield was hence made in Afghanistan just as much as it was in the US. It is the analysis of this truly global making of policing that has not yet received adequate attention in research or literature. It therefore stands at the center of this book. What we mean by the ‘global making of policing’ is the circulation of both policing techniques and practices, which together lend to the global (re)making of policing within the international realm. These processes of global making are much more complex than usually depicted. Policing models and practices are not simply globalized, as is often assumed, through diffusion from a supposed (liberal) centre to seemingly marginal spaces, in which they get translated at best. Instead, core global and domestic police institutions and practices are co-constituted by various actors and experiences from across the globe. Seemingly marginal places in our postcolonial world have played a

2

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

crucial role in these processes and it is the goal of this book to make visible the often hidden presence of the margins – as an idea, encounter and agent – in making policing a global reality. More specifically, two arguments are presented. First, we argue that the liberal, ‘diffusionist’ narrative of the making of global policing silences the ‘illiberal’, violent side of liberal ordering. Violence has always been part and parcel of liberalism: by way of constructing certain ‘others’ in such a way that policing them ‘otherwise’ appeared necessary. Illiberal practices are not the result of a deformation of liberal governance by an ‘illiberal local’. Nor do they necessarily indicate the emergence of a ‘post-liberal’ era. Instead, there is a violent side to liberal global governance itself and hybrid practices emerge from the very idea that ex-centric sites and populations need to be policed otherwise (Brogden and Ellison, 2012; Kienscherf forthcoming; Laffey and Sutharan, this volume). ‘Homeland policing’, in turn, has been actively shaped by such violent experiments and innovations that travel back from the ‘laboratories’ to the ‘metropole’. But liberal global policing is not all-powerful, as some of the global governance and governmentality literatures suggest; a perspective that would reproduce the idea that agency is exclusively located in the ‘West’. On the contrary, the second argument we put forward is that practices of global policing are dynamically coproduced; they are an outcome of entangled histories. While these entanglements remain hierarchically structured, agents in the “postcolony” (Mbembe, 2002) have shaped these processes. In uncovering these processes that give reality to what we call the global making of policing, we do not aim at presenting a new, all-encompassing theory. Rather, we consider the idea of the global making of policing to be what Collier and Ong have termed a “loose-knit conceptual orientation” (Collier and Ong, 2006: 5–6). The latter, instead of offering an overarching theoretical framework, provides a coherent heuristic lens that ties the empirically rich case studies in the chapters that follow together by offering an analytical orientation capable of uncovering, rendering legible and understanding the complex realities and practices that underpin the global making of policing in our postcolonial world. Based on in-depth empirical research in ‘most of the world’ (Chatterjee, 2004) – that is, the postcolonial world outside but also within the ‘modern West’ – this book assembles a collection of essays that coherently engage with this truly global making of contemporary policing. The scope of the case studies ranges from the making of US policing in the Philippines and the Gaza Strip, to the translation of knowledge produced in police missions from Afghanistan to Germany, to emerging hybrid security assemblages around Tamil diaspora communities and the travelling of urban pacification projects between Brazil and Haiti. Together, the chapters offer innovative theoretical and empirical insights into the entangled character and co-constituted nature of the apparatuses, practices and forms of knowledge of contemporary policing.

The global making of policing

3

The remainder of the introduction proceeds as follows. We start with a discussion of existing research on global policing and the origins of core policing institutions and practices and draw out its limitations. After a critique of dominant, diffusionist conceptions of global policing, we introduce alternative understandings of this process based on an engagement with postcolonial studies, historiographies of (post)colonial policing and critical criminology, various area studies’ research on policing, and other bodies of literature. This is followed by methodological reflections and the introduction of three analytical perspectives through which this book seeks to improve our understanding of the global making of policing. The first is an investigation into the postcolony as a laboratory. The second features the multiplication of metropoles and related ‘South–South’ policing encounters. The third revolves around the postcolonial nature of transnational security fields and assemblages. The final section introduces the individual chapters of the book organized along these three perspectives.

Rethinking global policing through postcolonial perspectives Taking on the empirical and analytical challenge to uncover the complex processes that make policing a global reality, the insights of the postcolonial literature act as our starting point. Inspired by postcolonial ideas, we suggest a fresh analytical approach to seemingly old questions; an approach that enables us to go beyond dominant, one-sided perspectives on transnational security governance that propose a diffusion of models and practices from a ‘Western’ centre to other parts of the globe. Such perspectives omit much of the experimenting and learning going on in the (post)colony that constitute policing practices from Springfield to Kandahar and inform the most innovative – peaceful as much as violent – aspects of global policing. The book demonstrates this relationship by highlighting the multi-directional travelling of practices across the globe as well as the active agency and participation of seemingly ‘marginal’ actors in producing and co-constituting what is conventionally thought of as ‘Western’ policing practice, knowledge and institutions. The Western-centrism that informs much of contemporary International Relations scholarship on international security and global policing is deeply related to a “foundationalist decontextualization” (Steinmetz, 1999: 20). In this section, we elaborate on how and why an analytical lens characterized by postcoloniality helps us to leave behind such Western-centrism: through a recontextualization that makes visible the seemingly hidden presence of the ‘margins’ in contemporary forms of global policing. Following the call of Gurminder Bhambra (2010) and others to recognize connected histories and international interconnectedness, such empirical work allows to question dominant narratives as well as to reconstruct conceptual categories (see also Vasilaki, 2013). The issue of postcolonialism has received growing attention throughout the social sciences (for overviews, see Ashcroft et al., 2007; Loomba, 2005;

4

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

Young, 2003). Key to postcolonial thinking is a critical “engagement with the role of power in the formation of identity and subjectivity and the relationship between knowledge and political practices” (Abrahamsen, 2003: 197), with particular focus on the dichotomizing division of the world into the ‘West’ and the ‘Rest’ (Hall, 1992). The division is based on the assumption of an endogenous development of the ‘West’. On this basis, “the social norms, structures, and values characterizing the so-called Western societies [are taken] as a universal parameter for defining what modern societies are and the processes of their emergence as the path to be followed by other, modernizing countries” (Boatcaˇ et al., 2010: 1). In critically highlighting the underlying power/knowledge relations of such a dichotomizing world view, postcolonial theories imply “an epistemological concern, namely to question the universality of the categories of modern social scientific thought, and of the disciplines into which it is divided; it is an epistemological challenge to, and critique of, existing disciplines, including IR” (Seth, 2013b: 2). This epistemological challenge and critique has received growing attention from within IR (Seth, 2013a; Millenium, 2011; Chowdry and Nair, 2002; Slater, 2004; Ling, 2002; Paolini et al., 1999), contributing to an awareness that the unquestioned Western-centrism that informed the discipline since its beginnings produced an overly Eurocentric conception of world politics (Hobson, 2012). As Hobson has shown in detail, from its origins in the late eighteenth century, international theory has been informed by a Western-centric reasoning that combined a form of scientific racism with a Eurocentric institutionalism. This combination led IR theory “to parochially celebrate and defend or promote the West as the proactive subject of, and as the highest or ideal normative referent in, world politics” (Hobson, 2012: 1). Far from being a thing of the past, this problematic perspective still looms large in contemporary IR debates. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the analytical and epistemological problems stemming from Western-centric reasoning in IR have also become a concern for scholars within the subfield of security studies. While growing, much more awareness is required of the fact that longcherished concepts, methods and theories were nearly exclusively developed based on specific and Eurocentric narratives of ‘the West’. Equally important, they are based on experience in (Western) Europe or North America, which cannot always be adequately applied to the analysis of security governance elsewhere. As Buzan and Hansen have argued in this respect, international security studies are “by birth an Anglo–American discipline which has been based on a Western conception of the state. This conception has arguably limited empirical and political relevance for major parts of the non-Western world, where the drawing of colonial boundaries irrespective of local communities and allegiances has produced a radically different set of political, economic and cultural structures” (Buzan and Hansen, 2009: 19). There have been a number of attempts to analyse the governance of (in)security, policing and war through a postcolonial lens (see, for example, Muppidi, 1999; Krishna, 1999; Agathangelou and Ling, 2004; Barkawi and Laffey,

The global making of policing

5

2006; Porter, 2009; Hönke and Müller, 2012; Barkawi and Stanski 2013). While this literature is growing, the call for a “postcolonial moment in security studies” (Barkawi and Laffey, 2006) has still not received the attention it should. Where it has, in addition, contributions tend to remain somewhat theoretical or concerned with the deconstruction of dominant knowledge. While this is absolutely crucial, this book seeks to move beyond that by offering empirical research strategies and case studies that uncover, and help to reconstruct, the global making of policing. By so doing we hope to provide empirically grounded, conceptually and methodologically innovative contributions for a truly global research agenda on policing and security. To this end, and in order to overcome parochial forms of knowledge production, pushing research towards “non-Eurocentric security studies” (Barkawi and Laffey, 2006: 330), we argue, requires a further decentring of research on (in)security governance and policing. In so doing, a deeper engagement with postcoloniality is critical and essential. The postcolonial condition, or postcoloniality, refers to global interactions based on unequal power relations (see Hönke and Müller, 2012: 387). While colonies have nearly disappeared, ‘coloniality’ and the underlying geopolitics of knowledge can still be observed today (Mignolo, 2005; Hall, 1996; Gupta, 1998). As we have argued elsewhere (Hönke and Müller, 2012), postcoloniality therefore designates global power relations that are based on binary ‘us versus the inferior other’ constructions. Their underlying recourse to civilization and modernization discourses legitimizes Western interventions that express “the privilege of possessing dominant categories of thought from which and where the rest of the world can be described, understood, and ‘improved’” (Mignolo, 2005: 36). In other words, the Western will to improve is based on a particular polarized and hierarchical form of representation and knowledge production that Coronil (1996: 57), following Said (1978), has called ‘Occidentalism’. He defines this as: the ensemble of representational practices that participate in the production of conceptions of the world which (1) separate the world’s components into bounded units; (2) disaggregate their relational histories; (3) turn difference into hierarchy; (4) naturalize these representations; and thus (5) intervene, however unwittingly, in the production of existing asymmetrical power relations. ‘Improving’ the world, from colonial and imperial civilizing missions to more contemporary forms of Western interventionist dealing with the postcolonial afterlife of Kipling’s ‘white men’s burden’, has placed the police forces – as well as accompanying practices and knowledge production from strategy to criminology – at the forefront of (post)colonial projects of order-making. As a result, policing remains imbued with Orientalism; deeply inscribed in selfimaginations, institutional memories, and practices. In analogy to what Porter (2009) has termed ‘military Orientalism’, Western police forces institutionalized knowledge, ideas and practices that are based on categorizations of an

6

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

‘us’ vs. an inferior ‘other’ under the guise of a ‘police Orientalism’ (Müller and Ostermeier, 2014). In similar ways as its military counterpart, police Orientalism deeply influences how policing practitioners (and scholars) “formulate what it means to be Western and non-Western” – “from morale to morality, tactics to strategy, casualty tolerance to authority” (Porter, 2009: 2) – and, of course, in terms of the ‘targets’ of policing in and through such transnational encounters that constitute global policing. Thinking about the postcolonial condition thus implies rejecting the static analytics of bounded units from which security institutions and practices originate and then diffuse (Coronil, 1996; see also Mignolo, 2005). On the contrary, policing is an essentially transnational and transcultural process (Hall, 1996: 247). This process involves shaping and reorganizing entangled ‘local’ and ‘global’ power relations in formerly colonizing or colonized societies as well as in cases that do not have histories of direct colonization. A postcolonial perspective therefore introduces a different reading of capitalist modernity in that it emphasizes the centrality of entangled power/knowledge/ practice fields through which unequal power relations emerge and are transformed and challenged. Therefore, in terms of geographic location, what Bhabha calls “ex-centric” sites (Bhabha, 1994: 6, 262) need to be put on equal analytical footing with supposedly more central ones. These serve as analytical vantage points from which to trace the global making of policing in new ways. As Jean and John Comaroff have argued, “[t]o the degree that the making of modernity has been a world-historical process, it can as well be narrated from its undersides as it can from its self-proclaimed centers” (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2012: 6–7). Importantly, such ex-centric sites are not just to be found in geographically faraway places. Rather, these margins and the postcolonial power/knowledge relations that produce them as marginalized spaces also characterize the relationship between indigenous people and the majority of the society in settler colonies, such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the latter cases, colonial settler societies that gained political independence continue to marginalize and discriminate against indigenous populations, inscribing postcolonial relations into liberal democratic states that are marked by ongoing struggles over rights and recognition of indigenous groups (Crosby and Monaghan, 2012; Grossman and Sparks, 2005; Johnson, 2011; Valverde, 2012). Similarly, governing migrant and/or diaspora populations and communities inside liberal states fits the picture (Fassin, 2013: 53). Focusing on these phenomena, the book argues, “enables recovery of the entangled global histories and geographies through which security and insecurity are produced” (Laffey and Nadarajah, 2012: 405; see also Hönke, 2013).

Global Policing Policing is a core aspect of world politics. Broadly conceived, policing encompasses a set of institutions, practices, technologies and forms of knowledge

The global making of policing

7

that aim at establishing a “regulatory power to take coercive measures to ensure the safety and welfare of the ‘community’” (Dubber and Valverde, 2006: 4). Today, this community often remains elusive and is simultaneously constructed as being both ‘local’ and ‘global’. It is crafted in and through policing practices, knowledge and institutions that integrate local and global forces into transnational fields. Such integration processes are directly embedded in power structures related to “the capacity of the police to maintain and reproduce order” (Hardt and Negri, 2001: 17; see also Hills, 2009). The actors and institutions operating in the transnational fields that populate the uneven topography of global policing are far from homogenous. Nor are the resulting interactions and outcomes the result of a harmonious collaboration. Conflict, competition and resistance are crucial aspects that shape global policing, as well as practices of appropriation, grafting and subversion. Portraying global policing as an activity of a “global police force” (Hardt and Negri, 2001: 17) hence misses the conflicting plurality of the involved actors. Nevertheless, while the “idea of a global police force is a chimera, […] global policing is a reality” (Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012: 3; see also Bachmann et al., 2015). Contrary to Bowling and Sheptycki, we argue that the global in global policing should not be reduced to “the capacity to use coercion and surveillant powers around the globe in ways that pass right through national boundaries” (Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012: 7). Nor is it in the seemingly ungoverned “pockets of the global south” where the “flows” of global policing stop (Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012: 126). Such perspectives, while being sensitive towards the global dimension of policing, still reproduce what we criticized above. For one, they reflect the Western-centrism that still dominates much of mainstream international security and policing research. They also underestimate the role played by these ‘pockets of the global south’ in the making of global policing and the “entangled transnational histories of postcolonial (in)security governance” (Hönke and Müller, 2012: 387). In fact, most standard accounts of the emergence of the modern police assume an endogenous pattern of institution-building, causally related to decisively national variables, such as, for instance, bureaucratic centralization processes, political participation and mobilization, the existence of standing armies, and socioeconomic changes in Western Europe (see Reiner, 2010; Innes, 2003; Neocleous, 2000; Knöbl, 1998; Bayley, 1975). Such interpretations, therefore, reproduce what Hobson has called the “Eurocentric big-bang theory of world politics” according to which the “West is understood to have endogenously self-generated through the Eurocentric logic of immanence” (Hobson, 2012: 139). This logic of Western immanence is at odds with empirical findings of the rich historical research on the impact of imperial and colonial policing on metropolitan developments, from the “age of empire” (Hobsbawm, 1987) to our “colonial present” (Gregory, 2004). Ranging from the composition of metropolitan policing and contemporary counterterrorism by British colonial

8

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

policing in Northern Ireland (Williams, 2004; Ellison and O’Reilly, 2008) to the making of American policing in the Philippines (McCoy, 2009b, this volume) and Latin America (Müller, 2015; Rosenau, 2014), these studies have demonstrated that colonial territories and imperial encounters were veritable “laboratories of modernity” (Stoler and Cooper, 1997: 5). As in other fields of modern governmental practices, imperial and colonizing powers experimented with policing, social control, and surveillance-related practices, knowledge, and technologies. In the guise of what Hanna Arendt (see also Foucault, 2003: 103; Graham and Baker, this volume) describes as “the boomerang effect of imperialism on the homeland” (Arendt, 1973: 155), these experiments travelled back home, thereby producing a cross-fertilization (Sinclair, this volume; Sinclair and Williams, 2007) between colonial and metropolitan policing practices and knowledge. These processes and their effects characterize global security institutions and practices long after formal colonialism and the age of empires came to an end (see also Brogden, 1987; Brogden and Ellison, 2012: Chap. 1; McCoy, this volume, 2009a; Müller, 2015; Sinclair, 2006; Thomas, 2011; Williams, 2004). This continuing legacy of such policing encounters has been demonstrated in a paradigmatic way in Alfred McCoy’s (2009a; 2009b) detailed analysis of the entanglement of (post)colonial policing and state formation in the United States and the Philippines. His work showcases the crucial role of policing and surveillance technology within the mutually reinforcing patterns of (post) colonial state formation and the emergence of surveillance regimes, knowledge production, and security techniques and technologies in both countries. Freed from legal and constitutional constraints, McCoy demonstrates how the US colonial administration in the Philippines experimented with policing strategies and surveillance technologies that were later reimported back home, thereby “making the Philippines a social laboratory for the perfection of American state power” (McCoy 2009a: 106) – an ongoing process of security entanglements from the beginning of the twentieth century to the contemporary ‘War on Terror’ (see also McCoy, this volume). Moreover, while, in light of these observations, global postcolonial policing entanglements could easily be read as reducing postcolonies to the status of laboratories for external actors to refine and modify policing practices, it is important to keep in mind the agency of seemingly marginalized actors in postcolonies. The latter actively contribute to circulating technologies and practices of policing, and also appropriate, (re)negotiate, and modify externally promoted and imposed policing models (Belcher, 2015; Hönke and Müller, 2012: 387–8; see also the discussions by Tickner and Bilgin in this volume). These insights can be brought into a productive dialogue with postcolonial perspectives within security studies. In fact, it seems that while historical policing research provides ample illustrations of basic analytical claims made by postcolonial scholars, there has been strikingly little interest in engaging with postcolonial ideas and concepts. Therefore, we claim that the rich empirical findings from historians working on imperial and (post)colonial

The global making of policing

9

policing, and the more abstract analytical and theoretical tools offered by postcolonial (security) studies, which all stress the co-constituted character of global policing, can be combined to ‘provincialise’ (Chakrabaty, 2000) contemporary knowledge of global policing. This is accomplished by rejecting its inherent Western-centrism and parochialism that perpetuates epistemological boundaries. The latter, as Boatcaˇ et al. have argued in another context, “so far have prevented the emergence of a global sociology of colonial, neocolonial and postcolonial [policing] contexts” (Boatcaˇ et al., 2010: 14).

The global making of policing: Analytics for studying up, across and in-between From the above follows that alternative analytical perspectives are needed that better recognize the entangled character of (policing) histories. Accordingly, the contributions to this book all open up avenues for such research. Building on methodological reflections developed in more detail elsewhere (Hönke and Müller, 2012), all contributions move beyond dominant North– South perspectives on global policing. They all strive for a methodology that engages multiple ‘metropoles’ and (post)‘colonies’, treating them as part of one relational field. Far from simply reflecting a one-way North–South governance diffusion as suggested by Bowling and Sheptycki, the chapters reveal the much more complex and multidirectional processes at play in the global making of policing technologies and practices. They highlight the distributed agency in the making of policing but also the hierarchy and violence inherent in liberal global policing. As for the latter, it is, for instance, shown how some of the entanglements that underpin the export-import business of global policing work according to a veritable logic of laboratories: a number of sites in the postcolony indeed function as laboratories of postmodern security governance; as sites in which technologies of control are tried out that would not be at home, yet that then travel to Springfield and elsewhere shaping, e.g., domestic surveillance, urban policing or border controls in ‘the West’ (Coaffee and Wood, 2006; Müller, 2015; see Graham and Baker, McCoy, and Stockmarr in this volume). In order to do this, and without claiming to be the first nor alone “in refusing disciplinary boundaries and decrying some of their effects” (Jessop and Ngai-Ling, 2001: 89), the chapters offer distinctly transdisciplinary perspectives and integrate perspectives that are rarely brought into a productive dialogue with each other, namely Criminology, International Relations, Area Studies, History, and Science, Technology and Society Studies. As argued throughout, where we ask questions from is crucial. It is also paramount to determine what method(ologie)s we adopt to find and pursue these questions. In this regard, our contribution ties in with recent efforts in IR to reflect and further explicate empirical strategies and method(ologie)s for an international sociology of IR, a decolonizing of IR, and critical security studies (see, for instance, Vrasti, 2008; Sabaratnam, 2011; Hönke and Müller, 2012; Aradau et al., 2015). As Aradau et al. (2015) recently re-emphasized,

10

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

treating methods as afterthoughts to theory already (re)produces a particular (political) practice of knowledge production. Embracing a critical, reflexive approach to methods in their interplay with methodology and theory opens up space for rethinking and theorizing the global making of policing. Downto-earth engagement with empirical case studies provides for a more fine-tuned analysis than the prevailing metanarrative engagement with the postcolonial relationship between empire(s)/metropole(s) and peripheries. We hope that this will contribute to developing empirical research strategies for decentring and decolonizing our understanding of the global making of policing, and international security more generally. We suggest three analytical strategies that appear particularly useful in this regard. A first analytical perspective that we would like to single out revolves around ‘laboratories’. The laboratory refers to situations in which new, often exclusionary and violent technologies of policing are being developed and tested with the active contribution of Western actors in (post)colonies deemed in need of being policed differently. However, these modes and technologies constitute policing in Springfield as much as in Afghanistan. They travel across the globe and back to shape ‘homeland security’ in the metropole. An important channel for such travelling back is the growing global economy around homeland security (see Stockmarr, this volume). Such processes are also evident in the growing interest in the use of drones (first massively deployed in the ‘War on Terror’ abroad) for ‘domestic’ urban policing and border enforcement in the United States (see Graham and Baker, this volume). The second analytical axis revolves around ‘South–South’ security encounters and whether these contribute to decolonizing policing. Global policing is global in the sense that such entanglements are not limited to North–South encounters, which continue to dominate most research on transnational security governance. An example of South–South connections are UN peacekeeping operations in which Southern countries like Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan play an increasingly important role as personnel-providing nations (see, for example, Krishnasamy, 2001, 2003). Latin American countries like Brazil and Guatemala have also added to this trend with active participation in UN missions like the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, see Müller, this volume) or the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) (on these issues, see International Peacekeeping, 2010). South–South security transfers also take on more commodified forms on the growing global “market of force” (Avant, 2005), where private military companies tend to recruit former military personnel from countries in the Global South for security operations in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Furthermore, about one-third of the assumed 30,000 private military contractors that formed part of the international intervention in Iraq came from other countries than the United States and Great Britain. A substantial number was in fact ex-military personnel from Latin America, leading one observer to call their presence “Latin America’s hidden war in Iraq” (Foreign Policy, 2007). Hence, the

The global making of policing

11

global character of global policing is also reflected in such entanglements identifiable within, between and across different postcolonies (Khalili, 2010; Müller, in this volume; Tickner, in this volume). Questions to be explored are how global policing is made in these encounters, a making largely invisible so far; and whether these entanglements make for a different, perhaps also a – as some have called for – more decolonial global policing. Third, it is important to scrutinize how policing is made, performed, enacted and shaped by multiple actors and their everyday practices in global security assemblages, and how this is shaped by the postcolonial condition. Security experts and practitioners operate as part of transnational social fields in which what counts as ‘security problems’ and ‘standard practices’ is constantly (re)produced and shaped. “[T]ransnational professional guilds” (Bigo, 2011: 250) are crucial for tracing how ideas, technologies and practices of policing are turned into something global, but also for how these get made and transformed. The role of the postcolony in these contexts requires more attention though. Many of the Bourdieu-inspired studies of professional security fields have concentrated on Europe (but see Müller, 2014), or on professional knowledge and routine practice as generated from traditional Weberian-state military and police institutions or multinational private security and military companies. This is, however, only part of the story and postcolonial insights help here to decentre and sharpen critical attention to the postcolonial. The hybrid regime of policing practices prevailing around the sites of multinational oil and mining companies is a case in point here. Far from ‘the local’ corrupting ‘global’ norms of corporate social responsibility, routine practices of producing order by way of clientelist, indirect rule and physical coercion, alongside community engagement, has been co-produced by African politicians and security agents with multinational companies and commercial security professionals working with them (Hönke, 2013). A postcolonial lens helps to shed light on how postcolonial hierarchies shape dynamics within these fields, but also on how ex-centric sites and actors play a role in producing and shaping global policing (Laffey and Nadarajah, Sinclair, this volume). Likewise, new transnational subjects deemed problematic surface, as transnational security assemblages evolving around diaspora (see Laffey and Nadarajah, this volume). A postcolonial lens here captures the socially and geographically dispersed agency in the global making of policing.

Contributions: on laboratories, ‘South–South’ encounters and postcolonial transnational assemblages Building on the above outlined understanding of the uneven yet entangled and co-produced security topographies of our present, the following chapters offer alternative histories of the making of global policing. They engage the theoretical and methodological issues developed above through in-depth analyses of specific security encounters and processes of making policing institutions and practices. By so doing they create space for constructing

12

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

alternative categories for making sense of our contemporary world, and overall contribute to broaden and deepen postcolonial perspectives in security studies and IR more broadly. The first set of chapters revolves around laboratories. Chapter two, by Alfred McCoy, traces the origins of US internal security back to America’s imperial conquest of the Philippines and the related emergence of the US as a global power from circa 1898. McCoy demonstrates how, from the start of the US occupation in 1898, the Philippines served as the site of a social experiment in the use of police as an instrument of state power. At this periphery of empire, freed from the constraints of courts, constitution, and civil society, the US colonial regime fused new information technologies, the product of America’s first information revolution, to create what was arguably the world’s first full ‘surveillance state’. A decade later, these illiberal lessons percolated homeward through the invisible capillaries of empire to foster domestic US surveillance during the social crisis surrounding World War I. These innovations have persisted, in various forms, for nearly a century, informing robotic regimes and digital surveillance today. Looking at US–Israeli collaboration in urban policing, Stephen Graham and Alex Baker explore, in the third chapter, the connections between the militarization of policing and pacification within the United States – and the tightening connections between the parallel efforts of the US and Israeli militaries to reorganize themselves in ways that counter non-state mobilizations in occupied cities during counterinsurgency campaigns. Opening up with a discussion of recent controversies surrounding paramilitarized policing in places like Ferguson, Missouri, the chapter connects these to a range of deep connections between US and Israeli military ‘urban operations’ in Gaza. Discussions centre, in turn, on legal and biopolitical issues; the role of Gaza as a ‘laboratory’; urban walling; drone operations; the commercialization of ‘homeland security’ materiel; and, finally, joint economic ventures in the blurring worlds of ‘homeland security’ and urban counterinsurgency operations. From a different angle, Leila Stockmarr examines in the fourth chapter the export of security practices from the Gaza showroom to the global homeland security economy. Israel’s practices of policing in and around the Gaza Strip have created a model of security that is exported to a variety of settings globally. Stockmarr traces how a growing industry of Israeli security companies has developed a range of tools in cooperation with the Israeli military to govern people and places with a minimum of human contact and friction. Based on the long-term experience of settler colonial rule, this has turned Gaza into a security ‘laboratory’ for a global market of policing. In drawing upon original empirical data collected at arms fairs and interviews with producers of security technology in Israel, the chapter shows how logics of control are transferred into exportable and commercialized homeland security products; the ‘Gaza experience’ being packaged in ways that fit other contexts not necessarily linked to warfare and anti-terrorist enterprises. The global security market relies on such productions of technologies of policing in

The global making of policing

13

localities such as Gaza, and it is hence argued that the transnational movement of security logics and technology creates a tight connection between warfare, border control and mundane policing. In this way, Israeli practices and private companies’ involvement in Gaza provide input to a broader industry of inequality management and pacification, which encompasses militaries, private security and police forces on a global scale: a global making of policing. The second set of chapters moves away from the ‘laboratory’ settings above and zooms in on newly emerging powers and the making of global policing in ‘South-South’ security encounters, which have received very little attention in the policing literature so far. In chapter five, Markus-Michael Müller examines the entanglement of pacification strategies between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The chapter analyses attempts by the Rio de Janeiro city government to implement a new community-oriented policing scheme, symbolized by the creation of the so-called ‘Pacification Police Units’ (UPPs), in order to ‘pacify’ and ‘develop’ the city’s most marginalized urban areas for two mega-events (the 2014 Soccer World Championship and the 2016 Olympic Games). It is shown that the UPPs are directly inspired by the experiences of the Brazilian peacekeeping efforts in Haiti within the context of MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti) and the underlying practices of counterinsurgent urban pacification efforts and ‘population-centric’ militarized policing. In analysing the travelling of urban counterinsurgency policing practices between Rio de Janeiro and Port-auPrince this chapter illustrates how Brazil’s participation in MINUSTAH converted Haiti into a counterinsurgency laboratory. As these counterinsurgent policing practices travel back and forth between Haiti and contemporary Rio de Janeiro, they re-articulate a pattern of authoritarian Brazilian urban policing that was modelled upon the French counterinsurgency approach in the Algerian war. Moreover, they also interact with the domestic postcolonial legacies of Brazilian policing and its deeply embedded practice of suppressing the racialized urban ‘other’. In tracing these postcolonial counterinsurgent policing entanglements in the Global South, Müller demonstrates how ‘population-centric’ policing contributed to the resurgence of torture, disappearances and extralegal killings in ‘pacified’ Rio de Janeiro. Moving us from Brazil and Haiti to Colombia, Arlene Tickner demonstrates in chapter six that the triangulation with the United States has become a key component of Colombian efforts to export security regionally (to other Latin American countries) and globally (e.g., to West Africa). The chapter analyses this new mode of ‘North–South–South’ security interaction through the lens of ‘associated dependent cooperation’, which is characterized by the continuation of asymmetry and non-zero sum interaction between the core and periphery. Tickner shows that Colombia’s status as a security provider is premised on recognition of the superiority of US knowledge and efforts to gain favour within the core-periphery structure rather than challenging it. However, by tracing how US readings of security were transferred first to

14

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

Colombia and then re-exported, the chapter also illustrates the mimicry, and hence Colombian agency, at play in asymmetrical international security cooperation. The third set of chapters revolves around the making of global policing in postcolonial transnational security assemblages. In chapter seven, Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah explore the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the global making of policing. It starts from the observation that scholarly and policy research identifies the diaspora as a key source of insecurity for the state. For example, diaspora is now prominently linked to armed conflicts elsewhere as well as to the possibilities of foreign danger while threatening to penetrate the domestic arena. Viewed in this way, the diaspora prompts the production of forms of power/knowledge centred on securing the nation-state and, by extension, international order. Using the Tamil diaspora in Britain as a case study, it argues that policing – understood as governance directed to the production of security – is interwoven with and co-constituted by the challenges to order that policing articulates as transnational threats and seeks to extinguish. Against accounts that situate the origins of such knowledge and practice in Eurocentric diffusionist models of the international, the chapter reveals the intimate relations between policing in the metropole and liberal order-making in the periphery. All of this demonstrates the mutual implication of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ and of ‘liberal’ and ‘non-liberal’ worlds. Chapter eight then moves on to the global making of international police assistance. Georgina Sinclair examines how deploying police to provide overseas assistance has markedly increased since the mid-1990s. Focussing on the experiences of UK police officers undertaking overseas missions from 1999 to 2014, she shows how the transfer of a ‘Western’ (in this case, ‘British’) policing style is confronted by other diverse police nationalities, many originating from the Global South. It is argued that international policing (assistance) in practice has indeed started to move away from a North–South police dialogue to becoming a global policing exchange. Through fieldwork and oral testimonies of UK police officers professional-cultural exchanges have been described as a process of ‘exchange of capacity’. It is argued that the international policing experiences gained by these officers when working alongside multiple international police partners also reshape police work at home. The ninth chapter by Lars Ostermeier uses a translational perspective for analysing the global making of policing, taking international police-building programmes in Afghanistan as an empirical example. Analysing the performativity of processes of translation, it discusses how ‘progress’ in police-building programmes is enacted across transnational organizational and cultural spaces. For doing so, it draws on interviews conducted in Afghanistan and Germany, policy papers and academic studies. It is shown how through processes of translation, multiple realities of ‘modern’ and ‘Western’ concepts of policing are interwoven with concepts and empirical practices in use in Afghanistan. Challenging the presumed existence of fixed policing knowledge

The global making of policing

15

that is available for transfer and implementation, it is argued that knowledge about policing is simultaneously globalized and differentiated across multiple levels and localities. These processes of translation enact ‘progress’ by constantly reformulating concepts for police-building projects and their objectives – a process of a global making of policing. The conclusion, by Pinar Bilgin, discusses the contribution of this book to current debates in IR, postcolonial and security studies. Bilgin puts particular emphasis on the relevance of a ‘co-constitutive approach’ to the study of the global making of policing. With its focus on how actors from the Global North and Global South interact with and learn from each other, while simultaneously getting transformed in the process, she argues that this perspective allows to shed light on the roles played by both sides in the production of goods and ideas, and their mutual transformation through this interaction. It is through such a perspective, she concludes, that the hierarchical relationship between the core and the periphery, the agency exercised by the latter, and the limits of that agency, can be assessed in a comprehensive way that leads to a better understanding of the global making of policing from a postcolonial perspective.

Bibliography Abrahamsen, R. (2003). ‘African Studies and the Postcolonial Challenge’, African Affairs 102(407): 189–210. Agathangelou, A.M. and Ling, L.H.M. (2004). ‘Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11’, International Studies Quarterly 48(3): 517–538. Aradau, C., Huysmans, J., Neal, A. and Voelkner, N. (2015). Critical Security Methods. New Frameworks for Analysis. London: Routledge. Arendt, H. (1973). The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego, CA: Harcourt. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. (eds) (2007). Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge. Avant, D. (2005). The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bachmann, J., Bell, C. and Holmqvist, C. (eds) (2015). War, Police and Assemblages of Intervention. London: Routledge. Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2006). ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies’, Review of International Studies 32(2): 329–352. Barkawi, T. and Stanski, K. (2013). Orientalism and War. London: Hurst. Bayley, D.H. (1975). ‘The Police and Political Development in Europe’, in: Tilly, C. (ed.) The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 328–379. Belcher, O. (2015). ‘Tribal Militias, Neo-Orientalism, and the US-Military’s Art of Coercion’, in: Bachmann, J., Bell, C. and Holmqvist, C. (eds) War, Police and Assemblages of Intervention. London: Routledge, pp. 109–125. Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bhambra, G.K. (2010). ‘Historical Sociology, International Relations and Connected Histories’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23(1): 127–143.

16

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

Bigo, D. (2011). ‘Pierre Bourdieu and International Relations: Power of Practices, Practices of Power’, International Political Sociology 5: 225–258. Boatca˘ , M., Costa, S. and Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E. (2010). ‘Introduction. Decolonizing European Sociology: Different Paths towards a Pending Project’, in: Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E., Boatcaˇ , M. and Costa, S. (eds) Decolonizing European Sociology: Transdisciplinary Approaches. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1–12. Bowling, B. and Sheptycki, J. (2012). Global Policing. London: Sage. Brogden, M. (1987). ‘The Emergence of Policing – The Colonial Dimension’, British Journal of Criminology 27(1): 4–14. Brogden, M. and Ellison, G. (2012). Policing in an Age of Austerity: A Postcolonial Perspective. London: Routledge. Brune, N. (2011). ‘The Brazil-Africa Narco Nexus’, Americas Quarterly 5(4): 59. Buzan, B. and Hansen, L. (2009). The Evolution of International Security Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chakrabaty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chatterjee, P. (2004). The Politics of the Governed. Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World. New York: Columbia University Press. Chowdry, G. and Nair, S. (eds) (2002). Power and Postcolonialism in International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class. London: Routledge. Coaffee, J. and Wood, D.M. (2006). ‘Security Is Coming Home: Rethinking Scale and Constructing Resilience in the Global Urban Response to Terrorist Risk’, International Relations 20(4): 503–517. Collier, S.J. and Ong, A. (2006). ‘Global Assemblages, Anthropological Problems’, in: Ong, A. and Collier, S.J. (eds) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 3–21. Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J.L. (2012). Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America Is Evolving Toward Africa. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Coronil, F. (1996). ‘Beyond Occidentalism: Toward Nonimperial Geohistorical Categories’, Cultural Anthropology 11(1): 51–87. Crosby, A. and Monaghan, J. (2012). ‘Settler Governmentality in Canada and the Algonquins of Barriere Lake’, Security Dialogue October 43(5): 421–438. Dubber, M.D. and Valverde, M. (2006). ‘Perspectives on the Power and Science of Police’, in: Dubber, M.D. and Valverde, M. (eds) The New Police Science: Police Power in Domestic and International Governance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ellison, G. and O’Reilly, C. (2008). ‘From Empire to Iraq and the “War on Terror”: The Transplantation and Commodification of the (Northern) Irish Policing Experience’, Police Quarterly 11(4): 395–426. Fassin, D. (2013). Enforcing Producing Order. An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Cambridge: Polity. Foreign Policy (2007). ‘Latin America’s Hidden War in Iraq’, 11 October. Foucault, M. (2003). Society Must Be Defended. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–6. London: Allen Lane. Gregory, D. (2004). The Colonial Present. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Grossman, M. and Sparks, C. (2005). ‘Unsettled States’, Postcolonial Studies 8(3): 235–241. Gupta, A. (1998) Postcolonial Development: Agriculture and the Making of Modern India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

The global making of policing

17

Hall, S. (1992). ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’, in: Hall, S. and Geiben, B. (eds) Formations of Modernity. Oxford: Open University/Polity Press. Hall, S. (1996) ‘When Was the “Post-Colonial”? Thinking at the Limits’, in: Chambers, I. and Curti, L. (eds) The Post-Colonial Question. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 242–260. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hills, A. (2009). Policing Post-Conflict Cities. London: Zed Books. Hobsbawm, E. (1987). The Age of Empire: 1875–1914. New York: Vintage Books. Hobson, J.M. (2012). The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hönke, J. (2013). Transnational Companies and Security Governance. Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World. London: Routledge. Hönke, J. and Müller, M.-M. (2012). ‘Governing (In)Security in a Postcolonial World: Transnational Entanglements and the Worldliness of Local Practice’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 383–402. Innes, M. (2003). Understanding Social Control: Crime and Social Order in Late Modernity. Maidenhead: Open University Press. International Peacekeeping (2010). Special Issue: South American Perspectives on Peace Operations. Jessop, B. and Ngai-Ling, S. (2001). ‘Pre-disciplinary and Post-disciplinary Perspectives’, New Political Economy 6(1): 89–101. Johnson, M. (2011). ‘Reconciliation, indigeneity, and postcolonial nationhood in settler states’, Postcolonial Studies 14(2): 187–201. Khalili, L. (2010): ‘The Location of Palestine in Global Counterinsurgency’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41(2): 413–433. Kienscherf, M. (forthcoming). ‘“A Struggle for Control and Influence”: Western Counterinsurgency and the Problematic of Autonomy’, in: Moe, L.W. and Müller, M. M. (eds) Reconfiguring Intervention: Complexity, Resilience and the Local Turn in Counterinsurgent Warfare. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Knöbl, W. (1998). Polizei und Herrschaft im Modernisierungsprozeß. Staatsbildung und innere Sicherheit in Preußen, England und Amerika 1700–1914. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Krishna, S. (1999). Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Krishnasamy, K. (2001). ‘“Recognition” for Third World Peacekeepers: India and Pakistan’, International Peacekeeping 8(4): 56–76. Krishnasamy, K. (2003). ‘Bangladesh and UN Peacekeeping: The Participation of a “Small” State’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 41(1): 24–47. Laffey, M. and Nadarajah, S. (2012). ‘The Hybridity of Liberal Peace: States, Diasporas and Insecurity’, Security Dialogue October 43(5): 403–420. Ling, L.H.M. (2002). Postcolonial International Relations: Conquest and Desire between Asia and the West. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Loomba, A. (2005). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge. McCoy, A.W. (2009a). ‘Policing the Imperial Periphery: Philippine Pacification and the Rise of the U.S. National Security State’, in: McCoy, A.W. and Scrano, F.A. (eds) Colonial Crucible. Empire in the Making of the Modern American State. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 106–115. McCoy, A.W. (2009b). Policing America’s Empire. The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

18

Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller

Mignolo, W. (2005). The Idea of Latin America. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Millenium (2011). ‘Special issue: Dialogue in international relations’, 39(3): 607–803. Müller, M.-M. (2014). ‘De-monopolizing the Bureaucratic Field: Internationalization Strategies and the Transnationalization of Security Governance in Mexico City’, Alternatives 39(1): 37–54. Müller, M.-M. (2015). ‘Punitive Entanglements: The “War on Gangs” and the Making of a Transnational Penal Apparatus in the Americas’, Geopolitics 20(3): 696–727. Müller, M.-M. and Ostermeier, L. (2014). Decolonizing German Police Building: The (Post)Colonial Afterlife of the Deutsch-Afghanische Freundschaft. Paper presented at the conference ‘Policing Empires: Social Control, Political Transition, (Post)Colonial Legacies’, Bruxelles. Muppidi, H. (1999). ‘Postcoloniality and the Production of International Insecurity: The Persistent Puzzle of U.S.–Indian relations’, in: Weldes, J., Laffey, M., Gusterson, H. and Duvall, R. (eds) Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 119–146. Neocleous, M. (2000). The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power. London: Pluto Press. Paolini, A.J., Elliott, A. and Moran, A. (eds) (1999). Navigating Modernity: Postcolonialism, Identity, and International Relations. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Porter, P. (2009). Military Orientalism. Eastern War through Western Eyes. London: Hurst. Reiner, R. (2010). The Politics of the Police. Fourth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 39–114. Rosenau, W. (2014). ‘“Our Ghettos Too, Need a Lansdale”: American CounterInsurgency Abroad and at Home in the Vietnam Era’, in: Gvener, W., Jones, C.D.M. and Smith, M.R.L. (eds) The New Counter-Insurgency Era in Critical Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, pp. 111–126. Sabaratnam, M. (2011). ‘IR in Dialogue, but Can We Change the Subjects? A Typology of Decolonising Strategies for the Study of World Politics’, Millenium: 1–23. Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Seth, S. (2013a). Postcolonial Theory and International Relations. London: Routledge. Seth, S. (2013b). ‘Introduction’, in: Seth, S. (ed.) Postcolonial Theory and International Relations. A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, pp. 1–13. Sinclair, G. (2006). At the End of the Line. Colonial Policing and the Imperial Endgame 1945–80. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sinclair, G. and Williams, C.A. (2007). ‘“Home and Away”: The Cross-Fertilisation between “Colonial” and “British” Policing, 1921–1985’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 35(2): 221–238. Slater, D. (2004). Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial. Rethinking North–South Relations. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Steinmetz, G. (1999). ‘Culture and the State’, in: Steinmetz, G. (ed.) State/Culture: State-formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 1–49. Stoler, A.L. and Cooper, F. (1997). ‘Between Metropole and Colony. Rethinking a Research Agenda’, in: Stoler, A.L. and Cooper, F. (eds) Tensions of Empire. Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 1–58. Thomas, M. (2011). ‘Introduction: Mapping Violence onto French Colonial Minds’, in: Thomas, M. (ed.) The French Colonial Mind, Volume 2. Violence, Military Encounters, and Colonialism. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, pp. xi–liii. Valverde, M. (2012). ‘The Crown in a Multicultural Age: The Changing Epistemology of (Post)colonial Sovereignty’, Social & Legal Studies 21(1): 3–21.

The global making of policing

19

Vasilaki, R. (2013). ‘Provincialising IR Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory’, Millenium 41(1): 3–22. Vrasti, W. (2008). ‘The Strange Case of Ethnography and International Relations’, Millennium 37(2): 279–301. Washington Times (2013). ‘Massachusetts Police Take Iraq Counterinsurgency Tactics to Streets to Fight Gangs’, 6 May. Williams, R. (2004). ‘A State of Permanent Exception’, Interventions 5(3): 322–344. Young, R. (2003). Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2

Capillaries of empire Colonial pacification and the origins of US global surveillance Alfred McCoy

By inserting the current controversy over global surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) into a deeper historical context, we can trace the origins of U.S. internal security back to America’s emergence as a global power after 1898. While U.S. pacification campaigns in the Philippines circa 1900 or Afghanistan since 2001 have skirted defeat if not disaster, the information infrastructure for the U.S. exercise of global power, as if driven by some inbuilt engineering, has advanced to ever-higher levels of data management and coercive capacity. With costs for conventional military occupations now becoming prohibitive, the U.S. will likely deploy, circa 2020, an evolving robotic information regime—with a triple-canopy aerospace shield, advanced cyberwarfare, and digital surveillance—to envelop the earth in an electronic grid of unprecedented pervasiveness for the exercise of global power. From the first hours of U.S. colonial conquest in August 1898, the Philippines served as the site of a social experiment in the use of police as an instrument of state power. In the decade that followed, the U.S. Army plunged into a crucible of counterinsurgency, forming its first field intelligence unit that combined voracious data gathering with rapid dissemination of tactical intelligence. At this periphery of empire, freed from the constraints of courts, constitution, and civil society, the U.S. imperial regime fused new technologies, the product of America’s first information revolution, to fashion what was arguably the world’s first full surveillance state. A decade later during World War I, these illiberal lessons percolated homeward through the invisible capillaries of empire to foster the country’s first domestic security service, organized by a small cadre of Philippine veterans. America’s experimentation with policing at this periphery of its global power was thus seminal in the formation of a U.S. internal security apparatus for extensive domestic surveillance (McCoy, 2009b: 106–115). Over the past century, this same process has recurred, with striking similarities, as more recent U.S. pacification campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have dragged on for a decade or more, skirting defeat if not disaster. During each of these attempts to subjugate a dense Asian rural society, the U.S. military has been pushed to the breaking point and responded by drawing together all extant information resources, fusing them into an infrastructure

Capillaries of empire

21

of unprecedented power, and creating thereby innovative systems for both domestic surveillance and global control. These campaigns have also proved seminal in fostering a distinctive U.S. imperial epistemology that privileges extrinsic, quantifiable data over deep cultural knowledge. Probing the colonial origins of contemporary surveillance adds analytical depth to current events, particularly Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA. Indeed, the salience, and significance, of recent surveillance practices explored in this chapter can only be fully understood via an approach that contextualizes their historical unfolding within the changing character of U.S. imperial controls. Thus, understanding the reliance of colonial police on political scandal as a control mechanism circa 1900 offers insight into the logic of current NSA surveillance of allied leaders worldwide.

Information and intelligence During an extraordinary decade, the 1870s to the 1880s, America’s first information revolution arose from a synergy of innovations in the management of textual and statistical data that created the technical capacity for surveillance of the many rather than just a few—a defining attribute, in my view, of the modern state. Within these few years, the sum of Thomas Edison’s quadruplex telegraph (1874), Philo Remington’s commercial typewriter (1874), and Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (1876) allowed the transmission of textual data in unprecedented quantities, at unequaled speed, and with unsurpassed accuracy (Richards, 1964: 23–25; Coe, 1993: 89). After Herman Hollerith patented the punch card (1889), the U.S. Census Bureau adopted his Electrical Tabulating machine in 1890 to enumerate 62,622,250 Americans within a few weeks—a stunning success that later led to the founding of International Business Machines, better known by its acronym IBM (Howell, 1995: 33–34, 40–42; Austin, 1992: 13–21; Wines, 1900: 34–36; Kistermann, 2005: 56–66; Pugh, 1995: 1–36; Eggen, 2002; Koon, 1914: 533–36; Jones n.d.; Howells, 2000). In the mid-1870s as well, Melvil Dewey catalogued the Amherst College Library with his Dewey Decimal System and Charles A. Cutter worked at Boston’s Athenaeum Library to create what became the current Library of Congress system—both, in effect, inventing the Smart Number for reliable encoding and rapid retrieval to manage this rising tide of information (Wiegand, 1996: 14–24; Wiegand and Davis, 1994: 147–50; Comaromi and Satija, 1988: 4–9; LaMontagne, 1961: 52–99, 179–233). Within a decade, U.S. libraries, hospitals, and armed forces applied the Smart Number to create systems that reduced otherwise inchoate masses of data to alphanumeric codes for rapid filing, retrieval, and cross-referencing—allowing a modernization of the Federal bureaucracy, both civil and military (Bethel, 1947: 17– 24). Using the Gamewell Corporation’s innovative technology, America’s cities were, by 1900, wired with a total of 764 municipal fire-alarm systems and 148 police-patrol networks handling a total of 41 million messages in a

22

Alfred McCoy

single year (Gamewell, 1916: chaps. 2–7; Little Jr., 1976: 83; Heath, 1981: 32, 45, 69–71; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1904: 421–22). On the eve of empire at century’s turn, however, Congress and courts restrained any national application of these innovations, leaving the federal government with a limited capacity for law enforcement beyond the Customs barrier. After 1898, the conquest of the Philippines made America an imperial power, unleashing the potential of this new information technology. In a sprawling U.S. empire of Western plains and tropical islands, only the Philippines strained America’s coercive capacities with a fifteen-year war against an extraordinary array of insurgents—national army, urban underground, guerrilla resistance, militant unions, messianic peasants, and Muslim separatists. As it struggled to uproot guerrillas immersed in rugged terrain and hostile populations, the U.S. Army discovered the imperative of accurate intelligence and established the Division of Military Information, or DMI—the first field intelligence unit in its hundred-year history. In early 1901, Captain Ralph Van Deman, later known as the ‘father of U.S. Military Intelligence,’ assumed command and began developing procedures that would influence later intelligence operations for the entire U.S. Army (Jensen, 1991: 112; Powe, 1975: 18–21; Campbell, 1987: 13; Bigelow, 1990: 38). Instead of passively filing documents like staff at the Military Information Division in Washington, Van Deman’s Manila command combined reports from the army’s 450 post information officers with data from the colony’s civil police to track rebel movements and identify their locations for timely raids (Weber, 1988: 7–8; Linn, 1991:100–08; Linn, 1989: 155–56).

Colonial Constabulary After his inauguration in July 1901, the first U.S. civil governor, William Howard Taft, established the Philippines Constabulary as a long-arm mobile police and assigned it the dual mission of counterinsurgency and colonial intelligence. With its network of some 200 Filipino spies, the Constabulary’s Information Division drew data through intensive surveillance, covert penetration, and monitoring of press and public discourse (McCoy, 2009a: 104–06, 129). Within this U.S. colonial panopticon, the Constabulary was systematic in its collection of incriminating information and selective in its release—suppressing scandals to protect allies and releasing scurrilous information to destroy enemies. By late 1904, for example, Archbishop Gregorio Aglipay was about to legitimate his nationalist schism, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, which controlled 30 percent of the country’s Catholic parishes, with a final, critical step: the grant of apostolic succession from the U.S. Episcopal Church. The U.S. colonial regime saw this schism as a serious threat to its alliance with the Catholic Church and regarded Archbishop Aglipay himself as an unrepentant revolutionary (Clifford, 1969: 234–45; Grove, 1903; Achutegui and Bernad, 1961: 206–08).

Capillaries of empire

23

Thus, as U.S. Episcopalian bishops gathered at Boston in 1904 to consider an affiliation with this Philippine schismatic church, Constabulary Chief Henry Allen blocked any alliance by sending the American bishops an intelligence profile of Aglipay—stating spuriously he had, during the Revolution against Spain, ordered a Spanish bishop flogged with 300 lashes and later prowled the halls of a Catholic convent with lecherous intent (Brent, 1904a, 1904b; Allen, 1904; Brent, 1904c; Clymer, 1986: 122). In a closed session, the Episcopal bishops rejected recognition of the Aglipayan Church, delaying the natural union of these two churches for another 60 years, long after Philippine independence (Brent, n.d.; Achutegui and Bernad, 1961: 388–90; Clymer, 1986: 120–22). Along with other colonial pressures, this setback contributed to a rapid decline in the strength and status of the Aglipayan nationalist schism.

Colonial blueprint This Philippine pacification was, in retrospect, the first manifestation of the repressive potential of America’s new information technology. On the eve of empire in 1898, the country was what Stephen Skowronek has called a ‘patchwork’ state with a loosely structured administrative apparatus, leaving ample room for innovation that came, with stunning speed, during these years of empire, particularly in a key area he overlooks—the federal capacity for state security (Skowronek, 1982: 8–18, 39–46). When America entered World War I in April 1917, it had the only army on the battlefield without an intelligence service of any description. With surprising speed, these colonial police methods migrated homeward through the invisible capillaries of empire to provide templates for two new U.S. Army commands that fostered a domestic security apparatus—Military Intelligence and Military Police. Within weeks, Colonel Ralph Van Deman drew upon his Philippine experience to establish U.S. Military Intelligence, quickly recruiting a staff that grew from one employee (himself) to 1,700, and devising the entire institutional architecture for America’s first federal internal security agency. Just as the Philippine Constabulary had used civilian operatives, so Van Deman designed U.S. domestic security as a unique fusion of federal agencies and civil auxiliaries that would mark its operations for the next half-century. In collaboration with the FBI, Van Deman presided over a counterintelligence auxiliary, the American Protective League, with 350,000 civilian operatives who amassed over a million pages of surveillance reports on German Americans in just fourteen months of war (Kornweibel Jr., 1998: 7, 184; Dorwart, 1983: 7; McCormick, 1997: 3, 12–13; Jeffreys-Jones, 2007: 65–72). Similarly, in the war’s final months General Harry Bandholtz, drawing on what he called his “long experience in command of the Philippine Constabulary” (1907–13), established the U.S. Army’s Military Police (MP), charged with managing the chaos of Europe’s postwar occupation and demobilization. Following their formation in October 1918, Bandholtz

24

Alfred McCoy

quickly built the MPs into a corps of 31,627 men stationed in 476 cities and towns of five nations—France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany (Washington Evening Star, 1940; Bandholtz, 1919/1991: 313–28; Wright, Jr., 1992: 8–9). After the war as well, Bandholtz applied lessons learned from repressing Filipino radical movements to lead the army in crushing the only armed uprising that the U.S. faced in the twentieth century. In 1921, as 10,000 striking mineworkers armed with rifles shot it out with sheriffs and private security across Mingo and Logan counties in the mountains of West Virginia, Bandholtz quelled the violence without firing a shot. Using the psychological tactics learned from his years in the colonial Constabulary to dominate the union leaders, he deployed 2,100 federal troops to demobilize 5,400 miners, confiscate 278 firearms, and send everyone home. Sixteen men died in the five-day Battle of Blair Mountain, but none was shot by U.S. Army troops (Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Anthropology, 1992: 35–50; Laurie and Cole, 1997: 320–24; McCoy, 2009a: 316–18).

Postwar surveillance With war’s end in 1918, Military Intelligence revived the Protective League and organized the American Legion for two years of repression against the socialist left—marked by mob action across the Midwest, the notorious Lusk raids in New York City, J. Edgar Hoover’s ‘Palmer raids’ across the Northeast, and suppression of strikes from New York to Seattle. But once Congress and the press exposed these excesses, Republican conservatives—led by Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone and Secretary of State Henry Stimson—quickly curtailed Washington’s internal security apparatus (Jensen, 1968: 287–89; Hyman, 1959: 323–24; McCormick, 1997: 202; Kornweibel, 1998: 174–75; Kahn, 2004: 94–103; Van Deman, 1928; U.S. Senate, 1976b: 105–06, Schmidt, 2000: 324–28, 368). If General Van Deman’s wartime service won him the title ‘father of U.S. Military Intelligence,’ then his subsequent surveillance should earn him another honorific, ‘father of the American blacklist.’ After retiring from the army in 1929, Van Deman and his wife worked tirelessly for the next quartercentury from their bungalow in San Diego, filling the interwar void in U.S. internal security by coordinating an elaborate information exchange among military intelligence, police red squads, business security, and citizen vigilante groups to amass detailed files on 250,000 suspected subversives. As U.S. intelligence activity revived on the eve of World War II, Van Deman attended the confidential National Intelligence Conference in 1940 between J. Edgar Hoover and the chief of Army intelligence. Like the Pope at Tordesillas, they divided the world through the Delimitations Agreement—assigning counterintelligence for the Americas to the FBI and intelligence gathering for the rest of the world to the Army’s Military Intelligence and its descendants, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (Talbert Jr., 1991: 255–59; U.S. Senate, 1976a: 33–38).

Capillaries of empire

25

‘War on Terror’ As its pacification of Afghanistan and Iraq sank into the miasma of these dense social formations after 9/11, Washington adopted electronic surveillance, biometric identification, and unmanned aerial vehicles for pacification— whose sum is now forming a robotic information regime for the exercise of global hegemony. This amorphous war’s voracious appetite for information soon produced a veritable ‘fourth branch’ of the federal government with 854,000 vetted security officials and over 3,000 private and public intelligence organizations pumping out, in 2010, a total of 50,000 intelligence reports annually, many redundant and unread (Priest and Arkin, 2010). After vocal public opposition to its overt attempts at domestic surveillance under Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) and the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness, the Bush administration retreated into the shadows to launch secret domestic surveillance by the FBI and NSA (Shenon, 2002: A-12; Lichtblau, 2003:, A-1; Lichtblau, 2004: A-17; Lichtblau, 2005: A-12; Hentoff, 2002a; Eggen, 2002: A-1; Crossen, 2002; Hentoff, 2002b). In 2002, Congress erased the bright line that had long barred the CIA from domestic spying, granting the agency power to access U.S. financial records and audit electronic communications routed through the country (Weiner, 2002, C-1; Weiner, 2007: 482–83). Not satisfied, President Bush, starting in October 2001, ordered the NSA to commence covert monitoring of private communications through the nation’s telephone companies without the requisite warrants (Risen and Lichtblau, 2013). Since the Bush administration decided “metadata was not constitutionally protected,” the NSA launched a sweeping attempt under Operation Stellar Wind “to collect bulk telephone and Internet metadata” (National Security Agency, 2009: 7–13). In 2005, the New York Times exposed this illegal surveillance for the first time (Risen and Lichtblau, 2005). A year later, USA Today reported the NSA was “secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and Bell South.” One expert called it “the largest database ever assembled in the world,” adding presciently that the agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” (Cauley, 2006). Armed with expanded powers by Congressional legislation in 2007 and 2008 that legalized Bush’s once illegal program, the NSA launched its PRISM program by compelling nine Internet service providers to transfer what became billions of emails to its massive data farms (Gellman and Poitras, 2013).

Surveillance under Obama Instead of curtailing this wartime surveillance as Republican reformers had done in the 1920s, President Obama instead expanded the NSA’s digital panopticon as a permanent weapon for the exercise of U.S. global power. Under Obama, the NSA’s foreign and domestic Internet penetration became

26

Alfred McCoy

so pervasive that the U.S. surveillance state moved beyond what James Scott has termed the state’s imposition of ‘legibility’ on its lands and people (Scott, 1998: 1–3, 11–72, 373) to something we might call permeability—not merely monitoring superficial movement, but seeing inside Americans’ lives. By the end of Obama’s first term in 2012, the NSA’s global surveillance was remarkable for its ability to simultaneously sweep up billions of messages worldwide and monitor specific international leaders. To achieve this extraordinary agility, Obama completed the agency’s architecture for a global surveillance regime—including access points for penetration of the World Wide Web of fiber-optic cables; ancillary intercepts through special protocols and ‘backdoor’ software flaws; the $250 million Cray Cascade supercomputer, capable of a quadrillion calculations per second for cracking encryption in this digital torrent; agile global programs like Boundless Informant intercepting 220 billion communications monthly; and a massive $1.6 billion data farm in Bluffdale, Utah, to store the endless ‘yottabytes’ of purloined data, including some 20 trillion transactions by U.S. citizens. To these assets, we must add blanket approval from federal courts, which authorized 100 percent of NSA requests for sweeping surveillance (MacAskill and Borger, 2013; Poitras et al., 2013; Bamford, 2008: 338–39; Greenwald, 2014: 92–93, 99, 129; Gruner, 2012). Illustrating the continuing synergy between overseas pacification and domestic surveillance, the ‘War on Terror’ provided both the political impetus and technical innovation for this rapid growth in U.S. surveillance. By the time the U.S. withdrew from Iraq in late 2011, the U.S. Army’s Biometrics Identity Management Agency (BIMA) had collected fingerprints and iris scans for three million people, or 10 percent of that country’s population. In Afghanistan by early 2012, U.S. military computers held biometrics for two million Afghans, again about 10 percent of this country’s population (Mansfield-Devine 2012, 5–6). Two years after the Pentagon’s Homeland Security commander, General Victor Renuart, called for the domestic application of this technology in 2009, a company called BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, began marketing the Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS), with smart phone–based iris recognition, to dozens of police forces across America (Howard, 2011; Hodge, 2009). Similarly, the military’s experimental Biometric Optical Surveillance System (BOSS), designed to spot suicide bombers in crowds of Afghans or Iraqis, was transferred to Homeland Security in 2010, which continued to develop facial recognition through surveillance cameras for future use by local police (Savage, 2013). Beyond U.S. borders, the World Wide Web’s centralization of most communications into a global network of fiber-optic cables, routed through relatively few data hubs that are all accessible to the NSA, has allowed the U.S. a capacity for global surveillance far beyond the British Empire’s yield from that era’s transoceanic telegraph cables. The NSA’s 2012 schematic for its Worldwide SIGINT/Defense Cryptologic Platform indicates that the agency

Capillaries of empire

27

inserted malware on 50,000 computers worldwide, capable of capturing every keystroke, through just 20 “covert, clandestine, or cooperative” cable access points, supplemented by 170 secondary and tertiary entries—an extraordinary economy of force for worldwide surveillance and cyberwarfare (National Security Agency, 2012; Greenwald, 2014: 117). Leaked NSA documents published in The Guardian indicate that the agency’s X-KeyScore program collected ‘staggeringly large’ quantities of Internet communications, including 850 billion ‘call events’ in 2007 and 41 billion records for a single month in 2012, thereby capturing “nearly everything a user does on the internet” from chat rooms to online searches (Greenwald, 2013). Through expenditures of $250 million annually under its Sigint Enabling Project, the NSA systematically and stealthily penetrated all encryption designed to protect privacy. “In the future, superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their cryptanalytic programs,” reads a 2007 NSA document. “It is the price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace” (Perlroth, Larson, and Scott, 2013). Driver Driver 1: Worldwide SIGINTlDefense Cryptologic platforJD Driver Driver Driver Driver OptiCal Cable Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver DriverDriver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver DriverDriverDriver Driver Driver Driver COVCf't.CI':1ndC$tino ACCeMe5

Driver

Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver Driver DriverDriver Driver Driver Driver

Figure 2.1 In this top secret document dated 2012, the NSA shows the Five Eyes allies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) its 190 ‘access programs’ for penetrating the Internet’s global grid of fiber-optic cables for both surveillance and cyberwarfare. (Source: NRC Handelsblad, November 23, 2013, slighly adapted for b/w print by the publisher).

28

Alfred McCoy

Under Obama as well, the NSA cooperated with its long-time British ally, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), to tap the dense cluster of Trans-Atlantic Telecommunication (TAT) fiber-optic cables that pass through the United Kingdom. Two years after turning its gaze from the skies above to probe the cables below at its Cornwall station, GCHQ’s Operation Tempora achieved the ‘biggest Internet access’ of any partner in the Five Eyes signals intercept coalition that includes the UK, the U.S., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. When the operation went online in 2011, GCHQ sank probes into 200 Internet cables and was soon collecting 600 million telephone messages daily, accessible to 850,000 NSA employees and U.S. private contractors (MacAskill et al., 2013). Apart from these close allies, the NSA also cooperated with agencies in another 21 ‘Tier B’ nations such as Germany, Japan, and Spain, greatly amplifying its global coverage (Greenwald, 2014: 122–24). Despite such close collaboration, the NSA has also conducted extensive surveillance of allied nations to more efficiently control the nexus of so-called ‘subordinate elites’ that has been the fulcrum for the U.S. exercise of global power since the mid-1950s (Robinson, 1972: 132–33, 138–39). Just as imperial police such as the Philippines Constabulary once surveilled thousands of local influentials who collaborated with colonial rule, so the CIA and NSA have monitored the several hundred national leaders who now play an analogous role in America’s global imperium. What is the aim of such sensitive surveillance, which runs the risk of serious political repercussion if exposed? Here, situating U.S. colonial policing in historical perspective provides a precedent that explains the strategy underlying the NSA’s seemingly contradictory global surveillance. In a parallel with U.S. colonial policing in the Philippines, such worldwide surveillance provides Washington with the information needed to maintain its global hegemony: first, operational intelligence on dissidents to be countered with covert action or military intervention; second, basic political and economic intelligence to advantage American diplomats in bi- or multilateral negotiations; third, scurrilous information about derelictions of national leaders useful in encouraging their compliance; and, finally, the empowerment of a neo-imperial gaze. Through the clandestine accumulation of knowledge about national leaders worldwide, Washington’s empowered rulers gain not only actual information, whether strategic or scandalous, but a deeper sense of omniscience for the exercise of dominion over inherently independent national leaders. Lending credibility to this inference that the aim of NSA operations is global power not domestic security, in 2013 a presidential review panel dismissed the agency’s claims that its pervasive surveillance had prevented terrorist attacks (Greenwald, 2014: 202–5). On a busy day in January 2013, the NSA collected 60 million phone calls and emails from Germany—with similar numbers for France, Italy, and Spain. To gain operational intelligence on these U.S. allies, the NSA tapped phones at European Council headquarters in Brussels and 38 ‘targets’ in Washington and New York—including the European Union (EU) delegation

Capillaries of empire

29

at the UN, and a Dropmire Monitor on the Cryptofax at the EU embassy in DC (Castle and Schmitt, 2013; MacAskill and Borger, 2013; Poitras et al., 2013). By late 2013, in the words of the New York Times, there were “more than 1,000 targets of American and British surveillance in recent years,” reaching down to even mid-level actors in the international arena. Apart from obvious subjects such as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the NSA and GCHQ monitored the vice president of the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia, who oversaw antitrust issues; the French energy company Total; and German government communications with Georgia, Rwanda, and Turkey (Ball and Hopkins, 2013; Glanz and Lehren, 2013). Such secret intelligence about its allies gives the U.S. a significant diplomatic advantage. According to NSA expert James Bamford, “it’s the equivalent of going to a poker game and wanting to know what everyone’s hand is before you place your bet” (Erlanger, 2013). Indeed, during the diplomatic wrangling at the UN over the Iraq invasion in 2002–03, the NSA intercepted Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s conversations and monitored the Middle Six of Third World nations on the Security Council—“listening in as the delegates communicated back to their home countries … to discover which way they might vote,” and offering “a highway, a dam, or a favorable trade deal … in a subtle form of bribery” (Bamford, 2008: 141–42). More recently, the NSA helped Ambassador Susan Rice “develop a strategy” for a UN Security Council vote on Iran sanctions in 2010 by monitoring members “Gabon, Uganda, Nigeria and Bosnia”; and President Obama by gaining “access to U.N. Secretary General talking points prior to meeting” in 2013 (Greenwald, 2014: 142–43). Offering a striking parallel with colonial reliance on scandal to control native elites, in October 2012, a NSA official identified as DIRNSA, or Director General Keith Alexander, proposed that in countering Muslim radicals their “vulnerabilities, if exposed, would likely call into question a radicalizer’s devotion to the jihadist cause, leading to the degradation or loss of his authority.” Citing the two timeless sources of political scandal, sex and money, the agency suggested such vulnerabilities would likely include “viewing sexually explicit material online” or “using a portion of the donations they are receiving … to defray personal expenses.” The NSA document identified one potential target as a “respected academic” whose “vulnerabilities” are “online promiscuity.” At a 2012 signals conference, the NSA’s British partner GCHQ explained disinformation tactics used to “discredit a target,” including “change their photos on social networking sites,” “writing a blog purporting to be one of their victims,” and “set up a honey trap,” that is, “get someone to go somewhere on the internet” for a sexually compromising encounter. According to author Bamford: “The NSA’s operation is eerily similar to the FBI’s operations under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s where the bureau used wiretapping to discover vulnerabilities, such as sexual activity, to ‘neutralize’ their targets” (Greenwald, Gallagher, and Grim, 2013; Greenwald, 2014: 190–95).

30

Alfred McCoy

Just as the Internet has centralized communications, so it has moved most commercial sex into cyberspace, providing the NSA easy access to the embarrassing habits of targets worldwide, whether Muslim militants or European leaders. With an estimated 25 million salacious sites worldwide and 10.6 billion page views per month at the top five sex sites in 2013, online pornography has become, as of 2006, a $97 billion global business (Rosen, 2013; TopTenReviews, 2007). With the migration of both cash transfers and commercial sex to the Internet, sex and money, the timeless stuff of elite political scandal, are now readily tracked by the electronic surveillance that is the NSA’s forte. Revelations from Snowden’s cache of leaked documents in late 2013 indicate the NSA has conducted close surveillance of leaders in 35 nations worldwide—including Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff’s personal phone; cabinet communications of former Mexican president Felipe Calderón and the email of his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto; intercepts for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone calls since 2002; phone taps of Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; and “widespread surveillance” of world leaders during the Group 20 summit meeting at Ottawa in June 2010 (Romero and Archibold, 2013; Rubin, 2013; Smale, 2013a; Sanger and Mazzetti, 2013; Smale, 2013b; Editorial, 2013; Mazzetti and Sanger, 2013; Cochrane, 2013; Austen, 2013). Two years later in 2015, the activist news group WikiLeaks reported the NSA had monitored three French presidents over a period of six years, 2006–2012, including “highly sensitive conversations” by François Hollande (Allen, 2015). The group also released documents showing U.S. surveillance of three German chancellors over a fifteen-year period, including Angela Merkel’s confidential conversations about the global financial crisis in 2009 and Eurozone conflicts in 2011 (Reuters, 2015). Indicating the acute sensitivity of such executive communications, world leaders have reacted strongly to reports of NSA surveillance—a response with potentially deleterious consequences for U.S. relations with key allies. Chancellor Merkel demanded Five Eyes exempt status for Germany (Smale, 2013d; Smale, 2013c; Smale, 2013a). In response to the 2013 revelations, France’s President Hollande insisted, “We cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies” (Erlanger, 2013; Rubin, 2013). After the 2015 exposé, Hollande’s Socialist Party criticized Washington for “a truly stupefying state paranoia,” while one of its legislators complained bitterly that the “U.S. has no allies, they only have targets or vassals” (Allen, 2015). Not only did Brazil’s President Rousseff cancel a state visit to Washington in September 2013 after reports about NSA taps on her phone, but within two months the state telecom company Telebras announced a joint venture with Embraer for a $560 million satellite network that will free Brazil from the Internet and thereby “ensure the sovereignty of its strategic communications” (Romero, 2013; MercoPress, 2013).

Capillaries of empire

31

Information and the future of U.S. global power By leaking a swelling stream of NSA documents, whistle-blower Edward Snowden has given us a glimpse of future U.S. defence policy and the changing architecture of its global power. At the broadest level, this digital pivot complements Obama’s overall defence strategy, announced in 2012, of cutting costs (slashing infantry by 14 percent) while conserving America’s global power through a capacity for “a combined arms campaign across all domains—land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace” (Barnes and Hodge, 2012; U.S. Department of Defense, 2012: 2–5). Since 2009, digital surveillance has morphed into ‘cyberwarfare’ when Obama formed the U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), with a cybercombat center at Lackland Air Base initially staffed by 7,000 air force employees (Shanker and Sanger, 2009). Over the next two years, the Pentagon created an enormous concentration of power by appointing the NSA’s chief, General Keith Alexander, as CYBERCOM’s concurrent commander and declaring cyberspace an ‘operational domain’ for offensive and defensive warfare (Armed Forces News Service, 2010; Alexander, 2011). Simultaneously, Washington deployed its first cyber-viruses with devastating effect against Iran’s nuclear facilities from 2006 to 2010 (Markoff, 2011; Sanger, 2012; Brenner, 2011: 102–05; Traynor, 2007; Baldior, 2010, 2012). While cutting conventional armaments, President Obama has invested billions to build a new architecture for global information control. If we add the $791 billion expended on the Department of Homeland Security to $500 billion for global intelligence in the dozen years since 9/11, then Washington has made a $1.2 trillion investment in hardware, software, and personnel to build a formidable apparatus with enormous, unexplored implications for U.S. state controls at home and abroad (Kramer and Hellman, 2013). So formidable has this security bureaucracy become that, in December 2013, Obama’s executive review committee recommended regularization, not reform, of current NSA practices, allowing the agency to continue tapping all domestic and international communications. Any monitoring of foreign leaders would now require presidential approval, a power Obama has already exercised by promising Germany’s Chancellor Merkel that her phone will no longer be tapped and by refusing to extend the same assurance to the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, America’s now insubordinate subordinate elites (Sanger, 2013). By 2020, moreover, the U.S. will deploy a triple-canopy aerospace shield, advanced cyberwarfare, and digital surveillance to envelop the earth in an electronic grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield or atomizing a single insurgent in field or favela. At the outer level in the Exosphere, the weaponization of space started in April 2010 when the U.S. Air Force launched its first space drone, a mini space shuttle called the X-37B, that circled the globe for nine months in a low orbit of 255 miles with the potential for terrestrial surveillance and missile strikes against rival space targets

32

Alfred McCoy

(Broad, 2010; Weeden, 2010). To prevent China from blinding U.S. command communications by shooting down its satellites, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing the F-6 Fractionated Satellite that scatters key components, preventing both enemy attack and equipment failure (Brown, 2007). Ultimately, the emerging technological regime requires integration of this aerospace array into a robotic command structure that will coordinate operations across all combat domains—space, cyberspace, sky, sea, and earth. Thus, in its Signit Strategy 2012–16, the NSA planned to “dramatically increase mastery of the global network” by integration of its systems into a national matrix of robotic sensors that interactively “sense, respond and alert one another at machine speed” (Risen and Poitras, 2013).

Conclusion Though separated by the span of a century, these crucibles of counterinsurgency in the Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan have pushed U.S. pacification to its technological limits, forcing the formation of new systems of surveillance and information warfare. As the disparity grows between Washington’s global reach and its withering mailed fist, as it struggles to maintain 40 percent of the world’s armaments circa 2012 with only 23 percent of its gross output, the U.S. will need to find ways to exercise its global power more economically (Perlo-Freeman et al., 2013: 2; Johansson et al., 2012: 23, Fig. 10). Compared to the trillion-dollar cost of conventional U.S. military intervention in Iraq, the NSA’s 2012 budget of just $11 billion for worldwide surveillance and cyberwarfare is a cost-saving the Pentagon cannot afford to forego (Savage and Shane, 2013). Cyberspace offers Washington a budget-priced arena of global power, albeit at the cost of trust by its closest allies—a contradiction that will bedevil America’s global leadership for years to come. More broadly, in a recurring pattern over the course of a century, innovative surveillance techniques forged during pacification campaigns at the periphery of U.S. power have migrated homeward to provide both a blueprint for domestic surveillance and new technologies for the exercise of global hegemony.

Bibliography Achutegui, P.S., S.J., and Bernad, M.A., S.J. (1961). Religious Revolution in the Philippines, Volume 1: 1860–1940. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila. Alexander, D. (2011). ‘Pentagon to Treat Cyberspace as “Operational Domain”,’ Reuters, 14 July. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-usa -defense-cybersecurity-idUSTRE76D5FA20110714 [1 June 2014]. Allen, H.T. (1904). ‘Letter to C. H. Brent’, 12 July. File: July to December 1904, Box 6, Charles Henry Brent Papers, Manuscript Division, U.S. Library of Congress (hereafter CHB).

Capillaries of empire

33

Allen, P. (2015). ‘Obama in Crisis Call with French President after WikiLeaks Documents Reveal NSA Spied on Him and Two Predecessors’, Daily Mail, 24 June. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136659/New-WikiLeaks-do cuments-reveal-NSA-eavesdropping-THREE-French-presidents.html [20 July 2015]. Armed Forces News Service. (2010). ‘Gates Established US Cyber Command, Names First Commander. U.S. Strategic Command’, 21 May. Available at: http://www.stra tcom.mil/news/2010/161/Gates_establishes_US_Cyber_Command_and_names_first_ commander/ [1 June 2014]. Austen, I. (2013). ‘Ire in Canada over Report N.S.A. Spied from Ottawa’, New York Times, 28 November. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/world/am ericas/ire-in-canada-over-report-nsa-spied-from-ottawa.html?_r=0 [20 July 2015]. Austin, C. J. (1992). Information Systems for Health Services Administration. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Baldior, L.C. (2010). ‘Pentagon Takes Aim at China Cyber Threat’, Associated Press, 19 August. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9227669 [1 June 2015]. Baldior, L.C. (2012). ‘U.S., China to Cooperate More on Cyber Threat’, Associated Press, 8 May. Available at: www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76036.html [1 June 2014]. Ball, J. and Hopkins, N. (2013). ‘GCHQ and NSA Targeted Charities, Germans, Israeli PM and EU Chief ’, The Guardian, 20 December. Available at: www.thegua rdian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq-targeted-aid-agencies-german-government-eucommissioner [1 June 2014]. Bamford, J. (2008). The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. New York: Random House. Bandholtz, H.H. (1919/1991). Provost Marshal General’s Department, April 30th. United States Army in the World War 1917–1919: Reports of the Commander-in-Chief, Staff Sections and Services. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Barnes, J. E. and Hodge, N. (2012). ‘Military Faces Historic Shift’, Wall Street Journal, 6 January. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203471004577142 691225718730 [1 June 2014]. Bethel, E. (1947). ‘The Military Information Division: Origin of the Intelligence Division’, Military Affairs 11(1): 17–24. Bigelow, M.E. (1990). ‘Van Deman’, Military Intelligence 16(4): 38–40. Brenner, J. (2011). America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare. New York: Penguin. Brent, C.H. (n.d). Private Addendum to Report on Religious Conditions in the Philippine Islands (For Bishops Only). Box 6, CHB. Brent, C.H. (1904a). ‘Letter to General Henry T. Allen, July 11’, Box 8, File: 1904 June–Aug, Henry T. Allen Papers, Manuscript Division, U.S. Library of Congress (hereafter HTA). Brent, C.H. (1904b). ‘Letter to General Henry T. Allen, October 12’, Box 8, File: 1904 Sept–Oct, HTA. Brent, C.H. (1904c). ‘Letter to General Henry T. Allen, October 12’, Box 6, File: July to December 1904, CHB. Broad, W.J. (2010). ‘Surveillance Is Suspected as Main Role of Spacecraft’, New York Times, 23 May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/ 23secret.html?_r=0 [15 September 2015].

34

Alfred McCoy

Brown, O. (2007). ‘Speech’, 8 August. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Tactical Technology Office, “System F6”. Available at: http://www.darpa.mil/Our_ Work/TTO/Programs/Systemf6/System_F6.aspx [1 June 2014]. Campbell, K. (1987). ‘Major General Ralph H. Van Deman: Father of Modern American Military Intelligence’, American Intelligence Journal 8: 13–19. Castle, S. and Schmitt, E. (2013). ‘Europeans Voice Anger Over Reports of Spying by U.S. on Allies’, New York Times, 1 July: A9 Cauley, L. (2006). ‘NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls’, USA Today, 11 May. Available at: http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x. htm?csp=1 [1 June 2014]. Clifford, M.D., B.V.M. (1969). ‘Iglesia Filipina Independiente: The Revolutionary Church’, in: Anderson, G.H. (ed.) Studies in Philippine Church History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 223–255. Clymer, K.J. (1986). Protestant Missionaries in the Philippines, 1898–1916: An Inquiry into the American Colonial Mentality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Cochrane, J. (2013). ‘N.S.A. Spying Scandal Tarnishes Relations Between Two Friendly Nations’, New York Times, 20 November. Available at: http://www.nytim es.com/2013/11/20/world/asia/nsa-spying-scandal-tarnishes-relations-between-indone sia-and-australia.html [15 September 2015]. Coe, L. (1993). The Telegraph: A History of Morse’s Invention and Its Predecessors in the United States. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Comaromi, J. and Satija, M. (1988). Dewey Decimal Classification: History and Current Status. New York: Envoy. Crossen, C. (2002). ‘Early TIPS Corps Did More Harm Than Good in Hunt for Subversives’, Wall Street Journal, 2 October: B1. Dorwart, J.M. (1983). Conflict of Duty: The U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Dilemma, 1919–1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. Editorial (2013). ‘More Damage from N.S.A. Snooping’, New York Times, 26 October: A20. Eggen, D. (2002). ‘Under Fire, Justice Shrinks TIPS Program’, Washington Post, 10 August. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/08/10/ under-fire-justice-shrinks-tips-program/3a32d0fb-9166–9164aa3–83f9–3aac2381f1a4/ [15 September 2015]. Erlanger, S. (2013). ‘Outrage in Europe Grows Over Spying Disclosures’, New York Times, 2 July. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/fra nce-and-germany-piqued-over-spying-scandal.html [15 September 2015]. Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Co. (1916.) Emergency Signaling. New York: Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Co. Gellman, B. and Poitras, L. (2013). ‘U.S., British Intelligence Mining Data from Nine U.S. Internet Companies in Broad Secret Program’, Washington Post, 6 June. Available at: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-06/news/39784046_1_prism -nsa-u-s-servers [1 June 2014]. Glanz, J. and Lehren, A. (2013). ‘U.S. and Britain Extended Spying to 1,000 Target’, New York Times, 21 December: A1. Greenwald, G. (2013). ‘XKeyscore: NSA Tool Collects “Nearly Everything a User Does on the Internet”’, The Guardian, 31 July. Available at: http://www.theguardian. com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data [1 June 2014]. Greenwald, G. (2014). No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and U.S. Surveillance State. New York: Henry Holt.

Capillaries of empire

35

Greenwald, G., Gallagher, R. and Grim, R. (2013). ‘Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied on Porn Habits as Part of Plan to Discredit “Radicalizers”’, Huffington Post, 26 November. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa -porn-muslims_n_4346128.html [1 June 2014]. Grove, W.S. (1903) To: Brig. Gen. Henry T. Allen. Box 8, File: 1903 Nov-Dec, HTA. Gruner, W. (2012). ‘Cray’s New Supercomputer KC30 Delivers 66 TFlops/Cabinet’, Tom’s Hardware, 12 November. Available at: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ cray-xc30-supercomputer,19014.html [1 June 2014]. Harbord, J.G. (1921). To: Brigadier General H. H. Bandholtz, 31 August. Reel 9, HHB. Heath, R. (1981). Mill City Firefighters: The First Hundred Years, 1879–1979. Minneapolis, MN: Extra Alarm Association of the Twin Cities. Hentoff, N. (2002a). ‘Rescued by Dick Armey from Big Brother’, Washington Times, 29 July. Hentoff, N. (2002b). ‘The Death of Operation TIPS’, Village Voice, 18 December. Available at: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-death-of-operation-tips-6411861 [1 June 2014]. Hodge, N. (2009). ‘General Wants to Scan More U.S. Irises, Fingerprints’, Wired.com, 29 January. Available at: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/01/biometricsneed/ [1 June 2014]. Howard, Z. (2011). ‘Police to Begin iPhone Iris Scans amid Privacy Concerns’, Reuters, 20 July. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20/us-crime-identi fication-iris-idUSTRE76J4A120110720 [1 June 2014]. Howell, J.D. (1995). Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Howells, M. (2000). High Tech in the 90s: The 1890 Census. Available at: http://www. oz.net/~markhow/writing/holl.htm [1 June 2014]. Hyman, H.M. (1959). To Try Men’s Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Anthropology. (1992). The Battle of Blair Mountain (West Virginia): Cultural Resource Survey and Recording Project. Morgantown: West Virginia University. Jeffreys-Jones, R. (2007). The FBI: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jensen, J.M. (1968). The Price of Vigilance. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Jensen, J.M. (1991). Army Surveillance in America, 1775–1980. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Johansson, Å. et al. (2012). Looking to 2060: Long-Term Global Growth Prospects. OECD Economic Policy Papers, No. 3. Jones, D. W. (n.d.). Punched Cards: A Brief Illustrated Technical History. Available at: http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/history.html [2 June 2014]. Kahn, D. (2004). The Reader of Gentlemen’s Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kistermann, F.W. (2005). ‘Hollerith Punched Card System Development (1905–1913)’, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 27(1): 56–66. Koon, S.G. (1914). ‘Cost Accounting by Machines’, American Machinist, 26 March: 533–536. Kornweibel Jr., T. (1998). “Seeing Red”: Federal Campaigns against Black Militancy, 1919–1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

36

Alfred McCoy

Kramer, M. and Hellman, C. (2013). ‘Homeland Security: The Trillion-Dollar Concept That No One Can Define’, TomDispatch, 28 February. Available at: http:// www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175655/ [2 June 2014]. LaMontagne, L.E. (1961). American Library Classification with Special Reference to the Library of Congress. Hamden, CT: Shoestring Press. Laurie, C.D. and Cole, R.H. (1997). The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1877–1945. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Lichtblau, E. (2003). ‘Administration Plans Defense of Terror Law’, New York Times, 19 August. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/politics/19PATR.html [15 September 2015]. Lichtblau, E. (2004). ‘Secret Warrant Requests Increased in 2003’, New York Times, 3 May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/politics/03WARR.html [15 September 2015]. Lichtblau, E. (2005). ‘Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups’, New York Times, 18 July. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/la rge-volume-of-fbi-files-alarms-us-activist-groups.html [15 September 2015]. Little Jr., R.W. (1976). York City Fire Department, York, Pennsylvania. Marceline, MO: Walsworth. MacAskill, E. and Borger, J. (2013). ‘New NSA Leaks Show How US Is Bugging Its European Allies’, The Guardian, 30 June. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2013/jun/30/nsa-leaks-us-bugging-european-allies [2 June 2014]. MacAskill, E. et al. (2013). ‘GCHQ Taps Fibre-optic Cables for Secret Access to World’s Communications’, The Guardian, 21 June. Available at: http://www.guardia n.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa [2 June 2014]. Markoff, J. (2011). ‘New Malicious Program by Creators of Stuxnet Is Suspected’, New York Times, 18 October: B6. Mazzetti, M. and Sanger, D.E. (2013). ‘Tap on Merkel Provides Peek at Vast Spy Net’, New York Times, 31 October: A1. Linn, B. McA. (1989). The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899–1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Linn, B. McA. (1991). ‘Intelligence and Low-Intensity Conflict in the Philippine War, 1899–1902’, Intelligence and National Security 6(1): 90–96. McCormick, C.H. (1997). Seeing Reds: Federal Surveillance of Radicals in the Pittsburgh Mill District, 1917–1921. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. McCoy, A.W. (2009a). Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. McCoy, A.W. (2009b). ‘Policing the Imperial Periphery: Pacification of the Philippines and the Rise of the US National Security State’, in: McCoy, A.W. and Scarano, F. (eds) Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of a Modern American State. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mansfield-Devine, S. (2012). ‘Biometrics at War: The US Military’s Need for Identification and Authentication’, Biometric Technology Today 5: 5–8. MercoPress (2013). ‘Brazil Will Have Its Own National-made Secure Communications Satellite by 2016’, 29 November. Available at: http://en.mercopress.com/2013/11/29/ brazil-will-have-its-own-national-made-secure-communications-satellite-by-2016 [2 June 2014]. National Security Agency (2012). ‘Driver 1: Worldwide SIGINT/Defense Cryptologic Platform’, in: Boon, F., Derix, F. and Modderkolk, H. (eds) NSA Infected 50,000 Computer Networks with Malicious Software. Available at: http://www.nrc.nl/

Capillaries of empire

37

nieuws/2013/11/23/nsa-infected-50000-computer-networks-with-malicious-software/ [2 June 2014]. National Security Agency, Office of Inspector General (2009). Working Draft. 24 March. Available at: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/national-secur ity-agency-inspector-general-draft-report/277/ [2 June 2014]. Perlo-Freeman, S. and Solmirano, C. (2013). Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2012. Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Perlroth, N., Larson, J. and Scott, S. (2013). ‘N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web’, New York Times, 6 September: A1. Poitas, L. et al. (2013). ‘How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe’, Der Spiegel, 1 July. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-documents-nsa-target ed-germany-and-eu-buildings-a-908609.html [2 June 2014]. Powe, M.B. (1975). ‘American Military Intelligence Comes of Age’, Military Review 40(12): 17–30. Priest, D. and Arkin, W.M. (2010). ‘Top Secret America’, Washington Post, 18, 20, and 21 July. Available at: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ [2 June 2014]. Pugh, E.W. (1995). Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press. Reuters (2015). ‘NSA Tapped German Chancellery for Decades, WikiLeaks Claims’, The Guardian, 8 July. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/ nsa-tapped-german-chancellery-decades-wikileaks-claims-merkel [20 July 2015]. Richards, G.T. (1964). The History and Development of Typewriters. London: H. M. Stationery Office. Risen, J. and Lichtblau, E. (2005). ‘Bush Let U.S. Spy on Callers without Courts’, New York Times, 16 December. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/p olitics/16program.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [2 June 2014]. Risen, J., and Lichtblau, E. (2013). ‘How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly’, New York Times, 8 June. Available at: www.nytimes.com/ 2013/06/09/us/revelations-give-look-at-spy-agencys-wider-reach.html?_r=0 [2 June 2014]. Risen, J. and Poitras, L. (2013). ‘N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power’, New York Times, 23 November: A1. Robinson, R. (1972). ‘Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration’, in: Owen, R. and Sutcliffe, B. (eds) Studies in the Theory of Imperialism. London: Longman, pp. 117–142. Romero, S. (2013). ‘Brazil’s Leader Postpones State Visit to Washington over Spying’, New York Times, 17 September. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/ world/americas/brazils-leader-postpones-state-visit-to-us.html?_r=0 [2 June 2014]. Romero, S. and Archibold, R.C. (2013). ‘Brazil Angered over Report N.S.A. Spied on President’, New York Times, 3 September: A4. Rosen, D. (2013). ‘Is Success Killing the Porn Industry?’, Alternet, 27 May. Available at: www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/success-killing-porn-industry [2 June 2014]. Rubin, A.J. (2013). ‘French Condemn Surveillance by N.S.A’, New York Times, 22 October: A4. Sanger, D.E. (2012) ‘Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks against Iran’, New York Times, 1 June: A1.

38

Alfred McCoy

Sanger, D.E. (2013). ‘Obama Panel Said to Urge N.S.A. Curbs’, New York Times, 13 December: A1. Sanger, D.E., and Mazzetti, M. (2013). ‘Allegation of U.S. Spying on German Leader Puts Obama at Crossroads’, New York Times, 25 October: A10. Savage, C. (2013). ‘Facial Scanning Is Making Gains in Surveillance’, New York Times, 21 August: A1. Savage, C. and Shane, S. (2013). ‘Top-Secret Court Castigated N.S.A. on Surveillance’, New York Times, 22 August: A1. Schmidt, R. (2000). Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919–1943. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Scott, J.C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shanker, T. and Sanger, D.E. (2009). ‘Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan’, New York Times, 12 June: A1. Shenon, P. (2002). ‘Secret Court Weighs Wiretaps’, New York Times, 10 September. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/national/10WIRE.html [2 June 2014]. Skowronek, S. (1982). Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smale, A. (2013a). ‘Anger Growing Among Allies On U.S. Spying’, New York Times, 24 October: A1. Smale, A. (2013b). ‘Data Suggests U.S. Spying on Merkel Dates to ’02’, New York Times, 28 October: A4. Smale, A. (2013c). ‘Indignation Over Spying on Merkel May Harm U.S.’, New York Times, 25 October: A10. Smale, A. (2013d). ‘Surveillance Revelations Shake U.S.-German Ties’, New York Times, 26 August: A4. Talbert, R., Jr. (1991). Negative Intelligence: The Army and the American Left, 1917–1941. Jackson: Mississippi University Press. TopTenReviews (2007). ‘Press Releases’, 12 March. Available at: http://www.toptenre views.com/3-12-07.html [2 June 2014]. Traynor, I. (2007). ‘Russia Accused of Unleashing Cyberwar to Disable Estonia’, The Guardian, 16 May. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/17/top stories3.russia [2 June 2014]. U.S. Bureau of the Census (1904). Abstract of the Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. U.S. Department of Defense (2012). Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense. Available at: http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf [2 June 2014]. U.S. Senate (1976a). Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Congress, 2d Session. Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book 2. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. U.S. Senate (1976b). Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Congress, 2d Session. Supplementary Reports on Intelligence Activities, Book 6. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Van Deman, R.H. (1928). Office of Chief of Staff, Cross Reference Card, December 15. Microform 1194, RG 350, NARA.

Capillaries of empire

39

Washington Evening Star (1940). Personal Name Information Files: John R. White, Entry 21, RG 350, NARA. February 20. Weber, R.E. (ed.) (1988). The Final Memoranda: Major General Ralph H. Van Deman, USA Ret., 1865–1952, Father of U.S. Military Intelligence. Wilmington, NC: Rowman & Littlefield. Weeden, B. (2010). ‘X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Fact Sheet’, Secure World Foundation. Available at: http://swfound.org/media/1791/swf_x-37b_otv_fact_sheet_updated _2012.pdf [2 June 2014]. Weiner, T. (2002). ‘Look Who’s Listening’, New York Times, 20 January. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/weekinreview/look-who-s-listening-the-cia-wide ns-its-domestic-reach.html?pagewanted=1 [15 September 2015]. Weiner, T. (2007). Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Penguin. Wiegand, W.A. (1996). Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Wiegand, W.A. and Davis Jr., D.G. (1994). Encyclopedia of Library History. New York: Routledge. Wines, F.H. (1900). ‘The Census of 1900’, National Geographic, January: 34–36. Wright Jr., R. (1992). Army Lineage Series: Military Police. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

3

Laboratories of pacification and permanent war Israeli–US collaboration in the global making of policing Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

In August of 2014, during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police killing of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, new life was breathed into public debate in the U.S. about the militarization of the police. Images and videos of violent encounters between police and protesters filled up news reports and social media feeds. The outcome of the U.S. federal government’s controversial programmes making surplus military hardware available to local police forces became visible through photographs of “officers clad in Kevlar vests, helmets, and camouflage, armed with pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, and tear gas” pointed at unarmed black Americans (Bouie, 2014). This drew the outrage of both liberal and libertarian, mostly white journalists concerned about constitutional rights and free expression, even challenging the institution of the police. “Are cops constitutional?” asked the journalist Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop (2014: 9). Instead many African-American protesters on the streets emphasized their own history and status as secondary citizens in a militarized legal grey zone where their killers seemed exempt from normative justice. Some demonstrators drew a direct comparison: “Ferguson” they chanted, “is Gaza” (Palumbo-Liu, 2014). This was primarily a polemical claim: “Certainly the two situations are different […] yet one should not discount the moral and indeed inspirational value of gestures that reach across those differences to claim solidarity” wrote Professor David Palumbo-Liu, parsing the historical resonances (ibid.). But activists and journalists also pointed to collaborations between the Israeli and U.S. police forces in counterterrorist training, and the role of local forces in applying Israeli knowledge and training to their operations. While initial reports that the St. Louis police chief in charge of policing the demonstrations had trained alongside Israeli police forces proved erroneous (it was, in fact, his predecessor) (Hatmaker, 2014), it highlighted long-standing relationships between local police forces and Israeli ‘counterterror’ programmes. In the words of an Anti-Defamation League representative who organized a 2011 trip to Israel for U.S. local police chiefs, these collaborations are seen as “beneficial for both the U.S. and Israeli officers who have a real chance to

Laboratories of pacification

41

learn from one another” (Lappin, 2011). In addition to adopting military technology, local police forces in the U.S. had inserted themselves into the networks of tactical exchange and mimicry, replicating a relationship between Israeli and U.S. security and military strategists through which they share both technologies and colonial, legal, and biopolitical logics. The polemic of ‘Ferguson is Gaza’ reflected the realpolitik of American–Israeli relations: “In America, Palestine and Israel are regarded as local, not foreign policy, matters” (Said, 2003). This relationship has a long history: In April 2002, in a dramatic shift in strategy, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) bulldozed a 40,000-square-meter area in the centre of the Jenin refugee camp in the Northern West Bank. A UN report estimated that some 52 Palestinians were killed in the attack, about half of them civilians (United Nations, 2002). In a detailed investigation, Human Rights Watch found that several civilians, including a disabled man, were crushed to death in their homes, because Israeli forces failed to allow relatives time to help them escape; others were used as human shields by the advancing Israelis (Human Rights Watch, 2002: 29). In Jenin, Operation Defensive Shield, which involved major military operations against other Palestinian cities, left 140 multi-family housing blocks completely destroyed, 1,500 damaged, and some 4,000 residents homeless out of a population of 14,000 (ibid.: 4). During the operation, lesser demolitions were also carried out in Nablus, Hebron, and Ramallah. Destruction of material infrastructure and cultural and administrative facilities was also widespread. Attempts by the U.S. forces to imitate Israeli experience during Defensive Shield were already underway as the bulldozers made their way through the built spaces of the Jenin camp. U.S. military observers were present, observing the Israeli doctrine in action to aid the planning for the invasion of Iraq. Eyal Weizman (2004: 83) writes that “an Israeli paratrooper who participated in the battle of Jenin told me that there were U.S. officers (dressed in IDF uniform) present as spectators within the rubble of the refugee camp as the last stages of the ‘battle’ unfolded”. On 17 June 2002, the US Marine Corps Times reported that “while Israeli forces were engaged in what many termed a brutal – some even say criminal – campaign to crush Palestinian militants and terrorist cells in West Bank towns, U.S. military officials were in Israel seeing what they could learn from that urban fight” (Lowe, 2002). Lt. Col. Dave Booth reported in another article in the Marine Corps Times that the Marines wanted, like the local police chiefs, to learn from their counterparts, in particular “from the Israeli experience in urban warfare and the recent massive search-and-destroy operations for Palestinian insurgents in the West Bank” (Evans, 2007: 18). Michael Evans, an Australian urban warfare specialist, has highlighted the pivotal importance of the Defensive Shield operations as exemplars of a new kind of ‘asymmetric’ war, pitting high-tech state militaries against insurgents and surrounding civilians within closely built, urban terrain. Learning directly from these new urban wars, along with learning lessons from the U.S. defeat in Mogadishu and Russia’s humiliation during its attempts to annihilate the

42

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

Chechen capital of Grozny, the U.S. military worked very hard from the mid1990s to improve its ability to pacify and control the cities that were now deemed the main foci of its adversaries. “Significant theoretical analyses were completed by RAND Corporation scholars focusing on the technical and tactical peculiarities involved in conducting military operations inside cities” (Evans, 2007: 12). Amongst urban warfare commentators, Israeli ‘successes’ have been interpreted as combining high-tech surveillance and targeting with the techniques of World War II urban warfare for erasing space and penetrating into the core of resistant cities. An influential paper for the Australian Defence College by Evans (2007: 16), for example, emphasizes how the Israelis combined high-tech drones, low-tech bulldozers, and techniques of ‘worm-holing’ through buildings to avoid exposure to snipers and booby-traps on open streets, drawn from World War II. But Israeli methods in 2002 also replicated past models of counterinsurgency and colonization, including the destruction of buildings during the British suppression of the Arab Revolt in Jenin 63 years earlier (Khalili, 2010). These new models of urban warfare form a mélange of refreshed colonial ideology and contemporary high technology. Accordingly this chapter argues that Israeli military and security experience in addressing these new urban imperatives is rapidly being exported around the world and proceeds to explore the circuits of exemplification and imitation through which this is occurring. This contributes to a more complex understanding of the global making of policing. As argued by Hönke and Müller in chapter one of this volume, security practices are not merely diffused from a “supposed (liberal) centre to seemingly marginal spaces. … Instead, core global and domestic police institutions and practices are coconstituted by various actors and experiences” emerging from the margins. To get to the root of these practices, however, it is necessary to move well beyond discussions about purchases of particular Israeli military equipment by U.S. forces, or of Israeli firms selling border surveillance or unmanned drone systems to Western countries (both of which are now common). We need, in fact, to understand the emergence of the broader legal, political-economic, biopolitical, and geopolitical context within which such imitations and appropriations become normalized. Crucial here is the way in which the legal and discursive bases for the ‘War on Terror’ – within which the adoption of military-standard surveillance preemptively targeting civilian domains within states of legal exception and biopolitical securitization takes place and is normalized – closely imitate Israeli experience and doctrine. In addition to outlining such imitation, this chapter demonstrates that the U.S. military has also widely imitated the experience, technology, and doctrine of Israeli forces developed in the occupied territories, in tailoring itself for the challenges of urban colonial and counterinsurgency warfare. It will be argued that the Israeli economy has, in turn, been boosted as it profits from its new status as the global exemplar of maximum securitization and high-tech urban control.

Laboratories of pacification

43

Legal imitations: Reciprocal states of exception The security challenges of Israel are the security concerns of the United States writ small. (Henriksen, 2007: 4)

A central element in the recent high-tech economic renaissance of Israel, what Naomi Klein (2007a: chapter 20) has called the “standing disaster Apartheid state”, has been the gradual convergence between U.S. military doctrine in post-invasion Iraq, and the long-standing Israeli techniques of repression, incarceration, and fragmentation of the urban geography in the Occupied Territories. The Bush administration’s justification of its reliance on extrajudicial and pre-emptive assassination in its ‘Global War on Terror’ was heavily influenced by those of Israel. Central to this argument was the assertion that “this war was ‘unprecedented’ and thus constituted a legal terra nulla” (Hajjar, 2006: 32). The international legal scholar Lisa Hajjar, observes furthermore that such a claim has a direct Israeli precedent: “[T]he Israeli military at the start of the second intifada had already characterized its war on terror in the West Bank and Gaza as a legal terra nulla” (ibid.). Perhaps the most glaring similarity between the U.S. government’s justification of its ‘Global War on Terror’ and the Israeli legitimization of its treatment of the Al Aqsa Intifada has been the strategic idea of ‘pre-emption’ and ‘preventative war’. Here it is clear that the Bush administration’s obsession with ‘pre-emption’ was heavily influenced by the emerging Israeli doctrine in Defensive Shield, developed through its experience in urban warfare. Azmi Bishara (n.d.) has suggested that the whole idea of the ‘war against terror’, especially the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, represented what he terms “globalized Israeli security doctrines”. These conceptions, he writes, “are actually Israeli conceptions, including understanding ‘terrorism’ as the ‘main enemy’”. The War on Terror’s reliance on the construction of a whole series of legal and geographical grey zones as means to justify the suspension of norms of international law finds direct precedence in Israeli practice in the Occupied Territories. Here, as Darryl Li (2006: 38) puts it, “Israel has assiduously waged a campaign to deny the applicability of international law to the territories, especially insofar as the law interferes with processes of demographic engineering.” Hajjar (2006: 32) provides a particularly nuanced discussion of the similarities of U.S. and Israeli practice: “Comparing the Israeli and American alternative legalities,” she writes, “one finds some clear commonalities” in the legal justification for the state of exception to International Humanitarian Law. Hajjar notes, first, that “the Israeli description of the status of the West Bank and Gaza as sui generis in order to assert that IHL [International Humanitarian law] does not apply, resembles the United States’ claim that IHL was inapplicable to the war in Afghanistan because it was a ‘failed state’” (2006: 32). Second, Hajjar underlines that “both governments have argued that the statelessness of their enemies translates into rightlessness under IHL, and these

44

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

interpretations have been based on the notion that IHL allocates rights only to states and their Citizens” and not to adversaries located in “failed states” (2006: 32). Such a legal trick has been used to legitimize mass incarceration without trial in both cases. Finally, “both have utilized national laws to authorize practices that contravene IHL norms and rules, thereby domesticating international law in adverse ways” (Hajjar, 2006: 32).

Biopolitical imitations: Israel and the ‘Palestinianization’ of Iraq As the U.S. military task in Iraq quickly morphed in late 2003 from the relatively simple task of defeating an infinitely inferior state military to one of pacifying complex urban insurgencies, Israel’s direct involvement in shaping the doctrine, weaponry, and military thinking of U.S. occupying forces has continually grown. “What had initially been termed a ‘conventional armed conflict’ had become a ‘counter-insurgency conflict’ that came to bear striking resemblances to Israeli operations in the second Intifada” (Hajjar, 2006: 34–35). In launching its ‘Global War on Terror’, the Bush administration directly used Israeli experiences “as a salient – and in some ways explicit – model for the United States’ ‘new paradigm’” (Hajjar, 2006: 22). Hajjar observes that, “the second Intifada and the U.S. Global War on Terror, though quite different, both involve asymmetrical warfare that pits powerful states with powerful militaries against stateless individuals and groups and non-state organizations in the midst of dense, urban concentrations of civilian populations” (2006: 22). Makram Khoury-Machool (2003) describes this process as the ‘Palestinianization’ of Iraq. Importantly, such a process has involved the various Iraqi insurgencies and militias directly imitating the tactics of Hamas or Hezbollah as well as the U.S. military directly imitating the IDF (Weizman, 2004: 84). The United States’ imitation of Israeli tactics and strategy has not operated wholesale, however. The United States added some of its own new concepts in an attempt to ‘legalize’ its actions within the context of a wholesale withdrawal of the traditions of IHL and the Geneva Convention. One example was the invention of the concept of the ‘illegal combatant’, who could be incarcerated indefinitely without right to trial but did not, at the same time, warrant the status of a prisoner of war (Hajjar, 2006: 22). In a detailed analysis of the lessons of Israeli practice for U.S. Special Forces, Thomas Henriksen, a Hoover Institute Fellow, is unequivocal about the direct imitation of Israeli policy in developing U.S. strategy, doctrine, and weaponry for the ‘Global War on Terror’. “The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) military actions”, he writes: have been – and are – a crucible for methods, procedures, tactics, and techniques for the United States, which now faces a similarly fanatical foe across the world in the Global War on Terror. […] Israeli experiences offer an historical record and a laboratory for tactics and techniques in

Laboratories of pacification

45

waging counter-insurgencies or counterterrorist operations in America’s post-9/11 circumstances. (Henriksen, 2007) By August 2004, as complex insurgencies raged within Iraq’s cities, Toufic Haddad was able to observe that “U.S. techniques in Iraq” were already “unmistakably similar to Israeli techniques in the 1967 Occupied Territories” (Haddad, 2004). This, he noted, was “because of the active cooperation between Israeli military advisers and the Americans on the ground.” His diagnosis of similarities was, indeed, striking: the use of aggressive techniques of urban warfare with an emphasis on special units, house-to-house searches, wide-scale arrest campaigns (almost 14,000 Iraqis are now in prison), and torture; the erecting of an elaborate system of watchtowers, military bases, checkpoints, barbed wire, and trenches to monitor, control, and restrict transportation and movement; the clearing of wide swaths of land next to roads; the use of armored bulldozers to destroy the houses of suspected militants; the razing of entire fields from which militants might seek refuge; the heightened relevance of snipers and unmanned drones; and the attempted erection of collaborator networks to extract information from the local population about resistance activities – both military and political. (Haddad, 2004) On the back of the argument that the U.S. military in Iraq was effectively facing a scaled-up version of what the Israeli military had long experienced in Palestine, the U.S. Army War College undertook a major workshop titled ‘Shifting Fire’ in 2006. This was explicitly designed to draw U.S. lessons on the challenges of managing propaganda and other ‘information operations’ within counterinsurgency warfare from Israeli experience in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even used as a proxy subject for discussing the United States invasion of Iraq, which “allow[ed] for a freer debate of key issues” (U.S. Army War College, n.d.).

Space as exemplar: the Gaza lab The complex processes of U.S. imitation of Israeli practice relate closely to the particular status of the Gaza strip as a laboratory of new techniques of urban control and warfare within the Israeli military (see also Stockmarr, this volume). According to Darryl Li, even after notional Israeli ‘disengagement’ from the area in 2005, the Gaza Strip has continued to act as a: space where Israel tests and refines various techniques of management, continuously experimenting in search of an optimal balance between maximum control over the territory and minimum responsibility for its

46

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker non-Jewish population […]. Because the Gaza Strip represents a stage of concentration and segregation that is unprecedented in the conflict, it can be seen as a space in which the ‘pure’ conditions of laboratory experimentation are best approximated. (2006: 38)

The example of Gaza is especially interesting to U.S. forces because it is based on the idea of ‘control at a distance’ through militarizing boundaries, continuous raids, regular wholesale invasions (as in winter 2008–9), assassination strikes, and intense aerial surveillance, rather than control through the continuous presence of occupying armies. As Leila Stockmarr (this volume) has argued, the meanings of these technologies are interpreted into wider generic categories of colonial and postcolonial policing, reciprocating their historical influences. The practice of ‘Roof Knocking’ (dropping a ‘warning shot’ onto civilian buildings before an airstrike) was even praised in 2014 as a positive model of ethical warfare by U.S. General Martin Dempsey (Rayner, 2014). Li observes the general lesson: “Closure in the Gaza Strip is enforced with less military manpower and less ‘friction’ (i.e. direct contact) with the civilian population, entailing less exposure to attack and less potential for negative publicity” (2006: 43). Following the building of the separation barrier in the West Bank, there is evidence that Israel is trying to instigate Gazastyle regimes of control there, with each Palestinian enclave turned into a ‘mini Gaza’ with a much more hermetic approach to ‘closure’.

Geographical imitations: divide and rule When the wall around the American compound in Baghdad looks as if its components are leftovers from Jerusalem, when ‘temporary closures’ are imposed on whole towns and villages with earth dykes and barbed wire, when larger regions are carved up by road blocks and check points, when homes of suspected terrorists are levelled, when Apache helicopters are used in civilian areas, and when ‘targeted assassinations’ are re-introduced into a new militarized geography, it is not only because these have become parts of a joint military curriculum written by Israeli training officers, but because they spread out through a process of mimicry, at whose center the West Bank functions as a laboratory of the extreme. (Weizman, 2004: 83)

There is little doubt that U.S. attempts in early 2007 to forcibly reconstruct the urban geographies of Baghdad and some other Iraqi cities as a counterinsurgency tactic were directly modelled on Israeli experience in the Occupied Territories. Certain towns were completely sealed off with razor wire or walls. Biometric identity cards were enforced for all adults, and, eventually, massive urban wall complexes, with associated “security buffer zones”, were created across 30 of Baghdad’s 89 official districts (Fisk, 2007). In these cordoned off

Laboratories of pacification

47

towns and urban districts, civilians quickly found themselves inhabiting what Robert Fisk (2007) called a ‘controlled population’ prison. As in the Occupied Territories, this notion of ‘security’ “requires putting [the population deemed threatening] behind a wall.” This, in turn, is seen to demand its own geography of cleared ‘security buffer zones’ through which artificial separations can be imposed on complex and mixed up urban geographies: The ideal way to secure a barrier is through a vacant ‘buffer zone’, whose emptiness allows a handful of soldiers to monitor relatively large areas and to respond quickly, decisively, and overwhelmingly to any perceived infiltrators, all while ensconced in fortified positions. (Li, 2006: 45) Once ‘security’ or ‘buffer zones’ are ‘cleared’, Darryl Li (2006: 45) notes that, “they become effective ‘free-fire’ areas.” In the Occupied Territories, “Palestinians enter [these] at their own risk and dozens if not hundreds have died doing so.” Such partitioning of Iraqi cities and urban districts by U.S. forces inevitably resonates powerfully with the erection of massive concrete barriers in the West Bank, the increasingly militarized borders, and ‘shoot to kill’ zones around Gaza. Checkpoints, buffer zones, enforced identity cards, collective punishments, bulldozings, mass incarcerations without trial, imprisonment of suspects’ relatives, and associated landscape clearances and building demolitions all smacked of direct imitation of Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories. Such a conclusion would have been supported further by the sale by Israel to U.S. combat engineers of 12 of the massive D-9 caterpillar armored bulldozers used extensively since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Such similarities were not lost on Iraqi urban residents coming to terms with such familiar, but shocking, new securitized geographies. “I see no difference between us and the Palestinians”, one Iraqi man screamed at Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter in December 2003, prefiguring the sentiments from Ferguson with which we began this chapter. “We didn’t expect anything like this after Saddam fell” (see Filkins, 2003). Reidar Visser was especially critical of the way that the new archipelago of fenced-off enclaves worked to re-affirm sectarian violence and identity, rather than working against it. “When will Westerners realize”, he wrote: that most Iraqis – with the exception of many Kurds and a few noisy parliamentarians from other communities – view sectarianism as a perversion and not as a legitimate basis for organizing the country politically and administratively? It is highly disturbing that physical separation schemes of this kind should appear to be a priority of the Bush administration in early 2007, at the expense of the political track towards national reconciliation. (Visser, 2007)

48

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

Thomas Henriksen (2007) admits that Israeli experience with checkpoints was directly imitated by U.S. forces in Iraq. These, he remarked, “have proven effective as well as road patrols in limiting terrorism. Thus a near-saturation of territory seems effective”, however, he argues that there were problems in ‘upscaling’ Israeli doctrine, developed over small and tightly packed cities like Gaza, to the much larger and more complex urban geographies in Iraq (Henriksen, 2007).

Vertical geopolitics: dronespace The effectiveness [of Israel’s aerial assassination policy] is amazing. The State of Israel has brought preventative assassination to the level of a real art. When a Palestinian child draws a sky nowadays, he will not draw it without a helicopter. Avi Dichter, Israel’s then Internal Security Minister (Elmer, 2005: 4)

The development by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Special Forces of targeted assassination programs in the ‘Global War on Terror’ has also been a direct imitation of long-standing Israeli policy of “pre-emption” by extra-judicial state killing, usually by helicopters or unmanned and remotely piloted drones armed with missiles in urban settings. Graham Turbiville (2007), in a report for the U.S. Joint Special Operations University, is absolutely clear about the direct imitation here. In discussing the United States’ post–9/11 advancements in counterinsurgency tactics, he highly lauds Israeli practices as something to strive to imitate amongst U.S. Special Forces. Turbiville (2007) notes that, “certainly, Israeli [assassination] actions against Palestinian, Hezbollah, and other terrorist leaders and support infrastructure since independence [?] constitute the gold standard for the systematic conceptual and operational consideration it has received from the Israeli Government and military and security bodies.” The United States began officially employing assassination tactics for the first time in November 2002, despite their prohibition by U.S. executive orders since 1977. To justify this policy, as Lisa Hajjar (2006: 31) has argued: [U.S.] officials utilized Israeli-like reasoning to justify the assassination of Ali Qaed Sinan al-Harithi [the first target] and five others (including a U.S. citizen) in Yemen by a pilot-less drone, proclaiming that because Harithi was allegedly a member of al-Qaeda and because arrest was impossible, assassination was a legitimate tactic, even against a person located in a country not at war with the United States (i.e., Yemen). By December 2003, U.S. drone-based assassinations had been combined with aggressive Special Forces operations inside Syria through which U.S. forces attempted to kill jihadists ostensibly on their way to fight in Iraq. IDF urban warfare specialists helped train these special force units at Fort Bragg in

Laboratories of pacification

49

North Carolina (Borger, 2003). In addition to a robust response from antiwar campaigners and humanitarian law specialists, some U.S. intelligence officials decried both the policy and its direct imitation of Israel. “This is basically an assassination program, […] we’re already being compared to [then Israeli Prime Minister] Sharon in the Arab world, and we’ve just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams”, a former senior U.S. intelligence official argued to Julian Borger (2003) of The Guardian. Israel’s use of drones for extrajudicial assassinations is especially important as an exemplar for the United States’ assassinations in the ‘Global War on Terror’ (Weizman, 2006: Chapter 9). In Gaza, drone-based assassinations are a primary mechanism for the new model of ‘external control’. This centres on attempts to maintain social and military control over the territory without the occupation of permanent armies. Israel is a global pioneer in the use of aerial drones for the persistent and ubiquitous surveillance of subject populations in ‘low intensity conflicts’ (a situation that it exploits fully on the international arms markets). Overwhelmingly, once again, Gaza has been the laboratory for this new doctrine and weaponry. “Some 90 percent of the assassinations in the Gaza Strip during the intifada have been executed from the air” (Li, 2006: 48). Aerial assassinations, then, are but one element of a much broader strategy of what Israeli planners term ‘Urban Area Domination’ – a doctrine which is having considerable influence on the U.S. military (Sanders, n. d.). Indeed, although rarely publicized, United States and Israeli efforts to perfect armed unmanned drones are now very closely integrated. As part of the broader strategy of aerial domination, Israel has modified its state-on-state war machinery for the so-called ‘low intensity conflict’ consisting of permanently dominating dense urban areas, using unmanned drones and satellites from above. New, specialized missiles have been developed, known as ‘Spikes’, which are specifically designed for urban assassination raids. These allow drone pilots to detect and destroy ‘targets’ very quickly (Sanders, n. d.). By 2007, such weaponry was being widely adopted by militaries of Western states. Spike missiles had already found themselves in France’s new generation of armed drones, (Tran and Opall-Rome, n. d.). The United States, British, and Singaporean militaries had ordered the Hermes armed drones made by the Israeli arms corporation Elbit (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) blog, 2006). And, most controversially of all, the same company had been awarded a major contract by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to patrol the United States–Mexico border and to try to target immigrants passing through this increasingly militarized zone. By 20 July 2007, the Border Patrol was claiming that there had been “42 apprehensions [of immigrants] directly attributable to UAV surveillance” (Israeli-Weapons.com, 2007). It was already being envisaged by 2004 that such patrols would also be extended to the United States–Canada border. Here, again, we confront the role of (post-Israeli ‘withdrawal’) Gaza as an exemplary field in the experimentation of new architectures, geographies, and

50

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

technologies of policing as control-at-distance, which are becoming widely imitated and exemplified elsewhere. There emerges a verticalized Orientalism within which the racialized subjects of colonial power are continually scrutinized, tracked, and targeted from above through the dominating apparatus of Western technoscientific power (see Graham, 2003). In Gaza, as Eyal Weizman writes: the geography of occupation has thus completed a 90-degree turn: the imaginary ‘Orient’ – the exotic object of colonization – was no longer beyond the horizon, but now under the vertical tyranny of Western airborne civilization that remotely managed its most sophisticated and advanced technological platforms, sensors and munitions above. (Weizman, 2008: 325)

Selling the security state The emergence of Israel as a unique global exemplar of urban militarism and securitization has been closely associated with the dramatic resurgence in its national economy between the 2000–2003 recession and the global financial crisis of 2008. Israel’s increasingly high-tech economy has been marshalled towards the challenges of selling urban warfare machinery and high-tech security systems to a rapidly growing global market, using its ‘combat-proven’ status to advantage. As a result, “suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack, and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners” (Klein, 2007b). The exploitation of these opening vistas of securitization have, of course, benefited hugely from the long-standing receipt of over $84 billion in military grants from the United States between 1976 and 2007. In addition, the Bush administration added extra aid in 1998 to help Israel ‘fight terrorism’ – thus further priming Israel’s security firms for their assault on global markets. This has been so successful, that, according to IHS Jane’s, as of 2012 Israel was the sixth biggest global exporter of armaments, and the single largest exporter of UAV systems (IHS.com, 2013). In 2014, further details were released during a court case showing that in 2012 “Israel had weapons deals worth $3.83 billion with Asian and Pacific states, deals worth $1.73 billion with European states, a deal worth $1.1 billion with the U.S. and deals worth $604 million and $107 million with African and Latin American states respectively” (Cohen, 2014). The rapid integration of United States and Israeli security technology sectors has been powerfully assisted by the very high level of cross-investment and ownership between the high-technology industries in the two nations. At the time these deals were made in 2012, Israel stood alongside China as the biggest source of foreign technology industry listings on the Nasdaq Stock Market (Lazaroff, 2012). With the 9/11 attacks, and the deepening integration of Israeli strategy into the urban warfare aspects of the U.S. ‘Global War on Terror’ discussed above,

Laboratories of pacification

51

Israeli capital, with considerable support from the U.S. and Israeli governments, has worked expertly to project its skills, expertise and products beyond the more obvious markets surrounding urban warfare, towards the much broader and ever-extendible mantra of global securitization, surveillance, and counterterrorism. The advantage of this is that virtually any high-tech company – from biotechnology, through computing, to telecommunications, electronics and new materials technology – can easily project itself as a ‘security’ company, such are the infinite varieties of ways in which the everyday spaces and infrastructures of cities can be deemed insecure in the contemporary world. At a talk in Tacoma in May 2007 designed to forge U.S.–Israeli links in high-tech security industries, Bernel Goldberg, the executive director of the Washington Israel Business Council, was unequivocal on this point. “As a top national priority, Homeland Security in Israel is more than just an exportable commodity”, he said: Israel’s self-reliance has created a diversified and cutting edge security industry, adding innovation to existing technologies as well as developing new ones. Israel today has earned its worldwide reputation for providing leading security solutions and continues to successfully partner with key world players to protect airports, seaports, government offices, financial institutions, recreational centers, international events and more. (Goldberg, 2007) Israeli firms have been able to use this context and reputation to rebrand themselves in a post 9/11 context better and faster than any others. Their systems, standards, and practices are fast emerging as global exemplars, to be imitated, copied, or bought up outright.

Security ‘showroom’: a global exemplar Indeed, the very Israeli identity and branding of the new techniques and technologies of policing, urban securitization and militarization have been a major selling point here. As Naomi Klein observes, “many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom – a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war” (Klein, 2007b). To visitors, such a ‘showroom’ features a process of urban life where every movement and action involves scrutiny and the negotiation of architectural or electronic passage points to prove legitimate rights of access or presence. In effect, the whole of Israeli urban society has generalized the sorts of security architectures and intense profiling practices, normally reserved for airports, to a whole system of cities and everyday infrastructures. A U.S. report from the U.S. Air Force’s Future Warfare Series, assessing lessons that the United States might learn from Israel, points out that, in Israel, “nearly every upscale

52

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

restaurant has private security at the door, including metal detectors and bomb sniffing sensors” (Larsen and Pravecek, 2007). The Israeli Ministry of Labor boasts that many of the ‘leading edge’ security systems being sold around the world by Israeli firms are “based on systems developed for the Israel Defense Forces. No other country has such a high percentage of former army, security forces, and police officers with experience in combating terrorism who can act as consultants in developing security concepts and systems for each unique situation” (Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, n. d.). Israeli companies, the Ministry continues, “have pioneered leading edge systems that combine Closed Circuit Television with the latest software, communications, command, and control solution packages”. Israeli companies offer the most effective “intruder detector systems based on motion detectors, infrared barriers”. In 2010, according to Israel’s Ministry of Economy (n. d.), of the military hardware worth $9.6 billion sold by Israeli companies, $7.2 billion consisted of exports. Crucially, then, Israel has been able to marshal its techniques of hypermilitarization, to match and exploit global trends towards the militarization of everyday spaces, infrastructures, and sites. The key markets here are not merely the more formal technologies of control and killing – militarized borders, unmanned drones, weapons designed for use in dense urban areas, and missiles for pre-emptive assassination. Rather, they extend to the whole gamut of urban surveillance and securocratic war: passenger profiling software, biometrics, and checkpoint systems. As Naomi Klein points out, all of these systems and architectures are “precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories” (Klein, 2007b). Israeli companies like Rafael, for example, heavily stress the ways in which the everyday systems and infrastructures of cities are now new sites of ‘low intensity conflict’ requiring radical securitization (using their expertise and technology, of course). “In wartime conditions”, runs the spiel in Rafael’s “anti-terror homeland security solutions” marketing brochure, Rafael systems provide defence against intruding military forces, intelligence, and terrorist units. In times of peace, these systems prevent the border crossing of illegal immigrants, smugglers, drug traffickers and terrorists. During Low Intensity Conflicts (LIC), Rafael technologies serve as shields against intruding intelligence or terrorist units. They also provide smart screening of pedestrians, vehicles and cargo at border check points. (Rafael Corporation, n.d.)

Security-industrial complexes: joint ventures Complex joint ventures between U.S. and Israeli companies and between central and local governments further the integration between U.S. and Israeli security companies and profitably generalize Israeli experience in urban

Laboratories of pacification

53

securitization. Driven by the perception that “the United States, as well as the entire international community, can learn much from Israel’s efforts in the homeland security arena” (Pockett, 2007: 150), in March 2004, the U.S. and Israel signed a joint Homeland Security Foundation Act. Pump-priming U.S. and Israeli security companies to address global markets to “have positive economic effects in both states” is a major goal of the Act, as well as developing new security products for U.S. and Israeli markets (Israeli Ministry of Public Security, 2007). In addition, the U.S.–Israel Science and Technology Foundation (USISTF), a joint American-Israeli organization founded to promote high-tech development, for example, set up an initiative in 2004 to encourage U.S. and Israeli firms to develop new comprehensive security systems in order to protect key buildings and infrastructures (Charlaff, 2004). U.S. local governments also see the enrolment of Israeli security firms as a way of building up their own development as hot beds of research and development in burgeoning and lucrative security industries. In January 2008, for example, the Economic Development Authority for Fairfax County in Virginia – a locality at the heart of one of the largest concentrations of hightech U.S. defence and security capital centered on the Beltway around Washington, DC – hosted a senior delegation of representatives from major Israeli security and defence corporations. The declared aim of the conference was to convince these companies to set up U.S. offices in the area (adding to the 65 which, by 2007, already had offices in and around Washington) and to entice them to work on joint ventures with U.S. firms based there. Gerald Gordon, president and CEO of the Fairfax Authority, described the rationale clearly. “Homeland security covers such an enormous range of services”, he said. “We don’t have the sufficient experience to cover everything [in the U.S.] and Israel has to be the first place to look for these” (Kravitz, 2007). The Israeli firms present at the Fairfax event demonstrate the full extent to which the detailed experience of securitization and repression in the Occupied Territories lies at the heart of Israel’s global push to be the planetary exemplar of military urbanism. DefenSoftTM Planning Systems, for example, boast of their unrivalled experience in “buffer zone protection planning” offered globally to cover “airports, seaports, industrial campuses, urban zones, and other strategic infrastructure sites” (see www.defensoft.com). Mate CCTV, who have received grants from the Israel–U.S. Bi-national Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), meanwhile offer “intelligent video surveillance” including an automated “behaviour watch” function. And Suspect Detection Systems LTD’s specialism is a system that, the makers claim, automatically “identifies malicious intent at border control and other checkpoints” (Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, 2007). These joint ventures are accruing major contracts in U.S. and global securitization. The Israeli firm Elbit, for example, is working with Boeing under a controversial Department of Homeland Security contract to build a high-tech surveillance system along the U.S.–Mexico border to use their

54

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

expertise “protecting Israel’s borders” “to keep Americans safe” according to the Israel21c marketing service (Goldman, 2006). Elbit’s president, Tim Taylor, claimed “the strategic and technological strengths that we bring to the project will help restore the safety and security that Americans have known for so long. Detecting threats along 6.000 miles of border in the U.S. is not the place for experimentation” (Goldman, 2006).

Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated that the security-industrial complexes of Israel and the United States are in the process of integrating seamlessly with the military-industrial complexes of those nations. This is occurring within a context marked by widespread imitation of the legal, geopolitical, geographical, and technological means through which the Israeli state has mobilized to fight permanent urban warfare against non-state enemies in the Occupied Territories. The centrality of the Israeli doctrine as an exemplar underpinning the U.S. ‘Global War on Terror’, in particular, has meant that the U.S.–Israel security-military-industrial complexes are becoming umbilically connected, to the extent that it would perhaps make more sense to consider them as one transnational unit. Fueled by the closely related ideologies of permanent war emanating from the U.S. and Israeli states – within the infinitely flexible and extendible confines of the ‘Global War on Terror’ – these processes of exemplification, experimentation, imitation, and justification are forging the rapid integration of the permanent ‘war-police’ economies of both Israel and the United States. The U.S.–Israeli security-industrial bubble – a rare point of growth amongst recession-prone stocks and a global economic downturn – is based heavily on the generalization and imitation of doctrines and technologies of ‘security’ forged during the long-standing lockdown and repression of Palestinian cities by Israeli military and security forces. Through it Israeli practices of urban hyper-militarism are making and shaping global policing, and hence are in danger of being generalized and normalized across transnational scales. They already connect to a longer global history of counterinsurgency and tactics that persist into the present. Such a prospect raises key questions about the global political economies of the security industries that the critical security and international relations scholars have barely started to address. It challenges critical scholars to address the way legal, socio-technical, geopolitical, and political-economic aspects of imitation relate within broad, global trends towards intensifying surveillance and securitization. Additionally, it forces scholars to address how the militarized spaces of surveillance experimentation, within the ‘urban warfare’ zones of colonial frontiers, connect, and also to address the broader generalization of these techniques within the urban domains of civilian life (see also Hönke and Müller, this volume). “It should never be forgotten”, Michel Foucault (2003: 103) wrote:

Laboratories of pacification

55

that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of power. A whole series of colonial models was brought back to the West, and the result was that the West could practice something resembling colonization, or an internal colonialism, on itself. Clearly, the efforts described above, which work to diffuse and normalize military and security norms and techniques for permanently targeting and locking down urban civilian life, represent a very powerful and important set of contemporary ‘boomerang effects’. These operate by seeking to extend Israeli doctrine, technique, and technology, so telescopically connecting urban counterinsurgency practices in ‘war-zone’ cities such as Gaza, Baghdad, and Kabul with the spaces and sites of ‘domestic’ or ‘Homeland’ cities. Both domains thus increasingly blur, as expeditionary warfare centres more and more on pacifying cities, and domestic policing centres increasingly focus on pre-emptively identifying malign threats within the everyday sites and spaces of cities. A burgeoning, transnationally-organized security-industrial complex, with the Israeli–U.S. nexus analysed above at its hub, is both the cause and result of such processes. In such a context, the challenge for critical scholarship is to excavate and contest the ‘boomerang effects’ that surround the blurring of U.S. and Israeli military and security practice.

Bibliography Balko, R. (2014). Rise of the Warrior Cop. New York: PublicAffairs. Bishara, A. (n. d.). ‘On the Intifada, Sharon’s Aims, ’48 Palestinians and NDA/Tajamu Stratagem’, Between the Lines. Available at: http://azmibishara.com/Interviews/Pub lished-Interviews/2009/On-the-Intifada,-Sharon-s-Aims,-48-Palestinians-an.aspx [10 October 2015]. Borger, J. (2003). ‘Israel Trains US Assassination Squads in Iraq’, The Guardian, 9 December. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1102940,00. html. Bouie, J. (2014). The Militarization of the Police. Slate, 13 August. Available at: http:// www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/police_in_ferguson_milita ry_weapons_threaten_protesters.html [10 October 2015]. Charlaff, J. (2004). ‘Joint Israeli-American Initiative to Streamline Homeland Security Management’, Israel 21c, 28 November. Available at: http://www.israel21c.org/join t-israeli-american-initiative-to-streamline-homeland-security-management/. Cohen, G. (2014). ‘Israel Reveals More than 7 Billion in Arms Sales but Few Names’, Haaretz, 9 January. Available at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/. premium-1.567693 [9 September 2015]. Elmer, J. (2005). ‘Maple Flag, the Israeli Air Force and “the New Type of Battle We Are Being Asked to Fight”’, Briarpatch Magazine, December: 3–8.

56

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

Evans, M. (2007). City without Joy: Urban Military Operations into the 21st Century. Australian Defence College: Occasional Series (2). Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (2007). Special Event United States–Israel HLS Technologies Conference and B2B (Business to Business) Meetings between Israeli and U.S. Companies on January 16th–18th. Filkins, D. (2003). ‘A Region Inflamed: Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns’, New York Times, 7 December. Fisk, R. (2007). ‘Divide and Rule – America’s Plan for Baghdad’, The Independent, 11 April. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-divide-a nd-rule–americas-plan-for-baghdad-444178.html. Foucault, M. (2003). Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975–6. London: Allen Lane. Goldberg, B. (2007). ‘Introduction, Washington Israel Business Council Washington State and Israel: Investment and Trade Opportunities’, World Trade Center Tacoma, 4 May. Available at: www.wtcta.org/index.php?CURRENT_PAGE_ID= 627–288k. Goldman, L. (2006). ‘Israeli Technology to Keep US Borders Safe’, ISRAEL21c.org, 15 October. Available at: http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles% 5El1450&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDis. Graham, S. (2003). ‘Vertical Geopolitics: Baghdad and After’, Antipode 36(1): 12–19. Haddad, T. (2004). ‘Iraq, Palestine, and U.S. Imperialism’, International Socialist Review 36, July–August. Hajjar, L. (2006). ‘International Humanitarian Law and “Wars on Terror”: A Comparative Analysis of Israeli and American Doctrines and Policies’, Journal of Palestine Studies 36(1): 21–42. Hatmaker, T. (2014). ‘Palestinians Teach Ferguson Protesters How to Deal with Tear Gas’, The Daily Dot, 14 August. Available at: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/fer guson-protest-palestinians-gaza-tear-gas/. Henriksen, T. (2007). The Israeli Approach to Irregular Warfare and Implications for the United States. Joint Special Operations University Report 07–03. Hurlburt Field, FL: The JSOU Press. Available at: https://jsoupublic.socom.mil/publications/ jsoupubs_2007.php. Human Rights Watch (2002). ‘Jenin: IDF Military Operations.’ Available at: http:// www.hrw.org/reports/2002/israel3/index.htm. IHS.com (2013). ‘Peak Defence on Horizon as US, UK & Europe Erodes Competitive Edge’, 24 June. Available at: http://press.ihs.com/press-release/country-industry-for ecasting/peak-defence-horizon-us-uk-europe-erodes-competitive-edge [9 September 2015]. Israeli Ministry of Economy (n.d.). ‘Homeland Security and Public Safety in Israel.’ Available at: http://www.economy.gov.il/English/InternationalAffairs/InvestInIsrael/ Business Sectors/Pages/HomelandSecurity.aspx [10 October 2015]. Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor (n.d.). ‘Applying Israel’s Homeland Security Experience Worldwide.’ Available at: http://www.moital.gov.il/NR/exeres/ 7A26C75C-2C31-4E80-8E09-B4D465C721A3.htm. Israeli Ministry of Public Security (2007). ‘An Israel–USA Homeland Security Fund.’ Available at: www.mops.gov.il. Israeli-Weapons.com (2007). ‘Hermes 450’. Available at: http://www.israeli-weapons. com/weapons/aircraft/uav/hermes_450/Hermes_450.html.

Laboratories of pacification

57

Khalili, L. (2010). ‘The Location of Palestine in Global Counterinsurgencies’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 42(3): 413–33. Khoury-Machool, M. (2003). ‘Losing the Battle for Arab Hearts and Minds’, Open Democracy, 2 May. Klein, N. (2007a). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Allen Lane. Klein, N. (2007b). ‘Laboratory for a Fortressed World’, The Nation, 14 June. Kravitz, A. (2007). ‘US Homeland Security Market Beckons’, Jerusalem Post, 18 January. Lappin, Y. (2011). ‘US Police Officials in Israel for Counter-Terrorism Program’, Jerusalem Post, 31 October. Available at: http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Po litics/US-police-officials-in-Israel-for-counter-terrorism-program [9 September 2015]. Larsen, J. and Pravecek, T. (2007). ‘Comparative U.S.–Israeli Homeland Security’, The Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series No. 34, USAF. Lazaroff, L. (2012). ‘China to Capitalize on Nasdaq Jump with Tech IPOs, BNY says’, Bloomberg, 7 May. Available at: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-07/ china-to-take-advantage-of-nasdaq-jump-with-tech-ipos-bny-says [9 September 2015]. Li, D. (2006). ‘The Gaza Strip as Laboratory: Notes in the Wake of Disengagement’, Journal of Palestine Studies 35(2): 38–49. Lowe, C. (2002). ‘Trading Tactics’, Marine Corps Times, 10 August. Palumbo-Liu, D. (2014). ‘Ferguson and Gaza: The Definitive Study of How They Are and Are Not Similar’, Salon, 22 August. Pockett, C. (2007). The United States and Israeli Homeland Security: A Comparative Analysis of Emergency Preparedness Efforts. Montgomery, AL: USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base. Rafael Corporation (n. d.). ‘Anti-Terror Homeland Security Solutions’. Available at: http://www.rafael.co.il/marketing/SIP_STORAGE/FILES/2/782.pdf [9 October 2015]. Rayner, T. (2014). ‘US General Backs Israel’s Tactics in Gaza War’, Sky, 7 November. Available at: http://news.sky.com/story/1368654/us-general-backs-israels-tactics-in-ga za-war [9 September 2015]. Said, E. (2003.) ‘The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay’, CounterPunch, 20 August. Available at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/08/20/the-imperial-bluster-of-tom -delay/ [9 September 2015]. Sanders, R. (n. d.). ‘Israel Practice New Concepts for Airborne, Urban Area Domination; An Israeli Military Innovation’, Defense-Update.com. Available at: http:// defense-update.com/20060107_urban-il-9.html. Tran, P. and Opall-Rome, B. (n. d.). French UAV To Carry Israeli Missiles. Rafael Corporation. Available at: www.rafael.co.il. Turbiville, G.H. (2007). Hunting Leadership Targets in Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorist Operations: Selected Perspectives and Experience. Joint Special Operations University Report 07–06. Hurlburt Field, FL: The JSOU Press. United Nations (2002). ‘Report of Secretary-General on Recent Events in Jenin and Other Palestinian Cities’, 1 August. Available at: http://www.un.org/press/en/2002/ SG2077.doc.htm [9 September 2015]. U.S. Army War College (n.d.). Shifting Fire: Information Effects in Counterinsurgency and Stability Operations. Workshop report, USAWC 10. Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Available at: www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/ShiftingFireMenu. pdf.

58

Stephen Graham and Alexander Baker

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Blog (2006). Available at: http://www.livingroom.org.au/ua vblog/archives/cat_uav_news.html. Visser, R. (2007). ‘Baghdad Zoo: Why “Gated Communities” Will Face Opposition in the Iraqi Capital,’ historiae.org, 23 April. Available at: http://www.historiae.org/ga ted.asp. Weizman, E. (2004). ‘D: Space’, in: Crandall, J. (ed.) Under Fire. The Organization and Representation of Violence. Rotterdam: Witte de With, pp. 83–86. Weizman, E. (2006). Hollow Land. London: Verso. Weizman, E. (2008). ‘Thanotactics’, in: Sorkin, M. (ed.) Indefensible Space: The Architecture of the National Security State. Routledge: New York, pp. 325–350.

4

Beyond the laboratory thesis Gaza as transmission belt for war and security technology Leila Stockmarr

This chapter shows how Israel’s Gaza regime contains a wide spectrum of security practices moulded on a Zionist idea of ethnic separation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. By examining the overlapping geographical, technological and political infrastructures of Israel’s policing of the Gaza Strip, and their connection to exports to other places worldwide, the chapter contributes to our understanding of the ‘global making of policing’ (Hönke and Müller, this volume). The chapter argues that the link between Israel’s colonial practices in Gaza and their diffusion into other missions of policing is grounded in the deep structures of inequality ingrained in Israel’s rule over Gaza. Based on empirical data collected at arms fairs1, through interviews with 15 representatives and owners of security companies in Israel as well as promotional material, this analysis will unravel how security technologies developed in Gaza traverse the globe to police, control and ‘accumulate by dispossession’ (Harvey, 2003; see also Arrighi, 2003) in other locations. Israel’s role in establishing global trends of policing are closely related to the Gaza Strip. Consequently, it is shown how the colonized enclave of Gaza functions as a transnational field for the creation and transmission of policing practices to other localities. The chapter hence illustrates how logics of policing in the colony and metropole are interwoven and grow out of the same political dynamics. While the resulting practices of policing are routinely highlighted by the industry in their promotional efforts at arms fairs and online, as well as by critical activists (see for example Johnson, 2012; Cook, 2013; Hever, 2014), there is little work on the relationships between Israel’s “material theatre of war” (Weizmann, 2007), the advance of homeland security (HLS) technology, and the ways in which these technologies are dispersed to other sites of control, war and policing.

Security, policing and settler governmentality Hönke and Müller have called for a research agenda that examines both practices and discourses of security under the conditions of a postcolonial reality (Hönke and Müller, 2012). This perspective pays attention to postcoloniality as a global condition. In this regard, security is understood as

60

Leila Stockmarr

knowledge and practices of asymmetrical interventions of governance, security and control taking place outside and inside the Western metropole. As Mignolo (2006) argues, the postcolonial condition extends beyond formal colonialism and proliferates as a global, yet localized network of inequality management. In this light, this chapter takes into account the postcolonial condition in examining the encounter between Israeli security practices in Gaza and other forces of postcolonial policing inscribed in discourses of modernization (Mignolo, 2006: 385–386; see also Hönke and Müller, 2012). The key question is how security is best approached as a mode of rule? To address this, it is instructive to situate Israel in the broader debates proliferating on postcolonial security practices, challenging Western-centric approaches to the making of security and their underlying unidirectional and binary geographies (Barkawi and Laffey, 2006). Scott (1995) demonstrated how British colonial power in Sri Lanka operated to achieve ‘modernity’, based on a particular set of political rationalities tied to the locations in which these strategies were deployed, which he termed ‘colonial governmentality’. In a different vein, Crosby and Monaghan (2012) argue that in the case of contemporary Canada, ‘settler governmentality’ is a more appropriate term. It is an analytical concept to examine the policing of an indigenous people by a majority non-indigenous population. Such policing involves a denial of colonial realities and racial discrimination by the majority settler population. Notably, Israel cannot be labelled or categorized as postcolonial in the conventional sense. However, as Israel routinely and structurally (within the occupied Palestinian territory [OPT] as well as Israel proper) denies its indigenous Palestinian population their rights (Klein, 2010; Yiftachel and Yacobi, 2003), settler governmentality characterizes Israeli security practices. However it may differ from conventionally termed postcolonial states, Israel is a colonial state in the making: a state which is territorially unfixed and still expanding through the settling of Palestinian territory (Gordon, 2008; Tawil-Souri, 2011a; Yiftachel, 2006; Zureik, Lyon and Abu-Laban, 2011).

Israeli settler governmentality To understand Israel’s comparative advantages and the export of policing technology from Gaza to the world, it is necessary to consider how the security industry is deeply rooted in this colonial settler project as arguably the central project of the Israeli state. This project is based on the definition of the Jewish community as an ethnic community, from which the Palestinian is excluded. The colonial impulses of Israel’s settler governmentality are enacted by a variety of practices to secure the expansion of the settler population at the expense of the native Palestinian population. Security practices are an integral component of Israel’s ongoing territorial reconfiguration, meaning no conquering of new territory, nor the protection of its sovereign space, can

Beyond the laboratory thesis

61

function without them. The specific practices of policing people and territories grow out of an alliance between the Israeli state and the booming security industry, co-producing a narrative of permanent insecurity that can only be remedied through constant policing. This narrative of insecurity of the majority settler population is in turn used to sustain the political rationality underlying security practices used in Gaza. It is a rationality based on a logic of separation, implemented with the help of private security firms and high-tech security technology. As a key pillar of the Israeli high-tech security economy, the Gaza Strip has become a hyperbolic example of how the merging of capital and coercion with Israel’s security industry occurs. Specifically this occurs through the production of an enemy space, which resonates with what Hönke referred to as a ‘business space’ (2013). This can be controlled and translated into other spheres. In the case of Gaza, the separation of space is both a nodal point in Israeli-Palestinian history and what Khalili refers to as a transmission belt for counter-insurgency and new wars (Khalili, 2010). As Wolfe argues, the character of settler colonialism is structural and carries with it the logic of elimination of native structures (Wolfe, 2006, 2012; see also Yiftachel, 2006). This logic of the destruction of the old and the erection of new structures, thus controlling and limiting Palestinian life and promoting Jewish-Israeli life, is central to the production of security commodities. In turn, as will be further explored, Israel’s settler governmentality plays a central role in the production of highly competitive security commodities.

Israel’s transnational security industry: the laboratory thesis It has become widely acknowledged that Palestine has served as a ‘laboratory’ for the Israeli security industry, both public and private. Israel’s dominant position within homeland security (HLS) and counterterrorism is widely recognized (see e.g. Denes, 2011; Gordon, 2009; Graham, 2010b, with Baker this volume). In this national industry, Palestine has both practically and symbolically assumed a central role as a space in which to develop, test and refine products and thus mark them as tested in the field (Gordon, 2009; Graham, 2010b; Klein, 2007; Stockmarr, 2014). In 2012, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s conservative estimate, Israel exported 76 per cent of its produced arms, amounting to around 7 billion USD. Israel’s military economy penetrates its domestic economy and sustains a network of private and public elites, which extends beyond military institutions (Barak and Sheffer, 2006; Rosenhek, 2003). Israel’s dispatch of soft ideas and hard technologies of policing and control are closely related to its colonial policies of siege and encirclement, based on an ideological scheme of ethnic differentiation. These technologies are sought after elsewhere as devices that enable the management of risk and governance through differentiation (Amoore and De Goede, 2008, 2005). Whilst the history of colonial rule in Israel is not unique, its place in history allows it to simultaneously draw on legacies of past colonial rule systems combined with

62

Leila Stockmarr

the legacy of persecution and of permanent insecurity of Jews. The resultant Israeli security sector is the basis of a high-tech economy that breaks new ground in warfare. Today, the export of its technologized practices of control is a way for Israel and its security industry to insert itself into the global (security) economy and provides a platform for the state to reconfigure its global ties towards a position of parity. Moreover, the outgrowth of Israel’s security industry needs to be understood against the backdrop of Israel as one of the most militarized states on earth. Jewish Israeli citizens serve in the army for a minimum of three years, with almost 6 per cent of Israel’s GDP spent on the military, compared to 3.5 per cent of GDP spent in the US in 2014 (World Bank, n.d.). In order to sustain battlefield domination, the military economy is dependent on new technology and aims at deploying cutting-edge tools. The technologies are developed based on conventional laboratory science, combined with expertise generated by involvement in settler colonial efforts supported by the Israeli state. Like other colonial projects, Israel’s technological advancement has been nurtured by a fertile marriage between science and colonialism, which resonates to some extent with what Conrad termed ‘scientific colonialism’ (Conrad, 2012). In the case of Israel, science has consistently been invoked to “shape the progressiveness of the Zionist colonial undertaking” (Efron, 2011: 417). This ethos of scientific progress is a key component in the dominant narrative of the Israeli security industry. By way of illustration, in 2012 at the opening of a major high-tech conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s President Shimon Peres proclaimed: “We don’t fight for land, we fight for science, and science cannot be fought by war … we need an army without arms, we need an army of scientists.”2 The cooperation of Israeli state with security companies through intense research and development funding, shared ownership structures, public investment and co-funding has thus created a network of enmeshed private and public interests. This public–private alliance has proven fertile for sustained innovation, production and sales of security technology. Foreign companies often forge a strategic alliance with diplomatic missions’ military attachés and representatives from the state-based marketing agency Invest in Israel as well as the International Defense Cooperation directorate (Hebrew acronym: SIBAT), the export agency of the Israeli Ministry of Defense overseeing exports and conducting matchmaking between sellers and buyers.

Islands of control and separation as rule To understand the localized roots of this security industry, it is instructive to bring into focus the specific logics of rule deployed in Palestine and in particular the Gaza Strip. As in the case of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli occupation from 1967 until the present day (with Gaza under Egyptian rule from 1948 to 1967). Since the establishment of the state

Beyond the laboratory thesis

63

of Israel in 1948, Gaza has been a refuge for displaced Palestinians, mostly from the fertile coastlands of historic Palestine (Allen, 2012; Roy, 1995, 2007). The majority of the population, around 75 per cent, or one million people, are refugees living within an hour’s drive from their place of origin inside Israel. While in other parts of Palestine Israel’s colonial frontiers continue to shift as Palestinians are continually resettled and their land annexed, the borders of Gaza are relatively fixed, with its population confined behind walls. The logics guiding the regime of control in the Gaza Strip are a complex effect of the Zionist remaking of Palestine today. Within the context of the separation between Palestinians and Israelis enacted by the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, and the concomitant mobilization of support for Hamas rejectionist politics, Israel has developed a particular way of ruling Gaza from afar. More than 12 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel unilaterally disengaged its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. The Israeli state did so while retaining an iron fist over the territory termed ‘Hamastan’ (referring to various claims that the Islamist group of Hamas would turn Gaza into an Islamist fundamentalist state), more simply ‘enemy territory’ or ‘Islamist entity’. As a continuation of Israel’s Oslo strategy, the withdrawal can be seen as part of a strategy to reduce responsibility for administering the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip (Azoulay and Ophir, 2013: 168). Facilitated by both the effects of Oslo and the Disengagement Plan, the goal of separation has been attained through what Li terms ‘controlled abandonment’ (2008), via which the Gaza Strip is (re)produced as an internment camp. Controlled abandonment entails that contact between Israelis and Gazans is mostly confined to the realm of security. These control systems are, according to the official Israeli strategy, the means through which the security system in place will result in ‘minimum friction’ with the Palestinians. This logic materializes in zoning systems, restricted access and buffer zones,3 and logistical control. These security logics and tested technologies are exported from Gaza to elsewhere, which is what the remainder of the chapter focuses on.

Policing places and people elsewhere The particularities of Israel’s Gaza rule, material and ideational, travel to other places. When transferring security technology, the usability of Israel’s techniques is often in need of adjustment to local political and legal contexts. Consequently, as will be explored, when Israeli companies and state agencies dispatch their security technology globally, they sell not mere technological devices but also know-how and the ideas behind the technologies on which the architecture of occupation is built.

War against non-places By and large, this technology is promoted with reference to Israel’s capacity to accommodate a reality where order and chaos exist simultaneously, yet are

64

Leila Stockmarr

neatly separated geographically. In much of the public relations material generated by the over 500 security companies, Israel is presented as a (relatively) safe space: a safety that administrators of oil-drilling platforms, mega events or airports aspire to. This safety, the narrative suggests, is ensured by the presence of advanced technology. To market these technologies as properly tested, the Gaza Strip is portrayed as an archipelago of danger, as fragile, as a refugee camp, as dangerous as a favela and as full of potential terrorist cells. It is further construed as an isolated peripheral zone and no-man’s land: a despaired ‘non-place’ as Marc Augé (1995) termed it. This kind of place can, in short, be defined as a place without history and identity (Augé, 1995: 77–78). The use of intelligent fences, sensor systems, ID checks and access management are installed simply to keep insecurity at bay, as in the case of other modern nonplaces such as ghettos, prisons and slums. Indeed, the production of and protection from these non-places resonates with other war zones but also with globally spreading sites of transit and controlled passage. These sites are central to global mobility, whether in relation to tourism, trade or organized crime. Globally, guardians of non-places look for means to control movement, and anticipate deviance, from normal behaviour in such spaces, with only minimum interference. Preventive measures such as racial profiling and the collection of information on those passing through or living within these spaces meet these ambitions. Increasingly, Israeli companies export the technologies used in Gaza for such purposes. One example is the variety of drone system technologies that Israel’s largest manufacturers, Elbit and Rafael, export, all documented to have been used in Israel’s wars on Gaza (Journal of Palestine Studies, 2009). As Graham notes, Israel’s delivery of security technology to numerous international airports is also “not a coincidence” (Graham, 2010b: 44). For example, Israeli security giant NICE Systems has been a security provider of surveillance systems in a long list of airports worldwide including New Orleans, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney. At the same time, the companies involved in the construction of the ‘intelligent’ fence around Gaza and the West Bank Separation Barrier, such as Elbit, Magal and Magna, transfer these technologies to other borders and sites of critical infrastructure protection. The outside/inside and chaos/order divisions so central to ruling Gaza are crucial for airport and border security regimes elsewhere. Therefore, surveillance systems tested in Gaza, including cameras, alter sensors and unmanned vehicles, advance a successful export niche.

Transferring illegitimacy and the governance of non-subjects As part of upgrading the occupation by deploying more sophisticated technology, the co-constitution of ruler and ruled in Gaza is increasingly mediated through technological devices. This allows the technologically superior zone (Israel) to treat citizens in the non-place of the Gaza Strip as non-subjects. Both in military and industrial discourse, ‘the Gazan’ is framed as a non-subject who needs to be controlled and pacified.

Beyond the laboratory thesis

65

Israel’s continuum of security and policing practices involves a categorization of individuals as either illegitimate and risky or legitimate and at risk. This categorization is mediated by technologies, which facilitate movement and access for some while restricting others. According to Azoulay and Ophir, this is part of a broader process of dehumanizing the Palestinian into an object of rule: The Palestinian is a subject who may only submit or resist and force the ruling apparatus either to intensify violence, withhold violence or respond directly in violent eruptions. (Azoulay and Ophir, 2013: 143) In the process of elevating the abandoned control model to a transnational level, the Gazan is again translated into a non-subject. Policing technologies developed in the occupied territories are sold with the promise that they aided the containment of ‘lawless subjects’, from which any ‘at risk’ population might be in need of protection. This non-subject can be migrants, refugees, smugglers, ‘coyotes’, cartel members, militants or even militaries themselves (Graham, 2010a): categories practically and discursively produced by security companies and military actors. As a well-known and internationally respected Israeli security expert illustrated during an interview: “Like in the case of Gaza’s terrorists, the suspect or a member of a criminal gang in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro needs to be controlled.”4 In preparation for the FIFA World Cup in 2014, Leo Gleser and his team of security experts were involved in training squads of security staff in anticipation of massive inflows of tourists to Rio. From the company’s headquarters in Rio at the periphery of a favela, the company trained forces owned by the municipality and private institutions on how to “clear space of unwanted infiltration” in risky areas through the use of advanced technology and know-how imported from Israel. In this way, the export of rule entails the imposition of illegitimacy upon different groups deemed dangerous: a process Walters (2008) refers to as the transfer of illegitimacy. Writ large this process of transfer of illegitimacy from the Gazan to the unknown or unwanted elsewhere was a consistent feature of commercial talks and materials observed at various arms fairs (see note 1). As observed at such fairs, but also live demonstrations of respective technology to potential international buyers, these narratives fuel technology transfer and shape ‘global policing’ in distinct ways. In this process, the non-citizen of Gaza is presented as the human basis for testing new technology. Israeli products are hence duly stamped as ‘battlefield proven’ or ‘tested by the Israeli Defense Forces’. As captured in a statement by Mr Katz, Head of Marketing of MER: Italians got architecture or clothes [design], we go for security, because that is what we can do best.5

66

Leila Stockmarr

At times this type of branding is literally imprinted on the product or verbally articulated in promotions. The ‘Israel experience’, as it is marketed and sold, is moving in choir with its own expansive colonialism. The branding rests on a brutal reality: the testing phase. As most of the company representatives I interviewed imparted, it is central to Israel’s cutting-edge military and policing capacities that new pieces of technology are developed and tested in a concrete situation of controlling a population, such as in the Gaza Strip. As one representative of a major security company told me, once an order has been made by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and after initial deployment in the field, the company’s technical departments are often contacted with demands for correction and precision based on experience. Thus every time the IDF uses Israeli HLS technology, it automatically tests it. Companies benefit greatly from this; and every time a new order is placed, these ‘demands’ from the battlefield are injected to improve the process of tendering and guarantee quality and effectiveness. At times the IDF is even given a prototype to test in the field, which is only considered a first step in the innovation process towards producing the final commodity. Moreover, having the laboratory of Gaza less than an hour away from the site of production of security technology places ‘metropole’ and ‘colony’ (Cooper and Stoler, 1997), rather unusually, in the same geopolitical space. As a consequence, the idea of defending the metropole – Israel – is integral to the policing of the Gaza Strip. Modernity, coloniality and subjugated pockets of illegitimacy in the same location enable the production of specific high-tech policing equipment ready-made for the industry. What is crucial is that the confrontation with and reaction to technology help to refine it and to adjust technologies to the messy realities on the ground. Engagement in the Gaza Strip indeed helps companies to generate new ideas and to fine-tune product lines. In this way, the structural nature of state violence that materializes in the Gaza enclave also turns Gaza into a crucial part of the HLS cycle. In order to evaluate a given product, the systematic inclusion of the targeted populations’ responses to new security technologies are crucial for foreign buyers. The ‘global making of policing’ in this context is an ongoing process in which the deployment of a particular device is not the endpoint, but the starting point for adaptation and further innovation. Israel’s engagement in the market of the global policing of borders is a case in point.

Policing the border: vehicles, sensors and pearls Israel’s experience of counter-insurgency and separation in Gaza has led to debates on the ‘Israelization’ of urban counter-insurgencies on a global scale (Graham, 2010b). The abandoned control regime has morphed somewhat into a conceptual formula of how to conduct frictionless border control, such as through unmanned border patrolling, and one which has become a successful export commodity.

Beyond the laboratory thesis

67

When Silicon Valley high-tech giant Google recently launched its new driverless car, the news travelled rapidly around the world. It was presented as a revolutionary leap into the future and, for many, a dream come true. Meanwhile, the IDF has since 2008 started to test and deploy unmanned jeeps known as the Guardium. These are produced by the company G-Nius to guard the borders surrounding the Gaza Strip. Today, these vehicles, controlled with a joystick and mouse from a nearby control room, roam around the Strip along the intelligent fence. While all of G-Nius’ models are made for ‘autonomous mission execution’, the Guardium MKIII carries a remote-controlled lethal weapons system with a rapid sensor-to-shooter-loop operating around the clock. These circulating robots match the aerial surveillance and potentially lethal drones patrolling the enclave’s airspace leaving the people in Gaza under tight, potentially deadly surveillance. The technology enabling these innovations grew out of the desire to retain tight control over the Gaza Strip with as few soldiers on the ground as possible in order to prevent the loss of soldiers’ lives and to avoid friction. The Guardium system was developed in a joint venture by two Israeli security giants: the privately owned Elbit and the state-owned IAI. Under the slogan ‘driven by innovation’, the G-Nius venture is now planning to release a new generation of the jeep. This includes the Loyal Partner, which is an unmanned ground vehicle to be used to inspect the interior of houses from within and to transport ammunition and protective gear to soldiers in combat.6 As a soldier further explained, Israel’s Gaza strategy has altered the way the IDF operates: Since Cast Lead, there have hardly been any incursions. The military is only going into the strip in the areas close to the fence. Very rarely units go inside. If they do, it usually means war. In some ways the control over the military equipment around the strip is becoming automatized. If you have women soldiers standing in offices, they control with remote controlled machine guns, and then they have the ability and the responsibility to prevent any kind of infiltration into the country.7 Israel’s military rule over Gaza has hence been marked by rare but large-scale coordinated incursions and a concentration of confrontations around the border zones. As noted by Graham, the increasingly militarized borders of Gaza are “shoot to kill zones” (Graham 2010a: 243). Infrastructures of separation are increasingly fortified with high-tech/ software-based accessories for control and surveillance around the world. These accessories can be customized to fit specific missions, and all ensure frictionless border control. Contact with a penetrator is transmitted and interpreted in the event of vibration, a rise in temperature, or a magnetic reaction. To develop the field of border protection, Martin Cowen, a former South African national and now Israeli citizen and owner of the small Israeli company GM Systems, has for instance developed the detection system V-Alert Sensor. In

68

Leila Stockmarr

August 2012, I visited Cowen in his office at his villa in a Tel Aviv suburb where he demonstrated his digital fencing technology. Each sensor in the product prototype has its own ID, so the operator knows exactly which sensor sends an alarm to the central command unit. Each calibrator, which is made in accordance with the kind of fence it is installed on, displays a large range of capabilities. Currently, the many products offered by GM are all unified in a so-called DUAL COMM system, which enables communication between locations and the control room through wireless transmission. According to Cowen, the algorithm- and software-based V-Alert system can be installed on all types of solid structures and perimeter fences. Today, varieties of the V-Alert system are installed on the Separation Barrier in the West Bank and around settlements as part of an intelligent fencing system. Interestingly, the first versions of the V-Alert sensor were not developed to guard the Palestinians and prevent their infiltration into Israel and across barriers inside the OPT. Cowen and GM first developed fences and technological accessories for the agricultural industry to manage and lock in animals in both Israel and South Africa. This was a successful business in Israel, especially given the Kibbutzim’s agricultural-based architecture. As Cowen described it: During the First Intifada, we got a request from the settlements in Gaza. We took technology and fashioned it for settlements – a very simple transfer. The message was: Keep people out and deter with electric shock. Then in the mid-1990s, we established GM – we wanted to expand. We developed technology based on a need and the demands of users.8 With the steady disassembly of the Kibbutz economy and the tightened security measures following the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, the basis of Cowen’s business changed. Its centre of gravity shifted towards the OPT and the management of Palestinians and settlers rather than cattle and sheep. In cooperation with the Ministry of Defense (MoD), Cowen and his team became involved in perimeter fencing. Cowen explained the company’s trajectory: After the First Intifada, we became very successful in the local market of electrical fencing. We deployed 400 kilometres of fencing in the Gaza Strip around the settlements. Today these are destroyed. Today we are present all along the green line, on the barrier and in towns or villages in strategic military areas. Once we had success in the settlement we could go on to the Jordan Valley and so on.9 This multipurpose system, which integrates both psychological and physical deterrents, is installed in a range of settings such as the West Bank Barrier, but also abroad around oilrigs and other critical infrastructure such as government buildings and diplomatic missions. Today, 50 per cent of GM’s sales

Beyond the laboratory thesis

69

are indeed from abroad, and 50 per cent from Israeli customers. According to Cowen, the company is particularly successful exporting to industrial sites overseas, especially to Latin American and Asian markets. These markets are in flux, Cowen argued, because of “rapid industrialization and a general rise in lawlessness”.10 Battlefield-tested technologies of frictionless abandoned control are in high demand and international clients ‘generally like Israeli technology’. Only at times was it strategically wise to be discreet about the origin of the products, in places where the Israeli brand is unpopular. GM System’s trajectory is by no means unique; rather, it reflects a shift in the security economy. The Israeli company Sabrafence11 specializes in the evolving field of event detectors, which includes smart gates such as ‘beam barriers’ (crash arm barriers), crash barricades (road blockers), and the socalled ‘crash gates’ (an iron swing door), which have been sold to the Israeli government, the IDF, the Palestinian National Authority, and government agencies in Jordan, Egypt, Greece as well as the UN. Border making is the medium through which separation is constructed and sustained, and border security enables different social realities to coexist as separate units within a short distance. Of course, geographical constraints are not necessarily defined by national borders in the classical Westphalian sense, and lines of division and exclusion are also drawn on an ad hoc basis (see Larner, 2008; Salter, 2005). Borders are concentration points in the encounters between colonizer and colonized, which is why the key to exporting Israel’s logics of border policing is an image of hyper-secure borders, branded against an ever-present threat of penetration. This speaks to other governments’ fear of ruptured, unstable borders. As a PR representative of the Israeli security company MER explained at a security fair: “The European dream of open borders everywhere will never happen.” Referring to Israel’s expertise in border management, he continued: “Israel’s borders are not just Jewish, they are some of the most secure in the world […]. Through wars and fighting terrorism, Israel has learned its lessons the hard way.”12 Such border management obviously goes beyond protecting and restoring territorial lines. Although under siege, the borders of the Gaza Strip are complex and multidimensional. According to the UN, Israel has substantial control of its border crossings to Gaza (Dugaard, 2007; see also Hajjar, 2012). Moreover, Gaza’s borders are virtual, naval, territorial and aerial. They are experienced, for instance, as telephone access that is ruptured (Gilbert, 2013), or by fishermen, who, when they try to sail out at sea, step on sensors demarcating the “bloody borders” of a buffer zone (Li, 2006: 45). The way Gaza’s borders are guarded hence produces a particular multidimensional geography of confinement and separation. As demonstrations of the little Guardium vehicle at security fairs show, new products are marketed as the future of frictionless and unmanned policing. Thus policing borders by enacting a technological panopticism, sanctioning ‘illegitimate’ subjects/objects with randomized violence, is core to the border technologies exported by Israel. These enact an ideological line of

70

Leila Stockmarr

separation between ‘us and them’, as Tawil-Souri argues: “[W]hat we see is a kaleidoscope of bordering mechanisms and containment devices, in which multiple points and overlapping zones of control are juxtaposed; some diffused, some centralised, some contradictory” (Tawil-Souri, 2011b: 12). What is unique to the Gaza border experience is the frictionless and humanless separation, and the level of intensity of the separation achieved with the help of high technology allowing policing from afar. This border management is a central element needed to uphold the abandoned control regime. What is more, it provides a window into future technologized trends of war, policing and border control.

Exporting the border logic Israel’s advancement in the field of border policing technology connects the experience of Gaza to the wider industry of border control and policing. Border security entails a global political economy of (im)mobility to ensure and delimit circulation of people and goods (see Andreas, 2009; Frowd, 2014; Sparke, 2006). Israeli border technology developed in Gaza is eagerly deployed in a variety of foreign locations. In late 2013, for example, a US government website for federal investment posted a call for companies to bid on a new Integrated Fixed Towers project (IFT). With 2011–2015 as its expected timeframe of investment, the project is estimated to cost 86.82 million USD. In 2014, Israel’s Elbit Systems won the 145 million USD contract to contribute to the IFT project over the next year, which added one more year to a guaranteed eight years of infrastructural support from Elbit. The

Figure 4.1 Guardium UAV in the southern part of the Gaza-Israel Border Photo: Zev Marmorstein: IDF Spokesperson Unit.

Beyond the laboratory thesis

71

Figure 4.2 Live demonstration of the Guardium border control UAV at the Port of Ashdod, promotional tour during the HLS 2nd Israel Homeland Security Conference. Israel, November 2012 Photo: Author.

IFT project is to be implemented along the border between Arizona and Mexico as part of a large-scale push to upgrade U.S. border protection with high-tech fences that can provide “automated and persistent wide-area surveillance to detect, track, identify and classify illegal entries” (IT Dashboard, 2014). Similarly, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, along with a range of other military and border control agencies, has shown interest in learning from Israel’s Gaza experience. They would like to embark on the next generation of the aforementioned Guardium. Sloganized as ‘driven by innovation’, the G-Nius venture has new generations of jeeps on the way, including the Loyal Partner mentioned earlier. In this way, technologies of selected mobility, containment

72

Leila Stockmarr

and abandonment, which have been developed and tested in the Gaza Strip, shape the global policing of border-transcending movements – be it refugees or ‘terrorists’. Increasingly, Israel’s systems of closure and control are also extended to non-military contexts, such as the securitization of critical infrastructure through biometrical access systems, airports, seaports and prisons, and even cyber security. What Israeli security companies have adeptly mastered is the technological capacity to draw the lines around particular groups of people, sorting the suspicious from the normal, the risky from the ‘at risk’, “making an uncertain and unknowable future amenable to intervention and management” (Amoore and De Goede, 2008: 9). Indeed, the unorthodoxy of Gaza’s borders makes the strip a suitable place for rethinking borders and finding ways to discipline the presence of unauthorized bodies, which have violated the borders of the nation-state Israel (Walters, 2008). As complete isolation is not possible anywhere, Israel’s sophisticated methods of filtering access in the Gaza Strip has opened up to a broad border control portfolio, and made border management a prime segment of Israel’s security exports. Multidimensional and ‘smart’ ways to control borders are a highly successful export niche for Israeli companies.

Conclusion The meeting of colonization and modernization is vital to the Israeli security industry and has turned it into a lucrative and innovative hub of policing technologies. Palestine is a generator of and testing field for new ideas and tools of control to be exported and deployed to other policing contexts (see also Graham and Baker, this volume). The abundant use of the ‘Gaza experience’ for marketing security technology confirms the status of Palestine as a laboratory for the Israeli security industry. This chapter has shown how the colonial rootedness of Israel’s Gaza practices has an impact on the logics of policing dispersed globally. Gaza works as a fertile vector from which public and private security agencies jointly export tools of inequality management to contexts in which a politics of difference relies on force and is sustained through colonial logics masked as modernizing security projects. Gaza has become an Israeli brand for successful battlefield experience, and ‘battlefield-proven’ technologies have been exported elsewhere. Consequently, Israel’s policing of Gaza based on specific rationalities of settler governmentality not only represents a local doctrine of control, but effectively conveys colonial rationalities of war and policing to a global audience. Israel’s modes of colonial rule are thus inserted into the postcolonial condition in which they are reframed through discourses of modernization and technological progress that mask the crude violence at play in controlled abandonment strategies. Israel’s ruling-from-afar indeed unifies colonial and postcolonial forms of war and policing. This carries special weight as Israel as a modern state

Beyond the laboratory thesis

73

hinges upon a strong ethos of scientific progress and, at the same time, is imbued with strategies of eliminating or ‘de-modernizing’ Palestine (Hanafi, 2009; Wolfe, 2012). These have been actively exported to other sites and fields ranging from border control to asymmetrical warfare to more mundane policing. This reality does not leave the state behind as an irrelevant force; rather, the fertile public-private partnership between the state military and the security industry strengthens the mutually reinforcing nexus of Israel’s colonial state practices and its globalized neoliberal economy. While separation has developed as a colonial formula of rule, the transmissions of Israeli security re-inscribe Israeli security deeply into modern practices of security governance.

Notes 1 The fairs visited for this account are: Eurosatory, June 2012 – in France, UVID, November 2012: “Unmanned Vehicles: From Uniqueness to Jointness” – in Tel Aviv, HLS Israel 2012, 2nd International Conference Tel Aviv, International Defense and Security Exhibition, ISDEF June 2013. 2 Shimon Peres, Technion Centennial Conference, Jerusalem, August 2012. 3 Absorbing 14 per cent of Gaza’s land and almost 50 per cent of all arable land (Roy, 2012). 4 Interview with Leo Gleser, CEO of International Security and Defence Systems, Tel Aviv, August 2012. 5 Interview with Mr. Katz, Head of Marketing, Magal Headquarters, Yehud, 21 September 2012. 6 Border patrolling robots have also been deployed along the borders of Lebanon and Egypt, but at the time of writing, it was unconfirmed whether the Guardium was operating there. 7 Interview with former IDF soldier, anonymous, Tel Aviv, 26 June 2013 8 Interview with Martin Cowen, Tel Aviv, 8 September 2012. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 The word ‘Sabra’ refers to the ideal type of the rejuvenated ‘muscular’ Jew. 12 Interview, PR representative of MER, Tel Aviv, November 2012.

Bibliography Allen, L. (2012). ‘The Scales of Occupation: “Operation Cast Lead” and the Targeting of the Gaza Strip’, Critique of Anthropology 32(3): 261–284. Amoore, L. and De Goede, M. (2005). ‘Governance, Risk and Dataveillance in the War on Terror’, Crime, Law and Social Change 43(2–3): 149–173. Amoore, L. and De Goede, M. (2008). Risk and the War on Terror. London and New York: Routledge. Andreas, P. (2009). Border Games: Policing the U.S.–Mexico Divide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Arrighi, G. (2003). Spatial and Other “Fixes” of Historical Capitalism. Available at: http://www.irows.ucr.edu/conferences/globgis/papers/Arrighi.htm [11 January 2014]. Azoulay, A. and Ophir, A. (2013). The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

74

Leila Stockmarr

Barak, O. and Sheffer, G. (2006). ‘Israel’s “Security Network” and Its Impact: An Exploration of a New Approach’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 38(2): 235–261. Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2006). ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies’, Review of International Studies 32(2): 329–352. Conrad, S. (2012). German Colonialism: A Short History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Cook, J. (2013). ‘Israel’s Booming Secretive Arms Trade’, Al-Jazeera. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/08/201381410565517125.html [2 May 2015]. Crosby, A. and Monaghan, J. (2012). ‘Settler Governmentality in Canada and the Algonquins of Barriere Lake’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 421–438. Denes, N. (2011). ‘From Tanks to Wheelchairs: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and the Transparency of the Civilian’, in: Zureik, E., Lyon, D. and Abu-Laban, Y. (eds) Surveillance and Control in Israel Palestine: Population, Territory and Power. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 171–197. Dugaard, J. (2007). Human Rights Situation in the OPT. Report of Special Rapporteur. Sixty-second General Assembly Third Committee, United Nations, 24 October. Efron, N. (2011). ‘Zionism and the Eros of Science and Technology’, Zygon 46(2): 413–428. Frowd, P.M. (2014). ‘The Field of Border Control in Mauritania’, Security Dialogue Special Issue on Border Control 45(3): 226–241. Gilbert, S.N. (2013). ‘Access Denied: Phone Politics in Palestine’, Al-Jazeera, 22 September. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/201391713347485 94.html [12 March 2014]. Gordon, N. (2008). Israel’s Occupation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gordon, N. (2009). Working Paper III: The Political Economy of Israel’s Homeland Security/Surveillance Industry. The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting. Graham, S. (2010a). Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism. London and New York: Verso. Graham, S. (2010b). ‘Laboratories of War: United States–Israeli Collaboration in Urban War and Securitization’, Brown Journal of World Affairs 17(1): 35–52. Hajjar, L. (2012). ‘Is Gaza Still Occupied and Why Does It Matter?’, Jadaliyya, 14 July. Available at: www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/8807/is-gaza-still-occupied-a nd-why-does-it-matter [3 May 2014]. Hanafi, S. (2009). ‘Spacio-cide: Colonial Politics, Invisibility and Rezoning in Palestinian Territory’, Contemporary Arab Affairs 2(1): 106–121. Harvey, D. (2003). The New Imperialism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hever, S. (2014). ‘Israel, World Capital of Homeland Security Industries’, The Real News. Available at: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&ta sk=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12101 [29 August 2015]. Hönke, J. (2013). Transnational Companies and Security Governance: Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World. New York and London: Routledge. Hönke, J. and Müller, M.-M. (2012). ‘Governing (In)security in a Postcolonial World: Transnational Entanglements and the Worldliness of “Local” Practice’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 383–401. Johnson, J. (2012). ‘A Palestine-Mexico Border. North American Congress on Latin America’, nacla, 29 June. Available at: http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/29/palestine-m exico-border [12 May 2014].

Beyond the laboratory thesis

75

Journal of Palestine Studies (2009). ‘Palestinian Weapons Deployed against Israel during Operation Cast Lead’, 38(3): 192–200. Khalili, L. (2010). ‘The Location of Palestine in Global Counterinsurgencies’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 42(03): 413–433. Klein, M. (2010). The Shift: Israel-Palestine from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Klein, N. (2007). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt. Larner, W. (2008). ‘Spatial Imaginaries: Economic Globalization and the War on Terror’, in: Amoore, L. and De Goede, M. (eds) Risk and the War on Terror. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 41–56. Li, D. (2006). ‘The Gaza Strip as Laboratory: Notes in the Wake of Disengagement’, Journal of Palestine Studies 35(2): 38–55. Li, D. (2008). ‘Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism’, Middle East Research and Information Project, No. 216, 16 February. Mignolo, W. (2006). The Idea of Latin America. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Rosenhek, Z. (2003). ‘The Study of War and the Military in Israel: An Empirical Investigation and a Reflective Critique’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 35(3): 461–484. Roy, S. (1995). The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies. Roy, S. (2007). Failing Peace. Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto. Roy, S. (2012). ‘Where’s Our Humanity for Gaza?’, The Boston Globe. Available at: www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/11/23/roy/sctFniw6Wn2n9nTdxZ91RJ/story.html [8 March 2014]. Salter, M. (2005). ‘At the Threshold of Security: A Theory of International Borders’, in: Zureik E. and Salter, M.B. (eds) Global Surveillance and Policing: Borders, Security, Identity. Devon and Portland, OR: Willan Publishers, pp. 36–50. Scott, D. (1995). ‘Colonial Governmentality’, Social Text 43(Autumn): 191–220. Sparke, M. (2006). ‘A Neoliberal Nexus: Economy, Security and the Biopolitics of Citizenship on the Border’, Political Geography 25(2): 151–180. Stockmarr, L. (2014). ‘Seeing Is Striking: Selling Israeli Warfare’, Jadaliyya, 12 January. Available at: www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16044/seeing-is-striking_selling-isra eli-warfare [12 May 2014]. Tawil-Souri, H. (2011a). ‘Qalandia Checkpoint as Space and Nonplace’, Space and Culture 14(1): 4–26. Tawil-Souri, H. (2011b). Working Paper: The Hi-Tech Enclosure of Gaza. Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies. Walters, W. (2008). ‘Putting the Migration-Security Complex in Its Place’, in: De Goede, M. and Amoore, L. (eds) Risk and the War on Terror. London and New York: Routledge. Wolfe, P. (2006). ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native’, Journal of Genocide Research 8(4): 387–409. Wolfe, P. (2012). ‘Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics’, Settler Colonial Studies 2(1): 133–171. World Bank (n. d.). The Military Expenditure Database. Available at: http://data. worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS [12 September 2014].

76

Leila Stockmarr

Yiftachel, O. (2000). ‘“Ethnocracy” and Its Discontents: Minorities, Protests, and the Israeli Polity’, Critical Inquiry 26(4): 725–756. Yiftachel, O. (2006). Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Yiftachel, O. and Yacobi, H. (2003). ‘Urban Ethnocracy: Ethnicization and the Production of Space in an Israeli “Mixed City”’, Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 21: 673–694. Zureik, E., Lyon, D. and Abu-Laban, Y. (2011). Surveillance and Control in Israel Palestine Population, Territory and Power. London and New York: Routledge.

5

Entangled pacifications Peacekeeping, counterinsurgency and policing in Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro1 Markus-Michael Müller

In the summer of 1919, during the United States (US) occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), US Marine Corps Lieutenant Lawrence H. Sanderson, by mounting a rifle in front of the windshield of his aircraft as an improvised target sight and by putting a bomb in a canvas bag attached to the underside of his plane, attacked Haitian ‘insurgents’ that were engaging US Marines on the ground. In doing so, he accidentally invented ‘dive-bombing’ as a precision bombing technique. This “unique Marine contribution to aerial warfare” (Millett, 1991: 333) was later exported to Nicaragua where US Marines, by drawing upon their experiences in Haiti, and by acting again as an interventionary counterinsurgent military force, routed the insurgent forces of Augusto César Sandino and destroyed his stronghold at El Chipote in 1927 (Roorda, 1998: 270; see also Grosscup, 2006: 60). In this regard, Haiti can be classified as a ‘laboratory’ of counterinsurgent warfare. As argued in the introduction to this book, such laboratories, usually (post)colonies, serve as veritable workshops for intervening powers in which they experiment with, refine, and later re-export policing-related coercive practices, technologies, and forms of knowledge production either back home or to other contexts of intervention, occupation, or colonization. McCoy’s (this volume) analysis of the entanglement of (post)colonial policing, counterinsurgency, surveillance, and state formation in the US and the Philippines demonstrates that one of the basic preconditions that converted (post)colonial societies into ‘laboratories of violence’ has been what, following Hobson (2012), could be termed their ‘conditional’ or even ‘non-sovereignty’. While, on the one hand, intervention, occupation, and/or colonization deny the affected societies the exercise of full sovereignty, intervening actors, on the other hand, are literally freed from legal and constitutional, and often moral, constraints and consequences of their actions. This converts spaces of intervention, including their populations, into perfect laboratory settings for the testing, inventing, and refining of coercive practices. The resulting (post)colonial coercive entanglements that stem from the travelling back of the products of the laboratory testing have usually been analyzed from the vantage point of classic ‘North–South’ relations and as a thing of the past (but see Khalili, 2012; Graham and Baker, this volume;

78

Markus-Michael Müller

Stockmarr, this volume). In contrast to such portrayals, this chapter demonstrates not only the ongoing existence and relevance of such processes, but also takes into account the changing geopolitical topography of global policing entanglements in our contemporary postcolonial world, which cannot be limited to North–South relations or imperial ‘workshop’ projects (Grandin, 2007). If the “global character of policing is also reflected in the fact that such entanglements are identifiable within, between, and across different (post) colonial contexts” (Hönke, and Müller, this volume), then what Bilgin (this volume) termed the “laboratory model”–thesis must take such forms of nonWestern policing ‘experiments’ into account. This implies a ‘decentring’ of the laboratory model by analyzing the role postcolonies, which previously served as ‘testing grounds’ for Western policing themselves, play in the global making of policing in our contemporary world through the setting up of their own ‘workshop projects’ in other postcolonies. By returning to Haiti, and by analysing the Brazilian peacekeeping efforts within the context of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (called MINUSTAH by its French acronym for Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti), this chapter offers such a decentring of the ‘laboratory model’. It argues that Brazil’s participation in MINUSTAH reflects an overly symbolic geopolitical effort of enhancing Brazil’s international standing as a rising “humanitarian superpower” (Amar, 2012: 1). A core element of this symbolic effort consists of the appropriation of internationally circulating human-security discourses and their articulation with “liberal counterinsurgency” practices (Khalili, 2012: 3–5), leading to the emergence of a form of counterinsurgent humanitarianism. Moreover, and far from being limited to Brazilian peacekeeping in Haiti, the chapter demonstrates that the counterinsurgent humanitarianism that underlies Brazil’s peacekeeping in Haiti travels ‘back’ in an effort to ‘pacify’ Rio de Janeiro through the creation of the Pacification Police Units (Unidades de Policia Pacificadora, UPPs) for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, thereby converting Haiti into a veritable laboratory of Brazil’s domestic pacification effort that integrates counterinsurgent peacekeeping practices tested ‘abroad’ into urban policing ‘at home’.

MINUSTAH and Brazilian peacekeeping Following the political instability and violence that erupted after the controversial ousting and forced exile of democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004 and the swearing in of Boniface Alexandre – the president of Haiti’s supreme court – as interim president, upon the request of the new interim government the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1529 was adopted, leading to the deployment of the Multinational Interim Force for Haiti (MIFH). Operating under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, MIFH should assist the Haitian government “in restoring peace and security in Haiti”.2 A month before the end

Entangled pacifications

79

of the MIFH’s mandate on 29 May 2004, Resolution 1542 was adopted by the UN Security Council, which established MINUSTAH. Also acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, MINUSTAH should help the transitional government in establishing “a secure and stable environment within which the constitutional and political process in Haiti can take place” and “foster principles and democratic governance and institutional development”. MINUSTAH’s mandate also included supporting “the Transitional Government as well as Haitian human rights institutions and groups in their efforts to promote and protect human rights, particularly of women and children, in order to ensure individual accountability for human rights abuses and redress for victims” (UN, 2004: 2–3). To achieve these goals, MINUSTAH was designed to be composed of a civilian component of 1,622 UN Civilian Police and a military component of up to 6,700 UN troops (ibid.: 3). With the creation of MINUSATH, peacekeeping in Haiti moved away from ‘classic’ forms of ‘Western’ liberal peacekeeping efforts, which for many critical observers are nearly synonymous with the creation of a post–Cold War “imperial agenda, a premise for Western control over territory and resources” (Tadjbakhsh and Richmond, 2011: 230). In fact, and in apparent contrast to the long history of (neo)colonial interventions in Haiti, the Western troops (from Canada, France and the US) that composed MIFH mostly withdrew under MINUSTAH, whose military component is predominantly composed of Latin American military forces, including troops from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.3 MINUSTAH, therefore, is largely a Latin American affair and a paradigmatic case and “precedent for South–South cooperation on peace and security issues” (Le Chevalier, 2011: 119), which exhibits that in contemporary and future UN peacekeeping operations “Latin American countries have a significant role to play” (Mazzotta, 2011: 39). This holds particularly true for Brazil, the country that has been in command of the military component of MINUSTAH. Brazil’s leading military role in MINUSTAH is frequently portrayed as an overly successful episode of international peacekeeping, indicative of an emerging “Brazilian way of peacekeeping” (Vianna Braga, 2010: 720) and the possible dawn of a “new era of regional cooperation” outside and beyond US–dominated Western geopolitical interests (Mendelson Forman, 2011). Some observers even argue that episodes like the Brazilian MINUSTAH experience provide ample evidence of how South–South collaboration in international peacekeeping might in fact be more effective than conventional ‘Western’ interventions in the name of establishing ‘liberal peace’. Particularly due to their own postcolonial legacy, countries like Brazil, it is argued, “are able to establish a more emphatic relation with the host society […] and potentially destabilizing the civilizational imaginary reproduced by the liberal peace model” (Fernández Moreno et al., 2012: 383).

80

Markus-Michael Müller

The embrace of international peacekeeping and international interventions by Brazil is, however, a quite recent phenomenon. Throughout most of the twentieth century, Brazil’s participation in international interventions as well as its general foreign policy agenda were marked by the idea of an ‘absolutist’ conception of state sovereignty, strictly committed to the non-negotiable principles of the inviolability of a country’s territorial borders and nonintervention, accompanied by a strong nationalistic foreign policy perspective. These factors contributed to a “marked bent towards normative or juridical solutions to problems, particularly in the area of conflict resolution” (Kenkel, 2010: 650). This more ‘inward-looking’ non-interventionist foreign policy agenda was particularly reinforced during the years of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. In these years Brazil preferred a rather ‘isolationist’ foreign policy, assuming that this would ‘silence’ international criticism directed towards the regime’s human rights violations. While Brazil nonetheless did participate in international military missions, including, for instance, the deployment of 6,300 troops between 1957 and 1967 to the Gaza Strip within the context of the UN mission in the Middle East (the United Nations Emergency Force, UNEF I), the country in general did not become heavily involved in UN peacekeeping operations until the democratization of its political system, in particular during the 1990s (Sotomayor Velázquez, 2009: 367; on Brazil’s ‘absence’ from UN peacekeeping operations during this period, see also Uziel and Costa Vargas, 2015). During these years, Brazil’s democratization process as well as more general geopolitical changes after the end of the Cold War have triggered attempts by Brazil “to increase its weight in traditional bodies such as the UN, the WTO and the IMF, in order to change the structures that consolidated hierarchies in the international system” (Vigevani and Ramanzini Júnior, 2010: 64). And part and parcel of these efforts has been the ‘discovery’ of international peacekeeping as a means for carving “out a role for the country as a self-labelled emerging power” (Sotomayor Velázquez, 2010: 635). Between 1988 and 1996, Brazil participated in a variety of UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and Asia – including Angola, East Timor, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mozambique, Uganda, and Rwanda – as an effort to increase the country’s international visibility after the ‘isolationist’ years of military rule and to push ahead a thorough transformation of the UN system with the aim of securing a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Between 1997 and 2003, Brazil’s participation in UN peacekeeping missions was substantially reduced due to the consequences of the economic crisis of 1999 as well as due to a growing skepticism from within the military establishment towards future peacekeeping operations, mostly related to the rather negative experiences in Angola, where the UN did not succeed in preventing violent confrontations between the warring factions (Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014: 48–54). However, under the presidency of Lula Inácio da Silva from the leftist Workers’ Party, peacekeeping, now framed in the language of humanitarian interventionism, witnessed a powerful comeback.

Entangled pacifications

81

This ‘discovery’ is related to the consolidation of what Amar has called a “human-security democracy” in contemporary Brazil (Amar, 2013: 16) and the related effort of the da Silva administration to actively promote Brazil “on the international stage as a model of human security” (ibid.: 193). Therefore, Brazil’s participation in MINUSTAH and its effort to “save Haiti” provided a perfect case for exporting Brazil’s “domestic securitized humanitarianism” and for enhancing the country’s international reputation and geopolitical position as a “humanitarian superpower” (Amar, 2012: 1). The effort of using the Haitian ‘emergency’ as an opportunity to present itself as a humanitarian superpower with larger global ambitions was reinforced by and intersected with the desire of those Western states that composed MIFH to withdraw from Haiti as soon as possible in order to avoid charges of neocolonialism. In this regard, it is noteworthy that French president Jacques Chirac appealed to Lula da Silva in a phone conversation in March 2004 to take over the command of MINUSTAH, an ‘offer’ that was supported by the European Union and the United States as well as some Latin American countries, including Peru, Argentina, and Chile. This invitation reflects attempts, in particular from France and the US – Haiti’s former colonial ‘masters’ – to enhance the local legitimacy of external interventions (Fernández Moreno et al., 2012: 382–383). Brazil’s symbolic credibility of a postcolonial society “free of imperial baggage” (Burges, 2013: 292), far from symbolizing a new era of ‘progressive’ South–South collaboration, was welcomed by Western states as it allowed them to continue to exercise their influence over the de facto occupied country. Thus Brazil’s leading role in MINUSTAH “was a highly successful experiment in winning progressive Latin American regimes over to local collaboration” with external interventions that helped to maintain an initially unelected interim government in power (Podur, 2012: 156; Schuller, 2012: 25). Moreover, and in contrast to the overly positive statements arguing that in particular within the realm of security provision, Brazilian military efforts in Haiti were “successful”, achieved by a “limited use of force” and an overly “empathetic relation” with Haitian society (Fernández Moreno et al., 2012: 379–381), the next section will demonstrate that Brazil’s exportation of its securitized human-security democracy through peacebuilding consists of the implementation of liberal counterinsurgency practices that converted Haiti into a laboratory for the large-scale domestic pacification campaign in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Counterinsurgent pacification in Cité Soleil While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions mostly take place in (post–)civil war situations, Haiti witnessed neither a civil war nor an armed rebellion when MINUSTAH was established. In addition to this, when taking homicide rates as an indicator for assessing the local insecurity situation, data demonstrates that Haiti in the 2000s does better than Brazil – MINUSTAH’s

82

Markus-Michael Müller

leading peacekeeper (Podur, 2012: 125). This raises the question of why Brazil, a country with serious security and human rights problems when it comes to the participation of its military (and police) forces in domestic security operations (see below), came to play such an important role in MINUSTAH’s military effort of ‘securing’ and ‘stabilizing’ Haiti. Regarding the question of security, MINUSTAH identified “gang violence and kidnapping” as “the most visible manifestations of Haitian insecurity” (Donais, 2011: 97). In particular, the UN blamed gangs with links to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide as the main source behind the escalation of violence between 2004 and 2006 as well as general “evidence of the breakdown of the rule of law” (Beckett, 2010: 42). In fact, and notwithstanding MINUSTAH’s presence, in the first two years after Aristide was ousted, the security situation in Haiti deteriorated substantially, leading to an escalation of lethal violence and kidnappings (Schuller, 2012: 25–26) with local gangs being perceived as the main source behind this situation (Dziedzic and Perito, 2008: 2). It has been this “gang threat” and the sensation of an escalating “gang warfare” (Dorn, 2009: 812) that led many observers to frame gang activities as a ‘criminal insurgency’. In the words of David C. Becker, director of the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI), a multiagency initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Defense with the goal of supporting MINUSTAH and the Haitian government “to establish conditions for good governance and economic growth”,4 MINUSTAH confronted a “criminal insurgency” composed of “a loose coalition of independently financed urban guerrilla groups” (Becker, 2011: 142, 143; on HSI, see Moe and Müller, 2015). This ‘criminal insurgency’ seemed to haunt many of the most marginalized areas in Port-au-Prince, which, in turn, furnished Brazilian military forces, due to their long historical experience in domestic urban anti-(drug)/gang operations, and counterinsurgency efforts, with uniquely promising expertise for the pacification of the ‘gang-ridden slums’ of the Haitian capital. Brazil was seen as having “an important comparative advantage over Northern troops without such experience” (Kenkel, 2010a: 653). In this regard, the (urban) counterinsurgency expertise of Brazilian military forces became a central element of promoting itself as a ‘humanitarian superpower’ by ‘selling’ its own domestic counterinsurgency experience in the marginalized areas of Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo. It is of little surprise that most members of the Brazilian MINUSTAH contingent “were first recruited from units that were originally headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, where gang violence and drug trafficking were also common” (Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014: 139) and where military participation in urban policing has in practice always included a straightforward counterinsurgency approach (Müller and Müller, 2016; Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014: 19; see also HealthRoots, 2011: 3). With the deployment of Brazilian peacekeepers to Haiti, this urban counterinsurgency experience travelled abroad. This is clearly reflected in statements by Brazilian diplomats as well as MINUSTAH troops and their commanders. For instance, Marcelo Biato,

Entangled pacifications

83

who served as an assistant to Lula da Silva’s chief foreign policy advisor, described Brazil’s vision regarding MINUSTAH’s stabilization effort in the following words: “By accepting command of MINUSTAH Brazil sought to avoid the mistakes of previous [UN peacekeeping] missions. Contrary to past practices, operations against criminal elements and the political insurgency [that is to say, the presence of criminal gangs with alleged ties to political actors linked to former president Aristide] would be as unobtrusive as possible” (Biato, 2011: 194, emphasis added). Along similar lines, Brazil’s MINUSTAH commander Augusto Heleno summed up the underlying philosophy of the Brazilian anti-gang effort with the following words: “We must kill the bandits […] but it will have to be the bandits only, not everybody” (quoted in Podur, 2012: 78). At a closer inspection, while ‘killing the enemy’ is a central part of the counterinsurgency practices implemented by MINUSTAH’s anti-gang effort, more relevant than this ‘kinetic’ dimension is MINUSTAH’s overall liberal embrace of law, legality, good governance, institution building, and humanitarianism, which linked the UN’s effort to “maximize MINUSTAH’s crime prevention role, particularly with regard to the threat of gang violence and kidnapping”, to a call to “all Haitians to renounce violence, and recognizing, in this context, that rule of law and respect for human rights are vital components of democratic societies”.5 This articulation of MINUSTAH’s antigang operations with an overall concern for the rule of law and human rights converted MINUSTAH’s counterinsurgency operations into what, following Khalili (2012), can be defined as “liberal counterinsurgency” that is based on: the invocation of law and legality as structuring the conduct of war, an absolute dependence on a set of clearly defined procedures and administrative processes as means of ensuring regulatory and ethical compliance, and finally a discourse of humanitarian intent. […] Humanitarian discourse is supplemented with a language that insists on the urgency of a civilizing, or democratizing, or modernizing, or improving mandate. The tactics used in such counterinsurgencies continually slip between exemplary or performative forms of violence meant to intimidate and more ‘humane’ and developmental warfare intended to persuade. (Khalili, 2012: 4) Through its “‘humanization’ of asymmetric warfare and the application of liberal precepts to its conduct” (Khalili, 2012: 3), liberal counterinsurgency resonates perfectly with the humanitarian mandate and mission statement of MINUSTAH, as well as with Brazil’s geopolitical effort of exporting the securitization practices of its humanitarian democracy to Haiti. Moreover, it also leads to the refinement of Brazil’s domestic counterinsurgency approaches. While the latter have previously been an overly ‘kinetic’ affair, MINUSTAH allowed Brazil to experiment with liberal, ‘population-centric’ counterinsurgency practices that have become popularized with the revival of

84

Markus-Michael Müller

counterinsurgency within the ‘Global War on Terror’ (Moe and Müller, forthcoming). As liberal counterinsurgency resonates with Brazil’s efforts of geopolitical humanitarian self-promotion and of selling itself as a country capable of hosting and securing global mega-events in a ‘humane’ way (see below), Haiti served as a welcome opportunity for Brazil of bringing its own counterinsurgency expertise in line with recent global changes in counterinsurgent warfare. This was particularly important when considering that until recently, the Brazilian Army had no counterinsurgency manual that would allow for aligning its domestic ‘pacification’ approaches with changing liberal ideas of population-centric warfare. The Brazilian counterinsurgency manual, published as Manual de Campanha EB20-MC-10.217 Operações de Pacificação (Field Manual EB20-MC-10.217 Pacification Operations) was only released in January 2015 and includes many implicit and explicit references to Haiti, as well as standard references to liberal counterinsurgency textbooks, notably FM3–24. To put it in other terms, Haiti was not just a laboratory for “‘live-law enforcement training’ that would be useful for current domestic deployments” of Brazilian troops (Harig, 2015: 151), it also allowed the Brazilian military to test liberal counterinsurgency practices and thereby bring its pacification doctrine in line with global liberal standards of contemporary warfare. The most illustrative example of this has been the implementation of the textbook example of liberal counterinsurgency practices in what has become popularized as the clear-hold-build approach (CHB) by Brazil’s MINUSTAH troops. CHB consists of three steps. First, local insurgents are killed, captured, or expelled (‘clear’), then the permanent presence of ‘host government’ security forces is expanded (‘hold’), and finally, in the so-called ‘build’ phase, “tasks that provide an overt and direct benefit for the community are key” (FM 3–24: 5–50-5-90). It was in Haiti where the Brazilian military’s first full-fledged experiment with CHB took place (Müller and Müller, forthcoming). This is clearly reflected in the Brazilian MINUSTAH Battalion’s slogan “Strong Arms, Friendly Hands” that “illustrates the fundamental construction of a safe environment through actual, imminent or dissuasive use of force”, while affirming “that such involvement would carry within itself the responsibility of offering a positive experience” and “a brand new chapter in the population’s perception and trust in institutions” (Napoleão and Kalil, 2015: 88) – all classic goals of CHB. While these have already been tested on a smaller scale by the Brazilian Armed Forces in domestic urban operations in the 1990s (Harig, 2015: 145), it was in the Haitian laboratory where, due to the country’s conditional, if not de-facto absent capacity of exercising its sovereignty, Brazil’s military could experiment with CHB approaches in a literally unrestrained way. Brazil’s experiments with CHB can be illustrated when taking a closer look at MINUSTAH’s anti-gang operations in the slum of Cité Soleil in January– February 2007 (see also Greenburg, 2013). On 24 January 2007, MINUSTAH troops initiated the ‘clear’ phase with a military offensive during which

Entangled pacifications

85

UN troops, including SWAT teams, led by the Brazilian troop contingent occupied a building complex known as the ‘Blue House’, a valuable strategic position close to the compound of one of Cité Soleil’s most infamous gang leaders called ‘Evans’. Following the occupation, an hour-long firefight between UN military forces and local gangs ensued. This battle was followed by a joint operation conducted by UN and local police forces in which they swept neighbourhood by neighbourhood, arresting, killing, or expelling local gangs. The operation led to the arrest of some 800 alleged gang members and the apprehension or killing of “all but one gang leader” (Dziedzic and Perito, 2008: 5; on these operations, see also Dorn, 2009: 812–819; Podur, 2012: 128–131; Hallward, 2007: 288–295). In order to maintain the ‘clear’ phase and move to the ‘hold’ phase of MINUSTAH’s liberal counterinsurgency approach, Brazilian military forces established so-called ‘strong points’. This allowed MINUSTAH to establish a permanent military presence in critical neighbourhoods, aimed at forcing gangs to retaliate against UN presence, “thus allowing the United Nations to return fire from safe positions” (Dorn, 2009: 813; see also Fernández Moreno et al., 2012: 385; Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014: 150). However, while the establishment of a permanent military presence through the creation of protected strong points in conflictive areas of Cité Soleil, as well as the killing of gangs by returning fire, can be considered an essential precondition for ‘holding’ these ‘liberated’ spaces, these acts are insufficient as long as the presence of efficient ‘host government’ forces is not increased and social assistance and development aid are not provided to the local population. These “welfare” components of liberal counterinsurgency as “armed social work” are considered to be “community organizing, welfare, domestic assistance, economic support – under conditions of extreme threat requiring armed support” (Kilcullen, 2010: 43). A core element of this liberal effort of ‘winning hearts and minds’ consists in the collaboration between counterinsurgents and NGOs (see FM 3–24: 2–29-2-31). In Haiti, however, “NGOs’ most important contribution to winning ‘hearts and minds’ was on the home front” by accusing pro-Aristide forces of standing behind the rise of crime and insecurity “and calling for greater repression against the slums” (Barry-Shaw and Jay, 2012: 226). While this is certainly true, NGOs also played a crucial role in MINUSTAH’s counterinsurgency effort by providing aid, language expertise, and community outreach to local slum residents, with Brazil playing a leading role by bringing in some Brazilian NGOs, notably Viva Rio – an NGO with long-standing experience in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro that already at the beginning of the new millennium has gained experience in providing social assistance within community policing programmes in favelas (Harig, 2015: 146). The latter, as the next section will demonstrate, are currently witnessing the re-import and ‘revival’ of Brazil’s CHB approach, after it has been ‘refined’ and tested on a broader scale in Haiti, in the guise of the UPPs.

86

Markus-Michael Müller

Counterinsurgent humanitarianism is coming home While there has already been some guesswork by academics as well as local journalists regarding the possible linkages between the creation of the UPPs and Brazil’s peacekeeping operations in Haiti (Amar, 2012; Greenburg, 2013, HealthRoots, 2011; Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014; O Globo, 2010a; Folha de São Paulo, 2010),6 most of these efforts, however, remained at the level of anecdotal evidence or speculation. In what follows, I will try to substantiate these claims by demonstrating that UPPs’ ‘pacification’ effort resembles Brazil’s MINUSTAH experience of fighting an urban ‘criminal insurgency’ by applying liberal CHB counterinsurgency practices, thereby leading to the integration of Brazil’s counterinsurgent humanitarianism into urban policing at home. The UPP programme was created in 2008 – one year after MINUSTAH’s large-scale CHB–inspired anti-gang campaign in Cité Soleil – as a joint effort between the local, state, and federal governments in Brazil. Currently, 38 UPPs have been installed in 264 urban communities with an overall number of 9,543 UPP officers. The creation of at least 3 further UPP forces is planned for 2015, which would increase the overall number of UPP officers to some 12,500.7 The project is portrayed by local authorities as a basic change of policing in democratic Rio de Janeiro, which clearly reflects the humanitarian aspirations of contemporary Brazilian politics. As Frederico Caldas, the coordinator of the UPPs, stated, in addition to being committed to “hope and citizenship, the UPP symbolizes all the appreciation we have for human life”.8 At first sight, this seems to indicate a fundamental break with previous patterns of local policing. In fact, Rio’s police were formed in the nineteenth century in order to control, discipline, and repress slaves. In this respect, local policing was founded on a repressive racial and ‘underclass’ bias, which became deeply inscribed into the institutional culture of the local police forces (Holloway, 1993). Additionally, due to a persistent Brazilian ‘elite liberalism’, which favoured a non-universal application of law according to existing social hierarchies, police violence against poor people, particularly Afro-Brazilian groups, rarely elicited condemnation from the privileged classes and politicians. Rather, such practices were widely regarded as justifiable and adequate means of protecting order as well as the safety of the privileged classes and their property (Pereira, 2000: 220–222). As a consequence, the local police were historically endowed with a high degree of informally legitimized impunity in committing offences “against victims considered ‘undesirable’ or ‘subhuman’” (Pinheiro, 2000: 126). These practices were reinforced and strengthened under Brazil’s military dictatorship and the impact of the French counterinsurgency doctrine of the so-called guerre revolutionnaire (revolutionary warfare) on the Brazilian military (see Martins Filho, 2014; Müller and Müller, 2016; Robin, 2004). This counterinsurgent mindset, which converted local police forces into the “foot soldiers in the war against internal enemies of the regime” (Moreira Alves

Entangled pacifications

87

and Evanson, 2011: 118), survived the transition to democracy. In democratic Brazil, moreover, lethal police violence and extralegal killings of the ‘undesired other’ increased dramatically, giving post-dictatorial Brazil a “demographic profile of a nation at war” throughout the 1990s and early 2000s (Scheper-Hughes, 2007: 154; see also Amar, 2013). This situation was particularly salient in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, where drug trafficking and related violence spread with the democratization process, leading to an escalation of police violence in these areas (on these issues, see Arias, 2006; Leeds, 2007; Perlman, 2010). Policing favelas through counterinsurgency-style security operations – notably the infamous sieges by the militarized police special forces, the Batalhão de Operações Policiais (Special Police Operations Battalion, BOPE), who invade favelas with their specially designed military assault vehicle called Caveirão (Big Skull) (see Moreira Alves and Evanson, 2011: 2) – in addition to sending a message to the upper and middle classes that the local government is ‘tough on crime’, is also a central element with the local government’s efforts of reorienting the city’s urban economy towards an urban development strategy that focuses on attracting tourism and international summits. To this end, related security operations aim at forestalling potential incidents, in particular in and from favelas, which could damage the city image during important events, such as the local carnival festivities or international summits (Wacquant, 2008: 60). To a large extent, the resulting escalation of police violence in democratic Brazil was due to the promotion of a particularly ‘kinetic’ counterinsurgency-policing mindset by local police chiefs and politicians after the formal return to democracy that presented favelados as the racialized and criminalized enemy in the guise of the ‘urban other’. In light of such practices, the UPP’s overall concerns about ‘peace’, ‘citizenship’, and ‘appreciation for human life’, indeed, seems to represent the dawn of a new policing era by what Colonel Robson Rodrigues da Silva, the former coordinator of the UPP project, called “a new culture of more peaceful policing methods” (Journal of International Affairs, 2012: 181). At a closer look, however, it becomes apparent that far from being a project of democratic “community policing” (Riccio et al., 2013) in charge of keeping the local ‘peace’, the UPPs are bringing liberal counterinsurgency practices tested in Cité Soleil back home through armed interventions in marginalized urban communities that are “driven by geopolitical prerogatives, often drawing upon and then backing up the new legitimizing framework of ‘militarized humanitarianism’” (Amar, 2009: 518). In light of this, the creation of the UPPs serves the symbolic purpose of the local and national government to demonstrate that the host city of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games has the capacity of guaranteeing the security of these mega-events and international visitors in a ‘progressive’, community-oriented, democratic, and humanitarian way (Swanson, 2013). Thus, the “symbolic taming of the favelas” through the creation of the

88

Markus-Michael Müller

UPPs (Freeman, 2012: 121) can be considered as a form of “strategic citystaging” (Steinbrink, 2013: 142). This symbolic effort of globally promoting the country’s most relevant tourist destination as a safe, democratic, and ‘humanitarian’ environment in which the UPPs guarantee the city’s ‘peace’ – without provoking bad news in the form of negative human rights reports by international organizations like Amnesty International (on this issue, see Amar, 2009: 522) – also promises to enhance the credibility of Brazil’s geopolitical effort of promoting itself as a ‘humanitarian superpower’. In this regard, the strategic city-staging efforts by the Rio de Janeiro government have merged Brazil’s urban and global politics into a new form of urban geopolitics centred on the topics of ‘peace’, ‘security’, and ‘humanitarianism’. When considering that these topics also stood at the heart of the alleged success of the ‘Brazilian way of peacekeeping’ in Haiti, it is of little surprise that the duplication of Brazil’s ‘refined’ liberal counterinsurgency experience has become an attractive option for local and national policy makers. And the UPPs serve this purpose within the general geopolitical scenario outlined above, thereby becoming veritable “human-security enforcers and domestic peacekeepers in communities targeted for Olympic redevelopment” (Amar, 2013: 10; see also Reyes Novaes, 2014: 218). Here it is telling that many Brazilian military commanders in charge of some of the most critical pacification efforts in Rio de Janeiro, like General Fernando José Lavaquiel, who was appointed by the Brazilian defence minister to be in charge of the pacification of one of the most ‘critical’ favela complexes, the Complexo do Alemão, held leading command positions in and had combat experience with MINUSTAH (Sotomayor Velázquez, 2014: 88). This not only holds true for the upper levels of authority in charge of the implementation of the pacification strategy in Rio de Janeiro; regular troops rotating back from Haiti to Brazil have also actively and prominently participated in the domestic pacification efforts, in what Harig termed a “reciprocal learning process among troops” (Harig, 2015: 142, 149–151). This can be seen once again with regard to the pacification of the Complexo do Alemão, probably Rio de Janeiro’s version of Cité Soleil. In this large-scale pacification operation, conducted in 2010, “many of the troops deployed […] were just back from peacekeeping in Haiti which prepared them for close work with civilians” (The Economist, 2010; see also O Globo, 2010b). The relevance of having had experience with ‘close work with civilians’ is another clear reference to the ‘return’ of the (liberal) counterinsurgency component of Brazilian peacekeeping to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. This can be seen most clearly in the centrality that CHB has for the UPP strategy. The basic practices of the pacification project implemented in contemporary Rio de Janeiro are nearly a 1:1 replication of MINUSTAH’s CHB operations in Cité Soleil. As in the case of ‘population-centric’ liberal counterinsurgency, the overall interest of the UPP project is “to preserve people’s lives and guarantee the freedom of the residents of the pacified communities”. Therefore and in order to protect the population and local infrastructures, “all

Entangled pacifications

89

operations are previously announced so as to reduce the risks of an armed conflict during the police occupations”.9 In addition to this, the concrete implementation of the UPP operations follows exactly the three phases of the ‘clear-hold-build’ approach. First, in the ‘clear’ phase, heavy armed BOPE forces, frequently supported by military troops, invade and ‘clear’ communities selected for ‘pacification’ in order to capture, kill, or expel drug traffickers. Next, in the ‘hold’ phase during which “firm government control of the populace and area” (FM 3–24: 5-51) needs to be achieved, the permanent UPP presence is established through the creation of a permanent police presence, including mobile police compounds not too different from the ‘strong points’ of Cité Soleil, clearly reflected in the slogan posted on the UPP’s website: “A UPP VEIO PARA FICAR” (THE UPP CAME TO STAY).10 According to official statements, once this presence, or as it is also called, the “recovery of territories once dominated by the drug dealers”, is achieved (for details, see the description of related BOPE operations in O Globo, 2013a), “the thugs no longer control the territory [and therefore] become weakened and they can be arrested by the police in an easier way”.11 In the final phase, the ‘build’ phase, the UPP aims at gaining the support of the local population. According to their mission statement: “The community’s engagement in this process is crucial because the local population usually knows who the drug dealers are and the location of their hideouts. The dwellers who tell on the criminals have also been of great value since they contribute to the arrest of thugs as well as the seizure of hidden firearms, drugs and other illegal products”.12 The UPP’s community outreach programmes include social work projects, street building, and trash cleaning operations as well as health care, frequently in collaboration with NGOs, including Viva Rio, the organization that also participated in MINUSTAH’s counterinsurgency pacification campaign in Haiti. In 2010, the ‘local’ version of this strategy has even been refined with the creation of the so-called Social UPPs (UPP Social). After drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter, killing three police officers – and with video footage of the crash shown on local television and the Internet – Governor Cabral, preoccupied “with the image of Rio abroad, and the possibility that violence could cause the World Cup – and the Olympics – to be moved elsewhere [stated] that his government was fully committed to pacifying and reclaiming such areas” (Gay, 2012: 92). To this end, the local government modified its counterinsurgency effort by strengthening its ‘build’ component through the creation of the Social UPP. The project’s aim, with financial support from United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), is to contribute “to the consolidation of the pacifying process and promotion of local citizenship in the pacified territories; to promote urban, social and economic development in the territories; and to execute the full integration of these areas with the city as a whole”.13 While this seems indeed to empower local residents, when put into practice, the implementation of liberal counterinsurgency in Rio de Janeiro, as in

90

Markus-Michael Müller

Haiti, produced substantial collateral damage and human rights violations, including the reappearance of torture and extralegal killings by involved UPP forces (Folha de São Paulo, 2014a, 2014b, 2011; O Globo, 2010c, 2013b; Moreira Alves and Evanson, 2011; Gay, 2012: 92–95), indicating that the UPPs and the ‘return’ of Brazil’s counterinsurgent humanitarianism, in practice, “are no different than Brazil’s notoriously brutal military police who have long terrorized marginalized residents of the favelas” (Swanson, 2013: 979). The most relevant difference between previous and contemporary forms of counterinsurgent pacification in Rio de Janeiro, however, might be their spatial selectivity. They mostly target favelas “in the richest neighborhoods in the south and north zones of the city”, which are also the most lucrative areas for real estate development and speculation (Reyes Novaes, 2014: 218). As the UPP coordination proudly claims in this regard: “The downfall of crime rates and the increase of the sense of security have made Rio experience a wave of real-estate valorization. The city has also seen an increase of products and services that are now being offered to the residents of pacified communities and surrounding neighborhoods, places that are beginning to follow the development seen in other areas of Rio”.14 Therefore, Brazil’s symbolic geopolitics of counterinsurgent humanitarianism might also entail a material (in the sense of economic) component, and it might be precisely this material aspect that attracts Haitian police officials to join a cooperation with Viva Rio and the UPP project in reimporting the refined, post-2010 UPP (UPP + Social UPP) to “the more conflictive areas, such as Cité Soleil”,15 thereby triggering a new round of entanglements within the transnational field of counterinsurgent humanitarianism between Haiti and Brazil.

Conclusion Several chapters in this book demonstrate that postcolonies, due to their constrained sovereignty, allow for the testing and refining of policing technologies and practices as well as the travelling of the test results back ‘home’ (Graham and Baker, this volume; Hönke and Müller, this volume; McCoy, this volume). Through the lens of Brazil’s participation in the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSTAH, this chapter has demonstrated that the conversion of postcolonies into policing laboratories is not the exclusive privilege of Western actors. Rather, reflecting a changing global geopolitical landscape, postcolonial countries like Brazil have entered the global policing lab by using other postcolonies, in this case Haiti, as veritable workshops for the testing and refining of their own ‘domestic’ policing approaches. In this regard the findings of this chapter not only highlight the need of decentring the “laboratory model” (Bilgin, this volume). They also challenge the dominant, and overly positive, assessments regarding the Brazilian MINUSTAH experience, and the ‘Brazilian way of peacekeeping’. Far from being less ‘coercive’, ‘imperialist’, or more culturally ‘sensitive’, this chapter has shown that Brazil’s MINUSTAH experience created a transnational field of urban

Entangled pacifications

91

counterinsurgent order-making through pacification-driven policing of the ‘urban other’, in Haiti and at home. And like all forms of liberal counterinsurgency, these practices are marked by the unresolvable contradiction between “illiberal methods and liberal discourse, between bloody hands and honeyed tongues, between weapons of war and emancipatory hyperbole” (Khalili, 2012: 5; see also Hönke and Müller, this volume; Laffey and Nadarajah, this volume).

Notes 1 Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the International Studies Association’s 2014 convention, the 2014 Annual Conference of the desiguALdades.net research network, Freie Universität Berlin, the 2014 British International Studies Association’s annual conference, and at King’s College’s Research Seminar Series (February 2015). I would like to thank Kevin Clement, Christoph Harig, Jana Hönke, Louise Wiuff Moe, Mustapha Pasha and Anthony Pereira for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter and Carmen Altmeyer for her invaluable research assistance. Research for this chapter was conducted within the context of the research project “Transnational Peacebuilding as South-South Cooperation: Brazil’s MINUSTAH Experience,” funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research. 2 www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8015.doc.htm, accessed 21 November 2013. 3 www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/facts.shtml, accessed 7 January 2014. 4 http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/february/79748.htm, accessed 2 January 2014. 5 www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8811.doc.htm, accessed 22 January 2014. 6 See also www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09RIODEJANEIRO329_a.html, accessed 2 March 2014. 7 www.upprj.com/index.php/o_que_e_upp, accessed October 30 2015. 8 www.upprj.com/index.php/as_upps, accessed 31 January 2014. 9 www.upprj.com/index.php/o_que_e_upp_us, accessed 22 Febraury 2014. 10 www.upprj.com/index.php/as_upps, accessed 31 January 2014. 11 www.upprj.com/index.php/o_que_e_upp_us, accessed 22 Febraury 2014. 12 www.upprj.com/index.php/o_que_e_upp_us, accessed 22 Febraury 2014. 13 http://uppsocial.org/about/, accessed 22 February 2014. 14 www.upprj.com/index.php/o_que_e_upp, accessed 22 February 2014. 15 http://vivario.org.br/en/upp-project-is-presented-to-haitian-police-officers/, accessed 22 February 2014.

Bibliography Amar, P. (2009). ‘Operation Princess in Rio de Janeiro: Policing “Sex Trafficking”, Strengthening Worker Citizenship, and the Urban Geopolitics of Security in Brazil’, Security Dialogue 40(4–5): 513–541. Amar, P. (2012). ‘Global South to Rescue: Emerging Humanitarian Superpowers and Globalizing Rescue Industries’, Globalizations 9(1): 1–13. Amar, P. (2013). The Security Archipelago. Human-Security States, Sexual Politics and the End of Neoliberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Arias, E.D. (2006). Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro. Trafficking, Social Networks, and Public Security. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

92

Markus-Michael Müller

Barry-Shaw, N. and Jay, D.O. (2012). Paved with Good Intentions: Canada’s Development NGOs from Idealism to Imperialism. Halifax: Fernwood. Becker, D.C. (2011) ‘Gangs, Netwar and “Community Counterinsurgency” in Haiti’, PRISM 2(3): 137–154. Beckett, G. (2010) ‘Phantom Power: Notes on Provisionality in Haiti’, in: Kelly, J.D. et al. (eds) Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 39–51. Biato, M. (2011). ‘Brazil’s Mission in Haiti’, in: Heine, J. and Thompson, A.S. (eds) Fixing Haiti. MINUSTAH and Beyond. With a Foreword by Paul Collier. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 191–204. Burges, S. (2013). ‘Mistaking Brazil for a Middle Power’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19(2): 286–302. Donais, T. (2011). ‘Reforming the Haitian National Police: From Stabilization to Consolidation’, in: Heine, J. and Thompson, A.S. (eds) Fixing Haiti. MINUSTAH and Beyond. With a Foreword by Paul Collier. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 97–114. Dorn, W.A. (2009). ‘Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping: The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINSUTAH), 2006–2007’, Intelligence and National Security 24(6): 805–835. Dziedzic, M. and Perito, R.M. (2008). ‘Haiti: Confronting the Gangs of Port-au Prince’, United States Institute of Peace Special Report. Available at: www.usip.org. The Economist (2010). ‘Conquering Complexo do Alemao. A Big Step Towards Reclaiming Rio de Janeiro from Drug Dealers’, 2 December. Fernández Moreno, M., Vianna Braga, C.C. and Siman Gomes, M. (2012). ‘Trapped between Many Worlds: A Post-Colonial Perspective on the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)’, International Peacekeeping 19(3): 377–392. Folha de São Paulo (2010). ‘Exército vai implanter Força de Paz semelhante à do Haiti no Rio de Janeiro’, 2 December. Folha de São Paulo (2011). ‘Moradores de Alemão divulgam video de confront com Exército’, 4 September. Folha de São Paulo (2014a). ‘Comandante da UPP autorizou tortura de Amarildo, afirma delegado’, 20 February. Folha de São Paulo (2014b). ‘PM infiltrado diz que UPP da Rocinha tinha tortura de traficantes’, 19 February. Freeman, J. (2012). ‘Neoliberal Accumulation Strategies and the Visible Hand of Police Pacification in Rio de Janeiro’, Revista de Estudos Universitários 38(1): 95–126. Gay, R. (2012). ‘Clientelism, Democracy, and Violence in Rio de Janeiro’, in: Hilgers, T. (ed.) Clientelism in Everyday Latin American Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 81–98. Grandin, G. (2007). Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Greenburg, J. (2013). ‘The “Strong Arm” and the “Friendly Hand”: Military Humanitarianism in Post-Earthquake Haiti’, Journal of Haitian Studies 19(1): 60–87. Grosscup, B. (2006). Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. London: Zed Books. Hallward, P. (2007). Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. London: Verso Books. Harig, C. (2015). ‘Synergy Effects Between MINUSTAH and Public Security in Brazil’, Brasiliana – Journal for Brazilian Studies 3(2): 142–168.

Entangled pacifications

93

HealthRoots Student Organization (2011). MINUSTAH: Keeping the Peace or Conspiring against It? A Review of the Human Rights Record of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti 2010–2011. Cambridge, MA: Harvard School of Public Health. Hobson, J. (2012). The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holloway, T.H. (1993). Policing Rio de Janeiro: Repression and Resistance in a 19th Century City. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Journal of International Affairs (2012). ‘Rio de Janeiro: A Local Response to a Global Challenge. An Interview with Col. Robson Rodrigues da Silva’, 66(1): 177–181. Kenkel, K.M. (2010). ‘South America’s Emerging Power: Brazil as Peacekeeper’, International Peacekeeping 17(5): 644–651. Khalili, L. (2012) Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kilcullen, D. (2010). Counterinsurgency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Le Chevalier, G. (2011). ‘The MINUSTAH Experience’, in: Heine, J. and Thompson, A.S. (eds) Fixing Haiti. MINUSTAH and Beyond. With a Foreword by Paul Collier. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 117–125. Leeds, E. (2007). ‘Rio de Janeiro’, in: Koonings, K. and Kruijt, D. (eds) Social Exclusion, Urban Violence & Contested Spaces in Latin America. London: Zed Books, pp. 23–35. Martins Filho, J.R. (2014). ‘Military Ties between France and Brazil during the Cold War, 1959–1975’, Latin American Perspectives 41(5): 167–183. Mazzotta, C. (2011). ‘The Role of Women Peacekeepers in Combating Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict Situations: Perspectives from Latin American Troop-Contributing Countries’, The Pearson Papers 13: 39–46. Available at: www.operationspaix.net/DATA/ DOCUMENT/4183~v~Latin_America_and_Peace_Operations__Partners_and_Perspe ctives.pdf. Mendelson Forman, J. (2011). ‘Latin American Peacekeeping: A New Era of Regional Cooperation’, in Heine, J. and Thompson, A.S. (eds) Fixing Haiti. MINUSTAH and Beyond. With a Foreword by Paul Collier. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 138–156. Millett, A.R. (1991) Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. The Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: The Free Press. Moe, L.W. and Müller, M.-M. (2015). ‘Resilience as Warfare: Interventions and the Militarization of the Social in Haiti and Somalia’, Kriminologisches Journal 47(4): 279–296. Moe, L.W. and Müller, M.-M. (eds) (forthcoming). Reconfiguring Intervention: Complexity, Resilience and the “Local Turn” in Counterinsurgent Warfare. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Moreira Alves, M.H. and Evanson, P. (2011). Living in the Crossfire. Favela Residents, Drug Dealers, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Müller, F. and Müller, M.-M. (2016). ‘Im- und Export von Aufstandsbekämpfung: Von Rio de Janeiro nach Port-au-Prince und zurück’, PERIPHERIE. Politik. Ökonomie. Kultur 36(1): 48–66. Napoleão, T. and Kalil, M. (2015). ‘Stabilization and the Securitization of Peacebuilding? The Experience of Brazil and MINUSTAH in Haiti’, Brasiliana – Journal for Brazilian Studies 3(2): 87–112.

94

Markus-Michael Müller

O Globo (2010a). ‘Economista rebate Gabeira em encontro e diz que “o Haiti não é aqui”’, 13 July. O Globo (2010b). ‘Soldados levam para o Alemão a experiencia do Haiti’, 9 December. O Globo (2010c). ‘Abuso de autoridade em favela com UPP preocupa pesquisadores’, 8 May. O Globo (2013a). ‘A paz nas favelas do Rio se impõe à força’, 3 March. O Globo (2013b). ‘Imagem das UPPs for arranhada o caso Amarildo’, 8 October. Pereira, A.W. (2000). ‘An Ugly Democracy? State Violence and the Rule of Law in Postauthoritarian Brazil’, in: Kingstone, P.R. and Power, T.J. (eds) Democratic Brazil. Actors, Institutions and Processes. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 217–235. Perlman, J. (2010). Favela. Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. Foreword by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pinheiro, P.S. (2000). ‘Democratic Governance, Violence and the (Un)Rule of Law’, Daedalus 129(2): 119–144. Podur, J. (2012). Haiti’s New Dictatorship. The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation. London: Pluto Press. Reyes Novaes, A. (2014). ‘Favelas and the Divided City: Mapping Silences and Calculations in Rio de Janeiro’s Journalistic Cartography’, Social & Cultural Geography 15(2): 201–225. Riccio, V., Ruediger, M.A., Ross, S.D. and Skogan, W. (2013). ‘Community Policing in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro’, Police Practice and Research 14(4): 308–318. Robin, M.-M. (2004). Escadrons de la mort, l’école française. Paris: La Découverte. Roorda, E.P. (1998). ‘The Cult of the Airplane among U.S. Military Men and Dominicans during the U.S. Occupation and the Trujillo Regime’, in: Joseph, G.M., LeGrand, C. and Salvatore, R.D. (eds) Close Encounters of Empire. Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 269–310. Scheper-Hughes, N. (2007). ‘Death Squads and Democracy in Northeast Brazil’, in: Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J.L. (eds) Law and Disorder in the Post-Colony. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 150–187. Schuller, M. (2012). Killing with Kindness. Haiti, International Aid and NGOs. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Sotomayor Velázquez, A.C. (2009). ‘Latin America’s Middle Powers in the United Nations: Brazil and Mexico in Comparative Perspective’, International Peacekeeping 16(3): 364–378. Sotomayor Velázquez, A.C. (2010). ‘Peacekeeping Effects in South America: Common Experience and Divergent Effects on Civil-Military Relations’, International Peacekeeping 17(5): 629–643. Sotomayor Velázquez, A.C. (2014) The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper. Civil Military Relations and the United Nations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Steinbrink, M. (2013). ‘Festifavelisation: Mega-Events, Slums and Strategic CityStaging – The Example of Rio de Janeiro’, Die Erde 144(2): 129–145. Swanson, K. (2013). ‘Zero Tolerance in Latin America: Punitive Paradox in Urban Policy Mobilities’, Urban Geography 34(7): 972–998. Tadjbakhsh, S. and Richmond, O.P. (2011). ‘Conclusion: Typologies and Modifications Proposed by Critical Approaches’, in: Tadjbakhsh, S. (ed.) Rethinking the Liberal Peace: External Models and Local Alternatives. London: Routledge, pp. 221–240.

Entangled pacifications

95

United Nations (UN) (2004). ‘Security Council Resolution 1542 (2004)’. Available at: http://www.minustah.org/pdfs/res/1542_en.pdf. The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3–24 (2007). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Uziel, E. and Costa Vargas, J.A. (2015). ‘Twenty Years Wandering (but Not in the Desert): Brazil’s 1967–1989 Absence from UN Peacekeeping’, Brasiliana – Journal for Brazilian Studies 3(2): 6–31. Vianna Braga, C.C. (2010). ‘MINUSTAH and the Security Environment in Haiti: Brazil and the South American Cooperation in the Field’, International Peacekeeping 17(5): 711–722. Vigevani, T. and Ramanzini Júnior, H. (2010). ‘The Changing Nature of Multilateralism and Brazilian Foreign Policy’, The International Spectator 45(4): 63–71. Wacquant, L. (2008). ‘Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian Metropolis’, International Political Sociology 2(1): 56–74.

6

Associated dependent security cooperation Colombia and the United States Arlene B. Tickner

Following over a decade of close cooperation and direct United States involvement in the crafting and execution of security policies in Colombia, in February 2012 Presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Barack Obama took the bilateral relationship to a new level with the christening of a High Level Strategic Security Dialogue (HLSSD), among whose key goals is to create greater synergy between the two countries’ international security cooperation strategies. The exportation of policing and military expertise has become a key feature of Colombia’s bid to gain regional and international traction as a ‘security-maker’, and is also a central component of U.S. security policies and objectives in the twenty-first century. Through security triangulation the United States provides funding, logistical support, supervision and vetting for human rights violations of those third country recipients that receive Colombian training, while Colombia puts up the trainers, mainly elite forces members of the police (and to a lesser degree, the army, navy and air force) previously educated by the U.S., technical inputs and equipment, and training sites within the country. For Washington, having the Colombians take the lead is more cost effective and less controversial, given existing sensitivity to U.S. interventionism and widespread regional sympathy with Colombia’s own historical record of combating violence and insecurity. This international security cooperation regime is also very much in line with the post–September 11 ‘light footprint’ approach to security and defence, in which capacity-building of local partners and their deployment in third countries (instead of direct U.S. involvement) has become a key feature (Luján, 2013). In Bogotá’s mind, following the U.S. ‘from in front’ reinforces the country’s status as a strategic partner and allows it to shape and pursue a more ambitious foreign policy agenda. Although admittedly, the types of knowledge provided by Colombia are derived largely from its ongoing alliance with the United States, the division of labour that has evolved between the two countries underscores the complex nature of international security assistance, as highlighted elsewhere in this volume by Georgina Sinclair and Lars Ostermeier (chapters eight and nine). Indeed, rather than an open and shut case of classical dependence, triangulated international security cooperation is premised on both U.S. readings and

Associated dependent security cooperation

97

policies for addressing insecurity (related mostly to illicit drugs, armed insurgency and terrorism) and Colombia’s capacity to appropriate, translate and re-export the repertoires initially made available to it by Washington. Notwithstanding the existence of a diverse (but small) body of literature that examines the ways in which strong and weak countries interact under conditions of marked asymmetry (see, for example, Lake, 2009; BraveboyWagner, 2003; Wendt and Friedheim, 1995; Hey, 1993; Wendt and Barnett, 1993; Puig, 1980; Moon, 1983; and Jaguaribe, 1979), all such work shares several common assumptions: (1) the agency available to peripheral actors is at worst non-existent, and at best severely constrained; (2) the core has little to gain from empowering the periphery, as such a move would challenge the very foundations upon which asymmetry rests; and (3) it is in the best interests of the periphery to invest any net gains in power in achieving greater independence vis-à-vis the core. None of these assumptions adequately reflects the arrangement that Colombia and the United States have built around security cooperation in third countries. While admittedly asymmetry remains intact, and Colombia’s subaltern role has not changed, the latter country enjoys a certain degree of leeway in designing and executing many of its cooperation programs; also, its growing protagonism in the regional (and global) security and policing realm, arguably one of the most sensitive policy areas for the United States, has not been leveraged to gain greater autonomy in relation to Washington. In contrast, dependence and association, as well as self-sufficiency, seem to coexist. On the one hand, the Santos government has sought to cultivate a strategic relationship with the United States in order to reinforce Colombia’s status as an ally and partner, mainly in order to guarantee the continuation of U.S. assistance, which mushroomed in 2000 with the birth of Plan Colombia (see below). At the same time, the country’s newly found status as a security ‘exporter’ has been used to gain legitimacy at the regional and world level (see also Müller, this volume, for the case of Brazil). On the other hand, the U.S. has been an active supporter of Colombian independence and activism abroad as a necessary precondition for the adequate functioning of security triangulation. By challenging the dichotomy or continuum that most analyses of asymmetrical relationships establish between dependence, and agency and autonomy, this case highlights a potential conceptual puzzle. In this chapter, I analyse this new mode of North–South security interaction through the lens of ‘associated dependent cooperation’. I derive this concept from the work of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1973) and Peter Evans (1979) on dependent development, which the two authors describe as a distinctive kind of dependence characterized by the coexistence of a coreperiphery divide that perpetuates asymmetry, the partial overlap of core and peripheral interests, and non-zero sum interaction. In addition, I argue that triangulated security is but one example of the ‘coloniality of power’ in which global and local policing regimes are inscribed. As Anibal Quijano (2000: 545) argues, the global world-system is rooted in economic, political, cultural

98

Arlene B. Tickner

and epistemic divisions of labour that reinforce Western hegemony and deny the agency of peripheral actors. In the case of Colombian–U.S. relations, Colombia’s status as a security exporter is premised on implicit and explicit recognition of the centrality and superiority of U.S. knowledge and Colombian efforts to gain favour within the core-periphery structure rather than challenge it. By tracing how U.S.–originated understandings and practices of security were exported to Colombia at the behest of local actors, and then re-exported elsewhere by Colombia, the chapter also points to the mimicry at play in international security cooperation (see Bilgin, 2008: 14), thus offering valuable insights into the limitations of one-sided diffusionist stories about the global making of policing. In the first section of the chapter, I discuss Colombian–U.S. relations within the context of Plan Colombia, an ambitious state-strengthening, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency strategy deployed allegedly in order to save the state from the brink of collapse (Borda, 2012; Tickner, 2007; Tokatlian, 2001). During this period, Colombia became a laboratory for U.S. security cooperation (see also Graham and Baker; McCoy, Müller; Stockmarr, this volume). The fact that such cooperation was heralded as a resounding success set the stage for its deployment elsewhere, this time by the U.S.–trained Colombians. The second section explores the main contours of Colombian–U.S. security triangulation with an eye to identifying both the gestation of the model and the labour division that the two countries settled upon for its implementation. This discussion points to both the use of Colombia as a proxy or Trojan horse by Washington, and the constrained agency afforded to Bogotá by asymmetrical cooperation with the United States (for a similar analysis of security cooperation between the U.S. and Central America, see Müller 2015). In the third and final section, I develop a conceptual discussion of triangulated security. Notwithstanding important differences, I argue that many of the concerns aired by postcolonial and decolonial thinking about subaltern agency and asymmetry in global politics are largely prefaced by earlier Latin American debates on dependence and particularly, associated dependent development.

Colombian–U.S. relations and security cooperation: Plan Colombia In the mid-1990s, political and criminal violence in Colombia worsened as both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries increased their territorial presence and military power, in no small degree due to the drug traffic and its growing interdependence with the armed conflict1. While the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) gained control over key areas of coca production and achieved humiliating defeats against the Armed Forces, the paramilitary umbrella organization, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) carried out a brutal campaign against the guerrillas, in which supposed civilian sympathizers were also terrorized. The resulting humanitarian crisis as measured in homicides, massacres and forced displacement became one of the worst in the world. At the same time, the governmental crisis provoked by allegations that President Ernesto Samper (1994–1998) had received

Associated dependent security cooperation

99

campaign contributions from the Cali drug cartel, combined with U.S. stigmatization and isolation of the Colombian leader, destabilized the state beyond its customary anaemia (Arnson and Tickner, 2010). Within both Colombian and U.S. civilian and military circles, this situation confirmed the thesis that the country was undergoing a severe security crisis, and that the FARC would take over if counteractive measures were not taken immediately. Given the implications of both state collapse and insurgent victory for U.S. economic and security interests in Colombia and the Andean region more broadly, a multibillion-dollar assistance program known as Plan Colombia was devised in order to build capacities for fighting the drug traffic and the guerrillas more effectively. Colombian President Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002) and his successor Álvaro Uribe (2002–2010) both made active use of a ‘weak state’ discourse in order to justify the need for greater U.S. assistance and ultimately, to elicit intervention in the country’s security crisis (Tickner, 2007). While the Pastrana government sought to strengthen the coercive apparatus of the state, it also initiated peace talks with the FARC to end the country’s half-century long armed conflict (Borda, 2012; Tickner, 2007). Although Plan Colombia contemplated a wide array of issues deemed important for peace, these took a back seat to counternarcotics, state strengthening and subsequently, counterterrorism in Colombian interactions with Washington. Following an initial investment of US$1.3 billion between 2000 and 2001, 80 per cent of which was earmarked for improving the operational capacity of the armed forces (including the police) and only 20 per cent for issues such as human rights and alternative development, U.S. assistance continued to flood Colombia, to the tune of over $8 billion by 2013. Although this figure pales in comparison to disbursements in Afghanistan and Iraq, it makes Colombia the largest recipient of American foreign assistance in Latin America and one of the top ten worldwide (Crandall, 2002; Rosen, 2014). Notwithstanding initial U.S. restrictions attached to the use of Plan Colombia–funded resources and equipment for activities other than counternarcotics, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the collapse of peace talks with the FARC guerrillas in February 2002, Colombian authorities began to actively portray the internal conflict as an instance of terrorist warfare in the Western hemisphere (Rosen, 2014; Borda, 2012; Tickner, 2007). Once the Bush administration agreed to lift the (fuzzy) line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency/counterterrorism, U.S. aid was put directly to use to professionalize and modernize the armed forces in their battle against leftist insurgents (Müller, 2015 analyses a similar strategy in Central America). In what has frequently been described as an “extraordinary transformation” (DeShazo, Primiani and McLean, 2007), Colombia’s security situation began to improve during the second Uribe government, and continues to do so during that of Juan Manuel Santos (since 2010). The state achieved greater control over the countryside, thousands of paramilitary fighters demobilized,

100

Arlene B. Tickner

large numbers of rebels voluntarily surrendered, and punishing defeats delivered to FARC guerrillas facilitated a return to the negotiating table in Havana, Cuba, in 2012. Key indicators of violence, including kidnappings, homicides, disappearances and forced displacement, also declined. Arguably, the ‘war on drugs’ too resulted in relative gains as measured by illicit crop acreage and total cocaine production in Colombia, though these were largely offset by the migration of drug cultivation, production and violence elsewhere in the region, most notably Peru and Bolivia, and México, Central America and the Caribbean (Bagley, 2012). Although Plan Colombia was relatively successful in attending to certain aspects of the Colombian security crisis, Adam Isacson (2010: 1) warned that these gains were “partial … and weighed down by ‘collateral damage’”. In addition to persisting human rights problems (Human Rights Watch, 2015; Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2013), ‘success’ during the Uribe administrations came at the expense of democracy. Between 2006 and 2008, three distinct political scandals, related to extensive ties between the Colombian political elite and paramilitary groups, widespread illegal wiretapping conducted by state authorities, and extrajudicial military executions of over 3,000 young men reported as guerrillas killed in combat, put into stark relief the waning of the rule of law in the country. Notwithstanding the potential risk that ‘worst practices’ cultivated during Plan Colombia be replicated elsewhere, in the early 2000s Colombia began sharing the know-how accrued largely as a result of U.S. training with an eye towards combating similar types of insecurity in other parts of Latin America and the world. One could argue, following Robert D. Kaplan (2006: 39) that the tactics that the U.S. would ultimately employ to manage an ‘unruly world’ were tested first in Colombia, making it the ‘poster child’ of U.S. security cooperation (Killebrew and Irvine, 2011; Luján, 2013; Robinson, 2013; Petraeus and O’Hanlon, 2013). However, this one-sided reading ignores the degree to which the security repertoire developed through close counternarcotics and counterinsurgency/counterterrorist engagement between Washington and Bogotá was cultivated actively by Colombian state representatives, not simply imposed by the United States, and also appropriated and redeployed by them in line with a mix of U.S. and Colombian preferences. As I will discuss subsequently, this case indeed suggests that imperialist practices related to global policing are rooted in the transfer, replication and translation of knowledge between cores and peripheries. However, to the extent that Colombian security cooperation is largely derivative of U.S. practices, the coloniality of power as described by Quijano (2000) is reproduced instead of being disrupted. In this sense, triangulated security cooperation preserves hierarchy and asymmetry instead of reversing them, even though significant degrees of ‘Colombianization’ have also taken place in order to accommodate imported Northern policing knowledge to local realities. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features of this cooperation model is Colombia’s visible and active agency in the multiplication of policing

Associated dependent security cooperation

101

expertise. Far from being a U.S. imposition, Colombia has also been eager to become Washington’s security ‘proxy’ in the Western hemisphere, illustrating but one of the ways in which subaltern actors can partake in the global policing of the contemporary world (see also Hönke and Müller, this volume; Bilgin, this volume).

The gestation of security triangulation2 Since the mid-2000s, Colombia has fielded an increasing number of requests for security cooperation by distinct governments in Latin America and elsewhere. Indeed, one of the country’s main exportable assets are its security forces, considered among the best in the world in counterinsurgency, counternarcotics and fighting organized crime. According to the International Affairs Office of the Colombian National Police, between 2009 and 2013, police and military training was provided to nearly 22,000 officials from 47 different countries, in areas as diverse as land, air, river and sea interdiction; police testimony; lie detector use; handling of explosives; intelligence; psychological operations; and JUNGLA command, the elite counternarcotics program designed originally by the United States, and now administered primarily by the Colombians (Jenzen-Jones, 2011). Approximately 87 per cent of this was offered by the Colombian National Police. In 2013 alone, the number of trainees grew to 8,647, signalling an incremental jump in Colombian training. Notwithstanding the number of nationalities trained, cooperation has focused largely on a group of countries where distinct problems related to illicit drugs and organized crime have migrated (Bagley, 2012), namely Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador and Costa Rica, which also top the list of U.S. security priorities in the Western hemisphere. Western Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Ghana, Gambia, Togo and Senegal have also received Colombian training under the auspices of the European Union and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the Colombian government opened a new embassy in Ghana in 2014 with the goal of increasing its training portfolio in the African continent. Although triangulation in this case has been through Europe, given its concern with the conversion of West Africa into a transit point for drugs headed to the continent, increasingly, the United States also perceives of Africa as a frontier in the war on terrorism and drugs (González, 2014a; 2014b). In consequence, the Security Cooperation Strategy in West Africa was launched in 2011 to coordinate U.S. efforts with those of Europe and Colombia, in order to combat problems related to transnational crime, violence, delinquency and human rights (Savage and Shanker, 2012). In tandem with the Santos administration’s own efforts to consolidate Colombia’s role as a security ‘exporter’, the country initiated a High Level Strategic Security Dialogue (HLSSD) with the United States in February 2012. Several months later, at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Cartagena, Presidents Santos and Obama announced a Regional Security

102

Arlene B. Tickner

Cooperation Action Plan to support capacity building in Central America, the Caribbean and West Africa. A Security Cooperation Coordinating Group (SCCG) was instituted to develop and present a yearly action plan to the representatives of both governments, and an International Cooperation Division was created inside the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, affiliated with the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS). This Division is charged with acting as a liaison between U.S. diplomatic missions in the countries where the Action Plan is being executed (as of 2015, several countries in Central America and the Caribbean), state representatives from those countries (civilian and military) and Colombian actors involved in cooperation activities (primarily the Defence Ministry and the police). Between 2013 and 2014, the number of activities contemplated in the Action Plan grew from 39 to 152, and between 2015 and 2016, they will grow to the low 300s. Additionally, the Division organizes other ad-hoc initiatives that are not formally included in the Action Plan, which add up to 144 in 2014, including those conducted by NAS and the U.S. Southern Command. The International Cooperation Division’s budget is mainly used to cover logistical expenses related to training activities carried out by the Colombians, while the Colombian government pays the salaries of its security personnel that act as trainers. In many other instances of South–South cooperation between Colombia and other countries, the U.S. provides funding through the NAS and Southern Command offices of its diplomatic missions there. Tellingly, a significant portion of the International Cooperation Division’s budget is used to enhance the training capacities of the Colombian security forces, especially the police, in order for them to comply with existing international training standards. This new facet of Colombian–U.S. relations reflects two distinct readings that underscore the importance of joint international security cooperation as a means of satisfying each country’s respective interests. The U.S. reading states that, “as the United States helps Colombia, Colombia helps the United States to help others”. On the other hand, the Colombian reading aims at strengthening strategic association with the United States as a simultaneous platform for reinforcing reciprocity from Washington and increasing the country’s own levels of influence outside the asymmetrical relationship with Washington. This has resulted in a ‘Trojan horse–like’ cooperation scheme in which the United States ‘leads from behind’ while Colombia ‘follows from in front’. While admittedly, building institutional capacities so that peripheral ‘others’ can deal with local problems on their own is nothing new, the outsourcing of such newly obtained capacities to additional countries (instead of or alongside private military security companies), is quite novel. The United States: leading from behind In the post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan and post–financial crisis era, the importance of ‘light footprint’ approaches to policing and security has grown

Associated dependent security cooperation

103

exponentially, as has public opinion opposition to direct U.S. military involvement in contexts that are not perceived as immediate threats to the vital interests of the United States. In 2010, then secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, explained the general principle underlying this strategy when he stated that the United States should “help others to help themselves” through institutional and human capacity building (Gates, 2010). Given the operational and human costs of direct intervention, and the multiple and changing security challenges that exist in the 21st century, the United States has begun to opt for a more indirect approach. Instead of investing in massive ‘state-building’ programs that have proven to be ineffective in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is focusing on efforts that combine air power, special operations forces, intelligence and private contractors (or local partners) that act as proxies. The ‘light footprint’ strategy reflects two distinct ideas. First, an uncomfortable acceptance that many global security problems are unfixable in the short-term, even with massive injections of economic and military aid. Indeed, according to Charles Bouée of the U.S. Army War College (2013), today’s world can be best described with the acronym VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Second, the recognition that large military interventions create economic and human costs with which policymakers have to deal locally, torpedoing the continuation of operations and leading to eventual withdrawal, even when the original objectives have not been completed (Luján, 2013: 8). Notwithstanding such shifts, the United States still holds the conviction that it must police the globe and intervene in countries with a weak state presence, albeit indirectly, as reflected in the Obama administration’s 2012 National Security Strategy and recounted by the State Department: We are shifting from mostly direct application and exercise of American power, to one of indirection that requires patience and partners, and gets results more slowly. In a world like this, American leadership isn’t needed less. It is needed more. And the simple fact is that no global problem can be solved without us. (Clinton, 2010) Although this new approach to policing makes use of a variety of instruments, local partners with sufficient capacities to consolidate security gains are the “strategic lynchpin” of the “light footprint” model (Luján, 2013: 1), which is also characterized by the increasing use of special operations forces, whose numbers have doubled since 2001. This reflects the need to ‘lead from behind’ in order to guarantee a minimalist and non-intrusive approach to security (Robinson, 2013). Indeed, special operations forces and local partners are at the forefront of current U.S. approaches to non-conventional threats (Khalili, 2013), with which the development of a network of allies and partners capable of consolidating effective global security governance has become

104

Arlene B. Tickner

fundamental. Working ‘for, with and through’ such partners allows the U.S. to obtain results at a lesser material and political cost. Also, the use of third parties that act as proxies allows for “plausible denial” (Thomas and Dougherty, 2013: xiii), that is, disavowal of knowledge or responsibility for unpopular or illegal acts. According to the Department of Defense: Building partnership capacity elsewhere in the world also remains important for sharing the costs and responsibilities of global leadership. Across the globe we will seek to be the security partner of choice, pursuing new partnerships with a growing number of nations – including those in Africa and Latin America – whose interests and viewpoints are merging … Whenever possible, we will develop innovative, low cost, and small foot-print approaches to achieve our security objectives, relying on exercises, rotational presence, and advisory capabilities. (U.S. Department of Defense, 2012: 3) Cooperation of this kind is grounded in a global esprit de corps cultivated through prolonged and iterated interaction with foreign security counterparts; the existence of close personal relations; the creation of links to guarantee connectivity between distinct components of security cooperation; and support for the objectives of the weaker counterpart in order to develop a sense of common and shared purpose (Luján, 2013; Thomas and Dougherty, 2013). As local capacity building advances and partnerships mature, elite units of the host country’s security forces can pass on knowledge and techniques to their subordinates, and ultimately be graduated from local security providers to regional and global security exporters. Increasingly, Colombia is portrayed as an emblematic case of ‘light footprint’, given the decade-long duration of Plan Colombia, the amount of resources invested, the types of institution-building activities conducted and their alleged success, and the level of synchronization achieved between the U.S. government, its military agencies and local Colombian actors (Jayamaha, et al., 2010; Killebrew and Irvine, 2011; Luján, 2013; Robinson, 2013). Equally important from the standpoint of the United States’ current security and defence policy, the Colombian case is unique due to the tight military and police cooperation that exists between the two countries, especially among their special operations forces, which dates back over a half century (Thomas and Dougherty, 2013). Finally, the enthusiasm with which Colombia has adopted this role is unmatched in the Western hemisphere, given the country’s unusually strong pro-Americanism and historical closeness to the United States (Tickner, 2007). Kaplan (2006) suggests that Colombia has become an important test case for one of the main tactics employed by the United States in order to exert its ‘imperial maintenance’ over a complex and messy world. In addition to decentralized command structures with rapid mobility and dexterity to

Associated dependent security cooperation

105

address multiple types of threat, the author suggests that imperialism has become “less about conquest than about the training of local armies. Reliance on American techniques and weapons systems, and the relationships established between American officers and their third world protégés, help[s] give the U.S. the access it need[s] around the globe” (Kaplan, 2006: 48). According to Jim Thomas and Christopher Dougherty (2013: 85), “Colombia is … a net ‘exporter of security’ that trains counternarcotics forces in many countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa”, thus constituting a key node in an emerging global network of special operations forces. This opinion is shared by ex-military commander and former CIA director, David Petraeus, who considers Colombia not only one of Washington’s strongest allies in the world, but also better positioned than the United States to help improve the security of subregions such as Central America more effectively and at a lesser cost (Petraeus and O’Hanlon, 2013). In sum, at the center of the U.S. reading of security triangulation with Colombia is the idea that the country has installations, equipment, know-how and trainers that can be employed to attend to the security problems of other countries at a reduced economic cost, with potentially better results and without the political risks associated with a direct military presence.3 In a strict sense, this arrangement seems to confirm Colombia’s role as a U.S. proxy. Nevertheless, as I discuss in the following section, contrary to conventional proxy relations, Colombia is also viewed as an emerging U.S. partner in the security realm, highlighting the role that pockets of the South play in the making of global policing regimes. Colombia: following from in front From day one of its security cooperation efforts, the Colombian government has always preferred to act jointly with the United States. In consequence, President Santos’ efforts to institutionalize and strengthen this program advanced alongside those to convince Washington to elevate its own levels of participation and commitment. The creation of the International Cooperation Division inside the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá is largely the fruit of this lobbying. The asymmetrical nature of triangulation with the United States has never been an issue to Bogotá, but rather has been accepted, rationalized and reproduced through Colombian gestures of ‘following from in front’. Active acceptance of a subaltern position is likely premised on the potential gains to be derived from this arrangement. These include: continuation of U.S. military assistance, which although lower than during the Plan Colombia years, continues to be higher than in any other country in Latin America; the lifting of restrictions on provisions of equipment and intelligence that continue to be used within the context of Colombia’s own war against leftist guerrillas and organized criminal groups; and Washington’s commitment to the current peace process with the FARC, which could arguably translate into material support

106

Arlene B. Tickner

during the post-conflict. In other words, triangulated security is highly valued as it is deemed to increase reciprocity in Colombian–U.S. relations. On the other hand, asymmetry is rationalized under the assumption that Colombia’s growth as an international security provider has allowed the country to improve its global profile and levels of influence in the region and the world, a key objective of the Santos administration. Additionally, one might argue that acting as a strategic subordinate partner to the United States in this specific realm of security and policing has opened up margins of agency in other, equally important issue areas, such as the ongoing debate on the ‘war on drugs’. In this case, the increasingly critical positions adopted by the Colombian president – who has spoken out publicly on the need to re-evaluate current strategies and in May 2015, decided to suspend aerial fumigation of coca crops, one of the centrepieces of U.S. devised counternarcotics efforts in Colombia – have not been subject to ‘punishment’ on the part of Washington. As a result, it should come as little surprise that Colombia’s own representation of security triangulation has been posed in terms of a ‘self-orientalism’ premised on intentional and explicit recognition that the country’s internal and external successes are largely a U.S. imprint. Such self-orientalism needs to be understood against the historical backdrop of bilateral relations, which have been characterized by close Colombian–U.S. ties, the relative absence of controversy surrounding Colombian association with Washington, and the cyclical rationalization of asymmetry and Colombia’s subordinate role (Tickner, 2007). For example, it is common to hear Colombian civilian, police and military authorities argue that Washington should take maximum advantage of its investment in Plan Colombia via the use of the capacities and infrastructure created by Colombia in other countries. Also, much is made of the respect, admiration and trust that Colombian security forces enjoy with their counterparts abroad, especially in Latin America, attributes that allow them to interact more horizontally than U.S. trainers on the grounds of their shared experience with violence related to drug traffic and organized crime, and the peripheral status of their countries. As one of the main recipients of Colombian training by the ‘trained trainers’, Mexico illustrates this feature of ‘following from in front’ quite nicely. Given Mexican sensitivity towards U.S. interventionism, cooperation provided by Colombia is not even triangulated, but strictly South–South. However, the fact that ex-Colombian police chief, Oscar Naranjo, hired by President Enrique Peña Nieto as a security advisor towards the beginning of his administration, also happened to be one of Washington’s most trusted allies in Colombia, speaks to the dualities of this model. In the case of Honduras too, triangulated cooperation is characterized by the active involvement of Colombian trainers in capacity and institution-building, and on occasion, direct participation in security operatives alongside Honduran officials. Theoretically, Colombian intervention allows it to shape training processes in line with its own preferences, even though the United States provides conceptual,

Associated dependent security cooperation

107

logistical and financial backup. Nonetheless, the main interlocutor of both trainer and trainee is not Colombia, but the U.S. government and security establishment. Finally, Colombia argues that the United States should view it as a national security resource deployable at will in Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere in a way that other regional countries such as Mexico or Brazil simply would not allow, given both reservations towards the imperialistic attitudes of the North and their own geopolitical ambitions and agendas that do not necessarily coincide with those of the U.S. One of the questions raised by Colombia’s role in triangulated security cooperation is the extent to which this arrangement allows for Colombian agency at all, and whether or not agency transcends the mere absorption, accommodation and mimicking of a pre-existing hegemonic model. As Pinar Bilgin (2008) has argued elsewhere, efforts to look beyond U.S. (or Western) policies, in this case in the security and policing realm, do not guarantee that global South actors do things any differently. In the specific case of here, U.S. originated security understandings and practices circulate in a context characterized by their active embrace by Colombian actors, leading to the potential reproduction of colonialist logics rather than their disruption.

Conceptualizing security triangulation My discussion suggests that triangulated security cooperation, which is quickly becoming a mainstay of contemporary world policing, is not a simple instance of North–South asymmetrical exchange, but instead underscores the coexistence of dependence and coloniality, and constrained subaltern agency. The concept of associated dependent development, posed originally by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1973) and expanded upon by Peter Evans (1979) offers one potential lens through which to examine this hybrid model. Contrary to ‘classical’ dependency theory (see for example, Cardoso and Faletto, 1969), in which structural conditions produced by global capitalism and elite class alliances lead peripheral countries to align with the international positions and strategies of the core, often against their own national interests, the dependent development model is characterized by the partial overlap of foreign interests, and those of local peripheral states and elites. As a result, instead of hegemonic imposition, exploitation and the negation of local prerogatives, core-periphery relations under this specific type of dependence are characterized by asymmetrical interdependence and association (Cardoso, 1973: 149). According to Evans (1979: 277), alliances between peripheral states, local elites and transnational capital rooted in compatible objectives combined with shared control over distinct development initiatives in the periphery, lead to high levels of core commitment towards those strategies that boost local capacity-building. In consequence, dependent development is premised on a

108

Arlene B. Tickner

certain degree of positive transformation within the periphery, which is deemed a precondition for core gains. However, the fact that the periphery continues to be linked to a world system characterized by an unequal division of labour implies that the myriad contradictions that characterize coreperiphery relations are never completely eliminated by this form of development (Cardoso, 1973: 33). Associated dependent development as a specific mode of core-periphery interaction is useful for thinking about asymmetrical relations more generally and for Colombian–U.S. triangulated security in particular. What it suggests is that peripheral association with the core is not borne solely out of international structural constraints or elite class alliances between core and periphery, but conceivably out of a joint and voluntary partnership or alliance. In this sense, association is cultivated by both the core and the periphery, mainly because it reflects shared or overlapping objectives. Therefore, while most discussions of asymmetry are rooted in a binary division between two mutually exclusive types of peripheral foreign policy – alignment or rupture with the core – the concept of association suggests a third way, consisting of the acquisition of certain margins of manoeuvre on the part of the periphery and the continuation of dependence. According to Cardoso (1973: 143), association is a condition in which neither the structural determinism characteristic of classical dependency nor complete autonomy obtains, but rather, the two conditions coexist. The distinguishing attribute of associated dependent development is a new division of labour in which specific productive functions traditionally located in core countries are transferred to peripheral ones that have achieved a certain degree of development and growth. In parallel to this idea, my chapter suggests that Colombia–U.S. security triangulation constitutes a mode of associated dependent cooperation that has resulted from the reshuffling of functions related to global policing. Such shifts are largely the result of changes in United States security and defence policy, among whose main results has been the subcontracting of new policing roles to countries with high degrees of U.S.–imparted expertise and political-ideological affinity, such as Colombia. Associated dependent cooperation as reflected in triangulated security has four main features. First, shared bilateral control over security cooperation in third countries, however asymmetrical, requires a high degree of investment on the part of the United States in capacity-building in Colombia, without which the development of some of its own drug and organized crime-related security objectives in Latin America would be untenable. As Cardoso and Evans illustrate, the enhancement of peripheral state capacities and development by the dominant state is a prerequisite for generating greater productivity and the reproduction of the global capitalist system. In a similar sense, the United States relies on the perfection of Colombian strategic and technical capacities in order to reach hemispheric security goals, given the

Associated dependent security cooperation

109

increasingly important role played by local partners in today’s decentralized security assemblage. Second, associated dependent cooperation entails an atypical form of strategic relationship. Instead of equal allies with similar responsibilities and power, partnership between Colombia and the United States is highly skewed, even though U.S. security successes are largely dependent upon this Trojan-like horse. In addition to viewing Colombia as an ally that occupies crucial security functions with greater effectiveness and lower cost, the conviction that its expertise can be employed at will by the Unites States to tilt security cooperation in third countries in its favour, which is widespread in Washington, has actually been cultivated by Colombian self-orientalism. Far from the simple diffusion of ideas and practices from North to South, associated dependent cooperation between these two countries suggests that global security governance is both much more complex and much more rooted in the South, in which multiple nodes of contemporary world policing are sprouting up (see Hönke and Müller, this volume). Nevertheless, the division of labour is such that the coloniality of power, rooted largely in the production and control over (security and policing) knowledge, remains essentially untouched. Third, existing analyses of asymmetry in world politics tend to agree that if a peripheral state becomes stronger, the most likely (and desirable) scenario is that it puts an end to any existing patron–client relations and stakes out control over key areas of its own stateness and of foreign policy. This reflects the common belief that dependence is a negative condition, given that it affects sovereignty and autonomy. However, the case of Colombia–U.S. security triangulation suggests that greater peripheral agency is not necessarily invested in more independence. On the contrary, my analysis illustrates that the Colombian government has been an active protagonist in the cultivation of associated dependent cooperation, in which it has voluntarily adopted the role of a proxy in an area of strategic interest to the United States. Ironically, what little agency the Colombian state does enjoy in the security realm is actually an offshoot of the asymmetrical relationship it has built with the United States. Fourth, dependence and association are not necessarily antithetical to the search for and satisfaction of peripheral interests. The acceptance and promotion of security triangulation with the United States has been viewed in Colombia as functional to national objectives, including the preservation of certain levels of U.S. assistance and the exportation of security know-how as a key facet of Colombian foreign policy and international recognition. Therefore, this case study poses the question of whether or not the supposed incongruence between association with the core and the search for national interests is accurate, and if it is feasible to envision a larger degree of shared or compatible interests inside asymmetrical relations than is normally supposed.

110

Arlene B. Tickner

Conclusion As Bilgin (2008: 6) argues, given processes of Westernization or Americanization at play in realms such as security, “the emergence of thinking and doing that are ‘almost the same but not quite’” needs to be given greater attention. In this way, Bilgin gestures towards postcolonial treatments of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ interaction that point to the coexistence of dominant global practices and their local translation. Mimicry might be likened to dependent development, in that it underscores the possibility of preserving a certain degree of agency in the face of homogenizing practices in the world system. However, given that relations of power are executed within fields of knowledge and practice, such as global policing, by means of an intellectual division of labour that largely mirrors that of global capitalism (Quijano, 2000), triangulated security and peripheral actors such as Colombia might also be viewed as vehicles for the reproduction, circulation and consumption of U.S. security repertoires. In a similar vein, associated dependent cooperation is rife with tension and contradiction. Far from an ideal model, Colombian–U.S. triangulated security fails to eliminate asymmetry and dependence, and may actually reinforce them, with all of their potentially negative consequences, including limited decision-making capacities and constrained agency. In this sense, one might argue that the Colombian state’s ‘success story’, the offspring of an interventionist model – Plan Colombia – promoted actively by the country itself, is largely restricted to the country’s association with the United States as a lesser and dependent partner. Given that under this specific mode of core-periphery interaction, greater degrees of self-sufficiency and proactive international conduct coexist with new forms of dependence, the extent to which such constrained subaltern agency can be instrumentalized and deployed with an eye to interrupting asymmetrical logics is debatable. In this sense, and in keeping with Evans (1979: 12), even if a peripheral state such as Colombia were to try to alter or exit its associated dependent cooperation arrangement with the United States (which has not been the case as of yet), the adoption of an autonomy-seeking strategy would undermine the very bases upon which Colombia’s role as a security exporter has been built. Ultimately, what triangulated security suggests is that simply adding global South actors to policing assemblages – especially when they defer to and mimic the North as a result of self-orientalism – provides little hope of this field of practice being democratized or of the dismantling of the coloniality of power.

Notes 1 For further analyses of the Colombian armed conflict, see Gómez Suárez (2013); Leal Buitrago (2006); and Deas and Llorente (1999).

Associated dependent security cooperation

111

2 Much of the information contained in this section is based upon confidential personal interviews conducted by Arlene B. Tickner with over a dozen Colombian and United States government, military and police officials between 2013 and 2015. 3 Personal interview, U.S. government official, Bogotá, February 2013.

Bibliography Arnson, C.J. and Tickner, A.B. (2010). ‘Colombia and the United States. Strategic Partners or Uncertain Allies?’, in: Domínguez, J.I. and Fernández de Castro, R. (eds) Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations. Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century? New York: Routledge, pp. 164–196. Bagley, B. (2012). ‘Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in the Americas’, Woodrow Wilson Center Update on the Americas, August. Available at: www.wilsoncenter. org/sites/default/files/BB%20Final.pdf. Bilgin, P. (2008). ‘Thinking Past “Western” IR’, Third World Quarterly 29(1): 5–23. Borda, S. (2012). La internacionalización de la paz y de la guerra en Colombia durante los Gobiernos de Andrés Pastrana y Álvaro Uribe: búsqueda de legitimidad política y capacidad militar. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. Bouée, C.E. (2013). Light Footprint Management. Leadership in Times of Change. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Braveboy-Wagner, J.A. (2003). The Foreign Policy of the Global South: Rethinking Conceptual Frameworks. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Cardoso, F.H. (1973). ‘Associated-Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications’, in Stepan, A. (ed.) Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies and Future. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 142–176. Cardoso, F.H. and Faletto, E. (1969). Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina. México, D.F.: Siglo XXI Editores. Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (2013). ¡Basta ya! Colombia: memoria de guerra y dignidad. Bogotá: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. Clinton, H.R. (2010). ‘Remarks on the Obama Administration’s National Security Strategy’, U.S. Department of State, May 27. Crandall, R. (2002). Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy toward Colombia. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Deas, M. and Llorente, M.V. (1999). Reconocer la guerra para construir la paz. Bogotá: Norma. DeShazo, P., Primiani, T. and McLean, P. (2007). Back from the Brink: Evaluating Progress in Colombia, 1999–2007. Washington, DC: CSIS. Evans, P. (1979). Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinationals, State, and Local Capital in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gates, R. M. (2010). ‘Helping Others Defend Themselves’, Foreign Affairs 89(4): 2–6. Gómez Suárez, A. (2013). ‘Safeguarding Political Guarantees in the Colombian Peace Process: Have Santos and FARC Learnt the Lessons from the Past?’ Third World Quarterly 34(5): 818–837. González, M. (2014a). ‘Exporting (In)Security? Questioning Colombian Military Engagement in West Africa’, Oxford Research Group. Available at: http://sustaina blesecurity.org/2014/03/20/colombian-engagement-in-west-africa/. González, M. (2014b). ‘The U.S. and Colombia: Building an Exportable Model of Security’, Open Security. Available at: www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/mabel-gonz% C3%A1lez-bustelo/us-and-colombia-building-exportable-model-of-security.

112

Arlene B. Tickner

Hey, J. (1993). ‘Foreign Policy Options under Dependence: A Theoretical Evaluation with Evidence from Ecuador’, Journal of Latin American Studies 25(3): 543–574. Human Rights Watch (2015). World Report 2015. New York: HRW. Isacson, A. (2010). Don’t Call It a Model: On Plan Colombia’s Tenth Anniversary, Claims of ‘Success’ Don’t Stand up to Scrutiny. Washington, DC: WOLA. Jaguaribe, H. (1979). ‘Autonomía periférica y hegemonía céntrica’, Estudios Internacionales 46: 91–130. Jayamaha, D., Brady, S., Fitzgerald, B. and Fritz, J. (2010). ‘Lessons Learned from U.S. Government Law Enforcement in International Operations’, PKSOI Papers, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December. Jenzen-Jones, N. (2011). ‘Run Through The Jungle: Colombia’s JUNGLA Commandos’, Small Wars Journal. Available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/runthrough-the-jungle-colombia%E2%80%99s-jungla-commandos. Kaplan, R.D. (2006). Imperial Grunts. New York: Vintage. Khalili, L. (2013). ‘The Tip of the Spear: US Special Operations Forces’, Al Jazeera. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332811912362162.html. Killebrew, B. and Irvine, M. (2011). ‘Security through Partnership: Fighting Transnational Cartels in the Western Hemisphere’, Policy Brief, Center for a New American Security. Available at: www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_Pa rtnership_KillebrewIrvine.pdf. Lake, D. (2009). Hierarchy in International Relations. New York: Cornell University Press. Leal Buitrago, F. (2006). En la encrucijada: Colombia en el siglo XXI. Bogotá: Norma. Luján, F.M. (2013). ‘Light Footprints. The Future of American Military Intervention’, Center for a New American Security, March. Available at: www.cnas.org/files/ documents/publications/CNAS_LightFootprint_VoicesFromTheField_Lujan.pdf. Moon, B. (1983). ‘The Foreign Policy of the Dependent State’, International Studies Quarterly 27(3): 315–340. Müller, M.-M. (2015). ‘Punitive Entanglements: ‘The War on Gangs’ and the Making of a Transnational Penal Apparatus in the Americas’, Geopolitics 20(3): 696–727. Petraeus, D.H. and O’Hanlon, M. (2013). ‘The Success Story Next Door’, Político, September 24. Available at: www.politico.com/story/2013/09/general-david-petra eus-michael-ohanlon-the-success-story-next-door-097316. Puig, J.C. (1980). Doctrinas Internacionales y Autonomía Latinoamericana. Caracas: Instituto de Altos Estudios de América Latina, Universidad Simón Bolivar. Quijano, A. (2000). ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America’, Nepantla: Views from the South 1(3): 533–580. Robinson, L. (2013). The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces. Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, No. 66. Rosen, J. (2014). The Losing War: Plan Colombia and Beyond. New York: State University of New York Press. Savage, C. and Shanker, T. (2012). ‘U.S. Drug War Expands to Africa, a Newer Hub for Cartels’, New York Times, 21 July. Thomas, J. and Dougherty, C. (2013). ‘Beyond the Ramparts. The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces’, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), May. Tickner, A.B. (2007). ‘Intervención por invitación: claves de la política exterior colombiana y de sus debilidades principales’, Colombia Internacional 65: 90–111. Tokatlian, J.G. (2001). ‘El plan Colombia: ¿un modelo de intervención?’, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals 54–55: 203–219.

Associated dependent security cooperation

113

U.S. Department of Defense (2012). Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. Washington, DC. Available at: http://archive.defense.gov/ news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf. Wendt, A. and Barnett, M. (1993). ‘Dependent State Formation and Third World Militarization’, Review of International Studies 19(4): 321–347. Wendt, A. and Friedheim, D. (1995). ‘Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State’, International Organization 49(4): 689–721.

7

Securing the diaspora Policing global order Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

Much contemporary analysis of global policing rests on and reproduces a state-centric and dualistic account of the international system. On one hand, policing is treated in terms of national jurisdictions defined by state territories and boundaries on which ‘external’ threats such as terrorism, trafficking and illicit trade impact, thus compelling, for example, increased international coordination of police responses (e.g. Andreas and Nadelmann, 2006). On the other hand, analysis is located in an international system implicitly or explicitly treated as divided into two distinct parts: on one side, a set of liberal states comprising a stable core of democracy, market economics, and the rule of law, and, on the other, a large number of non-liberal states, often subject to weak institutions and rule of law, and plagued by violence, rights abuses, and ungoverned spaces. Consequently global policing is read in terms of transfers – albeit with uneven and sometimes perverse consequences – of policing expertise, models and practices from core to periphery, either by leading states or multilateral state-building and peacekeeping efforts (e.g. Corva, 2008; Greener, 2011). Alternatively, as in a significant critical literature, the emphasis is on globe-spanning practices, such as those associated with the ‘War on Terror’ and transnational crime fighting, or the privatization of policing to transnational corporate actors, but here too, the metropole remains central to analysis and the accounts it produces (e.g. Aradau and van Munster, 2009; O’Reilly and Ellison, 2006; Bowling and Sheptycki, 2011). Despite important insights generated by these works, taken together, the above analytical tendencies elide the global interactions through which policing, order-making and challenges to both are transnationally co-constituted (Hönke and Müller, this volume). First, theoretically and empirically the separation of a peaceful liberal core from a violent and unstable non-liberal periphery is unsustainable (e.g. Barkawi and Laffey, 2001). Liberal order has always been a hybrid social formation, in that everywhere it contains or is articulated with elements not well-captured through its own concepts and categories. From its inception liberal governmentality (e.g. Rose, 1999) has encompassed within an overall rationality of rule, both liberal and non-liberal subjects and spaces, in Europe and its imperial and colonial extensions, generating practices and apparatuses of rule which are

Securing the diaspora

115

also hybrid. Significantly there is no presumption that all peoples should be governed in precisely the same way, and liberal order has always rested on a governmental concern: “what can be governed through the promotion of liberty and what must be governed in other ways” (Hindess, 2004: 30, emphasis added; Mehta, 1999; Hönke, 2013). Yet the tendency to take at face value liberal selfunderstandings denies such miscegenation, and complex social formations – up to and including whole world orders – can be described as liberal while, simultaneously, practices demonstrably integral to those formations, such as racism or colonial and imperial violence, are asserted to be not liberal (Laffey and Nadarajah, 2012). Second, modern policing, while commonsensically associated with the rule of law, has always been about maintaining political and social order more broadly (e.g. Reiner, 2010; Brodeur, 1983; Neocleous, 2000). Indeed, as Neocleous (2011: 146) points out, the conception of the police as an institution of state narrowly concerned with crime prevention and law-enforcement, as opposed to the reproduction of order, was itself a late-eighteenth century product of increasingly hegemonic liberalism. Brodeur (1983) famously introduced a distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ policing, precisely so as to bring (back) into analytical focus the integral role of police in securing the political and social status quo. While the ‘War on Terror’ has brought to fore the routine surveillance and extra-legal interventions characteristic of ‘high’ policing, as the experiences of, for example, the nuclear disarmament, ‘antiglobalization’, and environmental movements – and older ones, such as the Suffragettes – attest, these are not novel. From the outset, the raison d’être of police, in the metropole as in the colony, has been not only to enforce the law, but more broadly to contain, discipline and otherwise manage an expanding range of social ills and their associated populations so that they are removed from, or at least do not threaten, social and political order, itself equated with ‘civilization’ to be secured (Neocleous, 2000, 2011; Brodeur, 1983). As such, modern policing is an evolving set of practices, institutions, ideas and technologies of control that, emerging directly out of the colonial experience of pacification and rule (Hönke and Müller; also McCoy, Stockmarr, Graham and Baker; all this volume), is made and remade in the encounters between ambitions for and perceived threats to order. In this chapter we explore the transnational security governance of diasporas as a window onto the global making of policing. The constitutive relations between liberal and non-liberal worlds are exemplified by today’s security concerns about migration and diasporas (e.g., Adamson and Demetriou, 2007; Wayland, 2004). But even before al-Qaeda attacks in New York, London, Madrid and Paris prompted new discoveries and urgent policing of ‘the presence within’ of dangerous non-liberal subjects and their potential for ‘extremism’ and ‘home grown’ terrorism, the presence in the metropole of diasporas – migrant communities with continuing links to other ‘homelands’ (Clifford, 1994) – had already placed their members and practices on the international security agenda. After the Cold War, a significant scholarship

116

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

linked metropolitan diasporas to conflict, violence and insecurity in the periphery via, for example, ‘long-distance nationalism’, ‘external’ support for insurgencies and illicit transnational networks (e.g. Anderson, 1998; RAND, 2001; Smith and Stares, 2007). Aimed at solving international policy problems for ‘peace’ and ‘stability’, such research generates specific responses within and in between ‘home’ and ‘host’ states, integral to which are police (both ‘high’ and ‘low’) and other institutions of state (courts, customs, border forces, charity watchdogs, etc.); diverse non-state actors, such as advocacy groups and think tanks, media, corporations; and, not least, diaspora actors themselves. However, this influential literature rests on and reproduces key analytical separations – e.g. between ‘domestic’ conflict and ‘international’ order; between diasporas and ‘home’ societies, and between diasporas and ‘host’ societies; and between diaspora activities and host-states’ security practices. By contrast, our analysis emphasizes the mutual implication of all these. Our argument is that policing – defined as “acts of governance directed to the production of security” (Johnston, 2000: 10), i.e. order – is interwoven with and co-constituted by the challenges to order that policing articulates as transnational threats and seeks to extinguish. Central to our analysis is the assumption that policing is not separate from but rather shaped by the context of (global) social relations within which it is defined and practiced. Of course, as the literature on policing itself, and others (e.g. Cruikshank, 1999; Mehta, 1999), has already shown, liberalism’s location of problematic groups on managerial frontiers of inclusion and exclusion is not unique to the context of diaspora. However, as a translocal object of analysis, diaspora challenges efforts to draw sharp lines between liberal and non-liberal worlds, inviting engagement with subjects and practices situated simultaneously in both. Using the Tamil diaspora in Britain as a case study, our focus on the intimate relations between policing in the metropole and order-making in the periphery underlines the mutual implication of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ and the integral relations between the so-called zones of war and peace inherent to global liberal order-making. In this way, while our discussion of the Tamil diaspora focusses on the post–Cold War era, the globe-spanning co-constitutions we emphasize have a longer history, such as in the Cold War relations between the US–dominated liberal core and a less peaceful ‘Free World’ periphery, or between metropole and colony in the earlier age of empire. The chapter’s first section discusses the post–Cold War knowledge generation that defined diasporas as key targets for metropolitan policing within the global management of conflict and peace. It sets the context for our discussion of the Tamil diaspora in the second and third sections, dealing with, respectively, the policing of diaspora for liberal peace in Sri Lanka, and how policing itself led to institutional and other transformations that reconstituted ‘the diaspora’ and moved it to the fore of the Tamil struggle, in the process reconfiguring its relations with metropolitan authority. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of its argument.

Securing the diaspora

117

Diasporas, armed conflict and liberal peace after the Cold War Posited as the foremost obstacle to expansion of liberal peace after the collapse of superpower rivalry, armed and ethnic conflicts soon drew intense scholarly and policy attention. The most influential have been works emphasizing the instrumental rationality of conflict (e.g. Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; Kaldor, 2001) that, despite strong critiques (e.g. Kalyvas, 2001; Cramer, 2002), have defined international policy towards violent disorder in the periphery. Inherent to these understandings of conflict is also that of peace, i.e. a stable territorial state governed by liberal democracy, market economics and the rule of law (Duffield, 2001). That is, irrespective of the specificities of the conflict in question, peace is to be attained the same way: ceasefire and negotiated agreements between conflict parties; reconciliation between the fractured sections of society; and strengthening and liberal reform of state institutions and the economy. The supposedly self-evident capacity for these steps to address any and all grievances means there is no room for continuing armed ‘freedom struggles’, even in cases of state repression, with (restoration of ) the state’s integrity and monopoly on force seen as foundational for peace.1 Thus, it is non-state actors’ relations with violence (perpetrators, supporters or opponents) and how they respond to international peace interventions (whether or not they disarm and either disband or join the state reform/ building project) that decides their location on the frontline of liberal peace. Just as importantly, the politics of other, unarmed, actors and constituencies and their relevance for peace are categorized by their fit with an inclusive, pluralist vision of the country in question. For example, there is no (longer) room here for the “evils of self-determination” (Etzioni, 1992) entailing division of territorial rule along ethnic (i.e. ‘exclusivist’) lines. Consequently, in this view, on one side are those prepared to work non-violently towards inclusive liberal peace, while on the other are those seeking alternate – exclusivist and particularist – ends; the former are to be supported, while the latter constitute the primary threats to liberal order which, if they cannot be persuaded or coerced into joining the project, must be contained and, if necessary, destroyed. It is in this way – i.e. in terms of whether they disrupt or contribute to liberal peace at home – that migrant communities in the West, such as Tamils, Kurds, Somalis and many others, came into international security focus. Consequently, an expansive scholarly and policy literature sought to identify diasporas’ “motivations for engagement” with, and “specific potential positive and negative impacts in societies experiencing or recovering from conflict” (Brinkerhoff, 2011). First, this articulation of diaspora identity with homeland civil wars entails a dual process of exclusion. On one hand, diasporas are understood as externalities to the conflict (‘home’) state, and as either “peace wreckers” or “peacebuilders” (e.g. Smith and Stares, 2007). At the same time, these often long settled and multigenerational communities are

118

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

also delineated from their (‘host’) societies in ways that enable withdrawal of the very frameworks of multicultural citizenship, civil rights, the rule of law, etc. deemed representative of liberal modernity (e.g. Boon-Kuo et al., 2015). Second, inherent here is a prescription for metropolitan policing for (global) liberal order: while diaspora advocates of non-violence, pluralism, reconciliation, and liberal transformation of their home states are agents for liberal peace to be integrated into international interventions in their homelands, proponents of ‘freedom struggles’, self-determination and independent statehood, or (‘exclusive’) group rights more generally, are defined as hardliners and extremists to be constrained and disciplined through surveillance, security agencies’ interventions and immigration controls. This categorization has immediate consequences for diaspora agency. For example, while it is widely assumed diaspora actors are well positioned to lobby ‘their’ governments and other international actors, the above logics of inclusion and exclusion dictate whose arguments, aspirations, and claims should be taken seriously and whose should be ignored or rejected. It is through such disciplinary frontiers of inclusion and exclusion that liberal governmentality advances, as Hönke (2014) demonstrates in the different context of mining corporations’ and donors’ enacting of “participatory community engagement” wherein some actors and protests are legitimatized (‘good’ civil society) and integrated, and others delegitimized, criminalized and met with repression. Moreover, it is the discursive conflation of armed actors’ violence (‘terrorism’) with political goals unacceptable to global liberalism (‘extremism’) that enables the categorization and management of the conduct of other actors, including diaspora, who whilst not engaged in armed struggle are active in the same (transnational) political space. In the Tamils’ case, to which we turn below, it is the articulation of the armed struggle of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) with the (‘extremist’) political goal of an independent state of Tamil Eelam that enabled identification of Tamil ‘supporters of terrorism’ and their subjection – under the aegis of anti-terrorism legislation – to policing and political disciplining. However, as we also show, it is precisely through the interactions between transnational security assemblages and target populations’ activities that both global policing and the challenges it seeks to extinguish are co-constituted.

Tamil diaspora and liberal peace in Sri Lanka In December 1981, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister arrived in London with an urgent message for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: he wished to warn her that Tamils in the UK were planning an imminent ‘declaration of independence’ of their homeland in Sri Lanka’s Northeast. A now declassified UK briefing paper advised Thatcher the concern was ‘believed’ to relate to the Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC), “a small group of Tamil residents who produce skillful propaganda, but who, according to the Security Service

Securing the diaspora

119

[MI5], have little capacity to mount demonstrations” (cited in Miller, 2015: 10), Arguing “the importance to us of Sri Lanka’s stability and pro-western alignment means we should take [the] approach seriously,” it advised the Premier to tell her visitor that Britain “regrets the TCC operates in London” and reassure him “we keep a close eye on its activities and shall continue to do so” (ibid.). The encounter is notable for several reasons. First, at this time the Tamil diaspora in the UK and elsewhere was a tiny fraction of what it was to become. Today’s diaspora of an estimated one million people (a fifth in the UK) is concentrated in Western states, and while now including a large second generation, emerged through waves of refugee flight following the anti-Tamil pogrom in July 1983 and the simultaneous outbreak of Sri Lanka’s vicious war (1983–2009).2 Second, the prevailing context in Sri Lanka was not armed conflict, but an acute ethnopolitical crisis characterized by deepening polarization over two decades between the Tamil political collective and the Sinhala majoritarian state that had crystallized in the 1977 electoral victory of a coalition of Tamil parties which swept the Tamil areas on a platform of selfdetermination and independent statehood. Third, although Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka was then a sporadic and muted affair, peripheral to Tamil politics and comprising a few militants operating in a northern peninsula (until the 1983 pogrom produced a rush of recruits), Britain’s security services were already keeping a ‘close eye’ on diaspora Tamils’ political activity, and, more importantly, as Miller’s (2015) study of declassified UK documents shows, British–Sri Lanka counterinsurgency cooperation had already expanded significantly: for example, in 1979 Britain had dispatched a former MI5 director, with extensive counter-insurgency experience in colonial India, Malaya and Northern Ireland, to provide Sri Lanka with “practical recommendations for the total reorganization of [its] intelligence apparatus” (ibid.: 6). Thus, years before the outbreak of armed conflict in Sri Lanka, Tamils in both the island and the West were already targets of evolving transnational security assemblages articulating their political activities and goals as a threat to local and, thus, international order. Both the size of the Tamil diaspora and the intensity of nationalist agitation within it began to grow from 1983, as increasing numbers of Tamils, often arriving illegally, sought asylum in the West. By MI5’s metric for the threat posed by diaspora actors – the ability to mount demonstrations (see above) – the next three decades would see the inexorable growth of diaspora mass protest. Yet, this was also a period of increasingly coercive policing of diaspora activities, eventually aided by draconian anti-terrorism laws and proscriptions of the LTTE. As discussed below, popular mobilization and Western policing practices were mutually constitutive (for similar dynamics in Northern Ireland, see Ellison and Martin, 2000). Mass protests peaked in 2009 in the bloody final months of the war, a period defined by open antagonism with host governments and the rise to hegemony in diaspora politics of Tamil nationalism (e.g. Vimalarajah and Cheran, 2010; Rasaratnam,

120

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

forthcoming). Yet in the years since the war’s end, diaspora advocacy has been led by several new organizations, whose claims to legitimacy rest on commitment to Tamil nationalist principles (Walton, 2015), but which nonetheless have become increasingly integral to international engagement in Sri Lanka. In contrast to during the war (see below), it is now widely accepted in international policy discourse, and despite Sri Lanka’s opposition, that ‘the diaspora’ has a legitimate role in Sri Lanka’s politics and resolution of the island’s ethnopolitical conflict. But, as discussed here, this is a very recent development and not simply a function of the destruction of the LTTE, but the contingent outcome of specific patterns of diaspora mobilization and institutional development that were deeply conditioned by transnational efforts to police diaspora activity towards liberal peace in Sri Lanka. Post–Cold War international interventions conceived of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict as essentially a problem of violent ethnonationalist separatism in an imperfect liberal democracy (e.g. Wills, 2001). While Tamil ‘grievances’ were acknowledged, these were considered relatively easy to address through some devolution of powers and liberal reform of democratic and governance institutions, and ‘reconciliation’ amongst the island’s communities. As everywhere else, the goal was Sri Lanka’s transformation into a united, pluralist market democracy; the core obstacle was understood as the conflict itself (i.e. the armed LTTE and ‘its’ secessionist project). To this end, from the mid-1990s Sri Lanka became an important site of international intervention though securitized-development, counter-insurgency, peacebuilding and liberal state reform. However, the above reading of Sri Lanka is sharply at odds with the country’s post-independence history. A substantial scholarly literature – largely ignored or discounted by the policy-informing research – emphasizes the significance of the inexorable ascendance to hegemony of a Sinhala majoritarian state transformation project, and its associated generation by the late 1970s – long before armed conflict – of popular Tamil demands for self-determination, first through federal autonomy and, later, independent statehood, culminating in the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) alliance’s sweeping electoral victory in 1977 (e.g., Bose, 1994; DeVotta, 2004; Krishna, 1999). Thus, post–Cold War international intervention in Sri Lanka’s conflict was defined by denials of both the extent of institutionalized Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarianism and the depth of Tamil resistance to it. This alignment between international efforts to secure liberal peace and the Sri Lankan state’s efforts to defend majoritarian order was not simply a matter of the latter coopting the former; rather, as discussed above, the former had its own interventionist logic, which became hegemonic after 9/11, wherein armed conflict in any part of the periphery constituted a threat to (global) liberal peace itself. In Sri Lanka this alignment manifested in a joint endeavour to defeat the LTTE and Tamil separatism pursued by an expanding assemblage comprising international actors – states, NGOs, donor agencies, etc. – and Sri Lankan state agencies, etc. (for a historically grounded analysis, see Rampton and Nadarajah, 2012).

Securing the diaspora

121

Key for our analysis is how this transnational assemblage encompassed intervention in both metropolitan and peripheral locales (the analysis and empirical material presented in this section draw on Laffey and Nadarajah, 2012, and Nadarajah, 2009). In the first decade of the war, despite increasing international assistance for Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil militancy, diaspora Tamils did not figure prominently on Western domestic security agendas, except in terms of surveillance and harsh asylum/immigration regimes. They were largely free to pursue political activities, including fundraising and advocacy on behalf of armed struggle and self-determination and Tamil Eelam. However, this changed from the mid-1990s as the international community began to intervene more forcefully to engineer liberal peace around the world (Duffield, 2001). In the Sri Lankan case, it was the LTTE’s resilience in the face of intensified internationally-assisted counterinsurgency operations that prompted new Western efforts to police diaspora political activity, soon assisted with proscriptions of the LTTE by the U.S. (1997), UK (2001) and later Canada and the EU (2006). The salient policy rationale for this, as discussed above, was provided by post–Cold War scholarship that linked diasporas in specific ways to conflicts in their home states. Western states’ engagement with the diaspora turned on the same discursive separation that informed interventions in Sri Lanka itself: between the LTTE and its supporters, and a posited ‘majority of Tamils’ held to eschew both violence and separatism. That is, Tamils were either ‘supporters’ or ‘opponents’ of the LTTE (‘terrorism’), and either ‘extremists’ (advocating selfdetermination and independence) or ‘moderates’ (i.e. seeking a united, liberal Sri Lanka). As these binary categories became mainstream in international policy, popular and scholarly discourses, diaspora actors met with increasing scepticism and hostility from host governments and international media, NGOs, etc. Although, as became undeniably clear from 2008, the majority of expatriates were supportive of Tamil Eelam (e.g. Vimalarajah and Cheran, 2010: 22–3; International Crisis Group, 2010: i; Orjuella, 2012: 103–4, 116), the most representative Tamil voices were held to be those opposed to this. In this way, Tamil nationalist critiques of the Sri Lankan state and associated demands for self-determination were recast within global conflict management as essentially advocacy for violent separatism that was not only marginal to mainstream Tamil opinion, but also a major obstacle to liberal peace in Sri Lanka. This articulation between Tamil Eelam/self-determination and terrorism had profound consequences for diaspora agency when it became institutionalized in Western anti-terrorism assemblages, i.e. when proscriptions of the LTTE aligned the two mappings of separatist/moderate and LTTE supporter/opponent within policing practices. Now, to advocate selfdetermination/Tamil Eelam was by implication to support the LTTE and thus terrorism, and thus invite not only Western governments’ disdain, but the attention of host states’ security apparatuses. In this way, by articulating violent actors with political projects objectionable to global liberalism, metropolitan anti-terrorism regimes enact a field of

122

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

transnational disciplinary governance that seeks to take hold of and shape conduct towards liberal order. Despite the taken-for-granted centrality of law to the role of the police and other state agencies in liberal core states, it is the legal ambiguity of what constitutes ‘support for terrorism’, alongside what Gary T. Marx (1988) has termed “categorical suspicion”, that allows a raft of disciplinary practices their purchase on political conduct. Key here is how preventing ‘support for terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ becomes not a matter for the courts alone, but the responsibility of everyone (for similar dynamics in the context of policing welfare fraud, see Cruikshank, 1999). More than simply precluding specific acts, anti-terrorism legislation enables the everyday questioning of a wide range of conducts, and thus makes possible state intervention outside the courts (i.e. even when no obvious crime is being committed), as profoundly consequential accusations of supporting terrorism can be levelled, anonymously and with impunity, by anyone. This includes state agencies from both home and host states. For example, accusations suspected to originate from Sri Lankan embassy officials or Sinhala nationalists routinely triggered investigations by police and charity and media watchdogs of Tamil diaspora organizations being either ‘pro-LTTE’ or ‘LTTE fronts’; while Western police and security agencies sometimes disrupted Tamil nationalist diaspora events by dissuading managers of halls, sports fields and other venues from hiring them out by raising the mere possibility of the customer being a fundraising ‘front’ for the LTTE (Nadarajah, 2009). Apart from enabling a generalized scrutiny of diaspora community activity (weekend schools, cultural and religious events, media reporting, etc.), the legal ambiguity around ‘supporting terrorism’ works to discipline political conduct. Protests require police permission, which were sometimes not forthcoming for those organized by Tamil nationalist organizations, and when approved, were routinely subjected to overt monitoring, with uniformed police photographing and videotaping participants. Perceptions of authorities’ surveillance and fear of the consequences of falling foul of anti-terror laws induces self-regulation. Apart from dissuading participation – particularly by individuals with precarious immigration status, such as asylum-seekers – political literature, speeches, diaspora media reports, etc. must be carefully self-censored to avoid being perceived as supporting (or under UK law, ‘glorifying’) terrorism. Protest organizers themselves work to regulate the conduct of participants, for example, preventing use of risky banners, slogans or literature. In this way, policing ambitions necessarily advance through the actions of the policed themselves. In this regard, policing is less about stifling political activity than reshaping it away from undesirable conduct and towards desirable ones. As a minimum, the reformed conduct sought is rejection of armed struggle and ‘extremist’ goals. But amid struggles for political relevance and acceptability, policing disciplines more subtly; for example, from the late 1990s, diaspora advocacy increasingly began to foreground (over Tamils’ right to self-determination in a context of national oppression) various liberal critiques of the Sri Lankan

Securing the diaspora

123

state’s practices e.g. human rights abuses, arbitrary detention, media repression, etc. Thus, rather than constituting state racism and persecution of the Tamil nation (justifying armed resistance and self-determination), the problems faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka become discursively reconstituted as failures of liberal governance and individual rights protection. For example, when atrocities by the military are critiqued as ‘failures to respect laws of war’, rather than as ‘genocide’3, the appropriate policy response becomes not recognition of Tamils’ claims of state oppression, but more ‘security sector reform’ i.e. increased training and assistance for the military. In such ways, the liberation struggle is transformed, through Tamil advocacy itself, into its very antithesis: the strengthening, via the logic of ‘reform’, of the Sri Lankan state. What the above analysis sought to show is that policing of diasporas in the context of global conflict ‘management’ is not simply a matter of enforcing anti-terrorism laws in the West, but a more diffuse and expansive endeavour of disciplinary subject forming undertaken by a heterogeneous and transnational assemblage comprising a range of (host and home) state agencies, nonstate actors (media, NGOs, etc.) and, not least, diaspora actors themselves, that works to reshape conduct in the metropole in the service of order-making in peripheral places like Sri Lanka. And yet, for all its pervasiveness and preponderance, policing is never assured of success. Terrorism proscription might serve to reshape political conduct, but it does not, of course, exhaust agency; for example, many diaspora Tamils simply broke the law and continued to covertly fund the LTTE, something well recognized by Western governments and within Sri Lanka’s field of contestation. More significantly, as discussed next, diaspora Tamils sought to advance their political project, both by exploiting political opportunities generated by the shifting dynamics of liberal peace interventions in Sri Lanka, and also, as these interventions resulted in large-scale Tamil civilian casualties, by directly confronting, through mass action, efforts to police their political conduct. What the analysis below seeks to show is both how policing for order and resistance to it are mutually constitutive, and how policing is inseparable from the evolving (global) social relations in which it is defined and practiced.

Policing and producing ‘the diaspora’ Sri Lanka’s war ended in 2009 with the destruction of the LTTE in a massive government offensive enthusiastically backed by Western states with material assistance and political support, as well as intensified policing efforts in the West and additional proscriptions of the LTTE by Canada and the EU. Yet the end of the war was also a moment of significant – and paradoxical – changes within the liberal peace project in Sri Lanka, Tamil diaspora politics and the relations between these. On one hand, the final months of the war saw an explosion of mass mobilization in the diaspora explicitly foregrounding nationalist principles, demands for Tamil Eelam and, in open defiance of anti-terror laws, support for the LTTE. On the other hand, the immediate

124

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

post-war period saw the emergence of improved and sometimes close relations between Western governments and leading diaspora organizations. In short, within a year, the transnational assemblage that had sought to police the diaspora, first patently failed and then ruptured; when in 2014 the Sri Lankan government proscribed (under the post 9/11 UN Security Council Resolution 1373) several diaspora actors as terrorist organizations, the UK immediately publicly rejected the bans, declaring its “good relations”, and its intention to “continue to engage”, with some of these actors, a stance also echoed by Canada, Australia and the US (quoted in Tamil Guardian, 2014). Thus, in the post-war present, whilst for the Sri Lankan state, ‘the diaspora’ poses the primary challenger to majoritarian order, and thus the foremost security threat after the LTTE, Western governments are equally emphatic in insisting the diaspora has a legitimate role in Sri Lanka’s politics and resolution of the island’s ethnopolitical conflict (see, e.g., Cameron, 2015). These changes were not simply a natural consequence of the end of the war; i.e. it is not that the discourse of ‘supporting terrorism’ was no longer salient – indeed, key to Sri Lanka’s campaign against Tamil diaspora groups is the claim these were either remnants or new fronts of the LTTE looking to organize a revival of armed struggle. Neither was it because leading diaspora organizations had been successfully disciplined into eschewing ‘separatism’. Not only had Tamil nationalist principles become the touchstone of popular legitimacy for diaspora organizations (Walton, 2015), Western governments were no longer letting this define interactions with them. For example, in rejecting Sri Lanka’s 2014 proscriptions, the UK government argued “proscription should not be used to prevent or stifle free speech and legitimate criticism”, and sooner after, made a key revision to its guidance for asylum claims: “a person perceived to be a threat to the [Sri Lankan] state through having or being perceived to have a ‘significant role’ in relation to postconflict Tamil separatism within the Diaspora and/or renewal of hostilities with Sri Lanka [is] considered at risk and a grant of asylum will normally be appropriate” (UK Home Office, 2014, emphasis added). This is in stark contrast to the UK’s response in 1981 to Sri Lanka’s protest about Tamil nationalists in the diaspora (see above). Rather than a self-evident result of the end of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, we argue the above changes are contingent outcomes of specific patterns of diaspora mobilization, institutional development and interactions with host governments that were deeply conditioned by long-running policing practices aimed, ironically, precisely at containing and suppressing Tamil nationalism in the diaspora. Put simply, policing itself contributed to producing ‘the diaspora’ as a key actor today within Sri Lanka’s transnationalized ethno-politics and international efforts to produce liberal peace in Sri Lanka. We briefly trace this in the rest of this section. Emerging in the late 1990s, Western state-led efforts to police the diaspora were themselves always conditioned by the changing dynamics of international interventions in Sri Lanka. Despite international assistance for Sri

Securing the diaspora

125

Lanka’s war against the LTTE, the turn of the century saw the emergence of an intractable battlefield stalemate, and a de-facto state in a swathe of territory controlled by the LTTE (Stokke, 2006). This prompted a revised international approach from 2002, in the form of a Norwegian-mediated ceasefire and peace process. While backing the peace process, leading Western states supported the reconstitution and expansion of the exhausted Sri Lanka military. The talks proved abortive and the ceasefire gradually broke down. Consequently, in 2006 the international community again backed a massive new offensive by the Sri Lankan military which successfully destroyed the LTTE in 2009, in the process killing over 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months alone (UN, 2011). These two periods – ceasefire and peace process (2002–2006) and resumed high-intensity war (2006–2009) – informed both Western policing practices and nationalist mobilization in the diaspora. First, the internationally-supported negotiations between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government served to disrupt the discursive framework of metropolitan policing, for example, enabling diaspora expressions of support for the LTTE as the legitimate representatives of the Tamils. The ceasefire also allowed direct diaspora engagement in the Tamil Eelam state-building project; along with donorfunded NGOs, thousands of expatriates participated in humanitarian and developmental projects in the LTTE-controlled areas, especially after the 2004 tsunami. Meanwhile proliferating satellite television and radio channels linked diaspora audiences through real-time coverage with developments in the homeland and in the politics of the peace process. Such thickening interactions between homeland and diaspora, and political mobilization in relation to the peace process, served to foster a Tamil national consciousness that would become hegemonic in the diaspora (see below). At the same time, to support the fragile peace process, Western states tempered their policing of nationalist mobilization and LTTE activities – for example, despite the unfolding ‘Global War on Terror’ expanding, Canada and the EU delayed proscriptions of the LTTE. However, with the resumption of war in 2006, Western anti-terrorism practices, now expanded with Canadian and EU proscriptions of the LTTE, swiftly renewed their grip on diaspora activity. For the first time, Tamil activists in several Western states began to be arrested under anti-terrorism laws, severely inhibiting their organizations’ activities. Along with this crackdown, Western governments were unequivocal in their support for Sri Lanka’s military campaign, even as Tamil civilian casualties mounted rapidly in indiscriminate bombardment and humanitarian blockade, the effects of which were being broadcast continuously to diaspora audiences. Surging anger at the unfolding bloodshed and, in particular, the international community’s stoic indifference, impelled a wave of diaspora mobilization that was qualitatively different in scale, tactics and composition from earlier years (e.g. Vimalarajah and Cheran, 2010; Rasaratnam, forthcoming). New Tamil nationalist organizations emerged as older ones struggled against severe curbs

126

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

on their activities, and many Tamils hitherto outside the struggle became politically active, including large sections of the middle-class and second-generation youth. Crucially, three decades after Tamils began arriving in the West in large numbers, a significant majority of the diaspora were now Western citizens. That is, for many, their protests constituted appeals to their governments to stop the unfolding atrocities and humanitarian suffering in Sri Lanka. However, many governments, blind to this, simply dismissed the protests and diaspora groups’ claims as propaganda serving the LTTE. Nevertheless, as the war peaked in 2009, even Sri Lanka’s Western allies grew alarmed at the scale of civilian casualties and the now systematic bombing of hospitals and the government’s own designated safe zones (UN, 2011). Colombo’s blunt rejection of international appeals for restraint and humanitarian ceasefire, and the demonstrable inability or, as many diaspora Tamils saw it, unwillingness of their governments to stop the mass killings of civilians, served to significantly erode the legitimacy of state authority underpinning Western anti-terrorism regimes and, thus, their disciplinary purchase; diaspora agitation become more defiant and confrontational, manifesting in unauthorized protests, friction with police and open expressions of support for the LTTE. In the UK, these tensions reached a turning point in April 2009 when a spontaneous protest opposite the Houses of Parliament resulted in violent clashes with police after demonstrators blocked Westminster Bridge, a key thoroughfare. Reports of police violence broadcast on diaspora media galvanized thousands of Tamils into arriving in support, thus launching what became a round-the-clock illegal occupation of Parliament Square that would continue without a break (even after Sri Lanka declared victory on May 18) for a staggering 73 days. With daily attendance ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands, the protest drew a significant majority of the diaspora at some point or other.4 After the febrile first days, the authorities abandoned ambitions to clear the square and the tense standoff between police and the demonstrators eased into a daily routine in which public order and anti-terrorism laws were in open breach for over two months outside Parliament. The significance for our analysis is how, in a context of international support for the Sri Lankan military even as it engaged in mass slaughter of Tamil civilians, the very conditions of containment and racialized exclusion enacted by metropolitan policing were a crucial catalyst for unprecedented mass mobilization in the diaspora; that is, policing for liberal peace in the periphery laid bare the claims of liberalism in the metropole. Thus, although the occupation in London and mass protests in other Western states failed to produce international action to stop the mass killings, they nonetheless proved profoundly consequential. They revealed to British and other governments the intensity in the diaspora of Tamil nationalist sentiment and anger at the Western role in Sri Lanka’s bloody counterinsurgency; i.e. it was now clear that the UK government and police were in confrontation with an organized body of British citizens.

Securing the diaspora

127

At the same time, the liberal peace project in Sri Lanka reached a crisis brought on, paradoxically, by the defeat of the LTTE: the victory spurred a broad retreat from liberal principles by Sri Lankan state and Sinhala polity. Relations between Sri Lanka and its erstwhile allies deteriorated rapidly as, rather than embarking on liberal reform and power-sharing to address Tamil ‘grievances’, the triumphant government embarked on an aggressive and militarized programme of Sinhala-nationalist state- and social order-building. In short, having defeated Tamil ‘terrorism’, the liberal peace project found itself confronting a powerful ‘new’ obstacle, the Sinhala majoritarian state. Key international demands – demilitarization of the Tamil majority areas, accountability for the mass atrocities, power-sharing negotiations with Tamil leaders, etc. – were those of Tamil actors in the island and the diaspora also. Taken together, these different dynamics have produced a radical reconfiguration of relations between Western governments and the Tamil diaspora. For example, less than a year after the occupation, the launch of a key umbrella diaspora organization, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) was held inside the UK Parliament, with senior figures from government and main opposition addressing the event. Major British political parties developed substantive relations with the diaspora, through party-specific organizations and larger bodies such as the GTF and the British Tamil Forum (BTF). Moreover, in several Western states, including the UK, diaspora groups gradually entered the Sri Lanka–related international policy-making nexus. For example, between 2012 and 2014, when the US, UK and other Western states successfully sponsored a series of critical resolutions on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council, advocacy for votes was jointly conducted by Western diplomats, international human rights groups and several diaspora organizations. Despite inherent frictions and contradictions, this alignment between Tamil nationalist resistance to Sinhala majoritarian domination, led by diaspora actors, and international pursuit of liberal peace in Sri Lanka in turn produced Sinhala nationalist resistance to both. As reflected in the UK responses to Sri Lanka’s proscriptions of diaspora groups (see above), this alignment also manifests in a radical reconfiguration of the transnational policing assemblage that had evolved over previous decades to discipline Tamil nationalism in the diaspora. This is not to say antiterrorism frameworks and practices no longer apply – surveillance continues, for example – but they are noticeably invisible in diaspora interactions with the authorities. For example, post-war Tamil nationalist protests (e.g. outside cricket grounds during Sri Lanka’s tours of England) are routinely coordinated with police commanders and have minimal police presence. As such, in contrast to conventional understandings of policing as enforcement of the rule of law, what our analysis underlines is the inherently dynamic and contingent character of policing, and how both policing and resistances to it are made and remade in the unavoidably transnational encounters between ambitions for and perceived threats to social order.

128

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

Conclusion On its face there is seemingly something paradoxical about an emphasis on policing in the constitution of global order. Policing is a mundane, everyday activity, associated most often with the local and the particular. Conversely, global orders are, well, global, situated seemingly everywhere – and nowhere. Behind this seeming paradox sits a set of spatial assumptions which powerfully condition how we think about the local, the global and policing. Through analysis of the Tamil diaspora in Britain, we have sought to demonstrate empirically how unhelpful these are in trying to make sense of the relations between policing and global order-making. Specifically, we demonstrated the intimate and mutually constitutive relations between policing in the metropole, order-making in the periphery, and the challenges they articulate as transnational threats. In this way, we showed how policing is at once a local and a global practice, situated not only within particular ‘domestic’ spaces but always also within a context of global social relations. Putting policing in its place requires being simultaneously attentive to both. This chapter is a modest contribution to the development of more satisfactory spatial assumptions in the analysis of the making of global policing.

Notes 1 The US first codified this conceptual hostility in 1997 in a list of designated (proscribed) Foreign Terrorist Organizations which included all major armed groups over the world. Britain issued its equally comprehensive list in February 2001 – seven months before the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11, whereafter so did other Western states. 2 See, e g., International Crisis Group, 2010: 2; Vimalarajah and Cheran, 2010: 13; Krishna, 1999: 45–57; DeVotta, 2004: 151–153. 3 As Walton notes, the use of the term ‘genocide’ in Tamil advocacy “undermined credibility with international NGOs and governments, and fed widely held concerns about the Tamil diaspora’s links to the LTTE and a wider separatist agenda” (2015: 960, emphasis added). 4 Two (approved) protest marches in London on 31 January and 11 April drew 100,000 people, according to police (WSWS, 2009; BBC, 2009).

Bibliography Adamson, F.B. and Demetriou, M. (2007). ‘Remapping the Boundaries of State and National Identity: Incorporating Diasporas into IR Theorizing’, European Journal of International Relations 13(4): 489–526. Anderson, B. (1998). The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World. London: Verso. Andreas, P. and Nadelmann, E. (2006). Policing the Globe. New York: Oxford University Press. Aradau, C. and Van Munster, R. (2009). ‘Exceptionalism and the “War on Terror” Criminology Meets International Relations’, British Journal of Criminology 49(5): 686–701.

Securing the diaspora

129

Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (eds) (2001). Democracy Liberalism and War: Rethinking the Democratic Peace Debate. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. BBC (2009). ‘Thousands on Tamil Protest March’, 11 April. Available at: http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7994946.stm [30 March 2015]. Boon-Kuo, L., Hayes, B., Sentas, V. and Sullivan, G. (2015). Building Peace in Permanent War: Terrorist Listing & Conflict Transformation. London; Amsterdam: International State Crime Initiative; Transnational Institute. Bose, S. (1994). States Nations Sovereignty: Sri Lanka India and the Tamil Eelam Movement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Bowling, B. and Sheptycki, J. (2011). ‘Policing Globopolis’, Social Justice 38(1): 184–202. Brinkerhoff, J.M. (2011). ‘Diasporas and Conflict Societies: Conflict Entrepreneurs Competing Interests or Contributors to Stability and Development’, Conflict Security and Development 11(2): 115–143. Brodeur, J. (1983). ‘High Policing and Low Policing: Remarks about the Policing of Political Activities’, Social Problems 30(5): 507–520. Cameron, D. (2015). ‘Sri Lanka Must Seize This Window of Opportunity’, Tamil Guardian, 10 March. Available at: www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid= 14041 [30 March 2015]. Clifford, J. (1994). ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology 9(3): 302–338. Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A. (2004). ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56: 563–595. Corva, D. (2008). ‘Neoliberal Globalization and the War on Drugs: Transnationalizing Illiberal Governance in the Americas’, Political Geography 27(2): 176–193. Cramer, C. (2002). ‘Homo Economicus Goes to War: Methodological Individualism Rational Choice and the Political Economy of War’, World Development 30(11): 1845–1864. Cruikshank, B. (1999). The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. DeVotta, N. (2004). Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism Institutional Decay and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Duffield, M. (2001). Global Governance and the New Wars: the Merging of Development and Security. London: Zed Books. Ellison, G. and Martin, G. (2000). ‘Policing, Collective Action and Social Movement Theory: the Case of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Campaign’, The British Journal of Sociology 51(4): 681–699. Etzioni, A. (1992). ‘The Evils of Self-Determination’, Foreign Policy 89: 21–35. Greener, B.K. (2011). ‘The Rise of Policing in Peace Operations’, International Peacekeeping 18(2): 183–195. Hindess, B. (2004). ‘Liberalism – What’s in a Name?’, in: Larner, W. and William, W. (eds) Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces. London: Routledge, pp. 23–39. Hönke, J. (2013). Transnational Companies and Security Governance. Hybrid Practices in a Postcolonial World. London: Routledge. Hönke, J. (2014). ‘Business and the Uses of “Civil Society”: Governing Congolese Mining Areas’, in: Gabay, C. and Death, C. (eds) Critical Perspectives on African Politics: Liberal Interventions, State-building and Civil Society. London: Routledge, pp. 91–107. International Crisis Group (2010). The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora after the LTTE. Asia Report Nº186. Available at: www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/ sri-lanka/186-the-sri-lankan-tamil-diaspora-after-the-ltte.aspx [30 March 2015].

130

Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah

Johnston, L. (2000). Policing Britain: Risk, Security, and Governance. Harlow: Longman. Kaldor, M. (2001). New and Old Wars. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kalyvas, S.N. (2001). ‘“New” and “Old” Wars: A Valid Distinction?’, World Politics 54(1): 99–118. Krishna, S. (1999). Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Laffey, M. and Nadarajah, S. (2012). ‘The Hybridity of Liberal Peace: States, Diasporas and Insecurity’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 403–420. Marx, G.T. (1988). Undercover: Police Surveillance in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mehta, U.S. (1999). Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Miller, P. (2015). Exporting Police Death Squads: From Armagh to Trincomalee. Bremen: International Human Rights Association. Nadarajah, S. (2009). ‘Disciplining the Diaspora: Tamil Self-Determination and the Politics of Proscription’, in: Dodd, K. and Ingram, A. (eds) Spaces of Security and Insecurity: New Geographies of the War on Terror. London: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 109–129. Neocleous, M. (2000). The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power. Sterling: Pluto Press. Neocleous, M. (2011). ‘The Police of Civilization: The War on Terror as Civilizing Offensive’, International Political Sociology 5(2): 144–159. O’Reilly, C. and Ellison, G. (2006) ‘“Eye Spy Private High” Re-Conceptualizing High Policing Theory’, British Journal of Criminology 46(4): 641–660. Orjuella, C. (2012.) ‘Diaspora Identities and Homeland Politics: Lessons from the Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam Case’, in: Lyons, T. and Mandeville, P. (eds) Politics from Afar: Transnational Diasporas and Networks. London: Hurst & Co, pp. 91–116. Rampton, D. and Nadarajah, S. (2012). The Long View of Liberal Order: Violence, Peace and Crisis in Sri Lanka. Unpublished article manuscript. RAND (2001). Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements. Authored by Byman, D., Chalk, P., Hoffman, B., Rosenau, W. and Brannan, D. National Security Research Division, RAND. Rasaratnam, M. (forthcoming). Tamils and the Nation: India and Sri Lanka compared. London: Hurst & Co. Reiner, R. (2010). The Politics of the Police. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, H. and Stares, P. (2007). Diasporas in Conflict: Peace-makers or Peace-wreckers? Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Stokke, K. (2006). ‘Building the Tamil Eelam State: Emerging State Institutions and Forms of Governance in LTTE-controlled Areas in Sri Lanka’, Third World Quarterly 27(6): 1021–1040. Tamil Guardian (2014). ‘Diaspora Orgs Proscription Should Not Be Used to Stifle Free Speech and Legitimate Criticism, UK Tells Sri Lanka’, 2 April. Available at: www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=10525 [30 March 2015]. UK Home Office (2014). Country Information and Guidance. Sri Lanka: Tamil Separatism. Available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm ent_data/file/348268/CIG_Sri_Lanka_Tamil_Separatism_v1_0e.pdf [30 March 2015].

Securing the diaspora

131

United Nations (2011). Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. Available at: www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/ POE_Report_Full.pdf [30 March 2015]. Vimalarajah, L. and Cheran, R. (2010). Empowering Diasporas: The Politics of Postwar Transnational Tamil Politics. Berghof Peace Support, Occasional Paper No 31. Available at: www.berghof-foundation.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publications/Papers/ Occasional_Papers/boc31eBPS.pdf [30 March 2015]. Walton, O. (2015). ‘Framing Disputes and Organizational Legitimation: UK-based Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora Groups’ Use of the “Genocide” Frame Since 2009’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(6): 959–975. Wayland, S. (2004). ‘Ethno-nationalist Networks and Transnational Opportunities: The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora’, Review of International Studies 30: 405–426. Wills, A. (2001). ‘The US Stand on Sri Lanka’s Conflict’, Speech at Jaffna Public Library, 7 March. Available at: www.tamilnation.co/intframe/us/01willis.htm [30 March 2015]. World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) (2009). ‘Over 100,000 Demonstrate in London Against Sri Lankan War’, WSWS, 2 February. Available at: www.wsws.org/en/arti cles/2009/02/tami-f02.html [30 March 2015].

8

‘British cop or international cop?’ Global makings of international policing assistance, 2000–2014 Georgina Sinclair1

“Accelerated globalisation” (Pieterse, 2009: 28) occurs in today’s interconnected world where crime, violence and terrorism are seen as spreading rapidly from one country to another. The UK government believes that “prosperity and security is intertwined with peaceful development and security across the globe” (Department for International Development (DFID) et al., 2011: 8). In 2010, the UK’s National Security Strategy set out priority tasks to tackle the causes of instability and to resolve conflict worldwide as these are seen as fundamental barriers to international development (Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), 2010: 31). Policing as conflict prevention is at the core of the UK government’s approach embedded within the Building Stability Overseas Strategy (DFID et al., 2011: 12). The UK police involvement within international policing missions markedly increased from the mid-1990s as civilian police were deployed to fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS). International policing as used in this context is taken as describing the gamut of activities that the police are engaged in at the international level and is multilayered both in terms of operational activities, capacity-building and the deployment of personnel. In the late 1990s, Kosovo and East Timor marked a watershed for international policing highlighted as a key element of humanitarian intervention, and forging a global acceptance that external agencies could police the jurisdictions of outside states. Providing international police reform has fallen within the broader parameters of overseas development assistance, a global phenomenon or growing “interdependence among, economic, political and social institutions” (Ellison and Pino, 2012: 7). The fractured terrain of late-modern policing and the provision of overseas policing services has been fundamentally restructured by new auspices and providers (see for example Ellison and Pino, 2012) that range from state personnel (police and military) through to the corporate security sector, including a significant number of recently retired police officers who work as security consultants and advisors (Ellison and O’Reilly, 2008b). International policing development now encompasses wide-ranging duties and responsibilities to address human security and crime issues across the world (see Hönke and Müller in this volume), and in particular, peacekeeping and

‘British cop or international cop?’

133

capacity-building missions (for an Anglo-American perspective see in particular Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012; Ellison and Pino, 2012; Bayley, 2005). Policing assistance is often provided within what can be termed the postcolony; that is where the state had been previously governed by outsiders, and where, through a contemporary Western lens, the government and rule of law approaches have been deemed ‘underdeveloped’ (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2006: 2–3). There has been some distinction between scholarly and practitioner interpretations of the postcolonial state and government rhetoric used. The term postcolonial has faded from use within UK government circles to be replaced most recently in this context by ‘fragile and conflict-affected states’ (FCAS) (see for example Stabilisation Unit (SU), 2014a; DFID et al., 2011). Yet from a historic perspective, many people live with their colonial heritage where an earlier criminal justice system, which includes policing, is firmly embedded (see Hönke and Müller, this volume). Postcolonial influences may be found further afield: Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller posit that regardless of whether there was overt colonial subjugation, even fleeting “colonial encounters” (for example between citizen and colonial police/military) have led to a quasi-postcolonial “globally dominant security knowledge” (Hönke and Müller, 2012: 286). From a global perspective, contributions to policing assistance within international peacekeeping and capacity-building missions have increased by almost 900 per cent in the past fifteen years (Dupont and Tanner, 2014). The UK’s contribution to international policing assistance within FCAS is provided by different UK government departments: Ministry of Defence (MOD), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Department for International Development (DFID), and, the Stabilisation Unit (SU), an integrated “civilmilitary operational unit funded from the Conflict Pool … to help HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] respond to crises and address the causes of instability overseas” (SU, 2014c: 3). The numbers of officers deployed is minimal in comparison with other international contributors, especially the US. In August 2014, a total of 33 serving UK officers were deployed to a range of United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) missions. Following the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, the numbers of UK police deployed (through formal government channels) further decreased to 21 by January 2015 from 53 serving officers in 2011 (Sinclair, 2010–2014). Whilst this figure partly reflects the post-Afghanistan scenario, it is also indicative of the UK’s decreasing contribution in relation to the deployment of serving officers. Despite this fall in numbers, those officers deployed have held, and currently hold, positions of relative seniority within all multilateral missions. However, this is dwarfed by an escalation in the numbers of retired British police officers working within the private sector who may be present on similar missions (see Ellison and Sinclair, 2013; Ellison and O’Reilly, 2008a, 2008b). Despite mounting evidence of the involvement of police practitioners within international missions, the extant literature emerging from the overlapping fields of ‘international’, ‘transnational’ and ‘global’ policing is

134

Georgina Sinclair

concentrated on top-down (policy-driven) and Western-centric (policing) perspectives, often in isolation of the practitioner focus (see Hönke and Müller, Ostermeier, this volume). Thematically scholarly works centre upon: policing systems transferred (historically) to FCAS (for example Emsley, 2012; Sinclair, 2012; Ellison and Pino, 2012; Brogden and Nijhar, 2005); international police training local police (Bayley 2005); the use of civilian or semi-military styles of policing (Sinclair, 2012, 2015; Perito, 2013); the evolution of UN Police (UNPOL) within FCAS (Greener, 2009; Hansen, 2001) and the legal framework and UNPOL mandates (Linden, Last and Murphy, 2007). Whilst broader issues of security governance and the interplay within security sector reform programmes have been considered, there has been insufficient engagement with the organisational and operational dimensions of police work on the ground (though see for example Sinclair, 2015; Ellison and Pino, 2012; Pino and Waitrowski, 2006; Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). Nevertheless, there is a growing literature and general agreement that the reform of the structures of public policing in particular, and, a democratisation of the institutions of governance more generally, are key components of peace-building efforts in post-authoritarian and transitional societies (for examples see Pino and Wiatrowski, 2006; Goldsmith and Sheptycki, 2007; Ostermeier, this volume). Police participation in peacekeeping operations more specifically has demonstrated that whilst the early UN missions were limited to advising local police (e.g. the Congo, Cyprus, 1964), a transformation occurred in the 1990s with the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor Leste (UNIMT) (Sinclair, 2012; Greener, 2009; Hansen, 2001). Here the focus is on the role of UK police within international (predominantly multilateral) peacekeeping and capacity-building missions where I consider aspects of police work and police networks on the ground, and the implications of these postcolonial encounters for local policing in the UK and international police missions more broadly. Earlier historic consideration has demonstrated the ‘patterns of interaction’ between different UK policing styles: civil and colonial and the movement between the metropole, empire and commonwealth and back home of policing culture, ethos and personnel (Sinclair and Williams, 2007; and see Hönke and Müller, this volume; McCoy, this volume). The UK has had a long history of exporting its policing systems internationally and more so than any other European nation or the United States (Ellison and O’Reilly, 2008a; Sinclair and Williams, 2007; Sinclair, 2006; Anderson and Killingray, 1992; Brogden, 1987a, 1987b). During the long era of decolonisation, there were attempts to transplant the perceived ‘civil’ style of policing found in the metropolitan core, to the police forces of many newly independent states. Following the Second World War, the international modus operandi of the UK police changed firstly with the multilateral policing approaches within the Allied Control Commission, and later with the early United Nations led missions in the 1960s. With an emerging Cold War backdrop, a variety of UK policing systems were available on

‘British cop or international cop?’

135

request: from the provision, for example of quasi-military Northern Irish policing expertise (from the Royal Ulster Constabulary) during the Greek civil war (1946–1949), to offering Metropolitan Police advice to Colombia in the 1950s (Emsley, 2012; Sinclair, 2012). Since the end of the Cold War, UK policing has been increasingly sought after by overseas governments and state institutions (including police). I have captured the experiences and considered the expertise of UK police officers who have participated in an overseas mission from 1999 to 2014 (Sinclair, 2010–2014). Fresh perspectives have emanated from these research projects which adopted a ‘bottom up’ research methodology to police work; that is through the prism of UK officers (of all ranks) who were tasked with operationalising policy and policing on the ground within an international environment. In essence I have demonstrated that the experiences and expertise gained as the result of an overseas deployment can benefit that officer as well as the local police and other international police players. The professional (policing practices) and sociocultural exchanges that occur are what can be termed an exchange of capacity that has the potential to improve approaches to police work on that officer’s return home (Sinclair, 2010–2014). In addition, when considering the array of international players present during an overseas mission, I hypothesise that a police practitioner’s dialogue, and by extension police work, is moving away from solely Western-style approaches to what I suggest is a global policing exchange. This suggests that a greater extent of cross-fertilisation is occurring between police practitioners drawn from across the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world who are deployed overseas. This international collaboration may bring about greater cohesion of democratic policing ideals across the developed/developing police boundaries.

Providing international policing assistance: democratic police reform or ad hoc policing? The ending of the Cold War resulted in a reshaping of the global balance of power plagued by crisis and instability where civil wars, internal disorders, and the collapse of governing institutions have precipitated international interventions. Since 1989, the United States and its European allies have adopted multiple strategies to meet these challenges and have pressurised governments in the Global South to adopt security sector models favoured by the West. Yet in past decades, much of the Global South has risen as a key driver of global change which has included the world’s economy, political and cultural manifestations (Pieterse, 2009: 8). Partly as a result, within international development the Global South has become an increasingly important contributor, which has relevance for international policing assistance. The numbers of police deployed on overseas missions have continued to increase over the past two decades. In 1995 the total number of police officers deployed, for example, on United Nations-led missions stood at 1.600, in contrast to 12.516 as of September 2014 (United Nations, 2014a). However, it

136

Georgina Sinclair

is the ‘developing world’ that has become the greatest contributor of international police (amongst others), who hold the view that the experiences of an overseas mission will in the longer term benefit their home countries. On August 30th, 2014, the 16 UN missions relied on contributions from 87 countries of which the top ten2 emanated from the broad ‘developing’ world/ Global South: Jordan ranked first with 1,465 police spread over seven UN missions; Bangladesh ranked second with 1,349 police deployed to seven UN missions, Senegal ranked third with 1,041 police, and then India (990 police); Nepal (766 police); Pakistan (545 police); Nigeria (393 police); Egypt (387 police); Rwanda (377 police) and Togo (331 police) (United Nations, 2014a). Each of these countries contributed the greatest numbers of Formed Police Units (FPUs), teams of 140 police officers deployed as a group, who undertake crowd control, protect UN staff and material and provide escorts to UN personnel (United Nations, 2014a). These countries have brought to each mission an experience of homeland policing where historically the environment has been volatile, and, in many cases a FCAS in its own right. In addition, the involvement of the Global South in UN missions has had additional benefits; bridging the West–South divide through a process of cross-cultural and police professional exchanges. As the Comaroffs have previously noted, the Global South can bring wider and fresher perspectives to our global understanding more generally (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2006), and within policing circles more specifically. This may be theoretical. Yet policing inter-connectivity on the ground has the capacity to improve police work within an international environment (security sector reform more broadly), and to aid the professional development of police from across the globe. Security sector reform (SSR) is embedded within programmes that seek to bring a wider democratic culture to a developing country (Ellison and Pino, 2012). A democratic political culture is perceived as one based on the potential (or reality) of citizen support and an identification of the institutions of government. In recent times, transferring the ‘concept’ of democracy was a vehicle to promote social modernisation and globalisation in an attempt to transform the political culture of developing nations (Dalton and Shin, 2011). The US and Europe endorse capacity-building programmes that can be democratically embedded with police-building falling under a wider umbrella of state-building and modernisation, embodying key policing principles that in theory guide policing assistance. Effective policing is perceived as an essential component of rule of law reforms and key to the implementation of democratic reforms within broader stabilisation programmes. From a UK perspective, policing principles should provide a “philosophy and an approach that is grounded in international best practice and UK experiences” (Stabilisation Unit, 2014b: 1). Indeed for a majority of Western providers of international policing services, the mantra has been that their police training and reform programmes will always “sell a favorable impression of democracy” (Kuzmarov, 2013: 8). Democratic police reform becomes democratically responsive policing. Longer term, training programmes create new policing

‘British cop or international cop?’

137

practices that become part of a global policing exchange, contributing to a blueprint for change which has the potential to become the norm. Twenty-first century development programmes have embedded ‘democratic’ policing practices (for example the protection of key political rights such as freedom of expression, of movement, of assembly and of the electoral process, and upholding human rights and the protection of the citizen) as an important dimension of police work. More recently this has been described as Policing for Democracy, necessitating some degree of security and protection of rights (Aitchison and Blaustein, 2013). This approach, however, remains problematic when governmental institutions (including the police) are not sufficiently rooted in an enabling legal framework that understands, and is committed to the upholding, preservation and protection of rights. As Peter Manning has suggested, the police can be the enhancers of democracy (through the provision of security and democratic procedures) though even in ‘liberal’ democracies, the concept of “democracy as a system of elements and institutions requires compromise in policing as in other aspects” (Manning, 2010: 4). The degree, therefore to which the police and policing adhere to the concept of democracy and its principles is variable even in the ‘Western’ world. Even more so when theoretically transferred to a postcolonial setting where there will always be difficulties in transplanting Western ideals of democracy (Manning, 2010). Nonetheless it is clear that the ‘West’ has increasingly intervened in states that are perceived to be ‘at risk’ or to pose a risk in some way and that this includes a range of ‘Western’ style policing reforms labelled as democratic policing (Ellison and Pino, 2012: 55; Brogden and Nihar, 2005). So what exactly are these ‘Western’ policing concepts that guide international policing reform programmes? If there can be a ‘Western’ and sometime described ‘global constabulary ethic’; one that reflects “desirable policing initiatives within transnational and global contexts” (so-called democratic police reform) (Goldsmith and Sheptycki, 2007: 21), does this occur, and if so how? The terminology that has been utilised within this police-policing framework has tended to encompass Anglo-American interpretations of ‘democratic policing’. These focus on variations of ‘policing by consent’: ‘community policing’, ‘community engagement’ and ‘citizen security’ (Brogden and Nihar, 2005). This vague concept of ‘community policing’ remains sufficiently challenging within the developed world, and yet has become the benchmark for police reformers (see Müller, this volume). The delivery of Community Policing Programmes is fraught with difficulty when delivered internationally by police practitioners who may be perceived by the local community (and indeed police) as ‘outsiders’ (Sinclair, 2015). Yet building a relationship between the theoretical ideals of democracy and policing is historically grounded – the British paradoxically favoured this approach in the colonial period and through the post-war period of decolonisation. Post-war British government policy was to leave a legacy of civil-democratic policing in place at end of empire (Sinclair, 2006).

138

Georgina Sinclair

Despite these well-recognised difficulties, Anglo-American styles of policing – in particular ‘community policing’ – remain the gold standard within development programmes (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005). A wide range of international policing actors deploy overseas with preconceived ideas relating to their own policing models (including community policing), which then jostle with many other systems. Providing policing assistance may, therefore, appear theoretically straightforward, and yet in practice becomes overwhelmingly complicated. Any distinctively Anglo-American centric ethos will become watered down by other policing approaches. Moreover, the promotion of a community-oriented philosophy may be thwarted by the need to undertake a very different ‘type’ of police work as a result of the situational context. Indeed, the provision of human and geographical security (particularly within the early phases of a mission) may necessitate training programmes in securitised forms of policing (e.g. gendarmerie style) prior to the implementation (often staggered) of civil styles (Sinclair, 2015). The delivery of international policing assistance is demonstrably complex. Clearly a thorough analysis of police work within postcolonial settings would bring greater clarity to government and institutional policy, and the development of future strategy. Arguably there is a complex interplay between the theoretical approaches: institutional principals of international policing (for example UN, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)), consideration of ‘lessons learnt’ (for example Policing the Context, SU, 2014b) and actual mission practice(s). ‘Western’ governments, international organisations (and international institutions including the UN) have tended to be unrealistic in the expectations of what police can and do provide within an overseas mission in the short to medium term. The delivery of effective police work that will stand the test of time relies on the acceptance and understanding of the police mandate, full understanding of the local politico-socio-cultural contexts (and by extension the local community), and the capacity to bridge the challenges arising from organisational politics and mission leadership with the policing actors on the ground (Sinclair, 2010–2014). International policing assistance is not a one-way process where expertise flows from the centre to the periphery with a single focus on national rather than an international context of engagement. It involves a complex exchange between multiple actors, agencies and institutions including the police, military and civilian personnel (Goldsmith and Harris, 2009).

Delivering international policing from the UK: career enhancing or career cul de sac? UK police officers have always emphasised that their contribution to ‘police work’ overseas is just one of any number of international providers of safety and security; monitoring, mentoring and advising on aspects relating to policing and law enforcement. When pressed as to how this may relate to the practice of policing, there is a clear sense of demarcation between the rare

‘British cop or international cop?’

139

‘executive authority mission’ and the role of police advisor. Essential though to all those officers are communication skills to dialogue and negotiate with local and international police on a professional and personal basis. Communication can easily become ‘lost in translation’ should poor or incorrect use of language and/or interpreting occur. Whilst English remains overwhelmingly the language of choice within international missions, the standard (both spoken and written) is hugely variable across the international world (Sinclair, 2010–2014). Overcoming any communication barriers leads to positive exchanges with other police, and, brings about the necessary discussions relating to police work. Communication and the building of new police-led networks has led many UK officers to describe their overseas experiences in glowing terms: “the best police work that I have ever undertaken” (Sinclair 2010–2014), whilst often faced with the frustrations of mission politics and the challenges of negotiating with local police: Advising other police can be frustrating … you often find yourself saying ‘have you thought about doing this?’ … If they don’t want to take your advice there is not a thing we can do about it … we don’t have an executive mandate here. We can’t wave a big stick at the Kosovan Police and say do it! So it has to be a process of negotiation and little steps along the way. (Interview with UK Police Advisor, EULEX mission, Pristina 2010) How do these processes of negotiation take place across the international policing playing field of global-local police? The exchanges have been described as travelling across the broad police spectrum, which can also be sociopolitical, or simply at the level of human discourse (Sinclair, 2010–2014). These policing exchanges are the by-products of cross-cultural encounters that occur through processes of globalisation: “a global mélange” (Pieterse, 2009: 141) in which it has often been overlooked “that the actions of ‘Western’ actors are decisively shaped and transformed in and through (post)colonial entanglements and interactions” (Hönke and Müller, 2012: 388). UK officers have described these ‘external’ policing encounters as contributing factors within the enhancement of both their professional and personal skill sets, which can be described as exchange of capacity (Sinclair, 2010–2014). These findings run parallel with earlier research that described both the positive and negative effects of the Australian police experience as “reverse capacity-building” (RCB): an “unintended consequence” of peacekeeping missions in TimorLeste, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea between 2003 and 2007 (see Goldsmith and Harris, 2009). The theory of RCB is perceived as “the impact [of the policing experience] upon personnel from donor countries who have engaged in assisting national development elsewhere” and the “potential consequences for domestic policing” (Goldsmith and Harris, 2009: 51–52). Academic research on capacity-building has only rarely acknowledged these processes of exchange rather than the unidirectional transfer of policing

140

Georgina Sinclair

skills and experience (though see findings from Canada: Dupont and Tanner, 2008, 2009, 2014). Yet a recent United Nations statement on its recruitment pages noted that a UN mission experience would “enhance [police] professionalism through exposure to standards of excellence in international policing and specialized training” and that senior officers throughout the international policing community would perceive the benefits to their officers of an international posting, noting that “Police-contributing countries see clear benefits for their local communities when their police officers return from UN missions. … Police peacekeepers expand their thinking about how to approach police service and often bring useful knowledge back to their service when they return home” (United Nations, 2014b). Within UK police there is barely any official recognition amongst senior police that an international policing mission may offer an individual officer the opportunity to professionally upskill. This has led to career frustrations for serving officers on their return home and the sense that an international mission can result in a career cul de sac. Indeed, support for overseas deployments is lacking amongst many chief officers of the 43 constabularies of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Police Scotland, with little recognition of the value that this could bring (Pritchard and Sinclair, 2013; Sinclair, 2010–2014). Support has often been limited to a handful of Chief Constables; one former Scottish Chief likened an international policing mission to ‘a once in a lifetime experience’ and suggested: In addition to exploiting the existing skills of officers who have been selected for their experience and technical aptitude, the process is mutually beneficial in that all foreign missions provide an invaluable developmental opportunity for officers of all ranks. Experience has indicated that the responsibility conferred on non-supervisory officers, in particular, has consistently benefited individuals who have been involved in international missions and their subsequent contribution on return to Force. (Strang, 2009: 2) Research interviews undertaken by the author have highlighted that the experiences of an international mission contribute to a widening and deepening of generic and specialist policing knowledge and a range of soft skills. UK officers return to their home constabularies with enhanced leadership, managerial and ‘policing’ skills which can benefit their ongoing professional development. From a personal perspective, officers have described (amongst others) improved communication skills, greater resilience, cultural awareness and understanding of people, greater ability to ‘think on their feet’, use initiative, and, importantly a sense that they can return home with personal pride in their achievements (Sinclair, 2010–2014): [My] negotiating and influencing skills improved vastly because everything within an international mission has to be done through negotiation.

‘British cop or international cop?’

141

… I learnt a lot about politics with a small ‘p’, about what one needs to do to get things done in a political environment … and increased selfworth and confidence from working in a challenging environment … I feel that I came home a far better police officer and a far better person. (UK Police Advisor, Basra, Iraq 2004–2006, 2011) The opportunities to upskill, I would argue, have come about through crossfertilisation with other policing models, systems and cultures encountered within an international policing environment; an international policing culture: where police work and dialogue that take place within an international mission environment result in a global police exchange. In turn, this creates a valuable learning experience for all (local police and international police), which can feed into career pathways and professional development. This could and should be recognised by governments and policing institutions alike and used for the benefit of local and national policing priorities.

A global policing exchange The experiences derived from police work undertaken within an international mission benefits the individual officer, but it also reshapes police culture more broadly: “[an] ensemble of values, beliefs and practices that police officers share” (Van Hulst, 2013: 624). The importance in our understanding of police culture(s) within a Western framework has stemmed from the meshing that occurs as a result with police work (Bacon, 2014: 103). Anglo-American police culture(s) are integral to the occupation of policing: a dynamic set of processes, evolving as police officers are “pushed and pulled by the shifting social, economic and political tides with and against which [they] all swim” (ibid.: 113). Police work per se (for example Manning, 2010; Reiner, 2010) is not only shaped by the knowledge, expertise and skills acquired on the ‘job’, but also from the dialogue undertaken within the police family (Chan et al., 2003). Learning the art of policing relies on officers sharing their policing experiences outside the day-to-day of police work as well as on the inside (Van Hulst, 2013). As such, a policing culture(s), it could be argued, contribute to an officer’s ongoing professional development and skill base(s) and “‘make the police like us’ [the civilian]” (Crank, 2004: 14). Within the context of an international mission, a police officer draws heavily on earlier policing expertise when confronted with a raft of new experiences and policing cultures. These then become imbued, though, within a new emerging set of international ‘global’ cultures. Often it is this quest for new cultural encounters that leads to the request for an overseas posting. UK police officers surveyed discussed their quest for new policing challenges, horizons and opportunities, as well as the desire to upskill, the hope of future promotion opportunities, boredom and frustration with a UK post, and an appetite for overseas travel and adventure. In addition, the ‘almost’ or retired police officers were seeking an overseas posting as a future way of life,

142

Georgina Sinclair

as well as that last ‘hurrah’ (Sinclair, 2010–2014). Within this public-corporate spectrum, the UK government has, over the past decade, increasingly targeted high level UN and EU posts for its police, necessitating the selection and deployment of mid-to-senior ranking police officers (typically Chief Inspector and above). These UK police ambassadors are recruited for particular skill sets which may include for example: counterterrorism, senior command experience, criminal investigations and public order management. Those surveyed have noted that the selection process is often reliant on an officer possessing the right ‘diplomatic skills’ to adequately represent UK interests when engaging with local police, government and the myriad of international actors present within a mission. They have noted that the global exchange that takes place within an international mission environment (at all levels) further fuels an individual officer’s experience of police work and culture and contributes to their ongoing professional development. This is true of both the public and the private sector (Sinclair, 2010–2014). This globalised policing world has appeared as a complex network of exchange systems; an international policing ‘society’; mobile, ethnically, linguistically, religiously, politically and culturally diverse. Whilst the facilitation of this international policing society may rest on some master plan to implant community policing practices across police forces within the developing world and beyond (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005), the reality is far simpler: ‘cops do speak to other cops’ about police work, regardless of country, colour or creed: I think that if we are going to give them [the local police] a good product [policing service], at the end of the day, we need to understand what we all do in our own countries. In fairness we do talk, certainly in the project groups that we’re in. … I am in the ‘organised crime branch’ [sic] and the people in there are Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Turkish … there’s a bit of a mix, east and west and north and south, so we’ve all got different experiences and different styles. We all have our own cultures that are mixed up in all of that. Overall we talk … we talk about ‘what do you do in your country?’ … Collectively we try and come up with a proposal for something that will work. (Interview with UK Police Advisor, EULEX mission, Kosovo, 2013) Whilst in theory UK officers have maintained that professional dialogue can and does exist amongst all police, challenges have been noted in relation to the most senior ranks and within the gender divide. UK police have noted the tendency for officers emanating from a ‘Western policing model’ to dialogue with greater ease with each other. In particular, officers have spoken of ‘closer’ working relationships established with police from other Northern European countries (e.g. the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany) and Scandinavia. This linkage has been explained as the result of the cultural social and political affinities that exist within Northern Europe (Sinclair, 2010– 2014). Moreover, there has also been a tendency for these countries to target

‘British cop or international cop?’

143

the more senior mission posts (in a similar vein to the UK), which affords greater opportunities for these officers to work in close collaboration. Hence global exchange may be more readily facilitated across specific country groups within the escalating levels of a mission hierarchy. Lower ranking officers (typically from the ‘developing’ world) can have fewer opportunities to engage with officers from the UK and other Northern European countries within certain missions. One practical reason for this is that the UK has not deployed large police cohorts (e.g. Kosovo and Timor-Leste, 1999) for over a decade. Today the UN Formed Police Units (FPUs) are essentially non-European and have included the first all-female FPUs: from India deployed in 2007 to the UN Operation in Liberia (UNMIL) (United Nations, 2014c; United Nations Police, 2014). Whilst real opportunities for a global policing exchange exist within international missions, UK officers have highlighted certain barriers to maintaining a universal police dialogue. That ability for police to ‘talk to other police’ may become undermined by preconceived ideas of other police professionalism and the ‘quality’ of their police work: You have got the international level to contend with on mission and then you have the policing ability to deal with. Yes, we get on because we are police, but we are police from all over the world. But, how can I work with people who I think are incompetent by my British standards, so poorly skilled … so lacking in professionalism … and sometimes I wondered whether they were really ‘police’ in their home countries. (Interview with UK Police Advisor, EUPOL mission, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2014) UK police officers surveyed suggested that the potential for a negative exchange could hinge upon cultural (mis)perceptions between two or more parties. A misunderstanding, particularly in relation to a point of policing principle, a rule or regulation would necessitate considerable discussion (and sometimes debate) between officers of different nationalities to ensure a practical solution was reached. This could become particularly time-consuming and potentially frustrating if local officers were caught up in this scenario. The potential difficulty of a dialogue around strategy could lead to a poor image of ‘the other’, though in the main it was noted that these challenges could be overcome. Language and dialogue were key to the successful engagement of all mission participants, local police and government to ensure that the range of policing models and the systems of police education and training available from international policing providers would successfully merge (Sinclair, 2010–2014). Gender issues were perceived as both challenging but also having provided an opportunity for female officers (in particular) to engage with the whole international mission experience. For many female police officers from the ‘developing world’, an international mission could be the first opportunity to

144

Georgina Sinclair

work alongside the international policing community and experience new cultures. In relation to most EU and UN missions, UK police noted that some police would have been unused to working with female officers, particularly of middle to senior rank, and, would have little experience of a female officer mission leader. In addition, there was a general unfamiliarity with gender and diversity issues perceived as common practice in the ‘Western world’. In some cases female officers from the UK discussed challenges of operating (and sometimes leading) a male-dominated team of officers, despite bringing the question of ‘gender politics’ to the discussion table (Interview with UK Police Officer, Kosovo 2010). This point was repeatedly raised by both male and female officers from the UK despite both the UN and the EU having guidelines for the promotion and integration of female police officers within their missions, the introduction of all-female FPUs, and a drive to promote women within the more senior ranks (Sinclair, 2010–2014). The UN’s Global Effort aimed to increase the number of female police officers deployed on mission to 20 per cent by 2014 (it currently stands at around 13 per cent) and to 50 per cent in the longer term. The importance of gender and policing within this context is evidenced by the integration and progression of women police in their home countries, and the encouragement given to local women to join the police in countries where international female police are present (United Nations Police, 2014). The opportunities, therefore, to extend the global policing dialogue across the developed and developing world policing landscape are present. Whilst the paradox may be that many of these international players will themselves be the recipients of international policing aid (broadly translated as capacity-building), the exposure to international mission practice, the upskilling that occurs and policing exchange with others, can be as beneficial as policing assistance brought by outsiders.

Concluding observations International policing (assistance) is a component of security sector reform (SSR); a development activity as well as a means of providing states and communities with policing services in times of conflict or fragility. Typically the multilateral missions undertaken aim to enhance local policing practices and to bring reform to police work in line with ‘democratic/community policing’. At its core, SSR (and by extension international policing assistance) has been designed to (re-)create security sectors in fragile, post-conflict and ‘developing’ states in a Western mould (Ellison and Pino, 2012). The UK government acknowledges that policing forms an integral part of ‘development’ work more broadly and is aligned with foreign and security policies (for example FCO, 2010; Stabilisation Unit, 2014a). It perceives benefits to both the recipient and the provider of those services (see DFID et al., 2011; SU, 2014b). Yet, the donors frequently underestimate the complexity and political nature of police assistance and police reform (Ellison and Pino, 2012). This often dismal image of SSR contradicts actual experiences described by officers

‘British cop or international cop?’

145

deployed on an international mission. These officers have pointed to a process of global exchange that can occur within an international mission. This international policing collective of multiple policing systems (including the favoured ‘Western’ models) can work in partnership and across politicalcultural-gender divides if the communication channels remain open. At best, as remarked a UK police officer deployed to Liberia in 2013, this can bring about a ‘collective response’: in other words team building, and then a team response to policing challenges on the ground. This opportunity for a global exchange with other international and local police embeds within an individual officer’s own policing experiences, skill sets and culture. The research undertaken with UK officers (Sinclair, 2010– 2014) has built upon earlier Australian (for example Goldsmith and Harris, 2009) and Canadian studies (Dupont and Tanner, 2009, 2014) by demonstrating the benefits of an overseas mission to policing back home. These are wide-ranging and aptly described as a “management training ground” and a “learning experience” where police develops “new strategies and solutions to deal with the unpredictability of policing”. Moreover, international policing offers a “unique experience for professional personal growth” (Sinclair, 2010– 2104). Yet this particular aspect of the international policing experience has not been considered within a domestic policing setting; neither has how it may benefit local policing priorities. A concept of exchange of capacity that can occur within an international mission is not widely recognised by senior police officers and any new or enhanced skills may remain under-utilised. This finding also applies to operational policing activities undertaken overseas; officers from the Metropolitan Police’s SO15 (counterterrorism unit) and the National Crime Agency have described how an international policing dialogue and exchange actively promotes an improvement in the officer’s perception of and subsequent undertaking of police work on their return home (Sinclair, 2010–2014). It is to be hoped that senior officers in the UK will in the future recognise the value of international policing missions and the opportunities for policing exchanges across the Global South and utilise the skills of officers returning from mission. Given that international policing missions will continue throughout the present and near future, it becomes more pressing for donor government and international organisations to engage effectively with SSR (and by extension international police work), and to question which aspects of policing (from across the globe) should theoretically be transferred within an international SSR context.

Notes 1 This essay has benefited from the insight of approximately 150 UK police officers who have shared their international policing experiences during fieldwork undertaken between 2010 and 2014. The research was supported by an ESRC grant award (2010–2012): RES-000-22-3922: ‘Exploring UK policing practices as a

146

Georgina Sinclair

blueprint for democratic police reform: the overseas deployment of UK Police Officers 1989–2009’ with Professor Clive Emsley; grants received from The Open University (2011–2014), and a College of Policing award (2013–2014) to The Open University Policing Consortium: ‘International Policing Assistance (UK)’. Reference to this research is given as ‘Sinclair 2010–2014’ throughout. I would like to extend my gratitude and thanks to Clive Emsley and to Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller for their comments on various drafts of this chapter. 2 The UK ranked 71/87 with 5 UK officers deployed on UN missions (August 2014); the USA ranked 30/87 with 80 officers; Australia 61/87 with 15 officers; Canada 26/ 87 with 84 officers; (the UK ranked the same as Vanuatu with the deployment of 5 officers) (United Nations, 2014a).

Bibliography Aitchison, A. and Blaustein, B. (2013). ‘Policing for Democracy or Democratically Responsive Policing?’, European Journal of Criminology 10(4): 496–511. Anderson, D.M. and Killingray, D. (eds) (1992). Policing and Decolonisation; Nationalism, Politics and the Police 1917–1965. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bacon, M. (2014). ‘Police Culture, and the New Policing Context’, in: Brown, J.M. (ed.) The Future of Policing. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 103–120. Bayley, D.H. (2005). Changing the Guard: Developing Democratic Police Abroad. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowling, B. and Sheptycki, J. (2012). Global Policing. London: Sage. Brogden, M.E. (1987a). ‘An Act to Colonise the Internal Lands of the Island: Empire and the Origins of the Professional Police’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 15: 179–208. Brogden, M.E. (1987b). ‘The Emergence of the Police: The Colonial Dimension’, British Journal of Criminology 27(4): 158–171. Brogden, M.E. and Nijhar, P. (2005). Community Policing: National and International Models and Approaches. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. Chan, J., Devery, C. and Doran, S. (2003). Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Comaroff, J.L. and Comaroff, J. (2006). ‘Law and Disorder in the Postcolony: An Introduction’, in: Comaroff, J.L. and Comaroff, J. (eds) Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–57. Crank, J. P. (2004). Understanding Police Culture. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. Dalton, R.J. and Shin, D.C. (2011.) ‘Reassessing the Civic Culture Model’, Mapping and Tracking Global Value Change. Irvine: Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California. Department for International Development (DFID), Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence (2011). Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS). London: HMSO. Dupont, B. and Tanner, S. (2008). What Happens Before and After: The Organisational and Human Resources Challenges of Deploying Canadian Police Peacekeepers Abroad. Montreal: International Centre for Comparative Criminology, University of Montreal. Dupont, B. and Tanner, S. (2009). ‘Not Always a Happy Ending: Organisational Challenges of Deploying and Re-integrating Civilian Police Peacekeepers (a Canadian Perspective)’, Policing and Society 1(2): 134–146.

‘British cop or international cop?’

147

Dupont, B. and Tanner, S. (2014). ‘Police Work in International Peace Operation Environments: A Perspective from Canadian Police Officers in the MINUSTAH’, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy 25(6): 663–680. Ellison, G. and O’Reilly, C. (2008a). ‘From Empire to Iraq and the “War on Terror”: The Transplantation and Commodification of the (Northern) Irish Policing Experience’, Police Quarterly 11(4): 395–426. Ellison, G. and O’Reilly, C. (2008b). ‘“Ulster’s Policing Goes Global”: The Police Reform Process in Northern Ireland and the Creation of a Global Brand’, Crime, Law and Social Change 50: 331–351. Ellison, G. and Pino, N. (2012). Globalization, Police Reform and Development: Doing It the Western Way? Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ellison, G. and Sinclair, G. (2013). ‘Entrepreneurial Policing? International Policing Challenges’, Open Democracy. Available at: www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/gra ham-ellison-georgina-sinclair/entrepreneurial-policing-international-policing-challe [8 August 2013]. Emsley, C. (2012). ‘Marketing the Brand: Exporting British Police Models 1829–1950’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 6(1): 43–54. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) (2010). A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy. Cmnd 7953. London: HMSO. Goldsmith, A. and Sheptycki, J. (2007). Crafting Transnational Policing: Police Capacity-Building and Global Policing Reform. Portland, OR: Hart Publishing. Goldsmith, A. and Harris, V. (2009). ‘International Police Missions as Reverse Capacity Building: Experiences of Australian Police Personnel’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 3(1): 50–58. Greener, G.K. (2009). The New International Policing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, A.S. (2001). From Congo to Kosovo, Civilian Police in Peace Operations. Adelphi Paper 343. London: Routledge. Hönke, J. and Müller, M.-M. (2012). ‘Governing (In)security in a Postcolonial World: Transnational Entanglements and the Worldliness of “Local” Practice’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 383–401. Kuzmarov, J. (2013). Modernising Repression; Police Training and Nation-Building in the American Century. Amherst and Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Linden, R., Last, D. and Murphy, C. (2007). ‘Obstacles on the Road to Peace and Justice: The Role of Civilian Police in Peacekeeping’, in: Goldsmith, A. and Sheptycki, J. (eds) Crafting Transnational Policing: Police Capacity-Building and Global Policing Reform. Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, pp. 149–177. Manning, P.K. (2010). Democratic Policing in a Changing World. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Perito, R. (2013). Where Is the Lone Ranger? America’s Search for a Stability Force. 2nd Edition. Washington, DC: United Institute of Peace Press. Pieterse, J.N. (2009). Globalisation and Culture. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Pino, N.W. and Waitrowski, M.D. (eds) (2006). Police Reform in Developing and Transitional Societies. Basingstoke: Ashgate. Pritchard, A. and Sinclair, G. (2013). ‘International Police Assistance: Globalising UK Policing Practices’, in: Neyroud, P. (ed.) Policing UK 2013: Priorities and Pressures: A Year of Transformation. London: Witan Publishing.

148

Georgina Sinclair

Reiner, R. (2010). The Politics of the Police. 4th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, G. (2006). At the End of the Line: Colonial Policing and the Imperial Endgame. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sinclair, G.( 2010–2014) Interview data collected from UK Police Officers deployed overseas between 1999–2014. Sinclair, G. (2012). ‘Exporting the UK Police Brand: The RUC-PSNI and the International Policing Agenda’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 6(1): 55–66. Sinclair, G. (2015). ‘“Insider”/“Outsider” Policing: Observations on the Role of UK Police (MDP) in Afghanistan and the Application of “Lessons Learnt”’, in: Clack, T. and Johnson, R. (eds) At the End of Military Intervention, Historical, Theoretical, and Applied Approaches to Transition, Handover, and Withdrawal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 414–437. Sinclair, G. and Williams, C.A. (2007). ‘Home and Away, The Cross-Fertilisation between “Colonial” and “British” Policing, 1921–1985’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 35(2): 221–238. Stabilisation Unit (2014a). The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation (2014). London: Stabilisation Unit. Stabilisation Unit (2014b). Policing the Context: Principles and Guidance to Inform International Policing Assistance. London: Stabilisation Unit. Stabilisation Unit (2014c). Business Plan 2014–2015. London: HMSO. Strang, D.R.J. (2009.) Report by the Chief Constable. Lothian and Borders Police Board, 28 January. United Nations (2014a). ‘Mission’s Summary Detailed by Country, Month of Report: September 2014’, 30 September. United Nations (2014b). ‘Getting Involved’. Available at: www.un.org/en/peacekeep ing/sites/police/recruitment.shtml [9 September 2014]. United Nations (2014c). ‘Current Peacekeeping Operations’. Available at: www.un.org/ en/peacekeeping/operations/current.shtml [30 September 2014]. United Nations Police (2014). ‘United Nations International Network of Female Police Peacekeepers.’ Available at: http://womenspolicenetwork.org/what-is-the-unglobal-effort/ [30 September 2014]. Van Hulst, M. (2013). ‘Storytelling at the Police Station; The Canteen Culture Revisited’, British Journal of Criminology 53(4): 624–642.

9

A translational perspective on police-building in Afghanistan The enactment of ‘progress’ in the implementation gap Lars Ostermeier1

The multiple realities of police-building in Afghanistan There is a widespread consensus among governments, international organizations and academics that promoting police institutions and practices is a core element of conflict and post-conflict interventions and state-building activities across the globe (Bayley, 2001, 2006; Chanaa, 2002; Hansen, 2002; OECD, 2005; Goldsmith and Sheptycki, 2007; Greener, 2009; Bayley and Perito, 2010). Despite the abundance of actors and programmes, they share two underlying assumptions that Peake and Marenin (2008) have called the “donor mantra”. The first is that, in order to create and sustain social and political order, the police are indispensable, and the second is that international police-building is essential to produce legally accountable and democratic police institutions.2 From late 2001, this mantra arrived in Afghanistan, where international actors engage in bi- and multinational police-building programmes (USIP, 2001; Ball, 2002; Sedra, 2003; Bhatia et al., 2004; Wilder, 2007; ICG, 2007; Clarke et al., 2009; Thruelsen, 2010; Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013; Friesendorf, 2013; Hughes, 2014). The history of these programmes is marked by frequent changes in their scope and objectives, conflicts among donors about the militarization of the Afghan National Police (ANP), and countless reports of failures and challenges.3 The ANP is prone to politicized policing, focusing on military missions, is blighted by high attrition rates and casualties and is notoriously corrupt, deeply involved in Afghanistan’s drug industry. It is therefore difficult for international donors to render their programmes as ‘successful’ in building up a professional civilian police force enforcing the rule of law. The role of the ANP in the provision of order and security in Afghanistan is further challenged by the widespread use of militias, like the Afghan Local Police (ALP), in stabilizing those districts in which formal responsibility for security has been transferred from international troops to Afghan authorities (see ICG, 2015; UNAMA, 2014). While the majority of foreign combat troops withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, international programmes to build the ANP continue, and are entering a further period of institutional and

150

Lars Ostermeier

political uncertainty. Despite previous failures and ongoing challenges, a renewal and intensification of the international community and the Afghan government’s commitment to build a ‘civilian’ police organization in Afghanistan emerged in the guise of a 10-year vision for the ANP (IRoA, 2013). As is typical in patterns of knowledge production in the context of police-building in Afghanistan, the vision largely ignores the political dimensions of police reform and adheres to apparently global policing norms and principles. This pattern turns international police-building programmes into technical projects, based on simplistic models of policing, and the police, that are built around polysemous terms. Analyses of police-building in Afghanistan resting on this pattern tend to ignore the political dimensions of building police and police institutions, and fail to grasp the processes of translation, as described by Giustozzi and Izaqzadeh: In the end, the international demand for a system able to implement the rule of law met with the political aims of the ruling elite in Kabul to produce a hybrid system, featuring a façade of rule of law ‘in the making’, while behind it the trappings of a modern bureaucratic organisation were in fact used to implement a system of patronage and favour. (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013: 185) This concept of a hybrid system with multiple realities underlines the entanglements of international programmes with local politics and opens up analytical space regarding the dynamics of power, inequality, ethnocentrism and violence that enhance the understanding of the global making of policebuilding. Analysing the global making of police-building from a translational perspective turns the empirical focus to a pattern of transnational security governance that globalizes police institutions and practices by translating them across multiple levels and localities, transferring them back and forth between the metropole and the post-colony (Hönke and Müller, this volume; Cooper and Stoler, 1997). In addition to the donor mantra, this pattern comprises a historically established ‘pick and mix approach’ (Sinclair, 2012) in transnational policing, the ‘cross-fertilisation’ (Sinclair and Williams, 2007) of policing knowledge, and ‘police orientalism’s’ will to improve the world with supposedly ‘Western’ styles of policing (Müller and Ostermeier, 2014). Instead of subscribing to a diffusion model of (ready-made) knowledge transfer, a translational perspective focuses on how processes of knowledge production and translation enact multiple realities of police-building programmes and associate police-building actors in transnational networks. This analytical perspective renders policing principles as well as empirical realities in host and receiving countries as constantly in the making. It is concerned with understanding how realities are being enacted, rather than with the creation of truth-claims about the police and policing or Afghanistan as such. Questions raised from a translational perspective include: Why does the donor mantra prevail despite the obvious failures in achieving its objectives?

Police-building in translation

151

How are multiple realities of police-building programmes connected and how do they change? What role does ethnocentric knowledge play in knowledge production in police-building programmes? What kind of order is promoted through police-building and how does it exert violence?

A translational perspective on police-building programmes A key problem when analysing, evaluating, planning and implementing police-building in Afghanistan or elsewhere, is to produce knowledge that is accepted and understood as objective by police-building stakeholders across multiple locales. Police-building programmes appear in different guises when they are debated in national parliaments, in international government conferences, in Afghan government institutions, by regional power brokers, in field offices of binational police-building projects in Afghan provinces, and in academic journals (see Sinclair, this volume). Taking the different guises of police-building in Afghanistan seriously implies the need to acknowledge that different realities of the programmes are accepted in one context, while they could be rejected and/or met by criticism in another. The example of mentoring programmes in Afghanistan illustrates the relevance of multiple realities for the implementation of police-building programmes. Accounts of mentoring programmes are characterized by international police mentors complaining about uncooperative Afghan mentees.4 They describe Afghan mentees as performing the classic colonial role of intermediaries, trying to secure funding and equipment from donors while at the same time keeping mentors out of local politics of coercion-backed ordermaking. At the same time, the mentees’ official purpose is to transmit professional policing into the ANP and thereby to alter these very practices of coercion-backed local order-making. While the mentors tend to describe this pattern as pathological, it also leads to rarely recognized practices on the part of the Western mentors themselves. Many of them start improvising activities to train the Afghan police that they deem appropriate and locally ‘attuned’, although these activities are not anticipated by official police-building programmes. One former employee of the European Police (EUPOL) mission, for instance, explained that he was threatened not to interfere in policing matters by his Afghan counterparts, but instructed by his international superiors to stay at his post. To make a useful contribution despite these limitations, he began training the local police in firefighting instead of mentoring the criminal police and stopped reporting the threats to headquarters in Kabul.5 The official language in the police-building programmes, in other words, provides a translational frame for representing both the activities of mentors and mentees in a way that is acceptable for the Afghan government and Western donors standing behind these programmes. Similar to the dynamics analysed as ‘hidden transcripts’ by Scott (1990), police-building professionals involved in mentoring enact an official reality of mentoring that is in accordance with the specifications provided by their superiors. At the

152

Lars Ostermeier

same time, however, they enact an unofficial reality of mentoring that reflects mundane police-building practices. Both realities are real in the sense that they have a social impact. They constitute tacit knowledge about the workings of police-building programmes that is widely shared amongst involved professionals but which cannot be represented as an objective representation of the programmes. This concealment and ignorance of mundane police-building practices perpetuates the facticity of the imagined universality of global policing standards in police-building programmes. Helping to maintain the belief that police and policing are universal institutions and practices that are necessary for the constitution of lawful and democratic states and societies, these processes of translation finally contribute to the enactment of progress of police-building programmes. Rottenburg’s (2009) work on translational practices in transnational contexts provides a conceptual apparatus that avoids both the trappings of objectivism, and at the same time provides the analytical sensibility to analyse multiple realities without collapsing into relativism (see also Behrends, Park and Rottenburg, 2014). His book Far-Fetched Facts (2009) is based on fieldwork on development aid in Africa, where he was puzzled by the prevalence of modernization theory and the continuity of development aid in failing to meet its objectives. These observations can be similarly applied to policebuilding in Afghanistan, where modernization theory in the guise of the donor mantra (Peake and Marenin, 2008) is a key rationale for international police-building programmes, yet the programmes largely fail to achieve their objectives (Suhrke, 2007). Understanding these processes as translational practices renders them legible as processes of knowledge production where master-codes continue to enact accepted objective representations of ‘reality’ but codes continue to enact multiple and contested realties. In developing a model that helps to explain how actors switch between using master-codes and codes, Rottenburg adapted concepts from the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986; Law and Hassard, 1999; Latour, 2005). Other authors have adapted the translation literature in a move to avoid the flaws of the diffusion model and to show how concepts, discourses and practices change while travelling across different institutional contexts (e.g. Barrinha and Rosa 2013; Stritzel, 2011, 2012). Common to these approaches is the challenge to maintain a sensibility for analysing frictions and changes of master-codes through codes and to avoid a simple reproduction of master narratives.6 The studies by Barrinha and Rosa (2013), Stritzel (2011, 2012) and others tend to explain how incoherencies or controversies end. This suggests that moments of closure and agreements are more important than moments of fracture. In contrast, I argue that what happens before and after those moments of closure is more important than the character of the closure and the agreements, as fractures and changes open up controversies and create incoherencies. More than 30 years ago, Callon and Latour (1981) remarked on this analytical challenge, referring to conceptual problems in studying the state:

Police-building in translation

153

Either, believing that macro-actors really do exist, they anticipate the actors’ strength by helping them to grow more vigorous. Or else they deny their existence, once they really do exist, and will not even allow us the right to study them. (Callon and Latour, 1981: 280) The theoretical implication of this ontological argument is not that the police and policing do not exist and can thus not be studied. Rather, the global making of policing should be analysed through processes of translation that enact police-building. This assumption has wide-ranging consequences for a theoretical understanding of the kind of social and political order that the police and policing are thought to be both a prerequisite and a feature of the state. Conceptualizing police, policing and the state as performative accomplishments is based on the assumption that the state as an idea has to be ‘made’ and that the idea of the state masks the “uncoordinated practices and claims” (Krohn-Hansen and Nustad, 2005: 5) that bring the state into being (ibid.; see also Abrams, 1988). These theoretical and conceptual approaches, trying to grasp the state without becoming trapped in normative discussions, reject the notion of the state as a unity, actor or structure. Rather, they emphasize the way that the state is enacted through processes of knowledge production and translation. The claim that police-building can be studied as translational practices does not imply that translations occur deliberately. Law and Urry emphasized that from a translational perspective, “reality is a relational effect. It is produced and stabilized in interaction that is simultaneously material and social” (Law and Urry, 2004: 395, emphasis in original). Translational practices have historical legacies and change over time and from context to context. The notion of translational practices as used in this chapter strongly refers to the way that Law and Urry have analysed the performativity of methods in social sciences: if method is interactively performative, and helps to make realities, then the differences between research findings produced by different methods or in different research traditions have an alternative significance. No longer different perspectives on a single reality, they become instead the enactment of different realities. The shift is from epistemology (where what is known depends on perspective) to ontology (what is known is also being made differently). (Law and Urry, 2004: 397) Law and Urry highlight the ways in which a translational perspective can contribute to an understanding of the global making of police-building by reconstructing its multiple realities and by analysing how they are connected, how they change and the subjectivities and power relations they enact. By denaturalizing police institutions and practices, a translational perspective on

154

Lars Ostermeier

police-building adds a performative take to Hill’s (2014) notion of policeness, which is resting in the representational epistemology rather than in ontology: Ultimately, policeness is a matter of perception. Internationals understand it as a quality possessed by sworn or trained officers belonging to a specific type of organization, whereas Somalis regard it as alluding to the coercive potential of members of a broader-based group. (Hills, 2014: 780) From a translational perspective, police-building can be conceived of as a process that involves the concomitant globalization and differentiation of police and policing knowledge and local or regional ‘realities’. This perspective grasps the simultaneous homogenization and differentiation of police and policing and the repercussive processes that constitute the global making of police-building: “[a] translation usually not only transforms the traveling idea and its new environment, but also the mediator and the context from where the idea ‘originated’” (Rottenburg, 2008: 9). Distler (2014) summarizes some of the repercussions of German police-building in Afghanistan on the German police: The repeated recognition of a gap between police blueprints, police work and every day policing at home and police blueprints, police work and every day policing in Afghanistan is standing out in the personal accounts of German police officers. (Distler, 2014: 172; author’s translation)7 This observation suggests that the experiences of German police builders in Afghanistan are serving to erode some of the foundations of their institutional culture. A major repercussive effect of international police-building is the unravelling of professional identities which estranges Western police from their organizational cultures at home, creating a foreign service peer group and differentiating organizational and individual identities (see Sharifzadeh, 2013; Sinclair, this volume). The translational perspective’s analytical sensibility for repercussive processes resonates with Barkawi and Laffey’s (2006) approach for postcolonial security studies, which argues that the introduction of difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is performative in the sense that it contributes to the mutual constitution of the ‘West’ and ‘Global South’. In summary, I argue that a translational perspective can contribute to decentring the analytical focus of the study of global policing by promoting a process-based understanding of global security governance. This understanding captures how meta-codes and codes co-constitute each other and how this contributes to the continuance and intensification of global policebuilding despite its obvious failures and shortcomings. In addition to this explanatory objective, a shortcoming in the operationalization of translation theory in empirical research is also addressed. Emphasizing performativity, a

Police-building in translation

155

translational perspective acknowledges both the realities of the Internationals and of the Somalis referred to by Hills (2014) and analyses how those realities are enacted through knowledge production and how they are connected with each other through processes of translation. Furthermore, the scope of the International Relations (IR) literature on translation is broadened by explicitly acknowledging the multiple realities of police-building and by extending the analysis towards transnational forms of security governance, including that of police-building in the Global South.

The enactment of progress in the implementation gap In light of the above, the global making of police-building programs can be understood as the politics of knowledge production that perpetuate the donor mantra and neglect empirical knowledge. This creates a self-referential pattern of knowledge production where progress in police-building programmes is enacted despite their obvious failures and shortcomings. The enactment of progress favours the belief in the legitimacy and effectiveness of police-building over the recognition of its consequences. This constitutes a phenomenon where imaginations of police-building are granted the status of objectivity, whereas empirical narratives of its consequences are qualified as mere subjective descriptions of singular experiences with no relevance for the overall understanding of police-building programmes. As a result, the successful implementation of police-building programmes is predominantly understood as a question of providing adequate resources to close the gaps between concepts and what is perceived as the reality of the implementation of concepts. Empirically, this analytical understanding of police-building programmes can be exemplified through an analysis of professional expertise on police-building. Professional expertise on police-building legitimizes and structures programmes and promotes various approaches towards police-building. Most of the professional expertise on police-building in Afghanistan refers to knowledge produced by a “global police policy community” that “may be global in outlook, scope, and footprint, but […] is principally a western intelligentsia populated overwhelmingly by Europeans and North Americans” (Clarke et al., 2009: 158). Yet the community has been unsuccessful in constituting a regime of knowledge production and transfer that dominates police-building across the globe. As Peake and Marenin (2008) have pointed out, it is continuously failing to achieve its objectives. Mostly, because this regime is “[d]isconnected and laden with information that rarely reaches its intended targets” (Peake and Marenin, 2008: 66). Summarizing their problematization, they suggest that a gap between conceptual knowledge and the practicalities of police and policing institutions is a key factor contributing to the failure of police-building: this failure to have a stronger impact through aid and assistance has resulted mainly from the priority of donor over recipient interests, lack of

156

Lars Ostermeier knowledge about policing, non-appreciation of the complexities of local security conditions, and the inability to link conceptual advice to the practicalities of implementation. (Peake and Marenin, 2008: 59, emphasis added)

The implementation gap is not limited to the realm of policymaking, but is also a prominent analytical concept in the police-building literature. Authors studying police-building programmes frequently deride the inadequate presumptions of professional expertise. A joint review by two think tanks decried the “atmosphere of unreality resulting from the literature’s abstract debates and lack of implementation advice [that] is compounded by recommendations that are impractical and unreasonable” (Clarke et al., 2009: 179). As the other contributions in this volume, and much of the recent work on transnational policing shows, this observation does not only apply to police-building in Afghanistan but to many programmes across the globe (e.g. Celador, 2005; Emsley, 2012; Hills, 2012; Manning, 2005). Whilst scholars studying police and policing in the OECD world find it difficult to find officers who are actually fighting crime by catching criminals, scholars studying police-building in the Global South similarly struggle to find police-building programmes actually transferring apparently universal models and blueprints of police institutions and practices (Ellison and Pino, 2012). As police-building programmes in Afghanistan illustrate, the models and blueprints are far from universal and are constantly in the making. In an attempt to structure the so-called transition period (2014–2024) in Afghanistan, the International Police Coordination Board (IPCB), in charge of coordinating international donors’ activities in Afghanistan’s police-building sector, initiated the development of a vision for the ANP. Positioning itself clearly on one side in a long-lasting divide in the international community about the direction of police-building programmes in the country, the vision is based on a ‘civilian’ policing concept. The ANP is envisioned to become: [a] unified, capable, and trustworthy civilian police service. Its primary responsibility will be to enforce the rule of law; maintain public order and security; detect and fight crimes; control borders; protect the rights, assets and freedoms of both Afghans and foreigners in Afghanistan according to national laws; and operate without ethnic, gender, language or religious discrimination. (IRoA, 2013: 1) The ANP vision continues with commitments to community policing principles and Human Rights, fighting corruption, and establishing transparency, accountability and responsibility (ibid.). The document also presents a strategy for the separation of policy and strategic activities of the Ministry of Interior from operational and executive activities in order to avoid political interventions into the ANP’s executive branch (ibid.). The plan rested on the

Police-building in translation

157

assumption that a sufficient level of order would be established in Afghanistan in 2014 that would allow the withdrawal of the ANP and the semi-official police forces overseen by the ANP from the fight against insurgents (IRoA, 2013: 2). Considering the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, the increasing role of Afghan forces in the provision of security and the level of violence in 2015, this proved a highly unlikely scenario. Nevertheless, the IPCB and major police-building donors have acknowledged the strategy and claim to use it as a basis for planning their activities. This shows that for representations of police-building programmes to be considered as valid representations of ‘reality’ by police-building stakeholders, it is more important for them to be in line with the master-code of the ANP vision than with mundane policing and police-building practices in Afghanistan (Rottenburg, 2009). By favouring the belief in the legitimacy and effectiveness of police-building over the recognition of its consequences, references to the ANP vision enact progress in police-building programmes through the constantly renewed formulation of concepts for police-building projects and their objectives. To illustrate these self-perpetuating processes of knowledge production empirically, the next section analyses how police-building in Afghanistan has been enacted by master-codes regarding the intervention of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. The temporal scope of analysis reveals how master-codes change over time, becoming challenged and, finally, replaced by other master-codes.

Master-codes for translating police-building: rule of law, security sector reform, and counterinsurgency From 2001 onwards, there has been a lack of a comprehensive approach to police-building in Afghanistan. This is not only exemplified by the year-long coexistence of the counterterrorism mission Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO’s International Security Assistance Mission, but also by the socalled ‘lead nation’ approach. The latter gave different foreign governments the leading role in building the Afghan army (namely the United States) and police (Germany), reforming the judiciary (Italy), fighting drugs (United Kingdom), and demobilizing and disarming irregular forces (Japan). This division of labour prevented the development of a coherent and holistic strategy with the Afghan government for the security sector, and created an environment where uncoordinated multi- and binational programmes flourished (Sedra, 2002). In the police sector, Germany initially limited its activities to Kabul. German efforts focused on the development of a new police academy and on advising the Afghan government in police matters. This approach relied heavily on Germany’s historical police-building experience in Afghanistan during the 1950s until the late 1970s (Ostermeier, 2012). The limited geographic scope of the German ‘lead’ nation effort produced a large number of binational police-building programmes. Many of these involved the United

158

Lars Ostermeier

States, whose efforts quickly dwarfed the German contribution both in terms of financial and human resources. This dynamic resulted in a long-lasting divide over whether a civilian or more militarized approaches towards policebuilding was preferable, prompting a large number of academic articles and studies arguing in favour of the civilian approach. The key difference between the civilian and the militarized approach lies in the assumption about the ways in which civilian policing can be implemented. Neither the civilian nor the militarized approaches, however, question the overall objective to establish an institutionalized police force adhering to apparently universal police and policing concepts and principles. Analytically, three master-codes can be distinguished in the context of the international intervention in Afghanistan. A significant characteristic of these master-codes is the enactment and maintenance of different subjectivities and identities, reflecting the relationships of forces and power asymmetries between Afghanistan, other governments and international organizations. A major function of police concepts and blueprints is the maintenance of the idea that their origin is ‘Western’ and therefore superior to other police concepts. At the same time, these concepts and blueprints provide for a façade that allows Western governments to legitimize security policies while enabling political actors in Afghanistan to pursue their interests – even if these interests are contrary to those of Western donors (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013). Initially, the intervention was driven by rule of law thinking. It was quickly replaced by security sector reform and counterinsurgency theory, the latter yielding a mixture of regionalism, relativism and counterterrorism. From 2001 onwards, the rule of law code played a dominant role in representations of police-building in Afghanistan because it rested on the widespread belief that the war had ended and that police-building serves the building of a new social order. From 2003 onwards, warlords were perceived as a threat to this emerging social order, and police-building became reframed as a part of security sector reform that should enable Afghan security forces to repress warlordism. Finally, from 2005, when insurgents replaced warlords as the main threat, counterinsurgency became the dominant master-code. Throughout the whole intervention, the consolidation of the Afghan state, viewed from an Afghan perspective, primarily required consolidation through power-brokering arrangements, which was emphasized by the Karzai government (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013). Reports by the United States Institute for Peace (2001) and Amnesty International (2003) are examples of the rule of law approach. Rule of law encompasses the full judicial sector of a country, including reforming the law, training judges, investigators and attorneys, building courts, reforming prisons, and reforming the police. Advocating a legalistic approach, its focus is on legal principles and promotes the institutionalization of law as the core of police-building (Amnesty, 2003: 7). While this approach rests on AngloAmerican blueprints, it recognizes the importance of Afghan politics for police-building as it calls for the Afghan government to institutionalize the

Police-building in translation

159

rule of law and to train and monitor the police accordingly. At the same time, it represents international police builders as impartial, ‘technical’ advisers supporting a supposedly legitimate government. This constitutes a mastercode for translation that renders legal reform, with an emphasis on human rights, as the core of police-building. Such ‘coding’ has an effect on how police reforms’ impact on the state, the police, and citizens are conceptualized, mostly by establishing the state as a patronizing actor caring for its citizens by ensuring that the police act in adherence to the law. In recognition that the achievement of this objective takes considerable time, both reports emphasize that police-building should be conceived of as a daunting task that requires many years to yield success (Amnesty, 2003; USIP, 2001). With Afghanistan witnessing rising levels of violence, security sector reform came to be the dominant notion in analyses of police-building projects from 2003 onwards. The lack of consensus regarding the definition of the Afghan ‘security sector’ created confusion about the importance of the law for policebuilding and security in general. While some authors argued that “Judicial sector reform is arguably the most important pillar of SSR” (Bhatia et al., 2004: 18), other observers excluded the judiciary, arguing that judicial reforms (and anti-narcotics operations) “are less relevant to ongoing efforts to restore a basic level of security throughout the country, thus they are outside the scope of the study” (Sedra, 2002: 28). The latter argument proved to be the most influential and was adopted by other authors (e.g. Friesendorf, 2009). This ultimately led to a separation of police-building from judicial reforms, rendering ‘security provision’ the primary purpose of the police. The introduction of security sector reform and counterinsurgency as new master-codes led to a focus on the outputs rather than the outcome of police-building programmes, contributing to the ignorance of Afghan policing in professional expertise on police-building in the country. However, security sector reform’s focus on governance and political transformation has the effect that mechanisms for decision making and management inside the police become more important than activities to reform policing practices in Afghanistan. This pattern results in a gap in the explicit formulation of how the Afghan police should police Afghan citizens. While this translates into long lists for institutional reforms, local contexts of policing and the function of the Afghan police in the production of order, as well as the political dimensions of police-building programmes, are ignored. From this follows the portrayal of security sector reform advocates as apolitical promoters of good governance (Sedra, 2006). Furthermore, it instils a selfreferential pattern into translational practices by providing a master-code that explains failure of police-building with reference to a lack of Afghan ‘ownership’, wrong priorities or donors’ flawed understandings of security sector reform, but without questioning the master-code itself (Friesendorf, 2009: 8). As argued previously, it is this self-referentiality that contributes to the enactment of progress in police-building programmes by providing language that favours conceptual ideas over the consequences of their implementation.

160

Lars Ostermeier

Moreover, it illustrates that security sector reform discourses reflect different and coexisting realities in professional expertise and in the practice of police-building programmes (see also Stepputat, 2012). In the third instance, with mounting political pressures to withdraw international troops and to increase the Afghan government’s control of the country, counterinsurgency emerged as the master-code for translating policebuilding in Afghanistan. Following the revival of counterinsurgency during the mid-2000s and the related enlisting of police forces to suppress ‘insurgent’ populations (Bachmann et al., 2015; McCoy, this volume; Müller, this volume; Kuzmarov, 2012), police-building was turned into an instrument of warfighting. Additionally, it provided the grounds for the withdrawal of foreign troops by filling a perceived gap in the provision of security, now considered to include both fighting crime and insurgency. In fact, with the growing popularity of counterinsurgency approaches to police-building, crime fighting was now considered as a crucial element for winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Afghan people (see ICG, 2007: 16). Fighting insurgency through police-building is to be achieved through a set of loosely associated assumptions, reformulating the role of the police and the purpose of police-building programmes in a number of ways. Firstly, it was assumed that crime fighting lies in the interest of the people and that it fills a gap in the provision of governance services, rendering the people as apolitical consumers of security. This is despite the fact that in large parts of Afghanistan, especially the countryside, the state never played an important role either in dealing with crime, or in providing social order (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013). Secondly, it was assumed that increasing the population’s trust in the police and the government would encourage Afghans to provide intelligence about the insurgency. This concept for community policing at war ultimately creates a conceptualization of the police that is at the same time militarized and civilian (on community policing as a tool for counterinsurgency, see Hochmüller and Müller, 2016). This renders the objectives of police-building programmes to create the police as a counterinsurgency force as similar to the classic notion of the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine. This demands that soldiers are capable to fight in one block, protect citizens on the other, and to hand out aid and build institutions on the next, clearly challenging established concepts and blueprints of the police and policing of academics and policy makers. The professional expertise of police-building programmes, following the counterinsurgency master-code, is focused on the performance of the police in fighting the insurgency, and on the sustainability of the established training and logistics infrastructure. This has contributed to an erosion of the normative pretensions of police-building, yielding a mixture of regionalism and counterterrorism as the new master-code, as laid out in the ANP vision (IRoA, 2013). In this mixture, Afghan police are exempted from normative expectations and merely required to comply with so-called ‘traditional’ policing standards, without defining what this might mean. The ANP vision’s goal to place

Police-building in translation

161

community policing as the core principle at the heart of the institution establishes a translational frame that allows donors to keep funding the ANP. At the same time, policing scholars can continue to search for and promote a transferable policing model, and the Afghan and international governments can continue their fight against insurgents in an attempt to finally consolidate a state-centred political order. A somewhat confused façade of official policebuilding programmes will continue to funnel arms, advisors and funds to the ANP in the years to come, in the vague hope that this will somehow contribute to ending the war.

Conclusion Instead of searching for ways to transfer models and blueprints with the objective to close what is prevalently perceived as an implementation gap, this chapter has introduced a translational perspective on police-building. Viewed from this perspective, the production of professional expertise in policing studies is entangled with the global making of police-building in at least three ways. First, it provides legitimacy for its programmes by suggesting a specific problematization of social order and providing the means to address these problems. Second, it contributes to the maintenance of postcolonial power relations by reiterating the ethnocentric myth of the Reithian “idea of the police” (Reith, 1938) and increasing the legitimacy of the police in Western police studies scholarship. Third, it provides for technical knowledge that can be used to increase the exertion of violence, surveillance, and other repressive capacities of governments. The latter, however, is almost always being blackboxed and vaguely described with reference to ‘professionalism’ and ‘effective policing’. The translational perspective introduced in this chapter shows how knowledge production in professional expertise enacts progress through reiterating models and blueprints of police institutions and practices, favouring conceptual over empirical knowledge. Consequently, imaginations of police-building are predominantly regarded as objective representations of police-building programmes in the literature, whereas empirical narratives of its consequences are qualified as mere subjective descriptions of singular experiences with little relevance for the overall understanding of police-building programmes. As a result, the effectiveness of police-building programmes becomes tied to the provision of resources to close what is perceived as a gap between concepts and reality. Furthermore, police-building in Afghanistan challenges the professional identities of police officers and consultants serving abroad (see also Sinclair, this volume), and contributes to the militarization of the police in donor countries (Kappeler and Kraska, 2014). A translational perspective on processes of knowledge production in police-building programmes can show how official and unofficial realities of the programmes are connected and how the master-codes change and enact different rationales for police-building, associate different actors and provide for different indicators to assess the

162

Lars Ostermeier

programmes. By acknowledging the multiple realities of police-building programmes, and by reconstructing the global making and changing of these realities, the analytical move proposed in this chapter can contribute to a better understanding of the entanglements of academic and professional writing on police-building programmes with policy making. It is time for police-building scholars to acknowledge the politics of knowledge in this field, and to stop rendering it as a matter of bureaucratic reforms and technological transfer.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2014 BISA conference in Dublin. I would like to thank my discussant, Mustapha Pasha, and the editors of this volume for their helpful comments. 2 The notion ‘police-building’ is used in this contribution to refer to and analyze efforts to build police institutions and to transfer policing practices in the context of international interventions. This notion has, for instance, been used by Dinnen et al. (2006) to analyze international police reform programmes, adapting Tilly’s (1985) ‘state-building’ concept. 3 For excellent meta-studies of the failures and challenges of international policebuilding in Afghanistan see Wilder, 2007; Clarke et al., 2009; see also Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh, 2013. 4 Personal communication with German police officers in Mazar-e Sharif in October 2008; see also Sharifzadeh 2013. 5 Personal communication with former EUPOL employee, 2009. 6 The application of concepts from the sociology of translation shares the challenge associated with governmentality studies to maintain a sensibility for analysing frictions and changes of master-codes through alternative codes and to avoid to simply reiterate the master-codes (O’Malley, Weir and Shearing, 1997; Mitchell 1991, 2002; Larner and Walters, 2004). 7 This is not a one-way process, as is also shown by other contributions to this book (Graham and Baker; Hönke and Müller; McCoy; Müller; Sinclair; all in this volume).

Bibliography Abrams, P. (1988). ‘Notes on the difficulty of studying the state’, Journal of Historical Sociology 1(1): 58–89. Amnesty International (2003). Afghanistan: Police reconstruction essential for the protection of human rights. Available at: www.refworld.org/docid/3f14384c4.html [14 April 2014]. Bachmann, J., Bell, C. and Holmqvist, C. (2015). War, police and assemblages of intervention. London and New York: Routledge. Ball, N. (2002). Democratic governance in the security sector (Paper prepared for the UNDP Workshop on “Learning from Experience for Afghanistan”). Available at: http://web.undp.org/evaluation/documents/afghanistan-workshop/Nicole_Ball.pdf [12 April 2014]. Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2006). ‘The postcolonial moment in security studies’, Review of International Studies 32(2): 329–352.

Police-building in translation

163

Barrinha, A. and Rosa, M. (2013). ‘Translating Europe’s security culture’, Critical Studies on Security 1(1): 101–115. Bayley, D.H. (2001). Democratizing the police abroad: What to do and how to do it. U.S. Department of Justice, Issues in International Crime Report. Available at: www. ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/188742.pdf [13 February 2014]. Bayley, D.H. (2006). Changing the guard: Developing democratic police abroad. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bayley, D.H., and Perito, R. (2010). The police in war: Fighting insurgency, terrorism, and violent crime. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Behrends, A., Park, S.-J. and Rottenburg, R. (2014). Travelling models in African conflict management: Translating technologies of social ordering. Leiden: Brill. Bhatia, M., Lanigan, K. and Wilkinson, P. (2004). Minimal investments, minimal results: The failure of security policy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit Briefing Paper. Available at: www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/ 418E-Minimal%20Investments-BP-print.pdf [12 April 2014]. Callon, M. (1986). ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay’, in: Law, J. (ed.) Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 196–223. Callon, M. and Latour, B. (1981). ‘Unscrewing the big Leviathan’, in: Knorr-Cetina, K. and Cicourel, A.V. (eds) Advances in social theory and methodology. Toward an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies. Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 277–303. Celador, G. (2005). ‘Police reform: Peacebuilding through ‘democratic policing’?’, International Peacekeeping 12(3): 364–376. Chanaa, J. (2002). Security sector reform: Issues, challenges and prospects. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, A., Legon, A., Aronsson, L., Rose, M., Eyal, J., Garfield, A. and Luxenberg, A. (2009). Reforming the Afghan National Police. Philadelphia, PA and London: Royal United Services Institute and Foreign Policy Research Institute. Available at: www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/ANP_Nov09.pdf [2 June 2015]. Cooper, F. and Stoler, A.L. (1997). Tensions of empire: Colonial cultures in a bourgeois world. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dinnen, S., Mcleod, A. and Peake, G. (2006). ‘Police-building in weak states: Australian approaches in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands’, Civil Wars 8(2): 87–108. Distler, W. (2014). ‘Nur noch Routine? Deutsche Polizei und deutsche Polizisten in Afghanistan’, in: Daxner, M. (ed.) Deutschland in Afghanistan. Oldenburg: BIS-Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, pp. 155–177. Ellison, G. and Pino, N. (2012). Globalization, police reform and development: Doing it the Western way? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Emsley, C. (2012). ‘Introduction’, in: Emsley, C. (ed.) Theories and origins of the modern police. Surrey, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. xi–xiv. Friesendorf, C. (2009). Gefährliche Gemengelage. Polizei, Militär und Probleme der Sicherheitssektorreform in Afghanistan. HFSK Standpunkte 4. Available at: www. hsfk.de/fileadmin/downloads/standpunkt0409.pdf [14 April 2014]. Friesendorf, C. (2013). ‘Insurgency and civilian policing: Organizational culture and German police assistance in Afghanistan’, Contemporary Security Policy 34(2): 324–349.

164

Lars Ostermeier

Giustozzi, A. and Isaqzadeh, M. (2013). Policing Afghanistan: The politics of the lame Leviathan. London: Hurst and Company. Goldsmith, A.J. and Sheptycki, J.W.E. (2007). Crafting transnational policing: Police capacity-building and global policing reform. Oxford: Hart Publishers. Greener, B.K. (2009). The new international policing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansen, A.S. (2002). From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian police in peace operations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hills, A. (2012). ‘Globalising security culture and knowledge in practice: Nigeria’s hybrid model’, Globalizations 9(1): 91–106. Hills, A. (2014). ‘What is policeness? On being police in Somalia’, British Journal of Criminology 54(5): 765–783. Hochmüller, M. and Müller, M.-M. (2016). ‘Locating Guatemala in global counterinsurgency’, Globalizations 13(1). Hughes, M. (2014). The Afghan National Police in 2015 and beyond. USIP Special Report. Available at: www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR346_The_Afghan_National_ Police_in_2015_and_Beyond.pdf [30 January 2015]. International Crisis Group [ICG]. (2007). Reforming Afghanistan’s police. Asia Report 138. Available at: www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/ 138_reforming_afghanistan_s_police.ashx [12 April 2014]. International Crisis Group [ICG]. (2015). The future of the Afghan local police. Asia Report 268 – Kabul, Brussels. Available at: www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/ south-asia/pakistan/268-the-future-of-the-afghan-local-police [4 June 2015]. Islamic Republic of Afghanistan [IRoA] (2013). Ten-year vision for the Afghan National Police: 1392–1402. Available at: http://ipcb.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ 13-04-02-ten-year-vision-english-final-version. pdf [12 April 2014]. Kappeler, V. and Kraska, P. (2014). ‘Normalising police militarisation, living in denial’, Policing and Society 25(3): 1–8. Krohn-Hansen, C. and Nustad, K.G. (2005). ‘Introduction’, in: Krohn-Hansen, C. and Nustad, K.G. (eds) State formation. Anthropological perspectives. London: Pluto Press, pp. 3–26. Kuzmarov, J. (2012). Modernizing repression: Police training and nation building in the American century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Larner, W. and Walters, W. (2004). ‘Globalization as governmentality’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29(5): 495–514. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, J. and Hassard, J. (1999). Actor network theory and after. Oxford: Blackwell. Law, J. and Urry, J. (2004). ‘Enacting the social’, Economy and Society 33(3): 390–410. Manning, P. (2005). ‘The study of policing’, Police Quarterly 8(1): 23–43. Mitchell, T. (1991). ‘The limits of the state: Beyond statist approaches and their critics’, The American Political Science Review 85(1): 77–96. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Müller, M.-M. and Ostermeier, L. (2014). Decolonizing German police-building: The (post-) colonial afterlife of the Deutsch-Afghanische Freundschaft. Unpublished paper presented at the 2013 Policing Empires: Social Control, Political Transition, (Post-) Colonial Legacies conference in Brussels. O’Malley, P., Weir, L. and Shearing, C. (1997). ‘Governmentality, criticism, politics’, Economy and Society 26(4): 501–517.

Police-building in translation

165

Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development [OECD] (2005). Security system reform and governance. DAC Guideline and Reference Series. Paris. Ostermeier, L. (2012). ‘Die politische Bedeutung von „Polizeihilfe“ in Afghanistan zwischen den fünfziger und siebziger Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts’, Comparativ 3: 50–64. Peake, G. and Marenin, O. (2008). ‘Their reports are not read and their recommendations are resisted: The challenge for the global police policy community’, Police Practice and Research 9(1): 59–69. Reith, C. (1938). The police idea: Its history and evolution in England in the eighteenth century and after. London: Oxford University Press. Rottenburg, R.( 2008) From transfer to translation. Unpublished paper presented at Humboldt Universität Berlin, Afrikakolloquium – Übersetzungen/Translation, Winter Semester 2008/2009. Rottenburg, R. (2009). Far-fetched facts: A parable of development aid. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Scott, J.C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sedra, M. (2002). Challenging the warlord culture. Security sector reform in postTaliban Afghanistan. Available at: www.bicc.de/uploads/tx_bicctools/paper25.pdf [14 April 2014]. Sedra, M. (2003). ‘Police reform in Afghanistan: An overview’, in: Bonn International Center for Conversion [BICC] (ed.) Confronting Afghanistan’s security dilemma –Reforming the security sector (brief 28). Bonn, pp. 32–40. Sedra, M. (2006). ‘Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan: The slide towards expediency’, International Peacekeeping 13(1): 94–110. Sharifzadeh, N. (2013). 200 gesicherte Helden auf Grenzgang: Polizeiaufbau in Afghanistan. Marburg: Tectum-Verlag. Sinclair, G. (2012). ‘Exporting the UK police “brand”: The RUC-PSNI and the international policing agenda’, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 6(1): 55–66. Sinclair, G. and Williams, C. (2007). ‘“Home and away”: The cross-fertilisation between “colonial” and “British” policing, 1921–1985’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 35(2): 221–238. Stepputat, F. (2012). ‘Knowledge production in the security–development nexus: An ethnographic reflection’, Security Dialogue 43(5): 439–455. Stritzel, H. (2011). ‘Security, the translation’, Security Dialogue 42(4–5): 343–355. Stritzel, H. (2012). ‘Securitization, power, intertextuality: Discourse theory and the translations of organized crime’, Security Dialogue 43(6): 549–567. Suhrke, A. (2007). ‘Reconstruction as modernisation: The “post-conflict” project in Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly 28(7): 1291–1308. Thruelsen, P. (2010). ‘Striking the right balance: How to rebuild the Afghan National Police’, International Peacekeeping 17(1): 80–92. Tilly, C. (1985). ‘War making and state making as organized crime’, in: Evans, P., Rueschemeyer, D. and Skocpol, T. (eds) Bringing the state back in. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–187. United Nations Mission Afghanistan [UNAMA] (2014). Afghanistan. Protection of civilians in armed conflict. Annual Report 2013, Kabul. Available at: http://unama.unm issions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/Feb_8_2014_PoC-report_2013-Full-r eport-ENG.pdf [26 March 2014].

166

Lars Ostermeier

United States Institute for Peace [USIP] (2001). Rebuilding Afghanistan –A framework for establishing security and the rule of law. Available at: www.usip.org/sites/default/ files/file/rebuild.pdf [2 June 2015]. Wilder, A. (2007). Cops or robbers? The struggle to reform the Afghan National Police. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Issue Paper Series, Kabul. Available at: http://areu.org.af/EditionDetails.aspx?EditionId=63&ContentId=7&Pa rentId=7&Lang=en-US [14 April 2014].

10 Unpacking ‘the global’ Pinar Bilgin

“Contemporary policing not only has a global reach. It is also globally made”, note the editors when introducing The Global Making of Policing (Hönke and Müller, this volume: 1). In doing so, they contrast two different ways of thinking about the relationship between ‘the global’ and ‘policing’. The first one approaches the relationship between ‘the global’ and ‘policing’ as a unidirectional and top-down flow of goods and ideas from the North to the South. Labelled here as the ‘export’ approach, this way of thinking about the relationship between ‘the global’ and ‘policing’ focuses on the ways in which those policing practices designed to produce social order in Western Europe and North America are exported elsewhere through training (academic and practical). The second approach considers the role of the periphery or the South as a ‘laboratory’, and focuses on how those in the North have developed their theories and practices through seeking to produce order in the South. In this latter approach, the flow of goods and ideas is not unidirectional, but the relationship is nevertheless top-down with limited agency granted to the South. Another difference between the two approaches is that the ‘laboratory’ approach sees the North and the South as coeval, in contrast to the ‘export’ approach, which temporalizes difference and spatializes time by treating the South as belonging to the past, in need of growing up, with a little bit of help from the North. The editors offer the ‘laboratory’ approach to highlight the limitations of the ‘export’ approach, noting that policing gets made globally – through interactions between the North and the South. The following suggests that the volume goes further than what can be seen through the prism of these two approaches and identifies a third, ‘co-constitutive’ approach, which focuses on how both sides interact with and learn from each other, while getting transformed in the process. Whereas the ‘laboratory’ approach looks at how ‘we’ develop theories, go test them elsewhere (on our distant ‘others’) and come back home to apply them (on our near ‘others’), the ‘co-constitutive’ approach views the roles played by both sides in the production of goods and ideas, and their mutual transformation through this interaction. In one sense, the ‘co-constitutive’ approach is already part of the volume’s theoretical framework, as outlined by the editors in the introduction, discussed more

168

Pinar Bilgin

explicitly by Laffey and Nadarajah and Tickner, rather implicitly by Müller, and illustrated by Graham and Barker. Yet, I will suggest that the significance of watching against conflating the ‘laboratory’ and ‘co-constitutive’ approaches cannot be overemphasized. Before doing so, I will highlight the volume’s contribution to International Relations (IR) by underscoring how policing gets to be globally made. I will then turn to IR’s postcolonial critics to unpack ‘the global’ and, following Himadeep Muppidi (2004), call for integrating a ‘postcolonial understanding of globality’ into the study of the making of policing.

The study of policing fell through the (internal/external) crack in IR Policing remained marginal to the study of international relations (IR) for long. Mark Neocleous (2000: ix) highlighted how policing was “relegated to the backwater of ‘police studies’”, notwithstanding its centrality to the political ideas of some major political thinkers. This is partly because a narrow definition of ‘the police’ as ‘men in uniform’ (and it was mostly men for a long time) came to prevail in the social sciences. Neocleous contrasted this narrow definition with his preferred broad conception of policing as ‘the production of social order’. He justified this choice in the following manner: although during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the institutional form of the police was transformed under pressure, from a new hegemonic liberalism, the raison d’etre of the police function remained. Only by grasping this raison d’etre can we make sense of the police project. (Neocleous, 2000: x–xi) The ‘police project’ that Neocleous was referring to was ‘the production of social order’ by the state for “it is through policing that the state shapes and orders society” (Neocleous, 2000: xi). As will be seen below, adopting the broad conception of policing is critical not only for understanding its centrality to state–society relations, but also ‘the global’ insofar as contemporary theories and practices of policing were developed through ordering societies not only at ‘home’ but also ‘abroad’. Yet, the prevalence of a narrow conception of ‘the police’ in the social sciences is not the only reason for IR’s lack of attentiveness to policing. Another reason has to do with the internal/external divide that has been constitutive of the social sciences. Also referred to as the “territorial trap” by John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge (1995), the tendency for the students of the social sciences to look at the world through a particular category of ‘the state’ has produced distorted understandings of social and political processes – both contemporary and historical. In the case of IR, the ‘territorial trap’ shaped the discipline’s treatment of the realm of social relations inside the state as “of little interest” for the study of international relations (Peterson, 1992). Accordingly, students of IR came to focus on the dynamics ‘external’ to states, to the neglect of ‘internal’ dynamics, and the co-constitutive

Unpacking ‘the global’

169

relationship between the two (Barkawi and Laffey, 2002). IR’s neglect of the internal translated into a neglect of the study of policing, which was assumed to fall outside IR’s purview. It is not only IR in general but security studies in particular that have taken shape around the internal/external divide. Indeed, mainstream approaches to security have defined security in terms of ‘external’ threats directed to an inside that is assumed to be ‘secure’. Accordingly, students of security studies, for long, relegated the study of the ‘production of social order’ to those studying the ‘internal’ dynamics of states, overlooking how ‘discourses of danger’ have helped to constitute ‘our’ identity (Campbell, 1998), and ‘threats’ to national security were (re-)produced as part of the attempt to understand and address them (Weldes et al., 1999; Burgess, 2011). One aspect of this relationship was discussed by R. B. J. Walker (1997) who pointed to the ways in which security ‘inside’ the state was built and maintained through rendering the ‘outside’ insecure. Another aspect was highlighted by Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey (1999) who showed how ‘zones of peace’ were kept peaceful through particular ‘violent’ relationships with ‘zones of war’. More recently, the more sociologically inclined approaches to international relations came to focus on the study of policing. In particular, they inquired into the ways in which developments in contemporary policing in the European Union (EU) blurred the internal/external divide whereby ‘internal’ security was increasingly sought ‘abroad’ (as in the externalization of border management practices) (Anderson and Den Boer, 1994) and ‘external’ security was being pursued at ‘home’ (through surveillance and the securitization of migration) (Bigo and Guild, 2005). As such, students of international political sociology challenged the internal/external divide as they inquired into policing beyond state boundaries through extended and expanded cooperation and coordination between the security services across and beyond the European Union (Bigo, 2001; 2002). In doing so, they differed from the efforts of the students of security sector reform (formerly Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, DCAF), who were also interested in the study of reforming the police and the military beyond one’s own boundaries but did so while leaving untouched the ‘territorial trap’ of the social sciences (see, for example, Born, 2006). It is in this sense that I have characterized policing as having fallen through the (internal/external) crack in IR. In seeking to remedy this oversight in IR in general and security studies in particular, this volume has done a great service. By way of directing our attention to the global making of policing, the contributions highlight, for example, how the ‘production of social order’ in the United States is built on the legacy of experiences of the U.S. security services in the Philippines (McCoy, this volume), the ways in which Israeli and U.S. security services draw on each other’s experiences with maintaining social order vis-à-vis others at ‘home’ (Graham and Baker, this volume), how Brazil’s global political ambition was cultivated by the other great powers to encourage its involvement in the pacification of others in Haiti, the experience

170

Pinar Bilgin

of which then shaped the security services’ pacification of internal others in Rio in the run up to the World Cup of 2014 and the Olympic Games of 2016 (Müller, this volume), how Colombia cultivated a particular relationship with the United States to enhance the latter’s global reach in shaping policing in the South while carving out a special place for itself vis-à-vis others internationally and regionally (Tickner, this volume). The making of policing But, what does ‘making’ entail? Here, I distinguish between three ways of approaching the relationship between ‘the global’ and ‘policing’, while remaining aware that the differences between these approaches get blurred in the making of policing in practice. The ‘export’ approach is the most familiar one for those trained in line with the precepts of the development paradigm that prevailed well until the 1970s. This approach sees the relationship between the North and the South as theories and practices developed by the former in the process of the ‘production of social order’ at home getting exported to the latter. This is the approach used by scholars and practitioners specializing in security sector reform (SSR). The precursor to SSR was DCAF, which also adopted the ‘export’ approach to shape civil-military relations in formerly communist Eastern European countries in line with the ‘democratic’ norms developed in Western Europe during the Cold War. SSR broadened the remit of the operation beyond the military to include the police and other aspects of the security services, but maintained the ‘export’ approach (Cawthra and Luckham, 2003). This is not to overlook scholars’ and practitioners’ concern with ‘local ownership’ of SSR norms. Local actors’ commitment to and embrace of SSR norms has come under scrutiny in recent years, resulting in some self-reflection on the part of both local and external actors as regards how ‘local ownership’ of security sector reform could be generated. Yet, more often than not, such ‘ownership’ was expected to be exported as well, through nurturing the “creation of genuine democratic constituencies for democratic governance of the security sector” (Luckham, 2003: 17). The assumption being that no such constituencies and/or norms existed beforehand. The major success story told as part of this narrative about nurturing ‘local ownership’ of SSR is South Africa, where: The process was inclusive horizontally in the sense that all political parties were invited and urged to participate in the negotiations. The process was also inclusive vertically as numerous civil society bodies engaged in debate in all aspects of the settlement. Most importantly, the process was driven by local actors without dictates from external actors. In every sector, policies and models were designed by South Africans and not imposed on them by outsiders. (Nathan, 2007: 6)

Unpacking ‘the global’

171

That said, the literature offers the case of South Africa as an exception that proves the rule about the absence of such ‘home-made’ norms governing security sector reform. In the face of such absence, the literature then reverts back to the ‘export’ approach in its understanding of the ‘making’ of policing, and seeks to resolve its tensions by mediating the ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ sides of the relationship (Nathan, 2007). The suppliers are those in Western Europe and North Africa who offer ‘home made’ norms for the security sector; those who seem ambivalent about their demand for security sector reform are those who are expected to import those norms. This volume challenges precisely such an understanding of theories and practices of policing as ‘home-made’ in Western Europe and North America. “Contemporary policing not only has a global reach”, note the editors, “[i]t is also globally made”, through “the circulation of both policing techniques and practices, which together lend to the global (re)making of policing”. As such, this volume is interested in moving beyond a top-down understanding of the relationship between those who ‘export’ their (ostensibly) ‘home-made’ products and others who ‘import’ them. Yet, the ‘laboratory’ approach, which many of the contributors contrast with the ‘export’ approach, takes us there only half-way. This is because the ‘laboratory’ approach still rests on a top-down understanding of the relationship between core and periphery. The North develops practices and norms of ‘good practice’, goes to test them elsewhere (on distant ‘others’) and then takes them back home to apply them (on near ‘others’). Others’ contribution to the ‘making’ of policing does not go beyond questioning, resisting, challenging ‘our’ practices. It is the North who transforms those practices following such interaction with the periphery. This is the case for the counterinsurgency experiences that offer laboratory conditions for the intervening powers, as with the U.S. intervention in the Philippines (McCoy, this volume) and Israeli policing in Israel/Palestine (Stockmarr, this volume). It is also the case for those cooperative set-ups that serve as laboratories in a different way, in terms of testing how far such policing norms of ‘good practice’ travel. In this case, problems to do with lack of ‘ownership’ and ‘translation’ (Ostermeier, this volume) are recognized, but the relationship between the ‘supply’ and the ‘demand’ side is still understood in top-down terms, with the former (German police officers) learning from not the latter (Afghan police officers), but from their own experiences of training the latter. Along similar lines, Georgina Sinclair’s chapter hints to potential for more mutual learning leading to coconstituted new practices of global policing. But her findings mostly revolve around how UK police officers learn from their own experience abroad as part of peacekeeping and capacity-building missions, and how this experience could and should inform UK police institutions as well as future UK missions abroad (Sinclair, this volume). That said, individual chapters of this volume go beyond the contrast between the ‘export’ and ‘laboratory’ approaches by pointing to more complex processes of give-and-take, learning and co-constitution between core

172

Pinar Bilgin

and peripheral actors in their analyses. I call this third approach ‘co-constitutive’, following Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey’s (2002: 110) work on empire where they highlighted the international as characterized by “a ‘thick’ set of social relations, consisting of social and cultural flows as well as politicalmilitary and economic interactions in a context of hierarchy”. The thickness of the relations between the North and the South has to do with multiple layers in which relations of mutual constitution take place, relations that are productive of “states, societies, and other international phenomena” (Barkawi and Laffey, 2002: 112). Understanding the relationship between the North and the South as ‘coconstitutive’ matters in recognizing the agency and the substantive input of both sides in the ‘making’ of policing. Understood through this approach, actors in the South are no mere recipients of goods and ideas developed somewhere else. They do not serve as lab assistants at best (as with SSR) and human test subjects at worst (as in counterinsurgency operations). As viewed through the ‘co-constitutive’ approach, peripheral actors develop their own goods and ideas. Policing gets ‘made’ through the give-and-take between the North and the South – relations that go beyond surface interaction insofar as they are constitutive of both sides. That the relationship between the North and the South is understood in terms of mutual constitution does not overlook underlying hierarchies but highlights how Southern actors constitute their agency, and carve out some space for manoeuvre through this relationship. Though traceable in some of the other chapters (particularly in Müller who looks at how Brazil reproduces global hierarchies in its own practices in the Global South), co-constitutive relations are most clearly observed in three chapters of the volume. The case study by Graham and Baker looks at the relationship between U.S. and Israeli security services through the ‘co-constitutive’ approach and traces the development of the concept of ‘preventive assassination’ in Israeli experiences with ‘urban fighting’ in Israel/Palestine, its adoption by U.S. security services as part of the ‘Global War on Terror’, and the honing as well as marketization of these experiences and technologies by both sides (also see Stockmarr in this volume on Israel’s marketization of the technology and experiences that its security services have developed in Gaza). Tickner’s study of the dynamics of Colombia–U.S. security cooperation highlights how the former utilized its dependent relationship in security assistance with the latter to carve out space for its own South–South security assistance. In doing so, the author emphasizes that while Colombia has been a security proxy for the U.S., it has actively cultivated this role, made it its own and pursued its own policies. That this relationship does not eliminate the asymmetry in core–periphery relations but reproduces them does not seem to bother the Colombian actors who make the most of their relative autonomy as a U.S. proxy for handling security cooperation with ‘volatile’ others further down the hierarchy. Laffey and Nadarajah’s analysis of the Tamil diaspora in Britain offers an instance of the co-constitutive relationship between “policing in the metropole

Unpacking ‘the global’

173

and order-making in the periphery”. Whereas in the 1980s the Sri Lanka regime’s requests for policing the Tamil diaspora in Britain fell on deaf ears by virtue of being framed as an ‘internal’ problem for Sri Lanka, during the 1990s the same set of activities came to be understood as threatening not only Sri Lanka’s integrity but also the UK government’s policy of bringing ‘liberal peace’ to other parts of the world, including Sri Lanka (the ‘external’). Since the September 11 attacks, in turn, the Tamil diaspora in London came to be viewed by the UK government as a source of extremism that needs to be policed for the sake of order in both the metropole and the periphery. As such Graham and Baker, Tickner, and Laffey and Nadarajah’s analyses point to relations of give-and-take that go beyond surface interaction, learning and/or adjustment. In these three cases, both parties shape the norms, practices and self-understandings of the other (with more or less success). While the relationship is not devoid of hierarchies, the ‘co-constitutive’ approach do not pre-impose top-down relationships between supply/demand, export/import, and scientist/lab assistant/human test subject. Such co-constitutive relationships are not only products of contemporary policing either. They have been observed throughout history, although the Eurocentrism of our historical accounts often does not reveal co-constitutive relations between the world’s peoples. In its stead, Eurocentric accounts offer narratives about (ostensibly) autonomous development of various ‘Western’ ideas and institutions such as modernity (Bhambra, 2007), human rights (Grovogui, 2006b; Bhambra and Shilliam, 2009; Grovogui, 2011), or ‘Europe’ and ‘the West’ (Wolf, 1982; Hobson, 2004). To remedy the poverty of the prevalence of Eurocentrism in history-writing, scholars have called for “connected histories” (Subrahmanyam, 1997; Bhambra, 2010) or “universal history” (Buck-Morss, 2009; see also, Trouillot, 1995). To give an example of the global ‘making’ of history that is relevant to our theme, C. A. Bayly’s (1993) account of the development of networks of espionage and information collection in India highlights practices of surveillance that predated the British ‘arrival’ in India. The British utilized these practices by paying for the services of their local experts and practitioners, Bayly tells us. It is only later, as the British came to master the techniques they learned from the Indian practitioners that they set up their own networks in India and elsewhere. As such, India did not serve as a ‘laboratory’ for British intelligence services. Nor did the ‘colony’ merely ‘export’ its techniques to the ‘colonizer’. Rather, what emerged was a product of a ‘co-constitutive’ relationship between British and Indian actors insofar as the British learned from the Indian practitioners and then added to it by making adjustments in view of the evolving needs of its growing empire. That said, notwithstanding the availability of such non-Eurocentric historical accounts of ‘connected histories’, what prevails are understandings as seen through lenses of the ‘export’ or the ‘laboratory’ approaches. When viewed through these approaches, the British come across as having developed their surveillance techniques in India, honed their skills in Northern Ireland,

174

Pinar Bilgin

and then commodified these technologies and experiences in the market of the ‘Global War on Terror’ (see, for example, Ellison and O’Reilly, 2008). Hence the significance of the contribution this volume makes in turning our attention to the making of policing with an eye on the global. The global in IR We often take for granted the meaning of ‘the global’ in IR. However, as with ‘the international’, the very meanings that we take for granted are those that have come to be accepted by overlooking the contributions and contestations of ‘others’ who also constitute ‘the international’ (Seth, 2013; Jabri, 2013; Grovogui, 2006a). It is in this sense that Himadeep Muppidi suggested that we distinguish between two understandings of globality, ‘colonial’ and ‘postcolonial’. Let me quickly outline Muppidi’s argument before highlighting its importance for the analysis of the global making of policing. Muppidi’s analysis begins by citing Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who wrote: “To think globality is to think the politics of thinking globality” (cited in Muppidi, 2004: 19). That mainstream approaches to IR (including some branches of constructivism) overlook the contributions and contestations of ‘others’ who also constitute ‘the global’, even as they discuss globality, becomes the focal point of analyses on “the politics of thinking globality” (Muppidi, 2004). Such oversight has two aspects, suggested Muppidi (2004: 20). One aspect is related to “the constitution of a shared understanding of what ‘the global’ is from among multiple imaginations”. The second aspect regards the “‘realization’ of this specific imagination of the global over/ against alternative imaginations” (ibid.). Inquiring into these two aspects of the ‘making’ of ‘the global’, argued Muppidi, “must implicitly or explicitly involve a social negotiation of difference – at the level of imaginations, identities, and interests” (ibid.). In the absence of such curiosity as to the difference that ‘difference’ makes in the making of ‘the global’, we are likely to fail to move away from a colonial model of globality “structured around the silencing of difference” and adopt a postcolonial model “that relates to difference through democratic engagement and dialogue” (ibid.). It is significant to note here that what is at stake in moving away from a colonial toward a postcolonial understanding of globality is not merely about the elusive notion of ‘global democracy’. Rather, what is at stake is our understanding of how ‘the global’ gets made. While ‘others’ in the South have also contributed to and contested the making of ‘the global’, their agency is seldom recognized. Moving toward a postcolonial understanding of globality, then, is not about bringing the ‘others’ in (because they are already in there), but about rendering visible their contributions and contestations. For they are IR’s ‘constitutive others’ (Inayatullah and Blaney, 2008). What would a postcolonial understanding of globality mean for the research agenda of the global making of policing? I suggest that moving away from the colonial toward the postcolonial understanding of globality would

Unpacking ‘the global’

175

help us avoid conflating the ‘laboratory’ and ‘co-constitutive’. Of the three approaches identified above, the ‘export’ approach rests comfortably within colonial globality insofar as “the production of the global lacks an intersubjective dimension and never really engages the Other” (Muppidi, 2004: 20–21). The ‘laboratory’ approach is different insofar as it seeks to bring intersubjectivity into the analysis of the ‘making’ of policing by inquiring into the contributions of others. That said, in the ‘laboratory’ approach, ‘others’ appear in two ways. They appear either as lab assistants who aid in the transfer (and translation) of SSR know-how (and ownership) to the South; or they appear as human test subjects who contribute to the honing of ‘our’ theoretical and practical skills as ‘we’ engage in counterinsurgency, peacemaking and/or peacekeeping. Grasping the ‘co-constitutive’ dynamics of the global making of policing, however, requires us to focus on the ‘intersubjective nature of the global’. Understanding the constitutive relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’ entails appreciating “the historical political presence of societies targeted by interventions, and of forms of rule, power and resistance that existed in the territories concerned” (Sabaratnam, 2013: 271). Furthermore, such presences do not merely take the form of observers, subjects or assistants, but as actors with access to varying degrees and kinds of power. As Muppidi wrote, The production of the global is a systemic phenomenon that necessarily has a mutually constitutive relationship with the situated practices of social actors. In that sense, the systemic production of the global, frequently conceptualized as globalisation, is not outside of individual actors but is constantly reproduced or transformed through their identities, meanings, and practices. (Muppidi, 2004: 28) That ‘we’ make space in our analytical frameworks and research agendas for the presence and agency of ‘others’ in the production of goods and ideas (beyond serving as ‘lab assistants’) is in the spirit of understanding the global making of policing.

Conclusion To rephrase Meera Sabaratnam’s (2013: 260) critique of the ‘liberal peace’ literature, although the ethics of scholars who adopt the ‘laboratory’ approach is “‘postcolonial’, the analytics can be further ‘decolonized’” through understanding relations between the North and the South as co-constitutive. Whereas approaching the South as a ‘laboratory’ for the North emphasizes ‘our’ global agency in the making of policing, approaching the same process as ‘co-constitutive’ recognizes both ‘our’ and ‘their’ agency, and the ways in which both sides have learned from and changed each other through their global experiences in policing. While the differences between the two

176

Pinar Bilgin

approaches may come across as slight to some, they make a significant difference in grasping the hierarchical relationship between the core and the periphery, the agency exercised by the latter, and the limits of that agency.

Bibliography Agnew, J.A. and Corbridge, S. (1995). Mastering space: hegemony, territory and international political economy. London: Routledge. Anderson, M. and Den Boer, M. (1994). Policing across national boundaries. London: Pinter Pub Limited. Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (1999). ‘The imperial peace: Democracy, force and globalization’, European Journal of International Relations 5(4): 403–434. Barkawi, T. and Laffey, M. (2002). ‘Retrieving the imperial: Empire and international relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31(1): 109–127. Bayly, C.A. (1993). ‘Knowing the country: Empire and information in India’, Modern Asian Studies 27(1): 3–43. Bhambra, G.K. (2007). Rethinking modernity: Postcolonialism and the sociological imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bhambra, G.K. (2010). ‘Historical sociology, international relations and connected histories’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23(1): 127–143. Bhambra, G.K. and Shilliam, R. (2009). Silencing human rights: critical engagements with a contested project. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bigo, D. (2001). ‘The Möbius ribbon of internal and external securit(ies)’, in: Albert, M. et al. (eds) Identities, borders, orders: Rethinking international relations theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bigo, D. (2002). ‘Security and immigration: toward a critique of the governmentality of unease’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 27(1): 63–92. Bigo, D. and Guild, E. (2005). Controlling frontiers: free movement into and within Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Born, H. (2006). ‘Democratic control of armed forces’, in: Caforio, G. (ed.) Handbook of the sociology of the military. New York: Springer US. Buck-Morss, S. (2009). Hegel, Haiti, and universal history. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Burgess, J.P. (2011). The ethical subject of security: Geopolitical reason and the threat against Europe. New York: Routledge. Campbell, D. (1998). Writing security: United States foreign policy and the politics of identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Cawthra, G. and Luckham, R.E. (2003). Governing insecurity: Democratic control of military and security establishments in transitional democracies. London: Zed Books. Ellison, G. and O’Reilly, C. (2008). ‘From empire to Iraq and the “War on Terror”. The transplantation and commodification of the (Northern) Irish policing experience’, Police Quarterly 11(4): 395–426. Grovogui, S.N. (2006a). Beyond Eurocentrism and anarchy: Memories of international order and institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Grovogui, S.N. (2006b). ‘Mind, body, and gut! Elements of a postcolonial human rights discourse’, in: Jones, B.G. (ed.) Decolonising international relations. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., pp. 179–196.

Unpacking ‘the global’

177

Grovogui, S.N. (2011). ‘To the orphaned, dispossessed, and illegitimate children: Human rights beyond republican and liberal traditions’, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 18(3): 41–63. Hobson, J.M. (2004). The Eastern origins of Western civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inayatullah, N. and Blaney, D.L. (2008). ‘International relations from below’, in: Reus-Smit, C. and Snidal, D. (eds) Oxford handbook of international relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jabri, V. (2013). The postcolonial subject: Claiming politics/governing others in late modernity. London: Routledge. Luckham, R. (2003). ‘Democratic strategies for security in transition and conflict’, in Cawthra, G. and Luckham, R. (eds) Governing insecurity: Democratic control of military and security establishments in transitional democracies. London: Zed Books, pp. 3–28. Muppidi, H. (2004). The politics of the global. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nathan, L. (2007). No ownership, no commitment: a guide to local ownership of security sector reform. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Neocleous, M. (2000). The fabrication of social order: a critical theory of police power. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press. Peterson, V.S. (1992). Gendered states: Feminist (re)visions of international relations theory. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Sabaratnam, M. (2013). ‘Avatars of Eurocentrism in the critique of the liberal peace’, Security Dialogue 44(3): 259–278. Seth, S. (ed.) (2013). Postcolonial theory and international relations: A critical introduction. London: Routledge. Subrahmanyam, S. (1997). ‘Connected histories: notes towards a reconfiguration of early modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies 31(3): 735–762. Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Boston: Beacon Press. Walker, R. (1997). ‘The subject of security’, in: Krause, K. and Williams, M. (eds) Critical security studies: Concepts and cases. Minneapolis: University of Minnosota Press. Weldes, J., Laffey, M.Gusterson, H. and Duvall, R.E. (1999). Cultures of insecurity: States, communities and the production of danger. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Wolf, E.R. (1982). Europe and the people without history. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Index

9/11 25, 31, 45, 48, 50, 51, 120, 124 2014 FIFA World Cup 65, 78, 87, 89, 170 Afghanistan xvi, 1, 2, 10, 14, 15, 20, 25, 26, 32, 43, 99, 102, 103, 133, 143, 149–152, 154–162 Africa 1, 11, 13, 50, 80, 101, 102, 104, 105, 152, 171 Agency; of postcolonial/peripheral actors 98 Al-Qaeda 48, 115, 128 Angola 80 Annan, Kofi 29 ANP (Afghan National Police) 149, 150, 151, 156, 157, 160, 161 Arendt, Hannah 8 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand 78, 82, 83, 85 Asia, security markets in 50, 69 AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) 98 Augé, Mark 64 Australia 6, 27, 28, 41, 42, 124, 139, 145, 146 Baghdad 46, 55 Belgium 24, 142 Biopolitics 12, 41, 42, 44 Bógota 96, 98, 100, 102, 105, 111 Bolivia 79, 100 Boomerang-effect 8, 55 Borders, management of, see also policing 69, 70, 72, 169 Bourdieu, Pierre 11 BOPE (Special Police Operations Battallon) 87, 89 Brazil 1, 2, 10, 13, 30, 31, 78, 95, 80–88, 90, 91, 97, 107, 169, 172 Bush, George W. 25, 43, 44, 47, 50, 99

Calderón, Felipe 30 Canada 6, 27, 28, 49, 60, 79, 121, 123– 125, 140, 146 Cape Verde 1, 101 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 97, 107, 108 Central America 98, 99, 100, 102, 105 CHB (Clear-Hold-Build approach), see also counterinsurgency 84–86, 88 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) xv, 24, 25, 28, 48 Co-constitution of global policing; see also co-constitutive approach 116, 171 Co-constitutive approach 15, 167, 168, 172, 173 Cold War xv, 79, 80, 115–117, 120, 121, 134, 135, 170 Colombia 13, 14, 79, 96–99, 100–102, 104–110, 135, 170, 172 Colonies 5, 6, 8–11, 77, 78, 90 Côte d’Ivoire 1, 80 Counterinsurgency, 1, 12, 13, 20, 22, 32, 42, 45, 46, 48, 54, 55, 77, 78, 82–89, 91, 98–101, 119, 126, 157–160, 171, 172, 175; definition of 82–83; see also CHB, pacification Counterterrorism 7, 51, 61, 99, 142, 145, 157, 158, 160 Costa Rica 101 Critical Security Studies 9 Cuba 100 CYBERCOM (United States Cyber Command) 31 da Silva, Lula Inácio 80, 81, 83 Democracy xv, 81, 83, 87, 100, 114, 117, 120, 136, 137, 174 Diaspora, see also Tamils xv, 2, 6, 11, 14, 114–128, 172, 173

Index Diffusionist approaches 2, 3, 14, 98 DMI (Division of Military Information, US Army) 22 Drones 10, 12, 31, 42, 45, 48, 49, 52, 64, 67 East Timor 80, 132 Egypt 62, 69, 136 El Salvador 79, 101 Empire 7, 8, 10, 12, 20–23, 26, 116, 134, 137, 172, 173 Entanglements 2, 8–11, 13, 77, 78, 90, 139, 150, 162 EU (European Union) 28, 29, 81, 101, 121, 124, 125, 133, 142, 144, 169 EUPOL (European Police) 143, 151, 162 Eurocentrism 4, 5, 7, 14, 173 Evans, Peter 97, 107, 108, 110 FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) 98, 99, 100, 106 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) 23–25, 29 FCAS (Fragile and Conflict-Affected States) xvi, 132–134, 136 Ferguson, Missouri 12, 40, 41, 47 Field of security professionals 11 Foucault, Michel 8, 54 France 24, 28, 30, 49, 73, 79, 81 Gambia 101 Gaza Strip 2, 12, 13, 40, 41, 43, 45–50, 55, 59–73, 80, 172 Germany 2, 14, 24, 28, 30, 31, 142, 157 Ghana 101 Globality: postcolonial understanding of 168, 174, 175 Global Making of policing; definition, see also policing 1 Global War on Terror xv, 8, 10, 25, 26, 42–44, 48–50, 54, 84, 101, 114, 115, 125, 172, 174 Global policing exchange 14, 135, 137, 141, 143 Governmentality xv, 2, 8, 59–61, 72, 114, 118 Graham Bell, Alexander 21 Great Britain 10, 14, 116, 119, 128, 172, 173 Greece 69 Guinea-Bissau 101 Guatemala 10, 79, 101 GTF (Global Tamil Forum) 127

179

Haiti 2, 10, 13, 77–79, 81–86, 88–91, 169 Hebron 41 Hezbollah 44, 48 Homeland Security, Department of 26, 31, 49, 53, 71 Hollande, François 30 Honduras 79, 101, 106 Hoover, Edgar J. 24, 29, 44 Human Rights; violation of 80, 82, 88, 90, 96, 99–101, 123, 159, 173 Human Security 78, 81, 88, 132 IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) 41, 44, 48, 66, 67, 69, 70 Imperialism xv, 8, 104 India 10, 119, 136, 143, 173 International Relations Studies xiv, xv, xvi, 3, 9, 54, 155, 168, 169 Iran 29, 31 Iraq 1, 10, 20, 25, 26, 29, 32, 41, 43, 48, 99, 102, 103, 141 Israel 12, 13, 29, 40–55, 59–73, 169, 171, 172 Italy 24, 28, 157 Ivory Coast 1, 80 Jenin 41, 42 Jordan 68, 69, 136 Klein, Naomi 43, 50–52, 60, 61 Knowledge xv, xvi, 2–15, 21, 28, 40, 60, 61, 77, 96, 98, 100, 104, 109, 110, 116, 120, 133, 139–141, 144, 150–157, 161, 162 Knowledge Production xv, xvi, 5, 8, 10, 77, 150–153, 155, 157, 161 Laboratory: 3, 8, 10, 12, 13, 44–46, 49, 59, 61–62, 66, 72, 77, 84, 90, 98, 167, 168, 171, 173, 175; laboratory thesis 78, 81 Latin America xv, xvi, 8, 10, 13, 50, 69, 79, 81, 98–101, 104–108 Liberia 80, 143, 145 Liberalism 2, 115–118, 12, 126, 168; illiberalism of 2; elite liberalism in Brazil 86 Liberal governance 2, 123 Los Angeles 64 London xv, xvi, 115, 118, 119, 126, 173 Luxembourg 24 LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) 118–127

180

Index

Madrid 115 Merkel, Angela 30, 31 Mexico 31, 49, 53, 71, 100, 101, 106, 107 MIFH (Multinational Interim Force for Haiti) 78, 79, 81 MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) 10, 13, 78, 79, 81–86, 88–90 Mozambique 80 Nablus 41 New Orleans 64 New Zealand 6, 27, 28 NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations) 85, 89, 120, 121, 123, 125 Nicaragua 77 Nigeria 1, 29, 136 Non-state actors 116, 117 North-South Cooperation xv, 9, 10, 13, 14, 77, 78, 97, 107 Northern Ireland xvi, 8, 119, 140, 173 NSA (National Security Agency) 20, 21, 25, 26–32 Obama, Barack 25, 26, 29, 31, 96, 101, 103 Occidentalism; see also Orientalism 5 Orientalism 5, 50; Military Orientalism 5–6; Police Orientalism 5, 150; Self-Orientalism 106, 109–110 OSS (Office of Strategic Studies) 24 Pacification, see also counterinsurgency 2, 12, 13, 20, 23, 25, 26, 32, 40, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88–91, 115, 169, 170 Palestine, see also Occupied Palestinian Territories 41, 45, 61–64, 72, 73, 171, 172 Panama 101 Paris 115 Pastrana, Andrés 99 Peace 52, 78, 88, 99, 106, 116, 117, 124, 132, 169; liberal 79, 117–124, 126–127, 173, 175 Peacekeeping 10, 13, 77, 114, 120, 134, 139–140, 171, 175; Brazilian 78, 79– 83, 86–88, 90; United Nations 10, 77, 78–81, 83 Peña Nieto, Enrique 30, 106 Peru 79, 81, 100 Petraeus, David 100, 105 Philippines xv, 2, 8, 12, 20, 22, 23, 28, 32, 77, 169, 171 Plan Colombia 97–100, 104–106, 110

Police Assistance 14, 144 Police Building xvi, 14, 15, 136, 149–162 Policing 1–15, 20, 40, 50, 51, 60, 61–66, 70, 77, 78, 85–90, 97, 98, 100, 102–106, 108, 114–118, 120–128, 132, 133–145, 149–161, 167–175; appropriation of 7, 42, 78; associated dependent cooperation in 98, 108–110; colonial 7, 8, 28; cross-fertilization of 8, 136, 150; co-constitutive approach to 15, 167–168, 172–175; imperial 7, 28, 78, 100, 115; global 2–3, 6–15, 55, 66, 72, 78, 90, 100–101, 105, 108, 110, 114, 118, 128, 133, 150, 152, 155, 172, liberal 2, 10, 115, 126, 168; Global making of 1–15, 40, 42, 59, 66, 78, 98, 115, 150, 153–155, 161, 165, 170, 174–175; co-production of 11, 61, postcolonial 7–8, 46, 60, 97; privatization of 114; South-South cooperation in 3, 10–11, 13, 80–81, 102, 106, 172; translation in 14–15, 100, 110, 150–155, 159, 161, 172, 175; urban 9, 10, 12, 13, 78, 82, 86; of borders 66 Port-au-Prince 13, 77, 82 Postcolonial condition 5, 6, 11, 60, 72 Postcolonial Theory 4 Postcoloniality; see also postcolonial condition 3, 5, 59 Postcolony, as laboratory 3 Private security company 11, 13, 24, 52, 61, 72 Quijano, Anibal 97, 100, 110 Racism 4, 115, 123 Ramallah 41 Rio de Janeiro 13, 65, 77, 78, 81, 82, 85–90 Rousseff, Dilma 30 Rule of Law 82, 83, 100, 114, 115, 117, 118, 127, 133, 136, 149, 150, 156, 157–159 Rwanda 29, 80, 136 Samper, Ernesto 98 Sandino, Augusto César 77 Santos, Juan Manuel 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 106 Security: assemblages 2, 3, 11, 14, 108, 118, 119; experts 11, 65; fields 3, 11; governance of 4, 5, 9, 73, 103, 109, 115 134, 150, 154, 155; industry 12, 13, 50, 51, 60, 61–63, 72–73;

Index institutions, 6, 8; light-footprint approach to 96, 102–104; market 12; professionals 12; sector reform (see SSR); technology 12, 50, 60–63, 64, 66, 72; triangulation of 96, 97, 98, 101–110; transnational governance of 3, 10, 14. 114, 150 Senegal 101, 136 Shanghai 64 South–South cooperation 3, 8, 10, 13, 80, 81, 106, 173; indirect approach to 102; triangulation of 13, 79, 106 Sovereignty 30, 77, 80, 84, 90, 109 Sri-Lanka xv, 60, 116, 118–127, 173 SSR (Security Sector Reform) 136, 144, 145, 159, 170, 172, 175 Surveillance xv, 8, 9, 12, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25–32, 42, 46, 49, 51, 52–54, 64, 67, 71, 77, 115, 118, 121, 122, 127, 161, 169, 173 Sydney 64 Tamils; Tamil diaspora 2, 14, 116–128 Terrorism xv, 7, 25, 43, 48, 50–52, 61, 69, 97, 99, 101, 114, 115, 118, 119, 121, 122–124, 126–128, 142, 145, 157, 158, 160 Thatcher, Margaret 118 Togo 101, 136 Transnational fields 7 Translation Studies xvi, 14, 150–155, 161, 162

181

Uganda 29, 80 UN (United Nations) 1, 10, 13, 29, 41, 69, 78–83, 85, 89, 90, 101, 124–127, 133–136, 138, 140, 143, 144; see also peacekeeping UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) 1, 101 United States of America xv, 8, 10, 12, 13, 43, 44, 45, 48–51, 53, 54, 77, 81, 96–98, 100, 101–110, 134, 135, 157, 158, 169, 170 United States Marine Corps 41, 77 UPP (Pacification Police Unit) 13, 78, 85, 86–90 Uribe, Álvaro 99, 100 Violence xv, 2, 9, 24, 47, 65, 66, 69, 72, 77, 78, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 96, 98, 100, 101, 106, 114–118, 121, 126, 132, 150, 151, 157, 159, 161 War, urban 41–43, 45, 48, 50, 51, 54 War on Terror, see Global War on Terror Warfare, see War Washington, DC 22, 28, 30, 53 Weizman, Eyal 41, 44, 46, 50, 59 West Africa 1, 13, 101, 102, 105 West Bank 41, 43, 46, 47, 62, 64, 68 Western-Centrism, see also 3, 4, 7, 9 World War I 12, 20, 23 World War II 24, 42