Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland

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Author: search.filters.author.Levine, Daniel

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    Care and Counterinsurgency
    (2009-08) Levine, Daniel
    Counterinsurgency demands different tactics than conventional warfare, and as a result requires a different moral perspective as well. Counterinsurgents face a situation in which the distinction between civilians and combatants can be obscure, and where they are expected not just to defeat an enemy but to actively promote the interests of, and build trust with, the civilian population. What counterinsurgents need is not new moral rules of war so much as new virtues that will let them conduct their activities, within the moral minimums set by the rules of war, in a way more coherent with the implicit values of just counterinsurgency. These virtues have been explored in what may be a surprising area – discussions of the 'ethic of care' inspired by the need to manage urges to violence and anger in the context of building trust relationships in the family. Reflection on the ethics of care can reveal a way of thinking about counterinsurgency that highlights the importance of developing attentiveness, creativity, and restraint in a counterinsurgent's relations both with civilians in the area of operation and even with insurgent combatants.
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    Peacekeeper Impartiality: Standards, Processes, and Operations
    (2010-04) Levine, Daniel
    It is a commonplace (at least among those concerned with peacekeeping) that peacekeeping operations (PKOs) have changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, UN peacekeeping is still ostensibly governed by the “holy trinity” of principles developed earlier in its history – consent, impartiality, and minimum use of force. Understandings of impartiality, in particular, seem to have shifted in response to the increasing prominence of intrastate conflict, and to expectations that peacekeepers will stop human rights abuses and protect civilians as much as oversee an end to open conflict between parties. Impartiality in this context cannot mean simply standing aloof from the conflict – but what then does it mean? UN officials, analysts, and peacekeeepers in the field have given different answers. I have my own – impartial peacekeepers should take the impact on the peace process as their primary standard for deciding when and how to take action; should create structured consultations with local parties (armed and otherwise) for deciding how to act when people disagree over what the peace process requires; and should be willing to put all elements of their power, including but not limited to the use of force, in the service of the peace process. My answer is frankly normative and revisionist, based in reflection on the best concept of impartiality. I will discuss the varieties of answers given publicly, and in my own research to questions about what impartiality means, but I take that variety as evidence that there are many plausible interpretations of “impartiality,” and that some reflection on the space of possible meanings and the arguments that can be given for one interpretation or another can help us make good decisions about how we should understand the concept. If nothing else, I hope that clarifying that space of possible meanings may help clarify things and help someone come up with a better answer than mine. Clarification is needed as peacekeepers undertake more complex and dangerous missions, and are called on to use more force. Lack of consensus is present in the field, and this puts peacekeepers in literal danger if they are not resourced properly for the missions they will undertake and also in danger of failing in the eyes of the international public because expectations were not clear. The discussion here has implications far beyond the context of UN peacekeeping proper, though. First, UN practices cast a long shadow over peacekeeping/peace enforcement missions undertaken by other organizations, such as the African Union and NATO. Second, national militaries are increasingly involved in irregular contests with intrastate forces, generating increased interest in “peace and stability operations,” even if these are not labeled “peacekeeping.” The UN's peacekeeping principles were developed to respond to the need of maintaining legitimacy for operations designed to quell conflict in situations not that different from the ones international forces currently face in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. While national militaries may not be constrained by a historical fidelity to impartiality, or by quite the same interests and norms that govern UN peacekeeping, any intervention force that hopes to present itself as “on the side of the people” and not just a foreign conqueror can learn from the issues that have arisen with UN impartiality.
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    Civil Protection and the Image of the 'Total Spoiler': Reflections on MONUC Support to Kimia II
    (2010-10) Levine, Daniel
    Important work has been done recently on operationalizing military protection of civilians. Initiatives by the UN, individual nations, and NGOs have tried to translate the general mandate to protect civilians from attack and abuse into speci c strategic and tactical principles. Most of this work has focused on how militaries ought to react to direct attacks on civilians, but thinking about civilian protection should also include a serious examination of the ways in which the approach of military organizations to the problem of "spoiler" groups can a ect the level and dynamics of attacks on civilians--where armed groups are interested in violent control of civilian populations, attempts to "dislodge" them may substantially increase the level of violence against civilians (beyond the dangers to be expected from being near active fighting). In 2009, the UN supported the Democratic Republic of the Congo's military in operations to dismantle the Hutu-dominated FDLR militia, at massive human cost. Critics have primarily focused on the UN's failure to protect civilians from direct attack, consonant with the general discourse on tactics. These criticisms are valid, but in this essay I argue that two additional considerations should be kept in mind: the way that military operations can affect violence against civilians, and the way that moralizing the approach to armed groups can limit military and political options for protecting civilians.
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    Respect and Security Sector Reform
    (2010-12) Levine, Daniel
    Security Sector Reform is now widely recognized as a crucial part of any conflict intervention or post-conflict reconstruction project. Where security forces are unable or unwilling to provide the population with basic safety and security, it is difficult if not impossible for other elements of societal development and healing to occur. While more attention is paid now to the moral elements of reform, such as inculcating respect for human rights and democratic governance, success in these elements of reform has been limited. Notably, though it has been the target of several major outside reform programs, the military of the Democratic Republic of Congo remains notorious for human rights abuses. This paper argues that the limited success of human rights training as part of SSR is a result not (only) of failures to teach human rights or build requisite systems of accountability, but rather of a fundamental need to reconceive what respecting human rights involves. Reform efforts need to treat human rights compliance as the effect of rebuilt, mutually respectful, practical social relationships, not as external standards to which compliance is secured by exhortation or incentive. This shift in conceptualization has implications for both the structure of reform programs and the way that outside reformers should conceive of their own social relationships with target militaries.
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    Peacekeeper Impartiality: Standards, Processes, and Operations
    (2011-09) Levine, Daniel
    Though UN peacekeeping has changed dramatically since its inception, peacekeepers are still ostensibly committed to the "holy trinity" of consent, impartiality, and minimum use of force. Impartiality has come under special pressure, as peacekeepers are increasingly expected not only to observe the situation, but to take forceful action against "spoiler" groups that threaten the peace or human rights. This essay draws on official statements, outside analysis, and a number of interviews with peacekeepers conducted by the author and his research assistant, to demonstrate that a wide variety of understandings of "impartiality" currently exist, potentially undermining peacekeeping operations. The author attempts to systematize these variations according to how they understand the standard of impartiality, the process for making impartial decisions, and the scope of operations that fall under the concept. Ultimately, the author argues for an understanding of impartiality that is practically focused on achieving peace and includes structured consultations with all parties as a conceptual necessity, not just a helpful technique.
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    Some Concerns About 'The Responsibility Not to Veto
    (2011-04-05) Levine, Daniel
    Ariela Blätter and Paul D. Williams propose that the international community could more effectively end serious abuses such as genocide and crimes against humanity if the permanent five members of the UN Security Council adopted a “responsibility not to veto;” that is, an informal agreement not to use their veto power when action to respond to genocide or mass atrocities is proposed and has the support of a simple majority on the Council. While there is much to recommend the proposal, it may not in fact promote the protection of civilians as it is intended to do. The historical record shows a number of instances where inappropriate military action was counterproductive to civilian protection, and it is not clear how easy it would have been for a military intervention to help rather than harm civilians in some cases in which intervention was not forthcoming. Ultimately, the RN2V proposal would be stronger if it were part of a package of more fundamental institutional changes, including improving the UN’s ability to respond to budding crises non-violently.
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    Respect and Security Sector Reform
    (2010-12) Levine, Daniel
    Security Sector Reform is now widely recognized as a crucial part of any conflict intervention or post-conflict reconstruction project. Where security forces are unable or unwilling to provide the population with basic safety and security, it is difficult if not impossible for other elements of societal development and healing to occur. While more attention is paid now to the moral elements of reform, such as inculcating respect for human rights and democratic governance, success in these elements of reform has been limited. Notably, though it has been the target of several major outside reform programs, the military of the Democratic Republic of Congo remains notorious for human rights abuses. This paper argues that the limited success of human rights training as part of SSR is a result not (only) of failures to teach human rights or build requisite systems of accountability, but rather of a fundamental need to reconceive what respecting human rights involves. Reform efforts need to treat human rights compliance as the effect of rebuilt, mutually respectful, practical social relationships, not as external standards to which compliance is secured by exhortation or incentive. This shift in conceptualization has implications for both the structure of reform programs and the way that outside reformers should conceive of their own social relationships with target militaries.
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    Some Moral Considerations for Civilian-Peacekeeper Protection Alliances
    (2012-03) Levine, Daniel
    Protection of civilians, the use of military force to deter and/or halt violence against civilians, is a major concern for peacekeeping doctrine, planning, and practice. Much of the protection of civilians literature has focused on what peacekeepers can and should do to protect civilians from death and other serious human rights abuses. What civilians do in their own defense is often absent from these discussions, and as a result some of the moral and ethical implications for peacekeepers of civilians’ own activities risk being ignored. In this essay, I would like to focus on just one way in which civilians’ self-protection activities raise ethical questions for peacekeepers: civilian self-protection is the action of particular civilian organizations. These may be formal, like NGOs, or informal, like kin-group networks. But what they have in common is that they make clear that peacekeepers’ partners in protection will be particular loci of power within civilian society, not “civilians” as an idealized, undifferentiated mass. The presence of civilian organizations creates a number of tensions for peacekeepers. Peacekeepers try to remain impartial, but their core task of ending violence involves them in social conflicts. Working with civilian groups provides opportunities for better protection of civilians, but those civilian groups have interests and perspectives that may not be widely shared. Further, alliances risk corrupting civilians by making them tools of external influence as much as it does peacekeepers by rendering them partial. Finally, by working with civilian groups, peacekeepers may be effectively putting the tools of violence in the service of a social conflict, in the name of removing the social conflict from the sphere of violence. One might think that peacekeepers should keep aloof from civilians’ own organizations and activities and only strive to “do no harm.” Whatever peacekeepers do, it should add to civilians’ own strategies, and the main way in which peacekeepers should attend to civilian strategies at all is to be sure to stay out of their way — for example, by not creating safe area boundaries that cut civilians off from their livelihoods or placing food distribution points in ways that incentivize civilians to displace themselves. These concerns should perhaps lead peacekeepers to interact with civilian groups in as hands-off a fashion as possible. But, while in the abstract it may be clear what kinds of things are likely to interfere with civilian strategies, determining the likely impact of a peacekeeping strategy on particular civilian work in a conflict is complicated, messy, and requires deep knowledge of the dynamics of the situation. Civilian organizations are in much better positions to understand these dynamics than outside interveners. Especially when using military force, peacekeepers do not make surgical incisions into a society that leave the rest of the situation untouched; their presence and operations have drastic effects on at least the local environment. People are displaced, armed factions are created, destroyed, or splintered, control changes hands, movement becomes more difficult or easier, areas become safe havens or danger zones. If peacekeepers do not in some way work with civilian groups, acting so as only to protect civilians and disrupt nothing else will be difficult or impossible. Another possibility is that peacekeepers work with civilians engaged in self-protection. This is the right answer, I think, and it is endorsed by the UN. But it is not uncomplicated. Working through its complications will be the theme of this essay.
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