Figure 6 - uploaded by Abigail Watson
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
This report examines the political and legal implications of working with local partners to wage remote warfare. The report shows that there are characteristics of the way that the UK is currently choosing to fight that mean that it may find itself in legal ‘grey zones’. In the short term working by, with, or through local partners on the frontline...
Citations
... Remote warfare, characterized by the absence of troops on the ground (Knowles and Watson 2018), has plunged the legal normative order regulating the use of force into crisis. Where the other articles in this special issue address the technologies of remote warfare, its use and its connection to other areas of politics, this article takes a closer look at the effect of remote warfare on the laws regulating the use of force in international relations. ...
... Remote warfare is a broad term that covers a multitude of different means and methods of warfare, all characterized by the distance at which the threat is countered. The unifying characteristic is the absence of a large number of troops from the frontlines (Knowles and Watson 2018), but aside from this the notion of remote warfare covers a broad range of different types of warfare. In their introduction to Remote Warfare: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Abigail Watson and Alasdair McKay list as means of remote warfare the support of local security forces, the use of special operations forces and private military security contractors, the sharing of intelligence with frontline partners as well as airstrikes and air support by unmanned and manned aircraft (Watson and McKay 2021). ...
... The inquiry also concludes that 'it is clear that it [the Government] does have a policy to use lethal force abroad outside armed conflict for counter-terrorism purposes' and that '[c]ertain aspects of the Government's view of the legal basis for its policy require urgent clarification' (Harman et al. 2016, p. 7). While there are no further reports of UK drone strikes outside armed conflict since, the concern about a lack of transparency remains (Knowles and Watson 2018). Max Brookman-Byrne criticizes that nearly half of the reports published by the UK Ministry of Defence about RAF strikes in Iraq and Syria do not contain 'enough information for a broad determination as to whether a given strike seemed to accord with or violate relevant law' (Brookman-Byrne 2018, p. 7). 4 Finally, Saudi Arabia seems to be the newest country that employs armed drones. ...
New means and methods of war such as remote warfare by drones—the focus of this special issue—challenge international law, as there no longer exists agreement between states regarding the rules regulating the use of force. The existing legal norms are interpreted in widely diverging manners and seemingly put aside if not in the interest of the state in question. Yet, this article argues that, taking a closer look at the state practice of drone strikes beyond the paradigmatic case of the USA, the demise of international legal norms regulating the use of force seems overstated. Instead, the analysis reveals that the international laws addressing the use of force and means and methods of warfare are not as dead as the general discourse asserts, and can still serve to regulate state action.
... 69 More generally, Western interventions have had several unintended consequences. 70 The US, the UK, France and others have focussed on providing military support to states without looking at the broader political problems, such as corruption or poor civilian oversight of the military, facing the country. This support "can lead to a situation where rights-violating security forces become better equipped to do what they have always done." 71 Similarly, in some countries these states have worked with groups who have real or perceived ethnic, geographical or community bias. ...
The Sustainable Security Index is the first global ranking to measure the true drivers of instability. The Index highlights why states need to move beyond a narrow understanding of security to an integrated approach that addresses the key drivers of instability:
Unsustainable environmental policies
Poor governance and inequality
Over reliance on military force
It ranks 155 countries based on their contributions to global security and seeks to instigate a conversation around how to measure and change policies which exacerbate, rather than alleviate, the drivers of conflict. The Index report explores three key stories based on the data findings:
Global insecurity often impacts poorer countries disproportionately – despite the fact they often contribute the least to its creation. Richer countries, with the power to drive change towards more sustainable global security, should take greater responsibility to do so.
Examining the bottom 15 in the Index reveals the continued failures of international intervention and highlights the need for a new approach to tackling global insecurity.
While the international community may be increasingly recognising the need to address climate change, national spending patterns reveal it also needs to significantly offset its wider contribution to global insecurity.
... 5 However, there are a number of military, political and legal implications of remote warfare that are often misunderstood. 6 these are particularly evident in the sahel and the Horn of Africa which are congested spaces for this sort of activity, with multiple overlapping unilateral, bilateral and multilateral efforts aimed at building stability, countering terrorist activity and building the capacity of local partners. 7 despite Textbox 1: Remote Warfare following the costly military interventions in iraq and Afghanistan, placing comparable numbers of Western boots on the ground in new conflicts (except in the case of a direct threat to state survival) remains unlikely. ...
Abigail Watson and Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen
6 November 2019
Read the report
This report discusses how the roll out of the UK’s new Fusion Doctrine can better address the problems facing Africa.
The report highlights that while Fusion Doctrine may be well-suited to addressing crises, it struggles to create “routine fusion” which brings key stakeholders together to build sustainable peace and security.
To overcome these shortcomings, the report proposes a five-step approach to make Fusion Doctrine work:
1. Whole of government thinking in Whitehall
2. Implementation of this approach in the countries the UK engages in
3. Coordinating effectively with other international efforts
4. Establishing a meaningful dialogue with the host country
5. Creating a meaningful dialogue with civil society, both internationally and at home
The report argues that following these steps will be essential to ensuring Fusion Doctrine paves the way for credible, positive change in UK foreign policy and aids efforts to build stability and security in African states.
This article examines the United Kingdom’s use of drones in an act of self-defence in a counter-terrorism operation. The government justified the targeted killing of a UK citizen in Syria – a country with which it was not at war at the time – with reference to existing laws and norms. In doing so, it contested a number of established concepts to justify its conduct as lawful activity. The article argues that modern weapons such as drones, which are used to address novel threats, lead to legal justification that in turn has the potential to create new laws. In this way, the intersection of norms, warfare and new technologies becomes a productive site of political contestation. The contribution of the article is twofold: empirically, it contributes to debates on targeted killing and discussions surrounding the meaning and interpretation of ‘imminence’ in the context of preventive self-defence in the United Kingdom; and theoretically, it adds to the constructivist literature by examining norm contestation and resulting normativity in this area. The article concludes that the legal justification in this particular instance has important implications for other emerging technologies that require discussions about how states justify their actions to conform with existing legal and normative frameworks.
Since the beginning of the war on terror, the US has intensified security efforts in Africa, promoting regional initiatives and increasing bilateral cooperation with local governments to fight terrorism on the ground. Yet, despite Washington’s attempts, Islamist violence on the continent is on the rise. What is more, several of US African partners have been criticised for overstepping legal boundaries in the conduct of counter-terrorism operations, committing human rights violations against African people. This study fills a longstanding gap in the literature by exploring whether, and above all, how post-9/11 US security policies may have a negative impact on radicalisation in African states, increasing dynamics culminating with mobilisation into terrorism. Relying on a critical theoryinspired research orientation, it sets up an innovative and interdisciplinary framework, shifting the emphasis to local politics as a determinant for the impact of US policies and pointing to dynamics of violent interaction between African states and their population as a crucial dimension of radicalisation. Incorporating analytical elements from the research on remote warfare, security assistance and the role of agency, and social movements, the proposed framework develops around a three-step causal mechanism hypothesised to connect US policies to the increase in radicalisation on the ground. The mechanism posits that post-9/11 US security policies have a negative impact in African states characterised by the threat of terrorism and the use of indiscriminate repression against suspect groups by: 1) leading to the establishment of a partnership relationship within the framework of remote warfare; 2) from the partnership relationship, African states gain resources and room for manoeuvre to implement indiscriminate repression; 3) indiscriminate repression causes an increase in radicalisation in African states. To test such a mechanism, the research is designed as a case study, focusing on post-9/11 US security policies in Kenya by using theory-testing process tracing to identify the case-specific manifestations of the three steps. The research provides extensive evidence in support of the hypothesised mechanism in the case of Kenya, showing how US remote intervention, based on the provision of indirect support, has inadvertently contributed to fuelling the repressive campaign conducted by local security authorities against Muslims and ethnic Somalis, pushing the latter into the hands of the terrorist group Al Shabaab. Such findings have significant implications, pointing to the need of context-sensitive security policies acknowledging the political drivers of terrorism and the limits of remote warfare in Kenya. At the same time, they make a theoretical contribution, setting the foundation for a more thorough approach towards the study of US efforts in Africa which, by overcoming divisions in the discipline, could help shape more sustainable and effective security policies.
Domestic law, case law and policies play a decisive yet underestimated role in ensuring that partnered operations are carried out in compliance with international law. Research on the legal framework of partnered operations has so far focused on clarifying existing and emerging obligations at the international level. Less attention has been devoted to understanding whether and how domestic legal systems integrate international law into national decision-making which governs the planning, execution and assessment of partnered operations. This article tries to fill the gap by focusing on the practice of selected States (the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany and Italy), chosen for their recent or current involvement in partnered operations. By using the International Committee of the Red Cross's “support relationships” framework and based on a comparative analysis of practice, the study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of national laws, case law and policies according to their ability to prevent or mitigate the risk of humanitarian consequences posed by partnered warfare.
This paper argues for the utility of remote warfare as a means of analysing the geopolitics of American primacy. Through the use of new technologies and surrogate forces to address security challenges with a minimal military footprint, remote warfare (re)imposes political distance between the United States and the sites of its military interventions. Its constitutive modalities of intervention range from drones and Special Operations Forces to Private Military Security Companies, security cooperation programmes and emerging technologies associated with Artificial Intelligence. As public support for large-scale overseas interventions has dwindled and strategic competition with China has intensified, remote warfare represents a means of ‘retooling’ US primacy, which is both a structural condition and a strategic orientation. As a strategic approach to the use of force, remote warfare enables the American state to project military power in a more flexible and sustainable manner. This has supported the maintenance of US primacy as Washington’s strategic focus has shifted from counterterrorism towards a renewed emphasis on great power competition.
In February this year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that this year’s defence and security review will be “the largest review of the UK’s foreign, defence, security and development policy since the end of the Cold War.” The ‘Integrated Security, Defence, Development and Diplomacy Review’, or ‘Integrated Review’ for short, is going to cover all areas of the UK’s international policy. The Review is an important opportunity to set the tone for the UK’s foreign policy at a time when its place in the world is undergoing substantial rethinking - with its departure from the European Union and in the midst of a renewed concern about the rise of state-based threats.
Such an extensive and timely review is likely to have implications for many aspects of UK foreign and domestic policy. Remote warfare is no exception. Faced with economic, military and political constraints following wars in Iraq and Afghanistan yet concerned about perceived threats emanating from places like the Middle East and Horn of Africa, remote warfare has become the “go to” response of the UK and many others. In such engagements, states support local national and regional forces to do the bulk of frontline fighting, providing assistance including intelligence, small deployments of Special Forces, air support and training, instead of deploying large numbers of their own military forces. While these amount to small-scale, tactical efforts they can have large strategic implications if undertaken without a clear cross-government strategy.
Looking forward, the military, political and economic constraints that initially led to the dominance of remote warfare continue and will likely be exacerbated by financial pressures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with a changing global landscape, remote warfare is therefore likely to continue to define the UK’s approach. However, as noted in much of our research, many government and military officials have persistently failed to acknowledge the distinct risks and challenges that a poor strategy surrounding remote warfare presents. As a consequence, there is a danger that this kind of engagement will not be as fundamentally rethought as the rest of the UK’s security apparatus. This would be a mistake. As our own work has noted, remote warfare is not low risk; its risks are merely poorly understood.
If done right, the Integrated Review could be an opportunity to address this. To understand how, Oxford Research Group (ORG) convened a closed-door roundtable with a wide number of experts and practitioners from across the military, government and academia to understand the risks and challenges remote warfare could present over the next five years and how the Integrated Review could address these. As the roundtable was held before the consequences of COVID-19 were more fully understood this briefing does not go into its implications. Instead, it examines two key themes from the day’s discussion.
1. The Government’s focus on value for money may pose risks to a values-led foreign policy: Remote warfare is often seen as a “cost free” way to engage abroad so may appear to be an attractive option - but it can also undermine a values-based approach to foreign policy.
2. The UK military is considering having soldiers “persistently engaged” in key regions, in small numbers; however, this has several risks: This strategy would see the UK militarily engaged in small numbers around the world to maintain influence and knowledge – but, again, recent campaigns have shown such deployments are not risk free.
This focusses on the military contribution to UK efforts in Nigeria, Kenya and Mali and, particularly on:
• The current strategic disconnect between stated ambitions for the British contribution to security on the African continent and the activities being run to build partner capacity;
• A short-term approach to partnerships that prioritises tactical activities over broader institutional support and reform that might address underlying causes of conflict.
The current gap between aspirations and activities heightens the risk that contemporary British military activity is not sufficiently integrated into an overarching political strategy. This report is a first attempt to evaluate the gaps between contemporary strategies and activities in Iraq, Syria and Libya. It is structured around two main sections:
- Analysing the post-Iraq changes to the internal decision-making structure and the system of external oversight in the UK.
- The long-term prognosis for stability and the strategic coherence of current military operations, focussing on the antiIS Coalition in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
