CCTS
Newsletter 11

Aspects of militarisation

The legacy of war

"What does it mean to think in wartime images? It means seeing everything as existing in a state of extreme tension, as breathing cruelty and dread. For wartime reality is a world of extreme, Manichean reduction, which erases all intermediate hues, gentle, warm, and limits everything to a sharp, aggressive counterpoint, to black and white, to the primordial struggle of two forces - good and evil. Nothing else on the battlefield! Only the good, in other words us, and the bad, meaning everything that stands in our way, which appears to us, and which we lump into the sinister category of evil." Ryszard Kapuscinski, 1945.

War, whether it seems necessary or not, leaves a social legacy. The more protracted the war, the more entrenched become the processes of militarisation and the more widespread its personal ramifications. An agreement to stop the fighting does not put an end to this, and various forms of militarisation will continue to pose problems for a peace process, at times threatening to re-ignite the war itself, repeatedly impeding the development of nonviolent and civil alternatives.

A military continuum

There are practical and principled reasons for treating military groups on a continuum:

1. Powerful states at times supply military training and weapons to armed bands active in civil wars, while former-soldiers enlist to fight as mercenaries elsewhere.
2. Powerful states and armed bands sometimes operate on the same terrain or against the same enemy. International forces engaged in 'peace operations' exist side by side with whatever local forces there are - and also need to be monitored. As for operations against the same enemy ... I would not go so far as to blame NATO for indiscriminate actions by Kosovo Albanians against Kosovo Serbs after the war, but I would suggest that NATO's bombing campaign equally conveyed the message that "all citizens of Serbia are guilty" - even Vojvodinans living far away from Kosovo and likewise having lost their provincial autonomy.
3. Whatever their pretensions, the permanent members of the UN Security Council - nuclear-armed states all - cannot assume that their societies are more mature or their values more coherent than states with fewer material resources. The problems of violence within their societies are far from solved and the insidious influence of militarisation is not far below the surface. Britain, itself, faces problems of overtly political violence (N. Ireland), social violence ('inner-city' violence), and of a gun culture (Dunblane). British soldiers too suffer from post-traumatic stress and, on their return to civilian life, get involved in crime.
4. The same standards should apply to all military strategies. 'Terrorism' is not the exclusive domain of 'pariah states' or armed bands, but extends to strategies employed by members of the UN Security Council: deploying weapons of mass destruction; using smaller but still indiscriminate weapons such as cluster bombs; targeting civilian more than military structures; counter-insurgency operations. The armed forces of the members of the Security Council resist being called to account like any other military force (a notable exception has been the recent US army study criticising the conduct - on and off duty - of its soldiers in Kosovo).

Some propositions about militarisation

Militarisation accords the military or its allies power over a population. While it gains strength in conflict with external forces, internally it often represents a particular set of interests and is linked with other forms of authoritarian and elitist behaviour. From the power to conscript members of the population or to take over property to its influence on political decision-making, militarisation makes the military a central component of how power is structured in society.

Militarisation offers privilege and opportunity through promotion within or connected to the military. A military power base often links with networks for social advancement - networks stemming from kinship, tribal, ethnic or political relations or sometimes involved in organised crime.

Militarisation confers social status for military prowess. If the world is divided into 'patriots' and 'traitors', there is no status higher than 'war hero'. The tendency to fight elections looking back to the past is accentuated after war when a party's identification with the war effort often weighs more heavily than any policies for the future.

Militarisation permits an army or armies to usurp social responsibilities, restricting civil participation and insisting on obedience to its chain of command. Civil wars do not pit only armies against each other but the social systems administered by those armies. While destroying many aspects of 'normal' civil administration, an army or a warlord may assume responsibilities for their 'own' people, taking over institutions and granting or withholding access to resources according to a person's or family's loyalty or compliance. This pertains in fields as basic as food distribution, welfare and healthcare.

Militarisation inclines people to resort to violence more readily instead of discussion. Military training brutalises a person's sensibility making him/her able to kill to order, obediently, without question. Once people have crossed the threshold to carry out acts of violence in one situation, it becomes easier to turn to violence elsewhere. Political violence is common after civil war, with victors falling out with each other and political intimidation of critics. However, the propensity for violence is accentuated more generally, often leading to an increase in armed crime and usually leading to an increase in both the incidence and the severity of domestic violence. Militarisation channels social or personal frustration into violence. Specifically, the resentment of those defeated in one war can be channelled into a permanent hostility, demanding military retaliation. More widely, in view of the spread of 'purposeless' armed violence, some commentators see a continuum from inner-city violence to Rwanda. My view is that mass violence is rarely initiated spontaneously. If it is not a reaction to provocation, it is prepared by hate-speak or by imagery that divorces violence from its consequences. It is structured - people lose their self in a group identity beyond personal control.

Militarisation produces 'freelance' armed bands, be they units operating in tandem with the regime - death squads as in Guatemala and Sri Lanka or paramilitaries such as Arkan and _e_elj in former-Yugoslavia - or bands made up of former fighters, mercenaries, or those who engage in covert operations beyond the edge of the law.

Militarisation concedes power and influence to arms traders. Between states, the arms trade is a shadowy world, often associated with bribery, corruption and espionage. Non-state armies acquire weapons as they can - usually criminally.

Militarisation spreads the possession of small arms beyond social control - not only increasing risks of crazed mass killings, but the general likelihood of incidents escalating into armed violence.

Militarisation subordinates civil rights to military needs. The decision to use force makes paramount the success of a military operation. A state opposing armed groups - as in Northern Ireland and the Basque country - may complain that terrorism cannot be defeated with 'one hand tied behind its back'. This may lead to the formal suspension of certain civil rights and for security operations that contradict the declared codes. In a post-civil war situation, where a garrison state prevails, 'military necessity' still seeks to dictate the terms.

Militarisation strengthens authoritarianism and reduces transparency. The military - conventional or guerrilla - prefers to proceed in secrecy, devising a plan and then executing it decisively. Those who publicly dissent or who try to reveal facets of operations that are not publicly acknowledged are liable to be smeared or worse.

Militarisation protects soldiers from prosecution for criminal actions. Victors in war may want to prosecute those they defeated yet themselves remain above the law. The loyalty bred among the military inclines them to close ranks, insulating themselves from outside criticism. Where they have served as a power base for political interests - as with the Latin American dictatorships of the 1980s - the military continue to resist investigation. The militaries of members of the UN Security Council also refuse to accept accountability. For Britain, one recalls the difficulty of investigating summary executions of Argentines who surrendered in the Falklands War and various incidents in Northern Ireland. NATO governments are indignant at the suggestion that there is a case to answer over the 1999 bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Militarisation hardens divisions between social or ethnic groups, inculcates a culture based on suspicion of the Other and heightens intolerance. Military morale depends on group identity, usually defined against an external enemy. Most armies are fed stereotypical images of their potential enemy as in some way sub-human, monstrous or criminal. To put the population on a war footing or to support a high level of military preparation often requires a sustained propaganda campaign demonising the Other.

Militarisation distorts social priorities by appropriating resources for military rather than social needs. This has been well documented at the state level by Ruth Leger Sivard's statistical compendium World Military and Social Expenditures. It also happens at the non-state level in territories controlled by guerrillas.

Militarisation excludes or obstructs efforts to try non-military methods.

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