Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/03043754231177349
Sergio Padilla Oñate, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart
Mexico’s public security has suffered a militarization process for at least two decades. Although there is consensus on this trend at the national level in the specialized literature, little research has been conducted on its subnational impact. To amend this gap, this article inquires the way in which militarization has permeated the structure and operation of subnational security forces beyond the local autocratic dynamics that reinforce militarization. Specifically, this article focuses on police reconfiguration regarding interaction with military in the six most violent states in Mexico: Jalisco, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Zacatecas. The qualitative analysis presented is based on 15 interviews and 18 focus groups with police offices and public security officials of these states. We argue that military presence on the streets and the arrival of the military-to-executive positions in public security institutions contributed to the adoption of military operating modes by the state police during Felipe Calderón (Dec. 2006–Nov. 2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential terms (Dec. 2012–Nov. 2018). Additionally, this article aims to explain how the military has permeated the state’s public security institutions at different levels and dynamics (management, training, and operation) that promote the adoption of formal or informal military features that enable state police institutions to behave alike and resemble the army in their everyday activities. From a theoretical and methodological perspective, this article calls for the construction of a research agenda that focuses on the local and subnational processes of the militarization of public security.
{"title":"The Militarization of Public Security in Mexico: A Subnational Analysis from a State (Local) Police Perspective","authors":"Sergio Padilla Oñate, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart","doi":"10.1177/03043754231177349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231177349","url":null,"abstract":"Mexico’s public security has suffered a militarization process for at least two decades. Although there is consensus on this trend at the national level in the specialized literature, little research has been conducted on its subnational impact. To amend this gap, this article inquires the way in which militarization has permeated the structure and operation of subnational security forces beyond the local autocratic dynamics that reinforce militarization. Specifically, this article focuses on police reconfiguration regarding interaction with military in the six most violent states in Mexico: Jalisco, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Zacatecas. The qualitative analysis presented is based on 15 interviews and 18 focus groups with police offices and public security officials of these states. We argue that military presence on the streets and the arrival of the military-to-executive positions in public security institutions contributed to the adoption of military operating modes by the state police during Felipe Calderón (Dec. 2006–Nov. 2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential terms (Dec. 2012–Nov. 2018). Additionally, this article aims to explain how the military has permeated the state’s public security institutions at different levels and dynamics (management, training, and operation) that promote the adoption of formal or informal military features that enable state police institutions to behave alike and resemble the army in their everyday activities. From a theoretical and methodological perspective, this article calls for the construction of a research agenda that focuses on the local and subnational processes of the militarization of public security.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43520793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-23DOI: 10.1177/03043754231176868
A. Umar
This article aims to analyse the foundations of Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations (IR) in Indonesia. Drawing on a contextualized autoethnographic reflection of learning and researching IR in Indonesia during my undergraduate studies between 2008 and 2013, I argue that Western dominance in Indonesian IR discipline is not simply characterized by imposition of a certain academic tradition from the West but also reproduced in everyday academic discourse and naturalized through institutional practices of power. Drawing on my autoethnographic reflections, Western dominance has been maintained and naturalized through everyday exclusionary practices in IR discipline. I encountered this exclusionary practice through a gatekeeping question that was often asked during my time as an undergraduate student and researcher in Indonesia: ‘which part of your work is IR?’. This gatekeeping practice is rooted in the larger history of bureaucratization and state co-optation of Indonesian academic community, which is still perpetuated by the government. Nevertheless, this Western epistemic dominance has been resisted through non-academic spaces. Through this contextualized autoethnographic reflections, I offer some rethinking of Global IR project by highlighting internal hierarchy and Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations, as well as resistance against it by non-academic communities.
{"title":"‘Which Part of Your Work is IR?’ on Western Dominance and the Discipline of International Relations in Indonesia","authors":"A. Umar","doi":"10.1177/03043754231176868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231176868","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to analyse the foundations of Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations (IR) in Indonesia. Drawing on a contextualized autoethnographic reflection of learning and researching IR in Indonesia during my undergraduate studies between 2008 and 2013, I argue that Western dominance in Indonesian IR discipline is not simply characterized by imposition of a certain academic tradition from the West but also reproduced in everyday academic discourse and naturalized through institutional practices of power. Drawing on my autoethnographic reflections, Western dominance has been maintained and naturalized through everyday exclusionary practices in IR discipline. I encountered this exclusionary practice through a gatekeeping question that was often asked during my time as an undergraduate student and researcher in Indonesia: ‘which part of your work is IR?’. This gatekeeping practice is rooted in the larger history of bureaucratization and state co-optation of Indonesian academic community, which is still perpetuated by the government. Nevertheless, this Western epistemic dominance has been resisted through non-academic spaces. Through this contextualized autoethnographic reflections, I offer some rethinking of Global IR project by highlighting internal hierarchy and Western dominance in the discipline of International Relations, as well as resistance against it by non-academic communities.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42818295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-23DOI: 10.1177/03043754231176614
R. Martínez, A. Bueno
The role of the armed forces in Latin America is characterized by their participation in multiple internal missions. These range from security functions to the provision of social, educational, and public services, among others; their role also involves providing emergency relief. However, some of the armed forces involved in this type of mission do not have specialized units or corps. This poses obvious problems not only from a technical and operational point of view, but also from the perspective of civil-military relations and the definition of the roles of armies. Some Latin American countries have looked to the Emergency Military Unit in Spain as an example to follow for the implementation of a civil defense model based on specialized military resources. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold. First, it seeks to explain that the militarization of emergencies does not involve expanding the use of force but that it can become a “wildcard” policy tool instead. Second, it intends to show how the apparent success of the Spanish Emergency Military Unit resulted from some—not always positive—lessons that can be replicated in the armed forces in Latin America.
{"title":"The Militarization of Emergencies: Is the Spanish Model an Example to Be Followed by the Multitasking Armies of Latin America?","authors":"R. Martínez, A. Bueno","doi":"10.1177/03043754231176614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231176614","url":null,"abstract":"The role of the armed forces in Latin America is characterized by their participation in multiple internal missions. These range from security functions to the provision of social, educational, and public services, among others; their role also involves providing emergency relief. However, some of the armed forces involved in this type of mission do not have specialized units or corps. This poses obvious problems not only from a technical and operational point of view, but also from the perspective of civil-military relations and the definition of the roles of armies. Some Latin American countries have looked to the Emergency Military Unit in Spain as an example to follow for the implementation of a civil defense model based on specialized military resources. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold. First, it seeks to explain that the militarization of emergencies does not involve expanding the use of force but that it can become a “wildcard” policy tool instead. Second, it intends to show how the apparent success of the Spanish Emergency Military Unit resulted from some—not always positive—lessons that can be replicated in the armed forces in Latin America.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49239575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-23DOI: 10.1177/03043754231175243
Jorge Eduardo Delgado M, María Emilia Lleras Ronderos
A decade after the start of the peace talks between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) insurgency, the country’s military has not been immune to the polarised debates surrounding the final 2016 peace agreement, particularly as today the country experiences a significant rise in polarisation, social discontent and organised armed violence that is blamed by multiple sectors of Colombian society on the peace agreement itself. This commentary traces the origins and development of recent pro-military narratives in Colombia, explaining how apprehensions by the military to the 2016 peace agreement translated into a ‘stab-in-the-back’ notion, portraying the military as victims of a betrayal by the civilian leadership. The consequence of this narrative has been a galvanisation of the support of various societal actors of the military, including by politicising the military institution, to defend Colombia’s decades-old militarised national security approach.
{"title":"Colombia’s Pro-military Narratives in the Post-peace Agreement","authors":"Jorge Eduardo Delgado M, María Emilia Lleras Ronderos","doi":"10.1177/03043754231175243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231175243","url":null,"abstract":"A decade after the start of the peace talks between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) insurgency, the country’s military has not been immune to the polarised debates surrounding the final 2016 peace agreement, particularly as today the country experiences a significant rise in polarisation, social discontent and organised armed violence that is blamed by multiple sectors of Colombian society on the peace agreement itself. This commentary traces the origins and development of recent pro-military narratives in Colombia, explaining how apprehensions by the military to the 2016 peace agreement translated into a ‘stab-in-the-back’ notion, portraying the military as victims of a betrayal by the civilian leadership. The consequence of this narrative has been a galvanisation of the support of various societal actors of the military, including by politicising the military institution, to defend Colombia’s decades-old militarised national security approach.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65104405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-15DOI: 10.1177/03043754231175241
Florina C. Matei
Although the political landscape of Latin American and the Caribbean region is changing, intelligence democratization remains a constant challenge. The majority of the countries in the region have not achieved a tradeoff between operational effectiveness and democratic transparency and accountability. Militarism and militarization policies and practices—along with weak and ineffective institutions and corrupt, apathetic, and inexpert leaders—greatly contribute to this constant challenge.
{"title":"Intelligence, Militarism, and Militarization in Latin America and the Caribbean Region","authors":"Florina C. Matei","doi":"10.1177/03043754231175241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231175241","url":null,"abstract":"Although the political landscape of Latin American and the Caribbean region is changing, intelligence democratization remains a constant challenge. The majority of the countries in the region have not achieved a tradeoff between operational effectiveness and democratic transparency and accountability. Militarism and militarization policies and practices—along with weak and ineffective institutions and corrupt, apathetic, and inexpert leaders—greatly contribute to this constant challenge.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43774030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-15DOI: 10.1177/03043754231175244
Clarissa N. Forner
This proposal aims to analyze the militarization of US-Latin America foreign relations by discussing the role played by the U.S. Southern Command in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy for the region in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks. Since the last decades of Cold War, civilian and diplomatic agencies stationed in the region, notably the State Department and the USAID, suffered budgetary constraints that were aggravated at the beginning of the Global War on Terror. For instance, in Latin America, the Southcom has been adapted to perform the so called “military missions other than war,” including non-military functions such as the provision of humanitarian assistance, law enforcement, and the management of security assistance programs aimed to dismantle drug trafficking networks. As we intend to argue, the overreliance on security and military means reflects the militarized character of U.S. influence in the region and has impacts on how the local coercive systems are organized and deployed by the domestic political elites. By analyzing the annual posture statements and the initiatives conducted in the field by the Southcom, between 2001 and 2021, we hope to clarify how the violence structures from abroad are connected to those from within.
{"title":"The US Southern Command and the Militarization of US-Latin America Foreign Relations","authors":"Clarissa N. Forner","doi":"10.1177/03043754231175244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231175244","url":null,"abstract":"This proposal aims to analyze the militarization of US-Latin America foreign relations by discussing the role played by the U.S. Southern Command in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy for the region in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks. Since the last decades of Cold War, civilian and diplomatic agencies stationed in the region, notably the State Department and the USAID, suffered budgetary constraints that were aggravated at the beginning of the Global War on Terror. For instance, in Latin America, the Southcom has been adapted to perform the so called “military missions other than war,” including non-military functions such as the provision of humanitarian assistance, law enforcement, and the management of security assistance programs aimed to dismantle drug trafficking networks. As we intend to argue, the overreliance on security and military means reflects the militarized character of U.S. influence in the region and has impacts on how the local coercive systems are organized and deployed by the domestic political elites. By analyzing the annual posture statements and the initiatives conducted in the field by the Southcom, between 2001 and 2021, we hope to clarify how the violence structures from abroad are connected to those from within.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44457960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-13DOI: 10.1177/03043754231163219
Casey McNeill
This paper investigates how modern theories of international security are being revised in relation to a perceived “deterritorialization” of the global security environment. Using the case of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, I examine how geographical imaginaries of security and insecurity are reproduced in relation to non-state, global threats. I show that while the objects to be secured from threats like piracy are interpreted in relation to networked and deterritorialized space, diagnoses of threats themselves, their origins, and their movement, rely on a territorial imaginary of political order. This attributes a one-way spatio-political directionality to global threats, as incubating in zones of local disorder before crossing into the complex, networked space of the global. Drawing on recent research into the territorialization of modern sovereignty and its relationship to European colonization and imperialism, I underscore continuities between contemporary geographical imaginaries of security and threat and those of the early 20th century. This analysis helps make explicit the spatial heuristics that are usually implicit in global security research and highlights the kinds of empirical and political questions that these heuristics sideline. The case of Gulf of Aden piracy foregrounds the material effects of these threat diagnoses, which shape particular geographies of bordering, surveillance, and state and non-state violence.
{"title":"Deterritorialized Threats and the “Territorial Trap”: The Geographical Imaginaries of Piracy in the Gulf of Aden","authors":"Casey McNeill","doi":"10.1177/03043754231163219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231163219","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates how modern theories of international security are being revised in relation to a perceived “deterritorialization” of the global security environment. Using the case of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, I examine how geographical imaginaries of security and insecurity are reproduced in relation to non-state, global threats. I show that while the objects to be secured from threats like piracy are interpreted in relation to networked and deterritorialized space, diagnoses of threats themselves, their origins, and their movement, rely on a territorial imaginary of political order. This attributes a one-way spatio-political directionality to global threats, as incubating in zones of local disorder before crossing into the complex, networked space of the global. Drawing on recent research into the territorialization of modern sovereignty and its relationship to European colonization and imperialism, I underscore continuities between contemporary geographical imaginaries of security and threat and those of the early 20th century. This analysis helps make explicit the spatial heuristics that are usually implicit in global security research and highlights the kinds of empirical and political questions that these heuristics sideline. The case of Gulf of Aden piracy foregrounds the material effects of these threat diagnoses, which shape particular geographies of bordering, surveillance, and state and non-state violence.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44447808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-10DOI: 10.1177/03043754231163019
Luis Gouveia Junior
{"title":"Book Review: Politics of Impunity. Torture, the Armed Forces and the Failure of Transitional Justice in Brazil","authors":"Luis Gouveia Junior","doi":"10.1177/03043754231163019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231163019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42744403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-09DOI: 10.1177/03043754231155763
Malte Riemann
Critical approaches to IR have often been criticized for lacking methodological rigour. Especially, authors informed by the works of Michel Foucault have faced challenges to justify their methodology, given that Foucault did not provide scholars with a methodological blueprint. This article argues that Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach provides a robust critical methodology for policy analysis. WPR is a method that facilitates the critical examination of public policies to analyse ‘how the “problem” is represented within them and to subject this problem representation to critical scrutiny’ (Bacchi, 2012b). This way of questioning differs from other forms of policy analysis in that it shifts the focus of analysis from policy as a ‘problem-solving’ exercise towards seeing policy as an act which is constructive of ‘problems’. Policies are therefore not analysed from a problem-solving perspective, but from a problem-questioning perspective. By making the ‘problem’ itself the focus of analysis, it becomes possible to uncover the political, epistemological and historical contexts which are constitutive of the problem representation. I demonstrate the value of this approach by subjecting the Cure Violence Global NGO to a WPR analysis.
{"title":"Studying Problematizations: The Value of Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) Methodology for IR","authors":"Malte Riemann","doi":"10.1177/03043754231155763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231155763","url":null,"abstract":"Critical approaches to IR have often been criticized for lacking methodological rigour. Especially, authors informed by the works of Michel Foucault have faced challenges to justify their methodology, given that Foucault did not provide scholars with a methodological blueprint. This article argues that Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach provides a robust critical methodology for policy analysis. WPR is a method that facilitates the critical examination of public policies to analyse ‘how the “problem” is represented within them and to subject this problem representation to critical scrutiny’ (Bacchi, 2012b). This way of questioning differs from other forms of policy analysis in that it shifts the focus of analysis from policy as a ‘problem-solving’ exercise towards seeing policy as an act which is constructive of ‘problems’. Policies are therefore not analysed from a problem-solving perspective, but from a problem-questioning perspective. By making the ‘problem’ itself the focus of analysis, it becomes possible to uncover the political, epistemological and historical contexts which are constitutive of the problem representation. I demonstrate the value of this approach by subjecting the Cure Violence Global NGO to a WPR analysis.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41890132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.1177/03043754231155754
M. Amoah
The exacerbation of terrorism in Sahelian West and Central Africa and the presence of foreign legions in aid of counterterrorism has generated research interest in private military companies (PMCs) as legions, including drone legions. This article discusses the French Legion in Mali, PMC Wagner in Central Africa Republic (CAR) and United States (US) drone legions in Sahelian West and Central Africa which is entirely francophone. French Legion disengagements from counterterrorism assignments in Mali and CAR due to increasing operational challenges compounded by policy disagreements with host governments or political disenchantment, also ushered in PMC Wagner, while US drone PMCs provided surveillance and intelligence. The choreography between France’s hard-line policy not to negotiate with terrorists and Mali’s decision to negotiate with terrorists, points to a gradual development across governmental, non-governmental and military circles home and abroad rather than an overnight policy switch against the French. The consensus going forward is a cautious dialogue with the terrorists. Meanwhile, Wagner incursions across Africa have re-ignited Cold War East–West competition for African alliances. With the proliferation of legion presence, African militaries have become actors in the foreign policy agendas of whichever legions they host, whether French, Russian or American. However, there are no guarantees yet that drone operators would protect drone hosts from terrorist backlash.
{"title":"Private Military Companies, Foreign Legions and Counterterrorism in Mali and Central African Republic","authors":"M. Amoah","doi":"10.1177/03043754231155754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231155754","url":null,"abstract":"The exacerbation of terrorism in Sahelian West and Central Africa and the presence of foreign legions in aid of counterterrorism has generated research interest in private military companies (PMCs) as legions, including drone legions. This article discusses the French Legion in Mali, PMC Wagner in Central Africa Republic (CAR) and United States (US) drone legions in Sahelian West and Central Africa which is entirely francophone. French Legion disengagements from counterterrorism assignments in Mali and CAR due to increasing operational challenges compounded by policy disagreements with host governments or political disenchantment, also ushered in PMC Wagner, while US drone PMCs provided surveillance and intelligence. The choreography between France’s hard-line policy not to negotiate with terrorists and Mali’s decision to negotiate with terrorists, points to a gradual development across governmental, non-governmental and military circles home and abroad rather than an overnight policy switch against the French. The consensus going forward is a cautious dialogue with the terrorists. Meanwhile, Wagner incursions across Africa have re-ignited Cold War East–West competition for African alliances. With the proliferation of legion presence, African militaries have become actors in the foreign policy agendas of whichever legions they host, whether French, Russian or American. However, there are no guarantees yet that drone operators would protect drone hosts from terrorist backlash.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46093951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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