Remote warfare as “security of being”: reading security force assistance as an ontological security routine

ABSTRACT

This article analyses remote warfare from an ontological security perspective, arguing that remote warfare needs to be understood as a response to states’ internal self-identity needs. We develop this claim by analysing an emerging aspect of remote warfare: Security Force Assistance (SFA). SFA is aimed at building up the security forces of partners, sharing best practice, assisting in security sector reform, fostering collaboration, and overall contributing to conflict resolution. Focusing on the UK, we show how and why ontological security needs are a driving force behind the UK’s SFA program. We outline the UK’s specific autobiographical narrative, which we call a “global engagement identity,” explore the crises that induced ontological insecurity, and show how the UK’s SFA program can be read as a routinised foreign policy practice aimed at taming uncertainty and reinforcing ontological security. This paper makes three contributions. First, it analyses remote warfare through an ontological security framework, thereby moving the focus from “security-as-survival” to “security-of-being.” Second, it highlights the importance of SFA as a remote warfare tool. Third, it shows the centrality of ontological security in understanding UK defence policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Security force assistance
• Remote Warfare
• Ontological Security
• State Identity
• British Foreign
• Defence Policy

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Rubrick Biegon, Tom Colley, Anisa Heritage, Vladimir Rauta, Wg. Cdr. Harold Simpson, Luca Trenta, Tom Watts, the participants at the European Security Force Assistance and the Rise of Great Power Competition workshop organized by the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and the Netherlands Defense Academy, as well as the two anonymous reviewers whose comments improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. SFA has been a cornerstone of Cold War defense policies but its importance waned after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (see e.g. Paterson 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Malte Riemann

Malte Riemann, PhD is a senior lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading. His research interests lie in the privatisation of war and its effects on the state’s legitimate monopoly on violence, historical sociology, and the relationship between public health and conflict. His work has been published in various peer-reviewed journals, including Journal for Global Security Studies, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Critical Public Health, RUSI Journal, and Peace Review, and he most recently published a monograph in German on the transformation of war titled Der Krieg im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert (Kohlhammer Verlag, 2020).

Norma Rossi

Norma Rossi, PhD is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading. Her research focuses on the co-production of authority and subjectivity at the intersection between legal, political, and social dimensions with a specific focus on war and security. She has published in various peer-reviewed journals including Global Crime, Small Wars Journal, Journal of Civil Wars, E-IR, and Peace Review. She most recently published a chapter in Law, Security and the Perpetual State of Emergency (Palgrave MacMillan 2020)