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ABSTRACT
A number of recent military practices, including contributions to humanitarian relief and reconstruction, as well as counterinsurgency and stability operations, emphasize socio-economic needs of distant populations as one of the key adversaries in this ‘era of persistent conflict’. Such developments warrant a critical inquiry into the potential normalization of military approaches to societal issues. The aim of the article is to contribute to current discussions on militarization as a social practice through a study of the involvement of military actors in the delivery of humanitarian assistance and aid in Kenya and Uganda. The article zeroes in on three themes in relation to projects implemented by US civil affairs teams: first, how do military personnel make sense of this ‘non-traditional’ military practice; second, what are local recipients’ expectations about the role of the military in societal issues; and, third, what are potential adversary effects of such ‘productive’ interventions in contexts that share a memory of military coercion? If we assume that militarization cannot be untied from questions of institutionalized coercion, and if the inquiry to be followed is process- and context-oriented, then attention needs to be directed to potential coercive moments engendered in the context of interventions presented as being benevolent. I assert that it is through a careful study of mundane military practices that we can further add nuance to the concept of militarization in the military-humanitarian realm.
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Development Research; grant number: 348-2013-6274). I would like to express my gratitude to John Bwakali, Arthur Owor, and Salma Mohammed for their tremendous support during the research. I am grateful to the Critical Military Studies reading group at the School of Global Studies, the editors of the special issue, and the anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The US military doctrine 'Operations' is unambiguous in this context: stability operations ‘cannot be something that the Army conducts in “other than war” operations’. Instead, the ‘civil situation’ has to be addressed ‘continuously’ (US Department of the Army Citation2008a, ix). Almost at the same time that the doctrine of stability operations was developed, the US Department of Defense stopped using the term ‘operations other than war’ (Morrissey Citation2015, 610–2).
2. In Kenya alone, civil affairs teams have carried out more than 200 projects related to medical care, water catchment systems, and school upgrades since 2003. Very few empirical studies on these projects exist. Most come from within the US military (Lee and Farrell Citation2011; Piombo Citation2010; Besançon and Dalzell Citation2015; for a comprehensive independent study see Bradbury and Kleinman Citation2010).
3. For a discussion of how civil affairs projects are negotiated under conditions of power differentials, see Bachmann (Citation2017).
4. See for example the forthcoming special issue of Security Dialogue on militarism and security.
5. According to US military doctrine, operations carried out by civil affairs teams aim at enhancing the relations between military forces and civilian authorities as well as non-governmental organizations and local populations in an area of operation. Civil affairs provide the commander with knowledge about civilian tasks, authorities, and populations – ‘influencing the human terrain’ – in order to achieve the overall military mission (US Department of the Army Citation2006, 1–1, see also chapter 3; Joint Chiefs of Staff Citation2011, 53). The tasks most relevant to US civil affairs activities in East Africa are ‘foreign humanitarian assistance’ and ‘nation assistance’. While the former usually designates an immediate disaster response, the latter refers to ‘civil or military assistance’ potentially delivered during all phases of conflict from peacetime to full war, to ‘support a host-nation by promoting sustainable development and growth of responsive institutions. The goal is to promote long-term regional stability’ (US Department of the Army Citation2006, 3–15). Teams consisted of Army civil affairs teams, Navy maritime civil affairs elements, and veterinary as well as medical civil action capacities teams. For the history of civil affairs operations of the US military see Sandler (Citation1994) and Filiberti (Citation1988).
6. This is an estimate made by the author based on numbers in Bradbury and Kleinman (Citation2010) and own calculations for post-2009 projects. Kenya’s northeastern and northern coastal regions are said to be susceptible to extremist radicalization. In addition, they are subject to recurring incursions by al Shabaab, to which the attacks in Mpeketoni in June 2014 and Garissa in March 2015 are testimony. The al-Shabaab attacks in Mpeketoni on 15–17 June 2014 left over 60 people dead. Mpeketoni was arguably targeted because the town has a strong Christian minority in a Muslim majority area due to a large settlement programme, initiated by Kenya’s first president, Kenyatta, in the 1960s. The attack on Garissa University College on 2 April 2015 claimed 148 lives.
7. Drawing on a meeting with members of a US civil affairs team, Kampala, Uganda, 6 April 2013.
8. Drawing on a meeting with members of a US civil affairs team, Lamu, Kenya, 28 April 2013.
9. All names of local interlocutors are pseudonyms.
10. Interview, activist, Northern Uganda, 10 April 2013.
11. Interview, school, Kitgum, Uganda, 10 April 2013; also school, Lira, Uganda, 16 April 2013.
12. Interview, Kauthara Primary School, Lamu County, Kenya, 23 April 2013.
13. For example, interview, Lake Kenyatta Primary School, Mpeketoni, Lamu County, 23 April 2013; Witu Secondary School, Lamu County, 24 April 2013.
14. Interview, veterinarian, Northern Uganda, 13 April 2013.
15. Interview, Lake Kenyatta Primary School, Mpeketoni, Lamu County, 23 April 2013.
16. Interview, Women’s Group, Matondoni, Lamu County, 29 April 2013.
17. Interview, Mokowe Arid Lands Primary School, Mokowe, Lamu Country, 23 April 2013.
18. Interview, Kauthara Primary School, Lamu County, 23 April 2013.
19. Note that while northeastern Kenya, comprising the counties of Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa, was the focus of early US civil affairs engagement, I was, for security reasons, not able to visit project sites in this region. I will therefore mainly draw on existing historical literature. This region, where the majority of the population is Kenyan Somali, has long been contested between Somali and Kenyan nationalists. Under British colonial rule the region was referred to as the ‘Northern Frontier District’. The name points to a zone in which the authority of the sovereign (colonial power or postcolonial state) is not consolidated and therefore is a place of potential violence (for an Agambean discussion of the frontier in relation to Ethiopia’s Ogaden region see Hagmann and Korf Citation2012).
20. A state of exception for the northeastern province was in place for most of Kenya’s postcolonial history and was only lifted in 1991. Furthermore, Somali-speaking Kenyans were forced to carry a specific identity card to make them eligible to access services, a practice that further contributed to the precariousness of citizenship for the Kenyan Somali population (Lochery Citation2012).
21. Most of the projects which were visited for this study were carried out during this humanitarian exercise.
22. Interview, activist, Northern Uganda, 23 April 2013.