Spaces at the intersections of militarism and humanitarianism

This special issue of Critical Military Studies addresses the ways that militaries engage with humanitarianism as well as the militarization of humanitarianism. The contributions each bring different critical perspectives to these issues, but all assert the need to understand the historical-geographical context of these relations, and how they produce and reproduce space and place. As Matthew Rech et al. have argued, spatial approaches to critical military studies address how ‘war, armed conflict, militarism, militarization, military activities, and military institutions, organizations and capabilities [are] both geographically constituted and geographically expressed’ and how this impacts on both people and places (Rech et al. 2015, 49, 57). The papers in this special issue tackle the political stakes of military humanitarianism by undertaking rigorous analysis that is attuned to historical context, as well as spatial relations at various scales, e.g. local, national, international (Woodward 2014). They attend to space from a variety of perspectives – of war and peace; of battlefield and homefront; of soldier and civilian; of danger and vulnerability; of reconstruction and development; of intervention and resistance; of routinization and exception – and the spatial imaginaries that inform each of these characterizations. And in so doing, the papers provide a rich understanding of the actors, institutions, techniques, and practices that are assembled to legitimize and normalize violence and conflict.

This special issue builds on the emerging work that has sought to think through the spatial dimensions of militarism and humanitarianism (e.g. Gregory 2010; Bryan 2015; Lopez, Bhungalia, and Newhouse 2015). In turn, this work builds upon a much broader scholarship that interrogates militaries, militarism, and humanitarianism, and where they intersect. Some of this critique has been levied at the co-optation of humanitarian discourse in the justification of interventions and war (Zehfuss 2012). For instance, the US-led war on terror was partially justified in humanitarian terms, with the plight of women under the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan seemingly rendering the military intervention of Operation Enduring Freedom a moral imperative (Hunt 2002). As scholars have shown, along with such moral invocations, humanitarianism and the related idea of human security have emerged in the international community as causes that can legitimate military interventions and war, particularly through the emergence of the mandate of Responsibility to Protect (Barnett 2011; Fassin 2011). Along with such practices that draw on moral discourses to justify geopolitical intervention, humanitarian law has been employed to facilitate and moderate violence in warfare. Eyal Weizman (2011) has highlighted that international humanitarian law is implicated in the biopolitical calculation of collateral damage, which determines the appropriate, legal number of lives that can be lost in a military attack. However, the growing entanglement of militarism and humanitarianism is not limited to the justification of warfare and the facilitation of violence. More and more militaries are at the forefront of responses to humanitarian crises, from enhanced security in response to the movement of displaced peoples, to logistical support for humanitarian responses to crises and emergencies, and to the co-optation of humanitarianism in practices of warfare. Examples include the Ebola pandemic in 2014 and the Haitian Earthquake of 2010, which prompted large-scale responses from the US military, with personnel dispatched to offer logistical support and to administer aid. Alongside these direct engagements with humanitarian crises and emergencies, western militaries have incorporated humanitarian practices into their efforts – what Joe Bryan (2015) has termed the use of humanitarianism as war by other means.

The papers in this special issue interrogate these various ways that the military has embraced humanitarianism, for, as scholars increasingly argue, the political stakes are high. Despite the humanitarian narratives that drove the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Kosovo (1998–1999) and Libya (2011), for example, these military engagements resulted in mass civilian casualties and deaths, and though fought in the name of humanitarianism and humanity, they were wars where, paradoxically, civilians were killed in order to be saved (Jabri 2007; Zehfuss 2012). The moral technologies of humanitarian law, Weizman argues, ‘have become the means for exercising contemporary violence and for governing the displaced, the enemy and the unwanted’ (Weizman 2011, 4). Similarly, Khalili (2013, 7) highlights the consequences of the growing inclusion of humanitarian law in western practices of warfare, arguing that ‘if policy makers think that war can be waged more humanely, they may choose to wage war more often’. Furthermore, the overlapping work of humanitarian organizations and militaries has also led to a reconfiguring of practices of humanitarian aid on the ground. As Fassin and Pandolfi (2010, 13) have argued, disasters and conflict are equated behind the moral discourse of humanitarianism, prompting military intervention or militarized responses, and leading to the ‘naturalization – or depoliticization – of war’. This militarization of humanitarianism has led to a blurring of the lines between war and peace, paradoxically facilitating military operations in the guise of aid and care. Weizman (2011, 52) noted that this has led belligerents ‘to construe aid workers as enemies, an integral part of the occupying force’, rendering them more vulnerable to attack and violence. As a result, there is what Mark Duffield (2012) has termed a bunkerization of the aid industry, with the presence of humanitarian organizations becoming increasingly fortified in conflict zones, further tying them to security actors.

These analyses undermine the prominent framings of humanitarianism that suggest a coherent collection of practices of aid and care that are driven by a moral, neutral desire to ‘do good’ and an apolitical compassion for the suffering of others (Barnett 2011; Edkins 2003; Skinner and Lester 2012). Rather, they align with Barnett’s critique that today humanitarianism is the foundation for an expanding assemblage of institutions and actors, representing what Barnett (2011, 8) has identified as a sphere of global governance that is ‘increasingly public, hierarchical, and institutionalized’, and which is always implicated in wider market and state practices (Reid-Henry 2013). Although it may be well intentioned and can provide critical support during crises, Fassin argues that humanitarianism is fundamentally a politics of life and a tactic of population management and regulation, apparent, for instance, in the provision of medical care and through the establishment of camps during crises and disasters. In this, vulnerable populations and bodies are taken as the objects of intervention, with humanitarianism functioning to encourage life that has been neglected and exposed to death. However, uneven power relations lie at the centre of these practices: as Fassin argues, humanitarian reason prioritizes certain lives over others, while, likewise, certain causes are championed over others, giving lie to the moral narrative of the commonality of human life at the centre of humanitarian discourse (see also Duffield 2007; Dillon and Reid 2009; Butler 2009; Pugliese 2013). This biopolitical divide that underpins humanitarianism is grounded in the colonial and imperial history of liberalism (Lowe 2015) – a complex legacy that is frequently obscured in humanitarian discourse. Military-humanitarian interventions perpetuate this biopolitical divide further, with military-humanitarian interventions in the name of humanity ‘re-enacting rather than overcoming the colonial relation, as the problem rather than the solution’ (Zehfuss 2012, 868).

The papers in this special issue take up these matters in various ways. In his paper on the practices of US military civil affairs teams in Uganda and Kenya, Jan Bachman addresses the incorporation of humanitarian practices by the US military, and explores the coercion and violence implicit in military actions that is often obscured by humanitarian practices. Drawing on interviews with military civil affairs personnel, along with local stakeholders in health and education, the paper highlights the creeping militarization of humanitarianism that has characterized the ongoing global war on terror, and illustrates the violent implications that are hidden by benevolent framings. Jennifer Greenburg’s paper also takes up the overlap between counterinsurgency and humanitarianism in US military circles, and focuses on the colonial legacies that contemporary counterinsurgency strategies are founded upon. Through ethnographic observations of a Marines Civil Affairs classroom, where case studies of counterinsurgency in Haiti are presented to the class, Greenburg illustrates the enduring links between colonial practices of control and contemporary military-humanitarian practices, tying historical spaces of colonialism to contemporary spaces of imperialism. Similarly, the historical context of military-humanitarian practices is addressed by Kevin Gould in his paper on US counterinsurgency policy during the Guatemalan civil war in the 1960s. Drawing on extensive archival research, the paper examines the role of US and Guatemalan militaries in infrastructure projects that were a central dimension of a broader violent counterinsurgency campaign. This intervention traces the roots of contemporary military practices to this Cold War-era engagement, and highlights a historical precedent that is frequently overlooked in discussions of militarized humanitarianism in the war on terror.

Although grounded in historical legacies of violence, there have been shifts in the character of contemporary counterinsurgency and military-humanitarian practices. As the humanitarian industry has grown in the last three decades, so too have civilian humanitarian organizations been further incorporated into practices of warfare (Bell 2011). This was particularly notable with Colin Powell’s identification of civilian humanitarian actors as ‘force multipliers’ at the beginning of the war on terror, and remains prominent today, with the practices and policies of certain civilian organizations intertwined with those of militaries. Killian McCormack’s paper explores this growing role of the civilian sphere in the humanitarian practices of the US military. Focusing on the overlap between the work of the US military, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the State Department, the paper examines the influence of the civilian sphere on military practices, both through civil–military humanitarian operations and a growing focus on citizenship and the citizen in policy. The paper argues that this inclusion of the civilian sphere not only adds legitimacy to military activities, but contributes to the processes of territorialization that underpins them.

The increasing overlap between civilian and military spheres points to a broader trend in the militarization of humanitarianism, where militaries not only draw upon humanitarian practices in war, but also respond to humanitarian crises. This has involved peacekeeping activities, logistical support, and, increasingly, the provision of security. Glenda Garelli and Martina Tazzioli’s paper deals with this through their study of the securitization of migration in response to the ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Focusing on the naval operations of the EU and NATO in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas respectively, they argue that militarized humanitarianism is employed as a technique of population regulation and containment. Driven by discourses of migrants as risky subjects and subjects at risk, these military responses are framed as an offensive biopolitical move in the hybrid warfare on migrants. The growing reach of militaries and militarism beyond ‘traditional battlefields’ is also taken up by Francis Massé, Elizabeth Lunstrum and Devin Holterman. Bridging the gap between critical military studies literature and political ecology literatures, their paper discusses how anti-poaching conservation efforts in Mozambique and South Africa have increasingly involved practices inspired by ‘soft’ counterinsurgency tactics and military-humanitarian practices. In what they term the conservation–security–development nexus, they show how practices that target the ‘hearts and minds’ of communities are employed alongside militarized conservation forces in an effort to undermine poaching.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Fund of Shandong Province, China (No. ZR2012DM014) and the People’s Livelihoods Science and Technology Project of Qingdao, Shandong Province, China (13-1-3-73-nsh).