I find the readings this week to shed an interesting light on the relationship between the military and the state. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there has been what seems a perpetual state of conflict in the Middle East region. Many types of conflicts have occurred from internal to external, border skirmishes, civil wars, and invasions. This obviously impacts the state of the military. Additionally, many countries are either ruled by the military or their leaders are/were in the military.
All states in the region have been affected by conflict and much of this is seen in their relationship to their militaries. They built up militaries to protect their new borders. The constant and lingering threat of conflict, however, sustained the acceptance of a big military. Further, Owen argues that the intensity of the conflicts keeps the military in power. In a time of calm and peace, the general population and leaders would not accept the military ruling over all aspects of life. They would see it as intrusive and unnecessary. However, a state that is not only under constant threat but familiar with intense conflict will excuse an overbearing military in exchange for a sense of security. In fact, security in many states (not just in the Middle East) is a term that seems to need no further explanation and justifies all measures. For these reasons, military downsizing has never been considered as threat has not gone away, real or perceived.
I wonder then in this explanation where the line is between experiencing real threat and the idea of Tilly's manufactured threat. It would seem that a country that has experienced several intense conflicts would be easily persuaded of new threats even if they are somewhat exaggerated to legitimize some government action. In other words, a country of people familiar with the feeling of fear would be easier to convince that some measure is necessary in order to protect them (referring back to Tilly).
I agree with you Peighton, that attempting to distinguish between real and manufactured threats in MENA is problematic. On one hand, regional instability forces governments to maintain strong military and security forces if they hope to keep such instability from spilling over from neighboring states. On the other, militaries that have a large stake in the rule of a country don't necessarily have the incentives to pursue policies that attempt to mitigate regional security, for the reasons you mention.
ReplyDeleteThe matter is further complicated by the lack of transparency in many of these military regimes. Without knowledge of the internal decision-making process or the information available to these states, I think opinions on the legitimacy of various security threats are likely to be influenced by one's own political beliefs and judgements.
According to one of this week's readings (the author of which I can't recall), militarization has been an issue even when considering circumstances that are implausible. The author uses the example of certain countries citing Israeli military power as a justification for militarization when Israeli defense technologies are actually unable to be extended over such a distance. While there's still much to be discovered about military decision-making in many Arab regimes, defense spending as stated above is evidence of an irrational calculus.
ReplyDeleteGiven what the author says about Israel's defense technology radius it might be almost too easy to classify other governments' defense spending in reaction to this topic as a manufactured threat. That being said, the nature of the security dilemma is such that governments in MENA and elsewhere are engaged in military enhancement and therefore the line between real and manufactured threats may not be perceptible to even the military apparatus in all cases.
Peighton's last two paragraphs are also reminiscent of former President Bush's justification for invading Iraq in 2003. While largely the opposite of Arab career military officers, I wonder how significant of a role former Vice President Cheney's term as Secretary of Defense during the First Gulf War affected his decision to champion the 2003 invasion. Additionally, the United States has and is still engaged in a vigorous debate about the exchange of civil liberties such as privacy for the promise of enhanced national security. With this in mind, I think it would be interesting to see whether citizens of Arab countries would be more likely to label a threat as real or manufactured based on whether the military/paramilitary or the national government provides justification. As we read this week, however, the two are quite intertwined, making any popular assessment a measure of perception but perhaps not reality.
Peighton, I completely agree with you that states have been able to capitalize off of manufactured and exaggerated threats as a result of decades of violence and more recent political developments. Several governments in the region have been able to exert military influence through dramatization of threats recently.
ReplyDeleteLike the comments on this thread have mentioned, Israel has been able to get away with recent overreaches towards both Gaza and Iran under the guise of having "the right to defend themselves." Hamas and Iran's leadership often assert that Israel does not have the right to exist and Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to capitalize on anti-Semitic rhetoric to carry out military actions against the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Iran that are often disproportional or unnecessary. In Egypt, President Sisi has also been able to expand the military police state, carry out attacks in Libya, and impose human rights abuses on civilians through military courts by fear mongering about Islamic fundamentalism.
I find it interesting that many of the comments here, which I find myself agreeing with, focus on the manufactured threats. We've all gotten so used to states justifying the use of force due to a perceived threat than when examined closely does not hold up under close scrutiny or over time is proven false. However, with the seeming constant conflicts over the past couple years (Arab Spring, terrorist attacks, Gaza war, ISIS, etc) is the threat really that manufactured? Or do we need to consider that the threat is larger than we are willing to admit? This is something I'm not sure about as the manufactured threats are such a problem, but something I think we should consider and discuss.
ReplyDeletePeighton I like that you bring up the concept of manufactured threats in your post. I believe there are many nation-states which operate with Tilly's idea of manufactured threats and distinguishing the differences seems to be less and less important for governments as time goes on. We've seen it throughout history that fear mongering is a simple yet effective way for people to achieve what they want and I believe that many of these manufactured threats have slowly evolved into real threats due to presumptious action.
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