Defence Reform since 1990

i Briefs in Environment, Security, Development and Peace (ESDP) Vol. 13 ___________________________________________________________________________ ii For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/10970 http://www.afes-press-books.de/html/SpringerBriefs_ESDP.htm http://www.afes-press-books.de/html/SpringerBriefs_ESDP_13.htm iii Peace, Security and Development Issues in Africa, Europe and Latin America iv 5 7 Chapter 8 Assessing Defence Reform since 1990 Colin Robinson Abstract Defence reform (DR) was one of the most important original components of security sector reform (SSR). It has innate contractions: between fundamental Western assumptions (such as the liberal peace project) and local values and the tension between major-power national strategic interests and local aims, From 1990, DR programmes have frequently focused on effectiveness, not accountability, based on Western major power interests. But DR processes are difficult and involve significant political challenges, so quick results are virtually impossible. Taking the long view is important. Ahead, the best results for accountability, effectiveness, and sustainability are likely to be via abandoning attempts to intervene for national strategic interests, and only initiating programmes slowly in short steps, when interveners’ and recipients’ values are already closely aligned. Keywords: Defence reform, security sector reform, national strategic interest, armies, Development, Africa, army reconstruction, national security strategy, organisational effectiveness, accountability, democratisation. 8.1 Introduction Defence reform (DR) involves making defence institutions more effective and accountable. Yet little has been done to comprehensively catalogue and assess DR efforts since the world affairs began to shake off the ashes of the Cold War. It is frequently associated with security sector reform (SSR). SSR itself, evolving from ground-breaking theorising in 1997-98, is usually seen as efforts to try and build effective and accountable security actors and institutions (ISSAT, 2011: 6). The then UK International Development Secretary, Clare Short, launched the term “security sector reform” in a speech of 13 May 1998.1 The principles and practices of the developed world formed the conceptual starting point for both SSR and DR. To make DR programmes part of SSR, they have to aim to enhance both accountability and effectiveness. This vastly reduces the number of programmes that can be considered as SSR. Without thorough democratic accountability, defence assistance programmes continually run the risk of only training better oppressors. This chapter will survey DR since 1990, first tackling reforms that do not accord with SSR’s goals of effectiveness and accountability, looking at post-authoritarian states, developing states, and states in conflict and post-conflict states in turn. DR shows evidence of two major internal contradictions. Firstly, the whole of SSR is part and parcel of the wider liberal peace agenda. The liberal peace underpinning is supremely 1 Clare Short, “Security, development, and conflict prevention”, speech at Royal College for Defence Studies, London, 13 May 1998. The Center for International Policy and Saferworld together coined the term before the speech. Saferworld hosted a seminar, “Security Sector Reform in Developing Countries”, the same month, and were heavily involved in developing the overall SSR concept. 8 important, so much so that in many discussions it is internalised and accepted virtually without thought (Sedra, 2017, 20-51). The liberal peace can be understood as comprising democraticisation, the rule of law, human rights, free and globalized markets, and neo-liberal development (Richmond, 2006: 292). It “..looks as if it is trying to remake [developing states] in the donors’ own images and according to their models of development.” 2 These fundamentally different ideas often conflict with the values of the peoples in the places where DR is attempted (Hills, 2000: 55). The challenge for both SSR and DR is that after nearly thirty years of sustained effort since 1990, the ambitious ideas of the liberal peace seem virtually impossible to implement. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, state-building efforts have fallen short, with insufficient resources, political will, and staying power to overcome the resistance of locals. SSR itself faces an existential crisis; in its orthodox form, it is largely impossible, because it is so alien to the countries in which it is tried. Second, armed forces are the ultimate instrument of the national strategic interest. Their use by major aid donor countries to build partners’ capability creates major local ownership challenges. Promoting local ownership – shaping and driving efforts by indigenous instead of outside actors – is a central challenge for SSR. Much of DR is motivated by outsiders’ national strategic interests, which reduces meaningful local ownership. For example, DR in Afghanistan and Iraq was motivated by U.S. “war on terror” concerns. This outside interest tends to devalue SSR, instead prioritizing other goals. Programmes frequently have their direction determined by the security problems pressing upon national elites. But elite consensus may not lead to the broad-based ownership required to assure sustainability. In Narten’s words, “legitimate representatives of the local society” need to have control of programmes (Narten, 2009: 254). Without transfer to such legitimate representatives, any new elites coming into power may halt SSR or DR programmes which do not accord with their political views. Thus building broad-based, legitimate local ownership is critical to making sure programmes are not halted, with their effort wasted. Both SSR and DR, to remain viable policy alternatives, need to be re-orientated much more away from impossible liberal peace aspirations, towards locals’ wishes. The post-authoritarian and developing states are the two environments where “stable” DR is seen. Stability and sustainability are more likely here because politics is less fluid. Thereafter conflict and post-conflict states are examined. The conflict and post-conflict states are where “stabilization” DR occurs. Here change and forced ad hoc responses to events can be frequent. 8.2 Post-authoritarian States DR in the post-authoritarian states of Eastern Europe was the first and closest to democratic societies’ practice. Because NATO and the EU made adherence to democratic civil–military relations a condition for membership (Hendrickson/Karkoszka, 2000: 185), NATO had considerable leverage to force at least some level of DR before candidate accession (Hänggi, 2004: 7). Yet recent research indicates that progress may be limited, hampered significantly by the retention of communist-era military mindsets (Durrell-Young, 2017). Civilian control in Eastern European communist states was a matter of loyalty to the Communist Party, not to the state. The Communist Party was the country’s supreme political authority (Kramer 1984/85: 46). To ensure compliance with party policy, Eastern European communist governments established extensive control and indoctrination networks within the 2 Whitfield, Lindsay, ed. The politics of aid: African strategies for dealing with donors, OUP Oxford, 2008, xiv. 9 armed forces (Kramer 1984/85: 46). This starting situation is relevant because it shows the mentality of the armed forces’ civilian control under the Soviet system. A qualitative change of mind-set was required to reorient the defence sector towards democratic practices. DR’s starting point thus became Eastern European defence establishments in the early 1990s. Few civilians had been involved in military affairs. In Hungary (Yaniszewski, 2002: 389), the Czech Republic (Ulrich, 2002: 409, 414-5) and Slovakia general staffs resisted 1990s’ reforms, protesting the military’s declining power compared to stronger, revitalized MODs that included more civilians. During the 1990s the slow pace of civilian expertise development was a recurring theme of academic comment on post-communist civil–military relations. To move beyond the military-dominated operational and policy advice of the communist era, Western specialists saw that a cadre of civilian experts was important (Jones/Mychajlyszyn, 2002: 378). Reorientation of Eastern European defence forces in the 1990s was traumatic. There was no longer any need to maintain large mechanized armies designed to form part of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Many long-serving personnel were ill prepared to remain under the new conditions. Reorientation to a new era brought “catastrophic declines in funding, massive force reductions … flight of younger officers from service, plummeting morale”, and recruiting problems (Jones/Mychajlyszyn, 2002: 378). Forces were reduced by hundreds of thousands. Resentment from the officers tossed aside, as well as from the bureaucracy, did not speed reforms. Recent research however questions whether significant progress towards NATO standards has actually occurred across Eastern Europe. Former Communist bloc armed forces, only haltingly progressed from the rigid ideological framework that defined them for half a century, continue to exhibit highly centralised decision-making, an absence of critical thinking, the belief in a sole, mathematically derived, ‘solution’ to a planning problem, inadequate defence planning, and actions only allowed if they are specifically sanctioned in law (Durrell-Young, 2016, 4-6). Thus even in the most favourable environment for DR, total transformation has been an elusive goal. While NATO and the EU were able to exert significant leverage, and surface change occurred (Durrell-Young, 2016, 9) deeper change was much more difficult. Many years later, the dilapidated state of the Ukrainian defence forces became clear during the Crimean crisis of 2014. For twenty plus years, inadequately coordinated Ukrainian attempts to reform forces inherited from the Soviet period fell short. Funding dropped precipitously and forces were allowed to atrophy (Gorenburg, 2014). There was little attempt at rearmament to replace ageing Soviet equipment, little to no interservice coordination, and the partial transition from conscript to professional service undermined the unified military culture by promoting regional identities. In response to the separatist crisis in the east, Ukraine re-established the National Guard, part of the Interior Ministry. The variety of volunteer militias the National Guard began to include increasingly informalised the new force. Ukraine’s painful experience emphasizes the role of outside pressure in sustaining DR, and the local ownership dilemmas involved. Without the continued pressure of NATO membership requirements, thoroughgoing reforms had less chance to start properly or gain pace. The political transformations that gave reform so much momentum in Eastern Europe were continually contested by defence forces. But when these transformations achieved significant levels of democratic governance, the accountability built by those changes made DR much more sustainable. This result is backed by recent RAND Corporation research (Paul, et al. 2013) which looked at a wide range of U.S. security cooperation partners since the end of the Cold War. Stability and the expectation of significant levels of sustainable results place the Central and Eastern European states firmly in the “stable” DR category. 10 8.3 Developing States To consider DR properly in developing states, it is important to put the process in historical context. Many of them gained independence after the Second World War, primarily in the 1960s. Compared to the longest-established democratic societies, developing states had far less resources. Personalized, interconnected networks of commerce, politics, ethnicity and mutual interest owned much of the resources that had been under state control in Europe. Their democracies were fragile, and defence forces were often some of the state’s strongest groups. In the developing world the state’s arm was shorter. Due to relatively smaller resources, social and cultural differences and other factors, the state’s monopoly on violence was uneven. Here the state’s security agencies were often minority players in a maze of politicized security and vulnerability. Non-state actors had much greater power. DR has arguably never fully appreciated the magnitude of the difference between the global North and the arenas of the global South into which it was quickly drawn. 8.3.1 Africa Much of the reason for the lack of reform in Africa is the continued preoccupation with state survival and political stability (Wilson/Forrest, 2011: 164-5). Beyond a certain point, African authoritarianism makes reform severely problematic, if not impossible. These existential imperatives greatly reduce the political space available for reform (or, more acceptably, “transformation”) in Africa. Scoping research for this section examined nearly every state on the continent, yet only three states have made (uneven) attempts at achieving accountability. That only three of 54 African states have done so is symptomatic of lack of interest in and opportunity for DR in countries preoccupied with regime survival. Firstly there are states that are democracies that have made significant reforms to improve governance over security forces. South Africa is arguably a case of near-comprehensive SSR, and is examined separately. In this category we also have Ghana and Kenya. In Ghana, the defence force has effectively withdrawn from politics. But further extension of civilian control and reforms has been “uneven and low-key” and “seems to receive uncertain highlevel political support” (Hutchful, 2008: 124). The insertion of a civilian UK adviser for a short period in 2008 had only a temporary effect, as there was no political will to begin structural change (Cleary, 2011: 65). In Kenya, programmes appear to be focused on effectiveness. In both countries, little accountability improvement appears to have been sustained. Secondly, there are developmental states with professional but non-accountable forces. Many such states had been governed for long periods under dominant party systems, such as Botswana (Luckham/Hutchful, 2010: 40). The army’s “features [there] are more reminiscent of the professional armies of the developed West than those of the developing world” (Henk, 2007: 82). Recently declassified 1980s U.S. documents may help explain this sustained climb to capability. They showed some 40 Indian advisers who are “incorporated into normal operations, and occupy key maintenance and training positions” (DIA, 1985). In addition, it appears British Special Forces trained the force from the mid-1980s (Connor, 1998: 407-409). These two sources emphasize the role of outside personnel for Botswana, and with this, Botswana can now be seen as analogous to Oman. Both states were relatively authoritarian, but both developed quite capable armed forces through significant outside assistance. Namibia, Tanzania and formerly Senegal are the other states in this second category. But 11 their relative and uneven professionalism is limited to a lack of an overt role in politics (Luckham/Hutchful, 2010: 40). A third category of states are made up of post-liberation states with defence forces built upon former guerrilla movements. Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Namibia are the clearest examples. These countries represent the very thin end of the democratizing wedge, where authoritarian governments dominate the political space. The opportunity for meaningful DR in these countries is limited and debatable. But the limited foreign involvement in reforms has meant that programmes have almost always been locally owned, with the exception of Namibia’s initial rebuilding in the early 1990s. Ethiopia and Uganda exemplify the limited sustainability of foreign-inspired reforms, even when designed in close cooperation with the recipient partner. After the end of the 30-year Ethiopian civil war in 1991, much reorganization was necessary. A large DDR programme was put in place. Retention of Dergeera personnel in the armed forces, and a somewhat badly perceived campaign against Eritrea, kept potential foreign aid at arm’s length for a time.3 But attitudes in both Ethiopia and the West changed after 2002, and Ethiopia took steps towards reform. Limited UK and U.S. aid was offered. The Ethiopian government deliberately sought additional assistance from other African countries and India. Foreign support for change was strong, but the chief of defence staff, General Samora Yenus, was determined to keep the Ethiopian armed forces indigenous. Samora was quoted in 2009 as saying that his government has been accused of arrogance “for not blindly taking what is on offer”. He told UK scholar-practitioners that he would rather be arrogant than foolish (Cleary, 2011: 52). Eventually Ethiopians did almost all DR themselves (ISSAT, 2010: 5). Defence reforms in Uganda began as a response to an IMF-imposed cap on defence spending in 1999-2000. President Museveni approached British UK International Development Secretary Claire Short to see if donors would lift the cap. The British government agreed to lobby donors, on the condition that Uganda began a defence review process to justify any spending increase (Williams, 2005: 241). Uganda was particularly interested in how a review would address its immediate security challenge – the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency (Hendrickson, 2007: 30-31). The donors’ key issue was budgetary. Six major donors had recently begun to fund the Ugandan budget directly, and did not want significant funding diverted from poverty alleviation. Increased transparency, accountability and efficiency of the use of Ugandan resources might alleviate pressure to raise the defence budget. Thus a defence review process was initiated, and carried out between February 2002 and June 2004 (Hendrickson, 2007: 10). The proposed defence spending for 2004–2005 was significantly higher than in 2003–2004. The government’s priority was security. It believed a higher defence budget was necessary regardless of affordability. Donors wished to balance defence spending with poverty reduction. Donors became concerned that the government’s defence spending did not reflect the efficiency emphasized by the review, and were worried that defence spending would primarily flow to measures designed to enhance UPDF operational capability (Hendrickson, 2007: 67). Donors wanted to see the government making substantive financial management improvements, rather than just buying equipment. The deployment to Somalia in 2007 slowed progress. By acceding to US and UK pressure to contribute there, Uganda reduced the leverage available to donors. Yet operational experience in Somalia acted as a catalyst, inducing further professionalization of the force. Following the review, some changes did occur, including the reorganization of the MOD and army command to create an integrated structure, implementation of a new defence 3 Personal conversation with former British Army officer, 15 August 2013. 12 corporate planning process, and some work on procurement processes.4 Since 2008, defence budgets have continued to rise. In 2013 well-placed observers estimated that the UPDF logistics budget was US$25 million while the training budget was US$5 million. Uganda represents perhaps the most intrusive case of DR undertaken in a non-post-conflict state. It was forced by donors who were contributing up to 50 per cent of the state’s budget – giving them, in some ways, access equivalent to those supporting post-conflict states. In 2016 the results appeared meagre. The review’s transparency and accountability priorities were simply too much and too soon for the current Ugandan government. The review did introduce the concept of defence reform – but reforms must be embedded into recipient partner governments in a locally acceptable fashion. First-category countries that have actually initiated meaningful DR can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The defence accountability agenda is very novel for African states that are much younger than its Western originators. Time elapsed in the march to democratization is significant. Up to 350 years elapsed between the dawn of legislative challenge to executive authority in the UK and the formation of an integrated MOD. Meanwhile the average figure for an African state which achieved independence in the 1960s is about 65 years. Defence accountability is fundamentally inimical to most African states, as it would threaten their leaders’ hold on power. For the few states that are democratizing, promotion of an internal dialogue on defence issues is the best way forward. This would build civilian knowledge and consensus over what role defence should play, to lay groundwork for the future. 8.3.2 Asia and the Pacific Beyond Africa, donors have much less influence to import concepts of democratizing DR (Hendrickson/Karkoszka, 2002: 190). States can be divided into four groups. The first is nearly full democracies; second, countries where DR has good prospects; third, countries where it has poor prospects (including two countries that straddle the developing and post-conflict categories); and fourth, stubborn examples of defence forces retaining their role in politics. At the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s list of “flawed democracies” are Taiwan, Israel and India. Reforms necessary in these states may be more in the nature of adjustments, compared to constant defence accountability crises elsewhere. Yet two of these states face near-existential threats to their existence, which constrains defence debate in a similar way constant crises do in conflict and post-conflict countries. The People’s Republic of China is adamantly opposed to Taiwanese independence, and Israel remains mired in conflict with Palestinian factions, as well as opposing Arab powers further afield. In India needed reforms are hindered by the same kind of parliamentary and civilian–bureaucrat knowledge deficiencies identified above in Africa. This is part of the reason why the three security services have almost undivided control over their internal affairs, with “very little civilian or political oversight” (Mukherjee, 2011: 32). The armed forces’ failure to “reform, restructure, or to revise doctrine” has become increasingly obvious in the past few years (Economist 2018). The second group, where some progress has been made, has similarities with the first group in Africa, and includes Indonesia and the Philippines. Like the African group, the conditions may be coming into place for future meaningful reforms. The fall of Suharto’s regime in Indonesia initially led to several years of significant reforms. Changes were possible all across public life. But after 2006 further progress has proven difficult to make. The military has been convinced of its political role for decades (as the Turkish armed forces were) (Beeson/Bellamy, 2008: 6). There might be little to replace the military if it did try to withdraw (Beeson/Bellamy, 2008: 7). With its deep inroads into the economy and the influence 4 In 2008 Mutengesa and Hendrickson wrote that implementation of the review’s findings seemed unlikely. 13 of the regional commands, there seems little likelihood of the defence force withdrawing to solely military duties. Such a change would represent a profound break with over 60 years of Indonesian history. If one considers a purely Indonesian frame of reference, great steps have been made, but compared to the liberal peace ideal, progress falls well short. The Philippine armed forces have historically defended their entrenched interests. Up until 2008 a series of civilian governments proved “corrupt, incompetent, or simply lacking in the authority and capacity to implement meaningful reform” (Beeson/Bellamy, 2008: 175). But in 2010 a new president was installed, and reform momentum is gathering. The political and public context for reform is much improved, even if little has yet been substantively achieved (see Cruz, 2013: 108-133). In the third group, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka DR have poor prospects. Like the second group in Africa, a number of these defence forces (Malaysia and Singapore) are professional and capable, but there are serious questions about their accountability mechanisms. Singapore’s hybrid democracy retains troubling authoritarian facets. In Sri Lanka, militarization of wider society has increased since the civil war ended in 2009 (Economist, 23 March 2013). In 2013 Bangladesh was described as still not having institutionalized civilian control over its armed forces (Wolf 2013: 4). Straddling the developing and post-conflict categories are Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Timor Leste, where DR has been heavily influenced by external actors, notably Australia. Significant external assistance has been provided to PNG in recent years, including 38 Australian trainers, plus a New Zealand-provided deputy chief of staff (IISS, 2013; NZDF, 2012). External advice aided the 2002–2007 reduction in military force size. Australia has been extensively involved in the country for over a century, yet PNG politicians and senior officers have always retained the final say. At the bottom come Thailand and Pakistan, where defence forces have major stakes in government and are resisting the imposition of civilian control. The imminent issue is civil– military relations. Reforms in Thailand have been limited. Continuing questions include “the informal methods used by the army to influence political processes after its formal exclusion from politics” and its ongoing involvement in the economy (Beeson/Bellamy, 2008: 12). These processes maintain military influence even when the military is not actually running the country’s government. In Pakistan, the defence force still wields enormous influence, and there is no political space for a DR debate. Only a comparatively small group of the countries discussed above are beginning to grapple with DR. Most do not have enough democratic space to create DR entry points. The vast majority of countries in Asia remain authoritarian. What is apparent is that achievements are relatively in line with the very small amount of time that has yet seen concentrated attention on the issue. Donors have far less influence, but when it comes DR might be much more sustainable. 8.3.3 Latin America In most South American states, governments have primarily driven DR priorities by themselves, without donor pressures, producing a variety of unconnected defence-sector-only initiatives. The SSR discourse is not dominant (Scheye, 2010: 3). Comprehensive and integrated reform of civil and security institutions has not taken hold. 5 Instead, accountability improvements have frequently been driven by civil–military relations concerns, often over past military government abuses. Effectiveness improvements have been initiated depending 5 According to Dammert, the term SSR is hardly used, while references to civil–military relations are constant, either explicitly or implicitly. 14 on a state’s particular domestic debate and threat perceptions. They have been dominated by domestic political actors and have been separate, generally disconnected from each other, with most viewed through different conceptual lenses. Latin American DR can be divided into three groups. The first is where, in the words of Pion-Berlin, “overall civil-military relations have immeasurably improved in recent years”, and where most states have civilianized defence staffs and defence organizational structures that maximize civilian control (Pion-Berlin, 2009: 583). These states include Chile, Brazil and Argentina. Clearly in a favourable position is Uruguay, which is the only Latin American state among the 25 full democracies listed by the EIU in 2012. The second category is those states where democratic institutions are reasonably healthy and civilians have significant influence over defence forces. These states sit in the middle of the “flawed democracies” category used by the EIU. Heading this list is Peru, which has had a civilian defence minister since 2006. Since the democratic transition began in Guatemala there have been significant moves to increase civilian control (de Leon, 2006: 63-108) The category also includes the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. Yet these last three states have seen civilian defence ministers much less. The third category includes states which still are vulnerable to military intervention, such as Honduras, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. For example, Ecuador’s defence force became involved in presidential changes in 2000 and 2005 (Pion-Berlin, 2009: 570). Little progress has been made in Latin America. The continent is still struggling with authoritarianism and the aftermath of military rule. As yet there has been little opportunity to move beyond excluding the military from politics, except in a handful of countries such as those mentioned in the first group above. DR in Columbia has been effectively restricted to modernisation (Grabendorff, 2009: 70). Many other states, such as Venezuela and Cuba, remain authoritarian, without adequate political space to begin any real security reforms. Defence forces first need to be effectively removed from politics. Only then can all the other DR areas – from national security councils to parliaments – be properly reinvigorated, to supervise and begin the process of creating democratic accountability. Common themes can be drawn from the state of DR in developing countries worldwide. They are stable enough to expect some level of reform sustainability should politics make it possible. Thus they join the post-authoritarian states in the “stable” defence reform category. The meagre absolute progress made is visible in the small number of states that seem to be open to it – perhaps ten or so across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Regime rather than state defence remains the priority in Africa and Asia. Regarding civilian involvement, the timidity of parliaments coupled with a widespread lack of civilian knowledge of defence (extending to disinterest in some cases) means there is currently little to build upon. Defence issues have, in the main, remained an executive pré carré. This has led often to defence effectiveness being the focus of what cooperation there has been (for example in Kenya). While such “train-andequip” programmes may not leave any sustainable impact, they are easier to initiate than more intrusive defence accountability projects. 8.4 Conflict and Post-conflict States Today the countries that dominate DR are the conflict and post-conflict states, especially since the 2001 terrorist attacks that sparked the “war on terror”. Due to the heavy international influence on the political processes of these states, including financial assistance and often large military intervention forces, major donors have greater leverage here than in either of the other two categories of states. While international involvement may have led to elections being held, other aspects of democracy are often very weak. 15 Conflict and post-conflict countries are generally agreed as having the most accessible reform entry points. Donors have enormous influence. However, even here, entrenched local elites frustrate outsiders’ initiatives. This has been the case in countries like Afghanistan, where the United States has exerted enormous efforts. Faced with powerful demands that institutions be reformed in accordance with Western standards, reform efforts there were superficial, as in the Afghan Army “patron-client networks, structured into competing factions, can [still] be traced down to the lowest levels” (Munch, 2015: 6). Other examples of entrenched elites defying efforts to change the character of defence forces can be found in the DRC, Sierra Leone and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Pressure for change has often been dissipated amid the multiple dilemmas that frustrate state-building. 8.4.1 Modes of Post-conflict Defence Reform The three modes of DR most often seen in states experiencing conflicts are military mergers between previously warring factions, the institutionalization of a single liberating faction and the creation of an entirely new defence force. Each has different implications for defence accountability. One of the earliest recognizable cases of post-conflict defence reconstruction started after the Addis Ababa peace agreement that ended the Sudanese civil war in 1972 (LeRiche, 2014: 38-41). The agreement included the incorporation of the former Anyanya rebels into the Sudanese Army. Since then most post-conflict defence reconstruction has involved such “military mergers”. This approach brings a majority of the demobilizing groups into the new armed forces, and then attempts to professionalize them. “Military merger” is politically attractive, is a confidence-building measure, and effectively extends time available for the DDR process.6 After Sudan the technique was used in Zimbabwe from 1980, Namibia after March 1990, South Africa in the 1990s and Mozambique. From the mid-1990s similar “military mergers” began to take place in Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone and Burundi. Côte d’Ivoire also followed this pattern. From 2002–2003 three far less successful programmes also began. A half-variant is institutionalizing liberating forces, which has taken place in Timor Leste and Kosovo. However, these two states show especially worrying accountability issues, with ambiguous links between the new defence forces and political actors. Since 1972 the critical importance of a peace accord has been reaffirmed time and again. The extent to which the liberal peace agenda intrudes on the gritty realities of survival in a post-conflict environment varies. Peace accords may have to paper over the cracks in a state bitterly divided (Sudan in 2005, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Sudan) or with indifferent loyalties from its citizens (Afghanistan). Incentivizing soldiers to fight by tying them to a greater whole is very important. Napoleon’s conviction that “the moral to the physical is three to one” is one of many ways this has been expressed through history. But if the state itself is splintered, this can be very difficult. In Zimbabwe, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone and Burundi the defence forces initially created were unsustainably large. There were many, primarily political, factors preventing their proper reorientation to sizes more suited for current defence needs. One of the most important is the concern with future political stability, which appears to trump concerns about accountability or effectiveness where major donors are significantly involved. Some armies, however, have been deliberately too small (Liberia), while in other cases a temporary disciplined service (South Sudan, Kosovo) has been created as an interim solution. 6 Discussion with Dennis Blease, 20 February 2009 16 The “de novo” approach demobilizes all existing armed groupings and starts again from square one with a new state army. All prospective soldiers have to meet high entry standards. The resulting force is well positioned to be of reasonable quality. This policy has been applied in Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia (though via contractors in the last case). The fighters left out of the process constitute an ongoing security threat, however, and the efforts were influenced more by U.S. national security interests than defence accountability. Any emphasis on accountability was “superseded by a singular focus on training and equipping defence forces” (Sedra, 2006: 95). In both Afghanistan and Iraq the emphasis has been on raising and training soldiers to put units into the field. Attention to the ministry level, rather than the army itself, seems to have been decidedly secondary. The same factors were at work in the DRC. Isolation of DR from wider SSR is particularly evident in “de novo” cases. The isolation of army reforms from other SSR activities in Liberia was the result of several converging factors. First, the U.S. assessments of rebuilding needs were solely focused on the armed forces, and other security institutions were not included.7 Partially as a result of these factors, no thorough defence review process took place before the shape of the force was agreed upon. Initially DynCorp was contracted only to give basic training to 2,000 personnel, and planning for what would happen afterwards was not fully fleshed out. There was no ability for the later NSS process to alter the DynCorp programme, which was dictated by the terms of the contract. Similar challenges were evident in Afghanistan and Iraq. The intensive vetting programme that DynCorp ran in Liberia showed the potential of thorough vetting to exclude trainees who might have been guilty of war crimes. Despite the extensive effort it absorbed, the programme was much lauded (ICG, 2009). However, Liberia was creating a very small army. Opportunities to invest a large amount of resources into so few soldiers are uncommon, as the DynCorp programme in Liberia was disproportionally well funded. When armies of tens or even hundreds of thousands are being refashioned, it is much more difficult to vet every soldier. Political pressures to accept entrants from favoured ethnic groups often also impinge. Seemingly the only way to maintain some competence amid countries in chaos is to provide significant support on the ground, such as in the 1970s and 1980s in Zaire. 8 This usually only provides a temporary capability, but in some cases this capability may be deemed worth the investment it requires: witness the U.S. willingness to recommit advisers again to Iraq in late 2014 (Reuters, 30 October 2014). The Iraqi Army showed a range of significant weaknesses despite the enormous U.S. assistance effort from 2004 onwards. Senior U.S. military personnel must be well aware of the limitations of the training their soldiers have attempted to provide. Surely they appreciate that a long-term improvement in effectiveness is very difficult to achieve. Some experts argue that to build effective defence forces in Arab societies, a political transformation is required (Kandil, 2012: 191-2, 232). It seems very likely that U.S. officials are willing to accept a short-term, immediate effect. The force they advise may be maintained at some level of adequate capability, and this may be enough. The political trade-offs surrounding assistance programmes also often constrain advisers’ abilities to produce medium- and long-term effects. U.S. fiscal resources have been 7 E-mail from U.S. participant, 12 June 2008 Following the severe Zairean weaknesses made plain by the two Shaba conflicts of 1977 and 1978, Belgium and France each began to sponsor an individual combat brigade. (Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (Madison, WI: Wisconsin University Press, 1985, p. 268)). They were provided with advisers, and were islands of relative professional competence while the remainder of the armed forces was in a state of advanced collapse. These units were capable, to a degree, of being able to conduct operations. But as the advisers were withdrawn in the late 1980s, the brigades’ potential disappeared. Contact with former NCO with USDAO Kinshasa, e-mail correspondence, 8 April 2010. 8 17 sufficient, historically, to maintain advisers in a variety of forms all around the world for decades. When advisers are constantly addressing any regression in capability, it may not matter that deeper cultural change can be nigh-impossible. Constant effort delivers the required results. This provides one possible answer as to why U.S. military advisory efforts continue despite sometimes very poor effects: because they produce short-term results. Thus DR efforts persist in states in conflict even in the absence of clear success, for at least three main reasons. First, it eases the burden on major powers’ own military forces. Where military threats are addressed by partner states through DR, major powers’ own forces are less committed.9 Second is the preparatory value to major-power defence forces of military–military engagement. The corporate–institutional interests of defence forces benefit from contact with other forces. Third, especially for the United States a short-term, immediate effect may be worth the investment. Other factors include overoptimistic thinking and the “CNN effect” – the belief that “something must be done”.10 These factors together remind one strongly of the Cold War imperatives for defence assistance. Before 1989 defence assistance was often aimed at gaining the allegiance of strategically located states. It served a primarily political, rather than military, purpose. The world has changed significantly since 1989. But in 2016 continuities are more important than any change. Governments, defence ministries and defence forces continue to use their military resources to achieve political aims, without necessarily engaging in combat. 8.5 Experiences with DR as Part of Broader SSR Programmes Sustainable defence reforms, focused on governance, remain rare exceptions (Ball, 2014: 1719). This contrasts with the continuing large number of security assistance initiatives that have been launched, shaped by major-power national strategic interests. This situation makes it even more important to identify and explore best practices for improved governance of the security sector. Two country experiences stand out as the nearest that has so far been achieved to comprehensive SSR (Williams, 2005: 233). South Africa and Sierra Leone both saw a major crisis, in the form of the South African transition to democracy and the British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000. Only the extent of those crises made possible the very invasive interventions that transformed virtually all security institutions in both states. There was foreign support, including significant funding in the Sierra Leone case and deployment of foreign advisers in South Africa; enough of a domestic political consensus to make change possible over a lengthy period; bureaucratic infrastructure; and significant resources. Such opportunities are uncommon. In 2009 a programme which aims at some comprehensiveness began in Burundi. The slower-paced Burundi programme, which explicitly addresses the political aspects of change, appears to foreshadow better future opportunities. In South Africa DR meant the integration of other forces into the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF), and later change within the MOD, where the drafting of the 1996 defence white paper also involved wide consultation with parliament and civil society (Nathan, 2007: 96-98). The defence white paper later led to much wider-ranging changes. From 1994 the SADF began to incorporate six other forces: former black guerrilla fighters and the “homeland” armed forces (IISS, 1995: 1-2). This process melded very disparate 9 I am grateful to Nicole Ball for emphasising this point. E-mail, 28 November 2015. E-mail from New Zealand scholar–practitioner, 19 December 2015. 10 18 elements into what has not been an easy partnership. Many of the rank and file of the other six forces were effectively absorbed into the structures of the old SADF (IISS, 1995: 122). The former apartheid leadership continued to dominate. This domination only declined after nonSADF officers started returning from training courses and the white paper process began to show effects. Throughout the reform process there was a strong commitment to consultation within and beyond the government, including civil society (IISS, 1995: 123, 94-97). Submissions on the defence white paper were invited and received from a wide variety of people, from military officers to environmental groups and human rights organizations. As a result of the transformative nature of the white paper, a thorough defence review was required; this was launched in June 1996. Here again, owing to the positive comment that the consultative nature of the white paper had attracted, workshops and other consultative arrangements were included in the review process (Nathan, 2007: 97-98). Contested disputes were resolved through discussion and, where necessary, reference to international expert opinion (Bryden, 2007: 22). The political success in South Africa led to a decline in defence effectiveness. Political reorientation had significant negative effects during the transition. Since 1994 many competent white personnel have left, due to the affirmative action imperatives now operating within the force (Heitman, 2010). The field organization of the army was changed with the creation of “type” formations, to impede any Afrikaner coup. In doing so combat effectiveness was reduced (Baker, 2007). Growing problems with finance, morale and discipline hampered retention of capability (especially in small, skilled units) (Wessels, 2010: 6). At a more fundamental level, the disdain for black education shown for decades by the apartheid government had serious effects. The declining quality of South African education is affecting force quality, which will have knock-on effects on training and education as new recruits enter the force (Economist, 2012; South African confidential source). There have been repeated public reports of crisis (e.g. Townsend, 2010; Heitman, 2007). A second defence review process developed episodically from 2007. The resulting review, approved in 2014, promised reorganization to address some of the problems left from the previous review, and significant new funding. In the long term these effectiveness issues are less important than recently rising questions of accountability, applicable to South African governance as a whole. Reforms left defence oversight, especially parliamentary oversight, very weak in comparison to the executive (Nathan, 2007: 98). More widely, the African National Congress (ANC) still maintains a firm grip on power. But the ANC has begun to show more and more similarities with the average new African state of the 1960s, vulnerable to mismanagement. From 2012 ANC corruption and a controversial secrecy law have underscored the risk to democracy posed by corruption and government mismanagement (Economist, 2015). The South African reforms were primarily driven by insiders. The first test case of a comprehensive internationally driven programme to reform the security sector was Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leonean process commenced in the late 1990s, and had a major effect on how SSR itself was conceptualized (Hendrickson/Karkoszka, 2002: 198-199). The UK began its intervention in 2000 in an unexpected and unplanned manner, amid ineffective state institutions that were in near-total collapse (Albrecht/Jackson, 2014: 95). The armed forces especially were seen as a potential continuing source of instability (Albrecht, 2009: 2). This was a major reason why initial activities aimed to strengthen the defence ministry, increase the number of civilians within it, and begin the formulation of a new national security policy. From 1999 onwards a series of independent military, police and central national security programmes were put in place. But until early 2005 there was no coordinating strategy to link 19 the various parts of the security sector together (Albrecht/Jackson 2009: 118-121). A security sector review began in August 2003, with consultation with civil society playing a prominent role. By 2005 the review was providing input to the formulation of Sierra Leone’s poverty reduction strategy paper. From 2005 implementation began, but high-level interest in the newly established national security architecture started to wane (Albrecht/Jackson 2009: 127130). The effectiveness of the coordinating Office of National Security (ONS) led to it developing into a “de facto Cabinet Office”, encroaching on other departments’ proper spheres.11 In the absence of effective ministerial and parliamentary oversight at that time, this made the ONS potentially vulnerable to political misuse (Albrecht/Jackson 2009: 158-162). While the process from 2007 was well coordinated institutionally, it may not have had equal levels of ministerial and parliamentary oversight. The system that had been created was seen as competent. Thus by 2006 there was minimal parliamentary oversight because MPs assumed that “the British were looking after security” (Albrecht/Jackson 2024: 96). Oversight would have been possible if it was seen as necessary, but security was viewed as having been “fixed” already (Albrecht/Jackson 2009: 127-128). More importantly, the Sierra Leonean army appears financially unsustainable. Most observers agree that it is too large (Söderberg Kovacs, 2014: 205-206). Circa 2012–2014 the country was heavily dependent upon donors for ongoing budget support, equipment and vehicles, across many departments, and for virtually its entire capital budget (Albrecht/Jackson, 2014: 97). Thus for different reasons all the SSR efforts, including DR, in Sierra Leone appear to have lacked significant oversight and be increasingly fiscally unsustainable. In 2009, the Burundi–Netherlands Security Sector Development (SSD) programme was launched (Ball, 2014). Strengthening security accountability was a specific focus. The politics involved in the programme were constantly discussed, a long-term approach was taken, with a broad, eight-year memorandum of understanding, and it was flexible in terms of both aims and structure. Trust was fostered by initially providing tangible benefits desired by the Burundi Defence Force and police, such as training drivers and mechanics. At the same time, the opportunities to address more fundamental political change issues were assessed (Ball, et al. 2012: 36; Ball 2014: 26). In 2010 the Burundi government decided to begin a defence review (Ball et al. 2012: 36). Results included the ability to discuss previously taboo security issues (Hendrickson, 2014: 19), the building of Burundian capacity in the process of carrying out the defence review, and the delivery of strategic defence options and a white paper on defence. The Burundi defence review benefited from its place within the overall SSD programme. The trust created by working on the tangible benefits to defence made it possible to launch the defence review process, which had previously only been informally discussed. The DR process received support from the SSD’s governance component, particularly in fostering contacts with other key actors (Ball, 2014: 37). The extent to which this was critical to the programme is unclear, however. The earlier Ugandan defence review achieved many goals that were similar to those in Burundi, but without the benefit of a broader programme underway. The Burundi programme may be one of the exemplars of SSR so far, but it does show how difficult it is to achieve sustainability. Sustainability of the SSD programme is dependent on the attitudes of a handful of the most senior politicians, and cannot be foreseen (Ball, 2014: 37). In addition, progress is hostage to political fortunes. After the disputed elections of 2015, the country remains vulnerable to fracture. If Burundi had again descended into violence, the programme’s results might have vanished, similar to the failure of the joint integrated units in Sudan from 2011 and the setback in Timor Leste in 2006. Practitioners can do little about 11 It was significantly dependent upon the person of National Security Coordinator Kellie Conteh. 20 unavoidable political turbulence, but they can reduce the number of institutions they work on. More effort invested in a smaller number of institutions should heighten the likelihood of results being sustained. Keeping programmes smaller will increase the chance they can be funded in the long term. The changed procedures and practices also have to be kept in place. People who have gained more skills should be encouraged to stay within reformed institutions. This means formulating effective personnel policies to look after and incentivize them. 8.6 Conclusions DR (and SSR) was most straightforward in Eastern Europe because Eastern European countries were motivated and had reasonable resources available. Western Europe also had vital national strategic motives for supporting and stabilizing the former Warsaw Pact countries. But still, recent re-evaluation makes one question what actually has been achieved. By contrast, a total of about ten developing countries, four in South America, have actively taken steps towards DR. Authoritarian political leaders display little interest. The democratizing essentials of both SSR and DR threaten their power. Current DR falls relatively neatly into two broad categories. Both are informed in different ways by the essentials of SSR as currently conceptualized. Neither, except in very rare cases, constitutes long-term “transformation”. First, “stable” DR is seen more often in the postauthoritarian and developing countries. Here there are democratic deficits, but it is incalculably easier for the population to pressure government for greater accountability in the absence of conflict. These cases gain less attention because donor governments, aid organizations, research institutes and universities are preoccupied with stabilizing fragile states in crisis. Second but most prominent is “stabilization” DR, which usually occurs in fragile conflict and post-conflict countries. Due to the constraints of the political environment, almost always falls well short of addressing all necessary areas – from national security councils to ministries to parliaments – or in the necessary depth. It is often rightly criticized as focusing on “train-and-equip” effectiveness activities. Conflict, the vicissitudes of a fluid, vicious political arena and pervasive mistrust can make the process of opening entry points for wider accountability reforms very difficult. The greatest progress in the developing world has been where access was greatest. The near-existential crises in South Africa and Sierra Leone were very unusual, opening the space for reforms to begin. Greater change was possible, and the political climate generated by the whole effort helped progress within each sector. Another important aspect was significant civil society involvement, less visible in other cases where DR is attempted in isolation. However, the overcharacterisation of South Africa and Sierra Leone as examples for emulation elsewhere conceals significant weaknesses. These are particularly evident in accountability and fiscal sustainability. DR’s poor record, and the larger problems with the liberal peace agenda, makes it necessary to reassess the entire project. DR has two futures ahead of it. The more common one is essentially a return to the pre1998 status quo, with some of the language of SSR employed as windowdressing and to keep up with current organizational fashion. This is old-style security assistance aimed to advance the originating powers' strategic national interests. The new twist is the newer players such as Turkey in Somalia arriving on the scene. It will remain animated by the vision of the liberal peace, to pacify and transform the borderlands so that they look more like the DR instigators. 21 This will mostly see failure because the locals will not often want the same thing, and the resources, patience, and political will of the interveners will not be sufficient. One remembers here the inadequate staying power of the U.S. in two similar transformative COIN initiatives in Afghanistan and Iraq. A more contemporary example is the train and equip programme underway from 2015 for the Iraqi Army by the U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve. A half-variant of this future is the more sophisticated approach informed by what has been learnt by SSR to date, but still doomed to almost certain unsustainability of reform because it is being put in place for outsiders’ national strategic reasons – it will probably still not be locally owned enough. The other future, which will be seen far less, would acknowledge that liberal peace interventionism is generally a failure, that nothing yet indicates that outside effort can build Tilly-style European states in Africa and Asia within 25-50 year timescales, and would stop trying to jump-start such quick changes. State evolution will proceed at its own pace, and climate change has a good chance of transforming the entire world scene in any case, upending most of the certainties of current world affairs. In doing so, this alternative would return to the acknowledged centrality of local ownership. When local nationstate government or sub-state, regional authorities request assistance, and when those authorities seem likely to abide by much of the values of the West, discussions could commence on long term programmes, aimed at building trust to begin with, and then small steps on building capability to follow. The Burundi-Netherlands SSD programme is the pre-eminent example of this approach so far. Again and again over the last 25 years, adverse political changes have wiped away gains in a variety of countries, so discrete programmes in one sector, rather than more comprehensive programmes likely to stumble (due to the greater number of potential sticking points) are best. From nearly ten years of examining this subject, this author can see no alternative to reducing ambitions, in order to preserve some of the results. 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Paul, Christopher, et al., 2013: “What works best when building partner capability and under what circumstances?” RAND Corporation. Pion-Berlin, David, 2009: “Defence organization and civil-military relations in Latin America”, Armed Forces and Society, 35(3). Richmond, Oliver P., 2006: 'The problems of peace: understanding the liberal peace,' Conflict, Security and Development, 6:3, October. Scheye, Eric, 2010: “Realism and Pragmatism in Security Sector Development”, Special Report 257, U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, October. Sedra, Mark, 2006: “Security sector reform in Afghanistan: The slide towards expediency”, International Peacekeeping, 13(1). Sedra, Mark, 2017: Security Sector Reform in Conflict-Affected Countries: The Evolution of a Model (Routledge, London and New York). Söderberg Kovacs, Mimmi, 2014: “Bringing the good, the bad, and the ugly into the peace fold: The Republic of Sierra Leone’s armed forces after the Lomé Peace Accord”, in Roy Licklider (ed.), New Armies from Old: Merging Competing Military Forces after Civil Wars (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press). 24 Stewart, Phil and David Alexander, 2014: “U.S. military says advisors needed in embattled Iraq province”, Reuters, 30 October. Townsend, Kevin 2010: “Defence Force fighting for survival”, Business Day, 2 November. Ulrich, Marybeth, 2002: “Developing mature national security systems in post-communist states: The Czech Republic and Slovakia”, Armed Forces and Society, 28(3). Wessels, Andre, 2010: “The South African National Defence Force 1994–2009: A historical perspective”, Journal for Contemporary History 35, no. 2: 131-152. Williams, Rocky, 2005: “National defence reform and the African Union”, in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook 2004: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press) Wilson III, Isaiah and James Forrest (eds), 2011: Handbook of Defence Politics: International and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Routledge). Wolf, Siegfried O., 2013: “APSA spotlight: Civil-military relations and democracy in Bangladesh”, October. Yaniszewski, Mark, 2002: “Post-Communist Civil-Military Reform in Poland and Hungary”, Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 28, No. 3, Spring. Colin Robinson, PhD is a Visiting Lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University. His previous defence reform experience includes field research and work in East Timor, Somalia, and Liberia; he completed his doctorate on post-conflict army reconstruction in the United Kingdom in 2012. He has also worked for the United Nations in Georgia and Liberia; the New Zealand defence establishment, most recently for the New Zealand Defence Force in 2012-15; and policy research institutes in London and Washington DC. Email: [email protected]