Highlights in this issue:

The ICCS BriefVolume 2 Issue 1 2014

WWI Photography and the Art of Strategic CommunicationRhys Crilley

Despite military manoeuvres in Ukraine the main weapon in this war is information

Victoria Hudson

Theorising the Syrian Chemical Weapons Crisis

Paul Schulte

Territorial disputes in East Asia: claims, stakes and solutions

Tsering Topgyal

www.birmingham.ac.uk/iccs

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A message from the Editor: After a brief hiatus, we are pleased to announce that volume two of the ICCS brief has arrived. We have another fascinating collection of short articles reflecting instances of both conflict and cooperation across the globe. These range from the escalation of tensions in Asia-Pacific and outright conflict in Europe, to new strategies for conflict management and cooperation in Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. Whilst we endeavour to provide commentary on the most pressing security issues of the day, 2014 marks the centenary of the First World War, and so we are commemorating this event with an insightful article from one of our researchers on the uses of strategic communication during and after the conflict.

We are pleased to showcase work from two new members of the Institute. Paul Schulte has joined us as an Honorary ICCS Professor, bringing a wealth of experience with his background in Nuclear Non-proliferation and Verification. Dr Talat Farooq has also joined as a research fellow on our ESRC research project ‘The Political Effects of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles on Conflict and Cooperation Within and Between States’.

You will find interactive clickable links throughout the brief, as well as extended information located on our website. If you would like to write a response or comment on any of our articles, then please get in touch and email me at: d.j.norman@bham.ac.uk

David Norman is the Programme Manager of the Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security, and currently writes on post-conflict reconstruction in Cambodia. His recent publications include ‘From Shouting to Counting: Civil Society and Good Governance Reform in Cambodia’ Pacific Review (2014)

www.birmingham.ac.uk/iccs

WW1 photography and the art of strategic communicationRhys Crilley

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Despite the rumble of Russian tanks the main weapon in Ukraine is informationVictoria Hudson

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UK aid to Lebanon: is protecting borders keeping the country out of conflict?Sara Fregonese

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Theorising the Syrian chemical weapons crisisPaul Schulte

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Rising to the challenge? The CSTO as potential ‘conflict manager’ in Central AsiaLance Davies

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Territorial disputes in East Asia: claims, stakes and solutionsTsering Topgyal

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Remembering the ‘Spirit of Lahore’ Nicholas Wheeler and Talat Farooq

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News and Events at the ICCS 20

Inside this issue:

Editor: David NormanSub-editor: Hannah Caswell

Front cover image source: National Library of Scotland / Ernest Brooks

Volume 2 : Issue 1 : 2014 The ICCS Brief 3

WW1 photography and the art of strategic communicationThroughout history, images have always been important in relation to conflictRhys Crilley

In the trenches of the western front, Lieutenant Ernest Brooks made his name. In his late thirties, he was generally older than the boys he shot, and it wasn’t just his age that set Brooks apart. The equipment he used on the Western Front, and also during the Italian campaign of 1918, was unique. Whilst many of his colleagues were armed with the standard British issue Lee Enfield rifle, Brooks used the latest in technological equipment from a company named Goerz Anschutz to do his shooting. Interestingly, this shooting was almost always directed at his own side, for Ernest Brooks was the first official British military photographer.

Prior to Brooks’ appointment, photography was held in deep suspicion by the War Office; no photographers were allowed on the western front, and the penalty for taking pictures was death. By 1915, they reluctantly succumbed to pressure from the press and organisations such as the War Propaganda Bureau for more information about what was happening on the front. These organisations needed images to publish alongside their stories, and rather than allowing civilian photographers on to the front,

the War Office appointed Brooks to be the eyes of the British general public. What we begin to see here in the context of WWI is a marked shift in how conflict is both perceived by external audiences and practiced by those involved.

Seeing WarIn the first instance, the invention and development of the camera had already begun to change how war was understood and interpreted. Roger Fenton, who photographed the Crimean War (1854-56), is generally regarded as the pioneer of war photography. As a civilian, Fenton was invited to photograph the conflict in order to counter the damning reports published in The Times. Limited by the cumbersome technology of the day, Fenton’s photographs consist of stationary objects, posed pictures and landscapes.

With the photographs of Ernest Brooks and other photographers during WWI, we start to see images of a far more realistic nature. Brooks’ photographs depict the everyday life of soldiers, the action of artillery cannons firing and they also show the death and destruction that was all too common

Rhys Crilley is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science and International

Studies (POLSIS) and the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS). He is writing a thesis on ‘Legitimacy Claims in the Digital Age: Analysing Visual Narratives of Strategic Communication’, which draws upon an aesthetic approach to International Relations, alongside insights from the fields of media studies and visual culture. Rhys is also currently a deputy editor for the site e-International Relations, has co-founded Critical Securities- a blog dedicated to discussions of global politics through a critical lens- and is the co-convener of the International Relations and Security Theory Reading Group at the University of Birmingham.

Men of a Yorkshire regiment on the march, 1917 National Library of Scotland / Ernest Brooks

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throughout Europe during the conflict. As camera technology had developed, Brooks and his fellow official War Office photographers (by 1918 there were 22 of them) could now photograph almost anything with relatively lightweight, hand held cameras with faster shutter speeds. Combined with developments in communication and in printing, the supply of photographs in WWI was like never before. Events would happen on the western front and within days photographs would be published in the press.

Another development that revolutionised how war is perceived is the use of moving images in WWI. In 1916, more than 20 million people - over half of the British population at the time - went to see The Battle of the Somme, a feature length film consisting of newsreel footage from the front line. The film is one of the most popular in British cinematic history and is even ‘bigger than Star Wars’.With so many images being seen by the public in the cinema and in the press, it is perhaps WWI where war and conflict truly begin to become ‘mediatized’. The notion of mediatized war refers to how war and media have become so interdependent that one cannot begin to understand conflict without accounting for how media impact on the planning, waging, managing and consequences of war. WWI was one of the first conflicts where people across the globe could actually see, in printed photographs and on moving film, what was happening on the battlefield. Not only

did these developments have an impact on how war is seen, understood, and essentially experienced by external audiences at home and abroad, they also had a huge impact on how conflicts and wars are waged.

Waging War: The Art of Strategic CommunicationWith the appointment of Ernest Brooks and other official war photographers, the War Office began to recognise the importance of utilising images to support the war effort. Employing photographers and endorsing the making of films such as The Battle of the Somme served the purpose of informing the audience at home, and by shaping what information audiences received, the military realised the camera could be a powerful weapon.

In a letter from the Foreign Office to the War Office dated 2 May 1916, one official noted that photographs of generals and ‘other big wigs’ dictating orders, eating lunch and getting in and out of cars were the ‘sort of twaddle’ home audiences ‘love to gape at’. By 1917, photographers were banned from making images of gruesome scenes and we see that the British military grasps the importance of using images and crafting narratives for their own benefit.

At the time, the images of the official British military photographers were used for propaganda purposes and over the years the term propaganda falls out of fashion. Now, when the British Military talk of using images

and narratives of conflict in order to influence the attitudes and behavior of people, it’s referred to as strategic communication. If the use of images became of strategic importance to the British in WWI, the conflicts of the 20th and early 21st century cemented this relationship. In WWII, the Army formed the Film and Photography Unit and official photographers were present during the Suez crisis, the Falklands, Northern Ireland and the First Gulf War. More recently, the British Army has formed Combat Camera Teams to document the action with ‘unparalleled access to the frontline’ in Afghanistan.

Of course, the strategic use of images is not just limited to the British; most ‘western’ militaries have used their own camera teams to document various conflicts. Other non-state actors such as terrorist groups have also realised the importance of using images and narratives for strategic purposes. For example the extremist group al-Shabaab have used videos in attempts to recruit British Muslims, and they’ve live tweeted events such as the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. They’ve even gone as far as producing rap songs in order to sell the idea of martyrdom to online audiences.

What these few examples point to is how the development of ever better, cheaper and more accessible digital media technologies are now impacting on conflict. In the days of WWI, the British could easily control who could photograph what and where. Nowadays, when most mobile phones come equipped with cameras and Internet connections, more people can use media technologies for strategic purposes and share their content with a global audience.

Throughout history, images have always been important in relation to conflict. However, the discipline of IR and the sub-field of security studies have been relatively slow to recognise this. If we are to truly understand war, we need to pay attention to the ways in which images, narratives and digital media technologies are impacting on not only how it is represented, but also on how it is waged.

Interior of Arras Cathedral National Library of Scotland / Ernest Brooks

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Despite the rumble of Russian tanks the main weapon in Ukraine is informationIn the stand-off between Russia and Ukraine victory will depend on whose story prevailsVictoria Hudson

Harvard scholar Joseph Nye counsels us that ‘in the information age, success is not merely the result of whose army wins, but also of whose story wins.’ This argument seems to be borne out by events in Ukraine since November 2013, when, contrary to heightened expectations, Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign the EU Association Agreement. This move sparked popular protests on Kyiv’s Maidan [Independence Square], which quickly broadened into a wider expression of dissatisfaction with the self-enriching and corrupt regime. Each development in the rapidly unfolding crisis has been chronicled by media professionals and citizen journalists on social media alike. Each of the key parties to the debate spins a contrary narrative, grounded in different worldviews. Which account proves more convincing when and where it matters will help to determine which political outcomes are ultimately accepted as legitimate; not only in Ukraine and the West, but in the international community more broadly. Since Mr Yanukovych’s flight from Ukraine in late February, the deadly scenes on the streets of Kyiv have been replaced by manoeuvres by unidentified armed men in the

autonomous region of Crimea. While the identity of these masked individuals who have surrounded Ukrainian military installations on the peninsula is unconfirmed, it is suspected that they are backed by Russia. Yet for all the talk of a Second Cold War and ‘acts of incredible aggression’ on the part of Western commentators and revanchist rhetoric by certain Russian politicians, a hot peace prevails. There have been no shots on target, and ‘pro-Russian’ activists in Simferopol have appropriated, in part at least, the hospitable tactics of their opposition counterparts on the Maidan and have reportedly been serving refreshments to protesters and armed personnel alike.

Now the Crimean parliament has declared its independence from Ukraine, on the stated grounds of their non-recognition of the de facto ousting of the incumbent by the Kyiv opposition, which they perceive as amounting to a coup-d’état. The pro-Western opposition claims that Yanukovych’s alleged order to shoot on protestors rendered the president unfit to rule, thereby justifying self-defence on part of some protesters and the declaration of a new interim

Victoria Hudson is a Teaching Associate, at the University of Aston, having previously

taught at the University of Birmingham and the University of Leicester. She completed her PhD, entitled ‘A Study of the Civilisational Aspect of Russian Soft Power in Contemporary Ukraine’ in 2013 at the University of Birmingham. In addition to engagement with the relevant bodies of IR and critical security theory, the thesis also demanded a significant tranche of fieldwork to be completed in-country, which entailed conducting surveys and focus groups across four cities of Ukraine, in addition to expert interviews in Moscow. During her PhD, Victoria also spent an extremely fruitful time at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, within the framework of the ESRC’s Overseas Institutional Visit initiative.

Unidentified military stand watch over a checkpoint in the autonomous region. OSCE

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government. Both sides denounce the other as unconstitutional and hence illegitimate, though neither move is foreseen by any rendition of Ukraine’s post-Soviet constitutions. But this struggle is not only about ‘the facts’ but increasingly about the power over their interpretation and the capacity to disseminate that view effectively.

In the information war of the past weeks, Russia has scored several bulls-eyes in this regard. Kremlin-backed English-language channel Russia Today first released an intercepted call between Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and US Ambassador to Kyiv, Pyatt, in which the interlocutors discussed their views about the future of Ukraine. While the Western media has focussed resolutely on the profanities used to express frustration with the EU, the greater scandal is actually the empowered tone with which they discussed their preferences among the opposition leaders, who are condescendingly abbreviated to ‘Yats’ and ‘Klish’. In a

second diplomatic exchange leaked by RT, Estonian Foreign Minister Paet was heard to tell EU HR Catherine Ashton “there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition’. While the Kremlin asserts that Yanukovych did not give the order to fire on protesters, the parties to the conversation have sought to defuse this episode, reframing it as a discussion of a conspiracy theory, rather than an ‘assessment of the opposition’s involvement in the violence’. While question marks hover over RT’s objectivity, not to mention the provenance of the intercepted dialogue, the recording has provoked a storm of debate on social media. Yet despite the fact that such contestations about the origins of the crisis have even filtered through in a more muted form in the mainstream Western press, there is a prevailing sense that such core questions have been displaced on the agenda by escalating current events.

Meanwhile, both sides have delved into the shadows of Nazism in rhetorical support of their position. The Russian side points to the radical right-wing elements among the protesters to discredit the opposition movement as ‘benderites’, referring to Stepan Bandera who is reviled by Russia as the leader of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis, and celebrated as a hero by nationalists. For its part, the opposition, echoed by US Secretary of State Clinton, has sought to equate the likely presence of Russian forces in Crimea with Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. While the moniker ‘Putler’ and gaudy visual memes of the Russian president with a superimposed toothbrush moustache are social media-friendly, the more powerful move in evoking the trope of appeasement, as before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, lies in its emotive appeal to European powers to take punitive action against Moscow.

Such has been the volume and velocity of recent events, keeping abreast of the unfurling political developments is not conducive to balanced judgements rooted in fact-checked evidence. Likewise, the emotional content of much of the coverage from both sides has done little to foster critical public reflection on events. While the USA and Russia trade accusations of disinformation, EU hesitancy to act punitively against Russia might be seen not simply as an indicator of weakness or fear for the rebounding consequences of economic sanctions in an interdependent world, but as a sign of back-stage misgivings in European capitals about the information emerging from Kyiv. To build a steady foundation for peace acceptable to all Ukrainians, including those in Crimea, and in order for the fledging Ukrainian government to legitimate its rule, justice must be done and be seen to be done. The EU should press for the urgent, independent investigation of all criminal acts, against both protesters and state representatives.

This article was originally published in The Conversation, 18th March 2014.

Ukrainian road block OSCE

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UK aid to Lebanon: is protecting borderskeeping the country out of conflict?1

While the UK government injects money to protect Lebanon’s borders, sovereignty is dissolving from within Sara Fregonese1

The UK is among the first and largest donors to respond to Syria’s crisis and its impact on neighbouring Lebanon, especially the large influx of refugees fleeing the conflict. While visiting the country in December 2013, British Minister of State for the Middle East MP Hugh Robertson announced a £24 million fund from the Department for International Development (DFID) to face the humanitarian crisis of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. This is part of a $120m USD stability package which provides Lebanon with $15m in army equipment for border protection, $75m to respond to the influx of Syrian refugees, and other funds to support coexistence, formation of a neutral government2, international effort to prevent the Syrian conflict from spreading into Lebanon and increase of UK/Lebanon trade.

DFID’s type of response to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon is symptomatic of a wider shift in UK aid in the region, away from emergency humanitarian relief and towards differentiated, longer term assistance. This means that besides providing emergency, food and shelter for the 980,271 3 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the UK also supports

host Lebanese communities who have to cope with growing numbers of refugees. This is particularly relevant to areas like the Bekaa valley, with high numbers of registered refugees as well as high rural deprivation. Support initiatives include work schemes for refugees as well as host communities, vaccinations and food for Lebanese livestock, repairs and upgrading of local schools, water and sewage infrastructures.

In this domain, the UK assistance program is in tune with the situation on the ground. Including Lebanese host communities in refugee assistance programmes is a strategy of vital importance to maintain cohesion within an increasingly polarised Lebanese society and between this and the Syrian refugees. Tensions between Lebanese citizens and refugees have recently escalated, with politicians often blaming refugees for the rise in crime and demonising them as terrorists. However, much of the “hostility” said to characterise attitudes towards Syrian refugees can be viewed in practical terms of competition over land, resources, energy and overstretched infrastructures. The Lebanese government, for example, has been

Sara Fregoneseis a Birmingham Fellow at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental

Sciences and the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security. Sara’s research is multi-lingual and trans-disciplinary: it draws on theories in critical geopolitics and critical sovereignty, and at the same time advances current debates in urban geopolitics, radicalisation and cohesion, urban resilience and spaces of protest. Her main empirical focus is Lebanon. She has been an affiliate of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastrn Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and a honorary fellow of the Manchester Architecture Research Centre, University of Manchester.

An ‘informal tented settlement’ in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley DFID / Russell Watkins

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wary of allowing Syrian refugees to settle too quickly in Lebanon and risking a repeat of the Palestinian refugee resettlement issue that has remained unresolved since 19484. Differently from Syrian refugees in Jordan, for example, who are hosted in large camps equipped with basic infrastructure, many Syrian refugees in Lebanon have no other choice than living in fabric tents, or squatting derelict buildings, renting apartments and using makeshift shelter inside Lebanese cities. Last winter, however, the interim government reluctantly accepted to upgrade refugees’ tents to IKEA/UNHCR –designed, ready-to-assemble solid shelters.

For all these reasons, the Syrian crisis is exacerbating pre-existing fault lines within the Lebanese society. Now more than ever since the end of its civil war in 1991, Lebanon is split between supporters and detractors of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Hezbollah combatants fighting alongside Assad’s army in Syria are stirring tensions at home, while radicalised Islamists also foment severe divisions. A series of vehicle bomb attacks targeting both pro-Syrian buildings associated with Iran and Hezbollah and anti-Syrian political figures have made this split excruciatingly present in the everyday life of residents of Beirut’s city centre

and suburbs, the northern city of Tripoli and more recently the border town of Hermel. Meanwhile, a semi-paralysed and often targeted Lebanese army struggles to protect its neutrality vis a vis an increasingly polarised society and to affirm logistic superiority over the sophisticated armed wing of Hezbollah.

This is where – differently from the approach to the refugee crisis – the UK aid programme's ( and more generally the International Support Group for Lebanon) vision of stability for Lebanon risks missing the point and diverge from the situation on the ground. DFID assistance to Lebanon has prioritised better equipping the Lebanese army to maintain a strong border with Syria in the hope of keeping Syria’s conflict out of Lebanon. UK ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher has strongly promoted – particularly via his savvy use of the social media for diplomacy – the causes of assistance to the Lebanese army and of border reinforcement. Training and equipment tackles land border patrolling and includes “watchtowers, vehicles [16 4 Land Rovers], body armour, radios, HESCO bastion and long range observation cameras”. According to Tom Fletcher, the equipment and training to protect the border is part of a tenfold increase of the UK practical aid to promote Lebanon’s stability in the past two years. As I write, more army assistance has just been announced by UK Foreign Minister William Hague at the International Support Group for Lebanon’s conference in Paris.

However, protecting and training troops at Lebanon’s border might be a partial and eventually ineffective solution. While the UK government injects money to protect the borders so to prevent the Syrian conflict from spreading into Lebanon, sovereignty is dissolving from within. Lebanese stability and sovereignty are contested among its own citizens, between them and the refugee communities, and last but not least around the unresolved status of Hezbollah’s armed wing and its increasing power vis a vis the Lebanese army. Last year, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman, himself a former army general, proposed to incorporate Hezbollah’s weapons under the command of the Lebanese

army. However, there seems to be no reflection of this proposal in the way international donors tackle Lebanese stability.

Mending polarisation inside Lebanon is not so much the job for heavy-armoured vehicles and border watchtowers, but for expertise in conflict resolution, peace building, prevention of extremist initiatives and promotion of community cohesion, as well as specialist training of the Lebanese armed force to intervene in urban foyers of hostility at specific frontlines inside Lebanese cities and specific contentious neighbourhoods. This would imply a very different kind of training and knowledge than what is currently involved. The reinforcement of Lebanon’s politics of coexistence included by UK the aid package is certainly the kind of policy that should find more space in aid towards Lebanon. However, injecting money into the army’s border patrols in the hope to keep Syria out and overpower Hezbollah, will not keep Lebanon out of conflict unless the Lebanese cities are secured, their social splits mended, and the deep-rooted issue of Hezbollah’s relation to the Lebanese army and Lebanese sovereignty tackled.

1 Previous versions of this piece have appeared in The Birmingham Brief (http://www .birmingham.ac.uk/research/impact/perspective/refugees.aspx) and Society and Space (http://societyandspace.com/2013/08/16/sara-fregonese-waiting-for-the-spillover-why-reinforcing-borders-wont-strengthen-lebanons-sovereignty-and-keep-it-out-of-conflict/

2 A new government was formed on 15 February 2014, after a ten-month deadlock since March 2013.

3 Updated to 4 March 2014. https://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=122

4 According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNR WA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East there are circa 455.000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, mainly distributed among 12 refugee camps.

DFID in South Lebanon British Embassy in Lebanon

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Theorising the Syrian Chemical Weapons CrisisIntroducing a generalised schematic of contemporary compliance or atrocity disputes Paul Schulte

Paul Schulte is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security

(ICCS). He is an expert on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Verification, and also a member of a number of high level advisory groups including: the CSIS European Trilateral Nuclear Dialogue Group, the EU Nonproliferation Consortium, and the Foreign Office Unofficial Experts Advisory Group. He is also on the UN Secretary General's list of accredited international disarmament experts. In 2004, he was the founding Head of the UK's interdepartmental Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit (now the Stabilisation Unit) which conducted the first integrated civil/military campaign plan in UK expeditionary history, for Helmand Province.

Ships of Op Recsyr Removing Chemical Weapons from Syria, February 2014 UK MOD

The chemical murder of some 1400 civilians in Ghouta and other suburbs of Damascus on 21 August 2013 provided an instant case study of the workings of the international society.In this, it can be seen as the latest in a series of post-Cold War crises, involving recurrent politics of accusation and denial, with ritualised choreographies of politicised truth claims, moral outrage, refutation, and disinformation. Their similarities suggest the following common pattern, which justifies detailed study to discover how best to escape its destructive consequences. I offer below a Weberian Ideal Type, intended to elicit comments and corrections-especially those which would suggest potential escape route from further repetitions.

A generalised schematic of contemporary compliance or atrocity disputes

First Generic StageA Regime’s behaviour begins to define it as an outlier (formerly rogue), ignoring international norms, international law or formal treaties, especially as interpreted by the US (the “indispensable nation” for norm enforcement) and Western allies.

Particularly if the regime makes itself diplomatically unacceptable to the West, demands are made in the UN for proof of compliance or signs of restraint.

There are repeated invocations of accountability.

Sanctions are discussed or introduced.

The outlier regime remains defiant, often because atrocities, external aggression or illicit WMD capacity seem critical to its strategic intentions or physical survival, especially if the US and allies were to attack. Its leaders, representatives, and sympathisers stress that it and its national, ethnic, ideological, religious or critical economic interests are profoundly menaced or frustrated by the unjust international structure and distribution of power.

Concretely, the regime may denounce, perhaps sincerely or even accurately, political, media and intelligence interference which it judges a threat to its security or its legitimacy amongst internal or international audiences.

Russia supports the outlier (geopolitical and ideological balancing in IR terms), criticises threateningly hegemonic US

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Secretary Kerry Speaks With Reporters Beside OPCW Director-General Uzumcu Flickr/ US Department of StateMarch 2014

behaviour, and opposes sanctions. China stays low key, supporting national sovereignty, opposing military intervention, and remaining sceptical of sanctions.

Second generic stageUNSC resolutions to restrain the regime are attempted - but vetoed.

Some sanctions are tried, by the US and its allies, often without mandatory universal UN basis.

Russia and other US opponents align more closely with the outlier, sell military equipment and maximise economic, intelligence and political payoffs from the relationship.

Sanctions efforts intensify and Western military action begins to be discussed, supported by diasporas and human rights organisations. It becomes increasingly publicised that opposition groups range from cosmopolitan democrats to criminals, warlords, intolerant sectarians and vengeful murderers, who may be surrogates for self – interested regional or outside powers.

The intensity of resentment within the regime and its supporters over the encircling and mutually reinforcing asymmetries of power facing the outlier state in its revisionist project, or in the sheer survival of its regime and its personnel, seems to justify extraordinary, illicit or illegal security-related measures, especially in what appears a Supreme Emergency.

Atrocities and atrocious secrets may bond, encourage and inspire military units and arms of the outlier government. The threat of exposure or prosecution may strengthen cohesion among key constituenciesi. Inner groups or elite units may strengthen their institutional power by being entrusted with protection of secrets.

Analogous processes may possibly occur in attempting to maintain the institutional importance of sanctions enforcement officials or task groups.

False Flag predictions or accusations are generated or proliferated. Some may be true.

Third generic stageWestern states and local allies become increasingly denunciatory and call for regime change. They begin to assist armed anti-state groups with gradations of training, financing, and supply of nonlethal, lethal, or advanced anti-tank or antiaircraft weaponry.

Russia and other outlier allies intensify its counter narrative, denouncing provocations and hypocritical Western propaganda intended to impose pro-Western regimes. These processes might be called virtual evidential (or affirmative) balancing.

Humanitarian groups and international agencies warn of the human costs of sanctions and the risks of war.

Disputes occur in the UN system over underlying evidence for regime

misbehaviour. UN agencies are called upon to report on intensely controversial questions. New Commissions and international organisations may be formed.

Facing intense disagreements about quality and reliability of information, the UN system, with its related organisations such as the OPCW, is unable to function as supreme impartial adjudicator. (This is arguably exactly what the framers of the UN charter intended, to avoid direct dispute over critical interests between the P5 which would threaten the UN’s very survival). Prospective UNSC vetoes limit what can be officially known. Much data is excluded as unsusceptible to proof by accepted consensual UN methods.

Intelligence agencies leak, or deliberately spread their versions around the world. National press and social media are brought in on all sides, especially to influence or manipulate political discourse online. Demands for more information, and factual reporting merge with information warfare and deliberate delegitimation.

Fourth generic stageThe “coalition of the morally and legally concerned” demands more and more information and explanation.

The outlier regime denies all accusations and consistently resists disclosures in the name of national security, and/or sovereignty and dignity.

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OPCW inspection team prepared to leave for Syria, November 2013 OPCW

This Westphalian Opacity may be so extreme as to amount to diplomatic autism. It elicits genuine popular sympathy (monsterphilia) in the postcolonial world, and among the anti –Imperialist left, by representing Resistance to Western arrogance.

Revealed information risks admissions of past behaviour which could be portrayed as shameful and used destructively in undermining internal and external regime credibility, by foreign intelligence analysts, diplomatic spokesmen, criminal prosecutors, sanctions enforcers, investigatory journalists, NGOs, Counterproliferation officials and academic experts.

Russia (and perhaps other allies) intensify their overt, and covert, support for the outlier regime (as part of a Conservativeii International iii). Past economic and military investments, future credibility for standing by friends, and public international and internal reputations would be put at risk by the unsatisfactory development of the crisis, the undisputable revelation of outlier regime crimes, treaty violations or deliberate deceit.

Accountability over the alleged transgression, and indeed transparency in general, risks strengthening already threateningly hegemonic Western ideological and cognitive power - and so legitimating and assisting the potential exercise of disciplinary Western military power.

This situation is complicated by the probability that, if hostilities intensify, some information might in fact have concrete value for outside intelligence operations, political destabilization, punitive strikes, or invasions.

NGOs, moral commentators, religious groups, and international officials point to the growing human costs of the crisis and the drifts to polarization radicalization, immiseration, and conflict. They discreetly but persistently stress the ethical obligation to downplay past transgressive behaviour in the interests of potential settlements, and wider human welfare.

The American political class begins to examine and (aided by leaks) to dispute the extent of US interest in the crisis and the arguments for deeper direct or indirect military involvement.

US allies internally dispute the wisdom of joint action with the US.

This deliberative process, especially if crystalized by votes in national legislatures, can lastingly change national strategic cultures.

The relative credibility of background denials and counteraccusations is strongly conditioned by international memories of recent crises.

Fifth generic stage

Either - war begins openly, with multiple

bad consequences; or

- the crisis simmers on, with all its particular costs, intersecting with other international developments, fluctuating rapprochements or crosscutting oppositions, indefinitely intensified by operational frictions, point-scoring Western domestic politics, and deliberate escalation decisions, miscalculations, or disinformation; or

- an uneasy, perhaps temporary, deal is reached, which may itself become part of the continuing crisis. Reaching or preserving the agreement may become an increasingly open and explicit reason to deemphasise or forget the facts of past transgressions.

Rival accounts of the underlying truth or scale of the accusations spread and develop amongst different global audiences.

The factual dispute and cognitive split are largely unresolvable in public consciousness.

There is lasting damage to worldwide trust in impartial international order, treaty adherence, or effective justice.

[Potential] Sixth generic stageIf there is a settlement, there will remain heightened international sensitivity to allegations that the transgressive behaviour is recurring or that past evidence is being eliminated. Disputes over this will be conducted - or simply avoided-along politically familiar lines.

[Unavoidable] Seventh generic stageThe procedural, legal and technical methods, and the standards of evidence applied - or blocked-in the crisis become lasting international precedents for future compliance disputes involving sovereign nations, whether or not they are outliers, if they can count on at least one powerful and committed P5 patron.

i I am particularly grateful to Bruce Jones for reminding me of this insight.

ii http://www.rferl.org/content/vladimir-ilyich-putin-the-conservative-lenin/25206293.html

iii http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/22/vladimir-putin-authoritarianism-russia

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Rising to the challenge? The CSTO as potential ‘conflict manager’ in Central AsiaWith the impending increase of regional instability is the CSTO attempting to craft a responsible conflict management approach? Lance Davies

Lance Davies is a PhD doctoral researcher at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), Department

of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS). He is writing a thesis on ‘Responsible intervention? Thinking anew about Russian conflict management: a security governance perspective’ which seeks to revisit current understandings of Russia’s approach towards the management of conflict and its impact upon European security.

This year will see the scheduled scale-down and eventual departure of ISAF forces from Afghanistan. Concerns are being raised that a Pandora’s Box of myriad security threats will open coinciding with NATO’s exodus. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is one of the central actors in the region which is anticipating a surge of insecurity within the near future. While the CSTO was established as an instrument of collective security to ensure peaceful coexistence between its constituent member states, the organization has recently developed a doctrine and potential capability in the area of conflict management (CM). Although the CSTO has occasionally lacked political determination to exercise its CM capability, notably in the Kyrgyzstan conflict (2010), since the CSTO has made discernable efforts to fashion itself as a regional ‘conflict manager’. This poses possible issues regarding the legitimacy of the CSTO’s CM methods in relation to the ‘United Nations (UN) CM framework’. Therefore, it is vital to question whether the CSTO possesses the capacity to manage conflict responsibly. This is of particular importance in a region which remains unstable and may become increasingly so in the future.

The UN CM framework provides a normative template concerning the processes of CM1. Crucially, the UN acknowledges that alleviating insecurity derives not only from combating the given threat, but also from ensuring the means do not compromise the ends. The framework includes standard CM methods which are currently incorporated into an approach entitled ‘Peace Support Operation’ (PSO)2. Developed in the mid-1990s and further established through the Brahimi Report (2000), the PSO’s purpose is to insert itself amid ongoing conflicts and bring about a rapid cessation of hostilities. Consequently, a high degree of impartiality is required and consent is flexible enabling the PSO to move from peacekeeping (the establishment of a ceasefire and preservation of the peace through separation of the parties and delivery of humanitarian aid) to peace-enforcement (the use of proportionate force to restore peace) and back again. Importantly, force must be proportionate and directed against a specific breach of the mandate, possess a clear outcome and explained to the host population. In addition, peacemaking (mediation) and peacebuilding (post-conflict reconstruction) are also integral

Joint exercise “Interaction - 2013” Collective Rapid Reaction Forces of CSTO member state MOD Kazakhstan

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elements of the PSO. The second component of the UN CM framework is military intervention, legitimised under the rubric of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) (2005). This is the use of force across state borders to prevent or end human rights violations without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied. Sovereign integrity, therefore, is not absolute according to the UN Department of Peacekeeping if a state is not able to protect or intentionally violates its citizens’ human rights.

In comparison the CSTO’s CM approach, while offering similarities, is underpinned by a considerable degree of ambiguity. The organization’s peacekeeping treaty declares that CM operations must adhere to a strict level of impartiality, consent and transparency while harnessing a minimum use of force in self-defence. The aims of a mission are to establish immediate stability through a ceasefire3. This reflects current peacekeeping practices recognised by the UN CM framework. However, there is no indication of the roles of peacemaking, peace-enforcement or peacebuilding; not to mention how they would be utilised within an

integrated framework. Furthermore, the CSTO CM doctrine provides no explicit clarification as to its view of military intervention through the R2P. Nonetheless, the CSTO stipulates the respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and the non-interference into the internal affairs of another state4.

Obscurity, however, is still inherent within the CSTO’s CM doctrine. While the organization is recognised by the UN Department of Peacekeeping, the CSTO declares it does not require a UN mandate when conducting operations. This is a major concern raising the question of whether the organization can be relied upon to act legitimately within the operational boundaries provided by the UN CM framework. In practice this ambiguity is no less diminished with the deployment of CSTO forces in recent exercises. In October, 2013 members of the CSTO conducted exercise ‘Нерушимое братство’ (Inviolable Brotherhood) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. The exercise’s objective was to restore stability to the imaginary Republic of Uralia suffering from a period of inter-ethnic violence. Political means were used to bring about peace, while the rendering of assistance in the form

of humanitarian aid and protection through the CSTO peacekeeping force were provided. While the operation conformed in some respects to recognised peacekeeping methods, it equally demonstrated a degree of confusion derived from a convergence of approaches from the combating of inter-ethnic violence to anti-terrorism. Indeed, this blurs the lines between two very distinct types of operation with divergent processes, mandates and intended aims. The CSTO’s approach is located somewhere between standard CM and particular forms of low-intensity conflict waging5, which are neither PSO nor what the British military have termed Stabilisation Operations6 i.e. in Afghanistan, where the intervening force has the consent of only the host nation government, with the aim of defeating a specific enemy and restoring stability through the use of force and ‘hearts and minds’.

This unorthodox practice is largely derived from Russia which remains paramount to the future of the organization. Russia’s experience particularly in the South Caucasus and Transdniestria is influencing the development of the CSTO’s CM practice. Although Russia’s CM

“Unbreakable Brotherhood 2012`` Military Training of the CSTO MOD Armenia

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approach has demonstrated its ability regarding the alleviation of violence, issues of impartiality, lack of consent and the overwhelming use of force are predominantly viewed as characteristic of Moscow’s endeavours. Past and present developments suggest that the CSTO is crafting a CM approach coinciding with Russian, rather than internationally recognised practices. Only time will tell if such processes become commonplace in CSTO operations, and whether they will compromise the restoration of peace.

While the CSTO has a right to defend its interests and maintain stability within the region, it is still far from becoming a competent conflict manager. It is not too late, however, to influence the direction of the CSTO’s approach towards CM. Each member must contribute considerably more if the CSTO is to become an effective and responsible security provider. NATO also has a responsibility to ensure that its efforts have not been in vain by looking beyond the confines of Afghanistan’s security and initiating a partnership with the CSTO. Russia must also attempt to craft the CSTO

as a responsible conflict manager, refraining from utilising the organization as a platform to strategically enhance its regional interests. With this said, effective and responsible CM within Central Asia is only feasible if the relevant actors make a genuine commitment to conform to the principles inherent within the UN CM framework and are supported by the international community.

1 For an insight into the principles surrounding standard CM practices see the UN (2008) ‘United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines’ [online] Available from http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/library/capstone_doctrine_eNg.pdf; for the concept of military intervention under R2P see the UN ‘World Summit Outcome 2005’: para. 138-140 [online] Available from http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ods/A-RES-60-1-E.pdf

2 NATO, (2008) ‘NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions’ (AAP-6): Part II, P-3

3 CSTO (2007) ‘Agreement on the peacekeeping activities of the Collective Security Treaty’ [online] Available from http://www.odkb-csto.org/documents/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=1679

4 See Chapter II, Article III of the CSTO (2002) ‘Charter of the Collective Security Treaty’ [online] Available from http://www.odkb-csto.org/documents/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=124; also see Article II of the CSTO (1992) ‘The Collective Security Treaty’ [online] Available from http://www.odkb-csto.org/documents/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=126

5 ZvezdaTVNews ‘Завершились учения «Нерушимое братство-2013»’ (The completed exercise of ‘Inviolable Brotherhood-2013’) [online] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5q7ACwgFmw; for Inviolable Brotherhood-2012 see Nezavisimaia gazeta ‘Коллективно-миротворческая оборона’ (Collective defence and peacemaking) August 17, 2012. [online] Available from http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/searchresults/article.jsp?art=4&id=27549861

6 MOD, (2011) ‘Peacekeeping: An Evolving Role For Military Forces’ Joint Doctrine Note 5/11

Members of the Standing Committee on Defence and Security at the CSTO Parliamentary MOD ArmeniaAssembly, October 2013

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Territorial Disputes in East Asia: claims, stakes and solutionsThe East China Sea, Sea of Japan and South China Sea, have emerged as the most contested waters today Tsering Topgyal

Tsering Topgyalis a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Birmingham.Tsering's

research and teaching interests include Chinese foreign and security policy with special attention to its ethnic conflicts, Asia-Pacific security and politics, Sino-Indian relations, and the Sino-Tibetan conflict. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals like Pacific Affairs, Politics and Religion Journal, Journal of Contemporary China and China Report. Tsering’s book Deadly Cycles: The Insecurity Dilemma and the Sino-Tibetan Conflict will be published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2014 . He is currently commencing work on a research monograph titled "Comparative Securitisation: the construction of Tibet as (In)Security in Sino-Indian Relations."

The East China Sea (ECS), Sea of Japan (SoJ) and South China Sea (SCS) have emerged as the most contested waters today. A number of countries claim sovereignty over the numerous islets, reefs and the surrounding waters; damaging bilateral relations, imperilling regional security and threatening to ensnare great powers into wars that they clearly do not want. In the ECS, China and Taiwan claim sovereignty over Japanese-administered Senkaku (Japanese)/Diaoyutai (Chinese) islands. Japan questions South Korea’s sovereignty over Takeshima (Japanese)/Dokdo (Korean) islets in the SoJ. In the SCS, China is embroiled in similar disputes over Paracel Island, Spratly Island and other rocks, reefs and shoals with four South East Asian (SEA) states: Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. The United States is indirectly implicated through its security alliances with Japan and the Philippines and its maritime security interests. Undoubtedly, these disagreements have far-reaching regional security implications.

Senkaku/Diaoyu consists of eight uninhabited islets totalling about seven square miles. Japan claims that (1) the

islands were terra nullius (uninhabited) before its imperial annexation in January 1895; (2) Japan has exercised sovereignty over the islands ever since (except 1953-1972: US administration); and (3) China only started claiming the islands when in 1968, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia estimated that vast deposits of oil and gas might be hidden there. Beijing counters that (1) China discovered the islands first and used them as “navigational reference points” and “sources of medicinal herbs” since the 14th Century; (2) Japan tacitly acquiesced to Chinese ownership of the islands before 1895; and (3) Japan should have transferred the islands to China under the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations since they were seized during the Sino-Japanese war of 1895.

These historical claims and counter-claims notwithstanding, the islands receded from political memory until oil and gas were found in 1968. Since then, diplomatic spats frequently test Tokyo-Beijing relations. Recent events have, however, raised the spectre of a devastating military clash. In September 2010, a Chinese fishing boat crashed into two Japanese coastguard vessels, leading to the

A warship of the East China Sea Fleet conducting anti-submarine training, March 2014 Chinamil.com.cn/ Wan Fusheng

16 The ICCS Brief Volume 2 : Issue 1 : 2014

arrest of the Chinese captain. China retaliated by cutting the export of rare-earth material to Japan, allowing widespread anti-Japanese protests and dispatching patrol vessels near the disputed islands. On 10 September 2012, the Japanese government purchased the islands from the private owner to pre-empt their more provocative acquisition by Tokyo’s nationalistic Governor Shintaro Ishihara. China’s reaction was premeditated (according to some analysts), furious and sustained. To assert jurisdiction in “China’s territorial waters” maritime surveillance and fisheries ships stepped up what Beijing calls “routine and normal patrols”, causing confrontations with Japanese naval forces. On 30 January, 2013, a Chinese frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer. Chinese surveillance planes and Japanese fighter-jets squared off in the skies. The potential for accidental clashes was elevated when China declared its own Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 23 November 2013, which overlaps with Japan’s existing ADIZ. This provoked South Korea into announcing its own ADIZ. A war between China and

Japan over these islands will draw in the United States because of alliance obligations to Japan.

Japan’s dispute with South Korea over Takeshima/Dokdo islands is also mired in historical ambiguity. Both assert historical and legal sovereignty over the islands although South Korea has administered them since 1954. While the dispute had flared up in the past, tensions peaked in January 2014 when the Japanese Ministry of Education instructed schools to teach that Takeshima (and Senkaku) islands are integral Japanese territory under Korean occupation. Predictably, this drew sharp rebukes from Seoul and Beijing. The dispute between Japan and South Korea is set to worsen when the latter goes ahead with its claim over another Japan-administered island, Tsushima. US efforts to reconcile differences between its two key alliance partners in East Asia will be tested severely.

The South China Sea is a site of even knottier rows among China and Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Home to several contested

islands, the Spratly and Paracel islands have the greatest potential to spark military clashes. Consisting of 140 islets, rocks, shoals and reefs, the Spratly islands are claimed in their entirety by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, while Malaysia and the Philippines claim some of the islands and features. The Paracel, consisting of thirty five islets, shoals, sandbanks and reefs are claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. China has administered the Paracel islands since its eviction of Vietnamese forces in 1976. China stakes its claim over SCS in terms of a U-shaped “nine-dash line”, reproducing the “nine-dotted line” declared by Nationalist China in 1947. This line hugs the coastlines of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines, overlapping with the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the SEA claimants. While China, Vietnam and the Philippines have clashed militarily in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, recent events have once again raised the threat of military skirmishes between China and Vietnam and Philippines. In early 2012, Chinese and Filipino naval assets confronted each other in a tense stand-off for weeks around Scarborough shoals.

The “Liaoning” conducting a sailing test in the South China Sea Chinamil.com.cn/Li Jing

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A China-Philippines war will likely implicate the US on the latters’ side.

What is driving these disputes? First, we are witnessing the re-opening of disputes long frozen by the strategic imperatives of the Cold War. Second, resources, chiefly oil, gas and fisheries motivate the rival claims. Energy security is a growing concern for East Asia and the oil and gas deposits believed to be under the water are too important to ignore for their energy-hungry economies. Energy security also advantages sovereign control of the waters surrounding these islands, busy and strategic shipping lanes carrying oil and gas to East Asia. Third, there are compelling strategic reasons. China’s naval ambition beyond these island-chains is a non-starter if its strategic movement within these waters remains constrained. It is not for nothing that China is developing Anti-Access, Area-Denial (A2-AD) capabilities to dominate these waters. Conversely, if China attains that capability, many East Asian states will be vulnerable to direct strategic threats and America’s ability to support its allies will be curbed. The anticipated expansion of Chinese interests and ambitions in

proportion to its increasing capabilities and visibly greater assertiveness is why the tensions this time around are more pregnant with danger. This explains the efforts by a number of Asian countries to entrench American strategic involvement in their region through security alliances, bilateral exchanges and ASEAN multilateralism. Finally, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the primary instrument for resolving maritime disputes, does not cohere well with the East Asian geography. Its definition of concepts like “Territorial Waters” (TW) and EEZ induces overlapping claims and incentivises pre-emptive occupations, even militarisation, of islands, reefs and shoals. If a formation can only have TWs and EEZs on the basis of demonstrated suitability for human habitation, it incentivises states to “develop” even submerged features. Because the exercise of historical sovereignty is a key criterion for adjudicating disputes, claimants make rival retrospective assertions dating back to the early Middle Ages. Invariably, these historical claims are ambiguous and inconclusive.

Other mechanisms have been tried to ease tension and resolve the

disputes. Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have signed bilateral agreements with China to jointly explore, exploit and manage the resources. In 2002, China and ASEAN signed the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” which instructed the parties to avoid violence to resolve their disputes. While China has been allergic to discussing the disputes in the SCS through ASEAN’s multilateral mechanism, preferring bilateral engagements with weaker partners, divisions within ASEAN have called into question its ability to play a constructive role. The Philippines, Japan and Vietnam have either proposed or taken their cases to the international court of arbitration, but China has consistently refused to use this mechanism. As Taylor Fravel observed, China is biding its time until it has accumulated enough power to dictate terms in the region. Current events show that the disputes, especially involving China, have gotten worse despite these efforts. The only certainty in the near-future is that a resolution will be elusive. Even if one state emerges powerful enough to impose its will upon others, it will only resolve the issue of control, not the legitimacy of ownership.

A Japanese Destroyer in the East China Sea U.S. Navy photography

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Remembering the ‘Spirit of Lahore’ A new ‘spirit of Lahore’ is needed to break down the walls of distrust between India and PakistanNicholas J. Wheeler and Talat Farooq

A new ‘spirit of Lahore” is needed to break down the walls of distrust between India and Pakistan. With Nawaz Sharif back in power, the omens may be good. During the May 2013 election campaign, Sharif had declared that it was time to improve ties between New Delhi and Islamabad. Just as in September 1998 when the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Sharif had taken their first steps of trust at a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the incumbent Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, met Sharif in an informal bilateral meeting at the UNGA last September.

The September 2013 face-to-face meeting between the two leaders played an important role in resuming the dialogue process, which had stalled after the exchange of fire across the Line of Control (LoC) had claimed the lives of Indian and Pakistani troops. Since then, several meetings have taken place between officials and leaders of the two sides. Significantly, following the Singh-Sharif meeting in New York, the Pakistani and Indian Director-General Military Operations (DGMO) met on the Wagah-Attari border in December 2013 to discuss how to maintain the ceasefire along the LoC. They agreed on ‘re-energising the

existing mechanisms’, including a more effective hotline, to address complaints of violations. This was the first such meeting in over a decade.

It remains to be seen whether this momentum of conciliatory moves can be sustained, but the lesson from the Lahore peace process — which began in September 1998 and culminated in the historic meeting of Vajpayee and Sharif at Lahore on 20 February 1999 — is that the best prospects for a breakthrough rest on getting leaders to meet face-to-face.

At Sharif’s invitation, Vajpayee had travelled to Lahore, the birthplace of the Pakistani state, to talk peace. Amid the pomp and splendour of the visit and the evening banquet at Lahore Fort, the two leaders in their discussions deepened the trust that had been growing over the past few months. Vajpayee, Sharif and their top advisors had met at a private luncheon at the UNGA on 23 September 1998. The Indian leader had suggested to Sharif that they speak alone and it was during this private meeting that both leaders agreed to set up a secret backchannel on Kashmir and nominate one representative each who would report directly to them.

For months, Indian and Pakistani negotiations had been deadlocked because of Pakistan’s determination to link progress in the bilateral relationship to concessions on Kashmir. Sharif took the courageous step of breaking this linkage and his government signed the Lahore Declaration. This put in place what, to this day, is the most comprehensive set of nuclear confidence and security building measures (CSBMs) between the two countries. Sharif’s willingness to make this important concession came from his trust in Vajpayee’s promise, made at their New York meeting, to deliver progress on Kashmir.

As is widely known, the trust-building process between the two leaders came to a sudden halt in May 1999, when the then Pakistan army chief, Pervez Musharraf, authorized a military intrusion across the LoC in the Kargil area. Triggering the most intense military conflict since the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, the crisis spawned international fears of nuclear escalation.The conflict effectively scuttled the peace process, while casting doubts on Sharif’s motives. Was Sharif privy to Musharraf’s intentions, and had he lured Vajpayee into a false sense of security at Lahore so that his generals could take operational military advantage on the Kargil heights?

There are three possible interpretations of Sharif’s role in the Kargil episode. The first is Musharraf’s claim that ‘everybody was on board’ and that the prime minister was briefed several times on the operation that was being planned whilst Sharif was shaking Vajpayee’s hand at Lahore. The second interpretation is Sharif’s, which is diametrically opposed to Musharraf’s recollection. Sharif claims that he was unaware of Musharraf's plans. The third interpretation seeks to chart a path between these two extremes.

Support for Sharif’s view that he was duped comes from Pakistan’s Track II negotiator, Niaz A. Naik, who stated publicly that India and Pakistan had

A map of India and Pakistan 2014

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Nicholas J. Wheeler is Director of the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) at the

University of Birmingham, and a Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS). He is the Principal Investigator of the ESRC/AHRC funded project under Research Councils UK’s Global Uncertainties Programme on ‘The Challenges to Trust-Building in Nuclear Worlds’. Professor Wheeler is currently writing a book provisionally entitled Trusting Rivals: Alternative Paths to Security in the Nuclear Age. And is co-editor with Professor Christian Reus-Smit of the prestigious Cambridge Series in International Relations.

Dr Talat Farooq is a Research Associate on the The Political Effects of Unmanned

Aerial Vehicles on Conflict and Cooperation Within and Between States.

Talat holds a PhD from the University of Leicester, an M.Phil in American Studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and an MA in English literature from Karachi University, Pakistan. The focus of her PhD was on US-Pakistan relations in the 1990s. Before coming to Leicester in 2010, Talat was Visiting Faculty at Bahria University and Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Simultaneously, she worked as executive editor for a research based journal, Criterion. She is also a columnist for one of Pakistan’s leading English newspapers, The News International.

been close to reaching an agreement over Kashmir when the Kargil crisis intervened, and that Sharif knew nothing about the operation. This perspective has received further support from some knowledgeable sources that maintain that even the Naval and Air Chiefs were not taken into his confidence by Musharraf. According to their account, the first time that Musharraf disclosed the details of the Kargil operation to them was sometime in mid to late May 1999 at a meeting in the office of the DGMO. One conclusion that might be drawn here is that if standard military procedures were compromised for the sake of secrecy, then it is likely that the civilian government was also kept in the dark.

Those who blame Musharraf for Kargil explain the collapse of the peace process as arising from the military’s discomfort with a negotiated settlement over Kashmir that precluded Pakistan's takeover of the disputed territory. Musharraf is said to have nurtured the idea of seizing territory in this way since the late 1980s. The new found nuclear status of Pakistan is likely to have fuelled the desire to make sub-conventional gains in Kashmir. This perspective perceives the Kargil operation in purely military terms, and a further argument that is invoked here is that Musharraf and his fellow officers leading the operation saw it as primarily a tit-for-tat for the Indian forces’ secret occupation of Siachen heights in 1984.

The third interpretation does not exonerate Sharif of any blame for the breakdown of the peace process, but nor does it accept that civilian and military leaders worked hand in glove. Proponents of this view argue that Sharif was not unaware of the army’s strategy of ‘raising the temperature’ in Kashmir. They maintain that in a March 1999 meeting at ISI headquarters, Sharif operating with limited information of what Musharraf was planning at Kargil agreed that the military could increase the level of insurgent activity in Kashmir, as a way of putting pressure on India to make concessions. This was not a new strategy and the chances are that Sharif did not suspect that an operation on the scale of Kargil was in the works; he categorically denies he was ever told of the deployment of Northern Light Infantry (NLI) troops.

Even if Sharif’s denial is taken at face value, it still has to be asked whether turning up the temperature in Kashmir in the way he appears to have consented to was compatible with the trusting relationship he was building with Vajpayee. Perhaps he was under such pressure from the military after his concessions at Lahore that he had to up the ante, and this raises the question whether the Indian leadership could have done more to support Sharif’s fragile political position by accelerating progress after the meeting at Lahore.

Should the Indian leadership have been better attuned to the need to ensure that Sharif had something concrete to show the military on Kashmir? After all, Sharif had made a key concession at the Lahore Summit by agreeing to delink progress on Kashmir from agreement on nuclear CSBMs. Indeed, an official from India’s External Affairs Ministry reflected after Kargil: ‘Sharif took a risk for better relations, but we didn't reciprocate with concessions over Kashmir. He had nothing to show for it to a sceptical army.’

No one knows how the India-Pakistan conflict might have been reimagined on both sides had further high-level meetings followed the Lahore summit. Perhaps Sharif and Vajpayee would have deepened their relationship of trust in the same way that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev did through their summitry in the second half of the 1980s, with equally momentous results for peace and security on the subcontinent. Fifteen years after the promise of trust was briefly glimpsed at Lahore, New Delhi and Islamabad remain distrustful and suspicious of each other. Nonetheless, with Sharif back in the driving seat, it is perhaps another opportunity for Pakistani and Indian leaders to rediscover the ‘spirit of Lahore’ and settle outstanding disputes that have bedevilled bilateral relations for more than six decades.

This article is a revised version of two previously published pieces by Wheeler and Farooq: ‘Recalling the spirit of Lahore’, The Indian Express, 23 February 2014 and Farooq and Wheeler: ‘Remembering Lahore and Kargil’, Daily Times, 22 February 2014.

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Recent News and Events at the ICCS

University unveils latest MOOCAs part of the School of Government and Society, experts from the ICCS, in collaboration with the International Development Department (IDD) and Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS), introduced a free, open online course to offer a taste of higher education to learners worldwide via an interactive web-based platform. Universally known as MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), Birmingham’s latest course explores “Cooperation in the Contemporary World” and commenced in May 2014. Interested learners can find out more about this course on the Futurelearn website to receive more information.

Hybridity: Exploring power, social structures, and institutions beyond the liberal west’Building on the success of the past IAS workshop on Territorial and Non-Territorial Autonomies, this workshop developed an innovative research agenda around theories of hybridity, which are being increasingly discussed at the academic level.

The workshop successfully bridged the theoretical gap that divides the different disciplines by bringing together scholars and practitioners from political science, sociology, development studies, philosophy, international law, and archaeology, in order to focus on hybridity and its potential impact and challenges over the coming years

The workshop contributed to develop and consolidate the research agenda of the ICCS research theme “Intervention and Statebuilding”, while increasing the collaboration between the IAS, IRiS and the ICCS. Further information regarding this event is available on the website.

The ICCS now runs its own blog, which was established to invoke discussion and reflection on conceptual ideas related to security and the challenges of global cooperation. The blog showcases a number of interesting commentary and analytical pieces written by those involved with the Institute.

We are now seeking contributions for the blog from outside of the Institute on issues broadly relating to conflict and cooperation in global politics. If you wish to

submit an article please contact iccs@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

All published articles are available on the site here

New ICCS blog:

Volume 2 : Issue 1 : 2014 The ICCS Brief 21

The sixth University of Birmingham Policy Commission is exploring the implications of warfare becoming increasingly remote in the 21st Century. It brings leading figures from the public and private sectors together with university academics to focus attention on contemporary issues of global, national and civic concern in order to generate new thinking and identify innovative policy solutions.

The current Policy Commission is entitled "The Security Impact of Drones: Challenges and Opportunities for the UK" and is chaired by Sir David Omand, former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator and a former Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and Director of GCHQ. The Commission’s academic lead is Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler of the ICCS. The Commission is exploring the challenges and opportunities that 'drone' technology – both commercial and military – are likely to pose for current and future UK governments.

Looking beyond the controversies surrounding the use of armed drones in the Global War on Terror, the Commission considers the ways in which new developments in science and technology transform the landscape of security and defence and the implications this has for UK public policy in a national, regional, and international context. There is much debate about whether drones or, as Air Forces prefer to call them, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have contributed to wider international security. Their use raises many questions around issues such as:

� how to balance the conflicting moral choices involved in conducting counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations;

� how far the availability of armed drones would have changed decision-making in Washington and London in earlier international crises;

� the ethically troubling concern: if armed drones make warfare riskless for those conducting it, does this lower their inhibitions to using force?

As part of its work the Commission has drawn up a series of high-level questions and invites submissions addressing the following key areas of focus: legal/ethical, political/operational and proliferation/ regulation. If you would like to submit evidence to the Commission, addressing these key questions, please visit our website for more information

Though the use of UAVs is on the increase, their future role in national strategy and security remains a contested one. This new form of warfare has not been without critics in the countries operating the systems, or among the populations over which they have been used.

The aim is to produce a policy document in October 2014 designed to influence the evolution of local and national government policy, as well as identifying avenues for further research. Further information about it can be found on the website

22 The ICCS Brief Volume 2 : Issue 1 : 2014

ICCS Training Programme 2014: Trust, Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation

Trust, Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation is a unique five day training programme offered by the ICCS that took place from 31st March – 4th April 2014. It provided participants with the opportunity to learn about different approaches to the developing field of trust-building in International Relations and to better understand how practitioners wrestle with the dilemmas of trust/mistrust in practical negotiating settings.

Speakers included Andrew Barlow from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and Paul Schulte, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation. In the evening Lord Hannay of Chiswick delivered a keynote speech on settling disputes, building trust and reaching compromises.

The second day began with a number of academics from the ICCS including Professor Stefan Wolff, Professor Paul Jackson and Dr. Christalla Yakinthou introducing participants to the theories of negotiation followed by a range of contemporary case studies in conflict scenarios. Participants then engaged in a crisis simulation between India and Pakistan over the intractable conflict in Kashmir as well as new Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) in relation their respective nuclear programmes.

On the third and fourth day, participants received specialist professional training by our partner organisation, Responding to Conflict, in practical skills for transformative mediation. This two day training session consisted of plenary presentations, small group activities, role-plays, simulations and case studies drawn from the extensive expertise of Responding to Conflict’s training staff. In the evening on the third day, Sir Richard Dalton, a former senior diplomat, delivered a special guest lecture on the Iran crisis in preparation for the final day’s events.

On the final day the ICCS ran a crisis simulation based upon the breakdown of the latest round of talks between the P5+1 countries and Iran over the latter’s nuclear policies. This whole day event involved a number of formal negotiations between states, back-channel negotiations and cable diplomacy in order to apply all of the previous week’s lessons on trust, diplomacy and conflict transformation.

The ICCS training programme can be taken as part of our MSc in Global Cooperation and Security. In 2014/15 we will have another selection of high profile speakers and practitoners, including a new crisis reflecting the problems of cooperation in global politics today

The first day introduced participants to the obstacles to cooperation and trust that so often lead to the entrenchment of conflict, and the role that empathy and interpersonal dynamics between leaders and diplomats can play in opening up new possibilities for cooperation and conflict-transformation. Guest

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The conflicts in the Middle East have proved intractable for decades. No secure peace has been found and governments are seeking to maintain a fragile status quo. In the face of competing demands over land and other resources, can religious actors participate in mediation efforts and play a peacebuilding role in the Middle East?

Is there a place for soft power next to realpolitik? What have been some of the examples of peacebuilding across cultures and religions? Hosted by the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security in association with the Department of Theology and Religion, this event saw guest speaker Professor Kamel Abu Jaber (Director, Jordan Institute for Middle East Studies) discuss these issues and more with in-house discussants from the University of Birmingham, including Professor Stefan Wolff and Dr Asaf Siniver.

ICCS Blog Competition Professor Mark Webber’s Inaugural Lecture - 5 March 2014

In conjunction with the launch of our new training programme in Trust, Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation, the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) ran an open competition to see who could produce the best blog post for our site on the theme of ‘Conflict Transformation: New Perspectives'. The winning blog entry, ‘Particularly Universal: Ethnography, Psychology and Conflict Transformation’ was written by Donna Baillie, a doctoral researcher at the London School of Economics.

Professor Webber considered how NATO approaches its 2014 summit seemingly exhausted and strategically adrift. It is increasingly being seen as ‘post-operational’ as its presence in Afghanistan and Kosovo draws to a close, relations with Russia are at an impasse; and NATO seems increasingly rudderless as the US looks to Europeans to shoulder a greater share of the material and political burdens of alliance membership. These trends might be said to represent a crisis of the Alliance. The lecture sought to move beyond the narrative of crisis to consider what a world without NATO would actually look like – and to ask whether such a state of affairs is either likely or desirable. Ultimately, Professor Webber’s lecture argued that while a world without NATO is a possibility, such an eventuality would be an undesirable, even a dangerous, outcome.

If you are interested in listening to the discussion, a podcast is now available from our website

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ICCS Seminar Series Autumn 2013

Our Autumn Seminar Series Programme 2013 began with a seminar on ‘Empathy Dynamics in Conflict Transformation’, delivered by Professor Lynne Cameron, a professor of Applied Linguistics at the Open University and ESRC Global Uncertainties Research Fellow, and Simon Weatherbed from Responding To Conflict (RTC). This was followed by a seminar delivered by Simon Rushton, a Faculty Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield. Simon spoke on the subject of ‘US medical assistance and smart power strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan’. The Autumn series concluded with Dr Anthony Burke, a Visiting Fellow at the ICCS and Reader in Political and International Studies at the University of New South Wales, Australia, speaking on ‘Security Cosmopolitanism: Case, Critiques, and Future’.

Podcasts of talks are available here

Dr Naomi Head, a Lecturer in Politics from the University of Glasgow and Honorary Research Fellow at the ICCS, started our Spring Seminar Series Programme 2014 with a seminar on “An Encounter with empathy: normalisation or resistance? The case of Israel and Palestine”. This was shortly followed by a seminar on “Visual Securitization: Taking Security Studies from the Word to the Image” delivered by Professor Lene Hansen, a Professor of International Relations at the University of Copenhagen.

As part of the Seminar Series Sir Lawrence Freedman launched his latest book (Financial Times book of the year 2013) “Strategy: A History”, on the 24th February at the University’s Business School. In the book, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives. Further details about the book are available from Oxford University Press.

The seminar series returned with a talk on ‘Chemically Massacring Civilians: How Much Does, Should, or Can the International Community Care?’ by Paul Schulte, an Honorary Professor at the ICCS.

Podcasts of talks are available here

ICCS Seminar Series Spring 2014

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Analysis by ICCS members This new section of the ICCS brief showcases our open access commentary and analysis, written by members of the Institute and its affiliates.

Trust-building

‘Recalling the spirit of Lahore’ (Professor Nicholas Wheeler and

Dr Talat Farooq - Indian Express)

‘Exploring empathy in Israel and Palestine’ (Dr Naomi Head - GRAMNet)

‘Trust crucial in high-stakes nuclear talks with Iran’ (Professor Nicholas Wheeler -

The Conversation)

Post-conflict Reconstruction

‘Impact Stores: Paul Jackson on Helping to Re-integrate Former Rebel Fighters in Nepal’ (Professor Paul Jackson - ASAP)

‘Setting Afghanistan on its feet: In pursuit of comparative advantage’

(Rudi Vrabel - ICCS)

‘Back towards the bring in Iraq as old tensions are renewed’

(Professor Stefan Wolff - The Conversation)

Politics of WMD

‘Trust crucial in high-stakes nuclear talks with Iran’ (Professor Nick Wheeler -

The Conversation)

‘Watershed moment in nuclear standoff with Iran over its right to enrich uranium’

(Dr Andrew Futter - The Conversation)

‘Progress on Syrian WMDs but real test for UN lies ahead’ (Professor Nicholas Wheeler -

The Conversation)

‘Iran’s nuclear weapons deal will rebalance the Middle East’ (Professor Stefan Wolff -

The Conversation)

International Intervention

‘The Outcome of the Killing of Hakimullah Mehsud’ (Lindsay Murch - ICCS)

‘Beyond Hearts and Minds’ (Simon Copeland - ICCS)

‘Putin calling all the shots in Ukraine: what next for relations between Russia and the

West’ (Professor Stefan Wolff - The Conversation)

‘Putin keeps West guessing as Crimea celebrates seccession’

(Professor Stefan Wolff - The Conversation)

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New book publications

Semantics of Statebuilding: Language, meanings and sovereigntyDr Nicolas Lemay-Hebert

This volume examines international statebuilding in terms of language and meanings, rather than focusing narrowly on current policy practices.

After two decades of evolution towards more ‘integrated,’ ‘multi-faceted’ or, simply stated, more intrusive statebuilding and peacebuilding operations, a critical literature has slowly emerged on the economic, social and political impacts of these interventions. Scholars have started to analyse the ‘unintended consequences’ of peacebuilding missions, analysing all aspects of interventions.

Central to the book is the understanding that language is both the most important tool for building anything of social significance, and the primary repository of meanings in any social setting. Hence, this volume exemplifies how the multiple realities of state, state fragility and statebuilding are being conceptualised in mainstream literature, by highlighting the repercussions this conceptualisation has on ‘good practices’ for statebuilding. Drawing together leading scholars in the field, this project provides a meeting point between

constructivism in international relations and the critical perspective on liberal peacebuilding, shedding new light on the commonly accepted meanings and concepts underlying the international (or world) order, as well as the semantics of contemporary statebuilding practices.

This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding and intervention, war and conflict studies, security studies and international relations.

Lessons for Social Change in the Global Economy: Voices from the FieldCo-edited by Dr Christalla Yakinthou

In the face of globalization's massive social and economic transformations and the resulting persistent inequality, activists, labor organizers, and advocacy NGOs are seeking and creating change beyond the confines of formal state politics and across national borders. Given the breadth of local issues activists face, the ways they define the problem and seek redress vary widely. This book provides a unique perspective on these efforts, gathering into one volume concrete examples of the implementation of different strategies for social change that highlight the challenges involved. This provides useful lessons for those involved in social change, as well as for those studying it. Contributors to the volume are scholars and practitioners around the world, and they draw on strong connections with people working in the field to improve working conditions and environmental standards of global production systems. This allows readers to develop a more comprehensive and grounded understanding of strategies for social change. This book maintains a strong balance between breadth and specificity. It provides an overview of the themes of social change, which contextualizes and draws common threads from the chapters grounded in specific geographic locations and political spaces of change. The chapters analyze environmental and social problems and the varying degrees of success activists have had

in regulating industries, containing environmental hazards, and/or harnessing aspects of an industry for positive social and economic change. Contributors draw upon different ways of creating change, which include corporate social responsibility schemes, fair trade regimes, and community radio. By providing insight into the potential and limitations of actions taken at different levels, the book encourages a critical perspective on efforts for social change, grounded in an understanding of how conditions around the world can affect these activities.