Militarization & Power

Tesis para obtener el grado de Maestra en Asuntos Internacionales.

El objetivo general de esta investigación es explicar cómo la élite militar de los países del TNCA después de los Acuerdos de Paz y las reformas constitucionales lograron influir en el diseño de las estrategias de seguridad militarizando las funciones de seguridad pública.

Militarization on the US–Mexico border has intensified in America's post-9/11 War on Terror, while America's War on Drugs has escalated militarization in America's urban core. This infusion of military weapons and tactics along the border and within America's urban core produces devastating effects on communities of color. Yet, to date, few critical race scholars attend to the Wars on Terror and on Drugs as two sides of the same coin. This article serves as a bridge between US–Mexico border studies and critical race studies vis-à-vis a theorization of a thickening military-police assemblage birthed by the War on Drugs, and intensified by the War on Terror. To delineate this assemblage, we respond to two key questions: how and to what degree has the US–Mexico border served as a staging ground for US (para)military and surveillance strategies at home and abroad? and how do discourses on America's urban core compare and contrast with those on its southern border? We draw upon the cases of Esequiel Hernández, Jr. and Michael Brown, two teenagers whose lives were taken by this assemblage, to frame these questions. Our analysis reveals material, symbolic, and affective links between America's militarization on the southwest border and within its urban core.

Grabbing Power outlines the history of agribusiness in Northern Honduras—from the United Fruit Company’s dominance in the 20th century to the rise of a powerful class of domestic elites in the 1980s and 90s including the brutal landowner Miguel Facussé, also known as the “oil palm grower of death.” The power of these elites is bolstered by international aid, “green” capitalism, a corrupt media, and US-funded militarization in the name of a tragic War on Drugs.

This work examines the blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement. In this article, the author asserts that understanding this blur, and the associated organizing concepts militarization and militarism, are essential for accurately analyzing the changing nature of security, and the activity of policing, in the late-modern era of the 21st century.

America’s Army, the official and free downloadable US Army video game franchise, has been continually updated with new versions for the past twelve years. Formerly managed out of the Office for Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) at West Point, it has been an immersive, interactive advertisement for the Army, resting its
rationale within in a military desire to recruit in a cost-effective way a new kind of ‘talented’ soldier. This reflects a military desire to, in the words of an OEMA publication, ‘move the Army beyond personnel management to talent management’. Drawing on a 2009 interview with OEMA director Colonel Casey Wardynski (retired), I argue that America’s Army has been primarily oriented towards recruiting the labour of a new kind of post-Fordist soldier – one who is part of the growing mass of immaterial labourers who can be identified as ‘the cognitariat’.

This essay, in honor of Yale's Robert Wilson, explores Micah 6:8 as representing the peaceable ways of Israel's God--doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God--as the epitome of the Mosaic Law and the central teaching of Jesus. In embracing these values and living them out, a vision of prosperity--each one living under one's vine and fig tree--is advance with acute relevance, both then and now.

Paul N. Anderson, “On Doing Justice, Loving Kindness, and Walking Humbly in Micah 6:8—The Peaceable Ways of Israel’s God, Then and Now.” A Sage in New Haven: Essays on the Prophets, the Writings, and the Ancient World in Honor of Robert R. Wilson. Edited by Alison Acker Gruseke and Carolyn J. Sharp. Ägypten und Altes Testament 117 (Münster: Zaphon, 2023), 157-167.

Un nuevo mundo ha nacido con el uso de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito militar. La información de la que se puede disponer es inmensa y puede ayudar a la toma de decisiones. No en mucho tiempo, los nuevos sistemas serán autónomos, es decir, serán capaces de tomar sus propias decisiones, siempre y cuando la ética lo permita. Estos nuevos sistemas ofrecen un amplio abanico de posibilidades como: incrementar la seguridad de los soldados, mejorar la ayuda humanitaria en cuanto al rastreo de zonas catastróficas, la búsqueda y rescate de personas en peligro, y el estudio del enemigo para mitigar los ataques, entre otras muchas posibilidades.
El caso del conflicto en la zona de Nagorno- Karabaj, es un caso testigo de la utilizacion de la IA y el uso masivo de drones.

In opposition to the Vietnam War, the US-based group Another Mother for Peace (AMP) coined the compellingly simple slogan, ‘War is not healthy for children and other living things.’ I analyze the changing ways in which these women connected health and war. They transformed the imagined geography of where war is not healthy from the fields of Vietnam to include their own back yards. In this way they reworked Cold War strictures of motherhood and challenged the sturdy fiction that war is about real men protecting vulnerable women and children. Nonetheless, by failing to examine social hierarchies among different groups of mothers and children, they obscured differential vulnerabilities to premature death domestically. Because AMP did not adequately confront the privileging of white domesticity that structured national security discourses, I argue that they unwittingly reproduced the racial-gender commonsense for war. I draw upon intersectional analyses to situate discourses of health within the racial-gendered constructions of home and nation. These works allow me to question both the apparent neutrality of ‘health’ and examine the limitations of not recognizing ‘the home’ as a space of whiteness in US white women’s antiwar activism.

My doctoral dissertation examines the experiences of the Italian volunteers in the Waffen-SS troops using in-depth interviews with former volunteers as the main primary source. This phenomenon, even if significant in size (depending on the source, some 15 000-20 000 Italian men volunteered in the Waffen-SS), has been hitherto largely unknown to historical research. The available literature on the Italian volunteers, mainly written by military history enthusiast journalists and methodologically weak, concentrates mainly on the combat operations and military organization, and offers a rather stereotypical profile of the volunteers.

My dissertation does not aim to reconstruct the military history of the different divisions of the Waffen-SS in which Italian volunteers operated but instead to examine the subjective, private and intimate experience of the volunteers in order to understand the motivations, attitudes, beliefs and cultural and family background, as well as their political ideas. The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is to discover the ideological precepts of the volunteers’ political credo. As the last phase of fascism and its ideology, often defined as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascism, is still the object of wide academic debate, a better understanding of the volunteers’ ideology also contributes to deepening overall knowledge of the nature of this last phase.

The theoretical frame of my dissertation lies in oral history, in particular in the postmodernist approach to oral history, through which I reconstruct the volunteers’ ideology. In-depth interviews with former volunteers are the main primary source, but multiple data collection methods have been adopted. Phone interviews and correspondence with the volunteers have also been considered as primary sources. In addition to interviews and correspondence, family archives consisting of diaries, correspondence with the volunteers’ relatives and photographic material have also been collected and examined. An ethnographic observation of the volunteers’ domestic spaces has been conducted during the in-depth interviews, and photo self-elicitation techniques have been used in cases where the volunteers were willing to share their photographs.

An exhaustive portrait of the ideological structure of the volunteers has been obtained, as well as of the cultural and social origins of the values that contributed to the rise and adoption of this ideology. Further, the volunteers’ motivations to enlist have been clearly reconstructed, together with their cultural, political, social and military backgrounds. The results of the research are particularly relevant both for comprehension of the Italian phenomenon of volunteering in the Waffen-SS and for the reconstruction of the ideological dynamics of the last phase of fascism. The volunteers’ political and ideological system, which can be defined as the Italian SS-fascist ideology, disagrees strongly with the vaguely described ideological profile offered by previous studies that describe volunteers as generically “super-fascist”. The research also offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the final fascist ideological trajectory, currently defined, not without a certain level of approximation, as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascist ideology.

Las relaciones se han visto afectadas por la presencia transnacional de los estupefacientes y las estrategias de su combate. El narcotráfico se ha expandido no sola territorialmente, sinotabién en cuanto al número de crímenes y se a vuelto el neocio ilegal más atractivo a nivel mundial. El poderque han adquirido los cárteles de la droga les ha permitido constituirse en centros de poder paralelos. Se vislumbran cambios en los circuitos productivos y comerciales de los diferentes tipos de drogas y asimismo en el blanqueo de los beneficios. Las dificultados de controlar y atajar las redes internacionales del narcotráfico han dado origen a debates acerca de la necesidad de reenfocar las políticas de drogas y las posibilidades de su regulación. El presente volumen recoge estas deliberaciones con aportaciones de analistas de América Latina y EE.UU.

O presente trabalho discute as consequências da tradição autoritária nas políticas de Segurança Pública implementadas no Brasil desde a Constituinte, principalmente ao longo dos Governos FHC, Lula e Dilma. O trabalho utiliza como referência a transformação da concepção de Segurança Pública ocorrida nos países de democracia consolidada e a forma como ocorreu a transição para o regime democrático no Brasil, a partir dos referenciais teóricos da Justiça de Transição.
Para analisar essas consequências o trabalho apresenta um balanço das ações realizadas em nível federal ao longo das três primeiras décadas pós-redemocratização, a partir do papel das Forças Armadas, da Secretaria Nacional de Segurança Pública e da Secretaria Nacional de Direitos Humanos. Para complementar essa avaliação o trabalho ainda apresenta uma pesquisa sobre o nível de transparência dos órgãos estaduais de Segurança Pública e como a transparência pode ser um mecanismo transicional com potencial para provocar
mudanças sobre tradições autoritárias. O trabalho conclui que essas tradições mantiveram grande força e influência nos processos de tomada de decisão na Segurança Pública brasileira ao longo das três primeiras décadas pós-redemocratização, mantendo vigente uma visão militarizada e burocrática, com instituições fechadas e sem transparência, o que impedem a transição da área para uma concepção democrática.

Ten years after the last large scale piracy attacks in the Western Indian Ocean, other maritime crimes such as illicit fishing and maritime smuggling have emerged. The spill over of conflicts in Yemen and Mozambique and maritime grey-zone activities have also become major maritime security issues. Yet, perhaps the most worrying-though largely underappreciated-trend is the surge of naval activity and strategic competition in the region. This is a major dilemma for the region: The region relies on external military actors to protect vital shipping lanes, but the presence of these actors also risks importing geopolitical tensions that could undermine regional maritime stability. How can the region address these maritime insecurities and the evolving militarization dilemma? We investigate the regional maritime security architecture to identify institutions that can help the region manage the militarisation dilemma. We argue that only the Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) mechanism and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) can help mitigate geopolitical competition in the region. Preparing these mechanisms to deal with the militarisation dilemma will be vital for the long-term prosperity of the Western India Ocean.

This article augments and complicates Nelson's claim that "we talk our way into war and talk our way out of it" (Dedaić & Nelson 2003, p. 459). Military endeavors require verbal legitimation, but militarizing participants and wide swaths of the civilian population requires more than just a stated rationale. It requires the complex construction of acquiescent selves and societies through linguistic maneuvers that present themselves with both brute force and subtlety to enable war's necropolitical calculus of who should live and who can, or must, die (MacLeish 2013, Mbembe 2003). War also involves vexed, stunted, and deadly forms of communication with perceived enemies or civilian populations. And those who are victims of military deeds, including civilians and sometimes service members themselves, are often left with psychic wounds that they cannot talk their way out of, for such wounds resist semantic expression and may emerge through more complex semiotic forms.

A lo largo de su historia el Imperio romano tuvo que hacer frente a numerosas revueltas, debido al enorme territorio que controlaba. De entre los pueblos que las protagonizaron, los hebreos se contaban entre los que con mayor insistencia lucharon por recuperar su independencia. En cuanto a los diversos conflictos que enfrentaron a judíos y romanos, la que, a la postre, seria recordada como la Primera Guerra Judeo-romana (66-73 d.C.) pasó a la historia como el más importante de todos. Ello se debe tanto a que requirió de la participación de dos futuros emperadores al mando de las tropas romanas que debían restablecer la paz en la provincia de Judea, Vespasiano y su hijo Tito, como al hecho de que la ciudad de Jerusalén y el Gran Templo que albergaba acabaron completamente destruidos.

En el año 66 d.C. numerosos factores se unieron al odio que sectores radicales hebreos sentían hacia sus conquistadores romanos, provocando la caída del procurador de Judea, Gesio Floro, y la derrota del Legado de Siria, Cestio Galo, en Beth Horón, quien acudió con sus tropas a pacificar la región sin conseguirlo. El movimiento fue cobrando fuerza tras estos éxitos, y Jerusalén se convirtió en el epicentro del independentismo judío. Roma no podía permanecer pasiva ante estos acontecimientos y Nerón envió allí a Vespasiano, un general experimentado, para acabar de una vez por todas con el problema. La resistencia implacable que demostraron los rebeldes y los problemas políticos que, durante ese tiempo, se produjeron en Roma, provocaron que la conquista final quedara en manos de su capaz hijo Tito quien, a la postre, consiguió conquistar Jerusalén y acabar con la revuelta. El gran triunfo que se celebró en Roma para conmemorar la victoria era lo que la nueva dinastía Flavia necesitaba para afianzar su poder. Sin embargo, la campaña no finalizó hasta el año 73 d.C., tras la toma de la fortaleza de Masada, donde los últimos insurrectos prefirieron suicidarse antes de ser derrotados. El enfrentamiento se saldaría con una enorme pérdida de vidas, tanto entre los soldados romanos como entre los insurrectos judíos y la población civil. Gracias a la obra de Flavio Josefo, podemos reconstruir lo sucedido para poder así conocer con detalle uno de los grandes episodios de la Historia Antigua.

IS INDIAN STATE PROXYING FOR THE HINDUTVA PROJECT OF MILITARIZATION OF THE MAJORITY COMMUNITY?
LINK FOR HINDI VERSION:
https://www.academia.edu/43175302/%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C_%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%93%E0%A4%82_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%87_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%88%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%96_%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%97_%E0%A4%AA_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%B8_%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A5%88

Link for some of S. Islam's writings in English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
Facebook: shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: [email protected]

While much has been said about the historicity of the Kashmir conflict or about how individuals and communities have resisted occupation and demanded the right to self-determination, much less has been said about nature of everyday life under these conditions. This article offers a glimpse of life in the working-class neighbourhood of Maisuma, located in the central area of the city of Srinagar, and its engagement with the political movement for azadi (freedom). I argue that a feature of 'double interminability' characterises life in Maisuma-the impossibility of emergence from the interminable violence that carries on simultaneously with the call of labouring for azadi.

I medici e gli infermieri dell’esercito nelle corsie degli ospedali dove si moltiplicano i lettini di fortuna con i pazienti di Covid-19; i vaccini antinfluenzali stoccati in una delle più grandi basi dell’Aeronautica e scortati per le strade di mezza Italia dalle camionette militari; i tamponi, le vaccinazioni e gli screening di massa effettuati nelle tendopoli delle forze armate issate accanto ai presidi delle aziende sanitarie locali; le truppe armate a presidiare frontiere, vie, piazze, stazioni ferroviarie, aeroporti e porti per imporre i coprifuoco o centellinare i transiti; i blitz con gli sfollagente per impedire gli assembramenti di genitori e studenti agli ingressi di scuole e asili. E le tragiche immagini video delle bare delle vittime della pandemia a Bergamo, stipate nei camion militari.
La risposta istituzionale al coronavirus ha privilegiato lo stato di guerra, i suoi linguaggi, le sue metafore, i suoi simboli.

The study of war as an object of social theory has in recent decades finally begun to receive the attention that such an enduring and multi-faceted phenomenon merits. Indeed, the history of armed conflict is closely connected to the emergence of the modern world, the rise of the nation-state and the development of industrial capitalism, as the work of prominent historical sociologists has now shown. The ways in which societies fight and organise military force can thus shed invaluable light on their wider social and cultural dynamics, revealing the workings of some of their most intimate mechanisms of social power and the roles played by discipline, rationalisation and technoscience. Further analytical challenges await those scholars seeking to grapple with the ongoing transformations of war in a globalising world, from the changing relations of military institutions to civil society in the developed world to the occurrence of “new wars” and the resurgence of non-state actors contesting the state’s monopoly on violence.

Circulating in the contemporary global cultural marketplace, the tourist luau is an iconic form of commodified hospitality and leisure, readily available in embodied and mediated forms.  This article traces the emergence of the luau as a material practice and discursive formation during the “mili-touristic” economy of World War II Hawai‘i in films shot by US military units.  US combat photography units staged ethnographic performances of hula and luaus, transforming the luau from a privileged experience for a select few to a mass mediated event.  These filmic performances produced scripts of imperial hospitality: imagined and enacted scripts in which Islanders and soldiers play roles as host and guest, respectively.  Military luaus rendered uneven colonial relationships as mutual and consensual encounters between white soldiers and Native women.  Through the exercise of biopower, military cameras did not merely discipline Hawaiian populations, but also integrated colonial subjects and regulated Hawaiian sexuality.  These gendered scripts continue to secure Hawai‘i as a rest and relaxation capital for US military personnel.

Son tres los factores que básicamente inciden en la redefinición de la función militar en el área latinoamericana: los cambios en el escenario estratégico global; los procesos de consolidación democrática y la nueva relación entre civiles y militares; y los cambios en la política de EE.UU. hacia la región. Las fuerzas armadas expanden sus funciones a nuevos campos y surge un «neonacionalismo» que torna difícil la desmilitarización. Un debate nacional y regional sobre seguridad y el rol de las fuerzas armadas debería contribuir a una mejor articulación política e institucional del sector.

Honduras was surrounded by revolutions during the second half of the 20th century that were bleeding into the country in the form of refugees, immigrants, insurgencies, and, sometimes, its neighbor’s armies. Revolution came to Guatemala in the 60s, and Nicaragua, and El Salvador towards the mid-to-late 70s when the backs of peasants and Indians were bleeding from oppression, and land devoted to foodstuffs became the property of American cash crop-producing companies. But in Honduras, the quintessential banana republic, relative stability and order persisted with only the mildest acts of political violence from small leftist movements (some of which were exported by neighboring insurgencies), and while its neighbors’ military governments grew more repressive in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Honduras elected a new Congress and a new president ending rule by military junta that lasted from1962-1981. If revolution was inevitable, and its spread spooked State Department officials and Honduran statemen, why did it die in Honduras?

This paper will argue that Honduras’ resistance to revolution during this period stems primarily from the strength of its unions, its government’s liberal attitude towards unions and the press, substantial attempts at labor reform, and the late development and self-checking behavior of the military that successfully diffused popular discontent and maintained political stability.

This paper argues that the various and contradictory rationales offered for law enforcement drones are symptomatic of a ‘weapons fetish’ evident in popular culture. This fetishisation imbues military technology such as the drone with masculine fantasies of control and domination that obscure the practical limitations and ethical implications of drones for crime control and prevention. By linking the pleasures of militarism to crucial shifts in the social and economic order, the paper argues that counter-terrorism discourse functions to legitimate the militarised masculine subject positions of paramilitary policing specifically and the neoliberal state generally. In such a context, the drone features as a regressive ‘weapon-toy’ that fuses state control with technological transcendence.

This paper analyses the drivers behind some of the different types of proliferation of armed groups in power and politics that have taken place in the Middle East and North Africa after 2011. Based on thick empirical description and analysis of the highly distinct ways that armed groups have proliferated in Egypt and in Libya since 2011, the paper pinpoints two key dynamics: first, a process of “militarization of contention” in which regime-orchestrated repression drives forth a transformation of contentious politics from non-violent to armed forms of action. Second, a process of “militia-ization of politics” in which warfare, foreign interventions and the weakness of nascent state institutions drives forth a process in which armed actors are allowed to consolidate and expand their influence politics without necessarily sharing ideology or political agendas. The paper ends by drawing a number of policy-oriented conclusions with the aim to inspire international and local actors who seek to engage in tackling these threats and challenges.

This article looks at the essential conditions for a durable peace in Kashmir and argues that the Valley has been most peaceful only during an active, on-going peace process. The lack of effective and continuous engagement with key stakeholders, especially the people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), has fostered a sense of deep alienation and enduring distrust. It further argues that counterinsurgency operations need to be simultaneously augmented by an active peace process engaging all stakeholders. This would mean a dialogue between the Centre and the J&K and Mainstream and Separatist parties as well as between the different regions of the state. The different political attitude in the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh can serve as a roadblock to a lasting peace if a dialogue is not underway. It recommends urgent steps that must be taken to regain the confidence of people and move closer towards resolution of the conflict.

In this article, I connect covert denial of citizenship rights with tourism development to
explain why Panama presents itself as a police-free state. I engage two main concepts: a
critical analysis of governmentality in tourism (Hollinshead 1999, 2003) and the concept
of tourism as a “world-making” force (Hollinshead et al. 2009;Merrill 2009; Noy 2011;
Reis and Shelton 2011). I apply these concepts to the development of tourism in the
archipelago of Bocas del Toro to illustrate how the processes of governmentality and
world-making are experienced by Afro-Panamanians at the local level when tourism is
imposed from above. An exploration of these concepts assists us in grasping the nature
of Panama’s tourism industry, with its emphasis on demilitarization, but with the practice of denying citizenship rights and maintaining underprivileged groups in
their place in the context of tourism development and economic prosperity.

The first page of the introduction made me very sceptical, as sentences like “the emergent new world order”, a “militarized form of global apartheid”, or “a new form of imperialism – security imperialism”, indicated that I was about to read another book of “big wor(l)ds” and global analysis without any focus on the local – a book of abstract notions that were simply left hanging, a book on global structures without people. When I finished the introduction, I was sure my first judgement had been premature, and when I finished the book I was fascinated.