Disasters Tradition of Forgetting Article

8/8/2019 Disasters Tradition of Forgetting Article

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A tradition of forgetting: stabilisationand humanitarian action in historicalperspective

Sultan Barakat, Sen Deely and Steven A. Zyck1

While subject to increasing articulation and institutionalisation, stabilisation is a long-standing

concept and practice that has consistently engaged with and, at times, conficted with varied

understandings o humanitarianism and humanitarian action. Reviewing selected historical

experiences, including the Philippines (18981902), Algeria (195662), Vietnam (196775) and

El Salvador (198092), this paper argues that contemporary models o stabilisation build on and

repeat mistakes o the past, particularly the overt securitisation o aid and the perception thathumanitarian and development actors are able to purchase security e ectively. Where current

stabilisation diers rom its earlier incarnations, as in the introduction o the private sector and

incorporation o humanitarian action into war-ghting strategies, the implications are shown to

be troubling i not outright disastrous. This examination o historical experience, which includes

many ailures and ew, i any, successes, raises the likelihood that it is not solely the design or

implementation o individual stability operations that require modication but perhaps the entire

concept o stabilisation itsel.

Keywords: counter-insurgency, humanitarian action, pacication, post-confict

reconstruction, stabilisation

Introduction

The perceived novelty of contemporary post-crisis stabilisation operations is in many

respects rooted in a tradition of forgetting, as termed by James Jay Carafano (2004),

more than the emergence of new and more effective modes of intervention. Historical

cases from throughout the twentieth century (and before) reveal an approach to

insecure environments that in many respects mirrors those implemented in recent

times in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether termed counter-insurgency(COIN), pacication, stabilisation, peace-support operations or reconstruction, civil-

ian and military actors have collaborated both to bring an end to small- and large-

scale conicts and to promote durable dispensations in their aftermath. As this paper

demonstrates, the conceptual model underlying their work has remained largely

consistent, as, to a lesser extent, have the methods that they employed. Of course,

such a degree of historical continuity does not necessarily suggest the efcacy or vir-

tue of stability-orientated interventions. Indeed, the cyclical resurrection of previously

problematic paradigms may be viewed as a failure of institutional learning, especially

when historical assessments of past COIN and stabilisation campaigns have elucidated

their aws (see, for instance, Linn, 2000; Nagl, 2002; Yates, 2005; Rabasa et al., 2007).

doi:10.1111/j.0361-3666.2010.01207.x

Disasters, 2010, 34(S3): S297S319. 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation Overseas Development Institute, 2010

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX42DQ, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA


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Sultan Barakat, Sen Deely and Steven A. ZyckS298

This paper does not seekas do so many pieces on the subject solely to cri-

tique the implications of stabilisation for principles of humanitarian action. Rather,

it addresses the following, fundamental question: what aspects of todays stabilisation

discourse and practice are novel in historical terms, and what represent the continu-ation or return of pre-existing models? In doing so, the paper presents a working

denition and understanding of stabilisation before turning to four brief case studies:

the Philippines (18981902), Algeria (195462), Vietnam (196775) and El Salvador

(198092). Dissecting these case studies, a number of historical continuities and

recent innovations become apparent, including a deeply awed logic of intervention

for stabilisation and the rebalancing of the political-economy of stabilisation in a

troubling manner. The paper concludes by suggesting that, rather than its implemen-

tation, the basic concept of stabilisationand the presumption that the combination

of civil and military means enhances the effectiveness of eachrequires revision and

perhaps inversion.

Dening stabilisation

Despite the increase in scholarly research into stabilisation and several policy docu-

ments that take this term as their starting point, the concept itself remains the

subject of explicit and implicit contestation. Indeed, this denitional undertaking has

been frequently sidestepped by those, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO)s Stabilisation Force (SFOR) previously operating in Bosnia-Herzegovina

and the ongoing United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). In

some ways stabilisation has become reminiscent of United States Supreme CourtJustice Potter Stewarts (1964) oft-quoted statement concerning obscenity: [P]erhaps

I could never succeed in intelligibly [dening it] . . . But, I know it when I see it.

Alternatively, particularly in the case of governmental policy documents, denitions

of stabilisation have served public relations goalssuggesting aims of social justice

beyond the scope of their mandatesor are dened by whatever aid actors, diplo-

mats and the military have decided to undertake in the name of stability. A degree of

purposeful ambiguity (for instance, US Army references to full-spectrum opera-

tions) appears to have served the interests of those who wish to broaden the mandate

of stabilisation as circumstances develop rather than being tied to a more limited

set of means or objectives. Indeed, it may be argued that stabilisation itself hasemerged in recent years as a response to civilian and humanitarian opposition to

the militarys overt labelling of its work as reconstruction or development. In this

sense, stabilisation is as much a form of branding as it is a distinctive process.

Not only are references to stabilisation ambiguous in many cases, they are also

commonly ambitious in encapsulating a vision of peace, accountable governance and

economic growth far beyond what the term stability might imply. The United

Kingdom governments Stabilisation Unit has dened stabilisation as the process

of establishing peace and security in countries affected by conict and instability and

as the promotion of peaceful political settlement to produce a legitimate indigenous

government, which can better serve its people (Stabilisation Unit, 2010). Noting


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A tradition of forgetting: stabilisation and humanitarian action in historical perspective S299

that the goals of stabilisation are inherently political, aiming to facilitate a political

settlement to conict among local actors, it differentiates itself from what it views

as politically neutral humanitarian aid and as military-centric COIN operations

(Stabilisation Unit, 2008). Similarly, the UK militarys treatise on the subject,JointDoctrine Publication 3-40, emphasises the pursuit of a political settlement while also

introducing specic sectors of intervention and responsibilities related to infrastruc-

ture, non-violent political processes and sustainable social and economic development

(Ministry of Defence, 2009, p. 239). Adopting an understandably military-centric

approach, the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual3-24

identies stability operations as one of the three separate components of COIN along-

side offence and defence. It denes stabilisation as encapsulating forms of engagement

more commonly associated with multilateral interventions, such as peace-support

operations, reconstruction and nation-building (Sewall, 2007, p. xxiii). A somewhat

more ambitious denition has been put forward by the US government in the Depart-ment of the Armys Stability Operations Field Manual3-07, which denes stabilisation

as the process by which underlying tensions that might lead to resurgence in violence

and a breakdown in law and order are managed and reduced, while efforts are made

to support preconditions for successful long-term development (Department of the

Army, 2008, p. 112). Finally, the Canadian governments Stabilization and Recon-

struction Task Force (START) has evaded denitional questions although it more

closely aligns its work with peace-building and the resolution of underlying ten-

sions (START, 2006, 2010).

Contention and consensusThese contemporary denitions reect a great deal of contention. Even the basic

notion of stabilitythe end result being soughtis conceptualised in differing terms.

For the British, stabilisation involves peace and security but also requires some-

thing of a peace deal (a political settlement) and an elite population, at least, that is

willing to forego the use of violence in the pursuit of power. A perhaps even more

transformative agenda of removing the underlying causes of conictwith the

concomitant suggestion of justice, equity or participatory politicsis included on the

US Armys agenda for stabilisation and is implied on that put forward by START.

Stabilisation is, hence, a form of conict transformation (Miall, 2004) and peace-

building rather than the mere imposition of territorial control. In the US case,stabilisation is aimed not only at preventing conict but also at ensuring law and

order; consequently, stabilisation might be viewed as having failed if it brings con-

ict to an end but does not deter the sort of looting, criminality and violence that

erupted following the recent intervention in Iraq.

Despite such conceptual heterogeneity, a core or shared denition may be ren-

dered. First, each of the denitions above reects a minimum requirement in the

form of the absence of conict, also referred to as a negative peace (Galtung, 1969).

The prevention or cessation of conict is pursued by each of the organisations and

institutions examined. As such, one may correspondingly view conict as a key pre-

cursor for stabilisation to occur. It would not take place in a context that is at peace,


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thus excluding pre-emptive stabilisation or even stabilisation long after a conict has

ended. Furthermore, each institution notes that stabilisation is somehow paired with

the similarly broad term reconstruction. Indeed, reconstruction and stabilisation

have been paired so commonly that R&S has become common shorthand withinat least the US government. Even the UKs Stabilisation Unit comprises the re-

branding of what was formerly known as the Post Conict Reconstruction Unit

(PCRU). The discussion of reconstruction implies a traditionally civilian domain and

a concurrent process of state-building, infrastructure rehabilitation and economic

growth. Final ly, each of the institutions notes that a combination of civil and military

meansand hence civilian and military actorsshould be involved in stabilisation

operations. The similarities, however, stop here, and one is left with a shared, mini-

malist understanding of stabilisation as, in the words of the authors, a process combin-

ing combat, including COIN and irregular warfare, with humanitarian, reconstruc-

tion and/or development support

2

during or in the immediate aftermath of a violentconict in order to prevent the continuation or recurrence of conict and destabilising

levels of non-conict violence. Such a denition prioritises the means involved (that

is, civil and military) but remains neutral on the range of actors involvedwhich

has uctuated over time and in various contextsand abstains from objectives

beyond the attainment of broad physical security (such as state-building and social

or economic development).

This proposed working denition, like those put forward by the Canadian, UK

and US governments, has tended to sidestep the question of humanitarian action

and its relation to stabilisation. Such avoidance is motivated both by stabilisation

actors cautiousness in engaging overtly with the language of humanitar ian action

as well as by the internal cleavages within the humanitar ian community. While

stabilisation as a concept and practice may be antithetical to humanitarians ascribing

to a Dunantist viewpoint, who reject engagement with states and prioritise principles

of neutral ity, independence and impartiality, others may nd it less odious (Barnett,

2005). Indeed, Wilsonian humanitar ians, those who believe humanitarian act ion

should attempt to alleviate the underlying sources of suffering by engaging with at

least partially political interventions (for example, peace-building), may in some

respects nd themselves in agreement with stabil isation discourses commitment to

conict prevention, participatory governance and equitable growth, even if they

do not approve of how it has been implemented in practice (Stoddard, 2003, p. 27).

Indeed, the following case studies elucidate the internal debates within humani-tarianism and demonstrate, particularly in the rise of humanitarian agencies and non-

governmental organisations (NGOs) in later-stage stabilisation operations, the growing

clout of Wilsonian thinking on the subject.

Historical experience of stabilisation

According to the denition proposed in the preceding section, one may identify pre-

vious interventions that, despite their use of alternative syntaxparticularly pacication

and COINrepresent what today may be labelled as stabilisation. The following case


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studies address the US operations in the Philippines (18981902), Vietnam (196775)

and El Salvador (198092) as well as the French pacication attempt in Algeria

(195462). One should note, however, that, in highlighting the quasi-humanitarian

elements of these stabilisation efforts, the authors do not intend to minimise atten-tion to the contributions of (oftentimes brutal) combat and COIN operations to these

colonial or neo-colonial wars. As Cohen (2010) has noted, the contemporary quest

for historical examples that correlate to current stabilisation operations in Afghanistan

and Iraq has resulted in some whitewashing of the past by focusing on the quasi-

humanitar ian or development assistance delivered by the military more than on the

harm that it has inicted on enemy combatants and civilians alike. The examples

outlined below should not be viewed in this light; indeed, as the authors describe,

many early attempts at stabilisation were irreparably undermined by the degree of

indiscriminate violence that preceded or accompanied them.

The Philippines, 18981902

This campaign is one of the most closely studied given that it represents an appar-

ent victory of an intervening military through a combination of civil and military

approaches within a relatively short period of time. Having begun as a successful

American campaign to unseat Spanish rule in the Philippines, the US government

and military quickly found themselves at odds with the revolutionary leaders whom

they had initially supported. The resulting and predominantly guerrilla conict

between the US and indigenous elements comprised an early testing ground for what

now would be seen as stabil isation (Rabasaet al., 2007, pp. 715). These operationstook place in three distinct stages in relatively rapid succession by contemporary

standards (Rabasaet al., 2007). While each stage included dynamic and static mil-

itary operations, the civilian elements varied substantially.

During the rst phase, civilian populations were interned in an attempt to prevent

them from supporting the rebels. Conditions in camps were poor, and food was

rationed so as to prevent those in the concentration camps, as they were denoted,

from aiding and abetting insurgent ghters (Carter, 1917). Such an approach, which

was centred on those areas perceived as being of greatest strategic value to the guer-

ril las, had the undesired intent of alienating portions of the population. However,

internment was joined, particularly during a second phase under the command of

General Arthur MacArthur, with a hearts-and-minds strategy that more fully

complied with US President William McKinleys order that the military was to win

the condence, respect and admiration of the Filipino people (McKinley, 1898).

As such, the US armed forces were to provide education and transportation infra-

structure, schooling, health care, sanitation and communications systems while

facilitating the formation of compliant local administrations (Gates, 1973). Such inter-

ventions, which were implemented directly by the mil itary rather than through

non-governmental contractors, have been deemed integral in weakening support

for the insurgents, whose popular credibility was undermined by their acts of loot-

ing and use of brutal tactics, including mass ki llings.


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This military humanitarianism was likewise aimed at gaining recruits for two

indigenous, auxiliary forcesthe Constabulary and the Scoutscreated by the US

armed forces to supplement their own (and relatively limited) combat troop strength.

The growth of these forces served to hold territory and provided an effective meansof gaining intelligence on the rebels. The Constabulary and Scouts also provided a

means of employment for would-be opponents and countered perceptions that the

US had intended to marginalise the indigenous population once the war was won;

arming the locals demonstrated a degree of trust and partnership that contrasted

sharply with the elite-centric approach previously adopted by the Spanish (Linn, 2000;

Rabasaet al., 2007).

The US military eventually came to supplement its quasi-humanitarian approach

during the nal phase of operations, which witnessed widespread human rights

abuses and, according to some, the use of torture and summary executions by US

soldiers against those deemed to be insurgent collaborators (May, 1983).3 Therecord of the warand the relative contributions of the power of military humani-

tarianism, brutal repression and poor tactics among the guerrillasremains con-

tested, as do the lessons that contemporary stabilisers may extract from it (May, 1983).

Despite lingering controversy, it remained an example that was to colour later,

quasi-humanitarian stabilisation efforts throughout the twentieth century and into

the present time.

Algeria, 195462

Within Algeria, stabilisation was undertaken not by a newly arrived interveningpoweras was the US in the Philippinesbut by a long-standing colonial ruler.

The French strategy, like that of the US in the Philippines, started with operations

that alienated large swaths of the population before ultimately turning towards civil

military collaboration as part of an integrated strategy. In a series of events that

have come to dene the Algerian struggle for independence in the minds of many,

the French government launched a harsh and violent crackdown against the Muslim

population of, in particular, Algiers following the insurrection led by the Front de

Libration Nationale (FLN). The use of torture and summary executions on a wide

scale served to diminish the indigenous populations support for the French gov-

ernment and colonial administration, thus complicating future, quasi-humanitarianforms of stabilisation support (Hutchinson, 1972, p. 391).

In Algeria, the fa ilure of conventional deterrence by violence (Melnik, 1964,

p. 265) led to an initial phase of COIN-motivated stabilisation that involved what

today have become known as psyops (psychological operations), which attempted

to indoctrinate the population in favour of the French military effort while vilifying

the insurgency (Melnik, 1964, pp. 266272). Doing so comprised one component of

a broader strategy, referred to as quadrillagein the city of Algiers, in which the coun-

try was divided into operational zones. Each zone comprised two to three villages

which were assigned to a particular French Army company that was responsible for

maintaining security and delivering relatively small-scale humanitarian interventions,


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particularly schooling and medical care, in the area (Horne, 1977). The implemen-

tation of this military humanitarianism, however, differed widely among regions of

Algeria as different army commanders accepted civil-type roles with varying degrees

of willingness (Galula, 2006a). Some commanders are known to have developedstrong relationships with local populations while others largely ignored humanitar-

ian activities and continued to engage in combat and intelligence operations that,

due to their aggressiveness, undermined local support. While records concerning the

volume of aid provided are unavailable, it is generally perceived to have been rela-

tively ad hoc and rooted more in the delivery of services (such as teaching classes or

supplying some medical care) rather than in large-scale schemes like those pursued

by the US in the Philippines.

In all cases, though, military humanitarianism in Algeria was inherently and

solely viewed as a tool of warfare and COIN operations; assistance was, in some

cases, exchanged for lists of suspected rebels, who were promptly executed by theFrench military (Galula, 2006b, p. xxiii). Little attempt was made to masque the use

of humanitarian assistance as a bribe for intelligence and acquiescence. When com-

bined with the anti-French sentiment engrained during the early Battle of Algiers

and the anti-colonial sentiment spreading across North Africa and the broader

Arab World, quasi-humanitarian stabilisation appeared to have contributed little to

this conict. The French military victory has commonly been tied to its ability to

control the countrys borders and prevent the inow of ghters from neighbouring

states. Stil l, in an example applicable to stabilisation operations today, the conduct

of the war itself rendered the population hostile to the delivery of aid by the French

armed forces, and the limits of military humanitarian became visible. Despite havingwon the military battle, the French Armys tactics had so effectively alienated the

Algerian and French people that it was impelled to grant Algeria its independence

on 5 July 1962 (Rabasaet al., 2007, pp. 17-25).

Vietnam, 196775

Similar dynamics were at play during the USs attempted stabilisation of Vietnam,

which only half a decade before had been the site of another failed French stabilisa-

tion effort. The Vietnam example is particularly fascinating in light of concern that

contemporary Afghanistan is rapidly becoming the USs new Vietnam (Johnson

and Mason, 2009). Any such comparison must, however, acknowledge that US

engagement in Vietnamlike its earlier engagement in the Philippines and the

French pacication of Algeriawas far from consistent. The genuine and widespread

adoption of a combined civilmilitary approachwhat now might be termed sta-

bilisationwas not undertaken until the mid-1960s (Nagl, 2002); this brief case

study primarily concerns itself with the period from 196775 rather than with the

earlier phase of the conict. In this later stage, war-ghting and the widespread use

of airpower was combined with comprehensive revolutionary development pro-

gramming intended to alleviate humanitarian crises resulting from combat operations

and to win the hearts and minds of the local population (Komer, 1970a, 1970b).


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Alongside a destructive military campaign, the US Army introduced the Civil

Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) approach in 1967.

CORDS reected a paradigm shift given that it formalised the role of civilian

agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)in stabilisation (or pacication, as it was then known) and launched an overt and

structured process of civilmi litary cooperation (CIMIC), which has, in varying

forms, continued to the present. While representing an organisational or bureau-

cratic innovation, CORDS built on the work of the United States Operations

Mission (USOM), which oversaw the provision of US development assistance to

Vietnam with, at varying times, inputs from the International Cooperation Admin-

istration, the Development Loan Fund and USAID (after its creation in 1961). Under

CORDS, civilian and military operations were to be coordinated in such a manner

as to build support among the population for the Government of South Vietnam

(Donnell, 1967; Grinter, 1975; Hennessy, 1997; Record and Terrill, 2004). Thislogic of pacication was widely adopted, and the denition advanced by one South

Vietnam ofcial (Tho, 1975, p. 5) is nearly identical to contemporary references to

stabilisation:

Pacication is the military, political, economic, and social process o establishing or rees-

tablishing local government responsive to and involving the participation o the people. It

includes the provision o sustained, credible territorial security . . . the assertion or reasser-

tion o political control and involvement o the people in government, and the initiation o

economic and social activity capable o sel-sustenance and expansion.

Indeed, the notion of pacication and revolutionary development adopted in

Vietnam went beyond contemporary stabilisation in many ways. It was rooted in a

belief that social change was inevitable and that marginalised people had a justi-

able desire to escape poverty and achieve greater equity. As such, pacication was

perceivedat least in its initial designas a sort of guided revolution to render the

one proposed by communist elements unnecessary or redundant (Sorley, 1967).

Despite the adoption of such a transformative agenda and the introduction of

community-driven development through the Self-Help Hamlet Development Pro-

grammewhich sought to fund small-scale projects designed and implemented by

community membersthese approaches were ultimately too late to counter thepopulations preference for (and, in some cases, fear of ) the Viet Cong insurgency

(Sorley, 1967). Furthermore, military humanitarianism encountered resistance from

a US military uncomfortable with civilian roleswhich were imposed by presiden-

tial decreeand from a US intervention that had grown in many respects too large

and unwieldy to refocus mid-conict (Andrade and Willbanks, 2006). Furthermore,

as in Algeria, the quasi-humanitarian initiatives implemented soon found them-

selves directly l inked with intelligence gathering for the expressed purpose of tar-

geted assassinations. Today, CORDS is commonly noted as CORDS/Phoenix in

recognition of the Phoenix Program, which attempted to identify and neutralise

(either arrest or kill) the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI), a euphemism for a network


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of individuals engaged in recruiting and training guerrilla ghters (Andrade and

Willbanks, 2006). With the overt linking of US aid and war-ghting, the hearts-

and-minds benets of development assistance plummeted (Cohen, 2010, p. 81). The

US was to withdraw in 1975 shortly before the fall of Saigon.

El Salvador, 198092

Somewhat traumatised by the Vietnam experience, the US government temporarily

withdrew from international interventionism and large-scale stabilisation opera-

tions (Brogan, 1994). It was not until the case of El Salvador manifested itself that

this trepidation was overcome and a new, post-Vietnam approach to stabilisation

emerged. This model was rooted not in the deployment of large numbers of military

personnel overseaspartly due to lingering anti-interventionism among US legis-

lators and the publicbut rather in the provision of advice, training and materialsupport to at-risk regimes. The rhetoric of a light footprint that was to gain traction

in contemporary Afghanistan and Iraq rst materialised in this Central American

context as the US government aimed to aid the Salvadoran authorities, long known

for their abuses rather than their virtues, to combat a range of communist insurgent

groups comprising the Frente Farabundo Mart para la Liberacin Nacional (FMLN)

(Schwarz, 1991).

The El Salvador model largely emerged from the National Bipartisan Commission

on Central America of1984, more commonly referred to as the Kissinger Com-

mission. The report produced by this body not only guided a further eight years

of US policy towards El Salvador but also, in many respects, is an early articulationof contemporary thinking on stabilisation and the securitydevelopment nexus. In

stating that [u]nless rapid progress can be made on the political, economic and social

fronts, peace on the military front will be elusive and would be fragile, the report

outlines a strategy in which development assistance and state-building rather than

military action form the centrepiece of stabilisation (National Bipartisan Commission

on Central America, 1984, p. 4). Such thinking was to guide the then-ongoing inter-

vention in El Salvador, which was marked by the use of aid conditionalities and US

advisers to attempt (many would say unsuccessfully) to professionalise the armed

forces, to promote human rights among the security services, to reform the judiciary,

to develop the economy, to provide greater economic equity and to advance more

genuine democracy.

What the Kissinger Commission report had not adequately appreciated was the

political economy of stabilisation. US civil and military support to El Salvador is

ultimately recalled as a failure at least in part because of the Salvadoran govern-

ments resistance to change; nor did it need to respond to American prodding, with

US assistance ensured as long as the communist threat persisted (Schwarz, 1991).

Land reform and other key US government priorities for El Salvador saw little

progress until the very end of the conict. US civilian engagement was to have the

greatest meaningful effect in dealing with the humanitarian emergencies, particu-

larly widespread population displacement, which US military support had helped to


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bring about. Meaningful reforms in El Salvador were stalled, and the stabilisation

effort is perhaps best remembered for having used US aid to train and equip an

army which kidnapped and disappeared more than 30,000 people, and carried out

large-scale massacres of thousands of old people, women and children (Gibb, 2002).Only the end of the Cold War and the resulting loss of support for the rebel FMLN

brought the government and insurgents to the table for ultimately successful, United

Nations (UN)-brokered peace talks in 1992 in a process that multilateral institutions

were to repeat throughout the 1990s. The contribution of US stabilisation support

appeared to many to have at best prevented a large-scale conict and at worst pro-

longed oppression and violence, all at a cost of more than USD 6 billion.

The role o humanitarian action and agencies

In the above cases, humanitarian actors played a limited and carefully circumscribedrole given that even organisations such as the International Committee of the Red

Cross (ICRC), with very few exceptions, were refused admission by one or both

sides to the conict. NGOs, with their predominantly Wilsonian approach to aid

delivery, fur thermore tended to operate overwhelmingly in more stable environ-

ments and were not to emerge as a major force in the humanitarian community until

the 1990s, when they grew in number and began their expansion into increasingly

insecure contexts.4

In the Philippines, for instance, the US military denied access to humanitarian aid

workers who wished to monitor human rights abuses, which each side to the con-

ict claimed the other had committed. Reportedly, a single ICRC staff member,Francis A. Blake, gained access and witnessed indications of human rights abuses

and torture, including the razing of entire vil lages, whilst providing limited med-

ical assistance (Miller, 1982). The ICRC was not, however, permitted either to

conrm such claims or to provide meaningful levels of assistance to the civilian

casualties of that conict, estimated at more than 200,000, due to hunger and other

causes (Miller, 1982). In Algeria, while the ICRC was only permitted to spot-

check conditions of detention until the very late stage of the conict, from 1955

onwards, the ICRC reported on the use of torture by the French armed forces (Lema,

2005). Again, humanitarians primary if not sole role was bearing witness (to the best

of their ability) to atrocities rather than addressing humanitar ian needs.

In Vietnam, during the later stages of the conict, the American Red Cross (ARC),

which operates under a mandate and set of principles separate from the rest of the

Red Cross movement, ran 50 camps for civilian refugees in the south with funding

from USAID and in partnership with the Government of South Vietnam and the

South Vietnamese Red Cross Society (American Red Cross, 2004). In addition to

providing medical assistance, the ARC attempted to boost the morale of US forces

by providing recreation (American Red Cross, n.d.). The limited role of the ICRC

within this conict was at least partly explained by the communist North Vietnamese

governments unwil lingness to allow entry to ICRC personnel (ICRC, 2001, p. 9).


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Finally, in El Salvador, humanitar ian agencies, including local and international

NGOs and church groups, operated on a previously unprecedented scale in a mid-

conict context. The relative low intensity of combat in El Salvador combined

with the strong role of churches, particularly the Catholic Church but also var iousProtestant sects, led to large-scale humanitarian assistance for, most notably, displaced

populations. The European Economic Community, USAID, the United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and, later, the ICRC intervened to

provide food aid, construction materials, non-food items and temporary shelter for

the displaced (Sollis, 1992). Such efforts were, however, frustrated by Salvadoran

military and civilian authorities, which often conscated aid materials and impeded

their delivery out of concern that humanitarian actors were covertly or inadvert-

ently channelling assistance to the FMLN and its supporters. Subsequent debate

under the banner of do-no-harm principles popularised by Mary Anderson (1999)

has questioned the degree to which the involvement of humanitarian actors helpedto enable the Salvadoran militarys brutality (Rieff, 2002). Indeed, the Salvadoran

authorities are known to have viewed sites of humanitarian operations as useful

points for detaining or targeting individuals suspected of involvement with the

rebels. At other times, the humanitarian communitys management of displacement

was used strategically by the local ofcials and the Salvadoran military as a means

of de-populating and re-populating locations either to deny sanctuary to the insur-

gents or to consolidate government control over particular areas (Soll is, 1992). The

nature of humanitarian involvement in El Salvador provided an early example of

the need for aid actors to intervene in a manner that avoided causing harmwhile

still succouring vulnerable populations.Given the limited engagement of humanitarian and development actors in these

conicts, they are in some respects outside the scope of contemporary stabilisation

discourses that have focused on the interaction between COIN-orientated military

actors and independent humanitarian or development actors undertaking relief and

reconstruction activities (see, for instance, Weissman, 2004; Hoffman and Weiss,

2006; Weiss, 2007). The labels adopted during this early period of stabilisation,

particularly COIN and pacication, reected the military-dominated notions of

security that drove these interventions. The above examples, however, reect the

increasing civilianisation of mid-conict contexts, as the mil itarys hegemony in

countries such as the Philippines gave way to increased collaboration with civiliangovernmental actors such as USAID in Vietnam and NGOs in El Salvador. The

question remains, though, to what extent contemporary stabilisation discourse and

praxis either mirror these past experiences or diverge sharply from them.

Contemporary stabilisation: historical repetition or

novel invention?

Following the end of the Cold War, the focus of stabilisation activities increasingly

shifted from pacication and COIN to peacekeeping and peace-building. The


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combination of civil and military actors within peacekeeping missions, and peace-

keepers use of aid as a means of enhancing security and post-conict political settle-

ments, broadly matched both earlier and later concepts of stabilisation. Rooted in

the notion of new wars (Kaldor, 1999), which were believed to represent a signi-cant departure from earlier models of conict with their intentional targeting of

civilians and ethnic overtones, peacekeeping operations developed in part as a response

to emerging concepts such as state failure (Zartman, 1995; Mill iken and Krause,

2003) and the responsibility to protect (Weiss, 2005). According to proponents of

these concepts, if states were unable to provide life-supporting protection and assist-

ance for their citizens, they were obliged to accept (and the international community

was obliged to mobilise) international humanitarian interventions (Weiss and Hubert,

2001). Led by the UN, peacekeeping missions proliferated during this period and

were accompanied (or preceded, in many cases) by large-scale humanitarian relief

and reconstruction programmes implemented by the NGOs that were sprouting dur-ing the 1990s.

Such interventions perhaps embodied one of the most comprehensive and inte-

grated approaches to stabilisation given their combination of military, humanitarian

and diplomatic engagement (Barakat and Zyck, 2009). Unlike earlier models, which

were overtly colonial (Algeria and the Philippines) or neo-colonial (El Salvador

and Vietnam) in nature, peacekeeping missions were perceived as having greater

international legitimacy due to UN leadership. Furthermore, given the forms of ethnic

cleansing that they sought to prevent in the Balkans and Rwanda, the humanitar ian

interventions undertaken by peacekeepers and their political bosses were viewed as

more virtuous than earlier wars of choice during the colonial and Cold War eras.

Yet it was also the nature of new wars and the atrocities that accompanied them

that helped to consolidate the Wilsonian trend among UN agencies and NGOs. As

Barnett (2005, p. 724) notes, during this era of peacekeeping and peace-building

humanitarian agencies began to accept the idea that they might try to eliminate the

root causes of conicts that place individuals at risk; this vision swept them up into

a process of transformation and into the world of politics that they had previously

shunned. Indeed, humanitar ian actors, in part due to organisational imperatives to

grow and alleviate suffering of all types, became engaged not only in non-life-saving

development work and state-building but also in lobbying members of the inter-

national community to intervene militarily to put an end to conicts in settings such

as the Balkans and several parts of sub-Saharan Africa (Barnett, 2005).

The success of multilateral civilmilitary peacekeeping interventions in the 1990s,

and the challenge to state sovereignty and humanitarian neutrality that they em-

bodied, in some ways laid the conceptual and institutional groundwork for the

next generation of stabilisation that emerged following the terrorist attacks of 11

September2001. The qualied successat least in preventing renewed conictof

neo-colonial transitional administrations in countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina,

where the Ofce of the High Representative (OHR) was given de facto rule over

the country (Chandler, 2000), impressed a key policymaking community in the US.


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The neo-conservative foreign policy elite, which long espoused the belief that

timidity and respect for existing governmental authorities in countries such as El

Salvador and Vietnam had undermined US foreign and military policy, found them-

selves favourably disposed towards the muscular, military-backed humanitarianismthat had been embraced by Wilsonian aid agencies (Bethell, 2004; Caplan, 2005).

The events of11 September2001 and the subsequent, conceptual linking of un-

governed territories with international terrorism presented an opportunity for a new

model of CIMIC and stabilisation to emerge. Yet, as in Algeria, the Phil ippines and

Vietnam in previous decades, stabilisation proceeded with a dominant focus on the

military and only limited attention to the potential civilian contributions. Humani-

tarian and developmental elements of stabilisation were still perceived as much foreign

policy as social work or, perhaps more accurately, as useful if not always compliant

tools of US interests (Mandelbaum, 1996).

Thinking on issues of reconstruction and stabilisation were, however, to evolve inlight of challenges encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2005, the report of the

Independent Task Force on US Post-Conict Capabilities called on the president to

make clear that building Americas capability to conduct stabilisation and reconstruc-

tion operations will be a top foreign policy priority (Council on Foreign Relations,

2005, p. 8). The report recommended the establishment of a senior-level position

and an associated directorate for stabilisation and reconstruction activities, which

would assume responsibility for coordinating mission planning and civilmilitary

relations and for establishing inter-agency roles and responsibilities. It was not until

2008, though, that Congress formally authorised the establishment of the Department

of State Ofce of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS),and it took until 2009 for the Department of State to supply S/CRS with a regular

budget (Serano, 2010).

During this time, driven by initial (and continuing) failures in Afghanistan and

Iraq and chal lenges in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, a new stabilisation

model was emerging. This model elevatedhumanitar ian and development assistance

and soughtto integrate them more closely with defence and diplomacy in conict-

affected countries where states had proven either unable or unwilling to meet citizens

basic needs (Clinton, 2010). In Afghanistan, for example, USAID began embedding

civilian development staff with US military forces and allowing development ex-

perts to compensate for shortages of civilian development personnel in the eld byenlisting uniformed troops in the provision of humanitar ian or development assist-

ance (Clinton, 2010). The greatest civi lmilitary collaboration, however, did not

comprise military humanitar ianism but rather the provision of assistance by UN

agencies, NGOs and humanitarian organisations with support from those countries,

particularly Canada, the UK and the US, most heavily engaged in war-ghting. In

Afghanistan and later Iraq, aid agencies were viewed as instruments of public diplo-

macy tasked with building legitimacy for weak regimes and international interven-

tions by restoring livelihoods, strengthening local governance and delivering basic

services while foreign forces or government troops supplied the security that would

allow development to take root.


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In practice, the conation of war-ghting and rehabilitation or reconstruction

activities proved more complex than anticipated, with high rates of insurgent and

internal violence in Iraq, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, slow progress

in fostering indigenous political institutions, and the limited impact of reconstructionassistance. State-building and reconstruction programmes have quickly devolved

into an alternative and unintended form of engagement as the envisioned process

of bombrulerebuilda more rapid version of international engagement in the

Balkanswas supplanted by village-by-village COIN operations under a banner of

clearholdbuild (Burton and Nagl, 2008).5 Humanitarian and development actors

were no longer supporting post-conict reconstruction in a peaceful environment

safeguarded by foreign forces, as in the peacekeeping contexts of the 1990s, but were

tasked with (and, despite protests, accepted responsibility for) providing assistance

in a manner intended to complement if not directly supplement force protection.

The partial-yet-signicant transition from Dunantist to Wilsonian humanitarian-ism had advanced to a stage in which humanitarians were not solely focusing on

immediate needs or the resolution of underlying causes of conict and injustice

but, in no small respect, had become entangled in the conduct of wars themselves

(Barakat and Zyck, 2009).

Reinventing the broken wheel

Recent models of stabilisation, particularly those that emerged in the aftermath of

11 September2001, have incorporated past strategies and tactics and in some cases

have involved near-identical replications of earlier models. Indeed, some contem-porary stabilisation efforts appear to have more in common with the Philippines

and Vietnam than with Bosnia-Herzegovina or Haiti during the 1990s. For example,

the provision of assistance directly by the military through Provincial Reconstruction

Teams (PRTs) in contemporary Afghanistan and Iraq is reminiscent of the military

humanitar ianism witnessed in the Philippines, Vietnam and even Algeria. Indeed, in

Vietnam, the US used the language of Provincial Advisory Teams (PATs), which,

like modern PRTs, combined soldiers with representatives of civilian agencies such

as USAID in order to pacify or win the hearts and minds of rural communities.

Furthermore, the localised approach and territorial division of particular districts

and provinces in Afghanistan among these PRTs reects a strategy, quadrillage, rstpioneered by the French in Algeria.

Even the methods employed reect historical continuities. Quick-impact projects

(QIPs), which were rst attempted in the Philippines, have been a mainstay of mili-

tary and COIN operations in nearly every conict since then. QIPs are small-scale,

local development projects, such as the rehabilitation of a health clinic or the dig-

ging of wells, that aim to foster a peace dividend by demonstrating the potential

benets of an end to the conict (Colletta, Kostner and Wiederhofer, 1996). Today,

as in the past, QIPs have been greeted with initial promise but have subsequently

served to instil a sense of pessimism among beneciary populations that broader and

more meaningful improvements in economic conditions and infrastructure may never


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arrive. Finally, the internationally-supported National Solidarity Programme (NSP)

in Afghanistan is a reincarnation in many respects of the Self-Help Hamlet Devel-

opment Programme in Vietnam, and, like its predecessor, is focused on supporting

local development while overcoming centreperiphery divisions and legitimating

mistrusted governmental authorities (Sorley, 1967; Barakat et al., 2006).

If one cross-historical trend can be identied from nineteenth century Manila to

twenty-rst century Baghdad and beyond, it is the assumption that quasi-humanitarian

or development-orientated stabilisation assistance can mitigate insecurity by making

local populations more inclined to support external actors and mistrusted domestic

political authorities. According to such a logic, a government that controls its ter-ritory and contributes to the fullment of basic human needs (such as education, food,

health care, shelter and water) has the ability to gain popular support and hence

discourage and/or defeat insurgent elements. This process (see Figure 1) has guided

projects ranging from infrastructure rehabilitation to administrative decentralisa-

tion and served as the underlying logic for much research into stabilisation and the

securitydevelopment nexus; yet it is incomplete and rooted in a number of un-

founded assumptions.

This process (Figure 1) is predicated rstly on the assumption that the international

community and national government authorities in conict-affected countries are

able to bring about one or a combination of territorial control, the fullment of basic

needs and political legitimacy within relatively short time frames. Such time frames

are often set based on political agendas that do not reect the actual complexity

involved in achieving the desired outcomes. Hence, ambitious, short-term objectives

for stabilisation actors are often unmetor fullled in an unsustainable manner

thus resulting in popular discontentment in the conict-affected country as well as

in donor nations. Where reconstruction or stabilisations technical outcomes are

achieved to some extent, a second assumption comes into play, namely that political

or material gains are sufcient for gaining the allegiance of the population. In prac-

tice, stabilisation actors have found that, despite improvements in material well-being,

Territorial control Military victoryInsurgents lose

active and passivesupport of the

populationPopulation

supportive of the

state and/or its

international

backers

Political legitimacy

Stalemate leading

to a political

settlement

Stabilisation actors

gain acquiescence

or support of

population

Basic human needs/

well-beingInsurgents ee

Figure 1 Stabilisations underlying logic o intervention

Source: authors.


16/23


for instance, spoiler or insurgent violence may emerge due to factorssuch as deep-

seated opposition to external military interventions and occupations. Third, stabi-

lisation actors have found that popular support for stabilisation actors and national

political authorities may not result from material gains where the threat posed byopposition groups is great. In Afghanistan today, for example, popular approval for

an international ly-nanced reconstruction project may not result in physical or

political opposition to the insurgency given the threat of violent retribution posed

by the Taliban. Finally, the international communitys hearts-and-minds approach

to stabilisation is predicated on the assumption that popular support is necessary for

the functioning of an insurgency. History shows that even small insurgencies, such

as that which exists now in Afghanistan, involving roughly 20,00050,000 prima-

rily part-time ghters, have the potential to undermine stabilisation operations and

security. In such a context, widespread support for the government and its interna-

tional backers may be rendered meaningless for security as long as an insurgencymaintains a minimal size and operational capacity; schools, clinics, roads and gov-

ernance programming, even where done well and to the benet of the majority of the

population, may have a negligible impact on the security-orientated goals of stabi-

lisation. Such assumptions have come into play and complicated stabilisation efforts

from Afghanistan to Algeria yet have not necessarily resulted in a more realistic

logic of intervention to guide the pursuit of stability.

In addition to retaining this underlying conceptualisation and set of implicit

assumptions, recent stabilisation efforts have also emphasised the explicit link between

quasi-humanitarian assistance and COIN. Humanitarian and, in particular, recon-

struction interventions are concentrated in those areas in which COIN operationsare taking place rather than in locations that are stable and, hence, more likely to

benet from external aid, thus creating widely noted perverse incentives (Barakat

et al., 2008). While the securitydevelopment nexus was certainly not absent from

interventions throughout the 1990s, when peacekeeping and peace-building models

emerged, development was viewed more as a process of undoing forms of exclusion

to foster stability through justice and equity. The more recent aid-for-acquiescence

logic applied in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere represents a divergence from the

immediate post-Cold War phase and an attempt to apply century-old notions of pac-

ication and COIN such as those pursued in Algeria and Vietnam.

New trends in stabilisation

Despite the resurrection of previous (and mostly unsuccessful) models of stabilisation,

the current approach presents a number of innovations. Most evident among these

isthe exponential growth and diversication of the actors involved and the relation-

ships between them. One of the most striking aspects of the Philippines example is

the exclusive responsibility of the US military (and its Filipino counterparts) for the

stabilisation mission. In Algeria, the French government, including the colonial

administration, provided the civilian as well as the military components of the inter-

vention. While the number of actors increased in Vietnam, with more comprehensive


17/23


involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of State and

USAID, these were ultimatelyafter some bureaucratic jockeyingsubsumed to

the control of the Department of Defense. El Salvador witnessed the involvement

of NGOs and international organisations, although even that seemingly crowdedprocess pales in comparison with todays blend of international organisations and

NGOs, civil society entities, local and international corporations, bilateral and

multilateral donors, trust funds, international nancial institutions (IFIs), recipient-

government bodies (at the national and sub-national level), and international as well

as national/domestic mil itary forces that are active in war-torn contexts (Barakat

and Zyck, 2009). While governmental structures ranging from Canadas START

to the UKs Stabilisation Unit to the USs S/CRS have been established to provide

greater unity of effort, they typically have limited if any authority over the agencies

and militaries that have tended to dominate stabil isation operations.

The entry of these actors has commonly given rise to debates concerning theintrusion of the military into humanitarian space. This allocation of scarce aid

resources based on political and military objectives rather than on need represents

a distortion of the principle that aid should be given on the basis of (and in propor-

tion to) need, a pillar of Dunantist humanitarianism (Pictet, 1979; Donini, Minear

and Walker, 2004). Yet, despite this violation of core humanitarian principles, the

organisational interests of aid agencies to expand their mandates and levels of re-

sources impelled the acceptance of funds from institutional donors to work alongside

military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq (Barnett, 2005, p. 732). As such, many humani-

tarian agencies, particularly those ascribing to a Wilsonian tradition, have become,

as former US Secretar y of State Colin Powell described them in late 2001, force

multipliers and an important part of our combat team (Barnett, 2005, p. 726).

Furthermore, the involvement of the private sector in stabilisation has brought

about another revolution with troubling implications for the political economy of

conict and reconstruction. In settings such as French Algeria and the Philippines,

the countries undertaking stabilisation missions had veritable economic interests in

pacifying their opponents rather than in prolonging the conict. Today, private

rms such as Blackwater (now Xe Services), DynCorp and Halliburton which are

engaged in stabilisation stand to prot considerably from the continuation of the

violence. In 2006, when the number of US troops deployed to Iraq had risen to

160,000 following the surge, the Department of Defense registered 180,000 civil-

ian personnel working for private defence contractors (Singer, 2004). Of these, 181

rms were private security companies (PSCs) employing more than 48,000 staff in

total (Singer, 2004). Indeed, recent headlines have noted the manner in which

Afghan PSCs have launched attacks on international targets and encouraged or

enabled insurgents to do so in order to demonstrate their relevance and increase the

level of market demand (Filkins, 2010). Defence contractors and selected consult-

ing rms experience windfall prots, as do energy companies due to instability

premiums on the price of crude oil. Strongmen, ofcials and military personnel in

war-torn countries from Yemen to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the


18/23


Congo, Pakistan and Sudan capitalise on instability to enable corruption and illicit

markets from which they benet. Even honest political gures in, for example,

Afghanistan today worry, as did their counterparts in Vietnam four decades ago,

that stability will mean a departure of international assistance that domestic taxrevenues cannot nearly match. In such cases one sees an economic logic that pro-

vides very few actors involved with a material interest in genuinely pursuing or

achieving stability. Consider, for instance, that, by 2007 alone, Halliburton earned

more than USD 20 billion in Iraq, three times the cost of the 199091 Persian Gulf

War (Singer, 2004). Indeed, one serving senior US military ofcer warned that

leaders ability to think clearly about the future of conict was in danger of being

undermined by defence contractors whose interests can easily corrupt their judge-

ment (McMaster, 2008, p. 28).

Conclusion: the future through the past?

Given the limited success of stabilisation operations, it is apparent that the recent

innovationsthe broadened set of actors involved and the troubling political

economy which is emergingmay be better described as signicant missteps. Indeed,

it is at times difcult to accept the rising level of discourse, policymaking and pro-

gramming surrounding stabilisation given its limited historical and present-day

efcacy. Algeria and Vietnam ended in a combination of political and military

defeat, and stabilisation in El Salvador at best maintained a deeply inhumane status

quo for longer than was perhaps necessary. Afghanistan today shows that stabilisa-tion has been unable to reverse a continuous decline in security despite the increasing

levels of troops and reconstruction-orientated assistance injected into the country.

Iraqs stabilisation remains contested, as several claims of success have been under-

mined by large-scale violence and the continuation of insurgent bombings. Even

where some successes have been achieved, as in the case of the Philippines more than

a century ago, it is difcult to attribute the outcome to civilmilitary stabilisation

operations rather than to the reportedly brutal COIN campaign.

While much analytical and historical work on stabilisation has focused on the

means employed and the personalities involved, it appears instead that the concept

itself may ultimately be to blame for the consistent inability of security-focusedhumanitar ian and development assistance to achieve peace and stability. At the core

of the stabilisation agenda is the belief that security may be achieved most effectively

when paired with complementary humanitarian, reconstruction and development

programming; they are presumed to be more effective in promoting stability in

tandem rather than in isolation. Such a foundation principle does not, however, seem

to be supported by the available evidence.

Instead, it often appearswhether in Afghanistan, Algeria or Vietnamthat the

militarys discomfort with civil activities renders it, at best, a mediocre provider of

humanitarian and development assistance in the context of ongoing conict. PRTs

have struggled to comprehend principles of needs-based allocation, part icipation,


19/23


ownership, and sustainability that are fundamental to humanitarian and develop-

ment work. When NGOs are instead tasked with providing assistance as a form of

force protection, they too have been rendered less effective by the need to consider

the hard securityas opposed to human securityoutcomes of their work. Forinstance, rather than being focused on those areas most conducive to development

those areas in which a veritable peace dividend could become apparentassist-

anceis provided alongside troops engaged in COIN operations. The result is a less

effective form of reconstruction and development, which, rather than winning hearts

and minds, produces meagre results, disappointment and resentment.

Contrary to contemporary conventional wisdom, it appears that humanitarian

and development actors are more effective in enhancing securityand in demonstrat-

ing a peace dividendwhen they are no longer required to abide by stabilisation

agendas. Such a notion stands in stark contrast to the presumption that stabilisation

missions fail because they are implemented too late or with too little attention tothe civilian side; indeed, operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past decade met

with signicant and unresolved security challenges despite being subject to pre-

invasion preparations for reconstruction (Mac Ginty, 2003). Perhaps it is the pursuit

of stabilisationthe securitisation of civilian interventions in conict-affected con-

textsthat itself is the problem. According to such a logic, joined-up, ful l-spectrum

or3D (defence, diplomacy and development) interventions and the move towards

whole-of-government or comprehensive approaches to fragile environments (as

under development in Canada, the UK, the US and elsewhere) require reconsidera-

tion. By allowing institutions and actors involved in conict-affected contexts to

focus on and specialise in what they do bestrather than asking the military tosupport aid delivery and the aid community to support military objectivesstabi-

lisation may one day actually result in genuine and lasting stability.

Correspondence

Professor Sultan Barakat, Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit, Derwent

College, University of York, Heslington, York YO105DD, United Kingdom.

Telephone: +44 (0) 1904432640; fax: +44 (0) 1904432641.

E-mail: [email protected]

Endnotes1 Sultan Barakat is Professor of Politics and Director of the Post-war Reconstruction and Develop-

ment Unit, University of York, United Kingdom; Sen Deely is a consulting adviser to the United

Nations and Associate of the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit, University of

York, United Kingdom; Steven A. Zyck is a Research Fellow at the Post-war Reconstruction and

Development Unit, University of York, United Kingdom.2 Throughout this paper, the terms humanitarian act ion and development are used relatively inter-

changeably given that, in the cases noted, the civilian or civi lian-type work undertaken in connection


20/23


with stabilisation operations vacillated between that oriented around life-saving and life-sustaining

aid (humanitarian action) and that aimed at improving quality of life (development).3 In a commentary that would later mirror critiques of the work of Provincial Reconstruction

Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gates (1973) notes the limited appropriateness and use ofmany infrastructure (such as school-building) projects implemented by the military in the Philippines

in the early twentieth century.4 According to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the number of inter-

national NGOs increased by 123 per cent between 1990 and 2000, from 893 to 1,995. The number

of NGOs with global operations related to multiple dimensions of social and economic assistance

increased from 36 to 120 in the same time period (Willetts, 1996, p. 38, 2002).5 In 2009, the rhetoric of clearholdbuildtransfer was added to the US stabili sation lexicon to

reect the need to ensure that infrastructure and other achievements are handed over to the appro-

priate governmental authorities in, most notably, Afghanistan in order to strengthentheir rele-

vance and credibility. Finally, under the current McChrystal doctrinenamed after the former

US Commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley A. McChrystalshapeclearholdbuild hasalso been introduced to emphasise the need to prepare, particularly through effective communi-

cations, the local population for the sorts of coercive means that will be necessary in clearing a

given area of opposition elements; shaping the context is intended to ensure that mil itary act ion

does not undermine the populat ions support during the hold and build phases.

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