Table Of ContentCivil–Military Relations in
International Interventions
This book examines military and civilian actors in international interventions
and offers a new analytical framework to apply on such interventions.
While it is frequently claimed that success in international interventions
hinges largely on military–civilian coherence, cooperation has proven challeng-
ing to achieve in practice. This book examines why this is the case, by analysing
various approaches employed by military and civilian actors and discussing the
different relationships between the intervening actors and those upon whom
they have intervened. The work analyses different military concepts, such as
peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, and the often-t roubled relationship
between the humanitarian and military intervening actors. It presents a new ana-
lytical framework to examine these relationships based on identification theory,
which illuminates how the interveners represent those they have been deployed
to engage, as well as their own identity and role. As such the book offers an
enhanced understanding of the challenges related to civil–military cooperation
in international interventions, as well as a theoretical contribution to the study
of interventions, more generally.
This book will be of much interest to students of international interventions,
military studies, peacekeeping, security studies and International Relations.
Karsten Friis is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Inter-
national Affairs (NUPI), Oslo.
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Western Military Interventions after the Cold War
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Organisational Learning and the Modern Army
A New Model for Lessons- Learned Processes
Tom Dyson
Civil–Military Relations in International Interventions
A New Analytical Framework
Karsten Friis
Defence Diplomacy
Strategic Engagement and Interstate Conflict
Daniel H. Katz
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/C ass-
Military- S tudies/book- series/CMS
Civil–Military Relations in
International Interventions
A New Analytical Framework
Karsten Friis
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Karsten Friis
The right of Karsten Friis to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- i n- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- i n- Publication Data
Names: Friis, Karsten, 1968- author.
Title: Civil-military relations in international interventions : a new
analytical framework/Karsten Friis.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Cass
military studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019050040 (print) | LCCN 2019050041 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367356613 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429340994 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Integrated operations (Military science) | Civil-military
relations. | Intervention (International law)
Classification: LCC U260 .F75 2020 (print) | LCC U260 (ebook) | DDC
341.5/84–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050040
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050041
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 35661- 3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 34099- 4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Preface and acknowledgements vii
1 Setting the scene: civil–military relations in interventions 1
2 Understanding coherence and its limitations 36
3 The military dimension: peacekeeping and
counterinsurgency 62
4 The troubled relationship between military and
humanitarian actors 95
5 Towards an analytical framework 117
6 Military, humanitarian and state-b uilding identities in the
Afghan theatre 144
7 Conclusions – and possible ways ahead 182
Index 195
Illustrations
Figure
1.1 A simple way of defining the main actors in an intervention 8
Tables
2.1 International organizations’ attempts to build coherence 41
2.2 Comprehensive approach matrix: Types of
relationships and degrees of coherence 45
3.1 Overview and comparison of COIN and Peacekeeping
along the five comparable dimensions 82
4.1 Military tasks and related challenges 100
5.1 The analytical framework with examples 135
6.1 Summary of findings, Chapter 6 166
Preface and acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my PhD, awarded at the Faculty of Arts,
University of Groningen, the Netherlands. I would like thank Professor Jaap de
Wilde at Groningen and Professor Iver B. Neumann at Oslo Metropolitan Univer-
sity, for their excellent support with the manuscript over the years. In particular,
my debt to Iver for constant encouragement for over 20 years is considerable!
I also wish to thank Professor Patrick Porter at Exeter University, UK, Dr Jens
Ringsmose, Dean at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Southern
Denmark, and Professor Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv at the Arctic University of
Norway, for providing valuable comments at earlier stages of the work.
Many colleagues at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
have also contributed, and in particular my thanks go to the following persons,
for their support and advice: Morten Skumsrud Andersen, Benjamin de
Carvalho, Cedric de Coning, Patrick Cullen, Kristian Lundby Gjerde, John
Karlsrud, Halvard Leira, John Harald Sande Lie, Kari Osland, Erik Reichborn-
Kjennerud, Pernille Rieker, Ole Jacob Sending, Ulf Sverdrup and Jan-M orten
Torrissen. In particular thanks to Ole Martin Stormoen for valuable research
assistance in the final stages of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Elin-
Marie Fiane and Tore Gustavsson of the NUPI library for their excellent assis-
tance, and to Susan Høivik for proof-r eading. Thanks also to the Routledge
editors end peer reviewers for valuable help and assistance.
Some of the following chapters are revised versions of previously published
material. Chapter 2 is based on the article ‘Coherence and Coordination: The
Limits of the Comprehensive Approach’, written with Cedric de Coning and pub-
lished in Journal of International Peacekeeping, Vol. 15, nos. 1–2 (2011): 243–72.
Chapter 3 is a revision of ‘Peacekeeping and Counterinsurgency: Two of a Kind?’
published in International Peacekeeping, Vol. 17, no. 1 (2010): 49–66. Chapter 4
is based on ‘Military and Humanitarian Actors’, which is chapter 18 (pp. 215–27)
in Roger Mac Ginty and Jenny Peterson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to
Humanitarian Action, London, Routledge (2015). Chapter 6 is a revised version of
the article ‘Which Afghanistan? Military, Humanitarian, and State-B uilding Identi-
ties in the Afghan Theater’, published in Security Studies, Vol. 21, no. 2 (2012):
266–300. I would like to thank the publishers, Taylor & Francis and Brill, for per-
missions to reprint revised versions of these articles and chapters in this book.
1 Setting the scene
Civil–military relations in
interventions
Introduction
In the decades after the Cold War, the world has witnessed a growth in inter-
national interventions. The number of such interventions, the number of inter-
vening actors, the number of total personnel and the amounts of money spent all
increased.1 A predominantly Western group of intervening actors (states and
other organizations), have been forcing, imposing, compelling, teaching or offering
their various forms of order, values, systems, principles, techniques, organiza-
tions and governance on other actors. There have been UN- sanctioned post-
conflict peacebuilding interventions, as well as controversial military invasions
conducted without UN approval. Despite their differences, all these interventions
represent a form of international politics where various military and civilian
organizations are deployed to engage people, groups and organizations in a
politically tense environment. Sometimes these encounters with the local actors
are conflictual and violent, in other instances they may be mutually beneficial
for the intervener and those intervened upon.
To some extent these interventions are illustrative of the post-C old War
Western- dominated liberal international order, fuelled by optimism and uni-
versalism, as well as hegemonic power and military dominance. The limited
success of many of the interventions may also illustrate the shortcomings of this
Western liberal hegemonic power. Recognising this, Western states appear to
have become more reluctant to engage in large, comprehensive interventions
today than they were a decade ago. Still, the UN continues to operate several
complex peace operations, at times with significant use of force.2 Also NATO
and the USA continue to engage globally in various missions. In short, interven-
tions remain to be arenas for the conduct of global politics, and merit attention
as a phenomenon in international relations.3
Scholars have carefully and critically scrutinized many aspects of the inter-
ventions of the last decades, finding some successes but more often universaliz-
ing tendencies and neo- colonial implications.4 Interventions aimed at ‘saving
strangers’5 or ‘fixing failed states’6 have been shown to be political endeavours.
The Western promotion of such things as ‘good governance’, ‘best practices’,
‘gender equality’ and other human rights is found to be politically sensitive,
