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Henry: a wounded soldier forgotten by all in an American jail – by all except his brothers who fell beside him in Vietnam – Part I

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By Charles Bloeser

According to the US Dpt of Veterans Affairs, over three million Americans served in Vietnam (Credit Image: history.com)

Henry[i] was a veteran who nearly died from combat injuries in Vietnam. In his dreams, his platoon mates repeatedly kicked him and struck him, screaming at Henry that it was his fault that they were dead. His fault that their children were now orphans. When it all became too much for him, Henry exploded like the hand grenades he’d counted on to keep his platoon alive.

The last time Henry exploded led to another arrest for domestic violence. He’d again been booked into the county jail. Taken in through the concealed sally port of an uninspired structure in a city whose architects knew better. Just a stack of a dozen oversized orange Lego blocks with box windows that were easily missed by the person on the street with bad eyesight. Orange Lego blocks of all the same size and shape.

Same size. Same shape. Same cellular structure devoid of human senses and lacking a soul. Really not that different from the way a lot of folks think of the men and women inside. Veteran or not. No different from any other county inmate wearing orange coveralls and shackled one to another, waiting in line each morning to board the bus that will carry them to the county courthouse and another court appearance in an elegant structure built around a cattle yard. Words about justice or some such thing carved in stone high across its facade.

But not Henry.

“Are you a lawyer?”[ii]

The woman who asked the question was African American and appeared to be in her early 50s. She was slightly overweight and wore a simple beige dress and flat soled shoes that had begun to fray. Her purse had slipped off the fashion cycle years ago and was well-worn, its contents pushing hard against something its manufacturer had tried to pass off as leather.

“Yes, ma’am, but I’m very busy right now.”

“D’ya think ya could take just a few minutes to talk with my Henry?”

“’afternoon’s gettin’ on, ma’am, and the federal courthouse is quite a hike.”

“My Henry’s been ‘ere six months and he still ain’t got no lawyer.”

Six months? Shit. The constitution guarantees the folks shackled inside this jail a lawyer if they can’t afford one themselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court said so. ‘back in 1963. In a case that arrived at 1 First Street NE by handwritten letter from a state inmate with an eighth-grade education. The letter’s author, Clarence Earl Gideon, was serving a five-year sentence after defending himself and losing at trial; the judge presiding over his trial determined that Florida state law did not give him the authority to grant Mr. Gideon’s request for an attorney.[iii]

This woman’s Henry had fallen through the cracks.

“What’s he in for?” I said.

“They say he hit me. But he didn’ mean it, mister. He’s sick, real sick.”[iv]

Most of the violent crimes inflicted on folks we’ve shared our lives with are often hard to punish and prevent, especially if a case lives or dies on the testimony of the victim. I learned as an assistant district attorney fresh from law school and the bar exam that the State’s effort to enforce the rule of law in this arena would often fail right out of the gate. State legislatures tried to improve a State’s chances of “delivering justice” to these perps by emphasizing that it’s the State - not the victim - who decides whether to prosecute these crimes. But that technicality mattered little to the victims whose rights we sought to vindicate. Frequently, a woman who had finally managed to report her latest beating would by the time she signed her name swearing to the facts that she just wrote, decided that she couldn’t go through with it.

And both the DA’s office and the victim we hoped to help knew why: the devil we might know only on paper was the devil she knew personally all too well. And a prosecutor’s or victim-witness coordinator’s claim that “we’ll keep you safe” was aspirational, at best. Other than when the WITSEC folks said those words to one of my federal clients with a price on his head, they were just that. A few words that we all very much hoped would prove true.

But for this combat veteran’s wife, Henry was never the kind of man who could be distilled into simple words like “defendant” and “perpetrator and “abuser.” There was no black and white in being struck by a man she knew had always loved her but whose best efforts to get relief from the symptoms of war had proved little more than the American version of a snipe hunt.[v]

No good v. evil. No right v. wrong. No criminal defendant and victim.

What this woman knew all too well was that her husband was still paying what Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Professor Emerita Dr. Jeanne Stellman calls the “lifelong cost of war.” A man who did what his country asked of him and who now suffered in silence like a lot of other veterans.[vi]

For Henry and far too many veterans wounded in wars visible and wars concealed, the lifelong cost of war includes a criminal record to make their lives and those of their families even harder than they already are. As explained in a 2013 Daily Beast article titled “From PTSD to Prison: why veterans become criminals,” “[a]fter Vietnam, the number of inmates with prior military service [in U.S. armed forces] rose steadily until reaching a peak in 1985, when more than one in five was a veteran. By 1988, more than half of all Vietnam veterans diagnosed with PTSD reported that they had been arrested; more than one third reported they had been arrested multiple times.”[vii]

“We can’t ‘fford no lawyer, let alone bond. Henry’s not goin’ anywhere anyway. He’s dyin’ here. Please, Mr. Lawyer, will you check up on ‘im?’”

I went back through security and down a long hall to a compact office shielded by glass. I asked for a copy of Henry’s booking sheet. Ever-rotating young, poorly-paid, scared-by-their-shadow detention officers shared tightly clustered desks with those who knew what they were doing.

Henry’s booking sheet from six months earlier included a booking photo and basic identifying information, along with the offense name and statutory citation for the law the arresting officer was recommending Henry be prosecuted for.

I asked the officer at the desk to have Henry brought down to one of the locking attorney meeting booths. Allegedly soundproofed metal and glass chambers not much larger than a traditional London telephone box and with none of the elegance. None of us who met clients in these spaces had cause to claim that they were bigger on the inside than the outside.

I studied a client file while waiting to meet the veteran in the booking photograph, a pudgy, middle-aged, African-American man with short cropped hair on a balding head.

But that was not the man the jailer brought me.

Yes, this was the Henry whose wife asked me to check on him. The Vietnam veteran she said had been here six months without a lawyer. The man she told me was real sick and didn’t mean to hit her. The wounded warrior she said was dying inside this oblivious stack of orange Legos from which no guttural cry, no anguished scream could escape.

The Henry I met that day could barely hold his own weight. What little I could see of Henry’s skin hung loosely. His face hollowing out.

 

 

This is the first instalment of a two-part article that relates these events in Henry’s life. The other part is available here.

 

Charles Bloeser is the creator of combatresearchandprose.com, a new open-source applied research initiative that will continue to contribute to bridging the gap in experience, knowledge, and understanding that divides those who’ve never served under arms from those who have. He’s the civilian son and grandson of veterans and a lawyer who’s spent most years arguing criminal and constitutional issues in America’s state and federal trial and appellate courts. Among his published research are works re Libyan-supported Jihadi terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, civilian-military law enforcement relations in the U.S., and the demands that an increasingly complex national security environment make for special operations forces. His research agenda includes national security/defense/veterans issues, with special attention to those facing challenges from combat stress/PTSD/TBI etc.

Notes:

[i] “Henry” is a pseudonym for a now deceased Vietnam veteran who was introduced to me and whose brief relationship with me was, as best I can confirm, the same way that I report it here, except for minor nonessential details and limited artistic license. Having over the years lost independent recollection of certain events, though, I’ve used as an accuracy check other writings that I made about these matters much closer in time to the events which I report here.

By sins of commission or omission, “Henry” had been left to rot and die on the medical floor of a midwestern city’s urban jail. Because informal persuasion got Henry transferred from the jail to hospital in mere days, there was no need for me to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus or anything else in either the local state court or in the U.S. district court. There was no need for me to enter my appearance or show up in court for him. Henry knew about Section 1983 litigation. Henry’s wife told me up front that the couple didn’t have money for a lawyer, and I quickly came to believe that it would be immoral for me to charge them a fee.

Almost nothing I did for Henry fits the technical definition of “practicing law.” Still, my brief relationship with the combat-wounded soldier remains among those experiences that most remind me that it’s a sobering privilege to list among the items in my skill set the tools and lenses of a lawyer.

 

[ii] The events that are reported in this essay occurred during the years that the author practiced law in Oklahoma, prior to his return to Tennessee.

 

[iii] Clarence Earl Gideon v. Louie L. Wainwright, Director, Division of Corrections, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) gave the Supreme Court an opportunity to answer the question of whether the right to counsel found in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution also applies to defendants facing felony charges in state courts. Subsequent developments in the law extends this Sixth Amendment right to counsel to state criminal defendants who face any possible imprisonment. “Reason and reflection,” Justice Hugo Black wrote for a unanimous court, “require us to recognize that, in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided to him.”

The idea that criminal defendants are entitled to legal counsel was a no-brainer for the second president of the United States. “Though he struggled at times with the lawyer’s challenging charge, [John] Adams kept his hand to the plow. He did not let go even when appointed to represent British soldiers who had killed five Bostonians after a shouting, cursing crowd ‘pelted the despised redcoats with snowballs, chunks of ice, oyster shells and stones.’ Adams represented those who threatened the very liberty he loved, ‘firm in the belief, as he said, that no man in a free country should be denied the right to counsel and a fair trial.'” Charles Bloeser, Confessions of an American Lawyer, 74 Oklahoma Bar Journal 608 (2003)(quoting David McCullough, John Adams 66 (2001)).

Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work: “. . . Today, there is a vast gulf between the broad premise of the [Gideon v. Wainwright] ruling and the grim practice of legal representation for the nation’s poorest litigants. Yes, you have the right to a court-appointed lawyer today - - the right to a lawyer who almost certainly is vastly underpaid and grossly overworked; a lawyer who, according to a Brennan Center for Justice report published [in 2012], often spends less than six minutes per case at hearings where clients plead guilty and are sentenced. With this lawyer – often just a “potted plant” – by your side, you’ve earned the dubious honor of hearing the judge you will face declare that this arrangement is sufficient to secure your rights to a fair trial.” Andrew Cohen. “How Americans Lost the Right to Counsel, 50 Years After Gideon.” The Atlantic (March 13, 2013).

 

[iv]“Although PTSD can arise after a variety of traumatic events, war trauma made a substantial contribution to the current conceptualization of PTSD. While the terminology for PTSD only appeared in the psychiatric classification system in 1980, knowledge of battle-related psychological problems goes back to antiquity. Mythical Greek heroes Ajax and Hercules both succumbed to their emotional wounds, not injuries of combat. In 1688, Swiss physician Johannes Hofer wrote about an unusual grouping of symptoms in Swiss mercenaries fighting in France or Italy, which he termed nostalgia. Irritable heart, also called soldier’s heart or Da Costa’s syndrome, was described in soldiers of the American Civil War by Jacob Mendes Da Costa, an American physician. . ..” Dr. Angelica Staniloiu and Anthony Feinstein. “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia (2017). https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-in-canada/ accessed March 18, 2018.

 

[v]Thefreedictionary.com: “snipe hunt”: an elaborate practical joke in which the unsuspecting victim hunts a [non-existent] snipe and is typically left in the dark holding a bag and waiting for the snipe to run into it; “in the South a snipe hunt is practically a rite of passage.” But see, Joe Smith. “The Snipe Hunt: Myth and Reality.” Cool Green Science at blog.nature.org. January 14, 2014.

 

[vi] “’Our data show a lifelong cost of war,” said [Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Professor Emerita Dr. Jeanne] Stellman who estimates the actual figures may be higher. “One of the hallmarks of PTSD is withdrawal and avoidance. Countless numbers of people have spent their lives suffering and don’t know how or why to seek help.”

 

“. . . From 1997 to 2005, mental health – service use among veterans of the Persian Gulf era has greatly increased, especially in the last five years and among younger veterans. Veterans from early service eras surprised researchers with a fivefold increase in use, especially among Vietnam vets with PTSD. The system is straining at the seams, the researchers observed. The increased demand seems to be met by fewer visits per veteran.” Carol Cruzan Morton. “PTSD: The Suffering Continues for Vets.” Harvard Medical School (news) March 21, 2008. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ptsd-suffering-continues-vets-3-21-08 accessed April 12, 2018 (citing a then recent report on trends in VA treatment of PTSD published in the journal Health Affairs).

 

[vii] Matthew Wolfe. “From PTSD to Prison: why veterans become criminals.” thedailybeast.com (July 28, 2013). This article also examines the inner workings of one of the many veterans’ courts established in the U.S. and a vet-dedicated correctional environment being tested in the state of Virginia.

 

Image Source: https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history/pictures/vietnam-war/two-us-soldiers-helping-wounded-third-2

Strife Series on Cyberwarfare and State Perspectives, Part III – The argument for a more critical analysis on the United States

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By Shivali Bhatt

Military Operation in Action, Soldiers Using Military Grade Laptop Targeting Enemy with Satellite (Credit Image: Gorodenkoff / Stock Image)

A critical line of argument regarding cyber warfare today is how it has supposedly brought about contextual changes that challenge the balance of power in the international system. The broad consensus is that large, powerful states, like the United States, are losing leverage against those - traditionally - deemed small and weak. According to an article published earlier this year by the World Economic Forum Global Platform, the rising domain of cyber warfare can be somewhat seen to be causing a levelling effect in the world today. Any state or non-state entity with access to the Internet and digital technology can develop powerful cyber weapons. At the same time, some news sources have claimed how the much-anticipated cyberwar is already underway, and how the United States is not ready or will most likely lose. The simplistic nature of such discourse fails to allow for a more critical understanding of what factors influence the nature and reality of cyber warfare. This article shall critique these narratives by analysing the factors that influence the strategic efficacy of cyberwarfare. Bearing the current state of cyberwarfare in the United States in mind, it shall contextualise these factors.

The United States is the most powerful state in the world, particularly regarding its military and intelligence capacity. President Trump elevated the original Cyber Command to a Unified Combatant Command earlier this year.

 

The importance of intelligence and collaboration

While it takes a lot of skill and effort to appropriately develop a powerful cyber weapon, the most complicated part of this process is application or deployment. It is this stage that determines the extent to which a cyber operation will yield strategic leverage for a state; one that relies on intelligence agencies and international alliances. In other words, cyber weapons are generally part of an extensive collection of capabilities.

Theoretically, the state with the most resourced and well-connected intelligence community will likely reel in greater strategic benefits from the domain of cyberwarfare, on the basis they are active political players in global affairs. The more in-depth and holistic the collecting and analysing of intelligence data, the smarter the cyber offensive strategy. In this context, the United States has notable leverage. The U.S. spends approximately $1 trillion on establishments and organisations that serve a national security purpose; in which its intelligence community spans across seventeen federal agencies. Moreover, these bureaus have strictly woven relationships with a large number of agencies operating in other states, with bases and ground-level operatives in over forty countries, including Israel and the United Kingdom. As NATO’s Operation Locked Shields demonstrates, cyberwarfare is a multi-dimensional domain that is determined by the nature of cooperation and collaboration between states. The Stuxnet virus, for instance, was planted with the assistance of the CIA’s regional partners in Israel; assets that were crucial to such a clandestine and sensitive operation. These practical steps to implementing cyberwarfare strategies explain why the U.S. is still and will always technically be a dominant player in the field.

 

The broader political context

Given that cyberwarfare is an aspect of broader political strategy, states that are regularly engaged in international affairs are more likely to determine the context for cyber-attacks. The United States is considered extremely influential, while North Korea - regardless of how large, fast-growing or highly skilled its ‘cyber army’ appears - a back-seat driver. Narratives that present North Korea as a case study to exemplify the ‘levelling effect’ in the world today, often present highly fragmented arguments outside of context.

It is useful to consider how economics and politics are woven together into the strategic context of cyber warfare, given that a prime part of developing cyber warfare strategy involves gathering in-depth knowledge on a person or situation. Similar to how former President Obama’s administration exploited the weaknesses of Russia’s economy by imposing heavy sanctions against Moscow in 2014, Washington can gain a notable edge by targeting Putin’s private affairs offshore; the consequences of which would be determined by the extent to which Putin’s private affairs affect Russia’s domestic political context. According to a National Bureau of Economic Research paper, the total accumulation of Russian offshore holdings amounts to approximately between $800 billion and $1.3 trillion; most of which belongs to President Putin and associates. This wealth power has been a contributing factor to his political power and ability to maintain authority in Russia, enabling him to govern and preside over state institutions and the secret police. Targeting his foreign assets would be a strategic application of U.S. cyber power.

 

Underlying factors

In this discussion, it is useful to recognise the longer-term damage traditional military weapons can have on both intellectual and physical infrastructures, and how those induced by cyberspace have not yet demonstrated such ability. At the same time, the Stuxnet weapon and newer versions inspired from its technological layering, such as the relatively recent Triton bug, can act as catalysts to broader military strategy. However, the accurate deployment of such a weapon not only requires a significant amount of skill and resource, both of which are usually available to higher-earning economies but also can go wrong. In the case of Stuxnet, several sources confirmed that the Americans and Israelis ‘lost control’ of their act.

It goes without a doubt saying that the United States is a powerful influencer in the world today, and especially so in a context of increasing globalisation and digital technology. There are a lot of concepts, processes and cultural embedding that would also need to be in the firing line for this argument to hold any traction in the longer term.

 

Conclusion

Today, it is really popular to consider cyberwarfare as this rising domain that challenges all other pre-existing tenets of global politics, with the narrative being how weaker states such as North Korea are on the rise and those powerful ones such as the United States should watch their back. However, the authors of such arguments seem also to disregard any more in-depth aspects of warfare analysis, such as the power of alliance, broader context, and particularly the underlying factors found within societal construct and culture that have existed before the advent of the digital age. While cyber warfare has proven to be a powerful mechanism, its scope of threatening powerful actors like the United States needs to be assessed through a more critical lens. Further, doing so will help better conceptualise its strategic worth in comparison to more conventional methods of warfare strategy.

 

Shivali is currently pursuing her MA Intelligence and International Security at Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She is also a Series Editor at Strife, as well as a Creative Writer at cybersecurity startup PixelPin, where she contributes articles on ‘Thought Leadership’, encouraging readers to approach security issues through innovative means. Prior to that, she spent some time in Hong Kong under the InvestHK and EntrepreneurHK organisations, engaging with the cybersecurity and tech scene on the East Coast. Her core research interests include modern warfare and contemporary challenges, cybersecurity, and strategic policy analysis. You can follow her on @shivalixb

Image Source: https://www.istockphoto.com/gb/photo/military-operation-in-action-soldiers-using-military-grade-laptop-targeting-enemy-gm879913090-245205517

Strife Series on Cyberwarfare and State Perspectives, Part II – Deception in Cyberspace: Nation States and False Flag operations

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Examining the use and effects of false flags in nation state cyberattacks, and how geopolitical analysis may be add value to attribution efforts.

By Amy Ertan

Credit Image: sangoiri (123RF)

 

‘The Problem of Attribution’

The problems with cyber attribution form a labyrinth that continue to trouble all those involved in cyber defence and wider security. The challenges determining what has taken place, to whom and by whom is an process that lacks repeatability and often any clear solution. Nonetheless, the value of attribution makes it an indispensable exercise on which to concentrate resources. Without the ability to tie a cyber-attack to an individual, group or nation state, there can be no political or legal enforcement of regulation or counter-action. This represents a huge limitation on international relations where cyber activity continues to grow, influencing diplomacy and conflict. What some may consider a technical investigation has, therefore, shown itself to be a major geopolitical problem. As Thomas Rid summarises, ‘attribution is what states make of it’.
 

Introducing False Flags

Attacks involving nation state actors involve unique challenges that further complicate attribution attempts. Amongst other factors, the use of ‘false flags’, where an attacker pretends to be someone other than themselves, is a tactic to ‘frame’ other threat actors. A false flag operation could be as simple as malicious ‘marketing’, inserting imagery appearing to show another threat actor claiming responsibility. It could also be as simple as inserting other languages into payload headers or malware. From 2012, Iranian hackers used Arabic rather than Farsi when attacking US banks, while suspected North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus group is often known for attempting language imitation. As well as enabling attackers to avoid detection, false flags may be used as a form of manipulation, directing the victim’s attention to potentially target third-party actors. Should investigators of an event fail to realise that the false flags are not genuine hints, they may incorrectly attribute an attack, which may extend to misdirected retribution.
 

Nation State Case Study: Russia

False flag operations are not a new aspect of Russian military strategy. The justification for deception can be explored through Russian military doctrines such as ‘provokatsiya’, (‘provocation’), whereby agents act surreptitiously to cause secret political effects, helping Moscow whilst damaging Moscow’s enemies. Further doctrine ‘maskirovka’ specifically concerns deceiving victims while also hiding the true intent of operations, complementing the ‘konspiritsiya’ (‘conspiracy’) doctrine and Russian espionage tradecraft. Themes displayed most obviously through and beyond the Cold War period, it is perhaps unsurprising that intelligence tactics have led to cyber false flags acting as ‘the Kremlin’s hidden cyber hand’. These tactics assist in furthering Russian geopolitical goals, typically through attacks against Western governments. Interference in elections are a clear example, with French and US elections compromised to suspected Russian actors. Similarly the NotPetya attacks, which the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand publically attributed to Russia, may be understood as part of a wider Russian state disregard for Ukranian sovereignty.

In 2015, ‘Cyber Caliphate’ jihadist propaganda flooded TV-Monde’s social media during a destructive cyberattack, an act ultimately traced back to Russian-based ‘Fancy Bear’, a group with links to Russian military intelligence. The flag was relatively simple: creating a fake online persona, a tactic mirrored by separate Russian threat actors with the ‘Guccifer 2.0’ persona in the 2016 DNC hack. These examples highlight a few Russian threat actors using false flags, alongside DC Leaks and Shadowbrokers.

In the 2018 Winter Olympics, Olympics IT systems were temporary disabled, with WiFi, monitors and the Olympics website unavailable. Analysts concluded Russian actors used North Korean IP addresses and attempted to forge malware used by Lazarus Group, a flag uncovered due to an error forced header. Analysts looked beyond the technical information to argue that the attack was designed to gain attention, where perpetrators ‘wanted to be discovered… as Lazarus Group’, concluding this attack was likely ‘setting the stage’ for further campaigns. Russia’s actions were assumed to link with their enforced non-participation in the event, alongside wider geopolitical tensions.

A Strategic Approach

Attribution capabilities are currently highly asymmetric, with only a handful of states thought to be capable of successfully attributing cyberattacks with high confidence. Given typical characteristics of false flag indicators, technical analysis is necessary but not sufficient when attempting attribution, for three reasons. Firstly, it is unreliable to be dependent on attackers making errors when determining whether evidence is a false flag. Errors such as poor language translation are unlikely to be repeated frequently in the long-term, given the capabilities of nation states dedicated to achieving cyber goals. Secondly, nation states and state-sponsored groups represent the most able threat actors. As offensive actors, states will often have multiple cyber units, alongside distributed command-and-control servers and resources to continually update sophisticated evasion techniques. It is expected this makes them considerably harder to detect and attribute against, compared with less skilled, purely criminal counterparts. Finally technical indicators of compromise for a cyber incident are often identical whether the event was a malicious cyberattack or not. Technical analysis, even if conducted by the most sophisticated and capable of actors, may not reveal information that proves itself to be actionable intelligence.

To understand false flag operations driven by nation-state actors, one must understand the context in which the attack took place. Professor Thomas Wingfield argues that ‘strategic attribution – fusing all sources of intelligence on a potential threat – allows a much higher level of confidence and more options … strategic attribution begins and ends with geopolitical analysis.’ Geopolitical threat profiling and strategic intelligence functions therefore become entwined with the technical attribution operation.

 

Concluding Thoughts

As Symantec security analyst Vikram Thakur neatly summarises, ‘We think the future is going to get even more complicated with actors relying more and more on false flags… throwing another group [under] the bus from an attribution standpoint.’ False flags are a tool for nation states. Not only can they deceive, misdirecting attention from an attack, but they can change agendas, create imaginary threats, or be used to communicate between states who can detect subtle flags (versus those who cannot). It is a task that matters - NATO CCDCOE stressed that without sufficient attribution, there cannot be official consequences. Getting to grips with the challenges and counter-approaches to an attack is a task that will weigh heavily in the context of rising geopolitical tensions observable today across the globe.

Amy Ertan is a PhD researcher within the Centre for Cyber Security at Royal Holloway, University of London. Amy previously studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, where she first developed an interest in international security. Amy was part of the winning team in Atlantic Council’s international relations / cyber security 9/12 competition, and was also awarded Cyber Security Student of the Year at the 2018 SC Media Awards. Her main research interests continue to focus on international relations and cyber-warfare, as well as emerging cyber security threats relating to artificial intelligence.

Image Source: https://www.123rf.com/photo_67396671_russia-spying-on-america-russian-hackers-threaten-us-computer-networks.html

NATO is wounded, this Summit could break it

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By Dr Zachary Wolfraim

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of the Summit (Credit Image: NATO HQ)

In light of the recent chaos consuming British politics and the looming NATO summit, I revisited an article I wrote on the eve of the US election in 2016 hoping it would outline a worst-case scenario, rather than reality. At that time, NATO was heading into uncertainty with the reality of Brexit and the Conservative Party’s significantly reduced majority in Parliament just starting to sink in. Turkey was moving steadily towards autocracy and Donald Trump was a long-shot, but nonetheless threatening Presidential candidate. This scenario has since come to pass and with the critical ongoing summit (on the 11th and 12th July 2018), NATO has again been pushed into a corner and forced to defend its existence. This is a frequent occurrence for the alliance, particularly since the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather than disbanding, the alliance found new purpose both as a vehicle for promoting US interests in Europe but also as a security organisation capable of undertaking coordinated multilateral interventions. In occupying this role, NATO has reinvented itself from collective defence organisation established to prevent Soviet expansionism into one able to execute complex, coordinated multilateral military interventions. In doing so it has responded to crises in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Libya and has now reoriented back towards countering Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. The threat it faces now is not from an external crisis, however, but internal within the alliance and the effect of radical realignments in policy both in the US and the UK.

As a backdrop to current events, suspected Russian interference into both countries have undermined mechanisms of political campaigning and cast doubt on democratic outcomes while delivering policies that dramatically upend decades of Western international security policy. President Donald Trump and specifically his transactional view of international alliances and a complete lack of consistency in policymaking present an existential threat to the organisation and consequently, creates another way of undermining US influence in Europe. Concurrently, Britain has been rendered politically unstable, consumed with Brexit which adds to years of austerity that have diminished much of its defence capability. Both countries play a central role in providing military support and a diplomatic vision to NATO and are struggling to define their respective relationships within the broader international order.

In the UK specifically, both major parties, the Conservatives and Labour, are completely riven by Brexit with the Conservative party engaging in open conflict over the UK’s future relationship with the EU, most recently losing its Foreign Secretary and its Brexit minister. This has not yet spilled into the UK-NATO sphere but nonetheless has planted seeds of doubt in the minds of allies over the type of reliable member the UK will continue to be. Despite the country’s position as a framework nation contributing to vital capabilities and forces alongside meeting its 2% budgetary commitment, it has continued to under invest in maintaining its military capabilities and by extension limiting its ability to act as a capable partner in NATO operations. This is now reaching a point where its future effectiveness could be called into question. Stagnant economic realities mean that future defence investment decisions are likely to be pushed down the road until there is a clearer UK-EU relationship. As a result, one of Europe’s critical NATO members is effectively in a holding pattern for the next few years.

The US, on the other hand, presents an even more fundamental question. President Trump has made it relatively clear that he does not believe the values that underpin NATO are sufficient to justify its existence. Trump’s sole emphasis has been on the disparity between US defence spending and the continuing 2% spending target, disregarding the agenda setting influence this spending has bought. While this has often been a point of contention in NATO, the President’s willful misunderstanding of how this spending target works has only compounded his sense of grievance with NATO allies. Fundamentally, the President seems willing to dismantle the security architecture that has underpinned the safety and security of Europe, the North Atlantic and the West more broadly since the end of the Second World War over the issue of spending and budgets. Despite reassurances from the US Permanent Representative to NATO and US Defence Secretary, James Mattis, about the alliance’s central role to US defence priorities, no one actually knows what President Trump will say as he has no defined priorities or identifiable value structure when it comes to international relations.

Regardless of what happens in this summit, NATO remains in serious trouble during the tenure of the Trump presidency and until Britain has decided its future relationship with the EU. For the time being NATO member states must remain defensive about their continued increases in spending, proactive in their policymaking and vocal about what NATO’s value added is to international security. The 2% spending goal, while admirable, should be adapted to place emphasis on effectiveness and thus increase coordination between Allies to enhance the capability of NATO as a whole. Though the UK has made its commitments to NATO clear, its ability to follow through on them is variable and thus the ability to coordinate with similarly effective NATO forces creates a way of preserving influence and capability. Ultimately, despite the UK’s diminished international presence, NATO can potentially continue to limp along with US disengagement until the next presidential election. However, there is no doubt that this is one of the lowest points for the transatlantic relationship since the beginning of the Iraq War. At that time, major NATO members both publicly rebuked the US invasion of Iraq and refused to support US efforts in mobilising NATO to defend Turkey. This previous rift in the alliance seems minor in hindsight, however, it nonetheless demonstrated that the organisation can endure difficult diplomatic relations and carve out a relevant international role.

During this summit and beyond, Canada and European NATO Allies will need to prioritise the relevance of NATO, invest in maintaining the organisation and prepare to speak up in its defence. There remains considerable support for NATO in the US and Allies should make every effort to maintain links with aligned US Senators and Representatives to continue making the case for NATO. In terms of operations, NATO must continue its presence in Eastern Europe and continue to be a proactive force in international affairs, driven by the initiative of Canada and European members, otherwise it runs the risk of becoming a discussion forum rather than an active force for stability and progress. More generally, NATO member states will need proactive strategies to deal with Russian disinformation and spend time on reaffirming and rebuilding trust with voters. With time and perhaps a different administration, the alliance will recover somewhat, however, the damage that has already occurred will take time and dedication, particularly on the part of the US, to recover.

 

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Dr. Zachary Wolfraim graduated from the War Studies department where he examined how narratives shape foreign policy behaviours. He has previously worked in NATO headquarters on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya as well as political risk and intelligence sectors in London.

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Strife Feature – Political leaders with military backgrounds: a comparison of India and the US

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by Saawani Raje

George Washington at the Battle of Monmouth

The US and India are similar nations in many respects. They have both had fairly stable trajectories of progress in the course of their democratic histories. Covering large areas of geographical territory, they are both nationalistic territorial nations with a colonial past. Significantly, they both have a history of successful civilian rule uninterrupted by military coups or takeovers. However, they appear to differ in one important aspect— in America, civilian leaders having military experience is common and politically advantageous. Multiple Presidents were serving Generals prior to ascending to the Presidency. In India by contrast, it is rare for political leaders at any level to have come from a military background.

This difference is interesting because it speaks to the civil-military ‘problematique’, which has been a central concern of civil-military relations theorists for the past several decades. This problematique is the challenge of reconciling a military strong enough to do anything civilians ask them to, with a military subordinate enough to do only what civilians authorise them to do.[1] A key question in this civil-military debate is the role of the military in the polity of a nation, especially in its decision-making process. A brief survey of military involvement in political decision-making in two of the world’s biggest democracies— India and the US — brings forth an interesting distinction. The difference in American and Indian attitudes towards military participation in politics, I argue, stems from the role conflict has played in the creation of both these nations.

 

Military involvement in the United States

In a TIME article of April 2016, Mark Thompson discusses why Americans wanted a military general in the White House. Looking back at American history, the trend of military leaders eventually becoming civilian leaders is fairly typical. George Washington was the first general who went on to serve as the President of the United States, and twelve Generals have won American Presidential elections since. Significantly, only twelve out of the forty-three American presidents have never served in the military. In the 2017-2018 Congress, 102 members (18.8% of the leadership) had served or were serving in the military.

A 2017 Gallup poll shows that American society’s confidence in the military remains high, at 72%. Additionally, public endorsement of presidential candidates by retired Generals and military officers has become a mainstay of the presidential race. In the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, twelve retired generals and admirals endorsed Kerry, himself a military veteran. Kerry’s Vietnam war record became a matter of controversy, and General Merrill McPeak eventually appeared in television advertisements defending Kerry and his service in Vietnam. On the other side, retired General Tommy Franks who had the distinguished military record of being the architect of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, endorsed George Bush and went on to speak in support of his candidacy at the Republican National Convention. In 2008, Colin Powell , a retired four-star general and the National Security Advisor under George Bush (2001-2005) famously crossed party lines to endorse Obama on national television. Political endorsements from military leaders reached a fever pitch during the Clinton-Trump race. In September 2016, Clinton touted 100 endorsements from former military leaders after Trump displayed 88 retired military figures who backed his campaign. The involvement of military officials in American politics, whether as leaders or leader-makers continues unabated.

 

Civil-military gap in India

The situation in India could not be more dissimilar. The civil-military dissonance is so pronounced that there seems to be no evidence of polls, policy briefs or literature that even engage with the notion of a civilian leader with military experience taking office. This lack of any evidence points to how deeply entrenched the civil-military separation is in the minds of the Indian populace and political and military elites alike. Since 1947 (when India became independent), there has not been a single Prime Minister with military experience. Defence analyst Nitin Gokhale opines that the ‘havoc’ wrought by ‘an indifferent polity and insensitive bureaucracy’ to India’s armed forces ‘has hit the ordinary soldier hard….The Indian soldier today stands at the crossroads, confused about his status in the society and unsure about his own role in a nation led by “faux peaceniks”’. Retired military men make rare appearances on news channels— never the campaign trail— and restrict themselves to talking about military matters. In recent years, the military has shown an increased willingness to get involved in the polity. In 2007, for example, the Indian army opposed the demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier. The Army chief General J J Singh publicly expressed his views more than once in a country where it is extremely unusual for military leadership to vocalise their disagreement with civilian leaders. These instances are, however, not a mainstay of political debates around policymaking and certainly never crossing the border into civilian leadership, in sharp contrast to the US.

 

Role of military conflict as influencing factor

This poses an interesting question: What could be the factors that influence this significant difference in the way military involvement in politics is perceived in the US as opposed to India? I would argue that the role military conflict played in the formation of a nation and national identity is a significant factor in influencing attitudes to military involvement in politics. Military conflict played a significant role in the development of the US as a nation. The US has been in a state of either declared war or conflict for 79 of the 179 years, from just before the founding of Jamestown until 1785, nominally known as the end of the Revolution. It thus had a predominantly military experience of colonialism. The military also played a crucial role in the War of Revolution marking the end of colonial rule. The War was an event with mass participation— according to some historical estimates, two out of every five white American men who could serve did so either in the state militias or the Continental Army.

Royster proposes that military service was the source of an ‘American’ character.[2] The Revolutionary War created a ‘dual army’ tradition that combined a citizen-soldier reserve (which was the militia) with a small professional force ‘that provided military expertise and staying power’.[3] This democratised and nationalised military service has lasting legacies on the psyche of American society regarding attitudes to military service. Furthermore, Congress in 1775 created the Continental Army commanded by George Washington. This Continental Army was built on ideological motivation and a sense of loyalty that surprised most foreign observers. Baron von Closen of the French army exclaimed: ‘It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly!’[4]

This and Washington’s appointment as General of the Continental Army despite the ‘hypersensitive fear of military ascendancy’ are significant.[5] Washington remained deferential to Congress even when its inefficiency threatened the army’s survival. Despite the prominent position held by the military, Washington set forth an example of civil supremacy while commanding the army. This attitude and his later Presidency could have contributed to erasing civilian suspicion of ex-military men becoming civilian leaders. In sum, it can be argued that armed conflict and the military experience— whether for independence or for individual rights as Englishmen within the empire played an intrinsic role in shaping the American identity as a society and nation.

 

Transfer of Power from the British to Indian government on 15 August 1947

 

Indian independence and the military

The Indian experience of the handover of power was very different. First, unlike in America, the Transfer of Power from the British to the Indian government was a predominantly administrative procedure that did not involve physical military confrontation. The army was seen as a tool by the British and Indian civilian leaders who used it for their own political ends. Second, the British recruitment policy for the colonial Indian army focused on drawing recruits from select communities, alienating the armed forces from the rest of the population involved in the nationalist movement. This was in contrast to the experience of the US militias, which democratised and nationalised military service and experience. This also built a deep-rooted suspicion between the civilian leaders of India and the military (which was headed by British commanders-in-chief for a few years even after India became independent). This suspicion led to institutional arrangements separating civilian and military spheres. The position of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was abolished, soon after independence in 1947, and the President of India (a nominal civilian head) was made the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.[6] Significantly, a Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs occupied the top tier of higher defence management in India. This was a purely civilian committee and included senior ministers from the Prime Minister’s Cabinet.[7]

Additionally, lasting attitudes of civilian and military leaders also did not allow the overlapping of military and civilian leadership to the extent that was prevalent in America. In September 1946, a year before India became independent, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India) wrote to the Indian Commander-in-Chief Sir Auchinleck. As a ‘coup-proofing’ strategy, Nehru felt ‘the need to make the army firmly responsible to India’s elected representatives in the future’. This resulted in Indian institution-building regarding defence and military matters that continuously evaluates the army to prevent it from getting ‘out of control’. For example, the Commander-in-Chief was removed from the Cabinet in 1946— a privilege he had enjoyed thus far— to keep him out of political decision-making. Additionally, all significant communications and decisions have to go through civilian officials and politicians at the Ministry of Defence little or no military experience. Thus, decision-making in India with regard to military matters was firmly established as the preserve of the civilian bureaucrats.

 

Conclusions

It can be proposed that the stake of military conflict in the creation of an independent nation is a factor influencing social and political attitudes towards the mixing of civilian and military spheres. This is not to argue that this is the only factor. The time periods in which India and the US secured independence are drastically different. Furthermore, India follows the Westminster parliamentary system and not the Presidential system, which influences public opinion on political leadership in general. Additionally, while India has been involved in a protracted conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir since independence, it has not had the direct experience of experiencing the World Wars or Cold War as an independent state or major party. These factors contribute to civilian perceptions of military involvement in political spheres.

Lawrence Freedman in his recent work ‘The Future of War: A History’ emphasises the need to keep context central to the study of war and conflict.[8] Differences such as the one identified in this article raise pertinent questions about the applicability of seemingly generalisable civil-military relations theories. This post makes a case for viewing these theories through specific historical contexts.

 

Saawani Raje is a Doctoral Candidate in the King’s India Institute. Her work focuses on civil-military relations in India and decision-making during military crises. She holds an MA in South Asia and Global Security from King’s College London and a BA from the University of Cambridge. Her other areas of research interest include security studies, strategy, diplomatic history and South Asian politics. You can follow her @saawaniraje

Notes:

[1] Peter Feaver, “The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control,” Armed Forces and Society 23, no. 2 (January 1996): 149- 78.

[2] Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People At War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1979).

[3] Alan Millet, Peter Maslowski and William Feis, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States from 1607 to 2012 (New York: Free Press, 2012), 165.

[4] Millet, Maslowski and Feis, For the Common Defense, 175.

[5] Millet, Maslowski and Feis, For the Common Defense, 179.

[6] Ayesha Ray. The Soldier and the State in India. (California: Sage Publications, 2013), 37.

[7] Ayesha Ray in Harsh Pant (ed.) The Handbook of Indian Defence Policy (New Delhi: Routledge India 2015).

[8] Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History (London: Allen Lane, 2017).

 

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