New Armies from Old: Merging Competing Military Forces after Civil Wars

15 Military Dis-Integration: Canary in the Coal Mine?

Chapter 15 mIlItAry dIs-INtegrAtION: CANAry IN the COAl mINe? ronald r. krebs The rising tide of civil wars in the second half of the twentieth century, and especially the post–Cold War surge, gave rise to a postconflict peace-building industry. One of that industry’s guiding faiths has been that the future stability of these devastated polities is determined in part by whether a new national army can rise from the ashes. Indeed , there is no question that, in the wake of civil war, negotiations over the future of the various armed forces, state and rebel, are often central to peace negotiations, and with good reason. Yet we should not take it on faith that the way in which the conflicting parties resolve this problem is crucial to the duration and quality of the postwar peace, nor that the ideal is a national army—that is, a professional and communally representative force that serves aims both strategic (so that all can feel secure and lay aside their arms) and symbolic (so that all can identify with a larger national project). The findings of the eleven case studies in this volume do not conclusively prove that those beliefs are irreparably flawed, but they do give us little reason to subscribe to those beliefs—although admittedly many of the authors would not agree with this conclusion . In fact, the cases suggest that, while military integration often (though not always) features prominently in negotiations to end civil war, the failure of military integration projects is more a reflection of underlying distrust or incompatible win-sets than it is a fundamental cause of peace’s breakdown. It is tempting to see failed integration as the key issue, and thus to develop and recommend a set of universal “best practices” that local actors might employ and that the international community might promote. It is tempting to conceive of military integration as a tractable technical problem. But to blame military integration for peace’s downfall is a bit like saying the dead canary is at fault for the coal mine’s having become uninhabitable. When we observe military integration fall short of the ideal or even collapse, it is normally an early warning sign of peace’s demise, not its fundamental cause. Those who seek to define military integration best practices have admirable intentions ; if scholars could figure out what constitutes “good” military integration—that is, military integration that contributes to postconflict peace and stability—the international community could impose it on local actors, entice them to jump aboard, or seek to persuade them of its merits. But to think of military integration this way is to imagine it as a mere engineering problem and to see failures of integration as rooted in a lack of technical know-how. Such practical problems can be overcome—perhaps Table 15.1 Country Military integration details Country Resumption of Fighting? Communal Conflict? Mi = Cause? Author Mi = Cause? krebs Alternative Cause, from Chapter Bosnia-Herzegovina No Much No No — Burundi No Some Yes No War weariness; postwar distribution of power Democratic Republic of Congo Yes Yes Yes No Insecurity and greed Lebanon No Yes Yes Undecided Mozambique No No Yes No Battlefield stalemate; war weariness Philippines Yes Yes No No — Rwanda No No* Yes* No Tutsi victory Sierra Leone No Yes No No — South Africa No No Yes No (or small) Unsustainability of apartheid regime Sudan Yes Yes Yes No Lack of socioeconomic development in South; introduction of Sharia Zimbabwe Yes Yes No No — Note: Entries in this table are based on the information contained in this volume’s chapters—unless otherwise indicated. *Entries in these cells are based on personal communications from the chapter author or volume editor. Table 15.2 Country Military integration outcomes Country (Chapter) Resumption of Fighting? Communal Conflict? Mi = Cause? Author Mi = Cause? krebs Alternative Cause (from Chapter) Bosnia-Herzegovina (11) No Much No No — Burundi (13) No Some Yes No War weariness; postwar distribution of power Democratic Rep. of Congo (9) Yes Yes Yes No Insecurity and greed Lebanon (5) No Yes Yes Undecided Battlefield stalemate; war weariness Mozambique (10) No No Yes No Philippines (7) Yes Yes No No — Rwanda (6) No No* Yes* No Tutsi victory Sierra Leone (12) No Yes No No — South Africa (8) No No Yes No (or small) Unsustainability of apartheid regime Sudan (3) Yes Yes Yes No Lack of socioeconomic development in South...