Globalization, Social Movements, and Peacebuilding

4. Toward Human Security and Gender Justice: Reflections on Afghanistan and Iraq

97 4 Toward Human Security and Gender Justice Reflections on Afghanistan and Iraq Valentine M. Moghadam More than a decade ago, the United States under the administration of George W. Bush invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, generating what became both international wars and civil conflicts. The costs have been tremendous—especially to ordinary citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq—but there also have been spillover effects on neighboring countries, along with many debates in the United States about the human toll, ethics, and financial costs of the wars. The conflicts showed no signs of letting up, even after the United States (and the British government) announced plans to withdraw its military from both countries. In Iraq, for example, the March 2010 elections were followed by a spate of bloody killings that continued over the subsequent two years. The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and an insurgency in neighboring Pakistan, was met with renewed military commitment on the part of the Obama administration, but the Taliban persisted. Meanwhile, the conflicts became the subject of numerous discussions and debates on globalization, the economics of war, the new imperialism, international security, and the prospects for peacebuilding in a world marred by all manner of inequalities and injustices. An examination of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq offers an opportunity to pose a number of questions about the relationships among conflict, hegemony, and inequalities. How are the conflicts connected to 98  Global Models and Local Conflicts globalization? What does it mean to build peace, stability, and security in societies torn apart by invasions and foreign occupations as well as by their own social divisions? How have social movements and networks responded to the challenges of war making? And what are appropriate strategies for conflict resolution, reconstruction, and development that might prevent future violence while also guaranteeing gender justice? Drawing on insights and concepts from the literatures on the worldsystem , feminist international relations, and the economics of war, and demonstrating the interconnections among the concepts and realities of need, greed, creed, gender, and hegemony, I argue that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq should be seen as key elements in the building of a post– Cold War world order predicated on the (re)assertion of US hegemony and the global spread of (neo)liberal democracy, and justified by the so-called global war on terror; and I argue that the conflicts unveil the injurious effects of hegemonic or hypermasculinities, whether on the part of the occupiers or the insurgents. I propose that the focus thus far on privatization , US national security, and military escalation has been morally flawed and a foreign policy failure. What is needed instead is a focus on human security, human development, and women’s rights achieved through regional cooperation, social protection, and gender justice. Without attention to the broad, world-systemic sources of the “structural violence” that underlie insurgencies, rebellions, and conflicts, and without recognition of the gendered nature and impacts of conflict, peacebuilding will remain a sideshow to the broader global processes of neoliberal expansion, hegemonic rivalries, and economic, social, and environmental crises. Conflict, War, and Structural Violence in the World-System Debates on the sources and origins of conflicts and wars typically have emphasized the role of grievance, ideology, or—especially since Paul Collier ’s work on the economics of war—greed. In analyzing the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, which are both international wars and civil conflicts, I propose that we begin with the world-system and with the pervasiveness of gender, and then move on to examine what may be distilled as “need, greed, and creed.” Toward Human Security and Gender Justice  99 World-system theory posits the existence of a single capitalist world economy comprised of the economic zones of core, periphery, and semiperiphery , along with an unequal interstate system whereby the core countries —led by a hegemon—wield economic, political, technological, and military power. Theorists associate wars with hegemonic rise and decline, changes to and challenges within the interstate system, and upswings and downswings in long-term historical patterns of economic expansion and contraction (known as Kondratieff waves, or K-waves), including changes in world economic growth and activity. Christopher Chase-Dunn (1998) identifies three structural roles played by (world) wars: (1) they represent struggles for control or dominance over the entire interstate system; (2) they may be used to facilitate the upward or downward mobility of individual states and the...