From Protection to Policing: Military Air Power and the Governance of Humanitarian Crises, 1992-2011

Abstract

International military intervention undertaken to protect civilians victimised by civil conflict became increasingly common following the Cold War. Within the increasingly developed liberal global order, the use of force has become a humanitarian tool. The specific politics created by using force in this way, however, have not been systematically studied by either the literature on "humanitarian intervention" or the Responsibility to Protect. This project problematises the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's reliance on a particular kind of technology, air power, by asking what humanitarian politics result from this approach. Rather than simply an instrument of global policy, air power transformed how these two actors understood ethnic conflict through the political affordances it does, and does not, allow. In keeping with the technical and doctrinal context provided by air power, such conflict is reconfigured from a practice of directly protecting bodies to managing the circulation of objects as a means of policing conflict spaces. What results is a depoliticisation of conflict and a disjoint between the humanitarian ethos and physical effect of such interventions.In this way, human protection becomes a second order effect of ordering conflict spaces. The precise political effect of this was a depoliticisation of both civilians, and their politics, because they were indiscernible to this model. As a result, the impact of these interventions was problematic in humanitarian terms. This was obscured and the model allowed to persist because popular, professional, political, and academic discourses all assume the use of military power is purely technical, rather than political in its own right. This dissertation unpacks this dynamic by providing a historical, multi-case study analysis of how the relationship between humanitarianism and air power emerged, iii what tactics and strategies result, and how the deployment of these means affects the ongoing politics of global humanitarianism and the Responsibility to Protect.iv Acknowledgements Anyone who produces academic work, or has chosen a partner who does, can attest to the fact that such projects are far more than products of sheer will, determination, and individual drive. The related long hours, forgone vacations, social and familial absenteeism, and the preponderance of days spent in the office or library are a sacrifice that is made possible and commonly endured by the author's family and friends. In most cases, these people provide support, rather than ask for recompense, after being asked (or forced) to come along on such a journey. I must now give thanks to those in my life who were patient and supportive while I have spent the last three years producing this dissertation. First, in this regard, is my loving wife, Samantha, whose support was always couched in productive (but not always well received) requests for progress reports. Her devotion is a cornerstone of this effort, and it would not look as it does without her influence. Close behi...