Securitizing instability: the US military and full spectrum operations

The geopolitics of militarism and humanitarianism

“…Notably, when the US first intervened in Afghanistan in October 2001, it dropped both cluster bombs and food aid from the air; that the packages were easily confused because of their similarity in size and colour created a high risk of civilian casualties. With counterinsurgency and the shift to stability operations, civilian-military initiatives have proliferated, perhaps especially with respect to the US ( Bachmann, 2018 ; Bell, 2012 ; Morrissey, 2015 ). Former Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to civilian humanitarian actors as ‘force multipliers’ at the beginning of the war on terror, and since then civilian agencies have increasingly been incorporated into practices of war ( Bell, 2011 ; McCormack, 2018 ).…”

Intervening for human security

“…This trend has been replicated in military circles via the emergence of what Coleen Bell and Brad Evans (2010: 364) call a "post-interventionary logic" of security, focused on reconstruction and stabilization. As I have shown for the US military, however, military-led 'stability operations' are about economic security and are neither directed nor primarily resourced towards human security concerns (Morrissey 2015). An additional challenge for human security lies in how its seven elements parsed out in the 1994 HDR have been taken up in distinctly different capacities, with some being prioritized more than others.…”

“…In referencing human security's call for activating international and humanitarian law, we need to be cognizant of the increasingly selective use of the law by Western governments in recent years -in terms of both military and humanitarian interventions (Morrissey 2015). The functioning legalities of the EU-Turkey refugee agreement from 2016 is especially instructive on this point (Memişoğlu 2019).…”

“…As David Chandler (2008: 427-428) notes, the idea of two separate "paradigms" is "exaggerated". Chandler's point is evidenced, for instance, by how militaries throughout the world have increasingly drawn upon humanitarian security discourse for stability operations and reconstruction efforts (Morrissey 2015). An additional challenge in security studies is to not present 'human security' as something inherently opposed to security measures and negatively oriented towards 'de-securitization' or 'counter-securitization'.…”

Envisioning human security – commentary to Gill

“…The human security paradigm advanced and supported by the UN places particular emphases on legally-binding human rights law, which challenges governments across the EU to take responsibility for, and think cooperatively about, a more collective and sustainable sense of security. We need to pay attention, of course, to the selective invocation and use of the law, which governments across the Global North, in particular, have become adept at in recent years -both in terms of violent military interventions and humanitarian responses to crises (Morrissey 2015). In showing how "procedures for registering, assessing, protecting and managing refugees rework the trauma of war and violence", Loyd, Erkampt and Secor have outlined how refugees in Turkey are "caught in a prolonged limbo, during which they are subject to layers of bureaucracy, repeated interviews and ongoing demands to prove their deservingness" -and all of this is happening "within the international humanitarian logic that governs their access to care and resettlement" (Loyd et al 2018, 377, 386).…”