In a webinar dated May 12, 2020, Villanova University Scholar Samer Abboud examined the emergent "illiberal peace" in Syria. The absence of an internationally mandated or internally negotiated peace process, he argued, has allowed the Syrian regime to craft an illiberal peace as an outcome to the nearly decade-long conflict. This illiberal peace is shaped through a politics of exclusion in which Syrian society is bifurcated into the loyal and disloyal through processes of reconciliation, settlement, and new legal regimes of citizenship. Click below to watch the recording of the talk.
Livestream: Please click here to join the livestream webinar via Zoom or log-in with webinar ID 944 5730 9104.
About this Event: Why do some governments give foreign militants missiles that can destroy aircraft while giving others only bullets and AK-47s? Why do some governments deploy special operations forces to carry out joint attacks with some insurgent groups, while only giving others basic training on weapons handling? Despite the fact that governments often provide costly - and controversial - forms of support to foreign militant groups, we know little about why some groups receive advanced weapons technology and boots on the ground while others do not. In this presentation, I unpack trends in third-party provision of support through an in-depth examination of the CIA's provision of anti-tank missiles and the Pentagon's deployment of Special Operations Forces to support specific militant groups in the recent Syrian conflict. Drawing from an original dataset of the over 150 Syrian militant brigades that received some form of US support and over 60 interviews with Syrian militants and US and Jordanian government officials, I find that, when militant groups have similar organizational characteristics as the armed forces of their government partners, they are more likely to receive and accept costly forms of support.
About the Speaker: Melissa Carlson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at U.C. Berkeley, specializing in international relations, comparative politics, and methodology. She will join CISAC in 2019-2020 as a Middle East Initiative Pre-doctoral Fellow. Broadly, her research examines the dynamics of military partnerships between state governments and foreign militant groups. Melissa's dissertation develops an organizational theory of third-party provision of support: when foreign militant groups and state armed forces share similar organizational characteristics, they are more likely to form joint commands, carry out joint attacks, and provide each other with advanced weapons systems. Melissa's other research interests focus on factors that influence informal cooperation between states, and on how refugee perceptions of host communities, host governments, and aid organizations influence refugee decision-making. Prior to beginning her PhD at U.C. Berkeley, Melissa worked as Public Information consultant for the International Organization for Migration, Iraq Mission in Jordan and Iraqi Kurdistan. Melissa has a M.A. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley, and a B.A. in International Relations and Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Claremont McKenna College.
Dr. Melissa Carlson is currently working with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation unit, where she promotes rigorous standards of measuring the effectiveness of the U.S.'s security cooperation and assistance programming. During her tenure at CISAC, she was a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in international relations, comparative politics, and methodology. Dr. Carlson's primary research examines the factors that influence the variation and intensity of partnerships between governments and foreign militant groups with a focus on the recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Her book-style dissertation project finds that, when foreign militant groups and state armed forces share similar organizational characteristics, they are more likely to deploy forces to conduct joint combat operations and provide each other with advanced weapons systems. In other research, Dr. Carlson examines the factors that influence informal and secret security cooperation between states and how misinformation and rumors influence refugees' relationships with host governments, service providers, and smugglers. Her research has been published in the American Political Science Review, the Review of International Organizations, and International Studies Quarterly, among other outlets. Outside of academia, Dr. Carlson has worked as a consultant for the International Organization for Migration's Iraq and Jordan Missions.
Democracy promotion has been a longstanding goal of US foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. President George W. Bush championed democracy promotion as a way to counter the ideology and extremism that led to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. After Bush’s attempts ended in abject failure, President Barack Obama sought to repair relations with the Muslim world but also withdraw the US footprint in the Middle East. But Obama was forced to take a far more hands-on approach with the outbreak of the 2010-2011 uprisings known as the Arab Spring. President Donald Trump, who has displayed an almost allergic aversion to Obama’s policies, has openly embraced the region’s autocrats with little regard for their abuse of human rights or absence of attention to political or economic freedom. How the United States approaches the region matters – both for aspiring democrats and for those who wish to silence them. Despite the rise of Russia and China, the United States remains the sole superpower, with the loudest voice on the world stage. Thus, the shift from democracy promoter – albeit reluctantly at times – to authoritarian enabler has made the task of democratic political reform far more challenging for people across the Middle East. This discussion will examine the recent democracy promotion efforts of the United States, with a focus on the Obama and Trump years.
SPEAKER BIO
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Sarah Yerkes is a fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic, and security developments as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa. She has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow and has taught in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Yerkes is a former member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, where she focused on North Africa. Previously, she was a foreign affairs officer in the State’s Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian affairs. Yerkes also served as a geopolitical research analyst for the U.S. military’s Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J5) at the Pentagon, advising the Joint Staff leadership on foreign policy and national security issues.
About this Event: Russia has employed the semi-state Wagner Group security company in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique, and Mali (so far). Wagner is tightly connected to Russia's military intelligence organization (the GRU), and partially funded by one of Vladimir Putin's cronies, Evgeny Prigozhin, who also uses it for private duties. So why is Wagner technically illegal (and even unconstitutional) in Russia? Its use is less costly in budgetary and political terms than using the uniformed military, and it provides (limited) plausible deniability for Russian actions. But it is also unclear what Russia wants from impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Using the best available evidence, this presentation explores these mysteries.
About the Speaker: Kimberly Marten is a professor of political science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a faculty member of Columbia’s Harriman Institute and Saltzman Institute. She has written four books, including Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell, 2012), and Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993) which received the Marshall Shulman Prize. The Council on Foreign Relations (where she is a member) published her special report, Reducing Tensions between Russia and NATO (2017). She is a frequent media commentator, and appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. She earned her A.B. at Harvard and Ph.D. at Stanford, and was a CISAC post-doc.
Virtual Seminar
Kimberly Marten
Professor of Political Science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University
Barnard College, Columbia University
Seminars
Russian Power and Purpose in the 21st Century Seminars
Brett McGurk served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL from Oct. 23, 2015 to Dec. 31, 2018. He was appointed to the post by former President Barack Obama, but the Donald Trump administration kept McGurk in the position until his resignation in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria. McGurk has worked in diplomacy for the past 15 years, including a stint from October 2014 to January 2016 as deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran. He is currently a lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute.
The Daily sat down to talk to McGurk about his career and his thoughts on the Middle East in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death.
The Stanford Daily (TSD): Could you talk a little bit about your transition from working in the government to lecturing at Stanford?
Brett McGurk (BM): I had the unique experience of serving at fairly senior levels with President Bush, Obama and then two years of President Trump — three very different presidents. I resigned from the Trump administration at the end of last year following his decision to abruptly abandon Syria, which was very contrary to what our established policy was.
CDDRL’s Program on Arab Reform and Democracy held its annual conference at Stanford University on October 11 and 12, titled “The Struggle for Political Change in the Arab World.” The conference is an outgrowth of ARD’s efforts to support new research on the dynamics of political change in the countries of the Arab world. Scholars from across different disciplines sought to understand how social, economic, and political dynamics at the national level, as well as international and regional conflict and power rivalries, impact struggles for political and social change in the region.
Overview of Panels and Speakers
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Following opening remarks by FSI Senior Fellow Larry Diamond, the first panel titled “The Boundaries of Authoritarianism post-Arab Uprisings” featured CDDRL Senior Research Scholar Amr Hamzawy. His paper examined how the regime of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has employed discursive strategies to discredit calls for democratic change in the country. Sean Yom, Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, outlined how the protest strategies of Jordanian youth have limited their effectiveness in advancing meaningful political change. University of California, Davis Scholar Samia Errazzouki discussed the failure of state-led political and economic reform in Morocco.
Chaired by Harvard University Fellow Hicham Alaoui, the second panel was titled “Popular Uprisings and Uncertain Transitions.” University of California, Santa Cruz Political Scientist Thomas Serres provided an overview of the economic disruptions that contributed to Algeria’s uprising. Lindsay Benstead, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Portland State University, analyzed the electoral successes of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party. Khalid Medani, Professor of Political Science at McGill University, explained how Sudanese protesters leveraged new strategies of contention to force Omar Al-Bashir out of power.
Farah Al-Nakib (right) and Michael Herb (left)
The third panel, titled “Politics, Succession and Sectarianism in the GCC States,” included Oxford University Fellow Toby Matthiesen, who discussed how Saudi Arabia and the GCC states have increasingly sought to protect their regimes by actively molding the politics of their autocratic patrons in the region, and by using new technologies to upgrade the effectiveness of their surveillance states. Georgia State University Political Scientist Michael Herb explained how the aging of the Saudi line of succession contributed to the political ascendancy of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and the decay of family rule in the country. Cal Poly Historian Farah Al-Nakib described how Kuwait’s royal family has used its sponsorship of large-scale development projects to sidestep the country’s political polarization, undermine the power of the parliament, and weaken public access to spaces of political contestation.
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The fourth panel focused on “Social Strife and Proxy Conflict in the Middle East.” Chatham House Scholar Lina Khatib described Syria’s transformation during the civil war from a highly centralized security state to a transactional state in which the regime depends heavily on local powerbrokers. Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, discussed differences in how local communities in Yemen have been affected by the country’s conflict. David Patel, who serves as Associate Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, argued that Iraq’s democratic institutions have been impressively robust to a series of existential challenges, but he also highlighted a widespread feeling among the Iraqi public that its parliamentary system is failing to deliver.
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Finally, the fifth panel examined the topic of “International Forces in the Arab Political Arena.” Stanford University Political Scientist Lisa Blaydes suggested that China’s efforts to involve itself in the regional economy may improve its reputation among economically-frustrated Arab citizens, but that such efforts also spell trouble for democracy and human rights in the Middle East. Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University Abbas Milani argued that Iran’s ideological commitment to exporting the Islamic Revolution has been remarkably consistent for several decades. Colin Kahl, Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI, reviewed the strategies of US administrations toward the Middle East, and posited that President Trump’s approach of pursuing maximalist objectives with minimal commitments is particularly likely to heighten instability in the region. FSI Scholar Ayca Alemdaroglu emphasized that Turkey’s neo-Ottoman foreign policy has failed to achieve its objectives in the face of mounting regional upheaval.
Common Themes of Political Change and Continuity
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Several themes emerged from conference presentations. First, across the panels, scholars discussed the lessons learned by autocrats and activists alike in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and the ways in which these lessons have transformed regional politics. Hamzawy emphasized that the Sisi regime in Egypt has increasingly relied on intensive repression over cooptation to maintain stability, while at the same time refusing to grant even limited political openings as existed under Hosni Mubarak’s presidency. In part, this change appears to be rooted in the regime’s belief that relaxing the state’s authoritarian posture had contributed to the revolutionary upheaval of 2011. Likewise, Matthiesen suggested that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council States have learned to become more aggressive in strengthening their surveillance apparatus and policing popular discourse transnationally. By contrast, Serres discussed how the Algerian military and bureaucracy have responded to mass protests not by intensifying repression, but instead by attempting to coopt anti-corruption initiatives and democratic reforms to limit political and economic change. Similarly, regarding Kuwait, Al-Nakib illustrated how the restructuring of urban spaces has proved itself a subtle but successful strategy for the royal family to rehabilitate its reputation while limiting geographic focal points for popular politics.
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Activists have also learned their own lessons from the aftermath of the Arab Spring. According to Yom, Jordanian activists continue to look to the leaderless revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt as a model to be emulated. As a result, they prioritize agility and horizontality in their protests, and they forgo the organization of formal political movements. This approach has succeeded in acquiring short-term concessions from the regime but has failed to generate broader structural changes. On the other hand, activists in Sudan appear to have been more successful at using lessons from the Arab Spring to push for systematic transformations of their political system. According to Medani, Sudanese protesters developed novel tactics to avoid the repression of the coercive apparatus, and they were effective at gradually forging a counterhegemonic discourse that clearly exposed the regime’s failures to the public. Following the overthrow of Omar Al-Bashir, activists in Sudan have also insisted on dismantling the political and economic might of the deep state to avoid following Egypt’s path.
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Second, the conference discussion indicated widespread dissatisfaction with formal political institutions across the region. For instance, Hamzawy suggested that Sisi’s regime has been relatively successful at discrediting civilian political institutions, including the legislature and civilian-led ministries. Errazzouki highlighted widespread dissatisfaction in Morocco with existing political institutions. Likewise, Yom’s discussion of activists in Jordan emphasized their lack of interest in entering formal politics. In Kuwait, the royal court has found an opening to pursue urban development projects outside of normal institutions in part because of the public’s frustration with gridlock in the legislature. Patel speculated that frustration with the parliament and muhasasa system in Iraq may finally prompt major changes to the country’s political process.
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Third, despite this disillusionment with formal politics, these political institutions have proved remarkably durable in countries across the region. For example, though current frustrations may finally prompt change in Iraq, Patel also highlighted the resilience of the parliamentary system in the face of a sectarian civil war, US troop withdrawal, the rise of ISIS, and a number of other major challenges. For both Algeria and Sudan, Serres and Medani stressed that militaries continue to exercise significant influence despite the popular uprisings. Meanwhile, for Egypt, Hamzawy noted the firm grip of the current military regime on power, and for Morocco, Errazzouki described the lack of systematic changes to the country’s ruling monarchy, even after years of popular pressure.
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Fourth, this durability has not precluded a number of important shifts within existing political institutions. Regarding Syria, for instance, Khatib explained how the survival of Bashar al-Asad’s presidency has depended on moving state institutions away from a centralized security state to a transactional state reliant on local actors with a degree of independence from the regime. Herb described how the consensus-based family rule of the Saudi monarchy fell victim to deaths among the aging senior princes, which opened up opportunities for the king to appoint more officials in a manner that heightened his direct influence. Herb suggested that Mohammad Bin Salman recognized this change and knew that he would likely lose relevance upon his father’s death; as a result, he was motivated to gamble on consolidating his control while his father still held the power to issue royal decrees. In Algeria, the influence of the military and bureaucracy may remain paramount for now, but Serres also pointed out that protesters have succeeded in stripping away the civilian intermediaries who used to protect these institutions. Regarding the durability of local institutions, Yadav noted how pre-conflict and even pre-unification institutions in Yemen have continued to operate effectively in a number of local communities around the country.
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Fifth, foreign interventions will continue to destabilize the region and impede prospects for democratization or post-conflict reconstructions in the coming years. Khatib noted that Russia has positioned itself as the agenda setter who can bring the Syrian state back to its feet, but also that Russia and Iran are competing to profit off the country’s reconstruction. For Yemen, Yadav argued that fragmentation at the local level has important implications for best practices in the international community’s reconstruction efforts, but that current actors are not well positioned to understand these trends. Kahl predicted that the Middle East strategy of the Trump administration would likely contribute to further destabilization of the region because of its emphasis on empowering allies to do what they want and go after Iran while the United States maintains its distance. Meanwhile, Blaydes’ presentation on China’s regional involvement, Milani’s discussion of Iran’s efforts to export the Islamic Revolution, and Matthiesen’s observations about the GCC States’ authoritarian coordination all illustrated how intervening states are reducing prospects for democratic political change.
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Sixth, even as interventionist countries have contributed to the destabilization of the region, they have also confronted major obstacles themselves – and in some cases have failed outright to achieve their primary objectives. Khatib noted that Iran has faced backlash in Syria, while Abbas Milani and David Patel pointed to backlash against Iran in Iraq. Kahl emphasized that the Trump administration’s Middle East policy was unlikely to achieve its goals. Blaydes observed that China has not acquired greater salience in the Middle East despite its more active economic involvement, and individuals in many of the region’s countries – particularly those that are more developed – do not see China’s growth as a positive force. She also stressed the reputational risks China is taking in pursuing potentially unpopular investments through the Belt and Road Initiative. The GCC States are attempting to prop up strongmen in both Libya and Sudan, but this strategy has struggled in the face of local political dynamics; furthermore, the intervention in Yemen has been a disaster for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Finally, Alemdaroglu stressed that Turkey’s ambitious “neo-Ottoman” foreign policy, which reflects a desire to revive Turkish influence in areas ruled by the Ottoman Empire, has largely failed. In particular, the architect of the policy, former foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, lost his job; the country miscalculated badly in how it handled the aftermath of the Arab Spring; and Turkey’s relations with many of its neighbors have soured.
Images of children on the battlefield or posing for a ‘last will and testament’ poster before a suicide operation suggest the extent to which ISIS has weaponized children. The use of children in terrorist propaganda has become a regular feature of their strategic messaging and has accelerated over time. While tasking children with a variety of support functions – scouts, drummers, or couriers is not new, the ways in which terrorist organizations have deployed children has evolved. The exploitation of children represents a relatively new development, both tactically and strategically. Attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria show that the median age of suicide bombers is decreasing. This presentation will provide evidence that terrorist groups have increased their use of children on the front lines despite assertions to the contrary and that important variation exists across groups based on location, country of origin, and the gender of the children with a particular emphasis on ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Speaker's Biography:
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Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia State University. She conducts ethnographic field research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She has authored books and articles on terrorism and violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (2007) and Bombshell: Women and Terror (2011). Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard and McGill Universities. Bloom’s newest book is Small Arms: Children and Terror (2019). Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a Masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.
Mia Bloom
Professor of Communication
Georgia State University
Abstract: Sound strategy requires alignment of ends, ways, and means. A significant gap in ends (the objectives to be achieved) and means (the resources to be applied towards that objective) result in risk and likely policy failure. Few policies over the last decade have had a wider gap between ends and means than Syria. Declared U.S. objectives – “Assad must go” – were not matched by the resources for achieving that objective nor considered thought as to how it might realistically be achieved. This situation has worsened in the Trump administration as the declared objectives have increased but the available resources and political commitment have decreased. McGurk will discuss Syria policy across both administrations based on his own experience leading the U.S. response to ISIS. He has traveled to Syria extensively and calls for an urgent realignment of ends and means to drawn down risk to the United States. The lessons to be drawn are then applied to other foreign policy challenges and offer a ready formula for assessing the declared objectives of U.S. policy. The talk will be based on McGurk’s recent article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Speaker's Biography: Brett McGurk is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
McGurk’s research interests center on national security strategy, diplomacy, and decision-making in wartime. He is particularly interested in the lessons learned over the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump regarding the importance of process in informing presidential decisions and the alignment of ends and means in national security doctrine and strategy. At Stanford, he will be working on a book project incorporating these themes and teaching a graduate level seminar on presidential decision-making beginning in the fall of 2019. He is also a frequent commentator on national security events in leading publications and as an NBC News Senior Foreign Affairs Analyst.
Before coming to Stanford, McGurk served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, helping to build and then lead the coalition of seventy-five countries and four international organizations in the global campaign against the ISIS terrorist network. McGurk was also responsible for coordinating all aspects of U.S. policy in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and globally.
McGurk previously served in senior positions in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, including as Special Assistant to President Bush and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan, and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and Special Presidential Envoy for the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State under Obama.
McGurk has led some of the most sensitive diplomatic missions in the Middle East over the last decade. His most recent assignment established one of the largest coalitions in history to prosecute the counter-ISIS campaign. He was a frequent visitor to the battlefields in both Iraq and Syria to help integrate military and civilian components of the war plan. He also led talks with Russia over the Syria conflict under both the Trump and Obama administrations, initiated back-channel diplomacy to reopen ties between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and facilitated the formation of the last two Iraqi governments following contested elections in 2014 and 2018.
In 2015 and 2016, McGurk led fourteen months of secret negotiations with Iran to secure the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezain, U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, and Pastor Saad Abadini, as well as three other American citizens.
During his time at the State Department, McGurk received multiple awards, including the Distinguished Honor Award and the Distinguished Service Award, the highest department awards for exceptional service in Washington and overseas assignments.
McGurk is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
McGurk received his JD from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Connecticut Honors Program. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Denis Jacobs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit, and Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Brett McGurk
Payne Distinguished Lecturer
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Scholars Corner is an ongoing SPICE initiative to share FSI’s cutting-edge social science research with high school and college classrooms nationwide and international schools abroad.
This Scholars Corner video features New York Times bestselling author Francis Fukuyama discussing the recent rise of identity politics, both in the United States and around the world. “In the 20th century we had a politics that was organized around an economic axis, primarily. You had a left that worried about inequality…and you had a right that was in favor of the greatest amount of freedom,” summarizes Fukuyama. “[N]ow we are seeing a shift in many countries away from this focus on economic issues to a polarization based on identity.”
According to Fukuyama, this shift in politics is reflected in such domestic social movements as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, as well as in international movements like the Catalan independence movement, white nationalism, and even the Islamic State.
The rise of identity politics may have troubling implications for modern democracies. “In the United States, for example, the Republican party increasingly has become a party of white people, and the Democratic party has become increasingly a party of minorities and women. In general, I think the problem for a democracy is that you’ve got these specific identities…[but] you need something more than that. You need an integrative sense of national identity [that’s] open to the existing diversity of the society that allows people to believe that they’re part of the same political community,” says Fukuyama.
“That, I think, is the challenge for modern democracy at the present moment.”
To hear more of Dr. Fukuyama’s analysis, view the video here: “The Rise and Implications of Identity Politics.” For other Scholars Corner episodes, visit our Scholars Corner webpage. Past videos have covered topics such as cybersecurity, immigration and integration, and climate change.
"Identity" hardcover book by Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at FSI and the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. This video is based on his recent book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, which was recognized as The Times (UK) Best Books of 2018, Politics, and Financial Times Best Books of 2018.
Abstract: In efforts to halt the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons (CW) in that country’s civil war the United States and other outside powers applied coercive strategies, in both a deterrent and compellent mode. Outcomes varied: compellence achieved a partial success in getting Syria to give up much of its chemical stockpile, but there were multiple deterrence failures. This paper examines this record to draw lessons about factors associated with the effectiveness of coercion. Its analysis points to the interplay of three factors: credibility, motivation, and assurance. Regarding credibility, the case demonstrates that threats fulfilling many of the traditional criteria for establishing credibility can still fail. In Syria, this is partly because there were ambiguities in the scope of what was covered by deterrent warnings and partly because other factors also affect coercive outcomes. In the Syria case two additional factors were especially important. First, the domestic political motivations of the target affect whether external threats provide coercive leverage. In this case Syrian President Assad’s concern with regime survival led him to perceive the value of CW use as outweighing the likely costs even if outside powers followed through on retaliatory threats. Second, where regime survival is a concern, it is vital to pair coercive threats with appropriate assurances. Here, the case suggests that it is possible not only to provide too little assurance, but also too much. Whereas the Obama administration found it hard to offer credible assurances to Assad, the Trump administration initially conveyed assurances that were too robust, creating a sense that Syria could use CW with impunity. This analysis suggests there may have been a potentially viable path to effective coercion of the Assad regime, but the path would have involved intense tradeoffs that largely prevented decision makers from embracing it. Decision makers and outside commentators alike turned instead to a familiar schema that implies credibility is established by demonstrating a willingness to impose costs using airpower – a script that can be labeled the “resolve plus bombs” formula. Despite the frequent tendency to equate coercion with the threat or limited use of air strikes, this approach was not sufficient to change Syria’s calculations regarding chemical arms.
Speaker's Biography: Jeff Knopf is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California, where he serves as chair of the M.A. program in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies and a senior research associate with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). He is on sabbatical for the 2018-19 academic year and is spending the year as a visiting scholar at CISAC. This is his second stint at CISAC. Dr. Knopf received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford and was previously a pre-doctoral fellow at CISAC in the days when it was still located in the old Galvez House. His most recently completed project is a forthcoming book volume he co-edited on Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons. While at CISAC, Dr. Knopf will primarily be working on a project titled “Coercing Syria on Chemical Weapons.” This project examines efforts by the United States and other countries to apply deterrent and compellent strategies in attempts to stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons and to dismantle its chemical arsenal. Dr. Knopf will also be working on a paper that explores cognitive aspects of the nuclear taboo.
Jeffrey Knopf
Professor
Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS)
Farah Al-Nakib (right) and Michael Herb (left)
"Identity" hardcover book by Francis Fukuyama