Foreign Interventions in Ethnic Conflicts

Robert Nalbandov

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317133957
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume analyzes the successes and failures of foreign interventions in intrastate ethnic wars. Adding value to current research in the fields of international security and conflict resolution, it adopts the unique approach of considering successes of third party actions not by durable peace established in a target country (which is the more traditional approach) but by actual fulfilment of intervention goals and objectives, because multilateral interventions are more likely to achieve success in the pursuit of their goals than unilateral actions. Robert Nalbandov takes in-depth studies of interventions in Chad, Georgia, Somalia and Rwanda and relates them to the main theories of international security - the ethnic security dilemma and the credible commitment problem - to produce a fascinating and valuable volume.

Chapter 1 Theories of Third-party Intervention

DOI: 10.4324/9781315582795-2

Success of third parties largely depends on the perceptions of the belligerents of the enforceability power of the outcomes the interveners propose. The more the conflict parties respects externally imposed solutions, including sanctions, and who imposes them, the clearer they perceive threats for possible non-compliance with the options proposed by the third parties, the more they will believe that the opponents would have exactly same fears from the punitive actions of the interveners, and, thus, would better comply with the proposed outcome by trusting both their rivals and the external actors.

There is no unified approach either to the nature of the interveners affecting the end-state of conflicts or to the role of the composition of intervention forces that influences the durability of peace. While for some scholars neutrality of usually multilateral interveners contributes to their successes in the matter of resolving conflicts, for others individual interests of third parties make them more decisive in imposing solutions upon the belligerents. The quest for outcome- and objective-based theorizing on successes and failures of interveners starts with definitions of the roles they play, contribution of the compositional dichotomy to the ability of the interveners to successfully pursue their goals, and exploring local conditions in the target counties that either impede or facilitate interventions.

With all the complexities of outside actors, in enforcing their decisions upon the belligerents, third parties, at large, serve two roles – of an arbiter, a principal decision-maker and an imposer of its will, and a mediator, interested in no particular outcome but in a solution commonly acceptable to all the warring factions. In the first case not only does a third party offer a solution to the conflicting parties but it also enforces it through creation of necessary conditions for its acceptance. This is usually done by a force that the conflicting parties cannot withstand. Third-party further commits itself to keeping the outcome intact and, sometimes, even appoints the winner in the conflict. In doing so, the third party, according to Bloomfield (1995), “… can quite legitimately employ its own resources to bribe or threaten the disputing parties into agreement”¹ or any other outcome. An important aspect of interventions mentioned by Galtung (1965) is that, although the parties may or may not submit to arbitration voluntarily, “in either case they may agree to the solution only if they accept or have to agree”.² The guarantee of acceptance of the solution is their bias and self-commitment to pursue its objectives “wholeheartedly”. Even if a conflicting party is dissatisfied with the conflict outcome being imposed by the interveners, third parties will “…establish a hegemon by helping one side to win or by imposing direct rule by outsiders.”³

1 Bloomfield, D. 1995. Towards Complementarity in Conflict Management: Resolution and Settlement in Northern Ireland. Journal of Peace Research, 32(2), 152–153. 2 Galtung, J. 1965. Institutionalized Conflict Resolution: A Theoretical Paradigm. Journal of Peace Research, 2(4), 360. 3 Snyder, J. and Jarvis, R. 1999. Civil War and the Security Dilemma, in Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, edited by B. Walter and J. Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 27.

The other role of a third party is of a neutral and/or impartial mediator with no vested interest in particular outcome of conflict. In the words of Galtung (1965), such interveners may “direct…antagonists towards the mutual acceptance of some point in the compatibility region. The task is not to decide on that point, only to indicate it, and serve as debate regulator so as to make the contestants better aware of the structure of the goal-space.”⁴ The guarantee of success of the interveners is their impartiality: that they will impose a without prejudice to any specific warring faction but will find a mutually acceptable solution. The third party may facilitate the negotiation process by offering “good offices”, funding and hosting meetings and peace talks, and providing other relevant technical support.

4 Galtung, J. 1965, 360.

In either of these roles, successes of third parties should be assessed on the basis of two different criteria. In case of a biased arbiter where the task of a third party is to enforce its own will, success should be evaluated by the belligerents’ acceptance of this will. In case of a neutral mediator where the task is peacekeeping, peace-building and possible post-conflict rehabilitation, success should be defined in terms of years without war. In either of these cases presence of third parties in the conflicts alters cost calculations of the conflicting parties for the continuation of war and conveys the message to the belligerents that “the payoffs from cheating…no longer exceed the payoffs from faithfully executing its terms. Once cheating becomes difficult and costly, promises to cooperate gain credibility and cooperation becomes likely”.⁵ The interveners are “…either making the actual cost of fighting prohibitively high or by making the benefits of not fighting actually attractive. The successful intervention will result then from a cost-benefit calculation by the antagonists that leads to not fighting providing the highest expected outcome”.⁶

5 Walter, B.E. 1997. The Critical Barriers to Civil War Settlement. International Organization, 51(3), 340. 6 Regan, P.M. 2002. Civil Wars and Foreign Powers – Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict. University of Michigan Press, 73.

The real problem is that even using this approach we cannot draw a clear line between what had been planned and what was achieved due to interveners’ diverse aims and objectives. The criterion of stopping war and preserving longevity of peace of success cannot be applied even to a neutral and impartial intervener whose aims were mere monitoring of fulfillment of agreements: it is simply not meant for keeping durable peace.

Domestic Context of Interventions: Trust, Fear and Commitment

Enforceability of sanctions largely depends on the factor, which was not directly mentioned by Galtung, but which follows from his argument, and which is especially applicable in intra-state ethnic wars: trust of belligerents to the arrangements offered by the third parties. Trust, which, by a wide definition of Lawler et al. (1999), is “…an expectation that another will cooperate in a mixed-motive situation”,⁷ essentially signifies three psychologically explained types of believes: the belief by a belligerent group that it would be punished if it does not comply with the outcomes proposed by the intervener; that it would not be punished, abused or treated unfairly by the intervener if he does complies with the solution offered; and that its rivals would not cheat the intervener-imposed sanctions. Eventually trust builds up credibility of the intervention frameworks.

7 Lawler, E.J., Ford, R. and Large, M.D. 1999. Unilateral Initiatives as a Conflict Resolution Strategy. Social Psychology Quarterly, 62(3), 242.

Key components to success of interventions – fear and trust of the belligerents to the outside actions – are inherent parts of the credible commitment theory of third party interventions, which originates from the “agent-principal” theories of economics. In the banking sector, for example, central banks commit themselves through banking supervision mechanisms to guarantee that in cases of insolvency of commercial banks, the depositors will “receive adequate compensation and [that] the system is insulated from the damage wrought by the ensuing contagion”.⁸ In doing so, central banks act as third parties in the relationships between the depositors, as principals, and the commercial banks, as agents, protecting the interests of the former and, in a broader sense, the stability of the banking system. Similarly, insurance markets are founded on this double commitment: that of the insurance agencies that they will honor the insurance claims made by their clients, and that of their clients’ respecting the agreements and not cheating the insurance companies. Here, again, the central concept of the credible commitment is trust, which, in the words of Anderson et al. (1996), is “a belief that the counterpart will behave ‘equitably’ (in a manner that is ‘fair’ or which respects the interests of the trusting party)”.⁹

8 Hall, M.J.H. 1989. Handbook of Banking Regulation and Supervision. New York and London: Woodhead Faulkner, 75. 9 Anderson, E., Ross, W.T. Jr. and Weitz, B. 1996. Commitment and Its Consequences. American Agency System of Selling Insurance, INSEAD working paper, 96/42/MKT, 7.

In the field of resolution of ethnic conflicts, the credible commitment theory is applied to the majority-minority settings in the target countries and to the third parties acting as external guarantors of peace in civil wars. In conflicts in multiethnic states aggravated by “ethnically defined grievances, negative stereotypes, demographic threats, histories of ethnic domination, emotion-laden ethnic symbols, reciprocal fears of group extinction, de facto political anarchy, and the political space and military means to act”,¹⁰ the minority ethnic groups need strong guarantees from state institutions against abuses of their interests, while majorities need similar guarantees from ethnic groups that they would not rebel against their rule. On the national level, in a normally functioning state with acting democratic constitutions, such guarantees are enshrined in public authorities, which keep interethnic tensions to minimum. The guarantees are absent or inefficient under the conditions of domestic anarchy resulting from state collapses, which bring ethnic security dilemmas into life. The situations with “…no central government exists to insure order, no police or judicial system remains to enforce contracts, and groups have divided into independent armed camps”¹¹ and subsequent security dilemmas are the milieus in which third-parties are most likely to operate during their actions, or which are caused directly by third parties.

10 Kaufman, C. 1996. Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil War. International Security, 20(4), 175. 11 Walter, B.E. 1997, 338.

Security dilemmas have serious implications for the third-parties’ successes and failures since they directly influence the degree of fear and trust to outside actions. First described by Posen (1993), ethnic security dilemmas, resulting from state collapse and the incapability of weak or poorly functioning central governments to control their territories, pose the tasks of provision of their own security to the ethnic groups and make them resort to defensive actions.¹² Ethnic groups in trying to protect their members by replacing and substituting for the protector functions of the state, eventually acquire a state-like logic and its modus operandi. Under such “self-help” situations,¹³ “…the groups emerging from an old empire must calculate their power relative to each other…and make a guess about their relative power in the future.”¹⁴ Self-assessment and assessment of others is done on the basis of the past experience of inter-group interactions and their subjective views on whether or not others bear threats to them. Ethnic groups become entrapped in their blurred views and distorted perceptions, by definition considering other as inherently evil. In preparing to defend their kin, or, in the words of Roe (1999) “…in trying to increase its societal security (strengthen its own identity), causes a reaction in a second society, which, in the end, decreases the first society’s own societal security (weakens its identity).”¹⁵ Ultimately, defense is considered to be less effective in protecting group identities, than offence, which becomes a preferred type of action making the “first-strike-wins” thinking prevail.

12 Posen, B.R. 1993. The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict, in Ethnic Conflict and International Security, edited by M.E. Brown, Princeton University Press. 13 Kaufman, S. 1996. Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldova’s Civil War. International Security, 21(2), 108–138. 14 Posen, B.R. 1993, 110. 15 Roe, P. 1999. The Intrastate Security Dilemma: Ethnic Conflict as a Tragedy? The Journal of Peace Research, 36(2), 194.

From purely domestic point of view, groups mistrusting each other cannot find outside guarantors who, according to Fearon (1998), “…can credibly guarantee agreements between them…[and] ethnic majorities are unable to commit themse...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Theories of Third-party Intervention
• 2 Quantitative Analysis of Foreign Interventions in Ethnic Conflicts
• 3 Chad (1966-1987): Muscling in for Control
• 4 Georgia (1992-1994): Intervening for the Sake of Intervention
• 5 Somalia (1991-1994): When Force Fails
• 6 Rwanda (1990-1996): Success during Genocide
• 7 A Successful Intervention: When, Where and How
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index