International Affairs Spring 2015 Edition

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

ADVISORY BOARD J. FURMAN DANIEL VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MARK GASPAR LECTURER THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MARLENE LARUELLE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL ASIA PROGRAM RESEARCH PROFESSOR, IERES THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY KIMBERLEY L. THACHUK, PHD PROFESSORIAL LECTURER THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

T

he role of technology in international affairs is by now one of the most dynamic topics in our field. This Spring issue of International Affairs Review includes three papers that analyze this relationship from different perspectives. Terence Check presents a hypothetical case to study the way in which cyber-warfare would fit into international humanitarian law. Brad Crofford compares the Arab Spring with the current situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on social media.

Finally, Jack Karsten analyzes the increasingly complex governance of the Internet.

In addition, we are proud to present two papers that deal with some of the most urgent regions and topics of international affairs. Adam Yefet studies the effect religious institutions have in the policy of Saudi Arabia, a critical actor in the Middle East, while Ariel Bigio analyzes the necessary inclusion of women in transnational security, using Afghanistan as a case study. As in our Fall issue, we also include two book reviews.

Continuing with the return of additional sections that started on our previous issue, we are proud to present an interview with Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue. Our location in Washington, D.C. provides us with a great opportunity as we seek to further the participation of leading policymakers and scholars in International Affairs Review in the near future.

This Spring 2015 issue will be our last with the participation of Elizabeth Burnham and Mia Brown, who led our journal through a critical and successful period of its existence. They provided strong leadership and a staunch commitment to International Affairs Review’s mission. We hope to build on what they have accomplished.

Bruno Binetti Dillon Clancy Co-Editors-in-Chief

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Bruno Binetti Dillon Clancy MANAGING EDITORS Michael Buchanan Mia Brown SENIOR EDITORS Mia Brown Jaimie Clark Nicole Golliher Steven Inglis Robert Larsen James Nusse ASSOCIATE EDITORS Kalli Beck Bjorn Bolte Saule Dairabayeva Ivana Djukic Sylvana Dussan Amber Footman Amnah Hillou Warren Kessler Katherine Kijinski Amira Loufti David Okun Travis Parrott Gregory Tourial Sebra Yen BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Joey Cheng INTERVIEW EDITOR Aaron Rosen LAYOUT EDITOR Travis Parrott COPY EDITORS Michael Buchanan Genevieve Neilson EDITOR EMERITA Elizabeth Burnham

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Anne Bergren, Ariel Bigio, Terence Check, Brad Crofford, Marco Fernandez, Jack Karsten, Garret Mitchell UNDERGRADUATE INTERN Michael De Oliveira WRITE TO US: International Affairs Review Elliott School of International Affairs 1957 E Street, NW Suite 303K Washington, DC 20052 www.iar-gwu.org iar@gwu.edu The International Affairs Review accepts submissions year round, with a call for submissions occurring at the beginning of each academic semester and selection rounds shortly thereafter. For further information or to request notification, contact the editors at iar@gwu.edu.

Back issues are available to individuals, libraries, and institutes; contact the editors with the year, volume, and issue number, phone number or email address, and mailing address.

The International Affairs Review publishes short pieces weekly at www.iar-gwu.org and in the IAR Newsletter. Subscribe at www.iargwu.org, or submit items of about 1000 words to iarsubmissions@ gmail.com.

CONTENTS 6

THE FUTURE OF U.S.–LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS A DISCUSSION WITH MICHAEL SHIFTER AARON ROSEN

14

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE TERENCE CHECK

33

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSNATIONAL SECURITY ARIEL BIGIO

56

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING: IS SUBSAHARAN AFRICA NEXT? BRAD CROFFORD

77

THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA ADAM YEFET

106

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE: FINDING ACCOUNTABILITY IN GLOBAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE JACK KARSTEN

126

THE HIZBULLAH PHENOMENON: POLITICS AND COMMUNICATION

BY LINA KHATIB ET AL. A REVIEW BY ANNE BERGREN

130

OVERREACH: DELUSIONS OF REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ

BY MICHAEL MACDONALD A REVIEW BY MARCO FERNANDEZ

The Future of U.S.–Latin American Relations A Discussion with Michael Shifter Interviewed by Aaron Rosen Michael Shifter is president of the Inter-American Dialogue. Since 1993 he has been an adjunct professor of Latin American politics at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Shifter writes and comments widely on U.S.-Latin American relations and hemispheric affairs, and has frequently testified before the U.S. Congress. He is coeditor, along with Jorge Dominguez, of Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America (Johns Hopkins University Press). He is contributing editor to Current History and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Aaron Rosen is a dual degree master’s student between the London School of Economics and George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. In London he focused on the political economy of international trade and imperial history, and in Washington he specializes on U.S. foreign policy. He is interested in Western hemispheric affairs and Transatlantic relations. Aaron Rosen is the interview editor at IAR. _______________

AR: Where did your interest in Latin America originate and how has your understanding of the region developed over your varied and extensive career?

MS: For some reason I still don’t entirely understand, from a very young age I was drawn to Latin Americans and their culture, especially art, music and of course food. I spent a summer in Durango, Mexico, when I was 13, living with a family and learning Spanish. In high school I was an exchange student with American Field Service in Lisbon, Portugal. During my college years, and especially when I spent my 3rd year studying politics and international relations at the University of Los Andes in Bogota, what had been mainly a cultural interest became a more political, 6 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

AARON ROSEN academic and intellectual engagement with Latin America. Over the years, my view of Latin America has become markedly less romantic and more anchored in the region’s complex realities. Situations are rarely, if ever, black and white, so it’s best to develop interpretations with shades of grey and, if possible, a touch of irony. That is what makes the study of the region constantly challenging.

AR: How would you compare and contrast the twentieth century U.S.– Latin American relationship with its twenty-first century counterpart?

MS: There are profound differences between U.S.-Latin American relations in the 20th century compared to the 21st century. In the latter part of the 20th century, the United States was the predominant THERE ARE PROFOUND external actor involved in the region. The vast asymmetries in DIFFERENCES BETWEEN U.S.power defined a very complex and LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS TH ambivalent relationship that was IN THE 20 CENTURY often marked by both cooperation ST COMPARED TO THE 21 and conflict.

Such enormous CENTURY. power differentials naturally gave rise both to a paternalistic attitude in the United States, as well as to suspicions and resentments towards the U.S. in many parts of Latin America. For Washington—engaged in a fierce ideological battle with the Soviet Union—anti-communism trumped everything else. The Cold War years left a lot of baggage that manifests itself to this day. The onset of the 21st century coincided with the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. From that moment on, Washington’s attention was focused on other parts of world. At the same time, many Latin American countries—most notably, Brazil, but others as well—became more confident and engaged in global affairs. The United States, though still important, became an actor among many, including Europe, Japan, and of course, starting roughly a decade ago, China.

Besides being attacked by Al Qaeda, the U.S. suffered other mounting problems, culminating in the 2008-9 financial crisis and increasingly polarized and dysfunctional politics. Such shifts have helped level the 7 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

THE FUTURE OF U.S.–LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS playing field in the U.S.–Latin American relationship that is more and more tailored to particular countries rather than the region overall, and reflects both the striking differentiation within Latin America and the limits of U.S. policymaking.

AR: What are Latin America's most pressing regional challenges, and what are its greatest strengths?

MS: Latin America is the most violent region in the world, and is also the most unequal. While some progress has been made over the last decade in narrowing the glaring gap between rich and poor—and there have also been some successes in reducing crime in a number of cities—overall the situation is of considerable concern, especially looking ahead at a more difficult economic environment. State capacity and rule of law are problematic in many countries, and the strides have been slow and uneven.

In a fiercely competitive global economy, such deficiencies are urgent and need to be addressed. In light of Latin America’s many strengths, there are, however, reasons to be hopeful. The region’s macroeconomic policymaking is impressive, and electoral bodies are also performing well in most countries. There is a vibrant civil society and a spirit of entrepreneurship that, when nurtured and harnessed, can produce positive results. For all of the region’s problems and frictions, it remains relatively peaceful and is not driven by ethnic and religious differences that are tearing apart other parts of the world.

AR: Why have some in the region chosen a more liberal economic path (typically Pacific Alliance countries), while others continue to pursue more comparatively authoritarian and protectionist policies (typically Mercosur countries)?

MS: Latin American governments have pursued different paths to deal with the challenges and pressures of globalization. There are, to be sure, ideological differences, but the countries are also distinguished from one other by their levels of institutional capacity and the structure of their societies, including the dislocations that sometimes accompany free trade.

In most circumstances, such factors best account for the disparate 8 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

AARON ROSEN trajectories, with some countries being more protectionist than others. To be sure, there are strong contrasts in policy orientation between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur arrangements, but these should not be overstated and they are not frozen. Today, for example, Brazil seems to be heading in a new direction in its economic policy, which could eventually have important consequences for Mercosur and South American integration.

And there will be a new government in Argentina before the end of the year.

AR: What are the implications of the United States having recently designated Venezuela a national security threat? (For Venezuelan politics, for U.S.–Venezuelan relations, and for U.S.–Latin American relations.)

IT WAS NOT WISE FOR MS: It was not wise for the United States to use such terms as “threat to national THE UNITED STATES TO security” in relation to Venezuela.

USE SUCH TERMS AS Everyone knows such language was “THREAT TO NATIONAL legally required and that its use does not reflect a strategic policy decision SECURITY” IN RELATION regarding Venezuela, but it was illTO VENEZUELA. advised nonetheless. It was not surprising that it would be used by the Venezuelan government as ammunition against Washington’s “imperialist aggression”, and that it would touch a nerve throughout the region. There is not a single Latin American government that supports the decision to apply sanctions to seven Venezuelan officials on human rights grounds, but the furor was caused mostly by the accompanying language in the executive order. The misstep should be kept in perspective, however. The costs will eventually pass, and hopefully attention will be turned to the very serious situation in Venezuela and how other governments can work together to respond to the crisis. To date, the regional response has been disappointingly tepid.

AR: How has the demand for illicit drugs in the United States impacted Latin America – for transit countries as well as for production countries?

9 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

THE FUTURE OF U.S.–LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS MS: The huge demand for illicit drugs in the United States has had a mostly pernicious effect on many countries in Latin America. Though surely not the only cause, the drug trade has been a key contributing factor to the region’s violent crime and corruption, as well as institutional deterioration. Former presidents Cardoso, Zedillo and Gaviria headed a commission that came out with a report in 2009 calling attention to the failure of drug policy and urging not only a serious, honest debate but effective policy changes as well. Over the last several years there has been more openness and flexibility on drug policy, and the OAS (Organization of American States) produced a very important study on the issue, but the region is far from reaching a consensus on the best alternative approach.

The landscape on this question has also fundamentally changed – it used to be the case that the U.S. was solely associated with consumption and some Latin American countries with production and/or transit. But today, unfortunately, in a number of Latin American countries—Brazil, for example—consumption of illicit drugs has climbed as well, and of course in the United States there is considerable production of marijuana. The great risk for the United States is pursuing a more liberal and open policy at home, while at the same time carrying out on the ground, in Mexico or Honduras, a tougher approach, more aligned to the traditional paradigm.

Such a contradiction is not sustainable and is bound to only build resentment towards the United States in the region.

AR: What do you expect to develop out of the gradual yet apparent thaw in U.S.–Cuban relations? Specifically, should the U.S. maintain "Wet Foot, Dry Foot", and what changes can we expect the Communist Party of Cuba to undertake in exchange for a lifting of the embargo?

MS: There appears to be a will in both Washington and Havana to proceed towards greater engagement and openness in U.S.–Cuban relations. In the short term it is likely that diplomatic relations will be established and there will be embassies in both capitals. Normalization is far more complicated and will take years. Given the power distribution today in the U.S. Congress, it is doubtful that the embargo will be lifted in the next couple of years. The Cuban government has a valid point in insisting on overturning “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” that is not consistent with 10 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

AARON ROSEN the spirit of the policy shift. It will probably happen eventually, though not now. Whatever changes that take place in the Cuban Communist Party will be the product of the evolving conditions in the country and will not be linked to any decision to lift the U.S. embargo. The Cubans will not agree to such a quid-pro-quo. The notion is that easing or lifting of the embargo will help unleash forces and pressures in Cuba that will, over WHAT IS CLEAR IS THAT THE time, result in political reform and PUNITIVE EMBARGO…WAS greater openness. Whether that DEFINITELY NOT happens or not, nobody really knows, but that’s the theory. What is PRODUCING THE POLITICAL clear is that the punitive embargo, in CHANGE WASHINGTON WAS place for more than half a century, HOPING FOR. was definitely not producing the political change Washington was hoping for. It only served to isolate the United States from Latin America, and the rest of the world.

AR: How might a Chinese-supported Nicaraguan canal impact the politics and commerce of the Western Hemisphere, and is it likely to happen?

MS: There are varied views about whether the ambitious Nicaragua canal project will actually happen. There are ample grounds for skepticism in view of the enormous obstacles. It is unclear how much the Chinese government is backing the project, and whether it is prepared to commit sufficient resources. Should it materialize, the canal would surely have a role in Western Hemispheric commerce, though it is unlikely to affect the trade associated with the Panama Canal expansion to any significant degree. A completed project would further bolster an already strong Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, though wider, hemispheric political ramifications are less clear.

AR: For students wishing to enter the D.C. think tank scene, what do the leading institutions look for characteristically, and what is currently in demand specialization-wise?

11 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

THE FUTURE OF U.S.–LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS MS: There are different types of think tanks, but most value a combination of skills and talents. These include excellent writing, research, and public speaking, along with analytical acumen and critical faculties. Professionals at think tanks usually have some academic background, or at least familiarity with the academic world, but have a strong policy orientation and think about how to identify the best ideas and make them accessible to relevant decision makers. They should know how to conceptualize a program and develop a set of coherent and compelling activities. In light of scarce resources, fund-raising, too, is also an increasingly indispensable skill for think thank professionals. For think tanks with a global focus, the Middle East and China are the highest priority regions. Latin America is not exactly at the top of the agenda and is unlikely to become so. Different disciplinary training is in demand at think tanks, especially economics. There is also a strong connection with public policy programs.

AR: How has the nature of the think tank as an institution changed over your career, and what has been the most fulfilling aspect, or aspects, of working within one?

MS: Think tanks are growing in various parts of the world, but they remain rather peculiar to the United States, and especially to Washington, DC. Many are under considerable stress because of fierce competition, resource constraints and rapidly changing technological forces. The communications function is more crucial than ever, and there is great pressure to keep up with the latest advances in social media. Think tanks confront strategic choices, including whether to focus on influencing particular actors or to reach as many people as possible. Striking the right balance between preserving independence on the one hand and pushing hard on critical policy aims like democracy and equity on the other is a major challenge. Most fundamental for a think tank is doing whatever is necessary to build and maintain credibility. In contrast to other, more formal institutions, think tanks offer a platform to express views and share interpretations about what is happening in the world, and within fairly wide parameters. They provide an opportunity to shape the public debate on the set of issues you care most about. Think tank life has its share of 12 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

AARON ROSEN frustrations, but when it works and things go well it can be tremendously liberating -- and a rare privilege.

13 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 路 SPRING 2015

IHL Targeting in Cyberspace: A Hypothetical Case Terence Check Terence Check is an attorney and is an LL.M candidate at American University Washington College of Law, specializing in National Security Law and Policy. He graduated magna cum laude in 2014 from Cleveland Marshall College of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, and was Editor-in-Chief of Cleveland State Law Review. He currently lives in Washington, D.C. Abstract Cyber-attacks are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Now that cyberweapons have the capability to go kinetic, much of the difficult legal analysis relating to cyberwarfare begins to clear: the physical effects of Stuxnet allow legal scholars to elucidate the evidentiary problem inherent in previous cyberwarfare discussions. This analysis reveals that the permissible list of targets for cyberattacks may be far larger than what would be possible in a traditional conventional armed conflict.

Introduction Cyber-attacks are no longer the stuff of science fiction. In fact, their use as an instrument of state policy has grown significantly in the past few years.

For example, the People’s Republic of China has a top-secret military component known as “Unit 61398” which has “a well-defined attack methodology, honed over years and designed to steal large volumes of valuable intellectual property.”1 But cyberattacks have been used for more than mere espionage. The Stuxnet virus, allegedly a product of the United States, was able to destroy dozens of nuclear centrifuges at a nuclear plant in Natanz, Iran.2 The Stuxnet virus marked a sea change for the discussion of “cyberwarfare” because the physical damage3 caused by Stuxnet was “not characteristic of most cyber operations.”4 Now that cyberweapons have the capability to go kinetic, much of the difficult legal analysis relating to cyberwarfare begins to clear: the physical effects of Stuxnet 14 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK allow legal scholars to elucidate the evidentiary problem inherent in previous cyberwarfare discussions.5 Such a development could not come at a more critical time, as public concern has begun to grow regarding the cyber-security of critical infrastructure.6 In an age where by “‘using public sources openly and without resorting to illegal means’. . . it is possible to gather at least 80% of the information needed to carry out a highly disruptive attack on an infrastructure system”, such public concern is well-placed.7 And with critical infrastructure defined domestically as “systems and assets . . . so vital to the United States that [their] incapacity or destruction . . . would have a debilitating impact on security,”8 there is a possibility that components of infrastructure—which are already vulnerable to malware like Stuxnet—could become permissible military targets during an armed conflict. In response to this growing trend, there is an uncomfortable question—in a war where cyberspace is militarized, what is a permissible target under international humanitarian law (IHL)? That is, what sorts of buildings, infrastructure, and information systems may be attacked with a cyberweapon during a period of …THERE IS AN armed conflict? Are there rules that govern these sorts of UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTION— questions, and how well do the IN A WAR WHERE CYBERSPACE IS rules apply to current and MILITARIZED, WHAT IS A potential future scenarios? To PERMISSIBLE TARGET UNDER briefly foreshadow, this analysis INTERNATIONAL reveals that the permissible list of targets may be far larger than HUMANITARIAN LAW (IHL)? what would be possible in a traditional conventional armed conflict. The article contends that this expansion of the battlefield should prompt jurists, scholars, and policymakers to revisit fundamental assumptions about IHL, targeting, and the scope of civilian protections.

This article folds out in the following parts. After this introduction, Part 1 briefly sets forth the relevant international humanitarian law, including some jus ad bellum provisions. Additionally, Part 1 also reviews the Rome 15 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE Statute of the International Criminal Court, in particular, the definition of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Part 2 applies principles of international law to a sample scenario created by the author. In particular, Part 2 will look at major targeting issues, and will consider whether the facts of cyberwar, as a general matter, may necessitate changes to the interpretations of international humanitarian law. Part 3 concludes with some ruminations on the future of international humanitarian law, targeting, and individual criminal responsibility in an age of cyberwarfare.

1. Legal Principles This section surveys major provisions of international humanitarian law as they relate to the question of targeting. Generally speaking, a targeting analysis falls within the confines of jus in bello—the law of war governing what states can do during an armed conflict—rather than jus ad bellum, which governs when states may resort to armed force.9 As a result, there are several threshold questions that precede a targeting analysis. These threshold questions, the legal principles governing targeting, and the Rome Statute are all discussed below.

Before turning to jus in bello, one must first classify the type of conflict.

Generally speaking, the “law of peace,” or international human rights law, governs the conduct of states.10 Furthermore, states are prohibited from using “force” in the conduct of their affairs unless one of a few exceptions applies.11 One such exception, codified in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, allows states to use force in self-defense “if an armed attack occurs.”12 For this article, international law defines “armed attack” as sending of armed forces (whether regular military or less-formal groups) across an international border, but mere assistance or provision of support alone does not constitute an armed attack.13 The contours of an “armed attack” as a legal concept are in flux, and it is not yet clear what an armed attack looks like or who can even commit an armed attack.14 But once an armed attack occurs, the question of whether states can respond with armed force depends on whether the armed attack creates or is part of an armed conflict. In theory, an International Armed Conflict 16 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK (IAC) arises whenever one state directs armed force against another state.15 As a practical matter, not every use of armed force triggers an armed conflict, as not every exchange of arms results in an all-out war.16 For conflicts that involve at least one non-state group—non-international armed conflicts (NIACs)—the status of an armed conflict depends on whether the non-state group meets a minimum level of organization and whether the conflict as a whole meets a minimum threshold of intensity.17 Once an armed conflict is underway, it is only then that the law of peace makes way for jus in bello—the law of war.

IHL principally consists of the four Geneva Conventions, the two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, customary international law, and a growing body of international criminal jurisprudence. Together, these provisions provide many specific rules governing the conduct of states during armed conflict, ranging from prohibiting the use of perfidy, targeting medical personnel to honoring the neutrality of third-parties to the conflict.18 Their use regulates the conduct of states and, to a certain extent, non-state actors, providing fundamental protections for persons not a party to the armed conflict, and determines who can be the permissible target of lethal force.19 Permissible targets of lethal force are narrowly limited to the following categories: combatants, civilians that are directly participating in hostilities (DPHers) or civilians that serve a continuous combat function (CCFers), military objectives, and a permissible amount of collateral damage.20 Combatants are those individuals who are either members of the armed forces of a belligerent party or those individuals that take the orders of a commanding officer, carry arms openly, wear a distinctive emblem or symbol identifiable at a distance, and comply with the laws of war in the course of their operations.21 Combatants enjoy the “combatant’s privilege,” which prevents the prosecution of combatants for their acts of violence or property damage lawfully committed during active hostilities and entitles them to prisoner-of-war status upon capture.22 Additionally, while civilians are generally protected from targeting, those civilians that directly participate in hostilities are targetable for such time 17 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE as they are directly participating.23 Direct participation requires that the civilians directly participate; the conduct must meet a minimum threshold of harm. Furthermore, the civilian’s conduct must have a nexus to the hostilities as a whole.24 While there is some dispute,25 customary international law typically holds that ambiguous cases should be resolved in favor of finding non-combatant status so if it is unclear whether or not the civilian’s conduct constitutes directly participating in hostilities, the state should refrain from targeting that civilian.26 For those civilians whose involvement in hostilities is so pervasive that they serve a continuous combat function (CCF), they can be targeted at any time they are members of a belligerent force, in contrast to the general rule allowing targeting of DPHers for only the time that they are fighting.27 The ICRC notes that determining when a CCFer disengages from that continuous combat function is a matter that depends more on political and cultural contexts rather than legal criteria.28 Additionally, warring parties can also target military objectives, which are defined in Article 52 of Additional Protocol I as: “those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”29 It is important to note that warring parties may target military objectives even if it results in collateral damage, so long as the damage is not excessive to the military benefit to be gained.30 Generally speaking, these individuals and objectives are targetable only on the battlefield, which is the entire territory of the states that are parties to the conflict. The development of unconventional warfare has begun to challenge this conception.31 Once a warring party determines that a target falls within a permissible category, additional principles, namely the principles of necessity, proportionality, distinction, and humanity apply to operations taken against that target. Necessity under jus in bello is broad and flexible: any operation that is not otherwise forbidden under international law that is “indispensable for securing the complete submission of the enemy”, is permissible.32 18 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK Proportionality requires that any incidental loss of civilian life and civilian objects cannot be excessive to the military objective to be gained. 33 Thus, any act that is expected to result in an excessive loss of life is impermissible under Additional Protocol I, and, by extension, customary international law.34 Distinction has been implicitly dealt with above: it requires warring parties to distinguish between lawful and unlawful targets (between military and protected objectives).35 Importantly, not all operations directed at protected civilian populations are forbidden— psychological and propaganda operations, for example, are allowed under IHL, it is only when those operations rise to the level of an armed attack that the principle of distinction forbids the targeting of civilians.36 Furthermore, IHL does not strictly require the use of the mostdiscriminatory means available, as the Additional Protocols require the taking of “all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life [and civilian injury]. 37 Humanity requires the prevention of unnecessary suffering once a military benefit has been achieved.38 This principle forbids the use of devices ranging from blinding weapons to hollow-point bullets, but humanity serves to illuminate all other targeting principles.39 While it is rare for courts or tribunals to second-guess most targeting decisions made in the heat of combat,40 there are nevertheless penalties for actions that grossly violate the standards articulated above. Perpetrators may face prosecution in domestic civilian courts or before domestic military tribunals.41 If the violations are serious enough, and if the domestic authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute, the ICC may opt to prosecute, either by referral from the UN Security Council, or by the Chief Prosecutor’s own initiative.42 The Rome Statute includes war crimes within its jurisdiction, prohibiting acts ranging from the enlistment of child soldiers to the use of poison gas.43 Since crimes against humanity appear in the Rome Statute, the ICC can prosecute acts like deportation, murder, and rape if these acts are part of a widespread, systematic attack directed against a civilian population.44 For the purposes of a cyberwarfare targeting analysis,45 it is unlikely that jurisdiction over crimes against 19 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE humanity would be triggered—but one should not rule out possibility of such an occurrence.

2. Targeting Analysis Consider the following hypothetical situation: war recently broke out between two neighboring Eurasian countries, Vulgaria and Archenland.

Over the past few years, tensions have been high in these two former Soviet republics, but the past eighteen months have been particularly volatile as both countries have militarized their common border. Both countries did experience a period of liberal, democratic, rule shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, and have ratified every major human rights treaty, the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. But, difficult economic circumstances have inflamed nationalist movements in each of the two republics, and both nations have taken steps to agitate their countrymen residing in ethnic enclaves within their borders. While the facts are still unclear, a small border incident between Vulgarian and Archenlander military units has escalated into all-out war with each side using the conflict to address a long line of grievances.

While the smaller of the two nations, Archenland has developed a highly sophisticated “Cyber Operations Command,” known colloquially within the country as “Unit 93.” While Unit 93 has engaged in low-level hacking and the defacement of Vulgarian websites, it has also gained the capability to penetrate the networks of the Vulgarian government as well as the networks of Vulgaria’s critical infrastructure. The commander of Unit 93 is eager to employ new viruses and malware to destroy or degrade Vulgarian infrastructure. His list of potential targets include dams, wastewater treatment plants, chemical processing factories, oil refineries, nuclear reactors, communications centers, and a number of “soft targets” like hospitals, power substations, and commercial banks. As the war progresses, Archenland’s Unit 93 prepares to strike.

Under the scenario described above, what kind of targeting analysis must Archenland’s Unit 93 employ? If the commander of Unit 93 directs kinetic 20 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK cyber-operations against the targets described above, is it legal, and if it is not, would that commander face prosecution in the ICC? These questions are discussed below.

It is important, however, to consider some major threshold questions and assumptions that make the jus in bello targeting analysis possible. First, this is deliberately a clear and simple case: not only is this a “traditional” IAC between two states with fully-functioning governments, but these states have also acceded to the Additional Protocols as well as the Rome Statute. As a result, there is no need to analyze whether the conflict has reached a certain level of hostility, or whether the ICC would be able to have jurisdiction over the conduct of these two nations.

Additionally, this analysis forgoes the consideration of major jus ad bellum questions. For example, because a conventional armed conflict is already underway in the facts described above, it is not necessary to consider whether a cyber-attack, standing IT IS STILL UNSETTLED alone, could be considered a “use of force” or an “armed attack,” and would thus AS TO WHAT TYPE OF trigger the application of IHL.46 CYBER-OPERATION Furthermore, many international legal FALLS WITHIN THE experts contend that “cyber operations executed in the context of an armed DEFINITION OF conflict are subject to the law of armed “ARMED ATTACK,”… conflict.”47 It is still unsettled as to what type of cyber-operation falls within the definition of “armed attack,” as the ICJ Nicaragua opinion is of regrettably little use to the current cyberspace-based scenario.48 The Tallinn Manual on the International Law of Cyber Warfare, however, provides a useful definition: “A cyber-attack is a cyber-operation, whether offensive or defensive, that is reasonably expected to cause injury or death to persons or damage or destruction to objects.”49 While somewhat overly broad50, the use of this definition confines the jus in bello targeting analysis to those cyber-attacks, like Stuxnet, that can transcend an electronic medium and create the occurrence of conditions in physical space.51 21 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE In proceeding with a jus in bello analysis, this article makes another critical assumption—namely, that the Vulgarian military would be able to attribute a specific cyber-attack to Archenland. This problem of attribution complicates self-defense and countermeasures, especially if a state will use conventional military weapons against the source of the cyber-attack.52 Because attribution raises doubt not only as to who caused an act of destruction, but also as to what caused the destruction, it is difficult to identify and respond to a cyber-attack in real-time.53 Thus, the following must proceed on the assumption that the cyber-attacks contemplated in the facts above can be attributed to a belligerent party with an acceptable level of certainty.

In the paragraphs below, the analysis surveys the legal issues first mentioned in Part 1 above. Particular weight is given to the Tallinn Manual on the International Law of Cyber Warfare, and articulates areas where IHL should be revisited in light of the capabilities of cyber-attacks.

2.1 Civilian Persons and Objects as the subject of cyber-operations As noted above, IHL, and in the principle of distinction in particular, forbids the deliberate targeting of non-combatants. The primary exception to this is for those civilians that directly participate in the hostilities. Under IHL, DPHers are targetable for such time that they are directly participating.54 Thus, in the case above, if Archenland’s Unit 93 encourages the involvement of Archenlander civilian hackers in the conduction of cyber-attacks (attacks that can cause death, injury, or property damage), they can be targeted for as long as they participate in the cyber-attack. The Tallinn Manual goes further with its analysis: civilians that identify software vulnerabilities or civilians that gather military intelligence for their national militaries could be considered DPHers.55 While the transmission of tactical intelligence, or the provision of instructive assistance to military forces is “direct” enough for the purposes of DPH status,56 it is doubtful that a defending warring party could definitively determine the difference between tactical intelligence gathering (which is DPH) and strategic intelligence gathering (which is not DPH) ex ante when responding to a network intrusion. Such an 22 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK approach may open the door for countermeasures directed against the origination points of a cyber-attack, directed by geo-location software.57 If enough civilians take part in cyber-operations, their involvement could constitute a levee en masse, in which case, they may be entitled to combatant immunity and prisoner-of-war status.58 Importantly, levee en masse status is not applicable during NIACs and many legal experts doubt whether civilians participating in a levee could meet the openness-of-arms requirement, or whether the concept of a levee en masse effectively captures the role of civilian hackers directing a cyber-attack against installations far behind enemy lines.59 And for civilians that serve a continuous combat function by virtue of their organizational involvement, they lose their protection from cyber-attacks. Thus, if the civilian commander-in-chief of the Vulgarian military has a pacemaker, that he is a permissible target of a cyber-attack.60 But because it is difficult to determine whether a target is a non-combatant, a combatant, or some other belligerent, states directing countermeasures (that is, responding to a cyberattack) should be especially cautious because of the uncertainty of the extent of civilian involvement in cyber-attacks.61 2.2 Core principles of targeting The four main principles of jus in bello constrain cyber-operations in the following ways. First, the principle of necessity does not affect cyberoperations targeting analysis in any substantive way, as the necessity questions pertains to when a warring party may attack (when it achieves a military advantage).62 As a result, the specific targeting analysis here, as it relates to cyber-operations, is more of a how question, which touches on the principles below.

The principles of proportionality and distinction go hand-in-hand. Since distinction prohibits the targeting of any object or person who is neither a member of an armed force/group or someone directly participating in hostilities, the principle of proportionality determines when noncombatants or civilian objects may be targeted during wartime. 63 In the context of cyber-operations, the proportionality analysis is more or less 23 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 路 SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE unchanged—a cyber-attack that will cause an excessive amount of civilian death or destruction to civilian objects is prohibited.64 In circumstances unique to cyber-operations, higher-order consequences of a cyber-attack should also factor into the proportionality analysis. Thus, if malware that targets a military computer alone has a strong likelihood of infecting civilian systems, that potential outcome should be a part of the proportionality analysis. If the commander of Unit 93 seeks to target computer systems belonging to the Vulgarian military, he should also consider whether the malware may leak out into civilian cyberspace.

Additionally, consequences further down the causal chain should also be considered. For instance, if an Archenlander cyber-attack takes air traffic control or GPS systems offline (as these can be both military and civilian use technologies) there may be loss of life and damage to property resulting from mistakes or errors made by people relying on that information.65 But the proportionality analysis might swing the other way.

Consider this: Unit 93 undertakes cyber-attacks that are merely frustrating or irritating to Vulgarian troops and civilians, as in the case of a cyberattack that intended to take vital systems offline but only succeeded in making the system unusable for a period of time.66 In such a case, it would be disproportionate (perhaps under a jus ad bellum theory) for Vulgaria to respond to Archenland’s irritating cyber-attack with deadly kinetic force.

The principle of humanity prevents the infliction of suffering that is unnecessary to achieve a military objective, and this principle applies to cyber-operations as well.67 Take the case of the commander-in-chief's pacemaker—if it was just as militarily feasible to kill the Vulgarian commander-in-chief with a gunshot to the head (causing instantaneous death) as it would be for Unit 93 to hack his pacemaker and induce a heart attack (causing a long, painful death through cardiac arrest), the principle of humanity would prohibit the latter course.68 Furthermore, the experts who wrote the Tallinn Manual contend that commanders (like those of Unit 93) should take “all feasible measures” to ensure that the methods of their cyber-attacks do not cause needless damage to civilian objects or persons.69 This principle may operate in an inverse fashion: the principle of humanity may compel the use of a cyber-attack over a traditional armed attack. Consider the case of Archenland’s Unit 93, which seeks to take a 24 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK Vulgarian nuclear facility offline—they could use dozens of missiles and bombs or they could use a custom-tailored piece of malware to destroy a specific component in the nuclear facility. The principle of humanity should compel Unit 93 to actually conduct a cyber-attack over a conventional attack. These principles show that the traditional jus in bello analysis still constrains cyber-operations just as these principles constrain traditional operations, but it is when cyber-operations are considered as a separate phenomenon in its own right that new problems regarding IHL begin to emerge.

2.3 Perfidy, Ruses, and Cyber-operations Because cyber-operations BECAUSE CYBER-OPERATIONS inherently rely on deception and subterfuge to penetrate a INHERENTLY RELY ON computer system, it is unclear DECEPTION AND SUBTERFUGE whether this situation could be TO PENETRATE A COMPUTER classified as either an illegal SYSTEM, IT IS UNCLEAR case of perfidy or a legal ruse of war. Additional Protocol I WHETHER THIS SITUATION defines perfidy (also known as treachery) as an act “inviting COULD BE CLASSIFIED AS EITHER AN ILLEGAL CASE OF PERFIDY OR the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he A LEGAL RUSE OF WAR. is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with the intent to betray that confidence.”70 Perfidy historically consists of acts that are meant to wound or kill the enemy, usually by feigning some sort of protected status (incapacitation/sickness, truce negotiators, UN parties, etc).71 Ruses, on the other hand, are legally permissible deceptions that do not invite the confidence of the enemy regarding the existence of a protected status. The Tallinn Manual illustrates this concept by listing a few cyber-operations that could qualify as ruses, including the transmission of false information or intelligence, the use of false computer identifiers, and the creation of nonexistent computer systems meant to represent nonexistent forces.72 25 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE Camouflaging the origin of cyber-attacks is permissible in the eyes of experts as long as such camouflage does not constitute perfidy.73 This approach reflects contemporary international law. When one contemplates the specific conditions of cyber warfare, the perfidy/ruse analysis becomes more difficult in practice as multiple issues arise when considering the attribution problems inherent in analyzing cyber-attacks. For example, international law prohibits the use of enemy uniforms, insignia, and emblems when engaging in attacks, but an application to cyber-operations undermines the usefulness of cyberattacks in the first place.74 Consider the case of Unit 93, which could use false computer identifiers to gain access to Vulgarian computer systems. Under the ruse analysis above, the use of false identifiers is permissible. But there could be a few ‘false identifiers’ that could infiltrate an enemy computer network that does not hide the origin of the infiltration. Vulgarians watching their own computer networks would almost always respond to a suspicious infiltration or series of traffic, and would take countermeasures to protect the infiltration.

Additionally, Unit 93, as lawful combatants, cannot broadcast their affiliation with Archenland, lest they expose the deception to the enemy.75 How can Archenland’s Unit 93 disguise its attacks, if not as those of a civilian (forbidden under perfidy rules), a third state (also forbidden), 76 or Vulgaria itself? By operation of international law on perfidy, Unit 93 would be relatively limited in what it could do, since the origin of its attacks would be easily determined by Vulgarian military personnel.

2.4 Special duties of care in attacking critical infrastructure Unguarded or unsecure infrastructure poses a tantalizing target to Unit 93—it can wreak significant damage without exposing Archenland’s military forces to potential harm. The Tallinn Manual, however, contends that there is a special duty of care when Unit 93 seeks to target critical infrastructure like dams and nuclear facilities.77 Because the risk of excessive collateral damage is especially acute in targeting installations of this type, it logically follows that the principles of distinction and proportionality require additional caution. Operations designed to reduce the flow of electricity to the war effort must be undertaken with all “feasible precautions” to make sure excessive harm does not result.78 26 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

TERENCE CHECK Therefore, the principle of humanity should prevent the targeting of these types of critical infrastructure generally, as the risk of causing severe environmental damage, loss of civilian life, and damage to protected objects far outweighs any perceivable military advantage to be gained by taking these utilities offline. Thus, in instances where Unit 93 may risk targeting critical infrastructure with an aim towards destroying it or otherwise degrading its military value, the principle of humanity should necessitate the most extreme caution to avoid potential catastrophic losses.

2.5 Liability under the Rome Statute If the commander of Unit 93 proceeds with his operational plans despite what IHL prescribes above, what potential penalties could he face at the ICC?79 If the commander targets and destroys a dam or nuclear reactor, he could face prosecution for crimes against humanity under Article 7 because his conduct would be widespread (affecting the entire country of Vulgaria) and systematic (the commander conducted these attacks via a military structure).80 In particular, if death results, he could be charged with murder under Article 7.81 If his attacks on critical infrastructure prevent civilians from receiving the necessities of life, he could face prosecution for extermination, but, absent his specific intent to do so, it is unclear whether a cyber-attack directed at a military target would meet the intent requirements.82 The war crimes analysis is somewhat different. The commander could face prosecution for wanton destruction.83 If he acts perfidiously to kill Vulgarian nationals, he could also face prosecution for willful killing. 84 If he fails to exercise caution and fails to distinguish between military and civilian targets, the commander could similarly face prosecution for those crimes. If he uses a botnet that includes computers residing in neutral nations or in Vulgaria itself, he could even face prosecution for “compelling nationals� of a hostile party to take part in fighting against their own country.85 These few examples illustrate an important point about the nature of cyber warfare: actions taken behind a computer screen can result in criminal responsibility as much as actions in the field.

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IHL TARGETING IN CYBERSPACE: A HYPOTHETICAL CASE 3. Conclusion Faced with constraints from IHL and the possibility of post-war prosecution in the Hague, the commander of Archenland’s Unit 93 aborts many of the more aggressive operations planned for the war and limited operations to gathering intelligence, creating red herrings and diversions, and electronic reconnaissance. Robbed of the ability to clandestinely sabotage key dual-use targets, Archenland opts to engage in a series of air strikes, resulting in extensive damage to the Vulgarian interior. With external debts rising and with a limited capacity to recover from additional damage, Vulgaria calls for a ceasefire, much to the displeasure of its civilians most impacted by the Archenlander offensive.

The IHL cyber-operations targeting analysis reveals that, for the most part, the law treats traditional and cyberspace-based activities the same. But this reflects outcome-determinative thinking: cyberwarfare does not appear dissimilar from traditional warfare because that is the result that many gifted, renowned scholars expect from the analysis. But by looking beneath the surface at the nature of cyber-operations with their more deliberative nature far removed from the exigencies of combat and their inherently deceptive characteristics, it seems that IHL, as applied to certain discrete examples, serves to neuter cyber-operations instead of giving them a place within the scope of permissible military operations.86 This is unfortunate because cyber-operations, if performed correctly, could enable military operations that allow for force superiority without the long-lasting destructive impacts of conventional weapons. If the resources of an oil refinery or a communications relay could be neutralized for the duration of an armed conflict via a cyber-attack, this would circumvent the long-lasting after-effects of war, including incidental collateral damage to civilians. This ameliorative capacity could be a saving grace of cyber warfare, and it is one that warrants further exploration of these issues.

Endnotes 1

“APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units,” Mandiant, 13 February 2013, http://intelreport.mandiant.com/Mandiant_APT1_Report.pdf (December 1, 2014).

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2

Erin Chapman and Win Rosenfeld, “Cracking the code: Defending against the superweapons of the 21st century cyberwar,” PBS.ORG, 20 May 2011, http://www.pbs .org/wnet/need-to-know/security/video-cracking-the-code-defending-against-thesuperweapons-of-the-21st-century-cyberwar/9456/ 3 Ibid.

4 Gary Brown and Andrew Metcalf, “Easier Said Than Done: Legal Reviews of Cyber Weapons,” Journal of National Security Law & Policy 7, no. 115 (2014).

5 Ibid, 115.

6 Leon Panetta, “Remarks by Secretary Panetta on Cybersecurity,” (remarks, meeting of Business Executives for National Security, New York, NY, October 11, 2012; Executive Order 13636 of February 19, 2013, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, Code of Federal Regulations, title 3 (2013), 11737-11744.

7 Gerald Brown, W. Matthew Carlyle, Javier Salmerón and Kevin Wood. “Analyzing the Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructure to Attack and Planning Defenses,” Tutorials in Operations Research (2005), 115. http://faculty.nps.edu/gbrown/docs/ DefendingCIBrownEtAlTutorialDraft.pdf 8 Executive Order 13636.

9 Gary Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 3-6.

10 Ibid.

11 United Nations, “Charter of the United Nations” (New York, 1954), Article 2, Section 4.

12 Ibid, article 51.

13 Nicaragua v. U.S., I.C.J. 14 (1986), 187-201.

14 Terence Check, “Analyzing the Tallinn Manual’s jus ad bellum doctrine on cyber conflict, a NATO-centric approach,” Cleveland State Law Review 63 (2015), 24-25.

15 Sylvain Vité, “Typology of armed conflicts in international humanitarian law: legal concepts and actual solutions,” International Review of the Red Cross 91, no. 873, (2009): 70-71.

16 But there are not clear indicators that allow jurists to separate a “border incident” from an armed conflict ex ante. One can only determine that an incident does not become an armed conflict after the hostilities persist or subside. Thus, for the purposes of legal analysis, international humanitarian law is presumed to apply whenever two states exchange fire.

17 Ibid, 76.

18 Michael Schmitt, ed. Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 149-150, 168-169, 202-203.

19 See e.g., Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of victims of Non-international Armed Conflicts, June 8, 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 609 (governing the conduct of parties to a NIAC) (hereinafter Additional Protocol I).

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20

Nils Melzer, “Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law” (2009), 15.

21 International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Third Geneva Convention), 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 135, art. 4A; Schmitt, 85.

22 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Report on Terrorism and Human Rights,” OEA/Ser.L/V/II.116 Doc. 5 rev. 1 corr., 22 October 2002, para. 68 23 ICRC DPH guidance, 43.

24 Ibid.

25 HCJ 46 I.L.M. 375 Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. Israel [2006] (Isr.).

26 ICRC DPH guidance, 16.

27 Ibid, 72.

28 Ibid.

29 Additional Protocol I, art. 52.

30 Ibid, art. 51(4)(b).

31 Laurie Blank, “Defining the battlefield in contemporary conflict and counterterrorism: understanding the parameters of the zone of combat,” Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 39, no. 1 (2010), 14.

32 Department of the Army, Field Manual, FM27-10: The Law of Land Warfare (1956), para. 3a.

33 FM27-10, para. 41. See also Additional Protocol I, art. 51(5)(b).

34 Additional Protocol I, art. 51(5)(b).; Schmitt, 132.

35 Ibid, art. 48.

36 Schmitt, 95.

37 Additional Protocol I, art. 57(2)(a)(ii).

38 Kjetil Mujezinovic Larsen, et al., introduction to Searching for a ‘Principle of Humanity’ in International Humanitarian Law, ed. Kjetil Mujezinovic Larsen, et al., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 8.

39 Ibid.

40 Brent Filbert, Naval Law: Justice and Procedure in the Sea Services, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 116.

41 Schmitt, 80-81.

42 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, 2187 U.N.T.S. 90 art. 15 (hereinafter Rome Statute).

43 Ibid, art. 8(2)(b).

44 Ibid, art. 7.

45 Ibid, art. 7.

46 Schmitt, 45-53 (Rules 10, 11, 12, 13).

47 Ibid, 68 (Rule 20).

48 See Nicaragua opinion note 13. The opinion defines an “armed attack” and uses the language of conventional warfare—that matters of armed force would involve the

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movement of troops and the firing of weapons in three-dimensional space, namely, violating the sanctity of a national border through a physical incursion.

49 Ibid, 92 (Rule 30).

50 The inclusion of “destruction of objects” could bring operations that solely designed to destroy computers or servers within the scope of international humanitarian law (presuming other jus ad bellum requirements are met).

47 Ibid, 68 (Rule 20) 52 Nicholas Tsagourias, “Cyber-attacks, self-defence, and the problem of attribution,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 17, no. 229 (2012); United States Department of Defense, Defense Science Board, “Task Force Report: Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat” 42 (2013), http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ ResilientMilitarySystems.CyberThreat.pdf 53 Kristen Eichensehr, “Cyber Attribution Problems—Not Just Who, but What,” Just Security http://justsecurity.org/18334/cyber-attribution-problems-not-who/ (11 December 2014).

54 ICRC guidance at 15.

55 Schmitt, 102 (Rule 35).

56 ICRC guidance at 55.

57 See e.g., U.S. Patent No. 8825683 B2 (filed Nov. 21, 2008).

58 Schmitt, 88 (Rule 27).

59 Ibid, 89.

60 Tarun Wadwha, “Yes, You can Hack a Pacemaker (And Other Medical Devices Too),” Forbes, 6 December 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/12/06/yes-youcan-hack-a-pacemaker-and-other-medical-devices-too/ 61 Schmitt, 98.

62 See note 32.

63 Schmitt, 138.

64 Ibid, 132.

65 Ibid, 133.

66 Cf. ibid, 133.

67 See supra note 27; Schmitt, 119-120.

68 Schmitt, 119 (Rule 42).

69 Schmitt, 140 (Rule 54).

70 Additional Protocol I, art. 37(1).

71 Frits Kalshoven & Liesbeth Zegveld, Constraints on the Waging of War: An Introduction to International Humanitarian Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 95.

72 Schmitt,152.

73 Ibid.

74 Additional Protocol I, art. 39(2).

75 Furthermore, the requirement of “bearing arms openly” and wearing a symbol identifiable at a distance cannot be replicated in cyber-operations without giving away the

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origin, and thus the intent, of the attack. Thus, by hiding those factors, lawful combatants may lose their combatant immunity because they are not complying with the requirements.

76 Schmitt,157. Paganini supra note 46.

77 Schmitt, 182.

78 Ibid.

79 It is more or less certain that the commander of Unit 93 of our hypothetical scenario could face prosecution for his violations of IHL. See Tallinn Manual at 81 citing Rome Statute, art. 25(3); ICTY Statute, art. 7(1); ICTR Statute, art. 6(1); Sierra Leone Statute, art. 6(1); United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, art. 14(3); Prosecutor v. Bla ki , Case. No. IT-95-14-T, Trial Chamber Judgment, paras. 281-282 (Int’l Crim.

Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia Mar. 3, 2000); Prosecutor v. Krsti , Case No. IT-98-33T, Trial Chamber Judgement, para. 605 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia Aug. 2, 2001).

80 Rome Statute, art. 7.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid, art. 7(2)(b).

83 Rome Statute, art. 2(a)(iv); 2(b)(iv).

84 Ibid, art. 2(a)(i); 2(b)(xi).

85 Ibid, art. 2(b)(xv).

86 Regrettably and for the sake of brevity, this article did not consider other interesting questions raised by the Tallinn Manual, namely, Rules 44, 52, 56, 58 respectively. These deal with cyber booby-traps (indistinguishable from spear-phishing), constant care in discrimination, the choice of targets, and the giving of warnings. See Tallinn Manual at 122, 137, 141, 144.

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Women’s Engagement in Afghanistan: Implications for Transnational Security Ariel Bigio Ariel Bigio is a graduate student in the Security Policy Studies program at The George Washington University. Ariel graduated from the University of Maryland in 2009 with a B.A. in American Studies and Criminal Justice. She has worked at the U.S. Department of Justice in the International Prisoner Transfer Unit and at the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Prior to graduate school, Ariel also spent a semester in Ghana with the School for International Training and two years in Israel.

Abstract This paper aims to identify the factors that preclude or marginalize women’s participation in transnational security and identify key conditions for the inclusion of women in this realm. Women’s perspectives in conflict and reconstruction are important to bolstering stability and require women’s engagement in the decision-making and policy process. Women’s engagement in Afghanistan will be examined in this paper through four independent variables: access to education, access to political rights, access to justice, and access to social/cultural rights. This paper will outline the policies that have been created by the Afghan government to foster engagement for each of these variables and evaluate how these policies have met with varying degrees of success in implementation. Lastly, the transnational security implications and policy recommendations for women’s engagement will be addressed.

This paper aims to identify the factors that marginalize women’s participation in transnational security and identify key conditions for the inclusion of women in this realm. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan has been in a transitional period in which international 33 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN development investments have prioritized the increased participation of women as part of Afghanistan’s national agenda. Women’s perspectives in conflict and reconstruction bolster stability, and the effective expression of these perspectives require women’s engagement in the decision-making and policy process. Women are equally affected by war, conflict, and reconstruction. The inclusion of women’s voices and perspectives can bolster the outcome, sustainability, and longevity of critical transnational security matters. Women’s engagement in Afghanistan will be examined in this paper through four independent variables: access to education, access to political rights, access to justice, and access to social/cultural rights. The dependent variable is women’s engagement in Afghan society.

This paper will outline the policies that the Afghan government created to foster engagement for each of these variables and evaluate how these policies have met with varying degrees of success and failure in implementation. Lastly, the transnational value of women’s engagement and contribution to post-conflict reconstruction will be evaluated as well as how policy can be better directed in the future.

For the last 30 years, multiple conflicts in Afghanistan have resulted in regime changes as well as political, social, and economic instability.

Under the Taliban, women faced restrictive legal and social norms.

Women were not allowed to go to school, speak to men outside of their families, or work outside the home.1The exclusion and marginalization of women occurred at both an institutional and social level. Since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the Afghan government and international donors have committed to advancing women’s engagement through financial investment and policy reform. The Afghan government has taken action at an institutional level to protect women’s rights and create a platform for women to participate in civil society. Millions of dollars of humanitarian and development aid have been invested in support of women’s rights in Afghanistan as the country rebuilds and transitions to democracy. 2 The policy changes have been gradual, and there have been barriers to the implementation of these strategies at both the national and local level. An evaluation of Afghanistan’s policies and strategies to engage women is relevant given the continued transition in Afghanistan and the ramifications of this transition on regional and international actors.

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ARIEL BIGIO The importance of women’s engagement in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, reconciliation, peace-building and reconstruction efforts, and reintegration are affirmed through international norms and standards.3 The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which was adopted in October 2000, underscores that women have a fundamental role in postconflict reconstruction. This resolution “reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution and in peace-building, and stressing the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security and the need to increase their role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution.”4 Integrating women into the peace and reconstruction process can have an impact on the success and sustainability of these processes. Post-conflict and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Rwanda, and Kosovo are just some examples of recent conflicts that have prioritized women as an integral element in rebuilding efforts. While there are important parallels and differences between these conflicts, there are core properties to women’s engagement that are consistent across conflicts. These include the independent variables of access to education, justice, politics, and social rights. The Afghan government created policies that address these independent variables, and their impact on women will be evaluated in the following sections.

Access to Education One of the pillars of development assistance is increasing both access to and quality of education for women and girls. Education is the foundation of economic growth, which in turn improves the lives of the community and the state. By improving women’s access to education, these polices are also having an effect on other socio-economic factors. Educating women and improving their access to school is linked to the eradication of poverty.5 Under the Taliban, women were not allowed to attend school past the age of eight. This has had long-term ramifications for women, as the female literacy rate in 2011 was 13 percent.6 In comparison, Rwanda’s female youth literacy rate (15-24 years) is 78 percent, and adult female literacy rate is 86.5 percent.7

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WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN Following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the education system in Afghanistan needed to be rebuilt. The Afghan government took steps to strengthen the education sector, and in 2008 passed the Afghanistan Education Law, which guarantees women equal access to education.8 Equal access to education means having the opportunity to go to school.

Under the Taliban women were barred from attending school and one of the first steps in increasing women’s access to education was abolishing this ban. In partnership with the Ministry of Education and international partners, 13,000 schools have been built, and 186,000 teachers have been trained.9 Investments in education have increased enrollment rates: In the 2011-2012 school year, 2.7 million girls were enrolled in school, and 270,000 were in literacy and vocational schools, up from fewer than 5,000 in 2001.10 Shari’a schools have also seen an increase in women’s participation.11 Shari’a schools provide gender-segregated classrooms for more religious families who may not have allowed attendance at school without this type of curriculum and structure, thus providing another avenue for women to receive an education. Lastly, the National Solidarity Program (NSP) has an education component that has built a few hundred schools in rural Afghanistan.12 Building schools in rural areas provides more access to children who may not have the means or be allowed to travel. These programs provide opportunities for women to be in school and have strengthened women’s access to education.

While progress is being made in increasing enrollment rates, there are still significant barriers to women’s education. Gender is still a barrier, as 74.2 percent of Afghan women report that they have had no formal education, compared to 42.1 percent of men.13 Women’s enrollment rates are also impacted by their geographic status: Living in an urban area increases the likelihood of access to education. Enrollment rates also differ based on security: For example, in the less secure provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, enrollment rates fluctuate.14 Another challenge is how long women stay in school. Secondary education enrollment and completion is lower for Afghan girls than boys. In 2007, only 25 percent of students that graduated from secondary schools were girls.15 There have been significant improvements to women’s access to education, but keeping

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ARIEL BIGIO girls in school to reach higher education levels is also imperative to social and economic development.16

Figure 1: Percentage of Female Enrollment in Primary School from 1990 - 201217 Education programs are a unique platform to engage different sectors of civil society, from village leaders to religious councils. Strengthening relationships and cooperation between the Ministry of Education and these civil actors helps to legitimize efforts to increase access to education. This collaboration increases communal investment in education programs, which in turn can inform whether the government initiative succeeds or fails. There are opportunities for coalition building between the government and civil society in bolstering education programs, but entrenched norms continue to undermine and hinder progress. Key threats to enrollment include normative cultural and social proscriptions opposing the education of girls.18 Girls have been subjected to death threats, acid attacks, and bombings for attending school.19 According to polling data completed by The Asia Foundation, while support for gender equality in education is generally high, when girls are required to travel outside of a province to receive an education, support drops significantly.20 A woman’s physical proximity to the home and family is central in more traditional communities, which can be an impediment to enrollment.21 Through direct engagement with the community, the NSP can create strategies that better address the reality in some communities and continue to build upon the progress that has been achieved.

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WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN Access to Politics Afghanistan is a country in transition, and this provides an opportunity for women to have access and representation in the political process. Shortly after the Taliban took control of Kabul in 1996, they abolished women’s right to vote, which the Afghanistan constitution reinstated in 2004. The Afghan government recognizes that “women’s leadership and political participation are manifestations of women’s empowerment.”22 To increase opportunities in politics and policy-making, programs have been launched to train women in leadership and increase their engagement in public life.

In 2012, a program instituted by the Asian University of Women (AUW) provided internship and fellowship opportunities for Afghan female students with government ministries, including the Ministry of CounterNarcotics (MCN) in Kabul. According to AUW, “The Ministry is participating in the program as part of an effort to improve the number of women in high-level positions, recognizing the important role that women must play in development and governance.”23 From an institutional level, these programs are introducing women to the policy process and further empowering them to participate in the political arena. Non-governmental organizations are also working on a grassroots level to empower and educate women about the political process. As one example, the Afghan Women’s Network, a non-governmental organization based in Kabul, seeks to empower women and encourage engagement in political, economic, and social processes. This includes legal awareness programs that make sure women are informed of their rights, including suffrage.

Women in the political process are a critical component to making the government more representative of Afghan society. The first female vice presidential candidate appeared on the ballot in 2014, and 69.7 percent of women surveyed said that they voted in the last election, which is an increase of 26.3 percent from the elections in 2009.24 Women also have a representative quota of 20 percent of the seats in provincial councils to ensure their representation.25 As part of the state-building process, women can more effectively elevate their views and concerns on strengthening governance to the national agenda.26

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ARIEL BIGIO Despite these structural advances, important challenges remain for women as leaders in Afghan society. Cultural barriers can prevent women from participating in the political process. Of the women who did not vote in the 2014 election, nearly a quarter surveyed cited resistance from family members as the primary reason.27 In the 2004 elections, 87 percent of women surveyed said that they needed permission from a male family member to vote.28 The lack of self-determination is a barrier to women succeeding in politics because it inhibits women’s voices in decisionmaking. While rates of political participation are higher in Kabul, women are underrepresented in the provinces.29 This can reinforce the marginalization of women by limiting their engagement in political affairs across the country. Policies to engage ONE OF THE GREATEST women in politics may be undermined when there is no female THREATS TO WOMEN’S representation to ensure that these SELF-DETERMINATION AND policies are being implemented.

ACCESS TO POLITICS IS

There are opportunities that can be TARGETED VIOLENCE leveraged to increase women’s access AGAINST FEMALE to politics. One of the goals of the 2008 Afghanistan National POLITICIANS AND CIVIL Development Strategy is to promote SERVANTS. gender equality and secure equal rights and opportunities for women in politics.30 This national strategy focuses on increasing women’s engagement, which will in turn create a platform for greater social acceptance.31 The National Development Strategy was written in consultation with women and women’s groups, which demonstrates the government’s commitment to empower women to have an influence in the political process and in policy-making. The Development Strategy also increases women’s capital by promoting and encouraging women in the provinces to take on leadership roles in the community. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has also identified mechanisms to increase women’s leadership. These include: promoting mentoring relationships between men and women in the same professional field, gender awareness programs for senior officials and decision-makers, the establishment of a career path program for women in politics, and 39 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN creating networks of women already in professional environments to provide support for each other and other women in the community.32 These programs demonstrate the importance of having a range of programs that target women and bolster their status both at an institutional and a communal level.

One of the greatest threats to women’s self-determination and access to politics is targeted violence against female politicians and civil servants.

Between 2012 and 2013, six high profile assassinations of women in politics occurred.33 Two of the women had been the head of women’s affairs in the Laghman Province: One was shot traveling to work, and the other killed by a car bomb.34 Zufenon Safi, who represents Laghman Province in Parliament, said: “[t]here is only one reason behind killing women: to prevent women from working in the government … We should expect more similar assassinations in the upcoming weeks and months because they (the Taliban) have threatened every female civil servant, including members of the provincial council and teachers.”35 In a country where women’s representation is already low, these targeted assassinations threaten to undermine the national policy of gender equality and female empowerment. There has been positive progress in increasing women’s access to politics, but the expression of opposition to women’s participation through violence and execution is a threat not only to women, but to rule of law in Afghanistan as well.

Access to Justice After the fall of the Taliban, rule of law and civil society’s confidence in the judicial system needed to be reestablished. Women experience the judicial system both as victims and perpetrators, and improving women’s access to the justice system requires strategies that respond to both.

Programs to enhance rule of law address three elements of the justice system: law enforcement, courts and the judiciary, and corrections. These reforms must be coupled with specific efforts to increase women’s access to justice, as such access is often limited or undermined. A strong justice system is important because it supports and legitimizes progress made to women’s access in other sectors.

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ARIEL BIGIO One important step in improving women’s access to justice was the passage of the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) Act in 2009, which created a separate class of crimes for acts of violence committed against women. This act criminalized rape, underage or forced marriage, and 20 additional offenses of violence against women.36 This act also established and recognized legal rights for women. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) asserts that: “[p]rogress in implementing the EVAW law can contribute to improving the realization of women’s human rights to enable them to fulfill their crucial and imperative role in the HAVING WOMEN PRESENT IN country’s political, economic, 37 and social development.” By THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IS implementing and prosecuting IMPORTANT TO MAKING THESE cases under EVAW, the INSTITUTIONS MORE Government of Afghanistan is ensuring the protection of APPROACHABLE AND women under the law. Another INCREASING THE LIKELIHOOD aspect to the EVAW law is the THAT WOMEN WILL PURSUE establishment of women’s shelters. These shelters serve JUSTICE THROUGH THE women and children who have FORMAL SECTOR. been abused or battered. By removing women from dangerous situations and providing housing and counseling, these shelters reinforce the state’s commitment to protecting women’s rights.

Improved access to education has also seen an increase of women pursuing law careers. Women are lawyers (19.3 percent), judges (8.4 percent), and prosecutors (6.4 to 9.4 percent).38 Having women present in the justice system is important to making these institutions more approachable and increasing the likelihood that women will pursue justice through the formal sector.39 Women’s presence is also important for cases that fall under the EVAW and women may not feel comfortable describing a case to male lawyers, which could affect the prosecution and outcome of the case.40 While there have been increases in the number of female professionals in the justice sector, representation remains low. Women can 41 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN be discouraged to pursue professional careers in this sector because of familial and social pressure to stay at home, a lack of acceptance in the workplace, and marginalization at both the national and the communal level.41 Two consequences of the lack of representation are that women have less influence in the criminal justice process and lack the authority to effect change at decision-making levels.

Another barrier to women’s access to the formal legal system is that only 19.2 percent of women are aware that the formal system exists.42 Informal justice, such as community elders or councils, may be employed to settle disputes rather than the formal justice system. As a consequence, women may not be fully informed of their rights or know that there are other options to settle disputes or claims. For example, applying the EVAW has been limited because of cultural values that discourage women from reporting violence committed against them.43 In 2011, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan produced a report about the implementation of the EVAW law. In the report, “UNAMA highlights that most incidents of violence against women still remain largely underreported, especially in rural areas, due to social norms and cultural restraints, discrimination against women (leading to wider acceptance of violence against them), fear of social stigma or exclusion and, at times, fear of reprisals and threat to life.”44 Implementing policies created to protect and strengthen women’s rights in civil society is undermined by women’s lack of knowledge of protections in the formal system and community pressure to use the informal judicial process. This also weakens the effectiveness of the justice system, when policies such as the EVAW Act do not have the opportunity to be upheld.45 While social norms challenge the effectiveness of the justice system, there has been progress. Specialized EVAW units have been established in eight provinces to support the prosecutorial staff and to inform women in the community of their rights under this law.46 Reports of violence against women are higher in provinces where these units are located, and expanding the program will be advantageous to developing the law’s effectiveness. More female professionals studying law and pursuing careers in the justice sector can also strengthen these units, as women in 42 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ARIEL BIGIO Afghan culture are more comfortable and likely to report a violent crime to a female police officer or lawyer. The increase in the number of cases reported and the increase of women studying law are positive indicators of progress. Leveraging these gains by expanding the relevant programs will possibly contribute to new social norms surrounding women’s access to justice.

There are a number of threats to women’s access to justice. Women’s perception of the justice system is lowered by the prosecution and incarceration of women for moral crimes, such as zina, or running away from home. This undermines women’s perception of the court as fair and just.47 Women can also be arrested for leaving abusive or forced marriages. These moral crimes are informed by religious laws, which mullahs in Afghanistan have authority over as well-respected members of Afghan society.48 Another threat to women’s judicial rights is religious leaders in Afghanistan speaking out against women. In 2012, the Afghan National Ulema Council stated that women were subordinate to men and should not mix with men professionally or in education.49 These religious leaders and councils have influence and can threaten the efforts of the state to enhance women’s rights. Lastly, targeted violence against women in the justice sector threatens women’s participation. One woman working on security issues in Afghanistan, who gained particular prominence as a female Afghan police officer, was Malalai Kakar. Kakar was shot and killed in her car by the Taliban in 2008 because she was a woman, and the Taliban forbade women on the police force.50 This act is one example of the violent reprisal to which women can be subjected. One of the challenges to creating policy is to address these violent outliers and to prevent the pre-conditions of violence when women do participate. These weaknesses and threats, taken together, demonstrate how social norms can limit women’s access to justice, jeopardizing the overall progress made to legitimize the rule of law.

Access to Social Rights A 2011 Thompson Reuters Foundation survey found that “ongoing conflict, high maternal mortality and domestic violence rates, limited 43 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN access to health care, and ‘near total lack of economic rights’ combine to make Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman.”51 This survey sheds light on some of the challenges facing women, but there has been positive progress in changing the status of women. Article 22 of the 2004 Constitution gave equality to men and women, and policies such as the 2008 National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan have been created to promote gender equality. 52 The strength of civil society in working to advance the status of women also contributes to improved access to social rights.

AS MORE WOMEN AND COMMUNITIES ARE EDUCATED

Afghan women’s groups are actively working to improve the status of women through ARE EMPOWERED TO ASSERT education, advocacy, and THEM IN CASES OF DOMESTIC community organizing. One of VIOLENCE, LAND OWNERSHIP, these groups is the Women for Afghan Women (WAW), a nonAND DISCRIMINATION. governmental organization with offices in eight provinces and an office in New York. WAW has provided training and workshops for women about their rights, family guidance centers, women’s shelters, halfway houses, and support centers for children.53 Through their advocacy efforts, WAW has helped over 7,000 women and trained more than 125,000 Afghans in human rights.54 The Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) is another NGO whose mission is to empower women and ensure women’s equal participation in society. 55 The Afghan Women’s Network has lobbied political leadership to ensure that women’s perspectives are taken into consideration, created networks of women in government, NGOs, and international stakeholders to exchange ideas, identify areas of expertise, and enlarge the advocacy base for women’s issues, and facilitated interviews and roundtables about the status of women.56 As more women and communities are educated about their rights, more are empowered to assert them in cases of domestic violence, land ownership, and discrimination.57 ABOUT THEIR RIGHTS, MORE

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ARIEL BIGIO While there have been improvements, women’s status and opportunities remain limited. One of the largest barriers to women’s access to social rights is a woman’s lack of mobility. Many women are not able or allowed by their families to travel to other provinces or within their own province without a male relative or legal guardian, which has ramifications across the four variables outlined in this paper.58 Limited freedom of movement has consequences in two ways. First, women in remote areas may not be able to travel, which prevents them from learning, being informed about their rights under Afghan law, voting in elections, and utilizing the formal justice system through services or professional representation. Second, for women in the professional sector, they may not be able to travel to villages to provide services such as leading legal awareness programs and reaching women who may be victims in situations of domestic violence. 59 There is a disconnect between women being able to receive and distribute services.

The lack of freedom of movement is at the heart of this divide between policy and implementation.

There has been progress in reaching women in rural communities and provinces throughout Afghanistan. Civil society organizations such as the Afghan Women’s Network and Women for Afghan Women have programs throughout the country and are building the capacity to expand.

These organizations have cited the importance of networking with stakeholders both nationally and internationally to expand their programmatic reach and increase female engagement. A recent story highlights the progress that has been made and the relationship between civil society and the government. A 10-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in the Kunduz province by a mullah. After the girl reported the case to authorities, Women for Afghan Women was contacted and assisted the girl in seeking medical treatment, placed her in a women’s protection center, and engaged an attorney from the EVAW units to prosecute the case.60 The mullah was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined approximately $30,000, one of the most severe sentences that has been handed down since the EVAW law went into effect. 61 This case demonstrates how women’s groups can connect policy with implementation at a local level. It also shows how NGOs can connect the resources and capacity of civil society with the government and increase 45 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN women’s access to social rights. This was a recent case, from 2014, but given Women for Afghan Women’s success, it could represent a turning point for further engaging NGOs. Key threats to women’s access to social rights are the social and cultural norms that limit public support for civil society actors promoting these rights and for the new policies passed by the Afghan government to empower women. In 2014, 30 percent of Afghans surveyed said that women should not be allowed to work outside the home and less than half (40.9 percent) of Afghans think that it is acceptable for a woman to work for an NGO.62 This poll demonstrates that women still lack social support for engaging in society, including working in NGOs to advocate, educate, and empower women throughout the provinces.

Transnational Security Implications After 30 years of war, Afghanistan is in transition to become a more politically stable and secure country. In 2014, democratic elections successfully transferred power from President Hamid Karzai to President Ashraf Ghani, and a new unity government is being established. Since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan has continued to develop in key areas of governance, including supporting the rule of law through the establishment of the Counternarcotics Justice Center, strengthening the economy through agricultural productivity, improving the political process, and expanding health and education for all citizens. The United States, along with other international donors, has committed to providing Afghanistan $16 billion in aid through 2015.63 This is an important time in Afghanistan as newly elected President Ghani forms his political cabinet and transitions Afghanistan after nearly 13 years of Karzai’s leadership.

Two upcoming events could have profound ramifications on women in Afghanistan and the progress that has been made to support women’s rights. The first concerns how the new government will address the Taliban. International investments and the combined Afghan, U.S., and NATO military partnership have weakened the insurgency. These efforts, though, have not eliminated the threat of the Taliban, and conflict 46 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ARIEL BIGIO continues. Violence throughout the provinces and in Kabul has escalated as the Taliban intensifies their attacks against Afghans and foreign workers.64 This increased violence has a destabilizing effect on the government and the capital city of Kabul, which was largely insulated from these types of attacks in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Taliban.65 Peace talks between the Taliban WOMEN WERE and the Afghan government have started, but no agreement has been reached.

EXCLUDED FROM THE Women were excluded from the NEGOTIATION TABLE, negotiation table, which has many civil WHICH HAS MANY society groups fearing a reversal of gains made for women’s rights.66 CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS FEARING A REVERSAL The second event is the future withdrawal OF GAINS MADE FOR of U.S. and NATO forces. The Taliban and the new government’s response to the WOMEN’S RIGHTS. lack of physical support or deterrent of foreign troops could impact the gains made for women. It is possible that the Afghan government could agree to a peace deal with the Taliban that would give the Taliban legal status as a political party and representation in the Afghan government in exchange for a cessation of violence.67 Providing the Taliban a political platform could restrict further gains in women’s rights. As the Afghan government transitions to new leadership under President Ghani, the permanence of advances made in promoting women’s engagement are uncertain, especially under the cloud of these peace negotiations.

A politically empowered Taliban has regional implications regarding the emerging ISIL threat. If the Taliban were to gain political legitimacy, ISIL and the Taliban could join forces. This has significant policy implications for the United States and NATO, as troop withdrawal is forthcoming. A more stable and secure Afghanistan could help contain ISIL as well as counter other extremist threats that have regional and transnational consequences. If, however, a stable and secure Afghanistan is one where the Taliban has legal status as a political party, this could lead to instability if ISIL were to expand operations to Afghanistan.

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WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN The Taliban, ISIL, and the impending withdrawal of American troops are three external factors with potentially destabilizing effects. Afghan regional and international stakeholders who have invested in promoting women’s rights to strengthen national security, governance, and rule of law look to President Ghani to demonstrate his commitment to women’s engagement in Afghan society. Preserving these developments is an important priority for the newly elected Afghan government. According to the United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, more than half of all peace agreements fail within the first 10 years.68 The Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security goes on to say: “[e]vidence from around the world and across cultures shows that integrating women and gender considerations into peace-building processes helps promote democratic governance and long-term stability.”69 Women’s access to education, justice, political, and social rights are not just independent variables, but fundamental factors to empowering women. By increasing women’s access across these four factors, the Afghan government can counter the destabilizing effects of the current transition and continue to build upon the progress that has been made.

Failure to protect and expand upon the efforts to engage women in Afghanistan could further destabilize the country and lead to an escalation of violence from the Taliban and ISIL. Empowering and educating women bolsters the economy of a state, and women can also support the Afghan government in areas of national security. Women are an excellent source of intelligence in less secure areas of Afghanistan where insurgent presence is stronger. Women observed the arrival of arms caches in Kosovo, and women in Sierra Leone knew of plans to attack UN peacekeepers.70 Fear for personal safety prevented the women in Sierra Leone from coming forward with this knowledge, which demonstrates the necessity of platforms for women’s engagement. Women are an underutilized resource in Afghanistan for issues of national security, and failure to engage women across these four factors is a lost opportunity for the Afghan government.

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1000

800

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0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Figure 2: Annual Number of Terror Attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban from 2000 to 201371 Policy Implications The Afghan government has made significant developments in guaranteeing women’s access to education, promoting women in leadership, protecting women through the EVAW Act, and supporting civil society. There are internal threats to these developments, including violence against women and the social and cultural norms that perpetuate this violence. Across all four variables, women were targets of violence or even assassination. Women’s engagement is limited by their subjection to violence as a result of their engagement, indicating that the Afghan government needs to address violence in all four factors. The EVAW Act is important legislation that helps to address and criminalize violence against women for acts such as rape, but this legislation is most closely connected to the justice sector, and women’s access to formal justice remains limited. The National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan 49 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

WOMEN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN (NAPWA) outlines policies and strategies to engage women, including by addressing gender-based violence, but the plan for implementation is vague and leaves a lot of responsibility on the ministries to enact these recommendations. For example, “[E]ach ministry/agency will designate the Planning Department as overseer and coordinator of all processes related to the implementation of NAPWA at the ministry level.” 72 By March 2015, each ministry should be required to write a report on the status of their compliance to the NAPWA. These reports will also incorporate how violence is a factor in implementation and steps the ministry is taking to mitigate these effects. By addressing gender-based violence, the Afghan government is investing in women’s engagement in society and more broadly in the country’s stability.

Within the first six months of office, President Ghani can demonstrate his commitment to women’s rights by announcing a new policy to promote women’s engagement in society by ending violence against women. Some of these strategies could include: appointing more women in key positions in his cabinet, announcing female representatives at all future peace talks with the Taliban, broadening the national strategy to respond to violence against women across all sectors, and continuing prosecutions of perpetrators of violence. When the Mirwais School for Girls in Kandahar was attacked in 2009, girls stopped going to school. The headmaster, Mahmood Qadari, called for a meeting at the school with all of the parents and implored them to have their daughters return. When only a few returned, he turned to the local government for support and was told by the governor that he would increase police presence and provide a bus to transport the girls. The local government did not deliver on these pledges, but Qadari called another meeting with parents to implore them again to send their daughters back to school, saying, “[I]f you don’t send your daughter to school, then the enemy wins.”73 The students did return to school, and the strategies used by Qadari could be used on a national level.

Qadari was successful because he engaged civil society and local community stakeholders to invest in their daughters’ education. This type of dialogue between local government and civil society across all four factors (education, political rights, social rights, and justice) could help bolster local commitment and help implement these national policies.

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ARIEL BIGIO These four factors to women’s empowerment affect communities at local, national, and international levels. As an example, increased access to education at the local level improves women’s opportunities and prospects for jobs. This in turn can strengthen Afghanistan’s workforce nationally, which bolsters its economy. A strong workforce increases productivity, which has regional and international effects on trade. By increasing women’s access in all four factors, the Afghan government is advancing civil society and taking steps to stabilize the country. Transitions to stable democracies require the promotion of women’s rights and the inclusion of women’s voices.74 In “The Role of Women in Global Security,” Valerie Norville writes: “[t]hese conflicts cannot be brought to a lasting end without making women’s lives more secure, and it is women who are best positioned to determine how that security is achieved.”75 Women are a core piece of creating a more stable and secure Afghanistan, which has regional and transnational significance.

Endnotes 1

Tim Luccaro and Erica Gaston, “Women’s Access to Justice in Afghanistan,” PeaceWorks, no. 98 (2014): 1-64. http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW98_Women %27s-Access-to-Justice-in-Afghanistan.pdf 2 Clar Ni Chonghaile, “Afghanistan’s Gains Could Be Reversed If Donors Turn Away,” The Guardian, December 4, 2014, Accessed February 9, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/04/afghanistans-gainsreversed-donors-aid 3 United Nations Security Council (SC), Resolution 1325, “Women and Peace and Security,” October 13, 2004, Accessed December 4, 2014, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/#resolution 4 Ibid., 1.

5 “Afghanistan’s Education Dilemma,” Economist.com/Global Agenda, March 25, 2002, Accessed March 30, 2015, http://www.economist.com/node/1056055 6 UNICEF, “Afghanistan Country Office Education Factsheet,” November 2011, Accessed November 26, 2014, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/files/ACO_Education_Factsheet__November_2011_.pdf 7 UNICEF 2013., “Rwanda,” December 27, 2013, Accessed February 9, 2015, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/rwanda_statistics.html 8 Zach Warren, “Afghanistan in 2014: A Survey of the Afghan People,” ed. Nancy Hopkins, Kabul: The Asia Foundation, November 18, 2014, http://asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/Afghanistanin2014final.pdf

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9

United States Agency for International Development, “Education,” Accessed November 26, 2014, http://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/education 10 Warren, 125.

11 International Development Law Organization, “Out of the Shadows, Onto the Bench: Women in Afghanistan’s Justice Sector,” Rome: IDLO, 2014, http://www.idlo.int/sites/default/files/IDLO_Afghan %20Legal %20Professionals %20summary.pdf 12 The World Bank, “Education is a Promise for a Better Future in Rural Afghanistan,” September 10, 2013, accessed November 29, 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/09/10/education-is-a-promise-for-abetter-future-in-rural-afghanistan 13 Warren, 144.

14 Allison Rubin, “School Support Grows Even Under Specter of a Taliban Return,” The New York Times, January 28, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/world/asia/growing-support-for-education-in-avolatile-afghan-province.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 15 Ministry of Education, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, “The Development of Education: National Report Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” October 15, 2008, accessed November 26, 2014, http://www.ibe.unesco.org/National_Reports/ICE_2008/afghanistan_NR08.pdf 16 Mercy Tembon and Lucia Fort, eds., Girls’ Education in the 21st Century, Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008, Accessed February 9, 2015, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/2782001099079877269/547664-1099080014368/DID_Girls_edu.pdf 17 "School Enrollment - Primary - Female (% Gross) in Afghanistan." Trading Economics. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/afghanistan/ school-enrollment-primary-female-percent-gross-wb-data.html.

18 UNICEF 2011.

19 Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, “For Afghan Girl, Going to School is Act of Bravery,” NPR September 3, 2012, accessed December 2, 2014, http://www.npr.org/2012/09/03/160501527/for-afghan-girl-going-to-school-is-act-ofbravery 20 Warren, 142.

21 Ibid.

22 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, “National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan,” May 19, 2008, accessed October 13, 2014, http://mowa.gov.af/Content/files/CHAPTER %206.pdf 23 Asian University for Women, “AUW’s Internship Program Expands in 2012.” Updated 8/23/2012. http://www.asianuniversity.org/academicPrograms/documents/2012InternshipMemoFinal.pdf 24 Warren, 130.

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25

Rod Nordland, “Afghan Women See Hope in the Ballot Box,” The New York Times, April 1, 2014, accessed December 10, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/world/asia/afghan-women-see-hope-in-the-ballotbox.html?_r=0 26 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 51.

27 Warren, 130.

28 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 54.

29 Ibid.

30 United Nations Development Programme, “Afghanistan National Development Strategy,” accessed November 21, 2014, http://www.undp.org.af/Publications /KeyDocuments/ANDS_Full_Eng.pdf 31 Ibid.,14.

32 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 56.

33 Anastasiya Hozyainova, “Sharia and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan,” United States Institute of Peace, no. 347 (2014): 1-8, http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR347Sharia_and_Women %E2 %80 %99s_Rights_in_Afghanistan.pdf 34 Alissa Rubin and Habib Zahori, “Afghan Women’s Affairs Aide Shot Months After Killing of Predecessor,” The New York Times, December 10, 2012, accessed November 19, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/world/asia/gunmen-assassinate-afghanwomens-affairs-official.html?_r=0 35 Ibid.

36 Warren, 125.

37 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, “A Way to Go: Implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women Law in Afghanistan,” (2013): 2, http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/Press %20Statements/UNAMA %20EVAW %20Law %20Report %202013 %20 %28Revised %20on %2016 %20Dec %20 %202013 %29.pdf 38 International Development Law Organization, 7.

39 Ibid., 8.

40 Ibid.

41 Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

42 Warren, 127.

43 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 26.

44 Ibid., 4.

45 Ibid., 3.

46 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, “First Report on the Implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) Law in Afghanistan,” January 2014, Accessed November 28, 2014, http://mowa.gov.af/Content/files/EVAW%20Law%20Repor t_Final_English_17%20%20March%202014.pdf 47 Hozyainova, 2.

48 Ibid., 4.

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Kathleen Kuehnast, Manal Omar, Steven Steiner, and Hadei Sultan, “Peacebuilding Efforts of Women from Afghanistan and Iraq,” United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 319 (2012): 1-8, accessed December 1, 2014. http://www.usip.org/sites/default/ files/SR319.pdf 50 John Burns, “Taliban Claim Responsibility in Killing of Key Female Afghan Officer,” New York Times, September 28, 2008, accessed October 1, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/world/asia/29afghan.html 51 Luccaro and Gaston, 7.

52 Hozyainova, 2.

53 Women for Afghan Women, “What We Do,” Accessed November 30, 2014, http://womenforafghanwomen.org/index.php/waw-in-afghanistan 54 Women for Afghan Women, “Spirit Indestructible,” Accessed November 30, 2014, http://womenforafghanwomen.org/documents/spirit_indestructable.pdf 55 Afghan Women’s Network, “Our Mission,” Accessed November 30, 2014, http://www.awn-af.net/cms/content/1 56 Afghan Women’s Network, “Networking and Coordination,” Accessed November 30, 2014, http://www.awn-af.net/cms/content/111 57 Global Rights, “Afghanistan,” Accessed November 30, 2014, http://www.globalrights.org/afghanistan 58 International Development Law Organization, 12.

59 Ibid.

60 Jocelyn Rafferty, “Advancing the Rule of Law Provides Protections for Women and Girls in Afghanistan,” DipNote: U.S. Department of State, November 24, 2014, Accessed December 1, 2014, http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2014/11/24/advancing-rule-lawprovides-protections-women-and-girls-afghanistan 61 Rafferty, 1.

62 Warren, 137.

63 Department of State, “U.S. Relations with Afghanistan Fact Sheet,” October 31, 2014, Accessed December 2, 2014, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5380.htm 64 Rod Nordland, “International Aid Agencies Call for Temporary Exit from Afghanistan,” The New York Times, December 1, 2014, Accessed December 6, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/world/asia/international-aid-agencies-exitafghanistan.html 65 Sudarsan Raghavan, “Taliban Brings War to Afghan Capital, Threatening Stability and Endangering Foreigners,” The Washington Post, November 30, 2014, Accessed December 2, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-afghanistantaliban-fighters-attack-foreign-compound-in-capital/2014/11/29/f0aef902-77d4-11e4a755-e32227229e7b_story.html 66 Clar Ni Chonghaile, “Taliban Peace Talks a Threat to Women’s Rights in Afghanistan, Oxfam Warns,” The Guardian, November 23, 2014, accessed December 6, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/24/taliban-peace-talks-athreat-to-womens-rights-in-afghanistan-oxfam-warns

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ARIEL BIGIO

67

Stephen Biddle, “Ending the War in Afghanistan: How to Avoid Failure in the Installment Plan,” Council on Foreign Relations, September/October 2013, Accessed February 10, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/defense-and-security/ending-warafghanistan/p31305 68 The White House, “United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security,” December 2011, accessed December 6, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/email-files/US_National_Action_ Plan_on_Women_Peace_and_Security.pdf 69 Ibid., 5.

70 Ibid., 8.

71 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

(2013). Global Terrorism Database [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd 72 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 108.

73 Dexter Filkins, “Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embracing School,” The New York Times, January 13, 2009, accessed December 6, 2014, http://www.nytimes .com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html?pagewanted=all 74 The White House, 24.

75 Valerie Norville, “The Role of Women in Global Security,” United States Institute of Peace Special Report 264 (2011): 1-6, accessed December 2, 2014, http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR264-The_role_of_Women_in_ Global_Security.pdf

55 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

Youth, Technology, and the Arab Spring: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Next?

Brad Crofford1 Brad Crofford is pursuing his master’s degree in international studies at the University of Oklahoma, where he works as a graduate assistant. A Gilman Scholar and Alpha Lambda Delta Graduate Fellow, he has interned for the U.S. Embassy in Benin, the U.S. House of Representatives, and various nonprofits in Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C. Brad has spent over ten years living in France, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Haiti. He earned his B.S. in Politics & Law and his B.A. in Cultural & Communication Studies from Southern Nazarene University.

Abstract Youth and technology have frequently been cited as factors that contributed to the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Although few of the uprisings have led to significant positive change, they have nevertheless been disruptive.

It is therefore worthwhile to consider the possibility of similar protest contagion in other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa is a region with a large youth population, increasing access to the Internet and mobile phone use, and many countries with few political rights and/or civil liberties. International media sources have thus repeatedly asked whether Sub-Saharan Africa will experience its own version of the Arab Spring.

This paper first discusses the role that social media played in the Arab Spring uprisings; mobile phones and the Internet are discussed to the extent that they enable social media and regime repression. This paper then briefly examines how youth circumstances influenced the uprisings, specifically in terms of youth and graduate unemployment. Statistics are subsequently presented to compare and contrast youth circumstances and 56 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

BRAD CROFFORD technology use in the two regions. Ultimately, this paper argues that the Arab Spring case does not portend a similar protest contagion for Sub-Saharan Africa due to important differences between youth’s circumstances and technology use in the two regions.

Introduction When Tunisian fruit vendor Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire in late 2010, his actions seemed to ignite a larger conflagration throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In 2011, a string of protests, revolutions, economic crises, and civil wars occurred in countries from Tunisia to the Gulf States that collectively became known as the “Arab Spring.”2 Observers have gone as far as to describe the global turbulence resulting therefrom as the greatest since the fall of the Soviet Union.3 Youth involvement and technology use were often mentioned in early reporting and subsequent analyses of the Arab Spring uprisings. Youth were often described as protest instigators; for example, a news report from March 2011 described “youth-led momentum for change” and “a transformation sweeping the Middle East, propelled by young people free of the fear that held back their parents.”4 Middle East scholar Toby Matthiesen opines that it “seem[ed] as if Arabs, and indeed young people around the world, had been waiting for something to rally around.”5 Youth, however, were not the sole story of the Arab Spring.

Media commentators and scholars also quickly and persistently pointed out how protesters used social media, like Facebook and Twitter, to organize, discuss, document, and frame or correct international media coverage of the events, leading to the monikers “Twitter Revolution”6 and “Facebook Revolutions.”7 Through such social media use, protesters not only shaped when, where, and how the protests occurred, but also shaped their own and the outside world’s understanding of the events. Widespread mobile phone use facilitated these phenomena, and satellite television served as another means of disseminating information throughout the 57 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING region. Social media use was often mentioned in tandem with youth, frequently in reference to the courageous acts of youth opposition toward authoritarian leaders that were disseminated around the world by both social and traditional media.8 Ambivalent feelings of hope, uncertainty, inspiration, and anxiety also arose in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as the events of the THROUGH SUCH SOCIAL Arab Spring unfolded.9 MEDIA USE, PROTESTERS NOT

Due to the geographic proximity and perceived socio-economic AND HOW THE PROTESTS and political similarities between the Middle East and Sub-Saharan OCCURRED, BUT ALSO SHAPED Africa (SSA), as well as an THEIR OWN AND THE OUTSIDE increasingly tech-savvy cohort of WORLD’S UNDERSTANDING OF SSA youth, the international media has asked whether the THE EVENTS. events in MENA foretell similar 10 uprisings in Africa. Perceived socio-economic similarities between the two regions include youth unemployment, some persistent authoritarian regimes, and government corruption. The question’s recurrence in international media suggests the need for a deeper examination of the similarities and differences between the regions. However, a simultaneous comparison of all of these socio-economic factors across the two large regions is not only daunting, but also risks suffering from superficiality and/or overgeneralization as a result; a narrower focus is more beneficial.

Accordingly, this essay considers whether the “youth/technology nexus” of the Arab Spring has implications for SSA, a region with a large youth population, increasing access to the Internet, social media, and mobile phones, and many countries with low levels of political rights and civil liberties.11 In this paper, the youth/technology nexus generally refers to the collection of interactions between youth and technology, as when technologies facilitate the organization and documentation of protest activities by young activists. This requires both that technology be available and that youth have access to it. This essay will first discuss the reported role of social media in the Arab Spring. Mobile phones and the Internet will be discussed to the extent that they enable social media use ONLY SHAPED WHEN, WHERE,

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BRAD CROFFORD and regime repression.12 This essay will then briefly discuss the role that youth circumstances played in the uprisings, specifically in terms of youth and graduate unemployment.13 Next, it will draw on applicable statistics for SSA to compare and contrast the region with MENA in terms of youth and technology. Overall, evidence suggests that the Arab Spring case does not necessarily portend similar protest contagion for SSA due to important differences between the circumstances of youth and the characteristics of technology use in the two regions.

Technology and the Arab Spring Technology has played a central role in reporting on the Arab Spring.

Scholars Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain note that technology was prominently featured in Western reports, even to the extent of obscuring other, more traditional, aspects of the protests.14 While the technological landscape of the Arab Spring was likely necessary for the rapid contagion of uprisings, such a landscape should not be interpreted as a sufficient condition for either the Arab Spring or future uprisings.15 Rather, the Arab Spring should be examined by means of what scholars Howard and Hussain term “causal conjoined explanations.”16 Accordingly, this essay later looks at youth (specifically unemployment as a proxy of available opportunities and thus discontent) alongside technology, which together constitute the aforementioned 17 youth/technology nexus. This section examines the reported role of social media in the Arab Spring and a number of limitations and weaknesses in that discussion, including the heterogeneity of social media, the share of domestic versus international social media participants, and the ability of governments to use social media (and technology more broadly) to repress the public.

Journalist and free expression advocate Jillian C. York argues that not only do social media facilitate the discussion and analysis of the demonstrations, but also “hold a vital place in this media ecosystem, filling informational voids left by the still bridled state and traditional media” and provide context for and correction to international media reports.18 She suggests that expanding Internet access and social media 59 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING use could promote free expression—and, in turn, democratization.19 Freedom House, an independent organization monitoring rights around the world, similarly notes that social media (particularly Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) is important for activism.20 A prominent example of the potency of social media use during Arab Spring activism was the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said.” The page’s title refers to a man killed by police in Alexandria, Egypt in the summer of 2010, and the page was used to criticize police brutality and call for protests. The popularity of the page foreshadowed the scale of the upcoming protests of January 25, 2011; about 70,000 people indicated on the Facebook page that they planned on participating in the protests.21 When the page’s creator, Wael Ghonim, was subsequently arrested on January 26, his arrest was widely discussed on Twitter, where some users said that they “would not rest until he was released.”22 In this instance, social media allowed protesters to express solidarity both before and after engaging in collective action and served as a novel forum for the ongoing discussion of recent events.

It should be noted, however, that these tools are not homogeneous in either their designs or their use. Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell reported in mid-2011 that “[m]uch of the online organizing and mobilization that went into the Arab revolutions happened on Facebook, usually in Arabic… but Twitter is where activists went to get their message out to the world, more often in English.”23 Furthermore, social media use was not unidirectional; in other words, messages did not simply emanate outward from the countries where uprisings occurred. After analyzing Twitter data for “#libya,” scholars at the Queensland University of Technology found that while Twitter was used by people in Libya to discuss and record civil war there, it was especially used by non-Libyans abroad to discuss the events in English.24 These two factors represent important caveats that are rarely mentioned in media accounts of revolutionary uses of social media that assume homogeneity.

It should be noted that social media can also be used and/or restrained by authoritarian regimes. Governments can use social media to disseminate 60 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

BRAD CROFFORD propaganda. Governments can also control the Internet in a variety of ways, including by blocking websites, engaging in cyberattacks, filtering and manipulating content, and attacking and imprisoning bloggers.25 In Tunisia’s uprisings, the regime was able to use social media to identify and track down protesters and political dissidents.26 In Egypt, officials shut down the country’s Internet for five days—an action that took officials just one hour to complete.27 Even purposefully slowed connections can impede regime opponents by limiting their ability to disseminate images and videos.28 Thus, social media (and, more broadly, the Internet) can be used both to liberate and repress.

Such limitations on social media use (and Internet use more broadly) make the regime’s cyber-capacity important for understanding the role of technology in protests and uprisings across countries. Freedom House creates an annual report on Internet freedom wherein it ranks a number of countries on a 0 (entirely free) to 100 (entirely not free) scale. 29 The scores do not seem to predict the scale and effectiveness of the Arab Spring uprisings. Iran and Saudi Arabia were ranked as “Not Free” and did not experience widespread, successful protests; however, Tunisia, which did see changes in the wake of large protests, was also ranked as “Not Free” with a score about halfway between Iran and Saudi Arabia. 30 Egypt was considered “Partly Free” and Libya was not ranked or evaluated.31 In the 2012 report, the report authors introduce a useful taxonomy that distinguishes states as “blockers, nonblockers, and nascent blockers.” In “blockers” like Saudi Arabia and Iran, governments block select websites for political reasons, and social media sites are often targeted.32 “Nonblockers” like Egypt do not use systematic blocks, but instead use less visible tactics (like intimidation, hacking, cyberattacks, etc.) to maintain control while also maintaining a façade of a “free Internet.”33 Nascent blockers like Pakistan and Russia have only sporadic blocks for now.34 Despite this new taxonomy, Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net index still does not lend itself well to quantitative assessments of governmental repression vis-à-vis protests during the Arab Spring. For example, the Libyan government shut down the Internet nationwide in March 2011, 61 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING which impeded Internet access for many residents until August 2011.35 However, the report notes that the “online environment was notably more open after the rebel victory in October 2011 than during the Qadhafi era or the period of civil conflict.”36 It is unclear how well Libya’s rating as “Partly Free” with a score of 43 captures this shift, as either the government’s severe repression or the opening risk being lost in a single score. Put differently, a score of 43 may seem too low given the earlier repression, yet it may also seem too high in the context of the later opening. In other words, an annual score fails to show the significant within-year shifts. More useful would be a measure that is disaggregated past the annual level (perhaps quarterly to capture shifts) and that can capture the level of actual government cyber-repression versus its capacity. This second aspect would help capture how dire the government considers each situation to be.

In conclusion, the international media have often ascribed a large role to social media and technology in explaining the Arab Spring, though the true extent of their significance remains open to debate. This narrative makes increasing technology use one of the factors to look for amongst “Western commentators who were caught off-guard by the Arab Spring and are now eager to spot the next possible spark.”37 However, there are several key caveats, including the heterogeneity of social media tools, the relative shares of domestic versus international social media participants, and governments’ potentially repressive uses of tools, that should not be overlooked when comparing these two regions. This dynamic is similarly true in comparing youth and youth unemployment across MENA and SSA. Youth and the Arab Spring Scholars and international media often pointed to youth as primary instigators of the Arab Spring uprisings, as evidenced in Middle East historian James L. Gelvin’s observation that “[a]bout a week and a half after the departure of Ben Ali, young people...began their occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo...After Egypt, ongoing protests in Algeria and Yemen took a new turn as young people consciously adopted the Tunisian 62 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

BRAD CROFFORD and Egyptian style of protests.”38 The meaning of the term “youth” can vary according to its usage in context. Unless noted otherwise, however, this essay uses International Labour Organization (ILO) data, which defines youth as individuals in the 15-24 year-old age range.39 Other sources, like media reports, may use the term more loosely, without an explicit age range.40 This section discusses the effects of large youth populations on conflict and youth unemployment in MENA. International relations scholar Gilbert Achcar reports that fifty percent or more of MENA’s population was under 25 years old as of 2010; of the regions for which he reports data, only SSA and South Asia matched this share.41 The direct impact of large youth populations is disputed, however.

Some have argued that “youth bulges”—circumstances wherein youth constitute a large part of a country’s population—can contribute to political violence.42 Achcar disagrees, arguing that since MENA has a share of youth that is similar to other developing regions, it is not the size of the youth cohort but rather the socio-political and economic conditions they face, including unemployment, that are critical for explaining the occurrence of conflict.43 MENA’s youth are much more likely to be unemployed than youth in other regions. While Achcar provides some caveats regarding how well unemployment statistics capture facts on the ground (i.e., likely underreporting real unemployment), ILO data show that 23 percent of North African youth were unemployed in 2010 (versus 6.3 percent of adults) and 25.4 percent of Middle Eastern youth were unemployed in 2010 (versus 6.3 percent of adults).44 In other words, youth in MENA are as much as four times more likely to be unemployed than adults.

Other factors, like higher education, affect the significance of these conditions of high youth unemployment. Henrik Urdal of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) notes that further education can sometimes reduce the risk of political violence (by increasing the opportunity cost of participation), but he also warns that if too many graduates are unable to obtain work (such as in public sector jobs created by the government to employ graduates), this can instead become the basis for additional 63 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING grievances—and even political violence.45 MENA has a fairly high level of enrollment in tertiary education, with 22 percent of the population of university-age youth enrolled in 2009, much higher than SSA’s 6 percent.46 Meanwhile, in 2008, people with tertiary education accounted for 24.7 percent of total unemployment in MENA.47 While the data are admittedly one year apart, this nevertheless suggests that those with tertiary educations are actually more likely, on average, to be unemployed in MENA than those without; those enrolled in tertiary education (much less those who have graduated) make up just over one-fifth of the population and yet constitute about one-fourth of the unemployed.

Accordingly, Achcar suggests that the issue of graduate unemployment was “a major contributing factor to the explosion” in Tunisia.48 Urdal similarly reports that a disparity between education and opportunities for graduates in the Middle East contributes to radicalization and militant recruitment.49 This is the portrait painted in accounts of youth in MENA: a large youth cohort facing dire employment prospects, with even higher unemployment among university graduates. Discontent that stems from unemployment may help to explain the presence and prominence of youth at protests.

Perhaps both desperation over existing circumstances and hope for better alternatives help to explain these protesters’ lack of fear. Given this attention to youth, it is natural to look for the “next Arab Spring” in other regions with bulging youth populations, including SSA. Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is disproportionately young. Urdal reports that from 1950-1990, youth (ages 15-24) comprised about onefourth of the adult populations in America, Africa, and Asia.50 Yet SSA’s youth population will maintain that share while other regions decline; indeed, the UN Population Division has estimated that SSA will become the only region in which young adults (15-24) account for 25 percent or more of the population by 2050.51 For comparison, “most other world regions are below 15%” in the same estimate.52 The aforementioned youth bulge theory suggests that these circumstances would contribute to 64 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

BRAD CROFFORD political violence. Along these lines, the role of youth in the Arab Spring might be construed as confirmation of similarly disruptive prospects for SSA. There are, however, some key differences between SSA and MENA in this area.

As noted in the previous section, SSA’s rate of enrollment in tertiary education (6 percent in 2009) is less than a third of MENA’s (22 percent in the same year).53 Unfortunately, the World Development Indicators do not provide an estimate for those with tertiary education as a share of the unemployed in SSA. However, because tertiary enrollment is so low in SSA, it seems unlikely that graduates account for a large share of youth unemployment. This should limit graduate unemployment as a source of discontent among youth in general throughout the region, although it may of course be present in particular cases and countries.

Official youth unemployment was also significantly lower in SSA than in MENA as of 2010. While youth unemployment was 25.4 percent in the Middle East (versus 6.3 percent for adults) and 23 percent in North Africa (versus 6.3 percent for adults), it …WHILE EMPLOYMENT was just 12.8 percent in SSA 54 FIGURES SUGGEST YOUTH IN (versus 6.5 percent for adults).

According to this 2010 ILO data, MENA ARE ABOUT TWICE AS MENA seemed to be an outlier LIKELY TO BE UNEMPLOYED while SSA was similar to other AS THOSE IN SSA, THESE FAIL regions like Southeast Asia and Pacific (13.4 percent youth TO CAPTURE LIVED unemployment), South Asia (9.9 EXPERIENCE IN EACH REGION. percent), and East Asia (8.8 percent).55 If youth unemployment in SSA is viewed as similar enough to MENA to merit comparison, then perhaps one should also be asking about the possibilities of Arab Spring-style protests and contagion in those other regions.

This does not mean, however, that youth circumstances in SSA were necessarily superior to those in MENA. The ILO’s dichotomous treatment of employment means that even a little compensated work may constitute 65 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING “employment.”56 An ILO report on youth employment notes that “South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa present relatively low regional youth unemployment rates, but this is linked to high levels of poverty, which means that working is a necessity for many young people.” 57 Thus, while employment figures suggest youth in MENA are about twice as likely to be unemployed as those in SSA, these fail to capture lived experience in each region.58 This unfortunately complicates cross-regional comparisons of the implications of youth unemployment. At such a macro-level, the limitations of the data undermine their predictive value.

Lower unemployment would suggest fewer grievances among youth (and thus less political violence), but if higher poverty is in fact the cause, it could instead be the basis for further grievances. If grievances that lead to protests arise from a disconnect between youth expectations and reality, then gaining an understanding of the differing expectations between countries in MENA and SSA may be critical for predicting whether widespread and contagious protests will occur. Two countries could hypothetically have identical youth unemployment rates but vastly differing experiences with protests if youth expectations also differ significantly. Ethnographic studies provide this type of nuance in understanding expectations but do not INTERNET USE IN SSA IS allow effective comparisons across countries and regions. Unfortunately, NOT DEFINED OR youth population and unemployment LIMITED BY BROADBAND statistics therefore have limited value in SUBSCRIPTIONS. explaining the likelihood of Arab Spring-style protests in SSA. There may be discontent in both, but the similarities are not evident in the data.

Technology in MENA and SSA Africa has seen a significant expansion of access to the Internet and of mobile phone use in the past decade. Because of the reported role of technology in the Arab Spring, this could lead one to expect potentially similar dynamics in SSA. However, there remain significant differences between MENA and SSA in the technological realm. This section 66 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

BRAD CROFFORD discusses Internet use, social media use, mobile phone penetration, and the debate over the effect of mobile phones on violence.

Internet use in SSA is not defined or limited by broadband subscriptions.

According to World Bank estimates, there were on average 0.31 fixed broadband Internet subscribers per 100 people in SSA in 2013.59 There were over 4.6 subscribers per 100 in MENA during the same year.60 Nevertheless, SSA had 16.9 Internet users per 100 people to MENA’s 39.1 in 2013.61 This means that while people in MENA were almost fifteen times more likely to be fixed broadband Internet subscribers, they were only about two times more likely to be Internet users.62 Mobile phones help to explain this discrepancy. In Nigeria, for example, 57.9% of “web traffic is via mobile compared to the 10% world average.”63 This has led researchers like William Gumede of the University of London to assert that revolution may arrive in SSA by mobile phone (if it is to arrive at all).64 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2006

2007

2008

2009

MENA (all income levels)

2010

2011

2012

2013

SSA (all income levels)

Figure 1: Internet Users (per 100 people)65 Facebook is frequently accessed in SSA; indeed, it “is the most visited website by Internet users” in Africa.66 Surveys from the market research organization Balancing Act indicated that, in 2013, “[i]n the four countries 67 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING where face-to-face surveys were carried out for this research, between 14% (Tanzania) and 27% (Ghana) of all respondents were using it, a significant number on basic phones using SMS.”67 While Facebook is the most used, journalist Russell Southwood notes that there are also local versions of social media.68 It is intriguing to consider the possibility that locally-created social networks could provide a means of organizing protests. Given academia’s focus on Facebook and Twitter, indigenous social networking sites could easily go unnoticed.69 Furthermore, given that such sites would differ from their larger, international counterparts like Facebook, messages disseminated therein would be less likely to reach international audiences.

There is also higher mobile phone penetration in MENA than in SSA. In 2011, there were about 99.6 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people in MENA versus just 53 in SSA.70 This is despite SSA’s higher average annual growth in mobile connections (36 percent) from 2002 to 2012 than in Arab States (32 percent).71 According to scholars Jan H. Pierskalla and Florian M. Hollenbach, “Africa is the largest growing cell phone market in the world,” which suggests that high annual growth in the region’s mobile connections could well continue.72 The increase in the mobile phone market crosses socio-economic groups to a surprising extent. Data from 2013 Gallup surveys suggests that there is at least one phone per household in the majority of even the poorest 20% of the population73 The increasing prevalence of mobile phones is a potentially important factor given that mobile phones helped structure political action in the Arab Spring.74 For example, communications scholar Tanja Bosch notes that “people used their mobile phones to record audio and video of the uprisings and to post these to Facebook or Twitter.”75 Such evidence is not only important for documenting events, but also for shaping how they are understood. Increasing mobile phone ownership across socio-economic groups is important because it means those most likely to have grievances also have tools to organize and document, as in the Arab Spring.

Expanding mobile phone ownership, however, is not unambiguously good.

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BRAD CROFFORD The growth of SSA’s mobile market and the persistence of civil conflicts have led scholars to study the relationship between mobile phones and violence. Results for the region are mixed. Pierskalla and Hollenbach argue that mobile phones “can increase the ability of rebel groups to overcome collective action problems” and coordinate despite geographic barriers.76 Their comparison of violent events and mobile coverage indicates that “cell phone coverage has a significant and substantive effect on the probability of conflict occurrence. When cell phone coverage is present, the likelihood of conflict occurrence is substantially higher than otherwise.”77 Researcher Charles Martin-Shields, however, rebuts their argument, suggesting that, since “[t]echnology is an amplifier of human intent (Toyama 2011),” mobile phones can—and do—also contribute to conflict prevention and resolution.78 Using examples from Kenya, he argues that phones can reduce information asymmetries between groups and thereby help avert security dilemmas.79 In various instances, then, mobile phones could enable or prevent violence.

While mobile phones likely played an important role in the Arab Spring as means of documentation and communication, research on phones in Africa suggests that their impact reflects intention: mobile phone use is not always positive or revolutionary, but can sometimes be destructive or reactionary depending on the users. Increasing mobile phone use in Africa (and an increasing share of Internet-capable phones) will therefore not necessarily promote non-violent and widespread collaboration against oppressive regimes (as in the Arab Spring), but could instead facilitate alternatives, like insurgencies. Thus, even as mobile phones reduce communication barriers, they (along with social media and the Internet) could enable, but do not necessarily portend, an Arab Spring-style outcome.

Conclusion Youth and technology are factors that have been frequently discussed by the media and scholars alike in assessing the origins and development of the Arab Spring. Youth unemployment and insufficient opportunities for university graduates appear to have contributed to grievances and help 69 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING explain early participation by youth in protests in Tunisia and Egypt, for example. As discussed above, the social media use (facilitated by mobile phones), contributed to the protesters’ ability to coordinate and document the uprisings. While frequent media reports on SSA might lead one to believe that the region could face similar protest contagion, this essay has pointed to some potentially important differences. Overall, the comparison between SSA and the Middle East and North Africa is not as strong as it first appears.

Social media did play a role in the Arab Spring, and sites like Facebook are regularly accessed in SSA, but Internet access is still substantially lower in SSA than in MENA. Mobile phones can be used to organize massive, non-violent protests, but they can also be used to coordinate violent insurgencies. Internet access is increasing in SSA, but it appears to be more mobile phone-driven than in MENA given the disparities in the data between broadband subscribers and those with access to the Internet.

Both MENA and SSA have large youth populations. However, official youth unemployment differs significantly (almost twice as high in MENA), and how these rates reflect lived experience is complicated by the exigencies of poverty and the ILO’s dichotomous treatment of employment. Tertiary enrollment is much higher in MENA than in SSA, suggesting a higher probability for discontent among graduates in MENA. None of these statistics, though, fully capture the distance between youth expectations and realities—a critical factor in understanding youth willingness to protest.

Additionally, superficial comparisons fail to capture the role of the regime’s response to protesters’ technology use. The data from Freedom House indicate the level of variation in a given regime’s capacity to manage, block, and punish content in cyberspace. Unfortunately, its Freedom of the Net 2013 report still includes only ten African countries.80 Many SSA countries rated as “Not Free” or “Partly Free” in the Freedom in the World 2014 report are still not included in the Freedom of the Net reports.81 This leaves it unclear in what types of cyber-repression these

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BRAD CROFFORD regimes are already engaged (if any) and what their capacity may be in the face of potential Arab Spring-style protests.

The comparison between SSA and MENA in regards to the prospects for contagious, Arab Spring-style protests is thus plagued by unknowns. How much repressive capacity can SSA regimes impose on domestic Internet users? How similar are lived experiences that could create grievances among youth populations, despite differing overall statistics? Would the demonstration effect work across the linguistic and historical barriers in SSA? Are youth in SSA likely to become a vanguard of protesters, as they did in Tunisia and Egypt? Such questions suggest compelling areas of future research.

At least in the areas of technology and youth, there is insufficient evidence to believe that SSA is likely to experience widespread Arab Spring-style protests. There were a few early protests inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, but they were unsuccessful.82 There did not seem to be much sustained, inter-regional demonstration effect—or even interest—from MENA to SSA, given that survey data shows that “[i]n 2013, seven in 10 (70%) residents in 26 sub-Saharan African countries Gallup surveyed say they had not followed recent developments in the Arab world ‘closely at all,’ while 6% say they had followed them ‘very closely’ and 17% say ‘somewhat closely.’”83 Of those in these latter two categories, respondents were almost twice as likely to say that the political happenings in the Arab world have had more negative impacts (46 percent) than more positive impacts (26 percent) on their country.84 The conflict in Libya and the protracted quagmire in Syria are unlikely to increase positive perceptions of the Arab Spring’s outcomes.

It seems increasingly unlikely that the Arab Spring provides an attractive model of protests and revolution for SSA to emulate, and it is unclear just how comparable the youth/technology nexus in SSA is to MENA in regards to political protest and contagion, despite frequent media comparisons. Democratization and protests may be occurring in SSA, but the important differences noted in this essay suggest that no simple repeat of the MENA uprisings will occur there. Given this observation, it is 71 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

YOUTH, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARAB SPRING important that policy discussions in regards to youth and technology in SSA do not oversimplify and misapply the example of the Arab Spring.

Despite the prominence of the Arab INSTEAD OF CONTINUALLY Spring in the modern popular imagination, over-reliance on ASKING “IS SUB-SAHARAN comparing events in SSA to those AFRICA NEXT?” LET US ASK that took place in MENA may be “WHAT IS NEXT FOR SUBunhelpful at best and misleading at worst, as highlighted by the SAHARAN AFRICA?” differences in youth unemployment and technology use within the two regions.85 Instead of continually asking “Is Sub-Saharan Africa next?” let us ask “What is next for Sub-Saharan Africa?”

Endnotes 1

The author would like to thank Steven Inglis and the editors at the International Affairs Review for their thorough and insightful comments and Dr. Joshua Landis, Emily Papp, and Ben Smith for helpful suggestions and feedback at various stages. Any errors or omissions remain the author’s alone.

2 Some authors have argued against the usage of the term “Arab Spring.” James L. Gelvin, for example, notes that “the term spring implies a positive outcome for the uprisings, which has yet to be achieved” (as of 2012 when his book was published) and that the uprisings actually broke out in winter. Nasser Weddady and Sohrab Ahmari similarly note how “bubbly” and “giddy” the term “spring” can be, as well as its incongruous seasonal denotation. Furthermore, they observe, “it risks essentializing the highly diverse Middle East as ‘Arab,’ when the regions comprises all sorts of ethnic and sectarian groups.” While Gelvin uses the term “the Arab uprisings,” Weddady and Ahmari nevertheless use the term “Arab Spring” in order to be clearly part of the conversation on those events. These reservations notwithstanding, this essay uses the term “Arab Spring” in order to avoid the geographical and temporal vagaries of the term “the Arab uprisings.” See: James L. Gelvin, The Arab Uprisings : What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 32-33. See also: Sohrab Ahmari and Nasser Weddady, Arab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks out for Freedom and Justice from North Africa to Iran, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 12.

3 Toby Matthiesen, Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t, Kindle ed., Stanford Briefs (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2013), Loc. 34.

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4

Michael Slackman, “Is Arab Spring over for Youth? Movement for Change Runs up against Dictators’ Use of Lethal Aggression,” International Herald Tribune, 18 March 2011.

5 Matthiesen, vii.

6 Interestingly, protests in Iran in 2009 were also described as the “Twitter Revolution.”

See: Axel Bruns, Tim Highfield and Jean Burgess, “The Arab Spring and Social Media Audiences,” American Behavioral Scientist 57, no. 7 (2013), 872.

7 See, for example: Blake Hounshell, “The Revolution Will be Tweeted: Life in the Vanguard of the New Twitter Proletariat,” Foreign Policy no. 187 (2011); Jillian C. York, “The Revolutionary Force of Facebook and Twitter” (Arab News: Troubles and Possibilities),” Nieman Reports 65, no. 3 (2011); Tanja Bosch, “Youth, Facebook and Politics in South Africa,” Journal of African Media Studies 5, no. 2 (2013); Tao Papaioannou and Hugo Enrique Olivos, “Cultural Identity and Social Media in the Arab Spring: Collective Goals in the Use of Facebook in the Libyan Context,” Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 6, no. 2 (2013).

8 Ahmari and Weddady, 2.

9 Ernest Harsch, “‘Arab Spring’ Stirs African Hopes and Anxieties,” United Nations, http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2011/%E2%80%98arabspring%E2%80%99-stirs-african-hopes-and-anxieties 10 Ibid.; “Does Africa Need an Arab Spring?” BBC News, 24 January 2012, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16685041>; Hamisi Kigwangalla, “Why Was There No ‘African Spring’?”Al Jazeera, 24 July 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/ indepth/opinion/2014/07/why-was-there-no-african-sprin-2014724133730619939.html; Larisa Epatko, “Is Burkina Faso Sub-Saharan Africa’s Version of the Arab Spring?” PBS Newshour, 31 October 2014, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/burkina-fasosubsaharan-africas-version-arab-spring/ 11 Bosch, 122; Freedom House, “Map of Freedom 2014,” Freedom House, https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/MapofFreedom2014.pdf 12 While other types of information communication technologies (ICTs), like satellite television, undoubtedly played a role, a more expansive definition would both make the comparison with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) more difficult and lengthy. Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this essay.

13 This essay’s length constraints make such a focus necessary. Fortunately, a number of resources are available for those seeking a more expansive discussion of youths’ perspectives, motivations, actions, and related matters. See, for example: Samir Khalaf and Roseanne Saad Khalaf, Arab Youth: Social Mobilization in Times of Risk (London: Saqi Books, 2011); Alcinda Manuel Honwana, Youth and Revolution in Tunisia (London: Zed Books Ltd, 2013); Ahmari and Weddady, Arab Spring Dreams.

14 Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain, Democracy's Fourth Wave?: Digital Media and the Arab Spring (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

15 This is not to suggest erroneously that there cannot be mass protests without social media. Indeed, as political analyst Nanjala Nyabola has noted, “The most significant

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political movements in Africa and in other places have occurred independently of social media. Where people need or desire to be organized they will do [so] independently of the technology around them.” However, this essay does assume that technology played an important role in the escalation and contagion of the protests, such as by a demonstration effect during cycles of repression and protest. Not to discuss technology, therefore, would be to miss an important aspect of the Arab Spring. Quoted in Harsch, “‘Arab Spring’ Stirs African Hopes and Anxieties.”

16 Howard and Hussain, 13.

17 There were, of course, other factors involved, but attempting to include all of them would again complicate comparisons with SSA and exceed this essay’s scope.

18 York, 49-50.

19 Ibid.

20 “Freedom on the Net 2011: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media,” ed.

Sanja Kelly and Sarah Cook (Freedom House, 2011), 3.

21 Steven A. Cook, The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, Kindle ed., Council on Foreign Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), loc. 5691.

22 Ibid., loc. 5699; Ghonim was later released on February 7, though the exact reasons for his release remain unclear.

23 Hounshell, 21.

24 Bruns, Highfield, and Burgess, 886.

25 “Freedom on the Net 2011,” 1.

26 Honwana, 200.

27 “Freedom on the Net 2011,” 7.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Saudia Arabia was a 70, Tunisia was an 81, and Iran was an 89. See: ibid., 13-14.

31 Ibid., 13-14.

32 “Freedom on the Net 2012: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media,” ed.

Sanja Kelly, Sarah Cook, and Mai Truong (Freedom House), 3.

33 Ibid., 3-4.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., 3.

36 Ibid., 14.

37 “Does Africa Need an Arab Spring?”

37 Gelvin, 27.

39 Gilbert Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising, ed. G. M. Goshgarian (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 27.

40 This loose definition of youth, which can also vary by culture and country, also potentially undermines comparisons between MENA and SSA. For example, Kenya considers youth to be 18-34 year-olds. Differing conceptions of youth could contribute to differing expectations (for jobs, socio-economic status, family formation, etc.)—and thus different levels of discontent and willingness to protest, even in statistically similar

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circumstances. See: United Nations Development Programme, “Kenya’s Youth Employment Challenge,” in Discussion Paper (2013).

41 Achcar, 27.

42 Ibid., 28-29; Henrik Urdal, “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence,” United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Adolescents, Youth and Development (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2011).

43 Achcar, 28.

44 Ibid., 26.

45 Urdal.

46 Achcar, 33.

47 International Labour Organization, “Unemployment with Tertiary Education (% of Total Unemployment),” The World Bank, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/SL.UEM.TERT.ZS 48 Achcar, 33.

49 Urdal.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Achcar, 33.

54 Ibid., 26.

55 Ibid.

56 Peter Alexander and Kim Wale, “Underemployment: Too Poor to Be Unemployed,” Class in Soweto, ed. Peter Alexander, et al. (Scottsville, South Africa: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2013), 127.

57 International Labour Organization, Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013: A Generation at Risk (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2013), 5.

58 Achcar, 26.

59 The World Bank, “Fixed Broadband Internet Subscribers (Per 100 People),” 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.BBND.P2 60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Author’s calculations.

63 Stephanie Mlot, “Infographic: A Snapshot of Internet Use in Africa,” PC Magazine, 6 November 2013, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426807,00.asp 64 Harsch, 12.

65 The World Bank, “Fixed Broadband Internet Subscribers (Per 100 People),” 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.BBND.P2 66 Bosch, 122.

67 Russell Southwood, “Africa: A Detailed Snapshot of Africa's Emerging Internet and Social Media Space - the Users and What They Are Doing,” allAfrica, 19 September 2014, http://allafrica.com/stories/201409210118.html

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68

Ibid.

Academia’s focus on Facebook and Twitter may be due to their scale, cross-country and inter-regional comparability, and the availability of tools facilitating their study and analysis.

70 The World Bank, “Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (Per 100 People),” 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2 71 GSMA, “Average Annual Growth in the Number of Mobile Connections in Selected Regions Worldwide from 2002 to 2012,” Statista, http://www.statista.com/statistics/ 272168/average-worldwide-growth-of-mobile-connections/ 72 Jan H. Pierskalla and Florian M. Hollenbach, “Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa,” The American Political Science Review 107, no. 2 (2013), 1.

73 Bob Tortora, “Africa Continues Going Mobile,” Gallup, 1 May 2014, http://www.gallup.com/poll/168797/africa-continues-going-mobile.aspx 74 Pierskalla and Hollenbach, 1.

75 Bosch, 121.

76 Pierskalla and Hollenbach, 14.

77 Ibid., 14.

78 Charles Martin-Shields, “Inter-Ethnic Cooperation Revisited: Why Mobile Phones Can Help Prevent Discrete Events of Violence, Using the Kenyan Case Study,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2, no. 3 (2013), 1.

79 Ibid., 3-4.

80 “Freedom on the Net 2013: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media,” ed.

Sanja Kelly, et al. (Freedom House, 2013).

81 Freedom House, “Map of Freedom 2014,” <https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/MapofFreedom2014.pdf> 82 Jay Loschky, “Arab Spring Largely Ignored in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Gallup, 3 July 2014, http://www.gallup.com/poll/172079/arab-spring-largely-ignored-sub-saharanafrica.aspx 83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 This is not, however, to suggest that there are no legitimate bases for comparing the region. Corruption and authoritarian regimes, for example, are areas that could be examined further to look for similarities between pre-Arab Spring MENA and contemporary SSA. 69

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The Influence of Religious Institutions on the Domestic and Foreign Policies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Adam Yefet Adam Yefet is a master’s candidate in International Affairs at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing on international security and development. He received his B.A. in political science from University of California, Santa Barbara.

Abstract A close U.S. ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has informal links to terrorism, and many young Saudis have traveled abroad to take part in Islamic militancy across the Middle East. This paper examines how religious institutions, rather than religious beliefs, influence social norms, and therefore both foreign and domestic policy. It analyzes the effects on regional politics and the U.S.Saudi relationship. The Saudi government under King Abdullah took many positive steps to separate itself from militant groups, but the problem is still clear in the flow of money and militants to Iraq and Syria today. It concludes with recommendations for the United States to continue to engage both diplomatically and culturally with Saudi Arabia in the wake of King Abdullah’s passing, to support the country’s positive moves and encourage progress through collaboration.

The foreign and domestic policies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are heavily influenced by the country’s powerful Wahhabi Islam religious establishment. The United States’ close relationship with the Saudis seems incongruent with the Kingdom’s social norms and its history of investment in violent Islamist groups. What is the role of Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment in defining social norms? How do those same norms impact regional politics and the country’s bilateral relationship with the United States? How should the United States proceed?

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INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY This paper argues that the enormous influence of Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment on social norms has wide-ranging effects on Saudi government policy. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, and the influence of its religious establishment on social norms, especially those related to gender segregation. Subsequently, it explores the internal tensions concerning Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite population and the Kingdom’s adversarial relationship with Shi’ite Iran. It then analyzes the Kingdom’s relationship with the United States. It concludes by evaluating the legacy of King Abdullah and considering the future of U.S.-Saudi relations, with recommendations for U.S. policy-makers.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Wahhabi Islam To understand why the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia wields so much power, one must understand the religio-political history of the Kingdom. The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established in the early 20th century in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, but it is central to centuries of Arab and Muslim history. It is the birthplace of Islam, and home to the two holiest sites in the Muslim religion, the mosques at Mecca and Medina. It is also home to an especially strict interpretation of Islam: Sunni-Wahhabism. A Congressional Research Service report on Saudi terrorist financing described Wahhabism as “an Islamic movement that encourages a return to the pure and orthodox practice of the ‘fundamentals’ of Islam.”1 A scholar of Muslim thought, Samira Haj, describes the ideas “not as a detached set of abstract doctrinal statements about the nature of God and man's relation to it, but as a set of practices constitutive of the scholarly, political and day-to-day life of the community.”2 For Saudis adhering to Wahhabism, the laws of the Quran are not merely philosophy, but a seventh-century manual for society that is to be absolutely obeyed.

The country is a theocratic, dynastic monarchy: The mosque and the state are intimately entangled and led by two ruling families. The government is run by the descendants of the Kingdom’s namesake, Muhammad Ibn Saud, and the religious establishment by the descendants of the founder of 78 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET Wahhabism, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. A pact was formed between these two founders as they established the original Kingdom in the 18th century: Today, each family supports the legitimacy and power of the other.

Figure 1: Map of Saudi Arabia3 The status quo is cemented by the nation’s vast oil wealth. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil. It also holds the world’s second-largest proven reserves, so it will be able to hold its market position for the foreseeable future.4 The royal family and the state enjoy a near unlimited flow of income. The result is a generous Saudi Arabian welfare, or rentier, state. “Obviously if you have enough natural resources you can afford to forget about normal economic activity. The whole society can live as rentiers, that is, on unearned income from wealth. That is the situation in Saudi Arabia.”5 For decades, the petrodollars have well provided for the Saudi people, including heavily subsidized energy prices 79 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY that keep gas under a dollar per gallon and an imported labor force of millions.6 Human Rights Watch, an international NGO that performs research and advocacy for human rights, estimated in 2013 that there were “over 9 million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia — more than half the work force.”7 Only about one in three Saudis participate in the workforce, but just one in five women do.8 The royal family was largely able to avoid the unrest that swept the region in 2011 by making massive investments in the domestic economy and promising social reforms, some of which have materialized and will be explored later in this paper. This rentier economic structure has allowed most Saudis to live in relative comfort, and has created a state reliant on extraction of its natural resources. There is minimal incentive for citizens to work and contribute to the economy. In this environment, the Saudi royal family and the religious establishment wield a great deal of power.

King Faisal declared the Quran as the country’s constitution in 1967, affirming the holy book’s leading role in Saudi law.9 Islam and the Quran are central to life in the Kingdom and govern basic relationships between individuals as well as between the individual and society. The police enforce the moral laws of the clerics. This is important because a high social value is placed on obedience to the rules of the Quran. Following these rules can be equated with being both a good Muslim and a good Saudi citizen. The religious clerical establishment is as much a government bureaucracy as a theological institution, “a ‘business’ that accounts for more jobs than the all-important oil industry.”10 Michael Scott Doran laments the difficulty Saudi Arabia would have dissolving its theocratic structure, comparing it to Communism in Soviet Russia: “Wahhabism is the foundation of an entire political system, and everyone with a stake in the status quo can be expected to rally around it when push comes to shove.”11 The clerics wield significant power, and the royal family both relies on and empowers them. They are the institutional religious voice of Islam in the Kingdom, they are committed to maintaining that position, and “the clerics consider any plan that gives a voice to non-Wahhabis as idolatrous.”12 One scholarly article on Saudi reform observes “this long-running alliance, foundational to the state and necessary in the past for the monarchy to weather challenges, now 80 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET constrains efforts to change Saudi Arabia.”13 Of course, those who have such power are loath to give it up: Reform in the Kingdom is not impossible, but it will not be easy. “Saudi Arabia also is very much a consensus society, and this means progress is often slow and indirect.”14 Samira Haj comments on the environment created by strict adherence to the social rules and the way these rules frame internal debate.

This means that an individual who belongs to the collective has to accept the moral and institutional boundaries that define the community. This, however, does not foreclose debate and contention, only that they unfold within limits, and with the acknowledgment of the value of these understandings and practices as embodied and transmitted through historical practice.15 Established religious interpretation takes place within a specific framework based on centuries of scholarship. Islamic scholars might say they are standing on the shoulders of giants. This is the academic and theoretical world that Saudi scholars use to take an ancient set of rules and apply them to modern society to mimic, as much as possible, the Islamic Golden Age of the time of the prophet Muhammad.16 Social Structure and Rules This section will explore the reforms and changes taking place in Saudi society and examine further paths forward. First, it is important to understand some characteristics of Saudi Arabian society. Examining this strict, rule-based social structure in its domestic context will help examine why Saudi Arabia promotes violent Islamic groups abroad.

This powerful institutional religious ideology as public policy translates to a strict set of rules on society that govern the individual as part of the larger Muslim community.17 Alcohol is banned in Saudi Arabia, as are movie theaters, concerts and many other hallmarks of Western leisure.18 Speech is also curtailed. Not only is it prohibited to speak out against the government, there are also prohibitions on material that supports pluralistic views, or presents the beliefs of others in a positive light. The 81 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY Saudi religious establishment maintains an active strategy of intolerance, and this has significant effects on Saudi society and Saudi policy.

These rules have caused Saudi Arabia to be ranked 205th on the International Human Rights Rank Indicator, just a few spots ahead of North Korea. The only state in the Middle East below them is Syria, currently engaged in a brutal civil war.19 This is key to understanding Saudi society. The Western conception of human rights and the role of government in citizens’ lives on which this ranking is based is not accepted in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government that receives this ranking is interacting with its citizens exactly as it sees fit. The freedoms that the West places a high value on are not as valued in Saudi Arabia. Instead, what is valued is obedience to the rules of the Quran and the rules of the official Saudi clerics.

The Saudi religious establishment is hostile to those not of its specific religious persuasion. One manifestation of this hostility is in intolerant and puritanical rhetoric: For example, an Islamic leader outside Saudi Arabia has expressed that “the very concept of human rights is ‘a Jewish fabrication’ designed to present all religious faiths as of equal value,” and that instead, “Muslims should regard all non-Muslim faiths as, at best, deviations from the truth and, at worst, lies spread by the enemies of Allah.” This sentiment has found support among far-right imams in Saudi Arabia.20 Views that stray from the puritanical message of the clerics are a threat to their power and to the cohesion of the system. Clerics wield their influence to sustain these principles, and they permeate many other sectors of domestic and foreign policy, which will be explored below.

Part of this system involves segregation of men and women. Women in Saudi Arabia are governed by a more restrictive set of rules than men.

Women are not allowed to drive; they cannot obtain a passport or travel without the permission of a male relative; they cannot interact with men because extreme gender segregation is observed in all spheres of life; and women must observe a strict dress code, enforced by the “moral police.” Overall ... an absolutely male82 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET dominated society that does not hesitate to use violence against women.21 These rules are consistent with the goal of maintaining a hierarchal society dominated by men. The exposition and approval by government clerics and by the royal family provide all the social legitimacy necessary for this practice to continue. However, it seems that this strict internal structure serves as an incubator for the militants and funds that leave Saudi Arabia to support Islamic struggles abroad. The socialization of rules and behavior and the pervasive rhetoric hostile to the ‘other’ raises the social value placed on that support. These struggles are often against traditions that do not follow the same rules and are therefore perceived as enemies: Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, the secularizing forces of outsiders, especially of the West, and the Shi’ite Muslim community, which is regarded as apostate. When so much domestic social force is spent demonizing these groups, it is an understandable leap from rhetoric to action.

Enemies, Foreign and Domestic In thinking about the perceptions of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslims of the “other,” much is revealed by their relationship with Shi’ite Muslims in the country. The Shi’ite community in Saudi Arabia makes up 10 to 15 percent of the population, concentrated in the northeast, near Iran, and near Saudi Arabia’s largest oil reserves. Shi’ites have lived in this region for hundreds of years, predating the founding of the Kingdom, and have survived its establishment and rise. However, they are a disenfranchised minority that much of Saudi Arabian society is hostile towards. Saudi Shi’ites are barred from expressing their religion under the threat of arrest and jail, and “the Saudi religious establishment periodically threatens the Shi'ites with genocide.”22 Understanding the relationship between the Saudi state and its Shi’ite community provides a window into understanding Saudi support for militant groups abroad.

The Saudi framework of analysis of the Shi’ite population has two factors.

The first is the belief that the Shi’ite religion is heretical and a threat to 83 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY Wahhabism. In a country politically dominated by its particular strain of Sunni Islam, this frames Shi’ites as a dangerous opposition group. For example, “Saudi clerics such as Nasser al-Omar, who has more than a million Twitter followers ... displays his contempt for the Shia, referring to them as ‘the rejectionists’ and ‘enemies of religion and the nation.”23 For clerics such as al-Omar, accepting Shi’ites would be the first step on the road to pluralism that would diminish the clerics’ political power. All of King Abdullah’s attempts to grant the Shi’ites greater freedom have been adamantly opposed by the religious establishment. Religious leaders worry that one small concession would lead to more, and should democratic reforms ever advance, the Shi’ite voting bloc, along with Saudi progressives, will only further curtail the clerics’ power. Michael Scott Doran posited that the “nightmare scenario is that the Americans and the Iraqi Shi'ites will force Riyadh to enact broad reforms and bring the Saudi Shi'ites into the political community. There is no question that many hardline Saudi clerics share precisely the same fears.”24 That is a frightening prospect for the political future of those who believe, that “Wahhabism is True Islam and that it must have a monopoly over state policy.”25 The second factor in Saudi analysis of the Shi’ites, built on the above fears, is the threat of Shi’ite Iran. Saudi treatment of its internal Shi’ite population and its foreign policy towards states and conflicts across the Arab and Muslim world, and also with the United States, is dominated by its competition with Shi’ite Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia are in an ideological cold war characterized by distrust, paranoia, and reactionary rhetoric and policies. Saudi Arabian commentators can find the Iranian threat, real or imagined, in any regional development. All actions and advancement is measured in how it affects the relative power of each.

Saudi Arabia is a leader among Islamic Nations, as the Custodian of the Two Mosques, Mecca and Medina, and styles itself the representative of Sunni Muslims. Anthony Cordesman referred to the country as “the most important Islamic nation.”26 Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the primary state of the Shi’ite sect. Due to the proximity of the two countries as well as their competition, Saudi Sunnis “fear that the Shia harbour political loyalty to co-religionists in Iran.”27 In this context, Saudi

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ADAM YEFET policy seeks to preempt the emergence of subversive and seditious Shi’ite power in the country.

These fears have been exacerbated by the conflicts of the last decade and show how the seeds of Wahhabi education yielded a harvest of violent Islamic groups in the region, in at least Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq overthrew a Sunni minority government, and the sectarian Sunni-Shi’ite violence that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein became a significant draw for young Saudis and other Sunnis steeped in Wahhabi ideology, as well as Iranians and other Shi’ites. The embattled Iraqi Shi’ite government ANYWHERE THAT SUNNIS that arose, backed by both Iran and the United States, has had difficulty AND SHI’ITES CLASH gaining legitimacy among the Saudis PROVIDES A NEW FRONT and other Sunnis.28 The new government neglected its civic FOR HARDLINERS IN SAUDI responsibilities to serve the Sunni ARABIA TO PONTIFICATE areas of Iraq, and the backlash gave rise to further sectarian violence and ON THE THREAT FROM THE FORMATION OF A “SHI’A militant groups such as ISIS, which some claim began as a Saudi CRESCENT,”… project.29 The tension between Sunni and Shi’ite powers has sustained the country’s instability. Similarly, in Syria, the Saudi regime saw the uprising as an opportunity to weaken an Iranian client state and funneled fighters and millions of dollars of cash and equipment to bring down the Assad regime.30 Anywhere that Sunnis and Shi’ites clash provides a new front for hardliners in Saudi Arabia to pontificate on the threat from the formation of a “Shi’a crescent,” including Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria that will surround and destroy the Kingdom.31 This fear dominates the cultural narrative of Saudi Wahhabism.

Sometimes the fear manifests itself as violence within the Kingdom. In November 2014, radicalized Saudi Sunnis attacked Saudi Shiites leaving a religious building during a major Shi’ite holiday. The Saudi government arrested several perpetrators on terror charges, and linked the violence to 85 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY clerics who encourage young Saudis with violent sectarian sentiments.32 This internal violence spills over from the same rhetoric that spurred thousands of Saudis to join sectarian conflicts raging in Iraq and Syria.

These young men who go to fight are encouraged by influential religious leaders who see threats to Islam and the Kingdom in all things Shi’ite.33 It is easy to argue that if Saudi Sunnis are willing to travel abroad to fight the Shi’ite threat, they should be combatting Shi’ites at home as well. This is the result of a pervasive culture and education that emphasizes the external pressures against the Wahhabi way of life. Daily life in Saudi Arabia is governed by a set of rules that define the behavior of the Sunni Muslim community. A high social value is placed on obedience to these rules. The narrative that the social structure — and way of life — is under threat from enemies of the faith is a strong motivating force for Saudi Muslims and the Saudi government to invest money and lives in its defense.34 Educated to Fear, Hate … and Fight To understand why Saudis travel across the region and the world to fight, their motivations must be understood. About half of Saudi Arabia’s population of 28 million is under the age of 25. Within this segment, there is mass unemployment, with some estimates as high as 40 percent. This is combined with little need to work because of the welfare state and a social history and culture that deem many jobs as below these young men’s social status. This has made for a stagnating economy with a great deal of difficulty in finding an engine for growth: Expansion cannot happen with a population that neither needs nor wants to work.35 One avenue many young Saudi men have taken instead is the path of jihad. Saudis see this as an acceptable, even praiseworthy, thing to do. To understand why, the place to look is Saudi Arabia’s other major export besides oil: Wahhabi Islam.

Saudi Wahhabi education, like oil, is derived from home. As explored above, Islam and the state are intimately connected. One of the central tenets of Islam is the importance of the overarching community of Muslims, the Ummah. That is, the idea that Muslim society is more 86 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET important than nationalism, “the idea that all Muslims constitute one people or nation” of all Muslims around the world. 36 The government and religious establishment of Saudi Arabia maintain that they, and all Saudis, have a responsibility to defend the Ummah. This tenet, combined with a narrative that Islam is under threat from all sides, creates an implicit, and often explicit, call for action.37 Thus, the wealth and support of the nation stands behind all true Muslims struggling against oppression around the world.38,39 This is disseminated from schools to mosques, and in the media, from the street corners to state television and radio.40,41 The Saudi people have embraced this idea, and the vast majority support Islamic organizations around the world as well as Saudi Arabia’s “self-proclaimed image as the defender of the Muslim faithful.” 42 The government cannot easily alter this approach: It cannot stop support for the conflicts considered central to Saudi survival and way of life. Thus, “the decoupling of the Saudi state from religious extremism must be seen as something more than either an administrative or a policing issue.”43 While factions of the Saudi royal family have a cozy relationship with the West, the people of Saudi Arabia have very negative views of the United States and Europe. Saudi people see the presence of NATO forces in the Middle East as part of a conspiracy of “Crusaders and Zionists” to destroy Islam.44 This hatred is deep and pervasive: “polls taken in early 2003 indicated that an astonishing 97 percent of Saudis hold a negative view of the United States.”45 This is no accident given social and cultural policies established by the Saudi government to maintain power and avoid criticism or calls for reform.46 For the vast majority of Saudis who never travel outside the country, all they know about the West is what they are told. Anti-Western sentiment is circulated everywhere, including in the basic education system. Daniel Byman finds that “in Saudi textbooks, the portrayal of the world echoes that of many jihadists, extolling martyrdom, criticising the imitation of the West, calling for restrictions on nonMuslims, and contending that Islam is on the defensive and is undermined by modern trends such as globalisation and modern science.”47 Given the pervasiveness of such rhetoric in Saudi society, it becomes easier to understand the impetus behind militant action.

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INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY Amir Taheri observes, “this exaggerated emphasis on the role of religion in society and the use of Islam as a political ideology to legitimize the regime create a vast space within which extremism and ultimately terrorism emerge and develop as natural attributes of Saudi society.”48 The targeted and explicit hatred that is taught to all Saudi citizens results in a high propensity for a crossover from words and ideas into action. Saudi civilians have not only donated money to support Islamic conflicts, but have been found fighting in all the major struggles involving Muslims around the world.49 Saudi money and fighters have links in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and in the Balkans supporting Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs and Croats. Today, Saudi fighters can be found in Afghanistan, Iraq, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Syria, just to name a few.

Something else from Saudi Arabia is found in those countries and many others. It is schools, or madrassas, and mosques — hundreds of these Wahhabi institutions have emerged around the world over several decades.

There are two primary causes of this trend, events that bookended the year 1979. The first is the Islamic Revolution in Iran. With the rise of a Shi’ite theocracy across the Gulf, the modern intra-Muslim cold war began. One observer writes, “the worldwide surge in Wahhabi mosques began in response to Iran’s attempts to export the Shia radicalism of its 1979 revolution.”50 Saudi Arabia began to provide funding for Wahhabi educational institutions as a counter to Iranian influence in the region and the world. While the two nations will not — cannot — go to war directly given the costs, they do fuel regional sectarian conflicts. Events in Iraq and Syria today indicate the international effects of the regional cold war, especially Iraq, which had a Sunni government overthrown by the war and a Shi’ite regime propped up by the West. A country that was supposed to be a jewel of multi-sectarian unity quickly deteriorated into Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. When at last the country seemed stable enough for American forces to exit, the Shi’ite regime’s abandonment of the Sunni forces it was supposed to command and the neglect of Sunni areas it was supposed to govern created the space for the violent Sunni forces of ISIS to grow and attract recruits. It has been observed that ISIS’s “ultra-violence against religious minorities is also viewed by political analysts and critics as an amplification of Wahhabi hatred for the Shia branch of Islam.”51 Indeed, 88 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET there are suspicions that ISIS was a Saudi project in the fight against Assad, but went out of the control of its handlers.52 As with opening Pandora’s Box, these forces, once released into the world, cannot be withdrawn. Through this lens, it is possible to view the domestic and foreign policies of Saudi Arabia as a social investment, one that builds national security through the military and a worldwide network of zealously devoted religious fighters. Clearly, these investments can have dangerous and unexpected returns.

The second event began Christmas Eve, 1979: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response, the Carter administration and then the newly elected Reagan administration began a decade-long campaign to fund and arm Afghan rebels. Saudi Arabia was a significant provider of funds, arms, and fighters going to Afghanistan through Pakistan. The conflict provided a major conduit for the spread of violent Wahhabi beliefs: Thus, the Cold War-motivated jihad against the Soviets spread Islamic militant fundamentalism at a fever pitch, especially at the Pakistan-Afghan border region, where ubiquitous madrassas training young boys and men in jihad and the Quran served as mujahidin “factories.” Moreover, the Reagan administration explicitly sought out the most militant and fundamentalist mujahidin factions to support, with the supposed logic that their religious fervor would be the most effective for recruiting fighters and maintaining their morale and steadfastness in fighting against the Soviets.53 The religious aspect of their training was heralded as an important factor.

It provided structure for their education and righteousness for their cause.

This was also at a period of resurgent religious evangelism in the United States, exemplified by the election of President Ronald Reagan. This may have given the Reagan administration an illusion of understanding and legitimacy with the religious warriors fighting the “Godless Soviets.” 54 Of course, once the Soviets withdrew, the Islamic-warrior victors did not simply disappear. Some went back to their home countries to found their own Islamic movements.55 Others stayed and “morphed into the Taliban, 89 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY which eventually took over Afghanistan and provided al-Qaeda with a geographic base to build an infrastructure to support terrorist operations around the world.” Saudi foreign policy was keen to support a government that shared its social structure and preached its strain of Islam and narrative of struggle.56 Saudi Arabia was one of the few nations to formally recognize the Taliban government after it consolidated power in Afghanistan.57 The Kingdom was also the Taliban government’s primary financial backer, and today, Pakistan is still a significant pathway for Saudi money to Taliban forces and other violent Sunni groups.58 Since that time, Saudi money has continued to fund Wahhabi schools and education around the world, for an estimated total of $70 billion.59 King Fahd (r.1982-2005) sponsored construction of hundreds of mosques, schools, and Islamic centers, and under King Abdullah, “anecdotal evidence says Saudi mosque-building SAUDI MONEY HAS is powering ahead wherever believers are found, especially in South, Central CONTINUED TO FUND and Southeast Asia, home to about 1bn WAHHABI SCHOOLS AND of the world’s 1.6bn Muslims.”60 These institutions teach a puritanical EDUCATION AROUND THE interpretation of the Quran, WORLD, FOR AN intolerance, and the missions and goals ESTIMATED TOTAL OF $70 of jihad. “Wahhabi ideology has inspired Islamic extremism and BILLION. militancy worldwide, including the likes of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”61 Its effect can be seen in the last decade and more of conflict that has brought recruits from all the over the world to fight Western and Shi’ite forces in the Middle East.

For all the institutions and recruits abroad, the effects of this system are most evident at its source. Saudi citizens themselves have taken part in the sectarian violence and terror of the last fifteen years, led by the infamous, now dead, Osama bin Laden. 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudis. In the first years of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, begun in 2003, Ned Parker of the Los Angeles Times reported that nearly half of foreign fighters in the country were Saudi, and that “fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those 90 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET of any other nationality. ... [a senior U.S. officer] said 50 percent of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers.”62 The last point bears special importance: Only the most radicalized fighters would leave the comfort of their place in Saudi Arabian society to detonate themselves in markets and mosques on foreign soil.

Saudi clerics wield a great deal of influence in their society, and some are activists and advocates for foreign action. A December 2006 statement by more than 30 Saudi clerics urged all Sunnis to back the insurgency in Iraq against Shi’ite and Western forces, who they claimed were working together to crush Sunni Muslims.63 Statements like these by prominent community clerics can radicalize young men to cross borders and join the struggle. Similar calls to action have focused on the conflict in Syria.

Again, “clerics in Saudi Arabia have been encouraging youths to wage jihad in Syria, and constant promotion of the plight of Syrian Sunni Muslims on social media has further fueled an exodus of young men to fight.“64 When faced with the suffering of their co-religionists at the hands of the enemy they fear and hate, many angry, wealthy, and unemployed young Saudis feel compelled to pick up arms and go to battle. For them, this is not someone else’s problem or fight, it is one front of a global war between them and the “other.” That is why U.S. involvement in the region can be so precarious: for all the country’s best intentions, the United States’ misunderstanding of the conflicts it gets involved in, and how its involvement is interpreted, has negative unintended consequences.

The Saudi-U.S. Relationship Given the complexities of Saudi Arabian political and social policies, it is important to consider the U.S.-Saudi relationship as it exists today after the death of King Abdullah, and how the United States should manage the relationship with the royal family going forward. The U.S.-Saudi relationship began to tighten after FDR and King Ibn Saud met in 1945.

The two agreed, among other things, that the United States would maintain a military presence in the Kingdom. Despite some rocky moments, the last few decades have seen growing economic and military cooperation between the two, including tens of billions of dollars in arms 91 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY deals and construction in the Kingdom. These deployments, initially made to protect U.S. oil interests and contain the Soviets, proved useful during the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces. When U.S. forces deployed for Operation Desert Shield, “having U.S.-trained Saudi forces, along with military installations built to U.S. specifications, allowed the American armed forces to deploy in a comfortable and familiar battle environment.”65 The U.S. has maintained a small force there since, which was one of the main stated reasons for Osama bin Laden’s targeting of the U.S. mainland.66 The relationship became strained in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when the nationalities of the perpetrators came to light, and the United States closely scrutinized and revealed Saudi Arabia’s connections with terrorism. However, none of this was enough to dismantle the relationship.67 The Middle East is a volatile area, but Saudi Arabia has been a stable and reliable ally for the United States for decades, as well as a major trading partner.68 As mentioned above, the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi soil and in Saudi military installations was important in the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. It is important to note that, while the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia and nearly every other Arab and Muslim country strongly oppose any peace with Israel — Egypt and Jordan being the exceptions — Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, at the time the Crown Prince, crafted the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, a proposal for peace with Israel, and advocated its adoption by the entire Arab League. 69 In a country that regularly demonizes the state of Israel, the initiative was an important precedent for changing the culture towards peace. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, “Saudi Arabia quietly donated over $100 million to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The supplies are bought in the United States and distributed directly to those who need them. In some cases, this aid arrived before federal or state aid arrived.”70 The move served to strengthen the ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

While the Saudi government did not support the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it did again allow the United States to use Saudi territory as a staging ground for the invasion: “Saudi Arabia opened up its airspace, made available its 92 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET airbases, and housed Special Forces when Turkey reneged on basing U.S. forces at the last moment. Unlike Turkey, which was offered a $30 billion aid package for its support, the kingdom did not ask for any compensation.”71 Saudi Arabia has proven itself a real ally to the United States in its aims and interests in the region. It does this despite the resulting blowback from religious extremists at home, which carries real consequences.

The relationship with the United States comes at a cost for the Saudi government. In 2003, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda opened a front in the Kingdom, beginning with two separate bombings in the capital city of Riyadh. Evidently, some felt that the Saudi royal family was not adhering to the rules it teaches are so important for the rest of its citizens.72 Further, their relationship with the United States, and their permission of U.S. troops in the Kingdom was an affront to Wahhabi ideology. 73 Al-Qaeda’s campaign prompted a significant recapitalization of Saudi security forces to fight domestic terrorism; they successfully killed and captured a significant number of militants and effectively ended the threat in 2006.74 Along with upgrades in the security establishment to face this threat, financial reforms targeting charities that fund militant groups at home and abroad, significant cultural reforms have been undertaken to peel Saudi citizens away from militant ideologies.75 These steps, while limited and slow, are the best avenue toward a society that does not actively stimulate fear, hatred, and religious militancy.

Reform: Challenges and Opportunities Saudi Arabia’s difficulty with reform stems from complicated internal social and political dynamics. Michael Scott Doran has an excellent 2004 review of the tension between the Islamic principles of Tawhid on the conservative side and Taqarub on the liberal side. Tawhid is intolerance of all who do not follow the strict rules of Wahhabi Sunni Islam: The doctrine of Tawhid ensures a unique political status for the clerics in Saudi Arabia. After all, they alone have the necessary training to detect and root out idolatry so as to safeguard the purity of the realm. Tawhid is thus not just an intolerant religious doctrine 93 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY but also a political principle that legitimizes the repressiveness of the Saudi state. 76 It feeds the call to global jihad. This is the dominant institutional doctrine of Saudi Arabia, but it is not without opposition. On the opposite side, Taqarub seeks peace with other religious communities, extending them political involvement and freedoms domestically. Citing again from Doran’s review, “in foreign policy, Taqarub downplays the importance of jihad, allowing Saudis to live in peace with Christian Americans, Jewish Israelis, and even Shi'ite Iranians. In short, Taqarub stands in opposition to the siege mentality fostered by Tawhid.”77 At the time Doran was writing, in 2004, King Fahd sat on the Saudi throne, mostly incapacitated by a stroke. Beneath him, his younger halfbrothers, the two most powerful princes, represented the two sides. Prince Nayef, also the Minister of the Interior, was the champion of Tahwid.

Crown Prince Abdullah, who was effectively the regent following Fahd’s 1995 stroke as well as commander of the Saudi National Guard, represented the champion of Taqarub.78 “The two camps divide over a single question: whether the state should reduce the power of the religious establishment.”79 Ultimately, Abdullah reigned as king from 2005 until his death in 2015, and Nayef, his crown prince, passed away in 2012 without ever ruling. In January 2015, their half-brother Salman ascended to the throne. His successor was named by King Abdullah, and Salman has named the next in line after that, a significant transition to the next generation. There are important question surrounding how Saudi policy will proceed in the coming months and years. U.S. policy-makers need to understand King Abdullah’s moves in the context of Saudi politics. If U.S. policy-makers want reforms to continue in the direction of the West, they will need to build a plan to consistently and appropriately engage with the Saudi monarchy.

King Abdullah took significant steps towards reform in Saudi Arabia, and the difficulty of this task should not be underestimated. The Saudi king has to work within the complex and rigid Saudi religious and political establishment. Many of Abdullah’s reforms sought to open up basic 94 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET human rights to more Saudis and create relationships outside of the Muslim world. He expanded female participation in the workplace, universities, sports, and local elections and, “imposed greater controls on the religious police, curbing its violent abuses of citizens and restricting its patrols.”80 In January 2013, Abdullah appointed 30 women to the top advisory body in the Kingdom, the Shura Council. This was the first time any women were allowed on the Council as formal members, and it made women one-fifth of the council’s membership.

This move and others, despite their relatively small impact, were met with rare public protests by a small group of “ultraconservative, anti-Western sheikhs who regard any societal change as a Western-inspired threat to Saudi Arabia's Islamic identity.” The stated grievances of the protesters, which can be summarized under the theme “sponsoring ideological chaos and cultural looseness,” provides a useful snapshot of the reforms and the clerics’ views.81 Carlyle Murphy, reporting on the makeshift demonstration, commented that the clerics were not coming from official religious institutions, which is not acceptable in Saudi society, but that their sentiments “are amply represented among state-employed clerics, who are simply more judicious about voicing their opinions.”82 That view could be widespread, but the changes may be contributing to cultural shifts. Less than two years later, the Shura council called for loosening the ban on Saudi women driving. The plan is still very restrictive, but almost 25 years after the first major protests to the ban, this could be a sign of further changes to come. One significant part of the plan, “the Shura Council said a ‘female traffic department’ would have to be created to deal with female drivers when their cars break down or if they encounter other problems…[and] also suggested stiff restrictions on interactions between female drivers and male traffic officers or other male drivers, and stiff penalties for those breaking them.”83 The creation of such a department would mean more female employment, and put female Saudis in a position of authority in their communities, paving the way for further female empowerment.

The King had also pushed major educational reforms that have pulled away from strict Wahhabism and sought to counter hate-fueled and violent attitudes with international and interfaith outreach. Soon after becoming 95 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY king, Abdullah hosted a conference of Islamic scholars from all over the world to discuss issues of terrorism, extremism, other faiths and Muslims as minority communities in non-Muslim countries.84 Subsequently, “In 2007, he became the first Saudi monarch to visit the Vatican, where he met Pope Benedict XVI. The king also hosted an international interfaith summit in Spain and funded construction of an interfaith center in Austria.” These efforts were met with rebuke by the most conservative Saudi clerics, “because they explicitly repudiated the Wahhabi dictum that non-Muslims are “infidels” to be shunned lest they weaken a true Muslim's faith.85 He encouraged changes in textbooks and curriculum that remove the most vitriolic hate speech.86 He has also pushed hard on religious scholars to denounce ISIS, and moved to stem the flow of militants out of the country, arresting and punishing those caught trying to cross borders to join their cause.87 An important institution of cultural evolution established by King Abdullah is the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, which between 2005 and 2014 sent hundreds of thousands of Saudi students, including tens of thousands of women, to study abroad, about half of whom went to the United States.88 While the Saudi government has sponsored study-abroad programs for decades, this program is the largest of its kind in the country.89 This program has the potential ABDULLAH to foster generational change for young Saudis, who will return with a new DEMONSTRATED THAT understanding of other cultures and INCREMENTAL CHANGES peoples. Many of these more culturally IN FAVOR OF MINORITY aware students will end up leading the public sector as well as the rapidly AND GENDER RIGHTS expanding private sector. Programs like ARE POSSIBLE. these should be lauded, encouraged, and expanded by Western nations, as they offer an unmatched opportunity to shift the culture of Saudi Arabia by broadening the perspective of its top students. Abdullah demonstrated that incremental changes in favor of minority and gender rights are possible. The United States needs to quietly encourage King Salman and the royal family to continue, and indeed accelerate, down this path.

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ADAM YEFET Looking Forward King Salman, who ascended to the throne in 2015, is, at this point, an unknown commodity. He governed the city of Riyadh for nearly 50 years, and profiles have linked him with jihadi movements in the past.90 However, as a prominent leader in the House of Saud, it would be difficult to avoid such relationships, which are an integral part of Saudi politics.

Wearing the crown, however, is a different story. Salman faces enormous domestic and international problems. Now that he is the head of the country, his own legacy is at stake. Reform could continue, or the religious establishment could see a resurgence.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia must encourage greater participation of all Saudis in civic society, and in a diversifying economy, emphasize that a strong relationship with the international community is a better social investment for the nation and the Muslim community than strict Wahhabi education and jihad. Furthermore, the continued advancement towards minority and gender equality are crucial to social change. Continuing to lift restrictions on women and Shi’ites, as well as expanding their political rights, will diversify the voices being heard, allow new coalitions of advocacy to form, and improve the Saudi economy through increased participation. Establishing institutional community roles for women and Shi’ites to fill, such as a female traffic authority, will be empowering and make their presence and participation in society normal, thereby influencing a younger generation. Further promotion of women and minority groups to high-level positions will increase the general participation of their communities and further the process of their political integration. These changes are not immediate, but generational, and they must be evaluated as such. Western observers cannot expect a dramatic shift towards Western-style democracy, human rights, and Western-style economy. These changes — if they occur at all — will take time.

In 2010 the United States struck a major new arms deal with the Kingdom, with more than $60 billion in new sales, including fighter jets and helicopters.91 Military deals continue to be the major focus of governmentto-government relations. Although the narrow focus on military procurement is not ideal, this is a positive development because the 97 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY relationship remains strong, and the best avenues for reforms that move away from the strict Wahhabi culture in Saudi Arabia are through economic and cultural engagement with the West. Disengagement would eliminate that avenue and remove one of the few external sources of incentives and pressure for pursuing reform. The reforms that took place under the rule of King Abdullah were a step in the right direction, and could be expanded upon in numerous ways, including the invitation of foreigners into the country under the protection of the royal family. This could be for academic study-abroad programs, research in any variety of fields, cultural events, or even subsidized tourism for non-Muslims.

Increasing the cultural diversity flowing in and out of the country will be beneficial. This will serve to disseminate diverse perspectives within a society that has traditionally closed itself off and held itself aloof from outsiders, and give Saudis an opportunity to share their culture. Foreign outreach and engagement will encourage foreign direct investment, help to diversify the Saudi economy, and influence the creation of infrastructure and educational institutions to meet new needs. Perhaps most importantly, improving labor force participation rates may reduce the perceived desirability of radicalism.

The United States government should encourage the changes originating from within the country and provide support where possible without seeming to impose its will. In a country where the United States is not popular, obvious and public U.S. support can hinder and damage the reformersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; efforts.92 The United States needs to make the case that a strong relationship is better for Saudi Arabia than a poor one. U.S. policy should encourage further engagement in order to facilitate high-level and mid-level talks on a variety of economic and technological issues that expose Saudi leaders and opinion-makers to the opportunities they can provide for their country. If the appetite exists for some of the attractions of Western civilization, they will find a way to adapt it and craft an appropriate narrative. As the Kingdom seeks to expand the economy and the private sector, engagement on development and technological advancement will serve all parties involved. Saudi Arabiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership in the Muslim world can continue by fostering connections between that world with the international community and further integrating into the 98 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ADAM YEFET world economy. It will also serve to highlight Iran’s continued intransigence, raise Saudi economic prospects in relation to their rival, and consequently improve Saudi security.

It should be a priority for Saudi leadership to connect more Saudi citizens with the values of pluralism and equality within their own society. The royal family should continue to move to expand voting rights, education, and diverse participation in the private and public sectors. Gradual as it may be, the cultural effects will cascade in the decades to come. Security forces need to provide security to all, including Shi’ite citizens and foreign laborers working in the country. The Saudi royal family, including the king, needs to be seen publically engaging with leaders in these communities within the country to make their presence acceptable and eventually desirable, while making attacks on them unacceptable. The king also needs to do what he can to curtail intolerant rhetoric from the clerical leadership. If possible, he should seek to promote more tolerant clerics to positions of power. The United States should support these efforts through its own engagement with Saudi leaders, but not through direct engagement with other communities, as pictures of U.S. leaders with leaders of communities that are not yet accepted will provide opponents material to attack initiatives as being conspiratorial.

U.S. policy-makers should seek to provide more resources for students to study abroad in Saudi Arabia and for Saudi students to come to the United States. Congress and the White House should also encourage privatesector engagement with Saudi Arabia to support the country’s burgeoning economy and increase employment. They could do so with tax incentives, trade deals, and public-private partnerships to promote greater economic cooperation. Selling military equipment is not enough. These deals need to include equipment and materials that will be seen as beneficial to their country and people, not just their military. With the growing numbers of U.S.-educated Saudis, this would provide an avenue to maintain their connection to the United States through employment and normalize a commercial U.S. presence in the country. It will also encourage U.S. citizens to travel, live, and work in the Kingdom. The private actors that do engage need to be able to portray their involvement as a benefit for 99 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON SAUDI POLICY Saudi society, rather than simply a means for profit. Our representatives should be a diverse group that models our vision of a pluralistic society.

Innovators in the fields of science, medicine, and the arts have the potential to engage Saudi citizens and improve their lives, with the result that their suspicions about the United States might be alleviated. These engagements might, at first, be met with resistance by hard-liners, but successes will breed further successes and soften Saudi views.

It is important to note that there are risks for companies and students involved, especially that they may be inadvertently touching money that supports terror. U.S. agencies should provide investigative support for companies doing business with Saudi Arabian industries to make sure their counterparts are compatible with the laws and values of the United States. In addition, they also risk of being singled out for attacks by religious extremists. This kind of engagement and cultural mixing is exactly what the conservative establishment does not want, and they will protest these new relationships loudly. Engagement would need to be gradual to be safe and have the desired effect, and the United States government would need to partner with Saudi Arabian government to ensure security and protection.

Finally, the United States needs to gain a deeper understanding of the politics of the country to carve a path for its public diplomacy. This means a light footprint, and working in partnership with Saudis to shape their messages for the long-term empowerment and encouragement of reformers. The United States needs to push reform quietly and allow Saudis to take the initiative and the credit for doing so without the appearance of U.S. pressure. It should give reformers space to claim victories, and sometimes that may even mean victories that appear to push back at the United States. Reform needs not only to look like, but actually be, Saudi leaders looking out for the best interests of Saudi Arabia. It is Saudis themselves who need to advocate for these policy changes and be the champions of their own causes. If they appear to be pawns of the United States, they will fail. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is poised to move forward, but it needs to do so on its own terms.

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ADAM YEFET Endnotes 1

Christopher M. Blanchard and Alfred B. Prados, “Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues,” Congressional Research Service (CRS), RL32499, September 14, 2007, 20.

2 Samira Haj, “Reordering Islamic Orthodoxy: Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab,” The Muslim World 92, (2002): 339.

3 "Saudi Arabia Map." Wikimedia Commons. February 9, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2015. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saudi_Arabia_map.png.

4 International Monetary Fund, Saudi Arabia, Selected Issues, (IMF, June 2013), http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13230.pdf 5 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion, (Oxford University Press, 2008), 38.

6 CNN Staff, “CNN/Money: Global Gas Prices.” CNNMoney, December 3, 2014. http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/ 7 Human Rights Watch, “Saudi Arabia: Protect Migrant Workers’ Rights,” July 2, 2013, http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/01/saudi-arabia-protect-migrant-workers-rights 8 United States Department of Labor, “Saudi Arabia: Economic Weakness Led to Unemployment Rate Hike.” April 20, 2010, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/diplomacy/G20_ministersmeeting/G20-SaudiArabia-stats.pdf 9 “Faisal Review the Incidents of Zionist Aggression.” Muqatel, October 20, 1967, http://www.muqatel.com/openshare/Wthaek/Khotob/Khotub13/AKhotub119_61.htm_cvt.htm#‫ال قرى أم‬ 10 Amir Taheri, “Saudi Arabia: Between Terror and Reform,” American Foreign Policy Interests 26, no. 6 (2004): 458.

11 Michael Scott Doran, “The Saudi Paradox,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 1 (2004): 51.

12 Ibid. 36.

13 Christopher Clary and Mara E. Karlin, “Saudi Arabia’s Reform Gamble.” Survival, Global Politics and Strategy 53, no. 5 (2011): 16.

14 Anthony H. Cordesman, “Saudi Arabia: Friend Or Foe In The War On Terror?” Middle East Policy 13, no. 1 (2006): 36.

15 Haj, “Reordering Islamic Orthodoxy: Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab,” 339.

16 Doran, 36.

17 Haj, 335-337.

18 Carlyle Murphy, “Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam,” Foreign Policy, October 29, 2014.

19 International Human Rights Rank Indicator,” http://www.ihrri.com/ (Accessed October 9, 2014).

20 Taheri, 460.

21 Hayat Alvi, “The Diffusion of Intra-Islamic Violence and Terrorism: The Impact of the Proliferation of Salafi/Wahhabi Ideologies.” Middle East Review of International Affairs 18, no. 2 (2014): 47.

22 Doran, 41, 51.

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23

Heba Saleh and Simeon Kerr, “Saudi Arabia ‘in Denial’ Over ISIS Ideology,” Financial Times, September 30, 2014, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ae16214c-47c311e4-be7b-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3I76k5m40 24 Doran, 50.

25 Ibid., 47.

26 Cordesman, 37.

27 Simeon Kerr, “Police in Saudi Arabia Arrest Six Men on Terror Charges,” Financial Times, November 4, 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1b72544-63e1-11e4-8ade00144feabdc0.html 28 Bruce Riedel and Bilal Saab, “Al Qaeda’s Third Front: Saudi Arabia.” Washington Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2008): 43.

29 Steve Clemons, “‘Thank God for the Saudis’: ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback,” The Atlantic, June 23, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive /2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraqsyria-bandar/373181/ 30 Aaron Blake, “Why this Joe Biden Gaffe Matters More,” Washington Post, October 6, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/06/why-this-joe-bidengaffe-matters-more/ 31 Riedel and Saab, “Al Qaeda’s Third Front: Saudi Arabia.” 41-42.

32 Kerr, “Police in Saudi Arabia Arrest Six Men on Terror Charges” 33 Riedel and Saab, “Al Qaeda’s Third Front: Saudi Arabia.” 40-42.

34 Simeon Kerr, “Saudi Arabia Cracks down on Youths Joining Syria Jihadis,” Financial Times, February 4, 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c98efe4e-8d88-11e3-bbe700144feab7de.html 35 Simeon Kerr, “Saudi Arabia’s Rulers Face Dilemma on Economic Reforms,” Financial Times, February 3, 2014, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/29a6f058-8a68-11e39c29-00144feab7de.html#axzz3I7CFJxKC 36 Thomas Hegghammer, “Islamist Violence and Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia,” International Affairs 84, no. 4 (2008): 703.

37 Ibid., 703-705.

38 Daniel Byman, “Passive Sponsors of Terrorism,” Survival 47, no. 4 (2005): 120-123.

39 Bruce Riedel, “The Return of the Knights: al-Qaeda and the Fruits of Middle East Disorder,” Survival 49, no. 3 (2007): 109.

40 Taheri, 459.

41 Byman, 119.

42 Ibid., 123.

43 Taheri, 459.

44 Riedel, Bruce. “The Return of the Knights: al-Qaeda and the Fruits of Middle East Disorder,” 108.

45 Byman, 121.

46 Doran, 40.

47 Byman, 120.

48 Taheri, 459.

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49

Clemons, “‘Thank God for the Saudis’” Staff, “Does Saudi Arabia Fund Terrorism?” Middle East Quarterly 13, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 63-64.

Eric Lichtblau, “Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists.” The New York Times, June 23, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html Byman, 119, 121-122.

Ian Black, “End of an era as Prince Bandar departs Saudi intelligence post,” The Guardian, April 16, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/princebandar-saudi-intelligence-syria Riedel, 113.

Riedel and Saab. “Al Qaeda’s Third Front: Saudi Arabia.” 38-41.

50 David Gardner, “Saudis Have Lost the Right to Take Sunni Leadership.” Financial Times, August 7, 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab1b61c4-1cb6-11e4-b4c700144feabdc0.html 51 Saleh and Kerr, “Saudi Arabia ‘in Denial’ Over ISIS Ideology” 52 Clemons, “‘Thank God for the Saudis’” 53 Alvi, 41.

54 Tom Engelhardt, “The Ten Commandments for a Better American World,” Tom Dispatch, March 1, 2015, http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175962/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_ten_com mandments_for_a_better_american_world 55 Zachary Abuza, “Borderlands, Terrorism, and Insurgency in Southeast Asia,” The Borderlands of Southeast Asia (2011): 90-91, 93.

56 James A. Russell, “Saudi Arabia in The 21st Century: A New Security Dilemma.” Middle East Policy 12, no. 3 (2005): 64-79.

57 Alvi, 47.

58 Declan Walsh “Wikileaks Cables Portray Saudi Arabia as a Cash Machine for Terrorists,” The Guardian, December 5, 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-saudi-terrorist-funding 59 Byman, 119.

Blanchard and Prados, 21.

“Does Saudi Arabia Fund Terrorism?” 1-3.

60 Gardner, “Saudis Have Lost the Right to Take Sunni Leadership” 61 Alvi, 40.

62 Ned Parker, “The Conflict in Iraq: Saudi Role in Insurgency,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/15/world/fg-saudi15 63 Riedel and Saab, 40-41.

64 Kerr, “Saudi Arabia cracks down on youths joining Syria jihadis” 65 Joshua Teitelbaum, “Arms for the King and His Family: The U.S. Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia,” Jerusalem Issue Briefs 10, no. 11 (2010): 1-7.

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David Plotz, “What Does Osama Bin Laden Want?” Slate.com, September 14, 2001, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2001/09/what_does_osama_ bin_laden_want.html 67 Alvi, 42-43, 48.

68 Cordesman, 37-38.

69 Taheri, 459-460.

Cordesman, 35-36.

70 Ibid., 37-38.

71 Ibid., 31.

72 “The chief difference between the ways al Qaeda and the Saudi religious establishment define their primary foes is that the former includes the Saudi royal family as part of the problem whereas the latter does not.” Doran, 43.

73 Plotz, “What Does Osama Bin Laden Want?”

74 Riedel and Saab, “Al Qaeda’s Third Front: Saudi Arabia,” 39-42.

75 Cordesman, 36.

76 Doran, 37.

77 Ibid., 38.

78 Kelly McEvers, “Saudi King Abdullah, Who Laid Foundation for Reform, Dies,” National Public Radio, January 22, 2015, http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/22/141567083/saudi-king-abdullah-who-laidfoundation-for-reform-dies 79 Ibid.

80 Murphy, “Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam.”

81 “What Is Behind the Clerics’ Royal Court Protest,” Riyadh Bureau, January 20, 2013, http://riyadhbureau.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/20131behind-clerics-royal-court-protest/ (Accessed October 23, 2014).

82 Murphy, “Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam” 83 “Shura Council Calls to Reconsider Saudi Driving Ban,” Albawaba, November 8, 2014, http://www.albawaba.com/news/shura-council-calls-reconsider-saudi-driving-banwomen-620011 (Accessed November 16, 2014).

84 Cordesman, 37.

85 Murphy, “Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam.”

86 Taheri, 459.

87 Saleh and Kerr, “Saudi Arabia ‘in Denial’ Over ISIS Ideology” Kerr, “Saudi Arabia cracks down on youths joining Syria jihadis” 88 Saudi-US Relations Information Service, “King Abdullah Scholarship Program: The Saudi Arabian Educational Youth Stride,” July 20, 2012, http://susris.com/2012/07/30/king-abdullah-scholarship-program-the-saudi-arabianeducational-youth-stride/ Murphy, “Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam.”

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89

“Saudi Arabia Cultural Mission to the U.S.” January 1, 2012, http://www.sacm.org/ArabicSACM/pdf/education_web.pdf (Accessed December 5, 2014).

90 David Andrew Weinberg, “King Salman’s Shady History,” Foreign Policy, January 27, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/27/king-salmans-shady-history-saudi-arabiajihadi-ties/ 91 Teitelbaum, 1-3.

92 Cordesman, 41.

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Multi-stakeholder Muddle: Finding Accountability in Global Internet Governance Jack Karsten Jack Karsten is a second-year graduate student in the International Science and Technology Policy program at the Elliott School of International Affairs. He earned his bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Economics at Boston College.

Jack has completed internships in the United States Senate, the Council on Competitiveness, and the Department of State. Jack also plays viola in the George Washington University Orchestra. His current focus is on innovation policy, and how technological change enhances economic growth. With his masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree, Jack wants to communicate technology research and development priorities with policymakers.

Abstract This paper describes the increasing complexity of Internet governance and recommends policy proposals for addressing related issues in the near term. The Internet began with networked mainframe computers at research universities in the United States, and grew to cover billions of users and devices around the world.

As the Internet expands, there have been various attempts to formalize a governance structure that includes all current and potential stakeholders. The United States government historically served a special oversight role through its contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The contract is set to expire in anticipation of a multi-stakeholder model that distributes authority to interested corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations. However, this multi-stakeholder model lacks specific safeguards that prevent stakeholders from abusing their power. Instead of transferring authority to the new governing body, the United States should continue its oversight role until a multi-stakeholder body demonstrates an ability to cope with governance challenges.

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JACK KARSTEN Background In order to fully discuss the future of Internet governance, it is instructive to consider the Internet’s history. Much of the research and development of early computer networks was government-funded. Prior to the Internet, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) connected computers owned by federally-funded research centers at universities around the United States. The scientists working on the project viewed ARPANET as a way to share computing power and specialized machines with research universities. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense officials that approved funding for the project held another set of priorities: the creation of a decentralized communications network that could survive a nuclear attack.1 Through this, ARPANET demonstrated how a given technology attracts multiple stakeholders with different ideas about its use.

The researchers who worked on ARPANET developed a distributed method of decision-making for their work. Stephen Crocker, a graduate student at UCLA, started a standardization process that he called Request for Comments (RFCs). The original RFCs asked interested members of the ARPANET community what they thought about a given technical question and the replies were compiled into a single document that represented the ideas of the entire group. While all authors sign an RFC, no individual contributions received attribution. This method is a multistakeholder approach for setting technology standards that prefigures proposed models of Internet governance.

The history of the Internet’s address system, called the Domain Name System (DNS), also sheds light on what future oversight might look like.

Internet historian Ross Rader states that DNS is “a conscious product of human design...no one realizes this until the time to make a change has long passed…the average person, who is generally the most affected, has little or no opportunity to participate in the process.”2 DNS was conceived in RFC 799 and published in 1981, as a way to maintain a global master list of the addresses of Internet-connected computers. As the network grew, disagreements over who should manage the system sparked “The 107 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE DNS Wars.” While the various stakeholders argued among themselves, President Clinton directed the Department of Commerce to “privatize, increase competition in, and promote international participation in the domain name system.”3 In 1998, The Department of Commerce finally awarded ICANN the contract for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which includes managing DNS and other vital technical functions. The history of ICANN’s contract shows the power of a central authority to make progress on technical issues in spite of stakeholder disagreement.

ICANN’s Board of Directors includes voting members who set policies and non-voting members who advise and observe. The non-voting members include the Government Advisory Committee (GAC), a group of 111 country representatives that make recommendations to the ICANN Board.4 The United States is part of the GAC in addition to holding a contract with ICANN itself. This privileged position has led to some proposals to transfer this contract to an intergovernmental organization such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a UN body that sets standards for communications technology. Each ITU member receives a single vote regardless of population size or Internet penetration, a system that gives smaller countries more power than proportional representation. The ITU also benefits governments with limited resources by providing a single forum for handling international technology policy.

Oversight of ICANN’s contract was assigned to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Department of Commerce. As its name implies, NTIA’s primary role is “advising the President on telecommunications and information policy issues,”5 which becomes increasingly important as more technology policy issues involve international stakeholders. The White House, Department of State, and other executive branch agencies may have a hand in developing a global framework for Internet governance. NTIA also focuses on “ensuring that the Internet remains an engine for continued innovation and economic growth,”6 which includes overseeing the ICANN contract. The contract allows NTIA to ensure that

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Figure 1: ICANN Organization Chart7

the Internet continues to function smoothly, empowering economic growth around the world.

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MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE In addition to NTIA, Congress has also shown an interest in ICANN’s activities. Since 1997, congressional committees have held 33 hearings on the DNS function as it relates to issues from intellectual property protections to cybercrime.8 Some legislators have introduced bills to protect the interests of the American government with regards to ICANN’s functions. Securing government websites with .gov and .mil top-level domains (TLDs) are one important objective. Section 1646 of Senate Bill 2140 would give the Department of Defense sole power over the .mil TLD. A House version of the FY2015 budget, HR 4660, forbids the Department of Commerce to use funds to carry out the IANA transition.

Meanwhile, a Senate version of the budget, S.2437, requires NTIA to report on how the IANA transition will protect ICANN from foreign government or intergovernmental influence. These bills demonstrate Congress is prepared to use its legislative and budgetary power to maintain the U.S. government’s relationship with ICANN. The multi-stakeholder model does not necessarily align the interests of Internet users with those of the stakeholders that make decisions. For instance, the multi-stakeholder approach sharply contrasts with the representational structure of rulemaking THE MULTI-STAKEHOLDER democratically-elected bodies. In Congress, for example, MODEL DOES NOT citizens elect a fixed number of NECESSARILY ALIGN THE representatives that share their views on a wide variety of issues.

INTERESTS OF INTERNET Constituents can elect new USERS WITH THOSE OF THE representatives in an upcoming STAKEHOLDERS THAT election if they are dissatisfied with the incumbent’s voting record. The MAKE DECISIONS. multi-stakeholder model currently lacks any similar and specific criterion for approving or denying membership. Approved stakeholders could make decisions that affect all Internet users without having any accountability to them. Users could still contact representatives of their national governments, but their power would be diluted by the addition of businesses and non-governmental

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JACK KARSTEN organizations that may have differing interests. A multi-stakeholder model does not automatically guarantee greater accountability for Internet users.

A multi-stakeholder model would also need a mutually agreed upon conflict resolution process. Governments and corporations could move to block competitors’ interests without leaving the aggrieved party any opportunities to appeal. ICANN was incorporated under California state law, with all of its associated rights and responsibilities. Anyone with a claim could sue in a California court and seek damages taken from ICANN’s physical assets. The contract with the Department of Commerce adds another level of legal safeguards. ICANN could sue the federal government or vice versa if either party failed to uphold their end of the agreement. If ICANN moved to another jurisdiction, it could lose some protections afforded by the American legal system. Developing a satisfactory dispute resolution system would ensure that ICANN remains accountable for its actions.

The discussion of Internet governance includes numerous technical and political issues. To address the implications of Internet governance, it helps to define the issue more narrowly. In 2014, the Congressional Research Service published a report on Internet Governance admitting that “there is no universally agreed upon definition.”9 The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and offered the following definition: “Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”10 This definition identifies different stakeholders and issue areas within Internet governance, but stops short of matching the stakeholders to issues.

Without clearly delineated duties between stakeholders, there are no barriers to groups trying to wield power outside their area of expertise.

Notably, the WSIS definition expands the concept of Internet governance beyond general maintenance and standard setting, two areas already covered by ICANN and other Internet groups. An effective multistakeholder framework must clearly assign responsibilities to each

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MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE stakeholder so some issues are not continually debated while other concerns are underrepresented.

Transparent Transfer Without a precise definition of Internet governance, many different groups can claim a stake in some aspect of the Internet. Given the Internetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s multiplicity of uses, its growing user-base, and the variety of services it provides, how should one define an Internet stakeholder? Should the Internet be governed by information technology professionals or by its end users? The former option assumes that the Internet is politically neutral, or that IT professionals are equipped to make political decisions. The latter option recognizes the political importance of the Internet and provides for popular representation. Anyone could potentially benefit from Internet access, but declaring everyone a stakeholder presents some practical problems. By splitting representation among interested companies, standards organizations, and governments, a multi-stakeholder approach would radically depart from established models of international governance.

There are very few governance models that encompass almost the entire worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population; the United Nations is perhaps the best known international organization, but its members delegate very little authority to the body. Full representation and no authority allow the UN to pass recommendations but not implement them. There is a proposal from several Member States of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an independent unit of the United Nations, to transfer IANA authority to that body.11 Any corporations or non-profits that have an interest in Internet governance would have to lobby their ITU representative for consideration of their views. In this system, all member countries would get equal voice in the proceedings of the ITU, despite differences in the number of Internet users or positions on Internet governance. For this reason, NTIA would be justified in rejecting a proposal for oversight by an intergovernmental body.

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JACK KARSTEN Though the Internet is a global network, its individual and corporate users still reside in nation-states ruled by sovereign governments. Internet users have no political standing except in the country where they hold citizenship. Likewise, businesses are incorporated according to the laws of one or more nation-states. Government delegates speak on the behalf of their citizens and corporations about transnational issues. Citizens and corporations may disagree with their government’s position, or have interests in multiple countries, but they still have no political power outside of the nation-state system. A multi-stakeholder system would have to bypass international political hierarchy such that governments, corporations, and NGOs have an equal say on Internet governance issues.

In recent years, the Obama Administration has faced mounting pressure from foreign governments to reduce the influence of the United States government on the Internet. In March of 2014, NTIA announced its intention to release ICANN from its contract when it expires on September 30, 2015. The agency wishes to move to an international multistakeholder governance model for IANA after its contract expires. NTIA has requested that ICANN establish a multi-stakeholder group to take over its oversight position. This transition introduces uncertainty into ICANN’s ability to coordinate a global address system for the Internet. For example, ICANN would be unable to guarantee the services it currently provides without the legal protections provided in its contract with NTIA. Congress must direct NTIA to demonstrate how ICANN will maintain these protections in a new governance model. Consequently, NTIA should delay its planned transition until it provides more concrete details on a future governance model.

In order to facilitate a future transition, NTIA must provide a more detailed plan that better communicates the objectives of the new Internet governance model for potential stakeholders. NTIA wants the United States to share responsibility for Internet governance with other nations and non-government stakeholders. However, governments such as Russia have sought greater control over the global infrastructure of the Internet, counter to the purposes of a multi-stakeholder model.12 These states criticize the perceived influence of the United States, pointing to ICANN’s 113 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE contract with NTIA. Their criticisms gained additional credence, at least symbolically, with the evidence that the National Security Agency (NSA) was listening in on calls made by foreign heads of state. 13 However, this issue focuses on the actions of the NSA rather than the governance of NTIA and has nothing to do with ICANN’s contract with the federal government. Allowing the contract to expire will not address the issues of privacy and government surveillance that these nations raise.

NTIA has not clearly demonstrated how the status quo hurts the United States or what it will gain from the change to a multi-stakeholder governance model. On behalf of the federal government, NTIA has renewed its contract several times since ICANN was established in 1998, and can do so as many times as is necessary. To justify its change of NTIA HAS NOT CLEARLY course, NTIA cites a 1998 DEMONSTRATED HOW THE Department of Commerce STATUS QUO HURTS THE Statement of Policy that the United States is “committed to a UNITED STATES OR WHAT IT transition that will allow the WILL GAIN FROM THE CHANGE private sector to take leadership TO A MULTI-STAKEHOLDER for DNS management.”14 However, that justification does GOVERNANCE MODEL. not account for growing interest in Internet governance issues in intervening years among national governments. Privatization may be a worthy goal, but the growth of Internet usage around the world makes privatization increasingly complicated in practice. The addition of stakeholders will only dilute the power of the United States government and American businesses.

While nations have a great deal of control over the Internet within their own borders, opponents of the change demand guarantees that national governments will not set standards for the global Internet. Satisfying the opposition will be difficult, since a multi-stakeholder model would necessarily include delegates from countries that have poor records on Internet freedom. A new oversight body would have to define Internet stakeholders broadly enough to satisfy critics of United States government 114 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

JACK KARSTEN influence, but narrowly enough to avoid the influence of any bloc of governments. Meanwhile, these government representatives will have to share power with businesses and non-governmental organizations in a multi-stakeholder model. Increasing the number of groups overseeing the IANA contract allows for endless combinations of competing interests.

Once NTIA oversight responsibility has been relinquished and diffused among many independent stakeholders, there is no way to return that responsibility to the United States.

Small countries that lack expertise on the Internet’s technical standards would benefit from the autonomy that the United States has given ICANN. The United States government has not yet pressured ICANN using its contract, reflecting the quality of work that ICANN has accomplished so far. In more than fifteen years since ICANN’s establishment, the amount of information on the Internet and the number of users with access to that information has grown significantly. Continuing NTIA’s stewardship of IANA functions benefits developing countries that are beginning to build Internet infrastructure by guaranteeing the same opportunity as the United States to access and contribute to information and services available online. Were a multi-stakeholder or intergovernmental group to take on an oversight role, conflicting interests could change how ICANN functions.

To ensure that other governments do not gain control over IANA functions, a majority of Congress must convey its misgivings to NTIA regarding the planned transition. Should the current plan backfire, it could have grave consequences for NTIA. Rather than legislate the terms of a transfer, Congress should respect NTIA’s independence by expressing its specific concerns in negotiations with NTIA and the White House.

Recommendations from Congress could carry great weight at NTIA, especially since its budget must receive the approval of Congress. In response, NTIA should develop and implement a set of safeguards on the transfer of the IANA contract that prevents national governments from changing the Internet’s functionality on a global level. Ideally, NTIA would renew the IANA contract while continuing to develop a satisfactory model of Internet governance.

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MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE Negotiating Terms NTIA is an independent agency of the United States government that does not seek direction from Congress to carry out its duties. To maintain the United States government’s oversight role, Congress should negotiate with NTIA and the Obama Administration to renew the IANA contract. To preserve the independence of the agency, Congress should refrain from legislating terms of the IANA contract renewal. The White House should also be part of the negotiation because of the influence that the president has over an executive agency. However, Congress ultimately controls the budget of NTIA and can set conditions on how funds are used. In this case, Congress could prohibit any spending on the transfer of IANA oversight. The power to approve agency budgets serves as a powerful check on the activities of executive branch agencies like NTIA. Given NTIA’s current plans for transition, a push to renew the IANA contract must originate in Congress.

The negotiated outcome should not tie ICANN to the United States indefinitely, but should postpone a handoff until Internet stakeholders can outline a satisfactory governance model that preserves the interests of the United States. In his opening statement to the Subcommittee on Communication and Technology, Congressman Greg Walden said of the IANA transition: “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle once the transition begins. We are holding this hearing because far too much is at stake for any uncertainty or ambiguity as to our path forward.”15 There can be no temporary measures with this transfer because any conditions would need to be codified in a separate contract. Rather than transfer power to an unknown entity, a multi-stakeholder group should earn its power by demonstrating its capacity for overseeing IANA functions.

The Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act of 2014, under consideration in the House of Representatives, places a condition on the handoff by requiring a report of NTIA’s role in handling of DNS. This report would include “the advantages and disadvantages of relinquishment of NTIA over Internet domain name system functions…any principles or criteria that NTIA sets 116 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

JACK KARSTEN for proposals…the processes used by NTIA and other Federal agencies for evaluating such proposals.”16 The DOTCOM Act does not prevent NTIA from carrying out their proposed plan, but it does require the agency to perform due diligence during the transfer process. Even if the bill never becomes law, the reporting requirements provide a framework for negotiations between Congress and NTIA. Agreeing to a transparent transfer process would satisfy some critics in Congress, which could prevent the passage of more obstructive legislation.

The final provision of the bill asks for “a definition of the term ‘multistakeholder model,’ as used by NTIA with respect to Internet policymaking and governance.”17 Many Congressmen recognize the economic and political importance of the Internet, but few possess a clear understanding of the idea underpinning the proposed transfer of oversight responsibility because few examples of multi-stakeholder models exist.

International coordination typically requires lengthy negotiations and agreements, so an agency devolving responsibility to an

BY RECOMMENDING THE international group without a RENEWAL OF THE IANA formal report from Congress or the administration comes as a surprise.

CONTRACT, CONGRESS In the absence of an incumbent WOULD MAKE THE AMERICAN international multi-stakeholder PEOPLE STAKEHOLDERS IN organization, NTIA must clarify its vision of a future for the IANA THE INTERNET. contract.

The simplest way to remedy this situation would be to extend the IANA contract past its current expiration date in September 2015. To achieve this end, NTIA could change its position and renew its contract, but it appears the agency made up its mind when it released its March 2014 statement.

To override this position, Congress should negotiate with NTIA to renew its contract with ICANN. NTIA is normally insulated from politics given their administrative role in the Commerce Department. However, their actions concerning Internet governance deserve scrutiny given that millions of Americans use the Internet every day. By recommending the 117 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE renewal of the IANA contract, Congress would make the American people stakeholders in the Internet.

Reasons for Renewal Renewing the IANA contract upholds the interests of the United States within Internet governance. If NTIA transitions the IANA function to a multi-stakeholder group, then the United States loses a tool for holding ICANN accountable. U.S. contract stewardship has coincided with the rapid growth of Internet access and online commerce. Over three billion people around the world use the Internet, generating over $1.5 trillion of online commerce.18 Many of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top Internet companies are American, attracting investment dollars and top talent from all over the world. Renewing the IANA contract would allow these companies to continue to thrive in a global marketplace.

NTIA announcement of the IANA transition provided the perfect opportunity to fully discuss the reasons for maintaining the IANA contract. Internet governance discussions occurred frequently in 2014: NTIA announced the IANA transition in March followed by Congressional hearings, the NETmundial meetings on multi-stakeholder governance were held in Brazil in April, the Internet Governance Forum met in Istanbul in September, and the ITU held their quadrennial plenipotentiary meetings in South Korea in November. Notably, the ITU voted against expanding its mandate to include Internet governance, in line with American opposition to a multilateral solution for Internet governance. These issues will be revisited in December 2015 during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+10), a follow up to the 2005 WSIS that first called for a multi-stakeholder framework for Internet governance. These international forums should inform but not dictate what actions the United States should take regarding its contract with ICANN. Whenever considering a new policy, the status quo should always be examined to determine if change is necessary.

Various stakeholder hold unique definitions of Internet governance, complicating efforts to reach a consensus definition. One group seeks an 118 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

JACK KARSTEN expansive definition of Internet governance that includes regulation of human activity online, while another group narrowly focuses on the technical standards and maintenance of the Internet. Defining Internet governance broadly would combine technical and political issues under one tent where political disagreements could halt progress on technical issues. Meanwhile, focusing narrowly on the technical functions of the Internet ensures reliable maintenance and standards setting. Renewing NTIA contract would limit the scope of ICANN’s operations to the areas of its expertise.

As previously stated, many foreign governments have called for the United States to relinquish its oversight role of the IANA function.

Backtracking on the transition plan will displease these same governments, who will amplify their calls to remove authority from the United States. However, this foreign opposition may offer NTIA an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to a multi-stakeholder model unfettered by government control. The transition will only occur if foreign governments can be shown not to have a hand in the new multistakeholder model. As an agency within the Department of Commerce, NTIA has no power to stop foreign governments from seeking to expand control over Internet governance. Likewise, a multi-stakeholder group that lacks geopolitical power cannot stop determined governments from opposing the goals of the larger group.

Congressman Walden identifies one particular role that a multistakeholder organization cannot take on: “The role that NTIA performs, though somewhat ministerial, has served as an important backstop…I remain concerned about how to prevent such a [government] take over in the future.”19 A contract provides legal protection for its signers; either party can rely upon courts for enforcement if the agreement is broken. The United States has strong legal institutions in place for enforcing contracts, but international conflict resolution is less robust. NTIA has yet to hold ICANN accountable for failing its contractual duties, but it could if necessary. A multi-stakeholder governing body would have no government contract by design, but also no authority to negotiate with

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MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE governments that do not respect its independence. It would fall back on the United States and other like-minded states to negotiate on its behalf.

While the IANA contract explicitly details the U.S. governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expectations for ICANN, multi-stakeholderism presents a model without a mission. Stakeholders could choose to execute IANA functions to serve a narrow set of interests. As a network, the Internet is most valuable when any individual with an idea can reach as wide an audience as possible, but Internet openness is not a necessary component of a multi-stakeholder model. A large number of stakeholders could disagree about the best uses of IANA functions, such as which countries or groups deserve their own top-level domains. Advocates for a multi-stakeholder model must determine how to best guarantee Internet accessibility given opposing stakeholder interests.

Given the number of potentially conflicting interests at play, the IANA contract should not expire for geopolitical reasons. NTIA has the authority to renew its contract with ICANN, but if it chooses not to do so, then Congress should intervene to compel NTIA to renew its contract. Twenty bills on this topic have been introduced,20 but the president will have to sign one of these bills to make it law, and Congress will have to negotiate a deal with the White House in order to delay the transfer of the DNS. Its best case lies in broadening the definition of Internet stakeholders instead.

As Internet coverage expands and its uses multiply, people of all ideological stripes will take an interest in how it is governed. Inevitably, some people will work to restrict Internet openness. NTIA should renew the IANA contract so that the United States has more power to maintain the openness of the Internet.

The United States government has not reached a consensus on the subject of IANA stewardship. Consensus would allow the United States to more clearly communicate its vision of Internet governance to the American people and the rest of the world. NTIA announced its intention to transition to a multi-stakeholder model without recognizing the various stakeholders within the United States government. NTIA can act independently on the issue, but it must recognize the equities of other agencies as well as relevant congressional subcommittees. Ultimately, 120 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

JACK KARSTEN Congress holds power over agency budgets, so NTIA should be prepared to justify its actions to Americans who are contributing taxpayer dollars to public programs.

In its public statement, NTIA asks ICANN to “convene global stakeholders to develop a proposal to transition the current role played by NTIA in the coordination of the Internet’s domain name system.”21 The statement does not clarify who might be stakeholders outside of the organizations that ICANN already partners with, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, Regional Internet Registries, and the Internet Society (see Figure 2). The only condition is “NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces NTIA role with a government-led or an intergovernmental organization solution.”22 The Administration does not ask ICANN to change its structure or mission, but asks that it operate without the backing of any government. However, removing U.S. support has no stated purpose for enhancing ICANN’s performance in managing the Domain Name System. NTIA wants ICANN and the Internet as a whole to function exactly as it already does, but without the legal protection or authority provided by a government contract.

Congress passed the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015, directing NTIA to report quarterly on the progress of the multi-stakeholder transition plan. Their January 2015 report emphasizes a need for “‘stress testing’ of solutions to safeguard against future contingencies such as attempts to influence or take over ICANN functions that are not currently possible with the IANA functions contract currently possible with the IANA functions contract in place.”23 Stress testing exposes potential weaknesses in the accountability of the multistakeholder model while satisfying the plan’s Congressional critics.

While the NTIA report mentions concrete steps to increase accountability in the transition process, it falls short of giving specifics of a new governance model: “Given the final proposal has yet to take shape, it is

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MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE premature at this time to outline the specific steps of NTIA’s assessment.

The community processes used to develop their proposal may also

Figure 2: List of Organizations Advising IANA Transition24 influence the work NTIA will need to undertake.”25 While NTIA lists its requirements for an acceptable proposal, it does not offer any response 122 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

JACK KARSTEN from ICANN. The views of ICANN will be especially important since it will eventually participate in the multi-stakeholder model. In future reports, NTIA should summarize proposals put forth by ICANN members in order to give Congress a better idea of their content. The process of developing a proposal should be just as transparent as the governance model it describes.

The time has come for Member States to act decisively to establish a framework of Internet governance. However, until that framework is established, the United States should continue to provide legal protections to ICANN by renewing its contract. Once oversight power is given away, it cannot be recovered if the transfer does not produce the desired results.

NTIA must reassure Congress and the American public that proper safeguards are in place to ensure that ICANN will continue to make decisions independently.

Conclusion Congress must negotiate with NTIA to delay the expiration of its contract with ICANN. Any transfer should occur after a satisfactory governance model has emerged, not vice versa. The proper functioning of the Internet is too important to leave in limbo while Internet stakeholders organize themselves and decide exactly what powers they have. In the meantime, foreign governments could easily act individually to exert control over the process. Even after the establishment of a multi-stakeholder model, there are no guarantees that this body will have the power to repel government encroachment in the future. Renewing the IANA contract will prevent this outcome until stronger safeguards are in place.

There is no guarantee that NTIA will heed the recommendations of Congress; NTIA is an executive branch agency with its own prerogatives that already decided in March 2014 to transfer the IANA contract to a multi-stakeholder body. The plan has the support of several large American technology companies and many foreign governments. A large international bureaucratic apparatus has mobilized to develop a new model for Internet governance. Reversing all of the pieces set in motion is 123 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 路 SPRING 2015

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER MUDDLE beyond the power of any single organization. Congress must weigh in, however, to ensure that American economic and foreign policy interests are represented. Congress cannot unilaterally halt or reverse the changes being made in Internet governance, but it can do its part to shape the discussion.

Once Congress and NTIA have negotiated a delay of the IANA transfer, they should not postpone it a second time for a later date. If NTIA underestimates the preparedness of a multi-stakeholder group, setting a date for the handoff could spark the same debates once more. Rather than focus on deadlines, NTIA should develop a set of criteria that a multistakeholder body must meet in order to oversee the IANA contract.

Developing criteria that include proper accountability safeguards will mollify critics of the transfer and will set benchmarks for a nascent multistakeholder body to meet. The transfer of oversight for the IANA functions should follow a transparent process that empowers a new oversight group to take on this responsibility. A multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance is compatible with American economic and political interests as long as it reflects those interests from the beginning.

Endnotes 1

Walter Isaacson, The Innovators (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

Ross W. Rader, “One History of DNS,” 25 April 2001, www.byte.org/one-history-ofdns.pdf 3 Ibid.

4 Julia Charvolen, “GAC Representatives,” ICANN, 8 March 2015, https://gacweb.icann.org/display/gacweb/GAC+Representatives 5 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “About NTIA,” http://www.ntia.doc.gov/about 6 Ibid.

7 ICANN, https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/assets/org-chart-1800x100004mar14-en.png 8 Lennard G. Kruger, “Internet Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, 6 March 2015, 28, fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42351.pdf 9 Ibid, 17.

10 Ibid, 1.

2

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11

Samir Saran, “The ITU and Unbundling Internet Governance,” Council on Foreign Relations, 22 October 2014, http://www.cfr.org/Internet-policy/itu-unbundling-Internetgovernance/p33656 12 Stephanie Nebehay, “China, Russia Seek Greater Control of Internet: U.S.” Reuters, 7 March 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/07/net-us-Internet-usaidUSBRE92617220130307 13 James Ball, “NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts,” Guardian, 25 October 25, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/ 24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls 14 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Statement of Policy on the Management of Internet Names and Addresses, Docket Number 980212036-8146-02, Federal Register, 5 June 1998, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/federal-registernotice/1998/statement-policy-management-Internet-names-and-addresses 15 U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Ensuring the Security, Stability, Resilience, and Freedom of the Global Internet, 113th Cong., 2014.

16 U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, DOTCOM Act of 2014, H.R.4343, 113th Cong., 2014.

17 Ibid.

18 eMarketer, “Global B2C Ecommerce Sales to Hit $1.5 Trillion this Year Driven by Growth in Emerging Markets,” 3 February 2014, http://www.emarketer.com/Article/ Global-B2C-Ecommerce-Sales-Hit-15-Trillion-This-Year-Driven-by-Growth-EmergingMarkets/1010575 19 Walden, in Ensuring the Security, Stability, Resilience, and Freedom of the Global Internet.

20 Kruger.

21 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions NTIA,” 14 March 2014, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-keyInternet-domain-name-functions 22 Ibid.

23 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Report on the Transition of the Stewardship of the Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions, 11 February 2015, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/report/2015/report-transition-stewardshipInternet-assigned-numbers-authority-iana-functions 24 “NTIA IANA Functions’ Stewardship Transition,” ICANN, https://www.icann.org/ sites/default/files/assets/icg-1079x1208-23sep14-en.png 25 Ibid.

125 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication

by Lina Khatib et al.

A Review by Anne Bergren Anne Bergren is a master’s candidate in the International Affairs program at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. She is writing a thesis on the influence of information and communications technologies in conflict and serves as an editor of the International Affairs Review web journal.

Lebanon, a small state of roughly six million people, fascinates as often as it perplexes. The country’s cultural and religious diversity (which includes Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and Druze among a total of 18 religions), combined with its unique political structure and resultant violence, has attracted the attention of international affairs novices and experts.

Geographically situated between the opposing states of Israel and Syria, and influenced by Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon and its politics require no small effort to comprehend. But if you know even a little about Lebanon, you probably know something about Hizbullah.

Considered a political party by Lebanon and the broader Middle East, and a terrorist group by the West and Israel, Hizbullah (also known as “The Party of God”) makes headlines worldwide and has been studied thoroughly by scholars of many traditions. The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication, written by Lina Khatib, Dina Matar and Atef Alshaer, examines the evolution of this contentious political actor through a political communications perspective, chronicling shifts in Hizbullah’s communications strategy since its inception in 1982.

The authors argue that what is missing from the literature on this wellknown organization is a close look at Hizbullah as a rational political actor similar to Western political parties. Instead of treating Hizbullah as a 126 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ANNE BERGREN reactionary group reliant on favorable local political or social conditions that may or may not arise, experts and scholars must consider the skill with which Hizbullah manipulates political events. By effectively using strategic political communications, the group is able to exploit the local context and garner support. The authors assert that Hizbullah continues to deliberately and masterfully adapt its political communications strategy to appeal not only to the Shiite base from which it emerged, but also to Lebanon’s Sunnis, Christians, and the broader Arab public.

The Hizbullah Phenomenon is divided into five chapters with an introduction and conclusion. The first half of the book (chapters 1 through 3) utilizes a consistent analytical approach that deviates in chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 1 provides an overview of Hizbullah’s short and long-term political goals and describes how it integrates professional communications strategies to support and achieve those aims. These same topics are covered in chronological detail in chapters 2 and 3: Chapter 2 examines Hizbullah’s methods and political branding in the years from 1982 to 2000 (from the start of Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon to its eventual withdrawal), while the third chapter looks at these same themes from 2000 to 2013.

Chapter 4 significantly diverges from the first half of the book with an indepth content analysis of Hizbullah’s poetry throughout its history. The author of this section, Atef Alshaer, offers insight into the more niche topic of the role of poetry in Middle East societies, which acts as “the primary form of artistic expression in the region.”1 Initially, the subject seems out of place, but Alshaer deftly demonstrates the importance of poetry in politics by contextualizing its historic significance to Hizbullah’s primary audience, the Shiite community. According to Alshaer, “Poetry is generally perceived as a residue of past authenticity, underlining the authority and legitimacy of those who embrace it, and this aspect comes across in the writings and speeches of Shiite pioneers whose ideas and activities gave rise to the organized political community epitomized in Hizbullah today.”2 Alshaer goes on to analyze the content of specific works by Arab poets linked to Hizbullah, highlighting themes of “resistance, connectedness, and continuity of past glories, heroism, 127 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

THE HIZBULLAH PHENOMENON certainty of victory, defiance, and patience”3 that are ultimately used to cement solidarity with Hizbullah across the Arab world.

Chapter 5 also contrasts from the first half of the book by focusing solely on Hizbullah’s charismatic secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, and his ascent to power. According to the author of this section, Dina Matar, Hizbullah shapes Nasrallah’s image and crafts public appearances to best attract followers from Lebanon and abroad. She explains, “Nasrallah is depicted in numerous articles, books, and media commentaries ... as a modest cleric-cum-political ideologue with ‘genuine’ charisma, whose political path has emulated ... that of Iran’s ... Imam Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini, as well as other figures within Lebanon’s Shiite community.”4 Over the course of the chapter, Matar argues that, “The combination of his person, demeanor, and language has provided powerful imaginary significations that helped him and Hizbullah mobilise alternative, collective identities over time and at particular historical junctures.”5 Matar strengthens her argument by noting that the only texts written about Nasrallah are in Arabic and almost exclusively published by Hizbullah after 2006, suggesting that Hizbullah molds Nasrallah’s public image.

The authors of The Hizbullah Phenomenon skillfully connect events in Lebanon to shifts in Hizbullah’s rhetoric and communications tactics, and conclude the book with a discussion of how the Syrian civil war is negatively affecting Hizbullah’s popularity today. Overall, the reader turns the last page convinced of the authors’ thesis: Hizbullah relies on targeted political messaging adapted to Lebanon’s political landscape and public opinion to maintain momentum, gain political clout, and grow its support base throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately, the book does not feel altogether cohesive, perhaps reflecting the authors’ separate areas of expertise: the first three chapters follow the same analytical approach and structure, but the remaining two chapters stand isolated. For the reader, these stark topic shifts are distracting and weaken the authors’ overall argument. Dividing the book into three sections and integrating the topics of chapters 4 and 5 (poetry and charismatic leadership) into the chronological discussions presented earlier may better streamline the authors’ arguments. Restructuring could also help avoid repetition: Some 128 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

ANNE BERGREN chapters include an unnecessary review of historical events covered in previous chapters.

In terms of its content, the book is intended first for communications scholars, then for those who study Hizbullah, and finally for readers interested in Lebanese politics or security issues in the Middle East. For the political communications novice, The Hizbullah Phenomenon discusses political communications theory in an approachable way, but occasionally delves too deep into context analysis for readers with a casual interest. For readers with limited background knowledge of Hizbullah — its formation, leaders, political and social evolution in Lebanese society, and communication strategies — this book provides a solid grounding.

Scholars and policy-makers interested in understanding Hizbullah will benefit from the book. It adds to the literature by offering an alternative, sophisticated view of the organization’s success at leveraging the media.

Although the authors fail to offer any solutions for the political intricacies of Lebanon and proffer a neutral depiction of Hizbullah that may vex those who associate it with terrorism, understanding this integral part of Hizbullah’s strategy will allow future policy-makers to approach the group more effectively by targeting one of their primary — and most powerful — weapons.

Endnotes 1

Lina Khatib et al., The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 119.

2 Ibid., 121.

3 Ibid., 120.

4 Ibid., 153.

5 Ibid., 154.

129 VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2015

Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq

by Michael MacDonald A Review by Marco Fernandez Marco Fernandez is a master’s candidate in international affairs at The George Washington University, concentrating on U.S. foreign policy. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. Marco’s professional experience includes internships on Capitol Hill and at the National Security Archive.

The Second Gulf War was doomed to fail even before it began: so argues Michael MacDonald in his new book, Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq. To begin with, the war derived its impetus from faulty intelligence. Compounding this original error, the administration based the success of the broader strategic objectives of the war on an equally flawed premise: the United States could pursue regime change in Iraq in 2003 while enhancing its prestige around the world and furthering its interests in the Middle East.

Neoconservatives and hawkish liberals inside the Democratic Party believed the best way to project American power in the Middle East was by removing a longstanding foe of the United States, Saddam Hussein, and crafting a stable, democratic and capitalist Iraq. Contrary to their expectations, the Iraq War did not produce such an outcome.

Overreach, conveniently short yet full of international relations theory, is also a useful text for readers outside of academia. MacDonald’s book is an attempt to set the record straight on several fronts. Using logic and documentary evidence in a lawyerly manner, MacDonald debunks several myths and common tropes concerning the Iraq War. First, there was broad agreement at the highest levels of the Bush administration that Hussein possessed or was in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. There were doubts among members of the intelligence community, the State Department, and the Energy Department, but top administration officials sincerely believed in the existence of these 130 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW

MARCO FERNANDEZ weapons in Iraq. They suffered, MacDonald argues, from confirmation bias and groupthink. Meanwhile, a compliant media allowed many officials to confidently reinforce the credibility of their information.

Second, the author considers it highly unlikely that George W. Bush chose to invade Iraq in order to succeed where George H. W. Bush had failed.

However, a psychoanalytic analysis of the president’s relationship with his father does not suffice to explain the cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Second Gulf War. Ideology, though not a perfect indicator, is a stronger factor in explaining why certain people either opposed or supported what eventually became a war to transform Iraq and the region. For instance, Brent Scowcroft, George H.W. Bush’s National Security Advisor and a foreign policy realist, opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. On the other hand, Paul Wolfowitz, a neoconservative working inside the Pentagon during both Gulf Wars, expressed disappointment that Bush 41 did not finish the job by going to Baghdad and pushed hard for Bush 43 to do as much.

Third, MacDonald states that the United States did not fight the Iraq War to satisfy Israel. Considering that many officials inside the Israeli government were more realistic than Americans about the regional impact of regime change in Iraq, it is not clear that there was consensus from the Israeli perspective about what the United States should do. Israel was and remains far more concerned about Iran than Iraq. It is worth mentioning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a vocal supporter of the Second Gulf War, and testified before Congress to such an effect.

However, at the time, he was outside the Israeli government.

Finally, the United States did not go to war in Iraq in order to acquire oil or to increase world supply. There is no doubt oil was an important consideration, and that this natural resource makes Iraq a geopolitically significant country. But MacDonald highlights that although Iraq’s oil supply is considerable, it is not sufficient to dramatically alter the world market. Moreover, the rosiest assumption inside the administration indicated that revenue from oil in Iraq would not greatly reduce or balance the financial burden of the war. Overall, policymakers did not believe invading Iraq would result in massive profits.

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OVERREACH: DELUSIONS OF REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ Why, then, did the Bush administration chose to embark on a selfdefeating war? According to MacDonald, the problem lay in the ideology of crucial policymakers. As neoconservatives or liberal interventionists, these men and women conflated America’s values with its interests. They believed there was no need to choose between the two.

From the neoconservative perspective, core, secular American values of democracy, freedom, individual rights, and free markets are universal.

They appeal to all peoples around the world. Furthermore, in their opinion, the United States benefits when nations adopt these values. With Saddam Hussein in power, there was no possibility of Iraq adopting these values and the institutions needed to protect them. However, if the Iraqi dictator were removed, and with him the state apparatus with which he controlled the population, a liberal, open and capitalist society would flourish.

Additionally, the Iraqi example would encourage other Sunni Middle East powers to reform. In the aftermath of the war, neoconservatives claimed, the United States would exert enormous diplomatic, economic, and military influence over Iraq.

Yet trillions of dollars, 4,500 dead and 32,000 more wounded American soldiers later, it is plain to see it was not meant to be. MacDonald correctly posits that regime change was inherently flawed. The moment the strongman and the state he commanded were undone, chaos inexorably ensued. Longstanding tensions between Kurds, Shia, and Sunnis came to the fore. Iran gained leverage. The United States, in large measure due to poor post-invasion planning, proved incapable of providing stability. Civil war broke out.

MacDonald contends that the Bush administration was incompetent in the execution of the occupation phase of the war. However, the author rightly observes that, absent colossal mistakes such as de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi Army, there was only room for marginal improvement. For example, the United States initially had too few troops in country and followed the wrong fighting strategy. This situation was remedied during the 2007 to 2008 “surge” and the implementation of counterinsurgency doctrine under General David Petraeus. These alterations temporarily ameliorated conditions on the ground.

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MARCO FERNANDEZ Nevertheless, these considerations were not the primary problem with the Iraq War. If there did not exist a deeper, more structural impediment to reconciliation among the warring parties, Iraq today would be a stable, democratic, and market-oriented country. Sadly, this is not the case.

Ultimately, MacDonald highlights a tragic irony he terms “the consummate paradox of Gulf War Two.” He states the policies of regimechange advocates “subverted the very interests that were to have been idealized by them.”

MacDonald’s book does not grant much space to chronicling administration deliberations, congressional approval, or intelligence community assessments prior to the war and during its course. This book is more aptly described as a scholarly work fond of invoking political philosophers and theorists such as Plato, Hobbes, and Weber. Overreach is most assuredly not the Iraq War’s version of The Best and the Brightest

by David Halberstam. That book, an engaging and entertaining history of the decision-making process and personalities involved in the Vietnam War, was the product of an investigative journalist with a flair for narrative. In contrast, MacDonald’s book, although high-minded and astute, has a less captivating narrative.

Endnotes 1 2

David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972).

Michael MacDonald, Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).

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