Jus ad Pacem in Bello? Afghanistan, Stability Operations and the International Laws Relating to Armed Conflict

• Author: David Turns
• Position: Senior Lecturer in International Laws of Armed Conflict, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom (Cranfield University)
• Pages: 387-410

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Jus ad Pacem in Bellol Afghanistan, Stability

Operations and the International Laws

Relating to Armed Conflict

David Turns*

Introduction

Oneofthe more notorious quotations widely attributed to George W. Bush,

when he was campaigning for the presidency of the United States in 2000,

was something to the effect that "[w]e don't do nation-building." As with many at-

tributed quotations, the actual remark he made was less curt and slightly more

nuanced. What actually happened was that in the course of apresidential debate

with his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, Bush was asked if he would have sup-

ported US military involvement in the ill-fated expanded United Nations Opera-

tion in Somalia (UNOSOM II) in 1993-94 1had he been president at the time. This

is what he actually said in reply:

[Somalia] [sjtarted off as ahumanitarian mission and it changed into anation-

building mission, and that's where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed.

And as aresult, our nation paid aprice. And so Idon't think our troops ought to be

used for what's called nation-building. Ithink our troops ought to be used to fight and

*Senior Lecturer in International Laws of Armed Conflict, Defence Academy of the United

Kingdom (Cranfield University). All opinions stated herein are personal to the author and are in

no way to be taken as necessarily representing the official views of the government, Ministry of

Defence or Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. Responsibility for any errors is mine alone.

Stability Operations and Public International Law

win war. Ithink our troops ought to be used to help overthrow the dictator when it's in

our best interests. But in this case [i.e., Somalia] it was anation-building exercise, and

same with Haiti.

[

2

]Iwouldn't have supported either.3

This antipathy notwithstanding, and despite former President Bush's best ef-

forts amid the rhetoric of the "Global War on Terror," the realities of the transna-

tional military operational environment in the first decade of the twenty-first

century have produced an exponential growth in the importance of what are now

generally termed stability (or stabilization) operations, to such an extent that even

US military doctrine now acknowledges such operations as "a core U.S. military

mission .. . [to] be given priority comparable to combat operations." 4The Ministry

of Defence in the United Kingdom, whose long experience with so-called "small

wars" in the postcolonial context during the withdrawal from Empire (approxi-

mately during the period 1945-65, including conflicts in Palestine, Malaya, Cy-

prus, Kenya and Aden) has led some foreign observers to suggest aparticular

mastery of nation-building and counterinsurgency campaigns,5has only recently

—

in January 2009—circulated aworking draft of what will eventually become the

first promulgation of aBritish doctrine on such operations.6

The current campaign in Afghanistan has been described as "a test case for in-

ternational development assistance and bi- and multilateral cooperation"7even in

the midst of sustained combat operations in substantial parts of the country,

whereby "the main problems . . . are restoring security and establishing afunction-

ing state."8Stability operations seem to have become the catchphrase for anew

generation of military actions: indeed, they have come to be viewed as an essential

stage in the type of conflicts most prevalent today, namely, asymmetric conflicts

between State and non-State actors. In order to win the war it has become essential,

in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, to win the peace, and that is done by stabilizing

the situation in theater after the initial opposition has been defeated or at least con-

tained.9The moment of hubris, when President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier

USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 and declared that major combat operations

in Iraq had ended, did not in fact herald the conclusion ofhostilities in Iraq: the co-

alition merely swapped one enemy (the State armed forces of the defeated Saddam

Hussein regime) for another (various assorted non-State militias representing dif-

ferent sectors of Iraqi society, along with groups affiliated with Al Qaeda). In Af-

ghanistan, by way of contrast, the main enemy has stayed the same—i.e., the

Taliban—but its status changed from being the de facto government in control of

up to 90 percent of Afghan territory in September 2001, to that of an insurgency

dispersed in (mainly) the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. Al-

though intensive military operations against the Taliban continue, international

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