Strategy and the Surge

The Last Card ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 296-313
Author(s):  
Joshua Rovner
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Strategic Effect ◽  
Practical Strategy ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Subsequent Rise

This chapter studies the relationship between strategy and the surge. Strategy is the bridge that links military operations and political objectives in war. A practical strategy describes those objectives and explains how military action will achieve them. The chapter disputes the idea that the surge constituted a new US strategy in Iraq. Instead, it can be considered as a “decision to put strategy on hold.” The surge, the chapter argues, encouraged a perverse strategic effect—by obscuring the political objectives of the war, it undercut efforts to forge competent and self-reliant governance in Iraq and contributed to the breakdown of the Iraqi state in the face of the subsequent rise of the Islamic State.

scholarly journals Exploring ambivalent oxygen machine–people–world relations through the lens of postphenomenology

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 426-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Oxygen Therapy ◽  
Heart Diseases ◽  
Health Technology ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship

Technologies for medicinal oxygen delivery at home are increasingly part of the global health technology landscape in the face of rising rates of chronic lung and heart diseases. From the mere notion of harvesting and privatizing oxygen from the atmosphere to its status as both dangerous and therapeutic, and finally to its capacity to both extend and limit life, oxygen as therapy materializes its status as an ambivalent object in global health. This analysis of ethnographic material from Uruguay and South Africa on the experience of home oxygen therapy is guided by philosopher Don Ihde’s postphenomenology – a pragmatic philosophical approach for analysing the relationships between humans and technologies. Participants related to their oxygen devices as limiting-enablers, as markers of illness and measures of recovery, and as precious and limited resources. Oxygen was materialized in many forms, each with their own characteristics shaping the ‘amplification/reduction’ character of the relationship as well as the degree to which the devices became ‘transparent’ to their users. Ihde’s four types of human–technology relations – embodiment, hermeneutic, alterity and background relations – are at play in the multistability of oxygen. Importantly, the lack of technological ‘transparency’, in Ihde’s sense of the term, reflects not only the materiality of oxygen but inequality too. While postphenomenology adds a productive material and technological flavour to phenomenology, the author argues that a critical postphenomenology is needed to engage with the political-economy of human–oxygen technology relations.

Who follows whom? A coincidence analysis of military action, public opinion and threats

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 753-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Haesebrouck
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Public

Does public opinion act as a constraint on military action, are ordinary citizens the easily manipulated targets of the public relations efforts of their governments, or does the general public react as assertively to threats as decisionmakers? This article examines the causal connection between military action, public opinion and threats. Empirically, it focuses on the pattern of EU member state participation in two recent military operations: the 2011 intervention in Libya and the operation against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Three competing causal models on the relationship between threats, public opinion and military action were derived from the scholarly literature and tested with coincidence analysis. The results of the analysis show that public opinion acted as a constraint on executives during the Libya operation. However, there was no direct causal link between public opinion and military participation in the operation against IS, in which both military action and public support were an effect of threat. More generally, the results suggest that the context of the intervention is decisive for the relation between threat, military action and public support. More specifically, whether public opinion constitutes a constraint on military action or is an effect of threats to national interests depends on whether these threats are clear and tangible.

“We are all republicans”: Political Articulation and the Production of Nationhood in France's Face Veil Debate

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 938-967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Laxer
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
The Face ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn July 2010, following a year-long nationwide debate over Islamic veiling, the French government passed a law prohibiting facial coverings in all public spaces. Prior research attributes this and other restrictive laws to France's republican secular tradition. This article takes a different approach. Building on literature that sees electoral politics as a site for articulating, rather than merely reflecting, social identities, I argue that the 2010 ban arose in significant part out of political parties’ struggles to demarcate the boundaries of legitimate politics in the face of an ultra-right electoral threat. Specifically, I show that in seeking to prevent the ultra-right National Front party from monopolizing the religious signs issue, France's major right and left parties agreed to portray republicanism as requiring the exclusion of face veiling from public space. Because it was forged in conflict, however, the consensus thus generated is highly fractured and unstable. It conceals ongoing conflict, both between and within political parties, over the precise meaning(s) of French republican nationhood. The findings thus underscore the relationship between boundary-drawing in the political sphere and the process of demarcating the cultural and political boundaries of nationhood in contexts of immigrant diversity.

Tensions will simmer in Ecuador despite subsidy U-turn

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Imf

Significance The move, designed to help meet IMF loan conditions, triggered two weeks of protests by indigenous movements, trade unions, students and others, which brought the country to a halt and threatened to topple the government. Heavy-handed police and military action exacerbated the violence, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and at least eight deaths. Moreno’s U-turn has put an end to the unrest for now but deep divisions (and IMF requirements) remain. Impacts Correa and his supporters will seize on Moreno’s inability to maintain order and his decision to back down in the face of protests. Indigenous groups will be emboldened by Moreno’s U-turn and will continue resisting key elements of the government’s economic programme. Relations with the IMF have returned to centre stage and will shape the political landscape as the 2021 presidential elections approach.

Laughing at power: Humor, transgression, and the politics of refusal in Palestine

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-404
Author(s):  
Lisa Bhungalia
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Productive Work ◽  
The Face ◽  
New Space ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the political and productive work of humor under conditions of precarity, war, and occupation. Drawing on the case of Palestine but making links to other contexts of violence and war, it explores the transgressive power of humor to destabilize existing power relations and established hierarchies by calling into question the norms and “rationalities” that underpin our social world. Palestine’s laughter in particular, it contends, constitutes a mode and practice of refusal to normalize conditions of subjugation. Accordingly, this article explores how humor, as wielded on the part of subjugated populations, constitutes a different kind of political grammar that cannot be adequately captured by the language of resistance. To laugh in the face of power is not to say: “I oppose you”—rather it is to assert: “your power has no authority over me.” It is to refuse that power authorizing force. As such, this article maintains that closer inspection of the relationship between humor, laughter, and power carves out new space for a working theory of the political, one wherein power is not opposed but disavowed. This disavowal, I argue, is also productive: it is to assert that other political orders and possibilities exist.

scholarly journals Strategic shifts in armed groups from armed action to political action (Badr Organization): التحولات الاستراتيجية عند الجماعات المسلحة من العمل المسلح إلى العمل السياسي وأثر البيئة الداخلية والخارجية عليها (منظمة بدر نموذجاً)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (13) ◽  
pp. 56-42
Author(s):  
Fahad AAE Alasaker Fahad AAE Alasaker
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
External Environment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Internal Environment ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Organization Transformation ◽  
The Impact

  The research relied on the transformation of the "Badr" Organization from military action to political action, in addition to the main transformation influences on the organization. The research is divided into two main parts: The first part discussed the “Badr Organization”; its history and military operations, whether in the armed action times or after the transformation. This part aimed to know the organization leaders and their position in the Iraqi government, to know the organization adopted ideology, and to know organization distribution. The second part discussed the organization transformation from military action to political action, the dimensions of this transformation at the behavioral, organizational, and ideological level, the impact of the internal environment in Iraq and the external environment (the war in Syria) on the “Badr” organization, and the path of the political transformation.

scholarly journals ISLAMISTER OG KLUBLIV I GAZASTRIBEN

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Irving Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modem World ◽  
Sport Activities ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
The Relationship

Michael Irving Jensen: Islamists and Club Milieu in the Gaza Strip The article deals with Islamic social institutions in the Gaza Strip. The author considers these institutions as being part of Palestinian civil society. However, the bulk of the article is focused on one aspect of the work that the Islamic social institutions carry out; namely sport activities. The article is based on qualitative interviews, carried out by the author, with young men playing football in an Islamic club (ciosely related to the Hamas movement). Among the questions raised are: Why do young men choose to play football in an Islamic club? What are their perceptions of the political situation in the Gaza Strip? How do they view the relationship between Islam and politics in general? The interviews reveal - not unsurprisingly - that the young Islamists playing football do not equal the stereotype of an Islamist, i.e. a young fanatic with long beard and a wild look in the face. On the contrary, they are young men willing and able to cope with the modem world. From the interviews it is evident that high moral standards, more than anything else, attract these young men. Although further empirical work needs to be done, one could conclude tentatively that a good Islamist can play club football three times a week.

The Strength of Weak Review: National Courts, Interpretive Canons, and Human Rights Treaties

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Lupu ◽  
Pierre-Hugues Verdier ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Face ◽  
Legal Constraints ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Abstract Enforcement of international law is often delegated to national courts, creating a space for them to play a part in international judicialization. Under what conditions can they do so? We argue that the answer depends on the relationship between the political and legal constraints national courts face. National courts must be careful to safeguard their independence in the face of potential backlash, but they face constraints in terms of the legal mechanisms available to them when enforcing international law. We focus on the availability of two legal mechanisms: direct effect, under which courts apply treaties directly, setting aside inconsistent domestic laws; and canons of interpretation, under which courts strive to interpret domestic laws in conformity with treaties. We find that the effects of human rights treaty ratification is greater when courts have the canon available to them than it is when courts have direct effect available to them.

scholarly journals Egyptian-Israeli Relations during the Government of Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013)

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (68) ◽  
pp. 213-224
Author(s):  
Ayrat Halitovich Tuhvatullin ◽  
Vitaly Anatolievich Epshteyn ◽  
Pavel Vladimirovich Pichygin ◽  
Alina Petrovna Sultanova
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
State Of Israel

The article highlights the details of the foreign policy of the Arab Republic of Egypt and its impact on the regional security of the state of Israel in between 2012-2013. After the Islamists came to power, they began to dominate expectations that the political force led by Mohamed Morsi would initiate an active anti-Israel policy, however, with active anti-Semitic rhetoric, the "Muslim brotherhood" was able to maintain peaceful relations with Israel. The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationship between M. Morsi's government and the state of Israel during the period 2012 to 2013while revealing the impact of various factors on the preservation of peace in the region, especially in the face of the conflict situation that intensified in neigh boring countries such as Libya and Syria. The main approaches to the study of the problem under consideration were analytical method and content analysis. It is concluded that the article can also contribute to the study of the history of the Middle East within the framework of Arab-Israeli relations against the deterioration of the political situation and the strengthening of religious radicalism in the region.

Assembling Contexts

Inner Asia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The People ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

This paper attempts to rethink the relationship between the practice of shamanism and the political-economic ‘context’ it is held to emerge from in contemporary Mongolia. In the face of an extraordinary ‘revival’ in shamanism, anthropologists have sought explanations for the phenomenon that centre around a concern with how to locate it in relation to the social, economic and political structures alongside which it manifests. Authors tend to produce accounts that either reduce shamanism to an expression of more fundamental material realities, or explore the cosmo-ontological parameters of the practice itself, in turn masking its articulation with other processes in the social field. This point will be illustrated with reference to a novel ethnography of the making of the shamanic gown in Ulaanbaatar. Yet more than this, it will be suggested that a more sustained reflection upon the nature of the shamanic gown, and consideration of new information regarding the processes that contribute to its creation, might provide the means to theorise in a rather different fashion. The shamanic gown and the people and things mobilised in its emergence do not simply collect social and theoretical contexts, but rather flow outward. As such, while being both intimately reactiveandirreducible to the adjacent realities, Mongolian shamanism also engages in themakingof these very structures. Shamanism and the making of shamanic gowns do not simply emerge from, or deny, contexts; they assemble them.

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