Suchergebnisse

The preemptive turn in counterterrorism has turned future uncertainties into key objects of contemporary security governance. From an empirically grounded perspective, this article contributes with novel insight into the everyday practices of preemptive politics. Focusing on Ghana as a unique case through which to trace how the mobilization of affect accelerates the transnational proliferation of counterterrorism measures and the commodification of future uncertainty, it shows how the global War on Terror has shaped the emergence of counterterrorism in a context characterized by the absence of terrorist attacks on home soil. Exploring how preemption animates outreach activities, simulation exercises, and nighttime patrols, it shows how police officers attempt to make uncertain futures tangible and actionable through practices of imagination and performance. Aimed at assessing terrorist threats that have not (yet) materialized, the article argues that preemptive policing practices cause a conflation of ordinary crime and extraordinary terror that inflates already existing uncertainties and subverts the institutional security logics of preemption.

Contemporary warfare depends on private security contractors from countries
in the Global South. In Sierra Leone, this dependency has produced emerging
markets for private military and security companies (PMSCs) seeking to recruit cheap,
military-experienced labor. This article explores how demobilized militia and soldiers
in Sierra Leone negotiate categorical divides to make themselves employable for private
security contracting in Iraq. Based on 19 months of fieldwork tracing militia soldiers
as they move between shift ing security constellations, the article introduces the
notion of "shadow soldiering" to explain the entanglements of public-private spheres
and the blurring of boundaries between the visible and invisible that characterize
these constellations. While scholarly work on PMSCs has increasingly highlighted the
public-private interconnectedness, the article contributes an ethnographically informed
perspective on how security contractors on the ground interpret such entanglements
and how global security dynamics intersects with the local, everyday practices and processes
that facilitate the supply of contractors.

Capacity building of host nation militaries is a central component of current multinational military operations, which is likely to become increasingly vital to future military interventions in conflict settings. Focusing on the mentoring of the Afghan National Army at the British-led officer academy in Kabul, this policy brief stresses the urgency with which Western militaries should improve military capacity building efforts. Based on qualitative data collected at the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Afghan National Army Officer Academy, the brief outlines five clusters of military-specific recommendations on 'measurements of success', 'local ownership', 'mentoring', 'coalition cultures' and 'Afghan values and visions', which may be helpful in generating sustainable security solutions in Afghanistan and beyond. ; Capacity building of host nation militaries is a central component of current multinational military operations, which is likely to become increasingly vital to future military interventions in conflict settings. Focusing on the mentoring of the Afghan National Army at the British-led officer academy in Kabul, this policy brief stresses the urgency with which Western militaries should improve military capacity building efforts. Based on qualitative data collected at the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Afghan National Army Officer Academy, the brief outlines five clusters of military-specific recommendations on 'measurements of success', 'local ownership', 'mentoring', 'coalition cultures' and 'Afghan values and visions', which may be helpful in generating sustainable security solutions in Afghanistan and beyond.

This article scrutinizes the relationship between 'war amongst the people' and the 'cultural turn' in Western military thinking. It is argued that the cultural turn in military thinking is related to an uncertainty about how to wage war in a context where the enemy defies categorisation, and where understanding and influencing 'the people' is regarded as essential to military success. While efforts have been made to integrate culture in military planning in order to tackle this uncertainty, there are a number of deficiencies, which prevent culture from becoming the intended enabler to successful operations. The purpose of this article is to shed light on these deficiencies and to introduce a new approach to culture, which can inform military planning and operations. This approach takes its departure point in how culture is co-produced in social interactions, and directs attention towards how cultural dynamics in areas of operation are shaped and transformed by military interventions.