Mara E. Karlin. Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 296 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8122-4926-2.
Reviewed by Iain Henry (Australian National University)
Published on H-Diplo (August, 2018)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)
Since 2001 the United States has paid significant costs, in both blood and treasure, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather than examining the causes of these failures, in Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States, Mara E. Karlin investigates the conditions under which “U.S. efforts to build partner militaries for internal defense have succeeded” (p. 10). The result is a book that usefully explores the factors affecting an issue of significant policy relevance.
Karlin argues that two variables—“the nature of U.S. involvement and the role of unhelpful external actors”—best explain success or failure in building the military forces of fragile states (p. 3). She measures success by whether or not a fragile state fighting an insurgency can, after receiving US assistance, achieve internal security by exerting a sustainable and enforceable monopoly on violence within its borders. Karlin finds that success is more likely when two conditions are met: when the influence of unhelpful external actors decreases and when there is “deep U.S. involvement in the partner state’s sensitive military affairs” (p. 13). This nomenclature somewhat downplays the severity of such involvement. Karlin argues that success is more likely when the US can restructure the partner state’s military for internal defense, select its leaders, and determine its operations. However, she specifically notes that this deep involvement does not extend to the US assuming a co-combatant role. After succinctly outlining this theory, Karlin examines it against four case studies: Greece, Indochina, and two instances of intervention in Lebanon. In these chapters, she uses extensive archival research, as well as interviews with current and former officials, to examine the efficacy of US intervention.
For the Greece case study, Karlin argues that it was not enough for Washington to simply provide training, weapons, and other resources. The appointment of new US officials with greater willingness to intervene—one expressed a desire to “change or reorganize the Greek government”—precipitated a shift in strategy (p. 37). At first the newly formed Joint United States Military Advisory and Planning Group (JUSMAPG) became more involved and advised the Greek military on operational planning. But the arrival of General James Van Fleet as the group’s leader ensured a greater level of influence on Greek decision making. Here, Karlin uses archival documents to convincingly argue that Van Fleet’s lobbying resulted in significant changes to the Greek military’s senior leadership. Changes to their tactics and order of battle—also made at JUSMAPG’s suggestion—further increased Greece’s military effectiveness. However, in 1948 an increased level of external support (from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania) for the Communist guerrillas prevented a quick resolution of the conflict. When this external support declined, Greece was able to quash the remaining guerrillas in 1949. Karlin persuasively demonstrates that the ability of the US to influence senior military appointments, operations, and doctrine improved the Greek military’s ability to fight the insurgency.
The South Vietnam case (1954-61) highlights two slightly less satisfying aspects of the book. The first is Karlin’s treatment of internal and external security, which are presented largely as discrete concepts. In conceptualizing her two variables as the “external threat environment” and the “nature of U.S. involvement” (in other words, whether the US is focused on building the partner state’s military for external or internal defense), Karlin neatly splits these aspects of security (p. 12). However, this division makes it difficult to explore the point at which they physically meet (a state’s borders). This is most evident in the Vietnam case: though President Dwight Eisenhower initially conceived of a limited mission of assisting South Vietnam to achieve internal security, the actual effort was focused on the building of a South Vietnamese force capable of repelling an invasion from Communist North Vietnam. Though internal security was prioritized in strategy documents, the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) planned for the threat of a conventional invasion. As Karlin notes, this focus on a possible North Vietnamese invasion (perhaps with support from Communist China) came at the expense of programs that could have more effectively aided Saigon’s efforts to confront the Viet Minh guerrillas within South Vietnam’s own borders.
But this is where the separate treatment of internal and external security as discrete raises further questions. Threats external to South Vietnam included the risk of not only a conventional attack by North Vietnam but also foreign support for the Viet Minh insurgents. Karlin implicitly treats this as an internal security issue, despite acknowledging that North Vietnam infiltrated “thousands” of combatants and “tons of material” into South Vietnam (p. 102). Had South Vietnam been able to prevent these intrusions across its borders, this would have no doubt significantly affected the internal security situation. But it is not exactly clear whether Karlin regards such infiltration as an external security threat or an internal security issue.[1] This conceptual uncertainty does not invalidate Karlin’s argument that the MAAG was unwise to prioritize the development of Vietnamese forces for external security roles, but it raises the question as to how external security should be considered alongside a partner state’s internal security situation. If the US is to focus on developing a force for internal security, what exact missions does that role involve? And who is to secure the partner state’s borders, both from external attack and from infiltration?
Secondly, given the heavy conceptual lifting done by Karlin’s idea of “deep U.S. involvement in the partner state’s sensitive military affairs,” the rich empirical evidence of the Vietnam case study raises significant questions about how such involvement can be achieved when the US is partnered with an obstinate government (p. 13). In this case study, the prospects for deeper US involvement were stymied by President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was alert to the possibility of a coup. Thus, the Vietnam case study presents a very different situation to that of Greece, where greater US direction was largely welcomed. As Karlin writes, “The nature of U.S. involvement in sensitive South Vietnamese military affairs was extremely limited,” but it seems likely that greater involvement would have required covert US interference in the form of a coup (p. 106). Karlin’s argument that deep US involvement can be beneficial in optimally bolstering the partner state’s capabilities is persuasive, but it is less clear what the US should do when such influence cannot be obtained through persuasion.
Other instances of bargaining within acrimonious alliance relationships, such as that between the US and the Republic of Korea during armistice negotiations in the early 1950s, provide examples of how such problems might be resolved.[2] A consideration of alliance bargaining theory could also suggest how Karlin’s argument could be extended to cover the problems posed by obstinate partners.[3] One important question raised, but not comprehensively answered, concerns what the US should do if it and the partner state do not share reasonably convergent interests. In such situations, is it even worth trying to secure cooperation through deep involvement in the partner state’s affairs? If this deep involvement is resisted by the partner state, is some form of covert interference required, necessary, or wise?
In the book’s conclusion, Karlin advocates that the US should “pursue a two-pronged strategy: become deeply involved in partner state military affairs and limit antagonistic external actors’ ability to undermine the fragile state by supporting violent non-state actors” (p. 194). But she is also forthright about the unanswered questions resulting from her research. Karlin notes that further work is needed to best translate such arguments into ideas of use to policymakers, and acknowledges the problems posed by the difficulty of parsing out internal and external security, as well as the issue of obstinate partners.
Though it seems unlikely that the US will soon attempt another project on the scale of Iraq or Afghanistan, Washington will no doubt continue to provide targeted support to partner states in their efforts to fight insurgent groups. By turning the oft-asked question—why did the US fail in Vietnam/Irag/Afghanistan?—on its head, Karlin has provided a solid foundation for considering the conditions under which such interventions are more likely to prove successful. Building Militaries in Fragile States is well written, explores an important question through original research, identifies further avenues of inquiry, and will be of interest to scholars and policymakers alike.
Notes
[1]. For another instance of where securing borders is characterized as an internal defense mission, see page 154.
[2]. See especially Rosemary Foot, A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).
[3]. The second Lebanon case study, in particular, reveals the difficulties caused by divergent interests on the role of Hizballah within Lebanon. The description of the “common goal” problem between the US and Lebanon, on page 189, is recognizable as a type of alliance game discussed in Glenn Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict among Nations: Bargaining, Decision-Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).
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Citation:
Iain Henry. Review of Karlin, Mara E., Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States.
H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews.
August, 2018.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=51596
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