With global attention focused on deadly clashes between the
paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum,
another militia halfway around the world was locked in battle against its own national military:
the Wagner Group, which tussled with the Russian army in Ukraine’s Luhansk
Oblast.
اضافة اعلان
It was just one of many operations recently waged by violent
non-state actors in failing states.
Raising the specter of civil warMilitias clash with armies, as in Sudan; co-opt the state,
like in Iran and Lebanon; or coexist intermittently with the state and its army
– Iraq, Yemen, and Syria come to mind – raising the specter of civil war.
Militias defend their actions by arguing that government
failure let corruption suck up national resources, creating poverty and
injustice.
Because the system isn’t responsive to change or reform
through peaceful means, they claim, the only option left is armed rebellion.
Change requires two stepsBut positive change requires two steps: Breaking the old and
replacing it with something new and preferably better.
Armed militias, wherever they operate, break existing
systems, but like ruling regimes before them, typically fail to offer anything
new or better. Rulers of all stripes are typically cut from the same cloth,
rendering progress impossible.
The United States initiated change in predominantly Arab
countries when it toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Change must be incremental and has to trust existing governments, even inefficient and corrupt ones. These governments will come under immense domestic and foreign pressure if they fail to develop their economies and offer their citizens decent living.
Since then, Iraqis have yet to produce a state as competent
as that of their brutal dictator, without whom Iraq has splintered into
competing security agencies and militias, all of them abusing state resources
– just like the deposed president and his regime once did.
Second to eject their dictator was Lebanon, whose population
took to the streets in 2005, forcing Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to withdraw his troops after a 29-year occupation.
What followed was a series of assassinations, bombings, a
war with Israel, and a quick round of civil war. Hezbollah emerged on top and,
starting in 2008, its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, became Lebanon’s de facto
leader.
Today, Lebanon effectively mirrors the Iranian model, where
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps militia dominate a
failing state, which they blame for their own failure in governance.
As more Arab regimes collapsed after 2011, remnants of
national armies started battling newer militias in Libya, Yemen, and Sudan.
Stalemate ensued.
In Libya and Yemen,
war fatigue has forced a truce that is depicted as a process for peace and the
rebuilding of the state. But these processes have rarely resulted in better
governments.
At best, power-sharing deals have seen old armies and
militias tenuously coexisting while nourishing their killing machines and
patronage networks as they await future matchups.
Whenever a truce is reached, the two sides will be governing two or more destroyed zones that live in poverty and suffer crime.
A late comer to the Arab Spring, Sudan’s competing factions
have just begun battling it out. The fluid military situation suggests that
neither side can finish off the other.
Sudan’s war will likely grind on for some time, at least
until the warring sides become too exhausted to fight.
Whenever a truce is reached, the two sides will be governing
two or more destroyed zones that live in poverty and suffer crime.
The Sudanese, who have started fleeing the war, will
continue emigrating to more stable countries, even when the killing stops.
What militias and proponents of violent change fail to
understand is that victimhood cannot be a license to practice violence, and
that power alone cannot be the answer. Without proper checks, power – even in
the hands of victims-turned-militias – is a corrupting force, thus doubling
national misery from the days of dictatorship.
Change must be incremental and has to trust existing
governments, even inefficient and corrupt ones. These governments will come
under immense domestic and foreign pressure if they fail to develop their
economies and offer their citizens decent living.
Central authority is the cornerstone of statehood, without
which a homeland becomes a piece of land upon which warring tribes fight it
out. Perhaps it took the Iraq war and the Arab Spring to realize that many Arab
countries are not ready to switch to non-autocratic forms of government.
South Korea might be a good example here. Today, the vibrant
Korean economy looks like a stable democracy, but that did not come overnight,
despite US sponsorship and presence since the end of war on the peninsula in
1953. It took the South Korean military junta some 25 years to abandon
autocracy, and even then, the country still finds itself – from time to time –
embroiled in presidential corruption and political gridlock.
Iran and Arab countries with militias are suffering from
endless tension between state and parallel statelets.
Allowing the state to absorb militias seems like the best
course of action. An efficient central government has a better chance of
developing the economy and human resources. Once developed enough, any of these
countries can think of transforming to less centralized governments that can
better serve the needs and interests of their peoples.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research
institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
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