The Future of Global Affairs by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030564704
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Security and the Use of ‘Hard’ Power

High degrees of militarization (a large standing army, military tactics in law enforcement) are linked to higher levels of violence against women and a valorization of force-based solutions by the almost exclusively male leadership of conventional armies.43 Mexico and France both figure in the list of the top 30 standing armies. Mexico ranks 17th with 336,000 personnel in 2019 (0.26 percent of the population). France also has a large army with 307,000 active military personnel (0.46 percent of the population).44 There is no requirement that feminists be pacifists though it is common to assume that feminists value non-violent and persuasion-based methods of conflict resolution.45 Whether this is true or not, feminist foreign policy has to address the fact that violations of international law might require ‘hard’ security responses to establish ‘red lines’ on international crimes, or to address threats to national security (for instance from domestic or foreign terrorists).

Of the four FFP countries, France deploys its military capabilities most kinetically in international affairs. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear-weapons state, and has been active in controversial and costly (in terms of civilian lives lost and economic and social damage) overseas military engagements including providing support for international efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading the UN-sanctioned NATO 2011 air strikes that triggered regime change in Libya. At about the same time that France declared its FFP, news broke France had covertly supplied weaponry, training, and special forces to Libyan strongman, Khalifa Haftar, who was undermining UN efforts to mediate differences between the loose alliance of militias in the ‘Government of National Accord’, efforts that included a ceasefire agreement and peace talks in Palermo in November 2019. For the French, direct national security and economic calculations justified disrupting this international effort. France seeks to limit the flow of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, and any extremist mobilization that could generate a repeat of the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris. According to one report: ‘the dominant view in government circles in Paris is that strongman solutions are the only way to keep a lid on Islamist militancy and mass migration, and tant pis (tough luck) for human rights and democracy’.46 The contradictions between outsourcing counterterrorism to ‘strongmen’, and feminist foreign policy are yet to be addressed.

So far the practitioners of feminist foreign policy have largely dodged the issue of the conceivability of a hawkish FFP. Some versions of feminist practice in relation to national and international security prioritize the feminization of armies through increased recruitment of women to combat roles. A focus on women in national and international forces is anathema to some feminist IR theorists and activists in the ‘women, peace and security’ field, as it validates militarism as an expression of sovereignty, and ‘pinkwashes’ violence as a valid response to crises.47 Militarism—even with a feminized military, can limit the pursuit of women’s rights to a project of protection, where women are seen primarily as victims in need of rescue.

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