Interstate and civil war, state crisis and formation
Peter Milne
Essay for submission Week 7
20 November 2002
Contemporary Warfare and Society Course
MA in Contemporary War and Peace Studies
How are conflicts between states and secessionist movements related to conflicts between
established states? How far are these
wars the product of state collapse or of state formation?
Introduction
In order to analyse the relationship linking conflict between
established states and conflicts between states and secessionist movements it
is important to look at changes in global politics during the latter half of
the twentieth century, and the different phases of conflict that have emerged. In particular, there is a fundamental shift
between the Cold War and post-Cold War periods—one that has had major
repercussions on the global order and the attitude of major states to various
secessionist movements around the world.
Furthermore, it is possible to argue that there has been a subsequent shift
in the attitude of established states towards secessionist movements since the
events of 9/11. As such, in this paper
I argue that the involvement of established states in secessionist conflicts
has gone through three phases since World War II.
To answer the second part of the question I look at
the changing pressures caused by secessionist movements on established states
over the period. This is particularly
important following the end of the Cold War and the subsequent, albeit partial,
democratisation of many previously authoritarian regimes. I argue that this has created internal
tensions within many established states.
Sometimes this has caused state formation in a relatively benign manner,
while in others it has seriously undermined the integrity of established states,
creating the potential for state collapse.
In this context, I use Indonesia as a brief case study.
Secessionist
movements during the Cold War
Even at the height of the Cold War standoff between
the US, the USSR and China, it is interesting to note that superpower
involvement in secessionist movements was actually rather limited. Most involvement in third-country conflicts
was part of a wider global struggle between the Communist states and the
Western allies, one side supporting social revolution and the other undermining
such movements. Examples were apparent in
Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia in Africa; Korea, Laos and Vietnam in Asia; and
Cuba and Nicaragua in Central America, to mention just a few. These ‘wars by proxy’ were not secessionist
wars but conflicts over control of political regimes central to the states
involved. Clear secessionist movements
were not of primary concern to the major powers in a global context.
However, involvement in secessionist conflicts was apparent
by established regional states at the regional level. Here, established states often aided and abetted secessionist
movements in attempts to bolster their own political prestige and secure their
borders. Particular examples can be
seen in the secession of East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) from West Pakistan
with support from India and in the unresolved struggle for control of Kashmir
between Pakistan and India. The
outcomes of these two secessionist struggles were, and still are, of such
importance to the stability of the Indian subcontinent, and the political
stability of the two major established regional states, that involvement by both
was unavoidable. Referring to the
pressures on Bangladeshi foreign relations, Jacques states that “[…] the
extra-regional arena [is] considered to have had the least influence of the
three [regional, domestic and extra-regional].” (Jacques, 2000: 172).
Likewise, a long-running insurgency raged in Sri Lanka
as ethnic Tamils tried to wrest control of the Jaffna peninsula from the indigenous
Sinhalese-controlled government. Once
again, superpower involvement was largely absent, although India—in its role as
“the natural ‘successor’ state to the British Raj” (Jacques, 2000: 4-5)—did become involved and sent an
expeditionary force to the island in the last 1980s at the behest of the Sri
Lankan government. This act against the
ethnic-Tamils in Sri Lanka would later lead to the assassination of Indian
prime-minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Meanwhile, in Africa, Eritrea was engaged in its
ultimately successful secessionist struggle with Ethiopia, once again without
any significant extra-regional or regional involvement by established states. The same applies to the ongoing
sectarian-secessionist conflict in southern Sudan. In Southeast Asia, following its annexation of the Portuguese
colony of East Timor in 1975, Indonesia was engaged in a long-running
counter-insurgency against East Timorese separatists striving for
independence. Established states were
only indirectly involved in this conflict: Australia supporting Indonesian
control for its own commercial reasons with military training, and the US and
UK both supporting Indonesia through the sale of arms (Greenless & Garran,
2002.)
Post-Cold
War instability and the ‘new wars’
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War in 1989, a new phase of secessionist wars developed. In the vacuum left by the bi-polar global
order, extra-regional powers had little reason to continue to prop up
authoritarian regimes. The previous wars
by proxy ceased, to be replaced by a surge in low-intensity conflicts as
peoples threw off a variety of colonial arrangements. Russia became involved in its own crop of secessionist conflicts
on its periphery, where “separatist states have become deeply embedded” (Lynch,
2002). Meanwhile, other
semi-authoritarian established states worldwide felt the effects of democratisation,
emboldening political groups in a variety of states to express their expectations
of autonomy or outright independence. As
a result, the integrity of established states such as Russia, Yugoslavia and
Indonesia came under pressure. In the
case of Yugoslavia, the state fissured along provincial and ethnic lines,
resulting in the break-up of the state and formation of several new states from
the provinces of the old Yugoslavia.
While long-running secessionist movements such as
those in Kashmir and Sri Lanka continued much as before, states created after
World War II became more focused on internal tensions and muffling separatist
inclinations. Previous decades of
nation-building based on the logic “that nation and state should be congruent”
(Ahmed, 1995:5) came under pressure as states struggled to assert their
authority over separatist tendencies among disparate ethnic and religious groups.
Adding to the pressure, the end of the
Cold War brought a surge in the number of arms flooding world markets, coupled
with an opening of world markets and flows of funds. These factors combined to create conditions conducive for “new
wars” in regions of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Balkans, Southeast Asia and
Africa (Kaldor, 2001). Such new wars
can be viewed as a loss of state authority within previously defined territories. As Kaldor states, “[new wars] occur in the
context of the erosion of the monopoly of legitimate organized violence.”
(Kaldor, 2001: 4).
Nonetheless, there were a number of exceptions where
extra-regional established states involved themselves in secessionist conflicts. For instance during the 1991-92 Gulf War the
US and its allies gave support and air-cover to Kurdish and Shi’ite separatists
within Iraq, in the hope of destabilising the regime of Saddam Hussein. This support continues today and will doubtless
play an important role if the US invades Iraq with the intention of bringing
regime change.
But the Cold War shift saw a new kind of involvement
by established states not seen before. The
international intervention in Yugoslavia was an example of this, aimed at
preventing genocidal killings by secessionist groups in the disintegrating
state. However, this was in no sense a
conflict between established states,
although there were some tensions between the involvement of Russia
peace-keeping troops inclined to support ethnic Serbs and NATO peace-keepers
trying to protect ethnic minorities from so-called ‘ethnic-cleansing’. This involvement can be seen in terms of a
new phase of humanitarian intervention in secessionist conflicts.
Continuing the trend away from extra-regional state
involvement in secessionist movements as a form of conflict between those
states, the UN intervened in the post-referendum mayhem in East Timor. This was a humanitarian intervention aimed
at stopping a scorched earth policy employed by pro-integration militias with support
from the Indonesian armed forces.
While established states intervened in certain cases
for humanitarian reasons, it is perhaps worth noting that South Africa was able
to pass through its transition towards majority rule without separatist
movements developing (or the need for external involvement) in tribal homelands. This is one of the few examples of a successful
transition from an authoritarian to a multinational and democratic state.
The impact
of 9/11 on secessionist movements
With many established states coming under increasing
pressure from democratisation and globalisation, together with instability in
the wake of the bi-polar global order, what will be the effect of the US ‘war
on terror’ on the relationship between established states and secessionist
movements? It is highly likely that in
a wide range of semi-authoritarian regimes such as Russia, India, Pakistan and
Indonesia, together with more authoritarian states such as China, there will be
an increased willingness to use (and international acceptance of the use of) force
against secessionist movements.
In the still forming post-Cold War global order,
states are struggling in the Weberian sense to reassert their ‘monopoly of violence’
within their territories. All
secessionist movements, regardless of their legitimacy, may be viewed from the
perspective of threatening stability in established states. In view of the growing interconnectedness between
the various ‘new-war’ conflicts worldwide, these movements have the potential
to threaten global stability. Hence, the
major states may start, at the very least, to turn a blind eye towards harsher anti-secessionist
campaigns. In some cases, they may give
direct military support (for instance US military involvement in the
Philippines against Abu Sayyaf rebels) to help states crack down on sources of
instability.
State
formation or state collapse: Indonesian case study
In answer to the second question concerning state
formation/collapse, I will use Indonesia as an example. Post-1947, Indonesia was a typical
post-colonial state starting on a project of nation-building to weld a vast
archipelago comprising numerous ethno-religious groups into a stable state
entity. After a perceived drift towards
communism prompted a military takeover by then General Soeharto in 1965-66, Indonesia
was supported by the Western nations in its nation-building through economic
aid. This support went even further
with US and UN acquiescence in the incorporation of the Dutch colony of West
Papua into Indonesia in the late 1960s, followed by US backing for the Indonesian
invasion of the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. With Indonesian armed forces fighting several
ongoing separatist insurgencies of varying intensity, Indonesia was supported
by Western states through the sale of arms.
Disregarding the UN’s refusal to accept Indonesian control over East
Timor, Australia unilaterally declared its acceptance of Indonesian control
over the territory. During this Cold
War phase, Western states gave tacit support to Indonesia in quelling
secessionist movements that could have been manipulated by non-Western powers
during this period.
In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War and the
Soviet threat, President Soeharto came under increasing pressure from Western
countries to democratise, while secessionist aspirations continued to simmer
and religious tensions started to grow.
Western nations became far more critical of Indonesia’s human rights record,
in particular in the separatist provinces of Aceh and East Timor, where gross
violations were committed with impunity. In the mid-1990s, President Clinton cancelled the sale of military
aircraft to Indonesia on the grounds of the regime’s poor human rights record.
Following Asia’s financial meltdown in 1997, calls for
democratisation in Indonesia led to bloody riots in Jakarta in May 1998 and the
resignation of Soeharto. Indonesia
found itself in a situation not dissimilar to Russia’s: a loss of long-running authoritarian
power, popular democratic aspirations, and a surge in confidence of the
country’s secessionist movements. The
state was under considerable stress.
In the post-Cold War global environment, together with
the internal chaos of political transition, Indonesia struggled to contain its
insurgencies. Partly to win approval
from the international community, Indonesia’s new President B. J. Habibie
decided on a referendum to resolve the East Timor issue. This was welcomed by the international
community and the UN duly prepared for a referendum in 1999, which was 78 percent
in favour of independence. This led to
an outbreak of violence culminating in a predominantly Australian UN force
being sent to restore order in the wake of the violent Indonesian withdrawal
(one example of a post-Cold War phase of established state involvement through
the UN).
Although the formation of an independent East Timor was
an example of successful state formation, it nonetheless shook the foundations
of the Indonesian state, as other secessionist regions demanded their own independence
referenda. Many Indonesians felt that
Western states were actively undermining Indonesia’s integrity, through the support
of secessionist movements and the withdrawal of military cooperation following
the East Timor mayhem. One state’s
formation is often another state’s collapse.
Today, in the third phase of the post-9/11
environment, Indonesia can probably count on renewed support from the US and
the Western states. This is especially true
following the Bali terrorist attack. Indeed,
Indonesia is already starting to take a much harder line against secessionist
movements in Aceh and Papua, with the tacit support of the US government. The separatists in Aceh, for example have
been labelled ‘terrorists’ by the Indonesian government, dove-tailing well with
the recent passage of an anti-terrorism bill through parliament. This may lead to the reassertion of a more
authoritarian political regime in Indonesia and, in the short term at least,
enable the state to paper over cracks that could have otherwise threatened state
collapse.
Conclusion
Established extra-regional states were more
preoccupied with regime change through wars by proxy during the Cold War, as
opposed to support for secessionist movements.
In the post-Cold War environment, significant involvement by established
states in regions affected by secessionist movements came mainly in the form of
humanitarian intervention—not in the context of conflict between established
states. Nonetheless, there were some
notable exceptions, such as Pakistan and India in Kashmir, and the US in Iraq.
In the current post-9/11 situation, secessionist
movements worldwide are seen by most of the established powers as a source of
instability and a possible trigger of state collapse. Therefore, in this new environment an increasing tolerance and
legitimacy is likely to be afforded to anti-secessionist campaigns by established
states such as Indonesia, Russia and China.
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