Introduction - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Introducción

Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

Civil wars run deep through our historical narra-

tives, shaping the political and social consciousness
of people in developed countries around the world:
Japón, Russia, España, Porcelana, México, and the United
Estados, to mention only a few. But intrastate conflicts
are not merely features of the past. Hoy, hay
some thirty active civil wars, ranging from Afghani-
stan and Syria to the Democratic Republic of the Con-
go, with the average duration of conflict increasing
over the past twenty years.1 Most civil wars have bro-
ken out in states with limited material capabilities.
Major powers have sometimes, but not always, ser-
come involved in these conflicts, something that hap-
pened less often in the past. Many of these contem-
porary civil wars are the sources of immense human
suffering and regional insecurity, some giving rise to
mass exodus and uncontrollable refugee spillover.

Sin embargo, foreign-policy practitioners and
scholars alike disagree on the actual risks that high
levels of intrastate violence pose to major powers
and global stability. They also disagree about the ex-
tent to which external powers can influence the tra-
jectories of these conflicts, or improve governance
in areas that have been afflicted by civil war. Mundo-
views matter. Realists generally focus on threats as-
sociated with interstate rivalries, while liberal inter-
nationalists place more emphasis on the risks created
by downstream effects and the erosion of norms that
underpin the order they seek to maintain.2 Of course,
for all, contingency and the particulars also matter.

KARL EIKENBERRY, a Fellow of the
American Academy since 2012, es
the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and
Director of the U.S.-Asia Security
Initiative at Stanford University’s
Asia-Pacific Research Center.

STEPHEN D. KRASNER, a Fellow of
the American Academy since 1991,
is Senior Fellow at the Freeman
Spogli Institute for Internation-
al Studies, the Graham H. Stuart
Professor of International Rela-
ciones, Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution, and Senior Associate
Dean for the Social Sciences at the
School of Humanities and Sciences
at Stanford University.

(*See endnotes for complete contributor
biographies.)

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Some analysts believe that states suffer-
ing from civil strife can at least be put on
a path to greater inclusivity and security;
others believe that the best external actors
can do is to prevent the spread of violence
and chaos across state borders.

The essays that make up this issue of
Dædalus and the upcoming Winter 2018
issue are the culmination of an eighteen-
month American Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences project on Civil Wars, Violence, y
International Responses. The project par-
ticipants have examined in depth the intel-
lectual and policy disagreements over both
the risks posed by intrastate violence and
how best to treat it.

As the project’s codirectors, we should
note that our own perspectives on the po-
tential impact of civil wars and appropri-
ate international policy responses were
deeply influenced by Al Qaeda’s attack on
the United States on September 11, 2001,
and its aftermath.

As Karl Eikenberry relates:

That morning, American Airlines Flight 77,
hijacked and piloted by terrorists, se estrelló
into the Pentagon below my office located
on the building’s outer ring. The flight’s pas-
sengers and crew perished in a jet-fuel infer-
no that simultaneously killed 125 civilian and
military personnel on the ground and con-
sumed part of the building. To that point,
my knowledge of Afghanistan was limited.
What I knew was, en la mayor parte, based
upon study during the Cold War of mujahi-
deen tactics against the occupying Red Army
and the fact the Taliban regime was hosting
Osama Bin Laden and his murderous ter-
rorist organization. But subsequent to that
mañana, my career path, like those of many
of my colleagues, changed dramatically.

After almost three decades of operational
and political-military assignments in China
and East Asia, I would spent most of the next
ten years in senior civilian and military po-
sitions related to the Afghanistan conflict
(twice as a commander of coalition military

forces, as the U.S. ambassador, and as the dep-
uty chairman of the nato Military Commit-
tee in Brussels).

As conditions in the country slowly dete-
riorated and various policy approaches were
validated or discredited, my understanding
of the Afghan civil war and my recommend-
ed strategic responses changed.

As both a military commander and am-
bassador, I became directly acquainted with
a variety of threats to Afghan stability, y
to the extended region and beyond: interno-
tional terrorism, massive narcocriminality,
refugees (much later contributing to a popu-
list backlash in parts of Europe), contagious
enfermedad (the reemergence of polio along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border), and poten-
tially dangerous regional and major-power
competition involving Pakistan, India, Iran,
Russia, Porcelana, y los estados unidos.

The difficulty of policy solutions became
more painfully evident with each passing
año. Building political and government in-
stitutions that incorrectly assumed shared
national identities and rule-of-law norms
proved problematic. Security assistance
programs floundered due to the divergent
interests of the principal (the leaders of the
international military forces) and the agent
(the commanders of the Afghan army and
police forces and the civilian Afghan lead-
ership).3 Enthusiastic advocates of devel-
opment projects designed to rapidly ex-
pand the reach of the central government
across the country were often defeated by ge-
ography, lack of knowledge, and local pref-
erences for autonomy. Sincere and tireless
efforts to achieve unity of effort among the
major external actors–the United Nations,
the European Union, nato, and the Unit-
ed States–and to agree to a common plan
of action with the Afghan government pro-
duced disappointing results due to the pro-
hibitive transaction costs involved. En esto,
Afganistán, I came to recognize, was not
a unique case. The problems that afflicted
that nation were shared by many other pol-

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

ities, including where external military in-
tervention has been minimal.

Stephen Krasner recounts:

I arrived at the State Department a little
more than a week before the 9/11 attacks. I
had spent almost all of my professional life
in academia and I was looking forward to ex-
posure to the policy world. Like others, I ex-
pected that the administration of George W.
Bush would be focused on domestic issues.
The attacks on 9/11 changed all of that. Like
my colleagues in the Policy Planning Bureau
of the State Department, I looked on in disbe-
lief as commercial airliners struck the Twin
Towers and the Pentagon. I was commuting
by bicycle and, by the time I left the State De-
partment, smoke was already pouring out of
the Pentagon. I biked over to the Potomac
near the Memorial Bridge, which was as close
as I could get. I did not know that the plane
had struck the Pentagon near the office of
my former student, then Brigadier Gener-
al Eikenberry. I subsequently worked at the
National Security Council, primarily on the
Millennium Challenge Account, a new for-
eign assistance program, returned to Stan-
ford, y luego, when Condoleezza Rice be-
came Secretary of State, arrived back at the
Department as the Director of Policy Plan-
ning in 2005. It was then already clear to me
that the Bush administration was commit-
ted to an ambitious state-building program
that sought to address the root causes of ter-
rorism by putting the countries of Afghani-
estan, the broader Middle East, and above all,
Iraq, on the path to consolidated democracy.
It has become painfully evident over the
last decade that this admirable objective was
unreachable; that the path to Denmark, a
consolidated democracy and high per capita
income, is out of reach for many countries.
Countries afflicted by civil conflict, como
Afghanistan and especially Iraq, sometimes
precipitated or exacerbated by the engage-
ment of major external powers, may need
generations to establish stable inclusive po-

litical systems. Major powers and the inter-
national order could be upended by devel-
opments in war-torn countries in remote
parts of the world. But different civil wars
had different consequences. As the essays
in these two volumes demonstrate, alguno
consequences are more important than oth-
ers and the opportunities for external state
builders are limited.

With time for reflection, distance from

Central and South Asia (both of us are now
at Stanford University), and the opportu-
nity to engage with leading scholars who
have thought and written much about civ-
il wars and policy responses, we attempted
to place the Afghanistan conflict in a global
contexto. We drew three conclusions.

Primero, antes 9/11, the impact of civil strife
in remote regions of Central Asia or the
Middle East and North Africa on wealthy
industrialized nations was unclear, a pesar de
several attempts by Al Qaeda to attack the
United States. Después 9/11, there was no lon-
ger any question about the potential scale
and horror of the consequences.

Under certain circumstances, civil wars
can threaten regional stability and prove
dangerous to the major powers. Conta-
gion, proxy warfare, and even black swan
events are real possibilities, but estimating
probabilities and assigning risks is art, no
ciencia. The complexity of the problem,
sin embargo, should not lead policy-makers to
ignore and dismiss the potential threats.
During the height of the Cold War, mock
travel posters in the United States depict-
ed the annual May Day military parade in
Moscow’s Red Square with the wry words:
The Soviet Union . . . Visit Us Before We Visit You.
In the case of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, enjoy-
ing sanctuary provided by a Taliban regime
that held the upper hand in a bloody, pro-
tracted civil war, visited the United States
first–with shocking results.

Además, while the short-term costs of
intervention and treatment measures are

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction

easy to calculate, the potential long-term
costs of inaction are not, as the Rwandan
genocide and still unfolding Syrian trage-
dy demonstrate.

Segundo, intervening powers usually fail
when they ignore local political realities
and set unrealistically ambitious goals.
This is true not only for the most extreme
cases in which the intervening actor uses
extensive military force, but also for oth-
er efforts at state-building pursued with
less-intrusive instruments, such as foreign
aid or technical assistance. The promul-
gation of a well-written constitution and
democratic elections do not spontaneous-
ly create the institutions and norms need-
ed to change self-interested political be-
havior. Commanders of an army trained
and equipped by foreign forces will often
not share their patron’s view of who con-
stitutes the immediate and most danger-
ous threat. The notion that political and
economic modernization can be sped up
through surges of military forces and in-
creased levels of foreign aid is akin to a
farmer believing that ever larger applica-
tions of fertilizer and doses of water will
invariably increase crop yields and bring
harvest day nearer.

Tercero, ironically, the extreme difficulty
of finding a solution in Afghanistan and
several other conflicts in the Middle East
has obscured an important fact: over the
past thirty years, many externally brokered
negotiated political settlements to civ-
il wars, monitored and enforced through
un or regional-force peacekeeping oper-
ations, have achieved stability and secu-
rity at relatively low cost. Security does
not necessarily lead to the path of better
governance and consolidated democra-
cy. But the policy choice for those in cap-
itals to make is not binary–invasion and
occupation or nothing at all–it is deter-
mining what is feasible and realistic. Desde
the end of the Cold War, the internation-
al community has, en algunos casos, devel-

oped and applied treatment regimes that
have lowered levels of intrastate violence
and set the conditions for gradual politi-
cal and economic development.4 Such de-
velopment might or might not take place,
but in some instances, external actors have
at least been able to provide greater secu-
rity. Disillusionment with failed U.S.-led
state-building efforts in the first decade
of this century has risked undermining
less-expensive, more-limited and -tailored
approaches that can produce modest re-
sults if the local circumstances are right.
Security, especially if local actors recog-
nize that they are in a hurting stalemate
and accept the help of trusted third par-
corbatas, is easier to provide than better gov-
ernance and democracy.

De este modo, with the support of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, we designed
a study of civil wars that was, en parte, moti-
vated by our own experiences and research.
The study encompasses self-contained civil
strife, as well as conflicts involving the com-
mitment of foreign military forces.

This enterprise has drawn upon the collab-
orative and iterative efforts of some thirty-
five U.S. and international participants
whose diverse academic and professional
backgrounds include political science, glob-
al health, diplomacy, desarrollo, la mil-
itary, and the media. Although the essays
they have contributed to these two issues
of Dædalus have to varying degrees been in-
formed by our group’s conversations during
workshops at the House of the Academy in
Cambridge and at Stanford University, el
authors’ works reflect their own analyses
and ideas. Their essays contain a significant
number of cross-references, but these do
not imply intellectual consensus.

We organized our inquiry by addressing

three overarching questions:

1) What is the scope of intrastate con-
flicts and civil wars, and to what extent is
this attributable to domestic or interna-
tional factors?

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

2) What types of threats emanate from
state civil wars that might jeopardize U.S.
and global security?

3) What policy options are available to
the United States, major and regional pow-
ers, and the international community to
deal with such threats?

This first volume, “Guerras civiles & Global

Disorder: Threats & Opportunities,” com-
prises two sections: “Civil Conflicts: Estafa-
textos & Risks” and “The Difficulty of Solu-
tions.” The essays describe the nature and
causative factors of civil wars in the mod-
ern era, examine the security risks posed
by high levels of intrastate violence, y
explore the challenges confronting exter-
nal actors intervening to end the fighting
and seek a political settlement.

The second volume, appearing as the
Invierno 2018 issue of Dædalus, is titled “End-
ing Civil Wars: Constraints & Possibilities”
and also consists of two parts: “Norms &
Domestic Factors” and “Policy Prescrip-
tions.” The essays in this collection consider
the impediments to ending wars of internal
disorder when norms such as national iden-
tity or commitment to rule of law are not
shared by contending elites, or when reb-
els are fighting for a transnational, divine
cause and not simply the seizure of state
fuerza. The remaining essays focus on the
“what to do” and offer a variety of recom-
mendations to policy-makers. The volume
concludes with our own reflections on the
risks and possible treatments of civil wars.
The boundaries between the two vol-
umes and sections, por supuesto, are not exact.
Almost all authors write about risks, el
difficulty of solutions, and policy prescrip-
ciones. Given the complexity and intercon-
nectivity of the topics discussed, y el
need to give authors sufficient latitude to
develop fully their arguments, we avoid-
ed fixation on typology. Still, for the most
part, the main themes of each essay align
with the sections in which they appear.

Our project will continue beyond the
publication of the Fall 2017 and Winter 2018
issues of Dædalus. Beginning in October
2017, contributing authors will participate
in a series of public discussions at U.S. insti-
tutions of higher learning and think tanks,
dialogues with U.S. government and inter-
national organizations, and workshops in
countries that have experienced (y son
still experiencing) civil wars. De hecho, el
project’s case studies–Sri Lanka, Ethiopia
and its use of buffer zones, the Western Bal-
kans, and Colombia–and the rich analy-
ses our authors draw from conflicts in the
Middle East and Africa are shaping our in-
ternational engagement agenda. The feed-
back acquired during these various activi-
ties will later serve as the basis for a policy-
prescriptive occasional paper published un-
der the auspices of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences.

Before briefly introducing the essays in

this volume, a comment on the major in-
sights gained from the deliberations of the
project participants over two gatherings
and from the essays they prepared. As in-
dicated above, we did not seek to reach a
consensus, but instead to categorize the
asuntos (risks, policy prescriptions, y
implementación) and encourage diverse
analysis from different academic and pro-
fessional perspectives. Sin embargo, nuestro
major debates–ending in both agreements
and disagreements–often related to four
preguntas, some previously alluded to.

Primero, is intrastate warfare increasing in
scope and does it threaten international
seguridad? The proliferation of civil wars
spearheaded by militant jihadists in the
greater Middle East cautions against mak-
ing sweeping generalizations about glob-
al trends. Al mismo tiempo, there is some-
thing new here: not since the Cold War
have we experienced rebels in many coun-
tries avowedly inspired by a coherent trans-
national ideology. Operating with unprec-

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction

edented access to social media and digi-
tal recruitment, their reach is truly global
in nature. Además, as Tanisha Fazal ex-
plains in her contribution to the second vol-
ume, insurgents fighting for a divine cause
are quite different from those who fight to
seize control of a state so that they can enjoy
the perquisites that come with sovereignty.
Al mismo tiempo, while the consequences
of today’s and future civil wars do not rise
to the level of existential threat associated
with contemporary warfare between ma-
jor powers with nuclear arsenals, hay
many plausible scenarios that could pose
grave risks to denizens in far-flung parts of
el mundo. Transnational terrorists can ef-
fectively terrorize. We have seen that un-
anticipated large migrant flows contribute
to a declining commitment to open and in-
clusive political orders in liberal democra-
cíes. Religionist rebels demonstrating al-
ternatives to the current world political
system inspire adherents in their self-pro-
claimed caliphates and beyond. Lethal pan-
demics can spread across borders from a
war zone in which there is no capable gov-
ernment with which to partner, con el
only alternatives being border quarantine
or direct intervention, both of which re-
quire a massive and intrusive military in-
intervención. Sin embargo, the vexing problem
for policy-makers is that these possibilities
all emerge from contingencies that cannot
be predicted with any degree of confidence.
Effectively planning for low-probability or
black-swan events is problematic and polit-
ically difficult to justify to taxpayers.

Segundo, how will the continuing diffu-
sion of economic wealth and the chang-
ing tides of globalization impact the will-
ingness of and ways in which major world
and regional powers respond to civil wars?
If geopolitical spheres of influence remi-
niscent of the nineteenth-century Europe-
an-dominated international order or the
Cold War era reemerge, then we can an-
ticipate more regionally tailored respons-

es. Such a development might come with
both opportunities and risks. The greater
interest and enhanced ability of regional-
ly powerful state actors to respond to po-
litical crises in their own neighborhood
might generate more indigenous solutions
with credible enforcement mechanisms.
Sin embargo, regional powers can only be
effective if more distant major powers are
supportive. If major powers defend differ-
ent sides in a civil war, they can preclude
the emergence of battlefield deadlocks that
can facilitate negotiated settlements. El
will for collective action necessary to mount
even modest United Nations peacekeep-
ing missions might decrease. Barry Posen
points out in his essay in this issue that, como
the distribution of power becomes more
multilateral, norms of political mediation
and peacekeeping to deal with civil wars de-
veloped since the late 1980s may be aban-
doned. This possibility is suggested by the
fragmented and generally anemic interna-
tional response to the Syrian tragedy.

Tercero, to what degree is the success of for-
eign interventions in countries that are torn
by civil strife dependent on the alignment
of interests of external actors with those of
national elites? As cited earlier, our own ex-
periences have led us to conclude that this
is the central but most underappreciated
problem faced by external actors desperate
to find local power brokers able and willing
to adopt their policy agenda.

Political elites in poorer countries torn
by civil war are almost always members of
exclusive orders; their primary objective
is to stay in power. This requires the care
for and feeding of those who provide them
with essential support. Most important,
they must have enough command over
those who control the instruments of vi-
olence so that they cannot be overthrown.
Political leaders in exclusive or rent-seek-
ing orders are focused on avoiding the loss
of status, prestige, dinero, and even life an-
ticipated after their removal from office.

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

These leaders will regard efforts to hold
free and fair elections, por ejemplo, or to
eliminate corruption as existential threats.
Even more-modest policies, like reform-
ing customs services, which are often rev-
enue sources for elites in exclusive orders,
might be resisted.5

This generates a difficult conundrum for
external powers that only have leverage if
domestic elites share the same objectives or
are highly dependent on foreign assistance
that external actors can credibly threaten
to withdraw. En la práctica, key objectives are
infrequently shared; and while foreign aid
dependency is often the case, threats to ter-
minate such aid are rarely credible. Realis-
tic third-party policy options usually con-
sist of a menu of bad choices fraught with
risks. Successful policy must begin with rec-
ognition that there are limited opportuni-
ties for external state-building.

Fourth and last, when and how is it possi-
ble to end high levels of intrastate violence
on terms that deliver sustainable physical
and economic security, and a modicum
of political freedom to the majority of the
población? External actors might often be
faced with painful trade-offs. This question
is addressed in almost all essays found in
our two volumes of Dædalus, and especial-
ly in the next issue.

As noted earlier, recent U.S. and collec-
tive failures to treat adequately the most
severe cases should not lead to an aban-
donment of remedies proven to deal ef-
fectively with less-acute maladies. Allá
are proven policy options short of neglect.
There may be opportunities to create is-
lands of excellence, especially in areas of
limited statehood.6 Prioritized and se-
quenced building of institutions leading to
more accountable political systems is pos-
sible under some conditions.7 Yet, in many
casos, it might be impossible to establish
political systems that are accountable to
a large part of the population. Reaching
the destination of “good enough gover-

nance” may disappoint those unrealisti-
cally hoping to quickly arrive in Denmark,
but is much preferable to the permanent
state of vulnerability and lawlessness that
characterizes swaths of countries afflict-
ed by large-scale intrastate violence. El
extent to which relatively low-cost strat-
egies have reduced the worst excesses of
civil war over the past three decades is not
generally well understood.

This issue of Dædalus opens by examin-

ing how civil conflicts are situated in the
current international system and identify-
ing major associated risks. James Fearon’s
essay provides a comprehensive overview
of the problem of civil war in the post-1945
international system. With meticulous use
of empirical evidence, he describes global
patterns and trends over the whole peri-
od, and then sketches an explanation for
the spread of civil war up to the early 1990s
and the partial recession since then. He ar-
gues that the United Nations and major-
power policy responses since the end of the
Cold War have contributed to the subse-
quent decline in the outbreak of civil wars.
Sin embargo, as Fearon writes, “the spread
of civil war and state collapse within the
Middle East and North Africa (mena) re-
gion over the last fifteen years has posed
one set of problems that the current inter-
national policy repertoire cannot address
Bueno, and highlights a second, deeper prob-
lem whose effects are gradually worsening
and for which there does not appear to be
any good solution within the constraints
of the present un system.” The first prob-
lem is that compared with conflicts in Asia,
sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America,
civil war and state collapse in mena more
directly affect the major powers, and possi-
bly international peace and security more
broadly. Además, mena conflicts resist
the standard treatment model of media-
ción, third-party peacekeeping operations,
and aid programs. The second problem,

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction

manifestly evident in the U.S. experiencia
in Afghanistan and Iraq, is that third-party
efforts to build functional and self-sustain-
ing states following state collapse due to
civil war, misrule, or invasion have main-
ly been failures. Fearon provides an excel-
lent foundation for the subsequent essays
in both volumes.

In their contribution, Bruce Jones and
Stephen Stedman contend that there is no
global crisis of failed states and civil wars.
En cambio, they argue that the particular cri-
sis in the greater Middle East has disrupted
stability in that region and has had three re-
percussions for today’s international order:
hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking
asylum in Europe, where immigration poli-
tics have fed the failure of international hu-
manitarian cooperation; the success of isis
in conquering parts of Syria and Iraq, es
ability to metastasize in countries far away
from the fighting, and its capacity to inspire
terrorist attacks in Europe; and the failure
of the major powers and international insti-
tutions to manage the conflicts, with exter-
nal military intervention supporting indis-
criminate wars of attrition.

They maintain that the civil wars of the
Middle East and the failure of the inter-
national order have contributed to a nar-
rative of failing global cooperation. jones
and Stedman believe that this narrative
has fueled but is not the cause of the great-
er threat to international order: populist
backlash in the United States and Europe.
Stewart Patrick’s essay is the first in a se-
ries of contributions that investigate spe-
cific threats that emanate from states that
have collapsed or are experiencing or recov-
ering from large-scale violence. Patrick per-
suasively writes that sweeping characteriza-
tions of states mired in civil wars as existen-
tial threats to the United States and broader
global security are not warranted. He notes
that under certain circumstances, countries
experiencing or recovering from internal
conflict can generate negative “spillovers”

of significant concern–including terror-
ismo, crime, humanitarian crises, and in-
fectious disease–and, as Syria shows, poder
undermine regional stability.

Patrick suggests that the connection be-
tween internal disorder and transnation-
al threat is highly contingent on an array
of factors and conditions. Patrick’s non-
exhaustive list of these includes “the na-
ture and capabilities of the governing re-
gime, the presence of ‘alternatively gov-
erned’ spaces, the nature of the underly-
ing conflict and its duration and intensity,
the existence of illicit commodities in high
international demand, the country’s geo-
graphic location and integration into the
world economy, and the influence of pow-
erful external state actors.” He concludes
that it is the moral considerations–the
“suffering of strangers” more than any
spillover–that should motivate U.S. y
global concern with war-torn states.

Writing on the interrelationships be-
tween civil wars and terrorism, Martha
Crenshaw posits that when rebels employ
terrorism, civil wars can become more
consequential and harder to resolve. Desde
the 1980s, jihadism has mobilized rebels
and secessionists, outside entrepreneurs,
foreign fighters (and their funders and
trainers), and organizers of transnational
and domestic terrorism. Crenshaw argues
that “these activities are integral to the ji-
hadist trend, representing overlapping and
conjoined strands of the same ideological
current, which in turn reflects internal di-
vision and dissatisfaction within the Arab
world and within Islam.”

She notes, sin embargo, that jihadism is
neither unitary nor monolithic. Her essay
carefully traces the competing power cen-
ters and divergent ideological orthodoxies
encompassed by jihadism, beginning with
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Y
because different jihadist actors empha-
size different priorities and strategies–
they disagree, Por ejemplo, on whether the

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

“near” or the “far” enemy should take pre-
cedence–the relationship between jihad-
ist terrorism and civil war is far from con-
stant. Crenshaw also highlights the major
policy implications of this reasoning. Ella
writes that as jihadists suffer military de-
feats in civil wars, they may revert increas-
ingly to transnational terrorism, with po-
tential negative feedback loops: “Terror-
ism against outside powers can provoke
military intervention, which not only in-
tensifies civil war, but also sparks more ter-
rorism against occupying forces, their lo-
cal allies, and their home countries.” She
poses the critical question: can powerful
states resist terrorist provocation?

Paul Wise and Michele Barry, both med-
ical doctors with extensive field experience
in violence-prone developing countries,
analyze the relationship between epidem-
ics and intrastate warfare. Their discussion
is premised on the recognition that infec-
tious pandemics can threaten the interna-
tional order, and that state collapse and
civil wars may elevate the risk that pan-
demics will break out.

They identify three related mechanisms
of central concern: “1) the possibility that
civil wars can elevate the risk that an in-
fectious outbreak with pandemic poten-
tial will emerge; 2) the chance that civ-
il wars can reduce outbreak surveillance
and control capacities, resulting in silent
global dissemination; y 3) the poten-
tial for infectious outbreaks emerging in
areas plagued by civil conflict to generate
complex political and security challeng-
es that can threaten traditional notions of
national sovereignty and create pressure
for international intervention.” Wise and
Barry elucidate one of the most impor-
tant conclusions of this project: that civ-
il wars increase the probability for global
pandemics, and that global pandemics are
a challenge that even the most developed
countries, with the most advanced health
care systems, ignore at their own peril.

In her essay, Sarah Kenyon Lischer exam-
ines how one tragic output of civil war–
large-scale displacement crises–can be-
come deeply enmeshed in the politics, se-
curity, and economics of the conflict. Ella
details how refugee and internally displaced
populations can exacerbate concerns about
regional destabilization. With the Syri-
an civil war, Por ejemplo, the neighbor-
ing host states of Turkey, Jordán, and Leb-
anon bear the brunt of the refugee crisis,
while European states seek to prevent fur-
ther encroachment by Middle Eastern asy-
lum seekers.

Lischer asserts that policy-makers should
not view host state security and refugee se-
curity as unrelated or opposing factors.
Bastante, refugee protection and state stabil-
ity are linked: “Risks of conflict are higher
when refugees live in oppressive settings,
lack legal income-generation options, y
are denied education for their youth. El
dangers related to the global refugee crisis
interact with many other threats that em-
anate from civil wars and weak states, semejante
as fragile governments, rebel and terrorist
group activity, and religious or ethnic frag-
mentation.”

Vanda Felbab-Brown explores the often
oversimplified relationship between orga-
nized crime, illicit economies, violence,
y orden internacional. In analyzing the
range of possible responses by states and
the international community to the nexus
of criminal economies and civil wars, en-
surgencies, y terrorismo, her essay high-
lights how “premature and ill-conceived
government efforts to combat illicit econ-
omies can have counterproductive effects
and hamper efforts to suppress militancy.”
She adds that flawed policy approaches can
themselves generate international spill-
overs of criminality. Felbab-Brown empha-
sizes the complexity of the relationship be-
tween transnational criminality and civil
guerras, noting that the conflict-crime nexus
can involve “defeating militants without

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction

suppressing illicit economies, suppressing
crime and illicit economies without end-
conflicto, and state co-optation of illicit
economies.”

The second half of this volume highlights

the difficulties of devising and effective-
ly implementing responses to the threats
identified in the preceding essays. Hendrik
Spruyt contends that adherence to West-
phalian principles, in which authority is de-
fined territorially, has contributed to the de-
cline of interstate war. That war makes the
state and the state makes war is a logic of
state-building that does not apply in many
contemporary situations. En cambio, ap-
plying Westphalian principles and norms to
states that gained their independence since
1945 has contributed to the frequency and
intensity of civil conflicts. A fundamental
problem is that the norms of Westphalian
sovereignty, which protect the geographic
integrity of the state, are in tension with the
inability of many states to effectively gov-
ern their own territories. Spruyt examines
how the norms of self-determination, non-
interference, and uti possidetis (that newly
recognized states should maintain inherit-
ed, colonial borders), En particular, provide
poor guidelines for responding to civil wars.
Bastante, Spruyt argues that the character of
the combatants’ challenge to fundamental
Westphalian principles should guide policy
respuestas. Por ejemplo, civil wars seeking
concessions by the extant government war-
rant a different treatment from secessionist
civil wars. This perspective illustrates how,
in some contexts, the international legal re-
gime may choose to break with the princi-
ple of uti possidetis, with partition being the
most effective solution to a conflict; if parti-
ción, which usually requires the acceptance
of all affected parties, is impossible, feder-
alism may be the best available alternative.
Stephen Biddle analyzes the use of
“small-footprint” security force assistance
(sfa) to attempt to stabilize weak states,

which has emerged as an alternative to
A NOSOTROS. ground-force commitments. He finds
that effective sfa is much harder to imple-
ment in practice than often assumed, y
less viable as a substitute for large unilateral
troop deployments. He makes a strong case
that for the United States, En particular, el
achievable upper bound is usually modest,
and even this is possible only if policy is in-
trusive and conditional, which it rarely is.
Biddle builds his argument on the un-
derstanding of sfa as a principal-agent re-
lationship: “The conditions under which
the United States provides sfa common-
ly involve large interest misalignments be-
tween the provider (the principal) y el
recipient (the agent), difficult monitoring
challenges, and difficult conditions for en-
necesariamente: a combination that typically
leaves principals with limited real leverage
and that promotes inefficiency in aid provi-
sion.” Overcoming these challenges is not
impossible, but the combination of neces-
sary conditions has not been a common
feature of U.S. security force assistance
in the modern era, nor is it likely to be-
come so in the future: “U.S. Responsables políticos
can design sfa programs to be intrusive
and conditional, but it is much harder to
create political interest alignment and this
is often absent.”

Will Reno’s essay looks into the per-
sistent conflict and prolonged state insti-
tutional collapse that lead to what he terms
“fictional states” and “atomized socie-
ties.” He focuses on the domestic factors
that cause some states to break down. Este
fenómeno, he explains, is rooted in de-
cades of personalist rule and the failure of
mid-twentieth-century state-building proj-
etc., problems long considered particular to
sub-Saharan Africa. Reno notes, sin embargo,
that developments in parts of the Middle
East and Central Asia show that this con-
nection between a particular type of author-
itarian rule and state failure, which produc-
es a distinctive type of multisided warfare,

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner

remain much more powerful than its global
competitors, several consequential powers
have emerged to challenge U.S. leadership
and produce a multipolar system.

Más, as the top of the international
system begins to even out, the influence of
middle powers may also grow. He suggests
that “this new constellation of power seems
likely to magnify disagreements about how
states suffering civil wars should be stabi-
lized, limit preventive diplomacy, producir
external intervention that will make for
longer and more destructive wars, and ren-
der settlements more difficult to police.”

Como se ha mencionado más arriba, the next issue of
Dédalo, forthcoming in winter 2018, es
titled “Ending Civil Wars: Constraints &
Possibilities” and will include our project’s
remaining essays.

is not exclusive to Africa. Like Spruyt, él
points to the tensions between the accept-
ed norms of the Westphalian system and
the logic of poor governance, contributing
to civil wars in many polities.

Aila Matanock and Miguel García-Sán-
chez provide a different regional perspec-
tivo, examining the 2016 Colombian pop-
ular plebiscite and the unique challeng-
es posed by ending war with a negotiated
settlement. Conflicts increasingly occur in
democratic states, and voters have some-
times been directly involved in the process
in an effort to overcome elite divisions. Todavía,
as Matanock and García-Sánchez point out,
according to evidence from the 2016 pop-
ular plebiscite in Colombia, which sought
direct voter approval of a peace process
between the government, leftist guerrilla
grupos, and right-wing paramilitary bands,
referenda and other tools of direct democ-
racy seem to amplify elite divisions, y
therefore may not be useful mechanisms to
strengthen peace processes. They postulate
that focusing instead on traditional elite-led
negotiations that seek to satisfy each fac-
tion may have a higher chance of producing
signed settlements that both sides will ad-
here to. Sin embargo, the Colombian case also
suggests some alternative forms of inclusiv-
idad, which could increase the legitimacy of
the process and thereby improve the odds
of successful implementation.

Concluding this volume, Barry Posen
asks how a multipolar system might com-
plicate future international management
of civil wars. He describes how the “poli-
cy science” of civil wars, which emerged
in the early 1990s, included deeply embed-
ded assumptions about the nature of the in-
ternational political system: “It was taken
for granted that the United States would re-
main the strongest power by a wide mar-
gin, and that it would lead a liberal coalition
that included virtually all the other strong
states in the world.” Posen observes that
now, though the United States is likely to

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction

notas finales
* Contributor Biographies: KARL EIKENBERRY, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 2012,
is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at Stanford
University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
from May 2009 until July 2011 and had a thirty-five-year career in the United States Army, re-
tiring with the rank of lieutenant general. He codirects the Academy’s project on Civil Wars,
Violence, and International Responses.
STEPHEN D. KRASNER, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 1991, is Senior Fellow at the
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Graham H. Stuart Professor of Interna-
tional Relations, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Senior Associate Dean for the So-
cial Sciences at the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. He is the author
of Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009), Sovereignty: Organized Hy-
pocrisy (1999), and Asymmetries in Japanese-American Trade: The Case for Specific Reciprocity (1987). Él
codirects the Academy’s project on Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses.

1 See James D. Fearon, “Civil War & the Current International System,Dédalo 146 (4) (Caer

2017).

2 The authors thank Barry Posen for this insight.
3 The authors draw from Stephen Biddle in using the principal-agent construct to describe the

problema.

4 See Richard Gowan and Stephen John Stedman, “The International Regime for Treating Civil

Guerra, 1988–2017,” Dædalus 147 (1) (Invierno 2018).

5 Stephen Krasner, “Why We Need Foreign Aid,” The American Interest, Junio 19, 2017, https://

www.the-american-interest.com/2017/06/19/need-foreign-aid/.

6 See Thomas Risse and Eric Stollenwerk, “Limited Statehood Does Not Equal Civil War,"

Dédalo 147 (1) (Invierno 2018).

7 See Clare Lockhart, “Sovereignty Strategies: Enhancing Core Governance Functions as a

Postconflict & Conflict-Prevention Measure,Dédalo 147 (1) (Invierno 2018).

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146 (4) Fall 2017Karl Eikenberry & Stephen D. Krasner
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