Saving Face in the Cyberspace: Responses to Public Cyber Intrusions in the Gulf

How do states “save face” following a cyber intrusion directed at them? A new article identifies how Gulf states employ diverse rhetorical strategies—beyond attribution—to narrate cyber intrusions and keep cyber conflict contained.

In July 2017, nearly two months after Qatar had suffered a public cyber intrusion, the Qatari Ministry of Interior (MOI) revealed evidence concerning the intrusion. Rather than only providing technical details about the intrusion, the MOI broadcasted a dramatic video with intense music, thrilling graphics, and a spy-style vibe to reveal the intrusion step-by-step. In addition to delegitimizing cyber intrusions as acts of terrorism, the video emphasizes the Qatari remarkable success in containing the intrusion and detecting its source despite the intrusion’s sophistication.

This Qatari press conference was not unique. When cyber intrusions become public, states do not only engage in technical strategies to deal with the intrusion and identify the initiator, but also manage their public relations – they publish messages, hold press conferences, brief reporters, and rhetorically try to manage the crisis.

However, these performative and symbolic strategies are often left unnoticed in existing research on cyber discourse. Of course, many studies zoom in on the strategy of attribution, but as we see, much more is going on following a public cyber intrusion.

In this article, we explore the rhetorical strategies used by governments in the Gulf in response to a public cyber intrusion they suffered. We do so via an original discourse analysis of official statements and state-sponsored media reports in five cyber intrusions that differ in their targets and methods: Saudi Arabia’s response to cyber intrusion against its oil company Aramco (“Shamoon” 2012), Saudi Arabia’s response to a “hack-and-leak” intrusion (2015), Saudi Arabia’s response to intrusions using “Shamoon 2.0” malware (2017), Qatar’s response to a “hack-and-fake” intrusion (2017), and Bahrain’s response to multiple hacking operations (2019).

Responding to Public Cyber Intrusions

When a cyber intrusion becomes public knowledge, targeted states must find ways to address and explain the resulting social costs. The need to “save face” in these situations arises from the undesirable implications for the identity and image of the state in front of both domestic and international audiences. We suggest that states employ rhetorical strategies to “save face” – to protect their public image in front of domestic, regional, or international audiences.

To better understand these strategies, we propose a typology of “face-saving” strategies that can be categorized into three broad groups: diminishing strategies, self-complimenting strategies, and accusing strategies.

Diminishing strategies involve minimizing the effect of the intrusion, normalizing it, or debunking false information. Minimizing means that states try to reduce the magnitude of the intrusion. Normalizing means that states frame the intrusion as a common occurrence in global politics, highlighting that other countries also experience cyber intrusions. Debunking means that states try to dispute the authenticity of leaked information and provide evidence to counter false claims. These strategies serve to diminish the impact and prevent further dissemination of damaging information.

Self-complimenting strategies are used to enhance the positive perception of the targeted state. States employ bolstering rhetoric to emphasize their successes, international connections, and positive values. Reasserting control is a rhetorical move that showcases measures taken to ensure future protection, often involving investigations, new cyber institutions, and regulations. Correcting is a rhetoric that aims to replace leaked or fabricated information with a more positive narrative by providing an alternative and beneficial account.

Accusing strategies involve exposing the intrusion, condemning the perpetrators, and attributing the attack to specific actors. By adopting these strategies, states shift blame and position themselves as victims.

Findings

When thinking about the public response of states to public cyber intrusions, existing literature primarily discusses the risks of retaliation or escalation as well as attribution. However, as this article shows, states engage in multiple “face-saving” strategies to manage their image and legitimize their restraint. Attribution is only one rhetorical option out of many.

The results of our systematic discourse analysis suggest that different contextual factors shape the specific strategies used. In cyber intrusions that involve leaking or faking information involve, unique strategies of debunking or correcting were used.

Regarding attribution, the cases involving Saudi Arabia – a regional power – did not include public attribution. In contrast, Bahrain and Qatar – smaller powers – did attribute the intrusions but did so only after such attribution was made by American media. These suggestive contextual factors might be used in future research on the rhetoric of cyber responses in other areas.

Understanding these face-saving strategies is crucial for two reasons. First, it provides insights into the restraint and limited nature of cyber conflicts. Existing research focuses on operational aspects and restraint shown by targeted states, but the public narrative and strategic narration of these events are often overlooked. By adopting face-saving strategies, targeted states aim to reduce pressure to retaliate or escalate and justify why such actions are unnecessary. Second, this study contributes to constructivist scholarship by expanding the repertoire of strategies used by states to cope with embarrassment. By focusing on the Gulf countries, we highlight the agency of states in the Global South to interpret cyber intrusions in front of different audiences.

Yehonatan Abramson and Gil Baram are the authors of “Saving Face in the Cyberspace: Responses to Public Cyber Intrusions in the Gulf” in Contemporary Security Policy, which is available here.

Privatizing security and authoritarian adaptation in the Arab region since the 2010–2011 uprisings

In a new article, Engy Moussa studies the rise of private security companies in the Arab region since the 2010-2011 uprisings. She finds that this development offer new venues to enrich and strengthen the ruling elites.

Regardless of where you look in the Arab region, the uprisings didn’t lead to democratization. Instead, authoritarian systems prevailed through enhanced strategies of public security, political co-optation and social control. This ongoing authoritarian adaptation features considered input from private security actors amid intense security market diversification and considerable outsourcing of domestic security and guarding services.

Addressing ‘how privatizing security contributes to perpetuating authoritarian practices post-2010,’ my recent article argues that contemporary security privatization and outsourcing provide alternative agents and strategies for social control, while offering new venues to enrich and strengthen ruling elites. Supplementing the continuous dominance of repressive state security forces, privatizing and outsourcing security essentially support practices of authoritarian adaptation by cultivating networks of patronage; diversifying ruling elites’ bases of security; and curbing constant sources of unrest.

Ongoing security privatization across the region is multifaced, with notable variation among cases, particularly privatizing security in conflict zones versus under relatively stable regimes. Alongside the military facet of the private security industry (PSI), widespread in conflict zones as in Libya and Syria, the steady rise of private security, rather than military, companies (PSCs) across the region is remarkable. From an international perspective, the PSI development in the region, starting in the 1980s, follows the global move toward neo-liberal governance, which advocates replacing public provision of welfare and social security with notions of privately purchased security.

While predating the uprisings, the latter hastened PSCs’ growth in terms of profit-making, scope of activities, suppliers and clients, among other factors. On one level, the contemporary heightened resort to PSCs within the private sector responds to turbulent security environments shaped by post-uprisings developments. Immune to the general decline in domestic economies, PSI has thus steadily expanded to meet increasing demands from different social sectors, being simultaneously boosted by growing outsourcing of public security functions. As it continuously prospers, PSI opens wide venues for employment and business growth; thus, indirectly enhancing some authoritarian systems’ economic viability by helping to alleviate widespread economic hardships.

Amidst the patrimonial networks within the post-2010 security markets, PSCs’ status is noteworthy. While attracting many newcomers, and enabling old players to flourish, a close look at PSI’s structure and members suggests a considerable share of the industry belongs to already powerful actors: state personnel and institutions alongside established businessmen. Yet, the dominant position occupied within the expanding PSI by security personnel alongside different state institutions and business elite is not what makes Arab states distinct. Across cases, private security actors are well-connected with state actors, with PSCs commonly owned or run by ruling elite members or state institutionsand ex-security officers working as private guards.

Instead, it is the role these actors have played, before and after 2010, in perpetuating authoritarianism and preserving ruling elites’ security that raises concerns about their prevalence over the mounting provision of private security. In this light, including PSCs in networks of patronage and entrusting private security provision to business and security elites, who are loyal to and dependent on autocratic ruling elites, provide the latter with substantial influence over private security and diffuse the distinction between public and private security agents as the latter become closely linked to ruling elites and potentially implicated in authoritarian strategies and policies.

Beyond nurturing networks of patronage, outsourcing security mirrors the tense relationship between ruling elites and state security institutions. The uprisings’ early phase severely shook the mutual dependency between some Arab ruling elites and their coercive institutions. After all, the police forces’ retreat from the streets, as in Egypt and Tunisia, alongside the military leadership’s decision to abandon the presidents, gave substantive ground to the uprisings and marked a reshuffle of power relations among ruling elites. In this regard, state preference to employ PSCs, instead of police or armed forces, to fulfil certain public security functions, arguably implies a diversification of the ruling elites’ coercive allies and an attempt to decrease dependence on state forces.

With many PSCs closely linked to ruling elites, they exhibit great loyalty to them and consider the authoritarian system’s security and stability among their main priorities. Compared to a recurrently inefficient police force, internally fragmented and whose loyalty is considerably uncertain in some Arab states, PSCs arguably represent more secure and reliable agents for selected public security tasks. Moreover, PSCs’ competitive nature and private dynamics of operation offer an advantage with respect to their performance: being presumably more professional, effective and cost-efficient; while the need to regularly renew contracts with the state boosts their incentive to enhance performance and reassert loyalty to secure new contracts and remain strong in the market.

Ultimately, privatizing and outsourcing security in some Arab countries reflect broad transformations in governance where public and private sectors are continuously reconfigured. Outsourcing security is profoundly shaped by domestic politics, especially the impact of authoritarianism on state security forces and the damaged state-society relationship it produces. Particularly, mistrust in the state’s ability or willingness to provide protection alongside public fear from the state’s abusive and arbitrary power are central to examining PSCs expansion in the Arab region amid a lack of serious public debates on the repercussions of growing privatized violence.

Engy Moussa is Teaching Associate at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and James Buchanan Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She lectures on Middle East Politics and pursues a multi-disciplinary research agenda covering the politics and economics of authoritarian systems, critical security studies, and international relations. She is the author of “Privatizing security and authoritarian adaptation in the Arab region since the 2010–2011 uprisings”, Contemporary Security Policy, which can be accessed here.

Humanitarian space and peace negotiations in Syria

Can humanitarian principles be negotiated and be part of peace negotiations? Are humanitarians also  political actors? Debates on the nature of the relations between the political and humanitarian spaces have plagued the humanitarian community for decades and are still vivid today among by practitioners. While some humanitarian actors insist on the necessity to preserve the autonomy of humanitarian action, others defend the idea that humanitarian activities are inherently political. As analyzed by Milena Dieckhoff in a recent article, a dual process of politicization of humanitarian action and a “humanitarization” of political negotiations is at work in Syria, creating a complex interdependence between the humanitarian and political spaces.

In the Syrian conflict, the political and humanitarian spaces are under constant negotiation and renegotiation. First, humanitarian considerations have entered a politicized agenda of negotiations, as visible during the various rounds of Geneva negotiations, led by the Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN) or during the debates at the UN Security Council. For example, the issue of border-crossings, allowing for cross-border humanitarian operations inside Syria, was re-negotiated in December 2019, with discussions around two concurrent projects of resolution with variations in the number of border crossings to be allowed to operate and the length of their opening.

Second, Syria is charactezid by a fragmented and controversial humanitarian space, meaning that the parameters of aid delivery and humanitarian access are highly debated, leading to polarization and cleavages among actors. For example, some humanitarian organizations have been accused of being biased in a favor the Assad regime, contributing to the regime’s stability and legitimacy. Another delicate issue has been the extent to which inclusion of different actors into negotiations should be pursued. Questions on who represent the legitimate Syrian opposition or on the participation of Syrian Kurds have hindered the humanitarian and political negotiation process from the beginning. In addition, how to deal with terrorism and terrorist groups has certainly been one of the most controversial issue for humanitarian actors, for safety as well as political reasons. 

Third, a strategic politicization of humanitarian action is at work, as clearly highlighted during the Astana process, starting in 2017 and led by Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Humanitarian arguments are mobilized during those negotiations and are used as a means to achieve political and even military goals, hence highlighting the interdependence between the humanitarian and political spaces. For example, the Memorandum on the creation of de-escalation areas in the Syrian Arab Republic in May 2017 officially aimed at “improving the humanitarian situation”, by guaranteeing humanitarian access and the rehabilitation of infrastructure. It also called for the cessation of hostilities between selected anti-government groups and governmental forces in de-escalation zones (DEZ) located in opposition-held areas of the country. However, while the Astana Memorandum uses the language of humanitarian access, it has subdued the proposed access to an overall military strategy aiming at a surrender of opposition forces who were not party to the ceasefire agreement. The DEZ have not led to less violence and more access for humanitarian assistance. Thus, as summed up by a humanitarian actor, Astana may have had a humanitarian agenda at the beginning but soon became “a political vehicle”. 

The complex interdependence between the humanitarian and political spaces shows that the necessity of a strict humanitarian/political separation, still defended by some humanitarian actors operating in Syria, is to be understood less as an objective need and reality than as a strategic positioning of humanitarian actors on the international stage. The willingness of some humanitarian actors to continue to present themselves as a-political can in fact be seen as a political act. Conversely, political actors can have an interest in officially putting to the fore humanitarian considerations, as they can be used as an asset during negotiations.

Opposing humanitarian negotiations, governed by universal principles, to unprincipled political negotiations can be strategically and usefully reaffirmed by humanitarian actors in some contexts, especially when the instrumentalization of aid is significant, as in Syria. However, reifying the humanitarian/political divide is not the best means to understand the diversity of negotiations taking place in violent conflicts nor does it encourage the development of fruitful relationships between all actors, yet necessary to encourage a more comprehensive understanding of the conflict and its possible resolution.

Milena Dieckhoff is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Clermont Auvergne University. She is the author of “Reconsidering the humanitarian space: Complex interdependence between humanitarian and peace negotiations in Syria”, Contemporary Security Policy, which is available here.

Resilience and EU refugee policy: A smokescreen for political agendas?

“Resilience” enjoys widespread uptake across many and diverse domains – including security and crisis response. Shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty, however, it may be just a buzzword as we know little about the implications of resilience as a strategy to insecurity and crisis. Exploring resilience in EU humanitarian and development policy and how it translates into practice in Jordan and Lebanon, we argue in a recent article that resilience-building may function as a smokescreen for buttressing “Fort Europe” against migrants and refugees. 

 “Resilience” enjoys widespread uptake across many and diverse domains, from technology to business management, to urban planning and counselling. The word stems from the Latin “resilire” – to leap or jump back. It gained traction in the 1970s, when the Canadian ecologist Holling defined resilience as the ability of ecological systems to absorb change and disturbance. Borrowing from Holling, risk scholars like Wildavsky viewed resilience as “the capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back”. Wildavsky argued that resilience was a more effective and cheaper strategy to deal with risks than anticipation and prevention. From the 1990s onwards, resilience became an integral component of disaster risk reduction (DRR) programmes, aimed at minimising the impact of natural disasters and enhancing recovery.

Policymakers have recently started to use resilience in the context of man-made disasters and crisis. For example, resilience has been identified as a major leitmotif in the 2016 European Union (EU) Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy. Prior to the Global Strategy, resilience was already an important component of EU humanitarian and development policies, especially in the context of migration and forced displacement. The EU was not the first to use this buzzword: the UK placed resilience at the centre of its humanitarian and development aid in 2011. Shortly thereafter, USAID published policy and programme guidelines for “building resilience to recurrent crisis”. United Nations (UN) agencies and large international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) currently all have policies, guidelines and programmes aimed at building resilience. 

Despite its widespread uptake, uncertainty remains about what resilience is, how it translates into practice, and the implications of resilience-building as a response to insecurity and crisis, qualifying resilience as a buzzword. The ambiguity surrounding buzzwords often lead scholars and practitioners to dismiss them as empty and meaningless. Yet buzzwords generally espouse strong (normative) ideas about what they are supposed to bring about. The assumptions and rationales underlying buzzwords, moreover, frequently remain unquestioned, making them interesting to study. In our recent article, we examine the EU turn to resilience by analysing key EU humanitarian and development policies. Subsequently, we delve into an empirical example of resilience-building in Jordan and Lebanon to explore how this buzzword translates into practice.  

Our policy analysis yields two aspects that are key in EU resilience thinking. First, resilience-building requires humanitarian and development actors to be simultaneously involved in crisis response and to work closely together. The so-called “humanitarian-development nexus” resonates with older concepts aimed at bridging the ideological and institutional divide between humanitarian and development actors, such as Linking Relief, Rehabilitation and Development (LRRD). 

Second, resilience assigns significant importance to ‘the local’. This means, firstly, that the EU recognizes the importance of understanding context-specific vulnerabilities and their (root) causes, as well as what local capacities exist that humanitarian and development interventions could tap into, build upon, and strengthen. Next, resilience is strongly framed as the responsibility of national governments and local authorities. Finally, the EU constructs refugees in particular as an asset to host-country economies, their resilience dependent on access to host-countries’ formal labour markets. Refugees are turned into a development opportunity for refugee-hosting states – but at the same time constitute a threat to Europe.

How do these different aspects of resilience translate into practice in Jordan and Lebanon? Jordan and Lebanon host the largest number of Syrian refugees in respect to the size of their population. Government estimates indicate Jordan hosts up to 1.3 million refugees and Lebanon 1.5 million – respectively 13 and 25% of their population. In response to the challenges of Syria’s neighbouring countries, the multi-agency response framework – the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) – was established in 2015. 

In line with EU thinking, the 3RP combines a humanitarian response to protect Syrian refugees with a development response to build the resilience of national government and affected host communities. Although the 3RP structure simultaneously engages humanitarian and development actors in the response, evidence shows that different funding modalities and tensions between (leading) UN agencies weaken rather than strengthen the humanitarian-development nexus in practice. 

Second, whereas the 3RP country chapters are officially under the leadership of the Jordanian and Lebanese government, significant challenges arise in practice. Especially the involvement of Lebanese authorities was limited at the start of the crisis, its later statements and measures straining its relationship with the international community. Evidence indicating that Lebanon may strategically maintain the precariousness of Syrian refugees’ lives, moreover, points at the need for caution in insisting on national governments’ responsibility. 

Finally, the same framing of refugees as a development opportunity underlies initiatives like the EU-Jordan Trade Agreement, which promises access to EU markets in exchange for refugee work permits. The nature of the Jordanian and Lebanese labour market – in combination with structural political, social and economic problems – makes refugees’ employment as a pathway to resilience an unlikely reality. It also constructs refugees as a commodity, to be exchanged for aid. 

In conclusion, the way in which resilience is understood and the challenges it generates when translating resilience into practice, make us wonder whether this buzzword is not just a smokescreen for ulterior political motives. Building the resilience of “countries of origin and transit” may conveniently prevent migration, meanwhile externalizing the control of migration and forced displacement to crisis-affected states. As Jordan and Lebanon continue to struggle with the impact of the crisis, the EU’s strategy of refugee containment may instead increase their vulnerability, ultimately threatening rather than safeguarding the security of Europe.

Rosanne Anholt and Giulia Sinatti work at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. They are the authors of “Under the guise of resilience: The EU approach to migration and forced displacement in Jordan and Lebanon”, Contemporary Security Policy, which is available here.

Chemical weapons justice for Syria

OPCW-men-at-work-in-SyriaThere appears to be agreement at the international level that those who employ chemical weapons should be punished. But in the Syrian case it has been clear that this does not equate to a guarantee of swift prosecution. In a new journal article, Brett Edwards and Mattia Cacciatori examine the emergence and politicization of the chemical weapon justice agenda.

The chemical weapon norm has been repeatedly violated by parties in the Syrian civil war. The gross violation of such an internationally-sacrosanct norm would appear to provide clear impetus for collective action; including criminal justice. After all, chemical weapon issues have received heightened attention as compared to other war-crimes. Chemical weapon atrocities are also subject to a comparatively well-developed set of international instruments.

Yet, the diplomatic discourse on this matter has been particularistic and impotent. Most recently, a specially developed attribution mechanism (the Joint Investigative Mechanism) became the victim of disagreements, which had dogged the initiative since its inception. This leaves us currently, in a situation which borders on farce: all sides agree that chemical weapon attacks have continued to take place; all sides agree punishment is important; and all sides are apparently eager to take action on this issue. Yet collective action between all major powers against impunity, even on this narrow issue, seems a bridge too far.

It is clear, that the apparent deadlock on the issue of chemical weapon justice, centres at one level on a situation in which veto powers in the UN Security Council have committed to differing accounts of who is behind chemical weapon use in Syria. Whether this reflects a genuinely-held consensus on the issue within intelligence communities and in the higher echelons of government is beyond the scope of our analysis.

It is also clear that selective outrage has been the norm, in the context of a broader bloody and vicious civil war. In our paper we argue there is a need to take into account more than cynical patronage alone to understand the politics surrounding this issue. Analysis needs to go beyond narrowly construed strategic conceptions of the drivers of public diplomacy.

That is to say, while it is clear that quests for justice have undoubtedly been made sub-servient to other state interests during the conflict, as well as broader struggles to define the international order, justice as a value and a concept still matters in diplomacy; and has helped define the scope of the politically desirable and possible in this area. This is in the sense that justice has informed decision making in both national and international forums. In laying out our argument, we point to areas of agreement, disagreement as well as practical initiatives particularly in areas such as war-crime documentation, multilateral attribution processes and prosecution.

Our study is presented as a historical case-study as part of an attempt to point to key contingencies, moments, path-dependencies and re-current patterns of behaviour. Our central argument is that there have been substantive disagreements between states on the issue of justice, which reflect broader positions on transitional justice. However, justice initiatives are tightly intertwined with other drives and interests of states.

This has contributed to a situation in which where has been a partial stalling of the justice agenda in relation to chemical weapons. However progress toward ensuring some form of accountability on the issue was made through a number of distinct formal international mechanisms and through civil-society evidence collection, curation and archive systems during the period studied.

Our findings helps contextualise events in Spring 2017, which led to U.S. airstrikes against the Syrian regime. They help us understand the structures of the disagreements within the UNSC and OPCW in particular, which have served to motivate, but also curtail initiatives to ensure accountability for those who employ chemical weapons. Including the work of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (which was terminated in the context of a split UNSC at the end of 2017), work under the auspices of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, the OPCW Fact Finding Mission; the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on International Crimes Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic as well as the recently established International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons.

Brett Edwards is a lecturer in security and public policy at the University of Bath. Mattia Cacciatori is a lecturer in conflict and security at the University of Bath. They are authors of “The politics of international chemical weapon justice: The case of Syria, 2011–2017”, Contemporary Security Policy, forthcoming. It is available here.

How Human Rights Watch Tried to Suppress a Targeted Killing Norm

14203284_10153734268660894_3046983579658798280_nThe United States has been persistently trying to build support for its case that its targeted killings should be considered legal. Human Rights Watch has been actively trying to resist this effort, with varying degrees of success. This clash offers us deeper insights into how the global rules of the game are determined.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently stated, “It’s long past time for the US to assess the legality of its targeted killings, as well as the broader impact of these strikes on civilians.” HRW has doggedly resisted U.S. efforts to normalize what has long been taboo: the killing of specific individuals outside conventionally understood battlefields.

International relations scholarship tells us a lot about how human rights groups try to introduce new ideas to improve the human experience and how states attempt to thwart these efforts.  But it tells us less about the inverse: Namely, how human rights groups aim to impede state-led campaigns to expand their ability to act in the global arena.

My recent article explores the ways in which HRW, a prominent member of the anti-targeted killing network, strove to do just that. My article demonstrates how HRW initially tried to entirely suppress the emergence of a targeted killing norm by demanding the United States halt its denials and admit to the practice. HRW also named and shamed the United States and its allies for violating human rights and sovereignty norms.

Then came bin Laden’s death, which was a watershed moment in changing global opinion about this practice, from one which largely opposed it to a tepid, and perhaps temporary, tolerance of it. This change in global opinion contributed to a change in how HRW resisted targeted killings. It switched strategies by focusing on suppressing the emergence of an unbridled norm, one that might clash with deeply entrenched protections afforded to state sovereignty and human rights.

For instance, it sought to limit the number of US actors engaged in targeted killing by pushing for the end of CIA participation in the program.  It also pressured the United States to be more transparent about civilian deaths in a bid to restrict the practice and hold it accountable for “collateral damage.”

By showcasing this contestation between norm champions and norm suppressors, the article also further refines Finnemore and Sikkink’s exemplary norm life cycle model, highlighting the dynamism in global normative debates. Normative content is not static, remaining unchanged once its advocates take it up. It is subject to modification as a result of the battles waged over its prescriptions and parameters throughout the norm life cycle. These conflicts have the potential to both strength and weaken norms.

In my article, I also emphasize that normative death and regress is a possibility at any stage in this model. Normative ideas can fail to emerge. Even well-established norms are vulnerable to attacks which may eventually lead to their demise. Furthermore, there is nothing inevitable about the normative journey. Just as entrepreneurs can help their ideas advance through the norm life cycle, norm suppressors can stall their progress and move them backwards.

Additionally, I illustrate how similar state and non-state actors act, both as advocates for new ideas and resistors to those ideas. Among other things, both sets of actors effectively deploy frames to attract supporters and weaken their opponents. They also comparably form alliances to further their objectives. Furthermore, I argue that norms scholars should study “bad” norms, norms that widely differ from their rights-protecting counterparts that dominate the scholarly landscape. Doing so is not only more faithful to a neutral understanding of norms (shared understandings of appropriate behavior in a given situation), but will also help us understand a wider range of political phenomena like the current global rise of right wing populism, regulatory moves to control cyberspace, or the growing push to limit or abolish gay rights.

Studying norm suppression not only fills noteworthy gaps in the scholarly corpus, but also helps us better unravel intriguing puzzles like why some norms fail to emerge and others find more success. These insights allow us to better understand how norms operate in the global arena, significantly contributing to theoretical and policy-making debates.

Betcy Jose is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Colorado Denver. She works on issues related to global norms, international humanitarian law, and civilian self-protection. She has published in Critical Studies on Terrorism, International Studies Review, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Foreign Affairs, World Politics Review, and Duck of Minerva. She is currently working on a book manuscript exploring contestation in armed conflict norms to be published in 2018. Her Twitter handle is @betcyj.

Israel and the Gulf States: Towards a Tacit Security Regime?

blog_israel_gulfThe nuclear threat posed by Iran has brought Israel and the Gulf States closer together. This nascent tacit security regime allows these countries to address the common threat while sidestepping the more intractable issue of Palestinian statehood.

Israel and the Arab Gulf States do not have diplomatic relations; indeed, some do not even recognize Israel as a state. However, shared concerns of Iran have, since 2006 brought these erstwhile foes closer together. These relations, short of an explicit alliance, are an expression of realpolitik rather than shared values or of deep intimacy. However, the Israelis, Saudis and Emiratis, underpinned by shared perceptions of threats to be countered and interests to be realised, have been cooperating on security related matters for some time.

For Israel and the Gulf States, the nuclear deal with Iran singed in July 2015 has done little to curb Iran’s regional conduct or indeed its longer term nuclear ambitions. Another motivation that bring the sides closer relates to disagreements with the Obama administration over its Middle East policies and deep concerns that in the long run their main security guarantor will lessen its commitment to their security and further decrease its military and diplomatic leverage across the region.

Although relations between the sides warmed up in recent years, they are not new. For example, Oman and Qatar, whether it was to find favour in the eyes of the Americans or to anger the Saudis, established official relations, albeit partial ones, with Israel. Israel opened missions in both countries, but the second intifada in 2000 and Operation “Cast Lead” in Gaza led to their closure. Now, however, it seems that Saudi Arabia in particular is more willing to acknowledge its ongoing dialogue with Israel, if only to test how its public will react to more overt relations. It already got the attention of Iran and Hezbollah.

This new openness that carries with it a heightened political symbolism, is gradually breaking a long-held taboo that any Saudi, let alone one identified so closely with the ruling family, could ever appear in public with their erstwhile foe. These days, one does not have to look hard to find opinion pieces by senior Israelis or Saudis in each other media outlets. State-run media in the Gulf appears to be softening its reporting on Israel, running columns floating the prospect of direct relations, quoting Israeli officials, and filling its news holes with fewer negative stories on Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians. The outspoken Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was also very candor speaking about the startling relations of Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, and the Jewish state and noted that “For the first time, Saudi Arabian interests and Israel are almost parallel … It’s incredible.”

Faced with crumbling Middle East state order, Israel is, again, actively looking to form ties with states and non-state actors, some even former enemies. While in the past they stood in the shadows of others, the Gulf states too have adopted a more assertive foreign policy needed to confront regional changes. It remains unclear, however, if the two sides will be willing to take the same foreign policy risks, this time towards each other, to realize the full potential of their relations.

The fact is that the shared antipathies towards Tehran does not preclude competition or divergent interests pursued in other fields. Gulf States, have strongly supported the recent adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 regarding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Furthermore, Saudi officials make clear that unless Israel is willing to engage seriously with the Arab Peace Initiative and with it, tangible progress towards realising Palestinian self-determination, overt ties with Jerusalem will hardly move beyond the symbolic handshakes at academic symposia. Netanyahu too remains hamstrung, politically as well as ideologically by a domestic constituency unwilling to accept substantive territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

The hierarchy of threat in favour of Iran trumped any immediate desire among the Gulf states to push the Arab peace initiative, however signalling it’s still “on the table”. Furthermore, at the end of 2015, the most senior cleric in the Kingdom, Shaykh Abdulaziz al-Shaykh stated that ISIS was in reality an adjunct of the Israeli army. Such statements emanating from such an authoritative figure are indicative of the current boundaries of the relationship on the Arab side.

Internal constraints on all sides will continue to determine the type and intensity of external engagement. Indeed, neither side is willing to pay the price needed to realize the strategic potential inherent in their relations. Both sides are benefiting from the advantages of covert ties without having to pay a political price for pulling them out of the closet.

This nascent tacit security regime between Israel and the Gulf states has, for the most part, been shaped by its lowest common denominator, the perceived threat from Tehran, while sidestepping perhaps the more intractable issue of Palestinian statehood. Whether, overtime, the contours of the regime can foster the confidence building measures that will be required to reach a formal treaty satisfactory to all sides will, in truth, be the real test of its leverage beyond the immediate purchase of hard security. For now, all concerned remain the best of adversaries.

An attempt to change force such relations from the shadows would undermine what has been achieved so far but even so, there is a wide range of policy options between full diplomatic relations and a total lack of contact, and the actors involved can and indeed have taken advantage of this. Israelis in particular have increasingly taken the opportunity to express in public forums the interests shared between Jerusalem and what Major General Herzi Halevy, Head of Israeli military intelligence, referred to as “pragmatic Sunni countries” and the opportunities therefore to be realised.

Israelis and Arabs alike hope that the Trump administration will reverse the Obama-era policy of leading from behind. But if Trump follows suit and makes good on his pledge to Make America Great Again, beginning at home, Washington’s Middle East allies could find comfort in their secret, under the-table relations. Those already become an important template for understanding shifts in alliances and regional security systems, across the wider Middle East and beyond.

Clive Jones holds a Chair in Regional Security (Middle East) in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, United Kingdom. Yoel Guzansky is Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. They are the authors of “Israel’s relations with the Gulf states: Toward the emergence of a tacit security regime?”, Contemporary Security Policy, 38, forthcoming. It is available here.