Cette recherche doctorale en histoire immédiate, s'inscrit dans une réflexion plus large sur l'étude de nouveaux conflits, la culture et l'emploi des forces armées françaises sur le terrain, en prenant l'exemple de son engagement en Afghanistan. Elle porte particulièrement sur l'emploi de l'arme du génie dont nous postulons à la grande importance de ses savoir-faire sur le terrain, en situation de contre-insurrection. / This doctoral research takes part on the study of the new conflicts, by taking the example of the French engineers in Afghanistan. We postulate for the big importance of these combat support units in situation of counterinsurgency.

La reconstruction post-conflit de l’Etat est un enjeu majeur et actuel des relations internationales. L’Union européenne, sous les auspices des Nations Unies contribue à restaurer ou instaurer un ordre étatique qui doit donner sa chance à une paix durable fondée sur des valeurs respectueuses des droits de l’homme. Toutefois, l’Union européenne reste maitre de ses interventions. Il n’existe pas véritablement pour les Etats post-conflits un droit à la reconstruction. Un complexe d’acteurs institutionnels européens décide et organise la réponse européenne à la déliquescence des Etats au sortir des conflits. Cette réponse n’est pas isolée, elle s’inscrit dans un ensemble de partenariats.L’organisation régionale déploie un ensemble de mécanismes juridiques ou opérationnels, militaires ou civils de gestion du relèvement des Etats en sortie de conflit. L’engagement européen peut prendre des formes très intrusives, et s’apparente parfois à une tutelle européenne sur des Etats victimes de conflits. Au final, l’Union européenne participe à la définition et à la réalisation d’un droit international de la reconstruction de l’Etat. Elle consacre des normes et des standards internationaux. Elle inaugure des normes et des standards européens adaptées au relèvement des Etats. De ce point de vue, l’offre européenne en matière de reconstruction post conflit de l’Etat est globale. C'est-à-dire que l’Europe propose de reconstruire l’Etat sous ses trois composantes traditionnelles : la population, le territoire et l’appareil d’Etat. / In the framework of International Relations, Post Conflict Reconstruction of the State is a major and actual stake. European Union under the auspices of United Nations, supports all initiatives to restore or build a state order which give a chance for a stable peace based on human values. Nevertheless, European Union defines his interventions in function of his own interests. Post-conflicts States don’t have a right to reconstruction. A mix of european institutional actors decide and design the european response dedicated to failed Post-conflict States. This response is not isolated, she is included in a network of parternship.After a conflict, the regional organization set up a mix of legal or operational mechanisms, and military or civilian capacities. The european activism in this domain can be very strong. Sometimes, it seems as a trusteeship of EU on Post conflicts States. Consequently, European Union contributes to design and implement the international law of the State reconstruction. EU promotes norms and international standards. It initiates european norms and standards dedicated to the recovery of states. Consequently, European Union possess global capacities in the matter of post-conflict reconstruction. That is to say that Europe is proposing to rebuild the state in its three traditional components: population, territory and state apparatus.

Exploring Puritanical cultural habits in the 21st century American military, the following study focuses on U.S. Army courts-martial in the Global War on Terrorism. The study uses Emile Durkheim's original sociological interpretation of crime and deviance. That interpretation is linked with responsibility as described by Durkheim's follower Paul Fauconnet in Responsibility: A Study in Sociology ([1928] 1978) and with a new cultural reading of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([1905] 1976). The study is an inductive, descriptive examination of the Puritanical aspects of American military culture based on its treatment of acts labeled as deviant and criminal in the Global War on Terrorism. Four sets of war crimes are included in the study: Abu Ghraib (which occurred in Iraq in 2004), Operation Iron Triangle (which occurred in Iraq in 2006), the Baghdad canal killings (which occurred in Iraq in 2007), and the Maywand District killings (which occurred in Afghanistan in 2010). My data include primary data collected through participation and observation as a consultant for courts-martial related to all the cases except Abu Ghraib. Records of trial, investigation reports, charge sheets, sworn statements, and other documentation are also included in the study as secondary data sources. The study illuminates how unconscious, Puritan cultural habits color and shape both military actions and their perceptions. I explore Puritanism and its influence on military law, responsibility, revenge, "magic" (in its sociological sense), and narcissism. The study concludes with observations and recommendations for changes in U.S. military law.

Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s theses on liberalism and war, and Dillon and Reid’s extensive engagement thereof, this thesis offers a critical conceptualization of drones and drone warfare. I argue that deployment of drones specifically over and against bodies and communities in conflict zones in and between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and until recently, Libya, is the material practice of a legal and political doctrine and precedent that has been established and policed most prominently by the United States and its military and intelligence apparatuses since the end of the Cold War. This novel precedent, however - due to its necessarily mutually constitutive relationship with a perceived danger said to be emerging from specific spaces, bodies, and communities in the decolonized and still-colonized worlds - locates its ontological and thus political genealogy in the anthropological knowledge that legally justified the (in)humanity of peoples and communities in these spaces during the era of high imperialism that lasted roughly from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. I theorize this as a mode of political, tragic nihilism through a reading of some key theories of Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, and Nietzsche and specifically, their import to the field of critical security and international relations theory. I demonstrate that the semiotic image of the drone is a highly pertinent point of departure through which we can understand these political stakes of strategic discourses enunciating the imperatives of both the Revolution in Military Affairs as well as recent global counterinsurgency/counterterrorism operations, specifically as they relate to claims about what it is drones are said to productively offer such militaristic projects. Ultimately, I argue that it is through the semiotic image of the drone as a clean, precise tactic that furthers the strategic goals of counterterrorism to target specific bodies that we can begin to politically theorize a particularly malignant political nihilism symptomatic of contemporary liberal societies. However, I also suggest that it is through Nietzsche’s politics of nihilism that we can begin to think about radical critical interventions that resist such a dangerous mode of politics. / Graduate

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Dec 29, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Feb 2, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the foreign policy of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. A significant theme of Barack Obama's candidacy for presidency was "change"; more specifically change in policy from previous administration. Therefore, the thesis looks at the changes brought about by President Obama once he was elected. First, we look at foreign policy of the United States under President George W. Bush, then we look at foreign policy-related assertions of Barack Obama during his candidacy, and lastly we look at the actual policies of the new administration, with particular focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones and extrajudicial killing, Guantanamo detention facility and extraordinary rendition, and NSA surveillance.

La thèse porte sur la mise en scène de la guerre dans les entraînements militaires aux États-Unis. Elle étudie des faux villages moyen-orientaux qui servent pour l’entraînement de pré-déploiement en Irak et en Afghanistan. On retrouve ces villages sur diverses bases militaires, comme au National Training Center (NTC) de Fort Irwin (Californie), où une douzaine de faux villages afghans et iraquiens ont été construits depuis 2007 dans le contexte de la contre-insurrection afin de préparer les troupes aux guerres de type urbaines et asymétriques. Dans ces environnements immersifs, l’armée américaine tente de reproduire les paysages socioculturel et religieux où se tiennent les missions : mosquées, salons de thé, marchés extérieurs, maisons traditionnelles forment le décor. Afin de préparer les soldats au terrain humain, une rencontre culturelle est simulée entre eux et la population locale à travers des jeux de rôle. Des acteurs, qui sont parfois d’origine afghane et iraquienne, sont embauchés pour jouer la population locale, ce qui servirait à prévenir un certain « choc culturel » anticipé sur le terrain et augmenter la sensibilité culturelle des soldats. Des experts de l’industrie du cinéma comme des pyrotechniciens et des artistes-maquilleurs participent également à ces simulations pour les rendre plus « réalistes » à travers leurs effets spéciaux. La thèse étudie les rationalités et les technologies à l'œuvre dans les faux villages et les manières dont elles soutiennent cette mise en scène « culturelle » de la guerre. Elle examine les pratiques matérielles et discursives des performances qui s’y déroulent. En quelles instances les exercices de simulation s’inscrivent-ils dans un régime de représentation racialisé? Comment l’orientalisme américain est-il articulé dans ces espaces? Quels mythes politiques et discours dominants circulent dans ces géographies fictives? La thèse problématise la représentation et la production de savoirs sur l’autre. Ce faisant, elle participe à la discussion sur l’altérité entamée par plusieurs courants théoriques et champs disciplinaires dont elle s'inspire, notamment les cultural studies, les critical race theories et la critique postcoloniale. L’analyse est basée sur une observation de courte durée au NTC. Le Centre offre des visites guidées de la base qui permettent au public d’assister à une journée d’entraînements dans les faux villages. J’ai participé à deux reprises à ces « NTC Box Tours ». J’ai également mené des entrevues semi-dirigées avec plus de vingt vétérans d’Iraq et d’Afghanistan afin de discuter avec eux de leur expérience d’entraînement de pré-déploiement et du rôle de la culture dans les simulations militaires. / The thesis looks at the performance of war in military training in the US. It studies the mock Middle Eastern villages that are used for Iraq and Afghanistan pre-deployment training. These villages are found on several military bases such as the National Training Center of Fort Irwin (California), where a dozen of oriental towns were implemented since 2007 in order to prepare the troops for urban and asymmetrical type of warfare in the context of counterinsurgency. In these immersive environments, the US military tries to reproduce overseas sociocultural and religious landscapes: mosques, tea rooms, street markets, traditional houses and so on form the set. To prepare the soldiers to the human terrain, a cultural encounter between them and the local population is simulated through role play. Actors, sometimes from Iraq and Afghanistan, are hired to enact the local population. This is said to prevent an anticipated “culture clash” on the ground and raise cultural awareness amongst the soldiers. Experts from the filmmaking industry such as pyrotechnics and makeup artists also take part in these simulations – working to make them more “realistic” through their special effects. The thesis examines the rationalities and technologies at stake in the mock villages, and the way they sustain the « cultural » mise en scène of war. The research interrogates the material and discursive practices of the performances taking place in the mock towns. In what instances are the simulation exercices anchored in a racialized system of representation; how is the American orientalism being rearticulated in these spaces; what political myths and hegemonic discourses are circulating in these fictive geographies? The thesis problematizes the ways of knowing and representing the other. Therefore, the research takes part to the discussion on otherness initiated by diverse theoritical accounts and academic fields, such as cultural studies, critical race theories, and postcolonial critique. The analysis is based on a short observation at NTC. The Center offers guided tours of the base, allowing the general public to attend to one day of training in the mock villages. I participated twice in these “NTC Box tours”. I also conducted semi-directed interviews with more than twenty Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, in which they share with me their experiences of pre-deployment training and their thoughts on the place of culture in military simulations.

The main objective of this diploma thesis is to analyze the nature of obstacles to the regional approach to Afghanistan through the lens of the Regional Security Complex Theory. I will focus on studying security dynamics within and among three security complexes surrounding Afghanistan, to see how these dynamics affect their interaction with the latter. Prospects of any regional cooperation on Afghanistan are hampered by security dynamics within these complexes whereby primary traditional political-military threats are perceived by the complex states as more threatening than the mostly transnational threats stemming from unstable Afghanitan. Particularly the Indo-Pakistani rivalry and to a lesser extent the Saudi-Iranian rivalry represent major obstacles as it is reflected also in their engagement in Afghanistan. On the other hand, weak Central Asia states are linked to Afghanistan security dynamics by mostly transnational threats and ethnic affinities but are generally too weak to extend their security dynamics beyond their respective complex. The thesis also seeks to analyze the possibility of Afghanistan's external transformation in terms of its inclusion into the South Asia complex and based on now stronger security interdependence among the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle. This assumption could...

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