Von Kundus nach Camelot und zurück: militärische Indienstnahme der „Entwicklung“

Abstract

Abstract

From Kundus to Camelot and Back: The enlistment of „development“ into the military. Based on recent critiques of securitisation, this paper takes on the concept of „networked security“ recently propagated by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. The authors demonstrate the explicit ascendancy of the military in strategies based on these conceptions which are exemplified by Cicil Military Cooperation (CIMIC). However, in contrast to official claims to the novelty of such cooperation, the basic tenets of CIMIC can be traced to the counterinsurgency strategies of the 1950s and 1960s. Here, Project Camelot – a particularly salient example of military and civic collaboration – is highlighted as a case in which the consequences of military funding and agenda setting have been well-exposed and from which lessons have been drawn. Following, this paper shows how current cases of military-civil collaboration in the field of developmental practice can be detrimental to the causes of humanitarian as well as development aid – as is amply documented, in particular, by interventions of concerned NGO representatives, who highlight the risks and predicaments incurred by being regimented into the role of „development gendarmes“. Finally, the prospects for a critical turn, which would involve opting out of the logic of subservience to the military and a fundamental revision of the underlying concepts of development, are sketched.