29 July 2019

On 25 July, the Remote Warfare Programme’s Director, Emily Knowles, had an article published in the RUSI Journal, entitled “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States: Time for a Peacebuilding Approach”. Co-authored with Jahara Matisek, an active duty officer in the US Air Force, the article examines security force assistance (SFA), a popular tool employed states to support local partners on the front lines.

The authors argue that traditional approaches to SFA are too technical to deal with the complex political problems in fragile states. They propose a new vision for SFA in weak states where it serves as a peacebuilding tool for stabilising political settlements through improving relationships between armed groups, the security sector and the civilian population in question.

Read the article.  

Image credit: RUSI/Wikimedia Commons.