What does a country do with its armed forces after conflict? What are the key issues that need to be addressed to ensure the sustainability of disarmament programmes? How can donors make their assistance more effective? Demilitarisation and disarmament is often part of a wider challenge involving the reconstruction of states that in certain crucial respects can be said to have ‘collapsed’ or ‘failed’.
This Adelphi Paper provides a framework for thinking about the proper place of disarmament, demobilisation and the reintegration of former combatants in settling internal armed conflicts. It concludes that the disarmament process is an extremely political one. The long-term sustainability of such endeavours depends on the parallel efforts of political and economic reconstruction to resolve, or lessen the impact of the root causes of conflict. The paper finds that:
- Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration cannot be treated simply as a set of administrative challenges. This has been a trend to date. Agreement to disarm is only the first step in the process, and the implementation of such policies constitute much more than a set of technical arrangements
- Features affecting the disarmament process vary widely from state to state. They derive from the intra-state character of conflict, the socio-economic legacy of protracted war, and the proliferation of arms in the country and the wider region
- Weapon control, the reintegration of ex-combatants and the formation of new institutions of national security are closely linked and the activities associated with achieving each of these should be conceived as a continuing and integrated process.
It would be dangerously misleading to assume that all the tensions and issues that gave rise to war in the first place simply disappear with the formal cessation of hostilities and the signing of a piece agreement. Conflicts of interest, unresolved grievances and mutual suspicions continue long after the guns have fallen silent, and the commitment of officers and soldiers to a peace process must be continually reaffirmed and cannot be taken for granted. Key policy implications that can be drawn from this include:
- Coercive disarmament in the context of internal conflict should be avoided
- Detailed aspects of disarmament should be worked out early on. While this could delay and complicate the negotiation process, it is preferable to leaving provisions vague in the hope that they will be resolved later
- Efforts should be made to promote sustainability of reforms by creating and rebuilding local capacities and national institutions which can mitigate conflicts and grievances without the risk of renewed violence
- Much greater attention should be devoted by donors and multilateral lending agencies to restructuring and monitoring the activities of the ‘security sector’, particularly those elements within it that have traditionally sought to elude civilian control and have been a source of destabilisation
- More attention must be paid to the social and economic impact of externally sponsored demobilisation programmes on fragile and vulnerable economies.
