Versus: How Conflict can be Made to Look Symmetrical

Versus. This word is something intrinsic to conflict, more intrinsic than violence or angry words. Indeed, it is the very core of conflict itself: there must be a confrontation. A versus B. This statement is effectively math, telling us in those six letters than when you add A to B you will get conflict. On either side of these six letters are the combatants themselves — A and B here though you can sub in any two groups you want: maybe it is two people or two countries. Obviously this is simplistic, conflicts rarely involve only two sides, however conflict does have a habit of radicalizing and polarizing its participants into camps, manufacturing two sides where there was once many so as to create as simple a dichotomy as possible. The world becomes Manichaean in conflict and the word versus comes to symbolizes that dichotomy. I would imagine that this is why we are presented with conflicts that occur around the world today as having two sides: the United States versus China, Israel versus Palestine, Catalonia versus Spain. Again, ignoring the fact that these conflicts are not so simple as to be understood by a mere two combatants nor are the combatants themselves straightforward enough to be understood as singular blocs devoted to conflict with each other (I would argue that neither of these two statements is true), the part of this that I want to focus on is what the framing of these issues as a conflict, what adding those six letters in, does to the way we perceive the combatants themselves.

Let me explain what I mean like this. Conflicts are generally presented as being between two main belligerents. Now this is obviously not a hard rule, but it is generally true — I would wager it is because it is the easiest way for us as humans to understand complex issues through the use of a dichotomous key (if you want to read more about this, I would recommend Gould’s The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox). World War II was the Allies versus the Axis. The instability in the Middle East is often articulated in terms of Saudi Arabia versus Iran, and in the case of the Middle East there is also obviously Israel versus Palestine. The Cold War was the United States and its allies versus the Soviet Union and its allies. Even nonviolent conflicts get boiled down in this manner. The Canada secession crisis is articulated in terms of French Quebec versus English Canada. Leaving aside the Manichaean implications of such a dichotomy (one side, our side, is generally presented as good while the opposing side is bad), this type of dichotomous representation of a conflict does something else: it implies equality of the combatants. Placing that word versus in there does, as mentioned before, turn the conflict into an almost mathematical like construct where, as long as the conflict is ongoing, the belligerents themselves appear equal (A + B = Conflict as long as A = B, because if A > B then A would win the conflict, or so the logic goes). Now this may not be that problematic when looking at something like World War II, perhaps the combatants weren’t perfectly equal but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who would be completely opposed to the notion that the Allies and the Axis were at least somewhat equal in their abilities to wage war. This becomes of course more problematic when we look at conflict between states of asymmetric power, such as the Iraq War between the US and Iraq or the Vietnam War between the US and North Vietnam. In these cases the ability of one party to wage war is significantly less than the other and therefore the combatants are not equal as the construction of the conflict as a contest between two parties would imply. However, we can still discuss this as a war between states, and states, regardless of how comparatively weak they are, still have institutional power and legitimacy that they can use to combat even the most power states (indeed, North Vietnam ultimately defeated the US). What I want to focus on here are those conflicts between state and non-state actors, for it is here that the notion of conflict between two roughly equal combatants becomes the most damaging.

The core of the problem is that, whether violent or not, conflicts between state and non-state actors tend to be presented in the same terms as if they were indeed conflicts between states. This is obviously not true, and any individual who even takes a passing interest in understanding these types of conflicts will be aware of the obvious power discrepancies, but nonetheless the very way we narratively frame the conflict impacts the way we think about it. The Troubles, for example, is partly articulated as a conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British military (I say partly obviously because of the complex role played by Unionist Protestant Paramilitaries) and is articulated in terms that imply their equality. The IRA attacked British forces at location A, British forces attacked the IRA at location B. This articulation implies some level of equality of combatants, despite the vast superiority of British forces in every imaginable metric from military capability to institutional strength. Simply put, in the context of the Troubles the British military had simply more options in how to fight the IRA and had more extreme options at their disposal — The IRA could never opt for an air bombing campaign or an extensive re-education program and, regardless of whether the opted to or not, the British military could. The same can be said for the conflict between Spain and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), Israel and Palestine, a host of other heated conflicts, and nonviolent conflicts as well. Framing Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain, for example, as Catalonia versus Spain implies a certain amount of institutional equality that simply does not exist. Spain, as a state, simply had and continues to have more political and institutional (as well as military if it so chose) options at its disposal on how to engage with the conflict than the devolved Catalan government had (indeed, as we have seen the Spanish government has the power to suspend the Catalan government, thus arguably neutering the region of its legitimate political leadership). Articulating conflict as a contest between two sides does a great disservice both to how we understand the specific conflict and conflicts in general, as well as increasing how difficult it is to bring a peaceful end to the situation.

Of course we cannot simply see the construction of conflict as being between two equal sides as something passive, neutral, or accidental. It is often weaponized, usually by both sides, and employed as a means to excuse actions. This is not something necessarily employed by the state or the leadership of the sub-state unit though, but rather something that infects every level of academic and journalistic interpretation of events. Indeed, I can think of no better recent example that how J.H. Elliott ends his presentation of the long history of Catalan within Spain by commenting on the recent secessionist crisis, saying: “In spite of the numerous failings of the Spanish government and the Spanish political class over many years — a class that proved unable or unwilling to transform the combination of unity and diversity written into the Constitution into a coherent political project — the prime responsibility for this tragic situation rests with part of the Catalan establishment.” (Scots and Catalans, pp. 263–264) Spain, he claims, may have made some mistakes, but here it is the separatist leadership that is bad, pure and simple. They broke the law, the constitution of the land which they themselves signed, and therefore they are the villains in a Manichaean sense. Ignoring the question of morality that is presented here over whether legality implies morality (Weinstock tackles this question brilliantly in his 2001 article “Constitutionalizing the Right to Secede” featured in The Journal of Political Philosophy), what this line of thinking does, both in J.H. Elliott’s Scots and Catalans and in the minds of many within the Spanish government, is excuse the use of police force that was aimed to shut down the 2017 referendum as well as the subsequent arrest of many of the politicians related to the referendum on charges of sedition. My personal thoughts on Catalan Secession aside (though if you are interested in hearing them you can read my thoughts on the matter in the piece I published here on Medium entitled Catalonia, Spain, and the Referendum), what is so problematic here is the way that the construction of the conflict as having two roughly equal belligerents is used to excuse the use of extreme measures by the more powerful party involved. Here, Spain said the threat of Catalan secession was so great (was it great? What ability did Catalan separatists really have to damage Spain?) as to necessitate the banning of the referendum, the use of police force to enforce that ban, the arrest of separatist leaders, and the dissolving of the Catalan parliament. The same line of thinking is used to excuse military force as well, as Israel claims it is bombing and annexing regions of Palestine in retaliation for bombings conducted by Hamas against Israel, ignoring the scale of the bombings that each can and has projected as well as the institutional force that each combatant has to back up those military actions.

Now this is not to say the non-state actor does not use the same arguments, indeed the presentation of the British as a Manichaean enemy and the IRA as the sole force able to combat them was certainly employed in the Troubles time and time again, but what we ought to focus on here is that the abilities of the state so exceed those of the non-state actor as to make the comparison, once again, a radically unequal one. The instruments at the disposal of the non-state unit in a conflict are at best limited and their ability to disseminate a narrative, much like their ability to actually damage their opponent, is extremely limited by the material and institutional weaknesses inherent in lacking a state — the Kurds of Turkey, for example, do not have the same ability as the Turkish state to fund education programs or publish journalistic articles to support their cause just as they lack the military might of the Turkish state. The state, by simple virtue of being a state, has tremendous assets, military and otherwise, at its disposable to act as in virtually any way it wants and then to subsequently legitimize those actions by presenting the conflict as one that genuinely threatened the state (as the opposing actor was powerful enough, equal enough, to pose a threat) and so the state needed to act to protect its legal and legitimate interests. Indeed, this is why international recognition becomes so important for non-state actors as it gives them a force of legitimacy which is normally only reserved for the state. The state is an institutional apparatus that, in our world today, has virtually unrivaled powers that extend beyond its simple ability to beat its opponents into submission, powers that include the legal construct that re-enforces state institutions as well as the many institutional and policy tools that furnish the state. However all these tools mean little is the conflict the state finds itself engaged in is, in the eyes of the international community, illegitimate for one reason or another. It is here that the weaponizing of the conception of conflict as being between two roughly equal parties becomes a practical tool to legitimize state action against a fundamentally illegitimate agent.

I have gone on long enough and I will draw this little discussion to a close, but I want to end on a final note and that is state responsibility. I have spent a good deal of time and have brought up a host of cases all to illustrate how powerful actors attempt to narratively elevate opponents so as to excuse the use of extreme actions against those opponents. However, what we have neglected this whole time is the moral dimension to all this. I have been in many arguments with people who tell me that the state is acting in a way it must to defend itself. On the surface, these arguments can seem very legitimate for the reasons I have described above. For example a person may say that Israel’s actions in Gaza are necessitated by Hamas’ actions against Israel and that Israel has the right to protect itself. Though I do not deny any state’s right to protect itself, I argue in this situation that Israel, as the obviously more powerful actor in the conflict, has a greater moral responsibility by virtue of being the state and it is a moral imperative that it restricts its actions and confronts the situation proportionally. Indeed, all arguments relating to the equality of actors go out the window when we consider that Israel has the power, literally, to erase Palestine off the map if it so chose, and though it Israeli leadership have thankfully not opted for this, the very fact that this is an option out to necessitate Israel (much like other nuclear powers engaged in conflicts) reflexively restricts itself and its actions to an appropriate degree. Similarly Catalonia’s attempted secession did not necessitate Spain’s authoritarian actions, but rather it necessitates that Spain, the substantially greater actor, act in a restrained manner and actively engage in dialogue with Catalan leadership and people. Once we tear away the rhetorical devices used to excuse state action against non-state actors, we lay bare the extreme imbalances in power and we also reveal the moral imperative that the mightier actor has. By virtue of superior strength, the state has a moral obligation to restrain itself that is greater than its non-state rivals and the state perhaps may even has an obligation to protect those rivals from the state itself.

There is no versus, not really. Rather conflict is a constructed problem, one in which belligerent sides use narrative tools to excuse their actions against one another. We should be aware of this and willing to tear down these narratives at every turn so as to force an end to the conflicts that they underpin. When conflict is asymmetric, when one side is substantially greater than the other, we must focus our attention on them for it is the strong who have an obligation to the weak, even if the weak may be their opponents. This is, as I see it, the best way to meaningful peace.