HKS Research Fellow Criticizes US Intervention Policy

The United States’ current policy toward intervention in post-conflict countries is often ineffective, according to Andrew Radin, a research fellow in the Harvard Kennedy School’s International Security Program.

During a talk at the Kennedy School Thursday afternoon entitled “Spoiling Police Reform: Nationalism, Informal Networks, and International Authority,” Radin used police reform tactics as an example of Western mistakes in conflict zones. He specifically referenced his own research on the international community’s role in police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo after the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.

Western countries typically try to aid war-torn areas by flooding those areas with resources, he said, but this strategy requires improvement. “We should be skeptical of the idea that greater resources and authority leads to successful police reform,” he said. “This can be a waste of the West’s resources.”

Radin added that popular nationalism and corruption networks are the two biggest obstacles to effective police reform and that Western policy should adapt to these realities.

In Bosnia, for example, former British politician Paddy Ashdown pushed for a series of police reforms that were fiercely opposed by Serbian nationalists out of fears that the reforms would lead to a loss of autonomy. “Even the prospect of membership in the European Union didn’t win them over,” Radin said. “Police reform failed there because international action was seen as blocking sovereignty.”

In contrast, Radin said, UN-led efforts for police reform in Kosovo succeeded partially because they did not conflict with Albanian nationalist desires to form an independent country. Their reforms ran into trouble, however, when they tried to combat corruption networks.

“Political parties killed witnesses and intimidated judges,” Radin said. “International forces were unable to outsmart the political elites, and corruption remains a huge problem there.”

Although case studies in the Balkans may seem far removed from current U.S. concerns, Radin argued that his work is applicable to American foreign policy, especially in Afghanistan.

Still, some audience members were not entirely convinced by the need for the U.S. to invest in police reform.

“Corruption and ethnic strife are big problems on their own,” said Sean M. Lynn-Jones, editor of the International Security Program’s quarterly journal “International Security.” “You could argue that police reform is trying to get the tail to wag the dog.”