Embrace a common and holistic approach to security

The recent changes in the security sector offer an apt moment to rethink the future of Kenya’s security.

A spate of insecurities from the Westgate Mall terrorist attack last year to massacres in Lamu, Tana River and Mombasa counties sparked a heated public debate on the state of security in the country.

The intensely populist security discourse has started to exert its toll on the security establishment, with security becoming a cornerstone of the opposition’s clamour for a referendum.

Recent developments in the security establishment have been the subject of high-profile forums at home and abroad.

First, a significant turning point in Kenya’s security debate is the unprecedented resignation of Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi as the Director-General of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in the wake of an outpouring of unflattering publicity.

Even as the newly appointed successor, Maj-Gen Philip Kameru, awaits confirmation by the National Assembly, the power shift has turned a sharp spotlight on the spy agency that many look upon as the fulcrum of a functioning security system.

It is a return to the basics. The master strategist, Sun Tzu Wu, was apt when he wrote in The Art of War that: “what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is fore-knowledge.”

Sun’s treatise is as relevant today as it was 25 centuries ago when he wrote: “Spies are a most important element in war because, on them, largely depends an army’s ability to move.”

ASYMMETRICAL WARS

The changing character of threats has made a robust spy agency even more pivotal to lead the fight on a medley of “faceless” enemies from terrorists waging asymmetrical wars to criminal syndicates trafficking in drugs, human beings, light weapons and contrabands.

Kenya is in dire need of a world class well-oiled and fine-tuned intelligence juggernaut to feed other security agencies with timely, reliable and actionable fore-knowledge to help them detect, deter and defeat the new security threats.

Second, the need to anchor the public debate on security on a solid knowledge base was a key point that emerged from a forum on security organised last week by the Nation Media Group and attended by experts and columnists.

The on-going populist campaign is no more than a derisory dialogue of the deaf. Without a clear understanding of the issues, Kenya’s security populists risk turning a noble task of transforming the security sector into the proverbial messy surgery with an axe.

Kenya’s insecurity is not seamless. Conceptually, a distinction between “hard” and “soft” security threats is useful, although there is no Chinese wall between them. Within the “hard” security threats are five discernible categories requiring different responses.

Foremost is international terrorism, often linked to local networks. Not even the most powerful nations have found a silver bullet to dealing with the scourge of terrorism. But it calls for an intelligence-driven approach partly because of its asymmetrical character and cross-border operation.

SMALL ARMS

Two, and related to terrorism, is transnational trafficking in narcotic drugs, human beings, small arms and contrabands, which demands greater co-operation between the intelligence, the police and immigration.

Three is a wide spectrum of genres of politically instigated security threats from the so-called ethnic clashes to electoral violence to cattle-rustling and inter-clan violence.

The jury is still out as to whether the recent spate of deadly violence in Lamu, Tana River and Mombasa (Likoni) was the work of political networks or terrorists.

Four is the privatisation of violence through the proliferation and radicalisation of criminal gangs and militias such as the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), Mungiki and Baghdad Boys.

By the dawn of the new millennium, Kenya had no less than 25 established militias strewn across the country, which have increased over time.

Five, and often overlapping with militias, are armed robbers and gangsters, who harkens back to epic gangsters like “Wacucu” and “Wanugu” in the 1990s, but who are now aided by easy and ubiquitous access to deadlier arms.

Also saliently missing in the Kenyan security debate is environmental security as a “soft” security threat but intricately linked to “hard” dimensions of security.

WATER RESOURCES

Two forums of international experts held on August 19-21, 2014 in Washington DC drew this connection between environment and security.

A briefing on the nexus between water and security in Africa, convened by the Washington-based African Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS) at the US National Defence University (NDU) followed by a high-level forum on “Pre-empting Water and Human Security Crises in Africa” by the Woodrow Wilson Centre on August 19 and 20, respectively, highlighted increasing disputes over shared water resources as potential triggers of what scholars have fretted as “looming water war” in Africa’s river basins.

As such, Kenya is deeply steeped in the long-standing dispute over the use of the Nile waters for development.

Alongside Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, Kenya signed the Co-operative Framework Agreement in March 2010.

The treaty, which seeks more water from the River Nile, is disputed by Egypt on the basis of another outdated colonial-era treaty signed between it and Britain in 1929, and which requires upstream countries to first get permission from Cairo before using River Nile waters for any development projects.

Environmental security in Africa is high on the agendas of great powers. The recent US-Africa Leaders’ Summit recognised wildlife poaching as a security threat, and set aside funds to fight it. In June, China set aside $100 million to help Africa combat poaching, especially in elephant tusks and rhino horns.

Abandoning the intense populist distrust of security institutions and forging a common holistic approach to security is central to guaranteeing security in Kenya.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute (API). This article is an excerpt from his presentation at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington, August 20, 2014.