Chiara Caterina Gatti
Student in the MSc in Terrorism, Policing and Security at Liverpool John Moores University
Associate, Policyinstitute.net
Over the past twenty years, irregular wars have redefined the nature of modern warfare: instead of conventional armies, non-state actors have emerged whose objective is not merely the military defeat of their opponents, but their internal destruction—politically, socially, and economically. Relatively weak actors can nonetheless pose a significant threat to more powerful states. By employing so-called asymmetric strategies, such as guerrilla warfare, terrorist attacks, cyber operations, and information warfare, they can target the adversary’s vulnerabilities, transforming conflicts into prolonged and exhausting wars of attrition.
The Limits of Top-Down Reconstruction
To confront this new type of threat, the international community has often relied on a top-down approach, imposing reconstruction programs from above that include elections, institutional reforms, and economic and social support initiatives. Rooted in liberal principles, this approach assumes that democracy and markets are effective instruments for achieving peace, order, and stability within a state. The reality of irregular conflicts, however, demonstrates—as realist theorists assert—that even in times of peace, the systemic drivers of political action remain power, interests, and state security. This does not imply that peace is unattainable, but it does suggest that it cannot be imposed. Societies in war-torn countries do not need abstract theoretical models; they require spaces that enable dialogue, understanding, balance, and compromise. Reconstruction must begin from the ground up, restoring internal forms of trust and legitimacy that can later extend externally.
Why Top-Down Peacebuilding Fails
Reconstruction projects—so-called nation-building initiatives—in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have starkly demonstrated that peace cannot be exported from the outside without considering the internal characteristics of the country. Each domestic context is shaped by local power dynamics, historical rivalries, and religious tensions that cannot be overlooked. When external actors ignore these realities, the outcome is almost invariably the same: weak institutions, corruption, widespread violence, dependency on international aid, and a fragile peace that collapses once foreign military and economic presence ends.
Building peace in irregular conflicts, therefore, requires abandoning the pursuit of a perfect peace and adopting measures to achieve a possible peace. Security is an essential prerequisite: without effective territorial control and protection of civilians, peacebuilding cannot be effective. As evidenced by cases in the Middle East and North Africa, external actors often neglect the internal security dimension of countries, focusing instead on theoretically driven reconstruction programs and leaving civilians exposed to violence, organized crime, terrorist attacks, and instability.
Although peacebuilding initiatives may be formally implemented, adopting a top-down approach limits their effectiveness and prevents them from taking root in local realities. By contrast, a bottom-up approach places security at the center of the peacebuilding process. By establishing local security networks, particularly those legitimized by the population itself, communities become active agents in maintaining security and consolidating peace. Only once local security is ensured can reconstruction programs be effectively implemented, thereby paving the way for a sustainable and lasting peace.
Security as the Foundation of Sustainable Peace
In such contexts, security does not solely entail protection from open conflict, such as terrorist attacks, uprisings, or insurrections, but also encompasses control over corruption, organized crime, abuse of power, and terrorist recruitment. The experience of peacebuilding in Afghanistan, for instance, illustrates that reconstruction programs implemented in contexts lacking consolidated security often produced contrary outcomes: increased violence, corruption, and extremist radicalization. In Kabul, the inability of local institutions to ensure order, legitimacy, and stability led to a further rise in systemic corruption, demonstrating how economic aid ended up in the hands of the corrupt rather than being invested in measures supporting a durable peace.
Consequently, security must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon: physical, institutional, economic, and social. It enables the protection of civilians from violence and terrorism; ensures the legitimacy and proper functioning of state institutions; guarantees that international aid is channeled into concrete and regulated projects; and reduces the risk of recruitment and radicalization by extremist groups or organized crime. In order to build a stable, sustainable, and lasting peace, it is necessary to adopt a bottom-up approach that simultaneously strengthens all levels of security, thereby ensuring the real effectiveness of reconstruction programs.
Reading list
Keohane, Robert O., e Joseph S. Nye. 1977. Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition. Little, Brown and Company.
Malkasian, Carter. 2021. The American War in Afghanistan: A History. Oxford University Press.
Smith, Rupert. 2005. The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. Allen Lane.
Note:
The views expressed in this article is solely that of the author’s and does not represent that of Policyinstitute.net and its entire staff.
