Identity, War, and Just Cause for War: Hezbollah and Its Use of Force

Abstract

This essay first examines how Lebanese Hezbollah's wars have changed the content and saliency of its several identities. It then focuses on the role of these identities on the group's moral conception of using force. The analysis includes Hezbollah's conflicts against Israel and its more recent military involvement in the Syrian conflict. The essay argues that Hezbollah exhibits five different identities: Islamic, Shiite, Lebanese, Arab, and resistance. Each has played a significant role in the group's legitimizing of its war decisions, which in turn has provided Hezbollah the grounds to remain an armed nonstate actor in the Middle East.

Securitisation gaps: Towards ideational understandings of state weakness

“…Neither Hezbollah's opponents, nor the state were now able to directly challenge the party's retention of its arsenal; in fact, its circumvention of the state's monopoly of violence escalated into its armed involvement -in defiance of the state's proclaimed neutrality, and in concert with Iranian strategic objectives -in the Syrian civil war. 54 The country saw a succession of often tortuously assembled consociational F o r P e e r R e v i e w governments, with various ministerial posts and departments parcelled out -as customary -between the sectarian political parties, and the March 8 alliance jealously retaining its veto. 55 The meta-securitisation of the civil war and the continued cohesion of the LAF -albeit in the face of increased disaffection from parts of the Sunni community 56 -helped contain any violent spillover of the civil war in Syria: hostilities between Sunni and Alawite communities in the northern city of Tripoli were successfully contained, as were attacks by Jihadist groups in Northern and Eastern border regions.…”