The Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga: military reform and nation-building in a divided polity

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dc.contributor.authorAziz, Sardar
dc.contributor.authorCottey, Andrew
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-20T11:48:00Z
dc.date.available2021-07-20T11:48:00Z
dc.date.issued2021-02-15
dc.date.updated2021-07-20T11:42:08Z
dc.description.abstractDuring the war against Islamic State from 2014 to 2017 the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga became important local allies of the United States and its international partners, playing a significant role in the eventual defeat of Islamic State. In 2017, backed by the US and its Western allies, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) agreed plans to reform and modernize the Peshmerga. This article provides an analysis of this reform process. Reform is severely constrained by two problems. First, the continuing soft civil war between Iraqi Kurdistanâ s two main political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), within which both parties view their maintenance of independent Peshmerga forces as central to their power and political survival. Second, the heroic-mythic status of the Peshmerga within Iraqi Kurdish society, which makes it difficult to convert the Peshmerga into a â normalâ military force. Reform efforts to date have not addressed these issues. Until such time as the deep political divide between the KDP and the PUK is addressed, Peshmerga reform is unlikely to make significant progressâ the military cart cannot be put before the political horse.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationAziz, S. and Cottey, A. (2021) 'The Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga: military reform and nation-building in a divided polity', Defence Studies, 21(2), pp. 226-241. doi: 10.1080/14702436.2021.1888644en
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/14702436.2021.1888644en
dc.identifier.eissn1743-9698
dc.identifier.endpage241en
dc.identifier.issn1470-2436
dc.identifier.issued2en
dc.identifier.journaltitleDefence Studiesen
dc.identifier.startpage226en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/11579
dc.identifier.volume21en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherRoutledge - Taylor & Francis Groupen
dc.rights© 2021, the Authors. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectArmed forcesen
dc.subjectCivil-military relationsen
dc.subjectKurdsen
dc.subjectMilitary reformen
dc.subjectPeshmergaen
dc.subjectSecurity assistanceen
dc.titleThe Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga: military reform and nation-building in a divided polityen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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