Interview – Rhys Machold
Rhys Machold examines how homeland security operates globally through networks of power, colonial legacies and counterterrorism practices.
Rhys Machold is Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. Through engagements with International Relations, political geography and urban studies, his research has focused on exploring regimes of power, violence and empire from a transnational perspective. He is author of Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel (Stanford University Press, 2024) and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Studies on Security.
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Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?
My research sits at the intersection of a number of different fields and disciplines, namely International Relations (IR), critical security studies and political geography as well as area studies fields focused on South Asia and the Middle East. So, there are a range of current debates that are currently motivating my work and which this work speaks back to. Within IR I have been primarily inspired by postcolonial and decolonial strands of the discipline and these also thread into my contributions to critical security studies and political geography respectively, where I have been inspired by thinking about long histories of police power and regimes of security and their relationships to projects of empire broadly and settler-colonialism in particular, with a strong focus on race-making. I have also been very inspired by engagements with Science and Technology Studies (STS) and actor-network theory (ANT) in engaging with questions about the global and the international as well as in relation to security, policing and surveillance regimes.
In relation to political geography broadly and that on the Middle East and Palestine in particular, I have also been particularly inspired by ongoing efforts to rethink what we mean by settler-colonial formations and how these connect to but also depart from other imperial and colonial projects past and present. And because much of my work to date has centered extensively on policing, homeland security and counterterrorism in India, thinking about relations between global histories of counterinsurgency vis-à-vis post-Independence India has been particularly fruitful as of late.
How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?
The majority of my work has been and remains contemporary in focus. But I believe what has most changed the way I think over the past few years has been my deepening engagement with historical scholarship. This is particularly in relation to how we think about global power and its relations to empire. One thing that has especially impressed me as of late as well is how prescient certain historical thinkers were in their own times and how often such insights have been long buried and forgotten. For instance, the recent recovery of Fayez Sayegh’s Zionist Colonialism in Palestine, which was first published in 1965, provides an extremely sophisticated account of how Palestine was colonized by Zionist settlers in ways that resonate closely with what became the field of settler colonial studies later on. Yet, Sayegh’s work had until recently not received nearly the degree of engagement it deserved.
Additionally, STS and ANT have profoundly shaped my thinking and played an enormous role in enabling me to frame my first book Fabricating Homeland Security, which was published last year. These two bodies of work have enabled me to think about knowledge production geographically in ways that I simply would not have been capable of otherwise. They bring a toolbox of concepts and ways of thinking that can be deeply counterintuitive and as such, they have enabled me to find new ways to wrestle with complex and contradictory empirical dynamics in very productive and unexpected ways.
Your book presents homeland security as a global rather than purely domestic project. How does this challenge conventional understandings, and what are the broader implications for current security policies and practices?
Yes, one of the things that is most commonly conjured when you hear “homeland security” is the protection and fortressing of domestic and/or specifically urban spaces. And there is something to this no doubt. After all, many of the things that have happened in the name of “homeland security” have been domestic in their geographical remit and spatial extent. After all, things like infrastructures of mass surveillance, border walls, intelligence “fusion centers” in the United States – all things that the US Department of Homeland Security has jurisdiction over and continues to govern are (at least ostensibly) primarily domestic in character.
Yet as I completed the research for the book and began to write it, I repeatedly found that some of the main characters working in the area of homeland security, always seemed to have more expansive ambitions in their crosshairs that spanned much of the world. This can be seen in their incessant comparisons between different forms or national versions of homeland security amongst a number of countries. But it is also apparent in these characters’ more explicit attempts to bring homeland security to new places, such as India as is the case in the book. This matters greatly with respect to policy and practice because it underscores something more fundamental about police power more broadly. The frames of police power and pacification I argue offer some most adept ways to approach homeland security as a site of critical study but also through forms of resistance and popular struggle. Indeed, while the police as an intuition of the state is typically seen as quintessentially domestic, actually-existing forms of police power historically and in the present have always depended on various transnational (and also trans-temporal) connections. These connections and relations have continuously remade how police power practically works in particular places and spaces but also as a force of global change.
How do you define "fabrication" in the context of homeland security? Why did you choose this concept as central to your analysis?
Through my own direct ethnographic engagements with the global homeland security industry, I argue that we can see the ways in which the constituent relations in the making and remaking of homeland security are constituted and how a range of actors and interests are woven together in the service of its global mission. In this way, the book theorizes homeland security as a form of what I call ‘world-making’ through circulations of expertise, equipment and training but also through the production of mythologies.
More specifically, I argue that we need to understand homeland security as what I call ‘fabricated’. This notion borrows heavily from Mark Neocleous’ early and significant critical theorization of police power, which came out in his book The Fabrication of Social Order: a critical theory of police power, first published in 2000. But my notion is a bit different from Mark’s in that it seeks to capture the relational, politically contested and geographic process through which homeland security is continuously made and remade, under three distinct but overlapping senses. First is the literal making of the homeland security state and its surrounding global industries. Second is the making up of “homeland security” as a new category and so-called “model” of governance. This sense relates to the illusory, mythical, and ideological dimensions of fabrication. Third, is the weaving together of the various threads that come to constitute homeland security. And while I argue that it is useful to split up these different aspects of fabrication conceptually, in practice they are typically melded together and often hard to actually separate in meaningful ways. This becomes clear throughout the stories in the book.
Could you elaborate on how homeland security is not exclusive to the "homeland" and how it operates as a world-making project entangled with imperial and colonial histories?
In the context of the book, the main way we see this claim playing out is in relation to the efforts to build a global homeland security industry in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks and thereby bring homeland security to places like India, where the notion generally had limited obvious resonance or apparent utility to state officials, corporate actors and wider publics. One of the first ways that the book runs into the importance of the entanglements of homeland security with colonial and imperial histories, however, is origin of the term ‘homeland security. I draw attention to the fact that the term “homeland” was not commonly used in the context of the US prior to September 11th attacks.
This was pointed out by historian Amy Kaplan already in 2003. But as she noted then, homeland was deeply resonant with at least two other settler-colonial projects, namely that of Zionism in Palestine as well as in Apartheid South Africa. Reading Kaplan’s and others’ work alerted me early on to the need to grasp homeland security’s deep and constitutive ideological resonance with settler projects historically and in the present. But as Kaplan also pointed out already at this time, the newfound appreciation for “homeland” in the aftermath of September 11th attacks was likely to give rise to new forms of state power and justify the US’ violation of other nations’ sovereignty, which as we know is precisely what took place thereafter perhaps most spectacularly in relation to Iraq but also many other places. So, when I say homeland security is not exclusive to the "homeland", this is some of what I mean though the claim is also borne out in a range of other ways that I would not elaborate on further here.
Based on your research, in what ways did Israel emerge as a pioneering force and internationally recognized exemplar in the development and advancement of the global homeland security industry?
Before I answer that I want to qualify that although the book does directly engage with the notion of the State of Israel and Zionism as a “pioneering force” in these realms, this is not a status that I accept as a given or something that works as advertised. Instead, in keeping with the book’s focus on “fabrication” what I am trying to understand is how Israel’s global image as a “homeland security pioneer” was built, when and out of what. Elements of this image were already in place by September 11th. Yet, show that in the aftermath of the attacks, Israeli officials and their allies in began to argue that they had seen this all coming and had effectively invented something akin to ‘homeland security’ well before the term came into vogue in the context of the global war on terror. Their so-called ‘experience’ fighting Palestinian resistance moments as well as other Arab adversaries in the Middle East was the supposed basis of this claim to being exceptionally ‘experienced’.
And this strategy to position Israel as a pioneer of domestic security preparedness generally worked. During the days and weeks after September 11th attacks, a range of American state officials and media pundits were repeating claims about Israel’s primacy in counterterrorism as gospel and Israeli officials like sitting prime minister Ariel Sharon were welcomed by US officials, including New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And in the months and years thereafter, this praise of Israel materialized into policy. American officials gravitated to Israel as a “model” for fighting their counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Israel, they also saw an inspiration for the emergent architecture of domestic surveillance, fortification, and intelligence-sharing. Indeed, Israel has since been credited with developing the all-encompassing approach to domestic surveillance and territorial control that became associated with the moniker “homeland security” well before the term was coined by the Bush administration with the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in November 2002.
However, I argue that this ‘pioneering’ image can be traced all the way back to the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which began in the late 19th Century. The book chronicles how it developed and matured over time, often in relation to major international controversies concerning the Zionist colonization of Palestine as well as the State of Israel’s violence abroad. But after the war on terror took hold after 2001, Israel’s image as a security model became solidified as a kind of almost unshakable common-sense.
It should also be stressed, however, that Israel’s status as a model of homeland security has also been destabilized since October 7th 2023, which is something I have also started to write about since the book came out, including in a long-form essay that just came out in the magazine Jewish Currents. Indeed, since October 7th, a considerable disjuncture has opened up between the still prevalent idea of Israel as a powerhouse in security “innovation” and its operational record of genocide and forever war. Israeli leaders mobilized the killing of Israelis and foreigners on October 7th to justify their genocide in Gaza under the pretense of protecting Jewish Israelis and recovering hostages. But it has since come to light that the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) deliberately targeted Israeli military bases and kibbutzim on October 7th, killing IOF personnel and non-combatants under its infamous Hanibal Directive and later admitted to “mistakenly” killing numerous Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Over the past few years, the IOF have proven themselves all-too capable of aerial bombardment, mass starvation and countless other atrocities. Yet, the IOF have been unable to successfully execute their ostensible goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza. They have also repeatedly shown themselves to be much less capable of strategic achievements in ground combat. This has significantly undermined their prior ‘pioneering’ reputation.
What are some of the key differences and tensions you found between the Israeli homeland security model and its attempted adoption or adaptation in India?
The most obvious tensions relate to differences in perceptions and practices of counterterrorism between India and the State of Israel, which have long been referenced by scholars of the bilateral relations between these two countries as well as a range of mainstream journalists and policy commentators. And at first glance, these appear fairly straightforward in terms of where they might stem from. India and Palestine/Israel are in many indisputable ways vastly different, for instance in terms of size and scale and religious, ethnic, and linguistic makeup or any other number of things. There are also significant differences in terms of as well as material conditions between India and Palestine/Israel related to levels of wealth as well as that of industrialization.
But India and Palestine/Israel also have some very significant things in common as well, which reflect their common and connected histories of British empire. These histories have profoundly shaped structures of policing, warfare and legal regimes in both contexts. These regimes have also resulted in the presence of large disenfranchised and displaced Muslim and Indigenous populations, which though not equivalent, do have clear parallels and overlaps. So, although the book grapples with a range of difference, including political, geographic, ethnic, etc. and suggests that these differences matter, ultimately it argues that the significant tensions and impasses faced in encounters between Indians and Israelis in rolling out the project of homeland security in India are not reducible to these differences alone.
Indeed, I argue that although India is indeed different from Palestine/Israel in all kinds of ways, this does not in and of itself tell us much about why so many Israeli security officials found themselves out of their depth in India. After all, as I spell out in the book, negotiating various differences between Palestine/Israel and various other places was nothing unusual, according to my interlocutors from Israel’s homeland security industry that the book features. Many saw flexibility as a definitive aspect of their work across diverse contexts. But as many explained India proved unusually challenging as a place to work. I argue in the book that what proved crucial in this regard, was Indians’ unwillingness to fully capitulate to working on the terms that Israelis wished, namely where Israelis were the (supposed) all-knowing experts and the Indians the recipients of their expertise and technologies. Thus, in chapter 5 of the book, I argue that greater attention to difference is necessary, specifically in order to recover the ways that different and indeed incommensurable social orders endure alongside hegemonic projects, like that of homeland security.
How do domestic policing practices and security technologies circulate and multiply across international borders, contributing to the evolving formation of homeland security worldwide?
This happens in a range of diverse and complex ways that the book only covers a part of but in answering this question I’ll focus on those.
First of all, it should be said that in general, though more overtly at moments of political crisis where politicians and other state actors are under significant public pressure, many domestic agencies will look beyond their borders for various ‘solutions’ to develop responses to these events. The book talks about this dynamic through the terms of the ‘politics of response’. Such was the case in the wake of the September 11th attacks as it was in relation to the November 26th 2008 Mumbai attacks, often known as ‘India’s 9/11’or simply as 26/11. It was out of this dynamic I argue in the book that the very notion of homeland security as well as its associated policies, practices and technologies emerged out of. And a similar dynamic took place after 26/11, when Indian authorities went looking for so-called ‘Israeli solutions’ to the threat of terrorist violence.
Second, and closely relatedly, because of the development of a sprawling multi-billion-dollar political economy working under the banner of ‘homeland security’ as well as the development of a vast private- and public-sector industries developed to supply it with expertise, weapons and other technologies, there is a constant churn of all things ‘homeland security’ across borders now all the time. The book focuses on how such industry events like policy conferences and trade shows work to showcase such ‘solutions’ and market them to would-be clients both in the state as well as private industry. The actors involved in this production and trade work hard to keep these products and services in circulation and to do so engage in significant marketing and lobbying efforts to try and ensure that demand stays as high as possible. And in the wake of events like bombings of public spaces, which in turn give rise to questions about states’ unwillingness and/or incapacity to protect ordinary people, you can reliably expect these self-proclaimed ‘experts’ to rush onto the scene and tell everyone who will listen how things could have been different if only somewhat had bought whatever it is they are selling. By excavating these events in depth, the book also shows how the ‘politics of response’ does not always begin merely after these moments but often is in-built into these events themselves (as was the case with 26/11). And by tracing such events’ aftermaths and repercussions, I further show how this multiplication and circulation can endure long after, albeit sometimes with considerable impasses and limitations.
What is the most important advice you could give to young scholars of International Relations?
Follow your instincts. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if you are really onto something or not. This is especially the case for younger scholars where ‘imposture syndrome’ often looms large. But in my experience at least, staying with my instincts has proven fruitful even though this can be trying at times. One example that comes to mind for me is being uncomfortable with the prevailing representation of Palestine as a kind of ‘laboratory’ for real-world military- and police ‘experimentation’, an issue I first took up in an article that came out in 2018. This representation has long held a lot of currency both in policy circles as well as the critical literatures on the ongoing settler colonization of Palestine that I engage with, including some very formidable scholars and thinkers that have inspired my own work. But for me, following my impulse to trouble or at least unsettle the term’s usage has proven fruitful and inspired some others as well I believe to develop this line of critique further. But at various points I doubted whether my commitment to this critique actually made sense or would be fruitful in thinking about new ways to grapple with contemporary empire and its surrounding industries.
At the same time, I want to emphasize that on such journeys what you are holding onto and following can (and will) change. These things need to and should change as you develop as a scholar. But in my own experience I have found repeatedly that an initial hunch, something that nags at you and would not go away has been productive to stick with and not brush aside. The book I think reflects that experience for me and was a fraught and at times agonizing thing to write. It also took more than a decade to do. But I am glad I managed to see it through to fruition and hopefully others will gain something from the account of that journey through its pages.