Rethinking Insurgency

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RETHINKING INSURGENCY

Steven Metz

June 2007

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The views expressed in this report are those of the author

and do not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. This report is cleared for public release; distributionis unlimited.

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An earlier version of this monograph was presented to theRAND Corporation Insurgency Board, Arlington, VA, February

2007. The author would like to thank the participants at thissession for many useful comments. Special thanks are also dueto Robert Smith, Jeffrey Record, Mark ONeil, Raymond Millen,and Thomas Marks for insightful suggestions. All shortcomingswhich remain are strictly those of the author.

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FOREWORD

The U.S. military and national security communitylost interest in insurgency after the end of the ColdWar. Other defense issues such as multinationalpeacekeeping and transformation seemed morepressing and thus attracted the most attention. Butwith the onset of the Global War on Terror in 2001and the ensuing involvement of the U.S. military incounterinsurgency support in Iraq and Afghanistan,insurgency experienced renewed concern in both thedefense and intelligence communities.

In this monograph, Dr. Steven Metz, who hasbeen writing on insurgency and counterinsurgencyfor more than 2 decades, argues that this relearningprocess, while exceptionally important, emphasized

the wrong thing, focusing on Cold War era nationalisticinsurgencies rather than the complex conicts whichcharacterized the post-Cold War security environment.To be successful at counterinsurgency, he contends,the U.S. military and defense community must rethinkinsurgency. This has profound implications forAmerican strategy and military doctrine.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offerthis monograph as part of its efforts to help militaryand defense leaders understand the difcult securitychallenges faced by the United States.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute


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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

STEVEN METZ is Chairman of the Regional Strategyand Planning Department and Research Professorof National Security Affairs at the Strategic StudiesInstitute (SSI). He has been with SSI since 1993,previously serving as Henry L. Stimson Professor ofMilitary Studies and SSI's Director of Research. Dr. Metzhas also been on the faculty of the Air War College, theU.S. Army Command and General Staff College, andseveral universities. He has been an advisor to politicalcampaigns and elements of the intelligence community;served on security policy task forces; testied in bothhouses of Congress; and spoken on military andsecurity issues around the world. He is the authorof more than 100 publications on national security,

military strategy, and world politics. His most recentstudy from the Strategic Studies Institute was Learning

from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy. Heserves on the RAND Corporation Insurgency Boardand is working on two books: Iraq and the Evolution of

American Strategy and Insurgency and Counterinsurgencyin the 21st Century. Dr. Metz holds a B.A. in Philosophyand an M.A. in International Studies from the Universityof South Carolina, and a Ph.D. in Political Science fromthe Johns Hopkins University.


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SUMMARY

The September 11, 2001, attacks and OperationsENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOMrevived the idea that insurgency is a signicant threatto the United States. In response, the American militaryand defense communities began to rethink insurgency.Much of this valuable work, though, viewedcontemporary insurgency as more closely related toCold War era insurgencies than to the complex conictswhich characterized the post-Cold War period. Thissuggests that the most basic way that the military anddefense communities think about insurgency must berethought.

Contemporary insurgency has a different strategiccontext, structure, and dynamics than its forebears.

Insurgencies tend to be nested in complex conictswhich involve what can be called third forces (armedgroups which affect the outcome, such as militias)and fourth forces (unarmed groups which affect theoutcome, such as international media), as well as theinsurgents and the regime. Because of globalization,the decline of overt state sponsorship of insurgency,the continuing importance of informal outsidesponsorship, and the nesting of insurgency withincomplex conicts associated with state weakness orfailure, the dynamics of contemporary insurgencyare more like a violent and competitive market thanwar in the traditional sense where clear and discretecombatants seek strategic victory.

This suggests a very different way of thinking

about (and undertaking) counterinsurgency. At thestrategic level, the risk to the United States is not thatinsurgents will win in the traditional sense, take


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over their country, and shift it from a partner to anenemy. It is that complex internal conicts, especially

ones involving insurgency, will generate other adverseeffects: the destabilization of regions, resource ows,and markets; the blossoming of transnational crime;humanitarian disasters; transnational terrorism; and soforth. Given this, the U.S. goal should not automaticallybe the defeat of the insurgents by the regime (whichmay be impossible and which the regime may not evenwant), but the most rapid conict resolution possible.In other words, a quick and sustainable resolutionwhich integrates insurgents into the national powerstructure is less damaging to U.S. national intereststhan a protracted conict which leads to the completedestruction of the insurgents. Protracted conict, notinsurgent victory, is the threat.

If, in fact, insurgency is not simply a variant of

war, if the real threat is the deleterious effects ofsustained conict, and if it is part of systemic failureand pathology in which key elites and organizationsdevelop a vested interest in sustaining the conict, theobjective of counterinsurgency support should not besimply strengthening the government so that it canimpose its will more effectively on the insurgents, butsystemic reengineering. This, in turn, implies that themost effective posture for outsiders is not to be an allyof the government and thus a sustainer of the awedsocio-political-economic system, but to be neutralmediators and peacekeepers (even when the outsidershave much more ideological afnity for the regimethan for the insurgents). If this is true, the United Statesshould only undertake counterinsurgency support in

the most pressing instances and as part of an equitable,legitimate, and broad-based multinational coalition.


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American strategy for counterinsurgency shouldrecognize three distinct insurgency settings each

demanding a different response: A functioning government with at least some

degree of legitimacy is suffering from an erosionof effectiveness but can be redeemed throughassistance provided according to the ForeignInternal Defense doctrine.

There is no functioning and legitimate govern-

ment, but a broad international and regionalconsensus supports the creation of a neo-trustee-ship. In such instances, the United States shouldprovide military, economic, and politicalsupport as part of a multinational consensusoperating under the authority of the UnitedNations.

There is no functioning and legitimate govern-ment and no international or regional consen-sus for the formation of a neo-trusteeship. Inthese cases, the United States should pursuecontainment of the conict by support to regionalstates and, in conjunction with partners, helpcreate humanitarian safe zones within theconictive state.


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RETHINKING INSURGENCY

. . . everything old is new again . . .Peter Allen

INTRODUCTION

Military thinkers often say that the essence of

war does not change.1

War is and always will be theuse of violence for political purposes. It is alwayscharacterized by what Clausewitz described as fog(factors which complicate decisionmaking and forcestrategists to rely on assumptions), friction (thetendency of everything to operate less efciently thanin peacetime), and the trinity of rationality, passion,and chance. But, military theorists note, wars natureor characterdoes change. Linear formations gave wayto loose ones, columns and rows to swarming bybattalions and brigades; human and animal powerwere replaced by mechanization; handwritten andpersonal communications by email; limited, seasonaloperations gave way to global power projection.

Insurgency also combines continuity and change,

an enduring essence and a shifting nature. Its essenceis protracted, asymmetric violence; political, legal,and ethical ambiguity; and the use of complex terrain,psychological warfare, and political mobilization. Itarises when a group decides that the gap between theirpolitical expectations and the opportunities affordedthem is unacceptable and can only be remedied byforce. Insurgents avoid battlespaces where they areat a disadvantageoften the conventional militarysphereand focus on those where they can attainparity, particularly the psychological and the political.2


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They seek to postpone decisive action, avoid defeat,sustain themselves, expand their support, and alter the

power balance in their favor. And because insurgencyinvolves a layered psychological complexity, multipleaudiences, and a range of participants with differentmethods and objectives, it is imbued with what EdwardLuttwak called a paradoxical logicwhat initiallyappears best may not be, and every positive action hasnegative implications as well.3

But while insurgencys essence persists, its naturechanges. That we know. The precise direction, extent,and implications of the evolution, though, are not yetclear. We cannot yet tell which changes will have onlylimited signicance and which will prove profound,which changes are case-specic and which universal.But we need to. From the end of the Cold War in theearly 1990s until 2001, the U.S. military and defense

community paid scant attention to insurgency andcounterinsurgency. It faded from the curricula ofprofessional military education. There was little interestin developing new doctrine, operational concepts, ororganizations. The general sense seemed to be thatAmerican involvement in counterinsurgency was aCold War phenomenon, irrelevant with the demise ofthe Soviet Union and the mellowing of China. But theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks and Operations ENDUR-ING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM changedthat. Once again, insurgency was seen as a signicantthreat and counterinsurgency a strategic imperative.In response, the American military and defensecommunity began to rethink insurgency. Or, moreaccurately, it revived the old idea with a few added

twists.During the 1970s, American national security

strategy was shaped by what became known as theVietnam syndrome. The disastrous outcome of


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the war in Southeast Asia made Americans reluctantto intervene in Third World conicts. Americans, it

seemed, were ill-suited for participation in morallyambiguous, complex, and protracted armed struggles,particularly outside the nations traditional geographicarea of concern. Better to eschew them than to becomeembroiled in another Vietnam. Ironically, eventhough the United States eventually overcame thisvariant of the Vietnam syndrome, a new one emerged.When insurgency and counterinsurgency again becameimportant elements of the global security systemand American strategy after 2001, many Americanpolicymakers, political leaders, and defense strategistsused Vietnam as a model. The Viet Cong were treatedas the archetypical insurgency. Insurgents who did notuse the Maoist strategy stood little chance of success(dened as seizing the state and becoming the new

regime).4

The tendency was to seek new ideas from oldconicts, preparing, as so often happens, to ght thelast war. But contemporary insurgencies are, in manyways, more like the complex internal conicts of the1990s than the insurgencies of the mid-20th century.This suggests that the military and the defense analyticalcommunity must rethink the insurgency problem onceagain.

THE OLD CONCEPTUALIZATION

American thinking about insurgency was forged inthe Cold War. Washingtons concern was that insur-gents linked to the Soviet Union or China would over-throw friendly regimes, then become communist allies

or proxies. The key idea was the death by a thou-sand small cutswhile any given insurgency mightnot pose a mortal danger, a series of them would. As the


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Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy wrotein 1988, insurgencies and other Third World conicts

have an adverse cumulative effect on U.S. access tocritical regions, on American credibility among alliesand friends, and on American self-condence. If thiscumulative effect cannot be checked or reversed in thefuture, it will gradually undermine Americas abilityto defend its interests in the most vital regions . . .5The threat from insurgency, then, was indirect andsymbolic.

As communist-backed insurgencies ared through-out Asia, Africa, and South America, President JohnKennedy directed the U.S. military to augment itscounterinsurgency capabilities. By emphasizing themilitary dimension, Kennedy institutionalized thenotion that insurgency is a form of war. This relativelysimple idea had profound implications. If insurgency

was, in fact, war, then the way that Americans thoughtabout war more generally could be extrapolated tocounterinsurgency. Insurgency, like conventionalwar, was seen as a struggle in which two antagonistssought to impose their will on each other. Insurgency,like war, was abnormal and episodic, with a clearbeginning and end. The defeat of the enemy and areturn to peace was the objective. As in conventionalwar, diplomatic, political, economic, psychological,and intelligence activities supported militaryefforts. Counterinsurgency thus became the primaryresponsibility of the military.

As Americans better understood insurgency, theyconcluded that most insurgents had valid politicaland economic grievances. This suggested a dual

track approach to counterinsurgency, simultaneouslyseeking to defeat or eradicate the insurgents themselveswhile altering the factors which cause grievance.


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According to 1990 U.S. Army and Air Force doctrine,insurgents assume that appropriate change within

the existing system is not possible or likely.6

While itwas seldom stated bluntly in strategy or doctrine, onlydeeply awed statesthose with serious inequities,repression, or corruptiongave rise to majorinsurgencies. To address these aws, most insurgents(or at least those of the greatest concern to the UnitedStates) sought to overthrow the existing state, rulethe nation themselves, and launch a revolutionarytransformation. Even though scholars such as BardONeill reminded Americans that not all insurgencieswere revolutionary, revolutionary ones posed thegreatest threat to U.S. national interests and thusdominated American thinking.7 Hence Joint Doctrinedened insurgency as An organized movementaimed at the overthrow of a constituted government

through the use of subversion and armed conict.8

More recent Army/Marine Corps doctrine describedit more broadly as an organized, protracted struggledesigned to weaken the control and legitimacy ofan established government, occupying power, orother political authority while increasing insurgentcontrol.9

Based on the Cold War experience, U.S. militarydoctrine viewed insurgency as a stand alonestruggle. It had specic causes and beginnings andarises when the government is unable or unwillingto redress the demands of important social groupsand these opponents band together and begin touse violence to change the governments position.10Insurgency, like conventional war, involved two

antagonists (the regime and the insurgents). Insurgentsand counterinsurgents engaged in direct action againsteach other while simultaneously attempting to win the


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support of undecidedsthe public within their stateor potential external supporters. Insurgents needed

the active support of a plurality of the politically activepeople and the passive acquiescence of the majority.11If the government obtained the support of most ofthe people, it attained legitimacy and thus won.Failure to do this could lead to an insurgent victory.Political power is the central issue in insurgencies andcounterinsurgencies, Army/Marine Corps doctrinestates, so each side aims to get the people to accept itsgovernance or authority as legitimate.12

The most successful insurgencies were ones whichbecame more and more state like, controlling everlarger swaths of territory and expanding their militarycapability to the point that they could undertakelarger operations. They developed organizationalspecialization and complexity with separate leaders,

combatants, political cadre, auxiliaries, and a massbase. U.S. thinking tended to gravitate to the Maoistinsurgent strategy of peoples war which heldthat the rebels sought the internal formality anddifferentiation of a state. Insurgency, in other words,began as an asymmetric conict but became less so asit progressed.

The American notion of counterinsurgencyrejected the brutal mailed st approach usedthroughout history in favor of methods moreamenable to a democracy.13 Derived from British,French, and American experience in small wars,this stressed simultaneous actions to neutralize ordestroy insurgent armed formations, separate theinsurgents from the people, and undertake political-

economic reform. The American approach was tosupport a partner government, strengthening it andencouraging it to reform. This was done through a


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program called foreign internal defense (FID) whichpromotes regional stability by supporting a host-

nation program of internal defense and development(IDAD). These national programs free and protect anation from lawlessness, subversion, and insurgencyby emphasizing the building of viable institutions thatrespond to the needs of society.14 Strengthening orrestrengthening national governments was the key.Strategically, U.S. involvement began at a low level,escalated until the partner state could stand on itsown and had institutionalized political and economicreform, then receded once the insurgents were defeatedand the government controlled its territory.

RETHINKING THE CONTEXT

This is where we were. But where should we be?

How should we understand insurgency in the rstdecade of the 21st century? A broad rethinking ofthe problem must begin with the strategic context.In the old conceptualization, insurgencies matteredto the United States when they augmented Soviet orSoviet bloc inuence. But there was also an elementof symbolism. American policymakers believe thatthe strategic zeitgeistthe spirit of an eramatters.Successful insurgencies, they thought, would makeinsurgency attractive to others, creating a climatewhere the violent overthrow of the existing order wasacceptable, even laudable; hence the myth of theinsurgent that gave them prestige within their ownsocieties and even in the West.

Insurgency matters today because it is linked to the

phenomenon of transnational terrorism. Insurgentshave long used terrorism in the operational sense,deterring those who supported the government and


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creating an environment of violence and insecurity toerode public trust in the regime. But now terrorism

plays a strategic role as well. Insurgents can useterrorism as a form of long-range power projectionagainst outsiders who support the government theyare ghting. This could deter or even end outsideassistance. It is easy to imagine, for instance, that thealready fragile backing for American involvement inIraq would erode even further if the Iraqi insurgentslaunched attacks in the United States. Even moreimportant, an insurgent movement able to seize controlof a state could support transnational terrorists. Theidea is that insurgents have demonstrated an afnityfor violence and extremism which would avor theirpolicies if they came to power.

Of course, not all insurgencies are directly linkedto broader transnational movements. For the United

States, though, association with (or at least a similarityto) violent Islamic extremism (or narcotrafcking)determines the strategic signicance of an insurgency.While not itself an insurgent movement in the purestsense, al Qaeda cultivates ties to and supportsinsurgencies which share its ideology and worldview.15 Even insurgencies not directly linked to Islamicextremism strengthen it by spawning undergroundnetworks and economies which transnational terroristscan then tap. Hezbollah and al Qaeda, for instance,have been linked to the conicts in Sierra Leone andLiberia via the diamond trade.16 In 2005 Rady Zaiter,a Lebanese citizen, was arrested in connection witha cocaine smuggling operation that sent most of itsprots to Hezbollah.17

Still, this idea that association with Islamicextremism determines the strategic signicance of aninsurgency needs renement. Does the assumption


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that a regime that came to power via insurgencywill support transnational terrorism make sense?

Perhaps, particularly if transnational terrorists directlycontributed to the insurgent cause (as in Iraq). In suchcases, the new regime might feel a moral obligationto support its former allies. But it is even more likelythat a regime born out of insurgency would be focusedinward, concentrating on consolidating power. Inthis era of globalization and interconnectedness, newregimes are particularly vulnerable to outside economicand military pressure and thus unlikely to undertakeactions which would give the United States or someother state a justication for intervention. Even if theIraqi or Afghan insurgents won, for instance, they wouldprobably have learned the lessons of 2001serving as ahost to transnational terrorists is a dangerous business.While radicals can question Americas ability to sustain

counterinsurgency, there is no doubt that the UnitedStates can (and will) overturn regimes which overtlysupport transnational terrorism.

It is less the chance of an insurgent victory whichcreates a friendly environment for transnationalterrorism than persistent internal conict shatteringcontrol and restraint in a state. During an insurgency,both the insurgents and the government focus on eachother, necessarily leaving parts of the country withminimal security and control. Transnational terroristsexploit this. And protracted insurgency creates ageneral disregard for law and order. Organized crimeand corruption blossom. Much of the populationloses its natural aversion to violence. Thus a societybrutalized and wounded by a protracted insurgency is

more likely to spawn a variety of evils, spewing violentindividuals into the world long after the conict ends.


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The strategic context for 20th century insurgencywas the political mobilization of excluded groups,

rising nationalism, and proxy conict between thesuperpowers. The strategic context of contemporaryinsurgency is the collapse of old methods of order andidentity leading to systemic weakness and pathology.This creates failure or shortfalls in the security domain.One of the dominant characteristics of the contemporaryglobal security environment is that it continues to givenation states responsibility for systemic maintenanceand stability at the very time that they are increasinglyincapable of providing acceptable levels of security,prosperity, and political identity. A variety of sub- andsupra-state organizations are lling the vacuum.

There are several reasons that statesparticularlyin Latin America, Africa, and Asiacannot meet thedemands of their citizens. In part, it ows from the

articiality of many of todays national borders. Manydo not reect political, economic, or social distinctionson the ground. Articial and increasingly fragile statesare pummeled by globalization, interconnectedness,and the profusion of information. Globalization andinformation profusion make it difcult for states tomanage the distribution of goods and power withintheir borders and expectations. To give a simpleexample, access to the Internet and satellite televisionraises awareness in poor regions, but the globalizationof capital and markets makes it difcult for statesto improve economic conditions rapidly enough tomatch demands. Expectations rise more quickly thanthe ability to meet them. This alone does not leadto armed conict, but can if energized by ideology.

Metaphorically, globalization is like chronic stress toa human bodystress alone does not kill, but it canmake the body less able to stave off pathogens which


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can, in fact, kill. The effect is amplied in bodies thatare already weakened by something else. Globalization

makes weak states more vulnerable to ideologies ofviolence.

Another unintended side effect of globalizationarises from the pressure on autocratic regimes to un-dertake political reform (or at least give the impres-sion of undertaking political reform). Regimes mustdo this because the global capital market punishesautocratsunless an autocratic regime controls oneof the handful of extremely valuable resources suchas petroleum, the global capital market assumes thatinvestment is a high risk. Thomas Friedman callsthis the golden straitjacketregimes are forced toundertake actions which weaken them in order to gainaccess to global capital ows.18 But hybrid statespart autocracy, part democracyare more prone to

political conict than either strong autocracies or strongdemocracies.19 So autocratic regimes which undertakelimited reforms to attract investment inadvertentlymake themselves more prone to political conict.

Most of todays armed conictsincluding thoseinvolving insurgencygrow from attempts to exertinuence in or derive benets from the space vacatedby the weakening of the state (or never adequatelylled by states in the rst place). In addition, thereis competition and sometimes conict over a weaklycontrolled but increasingly important spacetheinfosphere. Twentieth century insurgency sought toeject the state from space it controlled (usually physicalterritory). Contemporary insurgency is a competitionfor uncontrolled spaces. Historically, it is more akin to

the wars which took place at the peripheries of decliningempires, be they the Roman, Ottoman, Chinese, orsome other. Contemporary insurgency, then, is simply


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Decentralized, networked organizations alsotend to be more survivable. No single node is vital.

They may not have a center of gravity. In the past,survivability and effectiveness tended to be inversecharacteristics. The most survivable were the smallestand best hidden, while the most effective werethe largest and most powerful. The profusion anddiffusion of information alters this (at least to somedegree) by amplifying the effects of psychologicaloperations, whether violent or nonviolent, and inpart by changing the power asymmetry betweeninsurgencies and the state. When power was strictlya factor of tangible resources like money and troops,the state held a distinct advantage. But as informationbecomes power (or generates power), the asymmetrybetween states and other organizations declines. Adecentralized, networked structure allows even small

insurgencies to accumulate and use information-basedpower (such as terrorism) and thus remain viable. Andwith the decline of state sponsorship, violent groupslike insurgencies must be self-nancing. Globalizationand the information revolution provide the means todo so. As Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman phrase it,rapid economic globalization and the replacement ofstate-led economic development by market-driven freetrade have created new and abundant opportunities formore systematic forms of combatant self-nancing.21A decentralized network is better able to capitalize onshifting economic opportunities than a hierarchical one(although less able to harness the funds accumulatedfor the attainment of overarching objectives).

The need to generate their own resources and the

absence of overt state sponsors forces insurgenciesto develop a wide array of linkages, partnerships,and alliances.22 Interconnectednessboth virtual and


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tangibleallows this. Insurgents can use the Internetto nd partners, whether ideological supporters who

share a political perspective or business partners toprovide information and armaments.23 A complexweb of links means less need for a mass base. Liketheir forebears, contemporary insurgents still seekacquiescence from the populacean unwillingness toprovide information to the regime. But they rely lesson the general population for information, money,and labor. This allows them to devote fewer resourcesto carrots designed to develop a mass basesocialprograms, administration, patronage, and so forthand more to sticks which generate passivity (butnot active support). Twentieth century insurgencies,particularly those based on the Maoist model, sought tobalance carrots and sticks. Contemporary insurgencies(like contemporary organized crime) are more focused

on violence, on coercion rather than patronage. Decentralized, networked insurgencies without anovert state sponsor have a limited ability to undertakeconventional military operations (or other complexactivities which require extensive coordination).This is one more factor leading to a greater relianceon terrorism. It is both necessary and effective.Information profusion and the availability of diversemeans of communication amplify the psychologicaleffects of terrorism. In terrorism, it matters less howmany people were killed than how many people knowof and are inuenced by the deaths. The terrorism ofcontemporary insurgents is thus designed to inuenceboth a proximate audience and a distant one.

Because contemporary insurgencies are nested

within broader crises or conicts reecting thediffusion of power and information, a diverse arrayof participants inuence the outcome. During the


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Warlord politics and state collapse are two sides of thesame coin. State collapse means that the government nolonger provides basic security and economic infrastruc-ture as public goods. Behind this is a warlord politicaleconomy in which rival politicians fund patronagenetworks through access to international commercialventures and provide their own security either by eldingtheir own militias or hiring international mercenaries.26

In a sense, then, militias may arise from defensivemotives when a group faces a real threat, or they may

arise offensively when a group or individual seeks tocapitalize on the weakness of the state.

Militias have a subnational constituency and focus.They address the needs of a specic group that issomething less than the entire citizenry of a country.They are quasi-state organizations, assuming somefunctions which the state would normally perform

such as the provision of security, administration, anda range of activities designed to facilitate economicactivity. Finally, militias have a coercive capability.They are, in other words, not simply subnationalquasi-state organizations, but armed subnational quasi-state organizations. The coercive element may be onlya small part of the militias function, or it may be itscore. But all militias have an armed component.

There are a number of variations within thisbasic construct. Some militias are based on personalpatronage. In Congo-Brazzaville, for instance, thethree major militia groupsthe Ninja, Cobra, andCocoyeare the private armies of powerful politicians(Denis Sassou Nguesso, Pascal Lissouba, and BernardKolelas).27 Similarly, in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) isthe personal militia of Thomas Lubanga and FloribertKisembo, and the Party for Unity and Safeguarding


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of the Integrity of Congo is the private army of ChiefKahwa Mandro Kisembo.28 Alternatively, militias can

be based on group identity such as clan, ethnicity, orsect. These can range from relatively informal, part-time self defense organizations to highly formal,hierarchical, almost state-like entities with full-timemembers, extensive specialization, standing militaryunits, an organic intelligence and counterintelligencecapability, a system for strategic planning, and a chainof command. Militias may raise funds in a varietyof ways, from legal contributions to illegal means(extortion, protection rackets, robbery, counterfeiting,product piracy, narcotrafcking, vice, smuggling, andkidnapping).

The line between militias and large-scale organizedcrime is often fuzzy (and sometimes irrelevant) but, ingeneral, militias have some political objectives other

than self-aggrandizement. They are both parasitesand providers of a resource (security, patronage)whereas criminal organizations are purely parasitic. Itis possible, though, for a given organization to straddleor cross the boundary between the two. Pablo Escobar,one of Colombias leading narcotrafckers, providedsocial services and concocted a rudimentary populistpolitical ideology. He donated funds for roads, electriclines, and soccer elds for the poor and built a housingproject.29 The inversea militia funding itself bycrimeis even more common. Many of the communalmilitias in Iraq are involved in organized crime.30 Thereare reports linking Hezbollah to an American crimesyndicate and to diamond smuggling.31

Some militias do not behave strategically (identi-

fying and prioritizing objectives; applying elements ofpower toward the attainment of the objectives; and bal-ancing costs, risks, and expected gains). Others may


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have formal processes of strategy development andadjustment, perhaps even full-time strategists. The

more strategic a militia, the more effective it will be atattaining political objectives. A strategic militia is alsolikely to exhibit more rational behavior, openingitself to inuence by other organizations whichunderstand its objectives and strategy. Astrategicmilitias are more susceptible to fracturing (which maynot necessarily destroy them since they may persist assmall, autonomous militias).

Militias vary greatly in organizational complexity.Some, like Hezbollah, may be highly complex,with great internal specialization and formalmethods for recruitment, training, indoctrination,and even professional development. They mayhave suborganizations for planning, intelligenceand counterintelligence, nancial activities, social

services, and so forth. They are likely to offer careerprogression within the organization. Others, likesome of the African militias, are closer to a gang instructure, with little organizational complexity otherthan a hierarchy of power and informal methods forrecruitment, indoctrination, and training. Complexmilitias are likely to be more effective at attainingobjectives. Simple ones are likely to be more resilient.

Some militias, like successful insurgencies, developa coherent ideology based on a persuasive narrativewhich explains why they were formed, what they seekto do, who opposes them, the methods they will use,and why they consider this endeavor justied andlegitimate. This narrative and the ideology it reectsnormally form a part of the information operations

used by the militia. Other militias are more primal,seeing no need to develop a coherent ideology (orhaving no capacity to do so). Ideological militias have


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a better chance of developing active public support.Nonideological ones often rely on passive public

support or patronage.While all militias have an identied constituency,

their relationship with it can range from the heavilyparasiticthe militia draws resources from itsconstituency by relying on force and fearto symbioticties where the militia, rather than the nationalgovernment, is seen as the legitimate representativeof the constituency. Parasitic militias are common inAfrica, particularly in very weak states like the Demo-cratic Republic of the Congo.32 Hezbollah, by contrast,falls on the more legitimate end of the continuum.

Militias may be proxies or subordinates of a morepowerful group, political party, or even the state. Othersare autonomous. Some militias are extensively linkedto other organizations, whether inside or outside the

country. Both the quantity and depth of links matter.Other militias have few connections. Finally, militiasvary greatly in the emphasis they place on violence.Some are violence-centric; others use it only as required.Generally, the more parasitic a militia, the more it relieson violence. The more legitimate a militia, the more itrelies on its other elements of power.

Hezbollah is an example of a high end militiacharacterized by complexity, a strategic approach,legitimacy, deep and extensive linkages, andautonomy.33 Some militias are created by states, someare born more organically. Hezbollah was not onlycreated by a state but by a foreign state. In 1982, a 1,500member contingent of Irans Revolutionary Guardsarrived in Lebanons Bekka Valley with the permis-

sion of the Syrian government.34 Their objective wasto spread Ayatollah Khomeinis version of Islamicrevolution in the Arab world, using the afnity ofLebanons Shiite community. This group had long


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been peripheralized in Lebanese politics and, in1982, was suffering the effects of Israels invasion

of Lebanon (intended to break the strength of thePalestinian movement operating from there.) The rawmaterial for Hezbollah was loosely organized bandsof Shiite gunmen.35 Iran poured money in, payingfor military training centers and community servicessuch as schools, clinics, hospitals, and cash subsidiesto the poor.36 This was particularly important since thenational government provided little to the southernShiites, including those displaced to the slums ofBeirut by conict in the south.

Khomeini and the other architects of the Iranianrevolution had a powerful effect on the initial ideologyand narrative of Hezbollah. As Sami Hajjar noted,

Hizballah adheres to a Manichean notion of the worldas being divided between oppressors (mustakbirun) andoppressed (mustadn). The relationship between the twogroups is inherently antagonistica conict betweengood and evil, right and wrong.37

The groups justifying narrativewhich AdamShatz described as a ery mixture of revolutionaryKhomeinism, Shiite nationalism, celebration of

martyrdom, and militant anti-Zionism, occasionallyaccompanied by crude, neo-fascist anti-Semitism38is almost archetypical, linking local grievances anda transnational ideology, stressing the defensivenature of its activities. This was best spelled out in a1985 letter attributed to Sheikh Muhammed HusseinFadlallah, Hezbollahs spiritual guide, and publishedin al-Sar(Beirut).39 Hezbollah, according to the letter,

does not constitute an organized and closed party inLebanon but an umma linked to the Muslims of theworld by the solid doctrinal and religious connection


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of Islam. Each member was a ghting soldier. Theletter stated:

We declare openly and loudly that we are an ummawhich fears God only and is by no means ready totolerate injustice, aggression, and humiliation. America,its Atlantic Pact allies, and the Zionist entity in theholy land of Palestine, attacked us and continue to doso without respite. . . . We have no alternative but toconfront aggression by sacrice.

Although beginning as a loose umbrella ofgroups, Hezbollah has followed the pattern of manysuccessful militias (and insurgencies), becoming moreformally organized as it matured. As Hajjar put it, theorganization was a sophisticated movement deeplyrooted in its environment . . . born of insurgency,reared in violent circumstances, and matured with a

seemingly greater sense of realism and pragmatism.40

Its political, military, and social services wings allbecame more effective. It operated hospitals, schools,discount pharmacies, groceries, and orphanages.It became Lebanons second largest employer.41 Insouthern Lebanon and the Shiite slums of Beirut, itperformed the classic function of parallel government,developing infrastructure, and providing loans and

reconstruction aid where the Lebanese governmentcould not or would not.42 This was particularly effectiveafter the Israeli attacks on that part of the country inthe summer of 2006. Hezbollah was at the forefrontof relief and reconstruction efforts, propelling it tonew heights of popularity not only among its ownconstituency, but among other Lebanese and Arabs as

well. Hezbollah, as journalist Robert Fisk wrote, wonthe war for hearts and minds.43Politically, Hezbollah has beneted from the skillful

leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of


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the organization since the assassination of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992. Nasrallah is an astute and charismatic

strategist who has attained a tremendous following andstatus not only in Lebanon, but across the Arab world.He has adjusted Hezbollahs programs to focus onunifying issues such as opposition to Israel rather thandivisive ones such as the transformation of Lebanoninto an Iranian-style Islamic state. He integrated hisorganization into the Lebanese political process. By 2006it held 14 seats in parliament plus several ministries.While Hezbollah continued to benet from extensiveIranian and Syrian support, it also developed its ownfunding sources, in part from involvement in organizedcrime but, more importantly, via contributions fromthe extensive Lebanese diaspora.44 Simultaneously,Hezbollah became skillful at psychological warfare,using a variety of communications techniques based

on the Internet and on its own media, particularly al-Manar television.45

Militarily, Hezbollah has been called the bestguerrilla force in the world.46 While using suicidebombers, it developed a signicant capability for largerirregular operations, waging an efcient, disciplined,and popular guerrilla war against the Israeli militaryin southern Lebanon until Israels withdrawal in 2000.47Hezbollah was connected to a number of terrorist attacksoutside Lebanon, including two bombings in BuenosAires and the 1996 attack on a U.S. military barracksat Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. The 2006 conictwith Israel further demonstrated Hezbollahs militaryprowess. As Andrew Exum notes, in comparison toother Arab forces which have faced the Israeli Defense

Forces, Hezbollah is skilled at tactical maneuver, theuse of its weapons systems, and exible small unitleadership.48 While the Israelis inicted serious damageon Hezbollah forces and their military infrastructure,


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the organization began rebuilding its armed capabilityimmediately after the end of the conict.49

Hezbollah thus constitutes one end of the spectrumof militias. But is it an archetype? There is little doubtthat others, particularly in the Middle East, willattempt to emulate it. But Hezbollah could not havebecome what it is today without the signicant externalsupport it receives from Syria and particularly Iran.The question, then, is whether sponsorship of proxy orallied militias will remain an element of statecraft. Anargument can be made that it will. Irans Quds Forcetrains a variety of groups, most of which would like toreplicate Hezbollahs success.50 And other states alsouse foreign militias as proxies. Many of the militias inthe Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, aresponsored by bordering states.51 But an equally strongcase can be made that only Iran has made sponsorship

of co-communal militias a central part of its nationalsecurity strategy. Most of the militia sponsors in CentralAfrica (and elsewhere) would probably drop thisactivity in the face of even modest pressure. Ultimatelysome militias might attempt to copy Hezbollah, butfew, if any, will succeed.

The Kamajors of Sierra Leone illustrate the otherend of the spectrum. Like Hezbollah, they were formedwhen individuals already skilled in the use of violencewere organized for a political purpose, and when publicorder collapsed in the face of government ineptitude andweakness.52 The Kamajors were hunters from the southand east of Sierra Leone employed by local chiefs. Tribalhunting societies in West Africa traditionally protectedtheir villages. Beginning as early as 1992, such groups

began to confront the brutal Revolutionary UnitedFront (RUF) insurgents.53 In 1994 Kamajors defeatedthe RUF around the city of Bo. Prior to this, the RUF


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had convinced many of the people of Sierra Leone thatthey were protected by magic. The Kamajors were able

to demystify them.54

In 1996 President Ahmed TejanKabbah decided to use the Kamajors to replace foreignsecurity contractors in government counterinsurgencyoperations. The group undertook autonomous actionsand operated in conjunction with the foreign securitycorporations, government military forces, and, later,with international peacekeepers from the EconomicCommunity of West African States (ECOWAS) andthe United Nations (UN). Within 2 years they hadsupplanted government forces and militarily defeatedthe RUF. Because of their distrust of the government,they refused to integrate with its armed forces ordisarm even after a settlement was reached with theRUF in 2002. As Comfort Ero notes:

While their original involvement in the war wasessentially to defend their communities, one of themost bitter observations is that they were successfullymobilised by government forces to use extreme coercionin the ght against rebel forces. In the end, they are partof the political problem confronting Sierra Leone. Theheavy reliance of the Kabbah administration during thewar inevitably challenges and undermines programmesaimed at restructuring Sierra Leones armed forces in the

post-war climate.55

A government engaged in counterinsurgency canapproach militias in several ways. It can treat them thesame as insurgents, using a combination of carrots andsticks. This must include some sort of demobilizationand reintegration program, providing skills andopportunities for former militia members. It must be

more benecial for militia leaders and members tobecome part of the legitimate economy and state powersystem than to maintain their own alternative ones.


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criminal enterprisesa fairly common pattern. TheAUC in Colombia, for instance, moved into narcotics

production and trafcking. In 2000 its leader admittedthat 70 percent of the groups funding came fromthe drug trade.58 In addition, militias may have lessdeveloped procedures than the government forvetting members or performing counterintelligence,increasing the chances of penetration by the insurgents.In Afghanistan the government has trained thousandsof men afliated with local militias to boost thesecurity forces even though there are criminals andTaliban sympathizers among them. We know, saidRoss Davies, a Canadian police ofcer involved inthe program, that we are probably training some ofthe bad guys.59 Militias trained and armed by thegovernment as part of a counterinsurgency campaignmay use their new prowess for other purposes, whether

in conict with each other or against the government.Again Afghanistan is instructive, with critics warningthat plans to rearm the militias, even though intendedto hinder the Taliban, will fuel tribal rivalries.60 Thereis also the risk that militias integrated into governmentsecurity forces may hijack them for their own ends,using the contacts, training, and equipment they havereceived to benet their own constituency.

Even when it does not directly use militias, agovernment can form a loose working relationshipwith them. In Iraq, for instance, Sabrina Tavernisenotes that most Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad arerun by a complex network of relationships amongthe local militias, the police, and a powerful localcouncil.61 This too is dangerous. Members of Jaish al

Mahdi, the Shiite militia led by Moqtada al Sadr, areknown to inltrate the police and military to obtaintraining and equipment.62 If (or when) it faces the


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government in open conict, this will make it a morechallenging opponent. Similarly Iraqs Kurdish leaders

have inserted more than 10,000 ghters from theirPeshmerga militias into the Iraqi army, possibly to helpwith the development of an independent Kurdistan inthe future.63 In Iraqs south, Iranian backed militiasincrease the inuence of Teheran at the expense of thegovernment in Baghdad.64

The appropriate approach, of course, depends onthe nature of the militia itself, including its relationshipto the insurgents, its objectives, and its power. If theinsurgents pose a major threat to the government, thewisest policy may be to tolerate or placate powerfulmilitias, perhaps waiting until later to deal with them. Ifthe insurgency is under control, the government mightbe able to deal with other security problems, includingmilitias. And the appropriate approach to a militia or

multiple militias depends on the ultimate objective ofthe government. If its goals are extensivea nationwhere the state itself holds a monopoly on coercionthen militias must be neutralized or eradicated. If thegoals are more modest, such as an acceptable level ofstability and state control or simply the defeat of theinsurgents, then militias might be tolerated.

Tolerating militias, though, condemns a state toperpetual weakness, increasing the likelihood of futureconict. Militias can even hinder counterinsurgency.In Iraq, for instance, the profusion of Shiite militiashowever justiedincreases the insecurity of theSunni community and thus makes political resolutionof the insurgency more difcult.65 But beleagueredstates are often forced to tolerate militias even when

they do not want to, simply because of an inability todo anything about them. Few outside stateseventhose committed to counterinsurgencywill provide


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signicant assistance for a countermilitia campaign.It is hard to imagine, for instance, the deployment of

American troops and advisers in such a role. Sincemilitias do not seek to take over a nation and rule it,ignoring them simply leaves the state weak but, in somesense, intact. They are like a parasite that renders itshost vulnerable to other diseases but does not actuallykill it. For this reason, they do not pose enough of astrategic threat that the United States or other stateswill become involved. So again, the paradoxical logicappears: an alliance with militias or even the creationof proxy militias might initially seem to be the bestoption for a state facing a serious insurgency, but maynot be for long-term stabilization. It is a dangerousexpedient.

One other type of militia merits consideration. Someanalysts contend that the Internet has made virtual

militias (and insurgencies) possible and potentiallydangerous.66 That runs counter to the denition ofmilitias used here since virtual militias do notcontrol territory or assume state functions. Perhaps,though, virtual militias and insurgents should beconsidered a separate category. Interestingly, justas the emergence of real insurgents sometimesspawn the creation of counterinsurgent militias,the emergence of virtual insurgents has led to theformation of virtual counterinsurgent vigilantes. Oneexample is the Internet Haganah, part of a networkof private anti-terrorist web monitoring services, whichcollects information on extremist websites, passesthis on to state intelligence services, and attempts toconvince Internet service providers not to host radical

sites.67 The logic is that it takes a network to countera network. As insurgents and terrorists become morenetworked and more virtual, states, with theirinherently bureaucratic procedures and hierarchical


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organizations, will be ineffective. Vigilantes, withoutsuch constraints, may be.

Criminal Organizations. In any society whereinsurgency takes root, organized crime will bepervasive. This is more than coincidence. Both sproutfrom common roots: ineffective governance, systemicweakness and pathology, and a culture or tradition ofclandestine activity. Criminal organizations, though,tend to have different objectives and characteristics thanmilitias and insurgencies. They have little or no senseof serving a constituency other than their members.Their relationship with society is purely parasitic; theyseek public passivity rather than active support. Theydo provide economic opportunity and, in some cases,a sense of social identity, but only to their members.Criminal organizations may control territory or turf,but they seldom, if ever, perform public administrative

functions.68

Insurgents may be customers, partners, or enemiesof organized crime. As customers, they purchase ortrade for arms, information, other resources such as thekidnapping victims captured by Iraqi criminal gangs,or services such as smuggling and money laundering.As partners, they protect and prot from illicit activity.This is particularly common in narcotics-producingregions. According to the UN, insurgents were linkedto drug trafcking in seven of the worlds nine keydrug producing areas.69 Today, the bulk of the globalcultivation of opium and coca, Svante E. Cornell wrote,is taking place in conict zones, while the trafckingof their derivatives has come to heavily involveinsurgent and terrorist groups operating between the

source and destination areas of illicit drugs.70 Crimediminishes the need to raise money from the publicor external sponsors. It gives the insurgent leaders


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the funds to buy weapons and exercise patronageand corruption. This connection between insurgency

and crime comes both from needinsurgents mustnance and supply themselvesand opportunity. AsChris Dishman argues, pressure from security forcesleads terrorist organizations (and, one would assume,insurgencies as well) to decentralize. Lower and mid-level components of the organization, operating withlittle oversight from top leadership, are free to formcloser bonds with criminal organizations.71 And theysee benets in doing so since having their own sourcesof income makes them even more autonomous fromthe upper echelons of their organization.

Insurgencies can evolve into criminal organizations.Particularly in protracted conicts, Cornell notes,entire groups or parts of groups come to shift theirfocus increasingly toward the objective of prot.72

The best example is the Revolutionary Armed Forcesof Colombia (FARC).73 Cornell again is instructive:

Over time, insurgent groups tend to become increasinglyinvolved in the drug trade. Beginning with toleratingand taxing the trade, insurgents tend to gradually shiftto more lucrative self-involvement. Self-involvement, inturn, generates a risk of affecting insurgent motivationalstructures, tending to weaken ideological motivationsand strengthen economic ones.74

This happens across the globe. For instance, mostarmed combatants in Africas internal wars have eithersupplanted existing organized criminal networks ormerged with them.75

Iraq is a classic case of preexisting organized crime

initially developing a partnership with insurgentsfollowed by a melding where the insurgents themselvesbecame criminal organizations or, at least, barelydistinguishable from organized crime.76 The corrupt


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nature of Saddam Husseins regime created a fertileenvironment for this. After the implementation of UN

sanctions in the 1990s, the regime itself ran many racketswith Uday Hussein at the pinnacle. The Baath party,Robert Looney notes, became more an organizedcrime syndicate than a political organization.77Saddam Hussein allowed this as a form of patronage.Since former regime members played a major role inthe early days of the insurgency, it was easy for theinsurgents to capitalize on the criminal connectionsand procedures already in place. Iranian based criminalgangs added to the problem. A good portion of thelooting that took place in March and April 2003 wasengineered or funded by these gangs.78

Initially the Iraqi insurgents did not need to usecriminal activity to raise funds. Former regime ofcialshad plenty of money left from their days in power

and augmented this with foreign contributions. Atthis point, the insurgents were primarily customersfor organized crime, buying weapons and kidnappingvictims from the gangs. Eventually, though, theinsurgents themselves turned to crime when their pre-war resources were depleted. The petroleum blackmarket was especially lucrative, but kidnapping,money laundering, and the drug trade also generatedfunds.79 By 2006, according U.S. assessments, theinsurgents were raising tens of millions of dollars fromsmuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, and robbery.80Simultaneously, Iraqs militias merged with or becamecriminal organizations. This greatly complicatedcounterinsurgency efforts. As a report from OxfordAnalytica noted, Rampant serious and violent crime

in Iraq seriously reduces the governments ability toght terrorism and insurgency, preventing communityintelligence-gathering and providing militants with


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a community of trafckers and paid-for attackers tosupport militancy.81

Counterinsurgents can approach criminal organi-zations in a number of ways. They may ignore them,particularly if the criminals are not closely tied to theinsurgency. Or the regime may take a more activestance, coopting criminal organizations by givingthem something they want (control of a market niche,amnesty) in exchange for severing ties to the insurgentsor active participation in the counterinsurgencycampaign. After the 2001 American invasion ofAfghanistan, for instance, U.S. ofcials apparentlyworked out a deal with Afghan drug lord Haji BashirNoorzai to obtain information about the Taliban.82As with militias, such an approach simply postponesdealing with the criminal problem. This may benecessary, but it is never desirable. Again like militias,

the government knows that external support maydiminish or dry up after the defeat of the insurgency,leaving it to undertake an anticrime campaign on itsown (unless the state hosts major narcotic producers ortrafckers). Alternatively, the government may seek toneutralize or crush criminal organizations, particularlyif the criminals are closely linked to the insurgents or ifthe insurgency itself is at a low enough level to allowthe diversion of security resources to other tasks. Aswith militias, the appropriate response is shaped bothby the nature of the insurgency and by the specic rolethat criminal organizations play in it.

Private Military Companies. Private military compa-nies (PMCs) have existed for millennia. States usedthem to augment their own capabilities, particularly in

specialized skills that their own forces lacked. A statecould hire mercenaries when necessary without havingto bear the cost and risk of a standing military.83 All


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that was required was demand and supplywarriorswith skills not needed or wanted by their own states.

Today PMCs provide the same benets: specializedcapabilities, surge capacity, and controllability. Theseare all important in counterinsurgency. As HerbertHowe noted, private armed organizations can deployfaster than multinational and perhaps even nationalforces (with fewer political restrictions). They can be lessnancially taxing than state forces in a multinationalcoalition, and the states hiring them can handpickfrom a pool of combat veterans.84 There are threetypes of PMCs (or three types of PMC services sinceindividual companies can provide two or even three ofthe services): military providerrms which undertakeactual combat; military consultant rms which provideadvice and training; and military support rms whichoffer functions such as logistics, intelligence, and

medical care.85

The 1990s, the breakup of the SovietUnion, the advent of majority rule in South Africa, andeventually the end of the Balkan wars produced manypeople with military and intelligence experience butlimited prospects for using them in their own nations.86In the United States, the desire to rationalize defenseand the demands of protracted peace operations in theBalkans and elsewhere led to an increased reliance oncontractors for a wide range of services. The Americanmilitary, with its very competitive career system, alwaysretired a large number of relatively young ofcersand noncommissioned ofcers. For many, the idea ofstaying involved in defense issues as consultants andcontractors is appealing.

Military providers are the most controversial type

of PMCs. They gained worldwide attention in the 1990sthrough the actions of Executive Outcomes, a rmcomposed of former members of the South African


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Defence Force (SADF), most with a background inspecial forces. In the 1990s, the beleaguered govern-

ments of Sierra Leone and Angola hired ExecutiveOutcomes for counterinsurgency.87 While thearrangements were eventually terminated becauseof the nancial burden they placed on the Africangovernments, the company had impressive tacticalsuccess, particularly in Sierra Leone.88 Ironically,the formation of ethnically-based militias in thatcountrythe Kamajors, Tamboro, and Kaprasledthe regime to conclude it could protect itself withoutExecutive Outcomes.89 At about the same time, thegovernment of Papua New Guinea hired SandlineInternational, another PMC initially spun off fromExecutive Outcomes, and Sri Lanka contractedcounterinsurgency assistance from Saladin Security.90The primary function of PMCs in these conicts was

not pacication per se, but protecting the resourceswhich funded the government.91

The Balkans conict of the 1990s illustrated theimportance of military consultant rms. MilitaryProfessional Resources International (MPRI), a rmfounded by retired U.S. Army senior ofcers and jokingly referred to as generals without borders,played a legendary role in professionalizing theCroatian military.92 To some in the United States, theidea of using retired ofcers as trainers and adviserswas very attractive. But it is not new. In 1990 RodPaschall argued that the U.S. military itself was notwell-suited for what was then called low intensityconict (which included counterinsurgency) andhence should rely on contractors, especially retired

Special Forces soldiers.93The war on terror revived the idea of contractors

as force multipliers. Since 2003, for instance,


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Iraq has seen a greater reliance on PMCs than anycounterinsurgency campaign in history. Military

providers like Blackwater U.S.A., a company foundedin 1998 by former Navy SEALs, have provided securitydetails for American and Iraqi ofcials, privatecontractors, nongovernmental organizations, andjournalists.94 They also guarded oil elds, convoys,banks, residential compounds, and ofce buildings.And Blackwater is only one of many PMCs whichhave played a role in Iraq. A year into the insurgency,there were an estimated 20,000 foreign soldiers from adizzying array of backgrounds.95 By 2007, there were48,000.96 Much of the logistics for the U.S. military hasbeen handled by the giant rms Halliburton and KBR(formerly Kellogg, Brown, and Root). Nearly everyPMC in the United States and the United Kingdom hashad a contract of some sort in Iraq, and many more

were created expressly for that conict.For outside providers of counterinsurgency sup-

port, particularly the United States, PMCs are appeal-ing. Like contracting in general, PMCs free uniformedservice members for other tasks. The complexity ofcounterinsurgency makes the experience of older,retired, or former service members particularlyvaluable. In his February 2007 congressional testimony,for instance, Lieutenant General David Petraeus,the commander of American forces in Iraq, said heconsidered the thousands of contract security forcesan important addition to the American military andIraqi forces.97 While contractors are paid more thansoldiers, they are cheaper in the long run since the U.S.Government has no obligation to provide benets or

career advancement. They help retention by cuttingdown on the time that soldiers are deployed. PMCsalso increase the chances of sustaining support for


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U.S. involvement in a counterinsurgency campaign.For some reason, the public seems to have greater

tolerance for casualties among American contractors(and certainly among non-American contractors) thanAmerican servicemen.98

But there are problems. Sandline provides a goodillustration. The company, led by British LieutenantColonel (Ret.) Tim Spicer, undertook both combatoperations and training. It was closely linked tomineral and oil extraction companies, protecting themin the midst of internal conicts and the inability ofthe state to provide security. In Sierra Leone, Sandlinecontinued where Executive Outcomes left off. However,its involvement in a plan to import weapons into SierraLeone despite an international ban discredited thecompany and its supporters in the British government.Then Spicer was jailed in Papua New Guinea when

the government changed. According to the Sandlinewebsite, the company disbanded in 2004 because of a

. . . general lack of governmental support for PrivateMilitary Companies willing to help end armed conicts inplaces like Africa, in the absence of effective internationalintervention . . . Without such support the ability ofSandline to make a positive difference in countries wherethere is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour ismaterially diminished.99

The short and tumultuous life of this companyillustrates some of the problems associated with usingPMCs in counterinsurgency.

Like any contractor, PMCs are more focused onfulllment of their contract than on larger strategic

objectives. For instance, former Marine Colonel T. X.Hammes has described the adverse effects of PMCpersonal security detachments in Iraq. They were sodetermined to protect their VIP that they sometimes


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abused or frightened Iraqi bystandersprecisely thepeople the counterinsurgency campaign sought to

win over. As Hammes put it, The contractor washired to protect the principal. He had no stake inpacifying the country . . . and generally treated localsas expendable.100 The same charge has been leveledagainst Dyncorp security contractors in Afghanistan.101Lines of authority can be confused when PMCs arepresent since contractors report to the agency thathired them rather than the military authority in agiven area. PMCs are not under the same discipline asgovernment troops. They may not follow ofcial rulesof engagement.102 And they can abandon a conictzone if conditions become difcult, potentially leavinggovernment forces in the lurch.103 With PMCsas withmost thingsthose who hire them get what they payfor. Quality is expensive. If a government runs out of

money, PMCs leave regardless of whether the state canfunction without them. Ultimately, then, using PMCsfor counterinsurgency may be a necessary short-termexpedient, but relying on them is dangerous. The keyis whether the government takes advantage of thebreathing space given by PMCs to develop its owncapability.

Fourth Forces.

Fourth forces are unarmed groups or organizationswhich affect an insurgency. The most common typesare foreign or multinational corporations (excludingPMCs); international and nongovernmental organiza-tions; and international media and other information

organizations. As with third forces, they haveproliferated. In many cases, they pursue a titularneutrality, not explicitly seeking the victory of either


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side. In effect, though, their actions often benet one ofthe participants more than the others.

International Corporations. The involvement ofinternational corporations in a complex conict is adual-edged sword. They can strengthen and funda beleaguered government by buying its productsor paying for market concessions. They may sellweapons or other goods and services needed for thecounterinsurgency campaign. But they also may placeconditions on sales, loans, or other deals. These aredifcult enough for a weak state during peacetime, butcan be even more dangerous during armed conict.Corporations can inadvertently erode the legitimacy ofgovernments by making them appear as the puppets orproxies of foreigners. Although it is rarer, internationalcorporations can help insurgents when the rebelscontrol some valuable resource such as diamonds or

coltan.104

International Media. International news coverage canaffect insurgencies even when not seeking to do so. Bypublicizing a conictparticularly its humanitariancoststhe international media brings pressure tocease hostilities or arrive at a speedy settlement.But this seldom falls equally on both insurgents andcounterinsurgents. There is more pressure on thegovernment to make concessions than on insurgentsto cease operations. Governments are more susceptibleto international pressure than insurgencies. Mostinsurgencies, especially those involved in crime, cansurvive with little or no outside support. No governmentcan. The world has more leverage over states than overinsurgents. Media coverage leads outsiders to use this

inuence, holding states to higher ethical standards.In addition, most members of the media have an

inherent anti-authoritarian bias. While they may not


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state it openly, they often assume that there is some justication for an insurgency. The tendency is to

accord insurgents victim status. And the public lovesa victim. Hence extensive international media coverageof an insurgency tends to promote the perception ofmoral parity. Seldom are insurgents portrayed asillegitimate aggressors. This tendency is ampliedwhen the United States is involved. There is a growinghostility toward the United States among the globalmedia which leads to negative coverage of any causethat Washington supports.

International media and other sources for thetransmission of information level the psychologicalplaying eld. In the 20th century, insurgents struggledto reach external audiences. Only bold and intrepidreporters would venture to the difcult, dangerousareas where insurgents operated. It was the paradoxical

logic again: insurgents protected themselves byremaining in remote regions, but this made it difcultto publicize their cause. Now the global media,satellite communications, cell phones, the Internet,and other information technology gives insurgentsinstant access to national and world audiences. Oncethe communications channels opened, the exibility ofinsurgents and their lack of ethical and legal constraintsgave them advantages in the psychological battlespace.This did not assure successmany insurgentstransmitted ineffective messages or put themselves indanger by publicitybut it did offer an opportunityto make a connection with supporters they might nototherwise have found. Like spam email, the greaterthe bulk of the transmission, the greater the likelihood

that someone will be receptive (while nonreceptiveaudiences simply ignore unwanted messages).

In Iraq, for instance, Al Zawaraa television, which isowned by a Sunni member of Iraqs Parliament living


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in Damascus and distributed by Nilesat, an Egyptian-government-owned company, is considered the semi-

ofcial voice of the Sunni insurgents, broadcastingpropaganda videos they produce, including thoseshowing bloody attacks.105 It has signed a distributiondeal with several European companies to broadcast itthere and in the United States. The wildly popular Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera, while less overtly linkedto the insurgents than Al Zawaraa, contributed to therebel information campaign through a steady barrage ofcriticism of the United States and the Iraqi government(at least until expelled in 2004). Whether one believesthat Al Jazeera offered a balanced perspective (as itclaimed) or supported the insurgents, it complicatedcounterinsurgent information operations and providedthe insurgents publicity (and hence legitimacy) theywould not otherwise have had. This also helped them

adjust and rene their operations. As Tony Cordesmanputs it in his study of the Iraq conict:

Iraqi terrorist and insurgent organizations have learnedthat media reporting on the results of their attacksprovides a powerful indicator of their success and whatkind of attack to strike at in the future (sic). While manyattacks are planned long in advance or use targetingbased on inltration or simple observation, others arelinked to media reporting on events, movements, etc. Theend result is that insurgents can swarm around giventypes of targets, striking at vulnerable points where thetarget and method of attack is known to have success.106

Nonmedia information sources, particularlythe Internet, are an even more powerful tool forinsurgents. Websites are used for recruitment and

building linkages with other groups both in Iraqand externally.107 The Internet is used to disseminatevideos, pictures, and accounts of attacks as part of the


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insurgencys psychological operations and as a trainingaid. Cordesman notes that Terrorist and insurgent

organizations from all over the world have establishedthe equivalent of an informal tactical net in which theyexchange techniques for carrying out attacks, technicaldata on weapons, etc.108 There may be more than 800insurgent websites. And this does not even count thethousands of others which link to them. The Internet,even more than the media, is beyond the control ofcounterinsurgents. Techniques such as pressuringcompanies or states which host insurgent websites isfutile. International and Nongovernmental Organizations.International and nongovernmental organizationsalso level the playing eld between insurgentsand counterinsurgents. To gain access to insurgentcontrolled regions, international and nongovernment

organizations often treat the rebels as the co-equalsof the government, thus helping to legitimize them.109Insurgents are well aware of this and use it in theirpsychological campaign. Humanitarian organizationsare almost always critical of military operations,whether by rebels or the government. The Britishrelief group, Oxfam, for instance, often demands thatthe government of Uganda cease military operationsagainst the brutal Lords Resistance Army.110 Someobservers even claim that humanitarian assistanceorganizations prolong conicts once such groupsdevelop a vested organizational interest in them.111Without humanitarian crises, humanitarian relieforganizations would have no raison d'etre. Equally,the provision of humanitarian assistance relieves

insurgents from the burden of caring for the populationin areas they control and provides lootable or taxableincome ows.112


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External humanitarian efforts, while exceptionallyvaluable to alleviate suffering, may leave a state

unprepared to take over the provision of services whenthe conict ends or subsides. Hence the widespreadinvolvement of international and nongovernmentalorganizations in an insurgency increases the chancesthat conict will reemerge once the shortcomings andweaknesses of the state provide political space forinsurgents or other violent actors. The paradoxical logicemerges once more: What seems bestthe alleviationof sufferingmay increase the chances of renewedsuffering at a later date. Even so, it is impractical andcounterproductive to deliberately limit the involvementof international and nongovernmental organizations ina conict. Again, this reects the political asymmetryof insurgency: governments who limit or controlhumanitarian efforts face intense pressure, while

insurgents can do so with impunity.

RETHINKING THE DYNAMICS

Beginning in the 1990s, the scholarly and policycommunities developed an extensive analyticalliterature on the internal conicts that wracked thepost-Cold War world. But when the U.S. military andother elements of the government began reassessinginsurgency after 2001, they largely ignored thisliterature and instead drew on earlier analyses of theBritish experience in Malaya in the 1940s and 1950s,the French experience in Algeria in the 1950s, and theAmerican experience in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.As the U.S. Army sought to understand the conict in

Iraq, for instance, the most recommended books forits ofcers were John Nagls Learning to Eat Soup Witha Knife (which dealt with the British involvement in


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Malaya and the American experience in Vietnam) andDavid Galulas Counterinsurgency Warfare (which was

drawn from the French campaigns in Indochina andAlgeria).113 Both are excellent. But both deal with warsof imperial maintenance or nationalistic transition,not with complex communal conicts where armedmilitias and organized crime play a powerful role. Thistendency to look too far back in the quest to understandcontemporary insurgency is a serious aw. More recentanalysis of internal wars can tell us much about theinsurgencies that the United States currently faces andmay face in the future.

Because of globalization, the decline of overt statesponsorship of insurgency, the continuing importanceof informal outside sponsorship, and the nesting ofinsurgency within complex conicts associated withstate weakness or failure, the dynamics of contemporary

insurgency are more like a violent and competitivemarket than war in the traditional sense where clear anddiscrete combatants seek strategic victory. Thinking ofinsurgency in this way not only offers valuable insightsinto how it works, but also suggests a very differentapproach to counterinsurgency.

In economic markets, participants might dreamof strategic victoryoutright control of the marketsuch as that exercised by Standard Oil prior to1911but many factors, especially competition andregulation, prevent it. The best they can hope for is toattain and sustain some degree of market domination.Most have even more limited objectivessurvival andprotability. This also describes many insurgencies,particularly 21st century ones. Competition and other

factors, such as the absence of state sponsors, mitigateagainst outright conquest of the state in the mode ofCastro or Ho Chi Minh.114 It is nearly impossible for a


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single entity, whether the state or a nonstate participant,to exercise a monopoly of power. Market domination

and share constantly shift.In contemporary complex conicts, protability

often is literal rather than metaphorical. An extensive(and growing) analytical literature chronicles theevolution of violent movements like insurgencies fromgrievance to greed.115 The idea is that politicalgrievances may instigate an insurgency but, as aconict progresses, economic motives play a largerrole, eventually even dominating. While combatants,have continued to mobilize around political,communal, and security objectives, Karen Ballentineand Jake Sherman write, increasingly these objectiveshave become obscured and sometimes contradictedby their more businesslike activities.116 Conict givesinsurgents access to money and resources out of

proportion to what they would have in peacetime. AsPaul Collier, one of the pioneers of this idea, explains:

Conicts are far more likely to be caused by economicopportunities than by grievance. If economic agendasare driving conict, then it is likely that some groups arebeneting from the conict and these groups, therefore,have some interest in initiating and sustaining it.117

The counterinsurgentsthe regimealso developvested political and economic interests in sustaininga controllable conict. A regime facing an armedinsurgency is normally under somewhat less outsidepressure for economic and political reform. It canjustiably demand more of its citizens and, conversely,postpone meeting their demands. Insurgency

sometimes brings outside nancial support andprovides opportunities for corrupt regime members totap black markets. Even though internal conict may


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diminish overall economic activity, it increases protmargins by constraining competition. This, too, can

work to the advantage of elites, including those in thegovernment or security services. Collier continues:

. . . various identiable groups will do well out of thewar. They are opportunistic businessmen, criminals,traders, and the rebel organizations themselves. The rebelswill do well through predation on primary commodityexports, traders do well through the widened marginson the goods they sell to consumers, criminals will do

well through theft, and opportunistic businessmenwill do well at the expense of those businesses that areconstrained to honest conduct.118

Internal wars frequently involve the emergenceof another alternative system of prot, power, andprotection in which conict serves the political andeconomic interests of a variety of groups.119 Hence theinsurgents, criminals, militias, or even the regime havea greater interest in sustaining a controlled conictthan in attaining victory.

The merging of armed violence and economicsamplies the degree to which complex conictsemulate the characteristics and dynamics of volatile,hypercompetitive markets. For instance, like all

markets, complex conicts operate according to rules(albeit informal, unwritten ones). In the most basicsense, the rules dictate what is and is not acceptable asparticipants compete for market domination or share.Participants may violate the rules but doing so entailsrisk and cost. The more risk averse a participantand governments are normally more risk averse thanthe nongovernment participants, and participantssatised with their market position and with a positiveexpectation about the future are more risk averse thanthose which are unsatised and pessimistic about


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affected by the petroleum market, or the Americannational market by the European market, the Iraq

conict market is affected by the Afghan conictmarket or by the market of political ideas in the UnitedStates and other parts of the Arab world.

That contemporary insurgents emulate corpora-tions in a hyper competitive (and violent) marketshapes their operational methods. Specically,insurgents gravitate toward operational methodswhich maximize desired effects while minimizing thecosts and risks. This, in conjunction with the profusionof information, the absence of state sponsors providingconventional military material, and the transparencyof the operating environment, has increased the roleterrorism plays for insurgents. Insurgents have alwaysused terrorism. But one of the characteristics of thisquintessentially psychological method of violence is

that its effect is limited to those who know of it. When,for instance, the Viet Cong killed a local political leader,it might have had the desired psychological effect onpeople in the region, but did little to shape the beliefs,perceptions, or morale of those living far away. Today,information technology amplies the psychologicaleffects of a terrorist incident by publicizing it to a muchwider audience. This includes both satellite, 24-hourmedia coverage, and, more importantly, the Internetwhich, Gordon McCormick and Frank Giordanonote, has made symbolic violence a more powerfulinstrument of insurgent mobilisation than at any timein the past.120

So terrorism is effective. It is easier and cheaper toundertake than conventional military operations. It is

less costly and risky to the insurgent organization asa whole (since terrorist operations require only a verysmall number of personnel and a limited investment intraining and materiel). It is efcient when psychologi-


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cal effects are compared to the resource investment.It allows insurgents to conjure an

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Rethinking Insurgency

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