Rethinking Security

Gang Research

New piece on global gangs with John P. Sullivan.

Thanks to John Robb, Zenpundit, and Bruce Sterling for helping to get the word out.

Gangs and Conflict Redux

John P. Sullivan and I have a new piece in OpenDemocracy looking at conflict in border zones in the Americas. Key graph:

"While some have fretted that [border] zones could harbor jihadi terrorists, the real danger lies in the violence produced by bloody competition over these lucrative areas and the spread of criminal reach and power throughout the state and across frontiers."

It is, in in essence, an issue of criminal competition and human security rather than national security. In related news, Sullivan was also interviewed by Danger Room on the similarities and differences between counterinsurgency and policing.

Police-Military Interaction in Mexico

My frequent writing partner John P. Sullivan has a great new piece in the Spanish edition of Air Space and Power Journal (link goes to English translation) on police-military interaction in Mexico's drug war.

Key graph:

"Policing post-conflict situations is notoriously difficult for military forces. The military establishes the conditions for order, them generally seeks to transition social control to civil police or transitional gendarmerie forces.50 The situation is even more complex in a state of on-going high intensity criminal violence such as that found in a “criminal insurgency” or drug war. Police and the military are equally challenged by brigands and gangsters who operate with near impunity. This is compounded by the challenge of operating within a fearful community, compromised by corrupt officials and a plethora of security leaks. To effectively operate in this environment, both the police and military services need to develop and employ new skills at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels."

Vigilante Violence Spreads in Mexico

(via Susanne Ure) Unfortunately very predictable:

"As kidnappings, muggings and car jackings spiral out of control, and the authorities appear increasingly impotent, shadowy groups have been advocating justice by the sword. In other recent cases, alleged kidnappers and car thieves have been abducted and murdered and had their corpses dumped in public places along with threatening notes. There are also rising cases of mobs lynching alleged thieves and leaving them beaten, naked and tied up."

Echoes of the Past

The first book on counterinsurgency that I read was David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, acknowledged as the primary inspiration behind the celebrated Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual. There have been many criticisms of the "neoclassical" counterinsurgency school, and I think that Frank Hoffman's Parameters article on the subject was most persuasive in delineating some of the theory's limitations.

I have returned to the "classical" era by reading Roger Trinquier's Modern Warfare. Trinquier, like Galula, was a French officer of the late imperial era who cut his small wars teeth in Algeria and Vietnam. I have not gotten far in Trinquier's book, but much of his rhetoric could have been written by defense writers today. Depending on where you sit in the COIN debate that could be either a good or bad thing.

This paragraph, for example, sounds eerily prescient:

"Thanks to a specially adapted organization and to appropriate methods of warfare, they have been successful in imposing themselves upon entire populations and in using them, despite their own desires in the matter, against us. Our enemies are submitting us to a kind of hateful extortion, to which we shall have to accede in the end if we cannot destroy the warfare system that confronts us. We would be gravely remiss in our duty if we should permit ourselves to be thus deluded and to abandon the struggle before final victory. We would be sacrificing defenseless populations to unscrupulous enemies."

"Start Snitching"

Hakim Hazim, who's often written on GroupIntel about gang violence, has an interesting new piece at MSNBC's The Grio on crime and popular attitudes:

"There is a code and practice that has to be addressed in the black community. It's a code of silence that is deafening. It is a code that refuses to hear the blood of our brothers crying out. The "stop snitching" movement is a social construct enforced through various fears including fear of retribution and ostracism. But it's time to move beyond this dishonorable system, once put in place because of racist and hostile law enforcement agencies eager to round up any young black male that they could find."

The "stop snitching" movement is an interesting case for applying counterinsurgency theory to a domestic issue. In many parts of the inner city the police are seen as a kind of occupying army that only enters for raids (Iraq pre-surge?). Functional areas are controlled by gangs running sophisticated operations. "Stop snitching" manifests itself in three levels: a basic blood code enforced with violence by gangs in order to keep the population from offering the police support., a societal attitude (somewhat less significant), and an IO operation produced by those sympathetic to gangs (popular entertainers).
Hazim is right to point to its negative consequences and urge a rejection of the "stop snitching" ethos on a societal level. Yet one of the more basic elements of "stop snitching" is the lack of protection for those who "snitch" in even the smallest fashion. The most basic thing that must be done is to ensure that witnesses who see crimes feel like they can report them without fear of violent retaliation.

Southern Battlespace

New entry on Mexico and South America on RTJ.

Design and Strategy

I have a new comment on RTJ about problem-framing and Afghanistan.

Marten on the Tribal Myth

Kimberly Marten makes a great point about the current "tribe" meme circulating around defense policy circles:

"The U.S. and Afghan governments have announced a new policy to pay tribal militias to provide security in Afghanistan. This began as a measure to deter Taliban attacks during recent elections but is set to become permanent. Almost point for point, this plan repeats the terrible mistake that the British colonial army made in the Pashtun tribal areas in what would become Pakistan, in the late 19th century.The British disrupted local Pashtun power balances by injecting outside money into tribal politics. British intelligence officers created charts of which sub-tribes and leaders (or maliks) had the most influence, and paid them extra money. The favored maliks in turn used these funds for patronage, paying off their supporters. Canny Pashtun factions second-guessed the British, creating security problems that they then 'solved' to look more powerful. British payments to the new 'official maliks' became hereditary. This system violated the tribal code of equality among all Pashtun men, but the official maliks accepted it with enthusiasm."

What usually happens is that these social relationships become embedded in the basic fabric of new states. The usage of tribal networks is not the harnessing of existing resources or restoring a tribal structure disrupted by war. What is really going on is the creation of new relationships and social networks, and we usually lack the granular knowledge necessary to carry out such activities effectively on the strategic level.

However, if the goal, as John Robb noted, is more tactical in focus (disrupt the enemy and clear the way for a drawdown) then this may make temporary sense, especially when combined with more aggressive enemy-centric operations like Gian P. Gentile suggests.

Offshore Balancing and the Definition of Victory

Two new posts at RTJ on how to define victory and the limitations of offshore balancing strategies in Afghanistan.