The Terror Fringe
with Marc Hecker, Policy Review, 158, December 2009/January 2010, p. 3-19
The Afghan-Pakistan border region is widely identified as a haven for jihadi extremists. But the joint between local insurgencies and global terrorism has been dislocated. A combination of new technologies and new ideologies has changed the role of popular support: In local insurgencies the population may still be the “terrain” on which resistance is thriving — and counterinsurgency, by creating security for the people, may still succeed locally. But Islamic violent extremism in its global and ambitious form is attractive only for groups at the outer edge, the flat end of a popular support curve. Jihad failed to muster mass support, but it is stable at the margin of society. Neither the West nor its enemies can win — or lose — a war on terror. [...]
The linkage between terrorism and insurgency has been altered in the early 21st century. Instead of seeing high-volume popular support in an insurgency as the “soil” on which resistance and terrorism are flourishing — and counterinsurgency as a competition for that support — an additional paradigm is needed: the “tail.”
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The Winning Formula
The Wilson Quarterly, autumn, 92-4
Review of Mark Moyar’s A Question of Command. Counterinsurgency From the Civil War to Iraq. Yale University Press, 2009.
In the summer of 2003, during the early days of the Iraq war, “counterinsurgency” was still an odd and cumbersome word. Soon it dawned on politicians, military officers, and scholars that they better understand its nuances. The literature on “coin” began to mushroom, and today small libraries could be filled with the books and articles devoted to the subject. Most notably, in 2006 the U.S. Army published a much-anticipated field manual, Counterinsurgency. Known among aficionados simply by its official publication number, FM 3–24, it became the blueprint for improvement in Iraq, and now, possibly, Afghanistan. The University of Chicago Press republished the manual in 2007 as a book, and it became one of the publisher’s bestsellers in recent years. The gist of the counterinsurgency wisdom is that the local population, not territory, is what matters most. Counterinsurgent and insurgent, in theory, compete for the trust of the locals, for legitimacy. The population is the “prize.”
Mark Moyar pitches his book as a challenge to that thesis. Counterinsurgency must not be just population-centric. Nor can it be merely enemy-centric, as conventional wars against opposing armies were. No, successful counterinsurgency is “leader-centric.” Counterinsurgency struggles are contests between elites, in which the elite group with better “leadership attributes” usually wins.
Germany’s Options in Afghanistan
with Timo Noetzel, Survival, vol 51, iss 5, p. 71-90
Germany’s military mission in Afghanistan has become increasingly politicised in the eight years since it was launched. Political and ideological differences between parties and even between ministries are becoming more pronounced, not less. This trend narrows the room for manoeuvre and limits the strategic debate. Greater instability in Kunduz province, at the heart of Germany’s area of regional responsibility in Afghanistan, has two immediate effects: it both increases the need to act decisively and it heightens the risk of political paralysis in Berlin. This article argues that the latter is likely to prevail.
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Razzia
“Razzia. A Turning Point in Modern Strategy,” Terrorism and Political Violence, vol 21, iss 4, p. 617-635
The razzia, a tactic of swift and brutal raids used by the French military against recalcitrant tribes in Algeria in the 1840s, was a necessary step in modern military thought. At first glance the destructive and violent razzias stand in stark contrast to the constructive and non-violent bureaux arabes—an institutional ancestor of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. But both were developed in the same conflict and by the same men. These two innovations, this article argues, were also flipsides of the same coin: what today is called war “among the people.” The razzia consequently appears as a necessary historic precursor for contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine.
Algiers in the 1840s was tantalizing. Seen from the deck of an approaching Alexandrian steamer, the “Pirate’s Daughter”—as contemporary travelers nicknamed the city—appeared like a triangular shape of chalk on a slope of green hills, the dark Atlas mountains rising menacingly in the distance behind. In 1837, just after the French had taken Algeria’s last Ottoman city in Constantine, it was the muezzin’s monotonous cry from a towering minaret that roused the traveler from his morning sleep. Such observed Thomas Campbell, a poet and one of the first Britons to describe Algeria after the French conquest. Ten years later, the sound that made sleep fragile in the mornings was the “irritating rattle of the regimental drums,” noted a later traveler from England. A “lively masquerade” awaited European visitors: narrow streets winding steeply up the hills, more like staircases than roads, spilling into public squares with porcelain pavement, framed by pillars and arches and palm trees. There they found French women wearing white aprons and handkerchiefs, Minorcan laborers returning from lush gardens, dark-skinned Kabyles offering fresh fruits, Berbers with embroidered coats, Jewish dandies with blue turbans, dark-eyed girls with bright sashes, old men playing chess. As bewildering as the peculiar smells and sounds were military men in their harlequin uniforms: zouaves with red pantaloons and white jackets; indigènes with black instead of yellow gaiters; spahis with red jackets and blue pantaloons; the chasseurs d’Afrique mounted on formidable Arab horses.
It was alien territory that awaited Major General Carl von Decker, a military thinker who had taught under Clausewitz at the Kriegsschule in Berlin. “Hopefully you left all your European ideas over there in Toulon,” a French officer greeted the Prussian general as he debarked from his vessel in Algiers. Decker came to Africa to observe the ongoing French campaign against Abd el-Kader’s insurrection. But the study of European warfare and its history was of limited use on the Mediterranean’s southern shores. Decker soon discovered that the essential elements of war as he knew it were missing in Algeria: There were no enemy positions that could be attacked, no fortifications, no operationally relevant locations, no strategic deployments, no lines of communication, no army, no decisive battles—in a word: there was “no center of gravity,” he noted in a direct, puzzled hint at Clausewitz. “The finest gimmicks of our newest theoreticians of war lose their magic power [in Africa].” One new element of war that baffled European observers was that territory could not be held. If a soldier “can’t even remain on the square-inch of land which he fought for with his own blood, then indeed the most sublime ‘Theory of Great War’ will be obsolete and one has … to come up with a new one,” Decker concluded.
How did that new theory of war emerge? …
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Islam in Europe
Policy Review, 156, p. 76-82
Review* of Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. New York: Doubleday, 2009
We hear that Europe is about to ram a double-edged dagger into its underbelly: A lack of babies is bleeding the old world of native young people while immigration is pumping in masses of unskilled Muslims. Worse, the aliens don’t work hard and they sap the welfare state. Several American authors have spotted what they think is a trend leading to collapse. […]
Now comes Christopher Caldwell, a columnist for the Financial Times, writer for the New York Times Magazine, and senior editor at the Weekly Standard, who has written a well-researched and provocative book, to be translated into Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and French. It is one of the first in-depth studies of Muslim immigration all over Europe. The book’s Burkean title, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, betrays both the author’s pessimism and his ambition. After skimming the introduction, most informed readers will be tempted to toss Caldwell’s book on the doomsday pile. They would be wrong to do so, especially because a closer reading reveals that his Reflections do contain a great deal of uniquely insightful information. […]
The pessimistic books on Muslims in Europe cannot be understood without taking one more step back, beyond Caldwell’s book. A significant number of American conservatives, authors as well as readers, seem to be driven by two fears: fear of Islam and fear of Europe. The second fear perhaps cuts deeper. It would be naïve to think that the wellspring of the ire dripping from many pages of the books quoted above could be found in the Islamic world or even in Europe. No, the source might as well be in America.
Hardly anybody seriously considers the possibility that the United States could become Islamic. But America — horror of horrors — might turn more European. […]
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* My thanks to Esther Ben-David, of the blog Islam in Europe, for her counsel.
Virtueller Erfolg
With Marc Hecker, Internationale Politik, Juli-August, p. 46-53
Die Afghanistan-Strategie der amerikanischen Regierung sowie der NATO geht von der Annahme aus, das Problem des Terrorismus werde an der Wurzel gepackt. Diese Prämisse – nämlich den Kampf gegen den Terrorismus in Afghanistan zu führen, um ihn nicht in Amerika führen zu müssen – hat Präsident Barack Obama von seinem Vorgänger George W. Bush übernommen. In der deutschen Afghanistan-Politik baut Bundes-kanzlerin Angela Merkel ebenfalls auf dem griffigen Diktum ihrer Vorgängerregierung auf, dass Deutschland auch am Hindukusch verteidigt werde. Eine ernsthafte Auseinandersetzung mit den Schwächen dieser Sichtweise blieb jedoch aus. Welche Wirkung hätte es auf den globalen Terrorismus, wenn die NATO in Afghanistan erfolgreich wäre? Dass dieses Szenario derzeit unwahrscheinlich ist, macht die Frage nur noch dringlicher. Denn stimmen die Annahmen überhaupt, auf denen die Aufstandsbekämpfung und die Afghanistan-Strategie der westlichen Verbündeten beruhen? Oder haben moderne Informationstechnologien, im Verbund mit neuen Ideologien, nicht vielmehr veränderte Voraussetzungen für politische Gewalt geschaffen?
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Jihadistes de tous les pays, dispersez-vous !
with Marc Hecker, Politique Internationale, 123, printemps, p. 175-189
Le terrorisme est souvent considéré, de nos jours, comme la menace numéro un planant sur les sociétés occidentales. Il suffit, pour s’en rendre compte, de comparer deux documents français : le Livre Blanc sur la Défense de 1994 et le Livre Blanc sur la Défense et la Sécurité nationale de 2008. Dans ce dernier, contrairement à celui de 1994, le terrorisme est omniprésent, à tel point que cette forme de conflictualité semble éclipser la menace de la guerre. [...]
Où en est l’organisation jihadiste aujourd’hui ? A-t-on raison de l’ériger en menace suprême ? Comment la mouvance jihadiste internationale a-t-elle évolué depuis une dizaine d’années ? Et selon quels scénarios pourrait-elle décliner à l’avenir ?
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The Roots of Germany’s Russia Policy
with Christopher Chivvis, in: Survival, 2009, 51, 2, p. 105-122.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, many American observers expected that the new Germany would more or less follow in the strong Atlanticist tradition of the old West Germany and its Conservative leadership in particular. A rejuvenated, reunited Germany is now seeking a more prominent role in international affairs, but its foreign policy is evolving away from the staunch Atlanticism that predominated during the Cold War. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany unquestionably sees the United States as a crucial ally, but also sees Russia as an inevitable partner for the stability of the European order. The bottom line for most German leaders is that the isolation of Russia is unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs. It would deprive the West of its few remaining economic levers over Russian policy and leave Europe and the United States with only cruder means of influencing Russian behaviour. Meanwhile, Russian nationalism and even militarism could accelerate. The sense that Germany has become Russia’s last strong link with the West only intensifies German concern, driving German leaders to redouble their efforts to maintain good relations.
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War 2.0
War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age, co-authored with Marc Hecker, argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, a public dimension has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after an attempt to transform the U.S. military into a lean, lethal, computerized force faltered in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war — indeed, the U.S. Army calls it “armed social work” — in which the local population becomes the center of gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.
War 2.0 traces the contrasting ways in which insurgents and counterinsurgents have adapted irregular conflict. It examines the public affairs policies of the U.S. land forces, the British Army, and the Israel Defense Forces. Then it compares the media-related counterinsurgency methods of these conventional armies to the more diverse methods devised by their asymmetric adversaries, showing how such organizations as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hezbollah use the Web not merely to advertise their political agenda and influence public opinion, but to mobilize a following and put insurgent operations into action. But the same technology that tends to level the operational playing field in irregular warfare also incurs heavy costs on terrorists and insurgents. (hardback)
Thematically rich and masterfully constructed, this book shows how our wired-up world has changed the operational environment, making both war and insurgency more complex, decentralised, and bottom-up. Few other books have grasped so effectively the seismic change in the character of war. War 2.0 is Clausewitz rebooted for the 21st century.
– Christopher Coker, Professor of International Relations, The London School of Economics, author of Humane Warfare
War, flowing from society as a whole, is constantly evolving. Winning wars requires understanding the changing environment and adapting faster than the enemy. Rid and Hecker provide powerful case studies on how our primary enemies have understood and adapted to the changes Web 2.0 is driving. It would behoove professionals to read and understand this remarkable book.
– T.X. Hammes, Colonel (Ret), U.S. Marine Corps, author of The Sling and the Stone
High-tech revolutions are rocking the military and the media, toppling hierarchies, and upending traditional players. Until now, no one has shown how these twin upheavals are linked–and feeding one an-other. War 2.0 reveals how the old ways of war and communications are coming apart, and what the chaotic, self-organizing, networked future is likely to be.
– Noah Shachtman, Wired magazine, editor of Danger Room, a security blog
The public, more than ever before, has become the center of gravity in irregular warfare. Sharp and testing, War 2.0 probes the burgeoning impact of the new media.
– Gérard Chaliand, author of History of Terrorism. From Antiquity to Al Qaida.
For review copies, contact reviewcopies@abc-clio.com
