Micro-Foundations of Insurgent Violence: Implications for Iraq

1. Micro-Foundations of Insurgent Violence: Implications for Iraq Mark Smith, Janine Davidson, Peter Brooks Center for Adaptive Strategies & Threats Hicks & Associates, Inc. Prepared for Presentation to the Irregular Warfare Forum Pentagon, VA 5 October 2005

2. Agenda • How Insurgency Works: The micro-dynamics of insurgency • Perspective of the civilian population (C.O.G.) • Insurgent and Government tactics and objectives • What To Do: A Framework for Commanders • How to analyze the AOR and tailor tactics accordingly • Implications for Iraq • Audience: Unit level commanders

3. Purpose • The purpose of this briefing is to provide unit-level commanders (Company – Brigade) with: • A deeper understanding of the micro-level motivations of insurgent and local civilian behavior • A framework for applying this knowledge to develop a counterinsurgent strategy tailored for their AOR

4. Bosnia Kosovo Vietnam Uganda Angola Mozambique Eritrea Palestine Greek Civil War El Salvador Cambodia Soviet Partisans in Ukraine during WWII Greek Partisans during WWII Nicaragua Guatemala French Revolution Cyprus Liberia Malaya Brief Based on Wide Array of Scholarship: This brief describes the patterns of violence observed in these other insurgencies, and then applies these lessons to Iraq.

5. Insurgent Activity is Public… • Insurgent activity is extremely public at the local level. • Caching weapons, recruiting fighters, punishing government collaborators, collecting taxes, etc… • Actions are visible to locals -- civilians are the audience. • Insurgencies and counter-insurgencies are fought through the civilian population. • Most of the violence is against civilians. • Insurgents punish collaborators • Historically, government forces often engage in reprisals, although this is not currently the case in Iraq Civilians are the eyes and ears of COIN

6. … and THIS is What It Looks Like A man, center, lying down, is punched before being killed, while another man walks to execute a second man, seen on his knees on the right, on Baghdad's Haifa Street, Sunday Dec. 19 2004. About 30 gunmen ambushed a car Sunday in central Baghdad carrying employees of the Iraqi organization running next month's elections, killing three of the workers while two escaped unhurt, an official from the election body said. Adel al-Lami, a member of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the early morning attack took place in downtown Haifa Street, a thoroughfare running through central Baghdad and the scene of repeated clashes between security forces and insurgents. (AP Photo / Str)

7. Insurgents use Selective Violence… • “Silence Was a Weapon”: If they want to survive, insurgents must keep the civilian population from aiding the government security forces. • Reasons Insurgents Target… • …American troops • To drive them back into protected bases in order to allow insurgents to continue their public activities without fear of interruption. • …Indigenous security forces • To allow insurgents to monopolize violence in the neighborhood. • …Collaborators with those forces • To deter collaboration with security forces, in order to prevent identification of insurgents and their supporters. As of March 2005, 24,865 Iraqi civilian deaths were reported., 35.9% due to “criminality,” 12% due to insurgent targeting of govt. collaborators, and only7.7% due to terrorist bombings. (IBC 2005)

8. …Because they Understand “Nagl’s Ninety Percent” • LTC John Nagl points out that even if 90% of the civilians in Al Anbar support the Americans, they will not help if they are afraid of retaliation. Insurgents can Identify and punish collaborators: I’M NOT SAFE Silence I Like the Government Government can protect civilians from retaliation: I’M SAFE DenunciationTips Collaboration Insurgents need only forgood people to do nothing

9. Civilian decisions rely primarily on security • In the civilian’s mind: A marginal benefit to government forces is not worth the sacrifice in personal security it brings with it. • One person’s aid to the government is not going to end the insurgency. It will make -- at best -- a small difference on behalf of the government. • Result: The vast majority of civilians will not put their security at risk to help the government. • Creates a vicious cycle… • A government’s legitimacy depends on its ability to provide security. • Throughout history security has been the primary motivation and purpose for allegiance to a higher authority (E.g. feudal system, organized crime, etc.)

10. Even Mass Killings and Bombings by Insurgents are often selective… • What may at first appear to be indiscriminate violence is often highly selective. • Suicide car bombs often target police convoys, recruiting stations, government officials, and security forces. • Truly indiscriminate violence signals the inability of the insurgency to get good intelligence on who is and is not a government collaborator, and so they often resort to targeting by ethnic group, the only information available to them.

11. One week in Iraq… (1 of 3) 7 July 2005 to 10 July 2005 *Data from Iraq Body Count Database as of 28 July 2005

12. One week in Iraq… (2 of 3) 10 July 2005 to 11 July 2005 *Data from Iraq Body Count Database as of 28 July 2005

13. One week in Iraq… (3 of 3) 12 July 2005 to 14 July 2005 *Data from Iraq Body Count Database as of 28 July 2005

14. Civilian Micro-decisions… “Government can protect me and I like the government” • Denounce known insurgents • Collaborate with govt. • Provide Tips • Join Security Forces “Government will arrest or kill me if I help the insurgents, but I still like the insurgency” • Silence “Government cannot protect me, but I still like the government” • Silence “Government cannot touch me and I like the insurgency” • Join insurgency • Provide sanctuary • Provide materiel I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

15. Secure Environment, Support for Govt… “Government can protect me and I like the government” • Denounce known insurgents • Collaborate with govt. • Provide Tips • Join Security Forces I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

16. Secure Environment, Oppose the Govt… “Government will arrest or kill me, but I still don’t like the government” • Silence I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

17. Insecure Environment, Support for Govt… “Government cannot protect me, but I still like the government” • Silence I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

18. Insecure Environment, Oppose the Govt… “Government cannot touch me and I like the insurgency” • Join insurgency • Provide sanctuary • Provide materiel I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

19. Control Precedes Collaboration… • Control precedes collaboration, not the other way around: • “Once local security was achieved, if only partially, real flow of intelligence began. This is the second point to stress, for, without intelligence, the security forces are blind and cannot possibly pursue the selective tactics demanded by this type of warfare.” (Asprey 571) • Professor Stathis Kalyvas identifies the mechanisms: • Control deters coercion and intimidation. • Recruitment generates cascades of support because families of fighters tend to support the side their family member is on. • Control affects people’s belief in the ultimate outcome. • Control makes it easier to monitor the population. …But control everywhere requires a huge military commitment. Is this “mission impossible”?

20. How to Do More With Less: Amplifying COIN Force Presence • Counter-insurgents can use techniques that multiply their effect: • Manipulate civilian perceptions • Change expectations about who will win. • Psychological operations (eagle-tagging) • Multiply presence by publicizing patrols and raids. • Selectively target insurgents and their infrastructure • Demonstrate an ability to discriminately target insurgents. • Publicize selective captures of insurgents, as it demonstrates a high level of control and convinces people it is safe to collaborate. • Build political-security-economic-social institutions simultaneously (“oil-spot” approach) • Prior to moving to the next fight, counter-insurgents need to build civil administration and domestic capacity, which greatly reduces the military requirements of control.

21. Selective Targeting Requires Civilian Tips… • Tips and denunciations are how COIN operators know who the insurgents are.. • Anonymous denunciations protect collaborators, but make it impossible to judge the quality of the tip. • Public denunciations are more dangerous, but more credible. Local tips are the key to COIN identification of insurgents and their infrastructure.

22. Solving the Conundrum:Tips are Essential; but Usually False • Many denunciations are false • Usually motivated by personal or clan feuds and vendettas. • Must have a local system for vetting tips that examines motives • Other civilians often know whether tips are credible. • Map and understand existing tribal and clan networks • Enlist cooperation of trusted locals to vet tips • Secret village or tribal committees can evaluate accuracy of denunciations, as in Vietnam, Greece, and elsewhere… • Must have system to act on tips • QRF’s, Decentralized decision-making, command and control

23. …Which has Implications for Intelligence • Intelligence about insurgency is very local and has a very short half-life • Captured insurgents must be exploited locally • Rather than arresting insurgents and sending them up to division headquarters • The number of tips coming in is a good Measure of Effectiveness because it demonstrates civilian faith in govt.

24. Good COIN looks like Good Policework. • The key is the social interaction of police officers with the community. • Permanent presence • Ability to bring in tips • Ability to extract information from suspects to lead them to new suspects • The legitimacy that comes with a permanent presence in the community. • Using tips to make arrests, then using the interviews to generate more tips, to make more arrests, leading to a raid on the ultimate target. …following the chain of clues • For example, you get a tip about a drug dealer, arrest the drug dealer, turn him to get his distributor, turn the distributor to give up the drug manufacturing house, which you raid with SWAT. Indigenous forces will be better at these techniques

25. Micro-Foundations to Macro Strategy… • Up to this point, we have talked about the nature of insurgent violence at the micro level. • Now we apply this knowledge to the development of a COIN strategy.

26. How do unit leaders know where they are? • Security Indicators: • Low # of Direct Attacks • High # of tips from civilians • High degree of presence • High number of recruits • Attitude Indicators: • Improved Polls, focus groups • Improved Quality of life measures • Security Indicators: • High presence/access • Low-Med Direct Attacks • Low-Med # of tips • Low # of Recruits • Attitude Indicators: • Poor Polls and focus groups • Poor Quality of Life Measures • Security Indicators: • Some Direct Attacks, frequent IED attacks • High level of violence that looks like criminality • Low/Sporadic Presence/Access • Low-Med Tips, Mostly Anon • Attitude Indicators: • People express support tacitly, but are reluctant to help openly • Security Indicators: • Frequent Direct Attacks • Low/Sporadic Presence/Access • Low-No Tips • Attitude Indicators: • Civs. celebrate insurgent attacks • Little ability to measure attitude. I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Present-day Kurdistan; Most of Baghdad Sadr City, Prior to Chiarelli actions Level of Security (Govt. Control) Nagl’s Al-Anbar; Najaf during Sadr Uprising Fallujah Prior to USMC Assault Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

27. How do we win? Goal: Build Legitimacy • Tasks: • Increase Quality of Life • Build legitimate institutions. • Create upward trend in economic development • Transfer to indigenous forces Goal: Win Hearts and Minds • Tasks: • Infrastructure development • Reward civilians that help • Work on econ development • Good policework is key • Transfer to indigenous forces Goal: Improve Security • Tasks: • Combined selective targeting and police work, being careful not to alienate population while establishing security. • Manipulate perceptions • Build permanent police presence Goal: Improve Security • Tasks: • Security must be reestablished before anything else. • Kinetic COIN • Direct action against insurgents • Heavy patrols and garrisons I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

28. Eliminate Insurgent Sanctuaries, Gain Control… Goal: Improve Security • Tasks: • Security must be reestablished before anything else. • Kinetic COIN • Direct action against insurgents • Heavy patrols and garrisons I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Secure, Civilians Dislike Govt. Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

29. Win Hearts and Minds and Construct Legitimate Institutions… Goal: Win Hearts and Minds • Tasks: • Infrastructure development • Reward civilians that help • Work on econ development • Good policework • Transfer to indigenous forces I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Secure, Civilians Like Government Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

30. Restore Security without alienating population… Goal: Improve Security • Tasks: • Combined selective targeting and police work, being careful not to alienate population while establishing security. • Manipulate perceptions • Build permanent police presence I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Secure, Civilians Like Government Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

31. Build legitimate institutions and transfer power… Goal: Build Legitimacy • Tasks: • Increase Quality of Life • Build legitimate institutions. • Create upward trend in economic development • Transfer to indigenous forces I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

32. How to Mess it Up - Security Then… Insurgents will move in and fill power vacuum because of existing popular base. I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Secure, Civilians Like Government Secure, Civilians Dislike Govt. If… Govt. takes security for granted and does not establish permanent policing. If… Govt. minimizes footprint to regain popular support. Level of Security (Govt. Control) Then… Insurgents will undermine govt. authority with violence against civilians and infrastructure. Not Secure, Civilians Like Govt. Not Secure, Civilians Dislike Govt. Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

33. How to Mess it up – Hearts and Minds I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Secure, Civilians Like Government Secure, Civilians Dislike Govt. If… Civilians don’t see continual improvement and there is no transfer to indigenous authorities Level of Security (Govt. Control) Not Secure, Civilians Like Govt. Not Secure, Civilians Dislike Govt. If… In attempts to restore security, Govt. is too heavy-handed If… Tanks roll in to restore security and then leave without establishing a presence. Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

34. COIN Forces Need the Capability to… • Selectively target insurgents and their supporters. • Gather, vet, and act on tips. • Act on them locally. • Teach officers role of tips and their motivations. • Evaluate the quality of tips before and after acting on them • Go back and check on number and effectiveness of past tips. • Maintain networked records to get the big picture of the insurgency. • Maintain records even if informant is confidential. • Interoperability • Protecting security of database • Exploit captured insurgents locally. • Interrogate locally. • Promise benefits in exchange for information. • Turn a series of local arrests and interrogations into a raid. • Acquire, maintain, and demonstrate control. • Rapidly mass troops on a contested area. • Establish and maintain presence. • Patrols – Both mounted and dismounted. • Permanent police stations or garrisons in community. • Combined Action Program – type units. • Create perception of government effectiveness. • Show of force • Use of media • Guerilla marketing • Establish safe places for civilians to give tips, where civilians go to for other reasons. • Supermarkets, schools, sewing circles, etc.. So that you are not asking collaborators to walk into a police station.

35. Mueller, John. 2000. The banality of “ethnic war.” International Security 25, 1:42-70. Gates, Scott. 2002. Recruitment and Allegiance: The Microfoundations of Rebellion. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, 1:111-130. Johnson, Chalmers A. 1962. Civilian loyalties and guerrilla conflict. World Politics 14,4: 646 – 661. Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. The Organization of Rebellion in Africa. Unpublished Paper. Herrington, Stuart. Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2001. “New” and “Old” Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction? World Politics, 54:1, 99-118. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2003. Warfare in Civil Wars. Unpublished Paper. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2004. The Urban Bias in Research on Civil Wars. Security Studies 13:3, 1-31. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2004. The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil War.Journal of Ethnics 8:1, 97-138. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 1999. Wanton and Senseless? The Logic of Massacres in Algeria.Rationality and Society 11:3, 243-285. Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Forthcoming. Cambridge University Press. Scott, James C. Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. 1976. Yale University. Ben-Ze’ev, Efrat. 2002. The Palestinian Village of Ijzim During the 1948 War: Forming an Anthropological History Through Villagers Accounts and Army Documents. History and Anthropology 13, 1:13-30. Deininger Claus. 2003. Causes and Consequences of Civil Strife. Microlevel Evidence from Uganda. Unpublished Paper. Loizos, Peter. 1988. Intercommunal Killing in Cyprus. Man, 23:639-653. Lucas, Colin. 1983. Themes in Southern Violence After 9 Thermidor. In Gwynne Lewis and Colin Lucas (eds), Beyond the Terror: Essays in French Regional and Social History, 1794-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 152-194. Paul, Benjamin D. and William J. Demarest. 1988. The Operation of a Death Squad in San Pedro la Laguna. In Robert M. Carmack (ed.), Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 119-154. Schroeder, Michael J. 1996. Horse Thieves to Rebels to Dogs: Political Gang Violence and the State in the Western Segovias, Nicaragua, in the Time of Sandino, 1926-1934. Journal of Latin American Studies 28, 2:383-434. Bax, Mart. 2000. Warlords, Priests and the Politics of Ethnic Cleansing: A Case Study from Rural Bosnia Hercegovina. Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, 1:16-36. Aschenbrenner, Stanley. 1987. The Civil War from the Perspective of a Messenian Village. In Lars Baerentzen, J.O. Iatrides, and O.L. Smith (eds.), Studies on the History of the Greek Civil War, 1945-9. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 105-125. Asprey, Robert. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. William Morrow & Company.1994. Questions? (and Suggested Readings)

36. BACKUP

37. What Capabilities do you need for each of these tasks? DoD in a Supporting Role • Indigenous forces • Police / Law Enforcement • USAID, State, Rest of Inter-Agency • Civil Affairs DoD in a Supporting Role • USAID • State • Rest of Inter-Agency • Indigenous forces • Civil Affairs DoD is primary actor • Indigenous Security Forces • DoD Military Forces • Civil Affairs • Police / Law Enforcement DoD is primary actor • DoD Military Forces • Indigenous Security Forces I WANT TO SUPPORT GOVERNMENT I WANT TO SUPPORT INSURGENCY Secure Level of Security (Govt. Control) Insecure Attitude toward Government (Hearts & Minds) Support Oppose

38. Foreign Involvement in Insurgency • Historically: Most insurgencies have had significant external support, especially insurgencies during the Cold War. • The COMINTERN brought together insurgent movements and coordinated them around the globe. • Islamist insurgencies have attracted strong diaspora support, as did many Communist insurgencies. • Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan during Soviet invasion. • In Afghanistan, the Arab fighters were ineffectual despite getting most of the money from Pakistani ISI. Local commanders were able to do much more damage to the Soviet occupation • Afghan commanders such as Ahmed Shah Massoud (the Lion of Panjshir) often derided the quality and effectiveness of the Arab fighters.

39. What About Foreign Jihadis in Iraq? • Most suicide bombers are foreigners, although this is beginning to change. • These non-Iraqi Arabs require local assistance and knowledge to be effective at all. • A Saudi in Baghdad is like an American in London: their clothes, their accent, their dialect, and their lack of local knowledge give them away to local Iraqis. • Local insurgent commanders will use suicidal foreigners like any other weapon. They are especially useful against hard targets, and for situations where it is better to blame the carnage on a foreigner. • Zarqawi has had time to build a network inside Iraq since before the war, so he is less visible. His alliance to Bin Laden came at the price of putting off his quest to foment a civil war in favor of attacking Americans and their allies.

40. and Perceptions Become Reality… • For the Government: • If civilians see government patrols out in force, they perceive the government as being able to protect them, and they feel safe to denounce insurgents and provide tips. This allows the government forces to make progress against the insurgents, turning the perception of control into reality. • Every effort must be taken to multiply presence through psychological and information operations, and the constant publicizing of patrols, raids, captures, and other successes. • For the Insurgents: • Insurgent activity that creates the perception of a strong presence can undermine civilians’ faith in the government’s ability to protect them. This reduces cooperation with the government, resulting in greater freedom of action for the insurgents and eventually greater control.