Global Guerrillas

JOURNAL: Legitimacy, Long Tail markets, and Violence/Security

DNI: Bill Lind artfully notes the inversion of legitimacy in the Middle East:

A Hezbollah success against the hated Israelis will give governments throughout the Islamic world a stark choice. They can either snuggle up as close to Hezbollah and other Islamic 4GW entities as they can get, hoping to catch some reflected legitimacy, or they can become Vichy to their own peoples. Since the first rule of politics is to survive, I think we can look forward to a great deal of the former.

Hezbollah's success demonstrates that legitimacy (which translates into funding, recruits, safe-havens, etc.) is increasingly gained through victory on the battlefield (and to a lesser extent, good works and stability). It will get worse. Here's why. If you look at this through the lens of global guerrillas, you will see Hezbollah's success serves as both a catalyst and validation for the emerging marketplace (bazaar) for violence and security. As we have seen in Iraq and other global locales, this marketplace has a long ("fat") tail of demand and supply. As global chaos heats up, the diversity and intensity of demand/supply will grow to challenge (in aggregate) that of provided by nation-states. Hezbollah, within this context, is an entrepreneurial success story. It is being paid in legitimacy.

NOTE: William Gibson (the futurist and writer) has a post on his blog that explains the conceptual barriers of paradigm shifts (and in particular, how they relate to 4GW).

THE SECRETS OF HEZBOLLAH'S SUCCESS

"We are in a world today where we have a non-state actor using all the tools of weaponry... That’s what this new 21st-century warfare is going to look like. We have now entered an era where non-states or quasi-states do a lot better militarily than states do." Peter Singer (Brookings, author of "Corporate Warriors") in reference to Hezbollah's performance against the Israeli military. From a NYTimes article by Thom Shanker.

Although Peter Singer's statement is likely unsupported, he does stumble onto a conclusion that captures the essence of the moment. Hezbollah's performance in a set-piece battle with the Israeli military (arguably once, a top notch conventional military) is an excellent example of how non-state groups have radically improved their ability to conduct tactical and strategic operations. To wit, the continued success of its efforts has put the Israelis on the horns of a dilemma: either request a ceasefire that locks in military defeat - or - push for a full invasion of southern Lebanon (each are fraught with disastrous consequences).

Organizational Improvements

The central secret to Hezbollah's success is that it trained its (global) guerrillas to make decisions autonomously (classic 4GW), at the small group level. In every area -- from firing rockets to defending prepared positions to media routing around jamming/disruption -- we have examples of Hezbollah teams deciding, adapting, innovating, and collaborating without reference to any central authority. The result of this decentralization is that Hezbollah's aggregate decision cycles are faster and qualitatively better than those of their Israeli counterparts.

Hybrid Methods/Systems

Ancillary to the improvements in organizational design (unlikely to be replicated at the state level), Hezbollah also demonstrated its ability to supercharge antiquated conventional weaponry/tactics with off-the-shelf technology to create weapons systems and hybrid tactics attuned to defeating Israeli military systems. We can expect to see this behavior accelerate among non-state groups as readily available commercial technology continues its pace of radical improvement.

Extracting an Economic Toll

Hezbollah's success against Israel codifies two strategic methods that we will see global guerrillas emulate. The first is the value of strategic coercion through economic attrition. Ongoing disruption of the Israeli economy through rocket attacks attaches a quantifiable strategic cost to the conflict. This offensive decisively couples what was previously separate: ground/air offensives by the Israeli military against non-state groups in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon -- and -- domestic economic/social activity in Israel (business as usual). If Hezbollah remains intact, nothing will be the same. With the economic clock ticking (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a day), Israel has been forced into an aggressive air campaign to accelerate progress on the ground against missile launch sites and interdict resupply of new missiles from Syria. This air campaign has backfired due to the asymmetry of targets, in that Israeli air strikes have alienated the Lebanese government and increased the moral cohesion of its foes.

Leveraging force protection and an aversion to casualties

A second strategic method is to trade territory (something a non-state organization is easily able to ante up) for the blood of professional soldiers and delay. The intent is demonstrated by Hezbollah's dispersal of units across a wide geographic area in small autonomous units (defense in depth, rather than concentrating its defenses along the border). This deployment clearly shows Hezbollah's willingness to trade ground for the lives of Israeli soldiers and time. It succeeds by leveraging the aversion to casualties and dedication to force protection found in modern Western militaries (these men are professionally educated and therefore considered too valuable for use as cannon fodder). An aversion to casualties ensures that assaults by conventional militaries will bog down if faced with stiff opposition, until intense applications of firepower to clear the path (which is made much less effective due to Hezbollah's high level of dispersion and fortifications). Time is a factor that clearly works particularly in the favor of Hezbollah (due to the potential of a widening conflict) and more generally in favor of any non-state group fighting a state.

QUOTE: Israel's use of systems disruption to coerce Lebanon

Israel's message to Lebanon's government through its bombing of Lebanese infrastructure: "If you want your air conditioning to work and if you want to be able to fly to Paris for shopping, you must pull your head out of the sand and take action toward shutting down Hezbollah-land."

Gal Luft (a friend of the Global Guerrillas weblog) to the Washington Post.

Note: this is global guerrilla logic (using an airpower effects based operation to accomplish it). Here's the problems with this approach.

• First, the goal of coercion must be within the capabilities of the target state (it's not in this case).
• Second, coercion like this is only useful if the objective is to get a state to give up a policy (the more ancillary it is to the state's existence the better) than to get them to act proactively -- particularly since large scale systems disruption rips down states. Lebanon is getting weaker by the day and Hezbollah is now existential to the state.
• Third, if the state doesn't officially relent and the state fails, global guerrillas can still achieve a de facto victory. This doesn't work for Israel. The failure of Lebanon only makes things worse.

IF this method of coercion is repeated in both Syria and Iran (and it looks like it will since an EBO is a war on the cheap for the aggressor and current tensions are leading in this direction), what we will end up with are failed states and global guerrillas from the Mediterranean to the Caspian seas. In my view, this is a recipe for the acceleration of the epochal war.

ISRAEL'S LEBANON MASHUP

In software development, a mashup is an application that includes bits of functionality and content from multiple applications within a new organic whole. It doesn't adhere to the standard categories of applications and content that we are familiar with. This type of development has taken off with the advent of the Internet (which has made it easy to do) and can result in new applications that have incredible power and functionality (or go horribly wrong, think Frankenstein). What we are seeing today in the Lebanon and Gaza is a typical 21st century warfare mashup -- since it breaks down categories of warfare. For example:

• Israel is fighting what looks similar to a classic air campaign (updated from carpet bombing with more accuracy) aimed at crushing enemy moral cohesion by bypassing military targets and terror bombing Lebanese civilians (Robb note: I updated this to make it clear that this was a use of conventional weapons to fight a moral war like 4GW). In contrast, Hezbollah started the recent the hostilities by a special operations attack on a military target.
• By sowing the 4GW seeds of menace, mistrust, and uncertainty, Israel may collapse a state (Lebanon). Failing states in the current environment is usually reserved for global guerrillas since it is often nearly impossible to put them together again. Again, in contrast, Hezbollah has cast itself as the defender of Lebanon.
• Most of this conflict is being fought in the media rather than on the actual battlefield. Also, most of this flare-ups long term impact is likely to be seen within the larger global and regional networks each participant belongs to.

UPDATEBill Lind chimes in:

With Hezbollah’s entry into the war between Israel and Hamas, Fourth Generation war has taken another developmental step forward. For the first time, a non-state entity has gone to war with a state not by waging an insurgency against a state invader, but across an international boundary (Robb note: I would argue that 9/11 was that developmental step). Again we see how those who define 4GW simply as insurgency are looking at only a small part of the picture.

I think the stakes in the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas war are significantly higher than most observers understand. If Hezbollah and Hamas win—and winning just means surviving, given that Israel’s objective is to destroy both entities—a powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat, again, a defeat across at least one international boundary and maybe two, depending on how one defines Gaza’s border. The balance between states and 4GW forces will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree.

Final Note: One major Hezbollah blunder, was its failure to use its extensive inventory of rockets to attack Israeli systems (like power stations and fuel depots), in a crude rendition of an effects based air operation. This would have been a clean extension of the earlier attacks on conventional targets (including the attack on the Israeli ship and the initial special operations attack that took two Israeli soldiers prisoner), and any casualties associated with an attack on a systems target would more likely to have been seen as collateral damage (as part of a war between two equivalent organizations). Further, it could have caused extensive economic damage. On the moral front, this approach would have placed Israel at a significant disadvantage when it opted to bomb Lebanese systems due to paucity of Hezbollah targets. Instead, Hezbollah opted for a useless, low yield civilian terror campaign on Haifa.

QUOTE: The simplified long war index

Daniel Yergin takes a page out my 2004 playbook and proclaims, "Oil has become a proxy for geopolitics right now." (via Brad Foss at the AP). ;->

JOURNAL: Ignoring 4GW

I've heard it from reliable sources that the Army/Marine Corps new Counterisurgency Field Manual doesn't have a single mention of fourth generation warfare (4GW) in the entire document. Also, confidential insight into how the begrudging addition of references to non-state foes were made to the document points to a process that combines the not invented here syndrome and consensus editing. In contrast, Jihadi strategists have provided generous references to 4GW in their writing. Is this an asymmetry in innovation at the theoretical level too?

QUOTE: The continued elevation of Global Guerrillas to state status

"The murderous attack this morning was not a terrorist act, it was an act of war..." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday 12 July, 2006 in response to the killing and abduction of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon (from the WP).

The Israeli response to both this incident and the one in Gaza has been to shut down the local systems (air travel, electricity, roadways, etc.). This is similar to an airpower effects based operation (EBO) designed to incapacitate a state, but the effects generated in this situation are likely only to strengthen Israel's non-state enemies (as if not to be outdone by the ability of the US to manufacture global guerrillas). On the other hand, one interesting strategy undertaken by the EBO attack on Gaza is that it could be a bid to return Gaza to codependency on Israeli electricity generation (although, how this limits the growth of non-state enemies is beyond me). Here's the details from a well researched article by Rachelle Kliger from The Media Line:

Israeli aircraft took out six transformers of the Palestine Electric Company (PEC) in a June 28 attack, in a bid to secure the release of captured soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and to cripple the activities of Palestinian cells launching missiles onto Israeli communities from Gaza. In contrast to Palestinians living in the West Bank, who receive nearly all their electricity from Israel, Gaza has tried to wean itself off Israeli power by building its own power station.

In normal times, the PEC, which was established in 1999 by a group of Palestinian investors, provides nearly 55 percent of the electricity consumed in Gaza. The remaining power is provided by the Israel Electric Company (IEC). The power shortage caused by Israel’s air strike has brought life in Gaza to a standstill. With less than half the required power, electricity in Gaza is now being manually allocated in rotation to different neighborhoods, for a few hours at a time.

Frequent power cuts are affecting water supplies, as the water pumps run on electricity; sewage treatment is being damaged, threatening to cause environmental and health problems; hospitals are concerned their generators will break down, which will have life-threatening consequences for some of their patients. Not only individuals are bearing the brunt of the situation. Businesses are cutting down opening hours, relocating their investments to Egypt, or closing down altogether, said Hanan Taha, executive manager of Paltrade’s Gaza office.

Which leads to this (which is yet another additional lesson to non-states actors on how to take-down states):

The IEC is aware of the shortage in Gaza, and maintains it is doing all it can to help, providing an extra 7-8 megawatts of electricity. “As much as it can, the Israel Electric Company has always adopted the policy of ‘leave electricity out the conflict’” said Dedi Golan, a spokesman for the IEC. Golan stressed that the IEC was not involved in any way with the damage to the transformers, but the company is doing what it can to alleviate the hardships of Gaza’s power-deprived civilians. Even though these lines are saturated, Golan said there is an operational instruction to transfer as much power as possible, and to coordinate the transferal with both sides so that the lines don’t collapse from overload.

The IEC is making arrangements for emergency supply to Gaza, but Golan said it requires permits. “Once these permits are obtained, implementation will take about three months,” he said. Meanwhile, experts estimate it might take between 10 and 12 months to rebuild the station. The cost of the damage is about $15 million.

JOURNAL: Again, 4GW as the basis for Jihadi strategy

Rita Katz at the SITE Institute (only in summary form): A document which seeks to debunk the claim that jihad is a wasted venture against America due to the disparity in terms of military capabilities and force in numbers, and discusses the concept of “Fourth Generation Warfare,” was distributed yesterday, July 10, 2006, amongst jihadist forums by the Global Islamic Media Front.... The author borrows heavily from an article written by William S. Lind, et al, called, “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” which explains the evolution in war concept. (If I get the translation, I will post it).

BOMBING SYSTEMS IN BOMBAY

Global guerrillas set off seven bombs in quick intervals over a 20 minute period during rush hour on Mumbai's (a city of 16 million and India's commercial hub) commuter rail system. At least 163 people died and a thousand were wounded mostly in first class cabins, on a rail system used by 6.5 million people a day. Cascading systems effects included jammed phone systems and an indefinite suspension of all commuter train service (which will in turn cause jammed highways and reduced business activity).

The radical improvement in technique, targeting, and coordination demonstrated in Mumbai is yet another example of how the innovation generated by open-source warfare is now global. Hacks on warfare's source code generated in Madrid, London, and Thailand have now made their way to India.

As anticipated, this attack is also a sign that future attacks will increasingly target systems rather than low yield targets of symbolic terrorism. As methods of system disruption improve, attacks will be aimed at more precise systempunkts that underly modern economic activity, particularly in highly populated urban zones. One key vector of activity will be to use repetitive attacks to push urban centers to lower economic equilibria (see Urban Takedowns for more) -- it is potentially possible, once the data is developed, to calculate how many attacks are needed to achieve the seven percent "terrorism tax" that will accomplish this descent. Another vector will be aimed at improving the effectiveness of cross system cascades of failure to maximize total levels of disruption (these early demonstrations are fairly crude in this regard).

Update: There's perhaps a little confusion on this analysis. I point to the Mumbai attacks as an example of a trend line on the evolution of warfare not as a singular event that will rock India to its core (far from it). Also, to Thomas Barnett's critique of 4GW and systems disruption: I believe that global guerrillas will not collapse the West any more than the Internet collapsed Microsoft's monopoly. Their emergence will, however, change things. Don't think Vietnam. Think Israel.

AN ATTACK ON IRAN = CATALYST OF CHAOS

In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh again makes a cogent case that the US is headed towards war with Iran despite intense internal/external opposition. Of course, I concur. More war is indeed on the near term horizon (with the timing slaved to the Presidential election clock).

The only prewar uncertainty is the method we will use to attack Iran. Here again, Hersh's article is useful. It is laden with comments that indicate that the air power intensive operation I laid out in my "Collapsing Iran" brief will be selected. For example:

“The Air Force is hawking it to the other services,” the former senior intelligence official said. “They’re all excited by it...

“Rumsfeld and Cheney are the pushers on this—they don’t want to repeat the mistake of doing too little,” the government consultant with ties to Pentagon civilians told me. “The lesson they took from Iraq is that there should have been more troops on the ground”—an impossibility in Iran, because of the overextension of American forces in Iraq—“so the air war in Iran will be one of overwhelming force.”

Seeing Around Corners

Of course, beyond the method of the attack (an EBO that attempts to cause Iran's collapse), we should also look at its potential implications. This is a stretch, since it involves seeing around corners (something I enjoy, and if you are reading this weblog, so do you). One good method we can use to approach this would be to view the attack within the larger context of the emerging tightly coupled global system (a system where shocks rapidly travel through mutual network interdependencies). My earlier conclusion was that this new global system is dynamically unstable, which means that positive feedback loops started by system shocks can overwhelm dampening forces (such as political/social systems that provide negative feedback). Within this context, we can build a scenario based on three waves of effects. Each wave will be of a greater magnitude than the first, with each propagating quickly in succession. Of course, I hope this analysis is all for naught and it doesn't play out like this, but here's my take regardless:

• The military wave: local counter-attacks. Substantial disruption in Iraq due to domestic revolts by Shiite militias. Potentially, an attempt by Iranian forces still intact to invade Iraq. Attacks on Persian Gulf shipping and a shut down of Iranian oil exports. Oil prices spike. Global condemnation of the attack. The fighting is locally intense.
• The political wave: the instability spreads across the globe and America is incapacitated. Attacks on vulnerable Gulf monarchs put regional powers on the edge of failure. Terrorist attacks on American interests occur worldwide. America is forced to withdraw from Iraq (due to intense pressure from a hostile government and militias that are interdicting supplies) and must destroy much of its equipment in place to facilitate a rapid departure. Protests against American policy abound (including domestically in the US), many of these may get violent. American businesses suffer. The US is plunged into a domestic political crisis. Shortages of oil cause rationing in some countries and radical reductions in economic activity globally.
• The economic/societal wave: state failures. A gulf monarchy falls. Successful terrorist attacks on oil production systems have deepened the global energy crisis (and it appears it will continue indefinitely). The global economy goes into a severe and prolonged contraction. The worst finally happens: China's export oriented economy collapses (NOTE: when a bubble economy running at nearly 10% yearly growth falls apart, the rate of contraction will likely exceed the rate of growth). Protests, currently running at 200 a day, spike to thousands and they are increasingly violent (as protesters clash with domestic militias). The government attempts to crack down with the army but finds neither support nor a passive population during this attempt. Further, the scale of the unrest is too vast. Lacking legitimacy due to a decade of rampant corruption and an inability to deliver rapid growth anymore, the country fragments.

Although I am bearish on the future of conventional war between states, I am bullish on the potential for states (the legacy platforms in this struggle) to accelerate the dissipation of their remaining cohesion through mistakes (akin to the mistake the monarchies made during World War 1).