HOLLOW STATES

One of the most confusing aspect of modern insurgency for the "experts" * is that nearly every guerrilla group worth observing is advancing on the objective of state failure rather than state replacement.** As in, why would Hezbollah want to rule Lebanon? Who would want that headache?

The reason that state failure, or a hollow state, is preferable to state replacement derives from the same counter-intuitive rationale that Lawrence (of Arabia) based his campaign against the Turks upon: partial failure offers many more benefits that complete failure. In this modern case, a hollow state is preferable because:

• It serves as a bulwark against pressure from external Western encroachment. Any action against the non-state group from the outside harms the fragile hollow government (particularly its legitimacy). Bomb the group, harm the state since virtual or defacto ownership of territory means that the group never really owns any infrastructure (it just rents it).
• The existence of the state provides a perpetual enemy against which to fight. Eternal warfare isn't a negative thing for groups founded on the proposition of struggle or competence in warfare. Often, meaning is only found in opposition.
• It eliminates any real requirement to actually provide social services. The state can be held responsible for any failure in this regard. The only true responsibility these groups retain is to their membership. Often the only external benefits (outside the group), these organizations provide are cessation of violence through imposition of codes of conduct/means of adjudication (from the PCC to the Sharia of the ISI).

* I agree with John Boyd in the term "expert" is akin to "half-wit" since expertise in a rapidly evolving field of knowledge is only valid on the first day it is attained. After that, you become a dogmatist unless you are constantly engaged in the synthesis necessary for updating your ideas.

** This is also a great example of how an historical narrative can mislead. Experts, schooled in counter-insurgency, look to the narratives of Mao and Ho for guidance. Their method uses hierarchical and ideologically cohesive organizational forms to build a shadow state that moves from guerrilla warfare during to the early stages of the conflict to conventional warfare (which enables them to seize/control territory) in the final phases of the conflict. The empirical trend data of modern conflict suggests otherwise.

Comments

[gmoke]

Warlords love the period of warring states.

[b]

Wonder about taking Hizbullah as an example - IMHO it doesn't fit here at all:
- it wants a stronger state, but with a one person one vote rule (Lebanon doesn't have such)- it is not acting against the state, but against the ruling system
- it owns its infrastructure - the people fighting Israel last summer were the townspeople fighting for their homes
- it does provide large scale civil social services

[Tuor]

Very good and perceptive post.

IMHO, experthood is more a matter of methodology (data collection and analytical methods) than mastery of a certain set of data. As a consequence, there is still room for expertise in venues such as this "Brave New War."

[P-]

About experts & hollow states...

ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer was on C-SPAN... the United States-Saudi nexus had *nothing* to do with the Afghans' success in forcing the Russians out of there!!

The ONLY thing that we apparently helped procured for the Afghans were the equipping of the rebels with Kalashnikova-47's over more lumbering and old British hardware.

This certainly rebukes the arguments and fact surrounding a more comprehensive CIA involvement of the Afghan movement to overthrow a Russian occupation.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/invest_mavin/

[Scout006]

P- I wouldn't simply one disgruntled employees assessment as "fact". The CIA and ISI (Pakistan's Intelligence, which provided the bulk of the support) support to the resistance was instrumental in the accelerated Soviet defeat. I do believe they would have eventually been defeated regardless, but it is foolish to think that the weapons (especially the Stingers), training, intelligence, and funding provided had nothing to do with their victory.

There have always been criminal and insurgent groups that have desired to create some operating space by weakening the State, versus taking the State over. Still many groups still desire to take over the state. Since many groups still use Mao's strategy, to include Al Qaeda, it is still worth studying. One is as equally a "half wit" as the expert if he completely rejects the lessons from the past. Sometimes there is excessive cherry picking of historical examples to justify so called 4th generation war. On the other had the traditionalists still are in denial that many things have changed. We have fools on both ends of the spectrum and the truth remains in the elusive middle ground.

[Nic]

Actually, the correct definition of an 'expert' is a guy from out of town with apower pooint presentation on his laptop.

[Nic]

More seriously, there are still lots of insurgents that do want to replace the state (by obtaining regional autonomy or independence for their kin) or to reform the state (by changing the type of government or its policies).

The former would include the LTTE, SPLM/A, Abkhazia and Aceh (the list goes on). The latter would include the Nepalese Maoists. All of these have offered welfare and other services to their communities.

Most of these have been very successful. Either getting what the want (SPLM or Nepalese Maoists) or by offering a major and prolongued resistance to a state.

Certainly some groups want to destroy the state. But there are quite a few state wannabees out there who most likley form the majority of the world's most important guerillas. Don't get too fixated on Iraq. It may be the exception rather than the rule.

[Scout006]

Well said Nic, Iraq is an aberration that we created with our eyes wide open. Most eyes were open, obviously not those in the White House.

[JDubbs]

Insurgency for insurgency’s sake? That's off Broadway postmodern political theater that's bound to get canceled after a week. In the end the majority of insurgencies are political in nature with politically motivated goals.

The Iraq insurgency is no different in endgame only in tactics. If your using this as an Iraq comparison, the Iraq insurgency would fall under political nihilism where a myriad of differing political orginizations agree only that the goal is to destroy the occupier first and foremost using whatever means available including civil war to make Iraq ungovernable under occupation and therefore making the occupation unviable and illegitimate AND then only after the they are gone, figuring out what happens later.

To paint all experts under the same broad brushstroke is dangerously akin to the moral relativism that all opinions are equal. There are legitimate experts and illegitimate "experts." The distinction not based solely on partisan politics.

[Duncan Kinder]

Meanwhile, Nigeria appears to be disintegrating, apparantly without United States' assistance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042200228.html

[John Robb]

Aberration? Iraq, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria, India, Mexico, and many more locations suffer from non-state groups that are promoting a hollow state.

[dan tdaxp]

"As in, why would Hezbollah want to rule Lebanon?"

To extract rents.

Anyway, isn't Hezbollah a classic example of a state-within-a-state?

JDubbs -- very well said.

[John Robb]

JDubbs/Dan -- It's interesting that you both see political nihilism in Iraq. That is exactly my point.

[dan tdaxp]

"you both see political nihilism in Iraq"

I do? How so? (A serious question.)

[John Robb]

Sorry Dan, I thought you agreed with the post from JDubbs.

[dan tdaxp]

Gotcha. I was agreeing with JDubbs first paragraph.