NETWORK EFFECTS

As anticipated, the much touted "surge," that promised to clear, hold and pacify Baghdad has succumbed to network effects (see the 2005 brief, "Clear and Hold?" which is as valid now as then). Essentially, Iraq's guerrillas destabilized the previous strategy by using essential connectivity to attack previously cleared areas. Unable to hold these areas put the Petraeus team on the horns of a dilemma, to either reinforce the Baghdad strategy by creating walled and garrisoned enclaves (which ran into political/media opposition, drove up the potential for an overrun of a US outpost, and posed a manpower challenge since Iraqi troops were insufficiently loyal to the government) or retake the offensive and go after the guerrilla networks.

The team chose the latter option. The result has been a surge in Baquba to tamp down guerrilla networks making some of the attacks, which as with previous experiences has proven to be of little efficacy since the networks evaporated when US troops arrived.

The Gaussian vs. the Paretian Strategist in Iraq

Here's an useful way of looking at the current situation that may yield additional insight. The classic clear and hold method (Baghdad) as well as enclave sweeps (Baquba) fall are part of a Gaussian strategy to dampen/slow/impair guerrilla activity in order to allow rebuilding to shift the curve of popular support in favor of the government and away from the guerrillas. The Gaussian strategy is also aimed at US domestic audiences, which would see a smoothing/slowing of numerical measures of violence as progress.

However, since the insurgency we face in Iraq is open source and not Maoist, this won't work. The opposition isn't seeking to shift popular support to an alternative form of national governance but to a hollow state (more due to emergent intelligence than group expectations). To accomplish this, the insurgency is using Paretian strategies that leverage network effects to amplify attacks that disrupt/fragment/destabilize Iraqi society -- essentially army of Davids experimenting, sharing innovations, and iterating towards a successful cascade of failure that topples Goliath.

Is this Asymmetric?

Probably not, since when we do adopt Paretian strategies of amplification, they often provide a pay-off that exceeds the cost in chaos. For example, the alliance with some Anbar tribes to force the insurgency into infighting is a point of light in otherwise dull strategic roadmap. So, if the use of the Paretian approach isn't completely an asymmetric advantage of an open source insurgency, why don't we use it more?

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

"So, if the use of the Paretian approach isn't completely an asymmetric advantage of an open source insurgency, why don't we use it more?"

John, I am not at all comfortable with your "Paretian" and "Gaussian" terminology, but I would like to direct your attention to W. Edwards Deming's discussion of why the railroads lost out to the automobile companies.

According to Deming, they forgot that they were not in the business of running railroads but rather of providing transportation. Essentially, the U.S. military has forgotten that it is not in the business of shooting weapons or conducting counterinsurgency, but rather of winning wars.

Of course, following Deming's precepts would have meant that the executives of those railroads would have lost their jobs and many of today's generals would have to be fired. What is good for George Bush or Gen. Petraeus is not the same as what is good for the United States.

Deming was quite the Gaussian sort of fellow, according to my understanding, which is one of many reasons why I am not comfortable with your terms. Still, his point seems useful here.

[adam]

John,

It appears that the Baquba operation has already gone tits-up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6733032,00.html

This story is a classic moment of counter insurgency "War of the Flea" style - government forces can win everywhere they are, they just can't be everywhere.

I also note that the Iraqi military remain completely unreliable. But in that at least they're consistent. Note the second paragraph - the Iraqi military are short of ammo. My word, after 4 years of US military scale supplies thats a lot of quartermasters selling kit to the insurgents. Or the US are actually incompetant. Or both.

I also note that its classic War of the Flea in other way - 10,000 troops needing weeks of preparation time to take on around 250 (60-100 "suspects" killed and we'll be generous and say that they're all involved, plus another 50-100 or so in the US cordon, plus 60 "detainees"). Historically the numbers tend to be about half that.

Still, being nice, odds of 40:1 are the stuff of standard counterinsurgency. The bad news is that they're also the stuff of national bankruptcy. In order to defeat 200 guerillas the US needed to spend some $2,000 million dollars this week. Giving each guerilla $5 million and a US passport makes better financial sense. Heck, giving them each $40 million is nearly the same.

Mind you, as an answer to Duncan I'd ask whether the US military has been about winning wars for years. Surely its far more about military procurement and post-military careers in the military-industrial complex than about anything as naff as winning wars? When was the last 'war' that the US won on its own? Grenada? Maybe? Not exactly tip-top opposition, and hardly a war. That said they have now started to fire generals - Peter Pace went kicking and screaming the other day.

[Duncan Kinder]

John, I'm still trying to figure out this "Paretian strategies" concept, but maybe Elizabethan court politics can provide us with a model.

Back in Queen Bess's time, there was no organized bureaucracy, but rather various court factions contended to get things done.

In particular, the spy network developed by Sir Francis Walsingham was not a formal department, such as the CIA, MI6, or whatnot. Rather, it was his personal network, which he actually (largely) financed out of his own pocket.

Following Walsingham's death in 1590, his network fell apart, with various players then becoming aligned with the Cecil, Essex, and Raleigh factions that dominated late Elizabethan court politics. (Interestingly, the murder of Christopher Marlowe, who had spied for Walsingham, has been attributed to late Elizabethan court faction struggles).

Perhaps Elizabethan court life, with Elizabeth herself at the head, several major factions, a chorus of courtiers, and a huge mass of peasants in the background would be a model for your "Paretian strategies" concept.

[Cavolonero]

I think WE should ' black swan ' them for a change. Otherwise we piss ourselves broke waiting for it to happen.

[Russell120]

A Parisian strategy would be one where the outcome is disproportionate to the inputs. The US strategy of arming militias is another example (in addition to the Anwar "alliance" you noted) of this type of thinking.

The US military does not generally worry about achieving Parisian results because it usually has abundant resources, and its members come from a society with abundant resources. If you have a big advantage in resources it makes a certain sense to use them. Paretian outcomes will certainly be welcome when they are achieved, but are not seen as necessary.

Gaussian strategies can work if applied effectively and for a long enough period of time. IMO the problem is not that the US uses a gaussian strategy per se, but that it has consistently underestimated the difficulty of its mission, and been very inconsistent AND wrong headed in it tactical operations.

At this point, the use of paretian strategies indicates that the US thinks it will lose and is desperate, not that they have reached some new form of enlightenment.

[John Robb]

AP on Monday:

Police said among the dead was Fassal al-Guood, a Ramadi tribal sheik and former governor of Anbar province who was a leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, which has partnered with U.S. and Iraqi officials to fight al-Qaida influence in Anbar.

[Nic]

Adam states that: "Note the second paragraph - the Iraqi military are short of ammo. My word, after 4 years of US military scale supplies thats a lot of quartermasters selling kit to the insurgents. Or the US are actually incompetant. Or both."

In addition to these factors, its also possible that parts of the Iraqi army are not being given arms and ammunition becasue the US forces don't trust them. This probably couldn't be an official policy, but I could imagine it happening in the field.

[londamium]

Nic

I suspect that the rather sad state of the Iraqi military today is at least in part a deliberate product of policies that were decided upon before the invasion took place.

Insofar as the Bush administration exit strategy has always been not exiting, it makes some sense for Iraq to be maintained as a perpetually weak entity that would be a de facto military protectorate - disbanding the army makes some sense if that's your goal.

In the aftermath of the invasion vast amounts of Iraqi military hardware got sent off to Lebanon ( and elsewhere ) for scrap. I suspect that a lot of the gear was perfectly salvageable and serviceable - after all, in the wake of Desert Storm the US managed to collect up lots of abandoned/damaged Iraqi military kit, refurbished it and then shipped it off to Pakistan for distribution to their mates in Afghanistan. It's unclear why the same wasn't done in 2003 - there's no shortage of Russian/ex-Soviet personnel who couldn't have been contracted to help, plus shed loads of military stores that could have been purchased from Ukraine and elsewhere at reasonable cost. After all, the Iraqi military had plenty of experience with Soviet military hardware and it could easily have been re-equipped with an appropriate level of kit in less than 2 years.

What happened instead is that the first Defence procurement deal under the Allawi interim government essentially involved the embezzlement of $1.2 billion in return for some Polish scrap metal.

The Iraqi airforce is in a similar pickle - they seem to have about four light propeller aircraft after four years - so the Iraqi state is essentially dependent upon the US air force for the defence of its airpsace. Now I don't know about the going rate for an Iraqi airforce officer, but I doubt that it would cost more than $25 million per annum in personnel costs to build up a 1000 pilot cadre; after all, if Dubya could be trained as a pilot, then it really can't be that tough. Again there's no shortage of Soviet-era airframes that could be picked up at a reasonable cost ( ie $1-2 million per unit ) to get to a 200-strong basic air force.

So, when it comes down to poorly-armed and poorly-equipped Iraqi units, what you're seeing is the result of very deliberate decisions made prior to the invasion; a decently equipped and base-line functioning Iraqi military, which in terms of internal control certainly existed prior to 2003, would render the US presence redundant, and might, given their awkwardly nationalistic and anti-American tendencies, enable the Iraqis to politely suggest the US military bugger off.

[Russell120]

londamium:

you make some good points. But an alternative conspiracy theory is that the Bush Administration thought that there would be all this Iraq oil money rolling in, and that they would be able to sell US products to their new oil rich allie.

[londamium]

Russell

Buying American would be perfectly consistent with the weak dependant military protectorate strategy - but it's notable that with the exception of light arms and some donated humvees, this hasn't actually happened.

The most basic reason is that, even in the face of a vicious insurgency, the US military is paranoid about serious weaponry being turned on its own troops and, perhaps more pertinently, is also worried about the potential MI bleed about their kit over the border to Iran and Syria ( and thence to Russia and China ).

It's also not for want of cash either - the Iraqi government has plenty of funds which it is unable to spend at present because of the rampant chaos, corruption and political deadlock.

Then again, if we're to believe the pre-war delusions, the expanded, or even maintained, oil production level would have kept prices in the $25 per barrel price range, and a substantial slice of the profits would have been heading into the coffers of the oil majors. Arguably, the Iraqi government is generating greater revenues for itself at present than it would have if things had "gone right".

[Marcello]

I have been researching the iraqi military since 2002 or so for wargaming purposes, so I hope to be able to offer some
semi-informed opinions. I think that the general idea, after the 2003 disbanding, was to build a relatively small, high tech and US equipped army for the purpose of external defense against Iran and such. Basically something that could hold the line while the US steamed to the rescue and also provide some cash for US defense contractors. This army would have been built at a leisurely pace, as there was no immediate need.
As it often happens reality crashed the party and the US found itself pitted against an insurgency. This dictated the urgent need for an iraqi army to be fielded as quickly as possible. It was simply pointless training recruits to become aicraft maintenance techs when the USAF could provide all the air support needed and there was a desperate need for riflemen. So the army took the shape of an infantry heavy force equipped with soviet infantry weapons, the most varied collection of APCs ever seen in a single armed force and a few ex iraqi army and hungarian tanks for stiffening. No fire support beyond 60mm mortars, no ATGM, no SAM, no combat air force or complete logistics. This both because they were either a waste of time and manpower or a possible danger to the US forces. As of lately there has been a shift to fill those holes, with talks of purchases of SAMs and ATGMs, and the planned aquisition of additional tanks, artillery mortars and such which are to be delivered in the next months. The shift seems towards US equipment with an order for 600-800 M60 tanks and large numbers of APCs. There are talks of replacing the AK-47 with the M4/M16.

[adam]

Marcello,

Thanks for that information. It makes a lot of sense from what I recall of the period politically. In 2003 the US plan was that the Iraqi army would provide around 40,000 border guards: roughly as well armed as rural US police, but nothing that a military force would recognise. As I recall it was going to be called the New Iraqi Corps (not even army, something more like a Peace Corps or Corps de Ballet) until someone mentioned that NIC in Iraqi slang is "fuck". Not since City University of Newcastle upon Tyne was there such a complete, basic, cock-up in naming.

As you note the insurgency, made up of the thousands of former Iraqi army people proceeded to demonstrate their working knowledge of urban warfare against the Americans.

The mechanisation of the Iraqi army is still something of a hot topic. I hadn't realised that the US were going to drop off a job-lot of their ancient tanks and I'm not completely thrilled with it. The reason its important is that its the mechanised forces in Iraq that always seem to lauch the coup attempts. If you want to get into the Iraqi presidents palace it appears that nothing less than a big hunk of metal crashing through the gates will do. As a result it was seen as a wise option that the US didn't allow the Iraqi military large armoured formations and to be honest armoured formations against insurgents are superbly irrelevant (and don't even get me started on the Iraqi army having SAMs at this stage...).

Now as for the (former) Iraqi army it was the heart of the Iraqi state. As an institution it was more or less the single thing that almost every Iraqi could be proud of. For Shi'ites they held the line against the Iranians around Basra, for Sunnis they dominated the rest of Iraq, for secular middle class Iraqis they were an actual meritocracy.

(for Kurds they were the hard bastards that knocked the shit out of them every few years, but not everyone is going to be happy and the Kurds quite cheefully used the Iraqi army on each other in their 1990s civil war).

So a new Iraqi army with lots of shiny tanks is going to be a must have, if there is to be a functional Iraqi state. There will be a coup or two, and it won't be a democracy, but thats part of life's rich pageant in Iraq. Actually training them in the use of their toys is almost besides the point, having them will be enough - how much training do you need to overthrow the government?

The replacement of the AK-47 with the M-16 isn't a bad idea. The British experience in Zimbabwe and later in Sierra Leone is that if you control the supply of ammunition you can stop the large scale internal feuding (meaing actual battles, not just the odd assassination) within the armed forces reasonably quickly - at most in a few days. In Zimbabwe the British left the locals with their Ak-47s which had, locally, almost infinite ammunition. In Sierra Leone it was old FN-Fals which used only British provided ammunition.

Naturally the Americans actually learning from someone elses colonial experience was somewhat besides the point. Personally I reckon that most of the missing ammunition provided to the Iraqi army has gone to the Insurgency, so its probably a bit late to start getting clever on supplies.

[Marcello]

"I hadn't realised that the US were going to drop off a job-lot of their ancient tanks and I'm not completely thrilled with it."

When I said US equipment I meant in the general sense that it was US made. The M60 tanks specifically are going to come from an as of yet unnamed country/countries. The purchase is being handled by the iraqi government (I do not remember if with its own funding or US aid but I can look into it if interested), albeit obviously the US was not against it. The bulk of the US fleets of M48/M60 have been already sold or otherwise disposed of AFAIK and Abrams are not an option for obvious reasons.
ATGMs and SAMs are again an iraqi initiative.UK and/or Italy are going to be the probable suppliers or at least that is what I have been told by people in the know. Something is moving in the air force front with the establishment of a pilots training program. It seems they are going to get ex polish Hind gunships and some turboprop planes for training and COIN.

[adam]

Marcello,

Oh right. I more or less assumed that US kit was coming from the US and I recalled that the US marines used to own lots of M60 tanks. Pure assumption on my part.

Hopefully the Polish Hinds will be better quality than the last lot of 30+ year old scrap metal that turned up...

Whilst ATGMs can (and are by the British) used as really large grenade launchers it still seems a little odd that the Iraqi military feel the need for them. Still, fair enough but I cannot for the life of me see the need for SAMs as the only likely targets are going to be US helicopters.

[londamium]

Adam

Controlling the flow of ammo sounds great in theory, but Gaza shows how badly it can backfire - the Fatah/Dahlan forces were toting US-supplied weaponry and Hamas were toting AK's. We all know who ran out of ammo first.

Recent reports from Iraq suggest that the price of AK's has come down of late and that the cost of ammo is stable - so no prospect of shortages any time soon.

Perhaps the best solution would be to provide the insurgencies with US weaponry - but that's not on the cards at present.