Global Guerrillas

THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF THE LONG WAR

"We've made an agreement with the neighbours that, if we have another attack, they'll pick up their weapons and fight the invaders," said Fares Mahmoud, deputy preacher of the El Koudiri Mosque. To the Financial Times.

Iraq's state is hollow -- it exists but without any meaningful functionality. The easy way to visualize this is to view this within the context of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A hollow state doesn't provide the first two layers, which by extension makes the layers above it inconsequential (contrast this to the US strategy for Iraq). These services, to the extent that they do exist, are being supplied by black markets (from gasoline to the 2 MW ad-hoc electricity network in Baghdad) and neighborhood militias. In order to get these services, the population has replaced any residual loyalty to the state with primary loyalties (to tribe, family, mosque, religion, gang, etc.).

Now that this transition to primary loyalties is complete, the feedback loops of ongoing decentralized conflict (see War's New Equilibrium for more on Spagat and Johnson's analysis on the new power law for 21st century warfare) and large scale systems disruption (I have lots of briefs on this topic stretching back to 2004) will ensure that it stays that way. Also, the alternative transnational market structures of black globalization, driven primarily by the smuggling of hundreds of millions of dollars in bunkered fuel every month, will provide much of the fuel to keep this situation going.

What this means is that Iraq will remain in this condition for decades (the same will be true with Afghanistan as it fractures under the weight of the transnational market for opium, as will Nigeria with oil). Increasing pressure on US forces (from all sides) and an inability to take sides will eventually result in a US withdrawal. Oil production from Iraq will remain at current levels -- below pre-war -- despite the need for it to supply rapid growth in global demand. Regional instability will follow and transnational terrorism will continue its meteoric growth rate. Unfortunately, unlike the US withdrawal from Vietnam, global integration will ensure that this conflict will follow US forces back home.

WAR'S NEW EQUILIBRIUM

In technology, particularly in information based systems, advances can occur almost overnight. This likely applies to warfare as it becomes more information-based. As in technology, patterns and methods of warfare tend to stay within bounded equilibria depending on the type of war being fought. When an improvement arrives, the equilibrium point changes and warfare undergoes a rapid shift.

One of the ways to measure a equilibrium point was first demonstrated by Lewis Richardson over 50 years ago. He calculated that the distribution of casualties in conventional wars follow a power law distribution. Updates to his work show that this pattern of distribution continues to hold.

In a new paper by Johnson, Spagat, and others called "From Old Wars to New Wars and Global Terrorism," (PDF) the authors demonstrate that a new pattern of war is emerging. To do this, they analyzed the frequency-intensity distributions of wars (including terrorism) and examined their power law curves. They found that conventional wars had a power law exponent of 1.8. An analysis of terrorism since 1968 found that the exponents were 1.71 (for G7 countries) and 2.5 (for non-G7 countries). This makes sense, conventional wars and G7 terrorism are both characterized by periods of relative non-activity followed by high casualty events (highly orchestrated battles). Non-G7 terrorism is a more decentralized and ad hoc type of warfare characterized by numerous small engagements and fewer large casualty events.

Here's where the analysis gets interesting. When the author's examined the data from Colombia and Iraq, they found that both wars evolved towards the coefficient for non-G7 terrorism (although from different directions). This finding doesn't fit the prevailing theories of warfare. A conventional understanding of fourth generation warfare, such the one posited by Thomas Hammes in the Sling and the Stone posit that 4th generation warfare began in earnest with Mao. However, within Mao's formulation (and Ho Chi Minh's variant), guerrilla wars are but a prelude to conventional war to seize control of the state. The power law for these wars should, based on this theory, tend towards the coefficient we see for conventional wars. In fact, we see the opposite. Guerrilla wars in both Colombia and Iraq have stabilized at a coefficient far from conventional warfare.

This has broad implications for 4th generation warfare theory -- which clearly dominated the types of wars we saw in the latter half of the twentieth century. The patterns of conflict we see today in Colombia and Iraq are a break from the previous framework (which may be an example of punctuated equilibrium). Unlike the previous models of guerrilla wars which sought to replace the state, these new wars have moved to a level of decentralization that makes them both unable to replace the state and extremely hard to eliminate. Is this new evolutionary equilibrium a fifth generation of warfare? It is extremely likely. This new form of warfare, or what I call open source warfare, is what this site (and my book) is dedicated to understanding.

EMERGENT COMMUNITIES DEDICATED TO WAR (London, Iraq, and Al Qaeda)

When Lawrence led the Arab revolt against the Turks during the first world war, he did so with a community and not an army. The British never sent more than a handful of advisors to Arabia because they feared (rightly) an Arab backlash against a military occupation. So, without an army to rely upon, Lawrence built a community of war from the grab bag of individuals and tribes he had access to. What Lawrence built is best termed a community because (I strongly recommend BH Liddell Hart's book on Lawrence of Arabia for insight into his methods):

GLOBAL WARRIORS

Global Guerrillas are warriors (among other things) and not soldiers. What is a warrior in this modern context? Ralph Peters attempts to answer that in The New Warrior Class. In this paper, he defined warriors as "erratic primitives of shifting allegiance, habituated to violence, with no stake in civil order." He describes the situation:

We have entered an age in which entire nations are subject to dispossession, starvation, rape, and murder on a scale approaching genocide--not at the hands of a conquering foreign power but under the guns of their neighbors. Paramilitary warriors--thugs whose talent for violence blossoms in civil war--defy legitimate governments and increasingly end up leading governments they have overturned. This is a new age of warlords, from Somalia to Myanmar/Burma, from Afghanistan to Yugoslavia.

Classification

Peters concludes that warriors now number in the millions globally and can be divided into four distinct categories:

• Underclass. A loser with little education, no earning power, and no future.
• Disrupted young males. Young men and boys drawn into the warrior milieu due to the disruption of normal paths of development (school, work, etc.).
• Believers. Men that fight due to strong belief (religious, patriotic, etc.) or those that have extreme suffered personal loss.
• Former military men. Former military men that have not been integrated back into society. They have no other skills except violence.

Central Paradox

Peters correctly points out the central paradox of warrior culture. These warriors continue conflict for their own gain -- the spoils of war and the continuation of a way of life. Perversely, the continuation of violence prevents society from delivering the benefits necessary to rehabilitate them.

The Modern Warrior

Peters' formulation works well as a starting point in our analysis. Warriors, as he describes them, are difficult to defeat because of the asymmetrical methods by which they fight war. It's classic fourth generation warfare -- dirty, nasty, and ultimately won or lost in the moral sphere.

However, as tough as the the 4GW warrior is, it fails to account for the extreme resilience and innovation we see today in global terrorism and guerrilla warfare. We are also fighting on many more levels that merely the moral one. This implies that something has been left out of this analysis. My conclusion is that it fails to appreciate how globalization has layered new skill sets on ancient mindsets. Warriors, in our current context, are not merely lazy and monosyllabic primitives as Peters implies. They are wired, educated, and globally mobile. They build complex supply chains, benefit from global money flows, and they invest shrewdly. In a nutshell, they are modern.

Additionally, they have stumbled into a decentralized system of coordination/learning, something that I call open source warfare, that has led to radical improvements in how they prosecute warfare. This has enabled:

• Systems disruption. The coordinated decimation of a state's infrastructure, markets, and social order. Iraq is a classic example.
• Strategic reach. Attacks from 9/11 to Bali to Madrid. To provoke or coerce global participants. Attacks that influence the flows of global resources (oil) and people (tourism and commerce).
• Participation in Black globalization. Economic dissonance caused by the traffic in drugs to people.

DOCTRINE

I am working on a paper (or a short format e-book) that will flesh out the doctrine of global guerrilla warfare. My goal is to publish it by May 17th (this is to put pressure on me to write it quickly). Hopefully it will be as informative as Mao's work on guerrilla warfare.

UPDATE: I am still working on the document. Sorry for the delay.

TRANSNATIONAL GANGS

On March 15, 2005 the FBI took the war on terrorism to one of the most violent and widespread Central American gangs.  100 members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) were arrested in a nation-wide dragnet -- a small portion of the gang's estimated 8-10,000 members dispersed over 31 US states.  Most of those captured will be detained, arraigned, and eventually deported to El Salvador and Honduras.  Once back in Central America, where many haven't been for the majority of their lives, they will join tens of thousands of other gang members undermining the viability of the Honduran and El Salvadorian states.  This gang began on the streets of LA and has since been exported back to Central America (more background from NPR).

Gangs Grow Up

The MS-13 isn't your ordinary gang.  It is, according to Max Manwaring (of the Strategic Studies Institute), an example of a new breed of gang.  A third generation gang.  In his paper, "Street Gangs:  The New Urban Insurgency" Max provides a generational framework for understanding the evolution of gangs:

• First Generation.  Turf protection.  Unsophisticated leadership.  Opportunistic petty crime.
• Second Generation.  Organized for business and financial gain.  Broader geographical footprint.  Violence is slaved to the intimidation of commercial competitors and government interference.
• Third Generation.  Multinational footprint.  Extremely sophistication transnational criminal operations (lawyers, banks, etc.).  Political control of undergoverned/served areas within target states (a TAZ).  Extreme interference in state function, including overt attempts at state control.

A Challenge to the State

Third generation gangs have ridden the rapid growth of the transnational criminal economy which already has a UN estimated Gross World Product of $2.5 trillion a year (this criminal economy grows in parallel with globalization).   They are heavily involved in drugs, kidnapping, protection rackets, and smuggling of all types.  To protect their activities, these gangs target governments with bribery and intimidation.  Given that most of their activities are beyond the reach of any one government to influence, they have become very effective at subverting states through the:

• elimination of the state's monopoly on violence.
• distortion of legitimate market activity. 
• conversion of states into corrupt kleptocracies.

Gangs as Insurgents

Unlike historical guerrilla insurgencies, gangs: 1) don't want to run the state directly, 2) don't have a central ideology or a comprehensive political program, and 3) don't represent, protect, or enrich anybody but their members.  Their main goal is to secure their existence and their right to unfettered activities.  However, third generation gangs do parallel guerrillas and terrorists in that they primarily target states.  They do this through:

• Coercion.  Bribery.  Corruption. 
• Regime change.  Changes in government through delegitimization.
• State Failure.  State breakdown either as the direct cause or through the continuation of the state's inability to resume function.

Open Conflict

Third generation gangs fit the model of global guerrillas perfectly.  They operate, coordinate, and expand globally.  They communicate world-wide without state restriction, often via the Internet.  They engage in transnational crime.  They participate in 4th generation warfare and their activities disrupt national and international systems.  Finally, they coerce, replace, or fail states that stand in their way.  In all of these categories, they parallel the development of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.  Like al Qaeda these gangs are rivals of nation-states.  Their organic growth has already pushed them into direct confrontation with states.  Over the next decade we will see:

• Gangs adopt systems sabotage to more easily coerce or fail recalcitrant states.  The ability of gangs to buy expertise will ensure substantial access to the systems needed.
• Coordination between global guerrilla groups.  A global bazaar of violence will develop to share weapons, expand criminal activities, etc.  The destruction of the state system is a powerful unifying force.
• Homegrown third generation gangs will challenge the US for control.  From the Aryan Brotherhood to the MS-13, the US is teeming with increasingly powerful gangs.  These gangs will ride globalization to become more effective competitors over time.  Porous borders, an increasingly disenfranchised immigrant community, and a bursting prison system (a source of training and recruitment that has a potential pool of 2 m people and counting) will ensure this.

GREEN GUERRILLAS

A central theme of global guerrilla warfare is that the centralized systems we rely upon in modern nation-states are unable to withstand even a rudimentary low tech assault.  The environmental movement picked up on this vulnerability for their own purposes.  Their message:  clean energy is more secure energy.  This is accurate.  Clean energy requires decentralized production and is by its nature more secure.  An example of this trend is the Cascadia Scorecard (an area around Washington State) produced by the Northwest Environment Watch.  Their report pointed out the following (maps of the systems in the area):

• The region's power and pipeline infrastructure is vulnerable to the disruption of a few long-haul connections.
• There is rampant co-location vulnerability where multiple systems traverse the same route.
• Growing energy usage strains the existing underfunded systems architecture.

A Green Guerrilla Scenario

Eco-terrorism isn't new.  It is, however, typically ineffective.  This report points to another potential scenario.  If eco-activists adopt global guerrilla tactics, they could coerce a rapid move to clean energy alternatives.  Small but extremely effective (high ROI) attacks on the energy corridors leading to target regions, would quickly increase the costs of conventional energy such that clean power alternatives would become extremely attractive.  This would be dictated by a direct economic comparison (costs) as well as indirect factors such as reliability of delivery.  This systems sabotage tax would induce a tipping point in energy market equilibria towards green alternatives if it is extended over a long period (longer than one season) and is of a sufficient level.  See the brief Urban Takedowns for more on how a terrorism tax can impact market equilibria.  Other factors:

• Green guerrilla activity would likely be lost in the noise of fears of Islamic terrorism, particularly if the attacks aren't claimed and the groups are extremely small.
• There would be few casualties (if any).  This would make these tactics more palatable to a larger audience of potential participants.  This points to the potential of widespread activity from multiple ad hoc groups.
• Systems sabotage during peak usage periods would have an extremely large impact footprint.  It would also radically increase the general awareness of energy usage.  Cascades of failure induced by simple actions could sweep from Washington State to southern California and last for days.  Everyone, from consumers to businesses, would feel the impact.

SMALL GROUPS AND GLOBAL WARFARE

The decline of the nation-state is seen in a graph of the ability of small groups to replicate the state's most vital commodity -- large scale violence. The Yale economist, Martin Shubik examines this in his paper "Terrorism, Technology, and the Socioeconomics of Death" (PDF).  His conclusion?  Rapid technological improvement and global information transfer (part of a larger context of interconnectivity) has produced a spike in the ability of small groups to produce mass casualties (see attached graph). 

Loose Nukes, Biological weapons, and Traditional Terrorism

Armed with weapons of mass destruction, this conclusion is certainly true.  Small groups armed with these weapons would be able to approximate the level of violence of nation-states.  Fortunately, there are caveats.  Shubik's economic analysis indicates that nuclear weapons are particularly difficult to produce, acquire, store, and deploy -- so much so that it may exceed the capabilities of small terrorist groups.  The lower technical hurdles of biological and chemical weapons represent more of a threat.  Regardless, the current complexity of these weapons implies that their use will be relatively infrequent.  Over the longer term this will likely change.  The rapid technological improvements underway in the biological sciences will eventually lower barriers to entry and thereby increase the potential of use.

Frequency of Large Scale Attacks

In the short to medium term, even with the availability of chemical and biological weapons, we can expect large mass casualty events to be relatively rare.  How rare?  Clauset and Young answer this question in their paper "Scale Invariance in Global Terrorism" (PDF).  They found, from the analysis of data from 36 years of terrorist attacks, that casualties per terrorist attack follow a power law (scale free). 

The distribution of attacks shows that most terrorist attacks generate few casualties and only rarely do attacks produce large numbers of casualties.  This analysis demonstrates the difficultly terrorism has generating large casualty events.  In fact, their analysis indicates that an event larger than 9/11 is only likely in the next 7 years.  This may seem horrible, but as a challenge to nation-state military power, this falls well short of a transformative capability.

System Disruption and the Democratization of Violence

If we look at different metrics of violence, such as the economic costs of system disruption, the picture changes dramatically.  Unlike traditional terrorism, system disruption doesn't focus on casualties but rather on the dislocation of infrastructures and markets.  The effectiveness of these attacks are measured in the financial damage it causes the target economies. 

Analysis indicates that the results of attacks that cause system disruption do not follow a power law but rather a linear function.  This makes the method much more suitable for sustained warfare against nation-state targets.  Attacks can be planned with a relatively high degree of confidence in the results.  Additionally, the results are sufficient to provide substantial returns on the invested effort and capital (direct losses to Iraq due to systems attacks are over $7 billion, to the world economy the damage is in the hundreds of billions due to the influence of the attacks on the supply of oil to global markets).  The reasons for this superior performance include:

• The barriers to systems disruption are de minimus.  The methods are therefore available to the vast majority of groups that attempt it (a 99.9% solution).  Specialized knowledge helps, but it isn't necessary to accomplish an attack with a substantial impact.
• Infrastructures and markets provide vast vulnerabilities that can be exploited with relative safety.  As a result, attacks against systems can be easily replicated over time -- for example, routine attacks on gas and oil pipelines that connect to the Iraqi refinery/power plant complex in Baiji usually result in $50 million + in damage per attack. 
• Attacks gain leverage from the technology and interconnectedness of the networks being attacked.  Even small attacks can generate outsized returns.  In contrast to traditional terrorism, systems attacks do not suffer diminishing returns.

The quantity of damage routinely generated by systems disruption far exceeds the pay-off of traditional terrorism (the area under the curves).  This technique is therefore a viable method of warfare that can challenge nation-state military power today.

SCENARIO: CHECHEN INDEPENDENCE (Part 2)

Vladimir Putin: "The fuel and energy sector, overall, is the goose that lays the golden egg. Killing the goose would be insane, stupid and unacceptable."

The purpose of this scenario is to demonstrate how global guerrilla methods (systems sabotage) might be used in the relatively simple test case: the disruption of energy exports to coerce the Russian state.  Most western economies are more complex and therefore wouldn't be as vulnerable to attacks on a single set of systems.  This development is a natural outgrowth of the innovation we see from open source warfare in Iraq bazaar of violence and recent Chechen activity.  Even though this conflict started as a classical war of national independence, it will likely end as another major engagement in our epochal war against global guerrillas. 

The Moral Objective

To win, the Chechens need to win a decisive moral victory.  The moral center of a nation encapsulates its will to fight.  The disruption of this moral center has traditionally been accomplished by directing menace, uncertainty, and mistrust at the nation's population (Boyd).  The advent of a world dominated by global markets has changed this equation. 

Nation's are no longer self-sufficient, they are interdependent and increasingly reliant on their ongoing ability to perform in global markets.  Fall behind in this competition and currencies collapse, debt becomes exorbitant, and domestic stock markets plummet.  A sharp slap of Adam Smith's invisible hand can quickly turn a weak state into an economic basket case.  As a result of this progress, the target for a moral victory doesn't rest within the nation-state, but rather the global market. 

Within this new calculus, actions that undermine the moral psychology of these markets vis-a-vis the target country, is the new measure of victory.  Market psychology (of investors, trading partners, etc.) is marginally influenced by traditional terrorism.  Systems sabotage is different.  It can radically impact market psychology by building uncertainty (kryptonite for markets), menace to contracted export flows (resources in this case -- 1/3 of Europe's natural gas comes from Russia), and mistrust (a flight to alternative suppliers and investment opportunities).

If Russia can be put to the edge of financial catastrophe due to a moral victory won in global markets, the achievement of the limited objective of Chechen independence is easily possible.

A Strength Turned into a Weakness

In a typical 4th generation warfare practice, Chechen guerrillas can best undermine Russia's ability to compete in global markets by turning its greatest strength into a weakness.  The ongoing strength of the Russian economy today, and in the future, is its energy industry.  It is their strongest connection to global markets and the source of the funding that allows the government the flexibility it needs to take unilateral action.

Unfortunately, global guerrilla systems sabotage -- as we have seen in Iraq -- is extremely effective at energy disruption.  The magic of this method is that it provides extreme levels of leverage through the interdiction of network systempunkts (how this would be accomplished is the subject of the Chechen Independence Part 3).

Indirection and the Horns of a Dilemma

A major benefit of the decentralized open source approach to global guerrilla insurgency, is that it naturally puts their adversaries on the horns of a dilemma.  Simply put, this is a situation when an adversary is forced to attack multiple aggressors and defend a plethora of vulnerabilities with insufficient resources to defend or attack them all.  With multiple groups probing the target state for weakness (Iraq has more than 60 autonomous groups), all critical targets are simultaneously vulnerable.

How the media cover "terrorism" can also provide support for global guerrillas.  Direct assaults on the target population (traditional terrorism like that of the Chechen Black Widows) get the greatest coverage.  It dominates the headlines and therefore will evoke the greatest defensive response from the target state.  Attacks on infrastructure get much less coverage and therefore less attention.  However, the impact of systems sabotage vs. traditional terrorism on markets is entirely lopsided in favor of systems sabotage.  In the parlance of Blitzkrieg, traditional terrorism would be termed a Nebenpunkt (a distracting effort).

This "media effect" in combination with the vast vulnerability of a state's critical systems architecture, provides an amazingly effective means of manufacturing indirection.  As we see in Iraq, the state is in a perpetual collapse due to systems sabotage, while the vast majority of the defensive effort is put towards the defense of the political, governmental, and military targets.  Large attacks against high profile symbolic targets (of traditional terrorism) provides the cover to allow systems sabotage to remain a green field -- a set of targets that are always under-defended and continuously provide amazing rates of return on the violence capital invested.

SCENARIO: CHECHEN INDEPENDENCE (Part I)

Moscow.  Jan 27, 2007.  Vladimir Putin was about to sign something that he never thought possible just one year ago.  He was about to make it possible for Chechens to vote on their independence from Russia.  They would almost certainly opt to leave.  In the moments before he put pen to paper, he reviewed the events of the last year that led him to this point.

It all began with the crack down on Chechen guerrillas after the slaughter in Beslan.  The counter-terrorism efforts were working.  Chechen guerrillas were on the run.  It was perhaps the weakness in the face of these successful attacks that led the guerrillas to change their strategy of terror, or it may have been Basayev's willingness to learn from the events in Iraq.  It didn't matter, change came and the rapidity of its impact surprised the Kremlin and the world.

The new Chechen strategy, enabled by a small percentage of the tens of thousands of Chechen exiles scattered throughout Russia, emerged with multiple attacks on the critical sections of Gazprom's natural gas pipeline network to the north and south of Moscow.  The simplicity of the attacks were alarming.  Many were done merely with a propane tank.  In one hour, access to 500 b cubic meters a year of output was cut off.  The damage in the attacks was extensive enough to require 2 weeks of repair work. 

This would have been containable, given the system's forward storage system, if it only occured once.  However, attacks continued along the hundreds of miles of vulnerable natural gas pipelines in the critical sections.  This radically reduced supply.  The net effect was a 70% delivery shortfall to critical European export markets and western domestic customers in the first three months of the new campaign.  It couldn't have been planned better -- storage levels were are their nadir following a particularly cold winter.

The attacks didn't stop with Gazprom.  Transneft, the Russian oil pipeline monopoly, was next.  This time, critical sections to the northeast of Moscow stopped the flow of 3 m barrrels of oil to western export markets.  The attacks were so perfectly selected that the average delivery loss was 1/2 of Transneft's capacity or 2 m barrels a day.  Losses from oil alone were running at $80 m a day.

Despite a massive manhunt, there were few meaningful arrests.  The areas were too vast and the vulnerabilities too numerous to defend.  This was a bloodless campaign. 

Where it was bloody was in the financial accounts of the federal government and major corporations.  Government revenue shortfalls of as much as 20-30% were expected if this campaign continued.  This, in combination with the added costs of the security effort was about to drive Russia into deep deficit spending. 

Internationally, the outcry was deafening.  The German, Italian, and Eastern European ambassadors were virtually camped outside Putin's office with demands that he resolve this conflict quickly.  Their economies were being devastated by the shortfall in irreplaceable deliveries.  Something had to give.

It did.  Putin, faced with the option of a decade of delay in Russian economic progress or Chechen independence, chose independence.  A cease fire was called in October of 2006 to negotiated the referendum.  It culminated in the document he was to sign today.  Chechnya would be free.  Global guerrillas had won.

Author's note:  This is a bare bones, unedited scenario overview.  It will become more detailed in time.  Next:  How they did it... (part 2 of Chechen Independence)