Rethinking Western Approaches to Counterinsurgency

Russell Glenn, one of the most original thinkers and diligent researchers on Counterinsurgency, has done us an enormous favour. Recognizing the limits of a theory based solely on the canon of mid- twentieth century cases like Malaya and Algeria, he gives a much- needed corrective, analyzing modern variations of insurgency, and the range of innovative responses to it. This insightful book should be required reading for all students and practitioners of this complex and constantly- evolving form of war. David J. Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency Advisor to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan

With conflict and chaos in much of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, the need to understand counterinsurgency is as great as ever. COIN isn’t dead; we just need to do it better. Russ Glenn’s pioneering new book outlines lessons from eight recent – and little known – insurgencies. It is essential reading. Nicholas P. Warner, Director- General, Australian Secret Intelligence Service

Insurgency is changing in shape and form; to counter it successfully, we must adapt accordingly. This book is a timely, thought-provoking and critical examination of our current approaches to counterinsurgency, challenging many widely-held tenets. A “must read” for practitioners. It will probably find its way on to the insurgents’ reading list, too. Sir John P. Kiszely, former Director of the UK Defence Academy and Senior British Military Representative and Deputy Commanding General, Multinational Force, Iraq

A comprehensive, thoughtful analysis of the evolution of the theory and practice of counterinsurgency operations – with superb case studies and well- considered conclusions that should be studied carefully by any student or practitioner of COIN. General David H. Petraeus, US Army, Retired This page intentionally left blank Rethinking Western Approaches to Counterinsurgency

This book critically examines the Western approach to counterinsurgency in the post-colonial era and offers a series of recommendations to address current shortfalls. The author argues that current approaches to countering insurgency rely too heavily on conflicts from the post- World War II years of waning colonialism. Campaigns conducted over half a century ago – Malaya, Aden, and Kenya among them – remain primary sources on which the United States, British, Australian, and other militaries build their guidance for dealing with insurgent threats, though both the character of those threats and the conflict environment are significantly different than was the case in those earlier years. This book addresses the resulting inconsistencies by offering insights, analysis, and recommendations drawn from campaigns more applicable to counterinsurgency today. Eight post- colonial conflicts – to include Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Colombia and Iraq – provide the basis for analysis. All are examples in which counterinsurgents attained or continue to demonstrate considerable progress when taking on enterprises better known for disaster and disappointment. Recommendations resulting from these ana- lyses challenge entrenched beliefs to serve as the impetus for essential change. Rethinking Western Approaches to Counterinsurgency will be of much interest to students of counterinsurgencies, military and strategic studies, security studies and IR in general.

Russell W. Glenn is Senior Lecturer in military operations and national security studies at The Australian National University, Canberra. He has a PhD in American History from the University of Kansas. Studies in Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and National Security Series Editors: Paul Rich Editor of Small Wars and Insurgencies and Isabelle Duyvesteyn Utrecht University

This series seeks to publish comparative surveys as well as more detailed in- depth case studies on insurgent movements and counterinsurgent responses. The aim is to provide both fresh and innovative analytical perspectives on new and hitherto unknown or neglected research materials and documentation, including the resources from historical archives as well as oral or field work data.

The Theory and Practice of Irregular Warfare Warrior- scholarship in counterinsurgency Edited by Andrew Mumford and Bruno Reis

Indian National Security and Counter- Insurgency The use of force vs nonviolent response Namrata Goswami

Rethinking Western Approaches to Counterinsurgency Lessons from post- colonial conflict Russell W. Glenn Rethinking Western Approaches to Counterinsurgency Lessons from post- colonial conflict

Russell W. Glenn First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Russell W. Glenn The right of Russell W. Glenn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Glenn, Russell W. Rethinking western approaches to counterinsurgency : lessons from post-colonial conflict / Russell W. Glenn. pages cm. – (Studies in insurgency, counterinsurgency and national security) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Counterinsurgency. 2. Counterinsurgency–Case studies. I. Title. U241.G544 2015 355.02'18–dc23 2014043676

ISBN: 978-1-138-81933-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-74465-0 (ebk) Typeset in Baskerville by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book. To all who read to learn Who learn to improve Who improve to serve And who serve with an open mind for the greater good This page intentionally left blank Contents

Acknowledgments x

1 Introduction 1

2 Applying the iron fist in Chechnya and Sri Lanka 19

3 Twice successful, still challenged: insurgency in twenty- first-century Southern Philippines 44

4 Counterinsurgency at home: perseverance in Northern Ireland 78

5 Counterinsurgency lessons from a civil war: Sierra Leone 110

6 Interdicting insurgency: applying a comprehensive approach in the Solomon Islands 148

7 Taking on criminal insurgency: Colombian progress against the FARC 180

8 The operational oil spot and rise of the militias: COIN in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 205

9 Further contemplation on revised beliefs 231

10 Additional recommendations and concluding thoughts 265

Bibliography 283 Index 307 Acknowledgments

This offering includes insights from many friends and colleagues whose reviews were of great value as I put pen to paper (or, less prosaically, fingers to keyboard). Among those kind enough to review individual chapters are Chris Albiston, J.B. Burton, Bill Duff, Chris Field, Tim Thomas, Jim Vega, and Ivan Welch. Richard Iron, Dan Marston, and Chris North were extraordinary in assuming the burden of reviewing an early version of the entire manuscript. Extensive thanks are due to Rusty Rafferty at Fort Leavenworth’s Com- bined Arms Research Library, a research librarian of extraordinary talent and a friend. The list of others whose thoughts have added to my counterinsurgency understanding is far too long for my memory to properly acknowledge all (lost email accounts and the many years do not help in that regard). Among others with direct impact on the enclosed pages beyond the kindness of granting an interview: Alex Alderson, Clint Ancker, Gideon Avidor, Jonathan Bailey, Scott Bamonte, Joe Bolick, Kevin Born, Johnny Brooks, Jay Bruder, James Bryant, Peter Chiarelli, Ron Christmas, Neil Chuka, Tom Chychota, Roger Cirillo, Howard Coombs, Singe Coughlin, Scott Crino, Dave Dilegge, Lou Dimarco, Greg Fontenot, John Frewen, Tony Funkhouser, Paul Gaertner, Jan Frederik Geiner, Fred Gellert, Les Grau, Tom Greco, Joe Guido, Gordon Hagar, Sid Heal, Todd Helmus, Paul Hooker, Simon Johnstone, Bob Jones, Dave Kilcullen, John Kiszely, Jim Linder, Colin Magee, RAM Martin, David Maxwell, Jamison Jo Medby, Paul Mitchell, George Mordica, James O’Sullivan, Henk Oerle- mans, Jim Pasquarette, David Petraeus, David Perkins, Luc Pigeon, Jim Quinlivan, Fidel Ramos, David Richards, Rick Riker, Bill Rollo, David Russell- Parsons, Duane Schattle, Bob Shaw, Randy Steeb, Omer Tooley, Stuart Tootal, Johan van Houten, Paul Van Riper, Nick Warner, Steve White, Stuart Yeaman, and any members of the United States Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies Seminar 4 from the academic years 1987–1988 and 1994–1996 not already listed. There are some special women who worked behind the scenes while assisting my research efforts over the past several years. Terry Perkins and Gayle Stephenson, your spirit lurks within these pages. Acknowledgments xi And then there is family. Thanks to my parents, Russell and Priscilla Glenn, for ensuring the left and right sides of my brain stayed somewhat balanced and to brothers Robert and Randy for remaining the best of friends from birth to present. The unwavering confidence of sons Russell and Drew is more appreciated than words have said. Dee, you are last in these lines but first in my heart. This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction

The words – square, circle, a hundred etc. convey to the mind notions so complete in themselves, and so distinct from everything else, that we are sure when we use them we know the whole of our own meaning. It is widely different with words expressing natural objects and mixed relations. Take, for instance, IRON. Different persons attach very different ideas to this word. One who has never heard of magnetism has a widely different notion of IRON from one in the contrary predicament. The vulgar, who regard this metal as incombustible, and the chemist, who sees it burn with the utmost fury, and who has other reasons for regarding it as one of the most combustible bodies in nature; – the poet, who used it as an emblem of rigidity; and the smith and the engineer, in whose hands it is plastic; and moulded like wax into every form; – the jailer, who prizes it as an obstruc- tion, and the electrician who sees in it only a channel of open communication . . . have all different, and all imperfect, notions of the same word. The meaning of such a term is like a rainbow – everybody sees a different one, and all maintain it to be the same.1

If asked to give a model of British experience in dealing with terrorism & insurgency, the campaign usually cited would be that waged by the British Commonwealth forces in the jungles of Malaya against Communist guerrillas after the Second World War.2

There is much to learn from counterinsurgency campaigns conducted in the decades immediately following World War II. Those in Kenya, Algeria, Philippines, Aden, Oman, and the one looked on with near worship, Malaya, spawned writings from some of the sharpest minds ever to consider the subject. More rarely cited but also offering value are those of insurgents themselves; authors such as Mao Tse Tung, Carlos Marighella, and Che Guevara wield influence roughly proportional to the level of success achieved. This generation of writers has for the past six decades provided insights to many for whom counterinsurgency (COIN) has been a seemingly inscrutable form of conflict. It is to these scribes that soldiers, diplomats, the occasional politician, and other students of such contingencies often still turn. 2 Introduction Mid- last century insurgencies mark the colonial era’s retirement home years. Much has changed during the intervening decades, changes that impact the very nature of insurgency and, by extension, counterinsurgency. Yet passage of time has dimmed the relevance of those earlier events much as sunlight less illuminates progress with every step deeper into a cave. What surprises is the too- rarely questioned hold those former campaigns retain on twenty-first-century students and practitioners. It is true that some lessons and the beliefs derived from them retain credence given proper adaptation. Too many others find ready disciples regardless of their increasingly limited relevance, often because the followers fail to consider earlier context. Historian Hew Strachan succinctly touched both on the ill advisedness of too readily adopting lessons from this past and the existence of still valuable insights when context is given its place:

The 1948–60 Malayan campaign has become a model of successful counterinsurgency. It has probably improved with the telling and it is not as apposite a model for application in Iraq as some current Ameri- can enthusiasts suggest. The British were the colonial authority, not an invader. They relied on the ethnic division between Malays and Chinese to divide and rule. And they used methods, like the forcible resettlement of the population, which would be unacceptable today. But the corner- stone of the whole structure was the integration of civil and military authorities. . . . Government, army and police worked together at every level of command; political decisions were taken by those cognizant of the military and operational realities and intelligence was fully coordinated with operations and with policy.3

Later counterinsurgencies are no less rich in lessons than colonial era experiences. Eight of these more recent events receive attention in the chapters following. All provide insights into insurgency’s evolution over the past several decades in addition to revealing not a few original lessons. Inappropriate conclusions regarding counterinsurgency practice are unfortunately at times also drawn from these later undertakings. The mis- conceptions – whether born of colonial campaigns or others more recent – spur nine of what we will call “revised beliefs.” Some apply only to external counterinsurgents, those representing other than the country at immediate risk. Yet as recent commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan make only too clear, outsiders can find themselves insiders of a kind when assuming responsibility for governing until an indigenous government assumes those reins. We will also find that the eight more recent counterinsurgencies expose material of value beyond that related to our revised beliefs. A few of these observations perhaps qualify as new; many are revalidated or amended versions of what others have once learned and since forgotten, mis- adapted, or corrupted due to their being considered out of context. Introduction 3 Prior to delving into the eight focal contingencies, however, it behooves us to contemplate just what insurgency and counterinsurgency have become given a half- century or more of years since the waning of the colonial period. We will find that insurgency, like iron, can be perceived in many different ways.

Recent understandings of insurgency: a brief overview The insurgent seeks to gain control of a country from within and to reshape it in the image of some ideology. . . . Insurgency, then, is a hybrid form of conflict that combines subversion, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism. It is an internal struggle in which a disaffected group seeks to gain control of a nation.4

As incongruous as it seems, we approached the first row of huts with one eye out for a sniper we wanted to kill and the other eye on farmer Nguyen’s cucumbers that we didn’t want to step on.5

Thomas Mockaitis’s definition in the first quotation above is representative of those from the latter half of the twentieth century. The United States military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization shared a definition possessing the same key elements: “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.”6 Counterinsurgent author and practitioner General Sir Frank Kitson defined insurgency as “a rising in active revolt against the constitutional authority of a country.”7 Illegality, unconstitutionality, or other forms of illegitimacy are found in most definitions (“subversion” being the operative word in many cases). This ensures that efforts to change government via legal processes do not qualify (though several former insurgents have ultimately gained office via this route, which goes a long way toward explaining why members of standing governments tend to resist negotiations with what are potentially tomorrow’s electoral opponents). Nor does illegality alone bestow status as insurgent. Terrorism, murder, and the use of armed force are among the arrows in insurgent quivers, but most do not consider single- action events such as a head of state’s assassination or coup d’état an insurgency. Defini- tions tend to explicitly state or implicitly infer a time factor of greater length than these acts require, time during which insurgents subvert in- place authorities and employ armed force. Conflict eschews neat categorization. None should expect insurgency to do otherwise. Insurgency will more often than not complement – and in turn be complemented by – other forms of conflict. Insurgent forces may be the principals during a conflict. They might instead be surrogates for other actors, participants who wittingly or unwittingly act as agents of outside interests that are additionally employing conventional means, economic and 4 Introduction cyber pressures, diplomacy, or other means in the service of their objectives. British Army Lieutenant General Andrew Graham served in two of the eight counterinsurgencies considered in the pages to follow. Addressing the nature of the enemy during the too- slowly recognized insurgency in 2004 Iraq, he notes coalition forces confronted “an eclectic range of criminals [and] facilitators” in addition to former regime elements, Sunni Arab rejec- tionists, Shia extremists, foreign Islamic extremists, and Iraqi Islamic extremists.8 To this he might have added the absurdity of expecting a solider or police official to discriminate between insurgent, terrorist, criminal, or foe of another ilk during planning or execution of operations, particularly when two or more of those names aptly describe the same individual or group. Collectively, these observations also point to the wisdom of recognizing that the singular “insurgency” may be less an appropriate descriptor than “insurgencies” when describing challenges such as those found in early twenty- first-century Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southern Philippines. Contrary to some early definitions and currently held beliefs, political ends need not be the only motive underlying insurgencies. Economic, sectarian, religious, and other goals are frequent fellow riders. Insurgency often finds the anarchist, felon, disgruntled tribal leader, and other unsavory character riding remora- like in what seems more a Devil’s coalition than a unified movement. Not only might an insurgent’s motives not be exclusively political; they may not even be predominantly political in nature. Overthrow of a national government remained (or remains) a consistent objective in only a subset of the eight examples below. Clausewitz recognized that wars’ objectives range from a foe’s annihilation to more limited ends. Insur- gency, too, can include goals short of a standing government’s overthrow. The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (known to English speakers as the FARC thanks to its Spanish title Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colom- bia) has become an organization whose leaders would arguably have much to lose by replacing the country’s national government. The case of Manuel Noriega in Panama demonstrates the extent of U.S. tolerance for criminally based administrations in the Western Hemisphere. FARC leaders have instead chosen to limit control to lesser expanses of Colom- bian territory and population than all those encompassed by national boundaries. FARC thereby replaces – or renders inconsequential – the national government only within these select domains. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was among the first organizations to recognize this broadening character of insurgency. An insurgency was

a protracted political- military activity directed toward completely or partially controlling the resources of a country through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations. Insurgent activity . . . is designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control and legitimacy. The common denominator of Introduction 5 most insurgent groups is their desire to control a particular area. This objective differentiates insurgent groups from purely terrorist organizations, whose objectives do not include the creation of an alternative government capable of controlling a given area or country.9

CIA thinking included the notions of illegitimacy and politically- driven objectives found in previous definitions while recognizing that a movement could aspire to less grandiose objectives than complete overthrow of a national government. The agency’s concept included the limited ends of undermining (rather than replacing) a government and controlling less than all national territory. Liberal societies’ armed forces proved slower to acknowledge this evolution, even though they have been no less involved in insurgencies than the CIA. The British military was among the earliest, doing so in 2001 when its doctrine writers characterized insurgency as “the actions of a minority group within a state that are intent on forcing political change by means of a mixture of subversion, propaganda and military pressure aiming to persuade or intimidate the broad mass of people to accept such a change.”10 The definition delimited the range of objectives an insurgent might seek by employing “political change” rather than requiring complete overthrow of a government, thereby accounting for limited objective movements. The “minority” stipulation was both unfortunate and unnecessary, inexplicably ruling out an insurgency of the majority, a possibility particularly in countries ruled by a government dominated by one or more minority groups. The historical case of New England colonists’ actions against British rule immediately preceding the Revolutionary War suggests the possibility of localized majorities underpinning an insurgency. The definition’s further requirement of obtaining popular acceptance via persuasion or coercion, a goal more or less in keeping with any form of political change, adds little of value but is not incorrect. British progress unfortunately soon suffered a setback. By 2005, the British Army was back to defining insurgency only in terms of political overthrow. Notably, there were also other seemingly important objectives of an unstated character:

An insurgency is defined as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. It is an armed political struggle, the goals of which may be diverse.11

The same manual later unnecessarily added “campaigns of national resistance differ from insurgencies in that they aim to liberate a country from government by an invader or overthrow a government imposed by an invader.”12 The discrimination is one better suited for the classroom than practice. Resistance in the aftermath of conventional operations in, first, 6 Introduction 2003–2004 Iraq when the coalition was an occupier, and, second, the years immediately thereafter when Baghdad’s government was one appointed by the coalition, would constitute “national resistance” by this reasoning. Immediately upon assumption of control by an elected government, however, Iraq’s national resistance became an insurgency (or insurgencies) if we accept the British Army’s interpretation, even though the nature of resistance to national government had not changed. Further- more, both the occupying coalition’s government and that appointed by those authorities were legal ones (legitimate or not being a matter of perspective). The Australian Defence Forces shared this latter British Army definition13 while, by 2006, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps used an identical first sentence but added the following to explicitly recognize the case of occupier authorities:

Stated another way, an insurgency is an organized, protracted politico- military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.14

As in the case of the British Army between 2001 and 2005, however, the United States joint definition backtracked in 2009, the result differing little in meaning from what had been used at the end of the Cold War:

The organized use of subversion and violence by a group or movement that seeks to overthrow or force change of a governing authority.15

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the American, British, Canadian, and Australian (ABCA) cooperative during this period considered insurgency as “a competition involving at least one non- state movement using means that include violence against an established authority to achieve political change,” “political change” seeming to open the door to insurgent objectives other than overthrow.16 More recent definitions have accepted a broader spectrum of insurgent motivations in much the same way. The authors of the 2012 U.S. Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency did so, though they were neither concise nor comprehensive in their effort:

a protracted political–military struggle directed toward subverting or displacing the legitimacy of a constituted government or occupying power and completely or partially controlling the resources of a territory through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations.17

Certainly a step forward from colonial era interpretations, this description also greatly confines insurgencies by requiring them to be political– military, Introduction 7 ignoring primarily criminal insurgencies such as that in Colombia or others with alternative foundations. The 2009 U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide offers a concise definition, suggesting insurgency is “the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region,” a definition shared by the May, 2014 U.S. Army/United States Marine Corps Field Manual 3–24, Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies.18 Its commendable brevity unfortunately might lead to an overly broad interpretation as both political assassination and coups are among the actions that could inappropriately fall within its bounds. The same can unfortunately be said of the British Army’s more recent 2009 definition: “An organised, violent subversion used to effect or prevent political control, as a challenge to established authority,” a situation likewise compounded by the lack of any reference to sustained duration generally affiliated with insurgency.19 There are also times when insurgency and counterinsurgency are simply misunderstood (the latter defined in U.S. joint and U.S. Army/ Marine Corps service doctrine as “comprehensive civilian and military efforts taken to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes,” the definition adopted here).20 One author concluded that simple banditry in the Roman Empire could “fairly be described as insurgency because of the Roman government’s oft- stated interest in eliminating it,” a logic that by extension would imply smoking, illiteracy, poor health, drunk driving, and other ills constitute insurgent threats.21

Insurgency and counterinsurgency as understood and practiced: closing the gap The differences between insurgency as defined above and that confronted in reality are not difficult to identify. That does not mean that the objective of replacing an in- place government might not be a movement’s primary goal, but there are many cases in which a group seeks other ends not incompatible with an understanding of insurgency. The above discussion already touched on the FARC having more limited aims than replacement of the government in Bogotá. Still notionally political in nature, the organization is, in actuality, chiefly driven by criminal and economic motives. That the FARC was originally politically (or ideologically) driven makes it clear that insurgent objectives need not remain constant over time. A glance at two twentieth- century exemplars assists in further understanding why the concept of insurgency must remain flexible. Arabs fighting alongside T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) sought independence from the Ottoman Empire. Theirs was an insurgency undertaken primarily via guerrilla warfare loosely coordinated with General Allenby’s conventional forces. Elements of subversion were present but little in evidence. The Arabs’ primary implement was the use of force. 30 years 8 Introduction later, Mao Tse- Tung’s Chinese insurgency presented a significantly different character – a complex one with anti- Japanese nationalist elements that for a period caused the communist leadership to ally itself with the very government it would eventually overthrow. Mao and his fellow leaders simultaneously fought the Japanese, built their capacity to vie militarily with Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai- shek, and competed for popular support. Whereas Lawrence’s insurgency relied predominantly on armed influence to battle the Ottomans, Mao’s strategy melded force and subversion to undermine both China’s World War II occupiers and the country’s standing government. While the Arab insurgency played a supporting role to conventional operations, Mao’s struggle granted insurgency primacy. Movements in Vietnam, Malaya, Oman, Aden, Borneo, Indonesia, Algeria, Kenya, and elsewhere differed from that in China and with each other, but these post- World War II insurgencies shared characteristics that made theirs markedly different from that of Lawrence, Allenby, and Faisal a generation before. It would be surprising had insurgency today not similarly evolved given the passage of double the time between those conducted by Lawrence and Mao, the longer period also witnessing striking changes in geopolitics that include the blossoming of many new nation states and near demise of European colonialism. Practitioners of warfare know it is far easier to alter an existing plan then create one anew when a battlefield situation changes. The following definition of insurgency – that used in the pages to follow – capitalizes on previous wisdom by merging the applicable from former offerings with recent decades’ influences:

Insurgency: an organized movement seeking to replace or undermine all or part of the sovereign authority exercised by one or more constituted governments through the protracted use of subversion and armed conflict.22

As once already noted, no insurgency will be pure of form. Undertakings that include this definition’s elements in significant degree possess sufficient insurgent character to merit the title “insurgency.” They offer insights and lessons of value to those seeking to promote or counter such enterprises regardless of what label others might care to affix to them. It is capitalizing on these understandings that prompts the following content rather than a desire to offer merely another critical critique or theoretical argument of limited value to practitioners and policymakers.

Counterinsurgency as a comprehensive effort Replacing or undermining sovereign authority implies bringing a number of capabilities to bear. The left portion of Figure 1.1 depicts a sampling of the arenas in which an insurgent movement might compete. That to the Introduction 9 right reflects possible counterinsurgent areas of focus as it seeks to defeat its adversary. Each such sphere – political, economic, social, and security in the example shown – appears as a braid in a rope. The thickness of each braid represents relative emphasis and therefore the extent of the resources an insurgent movement or counterinsurgent invests in its support. Keeping the model simple for clarity’s sake, the two notional competitors here differ only in the emphasis dedicated to the social and security realms. The insurgents represented on the left of the figure assign their highest priority to the social arena while providing little to security. The emphasis is the opposite for the counterinsurgent. The counterinsurgent’s success in severing the insurgent’s security strand would therefore penalize the movement far less than were the social arena denied resources or neutralized altogether. The model presents a case not unlike that represented by Hezbollah in 2006 southern Lebanon when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF ) punished the insurgents’ military arm but only lim- itedly harmed the organization as a whole. The fallacy of the approach is apparent in comparing the two ropes: the IDF chose to compete along a braid of relative insignificance to its enemy.23

Political Political Economic Social Economic Security Security Social

Time

Insurgent Counterinsurgent

Figure 1.1 Insurgent and counterinsurgent lines of operation. Note Figure adapted from a sketch created at the author’s request by Travis Fox for use in a presentation. 10 Introduction Braids are only loosely bound at the beginning of our hypothetical conflict (represented by the top of the diagram). A group’s efforts to coordinate its various capacities are in their initial stages. The objectives sought (represented by the weights at the bottom of the ropes) pull at the loose lines, tightening the bind over time and strengthening the whole beyond the sum of the individual braids as cooperation improves. In reality, the number of braids might be greater or fewer than four for one or both parties; they could also differ by type. An insurgent group might choose not to compete in the economic realm at all, for example, while a counterinsurgent could give it great weight in its overarching strategy. We recall that such conflicts can include more than one party on any side of the competition. There could be several insurgent groups and multiple counterinsurgent organizations, each with its own chosen focal arenas and priorities. U.S. forces in Iraq visually represented their approach to campaigns by employing a concept similar to that portrayed in Figure 1.1, one in which the four braids were instead represented by parallel arrows pointing toward a common objective. Each arrow represented a “line of operation” containing activities supporting its campaign. Many considered this con- ceptualization an innovation when General Peter Chiarelli introduced it during the early months of operations. Chiarelli had in fact adapted the thinking of leaders combating Hukbalahap insurgents in post- World War II Philippines a half- century before.24 (See Figure 1.2.) The presentation used in Figure 1.1 adapts these earlier representations while lending additional recognition to the importance of orchestrating (interweaving) both the lines of operations themselves (the braids) and many activities that comprise each line of operation.25 (It is helpful to consider these supporting activities as interwoven strands within each braid.) The model of strands, braids, and ropes at best provides an imperfect representation of counterinsurgency complexity. One or more braids might be added over time while others suffer deletion, expand in importance, or are diminished in status.26 Activities within each are similarly likely to undergo change. Lines of operation may differ even within an insurgent group; they are certain to do so across a COIN coalition. We would expect those at the strategic level to vary from lines of operation at lower echelons; diplomatic initiatives comprising a vital component at national or coalition level would be unlikely to receive similar emphasis at subordinate echelons. It quickly becomes evident that the simplicity of the visual depiction belies potential insights the model can offer a counterinsurgency practitioner or student.

Lessons from recent counterinsurgencies The following seven chapters provide overviews of eight recent counterinsurgencies. Historical backgrounds are necessarily kept short, but it is OBJECTIVE N ’^ovlof-Hvz pcople^bytte people,•fop -the people

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Figure 1.2 Line of operation as envisioned during the Hukbalahap counterinsurgency (source: Napolean D. Valeriano and Charles T. R. Bohan- nan, Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006, p. 70). Notes Sketch adapted from that in Napoleon D. Valeriano and Charles T. R. Bohannan, Counter- Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience, 70. Westport, CT: Praeger Security Inter- national, 2006. Lines of operation have been used in other contexts since at least the eighteenth century. Emile Simpson cites an essay on Jomini in which John Shy relates how Antoine-Henri Jomini expanded on earlier versions of the concept provided by the Welsh- man Henry Lloyd and Prussian Colonel Georg Friedrich Tempelhof. These eighteenth- century and Jomini’s nineteenth-century discussions depicted lignes d’opérations as either physical rather than functional in nature (e.g., rivers, roads, national boundaries), or deci- sional in the sense of a military leader’s choosing where to force combat and what end he sought to achieve. Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty-first Century Combat as Politics, 142–43. London: Hurst & Company, 2012; and John Shy, “Jomini,” in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret, 148–50 and 165–67. Prin- ceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. 12 Introduction hoped they are detailed enough to provide those less acquainted with one or more campaigns with enough information to appreciate what each offers in the way of better understanding post- colonial counterinsurgency operations. Chapter 2 challenges a basic assumption held by many in today’s liberal societies: a counterinsurgent cannot persevere by relying primarily on military force. Russia in Chechnya and the Sri Lankan government con- frontation with the Tamil Tiger movement potentially give the lie to this conviction. The two victors rest on the fruits of military domination that demonstrated little concern for the welfare of populations in combat theaters. Yet neither counterinsurgent has done much to address the factors underlying initial resistance. Application of devastating force is a viable course of action for the counterinsurgent willing and able to employ it. Whether it is one capable of delivering long- term resolution is less of a given. The third chapter focuses on the Philippine government’s ongoing efforts to relieve its southernmost populations of their decades-long insurgencies. Counterinsurgents there confront extraordinary complexity. Citizens on Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo, and other islands in the archipelago’s south live in a world in which clan conflict, international terrorism, religious differences, brutal criminality, insurgency, and the concerns of national- level political leaders wax and wane. It is perhaps the campaign most in keeping with current United States counterinsurgency doctrine. The consideration in Chapter 4 of Britain’s experiences in Northern Ireland reinforces the necessity for counterinsurgent patience. It at the same time demonstrates that early missteps need not condemn a COIN campaign to failure. British governments and their soldiers learned from early mistakes. They adapted political, economic, and military policies over the better part of a half-century to bring stability and security to province residents. Antipathies remain; they have existed in various forms for centuries. The past several decades are but a lightning flash in generations of Ireland’s culture of mistrust. But the evidence points to all but an incorrigible few having little desire to return to the days referred to with classic British understatement as “The Troubles.” The British in Sierra Leone confronted an insurgency of much different character than that on their home territory. Insurgency in the West African nation – the focus of Chapter 5 – was but one element in a conflict that included civil war, criminality, political and diplomatic manipulation, international vengeance, and acts of grotesque inhumanity. Regardless, its offerings for future counterinsurgencies are numerous and valuable. The example in Chapter 6 of the Australian- led Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands (RAMSI) offers the rare case of an insurgency interrupted in its initial phase, that before its members raise their heads above the parapet to initiate widespread armed resistance. Despite the lack of violence and limited size of the counterinsurgent force (numbering Introduction 13 roughly 2,000 in its critical first weeks), RAMSI provides a disproportionate number of insights regarding how to go about creating a coherent campaign to suppress threats while addressing causes underlying their development. It additionally stands as a – if not the – premier example of interagency and multinational counterinsurgent cooperation amongst the eight cases considered. Colombia’s is a government conducting a thus-far successful campaign against several criminal insurgencies. The most prominent of these, the FARC, continues to undermine Bogotá while extending its tentacles into neighboring countries and others across the Atlantic Ocean, despite significant government progress since the turn of the century. FARC is a prime example of why colonial and Cold War perceptions of insurgency inadequately describe today’s threats. The movement was at one point effectively the sovereign authority in much of Colombia. It remains so over a more limited segment of the population today. Colombia’s counterinsurgency efforts, analyzed in Chapter 7, provide lessons in some ways similar to those from Southern Philippines (in part thanks to both countries’ counterinsurgency campaigns receiving long- term U.S. assistance) while offering others unique to the South American conditions in which they have their origin. The counterinsurgency considered in Chapter 8 comprises notable progress within the context of a larger COIN campaign. Coalition authorities in Iraq’s Anbar Province assumed no little risk in bringing former enemies into the counterinsurgent fold. It is an example that champions initiative at the local level but reinforces the necessity of coherency in approach spanning from the tactical to strategic levels. Chapter 9 returns to particularly unsettling COIN misunderstandings that come to the fore in the seven chapters before. These appear in the form of nine restatements that should replace mistaken policies or too readily accepted convictions that enjoy sufficiently broad acceptance to undermine counterinsurgency efforts when applied without due consideration of context. Some are applicable to both indigenous counterinsurgents and outsiders while others pertain only to representatives external to the country under insurgent threat. The nine “revised beliefs” are:

• Military force can defeat an insurgency. • The population is not the center of gravity.27 Part of it might be . . . or might not be. • COIN is not dead. • Just because they are the government does not mean they deserve an external counterinsurgent’s support. • Patience is a virtue when it comes to surrendering governing respons ibility. • Democracy is not an inherent good. 14 Introduction • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way. • Treat militias like a hot stove. • Build more social and less physical infrastructure.

Selected additional observations and accompanying recommendations not having direct application to these revised beliefs but also thought to be of relevance to future counterinsurgencies are offered in Chapter 10.

Initial thoughts on future counterinsurgencies A counterinsurgent’s addressing grievances is important. Yet grievances alone are insufficient to sustain insurgency. There must be leadership capable of convincing followers that improvement in their lot lays within the realm of the possible. Those same leaders need to guide, obtain support for, and otherwise ensure a movement can endure in the face of government opposition. Militarily defeating an aspiring movement can douse the flames of insurgency by eliminating its leadership and removing sustaining resources. Neither of these accomplishments ensures the embers – the grievances underlying the original resistance – are extin- guished. Renewed opposition requires only the emergence of replacement leaders to fan still potent cinders back to life. It is not without reason that our definition of counterinsurgency requires both defeating insurgents and addressing underlying core grievances. There is much written on “the death of COIN” despite the progress in overcoming insurgent threats described in the following cases. Some condemn COIN to the morgue because they find its practitioners consider it a strategy rather than a component thereof, condemning COIN for its misuse rather than constitutional flaws.28 Other pundits’ conclusions are more nuanced, declaring less the death of insurgency generally than that it has become an entirely different animal of late: modern insurgency has become a global rather than a national character, implying that lessons from previous contingencies may no longer apply.29 Yet another group condemns COIN in parallel with their declarations of coalition failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, implying that current doctrine should be cast aside when the shortcomings may be ones of misapplication or failure to properly adapt that guidance.30 Such pronouncements are to be expected in the wake of a difficult decade, one that has seen the United States and its coalition partners frustrated by complex conflicts in which insurgency has been a significant part, thwarted by corrupt and incompetent governments, and vexed by an inability to bring about satisfying results. Declar- ing a form of conflict null and void is easier than accepting it has become more complex, nuanced, and adaptive in character. Unfortunately, turning one’s back on COIN cannot cause insurgency’s disappearance. Future foes will undoubtedly not cast aside what has proven a successful Introduction 15 way of confronting governments and the powers supporting them. One can no more wish away insurgency then one can war more generally. “COIN is dead” may prove the ultimate misguided perception. In light of counterinsurgency’s recent evolution, the case may be one of “COIN is dead. Long live COIN.” Evolution requires that insights drawn from colonial era counterinsurgencies – and those more recent, for that matter – may submit to adaptation if not disposal. It is hoped that the next chapters will help to guide decisions in that regard. Certainly each of our eight cases demonstrate that counterinsurgency is alive and healthy in several forms. With the case of Northern Ireland being a possible exception, the jury is still out concerning whether these eight campaigns will ultimately constitute counterinsurgent successes. Violence or the threat of violence continues to wrack all to some degree Baghdad’s struggles with the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in 2014 and beyond being notable in that regard. In the words of Colonel David Maxwell, former commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, these are campaigns experiencing “success so far.” Failure is still possible. So too is backsliding. The latter is in some cases ongoing as these words are written. Naysayers might resist taking lessons from yet- to-be resolved campaigns. Waiting for a conclusive end before capitalizing on their teachings would be akin to waiting for death before drawing on life’s lessons. And as obvious as the observation might seem, it is worth reminding ourselves that insights and recommendations taken from any contingency require thoughtful adaptation before being applied elsewhere in space or time.

Notes 1 Sir John Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, as cited in Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder, New York: Vintage, 2010, pp. 442–443. 2 Roy Giles, “The Essential Soldier: Case Studies of Some British Military Responses to Terrorism & Insurgency,” Journal of International Security Affairs (Summer 2003): 11. 3 Hew Strachan, “Making strategy: Civil–Military relations after Iraq,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 48 (October 2006): 75–76. 4 Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919–60, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, p. 3. 5 Christopher Ronnau, Blood Trails: The Combat Diary of a Foot Soldier in Vietnam, New York: Ballantine, 2006, p. 263. 6 U.S. Department of the Army Field Manual 1–02/Marine Corps Reference Pub- lication 5–12A, Operational Terms and Graphics, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, September 2004, 1–101. Though this manual was that of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, the definition was also that used by the U.S. Depart- ment of Defense and North Atlantic Treaty Organization at the time. 7 Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five, London: Faber and Faber, 1987, p. xii. 8 Andrew Graham, “Iraq 2004: The View from Baghdad,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, (eds.) Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew Strachan, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 100–101. 16 Introduction 9 Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency, undated, approved for release January 5, 2009, available at: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5149 (accessed May 30, 2010). This is identical to the CIA definition used when the Guide was first published sometime before 1990. An updated version of the Guide to the Ana- lysis of Insurgency released in 2012 modified this definition to read: a protracted political–military struggle directed toward subverting or displacing the legitimacy of a constituted government or occupying power and completely or partially controlling the resources of a territory through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations. The common denominator for most insurgent groups is their objective of gaining control of a population or a particular territory, including its resources. This objective differentiates insurgent groups from purely terrorist organizations. (Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency, U.S. Government, 2012, www.hsdl. org/?view&did=713599 (accessed February 23, 2013), p. 1) A very similar definition was later adopted by the U.S. Department of State: An insurgency is a protracted political- military activity conducted by an organized movement seeking to subvert or displace the government and completely or partially control the resources and/or population of a country through the use of force and alternative political organizations. Insurgent activity is designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control and influence. Its authors go on to clarify that by “military activity” they mean “activity by an armed force not authorized by the indigenous government.” Counterinsurgency for U.S. Government Policy Makers: A Work in Progress, Washington, DC: United States Department of State, October 2007, p. 9. 10 Army Field Manual Volume 1: Combined Arms Operations, London: United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, 2001, p. i. 11 Land Operations, British Army, Directorate General Development and Doctrine, 2005, p. 17. 12 Land Operations, p. 17. 13 John Blaxland, “Revisiting Counterinsurgency: A Manoeuvrist Response to the ‘War on Terror’ for the Australian Army,” Land Warfare Studies Centre Working Paper No. 13, 2006, 9. 14 U.S. Department of the Army and U.S. Marine Corps Field Manual 3–24, Coun- terinsurgency, Washington, DC, December 15, 2006, 1–1, www.fas.org/irp/ doddir/army/fm3–24fd.pdf (accessed March 25, 2008). 15 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Division, Joint Publication 1–02, Depart- ment of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Washington, DC, November 8, 2010 as amended through July 15, 2011, p. 174, www.dtic.mil/ doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf (accessed August 20, 2011). 16 John Blaxland, “Revisiting Counterinsurgency,” 9. The definition is also too broad in its failing to be more discriminate in terms of the means applied by insurgents, e.g., assassination or the use of violence at polling places during an election would qualify the movement as an insurgency. 17 Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency, 2012, p. 28. 18 U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, Washington, DC: United States Gov- ernment Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative, January 2009, p. 2; U.S. Department of the Army and Headquarters, Marine Corps Development Command, Field Manual 3–24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3–33.5, Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, Washington, DC: Headquarters, May 2014, pp. 1–2. Introduction 17 19 Army Field Manual Volume 1 Part 10, Countering Insurgency, London: United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, October 2009, pp. 1–5. 20 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Division, Joint Publication 3–24, Coun- terinsurgency, Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, November 22, 2013, iii; Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, pp. 1–2. 21 Susan P. Mattern, “Counterinsurgency and the Enemies of Rome,” in Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, (ed.) Victor Davis Hanson, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 168. 22 This definition is adapted from that provided in Russell W. Glenn,Counterinsur - gency in a Test Tube: Analyzing the Success of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), Santa Monica, CA: RAND, available at: MG-551- JFCOM, 2007, p. 52, available at: www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG551/ (accessed June 27, 2013). 23 Hezbollah arguably provides an example of an insurgency “seeking to replace or undermine all or part of the sovereign authority of ” more than one constituted government. Its actions and influence campaigns target not only the national government in Beirut (in addition to local authorities in the country). It likewise seeks to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. For one analysis of the Second Lebanon War, see Russell W. Glenn, All Glory is Fleeting: Insights from the Second Lebanon War, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008, available at: www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG708–1.html (accessed December 30, 2012.) 24 General (U.S. Army) Peter W. Chiarelli interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Pentagon, Washington, DC, November 9, 2011. 25 General Chiarelli addressed the need to synchronize the many activities represented by the braids despite their parallel depiction, stating that “the lines of operation were separate but they required full coordination.” Peter Chiarelli email to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: Re: Citations in manuscript,” April 15, 2013. 26 Emile Simpson, for example, states “the government of Afghanistan- ISAF [International Security and Assistance Force] [created] six theatre- specific lines of operations (as of 2011): protect the population, neutralise insurgent networks, develop Afghan security forces, neutralise corruption and organized crime that threatens the campaign . . . support governance and support socio- economic development.” Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty- first Century Combat as Politics, London: Hurst & Company, 2012, p. 143. 27 At the time of writing, the U.S. joint services definition of “center of gravity” is “the source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.” U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Division, Joint Publication 1–02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Washington, DC, November 8, 2010, as amended through November 15, available at: 2012, 39, www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf (accessed Feb- ruary 19, 2013). 28 See, for example, Gian P. Gentile, “COIN is Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics,” World Politics Review (November 22, 2011), available at: www. worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/10731/coin- is-dead- u-s- army-must- put- strategy- over-tactics (accessed May 28, 2014). 29 See, for example, John Mackinlay and Alison Al-Baddawy, Rethinking Counterin- surgency, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008, p. x, where the authors state “[m]odern insurgent movements are characterized by their complex and global nature. Unlike past insurgent forms that aspired to shape national politics, these movements espouse larger thematic goals, like overthrowing the global order.” 18 Introduction 30 Douglas Porch, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War, Cam- bridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013; Oleg Svet, “COIN’s Failure in Afghanistan,” The National Interest (August 31, 2012), available at: http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/coins- failure-afghanistan- 7409?page=2 (accessed May 28, 2014), for example. 2 Applying the iron fist in Chechnya and Sri Lanka

Success in a counterinsurgency requires more than just military operations.1

The American philosophy is to win a popularity contest by being friendlier and richer than the insurgents. [Iraqi company commander] Mohammed wants to be tougher.2

Counterinsurgency, no less than conventional war, is more art than science, more complex than simple, more demanding of an innovative mind than an uninquiring one. One notion will not fit all circumstances. Absolutes should spur doubt rather than acceptance. The counterinsurgents featured in the two cases considered in this chapter demonstrate an approach – that of employing overwhelming force as the primary means for defeating an insurgency – most would consider unavailable to governments representing liberal societies, nations apt to impose on themselves the strictures of international law and humanitarian concerns. Yet the accomplishments achieved by Russia and Sri Lanka provide the first chance to highlight a crucial premise: that of counterinsurgency success being a process rather than an accomplishment, at least when one considers a COIN campaign in terms of years rather than decades. “Progress” rather than “success” is the more apt gauge. “Success” implies a finality counterinsurgencies rarely achieve until one or more decades have passed since the last of their more prominent military operations. Those responsible for leading such campaigns are better served by treating counterinsurgent undertakings in terms of advancing toward the ends sought than believing their task completed. Apparent triumphs can be deceiving. Recalling our definition of counterinsurgency, defeat of an insurgency does not mark the end of a campaign. There remains the addressing of grievances underlying the original rise and sustainment of the defeated movement. Though it may seem odd to reach back some two millennia in a book touting the value of lessons from events of only the most recent decades, the following brief hiatus provides a helpful backdrop given the need for caution when putting the words “success” and “counterinsurgency” in too close proximity. 20 Chechnya and Sri Lanka Roman use of force during the Jewish Revolt, ad 66–73 Rome’s two most important military legacies to the world, then, were the ideas that wars required no greater justification than the aggran- dizement of power, and that there was no reason to treat noncombatants with any less severity than warriors.3

In order to maintain order and security and the political stability of the Empire, Rome depended mainly on its ability to punish. After the suppression of revolts by military means, Rome had recourse in some instances to genocide, the annihilation of peoples and tribes.4

Rome did not initially default to overwhelming force during its occupation of Judea and its surrounds in the first century ad. Adept in politics as well as war, the empire’s leaders realized the value of a population at peace. Stability necessitated only minimal military presence. The fewer the forces needed to police the far- flung periphery of Rome’s territories, the less the cost of maintaining the realm. Judea, home to factions frequently in conflict with each other but little blessed in the way of natural resources, offered Rome limited value other than as a buffer between regions of greater importance and potentially troublesome enemies farther to the east. Judea’s coins bore no image of the emperor as was the norm, a sop to a population whose religious beliefs found representations of the human form offensive. Legion standards bearing the emperor’s likeness remained in the port garrison of Caesarea (30 miles north of today’s Tel Aviv) when soldiers departed the fortress gates.5 Given such efforts to appease, one can imagine Judea’s Roman governor Cumanus’ frustration on receiving the following report of a soldier’s exploits during an important religious festival in Jerusalem:

The Roman cohort stood on guard over the Temple colonnade, armed men always being on duty at the feasts to forestall any rioting by the vast crowds. One of the soldiers pulled up his garment and bent over indecently, turning his backside towards the Jews and making a noise as indecent as his attitude. This infuriated the whole crowd, who noisily appealed to Cumanus to punish the solder, while the less restrained of the young men and the naturally tumultuous section of the people rushed into battle, and snatching up stones hurled them at the soldiers. Cumanus, fearing that the whole population would rush to him, sent for more heavy infantry. When these poured into the col- onnades the Jews were seized with uncontrollable panic, turned tail and fled from the Temple into the City. So violently did the dense mass struggle to escape that they trod on each other, and more than 30,000 were crushed to death. Thus the Feast ended in distress to the whole nation and bereavement to every household.6 Chechnya and Sri Lanka 21 Such incidents did nothing to dispel local suspicions regarding Roman intentions to undermine religious worship, a popular topic for Judean leaders aspiring to stir up resistance to the occupiers. Specifics of the event that in ad 66 sparked the outbreak of the long and bloody Jewish Revolt are unknown. The nature of Rome’s response is not. Empire leaders dispatched a force of over 14,000 from adjacent Syria to Jerusalem, hub of insurgent resistance. The numbers proved insufficient. Insurgents routed the soldiers. Pursuing the fleeing army, they captured its baggage trains, siege engines, and – insult of insults – the XII Fulminata Legion eagle.7 Roman humiliation was grease on insurgent flames. Unrest spread to all corners of the province. The empire’s leaders did not underestimate its enemies a second time. Rome dispatched four legions, 50,000 to 60,000 men, who arrived at Cae- sarea under the command of Titus Flavius Vespasianus. Receiving reports of three Jewish factions fighting each other in Jerusalem, Vespasian (as he was more commonly known) chose to allow those groups to bleed each other while he focused on outlying regions. Galilee to the north initially received his legions’ visitations.8 Gabara was the first to suffer Roman attention. The soldiers’ assault quickly overwhelmed the town’s defenders. Only the very young escaped death; the town itself and nearby buildings were completely razed. Jotap- ata was next. Though eventually subdued, challenging terrain and fierce defender resistance lost Vespasian the intimidation effect he had hoped to sustain after the rapid demise of Gabara. Jotapatan resistance inspired revolt in nearby Japha. Vespasian nipped further misjudgments in the bud. His forces first annihilated a sortie from Japha. He then ordered his son, Titus, to lead an assault on the town proper. Fighting continued on Japha’s streets after a quick overwhelming of outlying defenses, male residents fighting hand-to-hand while womenfolk hurled roof tiles on the attackers from above. The resistance went for naught. Rome’s victors slaughtered all males other than infants and enslaved female survivors. Communities failing to heed these examples suffered similar fates.9 Town after town, village after village throughout Judea fell to the legions’ onslaught. Only Jerusalem and a scattering of small insurgent outposts at Herodium, Machaerus, and Masada remained unvanquished by summer ad 68.10 These were temporarily spared Roman fury when Nero committed suicide in ad 69, an annum that came to be known as “The Year of the Four Emperors” of which Vespasian was last. Rome’s newly crowned leader appointed Titus his successor in Judea and ordered completion of the province’s subjugation. Jerusalem again found itself besieged. Two of the city’s three protective walls fell within days of initial spring ad 70 assaults. Famine ravaged those within the surviving enclosure. Insurgent zealots killed any caught trying to escape. Success in fleeing Jerusalem brought no succor. One escapee swallowed gold coins before departing. He was discovered picking the treasure from his defecation. The historian 22 Chechnya and Sri Lanka Josephus related, “The rumor ran round the camps that the deserters were arriving stuffed with gold. The Arab unit and the Syrians [accompanying the Roman force] cut open the refugees and ransacked their bellies. To me this seems the most terrible calamity that happened to the Jews: in a single night nearly two thousand were ripped up.”11 Roman forces breached the final wall on August 28, ad 70. Attackers and defenders alike slaughtered all in their midst, enemy or innocent. Fire consumed the Temple. The city’s survivors were dispatched to work in Egyptian mines, sold as slaves, or slain as entertainment for Roman audiences throughout the empire.12 Masada, the last insurgent site, would fall by ad 74. Brutal application of force had crushed the Judean insurgency. Rome did little to address its underlying causes in following years. A second revolt flared in 135 to be dealt with no less severely.13 The emperor Hadrian directed all Jews be expelled from Jerusalem and the most troublesome ousted from Judea altogether in its aftermath.14

Adopting Rome’s counterinsurgent legacy The assertion that a mass movement cannot be stopped by force is not literally true. Force can stop and crush even the most vigorous movement. But to do so the force must be ruthless and persistent.15

Brutal application of Roman force reduced Judean violence to acceptable levels for several decades; most regimes would consider the span of 60-odd years between insurgencies a success. But the passage of some three score years incurred significant costs in maintaining what passed for peace. The low- boil opposition percolating during the period holds lessons for any state relying on overwhelming force to subdue an insurgency. That includes the pair which is the focus for the remainder of this chapter: Russia and Sri Lanka. Judea, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka call into question a belief that “force does not win counterinsurgencies.” The three examples demonstrate such application can bring about suppression of insurgencies in the short to intermediate term . . . and perhaps longer.

Chechnya: Russian force . . . and too little else In fighting the [nineteenth- century] Caucasian Wars the Russians committed many of the mistakes which have characterized them in the region before and since. . . . The policy chosen was consistently one of total attack, leaving the natives no option but to resist as desperately as they could.16

Chechens have never amicably accepted the presence of Russians. Soviets, like the Russians before them, felt it essential to control northern access to Chechnya and Sri Lanka 23 the Black and Caspian Seas, control that also provided a buffer against incursions from the south, much as had Judea done so for eastern threats. Requirements for oil and gas pipelines between Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Russia reinforced the importance of that control. These perceived needs had not diminished when Chechens led by Dzhokhar Dudayev declared independence in 1992. Three divisions crossed into Chechnya in December 1994 to reassert Russian authority after Russian air strikes destroyed many of the rebels’ 265 aircraft on the first of the month.17 Mos- cow’s initial guidance to exercise restraint in employing air and artillery against ground targets fell by the wayside as ground forces closed on the Chechen capital of Grozny. Reliance on firepower killed many noncombatants and caused hundreds of thousands to flee. Yet destruction could not compensate for poor planning, ill- prepared soldiery, flawed intelligence, feeble coordination between military and internal defense forces, and other failures that disrupted any semblance of a coherent campaign. Russian soldiers paid severely for their commanders’ mistakes, particularly during the bloody assault meant to seize Grozny by coup de main, an attack that saw ground forces suffer shocking casualties during the two months it took to eventually capture the capital. Fighting paused with the two sides signing a ceasefire agreement in August of that year. But the seizure of Grozny and killing of Dudayev in April 1996 could not deflect the serious blow to Russian prestige. Chechnya was a Pyrrhic victory that left Moscow hungering for vengeance.18

Adapting between campaigns Russia’s military leaders found mistakes plentiful in number as they looked back on the 1994–1996 campaign. The urge for quick redemption, however, limited the range of improvements that could be made before the country reinitiated hostilities.19 The bulk of the first campaign’s casualties had come during short- range urban engagements. Units received equipment better suited to such fighting. Among the new additions was the 130-barrel, 220 mm, tank- mounted “Buratino” multiple rocket launcher system. A single salvo of its thermobaric or incendiary munitions would obliterate much within its 200 by 400 meter impact area.20 Such improvements notwithstanding, soldiers and internal defense forces by and large settled for better capitalizing on resources already on hand. Portable anti- armor weapons had been particularly punishing. New tactics sought to minimize opportunities the insurgents would have to target Russian soldiers. Armored and mechanized units were to surround communities containing enemy concentrations. Special Forces and dismounted infantry would then infiltrate forward to pinpoint defensive positions to call on the full weight of available firepower once insurgents were located. It would be the proverbial hammer to kill a fly, a demonstration of Russian willingness to lay waste villages, towns, and cities the better 24 Chechnya and Sri Lanka to minimize attacker losses. Propaganda operations also received renewed attention. Chechen use of the internet to manipulate public opinion and raise funds outclassed by far Russia’s heavy- handed influence efforts during the initial campaign. Moscow was determined to avoid a repeat performance. These preparations saw few counterparts designed to wean the Chechen population away from the fundamentalist and criminal elements. Russian restrictions on freedom of movement across the border between Chech- nya and Russia stifled southern economic development. Damage to homes and public buildings from the initial campaign remained unaddressed despite Muscovite promises of compensation in the November 1996 accord ending those operations. Destruction of educational institutions left Chechnya no institution of higher learning; joblessness soared as commercial infrastructure likewise remained in ruins. Schoolteachers – unpaid by the state – lived off donations from parents.21 Russian preparations showed no interest in donning a velvet glove to accompany the mailed fist.

The second Chechen campaign There is much visible evidence to the effect that Moscow’s methods of subjugation have changed little over the years since the Long Cauca- sian War [of] 1817–1865.22

Three events in particular stirred Russian passions for a second incursion. First, there was the Chechen invasion of the adjacent Russian republic of Dagestan in August 1999. Those leading the up to 2,000 attackers claimed the offensive was the first step in the formation of an Islamic caliphate that was to bridge the south of Russia.23 Second, bombings of apartment buildings in Russia – attacks Moscow was quick to attribute to Chechnya’s leaders – undermined public perceptions of the insurgents as underdogs. The killing of innocent Russians alienated both members of the public and media, but it was the brutality associated with kidnapping and hostage taking that was the third and most damaging assault on popular tolerance. Many in a media previously sympathetic to the insurgent cause came to fear for their lives during visits to the republic. The beheading of Russian prisoners taken during the Dagestan incursion, a video of which appeared unedited on Russian television, doused most remaining cinders of support.24 Chechen disregard for Russian public opinion proved a costly miscalculation. The new assaults on Russian pride were particularly ill timed given pending Duma elections in December 1999 and that for Rus- sia’s presidency the following year; President Boris Yeltsin and his political backers believed inaction was political suicide.25 Ministry of Internal Defense units entered Dagestan in August 1999 and continued into Chechnya the following month. Initial releases in support of “Operation Whirlwind” justified the assaults as a response to terrorism. Chechnya and Sri Lanka 25 Prime Minister Vladimir Putin granted military commanders virtually free rein. As planned, Russian forces first isolated, then shelled insurgent positions with little regard for civilian lives.26 Effective counterinsurgency operations proved effective politics. Putin’s popularity skyrocketed. Little known to the public before the offensive, he quickly became a frontrun- ner in the race for president.27 The dramatic rise inspired Yeltsin to resign his presidency and appoint Putin in his place as of December 31st, posi- tioning the public’s new favorite for a nearly assured victory in the coming elections, a favor returned by the granting of amnesty to the former president.28 Both military and political leaders were far more attuned to Russian and international public perceptions than in 1994 as their 110,000 attackers confronted Chechnya’s 25,000–30,000 defenders.29 The Russians had failed miserably in attempts to counter Chechen videos showing attackers firing on houses, schools, and hospitals during the first campaign, images that successfully strummed sympathetic heartstrings when used to draw parallels between those resisting in the Caucasus and Palestinians confronting Israelis. Moscow had mistakenly believed it could deny media representatives entry into the theater. The tactic backfired. Lacking objective reporting, there was no objective party to report on Chechen actions putting innocents at risk, such as locating fighting positions near civilian structures.30 Moscow opened theater doors to media representatives during the second campaign, granting unprecedented access (albeit with significant restrictions imposed by Putin) even as Chechen kidnappers slammed the door to any but the most daring. Lack of effective resistance to Russia’s movement into Dagestan, and continuing progress during the days following, provided an early boost to the war’s popularity amongst a public disil- lusioned by insurgent atrocities. Officials adapted initial antiterrorism justifications for the war. The second assault into Russia’s southern regions became a struggle to uphold Russian citizens’ rights in the face of the imposed yoke of Islamic fundamentalism. Moscow also tailored messages for international audiences to limit outside meddling, messages striking a sympathetic chord in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.31 Chechen War expert Timothy Thomas plotted this evolution of Moscow’s second campaign objectives as follows:

• August 1999: Oust Chechen insurgents and other Islamic fundamentalist invaders from Dagestan • October 1999: Create a safe buffer between Russia and Chechnya the better to protect innocent Russians from Chechen terrorism. • November 1999: Completely eliminate all insurgent/terrorist elements in Chechnya • January 2000: Restore Russian territorial integrity by returning Chech- nya to the motherland’s fold.32 26 Chechnya and Sri Lanka Commitment to seizing the propaganda high ground notwithstanding, Russian leaders did not allow public opinion concerns to interfere with their goals of eliminating insurgent resistance and minimizing soldier casualties. The movement of ground forces into Dagestan and Chechnya began only after onslaughts by artillery and aircraft.33 Restraints encouraging the preservation of civilian life were given ever- decreasing importance as units rolled through Chechnya and again closed on Grozny. The attackers occupied over a third of Chechen territory by mid- October 1999. Putin rejected Chechen President Maskhadov’s peace overtures out of hand.34 Reminiscent of Titus’s seizure of Jerusalem, Grozny’s seizure was to be the crowning achievement in a campaign of military domination. Russian besiegers followed their patient routine. Attacking units pulled back on meeting significant resistance. Soldiers withdrew to the maximum effective range of their Kalashnikov rifles and RPG- 7 antitank rocket launchers – 300 meters – fixing adversaries in place pending the bombardment to follow.35 Commanders minimized that wait by assigning mortar and artillery batteries to ever- lower echelons. Russian forces cut electricity and telephone communications to hamper insurgent coordination.36 Detention of civilians at checkpoints became commonplace. Some seized were held several months for reasons as trivial as having been found too distant from their home, misfortune in sharing a name with a known insurgent, or simply because soldiers considered a suspect’s appearance questionable. Abuse ranged from insults to beatings. Rapes were not unheard of.37 Tens of thousands were barred access to their homes. Alternative living conditions were primitive with refugees occupying tents as winter’s approach dropped temperatures. Encampments lacked sufficient food and medica- tions.38 It mattered little that some were communities already prone to turning their backs on insurgent fundamentalists; concern for public support remained largely confined to Russian audiences. Bombardment intensified as Russia’s forces closed on Grozny. Ties between insurgent factions frayed in the light of grinding counterinsurgent progress much as in Jerusalem two millennia before. Success also fissured the Russian leadership. Major General Shamanov, fearful of political interference as the battle reached its crescendo, publicly threatened Moscow politicians should they reinstate restraints faced by the first campaign’s military commanders, declaring:

I would like to remind you that the executive and legislative branches of power have supported forceful anti- terrorist action. . . . If they stop the army, a powerful outflow from the armed forces of officers of different ranks, including generals, will happen. It will not be possible to sustain the officer corps of Russia. . . . Any attempt to return to military action hindered by an enveloping policy of negotiation as in 1994–1996 would result in dire consequences for the federal leadership.39 Chechnya and Sri Lanka 27 Shamanov need not have worried. Putin showed no intention of constraining Russia’s reinvigorated bear. Advancing forces continued to call for air strikes. Fuel- air explosives, missiles, and multiple rocket launcher flame systems mounted on T- 72 tanks had physical and psychological effects on fighters and civilians alike.40 Despite early December warnings to depart Grozny, an estimated 20,000–30,000 civilians remained along with what were reportedly 4,000 Chechen defenders. Russian casualties rose despite the reliance on firepower as attacks began on the outskirts of the city on December 23, 1999. Chechen leaders eventually ordered Grozny’s evacuation on February 1, 2000, ordering defenders to seek sanctuary in the mountains south of the capital.41 The worst of the resistance was over.

Success at what cost? The second Chechen campaign in retrospect The war in Russia’s southern underbelly is no longer a separatist conflict. The nationalist cause that inspired Chechen fighters 20 years ago is now an Islamic one. Yet this mutation has as much [to] do with Rus- sia’s ruthless actions in the region as with the global spread of Islamist fundamentalism. . . . In the long run, suppression alone is unlikely to bring greater security to Russia.42

Overwhelming force defeated Chechnya’s insurgents, demonstrating that the more benevolent, population- centric approaches favored by liberal democracies were not the only remedy available to counterinsurgents. A strategy of limited restraint bought victories both on the field of battle and at the polls, the latter during the December 1999 Duma elections and again in the March 2000 presidential election. Granted, reliance on military force had supporting casts. The adaptation of campaign objectives for public consumption, tailored control of Russia’s media, and insurgents’ self- inflicted wounds all played in the eventual victor’s favor. Yet it was the security line of operation that received priority. Subordination of Ministry of Internal Defense forces to the Ministry of Defense had recti- fied a lack of command cohesiveness plaguing those earlier operations. Possible rifts between commanders and the country’s political leadership never matured due to Vladimir Putin’s unflagging support of his armed forces. Disregard of concerns regarding civilian casualties lubricated operations and saved soldier’s lives. If there was a population that constituted Russia’s center of gravity (a significant “if ”), it was that at home and not one in Chechnya or Dagestan. The supporting cast played but bit parts compared to the dominance of military force. Russian suppression of Chechnya’s insurgency did not abolish resistance. The human rights organization, Memorial, estimated that Chechen attacks were responsible for the death of at least 289 security personnel in 2010 alone with nearly twice that number wounded in the northern Cau- casus region, virtually the same number as had died the year before.43 The 28 Chechnya and Sri Lanka killing of 40 Moscow subway riders and the wounding of over 100 more on March 29, 2010 attest to continued defiance farther afield. That aDag- estani suicide bomber conducted the subway attack raises the specter that separatist sympathies may be expanding beyond the Chechen community. Russian leaders may yet find the harshness exercised by their security forces has only temporarily dampened insurgent passions. Reliance on military force purchased success. It is success of a sort. There is reason to doubt whether continued reliance on coercion will be able to prevent a re- flaring of conflict for anything similar to the six decades purchased with Rome’s tactics in first- century ad Judea.44

A second case study: reaping the fruits of hatred “In the final analysis, the Rajapaksa model is based on a military precept. . . . Terrorism has to be wiped out militarily and cannot be tackled politically.” This is the opposite of the strategy America is pursuing in Afghanistan. It is winning a widespread hearing.45

Sri Lanka, the once paradisiacal comma punctuating the bottom of India’s peninsula, lays claim to the world’s second oldest written history, a past unfortunately troubled by divides that flared to tear the country asunder in the last years of the 20th century. Sinhalese, “People of the Lion,” arrived from what is now northern India circa 500 bc. Sri Lanka’s second largest ethnic group – the Tamils, sometimes symbolized by a tiger – similarly moved south from the Asian subcontinent several centuries later.46 Sinhalese were historically predominant numerically and still constituted approximately three- quarters of the population at the opening of the twenty- first century. Tamils comprise 18% of the country’s residents with Muslims roughly 7 percent and various other groups (Malay, Eurasians, Burghers, and Veddha) together mustering a remaining 1 percent. Yet it was the minority Tamils who emerged as the island’s most influential group as first Portuguese, then Dutch, and finally British colonial administrations assumed responsibility for its governance. Willingness to attend Christian schools and thereby gain command of the rulers’ language meant they melded more easily with colonial administrators. They unsurprisingly assumed key government positions.47 The Sinhalese majority gained control in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s post-World War II independence, however, its leaders promoting severely anti- Tamil sectarian policies that would launch the country into a free- fall of violence. The once paradise instead became India’s fallen tear.48 The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – commonly known simply as the Tamil Tigers or LTTE – rose in response. It was not the only such movement to threaten national peace. The leftwing Sinhalese Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) posed a smaller but no less concerning insurgent danger for the country’s leaders in the capital of Colombo. JVP established itself Chechnya and Sri Lanka 29 in the late 1960s, gaining support amongst segments of the military and taking control of major university socialist groups. Supporters backed a JVP candidate for prime minister during the 1970 election even as group leaders publicly threatened violence. Confirmation of substance behind the bombast came when an accidental blast led police to a JVP bomb factory readying munitions for attacks. Police arrest of the organization’s head triggered remaining JVP leaders to prematurely initiate their assaults on April 5, 1971. An ensuing two weeks of army and police retaliation left thousands of insurgent dead, many youths in their teens.49 Authorities in the capital of Colombo outlawed the movement. Citizen protests against the brutal force used in quashing the uprising prompted Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to pardon all but JVP top leaders. The group reentered the political arena in the later 1970s after its renewed legalization under a new national government, by that time with less of its former Marxist agenda than a platform supporting Sin- halese rights and repression of those for Tamils. The dramatic transformation stood as a testament to government use of force for controlling insurgents, one that set an unfortunate precedent for the country’s Tamil population.50 The JVP’s counterpart would prove less easily subdued, in considerable part thanks to a Tamil diaspora that formed the most critical component of a support system which would sustain the LTTE during its decades of resistance. Tamil Tiger business, diaspora, and political connections eventually reached into no less than 40 countries to generate some US$82 million annually through both legitimate enterprises and voluntary or coerced donations. A typical LTTE investment strategy involved providing seed money for genuine diaspora commercial ventures with an understanding that the proceeds would be shared with the investor.51 Tamil Tiger representatives elsewhere extorted donations while operating out of Hindu temples (United Kingdom and Canada) or trafficked in narcotics (Italy and Switzerland). Tamil heroin dealers arrested in Italy had the temerity to claim status as “political prisoners and revolutionary fighters.”52 Wealth translated into capability. Tiger international tentacles linked the insurgents with Sikh, Kashmiri, and other separatist groups that supported the LTTE financially and otherwise, to include providing the group with arms.53 With an estimated 15,000 personnel, Tiger military and terrorist feats became prominent signatures of an organization committed to the creation of an independent Tamil state. LTTE maritime capability was supported by the most “formidable, non-state ‘navy’ in the world”; the Sea Tigers 3,000 to 4,000 personnel were capable of operating in both regional and international waters.54 A separate merchant marine provided a logistics backbone financed by illegal trafficking of narcotics, humans, and arms. The Tigers also possessed an occasionally effective air capability. But it was the land force that most concerned the government in Colombo, that and the various components of “Black Tigers”: LTTE naval and 30 Chechnya and Sri Lanka ground personnel committed exclusively to suicide attacks.55 Black Tigers possessed a far more sophisticated and prolific capability than that of more widely recognized groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Lebanese and Palestinian groups combined for a total of 74 suicide strikes between 1980 and 2000; Black Tigers executed 168 such attacks during the same period, events that included the assassination of both a Sri Lankan and a former Indian head of state. Tamil Tiger forces as a whole killed some 4,000 victims in 2006–2007 alone.56 Together the group’s organizations kept the Sri Lankan state at arm’s length from Tiger- controlled territory in north and west Sri Lanka. There the group collected taxes, ran their own judicial system, and otherwise conducted business as a de facto autonomous state.57

Stepping back in time: the roots of Tamil insurgency Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese politicians deliberately planted, nurtured, and har- vested the seeds of sectarian hatred. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike delivered on his “Sinhala Only” platform after a successful 1956 presidential run. Resulting policies denied Tamil and English status as official languages, promoted Buddhism to officially favored status in preference to other religions – to include Hindu, favored by Tamils – and in general marginalized other- than-Sinhalese segments of the population. The Tamil backlash came in the form of attacks on Sinhalese property and government establishments in Tamil- majority regions. Hints at compromise with Tamils met with similarly violent Sinhalese responses elsewhere. Bandaranaike fell to an assassin’s bullet in 1959, one ironically fired by a disgruntled Buddhist priest.58 His demise did little to pacify the country. The fallen president’s wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, assumed power and committed herself to her husband’s destructive legacy by continuing support for divisive policies. State- sponsored violence increased sharply during her administrations, the first from 1960–1965 and a second during the period 1970–1972. The antipathy spawned by the Bandaranaikes transformed the nation. Once described as “two languages . . . one country,” Sri Lankan, one member of parliament commiserated, had become a land of “one language . . . two countries.”59 The five- year hiatus between Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s two terms could have been a period of healing. Her opponent Prime Minister Dudley Sen- anayake’s campaign promise to liberalize use of the Tamil language proved too lucrative a weapon for Bandaranaike to forego. She fought any softening of the Official Language Act – that assigning Sinhalese status as the country’s only official tongue – and personally led demonstrations during her absence from office.60 Senanayake’s party struggled to maintain support, losing three by-elections in his five years of rule and the 1970 presidential election, despite his backtracking on support for more tolerant policies. Bandaranaike’s return further deepened ethnic divides. Chechnya and Sri Lanka 31 Adoption of a new constitution on the final day of her second term reinforced in- place language restrictions, strengthened Buddhism as the state religion, and formally changed the name of the country from Ceylon to “Sri Lanka,” a name with ancient Sinhalese roots.61

Rise of the Tamil insurgency The LTTE emerged as a significant insurgent threat only in late 1983 despite this history of divisive politics. The turning point was a carefully planned ambush led by Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. On July 23, he led a party that detonated an explosive device targeting a passing army patrol not far from Jaffna University in northern Sri Lanka. A deluge of small arms fire followed. 13 of 15 soldiers fell dead, men who had reported for duty in Jaffna only the day before. The army’s retribution was swift, violent, and no less deadly. Ceylon Light Infantry soldiers from a nearby barracks rampaged through the city, killing 39 Tamil civilians guilty of nothing more than suffering fate’s curse of putting them along the infuriated men’s path. Acts of violence exploded throughout the country. Sinhalese gangs hurled Molotov cocktails into Tamil homes and shops, hanging or otherwise slaughtering innocents. The total killed during the week following the original ambush approached 1,000, the majority of them Tamils who had long lived side- by-side in peace with Sin- halese neighbors. The violence displaced 60,000 in little more than a week, a number that eventually swelled to 100,000. Many fled the country for India. Tamil pleading for police or military protection only added to the number of the atrocities’ spectators.62 Prabhakaran could not have orchestrated a response better designed to enrage members of the Tamil population. The officially sanctioned killings launched his movement from obscurity to centerpiece of Tamil politics. The man whose ambush sparked the devastation was a rigid authorit- arian whose rise to prominence left a trail of brutal murders and other violence in the service of eliminating any who sought to compete with his ascendance. Stocky of body and with a fleshy, boyish face, Prabhakaran seemed not made of the stuff that would propel him to status as one of the world’s cleverest – and cruelest – insurgent leaders. He avidly read Phantom comic books, thought himself cut from the same cloth as Clint Eastwood’s film characters, and deliberately modeled his actions on those of Subash Chandra Bose, the failed nationalist who formed the Indian National Army and fought alongside the Japanese against British forces during World War II.63 But studies of Napoleon complemented his lighter reading and Prabhakaran would prove himself an able tactician, strategist, and motivator despite the odd personal chemistry. India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ensured Prabhakaran’s successful rise with her 1983 decision to actively support his movement. Sri Lanka’s northern neighbor trained 20,000 Tamil insurgents in Indian training 32 Chechnya and Sri Lanka camps. Financial support and weapons complemented this readying of LTTE warriors. Only some four years later, in mid- 1987, would concerns arise in New Delhi that support of Tamil separatism might spur similar motives amongst India’s own considerable Tamil population. Sinhalese politicians in Colombo continued their divisive policies in the interim. Nearly 40,000 settlers received official land allocations in 1985, 96 percent of them Sinhalese. Only 364 – less than 1 percent – were Tamil. Sri Lankan soldiers conducted counterinsurgent operations in the country’s north as LTTE guerrilla attacks continued. Soldiers brutally murdered civilians, actions that included Sinhalese military leaders ordering Tamil noncombatants to seek shelter in public buildings and then targeting the structures with artillery.64 India threatened retaliation as the army’s operations approached the de facto LTTE capital of Jaffna. A free fall in bi- national relations came to an end only with the signing of the Indo- Lankan Accord in July 1987. Rajiv Gandhi, having replaced his mother as prime minister in 1984, dispatched Indian Army units to assist in implementing a ceasefire between the island nation’s government and the LTTE.65 Bandaranaike, once again out of power, renewed her politics of hatred, condemning the decision to negotiate with the insurgents and that permitting admission of foreign forces onto Sri Lankan soil. Sinhalese rioting erupted in Colombo. Bandaranaike’s United Front political coalition reasserted itself, employing nationalist and anti- Tamil rhetoric to justify assassinations of government officials from other parties.66 The Tamil Tigers reneged on the ceasefire agreement three months after signing. LTTE militants renewed their attacks on Sinhalese, spurring Indian condemnation of Tiger atrocities and orders for the country’s peacekeepers to rein in insurgent attacks. LTTE resistance proved far stiffer than expected. Over 200 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Renewed violence also arose in the south as JVP resistance to the government reasserted itself. The resurgence was ill timed. Sri Lankan security forces left fighting in the north to Indian forces, turning their attentions to the JVP uprising. It would take until early 1990 and the death of an estimated 10,000 killed before they would suppress southern resistance. Colombo had, in the meantime, seen another change in government. India was asked to recall its forces. The last of the peacekeeping force withdrew by the end of March the same year. The final decade of the century would bring no reduction in Sri Lankan suffering. LTTE suicide bombers killed both former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lanka’s President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. Both the government in Colombo and Tamil insurgents saw battlefield fortunes rise and fall during the period. Prabhakaran’s control of the country’s Tamil population inexorably tightened. His Tigers expanded their ranks by promising recruits preferential hiring once the insurgents won independence.67 Tamil support was nonetheless by no means universal, but any who resisted did so at mortal risk. Prabhakaran tempered Chechnya and Sri Lanka 33 his use of violence with an understanding of its potential to alienate, however.68 While bright university students might be compelled to support the cause by designing more effective suicide vests, the movement declared their obligation to the insurgency fulfilled once they completed the assigned task. The violence of the 20th century’s final ten years dissipated only when the two sides negotiated another ceasefire, this lasting from 2001 to 2006.69

Preparing for the final campaign President Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed office at the head of a new administration in 2005, a rise to power built on bellicose promises to destroy the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The ceasefire he inherited had not been without significant events, violent and otherwise, to include Tiger representatives walking out on peace talks and murders of Tamil dissidents (primarily by Tigers). One of the most notable was the 2004 defection of the LTTE’s military commander in the east, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (known as “Colonel Karuna”), whose departure in exchange for amnesty deprived Prabhakaran of several hundred military personnel and provided Sri Lankan leaders with a valuable intelligence source. Karuna’s formation of a Tamil political party to challenge the LTTE further damaged the Tiger’s standing by providing a nonviolent alternative for Tamils exhausted by years of conflict.70 Rajapaksa directed preparation of the Sri Lankan military for a final campaign against the Tamil Tigers. Enhancement required consistent funding, however, something that had proved elusive in dealings with the European Union, Japan, United States and Canada, the latter countries that balked at Colombo’s heavy- handed practices in dealing with insurgent threats. Annual injections of US$1 billion in Chinese funds beginning in 2005 relieved Rajapaksa of both financial concerns and those related to United Nations sanctions thanks to China’s support in the Security Council.71 An April 2007, US$37.6 million Chinese arms deal brought the armed forces additional artillery, armored personnel carriers, light weapons, ammunition, and other equipment.72 Poor training, ineffective leadership, and large- scale conventional offensives had previously combined to ensure security forces rarely achieved more than limited progress. That changed with the 2002 introduction of special infantry operations teams (SIOT) by the army’s head, General Fonseka.73 Some 6,000 soldiers had completed a one- month commando endurance course by late 2006. Graduates underwent another 18 weeks of instruction covering jungle operations, communications, medical skills, calls for fire support, and explosives expertise. They thereafter were assigned to eight- man teams, each of the army’s regular maneuver companies receiving six such units to serve as reconnaissance units and trainers responsible for improving fellow soldiers’ basic infantry skills. Entire 34 Chechnya and Sri Lanka companies received SIOT training in exceptional cases. The influence was dramatic. Morale improved throughout the ground forces as soldiers came to believe they could at last defeat a foe that had long held the combat initiative.74 The Vanni campaign (named after a region in northern Sri Lanka) began in March 2007. Sri Lankan offensives consistently overran LTTE positions during the following two years despite frequently stiff resistance. The intensity of combat peaked in early 2009 with both Tiger and Tamil civilians suffering its consequences. United Nations estimates placed the number of noncombatants killed at 7,000 between January and the close of fighting in May of that year.75 There were widespread allegations that the military intentionally engaged civilians, medical facilities, and humanitarian operations with artillery; fired on noncombatants with small arms as they attempted to flee; and otherwise used coercion to prevent innocents from departing combat zones.76 Nor were Tamils the only noncombatants reportedly targeted. Independent sources reported

physical attacks and death threats against journalists, abductions, forced disappearances and illegal detentions, violent attacks on political opponents of the government, violation of the privileges and immunities of the UN and harassment of international NGO staff, [and] routine police abuse throughout the country.77

The coup de grace in May 2009 came with elimination of the last Tamil Tiger holdouts. The dead included Prabhakaran, reportedly killed while trying to escape through Sri Lankan lines in an ambulance. Indian Defense Review author V.K. Shashikumar attributed counterinsurgent victory to what he called the “Rajapaksa model” and eight derivative principles:

1 Political will 2 Go to hell (i.e., ignore domestic and international criticism) 3 No negotiations 4 Regulate the media 5 No ceasefires 6 Complete operational freedom for military leaders 7 Accent on young commanders 8 Keep Sri Lanka’s neighbors in the loop78

Most of the eight are self- explanatory. Several are mutually reinforcing. All facilitated security forces employing virtually unrestrained force. The “Go to hell,” “No negotiations,” “No ceasefires,” and “Complete operational freedom” for commanders in the field necessitated unwavering “Political will” in Colombo. “Keep Sri Lanka’s neighbors in the loop” reflected efforts to avoid tensions with New Delhi such as those confronted Chechnya and Sri Lanka 35 during previous operations in Tamil areas. “Accent on young commanders” was an essential given the decentralized nature of General Fonseka’s SIOT tactics. The Rajapaksa model is reminiscent of Russia’s approach during the second Chechnya campaign, as is the ultimate result. The destruction of insurgent combatants took precedence over the safety of noncombatants, dictates of international law, and concerns regarding local popular support or world opinion. Nor did concerns assert themselves in the aftermath of hostilities. Little was done to provide for refugees released after months of detention in military- administered camps. Tamil insurgent graveyards were bulldozed as officials erected memorials to Sinhalese fallen.79 Substantive political reform to address causes underlying Tamil disgruntlement was notable only in its absence. Far from reducing the armed forces following the LTTE’s defeat, government leadership announced increases in manpower of 100,000 to 300,000 personnel.80

Summary of Sri Lankan counterinsurgency operations Two years since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lanka is further from reconciliation than ever. Trium- phalist in its successful “war on terror,” the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has refused to acknowledge, let alone address, the Tamil minority’s legitimate grievances against the state.81

As Sri Lanka has developed into a middle- income country, with high rates of literacy and leading health indices, its authoritarianism has actually deepened.82

The United Nations estimates between 80,000 and 100,000 individuals died in the period spanning Prabhakaran’s 1983 ambush and the end of major combat operations in 2009, sums that include an estimated 12,000 and 32,000 noncombatants. The passage of years will tell whether the brutality employed in first crushing JVP and later LTTE resistance brings about a lasting solution or simply marks a pause between uprisings. There are those in the Tamil diaspora who nurse support for an independent state.83 Latent Tamil antagonisms could find future company in a Sri Lankan Muslim community increasingly drawn to fundamentalist teachings. Wahhabist influence thus far remains limited largely to the Tawhid sect, a minority within the minority that is the country’s Muslim population, but, with an estimated 200 mosques nationwide, the sect is nonetheless creating another source of potential fissures in the national social fabric.84 New Muslim coals shimmer as Tamil cinders smolder. 36 Chechnya and Sri Lanka Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and revised beliefs Three of the nine revised beliefs merit mention in light of the above pair of case studies. That neither the Russians nor Sri Lankan government considered the population in the areas held by insurgents a center of gravity is readily apparent. Both cases also support a conclusion that COIN is not dead (as will all of the eight case studies; they would not merit consideration in these pages otherwise). Perhaps, however, this support for counterinsurgency’s continued relevance deserves an asterisk here. The form COIN assumes in these two instances is not one typically of interest to liberal democratic governments. That configuration is nonetheless worth further consideration. As for the third revised belief, “military force can defeat an insurgency,” delving into the implications behind that observation in the cases of Chechnya and Sri Lanka will occupy the remainder of this chapter.

Military force as the solution The Sri Lankan government’s refusal to negotiate seriously with Tamil leaders or otherwise address legitimate Tamil and Muslim grievances is increasing ethnic tensions and damaging prospects for lasting peace. The administration . . . has refused to honour agreements with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), broken promises to world leaders and not implemented constitutional provisions for minimal devolution of power to Tamil- speaking areas of the north and east. Militarisation and discriminatory economic development in Tamil and Muslim areas are breeding anger and increasing pressure on moderate Tamil leaders.85

Luck smiles on the prepared no less than fortune favors the bold. Insur- gents in both Russia and Sri Lanka committed fundamental mistakes that bestowed significant advantages on their enemies. Chechen complacency after their stunning first campaign successes meant they did little to ready for the inevitable rematch. Sri Lankan insurgent leaders made no less grievous misjudgments. JVP insurgents lacked a coherent strategy to meld their assassinations, bombings, and other tactical actions into an effective campaign. LTTE mistakes, in contrast, lay with its strategy. Needless estrangement of its once ally India deprived the movement of vital support, safe havens, and international sympathy, first through attacks on India’s peacekeeping force, later with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. So glaring was the latter misstep that Indian protestations were all but absent during the slaughter of Tamil noncombatants some two decades later. Prab hakaran proved himself an able tactician and extraordinary motivator, but Colombo greatly benefited from his similarly striking incompetence as diplomat and strategist. Mistakes played a role in the demise of both Chechen and Tamil insurgencies, but they were mistakes that would have gone unpunished had the Chechnya and Sri Lanka 37 adversaries confronting them not been prepared to pick the proffered fruit. Both cases reinforce the necessity of adequately preparing military forces if they are to persevere against an able insurgent no less than if the adversary was a conventional one. Sophisticated equipment and an advantage in numbers alone cannot compensate for lack of competent leaders and adequate training. Both Russian and Sri Lankan soldiers ultimately achieved tactical success only after redressing previous shortcomings. Primary reliance on military force can defeat an insurgent force. It can also prove sufficient for suppressing the overt expression of grievances underlying an insurgency. The soles of Roman sandals thrust the seeds of insurgency deep into Judean soil. It would take the better part of a century before resistance once again sprouted. The first-century ad violent reprisals purchased the empire valuable time during which the region continued to serve its function as a buffer against eastern threats. Whether Russian and Sri Lankan reliance on brute force provides similar respite remains an open question. The option of relying on pervasive and largely indiscriminate force to overcome an insurgency is one all but unavailable to the United States and many of the nations it considers partners or allies. This does not rule out the use of unrestrained might in the virtual absence of noncombatants or presence of exceptional circumstances. Many factors dictate whether counterinsurgency operations are closer kin to war than peace. The immediate objective is elimination of the insurgent. Popular support during an insurgency is in the short term a means to that end rather than an end in itself. All the better if its cultivation also serves the longer- term goal of countering insurgency’s reemergence. Chechnya and Sri Lanka provide strong evidence that reliance on military force is viable much as it was when Rome occupied Judea two millennia ago. Neither the Russians nor the authorities in Colombo troubled themselves with “winning hearts and minds” among the insurgent- sympathetic population.86 This casts doubt not only on the belief that primary reliance on military force cannot defeat an insurgency but also on the oft- accepted adage that a civilian population is a counterinsurgent’s as well as insurgents’ center of gravity. The above summary of events suggests that the Tamil Tiger military force laid stronger claim to that status for Colombo. A convincing argument might also be made for Velupillai Prab- hakaran meriting that standing given the impact of his death on Tiger resistance.87 The Chechen example similarly implies that the insurgents’ capacity to continue resisting was the strategic center of gravity in the Caucasus. It is worth noting that what a counterinsurgent identifies as the center of gravity at the strategic level will influence the tactical approach adopted. Conclud- ing that key components of an insurgent force are the center of gravity suggests the feasibility of employing overwhelming force with little regard for civilian casualties; identification of the civilian population – or some part 38 Chechnya and Sri Lanka thereof – as instead meriting the role implies a need to demonstrate greater concern for collateral casualties. Time may also play a role; centers of gravity can change over time in addition to their differing at different levels of war. Liberal democracies’ choice to restrain the use of force may preclude the quick destruction of insurgent forces. Counterinsurgents are then left looking for alternative and likely lengthier approaches that might include seeking to weaken popular support for those waging an insurgency as an indirect way of removing them from the battlefield. Russian rulers rightly recognized their critical support base was that of the citizenry at home. Sri Lanka’s government had little reason to fear Sin- halese loss of support as its military devastated Tamil noncombatant and Tiger alike after decades of hatred cultivated by politicians. Exposure to international sanctions was a more troubling prospect. There it was the cultivation of Chinese backing and mollifying Indian concerns that granted Sri Lanka’s authorities the carte blanche needed to annihilate the LTTE. Russia carefully targeted its international audience as well, adroitly capitalizing on the September 11, 2001 attacks by portraying Chechen resistance as terrorism. Any declarations of counterinsurgent victory in Russia and Sri Lanka are premature. Public unrest occasionally flares as Tamils continue to suffer government neglect.88 Chechen terrorism periodically rears its head in homeland Russia. Whether such events constitute an acceptable level of violence that never attain more than nuisance status or instead represent sparks that may eventually find tinder in one government atrocity too many remains to be seen. Even powerful Rome banned the display of the emperor’s visage to mollify local sensitivities. Russia and Sri Lanka seem unwilling to take similarly minor steps toward securing lasting peace.

Notes 1 David H. Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldier- ing in Iraq,” Military Review (January–February 2006), available at: www.army. mil/professionalWriting/volumes/volume4/april_2006/4_06_2.html (accessed February 19, 2013). 2 Lieutenant Colonel (U.S. Army) Michael Troster as quoted in Owen West, The Snake Eaters: An Unlikely Band of Brothers and the Battle for the Soul of Iraq, New York: Free Press, 2012, p. 118. 3 Caleb Carr, The Lessons of Terror, New York: Random House, 2002, p. 31. 4 Tal Tovy, “ ‘They Make a Solitude and Call it Peace’: Counterinsurgency – The Roman Model,” Small Wars Journal (December 10, 2012), available at: http:// smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/they- make-a- solitude-and- call-it- peace-counter insurgency- the-roman- model (accessed December 11, 2012). 5 Theodor Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996, p. 189. 6 Josephus, The Jewish War, London: Penguin, 1959, pp. 143–144. 7 Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009, p. 118. Chechnya and Sri Lanka 39 8 Eric H. Cline, Jerusalem Besieged, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004, p. 118. 9 Josephus, Jewish War, pp. 199 and 213. 10 Gwyn Morgan. 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 176. 11 Josephus, Jewish War, p. 334. 12 Cline, Jerusalem Besieged, p. 130. 13 What limited effect a more broadly regional Jewish uprising circa ad 117 might have had in Judea was less a consequence of conditions there than sympathy for Jews fighting elsewhere. See, for example, Martin Goodman, Rome & Jerusa- lem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, London: Allen Lane, 2007, p. 480. 14 Cline, Jerusalem Besieged, p. 134. 15 Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, New York: Time, 1963, p. 114. 16 Carlotta Gall and Thomas De Wall, Chechnya: A Small Victorious War, London: Pan, 1997, p. 50. 17 Timothy Thomas recorded that approximately 40 percent of the aircraft had been combat ready at the time of the Russian air attacks. Timothy L. Thomas, “Air Operations in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya,” Airpower Journal 11 (Winter 1997), available at: www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/ apj/apj97/win97/thomas.html (accessed February 18, 2013). 18 This brief summary of what is commonly referred to as the First Chechen War – and less often but more accurately the First Chechen Campaign – draws on the following references: “First Chechnya War – 1994–1996,” Glo- balSecurity.org, undated, available at: www.globalsecurity.org/military/ world/war/chechnya1.htm (accessed June 19, 2010); Olga Oliker, Russia’s Chechen Wars, 1994–2000: Lessons from Urban Combat, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001; David P. Dilegge and Matthew Van Konynenburg, “View from the Wolves’ Den: The Chechens and Urban Operations,” in Non- State Threats and Future Wars, (ed.) Robert J. Bunker, Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003; C. W. Blandy, “Chechnya: Two Federal Interventions – An Interim Comparison and Assessment,” Conflict Studies Research Centre, January 2000; and Timothy L. Thomas, “Air Operations in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya,” Airpower Journal 11 (Winter 1997): 51–59, available at: www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/thomas.html (accessed February 18, 2013). 19 Michael Orr, “Better Or Just Not So Bad? An Evaluation of Russian Combat Effectiveness in the Second Chechen War,” Strategic & Combat Studies Insti- tute Occasional 40, September 2000, available at: www.da.mod.uk/colleges/ arag/document- listings/caucasus/p31/P31.ch7/ (accessed June 30, 2010), 92–93. Other sources drawn on for insights regarding Russian inter-campaign adjustments are Lester W. Grau, “Technology and the Second Chechen Cam- paign: Not all New and Not That Much,” in The Second Chechen War, (ed.) Anne Aldis, The Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional No. 40, Septem- ber 2000; S. J. Main, “North Caucasus Military District: Defending Russia’s Interests in the Caucasus,” in The Second Chechen War, (ed.) Anne Aldis, The Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occassional No. 40, September 2000; Timothy L. Thomas, “Grozny’s January Battles: 1994–1995 and 1999–2000,” presentation given at the Institute for Land Warfare Studies Institute “Fighting in Urban Terrain” conference, Latrun, Israel, October 6, 2010. 20 Thermobaric munitions destroy targets by first releasing a cloud of flammable gas that is then ignited to create devastating overpressure. 21 C. W. Blandy, “Moscow’s Failure to Comprehend,” Strategic & Combat Studies Institute, September 2000, available at: https://da.mod.uk/colleges/arag/ document- listings/caucasus/p31/P31.ch3/ (accessed June 20, 2010). 40 Chechnya and Sri Lanka 22 C. W. Blandy, “Chechnya: Dynamics of War Brutality & Stress,” Conflict Studies Research Centre, July 2001, 3. 23 C. W. Blandy, “Moscow’s Failure to Comprehend,” Strategic & Combat Studies Institute, September 2000, available at: https://da.mod.uk/colleges/arag/ document- listings/caucasus/p31/P31.ch3/ (accessed June 20, 2010); Maegen Nix and Shana Marshall, “Chechen Revolution: 1991–2002,” in Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare, Volume II: 1962–2008, (ed.) Chuck Cross- ett, United Sates Army Special Operations Command and The Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory, April 27, 2012, p. 501. 24 Scott E. McIntosh, “Thumping the Hive: Russian Neocortical Warfare in Chech- nya,” Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School thesis, September 2004, pp. 46–47. 25 These assaults on Russian public support were possibly less the product of Chechen leadership’s calculated policy than a byproduct of anarchy’s creeping onset. Elected in January 1997, the republic’s President Aslan Maskhadov found it impossible to maintain order. Groups – insurgent, criminal, and otherwise – operated with few restraints. 26 Oliker, Russia’s Chechen Wars, pp. 38–39. 27 M. A. Smith, “The Second Chechen War: The All-Russian Context,” in The Second Chechen War, (ed.) Anne Aldis, The Strategic and Combat Studies Insti- tute Occasional No. 40, September 2000, pp. 6–10. 28 Some attribute Yeltsin’s departure to poor health. Presidential elections were held on March 26, the move forward being required under the Russian constitution given his resignation. Smith, “Second Chechen War,” pp. 6–10. 29 Timothy L. Thomas, “A Tale of Two Theaters: Russian Actions in Chechnya in 1994 and 1999,” Analysis of Current Events 12 (September 2000), available at: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/chechtale.htm (accessed June 20, 2010); Timothy L. Thomas, “Grozny 2000: Urban Combat Lessons Learned,” Military Review (July–August 2000), available at: http://fmso.leavenworth.army. mil/documents/grozny2000/grozny2000.htm (accessed February 13, 2013). 30 Oliker, Russia’s Chechen Wars, 22; Timothy L. Thomas, “Russian Tactical Lessons Learned Fighting Chechen Separatists,” in Russian Military Reform: 1992–2002, (eds.) Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. McDermott, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2005. 31 Nix and Marshall, “Chechen Revolution,” p. 515. 32 Thomas, “Tale of Two Theaters.” 33 C. W. Blandy, “Chechnya: Federal Retribution ‘Encirclement, Forceful Inter- vention & Isolation’,” Conflict Studies Research Centre, March 2001, 117. 34 Blandy, “Federal Retribution,” 37. 35 McIntosh, “Thumping,” 61–62. 36 Blandy, “Federal Retribution,” 96. 37 Blandy, “Dynamics,” Chapter 6. 38 Blandy, “Federal Retribution,” 94. 39 Ibid., 121. 40 Timothy L. Thomas, “Grozny 2000: Urban Combat Lessons Learned,” Military Review (July–August 2000), available at: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/ documents/grozny2000/grozny2000.htm (accessed February 13, 2013). 41 Timothy L. Thomas, “Grozny 2000.” 42 “Islamists in Russia: Chechnya and Dagestan,” The Economist 407 (April 27, 2013): 51. 43 “From Moscow to Mecca,” The Economist 399 (April 9, 2011): 27–29. 44 Blandy, “Federal Interventions,” 48. 45 V. K. Shashikumar, as quoted in and commented on in “ ‘The Sri Lanka option’ Friends like these,” The Economist 395 (May 22, 2010): 47. Chechnya and Sri Lanka 41 46 Sri Lanka: a country study, (eds.) Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Department of the Army area handbook series, Washington, DC: Head- quarters, Department of the Army, October 1988, pp. xxv– xxxvii. The remainder of this historical background draws from this resource unless otherwise noted. 47 Sri Lanka: a country study, (eds.) Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Department of the Army area handbook series, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, October 1988, pp. 245–247. 48 Ibid., 3. 49 Ibid., xxv–xxxvii; C. Christine Fair, Urban Battle Fields of South Asia: Lessons Learned from Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004, footnotes spanning pp. 16–17. 50 Sri Lanka: a country study, pp. 227–229. 51 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, pp. 30–31. The estimate of annual income lies toward the middle of widely varying estimates. Other sources put the annual income of the LTTE much higher, e.g., US$200–300M. See K. Alan Kronstadt and Bruce Vaughn, “Sri Lanka: Background and U.S. Relations,” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 4, 2009, 9; Ashok Mehta, “Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict: How Eelam War IV was Won,” Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi, 2010, 17. 52 Gordon Weiss, The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka & the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, London: The Bodley Head, 2011, p. 89. 53 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, p. 34. 54 Jane’s World Insurgency and Terrorism, 15 (2000) as cited in Fair, Urban Battle Fields, p. 28. 55 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, pp. 28–29. 56 Ibid., 40; “Taming the Tamil Tigers,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Headline Archives, January 10, 2008, available at: www.fbi.gov/page2/jan08/tamil_ tigers011008.html (accessed March 11, 2011). 57 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, p. 24. 58 Sri Lanka: a country study, xxv–xxxvii; John Richardson, Paradise Poisoned: Learn- ing about Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars, Kandy, Sri Lanka: International Center for Ethnic Studies, 2007, pp. 160–169. 59 Richardson, Paradise Poisoned, pp. 204–213. 60 Ibid., pp. 272–273. 61 Ibid., pp. 272–273 and 289–294. 62 Ibid., pp. 524–525 and 585. 63 Ibid., pp. 351–355. 64 Ibid., pp. 546–48. 65 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, p. 35; Sri Lanka: a country study, pp. xxv–xxxvii. 66 Richardson, Paradise Poisoned, pp. 34–37. 67 Fair, Urban Battle Fields, pp. 62 and 67. 68 Ibid., pp. 30–31 and 67. 69 Neil A. Smith, “Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers,” Joint Forces Quarterly (4th Quarter, 2010): 43. 70 Weiss, The Cage, pp. 90–91; Smith, “Understanding,” 43. 71 Smith, “Understanding,” 43. 72 Weiss, The Cage, p. 202. 73 The creation and use of small maneuver teams was suggested as a means of improving the Sri Lankan military’s tactical effectiveness by one of its officers (Raj Vijayasiri) in his 1999 Master’s thesis written during attendance at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Thesis details regarding such teams’ possible employment were limited, however, and I could find no evidence that Vijayasiri influenced the development of SIOT: 42 Chechnya and Sri Lanka The most effective way to reduce the combat strength of the LTTE is to maximize the contacts with them in combat. To achieve this, the military has to undertake a radical change in the way they conduct their operations at present. The military must get out of the defensive complex system and adopt an offensive and more mobile kind of warfare. The soldiers must be trained to operate in small groups which give them many advantages, such as: ease of achieving surprise, ease of command and control, better chances making contact with the enemy, and offers more flexibility. In situations where the LTTE uses a large strength to attack a military patrol or camp, there should be mobile reserves lifted by helicopters to the area to inflict maximum casualties on the insurgents. Raj Vijayasiri, “A Critical Analysis of the Sri Lankan Government Counterinsur- gency Campaign,” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College thesis, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 1999, 72. 74 Sergei DeSilva- Ranasinghe, “Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military’s Counter- Insurgency Operations,” February 12, 2010, available at: http://konnapubandara.blogspot.com/2010/05/strategic- analysis-of- sri-lankan.html (accessed January 7, 2011); a British study whose author requested anonymity. 75 Ajit Kumar Singh, “Sri Lanka: Approximating Normalcy,” South Asia Intelli- gence Review Weekly Assessments & Briefings 8 (November 30, 2009), available at: www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/sair8/8_21.htm (accessed March 11, 2011). 76 “War Crimes in Sri Lanka,” International Crisis Group, May 17, 2010, www. crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/southasia/sri- lanka/191-war- crimes-in- sri- lanka.aspx (accessed June 14, 2010). 77 “Sri Lanka: A Bitter Peace,” International Crisis Group Update Briefing, January 11, 2010, 18–19. 78 Smith, “Understanding,” 40. 79 “Harder lines: Sri Lanka’s Tamils,” The Economist 408 (September 18, 2013): 29. 80 “Sri Lanka after the war: Victory’s rotten fruits,” The Economist (June 11, 2009), www.economist.com/node/13829429 (accessed July 4, 2010). 81 “Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Harder Than Ever,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 209, July 18, 2011, i. 82 Weiss, The Cage, p. xxii. 83 “Sri Lanka: After the War,” International Crisis Group, February 17, 2010, available at: www.crisisgroup.org/en/key- issues/sri- lanka-after- the-war.aspx (accessed June 14, 2010). 84 Ranga Jayasuriya, “Encroaching Wahabism among Sri Lanka’s Muslims,” in Asian Conflict Reports, Council for Asian Transnational Threat ,Research (July– August 2010), available at: www.bipss.org.bd/images/ACR%20July-August.pdf (accessed September 7, 2010). 85 “Sri Lanka: Tamil Politics and the Quest for a Political Solution,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 239, November 20, 2012, i. 86 The term “hearts and minds” has come to be associated with General Sir Gerald Templer, to whom a number of authors and others attribute the phrase regarding efforts to persuade a population (or portions thereof ) to support a counterinsurgency. Max Boot instead cites British General Henry Clinton who, in discussing the challenges inherent in dealing with North American colonists south of Canada, wrote “of the need ‘to gain the hearts and subdue the minds of America.’ ” Henry Clinton, The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 21775–1782, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954 as cited in Max Boot, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, New York: W.W. Norton, 2013, p. 70. Boot later goes Chechnya and Sri Lanka 43 on to also cite John Adams’ use of a similar term in 1818: “The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people” (p. 384). 87 U.S. joint doctrine defines a decisive point as “a geographic place, specific key event, critical factor, or function that, when acted upon, allows commanders to gain a marked advantage over an adversary or contribute materially to achieving success.” Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, as amended through November 15, 2012, 81. An alternative interpretation, one favored by the author, sees decisive points as elements whose defeat or elimination leads to the neutralization of a center of gravity. A physical metaphor depicts a center of gravity as a wall and one or more decisive points as buttress(es) supporting the wall. Removal of the buttress(es) causes the wall to collapse. 88 “Shuttered: Sri Lanka’s universities,” The Economist 404 (September 1, 2012): 43. Whether the government replacing that of Mahinda Rajapaksa in the aftermath of January 2015 elections will be able to successfully cultivate sufficient Tamil support to put latent insurgent tendencies to rest is an unknown at the time of writing. 3 Twice successful, still challenged Insurgency in twenty- first-century Southern Philippines

We are not in charge here. We are in support.1

While violence was the tool of choice for the Russians in Chechnya and the government in Colombo, for the Philippine government it was an about- face after too liberal a use of force that marked a striking turn- around in counterinsurgent fortunes. Participation by an external power further distinguishes this campaign from those of the previous chapter. Neither Russia nor Sri Lanka sought or received outside assistance of lasting consequence to their subduing Chechen or Tamil insurgencies (the efforts of the Indian peacekeeping force in northern Sri Lanka notwithstanding). Understanding how the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) adapted to a lesser reliance on force provides reason enough for investigating its recent COIN activities. That and other elements behind its considerable progress also support five of our revised beliefs:

• COIN is not dead. • Democracy is not an inherent good. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way. • Treat militias like a hot stove. • Build more social and less physical infrastructure.

Backdrop The government also built roads; established schools and public markets; provided inoculations; and cleaned up cities and towns. Army officers who held civil positions in the provincial government were responsible for carrying out such improvement projects. Some used diplomacy to gain the Moros’ trust. By familiarizing themselves with Moro customs and beliefs, consistently treating the Moros with respect, and emphasizing that the military government would preserve Southern Philippines 45 their right to practice Islam, they convinced many local leaders to accept U.S. authority.2

The U.S. has never sought primacy in running the current campaign in the south of the Philippines, a condition that distinguishes it from Euro- pean powers in their post-World War II colonies and the U.S. in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or those same Americans when they dealt with earlier Philippine insurgency challenges in the early twentieth century. Colonel Maxwell, quoted at the opening of this chapter, went on to say that the most recent U.S. presence has been “a model of how to aid an ally” rather than an example of a foreign power at the counterinsurgent helm.3 Sticklers for terminology might argue that current American involvement constitutes “foreign internal defense” while the Philippine state conducts counterinsurgency, the former defined in U.S. military doctrine as “participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to its security.”4 It is a valid but too finely honed argument for our purposes, one overly refined forthe insurgent or noncombatant who sees Americans side- by-side with members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.5 It is more constructive to consider foreign internal defense as one of the many strands forming the security line of the operation braid. The U.S. soldier standing shoulder- to- shoulder with his Philippine counterpart is no less a counterinsurgent than an advisor to a local police force or the Filipino politician working to bring security to his constituents. It is the cocktail of military might, political support, effective justice system, aid from partner nations and civilian organizations, and other capabilities that together comprise effective operations in those instances where counterinsurgents cast aside brute force as their primary strategy. This comprehensive approach to mixing all campaign ingredients in harmony is particularly essential when terrorism, criminality, sectarian violence, political strife, corruption, and inadequate social systems are insurgency’s fellow travelers.6 Whether the label for an outsider is counterinsurgent or another, however, it is ultimately Filipinos who will dictate whether their campaign succeeds or fails in their country’s south.7 That campaign has a predecessor over a century distant in time. The Southern Philippine Islamic population, or Moros, was left largely alone during the 1899–1902 period generally cited as the years encompassing America’s Philippine War. The U.S. initially focused on subduing foes in more northern reaches of the archipelago while the south was left under the control of the Sultan of Sulu and local chieftains or datus (a situation with which a number of American soldiers were uncomfortable; the arrangement permitted continued practices such as slavery, polygamy, feuding, and severe punishment for minor offenses).8 Only in 1903 did a 46 Southern Philippines significant American force under General Leonard Wood turn its attentions southward. Leonard Wood’s insistence on the abolition of slavery, a new legal code, and policies that undermined traditional local leader authority both exacerbated existing tensions and created others.9 Rumors spread that these new conquerors also intended to impose Christianity on the largely Muslim population. Leonard Wood was little concerned; winning popular support was not high on his agenda. The Americans set about dealing with the insurrection by destroying Moro villages, burning crops, and killing many of those living in the southern islands. The most notorious loss of civilian life came during the event that effectively put a halt to major resistance for the next several decades. American soldiers trapped resisting warriors and their families in the crater of a volcano in March, 1906. Over 600 Filipi- nos of all ages met their end in what came to be known as the Battle of Bud Dajo.10 Resistance flared again when General John Pershing sought to disarm the population five years later. But on that occasion Pershing balanced the use of force with a program of regional development and negotiations to reintroduce relative peace by 1913, a peace in part attributable to Pershing carrying through with his disarmament agenda.11 Colonial responsibilities also drove the second U.S. venture into Philip- pine counterinsurgency, on this occasion in the immediate aftermath of World War II when resistance to Manila’s rule came from the Hukbalahap (generally shortened to “Huk”) movement. Originating in the 1930s, the Huks purported to champion tenant farmers suffering repression by a Fili- pino elite that controlled vast expanses of land. Sympathy and support peaked in the early postwar years after Huk resistance had proved itself the most effective opposition to the hated Japanese occupiers. Huks, increasingly influenced by Communist motives, benefited further when the newly independent country’s first president, Manuel Roxas, encour- aged his military to use whatever force they thought necessary to crush the insurgency. It was the innocent who often suffered armed forces’ transgressions.12 Only with former anti- Japanese guerrilla Ramon Magsaysay’s appointment as Secretary of Defense did the fledgling military begin to meld operations successful both in disrupting Huk operations and not alienating rural Filipinos. The pace of progress accelerated after Magsay- say’s election as president. He acknowledged both insurgent and peasant grievances, developing a strategy based on actions along several of what would a half- century later reappear in Iraq as lines of operation. (Recall Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1.) Magsaysay directed that Filipino soldiers cease their theft of peasant food and end other transgressions aggravating a segment of the population already none too happy with the government thanks to its support of a wealthy elite. The president ordered units to carry extra rations when on patrol and share their food with the poor to compensate for guerrilla taxation. It was a double win as soldiers ceased stealing while casting the insurgents in the role of oppressor.13 Farmers supporting the government Southern Philippines 47 received grants of land and equipment. So too did surrendering insurgents. Magsaysay also addressed shortfalls within his government by purging corrupt officials (to include armed forces officers) while cultivating peasant farmer support.14 The insurgent refusing to surrender received no respite. Actions along the “eliminate the guerrilla” line of operation helped to bring about Huk leader Luis Taruc’s surrender in the spring of 1954. What remained of later Huk resistance devolved into little more than criminality. Magsaysay’s untimely death in a plane crash interrupted what could have been even more striking progress. Renewed tolerance of corruption by successor administrations breathed new life into what had been a withering shell of Communist resistance at the time of Magsaysay’s demise. These predecessor campaigns continue to influence the country’s twenty- first-century insurgent challenge. Filipinos suffer not one but several opposition movements. Rare, yet at times sensational, attacks are the signature of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military wing, the New People’s Army (NPA). Few in numbers but passion- ately committed to violence and with members on many islands, both draw on their Huk forebears for justification. Southern- based insurgent groups likewise look to the past for motivation, each purporting to have assumed the mantle of Moro resistance. It is these latter groups that receive primary attention here; they are the threats addressed by the Philippine–U.S. counterinsurgency partnership, one that has shown a striking ability to recover from early mistakes and work along lines of operations much like those introduced by President Magsaysay those several years ago.15 It is thus to those southern-based movements that the following pages turn after brief further consideration of the challenge posed by the CPP.

The CPP/NPA insurgency I had seen nothing during my tour to even remotely suggest that the South Vietnamese government could or would purge itself of the corruption that so hindered its cause and assisted the Communists. I knew all too well from conversations with countless Vietnamese that any attack against corruption would have to be initiated from Saigon. “The roof leaks from the top on down, Dai Uy [captain],” was the favorite Vietnamese aphorism my friends were fond of quoting each time we discussed the subject of corruption. . . . The Vietcong’s superior organization enabled them to home in on virtually every weakness of the Saigon government, and I often thought that the revolution should have given awards to corrupt government officials for service to the cause.16

The Philippines is waging three distinct counterinsurgency operations in Mindanao simultaneously: one against the Moro Muslim armies of 48 Southern Philippines the MILF and the MNLF which view the government as invaders and colonizers; a second against the quasi- jihadi and quasi- criminal Abu Sayyaf which views the government as infidels; and a third against the NPA, which views the government as imperialists and exploiters.17

Like its Huk forebear, the Philippine Communist movement of today condemns government failures to break the domination of the landowning elite and deliver adequate services to the rural poor. It has, however, built on its rural origins to make inroads with segments of the urban population. The CPP seeks to overthrow the government in Manila and replace it with one espousing Communist ideology.18 The movement reached the height of its influence in the mid-1980s. Its ensuing fall was a rapid one. The latter half of the decade saw the organization torn apart by disagreements regarding whether it should take part in protests and elections. Internecine fighting and Philippine armed forces operations in 1988 specifically targeting members proved a toxic mix. Internal purges of suspected government collaborators gutted the movement; most of those killed or otherwise punished were innocent. Neither the formally recognized and legal CPP political party nor its underground NPA has rebounded from these largely self- inflicted wounds.19

Southern insurgent movements

Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF ) Contrasting with the CPP and NPA that seek to replace the government in Manila, insurgencies in the south of the country limit their ambitions primarily to control of the regions historically occupied by Philippine Muslim communities.20 That Muslims no longer constitute a majority in the south complicates the conflicts confronted by Manila and its international partners.21 Many of the grievances are legitimate. The southern islands have historically received less government funding than most other parts of the country. Former government resettlement policies granting Christians land previously under Moro control are largely responsible for once Moro- dominated islands now having a Muslim population comprising no more than five million of the region’s roughly 17 million residents. The population in the south also experiences a disproportionate share of Philippine bloodshed. Criminality, clan feuding, vendettas (known as ridos), and political violence perpetrated by private militias account for most of the killed (though it is impossible to determine to what extent insurgent motives help fuel the above).22 The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF ) emerged from this complex mixture of neglect and pervasive regional hostility. Violence Southern Philippines 49 between Christians and Muslims and government efforts to disarm the latter population fed its rapid growth. Membership climbed to an estimated 15,000 within a year of the organization’s founding in 1972. A tradition of arms possession served as a casus belli and aided the MNLF during toe- to-toe fighting with the armed forces. Casualties were staggering during the years of Ferdinand Marcos’ rule. An estimated 50,000 had died at the hands of either insurgents or military by 1976. Most were noncombatants.23 Slaughter diminished from a boil to a simmer only after international pressure forced Manila to negotiate with the MNLF.24 Following years saw opposing sides confront each other in skirmishes on one front while negotiating on another. The latter proved more productive. Manila agreed to grant much of the region limited self- rule in 1989 under the auspices of an Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an area considerably less than the entirety of Mindanao but also incorporating several islands in the southernmost Philippines. Roughly 7,500 former MNLF combatants or their kin had joined the Philippine Armed Forces or police by 2010 under the terms of the agreement.25 Bene- ficial in the sense of taming unemployment, there were operational benefits to complement the social benefits. Past MNLF personnel proved invaluable thanks to their knowledge of local culture, terrain, and insurgent tactics in addition to their sharing a common religion with many amongst whom they worked.26 Benefits on the political front were less impressive. Performance of the ARMM disappointed. Its officials consistently failed to champion the causes of those they purportedly represented while demonstrating an extent of corruption exceptional even by Philippine standards.27 The ARMM’s failure does much to explain the rise in popularity of the MNLF ’s primary rival in the years after the ARMM’s creation: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF ) A 1981 response to Muslim Filipinos’ disillusionment with both the ARMM and Manila, the MILF sought complete independence for all living on Moro lands rather than the semi-autonomy agreed to by the MNLF. Early MILF tactics ranged from ambushes and bombings of Armed Forces of the Philippines targets to defense of fixed camps and training facilities. Increased AFP effectiveness forced greater reliance on avoiding force- on- force engagements and abandoning larger bases for smaller, more difficult to detect, and easily evacuated camps.28 Government combat success eventually forced MILF leadership to the negotiating table. The intractable objective of independence gave way to acceptance of lesser autonomy akin to that exercised by the ARMM via a 2012 framework agreement.29 Lingering ill will between the MNLF and MILF has proven a significant obstacle to regional stability.30 Fracturing of the MILF also threatens 50 Southern Philippines continued hostilities involving breakaway factions;31 several of the organization’s spin- offs notionally under command of the central leadership operate all but autonomously. Breakaway groups’ ties with the remaining pair of primary movements in the Philippine south – Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) – have the potential to prove especially troublesome.

Abu Sayyaf Group and Jamaal Islamiyah The most notorious of Southern Philippines’ insurgent groups, ASG and the much smaller JI maintain close ties, ASG providing refuge and logistics support for Jemaah Islamiyah members who in turn train Abu Sayyaf rank and file in bomb making and other nefarious skills. Many sources express little doubt that ASG and JI retain links to Al Qaeda, though views regarding the extent of the relationship vary.32 The origins of ASG are similar to those of the MILF. Abu Sayyaf ’s first leader, Abduragak Abubakar Janjalani, was critical of MNLF leadership’s willingness to compromise with Manila. Four years of religious education in Tripoli solidified his commitment and spurred the founding ofAbu Sayyaf Group as an Islamic jihadist and Moro movement with a professed goal of independence for the entirety of Mindanao island – Muslim and Christian communities alike.33 Any who failed to back ASG objectives were considered legitimate targets, a policy that trumped ASG concern for noncombatant cooperation or public support.34 This disregard for the welfare of civilians remains a constant despite Abu Sayyaf having in recent years cast aside all but a façade of legitimate religious or political motives in the interests of criminal enterprise. Kidnappings for ransom, charging of fees for journalists desiring interviews, use of bombings to intimidate any resisting its ends, and marijuana cultivation are among its tactics for raising funds.35 Links to Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda appear less motivated by a desire to support the formation of a worldwide caliphate than a yearning to derive monetary benefit or take advantage of terrorist technical expertise.36 Contrasting with ASG’s status as a criminal insurgency, JI is more aptly described as a terrorist group. The interdependent relationship with ASG casts its small numbers in the role of an Abu Sayyaf supporter, though one equally if not more dependent on the larger group for provision of safe havens and logistical support. Unlike Colombia’s FARC, considered in a later chapter, ASG and JI both appear to lack the capacity to establish a criminal sub- state or control significant segments of the population. Yet they remain an insurgent concern given their continued attacks against government representatives and provision of training for other groups, MILF factions among them. The potency of the two groups’ expertise was only too clear in Abu Sayyaf ’s bombing of a Philippine ferry in 2004 that resulted in 116 dead. Southern Philippines 51 Further thoughts on Philippine Muslim insurgencies The presence of up to four major organizations, splinter movements, and additional less prominent groups both in the south and elsewhere means Manila never has the leisure of committing resources against one insurgency at a time. Matters are made further difficult by its southern citizenry being amongst the most heavily armed in the world, a danger magnified by a tradition of private and semi- private militias often little influenced by government oversight.37 It is into this difficult environment that the United States Joint Special Operations Task Force- Philippines (JSOTF- P) arrived in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The underlying cause was purported ASG and JI links to international terrorism. The focus, however, was counterinsurgency.

The cooperative approach Intelligence, combat operations, and CMO [civil–military operations] are the triangle. Now when we move, it is [toward] a particular target based on specific intelligence, not like in the past. The emphasis is now on civil–military operations. When we gain the sympathy, we can extract information.38

“We changed the way we were perceived,” one Green Beret told me. “When we arrived in Basilan, Muslim kids made throat- slashing ges- tures at us. By the time we left they were our friends. That led them to question everything the guerrillas had told them about Americans.”39

It would be easy to view U.S. support of the AFP as counterinsurgency on the cheap. The JSOTF- P is economical on numbers. It consists of only some 300 members representing the U.S. armed services and select other government agencies aiding in the training of government officials or providing aid. Infrastructure projects are low budget and small- community oriented. But it is an organization flush with talent and influence. Many in the unit have previous counterinsurgency experience in other theaters. “Efficient” rather than “cheap” is a more appropriate descriptor. The task force’s primary interface with the AFP consists of U.S. Army Special Forces A Teams. These 12-man organizations consist of individuals possessing a broad range of skills ranging from the conduct of offensive operations to providing civilian medical care and conducting public affairs campaigns. In keeping with Special Forces practice, and at the request of the Philippine government, A team members live with and accompany their AFP counterparts during combat operations. Yet, notably, Philippine law prohibits the Americans from engaging an adversary other than in self- defense.40 52 Southern Philippines Communities on the island of Basilan were the first to benefit from the cooperative AFP- U.S. effort. Colonel David Fridovich led the first JSOTF- P into the country soon after the September 2001 attacks. The command included soldiers who had only the year before assisted the Philippine military in establishing a national military counterterrorism force, thereby providing his unit with personnel intimately familiar with both their host nation partners and the country’s security environment.41 The combined Philippine–U.S. organization arrived 1,300 strong on Basilan in February 2002 as part of Exercise Balikatan 02–1. Adapting what Fridovich called operations “by, with, and through” his Philippine partners, the joint team established a symbiotic relationship: Americans offered their insights regarding counterinsurgency while benefiting from their hosts’ superior understanding of local languages and culture. The multinational partnership focused its efforts along three lines of operations: (1) enhancing AFP capacity to conduct effective COIN; (2) conducting civil–military operations; and (3) designing and employing well- conceived information operations.42 Activities along the three lines included enhancing AFP combat proficiency, providing medical care, practicing competence in negotiating, conducting psychological operations, and construction engineering. Cooperation extended beyond military-to-military ties in recognition that presenting a prominent, capable, and convincingly legitimate Philippine government face at all levels was vital. Achieving this goal would take years and require the emergence of enlightened AFP leadership in key positions, leadership able to overcome firmly entrenched traditions of government corruption and self- interest. Filipinos and Americans alike weaved the lines of operation into an effective counterinsurgency campaign. Combat operations reduced insurgent threats to nuisance level aside from the occasional larger scale attack. Civil–military initiatives began as soon as leaders considered an area sufficiently secure. 300 members of a U.S. Navy Seabee construction battalion augmented the AFP- U.S. task force partnership. Small projects designed to have an immediate impact on popular opinion held center stage, demonstrating to civilian communities the benefits of relying on government resources rather than those provided by an Abu Sayyaf Group that posed the greatest threat to Basilan’s stability. (ASG at this time retained a semblance of status as a legitimate insurgency.)43 Philippine and U.S. leaders recognized the futility of attempting to influence an entire population simultaneously. Project selection sought to influence individuals with the potential to persuade others. Payoff came quickly. The security situation improved notably within six months. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) previously fearful of operating in the Philippine south joined the military effort, their projects complementing those of the armed forces. Public and private services improved further still as Philippine civilian medical personnel, teachers, and others with essential talents likewise returned in the face of a diminishing ASG Southern Philippines 53 threat.44 The arrival of a Jollibee fast food franchise restaurant was particular cause for celebration in the eyes of JSOTF- P leaders who saw it as the commercial community’s belief that improved security was more than trans- itory.45 Basilan was not entirely purged of insurgents, but it was undeniable that ASG was on its heels. For Americans, the “Basilan model” became synonymous with carefully coordinating all aspects of operations in close partnership with the host nation. Exercise Balikatan 02–1 leaders were careful not to confuse progress with victory. It was here that Americans perhaps first spoke of “success so far,” realizing that failing to maintain momentum along the counterinsurgency lines of operation could open the door to a resurgence of threat. Those leaders also recognized that progress was thus far limited to Basilan alone. Many ASG members had fled to other islands in the face of counterinsurgent pressure, Jolo in particular. It was the first of what would become repeated insurgent relocations under pressure. Soldiers frustratingly referred to the phenomenon as “whack- a-mole” given its similarly to the children’s arcade game of attempting to strike a rodent emerging from one hole only to have another emerge elsewhere. Counterinsurgent units departed Basilan, shifting their sites to Jolo and its transplanted ASG threat. Local Basilan militia – federally sponsored Civilian Armed Forces Geographic Units or CAFGUs – backfilled Philip- pine armed forces as the military reduced its strength from 15 to two battalions. Philippine employment of militia would prove to have both benefits and shortcomings in the years to come. Progress on Jolo proved harder to achieve. The island’s threats were more varied, the foes present in greater strength. The willingness of various MNLF and MILF individuals or factions groups to cooperate with each other, Abu Sayyaf, JI, or government representatives varied between bands and waxed and waned over time. MNLF attacks in February 2005 on a Philippine military base in the village of Panamao and elsewhere resulted in over 40 soldiers and marines killed or wounded. Frustrated AFP troops responded by destroying 27 barangays (village complexes) and damaging others, reversing gains made by more patient and better-led soldiers.46 Locals ceased cooperating with counterinsurgents. Families deserted their homes. In some places entire barangays fled into the jungle- covered mountains to avoid AFP transgressions. With them went information crucial to counterinsurgent operations. AFP leadership and U.S. training slowed, then reversed the damage in a surprisingly short span. Mere rumor of insurgent presence no longer merited bombarding a village as 2005 came to a close. Philippine and U.S. soldiers cooperated in revamping public affairs messages and orchestrating those efforts with civil affairs projects, linking words with actions. Commanders worked to stop soldiers coercing bribes at checkpoints. As with Magsaysay’s counterinsurgency decades before, small acts translated into a double win for Philippine soldiers as Abu Sayyaf insurgents continued with their policy of forcing locals to pay 54 Southern Philippines passage at traffic checkpoints, often threatening to kidnap any resisting payment.47 Philippine military representatives worked alongside residents, sometimes taking actions to forestall local politicians’ behaviors counterproductive to establishing the legitimacy of the government in Manila. Refusing to tolerate corruption as an acceptable norm, soldiers in the island province of Tawi Tawi refused to kowtow to pressure when the local governor refused to allow the digging of a well unless he could sell its output. Members of the AFP instead reconditioned the water supply system on a nearby military base and provided free access.48 Families began returning to their homes. Information on insurgent activities once again flowed as communities refilled.49 Recruiting for local militias needed to maintain security in communities after the departure of AFP units improved. Counterinsurgency leaders built on initial progress in August 2006 with the formation of Special Advocacy on Literacy/Liveli- hood and Advancement for Muslims (Sala’am) teams, capitalizing on sala’am, the Arabic word for “peace.” A Sala’am team consisted of a civil affairs officer, psychological operations representative, and others who received five weeks of training before going out to communities.50 Roughly half of each team was Muslim, more often than not former members of the MNLF now integrated into the armed forces. Teams provided public services and education on a variety of topics. Citizens received training on what government assistance was available to communities, taught them about democratic processes, and informed potential voters regarding what they had a right to expect from elected officials.51 The value of the latter was far from obvious to citizens who saw little need for elections. Familial ties, status as an elder, clan association, or another standing had long dictated local leader appointments to key positions. Soldiers surrendered these teaching duties to nongovernmental organizations once the security situation permitted.52 Physical infrastructure projects tended to be short, typically taking two to three weeks after which other teams replaced them for an additional period of roughly the same duration to ensure the community knew how to operate and maintain installed equipment. This second group in turn handed over responsibility to a follow-on team whose job it was to evaluate a project’s value.53 The counterinsurgents, by wisely limiting such projects to those within the bounds of what local communities could provide in the way of maintenance funding and expertise, avoided the mistake of creating white ele- phants that both embarrassed the government in Manila and wasted money. Projects instead met an immediate and recognized need (e.g., the supply of water to Tawi Tawi residents) or provided benefits in scale with communities’ capacity to absorb them (for example, provision of a computer laboratory to the village of Panamao). AFP and U.S. medical civil action program (MEDCAP) events, NGO and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) projects, seminars providing basic medical training,54 and visits by the USS Mercy Southern Philippines 55 hospital ship complemented Sala’am team labors. These initiatives were all the more influential in that they provided resources the MNLF, MILF, Abu Sayyaf, Jamaal Islamiyah – and later ARMM – could not or chose not to provide. Influence operations played the part of conductor, ensuring the instruments in the civil–military line of operation were in harmony with those along the other two braids of the counterinsurgent rope. Music had a literal as well metaphorical element. MEDCAPs, designed to promote broad participation beyond those in need of medical care, featured bands and entertainment for children in addition to the services of military corpsmen and – once again, security situation allowing – civilian doctors and nurses. Distribution of toys, reward posters and cards, and comic books championing a martial arts hero who represented the forces of good combating insurgent evil were part of these affairs.55 Colonel James Linder, former commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force- Philippines, described how Philippine and U.S. coalition leaders wove these many pieces together:

The priority was shaping public perceptions from the time we arrived on the ground. It happened through education, through U.S. and AFP leaders together linking with the people, and the population’s accepting that Philippine government representatives were in the region to do what was right. Working closely with the AFP, we first established rapport with local citizens. . . . Up to that point we had a lot of threats from the people, who considered us invaders.56

Unlike the cases of Chechnya and Sri Lanka, the AFP found a balance between this velvet glove of civic action and its companion iron fist. The Philippine military pursued insurgent factions with increasing effectiveness, helped considerably by the now enhanced flow of information from communities. Improved AFP leadership and U.S. assistance improved combat effectiveness while bolstering soldier and fire discipline. Earlier assaults on insurgent hideouts had too often led to failure when corrupt, incompetent, or cowardly leaders permitted adversaries to escape out the fourth side of what came to be deridingly known as “three- sided boxes,” deliberately mis- executed efforts designed to surround a foe. Rewards programs paying increased amounts to surrendering enemy personnel or civilians whose information resulted in the capture or killing of insurgents reaped further benefits. Reward posters and cards were liberally distributed by soldiers on patrol as well as during MEDCAPs to spread word of the monetary benefits. Each reward card provided a photograph ofan insurgent and the price on his head. Together these initiatives fueled counterinsurgent progress. The short period needed for the resulting changes to take effect is notable; striking results were apparent in less than a year. Surrenders spiked, as did the deaths of those whose faces appeared on reward cards and posters. ASG 56 Southern Philippines leader Abubakar Khadaffy Janjalani was killed in September 2006. A successor, Jainal Antel Sali, Jr., fell in January of the following year. Among Sali’s crimes were the bombing of the passenger ferry in which 116 died.

A cruel cocktail: militias and the legacy of Southern Philippine violence One “Ah, shit” negates 1,000 “attaboys.” . . . More contact is better, but it has to be disciplined contact.57

The Philippine south provides striking support for questioning ready acceptance of our “Treat militias like a hot stove” revised belief. They are endemic in the region. Politicians employ them as private armies both for legitimate protection and less suitable purposes such as coercing voters and opponents. Clans, barangay leaders, and wealthy landowners also rely on militias for settling rido and other disputes. It makes for a particularly complex problem given rido’s deep cultural roots and its social norm requiring vengeance for perceived wrongs. A killing, kidnapping, or other affront can burden an individual or group for generations. Rido and the proliferation of arms create an acutely unfortunate chemistry for violence in communities such as those on Jolo, an island with an estimated 100,000 illegal firearms dispersed throughout a population of 750,000 (in addition to those legally owned).58 The result is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for local leaders. Those choosing not to maintain a private force expose followers to aggression and leave little recourse for righting a wrong, thus risking personal and group humiliation or worse. Maintaining militias perpetuates rido: an act of violence by any member can accrue to a community at large. Most find accepting any risks inherent in maintaining a militia preferable to assuming the role of sheep where others are only too willing to play the wolf. Government- recognized militias, such as those backfilling departing AFP forces on Basilan, exist alongside these informal militaries. CAFGUs proved effective as community defenders on Basilan; instances of renewed insurgent attacks remained well below the level prior to U.S. and Philippine arrival in early 2002. Militia members fighting alongside AFP forces were key to the defeat of a renegade MNLF attack on the village of Panamao on Jolo in April 2007.59 In contrast, militia supporting the influential Ampatuan political family ambushed and slaughtered 57 rival candidates, supporters, and members of the media in November 2009 during the run- up to national elections on Mindanao. It was alleged that members of the AFP and police turned a blind eye to earlier deprivations due to previous militia assistance in combating the MILF, a claim substantiated when a government investigation found weapons used in the massacre had previously been issued to soldiers and law enforcement personnel.60 Southern Philippines 57 Most private militias lack the training of CAFGUs (though it is not unusual for an individual to be a member of both organizations). Unlike these government- sponsored units, the informal groups can and frequently do operate independently of AFP or police leadership. Even government recognition and its hypothetical oversight do not guarantee a militia serves counterinsurgent ends. One observer noted the problems that can arise when a government- subsidized militia supports a mayor who

happens to be the political warlord or [a] feudal warlord. So in effect he is legitimizing his private army. . . . The militia are controlled and armed by the armed forces and local politicians, although in many cases they have transformed into semi- criminal bands that operate almost independently or in the service of local politicians and/or the big landowners, and who in return for payment or at their own expense take on a variety of assignments from safeguarding illegal logging to hit- and-runs. . . . These units are responsible for thousands of massacres, hit- and-runs, torture and rape.61

An American soldier serving in the Philippines in early 2007 similarly found militias “are the mayor’s strong arm. If you don’t vote correctly, the CVOs will visit you.” (CVO – civilian volunteer organization – of which more below.)62 The same individual noted that there has been progress toward controlling illicit militias; only AFP and PNP (Philippine National Police) personnel have been permitted to carry weapons during recent elections in the south, and then only if the individual is on duty. Monopoly on the use of legitimate force is a defining element for a sovereign state. Militias not fully controlled by the national government undermine state authority. It is a factor that a counterinsurgent considering sponsorship or tolerance of militias should consider when a host government’s ability to control or disband those forces after the outsider’s departure is questionable. A commission formed after the Mindanao massacre identified 112 PAGs (privately armed groups) on that island alone. Another source estimated that in Mindanao’s Maguindanao Province (that in which the massacre occurred) nearly all of its 36 municipalities had at least two armed groups. The Philippine Department of National Defense proclaimed privately armed groups a significant threat to the country’s security subsequent to the Ampatuan massacre.63 Recent Philippine experience demonstrates that raising and relying on militias is playing with fire: beneficial if properly supervised, potentially ruinous -if uncon trolled. Contemplating any policy promoting militias as “part of the solution” requires thorough evaluation regardless of whether the party considering it is the indigenous or an external counterinsurgent. CAFGUs and CVOs differ from independent privately armed groups in that both are formally under the control of the military or police. (The effectiveness of that control can be another matter.) CAFGU members 58 Southern Philippines undergo basic military training and become Armed Forces of the Philip- pines reservists. Their strength of 53,000 in the opening years of the twenty- first century paled in comparison with the 800,000 CVO members who serve as village security forces, assist police, act as neighborhood watch units, provide intelligence to both the armed forces and law enforcement, and occasionally perform undercover work for these authorities. They too receive instruction on weapons use, police procedures, influence operations, and other topics. Yet despite the affiliation of CVO with federal forces and CAFGU formal status as reservists, elements of both continue to be drawn into rido and other criminal activities in ARMM regions, crimes that include murder and rape.64 The performance of many of these units on Basilan, Jolo, and elsewhere demonstrates the value of properly controlled, trained, and led militias. The Ampatuan massacre and other sorties into illegitimacy demonstrates that toleration of militia forces in the absence of such factors puts the lie to claims of militia’s inherent benefits.65 The difficulty of conducting disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) operations in Southern Philippines conjures images of Sisy- phus and his hopeless efforts to push a rock to the top of a mountain. The tradition of weapons ownership is hurdle enough, but to convince a group to surrender its arms in an environment where violence is a culturally accepted means of social intercourse and national security forces are short of the manpower needed to guarantee the safety of communities has proved nigh impossible. Good reasons backed President Fidel Ramos’s decision to set disarmament aside as a requirement in Manila’s 1996 peace agreement with the MNLF.66 In his words, insisting on disarmament

would have led to an unsolvable impasse. The strategic objective of having a final peace agreement signed – with its attendant political, economic, social and cultural benefits – was more important than belaboring any issue that struck deeply into the honor and prestige of the other party.67

Pershing might risk forcible disarmament given superiority in the quality of his soldiers’ arms; Ramos recognized that such a disparity no longer existed a century later. Highly desirable despite their difficulty, designing effective disarmament programs in Southern Philipinnes will prove a daunting task for those ambitious enough to return to the issue. Convincing participants that their weapons will not end up in the hands of foes is vital. Any such program must include rigorous accountability of military and police weapons and wisdom when designing compensation programs. A member of the Joint Special Operations Task Force- Philippines recalled an inci- dent on Jolo in which a member of the security forces “lost a 9 mm [pistol]. The reward to be offered was $5,000, and someone said ‘Well Southern Philippines 59 you’re going to have a lot more lost because they’ll start stealing them.’ So we offered $50 and got it back the next day.”68 The challenges he confronted as president aside, Ramos believes disarmament is within the realm of the possible and cites a program put it into effect during his earlier career. Rewards differed by quality of weapon turned in. They were directly linked to improving local living conditions:

We started this program first when I was Chief of the Philippine Con- stabulary [National Police] and continued later when I was Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. . . . We put it out there by radio, or newspapers, or whatever means, that you bring in your AK- 47 or M- 16 as collateral for $600 in loans. One- half in cash, one- half in kind, and that depended on your occupation. If you were a farmer, you would get one-half in cash and perhaps one- half in farm animals or equipment. . . . If five or ten of them got together, it was enough to set up a small business, to buy a delivery truck or something like that, or what we called “carabaoless tractor,” which was a machine. We did not expect the loans to be repaid; neither did the former insurgents expect they would have to return the collateral.69

Philippine programs encouraging weapons turn- ins have historically struggled despite such creativity. 26,000 firearms of varying quality were surrendered in the 20 years following initiation of the rewards system in 1987, a pittance given what one source estimated was over 1,110,000 in other than government possession nationwide in 2009, nearly a third of which were in Mindanao and the islands to its south.70 Previous programs involving payment for surrendered weapons have been hamstrung by faulty procedures, errors that include failing to publically destroy the items turned in (a shortcoming the Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands leadership wisely avoided as we will see in Chapter 6).71 Employing coercive measures to encourage surrenders proved no more effective. Porous sea borders, combined with aforementioned benefits of maintaining armed groups, prove influences too powerful to overcome. The social norm of weapons possession in Southern Philipinnes is one meriting challenge. As is often the case when confronting such customs, solutions will require addressing related challenges encompassing far more than the norm itself.

The status of success “so far” Many Muslims did not consider themselves Filipino and referred to the Philippine government as gobirno a sariwang a tao, or “government of foreign people.”72

Success takes time. . . . Have patience. It may take up to two generations to establish democratic governments after an insurgency.73 60 Southern Philippines An end of insurgency – political, criminal, or otherwise – remains a distant light at the end of Philippine counterinsurgents’ tunnel despite early progress on Basilan and that during recent negotiations. But that dim light may be growing brighter. Christians and Muslims working side-by-side in security force units has bred a degree of understanding that would have been thought impossible a few years ago. It is a further benefit of the decision to integrate former MNLF into existing organizations rather than opting for the alternative of creating Muslim- only organizations. The reversal of counterinsurgent fortunes in the aftermath of the AFP’s newfound regard for restraint includes a reduction in the number of enemy safe havens. ASG and JI found residents less than receptive when they attempted to establish themselves on the island of Pangutaran after members fled Jolo in the face of AFP operations. Pangutaran leaders requested and received support after hearing of civic action programs elsewhere. Recalling Mao’s metaphor of the population as the water in which the insurgent swims, AFP good works poisoned the hopes Abu Sayyaf and Jamal Islamiyah had of establishing themselves on their hoped- for new refuge. Their appearance on the island brought an immediate call for AFP help in ousting the unwelcome interlopers, a request the Philip- pine military was quick to grant. The AFP left a small Philippine marine unit behind to ensure no backsliding after its larger force departed.74 Citizen rejection of ASG could be considered a preventative form of the oil spot theory, one in which the counterinsurgents created psychological “white areas” before insurgent arrival by inoculating communities against later infection (white areas being those cleared of insurgents from which the counterinsurgents can then expand outward as would a drop of oil on a piece of paper).75 The AFP and its partners understand there is no room for complacency. Old grievances remain. Though 7,500 MNLF members (or their kin) deciding to join counterinsurgent forces might impress, the number represents well under half of the MNLF ’s estimated strength of 17,000 at the time of the 1996 treaty signing. The deployment of units outside the boundaries of the ARMM created concerns among some of the Muslim soldiers. The number of weapons available in the region ensures the means to renew serious violence are always but an arm’s reach away. Cooperation has proven a fragile commodity. The MNLF, feeling itself marginalized by the 2012 Bangsamoro Framework Agreement between the MILF and Manila, threatens renewed hostilities if the arrangement is implemented in a form they find unacceptable.76 Some members of the former insurgent group did turn to violence, though the extent to which their actions were sanctioned by its leadership was difficult to determine.77 Further, there are thousands of ASG holdouts, private militia members, those in MNLF and MILF factions, and others whose eventual status awaits military action, successful negotiations, or other resolution. Reinvigorated DDR programs are desirable if only to avoid adding more unemployed Southern Philippines 61 gun owners to the population as recent agreements with the MILF take effect.78 In comparison to the millions of Filipinos overseas, the diaspora that sustained the Tamil Tigers was miniscule. The Philippine diaspora constitutes an estimated 10 percent of the country’s worldwide Philippine population; the approximately 10 million Filipinos are equivalent to roughly a quarter of the at- home labor force.79 These individuals contributed some US$12 billion to the country’s economy in 2005, 12 times that of other foreign investment sources.80 By 2011, the estimated remittances had increased to over US$20 billion.81 The impact of these funds on Philippine quality of life is dramatic; equally significant is the potentially negative influence should too much of that fiscal deluge be put in the hands of insurgents. Turning the Cold War paradigm of reliance on a foreign power on its head, the example of the LTTE demonstrates that a sufficiently large and generous diaspora (or one coerced, as was the case with many overseas Tamils) can replace a sympathetic government as the primary source of insurgent support. Alternatively, a diaspora could assist in the eventual demise of those movements by refusing to fund them.82 The sheer number of insurgent groups challenging the Philippine state ensures many COIN years ahead. Abu Sayyaf continues to commit acts of violence despite Philippine military estimates that the ongoing campaign has caused a drop from 1,000 movement members in 2001 to between 300 and 400 ten years on.83 ASG and the far less numerous Jamaal Islamiyah attempt to magnify perceptions of their effectiveness by conducting sensational atrocities such as beheadings and high profile kidnappings.84 MILF and MNLF splinter elements will also continue to present threats. The shock value of occasional acts cannot be denied, but their frequency and impact decreases. The trend is one of diminishing insurgent violence. Insurgent attacks countrywide dropped to 447 in 2011, a decline of 11 percent from the year before. The decline in AFP deaths was even more dramatic, dropping from 184 in 2010 to approximately 100 the following year.85 Insufficient improvements in Philippine National Police force performance voided late 1990s expectations that law enforcement could assume responsibility for the CPP and NPA. The failure is unfortunate from a number of perspectives. Better sharing of the COIN burden would allow the military to focus more of its limited assets against the greater and more viable threats. Handover would also visibly signal a significant achievement. Law enforcement’s assumption of a population’s day- to-day safety denotes progress toward a return to normalcy, indicating both that the threat represents no more than criminality and that the law enforcement system is capable of assuming that responsibility. Bringing about the transition demands careful crafting. The police force has to be capable not only of handling insurgent threats as they are at the moment of transfer but also, should that threat remain, flexing their sometimes non-obvious muscle. Good intelligence is vital. A wounded insurgency may withdraw to 62 Southern Philippines lick its wounds and replenish resources. Premature handover after mistaking a temporary decrease in the tempo of activity for defeat would set up law enforcement for failure and a country’s leaders for embarrassment. A military–law enforcement transition should therefore be a gradual one during which the armed forces remain ready to reinforce their police counterparts. Disappointing national police improvements are not the only shortfalls tempering Philippine progress. A viable justice system – one incorporating effective police, fair judicial processes, and reliable prisons – eludes Philippine southern regions. Broad- based integration of other- than-military capabilities into the COIN campaign has also proved slow. There is no overarching strategy, no campaign plan, no single coordinating authority able to orchestrate efforts across all parts of government much less one capable of coordinating aid organizations, willing commercial enterprises, and diaspora potential.86 The portion of diaspora billions that might promote counterinsurgent efforts would alone seemingly merit a dedicated information campaign to harness its fiscal possibilities. International investment has with good cause not shared Jolibee’s optimism when it comes to funding initiatives in the archipelago’s southern reaches. Corruption is but one of the remaining seemingly intractable barriers to effective business. Domination of government and much of the rural economy by a small social elite combines with voters uneducated in the ways of what to expect from elected officials to impede improvement, as does perhaps a too shallow pool of candidates willing to break with traditional practice.87

Initiatives Mr. Magsaysay was even more strenuous in emphasizing that the armed forces must make the civilians in their area realize that the armed forces were their friends and not their enemy. . . . You would see a truck loaded with soldiers pause in a town in broad daylight for a few minutes. Everybody would be in the truck pointing his rifle out as though the truck were going to be jumped any minute. Needless to say, the civilians around didn’t particularly appreciate that treatment and they would have been quite willing to jump the army. Three months after he started shaking things up, when a truck load of soldiers pulled into a town, you could see the kids come running, because probably those soldiers had a few pieces of candy, or at least they’d tell them some jokes. People would come and hear the news from the soldiers.88

The single most important thing for the counterguerrilla side is to have a political (or “civilian”) policy clearly superior to that of the Southern Philippines 63 insurgents, so that the people will support the government, not as a result of intimidation and terrorism, but because they are convinced that its victory would be in their interest. Moreover, the military plan must fully accord with the political policy.89

The counterinsurgent dialectics of restraint and force, the cultivation of popular support and pursuit of the enemy, and the quest for able government versus tolerance of inadequate leaders are all part of an environment in which vigor must partner with compromise. Negotiation plays a primary role, a stark contrast with counterinsurgent approaches in Chechnya and Sri Lanka. Manila wields the tool of negotiation to dual effect. It has primarily been a strategic device for a government seeking to resolve conflict in the South. AFP actions to build local government capacity, promote social development, and end resistance via stronger means all assume a supporting role. Negotiation is also a key implement for a government with insufficient resources to confront all of its insurgent (much less external) adversaries simultaneously. In the jargon of the soldier, negotiation paradoxically serves both as the main effort and an economy of force measure, the latter allowing the Philippine government to reduce the commitment needed in some areas so that sufficient resources are available for use elsewhere. Negotiation is therefore itself a dialectic of sorts, a means of achieving lasting resolution even as it permits management of too numerous challenges. The United States has historically been slow to recognize the potential of negotiating with an insurgent foe. Delay is particularly damaging if counterinsurgents forego opportunities when conditions in the field grant it a position of strength and turn to negotiation only after dilution of that status due to weakening of public support at home, the approach of elections that tend to mitigate bipartisan support, or other factors. The approach is also one a government directly threatened by insurgents is predisposed to avoid. Previous conflicts provide plentiful evidence of why this is the case. Kenya, Cyprus, Ireland, Yugoslavia, Uganda, South Sudan, and Israel are all cases in which insurgent leaders eventually emerged as heads of state. Initial U.S. resistance to negotiating with elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan may have been influenced by pressures from Kabul spurred by such concerns.90 Analyst Jamison Jo Medby’s continuum of relative interests provides a simple yet elegant tool that effectively portrays the need for a counterinsurgent’s understanding of the yin and yang character of restraint and coercion during negotiations and other interfaces with a population. By adding two groups to the once popular but overly simplistic spectrum long used for modeling a counterinsurgency – that of dividing parties into the categories of adversary, neutral, and ally – she provides a more accurate representation of insurgency’s complex reality without overly complicating the model. Her five categories suggest many additional social grada- tions without their having to appear explicitly. 64 Southern Philippines

Figure 3.1 The continuum of relative interests. Note Adapted from Jamison Jo Medby and Russell W. Glenn, Street Smart: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield for Urban Operations, 99. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002.

There is constant movement of individuals and groups left or right along the continuum. A mother might provide information regarding a local insurgent group after a Philippine army medic provides care for her daughter even as 100 meters away an ill- disciplined soldier humiliates a family at a road checkpoint, driving the son to join an adversary group. And so the dynamic competition continues as counterinsurgents seek to motivate flow to the right while opponents push, coerce, or otherwise induce members of the population to move in the other direction. Most subjected to the struggle would prefer to remain unbothered in the middle of the span. They are likely to find little sympathy for that most natural of responses. Insurgents tend to be intolerant of neutrality while less savvy counterinsurgents are equally insensitive to pleas that a noncombatant’s support to the foe may be involuntary. Cruelty, frustration, corruption, compassion, generosity, reliability: the full gamut of depravities and righteousness nudge, tug, push, and launch those along the continuum in one direction or the other. Individuals might move collectively or independently. The public proclamations of a group may conflict with individual member’s sympathies whose passions are tamer or commitment weaker. A counterinsurgent’s devotion to influencing movement to the right must be dynamic and adaptable. It is unwise to treat all parties equally. Those at the extremes of the continuum – adversary or ally – are the most difficult for an opposing force to sway. Efforts at persuasion shatter against the hard shell of conviction. Killing or capturing extremist members of the adversary’s camp will often be the only way to neutralize them. Others on the left, but more distant from its extremity, may be open to coaxing, meaning a counterinsurgent’s commitment of influence resources is more likely to harvest success when the focus is somewhat removed from the far left of the spectrum. And so it continues as one moves farther to the right. More promising fruit lies in the neutral or accomplice bands. Yet complacency regarding those currently favoring the counterinsurgent camp can prove costly. Allegiance and alliance are not fixed states. It is easier for the counterinsurgent to lose an ally through neglect than it is for the insurgent to pry him free of the counterinsurgent camp. The counterinsurgent must therefore commit resources to maintaining favor in addition to winning it anew. Southern Philippines 65 A decade plus of Philippine and U.S. experience in the southern archipelago reinforces the importance of innovation. President Ramos’s novel step of directly reintegrating MNLF members into Philippine society and foregoing MNLF disarmament and full demobilization in the 1996 peace agreement was a risky but effective move with immediate advantage and limited risk of damaging longer- term objectives. DRD (demobilization, reintegration, and possible disarmament in the longer term) held promise where DDR inferred only continued resistance. As is often the case with progress during a counterinsurgency, however, seeming success will bring new challenges. Immediate incorporation of former insurgents into the security forces was picking low- hanging fruit. Building on that progress – moving the MILF from adversary to the neutral or allegiance camp, for example – means the need for large numbers of security forces will diminish. This implies a requirement to find alternative avocations for soon- to-be former fighters little prepared for a life other than one involving wielding arms. Philippine DDR programs thus far fail to address the day when hostilities fall to a level where the demobilization of former insurgents and their reintegration into a stable Southern Philippine society will require finding positions for individuals in fields other than those related to security.91 Reintegration relying on the short-term fix of transitioning former foes into security forces should be viewed as the first of several phases in a DDR (or DRD) campaign rather than a long- term solution. The challenge will be one of staying ahead of demand and thus avoiding large numbers of former combatants – adversaries or allies – from entering the ranks of the disgruntled unemployed. Keeping the peace requires that a counterinsurgent maintain the initiative no less than a soldier finds maintaining advantage essential to victory in battle. Initiative is no less important when dealing with a diaspora. The addition of Sri Lanka’s LTTE to U.S. and other nations’ terrorist lists was a much appreciated excuse for Tamils overseas to end their involuntary contributions. This is not to imply that completely interrupting remittances to regions under insurgent control should be the counterinsurgent default. External funding can be the difference between life and death for noncombatants living on survival’s edge. Preventing it would both condemn those denied receipt and feed insurgent propaganda.92 Yet allowing unre- stricted contributions risks remittances finding their way into insurgent hands either directly or via “taxes” imposed on inflows. The counterinsurgent may therefore find it beneficial to simplify the direct distribution of funds and other forms of aid to recipients. Possible ways of doing so include promoting economical means of transferring money from overseas or converting funds into goods of less immediate value to insurgents before they enter regions under adversary control, as did Ramos’s disarmament program providing farm equipment. Such approaches maintain a flow of resources while casting any party that skims from the transfers in a villain’s role. Innovation in effectively funding those in need is something 66 Southern Philippines of a lost art. Providers, particularly NGOs and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), are often more interested in tallying the value of aid dispersed than that actually reaching needy parties. Potential consequences include the promotion of corruption, the disruption of local economies, and aid feeding the coffers of individuals who deliberately sustain suffering to spur a continued flow of goods and money.

Conclusion As an experiment in regional autonomy, ARMM has been an unmiti- gated disaster. It has become synonymous with corruption and ineffi- ciency and has frequently been a vehicle for Manila to meddle in Bangsamoro politics.93

Clearly, without reforming our governance we will be unable to accomplish much.94

It is worth reemphasizing that police are only one of several justice system components, a point history indicates is too often forgotten. Ideally, all components of that system are capable. Establishing a world-class police academy is of little value if its graduates return to precincts led by corrupt, lazy, incompetent, or cowardly seniors. Lawyers and courts unable to fairly and effectively try arrestees undermine public confidence, return insurgents into communities where their first order of business is to revenge their arrest, and threaten to ruin a capable police force that sees its labors squandered (and may be among the targets of those released). Similar dangers lurk should police and court systems stand ready while prisons do not. Premature regurgitation of felons into a population is no less damaging than are shortcomings within the police or courts. Progress in the Philippine south is all the more notable because it has come despite longtime national and local government corruption accompanied by neglect of legitimate regional grievances. The AFP’s rapid course correction that reduced instances of soldiers coercing bribes at checkpoints, purged officers who tolerated militia violence in the run-up to the 2009 Mindanao massacre, and reversed overreliance on firepower was part of a broader effort to win popular support.95 Those changes have been fundamental to reversing a torrent that was driving members of the population from right to left along the continuum of relative interests. Scholar Lucian Pye interviewed what he referred to as “surrendered enemy personnel” or SEPs during his time in mid- to late- 1950s Malaya. He found

only four of the SEPs said that they had gone out of their way to find Communism. For the rest, it was a case of the party coming to them. . . . The issue was raised within the context of a face- to-face relationship. Southern Philippines 67 To have learned more about any other group or association would have required greater initiative.96

Progress in Southern Philippines is the result of counterinsurgents – the faces the public sees representing Manila – proving themselves worthy even as some at the various echelons of government do otherwise. Philip- pine President Benigno Aquino replaced the incompetent ARMM government after assuming office in June 2010.97 The Bangsamoro Framework is a dramatic step toward ending one of the major ongoing insurgencies in the south, that despite troubling resistance from the MNLF. Whether the Aquino administration builds on this promise to substantively address the grievances underlying remaining insurgencies or instead sustains a past history of kowtowing to the Philippine elite and worshipping at the altar of corruption remains to be seen. It is encouraging that his government has taken innovative steps in trying to resolve the decades of resistance. Those efforts include sending MILF negotiators to Belfast where they met with Catholic and Protestant leaders in hopes of their better understanding how to navigate the twisting byways of conflict resolution.98 Significant change in Manila’s direct political involvement might ultimately prove unnecessary. Federalism could suffice in lieu. But there lurk other dangers in such a course of action given an ARMM government’s performance making that at the national level saintly in comparison. Popular frustration may once again make Southern waters friendly for insurgents should Bangsamoro autonomous region authorities prove no better.

Revised beliefs and counterinsurgency in Southern Philipinnes The considerable progress resulting from the multinational, interagency, and broader partnerships in the Philippine south gives the lie to those touting the death of COIN. Supporting activities to enhance government legitimacy, recognizing the value in cultivating popular support, and assuming the risk of military casualties in the service of minimizing those suffered by the civilian population is only a sampling of elements found in current U.S. and other countries’ counterinsurgency doctrines that found successful application there. Progress has come despite a government in Manila whose deservedness of those efforts to legitimize it in the eyes of southern Filipinos is far too dependent on the particular administration in power. Nevertheless, far from dead, counterinsurgency as practiced in Southern Philipinnes demonstrates robust health and a recognition that it must constantly evolve if it is to remain relevant. Some measure of that fitness was evident in the mid- 2014 U.S. announcement that the assistance provided by the United States Joint Special Operations Task Force- Philippines was no longer considered necessary. The campaign similarly casts doubts on the essentiality of promoting Western- style democracy to bring about such progress. True, the Republic 68 Southern Philippines of the Philippines is just that: a republic. Yet popular appreciation for what Manila and elected officials more generally have to offer – or should provide – is limited in Mindanao and the Jolo archipelago. Clan and other social ties tend to take precedence in the day- to-day activities of many. Fuller appreciation for representative democracy and the responsibilities that entails may bloom in the future. At present, however, governments in the Philippines wisely remain a blend of democracy and social relationships largely determined by longstanding traditions not in complete harmony with a liberal form of such government. Both the longstanding existence of corruption and widespread possession of arms in Southern Philippines communities are norms counterinsurgents have periodically challenged, albeit thus far to limited effect. Interrupting the practice of soldiers coercing bribes at road checkpoints and the marginalization of Tawi Tawi’s provincial governor were both acts seeking to rein in the corrosive effects of public officials’ dishonesty. Efforts to limit the negative effects of weapons in a population where firearms are intimately linked to measures of self- worth make slow progress, being evident particularly in the largely successful banning of carrying weapons during voting periods. Select norms can and should be challenged, but that selection and the energy committed to change must be in concert with all counterinsurgency instruments and in harmony with sought- after objectives. Militias are a mixed bag in the Philippine south. Some are a part of the solution; others are anything but. Use by candidates to coerce or eliminate opposition impedes, if not outright precludes, fair elections just as employment by clan and other leaders to enforce rido makes such armed groups a hindrance to peace and stability. On the other hand, federally sponsored militia forces backfilled full- time AFP units dispatched from Basilan and fought side- by-side with the AFP in Panamao. The evidence supports a conclusion that too readily accepting “militias [as] part of the solution” constitutes nothing short of bad judgment. Creating, adopting, or tolerating militias is rife with risk. As later chapters reinforce, subordination to capable (and nearby) police or armed forces commanders does much to keep a militia in the solution column. The Philippine example provides valuable insights regarding the extent to which a counterinsurgent should develop physical infrastructure. Pro- jects have generally been limited to the installation of pumps, construction of modest community buildings, provision of services such as internet con- nectivity, and the like. There is considerable benefit in carefully careful matching infrastructure improvements with need and the capacity to effectively absorb and sustain them. There is considerable embarrassment awaiting the counterinsurgent who fails to do so. It is a topic to which we will return in later chapters. Southern Philippines 69 Notes 1 David S. Maxwell (Colonel, U.S. Army), “Business Recommendation from the Philippines,” email to Russell W. Glenn, June 7, 2007. 2 Charles Byler, “Pacifying the Moros: American Military Government in the Southern Philippines, 1899–1913,” Military Review 85 (May–June 2005): 42, available at: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS1465 (accessed March 14, 2008). 3 U.S. support of Manila’s post- WWII counterinsurgency against the Huks was similarly more akin to the present undertaking than that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 4 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Division, Joint Publication, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Washington, DC, November 8, 2010, as amended through, 2010, 145, available at: http://purl.access.gpo. gov/GPO/LPS14106 (accessed March 30, 2011). 5 “Well intentioned” in the effectively articulated sense expressed by Colonel (U.S. Army, retired) David Maxwell: I am really trying the make the points that we should not be conducting ‘direct’ COIN because by doing so we have inserted ourselves into a nation’s and peoples’ civil dispute. We can and should support ‘indirect’ COIN to help a friend, partner, or ally in their fight for legitimacy among their people, (which of course may be FID [foreign internal defense] in support of the government or UW [unconventional warfare] in support of resistance or insurgency). My intent is to try to break the mindset that we should be conducting COIN for anyone but rather we should be supporting others’ COIN efforts (or insurgency or resistance efforts through UW.” David Maxwell (Colonel, U.S. Army) email to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: Re: COIN Lessons Ignored: The Philippines Campaign 1899–1902), May 22, 2013 (emphasis in original). Colonel Maxwell’s points are worthy ones. The extent to which an external power (or powers) directly or indirectly facilit- ates/participates is key. However, it is ultimately a subcomponent of a COIN (or insurgency support) campaign, one that requires evaluation on a case- by-case basis. Stated differently, FID is one of several ways an external power can support a counterinsurgency or insurgency campaign. Whether it is the most effective for the duration of or during any part of a campaign is situation dependent. 6 James Hookway, “Hearts and Minds: U.S. War on Terror Shows Promise in the Philippines,” Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007, A1. 7 Brian Petit, “OEF–Philippines: Thinking COIN, Practicing FID,” Special Warfare 23 (January–February 2010): 10–15, available at: www.soc.mil/swcs/swmag/ Page_Archives.htm (accessed August 10, 2010), 14. 8 Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–1902, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2000, pp. 123 and 226. 9 Brian McAllister Linn, Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army in the Pacific, 1902–1940, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997, p. 37. 10 Byler, “Pacifying,” 43. 11 Byler, “Pacifying,” 44; Eliza Griswold, “Waging Peace in the Philippines,” Smith- sonian 37 (December 2006): 87, available at: www.smithsonianmag.com/ people- places/philippines.html (accessed March 14, 2008). 12 Stephen Blank, Lawrence E. Grinter, Karl P. Magyar, Lewis B. Ware, and Bynum E. Weathers, Responding to Low- Intensity Conflict Challenges, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1990, p. 265. 70 Southern Philippines 13 Napoleon D. Valeriano and Charles T. R. Bohannan, Counter- Guerrilla Opera- tions: The Philippine Experience, Westport, CO.: Praeger Security International, 2006, pp. 167–168. 14 Blank, Responding, 261–265; “Magsaysay, Ramon,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2008, available at: www.britannica.com/eb/article- 9050077/Ramon- Magsaysay (accessed March 14, 2008). 15 I limit consideration here to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF ), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF ), CPP/NPA, Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), and Jamal Islamiyah (JI)]. Among other insurgent elements in the Philippine south are the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Zachary Abuza, “Bang- samoro Blues,” The Indo- Pacific Review (August 7, 2014), available at: www. indopacificreview.com/bangsamoro- blues/#sthash.3KWcHXam.dpbs (accessed October 1, 2014); and Rajah Solaiman Movement (listed as active as of March 13, 2012), at: http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes- World-Insurgency- and- Terrorism/Rajah- Solaiman-Movement- RSM-Philippines.html (accessed January 17, 2013). Margaret M. Read also highlights Awliya (“Friends of Allah”), which she identifies as “made up of MNLF, MILF, and ASG former members [that] although small at this time [poses] a potential threat to the Philippines should the group continue to grow.” Margaret M. Read, “Abu Sayyaf Crime, Ideology, Autonomy Movement? The Complex Evolution of a Militant Islamist Groups in the Philippines,” Small Wars Journal (October 22, 2012), available at: http:// smallwarsjournal.com/printpdf/13392 (accessed January 10, 2013). The decision to subsequently focus on the MNLF, MILF, ASG, and JI in the following pages draws its reasoning from guidelines dictating the character of support U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force- Philippines (JSOTF- P) provides. Its orders specify that the command “can only advise and assist the [Government of the Republic of the Philippines and Armed Forces of the Philippines] in operations against [Al Qaeda-] affiliated terrorist organizations such as the ASG and JI.” That same guidance specifically prohibits providing similar support against the Communist Party of the Philippines or its armed branch, the New People’s Army. Support of operations against MNLF and MILF factions are per- missible because of those groups’ association with other organizations with Al Qaeda affiliations. The author thanks Colonel (U.S. Army, retired) David S. Maxwell for providing this explanation. David Maxwell email to Russell W. Glenn, Subject: “Re: Charter for U.S. forces in Philippines,” March 19, 2014. 16 Stuart A. Herrington, Silence Was a Weapon: The Vietnam War in the Villages: A Per- sonal Perspective, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982, pp. 201 and 94. 17 Jacob Zenn, “Communist Insurgency Ramps Up as Manila Reaches Settlement with Muslim Militants,” Terrorism Monitor 10 (June 1, 2012), available at: www. jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=39451&cHa sh=46388fc94ddda079cef82c479c5fb16e (accessed August 3, 2012). 18 Fabio Scarpello, “The Philippines Peace Process: Part I,” World Politics Review (January 20, 2011), available at: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7613/ the- philippines-peace- process-part- i (accessed January 24, 2011). 19 Paz Verdades M. Santos, “The Communist Front: Protracted People’s War and Counter- insurgency in the Philippines (Overview),” in (eds.) Soliman M. Santos and Paz Verdades M. Santos, Primed and Purposeful: Armed Groups and Human Security Efforts in the Philippines, joint venture by South–South Network for Non- State Armed Group Engagement and the Small Arms Survey, Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey, April 2010, p. 22. 20 Diana Rodriguez and Soliman M. Santos, “Introduction,” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 3. 21 Though the United States is the most prominent of Philippine allies assisting with counterinsurgent activities, Australia and other regional nations have also Southern Philippines 71 provided support. Malaya was key in facilitating negotiations between Manila and the MILF. 22 Peter Kreuzer, Political Clans and Violence in the Southern Philippines, Frankfurt, Germany: Peace Research Institute, Report 71, 2005, p. i; Svenja Schmelcher, “RIDO and Its Influence on the Academe, NGOs and the Military,” Balay Mind- anaw Foundation, Inc., February 28, 2007, available at: http://balaymindanaw. org/bmfi/essays/2007/02rido.html (accessed March 27, 2008). 23 Greg Rushford, “The Morass in Mindanao,” Far Eastern Economic Review 169 (December 2006): 32. For the Philippines at large, about 5 percent of the population is Muslim with 93 percent of the whole being Christian, the vast majority of these being Roman Catholic. 24 Soliman M. Santos, “War and Peace on the Moro Front: Three Standard Bearers, Three Forms of Struggle, Three Tracks (Overview),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 72. 25 Ibid., p. 74. 26 Lucian W. Pye, Guerrilla Communism in Malaya: Its Social and Political Meaning, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956, p. 117. 27 Transparency International rated the Philippines 134th of 178 countries ranked in late 2010. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results,” Transpar- ency International, available at: www.transparency.org/policy_research/ surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results (accessed March 31, 2011). 28 Santos, “War and Peace,” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 77. 29 Violence by groups opposing the peace agreement further demonstrates that the sought- after peace and stability for the Philippine south remains elusive. See, for example, “Filipino Troops Battle Rebels Opposing Peace Deal,” The New York Times (January 27, 2014 at: www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/01/27/ world/asia/ap- as-philippines- muslim-rebels.html?ref=world&_r=0&version=met er+at+5®ion=FixedCenter&pgtype=article&priority=true&module=RegiWal l- Regi&action=click (accessed March 20, 2014). 30 “The Philippines: Breakthrough in Mindanao,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 240, December 5, 2012, 4–17. 31 “Southern Philippines Backgrounder: Terrorism and the Peace Process,” Inter- national Crisis Group Asia Report No. 80, July 13, 2004, 3–4. 32 Soliman M. Santos, “Terrorism and Philippine Armed Groups: Networks, Lists, and the Peace Process (Overview),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 94. 33 I could not establish whether Janjalani’s four years in Libya included training at Khaddafi’s World Revolutionary Center, but the possibility exists given that in 1988 alone the center had 700 students from around the world and that its alumni included members of Abu Sayyaf. Foday Sankoh, who later led the Revolutionary United Front (RUF ) in Sierra Leone, was undoubtedly a student there as will be noted in Chapter 7. Regarding Abu Sayyaf members at the World Revolutionary Center, see Richard Iron, A Very African War: A Military History of the Conflict in Sierra Leone 1991–2002, draft manuscript received by the author in February 2013, undated, Chapter 1. 34 Soliman M. Santos and Octavio A. Dinampo, “Abu Sayyaf Reloaded: Rebels, Agents, Bandits, Terrorists (Cast Study),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Pur- poseful, pp. 117, 120, and 129–130. 35 Zachary Abuza, “Abu Sayyaf still holds Philippines to ransom,” www.simmons. edu/. . ./Abu_Sayyaf_still_holds_Philippines_to_ransom.pdf (accessed January 13, 2011); Thomas Lum, “The Republic of the Philippines and U.S. Interests,” Wash- ington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 3, 2011, 13; Richard Swain, “Case Study: Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines,” paper for the U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Center, October 2010, 26–27; Read, “Abu Sayyaf Crime.” 72 Southern Philippines 36 The MILF and JI had a similar relationship, one predating the emergence of the latter as a terrorist group in the Philippines. The two cooperated in establishing a training facility within the MILF ’s Camp Abubaker in 1994. Filipinos and Indonesians both attended the school and served as instructors. Relations between the groups soured in the first decade of the new century, however, as JI would at times play the MILF off ASG and vice versa. “Southern Philippines Backgrounder,” 13, 16, and 23–25. 37 “Southern Philippines Backgrounder,” 1. 38 Anonymous interview with a colonel in the Philippine Marines. 39 A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier quoted in Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground, New York: Random House, 2005, p. 167. 40 Fran Beaudette, “JSOTF- P Uses Whole- of-Nation Approach to Bring Stability to the Philippines,” Special Warfare 25 (July–September 2012), www.soc.mil/swcs/ swmag/archive/SW2503/SW2503BringStabilityToThePhilippines.html (accessed July 29, 2012); Richard G. Stilwell, Ralph Kinnes, John L. Mohl, and Jesse G. Ugalde, “Army Activities in Underdeveloped Areas Short of Declared War,” Washington, DC: Memorandum for the Secretary of the Army, October 13, 1961, 50. 41 David Maxwell, “Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines – A Review of Key Aspects for Consideration in Future Operations,” white paper, undated, received by the author on December 31, 2012, 2–4. 42 See, for example, Herbert Docena, “The U.S. Troops’ ‘Unconventional’ Pres- ence,” Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 2007, available at: www. pcij.org/i- report/2007/us- troops.html (accessed March 27, 2008); Gregory Wilson, “Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF- Philippines and the Indirect Approach,” Military Review 86 (November–December 2006): 2–12, http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS1465 (accessed March 14, 2008). 43 Information in this paragraph based on Wilson, “Anatomy,” 6–7; William C. Eckert (Command Sergeant Major, U.S. Army), “Defeating the Idea: Uncon- ventional Warfare in the Southern Philippines,” Special Warfare 19 (November– December 2006): 20–22. 44 Wilson, “Anatomy,” 8. 45 Ana Marie Pamintuan, “Clear, Hold, Build,” ABS CBN News, January 26, 2007. 46 More specifically, a barangay is the smallest Philippine political unit. It normally encompasses one or more villages. 47 Roel Pareño, “Abus Set Up Roadblocks in Sulu,” Philippine Star, January 26, 2008. 48 Anonymous U.S. soldier interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Zamboanga, Phil- ippines, January 11, 2007. 49 Zachary Abuza, “On the Defensive: Rebels Lose Ground in Southern Philip- pines,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, April 1, 2007. 50 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group and D Company, 97th Civil Affairs Bat- talion, “Sala’am Operations,” undated briefing to Dr. Russell W. Glenn. 51 Armed Forces of the Philippines, “Assalam Alaikum,” undated briefing provided to Russell W. Glenn, Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Philippines; anonymous U.S. Army soldier interview with Russell W. Glenn, Panamao, Phil- ippines, January 12, 2007. 52 NGOs were not the only organizations to complement the efforts of Philip- pine and U.S. government representatives. The Australian Agency for Inter- national Development (AusAID), for example, was the largest contributor to “quality education programs” in the ARMM. Noel T. Tarrazona, “Clouds gather over Mindanao peace deal,” Asia Times Online (January 9, 2013), available at: www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/OA09Ae01.html (accessed January 9, 2013). Southern Philippines 73 53 Anonymous U.S. Army soldier interview with Russell W. Glenn, Panamao, Phil- ippines, January 12, 2007. 54 Petit, “OEF- Philippines,” 12. 55 The comic books were particularly popular with a critical population, the high school aged student segment who, once in possession of an issue, would approach the AFP asking for the next in the series. The concept seems to have come full circle internationally when a similar Kuwaiti series saw publication in the Philippines as reported by the Cable News Network: Kuwaiti publisher Naif al- Mutawa is having a week even his comic book superheroes might envy. On Monday, President Obama singled him out for special praise for promoting international understanding with his “The 99” comics. . . . The comic’s title – “The 99” (from 9 times 11 equals 99) – tells how 99 superheroes from across the globe team up to combat villains. They succeed only if they work together. . . . A recent issue of The 99 is set in the Philippines, where an international relief agency is under attack by Death Merchant. With plenty of action – and blazing color and “THWOOM” and “KA- POW” – the superheroes fight the bad guys and also talk up contemplation, spiritual growth, and even the importance of mathematics. In his “Naif ’s Notes” at the end of the comic, Mutawa drives home his teamwork message. (Charley Keyes, “Comic book publisher praised for reflecting ‘tolerance of Islam,’ ” CNN, April 27, 2010, available at: www.cnn.com/2010/ LIVING/04/27/kuwait.comics/index.html (accessed April 28, 2010)) 56 James B. Linder (Colonel, U.S. Army), telephone conversation with Russell W. Glenn, January 16, 2008. 57 David S. Maxwell (Colonel, U.S. Army) interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Zamboanga, Philippines, January 15, 2007. 58 David Gorman, “A Man, and a Plan in War- Torn Philippines,” Asia Times, November 1, 2007, available at: www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ IK01Ae03.html (accessed March 26, 2008). The values are from 2007. 59 Ana Marie Pamintuan, “Excising a Tumor,” Philippine Star, July 20, 2007, available at: www.abs- cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=85213 (accessed March 27, 2008). 60 Chico Harlan, “In the Philippines, politics as bloodsport,” The Washington Post (October 24, 2010), available at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/ article/2010/10/24/AR2010102403394.htm (accessed December 2, 2010); Herman Joseph S. Kraft, “The Foibles of an Armed Citizenry; Armed Auxilia- ries of the State and Private Armed Groups in the Philippines (Overview),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 197. Authors Malcolm Cook and Kit Collier relate, then “President Macapagal-Arroyo’s 2005 choice for ARMM [Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao] governor, Zaldy ‘Datu Puti’ Ampatuan, is the son of Maguindanao provincial governor Datu Andal Ampat- uan – Muslim Mindanao’s preeminent traditional strongman.” They go on to note that the Ampatuan clan are “sworn enemies” of the MILF, leaving little doubt regarding the lack of support the MILF as potential political rivals would have received from either governor’s or president’s offices at that time. Malcolm Cook and Kit Collier, “Mindanao: A Gamble Worth Taking,” Lowy Institute paper 17, 2006, 39. 61 Kreuzer, Political Clans, pp. 13 and 21. 62 Anonymous U.S. Army soldier interview with Russell W. Glenn, Zamboanga, Philippines, January 11, 2007. 63 Rommel C. Banlaoi, “Private Armed Groups: A New Security Threat in the Phil- ippines,” in Asian Conflict Reports, Council for Asian Transnational Threat 74 Southern Philippines Research, (July–August 2010), available at: www.bipss.org.bd/images/ACR%20 July-August.pdf (accessed September 7, 2010). 64 Kreuzer, Political Clans, pp. 13 and 21; Kraft, “Foibles,” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 197. 65 “Legitimate” as used here implies appropriate and acceptable use of that authority rather than simply technically legitimate in the sense of representing a legally constituted government that misuses its authority. 66 Jim Gomez, “Filipino Extremists Face New Foe: Fellow Rebels,” Associated Press, February 10, 2013, available at: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/filipino- extremists-face- new-foe- fellow-rebels (accessed February 16, 2013). 67 Soliman M. Santos, “MNLF Integration into the AFP and the PNP: Successful Cooptation or Failed Transformation? (Case Study),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, p. 165. 68 Anonymous interview with Russell W. Glenn, Zamboanga, Philippines, January 15, 2007. 69 Fidel V. Ramos (former President of the Philippines) interview with Russell W. Glenn, Manila, Philippines, January 10, 2007. 70 Ishak Mastura, “U.S. vs. China, a case of ‘Vacuum Wars’ in Southern Philip- pines, July 21, 2009, 2. 71 Soliman M. Santos, “DDR and ‘Disposition of Forces’ of Philippine Rebel Groups (Overview),” in Santos and Santos, Primed and Purposeful, pp. 153 and 155. 72 Patricio P. Diaz, “Metamorphosis,” MindaNews, August 15, 2007. 73 Ramos interview. 74 Petit, “OEF- Philippines,” 15; Al Santoli, “Engagement pays off in Philippines terror war,” The Washington Post, March 5, 2010, available at: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/engagement- pays-off- in-terror- war//print/ (accessed March 21, 2011). 75 The oil spot theory and related concept of white areas is commonplace in COIN literature. Robert Thompson effectively describes it in his Defeating Com- munist Insurgency Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam, London: Chatto &Windus, pp. 126 and 146–147. Dr. Richard Stubbs further explains the idea in “From Search and Destroy to Hearts and Minds: The Evolution of British Strategy in Malaya 1948–60,” in Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, (eds.) Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, Oxford: Osprey, 2008, pp. 123–124. 76 Tarrazona, “Clouds.” The Bangsamoro Framework is to replace the ARMM with a larger semi- autonomous region and force former MNLF leaders to share political power with additional parties. Ricardo Saludo, “The Bangsamoro Framework: An Assessment,” The Manila Times (October 29, 2012), available at: www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/columnist1/34191-the- bangsamoro- framework- an-assessment (accessed January 10, 2013). 77 Governments’ decisions to negotiate with only one insurgent group – generally that most troublesome at the time – is a dubious but understandable strategy. Progress during negotiations is challenge enough with a single group involved; including all relevant movements exponentially increases the complexity. Even should the government include more than one group, chances are others not thought to merit inclusion will demonstrate their dissatisfaction at being excluded if for no other reason than the legitimacy being at the table implies. Regarding MNLF violence in the aftermath of the Philippine government’s negotiations with the MILF, see CNN staff, “Death toll climbs as army, militants fight on in the Philippines,” CNN.com, September 26, 2013, available at: www. cnn.com/2013/09/25/world/asia/philippines- standoff/ (accessed October 29, 2013); Santha Oorjitham, “Start with the helicopter view,” New Straits Times (September 26, 2013), available at: www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/start- with-the- helicopter-view- 1.363116 (accessed October 29, 2013). Southern Philippines 75 78 An Annex to Normalization signed January 25, 2014 represents an initial step toward the disarmament of MILF members and their reintegration into communities as civilians. Kristine Angeli Sabillo, “What is the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro?” Inquirer.net, March 26, 2014, available at: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/589245/what- is-the- comprehensive-agreement- on-the- bangsamoro (accessed May 19, 2014). 79 “In ratings heaven: The Philippines,” The Economist 407 (April 6, 2013): 86. 80 H. Brett Melendy states that approximately 5 percent of Philippine- Americans are Muslim. H. Brett Melendy, “Filipino Americans,” Encyclopedia.com, undated, available at: www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Filipino_Americans.aspx (accessed April 22, 2012). Saeed Rahnema reports that Muslim Filipinos among Canadian diaspora are negligible in numbers. Saeed Rahnema, “Islam in siaspora and challenges to multiculturalism,” in Muslim Diaspora: Gender Culture and Identity, (ed.) Haideh Moghissi, New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 25. 81 “Diaspora Investment,” Diaspora to Development, available at: http://d2d- investment.cfo.gov.ph/ (accessed January 8, 2013). The increase was steady despite an unfavorable world economy, though a 2013 article cited just below reflects an apparent drop in the equivalency of diaspora remittances as a percentage of Philippine gross domestic product. In 2007 the amount was US$14.7 billion, roughly 12 percent of the national gross domestic product. By 2009 the inflow was reportedly US$17.3. By 2010 the remittances sent home totaled US$18.7 billion. Stefanie Hertlein and Florin Vadean, “Remit- tances: A Bridge Between Migration and Development?” Focus Migration, Policy Brief 5, September 2006, available at: www.focus- migration.de/ Remittances_A_Brid.1200.0.html?&L=1 (accessed March 26, 2008); Ramos, Fidel Valdez, “Rizal and Filipinos Overseas: ‘Nationalism Transcending Borders,’ ” Manila Bulletin, December 31, available at: www.mb.com.ph/ issues/2006/12/31/OPED2006123183481.html (accessed March 27, 2008); Norimitsu Onishi, “Toiling Far From Home For Philippine Dreams: Remit- tances by Overseas Workers Drive Economic Growth but With Social Costs,” The New York Times (September 19, 2010): International section, 5; “The house that Saud built: The Philippines and remittances,” The Economist 400 (July 23, 2011): 39. An April 2013 article estimates the Philippine diaspora’s remittances as “equivalent to 8.5 percent of GDP [gross domestic product], helping the country to plug its trade deficit and amass over US$80 billion of currency reserves.” “In ratings heaven,” 86. 82 The Southern Philippine diaspora is a resource that thus far seems to have been little capitalized on by either the government or insurgent groups. 83 Zenn, “Philippines: Changing face of terror.” 84 Rina de Jesus, “A viable option in Basilan,” Mindanao Daily (June 16, 2010), available at: http://mindanaodaily.com/2010/06/16/a- viable-option- in-basilan/ (accessed June 17, 2010). 85 Jim Gomez, “Military: Filipino rebels kill 100 troops in 2011,” The Irrawaddy (January 23, 2012), available at: www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22901 (accessed April 4, 2012). 86 Swain, “Case Study,” 12; Mike Fowler, “Philippine Counterinsurgency Strategy: Then and Now,” Small Wars Journal, January 18, 2011, available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/01/philippine- counterinsurgency-s (accessed January 19, 2011). 87 Familial politics are not unheard of in the United States or other nations, of course – the Kennedys, Gores, and Bushes being examples – but the extent to which Philippine politics is rife with the condition casts serious doubt on the representativeness of elected officials. The following further elucidates the situation: 76 Southern Philippines “Politics has become a family affair in this country—not in the wholesome sense, but in a way akin to the Cosa Nostra,” newspaper columnist Ana Marie Pamintuan lamented, referring to the Sicilian mafia. “For decades, wealthy and famous families have dominated politics in the Philippines, concentrating power to the elite, promoting corruption and resulting in abuses. A number of these political clans are even known to have private armies or the backing of an armed group that help them maintain their influence. While the Philippine constitution prohibits political dynasties, an enabling law that would implement the ban is still pending in Congress, and many of the country’s lawmakers oppose it because they too come from political clans. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo herself is a product of an old political clan, being the daughter of late former president Diosdado Macapagal. Her eldest son and brother-in-law are both seeking re-election in Congress in May, while another son is running for another congressional seat. Other long- entrenched political clans include the families of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and former president Corazon Aquino.” (Girlie Linao, “Philippine politics, an all- in-the- family affair,” Deutsche Presse- Agenture, April 20, 2007) Philippine Army Brigadier General Rubin Rafael provided some insight into efforts to promote viable democracy in Southern Philippines: “A lot of non- government organizations are educating the people. A civil society here in Sulu [Jolo island] seeks to educate the population regarding what they should expect of good elected officials. [It does not] mention politicians individually, but [it addresses] the issues.” Rubin Rafael, (Brigadier General, Philippine Army) interview with Russell W. Glenn, Jolo, Philippines, January 12, 2007. 88 Charles T. R. Bohannan (Major, U.S. Army Reserve), “Unconventional Opera- tions,” Counter- Guerrilla Seminar, Fort Bragg, June 15, 1961, available at: www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/hukcampaign15june1961V.htm (accessed March 26, 2008). 89 Stephen T. Hosmer and S. O. Crane, Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, April 16–20, 1962, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, R- 412–1-ARPA/RC, 2006, 143, available at: www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R412–1/ (accessed March 26, 2008). 90 Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argues the same was not true by March 2010, however, stating “the prospects for reconciliation with the Taliban and reintegration of their fighters into Afghan society were much on- every one’s mind, especially Karzai’s, since he had convoked national peace conference in late April.” Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014, p. 478. 91 See, for example, “The Philippines: Breakthrough in Mindanao,” 17. 92 The same was true in the reverse during Somalia’s first decade of the twenty- first century. The leadership of Al Shabaab denied entry of aid providers into drought- stricken regions under its control, sharply undermining local sympathy for the insurgents and providing counterinsurgents with a public relations coup. 93 “The Philippines: Breakthrough in Mindanao,” 7. 94 Ramos, “Key Messages.” 95 That is not to say that problems did not remain. An anonymous interviewee speaking to the author in early 2007 recalled, When I visited the White Cross orphanage in December 2006, they had a joint AFP- U.S. effort to clean up after a storm. When I came back to visit, I asked when we could return and help further. The representative said, ‘Please don’t bring the AFP,’ because they were being asked to be paid. . . . Southern Philippines 77 Now we set up water and food off to the side so that soldiers don’t interact with the staff of the orphanage, which can’t afford to pay them. 96 Pye, Guerrilla Communism, pp. 198–99. 97 In announcing the 2012 Bangsamoro Framework agreement on October 8th, Philippine President Benigno Aquino commented “The ARMM is a failed experiment. Many of the people continue to feel alienated by the system, and those who feel that there is no way out will continue to articulate their grievances through the barrel of a gun. We cannot change this without structural reform.” Ishak V. Mastura, “Philippines: Bangsamoro, A Triumph of Western Diplomacy?” Small Wars Journal (January 3, 2013), available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/philippines- bangsamoro-a- triumph-of- western-diplomacy (accessed January 10, 2013). 98 “Shaking it all up: Peacemaking in the Philippines,” The Economist 403 (June 30, 2012): 42. 4 Counterinsurgency at home Perseverance in Northern Ireland

The Anglo- Irish problem was already old when Columbus discovered America.1

The British never remember – the Irish never forget.2

“The Anglo-Irish” problem has seen a people, a land, a colony, and a country torn by invasion, civil war, deliberate maltreatment, insurgency, terrorism, starvation, and other ingredients of woe in the island’s history of violence. It is only the more recent decades that interest here, those beginning with the closing months of the 1960s through the years since. The Republic of Ireland – the country in the island’s south – has sometimes been an ally of insurgents resisting British rule in the north, at times a partner in the United Kingdom’s counterinsurgency, and more often than not something of both during these later years. The preeminent of several insurgent groups during this period was the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). It was an organization that on occasion worked to undermine the Republic’s elected government in Dublin in addition to attacking representatives of the British crown in Ulster – Northern Ireland – the British portion of the island.3 Tactics included fabricated stories of politicians’ mis- deeds and the use of violence, among other efforts to manipulate the Republic’s government. Triggers for these assaults included arrests of PIRA members suspected of crimes in the south and Republic authorities’ cooperation with the British in addressing cross- border insurgent activities.4 The PIRA was in this sense conducting a double – even triple – insurgency not unlike that undertaken by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a movement seeking to undermine more than one government. PIRA worked to weaken the Republic’s government, Britain’s representatives in Northern Ireland, and authorities in London. Strikes against the last of these three included direct attacks on officials (notably the Brighton bombing attempt to assas- sinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher), the economy (by striking various targets in London), and government legitimacy (via such demonstrations that it could not protect its citizenry). It was, however, Northern Ireland that dominated its attentions. Northern Ireland 79 The Republic of Ireland’s government protested the 1969 dispatch of British troops to the northern province. At the time Dublin had not surrendered its constitutional claim to those counties separated from the South by the 1920 Government of Ireland Act. The military units sought to restore order and protect the innocent from violence as Protestant “loyalists” attacked Catholic “republicans” and the latter returned the favor, both often neglecting to discriminate between guiltless and parties par- taking in the killing, maiming, beating, coercion, and other forms of aggression. While “The Troubles” might seem a struggle involving three broad categories of opponents to the casual observer – Catholic insurgents, Protestant militias, and government security forces – the situation was inevitably far more complex, the number of willing and involuntary participants much greater. Groups were often internally fractured with relations between fragments changing as personalities and political conditions varied over time, a situation not dissimilar to that confronted by counterinsurgents in the Philippines.5 The British Army initially took a neutral stance between the IRA (used here to encompass the one or more factions using the description in some form at any given time) and other Catholic groups on one side and various Protestant organizations on the other. It is often joked that Britain’s army is more akin to a collection of tribes than a proper army thanks to the regiments and corps that are its parts, organizations with unique customs, traditions, uniforms, and behaviors that to the uninitiated range from the quaint to the bizarre. Varied though its components might be and despite the occasional stumble, the army has largely maintained consistency in the ends sought and means employed in Northern Ireland. Laws and political guidance changed, but soldiers and police were ever constrained to operate within the bounds of legal dictates, occasional breaches notwithstanding. The same was not true of the factions they attempted to keep from each other’s throats. Republican and loyalist elements included sectarian politicians, criminal masterminds, separatists, nationalists, thugs, drug traffickers, and virtually every other flavor of unsavory character with several of those traits often wrapped into a single personality. The soldier patrolling Northern Ireland after his 1969 arrival soon found himself ridiculed by the very people he had come to protect. It was on occasion due to an isolated act of ill discipline by a member of the armed forces. More often it was the result of deliberate efforts by the leaders in one or another faction to turn elements of the population against the military, a population sometimes unrecognizable as British to those in uniform. Northern Ireland’s capital of Belfast tended to remain relatively law- abiding in the early months of British Army presence. The city of Derry (or Londonderry, depending on one’s political leanings) was another story. One or more of the IRA’s several factions sent armed men sporting black balaclavas to purportedly protect the city’s majority Catholic population.6 80 Northern Ireland Early army missteps came when soldiers sometimes applied force exceeding what locals and logic deemed appropriate. At the same time, IRA groups had little desire to see the British Tommy greeted as peacemaker, security provider, and thus a replacement for themselves. Their leaders found many of the city’s Catholics receptive to efforts casting soldiers and anyone cooperating with them as deserving victims of insurgent retribution. Like Russian counterinsurgent operations and most of those in Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland was an in-house effort: the sovereign government in London or its representatives in the province provided the only security forces directly involved. Again, as in both Sri Lanka and Chechnya, Ire- land’s diaspora was vital to sustaining the insurgent cause. Americans of Irish ancestry in the U.S. northeast in particular provided millions in dollars, arms, ammunition, and other forms of support without which the IRA might never have risen above nuisance level. So too did the predominantly Catholic citizenry of the Irish Republic help the insurgents, though more often in the form of refuge than riches. British military leaders strictly constrained their tactics, denying use of the artillery, airpower, or heavy weaponry such as tank guns employed freely by the militaries of Sri Lanka and Russia with dire consequences for civilians. It would take decades to show, but such restraint proved key in influencing the migration of Catholic popular support away from violent insurgent groups. That this restraint did not necessarily translate into support for the British government (or the Northern Ireland parliament in Stormont) demonstrates that counterinsurgency is not a zero sum game.7 Movement along the continuum of relative interests need not signal a shift in allegiance. Lessening of support for adversary or ally does not mean it accrues to another; the response can instead reflect an effort to withdraw altogether by seeking refuge in the status of “neutral.” Amongst the other misguided perceptions receiving attention here, Northern Ireland’s insurgency demonstrates the inadvisability of considering an entire population as center of gravity. Social divisions in the province made clear the futility of treating province residents as homogeneous. Support of select individuals and groups, however, might be key to insurgent or counterinsurgent progress. It was the patient addressing of key segments of the province’s population that would underlie the latter’s progress, a state of affairs that lends further credence to casting aside claims of “COIN is dead” given British (sometimes belatedly applied) practices in keeping with such currently accepted counterinsurgency tenets as minimizing noncombatant casualties, seeking to address underlying grievances, and aiding in establishing legitimate indigenous government. The revised belief referencing the potential dangers associated with militias pertains here. Both Protestant and Catholic militias were troublesome, “troublesome” perhaps being too much akin to British understatement. It is difficult to conceive of insurgency in Ireland’s north in the absence of such groups. Northern Ireland 81 That counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland were entirely a “home game” dramatically influenced London’s approach in several ways. The British government could legitimately replace Stormont as the province’s governing authority, which it belatedly did to good effect. Second, while we will find in later chapters that an external counterinsurgent’s overzealous efforts to develop physical infrastructure risks being both costly and counterproductive, the quasi- outsiders in London used such enhancements to address economic disparity. It proved a crucial step in facilitating Catholic recognition that discontinuing support for insurgent groups offered greater promise of future stability, security, and peace than alignment. Finally, the British government addressed norms hindering the accomplishment of desired objectives. Sectarian support for insurgent co- religionists was one such obstacle, even though the motivations of the insurgents’ themselves were often other than religious in nature. The above steps to wean that support away from those prone to employing violence ultimately removed the ground from beneath insurgent feet.

Background: re- opening years To stand with an old farmer on a hillside in Pomeroy in County Tyrone while he pointed out Protestant farms “stolen from us by them black bastards” is to understand the emotive power of blood and earth. No matter how I looked at it, the reality stared me full in the face: this was a war between Catholics and Protestants, not against the British.8

When The Troubles started in August 1969, approximately one hundred PIRA active members were in Belfast, with another 300–500 supporters providing cover, hiding, or communications. Through 1971 and 1972, the Provisionals had smaller membership numbers than the Official IRA, but the perception that the former were protecting the Catholic population against the brutality of the British Army and Protestant mobs gained them a following that drained support from the more conservative Official IRA.9

One cannot understand the most recent phase of Irish insurgency without knowing something of those preceding it, though to believe there were consistent grievances throughout is to underestimate various IRA organizations’ talents for weaving new fabric from old thread. Religious differences did constitute a more or less overt element over the years of resistance, one believed to be, if not actually, a motive for conflict. Irra- tional hatred of Catholic by Protestant and Protestant by Catholic still remains in fringe groups and individual bigots but additional factors lay behind this too- easy explanation for motivations. The 1800 Act of Union formally crowned centuries of British rule to bring all of Ireland into the 82 Northern Ireland United Kingdom. Formality did nothing to stop Irish resistance. Rebel- lions – increasingly supported in spirit and specie by diaspora in the fledgling United States of America – flared in 1803, 1848, with the Fenians in 1867, and again during World War I in 1916. Political leaders in Northern Ireland made few efforts to dampen those emotions in the aftermath of Ireland’s south gaining independence in 1922. Antipathies increasingly took on religious undertones as leaders of one group or another found faith a convenient justification for other motives that included consolidation of power and criminal enrichment. Unionists – overwhelmingly Protestants who favored Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK – were a minority in Ireland as a whole but a majority in the North. They won control of the government in Stormont and quickly moved to institutionalize Catholic subjugation. Derry represented such manipulation at its worst. The city population was 55,000 of which 36,000 were Catho- lic. Gerrymandering ensured its 19,000 Protestants controlled eight of the city’s 12 wards. By 1969, 11 of every 12 city Catholics lived in Derry’s slums of Bogside or Creggan. Unemployment was the highest in the United Kingdom. The city might have marked an extreme, but slums and high unemployment became signature characteristics of Ulster Catholics.10 IRA propaganda capitalized on the partisan behaviors of a small minority in the provincial police consisting of the Royal Ulster Constabu- lary (RUC) and its part time reserve, the Ulster Special Constabulary (often referred to as the “B- Specials”) to reinforce a sense of a people under siege. This disinformation and behavior of the few did much to soil the reputations of the many in both organizations committed to community protection and tolerance.11 Occasional use of excessive force by police convinced Catholics that Stormont deliberately left them without protection against Protestant violence. Fatalities resulted when Protestant loyalists (hardline unionists prone to the use of violence) attempted to march through Catholic areas of Derry in August 1969. Republicans (those favoring Ulster’s incorporation in the Irish Republic, primarily Catholics) constructed barricades to demarcate Catholic areas and rebuff Protestant entry. Police lacked both the numbers and training to contain the escalat- ing violence. Their attempts to dismantle the obstacles and clashes with loyalists triggered fighting throughout much of the city. The turmoil quickly spread to other urban areas. The 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire was called on after police lost control.12 It took little time for the IRA’s propaganda, and carefully staged events designed to undermine the military’s legitimacy, to undercut soldier efforts to remain neutral. Guilt by association played its part. The police image as Stormont’s lackeys was not left to chance in the IRA’s influence campaign. Initial aspirations of its being a nonsectarian force withered under IRA coercion applied against early Catholic constables. The police were already perceived as favoring Protestants even before the army arrived and the numbers of Catholics in its ranks dwindled. The soldier Northern Ireland 83 was tainted by his affiliation with the unpopular police. The army thus found itself outmaneuvered by a few hundred IRA who by design or luck – likely a combination of both – seemed to conduct a brilliant campaign in which the insurgents orchestrated coercion, propaganda, and violence with the skills of a maestro to turn Catholics against the outsiders. One should not give PIRA leaders too much credit as strategists, however. Former RUC officer Bill Duff noted that the IRA “reacted to events, our mistakes, and our lack of savvy. They did not have a master plan as such. They flowed like water when it came to taking political advantage.”13 Timothy Hoyt supports this conclusion, finding that

although the ostensible political objectives of this campaign would most likely be the collapse of Northern Ireland’s regional parliament in Stormont and then the withdrawal of British forces, it does not appear that the IRA leadership engaged in extensive thinking about how best to use force to achieve those ends. Instead, a province-wide armed campaign appears to have been an end in itself, with eventual success more a matter of belief than planning.14

Regardless, British soldiers arrived with two strikes against them, forced as they were to support a deliberately uncooperative government in Stor- mont and a police whose reputation amongst many in the Catholic population was suspect. Demonstrations and riots became cover for opportunities to target soldiers. Robert Curtis, the first British soldier killed, fell on February 6, 1971, slain by a burst from a Thompson submachine gun initially provided by IRA sympathizers in the United States.15 It was another element in what would become a too common yet tortuous balance in the sectarian violence; members of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force had killed Catholic Constable Richard Arbuckle in 1969. He was the first policeman to die in the most recent cycle of turmoil.16 Their deaths would be but initial drops in a torrent to come. Not satisfied with simply turning Catholics against the army and police, the PIRA sought to deepen the divide. They did so with brutal effectiveness. The group targeted three Scottish soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, two of whom were brothers, in the month following Curtis’ death. Lured away from a pub by PIRA female sympathizers, the three were executed with shots to the back of the head as they stopped to relieve themselves at a roadside.17 Following a brutal spring and summer, Britain’s Prime Minister Edward Heath agreed with Stormont’s request to reintroduce internment – arresting, imprisoning, and holding suspected insurgents without trial – despite military leaders recommending against the move.18 It would prove another coup for the PIRA. Internment began on August 9, 1971. Neither the army nor police were prepared for the dramatic change in policy. Intelligence and suspect lists were outdated. Prison facilities were of poor quality and lacked the 84 Northern Ireland number of cells needed. Some in the security forces resorted to coercion during “deep interrogation” sessions as they sought to extract information from detainees. Later evidence suggests less than a third of those confined had any connection with separatist movements.19 Insurgent recruiting numbers soared.20 It would take years before the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabu- lary were able to reestablish themselves as legitimate authorities in the divided land. There would be additional mistakes before the ship righted itself. One of the most unfortunate came on the Sabbath of January 30, 1972. Soldiers from 1st Parachute Regiment fired on a crowd in the Bogside, Londonderry. 13 civilians were killed and others wounded. Later investigations failed to find convincing evidence that any of the wounded or killed had been armed despite soldiers’ claims of having responded to incoming fire.21 The domestic and international backlash was unforgiving. What became known as “Bloody Sunday” provided convincing evidence of what some in the military had already come to suspect: violence as used during colonial campaigns in Malaya, Cyprus, Aden, and elsewhere had no place within the borders of the United Kingdom. The immediacy and intensity of the criticism also made it evident that domestic politics and television would ensure this would be Great Britain’s most closely monitored counterinsurgency in history. It had taken less than three years for the PIRA to assert itself on the world stage. Too late, London realized its government in Stormont was more effective at fueling sectarian hatred than representing the rights of those allegedly governed. Direct rule from Westminster replaced the Ulster government on March 30, 1972. Secret negotiations with the PIRA began during the same period. London reinforced the insurgent group’s standing in the eyes of Catholic communities when it was agreed the army would respect “no- go areas” controlled by its members.22 The dialogues proved short- lived as the PIRA committed the first of several atrocities that would erase many of its earlier propaganda successes. Movement members detonated nearly 20 bombs that killed or wounded over 100 civilians on July 21, 1972. It was a “Bloody Friday” bookend to Bloody Sunday. Author Mike Davis wrote:

What was less well understood outside of Ireland, however, was the enormity of the wound that the IRA’s car bombs inflicted on the Republican movement itself. Bloody Friday destroyed much of the IRA’s heroic- underdog popular image, produced deep revulsion amongst ordinary Catholics, and gave the British government an unex- pected reprieve from the worldwide condemnation it had earned for the Blood Sunday massacre in Derry and internment without trial.23

London immediately dispatched additional soldiers to the province in a demonstration of British resolve. Operation Motorman began ten days Northern Ireland 85 after the bombings. The commitment would eventually total 21,000 troops, the British military’s largest operation since World War II. Soldiers tore down barricades and competed with both the Official and Provisional IRAs in a struggle to control neighborhoods that had long not seen representatives of the British government. Brigade and sometimes division- level operations sought to maintain constant pressure during five months of action.24 Britain’s military had reasserted itself in every no-go area when Operation Motorman ended on December 1, 1972. Insurgent violence in Northern Ireland would never again achieve the peak seen in the months prior to the arrival of reinforcements.25 Bloody Friday was a strategic PIRA mistake, one the counterinsurgents capitalized on to their advantage. The bombings helped level the influence operations playing field after the debacle of Bloody Sunday a half- year before. London had also reversed its mistake of granting the PIRA legitimacy by agreeing to stay out of insurgent- controlled neighborhoods. In contrast, the PIRA failed to recognize the damage the killing of innocents inflicted on their support. Bombings – indiscriminate by design or error – became its international as well as its domestic signature in efforts to grab the headlines.26 Yet while the fanfare led to condemnation at home, it proved effective in retaining the international support of those – primarily Americans – who remained safely remote from the human carnage. The PIRA expanded these operations to the larger London stage as it became “clear that [the propaganda value of] a bomb on the mainland was worth ten in Northern Ireland.”27 Targeting Great Britain had an additional benefit: a reduced likelihood the victims would include innocent Irish Catholics.28 The 1970s were a time of change for republican insurgencies. The Offi- cial IRA (OIRA) declared a ceasefire before the end of tumultuous 1972. Splinter elements formed the smaller and less effective but hyper- violent Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in the wake of the OIRA’s departure. The increased use of bombing by the PIRA in the meantime constituted part of what was effectively a strategic withdrawal as the group abandoned its tactics of directly confronting the army (much as Iraqi and Afghan insurgents would turn to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for the same reason some three decades later). The PIRA’s structure evolved in accompaniment to the change in tactics. Cells of four to ten men, known as active service units or ASUs, became the movement’s base unit of operation as the organization sought to reduce its intelligence signature and minimize the consequences of any breach of security. Some at the time mistakenly believed the reduction in IRA violence constituted a British victory. Those more familiar with the waxing and waning of insurgent strategies took steps to ensure Britain’s security forces adapted to the changed character of the threat. The number of British soldiers deployed to the province remained high. By 1980, six regular army battalions were serving two- year tours in the province while three additional battalions 86 Northern Ireland rotated every four and a half months. The local Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) of eight battalions augmented the security forces, its numbers dropping somewhat from 11 such units. An effort was made to compensate for the reduction by increasing the percentage of UDR personnel on full, rather than part, time status.29 Despite the best efforts of British and Irish security force leaders, small but active sectarian elements within their ranks continued to undermine the efforts of the majority. Rogue RUC and UDR personnel on occasion demonstrated the same Protestant prejudice displayed by members of loyalist groups such as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Ulster Vol- unteer Force (UVF ) or political parties such as the Progressive Unionist Party and Democratic Unionist Party. Sympathies sometimes included passing intelligence to the UDA, UVF, or other loyalist groups.30 British law adapted to the insurgency during the same period, the sus- pending of the right to trial by jury being among the most prominent changes. The necessity of adapting the law from that of business as usual to one accounting for Ulster’s insurgency was in part driven by PIRA employment of “lawfare”: use of the legal system to advantage by those less encumbered by its constraints. Peacetime legal constraints unsurprisingly frustrated soldiers and police facing adversaries employing guerrilla tactics both in the field and courtroom. Murders, assassinations, beatings, insurgent taxation of businesses, outright theft – particularly of building supplies from companies operating within IRA- controlled areas – and coercion employing such horrific actions as knee- capping were among the means used to finance operations and otherwise achieve insurgent ends.31 Some loyalist groups did much the same. Meanwhile, security force members had to follow stringent rules of evidence, account for every bullet discharged, and secure warrants before conducting searches as if they were on the mainland.32 Only in 1973 did stipulations to the Special Powers Act belatedly recognize an insurgency might demand adaptation of peacetime legal processes. The act granted members of the military the right to arrest civilians for specified crimes (as police were previously the only members of the security force authorized to make arrests). Juryless trials became the norm for cases in which jury tampering or intimidation threatened fair proceedings (though judges continued to suffer PIRA attacks that included assassinations).33 While the above changes to a certain extent loosened what some in the security forces felt was an arm tied behind their back, other policies subverted counterinsurgent operations. London granted PIRA prisoners political status. The policy (also granted by Dublin south of the border) meant PIRA internees lived separately from other criminals and enjoyed special privileges. Hardcore veterans had the freedom to proselytize to a captive audience of often younger, less committed offenders. Jails became an Irish republican equivalent of fundamentalist madrassas. Sessions included lectures on the republican view of Irish history and other propaganda finding only too fertile ground Northern Ireland 87 in the minds of incarcerated young Catholics. Many recruited and trained under these conditions became among the organization’s most hardcore practitioners upon release.34 Political prisoner status granted the republican movement further legitimacy in the eyes of both those imprisoned and others outside prison walls who logically – if often incorrectly – concluded that individuals granted such status were justified in committing their criminal acts and atrocities. Counterinsurgent frustrations were the greater given the realization that those imprisoned would soon return to Ulster’s communities armed with new knowledge and conviction. That murderers of law enforcement officials in the Republic were getting 40-year sentences and those in England roughly 30, while the average for someone who killed a policeman or soldier in Northern Ireland was 12.88 years, further incensed.35 Prisons also became stages for insurgent marketing to outside audiences. Productions such as the dirty protests (in which republican prisoners spread their excrement on cell walls and refused to wash) and hunger strikes projected an image of an organization far stronger and more influential beyond penitentiary walls than was actually the case. Inmate hunger strikes gained worldwide audiences, reinforcing convictions that the IRA represented a legitimate political cause. These influence campaigns’ effectiveness was made clear when Ulster voters elected several of the hunger strikers to parliament in London and Dublin even as the men remained behind bars.36 PIRA member and informant Sean O’Callaghan described the consequences of granting political prisoner status from the perspectives of an insider:

If a British government had been asked to devise a plan to rescue the IRA and hand it financial, political, and military support on a scale undreamed of by its leaders, it could not have come up with a better one. . . . The republican movement was awash with new funds – particularly from America.37

Less recognized at the time but of even greater long- term impact: the PIRA recognized the benefits of operating along this new line -of opera tion; participation in legitimate political processes polished its domestic and international image as representative of Catholic interests throughout Ireland. Ironically, it would be this transition that also opened the door to the political solution that appears to have ended The Troubles.38 Politics in London ensured the counterinsurgent path was never a straight one. Former RUC Assistant Chief Constable Christopher Albiston, one of the new breed of police who helped reinforce the RUC’s position as a nonsectarian organization, observed:

The groups that oppose a government are far more unitary than those they oppose. . . . As we had a democratic government, it meant that 88 Northern Ireland you’d have two or three ministers that would have different shades of view on what had to be accomplished. And they would have differing views on what needed to be done to serve long-term objectives. What in part mitigated this was that chief constables and other key individuals did not change. That continuity was something you don’t always see in a democracy.39

Though inconsistencies among British government officials at times existed when it came to the issue of Northern Ireland, the strong leadership of Margaret Thatcher during the critical 1979–1991 period and agreement by Britain’s major political parties not to make The Troubles a partisan issue denied insurgents further ammunition needed to employ British national politics in the service of their aims.40

An insurgency matures, the counterinsurgent adapts The IRA cannot control the actions of the security forces, but it can provoke them. On the other hand, the political costs of indiscriminate or errant acts of violence have proven to be extraordinarily high, particularly when the adversary manages to control his own responses.41

Pulls upon the military, then, come as it were in two dimensions: up and down the scale of force between limited and all- out warfare; and inwards and outwards between the domestic arena and the overseas war.42

Americans continued their witting and unwitting funding, sometimes through nonprofit organizations alleging to assist Northern Ireland’s poor. Soviet, East German, Libyan, Basque, and Palestine Liberation Organization aid augmented diaspora donations. These could prove a consistent source of support or ones less reliable, depending on diplomatic winds and the effectiveness of British interdiction.43 Behind- the- scenes negotiations restarted, this time complemented by uncompromising on- the-ground tactics rather than acceptance of IRA dominance in Catho- lic neighborhoods. Yet neither talking nor fighting seemed to show consistent progress as operations entered the last quarter of the twentieth century. Loyalist–republican violence continued in parallel with IRA– British Army fighting. The PIRA responded by gunning down ten Protes- tant workers after five Catholics were killed in the opening days of 1976. Asked for justification, an Irish Republican Army spokesman replied, “Why not? It stopped the sectarian killing in the area, didn’t it?” The logic was flawless regardless of how contemptible the process. Protestant attacks stopped for a period. So too, however, did promising negotiations, in this case those between the Ulster Defence Association and the PIRA.44 It was neither the first nor the last time the actions of a few individual gunmen Northern Ireland 89 would prove a setback to peace initiatives, demonstrating that insurgent strategies can live or die on the decisions of a “strategic corporal” no less than those of nations.45 The Ulster Volunteer Force murdered two members of the (also Protestant) Ulster Defence Association in April 1975, hoping the UDA would blame the PIRA and take revenge, thereby shattering the ongoing IRA- British Army ceasefire.46 Appearances could be deceiving. The UVF and its ilk might at first simply seem a rogue counterinsurgent faction. A more careful look reveals such loyalist groups are more accurately described as counter-counterinsurgents. In addition to their illegal attacks against both Catholic and Protestant targets with innocents often the victims, these organizations conducted operations against members of the security forces. Such was the case in the late 1985–1986 aftermath of the Anglo- Irish Agreement with which UVF members dis- agreed. The loyalists attacked 300 Royal Ulster Constabulary members’ homes, 50 of which were burned.47 The existence of insurgencies notwithstanding, many in government and the security forces had come to believe the counterinsurgent pendu- lum had swung too far from acceptable law enforcement practice by 1975. There was no doubt that security force ambushes, arrests, and at times questionable interrogation techniques like those accompanying internment’s 1971 introduction had helped to reduce the ranks of the PIRA. Yet peace seemed no closer. There was no campaign plan for weaving attrition of insurgent ranks and other COIN activities into a coherent strategy in the service of peace.48 Difficult as it was for a military to sheath its swords, the British in North- ern Ireland did just that . . . though weapons were kept at arms length for retrieval when necessary. Like similar progress in Southern Philippines in 2005, overly aggressive tactics that spawned Bloody Sunday, abuse of prisoners, and shootouts on neighborhood streets were replaced with the exercise of greater restraint over time. Steps taken to reduce soldier and police exposure to violence while at the same time shielding locals from its collateral effects came to include extraordinary but operationally justified actions. The airfield supporting a British military installation inthe village of Bessbrook became the busiest helicopter facility in Europe. Even garbage left by air.49 Other changes were more obvious logical evolutions. Foot patrols became the norm, replacing the impersonal vehicle patrols where soldiers were merely passing visages behind glass or heads protrud- ing from atop a speeding Land Rover. (Both vehicles and helicopters were supporting components of foot patrols, however, as they provided flexibility, responsiveness, and situational awareness for the dismounted elements.) The British Tommy came to realize one of those ironies seemingly rediscovered during nearly every counterinsurgency: a soldier is safer and far more effective without the metal shell of a vehicle around him. A single bomb might kill or maim all in a personnel carrier. A properly conducted foot patrol makes it difficult to engage more than a single soldier at a time. 90 Northern Ireland It also made escape for the attacker considerably tougher. That was especially true once soldiers and marines learned to operate in “multiples” (half- platoons) that patrolled on parallel streets, meaning a gunman firing on one portion of the patrol might find his planned escape route blocked by others, a patrol’s constantly changing routes making it hard to determine where its parts would be at any given moment. More important yet: the soldier or Royal Marine on foot was a better intelligence collector than when he was cooped up in the back of a Land Rover. Both eyes and ears took in more at a pedestrian pace. Dismounted patrolling also honed a man’s sixth sense, that ability to detect “absence of the normal or the presence of the abnormal” in the jargon of the Tommy. Foot patrols not only permitted soldiers to gauge the temperament of a neighborhood; they also gave them the opportunity to alter popular opinion for the better once they adapted their techniques to exercise greater restraint, a situation made all the easier when residents speak the same language. Indistinguishable at the time, the combination of restraint when turning to force, increasingly well- coordinated operations involving the military, police, and other security partners, improved intelligence, and British government efforts to redress social ills long plaguing Catholic communities marked a turning point.50 It was a slow change of direction, one more akin to that of a ship at sea than a pivot on parade, but progress could not have been more clear than when the military handed off primary responsibility to the police in 1977, marking both sufficient containment of the insurgency to permit the transition and the legal system’s readiness to reassume that responsibility. Changes in Lon- don’s policy were also key. IRA prisoners lost their political status. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher left no doubt regarding the underlying reasons: “We are not prepared to consider Special Category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime. It is not political.”51 The IRA in its several forms was once again relegated to criminal status in the eyes of British policymakers and the country’s courts. These adaptations combined with counterinsurgent introduction of better forensic procedures to fuel further PIRA evolution. There were many in the IRA’s various factions who believed theirs was a legitimate social and political cause. More base needs drove others just as they did a fair number in the various loyalist organizations. The lure of a criminal life attracted individuals who might sympathize with or occasionally support the IRA but whose primary occupations included running protection rackets, robbery, and other illicit activities, activities that had long been used to finance both republican and loyalist elements.52 While the PIRA allegedly steered clear of selling illegal drugs, splinter factions were less hindered by such qualms. Legitimate business enterprises also helped fund operations. The line between commitment to a cause and simple illicit behavior was more a smear. Progress during a counterinsurgency is far easier to see looking over one’s shoulder than during day- to-day operations when several small steps Northern Ireland 91 forward can seem to be washed away by a single setback. That was the case on August 27, 1979. PIRA insurgents targeted a military vehicle with a roadside bomb along a rural route near Warrenpoint, killing six soldiers from 2 Battalion, The Parachute Regiment. Tragic though the loss was, the destruction of the vehicle was merely bait. Responders from the Queen’s Own Highlanders established their on- site headquarters in a nearby building in which a far larger bomb waited. The explosion was massive, killing 12 including the regiment’s commanding officer of whom all that could be recovered was a single uniform epaulette.53 It was to be the greatest loss of British armed forces during The Troubles. Yet the event reaped far less attention than might be thought. The PIRA murdered Lord Mountbatten and three others aboard his boat the same morning. Catholics feared reprisals that never came. PIRA attempts to reestablish their once seemingly unassailable status as public champions would have its peaks and troughs in ensuring years, but British reticence to employ more than minimum necessary force and insurgent misjudgments such as the 1983 killing of an Irish Republic policeman increasingly cost the Provi- sionals more support than they gained. The movement lost sympathizers on both sides of the border.54 British propaganda emphasized the differences in tactics, comparing security force restraint with continued insurgent atrocities. The PIRA proved an effective British propaganda ally, seizing on new approaches that horrified all but the most die-hard supporters. Prime among them were taking children hostage to ensure their fathers drove bomb- laden cars into army checkpoints, use of women to transport bombs, and killing Catholics working with the British military. Rather than being seen as just punishment for collaborating with the enemy, Northern Ireland’s Catholics saw these last murders as denying victims’ families a steady income, hard to come by given the province’s depressed economy.55 Even the families of PIRA members suffered at the hands of insurgent leaders. Individuals killed by security forces had their funerals coopted as propaganda events, ignoring next-of-kin preferences for privacy in their time of grieving. The PIRA declared a ceasefire in Northern Ireland on August 31, 1994 but continued to attack targets in England. Primary loyalist groups followed with their own cessation of hostilities the following month, their willingness having been conditional on a Provisional IRA declaration.56 PIRA miscalculations did not cease, however. Its support in the South suffered a further blow with its second killing of a Garda (Republic of Ireland police) officer in 1996.57 The backlash was trans-border. Irish security officials agreed to cooperate more fully with British authorities on counterinsurgency issues. A newspaper poll showed Northern Ireland’s Catholics no longer favored reunification if it meant having an Irish Republic run by the Provisionals, a conclusion those in the Republic had come to a generation before.58 The administration of British Prime Minister Tony Blair 92 Northern Ireland seized on the opportunity presented by the changing mindscape, re- securing a Northern Ireland ceasefire in 1997 after the earlier one had effectively lapsed the year before. Negotiations started soon thereafter but quickly stalled on the issue of “decommissioning,” the term used in talks to address disarmament, a longtime demand of previous governments and requisite for loyalist groups. Putting off final decisions on such concerns, the PIRA’s declining fortunes and London’s choosing to simply ignore the most outrageous of loyalist demands led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on that day in 1998. Elements of the accord included the creation of an independent body tasked with reforming Northern Ireland’s police, power- sharing in Ulster’s executive, and a guarantee that the province’s constitutional status would change only if that became the wish of a majority of its citizens.59 Delaying the more intractable decisions meant the Good Friday Agree- ment marked an end only to the initial round of negotiations. Discussion continued on- again, off- again for another decade. It took until May 2007 for leaders of the primary Catholic and Protestant political parties to agree to govern Ulster with some semblance of cooperation.60 Negotiation, rather than force, punctuated Northern Ireland’s best opportunity for peace in nearly 40 years, but it was a dialectic of force and restraint that had brought the PIRA to the table.

Building and sustaining insurgency in Ireland In practice, differences between the main factions in Northern Ireland have been characterised less by religious belief than by the social, cultural and political views to which the two sections of the community adhere. In simple terms, religion has been a badge or label rather than a cause.61

How did a small group of insurgents manage to keep one of the world’s premier armies at bay for the better part of four decades? Having a safe haven in the Irish Republic played a role, the importance of which is often overlooked. They needed only to make a short drive or walk over the border to be free of prosecution for most of those two score years. Evid- ence supports suspicions that the triggerman for the devastating Warren- point attack was south of the boundary where it was less than 100 meters from the attack site. A population’s tolerance alone will not sustain an insurgency. Funds, weapons, and political and diplomatic support fuel a movement both on the tactical battlefield and in the realms of politics and international discourse. American support for violent Irish republican movements was substantial, sometimes vital, and by-and-large sustained despite many of the PIRA’s worst devastations. Some support was innocent; authorities in the Northern Ireland 93 United States, United Kingdom, and Republic of Ireland agreed that donations to the Irish charity Northern Aid (NORAID) in many cases came from those ignorant of the fact that these funds were sometimes used to purchase arms. Other Americans were enchanted by the prospect of supporting a cause whose consequences were never closer than an ocean away. That many of those donating funds were not innocent of their funds’ ultimate destination became apparent when charitable contributions dropped sharply in the aftermath of particularly gruesome IRA bombings.62 Yet prominent American politicians found the Irish insurgent cause a political expedient even as late as the terminal years of the millennium. It was too easy for those distant to ignore the cruelty their support sustained. In 1998, 33-year- old Andrew Kearney, son of Catholic and staunch republican Maureen Kearney, had a disagreement with an IRA commander in a pub. Eight men later forced their way into his apartment as Andrew sat cradling his two-week old daughter in his arms. They dragged him into the stairwell and shot him in both legs, severing an artery. He bled to death; the thugs had ripped the phone out of the wall and jammed the elevator doors, preventing the timely arrival of medical attention that could have saved his life.63 Claiming just cause for loyalist violence was no less a farce: a gunman had shot and killed 18-year- old Catholic Bernadette Martin the year before in the village of Aghalee as she lay in her Protestant boyfriend’s bed.64 Support of the insurgents could make for strange bedfellows. A mid- 1980s decline in contributions from homes in Boston, New York, and bene factors elsewhere found a willing replacement in Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi.65 The dictator appears to have become the Provisionals’ primary arms supplier until the early 1990s when he informed the British government he was terminating shipments. But years of arms and explosives stockpiling – primarily at locations in the more expansive and tolerant South – meant interruptions were insufficient to bring the insurgents to their knees despite even more severe curbing in the aftermath of Septem- ber 11, 2001.66

Early counterinsurgent stumbles Everything done by a government and its agents in combatting insurgency must be legal. But this does not mean that the government must work within exactly the same set of laws during an insurgency which exited beforehand.67

Poor intelligence goes a long way toward explaining initial counterinsurgency failures. Frustration with the lack of viable information was a driving force behind the decision to reintroduce internment; predictably, it was largely responsible for the arrest of hundreds unassociated with the movement. (Unlike the chicken and the egg, the evidence is clear as to whether 94 Northern Ireland intelligence or an operation ought to come first.) It would take the better part of ten years to correct this crippling shortfall, but by the end of the 1970s one out of every eight British Army regular soldiers serving in Northern Ireland was directly involved in the intelligence process. Others fed the intelligence system via reports at the end of patrols or observations passed on after helicopter or vehicle movements. Blunt instruments such as cordoning off neighborhoods and conducting disruptive home searches gave way to training soldiers in suspect recognition and capitalizing on those who showed a particular talent for establishing a bond with local citizens. Rank did not dictate; often it was not the senior officer or -ser geant on patrol who possessed the aptitudes.68 The early failure to better collect and coordinate intelligence is surprising given its importance during Britain’s colonial counterinsurgencies. That Northern Ireland’s insurgency was a domestic contingency helps to explain the shortfall. Ulster was initially not a military theater of operations. The IRA was far less a threat in the mid- 1960s than was the case a decade later. Provincial violence was therefore not as much a concern in London as locally prior to the emergence of the PIRA. Lack of mutual familiarity likely impeded development of a campaign plan involving the military and police early on, a plan that would have provided guidelines regarding both what intelligence was needed and how it would be shared amongst the many counterinsurgent organizations. (We will later see a similar lack of understanding of the value of other agencies’ intelligence during the opening days of the Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands.) Each organization was instead left to its own devices for cultivating sources. Not until 2007 did MI5 in London have overarching responsibility for acquiring intelligence on IRA factions; prior to that the responsibility was split between the RUC and its successor Police Service of Northern Ireland (in Northern Ireland) and Metropolitan Police Special Branch (for activities on mainland Great Britain; MI5 assumed that responsibility at the end of 1992).69 Special Branch of the RUC had both an operational and intelligence roll, as did the Special Detective Unit of the Garda Siochana, the Republic of Ireland’s police force. Royal Ulster Constabulary capabilities included both mobile support units and a Crimi- nal Investigation Department responsible for gathering evidence in support of charging and convicting those accused of terrorist activities.70 The British Army Intelligence and Security Group with its 14 Intelligence Company and Field Reconnaissance Unit focused on military concerns, as would other armed forces assets such as computer experts in 12 Intelli- gence Company and a separate weapons intelligence unit. The Royal Air Force Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre assisted by providing aerial photography. This is only a partial list of intelligence organizations operating in the province or having an interest in its insurgency activities. Lack of intelligence coordination hindered effectiveness. It also put members of the security force at risk of fratricide when a failure to share Northern Ireland 95 migrated into the operational arena. More than once a policeman, soldier, or member of the Special Air Service (SAS) silently entered a building to establish an observation post only to surprise and be surprised in turn by the presence of those from another unit. Several intelligence officialdoms also fell victim to a ploy that plagued Americans in Vietnam and would do so again in Iraq. An informer would sell similar information – sometimes valid, other times not – to separate organizations, knowing their failure to share and desire to protect sources meant the scam was a safe source of multiple paychecks.71 This failure to coordinate at lower echelons was the more damning when resulting reports climbed separate intelligence ladders, coming together only at higher levels where the apparently independent sources became self-validating. The operational consequences are easily imagined. Only with the appointment of Maurice Oldfield as Security Co- ordinator for Northern Ireland in late 1979 were many of the myriad intelligence entities physically brought together at the single location of Castlereagh Royal Ulster Constabulary station.72 It was a significant step, one taken nearly three decades after General Gerald Templer had similarly insisted on consolidating intelligence assets in Malaya. Much remained to be done despite this advance. There were some 37 separate computer software programs for handling intelligence- related functions in Northern Ireland as late as 1994, none among them compatible with the others.73 Such organizational “stove pipes” were not exclusive to the intelligence arena. Police and military as well as intelligence units took over a quarter of a century before they aligned the geographic boundaries used to control their respective operations. Whereas alignment would have meant units could have collocated their headquarters and minimized the number of individuals needed to serve in liaison roles, failure to share boundaries could mean two, three, or more liaison officers were needed depending on how many police precincts overlapped an army unit’s operational area or vice versa.74 The number and complexity of tasks necessary for coordinating operations increased proportionately as well. (Taking advantage of shared boundaries has repeatedly proven more elusive than one would think. U.S. Army National Guard units assisting police and fire departments during riots in 1992 Los Angeles initially chose to denote unit areas of operation based on easily identifiable terrain features such as interstate highways rather than aligning them with local jurisdictional boundaries.75 U.S. ground forces confronted the same problem in Baghdad during the opening years of Operation Iraqi Freedom that began in 2003.) Context goes a long way toward explaining why lessons from previous and even ongoing counterinsurgencies were overlooked. 12 years of operations in Malaya ended only in 1960. An insurgency in Oman (with which the British military assisted Omani counterinsurgent efforts) was but midway through its course in 1969, and withdrawal from Aden occurred only 18 months before the original complement of soldiers from the 1st 96 Northern Ireland Battalion, Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire deployed onto the streets of Ulster that year. Many lessons that would later become common knowledge had yet to be widely recognized, if not appreciated for the first time, outside their theaters. Even those grasped early on were as of yet square pegs that required trimming to fit the round holes of a different campaign, one on home turf at that. What is important to realize is that Britain eventually prevailed in overcoming its early shortcomings. As in the Philippines, the lesson is encouraging: despite early missteps – even quite serious ones – success may still be within reach given that initial shortfalls are not so egregious as to be fatal.

Correcting course Unless the causes of unrest are addressed, insurgency or serious unrest will continue. In Northern Ireland this did happen, over a period of years. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive did clear the great majority of the Victorian slums. Money was invested into the economy to create jobs. It took time, and it could not have been done without a substantial reduction in the levels of violence of the early 1970s. But, simplistically, the long- term solution was not to deploy three battalions into the Divis Flats; but rather to bulldoze them and build decent, respectable homes with proper amenities. . . . Armed forces . . . should avoid making the situation worse. It could be argued that the Army did make the situation worse by, in practice, alienating the catholic community in 1970 and 1971.76

It is for the police and armed forces to act as if they were a rock in stormy seas: constant, dependable, always there, unmoveable by the crash of waves upon them. On the steadfastness of that rock will depend the successful outcome of the political negotiations.77

The first of the above quotes may seem a harsh assessment, but it is a frank self- evaluation by the British Army substantiated by facts. Counterin- surgents in London and the province capitalized on lessons offered by previous stumbles, wrong turns, questionable decisions, and various failures to cooperate with each other to overcome resulting missteps. They pushed back from the table to view the reasons underlying initial shortcomings. There was the need to resolve underlying issues that fueled community support for the insurgents or counter- counterinsurgents. Army leaders recognized rough tactics “probably contributed significantly to the alienation of the catholic population in the early years of the campaign.”78 The mid- 1980s saw Britain’s soldiers and marines turn to “framework operations . . . intended to reassure the public and deter terrorist activity whilst assisting the development of intelligence.”79 Patrolling, manning vehicle checkpoints, occupying observation posts, and searches continued to Northern Ireland 97 consume a soldier’s day. But theirs was a lightened touch. Reassurance of the population, deterring sectarian violence, and attrition of insurgent groups were three strands in the security line of operation. Both regular and covert units continued to lethally engage as well as arrest insurgents, but primacy shifted from elimination of the threat to denying insurgents the support of communities.80 Unlike Russia in Chechnya and Sri Lanka in its struggle with the LTTE, the British focused on a center of gravity drawn from Northern Ireland’s population, seeking to deny purveyors of violence support from relevant segments of the population. Restraint during operations found a colleague in improved cooperation between counterinsurgent organizations. Creation of TCGs – tasking and coordination groups – went a long way toward ensuring police, army, and special operations units reduced those occasions on which their personnel unexpectedly came across each other. Security force operations were considered to be one of two types: the above- mentioned framework operations “conducted by regular military and police forces [that] included patrolling, base security, searching for terrorist munitions, overt surveillance, and control of movement,” and covert operations “generally conducted by special forces, both military and police.” The latter included some attacks against insurgents but more often consisted of clandestine surveillance and the handling of agents.81 TCGs brought representatives from relevant units together during mission planning and execution. The groups remained small in the interest of reducing the risk of compromise. Coordination might imply mutual support or standing by with a quick reaction force. On other occasions police and regular force units were simply told a specified area was out of bounds for a block of time during which special operators had the comfort of knowing anyone carrying a weapon was either one of their own or a legitimate target.82 Such adaptations were fundamental to counterinsurgent progress. Mis- takes are all but unavoidable regardless of how proficient a force might be. Many are recognized only in retrospect. Later critics condemned as madness the employment of internment in the early 1970s, but a decision that proved so disastrous in hindsight is easier to understand in the light of previous policies that had generated progress. Dublin’s Irish Special Branch arrested 60 individuals under similar conditions of internment in 1957. Solid intelligence ensured those incarcerated were rightly chosen. The maneuver severely crippled the IRA in the south. Its later failure came in London’s inability to recognize how ill- prepared British intelligence, training, and prison facilities were in comparison with its counterparts in the Republic a decade and half previously. Perceptions of the IRA had also changed since Dublin’s use of internment. Some among the South’s Cath- olics viewed IRA members as victims of loyalist atrocities and British repression in the aftermath of events such as Bloody Sunday. Misbelief that atrocities rarely resulted in perpetrators being brought to justice reinforced those perceptions.83 London failed to recognize how that public 98 Northern Ireland change of heart influenced Irish Republic politicians. Any assistance provided by Dublin to the British could have proved costly during elections.84 This lapse is surprising given the Republic’s status as a potential COIN partner. Instead, insurgents in the South continued to move about freely, train recruits, store munitions, and launch operations from their sanctuary. Punishments for those brought to trial could be ridiculously light: longtime IRA leader Joe Cahill received a sentence of only three years after Republic authorities arrested him in 1975 onboard the ship Claudia with five tons of weapons courtesy of Muammar Kaddafi.85 The November 1985 signing of the Anglo- Irish Agreement did much to mend relations between the two capitals. It created a standing committee with representatives from both governments that gave the South a forum for expressing concerns and providing recommendations on issues involving the province. Some in the Republic continued their support for the PIRA, however, helping to explain why counterinsurgent progress came with maddening slowness during the period.86 Perhaps the most grievous of London’s missteps was the belated imposition of direct rule. What little information the British military had on insurgents in the North would have been a good deal less had they not been able to capitalize on Stormont’s knowledge of local conditions, but ignorance can be preferable to tainted intelligence. Northern Ireland’s government was legitimate in terms of how it came to office, but democratic elections are no guarantee of more than procedural legitimacy as authorities in Sri Lanka clearly demonstrated. The Protestant dominated Stormont aggressively failed to represent the interests of its Catholic minority, making it an intractable obstacle to counterinsurgent success. The mainland government was fortunate in having the authority to displace those whose deliberate inadequacy tainted wider British efforts. The counterinsurgency was less fortunate in suffering from London’s lethargy in taking action, perhaps mistakenly accepting that support for an in-place government is essential to success. Such early misfortunes – Bloody Sunday, internment, failure to adequately account for Dublin’s concerns, and tolerance of Stormont among them – meant the middle years of the British counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland were largely ones of retaking lost ground. London could have been tempted to throw in the towel had those suffering insurgent attacks not been its own citizens. Departure was not an option. Some early shortfalls might have been avoided had there been the aforementioned campaign plan to guide counterinsurgent efforts, one orchestrating political objectives with the activities of participants on the ground. The British Army’s own official history admits

at no stage in the campaign was there an explicit operational level plan as would be recognised today. . . . Campaign planning tools only appeared formally, in rudimentary form, in British Army doctrine in 1994 and in joint [inter-service] doctrine thereafter. It had been Northern Ireland 99 entirely normal to conduct campaigns, such as the Mau Mau or the Malayan Emergency, by a series of directives. [Further], no senior officer had the authority to write or impose a campaign plan across all the necessary lines of operation.87

There was therefore no guidance to bind London’s separate political, diplomatic, military, police, economic, and other counterinsurgent strands or the lines of operations of which they were a part. Each authority was largely left on its own when it came to creating policy in response to piecemeal dictates from the capital. It is often argued that decentralization is critical to counterinsurgent success, but decentralization without overarching guidance courts anarchy. London provided sufficient guidelines to ensure no crossing of that line, but one is left to wonder how different the course of the counterinsurgency might have been had a conductor of the orchestra been in place from the start. It instead took more than a decade of tuning and frequent cacophony before the many instruments were better brought together, and even then imperfectly. Though lack of coherency slowed its effects, London’s injection of funds to address longstanding Catholic economic disadvantages comprised one of the most significant threads in the counterinsurgents’ slowly developing comprehensive approach. Tenements fell to the bull- dozer, housing of dubious quality being replaced by more tolerable residences for Northern Ireland’s previously neglected poor. Civil–military cooperation to eliminate racketeering did much to reduce the braking effect criminality had on the North’s economy. British training for military leaders expanded to include means of developing provincial institutions, complementing operations focusing on direct attrition of insurgent forces. The rule of law regained ground earlier lost. Legal inconsistencies received attention; sentences for firearms offenses were brought in line with the mainland’s stricter punishments.88 And to the south, the Republic’s long entrenched economic backwardness gave way to stunning progress thanks in considerable part to grants from the European Union. The PIRA’s appeals to the downtrodden found diminishing audiences on both sides of the border. The Ministry of Defence extended tour lengths for units rotating through Northern Ireland, reducing turnover and giving soldiers more time to understand the province and develop counterinsurgency best practices. Resident units remained for two and a half years rather than 24 months. Short tour or “roulement” units had added a half- month to originally four- month tours, providing for a week’s overlap between incoming and outgoing organizations at both ends of deployments. Those tours were further lengthened to six months in the century’s last decade. Lengthening the stays of individuals in select specialties – often those in intelligence units – further improved effectiveness, enhancing understanding of the operational environment. Assigning civilian scientific advisors on lengthy tours to 100 Northern Ireland military headquarters did likewise. The analysts compiled and analyzed data, identified trends, gauged which counterinsurgent practices proved most successful, and provided additional insights difficult to discover without sustained on- site presence.89 Improved familiarity led to counterintuitive dis- coveries. New technology design focused on man- borne systems rather than those for vehicles in recognition of the foot soldier’s primacy. Only later were these modified for vehicle operations, reversing the previous design- large-then- scale-down default.90 Such innovation was possible only as relationships between the many counterinsurgent parties became increasingly intimate, a far cry from the less coordinated activities of the 1970s and 1980s. “The key is not the scale or variety of the threat, nor the breadth of agencies needing coordination,” the Ministry of Defence’s official analysis of Britain’s campaign in Northern Ireland observed. “It is the organization and the coordination processes which make them work together efficiently.”91 British officers later concluded they could have benefited further still had they extended the tours of an even broader set of personnel manning key positions. They likewise suggested operations would have benefited had members of the indigenous Ulster Defence Regiment been integrated into British Army units during the outsiders’ Ulster rotations.92 “It is notable that a very few, quite junior, individuals were responsible for the basic ideas behind many of the developments seen in the campaign,” an army analysis remarked. “Equally important, however, is the readiness of the chain of command to consider such ideas, select the winners and implement them, supporting them to the highest levels where appropriate.”93 A classic example of such chemistry was the establishment of the Four- Square Laundry in Belfast, run by members of the Mobile Reconnaissance Force (MRF ), a forerunner of 14 Intelligence Company. Established by then Brigadier Frank Kitson, the business immediately made itself popular by distributing color-coded discount tickets with bar- gains for customers patronizing the new shop. Incoming laundry received cleaning, pressing, or dry- cleaning as appropriate, all with a standard of service ensuring customer loyalty. But there was an additional step through which each piece passed: analysis for explosives residue, the key piece of machinery having been given the appearance of just another among the many essential to such an enterprise. Discovery of trace on laundry from a neighborhood originally designated by a certain color coupon resulted in more tickets being distributed in the area, these having individual numbers so that each could be associated with a specific address. It was not long before security force teams would pay a visit once a ticket and residue matched. Sting operations led to several arrests and seizure of bomb- making materials as well as weapons, this from an operation that paid its own way.94 An October 2, 1972 IRA ambush killed the British Army soldier working undercover as the driver of the laundry’s van after a “turned” former IRA member compromised the operation. The MRF disbanded soon thereafter.95 Northern Ireland 101 Firm steps forward on the path ahead [Northern Ireland] has never been a military problem with a military solution. The military were used to provide a safe and secure environment in which others can deal with the underlying political and social issues. Essentially, the armed services sought to create a breathing space and a gap for international, national, and local politicians to engage.96

Don’t torture. Don’t shoot to kill. Don’t unjustly harass people. The Provos rely on atrocities by the security force to bail them out. The Provos love harshness and cruelty and misery. . . . The only way to beat the IRA is to be kind and just to the Catholic people and take them away from the Provos. Only the Catholic people will tell them to stop, will throw the guns out on the streets.97

Too little discrimination in the employment of force punishes a counterinsurgent cause internationally as well as within the borders of the country in question. Distance romanticizes. Insurgents are David to national government Goliaths. Sympathy for the insurgent seems all the more justified when counterinsurgent fire harms the innocent. Fair or not, the nation state is held to a higher standard. The PIRA was a pioneer in manipulating domestic and international media for the ends of fund raising and motivating diplomatic support. The organization learned what Hezbollah, Hamas, and others would later refine: it is far more effective to control the content of media coverage than risk it being tainted by unfavorable truths. Threats of violence and other forms of intimidation proved effective in manipulating local media representatives. The University of London’s John Mackinlay observed, “Fear of reprisal and the desire to build contacts within the republican movement meant that individual reporters were loath to write bad news stories about the insurgents.”98 It was a lesson perfected by Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War when journalists were taken on carefully orchestrated tours and only allowed to take pictures at specified – sometimes staged – locations.99 Promise of contact with insurgents is honey only the most ethical and strong- willed representatives of the fourth estate can resist. Human suffering breeds sympathy. Sympathy motivates donations. As goes the media, so public opinion follows. Well- considered manipulation cast the PIRA as champions of the Catholic condition. It was a role that provided the aforementioned less principled American politicians with a cause helpful in winning votes, a consequence of which was legitimacy beyond any the insurgents could have otherwise hoped to cultivate. One need only again turn to the absence of an overarching campaign plan for an explanation of British failures to compete effectively with early 102 Northern Ireland PIRA propaganda. The lack of such guidance can in part be blamed on the failure of London to appoint any one person – military or otherwise – in overall charge for coordinating counterinsurgency efforts. Similar to the dispersion of oversight in the intelligence realm, responsibility was divided between three organizations: the Ministry of Defence in London, the Royal Ulster Constabulary on Knock Road in Belfast, and Stormont (or, later, the British government in Westminster after imposition of direct rule).100 Formal and informal pacts between counterinsurgent participants ultimately helped to compensate for the lack of guidance from above. London’s economic policies and Provisional miscalculations assisted by draining the PIRA’s well of popular support. Political intercourse stepped into this favorable environment, punctuating what might be the end of the island’s most recent round of insurgency. It was that intercourse that brought the long- elusive stability, security, and relative peace that have lasted since the Good Friday agreement, except for infrequent attacks by fringe hangers-on. These residual extremists include the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), Óglaigh na héireann (ONH), Continuity Irish Republican Army (Continuity IRA), and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), all of which refuse participation in peace negotiations. Less well organized than the PIRA, they are in some cases nonetheless capable of extreme violence despite internecine struggles that can eliminate more members than do security force operations.101 Criminal activity is a common means of raising funds; the INLA reportedly deals in both marijuana and other drugs.102 Members of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force (UVA), Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF ) remain active in organized criminal pur- suits that include smuggling, extortion, robbery, and narcotics. Regardless of notional political leanings, the primary motivation is members’ personal profit rather than addressing any ideological or political end.103 Unresolved elements in the Good Friday Agreement continue to hinder full closure on some issues. Apparent solutions to others leave doubts as to their effectiveness. Disarmament provides a notable case. Three men witnessed the final phase of the PIRA’s reported decommissioning inSep- tember 2005. Canadian General John de Chastelain, a Protestant minister, and a Catholic priest are said to have seen the insurgents’ weapons destroyed “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” No member of a loyalist militia or Unionist political party was present, however, nor were photographs taken to validate the hallmark event. As in Southern Philippines, the oversight is unfortunate given the mistrust still existing between former adversaries.104 Other outstanding concerns loom larger. Province schools tend to remain divided along religious lines. Northern Ireland’s economy is still more akin to a welfare state than a self- sustaining system. Nearly a third of Ulster’s employed worked in the public sector as of mid- 2011; state per capita spending was the highest of any region in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland 103 private sector is beginning to assert itself, but much needs to be done before the province is free of its government funding crutch.105 Examples of remaining sectarianism, such as loyalist riots during the opening months of 2013 in response to a decision to limit the number of days the Union Jack flies over Belfast’s city hall, dim the previous shine of North- ern Ireland as an example of insurgency suppressed.106 Yet remaining challenges seem less daunting when interested parties sit at the same table rather than attacking each other on Northern Ireland’s streets. Politics may have closed the door on the recent insurgency’s major violence, but it was the emergence of an effective comprehensive approach – one melding various UK and Irish Republic government agencies, direct or indirect participation by insurgent and counter-counterinsurgent groups, economic programs, influence campaigns, and church representatives among others – that made the progress to date attainable. Peace has held for 16 years at the time of writing. In the words of one observer, “This is not yet a normal society, but it is certainly one in transition.”107 Relevant evolutions in the British approach are many. Among the most important:

• British military restraint in the application of lethal force. Fewer noncombatant casualties deprived insurgent groups of a primary casus belli and high- profile propaganda opportunities such as funerals. • Cooperation between intelligence organizations, to include: • Recognition that intelligence must serve all counterinsurgent parties’ requirements. Focusing only on insurgent capabilities and intentions without understanding economic, political, and social factors leaves lines of operations uncoordinated with strands potentially working against each other. • Understanding that apparent grievances can be façades concealing problems of far greater complexity. As already noted, “in simple terms, religion has been a badge or label rather than a cause.”108 • Early participation in planning by relevant counterinsurgent parties and maintaining those relationships during the execution of operations. • Sustaining theater awareness. Longer tours for soldiers and civilians manning key positions promotes coherent operations. So too does assigning locals to organizations from outside the theater. • Addressing both international and domestic perceptions of insurgents and counterinsurgents: Familiarity may breed contempt, but distance can make the contemptible attractive. An effective counterinsurgent influence campaign provides a consistent message casting the insurgent in the role as enemy of stability, peace, and security to germane audiences.

Other insights may be less obvious. The British leaders responsible for bringing an apparent end to Northern Ireland’s insurgency, like Philippine 104 Northern Ireland leaders confronted with insurgency in their country’s south, recognized the necessity for negotiations. Those included many in Ulster and others from London and Dublin. The U.S. eventually followed a similar course in Iraq and Afghanistan despite delays due to initial political posturing. Recogniz- ing that a counterinsurgent’s options must at times involve selecting the best from a set of universally bad choices can reveal courses of action that prevent early mistakes and reduce the time necessary to resolve a conflict.

Revised beliefs and the case of Northern Ireland COIN is certainly not dead in the north of Ireland. That counterinsurgency did much to usher in a more peaceful and stable state of affairs is only too evident. The discussion above also makes it clear that three more of our nine revised beliefs deserve reinforcement in the light of this progress:

• Treat militias like a hot stove. • Just because they are the government does not mean they deserve an external counterinsurgent’s support. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way.

It was earlier noted that events in Northern Ireland reinforce cautions regarding the inherent value of militias. COIN in Southern Philippines demonstrated that well- trained, well- led, and well- controlled militias can be agents of good. Independent groups lacking these essentials threaten counterinsurgency progress. Various Protestant militias on occasion assisted British forces via their knowledge of local conditions. Yet the instances in which they instead served as vehicles of divisiveness, attempted to undermine negotiations, or otherwise assumed the role of counter- counterinsurgent firmly places these organizations in the more-harm-than- good category. The discussion above makes it only too clear that the same was – and in some cases continues to be – the case with allegedly Catholic militia groups. It took London too long to act in replacing the government in Stor- mont, which was more an impediment to progress than a foundation on which to build stability. It was an in-place government certainly not meriting the support those in the United Kingdom’s capital too long provided. That those leaders could assume responsibility for rule in its Irish province makes clear the importance of the external counterinsurgent (understanding the term is not entirely appropriate in the case of London here) retaining the leverage needed to replace – or at a minimum influence – government officials as necessary to attain sought- after objectives. Similarly, Northern Ireland counters a belief that an external counterinsurgent must not interfere with established indigenous social norms. The divided nature of Ulster society meant some segments believed corruption, criminality, and violence were justified if the cause served was Northern Ireland 105 theirs. The British military, Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary, and other counterinsurgent elements eventually took steps to disabuse the population of such convictions. They did so not only by acting against perpetrators but also in demonstrating that British law was universally applicable rather than sectarian in character. Fighting against a tide of early mistakes and effective insurgent propaganda, both Catholics and Protest- ants came to believe that British law was indeed blind. It is a solid foundation for the further building of peace in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. And it stands with other evidence for refuting charges that COIN is dead given Ulster’s relative peace as these words are written.

Notes 1 Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA: A History, Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart, 1993, p. xvii. 2 Huw Morgan (Lt Col, British Army), “Headquarters 38 (Irish) Brigade,” Power Point presentation given to the author, February 2012, 33. 3 Referring to Northern Ireland as Ulster is both commonplace and somewhat of a misnomer as the North actually includes only six of the nine counties comprising the province of Ulster. Though the term is one of several that individuals representing one side or the other in Northern Ireland find offensive, it is used here to relieve readers of undue repetition in referring to “Northern Ireland,” “the North,” or “the province” and does not represent any political leaning on my part. The same is true of my varying use of “Derry” or “London- derry” to refer to the city or other terms with political implications. 4 Sean O’Callaghan, The Informer, London: Corgi, 1999, p. 255. 5 Mike Jackson, Soldier: The Autobiography, London: Corgi, 2007, pp. 7–76. 6 Jackson, Soldier, p. 89. 7 A zero sum game refers to situations in which a loss of support for one side in a competition results in a gain of equal magnitude for the other. 8 O’Callaghan, Informer, p. 118. 9 Casebook, p. 410. 10 Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland, Chief of the [British] General Staff, Army Code 71842, July 2006, pp. 2–3; O’Callaghan, Informer, p. 46. 11 The B- Specials were disbanded in 1970 in an effort to address police sectarianism. Originally there were three categories of Ulster Special Constabulary: permanent and paid (A), part-time but paid (B), and unpaid volunteers (C). The A and C categories had previously been disbanded, leaving only those in the B category, thus the “B- Specials.” “Ulster Special Constabulary,” Oxford Index, undated, available at: http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/ authority.20110803110537712 (accessed January 13, 2013). The author thanks Bill Duff for clarifying the relationship between the RUC and B- Specials. 12 Banner, 2–3; Tony Geraghty, The Irish War, London: HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 14–28. 13 Bill Duff comments to early draft of this chapter, December 21, 2012. 14 Timothy D. Hoyt, “ ‘Like a Phoenix from the Ashes’: The IRA as a Multi- Generational Movement and Its Relevance for the War on Terror,” At the Inter- face/Probing the Boundaries 80 (June 2012): 205. 15 Banner, pp. 2–6; Duff comments. 16 Arbuckle was a Protestant. In a further instance demonstrating this tragic balance, the IRA would kill Arbuckle’s Catholic partner, Sergeant Dermot 106 Northern Ireland Hurley, in 1971. Dan O’Sullivan, The Long Game: Hamas, The IRA, and the Pol- itics of Radicalization in Palestine and Northern Ireland, Colby College honors thesis 460, 2009, footnote on page 82, available at: http://digitalcommons. colby.edu/honorstheses/460 (accessed January 13, 2013). 17 Geraghty, Irish War, p. 41. 18 Banner, pp. 2–7. 19 Colin P. Clarke, “Evolution of British Intelligence & Counter- Insurgency Policy: Northern Ireland, 1969–1998,” conference paper, December 11, 2008, available at: intelligence-ethics.org/conference/09/clarke.doc (accessed October 13, 2010): 3–4. 20 Banner, pp. 1–3; O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 58–59. 21 Geraghty, Irish War, pp. 54 and 61. 22 Ibid., pp. 71–72. 23 Mike Davis, “Tomgram: Mike Davis on the History of the Car Bomb,” TomDis- patch.com, April 11, 2006, available at: www.tomdispatch.com/books/175164/ buda%27s_wagon%3A_a_brief_history_of_the_car_bomb/ (accessed May 15, 2011). 24 Jackson, Soldier, pp. 102–103. 25 Banner, pp. 2–10 and 2–12. 26 Davis, “Tomgram.” 27 A. A. Wilson (ed.), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Volume XII, 1980 to 2000, Chatham, UK: The Institution of Royal Engineers, 2011, p. 379. 28 Banner, pp. 2–12. 29 Banner, pp. 2–13 to 2–14. 30 One of several sources providing brief descriptions of the various groups at play in Northern Ireland is O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 470–479. A 2012 investigation of wrongdoing by British intelligence officers concludes that the amount of sharing by official sources with some loyalist groups was quite high, e.g., the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) was thought to have received some 85 percent of its intelligence in this manner. “The bones of the past: Northern Ireland,” The Economist 405 (December 15, 2012): 58. While many loyalist groups employed force, former RUC Assistant Chief Constable Christopher Albiston points out that various organizations’ attitudes toward the use of violence differed greatly (though the behaviors of individuals within an organization were not always in keeping with group policy). For example, the Democratic Unionist Party consistently opposed violence; however, individual members did at times engage in law- breaking such as participating in illegal parades that might incite violence. Christopher Albiston emails to author, January 24, 2013 and July 4, 2014. 31 Coogan, IRA, p. 326. 32 Giles, “Essential Soldier, 26. 33 Geraghty, Irish War, pp. 95–101. 34 O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 64 and 243. 35 Bill Duff interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Feb- ruary 14, 2012. 36 Geraghty, Irish War, pp. 95–101. 37 O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 148 and 162. 38 The author thanks Richard Iron for this insight. 39 Chris Albiston interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Belfast, Northern Ireland, February 14, 2012. 40 Richard Iron comment to an early draft of this chapter. 41 Hoyt, “Like a Phoenix from the Ashes,” 209. 42 Maurice Tugwell, “Adapt or Perish: The Forms of Evolution in Warfare, in Armies in Low- Intensity Conflict: A Comparative Analysis, (eds.) David Charters and Maurice Tugwell, London: Brassey’s, 1989, p. 9. Northern Ireland 107 43 O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 146–147 and 196; Sean Boyne, “Uncovering the Irish Republican Army,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 8 (August 1996): 343; Ger- aghty, Irish War, p. 183. 44 Coogan, IRA, p. 332. 45 The “strategic corporal” concept was born from 1999 remarks by then com- mandant of the U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Krulak: In many cases, the individual Marine will be the most conspicuous symbol of American foreign policy and will potentially influence not only the immediate tactical situation, but the operational and strategic levels as well. His actions, therefore, will directly impact the outcome of the larger operation; and he will become . . . the Strategic Corporal. (Charles C. Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,” Marines Magazine, January 1999, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ usmc/strategic_corporal.htm (accessed April 30, 2011) emphasis in the original.) 46 Coogan, IRA, p. 347. 47 Banner, p. 3. 48 Sir Alistair Irwin (Lieutenant- General, British Army), “The Northern Ireland Campaign: The Challenges of Command” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, (eds.) Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew Strachan, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 27–29. 49 Jackson, Soldier, p. 147. Richard Iron notes that the number of British improvised explosive device casualties suffered by soldiers and police based in Cross- maglen and Forkill was key to this decision. Richard Iron comments on early chapter draft. 50 Banner, pp. 3–4. 51 Clarke, “Evolution,” 8–9. Roy Giles argues that introduction of police primacy was instead a defensive reaction to the army’s being so efficient that failure to return responsibility to the police would threaten permanently allocating the RUC to a marginal role. Giles, “Essential Soldier,” 26. 52 Geraghty, Irish War, pp. 74–77. 53 Jackson, Soldier, 163, and “Gen Sir Mike Jackson relives IRA Paras bombs,” The Telegraph, September 5, 2007, available at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562283/Gen- Sir-Mike- Jackson-relives- IRA-Paras- bombs.html (accessed May 2, 2011). 54 Coogan, IRA, p. 382. 55 Ibid., 438; Geraghty, Irish War, p. 216. 56 Royal Engineers, 379. 57 Geraghty, Irish War, p. 216. 58 Ibid., p. 242. 59 Clarke, “British Intelligence.” 60 Tony Blair, A Journey: My Political Life, New York: Knopf, 2010, p. 181. 61 Banner, pp. 1–4. 62 Ibid., pp. 3–8. 63 Martin Fletcher, Silver Linings: Travels Around Northern Ireland, London: Abacus, 2009, p. 236. 64 Fletcher, Silver Linings, p. 242. 65 Sean Boyne states that a primary purveyor of arms from the United States, an Irish republican living in the U.S. named George Harrison, was cut off only after the FBI established a unit to deal with Irish paramilitaries. One of the organization’s successes was disruption of Harrison’s operations. Boyne, “Uncovering the Irish Republican Army,” 343. 66 Support from Irish republic authorities appears to have gone well beyond 108 Northern Ireland benign tolerance. Tony Geraghty claims that “senior ministers of the Dublin government and officers of the Irish Military Intelligence service” were smuggling arms on behalf of the IRA at least as late as 1969. Geraghty, Irish War, p. 172. 67 General (British Army) Frank Kitson, as quoted in Mark Urban, Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle against the IRA, London: Faber and Faber, 1992, p. 74. 68 Banner, pp. 5–1. 69 Duff comments and Bill Duff email to author, Subject: Permission, July 5, 2014. 70 Duff comments. Duff adds, RUC SB [Special Branch] did indeed have both an intel provider and an intelligence exploiter role. In a more “normal” policing environment the intelligence element would provide the heads of the police, government, etc., with intel on what is going to happen, where, when and by whom. If it cannot anticipate the event, then post event it would try and tell government and the police element charged with investigating the event who had been involved and how they had done it. When “normal” policing becomes impossible because witnesses are intimidated, will not come forward to provide state- ments or identify the culprits, will not go to court and give evidence, or where juries are intimidated, etc., then the intel element has no option but to react to what it is seeing on the ground. Hence source intelligence is confirmed by surveillance teams and reacted to by mobile support units who effect arrests and hand over both those arrested and the material evidence to the Criminal Investigation Department. . . . Thus the SB role in Northern Ireland changed because of the changing policing environment. (Bill Duff email to author, July 5, 2014) 71 Geraghty, Irish War, p. 154. 72 Clarke, “British Intelligence,” 11. 73 Geraghty, Irish War, p. 160. 74 Banner, pp. 4–9. Multiple liaison officers were at times needed due to other causes, e.g., a RUC unit in a particularly troubled area might require multiple army units in support whereas police elsewhere would require fewer. Richard Iron comment on early chapter draft. 75 James Delk in “MOUT: A Domestic Case Study – The 1992 Los Angeles Riots,” in Russell W. Glenn, et al., The City’s Many Faces: Proceedings of the RAND Arroyo- MCWL-J8 UWG Urban Operations Conference, April 13–14, 1999, 2000, 85, available at: www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF148.html (accessed May 11, 2011). 76 Banner, pp. 8–3. 77 Irwin, “Northern Ireland Campaign,” 27. 78 Banner, pp. 5–5. 79 Ibid., pp. 2–15. 80 Ibid. 81 Richard Iron, “Britain’s Longest War: Northern Ireland, 1967–2007,” in Coun- terinsurgency in Modern Warfare, (eds.) Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, New York: Osprey, 2008, p. 177. 82 Jack Holland and Susan Phoenix, Phoenix: Policing the Shadows, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996, pp. 151–157. 83 Reflective of a lack of institutional partisanship between police and Loyalist organizations, Christopher Albiston notes, In terms of statistics we (in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland) were far more effective against Loyalists than we were against Republicans. Northern Ireland 109 That is to say that whilst the volume of terrorist/criminal activity on the Republican side was much higher than on the Loyalist side, we achieved a much greater ratio of successful arrests and prosecutions of Loyalists. (Albiston email (emphasis in original)) 84 Geraghty, Irish War, p. 43. 85 O’Callaghan, Informer, pp. 256–257. 86 Banner, pp. 2–15. 87 Ibid., pp. 4–4. 88 Ibid., pp. 4–6 to 4–12. 89 Ibid., pp. 7–4. 90 Banner, pp. 6–7. Claribel was one such system. Designed to detect the direction from which a sniper’s bullet was fired, it was first a man-portable apparatus carried by a single soldier. Later vehicle adaptation took advantage of insights gained during employment of this predecessor device. See Michael Dewar, War in the Streets: The Story of Urban Warfare from Calais to Khafji, Newton Abbott, UK: David and Charles, 1992, p. 153. 91 Banner, pp. 8–7 to 8–8. 92 Ibid., pp. 7–3. 93 Ibid., pp. 8–13. 94 David Maxwell email, Subject: The Informer by O’Callaghan further commentary, May 8, 2008. 95 Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, London: Arrow, 1991, 30; Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, pp. 35–38. 96 Morgan “Headquarters 38 (Irish) Brigade,” 3. The views are those of the Lt. Col. Morgan and not the British Ministry of Defence. 97 Father Denis Faul, quoted in Geraghty, Irish War, p. 112. 98 John Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago: From Mao to bin Laden, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 129. 99 Paul McLeary, “Lifting the Cover of the Hezbollah PR Effort,” Columbia Journ- alism Review, July 27, 2006, available at: www.cjr.org/politics/lifting_the_cover_ of_the_hezbo.php?page=all&print=true (accessed October 11, 2012). 100 Banner, pp. 8–3. 101 It was the INLA, for example, that killed 17 in the bombing of the Droppin’ Well pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland on December 6, 1982. “Village marks INLA atrocity,” BBC News World Edition, December 8, 2002, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/2554261.stm (accessed October 13, 2012). Also see Hoyt, “Phoenix from the Ashes,” 199, regarding competing claims among these groups for the title of “heir to the Republican tradition” after the 1997 PIRA ceasefire. 102 Sean Boyne, “INLA: the deadly hand of Irish Republicanism – Part 1,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 9 (January 1997): 7–9. 103 “2011 Annual Report & Threat Assessment: Organised Crime in Northern Ireland,” Organised Crime Task Force, undated, available at: www.octf.gov. uk/Publications/Category- 3-%283%29/Annual- Report-Threat- Assessment-2011. aspx (accessed December 19, 2011), 17. 104 Casebook, p. 419. The words are General de Chastelain’s. 105 “Getting back to business: Northern Ireland’s economy,” The Economist 400 (July 2, 2011): 48; Morgan, “Headquarters 38 (Irish) Brigade,” 4. 106 “The peace progress: Selling conflict resolution,” The Economist 406 (February 9, 2013): 58. 107 “The fire this time: Northern Ireland,”The Economist 400 (July 16, 2011): 62. 108 Banner, pp. 1–4. 5 Counterinsurgency lessons from a civil war Sierra Leone

If one took a conventional view of war – that the aim of a rebel movement is to overthrow the government and the aim of government forces is to defeat the rebels – the course of the war in Sierra Leone was persistently baffling, and the behavior of government forces particularly bizarre. . . . If ever there was war beyond reason, then surely this was it.1

Whereas Northern Ireland was a struggle for popular support, Sierra Leone returns us to counterinsurgency in which the noncombatant assumes a primary role as victim. Unlike in Chechnya and Sri Lanka, however, it was riches in the hands of insurgents rather than counterinsurgent state power that allowed the Revolutionary United Front (RUF ) to neglect public backing. The first decade of the twenty-first century found Sierra Leone dead last as the poorest nation in the world.2 It was a fall off a sheer cliff for a country that in the years immediately after its 1961 independence had a per capita gross domestic product roughly the same as Portugal and a well- structured federal government infrastructure.3 The decades thereafter were ones of destructive malfeasance. Corruption, insurgency, criminality, and civil war became the norm. The people could not turn to their government; its security forces were at times as willing to rape, steal, and kill as the groups threatening rulers in the capital of Freetown. Only in the years after 2002 did the combined efforts of the population, national leaders, and assistance from the international community inspire realistic hope that peace and security might once again be at hand. Civil war spilling across the international border from Liberia in 1991 ignited Sierra Leone’s insurgency, but the tinder of discontent had accumulated years before thanks to kleptocratic national leadership.4 Rulers in Freetown were ambivalent when it came to addressing the violence their own misrule had done much to promote, as they could feed parasitically off Sierra Leone’s diamonds, other natural resources, and aid money, the continued flow of the last being a direct result of that violence.5 Other policies actively alienated those who might, under different circumstances, have provided government forces with intelligence, material, or moral Sierra Leone 111 support. Late in that year, for example, Freetown announced that anyone found behind RUF lines would be considered a rebel. Executions followed regardless of the presence or absence of insurgent affiliation.6 Prosperity and a seemingly solid foundation for good government had not been the only reasons for optimism as Sierra Leone first entered the ranks of free nations. Ethnic divides that would later poison prospects for a national identity were but ripples on a sea set for smooth sailing in 1961. The most prominent of those divisions would prove to be that between groups in the country’s south and east who spoke Mende and others in the north whose language was Temne. Upon independence, however, it was a shared mistrust of the capital’s Creoles – who both groups felt had been too greatly favored by the British during the colonial years – that was among the factors helping keep disagreements at nuisance level. There were others. Intermarriage between tribes and religions was commonplace.7 Political parties willingly sought the support of tribal leaders regardless of ethnic affiliation. Peaceful coexistence could unfortunately not survive individual political ambitions. Reminiscent of the Bandaranaikes in Sri Lanka, the devas- tatingly corrupt and ineffective administrations of Siaka Stevens (who became prime minister in 1967 and the country’s first president four years later) and his successor Joseph Momoh first opened, then intensified, previously inconsequential rifts between Mendes and Temnes. Both leaders were members of the Temnes- dominated All Peoples Congress (APC) whose major opposition was the primarily Mende Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP). Together the two men ruled for over 24 years. The economic and political promise present at independence lay in ruins by the end of that period in 1992. Their most enduring legacy was the rise of the RUF, insurgents whose original calls for support promised overthrow of Momoh’s corrupt and unrepresentative regime. The late 1980s saw first Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi and later Liberia’s insurgent leader Charles Taylor and Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré provide the seed support needed to cultivate a Sierra Leonean resistance movement.8 The insurgents entering Sierra Leone in early spring 1991 rode in trucks provided by Charles Taylor, at that point still an insurgent who would come to rule Liberia and subsequently be convicted in a United Nations- backed court for atrocities committed during his sponsorship of insurgency in Sierra Leone. The foreigners far outnumbered Sierra Leo- neans during this initial assault; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that Sankoh raised and assembled a force of 385 commandos to which Taylor added almost 2,000 men from his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) movement. The result was an attack force that was over 80 percent Liberian in makeup and felt little loyalty to Sankoh.9 The RUF leader’s alleged goals of overthrowing the regime in Freetown and creating a multi- party democracy proved unable to withstand Taylor’s greed for 112 Sierra Leone Sierra Leonean diamonds and the violence those fighting with the RUF wreaked on the nation’s citizenry.10 Weaned on wanton use of force, dominated by ill- disciplined Liberians with little concern for Sierra Leonean noncombatants, and manned in part by Sierra Leone recruits who saw violence and crime as a way to redress their low social standing, any notions Sankoh might have held for winning popular support drowned in the murders, maiming, rape, enslavement, and other abuses of civilians whose paths crossed that of RUF invaders once Sankoh’s force left its bases in Liberia.11 Taylor’s support would prove a savvy investment. Payments to the Libe- rian in following years handsomely profited his movement after RUF seizure of diamond mining regions. Business partners in Israel, Lebanon, France, and Belgium facilitated sales and the resultant flow of funds.12 Taylor further benefited when Sankoh’s attackers disrupted the flow of Sierra Leone- based logistical support for the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and other anti- NPFL forces.13 Sankoh had little to fear from Sierra Leone’s armed forces. President Stevens had rendered the military incapable of effective operations, reducing it to little more than ceremonial duties after a failed coup. Soldiers and their arms were kept in separate locations, arms that in any case consisted primarily of World War II vintage rifles.14 In contrast, many RUF combatants carried AK- 47 automatic rifles. The country’s two infantry battalions had no combat vehicles or aircraft to support them. Stevens better- armed private militia, the Special Security Division, focused on intimidating regime opponents. These were risks further lessened by Stevens’ creation of a one- party system with his 1978 banning of all but his APC.15 The situation worsened further after Momoh assumed leadership in 1987. Designated as enforcers of the new president’s anti- smuggling policy, military officers fortunate enough to obtain lucrative border patrol commands lined their pockets with bribes in return for riding in smugglers’ convoys to prevent interference by those in their commands.16 Sankoh was himself a former Sierra Leone Army corporal who had been dishonorably discharged and sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a coup attempt during Stevens’ tenure.17 RUF capture of the diamond mines provided him with funds needed to import arms from Guinea, Libya, and former Eastern Block countries.18 Control of the mines provided the additional benefit of denying their income to the government. Siaka Stevens had capitalized on his position as president to nation- alize the DeBeers company mine holdings in 1971, giving the government 51 percent control of the newly created National Diamond Mining Company.19 Yet loss of the mines was more a severe personal blow to those in Freetown than a cost to government coffers; economists estimate 95 percent of the country’s diamonds left the country via illicit channels prior to RUF capture.20 Control of diamond mines also freed the RUF from Sierra Leone 113 reliance on popular support. While natural resources bought weapons and ammunition, the RUF forced members of the population to provide much of its food, information, porters, and sex.21 Forcible recruiting meant boys and girls between the ages of seven and 15 came to comprise over half of its movement’s ranks.22 The RUF ’s primitive logistics system aggravated the problem, requiring as it did that the movement live off the land.23 Sierra Leone devolved into a hell as a population effectively abandoned by its government suffered at the hands of insurgents little in need of voluntary support.

The rise of the RUF The rule of the joint AFRC/RUF coup was characterized by complete chaos and barbarism. Every state service, to include schools, banks, health clinics, commercial services, and government offices ceased to function. The soldiers of the AFRC/RUF alliance intimidated the business owners, government ministers, diplomats, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists of Freetown by confiscating vehicles, mer- chandize, and money.24

One way in which the definition of “insurgency” used in these pages differs from some previous is that it is potentially independent of political motivation. Cold War depictions require such a motive: overthrow of the in- place government. While our definition involves efforts to “replace or undermine all or part of the sovereign authority,” the objectives sought can be economic, social, criminal, or otherwise either separately from or in conjunction with any political goals. What motivated the RUF ’s insurgency? Greed alone is an insufficient explanation. Control of regions containing Sierra Leone’s most valuable material resources would make assaults on Freetown of little interest were accumulating wealth alone the motive. RUF leaders made limited efforts to present even a façade of professing concern for public support after its seizure of diamond producing regions.25 Criminal enterprise and intimidation through terror combined to finance, man, and support RUF operations. Burning homes, press- ganging residents into insurgent “strategic hamlets” where residents farmed and provided other services for the movement, and raping, killing, and maiming violated laws domestic and international.26 Rape and looting served the additional benefit of “paying the troops” while reminding those ahead of what awaited should they not depart before the insurgents’ arrival. Such well- publicized brutality therefore served as an effective economy of force measure much as Vespasian sought to achieve in Galilee. Sankoh’s warriors announced plans to advance by forwarding letters to communities in their path, sometimes accompanying pronouncements with the beating of oil drums or running chain saws within the hollow containers to magnify the horrific noise as 114 Sierra Leone they approached a village.27 Residents fleeing in terror minimized resistance, lessening delays and RUF casualties. Why assume the risks of expanding an area under RUF control if much of Sierra Leone’s wealth was already at hand? Expansion would eventually bring insurgents into contact with government forces, albeit ones of dubious quality. The threat to RUF security was magnified given Stevens’ successor Momoh having directed rapid expansion of the country’s ineffective army to challenge RUF depredations. Like those filling the insurgency’s ranks, many new army recruits represented Freetown’s young and unemployed poor. An estimate put the number of under-15s in the service at over 1,000, that in a force of some 13,000 to 14,000 by early 1992, an increase from 7,000 only a few months before.28 Evidence supports a conclusion that most recruits received only six weeks of training.29 Soldiers other than officers at the highest levels were poorly paid; those senior frequently pocketed subordinates’ salaries. Still, even an ill- manned and poorly prepared army would cost RUF manpower and potentially put its control over diamond mines at risk. Sankoh may have retained some vestige of his early desire to oust the regime in Freetown in these early months, but the desire for personal power and access to another source of wealth – international aid flowing into the capital – appear to better explain RUF efforts to expand. David Keen argues that aid was a notable source of wealth for many in the upper tiers of Freetown society. Success- ful halting of the insurgency risked diminished aid funding, a source of revenue increased in importance given the loss of the diamond producing region.30 Millions in aid dollars were a direct source of income for officials and their cronies.31 Failures to bring about peace, Keen wrote, were “successes for many government officials and for many of those in the security services.”32 He went on to observe that aid organizations also enriched local leaders less directly. United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, and other providers paid rents and inflated prices for goods. Anyone owning more than one home therefore joined the ranks of those profiting from continued instability.33 Insurgent leaders may have found the additional wealth of the capital too alluring to ignore even given the value of their diamonds and the likelihood of diminished aid flow should RUF persevere and end conflict in Sierra Leone. It is also relevant that wealth from diamond mines was not evenly shared by RUF leaders.34 Other sources of income would therefore have been attractive to those benefiting less. Twenty- six year old Captain Valentine Strasser overthrew Momoh in an April 1992 coup.35 Hopes for change proved ephemeral. Only the faces of those profiting at the citizenry’s expense differed, literally in cases where members of the new government took over homes of the previous government’s officials.36 Strasser further increased the size of the army, though again with predominantly low quality personnel. It was armed forces that nevertheless brought the RUF to the brink of defeat with a 1993 offensive thanks in considerable part to internal disagreements between Sierra Sierra Leone 115 Leoneans and Liberians within the insurgent force. Sankoh expelled the NPFL, considerably reducing both his force strength and firepower. The RUF was saved from possible destruction when Strasser misguidedly called a ceasefire in the belief that his army had defeated its foe.37 Brigadier (British Army, retired) Richard Iron disagrees with historians who attribute much of the violence to those who were “soldiers by day, rebels by night” (sobels). While instances of individuals assuming these dual roles very likely existed, Iron finds much of the violence previously blamed on the country’s soldiers should instead be attributed to the RUF. He credits RUF resurgence in part to its January 1994 capture of a large number of Sierra Leone Army uniforms. The militants thereafter donned the garb while committing atrocities. The deception was successful in further undermining the population’s trust in state security forces whose treatment of civilians provided fertile ground for further doubt. Iron concluded, “Even in areas where the RUF members were unwelcome, they were able to cast themselves as marginally better than the army.”38 The longer- run influences of this ruse were a mixed bag for the insurgents. Believing themselves to be without a police or army to protect them, communities increasingly turned to tribal militia groups, sometimes private, sometimes officially sanctioned civil defense units called kamajors, a Mende term commonly used regardless of the organization’s ethnic makeup.39 Units were loyal only to their local leaders and communities. Performance varied, some conducting effective operations against both the RUF and – later – former members of the Sierra Leone Army. Others committed crimes of their own, particularly illegal diamond mining.40 Initial cooperation between several kamajor and army units was short lived as greed trumped cooperation. Militia chiefs demanded military units surrender responsibility for lucrative border crossing points in their tribal areas, also insisting on the right to influence who from their tribes entered the army as recruits and thus would have access to arms, government services, and a salary (however inconsistently pay might be forthcoming).41 RUF fortunes ultimately suffered when better kamajor units presented more effective resistance than government forces. In 1995, a rejuvenated RUF offensive closed to within 20 miles of Free- town. Aid groups fled the capital.42 With justifiably little faith in his poorly paid army, Strasser contracted the private military company Executive Outcomes (EO), an organization formed around a disbanded South African parachute regiment led by a former Rhodesian brigadier. Though not the only mercenary organization hired by the Sierra Leone government, EO outclassed both its private competitors and the RUF.43 Officered by whites with ranks manned by well-compensated black Namibian and Angolan personnel, Executive Outcomes quickly demonstrated proficiency in combat, when training Sierra Leone Army soldiers, and while providing services in the intelligence, logistics, communications, and other arenas. EO mercenaries managed to repulse the RUF ’s assault on the 116 Sierra Leone capital, counterattacking to retake much of the countryside, return the diamond mining region to government control, provide the country with a number of reasonably well trained soldiers, and – in conjunction with external diplomatic pressure – bring about elections that ousted the military junta and replaced it with an elected government headed by Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, all while securing a reputation for properly treating noncombatants.44 These accomplishments came over a period of only a year and a half and at the phenomenally low cost of two personnel killed in action. The mercenary group sufficiently battered Sankoh’s rebels such that by November 1996 the RUF leader had agreed to a ceasefire and signed the Abidjan Agreement setting conditions for peaceful reunification of the country.45 Kabbah, however, ill-advisedly threw away this ace during negotiations. The agreement included a clause requiring the Exec- utive Outcomes’ departure within two months after its signing. Sierra Leone’s leader quickly found the RUF unfaithful to its promises.46 The renewed flirtation with democracy was short lived. Fearing an army already responsible for several coup attempts, newly elected President Kabbah turned to kamajor forces for security and directed the army be disbanded.47 A national Civil Defence Force (CDF ) incorporated kamajor and smaller numbers of district- based (rather than tribal- based) militia elements.48 Another coup in May 1997 nevertheless ousted Kabbah after only 14 months in office. Thirty- three-year- old Major Johnny Paul Koroma assumed the presidency with the backing of former government soldiers. Koroma and his Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) suspended the constitution. Military leaders would forthwith dictate all public policy.49 The new president invited Sankoh and the RUF to become part of his administration. The result was weeks of insurgent and former soldier looting throughout the country in what became known as Operation Pay Yourself.50 Commerce largely ceased. Armed RUF members and soldiers – now joined in the so- called “People’s Army of Sierra Leone” – confiscated money, stole cars, and seized property at will. Kamajor groups suffered disproportionately, many members reportedly being killed by members of the AFRC or RUF. Others fled into the bush for protection.51 Suspended from the Commonwealth, without aid from the European Union, suffering Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed sanctions, and banned from receiving arms and petroleum products by the United Nations, Koroma turned to ECOWAS on October 23, 1997 to negotiate his exit. He asked to be granted immunity in exchange for returning Kabbah to power, also seeking the release of his ally Sankoh who had been arrested and imprisoned in Nigeria.52 An agreement ended ECOWAS sanctions. Koroma reneged on his promises, declaring he would retain power for an additional two to four years. Resumption of ECOWAS sanctions had little effect thanks in part to Charles Taylor – now Liberian president – renewing his support for the Sierra Leone 117 RUF to complement that coming from Libya and Burkina Faso. ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, the military arm of ECOWAS) responded by joining forces with revived kamajor units seeking to oust Koroma and Sankoh from the capital.53 Chaos resumed in Freetown, this time as civilians wrought revenge on Koroma’s soldiers and RUF insurgents fleeing under pressure from the combined ECOMOG- kamajor offensive. Kabbah returned to power in March 1998 and the following months saw the coalition regain control of over two- thirds of the country.54 The enemy was far from defeated, however. Civilians in areas under insurgent control once again suffered horrific cruelties, this time during Operation No Living Thing. Innocents were mutilated, dismembered, beheaded, burned alive, or maimed and left to die in the knowledge that no medical attention was available to save victims the agony of a lingering death. Gender and age were no defense. Nor was status as an aid worker, missionary, cabinet member, journalist, or diplomat. Young males were again forced to serve as soldiers, girls as sex slaves, and civilians in general as porters for hauling supplies or shields during RUF attacks.55 Backing from illicit East European, South African, and Israeli business interests hoping to benefit from rebel diamond control joined that of regional allies.56 Terror once more served as an implement of strategy during yet another assault on Freetown as fortune’s tide waxed in favor of the insurgent force. The later months of 1998 saw a dramatic weakening of ECOMOG after the death of Nigeria’s dictator, Sani Abacha, when that country’s subsequent government reduced support for its military. Reduc- tions in troop commitments by other countries, disagreements among the coalition’s senior leadership, and weakening of cooperation with kamajor civil defense forces further diluted ECOMOG effectiveness. The coalition that had achieved such progress against the insurgents less than a year before was rolled back despite the AFRC and RUF having severed ties in the interim. The two insurgent groups fought along separate axes as they advanced on Freetown, the RUF approaching from the east while the ex- soldiers attacked from the north.57 January 6, 1999 saw AFRC troops on streets in the capital as RUF combatants continued to struggle with coalition defenders outside the city.58 An estimated 6,000 civilians died in the following three weeks as the AFRC ran amok. Others were raped or looted. Attackers destroyed the Central Investigations Department (holding records of supposed insurgent collaborators) and kidnapped thousands of young before withdrawing in the face of an ECOMOG counterattack. ECOMOG soldiers, originally admired by civilians for their even- handedness, meted out rough justice in clearing Freetown. Innocent and enemy alike suffered as Nigerian- armed kamajor forces likewise attacked innocents and took to looting during operations.59 The eye of this most recent storm passed over Sierra Leone with the signing of the July 7, 1999 Lomé Peace Accord. U.S. pressure on Kabbah 118 Sierra Leone helped secure a presidential pardon for Sankoh and other senior RUF leaders, granting them immunity from prosecution for war crimes while once again enabling their integration into the national government. Sankoh became vice president. The RUF ’s newly authorized political party obtained seven additional senior government positions. The group agreed to disband its armed force and enroll former combatants in a disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program in exchange.60 The eye’s passage was a short one, the Lomé accord proving no more successful in securing lasting stability than previous attempts. On May 1, 2000, RUF combatants seized 500 United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) personnel who had entered the country under the auspices of maintaining peace.61 UNAMSIL had been a force hamstrung from the moment it entered the country. Personnel filling its ranks had trickled in over a period of several months since the January before. Its commander, Indian Major General Vijay Kumar Jetley, severely constrained use of force, denying its application in the defense of DDR camps. DDR likewise suffered from mismanagement and deliberate malfeasance. Camps were poorly designed. There was no work placement program for graduates. Informa- tion meant for potential DDR candidates rarely reached its intended targets. Sankoh intentionally denied his rank and file access to calls for participants and misrepresented the program in the service of retaining control of his armed force. Kamajor personnel unwittingly assisted Sankoh’s efforts by executing RUF soldiers attempting to enter the program.62 ECOMOG left the country in spring 2000, leaving only the ineffective UNAMSIL units, kamajors, national army, and police to provide security.63 The situation failed to improve despite an increase in UNAMSIL’s authorized strength from 6,000 to 11,000 and United Nations approval for an expanded use of force. Jetley continued to permit its use only for self- defense or protection of civilians under direct attack. RUF forces once again stepped into the power vacuum, sweeping down on Freetown in vehicles captured from the United Nations and wielding weapons taken from the organization’s prisoners. Another tide of insurgent violence washed over the capital. Secretary General Kofi Annan and President Kabbah called for competent international support to save both UNAMSIL and the government of Sierra Leone.64 The British answered the call.

From chaos to counterinsurgency: the British arrive Prophet Jonah [James Jonah, head of the INEC (Interim National Electoral Commission)] said to the People, “You must have elections this year,” but the People, doubting, asked, “Oh Prophet Jonah, who will take the ballot boxes and safeguard them when the country is infested by rebels?” But Prophet Jonah said, “Oh Ye of little faith, Trust in the Lord, the NPRC [National Provisional Ruling Council], and the UN. All will be well.” But still the People asked the Prophet, Sierra Leone 119 “The Lord we know and love. The other two we are not too sure about.”65

Brigadier David Richards landed with initial members of what would eventually grow to be his country’s largest international military deployment since the 1982 Falklands War. He was familiar with the capital, having led the team responsible for returning the British High Commissioner to the country’s embassy only the January before. Though his original mission as commander of Operation Palliser was limited to conducting an evacuation of international noncombatants, Richards swiftly determined the operation was infeasible barring securing the capital’s airport and a second location suitable for staging departures. RUF forces unfortunately controlled the roads between the two points. Approximately 600 Special Air Service (SAS) and 1st Battalion, The Par- achute Regiment soldiers secured Freetown’s Lungi International Airport with a heliborne assault on May 7, 2000. Richards moved his headquarters ashore to the facility the same day. Others from what would number 2,300 British forces secured the Freetown peninsula assembly area and began their defense of the high commissioner’s residence.66 Richards accurately gauged both the limited military capabilities of potential partners and their value were they provided leadership capable of coordinating their various elements. He met with UN representatives, Sierra Leone government officials, and the leaders of various armed factions operating in the capital, quickly dispatching officers from his command to key headquarters who could lend spine and management capability to units that had thus far proven incapable of successfully confronting RUF attackers. Differences in approach and capability caused the British to cooperate with UNAMSIL rather than subordinate their force. Richards’ actions left no doubt of British support for the in-place government in sharp contrast with the UN military leadership whose refusal to forego neutrality had castrated that force’s effectiveness. It is worth noting two additional points regarding the British initiative. First, Richards understood he was exceeding his charter of evacuating several hundred international citizens, a mission expected to last a week to ten days. He was, however, aware of his political masters’ broader intent thanks to his having met with the Foreign Secretary and other high- ranking government officials prior to departure.67 His decision to bolster United Nations and government forces therefore comprised a deliberate but calculated leap into a counterinsurgency mission. Second, like a leader shouting “Follow me” as he charges the enemy, Richards nonetheless risked looking over his shoulder and finding London had chosen to remain in the trenches. Political backing for the bold expansion of his objectives was far from assured. Fortunately it was forthcoming.68 Richards warned those heading Sierra Leone’s several threat factions to stop fighting. His was a notice backed by the presence of British Navy 120 Sierra Leone vessels in the waters off the capital and HMS Illustrious aircraft flyovers, some of which dropped leaflets reinforcing the threats of retribution. Select sorties “targeted” RUF positions with low- altitude passes to demonstrate British awareness of insurgent locations. In stark contrast with the previously benign presence of the United Nations, both British and the newly rejuvenated UN units seized the tactical initiative. British pressure resulted in the RUF releasing previously seized United Nations hostages, the first returning on May 16, less than ten days after the arrival of Richard’s first elements. On May 17, however, other insurgents chose to test the outsiders’ resolve. Roughly 40 RUF combatants attacked the 1st Parachute Battalion pathfinder platoon north of Lungi airport. The pathfinders killed 20 attackers with no loss to the paratroopers, validating that action stood behind British words.69 Sankoh, having gone into hiding to evade capture, was arrested the same morning and imprisoned. The mission became one of preserving UNAMSIL, bolstering President Kabbah’s government, and establishing the Sierra Leone armed forces as a viable security force. Operation Basilica complemented Operation Pal- liser, its objective being the reorganization and training of Sierra Leone’s military. Basilica was an ambitious effort seeking to more than double the strength of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) by adding 3,000 soldiers who would undergo British tutelage. The resulting force was labeled the “Unholy Alliance” given that it included those already serving in the SLA, former government soldiers (to include those who had served during Johnny Koroma’s AFRC presidency), and Civil Defence Force personnel.70 All fell under Richards’ command, formally or otherwise. The British provided planning, coordinated support, and led operations at every level against an increasingly beleaguered RUF. Operation Palliser formally ended on June 15, 2000, little more than a month after the arrival of the small British force. Threats to the fragile stability remained on several fronts. Charles Taylor’s government in Liberia continued to support the RUF. Insurgents still controlled a number of diamond mines and demonstrated the ability to destabilize regions beyond Sierra Leone’s boundaries by conducting incursions into Guinea. Nor was the RUF the sole threat to peace. On August 25, 2000, a faction of the West Side Boys (a poorly disciplined paramilitary group with members thought to include former AFRC and RUF militants) seized a small party of British soldiers who were part of the Operation Basilica training program. Sierra Leone’s short-lived return of stability seemed on the verge of collapse The United Kingdom acted quickly to halt the backsliding. Prime Minister Tony Blair approved a rescue mission after two weeks of negotiation failed to secure the soldiers’ release. President Kabbah granted approval for British armed forces to execute it. They launched Operation Barras early on the morning of September 10. The former hostages were boarding a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter within 20 minutes of their Sierra Leone 121 liberators initiating the attack. The last of the Special Air Service and Para- chute Regiment soldiers conducting the operation departed in mid- afternoon having lost one killed in the action. The rescued included the captured British soldiers and 22 Sierra Leoneans also held by the kidnappers as forced laborers or sex slaves.71 No group seriously challenged British armed forces thereafter. The UK reinforced its tactical success to ensure no doubt remained as to their commitment. David Richards and his headquarters returned to the country the month after Operation Barras. Royal Navy ships once again appeared offshore to conduct maneuvers while Harrier jets and helicopters performed additional flyovers. Royal Marines made a point of marching through the streets of Freetown to reassure the city’s citizenry. Once again the British lent much- needed support to both the SLA and UNAMSIL, the latter including the assignment of British Army Brigadier Andrew Duncan to serve as the organization’s chief of staff. A March 2001 UN Security Council resolution directed Liberia to cease support for the RUF and oust all of the insurgency’s personnel from its territory. Liberia was further directed to halt the importation of Sierra Leone diamonds, a decree accompanied by a related demand that all nations refuse to allow conflict diamonds to enter the world market. The resultant choking of the RUF diamond trade, combined with effective UNAMSIL military operations, precipitated increased participation in the third DDR program instituted in as many years.72 Successful Guinea military operations against incursions aided efforts that together forced the RUF to yield in May. The insurgents agreed to return all captured UN weapons, release thousands of child soldiers, and start to disarm their force.73 British molding of the Sierra Leone Army into an organization responsive to civilian leadership dramatically reduced the threat of military interference in political affairs. UNAMSIL’s improved performance over the 2001–2002 period also played a vital part in the eventual declaration of the war’s end in January 2003. The United Nations pronounced the disarmament component of DDR complete in January 2002 after the organization’s collection of over 45,000 weapons.74 Kabbah and his Sierra Leone People’s Party returned to office after May 2002 elections. Though not without irregularities, they were broadly found to be free and fair by international observers.75 The country’s police backed by 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers – the largest such mission at the time – kept disruptive violence to a minimum.76 Much remained to be done despite the dramatic progress since the British arrival two years before. Reintegration of former combatants proved more challenging than disarmament due to the lack of funding and available work. The slow development of the private sector economy hindered successful transitions as did UNAMSIL’s failure to determine what skills were needed prior to conducting reintegration training.77 The latter also overlooked the country’s labor demographics. A trio of analysts noted, 122 Sierra Leone In Sierra Leone, 70 percent of the population is dependent on semi- subsistence agriculture. However, very few former [combatants] were provided with agriculture skills as an opportunity during reintegration. Some did not want to pursue agricultural training because they associated it with a lower skill set and instead chose a vocational training package. As a result, there was an excess of youth trained in unneeded fields.78

Despite these and other imperfections, the security, economic, diplomatic, and government capacity lines of operations continued to show results where little more than hope had existed two years before. Sierra Leone’s police were firmly established as the legal authority responsible for internal security and the SLA had assumed the role of defenders against external threats by the time UNAMSIL peacekeepers departed the country in 2005. Nearly a quarter of the army consisted of former militia or insurgents thanks to the demobilization and reintegration segments of the DDR process.79 The lack of sufficient jobs in the private sector was in part compensated for by what might be called “progressive reintegration.” Reintegration program managers linked their training programs to public works projects, providing temporary, state- sponsored employment in areas the government sought to revitalize after the decades of conflict.80 It remains to be seen whether the combined efforts of those helping to rebuild the Sierra Leone government planted the seeds of continued progress or whether corruption will instead poison the soil. Pervasive rot remained in the insurgency’s aftermath. The World Bank estimated that only 5 percent of state health system pharmaceuticals reached their proper destinations in 2003. Officials also assessed that customs personnel- like wise collected duties on only 5 percent of the country’s exported diamonds. Public servants are grossly underpaid even when they receive their salaries, too often not the case. As noted, Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest nations in the world.81 Social conditions can be shocking. The country’s 2010 child mortality rate of 174 deaths per thousand live births ranked fourth globally. The equivalent figure for Sweden was three. Free- town introduced free health care for pregnant women, those breastfeed- ing, and children under five in response. The United Kingdom provided US$24 million in funding. British doctors in the country question whether the government has the ability to run such a free health care program, given the ineffectiveness of most government ministries.82 One more generally questions whether the conditions underlying Sierra Leone’s insurgency have been sufficiency purged to stifle resurgence. Sierra Leone 123 Britain’s campaign in Sierra Leone: implications for counterinsurgency revised beliefs I was appointed to command in Sierra Leone in the late summer of 2000. . . . The Revolutionary United Front (RUF ) rebellion had devastated a once- rich country, completing the work that corrupt, single- party, post- colonial government had started. . . . There had been three military coups, and the Sierra Leone Army was widely feared by its own people. . . . Throughout the country a local militia, the Civil Defense Force (CDF ), had emerged based on traditional tribal hunting fraternities. Although its methods were brutal, this group was at least consistently loyal to the government. The police were also loyal, but also corrupt-the result of one-party government and low pay, or no pay. The U.N. Mission had been attacked by the RUF and, with the honorable exception of the Indian Army contingent, had been all but driven from the country. . . . The economy was in ruins.83

The British military intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 was a striking success, saving a UN mission from disaster and hastening the end of an exceptionally nasty war, even if the political aftermath has proved more difficult.84

Reinforcing the legitimacy of Sierra Leone’s government in Freetown, addressing the needs of key population segments, building intelligence capabilities, and developing viable host nation security forces – these are but a sample of counterinsurgency touchstones familiar to U.S. and other liberal democracies’ COIN practitioners. As is the case with operations in Southern Philippines and Northern Ireland, attention- grabbing declarations of counterinsurgency’s death fail to find substantiation in the reality of Sierra Leone’s COIN campaign. Sierra Leone both reinforces and provides fresh challenges to other convictions regarding COIN in addition to that proclaiming counterinsurgency’s demise. These assaults on assumed truths once again do not disprove the sometimes- applicability of such beliefs. They instead demonstrate their limitations and lack of universal application. Portions of a population or their support may surely be a center of gravity at times; it was arguably so in Northern Ireland and will be seen to be such in Solomon Islands, for example. The danger – a potentially fatal danger for a counterinsurgent – is to accept that such support always constitutes a center of gravity. Any claim of universal counterinsurgency truths should raise red flags; COIN’s complexity allows for few such comforting touchstones. It is in light of this observation that we note five additional revised beliefs meriting attention in the context of Sierra Leone. 124 Sierra Leone • The population is not the center of gravity. Part of it might be . . . or might not be. • Patience is a virtue when it comes to surrendering governing responsibility. • Build more social and less physical infrastructure. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way. • Treat militias like a hot stove.

Popular support need not be the center of gravity in defeating an insurgent movement Nature itself was afraid of what was happening.85

The RUF had little need of popular support thanks to the availability of arms, training, and other forms of sustenance from regional neighbors and the related ability to harvest violence from natural resources. In this the RUF shared an independence from community support much as does the FARC in Colombia where narcotics are insurgent aggression’s sustenance. Barbaric behavior, lack of concern for popular support, and the rapid- ity of British tactical success should not cause observers to underestimate the RUF as a force. Its leaders recognized the necessity for sustaining an economic base and using it effectively. Their repeated manipulation of negotiations, control over much of the country’s wealth, and repeated forcing of power- sharing in Freetown demonstrates they were politically adept even if their military prowess was questionable. Leaders employed encryption to protect sensitive internal messages.86 The organization had a full staff structure. A G- 1 coordinated training and recruiting as did the G- 2 intelligence and counterintelligence, G- 3 operations, G- 4 logistics, and G- 5 propaganda and the group’s early ventures into civil affairs to include the organization of slave labor.87 Contrary to the widely held belief that the population, or more explicitly the support of the population, is the contested center of gravity for both insurgent and counterinsurgent, the RUF saw little need for cultivating that support. The choice to not only ignore but aggressively alienate Sierra Leonean citizens is especially noteworthy given the fertile soil that was at hand in light of the Sierra Leone government’s years of abusing its citizenry. One would be hard pressed to find an environment more amendable to influence by a dynamic leader than that of Sierra Leone during the last decades of the twentieth century. Insurgent and Freetown leaders instead marginalized and victimized citizens. Only with the arrival of the British did the population gain some respite. No less a falsehood than believing a primary reliance on military force cannot result in counterinsurgent progress, a conviction that popular support is essential to an Sierra Leone 125 insurgency potentially leads a counterinsurgent astray when the opposition has little or no need for such sustainment.

Wisdom, not haste, should dictate a counterinsurgent’s surrender of authority As the ONS [Office of National Security] progressed, it became clear that there were strong political interests opposing the establishment of a body that could coordinate the entire security system. . . . There remained a legacy of politicising intelligence and reliance on an intelligence service that existed to carry out internal political security rather than any technical intelligence function.88

The United Kingdom did not abandon Sierra Leone in the aftermath of its defeating the Revolutionary United Front. Nor did it establish a date of departure that would dictate the campaign’s end regardless of whether Freetown’s leaders and bureaucrats were capable of assuming responsibility for the country’s welfare. While the British never completely replaced the government in Freetown, both structures and procedures were put in place to abet the development of governing capacity and reduce the negative impact of corruption and political influence. Minimizing disruption by maintaining the country’s government structure in all but exceptional cases, the British nevertheless did not support organizations when they were thought to work at cross purposes with COIN objectives. They developed the relatively independent Office of National Security, funded agencies only year- to-year, and remained as embedded members of government and mentors as long as was thought necessary. They thus only conditionally supported the federal government, perhaps understanding that despite its considerable shortcomings nothing more promising waited in the wings (thereby, at least in part, questioning the belief that an external counterinsurgent must support the in- place authority). Giving priority to social infrastructure development rather than major physical infrastructure projects also meant the dollar (or pound sterling in this case) went further.

Rebuilding social infrastructure vice physical infrastructure may prove more productive I was ordered to make sure that, in the words of one of my stated tasks, “the U.N. does not fail,” i.e., to get them out of trouble if necessary. But making sure the U.N. did not fail is a different thing from making it succeed.89

Britain’s counterinsurgency campaign is notable for what it did not do as much as for what was accomplished. Its leaders chose to focus on 126 Sierra Leone fundamental social needs: securing stability and promoting reasonable progress toward responsible governance rather than introducing physical or economic infrastructure beyond what previously existed. The British approach is further distinguished by its success in bringing applicable capabilities together. David Richards’ early negotiating with, coercing, and bolstering representatives of Sierra Leone’s government, opposing combatant groups, and the United Nations set the tone for later expansion of this inclusiveness approach. Britain’s incorporation of regional as well as broader multinational participation provided a further dimension to its comprehensive approach, one key in denying the RUF the continued diamond revenues that would have permitted it to further renege on promises and ignore international outcry. Constricting diamond sales to a trickle was a “two birds with one stone” diplomatic coup. It did much to cut off the flow of financial support to Sankoh’s movement while at the same time undermining RUF regional support reliant on the flow of funds only diamond sales could sustain. Both Brigadiers David Richards and Jonathan Riley (who assumed command of British forces in Sierra Leone in late summer 2000) deliberately expanded their responsibilities despite limited resources and restricted initial charters. Theirs was not mission creep; it was calculated and deliberate mission enlargement. Richards recognized that limiting his force to its original task of evacuating noncombatants would doom Brit- ain’s former colony to a continuing downward spiral. Riley, as the quote above makes clear, understood that settling for prevention of United Nations failure was relying on a levee of sand to hold back a potential tsunami of violence. Status quo equaled persistent failure. Stability and the hoped for peace that could follow were attainable only by first breaking the strength of the RUF. Richards molded allies from material other men would have seen as unpliable. While the joining of British and UN forces was a natural partnership despite its being far from a foregone conclusion, adding that seeming devil’s brew of Sierra Leone Army soldiers, kamajors, army deserters, and (later) RUF combatants must have seemed a flirtation with madness even to Richards himself at the time. His was a demonstration of coup d’oeil in which he saw potential within the seemingly impossible.90 The payoff was a turning of the tide without which stability and lasting peace might have been unattainable. Riley’s leadership demonstrated much the same mix of bluff, force of personality, and strength of will familiar to students of Queen Victoria’s army in its many confrontations when the pink of British possessions dominated world maps. Any armed opponent of the government in Freetown, Riley made known, “could either fight me and get killed, or go to the UN and enter the DDR process. I did not really mind which.”91 Sharp blows such as those delivered by 1 Para’s pathfinder platoon at Freetown’s airport demonstrated that what had passed for military acumen previously paled in comparison with the real thing. Those demonstrations and the Sierra Leone 127 all- important willingness to return soldiers to the country when violence re- threatened left no doubt that the insurgents no longer had reasonable hope of prevailing. Counterinsurgent progress in the security line of operation set the stage for building government capacity, delivery of essential social services, and private sector economic development. Progress has been slower along those other strands and braids, but progress it has been in a country that had previously seen only decades of fraying. The British cultivated capability where previously there had been little. They provided spine where a modicum of leadership aroused dormant talent much as rainfall inspires a bloom of desert flowers. Common sense drove policies; addressing the corruption that robs the soldier and policeman of just salaries was a necessary step toward building a security force sufficiently capable that the outsiders could depart with a reasonable hope that those trained would be able to continue alone. The counterinsurgents in Sierra Leone ensured their support was an arm around the shoulders rather than, Atlas- like, a hoisting of the country onto their shoulders. Military and civilian alike aided Sierra Leone’s government by advising and working within its corridors without assuming responsibility as an occupying power. The counterinsurgents assisted the military by training its soldiers and working side-by-side with them in times of crisis.92 The British and their coalition partners restored minimum essential services and abetted the delivery of necessary aid, constraining temptations to do too much. They managed these feats not along separate paths but rather cooperatively so that advances along one braid of the counterinsurgency rope reinforced progress on others. The counterinsurgents interwove thinner strands to create strength where each alone would have failed, as in creating a system of courts and prisons to complement the building of a police force.93 In other cases they divided what had previously been inter- mingled to bad effect, dividing police and army responsibilities and establishing an intelligence oversight body freer of political influence than had previously been the case. British police and soldiers only slowly redirected the citizens approaching them to members of the country’s own security forces, gradually working to undo decades of damage inflicted by a force the people had justifiably come to fear rather than trust.94

The external counterinsurgent need not support maintenance of social norms Conflicts that are resource- based can be intractable. Some of the participants in the war may actually benefit from the unsettled conditions.95

Given the deep roots of corruption and political favoritism in Sierra Leone politics, it is worth asking whether maintaining more in the way of coercive leverage might have been a means of improving the quality of representative government, in addition to the wise linkage of annual funding to department 128 Sierra Leone and agency performance. Greater moral assertiveness on the part of the United Nations could likewise have inhibited the resurgence of corruption. That body removed its chief of mission, Michael von der Schulenburg, in February 2012, a response to pressure from Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma. Von der Schulenburg’s dismissal was apparently due to his con- scientiously maintaining neutrality when dealing with the various parties involved in the continued rebuilding of the country; it came despite widely recognized meritorious performance.96 Little has apparently changed for the man and woman on the street when it comes to Sierra Leonean officials meeting their obligations. One observer noted that citizens still “have little option but to pay incentives to public officials in order to secure faster processing of an application for most public services” despite several high profile arrests for corruption.97 One means of potentially reducing graft might be to change the way in which aid is delivered, replacing distribution of money with assistance in the form of actual product. The post-World War II Marshall Plan provides an opportunity to consider in greater detail how adaptation of enlightened funding approaches might help in delivering needed resources to intended recipients:

A French farmer who needed a tractor manufactured by a U.S. company would go to a local dealer. He would pay for the tractor in French francs. The ECA [Economic Cooperation Administration] and the French government had a clearing mechanism that established a reasonable price and exchange rate for the tractor. . . . The U.S. tractor manufacturer was paid with funds appropriated from the Marshall Plan, allowing the French farmer’s francs to go to the French government. Counterpart funds thus performed a “double duty.” The farmer was allowed to purchase a tractor without exacerbating the French balance- copayments deficit. At the same time, the French government received the value of that tractor in local currency in a fund to be spent on its national recovery.98

The wisdom behind the approach is relevant to the case of Sierra Leone. Countries, NGOs, and other organizations could obligate funds to a central account from which money would be withdrawn to pay for products that would subsequently be delivered directly to the user. Control over the capital would never be given to governments in the receiving nation, thus avoiding opportunities for corruption. (The same benefit exists with direct delivery of the product to a user. Otherwise local officials could charge “delivery fees” before release were the end item routed through government officials.) Sub- dividing the fund by function or donor would mean that providers could maintain control over expenditure of their organization’s money if desired, though centralized management would better ensure non- redundant efforts. Fund managers would work with in- country monitors and local officials to Sierra Leone 129 minimize misrouting of products, e.g., to politicians’ families, cronies, or shell companies. While not appropriate for distribution of 100 percent of aid, product- in-lieu- of-money delivery provides an initial means of mitigating corruption and potential partner for mechanisms such as the allocation of only one year’s funds to government departments. Decreasing the percentage of assistance given in cash form reduces the amount of money available to those who would misuse the funds, making it easier for aid providers or embedded mentors to monitor performance. An effective corruption reduction effort should ideally be a cooperative venture encompassing private as well as governmental aid sources as nonparticipation by NGOs or other governments undermines program effectiveness. One wonders how differently Sierra Leone’s government might have matured had all donors been as rigorous in their oversight of aid as were Canada and Sweden during the Siaka Stevens years. Both refused to provide aid monies through government authorities, resulting in the corrupt Stevens showing little interest in funds offered by these nations.99

The mixed bag of dependence on militias The Kamajors were more successful than the SLA at protecting villages against attacks and even reoccupying villages that had been abandoned. In time the militias were as likely to confront the SLA as the RUF since the former frequently competed with the militias for influence, power, and resources in the ongoing conflict.100

Tribal kamajor militias were inconsistent servants of counterinsurgency objectives. Behavior ranged from fighting alongside government forces to active participation in diamond smuggling and corruption. Brigadier Rich- ards wisely recognized the dangers in Sierra Leone’s failing to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. His melding of a national armed forces from the standing military, former soldiers, once members of the RUF, and kamajor units not only bolstered the numbers available to serve national defense. It also consolidated the many legitimate, semi- legitimate, and illegitimate armed groups into a cohesive entity answerable to the country’s governors. That consolidation went beyond the essential step of ensuring militias are under government control by eliminating them altogether, thus further solidifying the nature of oversight in a country where autonomous armed factions had repeatedly proven themselves dangerous.

Counterinsurgent progress in Sierra Leone: additional lessons “When we go,” Major Jonathan Borthwick said in May 2001, thinking far ahead to the end of his country’s engagement, “it will be like taking your hand out of a bucket of water.”101 130 Sierra Leone The conflict in Sierra Leone was undoubtedly a mongrel, though some breeds were more evident than others. Like foam on a tide, civil war, criminality, insurgency, political competition, interstate war, conventional warfare, and much the rest of the spectrum of conflict ebbed and flowed in influence during the decades of violence as the currents of strife washed them together or tore them apart. What is relevant here is the considerable extent to which the approaches taken are relevant to supporting, defeating, or preventing the reoccurrence of future insurgency. Several parties can justifiably claim status as successful counterinsurgents in Sierra Leone: the private company Executive Outcomes, United Nations, and governments in Guinea, and – at times – the government in Freetown among them. But the 2002 end to major violence and absence of insurgency’s resurrection is primarily attributable to the United Kingdom. It is therefore the British that receive the lion’s share of consideration here. Decades of leader abuse and internal conflict eroded the promising pillars that were the early foundation of fledgling Sierra Leone. By insurgency’s end they were not only rife with decay but still under attack by the corruption that had become endemic in the country’s leadership during those decades. Considerable repair was necessary. There were unfortunately few citizens with the expertise to perform the task due to society being in little better shape than the government given the years of education lost to turmoil. The threat of renewed insurgency was but one of many loose stones on the steep path to stability and lasting peace, any one of which could cause the nation to slip back into the abyss. We have noted that Sierra Leone’s insurgents were motivated less by politics or ideology than by greed for wealth and power. Most insurgencies involve criminality to some degree and the extent to which such behaviors dominated RUF activities merits the movement being described as a criminal insurgency as is the case with Southern Philip- pines’ Abu Sayyaf. The RUF unquestionably constituted an insurgency. The movement replaced a sovereign power as ruler over much of Sierra Leone’s landmass and the population living on it. It did so for over a decade, supporting itself by using the wealth of diamonds, foreign assistance, and terror to sustain itself. We have noted that the support of the population came primarily in the form of kidnapped youth coerced to serve in its ranks, beds, or men and women pressed into service as virtual slaves to produce food, act as bearers, or play the involuntary role as agents of terror sent fleeing before advancing RUF forces. Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of coup d’oeil – a commander’s ability to perceive the critical elements in a conflict amidst chaos – and the strength of mind and conviction he labels “genius” were both on center stage as Brigadier Richards and those following imposed success where others had failed. (The possible exception is Executive Outcomes, though their responsibilities fell short of righting the nearly capsized ship that was Sierra Leone and taking the country from bedlam to stability.) Sierra Leone 131 Part of Britain’s success is attributable to its determining what was enough and how much would be too much. London was not going to commit large numbers in terms of either manpower or funds to Sierra Leone. Despite impressive cooperation across the several lines of operations that achieved such ends as curtailing the market for blood diamonds, defeat of the RUF, and establishing the beginnings of legitimate government, the outsiders could not end the insurgency by themselves. Richards’ formation of a hodgepodge counterinsurgency force was part genius and part necessity. He needed a force large enough to maintain momentum against the RUF once his British professionals had bloodied the insurgents’ noses and put them on the strategic defensive. UN representatives, kamajors, and other indigenous armed groups had potential; British military leaders built, then fine-tuned, a sputtering engine so that it operated effectively. Melding a larger armed force was necessary for both the manpower it supplied immediately and the longer- term stability it would secure if properly trained and led. The British further understood that stability was not a matter of military operations alone. Armed forces cannot long survive if corrupt political leaders siphon off soldier pay or national authorities otherwise prove inadequate to the responsibilities of governing. The British recognized the requirement to create a viable, legitimate government as a minimum condition for preventing a return to violence, a requirement that demanded a team that drew on many of London’s capabilities beyond those in MOD alone. Equally important, they rightly saw that adding major elements of physical infrastructure beyond those initially in place was neither essential nor feasible. Their focus was on social infrastructure. UK representatives therefore aided the national government in delivering basic needs without raising expectations too greatly beyond the base level. Sierra Leoneans would rebuild Sierra Leone; outsiders needed only to establish the necessary conditions for the process to begin and sustain itself. The British, in short, sought to prove their Major Borthwick wrong.

Developing capacity rather than dependence Politics and development are inseparable.102

If a man can feed his family properly, he has no need to look for bribes and backhanders; if he does, he has something to lose in being fired.103

The British approach of providing what was needed but little more beyond that was designed to assist Sierra Leone in moving forward on its own without creating an international crutch. Recognizing that brittle social structures surviving an insurgency can crumble under the weight of overly ambitious plans for change, the path of progress was kept in the realm of the familiar as far as possible. The British assisted Sierra Leone in building 132 Sierra Leone its legal system – to include the country’s police force – on the colonial framework inherited upon independence, for example. Unlike those of the immediately previous decades, it was a system that also worked. The re- builders likewise recognized that reinforcing only select pillars of support would leave Sierra Leone liable to toppling. Restoring competent governance alone was insufficient. It was no less essential to assist in mending the nation’s social and economic fabrics both within and across relevant lines of operation. As was the case with the U.S. and Philippine governments in the south of the latter country, Britain’s mentors recognized the fallacy in rebuilding police capacity while giving short shrift to the courts and prisons that were integral to a viable legal system. Similarly, creating able military and police forces within the security line of operation would be of little value if corrupt civil officials continued to steal wages meant for these men and women. The British had been in the business of assisting countries long enough to realize that providing money without instilling the parallel knowledge and administrative procedures adequate to ensure its proper use was more damaging than useful. Like water is to farming, money in the right amount is essential to preventing an insurgency’s resurgence. Too much money and immature structures drown. Reviewing Britain’s initiatives in the wake of defeating the RUF reflects an understanding of these tenets. Training of leaders and rank and file sought to make police and soldiers subordinate to civil authority. It was, therefore, training with the goal of creating not just a skilled military but a professional one dedicated to the Sierra Leonean people and state rather than an individual leader, party, or ethnic group. British representatives – military and civil alike – worked alongside government officials as the badly depleted civil service learned or reacquainted itself with effective procedures. British objectives deliberately remained limited here as well. The counterinsurgents’ task was to build capacity, not a nation. Economic structures were not ignored, but by and large they were left to the mercies of capitalist forces. Mentors limited themselves to advising how to go about creating and running government structures; execution was left to the Sierra Leoneans themselves as far as possible. The aforementioned difficulties in reining in corruption reflect that the result has proved considerably short of perfect. Yet peace and stability have nonetheless been the order of the day since the RUF ’s subjugation.104

Progress despite an uneven application of the comprehensive approach The concept of military reintegration is not new; a number of well- tried principles were applied, [to include] firm linkage between civilian and military reintegration programmes.105

Elimination of Sierra Leone’s immediate insurgent threat was primarily a military operation. Defusing motives that could lead to a resurgence Sierra Leone 133 demanded participation by broader elements of the British and international communities. Training of Sierra Leone’s police was undertaken by law enforcement officers from many Commonwealth nations working under a single British commissioner and funded by the Department for International Development (DfID). It was experts of a different sort who helped reestablish capabilities throughout the remainder of the legal system even as representatives from various governmental departments in London provided formal classroom instruction to Freetown’s members of government in other areas. Select local students attended British universities or defense training establishments. The DfID supported these efforts as part of the United Kingdom’s effort to ensure a balanced repairing of Sierra Leone’s damaged government pillars. An anti- corruption body took initial steps toward making senior officials accountable for their behavior, another reflection that effectively addressing shortfalls must encompass all relevant parts of a government’s apparatus no less than its legal realm.106 The British undertook many of these initiatives prior to defeat of the RUF, meaning they were attacking the causes underlying popular dissatisfaction simultaneously with the conduct of combat operations. Theirs was a single country overseeing activities along all lines of operations. Cooperation rather than bureaucratic competition characterized participation by the United Kingdom’s government agencies (with the occasional exception as we will see below). It is easy to overlook the significance of these two points. Combined with Britain’s assistance to the United Nations, the resultant actions constituted a good approximation of a comprehensive approach during which the capabilities of all relevant participants were brought to bear in the interest of common – or at least overlapping – objectives. David Richards and his original force in Sierra Leone were fortunate in having the support of Whitehall and 10 Downing Street. A cynic might respond that success bought that support, but it nonetheless stands as a tribute to those in London that they put capable leaders in positions of authority, backed them with sufficient resources, and maintained a sufficiently hands- off posture to allow adaptations to be made in response to conditions on the ground. It was a learning process for those at home no less than their representatives in Sierra Leone. The commander of training teams in 2003 recalled problems the British effort confronted when challenges in Freetown initially failed to fit London’s model for revamping Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Defence (MOD), an error quickly addressed:

You design an MOD on the basis that you’ve got fifty British officers running it [when] the next week there are going to be four British officers. . . . Do they need something as complicated as that? So you have to be careful not to take the blueprint that was written in London, change the date and time, and reproduce the model. You’ve actually got to design the model for what they require, and we had a MOD where we made exactly that mistake.107 134 Sierra Leone Successful though they were, it is apparent that British efforts were not flawless. UK civil advisors to Sierra Leone’s MOD lived in quarters separate from their fellow countrymen training Sierra Leone’s armed forces. The civilians reported to the DfID. Those in the armed forces did so to the Ministry of Defence. Willingness to coordinate between these two groups was crucial, but here as in other instances it too often defaulted to the whims of personality. The result was at times a failure to communicate directly, one that negatively impacted efforts to coordinate activities along separate lines of operation or strands within a given line.108 Collocating personnel and ensuring they report to a common head is vital when the actions of one group directly impact the performance of another. If collocation is impossible, one might fall back on Gerald Templer’s guidance that leaders responsible for mutually supporting functions at each echelon meet at least once daily, if for no other reason than to share a drink, thus providing the opportunity to exchange information. Links between British and Sierra Leonean officials retained their effectiveness thanks to the policy of having the former serve in host nation staff and leadership positions well beyond the end of combat operations. Fully integrated into the government’s infrastructure, British representatives shared in the successes or failures of individual departments. The integration proved especially important as British officials helped in the mending of longstanding distrust between the civilian population and those in the security forces, suspicion all the more understandable given the DDR- driven integration of RUF, kamajor, and former rogue soldiers in security force ranks, groups that prior to the arrival of the British conducted themselves with dire consequences for the country’s civilians. Integration of the Civil Defence Force into the country’s army effectively ended tribal chiefs’ efforts to form a separate Territorial Defence Force consisting of kamajors, deftly side- stepping the potential dangers posed by militias loyal to chieftains or ethnic groups rather than the central government. The armed forces – and therefore the nation’s civilian leadership thanks to its forces’ improved professionalism – retained a monopoly on Sierra Leone’s implements of force.109 Unsurprisingly, given their previous victimization at the hands of Sierra Leone’s security forces, citizens initially approached British members of the police and armed forces rather than their own. The outsiders capitalized on these approaches to gradually bring the estranged parties together. Constant contact with members of the Sierra Leone military put British personnel in a position to encourage cohesion in armed forces comprised of individuals who had been slaying each other only months before. It is to the credit of both UK and Sierra Leonean leaders that they promoted individuals with no apparent favoritism based on previous affiliation. Those leaders also managed to negotiate the potentially disastrous waters of having personnel wash out during training only to be released into a society lacking sufficient job opportunities to guarantee them a living.110 Problems in that regard were avoided in some measure because Sierra Leone 135 decisions regarding individuals released showed the same lack of favoritism as those regarding promotions. The pain of release was also cushioned for some trainees. Individuals with ten or more years in their respective force received funds to help them resettle.111 Soldiers and police were deliberately assigned so that no unit contained exclusively members of any one group of former combatants.112 Onetime opponents were given significant positions in the Ministry of Defence, professional capabilities often taking a backseat to the political benefits such inclusiveness thought with it.113 This kneading of former opponents into a single whole complicated the creation of an effective central government; it was also a significant conciliating force. The several factors combined to make membership in the new Sierra Leone armed forces a stimulus for defusing sectarian passions. There are times in which efficiency finds itself having to await the trust that only time can build. Such accomplishments occurred despite rare British inter- departmental tensions. The DfID refused to fund an intelligence collection capability, citing its development charter as precluding such action.114 It was one of several instances in which the aid organization’s leadership chose not to fund initiatives due to the monies being perceived as addressing primarily operational, security, or intelligence rather than aid concerns. As we will later see in our discussion of U.S. funding for activities in Colombia, such parsing of funds is counterproductive in environments where counterinsurgent, law enforcement, antiterrorism, and other functions are too inex- tricably intertwined for such fine divisions of responsibility. In the case of Sierra Leone, other agencies were generally able to step forward and provide the funding called for.115 The necessity for inter- ministry cooperation was nowhere more important than in the development of Sierra Leone’s Office of National Security (ONS). Unable to prevent the re- politicization of the MoD (explained to an extent by the aforementioned politically- driven inclusion of leaders from former combatant groups), British and senior Sierra Leone government officials created a professional organization that would operate independently of personal ties to any official. Security sector reform was deemed impossible without this break from past Sierra Leone practice in which those responsible for intelligence operations and national security answered personally to the president. Despite considerable resistance from officials who rightly saw the ONS as impinging on their power bases, the assignment of highly capable representatives from both countries generated an entity that managed to overcome this resistance and serve as a politically unaffiliated advisory body to the national leadership.116 This critical accomplishment had companions in the development of subordinate provincial and district security committees to allow for some degree of decentralized but coherent authority in security and intelligence matters, a lesson perhaps adopted from Britain’s colonial administration in Malaya a half- century before where province and district 136 Sierra Leone bodies were responsible for coordinating military, police, and political efforts and reporting to similar organizations at higher levels. London bestowed on Gerald Templer the directive authority of a “supremo,” the orchestrator of all aspects of the Malayan campaign. No such senior being existed in Sierra Leone. Nor was similar authority exercised in London. The DfID’s refusal to fund operational intelligence was not its only failure to support a common cause. The organization’s leader would also not allow its funds to support development of Sierra Leone’s military capabilities. It was a refusal that fortunately did not apply to developing viable police, court, or select other parts of the justice or security systems and one that overlooked the vital role a military can play in abetting civilian welfare . . . or hamstringing such efforts should that force be an adversary of its people rather than ally. DfID funds did pay for civilian advisors to Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Defence, national police, and Office of National Security; compensation to wounded police and soldiers or the relatives of those killed during active operations; and severance payments to retiring police and military personnel.117 While its contributions to maintaining Sierra Leonean stability were therefore unquestionably vital, the unwilling- ness to more fully cooperate meant the organization’s potential was not fully realized in addressing counterinsurgency objectives. The DfID’s leadership picking and choosing what initiatives it chose to support meant the British effort in Iraq would be similarly constrained several years later.118 British inter- ministry coordination lapses had parallels in the multinational arena. Egypt, for example, returned a Sierra Leone armed forces transport helicopter to serviceable status, trained its pilots, and prepared ground crews to maintain the aircraft, overlooking the fact that sustaining an aviation capability was beyond the capability of the country’s defense budget.119 Yet here, as in the case of Britain’s efforts, successes outshone failures. British police joined United Nations partners in training the Sierra Leone Police. It was a force unusual for Africa: law enforcement officers were unarmed in what was a calculated, very visible step toward regaining public trust.120 Working together, the UN, British, and national government likewise met the goal of reducing Sierra Leone’s military strength to 10,500 a year before its end- of-2005 target date, a military that came to consist of only full- time soldiers. Combined with the success of the services accepting their role as subordinate to civil authorities, an entirely professional armed forces (in the sense of its having no part- time or militia elements) translates to the government in Freetown having the aforementioned monopoly on the legitimate use of armed force in the country, no small accomplishment in a land where tribal and other leaders have long maintained personal armies much as many in Southern Philip- pines continue to do. These accomplishments took some five years, a long span in terms of an outsider’s domestic politics but a short step in the battle against the potential resurrection of an insurgency. A memorandum of understanding between Sierra Leone 137 the governments in Freetown and London committed the United Kingdom to continuing its military presence at least through the year 2012, a crucial agreement given UNAMSIL’s 2005 departure from the country (and in light of the disaster the premature departure of Executive Outcomes previously precipitated).121 Adaptations on the civil side were likewise crucial. The return of stability caused some among Sierra Leone’s government authorities to become less willing to cooperate with British advisors, believing the time was ripe for a return to the past practices of lining their own pockets (a challenge we will likewise see in our pending discussion of counterinsurgency in Solomon Islands). The DfID wisely adapted its funding policies in response. It was in response that the department introduced the policy of allocating only sufficient monies for Sierra Leone agencies to operate a year at a time. It was an unfortunate but necessary step; unfortunate in that year- to-year budgeting complicates longer- term planning, necessary as it provided a coercive brake on uncooperative agencies and officials who would otherwise impede continued service of counterinsurgency objectives.122 As the British understood, external counter insurgents have to retain the means of influencing local government officials until they demonstrate the capability to prevent the renewal of the insurgency’s underlying causes. It was a reality overlooked in Manila’s creation of the ARMM, one the Philippine government and its counterinsurgent partners have an opportunity to correct should successful formation of a semi- autonomous Bangsamoro region see fruition.

Focus on the decisive Many nations have their principles of war. None includes the universal principle of “more.” Seldom is a leader so fortunate as to have every resource he and his staff deem desirable. Brigadier Richards immediately set about addressing a lack of numbers and talent by taking steps to partner with United Nations and local forces. He risked dissipating what capabilities he did have when he sent able personnel to assist other units with their planning, management, and leadership. Richards deemed the gamble worth the potential benefits. The British commander understood that by inflating his strength he shrank that of potential foes as factions joined his hodgepodge force. He identified individuals, organizations, and relationships that would be crucial to the accomplishment of UK counterinsurgent objectives just as a commander identifies key terrain when planning an attack.123 The brigadier and his successors also used this approach when determining how to go about maintaining peace and stability once it had been (very tentatively) secured given that the supply of counterinsurgent funding was just as short as was his manpower. Huge infrastructure projects and rebuilding the Sierra Leone economy were never within the realm of the possible, even had they been deemed desirable. The British approach to preventing a renewal of insurgency focused on creating 138 Sierra Leone reasonably effective governing structures and addressing the deep flaws in the country’s military, the greatest threat to stability. They accomplished the first by continuing to provide mentors in positions throughout the government and establishing a link between performance and funding to prevent a return to the worst of corrupt practices. They achieved the latter by instilling an understanding of an armed forces’ appropriate role in society and putting the mechanisms in place to make that role a reality. Unlike the Egyptian shortsightedness with regard to maintaining an aviation capability, the British took a life cycle approach to their counterinsurgency campaign. Early phases sought to defeat the insurgency. Those overlapping and continuing thereafter looked to counter insurgency’s revival.

Recognizing that external support has many faces The diamond trade financed both the RUF and Taylor’s forces and brought international interest to the civil war.124

Sierra Leone benefited from Liberia, Libya, Burkina Faso, and other countries’ external aid, provision of sanctuary, and additional forms of largesse. The RUF might never have matured without the help of Charles Taylor’s support. Taylor’s support was in no small part motivated by a desire to access diamond revenues, as was the RUF ’s ability to sustain itself. British diplomacy severely constrained this lifeblood. The cases of Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and Northern Ireland point to the wisdom of interdicting diaspora support for insurgents. External support comes in many forms, all of which the able counterinsurgent should seek to curtail to the fullest extent possible. Doing so demands ever improving intelligence capabilities and participation by other- than-military organizations.

Providing more partnership and less advice For the first time, sector entities, coordinated by the ONS [Office of National Security], agreed amongst themselves on how the money should be spent. This is a good indication of how professional managers within the sector can work together for the greater good, but it has taken five years to achieve.125

British personnel became a part of Sierra Leone’s governing infrastructure in both staff and leadership positions. The outsiders sometimes donned the uniforms of the soldiers they were mentoring, implying shared responsibility rather than an occupier’s domination. This embedded advisor approach carries with it both risks and benefits. Too dominating a personality in a mentor can create dependency that succeeds in improving operations in the immediate term but fails to prepare the host nation for eventual self- government. More careful screening of those embedded and Sierra Leone 139 a willingness to remove individuals who prove unable to balance leading, advising, training, and setting the example better ready an indigenous government for an outsider’s eventual departure. Effective embedding implies flexibility: the mentor hands over responsibilities on a case-by-case basis as individuals and organizations prove themselves prepared, thereby not frustrating the more capable who are ready to step forward before their less gifted (or less well mentored) counterparts. Measuring progress by counting the number of indigenous positions to which authority is transferred will prove counterproductive. Metrics motivate behavior; des- ignating transfers of authority as a metric of progress will result in premature transitions as mentors seek to pad performance evaluations. Better to measure effectiveness indirectly, e.g., UNICEF representatives in Liberia approached Sierra Leone law enforcement officials to train Liberian police in the conduct of investigations of the latter country’s disturbingly high numbers of sexually oriented crimes, an independent measure of performance rather than one dependent on those whose performance is itself being measured.126

Continued commitment and the threat of return SSR [Security Sector Reform] takes time, is expensive and must be viewed more broadly than just the reform of armed forces. . . . If only the armed forces and police receive the attention, as is often the case in SSR, it will prove more difficult to encourage civil oversight by defense or interior ministries at a later date.127

The value in retaining trainers and embedded personnel in their positions until local nationals are deemed ready to assume their responsibilities would seem to be obvious. We have noted that the British demonstrated an equally vital willingness to return military forces to Sierra Leone when renewed instability threatened. The return of British forces was a highly visible reminder that the United Kingdom was a committed guarantor of the peace it had played so great a part in initially restoring.128 This same commitment has been demonstrated to great effect by Australia in East Timor and, as will be seen in the following chapter, Solomon Islands.

Concluding observations You can ship in enormous amounts of aid, but unless you deal with the root causes – fights over resources and territory, weak or corrupt governance – the aid is only ever going to be a sticking plaster and, as such, subject to being ripped off and the wounds reopened at any time.129

That UK officials worked within Sierra Leone’s governmental bodies meant agencies sponsoring recovery had monitors in place who were 140 Sierra Leone capable of constantly fine tuning the extent of their assistance as sectors become capable of self- sustainment. The Sierra Leone Army was for all intents a British- led organization due to an initial lack of effective local national leaders capable of commanding above battalion level. (There were capable officers at lower tactical levels though they too were a rarity, an unsurprising situation given the military’s recent history. The British therefore provided embedded support down to battalion level throughout the army via its International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT) program.) Installing capable British leadership in the security forces permitted the rebuilding of those organizations from within. Though Sierra Leone’s government remains troubled by corruption and patronage, these shortfalls appear to be less widespread in the security sector than in other governmental agencies. Significantly, the armed forces answer to civil authority.130 Similar progress within the army’s partner in the security sector, the Sierra Leone Police, is evident in the 2005 request by UNICEF representatives in Liberia for the SLP to train that country’s law enforcement officers in proper procedures for investigating crimes related to sexual abuse and exploitation.131 Bringing the right tool for the job is no less important when constructing a government or social capacity than when erecting a building. Better oversight and greater wisdom during distribution of aid are two such devices. A properly designed coalition is another. So-called peacekeepers more interested in personal profit are of less than no value. Nations sending forces unequipped, inadequately trained, and poorly lead are likewise of limited utility unless the political value of participation compensates for others having to fund their operations (very likely to include providing the training necessary to allow them to meet their responsibilities effectively). Opera- tions in Sierra Leone demonstrated that properly led United Nations forces can be effective counterinsurgents. In their present form, however, forces dispatched by the UN will never be capable of interdicting an insurgent movement in its initial stage, when a movement is building strength, establishing its logistical bases, and recruiting while deliberately attempting to avoid drawing the attention of government authorities. This most preferred of counterinsurgent approaches requires preemption, something of which a reactive (versus proactive) organization is inherently incapable. The British armed forces made it only too clear that quality in small numbers can render an insurgency impotent where a less competent larger force inspires rebel confidence. ECOMOG and kamajor groups played vital roles in the ultimate defeat of the RUF. The Nigerian Army suffered disproportionately, losing more soldiers than did the Sierra Leone armed forces over the duration of the conflict while being fundamental to the restoration of democracy in February 1998 and January 1999.132 Yet it was ultimately a relatively small, well trained, disciplined, and effectively led British force that brought the coherency to counterinsurgent efforts essential to the promise of success. Sierra Leone 141 Armed insurgency in Sierra Leone effectively ended in 2002. The counter insurgents’ commitment to maintaining peace continues ten and more years later. Their progress provides a lesson for any who believe that a quick declaration of victory and permanent departure will mark lasting success. In Sierra Leone as in the case of Solomon Islands, continuing counterinsurgent commitment over a decade after the removal of the primary armed insurgent threat does much to explain that progress.

Notes 1 David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra ,Leone New York: Palgrave, 2005, p. 289. 2 “Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP) 2008–2010,” The Government of Sierra Leone, and United Nations Development Programme, undated, available at: www.sl.undp.org/4_media/. . ./CPAP_08–10_appraisal_wkshop.pdf (accessed August 10, 2010). Sierra Leone’s chief competitor for the bottom spot, Liberia, might have been poorer yet, but there was insufficient data to make the judgment. See “Liberia and Sierra Leone: Rebuilding Failed States – Executive Summary and Recommendations,” International Crisis Group Africa Report No. 87, December 8, 2004, 29. 3 Blair, Journey, pp. 245–247. 4 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, 9 and 67. For more on the background regarding Sierra Leone’s problems and counterinsurgent efforts to address them, see David Richards, “Sierra Leone 2000: Pregnant with Lessons,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, (eds.) Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew Strachan, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 55–63. 5 Diamonds, while the most prominent of Sierra Leone’s natural resources, were not the only wealth illegally exploited. The leaders of whatever group controlled source territories similarly turned gold and other products to personal advantage. 6 Richard Iron, A Very African War: A Military History of the Conflict in Sierra Leone 1991–2002, draft manuscript received by the author in February 2013, undated, Chapter 3. 7 Sierra Leone is predominantly Muslim, but Christians and animists are present in significant numbers. Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 15–16; “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org, undated, www.globalsecurity.org/military/ world/war/sierra_leone.htm (accessed July 21, 2010). 8 Casebook, 774; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 37. 9 Truth & Reconciliation Commission, Sierra Leone, Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth & Reconciliation Commission, Vol 2, Graphic Packaging Ltd, 2004, p. 9. Estimates of the initial invasion force’s size differ. Authors of the second volume in the Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare state that 150 of a 292 total were members of Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia while another 15 were Gambians claiming status as special forces. Case- book, pp. 780–81. 10 Larry J. Woods and Timothy R. Reese, “Military Interventions in Sierra Leone: Lessons From a Failed State,” Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press Long War Series Occasional Paper 28, May 2008, 2–3. 11 Iron, email, February 10, 2013. 12 Casebook, pp. 795–96; Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 3; Iron, email, February 10, 2013. 13 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 2. 142 Sierra Leone 14 Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson, “Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007,” UK Government Global Conflict Prevention Pool, Febru- ary 2009, 43; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 36–37 and 82–84. 15 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 17–18: Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 1. 16 David Keen, “Greedy Elites, Dwindling Resources, Alienated Youths: The Anatomy of Protracted Violence in Sierra Leone,” International Politics and Society (February 2003): 74. 17 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 36–37. Richard Iron provides considerable background on Sankoh, who Muammar Gadhafi appointed head of the Sierra Leonean contingent of students at Libya’s World Revolutionary Center during Sankoh’s attendance in the late 1980s. Sankoh was the oldest in the group, but it was his talents as an effective orator, grasp of tactics, and charismatic character that likely had greater influence on Gadhafi’s decision. It was in Libya that Sankoh also met Charles Taylor and agreed to support the Liberi- an’s insurgency in exchange for later use of western Liberia as a staging area for an attack into Sierra Leone. Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 1. 18 Iron, email, February 10, 2013; Patrick J. Evoe, “Operation Palliser: The British Military Intervention into Sierra Leone, A Case of a Successful Use of Western Military Interdiction in a Sub-Sahara African Civil War,” International Studies thesis, Texas State University- San Marcos, December 2008, 41. 19 Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 41. 20 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 22. 21 Iron, email, February 10, 2013. A later reflection of RUF unpopularity was its receipt of a meager 3 percent of the vote during the May 2002 national elections. 22 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 20. Richard Iron, however, notes “about 50 percent of the RUF were volunteers in the early years (1991–96)” rather than abductees, though it has been more difficult to determine the origin of members’ status for later years. Iron, email, February 10, 2013 and later comments to manuscript draft. 23 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 2. 24 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 41. 25 David Keen notes that RUF might have provided services to communities on occasion: Fragmentary evidence of some kind of ideological agenda came from reports of RUF structures at a local level. Some spoke of the establishment of “people’s courts.” In those areas controlled by the RUF, there was at least some sketchy evidence of attempts to provide social services. (Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 40) 26 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 42–43. Keen writes that captives’ testimonies support a conclusion that more persons died of starvation in these forced labor communities than were killed outright by RUF members. Richard Iron observes that the Sierra Leone Army had its own “protected camp programme” in which many starved. Iron, email, February 10, 2013. 27 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 42–43. 28 Ibid., pp. 86–87 and 96–97. 29 Iron email, February 10, 2013. David Keen writes that training was instead 19–21 days in duration. Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 96–97. 30 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 116–177, 170–171 and 173. 31 Ibid., pp. 82–84. 32 Ibid., p. 9. 33 Ibid., pp. 170–171, and 173. 34 Richard Iron discounts the likelihood that perpetuating the conflict was formal Sierra Leone government policy given several actions that would be Sierra Leone 143 counterproductive to that end, in particular the hiring of the effective mercenary group Executive Outcomes (of which more below). The two positions are not entirely at odds. While those at the top of government might have sought the RUF ’s end, others with competing interests may have had little desire to see the insurgency’s demise. Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 4. 35 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 94; Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 22. 36 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 100–101. 37 Iron email, February 10, 2013; and Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 3. 38 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 4. 39 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 90–91. Kamajors made up the majority, but not entirety, of Sierra Leone’s Civil Defence Force (CDF ), a national organization created in 1996 that played a significant part in virtually every battle fought from that time until the cessation of hostilities. Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 6. Also see Osman Gbla, “Security sector reform under international tutelage in Sierra Leone,” International Peacekeeping 13 (March 2006): 80. 40 Iron email, February 10, 2013; Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 2. 41 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 133. 42 Ibid., 170 fn. 43 EO was among the first of numerous forces of various types that would enter the country during the next several years. Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) also had troops in the country, initially conducting rear area operations for ECOMOG’s support of the Libe- rian government resisting Charles Taylor’s insurgents. Strasser’s 1993 offensive versus the RUF benefited from the support of both the Guinean army and Nigerian air force. Iron, email, February 10, 2013. 44 Diplomatic pressure helped convince Strasser to permit elections. London and the European Union imposed conditions on the continued flow of aid, London also offering the enticement of an education at British universities for NPRC officers who quit the organization. Strasser considered standing during the elections; he was removed in a palace coup before he could do so. Richard Iron note to Dr. Russell W. Glenn in his review of a draft manuscript. 45 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 35. 46 “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org; Patrick J. Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 48–49. 47 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 193–194; Iron, email, February 10, 2013. 48 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 6. 49 “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org. 50 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 208–209. 51 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 6. 52 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 41. 53 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 211–212 and 215–216; Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 42 and 44. 54 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 44; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 219; “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org. 55 “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org; Woods and Reese, “Military Interven- tions,” 45–48; Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 53–54. Woods and Reese estimate the deaths in Freetown at 10,000. 56 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, 221; Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 45–48. 57 Iron, A Very African War, Chapters 9 and 11. RUF- AFRC ties would be restored to an extent after AFRC commander SAJ Musa’s death during the insurgent offensive. 144 Sierra Leone 58 Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 11. Iron notes that while the leader of the attack along the AFRC axis, Alex Brima, told BBC that both AFRC and RUF forces had participated in the attack on the capital, the commander of the RUF forces falsely reported that it was his forces that had taken Freetown. In truth only AFRC forces entered the city on January 6 and the insurgents never seized the entirety of the capital from ECOMOG defenders despite the government having fled. A limited number of RUF forces managed to enter Free- town only during the last days of the battle, using a route previously employed by the former soldiers of the AFRC. 59 The legacy of the CDF and kamajors that were a part of the militia force is a mixed one. On the one hand their operations assisted ECOMOG’s retaking of Freetown thanks to the effectiveness of their actions in the country’s south that pulled AFRC forces away from the capital in the months prior to the Feb- ruary 1998 ECOMOG offensive. On the other, atrocities committed by the CDF were such that Sam Hinga Norman, Chief Coordinator of the CDF, was one of three individuals later prosecuted for war crimes by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, the first time members of a victorious side were charged. Iron, A Very African War, Chapter 6. 60 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 51; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 250–251. 61 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 253. An unarmed United Nations mission established the year before to monitor and advise the DDR process failed embarrassingly when its personnel fled the country in the face of renewed violence. In the words of the United Nations, On June 1998, the Security Council established the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) for an initial period of six months. The Secretary- General named Special Envoy Okelo as his Special Representative and Chief of Mission. The mission monitored and advised efforts to disarm combatants and restructure the nation’s security forces. Unarmed UNOMSIL teams, under the protection of ECOMOG, docu- mented reports of ongoing atrocities and human rights abuses committed against civilians. (From “Sierra Leone – UNAMSIL – Background: United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone,” undated, available at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/ missions/past/unamsil/background.html (accessed July, 21, 2010)) 62 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 196. 63 Many ECOMOG soldiers transitioned into UNAMSIL positions. 64 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 56–60; Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 51; Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 58. 65 “People’s Peep” column For Di People Freetown newspaper, June 25, 1995, cited in Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 164. 66 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 263–265. Reported numbers of British military personnel vary by source, some stating the force strength was 5,000. I have chosen to use Keen’s more conservative value. 67 Richard Iron, email to author, Subject: Sierra Leone chapter, February 12, 2013. 68 “The brigadier who saved Sierra Leone,” BBC Radio 4, May 15, 2010, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/ 8682505.stm (accessed May 25, 2010). 69 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 60–64; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 273; Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 60–69. 70 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 52–53. 71 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 65–71. Sierra Leone 145 72 Walter Grady Roberson, “British Military Intervention into Sierra Leone: A Case Study,” Thesis, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College, 2007, 82–83. The three DDR programs were as follows: Phase 1 (Sep- tember to December 1998): Approximately 3,200 combatants were disarmed during this phase, mostly ex- SLA/AFRC who surrendered to ECOMOG. Phase 1 was interrupted following the deterioration of the security situation and a rebel attack on Freetown on January 6, 1999. Phase 2 (October 1999 to April 2000): The second phase was implemented based on the framework of the Lomé Peace Agreement signed on 7 July 1999. It was also interrupted by the resumption of hostilities in May 2000 that also saw the RUF seizing over 500 peacekeepers as hostages. Phase 3 (18 May 2001 to 6 January 2002): The final phase of the DDR process was successful largely because the affected parties realized that military victory was not within their grasp. “Country Programme: Sierra Leone,” United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegra- tion Resource Centre, available at: www.unddr.org/countryprogrammes. php?c=60 (accessed December 17, 2011). 73 “Managing Uncertainty,” 1–2; Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Trans- formation,” 47. 74 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 73–74; Keen, Conflict and Collusion, pp. 268–273. The UN, in contrast, reported the number of weapons collected as “over 30,000.” “Country Programme.” 75 “Sierra Leone,” Global Security.org. 76 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 3. 77 “Country Programme.” 78 Courtney R. Rowe, Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, and Anne- Tyler Morgan, “The Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers,” in Monopoly of Force: The Nexus of DDR and SSR, (eds.) Melanne A. Civic and Michael Miklaucic, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011, p. 146. 79 Barry J. Le Grys, “Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: United Kingdom (UK) Military Intervention and Progress in Sierra Leone 2001–2006,” Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, October 2008, 3. 80 Marilyn Silberfein, “The Geopolitics of Conflict and Diamonds in Sierra Leone,” in The Geopolitics of Resource Wars: Resource Dependence, Governance and Violence, (ed.) Philippe Le Billon, Abingdon, UK: Frank Cass, 2005, pp. 231–232. 81 “Liberia and Sierra Leone,” 15 and 29. 82 “Health care in Sierra Leone: It’s up to you,” The Economist 402 (February 4, 2012): 51. 83 Riley, “U.K. in Sierra Leone.” 84 Stephen Ellis, Season of Rains: Africa in the World, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. 85 Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, New York: Sarah Crichton, 2007, p. 22. 86 Casebook, p. 778. 87 Casebook, p. 776; Iron, email, February 10, 2013. In fact, Iron believes G5 had no responsibilities beyond organization of slave labor. 88 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 74. 89 Jonathan P. Riley, “The U.K. in Sierra Leone: A Post- Conflict Operation Success?” Presentation delivered June 15, 2006; transcript published August 10, 2006, available at: www.heritage.org/Research/Lecture/The- UK-in- Sierra- Leone- A-Post- Conflict-Operation- Success (accessed May 20, 2010). 90 Carl von Clausewitz uses the term coup d’oeil to describe that component of military genius “that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of 146 Sierra Leone the inner light which leads to truth. . . . The concept merely refers to the quick recognition of a truth that the mind would ordinarily miss of would perceive only after long study and reflection.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 102. David Richards recognition of the steps necessary to address the many challenges confronting his and other counterinsurgency forces when many others failed to demonstrate similar vision provides an excellent example of Clausewitz’s concept. 91 Riley, “U.K. in Sierra Leone.” 92 International Military Advisory and Training Teams (IMATT) did initially oversee the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces, however, to include having final directional authority on its activities. See, for example, Alfred Nelson- Williams, “Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Restruc- turing the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF ),” Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, October 2008, 7. 93 Roberson, “British Military Intervention,” 58. 94 Nelson- Williams, “Security System Transformation,” 7. 95 Silberfein, “Geopolitics,” 214. 96 “Sierra Leone and the UN: Turning tables,” The Economist 402 (February 18, 2012): 51. 97 Charlie J. Hughes, “Reporter’s Notebook: Sierra Leone: New broom, same old dirt,” in “Global Integrity Scorecard: Sierra Leone, 2009,” 2009, http://report. globalintegrity.org/reportPDFS/2009/Sierra%20Leone.pdf (accessed Decem- ber 25, 2011). 98 Greg Behrman, The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped Save Europe, New York: Free Press, 2007, p. 279. 99 Keen, Conflict and Collusion, p. 24. 100 Silberfein, “Geopolitics,” 224. 101 Daniel Bergner, Soldiers of Light, London: Allen Lane, 2004, p. 140. 102 Bagehot, “The weight of the world,” The Economist 405 (November 10, 2012): 60. 103 Riley, “U.K. in Sierra Leone.” 104 Roberson, “British Military Intervention,” 84–85. 105 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 67. 106 Roberson, “British Military Intervention,” 57. 107 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 57–58. 108 Ibid., 58. 109 Ibid., 61–62. 110 Alfred Nelson- Williams, “Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Restructuring the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF ),” Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, October 2008, 7. 111 Nelson- Williams, “Security System Transformation,” 8. 112 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 67. 113 Nelson- Williams, “Security System Transformation,” 6. 114 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 70. 115 These interagency disconnects can in part be attributed to the DfID not having a senior representative posted to Freetown until 2005. The department’s representatives in London were too often unable to maintain adequate awareness of conditions in Sierra Leone prior to that time, thus further hindering the timeliness and appropriateness of its decisions. For further discussion, to include efforts to address coordination challenges, see Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 27, 173–74, and 203. 116 Albrecht and Jackson, “Security System Transformation,” 74; Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 8. Sierra Leone 147 117 Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 5. 118 Regarding the DfID’s performance in 2003 Iraq, British diplomat Hilary Synnott would write, [Head of DfID] Clare Short was publicly and vehemently opposed to the UK engaging in a conflict in Iraq at all. . . . DfID undertook little or no planning for possible post- conflict humanitarian or reconstruction work. And yet it would be DfID which would be expected to take a lead within the UK on the civilian aspects of development, humanitarian aid, and disaster relief. . . . DfID’s reputation with other Departments, and especially the military, whose contempt was seldom disguised, was severely damaged. (Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Times as Britain’s Man in Southern Iraq, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 137) Bagehot, a columnist for The Economist, reported, “DfID is forbidden by law to take British national interest into account. . . . Poverty reduction, not influence, is its forte.” Bagehot, “The weight of the world,” 60. The potentially critical role development capabilities have during counterinsurgencies suggests any such organization’s activities ought to be fully integrated with and supportive of national and – when applicable – broader coalition objectives. 119 Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 5. 120 Ibid., 4. 121 Ibid., 7. 122 Ibid., 8. 123 As Richards himself did when selecting the capital’s airport and assembly area for noncombatant evacuees at the beginning of Operation Palliser. 124 Woods and Reese, “Military Interventions,” 3. 125 Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 7. 126 Kadi Fakondo, “Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Reforming and Building Capacity of the Sierra Leone Police, 1997–2007,” Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform, October 2008, 4. 127 Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 10. 128 Evoe, “Operation Palliser,” 84–87. 129 Blair, Journey, pp. 245–247. 130 Le Grys, “Security System Transformation,” 11. 131 Fakondo, “Security System Transformation,” 4. 132 Iron, email, February 12, 2013. 6 Interdicting insurgency Applying a comprehensive approach in the Solomon Islands

It’s easier to crush evils in their infancy than when grown to maturity.1

The nation of the Solomon Islands spurs a palette of images. The prospective tourist envisions long stretches of pristine sand lapped by indigo waters. A World War II veteran recalls brutal combat to secure the island of Guadalcanal and build the vital Henderson Field for American aircraft. For members of the ten-nation Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) arriving in July 2003 it was concerns regarding militia violence and an unknown future as they arrived in the capital of Honiara on that same island. Ironically, Honiara emerged from the settlements established around the wartime marine base and grew further once the Americans departed at the conflict’s end. Unlike the marine’s arrival the century before, RAMSI’s landings at its airport signaled the advent of peace rather than war. Threatening militias had been disarmed and stability had once again settled on the nation a mere three months later. Yet the coalition’s greatest challenges lay ahead; the Solomon Islands’ government was years distant from providing effective governance for its citizens.2 Honiara and its 50,000 residents was the hub of tensions that brought the country to the brink of ruin in 2003. It was also the point from which stability would spread in the aftermath of RAMSI’s arrival.3 Causes underlying the violence had roots extending back to the years immediately following independence from the United Kingdom in 1978. Tensions rose between Gwales (traditional residents of Guadalcanal) and arrivals from the island of Malaita to the east, becoming more pronounced when job opportunities drew increasing numbers from the latter, numbers sufficient to raise Gwales’ concerns that too many properties were being lost to Malaitans via intermarriage and purchase. Tensions escalated in the 1990s. Long time residents of Guadalcanal raised militias such as the Gwale Isatabu Freedom Movement and Guadalcanal Liberation Front (GLF ) that claimed to protect the rights of the island’s original inhabitants. Murder, rape, destruction of property, and theft became tools to intimidate Solomon Islands 149 Malaitans, militia violence eventually causing an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 to flee Honiara and its surrounds for other islands.4 Others chose to stay and raise their own militias. The most influential was the Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF ) that focused its efforts on the capital, enrolling many members of the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP) and using that access to acquire the organization’s military grade weapons, an accomplishment of vital importance in a country with no armed forces. Any claims of altruistic motives by either Gwale or Malaitan militia quickly fell by the wayside. The armed groups committed atrocities against citizens regardless of ethnicity and fought competing groups irrespective of affiliation. As any semblance of control increasingly slipped from the its grasp, the government’s first appeal for help spurred the arrival of a combined Fiji and Vanuatu police force in 2000, one that quickly proved inadequate due to both a lack of sufficient resources and authority to impose its will on the turmoil in Honiara. A June 2000 coup led by members of the Malaitan Eagle Force overthrew the government with segments of the RSIP and local felon community in support. (In many cases membership in the three groups overlapped.) The government’s fall hastened the withdrawal of what little international investment had remained in the light of previous unrest. Killings in Honiara climbed dramatically and the country seemed to be sliding toward collapse when MEF leaders openly declared war on the Isatabu Freedom Movement, a group that was already struggling with the Guadalcanal Liberation Front for control of the southern portion of Guad- alcanal known as the Weathercoast region. A general ceasefire agreement in August slowed the rush toward mayhem as associated negotiations brought about the Townsville Peace Agreement. Militia members in signa- tory groups gained immunity from both criminal and civil prosecution if they surrendered their weapons and ceased participating in further violence. Late 2000 saw the arrival of an International Peace Monitoring Team (IPMT) to oversee the disarmament as called for in the peace agreement. This second effort experienced no greater success than the earlier Fiji- Vanuatu venture for many of the same reasons.5 Only 150 of the 1,300 weapons turned in during the IPMT disarmament program were of military grade, an effort that collapsed altogether when corrupt militia leaders and politicians pocketed money earmarked for those surrendering arms. The monitoring team departed in mid- 2002. Though an operational failure, intelligence provided by its members would serve RAMSI planners in good stead a year later. Violence flared anew. Members of the police force were at the center of a breakdown so dramatic that high-ranking government officials found it difficult to maintain their long- established flow of spoils into personal coffers. Often drunk, police routinely stole food from citizens, had their salaries augmented by relatives in other branches of the national government, and on numerous occasions openly walked into banks and demanded cardboard 150 Solomon Islands boxes be filled with cash. RAMSI Special Coordinator Nick Warner would later observe that a Malaitan- dominated group of “special constables” consisting primarily of MEF thugs was particularly notorious. First known as the Police Field Force and later the Special Task and Rescue Division (STAR), Warner noted it became “something of a private army for those demanding money from the government.”6 In mid- 2003, the Solomon Islands’ parliament backed Prime Minister Albert Kemakeza in again calling for outside assistance. Government officials passed the Facilitation of International Assistance Act, asking that a responding force “reinforce and uphold the legitimate institutions and authorities in Solomon Islands, and . . . ensure respect for the country’s constitution and implementation of its laws.”7 The act granted military and police members of an assisting force the same authorities bestowed by law on the RSIP. In addition, “armed forces and police members of the visiting contingent may use such force as is reasonably necessary to achieve a public purpose.”8

RAMSI preparation and arrival The first requirement for a workable campaign is good coordinating machinery. It is no good having an overall plan composed of various measures unless they can be coordinated in such a way that measures of one kind do not cut across measures of another kind.9

Australia assumed the lead for what would become the July 2003 ten- nation deployment with this charter. The speed of Solomon Islands destabilization and the belatedness of Honiara’s request for assistance left participants little time to prepare. Senior representatives – to include the “Big Three” leadership consisting of Australia’s Nick Warner (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), analogous to the U.S. Department of State or British Foreign and Commonwealth Office), Ben McDevitt (Australian Federal Police, (AFP)), and Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Frewen (Australian Defence Force (ADF )) – had at most ten weeks forewarning. Many had far less. Frewen’s chief logistics officer, Major Donna Boulton, had but 17 days to prepare prior to her departure for Solomon Islands, only ten of which saw her actually with the task force. The choreography of RAMSI’s July 24, 2003 arrival was nevertheless close to perfection. Her Majesty’s Australian Ship (HMAS) Manoora (a converted former U.S. Navy landing ship tank (LST)) broke the horizon off Honiara’s coast just as the first of the Australian C-130 aircraft touched down at the capital’s airport (located at the same site as World War II’s Henderson Field). Soldiers disembarked the aircraft in full combat gear but with rifles pointing ground-ward. As had been the case of David Rich- ards’ British soldiers in Freetown, the arriving force was a symbol of both readiness and restraint, the former to intimidate any who might contemplate resistance, the latter to reassure residents of the coalition’s concern Solomon Islands 151 for the innocent after their years of suffering abuse. The full complement of military personnel arrived over the next several days, the total coming to number some 1,800 men and women from New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga in addition to soldiers from Australia. Police from these nations and the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, and Vanuatu numbered 230. Nick Warner’s initial DFAT delegation added another ten. The military was not in charge at any of the three levels of war despite its overwhelming predominance in numbers. DFAT had overarching responsibility, overseeing operations at the strategic and operational levels. The Australian Federal Police assumed the lead at the tactical level much as had the police in Northern Ireland. The new arrivals joined several other agencies’ representatives who were already in Honiara. These included the Australian Agency for International Devel- opment (AusAID), New Zealand International Aid and Development Agency (NZAID), and regional finance, treasury, and oversight and coordination teams that had continued to work with Solomon Islands’ government agencies even during the previous period of unrest. RAMSI moved with extraordinary quickness to establish control. Its police immediately sought out and found a young member of the RSIP who found himself on the coalition’s first multinational law enforcement patrol the same afternoon the coalition arrived on the island. Soldiers, police, and civilians alike settled into base camps on Guadalcanal Beach and at the airport. Patrols expanded their reach over subsequent days. Military personnel trailed police at sufficient distance to emphasize police primacy while ever ready to respond should any think to resort to force, a situation reminiscent of similar support to law enforcement in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone. The patrols marked the first return of law enforcement representatives in years for many communities. RAMSI media beamed the events throughout the country and broader region to reinforce the perception of control where but hours before there had been only militia intimidation. Coalition leaders demonstrated exceptional interagency and multinational cooperation in maintaining focus on the immediate objective of restoring peace and stability. RAMSI leaders envisioned the Solomon Islands’ recovery in three phases. Commencement, estimated at six months duration, would include capture of uncooperative militia members, disarmament, and begin reestablishment of a capable indigenous police force. Phase 2, consolidation, was to emphasize broader institutional reform. It would begin in January 2004 and continue throughout the duration of that year. Completion would usher in sustainability and self- reliance during which the focus would be continued government and social reform with an eye to reestablishing the nation’s self- reliance and the departure of the assisting coalition. This third phase had no designated duration. Coalition commitment to funding RAMSI through at least June 2008 – five years from its arrival – demonstrated that the participating nations were resolute 152 Solomon Islands in their plans to see operations through to a successful conclusion. Aus- tralia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, consistently reinforced that his country would remain as long as necessary to achieve desired ends. First day seizure of the initiative set the tone for the days and weeks to follow. RAMSI kept potential challengers on their heels with a series of events that demonstrated coalition readiness to use whatever force might be called for. Its new gun amnesty program had far sharper teeth than those the IPMT was able to bare. The goodwill of participants was no longer required; penalties for noncompliance were stiff and uncompromising. Any Solomon Island citizen – militia member or otherwise – had three weeks to surrender his arms before becoming liable for healthy fines and imprisonment, the latter in prisons run by RAMSI and not easily- bribed local officials. Officials ensured weapons were publicly destroyed in front of community members, a departure from previous programs in which turn- ins sometimes found their way back into circulation and one unlike failed disarmament initiatives in the Southern Philippines, North- ern Ireland, and Sierra Leone. “We had learned from [a previous disarmament operation on] Bougainville never to have weapons turned in and take them away,” Lieutenant Colonel Frewen recalled. “The people think you are taking them and giving them to their enemies. So we cut them up in front of them. We let people come out of the crowd and cut them up. It was hugely popular.”10 Lieutenant Colonel Luke Foster was Australia’s Defence Advisor to the Solomon Islands. Present in Honiara prior to RAMSI, Foster had done much to promote rapid compliance to RAMSI’s dictates in the days before its arrival by spreading word of the coalition’s capabilities. Foster’s influence campaign was so effective that “the first illegal firearms had been handed in even before we arrived in anticipation of the mission, and overnight stolen cars suddenly appeared in owner’s yards.”11 RAMSI also held an open day less than ten days after its initial arrival. Members of the population visited equipment displays and watched demonstrations of coalition capabilities such as military dogs rooting out hidden arms and munitions. Messages, public displays and demonstrations, and the day- to-day performance of RAMSI members proved potent ingredients in a campaign that helped motivate the surrender of over 3,700 weapons during the specified three-week period, 700 of which were of military quality. All underwent public destruction. The coalition’s limited numbers meant that RAMSI could not physically assert its authority on every populated island. Such an inundation would have been unnecessary even had it been possible. Instability was, by and large, a problem only on Guadalcanal. Nevertheless, RAMSI ensured news of its readiness and restraint percolated throughout the country. Military units of up to company group size (approximately 120 soldiers) reinforced the effect by traveling to locations thought to be at risk, collecting information on militias, and arresting those undermining peace and stability. The Big Three complemented these operations by personally visiting select Solomon Islands 153 locations. Ben McDevitt’s police were a third part of this selective saturation:

The first thing we wanted to do was win back the streets of Honiara. Then we went out to the real hot spots. . . . I think it was day 14 that we set up the first police outpost on the Weathercoast. . . . Then we spread out and made sure we weren’t appearing to favor any one group. . . . We used the police stations to spread messages. Some of them were police messages, but some were about other events, like sporting events. And we bought the local paper [which had] a circulation of about 3,000 just in Honiara and posted it up open behind plastic [at the police outposts]. People would walk tens of kilometers just to read the paper, to find out what was going on. The police stations became real [hubs of social activity and sources of information].12

The posting of newspapers that brought citizens to police stations offered RAMSI’s law enforcement representatives the opportunity to pass additional messages by word of mouth, as did the visits by the Big Three and patrols by both military and police personnel. The communications were carefully crafted and controlled. Every patrol received a list of themes and points of emphasis, thereby assuring spoken and written words passed on consistent information whether they came from the most junior policeman, an aid provider, soldier, or one of the Big Three at the pinnacle of coalition leadership. RAMSI leaders drew on recent operations elsewhere in molding such policies. As noted, Lieutenant Colonel Frewen incorporated past lessons he drew from disarmament operations on Bougainville. Ben McDevitt’s plan to focus first on securing Honiara and only thereafter expand outward was similar to the strategy employed by General Peter Cosgrove four years before in East Timor. Like McDevitt’s police, Cosgrove had secured the capital – in that case Dili – before incorporating other parts of the island nation (or, more accurately, half-island nation) in operations. Both McDevitt and Cosgrove were effectively employing a version of the oil spot strategy – first freeing a region of enemy and thereafter expanding to secure other areas each of which provided a base of operations for the next move. The route to stability was clear for the counterinsurgents. Ensuring all Solomon Islanders gave up their weapons – which meant all but members of the RSIP – was uncontested as first priority; obtaining the surrender of key militia leaders was next in importance. The two objectives were tightly interwoven. Intelligence had consistently pointed to Harold Keke and his Guadalcanal Liberation Front (GLF ) in the Weathercoast region as the foremost militia threat. So imposing was fear of the GLF that Prime Minister Kemakeza had “instructed militants to keep their guns as long as Keke kept his” during the pre- RAMSI gun amnesty program of May 2002.13 154 Solomon Islands Kemakeza’s guidance was superfluous. Keke’s reputation was such that other paramilitary leaders refused to disarm until the GLF did so. Extreme cruelty was his hallmark. Atrocities included brutal murders that included the May 2000 slaughter of seven Anglican Melanesian Brothers Order hostages. In another instance, GLF members seized the Weathercoast village of Marassa in June 2003, binding the hands of all males and herding them to the beach. There they remained under a scorching sun and throughout the night for two and a half days before Keke ordered two young men separated from the remainder. The pair had been seen taking photographs several days before. Keke declared both to be spies and had them beaten to death before burning the village. The only building spared was the church; Keke claimed to have strong religious beliefs and direct communication with God. Government representatives dispatched to deal with the challenge posed by Keke and his GLF were likewise murdered. The Big Three recognized Harold Keke as the insurgency center of gravity. Ben McDevitt wrote several letters to the militia leader prior to RAMSI’s July 24th landing in order to establish an initial relationship. He, Warner, and Frewen met with him in a Weathercoast church on a number of occasions soon after their arrival. Realization that Keke’s well- trained militia had the potential to resist RAMSI for years by operating out of the densely vegetated and mountainous Weathercoast region convinced the trio that voluntary surrender was the preferred way of neutralizing the GLF. Frewen was initially skeptical that the patient approach was the right path, but both he and Warner became increasingly impressed with McDevitt’s negotiating skills as their meetings with Keke progressed. Persistence paid off; Keke stated that God told him Nick Warner was a man to be trusted. Keke agreed to be flown out to HMAS Manoora on August 13th and surrender in exchange for a chance to safely explain his resistance to the government in Honiara. McDevitt seized the opportunity, charging him with an earlier theft of an outboard motor, the only crime the police had sufficient evidence to arrest him for at the time.14 RAMSI had removed the insurgency’s center of gravity only three weeks after the first 130 C- bearing its soldiers touched down on Honiara’s runway. McDevitt recalled,

Harold had such psychological control over his lieutenants that we had him write letters back and tell them who we wanted to arrest. We called it arrest by appointment. They would come out of the jungle in dozens. They would stand on the beach, and we’d pick them up by helicopter, take them back to Honiara, charge them with murder, then go back for another group.15

The discipline of surrendering GLF militia members reinforced the wisdom of McDevitt’s low- key approach. Each surrendering member stood to attention and performed inspection arms as Frewen walked through their well- formed ranks prior to the men being flown out. Solomon Islands 155 Much as loyalist groups in Northern Ireland followed suit after the PIRA’s unilateral declaration of a ceasefire in 1994, Keke’s surrender removed other militia leaders’ primary excuse for retaining their arms. Because of the criminal nature of these groups’ activities, Nick Warner explained,

it was decided that we would approach the former militants as a policing issue. . . . In these first few weeks, when we were asking militants to hand back weapons, we announced publicly that we were prepared to meet and talk to any of the militants, at any time, anywhere. Some Solomon Islanders saw this as a sign of weakness. They wanted arrests, not discussions, and were afraid that we would make compromises with those they feared the most. That was not our intention, and I explained at the time that RAMSI would not negotiate or compromise or do any deals.16

Arrests would come in time, but only after sufficient evidence to support subsequent prosecution was in hand. The effective disarmament program and Big Three’s success in bringing the Guadalcanal Liberation Front to heel so quickly was in great part due to the trio’s internal cooperation. Frewen’s willingness to stand back and support his police counterpart despite initial misgivings regarding the approach taken with Keke, McDevitt’s tenacity in gaining and maintaining contact with the individual identified as the key to achieving the top priorities of disarmament and militia leader surrenders, and Warner’s minimalist and steadfast support of his two primary subordinates characterized what was a highly effective multinational and interagency command style that achieved results in a strikingly short period. Harold Keke’s arrest and the subsequent success of the disarmament program left one major focus of the commencement phase undone: the reconstruction and accompanying re- legitimization of the nation’s police force. Least glamorous of the trio of objectives, it would nevertheless prove the most difficult. In addition to its past history of theft, drunkenness, and violent acts, the last to include a police sergeant assassinating a former chief of the force, the RSIP was shot through with corruption that directly linked many law enforcement personnel to equally crooked politicians. Fortunately, Ben McDevitt could capitalize on a foundation established by AusAID during its work with the Royal Solomon Islands Police before July 2003. One of AusAID’s objectives had been the creation of a professional law enforcement organization. The agency was successful in winning the support of some rank and file despite the force’s internal rot and infiltration by members of the Malaitan Eagle Force. Police and administrative personnel loyal to the concept of serving the population had maintained records of corrupt activities that proved invaluable to McDevitt. The information was slow to emerge thanks to the ephemeral accomplishments 156 Solomon Islands of the international forays preceding RAMSI (as those with information risked retribution should RAMSI prove no more a permanent presence than had its two predecessors). Yet coalition declarations of long-term support, backed by effective operations on the ground, eventually reaped rewards. Witnesses came forward, now confident they would not be victimized in the wake of another precipitous international departure. 50 Solomon Islands police were arrested and another 400 were fired within nine months of the coalition’s arrival. Both deputy police commissioners were among the arrested, the two being charged with fraud and abuse of office. Not only the corrupt and criminal were relieved of their duties. A number were simply not competent. RAMSI leaders recognized the danger in casting former police back into society without any form of support. Opening the front door to recruits on one hand therefore needed a complement in a disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration back door for reintroducing former police into society as civilians. A United Nations sponsored Development Programme and AusAID’s DDR initiative introduced in July 2002 played important roles in that regard, largely relieving RAMSI of its burden (AusAID having recognized the dangers of releasing veterans of the country’s only armed force into society without assistance even before RAMSI’s arrival).17 Disarmament and demobilization went hand- in-hand. Those fired for abuse of their position received no compensation or assistance. Others could choose from several forms of reintegration support. They first had to sign a certificate of disarmament. Demobilization followed formal ter- mination of an individual’s association with the RSIP, initial workshops being held at five locations in the country. Reintegration followed with each former special constable being asked to choose among the options of receiving vocational skills training, job placement, or self-employment after micro- enterprise training. All received a “safety net” income of SI$504 (US$72) monthly for six months after separation.18 Over 1,000 former members of the RSIP Special Constabulary successfully completed the DDR program during its two years of operation from July 2002–July 2004. A program of purging the government of criminals came with considerable risks. RAMSI’s charter depended on the continued support of the national executive and legislature that had originally requested its assistance. A number of those coming under investigation had the right to vote on RAMSI’s retention, a right they did not lose as investigations were in progress. Nevertheless, those inquiries proceeded very deliberately to ensure guilt was firmly established before arrests were made. Some in the population expressed frustration as they watched “big fish” they were convinced were guilty remain at large for months while those at lower levels were tried and punished. McDevitt held course despite these tensions, maintaining focus on both long- term objectives such as the conviction of Solomon Islands 157 high- ranking offenders and day- to-day improvements in safety and security. As McDevitt explained his approach,

we have an hourglass model [in the Australian Federal Police]. At the bottom are the disaffected youth who had status because they had a gun or were members of some organization like the Malaitan Eagle Force. In the middle were the facilitators, those with special skills or the tactical commanders. Some were commanders in the Malaitan Eagle Force; some were police; some were ex- police. At the top were the corrupt politicians who weren’t keen on RAMSI because we were interfering with their getting money through corruption. We went after the middle group, the facilitators, because that separated the corrupt politician at the top from the bottom element and thus isolated the two.19

His team thereby denied individuals atop the depravity food chain while building a case against them, moving forward at a pace appropriate for reestablishing the rule of law despite the risks for renewal of the RAMSI charter. The deliberate pace carried with it the additional benefit of providing time to train officials in other parts of the legal system: investiga- tors, lawyers, judges, and prison officials. Restraint continued to permeate RAMSI activities just as it had when those first soldiers arrived with weapons at the ready yet pointing downward. There were several times when the rules of engagement permitted the employment of lethal force. Yet neither the police nor military found it necessary to cross that line. A different kind of restraint likewise bore benefits. Much as had been the case in Sierra Leone, citizens approached RAMSI soldiers and law enforcement officers rather than their own police during military- backed police patrols in the days immediately following coalition arrival. It was a natural response given recent RSIP abuses. Sol- diers referred requestors to RAMSI police, who in turn increasingly directed them to RSIP members once local personnel had proved themselves trustworthy. In a further demonstration of restraint, soldiers also strove to leave arrests to the force that would be responsible for law and order once the coalition departed the islands. Regardless of whether it was a soldier or law enforcement officer making an arrest, every such event was recognized as an opportunity to reinforce the rule of law in the eyes of the citizenry. RAMSI military lawyer James Watson explained,

Consistent with the successful approach taken by military forces during INTERFET [the International Force in East Timor], strict orders were given to military personnel who might be involved in detaining civilians. If it was necessary to use force to arrest a person, the minimum force necessary was to be used, the person was to be told the reason for their arrest and where they were being taken, and a friend or relative was also to be advised of this information.20 158 Solomon Islands Moderation also characterized RAMSI members’ off duty behavior. Frewen initially barred his soldiers from leaving their compound other than for official duties, a stark contrast with some international organizations in East Timor (and, it will be recalled, Sierra Leone) that had set an example of conspicuous consumption and threatened the country’s economic stability by paying inflationary prices for goods and services. It was an unpopular decision with many in his command but one that acted to hold inflation in check by limiting coalition spending in the fragile Honiara economy, minimized the appearance of RAMSI’s soldiers as occupiers, and kept public displays of misbehavior to virtually nil. In addition to concerns regarding force protection in the first days when the security situation was ill defined, Frewen wanted to ensure that his young trusts set a good example for the roughly 50 percent of Solomon Islands residents under the age of 15. RAMSI’s military commander only gradually lessened restrictions on the number and duration of informal visits to the capital once he introduced more lenient policies. The light touch paid off. Both soldiers and citizens much enjoyed the casual interactions once they began, members of the latter trailing coalition members as they strolled the city’s streets. RAMSI members before long found themselves transitioning from Phase 1 of their operation (commencement) to its second phase (consolidation) in which coalition leaders increasingly reoriented their resources toward capacity building while continuing improvement in sectors such as law enforcement. The military component decreased its numbers in response. By March 2004, the number had shrunk to 700 from its 1,800 peak. What had been four infantry companies became a single, albeit large, Pacific Island Company with members of all participating military forces under command. The end of that year saw RAMSI’s armed force numbering a mere 60, a reflection of the reduction in perceived threats. Progress did not breed complacency, however. The end of 2004 marked RAMSI’s first violent death. Australian policeman Adam Dunning fell to a murderer’s bullet while on patrol in Honiara three days before Christmas. The lead nation immediately dispatched a quick reaction force to Guadal- canal despite there being no evidence that the event was anything other than the act of a lone criminal. (Later investigation confirmed such was the case.) The deployment meant RAMSI’s military strength spiked to over 250 within 24 hours of the shooting. As had been the case with the British re- dispatching armed forces to Sierra Leone, the rapid and deliberately dominant reappearance of heavily armed soldiers on the capital’s streets left no doubt that the coalition would not tolerate renewed threats to stability. RAMSI reinforced its resolve by beaming broadcasts featuring the redeployment throughout the region. The results of the 2006 elections threatened a return of the corruption and favoritism that had plagued the islands prior to RAMSI’s arrival three years before. Voters’ choice of Manasseh Sogavare as prime minister Solomon Islands 159 seemed to reflect the population not fully appreciating what they should expect from political leadership. Sogavare gained office on the heels of a strong anti- RAMSI platform despite the widespread popularity of the coalition. As in the Philippines, the disconnect seemed to demonstrate the difficulties counterinsurgents can confront when an election takes place before a population is prepared for its role as voters in a democracy, when the electoral process is inherently flawed, or in instances where too many candidates lack the skills needed to govern effectively when elected. Remi- niscent of similar efforts in Southern Philipinnes, some measure regarding the nature of the challenge is evident in the comments of a senior RAMSI official:

Most people don’t understand . . . how their votes translate into the leadership behavior they see. We’ve put a fair bit of work into that through our [education] program . . . a chunk of which is about trying to build public [understanding] of good governance by demonstrating that leaders shouldn’t be corrupt and get away with it. We’ve got an electoral program that works on both making the existing electoral system work better and beginning a discussion about how there might be changes to the electoral system to ensure that democracy is more representative here. For instance, there are [members of parliament who] got 10 percent of the popular vote. That means an awful lot of people here are disenfranchised. . . . Then once you [seat] Parliament, the party system disintegrates and they sit down and try to find a Prime Minister. At that point it’s about logging interests, casino interests, and threats of violence, basically.21

Understanding the fundamentals of representative government is not instinctive. Just as counterinsurgents may find it necessary to assist national authorities – elected and otherwise – in building their capacity to govern, so too they may find it essential to educate those choosing those authorities. Most external counterinsurgent governments accept their responsibility to work side-by-side with aspiring bureaucrats and their elected masters until a government is prepared to perform without assistance. Ironically, the same Western leaders see no irony in holding elections before an electorate is similarly prepared or viable candidates exist in sufficient numbers.

Considering the nature of Solomon Islands insurgency There was no provision of services. . . . Politicians were aligning themselves with criminal gangs. . . . No effective opposition. . . . What there was is a group of individuals who would buy votes. . . . There was no effective government that you would mount an insurgency against. There were just these groups that were fighting over land, over money. 160 Solomon Islands It wasn’t as cohesive as I would imagine an insurgency to be, to destabilize a government. . . . I don’t think any of them had a long- term strategy; everybody was living day- to-day for everything they could get for themselves.22

Did the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands confront what we can legitimately consider an insurgency? Ben McDevitt’s statement just above implies he had reservations in that regard given that there was no effective government to undermine and the “insurgents” seemed to have little in the way of objectives. His point is a valid one. Our definition of insurgency, like virtually any other, requires the existence of a government. The absence of such an authority makes insurgency impossible. Yet there remained sufficient government to cry for help even as anarchy chased reason to the cliff ’s edge in Solomon Islands. Harold Keke’s Guadalcanal Liberation Front and other militias controlled territory and segments of the Solomon Islands’ population, denying entry to, even slaying Honiara’s representatives sent to force their return to the fold. The GLF was among those undermining the sovereign authority of the standing government, albeit a weak and largely ineffective authority in the months before RAMSI’s arrival. Lieutenant Colonel Frewen took a somewhat different viewpoint than that of his colleague McDevitt. In Frewen’s mind the threat to the Solomon Islands’ peace and stability – and the remnants of national government – was a criminal insurgency. Rather than seeking to undermine or overthrow the government in Honiara, militias and corrupt politicians (sometimes associated with those militias) sought to deny any authorities that might be so inclined the capability to interfere with illegal access to the country’s resources. Control of territory or population was less important than precluding the government’s ability to impede that access. New Zealand’s Peter Noble served in Solomon Islands with the Inter- national Peace Monitoring Team in 2001. Noble similarly argued that what confronted RAMSI and the government in Honiara was not “an insurgency as you and I would understand it.” While there were various groups “sucking the blood out of the state,” the behavior of the leaders and members of some militia groups was more “criminal or psychopathic” in character than oriented toward objectives that would fit traditional definitions of insurgency.23 The observations by Frewen and Noble are important ones; they once again emphasize the unimportance of motivation in determining the existence of an insurgency. Whether politically, criminally, or otherwise driven, Harold Keke’s GLF controlled portions of the Weathercoast and segments of the population there. Other militia groups subverted the government’s ability to maintain the rule of law. (So too did many of the politicians within the government, though there the status is probably better described as kleptocratic than insurgent given their not employing – or lack of need to employ – “the protracted use of subversion and armed conflict” to achieve the ends desired.) Solomon Islands 161 Nick Warner expanded on the theme of a Solomon Islands criminal insurgency. He discriminated between groups based on their capability to threaten the government’s control and other factors. Warner believed there were “groups that wanted to be considered insurgents but were nothing more than thugs” while Harold Keke was

different. He was purporting to support Guadie rights. And he was certainly holding his group together. . . . If we hadn’t been successful in the way we picked them up, then there might have been something like an insurgency given the arms they had and the terrain held.24

The New Zealand Army’s Major Vern Bennett concurred. He hinted at a fundamental reason why RAMSI’s rapid establishment of authority proved so successful in halting the further maturation of insurgent threats. Unlike the case of another criminal insurgency, the FARC in Colombia (of which more in the following chapter), the militias in Solomon Islands were in some cases little more than loosely controlled mobs. Keke’s Guad- alcanal Liberation Front presented a disciplined threat, but its quick unraveling when beheaded reflects the group’s developmental immatu- rity. That the greatest threat to stability was led by a supremely dominant individual – one who voluntarily surrendered and later cooperated with RAMSI authorities – must be considered a stroke of considerable good fortune, albeit one greatly assisted by the actions of Ben McDevitt and his Big Three colleagues. Bennett reminds us that fortune favors the bold, or in this case, the well prepared:

The government could not control the population. . . . They could not provide the basic services to the people. . . . Insurgency? Did we ever get up to the Vietnam model? No. Malayan model? No. Did we get to the point that there was loss of control to criminal organizations? Yes. . . . [Our presence] had the effect of dampening the situation . . . The potential was there. We just turned up and had a very stabilizing effect. I suppose a battalion military force will do that. . . . They saw us doing repelling. They saw us doing drills. They saw a very professional military force and responded accordingly.25

The situation is best described as one in which one or more groups were in the initial phase of insurgency during which the movement maintained a low profile while its leaders recruited, accumulated other resources, and established a capability able to present a viable threat to sovereign authority. Traditional counterinsurgency theory suggests that this is the ripest time for a counterinsurgent to interdict a movement’s rise, to cripple or destroy it before it has a chance to mature. The flaw in this reasoning, if it is fair to call it a flaw, is that one can legitimately argue that successful interdiction means interrupting a movement before it can be confirmed 162 Solomon Islands as an insurgency. This helps to explain the variety of opinions expressed above regarding whether insurgency existed in Solomon Islands in July 2003. As a doctor prescribes antibiotics to prevent infection, so the counterinsurgent seeks to prevent an insurgency’s maturing beyond its developmental stage. Prevention is success. So it was with RAMSI.

Keys to RAMSI progress Their [politicians attempting to oust RAMSI] strategy . . . was to stone- wall RAMSI, [to employ a] strategy of doing nothing and RAMSI would be discredited. . . . When the report [by other southwest Pacific nations’ Islands representatives] came in, it blamed the Solomon Islands government, not RAMSI, for the problems. . . . They were trying to grab at anything to discredit RAMSI, like, “Why are your soldiers out with his daughter?” But once they realized we had control over the finances, they realized that the influence was with us.26

Damn the bureaucracy, full speed ahead RAMSI’s accomplishments are in large part attributable to its leaders recognizing that theirs was “success so far,” a success not to be taken for granted. The Big Three, their successors, and the governments funding the mission stayed true to a policy of long- term commitment. They repeatedly reinforced their declarations of intent with action when unrest and criminal activity threatened to undo progress made. There was no declaration of final victory, no temporal mark on the wall for departure. RAMSI instead remained dedicated to its self- imposed responsibility of preserving the stability it introduced and providing the island nation’s citizenry something akin to a responsible and competent government. These commitments at RAMSI’s highest levels had complements at lower echelons. The well choreographed air- sea arrival and effective cooperation between interagency and multinational participants were the more notable because of the short timelines imposed on the first group to reach the troubled isles. Its favorable outcome is the more impressive given that the 1,800 strong armed forces element was an ad hoc compila- tion of disparate units and individuals rather than an organization habitu- ally used to training and operating together. Major Donna Boulton’s experience as chief logistician is reflective of how important cooperation was given the many parts making up the whole. Boulton was responsible for supporting them all. She recalled “the willingness of [other Australian Defence Force] agencies that said, ‘What do you need? We’ll catch up later.’ . . . I was absolutely bewildered. . . . It was amazing. . . . If I asked some- body for something, I got it.”27 Such willingness to “make it happen” was no less important once the approximately 2,000 outsiders began to arrive on Guadalcanal. Boulton’s Solomon Islands 163 responsibilities included maintaining and fueling all vehicles, military and otherwise, a daunting task when one considers how many disparate types of equipment came from the many participating nations and organizations. Differences in expectations made the logistic challenges greater still. RAMSI police, for example, were used to a central garage performing all maintenance on their vehicles. That same hub would provide recovery services should one break down. Military personnel were instead weaned on self- sufficiency. A vehicle’s driver was expected to perform the daily tasks necessary to keep his equipment operating, perform basic maintenance, and undertake self- recovery whenever possible. Calls for help went out only when a soldier operator had exhausted the talents, tools, and supplies available on the spot. Boulton’s army mechanics were therefore not expecting calls for 24-hour fueling points and recovery when a vehicle bogged down on a remote road. Adaptation came quickly, however. Expla- nations that the additional manpower needed for running an all-hours refueling point would unnecessarily burden an already heavily tasked logistics team were well received, especially when she pointed out that a little forethought would reduce the problem to near zero given that vehicles were being refueled an average of only once every eight days. As for expectations of immediate vehicle recovery, those used to more robust support overcame their initial surprise when Boulton’s response to calls for help was “Hey, hoof it out, buddy.”28 Such humor went a long way in keeping together the less- than-perfectly- fitting professional cultures that made up RAMSI. Logistician duties included running shower points for the 2,000-strong coalition, a nontrivial task when potable water was at a premium. Boulton’s Australian soldiers knew

to “Get in. Turn it on. Get wet. Turn it off.” . . . AFP [Australian Federal Police] get in, turn it on, have a shave, wash their hair. . . . “What do you mean I can’t wash my hair every day?” . . . Kiwi [New Zealand] helicopter pilots: “What do you mean I can’t wash my clothes in the washing machine every other day? . . . What do you mean I can’t have a shower every day?” Hey, mate, I don’t care if you’re pilots or not. . . . You have New Zealand rotary- wing pilots and you have Australian rotary- wing pilots. We don’t treat our pilots nicely. In New Zealand they do. I treated them like we treat ours . . . so I used to send them flowers once a week.29

Many such differences were worked out prior to the coalition’s arrival, thanks to Ben McDevitt’s providing a single location for all Australian organizations to assemble before deploying. He volunteered the AFP’s Majura facility outside Canberra as the one- stop shop for all participating in the pending operation during their preparations. The few days spent together there included pre- deployment meetings, exercises, and rehears- als to make the most of the limited time available for learning each other’s 164 Solomon Islands methods of operation.30 The understanding gained proved key once operations began. Time spent in Majura meant the largest RAMSI contingent, that from Australia, had already smoothed many of the kinks that would have otherwise compounded the difficulties in those first days after arrival. The early identification and resolution of potential problems goes a long way toward explaining the united front RAMSI’s members were able to maintain in the critical days following arrival. For example, an Australian military- led exercise at Majura first developed a plan without incorporating civilian police involvement. The armed forces contingent mistakenly assumed that their military police could satisfactorily identify civilian law enforcement requirements without the participation of their Australian Federal Police counterparts. The result overlooked crucial justice issues in addition to sacrificing an opportunity for soldiers and police to better understand each other before deploying. It could have been a costly oversight; each party found itself relying on the other during patrols even on the first day in Honiara. McDevitt noted that his military colleagues did not at first “realize that the bread and butter of civilian police is negotiation,” something that became only too apparent given McDevitt’s role in later securing Harold Keke’s peaceful surrender.31 Granted, the limited size of the RAMSI deployment facilitated responsive course corrections once such oversights came to light. There is no denying that a compact organization can adapt more quickly than a larger one, just as a roadster’s turns are tighter than those of a passenger bus. Yet excellent leadership, effective preparation, and the subjugation of differences go far to explain how the vehicle that was RAMSI performed to potential despite the presence of ten countries and several nongovernmental organizations. Any who would diminish the coalition’s accomplishments due to its size would do well to consider how well recent larger enterprises have done with respect to the three variables. Larger size does not render any of them impossible; it does, perhaps, render them even more important and therefore emphasizes the essentiality of choosing the right people for the job, or, even better yet, creating the right team for the job.

The greatest lubricant: leadership AusAID [Australia Agency for International Development] had con- tacted Kate Graham [a public affairs advisor] before we came out. She contracted for a weekly radio program called Talking Truth. . . . We used that program and used radio generally to get the message out. . . . And it got to the point that we’d take Talking Truth with us, and sit down in a shack and have 100 to 150 people sitting around us ask us questions. “You’re only here to take our logs . . . You’re about to leave and we’ll be subjected to these bad people.” It was extremely important for the three of us to actually go out and have contact with Solomon Islands 165 the Solomon Islands people, to explain our objectives and reassure them of our commitment.32

There were points of friction beyond those of vehicle recovery and showers. Misunderstandings and disagreements among members of a coalition are to be expected.33 That they little revealed themselves beyond the circle of RAMSI members says much for the leaders of its several parts. Some organizations granted their rank- and-file greater freedom to partake of Honiara’s offerings than did Lt Col Frewen, for example, a point not altogether appreciated by Australian soldiers. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, police, and military also chose to locate their intelligence assets separately on arrival, seeing little need to do otherwise. Coordination suffered; collocation and ready exchanges followed realization of the slipup. Frequent meetings of the Big Three limited the damage due to such errors. Their presentation of a united front when dealing with those both inside and outside the coalition bolstered internal cohesion and minimized opportunities for outside influences to drive a wedge between its elements. Later expansion of RAMSI’s primary leadership cell incorporated AusAID’s senior representative. New Zealand’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade senior envoy on the mission became the coalition’s deputy special coordinator in 2006; an assistant special coordinator from Fiji joined these officials the same year.34 The coalition benefited from the open leadership style demonstrated by its first head. Nick Warner recognized his good fortune in the quality of leaders on his team. It was a group dominated by strong personalities who, he recognized, would better serve RAMSI’s objectives by being given free rein rather than smothered by unnecessary constraints. In turn, these notionally subordinate leaders felt little need to assert bureaucratic prerogatives. Similar restraint demonstrated by respective government department leaders in Canberra, Wellington, and other coalition capitals likewise left these and other contingent leaders free to make decisions in keeping with conditions on the ground without undue – and unnecessary – external interference. With armed forces personnel representing 90 percent of RAMSI’s manpower and enjoying great popularity based on previously successful operations in East Timor less than a half- decade before, Australia’s Ministry of Defence could have asserted itself as an arguably more appropriate lead agent than either DFAT or Australian Federal Police. Similarly, heads of state and defense ministries of other coalition members could have insisted on separate areas of operations for their contingents, a common norm for multinational operations elsewhere. The alternative approach – integration of soldiers and police from several nations during patrols – proved invaluable during interactions with Solomon Islanders whose culture is more akin to that of the regional island countries rather than that of lead- nation Australians. That Australia’s military contingent and other 166 Solomon Islands nations’ political leaders chose not to assert their prerogatives more proved fundamental to the coalition’s accomplishments.

A willingness to change course A final lesson from the Solomon Islands mission was the constant need to reinforce to soldiers that the military was operating in support of the police. In Solomon Islands this situation meant that the PPF [participating police forces] dictated that tempo and type of operations conducted – which for some soldiers was initially difficult to accept. For example, from the outset of RAMSI there was a clear need to develop an extensive military patrolling program in order to provide a secure environment. The adoption of an immediate patrolling regime was the initial advice given by senior military officers to their PPF counterparts. However, a patrol system is not how the PPF wished to conduct initial operations. In such a situation the best that a military commander can do is to advise, perhaps remonstrate, and then try to influence decisions that have an impact on the welfare and safety of his deployed troops. In future RAMSI-style missions, it will be important in force preparation courses and in- theatre reception packages to ensure that the conditions military personnel are likely to meet in an inter-agency operation are clearly outlined from the outset. . . . There remains, as always, a need for soldiers to be constantly aware of the character of any mission involving civilian agencies.35

As noted, DFAT, police, and military intelligence staffs initially saw no drawback in conducting their activities separately, believing that their ways of doing business were sufficiently unique that collocation offered no advantage. Police intelligence had to be adequately detailed not only to justify an arrest but also support conviction and a sentence appropriate to the crime committed. Law enforcement officials therefore seemed overly cautious, even lethargic, to soldiers used to acting immediately on intelligence whose value could at times be so perishable that even a few minutes’ hesitation would constitute an opportunity lost. Similarly, the overarching nature of the strategic level intelligence needed to support Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade policy development seemed alien to the police officer or soldier pounding Honiara streets or traipsing along Solomon Islands’ trails. The short duration of preparation time prior to deployment meant these narrow perspectives survived Majura’s exercises and the subsequent deployment. Only after Warner, McDevitt, and Frewen directed that police and military intelligence capabilities collocate and tailor their operations in accordance with DFAT strategic intelligence guidance did the mutual benefits of cooperation come to light. Police expertise in obtaining information from citizens complemented, and in turn benefited from, military intelligence skills and technological capabilities. Both found Solomon Islands 167 the melding power of strategic intelligence helpful in providing their operations an overarching context otherwise unattainable.

Power to the people Do no harm. International actors should especially seek to avoid activities which undermine national institution- building, such as bypassing national budget processes or setting high salaries for local staff which undermine recruitment and retention in national institutions. Donors should work out cost norms for local staff remuneration in consulta- tion with government and other national stakeholders.36

The absence of an active insurgency did not end RAMSI counterinsurgent operations. Quickly declaring victory and going home was not an option given the coalition’s ultimate objective of securing long- term stability. The coalition had taken only the first steps toward addressing the weaknesses that underlay the original downward spiral during its first weeks in Solomon Islands. RAMSI had accomplished what few counterinsurgents had throughout history: effectively interdicting an insurgency during its developmental stage. Counterinsurgency operations therefore transitioned to the much longer and expensive phase of addressing the causes of that insurgency. No longer countering insurgents, the objective became one of countering insurgency’s resurrection. Public officials’ corruption held sway as a primary target. RAMSI leaders recognized that considering corruption an inanimate phenomenon deper- sonalized what was instead a very human problem. Faulty procedures, flawed laws, and habitual practice might eventually require attention, but effectively bringing corruption under control meant first striking at the violators of public trust. The approach was not without challenges. We have noted that RAMSI’s agreement with the Solomon Islands’ government required annual revali- dation. The above pages also note that with rampant violence and general lawlessness under control, some Honiara officials sought return of the business- as-usual that had lined their pockets prior to militia leaders taking a cut. RAMSI’s greatest remaining threat therefore came from within the very government that had invited the coalition into the country. Govern- ment authorities’ blatant disregard of their responsibility to punish colleagues guilty of corruption and other crimes complicated the problem. Those officials were not without representatives who were honest, but their numbers were too few and status too impermanent to provide a long- term foundation for rectifying deeply rooted ills. The solution ironically lay with those who were responsible for putting the corrupt individuals in office in the first place: the citizens of Solomon Islands. As in the Southern Philippines, educating voters regarding what to expect from their elected representatives offered a possible step toward 168 Solomon Islands resolving the issue of less than capable authorities (given the existence of sufficient candidates willing to undertake requisite change once elected). Yet such a solution would take years – perhaps decades – to put into full effect. RAMSI had only months before officials’ greed threatened to send the coalition on its way and reopen the door to the same instability that had driven its recent arrival. Assuming the role of occupier was not a viable option. Inadequate as the government was, the coalition had no legal basis for replacing it. Success in maintaining stability – a success ultimately tied to competence in governing – demanded working through elected politicians and supporting bureaucrats. Through message and deed, members of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands turned to the man, woman, and child on the street for support. RAMSI persevered by outperforming the alternative. Citizens might be naïve when it came to choosing elected officials, but they quickly discerned that the coalition had their interests at heart more so than the authorities who had tolerated years of turmoil. So great was the support generated for RAMSI that even officials elected on a platform of vilifying RAMSI feared that ousting the international body would be political suicide. Corrupt and inept officials comprised only one obstacle that made prevention of renewed insurgency harder than suppressing it in the first place. With 120 languages in use across the islands and less than 2 percent of the country able to speak English, finding residents (1) with the administrative, mechanical, and other skills essential to conducting day- to-day government operations; (2) able to understand the languages employed by RAMSI mentors; and (3) capable of communicating with each other proved no easy task. Though working through existing officials was the goal, the default instead became embedding coalition representatives within local government offices as both mentors and de facto officials themselves. Reminiscent of the situation in Sierra Leone, Honiara remained well short of providing a capable indigenous governing body even a decade after RAMSI’s arrival despite the efforts of those embedded.

Fortune favors the (semi-)prepared The U.S. term “interagency coordination” is subtly but importantly different from the Australian concept of “whole- of-government approach.” These equate to the equivalent military concepts of “inter- services liaison” versus “joint operations”—one emphasizes independent parties coordinating with each other, the other focuses on the delivery of a combined effect. Few people in Australia, except those who have served with the US, use the term “interagency” unless talking to Americans. Instead, “whole of government” language is widely used and embedded in all Australian government departments. This allows a very rapid generation of a “one team, one fight” ethos when working together.37 Solomon Islands 169 Surprisingly, RAMSI lacked an overarching campaign plan for orchestrating the activities of its many capabilities for years after its 2003 beginnings. That it seems to have made continuous if sometimes slow progress despite lack of a formal mechanism to coordinate its parts once again speaks well of its leadership, notably so given the numerous rotations of personnel in all positions. The limited size of the coalition and familiarity of members with each other goes far in explaining the anomaly. Many military representatives from various coalition nations knew each other through shared attendance at schools or participation in regional exercises held in the years before 2003. The excellent working relationship amongst the Big Three – and later within the expanded international and broader interagency leadership ensemble dating from after the coalition’s original arrival – owed much to the aforementioned willingness to suppress personal and organizational egos in the service of RAMSI objectives. That the selection of individuals for key positions capitalized on their inter- departmental pasts further acted as a lubricant. Nick Warner had previously served in Australia’s joint intelligence community in addition to completing over three years service as high commissioner in Papua New Guinea just prior to his appointment as RAMSI’s senior leader. Ben McDe- vitt knew something of the workings of the Australian Defence Force thanks to previous service as an army paratrooper. Similarly wise personnel choices in other critical roles were crucial to maintaining coherent operations despite the lack of an overarching plan. McDevitt’s understanding of his armed forces’ capabilities and limitations helped in his early identification of the ADF ’s overlooking police insights during planning at Majura. The advantages of having Tongan, Fijian, and other Melanesian island nations’ soldiers integrated with Australians and New Zealanders in military units was likewise vital to coalition success in quickly building good relations with members of the public.

A commitment to limiting dependency The Machinery of Government program is an essential component of RAMSI. Recognising the centrality of state building in fragile states, the program seeks to address serious ongoing deficiencies in government functions through assistance to improve the functioning of the public service, cabinet processes, accountability institutions, Parlia- ment and elections.38

New Zealand’s Peter Noble emphasized the importance of supporting the RAMSI mandate, one that encompassed five functional areas critical to returning Solomon Islands to a stable, self-governing country while setting boundaries to ensure the coalition did not become enmeshed in a quick- sand of dependency. Again reminiscent of the British in Sierra Leone, RAMSI avoided longstanding issues thought better left to the nation’s 170 Solomon Islands government once it proved itself capable by restricting their activities to the realms of security, rule of law, public finance, effective government functioning, and economic reform. The most grievously corrupt would be arrested; failing to do so would undermine return of the rule of law and present an insurmountable obstacle to progress. Basic education regarding what constituted a responsible elected representative was within the coalition charter; taking control when those convicted of corruption or other crimes were returned to positions of authority was not. Local norms were fair game for change when they acted to deny progress that would eventually permit RAMSI to depart, rampant corruption being a prime example. Crucially, the coalition (1) clearly identified which of those norms it would challenge early in its campaign, and (2) ensured all members agreed with those decisions rather than leaving decisions in this regard to the vagaries of each contingent. Leaders addressing these ends sought solutions with lasting impact. Those remaining on the force after the purge of some 300 police personnel and others newly recruited received training vilifying favoritism and promoting the concept of advancement based on ability.39 Politicians lost the authority to hire and promote in the force, the responsibility instead falling to independent commissions manned by members of the bureaucracy rather than elected officials who could use their positions for the purposes of political patronage. The significance of the change was no less than the restraining of Sierra Leone Army interference in political intercourse in Sierra Leone given the RSIP’s status as the Solomon Islands’ only defense force. There were some who would have seen RAMSI do more to break with past practices. Joses Tuhanuku is a former member of the nation’s parliament and was Executive Officer of Transparency Solomon Islands in 2007. He deems the coalition decision to allow the continuation of constituency development funding – in which politicians receive funds to distribute directly to their constituents – unwise. Likened to the wantok system that originally ensured tribal chiefs shared their wealth with those they ruled, Tuhauku believes that the distribution of public funds at politicians’ discretion, often in a manner meant to support their return to office, is far removed from the traditional wantok practice and instead represents a deliberate distortion of what in reality was a safety net for those most in need. As such, he recommends that the use of constituency development funds be removed from the country’s financial arrangements:

The wantok system applied to chiefs owning more than others and sharing what was their property with others. It is wrong to take funds or resources that one does not own and consider that it is proper to distribute them as though the ownership was theirs instead of belong- ing to the people as a whole. The current . . . use of funds in a wantok manner is a corruption of the wantok system.40 Solomon Islands 171 Bold as RAMSI was in some ways, permitting the continued practice of wantok by members of parliament undermined coalition efforts to establish legitimate political competition. The objective here is not to second guess those on the ground (the extent to which RAMSI’s charter permitted addressing wantok is unclear, though arguably the coalition had sufficient influence to assert itself in that regard), but rather to observe that there are times when it will be wise to reconsider original coalition decisions as conditions change or understanding of local norms improves. The counterinsurgent will inevitably make mistakes. Recognizing them as such and taking corrective action need not be a sign of weakness but rather is an essential step toward eventual success.

Further observations The overarching goal of Australia’s aid program in Solomon Islands is “a peaceful, well-governed and prosperous Solomon Islands.” This goal will be pursued over the longer term through a mutual commitment with the Solomon Islands Government.41

RAMSI sought to prevent the maturation of insurgency by working within the construct of the in- place government, thereby leaving the nation’s sovereign authority intact. It was not considered a matter of choice; the coalition was in the country at the invitation of Honiara authorities. Support of the serving government may be a counterinsurgent goal even in cases where other options exist as when coalition leaders backed their appointed Iraqi Govern- ing Council in July 2013 and its mid- 2004 successor, the Iraqi Interim Govern- ment chosen by the United Nations. External counterinsurgents should not consider such support a given in these less established circumstances; alternatives may exist even in cases where the outsider belated determines an in- place sovereign presents an insurmountable obstacle to its security objectives. Discussion of the latter case comes in Chapter 9.

Avoiding the label of “occupier” The real engine of RAMSI is its mandate: security, rule of law, government control of finances, functional government (especially bureaucracy), and economic reform. These are immensely appropriate and they have stood up well. . . . In the battle for legitimacy and public opinion, the mandate enabled RAMSI to avoid becoming involved in Solomons’ issues, such as land issues, political reform, etc., that are best the preserve of Solomon Islanders themselves.42

Conditions for coalition counterinsurgency forces in Southern Philip- pines, Solomon Islands, and Sierra Leone permitted them to successfully avoid the label “occupier.”43 That the outsiders were in all three instances 172 Solomon Islands responding to an invitation helps in part to explain why this was the case. Another common factor across the trio was the outsiders’ ability to indef- initely extend the “honeymoon period,” that interval during which a local population grants a consistently high levels of support to the counterinsurgent. That is not to say there were no dips in popularity or that select parties have not attempted to undermine the counterinsurgent presence. Squabbles occur even on honeymoons. But there was no souring of the relationship to the point that a decisive segment of society sought departure. That the three contingencies all involved relatively small force deployments is noteworthy. Size can have its advantages; there may be some validity in concluding that “small is beautiful” when fewer numbers are not inconsistent with accomplishing counterinsurgent aims. A third common factor is the approach taken by coalition leadership. All had little choice but to work with in- place government representatives despite the latter’s imperfections, most notably severe corruption. There were instances during which the outsiders were in charge to a greater or lesser extent (a situation far less applicable in the Philippines than the other two contingencies), but those can be justified as necessary to pulling the countries at risk away from the abyss of anarchy. Once done, the counterinsurgents increasingly assumed the role of mentors rather than co- authorities. A government failing to represent the people’s interests sacrifices its status as an effective counterinsurgent partner. The authorities in Free- town and Honiara varied in the extent to which their objectives aligned with those of the foreigners assisting them. Recent or standing governments in Baghdad and Kabul have likewise been inconsistent allies. The external counterinsurgent that does not retain a means of coercing the host authorities may have surrendered its only means of achieving those objectives. At that point the outsider has the options of departing without achieving its goals, remaining despite the increased likelihood of ultimate failure, or seeking to change the status quo. Maintaining the leverage necessary to accomplish the last can be nigh impossible without the maintenance of a united multinational and interagency front. There will always be cracks on which those seeking to frac- ture a coalition’s cohesiveness can capitalize; Sun Tzu’s tenet that while “what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy . . . next best is to disrupt his alliances” is no less true when applied to pseudo- allies than enemies.44 The RAMSI leaders proved masters at preserving a united front. That goes far to explain coalition progress.45 Maintaining leverage has been essential to RAMSI’s annual renewals of its charter. The support of the population is crucial but it alone cannot guarantee that government officials longing for the corrupt days of old do not risk public wrath. Similar to the British in Sierra Leone, the leaders from the participating nations therefore made it clear that coalition funding was tied to RAMSI’s sustained presence. A glance at the past 12 Solomon Islands 173 of the country’s 21 ministers sitting as of early 2007 makes the necessity for maintaining such coercion only too clear; the dozen all had ties to the former criminal Malaitan Eagle Force. Questionable personalities continue to hold sway during the time of this writing; those demonstrating a preference for honest government have tended to suffer. Both the police commissioner and attorney general found themselves ousted from their jobs during the same period that a new justice minister gained office despite his arrest for involvement in Honiara’s post- election riots in April 2006. A quickly assembled parole board freed a former fisheries minister in January 2011 after he served only one month of a 33-month term for assaulting a police officer and wounding another individual.46

Concerns The great point to aim at is not so much that there should be no delay in getting into motion, as that when once in motion there should be no check. An ephemeral triumph is dearly purchased at the cost of a subsequent period of discreditable inaction. For it is a cardinal principle in the conduct of warfare of this nature that the initiative must be maintained, that the regular army must lead while its adversaries follow, and that the enemy must be made to feel a moral inferiority throughout.47

In Solomon Islands as in Sierra Leone, instability offers opportunities for profit impossible for some to resist. So too does democratic government where the population has little understanding of its elected officials’ responsibilities. Failure to elect reasonable governors makes international investors wary. International aid and a lumber trade courting deforestation continue to be primary pillars of the Solomon Islands’ economy, the former in many cases tied to perceptions of continued RAMSI progress and sustained patience in regional capitals. Transpar- ency International rated the country 2.8 on a scale of 0 to 10 in 2010, 0 representing “highly corrupt” and 10 “highly clean.” Substantive debate of critical issues remains a rarity. Villagers willingly vote for those who buy voter support or promise goods once elected, fearing that another choice will leave them with no support at all from the capital. Politicians continue their abuse of the wantok system via discretionary distribution of development funds to their constituencies, squandering public money on individual favors to the detriment of initiatives benefiting communities at large. Party allegiances and concerns for the citizen are cast aside in the interest of jockeying for lucrative appointments once elected officials take office, making consistent government impossible. These “ping pong politics,” as the people label them, resulted in Solomon Islands having six prime ministers in the period between 2006 and 174 Solomon Islands 2011.48 Quality of life for the average citizen has improved little since 2003 despite the influx of international aid.49 It is essential to mitigate both personal corruption and that of the structural type as represented by misuse of constituency development funds. It is also important to recognize the value in maintaining constructive social mores and working within familiar political and societal structures when doing so benefits the population as a whole. The wantok system in untainted form sees community members assisting each other by providing financial assistance, help with farming, and otherwise supporting those in times of need. It is not the wantok system that is flawed but rather its exploitation by politicians.50 Short- term gratification works to the detriment even of those receiving misused funds as economies of scale are lost in piecemeal distribution of resources. While Solomon Islands popular support for RAMSI has been consistent, efforts to rebuild confidence in the government continue to suffer setbacks due to favoritism and corruption that will cease only with fundamental changes to Honiara government practices. Yet there are shafts of light piercing the clouds. The cabinet has an encouraging mix of both Malaitan and Guadie members. Even former militia leaders are participating in legitimate political intercourse, one of the MEF ’s previous leaders, Jimmy Rasta, among them (though without addressing of current government corruption such participation may not be cause for celebration). The path for RAMSI would have been far more difficult had another international power chosen to fund the government as occurred with China in Sri Lanka, thereby depriving RAMSI of its leverage. The coalition has won many crucial victories. Negotiating Harold Keke’s early surrender, convincing the population to stand behind coalition demands for universal disarmament, and retaining the ability to back its demands for improved government are among them. Yet RAMSI supporters perhaps have more reasons to look forward with despair than optimism despite the extraordinary start, steady maintenance of aim, and willingness to sustain coalition commitment. The government in Honiara currently presents a glass ceiling to ultimate goals such as the establishment of responsible government. Challenges exist at all levels. 34 percent of those in contact with government officials in 2012 paid a bribe in an effort to have their concerns addressed, a value “very high by global standards and very high by regional standards.”51 The persistent presence of government officials little interested in other than personal gain threatens to return Solomon Islands to anarchy and open resistance once external parties’ patience is exhausted. There is disturbing evidence that the electorates’ appreciation for other- than-local issues and what they deserve from their elected officials is insufficient. Widespread corruption remains the norm despite some 50 percent of officeholders losing their seats in a typical election, causing one to wonder whether needed change is a realistic goal barring significant adaptation of external government and other aid Solomon Islands 175 donor procedures in addition to evolution of practices at Solomon Islands national government level. Patience is an exhaustible quality. Tax- payers in donor nations want to see a return on investment. RAMSI provides many positive lessons for future counterinsurgents. None is more evident than its demonstrating that the greatest challenges for a counterinsurgent may lie ahead once the insurgent itself has been vanquished.

Revised beliefs in light of RAMSI RAMSI’s progress to date – and concerns regarding a less rosy future – supports seven of our nine revised beliefs. That regarding the questionable value of militias finds plentiful support in RAMSI’s accomplishments following the removal of those groups from the Solomon Islands’ scene. The following half dozen remain:

• The population is not the center of gravity. Part of it might . . . or might not be. • Democracy is not an inherent good. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way. • Just because they are the government does not mean they deserve an external counterinsurgent’s support. • Build more social and less physical infrastructure. • COIN is not dead.

The issue of centers of gravity is particularly interesting in the context of the Solomon Islands’ insurgency. Harold Keke’s status as most feared of insurgent leaders and his Guadalcanal Liberation Front’s capabilities relative those of other groups led Ben McDevitt to identify him as the strategic center of gravity well before RAMSI’s arrival. His rapid removal was a dramatic accomplishment, one with the eventual consequence of transitioning center of gravity status to those segments of the population able to influence politicians’ behaviors and pressure militia groups to surrender their arms. (Efforts of some militias to renege on earlier promises to disarm if Keke’s militia did so were met with public demands that no such backtracking be allowed.) The presumption that a population is the inevitable center of gravity therefore suffers another blow. Reinforcing a point made previously, it is not that a portion or portions of a population cannot be a center of gravity, but rather that it is not so in every situation. As mentioned above, the election of Sogavare and other anti- RAMSI politicians by voters who held the coalition in high regard casts doubt on the utility and desirability of promoting democracy in societies unfamiliar with a Western- style liberal democratic model. Voters’ choices – electing those unfriendly to RAMSI or individuals demonstrating little capability to improve the general good – call into question the electorate’s readiness to 176 Solomon Islands participate in nationwide elections (or, perhaps, a lack of suitable candidates). Democracy may not be the most appropriate form of rule. Alterna- tively, it may be a democracy of a form different than that found in more mature liberal democracies. RAMSI demonstrated little hesitation in addressing select social norms working to the detriment of the Solomon Islands’ recovery and long- term stability. Further, coalition leaders centrally decided which adverse norms required attention and subsequently took steps to ensure coalition- wide consistency in tackling them. We have noted that they wisely maintained financial and popular support leverage permitting them to hold course despite assaults from influential individuals within the Solomon Islands’ government. The strategy for attacking corruption might be frustratingly slow, but the deliberate pace reinforces the legitimacy of RAMSI and its efforts to restore the rule of law. Hesitation to confront other troubling norms – e.g., abuses of the wantok system – is explainable by an initial lack of understanding regarding Solomon Islands social nuances and concerns that addressing those abuses might exceed the coalition’s charter. That those abuses lie at the heart of RAMSI’s recent failure to promote more effective government less casts doubt on the wisdom of that reluctance than providing a reminder that the norms a counterinsurgent determines require remedying are a subject meriting regular revisiting. At the time of writing, Honiara’s government is proving an obstacle threatening to scuttle RAMSI’s impressive early accomplishments. These dangers cause us to recall the ill wisdom in assuming that an in-place government demands an external counterinsurgent’s support. The day may come when the Aus- tralian public, past successes notwithstanding, determines the obstacles to attaining counterinsurgent objectives are sufficiently out of reach that continuing efforts are unlikely to bear fruit. In common with counterinsurgency operations in the south of the Philippines and Sierra Leone, RAMSI heavily prioritized building social capital while committing relatively little in the way of resources to physical infrastructure projects. The choice has proven a wise as well as an economical one. Similar to the difficulties inherent in reintroducing a heliborne capability to Sierra Leone’s government, provision of boats for Solomon Islands marine law enforcement has tasked the police force’s ability to maintain the craft. Infrastructure development therefore focuses on the essential, providing products that immediately meet broader objectives related to building governmental or social capacity while not demanding expertise difficult to find amongst the country’s population.52 RAMSI’s thus far considerable accomplishments likewise support discarding claims that COIN is dead. It is not counterinsurgency doctrine or theory that is at fault should RAMSI ultimately fail. The cause will lie at the doorstep of Honiara politicians and governments more distant, the latter of whose leaders continue to fund the island nation’s corrupt leadership Solomon Islands 177 in lieu of developing more effective ways of distributing funds. Solomon Islands seems a prime candidate for a Marshall Plan- like approach to resource management, one minimizing routing of donor money through Honiara while directly resourcing appropriate communities.

Notes 1 General (British Army) Thomas Gage, Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1775 as quoted in Samuel Forman, “Doctor Joseph Warner,” Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2012, as cited in Boot, Invisible Armies, p. 64. 2 I have drawn on Glenn, Counterinsurgency in a Test Tube for background, quotations, and other material in this chapter. 3 Solomon Islands consists of 992 islands, 347 of which are inhabited. “Solomon Islands,” ABC Radio Australia, available at: www.abc.net.au/ra/pacific/places/ country/solomon_islands.htm (accessed July 31, 2011). 4 Other estimates are higher. David Hegarty cites “the displacement of some 30,000 people,” though he might be including those who moved between locations on Guadalcanal itself. David Hegarty, “Peace Monitoring in the Solomon Islands,” Trust and Verify 99 (September–October 2001): 1. Online at www. vertic.org/assets/TV99.pdf (accessed September 13, 2006). Jon Fraenkel wrote that “by mid- 1999, an estimated 35,309 people (58.6 percent of the Guadalca- nal population) had been displaced,” though here also the number may include internal movement on the island. Jon Fraenkel, “The Coming Anarchy in Oceania? A Critique of the ‘Africanisation’ of the South Pacific Thesis,” Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific, Department of Economics, Working Paper No. 2003/2, February 2003, 7. Online at www.usp.ac.fj/fileadmin/ files/schools/ssed/economics/working_papers/2003/wp2003_02.pdf (accessed September 13, 2006). 5 IPMT manning consisted of only 49 personnel. 6 James Bryant (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army), “Analysis of Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) ‘Lessons Learnt,’ Specifically Planning/Interagency Factors,” draft provided to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, dated October 5, 2005, 3–4; Luke Foster (Lieutenant Colonel, Austral- ian Army), interview with Russell W. Glenn, Canberra, Australia, November 9, 2005; Nick Warner interview with Russell W. Glenn, Canberra, Australia, November 11, 2005 as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 33. 7 Bryant (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army), “Analysis of Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands,” 9. 8 The Facilitation of International Assistance Act, Solomon Islands, July 17, 2003, available at: www.parliament.gov.sb/files/committees/foreignrelations/ facilitation.pdf (accessed November 3, 2012). 9 Kitson, Bunch of Five, p. 284. 10 John J. Frewen, (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army), interview with Russell W. Glenn, Canberra, Australia, November 11, 2005 as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 25. 11 Ben McDevitt interview with Russell W. Glenn, Canberra, Australia, November 8, 2005 as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 25. 12 McDevitt interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 35. 13 Bruce Edwards, “Open Letter to Solomon’s Militants Warns Time for Talk Running Out,” ReliefWeb, August 5, 2003, available at: www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.nsf/db900sid/OCHA- 64DERL?OpenDocument&Click= (accessed March 25, 2008). 178 Solomon Islands 14 John J. Frewen (Brigadier, Australian Army) email to author, Subject: Book manuscript, July 4, 2014. 15 McDevitt interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 29. 16 Nick Warner, “Operation Helpem Fren: Rebuilding the Nation of Solomon Islands,” speech to National Security Conference, March 23, 2004. Online at www.dfat.gov.au/media/speeches/department/040323_nsc_ramsi.html (accessed September 13, 2006). 17 “Solomon Islands” in Child Soldiers Global Report, available at: www.child- soldiers. org/user_uploads/. . ./solomonislands9275940.pdf (accessed November 12, 2012). 18 “Country Programme: Solomon Islands,” United Nations Disarmament, Demo- bilization and Reintegration Resource Centre, undated, www.unddr.org/ country programmes.php?c=180 (accessed December 13, 2011). 19 McDevitt interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 34. 20 James Watson, A Model Pacific Solution? A Study of the Deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, Duntroon, Australian Capital Territory: Land Warfare Studies Centre, October 2005, p. 28, available at: www.defence. gov.au/ARMY/lwsc/docs/WP_126.pdf (accessed March 27, 2008). 21 Anonymous interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Honiara, Solomon Islands. 22 McDevitt interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 54. 23 Peter Noble interview with Russell W. Glenn, Wellington, New Zealand, Novem- ber 19, 2005 as appears in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 56. 24 Warner interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, pp. 57 and 56. 25 Vernon Bennett (Major, New Zealand Army) interview with Russell W. Glenn, Wellington, New Zealand, November 21, 2005. 26 Anonymous interview comment as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 114. 27 Donna Boulton (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army) interview with Russell W. Glenn, Sydney, Australia, November 4, 2005 as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 22. 28 Boulton interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 64. 29 Boulton interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 65. While New Zealand helicopter pilots are members of their country’s air force, Australian rotary- wing crews are part of the Australian Army. 30 James Bryant (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army) email to Russell W. Glenn, Subject: Re: SI, January 11, 2006. 31 McDevitt interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 61. 32 Warner interview as quoted in Glenn, Test Tube, p. 108. 33 “Coalition” as used here includes a broader spectrum of potential participants than the traditional conception of a cooperative association of military and, perhaps, other selected government organizations. The definition employed here – “an ad hoc cooperative arrangement between two or more organizations in the interest of supporting a common action” – opens the door to inclusion of NGOs, IGOs, and commercial organizations when appropriate. Not all members will have equal status (the realm of intelligence sharing being the most obvious cause of discrimination), but some level of mutually beneficial cooperation should bring together even organizations otherwise rarely considered as potential coalition partners. (This definition of coalition and further discussion of the expanded concept can be found in Russell W. Glenn, Band of Brothers or Dysfunctional Family? A Military Perspective on Coalition and Alliance Challenges During Stability Operations, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2011, p. 41.) 34 Blair Excell interview with Russell W. Glenn, Honiara, Solomon Islands, March 9, 2007; Paul Ash, deputy special coordinator, interview with Russell W. Glenn, Honiara, Solomon Islands, March 9, 2007. 35 John Hutcheson (Lieutenant Colonel, Australian Army), “Helping a Friend: An Solomon Islands 179 Australian Military Commander’s Perspective on the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands,” Australian Army Journal 2 (Autumn 2005): 47–55, available at: www.defence.gov.au/ARMY/LWSC/Publications/journal/AAJ_Autumn05/AAJ_ Autumn05_hutcheson_7.pdf (accessed September 16, 2006). 36 Australian Agency for International Development, Solomon Islands Transitional Country Strategy 2006 to mid- 2007, Canberra, Australia, March 2006, www.ausaid. gov.au/publications/pdf/solomons06_07.pdf (accessed September 13, 2006). 37 David Kilcullen email and attached notes sent to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: DRR3909_ 4_14b_06, May 18, 2006. 38 Australian Agency for International Development, “Overseas Aid: Solomon Islands,” May 2006, available at: www.ausaid.gov.au/country/country. cfm?Cou ntryID=16&Region=SouthAsia (accessed September 13, 2006). 39 Will Jamieson (Commander, Australian Federal Police) interview with Russell W. Glenn, Honiara, Solomon Islands, March 8, 2007. 40 Joses Tuhanuku interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Honiara, Solomon Islands, March 10, 2007; Joses Tuhanuku email to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: Re: Permission to quote, July 27, 2014. 41 Australian Agency for International Development, Solomon Islands Transitional Country Strategy, v. 42 Noble, email. 43 Status as legal or de facto occupier is by no means inherently negative, this despite the less than positive connotation “occupier” and “occupation” have inherited for a variety of reasons. Regardless, perceptions that a force’s presence constitutes an occupation is likely to lead to expectations of more robust resource commitment than otherwise might be the case. Legal status as occupier does incur numerous obligations under international law. 44 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, (trans). Samuel B. Griffith, New York: Oxford, 1971, pp. 77 and 78. 45 Evan Wasuka, “More Talks Needed: RAMSI Head,” Solomons 45 (2007): 35. 46 Leith, “Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands.” 47 C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, England: EP Publishing Limited, [1906] 1976, p. 72. 48 “Going South Pacific: Pacific islands,” The Economist 401 (November 19, 2011): 45–46. 49 Andrew Leith, “The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands,” PRISM (June 2011), www.ndu.edu/press/solomonislands.html (accessed July 12, 2011). 50 Constituency development funds in the amount of AU$852,585 (Australian dollars) were reportedly allocated to each electorate in 2012, totaling the equivalent of 13 percent of the Solomon Islands’ annual budget. Remarks by Ter- rance Wood and Tobias Haque at the State, Society & Governance in Melanesia “Solomon Islands in Transition Workshop,” The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, November 4–5, 2013. 51 Peter Larmour citing the Global Corruption Barometer during a presentation at the State, Society & Governance in Melanesia “Solomon Islands in Transition Workshop,” The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, November 4, 2013. 52 “RAMSI Infrastructure and Related Services Program,” Reeves International, undated, available at: www.reevesint.com/index.php/ramsi-infrasturcture-and- related-services- program (accessed March 31, 2014); Richard Marles, “RAMSI projects supporting the community in Malaita,” Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs media release, May 17, 2012, available at: http://ministers.dfat.gov.au//marles/releases/Pages/2012/rm_mr_120517.aspx? ministerid=4 (accessed March 31, 2014). 7 Taking on criminal insurgency Colombian progress against the FARC

Introduction That narrow focus on the drug problem proved counterproductive. In Colombia, as elsewhere, you cannot separate criminals from insurgents; the two types of lawbreakers are closely connected. . . . That doesn’t mean antidrug efforts are useless; only that they must be integrated in a larger campaign plan.1

The period 1930–1946 was one of unbroken Liberal Party rule during which the Colombian government began addressing land reform policies preserving property control by a very few, extremely rich citizens. A Conservative Party victory in the last year of that span triggered a period of government- sponsored violence aimed at reversing those reforms. Assas- sination of the popular Liberal Party and land reform movement leader, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, two years into the Conservative Party’s tenure sparked open rebellion against the government and ushered in a decade of conflict so fierce it earned the telling labella violencia. Tens of thousands of Colombians died as National Police and Conservative- leaning peasants armed by the government fought Liberal and Communist Party- backed groups. It was from militias supporting the left that the most powerful and notorious insurgent group would emerge to prominence after its 1964 founding. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC) would eventually come to control over half of the country’s territory and effectually become a pseudo- sovereign power.2 The breakdown of state control during those tumultuous ten years saw dramatic expansion of the country’s illegal drug cultivation. Mixing drugs with politics was good chemistry for those on the left seeking funding beyond what the Soviet Union, Cuba, or other sympathetic powers might provide. The drug trade would eventually corrode FARC’s ideological foundation much as narcotics suck the health from an addict. Criminality gradually emaciated the movement, though the shell of communist dogma Colombia 181 has yet to disappear entirely. The alleged champion of the people today retains no more than a façade of legitimacy as the insurgency shed its ideological underpinnings.3 Yet unlike the case of the addict, drug money in other ways strengthened rather than depleted the FARC and other movements making the transition from political to criminal insurgency. With wealth came influence facilitating control of territory and population. Bogotá found itself unable to compete. FARC might have been the most notorious of these groups. It was not alone.4 Cuba provided assistance to the National Libera- tion Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN). China backed the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación or EPL). M- 19 nationalists were among less prominent peers.5 EPL and M-19 leaders would negotiate settlements with the government in the last decade of the twentieth century while the ELN suffered damaging attrition at the hands of Colombian armed forces and rightwing militias.6 Bogotá reaped little respite; more agile, violent, and less malleable groups filled vacuums left by those weakened or departing. Other groups reversed the direction of FARC’s evolution, beginning as criminal enterprises and later moving into the political arena to consolidate their power. Among the most notorious was the Medellin cartel led by Pablo Escobar who carefully constructed the persona of a dark- hearted Robin Hood in his adopted city. Escobar provided services the government could or would not. Cartel money, or that of Escobar’s associates forced to contribute, funded road building, construction of soccer fields, provision of electric power, and other neighborhood enhancements. Escobar successfully ran as a congressional candidate in 1982. His popularity with city residents, support by clergy in the Catholic church, and immunity from judicial prosecution inherent in his status as an elected congressional substitute (an individual who attended sessions when the primary representative was unable to do so) made him virtually untouch- able, a standing cemented by Escobar’s ready use of violence against any who opposed him.7 Reminiscent of the British in Northern Ireland, Colombia’s government found it necessary to suspend the use of jury trials for cases involving the drug trade as prospective jurors came to fear for their lives.8 The November 27, 1989 onboard bombing of Avianca flight 203 marked a critical turning point in the fortunes of Colombia’s narcotics traffickers. Escobar directed planting of the device, its intended target the presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria. (Gaviria, not on the plane, won the election and became president the following year.) The downing of the airliner and loss of 110 lives, including two Americans and following, as it did, on the heels of anti-cartel Colombian President Luis Carlos Galan’s assassination in August 1989, turbocharged international counter- narcotics initiatives introduced earlier by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.9 Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, directed that the U.S. Department 182 Colombia of Justice design policies permitting U.S. use of its military forces against international drug organizations with or without the permission of the governments where those cartels operated.10 The resulting partnership in Colombia was nevertheless a cooperative one. The country’s security forces – supported by behind- the-scenes American military and intelligence capabilities – would find and kill Escobar in December 1993. Progress in subduing insurgencies and drug cartels came at a cost. The decades of violence perpetrated by these groups had spurred the rise of a further threat to Colombia’s government as the wealthy raised militias to defend themselves in the face of Bogotá’s inability to do so. It took only a little time for rightwing groups to evolve from defenders of the influential to partners of the less discriminating. Assassinations became a commonplace tool for eliminating lawyers, bankers, and others with varying affiliations to the cartels. Perpetrators were virtually impervious to court- rendered justice thanks to the vast bankrolls and violence their benefac- tors could bring to bear. Oft times the relationship between militiaman and security forces was a symbiotic one. The Los Pepes militia in Medellin, for example, passed on vital intelligence and otherwise supported state security forces seeking to eliminate Escobar and his cartel.11 Los Pepes was one of several groups later filling the vacuum that was in part their own creation. But it was the FARC, however, that would emerge as the most powerful group in Medellin after Escobar’s demise. Government-backed interests in turn ousted the FARC from the city in 2002, this time with the assistance of crime lord, Don Berna. Berna’s subsequent dominance would not last the decade. “Tens of criminal groups” emerged in the aftermath of his arrest, violence and crime skyrocketing during struggles for control in which competing groups continued to gain advantage by providing information to government forces.12 It was the FARC that rose to national preeminence amongst the survivors despite the occasional setback such as that in Medellin. What had once been a loose association of left- leaning peasant guerrilla fighters and bandits drew on its communist- inspired discipline, effective recruiting, willingness to use violence, and increasing involvement in the narcotics trade to succeed where others did not.13 The last decade of the twentieth century would find it in control of 60 percent of Colombia’s landmass and some 4 percent of its population (the vast difference reflecting the overwhelmingly rural character of the areas falling under its sway).14 The emergence of strong leadership in the capital would begin a reversal of FARC fortunes eventually motivating the insurgents’ willingness to negotiate with the government. The course of events leading to that state of affairs will bring to mind four of our revised beliefs to which we will later return:

• The population is not the center of gravity. Part of it might be . . . or might not be. Colombia 183 • COIN is not dead. • Treat militias like a hot stove. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way.

The rise of the FARC At exactly the moment in history that Colombia’s “guerrillas” should have been fading into irrelevance [thanks to the demise of the Soviet Union], they received an infusion of billions of dollars in cocaine money that allowed them to build up their forces, acquire new arms, expand their kidnappings and bombings, and otherwise continue.15

The FARC remained in its developmental stage for a long time after the movement’s 1964 founding. Aid from the Soviet Union and Cuba provided what local peasant support could not. The formative years extended into 1982 and beyond, a period in which the organization by and large remained true to its leftist doctrine. Leaders at the Seventh Guerrilla Conference that year cast aside earlier opposition to participation in the coca trade. They limited their initial involvement to protecting peasants farming cocaine’s raw material and charging a tax for the service. But the FARC required increased funding if it was to be more than a small- scale, widely dispersed guerrilla organization. The movement honed skills necessary for controlling communities and introduced laws to regulate public drinking, carrying of firearms, hunting and fishing, working hours, resolution of disputes, and other matters.16 Leaders later taxed the import of chemicals essential to the processing of coca while also charging for the export of refined product and requiring payment for the use of remote FARC- controlled airfields or other resources. With increasing wealth came elimination of competition, building refineries, and, eventually, purchasing and trafficking the end product itself.17 FARC leaders had found a way out of that nearly two decades- long developmental phase. Money further funded building of a training academy, dispatch of key personnel to Vietnam and regions once part of the Soviet Union for training, and purchase of new equipment to support command and control. Improved capabilities translated into greater territorial expansion and new fundraising arenas. Extortion, kidnapping, and exploitation of mines in FARC- controlled areas additionally filled insurgent coffers. “The FARC was able to leverage the support of the local population into territorial control,” noted one observer, “which led to economic growth, and then military strength.” That support was not always rendered voluntarily. Members of the population found it dangerous to resist the movement’s expanding influence. Children were forcibly recruited into FARC ranks.18 Expansion forced group leaders to find a balance between centralized control and decentralized operations. Centralization was essential to 184 Colombia ensuring consistency in maintaining what remained of an ideology, managing rank and file, and ensuring a semblance of control over funds. But the broad dispersal of FARC elements and the need to reduce vulnerability to attack meant remote leaders required the authority to make decisions based on local conditions. The FARC formed a central governing body, the Esado Mayor Central, to provide strategic oversight for its seven operational regions, each associated with a military block containing five to 15 subordinate fronts that were in turn subdivided into columns of 100–150 personnel containing several companies. Select members attended one of the several training centers, forums for further promoting uniform indoctrination.19 The FARC’s primary competition was the rightwing militias whose influence increased when several of those larger organizations allied to form the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia) or AUC.20 The AUC and a number of other militias were proving themselves more effective at defeating FARC elements than were many in the state’s security forces by the middle years of the 1980s. These same groups came to consider themselves above the law. Abuses of innocent civilians and extraju- dicial executions similar to those employed against Escobar’s associates were commonplace. Militia attacks on members of the FARC’s Union Patriotica (UP) political party numbered in the thousands, to include the assassination of two members seeking election as president.21 FARC’s increased financial capacity allowed it to match rightwing violence with its own. It also funded a sharp increase in recruiting as the movement grew from an estimated 2,000 guerrillas in 1982 to nearly ten times that number by 2001. An impressive geographic spread accompanied the growth as the organization’s presence expanded from 173 Colombian municipalities in 1982 to 722 in a 1995 countrywide total of 1,050. The AUC could not keep pace despite its also participating in drug operations.22 The coalition’s strength reached a maximum of approximately 8,000 personnel spread over roughly 400 groups.23 Bogotá found itself confronting a variety of insurgent and criminal organizations as it struggled to maintain sovereign control of the land and its people. Where diamonds relieved the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone of the need to cultivate popular support, for the FARC it was primarily narcotics that freed the group from such dependency. Those riches permitted the organization to flourish well into the twenty- first century as other leftwing groups withered in the aftermath of the Iron Curtain’s fall. Rightwing militias suffered from U.S. pressures for Bogotá to rein in their deprivations.24 Seizure of territory and the accompanying expansion of narcotics interests made FARC financial independence possible; the de facto sovereignty that followed not only granted the ability to expand recruiting but also impose taxation, enter other business sectors, and suppress potential resistance by punishing failures to comply with FARC “government” policy. Movement leaders came to possess a reputation rare Colombia 185 among insurgencies, one of dying peacefully in their beds. The cases of Sierra Leone and Colombia demonstrate that access to resources provides an alternative insurgent center of gravity. As was the case with Harold Keke’s Guadalcanal Liberation Front in Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone’s RUF, the FARC and rightwing militia groups went beyond mere disinterest in cultivating popular support. Their actions often alienated communities. The FARC did not discriminate by age or gender during three massacres in indigenous Awa communities in 2009. It considered intimidation an effective element in expanding control of gold mines, an end providing access to a business independent of the lengthy coca- to-currency conversion process.25 (Rightwing militias also moved into legitimate fields much as they had emulated the FARC by moving into the drug trade.)26 Such constant adaptation was a particular strength of the FARC. Organization leaders decreased its vulnerability to pressures in any one sector by broadening the group’s sources of wealth. The FARC leadership adapted by increasingly targeting commercial enterprises when more effective Colombian Army attacks cut into kidnapping, mining, and other revenues and reduced movement manpower from some 20,000 in 2002 to an estimated 8,000 by early 2012.27 Strikes on oil infrastructure more than doubled in the 2008–2011 period. The Cano- Limon oil field run in partnership by Occidental Petroleum Company and Colombia’s Ecopetrol suffered 13 attacks in the opening two months of 2012 alone, halting operations on 43 of the year’s first 54 days. The resulting fee income lost to the country’s Arauca Department totaled US$5.63 million (a department being analogous to a state in the U.S.).28 Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos had earlier modified how oil companies paid their fees to the state. Payments previously went to mayors in petroleum producing regions. Santos directed that fees should instead go directly to the federal government, the better to control their receipt and distribution while freeing local officials from the coercive practices the FARC employed to capture a portion of these payments. The insurgents responded by extorting from oil firms directly, attacking any failing to pay.29 President Santos declared such payments illegal in 2011. Penalties included expulsion of any company paying protection money, putting them between the proverbial rock and a hard place.30 They could rely on oft- unmet state security guarantees or risk legal action. Government pressures nevertheless took their toll on the FARC. Recruits increasingly required cash and weapons before joining movement ranks. The quality of those doing so in many cases reflected their lack of ability to make a living otherwise.31 An American long held prisoner by the FARC wrote that he never came across anyone with more than a fourth grade education amongst his guards. Others similarly found members represented the poorly educated, financially strapped, and overly young. One source estimated the average recruit’s age in 2010 was less than 12 years old.32 186 Colombia The Colombian phoenix: a country rising from the ashes In Colombia we observe important paradoxes. Elections are held on a regular basis, but leaders, candidates, and elected politicians are also regularly assassinated. . . . As a corollary, it is important to note that although the media is free from state censorship, journalists and acad- emicians who make their opinions known through the press are sys- tematically assassinated. . . . Professor Eduardo Pizarro describes Colombia as a “besieged democracy.33

I believed that in order to be effective, Plan Colombia needed to change in the context of Colombia’s security policy. The United States, with President Bush at its helm, agreed that fighting drug trafficking without facing cartels such as the FARC and the ELNwas pointless.34

Criminal enterprise provided the FARC with the funds necessary not only to recruit but also equip its members with military grade weaponry, run training establishments that included Irish Republican Army and Basque ETA instructors, and otherwise tighten the loose strands of its scattered units into the strong and flexible rope that was the movement at its peak. The closing years of the twentieth century saw Colombia’s citizens become increasingly alienated as insurgents on the left grew more asser- tive, rightwing atrocities went unpunished, and rampant corruption undermined even routine official transactions.35 FARC’s rapid expansion benefited from crippling weakness in government leadership. The president of Colombia, Andrés Pastrana Arango, formally surrendered 42,000 square kilometers to the insurgent movement in 1999, an area twice the size of Massachusetts that comprised nearly 4 percent of the country’s landmass. The FARC and other insurgencies – leftwing and rightwing – informally controlled additional land as well. The challenges must have seemed unsolvable for Pastrana. Relying on a largely military solution had failed. Even the best of militaries could not have succeeded in addressing the political, economic, and social divides that fragmented Colombian society (barring taking an approach similar to that of Russia in Chechnya or the Sri Lankan government) . . . and Colom- bia’s armed forces at the time were far from among the best. Survival of the fittest, ever increasingly wealth, and the improved capabilities that came with experience and riches ensured that many of these insurgent groups outclassed military and police alike in terms of weaponry, discipline, and commitment. Insurgent leaders accurately read Bogotá’s willingness to negotiate as one based on weakness.36 Thanks in no small part to the FARC, Colombia was in danger of slip- ping into the status of a failing state. The United States began significantly increasing aid under the auspices of Plan Columbia two years later, an Colombia 187 assistance program initiated with broad bipartisan support during the Clinton administration. It made Colombia the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid worldwide (after Egypt and Israel) in a partnership seeking to sharply curtail the production and outflow of illegal narcotics from the country. Enhancements encompassed the realms of intelligence, small unit tactics, special operations, and military equipment quality and availability.37 U.S. armed forces advisors accompanied funds and equipment, their numbers initially limited to 500 (later increased to 800). The year 2002 marked the election of Alvaro Uribe as Colombia’s president, another stride in what would mark dramatic steps forward for the counterinsurgents. Uribe assisted in bringing about belated recognition of the Medusa- headed character of the threats confronting his country and the need to treat them collectively rather than piecemeal. Adaptation of policies ended a counterproductive American practice of discriminating between counterinsurgency and counterdrug support. Money for the latter had previously been routed to the country’s National Police while the military received counterinsurgency funds, a doubly ineffective state of affairs that worked against Colombian interagency cooperation as well as fracturing outside assistance. Bogotá faced threats that were at once insurgent, terrorist, and criminal in addition to sometimes legitimate participants in political and commercial intercourse. A comprehensive and well orchestrated program was essential if the many strands were to collaborate instead of work at parallel or cross- purposes. Plan Columbia helped provide the key, one allowing counterinsurgents to gain the upper hand by bringing together those strands within and across lines of operation.38 Elements of the Colombia–U.S. partnership began working in harmony. Uribe tasked the nation’s armed forces “to protect the life, honor, property, beliefs, and other rights and freedoms of all persons resident within Colombia” as part of a strategy influenced by five primary objectives outlined in his Democratic Security and Defense Policy:

(1) the consolidation of state control and denial of sanctuary to the insurgents, (2) protection of the populace, (3) destruction of the illegal drug trade, (4) maintenance of military capability and assurance of democratic sustainability, and (5) improvement of the performance of the government.39

American mentorship and equipment such as helicopters were essential, but it was Uribe’s leadership that drove the changes indispensable to their effective application. Government revenues grew thanks largely to increased taxation of the wealthy, a fundamental reason the military could increase from 153,000 to 270,000 during his presidency.40 Soldiers remained in their home provinces when feasible, a policy that had a dramatic effect on intelligence collection thanks to their familiarity with the areas in which they operated.41 Enhanced quality accompanied the greater 188 Colombia numbers. U.S. Special Forces soldiers trained their Colombian counterparts in the skills necessary to successfully undertake the long- range, direct action operations crucial to striking insurgents on rugged terrain in the country’s remotest regions. Police improved in parallel with the military. Uribe avoided the mistake of improving the police while ignoring the court and prison systems. By 2009 the country’s conviction rate increased from 3 percent to 60 percent while the time needed to process a criminal case decreased by 80 percent. As in the Philippines, members of the population increasingly came forward with information as Colombia’s security forces shed their reputation for abuse and gained the people’s trust by demonstrating the government could shield them from insurgent violence. That protection was a direct consequence of Uribe’s policy demanding that security force representatives remain in an area once it was cleared of threats. Colombia’s soldiers and police had previously relied on what might be counterinsurgency’s most oft- proven recipe for failure: purging an area of enemy only to abandon the population – particularly any who lent government forces assistance – to retribution when security forces departed for operations elsewhere.42 Colombian leaders came to recognize that vital counterinsurgent terrain has far less to do with ground than the people living on it. The government regained its balance, then went on the offensive in a fair approximation of a comprehensive approach, one that mobilized both the authorities and Colombian society. Kidnappings and FARC assaults on towns decreased. Other measures of progress included the extent of a community’s hotel occupancy, various gauges of economic health, and the amount of traffic on the roads. Colombian officials appointed during Uribe’s second term unfortunately fell back on body count for appraising military performance, apparently not realizing that well- conceived measures motivate constructive behaviors while those poorly designed inspire counterproductive ones.43 Body count ranks amongst the worst of counterinsurgency valuations, provoking as it seemingly inevitably does – and did in Colombia – the inflation of values by the inclusion of civilians inadvertently or deliberately killed.44 Also reminiscent of counterinsurgency operations in Southern Philip- pines, Colombia’s security forces came to balance employment of lethal force with offers of leniency to inspire defections within insurgent ranks.45 Uribe’s Programa de Atención Humanitaria al Desmovilizado (Program for Humanitarian Care for the Demobilized Combatant) offered surrendering insurgents reduced sentences or amnesty, the latter given they were not guilty of heinous crimes. A DDR program extending a wide spectrum of aid and education to ease former fighters back into legitimate society saw over 20,000 insurgents take advantage of the government’s offer.46 In stark contrast, FARC members suspected of contemplating defection were subject to trial by movement leaders, the likely outcome being a sentence of death.47 Colombia 189 The military that gains the trust and confidence of its population while maintaining respect in enemy eyes has turned the corner. A live insurgent is a potential source of invaluable intelligence. Demonstrations of compassion by government forces cast military and police in a champion’s role. Once known more for their human rights violations than competency, Colombia’s security forces have done much to address its rogue elements. There is evidence that the longtime partnership of military elements with rightwing militias – an association we will remember also plagued counterinsurgent efforts in Northern Ireland – appears to be largely a thing of the past. That said, despite the progress made, there is still much to do in professionalizing the security forces and reducing corruption.

Keys underlying progress in Colombia One of the most important strategies at the beginning of my presidency was to focus on “early victories” – quick, tangible signs of progress that would demonstrate to Colombians that our government’s policies were feasible.48

Colombia’s vice- minister of defense Sergio Jaramillo . . . reported [in January 2008] that 1,454 FARC members had quit in 2007, double of the previous year.49

Colombia has made the transition from an all- but-military- alone approach to one in which diplomacy, influence operations, economics, and actions to bolster domestic legitimacy partner with security force operations. The country’s leadership and American funders belatedly cast aside mistaking insurgency as some chaste form of conflict unsullied by criminal, terrorist, or other forms of conflict, a vital first step toward integrating those capabilities when combating the multifaceted challenge that is insurgency. Yet Uribe’s initiatives and U.S. military training could not effect a complete transition of Colombia’s security forces overnight. Leaders in the United States recognized that resolving human rights shortcomings would take too long to make it a precondition for receipt of the aid necessary before Colombia tipped over the edge into failed state status. They determined that improvements on the human rights front would have to take place hand- in-hand with any counterinsurgency campaign and its accompanying fight against narcotics trafficking.50 The policy demonstrated U.S. recognition that suppressing the FARC and its fellow travelers via military means was but one of several braids necessary to addressing Colombia’s challenges. Though not completely successful, improvements were notable. A striking component of the Colombia- U.S. partnership is the effective coordination of the two nations’ counterinsurgency campaign plans. The Uribe and George W. Bush administrations’ approaches differed from their predecessors in two significant ways. First, Colombians wrote their 190 Colombia country’s plan. That had not been the case during the Pastrana administration when U.S. input was dominant. Secondly, the U.S. plan was written to support that of the supported country, seemingly ironic phrasing until one realizes how rarely external partners grant host nation concerns a position of primacy (the example of Southern Philipinnes notwithstanding). The approach was vital to maintaining progress; objectives sought tended to remain within the realm of the achievable.51 Colombians best knew what Colombians could – and wanted to – accomplish. Vitally, they also possessed the potential to reach those goals. The task was to develop that potential. The essential first step of providing security for the population wasa dual responsibility in Uribe’s mind, one demanding participation by both citizen and government. Soldiers and police would partner with Colom- bian civilians in restoring state control to areas previously lost to insurgent domination. The armed strength remaining in those areas consisted of a combination of soldiers from the army, National Police, and local security forces.52 Uribe was pressuring Colombians to support the state, but he was doing so only after government met its responsibility to protect. Security was to be the bond cementing the state- citizen partnership. Uribe’s plan brought coherency to Colombia’s counterinsurgency. The Ministry of Defence inherited responsibility for both the armed forces and police, consolidating oversight of security forces under a single coordinating entity where before it had been divided. (Colombia possesses a national police force in contrast with other regional nations such as Mexico, thereby making the orchestration of military and law enforcement operations easier than where police are organized under separate sub- state authorities.) An effort was likewise made to orchestrate intelligence operations. Bogotá created a Joint Intelligence Committee reminiscent of similar organizations formed in Malaya, Northern Ireland, Solomon Islands, and elsewhere where fragmentation had impeded the sharing of vital information.

Curse or blessing? Local force militias in the Colombian counterinsurgency Service in local security forces was fundamental to Bogotá’s plans. Full- time security force members were not sufficient in number to guarantee public safety given the pervasive presence of insurgent groups. Citizens therefore had to play a role in guaranteeing their own safety, teaming with police and soldiers to shield the innocent from violence if communities were to be purged of insurgent intimidation. Tens of thousands agreed to participate. Urban citizens joined to form roughly 600 local force platoons. These units were in turn linked to military battalions or assigned to Colombian National Police for coordination and reinforcement purposes. Similar security force- volunteer relationships existed in the countryside. While citizens, soldiers, and policemen defended communities, specially- trained strike force, Colombia 191 counterguerrilla, mountain troop, infrastructure protection, and other units melded their actions with area defense units to ensure insurgents found their freedom of action increasingly constrained. Security for the citizen did improve. Success bred progress. Influence operations proclaimed the killing or capture of insurgent leaders, promoting rank and file surrenders. Areas long lost returned to the government fold. Close ties between regular forces and local defense units safeguarded against the latter becoming a new source of rogue militias. A new normal emerged in which businesses operated without intimidation, participation in politics increased, and kidnapping and other crimes decreased. The Sol- dados de mi Pueblo (Soldiers from My Town) local defense unit program improved community ties and capitalized on the local knowledge of those recruited.53 In the words of Dr. Thomas A. Marks:

Regular military and police forces were vital, but it was the local guard units – Soldados de mi Pueblo – that proved fundamental to stealing the initiative from those who had darkened the citizen’s day and black- ened his night for so many years.54

Uribe personally championed the government- citizen partnership. Much as Nick Warner, Ben McDevitt, and J. J. Frewen had traveled throughout Solomon Islands, Uribe – senior ministers in tow – conducted frequent daylong meetings with community members in threatened areas. Sessions secured mutual pledges of support from citizens and government authorities. Uribe strengthened local government by installing capable representatives and acting on concerns identified during gatherings. Crop spraying, interdiction of coca processing chemicals, raids on drug labora- tories, seizure of illegal runways, and attacks on insurgent camps continued, complemented these initiatives. So too did public information campaigns attacking drug use in Colombia.55 The government’s legitimacy spiked while that of the FARC plummeted.56 Popular thinking supports the notion that time is the insurgent’s ally. But that reasoning inherently assumes the counterinsurgent is an outsider who will eventually depart. Time plays second fiddle to initiative when insurgent and counterinsurgent both operate on home turf. Knowledge that the counterinsurgent must stay the course opens courses of action not available to the outsider knowing time is limited. Uribe used time to his government’s advantage by fostering Bogotá’s legitimacy, delivering services the insurgents could not, and putting those opponents on the defensive across multiple fronts. Military and police training sought to develop professional officer corps dedicated to public service even as the administration purged security force ranks of corrupt leaders. Government commitment bred public cooperation. Cooperation in turn fed operational progress, operations the more effective as they increasingly drew on information forthcoming from an increasingly cooperative population. 192 Colombia The eight years of the Uribe administration saw the FARC, ELN, and other opposition eroded as if by a grinding stone, one hardened by a 60 percent increase in the strength of an armed forces with improved training, equipment, leadership, and discipline.57 Insurgents’ decreased potency was evident in their meager effort to disrupt the presidential elections that brought Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos, to office. Despite threats to prevent the elections altogether, killings were few and efforts to interrupt public services saw only public transport in the small western Colombian town of Algeciras upset. The inability to consummate threats was the more impressive in that it coincided with an ongoing demobilization of rightwing militias. Similar to what was transpiring with the Armed Forces of the Philip- pines half a world away, Colombia’s soldiers came to accept their duty to act as guardians of innocents’ rights.58 Successful strikes against insurgent groups climaxed on November 4, 2011 with the killing of the FARC’s most senior leader at the time, Guillermo León Saenz, as he attempted to flee an army raid on his jungle hideout. Fewer and fewer FARC leaders were dying peacefully in their beds.59

Concerns regarding the road ahead One government minister we spoke with in Bogotá asked us to imagine what would have happened in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s if the IRA, after years of setbacks, had suddenly received a life- line from Dublin. That did not happen, of course, and the result was the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which led to the demobilization of the IRA. No such peace accord is likely in Colombia, the minister suggested, until Venezuela ends its support for FARC.60

The eight years of the Uribe administration saw a dramatic counterinsurgent about- face. Bogotá’s commitment to defeating insurgents while enhancing its own legitimacy highlights the value of able leadership. Nor was Uribe a pawn of external powers. He persevered in making his much wealthier partner to the north see the error of its ways when American administrations did not recognize the inseparability of counter- narcotics and counterinsurgency. Credit too is due to U.S. leaders willing to step back and recognize that theirs was not the only path forward. While it is true that progress has been made on more than the military front, the economic and political backing needed to consolidate military gains has lagged behind accomplishments along the security line of operation. Judicial, educational, and other infrastructure development demands are not being met.61 Colombia’s poor physical infrastructure requires upgrading no less than did security forces. Transporting products from the country’s interior to port can cost more than shipping them onward to points half a world away. A 250-mile trip between Cali and Bogotá on one Colombia 193 of the country’s better thoroughfares can consume 14 hours, an average of less than 20 miles per hour. The funds are available thanks to international investment, but corruption continues to prevent timely work starts, causes delays once projects are initiated, and undermines the quality of finished products.62 The failures hinder both the ability of security forces to respond in times of crisis and the nation’s realization of its economic potential. Corruption still plagues military and police operations despite advances in professionalizing those forces (though it has reportedly receded from the levels of pre- Uribe years). Violence rather than the judicial system too often remains the implement for resolving conflicts; citizens pursuing land claims are still subject to death threats. Forty-five of those heading efforts to regain misappropriated property were killed between 2005 and 2010.63 Three percent of Colombian landowners possessed 55 percent of the country’s farmland in 1954; over a half- century later a mere 1.15 percent held 52 percent of the nation’s arable property. Only 40 percent of Colombia’s farmers have titles backing their claims of ownership.64 Written property agreements can conflict with oral agreements dating back over a century.65 Farmers are not the only group suffering persecution. Up to 40 labor leaders were murdered in 2009. Remnants of rightwing militias are thought to be to blame.66 Failure to better revitalize the judicial system means that many with legitimate complaints risk coercion, retribution, or at a minimum disappointment as their cases are never heard. The failure in progress along other- than-security lines of operation is not limited to the judicial system. Poppy spraying programs were initially undertaken in a virtual vacuum, leaving farmers working the fields without means of sustenance once the government purged an area of the offending plants.67 Introducing alternative crops, training farmers in their management, or providing education aiding in transition to other economic sectors are among the components requiring greater attention. The hand bearing the rod too seldom has a partner proffering the carrot. Successes along the security line of operation have also not been without their failures. The disbanding of some rightwing militias has a dark counterpart in groups that remain on the criminal path. Two particularly notorious groups fighting for control of gold mines and cocaine markets – the Urabenos and Rastrojos – are spawn of former militias. They together accounted for over 60 grenade attacks in the city of Caucasia, population 100,000, in late 2010 and early 2011 alone.68

A spreading stain: the regionalization of criminal insurgency “We can annihilate them while they are in our country,” one National Police officer told us. “Unfortunately they seek refuge in other countries.”69 194 Colombia International assistance to Colombia’s insurgents adds to these domestic challenges. International borders tend to restrict insurgents less than they do governments. Most troubling is the external support provided to the FARC by neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, both of which also provide safe haven.70 Insurgency in northern South America is a regional threat. Colombia’s position is uniquely the continent’s international crossroad. The country is a gateway north and south, the land bridge between Central America and the rest of the southern continent. It is also the only country in South America with access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.71 Vietnam and Afghanistan provide two of many examples demonstrating the importance of safe havens in sustaining an insurgency. They provide lessons not lost on Bogotá. The case of Colombia joins those of Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, and, to a lesser extent, Southern Philippines in demonstrating the value of designing a counterinsurgency campaign as a regional rather than intra- national phenomenon, one orchestrating military, economic, and diplomatic resources. Negotiations with Dublin deprived insurgent groups of unfettered access to nearby physical sanctuary. Pres- sures to de- legitimize the toxic diamond trade removed the economic ground from beneath RUF feet. Colombian security force attacks against safe haven locations in Ecuador were vital to inflicting grievous setbacks on the FARC. Strikes in March 2008 killed movement leader Manuel Maru- landa and his second in command, Raúl Reyes. They also reaped intelligence treasure in the form of computers laden with information on the group’s structure, operations, and political ties with regional political leaders that included Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez and several advisors to Ecuadoran President, Rafael Correa.72 A similar operation in Septem- ber 2010 resulted in the death of Victor Julio Suárez Rojas, one of the insurgency’s most successful leaders and operational planners. Adding salt to an already painful FARC wound was the revelation that it was insurgents- turned-informers who compromised the location of the remote base.73 Counterinsurgency calls for boldness and initiative no less than conventional combat, but the boldness may have a more subtle, restrained quality. General David Richards assumed such risk with a decision to expand his Sierra Leone mission beyond noncombatant evacuation. We will see in the next chapter that officers in Iraq likewise took risks in choosing to work with tribal leaders known to have dubious histories. Colombia’s President Uribe crossed the line by choosing to disallow the FARC unopposed use of sanctuary in neighboring Ecuador. As in Sierra Leone and Iraq, success brought forgiveness . . . at least amongst his meaningful constituencies.

Additional observations Four ways that the FARC [has] achieved success where other Latin American insurgent groups have not: First, the FARC has reduced Colombia 195 rigidity to its ideology in order to make its political message more attractive. Second, it has made a great effort to boost its military potential. Third, it has established independent channels of funding and arms supply. Finally, the Colombian rebels have developed a very decentralized organic structure that nevertheless maintains a sufficient degree of cohesion.74

The FARC is a prime example of an insurgency demonstrating little desire to replace a national government. Regardless of whether FARC leaders truly aspired to oust Bogotá’s political authorities in the movement’s earlier years, the organization’s transition from political to primarily criminal enterprise makes such ambitions counterproductive. The pre- Uribe years constituted nirvana for groups whose aims flourished in an environment free of effective government restraint. The FARC and its ilk controlled land and populations sufficient to run narcotics, kidnapping, mining, and other activities virtually unhindered by any domestic power while enjoying the protection of the shield provided by Colombian sovereignty. To rule the country would risk suffering the 1989 fate of Panama’s Manuel Noriega: removal by a United States intolerant of narco- nations in its backyard. Ruling Colombia would have likewise made the movement a stationary target for any choosing to oppose the governors. Far better to dominate expanses of territory sparsely populated but sufficiently stocked with human labor to support the cultivation and processing of drugs, mining of ores, or other money- generating activities freeing the insurgents of a need to depend on the citizenry’s voluntary support. The FARC ultimately succeeded to an extent the RUF could have only dreamed of. Unlike diamonds, trade in cocaine has thus far proved impossible to contain. Yet Colombia’s counterinsurgency fundamentally differs from that of Sierra Leone. The primary force behind progress is Colombian rather than that of an outsider (British in the case of Sierra Leone). It was Pres- ident Uribe who stimulated improved the professionalization of the security forces, which initially posed as much of a danger to innocent as insurgent. And it was Colombia rather than the United States that assumed diplomatic risk when violating regional international borders, thereby avoiding potential resistance due to perceptions of American colonialism. Uribe’s was admittedly an imperfect progress. The military benefited from a surfeit of presidential tolerance in the early years of his administration. Human rights violations hindered government efforts to regain popular confidence. As was the case with the Armed Forces of the Philip- pines, the president’s policies gained traction only after rogue security force elements were largely brought in line.75 Progress likewise followed correction of the initial error of splitting efforts into separate counterinsurgency and counter- narcotics components. Only with the recognition that Colombia’s insurgencies were a complex mixture of nefarious ingredients were Bogotá’s efforts molded into a coherent assault. So too did 196 Colombia leaders in the capital eventually come to see that reliance on security forces alone was but one braid in the rope with which it could eventually strangle the insurgent threat.76 Colombia’s “Democratic Security and Defence Policy” of 2003 marked a key step forward. As much a security campaign plan as policy statement, it outlined many of the ends sought in purging the country of insurgent threats. Public- government partnership, interagency cooperation, and multinational support were fundamental components of the document, passages of which are noteworthy for their grasp of counterinsurgency fundamentals and worth quoting at length:

• Security is not regarded primarily as the security of the State, nor as the security of the citizen without the assistance of the State. Rather, it is the protection of the citizen and democracy by the State with the solidarity and cooperation of the whole of society.77 • The effectiveness of the measures to consolidate territorial control hangs on the degree of co-ordination achieved between different state institutions. It will be a government priority to ensure that state action at all levels is carried out in a coordinated and integrated manner.78 • The Joint Intelligence Committee will be responsible for coordinating state intelligence services and will be composed of the directors of those services.79 • Once the Armed Forces and the National Police have re- established control over an area, units comprising professional soldiers, campes- ino soldiers,80 and National Police carabineros81 will maintain security and protect the civilian population. This will enable state organisations and criminal investigation authorities to work in the area. Together with representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, the Judicial Police and the DASDeparta [ - mento Administrativo de Seguridad or Administrative Department of Security], the Armed Forces and the National Police will form a support structure, which will be responsible for identifying and bringing to justice members of the illegal armed groups and those who commit crimes which have a major impact on society. Once a basic level of security has been established, the State will embark upon a policy of territorial consolidation, re-establishing the normal operation of the justice system, strengthening local democracy, meeting the most urgent needs of the population, broadening state services and initiating medium to long term projects aimed at creating sustainable development.82 • The Government will place particular emphasis on dismantling the financial structures of terrorist and illegal drugs trafficking organisations, in line with international agreements.83 • The support of the international community is essential to the achievement of the security of our citizens. The transnational nature of the Colombia 197 threats to Colombian democracy makes it impossible to bring long- term security to the people without the assistance of other countries.84

The document never overtly mentions insurgency or counterinsurgency. Deliberate or not, the lack of reference has the benefit of reinforcing the government- citizen partnership in bringing security to communities. Rather than targeting a particular group or specific type of threat (insurgent, criminal, leftwing or rightwing), cooperation extends to any entity threatening the welfare of the individual or state. This nonspecific approach also works to the government’s advantage in avoiding what could become an exercise in successfully dealing with one threat only to find another fills the vacuum caused by its demise. “Security” isthe common goal rather than exorcising any particular menace. It is probable that Colombia’s citizenry is like those everywhere. Most civilians prefer a life free of coercion from any faction, though self- preservation may demand they support one side or the other – or both – as the moment demands. A half-century ago, an observer of the war in Vietnam noted

most [Vietcong] attacks are calculated to achieve desired effects, as punishment for anti- VC or pro- GVN activity, and as examples to others. The question then becomes: Why should a person risk death if there is a less drastic and still acceptable alternative? People are rarely heroes, either in New York City or in Vietnamese hamlets.85

Unless the counterinsurgent can ensure reasonable security, neither an indigenous government nor that of an external power has the right to force individuals whose daily survival depends on tolerance if not active support of an insurgent to overtly commit to supporting counterinsurgent operations. Uribe demonstrated knowledge of this truth by linking his state- citizen COIN initiative to the sustained presence of security forces in affected communities. Those at the upper echelons of a government need not be granted similar leeway, however. Authorities resourcing a counterinsurgency campaign have a right to expect the support of those owing their position to that backing. That is true whether the supporting authority is the government under direct threat or an external power.

Taking another look at progress Subsequent to his army’s October 1600 vanquishing of his foe at Sekiga- hara, the founder of Japan’s long reigning Tokugawa shogunate declared, “After a victory, tighten your helmet cords.”86 It is advice that pertains no less to a counterinsurgency. Complacency permits an insurgent to rebound just as failure to exploit battlefield victory allows a foe to fight another day. Indeed, not maintaining pressure on a movement along all 198 Colombia lines of operation can be even more damaging for the counterinsurgent than a conventional battlefield commander. The latter leads an army that has beaten the adversary. Its soldiers are therefore confident in their ability to subdue the adversary again. A civilian population tends to be less hearty in its faith; its members remember less past progress than they fear an insurgent’s reemergence for it is the civilian who first feels the wrath of their vengeance. Striking soft targets allows an insurgent leader to re- instill confidence in his rank and file, confidence lost during previous setbacks. Those operations demonstrate to victims that past support for the state only leads to later suffering. The result undermines perceptions of counterinsurgent legitimacy and hardens civilian resolution against making the same “mistake” a second time. The striking progress in Colombia’s battle with insurgents should not be confused with the end of such threats. Attacks have been dramatically reduced from the numbers seen before the years of the Uribe and Santos administrations. They are still far from insignificant at the time of writing.87 The size of the regions and numbers affected may be small in comparison with former years, but the familiar threats of kidnapping, extortion, narcotics trafficking, and illegal mining persist. Insurgent’s use of improvised explosive devices similar to those so crippling to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is on the increase, a natural response by groups limited in their ability to confront improved security forces directly. Counterinsurgency progress is deceptively frail. Politicians tout victories and fewer insurgent attacks, leading electorates to question the need for continuing large security expenditures. Citizens want to reap the economic advantages of newfound stability, not realizing the specter of renewed violence awaits an opportunity to take a reinvigorating breath if allowed. Colombia remains the world’s largest producer of cocaine.88 The legitimate enterprises run by insurgent groups to complement others that are illicit makes them all the harder to expunge. The possibility of an about turn remains more a likelihood than a mere possibility as long as the dissatisfactions underlying insurgency persist. President Santos is aware of the dangers. He promised that his successful 2012 efforts to bring the FARC to the negotiating table would not provide the movement an opportunity to rebuild as was the case in 1999–2002 under President Pastrana.89 Advances in Colombia’s security arena have been sufficiently impressive that Afghanistan and Mexico have turned to the country for training expertise. Social reforms are slowly sinking deeper roots, even to the extent of the president having taken the step of forcing the reactionary Ministry of Agriculture to retreat from its position of overzealously protecting large landowners’ interests. Yet it is the police rather than the Ministry of Agriculture that train Colombian farmers in the cultivation of legitimate crops, a reflection of interagency noncooperation yet to be overcome.90 Overreliance on the security sector helps to explain Bogotá’s lethargy in remedying the causes underlying insurgencies. As in Southern Colombia 199 Philippines, U.S. forces assisting Colombia’s government have proven effective despite their limited numbers and the corrosive effects of continued corruption. The latter further reinforces concerns that progress remains a tenuous commodity. When torrential downpours in late 2011 flooded many of Colombia’s communities, President Santos declared that recovering from the natural disaster constituted the country’s greatest existing challenge. That a physical rather than manmade disaster achieved preeminence might be thought cause for optimism. Yet a little over a year later the ELN, having been refused a place in negotiations between the government and FARC, increased its violent attacks in an effort to secure a seat at the table in much the same way as the MNLF in Southern Philip- pines has made known its displeasure with the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement.91 Rains stop and waters subside, leaving the government to the task of recovery. Sustaining counterinsurgent progress will prove a far more difficult task.

Revised beliefs and the Colombian experience Belief that the population is the requisite insurgent center of gravity experiences another blow when viewing Colombian counterinsurgency. Funding – not popular support – underpins FARC strength and that of other insurgent elements in the country. Alternative means of obtaining support – the sale of cocaine being most prominent – parallel RUF use of diamonds and other of Sierra Leone’s natural resources to render popular support largely mute in Colombia. Additional resources freeing the FARC and other insurgents from dependency on civilian support include the provision of safe havens and neighboring countries’ backing. The FARC perhaps maintains an interest in augmenting these alternative sources with popular backing to at least some degree; the group has continued efforts to establish inroads into the national political system via the election process. Yet evidence suggests the attraction of such access rests more in its further enabling the objectives of criminal insurgency than any value popular support might lend. Wealth has provided movement leaders with the means to undermine Colombia’s legal system, establish and maintain pseudo- governments in areas under its control, and threaten the nation’s economic underpinnings. Presidents Uribe and Santos committed the country’s military to purging areas of insurgent threats and thereafter maintaining affected communities’ newfound security. These segments of Colombia’s citizenry are the center of gravity for Bogotá. Only via government- community partnerships can the state obtain the intelligence it needs to overcome local threats and maintain security once full- time military units move on to expand secured areas. The outstanding question is: Will those in the capital demonstrate the long- term commitment essential to removing grievances underlying leftwing insurgent earlier successes? The striking progress achieved along the security line of operation 200 Colombia has yet to find analogous progress in the realms of corruption eradication or equitable distribution of land. Colombia complements our previously discussed cases in demonstrating the benefits of a well- conducted COIN campaign. Uribe’s visits to remote communities are reminiscent of those by RAMSI’s Big Three, efforts taken to address popular grievances that mark essential steps toward ultimate counterinsurgent success. Aligning locally raised forces with police or military units encourages citizen commitment; it is also essential in controlling militias that both provide essential local security and pose a threat to federal sovereignty should that control waver. Guided by a well- considered and coherent strategy, counterinsurgency once more proves itself an effective implement of policy rather than a practice in terminal decline. Colombia’s violent past validates the concerns regarding the potential risks in employing or tolerating the existence of militia forces. The tumultuous twentieth century makes it only too clear that believing militias are inherently “part of the solution” risks national disaster. Provision of effective professional oversight seems a necessary condition for any counterinsurgent considering the employment of such groups. The existence of a Colombian federal police force is itself notable in this regard: the state is better able to oversee militia organizations than myriad local law enforcement organizations. The case of Northern Ireland reminds us how difficult it can be to maintain effective militia management. Doing so may require an outsider to challenge longstanding norms. The United States linked aid to Colom- bia to progress in reducing the depredations of the latter’s security forces. Interfering with local social norms was a necessary prerequisite to COIN progress. Corruption within military and police ranks – at times financial in nature, at other times of a form that promoted right-wing militia violence – prevented progress toward both defeat of insurgent groups and addressing public grievances. Purging Colombia’s security forces of its worst violators reduced instances of public alienation, opening intelligence conduits. Training and installation of professional ethics provided leaders the backing necessary to guide those responsible for community protection. Remaining corrosive norms – the aforementioned control of land by an absurdly small percentage of the country’s elite, for example – are beyond the influence of the outsider. Responsibility for these additional grievances lies entirely with those in Bogotá.

Notes 1 Max Boot and Richard Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle: How Alvaro Uribe with smart U.S. support turned the tide against drug lords and Marxist guerrillas,” The Weekly Standard 15 (December 14, 2009), available at: www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/301nyrut.asp (accessed February 9, 2011). Colombia 201 2 The stated duration of la violencia and estimates regarding the number of casualties differ by source and interpretation. Alfredo Molano states the number killed at 300,000; “The Evolution of the FARC: A Guerrilla Group’s Long History,” North American Congress on Latin America, September/October 2000, available at: www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/molano.htm (accessed August 7, 2010), the span of 1958–1968 coinciding with the years most historians cite. Former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez uses an estimate of 26,000. Uribe, No Lost Causes, p. 53. For an alternative interpretation, see Max G. Manwaring, “Non- State Actors in Colombia: Threats to the State and to the Hemisphere,” in Non- State Threats and Future Wars, (ed.) Robert J. Bunker, Port- land, OR: Frank Cass, 2003, p. 69. 3 James H. Vega, an American with extensive experience in Colombia, considers displacement of the FARC’s ideological underpinnings by those criminal to be a generational phenomenon: “I will tell you that the original FARC fighting for an ideology will soon disappear with the older generation [via] either the peace talks or through deaths. The young FARC are nothing more than narcos who will eventually engage each other in turf wars.” James H. Vega email to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: Re: Colombia chapter to COIN book, April 2, 2013. 4 Thomas R. Cook, “The Financial Arm of the FARC: A Threat Finance Per- spective,” Journal of Strategic Security 4 (Issue 1, 2001): 21. 5 Douglas Farah, “What the FARC Papers Show US about Latin American Ter- rorism,” The NEFA Foundation, April 1, 2008, 2. 6 Farah, “FARC Papers,” 2. 7 Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw, New York: Penguin, 2001, pp. 29–31 and 33. 8 Bowden, Killing Pablo, p. 54. 9 Nearly 80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States during this period came from Colombia. 10 Bowden, Killing Pablo, pp. 54–65. 11 The Cali cartel also assisted Colombian security forces in bringing about the demise of the Medellin cartel. Vanda Felbab- Brown, “Bringing the State to the Slum: Confronting Organized Crime and Urban Violence in Latin America: Lessons for Law Enforcement and Policymakers,” Latin America Initiative at Brookings, December 2011, 10. Available at: www.brookings.edu/. . ./1205_ latin_america_slums_felbabbrown.pdf (accessed April 1, 2012). 12 Felbab- Brown, “Bringing the State to the Slum.” 13 Richard L. Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas and Politics in Colombia, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, December 1971, pp. 16–17. 14 Thomas A. Marks, “Colombia: Learning Institutions Enable Integrated Response,” PRISM 1 (September 2010), available at: www.ndu.edu/press/ columbia- integrated-response.html (accessed September 9, 2010): 129–130. 15 Uribe, No Lost Causes, p. 73. 16 Cook, “Financial Arm of the FARC,” 22–23. 17 Ibid., 25. 18 Ibid., 24 and 26. 19 Casebook, p. 51. 20 Stephanie Hanson, “Colombia’s Right-Wing Paramilitaries and Splinter Groups,” Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder, January 11, 2008. 21 Farah, “FARC Papers,” 4. 22 Manwaring, “Non- State Actors in Colombia,” 71–72. 23 Ibid., 71. Manwaring states that the “FARC expanded from approximately 2,000 guerrilla fighters in 1982 to over 70 fronts (company-sized units) with approximately 19,000–20,000 fighters in 2001” while Farah and Simpson conclude “The FARC continued to grow, reaching a peak of about 18,000 combatants in 202 Colombia the 2004 period.” Douglas Farah and Glenn Simpson, “Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and The Citizen’s Revolution,” Interamerican Institute for Democracy Paper No. 3, 2010, 47. 24 Farah, “FARC Papers,” 3. 25 “Improving Security Policy in Colombia,” International Crisis Group Latin American Briefing No. 23, June 29, 2010, p. 6; “Guerrilla miners: Security in Colombia,” The Economist 398 (January 29, 2011): 36. 26 Colombia’s government eventually responded by closing a number of mines and arresting FARC and paramilitary members involved in the commerce. The nation’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, aspires to formal regulation and licens- ing of legitimate mining ventures. “Guerrilla miners: Security in Colombia,” The Economist 398 (January 29, 2011): 36. 27 “Colombia’s FARC: Deliverance,” The Economist 402 (March 3, 2012): 48–49. 28 “Colombia: The FARC’s Carrot- and-Stick Strategy,” OPEAL, February, 28, 2012, available at: www.opeal.net/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=10316: the- farcs-carrot- and-stick- strategy&Itemid=142 (accessed April 1, 2012). Dem- onstrating the hydra- headed nature of criminal insurgencies in Colombia, on January 5 and 6, 2012 the rightwing residual AUC group Autodefensas Gaitanis- tas de Colombia shut down Santa Maria, a city of 450,000 population, after local security forces killed its leader on New Year’s Day. Threats of retaliation against anyone violating its order to cease all activity closed virtually all commercial enterprises, public transport, and (ironically) government functions. “Colom- bia’s former paramilitaries: Criminals with attitude,” The Economist 402 (January 14, 2012): 37. 29 “Colombia’s oil industry: Gushers and guns,” The Economist 402 (March 17, 2012): 44 and 46. Paying insurgent or criminal groups. 30 “Carrot- and-Stick Strategy.” 31 “Improving Security Policy,” 5. 32 Ibid. 33 Manwaring, “Non- State Actors in Colombia,” 77. 34 Uribe, No Lost Causes, p. 176. 35 Farah and Simpson, “Ecuador at Risk,” 49. The United States, European Union, and others also designated the AUC as a terrorist group, the U.S. doing so on September 10, 2011. 36 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” 37 See, for example, Marc Cooper, “Plan Colombia: Wrong issue, wrong enemy, wrong country,” The Nation, March 19, 2001, available at: www.thenation.com/ article/plan- colombia#axzz2WBxyKaHb (accessed June 14, 2013). 38 Cook, “Financial Arm,” 29. 39 Casebook, pp. 64–65. 40 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” The share of gross domestic product dedicated to the defense budget increased from 3.6 percent to 6.0 percent. Casebook, 64–65. 41 Casebook, p. 67. 42 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” 43 Octavian Manea, “COIN and FID in Colombia,” Small Wars Journal (January 5, 2012), available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/coin-and-fid- in- colombia (accessed January 9, 2012). 44 Body count has also been explicitly singled out as “a poor proxy for progress” in the May 2014 U.S. Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrinal manual. Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, pp. 12–6. 45 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. Colombia 203 48 Uribe, No Lost Causes, New York: Celebra, 2012, p. 143. Those familiar with the leadership techniques of Field Marshal Sir William Slim will recall a similar approach to building soldier morale during World War II: Having developed the confidence of the individual man in his superiority over the enemy, we had now to extend that to the corporate confidence of units and formations in themselves. This was done in a series of carefully planned minor offensive operations, carried out as the weather improved, against enemy advanced detachments. These were carefully staged, ably led, and, as I was always careful to ensure, in greatly preponderating strength. We attacked Japanese company positions with brigades fully supported by artillery and aircraft, platoon posts by battalions. . . . We could not at this stage risk even small failures. We had very few. (Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Defeat into Victory, London: The Reprint Society, 1957, p. 192) 49 Christopher C. Harmon, “How Terrorist Groups End: Studies of the Twentieth Century,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 4 (Fall 2010): 79. 50 Farah, “FARC Papers,” 6. 51 Marks, “Learning Institutions,” 130–132. 52 Ibid. 53 Uribe, No Lost Causes, p. 172. 54 Marks, “Learning Institutions,” 130–136. 55 “Local Defense Forces in Afghanistan: Historical Context and Best Practices,” U.S. Central Command Afghanistan- Pakistan Center Threats Branch, March 7, 2011, 8. 56 Marks, “Learning Institutions,” 134–138; Manea, “COIN and FID in Colombia.” 57 “Colombia: Peace At Last?” International Crisis Group Latin America Report No. 45, September 25, 2012, 2. 58 “Improving Security Policy,” 13. 59 “Top dog down: Security in Colombia,” The Economist 401 (November 12, 2011): 45. 60 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” 61 “Improving Security Policy,” 13. 62 “Bridging the gaps: Colombia’s infrastructure,” The Economist 401 (September 17, 2011), available at: www.economist.com/node/21529036 (accessed Decem- ber 16, 2011). 63 “Colombia: President Santos’s Conflict Resolution Opportunity,” International Crisis Group Latin America Report No 34, October 13, 2010; “This land is our land: Land and violence in Colombia,” The Economist 396 (September 18, 2010): 51–52. 64 “This land is our land”: 51–52; “Peace, land and bread: Land reform in Colom- bia,” The Economist 405 (November 2, 2012): 42. 65 Patrick James Christian, A Combat Advisor’s Guide to Tribal Engagement: History, Law and War as Operational Elements, Boca Raton, FL: Universal- Publishers, 2011, p. 80. 66 “Colombia’s presidential election: Too much continuity?” The Economist 395 (June 26, 2010): 39, available at: http://magic.economist.com/node/16430273 (accessed July 2, 2010). 67 “Conflict Resolution.” 68 Simon Romero, “In Colombia, New Gold Rush Fuels Old Conflict,” The New York Times (March 3, 2011), available at: www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/ world/americas/04colombia.html (accessed March 4, 2011). 69 Boot and Bennet, “The Colombian Miracle.” 70 “Improving Security Policy,” 7. 204 Colombia 71 Casebook, p. 42. 72 Farah and Simpson, “Ecuador at Risk,” 19. 73 “The beginning of the end: Security in Colombia,” The Economist 397 (October 2, 2010): 42. 74 Casebook, pp. 52–53. 75 Christian, Combat Advisor’s Guide, 65. 76 Marks, “Learning Institutions,” 138. 77 “Democratic Security and Defence Policy,” Bogotá, Colombia: Presidency of the Republic and Ministry of Defence, 2003, 13. 78 Ibid., 15. 79 Ibid., 34. 80 Literally, “peasant” or “farmer” soldiers more accurately described as local volunteer force members. 81 “Policemen.” 82 “Democratic Security and Defence Policy,” 42. 83 Ibid., 46. 84 Ibid., 61. 85 F. J. West, “Area Security,” Santa Monica, CA: RAND, August 1969, 5. 86 S. R. Turnbull, The Samurai: A Military History, London: George Philip, 1977, p. 244. The words are those of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The shogunate lasted from 1603 to the Meiji Restoration of 1868. 87 Louise Arbour, “FARC hostage release signals possible end to Colombia’s internal conflict,”The Christian Science Monitor (April 3, 2012), available at: www. csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0403/FARC- hostage-release- signals-possible- end-to- Colombia-s- internal-conflict (accessed April 5, 2012). 88 Juan Forero, “Colombia Shares Its Cartel- Fighting Expertise With Mexican Forces,” Washington Post (January 22, 2011): 1, available at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2011/01/21/AR2011012106325.html (accessed January 24, 2011). 89 “Talking about talks: Colombia and the FARC,” The Economist 404 (September 1, 2012): 38–39. 90 Vanda Felbab- Brown, “Colombia’s Consolidation: Everything Coming up Orchids?” The Brookings Institution, October 11, 2011, available at: www. brookings.edu/opinions/2011/1011_colombia_felbabbrown. aspx?comments=1 (accessed October 19, 2011). 91 Dan Molinski, “Colombian Rebel Group Steps Up Violence,” The Wall Street Journal (January 15, 2013), available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001 424127887323596204578241902662204058.html (accessed February 27, 2013). Colombia’s President Santos later declared a willingness to begin parallel talks with the ELN pending the group’s release of a Canadian hostage. See “To the edge and back again: Colombia’s peace talks,” The Economist 408 (August 31, 2013): 35. 8 The operational oil spot and rise of the militias COIN in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province

The U.S. military had bypassed the city in its assault on Baghdad, but elements of the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in late April [2003]. Fallujah did not take kindly to occupation and the 82nd did not take kindly to occupation duty. Within a few days, a rally celebrating Saddam Hussein’s birthday led to angry denunciations of the U.S. presence and heated demands for withdrawal. Shooting broke out, leaving at least thirteen Iraqis dead. Two more died the next day in a second round of clashes. Attackers then tossed grenades into a U.S. Army compound.1

A nun used to tell me that every saint had a past and every sinner has a future.2

This is not a retelling of events regarding the decade- long and continuing counterinsurgency in Iraq. The focus is instead the tale of one small part of that frustrating rollercoaster ride of a campaign. It is a sampling of progress achieved in the country’s Anbar Province that spread to other areas. Maintaining stability and its partner peace is by no means assured in the longer run as is only too evident in the 2014 emergence of a challenge posed to Iraq’s stability by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, sometimes referred to as ISIL) forces.3 Too many Iraqi politicians seem set on ensuring the opposite as sectarian fault lines once again prove too lucrative a source of political capital. Their sustained refusals to address social tensions benefited ISIS insurgents during a mid- 2014 offensive, reinforcing doubts regarding whether those politicians possess the will – or ability – to create a nation within the Iraqi state.4 Evidence for six of our refined beliefs presents itself as we consider this case:

• Just because they are the government does not mean they deserve external counterinsurgents’ support. • Patience is a virtue when it comes to surrendering governing responsibility. • Democracy is not an inherent good. • Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way. 206 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province • Treat militias like a hot stove. • Build more social and less physical infrastructure.

So it is to activities in that province west of Baghdad that we turn, a province in which it was Sunni versus Sunni in a conflict that helped trigger counterinsurgent success, thanks in part to Al Qaeda in Iraq’s (AQI) arro- gance that caused portions of the population to rise against a group many once supported . . . or were coerced into tolerating. That shift to the right along the continuum of relative interests had an essential compatriot in the willingness of select coalition leaders to seize an opportunity laden with risk when local leaders approached requesting assistance. Though the focus here will be on events in the vicinity of Ramadi, it is important to remember that there was similar progress elsewhere roughly coincident in time that further validates many of the lessons taken from actions in eastern Anbar Province. Regimental commander Colonel Dale Alford’s U.S. marines developed ties with a tribal militia that first called itself the Hamza Brigade, later the Desert Protectors, in a late 2005 rebellion against AQI abuse. The challenge to Al Qaeda’s authority in that instance remained limited to the city of Al Qaim, an Anbar Province city near the Syrian border over 200 miles west of Baghdad.5 The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) under Colonel H. R. McMaster achieved similar results when confronting Sunni extremists and their genocidal attacks on the town of Tal Afar’s Shia, well to the north in Ninewah Province in late 2005 and early 2006.6 The focus here – Colonel Sean MacFarland and his 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division – is therefore reflective of similar initiative shown by other leaders. Unfortunately, there appears to have been no formal promulgation of “lessons learned” capitalizing on developments in Al Qaim, Tal Afar, or Anbar though there is evidence that lessons informally passed were adapted to other locations.7 The men and women of MacFarland’s command were particularly fortunate in benefiting from hard won 3rd ACR lessons as their unit first served in Tal Afar as the replacement for McMaster’s soldiers. The BCT therefore moved into Anbar realizing the necessity of balancing carrot and club in the battle against Iraq’s insurgents.8 MacFarland and the coalition leaders were aware of the professional risk as they undertook negotiating and then cooperating with what were former foes. Many Washington politicians and others in both the U.S. capital and Baghdad were averse to talking with any suspected of having killed coalition personnel. The antagonism is at once understandable and ironic. It is soldiers whose lives are most endangered. It is they who lose friends to those foes. One could therefore forgive were they hesitant to consider partnership with previous enemies. Yet the men and women at the sharp edge of combat were the first to see the need to make contact of a less lethal kind, that despite protests from others an ocean apart or ensconced in a less distant national capital.9 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 207 Backdrop We reach a political solution by working with the occasional person that might have looked at us through a gun sight two years ago. Does it feel particularly good? Ask any solider and they will say no – especially if you have lost friends in battle. However, would we prefer the alternative of endless fighting without reaching some solution – no.10

“I have never been so depressed about the future of Iraq,” said one former minister. “The émigré ruling class which came to power after 2003 is terrible. They have no policy other than to see how far they can rob the state.”11

Tools of war – men and equipment both – were rolling back into Kuwait for redeployment to the United States in mid- 2003 when the realization struck home that the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s army did not mark the end of the conflict. Even the most unwilling were soon forced to admit that the coalition’s prematurely declared end of operations had instead evolved into insurgency. It took somewhat longer to recognize that Iraq’s insurgencies represented a nest of scorpions in which not one but many groups fought both coalition forces and often each other. Motivations differed. Some among the insurgents originally sought to oust the occupying powers, leaving the embryonic Iraqi government and its immature security forces open to later assault. There were groups desiring that Iraq become the inaugural seed for a renewed Muslim caliphate, an extension of Iranian influence, a state dominated by a single religious sect, or perhaps several states divided along sectarian lines. Reasons varied; tactics differed less. Sectarian violence, improvised explosive devices, and what the British call simple bloody- mindedness were ingredients in a stew of terrorism, coercion, and criminality that made identifying insurgent ends and perpetrators difficult. Trying to determine how a group operated along what were often several lines of operations – use of violence, aid provision, propaganda, and political intrigue among them – presented counterinsurgents with a Gordian knot of myriad tangled threads. Simply slicing the knot was not an option; relying on military force alone was no more an option than during any other counterinsurgency involving a coalition of liberal societies. It was a knot the counterinsurgents themselves sometimes pulled tighter given missteps such as U.S. leaders prematurely surrendering the running of the country to leaders unprepared to assume responsibility. Too many counterinsurgent hands pulled too many threads in too many directions, unraveling rather than binding collective efforts while leaving the knot itself intact. Little wonder that by 2006 a member of the U.S. Department of State would anonymously tell the author that some in that organization had virtually given up on Iraq and hoped instead to salvage Afghanistan. Challenges were made all the 208 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province harder by the sheer number of insurgent groups in addition to their variety. Sunni foes included Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), 1920 Revolution Bri- gades, Islamic Army of Iraq, Jaish al- Fatihim, Ansar al- Tawhid wa’l-Sunna, and Jund al- Sahaba.12 Shia and Kurd resistance to the occupiers (and later the Iraqi government) took several forms and added to the difficulties. Determining these various movements’ objectives and finding ways of neutralizing them tested even the most able of counterinsurgent practitioners.

Not- so-wise- men bearing gifts: Al Qaeda’s fatal mistakes in Anbar Province The AQI initially gained a toe- hold in Iraq as an aspect of the Sunni resistance to U.S. occupation and the rise of a Shia dominated government. But as the AQI was essentially foreign, unacceptably extreme, and uncomfortably fundamentalist for secular nationalist Bedouins, it quickly marginalised itself. It sustained its position only through fierce internal discipline and the elimination of any opposition.13

Many Iraqis, however much they hated Saddam Hussein, would surrender some of their hard- earned freedoms and comforts in exchange for real security.14

Anbar Province proved a bane to British occupiers after World War I, misfortune for Americans in the aftermath of their 2003 victory over Sadd- am’s army, and blight for Al Qaeda’s fighters in 2006. The first two were occupiers by the very nature of their otherness. Al Qaeda earned the status. There were foreigners among them, but Iraqis were more plentiful than outsiders; by one estimate 95 percent of the rank and file were homegrown while the movement’s leadership was predominantly non- Iraqi.15 Local knowledge went a long way toward making the group effective at penetrating Anbar’s smuggling enterprises and other activities, both legitimate and illegitimate. But it was the flouting of Iraqi tribal customs and the insatiable desire of AQI leaders to dominate all aspects of the province’s insurgency that provided the coalition with an opening into Sunni communities that they had previously been unable to achieve. Preaching a desire to reestablish a caliphate in Iraq, AQI actions betrayed more earthly objectives as they extorted taxes from businesses, charged truck drivers for the use of roads, forced themselves on local families via unde- sired marriages, and murdered any opposing the group.16 The choice was one of subordination or retribution. Al Qaeda’s atrocities had earlier brought issues to a head when nationalist insurgent groups opposed its efforts to interrupt political activities before the December 2005 national elections. AQI responded by assassinating resistance leaders, many of whom were influential tribal authorities.17 Any residual claim to religious legitimacy evaporated when AQI hid the Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 209 bodies of their victims in deliberate violation of the Muslim practice requiring timely burial. Anbar’s tribal leadership responded. Sheiks heading Sunni nationalist insurgent movements in the provincial capital of Ramadi approached American leaders for assistance in purging the province of what they had come to realize was the more heinous of occupiers. (Ramadi was a focal point for AQI activities given its status as the declared capital of the new caliphate.)18 Sattar albu- Risha – sheik of a minor tribe who had lost his father and two brothers to Al Qaeda – emerged as the leader of the movement. He invited other local leaders to a September 9, 2006 meeting in the first gathering of what became known as the “Awakening Council.”19 Representatives at first asked U.S. units only not to interfere as the tribes dealt with AQI. Ramadi fell within the bounds of Colonel Sean MacFarland and his brigade combat team’s area of operations.20 The unit had, only months before, caused widespread damage in the city during attacks against various insurgent groups. MacFarland had immediately sent subordinate leaders into Ramadi to determine what the citizenry needed to rebuild and coordinate the necessary support.21 The Americans had also worked to assure residents that the Americans were in Ramadi to stay until Iraqi security forces capable of defending their communities replaced them. They demonstrated their commitment by establishing combat outposts in the summer of 2006, using the bases to contest control of neighborhoods and offer security to those willing to resist insurgent coercion.22 Resolve backed MacFarland’s assurances. U.S. soldiers remained despite attacks against the positions, over 15 in a 32-minute span on July 24 of that year alone.23 Officers senior to MacFarland cautioned him against aligning with Sattar. The sheik’s minor standing, his history as a smuggler, and a suspected use of violence to protect business interests all argued against risking an association that could undermine American legitimacy and expose the coalition to a double- cross. Political concerns accompanied operational ones. Senior leaders worried that supporting Sattar would undermine the provincial governor, Baghdad’s formal local representative. MacFarland’s experiences in Ramadi gave him little reason to fear political repercussions from the local population, however. The governor had little support among province residents who considered the national government corrupt and illegitimate. MacFarland himself feared public support for coalition forces suffered by association with the governor, believing “we are in danger of hitching our wagon to a falling star and losing all credibility with the people.”24 He held course despite the warnings from his chain of command. The Awakening paired with an increase in U.S. forces at the time (what became known as “the Surge”) and improving counterinsurgency tactics proved to be Al Qaeda’s undoing in Anbar. The same combination went a 210 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province long way toward putting equally heinous Shia militias such as Muqtada al Sadr’s various Jaish al- Mahdi (JAM) factions on the defensive elsewhere.25 JAM’s activities were little different in approach to those of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Murder, “night letters” (bullets placed in a family’s mail box as a warning to leave or suffer violence), and other forms of intimidation are but a sampling of the ways Sunnis were forced to flee their homes, Shia replacing those departing to complete cleansing communities. Kidnap- ping as a means of intimidation and fund raising was popular with both AQI and JAM (though payment of a ransom proved no guarantee of a victim’s safe return).26 No more motivated by genuine piousness than their counterparts in Anbar, JAM forced co- religionist business owners to pay protection money and otherwise extorted funds, as did AQI from Sunni subjects. Once silent Anbar neighborhoods gained voice and provided volunteers, this from communities that had done little to support police recruiting since an AQI suicide bomber attack killed some 60 Iraqis and Americans among the nearly 1,000 who waited in line in January 2006.27 Information so long sought- after by coalition forces began to trickle in from Sunni volunteers and citizens on the street. Bolstered by U.S. support in the form of training, money for salaries, and improved security in their neighborhoods, these men gained international renown as “Sons of Iraq,” individuals willing to fight Al Qaeda and reclaim their communities. Each member received US$300 monthly, 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman’s salary.28 Tribes were responsible for arming members while the U.S. provided simple uniforms, Iraqi flags, and communications equipment.29 The phenomenon spread.30 By December 2007 there were Awakening Councils in nearby Salahuddin, Babil, Diyala, and Nineveh Provinces as well as Baghdad. Sons of Iraq groups could claim 90,000 members five months later, 10,000 of whom were Shia.31 Complementing their male counterparts, Daughters of Iraq volunteers played a key role in sharply reducing successful female suicide bomber attacks thanks to their willingness to search citizens of their gender. Civilian deaths in 2009 fell to their lowest levels since the beginning of the insurgency.32 This progress came despite incompetence, corruption, and sectarian prejudice that quickly undermined support once Americans began turning over responsibility for pay and management to Baghdad’s politicians.33 This Shia intransigence was but one obstacle. Al Qaeda did not take the challenge to its authority passively. Awakening leaders became the focus of retribution. AQI announcements in the autumn of 2007 made the group’s intentions clear, intentions reinforced by attacks that spiked from 26 in October to 100 in the first two months of 2008. Sattar fell to assassins on September 13, 2007, one of the first to be killed.34 Yet the Awakening did not falter. Sheik Sattar’s brother, now with three siblings lost to assassins, quickly stepped into the leadership role. AQI militants caved in to the increasing effectiveness of counterinsurgent Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 211 operations. Many fled Anbar for Mosul and other locations where popular resistance and coalition presence were less.35 Theirs was by no means a spent force, but the combination of coalition and tribe had slain myths of the movement’s infallibility. It is worth reiterating that the Awakening was but one of several factors that began the counterinsurgents’ resurgence. The decision to return coalition forces to Iraqi communities rather than isolate them on large forward operating bases; the acclaimed Surge that provided coalition members in the numbers needed to patrol from those many outposts; oversight of and assistance to Sons of Iraq organizations possible because of that local presence; improved flow of information from citizens, and better intelligence fusion that translated into more accurate targeting (and thus fewer mistaken arrests and less property damage): all of these combined to ensure there was no relaxation of the pressure on insurgents – Sunni, Shia, criminal, or of any other variety. Like the braids that were the several lines of counterinsurgent operation, the result was stronger than the sum of its parts. No one factor alone was responsible for the end result.

What the awakening brought to the counterinsurgent table June 5, 2006 . . . Ramadi was now the worst city in Iraq.36

Al Qaeda’s overreach was the spark that set Sunni passions aflame, but there would have been no oxygen to feed the fire had the Americans remained encased in their forward operating bases. At the time, policy at the highest coalition command levels in Baghdad favored reducing contacts between coalition forces and the Iraqi population in the belief that the presence of outsiders was inciting violence. Initiatives to increase contact with local communities were tolerated only as exceptions to this policy.37 Anbar’s Sunnis and coalition forces thereafter cooperated to remove insurgent cancers from threatened neighborhoods. In Iraq, as in Northern Ireland and Southern Philippines, early mistakes were overcome to tilt the scales to counterinsurgent advantage. There are other historical cases in which individuals or small groups of insurgents turned on former comrades to aid a counterinsurgent cause. Few, however, are the conflicts in which the numbers changing side are on the scale of the Sunni Awakening. Similarly rare, Iraq provided a case of the oil spot process moving from the realm of theory to practice, granted with a bit of modification. Unlike in the original theory, in Anbar it was community members who cleansed spots of threats. While MacFar- land’s initial construction of outposts and subsequent patrolling were components of the oil spot process in its traditional sense and U.S. participation was crucial to counterinsurgent progress in Anbar, the Awaken- ing turned the theory on its head. The expanding spot emerged from within the population rather than an external source dropping fluid onto 212 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province Anbar’s fabric. The purgative forces were in place from the start and remained in place, rendering the sometimes precarious process of import- ing indigenous security forces to replace outgoing coalition units less crucial. Sons of Iraq training took place simultaneously with operations ousting AQI from its previous safe havens. It was Iraqis, frequently former insurgents themselves, who increasingly took the lead in clearing and securing communities. It was their insights that informed the design of influence campaign messages, further increasing the number willing to move rightward on the continuum of relative interests. The movement made the oil spot theory a reality for a cost that was a proverbial drop in the ocean of coalition billions otherwise expended.

Nurturing the awakening The credibility of the American troops went up as soon as they stopped bringing along Iraqi police forces on patrol.38

The Awakening, and its accompanying Sons of Iraq, was initially an American- Sunni partnership. It was the U.S. government that first funded the Sons of Iraq, not Baghdad’s Ministry of Interior. Supporting Sheik Sattar and other of Anbar’s Sunni leaders required marginalizing the province’s governor; so too did U.S. continued backing of the Awakening demonstrate that there were limits to American support for Iraq’s government in Baghdad. The initiative followed recognition that Shia politicians were not going to address Sunni community needs without coalition pressure. Solicitations by minor sheiks such as Sattar did not produce a sudden anti- AQI uprising throughout the province. Anbar’s population was like any other; most were pragmatic fence sitters awaiting emergence of a victor. Sheiks and Americans alike sought allies in the competition with AQI. Lack of a viable formal government enhanced religious leaders’ already considerable influence when dealing with disputes or otherwise assuming roles formally held by state authorities. Coalition negotiations and demonstrations of good faith paid off. Messages broadcast from mosques first moderated, then came to air fatwas condemning Al Qaeda once the combined effects of the Sons of Iraq, Iraqi security forces, and American troops convinced clerics they too could safely oppose AQI dictates. Sermons likewise encour- aged Anbar’s young males to back the Awakening by joining local forces or one of the several Iraqi state security organizations.39

The issue of militias We want no tribal militias. The only people to carry weapons are those authorized by the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense. Anyone who is not a government of Iraq authorized security officer we’ll consider an enemy.40 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 213 The U.S. Army wasn’t assisting the government of Iraq to create a safe environment; it was creating that environment despite the government.41

Notwithstanding Sattar’s politically savvy reassurances in the first of the above quotes, it will be recalled that initial Sunni approaches to coalition representatives asked only that their militias be left to their own devices as they took action against Al Qaeda. Not backing an ineffective province governor was one thing for the Americans; backing a non- state sponsored purveyor of violence was quite another. Steps had to be taken to legitimize and ensure some measure of control over the volunteers. Paying, providing some equipment, and delivering tactical backup were first steps. Assur- ing the fledgling police- of-sorts were more a danger to insurgents than friends and fellow fighters meant they also had to be trained. Ensuring they were recognizable as legitimate bearers of weapons meant they needed uniforms. It also necessitated that their actions be coordinated with those of other security force organizations. That implied coming to some agreement regarding who was in charge. Ideally Iraqi security force commanders would have brought the Sons of Iraq into the fold and provided the supervision necessary; better that their countrymen oversee them from the outset given their expected eventual incorporation into the country’s defense structure. The problem was finding Iraqi police - com manders sufficiently skilled and free of prejudice to provide that leadership. This short- term operational need also had a longer- term counterpart. Savvy leaders realized that today’s Son of Iraq could return to insurgent status in the months or years to come were Iraq not to put a DDR plan in place for the day when Iraq no longer needed the 90,000 men and women in Sons or Daughters of Iraq ranks by spring 2008.42 Iraqi leaders in Baghdad unfortunately suffered from both far and nearsightedness. It was the Americans who would find themselves responsible for the newest members of the counterinsurgent coalition as federal politicians’ sectarianism, bureaucratic inertia, and incompetence bred little other than inaction or obstructive behavior. The difficulties became particularly acute when Shia politicians failed to incorporate the Sons of Iraq into Iraq’s security force structure.43 Such obstinacy not only worked counter to unification of a badly fragmented Iraq. It also risked undoing the considerable good the Sons of Iraq were bringing to Anbar and other provinces. A single squadron (battalion- sized cavalry unit) – the 3rd Squadron, 1st U.S. Cavalry Regi- ment – benefited from the Sons providing over 600 intelligence reports on insurgents; the auxiliaries revealed the location of 58 weapons caches and 32 IEDs during a five- month period in late 2007.44 The militia also helped Americans defeat previously proven insurgent tactics. Activities requiring public gatherings such as police recruiting had been favorite targets for AQI suicide bombers. Those targets disappeared when tribes assumed responsibility for filling Sons of Iraq ranks.45 The raison d’être for 214 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province the Awakening was the protection of local communities. Denying Al Qaeda these mass casualty coups both protected Anbar’s citizens and denied AQI the propaganda benefits such successful attacks had in undermining public faith in the coalition’s ability to secure the population. There was, unfortunately, a darker side to the Sons of Iraq program as well. Vigilante activities targeting AQI increased once the Sons of Iraq were formally recognized. Bodies of Al Qaeda members were found in the dim light of Iraqi dawns, signs identifying them as AQI draped around their necks should any doubt the reason for their demise. Reining in such illegitimate behaviors kept coalition leaders busy, an end particularly important in the light of Shia politicians’ fears of the Sunni militia. We have noted that the American Surge complemented the Awakening- induced momentum. Most of the additional U.S. soldiers went to Baghdad or its immediate surrounds. That meant supporting forces were in place as the counterinsurgent uprising found life in areas other than Anbar. The Sons of Iraq initiative might have dissipated amidst the tangled tentacles of Baghdad sectarianism had it not been for the presence of additional coalition personnel to aid in sustaining the impetus. By spring 2008 there were Awakening- motivated groups in almost two- thirds of Iraq’s provinces;46 their activities and the increased U.S. manpower meant more American forces could focus on subduing Muqtada al Sadr’s Shia militia elements and other threats as more local communities were able to protect themselves.47 Sons of Iraq began to gain formal entry into law enforcement ranks despite reservations in Baghdad thanks to coalition battalion and brigade commanders’ personally championing the transition. Over half of the movement’s members were under Iraqi rather than U.S. control by early November 2008, an accomplishment with social implications at least as significant as those security related. 51,000 entered job training programs or received positions in government in Baghdad alone. United States support included assistance in establishing vocational training schools, apprenticeship programs, and work placement initiatives.48 Sons- induced oil spots spread more than along the security line of operation. Transition into state security forces was only one part of a much wider integration of Iraq’s Sunni population into post-Saddam society; many also chose to participate in the national political process after having previously boy- cotted elections. Progress in assimilating Sons of Iraq representatives into the country’s formal policing systems did not come easily. U.S. commanders confronted Baghdad leaders who were more creative in finding ways to block the Sunni- preponderant initiative than they were in governing. Sons of Iraq membership lists submitted to fill national security force positions were rejected for trivialities. Officials denied movement leader promotions on technicalities. Rank and file had weapons confiscated for allegedly lacking requisite permits. Those initially transitioned from U.S. to Iraqi control Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 215 were often given only temporary employment involving menial labor. In January 2009, government representatives reportedly planned to bring between 20 and 30 percent of the Sons of Iraq into the country’s security services. Little more than 10 percent had obtained such positions more than 18 months later.49 Shia leaders rushed to set up obstacle upon obstacle rather than recognize opportunity’s knock, this at a time when AQI was coming to realize its earlier mistakes, compensating in part by offering Sons of Iraq members larger salaries than were being paid by the Ameri- cans or Iraqi government (when the latter actually met its wage obligations). The country’s head of the National Reconciliation Committee declared, “fighting the Al Qaeda organization does not mean you are giving service to the government or to the people and that you deserve gifts, rank, presents, or benefits. It is a national duty,” apparently overlooking the pay police, members of the armed forces, or he as a public official received as a matter of course.50 This as the government continued to ignore Shia militia incursions into Sunni communities and underfunded recovery programs in the latter neighborhoods.

Early missteps, later recovery: premature transition of authority and failure to retain leverage “We didn’t know how bad [the collusion] was,” Casey told me, “between the police and the militia death squads because we weren’t permitted to deploy U.S. advisers into police stations until ‘06.” . . . The two elections and the constitutional referendum in 2005 had strengthened, not weakened, the bonds of sectarian identity.51

The story behind the story of the Awakening is one of an American phoenix rising from the ashes of previous mistakes. The disbanding of the Iraq Army and overzealous de-Ba’athification meant there was no in-place foundation for building a force that would secure communities once the occupiers chose to depart. It was a truth with both tactical and broader effects. The Americans had previously committed the cardinal sin of sending their soldiers and marines into Anbar communities only to create a security vacuum when they later departed. Insurgent vengeance had crippled counterinsurgent efforts, signaling as it did the ephemeral nature of the outsiders’ presence and inability of the Iraqi state to provide security. In one example, U.S. marines departed Haditha to support a November 2004 offensive in Fallujah. Twenty-one police died two weeks later when insurgents overran the town’s police station. The Americans unsurprisingly had little success in recruiting replacements for the lost law enforcement personnel when they later returned.52 The coalition was also slow to connect the dots when it came to civic action. Leaders believed new schools, medical clinics, or other acts of good will would by their very nature win public support. Americans instead 216 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province discovered that building structures could undermine rather than promote coalition objectives. A newly constructed school became a derelict monument to outsider ignorance when construction proceeded without plans for the provision of power, water, and teachers; the transport of students; consideration of student gender; long- term maintenance; and protection of those who worked in or attended the facility. Only too slowly did the U.S. come to realize that local input before construction and reliable assurances that someone could ably assume responsibility for the result were essential to obtaining positive benefit. Such mistakes meant coalition leaders in mid- 2006 Anbar found themselves looking at hurdles of their own making with seemingly no way to overcome them. Assuming the risk associated with supporting Anbar’s Sunnis carried with it the benefit of sweeping away many of the obstacles in the equivalent of an operational second. The decisions to disband the Iraqi Army and to purge the government of Ba’athists are widely recognized as errors. Two other judgments of longer lasting consequence received less attention: the rushed transition of authority to an unprepared Iraqi government and the related failure of coalition officials to retain sufficient leverage to force those officials back on track when they strayed from a path of serving the Iraqi people and coalition objectives. The judicial system was one area to suffer. Arguably even less prepared to handle police, court, and prison functions than was the case in Solomon Islands or with Stormont in Northern Ireland, Baghdad authorities chose to categorize insurgents as criminals rather than try them in military tribunals or otherwise adapt for the other- than- peacetime conditions facing the country.53 The result was often release of former enemy combatants due to political favoritism, sectarian bias, or an inability to meet standards of evidence unrealistic in light of the levels of violence still plaguing the country. Once again, civilians who had cooperated with coalition forces suffered the consequences when those released returned to communities. Led by a United States naively convinced of an inherent good in democratic government, Iraqi elections saw too few qualified representatives elected. The situation could have been different had the U.S. chosen to surrender governing authority piecemeal as segments of the Iraqi government demonstrated a capability to assume their responsibilities. Nothing dictated that the coalition officially wash its hands of all governing responsibilities simultaneously. Nor was it essential that no strings be attached subsequent to transition of those responsibilities. Division commander Major General Peter Chiarelli found his efforts ignored by Shia officials when he sought to redress living conditions in Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhoods. Instead,

the government was shutting down electricity and health clinics in Sunni districts. While Baghdad was being torn apart by violence, provincial and city councils, in league with militias intent on driving the Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 217 Sunnis out of the city, had refused to meet with the U.S military commanders.54

Only U.S. forces patrolled the streets of Ramadi in the year before the Awakening as Sunni communities there and elsewhere received little if any state support. The Iraqi Army and police were thus notable only in their absence in a city that had lost four province governors to murder, kidnapping, or insurgent coercion so effective as to cause them to flee office and whose population plunged from 350,000 to some 200,000 in the years following Saddam Hussein’s fall.55

Getting it right in Anbar “Don’t talk to sheiks,” came the order. “We want the Iraqi government to work first.”. . . “You know what”? [Lieutenant Colonel Church, USMC] replied. “There is no Iraqi government out here, there’s nothing – there’s only sheiks.” The reply: “You’ve got to enable the government.” Church would counter, “There’s no government! You’ve got a governor who sits on his ass and doesn’t do jack. We’ve got to engage the sheiks.”56

The Awakening was the consequence of negotiation. Each side had something the other wanted. Both put themselves at considerable hazard, the sheiks more so because theirs were actions that instantly made them targets for AQI ire. These were street deals; each side had to prove itself to the other. Trust came slowly. The dangers if that trust was violated were considerable just as were the potential payoffs. Both sides ultimately had the same objective of ridding communities of Al Qaeda. What remained was determining how to get there from different sides of the challenge. Gaining trust was at times a matter of providing what was needed without being asked. A suicide bomber drove an explosives- laden dump truck to the gates of a newly constructed police station in northern Ramadi’s Jazeera district as Sheik Sattar was contemplating his approach to the Americans in late August 2006. Flame washed over the protective outer wall and onto the building within. Previous catastrophes had been followed in close order by the departure of the survivors. Not that warm Iraqi summer day. The survivors returned their shredded national flag to its position atop the shattered facility. Americans provided replacement uniforms, weapons, ammunition, body armor, and vehicles before the day of disaster had passed. Anbar’s police were back patrolling Jazeera’s streets the same afternoon. Al Qaeda would strike other of Anbar’s police stations in the following weeks. Iraqi and American responses would be the same. Iraqis provided the heart, Americans the material. Sunni communities watched and were impressed. The Awakening was a local phenomenon, much as were Soldados de mi Pueblo in Colombian communities. It was crucial not to demand that it 218 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province become otherwise. Requiring Anbaris to join the Iraqi Army would have deprived communities of the very men needed to take the fight to Al Qaeda, men who were at once defending their neighborhoods, homes, extended families, and others from an adversary only too willing to kidnap and kill innocents in retribution. The time would come when those in the Sons of Iraq could be offered an alternative of joining the military once family and friends were freed of AQI’s threat. It also took courage for U.S. commanders approached by Sunni sheiks to act in the face of superiors’ doubts. There was call for courage on the part of those at those higher echelons as well – courage in granting subordinates the authority to take risks in day- to-day decision making – along with wisdom in recognizing those subordinates’ understanding of local conditions might be sharper than their own. It was COIN leadership in the proverbial nutshell, leadership far easier to describe than practice: the willingness to allow subordinates the freedom to exercise judgment despite levels of experience and access to information inferior to one’s own. There was a second aspect to those seniors’ courage fortunately not called upon: that of defending subordinates when the outcomes proved less than favorable.

The role of strategy: to guide and enable The debate in Washington seemed to continually lag about six months behind events on the ground in Iraq. The tide was turning in Ramadi, but it had little to do with decisions made or not made in Washington.57

I do not recall a CJTF- 7 [Combined Joint Task Force- 7] campaign plan, but I may have missed it.58

There is no little irony in the Awakening’s progress coming about despite resistance from some on high. It is a Janus- faced irony, however, for the leaders making the critical decisions in Anbar Province were aware that their actions were bolstering strategic ends even if those in Baghdad and Washington were not. Leaders in Anbar at times better understood the strategic opportunity at hand than did others whose overarching guidance they were following. The strategic guidance was valid; the devil was in the details of its local application. One might wonder how the occasional general, colonel, and subordinate at the lower echelons could better serve coalition strategy than officials who were responsible for its design. The lack of an effective and broadly dissemi- nated Iraq- wide campaign plan goes far in explaining the disconnection. Leaders one or two levels below senior officials in Baghdad had to search less- than-formal sources for political and military guidance: announcements to the media, verbal instructions during visits, or others often general in character and perhaps open to varied interpretations. Military subordinates Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 219 rely on orders and plans to explain what is explicitly expected of them in addition to that inferred. The U.S. Army has long employed what it calls the military decision making process, a key step of which requires subordinate commands to determine both specified and implied tasks, the latter often no less significant than the former. The trained soldier is therefore bred to understand how to respond when a situation falls outside the bounds of specific counsel. It is when one confronts the miasma of uncertainty that past experience, professional training, and personal judgment must serve where detailed guidance does not or cannot. Was the coalition to support Bagh- dad’s at best suspect representatives or instead to risk undermining the formal government’s authority when the welfare of the population and coalition objectives were better served by doing so? To those leaders in Washington and Baghdad – even some in Fallujah, less than 30 miles from Ramadi – such support was inseparable from coalition ends. That was not the case on Anbar streets. The lack of an early campaign plan goes far in explaining why tactical military activities were at times poorly coordinated with other lines of operation seeking to bolster development of Iraq’s government and economic institutions. Like the score for a concerto, a campaign plan provides the direction needed to create music from many different instruments. The players must be skilled and the conductor able, but without written music their efforts will be disharmonious. Though not on the level of disbanding the Iraqi Army, the decision to separate coalition forces from the population by moving them to large forward operating bases could have been another mistake with lasting consequences. Its wrongheadedness was fortunately limited given its quick reversal, a change of course instituted by more savvy commanders even before the arrival of General Petraeus. The move of units from forward operating bases to joint security stations and combat outposts – often no more than a single building surrounded by defensive barriers – provided the tactical signature of a strategy seeking to establish lasting relationships between coalition forces, their Iraqi security force partners, and members of local populations. It was another component of an approach that eventually found expression in a campaign plan, one melding renewed contact with Iraqi communities, progress in Sunni areas thanks in part to the Awakening, and increased coalition strength due to the Surge. Coherency brought progress. As noted, citizen willingness to provide information rose sharply and coalition effectiveness improved dramatically. Murders fell by 90 percent in Baghdad and attacks against Iraqis in general decreased by 80 percent between November 2006 and December of the following year. Vehicle- borne improvised explosive device assaults dropped by 70 percent in the same period. Change in Anbar was even more impressive. There were 350 attacks during the last week of September 2006; a year later the number was 37.59 It was in that earlier September that Sattar had met with less than a dozen sheiks and 40 of their fighters in what marked the founding of Anbar’s Awakening movement. 220 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province MacFarland realized Sattar was providing the momentum that pro- pelled the Awakening. There are insurgencies destroyed by decapitation; Harold Keke’s arrest in Solomon Islands was such as case. The key role of Sattar in stepping forward was potentially an instance of the same being true for a counterinsurgency. The coalition lacked the manpower to protect the entirety of the population from AQI but it could provide security for those whose influence marked them as a strategic asset. A tank resided prominently in the sheik’s yard 24 hours a day.60 Other key leaders received similar protection with MacFarland’s command enabling the creation of neighborhood watches involving deputized and screened members of local tribal militias, use of U.S. or Iraqi Army forces, and defense of those leaders’ wider communities.61

Security: a necessary but not sufficient condition for success By and large, American leaders maintained the appearance of continuing to support Baghdad’s formally appointed representatives in Anbar Prov- ince while taking steps to ensure those officials did not block Sons of Iraq counter- AQI operations. It was political sleight of hand as the Americans officially backed the concept of Iraqi national government representation even as they actively supported working around unhelpful authorities. The cumbersome process was no replacement for having originally maintained more effective coercive powers over those in Baghdad and their local representatives, but that error was a fait accompli. Extracting value from what persuasive powers remained relied primarily on the strength of personalities such as those of U.S. ambassador Crocker and Petraeus. It was no less vital to reinforce the perception amongst Iraq’s Sunnis that power was shifting from insurgent to counterinsurgent. Spreading word and backing those messages with action eroded the ground from beneath the enemy. The combination reinforced a growing public confidence, fortified the trust of tribes underwriting the Sons of Iraq, and planted seeds of doubt in insurgent ranks. Emulating local use of loud- speakers to call the faithful to prayer, MacFarland’s unit broadcast news with reports taken from Arabic stations such as Al Iraqi and Al Jazeera, salting them with descriptions of local Al Qaeda attacks on Anbar’s citizenry.62

The risk that paid off: supporting Sunni militias The math was simple in 2005: there were insufficient coalition and qualified Iraqi security personnel to defeat Anbar’s insurgents while protecting its population. It was a typical counterinsurgent conundrum. Stability required national police and military sufficient in number and competence to replace coalition forces. Yet Iraqi security forces proved slow to train. They were overly sectarian. Sattar and his fellow sheiks’ tribal militias presented a Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 221 solution, but it was one with the potential to release even more dangerous demons should those forces turn on coalition and country. Militias had already proven a difficult disease to eradicate; Muqtada al Sadr’s JAM factions were only some among those with reputations for thuggery, factional violence, and criminality. The challenges once again confronted coalition leaders with the all too familiar COIN dilemma of determining which course of action was the least bad from a set of unappealing options. Relying on Sunni tribal militias had several desirable aspects despite the risks. Sheiks sponsored Sons of Iraq members. That provided a base, if sometimes imperfect, level of vetting as a sheik linked his reputation to his militiamen’s performance. Second, coalition and Sunni leaders agreed on militia responsibilities. Sources describing them as “neighborhood watch” groups were exercising a bit of wishful thinking given that members carried AK47s, but the description was fairly accurate in depicting what they sought to accomplish. Sons of Iraq were to augment local police by manning traffic checkpoints, patrolling community streets, and providing protection to those threatened by AQI. Lack of training and illiteracy meant that more demanding missions were beyond their capacity. Leaders imposed a further degree of control when called for: select Sons of Iraq units were only permitted to carry weapons once they had proved themselves reliable.63 There were cases of backsliding. Some individuals returned to the insurgency, but those numbers were far fewer than Shia politicians in Baghdad would have audiences believe. As of 2008, opponents of the program found themselves unable to cite a single case of a unit reverting en masse and there were “no indications that large numbers of Sons of Iraq have left their jobs.”64 Coalition forces had not been naïve with respect to the risks involved: leaders had guarded against more severe relapses by collecting biometric data on each recruit, facilitating later action against the wayward.65

Revisited beliefs in Anbar and beyond Any attempt to clear Mosul, however, must be carried out without the benefit of a functional Sons of Iraq program within the city itself. Some might point out that Mosul itself is 80% Sunni Arab and Nineveh is 60 percent Sunni Arab, which would seem quite adaptable to a SoI [Sons of Iraq] program. The tribal structures in these populations are quite weak, however, and do not lend themselves very easily to a SoI program like that launched in al- Anbar.66

It was a mistake to launch a huge number of programs across numerous geographic and infrastructure sectors rather than devote resources to a finite number of worthy and focusedwell- projects. This critical error caused “thousands of projects” to be incomplete at the time they 222 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province were transferred to the Government of Iraq, complicating efforts to finish them and substantially diminishing the impact of the overall reconstruction effort. There exists limited tangible evidence of any positive effects from the rebuilding program.67

The foregoing chapters make it only too clear that each counterinsurgency is unique, the nature of its challenges being dispersed across a broad palette of environments, societies, and threats even within the confines of a single country. Counterinsurgent approaches must vary accordingly. There is no universally applicable Awakening formula. Seldom will an enemy be as cooperative as was AQI. Rarely will local courage and char- isma coincide as in the case of sheik Sattar.68 Only infrequently will a coalition have leaders disposed to assuming the risks necessary to sustain such a movement. There are nevertheless valuable insights to be drawn from the combination of factors that together fueled counterinsurgent progress during the period in question. Baghdad’s intransigence suggest theirs was a government at best deserving of very conditional coalition support. That it was in place was something of a self-inflicted wound from which the U.S. and others still suffer.

Patience is a virtue when it comes to surrendering governing responsibilities Shia politicians’ resistance to the Awakening reinforces the need for an external counterinsurgent to retain coercive leverage as it transfers authority to an immature or uncooperative government. Progress in Iraq was too often achieved despite the country’s leadership rather than because of it, suggesting greater deliberation may be necessary when contemplating the timing of an occupier’s surrender of authority during future conflicts. Northern Ireland, Southern Philippines, Solomon Islands, and now Iraq are among our examples demonstrating that electoral success need not equate to either legitimacy or competence. That is notably the case when the electorate putting a government in office is unfamiliar with a citizen’s responsibilities inherent in democratic processes or available candidates prove less than adequate. The consequences of failing to retain the means of persuasion are many. The release of captured insurgents due to immature or corrupt legal systems or premature introduction of evidentiary standards more appropriate for peacetime than counterinsurgency frustrates soldiers and police in addition to undermining popular support when killers return to neighborhoods and extract revenge. Coalition intelligence rarely focuses on determining a potential indigenous government’s capability to assume governing responsibilities. Perhaps it should. Counterinsurgent leaders cannot be squeamish about maintaining and employing coercive leverage, albeit with an understanding that there must be a balance between local authorities’ Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 223 assertion of their authority, coalition objectives, and an understanding that these goals may differ from those of indigenous administrations. Yet a coalition is backing the indigenous government with the lives of its soldiers, currency, and member nations’ reputations. Such members have a right to expect some measure of support for their goals. Longer- term consequences of prematurely surrendering authority in Iraq could include reversal of the gains initiated in Anbar Province and elsewhere; the threat posed by ISIS in mid- 2014 suggests that might already be the case. The dangers were clear over a year before when in April 2013 one author expressed concern that

Anbar province seems to be re- awakening, but the awakening of 2013 is far different. Instead of fighting against AQI insurgents, the Sunnis, who comprise an estimated one- third of Iraq’s 33 million population, now assert that the Shi’ite-majority government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki treats them as second- class citizens, a cry that could re- ignite the vicious Sunni- Shi’ite civil war.69

More damning yet is a later 2013 evaluation:

After the Americans left, the Sahwa [“Awakening”] was more or less ditched by an Iraqi government loth to countenance the existence of any armed Sunni groups beyond its central control of Baghdad. Most of the tribal elders have now withdrawn their cooperation with Mr. Maliki’s government. Too fearful to conduct patrols in the streets, the security forces have been carrying out raids and mass arrests, further enraging Sunni civilians. “At the moment what fuels the conflict the most is the presence of central- government security forces in Sunni areas, where they arrest young men by the hundreds, torture them and then release them after money is paid,” says a seasoned foreign- aid worker. “You can see al-Qaeda benefiting from the heavy- handed presence of the armed forces,” he adds.70

That more did not side with ISIS in 2014 is less attributable to Maliki’s reported (and very belated) offer in June of that year to formally incorporate thousands of Sunni tribesmen into the country’s security forces than Sunnis’ general lack of desire to support the fundamentalist group.71 As did the British in Northern Ireland, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq badly mis- stepped during its first years. The consequences of those errors underlie problems remaining in the aftermath of coalition departure. It is now too late to recognize that “just because they are the government does not mean they deserve external counterinsurgents’ support” can apply even in cases where the in- place government is the product of the outsiders’ earlier misjudgments. Governing Iraq in the aftermath of the Hussein regime’s downfall was never going to be easy. That a series of appointed and elected governments 224 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province was imposed on the population so rapidly left too little time to adequately identify and ready those running for office or others destined to serve as bureaucrats. That the transition of authority took place in a matter of months and departure in well under a decade stands in sharp contrast to efforts in the Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone where assisting nations initially planned for years of capacity development and held course for a decade or more, this in cases where a government was already in place. Evid- ence suggests a longer- term commitment to readying Iraqi leaders prior to the occupiers’ surrendering authority would have been well advised. It likewise supports a corollary to this observation: it is a mistaken belief that government responsibilities must be handed over simultaneously rather than as components of government prove themselves ready to assume the reins.

Democracy is not an inherent good Iraq’s post- independent succession of governments – a sectarian constitutional monarchy, Ba’ath Party rule, and military dictatorship culminating in the repressive Hussein regime – provided meager preparation for its people to understand the nuances of representative government, develop competent political candidates, or determine which of those running merited votes. Elections characterized by voting along sectarian lines and boycott by many of the country’s Sunni population reinforces conclusions not only that transition to indigenous government was too rapid but also that elections were held prematurely. The hue of resultant governments saw Shia communities receiving benefits denied to other groups, particularly the Sunni. Perhaps democracy in its current form is the least bad alternative for an Iraqi government. Coalition leaders should nevertheless have considered other options. Choices included moving through phases that might or might not have culminated in democracy as it now exists. The eventual state of affairs might have employed something other than a strong central government, e.g., more decentralized authority with greater autonomy granted to governing bodies below national level. Slowing the pace of transition would have provided time for deeper deliberation. Post- World War II Germany’s U.S. occupation zone saw Landkreis (precinct) elections held in April 1946 followed by city council (May) and Länder (state) elections for constitutional convention representatives in June of that year, this in a country with fairly recent familiarity with democratic processes and a largely homogeneous society.72 The period between the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and national elections was only 22 months (March 2003–January 2005) in a country far less familiar with substantive voting and considerably more troubled by factional strife. Greater sharing of governing responsibilities between coalition and Iraqi authorities was another interim step foregone, a course of action that would have permitted external representatives to retain more effective means of influencing Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 225 equitable distribution of resources and otherwise diminishing sectarian strife within the country’s government as was seen in Sierra Leone and Solomon Islands.

Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way Religious sectarianism and rampant corruption are but two social norms continuing to cause concern regarding the outcome of Iraq’s counterinsurgency, if not its survivability as a truly sovereign state. JAM and a number of other insurgent groups demonstrated more interest in purging communities of competing religious factions than undermining the national government. Corruption frustrated officials during the implementation of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Community Stabili- zation Program and virtually every other coalition initiative.73 The same premature transition to indigenous authority and failure to retain more effective formal means of maintaining leverage over intractable officials assured that these and other obstacles remain largely unaddressed. Too little was done to redress the consequences of such norms. Too little could be done given that hurried surrender of responsibility.

Treat militias like a hot stove The key role played by the Sons of Iraq in turning the tide against AQI unfortunately had a darker side in the many militia groups falling under the rubrics of Jaish al- Mahdi, Badr Brigade, or one of many other names. There is also the peshmerga, the Kurdish militia with far and away the greatest numbers in Iraq that traces its origins to the early twentieth century and serves as the primary security force for the regional government in the north of the country.74 Together these organizations cover much of the spectrum regarding militia legitimacy, competency, extent of government control, and value in providing security for a population. Baghdad’s failure first to more effectively assume oversight of Sons of Iraq organizations during the critical period when the country lacked sufficient forces to provide community security and later to reintegrate its members may have already caused many to abandon a government none too deserving of their support. Whether the movement would ultimately have proven problematic under more favorable conditions will never be known. That Baghdad passed up what was potentially a bridge spanning sectarian waters is less debatable.

Build more social and less physical infrastructure The second quotation heading this section, that from a final report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, buttresses arguments 226 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province against presuming wholesale refurbishment of a country’s physical infrastructure is a necessary stone along a path to counterinsurgent success. The recurring theme of corruption in this and previous chapters suggests that undertaking large physical infrastructure projects in societies long used to waylaying funds is a course of action destined for difficult times.75 There is plentiful evidence that even those projects successfully completed disproportionately served Shia communities favored by a sectarian-scarred government. They conceivably deepened sectarian divides as a result. An external counterinsurgent will find it necessary to undertake some addressing of physical infrastructure shortcomings. Beyond those limited instances, however, focus on building government capacity and other aspects of social infrastructure seems a more promising and economical alternative rather than defaulting to a belief that large-scale reconstruction of physical infrastructure is mandatory.

Notes 1 Steven Metz, Iraq & The Evolution of American Strategy, Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008, p. 146. 2 Colonel Sean MacFarland, as quoted in William Doyle, A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq, New York: NAL Caliber, 2011, p. 127. 3 ISIS references include a number of alternative names for the organization based on the group relabeling itself or various translations of the names from Arabic. A non- exhaustive list includes Islamic State of Iraq and al- Sham (ISIS), Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State (IS), Daesh, or Da’esh, the last two being used primarily by Arabic speakers. 4 In keeping with the explanation in endnote 3 just above, “ISIS” is used throughout the remainder of the manuscript in keeping with general usage at the time of writing. 5 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, pp. 111–112. 6 For a concise and effective description of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s operations in Tal Afar, see Niel Smith, “Retaking Sa’ad: Successful Counterin- surgency in Tal Afar,” Armor (August 2007), available at: http://handle.dtic. mil/100.2/ADA486613 (accessed October 24, 2010). 7 Brigadier General J. B. Burton notes, There seems to be a notion that the SOI [Sons of Iraq] was a spontaneous national phenomena and that all good things flowed from Anbar. It is important to note that lessons were being shared but not offered as valid TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures] for implementation by senior leadership. In the late summer of 2006, we were transitioning, consolidating on the large forward operating bases [FOBs], and increasingly distanc- ing ourselves from the tactical problem, and thus diluting our understanding of it. In Baghdad there was no Anbar- like tribal structure. As such there was no “tribal” answer to the Baghdad issues because Baghdad was so complicatedly different than the Sunni havens of Anbar. Burton also records that U.S. commanders in some locations had to deal with local communities through false government bodies called Neighborhood Advisory Councils (NACs) [that had been created] by the coalition/PRC [Program Review Committee] to provide a representative governing body to Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 227 the local citizens of Baghdad. Many of the members of these NACs were not from the local area, many of the more prominent members were no longer in Baghdad, and in some cases they were no longer in Iraq. . . . Resentment toward these disconnected governing bodies was palpable, except in the Shia areas where they were largely corrupt but still able to deliver resources to the citizens under the protection of the ISF [Iraqi security forces]. He went on to reinforce a point made elsewhere in this manuscript, to wit, “It suffices to say that the characteristics of conflict can vary widely over a very short distance.” Brigadier General James B. Burton email to Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Subject: RE: Chapter, February 4, 2013. 8 Jim Michaels, A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq’s Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010, pp. 54–55. 9 Afghanistan experienced the same resistance to negotiations. Pressure brought about the late 2007 dismissal of British diplomats from the theater who had sought to “turn” a senior Taliban commander. . . . They held secret meetings with Mansoor Dadullah – a thorn in the side of British military in Helmand province – to try to persuade him to break with the Taliban and form his own political party and militia, according to Afghan government sources. If they had succeeded it would have been a coup for the western allies shoring up the government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Instead, Mervyn Patterson, a high- ranking UN official, and Michael Semple, the acting head of the EU mission to Afghanistan, were expelled after an Afghan national “confessed” to Afghan intelligence that he had accompanied the two to a secret meeting with Dadullah in Musa Qala. (Dean Nelson, “Expelled British Envoys Tried to Turn Taliban Chief,” Sunday Times (of London), January 6, 2008, 4, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ news/uk/article3137692.ece (accessed July 7, 2009)) One suspects that pressure was as much due to an Afghan president fearing the political potential of a new political rival as to any disgruntlement in London. History provides examples aplenty of insurgent leaders who replace standing heads of government either because their movement is ultimately successful or they prove more popular than a sitting head of state during elections. Kenyatta in Kenya, Nyerere in Tanzania, and Museveni in Uganda provide but three examples within a single generation. Cultivating Taliban as political competitors could not have been an attractive option for a president who later demonstrated limited respect for free elections. 10 Morgan Mann, “The Colonel Faisal that I Know,” Small Wars Journal, January 3, 2012, available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-colonel-faisal- that- i- know (accessed January 8, 2012). 11 Patrick Cockburn, “Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad?” The Inde- pendent (February 15, 2008), available at: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middleeast/is- the-us- really-bringing- stability-to- baghdad-782425.html (accessed August 3, 2012). 12 David C. Gompert et al., Reconstruction Under Fire: Case Studies and Further Ana- lysis of Civil Requirements, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010, p. 113. 13 Justin Kelly, “Cutting Gordian Knots & Thinking Hedgehog Thoughts: The Military Irrelevance of Hearts and Minds,” Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces 37, No. 2 (2011): 49. 14 “Sovereignty without security: Iraq without America,” The Economist 401 (December 31, 2011): 30. 15 David Kilcullen, “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,” Small Wars Journal (August 29, 2007), available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/08/anatomy-of-a- tribal-revolt (accessed September 24, 2010). 228 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 16 “Al- Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI),” (November 6, 2008), Australian Government, available at: www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/nationalsecurity.nsf/Page/What_Govern- ments_are_doing_Listing_of_Terrorism_Organisations_Al- Zarqawi_Network (accessed September 28, 2010). 17 Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008, New York: Penguin, 2009, p. 332. 18 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, 108; David C. Gompert et al., Reconstruction Under Fire: Unifying Civil and Military Counterinsurgency, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, 2009, pp. 46–47. 19 Ricks, The Gamble, pp. 66–67. 20 Brigade combat teams (BCTs) are U.S. Army organizations consisting of several battalion, company, and sometimes smaller units representing various branches. They may also include representatives of other services and nations. The formal description is as follows: “As combined arms teams, brigade combat teams form the basic building block of the army’s tactical formations. They are the principal means of executing engagements. Three standardized brigade combat teams designs exist; heavy, infantry, and Stryker. Battalion- sized maneuver, fires, reconnaissance, and sustainment units are organic to a brigade combat team.” Joint Publication 1–02, November 8, 2010, as amended through November 15, 2012, 34. 21 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, p. 268; Michaels, Chance in Hell, pp. 80–81. 22 Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013, p. 246. 23 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, pp. 116–117. 24 Michaels, Chance in Hell, pp. 111 and 146. 25 The Surge consisted of a nearly 30,000 increase in U.S. military strength. Announced by President George W. Bush in January 2007, the units arrived between February and June of that year with U.S. force levels returning to pre- Surge strength by late July 2008. Iver Gabrielsen, “Why Did Violence Decline During the US ‘Surge’ in Iraq?” Small Wars Journal (February 4, 2013), available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-did-violence- decline-during- the- us-“surge”-in- iraq (accessed February 19, 2013). 26 Sabrina Tavernise, “Despair Helped Turn Iraqis, but Not Without Rarer Element of Trust,” The New York Times (October 24, 2010): 14. 27 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, p. 114. 28 The amount was later reduced to US$240 per month. Leaders received slightly higher salaries. 29 Andrew W. Koloski and Jon S. Kolasheski “Thickening the Lines: Sons of Iraq, A Combat Multiplier,” Military Review (January–February 2010), available at: www.army.mil/professionalWriting/volumes/volume7/february_2009/2_09_3. html (accessed October 14, 2010): 44. 30 It is unclear to what extent the forming of volunteer groups in Anbar influenced similar movements elsewhere. Colonel (U.S. Army) J. B. Burton, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in western Baghdad in the 2006–2007 period observed: I am not certain there was an inspired awakening council in Baghdad . . . at least not in West Baghdad. The Anbar movement was instead commented on as interesting [but] not adapted as a coalition strategy until after the arrival of General Petraeus. As such, it was more of a “lesson observed” than a “lesson learned.” Some of us found our way through engagement with legitimate local Sunni leaders in the western portions of northwest Baghdad. Only after our COPs [combat outposts] were established there did we begin to see the introduction of Anbar Sunnis offering assistance to Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 229 those local Sunnis who had decided to join ranks with the U.S. and ISF [Iraqi security forces]. Perhaps there was an underlying Iraqi information current from Anbar into Baghdad, but it was not evident [to those of us who were in Baghdad at the time]. The Sunni populace slowly began to embrace our efforts as we established COPs and fought Sunni and Shia militias for control of neighborhoods. Countering arguments that the Awakening was deliberately spread via proselyt- izing from Ramadi, Burton believed, “the turn would have come much faster had the inspiration been driven by agents from Anbar.” Burton comments. 31 “Al- Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI);” Farook Ahmed, “Sons of Iraq and Awakening Forces,” Institute for the Study of War, February 21, 2008, available at: www. understandingwar.org/backgrounder/sons- iraq-and- awakening-forces (accessed September 25, 2010); Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics and the Endgame in Iraq, New York: Random House, 2008, pp. 332–333. The Sons of Iraq were originally known as “Concerned Local Citizens.” 32 Tavernise, “Despair Helped Turn Iraqis,” 14. 33 Hack Healy and Yasir Ghazi, “Iraqi Women Work to Halt Bombers, but Pay- check Is Elusive,” The New York Times (March 2, 2011), available at: www. nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html (accessed March 2, 2011); Michaels, Chance in Hell, p. 143. 34 “Al- Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI).” 35 Ibid. 36 Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task, New York: Portfolio, 2013, p. 237. 37 Burton comments. 38 Gabrielsen, “Why Did Violence Decline?” 39 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, p. 270. 40 Sattar albu- Risha as quoted in Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, p. 154. 41 West, Strongest Tribe, p. 294. 42 “Al- Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI).” 43 Koloski and Kolasheski, “Thickening the Lines,” 51. 44 Ibid., 52. 45 Michaels, Chance in Hell, p. 140. 46 Greg Bruno, “Finding a Place for the ‘Sons of Iraq’,” Council on Foreign Rela- tions, (January 9, 2009), available at: www.cfr.org/publication/16088/finding_a_ place_for_the_sons_of_iraq.html#p2 (accessed September 28, 2010). 47 Gabrielsen, “Why Did Violence Decline,” 266–267. 48 Bruno, “Finding a Place.” 49 Ibid. 50 Timothy Williams and Durand Adnan, “U.S.-Allied Sunnis Quitting in Iraq to Rejoin Rebels,” The New York Times 160 (October 17, 2010): 1 and 12, citing comments by Zuhair al- Chalabi. 51 West, The Strongest Tribe, p. 117. 52 Ibid., p. 151. 53 West, The Strongest Tribe, p. 180. Original source: Michael J. Frank, “U.S. Military Courts and the War in Iraq,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 30 (May 2006): 746. 54 West, The Strongest Tribe, p. 118. 55 Ibid., p. 147. 56 Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, p. 197. 57 Michaels, Chance in Hell, pp. 164–165. 58 Andrew Graham (Lieutenant General, British Army, retired), “Iraq 2004: The View from Baghdad,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, (eds.) Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew Strachan, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013, p. 102. 230 Iraq’s Al Anbar Province 59 West, The Strongest Tribe, p. 327. 60 Michaels, Chance in Hell, p. 161. 61 Niel Smith and Sean MacFarland, “Anbar Awakening: The Tipping Point,” Military Review (March–April 2008), available at: www.army.mil/professional- Writing/volumes/volume6/april_2008/4_08_3_pf.html (accessed May 19, 2014). 62 Ricks, The Gamble, pp. 69–70. 63 Ahmed, “Sons of Iraq and Awakening Forces.” 64 Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006–2008, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008, p. 362; “Sons of Iraq joining al- Qaida?” UPI.com Special Report, August 11, 2010, available at: www.upi.com/Top_News/ Special/2010/08/11/Sons- of-Iraq- joining-al- Qaida/UPI- 33881281548718/ (accessed October 10, 2010). The official making the statement was Zuhair Chalabi, director of an Awakening Council reconciliation campaign. 65 Ahmed, “Sons of Iraq and Awakening Forces,” 10. 66 Ibid. 67 The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), “Learning from Iraq,” March 2013, available at: www.sigir.mil/files/learningfromiraq/ Report_-_March_2013.pdf (accessed June 30, 2013). 68 Sattar would have been aware of the risks he ran. A similar 2005 uprising in Al Qaim (the western Anbar Province town mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this chapter) saw members of the Albu Mahal tribe resist Al Qaeda. AQI executed nine tribal members in retribution. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, pp. 186–187. 69 Linda Lavender, “The Re- Awakening of Anbar,” civil–military Fusion Centre paper, April 2013. 70 “Going all wrong: Civil strife in Iraq,” The Economist 409 (November 2, 2013): 45–46. 71 “The Islamic State Risks Alienating Iraq’s Sunnis,” Stratfor Global Intelligence, August 2, 2014, available at: www.stratfor.com/analysis/islamic- state-risks- alienating-iraqs- sunnis#axzz3Ewk96F3A (accessed October 2, 2014). 72 Frederick Taylor, Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany, New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011, p. 281. 73 Russell W. Glenn, et al., Evaluation of USAID’s Community Stabilization Program (CSP) in Iraq: Effectiveness of the CSP Model as a Non- lethal Tool for Counterinsur- gency, Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2009, available at: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN461.pdf (accessed June 30, 2013). 74 Lionel Beehner, “Iraq: Militia Groups,” Council on Foreign Relations, June 9, 2005, at: www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq- militia-groups/p8175#p3 (accessed June 30, 2013). 75 Over US$60 billion was spent on programs and projects in Iraq, a major portion of that on large infrastructure projects. See SIGIR, “Learning from Iraq.” 9 Further contemplation on revised beliefs

The most significant aspect of Templer’s handling of the Emergency was his desire to win the hearts and minds of the people. Thus, the Informa- tion Services Department and the Psychological Warfare Department kept the civilian population informed of government policies, communist atrocities and disruption activities. He believed that the people should be well treated and their grievances heard. He brought the concept of winning hearts and minds to Malaya, a term that would be used over a decade later by U.S. troops trying to win over the Viet Cong in Vietnam.1

[Dr. Huw] Bennett has found a remarkable statement from the 1948–51 High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, arguing that the Malayan counterinsurgency could not be fought within the law and, paradoxically, that it was necessary for the Police and Army to break the law every day to maintain law and order. Bennett argues that the government did not authorise the deliberate killing of civilians but it “created a permissive environment by encouraging a hostile attitude towards an entire population” which meant that the behaviour of the security forces varied “depending on the local interpretation of ambiguous rules.”2

In Malaya, as [Templer] had said himself, the shooting business had only been 25 per cent of the problem – the other 75 per cent was winning the hearts and minds of the people. (How he wished he had never invented that bloody phrase which had become such a cliché!)3

The above quotations provide some sense of how differently lessons from the waning days of the colonial counterinsurgency era are understood today. The Malayan Emergency is at once perhaps the most influential and most greatly misinterpreted COIN episode from the past 100 years. Many factors fundamental to ultimate counterinsurgent success during that campaign receive but rare notice thanks to selective emphasis or superficial study. The following comprise a small sample of less emphasized British policies in Malaya that accompanied more broadly touted efforts:

• Forcible resettlement of roughly a quarter of Malaya’s Chinese population, some half a million men, women, and children. 232 Further contemplation on revised beliefs • Collective punishments and control measures that included fines, curfews, and other restrictions on movement. • Detention without trial for periods of up to two years. • Deportations (including over 10,000 in the year 1949 alone). • Hundreds of executions by hanging.4

Considering but one of the above, a careful reader of history might wonder why forcible resettlement has not achieved equal billing alongside efforts to cultivate popular support in current doctrine, given its prominent role not only in Malaya but also instances such as the 1899–1902 Boer War, U.S. 1901–1903 Philippine Insurrection, similar programs in the Republic of Vietnam, Russia’s forcing refugees into tented camps in Chechnya, and Sri Lanka’s widespread use of forced incarceration following the Vanni campaign. An argument for championing forced resettlement as a key ingredient to success might gain additional following when one realizes that coalition use of concrete t- walls in many of Iraq’s early twenty- first-century cities was a rough urban equivalent meant to protect at- threat communities while denying insurgents easy access to residents they wished to harm, use that also offered some degree of influence in controlling and gathering intelligence from the benefiting populations. Though less palatable to today’s more liberal societies, policies such as this nonetheless merit identification in any objective evaluation of -the cam paigns of which they were a part. The conclusion to be drawn is not that efforts to win popular support were not helpful to eventual British success. The lesson – or rather the reminder – suggests we need to better study histories of past insurgencies and counterinsurgencies if we are to understand the orchestration (or lack thereof ) underlying successes and failures. All features are relevant, some because they still have application, others because they are no longer feasible and a counterinsurgent will have to employ other ways to achieve the benefits derived. For example, it is essential to remember that Malaya was a British colony during the Emergency. London controlled foreign policy; internal oversight was a matter of cooperation between British officials and sultans advised by the Malayan Civil Service.5 Media influenced relevant audiences far less then it did less than even a decade later in Vietnam or Northern Ireland. External support for insurgents, intra- colony social divides, ethnic discriminators, insurgent and counterinsurgent tactics, and many other characteristics of the conflict were sufficiently different from those of the twenty- first century that drawing lessons from the half- century and more ago demands great care even when one reads those histories carefully. Understanding the interactions between various factors is no less important. To what extent did orchestration of less benevolent aspects of hearts and minds approaches with those which were friendlier help to explain Britain’s ultimate success in Malaya? Further contemplation on revised beliefs 233 The same cautions, of course, also apply to campaigns from the past few decades. Conflicts yet to make their appearance will tend to share more characteristics with these while having increasingly less in common with others farther distant over our shoulders. Insurgency evolves; counterinsurgency must do likewise. How might a harder- nosed concept of hearts and minds been applied to meet the threat posed by looters in Iraq in early 2003, for example? The response by most units was one of non- interference; coalition leaders either believed they lacked the resources to address the challenge or hesitated to use lethal force when the consequences appeared limited merely to material loss. The soon-to-be counterinsurgents perhaps deemed the economic costs inconsequential (itself an arguable point). Regardless, infrastructure recovery and coalition legitimacy suffered years of setback thanks to the inaction. Damage to public structures hindered the reestablishment of local government as looters emptied administration buildings, destroyed land records, and stripped out hardware needed for the delivery of services. Failure to act undermined faith in the competency of the coalition forces as the population watched the outsiders tolerate chaos and deliberate destruction. A hard hand applied to a few might have instilled confidence rather than driving communities to turn to militias or other dubious sources of security. The term “rough justice” tends to be associated with circumstances in which punishment exceeds legal authority. Harold Keke’s killing of two youths on the Weathercoast beach of Guadalcanal or the actions of PIRA, RUF, and Northern Ireland’s loyalist militias qualify. But what of circumstances calling for “just roughness,” such as that perhaps forestalling looting with potentially strategic consequences? A counterinsurgency might or might not merit the status of war at a given point in time. It is certainly not peace, however, a seemingly obvious statement until one considers misjudgments dictating application of laws and evidentiary standards meant to apply in the absence of conflict as was the case in Northern Ireland and Iraq. Winning hearts and minds, unfortunate phrase or not, should not deny the exercise of legitimate force in the service of the public good and counterinsurgency objectives. History has yet to see an insurgency defeated by benevolence alone.

Revised beliefs Misunderstandings; misinterpretations; misapplication of policies, or misguided official direction: regardless of the underlying cause, failing to recognize past mistakes threatens to condemn future counterinsurgency operations to early setbacks and potential ultimate failure. It provides further cause for concern given bureaucracies’ tendency to resist change, resistance that extends the duration of damage inflicted in the wake of poor initial decisions. Further discussion of our nine revised beliefs appears below in the interests of avoiding missteps during campaigns to come. 234 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Revised belief 1 Military force can defeat an insurgency Grozny is no more. The contrast between the damaged Grozny before the latest battle and utter destruction afterwards could not be more pronounced. The literal leveling of the city points to the lessons that the Russian Armed Forces learned from their earlier battles.6

The army was now keenly aware that the problem was not going to be solved by military operations alone, nor indeed primarily by them.7

“Success in a counterinsurgency requires more than just military operations”8

No less an accepted authority on counterinsurgency than David Galula ruled out reliance on armed force as a means of overcoming insurgency, less from an ethical than from a practical perspective. Galula believed, “military operations could not by themselves bring a complete, definitive victory” in France’s Algerian campaign.9 Yet Rome in the first century ad, the second Chechnya campaign, and Sri Lanka’s prevailing over the LTTE demonstrate that the counterinsurgent willing to apply force with few constraints can suppress, perhaps even defeat, an ongoing insurgency. The stickler for definitions might offer that none of these three meets the definition of counterinsurgency employed here – “comprehensive civilian and military efforts taken to defeat an insurgency and to address any core grievances” given the apparent disregard for the second component of that description. That would be a matter of perspective. Each of the trio effectively addressed core grievances by crushing their expression. Rome’s first- century victory bought relative stability that lasted well into the following block of 100 years. Only the future will determine the robust- ness of Russia’s and Sri Lanka’s progress in smothering the rise of new leadership and renewal of grievances’ violent expression. Continuing resistance in both cases thus far constitutes little more than nuisance- level (barring the rare media- grabbing but limited effect event), a condition spanning over a decade in the case of Chechnya and approaching that duration in Sri Lanka. Officials in both Moscow and Colombo very likely consider that a success. Overwhelming force will not be in a liberal democracy’s counterinsurgency deck of cards, leastwise not at the operational and strategic levels of war. A command will find itself greatly constrained in terms of noncombatant casualties and collateral damage even when conditions permit its application at the tactical level. The coalition attacks in November 2004 in the Anbar Province city of Fallujah effectively purged the city of insurgents. Yet the earlier departure of most civilians goes far in distinguishing that battle from those in Chechnya and Sri Lanka.10 There was no “literal leveling of the city” as described by Timothy Thomas in the quotation above. The worst of the fighting in Fallujah lasted less than two weeks. It was limited to the city and its immediate environs. Despite these caveats, a Further contemplation on revised beliefs 235 conclusion that reliance on force remains a viable counterinsurgent tactical course of action should not be discounted even by liberal democracies’ militaries.11 The 2014 Insurgency and Countering Insurgency doctrine recognizes “there will be times when an overwhelming effort is necessary to destroy or intimidate an opponent and reassure the populace.”12 Such exceptions notwithstanding, there remains a danger of relying too greatly on force. The British in Northern Ireland made the necessary adjustment after their setback on Bloody Sunday. So too did U.S. forces in Anbar in the aftermath of initial stumbles as did the Armed Forces of the Philippines and those representing the Colombian government. How much more quickly progress would have come about had these forces demonstrated more restraint from the start can never be more than a “what if ” exercise. The British in Sierra Leone and the ten- nation Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands avoided the pitfall to good effect. The yin and yang of force and restraint challenges counterinsurgent leaders at all levels. The Iraq coalition’s hesitation to stop looting provides only one example demonstrating that too much restraint can damage no less than too little. There are times when the counterinsurgent must fill a vacuum of authority. That responsibility might require employing considerable force. A counterinsurgent cannot afford to confuse steps taken to avoid alienating a population with a popularity contest. Exem- plary force in the form of shooting armed looters, for example, might be a first step in reestablishing the rule of law. International legal guidelines will provide clear guidance in some instances; commanders’ judgment molded by an understanding of counterinsurgent objectives will have to suffice in others. The examples provided in the previous chapters make it only too evident that senior leaders’ must provide direction regarding the use of force early and ensure its application demonstrates as much consistency as possible. Those samples also demonstrate quite clearly the difference between reliance on military force as applied in Chechnya and Sri Lanka and that used by organizations representing liberal democracies.

Revised belief 2 The population is not the center of gravity. Part of it might be . . . or might not be Rebel groups that emerge in environments rich in natural resources or with the external support of an outside patron tend to commit high levels of indiscriminate violence; movements that arise in resource- poor contexts perpetrate far fewer abuses and employ violence selec- tively and strategically.”13

The International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF ) campaign plan, redrawn in 2008, was based on the notion that the Afghan population was the “strategic centre of gravity;” that is, their perceptions were judged to be the most important variable to campaign success, 236 Further contemplation on revised beliefs and the campaign was therefore planned with the primary objective of gaining their support for the Afghan government.14

The people are the center of gravity.15

Thoughts regarding centers of gravity in a COIN context too often have their foundation in one of three misguided convictions:

1 Belief that the concept of center of gravity is itself inapplicable during counterinsurgencies16 2 The whole of a population is the center of gravity 3 Popular support is essential to both insurgent and counterinsurgent success.

Each receives attention in turn.

The center of gravity concept does not apply to counterinsurgencies Harold Keke’s arrest and imprisonment neutralized the most viable insurgent threat in Solomon Islands – his Guadalcanal Liberation Front militia – thereby bringing about the surrender of arms by competing groups. The argument that Keke or his GLF was the insurgent center of gravity is a strong one. The cases of Chechnya and Sri Lanka similarly suggest the possibility that the capital city of Grozny and northern Tamil Tiger armed forces were respective centers of gravity (though one might argue that LTTE leader Prabhakaran offers another instance of a particularly effective leader meriting that status). The loss of diamond and other natural resource income severely holed the RUF ship in Sierra Leone, offering another counterexample to those discarding the concept of center of gravity during a COIN campaign, as does Bogotá’s working with communities to marginalize the FARC and other insurgent groups. Recent history provides too many such cases to discard what has proven a valuable tool during the design and conduct of counterinsurgency campaigns.

The whole of a population is the center of gravity Examples of defaulting to some form of the population as center of gravity are plentiful both in the colonial and later periods. “The objective is the population” merited status as David Galula’s “first law” in his list of basic counterinsurgent warfare principles, which followed his previous conclusion that “the general consensus was that this war could only be won if we succeeded in divorcing the rebels from the population.”17 Fellow soldier Roger Trinquier was no less absolute as he likewise drew on personal experiences during the ultimately failed Algerian campaign: “We know that the sine qua non of victory in modern warfare is the unconditional Further contemplation on revised beliefs 237 support of the population.”18 Looking beyond the example of Algeria, arguably no passage from the writings of Mao Tse-Tung has been more influential than his describing “the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops” in which he likens the former “to water and the latter to the fish who inhabit 19it.” We perhaps detect echoes in Sir Robert Thompson’s “an insurgent movement is a war for the people” and no less in Otto Heilbrunn’s quoting of Colonel C. M. Woodhouse’s discussion of insurgent conflict:

There has never been a successful guerilla war conducted in an area where the populace is hostile to the guerillas, and conversely it is virtually impossible to stamp out a guerilla war in an area where the populace continues to support the guerillas.20

This is but a sampling of examples either directly identifying the population as the center of gravity or similarly implying such is the case. Yet the previous chapters provide counters aplenty. Sierra Leone’s RUF and Colombia’s FARC relegated their country’s populations to little more than sources of labor or recruits. Despite strong justifications for rural poor granting these insurgencies support – inequitable distribution of resources and government corruption among them – evolution of these movements from political to primarily criminal enterprises denied the respective populations status as insurgent centers of gravity. The precursor to the December 2006 U.S. Counterinsurgency manual, Field Manual- Interim 3–07.22, Counterinsurgency Operations, starkly stated, “In a counterinsurgency, the center of gravity is public support,” and, again later, “The center of gravity in counterinsurgency operations is the population.”21 The 2014 edition more wisely recognizes “the population is not necessarily the center of gravity for an insurgent.”22 This unconditional statement, while well advised, is nonetheless insufficient. The entirety of a population will never be a counterinsurgent’s center of gravity. Assuming otherwise is as unhelpful as a political candidate’s seeking to sway every member of a voting public. So general a focus squan- ders campaign dollars on diehard members of the opposing party. A more effective approach would avoid alienating voters already onside while dedi- cating the bulk of resources to winning over the potentially decisive unde- cided. A similar method makes sense for the counterinsurgent (or insurgent). Arguing that an entire citizenry merits center of gravity status wastes available assets no less than is the case with our candidate. Better to focus resources on segments of a population key to attaining COIN goals. Rural poor in Colombia and like portions of Southern Philippine society are among those with claims to such status. Northern Ireland and Anbar provide additional examples, components of the province’s Catholics qualifying in the first instance, select Sunni tribes in the latter. Though Harold Keke might have been the initial center of gravity in Solomon 238 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Islands, the greatest threat to RAMSI’s stymying insurgent reemergence in the aftermath of militia disarmament is politicians seeking to reintroduce corrupt practices. The voting public has proven a vital center of gravity for that coalition (demonstrating that COIN centers of gravity can vary over time). Conditions implying that some part of a population merits center of gravity status implies influencing those near the middle or right (accomplice/ally) end of the continuum of relative interests. It makes further sense to concentrate efforts to persuade on individuals and groups qualifying as influence magnifiers: parties able to sway others to support counterinsurgency objectives or deny assistance to insurgent movements. General Stanley McChrystal witnessed insurgents applying this approach in Afghanistan:

Most Taliban infiltration followed a general pattern: Sensing fertile soil, the Taliban sent a vanguard element that became a menacing presence around town who met with and coopted local leaders who were not in power but who stood to gain from a change in the status quo. They then targeted powerful leaders, stirred sentiment, and cor- ralled it into a sprouting resistance.23

Popular support is essential to both insurgent and counterinsurgent success Earlier discussion has washed the foundation from beneath this third presumption regarding COIN centers of gravity. The FARC and RUF provide insurgent counterpoints while the Russian and Sri Lankan governments do so in the case of counterinsurgents. It is worth reiterating that none of these three misguided beliefs preclude the possibility that some portion of a population constitutes a center of gravity. Our example of Solomon Islands after Keke’s arrest is but one. Further, the counterinsurgent is wise to remember that key population segments might lie outside a campaign theater. An external power – certainly one representing a liberal democratic society – requires domestic backing, support that can bestow center of gravity standing on one or more segments of its domestic population. The directly threatened government would be well advised to consider the influence of an external counterinsurgent’s at- home population as well. As the case of Solomon Islands might yet demonstrate, withdrawal of popular support could cause the outsider to end its campaign in the face of such obstacles as intractable corruption.

Corollary to revised belief 2 Do not force the people to choose The weakness of counterinsurgency is the assumption that the population would turn against the insurgents for economic incentives.24 Further contemplation on revised beliefs 239 “The government robs us, the Taliban beat us, and ISAF [Inter- national Security Force Afghanistan] bombs us,” said one group of leaders. “We do not support any side.”25

The most fundamental of human needs is survival. That concern can apply to oneself, family, and select others. Political ideology, human rights, and future economic opportunity mean little to an individual under mortal threat. This puts liberal society counterinsurgents at a disadvantage. Gov- ernments hesitant to employ a heavily force- reliant approach for coercing compliance find it hard to compete with less restrained competitors. The challenge is even more difficult when the counterinsurgent is a third party outsider, one the local population knows must eventually depart. Protecting members of a population from retribution and convincing communities to deny threat groups their support is not the equivalent of forcing citizens to side with the counterinsurgent. Given that incorporating adversaries’ perspectives is de rigueur for military planners, it is surprising that noncombatant views tend not to receive similar consideration. The natural human response is for noncombatants to maintain neutrality to the extent that opposing parties allow. Insurgents incline toward employing violence as a tool of persuasion more so than their liberal society counterparts. Their demands are unsurprisingly often granted. A frustrated counterinsurgent can find it easy to forget that the provision of such support is unwilling. A too- frequent counterinsurgent response to the conundrum is pressure to make a choice. “The population must choose between the rebels and us,” David Galula advised. “To our friends, all the benefits that France can grant; to the uncommitted, nothing.”26 Perhaps having read Galula, half a century later Multi-National Corps- Iraq commanding general Raymond T. Odierno laid out ten “key, mutually reinforcing principles” for his command, the tenth of which was “Make the people choose.”27 He was not alone. Colonel Peter Mansoor posited, “the people need to make choices in support of one side or the other. . . . Power emanates from the people; without their support, neither the insurgent nor the counterinsurgent can win” (a conclusion our previous discussions reveal is not always the case).28 Forcible resettlement was one means of doing so (a result less of the citizen’s choice than a case of not having one). Additional tools employed in “making the people choose” – providing schools, clinics and other facilities; delivering aid; and other goodwill programs – have proven largely ineffective in the absence of security that shields recipients from insurgent violence. Only the gullible risk their lives based on promises or gifts alone. Perceptions of effective and lasting security must be fellow riders of other efforts to convince if segments of a population are to grant favor to a counterinsurgent unwilling to coerce it more harshly. On the other hand, there should be no expectation that the counterinsurgents are the only parties assuming risk. Those providing COIN resources have the right to expect something in return from beneficiaries. 240 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Denying or terminating services provided when understandings are not upheld demonstrates that all parties share both benefits and risks. Requir- ing acceptable levels of support reinforces a counterinsurgent’s status as a party dealing from a position of strength rather than as supplicant. Pres- ident Uribe exercised this approach in Colombia with his policy of making villages and towns state partners in the struggle against intimidation. The 1/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team similarly took steps to obtain community support in southern Afghanistan when it installed plugged culverts under a newly constructed road, a visible feature benefiting the local economy once the plugs were removed in return for services rendered. The village, long victim of seasonal flooding, understood that relief from weather’s caprice was at hand if they assisted in ousting the remaining Taliban from the area. The same logic applies to government officials owing their position – or protection – to counterinsurgent support.

Revised belief 3 COIN is not dead An object is frequently not seen from not knowing how to see it rather than from any deficit in the organ of vision.29

The wise . . . know that war will go on its way whithersoever chance may lead, and will not restrict itself to the limits which he who begins to meddle with it would fain prescribe. They of all men will be least likely to meet with reverses.30

We can no more wish away insurgency than war, nor can a country avoid the responsibility of countering insurgents when they threaten its national security. It is true there will never be a purely political insurgency, one unsullied by criminal activity, terrorism, periods of conventional combat, or other forms of conflict that inevitably blur theory’s crisp distinctions. Organized movements “seeking to replace or undermine all or part of the sovereign authority of one or more constituted governments through the protracted use of subversion and armed conflict” will challenge nations well into the future. Some asserting counterinsurgency’s demise oppose not COIN itself but rather the way it is applied, mistaking the method for the strategy employing it. Gian Gentile faulted that application in Afghanistan, accusing leaders of using tactical objectives to define victory and concluding “counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan offer very few strategic guideposts.”31 Historian Douglas Porch instead finds little value in COIN due to misapplication of its theoretical and doctrinal tenets, finding

population- centric, people’s war methods . . . heartless and inhumane because they place the crosshairs on the people in a process of escala- tion inherent in war and are seldom population- friendly. The people Further contemplation on revised beliefs 241 . . . become targets of force and coercion, and the competition devolves not into one of governance but into intimidation by both sides.32

Having rendered counterinsurgency bloodless via a thousand cuts, Porch questions “how does one account for the persistence of COIN advocates in strategic thought, military operations, and civil–military relations?”33 The question is misguided. Counterinsurgency is the sword, strategy the arm that wields it. It is not the fault of the sword if strategy dulls the blade through misuse. No miracle replacement stands in the wings to substitute for adapting past practices and lessons such as those drawn from the eight cases in the previous chapters. Unless truly of no value – a valuation the previous chapters do much to counter – practitioners must adapt past counterinsurgency’s lessons to the demands of the present and the future. Proclaiming COIN’s death casts out a multitude of insights that retain value. Even the tenets of colonial era counterinsurgency are better viewed as increasingly outmoded rather than as no longer applicable. Their lessons might decrease in value with time or require greater adaptation to meet future challenges, but that is no reason to turn one’s back on them altogether. By that thinking, military leaders should likewise cease all reading of Alex- ander the Great or Napoleon for guidance on leadership given the evolution of warfare in the intervening centuries. Those declaring counterinsurgency’s passing ignore progress made in Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone, Southern Philippines, Northern Ireland, and elsewhere. Far wiser are the men and women who recognize today’s conflicts as hydra- headed; understanding gained during recent undertakings not only informs us how to address the head that is insurgency but also lends clues for solving the challenges offered by other forms of conflict. We must once again remind ourselves that counterinsurgency no more ends with the military defeat of the insurgent than did the 2003 war in Iraq conclude with the destruction of that country’s conventional armed forces. Indeed, none of the eight counterinsurgencies above can be safely put to rest. Successful counterinsurgency – “successful” in either the short or ultimate term – prevents the renewal of insurgency by alleviating its underlying causes or, in cases such as Chechnya and Sri Lanka, by sufficiently stifling the expression of remaining grievances. Insurgency lives. So too, therefore, must counterinsurgency. Rather than declaring its death, this unavoidable reality should spur us to determine how liberal democracies can adapt their approaches to COIN.

Revised belief 4 Just because they are the government does not mean they deserve an external counterinsurgent’s support Most assumed that good governance would inevitably follow, rather than precede, the defeat of the Taliban insurgents, elections, and generous development assistance.34 242 Further contemplation on revised beliefs One of this study’s most important conclusions about influencing perceptions and attitudes is that the effort to do so must be aligned with the goal of earning popular support for the local government.35

The Taliban are unable to bring down the government. Only the government can now do that.36

Asked in 1969 whether “there is any future in Asia for American counterinsurgency tactics as they have developed since 1960,” U.S. President Richard M. Nixon responded:

Well, there is a future for American counterinsurgency tactics only in the sense that where one of our friends in Asia asks for advice or assistance, under proper circumstances, we will provide it. But where we must draw the line is in becoming involved heavily with our own personnel, doing the job for them, rather than helping them do the job for themselves.37

Nixon’s first caveat, “under proper circumstances,” gets directly at the point of this revised belief. The character of a threatened in-place government dramatically impacts the chances of counterinsurgent success. Our definition of counterinsurgency implies no requirement for an outsider to support that government. Nor does the definition of insurgency suggest its necessity. The external counterinsurgent discovering that an in- place government poses an intractable obstacle to accomplishing COIN objectives must logically either withdraw or seek ways of meeting those goals despite the standing authority. There are a number of alternatives to supporting intransigent in- place government leadership serving as an obstacle to counterinsurgent progress. A non- comprehensive list includes (1) replacing the in- place national government with an occupying, United Nations, appointed, or newly elected authority; (2) facilitating a more federalized structure than currently exists; or (3) marginalizing central authorities’ influence by resourcing and otherwise supporting sub- national level officials identified as viable partners. In the instance of an occupying force governing a country, as was the case in 2003 Iraq, too hasty a transition to homegrown government threatens counterinsurgent failure by imposing a legally legitimate but less than adequately competent authority on a population (a subject to which we return below). T. E. Lawrence would have recoiled at finding that one of his 27 articles – “Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly” – could be so misconstrued as to justify subjecting a nation’s people to the crippling inadequacy or deliberate malfeasance of an unready or undeserving governing body.38 Greater attention should perhaps be granted the word “tolerably” before an occupier surrenders governing authority. Further contemplation on revised beliefs 243 British authorities in London were fortunate. Recognizing Stormont was a source of legitimate grievances thanks to its sectarian character, London removed the body from power by returning provincial rule to the national capital, a step that neutralized a major source of disgruntlement amongst Northern Ireland’s Catholics. Few external counterinsurgents have so ready a course of action at hand when faced with a government unable or unwilling to govern effectively. Yet the case does reinforce a crucial point: there is no assurance that an in- place government is an ally of an external counterinsurgent. The contrary was evident in Anbar Prov- ince when Colonel MacFarland found Sheik Sattar a more effective partner than the provincial governor. United States forces support for the Sons of Iraq in the face of the national government’s sectarianism demonstrated there were limits to American willingness to back Baghdad. The manipulative bigotry of Sri Lanka’s Bandaranaikes and factional politics of Sierra Leone’s Siaka Stevens and Joseph Momoh did much to spawn their nation’s insurgencies. It was unlikely that redressing the grievances underlying the conflicts was possible as long as those administrations remained in power, a conclusion that casts doubts on the durability of Sri Lanka’s recent counterinsurgent progress. Little wonder that the U.S. joint forces counterinsurgency guidance observes, “U.S. COIN doctrine, no matter how well thought out, cannot succeed without the appropriate political and other reforms from the host nation, but these regimes are likely to subvert the reforms that threaten the existing power structure.”39 Any external counterinsurgent would logically forego commitment to a COIN campaign if preliminary judgments deem an in- place authority intractable. (Obviously, the government at risk would be equally unlikely to request external assistance from a power requiring fundamental changes as a condition of support.) The 2014 Field Manual 3–24 acknow- ledges, “the commitment of U.S. forces may depend upon the degree to which U.S. policy makers consider the affected government to be receptive to assistance, advice, and reform” particularly in instances where the host nation government “may not be willing to undertake the political changes necessary to address the root causes of the insurgency.”40 The challenge confronting an outsider is less often one of a decision whether to commit forces initially than, once having made that commitment, subsequently finding indigenous government objectives are incompatible with its own. The new manual fails to confront this conundrum adequately. Determining when that incompatibility is insurmountable is far from easy. While the seemingly intransigent Philippine corruption and entrenched elite interests cast doubt on ultimate counterinsurgent success, the archipelago’s most recent presidential election holds some promise of overcoming those obstacles. There is less cause to believe the present government in Baghdad will prove able to address sectarian differences sufficiently to act as the legitimate representative of Iraqi societies’ common interests. 244 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Ideally, members of a flawed administration will be convinced through a combination of persuasion and coercion to modify their crippling policies. Such approaches require discretion given the necessity of an in- place administration maintaining its legitimacy as representative of a sovereign power. Colonel Peter Mansoor, David Petraeus’ executive officer in Baghdad, observed that his commander’s efforts to steer Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki away from support of sectarian violence and other misuses of authority

was never in public and it was always behind closed doors, and it was always aimed at [the prime minister] taking ownership of whatever solution was devised. We knew if it was forced on them, there would be push- back and it would be a matter of face and honor.41

Petraeus also understood the need to maintain means of suasion beyond relying on the good will during his tenure as Commanding General, Multi- National Force – Iraq:

When they discovered that a national police brigade in southern Baghdad was murdering Sunnis, [Petraeus and his aides] told the interior ministry that the coalition was withdrawing all support for that brigade until it stopped the killing. Suddenly it had no fuel, spare parts, money, or equipment; nor were its men allowed into any area controlled by American troops. The brigade backed off within days. Some . . . of the other police squads, watching the standoff play out, followed suit.42

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, backed Petraeus when Maliki protested the general’s approach. The coalition leadership therefore both maintained some degree of leverage to better align indigenous and external counterinsurgent objectives in this specific instance and demonstrated the will to employ it effectively (though the Maliki government’s perpetu- ation of sectarian polities can legitimately be cited as one reason for the popular support granted Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) by some segments of Iraq’s Sunni population).43 The external counterinsurgent should establish and maintain such leverage throughout the duration of its participation.44 Deliberate malfeasance presents only one source of indigenous governments’ shortfalls. Leaders may have little experience as governors. Devel- oping the necessary skills takes time no less than addressing deeply entrenched popular grievances that may smolder long after the worst of insurgent threats have been neutralized. Exceptional indigenous leadership is the most effective accelerant in both cases. It is unfortunately a rare commodity at any time, certainly no less so than during or in the immediate aftermath of operations to defeat one or more insurgencies. Further contemplation on revised beliefs 245 Though rarely palatable, restructuring a national government offers an additional course of action. Enhancing government capabilities at local, district, or provincial levels via federalization, increasing distribution of resources to these authorities, and training officials at each echelon may mitigate the negative influence of a less than competent central body. For- mally recognizing longstanding traditional methods of rule can in some cases provide an alternative to less effective government structures imposed by national or colonial officials. Southern Philippines, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Solomon Islands tribal and clan structures provide foundations possibly worthy of investigation in this regard. Consideration of this course of action demands no little caution as former discussions regarding wantok abuse in Solomon Islands and the Philippine ARMM’s misuse of public funds make only too clear. There remains the option of replacing unacceptable government authorities. Those familiar with the former Republic of Vietnam’s history may first think of President Diem’s 1963 assassination, but a change in authorities need not violate legal boundaries. Elections are a possible source of new governors given the possibility of reasonably fair proceedings, educated voters, and the availability of capable candidates. London’s replacement of Stormont as the government responsible for Northern Ireland demonstrated that additional, less violent ways of removing intrans igent leadership can exist. An in-place administration might also be convinced to step down voluntarily given sufficient incentive as was seen in Sierra Leone. The aforementioned assumption of governing authority by an external party such as the one sponsored by the United Nations provides a further alternative, as does replacement from within. Sultan Qaboos bin Said overthrew his unpopular father as Oman’s leader in 1970 in the midst of the Dhofari insurgency. The son achieved what the father could not by respecting key aspects of disgruntled groups’ cultures, improving relations with tribes, ceasing the heavy reliance on bombing and burning insurgent villages, introducing civil development, and otherwise addressing a long list of grievances. Coercion was employed when deemed appropriate; government forces destroyed wells and slaughtered cattle when villages resumed support for insurgents.45 British support for the coup d’état was not perceived as the imposition of leadership by an external power but rather as facilitating a legitimate and appropriate transition (one, notably, that did not involve the institution of democracy). That many tribesmen abandoned the insurgency to side with the new administration speaks to its effectiveness.46 It is apparent that COIN need not be synonymous with the status quo. It is possible that one or more of the above remedies holds improved promise of stability and capable rule. It may be that an external counterinsurgent finds withdrawal from a campaign the best of the courses of action available . . . or that an insurgent is the better alternative should an in- place authority prove incorrigible. 246 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Revised belief 5 Patience is a virtue when it comes to surrendering governing responsibility All who have taken it upon themselves to rule over others have incurred hatred and unpopularity for a time; but if one has a great aim to pursue, this burden of envy must be accepted, and it is wise to accept it. Hatred does not last for long; but the brilliance of the present is the glory of the future stored up for ever in the memory of man. It is for you to safeguard that future glory and to do nothing now that is dishonourable.47

A COIN effort cannot achieve lasting success without the HN [host nation] government achieving legitimacy.48

As the discussion immediately above makes clear, external counterinsurgents may find themselves working with a less than viable standing indigenous government if in fact any government exists at all. The Big Three de facto assumed responsibility for many of the functions of the Solomon Islands’ government on arrival in July 2003. Putin replaced the ruling authorities during the second Chechen campaign. London instituted direct rule of Northern Ireland in March 1972. U.S.-led coalitions were occupying powers that eventually handed over the reins of power to place- holder governments while procedures were put in place to write constitu- tions and hold elections in early twenty-first-century Iraq and Afghanistan. One could be justified in believing the governments in the last two cases were self- inflicted hindrances when they proved unprepared to perform effectively as counterinsurgent partners. As with the case of external powers working with governments in place at the time of their arrival, it is essential to maintain coercive leverage so that transitional governments do not to stray too far afield in their support of counterinsurgency objectives. The third-party counterinsurgent will ideally find competent leaders willing to represent their citizenry’s interests while also partnering effectively with the outsider. External powers fortunate enough to work with such authorities have limited need to exercise such persuasion. Yet it is better to plan for the less fortunate case and find those means unnecessary than confront the more frequent reality of a leadership and administrative pool too shallow (or unwilling) to meet the demands of simultaneously building government capacity and defeating an insurgency. Similarly, competent and cooperative authorities in place today are no guarantee that the same situation will exist in the coming months or the years prior to the external party’s departure. Surrender of authority means an occupier frees itself of primary responsibility for defeating an insurgency. Premature transition, however, risks condemning the threatened country to lengthy turmoil under a less- than-qualified leadership, turmoil a third- party counterinsurgent shares Further contemplation on revised beliefs 247 barring its departing immediately on surrendering occupation responsibilities. Defeating an insurgency by means other than overwhelming application of force requires an indigenous government perceived as legitimate by sufficient elements of a population. Legitimacy of the type essential to persevering during an insurgency cannot be obtained merely on the basis of a government being put in place by an occupying authority. On the contrary, a citizenry is more apt to doubt the legitimacy of new rulers so selected. Nor does electoral success necessarily equate to the competence needed to merit a population’s confidence. A rushed June 2004 transition of authority to an appointed Iraqi government and similarly hasty January 2005 elections continue to plague a nation whose insurgencies fester a decade later under authorities whose legitimacy is doubtful in the eyes of much of the country’s citizenry.

Corollary to revised belief 5 All government responsibilities need not be handed over simultaneously Transition is not a onetime event. Counterinsurgents transition responsibility to host- nation agencies when they are capable of taking over a function. This may mean multiple transitions to multiple host- nation agencies at different times during a counterinsurgency.49

While ceremonies marking the return of full authority to an indigenous government such as those installing Iraq’s interim government in 2004 make for good media events, it is much preferable to gradually transition governing responsibilities to those components demonstrating the capability to govern effectively. The above quotation from Insurgency and Coun- tering Insurgencies makes it clear that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps doctrine in place as of May 2014 recognizes this as the case; so too did that of December 2006.50 Piecemeal transitions of authority and responsibility can also be causes for celebration, each visibly marking progress while demonstrating occupier willingness to surrender control. Yet despite established doctrine supporting these conclusions, preference in practice favors comprehensive handovers. External powers may continue to provide mentoring and other services; nevertheless, the relationship between indigenous and outside counterinsurgent representatives has fundamentally – and very likely irreversibly – changed. Consistency in transitioning responsibilities requires careful design and monitoring. Intelligence should assist; the character and timing of transition should be a function not only of pending authorities’ preparedness to assume responsibility but also popular perceptions regarding the proposed administration. Returning to the example of a country’s law enforcement system, successfully handing over responsibilities to a national police requires not only a trained and well- led force but also similarly well- prepared court and prison sectors in addition to public acceptance of the law enforcement 248 Further contemplation on revised beliefs system as legitimate. The development of national governing capabilities therefore demands planning and rehearsing those plans no less than do other operations.

Revised belief 6 Democracy is not an inherent good Building democracy has been at the heart of American counterinsurgency doctrine.51

We can’t want democracy more than the Iraqis want it.52

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.53

Writing on the first U.S. COIN undertaking in the Philippines over a century ago, U.S. Army civil affairs officer Colonel Timothy Deady observed, “the desired end- state was determined to be a stable, peaceful, democratic, independent Philippines allied to the United States.”54 Security affairs analyst Paul D. Miller notes, “both the Potsdam Agreement and JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] 1067 explicitly names ‘the eventual reconstruction of German political life on a democratic basis’ as a goal of the occupation” post- World War II.55 The U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide – signed by the Admin- istrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in addition to the country’s Secretaries of State and Defense – states “USAID can assist U.S. COIN efforts by fostering economic growth, promoting human health, providing emergency humanitarian assistance and enhancing democracy in developing countries.”56 The National Security Council’s 2005 “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” headed its executive summary with the statement “Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq: Helping the Iraqi People Defeat the Terrorists and Build an Inclusive Democratic State.” It later followed with “commitment to democracy – rather than other forms of governance – not only is consistent with our values, but is essential to keeping the long- oppressed Shi’a and Kurds as our partners in Iraq.”57 U.S. practice suggests liberal democratic government is a habitual desired end state of its international military contingencies. Preference for democratic government remains a given even when indigenous electorates have little understanding of voting responsibilities, there exist too few candidates capable of effectively representing their constituents, and other established forms of government have proved themselves viable. Deeply entrenched ethnic divides may make democracy an unwise choice. The 1927 British Donoughmore Commission presciently observed when considering the character of future government for Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), “We can detect few signs . . . to make us confident that parties, if and when formed, would owe their origin to economic or political differences in national policy rather than to racial or caste divisions.”58 The same can be said of Iraq nearly a century later. As Peter Mansoor observed, Further contemplation on revised beliefs 249 the elections of 2005 only served to intensify sectarian divisions, his having earlier appropriately challenged the assumption “behind U.S. efforts . . . that since the Iraqi government was democratically elected, it was legitimate.”59 Not all populations treasure democracy as an inherent good. As academic Mark Moyer observes

In most illiterate and semiliterate societies the large majority of the population cares less about whether they had a say in selecting the government than about how that government is treating them. Even some societies with high rates of literacy and education have shown a decided preference for good government over elected government.60

Put differently, benevolent, capable, but less representative rule may be preferable to ineffective democracy. The presumption that democracy in the form familiar to liberal societies is universally suitable is a dubious one. An adaptation of the old saw, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” might be in order: “Just because the outsider thinks it’s broke don’t mean it is.” It may be that an external counterinsurgent’s pursuit of democracy is less for local than at- home consumption. Counterinsurgencies in the post- colonial period can prove hard sells for politicians. The pursuit of democracy becomes less a necessary component of in- theater policy than a device for sustaining domestic support. Politicians presume it will be harder to justify the sacrifice of lives and wealth in support of an end in which democracy is not a part. Democracy can take a number of forms. Should one of the many be determined to be appropriate to given counterinsurgency circumstances, the external powers involved should consider the character of that end and the path to its accomplishment in the light of existing and historical local factors. Progress may involve interim government structures, democratic or otherwise. United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Paddy Ashdown suggested as much with this observation,

In Bosnia, we thought that democracy was the highest priority and we measured it by the number of elections we could organize. . . . In hindsight, we should have put the establishment of the rule of law first, for everything else depends on it: a functioning economy, a free and fair political system, the development of civil society, public confidence in policing and the courts.61

Revised belief 7 Just because it has always been done that way does not mean it should be done that way Concepts of human rights are probably the most uniquely Western element of liberal state building, but their incorporation into the UN 250 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Universal Declaration on Human Rights suggests their universal appeal.62

Though ISAF places meeting the needs of the population at the center of its strategy, attempting to do so through a kleptocratic, illegitimate, and unaccountable Afghan national government . . . will not succeed.63

Any effort to build a state involves norms, articulated or not, about what a state is and ought to be.64

There may be no phrase more reflective of Victorian colonialism than Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” from a poem of the same name. Taken in its negative context, the four words represent the unwanted imposition of foreign cultural norms on subject societies. Yet practices such as child rape, honor killings, and corruption so acute that victims are robbed of their ability to make a living offend sensitivities worldwide. Counterinsurgents sometimes hesitate to address such issues, even as the once sacred cow of international norms – Westphalian sovereignty – suffers significant erosion given international practice increasingly recognizing the rights of citizenries as trumping governments whose behaviors violate broadly accepted social standards.65 COIN is not neocolonialism. Fears of its appearing so should not dictate that external counterinsurgents tolerate heinous local practices. The virtual abolition of slavery and campaigns against female genital mutila- tion demonstrate that tolerance of all behaviors is not a given. A counterinsurgent’s selection of what social practices merit its attention is admittedly fraught with peril: what is one man’s sin may be another’s acceptable practice. The counterinsurgent seeking to end customs deemed unacceptable risks having the program misconstrued as an imposition of religious beliefs or undermining of valued social mores, stirring a society’s inherent distrust of outsider motives and exposing itself to insurgent propaganda capitalizing on popular suspicions. The challenges relevant to addressing cultural norms are not original to the twenty- first century, nor even that before. General Winfield Scott recognized that inappropriate choices could severely undermine operations during the Mexican- American War of 1846–1848. Drawing on his previous studies of “Napoleon’s disastrous occupation of Spain,” Scott was “conscious that attacks on the Catholic religion and its institutions had embittered that conflict.” He was therefore “determined to avoid a repetition ofsuch events and took elaborate precautions to reassure Mexico’s Catholics of his respect for their religion.”66 Judgments are even more difficult when absolute standards are - unat tainable. The nature of some crimes means few in the broader international community will defend them; child rape and honor killing are Further contemplation on revised beliefs 251 examples. The line is less clear when the issue is one of degree rather than acceptance or abolition. Corruption is perhaps the prime exemplar. Few, other than the perpetrators, would argue that skimming security personnel’s salaries by seniors in a chain of command is acceptable. Denying a reasonable income to security forces leads to soldiers and police coercing bribes at checkpoints and otherwise abusing their authority at a population’s expense. Cascading effects include severing ties between citizens who could provide members of those forces with information critical to achieving counterinsurgent objectives. Depriving men and women of a living wage also spawns desertion, second jobs, and participation in criminal activities to supplement too- meager pay. Structural corruption – that embedded in traditional practice – can be particularly difficult to overcome. Solomon Islands politicians’ exploitation of the wantok system has translated into parliament allocating “constituency development funds” to members for discretionary distribution to elected officials’ voters.67 The practice fuels personal corruption while working against use of the funds for programs that would more effectively address broader public needs. Instances in which corruption is not of a monetary form can further com- plicate decisions regarding how best to determine what levels or forms are tolerable. Stormont’s and Iraqi officials’ acceptance of sectarian violence and the ludicrously early release of favored political authorities from prison in Solomon Islands attest to the breadth of the challenge. What the 2006 U.S. Counterinsurgency manual described as “a culturally acceptable level of corruption” may seemingly be tolerable by local standards but counterproductive from a counterinsurgency perspective.68 At least two factors are at play in these cases. First, what appears to be a locally acceptable level of corruption can be otherwise. Polling in Afghanistan demonstrated public intolerance of corrupt practices despite its ubi- quitous presence.69 Second, “culturally acceptable” implies a uniformity that may not exist. Practices accepted in some segments of a society – the demand of bribes to conduct routine government services, for example – might be considered a right by those paid so little as to otherwise be unable to feed their families while being viewed as objectionable by similarly poor victims whose lives depend on the service being solicited. That toleration of some norms is counterproductive to a counterinsurgent’s cause is evident in the following passage by former British Army General Jon Riley drawing on his experiences in Afghanistan:

What does corruption mean to people trying to make a living in Afghanistan? . . . If you are a businessman trying to bring a cargo of goods from Peshawar in Pakistan to Kabul, it means 47 different permits or passes for various stretches of the road, each of which may need eight or nine different signatures, each of which means a hefty bribe. If you are a traveller, it means getting stopped at a police checkpoint every ten miles and paying a ‘toll.’ If you are the policeman 252 Further contemplation on revised beliefs leveling such a toll, it means you probably have to do so to feed your family, because the district chief of police has stolen most of your US$70-a- month salary. And his salary in turn has been stolen by the provincial chief, [who is] out to buy his job in the first place.70

Riley makes it evident that commerce, the economy, government legitimacy, and the viability of law enforcement all suffer when rampant corruption goes unaddressed. The same police demanding bribes are the force that is notionally to provide security so that the external counterinsurgent can eventually depart with some expectation that Afghanistan will maintain an acceptable level of stability and security. Their continued alienation of the population means such expectations are little more than unfounded hopes. Perhaps reflective of the extent of its hindering attainment of coalition objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2014 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies doctrine expresses no such tolerance of corruption, instead recognizing it as a potential “root cause” of insurgency, one that “can lead to loss of host nation legitimacy and can undermine government control.”71 Judgments regarding what norms to address cannot be left to individual unit leaders. The designation of unacceptable practices by participating nations’ government leaders, heads of a coalition, and respected international bodies are respectively advisable, essential, and desirable. Input from local representatives is likewise appropriate, though depending on the nature of the norms under consideration those inputs may need to be taken with a grain of salt. British Major General Andrew Mackay properly cautions, “what may appear to be irrational behavior to an outsider may actually be entirely rational to an indigenous population. . . . Our own perceptions can be profoundly wrong, which in turn can lead to poor decision- making.”72 External coalition leaders therefore need to ensure there exists a legitimate foundation for selecting the norms determined to merit attention. Settling on these will be all the harder when coalitions have members whose views differ regarding what is acceptable or tolerable (though unity in supporting the decisions is desirable, not essential).73 Another British General, Jonathan Bailey notes that when Afghanistan’s President Karzai “announced draco- nian restrictions on women’s rights” on April 2, 2009, “Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said he was offended by the law and would lobby to have it repealed: ‘This is antithetical to our mission in Afghanistan.’ ” The British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman, Mike Gapes, likewise expressed dissatisfaction, noting, “We did not go into Afghanistan to remove the Taliban only the have Taliban- style policies re- implements by the government.”74 Such consistency across coalition partners cannot, unfortunately, be depended on. Consistency over time as well as in space is crucial if the counterinsurgent is to have any expectation of success in addressing the most offensive of social norms. Handover of an area of operations between units can Further contemplation on revised beliefs 253 result in changes of policy when newly arrived leaders have views differing from those of their predecessors. The result is confusion amongst the population, propaganda opportunities for the insurgent, and undermining of the external counterinsurgents’ legitimacy. Addressing unacceptable norms is problematic enough without unnecessarily complicating it further. As Jonathan Bailey sagely notes,

cultural change is generally not amenable to blitzkrieg, for the ways of others are not readily reshaped to a common and “correct” view, con- gruent with the ideas of the conqueror. At root, nation-building requires changing of culture, and that is the hardest objective to achieve and the most bitterly resisted.75

“Live and let live” arguments against efforts to change unacceptable social practices should strike a counterinsurgent as unpersuasive. The existence of insurgency implies something is remiss. Counterinsurgency is necessarily a vehicle of change; adjustments include neutralizing insurgent threats and addressing underlying grievances. As evident in Sierra Leone, members of the under- threat government – the very individuals who should best know what steps need be taken to suppress an insurgency – may include those profiting from its continuation. The refusal of Canada and Sweden to route their aid through Siaka Stevens’ administration represented commendable attempts to reduce the country’s crippling corruption. Providing aid without actually routing funds through national government offices akin to Marshall Plan procedures can be another.

Revised belief 8 Treat militias like a hot stove This process of transforming militia groups into political parties . . . was powerfully entrenched through the handover of sovereignty to the Interim Iraqi Government in May 2004 and the Iraqi elections of 2005. The unchecked progress of political reintegration embarked upon in 2003 would in the end determine the political balance of power in postwar Iraq and initiate a vicious and seemingly irreversible circle of violence. . . . The placement of militia leaders on the IGC [Iraqi Governing Council], coupled with the United States’ reliance on these Council members to give the appearance of an orderly transition to Iraqi rule, severely limited US options for dealing with non- complying militias.76

The value of local defenders come primarily, thought not exclusively, from their ability to provide intelligence rather than from their effi- cacy as combat forces.77

Why would I want a pet crocodile?78 254 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Brilliant planning and superb negotiation skills relieved Solomon Islands of its militia virus. The priority that RAMSI leaders gave to neutralizing armed groups is fundamental to explaining why the operation achieved such striking progress in its opening months. Militias can be a plague that grows more virulent over time and is difficult to eradicate as the examples of Sri Lanka, Colombia, Northern Ireland, Southern Philippines, and Iraq only too clearly demonstrate. As is the case with several of our misper- ceived “truths” underlying our nine revised beliefs, however, it is not uniform rejection that is called for. Rather, it is default acceptance of militias as transitional security partners that carries significant risks. There are conditions under which these groups offer an effective means of maintaining security against insurgent reassertion; Panamao’s militia fighting alongside Philippine marines on the island of Jolo provides one such example. Their backfilling departing AFP units on Basilan is another. But the turmoil disturbing societies during a counterinsurgency unfortunately tends to cultivate negative examples. These include Sierra Leone (with kamajors’ uneven performance), the Ampatuan massacre on Mindanao, and Iraq where the Jaish al Mahdi and the Islamic Army of Iraq among many others offer darker counterparts to the Sons of Iraq. Little wonder that the British Army’s Major General Andrew Stewart observed that neutralizing the militia “was one of the hardest jobs to work out” during his stint as commander in southeastern Iraq in 2003–2004.79 A counterinsurgent may initially find itself having to coexist with these negative examples, ones often wielding significant political and social influence in addition to military capabilities. An at- risk state will eventually find it necessary to come to terms with militias if it is to abolish the inherent threat they pose to its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The cases above suggest that historical solutions include (1) negotiating, paying for, or coercing voluntary disbandment (as in Solomon Islands); (2) confronting and destroying the militia organizations via combat operations (to some extent employed by coalition forces in Iraq and Colombia); or (3) legitimizing them by means of incorporation into state security forces after which they fall under the supervision of state security force leaders (as with some kamajor forces initially in Sierra Leone). Like a stove, militias can dramatically improve the quality of life when employed properly. Used carelessly or without sufficient knowledge of their inherent dangers, however, those employing them can be badly burned. Advantages when they are incorporated well into counterinsurgency operations include the availability of militia members’ local knowledge, their potential employment in community watch roles (in which they may have less in the way of responsibilities involving the use of force than calling on more capable assets in times of need, as in Colombia), and possible assignment to manpower intensive duties requiring only limited training such as guarding stores, roads, or other fixed points. Better-trained organizations can assume more demanding community defense responsibilities. Further contemplation on revised beliefs 255 The beneficial employment of militias demands a comprehensive life- cycle approach spanning recruitment to eventual disbandment and reintegration. Command and control of units, provision of support, counteraction should a group exceed its charter, and consideration of how to avoid disruption of local economies during reintegration are among the relevant concerns. Logic implies DDR programs be designed and resourced prior to any decision to formally support militias. Colombia wisely subordinated militia to local police or nearby military units, thereby reducing the recurrence of atrocities such as those committed by both leftwing and rightwing militias prior to Uribe’s initiatives to disband or manage the groups. Leaders in both Colombia and the Philippines continue to support militia policies, ensuring members remain in close proximity to their homes, policies that reduce desertion, increase the quality of local intelligence, and tend to diminish instances of insurgent retribution against family members.80 Participation in militias also demonstrates overt local commitment to counterinsurgent objectives.81

Revised belief 9 Build more social and less physical infrastructure Building carried a notion of simply putting up schools and clinics, in the hope that such largesse would somehow win over a grateful population. In fact, time and again we saw that frightened Pashtun populations wanted security and certainty before they wanted anything else. As I have often said, they needed to know who would be in charge of their village or valley in five months’ or five years’ time, and they would back the winner. . . . Development can underpin a political settlement, but can’t deliver it.82

How do we change the subject from “nation- building” with all that implies to a more minimalist objective of capacity- building?83

Three of the counterinsurgencies considered in this book pointedly limited the extent to which they undertook major infrastructure projects: the British in Sierra Leone, RAMSI coalition in Solomon Islands, and AFP-- U.S. partnership in Southern Philippines. It is also notable how little Russia and Sri Lanka chose to undertake in this regard. Contrarily, the United States (in Iraq) and the United Kingdom (in Northern Ireland) spent extensively in addressing both physical and social infrastructure. That the latter case involves insurgency on the government’s sovereign territory makes it something of an outlier for the issue contemplated here: the extent to which major infrastructure initiatives influence an external counterinsurgent’s effectiveness. Many small- scale projects dominated the approach to infrastructure development in Southern Philippines while programs running into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars were not uncommon in Iraq and in 256 Further contemplation on revised beliefs Afghanistan. A belief that major physical infrastructure projects are fundamental to counterinsurgency success appears to be the U.S. default position for larger COIN contingencies. Evidence suggests that the links between counterinsurgent success and addressing a country’s infrastructure deficiencies are weaker than U.S. policies suggest. Coalition initiatives sought to provide infrastructure exceeding that which previously existed in terms of quantity and quality. A considerable number of these projects failed to account for the recipients’ capacity to operate and maintain the end result.

COIN is not nation building, and the JFC [joint force commander] and COM [chief of mission] strengthen the legitimacy of the HN [host nation] government through understanding and continuously assessing the nature of the conflict, and then tailoring only those resources and capabilities necessary to enable the HN government to provide a secure, predictable, and tolerable living environment for the population. . . . USG [United States government] should not be concerned with transforming the HN government into a mirror image of a Western- style democracy.84

This, from the U.S. joint doctrine on counterinsurgency, represents doctrine benefiting from a decade of experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Technically correct – counterinsurgency is no more nation building than it is conventional war – the guidance unfortunately attempts to artificially parse elements that are often mutually reinforcing. COIN is not nation building, but various aspects of nation building are almost inevitably a part of effective counterinsurgency operations. COIN does not demand major construction initiatives beyond what was the pre- insurgency norm in the threatened country, a reality largely ignored by the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The installation of air conditioned public buildings, addition of capacity to the Kajaki hydropower plant, and provision of ovens requiring hard- to-access fuels – all in Afghanistan – provide but a tiny sample of misguided projects that introduced unneeded, unfamiliar, and largely unmaintainable end products in a country strapped for public financing. Projects were elsewhere built without appropriate regard for local needs; a community’s ability to provide supporting resources such as fuel, power, water, or staff; or the role the end result ought to play as part of a wider system of capabilities. The same mistakes were made in Iraq, a country both richer in terms of public budgets, pre- 2003 physical infrastructure, and one in which the United States alone committed US$60 billion dollars to activities (an average of US$17 million daily).85 Unsatisfied with the none- too- straightforward task of helping to restore existing capabilities such as power generation plants, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq introduced technol- ogies in medical facilities and other structures beyond the capability of Further contemplation on revised beliefs 257 local populations to operate properly, maintain, or repair even in a society where education levels tend to be higher. The most expensive single facility project funded by the U.S. in Iraq was the Nassiriya water treatment plant (US$277 million). The end product suffers from a lack of consistent power supply and produces such poor quality water that only 14 percent of potential users rely on it for their main source of drinking water, choosing instead to purchase it commercially or use rivers or streams as a source.86 U.S. officials terminated the US$40 million Bani Sa’ad Correc- tional Facility project northeast of Baghdad after four contracts failed to result in its completion, the result being, in the words of a U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq (SIGIR) representative, “$40 million invested in a project with very little return. . . . A couple of buildings are useful. Other than that, it’s a failure.”87 It was also a project the Iraqis neither requested nor wanted.88 Construction may help a counterinsurgent accomplish its aims. Con- versely, ill- chosen or poorly conceived projects undermine objective accomplishment. A school built without consideration of how students will get to class, teachers will be paid and protected from insurgent attack, classrooms are to be provisioned with desks and other supplies, and the whole maintained potentially stands as a monument to a lack of vision rather than a spur to winning local support. Project selection should also consider the consequences of setbacks. Small efforts suffering insurgent destruction will likely have only local impact. Successful attacks against higher profile and more expensive undertakings grant an adversary grander propaganda coups. Projects that support insurgent rather than counterinsurgent ends are even worse; for example, where electrical power is provided to insurgent- controlled areas, thereby giving the adversary a revenue source as opponents charge residents for its use. In other instances the threat to counterinsurgent objectives might be less obvious, as in the case of the Philippine governor of Tawi Tawi seeking to charge for water from a government- installed well. That an external counterinsurgent should consider not only the end product effect on counterinsurgent goals but also the consequences for the insurgent is clear. Far better that a project has obvious positive impact for the former and otherwise for the foe (removing a minefield emplaced by the threat, for example)89 or benefits counterinsurgent objectives to a greater extent than they possibly could the adversary (provision of a medical facility to a community, perhaps, knowing that some pharmaceuticals from the operating clinic might reach the foe despite efforts to minimize losses). In terms of addressing a country’s physical infrastructure, the counterinsurgent may find progress is attributable to determining what is “good enough” while avoiding damaging excess, extravagance that creates dependency rather than self- sufficiency. The cases of Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone are once again notable in this regard. In both cases the counterinsurgents chose to focus primarily on building human 258 Further contemplation on revised beliefs capacity – social infrastructure – rather than spending millions on physical infrastructure beyond the capacity of government representatives or communities to maintain. It may be that teaching one how to govern has much in common with teaching a man to fish rather than providing him a meal.

Concerns regarding another old “truth”: “employ money as a weapon system”90 It does not matter if you are happy with your electricity, content with your children’s educations arrangements and satisfied with the government’s agenda – you are in thrall to the threat posed to you and your family by that man with the gun. His removal resolves the competition for control and is the first step towards establishing the coercive authority of the state in that place.91

Effective employment of a weapon presupposes its being aimed. General Petraeus surely meant his guidance to “employ money as a weapon system” to take that into account. Engagements employing money during operations in Iraq were instead often akin to a runaway machinegun. No evidence of this is more telling than the counterproductive measure initially used to gauge its application: the amount of money spent. In keeping with previous discussions of metrics as behavior motivators, the result was projects poorly if at all coordinated with local communities and efforts too often undertaken without consideration of the social and physical infra- structures on which they depended. Some initiatives reflected an ignorance of how the final products would fit into the systems of which they were a part. Electricity generation projects failed to include connections to homes, putting a means of monitoring use in place, or obtaining payment for consumption. Sewage pipes were laid without plans for ensuring they would link to functioning treatment plants. The push to spend resulted in massive fraud, fueled rampant corruption, and left unused or misused structures as legacies to mismanagement. Inspection procedures lagged behind spending; payments therefore continued though a project might never have been started or after it fell fatally behind schedule.92 Time and experience cured some of these ills. External counterinsurgent representatives came to recognize the importance of soliciting community input prior to selecting projects, being careful to negotiate when it appeared there was a disconnect between what local leaders wanted and coalition authorities determined was actually needed. Selection came to better incorporate COIN objectives in addition to local needs. Precautions against indigenous leaders favoring family and friends at the expense of their communities at large increasingly played a role. Those designing projects came to better understand life- cycle considerations, realizing that buildings had little value without the necessary furnishings, personnel to maintain them, power to operate equipment, and means for those using Further contemplation on revised beliefs 259 the end result to travel to and from the site. Cultural norms played a part in design. Wood- burning stoves took the place of gas cookers where the latter fuel was expensive, difficult to transport, or unfamiliar to local citizens. Easily maintained ceiling fans rather than expensive, unfamiliar, and power- hungry air conditioners became the standard in public buildings. Such mixed performance means it is impossible to determine the extent to which projects (and the money spent on them) promoted counterinsurgent objectives. Separate study results range from concluding that projects correspond to reduced levels of violence, have no discernable effect, or in some cases worsen the security situation in subject areas.93 The relative counterinsurgency benefits of small local projects versus much larger ones are similarly debatable (a state of affairs with relevance to our revised belief “Build more social and less physical infrastructure”). Whether treating money as a weapon system qualifies as reasonable counterinsurgent direction with broad application or constitutes dubious guidance thus remains indeterminate. That it can be beneficial when applied as a carefully crafted and well aimed “weapon” in the hands of the shrewd counterinsurgent is a given. That precautions need to be taken to prevent its undermining COIN objectives is evident in Lieutenant Colonel Fre- wen’s controlling the influx of funds into Honiara’s fragile economy after RAMSI’s 2003 arrival in Solomon Islands. Such was also the case with the British understanding that funds wisely allocated in appropriate amounts were key to Sierra Leone’s recovery while a deluge of money would simply have fed corruption’s rapacious appetite. That more is not understood about the relationship between money and counterinsurgent success is a particularly unfortunate state of affairs given the literal billions spent on initiatives based on an assumption that those funds bolster the achievement of COIN objectives.

Notes 1 Herbert A. Friedman, “Psychological Warfare of the Malayan Emergency, available at: 1948–1960,” www.psywar.org/malaya.php (also at http://ics.leeds.ac. uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=64&paper=2648) (both accessed May 12, 2010). 2 Dixon, “ ‘Hearts and Minds’?” 369. 3 Cloake, Templer, p. 2. 4 Gleiman, “Organizational Imperative,” 26. 5 The author thanks Dr. Daniel Marston for raising this point during his reviews of draft manuscript material. Also see Manea, “Setting the Record Straight.” 6 Thomas, “Grozny 2000.” 7 Carver, War Since 1945, p. 19. 8 Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency.” 9 Galula, Pacification in Algeria, p. 64. 10 U.S. military leaders announced their pending attack and advised the civilian population to leave Fallujah prior to the offensive. 260 Further contemplation on revised beliefs 11 None but tactical actions at the lowest echelons actually involve exclusively military operations (in the sense of an exclusive reliance on force). We have seen that diplomacy, influence operations, and population control are among what are or might be conceived of as other- than-military activities. The implied meaning of “more than military” relates to an approach other than one dominated by a preponderant use of force. 12 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, p. 1–11. 13 Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence, New York: Cambridge, 2007, p. 7. 14 Simpson, War from the Ground Up, p. 100. 15 David H. Petraeus, “COMISAF ’s Counterinsurgency Guidance,” Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force/United States Forces- Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, August 1, 2010, 1. 16 The belief that centers of gravity have no application to counterinsurgency was more prevalent before twenty- first-century operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even a contemporary of Carl von Clausewitz concluded such was the case. Based on his observations as a military observer during a French COIN campaign in 1840 Algeria, Prussian Major General Carl von Decker believed the center of gravity concept was inapplicable to such conflicts. Thomas Rid, “The Nineteenth Century Origins of Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” Journal of Strategic Studies 33 (October 2010): 733. 17 Galula, Pacification in Algeria, pp. 246 and 64. 18 Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency, Fort Leav- enworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and Staff College, 1985, 8 (emphasis in original). 19 Mao Tse- Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, (trans.) Samuel B. Griffith II, Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1978, p. 83. 20 Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam, London: Chatto & Windus, 1970, p. 51; Otto Heilbrunn, Partisan Warfare, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962, p. 35. That Robert Thomp- son was familiar with Mao’s guidance on insurgent warfare is evident in his The Times of London obituary that described him “as widely regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as the world’s leading expert on countering the Mao Tse- tung technique of rural guerrilla insurgency.” The Times of London obituary for Sir Robert Thompson, May 20, 1992, available at: http://academics.wellesley.edu/ Polisci/wj/Vietnam/Obituaries/thompson.htm (accessed September 26, 2014). 21 Counterinsurgency Operations, Field Manual- Interim 3–07.22, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, October 2004, 2–13 and 4–3. 22 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, p. 7–6. 23 McChrystal, My Share of the Task, p. 433. 24 Friedman, “The end of counterinsurgency and the scalable force.” 25 McChrystal, My Share of the Task, p. 317. 26 Galula, Pacification in Algeria, p. 290. 27 Raymond T. Odierno, “Counterinsurgency Guidance,” Headquarters, Multi- National Corps – Iraq, undated, available at: www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct= j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsmal lwarsjournal.com%2Fdocuments%2Fmncicoinguide.pdf&ei=AL08U4K-FpHMl AWC8YG4CA&usg=AFQjCNFM5NluRVFPasFXbKFocTawlJLnsg&bvm=bv.6393 4634,d.dGI (accessed April 3, 2014). 28 Peter R. Mansoor, and Mark S. Ulrich, “Linking Doctrine to Action: A New COIN Center- of-Gravity Analysis,” Military Review (September- October 2007): 46. 29 Sir William Herschel quoted in Holmes, The Age of Wonder, p. 440. Further contemplation on revised beliefs 261 30 “Thucydides: The Jowett Translation,” Book 4, Chapter 18, at: www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/thucydides/thucydides- passages.php?pleaseget=4.17–21 (accessed March 28, 2013). 31 Gentile, “COIN is Dead.” 32 Porch, Counterinsurgency, pp. 327–28. 33 Ibid., p. 332. 34 Karl W. Eikenberry, “The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghani- stan: The Other Side of the COIN,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2013), at: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139645/karl- w-eikenberry/the- limits-of- counterinsurgency-doctrine- in-afghanistan 92 (accessed November 12, 2013). 35 David C. Gompert, et al., War by Other Means – Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008, p. 293. 36 Dan McNeill (General, U.S. Army) as quoted in Nick Pounds (Brigadier, Royal Marines, retired), “Southern Afghanistan 2006–2008: The Challenges to a Comprehensive Approach to Counter- Insurgency,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 234. 37 John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, “Richard Nixon: XXXVII President of the United States, 1969–1974, 279 – Informal Remarks in Guam With Newsmen, July 25, 1969,” The American Presidency Project, available at: www.presidency. ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2140 (accessed April 1, 2014). 38 One source of Lawrence’s 27 articles [T. E. Lawrence, “Twenty- Seven Articles,” The Arab Bulletin (August 20, 1917)] appears in “The 27 Articles of T.E. Law- rence,” available at: http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_27_Articles_of_ T.E._Lawrence (accessed August 22, 2012). 39 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Counterinsurgency, Joint Publication 3–24, Washington, DC, November 22, 2013, IV- 20. 40 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, pp. 1–8. 41 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Karzai rift prompts U.S. to reevaluate anti- corruption strategy in Afghanistan,” The Washington Post (September 13, 2010), available at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/09/12/ AR2010091204167_2.html (accessed September 17, 2010). 42 Kaplan, The Insurgents, pp. 263–264. 43 Ibid., 263. 44 The 2014 edition of FM 3–24 better recognizes the need to employ coercion in cases where a host nation government proves uncooperative in addressing an insurgency’s underlying causes: Economic and military aid can be tied to certain actions or standards of behavior by a host nation. . . . Commanders should make an assessment of how they are interfacing with a host nation and determine what tools are available to enable and encourage the host nation to take the needed actions to defeat and insurgency. (Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, pp. 10–5) Unfortunately, this doctrine appears to be reactive in nature. Commanders (and other leaders representing an external counterinsurgent) should instead develop tools to “encourage the host nation to take needed actions” during pre- campaign planning rather than finding it necessary to create them should use prove necessary. 45 Thanks to Dr. Daniel Marston regarding his observation during review of an early draft regarding the use of coercion as described here. 46 Gleiman, “The Organizational Imperative,” 85 and 96; Simpson, War from the Ground Up, p. 152. 47 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, New York: Penguin, 1972, p. 162 (Book 2, LXIV). There are a number of translations of this passage. For 262 Further contemplation on revised beliefs another version, e.g., see Donald Kagan, “Pericles, Thucydides, and the Defense of Empire,” in Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, (ed.) Victor David Hanson, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010, pp. 49–50. 48 Paul Kamolnick, “Leveraging Legitimacy: A Key Tool in Population- Centric Counterinsurgency,” Small Wars Journal, May 15, 2010, available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/05/leveraging- legitimacy/ (accessed May 19, 2010), 3. Kamolnick is quoting Counterinsurgency, December 15, 2006, 1–22. 49 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, 9–9. 50 For example, see Counterinsurgency, December 15, 2006, 2–10. 51 Harry G. Summers, Jr., “A War Is a War Is a War Is a War,” in Low- Intensity Con- flict: The Pattern of Warfare in the Modern World, (ed.) Loren B. Thompson, Lex- ington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989, p. 39. 52 Senator Joseph Biden interview with Soledad O’Brien, “American Morning,” CNN.com, April 28, 2004 broadcast, at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRAN- SCRIPTS/0404/28/ltm.02.html (accessed February 19, 2013). 53 H. L. Mencken, Minority Report, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, p. 123. 54 Timothy K. Deady, “Lessons from a Successful Counterinsurgency: The Philip- pines, 1899–1902,” Parameters (Spring 2005): 56, available at: http://strategic- studiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/articles/05spring/deady.pdf (accessed April 2, 2014) (emphasis added). 55 Paul D. Miller, Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure, 1898–2012, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2013, p. 124. 56 Counterinsurgency Guide (emphasis added). 57 U.S. National Security Council, “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” Novem- ber 2005, 1 and 15. 58 Weiss, The Cage, p. 32. 59 Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War, New Haven, CT: Yale, 2013, pp. 60 and 26. 60 Mark Moyar, “Development in Afghanistan’s Counterinsurgency: A New Guide,” Orbis Operations (March 2011): 9. 61 Peter M. R. Stirk, The Politics of Military Occupation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni- versity Press, 2012, p. 192. 62 Miller, Armed State Building, p. 197. 63 David C. Ellis and James Sisco, “Implementing COIN Doctrine in the Absence of a Legitimate State,” Small Wars Journal (October 13, 2010), available at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/implementing- coin-doctrine- in-the- absence-of- a-legitimate- state?page=1 (accessed February 27, 2013). 64 Miller, Armed State Building, p. 5. 65 Ibid., p. 198. 66 Stirk, The Politics of Military Occupation, p. 14. 67 Albert van Zyl, “What is Wrong with the Constituency Development Funds?” International Budget Partnership Budget Brief No. 10, 2010, available at: http://internationalbudget.org/budget- briefs/brief10/ (accessed November 12, 2013); “Solomon Islands First Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement – Staff Reports; Press Release on the Executive Board Discussion; Statement by the Executive Director for Solomon Islands,” International Monetary Fund Country Report No. 13/249, August 2013, www.imf.org/ external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13249.pdf (accessed November 12, 2013). 68 Counterinsurgency, December 15, 2006, 1–21. 69 See, for example, Eray Basar, “An Overview of Corruption in Afghanistan, civil– military Fusion Centre,” November 2011, 5. 70 Jon Riley, “NATO Operations in Afghanistan 2008–2009: A Theatre- Level View,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, pp. 242–43. Further contemplation on revised beliefs 263 71 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, 4.4. 72 Andrew Mackay (Major General, British Army, retired), “Helmand 2007–2008: Behavioral Conflict – From General to Strategic Corporal,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 250. 73 Some measure of the potential challenge is evident in Andrew Graham’s observation that “on one particular day there were 163,930 military members of the coalition from 30 countries (not including Iraq) in Iraq. Contingents varied in size from 139,524 (USA) to nine (Norway).” Graham, “Iraq 2004,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 103. 74 Jonathan Bailey (Lieutenant General, British Army, retired), “The Political Context: Why We Went to War and the Mismatch of Ends, Ways and Means,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 19. 75 Jonathan Bailey, “The Political Context: Why We Went to War and the Mis- match of Ends, Ways and Means,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 20. 76 David Ucko, “Militias, tribes and insurgents: The challenge of political reintegration in Iraq,” Conflict, Security & Development 8 (October 3, 2008): 349–350, available at: www.david- ucko.com/images/Ucko- IraqReintegration.pdf (accessed February 19, 2013). 77 Austin Long, et al., Locals Rule: Historical Lessons for Creating Local Defense Forces for Afghanistan and Beyond, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012, p. 171. 78 Bassima al- Saadi, Secretary to the Iraqi Committee for National Reconciliation, as quoted in Bill Rollo (Lieutenant General, British Army, retired), “Campaign- ing and Generalship: Iraq 2008,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 183. 79 Andrew Stewart (Major General, British Army, retired), “Southern Iraq 2003–2004: Multi- National Command,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 87. 80 Long, Locals Rule, p. 179. 81 The author thanks Colonel (British Army, retired) Richard Iron for bringing this point to his attention. 82 Sherard Cowper- Coles, Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign, London: Harper Press, 2011, pp. 174 and 263. 83 Gates, Duty, p. 366. 84 Counterinsurgency, Joint Publication 3–24, I- 3 (emphasis in original). 85 Transforming Wartime Contracting: Controlling costs, reducing risks, Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan Final Report to Congress,” August 2011, 102, available at: www.bizjournals.com/washington/fedbiz_daily/ WartimeContracting_FinalReport.pdf (accessed April 2, 2014). 86 Transforming Wartime Contracting. 87 Brian Murphy and Pauline Jelinek, “Report: Empty prison in Iraq a US$40M ‘failure.’ ” USA Today (July 28, 2008), available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday. com/news/world/2008–07–28–1374607197_x.htm (accessed April 2, 2014). 88 Transforming Wartime Contracting. 89 Ambassador Edmund Hull cites his predecessor as ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, who supported mine clearance in that country to positive effect. Edmund J. Hull, High- Value Target: Countering al Qaeda in Yemen, Wash- ington, DC: Potomac Books, 2011, p. 47. 90 David H. Petraeus, “Multi- National Force- Iraq Commander’s Counterinsurgency Guidance,” Military Review (September- October 2008): 3, at: http://usacac.army. mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20081031_art004. pdf (accessed June 30, 2013). 91 Kelly, “Cutting Gordian Knots,” 49. 92 A number of these and similar issues can be found in Glenn et al., Evaluation of USAID’s Community Stabilization Program (CSP). They are also recognized in the May 2014 FM 3–24: 264 Further contemplation on revised beliefs The principle of sustainability states that commanders should design and select projects and services that have a lasting effect on the local population. In other words, the impact of the projects under consideration must endure after forces hand over the facility or service to local authorities and the unit (or contractors) departure from the site. Sustainability implies that the local government has the necessary resources to staff and maintain the project. There are examples where commanders have failed to conduct adequate analysis and built new schools or medical clinics only to discover that too few teachers or doctors were available to staff these facilities. Similarly, some commanders have purchased large generator systems to address electricity shortfalls for neighborhoods within their areas of operation. However, without addressing the fuel, maintenance, and service requirements of these systems, the machines eventually failed and were unable to serve as a sustainable solution for the local electrical deficit. (Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, 10–13) 93 For example, Rebecca Patterson and Jonathan Robinson, “The Commander as Investor: Changing CERP Practice,” Prism 2 (March 2011): 119. Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro argue that some forms of aid might result in an increase in local levels of violence. Article summary at Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Constructive COIN: How Develop- ment Can Fight Radicals,” Foreign Affairs (June 1, 2010), available at: www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/66432/eli- berman-joseph- h-felter- and-jacob- n-shapiro/ constructive- coin?page=show (accessed March 26, 2012). In another publication, however, the same trio found that smaller projects could decrease violence, citing a post-2007 period in Iraq during which “every additional dollar per capita of CERP spending predicted 1.59 less violent incidents per 100,000 population per half year,” though they note the decrease came in conjunction with the surge. Eli Berman, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter, “Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 14606, December 2008, at: www.nber.org/papers/w14606 (accessed November 29, 2012). For a discussion of aid having no discernable effect on popular attitudes (at least those of Pashtun males in Afghanistan), see Jason Lyall, Kosuke Imai, and Graeme Blair, “Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experi- ment in Afghanistan,” December 10, 2011, at: imai.princeton.edu/research/ files/afghan.pdf (accessed February 7, 2012). 10 Additional recommendations and concluding thoughts

A number of insights drawn from the above eight cases span two or more revised beliefs or fall outside their bounds altogether. Several spur recommendations thought to be of potential value during counterinsurgent campaigns yet to come. These are, in no particular order:

• Bring coherency to complexity. • Liberate maneuver. • Measure wisely. Measure to motivate. • Structure the United States government to better manage international conflict. • Negotiate before you have to. • Remember counterinsurgency success is the priority.

Each receives attention in turn before we turn to concluding thoughts regarding the future of counterinsurgency in the light of recent undertakings.

Bring coherency to complexity It was the final part of what my Canadian colleague used to call the “Corps, Courts and Corrections” agenda for Afghanistan. None of the legs of the stool was much use without the other two.1

It is therefore axiomatic that the policies or actions of the security forces and the agencies of civil government should complement and reinforce each other to the maximum extent possible.2

If the band played a piece first with the piccolo, then with the brass horn, then with the clarinet, and then with the trumpet, there would be a hell of a lot of noise but no music. To get harmony in music, each instru- ment must support the others. To get harmony in battle, each weapon must support the other. Team play wins. You musicians of Mars . . . must come into the concert at the proper place and at the proper time.3 266 Additional recommendations Achieving objectives during twenty- first-century counterinsurgencies means orchestrating their many participants’ resources in the service of goals sufficiently compatible to promote cooperation. One would think such collaboration within a given national government a given. Far from it. The U.S. Departments of Defense and State did poorly in this regard both at the outset of operations in the Balkans during the 1990s and in Iraq the decade following. The United Kingdom’s Department for Inter- national Development was too often less than fully supportive of its government’s Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Leaders need not tolerate these conditions as insoluble. The intra- and intergovernmental cooperation characteristic of RAMSI may have been imperfect; the campaign nevertheless stands as an example of what organizations can accomplish when parties grant precedence to campaign objectives over agency agendas. The venerable Marshall Plan demonstrated that even a many- fold increase in scale need not render dedication to a common cause impossible. The ideal would see the strands within each line of operation tightly interwoven as would be the braids that are the lines themselves. This by no means simple accomplishment implies allocating resources in a manner serving overarching counterinsurgent ends. The difficulty of attaining such orchestration has increased considerably in recent decades as both the number and type of participants expand during counterinsurgencies. More recent campaigns are also likely to include other- than-state groups willing to combine their activities with those of nation state representatives to varying extents. The traditional conception of coalitions as “an ad hoc arrangement between two or more nations for common action”4 fails to account for this evolution. A coalition today is better described as “an ad hoc arrangement between two or more organizations in the interest of common action.”5 “In the light of experience gained in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq,” states the British Ministry of Defence’s “The Comprehensive Approach,” “it became evident that coherence could only be achieved if strategic processes, planning, and objectives were harmonized across all instruments and agencies.”6 Coalition members will inevitably have objectives that are in tension with those of other partners. The United States Agency for International Development and Department of State of which it is a part sought to give the Iraqi government in Baghdad credit for U.S.- funded projects. Not associating U.S. work with the outsiders was also thought to shield local contractors from insurgent retribution. Projects were therefore devoid of overt signs of American affiliation. The unsurprising result: the Iraqi on the street tended to associate the foreign presence more with negative experiences such as incursions into their homes than improvements in their lives while Iraq’s insurgent groups proved adroit in taking credit for project work.7 The goals of promoting Bagh- dad’s legitimacy and protecting local workers conflicted with a need to favorably influence popular perceptions. Additional recommendations 267 Managing coalition members’ sometimes overlapping, other times competing, objectives provides stress for a coalition leader even in the absence of threats. Doing so when confronting one or more insurgent groups can require extraordinary agility. That coalition members change over time further complicates the challenge, as does the varying degree of cooperation members grant to a coalition. In keeping with General Patton’s “musicians of Mars” metaphor, today’s counterinsurgent leader attempts to conduct an orchestra while each musician prefers its own take on the score. Further complicating orchestration: all instruments should be in accord at not only the tactical but also the operational and strategic levels within and across all lines of operation. The 2014 U.S. Army and Marine Corps Insurgency and Countering Insurgency manual declares, “a whole- of-government approach integrates the collaborative efforts of the departments and agencies of the U.S. government to achieve unity of effort toward a shared goal.”8 Separate organizational goals preordain that it will be virtually impossible to achieve unity of effort; it is an ideal to be pursued rather than a state one expects to attain. Perhaps the more realistic goal is harmony of effort guided by a campaign plan that accounts for differences in approach.9 There was no overarching campaign plan guiding the many participants in RAMSI for years after its July 2003 campaign start. The coalition’s limited size helps to explain why progress was achievable despite the absence of a formal document to combine together the objectives of its ten nations’ many agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and numerous components representing the Solomon Islands’ government and society. Exceptional leadership on the part of the Big Three was among other factors crucial to the undertaking’s success to date. A coalition of 2,000 might pale in comparison with the tens of thousands in Northern Ireland, Iraq, or Colombia, but even the goals of two or three individuals can remain unrealized in the absence of effective leadership. It is difficult to overstate the importance of personality in compensating for a lack of formal collaboration mechanisms. U.S. operations in Anbar Prov- ince fortunately benefited from cooperation when conventional forces led by Colonel Sean MacFarland and Commander, Joint Special Opera- tions Commander Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal faced trials in Anbar Province in 2006.10 The absence of such willingness to collaborate similarly helps to explain the aforementioned early American interagency difficulties between senior civilian and military leaders in Baghdad. Attempting to conduct a campaign in the absence of a well constructed plan defaults to a hope and a prayer that key personalities will mesh . . . and do so at every level. History has proven unkind to those relying on hopes and prayers. Lieutenant- General Sir Alistair Irwin, former General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland, was struck by the lack of a campaign plan in the province prior to his 2000 arrival, this after over three decades of counterinsurgency operations. General Irwin felt that 268 Additional recommendations creating comprehensive guidance for Northern Ireland “was never going to be either possible or plausible” thanks to a number of factors that included what he considered a lack of a recognizable strategic goal, the ever- changing nature of the challenges confronting British security forces, and the restraints imposed by the theater being a part of the United Kingdom.11 Yet he concluded that lack of “any document that could have earned the accolade of being described as a high- level directive” was a mistake.12 The logic in believing a campaign plan implausible is at best dubious. It is reasonable to conclude that failure to provide well- designed direction might at least in part account for stumbles such as Bloody Sunday in North- ern Ireland or the alienation of Fallujah’s population thanks to excessive use of force by members of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. Lack of guidance results in trial and error approaches. Egypt’s Jews eventually reached their promised land, but clearer guidance from a higher echelon might have cut some time off the 40-year, 265 mile journey and added a bit of speed to the effectively 6.6 miles/year progress (or 95 feet per day straight- line distance, roughly the length of a basketball court. Straggling should not have been a problem).13 Failure to clearly articulate political ends will be the norm; it is the nature of politicians to avoid clear- cut objectives to which others can hold them accountable. Academic David Charters found “a clear political directive . . . has been the exception rather than the rule since 1945. The challenge . . . has been to learn to adapt military measures designed for dovetailing with political strategy to campaigns where such a strategy was clearly lacking.”14 Yet neither lack of clear political guidance nor other con- founding factors should be allowed to stand as excuses not to create as comprehensive a plan as available information allows. The adage “No plan survives contact with the enemy” applies no less to counterinsurgency than conventional war, no less to interactions with a population than an enemy. Military leaders nevertheless persist in planning. Imperfect as early plans for Northern Ireland, Solomon Islands, or Iraq might have been, they would have provided some measure of guidance to campaign participants. Their existence perhaps would have also given Irwin cause not to observe, “Not once did I ever attend, or hear of, a meeting which included representatives of all those who might collectively have been said to be responsible for the countering of terrorism.”15 Considering all potential partners in a coalition as equals in every way will be neither feasible nor necessary. Some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) will associate marginally with government representatives, if at all. In turn, the extent of intelligence shared with NGOs infiltrated by insurgents would differ from that of nongovernmental organizations the vetting for which reflects otherwise.16 It is nonetheless desirable that, at a minimum, any organization keeps coalition leaders informed regarding their members’ locations to avoid inadvertent casualties. In return, a coalition would be wise to inform such conditional partners regarding what Additional recommendations 269 parts of an area of operation to avoid in the interest of aid workers’ not unduly putting themselves at risk.17 NGOs, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and even commercial enterprises play a psychological as well as functional role during a campaign, particularly when these organizations include members of the local population. People tend to trust those more familiar. Scholar John Mackinlay noted that after suffering previously unfruitful attempts to establish a dialogue with Muslim communities in the United Kingdom,

[t]his situation began to change when a swarm of local organisations and NGOs deployed at street level into the most disaffected areas of the United Kingdom. Although many appeared to have no government strings attached, they were nevertheless indirectly sustained by various British government departments. Due to their energy, their apparent independence and their credibility, the successful ones managed to establish some very valuable communicating relationships where before there had been none.18

The evident benefits of government- NGO cooperation are noteworthy (though the example of these relationships being employed in the service of United Kingdom domestic security operations may be troubling to some).19 Japan’s struggles to recover in the aftermath of its 2011 combination of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor disaster provide a counterexample, one demonstrating the difficulties inherent when a government fails to achieve cooperation between disparate entities:

March 11th [2013] marks the second anniversary of the tsunami that killed 18,500 people in Japan. Good news is scant. Almost 215,000 evacuees still live in cramped temporary housing and need new homes. . . . Vast public expenditure is earmarked for post- tsunami reconstruction [but] this would require coordination between the agricultural, health and economy ministries, construction companies and elderly people set in their ways, none of whom find it easy to work with each other. That, sadly, is . . . one of the main reasons the reconstruction is talking so long.20

Liberate maneuver Reflecting Britain’s unpreparedness, the Foreign Office unit responsible for post-war planning was only set up three weeks before the invasion [of Iraq in 2003]. A divisional plan for post- conflict operations was issued 15 days after Basra fell.21

Counterinsurgency is conflict. It is often war. It therefore follows that many notions developed through the study of the latter have application to COIN. “Maneuver” so qualifies. 270 Additional recommendations It is an elegantly simple construct. U.S. joint doctrine defines maneuver as the “employment of forces in the operational area through movement in combination with fires to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy.”22 It is unfortunately a definition limiting far broader potential. “Employment of forces,” “movement,” and “fires” represent only a small sample of the functions a counterinsurgent might bring to bear. Expanding maneuver’s scope exposes un- mined ore rich in opportunity. The current definition is too constrained with respect to both means (only forces, movement, and fires) and object (the enemy). Counterinsurgents must concern themselves with more than their enemies; even the Russian and Sri Lankan governments found it necessary to grant some degree of attention to local, domestic, and international audiences despite their primary reliance on military force. Expanding what falls within the bounds of maneuver realizes its fuller potential. British military theorist, Richard Simpkin, recognized value in doing so. Maneuver – or maneuver theory as he chose to call it – “regards fighting as only one way of applying military force to the attainment of a political-economic aim.”23 This grander con- ceptualization fits seamlessly with that of envisioning insurgency and counterinsurgency in terms of lines of operation. Activities along each strand within a line of operation include capabilities advantageous for one or more parties’ objectives. Only with the application of a comprehensive approach are the multiple strands fully orchestrated. Drawing on his experiences in 2008 Iraq, the British Army’s Lieutenant General Bill Rollo concluded, “We have too many projects and not enough programmes” capable of orchestrating those projects in the service of counterinsurgency ends.24 Liberating maneuver allows the counterinsurgent (1) to incorporate the complete range of resources available when (2) seeking to gain advantage with respect to any parties of consequence. Maneuver becomes “the employment of relevant resources to gain advantage with respect to select individuals or groups in the service of achieving specified objectives.” The revised definition retains its predecessor’s simplicity while dramatically expanding its relevance, a relevance that incorporates rather than replaces its forerunner.25 It was maneuver of this sort that RAMSI leaders employed in the coalition’s opening months. The coalition’s leaders were sufficiently nimble to allow successful real-time innovation; the original Big Three performed as would a jazz trio improvising in the absence of sheet music. Uribe’s government in Colombia similarly brought its various means to bear. So too did the British in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone, the Americans in Anbar Province, and Armed Forces of the Philippines in the south of their country. Crucially, this new understanding of maneuver applies to civilian functions no less than those of the military. The many strands within lines of operation and the lines themselves will never wrap to ultimate strength unless woven via maneuver guided by a campaign plan. A rope at maximum strength would be the product of Additional recommendations 271 perfect unity of effort, a perfection we earlier noted is a worthy but unattainable goal. Inevitably some coalition instruments will be out of sync with the rest of the orchestra. Select players will perform only the passages they choose. Yet even imperfectly wrapped strands are stronger than the sum of their individual cords. Partial tightening lends hope of avoiding conflicting initiatives such as that which Major General David Perkins confronted:

After Baghdad we were ordered to move up to Fallujah. Some people concluded, “This place is tearing apart at the seams. We’ve got to get businesses started. Let’s provide micro- grants to everyone for free. Here’s money to open up a gas station or start up a wheat seed store.” Then someone said, “You know, we need a banking system.” Well . . . there’s a conflict if we’re giving money away for free but also want to get the banking system up and working. Generally the way banks earn money is they charge interest. The two programs were diametrically opposed. At some point we were going to have to transition from one to the other.26

Expanding on the previous example of providing a school to a community, the end result should not only incorporate a building but also all supporting functions in addition to educating governing authorities who should manage the academic budget, maintain the facility, and establish a job placement program for graduates – the totality of life- cycle considerations. Maneuver guided by a campaign plan both steers a project and links it to other counterinsurgent initiatives. Expanded maneuver applies no less to the realm of influence operations. Terrorism vaulted the LTTE to preeminence among Sri Lanka’s insurgent movements, but Prabhakaran miscalculated its effects on diaspora support. Diaspora monies provided as much as 60 percent of LTTE funding.27. Terror disgusted many in the worldwide Sri Lankan community. Voluntary contributions dropped off sharply. So too did other funding as individuals the Tigers were coercing used various governments’ listing of the LTTE as a terrorist organization to justify ceasing contributions.28 “In an extremely short period,” one author noted, “the LTTE lost almost all financial support from expatriates in the West at a time when the government was growing stronger.”29 Having sliced off his nose by affronting India, Prabhakaran found his terrorist tactics likewise cut off his lifeblood. Sri Lanka’s successful lobbying for the addition of the LTTE to terrorist lists was on par with its cultivation of ties with China in terms of diplomatic brilliance. Capi- talizing on insurgent public affairs blunders is a lesson other counterinsurgents might take to heart. Offered the public relations gift of Iraqi insurgents posting beheadings on the internet within days of Western media exposing Abu Ghraib prisoner mistreatment, those responsible 272 Additional recommendations for U.S. information management failed to capitalize on the insurgents’ barbarism. The heinous but far less brutal mistreatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners continued to dominate media coverage. British government actions taken in the immediate aftermath of Provisional Irish Repub- lican Army bombings on “Bloody Friday” in Northern Ireland as described in Chapter 4 stand in sharp contrast. Bringing politicians, soldiers, and police officials together was not easy for a colonial counterinsurgent leader in Malaya or Kenya. But it was a considerably lesser challenge than that faced by the twenty- first-century coalition leader working with numerous international governments and myriad non- state organizations in addition to their own government’s agencies. Adapting maneuver to better fit modern operational complexity can only aid in addressing that difficult task.

Measure wisely, measure to motivate Our patrols through the city at night were keeping people awake and tearing up the roads. Those city leaders told me, “We don’t want you bringing your tanks and Bradleys [mechanized infantry fighting vehicles] into the city.” I told them, “I have to bring them in because I have to conduct patrols. People are getting attacked. We need to secure your markets and protect your residents. You don’t want tanks or Bradleys in the city? Then you make sure there are no attacks.” The response was, “It’s not Fallujah people. It’s people from outside the city.” I said that I didn’t really care who it was. “I know you know who’s doing this stuff and I know you have control over it. Here’s the deal: I agree not to bring tanks or Bradleys into the city and you figure out how you are going to keep people from being attacked. We’ll start out for a week. If it works, we’ll continue not bringing tanks and Bradleys into the city.” So we went for a week. There wasn’t a single attack in Fallujah. Not one attack. It was unheard of at that point in time. We go for another week – no attacks. What happens? I get queries from higher: “Hey, you know we have this chart that tracks the number of patrols units are making. Your unit is the worst out of all the units we monitor.” I said, “OK, but you understand this is part of the whole dynamic, that we have cut back the patrols because we worked this deal with the sheiks and the mayor and they agreed they are going to keep their city safe. If they keep their city safe and our guys aren’t attacked then I don’t need to bring tanks and Bradleys into Fallujah.” “But you don’t understand. We measure patrols. We don’t measure the number of enemy attacks. You aren’t green. You’re red. You used to be doing great and now you’ve dropped off. What happened?” “But look at the attacks. The number of attacks used to be high and they’ve dropped off.” We were measuring the wrong thing, and what we were measuring was driving our actions.30 Additional recommendations 273 When is an occupying counterinsurgent’s ultimate transfer of authority to an indigenous government no longer premature? What elements of an influence campaign are proving successful? Does the local community believe security is improving? It is impossible to determine whether a course of action is effective, benign, or harmful without gauges. Counter- insurgency tends to make causality – whether or not progress or its absence is attributable to specific activities – difficult to establish. A sudden drop in improvised explosive device attacks against local civilians might signal successful interdiction of bomb-making materials or be a consequence of local leaders agreeing to provide insurgent recruits. As evident in the quotation above, Major General David Perkins’ seniors asked him to report something easily measured (the number of patrols) that generated a condition (coalition soldiers on city streets) thought to support a desirable end (better security). The metric reflected an extent of effort expended but not the effect of that effort.31 Damagingly, the measure motivated a behavior (more patrols) that appeared to do little more than consume resources, put soldiers at risk, and alienate the local community. Ultimately it was the opposite behavior – not patrolling – that brought about the desired end (admittedly in combination with Perkins’ negotiations). Measuring the number of insurgent attacks would at first glance seem to have been the better measure of conditions in Perkins’ area of operations. Yet little is obvious when confronting insurgencies. It is worth recalling Valentine Strasser’s unilateral declaration of a ceasefire in Sierra Leone after a sharp drop in RUF resistance. The lack of opposition reflected the insurgents’ withdrawing to mend wounds and prepare for further action rather than defeat as assumed by Strasser, a misunder- standing his government paid for dearly. Measures signaling apparent counterinsurgent progress need not mean insurgents are not also benefiting. Fewer patrols in Fallujah saw a reduction in the number of attacks on coalition soldiers. That decrease might also have left the city’s population at the mercy of groups using the absence of U.S. forces to set up a shadow government. The possibility need not have eliminated the number of attacks as an effective COIN metric, but it suggests that additional measures would have been necessary to gauge whether apparent progress was partnering with setbacks that could have otherwise remained undetected. How can the counterinsurgent design metrics that not only measure effectiveness but also motivate beneficial behaviors, thereby avoiding counterproductive responses such as those following the use of body count as a measure in Colombia? Perkins advised focusing not on the immediate objective of “What is next?” but instead concentrating on the ultimate ends sought: “What is last?”32 This implies using backward planning, a process known to anyone familiar with military preparations for an operation. Back- ward planning implies envisioning ultimate ends sought and working back toward the present time while ensuring all designated activities remain 274 Additional recommendations consistent with those goals. Applied to the design of metrics, a similar process would (1) measure whether current activities are supportive of longer- term objectives while (2) not benefiting the enemy or other parties whose objectives conflict with those of the counterinsurgent, and (3) spur beneficial counterinsurgent behaviors.

Structure the United States Government to better manage international conflict The absolute necessity for unity of effort and command stands as one of the clearest lessons to emerge from the historical record of this period of the war in Iraq. . . . The principle was not well practiced during the first year. . . . The December 2002 decision to give the DOD the lead role in postwar Iraq was in part an attempt to avoid the lack of unity of effort that critics had pointed out in previous US missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan. The potential benefits of that decision, however, were not realized due to interagency friction and to lack of coordination with the DOD.33

The United States reorganized its security structure in the aftermath of World War II. President Truman created the National Security Council in 1947, an organization ostensibly responsible for coordinating executive branch defense and foreign policy. General Dwight D. Eisenhower oversaw creation of a Department of Defense seeking to consolidate the capabilities of its armed services so they could be managed within a single organization. The British did much the same to improve inter- service coordination with the formation of a Minister of Defence position replacing the Secretary of State for War, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Secretary of State for Air in the cabinet. Recent decades have seen evolutions in liberal societies’ security environments and their armed forces capabilities comparable to those in the initial Cold War years. Yet governments – that of the United States included – remain essentially unchanged in terms of their ability to manage conflict, additions such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Defense notwithstanding. We have noted that departments demonstrated a decided lack of commitment to subjugating bureaucratic agendas for the collective good during early operations in the Balkans and Iraq in stark contrast to those of Australia during RAMSI. British Army Major General Tim Cross, recalling U.S. interagency friction in Iraq in 2003, “was struck by the deep animosities between the various Washington departments. It was clear, for example, that many in the State Department deeply resented the Department of Defense (DOD) and [Secretary of Defence Donald] Rumsfeld, almost to the point of wishing strategic failure.”34 The historical tendency to address security concerns sequentially – victory first, rebuilding after – has given way to the realization that both tasks are better taken on Additional recommendations 275 simultaneously. Given this recognized but largely unaddressed circum- stance, there is reason to question the suitability of Washington’s executive branch structure for handling twenty- first-century conflicts. The long delays between conflict initiation and the creation of campaign plans are emblematic of the shortfall, as are disconnects between projects over- seen by the Departments of Defense, State, and others such as Agricul- ture and Justice. That the eventual development of those plans ultimately relied on the serendipitous joining of cooperative personalities reinforces the observation. Effective government-wide interagency operations (“whole of government” to use the term more familiar to America’s partners) continue to prove elusive. Lines of operation and the strands within remain loosely wrapped for years after undertaking major contingencies. Potential solutions include the ad hoc creation of single governmental points of contact to streamline responses to field requirements (as was done by the Australian government during RAMSI).35 Financial procedures, in particular, demand revamping. Each U.S. government department or agency currently receives separate funding for campaign activities. Ill- advised restrictions on expenditures inhibit interdepartmen- tal cooperation rather than promoting it. The result is competition, inef- ficiency, and national embarrassment. Alternatively providing funding to a single body responsible for oversight of a campaign, one perhaps part of or otherwise answering directly to the National Security Council rather than a specific executive department, would be a major step toward greater operational coherency.36 Though the focus here is on the United States, this need to reconsider whether existing government structures are appropriate to twenty- first- century governing responsibilities is not limited to the that country. British operations in Sierra Leone suffered from the sometimes inadequately responsive Ministry of Defence and Department for International Devel- opment.37 Tim Cross, after witnessing the performance of both the U.S. and British governments in Baghdad, concluded:

We need to transform the architecture of [the British] government. I liken it to the journey that we in Defence have been on for the last 50 or so years, the move from a separate War Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry to a Ministry of Defence.38

Alternatively, there may be times when putting a qualified leader from a single agency in charge offers the most logical way ahead (as was the case in Sierra Leone and, one might remember, in Malaya a half century before). Carefully crafted leadership by committee à la Solomon Islands is an alternative possibility, understanding that there was a well established hierarchy of authority within that committee. Regardless of the structure employed, counterinsurgents in the field will find their chances of success dimmer in the absence of coherent and effective management. 276 Additional recommendations Negotiate before you have to General Perkins negotiated with Fallujah community leaders when he could offer something city officials wanted: a halt to patrols. Negotiations put what proved to be the final punctuation mark on the worst of North- ern Ireland violence after London’s economic, political, diplomatic, and security initiatives had washed much of the sand from beneath PIRA’s feet. Talks in Colombia and Southern Philippines came in the aftermath of insurgents recognizing that theirs was a diminishing capacity relative to that of the governments they confronted. Insurgent groups in Anbar and Sierra Leone ultimately joined counterinsurgent forces because the latter either had something the former needed (assistance in defeating AQI) or had effectively defeated those foes on the battlefield. Negotiating from a position of strength is an established practice in the commercial world. Such advantage is too often squandered in the counterinsurgent arena thanks to at- home political profiling or oversensitivity to those ruling in the indigenous capital (as was perhaps the case in Afghanistan when two British officials were banished for communicating with a Taliban representative). Alternatively, counterinsurgents sometimes choose not to negotiate when they have the upper hand, only to later find that changes to conditions in the field or diminishing domestic support undermines their once advantageous position. The outsider also risks being unable to attain its strategic objectives when indigenous officials pose potentially insurmountable obstacles to progress. Sitting down at the table when conditions are favorable, and means of coercion remain in the outsider’s quiver, enhances the probability of successful negotiations with “friends” no less than foes.

Remember counterinsurgency success is the priority Remembering that the definition of counterinsurgency requires addressing underlying grievances in addition to overcoming insurgent movements, neutralizing threat groups comprises but one challenge in attaining sought after goals. Other barriers can include in- place societal or other norms. Canadian and Swedish refusal to route aid funding through Free- town and the Marshall Plan’s clever structuring of aid delivery in the aftermath of World War II hint at potential ways ahead when financial corruption is among the grievances underlying an insurgency’s rise or obstacles hindering a counterinsurgent’s successful departure. These approaches would seem to hold particular promise in situations involving a few major funders or single dominant provider as is the case with Aus- tralia in the Solomon Islands. The exhaustion of patience and pre- objective accomplishment withdrawal is a potential destiny when an indigenous government proves itself incurably corrupt. The inability to address underlying grievances risks Additional recommendations 277 resurrection of insurgency in the aftermath of that departure. Former counterinsurgents may find themselves having to return in such circumstances. Those choosing to do so would be well advised to impose far harsher conditions on the once- again beleaguered government than was previously the case. RAMSI is the third attempt at resolving the Solomon Islands’ deeply entrenched political shortcomings. Those accepting the challenge of a fourth would be justified in demanding the installation of a caretaker government before committing to it. A review of the eight cases above makes it clear that the greatest obstacle to counterinsurgency success may be less the insurgents than the governments they threaten.

Concluding thoughts One of the common sins of counterinsurgency is overestimating successes.39

Sensible men are prudent enough to treat their gains as precarious.40

Progress during a counterinsurgency – much less ultimate success – can be slow in coming, impermanent, and hard to recognize other than in distant retrospect. There is also the ironic situation in which one conducts counterinsurgency operations in the absence of an overt insurgent threat. It is the activities inherent in those last words of COIN’s definition – “and to address any core grievances” – that dominate a campaign in such a situation. Such is the case in Solomon Islands and during the final years of the counterinsurgency campaign in Sierra Leone. The longest phase and most difficult stretch of years may be those once armed insurgents no longer pose the primary concern. Counterinsurgency, therefore, inherently encompasses a broad range of objectives and activities. A campaign continues as long as objectives include addressing core grievances, an end responsible authorities are well advised to keep in mind throughout as a means of maintaining focus. The failure of a jobs program in the absence of a potentially re- emergent insurgency threatens little more than higher unemployment and increased welfare payments. Failure during the reintegration phase of DDR can spur a return to nationwide violence. Progress is fragile. It tends to occur locally rather than universally throughout a country or region of interest. The wise counterinsurgent avoids the temptation of believing local success reflects more general progress. Ousting insurgents from Fallujah in November 2004 saw the scattering of the adversary to Mosul and other of Iraq’s cities. The Armed Forces of the Philippines and their U.S. partners found the same after threat groups fled Basilan for Jolo and other islands in the south of the archipelago. Those confronting only intra-national challenges should consider themselves fortunate. Seven of the eight counterinsurgencies discussed in the foregoing pages included regional components that extended beyond 278 Additional recommendations the immediately at- threat country, a factor significantly complicating resolution.41 More careful scrutiny of the eighth, Solomon Islands, suggests that even there insurgent activity on nearby Bougainville may have inspired the rise of Solomon Island militias running rampant in the decade before RAMSI’s arrival.42 Declarations of success are better left to historians than counterinsurgents themselves. Any and all of the eight contingencies considered here remain vulnerable to reversal. That neither Russia in Chechnya nor Sri Lanka has taken steps to redress causes underlying now largely latent grievances causes one to question the durability of the relative tranquility. North- ern Ireland’s peace rests on foundations still undermined by groups that pleasure in demonstrations of sectarian hatred, groups fortunately characterized by decreasing numbers, an inability to generate other than minimal popular support, and increasing marginalization. Only time will tell whether the respite will continue or will instead suffer from the popular forgetful- ness in which extremist thought re- roots. Favorable signals from Manila with respect to addressing government corruption and negotiating with first the MNLF and later MILF suggest there is greater cause for optimism there. However, Moro National Liberation Front and other groups’ violence in the aftermath of government agreements made with the Moro Islamic Libera- tion Front implies that any optimism regarding the end of insurgency in Southern Philippines merits restraint. So, too, does the seemingly intractable obstacle of long entrenched privilege benefiting the Philippine elite, a barrier to progress that will continue to stoke support for insurgent groups throughout the country. The reaction by the slighted MNLF also provides a reminder regarding the importance of not assuming those parties to the right on the continuum of relative interests no longer warrant attention. Groups left out of negotiations have hindered counterinsurgent progress not only in the Philippine case but also in Colombia where the ELN was denied participation in government- FARC discussions. Poverty handicaps development in both Sierra Leone and Solomon Islands. Maintaining progress – or rejuvenating lapsed promises in the latter case – relies on sustaining outsider support from governments whose publics may grow weary of continuing to fund corrupt leaders. Colombia benefits from consecutive administrations capable of dealing with narcotics- fueled criminal insurgencies. Insurgencies in nearby countries increasingly feed on adjacent teats of the same beast, however, casting a pall on hopes for regional stability. If the arrival of a Jolly Bee hamburger franchise on Basilan was cause for confidence, continued international hesitation to invest in the country with the third largest petroleum reserves in the world is a fair metric of the fragility of Iraq’s stability, as is the resurgence of Sunni insurgency in mid- 2014. It is hesitation fed by Baghdad politicians’ continued employment of religious and ethnic fault lines for personal gain not unlike that suffered by Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland during the fledgling days of their insurgencies. Additional recommendations 279 Insurgency’s ongoing evolution suggests it is to the lessons from more recent campaigns that today’s counterinsurgents should turn to complement – or in many cases replace – lessons from those in the waning years of the colonial era. These lessons include those drawn from observing the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s manipulation of international media representatives so skillfully as to set a new standard for employing the allegedly neutral medium as a major tool for generating financial, political, and other support. The rights of the province’s Catholics became a cause célèbre for parties as disparate as American politicians and Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi while cultivating diaspora backing with previously unseen effectiveness. Hezbollah has refined media manipulation further, compromising allegedly objective sources by linking battlefield access to the insurgents’ strict control of journalists and their ilk. Tamil Tiger development of worldwide support via financing of diaspora business startups on the one hand and coercing donations on the other comprised another leap marking the departure from insurgency as it had been in previous decades. LTTE expatriate supporters constituted the movement’s primary means of sustainment prior to its leader’s diplomatic miscalculations. Such sophistication freed the Tigers from significant reliance on active support by foreign governments for much of its existence. Chechen use of the internet to solicit financial support marks yet another significant evolu- tionary step, as does the FARC’s transition from political to a predominantly narcotics- reliant criminal insurgency with economic, training, and illicit connections around the world. The post- World War II colonial era has much to offer counterinsurgents of a half- century and more later. The difficulty arises when leaders responsible for twenty- first-century COIN campaigns apply its lessons without adequate consideration of context. Much of our current understanding of counterinsurgency and the doctrine drawn from these earlier campaigns remains valid in its essentials. Much else shows itself in need of better judgment before those lessons’ application. Recent cases shed light on insurgency’s changed and changing character that a more distant past simply cannot provide. Examples from decades immediately past provide valuable insights even when a counterinsurgent initially stumbles or finds current thinking wanting. That the British in Northern Ireland, Philippine armed forces in their country’s south, Americans in Anbar Province, and Colombians throughout their nation overcame early missteps shows that placing faith in an undeserving government, failing to constrain militias, too hastily surrendering an occupier’s authority, tolerating excessive corruption, or falling victim to the allure of other misguided perceptions need not presage a dark end. It is better, however, to not misinterpret the past’s lessons or accept misguided “truths” that will later result in counter- marches costly in lives and other treasure. 280 Additional recommendations Notes 1 Cowper- Coles, Cables from Kabul, p. 145. 2 Northern Ireland Office, Alignment Between the Security Forces and Civil Govern- ment, quoted in Irwin, “Northern Ireland Campaign,” 31. 3 George S. Patton speaking at Fort Benning, Georgia in1941 as quoted in “The Musicians of Mars: A Story of Synchronization for the Company/Team Com- mander,” Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned publication 90–6, June 1990, ii. 4 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, p. 47. 5 Glenn, Band of Brothers or Dysfunctional Family?, p. xiv. 6 Ministry of Defence, Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, The Comprehensive Approach, joint discussion note 4/05, January 2006, 1–1, available at: www.mod. uk/NR/rdonlyres/BEE7F0A4-C1DA-45F8–9FDC-7FBD25750EE3/0/dcdc21_ jdn4_05.pdf (accessed July 7, 2009). 7 Glenn, Evaluation of USAID’s Community Stabilization Program (CSP), p. 16. 8 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, pp. 1–12. 9 Dr. Daniel Marston suggested use of the term “harmony of effort” during a review of a draft manuscript. 10 McChrystal, My Share of the Task, p. 240. 11 Irwin, “The Northern Ireland Campaign,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 29 (emphasis in original). 12 Irwin, “The Northern Ireland Campaign,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 33. Early remarks in his chapter notwithstanding, General Irwin later reinforced this statement, recognizing that the counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland might have benefited from a campaign plan. 13 The 265 mile value is based on an estimate of the straight line distance between today’s Cairo and Jerusalem. I acknowledge that the higher authority might have had objectives in tension with efficiency of movement. 14 David A. Charters, “From Palestine to Northern Ireland: British adaptation to low- intensity operations,” in Armies in Low- Intensity Conflict: A Comparative Ana- lysis, (eds.) David Charters and Maurice Tugwell, London: Brassey’s, 1989, p. 195. 15 Irwin, “Northern Ireland Campaign,” 31. 16 For example, former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez reported that “many nongovernmental organizations openly allied themselves with the armed leftist groups, providing them with funds and other forms of logistical support” (Uribe, No Lost Causes, p. 104). Writing of operations in Afghanistan, Fred Kaplan similarly recorded “Petraeus was listing the various jihadist front organizations, noting that they included the Red Crescent, [reporting the coalition had] very firm intelligence that a slice of Red Crescent is supporting terrorist operations” (Kaplan, The Insurgents, p. 127 (emphasis in original)). 17 For reasons of operational security, areas labeled as out- of-bounds would sometimes include those devoid of operational significance. The coalition might otherwise be compromising operational intentions, albeit not in detail. 18 Mackinlay, Insurgent Archipelago, pp. 228–29. 19 See, for example, Paul B. Rich, “Counterinsurgency or a war on terror? The war in Afghanistan and the debate on Western strategy,” Small Wars & Insurgen- cies 21:2 (2010): 415–420. 20 “Killing two birds with one tree: Forestry in Japan,” The Economist 406 (March 9, 2014): 51. 21 David Ucko, “Lessons from Basra: The Future of British Counter- insurgency,” Survival 52 (August–September 2010): 133. 22 Joint Publication 1–02, November 8, 2010, 190. Additional recommendations 281 23 Richard E. Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare, London: Brassey’s, 1988, p. 22. 24 Rollo, “Campaigning and Generalship,” 185. 25 Russell W. Glenn, Land Maneuver in the 21st Century: The 2nd Latrun Conference for Land Warfare, Latrun, Israel: Institute for Land Warfare Studies, 2009, 9, available at: www.ilws.org.il/UserFiles/File/Maneuver%2011–25–08.pdf (accessed Febru- ary 28, 2013). 26 David G. Perkins (MG, U.S. Army) interview with Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Tikrit, Iraq, June 28, 2011. 27 Kenneth Omeje, “The Diaspora and Domestic Insurgencies in Africa,” African Sociological Review 11 (2007): 11. 28 The U.S. declared the LTTE a terrorist organization in 1997. Canada did so two years later and declared the organization’s funding networks illegal in 2005, the EU doing so the following year. C. Fair, Urban Battle Fields of South Asia, 65–66; Smith, “Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat,” 42. 29 Smith, “Understanding Sri Lanka’s Defeat,” 43. 30 Perkins interview. 31 The author thanks Colonel (U.S. Army, retired) Gregory Fontenot for first bringing this distinction to his attention. 32 Perkins interview. 33 Donald P. Wright and Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Cam- paign: The United States Army in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, May 2003–January 2005, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008, p. 571. 34 Tim Cross (Major General, British Army, retired), “Rebuilding Iraq 2003: Humanitarian Assistance and Reconstruction,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 71. 35 Lucius D. Clay, U.S. military governor in Germany after World War II, did much the same, though in his case he appointed himself the single conduit “to insure that U.S. policy was coordinated in the hands of the man responsible.” See (ed.) Jean Edward Smith, The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay, Germany 1945–1949, Volume 1, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974, p. xxx. 36 Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates might disagree as he was no fan of the National Security Staff directly involving itself in operations during his tenure. See, for example, Gates, Duty, p. 586–87. However, past issues in this regard – ones Gates implies are at least in part personality dependent – need not preclude future success, particularly in light of recent interagency cooperation shortfalls. 37 Nick Parker (General, British Army, retired), “Twenty- First-Century Opera- tional Leadership: Sierra Leone, Baghdad and Northern Ireland,” in British Generals in Blair’s Wars, p. 133. 38 Cross, “Rebuilding Iraq 2003,” 77. 39 Harmon, “How Terrorist Groups End,” 56. 40 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 4:18, in The Landmark Thucydides: A Com- prehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, (ed.) Robert B. Strassler, New York: The Free Press, 1996, p. 233. 41 The regional context is obvious from discussions in most of the relevant chapters. Discussions not overtly highlighting the subject do not signal absence of this complicating factor. See, for example, “Intrusion confusion: The Philip- pines and Malaysia,” The Economist 406 (March 9, 2013): 51, at: www.economist. com/news/asia/21573148-farcical- invasion-borneo- gets-serious- and-nasty- intrusion-confusion (accessed March 15, 2013). 42 Nearly 9,000 Bougainvilleans crossed the short expanse of water between their island and nearby Guadalcanal during insurgent-inspired violence in the last decade of the twentieth century. According to a United Nations report, “It was 282 Additional recommendations inevitable that they would have shared with [the] Guadalcanal people information on how they (the Bougainvilleans) had driven away the Papua New Guinean Highlanders who had arrived in large numbers to staff a giant open- cut copper mine and assumed prominence in local business.” See Glenn, Coun- terinsurgency in a Test Tube, pp. 2–6 and 14. The quotation originally appears in Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator, United Nations Develop- ment Programme, “Common Country Assessment: Solomon Islands,” final draft, Suva, Fiji, March 23, 2002, 58. Bibliography

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Page numbers in bold denote figures.

Abacha, Sani 117 44–5, 49, 51–7, 60–1, 63, 66, 68, Abu Ghraib 271 73n55, 76n95, 254, 277–9 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) 50–3, 55, 60, Armed Forces Revolutionary Council 61, 70n15, 72n36; ferry bombing 50; (AFRC) 113, 116–17, 120, 143n57, links to Al Qaeda 50 144n59, 145n72 Act of Union 81 Ashdown, Paddy 249 Aden 1, 8, 95 Auqino, Benigno 67, 77n97 Afghanistan 2, 4, 14, 17n27, 28, 45, 63, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) 104, 172, 194, 198, 207, 227n9, 184 238–40, 246, 251–2, 256, 260n15, Australia 12, 16, 70n21, 139, 150–2, 265–6, 274, 276, 280n16; center of 156–8, 162–9, 171, 178n27, 274–6; gravity 235–6, 238 RAMSI see Regional Assistance Albiston, Christopher 87, 106n30, Mission Solomon Islands (RAMSI) 108n83 Australian Agency for International albu-Risha, Sattar 209, 210, 212–13, Development (AusAID) 72n52, 151, 217, 219, 220, 222, 230n68, 243; 155–6, 164–5 assassination 210 Australian Defence Force 5, 16, 150, Alexander the Great 241 165, 169, 178n27 Alford, Dale (Colonel) 206 Australian Federal Police 150, 163, 165, Algeria 1, 8, 234, 236, 237, 260n16 255 Allenby, Edmund (General) 7–8 Autonomous Region of Muslim All Peoples Congress (APC) 111–12 Mindanao (ARMM) 49, 55, 58, 60, Al Qaeda: Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) 206, 66, 67, 72–4, 137, 245; corruption 49, 208–15, 217–18, 220–2, 276; in 245 Philippines 50 Awa massacre 185 American, British, Canadian, and Awakening Council 209–10, 228n30 Australian (ABCA) cooperative 6 Azerbaijan 23 Ampatuan massacre 56–7, 254 Anglo-Irish Agreement 89, 98 Ba’athists 215–16, 224 Annan, Kofi 118 Baghdad 95, 172, 210, 271, 205, 206, Anbar Province 13, 205–21, 223, 209, 210, 212, 214, 216, 223, 226n7, 228n30, 234–7, 243, 267, 270, 276, 228n30, 229, 243–4, 257, 267, 271, 279 275 Arab insurgency 7–8, 242 Bailey, John (General) 252–3 Arango, Andres Pastrana 186, 190, 198 Balkans 266, 274 Arbuckle, Richard 83, 105n16 Bandaranaike, S.W.R.D. 29–30, 32, 111, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) 243 308 Index Bangsamoro Framework 60, 67, 70n 15, Chechnya 12, 22, 24, 36–8, 39n18, 55, 74n76, 77n97, 199 63, 110, 138, 232, 234, 241; center of Bani Sa’ad Correctional Facility 257 gravity 37–8, 236; Dagestan 24; Basilan 12, 51–3, 56, 58, 60, 68, 254, forced resettlement 232; use of 277, 278 media and internet 24–5, 40n25, 279; Basilan model 53 see also Russia, in Chechnya Battle of Bud Dajo 46 Chiarelli, Peter (General) 10, 17n25, 216 Berna, Don 182 child soldiers 113, 117, 130 Bennett, Vern (Major) 161 China 8, 33, 174, 181, 271 Blair, Tony 91, 120 Civil Defence Force (CDF) 116, 120, Black Tigers 29–30 123, 134, 143n39, 144n59 Bloody Friday 84, 85, 272 Civilian Armed Forces Geographic Bloody Sunday 84, 85, 89, 97–8, 235, Units (CAFGU) 53, 56–8 268 civilian volunteer organization (CVO) Boer War 232 57–8 Borneo 8 von Clausewitz, Carl 4, 130, 145n90, Borthwick, Jonathan (Major) 129, 131 260n16 Bose, Subash Chandra 31 Clinton, William 42n86, 187 Bosnia and Herzegovina 249 coalition, the 4, 6, 13–14, 55, 117, 211, Boulton, Donna (Major) 150, 162–3 213, 215–19, 220–6, 228, 232–8, 244, Boyne, Sean 107n43 246, 252, 254, 256, 258, 273, 280n16 Brighton bombing attempt 78 Colombia 7, 13, 124, 135, 161, 180–200, British military 5, 7, 79, 84, 85, 91, 235, 254–5, 267, 270, 273, 276, 278–9; 95–6, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105, 119–20; aid 187, 193; building government British in Northern Ireland 12, legitimacy 191; corruption 186, 189, 78–105, 255, 270, 279; in Sierra 193, 199–200; Democratic Security Leone 118–41, 158, 235, 255, 259, and Defense Policy 187, 196; 270 disarmament, demobilization, and Burkina Faso 111, 117, 138 reintegration (DDR) 188; geography Bush, George H.W. 181, 186 194; infrastructure 192; intelligence Bush, George W. 189, 228 187–8, 190–1, 196; land ownership 193; land reform 180; land seizures Caesarea 20 184; legal system 196, 199; measures Cahill, Joe 98 of success 188; military 187–8, 192, Canada 29, 33, 42, 129, 253, 276, 196; militias 181–2, 184–5, 189, 281n28 190–3, 199, 254 (see also Caucasus 25, 37 Revolutionary Forces of Colombia center of gravity 13, 97, 124–5, 154, (FARC)); Ministry of Agriculture 174, 185, 199–200, 235–40, 260n16; 198; Ministry of Defence 190; oil 185; in Afghanistan 235–6, 238; in police 180, 187–8, 190, 196, 198, 200; Chechnya 37–8, 236; in Iraq 237; in politics 180, 186; poppy spraying Northern Ireland 97, 237; in programs 193; negotiations with Philippines 236–7; Revolutionary militias 186; social issues 186; social Forces of Colombia (FARC) 185, reforms 198; strikes against FARC 199–200, 236–8; Revolutionary leadership 194; taxes 186 United Front (RUF) 124–5, 199, Continuity Irish Republican Army 102 236–7; in Russia 38; in Solomon Communism 1, 8, 46–8, 66, 180, 182, Islands 154, 175, 220, 236–8; in Sri 231; in Philippines 46–8 Lanka 38; Tamil Tigers 37–8, 236 Communist Party of the Philippines Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 4, (CPP) 47–8, 61, 70n15 16n9 Community Stabilization Program 225 Charters, David 268 Compaoré, Blaise 111 de Chastelain, John (General) 102 Cook Islands 151 Chavez, Hugo 194 Correa, Rafael 194 Index 309 corruption: in Colombia 186, 189, 193, Department for International 199–200; in Iraq 209–10, 222, 225, Development (DfID) 133–7, 244; in Philippines 47, 54–5, 62, 146n115, 147n118 66–8, 71n27, 243; in Sierra Leone Dhofari insurgency 245 114, 127–9, 133, 137, 140; in diaspora 279; in Ireland 80, 82, 138; in Solomon Islands 155–7, 167, 170, 173 Philippines 61–2, 75n81; Tamil 29, Cosgrove, Peter General 153 35, 61, 65, 138, 271 counterinsurgency: center of gravity 13, Diem, Ngo Dinh 245 37–8, 97, 124–5, 154, 174, 185, disarmament, demobilization, and 199–200, 235–40; ‘death of’ 13–15, reintegration (DDR) 58–9, 60, 65, 123, 240–1; democracy 13, 174, 222, 102, 118, 121, 134–5, 144n61, 224–5, 248–9; external 145n72, 149, 156, 174, 188, 213, 255, counterinsurgents 242–3; 277; in Colombia 188; in Iraq 213; in infrastructure, social and physical 14, Northern Ireland 102; in Philippines 54, 68, 125–7, 131, 225–6, 255–8; 58–9, 60, 65, 102; in Sierra Leone lessons learned 232–3; media, 118, 121, 134–5, 144n61, 145n72; in influence of 24–5, 27, 151, 158, 232, Solomon Islands 59, 118, 121, 134, 279; militias 14, 56–9, 68, 104, 115, 149, 156, 174 118, 126, 131, 134, 129, 200, 233, Dudayev, Dzhokhar 23 253–5; money, use of 258–9; Duff, Bill 83, 108 negotiations 74n77, 276; popular Duncan, Andrew 121 support 42n86, 238–40, 249; Dunning, Adam 158 population-centric 236–8, 240; revised beliefs 13–14, 36–8, 67, East Timor 139, 153, 157–8, 165 104–5, 123–41, 175–7, 199–200, economic assistance: in Northern 221–6, 233; success 19, 139, 188, 258, Ireland 99, 102 273–4; supporting local governments Economic Community of West African 13, 104, 223, 241–5; transfer of power States (ECOWAS) 116–17 13, 125, 246–8, 273; use of force 13, Economic Community of West African 36–8, 63–4, 233, 234–5, 239; whole of States Monitoring Group government 61, 91, 94, 102, 151, 155 (ECOMOG) 112, 117–18, 140, Crocker, Ryan 220, 244 143n43, 144n58, n59, n61, 145n72 Cross, Tim 275 Economic Cooperation Administration Cuba 180–1, 183 128 Curtis, Robert 83 Ecuador 194 Cumanus, Ventidius 20 Egypt 22, 136, 138, 187, 266 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 274 Dagestan 24–7 Escobar, Pablo 181–2, 184; bombing of datus 45 Avianca flight 203 181 Daughters of Iraq 210, 213 Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) Davis, Mike 84 181, 186, 192, 199, 204n91, 278 Deady, Timothy (Colonel) 248 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) 186 DeBeers 112 Executive Outcomes (EO) 115–16, 130, demobilization, reintegration, and 137, 142n34 disarmament (DRD) 65 Exercise Balikatan 02–1 52 democracy 13, 44, 67–8, 76, 88, 111, 116, 140, 159, 175–6, 196–7, 205, 222, Facilitation of International Assistance 224–5, 248–9; in Iraq 216, 222, 224, Act 150 234, 248–9, 256; in Solomon Islands Falklands War 119 159, 175–6 Fallujah 205, 215, 219, 234, 259n10, Democratic Unionist Party 86 268, 271–3, 276, 277 Department of Foreign Affairs and FARC see Revolutionary Forces of Trade (DFAT): Australia 150–1, 165, Colombia (FARC) 166; New Zealand 151 fatwas 212 310 Index Fiji 149, 151, 165, 169 India 31–2, 34, 36, 44, 123, 271; Fonseka, Sarath General 33, 35 relations with Tamil Tigers 31–2, 36 forced resettlement 232 Indo-Lankan Accord 32 Four-Square Laundry 100 Indonesia 8 Frewen, J.J. (Lieutenant Colonel) 150, infrastructure, social and physical 14, 152, 153–5, 158, 160, 165, 166, 191, 54, 68, 125–7, 131, 225–6, 255–8; in 259 Colombia 192; in Iraq 215–16, 225–6, Fridovich, David (Colonel) 52 230n75, 255; in Philippines 54, 61; in funding: Irish Republican Army 80, Sierra Leone 125–7, 131, 137–8, 86–8, 93; Provisional Irish 257–8 Republican Army 86, 87–8, 93; insurgency: definitions of3 –7, 8, 113, Revolutionary Forces of Colombia 160; motivations of 4–5 124, 161, 180–1, 183–4, 194, 199–200 intelligence: in Colombia 187–8, 190–1, 196; in Philippines 54, 61; Gabara 21 Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Gadhafi, Muammar 71n33, 93, 98, 111 Islands 165, 166–7; United Kingdom 142n17, 279 93–5, 98; United States of America Gaitan, Jorge Eliecer 180 210–13 Galan, Luis Carlos 181 intergovernmental organizations Galilee 21, 113 (IGOs) 65, 178n33, 269 Galula, David 234, 236, 239 international law 19, 35, 113, 235 Gandhi, Indira 31 International Peace Monitoring Team Gandhi, Rajiv 32, 36 (IMPT) 149, 160 Gapes, Mike 252 International Security and Assistance Gates, Robert 76n90, 281n36 Force (ISAF) 17n25, 235, 239, 250 Gaviria, Cesar 181 Iraq 2, 4, 6, 10, 13–15, 45–6, 85, 95, Gentile, Gian 240 104, 136n118, 171, 194, 198, 205–35, Gerrymandering 82 239–49, 251–8, 260n16, 264n93, Giles, Roy 107n51 266–71, 274, 277–8; Abu Ghraib 271; Good Friday Agreement 92, 102, 105, Awakening Council 209–10, 228n30; 192 Ba’athists 215–16, 224; Baghdad 95, Government of Ireland Act 79 172, 210, 271, 205, 206, 209, 210, Graham, Andrew (Lieutenant General) 212, 214, 216, 223, 226n7, 228n30, 4, 263n73 229, 243–4, 257, 267, 271, 275; Graham, Kate 164 center of gravity 237; corruption Grozny 23, 26–7, 234, 236; Russian 209–10, 222, 225, 244; disarmament, seizure of 26–7 demobilization, and reintegration Guadalcanal Liberation Front (GLF) (DDR) 213; government 5, 213, 216, 148–9, 153, 155, 158, 160–1, 175, 185, 222, 247, 253, 266; Haditha 215; 236 Hussein regime 224; infrastructure Guevara, Che 1 215–16, 225–6, 230n75, 255; Islamic Guinea 112, 120–1, 130, 143 State of Iraq 205, 226n3; Islamic Gwale Isatabu Freedom Movement 148 State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) 205, 223, 226n3, n4; Islamic State of the Hadrian 22 Levant–ISIL 205, 223, 226n3, 244; Hamas 30, 101 legal system 216, 222; military/ Harper, Stephen 252 security forces 212–18, 220, 228n30; Heath, Edward 83 police 213–15, 217, 221; politics 209, Herodium 21 213; sectarianism 205, 207, 210, Hezbollah 9–10, 17n23, 30, 78, 101, 279 212–16, 220–2, 224–5, 243–4, 249, Hoyt, Timothy 83 251; Shia 4, 210, 228n30; Sunni 4, Hukbalahap 10, 11, 46; resistance to 209, 210, 213, 219, 220, 228n30; Japanese occupation 46; communist tribal customs 208 motivations 46 Iraqi Interim Government 171 Index 311 Ireland, Northern 12, 15, 67, 78–105, Jerusalem 21, 26 123, 138, 155, 194, 200, 216, 232, Jetley, Vijay Kumar (General) 118 235, 241, 243, 245, 255, 267–8, 270, Joint Chiefs of Staff 248 276, 278; Anglo-Irish Agreement 89, Jolo 53, 56–8, 68, 277 98; British propaganda 91; ceasefire Josephus 22 85, 89, 91, 92, 155; center of gravity Jotapata 21 97, 237; disarmament 102; economic assistance 99, 102; Good Friday Kabbah, Ahmad Tejan 116–18, 120–1 Agreement 92, 102, 105, 192; Kabul 63, 172, 227n9, 251 government discrimination 82, 98; Kai-shek, Chiang 8 intelligence organizations 94; kamajors 115, 118, 126, 129, 131, 134, motivations for insurgency 82; 140, 143n39, 144n59, 254 negotiations 67; parliament 80; Karzai, Hamid 76n90, 227n9, 252 police 82, 94; political parties 86, 89; Kazakhstan 23 sectarianism 79–88, 97, 103, 105, 251, Kearney, Andrew 93 278; Ulster 78, 86–7, 92, 94, 96, 104, Kearnery, Maureen 93 105; Ulster Special Constabulary 82, Keen, David 114 84, 87, 94, 105n3; whole of Keke, Harold 153–5, 160–1, 164, 174–5, government 91, 94, 102 185, 220, 233, 236–8 Ireland, Republic of 78–81, 92, Kenya 1, 8, 63, 227n9, 272 97–8, 107n66; diaspora 80, 82, 138; Kipling, Rudyard 250 politics 98; as a safe haven 92 Kiribati 151 Irish Charity Northern Aid (NORAID) Kitson, Sir Frank 3, 100 93 Koroma, Ernest Bai 128 Irish National Liberation Army 85, 102 Koroma, Johnny Paul (Major) 116–17, Irish Republican Army 79–83, 85–94, 120 97–8, 100, 102, 186; ceasefire 85, 89; Krulak, Charles (General) 107n45 criminal activities 86, 90 (see also Continuity Irish Republican Army); land reform: in Colombia 180 funding 80, 86, 87–8, 93 (see also Lawrence, T.E. 7–8, 242 Official Irish Republican Army); Lebanon 9, 30, 101 political prisoner status 86–7, 90, lessons learned 232–3 216; propaganda 82 (see also Lomé Peace Accord 117–18 Provisional Irish Republican Army; Los Pepes 182 Real Irish Republican Army); Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam relations with FARC 186 (LTTE) see Tamil Tigers Irish Special Branch 97 Liberia 110–12, 115–16, 120–1, 138, Iron, Richard (Brigadier) 17n28, 139–42, 145 107n49, 115, 142n15 Libya 71n33, 88, 93, 111–12, 117, 138, Irwin, Sir Alistair 267–8 142n17, 279 Isatabu Freedom Movement 148–9 Linder, James (Colonel) 55 Islamic extremism 4 Israel 9, 17n23, 25, 63, 112, 117, 187; MacFarland, Sean (Colonel) 206, 209, Israel Defense Force 9 220, 243, 267 Mackay, Andrew (Major General) 252 Jaish al Mahdi (JAM) 210, 221, 225, 254 Mackinlay, John 269 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) 28–9, Machaerus 21 32, 35, 36 Magsaysay, Ramon 46–7, 53, 62 Janjalani, Adburagak Abubakar 50, 56, Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF) 149, 150, 71n33 155, 157, 173, 174; coup 149 Jamaal Islamiyah (JI) 50–1, 53, 55, 60, Malaya 1–2, 8, 66, 71, 74n75, 84, 95, 99, 70n15, 72n36 135–6, 161, 190, 232, 272, 275; Japan 8, 31, 33, 46, 197, 203, 269 British colony 2; sectarianism 2; Japha 21 surrendered enemy personnel 66 312 Index Maliki, Nouri al 223, 244 Multi-National Corps-Iraq 239 Mansoor Dadullah 227 Multi-National Force — Iraq 244 Mansoor, Peter 239, 244, 248–9 Moyer, Mark 249 Marcos, Ferdinand 49, 76 Marshall Plan 128, 177, 253, 266, 276, Napoleon, Bonaparte 241 284 Nassiriya water treatment plant 257 Marighella, Carlos 1 National Diamond Mining Company Marks, Thomas A. 191 112 Martin, Bernadette 93 National Patriotic Front of Liberia Marulanda, Manuel 194 (NPFL) 111–12, 115 Masada 21–2 National Reconciliation Committee 215 Maskhadov, Aslan 26, 40n25 National Security Council 248, 274–5 Maxwell, David (Colonel) 15, 45, 69n5 Nauru 151 McChrystal, Stanley (General) 238, 267 negotiations 74n77, 276; in Colombia McDevitt, Ben 150, 153–7, 160–1, 186; in Northern Ireland 67; in 163–4, 166, 169, 175, 191; ‘criminal Philippines 49, 52, 60, 63, 67, 74n74 insurgency’ 160 Nero 21 measures of success 188 New People’s Army (NPA) 47–8, 61, Medby, Jamison Jo 63, 64 70n15 Medellin cartel 181–2, 201n11 New Zealand 151, 160–1, 163, 165, 169 media, influence of 27, 151, 158, 232; Nigeria 116–17, 140, 143n43 in Chechnya 24–5, 40n25, 279; in Nixon, Richard M. 242 Northern Ireland 232; in Russia 27 Nongovernmental Organizations Mende 111 (NGOs) 34, 52, 54, 66, 71n22, 72n52, Mexican-American War 250 114, 128–9, 178n33, 268–9; in Miller, Paul D. 248 Philippines 52, 54; in Sierra Leone militias 14, 56–9, 68, 104, 115, 118, 126, 114, 128–9 131, 134, 129, 200, 233, 253–5; in Noble, Peter 160, 169 Colombia 181–2, 184–5, 189, 190–3, Noriega, Manuel 4, 195 199, 254 (see also Revolutionary North Atlantic Treaty Organization Forces of Colombia (FARC)); in Iraq (NATO) 3, 6 206, 208, 210, 212–15, 220–1, 225, 254 (see also Sons of Iraq); in O’Callaghan, Sean 87 Northern Ireland militias 80, 200, Odierno, Raymond T. 239 254; in Philippines 53, 56–9, 68, 102, Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) 254; in Sierra Leone see kamajors; in 85 Solomon Islands 148–9, 150, 153–5, Óglaigh na heireann (ONH) 102 161, 254 oil spot theory 60, 74n75, 153, 205, Mindanao 12, 47, 49, 50, 56, 57, 59, 66, 211–12, 214 68, 254; privately armed groups 57 Oldfield, Maurice95 Mindanao massacre 66 Oman 1, 8, 95, 245 Mockaitis, Thomas 3 Operation Barras 120–1 Momoh, Joseph 111–12, 114, 243 Operation Basilica 120 Moros 44, 45–511; insurgency 47–8 Operation Iraqi Freedom see United Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) States military, in Iraq 48–50, 53, 55–6, 60–1, 65, 67, 70n15, Operation Motorman 84–5 72n36, 73n60, 74n77, 75n78, 278 Operation No Living Thing 117 Moro National Liberation Front Operation Palliser 119–20 (MNLF) 48–50, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60–1, Operation Pay Yourself 116 65, 67, 70n15, 74n67, 199, 278; attack Operation Whirlwind 24 on Panamao 56; peace agreement 58; Ottoman Empire 7–8 reintegration 60, 65 Mosul 211, 221, 277 Pacific Island Company158 Muralitharan, Vinayagamoorthy 33 Pakistan 251 Index 313 Palestine 25, 30, 88 population-centric 236–8, 240 Pangutaran 60 Porch, Douglas 240–1 Papua New Guinea 151, 169, 282 Potsdam Agreement 248 People’s Army of Sierra Leone 116 Prabhakaran, Velupillai 3–6, 236, 271 Perkins, David (Major General) 271, Premadasa, Ranasinghe 32 273, 276 Programa de Atención Humanitaria al Pershing, John (General) 46, 58 Desmovilizado 188 Pashtun 255, 264n93 Progressive Unionist Party 86 Patton, George S. 267 propaganda: Provisional Irish Petraeus, David (General) 219–20, 244, Republican Army (PIRA)101–2; 258, 280n16 United Kingdom 91; see also use of Philippines 1, 4, 12, 15, 44–68, 96, 102, media 104, 123, 132, 137, 159, 235, 241, Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force 83, 243, 245, 248, 254–5, 257, 270, 276, 102 278, 1901–1903 Philippine Provisional Irish Republican Army Insurrection 232; causes of unrest (PIRA) 78, 81–92, 94, 98–9, 101–2, 46–7; center of gravity 236–7; civilian 155, 233, 272, 276, 279; ceasefire91 , volunteer organization (CVO) 57–8; 155; criminal activities 86, 90; communism 46, 48; corruption 7, funding 86, 87–8, 93; Good Friday 54–5, 62, 66–8, 71n27, 243; Agreement 92; ‘lawfare’ 86; London democracy 54, 159; diaspora 61–2, bombings 85; media, use of 279; 75n81; disarmament, demobilization, political prisoner status 86–7, 90, and reintegration (DDR) 58–9, 60, 216; prisons, role of 86–7; 65, 102; gun ownership 58–9; propaganda 101–2; organizational Hukbalahap see Hukbalahap; structure 85; Warrenpoint bombing infrastructure 54, 68; intelligence 54, 91 61; Islam see Moros; Japanese Putin, Vladimir 25–7, 246 occupation 46; Jollibee 53, 62; Jolo Pye, Lucian 66 53, 56–8, 68, 277; legal system 62; militias 53, 56–9, 68, 102, 254; Rafael, Rubin (General) 74n87 Mindanao 50, 57, 68, 254; Ramos, Fidel 58–9, 65 negotiations 49, 52, 60, 63, 67, Rajapaksa, Mahinda 33, 35 74n77; New People’s Army (NPA) Rajapaksa model 28, 34–5 47–8; Pangutaran 60; Philippine RAMSI see Regional Assistance Mission Department of National Defense 57; Solomon Islands Philippine National Police (PNP) 57, Reagan, Ronald 181 61; reintegration of MNLF 60, 65; Real Irish Republican Army 102 ridos 48, 56, 57, 68; Special Advocacy Regional Assistance Mission Solomon on Literacy/Livelihood and Islands (RAMSI) 12–13, 59, 94, Advancement for Muslims (Sala’am) 148–200, 238, 254–5, 259, 266–7, 270, teams 54; social ties 54, 68, 75n87 274–5, 277–8; arrival in Solomon Philippine Department of National Islands 150; ‘Big Three’ 150, 152–5, Defense 57 161–2, 166, 169, 200, 246, 267, 270; Philippine National Police (PNP) 57, casualties 158; contributing nations 61 151; economic inflation, control of Philippine War 46 158; Executive Officer of Plan Colombia 186–7 Transparency Solomon Islands 170; police: in Iraq 213–15, 217, 221; in funding 151–2; gun amnesty Sierra Leone 118, 121–3, 127, 132–6, program 152; interaction with locals 139–40; in Solomon Islands 149–51, 153, 157–8, 165–6, 172, 176; 153–8, 166, 170, 173, 176 intelligence 165–7; investigative Police Field Force 150 procedures 156–7, 166; leadership, popular support for counterinsurgencies, importance of 164–6, 169; mission 42n86, 238–40, 249; in Russia 238 objectives 153, 155, 171; Pacific 314 Index Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Royal Ulster Constabulary 82, 84, 87, Islands continued 89, 94–5, 102, 105, 105n3 Island Company 158; popular Rumsfeld, Donald 274 support 238; relations with Solomon Russia 12, 19, 22–8, 35–8, 39n17, 44, 80, Islands government 167, 172, 174, 97, 180, 232, 234, 238, 255, 270, 278; 176; rule of law 157; scope of casualties 27–8; center of gravity 38; engagement 169–71; use of force in Chechnya 12, 22–8, 35, 36–8, 55, 152, 235; use of media 151, 158; 97, 180, 246, 278; public opinion of whole of government 151, 155, 163, campaign 26; tactics 23; weaponry 23; 164–6, 169, 275 use of force 36–8, 55, 63, 234–5 revised beliefs 13–14, 36–8, 67, 104–5, Russian Ministry of Defense 27 123–41, 175–7, 199–200, 221–6, 233 Russian Ministry of Internal Defense Revolutionary Forces of Colombia 24, 27 (FARC) 4, 7, 13, 50, 124, 161, 180–99, 201n3, n4, 202n26, n28, Sadr, Muqtada al 210, 214, 221 236–8, 278–9; center of gravity 185, Saenz, Guillermo Leon 192 199–200, 236–8; criminal enterprise Said, Qaboos bin 245 124, 161; defections 188; expansion Sali, Jainal Antel Jr. 56 183–4, 186; goals 195; organizational Samoa 151 governance 183–5; politics 184; Sankoh, Foday 71n33, 111–18, 120, popular support 238; recruits 185; 126, 142; imprisoned 120; pardoned Seventh Guerrilla Conference 183; 118 territory 182, 184–6; training 183, Santos, Juan Manuel 185, 192, 198, 199, 186; Union Patriotic (UP) 184 202 Revolutionary War, of the U.S. 5 von der Schulenburg, Michael 128 Revolutionary United Front (RUF) 71, Scott, Winfield (General) 250 110–21, 123–4, 126, 129–34, 138, 140, Second Lebanon War 101 142n22, n25, n26, 143n43, 144n58, sectarianism: in Iraq 205, 207, 210, 145n72, 185, 194–5, 199, 233, 235–9, 212–16, 220–2, 224–5, 243–4, 249, 273; arms imports 112; center of 251; in Malaya 2; in Northern Ireland gravity 124–5, 199, 236–7; child 79–88, 97, 103, 105, 251, 278; in soldiers 113, 117, 130; criminal Sierra Leone 135; in Sri Lanka 28, activity 113; diamonds see Sierra 39, 45 Leone, natural resources; segregation: in Northern Ireland 82, disarmament, demobilization, and 102–3 reintegration 118, 121, 134; disband September 11, 2001 25, 93 118; funding 112, 117, 124–6, 130, Shamanov, Vladimir (Major General) 138; motivations 11, 130; Operation 26–7 No Living Thing 117; Operation Pay Shashikumar, V.K. 34 Yourself 116; payments to Liberia Sierra Leone 12, 71, 110–41, 142n17, 112; People’s Army of Sierra Leone 144n59, 146n92, 151–2, 157–8, 116; as a political party 118; 168–73, 176, 184–5, 194–5, 199, resurgence 115 224–5, 235–7, 241, 243, 245, 253–5, Reyes, Raul 194 257, 259, 266, 270, 273, 275–8, 1993 Richards, David (Brigadier) 119–21, offensive 114; aid 110, 114, 116; All 126, 130–1, 133, 137, 145n90, Peoples Congress (APC) 111; armed 147n123, 194 forces 112, 114, 115, 120–2, 126, 129, Riley, Jonathan (General) 126, 251–2 134, 140, 146n92; capacity building Rojas, Victor Julio Suarez 194 127, 131–7; ceasefire 115, 273; Rollo, Bill (Lieutenant General) 270 Central Investigations Department Rome 7, 20–2, 28, 37, 234; in Judea destroyed 117; child mortality rate 38n4, 20–2; use of force 20–2, 37–9, 122; Civil Defence Force (CDF) 116, 234 120, 123, 134, 143n39, 144n59; civil Roxas, Manuel 46 war 110; corruption 14, 127–9, 133, Index 315 137, 140; coups 114, 116; diamonds Islands; police; police 149–51, 153–8, 110, 112 (see also Sierra Leone, 166, 170, 173, 176; Townsville Peace natural resources); disarmament, Agreement 149, 152, 177; United demobilization, and reintegration Nations Development Program 156; (DDR) 118, 121, 134–5, 144n61, wantok 170–1, 173–4, 176, 245, 251; 145n72; economic conditions 110; in World War II 148 ethnic divisions 111; government Sons of Iraq 21–3, 218, 220–1, 225, agency funding 125, 137; in Guinea 226n7, 243, 254 120; independence 110; Soviets see Russia infrastructure 125–7, 131, 137–8, Special Advocacy on Literacy/ 257–8; kamajors 1, 115, 118, 126, 129, Livelihood and Advancement for 131, 134, 140, 143n39, 144n59, 254; Muslims (Sala’am) teams 54 military reforms 134–8; militias see special infantry operations teams Sierra Leone, kamajors; Mende 111; (SIOT) 33–4 natural resources 110, 113–16, 120–1, Special Powers Act 86 126, 130–1, 138, 199, 236; National Sri Lanka 12, 19, 22, 28–38, 44, 55, 63, Diamond Mining Company 112; 98, 110, 138, 232, 234–5, 241, 243, nationalizing DeBeers 112; Ministry 254, 270, 271, 278; casualties 34, 35; of Defence 134, 135; Office of ceasefires 32, 33; center of gravity National Security 125, 135; 38; Chinese support 33, 38; Operation Barras 120–1; Operation colonialism 28; funding the Basilica 120; Operation Palliser counterinsurgency 33; forced 119–20; police 122, 133, 136, 139, incarcerations 232; India, relations 140; sanctions 116; sobels 115; Sierra with 32, 34, 38; Janatha Vimukthi Leone Peoples Party 111, 121; Peramuna (JVP) 28–9, 32, 35, 36; suspended from the Commonwealth military training 33–4, 41n73; 116; Temne 111; Territorial Defence Muslim community 28, 35; Force 134 sectarianism 28, 39, 248; Sinhalese Sierra Leone Peoples Party 111, 121 28; special infantry operations teams Simpkin, Richard 270 (SIOT) 33–4; United Front 32; use Slim, Sir William (Field Marshal) of force 36–8, 55, 63, 234–5; Vanni 203n48 campaign 34, 232; Wahhabism 35 Special Task and Rescue Division Stewart, Andrew (Major General) 254 (STAR) 150 Stevens, Siaka 111–12, 114, 129, 243, Sogavare, Manasseh 158–9, 175 253 Soldados de mi Pueblo 191 Strachan, Hew 2 Solomon Islands 12, 123, 137, 139, 141; Strasser, Valentine 114–15, 143n43, 148–77, 216, 220, 224, 241, 245, 251, n44, 273 254, 257–9, 268, 275–8; aid 174; Sweden 122, 129, 253, 276 center of gravity 154, 175, 220, 236, suicide bombing 28, 30, 32, 210 237–8; corruption 1, 155–7, 167, 170, Sulu, Sultan of 45 173; coup 149; democracy 159, Sunni Awakening 211–12, 214–15, 175–6; destabilization 150; 217–18, 220, 222 disarmament, demobilization, and Sun Tzu 172 reintegration (DDR) 59, 118, 121, surge, the 209, 211, 219, 228n25 134, 149, 156, 174; economy 158, 173; ethnic tensions 148–50; Taliban 63, 76, 227n9, 238–24, 252, 276 Facilitation of International Tamils 28–38, 65; colonialism, under 28 Assistance Act 150; government 148, diaspora 29, 35, 61, 65, 138, 271; 246; independence 148; discrimination against 28, 30; International Peace Monitoring grievances 28, 35; political party 33; Team 149, 160; militias 148–9, 150, refugees 35; Tamil National Alliance 153–5, 161, 254; Royal Solomon (TNA) 36 Islands Police (RSIP) see Solomon Tamil National Alliance (TNA) 36 316 Index Tamil Tigers 12, 28–36, 38, 41n52, 61, United Nations Children’s Fund 139, 65, 97, 234, 236, 271, 279n28, 140 281n28; assassinations 32; Black United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone Tigers 29–30; ceasefires 32–3; center (UNAMSIL) 118–22, 137, 144n63 of gravity 37–8, 236; defections 33; United Nations Development India, relations 31–2, 36; links with Programme 141n2, 156 other insurgents 29; recruitment United States of America (U.S.) 3–6, 32–3 10, 37, 45–55, 58, 63, 80, 82, 83, 87, Taruc, Luis 47 92–3, 101–2, 104, 117, 132, 181–2, Taylor, Charles 111–12, 116, 120 186–90, 199–200, 206, 209, 211–26, Tawhid sect 35 235, 243, 248, 246, 247, 256; aid to Tawi Tawi 54, 68, 257 Colombia 187, 200; Department of Templer, Gerald 42n86, 95, 134, 136, Defense 266, 274; Department of 231 Homeland Defense 274; Territorial Defence Force 134 Department of State 16n9, 266; Thatcher, Margaret 78, 88, 90 intelligence 210–13; IRA support 83, Thomas, Timothy 25, 39n17 87–8, 92–3, 101–2; Irish diaspora 80, Thompson, Robert 237 82, 88; Revolutionary War 5; use of Titus 21, 26 force 37 Tonga 151, 169 United States Agency for International Townsville Peace Agreement 149 Development (USAID) 54, 225, 248, training: Revolutionary Forces of 266 Colombia (FARC) 183, 186 United States Joint Special Operations transfer of power 13, 125, 246–8, 273; Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) 51, in Northern Ireland 81, 84, 243, 245, 52, 55, 58, 70n15 246 United States military 3, 6, 228n20; in Trinquier, Roger 236 Afghanistan 45, 104, 256; in Troubles, The 79, 87, 88, 91 Colombia 181–2, 186–90, 199, 235; Truth and Reconciliation Commission decision making process 218, 219; in 111 Iraq 10, 45, 104, 206, 209, 211–26, Truman, Harry 274 228n20, 235, 248, 255, 256, 267, 270, Tse Tung, Mao 1, 8, 60, 237, 260n20 279; in Philippines 45–55, 58, 63, Tuhanuku, Joses 170 235, 248, 255, 277 United States Special Inspector General Ulster Defence Association 86, 88, 89, for Iraq (SIGIR) 257 100, 102, 106n30 Uribe, Alvaro 187–8, 189–95, 197–200, Ulster Special Constabulary 82, 84, 87, 201n2, 240, 255, 270, 280n16 94, 105n3 use of force 13, 36–8, 63–4, 233–5, 239; Ulster Volunteer Force 83, 86, 89, 102 Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Unionists 82, 102 Islands 152, 235; Russia 36–8, 55, 63, United Front 32 234–5; in Sri Lanka 36–8, 55, 63, United Kingdom (U.K.) 5, 7, 12, 234–5; United States of America 37 78–105, 118–41, 148, 158, 235, 243–6, 259, 272, 274, 276; Department for Vanni Campaign 34, 232 International Development 266, 275; Vanuatu 149, 151 economic assistance to Northern Venezuela 192, 194 Ireland 99, 102; Foreign and Vespasianus, Titus Flavius (Vespasian) Commonwealth Office 266; 21, 113 intelligence 93–5, 98; Ministry of Vietnam 8, 45, 47, 95, 161, 183, 194, Defence 266, 274, 275; propaganda 197, 231–2, 245 91 United Nations 34, 114, 116, 118–22, Warner, Nick 150–1, 154–5, 161, 126, 128, 130, 131, 133, 136–7, 140, 165–6, 169, 191 156, 171, 242, 245, 249 Warrenpoint bombing 91 Index 317 Watson, James 157 Woodhouse, C.M. (Colonel) 237 West Side Boys 120 World Bank 122 Westphalian sovereignty 250 Wood, Leonard (General) 46 Yeltsin, Boris 24–5, 40n28 eBooks from Taylor & Francis Helping you to choose the right eBooks for your Library

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