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Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL and Options for Adaptation

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Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL and Options for Adaptation C O R P O R A T I O N Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL and Options for Adaptation Linda Robinson For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR1290 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-0-8330-9482-7 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2016 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html. The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Preface The attacks by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Paris on November 13, 2015, represented a watershed moment that spurred wide international recognition of the growth and reach of ISIL and a resulting consensus that more active measures were needed to confront the group. The counter-ISIL campaign has accelerated since the fall of 2015, but questions persist as to the exact suite of measures needed and the adequacy of the overall strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL. These questions also grew more acute with Russia’s military intervention on behalf of the Syrian regime starting September 30, 2015, which greatly strengthened the regime’s faltering hand against its armed opponents. The anti-ISIL fight in that country has increasingly blended with that civil war, as ISIL moved westward and a skittish Turkey sought to pre- serve room for opposition Arab forces against the Syrian Kurds. This report assesses the first 18 months of the campaign to coun- ter ISIL. This analysis should be of interest to the policymakers and legislators charged with overseeing the counter-ISIL strategy, as well as the military and civilian practitioners involved in executing it. The paper evaluates the viability of the partnered approach by evaluating the capabilities and interests of the various forces that the United States is attempting to support, considers the political impediments to achiev- ing the stated objective of defeating ISIL, and assesses the approach compared with other potential alternatives. This report recommends steps to (1) improve the partnered approach to the military campaign, (2) formulate a detailed approach to the foundational political line of effort, and (3) synchronize the political and military elements of the strategy so these lines of effort effectively enable one another. iii iv Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL In late 2015, the U.S. government decided to deploy an expe- ditionary targeting force aimed at gaining intelligence and targeting top ISIL leaders, and this effort yielded numerous results in the first months of 2016. The accelerating campaign against the ISIL leader- ship raised the prospect that this important line of effort might outrun the advances in building a competent and coherent hold force in both Iraq and Syria. Similarly, the advances on this front cast into relief the absence of the necessary political agreements in Iraq and Syria to assure that new terrorist and insurgent activity would not emerge to fill the vacuum left by ISIL’s demise. The research was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Insti- tute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified- Com batant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. For more information on the International Security and Defense Policy Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/ndri/centers/isdp.html or con- tact the director (contact information is provided on web page). Contents Preface ............................................................................. iii Figure and Table .................................................................vii Acknowledgments ............................................................... ix Abbreviations ..................................................................... xi CHAPTER ONE Introduction ....................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO The Counter-ISIL Strategy, the Political Context, and the Threat .....15 The U.S. Counter-ISIL Strategy .................................................15 The Political Context .............................................................15 Assessment of ISIL ............................................................... 20 CHAPTER THREE Assessing the Counter-ISIL Forces ...........................................25 Counter-ISIL Forces in Iraq and Syria ..........................................25 CHAPTER FOUR Assessment of the Counter-ISIL Campaign................................ 43 Achieving Effects Through the Partnered Approach ......................... 50 Training ..........................................................................51 Equipping ........................................................................52 Advising ..........................................................................53 Employing the Full Range of Advisory Functions ......................... 54 v vi Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL CHAPTER FIVE Recommendations ...............................................................57 Recommendations for Improving the Military Line of Effort ...............58 Resource a Robust Advisory Effort at the Operational Level ............. 60 Increase the Effectiveness of the Air Campaign ............................ 64 Commit to a Long-Term Train-and-Equip Program .......................65 Add a Significant Unconventional Effort to the Counter-ISIL Campaign............................................. 66 Increase Coordination of and Support to Syrian Opposition Forces .....67 Emphasize the Political Effort and Overall Synchronization of the Counter-ISIL Strategy .............................................. 68 Conclusion .........................................................................72 Selected Bibliography ...........................................................75 Figure and Table Figure 2.1. Iraq and Syria: ISIL’s Areas of Influence, August 2014 to February 2016 .................................... 22 Table 3.1. Characteristics of Counter-ISIL Forces ...........................37 vii Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Seth G. Jones, director of RAND’s Inter- national Security and Defense Program; Charles Ries, vice president, International, at RAND; and Jim Dobbins, RAND senior fellow, for comments on drafts of this report and discussions about events in Iraq and Syria. In addition, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution and Douglas Ollivant, a RAND adjunct fellow, served as peer review- ers and provided thoughtful comments and suggestions that greatly improved this document. RAND research associate Madeline Mag- nuson and project associate Anthony Atler provided valuable research support for this effort. The author is also indebted to RAND com- munications analysts Erin Dick and James Chiesa, administrative assistant Lovancy Ingram, production editor Julienne Amsden, and research editor Linda Theung for superb editorial assistance. Many individuals in Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait, as well as the United States, generously shared their insights and provided unclassified information for use in this report. This report results from a RAND-sponsored research program. Comments or questions should be addressed to the author, Linda Robinson, RAND senior international policy analyst, at [email protected]. ix Abbreviations AAH Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq ANF al-Nusra Front CTS Counter Terrorism Service DoD U.S. Department of Defense FSA Free Syrian Army HMMWV high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle IED improvised explosive device ISF Iraqi Security Forces ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance KH Kata’ib Hizballah KSF Kurdish Security Forces MFF Mosul Fighting Forces NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NSF New Syrian Forces PKK Kurdish Workers’ Party PMF Popular Mobilization Forces SDF Syrian Democratic Forces SOF Special Operations Forces TOW tube-launched, optically tracked, wireless-guided YPG Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Units (Kurdish Yekineyen Parastina Gel) xi CHAPTER ONE Introduction This report assesses the prospects of success in countering the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) through a partner-based
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