7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) Kill the Leaders! Covert Operations, and Coercive Power

1. Dr. Adam Leong Kok Wey, Senior Lecturer, Specializations: Foreign policy and all dimensions of strategy, National Defence University of Malaysia, [email protected]

Abstract Although much has been written about the practice of covert operations utilising assassinations of enemy leadership, none had specifically studied the strategic logic and utility of such operations as a means of coercive power. This paper provides an analysis of the effects of killing the enemy leadership through the lens of strategic theories related to leadership decapitation. Historical case studies of covert operations and assassinations conducted by the exiled government during World War II (Operation Anthropoid), and the practice of covert operations via assassinations to gain political power by the Nizaris between the 12th and 13th centuries in the Middle East, are used for the analysis of the utility of covert operations within the strategic context of coercive power. Although covert operations’ results have been mixed, this practice of coercive power continues to provide an economical and deniable form of intervention in pursuit of national interests (and power), and importantly, can be utilised by all states regardless of its relative power (from great powers to small powers).

Keywords: Assassinations, strategic decapitation, leadership decapitation, special operations, morale

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) Introduction Power is a notion that is both difficult to define and measure. There are numerous definitions on power and various concepts to measure it. Power can be both tangible, measuring in various terms of size of military and a state’s economic health, and intangible. Albeit its difficulties in having conclusive definitions and measurement, power is one of the key factors in ensuring a state’s survival and the promotion of national interests. Power comes in different forms and “texture”, such as diplomatic power, military power, coercive power, economic power and state power. Coercive power is one of the most practised form of power in international politics. It is used to support a state’s foreign policies, regardless of the overall size of the particular state’s power. Coercive power is used either to gain strategic advantage or to deter a potential foe. Coercive power is also used to demonstrate to allies and friendly states of a particular state’s resolve in confronting an adversary.

Coercive power comes in various forms including threats of sanctions, blockades, suspension of trade, and to the extreme policy of waging war. One of the less discussed but widely used instrument of coercive power is covert operations. Covert operations includes a variety of intelligence operations ranging from subversion to more overt forms of violence such as assassinations.

This paper studies covert operations conducted in support of a state’s foreign policy as a form of coercive power and assesses its strategic utility. Although covert operations’ results have been mixed, this practice of coercive power continues to provide an economical and deniable form of intervention in pursuit of national interests and power, and importantly, can be utilised by all states regardless of its relative power from great powers to small powers. This paper will first touch on the definitions of coercive power and covert operations used in this research, and then studies two important and unique case studies of covert operations conducted by the exiled Czechoslovakia government during World War II (Operation Anthropoid), and the practice of covert operations via assassinations to gain political power by the Nizaris between the 12th and 13th centuries in the Middle East. These case studies are analysed for its strategic utility and provides guidance for its contemporary use.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) Coercive Power Robert Dahl’s definition of power as ‘the ability of A to get B to do something which he would otherwise not do’ is one of the most widely used definition of power. They are three common ways for understanding the concept of power which are: control over resources; control over actors; and control over outcomes. Having control over resources is one of the most popular ways of understanding power, as it can be quantified. For example a state is considered powerful if it has abundant military resources, human resources, natural resources, and economic resources. Control over actors refers to the ability of a state to alter the behaviour of another state, usually by using various instruments of power. The power over outcomes perhaps is the most elusive and difficult to achieve, as it involves the setting up of a state’s end and employing various ways and means to achieve its end, which is difficult to predict due to the strategic problem of uncertainty.

Power can be used coercively to compel an adversary or even a friendly state to do what the coercive state wants them to do. Coercive power can also be used to reshape the environment and make it conducive to attain control over outcomes. The instruments of coercive power can come in various forms, from military power waging wars to limited military interventions in ‘small wars’. Covert operations, secret small scale operations conducted with minimal resources but with very high yield results is another important tool of coercive power.

More importantly, coercive power in the form of covert operations can be used by both great powers and even small powers. Perhaps with the usage of covert operations, Dahl’s parsimonious definition of power can be amended to, ‘A replaces B with a C to do what A wishes.’ For this to occur, coercive power with covert operations can be used to advance its goal. The next section continues the discussion of covert operations.

Covert Operations Covert action, as it name implies, are conducted secretly by states and non-state actors to influence and manipulate events. The main attributes of covert action is secrecy and deniability. Covert operations are slightly differrent from military special operations

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) which are both overt yet covert operations. Covert operations are usually conducted by intelligence agencies in the most clandestine and non-attributable ways, if things go wrong it can be plausibly denied. If things worked out all right, its secrecy usually precludes any attribution of the covert operations’ role in its success. M.R.D. Foot had given one of the better definitions of Special Operations which can be usefully used to describe covert operations too (as the British usually classifies Covert Operations as Special Operations) as: They are unorthodox coups, that is, unexpected strokes of violence, usually mounted and executed outside the military establishment of the day, which exercise a startling effect on the enemy; preferably at the highest level.1

Covert operation can be conducted by various means, from propaganda radio broadcasts, information warfare via social media today, to more violent forms of operations such as assassinations. Covert operations sometimes also involves working with various opposition parties, whether legitimate political parties or illegal rebel movements (and even terrorist organisations). Covert operatives usually provides military training, arms and financial aid to armed groups to support its aim of overthrowing an adversarial government. It can also fund an opposition party to assist in its overthrow of a government through legal and proper channels such as in a democratic election.

Covert operations is useful as the ‘Third Option’ between using military force and diplomatic tools to achieve a state’s policy end. Military force intervention is usually the most difficult to use – it needs the tacit approval of international organisations and domestic support, and costly in terms of finance and blood. War’s ultimate end is also heavily influenced by the meddlesome three variables: chance, luck and uncertainty. History has shown that in many cases, a state that used war as a foreign policy tool usually ends up worse off, and high chances of even losing the war and risking total destruction of her state. Diplomacy usually works to slow and may not yield any results

1 M.R.D. Foot: “Special Operations/I”, chapter in Michael Elliott-Bateman (ed): The Fourth Dimension of Warfare: Vol. 1, Intelligence, Subversion, Resistance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970), p. 19. Gray: Explorations, p.145.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) at all, and can be dangerously seen as a weak way of conducting international security affairs.

Covert operations bridges these two ways of conducting statecraft, it allows a state to conduct some forms of coercive measures and it is also both secret and deniable. It can be economical, as it usually uses a few operatives with a smaller budget as opposed to using large scale military forces, and if successful, yields handsome strategic results. If the covert operatives were caught, a state can deny it knew of their actions and can blame it on personal individual action that have nothing to do with the state. Covert operatives which are selected and trained for these operations knew that they were on their own, and will suffer horrendous torture and execution without any assistance from their governments. It is widely known that they are usually given poison pills to prevent them falling alive into enemy hands.

The following sections studies two case studies of covert operations using assassinations as a tool to advance a state’s coercive power and concludes with an analysis of the strategic performance of such operations.

Operation Anthropoid (The of ) In 1938, as a result of the to appease Hitler, Czechoslovakia’s Sudentenland were given to Germany. The Germans later invaded and occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia, and carved her into two main areas, the Protectorate of and Morovia, and . Reinhard Heydrich was a senior Germany SS member and head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) since 27 September 1939. Heydrich was appointed as the SS Reichprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia exactly two years later on 27 September 1941. Heydrich in his new post was very successful in eliminating most of the Czech resistance movements. In the league of resistance activities in occupied Europe, Czechoslovakia ranked in the bottom position.2 He also used a ‘stick and carrot’ approach to entice and coerce the Czech population to submit to German occupation, and increased industrial output.

2 Moravec: Master, p. 210.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) Czechoslovakia with its arms manufacturing industry was an important supplier of arms and ammunition for the German military forces.

The Czech exiled President Beneš was also worried that the legitimacy of his government and Czechoslovakia’s future state status would be affected if the war ended soon.3 He wanted Czechoslovakia’s territories to be recognised as pre-1938 Munich Agreement. In the last quarter of 1941, the British and her allies were in an unstable situation; Western Europe had been occupied by Germany, Rommel was running circles around the British forces in Northern Africa, and the US had not joined the war (not until the Pearl harbour attack on 7 December 1941). President Beneš needed a political publicity coup to push for his Czechoslovakia state agenda which had influenced him to increase the resistance activities in Czechoslovakia and demonstrate to the world the willingness of the Czech people to fight for their freedom. To do that, President Beneš and the exiled Czechoslovakia government, decided to kill Reinhard Heydrich. President Beneš knew that by killing Heydrich, mass brutal reprisals will be launched against the docile Czech population. President Beneš had stated, “Where national salvation was at stake, ‘even great sacrifices would be worth it’.”4 These hoped for reprisal was intended to initiate greater hatred against the occupying Germans and kick start more vigorous resistance activities, and to draw worldwide condemnation and sympathy towards the ’ statehood plight.

The operation to kill Heydrich was given the code name Operation Anthropoid.5 Two Czech SOE members were selected for the mission; they were Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis. They were dropped into Czechoslovakia on 28 December 1941. The operation to kill Heydrich was conducted almost five months later on 27 May 1942. Heydrich was ambushed by the two Czech SOE operatives, and was seriously wounded by an anti-tank grenade shrapnel. He later died from an infection from his wound on 4 June 1942. As a consequence of Heydrich’s killing, mass brutal reprisals were unleashed upon the Czech people - during the period from 28 May to 1 September 1942, 3,188 Czechs were

3 Burleigh: Moral Combat, p. 306. 4 ibid., p. 306. 5 HS 4/39, cover letter on “Operation Anthropoid”.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) arrested with 1,357 of them executed.6 The most famous incident was the destruction of Liddice. All the men between 15 to 84 years of age, a total of 184 men from the village were executed. The women and children (numbering 104) were sent to concentration camps. Only 17 children and 53 women from survived the horrors of the concentration camps after the war ended. Similarly, on 24 June 1942, the village rned to the ground, and its inhabitants either shotof Ležáky or sent followed to concentration suit. The village camps. was A bumassive operation was launched to hunt down the assassins but failed initially to locate them. The SOE operatives who killed Heydrich hid in ’s Orthodox Church’s secret chambers but was finally betrayed by a fellow SOE operative. Their hideout was surrounded and attacked by the German security forces.7 After a fierce fire-fight, and running out of ammunition and to avoid capture, the SOE men decided to take their own lives. All of them killed themselves either with cyanide pills and/ or by shooting themselves.

The mass reprisals and the culmination of the brutal slaughter of Lidice , provided moral fuel, and propaganda triumphs for Czechoslovakia. It symbolisedand Ležáky the evil Nazi regime that was needed to be fought and destroyed. The US Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, had remarked, “If future generations ask us what we were fighting for in this war we shall tell them the story of Lidice.”8 The expected rise in resistance activities, however, failed to kick start. Ironically, this was due to the lesser degree of violence unleashed onto the Czech population that was thought would had been triggered by Heydrich’s killing. Hitler had ordered at the onset 10,000 Czechs to be executed. In all, 1,331 Czechs were killed in Prague alone, and at least 3,000 Czech Jews were killed in the Terezin concentration camp.9 The total number far less than the original 10,000 Czechs ordered to be killed by Hitler initially.

6 Deschner: Heydrich, p. 276. 7 ibid., p. 277. 8 MacDonald: The Killing, p. 200. 9 According to Seton-Watson, total number of people executed in Czechoslovakia was 2,222. See Seton-Watson: A History, p. 385. An additional note, the number killed in concentration camps as a consequcne of Heydrich’s killing cannot be determined with accuracy. See also Moravec: Master, p. 222.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) The resistance networks was further weakened by the mass executions of suspected resistance organizers and members, further setting back the already small resistance movements in Czechoslovakia.10

The most important outcome, which was also the driving reason for the operation, was a political result. The strategy of killing Heydrich had paid off in the enduring international decisions to alter the fate of the Czech state and nation. The killing highlighted to the world of the Czech resolve to fight for their freedom, and the ensuing mass reprisals in the killing of innocent Czechs had moved the major parties involved in the Munich agreement of 1938, to finally renounce the agreement. The Munich agreement was finally repudiated in August 1942 by Britain, France, and Russia. President Beneš was proud of the recognition that was given to his rule and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia sovereign rights. President Beneš had remarked after the Lidice massacre; “The executions…consolidated our state of affairs. This is the great political consequence of these events.”11

The Nizaris (Political power through covert actions) The Persian sect of Islamic Shi’ite known as the Nizaris, had practised a form of coercive power using covert operations killing off enemy leaders or prominent figureheads to generate intended strategic and political utilities in the 1100s.12 The victims were usually high-ranking politicians and military personnel. The Nizaris who used these form of killings were named assassins as they were perceived, albeit wrongly, to be under the influence of hashish when conducting their missions.13 The term assassination was in fact attributed to the Arabic word “hashsash” and “hashashashin”,

10 As a result of the post-Heydrich killing reprisals, more than half of the leadership in one of the largest resistance network in Czechoslovakia, SOKOL, had been decimated. See Dimond: “The SOKOL”, p. 194. 11 President Edvard Beneš: “Remarks to Jaromir Smutny”, cited in MacDonald: The Killing, p. 202. 12 Yuval Noah Harari: Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), p. 91. For a detailed account of the Nizaris see Bernard Lewis: The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (London: Phoenix, 1st edn 1967, 2003). 13 Harari: Special Operations, p. 91.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) literally translated as ‘those who smoke hashish.’14 The Nizaris’ practice of coercive power and use of covert operations and assassinations provided some of the best ahistorical examples of such ways and means in pursuit of power.

The assassins’ tactics involved the killing of their victims in broad daylight and deliberately in the presence of many people in order to highlight their daring terror attacks.15 The assassins themselves were prepared to die for their cause. This form of killing served as a way of warfare for the Nizaris - instead of using large armies, single or a few assassins were used to kill or strike fear into the hearts of the potential victims, which were often enough to induce the payment of tribute or political concessions from their victims that were allowed to survive or the replacements of their victims. This Nizaris practice was truly an economical way of conducting coercive power.

The Nizari assassins were very effective and managed to obtain political concessions from a host of Middle East Emperors and Kingdoms for their sect.16 For example, it was reputed that even Saladin, the famous Islamic warrior, was fearful of the Nizari assassins, even more so as there were two attempts carried out to assassinate him between 1174 and 1176.17 Although the attempts failed, Saladin had to take extra security precautions to safeguard himself and even had to sleep in a wooden tower.18 Saladin was reputed to have come to terms with the assassins and left them alone in their territories, and Saladin was never threatened again by the assassins.19

Marco Polo, the famous traveller, had also described his encounter with the Assassins when he visited Persia in 1273.20 Marco Polo mentioned that the Assassins had a mountain fortress in the valley of Alamut and seen the beautiful heavenly garden that had been elaborately built by the head of the Assassins known as the Old Man. Marco

14 Ronald White: “A Prolegomenon to a General Theory of Assassination”, Assassination Research, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2007), p. 7. 15 Robert A. Pape: Dying To Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005, ppb. 2006), pp. 12-13. 16 Ibid., pp. 34-35. 17 Ibid., pp. 98-99; and Lewis: The Assassins, p. 113. 18 Lewis: The Assassins, pp. 113-114. 19 Ibid., p. 115. 20 Ibid., p. 6.

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7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences “ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings) Polo observed how young men were given drinks that might had been laced with drugs and then when intoxicated led into the garden of paradise with rivers of honey, milk and wine, and beautiful ladies, almost similar to what heaven was perceived.21 After being allowed to ‘taste’ paradise for a while these men were intoxicated with laced drinks and when they woke up in the real world, they would had been convinced that when they died for the Old Man, they would be sent to heaven.22 This managed to influence the obedience and devoutness to duty by the Assassins to complete their mission and get themselves killed in the process, ironically, not dissimilar with contemporary suicide bombers obsession for matrydom.

The Nizaris had demonstrated that rather than going on all out war with its foes, it managed to gain valuable political concessions through its way of conducting covert killing operations against selected human targets – a cost effective way of compelling both their enemies and allies to accede to the Nizaris’ demands. The killings or the demonstration of a killing attempt was often used as a psychological measure to strike fear and demoralise the enemy into colluding with the Nizaris. The practice of using small scale units of highly trained covert operatives in assasinations, however, ultimately led to its demise when it could not gather a large military formation to defend against the mobile and agile invading Mongol hoards towards the end of the Nizaris’ political realm. The Nizari sect were finally wiped out by the Mongols in the early 13th century.23

Conclusion This paper illustrated that the principle of using covert operations and assassinations is sound. The operations discussed validate the point that covert operations utilizing surprise and a small unit of selected men were able to achieve its objectives with devastating effects. While covert operations are tactically effective in conducting leadership killing operations, the effect of leadership killings at the strategic level is much more diverse.

21 Ibid., p. 7. 22 Ibid., p. 8. 23 Hamilton Gibb: The Life of Saladin: From the works of ‘IMĀD AD-DĪN and BAHĀ’ AD- DĪN (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), p. 13 and p. 19; Lewis: The Assassins, pp. 91-95; and Harari: Special Operations, p. 30.

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In the study of Heydrich, he was correctly identified as the epitome of Nazi occupation in Czechoslovakia, and killing him would have dual effects of morale raising, and trigger mass brutal reprisals to influence resistance activities and raise international psychological sympathy on the Czech cause. In Heydrich’s case, his killing had resulted in the intended political outcome for Czechoslovakia, demonstrating a useful link between covert operations and coercive power, in which an exiled government with little influence over its state affairs, managed to conduct a highly strategic profitable covert operation which yielded ultimate political results.

The Nizaris provided an important example of how a medieval kingdom practiced its statecraft, expanding and consolidating of power by covert means, the using of assassinations, to gain strategic effects leading to political gains. The Nizaris’ form of coercive power managed to gain important political concession in terms of land and briberies, and sustained its power purely through covert means. It, however, could not sustain its own survival when faced with a more agile and brutal foe in the large formations of Mongolians.

It must be cautioned, however, that there is no fool proof way of determining the expected outcome of covert operations due to the eternal character of uncertainty and luck in the practice of strategy. Clausewitz’s dictum reverberates and echoes this caveat on the eternal character of strategy; No other human activity [war] is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.24

Covert operations’ outcome ultimately resides in the paradox of strategy; achieving ends with the ways and means; but eternally permeated by the realm of chance and uncertainty. This provides us aptly with the underlying warning note on the use of coercive power in international affairs (and the difficulties of exercising power)

24 Carl von Clausewitz: On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 85.

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