Simulated Laughter

Moving On

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Inspired by Zenpundit's example, I'm moving to a new blog. Update your blogrolls and RSS feeds to

http://rethinkingsecurity.typepad.com

I'm going to leave Simulated Laughter open for posterity's sake. I have a lot of positive memories about the people I've met through this blog and the growth in my own thinking that it helped facilitate.

Have a happy thanksgiving!

UPDATE: RSS/XML subscription problems have been fixed.

Resilience

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:34:00 +0000

I have a new piece up at the Huffington Post looking at the Navy's new strategy. I also try to introduce--in detail--my interpretation of the strategic concept of resilience. Thanks to John Robb, Shane Deichman, and Steve DeAngelis for the inspiration for this one.

On Remembering

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:04:00 +0000

I don't have much I can add to any of the wonderful tributes I've read so far.

Security Dilemmas

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:24:00 +0000

Younghusband of Coming Anarchy defends Robert D. Kaplan's focus on naval arms buildup in China:

"In the post-cold war the first new influential thinking that came out was net-centric warfare, developed by an admiral. The army guys read up on that stuff and loved it, and it is reflected in the RMA literature filled with visions of “the network” and “total battle space awareness.” Well, that platform-based stuff doesn’t translate too well on the ground. There are important functional differences between air and sea operations and ground operations. Some theorists tried to modify NCW to fit the ground war (NEOps, ADO etc.) but others simply abandoned it. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. All the current conceptual work is in xGW, COIN , UW etc. None of this fits the platform-based services particularly, but they are still reading the stuff. With all the attention focused on the ground fighters, there is a lack of visionary thinking for the navy. ...

So, before you go “spanking” old Kap over his article, remember this: How many “experts” do we have on Afghanistan, Iraq and COIN popping out of the woodwork now? Academic journals on security are jam-packed full of articles on that stuff. Naval arms races in northeast Asia on the other hand? There may be lots from the mid-90s when we were preparing for “war with Japan” and a fight over Taiwan, but since then it has dropped out of the headlines. Unfortunately the situation there has yet to be defused. There is lots of build-up still happening but it is a page 10 story. That is the kind of stuff that Kap has made a career drawing attention to. Remember the Balkans? In about 10 years when there is a boomer war going on in the Pacific, and DOD only has a shiny new COIN manual to turn to, the US president will be calling Kap to the White House once again for a chat."

That would be rather amusing to imagine--Kaplan arriving to essentially say "I told you so" to the President and the Secretary of Defense. Now, putting aside that image, the dispute over Kaplan's article illustrates, in part, a large problem. As Younghusband notes, North American seucurity thinking is, in a large part, a search for the "next big thing." Before counterinsurgency, it was network-centric warfare, and before that it was AirLand battle, etc. What makes John Boyd exceptional is not the relevance of his theories to Iraq or Afghanistan. It is that he presents a totalizing vision of human conflict that is applicable across the board, rather than a specialized doctrine suited to a particular service of conflict.

While I agree with Younghusband that it is foolish to write off the emerging East Asian naval security situation, I also don't have the fear, as some do, that the current theoretical focus in American security thinking on unconventional conflict will lead to degraded conventional ability. As Air War College professor Jeffrey Record notes, counterinsurgency has never been really been regarded as central to American military thinking. True, the United States has been involved in COIN operations both at home and abroad well before Vietnam, but it was always regarded as a kind of specialist sideshow. That is why it was so easy for Army to largely erase COIN from their institutional memory after Vietnam.

Pakistan's Broken Army/Dinner with Iraqi Gov't

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:34:00 +0000

One of the reasons that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cited for his revoking of civil liberties was the danger posed by Islamic extremists. While this is obviously self-serving cover for his own desire to hold onto power, Pakistan's pathetic failure against the Taliban/Al Qaeda cannot be ignored. We have indulged an unrealistic expectation that their military forces could be effective against the Taliban. Part of the problem is the condition of Pakistan's army.

At present, Pakistan's military forces are not capable of counterinsurgency. They have been trained for years for a conventional engagement with India and regard rural counterinsurgency with disdain. Additionally, some in the Pakistani high command see countering the Taliban as a strategic mistake, given the Taliban's historic role of countering Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Pakistani troops drawn from the border regions won't fight against their neighbors
Insurgents have succeeded in defeating the army on the moral/mental level. High casualties, kidnappings of soldiers, the shock of coming under terror attack, as well as heavy operational commitments (Pakistani equivalent of "stop-loss") have resulted in record numbers of desertions and surrender to insurgents.
Musharraf spends US military aid on building up conventional forces, not counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism.
Continuing support in some sectors of the Pakistani government for the Taliban militants the Pakistani government largely created to give them "strategic depth" in Afghanistan.
Lack of public support in the tribal regions for the Pakistani forces, due to incipient separatism and the Pakistani government's alternating policies of neglect/abuse of tribal territories.

Also, had dinner with some members of the Iraqi government on Friday night. Situation was still dire for them, but all in all a wonderful night. State Department translator (an Iraqi exile) did a great job.

Lions for Lambs Review

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:16:00 +0000

Don't believe the bad reviews, Lions for Lambs is actually a very good movie. It certainly had flaws--may have been overly talky in some areas and parts of it stretched on too long, but it's certainly a very engaging drama. Tom Cruise also pulls off a remarkable performance as a senator attempting to grease his way to the White House through a new military strategy in Afghanistan. Although one would expect a cartoonishly villainous conservative in a Robert Redford-directed film, Cruise's senator is multidimensional, persuasive, and the most developed and human character in the film. Although he is meant to stand in for Bush/Dick Cheney, he surpasses them greatly.

The actual strategy Cruise's character, Senator Jasper Irving, pushes for is interesting. It reads like the Petraeus plan on steroids--"forward operating points" of a few men deployed on high mountain ridges to deny the Taliban the high ground. Of course, things do not go as planned, and Irving in any case makes a crucial error. Not only does his plan lack the numbers for the kind of blockhouse/isolation strategy (as old as counterinsurgency itself) to succeed, but he misjudges the enemy's center of gravity. Controlling a few geographic points is not the objective, controlling the people is. This is reflected in his debate with Meryl Streep's journalist character when Irving dismisses the utility of "building clinics" in favor of a pure annihilation of the insurgents and their Iranian patron.

Amusingly enough, the "California University" where Robert Redford's character teaches is a thinly disguised Pitzer College.

The Guns of Baghdad

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:26:00 +0000

New article at DNI analyzing Iraqi snipers as strategic weapons. The title refers to the Clash song--one of my favorite punk songs.

Speaking of DNI, this Zenpundit post is good an overview of Fabius Maximus' increasingly prolific body of work.

UPDATE:

On an unrelated note, take part in this survey. Help Dan tdaxp (and scientific inquiry) at the same time!

Sideshow in the Desert

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:21:00 +0000

I've got a new piece up at DNI about the Israeli airstrike on Syria. My attempt with this is to look at it from the perspective of Israeli security.

UDPATE:

Dan Tdaxp comments:

Isreal is a small country surrounded by hostile regimes. The only way such a state can continue to exist is if her neighbors distrust her neighbors more than they distrust her. (The United Arab Republic was so dangerous because it suggested that the Arabs would put aside their mutual animosity to finally destroy Israel.) The break-up of the Palestinian Authority into Fatah and Hamas controlled territory is a wonderful improvement for Israel, because it creates a revolutionary state whose main objective is the overthrow of her other neighbors. Yet A.E. considers such progress "counter-productive."

This is based on the assumption that Hamas poses a threat to Israel's neighbors. It doesn't. Unlike Al Qaeda, which seeks the overthrow of all "apostate regimes," Hamas desires to strike at Israel itself. Even if it wanted to, it's hard to see how it could do so given that it has little reach outside of Israel. Despite Iran's patronage of Hamas, its identity rests as an essentially Palestinian guerrilla group. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has operated outside of Lebanon as far as South America.

Dan professes to be sometimes "puzzled" by my analysis. This is natural, as we approach the issue from strikingly different theoretical and political places. However, I feel that such a clash of views is ultimately beneficial towards both of us improving in our own thinking.

Of Interest

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:32:00 +0000

-Enjoying Shloky's new blog, Naxalite Rage. We had a conversation earlier about publishing the results of his research in a political magazine, but this seems like a much better format (especially given the subject matter).

-Air Force takes the lead in cyber-warfare. Looking to do a longer article on this once I read the manual referred to in the article.

-Egypt's security dilemmas.

-Soob takes a skeptical look at Hillary Clinton's Iraq withdrawal plan. He also issues a warning against "buying a sexy dress" for Helen Thomas and Oscar De La Hoya.

Hayden and COIN Pt. II

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:23:00 +0000

Sarah Sewell, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, was one of the academics attacked in Tom Hayden's anti-counterinsurgency article in The Nation. She and several of her colleagues respond in the Harvard Crimson:

“The Carr Center’s mission is to make human rights principles central to the formulation of public policy,” Sewall said. “Civilian protection in war is premised on core human rights and has become a cornerstone of international humanitarian law. Helping to ensure that international humanitarian law is fully embraced in military doctrine will contribute to human rights protection.”

In recent articles for the Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle, Sewall highlighted the lack of instruction given to U.S. troops when dealing with civilians.

She said she hopes this new manual will fill this educational gap in the soldiers’ training.

As to Hayden’s concerns that “counter-insurgency, being based on deception, shadow warfare and propaganda, runs counter to the historic freedom of university life,” Sewall said that, as a knowledgeable outsider, it was her role to help educate the military about humanitarian concerns.

“Academia has a unique responsibility and opportunity to apply its research and insights to public policy challenges,” Sewall said.

Sewall’s colleague, Carr Center Faculty Affiliate Jonathan Moore, echoed the sentiment about whether a university should be able to advise the military, calling Hayden’s argument “worse than nonsense.”

“If the scholarship is serious and thorough and knowledgeable, or at least has a base of knowledge that it attempts to expand,” Moore said, “it should not restrict itself by a narrow interpretation of the mandate of the organization it stems from. You do not let an ideology distort your scholarly efforts.”

Nina M. Catalano ’09, co-president of the Harvard College Human Rights Advocates, wrote in an e-mail from Bogota, Colombia that the Carr Center and similar institutions cannot afford to remain isolated from important world events.

“The human rights movement did not win a place on the global stage just by engaging other like-minded organizations,” Catalano wrote. “While Hayden fears the Carr Center may be succumbing to what he dramatically calls ‘the Pentagon occupation of the academic mind,’ he offers no alternate, ‘clean’ opportunity for human rights defenders to influence wartime policy.”

Though she said her organization has not taken an active stand against the war in Iraq, Catalano wrote that, “one need not accept the validity of war as a political option or the premises of the current war to appreciate the desperate need for strong legal and moral guidelines for warfare.”

Sewall said she thought it was absurd for people to think that collaborating with the military went against the Carr Center’s mission.

“How can you hope to change the conduct of war without engaging those who practice it?” Sewall said. “We should all hope to live in a world without war, but there are many steps we can take to minimize war’s horror along the way.

Although this is an reasonable defense, it's also wishy-washy. Hayden attacked counterinsurgency itself as an inherent evil, and her "changing the system from the inside" answer does not rebut that. It almost seems that Sewell is afraid of defending the military doctrine she (among others) helped create.

Adrian of Politics and Soccer's comment on this sums up the problems with Hayden's thinking:

Sounds like Hayden's reasoning against COIN is a democratic one based on a few assumptions:

1) that in order to exist or flourish, insurgencies require the support of the population,
2) that support is giving freely, and
3) if a government is in the position where it has to ask for outside assistance in a COIN effort, it probably doesn't deserve to survive anyway.

A tempting argument for those who believe in democracy. However it is wrong because:

1) insurgencies do not require the support of the population to survive or flourish, such as the examples you gave using child soldiers - furthermore, instead of a unified population there can be many divided populations (Shia, Sunni and Christians in Lebanon, Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, Turkmen in Iraq, etc.),
2) even when insurgencies have the cooperation of the population, that population is not necessarily given out of free will,
3) therefore, deserving governments can require outside assistance.

(h/t Duck of Minerva)

Grand Strategy (or lack theorof)

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:06:00 +0000

Wiggins briefly reviews Thomas P.M. Barnett, John Robb, and William Lind's ideas about grand strategy. I agree--with the caveat that if we're looking at alternative strategic theory, leaving out Chet Richards' ideas in Neither Shall the Sword is a pretty big omission. Especially given his explicit use of the containment/rollback framework in reference to Barnett.

What about the other authors in the alternative strategic theory canon? Robert D. Kaplan doesn't as much advocate a grand strategy as a change of basic American values. There is irony in that the farther he travels, the more his writings focus on the nature of domestic virtue. Martin Van Creveld's scholarly writings are more descriptive than proscriptive, although his popular writing is broadly similar to Lind's.

I first was introduced to alternative strategic theory through Robert D. Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy. I had never heard of him before, but I saw his book on a Barnes and Noble shelf and bought it based on the cover blurb. I was blown away by the radical nature of his analysis. At a time when the highest national priorities were the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal and Elian Gonzalez, Kaplan was predicting ethnic fragmentation, terrorism, and global environmental catastrophe! Additionally, he also recommended Van Creveld's The Transformation of War. Kaplan also referenced William Lind, et all's "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation."

However, it all seemed like science fiction until 9/11 happened. Then it became all too real. Since then, the most depressing part has been the lack of a grand strategy that effectively deals with changing global conditions. For all of the way people have been struggling to distance themselves from the neoconservative grand strategy, I agree with Wiggins that few have proposed anything that makes a radical break from current Washington orthodoxies. As bad as Bush has been, replacing his ideas with outdated and staid strategies of the past will not be too great of an improvement.

Algiers, Grozny, Baghdad, and Washington

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:46:00 +0000

New article up at the Huffington Post. I make the argument that the Iraq war's inherent lack of legitimacy and delusional political objectives make building legitimacy through counterinsurgency impossible. Mountainrunner's article in Good Magazine actually served as the inspiration for this one, as well as Anthony James Joes' Urban Guerilla Warfare and thisarticle in Parameters. It is largely intended as a corrective to the "incompetence dodge," but it doesn't solely focus on Iraq--there is some discussions of the Algerian and Chechen insurgencies as parallels.

Strategizing about Burma

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:45:00 +0000

Via Eddie, a Ralph Peters essay I can finally agree with:

China regards Myanmar as a satellite. Beijing wishes it could just grab the country the way it seized Tibet, but believes the geostrategic cost would be too high. So it supports the junta as the next-best option and develops Myanmar as an economic colony.

Why does China see Myanmar as absolutely critical to its future? After all, it's a bitterly poor country of 55 million, where time didn't just stand still for the last half-century - it actually went backward. And neither the ethnic Burmans (half the population) nor the up-country tribes like the Chinese one bit.

The answers are straightforward:

* Myanmar offers 1,200 miles of coastline on the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, bordering the Indian Ocean. And those waters are a strategic lifeline for China, carrying trade westward and bringing back desperately needed oil from the Middle East and Africa.

China knows that we own the Pacific militarily, but hopes that - in the event of a Sino-U.S. crisis - it could face us down in the Indian Ocean, its backdoor to the world. When I was in Myanmar 11 years ago, the Chinese were already modernizing docks and eyeing the development of new harbors.

* Myanmar offers the promise of its own oil and gas deposits, while its magnificent hardwood forests are being clear-cut to feed China's industrial appetites. (The ecological devastation is stunning.) And Beijing sets the terms of trade.

* The advent of a pro-Western government in Myanmar would mean that, in wartime, China would have no direct access to the Greater Indian Ocean. The equivalent would be for the United States to lose access to the Caribbean - or worse.

China wants to minimize the ugly headlines from Myanmar, but it's not going to pull its support for the junta just to keep the U.S. water-polo team in the Olympics.

One can see China eventually acting to clamp down on its patron if the security threats from Burmese drug production, refugees, and Burma's unstable border grow too severe. But in the short term, action from any of the regime's enablers in Beijing (and to a lesser extent, Moscow, New Delhi, and Bangkok) seems unlikely. Yet China has to understand that if it hopes to be taken seriously as a responsible great power, it cannot keep propping up genocidal dictators--either in Burma or Sudan. Perhaps, if China's basic military and economic interests are assured by both internal pro-democracy forces and Western powers (as well as the credit for a peaceful Burmese transformation), there might be a chance of them grudgingly moving to pressure SLORC. As to what would compel them to do so, I'd confess that East Asian security specialists like Eddie and Robot Economist (before State Dept ordered him to ice his blog) would know better than I do.

What I do know is that in the last ten years, China, Russia, and developing nations in Asia and Africa have formed an effective deterrent to UN intervention in human rights. Part of it is counter-balancing against American power, which has become linked in the public eye with humanitarian intervention. There's also the long memory of colonial era violation of national sovereignty. But it's mainly self-serving cover for domestic human rights violations. Finding a way to convince them to stand aside is the great challenge for human rights activists of the future.

Hayden, Realism, and COIN

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 21:09:00 +0000

Two nights ago, I saw Tom Hayden speak to a packed audience. It wasn't the first time, and the contrast between the two speeches could not be greater. The first time, he had just returned from the "Battle of Seattle" and seemed bitter and exhausted. I don't remember much of what he talked about save his imaginative re-enactment of what it felt like to be beaten by riot police. Hayden's recent speech dealt with the war on Iraq--and he was calm, measured, and cautiously optimistic. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Hayden's withdrawal plan, crafted with the assistance of former CIA head John Deutch. Hayden's plan hewed pretty closely to the model established by the Iraq Study Group, save for his insistence on total one-year withdrawal.

During the 1960s, no self-respecting anti-war radical would admit to collaboration with the head of a government political-military organzation. This is not to suggest that Hayden somehow has "sold out." Instead, its a sign of an interesting ideological convergence between realists and the left. As New America Foundation head Steve Clemons related in a lecture at UCLA last week, The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuval told him at a DC cocktail party that "realism is the new ideology of the left." Hayden did not just lambaste Bush administration's catastrophic foreign polices but also noted without reservation that a genuine terrorist threats exists. He told the audience of his own fear on 9/11 and his hope for a just and effective counter-terror strategy. Hayden also tossed out a series of balance-of-power arguments about Iran and China that reminded me of Zbigniew Brzezinski's work.

On another note, though, I feel Hayden is wrong about counterinsurgency. In an Nationarticle and a Huffingtonpost blog Hayden attacks modern COIN (and academic participation in it) as a mix of colonialism and "deception, shadow warfare and propaganda." Although Hayden justifiably exorciates the immorality and futility of the Bush administration's war plans, he goes too far to condemn counterinsurgency itself as inherently racist and corrupt. Hayden's main point that since the goal of counterinsurgency is to defeat insurgent challenges to government authority, practicing COIN means shoring up illegitimate foreign occupation or domestic tyrannies. Since the premise of COIN is inherently corrupt, Hayden reasons, its methods will always belie the high-reminded rhetoric contained in counterinsurgency manuals.

Yet what happens when a legitimate foreign occupying power or national government is confronted by a internal or foreign irregular threat? Would that not necessitate the use of something resembling counterinsurgency? For example, say that a large, multinational United Nations peacekeeping force under mandate to stabilize a desperate, war-torn region finds itself under attack by a disciplined insurgency (Somalia 1992-1993), Afghanistan 2001-present)? What happens when a legitimate African state is terrorized by a tenacious guerrila army known for its use of mutilation, torture, rape, and the employment of kidnapped child soldiers (Uganda, LRA)? What should a legitimate South American state do when confronted by a Maoist terrorist organization seeking to overthrow the established order and establish a radical Communist regime (Peru, Shining Path)? Lastly, what advice would Tom Hayden have given to Algerian villagers wiped out en masse by Armed Islamic Group insurgents during 1992 to 1998?

One can definitely seek to bring the practice of counterinsurgency into accord with international norms. One can also rightly denounce states that use counterinsurgency as an excuse for repression and genocide. But to denounce COIN itself as inherently immoral is short-sighted. Governments under siege by irregular forces seeking their overthrow have a right to self-defense. And I suspect that Hayden's opinion about counterinsurgency may change if the proposed UN peacekeeping force set for deployment to Darfur comes under attack by either the janjaweed or the Darfuri rebel factions.

Moscow Crude

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:43:00 +0000

Looks like Russia is using Gazprom as a tool of political influence again. Given Russia's declining military power and shrinking population, petropolitics is its greatest form of leverage. Again, its target is another former client state growing too big for its britches.

I feel that the constant comparison between Putin's Russia and the Soviet Union is very inaccurate. To some degree, what we're seeing is 19th century imperial policies with a modern geo-economic twist.. Russia is doing whatever it can to maintain power over what it views as its traditional zone of control. The most prominent example of this is the quasi-colonial occupation of Chechnya--which comes complete with a pliant local strongman (Kadyrov) who seems to have bribed enough rebels to temporarily stall the Chechnyan insurgency.

Given Putin's association with the Shanghai Cooperative and Iraq's weakening of American power, it's understandable that Russia is riding high right now. But, given Russia's dimmer long-term geopolitical trends, for how long?

Hostile Takeover

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:59:00 +0000

Wanted to comment on this article for a while but didn't get my thoughts together until quite recently:

WASHINGTON — Secure in its haven in northwestern Pakistan, a resurgent Al Qaeda is trying to expand its network, in some cases by executing corporate-style takeovers of regional Islamic extremist groups, according to U.S. intelligence officials and counter-terrorism experts.

Though not always successful, these moves indicate a shift in strategy by the terrorist network as it seeks to broaden its reach and renew its ability to strike Western targets, including the United States, officials and experts say. "Certainly we do see Al Qaeda trying to influence the broader movement and to control some of these affiliates in a more direct way," said a senior counter-terrorism official in the Bush administration. "The word I would use is 'co-opt' . . . as opposed to simply associating with or encouraging. By that I mean target selection, types of attacks, methodology, funding, all of the things that would make an affiliate suddenly a subsidiary."

Because of the invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's central command was reduced to largely playing on the sidelines while affiliate groups launched strikes. The role of the central command was essentially to act as totem figures to provide the movement with ideological coherency. Groups with no real link to Al Qaeda central command could claim the Al Qaeda "brand." AQ's leaders had little to control over the process, and they weren't happy about it. Witness for example, how Al Qaeda in Iraq, linked to the central organization only in name (and with substantial ideological and tactical differences), eventually overshadowed them.

Now that the central command has again taken shape in the Pakistani TAZ, it will attempt to try to impose some discipline on the affiliates that have bought into the Al Qaeda "franchise" over the past few years. Additionally, they are reaching out to regional groups in areas where Al Qaeda has traditionally had little presence, such as Lebanon and the two Palestinian enclaves. This appears to be the case in the Los Angeles Times article. I'm not surprised, though, that the article notes that some regional groups are wary of Al Qaeda---anyone would if outsiders came in with assumption that they could manage operations better than the locals.

Whether Al Qaeda can reverse the decentralization and return to a more hierarchal structure is anyone's guess. However, one thing is for sure: the "lone wolf" model I discussed earlier will not be adopted if central command succeeds in co-opting the regional affiliates. However, as Curtis Gale Weeks notes in this post,it still remains a future possibility.

Green Zone 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:09:00 +0000

From American Footprints:

The Somali government is trying to create a Baghdad-style safe "Green Zone" in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday.
"At the moment, the government security agencies are trying to create a Green Zone where international community workers, and those vulnerable, can stay for their security purposes," he said, without giving more details.
"I hope that we will achieve positive results very soon."

LOL!

No End in Sight Review

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:00 +0000

Last weekend, I watched No End In Sight, Charles Ferguson's documentary about Iraq. Some immediate reactions:

Powerful on every level. Over the last four years, we've all been buried in Iraq-related media, and the repetition has a numbing effect. But the images and presentation drive home the depressing magnitude of the catastrophe in Baghdad. This reflects the care and attention Ferguson took to crafting the film's imagery--he did not just rely on stock footage, but actually filmed inside Iraq.

Insider view. Many Iraq critiques, while otherwise exemplary, lacked the input of those directly involved on the ground in the reconstruction operations. No End in Sight is composed mainly of interviews with mid-level civil servants in the State Department, Pentagon, and the former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA).

The film's message, however, appears to support the erroneous "incompetence dodge." Most officials interviewed seem to believe that the reconstruction could have worked if only Bush or CPA chiefs Jay Garner or Paul Bremer had listened to their specific idea. This problem is compounded by the prominent role afforded to New Yorker columnist (and prominent liberal hawk) George Packer.

That being said, the film is a must-see for anyone interested in Iraq. The perspective that Charles Ferguson brings with his collection of insiders and ordinary Iraqis is invaluable to understanding the current situation.

Odds and Ends

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:19:00 +0000

Some things I'd like to highlight or respond to:

My post on PMCs and NGOs sparked a wide range of reactions. Shane Deichman and Mountainrunner both argued against the arming of NGOs or the employment of PMCs with NGOs. They were both well-grounded arguments, and I thank both for contributing to the discussion. However, there are several specific passages from Mountainrunner's post I'd like to talk about.

I also disagree with the assertion that transgressions by PMCs in one theater will bleed over to a host population in another (the global community is another thing, but the people being helped aren't watching the talking heads). Let's look at Nepal and their "promise" not to send any of their human rights violators outside the country to don the Blue Helmet (also, think about the criminal behavior of the Dutch at Srebenica years ago). Abuses by PMCs are not inevitable by their nature, organization, or what have you.

Mountainrunner is most likely referring to this paragraph in my post.

Inevitable abuses in wartime by the PMC may taint the NGO, and despite the use of private security actors the political factions may view the NGO as a pawn of greater western powers. Establishing a regulated market, background checks, and a means of legal accountability for contractors who transgress in areas without the rule of law may also [sic] requre the intervention of a larger international institution. The legal issues involved in such a venture are extremely complex.

The reference to abuses tainting a NGO was extremely general and made no explicit to either host population or 'talking heads," but the point is taken. I think, given our public diplomacy nightmare across the world, we should not assume that the host population will not have at least some degree of information, either from their consumption of local media or propaganda fed to them by regional opinionmakers such as tribal chiefs, insurgents, et cetera. Witness, for example, the problem that we have with rumors that polio vaccine causes impotence or the attempt by some African leaders to portray AIDs as the result of a western conspiracy.

And abuses in wartime are inevitable, either by UN blue helmets or Blackwater polo shirts. The difference, though, is that the UN has an established brand as an multilateral institution that largely insulates it from lasting public criticism, something neither NGOs or PMCs will be able to call on.

In the middle, I disagree with Adam's blanket statement that "organizational cultures, motivations, and priorities of PMCs and NGOs, are also strikingly different." If you want to make a buck, don't start a PMC, start an NGO, fewer people are shooting at you and the profit margins are greater and you'll be the subject of many cocktail conversations and enjoy side benefits."

Given that the sentence that immediately follows seems to prove my point (different motivations and organizational cultures), it would be helpful if Mountainrunner could clarify his point.

I'd also like to highlight the point made by Wiggins of Opposed Systems Design:

The issue may go even further than anti-American or anti-Western feelings. In some cases, a direct and conscious anti-connectivity intent motivates such fighters. Humanitarian relief workers from the Core represent part of the rule set of globalization that disrupts traditional values, challenges traditional assumptions and exposes young people to new ideas. The 2004 attack against the UN mission to Iraq, for example, seemed intent on stripping away as many international institutions as possible in order to isolate Iraq.

This is a very good point. In the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, university teachers and social workers operated in some urban areas, attempting to change the country's traditional values. They were explicitly targeted by the American and Saudi-backed rebel groups. This hasn't changed today---witness Taliban attacks on Christian NGOs or Westerners seeking to assist in educating women.

I'd also like to highlight Alex of Yorkshire Ranter's skeptical take on Operation Titan Rain. He also raises some excellent points about the limits of "unrestricted warfare" as a theoretical construct. For more background on the unfolding cyber-scandal see my earlier post and this recent Christian Science Monitor story.

I have also become a Dreaming 5GW contributor, so look to that space for my opinion on 5GW esoterica.

John Edwards and Counter-Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:54:00 +0000

John Edwards on counter-terrorism:

As president, I will launch a comprehensive new counterterrorism policy that will be defined by two principles—strength and cooperation. The centerpiece of this policy will be a new multilateral organization called the Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization (CITO). Every nation has an interest in shutting down terrorism. CITO will create connections between a wide range of nations on terrorism and intelligence, including countries on all continents, including Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. New connections between previously separate nations will be forged, creating new possibilities. CITO will allow members to voluntarily share financial, police, customs and immigration intelligence. Together, nations will be able to track the way terrorists travel, communicate, recruit, train, and finance their operations. And they will be able to take action, through international teams of intelligence and national security professionals who will launch targeted missions to root out and shut down terrorist cells.

As Victor Comras of the Counter-Terrorism Blog notes:

It really is time for those countries really committed to combating terrorism to, work together more closely in a forum and format more conducive to success. Edward’s suggestion for a Counter-terrorism and Intelligence Treaty organization could group together like-minded countries committed to the same principles and goals. It could provide a forum for pooling information and for exchanging more sensitive information on a need-to- know basis. The group might also include a cadre of counter-terrorism experts, analysts, and investigators to maintain and develop both a secure and open source data base on known international terrorists, and on those providing material support to terrorists, including recruitment and funding. Those so identified could then be designated as terrorists, creating an obligation on all member countries to take the necessary civil and prosecutorial steps they have already pledged to take under so many already existent international conventions.

This idea has the potential for developing a real framework for the informal (and haphazard) intelligence-sharing and operational planning already occuring. Edwards' chances of winning are next to zero, but the Democratic nominee would be wise to give this idea serious consideration.

Non-Govermental Organizations, Security, and Private Military Corporations

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:05:00 +0000

"Karzai Hails New Afghan Hyatt," Seattle Post-Intelligencer (April 17, 2004). Photo by Emilio Morenatti.

Via Human Security Review, a perceptive article lamenting the "militarization" of humanitarian aid. It is a legitimate complaint, given that the tying of humanitarian relief to broader counterinsurgency/stabilization missions has put into doubt the neutrality of aid organizations and made them accessories, in some cases, to missions they do not support. However, it's also unavoidable.

Conflict is one of the major causes of human misery. Whether it is economic desperation from wartime scarcity, the devastation inflicted by attacks on cities, the ravages of a brutal counterinsurgency, the generalized loss of safety of living in a collapsing state, or targeted political or ethnic purges, it is well-established that civilians suffer most from war. This is especially true today, when actors in interstate conflicts frequently target civilians as part of their war strategy. This does not solely include roving gangs like Ugandan Lords' Resistance Army and the Somalian "technicals." States regularly use political violence on their own people. Right now, Ethiopia is employing the oldest counterinsurgency tactic in the book against its Ogaden province: starve 'em all till they give up.

NGOs have traditionally relied on their neutrality and explicitly humanitarian mission for safety. Although many sides in civil wars frequently attacked NGOs, it is safe to say that in the broad picture their neutrality and reputation as peacemakers provided a more efficient form of protection from violence than guns and tanks.

However, this is not the case anymore. As Ralph Peters perceptively notes, the typical interstate foot soldier, government paramilitary or non-state fighter, is erratic, "habituated to violence, [and has] no stake in civil order. Unlike [conventional] soldiers, warriors do not play by our rules, do not respect treaties, and do not obey orders they do not like."

Rendering humanitarian aid becomes nearly impossible without dispersing these forces. A deal made with one commander will not be respected by the other. Food supplies will be diverted for war. And in many cases, the "warrior" is the cause of the humanitarian problem, targeting civilians for slave labor, torture, rape, and death. These fighters have little qualms about targeting humanitarian relief workers for either political or purely atavistic reasons. In a conflict where one side sees an entire ethnic group as the enemy, humanitarian aid to that group can make relief workers out to be "enemies" too.

Additionally, the identification of aid groups with the West and the United Nations can also endanger them in regions where anti-American or purely anti-Western feelings are strong. But many fighters need no kind of elaborate political justification to point their gun at a NGO. Any middle-class foreigner who operates in a conflict zone is a status target.

So, relief workers have a number of security options. However, who you choose to be protected by can immensely complicate humanitarian relief operations.

They can choose to be protected by host country forces. But these troops are often corrupt or unreliable, or responsible for the very humanitarian problems the NGOs are there to rectify. They can try to move with the rebels, but at the risk of being targeted by their rivals or the government. Most of the time, NGOs cannot choose both. They can move with UN or Western stability forces, which provide legitimacy and safety that host nation or rebels do not. However, in all cases NGOs will become linked to the political motives of their protectors and their freedom of movement is contingent on the approval of the security forces.

The consequence of this is that NGOs find themselves unable to operate in some war-torn regions because of a lack of security. Even if they do, the efficiency of their operations is lowered by their vulnerability to other actors. And especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will be viewed by the public and insurgents as tools of the US-led reconstruction forces.

Another possibility is to hire private security forces, an option that carries promises and perils of its own. NGOs providing their own security would not be seen as linked to any of the political factions battling it out in the operational environment. It would also give them a freedom of movement that they often lack during humanitarian disasters in war-torn regions. Market incentives could also provide efficient results that state-based security provides cannot. However, it also has a number of drawbacks.

For one, there is doubt over whether PMCs can adapt to humanitarian operations. PMCs in stability operations have mainly been used for force protection, private security, and training and organizing native forces. And in select cases, PMCs have even taken to the field (see Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone). But unless I'm mistaken there isn't much precedent for the large-scale use of hired guns providing security for NGOs in humanitarian operations without it being part of a larger Western military operation. At the same time, though, PMCs have already played small, but subtle roles in UN peacekeeping.

The organizational cultures, motivations, and priorities of PMCs and NGOs, are also strikingly different. This is not an attack on either, but there is little denying that there will be a culture clash between PMCs composed of former military men and security forces (frequently ex-paramilitaries) working to make a profit and (frequently left-leaning) NGOs looking to provide relief from the very kind of paramilitary forces that PMCs often draw from. However, it would be presumptious to say these differences are insurmountable.

There's also a variant of the humanitarian "mission creep" problem--an NGO might be so angered by atrocities that it may use its security forces to actively target non-state actors or government paramilitaries. However, the possibility of this depends very much on the character of the particular NGO.

Inevitable abuses in wartime by the PMC may taint the NGO, and despite the use of private security actors the political factions may view the NGO as a pawn of greater western powers. Establishing a regulated market, background checks, and a means of legal accountability for contractors who transgress in areas without the rule of law may also requre the intervention of a larger international institution. The legal issues involved in such a venture are extremely complex.

Lastly, there is very real danger that making NGOs armed actors will accelerate the state's loss of the monopoly of force. But given the growth of PMCs and the rise of non-state actors on the international scene, it may be a little bit late to worry about this.

I would also caution against using Blackwater and other PMCs' operations in Iraq as a means of comparison, given that their role was essentially force protection and private security. While that debate has relevance to the greater use of PMCs in countersinurgency and stability operations, the role being contemplated here is extremely different.

My mind isn't made up on whether NGOs should use PMCs--I'm not arguing for or against. As I've shown, there's very steep drawbacks. But this much is certain: at the end of the day NGOs will still have to find means of protecting themselves from armed actors who do not respect their neutrality.

I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this issue. Especially Mountainrunner, who is very well-versed in PMC issues, and Eddie of Hidden Unities, who writes frequently about humanitarian issues.

Decentralized Inter-Group Dynamics

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:40:00 +0000

Opposed Systems Design:

In a networked insurgent movement like al Qaeda, the way that commitment, obedience and cohesion is maintained is through the movement’s shared narrative.

This is the crucial difference between the rapidly decentralizing networked terrorists and more traditional urban insurgents and terrorists. In tightly bound and hierarchal groups like the radical leftist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s, obedience and choeshion was maintained through both implicit and explicit coercive controls. Group loyalty and identity, as well as group participation in atrocities created a barrier against desertion for those who grew disillusioned with a group's aims. One could not back out and disgrace his or her comrades, and participation in atrocities convinced anyone cowardly enough to ignore social ties that they couldn't go back to the outside.

An example of this dynamic can be seen in the videotaping of suicide bombers, many of whom were motivated not by the promise of heaven but the very secular goal of inflicting pain. Fear of death is the most human of emotions and even the most passionate of political convictions does not totally erase it. But after being videotaped reading their final statements, the bomber is already "dead"--and should he or she decide to change their mind at the last minute, the videotape is damning evidence of cowardice.

Additionally, groups like the provisional IRA maintained brutal internal security departments that vigorously pursued traitors and double agents. Internal security also has the side effect of of impressing the power of the group dynamic into wavering agents.

However, such coercive controls can't obviously be employed in a decentralized organization that exists as more of an ideology than a functioning group. There will be no internal security department for a two-man bomber cell or a lone wolf sniper staking out an overpass. Raw and overwhelming ideology must serve as the substitute for coercive control against the fear of imprisonment, death, and injury, as well as natural disgust over the nature of terrorist violence.

China's Cyber-War Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:31:00 +0000

There are reports that China has hacked the Pentagon. This fits within the history of Chinese investment in information war. Since the mid-1990's, China has invested time and money into training a capable corps of hackers. Some of this has involved official military academies devoted to information warfare, but much of it as actually involved the encouraging of civilians to attack US government sites with denial-of-service attacks and crude defacings.

As Timothy L. Thomas notes in his essay "Like Adding Wings to the Tiger: Chinese Information War Theory and Practice," some Chinese military strategists wish to create an electronic equivalent of the Maoist People's War in which a mass of civilian users armed with cheap hacking software launch a human wave attack on enemy servers. During the Kosovo War, for example, Chinese nationalist hackers (and most likely some military personnel) defaced American civilian and military sites and launched denial of service attacks.

Another school of thought within the Chinese military sees information conflict in different terms. Eschewing the confines of Marxist theory, they seek a disciplined and efficient corps of military hackers who can skillfully take down networks in targeted attacks, most likely in support of a regular military operation. The kind of penetrative attacks they advocate are somewhat more rare, but China consistently probes US networks to uncover breaches in security. If this report is true, it would only be the most prominent case.

We should see this in the broad context of China's interest in asymmetrical assets to counter American military might. As RAND's Roger Cliff noted in his September 15, 2005 testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China's security planners subscribe very much to Basil Liddell Hart's "Indirect Approach:"

A sixth and seventh strategic principles are avoiding direct confrontation and conducting “key point strikes”. The principle of avoiding direct confrontation stems
from the recognition that China cannot win in direct, force-on-force combat with a
militarily superior adversary such as the United States. The complementary key point strike concept provides an alternative approach by postulating that all militaries are reliant on the performance of certain critical functions, any one of which, if disrupted, will render that military unable to conduct effective operations. Five types of targets for key point strikes are identified: command systems, information systems, weapon systems, logistics systems, and the linkages between these systems. Disrupting any one of these areas is said to be a way of neutralizing an enemy’s fighting strength. In the context of a conflict between the United States and China, this principle means that the United States must be prepared for attacks that are focused not on its military forces, but on its command systems, information systems, logistics systems, and the communications and transportation systems that link them.

Hacking is only a small part of of this. However, these theories are just abstract concepts at the moment. They have not been tested, and there is no empirical data on their efficiency. And given China's general military weakness in comparison to American forces, we should be very cautious about building them into a towering dragon. There is a regretful tendency for analysis of Chinese capabilities to degenerate into Washington Times-style "The Next War with China" alarmism. For a great debunking of this analytical fallacy, see Arms Control Otaku's skeptical posts on China-bashing and threat inflation.

Additionally, as Robert Economist notes, China's interest in "indirect" weapons is not part of some devious strategy to destroy America--it is a normal attempt to maintain the "minimum means of reprisal" against a vastly more powerful strategic competitor. Any competitor would do the same.

UPDATE:

Subadei raises a point that I should clarify:

I do not subscribe to the "China is the next Great Threat" diatribe bandied about by some. Quite the contrary. However, allow me the role of devil's advocate here and assume the recent Pentagon hacks were, in fact, an action taken by a Chinese Super Geek division of the Peoples Army. Why provoke said rival by honing their cyber-forces on America's networks? Why not Taiwan or India?

In other words: If this isn't some insidious strategy and is, in fact an attempt at keeping a minimal system of reprisal against a greater power than why is it being "tested" on the greater power's networks

I make no definite claims about the motivation behind the supposed hack--China watching on a grand scale has always been extremely difficult and we can't extrapolate the role this supposed operation plays in its grand strategy (beyond, of course, a continuation of probing assets). When I say that it's not an "insidious strategy" I'm referring to the broader Chinese buildup of asymmetric assets, not the still murky Pentagon hack.

But in answer to Soob's question, we can speculate. For one, the PLA probably judges the American networks as the gold standard to hone its warfighting prowess. There is also utility in sending a very public signal (like the anti-satellite missile) that it possess some countermeasure to American military strength, both for internal and external audiences. This could also be PLA internal battles playing out in the open---hacking into the Pentagon sounds like a good reason to bolster the position of a particular faction. Lastly (and least likely), there's the possibility that the PLA feels that a confrontation with Taiwan and its superpower ally is looming on the horizon and it needs to prepare.

Personally, I feel that the very public (and brazen) hack is probably a Chinese reminder of their possible capabilities to Taiwan and America and an offering to nationalists in need of some red meat.

Declaring Defeat in Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:04:00 +0000

Robert Farley of Lawyers, Guns, and Money nails it here:

[T]he strategy of allying with Sunni tribes amounts to a renunciation of US state-building aims in Iraq. Put simply, enhancing the prestige and capabilities of multiple non-state actors in Iraq is directly contradictory to the aim of constructing a viable nation-state. Indeed, I'm not sure I could envision a strategy less likely to produce a viable state; these groups are going to contend against what amounts to the Iraqi government at the earliest convenient opportunity. State-building is a nasty, violent business during which the central government becomes more militarily powerful than other societal groups, eventually disarming and delegitimizing its competitors. Current US policy is to rearm and relegitimize the competitors; any idiot should be able to see the contradiction.

In the name of defeating the media-hungry but militarily weak Al Qaeda in Iraq, we are amplifying and accelerating the warlordization of the country. It amounts to nothing less than a public declaration of defeat, as our stated aim remains the reconciling of ethnic factions and the construction of a strong central government. President Bush's visit to Anbar and meetings with Sunni chieftains responsible for the deaths of American servicemen puts a very public face on this surrender.

UPDATE:

Dan Tdaxp respectfully disagrees with my post:

First, let it be said that the United States' objective in Iraq is balancing Iranian power, creating and supporting a Sunni Arab counterweight that will prevent the active cooperation of the (Shia) Baghdad regime with the (Shia) Tehran government in an attack on Saudi Arabia.

Divering oil revenue to the Sunni tribes surely does this, as does supporting a tribal/paramilitary capacity to attack the government of Iraq within her own borders.

That said, these actions have to be viewed in the context of the millineal victory of 2003. If Afghanistan was "retaliation" for the Pentagon, then the Iraq War is the response to the twin towers attack, a shocking experience that "changes everything" and creates a "new normal." In particular, Sunni Arabs have now lost two states in three generations, putting them well on the way to loss of territory and prestige rivaled only by the early-twentieth-century collapse of the Germans.

Two points to make here: Dan subscribes to a modified form of Barnettian "system shock" theory that advocates the employment of military force to change the ossified Middle Eastern system. Although this may be an oversimplification (given time constraints, this is unavoidable), he believes that Sunni fanaticism can be curtailed by the trauma of losing Iraq. This is what he refers to when he talks about "creating a new normal." Now, setting aside my disagreements with the wisdom of this viewpoint (which is material for another post), it's safe to say that it's not the stated objective of the White House or CENTCOM.

The invasion of Iraq was about system shock, for sure, but the geopolitics behind it are considerably more mundane. The neoconservative clique responsible for the war's planning and execution wanted Iraq to be the first of many Middle Eastern pro-American client states--the theory went that bringing democracy (albeit a highly controlled form of it) to Iran, Iraq, and Syria would ensure stability for the region, quash the threat of terrorism, and make Israel more secure. Not to mention ensuring a windfall of oil and commercial investment for American companies in the region.

The main strategy in Iraq still remains consistent with those goals. The stated and practical aim is producing produce a viable state sympathetic to American interests--which of course now is pretty much impossible for either American might or diplomacy. Thus, the arming of the Sunni tribes represents defeat because it is the triumph tactical desperation over grand strategic goals. Whether the administration is consciously aware of it or not, arming non-state forces at the expense of the state is the final nail in the coffin for a unified pro-Western state in Iraq.

Likewise, despite the administration's saber rattling about Iran, I don't see any conclusive evidence that arming the Sunnis in Iraq is anything more than a short-term measure to try to improve the security situation and counter AQI, which the Bush administration focuses on to exploit American association with 9/11. This monomania is part of a public relations strategy to sidestep criticism of its war mismanagement and scare the American public out of supporting withdrawal measures.

For all of the administration's rhetoric about Iranian interference in Iraq, they seem to have little problem with a central government that is essentially composed of Shiite allies of Iran. The Bush administration is relying on other means, such as the threat of massive military force and an alliance of Sunni states, to counter Iran.

This is not to say that the Bush administration doesn't care about Iran, but it's more accurate to say that regime change in Iran is a separate goal in itself rather than something tied up with the invasion and stabilization of Iraq, just as the invasion of Afghanistan was a sideshow to the administration's obsession with removing Saddam Hussein in power. In fact, one could argue that the administration is in fact losing interest in Iraq and sees it merely as a potential stepping stone to war with Iran if it waits long enough for a (real or imagined) Iranian provocation.

Assume though, that Dan is right that arming the Sunni tribes is part of some grand strategem to undermine Iran. Wouldn't that be a laugh? Arming the very backbone of the insurgency to destroy a government we installed and still officially support! It is less a proscription for countering Iran than fanning the flames of the ethnic civil war and creating even more of a power vacuum for the Iranians to enter--at the expense of even more Iraqi lives and the endangerment of the countless MNF-1 units still fighting to pacify the country.

The problem with "system shock" theories even on a small scale is that systems are so complex and unpredictable that introducing instability into them can have radically different outcomes than one originally intends. The invasion of Iraq is a great example of this, as the Grand Mullahs of Tehran are most likely toasting to the AEI and Heritage Foundation types who gave them a new chance at power projection in the Middle East.

On Negotiation With Terrorists

noreply@blogger.com (A.E.) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:33:00 +0000

The release of South Korean hostages held by the Taliban once again demonstrates that contrary to public rhetoric, governments do "make deals with terrorists."

Israel's Yossi Melman illustrates this in a perceptive PostGlobal post:

In reality and in practice, governments have done exactly the opposite of their preaching and promise. President Ronald Reagan and his administration pledged publicly in the 80's to fight terrorism. Secretly, his officials were talking to Hezbollah and eventually clinched the arms-for-hostage deals – also known as Irangate or Iran-Contra affair – to release American hostages. This is only one example of U.S. administrations' double standards. Of course, the U.S. is not alone. The French, the British, the Italians, the Germans, the Japanese and, now, the South Koreans have followed suit in their dealings with either local or foreign terrorist groups. Governments paid in arms, in cash, in commercial benefits, in oil, in goods, and above all, in releasing terrorists from jails.

Even Israel, as Melman notes, has made deals to release terrorists through prisoner trades. From a political science perspective, there is multiple levels of peril for the decisionmaker, and it can't be just simplified to public squeamishness. Master narratives have always shaped the popular consciousness, and today's mass media age is no exception.

The hostage is a powerful symbol of national impotence (e.g. the "America Held Hostage" series on Ted Koppel's Nightline during the Iran hostage crisis). It also focuses a spotlight on foreign policies that the public may have been previously unaware of. If the hostage crisis is "blowback" from a foreign policy failure, it could easily focus public anger against policymakers themselves. Abstract strategic issues unknown to the general public are not sufficient to match the potent symbolism of an ordinary member of the community left to die at the hands of terrorists. As such, hostage-taking as an asymmetrical weapon reaches its greatest utility when tourists, relief workers, or reporters are kidnapped.

The utility of military personnel as hostages usually varies by location, mission, and hostage-taker. Some military personnel have languished in captivity without virtually any media attention. For example, three defense contractors downed in a 2003 anti-drug overlight have been held captive for nearly four years by the Colombian FARC guerrilla organization. However, the 2006 kidnapping of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit was enough to trigger Israel's (pre-planned) invasion of Lebanon. The kidnapping of Shalit mattered because he was taken on home ground by a feared national enemy. In contrast, the captivity of three private contractors running an relatively obscure operation against an even more obscure enemy is not enough to attract media attention.