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THE 4GW ANTI-STATE

“al Qaidastan” Rising

Fourth Generation Warfare, according to it’s leading theorists, is designed to challenge the legitimacy of the state. It’s “kinetic” attacks are really a form of ju-jitsu designed to strike the enemy society at the mental and moral levels and thereby cripple the state apparatus through which modern nation-states govern themselves.

Repeated successful mitary forays by 4GW entities, perhaps in alliance with local ethnic and criminal organizations, can create a “TAZ” or temporary autonomous zone, outside the rule of law. “Temporary” is a useful descriptor because, frequently, police, paramilitary or Army units are able to “re-take” the TAZ from 4GW control because these decentralized forces melt away, go underground or shift to a less direct form of conflict such as system disruption or the use of IED type munitions.

However, there are now enough examples of recent vintage to tentatively answer the question of what happens when a TAZ under the domination of a 4GW group slides toward permanency? Al Qaida, is now doing so for the second time in it’s history, as detailed by Pramit Pal Chaudhuri:

“Confederation of Terror

On September 6 the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan marked the first anniversary of its de facto recognition. On that day last year, the Taliban used the name when it signed a ceasefire agreement with the Pakistani government. The ceasefire is in tatters, but the terror trail of the recent plots in Germany and Denmark indicates that the Emirate is doing fine.

The “al Qaedaization” of the Taliban can be seen in their use of suicide bombing, human shields and bloodier kidnappings, practices abhorrent in traditional Pashtun culture. The Afghan government has no doubt this represents foreign tutelage. Says the Afghan ambassador to the U.S., Said Tayeb Jawad: “Al Qaeda is the commander, the Taliban the foot soldier. Al Qaeda provides strategic guidance“

William Lind, during the Israeli-Hezbollah War, suggested that after having attained a critical mass of legitimacy through sustained political-military success, 4GW organizations faced a choice of “To Be or Not To Be, a State“. Lind argued that statehood was equivalent with vulnerable “targetability” and that Westphalian-era mummery was something that 4GW forces could best do without.

To an extent, Lind was correct. Neither Hezbollah, nor the Islamic Courts Union, HAMAS, al Qaida or even the Taliban during the period of their rule of Afghanistan, have ever formed a proper and recognized state apparatus. Nor have they, when enjoying longer-term territorial control, remained covert guerilla-terrorist networks either. Instead, they have tried to lock in their comparative advantages with an Anti-State model existing alongside or symbiotically integrated with, the sovereign state.

The 4GW Anti-State has certain recognizable characteristics or tendencies:

*Corporative: The 4GW organization openly lives by it’s own codes, not the state’s, with final authority for enforcement. The 4GW entity may impose these codes on the people over whom they exist (Taliban), or apply them primarily to their own membership (HAMAS) but the state has de facto ceded that prerogative.

*Post-Westphalian: The borders and claims of the nation-state are irrelevant, whether we are discussing a Pushtunistan-based “al Qaidastan” that crosses the Durand Line or a Transnational Criminal Organization network like a Russian mafiya clan with cells under discipline from Novgorod to Brighton Beach to Budapest to Tel Aviv. The 4GW Anti-State can be geographic or virtual as the primary loyalty attachment for the membership is a psychological and social one.

*Hegemonic Governance: The 4GW entity frequently, as HAMAS and Hezbollah have amply demonstrated, provide a sophisticated array of public goods and other services, often free of charge, in order to cultivate political legitimacy among the larger population. They do not accept all of the de jure responsibilities for the local population that are normally traditional for a rcognized sovereign and suppress rival authorities or independent-minded individuals with arbitrary force. In matters outside of the interests of the 4GW entity, residents are left to their own devices ( or the mercy of smaller predators) so that resources are conserved.

*Symbiotic Coexistence: The 4GW group is shielded, to a degree, from international intervention by coexisting within the confines of a recognized and sovereign nation-state that is unwilling (Sudan, Iran) or unable (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq) to bring them to heel and even more unwilling to let outsiders do so. Like a parasite, a 4GW entity, if unchecked, is capable of hijacking it’s host nation-state to serve it’s own needs as al Qaida did in Afghanistan before 9/11.

The Anti-State model is useful for 4GW forces at a certain threshold of magnitude because it offers some of the defensive advantages of statehood with far fewer of the responsibilities or liabilities with running a state.

UPDATE:

John Robb was kind enough to link and had this comment:

“Mark, over at ZenPundit, has an excellent (!) post on the virtual-state (not sure that 4GW, as a description of a form of warfare, works as a label for this). “

Thanks, John! I’m not sure it works either – LOL! An explanation though:

I used “4GW” primarily because I was interested in how such movements are developing semi-permanent, alternative, forms of governance to the nation-state. Bobbitt’s “Virtual-State” could work well in many instances for what 4GW forces are in a structural or behavioral sense but the term also has broader application.

Then there is also the issue where 4GW entity is overlapping pre-modern (at times, ancient), subnational, territorial/tribal identities that are the very antithesis of “the state”. A schizoid hybrid, if you will. The analogy can be misleading because these phenomena have aspects that are very unlike the state of Max Weber, despite usurping some of the functions, so I used ” Anti-State”. I’m not wedded to the term yet as the whole issue needs more fleshing out and discussion (and as Fabius noted in the comments, empirical investigation).

A 4GW QUESTION

This will delight some, intrigue many and annoy others but I found it to be a good counterintuitive question worth considering.

Ahistoricality, posting at ProgressiveHistorians regarding the latest Failed States index, wonders about applying the criteria for state failure, used by Foreign Policy, to the linchpin of the global Core, the United States:

“The annual “Failed States Index” is out. The concept is an interesting one, indicating our very recent idea that national governments are supposed to be stable, almost eternal, and that society is supposed to manage all its conflicts with policy, that all land and people deserve stable governance. I’m not criticizing the ideas, I’m just pointing out that they are recent conceits, not eternal verities, and up to the end of WWI the most likely response to a failed state was imperial takeover.

The headlines regarding the index are highlighting Iraq’s precarious position as the second most failing state in the world, but it was a tight finish between the Sudan, Iraq, Zimbabwe and Somalia for the top spots. The only two non-African nations in the top ten of this list are Iraq and Afghanistan. Two things come to mind immediately when I look at this list: first, our imperial interventions are clearly short-term disasters, and; second, the history of failed post-colonial states suggests that they might well be long-term ones.

Social Indicators

1. Mounting Demographic Pressures
2. Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
3. Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia
4. Chronic and Sustained Human Flight
Economic Indicators
5. Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines
6. Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline

Political Indicators
7. Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State
8. Progressive Deterioration of Public Services
9. Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights
10. Security Apparatus Operates as a “State Within a State”
11. Rise of Factionalized Elites
12. Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors”

Naturally, I disagree that the United States is in danger of imminent or medium term state failure though such things are not impossible. The secession crisis before the Civil War was an event of critical state failure. Late 1932 and early 1933 saw at least symptoms of state failure and delegitimization amidst the economic implosion of the Great Depression and the collapse of the banking system.

What do you think ?

THE COMING OF AFRICOM: THE DEPARTMENT OF EVERYTHING ELSE VS. EMBRACING DEFEAT*

* image and title shamelessly “liberated” from the multidisciplinarily creative Dan of tdaxp who previously posted an excellent series by the same name.

Two articles with diametrically opposed worldviews of American intervention overseas.The path to error lies in the simplification of both approaches:

“Africa Command: The Americans Have Landed” in Esquire by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett
(This article is currently only available in dead tree format)

“Rethinking Insurgency” (PDF) at Strategic Studies Institute by Dr. Steven Metz (hat tip to Danger Room)

Tom Barnett’s Esquire article on the newly created AFRICOM is one of his best pieces in “journalist” mode and it demonstrated the dire need for establishing true ( and not primarily “kinetic”) “operational jointness” in interagency cooperation in Africa. This means accepting the inherent complexity of the Gap and answering with synergistic connectivity to globalization in order to engage in societal-building and state-building .

AFRICOM

Dr. Metz also accepts the complexity and interconnectivy of globalization but prescribes defusing conflicts by disengagement, accepting the co-option of aggrieved insurgencies into the national power structure even when they are resolutely hostile to American interests. A graceful retreat does less damage, in Metz’s view, than would sustained conflict fueled by American aid enhancing the power of states to resist insurgencies.

Unsurprisingly, I am in favor of Barnett’s approach but recognize that it is best employed judiciously, with an economy of force and minimalist platforms where aid gives the biggest bang for the buck. Likewise, while I see the Metz approach, if raised to a general rule, as a prescription for strategic erosion of American primacy and the decline of globalization, used with discretion, it is a useful “means-test” for evaluating the strategic importance of failing states and avoiding of the waste of American blood and treasure.

Malawi is not as important as Pakistan, even if al Qaida can be found in both countries. That doesn’t mean ignoring Malawi but that we engage it differently than we do Pakistan.

ADDENDUM:

Steve DeAngelis is also discussing AFRICOM at ERMB

INTERESTING

Check out the My State Failure Blog – certainly a concept whose time is come. ( Hat tip to tequila )

STATE FAILURE 2.0

(Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

One of the sharpest points of contention between Thoms P.M. Barnett and John Robb is over the feasibility of Tom’s System Administration concept. This issue has been the topic of numerous posts and the occasional rhetorical jab between the two strategic theorists. This pattern repeats itself, in my view, for a number of reasons. First, even friendly professional rivalry causes a natural bumping of heads; secondly, Robb looks at a system and thinks how it can be made to fall apart while Barnett looks at the same system and imagines how the pieces can be reintegrated. Third, no one really has all the answers yet on why some states fail relatively easily while others prove resilient in the face of horrific stress.

Robb contends that Global Guerillas can potentially keep a state in permanent failure, despite the best efforts of System Administration intervention to the contrary. A new level of systemic collapse, call it State Failure 2.0, where failure constitutes a self-sustaining dynamic. Broadly defined, you would chalk up ” wins” for Robb’s point of view in Somalia, Iraq and the Congo. In Dr. Barnett’s column you would find Germany, Japan, Cambodia, East Timor and Sierra Leone in evidence for the efficacy of Sys Admin work. Lebanon and Afghanistan perhaps could be described as a nation-building draw at this point in time.

Why permanent failure in some cases but not others ? This is something that long puzzled me. Then today, I read an intriguing pair of posts at Paul Hartzog’s blog – ” Ernesto Laclau and the Persistence of Panarchy” and ” Complexity and Collapse“. An excerpt from the first post:

“Ernesto Laclau was here @ UMich and gave a delightful talk that gave me some key insights into the long-term stability of panarchy.

In other words, panarchy is autopoietic as is. As new criteria of difference emerge and vanish, the complex un-whole that is panarchy will never rigidify into something that can be opposed, i.e. it will never become a new hegemony. “

While I think Paul is incorrect on the ultimate conclusion – that panarchy is a steady-state system for society – I think he has accurately described why a state may remain ” stuck” in failure for a considerable period of time as we reckon it. Moreover, it was a familiar scenario to me, being reminiscient of the permanent failure experienced by the global economy during the Great Depression. Yet some states pulled themselves out of the Depression, locally and temporarily, with extreme state intervention while the system itself did not recover until after WWII with the opposite policy – steady liberalization of international trade and de-regulation of markets that became globalization.

The lesson from that economic analogy might be that reviving completely failed states might first require a ” clearing of the board” of local opposition – defeated Germany and Japan, Cambodia, Sierra Leone and East Timor were completely devastated countries that had to begin societal reconstruction at only slightly better than ground zero. Somalia, Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, and Lebanon all contain robust subnational networks that create high levels of friction that work against System Administration. At times, international aid simply helps sustain the dysfunctional actors in their resistance.

System Administration as a cure for helping connect Gap states might be akin to government fiscal and monetary policy intervention in the economy; it may work best with the easiest and worst-off cases where there is either a functional and legitimate local government to act as a partner or where there is no government to get in the way and the warring factions are exhausted.

The dangerous middle ground of partially failed states is the real sticking point.