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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).

NEVER AGAIN

In memory of those who died 11 September, 2001.

Special thanks to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and officers of our intelligence community currently serving in harm’s way in the long war and, most of all, to those who will never return. America is in your debt.

OSAMA BIN WINGNUT?

What to make of Osama Bin Laden sounding less like a radical Salafist in his recent video than the infantile Sean Penn on a hysterical political rant, throwing in an homage to Noam Chomsky and global warming ? Well, government sources are pointing “Azzam the American”, the young Californian convert, Adam Yahiye Gadahn as the origin of the more childish rhetoric that seems to be ripped from the memes of the Lefty Wingnut blogosphere.

In my opinion, that is a stupid interpretation. If it comes from our intelligence agencies, and not some staffer at the White House, all the worse for us.

First of all, such an analysis gives far too much emphasis to the role of Gadahn, a relatively juvenile character. Al Qaida does not lack members with the ability to read English or surf the internet. The radical Islamist-terrorist community have long monitored American websites, particularly those related to military and intelligence circles; one of their favorite theorists appears to be none other than William Lind! Gadahn’s help in video production is a triviality, not a primary concern.

Secondly, the hodgepodge nature of the speech with Bin Laden zooming from Sarkozy to tax rates is indicative of an intentional raising of the noise to signal ratio. Much of this verbiage appears to me to be – well – irrelevant crap. It attracts media attention while distracting observers from two of the more ominous elements present in bin Laden’s speech – his continuing fascination with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the call to embrace Islam. The latter being a religious duty for pious Muslims prior to the unleashing of war and ruin upon an enemy; a call once uttered by the generals of Arab caliphs and Turkish sultans half a millennium ago, before the sacking of infidel cities by Muslim armies.

The Germans just rolled up a major al Qaida cell days before an attack was to take place. Perhaps we should be looking at potential problems just a little bit harder ourselves.

BELATEDLY, KILCULLEN ON THE TRIBAL REVOLT

Great piece by Colonel Kilcullen at SWJ Blog on the “flipping” of Anbar province by the tribal revolt against AQI:

“The implications of the tribal revolt have been somewhat overlooked by the news media and in the public debate in Coalition capitals. In fact, the uprising represents very significant political progress toward reconciliation at the grass-roots level, and major security progress in marginalizing extremists and reducing civilian deaths. It also does much to redress the lack of coalition forces that has hampered previous counterinsurgency approaches, by throwing tens of thousands of local allies into the balance, on our side. For these reasons, the tribal revolt is arguably the most significant change in the Iraqi operating environment for several years. But because it occurred in ways that were neither expected nor accounted for in our “benchmarks” (which were formulated before the uprising began to really develop, and which tend to focus on national legislative developments at the central government and political party level rather than grass-roots changes in the quality of life of ordinary Iraqis) the significance of this development has been overlooked to some extent.”

We should run with the grassroots and try to get tolerably effective Iraqi self-government at the local and provincial level and simply cut our losses with the central government. Let it fade into irrelevance as most Iraqis already ignore its edicts anyway.

The opportunity of the democratic elections were blown when the Iraqi power brokers (few of whom could be considered democrats in any meaningful sense and see a truly democratic system as inimical in principle to their own in-group leadership) were permitted to drag out negotiations over forming a government until legitimacy and popular interest generated by the elections eroded. We should have instead, followed the example of the noteworthy “Small Wars” fighter, General Leonard Wood.

The general, who was running occupied Cuba as the military governor in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American War, faced a similar situation with the intransigence of wealthy, landed, Cuban elites who filled the legislature who were attempting to outwait Wood by creating a political deadlock until the Americans went home. General Wood, who understood the game being played and the free-for-all that would ensue if American troops left Cuba without a functional government, simply locked the doors of the parliament and his armed soldiers refused to permit anyone to leave until the legislators finished their business and also ratified the unpopular Platt amendment.

The latter effectively made Cuba a protectorate of the United States in name as well as fact but from a realist perspective, it also quashed the possibility of civil war, boosted Cuba’s economy and guaranteed a functioning civil government in Havanna for two and a half decades, even if it required a new military intervention. Iraq is not nearly so well off.

ADDENDUM

SWJ BLOG

Glittering Eye

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Global Guerillas

Iraq the Model

MICRO ROUND-UP ON THE CIA’S IG REPORT

Here’s the news story.

The SWJ Blog links to the IG Report executive summary. (PDF)

Here are a few reactions ( originally, I planned a wide spectrum of blogospheric opinion but found too much of it to be simpleminded, partisan, blather, so I stuck with the available informed commentary):

Haft of the Spear:

“They are basically saying that not only were parts of the system broken, anyone with half a wit should have been able to see that and take action (or at least raise an alarm). That no one bothered says that either leadership was not all it was cracked up to be, or that the way the system treats squeaky wheels is such that no one – witless or not – thought raising a stink was worth the risk. Stupidity and fear, fortunately, are not excuses.”

Sic Semper Tyrannis:

“ The CIA like the DIA failed miserably to penetrate the apparatus of the takfiri jihadi networks. Such penetrations would have enabled the US to anticipate coming jihadi actions.
Once again it will be said that penetrating these groups is “too hard to do.” Rubbish. I know better. Why were these groups not penetrated?

Timidity. Fear of Risks, Bureaucratic inertia. Poor leadership at the top in all the significant organizations. Has anything changed? I doubt it. If it had, bin Laden would be dead by now.”

When a system is fundamentally broken you do not need to simply look for loose bolts or missing parts or even a new mechanic ( though firing an old one might be a useful message to send to their replacement) – what you do is find some engineers and a drawing board.