zenpundit.com

Heh.

Only Some Dare Call it “Insurgency”

A “must read” article by Dr. Robert J. Bunker at SWJ Blog:

The Mexican Cartel Debate: As Viewed Through Five Divergent Fields of Security Studies

….What is clear is that complex post-modern threats-such as those posed by the Mexican cartels and, for that matter, Al Qaeda and its affiliate network- do not fit into neat categories and well-defined security fields. What is needed is for a U.S. governmental „honest broker? or supra-security organization to come into the Mexican cartel debate and leverage the five fields of security studies highlighted in this essay into a broader networked effort. This effort must further be tied into issues pertaining to the trans-operational environments involving U.S. engagement with Mexican cartels and their affiliates. We can no longer afford the luxury of watching numerous fields of study and security response organizations-each with their own form of „extreme specialization?- independently going about their activities in a totally uncoordinated manner. Instead, attention should be directed at creating a hemispheric strategy for the Americas, possibly even global in scale, to directly challenge the rise of the Mexican cartels and their mercenary and gang affiliates along the entire threat continuum highlighted in this essay.

That the narco-cartels originally had illicit economic motivations and lack Maoist ambitions is apparently a very large obstacle for some orthodox counterinsurgency experts to wrap their heads around – despite the fact that if a group with a political identity were beheading rivals, assassinating police chiefs, kidnapping mayors, using propaganda of word and deed, setting off car bombs and fighting the Army, they’d call it “insurgency”.

While the USG is not supposed to call the narco-cartel war an “insurgency“, we appear to be starting to treat it as one.
 

Dr.David Ucko at the excellent Kings of War blog has his story and he is sticking to it:

The Weather Underground: a different approach to political violence

I recently watched The Weather Underground, a 2002 documentary on the eponymous radical organisation active within the United States during the 1970s. The film may be of interest to those studying radicalisation, insurgency and political violence, as it effectively explores the rise, evolution and demise of a revolutionary organisation. It also raises some semantic/ethical questions about ‘who is a terrorist’.

….The use of violence for political messaging may be viewed as ‘terrorism’, and this is typically how the Weather Underground is understood. But is this accurate? Terrorist groups deliberately target civilians to scare or terrorise wider populations into a certain political behaviour. The WUO refrained from such action: they used violence against buildings rather than people, to symbolise their discontent with specific policies and actions, but without killing those held responsible. It was ‘propaganda of the deed’, but without the bloodshed. Accordingly, none of WUO’s attacks resulted in casualties (the one exception has not been definitively linked to the group), and for this reason alone, it is difficult to call WUO a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Uh, no it isn’t. As the commenters at KoW are busy trying to inform Ucko, this narrative does not fit the facts of the history of the Weathermen.

David, I suspect, is not trying to romanticize the Weathermen here so much as force-fit them into his theoretical model of terrorism, possibly influenced by a tactical turn that was undertaken by the IRA to drive up financial costs for the British government while minimizing the bad press that and damage to their public image that had been growing from earlier, bloody, IRA bombings.

Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries by Dr. Robert J. Bunker (Ed.)

Just received a review copy courtesy of Dr. Bunker and James Driscoll of Taylor & Francis – could not have arrived at a better time given several research projects in which I am engaged.

The 237 page, heavily footnoted, book is organized into three sections: Organization and Technology Use by the narcos networks, Silver or Lead on their carrot and stick infiltration/intimidation of civil society and the state apparatus, and Response Strategies for the opponents of the cartels. Bunker’s co-authors Matt Begert, Pamela Bunker, Lisa Campbell, Paul Kan, Alberto Melis, Luz Nagle, John Sullivan, Graham Turbiville, Jr., Phil Wiliams and Sarah Womer bring an array of critical perspectives to the table from academia, law enforcement, intelligence, defense and security fields as researchers and practitioners.

Looks good – will get a full review here at a later date, but a work that will definitely of interest to those readers focusing on national security, COIN, 4GW, irregular or Hybrid war, terrorism, transnational organized crime and black globalization.

by Charles Cameron
[ cross-posted from ChicagoBoyz ]

I’ve been thinking…

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Reports, overstatements and underestimates

There are factual reports of violence and threats of violence, which are within the proper province of journalism and intelligence gathering.

There are also overstatements of such reports, generally resulting from paranoia, hatred, recruitment, or the desire to increase sales of advertising or munitions.

And there are understatements of such reports, generally resulting from sheer ignorance or a desire to be diplomatic.

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Religious sanctions for violence

Similarly, there are factual reports of sanctions for violence in the scriptures, hagiographies and histories of various religions.

There are also overstatements of such reports, attributing to entire religions the beliefs and or activities of a significant subsection or outlier group of that religion

And there are understatements of such reports, avoiding the attribution of violence to religious beliefs regardless of whether the religious correlation is a “cover” for other motives or a sanction powerfully affecting the actions of those who respond to it.

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Proportional and disproportionate responses

There are actions which represent a balanced and proportional response to threats or acts of violence, whether they be made at home or abroad, by the military or law enforcement, for reasons of just war or of security.

There are actions which present an unbalanced and disproportionate heightened response to acts of violence, into which category I would place both over-reactive military responses and over-reactive domestic security measures.

And there are inactions which are no less unbalanced as responses to acts or threats of violence, as with political wool-gathering or appeasement, bureaucratic failures to implement realistic information sharing and dot-connection within the IC, or public aversion to factual news or intelligent, nuanced analysis.

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Ideals, kumbaya and skepticism

There are honest statements of aspiration for peaceable outcomes to current and future conflicts.

There are versions of such aspirations which naively overlook the very real correlations between religious sanctions and violence.

And there are skeptical aversions to such aspirations, which no less naively overlook the very real differences which are present between the most angry, the most terrified, the most politically driven, the most financially interested and the most generous members of any and every religious and irreligious viewpoint.

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Let’s talk…

It is useful to bear these distinctions of category in mind, and to make accurate appraisals of one’s information inputs in terms of which categories they fall under, and how much trust one should therefore place in them.

There: it was on my mind and I have said it.

This is, as my title indicates, a first draft. I hope it will spark some interesting conversations, and lead to further insight and refinement…