The Importance of Irregular Warfare to the Modern Strategist
MARK O. YEISLEY
As the other contributors to this collection thus far have pointed out, strategy is a multifaceted ideal that is informed by a wide variety of academic and military disciplines. Since humans emerged on the African plains they have faced threats and adversaries that have challenged and often outclassed them in terms of power and position. Gaining the advantage has demanded the development of strategy to prevail over these adversaries, and the pursuit of useful and correct strategy has been carried out for thousands of generations. From Hannibal’s envelopment of the Roman legions at Cannae to the defeat of Napoleon’s forces at Waterloo, generals of nations either have developed and implemented strategy effectively to defeat the armies of enemy states that challenged them in battle or have themselves faced defeat.
Twentieth-century conflict was in many ways no different: two devastatingly costly wars spanned nearly the entire globe, a nuclear stalemate developed between the superpower winners of World War II, and the United States emerged as the global hegemon following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two world wars, though fought for differing strategic and operational imperatives, were waged using military strategies that would have been familiar to such classical strategic thinkers as Carl von Clausewitz, Basil Liddell Hart, or Alfred Thayer Mahan.1 Militaries faced each other in formal battles decided by maneuver, deception, and operational brilliance; although friction and the “fog” of war played their respective parts, victory was usually attained by the side that outthought and outfought the other.
U.S. grand strategy during the Cold War focused on the twin concepts of containment and deterrence; strategic- and operational-level plans were laid out in the greatest detail to allow the United States to act proactively to contain Soviet expansion and prevent a nuclear Armageddon. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the United States has struggled to define a strategic role for itself. From Mogadishu to the ongoing crises in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the United States has assumed a more reactive role, responding to multiple contingencies that tax its military might in irregular warfare rather than in conventional state-on-state engagements. Despite its victories in the aforementioned conflicts, the United States is now in what some scholars characterize as an “era of strategic failure,” struggling to understand and meet the demands of irregular war. This chapter looks at the characteristics of irregular warfare, how classical and modern strategists have viewed this phenomenon, and how airpower can contribute to victory in these types of campaigns in the future.
Since 2001 the United States has conducted ongoing counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, and across the Horn of Africa. As of this writing the United States is engaged in airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and is debating whether airpower will be enough in the coming years to quell this movement. During the same period there have been only two cases of conventional conflict where the United States has faced a state-level adversary.2 Thus while conventional conflict has become increasingly uncommon, incidences of irregular warfare have remained anything but.
The United States was indeed a force to be reckoned with in the conventional state-on-state conflicts of the twentieth century, but it has had far less success when it comes to unconventional warfare. It failed to keep South Vietnam from falling into communist hands and has paid a heavy toll in blood and treasure in its ongoing struggle against al Qaeda, ISIS, and other nonstate actors. While the airpower arm of U.S. military power has served brilliantly in these conflicts, it has not always succeeded in deterring its adversaries from continuing to pursue their goals.
Some claim the United States has struggled to integrate its instruments of power correctly to meet the challenges of modern unconventional adversaries. Others argue that the underlying strategies employed to address these adversaries are designed more for conventional enemies and provide little traction against terror groups such as ISIS. This leads one to wonder: Is the problem a failure to match desired ends with the means available? Or is it a lack of an effective use of the instruments of power? Or the ways we seek to achieve our ends? The answers to these questions are beyond the scope of this short chapter, which offers instead a frank discussion of how both classical and modern strategic thinking can be applied to modern unconventional conflict. In addition, a critical review of airpower theory will show that strategies for the application of airpower against these threats already exist and can be used effectively in current and future conflicts of this type. An examination of the characteristics, causes, and effects of irregular warfare will help set the stage for the remainder of this discussion.
CHARACTERISTICS OF IRREGULAR WARFARE
A robust understanding of some of the characteristics of irregular warfare is essential to the modern strategist, for three reasons. First, winners in these conflicts are more difficult to predict a priori than they are in conventional ones, making strategic calculations for engaging in them uncertain and risky. Second, these conflicts often last longer than their conventional counterparts, as challenger groups do not desire a return to the status quo ante and states usually do not wish to risk the appearance of weakness by appeasing challengers’ demands. Third, they are costly in both blood and treasure due to their extended durations and zero-sum nature.
Who Wins and Who Loses? Not Always an Easy Question
When diplomacy fails, states may attempt to resolve contentious issues between them via the use of military force. During these “conventional” conflicts state military forces are pitted against each other on fields of battle; the disputes are formally decided when both sides recognize which of them has the superior force and the weaker side yields. Since each side’s military force is usually discernible, determinations of relative strength are made via intelligence collection and analysis. Since states should not risk squandering military might in conflicts where they may not prevail, they will usually make rational decisions not to engage in unequal power struggles. This by extension often limits both conflict duration and casualty potential, as wartime decision matrices are more or less clearly defined.
Decisions for participation in irregular conflicts are more difficult; while state military and police power is usually well known, deducing the strength of challenger forces is demanding (if not impossible) prior to the outbreak of hostilities. A state’s forces overwhelm those of the challenger in most cases; the latter are thus unlikely to reveal their numerical and material strengths until it becomes necessary.3 Since information asymmetries often exist until forces have engaged in conflict, determinations of relative superiority remain unclear during the initial stages as well. While the primary goal of the state is to retain its hold on sovereign power, it is difficult (if not impossible) to deduce the true goals of the challenger force; these are also often malleable as the conflict progresses over time.4 Since information on relative power and group goals is difficult to discern, there is less incentive for challenger groups to admit that they are likely to be defeated; leaders of challenger groups are often able to convince civilian populations to continue supporting them even when defeat appears inevitable.
The (Often) Extended Nature of Irregular Warfare
Since states usually possess the preponderance of military and police forces in asymmetric conflicts, challengers must make strategic choices about when to fight and what methods to employ. In the early stages of irregular conflict, challengers are often too weak to engage directly with forces of the state; instead, these groups often apply indirect methods, such as terrorism or guerrilla warfare’s “hit and run” tactics.5 Military and political decisions for conflict initiation and sustainment become muddled as each side struggles with targeting, force employment, and execution. States must be careful in militarized responses to challenger actions, as undue violence can be used by the challenger to win support.
Challengers must take care to maintain or increase the support of the population, as they depend on the people in most cases for sanctuary, support, and resupply. A return to the preconflict status quo is never palatable for challengers; in addition to the return to conditions extant at conflict initiation, challengers (and their loved ones) may face sanctions for failed attempts. Sanctions often mean imprisonment or death; challengers thus have little to lose by continuing to pursue their goals using violence. States are inclined to pursue and prosecute responsible leaders on the challenger side, to punish those attempting to weaken state control, and to deter future challengers to its authority. Both individual and group cost-benefit calculations on both sides of the conflict therefore favor continuing the fight, causing irregular warfare to be characterized by its often extended duration.
The High Costs of Irregular Warfare
Challengers in irregular conflicts are drawn from the population, often from groups with little or no voice in the political process or from the otherwise disenfranchised. When representing a population as the active political or military arm of a popular movement they are often able to hide among the people when not actively engaged. This brings the conflict into direct contact with civilians, who may or may not be participating, whether through direct action on the part of the state or via retaliatory or other measures inflicted by challenger groups. States can direct violence at the population to repress future rebellion or to punish perceived criminal behavior on behalf of the rebel group.6 Challengers can conduct reprisal attacks on those they suspect of being disloyal to the cause or to make examples so as to minimize any tendency to cooperate with the state.7 This widens the circle of violence, leading to higher casualties and larger population displacements.
During the Cold War, the nuclear stalemate made direct superpower conflict unthinkable; many instances of irregular warfare were the result of proxy conflicts conducted by the USSR (i.e., the Soviet Union) and United States within or among their client states.8 Each contributed resources to its client forces; this support generally came in the form of funding, weapons/technology transfers, and technical or advisory support. In the years prior to and following the collapse of the USSR, money was no longer available to spend on proxy conflicts, and Soviet support ended; without a communist threat the United States also lost interest in funding such conflicts.9 Without superpower support, proxy conflicts often ended, as sides in conflict sought strategic alternatives to violence. Yet irregular warfare continues to tax both the United States and the international community. The conflict in Afghanistan against Taliban and al Qaeda forces is estimated to have cost the United States over $100 billion annually. Despite the massive outlay of blood and treasure by the United States, Taliban fighters number only between 20,000 and 40,000, and their own spending on the conflict is estimated at as little as $100–200 million annually.10 The United States thus annually spends on average one thousand times what the Taliban does, making the cost of this irregular war high indeed.
CAUSES OF IRREGULAR WARFARE
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps field manual on counterinsurgency defines irregular warfare as a broad category of conflict that includes both insurgency and counterinsurgency, but this definition applies only to movements designed to overthrow established governments via the use of force and other actions taken to oppose authorities.11 More broadly, irregular warfare implies the use of violence among state and nonstate actors for legitimacy and influence over particular populations. While challengers prefer to employ force indirectly and in an asymmetric fashion, force can also be applied using the whole gamut of military and other capabilities. Thus irregular warfare comprises all conflicts that pit against one another combatant groups of differential technological and military skill levels; these conflicts range from coups to terror campaigns to full-scale civil war. Scholars have found such conflicts often take place when central governments are inept or corrupt and are weak enough to make violent change attractive, to offer rebels with often limited economic and military means opportunities to challenge state sovereignty successfully.12
Theories of irregular warfare cover a wide variety of causal factors, but the primary motivator of conflict is usually a lack of political means by which individual or group grievances can be addressed, whether at the local, regional, or national level. Without any means of redress, groups have no choice but either to abandon further efforts to obtain it and thus accept the status quo or to express their grievances through some form of conflict. These expressions take many forms, most of which are nonviolent in nature; the passing of handbills, town meetings, orations from bully pulpits, marches, sit-ins, and strikes are common examples of primarily nonviolent conflict expression. Violent expressions include riots, armed uprisings, insurgencies, and civil war.
While the spectrum of irregular warfare is broad, scholars have identified specific “issue spaces” that often lead to violent conflict of this type. Scholars continue to debate which issues most often lead to grievances and conflict, and no list of issues of sufficient salience has yet been compiled. Early research identified relative deprivation, wherein levels of perceived actual welfare do not meet expected values, as a key motivator of conflict.13 Utility theory predicts that if those desiring rebellion perceive the benefits to be derived outweigh the costs, they will choose strategies of conflict. Other scholars treat rebellion as a form of organized crime, in which rebels desiring access to rents derived from resource endowments will confiscate those resources and then defend themselves against government forces. Since the latter are generally well armed, rebel leaders will make such attempts only if they believe they can survive government attack and make a profit.14
Further financial motivations can be found in the works of Collier and Sambanis, who argue that while weak economic development is a major grievance, a descent into civil war is a function of the opportunity to organize and then finance a rebellion.15 Economic inequality as well is a powerful predictor of political unrest and rebellion; with a “Gini coefficient” measured at 0.45 (the Gini coefficient is a measure of state inequality among the population, with a value of zero equating to perfect equality and one with total inequality) in 2000, China was in historically dangerous territory. Gini coefficient values above 0.4 are considered dangerous in terms of the likelihood of rebellion; China’s values (as of 2008) were estimated to be as high as 0.5 or 0.6.16
Ethnic violence, broadly defined, meets at least one of the following three criteria: it is motivated by some animosity toward an ethnic group, the victims are chosen because of specific ethnic criteria, or attack is carried out on behalf of an ethnic group. Ethnicity prior to the end of the Cold War was an understudied conflict component; ideology was the primary focus of strategy makers and elites during this period. One was either a communist or not, and ethnicity was considered largely epiphenomenal. Intergroup ethnic violence remains rare in the post–Cold War era, however; most instances of lethal ethnic violence since World War II have been either the results of state repression of specific ethnic groups or between a state and members of a group claiming to represent an ethnic grouping.17
Early work on conflict among ethnic groups began the modern debate, citing the importance of societal structure to determine whether ethnic conflict between groups would erupt. In hierarchical societies where social status is relatively fixed among groups there is little chance of upward social mobility; subordinates in these societies are generally dispersed, making mobilization difficult and conflict unlikely. In unranked societies, subordinates think in terms of both ethnicity and class, often demanding regional autonomy if regionally concentrated, which can lead to conflict if these demands remain unmet.18 Others see identity as fluid and able to change as the situation requires; this helps explain how ethnic identities dormant in the former Yugoslavia were aroused by President Slobodan Milosevic, leading to extreme acts of violence.19 When ethnic cleavages are particularly durable, violent ethnic conflict can result when a given minority group perceives that its ability to improve its position vis-à-vis its neighbors will only decline over time.20
Nationalism can be defined as any collective action whereby actors seek congruence between the boundaries of an ethnic group and those of the state. Using Spain, France, and England as case studies, Marx shows how religious intolerance was used by leaders of these states, when newly created, to target minority religious groups for expulsion. This served not only to rid the ruling elites of problematic factions that might eventually challenge royal rule but also to create a binding mechanism for the populations of the new nations.21 When central governments appear weak, elites and citizens alike may perceive opportunities to improve their social condition; if an ethnic group senses bias directed against it under these conditions and is spatially concentrated, self-determination movements become more likely.22
Religious motivators for conflict at the subnational level are many and vary among the multitude of religious groupings extant today. Religious factors on their own seemingly have little explanatory power in occurrences of ethnic conflict; however, when one combines religion and desires for separatism, religion becomes a major causal factor indeed. Muslims have been found more likely to rebel against the state than to protest; however, this is unsurprising, as most Muslims live in authoritarian states, where avenues of protest seldom exist.23 Thus regime types and the threat of repression likely carry more explanatory weight in these cases. When religious and territorial issues intersect, violence is more likely to obtain; because both issues have fixed and known boundaries, little room for compromise exists and violence becomes more likely.24
Polity types and their responses to requests for political change can also lead to group mobilization and the escalation of movements into rebellion. Autocracies are particularly ripe for rebellion, as often they offer no pathways for political access; groups that seek political change must either agitate peacefully or use violent forms of protest. Financially and bureaucratically weak states can make insurgency strategically more feasible for groups desirous of change; weak internal security forces, including corrupt or inefficient police, weak counterinsurgency forces, and poorly trained and equipped militaries offer conditions more favorable to insurgencies.25
EFFECTS OF IRREGULAR WARFARE
Irregular warfare tends to have destabilizing effects, domestically, regionally and not infrequently internationally. As violence rises within the state, domestic order breaks down, institutions are threatened, and personal security declines; if the protective capabilities of local and regional police or other security forces are inadequate, individual security becomes more problematic or fails altogether. This often results in large population movements to neighboring states, where individuals seek shelter from the violence at home. As of this writing, nearly four million Syrian refugees have been registered in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon as a result of the Syrian civil war and the ongoing threat of ISIS.26 However, if state borders are porous, conflict can also transcend them, allowing challenger groups to seek refuge and resupply in neighboring nations. If sovereignty cannot be sustained by neighboring states, they too can descend into anarchic conditions, affecting trade, business and security. Often such conflicts become proxy wars for more powerful states that seek to gain advantage over others without engaging in direct conflict; without careful control these conflicts can escalate to international wars with far-reaching implications.
It is clear that irregular warfare is a growing concern as groups like al-Shabaab, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS continue to employ widespread violence and terror to achieve their goals. It is not clear whether effective strategies exist for dealing with groups like these, which employ unconventional methods of conducting military campaigns. The following sections will examine both classical and modern theoretical perspectives on warfare and strategy to determine what may be both applicable and useful for current and future irregular conflicts.
CLASSICAL STRATEGIC THEORISTS AND IRREGULAR WARFARE
As many of the authors in this volume have already discussed, deep thinking on military strategy has been under way for thousands of years. Modern strategists would be remiss if they did not study the works of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini, as they have much to offer those wishing to understand and master the art of military strategy making. Yet many would argue that these works, while valuable in comprehending the complexities of “traditional” conflict between warring armies, have little to offer those interested in irregular warfare. This argument is easy to counter: many of these classical theorists speak directly to the complexities of irregular warfare. One must only be willing to examine their writings closely to find pertinent material, and it is to this purpose that this section is dedicated.
Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu’s writings are, like those of so many military theorists, products of the time and context in which he lived. Dating The Art of War, his classic treatise on warfare in ancient China, is difficult, but many place its origins in the fourth century BCE.27 During this “Warring States” period, large armies commanded by generals met on fields of battle—yet numbers meant little to Sun Tzu. Instead, he valued a deep understanding of the battlefield and the enemy, the use of deception, and the indirect approach. He greatly valued moral strength, intelligence, adaptability, and flexibility in responding to the enemy as keys to success in battle.28
Protracted warfare was abhorrent to Sun Tzu; no country had ever benefited from such a conflict, and thus it was to be avoided.29 Attacking the enemy’s strategy, rather than his troops, was most important, for “[t]o subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”30 Sun Tzu’s thoughts on strategy are thus directly applicable to irregular warfare today, as understanding the motivations and goals of groups like ISIS and al Qaeda and attacking their strategy, rather than meeting them kinetically on the battlefield, may defuse and defeat these movements with less expenditure of blood and treasure.
Thucydides
Thucydides, a one-time Athenian general who was exiled for failing to save the city of Amphipolis from the Spartans, also lived in the times about which he wrote. Although his narrative concerns the war between the states of Athens, with its powerful navy, and Sparta, with its heavily armed land forces, it has many lessons for irregular warfare strategy. As Colin Gray so astutely observes, there is little difference between the motivations of those who fought the Peloponnesian Wars and the leaders of ISIS and al Qaeda. The concerns of both are “about political power: who gets it, and as a rather secondary matter, what to do with it.”31
Thucydides believed that conflict between Athens and Sparta would be “inevitable and terrible,” given the lack of adherence to traditional rules of warfare and the absence of any political common ground on which to attempt to establish a real and lasting peace.32 This corresponds rather well to the current conflict between ISIS (which seeks political power and legitimacy) and Western forces, between whom there appears to exist little in the form of common ground for negotiation. It therefore seems likely that Thucydides, considered the father of realist theory, would expect the West to utilize its extensive military might as its primary means of addressing the current Middle East crises and to adopt an annihilation strategy against groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda. But while such a strategy could ultimately result in a victory for the West in terms of destroying the threat, it would likely mean a further lessening of U.S. soft power and perhaps mean a difficult and protracted conflict indeed.
Clausewitz
Now approaching its two-hundredth anniversary, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War has been studied, interpreted, and misinterpreted, by generations of military officers and scholars of both military strategy and history. In it Clausewitz describes war as a continuation of policy by other means, means by which states, as the creators and arbiters of national policy, force other states to do their will.33 This Westphalian viewpoint, some scholars argue, minimizes the value of these theories in the modern era, as they do not account for nonstate actors (which by Clausewitzian standards would be incapable of conducting policy at this level). Others argue that his theories do not account for the changing nature of war in the modern era.34
Yet dismissing Clausewitz outright shortchanges the reader, who with a little digging would uncover additional thoughts by this theorist specifically on irregular warfare. Clausewitz does indeed write of such conflicts in On War—his magnum opus devotes a relatively short, yet illustrative chapter entitled “The People in Arms” in Book Six to it. Although Clausewitz admits that at the time of the writing this type of warfare was rare and understudied, he does provide a theoretical framework for its conduct. Distance from military and police forces of the state and suitable topography were musts for success.
Rebels must also concentrate their efforts against the state only at the periphery, where their actions would foment uneasiness and fear and “deepen the psychological effect of the insurrection as a whole.”35 The goal was thus not the defeat of the enemy (state) forces but exhaustion of the state by the insurgent’s actions, akin to what al Qaeda has been doing for over a decade as of this writing. By understanding these theoretical concepts, forces countering these insurgent strategies can properly focus their own strengths and marginalize the efforts of the terrorist groups they seek to defeat.
It becomes apparent, then, that these classical strategic thinkers do indeed have much to offer those who are interested in developing strategies for irregular war. Understanding the enemy’s motivations and goals and attacking his strategy instead of his troops may indeed pay bigger benefits than kinetic action alone. The use of overwhelming military power, the hallmark of major powers in the international system, can be beneficial when insurgent goals and strategies are unclear, but the benefits might be outweighed by the damage to soft power and prestige. By understanding insurgent group tactics, the United States can minimize losses along the periphery and avoid exhaustion from prolonged combat. We now turn to more modern strategic thinkers and theorists to see what seekers of strategies for irregular war can understand and employ.
MODERN STRATEGIC THEORISTS ON IRREGULAR WARFARE
Although “modern” is somewhat ambiguous, it is used here less as a temporal divider than as a means of denoting the beginning of the current era of irregular warfare and terrorism. For the purposes of this chapter, I define modern works as those written in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as they incorporate the latest in tactics and strategy in their theories. For this reason I begin this section by examining the works of Col. C. E. Callwell and move on through the current day.
Callwell, a British officer who served in many campaigns, draws heavily on the works of Clausewitz and to some degree those of Sun Tzu to explain how best to defeat insurgent forces in irregular conflicts. His Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice is now a classic. The first step is to set clear goals for the campaign, then to do a rational assessment of one’s own capabilities, as well as those of the enemy, before deriving strategies for achieving the goals. The operational and strategic goals were the same: to “achieve the collapse of enemy resistance as quickly as possible.”36 In this way one’s forces would not be drawn into a protracted conflict and atritted by enemy forces. Speed is thus of the essence, to avoid the lengthy conflict so abhorred by both Sun Tzu and by the British public at the time.
From the beginning of the twentieth century until 1934, the U.S. Marine Corps (consisting of just over 11,000 men until the United States entered World War I) engaged primarily in small wars with the goal of pacifying indigenous peoples. The 1940 Small Wars Manual was an attempt to provide every Marine with a single volume dedicated to understanding and fighting these conflicts. The use of military action differed greatly from that in conventional warfare, where maximum force was expected. In small wars the population mattered to the political outcome, so violence would be kept to a minimum. Time spent reducing popular opposition was far more valuable than speed for its own sake; getting the population to side with U.S. forces would allow well-equipped guerrillas to be more easily identified and prosecuted.37 Despite the extensive review of counterinsurgency practices contained in the Small Wars Manual, however, the manual would be all but disregarded as America entered Vietnam just over two decades later.
The Small Wars Manual’s focus on the population was prescient, as shown by the writings of several post–World War II theorists on the conduct of insurgencies. Mao Tse-tung recognized the importance of popular unity to the revolution that eventually united China under communism; he cited the need to both inform and educate the public on the need for revolution.38 Robert Taber, in his classic tome on guerrilla warfare, explained the criticality of revolutionary leaders who could explain and rationalize the often confusing character of revolutionary conflict as it was under way. Since the populace often saw only isolated acts of violence, it was important for leadership to incorporate these acts into a coherent revolutionary “whole” that could be used to rally the populace to the cause.39 “Che” Guevara concurred with the need for public support for the guerrilla, to be obtained by indoctrination and good moral conduct. The guerrilla would ensure cooperation by “helping the peasant technically, economically, morally and culturally as a sort of guardian angel.”40
Given this dependence on the population, any strategy for defeating insurgents in an irregular conflict must naturally revolve around protecting the population from their influence and violence. The French theorist of modern (what he terms “subversive” or “revolutionary”) warfare Roger Trinquier believed in employing the population in a comprehensive self-defense organization that would secure cities and surrounding territories.41 David Galula, another French theorist on irregular warfare, expanded on the idea of population involvement. After separating the insurgents from the population and properly training local security forces, the counterinsurgent forces should focus on actionable intelligence obtained from the protected population.42 The tasks involved are not easy, but they are vital.
Supporting and protecting the civilian population thus needs to be a central part of the overall strategy. As Kilcullen avers, “Effective counterinsurgency provides human security to the population, where they live, 24 hours a day. This, not destroying the enemy, is the central task.” The work thus comes down to basics: securing villages, valleys, roads, and population centers. But still, Kilcullen warns, it is essential to reassure the population that you are not there to occupy their dwelling places.43
In an increasingly globalized world, however, the “populations” to which these authors refer have been expanded greatly—mass communication, migratory flows, and the connectedness of the global society today mean that the focus on population is no longer confined to the state where conflict has arisen. Populations today “stretch around the world in an archipelago of individuals, cells and communities; they have no territory, and exist instead in isolated but interconnected groups that are horizontally related rather than vertically ordered, and their shared sense of outrage is regenerated by the exertions of the media and the visibility of the campaign. In these wispy, informal patterns, without territory and without formal command structures they are not easily touched by the kinetic blows of a formal military campaign.”44 Clearly the effort to sway the population in conflicts the United States faces today with al Qaeda and ISIS requires a higher level of effort and a much more inclusive scope.
For much of the twentieth century, insurgent groups were more often driven by ideology than by ethnic factors. This changed with the fall of the Soviet Union, as noted, and ethnicity rather than ideology has become one of the primary motivators for conflict. A major component of ethnicity is religion, and it is to this banner that groups like ISIS, al Qaeda, and others call the faithful to take up arms and fight. Given the rigid and monotheistic nature of some religions, is it possible to dissuade these groups from continuing their campaigns of violence? Can modern strategic theorists offer anything to address this thorny problem?
Atran believes nearly all major ideological movements (political or religious) require an “imagined kinship”—the subordination of the family to the larger community of figurative brothers and sisters. Globally, people believe that devotion to sacred or cultural values that incorporate moral beliefs is (or ought to be) absolute and inviolable.45 One problem, however, is that while people revere their own sacred values, they often ignore or downplay the other side’s. Understanding sacred values is about understanding human nature—what it is to be human. This is, of course, part of what Sun Tzu spoke of when discussing the importance of knowing one’s enemy, and it should be a critical part of strategy making.
Given the focus each of these strategists has placed on understanding, educating, and protecting the populations involved in irregular warfare today, is there still a logical place for the employment of military force? Thucydides was convinced that a “might makes right” mind-set clearly indicated that military force was an irresistible means of conducting war (and therefore policy) against an intransigent adversary. Yet after over a decade of kinetic war the United States finds itself little nearer its goals in Afghanistan and now perhaps faces a much larger threat in ISIS.
Gen. Sir Rupert Smith wrote, “In international affairs we tend to place the highest priority on what we do rather than on what will achieve our ultimate object.”46 The United States has done well in the use of its formidable airpower both to deter and defeat states that have threatened its national security. Not since World War II have U.S. surface-based military assets faced a threat from above, thanks to air superiority. U.S. airmen have done an incredible job in facing nonstate and transnational actors in the last several decades as well, both in kinetic attack and in every other airpower mission that exists. What do modern airpower theorists have to say about the utility of airpower in irregular conflicts? The next section ponders this question and sets the stage for this chapter’s concluding remarks.
AIRPOWER AND IRREGULAR WARFARE
Airpower has been used in irregular conflicts from the earliest days of manned flight. In March 1916, for example, eight Curtiss JN-3 “Jennys” were dispatched with their crews from the 1st Aero Squadron to assist Brig. Gen. “Blackjack” Pershing in his pursuit of the Mexican rebel Francisco “Pancho” Villa.47 Although General Pershing never caught Villa, the Mexican Punitive Expedition showed the utility of airpower in irregular war. However, the Army thereafter focused instead on how airpower could shape the European battlefields of World War I and tested almost every airpower mission (with the exception of in-flight refueling) in the skies over the trenches.
Airpower theorists after World War I (such as Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, John Slessor, and Arthur Tedder) continued to focus almost exclusively on airpower’s future contributions to conventional war. It was not until the Vietnam War that theorists again began to consider seriously airpower’s effect in irregular campaigns. John Boyd and John Warden both argued that destruction or degradation of the enemy leadership’s ability to control military forces was the primary role of modern airpower. While Warden focused on the actual destruction of leadership, Boyd focused on the process whereby friendly forces would be able to think (and act) faster than their adversary, thereby denying the latter control of their forces.48 Although designed primarily for conventional conflicts, the ideas presented in these theories have great applicability to irregular conflicts as well. Killing Osama bin Laden, for example, was a critical milestone in the ongoing conflict with al Qaeda, as has been the destruction of many senior leaders of this group. However, the United States has not had the same level of success getting ahead of the information curve, as groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda continue to be able to use the Internet to teach, inform, and recruit members.
The actual use of airpower over Vietnam was not as successful as its supporters had hoped it would be, at least in terms of addressing irregular conflict on the ground. Clodfelter argues that U.S. civilian and military leaders entered the Vietnam War blinded by “a modern vision of air power that focuses on the lethality of its weaponry rather than on that weapon’s effectiveness as a political instrument.”49 They had conflated lethality with political results; this resulted in the misapplication of airpower and made it ineffective in deterring the North Vietnamese. Strategic bombing in North Vietnam and elsewhere in the theater had little effect on the North prior to Operations Linebacker and Linebacker II, and the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong by April 1975 were able to bring their total war for reunification to a successful conclusion.
Lambeth argues that the use of airpower during the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was a stark contrast to the Vietnam experience. Coalition aircraft struck thirty-one targets the first day, then turned to support both the Northern Alliance/special-operations forces (SOF) effort against the Taliban and attacks against cave complexes. In just two months the Taliban had been routed, and the focus switched to the mountains of Tora Bora and the killing of Osama bin Laden. Despite late notification from the Army, air assets supported Operation Anaconda and provided close air support in an incredibly small and crowded airspace. OEF also saw the integration of fused intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) information from SOF teams, Air Force forward air controllers, and feeds from the Predator and Global Hawk remotely piloted vehicles, which led to better target identification and destruction.50
U.S. airpower continues to contribute to irregular warfare today; as of this writing it is providing intelligence, airlift, and kinetic support to the ground conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and many other locations. Scholars seem to agree on the need for a comprehensive strategy when dealing with actors engaged in irregular conflict. While in a conventional conflict forces can seek a decisive military victory leading to unconditional surrender, seldom is this possible in irregular wars. In many cases a political compromise between the state and the insurgents is the best that can be achieved and is as much a victory as the defeat of an enemy’s military forces.51
Robert Pape has cited four major coercive strategies regarding strategic bombing: punishment (raising the cost of continued resistance), denial (making enemy strategy futile), risk (raising possibility of suffering), and decapitation (removing leadership). While each has value, Pape insisted, only denial has a chance of being successful, although he does admit that it can be very difficult and take a long time.52 Regarding the current use of airpower in the struggle against terror groups like ISIS and al Qaeda, the United States seems to be employing a combination of punishment and denial strategies. Although the results of this strategy are still being debated, it seems that airpower is having an effect on the ability of these groups to communicate with, command, and control their forces.
Corum and Johnson have noted that airpower provides a level of flexibility and initiative that cannot be gained in other ways; while these factors used to work in favor of the insurgent, multiuse platforms and remotely piloted vehicles for ISR seem to have returned their advantages to the state.53 Aircraft such as the F-15, F-16, and B-52 continue to conduct interdiction missions against ground targets, and the A-10 continues to create fear in the hearts of insurgents throughout the Middle East. The number of remotely piloted vehicles in use against these groups is on the increase; they continue to provide twenty-four-hour surveillance, intelligence, and other valuable information to U.S. commanders. Given the increasing number of such platforms in each of the services today, it is likely that their utility in future prosecution of irregular wars will only grow.
THE FUTURE(S) OF IRREGULAR WARFARE
Scholars are divided as to what forms the future causes of warfare will take; however, there are many serious challenges currently facing the United States and humanity as a whole. Geopolitical analyst and author Robert D. Kaplan noted back in 1994 that global stressors such as overpopulation, disease, resource exhaustion, and the erosion of state borders resulting from migrations of peoples would only worsen over time.54 The contentious political geography of much of the Third World and the plight of the indigenous peoples of the nonindustrialized southern zones suggest his arguments are not as far-fetched as they might have seemed at the time. Hundreds died and thousands got sick in 2012 from a severe cholera outbreak in the shantytowns of Sierra Leone and Guinea, as well as in Mali and Niger.55 The so-called Lord’s Resistance Army, operating out of Uganda, continues to promote a radical form of Christianity involving the rape, torture, and murder of Ugandans and others and fills its ranks primarily with kidnapped and brainwashed children.56 The resulting instability affects both Uganda and the surrounding region.
India continues to face a severe water shortage from weak monsoon rains, and poor water management in Pakistan has dropped water availability per capita by more than two-thirds.57 Forced migration will also continue to be a global problem in the near future; the Arab Spring movements have generated nearly a million refugees, and nearly four million have left Syria during its ongoing civil war.58 One hundred thousand refugees made the crossing from Somalia into Yemen in 2012, and refugee flows from Africa into southern Europe are increasing annually.59 Elites and scholars have long considered these humanitarian concerns proximate causes of conflict, especially at the subnational level. Overpopulation and disease can lead to migratory behavior as individuals and groups seek greater security and opportunity; this often leads to internal power imbalances and hostilities within states. Loss of resources, whether of water, due to drought or pollution, or of arable land, owing to periods of poor climatic conditions or external threats, can lead to conflict between haves and have-nots within a state or between groups sharing a common border.
Seth Jones, associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, believes the United States will continue to face irregular warfare challenges from nonstate actors, including terrorist groups, international drug cartels, and violent global activists. In addition, he believes, the United States will be under threat from states, to include those that deliberately create irregular warfare challenges and weak states whose insufficient governance does so inadvertently. These challenges will be amplified by inadequate interagency cooperation, lack of military doctrinal and material support for these operations, overtaxed military forces, and the increasingly technological savvy of the challengers the United States will face.60
The conduct of irregular warfare affects the domestic political order and can adversely affect the regional and international system. Realists and liberal thinkers view future perturbations in the international system as likely to induce conflict between states that can lead to war.61 As nuclear powers become more prevalent, wars and their consequences will grow increasingly dangerous; it is thus imperative that strategic thinkers concern themselves with irregular conflicts at the domestic level that have the potential to create international disputes. Strategists must then carefully consider these global stressors when devising strategies for detecting, preventing, and, if necessary, intervening to end irregular conflict.
Perhaps the most difficult decision facing the modern strategist when considering future irregular warfare is whether or not to intervene in the struggle; issues of sovereignty are at stake, and states (particularly the United States) doing so over the last several decades have often been drawn into lengthy and costly conflicts.62 Generally only strong states will choose to intervene in the affairs of others, since they have the requisite force to do so and can rally sufficient domestic and international support for such actions. Although humanitarian interventions have been common in the modern era, states will also intervene if domestic struggles threaten to undermine the larger international order.
A final question, then, is not whether states, particularly strong ones, can intervene—but the proper question might be whether they should. While force is a necessary precondition for such a decision and may be essential to separate warring parties in a particular conflict, it has been shown that it is not a sufficient condition for sustained peace. Force has to be coupled with political and social intervention programs to ease the underlying grievances that existed prior to the violence; if not, violence will likely return when the intervention comes to an end.63 Thus interventions of this type will likely be long-term and extraordinarily costly, even to strong states; political decisions to intervene in such conflicts will by necessity be multilateral, if taken at all. Weighing the costs of intervention against the ramifications of regional instability will perhaps be the greatest challenge for future strategists as they inform political decision makers about the efficacy of engaging in future conflict of this type.
CONCLUSIONS
Since the end of the Cold War the United States has struggled to find its place in a world where containment and nuclear deterrence are no longer the end-all of national strategy. The United States cannot afford to remain reactive in a world where challengers to regional and global security are increasingly well mobilized and equipped to oppose its interests without reliance on purely conventional forces. Given that U.S. military hegemony will likely remain intact for decades, challengers will choose asymmetric means to disrupt U.S. strategic interests, based on rational cost-benefit calculations. The continuation of nationalist movements such as the Arab Spring will lead to more regional instability abroad, to the detriment of U.S. interests outside its borders. The erosion of autocratic regimes in Latin America and continued struggles against drug cartels in this hemisphere could bring irregular conflict to our borders in the near term.
Given the ubiquity of these threats, the United States needs to prepare better to face the reality of future irregular warfare, as it will do so sooner rather than later. While military hardware is essential to defeat our adversaries, armed conflict remains costly in blood and treasure. Moreover, as one scholar has noted, “Military effectiveness does not equal strategic effectiveness . . . [a]t the strategic level, additional factors such as social, political, cultural and economic elements shape military responses.”64 It is thus more cost-efficient to monitor and prepare for these conflicts before they erupt; to accomplish this we must labor to understand the characteristics of irregular warfare and teach them to our future military strategists.
Asymmetric information flow between states and challenger groups makes strategic calculations of relative power and intent difficult to predict; therefore, decisions to engage in irregular warfare will often be based on incorrect assumptions. Irregular wars are often long in duration and quite costly in terms of blood and treasure, and they can be ultimately destabilizing, both domestically and regionally. Modern strategists must be able to assess accurately the likelihood of such conflicts before the disputes turn violent; to do so they must understand the primary causes and become familiar with strategies for dealing with conflicts that become violent. They will then (ideally) be able to use this knowledge to inform senior decision makers as to whether and when to engage in these issue areas while simultaneously minimizing the costs of doing so. Reliance on a reactive posture will only ensure future losses of U.S. blood and treasure; a detailed knowledge of irregular warfare and how to address it will give the modern strategist the means to minimize these losses as well.
The modern strategist must have the tools necessary to predict, assess, and respond to irregular warfare before it spirals into uncontrolled violence. Professional military education currently exposes midlevel officers to irregular warfare all too briefly; a concerted effort must therefore be made to make the teaching of irregular warfare a part of a continuum of education that stretches the full length of an officer’s career. Modern strategists, both civilian and military, need to understand better why these conflicts start, to predict better when they will become violent, and to address in the best way insurgent grievances to avoid continued bloodshed. As of this writing, the United States still struggles with all of these issues, and the evolution of strategy in meeting the challenges of irregular warfare has been limited. Educating modern strategists to understand these concepts may prepare them to meet the challenges of irregular warfare far more effectively and efficiently than they have in the past. They and the nation deserve nothing less.
NOTES
1. Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976); Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991); and Alfred Thayer Mahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy: Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, ed. John B. Hattendorf (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991). Each of these theorists has made crucial contributions to the concept and formulation of modern strategy.
2. The first was the assault on the regime of Saddam Hussein. Although initially fought as a conventional conflict, the campaign remained such for less than sixty days; violence thereafter was asymmetric for another eight years, claiming the lives of 4,500 U.S. servicemen and leaving 22,000 wounded. The second was Operation Enduring Freedom, which began with special operations forces working in concert with Northern Alliance troops to defeat the Taliban in October 2001. This phase was largely over by December of that year, but the U.S.-led coalition has continued to conduct asymmetric operations in that country for over a decade.
3. James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995), makes a similar argument for why states tend to go to war even when the costs and risks of fighting argue against it. Leaders on both sides may have cause to withhold or misrepresent information about military capabilities and resolve; in addition, one side could have incentives to renege on any negotiated agreement. These information asymmetries are more likely in irregular-warfare situations, when challenger capabilities and resolve are difficult to discern, especially early in the conflict.
4. Bard O’Neill in Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005), argues that challenger group leaders often change their goals as campaigns unfold or as it becomes clear that less ambitious goals have better chances of success. In addition, factional leaders within a movement often have different, even mutually exclusive goals.
5. Ibid., 35–36.
6. See Jeremy Weinstein’s discussion of state repression during the Mozambique civil war, in Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 270–74.
7. Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
8. See Mark O. Yeisley, “Bipolarity, Proxy Wars and the Rise of China,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 5, no. 4 (Winter 2011).
9. Stathis N. Kalyvas and Laia Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 3 (August 2010).
10. Seth G. Jones, “The Future of Irregular Warfare” (CT-374, The RAND Corporation) Testimony Presented before the House Committee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on March 27, 2012, Washington, D.C.
11. U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
12. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (February 2003), apply this logic primarily to insurgencies and civil wars in the post–Cold War era.
13. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970).
14. Paul Collier, “Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, no. 6 (2000).
15. Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, eds., Understanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis (Washington, D.C.: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank, 2005).
16. Steven R. David, Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 2008).
17. James D. Fearon, “Ethnic Mobilization and Ethnic Violence,” in Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, ed. Barry R. Weingast and Donald Wittman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
18. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985).
19. See for example Henry Hale, “Explaining Ethnicity,” Comparative Political Studies 37, no. 4 (May 2004), and his explanations of identity “thickening” in response to elite persuasion.
20. Fearon, “Ethnic Mobilization and Ethnic Violence.”
21. Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper, Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Boston: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
22. Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
23. Jonathan Fox, Religion, Civilization and Civil War: 1945 through the Millennium (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2004).
24. Ibid.
25. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War.”
26. “Syrian Regional Refugee Response,” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, 25 June 2015, http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php.
27. Cf. Samuel B. Griffith, The Illustrated Art of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), showing that Sun Tzu most likely lived between 400 and 320 BCE.
28. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994), chap. 1.
29. Ibid., chap. 2.
30. Ibid., chap. 3.
31. Colin S. Gray, “Irregular Warfare: One Nature, Many Characters,” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Winter 2007).
32. Robert B. Strassler, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (New York: Free Press, 1996), xix.
33. Clausewitz, On War, chap. 1.
34. For example, see John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
35. Clausewitz, On War, 482.
36. C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), xii.
37. Ronald Schaffer, “The 1940 Small Wars Manual and the ‘Lessons of History,’” in Small Wars Manual: United States Marine Corps 1940 (Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 2004).
38. Mao Tse-tung, On Protracted War (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001), 111.
39. Robert Taber, War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2002), 152.
40. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (Lanham, Md.: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 73.
41. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2006, 28.
42. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2006), viii.
43. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 266.
44. John Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 6.
45. Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 375.
46. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New York: Vintage Books, 2008), 379.
47. James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 11.
48. For more on these two theories, cf. John Andreas Olsen, John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power (Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2007), and John Richard Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” Goal Systems International, 3 September 1976, http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/destruction_and_creation.pdf.
49. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), 203.
50. Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Power against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2005), 337–42.
51. Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 426.
52. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).
53. Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 434–35.
54. Robert D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease Are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet,” Atlantic Monthly 273, no. 2 (1994).
55. Adam Nossiter, “Cholera Epidemic Envelopes Coastal Slums in West Africa,” New York Times, 22 August 2012.
56. “Terrorist Organization Profiles,” National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=3513.
57. Michael Kugelman and Robert M. Hathaway, eds., introduction to Running on Empty: Pakistan’s Water Crisis (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Asia Program, 2009), 5.
58. “Stories from Syrian Refugees,” UNHCR, http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/syria.php, accessed 26 September 2013.
59. “Record number of African Refugees and Migrants Cross the Gulf of Aden in 2012,” Briefing Notes, UN High Council on Refugees, 15 January 2013.
60. Jones, Future of Irregular Warfare.
61. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1979), introduces “structural realism,” wherein states in an anarchic international system must respond to shifts in the international balance of power or face the consequences of inaction in the presence of such shifts.
62. The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed thousands of U.S. lives and cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars as of this writing.
63. Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).
64. James D. Kiras, Special Operations and Strategy: From WWII to the War on Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 2006).