I will be giving a paper, provisionally entitled ‘Violence and Virtuality: virtual ‘terror’ and the counter-strategic challenge’, at the British International Studies Association conference at the University of Exeter in December. Schedule details have yet to be finalised but I hear it’s usually a pretty interesting, if tough, affair. This is the abstract of my contribution to the ‘Virtual Politics’ panel:

Recent media reports have speculated on terrorists’ use of synthetic worlds such as Second Life for training and other purposes. The reality is somewhat different. Although terrorist-style tactics have been employed within synthetic worlds for political, economic and social ends there is currently little evidence to suggest that terrorist organisations or individuals, as normally understood, use synthetic worlds for nefarious ends, or demonstrate the will and opportunities to do so. However, in the global environment of fast-evolving computer-mediated communication (CMC), which terrorists and insurgents have been quick to exploit, this situation is likely to change. This paper explores the possibilities afforded to terrorists and insurgents, and potential options available to planners of counterstrategies. It will also address the issue of ‘virtuality’ and its unresolved relationship with the ‘real’. This has important implications for information strategies in global counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, which must be contingent on an understanding of ‘cyberspace’ as ‘physical’ rather than ‘virtual’ space.

One of the unsung heroes of this corner of the blogosphere, Ghosts of Alexander, has an excellent post on Russian use of social science in their 19th-century expeditions to Turkestan. In Russia’s Human Terrain System GOA contrasts the investigations into local cultures by the Russians with the current HTS and social science techniques deployed by the US in Afghanistan. And concludes that … bah, why trump the man? Read the article instead.

[Cross-posted at CTLab]

I’ve got a new post up at Complex Terrain Lab:

On Wednesday 11 June 2008 the Frontline Club in London hosted a discussion evening, Media Talk: Assassination and Insurgency - Are the Taliban Winning? Moderated by Nazanine Moshiri of Al Jazeera, the panel brought together Alastair Leithead (BBC), James Fergusson (journalist and author), James Appathurai (NATO spokesman), John D. McHugh (photojournalist) and, via Skype from Kandahar, Mawlavi Abdulsalam Zaeef (ex-Taliban ambassador to Pakistan).

Read the full article here.

The folks at RAND have been busy, with another COIN report out today: Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan by Seth G. Jones, the fourth volume in the RAND Counterinsurgency series [research brief here]. The tone of the report partly reflects what I’ve been hearing the last couple of days about operations in Afghanistan - “comprehensive organisational dysfunction” sticks in my mind - although Jones concentrates more on capacity-building and security security reform:

This study explores the nature of the insurgency in Afghanistan, the key challenges and successes of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign, and the capabilities necessary to wage effective counterinsurgency operations. By examining the key lessons from all insurgencies since World War II, it finds that most policymakers repeatedly underestimate the importance of indigenous actors to counterinsurgency efforts. The U.S. should focus its resources on helping improve the capacity of the indigenous government and indigenous security forces to wage counterinsurgency. It has not always done this well. The U.S. military - along with U.S. civilian agencies and other coalition partners - is more likely to be successful in counterinsurgency warfare the more capable and legitimate the indigenous security forces (especially the police), the better the governance capacity of the local state, and the less external support that insurgents receive.

Small Wars Journal alerted us to a Charlie Rose interview with our Insurgency Research Group colleague Colonel H.R. McMaster (soon to be General). SWJ has a short YouTube video but I’ve tracked down the full, hour-long version, which also includes an interview with Philip Bobbitt, plugging his new book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. Bobbitt will be launching the UK edition of Terror and Consent at the London International Institute for Strategic Studies tonight, which I’m unfortunately going to miss.

I’ve had a few problems getting this video to stream consistently, but it may just be my connection today. If anyone finds an alternative source please let me know.

I’m not exactly partisan, particularly with respect to military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this article by Eric Walberg at Australia.TO News is an example of chronically poor journalism. I’d already decided to flag up this piece about Afghanistan before noticing that Fabius Maximus has also had a go in the comments. It’s so bad that the editors even challenged Walberg on substantive grounds, let alone his baseless bias. Awful piece of writing, at every level.

Prepare to be amazed at how bad journalism can be.

Mark Safranski has already nominated Matt Armstrong as ‘Public Diplomacy/IO Czar in the next administration‘ and with good reason, judging by an article he’s written for Serviam Magazine.  In Combat Robots and Perception Management Matt outlines his take on the overlooked implications of the use of unmanned systems in the battlespace of the future:

As unmanned systems mature, ground systems operating among and interacting with foreign populations will substantially affect perceptions of our mission, both at home and abroad. Robots will exert significant influence in three overlapping information domains. The first domain is the change on the calculus of foreign engagement as the public, Congress, and future administrations perceive a reduction in the human cost of war (on our side). The second domain is the psychological struggle of the local populations in conflict and postconflict zones, and the third is the overarching global information environment.

Rather than reiterate the substance of Matt’s article, I’m going to pick up on a few points that leapt out at me.

…few have considered the true cost of lowering the bar for kinetic action in a world of instant communications. There are parallels here between outsourcing to machines and outsourcing to private military contractors that circumvent public and congressional oversight by avoiding the use of uniformed soldiers.

This seems like an obvious point, but I haven’t seen it stated in quite this fashion before. The parallel between the deployment of robots and PMCs as functions of political utility is quite striking.

Mapping the human terrain becomes, by implication at least, not only unnecessary but impossible in the sterility of robot-human interfaces.

As Matt says, this runs the risk of reversing the conceptual and doctrinal advances of the last couple of years. FM3-24, for example, was an implicit rejection of RMA as holistic doctrine, and an increasing reliance on (semi-)autonomous technology, rather than HUMINT, might take us back to the pre-Petraeus days. This

may lead to a modern propaganda contest and an escalation of spectacular attacks to reach humans in order to influence U.S. public opinion and increase extraregional sympathy for the insurgents.

In other words, the human link must be maintained at some level. I’m beginning to get a picture of a balance here - what is taken away from one side of the equation must be replaced on the other.

… work is under way today to formulate rules of engagement for robots designed around Western notions of an ethical practice of war codified in the laws of war. But the collapse of traditional concepts of time and space by new media prevents consideration of information by consumers and reporters. The noble pursuit of “lawfare,” of knowing the truth through careful reflection and analysis to validate Western-justified ends and means, just does not work.

This is particularly true in the case of technical failure or ‘accident’. The mention of ‘accident’ was not the first time in this article that I was reminded of Paul Virilio. Virilio’s formulation of the ‘accident’ addresses the hidden negativity of phenomena contained within seemingly positivist frameworks. In this case, and Matt will correct me if I’m wrong, the deployment of unmanned systems is generally perceived as positive (for political and economic reasons) but this hides negative aspects - revealed through ‘accidents’ - that will have deeply significant implications unless thought through carefully first. In Virilio’s words:

There is no technical invention without accidents. Each time a technology is invented, a technology of transport, of transmission, or of information, a specific accident is born.

And this seems to be the crux of Matt’s plea. The use of unmanned systems is not a simple case of swapping in and out components of a military system. It is more complicated even than outsourcing armed personnel - it involves a sea-change in the potential effects to be wrought by the technology itself. In this case, it is the ‘hearts and minds’ of host populations that will be altered, very likely with adverse consequences:

The uniformed warfighters the robots will replace reflect the country’s commitment to the mission, shaping local and global opinions that garner or destroy support for the mission. Robots, regardless of their real or perceived autonomy, will also represent, reflect, and shape these opinions. The informational effect of robots is substantial, but little research has been done on the subject. Failing to recognize the effect that unmanned systems may have on the struggle for the minds and wills of men and women will have tragic unintended consequences.

I’ve done a poor job of unpacking some of the dense concepts in the article, so I’d recommend reading it firsthand. In an accompanying post Matt says this is a short version of a longer paper to be published by Proteus later this year - I look forward to it.

Andrew Exum bows out from his brainchild Abu Muqawama with his usual flair and wit, whilst finally dropping his (bearded) mask of anonymity. For those who haven’t read any of Andrew’s excellent pieces in the world beyond AM, go read The Spectacle of War: Insurgent video propaganda and Western response at Arab Media & Society, and Strategic Miscommunication at The Guardian. Two of many thought-provoking articles he’s written over the last couple of years.

Good luck in Lebanon, Andrew, and I’m sure we will be hearing more from you, if not at AM, then elsewhere. In the meantime, the indomitable Charlie takes the helm of the good ship Abu Muqawama.

This is another report to add to the growing list of Nagl & Petraeus-style housekeeping, this from Austin Long at Rand. Abstract from Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence: The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960–1970 and 2003–2006 [.pdf]:

The publication of a new COIN doctrine manual in late 2006 was widely heralded as an indication that the U.S. military was finally coming to understand the problems it has recently faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. This interpretation assumes a tight linkage between doctrine as written and operations conducted. As one way to test this proposition, this paper compares modern COIN doctrine and operations with those of the 1960s.

In the 1960s, two periods of COIN doctrine can be observed. The first is 1960 to 1965, the period after John Kennedy was elected President but before U.S. combat troops were committed to Vietnam. The second is 1965 to 1970, the period of heaviest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In both cases, COIN doctrine as written by both the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps emphasized the role of the population (so-called hearts and minds), civil-military relations, small-unit operations, intelligence gathering, and related concepts. Yet operations seldom matched this written doctrine; instead, the military attempted to attrite the insurgency through large-scale operations and heavy reliance on firepower. In short, doctrine as written and operations conducted were not tightly linked.

As at least a partial explanation for this weak linkage, this paper posits a deeper set of organizational concepts and beliefs that has a much greater influence on operations than written doctrine. While a set of beliefs can often be helpful to organizations in conducting their preferred missions, it can be detrimental in other contexts. Much of the U.S. military prefers high-intensity warfare, a mission for which the organization is mentally and materially well prepared. However, mental preparation for this mission makes the military poorly suited to COIN.

Altering the set of beliefs oriented toward high-intensity warfare will require more than just new doctrine and some additional professional education. It will require significant reorientation of the services both mentally and materially. If correct, this paper casts doubt on the military’s ability to truly be a “full-spectrum force,” because attempting to optimize for the full spectrum of conflict may produce a force that is not particularly good at any one aspect of that spectrum.

New report from the Advanced Research and Assessment Group of the UK Defence Academy by Adam Goodman, Informal Networks and Insurgency in Iraq [.pdf]. Key points from the report:

• Informal networks are present at all levels in Iraq and they also exert their influence internationally.

• Stopping the activities of various militias would not put an end to the activity of informal networks in the country. Informal political and religious networks are deeply embedded within the fabric of Iraqi society.

• Despite the influence of sectarianism on Iraqi politics, various informal networks have employed sectarianism as a means of furthering their political and policy interests. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that even drastic solutions such as partitioning the country will bring the insurgency to an end. Cross-sectarian political alliances and intra-sectarian conflicts indicate that politics takes precedence over ideology.

• The influence of informal political and religious networks has prevented the nascent Iraqi state from defining a concept of national interest in a way that is acceptable to even the groups participating in the political process. At the same time, cross-sectarian alliances aimed at preserving a unitary state have failed to agree on anything other than maintaining the unity of the state.

• The Iraqi insurgency symbolizes the beginning of the era of post-international politics which is characterized by global wars for creating political spaces rather than wars for territory and the national interest. The era of post-international politics will be turbulent because informal networks often try to create their own spheres of authority which transcend national boundaries.