Attacks on Aid Workers in OEF Reaches All-Time High
Humanitarian aid workers, NGO and the UN continue to be targets in Gap countries slipping towards war.
Attacks on humanitarian workers in Afghanistan have reached an all-time high, with more abductions and murders of staff in June than any other month in the past six years.Figuring out how we will respond to these types of challenges is a key problem to solve in the 21st Century international security environment. These NGO and UN relief forces are a key asset in helping Gap countries achieve enough stability and development to begin attracting FDI flows. If global guerillas can veto their involvement, then they can effectively create or prolong state failure.The Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief, a Kabul-based umbrella organisation for 100 of the aid organisations operating in the country, said on Friday there had been 21 incidents in June.
So far this year, there had been 84 attacks in which 19 staff had lost their lives – a death toll that already outstrips the total for all of 2007.
[1]
[1] Financial Times, August 1, 2008, Afghan Attacks On Aid Workers Hit Record, By Jon Boone.
It is incidents like this that make me think that the bifurcation of the armed forces proposed by Barnett is a foolish idea. One of the two forces, the SysAdmin, is too disconnected from the killing-related tasks to adequately deal with attacks like this. The obvious answer is to fortify the SysAdmin force with Leviathan-like capabilities.
But doing that defeats the purpose of the bifurcation.
Comment by Smitten Eagle — August 2, 2008 @ 10:44 am
SE,
Take a look at Barnett’s 2005 TED talk [1] starting around 16:50. He gives a succinct summary of the Leviathan/SysAdmin split. While the SysAdmin force is majority civilian and largely non-kinetic, it retains a self-defense capability. Barnett likens it to a 40 year-old cop walking his beat. He’s got a sidearm, but he hardly ever pulls it out. Organizationally, this is why Barnett puts the Marines in the SysAdmin category (20:10 in the TED video), making them the “mini” Leviathan in the SysAdmin.
To directly address your comment, embedding some kinetic capabilities in the SysAdmin does not defeat the purpose of bifurcating the force. We need the SysAdmin/Leviathan split because the two different missions (building networks and destroying networks) are so different. Already we can see the struggle over the proper balance to strike between these two capabilities. [2] This debate tacitly accepts that the SysAdmin isn’t a “lesser included;” it requires specialized training that, on the margin, comes at the expense of Leviathan skills.
So the SysAdmin needs to be a distinct force because it needs distinct capabilties. Trying to optimize one force for environments as disparate as SSTR SysAdmin and major combat is like trying to build a flying car that can also swim underwater. [3] Now, the SysAdmin force needs some defensive capability - otherwise it’s just as vulnerable as the current amalgamation of aid workers. What distinguishes it so much from the Leviathan force is _how_ it uses violence when necessary and all of the non-military components of the force. Remember, Barnett is not advocating remaking USAID or the Red Cross inside the military. Rather, he is advocating a new organizational platform that allows better coordination among those actors. Within that context, the military will adapt some, but since the SysAdmin force is majority non-military, much of the adaptation will take place outside of the military.
Incidentally, this is how the SysAdmin/Leviathan split squares the circle in the current debate. The military attempting to find this balance by itself is as mistaken as treating every foreign policy challenge as a military one. The difficulty of finding the right portfolio balance between Leviathan and SysAdmin in the DoD budget is a symptom of the over-militarization of our foreign policy. There is no “everything else” within which to contextualize our military power - and that is exactly that SysAdmin is all about.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3xlb6_0OEs
[2] http://opposedsystemsdesign.blogsome.com/2008/07/21/the-war-over-the-next/
[3] http://opposedsystemsdesign.blogsome.com/2005/12/18/11/
Comment by Wiggins — August 2, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Wiggins-
You made the boilerplate argument, and it has some fair points to recommend it. Your post was also wide-ranging, and that is fine. However, I will focus.
The chief problems I see with bifurcation of forces is the lack of options you have when the proverbial stuff hits the fan.
On the SysAdmin side, Barnett makes a rhetorical argument that uses his definition of a SysAdmin to deflect the charge that it is “a pussy force” (to quote Barnett). He defines just enough muscle into the force to claim that they can defend themselves, and presumably the population around them. I personally doubt this can work. The civilians who would presumably be in charge of his Department of Everything Else, wouldn’t have the expertise required to manage such war-making, network destroying aspects of the warriors of the SysAdmin. They do not understand how the warriors tick. Strangely, Barnett derides the 19-year old violent trigger puller as incapable of doing SysAdmin work, yet he places those 19-year olds in his SysAdmin–why he does this, I don’t know. I do know that there are plenty of 19-year olds that can switch from Leviathan to SysAdmin work, with training and leadership, and consequently relegating such excellent troops to one force or another is economically wasteful, and more importantly, removes capability from both forces–capability that might be necessary.
The bifurcation also negatively affects the forces he places in the Leviathan. The reason tactical mistakes are not made into operational mistakes when knocking off a country are because commanders are able to generate options. Options are generated by having sufficient troops available to generate options. OIF I, the invasion, was fought superbly well, and it was fought well because of the Leviathan capability of infantrymen in the Army and Marines. Those same infantrymen, who can switch from SysAdmin to Leviathan and back (with the proper leadership and training), are also the same force that generates options for SysAdmin type work.
One of the wars that Barnett loves to cite is the knocking off of the Taliban, showcasing the Leviathan-like talents of SOF. He is correct to do so, but he is negligent in assuming that horrible mistakes weren’t made because of almost exclusive use of SOF. This overuse of SOF and underuse of conventional troops removed options, and allowed the escape of the Taliban and AQ leadership. Insufficient infantry troops was a huge problem in OEF, and lead to the disasters at Tora Bora and in Operation Anaconda. Both operations required a Leviathan capability that is not inherent in SOF. Such a capability was designed-out of the Leviathan, and it’s availability for use by Leviathan is doubtful.
Barnett claims the SOF that he places in the Leviathan are more akin to violent 19 year-olds, but this is ignorant of the fact that most SOF are much older, highly-experienced soldiers in their late 20s and 30s–a cohort he claims is more worthy of Leviathan work.
Bottom line, I think that a SysAdmin organization might be able to be formed, but it’s role should be as a force provider of civilian aid and reconstruction capability. We should have multi-purpose military forces to destroy, and then continue to threaten to destroy as we rebuild.
Comment by Smitten Eagle — August 3, 2008 @ 9:15 am
SE,
Bottom line, I think that a SysAdmin organization might be able to be formed, but it’s role should be as a force provider of civilian aid and reconstruction capability. We should have multi-purpose military forces to destroy, and then continue to threaten to destroy as we rebuild.
That makes sense. To clarify, though, I assume you mean that the “we” who is doing the rebuilding is the SysAdmin civilians operating under an umbrella of security provided by the multi-purpose military?
To move beyond SysAdmin boilerplates and address your comments, the primary responsibility for training and leading the military forces performing a SysAdmin mission must remain with the military. During these missions, however, the military ought to be a supporting department and not the supported department (to borrow the DoD’s terminology). Relief, reconstruction and stabilization operations ought to be within the purview of civilians, so military forces (who contribute the ever-present threat to destroy) should not be leading these operations. We also need civilian-led operations well coordinated with NGOs, foreign partners and private industry in order to counter-act with actions adversary narratives about military occupation and empire.
Such a relationship will cause complications, of course. A major issue that will remain, for example, is how we balance our investment portfolio for this multi-purpose force. Have we shifted our training resources (at places like 29 Palms and the Army’s Combined Training Center) too far in the direction of SSTR missions at the expense of training for major combat operations (as officers like LTC Gentile argue)? What’s the proper split? If the SysAdmin mission is viewed as a supporting mission to another agency, then there is a significant risk that DoD will under-resource and under-emphasize it. What sort of organizational incentives (regarding promotion requirements, for example) could we use to keep this from happening? Do you think there will be an institutional and cultural inertia within the Marines and Army to re-emphasize major combat operations at the expense of SysAdmin?
Related to all of this, I’m curious if you agree with Barnett’s narrative of the US military building one military while operating another during the 1990s.
PS - I agree that many oversell the initial phase of OEF as a model for how we can topple regimes with a tiny footprint of American forces. I find Biddle’s critique of the “Afghan Model” compelling [1] and agree with Kagan’s point that proponents of this model tend to overlook the mismatches that can exist between our goals and those of indigenous allies [2].
[1] http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/afghan.pdf
[2] Fredrick Kagan, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Defense Policy, p 301.
Comment by Wiggins — August 3, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
Wiggins said: “the primary responsibility for training and leading the military forces performing a SysAdmin mission must remain with the military. During these missions, however, the military ought to be a supporting department and not the supported department (to borrow the DoD’s terminology).”
Sometimes I question even whether the security provider (the military) should be a supporting unit. By current Marine doctrine, the maneuver unit commander retains supremacy of command even when the mission is humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, CMO, etc. Such an arrangement recognizes the supreme importance of security, and that all reconstruction is for nought if such security is not emplaced. Therefore I suggest we give the maneuver commander responsibility for the entire mission in a given area, including security AND other SSTR tasks, and properly resource him with nation-building civilians from the SysAdmin force. Of course, for such an arrangement to work, the commander must have proper education and training to effectively support and command such civilians.
This does not remove the necessity for able civilian political leadership at the ambassadorial/proconsul level. Galula remarked that both civilian and military COIN forces in a campaign should be lead by a single person, preferably a civilian. Therefore a Battalion or Regimental/Brigade, or even Division commander could exercise supremacy of command over his district or province, and having civilian personnel task-organized under his command/control. That maneuver commander would then merely report to the civilian he is responsible to, rather than a military headquarters. Thus the military would be sandwiched between civilian political leadership, and civilian subject matter experts, while the military is responsible for security in a given area. In that given local area, the military would lead the entire effort, as security is the most pressing concern before all else.
As far as “incentivising” (how I hate that pentagonese word!) the military to produce the appropriate officer goes, the answer is simple: Promote the right kind of officer. This is already happening, as excellent officers like McMaster are being promoted.
I cannot speak to the Army side as far as the balance between conventional combat and SSTR missions goes, but I can for the Marines. Gen Conway has been instrumental in refining the way we train. He seems to be attempting to refocus the Corps back to its post-WWII traditional role as the nation’s force in readiness, capable of many missions on a short notice. I wouldn’t be surprised if something more akin to the CAX exercises at 29Palms are restored for at least a few units. Likewise, Conway is attempting to restore the naval character of the Corps after serving as essentially a second land army for the last 5 years. The process of rebalancing is well underway.
I will say that the balance of capabilities should depend on the security environment, as mundane as that sounds, tempered by the possibility that we may have to rapidly refocus efforts from one contingency to another. This advice is well founded, as sometimes SSTR/COIN work can look very much like a conventional maneuverist fight (look at the battles of Fallujah I & II, and even the recent seizure of Garmsir in Afghanistan by the 24th MEU). Latent maneuverist capabilities are a requirement for any effective COIN force, which is yet another reason against bifurcation.
As an aside, I generally do accept the Barnett narrative of the 1990s.
Comment by Smitten Eagle — August 3, 2008 @ 7:02 pm