Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses
Moderator's Note
This thread was entitled 'Ungoverned spaces & State, Non-State, State Sponsored opportunities vs. our Interests' until 25th Sept 2012, when other threads were merged here and the title amended to 'Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses'.
The catalyst being remarks made by Ambassador Crocker over the future of Afghanistan, which have been moved here. There is a post at the end explaining what threads were merged.(ends)
15 September Washington Post - World Bank Lists Failing Nations That Can Breed Global Terrorism by Karen DeYoung.
Quote:
The number of weak and poorly governed nations that can provide a breeding ground for global terrorism has grown sharply over the past three years, despite increased Western efforts to improve conditions in such states, according to a new World Bank report.
"Fragile" countries, whose deepening poverty puts them at risk from terrorism, armed conflict and epidemic disease, have jumped to 26 from 17 since the report was last issued in 2003. Five states graduated off the list, but 14 made new appearances, including Nigeria and seven other African countries, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor, and the West Bank and Gaza. Twelve states, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, made both lists...
Ungoverned spaces & State, Non-State, State Sponsored opportunities vs. our Interests
One of the questions that Ambassador Crocker mentioned in his opening statement during his testimony to the Senate was the declared intention of Iran to fill any vacuum provided by the U.S. - but how much of a vacuum could they actually fill?
We cannot claim to control every square inch of Iraq, Afghanistan, the HOA, the Philippines, Columbia or any place we are currently operating in where we consider instability a threat. The local and national governments of these places cannot claim to either - but they are trying to work (with us) towards the level of control required to do prevent these spaces from growing and impacting other regions of their states, and eventually shrinking these spaces - or as a larger goal - shrinking what Thomas Barnett has described as "The Gap".
AMB Crocker's comments and today's press conference by the International Institute of Strategic Studies are framing an important question that extends beyond Iraq & Afghanistan. There are plenty of ungoverned spaces within geographically defined state borders all over the world. There are also states and non-state actors willing to exploit these areas, foment instability, and use them as staging areas, sanctuaries, and training grounds from which to pursue broader goals.
This is certainly should not be viewed as a "US only problem". However, because we have wide ranging interests of which some are vital and some are peripheral but linked to vital interest; because the U.S.is targeted based on our pursuit and defense of those interests; because we often stand as an impediment to the pursuit of national, regional or international objectives of non-state and states which have their own set of fear, honor and interests (as Thucydides described the reasons for which war is waged); and because the U.S. has the means to act; we are perceived as the counter to this problem.
What then should our policy goals be?
What are the means by which we should pursue those goals? How should / or should we adapt/transform our elements of National Power to meet these requirements? Does the military need to change - how much? Do we need an increase in our Diplomatic, Informational, Economic capabilities - how much?
What are the ways by which we should pursue these policies and employ our means to best effect? If a state cannot or will not act to prevent those states, non-state actors, state sponsored actors with goals that jeopardize our interests (and those of our allies) from operating in these ungoverned spaces - should we violate their sovereign borders in order to attack, defeat and destroy those organizations? This is certainly the subject of debate by 2008 Presidential Candidates - and I believe it is a very real decision that a President will have to make given the trans-national nature of groups to plan, recruit and train in one geographic location, but execute varying scales of terrorist attacks as part of their own agenda, or the agenda of their sponsor in areas across the globe.
What I have not heard a great deal of discussion about from Presidential candidates is a counter balancing plan that is able to build state capacity on the scale required to reduce the chances of having to make that decision. I do think the COCOMs are doing this, and I think DOS is working hard to do this as well, but are we doing this by adapting the means available to accomplish this? Do we have the right means required to meet the scope of the task?
Do we need to re-evaluate our policy and strategy to ensure we have a match that more gully meets the challenges as we are beginning to understand them? While I think we can make the case that we are evolving based on what works on the ground and by implementing the innovative and sometimes imaginative that occur at the tactical level, could we do better by adjusting our strategic framework so that we are better arranged to take advantage of those ideas, and also place the correct means where they are needed?
The last week has really raised good & needed questions that extend beyond Iraq, even though the question of our commitment there was the catalyst. Tonight the President will also discuss Iraq, Iran, Al Queda in Iraq - and possibly Hezbollah, Hamas, the region at large and our vital national interests - and many of these same issues will surface in the following days as the rationale for remaining committed is debated, and the question of what it all means get sorted out. We are starting to develop a national consciousness in regard to the threats of the 21st Century.
Thoughts?
Best Regards, Rob
Sanctuary and the State: Scale, Surrogates, Sponsors, and the Agency Pivot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rex Brynen
To add another case study to the link Ted posted--not from the perspective of the counter-insurgent, however, but rather focusing on what strategies insurgent groups may adopt to obtain and maintain sanctuary in third countries:
Rex Brynen,
Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990). The book is out of print now, and the link is to a web version of the text.
I'd second that - Rex's book is the only one that I'm aware of that intelligently applies guerrilla warfare theories on sanctuary as an interface between state and non-state actors.
Take a look also at this Norwegian Defence Research Establishment report on Islamist Insurgencies, Diasporic Support Networks, and Their Host States: The Case of the Algerian GIA in Europe, 1993-2000. It takes the theoretical framework from Sanctuary and Survival and applies it to good use elsewhere.
I'd also suggest a look at my own edited book on the subject, out as of last summer, entitled Denial of Sanctuary: Understanding Terrorist Safe Havens (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007). It doesn't offer an overarching analytical framework in the way that Sanctuary and Survival does, and that wasn't its intent. The idea, instead, was to poke holes and raise questions with regard to the political orthodoxies of the last seven years on the subject of "ungoverned territories".
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jedburgh
Rob, this issue of "ungoverned spaces" (and by extension, weak and/or corruptly governed) is a serious one, and one which significantly impacts US interests directly and indirectly. It is one which I deal with regularly, yet I find many not willing to conceptually deal with any threat which is not immediate.
I originally posted this in the Adversary/Threat sub-forum when it was first published, but I've cut it out and put here because I feel you've put a better start on the topic of discussion:
RAND, 23 Aug 07:
Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks
One thing I can appreciate about the RAND report is that it limits itself to ungoverned "territories", rather than using ungoverned "space", the more usual political handle which actually revolves around a much broader category of issues analogous to the complex physical, human, and information terrain of the Australian Army's Future Land Operational Concept: Complex Warfighting.
Where I think things get a bit more complicated, and bear a whole a lot more study, is with the problem of scale. It's good to be thinking in terms of sanctuary as a macro-level security issue and challenge of political legitimacy, development and governance. But there are more immediate and local dimensions of sanctuary, just as there are non-physical aspects to the issue. The best work I've seen on this so far is by Ron Hassner, a political scientist at Berkeley, who's been writing about insurgent uses of sacred sites, as well as comparative just war theory approaches to sanctuary. Citations as follows:
Hassner Ron E. "'To Halve and to Hold': Conflicts Over Sacred Space and the Problem of Indivisibility.”
Security Studies 12:4 (Summer 2003): 1-33.
_____________. “
Fighting Insurgency on Sacred Ground.”
Washington Quarterly 2:29 (Spring 2006): 149-166.
_____________. "Islamic Just War Theory and the Challenge of Sacred Space in Iraq."
Journal of International Affairs 61:1 (Fall/Winter 2007): 131-152.
Problems of surrogacy and state sponsorship are certainly vexing. In international law, a "harboring thesis" places the burden of responsibility on states to ensure that their territories aren't made available to int'l/transn'tl criminal and terrorist organizations. Both Tal Becker and Dan Byman cover this pretty well in their respective books on states and state sponsorship. Where I think the logic fails is while it rightly emphasizes preventing state provision of sanctuary, it also neglects non-state actor acquisition and exploitation of sanctuary, absent state-level intent to support. Both Byman and Becker do this by looking to passive forms of support as a lowest common denominator, which to my mind stretches the credulity of the argument.
This ties back to another SWC thread on Hizbullah tactical effectiveness; basically, non-state actors evolve, demonstrate agency, etc., and this needs to be given at least as much consideration as the capabilities of states and their responsibilities under int'l law - especially since the logic of state failure/collapse, taken to its extreme, means that some states will be (and have proven to be) incapable of either actively providing sanctuary or preventing terrorist exploitation of their resources. At that point, non-state actor acquisition and development of sanctuary has to be the focus.
History Lesson: CSI OP#17 Out of Bounds, Transnational Sanctuary in Irregular Wafare
Another history lesson I just put out:
Quote:
"
Only one option was left, as the Americans understood all too well. In the 1979 memo that described the weaknesses of the resistance, Brzezinski also explained that the United States had to “reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels….”28 Pakistan, which shared a nearly 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan, needed reassurance and encouragement because it was in a precarious position. Much as they had with the Iranians, the Soviets explicitly threatened to invade Pakistan if it became involved in the war. And much like the Iranians, the Pakistanis had other concerns, most importantly, ongoing disputes with India. These concerns meant that Pakistan went to great lengths to avoid open aid to the resistances. But that caution did not make Pakistan neutral in the Soviet-Afghan War, far from it.
In addition to becoming the temporary home for the millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war, Pakistan played the most important role in facilitating the resistance. Refugees were not the only ones who fled over the border. Most of the exiled Afghan resistance parties went to Pakistan and directed their efforts within Afghanistan from across the border in Peshawar. The rugged terrain and harsh conditions along the winding and mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border was in many ways an ideal boundary over which to fight and aid an insurgency. Hundreds of mountain passes connected the two countries, the terrain made it impossible to close all these routes across the border, and the harsh conditions helped protect fleeing rebels. As a result, Pakistan became the primary sanctuary for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Not only that, it also became the essential supply route for the weapons and materiel that kept the Mujahideen going throughout the war. Pakistan became the funnel to the resistance for the outside world."
We hear much talk of borders these days and the challenges inherent in their control, the risks associated with ignoring them, or the dangers implicit in their crossing. This installment of the JRTC BiWeekly History lesson uses the Combat Studies Institute's Occasional Paper #17, Out of Bounds, Transnational Sanctuary in Irregular Warfare, by Thomas A. Bruscino, Jr. as a case study on the roles of external sanctuaries and insurgencies. Dr. Bruscino's study is in two parts. The first part is a case study of the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese use of sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. The second part is a relook at the Soviet experience in Afghanistan focused on the role of Pakistan.
I would highlight the second case study as immediately relevant to what is happening in Afghanistan today. Indeed you cannot understand events in Afghanistan if you do not see them as intertwined with events in Pakistan. As this case study proves that is hardly an emerging phenomenon as it has long been the case. Still recent events reinforce its currency. Finally Dr. Bruscino concludes his paper with a discussion of sanctuaries in irregular warfare and the need for a countervailing strategy to deal with them. The study can be downloaded at
CSI OP #17.
Best
Tom
Years ago when I thought guerrilla bands had a lead, bass and drum kit
I wrote a naive graduate thesis on g-war and geography. Using some rudimentary statistics, I found that the most successful post-WW2 irregulars absolutely enjoyed some kind of cross-border sanctuary. What I failed to incorporate (or think of at all for that matter) was a measurement for how much that sanctuary added to the insurgent cause. Percentage-wise across time etc. And does it trump popular support as a variable? Hmmm....And obversely, 'cause memory fails me, has any sanctuary in recent history (say 1945-present) failed an insurgency as a supporting factor? I'm inclined to say "Of course not...why go to Hooters if you're not welcome there?"
My apologies for the stream of consciousness...just typing out loud
New CTLab Post by Stephen D.K. Ellis on State Failure
Dear SWC Members - I'd like to draw your attention to a new post at the Complex Terrain Lab on state failure, by Stephen D.K. Ellis, the author of The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (NYU Press, 1999; Hurst & Co Publishers, 2006). It's his first post to CTLab.
Stephen's CTLab bio is here
The post on state failure is here
Best
Mike