Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[Mike Innes]

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".

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.