| Small Wars Journal

Two hundred and thirty-six years ago, the United States Army was established to defend our Nation. From the Revolutionary War to the current operations taking place around the world, our Soldiers remain Army Strong with a deep commitment to our core values and beliefs. This 236th birthday commemorates America's Army -- Soldiers, Families and Civilians -- who are achieving a level of excellence that is truly Army Strong. Being Army Strong goes beyond physical endurance and mental preparedness. It encompasses an indomitable spirit, and high ethical and moral values. These are not only desirable traits in a person, but in a Nation that wishes to live up to the ideals and vision of its founders. We are "America's Army: The Strength of the Nation."

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Irregular Conflict and the Wicked Problem Dilemma: Strategies of Imperfection

Irregular Conflict and the Wicked Problem Dilemma: Strategies of Imperfection by Franklin D. Kramer, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

Irregular conflict poses a wicked problem—with contradictory and changing requirements, multiple stakeholders, many interdependencies, and problems that keep evolving. Successful resolution demands strategies that can produce satisfactory results despite imperfections in motivations, capabilities, and techniques. Based on an analysis of successful irregular conflict resolutions, this article proposes a framework and broad set of techniques. In undertaking to generate "good enough" resolutions, a combination of competitive, collaborative, and authoritative approaches will allow for greater flexibility and effectiveness. The problem of changing behaviors is the critical element. Doing so will require understanding multiple critical actors and their often conflicting objectives, and applying, within the context of a multiphased adaptive approach, the techniques of persistent security, thoughtful interactions with key groups including the importance of a favorable base from which to build, establishment of appropriate and sometimes multiple and even competing structures, the control of spoilers, the management of hatred, close scrutiny of economic actions including the importance of absorptive capacity and the synergistic consequences of projects and the potential for corruption, the limitation of sanctuaries, and the use of negotiations.

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Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti

Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti by David C. Becker, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

Haiti, the epitome of a fragile state, has been receiving international assistance via repeated UN missions and U.S. interventions for more than 20 years. Criminal gangs exploited the country's sovereignty gap by wresting control over territory from the state and acquiring legitimacy among certain poor populations. The gangs can be understood as a network of "violence entrepreneurs" operating within a complex environment, a system of systems within the slums. While not as sophisticated as major international criminal organizations, between 2006 and 2007 the politically connected criminal gangs constituted a major challenge for the state and the UN peacekeeping mission, as well as a threat to national stability. The U.S. Government funded an innovative and integrated effort, the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI), to counter the threat by investing in an analogous but countervailing approach reinforcing "social entrepreneurs" and their networks. This supplanted undesirable feedback loop effects with ones that enhance and consolidate stability. Risky participatory and community-led stabilization interventions marginalized and undermined gangs on their home turf. Using development tools for stabilization purposes, HSI stabilization goals were political rather than "needs-based" in nature. While the flexible and comprehensive approach generated important gains, there were also lessons learned and recognition of the initiative's limitations.

Read the full article: Gangs, Netwar, and "Communiter Counterinsurgency" in Haiti.

International Support for State-building: Flawed Consensus

International Support for State-building: Flawed Consensus by Stephen D. Krasner, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

Conventional wisdom holds that the most important challenge for state development is the creation of effective institutions. The major objective for external actors engaged in state-building is to enhance capacity in target states. This perspective, which tacitly takes the ideal typical Weberian state as the ultimate objective, is deeply flawed. The Weberian ideal, in which a fully autonomous state effectively governs its own territory, is unattainable for many poorly governed or failed states. Governance may improve, but it will be problematic. The central state may not be able to provide security across its territory or even have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. External actors may share executive authority. Services might be provided by independent service providers rather than by the state. Policy could be more effectively framed if decisionmakers abandoned their commitment to conventional sovereignty and recognized the variety of authority structures, not only horizontally within states but also vertically between them, that exist in the contemporary international system.

Read the full article: International Support for State-building: Flawed Consensus.

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Law Enforcement Capacity-building in African Postconflict Communities

Law Enforcement Capacity-building in African Postconflict Communities by Bruce Baker, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

In the post conflict environment, disbanded armed groups and militias maintain a "clan" affiliation with their ex-fighting colleagues. Generally marginalized from the rest of society and accustomed to violent conflict resolution, their crime rates frequently escalate after the official end of war. Where the police are not sufficiently effective and resources are limited, these ex-combatant nonstate actors may have a part to play as local law enforcement groups in unarmed crime prevention and investigation. This article analyzes arguments for and against donor support and development of such nonstate actors as providers of public goods and services. The challenge is to distinguish between "reformable" individuals and those "beyond reform." Donors can utilize several criteria. First, are the nonstate entities popularly supported? Second, are they inclusive in providing services to all social groups? Third, do they conduct themselves with professionalism, operating without exploitation, extortion, or corruption? The article concludes with practical steps as to how such nonstate police actors might be strengthened including leadership development, intergroup nonviolent dispute resolution skills, enhancing existing links between state and nonstate actors, creating area policing networks, and establishing policing oversight frameworks.

Read the full article: Law Enforcement Capacity-building in African Postconflict Communities.

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Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances

Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances by Douglas Farah, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

Transnational criminal organizations, networks, and terrorist groups are increasingly helping each other move products, money, weapons, personnel, and goods. They accomplish this through an informal network or series of overlapping pipelines. These pipelines can be best understood as recombinant chains with links that can couple and decouple as necessary to meet the interests of the networks involved. Many operate in "alternatively governed" spaces outside of direct state control or within criminal state enterprises. A criminal state counts on the integration of the state's leadership into the criminal enterprise and the use of public services—such as licensing, issuance of official documents, regulatory regimes, border control—for illicit purposes. A further variation of the criminal state occurs when a state franchises part of its territory to nonstate groups, with the protection of the central government or a regional power sharing the profits. The author shows that understanding and addressing these threats requires capacity-building in human intelligence collection and prosecuting transnational criminal organizations.

Read the full article: Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances.

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Forging a Comprehensive Approach

Forging a Comprehensive Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations by Robert L. Caslen, Jr., and Bradley S. Loudon, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

The United States will face a myriad of new strategic challenges and opportunities in the 21st century that will further test its capability to succeed in an increasingly competitive, dynamic, and uncertain operating environment. The single most important prerequisite to success in future counterinsurgency operations is the establishment of conditions that facilitate and enable a whole-of-government approach that is forged from a unity of effort and purpose. To realize this, key governmental stakeholders must foster permissive rather than restrictive organizational environments where cooperation and coordination are the standard rather than the exception. While this transformation of agency culture represents an enduring effort on the part of key stakeholders, the authors of this article offer several short-term solutions based on first-hand experiences upholding American foreign policy "at the tip of the spear" as military commanders. These include the elimination of interdepartmental barriers and the establishment of innovative training and educational paradigms. The most pressing obstacle is arrogance that hinders our cultural understanding of the fabric of the host nation society and our ability to establish relationships and partnerships based on mutual trust and respect.

Read the full article: Forging a Comprehensive Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations.

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Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond

Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond by Colonel Bob Killebrew, NDU's Prism. Here's the abstract:

Transnational crime and criminal networks have grown to such proportions that they have become a global problem. Large-scale crime, terrorism, insurgency, and piracy are blending into transnational criminal networks, capable of holding ground and challenging the power of the state, and threatening the basic fabric of society. Overcoming transnational crime requires the United States to merge domestic and international strategies. Domestically, the U.S. must do more to enable local police to integrate their effort and to develop, analyze, and share intelligence on narco-gangs and the cartels. Other domestic requirements for a successful anticartel strategy include better treatment for drug users, immigration reform, rehabilitation, and an all-out effort to move gangs out of schools. Internationally, the U.S. must adopt a long-range foreign policy strategy to help struggling states to restore the rule of law and civic security. The U.S. should partner with states already engaged in the "cartel wars." Colombia and Mexico may be the two Latin states with the best chance of becoming anchors of success in the Western Hemisphere.

Read the full article: Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond.

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