Insurgencies and Gang War: Venn diagram of violence
Guerrilla wars and gang wars can have much in common. I’ve written several columns discussing the uncomfortable intersection between “insurgents” and gangsters. It’s a dangerous Venn diagram of violence.
Here’s a link to a column from September 2004. The column focused on “criminal arrogance”. Quick quote: “Thug arrogance is an all-too common feature of the world’s hard corners, where the criminals have dominated for so long they are certain their iron wills and unmitigated violence will eventually cow all opponents. ”
In Iraq’s complex insurgency, it’s sometimes tough to separate the criminals from the political conspirators. In part we can blame the criminal nature of Saddam’s regime– he had hired killers on the payroll and now they’re on the streets. I’ve long suspected many of Iraq’s kidnappings, murders, and robberies are the work of organized criminals (and I’m not the only one with that suspicion). The “insurgent leaders” pay the criminals to commit the crimes. Last July in Baghdad I heard the rumor that the going rate for detonating a bomb was $3000. Proof? It was hearsay, but the kind of hearsay common sense rates as credible.
The US Army War College recently published a study entitled “Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency.” The author is Max G. Manwaring, PhD and Colonel (retired). It’s a PDF file that requires a download.
Here’s the War College’s synopsis:
The primary thrust of this monograph is to explain the linkage of contemporary criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third generation gangs) to insurgency in terms of the instability it wreaks upon government and the concomitant challenge to state sovereignty. Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these “new” nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs’ and insurgents’ ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries. As a consequence, the “Duck Analogy” applies. Third generation gangs look like ducks, walk like ducks, and act like ducks—a peculiar breed, but ducks nevertheless! …
I think this quote from the introduction does a better job of describing the monograph:
…a new kind of war is brewing in the global security
arena. It involves youthful gangs that make up for their lack of raw
conventional power in two ways. First, they rely on their “street
smarts,” and generally use coercion, corruption, and co-optation to
achieve their ends. Second, more mature gangs (i.e., third generation
gangs) also rely on loose alliances with organized criminals and
drug traffickers to gain additional resources, expand geographical
parameters, and attain larger market shares….
I don’t buy the notion that “smart criminals” are a new type of security challenge– pirates using fast ships (ie, first-rate technology) plagued the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries– and the US, Britain, and France were fighting the Barbary pirates into the early 19th century.
I do agree with this:
In describing the gang phenomenon as a simple mutation
of a violent act we label as insurgency, we mischaracterize the
activities of nonstate organizations that are attempting to take
control of the state. We traditionally think of insurgency as
primarily a military activity, and we think of gangs as a simple
law-enforcement problem. Yet, insurgents and third generation
gangs are engaged in a highly complex political act—political
war. Under these conditions, police and military forces would
provide personal and collective security and stability, while
they and other governmental institutions combat the root
causes of instability and political war—injustice, repression,
inequity, and corruption. The intent would be to generate
the political-economic-social development that will define
the processes of national reform, regeneration, and wellbeing.
The challenge, then, is to come to terms with the fact
that contemporary security and stability, at whatever level,
is at base a holistic political-diplomatic, socio-economic,
psychological-moral, and military police effort…
Again, I think we’re re-discovering history — security requires a holistic approach. Since the early-90s I’ve been writing about the need to “fix” developmental aid programs. Wealth doesn’t gurantee social stability, but it does help promote stability. Wealth doesn’t stop terrorism (Al Qaeda’s leadership cadre is stacked with rich kids) but a kleptocratic regimes are ripe ground for terrorist recruiters.
The US and coalition experience in Iraq — facing a “fragmented” insurgency where criminal and political violence mesh– spurred this study.
Manwaring argues our leaders have been slow to recognize the new Venn diagram of violence:
The traditional problem of external aggression against
a state’s territory, markets, sources of raw materials and
hydrocarbons, lines of communication, and peoples remains
salient, but does not hold the urgency it once did. However,
the Western mainstream legally-oriented security dialogue
demonstrates that many political and military leaders and
scholars of international relations have not yet adjusted to the
reality that internal and transnational nonstate actors?such
as criminal gangs?can be as important as traditional nationstates
in determining political patterns and outcomes in
global affairs. Similarly, many political leaders see nonstate
actors as bit players on the international stage. At best, many
leaders consider these nontraditional political actors to be
low-level law enforcement problems, and, as a result, many
argue that they do not require sustained national security
policy attention.1 Yet, more than half of the countries in the
world are struggling to maintain their political, economic, and
territorial integrity in the face of diverse direct and indirect
nonstate?including criminal gang?challenges.2
For sovereignty to be meaningful today, the state, together
with its associated governmental institutions working under
the rule of law, must be the only source of authority empowered
to make and enforce laws and conduct the business of the
people within the national territory. The violent, intimidating,
and corrupting activities of illegal internal and transnational
nonstate actors?such as urban gangs?can abridge sovereign
state powers and negate national and regional security…
The entire monograph is worth the read, but this quote helps orient the discussion in terms of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and –arguably– Colombia.
Manwaring (quoting two other Army War College profs) suggests that:
…four
distinct but interrelated battle spaces exist. They are
(1) traditional direct interstate war; (2) unconventional
nonstate war; (3) unconventional intrastate war, which
tends to involve direct vs. indirect conflict between state and
nonstate actors; and (4) indirect interstate war, which entails
aggression by a state against another through proxies.4Street gangs operate most effectively in the second category
of nonstate battle space. Nonstate war involves criminal and
terrorist actors who thrive among and within various host
countries. This type of conflict is often called “guerrilla war,”
“asymmetric war,” and also “complex emergencies.” This
kind of war is defined as acting, organizing, and thinking
differently from opponents to maximize one’s own advantages,
exploit an opponent’s weaknesses, attain the initiative,
and gain freedom of action and security. In these terms,
nonstate war exploits?directly and indirectly?the disparity
between contending parties to gain relative advantage and
uses insurgent and terrorist methods. Moreover, it can have
political-psychological and physical dimensions, as well as
lethal and nonlethal dimensions; it can have both ideologicalpolitical
objectives and commercial (search-for-wealth)
motives; and it is constantly mutating.5 As a consequence,
there are no formal declarations or terminations of conflict; no
easily identified human foe to attack and defeat; no specific
territory to take and hold; no single credible government
or political actor with which to deal; and no guarantee that
any agreement between or among contending groups will be
honored. In short, the battle space is everywhere, and includes
everything and everyone.6
As a result, nonstate conflict is much too complex to allow a
strictly military solution to a given national security problem.
I had always though of criminal gangs and organized crime as more than just a “crime” issue. Always. Adapting the legal Constitutional protections originally based on the need to protect dissent to the prosecution of entire criminal organizations was always stupid, contemptuous of the safety fo the law-abiding citizen, and a huge waste of time, manpower and money. Such gangs — especially now that most consist of illegal aliens — should be treated as an insurgency.
Comment by Roderick Reilly — 4/20/2005 @ 11:38 am
The Iraqi insurgency Austin Bay has an interesting analysis of the Iraqi insurgency, talking about how the insurgents are made up of both those with a political agenda and a criminal element. In Iraq’s complex insurgency, it’s sometimes tough to separate the criminals…
Trackback by The Unalienable Right — 4/20/2005 @ 11:41 am
It’s kind of scary that connections between gangs and rebels are not a basic. The mafia started out political, so did the tongs, Mao demonstrated a shift back turning bandits into guerillas. Both create and thrive in similar conditions. This is of course one reason why Rumsfeld should have listened to military advice and tried to stop the looting, rather than wait weeks. It wasn’t “freedom,” it was gangs forming and even partial suppression would not only have saved billions of dollars in physical infrastructure, but reduced the social environment that fed insecurity and “insurgents.” Similarly rather than hand over redevelopment to polotically correct rightists who felt only US corporations could develop tings, who refused to use Iraqi concrete because the plants were government owned, the only half way decent functioning rebuilding system was the US military. When they still had funds US officers did get people working, did try to give the local councils power. Practicing the precepts of guerilla war and embedding our experts and civilian advisors among the troops and among the people rather than behind palace walls and grand plans (lets fire all the traffic cops because they get their pay from taking little bribes rather than issuing tickets and what’s 3 or 4 months without traffic cops? the broken window theory doesn’t apply to Iraq because this is liberation and unlike the bums in the Bronx or LA they will behave) which of course led to massive corruption, a thing that might have been prevented if infantry captains kept things within reason, massive corruption which most like as in South Vietnam (sorry) feeds the Saddamits and other insurgents. Now why does it take 2 years to figure this danger out based on dozens example fo history? Because the only history or great leaders thought relevant was the rebuilding of Germany and Japan, not realizing that these were 2 very sophisticated , well organized socities which with their own technology had each come close to conquering a quarter of eurasia and which had experience with parlimentary government as well as tightly integrated socities. How the H*LL someone managed to equate a third world socirty which with purchased equipment financed with oil almost managed to conquer Kuwait just shows that drugs are not necessary for dangerous hallucinations. It is interesting to note that the historian of the right, a certain Mr. Victor Davis Hansen remarked that this was the first time in the history of the world that such lotting occured so (despite war college reports etc.) it couldn’t be predicted, because Panama never happened, nothing he and his kind didn’t know about ever happened. So we did nothing to stop the develop a major criminal underground which feeds the insurgency and can potentially feed every power player while undermining society and all faith in the system.
Comment by just watching — 4/20/2005 @ 11:41 am
Rural insurgency and political integration/dis-integration were both my academic and military specialties. Oddly enough one of the most useful typologies for this kind of activity and the book that first alerted me to the spectrum of criminals/insurgents was Hobsbawm,’s, Primitive Rebels, still available in paperback. Old Eric Hobsbawm was a lifelong British Communist, but he understood the political and economic underpinnings of deviant behavior. If you ever want to understand what we will be facing for the next two or three generations, read this book first then get a firm grasp on “amoral familialism” orginated by Edw. Banfield, and finish with studies of middle eastern tribe, clan and families.
Comment by Hungry Valley — 4/20/2005 @ 6:33 pm
Is it fair to generalize? Power manufactured by any means will cost you: Street gangs, political parties, entrenched governments, international bureaucracies.
Comment by sbw — 4/20/2005 @ 7:45 pm
Any one see a problem with the Goverment’s Cocaine Price Support and Gang Finance Program? Or is it working the way it is supposed to?
Comment by M. Simon — 4/20/2005 @ 10:02 pm
Watching, The connection is obvious to any one who studied Spain in the Napoleonic wars. The ETA is a remnant of that war. The same was true of France post WW2. Churhill’s French Guerillas were France’s criminals. This is not some great new thought. B.H.L. Hart also covered it in “Strategy” - required reading for all military men these days.
Comment by M. Simon — 4/20/2005 @ 10:10 pm
The unspoken reality in this situation is that a great many governments, such as Saddam’s Baathists in Iraq, are nothing more than criminal gangs to begin with. We seem to endow certain criminals with an aura of respectability because they get involved in politics and governance. This is a grievous error, disarming those attempting to reform the situation, and validating the status of any thug who can sieze power and name himself President for life. One of the most fundamental problems facing any attempt to reform the UN, for example, is the status of legitimacy afforded to any group that can claim the title of “political”. It is not an accident that several dictatorships in various parts of the world have become involved in working partnerships with drug cartels, providing safe havens and other services. The two entities are opposite sides of the same coin.
Comment by veryretired — 4/21/2005 @ 12:04 am
It is interesting that this connection between criminals and guerrilla warfare has always existed, but has been ignored by students of insurgency. Bandits played a big role in the Afghan war against the Soviets. They also played a big role against the Fascists in the Balkans and China. The problem with the gangs is that they are very bribable. The counter-insurgancy forces can get the gangs to cooperate by giving them money or allowing them to run their rackets without police action. The next thing you know the gangs are betraying their guerrilla buddies. Al
Comment by Frozen Al — 4/21/2005 @ 2:30 pm
So why doesn’t Pres. Bush try to fight the Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles and other nominally American big cities? [The violent, intimidating, and corrupting activities of illegal internal and transnational nonstate actors―such as urban gangs―can abridge sovereign state powers and negate national and regional security…]
Comment by David Davenport — 4/21/2005 @ 3:01 pm
Most dictators must use criminals to rise and maintain power. Theft and outright appropriation are part and parcel of gaining funds to continue the rise and hold on power. Hitler relied on street thugs as did Lenin. The intersection of crime, dictatorships, and sociopathy is one no one has explored in much depth.
Comment by red river — 4/21/2005 @ 9:45 pm
Veryretired’ hits the nail on the head. A presumption of legitimacy is often granted to gangsters and charlatans masquerading as statesmen. Police state rulers and con artists like Yassir Arafat and Bobbie Mugabe are adept at playing the rest of us and ‘gaming’ the rules in places like the UN. Just as criminality is excused on the basis of various environmental or external factors, violence committed by politically-fashionable thugs is romanticized as something other than a naked grab for power.
Comment by Cosmo — 4/22/2005 @ 1:54 pm
music’s Insurgencies and Gang …
Trackback by Baumgartner Johann — 7/15/2005 @ 8:37 pm
[…] n by Homeland Security. There is a connection. On APril 20, 2005 I wrote a post on “the venn diagram” of gangs and terrorism. The post refers to a US Army War College study (”Street Ga […]
Pingback by Austin Bay Blog » Gangs And Terror: Why Homeland Security Is Worried — 3/11/2006 @ 8:02 pm
[…] by Homeland Security. Is there a connection? Absolutely. On April 20, 2005 I commented on “the venn diagram†of gangs and terrorism. That April 2005 post refers to a US Army War College study (â€St […]
Pingback by NoisyRoom.net » Gangs And Terror: Why Homeland Security Is Worried — 3/11/2006 @ 9:56 pm
I just wanted to know why you gang experts don’t do something about the Caballeros they are the smartest and strongest gang today yet no gang in my city (Mexican posse,Latin Kings,Folks,people,NEIGHBOR HOOD KINGS,mILWAUKEE KINGS,ETC)doesn`t know about them but of course the gang is an underground gang so the only people that know about them are the NYPD which is weird because their origin is chicago. The RICO investigation will not stop their Empire.
Comment by Raul Ortiz — 3/14/2006 @ 11:42 am