In the last week, I have had two
interactions with people who have insufficient regard for the empirical
literature. By this, I do not mean that we have disagreements about what the
academic literature actually says, rather I mean people who have taken the
position that the empirical literature is unworthy of our time, all it does is ‘validate
[our] sense of the real.’ These views are not really worthy of being directly
addressed at a time when there are so many vital discussions to be had. As I’m
working on my Iraq posts, I thought I’d just write this quick post in the style
of Ben Southwood.
Ben Southwood is the opposite of
the aforementioned unempirical individuals, his tweets are based on studies,
his posts are jam-packed with references and he is far from someone who would
reject data driven research. He often writes posts summarising interesting
new research. That’s my aim here – but my summaries will be somewhat longer. Obviously
I think these studies deserve a far wider audience but a subtle point is to
show what people miss when they disregard the empirical literature.
Whither COIN
Counter-insurgency doctrine
(COIN) has been described as part of the ‘new orthodoxy’. The basic idea of
COIN is to win the hearts and minds of a population so we can defeat an
insurgent group. The way hearts and minds are won, the doctrine tells us, is by
creating safe spaces and (mostly) economic development. General Stanley
McChrystal went as far as to say that ‘95 per cent of the effort should be
dedicated to winning popular support and 5 per cent to defeating the insurgents
themselves.’ I have advocated COIN-levels of troops, military action and
working with local groups to defeat insurgents but a major element of COIN –
the idea that we need to win hearts and minds to defeat insurgents – can seriously
be challenged on the basis of two new studies.
1. ‘Just How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway?
Counterinsurgency Goes to the Polls’, Raphael S Cohen, Journal of Strategic Studies (2014). Cohen’s main finding is that
winning hearts and minds is an effect of military success, not a cause of it. The
study looks through three examples of COIN in action: Vietnam, Iraq and
Afghanistan. The reason COIN has got things wrong is that it relies on a model
whereby the majority of people are undecided and can be won over. This is a
fair representation of what COIN expects:
The truth is that in these combat
zones, the idea the native population is remotely amenable to terrorist
organisation isn’t that well supported at all. Cohen tries to measure the
percentage of the population that does actually change their minds and finds
that its actually only around a third. Indeed, this seems to be overstating the
extent to which a population allow their hearts and minds to be changed:
The Afghan
data showed less variation: beliefs about how the national government was
carrying out its responsibilities varies 13 per cent in six Asia Foundation
polls between 2007 and 2012.... Similarly, Iraqi attitudes towards their local
leadership changed by 11 per in seven polls conducted between 2003 and 2009... When
the ABC News et al. polls asked Afghans to assess the level for support for the
Taliban in their area, responses varied by only 6 per cent, while the Taliban’s
favourability... In Iraq, different organizations asked about whether insurgent
attacks on Coalition forces could be justified, a tacit measure for
pro-insurgent sympathies... results varied only by 21 per cent over eight
surveys from 2003 to 2008 (p.11-12)
These data obviously have the
disadvantage that they tell us who did change their views rather than who could
– but it nonetheless is a fairly persuasive measure of how small the undecided
people really are. Whats more important though is when these views are changed. The data is fairly clear from all
three theatres that views change after
military success. Thus when we look at when the military gains of the Surge, it
was only after that we saw a change in attitudes toward central government and
U.S forces. As Cohen notes, attitudes to Iraqi institutions were largely
unchanged until 2009 (obviously long after the military effects of the Surge).
The most interesting example comes from Anbar:
In fact, Anbar
did not cross the 50 per cent threshold until the October 2007 poll, after the
number of incidents had declined by over 90 per cent. After that point, between
60 per cent and 80 per cent of Anbaris believed that their neighborhoods were
secure. This sense of security, however, did not immediately translate into
support for the Iraqi government [it took until October 2008]... Ultimately,
Anbar shows an important progression: first, the insurgency is defeated, then
the population feels secure and then only then, can the counterinsurgent win
‘hearts and minds’.
Cohen goes on to show how
intelligence is not necessarily any better when the populations hearts and
minds are with coalition forces. This is one of the mechanisms that is used to
explain why the whole idea is important but, once again, its not really borne
out by the data. Tips off increases and showed no relationship with polling on
support for Iraqi institutions or U.S forces. The same trend is found in tip
offs given in Afghanistan, look at the trends for support for U.S actions (a
majority throughout the period but still declining) against tip offs received:
Finally, Cohen shows that hearts
and minds are a poor predictor of stability. In Afghanistan, the U.S has
enjoyed broad support for its actions but violence still rages. In Iraq, the
U.S did not have support for its actions but there was a success despite that
lack of support. Indeed, as shown above, the best way to get the change in
hearts and minds was to win militarily. One of the disappointing things about
the study is its failure to elaborate on the idea that militants do not require
local support to operate successfully. Cohen does note that ‘insurgencies can
survive with minimal popular support’ – but thats it. I have written a post
called ‘Al
Qaeda vs. The People’ which touches on this:
It is
undeniable that support for Al Qaeda is dropping - advocating a Taliban-style
authoritarian rule whole killing scores of civilians does that - but in terms
of operational capability that does not mean there is a significant decrease in
their force. Bruce Hoffman makes the point that Red Army Faction had almost
zero public support and yet managed to inflict serious damage for almost three
decades. The same applies to Al Qaeda; Peter Bergen goes even further saying
that "Al Qaeda values one recruit more than a thousand supporters."
This study has direct relevant
for what is going on in Iraq today. I don’t think its a stretch to suggest that
its become part of the conventional wisdom to state that Maliki’s policies
have alienated the Sunni population so as to contribute to ISIS gains. In an
otherwise brilliant article, here is what Marc Lynch wrote in the Washington
Post:
The Islamic
State recovered steam inside of Iraq as part of a broad Sunni insurgency driven
by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloody, ham-fisted crackdowns in Hawija and
Fallujah, and more broadly because of the disaffection of key Sunni actors over
Maliki’s sectarian authoritarianism.
I have argued against this view
before and will do so again in a lot more detail in Part 4 of Iraq post series -
but for now its worth repeating exactly what the study says: the hearts and
minds of a population do not impede military success. If Maliki was able to
win, it would likely be followed by support from Sunnis (leaving aside that the
Anbar sheikhs are still committed to fighting ISIS). The study essentially
supports the idea that this is a military problem. If the argument is that the oppression Sunnis suffered has driven them to ISIS, I have debunked that several times before. Thats not to deny that
Maliki has acted in a sectarian manner – but it is to deny that ISIS gains are
anything to do with discontent.
2. ‘First Steps Towards Hearts and Minds? USAID’s Countering
Violent Extremism Policies in Africa’, Daniel P Eldrich, Terrorism and Political Violence (2014). This study looks
specifically at the U.S efforts in counter-terrorism programmes that focus on
economic development and trying to win the public’s hearts and mind. As Eldrich
notes
USAID has been
carrying out a number of programs since 2005 in Mali focused on strengthening
the economic and social resilience of local communities in the face of messages
and inducements offered by violent extremist groups such as AQIM and MOJWA
(p.526)
In an attempt to control for the
people who were not subject to the programmes, the study looks at two different
Malian towns. They obviously also control for age, socio-economic status and
even political views at the start to make the comparison is as controlled as
possible. Here are the different programmes:
Not particularly surprising,
Eldrich found that those populations which were subject to the programmes
listened to messages of peace and participated in civil society more. This is
probably because they had more information on them and so acted accordingly.
The difference in terms of this should not be overstated but it is nonetheless
significant:
But the most significant finding
of this study is that there was no
significant difference in terms of support for the U.S, support for Al
Qaeda, support for extremist ideas (e.g. the idea that the U.S is at war with
Islam). Eldrich notes that:
In contrast to
the clear distinction in answers to questions about civic engagement and peace
and tolerance program listening between Malians living in Timbuktu and Dire´,
bivariate tests of the other two outcomes of interest showed no measurable
difference. The Chi-squared value for the answers to the question, ‘‘Is the
U.S. fighting Islam or terrorism?’’ was .397 (indicating no strong divisions by
control or treatment) while the answers for ‘‘Are al Qaeda’s activities
justified under Islamic law?’’ had a value of .743 (again indicating little difference
between the two groups) (p.536)
The idea that we can change hearts
and minds through economic development is based on a structuralist idea of
economic determinism (or, at least, giving primacy to economic conditions). Aside
from this study, there are two streams of research that show us this line of
argument is false. First, we can look at the literature on the link between
terrorism and poverty. The academic literature is clear:
...the
available evidence indicates that, compared with the relevant population,
members of Hezbollah’s militant wing or Palestinian suicide bombers are at
least as likely to come from economically advantaged families and have a
relatively high level of education as to come from the ranks of the
economically disadvantaged and uneducated. Similarly, members of the Israeli Jewish
Underground who terrorized Palestinian civilians in the late 1970s and early
1980s were overwhelmingly well educated and in highly regarded occupations (‘Education,
Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?’, Alan B. Krueger and
Jitka Maleckova, Journal of Economic
Perspectives (2003)).
Kruger and Maleckova go on to
quote several other studies which have the exact same conclusion as theirs from
around the world. But this isn’t the only literature we can cite in support of
the idea that economic factors do not lead extremist views. From an entirely
different context, we have the work of Alexandre
Afonso which finds, if anything, richer conditions lead to voting for more ‘far
right’ parties in Europe:
Both of these two studies cast
doubt on a major element of COIN. First, is the idea that winning hearts and
minds is important for and a cause of military success. Second, the idea that
we can win hearts and minds regardless of that first point through economic
development is severely weakened. Just so I can needlessly push you in the
direction of my old posts: I have argued against structuralism and the primacy
it gives to economic incentives in relation to crime, revolution and terrorism.
For those interested on the situation in Mali and counter-terrorism military
operations, see this post.
Bombing Bombers
3. ‘Suicide Bombers in Iraq, 2003–2010: Disaggregating Targets Can
Reveal Insurgent Motives and Priorities’, K. R. Seifert and C. McCauley, Terrorism and Political Violence (2014).
This recent study adds to the emerging consensus of academics against Robert
Pape’s thesis that foreign occupation causes war. Two recent books The Missing Martyrs (reviewed here) and Myth of Martyrdom (reviewed here) are
additions – but this study brings even more data against Pape. This reinforced
the argument against Pape made here. But to return to the study, here is the data
set and aim:
Building on
Hafez’s work, we independently developed a database of 1,779 suicide bombers in
Iraq from 2003 through 2010... we use our 2003–2010 data to compare trends in
suicide bombing with trends in non-suicide attacks over the same time span.
Finally, we compare trends in targeting against foreigners in Iraq with trends
in targeting against Iraqis, including security forces, government entities,
and civilians
They ‘compared the pattern of
suicide bombers per month with the pattern of total insurgent attacks per month’
and they find that ‘it is clear that the relationship between total insurgent
attacks and suicide bombers was weak at the beginning of the insurgency, but
grew stronger beginning in 2007’ (p.7). Why was this? They explain:
Our
interpretation is that, early in the insurgency, Al Qaeda-inspired groups in
Iraq were competing with other militant groups in opposing coalition forces.
AQI used suicide bombings to intensify a “system collapse” strategy as detailed
by Hafez, whereas larger militant groups hoped to control the new system being
built by coalition forces.
Al Qaeda used suicide bombing,
mostly directed at Iraqis and Iraqi institutions because that is how they felt
they could effectively take over. The larger militias thought their
conventional arms were enough to take over, not destroy, the new institutions.
Hence, there was more insurgent activity than there was suicide bombing. How we
explain the correlation between the two in the latter period? Because of Anbar
Awakening and surge of U.S personnel: ‘It was a “synergistic interaction”
between these two initiatives that led to greater overall stability in Iraq.’
(Apologies for doing this again, but see my old post here for an elaboration).
But the most interesting findings relate to who was targeted:
What is immediately clear is that
‘Target Set 3 [Iraqis, not Western targets] was by far the most frequent target of suicide attacks, drawing
77 percent’; coalition targets accounted for only 13% of suicide bombing
targets. The trends of when the different targets were hit matches different
assessments of risk: as the democratic institutions were set up (2003-5),
Iraqis and coalition personnel were targeted. As stated, the aim was to destroy
the institutions. The attacks against the coalition forces declined because the
‘more immediate threat to AQI and other small insurgent groups was a more
effective counterinsurgency conducted by both Iraqi government forces and
Awakening forces’ (p.16). This has an important implication that will be
familiar to those who have had to listen to me bang on about blowback for the
last two years:
Similarly,
Robert Pape’s thesis that suicide bombings are an extreme nationalist struggle
against a foreign occupier is challenged by our results showing that far more
suicide attacks occurred against Iraqis, especially Iraqi civilians, than
occurred against foreigners. In fact, suicide bombers began to be dispatched in
significant numbers after sovereignty was handed over to the interim Iraqi
government in June 2004. Although later attacks against the Awakening Movement
might be rationalized as targeting perceived “collaborators” with the occupying
forces, merely broadening the definition of an “occupying force” fails to take
into account the change in strategy and political motivation behind these
actions (p.15)
