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Proxy War and the Continuing Pitfalls of Double Games
In
my last post here, we looked at some of the issues inherent in the use of
client and partner states in tackling the issues of counterterrorism. However,
there are many cases where the United States has and will have to work with
non-state or parastatal actors. At a time when America’s appetite for full-bore
conventional interventions into failed or collapsed states (or states which we
would like to induce failure or collapse in) is low, proxies, paramilitaries,
and rebels seem like appealing, low-cost, and safe ways for the United States
to influence outcomes abroad.
The problem is,
as with working with state and military actors, the groups the United States
frequently tries to enlist into its myriad efforts at proxy warfare possess a
separate set of interests from the United States. This diversion in interests
is not necessarily nefarious. Groups may primarily seek wealth, local political
power, or ideological aims that are not inherently anti-American. Yet very few
groups will have sets of interests so limited and circumstances so pliant to
patronage that they will subsume themselves into straightforwardly reliable
instruments of U.S. foreign policy aims.
The indirect
approach with proxies, as with client or partner states, tries to obfuscate or
eliminate a fundamental policy problem with a different strategic execution.
Few would claim they wish to engage in nation-building in Syria, or advocate
launching a counterinsurgency or counter-terrorism campaign there. To do so
would evoke images and memories of Iraq and Afghanistan, of thousands of
American troops and strategic folly.
But trying to
create a friendly state or quasi-state out of the Free Syrian Army through
supplying them with weapons requires precisely them to execute policies we
would rather leave unspoken. When we look at the aftermath of the Benghazi
attack, we recognize that a Libyan government which effectively translates its
pro-U.S. proclivities into meaningful policy outcomes will have to engage in
counter-terrorism operations against jihadists. It will need to undergo
nation-building efforts to develop a military powerful enough to take on
militias and other paramilitary organizations, and develop criminal justice
institutions and practices to ensure that the rule of law can prevail.
In Syria, we
frequently hear that providing arms to the rebels will enhance U.S. goals to
unify the opposition, marginalize jihadists such as Jabhat al-Nusrah which
operate outside the FSA’s already loose command structure, and earn the loyalty
of the future government in Syria. This would occur, supposedly, through the U.S.
preventing Qatar or Saudi Arabia from taking control of arms flows, outgunning
the jihadists, and collapsing the Syrian regime before they can establish a
foothold within the country.
For U.S.
patronage to translate into those outcomes, though, the U.S. must induce some
nasty behavior by its friends on the ground. It should be very obvious that
Qatar and Saudi Arabia will search for preferred proxies. As recent
reporting reveals, the Qatari and Saudi governments are trying to steer
arms towards hard-line Islamists, and rebel groups, in turn, are shifting their
behavior and appearance to cash into these arms. One the one hand, this is
heartening, as it means that alternate arms provision might at least discourage
aping hard-line Islamist or jihadist practices. But these faux jihadists are
hardly the real concern.
If the U.S.
seeks out groups it believes align with its values, this encourages the Saudis
and Qataris to more aggressively support their own proxies, in order to
maintain leverage among the rebel co-belligerents. It is entirely possible to
have a scenario where aggressive patronage produces unity within each patron’s
preferred factions of the rebel forces, but creates starker divide among the
coalition overall. As much as the United States would like to disassociate
itself from the concept, using proxies to shape political outcomes and state
consolidation is still a form of nation or state-building behavior, one made
palatable by the lack of direct exposure but all the more difficult by the lack
of leverage.
Frequently, the
first impulse of a proxy group, whether it takes arms or not, is going to focus
using them on fighting its primary enemy (the Syrian state) rather than
asserting dominance over fighters who are driving at similar aims. When
relatively moderate rebels killed an
extremist leader, it was not because he was initially unwelcome, but
because he was trying to assert control over rebel activities. Attempting to
marginalize the jihadists sounds well and good, but it involves engaging in a
severe and likely violent power struggle that jeopardizes the interests of
several major regional state and non-state actors engaged in the Syrian civil
war and its broader proxy conflict.
So the United
States is left with a situation where it must potentially fracture the
rebellion by attempting this marginalization during the course of the conflict,
or by hoping its arms have bought enough loyalty, capacity, and willpower for
the rebel groups to undertake a second or third phase of Syria’s civil war in
order to purge the country of jihadist groups. In either case, U.S.
anti-extremist efforts work at cross-purposes with either unifying the rebels
or shortening the civil war. This is doubly problematic when one considers that
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states have demonstrated their ability to
resource and implement proxy strategies in countries such as Libya. Even in the
case of Syria, the United States would need the support of the very countries
propagating the movements it hopes to quash.
When the U.S.
engages in proxy warfare in the context of the Syrian civil war, it thus
encounters not simply implementation problems, but these implementation
problems, like those of partner and client strategies, reveal a fundamental
lack of ability to prioritize policy aims. Advocates of proxy warfare cannot
decide or agree about their policy objectives, let alone their prioritization.
It is nice to say that the U.S. wishes to shorten the Syrian war, build
opposition unity, protect safe areas, and marginalize radicalism. These goals
all conflict at various junctures (shorten the Syrian civil war requires
minimizing infighting among rebels or killing off undesired rebels postwar),
and without prioritization, the result is a mess.
The U.S. has
frequently employed proxies, but the aims were narrowly focused. During the
Cold War, paramilitary proxies broadly existed to inflict maximum damage on
hostile forces, with the outcomes for civilian welfare, war termination (the
goal very often necessitated the opposite) or long-term state-building or
capacity building.
At the end of
the day, whether there are boots on the ground or not, the question of how the
U.S. uses proxy forces to consolidate a friendly or relatively liberal state in
Syria are nation-building and state-building problems, and the question of how
the U.S. uses proxy groups to marginalize jihadists is a counter-terrorism
problems. By their nature, proxy strategies compound on existing flaws in these
policies because they delegate a central role in the strategy to
self-interested third parties. By their practice, proxy wars in areas where the
U.S. lacks the intelligence or logistical capability to unilaterally furnish
its desired partners with weaponry involve yet another set of external actors with their
own interests and goals.
Unilateralism is
a dirty word these days, but very often the problem with it is that the United
States grafts unilateral aims and approaches to policies which require far more
consensus and complicity from other actors. Squaring the circle through
indirect approaches seems appealing, but the reality is that whether the U.S.
is conducting drone strikes or distributing arms, it is putting its policy and
strategy at the mercy not simply of the enemy, but of its would-be partners,
clients, and proxies. The deep and entangling double games and strategic
surprises the U.S. so often finds itself in now, if anything, highlight the
need for the United States to develop a set of genuinely unilateral options
appropriate for achieving limited aims. As American relative power declines,
the more indirect the U.S. approach, the less leverage it will have to shape
the implementation and outcome of that approach to its own liking.
"WAR IS PEACE," "FREEDOM IS
"WAR IS PEACE," "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY," "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."- from the Ministry of Truth
dtrombly -
If possible, could you write a posting on an examination of the coverage of news and false information the world has been spoon fed to American's since 9/11/2012. Look no further than events surrounding the proxy war in Libya.
If you could expand, investigate and explain to your followers, who has been responsible for the falsification of historical events for Libya over the last 6 months.
Modern day fears of totalitarianism are rising greatly (just like during the last administration) and will likely be a key factor (as much as the economy) in the results for the upcoming election.
Why are American's being lied to and/or misled on 09/11/2012? Are certain people afraid that events in Benzhazi will cause some kind of wide-spread Islamophobia and the explanation / the use of a film was used to cause confusion / guilt upon the American public? Was this done so the American public would not be demanding some kind of retaliation and/or withdrawal from Libya?
Over the last two weeks, news has been released that a Military Med Float was off the coast of Libya, AFRICOM / SOCOM troops were on the ground and a armed Predator Drone was flying above Benghazi and filming all events and sending those images back to Northern Virginia (in real time) on 9/11/2012.
The reality, right now perceptions of surveillance, torture, fear mongering and media manipulation are just as prevalent, if not increased since the last administration.
What are your thoughts?
"Unilateralism is a dirty
"Unilateralism is a dirty word these days, but very often the problem with it is that the United States grafts unilateral aims and approaches to policies which require far more consensus and complicity from other actors."
I am a little confused. I believe our last successful unilateral intervention was Hawai'i. All other interventions at some point result in a proxy relationship. The most recent case in point being Iraq, now a dear friend of Iran and making large Russian arms purchases.
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici on October 28, 2012 - 4:58am
Yup, the Benghazi story lives on as it should. People got killed and it could have been avoided. Think of the money that has been spent on intelligence and the WOT just in the last four years alone. What Americans get for their money is more the same. Titled stories like, "Warnings Were Plentiful, but Unspecific" were written ten years ago after 9/11. Is there no progress? The people responsible are still walking around trying to act like it never happened on their watch. Clinton can not fly abroad fast enough to get the stink off. She was away from the camera for a couple weeks and now she is out of the country. Crap Clinton had to fly all the way to fucking Peru to announce "partial" responsibility for the CF.
This Administration is all about image control, POTUS wrote the book on it, and they blew the spin Libya was not just another Mission Accomplished and Iraq failure. What is worse the administration got caught in a failure with their pants down like a bunch of political amateurs.
Then there is Sandy.
I remember when you could hardly get POTUS to show up for a domestic natural disaster. How many Earth Quakes and Midwestern Tornadoes did this POTUS not show up for? It was discussed in this blog and responders said that POTUS had "people" for that. The foreign agenda was more important.
Now POTUS is FEMA chief administrator ! That changed that? It took fucking four years for someone in this administration to take responsibility for what happens in the federal government.
BTW.
How much is it going to cost the USG to get Algeria to play in Mali?
Federal Government Purchased the Thompson Correctional facility from StumpBroke Illinois. Gitmo prisoners are out of bounds since Congress passed new law, what about all the other WOT prisoners that don't originate from Gitmo? Is Thompson a hidden Federal Aid package for Chicago or convenience?
This is a bunch of
This is a bunch of Bullshit.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/10/obama-wants-power-back-on-147...
Lived in Florida, my home was at ground zero two major hurricanes in two weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30kgc34EW1M
There were signs on the side of the road that said, "Will show tits for Electricity". Even that did not hurry the schedule.
The power company CEO's have a vested interest to sell power, they already know it has to be fixed. The guy with the hard hat does it, not Obama.
In Florida Jeanne and Frances really made a mess of things, the destruction was wide spread. FEMA did not fix the damage, the home owners and their subcontractors did.
One thing the Federal Government did do well was putting sand back on 80 lineal miles of beach at taxpayer expense which eroded away in the next couple of seasons.
When I moved to Florida it cost $800/yr to insure a home. That same home now costs over $6,000/yr to insure.
Government do not do a thing about insurance rate increases, but they are still putting sand on the beach on a scheduled basis.
If Obama wants the power on tell him to shut his mouth and get a chainsaw or hammer like everyone else has to.
In 2008 you want change.
Why not now?
Does Obama really believe
Does Obama really believe this? He sure thinks well of his capabilities.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83251.html?hp=r4
“From the earliest hours, I ordered that resources be made available to states in the path of the storm as soon as they needed them,” he said. “And I instructed my team not to let red tape and bureaucracy get in the way of solving problems – especially when it came to making sure local utilities could restore power as quickly as possible.”
You can tell that Obama has never ran a profit making enterprise or worked in the private sector.
Mr. President, it is about execution of your orders not merely having made an order. Making an order is "Presidential" and results of that order is a metric of Leadership. True Americans get the job done.
Good example is Cuomo ordering the NY Marathon to resume on schedule. That is like saying that Libya is all roses and perfect sunsets. Both were huge mistakes in spin. America has seen four years of high unemployment, that does not go away by saying, "Gee those job numbers look slightly better than they did a month ago". At the rate of job creation we have today, we MIGHT get the current generation employed when it gets to working age.
Those gasoline lines are not going to change until someone rolls up their sleeves and cuts the tree out of the power line that serves the gas station. That is not going to happen if the power company is servicing Wall Street first.
Just another bail out.
Look at Senator Chuck Schumer
Look at Senator Chuck Schumer in the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v08pprNzC4Q
What's the joke Schumer? Not very tuned in is he.
Interesting 22 million gallons of free diesel and gasoline for a localized event. How much is going to be resold?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I293Ci7FddI
Did anyone in Government think of telling people to say home and take a few days of vacation and help their neighbors ?????
Simple solution. Florida never got free gasoline in ANY disaster. Not a very good precedent to set.
The past five days of Sandy's recovery pretty much sums up the Obama administration.
Obama redistributes 10 gallons of free gasoline when the people on Staten Island really just need the USG government to provide the basic structure of commerce so they can rebuild their community and get their jobs back. In the back ground, you hear the Sunday talking heads telling you how lucky you are to have Obama. Are the talking heads even on the same planet?
We can bail out GM for the unions, give Afghanistan a government, but Americans have to wait. At least they got the lights back on in Manhattan, again. Wall Street first.
Fellas, I was very
Fellas, I was very disheartened when I saw this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reUi7ncHduQ (about how people are defecating in the hallways of apt. bldgs. it's unsat)
So, I was hoping you guys can do an article about how to survive disaster aftermaths w/out the sewage system, while keeping your community clean.
Here's some videos I hope you'll cover:
1). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPivZEmQXoE (sewer-less toilet)
2). http://vimeo.com/47238447 (distilling your own urine and contaminated water to clean H2O)
3). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NCuawEqPCc (how they did it in large scale, in Haiti)
I gotta feeling we'll have more of these disasters. the sewer-less system hasn't gotten the publicity it deserves, I hope you guys can cover it.
Semper Fi.
Sandy Aftermath, where to
Sandy Aftermath, where to Poop & Pee on November 4, 2012 - 11:23am
It is really a serious problem.
Our community in Florida did not have back up generators on the public sewer lift stations. The people on the low end of the slope got their homes filled by the people upstream using their toilets. Public sewers are gravity systems the lift stations bring sewage to the next grade on its way to the treatment plant. If one of the lift stations or multiple stations fail in the system then the shit literally hits the fan. Back flow valves where the sewer was connected to homes was not required by city code. We were lucky enough to be on septic, you get your water from the ditch (or pool if you have one) to flush the toilet after a hurricane. Multistory buildings don't work well without services.
When there is flooding above grade, don't go wading. You would see kids with boogie boards towed down the streets behind ATVs.
We had fist fights for plywood, gasoline, and roofing materials after hurricanes. Major roofing supply company had five semi-trailers lined up on US1 waiting to unload roofing shingles with one trailer in the yard unloading. Police were on duty outside the supply house monitoring the line of customers into the building. The line of trucks unloading happened through out business hours for six months until roofing contractors met demand. The roofing contractors where notorious for jumping bids and doing poor work. Saw a lot of wide eyed gas station employees with dry pumps in an electric environment of pissed off people trying to evacuate. Some people got stuck in their cars out of gas on the highway in a Cat 4 storm (140 mph winds). That was Florida I95 and Beeline parking lots.
Thing is people do not prepare then they expect the USG and insurance companies to make good. People in Miami after Andrew bitched about being fed USG MRE's. Folks in New Orleans after Katrina got USG $1200 prepaid VISA cards and some of those cards ended up on shopping sprees in Atlanta GA. Now we got FREE Gas in NY.
Only way to fix it is to layout the basic structure of commerce after disasters so people can get the work done themselves or hire contractors for those that can't.
In most cases store shelves are fully stocked outside the impacted areas. For NJ shore that is PA.
People don't think.
BTW....My home was never damage in the many hurricanes it survived (every thing around me was). Why? After the first hurricane, I got rid of my pine trees so they would not fall on my home. Neighbors bitched about me cutting them. Then they did the same after the next hurricane. After Andrew, I redid my roof to the Miami-Dade code myself (that included a high wind nailing schedule on the plywood roof deck) where most local contractors did not follow the code (they were suppose to yet the city did not enforce it). I also sealed the Stucco exterior of my home so it deflected water (wind driven water will go straight through a concrete block wall, you can watch water seep through a concrete wall during a hurricane if the wall is not sealed). The home had a low hip roof where most of the modern structures with projecting structures were damaged by high winds. The garage door was barricaded by the weight of the vehicles in the garage during all storms so the door could not collapse inward allowing the home to be pressurized by a 140mph wind. More importantly, I picked my building site wisely (high ground and three miles from the ocean front). Flood plane maps are available at libraries.
There was always a five gallon bucket, roll of tp, and shovel available for emergencies.
None of that took a dime of USG taxpayer money.
Four more years !!! Nice
Four more years !!!
Nice people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbTkPAKXIBQ
Pulled the "nice people"
Pulled the "nice people" youtube? Thing about modern communication is it is cached somewhere else !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUE5KmWURmQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA9vVILZ4Ao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0OH6rlkl4s
This is the Politico story. He keeps hecklers out? Looks like he did not get the job done and missed one.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/11/obama-interrupted-by-rare-hec...
Visitor on November 4, 2012 -
Visitor on November 4, 2012 - 10:47pm:
"More importantly, I picked my building site wisely (high ground and three miles from the ocean front). Flood plane maps are available at libraries."
So true, brother, LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION (this should be common sense).
Here's more on sewer-less toilet management, I'm using two mushrooms in particular to speed up break-down process of solid waste, although I haven't had the heart to eat said mushrooms:
1). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dbbA4n5kdY (King Straphoria mushroom)
2). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot35sh7cVq4 (Oyster Mushroom)
In 1999, Laura Allen and Cleo
In 1999, Laura Allen and Cleo Woelfle-Erskine built a greywater system in their backyard out of concern about their household water use. Their backgrounds in environmental science and permaculture design sparked their interest in water reuse and wastewater treatment using constructed wetlands.
They built several prototypes, then self-published a ‘zine called "The Guerrillas Greywater Girls Guide to Water" that combined strategies for conserving and reusing household water with stories of their explorations of California’s water infrastructure.
In 1999 we named ourselves the "Guerrilla Greywater Girls" as a tongue-in-cheek response to a draconian California plumbing code that discouraged the simple, low-tech greywater systems we promote. A few years later we changed our name to the "Greywater Guerrillas", to reflect the multi-gendered composition of our collaborators.
We are a collaborative group of educators, designers, builders, and artists who educate and empower people to build sustainable water culture and infrastructure.
We've educated hundreds of people about the process of greywater system design and construction, and built greywater systems at dozens of houses in cities around California and beyond.
http://greywateraction.org/
Wish everyone the best
Wish everyone the best results for today's election.
The process is working.
Army Can’t Say What It Pays
Army Can’t Say What It Pays Disgraced General Kip Ward to Do
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/ward/
Another prime example of huge failure during the last 4 years.... Why this man hasn't been court-martialed or been asked to pay back the millions of dollars in fraud he committed is amazing!
Before you vote, read this...
Before you vote, read this... on November 6, 2012 - 1:01pm
That is old news. Some bean counter somewhere most likely decided that it is cheaper to put a person on staff than to get sued.
Consider this for the next four years.
President : Democrat control
Senate: Democrat control
House of Rep: Republican control
The process is working, the electorate is split 50-50 and so is government. Nothing will move cause we can not agree.
There is no pride to win and rule by executive order.
Guess I saw the future from
Guess I saw the future from the date stamp above
Visitor on November 6, 2012 - 2:33pm
Now it is a different day.
The mess to be inherited is now purely Obama.
This is the future if you can see it. The problem is purely Chicago born as they have the population to win majorities.
http://www.statebudgetcrisis.org/wpcms/wp-content/images/2012-10-12-Illi...
California is not so swell and all have leadership of the same ilk.
It is hard to be proud of a failure even when popularity encourages it.
Democracy is destroyed when everyone votes for gravy.
It is pure irony that Sandy was blamed on global warming and Obama gave ny/nj 22 Million gallons of free fossil fuel.
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