Costa

EMC Chair Conference Paper

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Allies and Auxiliaries: Perspectives on Building Intelligence Partnerships

Christopher P. Costa Department of the Navy Al-‐Qaeda and their affiliates inspire political violence, and in many cases the cycle of

political violence begins and ends in tribal sanctuaries—in places like Yemen, Somalia, and

Pakistan. Still, the prevailing counterterrorism narrative holds that relentless Western

pressure on terrorist networks have significantly disrupted remnants of core al-‐Qaeda. But

as the smoke clears from a decade of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is evident that the

U.S. will act less unilaterally, which will give way to a necessary strategy requiring more

effective foreign intelligence partnerships. And so, the U.S. is already signaling that the next

phase of the counterterrorism campaign demands unconventional warfarei approaches

outside of combat zones, and more deliberate engagement with foreigner partners, not less.

For its part, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) must build, lead, and leverage indigenous-‐

led allies and auxiliaries to aggressively disrupt al-‐Qaeda’s affiliates, and at the same time

neutralize violent actors in those sanctuaries before they attack U.S. interests.ii

To the extent that we recognize a discernible shift in U.S. strategy—operating more

aggressively with foreign security services outside of combat zones, and building

intelligence partnerships—this essay argues that U.S. strategy must borrow themes from

the ancient Byzantine Empire. It is in the context of the Byzantines that strategist Edward

Luttwak concluded “that the very survival of the empire was made possible only by foreign

allies successfully recruited long before or just in time: more than once, bands of warriors

from nations nearby or remote suddenly arrived to tip the balance and save the day”.iii

Implicit in this conceptualization, is the need to reward cooperative foreign

counterterrorism partners.

This essay will first illustrate the weak-‐state paradigm as a post-‐Iraq progression

that needs attention. Then it will offer a straightforward prescription for building the kinds

of intelligence partnerships needed in the future, meaning a small footprint of SOF, and



specialized intelligence officers, postured to work with indigenous allies—both willing to

neutralize remnants of a resurgent al-‐Qaeda and their affiliates.

Weak-State Paradigm

Places like Yemen can be summed up as a post-‐Iraq progression where the state is

weak, inherently tribal, and vulnerable to jihadists seeking new sanctuaries to plan

terrorism against the West.iv Still, the West must develop more sophisticated intelligence

partnerships, which means that in the aftermath of our wars, the U.S. must work untiringly

with states and their security services to accelerate intelligence on jihadists in their

sanctuaries. Although unilateral action still remains an option, there are political

consequences for such actions, and U.S. national security decision-‐makers must weigh all

alternatives, but working with partners more discreetly is more acceptable than large-‐scale

U.S. military operations. The point, in other words, is our theme that U.S. homeland

security will rely on new kinds of intelligence partnerships that are recast in the light of a

more constrained globalism.

The final thought that requires more elaboration in terms of the weak-‐state is the

phenomenon where those seeking membership with a malign transnational tribe like al-‐

Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are subsequently trained in ungoverned tribal space in the

hopes that they can eventually attack targets in the West.v Our contention is that, in the

long run, if those adherents that are inspired to make such a journey are either contained

or killed in those weak states, then, it is indeed a localized problem. This, however, does not

account for actors such as radical American born Muslim cleric Anwar al-‐Awlaki who

inspired others to commit violence from his tribal sanctuary in Yemen.vi This messaging is

the dark side of an interconnected world that held such optimism as the world entered the

new millennium. Benjamin Barber wrote an important contribution in the Atlantic, making

the case that “the two axial principles of our age—tribalism and globalism—clash at every

point except one: they may both be threatening to democracy.vii Still, the idea of tribalism

and the consequences of our wars are not in full focus, yet we can draw some preliminary

conclusions, which suggest that jihadists that make their way to places like Yemen may

ultimately threaten security in the West.



A Case for ‘Just in Time’ Partnerships

The war in Iraq created a whole generation of U.S. military talent, despite a slow

adaptation from a conventional strategy to one needed for countering a compound

insurgency. The evidence for weak-‐state dynamics notwithstanding, this essay argues that

the real danger lies not in the U.S. ability to train foreign partners, but in the acceptance

that SOF will need to stretch training into a ‘just in time’ counterterrorism capability

outside of combat zones to contest jihadists in their sanctuaries—meaning a potential for

counter-‐sanctuary guerrilla forces, an underground, and auxiliaries for both operations and

intelligence.

Even while acknowledging that General Casey and the Army adapted slowly to the

developing insurgency in Iraq, author and Army critic Tom Rick’s does credit Casey for

starting the Counterinsurgency (COIN) Academy in Taji, Iraq.viii That’s only half of the

story, however, the lesser-‐known story of the COIN Academy began in 2004—stood up in

the ‘fog’ of a confusing insurgency, but owing its start to a bottoms-‐up initiative—to train a

small number of vetted Iraqi teams in surgical urban reconnaissance skills.ix The

sophisticated training framework for developing tactical intelligence on the insurgents, and

the infrastructure used for the instruction was arguably the driver for the later, more

conventional COIN Academy. In the end, the training never turned out an indigenous ‘band

of warriors’. Disappointingly, the mission was limited to training, and the Iraqis went back

to their units and melted back into a dangerous landscape that was pre-‐surge Iraq.

Conclusions

The salient lesson, then, of our training in Iraq is still somewhat ambiguous, but is a

worthy metaphor for counterterrorism outside of combat zones, and can be grafted to our

theme for building more effective intelligence partnerships in the future. On the one hand,

it appears to provide further validation for the obvious logic of training partners to fight an

insurgency on their own. On the other hand—reflecting on the experience in Taji—the

training should have developed into a U.S. guided cohort capability: networked, purpose-‐

built, and channeled to get to the insurgents in their sanctuaries. In other words, the



enduring lesson is that SOF in combination with highly trained partners—allies and

auxiliaries—is the best chance of coming close to the Byzantine ideal of warriors ‘saving

the day’.



Author Biography Colonel Christopher P. Costa, USA, Ret, is a Department of the Navy civilian, and a Research Fellow with the Institute for National Strategic Studies’ Program for Irregular Warfare and SOF Studies at the National Defense University. He holds an M.A in Strategic Intelligence from American Military University and an M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies, from the U.S. Naval War College. He earned his B.A. from Norwich University. In a 25-year U.S. Army career, he specialized in counterintelligence, human intelligence and special operations, deploying on multiple contingencies and to combat operations in the Republic of Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq. i See, for example, Colonel David W. Witty’s, “The Great UW Debate.” United States Army Combined Arms Center, June 2011; available at, http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/11-34/ch_6.asp. It goes beyond the scope of this essay to examine in depth the various debates centered on the definitions of Unconventional Warfare, however, for the purposes of this examination, leveraging underground and auxiliary forces for achieving CT objectives is adequate enough. ii Larry Shaughnessy, “Panetta: America Beating al Qaeda but hasn’t won yet.” CNN Blog, 20 November 2012. http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/20/panetta-america-beating-al-qaeda-but-hasnt-won-yet/. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is quoted as saying that going after al-Qaeda and their “affiliates is unconventional warfare” and that the “campaign against al-Qaeda will largely take place outside declared combat zones using a small-footprint approach that includes precision operations. iii Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 7. iv See, for example, Editor Gabriel Koehler-Derrick’s, “A False Foundation? AQAP, Tribes and Ungoverned Space in Yemen” September 2011, published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Web. 21 Jul 2012. http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/a-false-foundation-aqap-tribes-and-ungoverned-spaces-in-yemen. v See David Ronfeldt’s, “Today’s Wars Are less About Ideas Than Extreme Tribalism,” The Christian Science Monitor, 27 March 2006. Ronfeldt convincingly writes that al-Qaeda members and affiliates are “extreme tribalists who dream of making the West start over at a razed, tribal level.” The term malign tribalism were introduced by Dr. Jeffrey Kaplan, "Tribalism and Mobilization: Irregular Warfare in the 21st Century,” Program for Irregular Warfare and SOF Studies, National Defense University, Washington, DC, 2012. The term ‘malign tribalism’, which threaten U.S. security as introduced by Col. Christopher P. Costa, USA, Ret, at this time. See, for example, Christopher P. Costa and Dr. Jeffrey Kaplan’s “On tribalism: Affiliates, Auxiliaries and Aspirational Political Violence”, in LTG Flynn, M. et al; "National Security Challenges: Insights from Social, Neurobiological, and Complexity Sciences" Multilayer Assessment Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense, July 2012. vi David Johnston and Scott Shane, “US Knew of Suspects Tie to Radical Cleric,” New York Times 9 November 2009. Web 10 Mar 2012. See also, for example, Scott Helfstein’s, “Edges of Radicalization: Ideas, Individuals and Networks in Violent Extremism.” Combating Terrorism Center. February 2012. Web 10 Mar 2012.



http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/edges-of-radicalization-ideas-individuals-and-networks-in-violent-extremism. These contributions outline the direct links between al-Awlaki and Major Hasan, which fits our model of Aspirational tribalism to a certain extent. Hasan was inspired and motivated to act by al-Awlaki, while he was operating from ungoverned space in a tribal sanctuary in Yemen. Hasan self-radicalized and acted out his political violence in the West. vii Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld,” The Atlantic Online, (March 1992), http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/03/jihad-vs-mcworld/3882/# viii Thomas E. Ricks, “General Failure,” The Atlantic, (Nov 2012), http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-failure/309148/. Also, see, Thomas Rick’s article, “U.S. Counterinsurgency Giving Officers a New Mindset,” Washington Post, February 21, 2006. This article first reported on a counterinsurgency school started in Taji, Iraq. Rick’s wrote, “The newest educational institution in the U.S. military establishment seeks, as a course summary puts it, to stress the need for U.S. forces to shift from a conventional warfare mindset to one that understands how to win in a guerrilla-style conflict.”

ix See also, President George W. Bush, June 29, 2005 Ft. Bragg speech retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/28/national/ main704936_page2.shtml.On June 29, 2005, President Bush addressed the nation in a prime time broadcast, delivering a major speech on terrorism at Ft. Bragg, NC. During the speech the President highlighted U.S. training that provided the “Iraqis with important skills such as urban combat and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.” This speech raises interesting questions on the value of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism training, and the benefits for enabling and developing partnerships with security forces in Iraq, but more importantly its future implications. Here again, specialized and sophisticated intelligence training programs must be broadened to support operations outside of combat zones, which leads to the conclusions in this essay.

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