Proposing a Conflict Map to Guide Warfare

Fall 2018 Proposing a Conflict Map to Guide Warfare by MAJ Blair Wilcox and MAJ Jonathan Bate The Department of Defense (DoD)’s description of war in current doctrine using a “conflict continuum” that rang es from “peace” to “war” isn’t enough. As current conflict literature notes, conflict varies in its type and scale. Dif ferent forms of violence can occur si multaneously. To be successful, an in tervening military force must address each form appropriately rather than using a blanket approach. In this article, we propose a “conflict map,” which seeks to enable accurate diagnosis of a conflict. Only by first un derstanding the type of conflict can military commanders develop an opti mal operational approach. The best re sponse differs by each sector of the conflict map. U.S. conventional forces are optimized to produce high returns to violence in only certain zones and must adapt to confront the enemy across the conflict space if the United States hopes to maintain its military and political supremacy. Wrong kind of war After 16 years (and counting) of com bat in Afghanistan, eight years of com bat in Iraq and a significant re-engage ment against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014, DoD is strug gling to find a coherent narrative for the types of conflict it will have to sup press in the years to come.1 As compa ny-level officers during the Iraq War, the authors were recipients of the Ar my’s retraining programs during the “pivot” to counterinsurgency (COIN) post-2007 after the failed convention al approaches during the 2003-2005 mismanagement of violence. Looking to the next horizon, it’s hard to conceptualize where the Army should focus its attention. Following the theater-wide implementation of COIN between 2007-2011 in Iraq; to conventional tactics used to degrade ISIS; to the hybrid conflicts between Russia and Ukraine in 2014; to the supposed “weaponization” of social media in the 2016 election, the “de mand signals” from the international environment are endless. What narra tive can we use to help us make sense of the wide range of conflicts that ex ist in the current operating environ ment? As an organization, the U.S. Army will continue to “pivot” from one conflict and tactic to the next, never winning the strategic fight, but will be highly adept at overcoming the needs of the current engagement if it doesn’t re frame its understanding of conflict. U.S. forces are excellent at overcoming and adapting to the tactical and oper ational problems they face, but our forces lack the theoretical narrative to help clearly define the entire map of conflict; leverage comparative advan tages in combat; and outsource prob lems when the application of violence achieves diminishing returns.2 The Army needs to stop pivoting from one conflict zone to the next and get ahead of the problem by accurately under standing the context of warfare in the years to come to best align forces against threats. A major part of DoD’s problem is that it often fights the wrong kind of war. The U.S. Army’s doctrine, organization and equipping standards create an in stitutional preference for conventional forms of violence. In the language of economics, the Army is characteristi cally a “supply-side” organization. It looks at conflict and applies varying levels of violence to change the envi ronment. Supply-side-oriented conven tional tactics levied against insurgent networks in Vietnam or Iraq, for exam ple, were not able to achieve lasting stability. Success in war depends on countering the enemy with the correct approach, aligning the appropriate tactics with enemy forces; therefore we propose a “demand-side” model to understand conflict. To understand how to win in the future, the U.S. Army must analyze the dominant demand signals the ad versary displays through its applica tions of violence and array appropriate countermeasures to address the threat. As history has shown, enemy forces do not always fight the way we want them to. Rather, as asymmetric-conflict-theory literature has shown, weaker forces often seek to avoid their opponent’s strength and draw it into a type of conflict that levels the playing field.3 For example, French forces under Na poleon succeeded against their Prus sian adversaries using linear warfare. However, in Spain, Napoleon faced a hybrid threat consisting of both regu lar British forces and Spanish guerrilla forces. He failed in Spain because his strategy only addressed the conven tional threat. The “range of military operations” and the “operational analysis – full-spec trum operations” in current doctrine provide colorful vignettes for conflict that fail to provide practical applica tion for brigade commanders and be low.4 The intent of this article is not to provide a comprehensive framework for how the warfighter ought to view conflict; it is meant to begin filling the gap between relevant literature on the nature of warfare and the practical ap plications of combat power. Our dis cussion isn’t to present a comprehen sive new theory of warfare but to use existing theory in a relevant form to present measurable mechanisms that practitioners can use to “diagnose” the state of conflict in a given area and ap ply the appropriate measures of force (including realizing the fact that “no use” of force may be an appropriate re sponse for a stable endstate). Our anal ysis hopes to open up a dialogue be tween theory and practice (academia and military leadership) by distilling critical variables from the literature that are useful for conceptualizing the battlespace while simultaneously ac counting for the comparative advan tages inherent in U.S. forces task-orga nization and doctrine – namely, the

Fall 2018 production of kinetic force. To hold up its end of the dialogue, however, the Army needs to update its understanding of the nature of the bat tlefield and the context within which forces will be engaged. There needs to be a bridge between the academic lit erature and the practitioner. For exam ple, in a recent discussion with Dr. Ste phen Rosen and the Modern Warfare Institute at West Point, Rosen com mented that the U.S. Army lacks good theory but is excellent at adapting to the needs of the immediate fight.5 Here we hope to outline a method whereby military leadership views the battlespace using existing literature, expresses doctrinal principles with the appropriate academic language and subsequently uses that language (in formed by the literature) to make prac tical and informed strategic recom mendations for the use of force. The model As we said, the “peace” or “war” spec trum contained in current U.S. doctrine (Figure 1) is no longer adequate. Most modern conflicts fall somewhere in between. To further complicate the sit uation, there are multiple types of con flict occurring simultaneously in war fare. U.S. forces, technology and doctrine are designed to defeat and destroy en emy forces with conventional ord nance. Army task-organization, training and doctrine are all fundamentally driven by the singular purpose of achieving overwhelming force to kill the enemy. Again, using the language of economics, any mission that at tempts to complicate this simple prem ise diminishes returns within the “mar ketplace” of U.S. engagements where forces specialize in the application of violence to achieve stability. The Unit ed States achieves the greatest returns to violence when we can achieve sta bility through conventional effects. The endstate for this endeavor is to provide commanders a framework to discuss the battlefield with their sub ordinate commanders in a way that raises the appropriate questions and can equip subordinate units to say, “If you want these effects, I need the fol lowing resources.” Partially informed by civil-war litera ture,6 state-building literature,7 mili tary doctrine (Joint Publication 3-0) and economic theories of production (particularly the Cobb-Douglas produc tion function), our model presents a language to interpret any conflict envi ronment. Strategic-level commanders and policymakers and below are able to “diagnose” their position on the model using three variables: group type, group size and observed levels of violence. With probabilistic determinations of these criteria, the military leadership can position themselves on the “map” and infer the likelihood of stability post-kinetic responses; have an in formed discussion about the limits of military force; raise appropriate ques tions about operational areas for which forces are not appropriately staffed or resourced; and request sub sequent training and assets. This map forces planning functions that ensure the Army shows up to the fight with the right team and the appropriate set of tools to overcome challenges to sta bility. Figure 1. Notional operations across the conflict continuum. Our leaders use the military instrument of national power across the conflict continuum in a variety of operations and activities that are commonly characterized in three groups, as this figure depicts. (Adapted from Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, Jan. 17, 2017) Table 1. Adversary type and size zones. Criminal Type of adversary Hybrid Political Size of adversary Large Drug cartels

ISIS

Russian elements in Ukraine 2014 Nation-states Small Gangs Russia / U.S. elections Mafia organizations Insurgent groups

Fall 2018 Our model classifies adversaries along two dimensions: type (criminal to po litical) and size (small to large). The in teraction of these two variables pro duce measurable levels of violence that will fall within expected ranges. Table 1 and Figure 2 depict the zones and examples of each type of conflict in each zone. Type of adversary matters There is much work in the current civ il-war literature about distinctions be tween criminal and political groups and their uses of violence. The distinc tions between political and criminal or ganizations betray insights into the structures and methodologies that ad versaries naturally develop. Under standing group type is critical when third-party interventions or incumbent host-nation forces attempt to confront potential adversaries. For example, in a case study of both Rio and Recife, Brazil, it was only when Brazilian police forces changed their tactics from a conventional maneuver approach (reminiscent of the tactics used in classic COIN) to a law-enforce ment approach that they were able to achieve lasting results.8 Changing the tactic to fight criminal groups, rather than political groups, brought success. The criminal or political nature of the adversary impacts the type and scale of violence the enemy employs. Criminal groups often need the institu tions of the state to operate.9 Their livelihood is contingent on preying on their neighbors. The burden of govern ment exceeds their capacity and threatens the organization; therefore they operate within the confines of the state because this serves the group’s best interest. Furthermore, criminal groups tend to care about the welfare of group members, normally the lead ership, and disregard concerns for the larger population. Concerns for collec tive-good distribution are localized to a select few (to those who “pay” into the organization), and time horizons are characteristically shortened the smaller the group. Criminal groups are normally vertically structured to retain tight control between principles and agents, and the benefits to the group are normally localized to group mem bers.10 Violence, therefore, will be lo calized and pursuant of the criminal network’s strategic goals, but general ly not concerned with revolution. Political violence, however, is con cerned with the overthrow of the state or conflicts between states in the clas sic sense. Political grievances are clas sically concerned with the state’s legit imacy and result in civil war or in inter state conflict. Political violence in small-group behavior is normally di rected at the state and indicative of classic rebel movement aimed at the government’s overthrow. Rebel groups are motivated by a mix of both greed and grievance-based mechanisms but tend to publicize their movements as driven by more ideological reasons (whereas criminal groups may not).11 Groups using political violence normal ly have longer time horizons, and the benefits of their efforts may extend to nonparticipants in a way that criminal violence and behavior do not. (This is why mafia organizations occupy an in teresting middle ground between crim inality and political violence.12) Politi cal violence among large organizations is characterized by classic kinetic ex changes between states throughout history. U.S. forces are optimized at achieving high returns to violence in political-violence conflicts between large groups and have adapted to fight well against smaller political groups during recent COIN campaigns.13 Group size matters We’ve found the variable that Mancur Olson identified (characteristics inher ent in the size of groups determine their collective behavior in an anarchic environment) usefully descriptive when identifying how groups behave and adapt to the use of violence and how they organize to overcome in creasing levels of complexity. In small groups, for example, voluntary agree ment is more likely to achieve collec tive benefits.14 Each individual in a small group bears the full cost and risks of the decisions he makes that contribute to the public goods all enjoy. Each individual bene fits from the peaceful order achieved through voluntary submission to the group. The individual costs of produc tion are far outweighed by the benefits the individual receives from the group’s aggregate production. The benefits received from mutual cooper ation in small groups outweighs the benefits to defect, thereby overcoming the problem of collective action.15 It makes sense, therefore, that in small criminal groups violence against the state is antithetical to the group’s goals because the group preys on the wealth of the larger society as a business mod el.16 Furthermore, we should fully expect small-scale criminality due to the effi ciency of small-group behavior and the environment created by social stability. Violence, however, is not an efficient tool for the criminal in this realm, as it may attract the mechanisms of the state that would threaten its existence. This area, therefore, is characterized by small criminal groups, structured Figure 2. Zones and type of likely conflict in each.

Fall 2018 hierarchically internally, but with lim ited connection to other groups and low levels of observed violence. The critical observation from this zone is the recognition that stability is not the absence of violence but rather the ap pearance of small, disconnected crim inal violence. U.S. assets are not well organized or trained to operate in this zone. Any at tempt to use them as pacification ele ments will incentivize the structural complexity of criminal groups and in tergroup coordination, and increase vi olence that transitions groups away from low-level criminality toward po litical goals and larger group organiza tion. Critically, exogenous incumbent responses shape the enemy as much as intrinsic group grievances. Govern ment or third-party forces must under stand the battlespace, therefore, to de prive the enemy the ability to organize and transition into more threatening postures. Large organizations, however, do not develop through voluntary agree ment.17 Incentives to “free ride” out weigh the logic of contributing to the needs of a large group without some form of coercion.18 In other words, why would I work to contribute to the col lective public good if, by doing nothing, I can benefit from an equal access to public goods? Large organizations, therefore, have to incentivize individual behavior through organizational processes (rank and pro motion) or by developing a core con stituency that maintains the leader’s power, as is common in many authori tarian structures.19 Large criminal groups face an interesting dilemma. First, if they do not want to govern, they must organize themselves hierar chically to retain tight control between principles and agents to achieve goals that prey upon the state and its popu lation but do not threaten the state’s existence.20 This, in practice, is difficult and requires the strategic uses of vio lence and tight control over operatives. We should expect groups that are large and criminal in nature to use violence to achieve their strategic goals but struggle with the incumbent more di rectly over the right to rule. Organizational structures internally will be hierarchical. Also, there may be more direct linkages between criminal groups the larger they get, as it serves the interests of smaller groups to bandwagon if predation goals align. Columbia’s Fuerzas Armadas Revolu cionarias de Colombia and Ejército de Liberación Nacional would serve as useful case studies for this sort of con flict zone. Implications and propositions Fundamentally, every zone in the con flict map exists simultaneously in every confrontation. Analyzing enemy group size, type and observed violence dem onstrates the active zone; however, the potential for a transition is always present (Figure 3). In fact, the transi tion is exactly what U.S. units are look ing for. Transitioning from large-group political violence to small-group crimi nal violence is “peace” and exactly what forces fight to achieve. One could imagine the conflict map guiding division-level planners and commanders in the organization, plus outfitting a joint task force. Instead of applying monolithic applications of vi olence to achieve stability through the continual supply of violence, com manders assess the adversary type (demand signal) and build the right team for the right job. This map helps guide strategic-level planning for pre conflict evaluation during intelligence preparation of the battlefield or joint intelligence preparation of the opera tional environment to achieve optimal returns to the applications of violence and modify adversary group size and type to achieve strategic goals. This brings us to the immediate func tion of the map (Figure 3). The United Figure 3. Types of adversaries and levels of observed violence.

Fall 2018 States is currently unprepared to fight new-generation warfare (Zones 2 and 5 on the map).21 New-generation war fare is violent, but the levels of ob served violence are inconsistent (not enough to attract enduring attention), and the goals of the agents are mixed between political and criminal affilia tions. New-generation warfare is not “declared” and doesn’t officially termi nate; however, it has the potential to inflict significant damage to states not prepared to counter messaging and prevent the transition to more violent zones. In Zone 2 of this typology, adversary organizational strength comprises small, disconnected groups with mixed criminal and political affiliations that use violence infrequently. Incidences of this type of warfare indicate mafia structures (the Yakuza in the 1950s) to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election through commer cial marketing. Groups could also be large and highly structured, normally with stronger state ties and political affiliations that conspire to weaken states in ways that draw reciprocal attention short of war. Russian interference in Ukraine in 2014 exhibits this type of warfare. Low observed levels of violence pres ent the false appearance of stability. New-generation warfare is harder to “diagnose” and confront because the levels of violence may be observation ally equivalent to clearly criminal orga nizational structures. Nevertheless, new-generation warfare is exponen tially more dangerous and has the la tent potential to challenge state au thority in a real and practical way. This enemy is hard to fight because law en forcement is insufficiently equipped. Also, jurisdiction among international, federal or state elements complicates institutional management, and military forces are not optimized to attack the enemy in this zone. So we ignore it. We ignore it until it co alesces into an element we can see and fight with greater clarity, and this is the problem. The U.S. Army cannot sit on its heels any longer because our ene mies don’t. This type of warfare will take close coordination between law enforcement and DoD agencies. Every engagement in this zone will require a deliberate social-media effort to shape population preferences (much as Rus sia did in Ukraine in 2014 and in the United States in 2016). The “weapon ization” of social media will be a signif icant mechanism in this zone. Violence is present but not overpow ering, and populations are critical for messaging, but the lack of clear con flict makes the commitment of conven tional forces (U.S. optimized force structure) unlikely or politically infea sible. Large population centers, once thought to be the center of gravity only in COIN operations, will again become dominant “terrain” in the new genera tion of warfare. The Army’s finite resource base cannot sustain continued operational pivoting. Strategically, the United States must dedicate forces to the conflicts where in force task-organization and doctrine are optimized for maximum returns to violence. We are not prepared to fight and win in Zones 2 and 5 of the pro posed conflict map. U.S. forces must be deliberate about the doctrine and assets it develops to confront the en emy in the new generation of warfare. Let’s do ourselves the favor now of en suring we get ahead of the strategic problem so our enemies never have the opportunity to become worth fighting in the conventional space. MAJ Blair Wilcox serves as an instruc tor of international relations in the De partment of Social Sciences, U.S. Mili tary Academy (USMA), West Point, NY. Previous assignments include S-3 of 3-362 Armor, 5th Brigade, Fort Bliss, TX; commander, Headquarters and Head quarters Company (HHC), 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss; com mander, Company B (mechanized-in fantry company), 4-6 Infantry, 4th Bri gade, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss; executive officer, Company D (Armor company), 1-18th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, KS, and Operation Iraqi Freedom; and scout-platoon leader, HHC, 1-41st Combined-Arms Battalion, Fort Riley. His military education includes Maneuver Captain’s Career Course; Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leader’s Course; Armor Basic Officer Leader’s Course; and Ranger (COL Tex Turner Leadership Award), Pathfinder and Air-Assault Schools. MAJ Wilcox holds a bachelor’s of science degree in international rela tions from USMA and a master’s of arts degree in political science from Bing hamton University. His awards and decorations include two Bronze Star Medals and a Meritorious Service Med al. MAJ Jon Bate is a battalion executive officer in 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Divi sion, Fort Bliss, TX, and previously was instructor of economics, Department of Social Sciences, USMA. He is an infan try officer with 10 years’ service and three combat deployments to southern and eastern Afghanistan, including pla toon leader and company executive of ficer, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regi ment; company commander, 1st Battal ion, 327th Infantry Regiment; brigade plans officer, 327th Infantry Regiment; and commander, Pathfinder Company, 5th Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, KY. MAJ Bate holds a bachelor’s degree in business adminis tration from Stephen F. Austin State University, a bachelor’s of science de gree in economics from USMA and master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Govern ment. Notes 1 Tim Arango, “U.S. Troops, Back in Iraq, Train a Force to Fight ISIS,” The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2014; accessed Oct. 10, 2017, https://www.nytimes. com/2014/12/31/world/us-troops-back-in-iraq-train-a-force-to-fight-isis. html?mcubz=3&_r=1. 2 Jake Miraldi and Dr. Stephen Rosen, How Innovation Happens in the Military, Modern Warfare Institute, 2017. 3 Ivan Arreguin-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, Cambridge Studies in International Rela tions, 2005. 4 Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, Headquarters DoD: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Jan. 17, 2017. 5 Miraldi and Rosen. 6 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 2006; Jacob Shapiro, The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations, Princeton Universi ty Press, 2013; Ben Lessing, “Logics of Vi olence in Criminal War,” Journal of Con flict Resolution 59(8), 2015; and Nelson Kasfir, “Rebel Governance – Constructing a Field of Inquiry: Definitions, scope

Fall 2018 patterns, causes,” in Rebel Governance in Civil War, edited by Ana Arjona, Nelson Kasfir and Zachariah Mampilly, Cambridge University Press, 2015. 7 Mancur Olson, “Dictatorship, Democracy and Development,” The American Politi cal Science Review 3(87), 1993; and Ron ald Wintrobe, “Dictatorship: Analytical Approaches,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, edited by Carles Boix and Susan C. Stokes, 2009. 8 Lessing; “Rio’s Post-Olympic Blues,” The Economist, Oct. 5, 2017; accessed Oct. 5, 2017, https://www.economist.com/news/ americas/21730054-feuding-gangs-and-empty-coffers-are-pushing-up-murder-rate-rios-post-olympic-blues?frsc=dg%7Ce. 9 Wintrobe. 10 Shapiro. 11 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, Oxford: Ox ford University Press, 2007. 12 After mafia organizations achieve a mo nopoly on criminal activity, excessive pre dation on the society undermines their economic goals because they can’t steal from everyone and expect them to con tinue to produce. This dilemma results in criminal groups providing “protection” rather than extorting material goods in exchange for taxation. These groups bor der on competing for functions that only states provide. (Wintrobe) 13 Interaction in Zone 6, “The Convention al Zone,” follows a model laid out by Hirshleifer (1989). He proposed that the proportion of violence-producing inputs to the conflict (“guns”) would determine the probability of winning a conflict. In this model, the probability of winning the conflict depends only upon the ratio of guns held by the two parties in the con flict. 14 Olson. 15 Ibid. 16 Wintrobe. 17 Olson. 18 Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Who Fights? The Determi nants of Participation in Civil War,” The American Journal of Political Science 52(2), 2008; Olson. 19 Olson; Wintrobe; Bruce Bueno de Mes quita and Hilton Root, “The Political Roots of Poverty,” National Interest 68, 2002. 20 Shapiro. 21 Emilio Iasiello, “Russia’s Improved Infor mation Operations: From Georgia to Crimea,” Parameters 47(2), 2017. Acronym Quick-Scan COIN – counterinsurgency DoD – Department of Defense HHC – headquarters and headquarters company ISIS – Islamic State in Iraq and Syria USMA – U.S. Military Academy