Tactical partnerships for strategic effects: recent experiences of US forces working by, with, and through surrogates in Syria and Libya

ABSTRACT

The Islamic State (IS) ruled over 11 million people at the height of its power. It also orchestrated over 250 terrorist attacks against the West. Thus, by any measure, IS surpassed the ambitions held by its predecessor al-Qaeda. Yet the United States (US) did not deploy tens of thousands of troops to confront it. It instead used surrogate forces to evict IS from its strongholds. Drawing on interviews with senior policymakers, diplomats, and military officials with knowledge of Operations Inherent Resolve in Syria and Odyssey Lightning in Libya, this paper confronts commonly-held perspectives on the “by, with, through” approach to warfare. It argues that will-to-fight and skillset play important roles in US military partnerships with irregular forces. Nevertheless, these two characteristics alone cannot overcome interference by other nation-states. To be successful, these partnerships should either be limited to short-term objectives or the US and allied forces should be prepared to deter opposition to their surrogates over the medium-to-long term.

KEYWORDS:

• Proxies
• surrogates
• Islamic State
• Syria
• Libya

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not an official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term “will-to-fight” does not have a commonly-accepted definition. The US military uses this term to describe partners’ tactical resilience.

2. This dilemma became more acute after IS FTFs returned home to execute a series of attacks in Paris in November 2015, killing 129 people. US policymakers believed that they had to act soon to prevent a similar attack in the US homeland.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R. Kim Cragin

Kim Cragin is the Senior Research Fellow for Special Operations and Counterterrorism at the United States National Defense University. Her work has recently appeared in Journal of Strategic Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Terrorism and Political Violence.