Multilateral Counter-Insurgency Networks

Abstract

Postmodern terrorism presents a significant challenge to global security and law enforcement institutions. Non-state actors operating across international borders, engaged in an apparent global insurgency of extremism that transects the traditional boundaries of crime and war, pose significant challenges to both intelligence and law enforcement agencies. These networked global insurgents blend political and religious fanaticism with criminal enterprises to challenge the rule of law and pose an epochal shift in the structures and relations among states. Negotiating this epochal shift requires traditional organs of national security (the diplomatic, military and intelligence services) to forge new partnerships with police and public safety organizations at the state and local (sub-national), as well as transnational levels. Significant operational, policy and cultural challenges must be overcome to forge an effective multi-lateral global network to counter global terrorism and insurgency.

Acknowledgements

This work is partially derived from John P. Sullivan, ‘Networked All-Source Fusion for Intelligence and Law Enforcement Counter-terrorism Response’, paper presented to ‘Integrating Intelligence and Law Enforcement for Homeland Security’, Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA), 2004 ISA Annual Convention, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 18 March 2004. Specific observations on the operational capacity and practices of existing counter-terrorism and insurgency efforts and nascent networks are withheld for operational security (OPSEC) purposes.

Notes

 1. Fourth generation warfare (4GW) describes an operational environment where a variety of non-state actors go beyond terrorism (which is a tactic) to challenge the nation-state. See for example, G.I. Wilson, John P. Sullivan and Hal Kempfer, ‘Fourth Generation Warfare: It's Here, And We Need New Intelligence-gathering Techniques for Dealing with It’, Armed Forces Journal International, October 2002, pp.56–62.

 2. One early analysis of the potential convergence of narcotics enterprises, terrorists and other networked actors was discussed in Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, ‘Cartel Evolution: Potentials and Consequences’, Transnational Organized Crime, Vol.4, No.2, Summer 1998, pp.55–74.

 3. See Robert J. Bunker, Five-Dimensional (Cyber) Warfighting: Can the Army After Next be Defeated Through Complex Concepts and Technologies? (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 1998) for a cogent discussion of the complexities of the evolving threat environment.

 4. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, ‘The Advent of Netwar (Revisited)’, in John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt (eds), Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), pp.7–8.

 5. The category of ‘crossovers’ was deleted. ‘Insulators’ were retained but their utility is questionable. Phil Williams, ‘Transnational Criminal Networks’, in John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt (eds), Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), pp.82–4.

 6. Richard Rothberg, ‘From the Whole Cloth: Making up the terrorist network’, Connections, Vol.24, No.3 (2002), pp.36–42.

 7. Vladis E. Krebs, ‘Mapping Networks of Terrorist Cells’, Connections, Vol.24, No.3 (2002), pp.31–4.

 8. Resources exist on the US military side. FBE Delta noted decrees in decision making, mission timeline, shooter effectiveness, assets scrambled and leaders. Fleet Battle Experiment Delta Quick Look Report, An Assessment of IT-21 Warfigting Value-Added, 1 Mar 99.

 9. See John R. Boyd, The Essence of Winning and Losing, 28 June 1995, available at ⟨http://www.au.af.mil/au.awc⟩ and John R. Boyd, Lecture, US Naval Institute Seminar, Washington, DC, September 1996.

10. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1996), p.33 and the narrative level of analysis in Table 1 of Arquilla and Ronfeldt's essay in this volume.

11. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar, p.33.

12. See Matt Begert and Dan Lindsay, ‘Intelligence Preparation for Operations’, in Robert J. Bunker (ed.), Non-State Threats and Future Wars (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp.133–43.

13. Mission Folders are incident-specific tools to assist incident commanders; they include real-time threat information and estimates, technical information and potential courses of action.

14. See Table 1 concerning the differences between these organizational forms, in Barry Wellman, ‘The Rise (and Possible Fall) of Networked Individualism’, Connections, Vol.24, No.3 (2002), pp.30–32.

15. Valdis E. Krebs, ‘Uncloaking Terrorist Networks’, FirstMonday, Vol.7, No.4, (April 2002), available at ⟨www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_4/krebs⟩.

16. Valdis E. Krebs, ‘Uncloaking Terrorist Networks’, FirstMonday, Vol.7, No.4, (April 2002), available at ⟨www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_4/krebs⟩.

17. Phil Williams, ‘The Nature of Drug-Trafficking Networks’, Current History Vol.97, No.618 (April 1998), p.156.

18. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, ‘The Advent of Netwar (Revisited)’, p.15.

19. For additional information on the prospects for the TEW model to serve as a counternetwar structure see John P. Sullivan, ‘Networked Force Structure and C⁴I’, in Robert J. Bunker (ed.), Non-State Threats and Future Wars (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp.144–58.

20. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, ‘The Advent of Netwar (Revisited)’, p.12.

21. ‘Global Guerrillas’ is one of the many emerging web ‘blog’ sites seeking to understand and navigate the changing, networked dynamics of post-modern conflict. The site carries the kicker ‘The next generation of terrorism. How it will develop and how it will be fought.’ See ⟨http://globalguerillas.typepad.com⟩.

22. Philip Bobbitt (like others) argues that an epochal shift in the organization of states is underway. Bobbitt posits that the new state form supplanting the nation-state is the market-state. Within that analysis, he sees terrorist networks (with Al Qaeda being an early example) as a malevolent form of market-state. See Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), esp. pp.820–21.

23. See Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).