Iraq's new Civil War - Why Detention Matters.

Background

The past week has been interesting for me, sitting on the sideline and reading about detainees in Iraq.  The leader of the ISIS group that took over Mosul was released from Bucca in 2009.  The stories that are coming out about him now are primarily about how no one knows much about him.  The latest revelation is that he made a remark to the US soldiers releasing him to the effect that he would "See them in New York." That is a bit ominous given the stature of his group.  He is now the prime target of US forces. (See the following story for more background.)

My interest in this story comes from many sources. First, the news that Mosul had fallen deeply saddened me.  I was in Mosul from April to October 2003. I was stationed at the airfield there and worked as the leader of a Tactical Human Intelligence Team gathering information on threats to US forces and Iraqis in the area.  Mosul was very stable and pleasant during my time there. Mosul was the success that General Petraeus would capitalize on in his meteoric rise over the next decade.

Second, my next tour to Iraq in 2007-08 was to Camp Bucca.  Camp Bucca during the height of the surge was a contradiction.  It was an overcrowded mess (more than 25,000 detainees) of a camp that was simultaneously growing with the influx of detainees and working to reform the system to release them.  We hit a period of growth, and then the releases started.  The camp was run using doctrines from U.S. military incarceration, US Prisoner of War procedures, and a smattering of counterinsurgency.  The counterinsurgency aspects were taking root as we arrived.

Third, I have written on the subject of detention academically - and am one of the few political science scholars to do so. It is an area that has lacked attention in the past, but which now may become more obvious as a key aspect of conflict resolution, policy-making, and strategy.

Flawed System

One of the first papers I wrote as a graduate student dealt with the issue of releasing prisoners from detention centers.  The logic of the paper was simple. If detainees are properly classified using intelligence, the release of less dangerous detainees is sound policy.  However, the less certain we become about the classification of detainees, the more dangerous detainees will be released back into the fight.  This is a fairly obvious point, but it was made with my own personal experience in trying to classify detainees at Camp Bucca.  The fact is that we were not good at initially identifying dangerous detainees or updating our files through continued intelligence activities.

That is why I was unsurprised by the quotes of the commanding officer who was in charge of the facility when Baghdadi was released.  He says of the ISIS leader: 

"He didn't rack up to be one of the worst of the worst," said Col. Ken King, who oversaw Camp Bucca in 2008 and 2009. 

Baghdadi may have tried to manipulate other detainees or instigate reactions from the guards, but he knew the rules well enough not to get in serious trouble. 

"The best term I can give him is savvy," said King, who first spoke to the Daily Beast. 

The colonel recalled that when Baghdadi was turned over to the Iraqi authorities in 2009, he remarked, "I'll see you guys in New York," an apparent reference to the hometown of many of the guards. 

"But it wasn't menacing. It was like, 'I'll be out of custody in no time,'" King said.

The description of the detainee is one who knew that the Americans were easily manipulated by those who played lip service to the rules of the camp.  His probing and manipulation are skills that he certainly honed while in custody.  Camp Bucca was described at one point as a training ground for Jihadists.  The half-measures taken by US forces in 2007-08 were not enough to really identify the smartest of the hard-core jihadists.  We essentially created a Darwinian system where those with enough savvy to avoid detection could increase their skills.

The time to solve the crisis in Iraq has passed.  Bucca is closed, the US doesn't have troops on the ground. However, we do have the ability to patch some of these flaws before our exit in Afghanistan, and to learn from them for our next wars.

Naked Self Promotion

One place to start is by committing more intelligence resources to detention facilities. This needs to be coupled with a change in the way that we collect and analyze intelligence from such facilities. I made this recommendation in an article last year.

Willardson, Spencer. “Strategic Intelligence During Coin Detention Operations – Relational Data and Understanding Latent Terror Networks.” Defense & Security Analysis 29, no. 1 (2013): 42–53.

I also have a working paper about the Surge in Iraq that details why the process of detention was important in separating the Sunnis and Shiites and ending the first Civil war.  If you are interested in the latest version of this paper, please email me. 

Finally, I have a database with detainee stats from Iraq from early 2003 through the beginning of 2009. These data come from some Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that I made.  A description of the data can be found on my website. LINK.

Kazakh Arms Imports Visualized (Part 1)

I thought it would be fun to put together a graph that shows the arms suppliers for Kazakhstan in 2013 in a network form.  The data come from SIPRI and I put them into a simple association matrix.  I used the R Statnet package to make the data a network, and then just used plot features in R to make the graph look a little nicer. I think that this is a fun little visualization of where these arms are coming from.  Here's the graph:

The code to do this is pretty straightforward.  If you want the data in the text format, please email me.  The code is pasted below using "Pretty R."

library(statnet)
supplier <- read.table("supplier.txt")
kasnet2013.m <- as.matrix(supplier)
kaznet2013 <- as.network(kasnet2013.m,matrix.type="adjacency", directed = T)
 
vertsize <- supplier$Kazakhstan*.05+1
png("Kazakh_imports2013.png", height = 8, width=11, units="in", bg="transparent",
    res=600)
plot(kaznet2013, displaylabels=TRUE, displayisolates = FALSE,
     vertex.col=c("gray","gray","red","gray","gray", "red","sienna4"),
     vertex.cex = vertsize,
     main=list("Kazakstan Arms Suppliers 2013", col="sienna4"),
     sub=list("Size of Vertex represents Value of Arms from Country",
              cex= .9, col="sienna3"))
 
mtext("Data from SIPRI TIV Database", side = 2, cex=.75, col="dimgray")
dev.off()

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org

2013 Arms Imports into Former Soviet States

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has updated its arms transfer data for 2013.  I haven't worked much with arms transfer data since I completed my dissertation a year ago.  However, I recently accepted a job as an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nazarbayev University (Link) and am looking to begin some projects on arms and security in the area.  As a kind of preliminary step in this endeavor I thought I'd play around with some of the SIPRI data while I'm on spring break at UNLV.

I am also teaching a course on research methods in political science this semester.  I am teaching our political science students to do statistical analysis in R.  I am learning a lot myself and am forcing myself to use it rather than STATA - which is my go-to statistical and graphing package.

My first plot is a simple bar chart showing the value of arms imports (major weapons systems) into former Soviet states during 2013.  One interesting aspect is that there are only six states that received arms during this year.  Azerbaijan is also off the charts compared to the other states on the list.  I am also posting my R code to make this chart as well as a link to the csv file that I used as a data source.  I made the R code look good using "pretty R".

# Examine 2013 SIPR Export Data
#setwd() #uncomment and use this command to set your working directory to the folder
  #where you downloaded the csv file to.
imports_fsu_2013 <- read.csv("imports_fsu_2013.csv")
as.numeric(imports_fsu_2013$Imports) #make the Imports column numeric
 
mean_import <- mean(imports_fsu_2013$Imports) # generate mean value
 
png("fsu_imports.png", height = 8, width=11, units="in", bg="transparent",
    res=600)
 
barplot(imports_fsu_2013$Imports,
        names.arg = imports_fsu_2013$Country,
        main=list("Military Imports into Former Soviet Countries 2013 \n in Millions $US", 
                  cex=1.1),
        ylab="Millions $US",
        xlab=list("Importing Country", font=2),
        col = "sienna4")
 
abline(h=mean_import, lty=3, col="black")
text(4,192, "Mean Value of imports to Former Soviet States in 2013", cex=.75)
mtext("Data from SIPRI TIV Database", side = 1, cex=.75, col="dimgray")
 
dev.off()

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org

Just an update on R coding

I'm teaching an introduction to political analysis course at UNLV this spring.  I have gone out on a limb and am teaching the students R instead of STATA or SPSS.  I am more familiar with STATA, but do my network analysis work in R.  I am trying to become more proficient.  I had a problem with a project I am working on - trying to count the number of rivalry ties that a state has in any given year. Normally I would do this in STATA, but I decided to give it a whirl in R.  After two hours and numerous "googlings" I have produced the code to give me the count for each year of my data.  The code looks like this:

for(i in 1816:2010){
  fp <- file.path("network", paste("net", i, ".txt", sep = ""))
  outcount <- file.path("count", paste("count", i, ".csv", sep=""))
 
  file <- read.table(fp)
  #sum row - this is the number of out ties by a state
  count.row <-rowSums(file, na.rm=FALSE, dims=1)
  count.col <- colSums(file, na.rm=FALSE, dims=1)
  comb.ties <- cbind(count.row, count.col)
  total.ties <- rowSums(comb.ties, na.rm=FALSE, dims=1)
  write.csv(total.ties, file= outcount, row.names = TRUE)  
}

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org

The data come from text files with a network matrix (sociomatrix) for the states involved in the international system.  I use these to examine network characteristics in other contexts.  Here, I have just used them as matrices and have used the summing features to get both the outgoing ties, states that identify others as rivals, and in ties, those that identify the state as rivals.  These are combined and summed for a total.  The total is then exported to a CSV file that can be used in other contexts.  It's blunt force, and perhaps inelegant, but it's mine!

A quick review of "The Beijing Consensus" and Central Asia

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to read the Beijing consensus to see what it said about the role of China in Central Asia.  The answer is that it depends.  There is very little in the book that talks about the region.  In fact there were only two or three mentions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at all - and these were really just in passing.

The more complicated answer is that the overall thesis of the book is about the ways that Beijing is circumventing the west's ideal of linking liberal economies with liberal polities.  The appeal of the China model is great for the autocratic rulers in the Central Asian states who face some similar issues as the Chinese. The primary motivator for these states is a need for stability.  This is shared by all the states in the region.  China and Russia are at the top of the list of states that have based their foreign policy on the stance that internal stability is the trump card.

For leaders around the world that look at the aftermath and continuing problems of the Arab Spring and the Euromaiden revolution brewing in Ukraine, the ideal of stability is attractive. The adherence of these states to the Westphalian ideal of sovereignty is a key to understanding Russian foreign policy and its positions in the UN.

This book is an important read for those that are interested in nuanced narratives of the way the world works.  It is important for reminding academics and policy wonks alike that there is a competing market in the world for ideas, and that there are powerful states that are backing a different set of ideas and ideals.

Central Asia and China - Research Note and Questions

Questions

I am beginning an interest in security issues in Central Asia.  I am interested in a few aspects of security.  The first is the continued existence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its future.  How does a a treaty organization with two great powers that have traditionally been enemies work out?  What are the consequences of China's growing economic ties and Russia's historical ties to the area?  I am also fascinated by the fact that India is a member of the organization, but is a democracy.  How will the organization hold up in the long-term, and what shape will it take if it does survive?

Central Asia as Cake

Some of these questions are brought up in an article on the RFE/RL site:
General Liu Yazhou of China’s People’s Liberation Army perhaps summed up China’s interest in Central Asia best when he said, “Central Asia is the thickest piece of cake given to modern China by the heavens.” 

Central Asia’s energy resources -- oil, natural gas, uranium -- are the cake.
China needs these resources to fuel its economic growth and Beijing is seeking them everywhere in the world. 

But why send oil tankers half way around the world when Central Asia has numerous pipelines, railways and roads are being constructed, largely with Chinese money. All that can bring oil, gas, uranium, and various minerals from Central Asia to China. And the Chinese loans that the Central Asian governments are accepting to develop their oil and gas fields and build the infrastructure needed to export these resources to China are in fact pre-payment for goods to be received later.

Link to full article

The article goes on to downplay the potential expansionist/empire building motivations for China. One key portion of this argument is that China has enough problems within its own borders without expanding them and inviting further unrest. The article also notes that Russia's continued interest in - and support of the military forces of states in the region (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) make it unlikely that China will be able to military dominate the region.

Exercising Restraint

One interesting aspect of the SCO is that its mission has remained defensive.  The organization won't take over security aspects of Afghanistan with the withdrawal of NATO, for example (RIA Novosti). This fits with Russia's own policy urging restraint in the internal matters of other states.

China's own foreign policy of engaging with dictators has not been going well either. States such as Sudan and Venezuela are becoming less stable and less attractive as economic partners.  As Zachary Keck argues in the Diplomat:

This underscores, however, that far from being a strength, China’s dictatorship diplomacy is a sign of its weakness. Because China entered the globalization game relatively late, almost all the most attractive economic partners already had strong and long-standing ties to Western nations. As a result, China to some degree has simply had to settle for the more problematic nations that the West refused to deal with. This inevitably required taking on more risk, and this risk has not paid off for China. Indeed, in the course of just a few short years China’s dictatorship diplomacy has virtually imploded all over the globe.

I have more questions than ideas about security in Central Asia right now, but I am starting a reading list. The first book I have on there is The Beijing Consensus.


See it on Amazon

If you have other books you recommend, please leave them in the comments! 

The Syria Squeeze: What will US Involvement mean for US-Russian Relations?

This post is in response to a question from a friend on Facebook.  He asks:

Excuse me, Dr. Willardson, but I would be very interested to hear your opinion on Syria, their relationship with Russia, and the potential consequences if the US decides to take military action.

That is an excellent question, and one which bears thinking about in general.  Syrian intervention is not something that the US public is really pushing for.  There is a great interview with a scholar, Matthew Baum, about the public's reluctance to enter the conflict.  I recommend that you read the entire interview if you are interested in the effects of public policy on presidential decision-making in these cases.

Matt Baum: I think that the fact that the polls say Americans are wary in Syria does not mean all that much. If the Obama administration is able to do something that has a decisive effect, they will look like heroes. And if they look impotent in their use of military force, it will rebound against them. But the polling numbers showing American reticence, as of right now, doesn’t add up to much, because it’s really not a salient issue. It’s not enough to look at the numbers of people opposing intervention; you have to look at how much people care and at this point it isn’t very high on the list, as of today. That can change if things escalate and it starts to look like a “real” war, as opposed to Libya — which was obviously real if you were there — but from the United States the perspective was that no Americans were on the ground and no American planes were being shot down. If Syria looks like that, the pubic won’t get all that engaged. It would potentially be a foreign policy success for the Obama administration, though coming awfully late, after a lot of horrible things have happened there. But if it doesn’t go well and America is gradually sucked in — throwing good resources after bad — eventually it could become a big political liability, and you could get significant public engagement. This could have happened in Afghanistan, too, if more Americans started getting killed. But it hasn’t escalated in that way.

Read the entire interview here: http://journalistsresource.org/skills/research/syria-intervention-public-opinion-research-chat-harvard-matt-baum

So this is one strand to the discussion.  Why are we threatening to intervene in the first place?

A second strand of the discussion is one that I hadn't considered until I saw this piece on Lawfare earlier today - that is the issue of the president actually overstepping his constitutional bounds to involve U.S. troops in the conflict. Jack Goldsmith argues that to commit forces to Syria without Congressional approval in this case pushes presidential power further than it has been pushed in other conflicts - even Kosovo and Libya. Here is a salient portion of his argument:

There are many reasons why it is a stretch even under OLC precedents.  The main ones, as I alluded to a few days ago, are (1) neither U.S. persons nor property are at stake, and no plausible self-defense rationale exists; (2) the main non-self-defense U.S. interest that the Commander in Chief has invoked since the Korean War to justify unilateral uses of force – upholding the integrity of the U.N. Charter – appears (as Wells argued) to be disserved rather than served by a military strike in Syria; and (3) a Syria strike would push the legal envelope further even than Kosovo, the outer bound to date of presidential unilateralism, which at least implicated our most important security treaty organization commitments (NATO).

Read the entire piece here (it's worth it!): http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/why-doesnt-president-obama-seek-congressional-approval-for-syria/

So now that I have talked about the U.S. side of the equation, let's get to the Russian side.   On the Russian side there are three considerations that are at play here:

1. Precedent 
2. Interests
3. Pride/prestige

Precedent

Russia has not been happy with the Arab Spring and the response by the West in general.  Moscow tends to take a dim view of protesters (See the issue with the Pastafarians in St. Petersberg in the last week) in general.  Protesters that turn violent and try to overthrow the government are even worse.  The Russian government prizes stability over nearly everything else - and so movements that threaten regimes are seen as dangerous.  This is true even for democratic movements such as the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that led to governments that were less friendly to the Russian state. Russia is unhappy that the U.S. and NATO coalition supported protesters and rebels against Qaddafi in Libya and at the vacuum of stability that has created.  This leads to the second point -

Interests

Russia has interests in Syria. I have written about some of those interests in a post a couple of years ago (Link).  These interests are both commercial (arms sales, technical assistance, etc.) military (advising - leading to more equipment sales) and strategic. Russia's only foreign naval post is located in Syria.  Russia's ability to project power in a region where it was once very influential - a region just outside the "near abroad" where Russia's influence is still strong - is seen as damaging to the state's geopolitical position.

Prestige

Finally there is the issue of prestige.  Russia allowed itself to be taken out of the discussion by abstaining in the security council vote on Libya.  That gave NATO and the U.S. a free pass to operate. In the case of Syria Russia has actively opposed moves in the security council to pass resolutions on Syria.  If the U.S. acts in Syria it will be truly unilateral, and in direct opposition to what Moscow wants.  Even if Russia is not the superpower it once was, the leaders of the state are upset when they are railroaded in international affairs.  U.S. action in Syria will be such an act.

So what are the consequences of such action? I don't know.  It will definitely increase the tension between the two states, but as far as concrete retaliatory action, I am not sure. I anticipate that Russia will take an even more active role in opposing U.S. actions in all spheres.  Active opposition by Russia in matters of trade, security, and finance would be very damaging.