Bill Murray from The Long War Journal has a good article about a new water distribution site in Baghdad. The $400,000 water facility will provide free water to 3,000 families and cover 60% of the need in the area. Two additional sites under construction will provide the remaining 40%. However, the most interesting fact about the facility is its location:
Water from the site, located within the walls of a US-operated Forward Operating Base, is then piped underneath the 15-foot-high reinforced concrete barriers surrounding the base to taps at a drive-through location.
In that community, Iraqis receive their water directly from a US FOB, a fact that speaks volumes about the securitization of services. Specifically, this is notable for two reasons. First, the placement of the water facility inside the FOB might very well discourage attacks, since an attack on the FOB is also, literally an attack on the community’s access to water. Second, the location gives US and Iraqi security forces full credit for providing the service. That is, the population physically visits the FOB to collect their water and knows clearly who provided it, winning hearts and minds. This point was apparently not lost on the Iraqi security forces:
As services return to the area after many years of sanctions, neglect and civil unrest, police expect increased access to information about the Shia insurgency, because the area has been a haven for arms caches and terrorist cells associated with Muqtada al Sadr’s Madhi Army and Iranian trained “Special Groups.”
Winning hearts and minds, gaining useful intelligence, and providing free, clean water to a poor community. That is a trio anyone can appreciate.
Previously, I discussed the role of providing services (health, education, sanitation, etc…) in counterinsurgency. After security, services represent a critical component in winning hearts and minds and strengthening the legitimacy of the state. With threats to personal security in Iraq on the decline (but still high), the provision of services is gaining increasing importance and this fact has not gone unnoticed by the US military.
Iraq contains a massive and intricate irrigation system of canals and pumping stations. The water it supplies and the flooding it controls are essential to the agriculturally dominated southern Iraq. Much of this canal system was left unusable after the initial 2003 invasion, either through direct damage or simply lack of maintenance. The fields the canal system supports are a sizable proportion of the Iraqi domestic economy.
The fact that a provisional reconstruction team (PRT) is repairing the irrigation canals and their pumping stations is mildly interesting, but nothing to write home about. However, what stands out is the fact that they are using a valuable security resource in an unorthodox way to do it:
In order to help the GoI monitor and maintain the canals, 2nd BCT Soldiers came up with a high-tech solution. In addition to Soldiers performing foot patrols and SoI guarding key points, 2nd BCT Soldiers regularly keep a watch on the canals with unmanned aerial vehicles.
“We’ve done this with every single canal,” Clegg said. “We had (the MoWR) supply us a map, showing the direction of flow. Then we stepped it up with UAV coverage. This actually allowed us to see where the water is flowing.” [Emphasis mine]
Clegg says the images are declassified and shown to MoRW officials every week to give them the information they need.
Simply put, the PRT is using UAV surveillance flights to monitor the status of irrigation canal flows. This is the first example I have found of UAVs being used in a non-security function to improve services to Iraqi civilians. The use of UAVs, a much prized resource amongst commanders, hints at the new importance placed on providing services (particularly water); a ’service surge’ if you will. It is also a reminder of the remarkable flexibility of the US military.
How many Iraqi insurgent attacks will occur next year causing 1 casualty? 10 casualties? 200 casualties? How many FARC attacks will occur next year causing 30 casualties? How many Tamil Tiger attacks will occur next year causing 500 casualties? One very interesting research paper just released argues it knows the answers, and finding them requires a simple number: 2.5.
The paper by Neil Johnson, Mike Spagat, Jorge Restrepo, Oscar Becerra, Juan Bohorquez, Nicolas Suarez, Elvira Restrepo, and Roberto Zarama argues modern insurgent attacks all obey the same power law. In plain english: in all modern insurgent conflict, attacks causing many casualties will occur with the same relative frequency to attacks causing few casualties. Simply by knowing the average number of attacks per year, the authors argue it is possible to predict the number of future attacks causing a certain number casualties in a future year.
Want to calculate your own predictions? It is easy: First, take the average number of attacks per year for the conflict. Second, select a level of attack deadliness (number of casualties) you want to predict. Third, plug them into the formula below.
For example, imagine a conflict with an average of 1000 insurgent attacks per year and we want to calculate how many attacks will cause 10 casualties in a future year:
The model predicts slightly over 3 attacks causing 10 casualties will occur in a one year period.
Are the authors correct? I have no idea, but it is a very interesting approach to an important question. If you want to know more, check out this Physorg article containing a link to the original paper (might be gated).
Update: Check out Drew at Zero Intelligence Agents for a more informed discussion of the paper.
Last friday at 9:30pm local time, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his vehicle at the gate of Kandahar city’s Sarposa prison. Following the blast, witnesses report 30 motorcycles entered the breach and blew a second hole in the rear wall of the prison. During the following firefight nine hundred prisoners escaped.
Colonel Thomas J. McGrath of the Afghanistan Regional Security Integration Command - South (ARSIC-South), attended a Department of Defense Blogger’s Roundtable this morning to discuss the aftermath of last week’s prison break in Kandahar. You can listen to the entire conference call here. Significant to this blog, according to Col. McGrath the prison break has had no immediate effect on humanitarian, MEDCAP, or PRT programs. That is good news, however I worry the increased Taliban presence in the region might disrupt the programs in the future. Nevertheless, Col. McGrath was confident in the ability of Afghan and Coalition forces not to be derailed by the prison break, “We are making a lot of progress here.”
We wish him luck.
While at the Naval Postgraduate School, a smart US Army civil affairs officer pointed out that Afghans’ animals are their prized possessions. The wealth of villages is easily determined by looking at the health of their livestock. Given this, the military has been running veterinary programs in Afghanistan to help win over hearts and minds. Not a bad idea at all. Recently, I stumbled upon a program which hints at an expansion of this practice into Africa:
US military forces have launched a veterinary project in Gulu and Amuru displaced persons’ camps that aims to vaccinate 12,000 cattle and 130,000 goats over the next month. The US team, working with the Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture, will be treating the livestock free of charge.
This is the type of program I love to see. Winning hearts and minds through applying US power to health, even if it is for animals. The operations are low cost (relative to combat), cause positive “collateral damage”, and attack the social networks which breed political / religious radicalism.
Small Wars Journal has a good piece by MountainRunner on in-sourcing national power. Here is the gist of the argument:
The U.S. needs to take a systematic, holistic “whole of government” approach to reconstruction and stabilization that puts the focus on meeting the basic needs of the people in these countries. This shouldn’t be about what the U.S. needs or wants, but what the people of the country in question need and want. Basically, when people are safe, secure, full (not hungry), engaged and comfortable, they have no need to fight or support terrorists. Terrorists work by instigating and sustaining instability, fear, and discomfort (disillusionment) and if the USG fights buys-in to this approach by fighting back with hard-power only, it just perpetuates the cycle.
Matt’s analysis is spot on. Rupert Smith’s “wars amongst the people” and Mary Kaldor’s “new wars” cannot be won by the pointy end of the spear (read: military force) alone. Modern conflict requires a human security perspective where victory is obtained more through civilian programs than military operations. A force prepared for these wars needs more than just boots on the ground, but also wingtips (diplomatic), booties (health), steel-toes (engineering), and Birkenstock (NGOs). The military component of such a force does not seek victory through the destruction of the enemy (impossible in modern conflict) but simply provides the security and stability necessary for the civilian / political components to achieve a sustainable, successful outcome.