The Fletcher School

Richard H. Shultz, Jr. (Director of the International Security Studies Program), Douglas Farah (former Washington Post correspondent and West Africa Bureau Chief) and Itamara Lochard (Fletcher PhD Candidate) identify and analyze the role of armed groups in the 21st century in a recently published monograph titled: "Armed Groups:  A Tier-One Security Priority". It was published by Institute for National Security Studies  http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss Colorado:  USAF Academy, September 2004.

The three authors  indicate that to survive and protect themselves, states must change how they deal with this threat because a) some of these groups have  undergone a profound transformation and now pose a long-term  threat of the highest order;  and b) the proliferation of armed groups shows no sign of dissipating.

However, they argue that understanding armed groups requires sophisticated tools for  differentiating between and among them, as well as for constructing  and monitoring systematic profiles of how they organize and  function.  Such profiles can serve to guide the ways in which states’  intelligence and security services plan and conduct operations  against or in support of them and serve as the basis for developing intelligence and  special operations options—political, psychological, economic, and  paramilitary—for responding to and degrading armed groups.  They  can likewise be used to determine whether and how to assist other  armed groups that can help facilitate American foreign policy  objectives.

Shultz, Farah and Lochard provide an analytical framework for producing  such assessments:  First, they outline the post-Cold War security context in which armed groups thrive.  Second, the  direct and indirect threats posed by armed groups today and their  strategic impact on the United States is highlighted.  Third,  an analytic  framework for constructing an operational profile of an armed  group is provided in a four-by-six matrix for group analysis.  Fourth,  they suggest significant geographic regions of danger where  these groups can thrive without effective controls.  Fifth, rends that demonstrate that  armed groups will continue to pose direct and indirect security challenges to the United States in the decades ahead are identified.  They conclude by suggesting how the intelligence and operational communities must  adapt to effectively counter this rising and significant threat.

This analysis was prepared as part of the “Armed Groups  Intelligence Project” of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence  (CSI).  The Consortium was established in 1979 as a project of the  National Strategy Information Center, a nongovernmental,  nonpartisan research and policy center in Washington, DC.  For  twenty-five years the primary mission of CSI has been to identify  appropriate intelligence practices for democracy.  It also has  promoted teaching and research on intelligence in a democratic  society at the college and university levels.  In the aftermath of 9/11, there is broad recognition that the  intelligence community, despite significant changes, requires major  reforms to address new challenges.  Among the most important are  those posed by non-state armed groups, to include terrorists,  guerrillas, militias, and organized criminal gangs.

CSI’s Armed  Groups Intelligence Project focuses directly on this aspect of  intelligence reform.  The Consortium seeks to conceptualize a new  intelligence model and identify effective intelligence practices to  respond to major security challenges posed by these non-state  armed groups.  To do so, CSI is conducting research to draw on the  professional experiences of former senior members of intelligence/  security services and former leaders of armed groups on three  continents.  Its findings and recommendations will be drafted later  this fall.

INSS, the publisher, is primarily sponsored by the National Security Policy  Division of the Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate,  Headquarters US Air Force (HQ USAF/XONP), and the Dean of  the Faculty, USAF Academy.  Other sponsors include the Secretary  of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the Defense  Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); the Air Force Information  Warfare Center (AFIWC); the Army Environmental Policy Institute  (AEPI); the United States Northern Command/North American  Aerospace Defense Command (NORTHCOM/NORAD); and the  United States Military Academy Combating Terrorism Center  (CTC).  The mission of the Institute is “to promote national security  research for the Department of Defense within the military  academic community, to foster the development of strategic  perspective within the United States Armed Forces, and to support  national security discourse through outreach and education.”  Its research focuses on:  arms control and strategic security;  counterproliferation and force protection; homeland defense,  military assistance to civil authorities, and combating terrorism; air  and space issues and planning; information operations and warfare;  and regional and emerging national security issues.  INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various  disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for  defense policy making.  To that end, the Institute develops topics,  selects researchers from within the military academic community,  and administers sponsored research.  It reaches out to and partners  with education and research organizations across and beyond the  military academic community to bring broad focus to issues of  national security interest.  And it hosts conferences and workshops  and facilitates the dissemination of information to a wide range of  private and government organizations.

Article by Itamara Lochard PhD Candidate