On The Lookout

Some items of interest looking ahead to 2010:

Fort Hood Attack - It should not come as a surprise that Nidal Malik Hasan had clear associations with al Qaeda nor should it come as a surprise that the US Intelligence Community (IC) knew about these associations and chose not to act against him.  In this case, there are only two explanations for the actions of the IC - first, it was simply systemically incompetent and dismissed the potential danger of Hasan, which is not the case.  Second, the IC was waiting to let Hasan develop closer and more meaningful ties with al Qaeda in order to utilize him as an asset to potentially penetrate more intricately into the group's network.  This seems the more likely scenario.  This is an example of the dangerous game played by clandestine intelligence organizations, sometimes innocent people lose their lives when the organization possessed information that could have possibly prevented it from happening.  At this point, the IC must understand that the suicide attack by Hasan was not a case of a specifically targeted al Qaeda plan but rather the actions of a lone grassroots jihadist intent on fulfilling the general guidelines of the al Qaeda brand; namely, to act in accordance with the overall goals and objectives of the al Qaeda ideology.  Why this should not come as a surprise is that the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said as much in an October 12th interview with Bloomberg.  This means that these kinds of events will begin to happen more often in the United States as a result of the evolution of al Qaeda beyond a transnational militant organization to a global ideology of resistance and jihadagainst the West and, ultimately, the United States.  The IC labels actors like Hasan "lone wolves" but this may not be fitting.  He may better be identified as an "inspired jihadist", an individual that the will likely begin to appear more often in American society, with similarly tragic consequences.  That this would occur was inevitable as the United States reacted to the 9/11 attacks by launching wars throughout the Muslim world and providing proving and training grounds for tens of thousands of Islamic warriors that will continue to disperse al Qaeda ideology, expertise and commitment throughout the world.  For some stark insight on this development, visit Bill Lind's post at Defense and the National Interest.

Venezuela Prepares for War - It looks like Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is using the skirmish along the border with Colombia as an excuse to prepare Venezuela for war.  Considering the revelations that Hezbollah militants are entrenched in Venezuela, Chavez is making serious commitments to Iran  and US troops will be stationed in Colombia in larger numbers in 2010, any military action should be taken seriously.  When this is coupled with the stance that FARC has taken against the Colombian government regarding its base deal with the United States and the very likelihood that FARC is likely to increase activity against Bogota, the potential is real that the current Colombia-Venezuela border spat could escalate into a much more complex and irritating regional skirmish.  With larger actors and transnational non-state actors involved in the region, this is a development that should garner more significant attention in the year ahead.  For some additional insight into this complex development, read through Douglas Farah's blog.

Manhunting Teams- This latest development in US National Security doctrine may be one of the most revealing indicators that 21st century warfare and conflict is shifting away from large-scale head-to-head combat between large state actors and is settling into a sub-state, network-centric form of asymmetrical conflict.  A new report issued by the Joint Specials Operations University by George A. Crawford, "Manhunting:  Counter-Network Organization for Irregular Warfare," argues for the development of independent manhunting teams designed for "the deliberate concentration of national power to find, influence, capture, or when necessary kill an individual to disrupt a human network."  According to Crawford, these teams need to be able to act independently for as long as necessary.

Rather than an ad-hoc task force in the nature of the current law enforcement, Intelligence Community, or DoD operations, manhunting teams would be standing formations, trained to pursue their designated quarry relentlessly for as long as required to accomplish the mission.  In cases where action must take place in uncooperative countries, it may be necessary for teams to act unilaterally, with no support or coordination with local authorities, in a manner similar to that employed by Israel's Avner team in response to the Munich Olympics massacre.

Crawford further explains that the adoption of manhunting teams is crucial for the future of American armed conflict and national security.  His analysis is that today's security and conflict spectrum requires precision in lethality and manhunting teams offer the United States a realistic strategic mechanism to engage and disrupt enemy networks.

For the first time in human conflict, political willingness to consider preemptive action against an individual or network offers national security planners the option of bypassing force-on-force engagement. In the battle of the future, America’s national security apparatus might specifically affect the root cause of a problem—an individual leader or the network of key people who surround him. In any future conflict where America is threatened by a network of individuals, it is theoretically possible to identify and target the key nodes in that human network, wielding all elements of national power—diplomatic, intelligence, military, economic, financial, information, and law enforcement—in order to disintegrate the targeted network.  If the network of individuals cannot function, their cumulative effort loses coherence and is rendered impotent. The components of the network then become vulnerable to nonlethal influence or physical attack.

This is an illuminating report and one that unequivocally represents an evolutionary movement in national security doctrine based on evolution of warfare and conflict in the 21st century.