The Use of Targeted Killing As An Effective Strategy in Counter Terror and Counter Insurgency Warfare

Transcription

1 Ian Henley Professor Dale December 1, 2016 The Use of Targeted Killing As An Effective Strategy in Counter Terror and Counter Insurgency Warfare Ever since the events of September 11, 2001, and even before that, the United States, along with many other nations, have been embroiled in a global conflict against an enemy which has no nation, does not wear uniforms, does not control well-defined areas of territory for long periods, and seeks to mask their communications and the identity of their supporters from outside scrutiny. This newly founded and unstructured warfare against insurgencies and terrorism has force adaptation in the way in which we conduct warfare. Among these changes is the increased and prevalent use of assassination and targeted killing. This method however has been met with a myriad of controversy, ranging from the moral implications to the practicality. This has led to the question, is the use of targeted killing an effective strategy in counter-terror and counterinsurgency warfare? Targeted killing (otherwise known as selective violence) is itself is not a new concept, it has just taken on slightly different meanings throughout history to fit the context of the current conflict. The concept itself can be worked out through common sense, however a singular, definitive definition still has yet to be decided upon by international organizations. The current loosely working definition on targeted killing is, the intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force, by States or their agents acting under colour of law, or by an organized armed group in armed conflict, against a specific individual who is not in the physical custody of the perpetrator. 1 1 Alston, P. (2010, May 28). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. United Nations General Assembly: Human Rights Council, 1-29.!1

2 The distinction must also be made between targeted killing and the opportunistic killing. In a targeted killing, the specific goal of the operation is to use lethal force, and on a specifically desired person or persons. This distinguishes targeted killings from the opportunistic, which is the unintentional, accidental, or reckless killings, or killings made without conscious choice, which is typically the classical case in warfare. 2 The United States reportedly adopted a secret policy of targeted killings soon after the attacks of 11 September It was largely conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Predator or Reaper drones, although there has been involvement by special operations forces, and of the assistance of civilian contractors with the implementation of these programs. 3 One of the first acknowledged cases of targeted killing programs on a large scale is the Phoenix program. Instituted during the Vietnam war, the CIA headed this counterinsurgency operation with the goal of converting, neutralizing, or killing the political cadres infiltrated into South Vietnam by Northern forces, ultimately resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. Retrospectively, it s been viewed as a failure due to the program not stopping the North from taking over South Vietnam, and leaving many authority figures, along with the public, concerned over the government s willingness to extrajudicially kill at such extreme levels. This particular episode ultimately led to President Ford signing an executive order banning the practice. 4 According to international law, however, in wartime it has been legal to to attack a national leader who is in the military chain of command. But in practice it has been the historical norm to look down upon such methods, so therefore states have largely refrained from such implementation. This is best highlighted through the British government in 1938, who rejected a proposal to assassinate Adolf Hitler on the grounds that it was unsportsmanlike. 5 2 Alston, P. (2010, May 28). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. United Nations General Assembly: Human Rights Council, Council of Europe, Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees Involving Council of Europe Member States, report submitted by Mr. Dick Marty, Doc Rev. (7 June 2007), paras Ignatieff, M. (2004). The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (pp ). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 5 Tannenwald, N. (2008, January). Targeted Killings: Is the Norm Against Assassination in Decline? Brown University.!2

3 Today s contemporary warfare is established around the fact that we now have to fight an enemy who is not fielded against us in any organized military structure, and is dispersed covertly throughout over sixty countries. In consideration of this there has been unprecedented advancements in the level in which targeted killing is utilized. With an overall lessening of the universal stigma once attached to the entirety of the idea, especially among American and Israeli forces. The application is no longer focused solely around high value targets, but recently rank and file members such as militants, couriers, and financiers. Some of the most notable and effective uses of targeted killing in recent years can be seen through the examples of 1) April 2002, where Russian armed forces killed rebel warlord Omar Ibn al Khattab in Chechnya. 2) November 2002, in which Al Qaeda leader Ali Qaed Senyan al-harithi, along with five other men, were killed in Yemen, reportedly by a CIA-operated predator drone. 6 3) January 2010, in an operation allegedly carried out by 18 Israeli Mossad intelligence agents, an assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud al-mahbouh, in a Dubai hotel. According to Dubai officials, al- Mahbouh was suffocated with a pillow. 7 However, state actors are not alone is this practice. Insurgencies have also been major practitioners in assassinations and targeted killings as well. For instance, Palestinian guerrillas assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Rehavam Ze evi in The IRA assassinated the British ambassador to the Hague in 1979, Lord Mountbatten in 1980, and attempted to kill Prime Minister Thatcher in And then the Taliban avidly targeted the local police forces for years before they realized that killing national army and police officers is not well received by the locals. 8 When the topic of targeted killing is brought up in discourse, it is often associated with the follow-up topic of drones and drone warfare. It s through this that a common misconception has arisen in which many believe this to be the only way in which this practice is conducted. This 6 It is worthwhile to note that this instance is the first credibly confirmed drone strike by the CIA. The target in question was allegedly directly responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole. 7 Alston, P. (2010, May 28). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. United Nations General Assembly: Human Rights Council, Gross, M. (2015). The Ethics of Insurgency: A Critical Guide to Just Guerrilla Warfare (pp ). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press!3

4 mentality couldn t be farther from the truth, with the reality being that drones alone do not have the versatility or utility to cover the appropriate spectrum of situations that are met on the battlefield. While there are several ways in which selective violence may be carried out, the two most commonly used approaches are (expectedly) through drones, as well as through special operations forces (SOF). The widespread use of these two entities have contributed to these programs in unprecedented ways which have never been seen by the world before. Drones, or more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)/ remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs), are pilotless aircraft controlled by individual operators located at control terminals on the ground, often some distance from the area where the aircraft is operating. Drones are unique in the sense that as opposed to other precision-guided munitions, they place no U.S. military personnel in direct risk of harm, and their ability to serve simultaneously as both intelligence-collection and strike platforms provides multi-faceted suitabilities. They are often brought into discussion today when concerning their newfound usefulness in government work. Reasons being that they are relatively new technology, first being utilized in combat since the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980 s, and subsequently seeing great success in the first Gulf War as reconnaissance platforms. Since then however there has been a concerning prevalence of not so clearly defined regulations, which is of concern due to the ways in which this technology completely changes the directions in which the world is, and will be operating. On the other end of the spectrum, the use of special operations forces epitomizes the idea of dirty work. Described as snake eaters with masters degrees, 9 SOF are known throughout the world as the most elite forces that any one state can bring to bear. In sum they are responsible for the majority of small scale, clandestine, covert or overt operations of an unorthodox and frequently high-risk nature, undertaken to achieve significant political or military objectives in support of foreign policy. 10 SOF have come to take on such an influential role that they have gradually developed into an indispensable component of modern armed forces outside, and separate of conventional structures and doctrine, rapidly having moved from existing on the 9 A. H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, CSIS Press, Washington, DC, 2003, p Brailey, M. (2005, November). The Transformation of Special Operations Forces in Contemporary Conflict: Strategy, Missions, Organisation and Tactics. Land Warfare Studies Centre, Retrieved from Catalyst.!4

5 fringes of traditional approaches of strategy towards being a central component of national and international security. A testament to the amount of trust and resources the United States puts into these soldiers is enormous, costing between $800,000 to $1,000,000 to fully train an SOF soldier, depending on what specific unit they re in. 11 The expansion of SOF may be attributed largely to their strategic utility, or their usefulness in providing an economy of force and an expansion of strategic choice. With the largest attributes in this strategic utility being that they are innovative, contribute to morale, showcase a force s competence, provide reassurance, humiliate the enemy, control escalation, and shape the future. 12 All providing for a strong argument in which SOF are objectively good for a military. The practice of targeted killing or selective violence has been a matter of controversy throughout history and throughout it s contemporary applications. The aggravations usually arise through two separate mediums, the morality, and the practicality of assassination based strategy. Along the lines of morality, the divisiveness centers around whether or not we are, in a sense, becoming terrorists ourselves. How do we fight a just war, and keep ourselves from being drawn over the thin line of morality by an enemy whose sole rationale is to cross that same line? Whereas the practicality component asks how we effectively confront an enemy who has redefined the concept of asymmetric warfare and cannot be overcome through conventional military tactics? In this it explores the quandary of whether selective violence is truly an effective strategy, or just complicates the world around it, creating more problems than are ultimately solved. We operate in a highly visible world, where your mistakes are visible and under close public scrutiny. The distance now between the front line where you operate, and the hometown you come from is shrinking to zero in the modern world. What is different about this asymmetric war on terrorism is that it is not about conquering territory, or taking and holding ground, it is about the business of neutralizing specific military objectives. But we are also in 11 Robert Spulak, A Theory of Special Operations: the origin, qualities, and use of SOF (SANDIA NATIONAL LABS ALBUQUERQUE NM, 2007) 12 M. R. D. Foot, Special Operations, I, in E. Elliott-Bateman (ed.), The Fourth Dimension Resistance, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1970.!5

6 the business of hearts and minds, and convincing the world that it is about holding together the moral identity and legitimacy of the command that is exercised, that we are the good guys. In this new condition we find an ever-present asymmetry of morality. We as a nation are taught to fight combatants who obey the same rules you do (i.e. the rules of the Geneva Convention and the general laws of war). But now we are dealing with people who will systematically leverage your compliance with these rules of war into an advantage for their side. So how can we uphold this image of higher level of morality when fighting against a nihilistic enemy, while simultaneously practicing assassination? The long and short of it is, ethically we cannot. Under the just war theory, what the United States military largely operates on, there are very strict guidelines under which you may selectively target someone for extrajudicial execution. The guidelines follow as such, Targeted killing is only lawful when the target is a combatant or fighter or, in the case of a civilian, only for such time as the person directly participates in hostilities. 13 Killing must be militarily necessary, the use of force must be proportionate so that any anticipated military advantage is considered in light of the expected harm to civilians in the vicinity, and everything feasible must be done to prevent mistakes and minimize harm to civilians. Reprisal or punitive attacks on civilians are prohibited. In addition, These standards apply regardless of whether the armed conflict is between States (an international armed conflict) or between a State and a non-state armed group (non-international armed conflict), including alleged terrorists. 14 The aforementioned summed up, essentially asserts that you must have exhausted all peaceful means of resolving a particular problem before you resort to military violence. These passages are largely influenced by the Just War Theory 13 Geneva Conventions Common Article 3, AP I, art. 52(1) and (2); AP I, art. 50(1); International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative, HPCR Manual and Commentary on International Law Applicable to Air and Missile Warfare, Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, 15 May 2009, available at (HPCR Commentary), section C.12.(a). 14 Alston, P. (2010, May 28). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. United Nations General Assembly: Human Rights Council, 1-29.!6

7 and are found as articles ratified within the Geneva Conventions, thereby giving legitimacy to the Just War Theory and it s criterium. 15 When given this foundation to base their arguments from, moral oppositionists are left with plenty of room to swing. Their main assertion claiming that the application of targeted killing has the effect of causing necessarily indiscriminate killings of civilians, such as those in the vicinity of a targeted person. And especially with the use of drones it is made all the more easy to kill without risk to a State s forces. Thereby, policy makers and commanders will be tempted to interpret the legal limitations on who can be killed, and under what circumstances, too liberally. This leads to the fear that this method of elimination will be seen as the easy way out. But at this point, they have become so addicted to this machine, to this way of doing business, that it seems like it s going to become harder and harder to pull them away from it the longer they re allowed to continue operating in this way. 16 This argument is bolstered by leaked documents showing that the military designated military aged males 17 killed in targeted strikes as enemy killed in action (EKIA) even if they were not the intended targets of the strike. Unless evidence posthumously surfaced, proving the males killed were not terrorists or unlawful enemy combatants, EKIA remained the designation, according to the source. 18 This smudging of records hints at the current trend and future possibility of pushing that ethical line back so far as to threaten the irreparable harm to the international legal structure designed to uphold foundational protections for the right to life and human dignity. 19 This is asymmetric conflict in every sense of the phrase. There is the asymmetry of power, in which it is the weak against the strong. The events of September 11 is probably the 15 ETHICS AND THE NEW WAR Ignatieff, M. (other). (2001). Ethics And The New War. Royal Military College; Young Memorial Lecture Scahill, J. The Assassination Complex. The Intercept, 1. Military aged males is typically in reference to the ages between 18 and 60 years old. Scahill, J. The Assassination Complex. The Intercept, 1. 19Alston, P. (2011). The CIA and Targeted Killings Beyond Borders. Harvard National Security Journal, 2, !7

8 most dramatic example in military history of a small group taking on the might of the greatest military power the world has ever known, and subjecting it to a stunning military defeat. The asymmetry of weaponry, the United States has intelligence satellites orbiting the planet, ten miles of tanks lined up at Fort Hood, five miles of warships lined up at the Navy yards in Norfolk, Virginia. And its enemies achieved the aforementioned stunning blow against the US with box cutters. 20 Finally there is the asymmetry of organization. Western nations as a whole are trained to fight wars against the armed combatants of another state. But suddenly we were engaged in a situation where we faced small, private operations. In many ways similar in organizational structure to criminal organizations. There had to be a lot of adapting to adjust to this new actuality, and targeted killing was in a large sense the answer to this. The effectiveness of selective violence was first argued as a counter to the idea that we could conduct this new type of globalized warfare in the same manner as a law enforcement agency might confront endemic crime. In the case of the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the 1998 US embassy bombings, and the 1986 bombing of American soldiers at a discotheque in Germany, international police eventually brought those responsible to justice. 21 Yet this had an absolutely zero deterrent effect. The debate then hinges on the idea that those who say that we should not go to war, that we should be handling this through an international police effort, are ignoring the pertinent fact, we tried it; it did not work. The intention behind practicing assassination is that it is all about taking the initiative, taking the fight to the enemy instead of passively waiting for the enemy to act. Without the initiative, they argue, strategists can make no decisions of their own, and instead are forced to fall back into a mode of reactionary and defensive actions, playing to the opposition s agenda. Additionally, according to Michael Gross, targeted killing has emerged as an effective means to disable non-uniformed combatants while sparing civilians many of the horrors of full-scale battle. 22 Going on to say how this policy is an essential tool for combatting non-state actors, that such killings are actually Ignatieff, M. (other). (2001). Ethics And The New War. Royal Military College; Young Memorial Lecture. Ignatieff, M. (other). (2001). Ethics And The New War. Royal Military College; Young Memorial Lecture. 22 Michael Gross, Response to Notes on Asymmetric War, CURRENT INTELLIGENCE (Feb. 2, 2011), available at

9 necessary in order to restore a certain element of equilibrium in favor of the attacking military forces that are otherwise put at such a disadvantage in an asymmetric conflict in which their opponents are non-uniformed. 23 The reason for this being that selective violence has the goal of undermining insurgent organizations ability to plan and to engage in traditional militancy, in addition to political activities. Effectively forcing militants to change their activities in ways that make it difficult for them to engage in violence. These changes consistently have indirect deterrent effects that do long-term damage to the organization s capacity to support itself. The idea that at any moment, they could be wiped off the face of the earth can deter potential recruits looking to join, and make current members of the insurgency consider more strongly the potential incentives of leaving or even defecting to the government, in order to avoid death. The effects of this will be further reinforced if the campaign of selective violence can be sustained over long periods, as the insurgency s loss of members and recruits will weaken its ability to achieve its aims and thus make it less attractive to current and potential members. 24 In the specific case of UAVs, they have become essential to the concept of selective violence over the last few years. It is important to remember that drones are a tool, not a policy. The policy is assassination. 25 Nonetheless, these tools have proved themselves as an important advance over similar forms of violence because they remove American military personnel from the immediate danger of the battlefield, and allow the collection of real-time intelligence and its integration with decision-making in launching attacks. Consequently, strikes can then be considered with all the coolness possible when one s forces are not at risk and not under pressure to strike at the moment, to take an ill-advised shot because of the human team s inability to linger 23 Michael L. Gross, Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, And Blackmail In An Age of Asymmetric Conflict (2010). 24 Walsh, J. I. (2013, September). THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DRONE STRIKES IN COUNTERINSURGENCY AND COUNTERTERRORISM CAMPAIGNS. Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, Retrieved from Vol.-2_Alston1.pdf 25 Scahill, J. The Assassination Complex. The Intercept, 1.!9

10 for hours, days, or weeks at a time to find a better moment. 26 In fact, as of the most recent estimate, the CIA s drone-based killing programs have been credited with around 2,400 kills in Pakistan alone since Providing a needed example of the scope to which this program is in use. Beyond the use of UAVs, special operations forces have played pivotal roles in the implementation of targeted killing, becoming an indispensable factor in the overall conflict. The use of SOF, strangely enough, has been absent from almost all of the general analysis of targeted killings, despite the fact that they are governed by the same rules, have led to a significant number of casualties, and were responsible for one of the most infamous examples of extrajudicial assassination, the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the singular event which truly brought them into the public spotlight. Operations like the Bin Laden mission is not an uncommon occurrence. SOF forces like the Navy SEALs do those mission incredibly frequently, conducting these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan. 28 Or, in November 2010, the New York Times cited NATO figures, ending November 11, 2010, in which Special Forces had averaged 17 missions a night, or a little over 520 night raids each month. The results cited being 368 insurgent leaders killed or captured, and 968 lower-level insurgents killed and 2,477 captured. 29 The sheer volume of the body count itself speaks volumes to the frequency in which these units operate, and just how efficient they are at what they do. The antithesis argument goes along the lines that while also having no moral justification, the use of selective violence holds absolutely no validity when it comes to it s effectiveness either. This argument is large and diverse, but one of the leading points given is that we are 26 Durante, Ruben and Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, Attack When the World Is Not Watching? U.S. News and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (September 2016). Available at SSRN: abstract= or 27 Micheal Walzer, Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare (Dissent Magazine: January 11, 2013) 28 Alston, P. (2011). The CIA and Targeted Killings Beyond Borders. Harvard National Security Journal, 2, Alston, P. (2011). The CIA and Targeted Killings Beyond Borders. Harvard National Security Journal, 2, !10

11 fighting such large and decentralized networks that they cannot be neutralized by a lethal strike on one individual, therefore the deaths of their leaders and rank-and-file members are not going to be the downfall of these organizations, due to the hypothetical events of one cell having small effects on other cells by virtue of them being only loosely tied to each other. It has also been economically argued, explaining how the war in Afghanistan has been a sinkhole in which the U.S. has poured vast resources into killing local insurgents,while only exacerbating the very threat the U.S. is seeking to confront. 30 The suggestion that selective violence only has exacerbated the current issue at hand stems from terrorist and insurgent organizations innate ability to exploit the slightest mistakes of state entities in their favor. Propaganda output is a useful tool to them for two reasons. First, the production of effective propaganda is an important objective of most terrorist groups, including al-qaeda. With many of the group s most senior leaders, including Bin Laden, repeatedly emphasizing this point. Bin Laden stating that, the media war of this century is one of the strongest methods 31 of terrorism available. Hence, any degradation of insurgent organizations caused by drone strikes is outweighed by the ability of such organizations to exploit even the smallest numbers of civilian casualties with the goals of persuading people to join or support the insurgency, by manipulating their resentment and frustration of the government. Additionally, strikes and raids, especially drones, have the capability to punish and deter insurgent organizations, but they are not an effective contribution when implemented alone to the overall establishment of effective state authority. This key objective of the whole counterinsurgency doctrine requires large numbers of ground forces and civilians to provide services to and gain intelligence from the local population. This cannot be achieved when civilians are themselves afraid of becoming unwitting victims of these actions. However, there is some concession on the other side of the argument that there may be some merit to the tactical effectiveness of these policies, especially when the combined force of 30 Scahill, J. The Assassination Complex. The Intercept, Walsh, J. I. (2013, September). THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DRONE STRIKES IN COUNTERINSURGENCY AND COUNTERTERRORISM CAMPAIGNS. Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, Retrieved from /02/Vol.-2_Alston1.pdf!11

12 UAVs and SOF are utilized together to achieve greater strategic objectives. The course of integration of SOF units working in conjunction with unmanned aerial vehicles often takes the place of needing the confirmation of the reconnaissance units in real time before a strike by the UAV is initiated, providing for greater assurances and precision in the intelligence leading up to the trigger pull. The best examples of this has been seen through the many targeted kill missions of the war in Afghanistan, but the origins of these joint capabilities derive from the now-famous Scud Hunting missions conducted by the Australian and UK Special Air Services in Western Iraq. 32 For years, the United States, along with many other nations, have been embroiled in a global conflict against an enemy which has no nation, does not wear uniforms, does not control well-defined areas of territory for long periods, and seeks to mask their communications and the identity of their supporters from outside scrutiny. Targeted killing: the intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force, has been one of the predominant answers to this asymmetric conflict, and from a purely numerical standpoint, it would appear as though targeted killing is incredibly effective. That between these specific policies and the subsequent opportunistic killings that naturally take place in any conflict, we should ve had it in the bag. However, from a strategic viewpoint, the arguments made do reveal the fallacies in these programs. Highlighting the fact that when your approach revolves around creating lists of people designated to be eliminated, then you are certain to be fighting a losing battle as you slowly but surely turn an entire populace against you. And when a successful counterinsurgency campaign hinges on the cooperation of the local population and the legitimacy of the state, then those actions can only be detrimental. In conclusion, it is safe to say that targeted killing, by itself, is not an effective strategy for counter-terror and counterinsurgency warfare. But may hold some relevance when force is employed selectively in ways that reflect solid intelligence on, and understanding of, the targeted insurgent group, and the population from which a state entity seeks to draw support. Eventually paving way for a better understanding of the limits of selective violence as to allow their use to 32 T. Ripley, Iraq s Western Desert Special Forces Playground, Jane s Defence Weekly, 9 April 2003.!12

13 be more effectively integrated with other types of military force, and tools of foreign and security policy.!13