How Weak Win Wars
A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, by Ivan Arreguin-Toft
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The text discusses COIN (Counter-Insurgence) strategies and the deployment of GWS strategy (Guerilla Warfare Strategy) based on metric analysis, incorporating also historical examples. It's not meant for use in a civil conflict scenario, where loss of sanctuary and resources may be distributed equally between strong and weak actor.
So readers should detract from such statements as:
Hypothesis 4: When strong actors employ barbarism to attack weak actors defending
with a GWS, all other things being equal, strong actors should win.
Empirically tied to scenarios like the Murid War, this conclusion is based on the premise that loss of sanctuary and resources is distributed unequally in case of an invasion taking place in the proximity of the headquarter of the invading force, providing unbroken supply lines and thus basis for rapid deployment.
The use of atrocity (in the article "barbarism") as a COIN strategy (targeting non-combatants) has, as mentioned in the article, both psychological and economic effect, but the psychologicial effect may be reverse, strengthening resolve, according to Mack's principle of relative interest: (1) relative power explains relative interests; (2) relative interests explain relative political vulnerability; and (3) relative vulnerability explains why strong actors lose.
As a sidenote to the thesis of relative interest, relating to the Iranian conflict, interest cannot be said to be relative for the dominant regime, because of the national political context (civil conflict in which one party must ultimately be defeated, losing significant access to sanctuary, ressource). It has frequently been argued that offers of sanctuary will significantly diminish government resolve, but considering the indoctrination that subordination to "Western principles" is equal to death or worse, the benefit of a post-defeat absolution would not appear to have the desired impact on morale.
Halting conflict or national martyrdom
More appropriate for the Iranian civil conflict scenario is this passage:
Mack introduces the concept of political vulnerability to describe the likelihood that an actor’s public (in democratic regimes) or competing elites (in authoritarian regimes) will force its leaders to halt the war short of achieving its initial objectives.
Interest asymmetry assumes, as does the entire text in the line of Kissinger's security doctrine, which may nor may not be outdated by GWOT, that nation-state conflicts are between rational actors aiming to produce the maximum level of Security. This would appear to be the case in with Iran in the geopolitical context, but this core doctrine may crumble under the influence of irrational ideological or religious doctrine:
If the proliferation of the Islamic Revolution and, subsequently its survival against any set of options, including the obliteration of Iran as a national entity (Hitler did argue, for instance, Germany forfeited its right to existence by being defeated) the Iranian leadership would cease to act as a rational player and introduce any measure of atrocity, even such devastation of people and resources which would bring about the demise of Iran as a nation-state. Strong fundamentalists may not want to live in a post-Islamic Revolution nation-state.
Likewise, the struggle of the Iranian protesters may be seen as a struggle for survival, providing maximum resolve. Intellectuals may, accurately, perceive the prospect of the dissolution of Iran as a (powerful or united) nation-state, and as such be driven to rid themselves of the irrational doctrine of perpetual Islamic revolution in order to secure a common national entity with a paleo-Persian identity. This is an entirely different type of nationalism in which strong ties to Hamas and Lebanese Hizbullah are not essential prerequisite, but future power and regional dominance based on diversification of the economy, membership of trade alliances and a more conservative national security policy.
Translating military doctrine to non-violent GWS
Arreguin-Toft defines GWS this way:
Guerrilla warfare strategy (GWS) is the organization of a portion of society for the purpose of imposing costs on an adversary using armed forces trained to avoid direct confrontation.
Interestingly, AG perceives terrorism as an extention of GWS (not a logical or necessary extention), and you may argue in his own nomenclature that terrorism is the use of a traditional strong actor method of conducting atrocity from a weak actor position.
Again, the domestic context prevents any of the actors from gaining zero-sum victory by application of crippling strategies. Ressource and sanctuarly loss is distributed equally (if not always at a 50-50 or even assessable ratio).
This leaves two possible end goals, which determine the approaches of the actors: Consensus or consession.
The consensus-option has been abandoned by both actors. This leaves concession as the main objective for both strong actor strategy and weak actor strategy.
The immediate defeat of the protesters was foretold by many observers along the lines of Mao:
“defeat is the invariable outcome where native forces fight with inferior weapons against modernized forces on the latter’s terms.”
The opposition changed its approach to the indirect attack or at least a mixed approach in which avoidance of direct conflict and utilization of civil obedience are key strategies to weaken resolve in the ruling regime.
There is also a considerable three-way bidding for support going on:
1) Support is recruited from the Iranian elite, with Rafsanjani's clerics in Qom clearly expressing support for the opposition, while the new military-industrial complex of Iran represented by leading officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) predictably come out in full support of the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei wing.
2) Support from the Iranian public is widespread, involving what appears to be growing involvement in indirect strategies (strikes, civil disobedience, informal protests) and sanctuary (helping out wounded, providing medical aid). Reports indicate that the overall protest movement is spreading virally across Iran and occupying all sectors of society, even Basij and IRGC.
3) Support from the international community, largely facilitated by Iranian citizen reporters inside Iran and by Iranian expatriates in USA and Europe. Support is also harnessed from NGOs, such as freedom of information pirates and human rights activists. The international support for the Iranian government must be considered anemic.
The only victory is an ideological victory
As I have explained only concession constitutes a victory, and therefore both public support and international support are secondary, if not marginal, to the primary aim of the protest movement: To gain enough support from Basij and IRGC to force the dominant faction to concede.
At least theoretically you may envision a scenario where public and international support for the protesters is almost total, yet the rulers controlling the military structure maintain their claim to legitimacy authority and continue to treat open dissent as a crime against the nation or against the founding Islamic principles.
This makes the conflict an ideological battle in which the Iranian interpretation of Sharia and the goals of the Iranian Revolution are pitted against a more moderate interpretation of Islamic Law combined with a realistic assessment of economic and socio-political necessities in a modern day nation-state.
Economy and international security interests side with the protesters, and security interests include Iran's own national security - the current foreign policy is at odds with both the Arab Peace Plan for the Middle East Conflict and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agenda. Economically and socio-politically Iran is facing the same challenges and imperatives as outlined by UN in the four special reports for the Arab world.
Although standard of education and Internet penetration is generally high in Iran - which paradoxically forms the technical foundation for the green uprising - women's equality and human rights are generally deplorable, and basic civil rights have suffered during Ahmadinejad's first term and violations have become rampant in the past 3 weeks following the constested election.
The battle of Iran can only accurately be described as a cultural war in which the main weapon is that of ideology and the only critical success parameter of any of the factions is convincing the opposition of their need to switch or significantly modify their ideology. Moderation of the doctrine of Islamic revolution does not appear to be an option, and this leaves defection from ranks the only measuring unit for success.
If the Iranian government can break the conviction of a significant amount of protesters or, reversely, the protesters can make government loyalists break ranks and support the protest movement, it's game. The main ideological fuel of the government loyalists is anti-Westernism, not necessarily anti-Americanism.
The government has switched its antagonism from USA, formerly known as "The Great Satan" to Europe, namely UK, Germany and France. The fear of "Westernization" is what is pitting the Iranian hardliners against the opposition. It forms the foundation of Ahmadinejad's relative succes.
Westernization, however, is not just tied to moral relativism, but also to economic progress. The primary link between democracy, freedom of speech and increased productivity is, in simple terms, the efficiency of a decision making apparatus based on a vast heuristic process (parliamentarism) and meritocracy as opposed to feudalism, nepotism, clerical elitism.
Authoritarian regimes simply do not prosper due to the blind angles implicit in this method of governance. In a rational context the protesters will win the ideological battle any day, but when it comes to ideological resilience the revolutionary edicts of Islamism provides a much simpler framework of interpretation - and without a proactive campaign to inform - verbalizing the moral and ideological and economic and political content of the opposition - the protests may simply remain simply that: Protests.
