Pro-Government Militias During Post-SHTF
- Samuel Culper III
(Admin Note: More and more, this blog will become less about my articles and more about snippets and small things I find along the way. We’ll be continuing to talk about Insurgency and Guerrilla Warfare. If you’re looking for How To’s and continuing education about Intelligence, head over to the The ACE, the new Intelligence blog from Forward Observer.)
I came across this article today, entitled Are Militias a Menace? It mainly focuses on pro-government militias during times of civil war abroad, however, there are some very important takeaways from this article. To wit:
The distinction between “gang” and “militia” — ties with the government
Unlike rebels or criminals, whose actions are necessarily illegal and opposed by the state, these groups enjoy semi-official or informal ties with the government.
Liberal use of state-backed militias (i.e., “gangs”) to abuse the populace and disabuse themselves of the blame
Their statistical findings (published here and summarized here) show that the appearance of militias is strongly correlated with violations of human rights, particularly when governments want to maximize harm to civilians while minimizing blame for the action of armed groups that are, ostensibly, “free agents.”
So just as a thinking point, what if the Police State recruits local-based gangs (their militias) to fight alongside the police state against an insurgency? If that becomes the case, who are the likely suspects and quislings in your AO?
Using his own dataset, Goran Peic finds that recruiting militias increases the likelihood of government victory in civil war by more than 50 percent. Jason Lyall argues that locally raised militias, as opposed to regular Russian troops, were better positioned to identify insurgents within the population and to issue credible threats against civilians for noncooperation during Russia’s highly effective – albeit brutal – counterinsurgent campaign in Chechnya.
I’ve talked a lot about the Sahawa movements and the Sons of Iraq. I was working with MNF-West when Sheikh Ahmad al-Rishawi led Mutamar Sahawa al-Iraq, which led to the “Anbar Awakening”. (We were just talking about this on the last FO Podcast last week). These Sunni tribesmen effectively spelled the end to al-Qaida in Anbar Province… until last year, that is. Who are the future pro-government “Sons of America,” if such a movement were to be created?
As violence worsened, though, new approaches had to be found. [Researchers] show that standing up the Sons of Iraq militia, coupled with the surge in U.S. troop levels, was crucial in stemming the tide against the insurgency. The militia gave Sunnis an incentive to defect from their alliances with al-Qaeda in Iraq in return for guarantees of substantial autonomy and self-governance in their home districts.
So, here’s the million dollar question: what if the Leroy Jenkins Gang was mobilized and/or armed against FREEFOR as a proxy force? What would it look like? How could it be neutralized, including all options that don’t also involve violence?