Schneier on Security

Skeptical • March 21, 2015 3:10 PM

@Coyne: lol

Generally:

The paper is good. In addition to Schneier’s links, for background on this type of analysis of terrorist organizations, an excellent and fascinating read is Jacob Shapiro’s The Terrorist’s Dilemma.

Actually, that book may shed some light here.

The terrorist’s dilemma is one of control vs. security (the insight is not original to Shapiro, but he develops it very impressively – it’s worth reading for anyone interested in understanding the problem of terrorism).

Control: there are organizational benefits associated with hierarchical control. These range from ensuring that funds are used as efficiently as possible (e.g. if 800 Kr. are handed out to an operative or unit, a total lack of accountability increases the chances that the operative or unit will use some of the funds for personal, rather than organizational, ends), to directing efforts towards operations that best achieve the organization’s strategic objectives.

Security: communication, stored information, prior training, close association, all reduce security for the terrorist.

These two desired qualities are at odds with one another. To maintain control and accountability, leadership needs to communicate with operatives. Operatives need to account for what they’re doing, what they’re spending, etc. But every communication is an opportunity for compromise.

Shapiro actually raises in his book the possibility that reducing control (by killing leadership, by reducing their ability to communicate, etc.) might actually spark an increase in less discriminate violence by operatives. One factor may be that, in the context of terrorism, those operatives most likely to volunteer for violent, high-risk operations are also those operatives most likely to be familiar with the use of violence in other contexts, or to themselves be attracted to the use of violence in itself. Another may be greater difficulty faced by these operatives in understanding the strategic picture while locked into a paranoid world of threats and targets.

The above is a simplification of a much more complex array of considerations and arguments. But it’s all strongly supported with documentary evidence and other forms of argument, from the struggles of early 20th century anarchist and communist groups to the various components of the IRA to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The paper provides some level of additional confirmation of this line of argument, though I’d want to read it more closely again. Good link.

All that said, the real crux of the paper’s argument is that the targeting of civilians can be a proxy for target discrimination generally. More target discrimination -> less targeting of civilians. But to the extent an organization’s strategy calls for the targeting of civilians as such, that goes out the window.

A few comments have mentioned 9/11. Viewed in terms of target discrimination, it was actually highly selective. They did not aim simply to maximize casualties, but chose targets for their perceived military, economic, and psychological value as well. As Shapiro – I believe – points out in his work, the key operatives used in 9/11 were well screened by AQ, carefully selected, trained, and received continued funding and instructions over the course of years. Without the control structures in place, ranging from training camps to a network of financing and communication, an operation like 9/11 would be even more difficult to accomplish.

Also mentioned but dismissed in the paper is the LeT attack on Mumbai in 2008. Although the author notes that the leader of LeT attempted to ascribe the attack to “rogue elements,” in fact that attack was well controlled from a communications center in Pakistan, and the operatives involved all received extensive training. Tactically it was a well planned operation with tight control from a leadership structure (also a horrifying and disgusting operation). This would be another example where, if the organization’s strategy is to attack civilians, then civilian deaths are a poor proxy for target discrimination.

@Clive re UAVs/”drones” & Vietnam: Obviously any party to a conflict will want to limit their own casualties, and to the extent UAVs simply extend the range and increase the precision of fire, the rationale for drones is as old as war itself.

Skeptical • March 22, 2015 12:34 AM

@Clive: Until just a hundred years ago the aim of war was to seize land and resources by what essentialy was still close quaters warfare. The party initiating a war would make a calculation as to “acceptable losses -v- prize won”. Whilst minimizing one’s own losses was one of the desirable outcomes it was usually not as high a priority as maximizing your opponent’s losses. Hence the reason for the use of overwhelming or better trained and equiped armed forces in set piece battles.

It depends on the war. During the American Revolutionary War, the primary goal of General Washington was simply avoid the destruction of the Continental Army. His strategy was as much political as military.

Napoleon, with his ability to raise immense armies, and a strategy that called for closing with the enemy at the point of greatest advantage for a decisive, if incredibly costly, battle. His strategy and tactics were designed for his particular strengths and wekanesses, as were those of Washington.

From Napoleon’s perspective, certainly, the objective was to close with and destroy enemy forces. But from Washington’s perspective, the objective was to survive until other events would force a British withdrawal. War rationally conducted is always merely a continuation of policy by other means – it may involve conquest, self-defense, etc.

However the Boer war that gave us the wrist watch was an interesting example of asymmetric irregular warfare.

I agree.

Where very small numbers of Boers who were highly skilled at long distance riflemanship used hit, hide and run tactics against numerically superior and better armed regular forces, similarly were the tactics of the native Americans against the European invaders. In both cases it was the deep knowledge of the land and how to use it to advantage that alowed very small numbers to fight an overwhelming force to a stand still. The simple idea was that you would kill an opposition soldier and retreat out of harms way, and repeat this at odd times thus grinding numericaly superior forces down by maximising their losses with little thought about your own losses.

The last part is incorrect. You cannot give “little thought to your own losses” if you have limited manpower and are facing a numerically superior enemy. Everything is relative.

UAV’s don’t necessarily bring extended range,

They certainly do over many other weapons.

and don’t bring anywhere near the same fire power or accuracy of maned platforms.

Firepower yes, accuracy… I don’t think that’s the case any longer. At this point they can fire munitions that will penetrate a building to a particular location, detonate in a particular room, and manage to confine the lethal radias to that room, for the most part. Pretty remarkable.

The only real advantages are no armed forces to be captured if UAV’s are downed and that the expensive pilots can do shift work in Nevada flying multiple on target missions in one shift, whilst less valuable ground forces near target push the UAV platforms up on auto pilot to be taken over by the Nevada jocks as and when they get on target.

UAVs enable persistent aerial coverage of an area unrestricted by the endurance of a particular pilot, and they can be deployed without the need to consider the contingencies of SAR operations. These are fairly important advantages.

Before the real involvement of science in WWI nearly all battles were fought at close quaters. WWI was odd because it was the first war to seriously “dig in” in trenches and use the “magic of science to design new war engines and munitions, nearly all of which were permanantly baned by international commities.

Well… no, I wouldn’t go that far. The Russo-Japanese War saw trench warfare and the type of immense bombardments later experienced in WW1 in Europe. Indeed, European observers at the time wrote of the absolutely remarkable fortitude of the Siberian troops who, through the use of deep trenches, manage to survive (God knows in what condition) unbelievably heavy fires from the Japanese, while inflicting grievous casualties upon Japanese forces as they launched offensives against the Siberian position.

In fact, the combination of the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War led to a vehement debate as to the proper tactics to use, with far more suitable techniques being adopted at one point – and then unfortunately dropped under pressure from the old guard, who considered “fighting morale” the key factor in achieving victory, resulting in the utterly and inhumanely absurd formations utilized.

Indeed, the American Civil War also involved the use of elaborate fortifications (up to that point, American military education was largely centered on military engineering) which were resilient to fire.

Back then the thought of long range weapons was reserved for the artillery and their insufficiently acurate and mainly ineffective field or track pieces.

Eh, from the longbow at Agincourt to the long halberds of the Swiss to the greater range of rifles in the American Civil War, it’s always been an advantage for the enemy to be in your effective range while you remain outside his. The unpleasant shock that English armies received upon repeated attempts to invade Wales also comes to mind – though eventually the English employed a more considered strategy and prevailed. No one in his right mind wants war to be a fair fight. If you’re in a fair fight then something went wrong (aka situation normal).

Planes let alone pilotless planes were not considered to be of any use other than flying observation posts… thus were not realy considered as weapons untill much later in the war.

Look up Giulio Douhet.