The High Value of Targeting: A Conceptual Model for Using HVT against a Networked Enemy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Erica Gaston, Jonathan Horowitz, and Susanne Schmeidl, Strangers at the Door: Night Raids by International Forces Lose Hearts and Minds of Afghans, Regional Policy Initiative on Afghanistan and Pakistan (Washington DC and Kabul: Open Society Institute and The Liaison Office 23 Feb. 2010); Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office, The Cost of Kill/Capture: Impact of the Night Raid Surge on Afghan Civilians, Regional Policy Initiative on Afghanistan and Pakistan (Kabul 19 Sept. 2011). 2 Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process, Field Manual No. 3-60 (Washington DC: 26 Nov. 2010) p.B-1. 3 Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, 'The Drone War: Are Predators our Best Weapon or Worst Enemy?', New Republic (3 June 2009); David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum, 'Death from Above, Outrage Down Below', New York Times (16 May 2009). 4 Dan Rassler and Vahid Brown, The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of Al-Qa'ida, Harmony Program (New York: Combating Terrorism Center, West Point 14 July 2011). 5 Matt Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT: Key Lessons from High Value Targeting Campaigns against Insurgents and Terrorists', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34/1 (Jan. 2011) pp.26–7. 6 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New York: Vintage Books 2008); Isabelle Duyvesteyn, 'Great Expectations: The Use of Armed Force to Combat Terrorism', Small Wars and Insurgencies 19/3 (Sept. 2008) pp.328–51. 7 Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 5) pp.17–8. 8 Ibid. p.18. 9 Frankel's dataset consists of 12 historical and 8 recent examples of states using techniques that might be loosely described as similar to HVT against a variety of terrorist and insurgent actors in contexts ranging from conventional war to domestic policing. However, the examples are inconsistent in terms of the conflict situation (where there is a conflict), the military or police actors involved, the techniques employed and the types of actors targeted. See Ibid. (note 5) pp.17–8, 30. 10 Mark Moyar, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press 1997); Stuart A Herrington, Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix: A Personal Account (New York: Ballantine Books 2004). 11 Mark Urban, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Forces War in Iraq (New York: St Martin's Press 2011) p.91. 12 Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign against Al Qaeda (New York: Times Books 2011) pp.180–94. 13 Jenna Jordan, 'When Heads Roll: Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation', Security Studies 18/4 (2009) pp.719–55; Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 5). 14 Captain Lushenko, US Army, has served as the J2 (Intelligence Officer) of a Joint Special Operations Task Force on multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan 15 Bergen and Tiedemann, 'The Drone War' (note 3); Gaston, Horowitz, and Schmeidl, Strangers at the Door (note 1); Kilcullen and Exum, 'Death from above, Outrage Down Below' (note 3); Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office, The Cost of Kill/Capture (note 1). 16 Jordan, 'When Heads Roll' (note 13); Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 5). 17 Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 5). 18 For example, see Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Berkley 2003) p.233; John Walcott, 'Killing al-Qaeda's Middle Managers May Be Key to its Destruction', Bloomberg (26 Oct. 2011), available at . 19 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed.and trans. Michael E. Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford: OUP 1976); Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: OUP 1999); Colin S. Gray, 'Strategic Thoughts for Defence Planners', Survival 52/3 (June 2010) pp.159–78; Joseph C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP 1967); Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional: Strategic Thinking and Strategy Formulation in the Twenty First Century (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International 2008). 20 Bergen and Tiedemann, 'The Drone War' (note 3); Kilcullen and Exum, 'Death from Above, Outrage Down Below' (note 3). 21 Bergen and Tiedemann, 'The Drone War' (note 3); Kilcullen and Exum, 'Death from Above, Outrage Down Below' (note 3). 22 Cynthia Stohl and Michael Stohl, 'Secret Agencies: The Communicative Constitution of a Clandestine Organization', Organization Studies 32/9 (Sept. 2011) pp.1197–215. 23 Jorg Raab and H. Brinton Milward, 'Dark Networks as Problems', Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13/4 (Oct. 2003) pp.413–39; Hu Daning, Siddharth Kaza, and Hsinchun Chen, 'Identifying Significant Facilitators of Dark Network Evolution', Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 60/4 (Jan. 2009) pp.655–65; Siddarth Kaza, Hu Daning, and Chen Hsinchun, 'Dynamic Social Network Analysis of a Dark Network: Identifying Significant Facilitators' (Intelligence and Security Informatics Conference, New Brunswick, New Jersey 23–24 May 2007). 24 Paul Lushenko, '"Partnership 'Till It Hurts": The Use of Fusion Cells to Establish Unity of Effort between SOF (Yin) and Conventional Forces (Yang)', Small Wars Journal (20 May 2010), available at . 25 Daniel Byman, 'Do Targeted Killings Work?', Foreign Affairs 85/2 (March/April 2006) pp.95–111. 26 Bergen and Tiedemann, 'The Drone War' (note 3); Kilcullen and Exum, 'Death from Above, Outrage Down Below' (note 3). 27 Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 3) p.20. 28 Michael T. Flynn, Rich Juergens, and Thomas L. Cantrell, 'Employing ISR: SOF Best Practices', Joint Forces Quarterly, 50 (July 2008) p.57. See also Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-1. 29 Patrick Johnston, 'Does Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in Counterinsurgency Campaigns', International Security 36/4 (Spring 2012) pp.47–79. 30 Bryan C. Price, 'Targeting Top Terrorists: How Leadership Decapitation Contributes to Counterterrorism', International Security 36/4 (Spring 2012) pp.9–46. 31 Stanley A. McChrystal, 'Becoming the Enemy: To Win in Afghanistan, We Need to Fight More Like the Taliban', Foreign Policy 185 (March/April 2011) pp.66–70 32 Peter Neumann, Ryan Evans, and Raffaello Pantucci, 'Locating Al Qaeda's Center of Gravity: The Role of Middle Managers', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34/11 (Nov. 2011) pp.825–42. 33 Farwaz A. Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (New York: Oxford UP 2011) p. 112. 34 Roy Lindelauf, Peter Borm, and Herbert Hamers, Understanding Terrorist Network Topologies and Their Resilience against Disruption, Discussion Paper No. 85 (Tilburg, Nederlands: CentER, Tilburg University 4 Nov. 2009); Stohl and Stohl, 'Secret Agencies' (note 22); Kaza, Daning, and Hsinchun, 'Dynamic Social Network Analysis of a Dark Network' (note 23). 35 Frankel, 'The ABCs of HVT' (note 5). 36 According to FM 3-60: 'F3EAD features massed, persistent reconnaissance, or surveillance cued to a powerful and decentralized all-source intelligence apparatus to find a' high value target. 'The exploit and analyze steps are often the main effort of F3EAD because these steps provide insight into the enemy's network and may open new lines of operation.' Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-1. See also Flynn, Juergens, and Cantrell, 'Employing ISR' (note 28) p.57. 37 Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsig, Secret Weapon: High-Value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation, Strategic Perspectives 4 (Washington DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies March 2011). 38 United States Department of the Army, US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, FM 3-24, MCWP 3-33.5 (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press 2007). See also: David H. Petraeus, 'Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq', Military Review (Jan/Feb 2006) pp.2–12; Kalev Sepp, 'Best Practices in Counterinsurgency', Military Review (May/June 2005) pp.8–12. 39 Chad C. Serena, A Revolution in Military Adaptation: The US Army in the Iraq War (Washington DC: Georgetown UP 2011) pp.115–7. See also Paul M. Salmon, Neville A. Stanton, Guy H. Walker, and Daniel P. Jenkins, Distributed Situational Awareness: Theory, Measurement and Application to Teamwork (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2009). 40 Pattern of life analysis is 'connecting the relationships between places and people by tracking their patterns of life. While the enemy moves from point to point, reconnaissance or surveillance tracks and notes every location and person visited. Connections between those sites and persons to the target are built, and nodes in the enemy's network emerge.' Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-3 41 Lushenko, '"Partnership 'Till It Hurts"' (note 24) p.9. 42 Flynn, Juergens, and Cantrell, 'Employing ISR' (note 28). 43 Ibid. 44 Although the US Army's official targeting methodology, D3A – decide, detect, deliver, assess – also attempts to nest F3EAD as a current tactic, technique, and procedure, it is focused on tactical and operational concerns, rather than the strategic and policy context of concern for scholars and policy analysts. See Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-2 45 Raab and Milward, 'Dark Networks as Problems' (note 23). 46 Andrew R. Molnar, Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary and Resistance Warfare (Washington DC: The Special Operations Research Office, The American Univ. 1963) pp.23–4. Ferdinand Otto Miksche, Secret Forces: The Technique of Underground Movements (London: Faber 1952). 47 Carlo Morselli, Cynthia Giguere, and Katia Petit, 'The Efficiency/Security Trade-Off in Criminal Networks', Social Networks 29/1 (2007) pp.143–53; Jacob N. Shapiro, 'The Terrorist's Challenge: Security, Efficiency, Control', Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University (26 April 2007), available at . 48 G. H. McCormick and G. Owen, 'Security and Coordination in a Clandestine Organization', Mathematical and Computer Modelling 31/6-7 (March/April 2000) p.190. 49 Wayne E. Baker and Robert R. Faulkner, 'The Social Organization of Conspiracy: Illegal Networks in the Heavy Electrical Equipment Industry', American Sociological Review 58/6 (Dec. 1993) p.844. 50 Nasrullah Memon and Henrik Larsen, 'Practical Algorithms for Destabilizing Terrorist Networks', in Practical Algorithms for Destabilizing Terrorist Networks, ed. Sharad Mehrotra, et al., Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer 2006) p.393. McCormick and Owen, 'Security and Coordination in a Clandestine Organization' (note 48) p.190. 51 Valdis E. Krebs, 'Mapping Networks of Terrorist Cells', Connections 24/3 (2002) pp.49–51. 52 McChrystal, 'Becoming the Enemy'(note 31) p.68. 53 Duncan J. Watts, 'Networks, Dynamics, and the Small-World Phenomenon', American Journal of Sociology 105/2 (Sept. 1999) pp.493–527. 54 Albert-László Barabasi, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means (New York: Plume 2003) pp.41–4. 55 Krebs, 'Mapping Networks of Terrorist Cells' (note 51) p.49. 56 Mark S. Granovetter, 'The Strength of Weak Ties', American Journal of Sociology 78/6 (May 1973) pp.1360–80; Roy Lindelauf, Peter Borm, and Herbert Hamers, 'On Heterogeneous, Covert Networks', in On Heterogeneous, Covert Networks, ed. Nasrullah Memon et al. (Norderstedt, Germany: Springer-Verlag/Wein 2009) pp.218–9; Roy Lindelauf, Peter Borm, and Herbert Hamers, 'The Influence of Secrecy on the Communication Structure of Covert Networks', Social Networks 31/2 (May 2009) p.127. 57 Stohl and Stohl, 'Secret Agencies' (note 22) p.1198. See also Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania UP 2004). 58 Keith G. Provan and Patrick Kenis, 'Modes of Network Governance: Structure, Management, and Effectiveness', Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18/2 (April 2008) pp.229–52; Alexander Gutfraind, 'Understanding Terrorist Organizations with a Dynamic Model', in Understanding Terrorist Organizations with a Dynamic Model, ed. Nasrullah Memon et al. (Norderstedt, Germany: Springer-Verlag/Wein 2009); Nasrullah Memon, David L. Hicks, Henrik Legind Larsen, and Muhammad Aslam Uqaili, 'Understanding the Structure of Terrorist Networks', International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 2/4 (2007) pp.401–25. 59 Lindelauf, Borm, and Hamers, 'The Influence of Secrecy on the Communication Structure of Covert Networks' (note 34); McCormick and Owen, 'Security and Coordination in a Clandestine Organization' (note 48); Stohl and Stohl, 'Secret Agencies' (note 22). 60 Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (note 30); Kaza, Daning, and Hsinchun, 'Dynamic Social Network Analysis of a Dark Network' (note 23); Rohan Gunaratna and Aviv Oreg, 'Al Qaeda's Organizational Structure and Its Evolution', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33/12 (Dec. 2010) pp.1043–78. 61 Justin Magouirk and Scott Atran, 'Jemaah Islamiyah's Radical Madrassah Networks', Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict 1/1 (March 2008) pp.25–41; Stuart Koschade, 'A Social Network Analysis of Jemaah Islamiyah: The Applications to Counterterrorism and Intelligence', Studies in Conflict Long, 'Assessing the Success of Leadership Targeting' (note 69). 75 Gal Luft, 'The Logic of Israel's Targeted Killing', Middle East Quarterly 10/1 (Winter 2003) pp.3–13. 76 Boaz Goaner, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 2005) p.128. See also Byman, 'Do Targeted Killings Work?' (note 25). 77 Alex S. Wilner, The Best Defence Is a Terrific Offence: Four Approaches to Countering Modern Terrorism, AIMS Commentary (Halifax, NS: Atlantic Institute for Market Studies 3 July 2007) p.5. 78 Byman, 'Do Targeted Killings Work?' (note 25) p.104. 79 Headquarters, Department of the US Army, Combat Tactics (note 63) p.B-15. 80 Gunaratna notes that delegitimizing leaders should be an integral component of coalition counterterrorism strategies. See Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda (note 18) p.371. 81 Price 'Targeting Top Terrorists' (note 30) p.44 82 Gellman, 'William McRaven' (note 66). 83 John F. Burns, 'US Strike Hits Insurgent at Safehouse', New York Times (8 June 2006); Bill Roggio, 'US Forces Kill al Qaeda in Iraq's Deputy Commander', The Long War Journal (15 Oct. 2008), available at ; Waleed Ibrahim, 'Al Qaeda's Two Top Iraq Leaders Killed in Raid', Reuters (19 April 2010), available at . 84 Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-1 85 Flynn, Juergens, and Cantrell, 'Employing ISR' (note 28) p.57. 86 McChrystal, 'Becoming the Enemy' (note 31) p.70. 87 Headquarters, Department of the US Army, The Targeting Process (note 2) p.B-7 88 Ibid. Flynn, Juergens, and Cantrell, 'Employing ISR' (note 28) p.57. 89 Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (note 33) pp.84–103. 90 Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional (note 19). 91 William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Presidio Press 1996). 92 Dick Camp, Operation Phantom Fury: The Assault and Capture of Fallujah, Iraq (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press 2009). 93 United States Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency Field Manual (note 38). 94 Ibid. See also Shanthie Mariet D'Souza, '"Unity of Effort": The Missing Link in the Afghan Counter-Insurgency Campaign', Strategic Analysis 32/5 (Sept. 2008) pp.855–78. 95 McChrystal, 'Becoming the Enemy' (note 31).