Understanding and Countering the Motives and Methods of Warlords . In , in Countering Terrorism and...

This chapter is taken from:

Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century: International Perspectives. Volume 2.

Edited by James J. F. Forest (Praeger Security International, 2007). Copyright © 2007 by James J. F. Forest. All rights reserved.

Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group. Inc. Westport, CT.

CHAPTER 16

UNDERSTANDING AND

COUNTERING THE MOTIVES

AND METHODS OF WARLORDS

Brian Hanley

With continuing development of biological, nuclear, and future technolo-gies, warlords will be capable of waging war on a global scale moreeffectively.1 Casualties from al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Cen-ter, Pentagon, Madrid, and London are really quite minor. It is hubris tobelieve that we can avoid serious acts of war against our nation forever.Thus, understanding warlords is vital in this age when they are one of theplayers that can carry war to our shores. This chapter will attempt to fur-ther that understanding in the context of a warlord as a violent nonstateactor (VNSA),2 oriented toward practical usability on the ground and inpolicy.

What is most critical to understand is that being a warlord is a prof-itable business and a way of life dedicated to amassing power and perks.It is high risk, but the rewards are significant for the warlord, quite sim-ilar to the rewards of being a dictator or a high-powered CEO. Immensewealth, power, women, sex, and respect accrue to a warlord. Similarly, forhis followers, the allure of power, sex, drugs, and upward social mobilityis hard to resist. Why would a 18-year-old general3 give up his command,unlimited sex, wealth, and other perks? As a result, a warlord is very dif-ficult to control unless his source of funds is interdicted or he dies. And ifhe dies, there may be a clash of rivals to replace him. Consequently, struc-tural economic change based on control of resources and reasonably fairuse and distribution of their revenues may be essential if warlordism is tobe overcome.

Understanding and Countering the Motives and Methods of Warlords 279

To truly understand a warlord, one must put oneself in his shoes. Seeinghis career choice as rationally self-interested, his modus operandi becomesmore understandable. Few stupid men last long as warlords, whetherformally educated or not. Their rationality may be extremely violent, vi-ciously cruel, and callous beyond imagination. Sometimes, combined withthrowbacks like cannibalism,4 their actions and those of their followers aremind bending. Children conducting massacres with glee, children placingbets on the sex of an unborn child before slicing open a woman’s belly forthe sport of it, cannibalism, and casual torture that turns life as a slaveinto a relative safe harbor have been modus operandi of some warlords.5

Such deeds can blind us to the patterns behind the scenes which give suchevents their shape. What warlords do is quite rational, and makes sensewithin the correct set of assumptions.

WHAT IS A WARLORD?

In common use, warlord covers a lot of ground. “One man’s warlordmay be another’s freedom fighter,” and some warlords the U.S. govern-ment has been allied to. A warlord, like a dictator or a king, may have pos-itive and negative effects on the people affected by his rule. Like garageentrepreneurs in a capitalist system like the United States, warlords makemoves that can leverage a nobody into great power, wealth, and visibility.A warlord has been defined as “a strongman who maintains control of anarea and its resources through his ability to wage war, who does not obey ahigher or central authority.”6 This is a good starting point. However, whatshould we make of the relationship of warlords to sponsoring powers?How are warlords used by competing nation-states in a game of globalchess? How does this fit with insurgency, or with matters of doctrine onthe part of the warlord? And what of the global public relations war thatis often the primary battleground between the “developing world” (i.e.,second/third world) and the “developed world”?

Similar to the understanding that to combat an insurgency the good-will of the people must be cultivated, warlords also need to appeal tosome segment and gain its loyalty. Warlords routinely use fear as enforce-ment, since a large sector of civilian populations are easily herded thisway. Arguably this is the same means police agencies use to combat crimeand corruption7 by making public examples of individuals, and it works.8

Warlords may operate in a like manner, and either interlock with insur-gencies or comprise their core.

Warlords make selective use of the principle of their “citizen” bearingarms, and warlord troops seeking to terrorize often depend on the citi-zenry not being armed or capable of effective response. A populace capa-ble of chasing down agents of warlords in their midst is a serious threatto warlord leadership. Such capability changes the prevailing collective

280 Combating the Sources and Facilitators

psychology from one of “ratting” on the warlord’s people to one of em-powerment. Keeping this in mind, we shall see how warlords differ onvarious scales. However, this basic trait of “armed citizen” is commonwithin warlord’s organizations just as it is with gangster organizationsinside the United States.

We may differentiate warlords by a combination of sources of income,politics, tribalism, doctrinal values, methods, and the scale of their op-erations. The methods of warlords are also practiced by dictatorshipssuch as Myanmar or the quasi-dictatorship of Robert Mugabe in Zim-babwe. Such nations can be considered either fully acquired as warlordfiefdoms, or well on the way. The methods of warlords are also known andpracticed by criminal syndicates and gangsters. Al Capone would under-stand Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh very well, and so would MonstahKody.9 Thus, as a practical matter, the advice of those who grew up in arough part of town filled with gangsters may be well worth seeking whentrying to understand a warlord.

ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS: PROXY WARLORDSAND RESOURCE WARLORDS

The foremost differentiating factor for warlords is source of income.Relative to income there are two basic types of warlord. Proxy warlordsare paid by some outside power, a broadly based system of funding, ora combination, upon which they depend for support.10 Resource war-lords seize some productive asset and use their control of it for income.Figure 16.1 provides a sampling of warlords by economic support systemand the type of warfare engagement they have primarily pursued. Notethat not all of them have been enemies of the United States. One was anally, and others have been aligned to various degrees.

Proxy Warlords

Proxy warlords are probably best exemplified today by the collectionplaguing the Middle East who perform proxy war against Israel. The oldcold war rivals of the United States and U.S.S.R. paid for proxy wars allover the world, maneuvering to prevent each other from dominating theglobe. Proxy warlordism is still extant and fluctuating with populist fund-raising (i.e. payment by nonstate agencies) probably more common thanduring the cold war.11 The United States paid the Pakistani Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI) to make proxy war of this general type in Afghanistan12

and others in Africa, while the Soviet Union and Cuba paid for warlordsin South America and Africa, as well as striking economic deals withthem for valuable goods such as Angolan diamonds. Iran, and until re-cently, Iraq, have supported proxy warlords in the Palestinian territories in


Warfare type versus source of funds

Foday SankohRobert Mugabe

Yasser Arafat

Osama bin Laden

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Rashid Dostum

Ahmed Shah Massoud

Pol Pot

Asymmetric Conventional

Pro

xy

R

eso

urc

e

Figure 16.1 Warlord Typologies and Examples Note: Warlords chosen for thisillustration are examples, not intended to be complete. The placement of a war-lord is a judgment call. In most cases information is incomplete and likely toremain so.

various ways, as have private funds from various Persian Gulf states.13

This difficult-to-deal-with type of warlord makes his money in rake-offs,embezzling funds and material provided for making proxy war on behalfof a nation or movement. He may also engage in some degree of confis-cation or resource control, but it is not his primary means of support. Heis difficult to deal with in part because it is very much not in his interestfor the conflict to be resolved because his ability to amass a fortune willbe curtailed. Depending on his source of support it is likely that his pay-masters will end his life if he disobeys them, as a consequence of which itmay be impossible for him to negotiate in good faith, regardless of whathe might personally want at any time.

The motives of those who pay proxy warlords are generally rooted inreligious or political doctrine for a specific goal. However, in addition tosuch straightforward motives, a proxy war can focus attention outward,away from domestic problems, or it may appease some vocal constituencywithin the sponsoring nation or group. For the purposes of maintaininga focus outward, it is useful if the enemy of the proxy warlord supporterneither loses nor wins. Thus, an endless border war with a neighbor, suchas Pakistan’s with India, is excellent for unifying the people, and givesjustification for a succession of generals to keep control. Similarly, thissame border war appeases a vocal and dangerous faction, keeping them


busy. By comparison, the outstanding convenience of proxy wars is thatthe paymaster nation supporting the proxy transfers most of the risks andpolitical costs to the proxy warlord and the people of another nation. Andyet, proxy wars still accrue the benefits of focusing attention outward andappeasing constituencies. Thus proxy warfare appears to be pretty muchall upside with little downside for the paymasters, whether they are doc-trinal supporters, or shrewd politicians. The primary downside to proxywarfare is the possibility of “blowback” which is a subject that others havecovered.14 For those strategizing the game of chess in which proxy war-riors are the pieces on the board, attempting to turn proxy war support byan opponent into blowback for them is intriguing to consider.

A proxy warlord’s organization tends to be more vulnerable to break-down after his death than that of a resource warlord for several reasons.First, a proxy warlord is often not a natural tribal leader, nor part of theestablished structure of a society. A famous example of this is Yasir Arafatwho hailed from Egypt. Such a warlord may travel from another countryto get his start, or he may travel to take over an existing organization. Itis possible that in the beginning, he may have ideals of some kind thatlead him to fight. In any case, as a consequence of the way he begins, hisorganization is generally recruited from relative strangers who join thecause or group. Such an organization will need to be held together by acombination of doctrine, carrots and sticks, and will not have many nat-ural loyalties. A smart warlord may establish an educational system thatindoctrinates children or quite young recruits, but this takes time and ef-fort for the crop to mature.15 Alternatively, a system of education such asthe madrassas established as a long-term recruitment and political basedevelopment system can be used as a source of recruits.

A proxy warlord will usually guard his connection with a foreign powercarefully, for quite obvious reasons. Should he not do so, a successor cantake over his position before he wants to relinquish it, an event undesir-able to the proxy warlord. Consequently, it is often up to the foreign powerto find a successor after his death. A proxy warlord will promote peoplearound him that he believes will not depose him and will tend to eliminatethose who make him nervous. This tendency is the Achilles heel of war-lords, as it prevents them from building larger, more effective organiza-tions with a capable officer corps since doing so is too great a risk. Conse-quently, those who are too smart or overly ambitious tend not to be foundclose to proxy war leaders. For these reasons, when such a leader dies,his organization tends to either become moribund or fall apart. Conse-quently, targeting a proxy warlord directly for removal is a good strategy,and warlords use this technique on each other. At the very least, iterativereplacement of kingpins will stress the support pipeline both logisticallyand financially for the opposition.


Generally speaking, stress on a support system for war leads to greateropportunity for exposure and error, both good things for the oppositionto experience. Since the proxy warlord will probably have embezzled alarge amount of money and hidden it for his family, the cycle will needto occur again and new start-up costs incurred by the proxy support na-tions. Additionally, if the money the proxy warlord has hidden for hisfamily can be located and confiscated by agents of the Western allied pow-ers, (through courts or intelligence services) this can prevent his familyfrom reaping rewards from his actions. Should it become known that fam-ilies are unlikely to reap the huge rewards a warlord can provide, thismay aid somewhat in curtailing the phenomenon. However, such an ac-complishment is quite difficult, and perennial, akin to fighting organizedcrime.

A proxy warlord may not be loyal to the supporting power that backshim. Such men have their own agenda and they make use of greater pow-ers in equal measure to the use greater powers make of them, playingtheir own game of chess. The example of Lenin, who was a proxy warlordbacked by Field Marshal von Hindenburg and General von Ludendorffto return to Russia “like a virus” is well worth pondering. Loyalty doestend to be displayed to those more ruthless powers who will assassinatea warlord who strays off the reservation. In the case of the ISI connec-tion to the U.S. support for Afghanistan, it appears there was probably amultilevel scheme for embezzlement that started with personnel in theISI appropriating funds to support mujahideen in Kashmir, then moretheft from such people as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar lower down the foodchain. This is similar to what occurs in developing nations with large in-ternational project loans.16 Prior to locating Ahmed Shah Massoud, CIAmoney was embezzled at a furious rate with marginal effect on the Sovietforces in Afghanistan. Turning this on its head, finding ways to encouragehigher rates of embezzlement, through placement of intelligence opera-tives within warlord organizations, or arranging deals with warlords thatrequire them to pay crippling levels of protection money to keep them-selves or their families safe will stress the proxy warlord’s client(s) as well.However, in the ecology that is warfare, there is the distinct possibility ofevolution of response to such measures.

Resource Warlords

This type of warlord takes control of some asset in order to milk itfor money. The warlords of Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, andColombia’s FARC are primarily of this latter type. Some of them, suchas UNITA in Angola, were once affiliated with major powers17 but havelearned to support themselves. In UNITA’s case, the great powers were


the strange bedfellows of the United States and China,18 which was jus-tified by UNITA with the words, “take aid . . . from the devil himself.”19

A resource warlord may be associated with a tribe or ethnic group, or hemay recruit his followers from scratch.

Across the top, a point resource is one that has a single location thatis relatively easy to control. A diffuse resource is one that is spread overa large region. A proximate resource is close to the capital of a nation,or some other center of power. A distant resource is one that is far fromthe capital or center of power. The type of conflict is then listed alongwith the resources controlled. While considering Table 16.1, the primarything to think about is whether it is practically and politically feasible toprovide sufficient control of the resource in question as an alternative tothe warlord.

On one end of this scale of those who control assets to receive moneyfrom them, one finds tribal leaders or heads of familial clans. A leaderof a clan may be operating in a region where there is little or no rule oflaw, and so to survive, his people must bear arms. When dealing withthis type of person, negotiation or attempted alliance is generally moreappropriate. This type of warlord is more likely to have a conscience thatcan be appealed to, which can be judged by how he has treated the peo-ple in his region and how they regard him. His value system, however, islikely to be rather foreign to modern U.S. values. Outside of the UnitedStates, ethnicity, clan, and family are of the highest importance, and it isnormal for families to act as one collective unit. Western society, partic-ularly in the United States is much more fractured and oriented towardindividualism and loyalties to organizations. Thus, our systems don’t goover well.

There are no hard and fast rules for dealing with a tribal resource war-lord. A dedicated opponent may be highly regarded, yet never entirelytrustable in a negotiation. It may be the case that this person will desire tostand off unaligned to a great power for practical reasons. Should a greatpower decide to leave he could have serious problems, and he must thinkof the long-term survival of himself and his people.

The most problematic resource warlord is one who has recruited his or-ganization from scratch, as a gangster does—or one whose ruthless con-trol of his group’s assets has overwhelmed his cultural mores. Both typesof resource warlord can be difficult to counter. The context of the resourcewarlord’s organization means that if the leader dies, a new leader, or theorganization of a rival who watched from the sidelines, is likely to ap-pear. This means that the primary way to put resource warlords out ofbusiness permanently is to take over their assets and manage those assetsdirectly as well as see to it that civil society institutions are restarted orstrengthened.

Table 16.1 Examples of Resource Components of Conflicts58

Point Resource(few locations/smallgeographic region)

Diffuse Resource/Trade (widelydistributed geographically)

Type ofconflict

State control/coup d’etat

Rebellion/rioting

State Algeria Gas El Salvador Coffeeholds Angola Oil Guatemala Croplandstrong Chad Oil Mexico Croplandcontrol Congo-

BrazzavilleOil Senegal-

MauritaniaCropland

Iraq-Iran OilIraq-Kuwait OilLiberia Iron ore,

rubberNicaragua CoffeeRwanda CoffeeSierra Leone Rutile

Type ofconflict

War of secession Warlords

Weak Angola-Cabinda Oil Afghanistan Opiumstate Caucasus Oil Angola Diamondscontrolat adistance

D.R. Congo Copper,cobalt,gold

Burma Opium, timber

Indonesia Oil, copper,gold

Caucasus Drugs, weapons

Morocco-WesternSahara

Phosphate Cambodia Gems, timber

Nigeria-Biafra Oil Colombia CocainePapua New

Guinea-Bougainville

Copper D.R. Congo Diamonds, gold

Senegal-Casamance

Marijuana Kurdistan Heroin

Sudan Oil Lebanon HashLiberia Timber,

diamonds, drugsPeru CocainePhilippines Marijuana, timberSierra Leone DiamondsSomalia Bananas, camelsTajikistan Drugs, weaponsFormer

YugoslaviaMarijuana, timber


Tribal/Ethnic motive versus ideological motive

Pol Pot

Foday Sankoh

Osama bin Laden

Robert MugabeYasser Arafat

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Rashid Dostum

Ahmed ShahMassoud

Ideological Non-Ideological

Tri

bal

/Eth

nic

No

n-a

lign

ed

Figure 16.2 Warlords chosen are for use as examples and not intended to becomplete.

IDEOLOGICAL/POLITICAL AGENDA AND WARLORDS

A major measure of a warlord is the degree of ideological agenda hehas relative to use of his assets and methods for warfare (for example, seeFigure 16.2). On the far end of this ideology scale are warlords who haverelatively “pure revolutionary” motives and uses of assets. On the nearend of the scale are those who appear to make war primarily as a businessand to dominate others. Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group are onthe far end of this scale. They use assets to advance their doctrine thoughthey use warlord methods such as taking advantage of, or creating, chaosto bind a populace to them. However, one may also note that the reestab-lishment of the Khalifa, should it be successful, would put Osama’s peo-ple either at the center of power or perhaps on the throne, so perhaps hismotives are not quite as pure as they might be.

Consistency of alignment is another way to differentiate warlords. Awarlord may switch sides, perhaps multiple times, as did General RashidDostum and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar under the Soviet, Taliban, and U.S.rule in Afghanistan.20 Such have minimal allegiance to a nation or doc-trine. On the other end of the alignment scale are those like Ahmed ShahMassoud of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan who fought the Sovietsand then the Taliban for the entire period. A leader who has loyalty to hispeople and fights on the same side regardless of whether he is making


Terrorism versus cult of person

Foday Sankoh

Osama bin Laden

Robert Mugabe

Yasser Arafat

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Rashid Dostum

Ahmed Shah Massoud

Pol Pot

Terrorism on civilians Treat civilians with respect

Cu

lt o

f p

erso

n

n

on

-cu

lt

Figure 16.3

money at it, should be differentiated. He may make use of resources forhis cause, but the resources are not his primary cause.

We can also look at the degree of terror that a warlord uses, as well aswhether they create for themselves a cult of personality21 that goes be-yond ordinary leadership. To some extent we have looked already at themethod of terrorism in the chart regarding methods for warfare. How-ever, embrace of terrorist tactics is not exclusive of conventional militaryengagements (see Figure 16.3). Foday Sankoh is a case in point. His forcesconsistently drove civilians out of regions of diamond mines he sought tocontrol by using terror conducted by semi-irregular uniformed soldiery.22

A related measure of a warlord is the degree to which a warlord feath-ers his nest and neglects the civilians of their region and even his ownsupporters. This is also a measure of kleptocrats, who often become theequivalent of small nation-state warlords after they have gained power.Sometimes the level of personal greed displayed is hard to fathom. Thosewho make funds available to such people probably deserve what they getin return. For policymakers, collusion between disbursers of funds, “FiveStar Aid” agencies and their personnel23 is something to watch carefully.The results are not necessarily desirable or intended.

These features of tribalism, cult of personality, terror tactics, and greedshould be measured against the historical cultural norms of a region orethnic group. Tribal politics in many regions provides the tribal leader


with great power, and there is significant overlap between traditionaltribal politics and warlordism going back to European colonial times andprior. Tribal leaders acting in ways we in the West consider uncivilizedcan be part of the growing pains of certain nations.24 (It should be notedthat barbaric campaigns of terror have been part of European history andcolonialism as well.) However, we evolve our culture by degrees, and bymost measures, such people as Foday Sankoh, who used mass murder andchopping off hands and feet25 to terrorize villagers into leaving the areaso that he could steal diamond revenue in Sierra Leone, was violating his-torical cultural norms.

CONDITIONS FOR THE GENESIS AND MAINTENANCEOF WARLORDS

Warlords thrive on chaotic circumstances and breakdowns in society.An insurgency or war can be the mechanism that creates chaos. So candisease and extremes of poverty. In such instances systems of order andrestraint tend to break down. Breakdown leads to the availability of youngmen to conduct war, and an interest by a sufficient number of young menor children to grasp at anything that will bring opportunity into their life.Warlords are the seed crystals around which such conditions coalesce.

Warlords, like gangsters, are products of a milieu which grants oppor-tunity to the ruthless. It is important to look carefully at what warlordsrepresent to the common people of an area. In many cases, their successlargely stems from acting as the conduit for perceived prosperity and or-der. For example, they may take it upon themselves to enforce “laws” asthe IRA has done in northern Ireland, or distribute charity to families whosupport them. In the other cases, they make themselves the gatekeeperfor perceived opportunity for prosperity. An example of this is the warlordsof Western Africa recruiting orphans into armies with the opportunity tobecome an officer collecting diamond revenues. If they are the only alter-native rule to a national government of kleptocrats, or simply city folkwho don’t care about the inhabitants, this tends to be successful. The na-tional government or ordinary citizenry may be oppressive or threatentheir survival through neglect. People do what they must to survive, evenif they think it is morally wrong. Thus, poverty, oppression, and neglectare a crucible that often precedes the rise of warlords and their cousins,gangsters.

Pandemic disease can be a very powerful factor creating breakdown ofsocieties. AIDS already has reshaped Africa through orphans with guns.26

The plague hit the African continent starting in the 1980s. By 1990 WHOwas concerned, spurring development of models to attempt tracking ofcase estimates.27 In concert with the plague’s release of tens of thousands,then millions of orphans across an already poor continent, nations have


exploded with civil wars run by resource warlords. It is estimated thatthere are 14 million orphans in Africa from the AIDS plague28 creating a“resource pool” that are natural cannon fodder for warlords and warlordwannabes in that region. The number of orphans is expected to rise to 18million by 2010.29

In 2006, many African nations have HIV infection rates of 30–40 percentand that rate is not trending downward yet. The effect on the economy issignificant.30 HIV, unlike other historical epidemics, attacks adults in theirprime more than any other group.31 This hollows out a society by destroy-ing those who would ordinarily provide cultural continuity, socialization,training, and support. Poor economies are hardest hit by HIV.32 Whilemacroeconomic indicators do not support the obvious hypothesis thatHIV/AIDS would cut per capita income, it does slow GNP growth, andthere is alarm that the economy of Africa could unravel33 as the plaguepersists. However, considering the events in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Soma-lia, and elsewhere, although economic activity still occurs, the societiesof these nations have already unraveled. All of this would suggest thatin addition to battling the HIV plague, to remove this foundation contex-tual element from the equation, good orphan care and education could bequite beneficial. Without it, the stage is set for a new warlord to step inand take advantage.

Regarding the effect of chaotic breakdown on warlords, a major prob-lem is that a smart warlord will realize their fortunes will not rise if theirnation’s fortune rises—quite the reverse. This is true for warlords of a doc-trinal stripe such as Osama bin Laden, and those who are nondoctrinallike Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh. It can be argued that Osama binLaden’s group learned in Sudan that they have a greater chance of im-posing their doctrine on a nation if it has been seriously damaged. Theexperience in Afghanistan made that lesson stronger as al Qaeda attainedpower on a foundation of rubble. It is well understood that a terrorist goalis driving the population by terror into distrusting the government’s abil-ity to protect its citizens.34 By extension, this same principle applies tothose wanting to impose a religious doctrine unsavory to most. If a war-lord is smart, and realizes that under better conditions the people wouldeither not tolerate what they offer, or would overthrow the rule of the war-lord, the solution is obvious. Hence, the intelligent warlord will maintainor create the required degree of chaos while maintaining himself as thecenter of relative strength.

In a similar light, when viewing the actions of leaders who seem to besimply damaging their nation for no good end, think carefully about thestrategic value of the moves the leader is making. A case in point is the ac-tions of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. His moves to damage the holdingsand income of the white farming class35 can be seen as a kind of redressfor past wrongs, and as payback to supporters. However, it should also be


noted that by doing so, he has destroyed the economic base of the primarygroup within the country capable of acting against him and his tribal af-filiates in the future. Thus, his actions, while seeming to be outlandish inconventional economic terms, bankrupting his nation, are quite intelligentin terms of power at the level of Zimbabwe as a closed system. He plays azero-sum game, by which is meant, he assumes a limited pool of “chips”which he can either obtain or destroy in order to win. If he can simplymaintain a steady position while making a rival fall, he has won. A zero-sum thinker will tend to not accept a win-win proposition if that win-winscenario will aid a potential rival.

The only check on such destructive zero-sum power grabs is threatsfrom outside which can remove the warlord from power. Lacking suchthreats, a warlord is free to turn his nation or region into a smoking ruinas long as doing so leaves him on top of the heap with enough income tomaintain a high ratio between his income and that of his people. This sug-gests that an effective way to curb the internal overreaching of such war-lords could be for the international community to allow neighbors or evenmore distant nations to annex parts of such regions if such can bring or-der. This is a controversial idea, quite impractical in some circumstances.However, in the current milieu, a warlord is free to wreck his region or na-tion, slaughter willy-nilly, perhaps even dine on a rival,36 take over a smallnation, take a seat at the United Nations and vote, then petition the inter-national community for loans followed by debt forgiveness. Institutionaland public memories in the developed world being rather short, this is astraightforward scenario.

Statistically speaking, a warlord is probably at greater risk from in-fluenza, the common cold, and just crossing the street, than he is from theinternational community. The spectacle of an unrepentant war criminallike Foday Sankoh being installed by a UN peace agreement putting himin charge of the diamond mines is beyond ironic. His child army massa-cred his countrymen for control of Sierra Leone’s mine regions. Similarly,war criminals who served under him were hired by UNICEF to “free chil-dren” from military service.37 Such “measures” call into question thoseinvolved, and indicate extremely selective prosecution for war crimes to-gether with a kind of reverse racism. Foday Sankoh did finally die in 2003at the age of 65, suffering a pulmonary embolism while in custody of theSierra Leone war crimes tribunal38 established in 2002. However this factonly clarifies how current international responses are ineffective as he es-sentially died of an affliction of old age.

THE PROBLEM OF DEVELOPMENT BANDITRY

Development banditry is a significant problem obstructing efforts toprevent the development of conditions for warlord emergence, and to


redress such conditions in the aftermath. A development bandit is a per-son from the developed world whose goal is theft from the IMF, WorldBank, and other aid agencies by participating in and instigating corrup-tion to enrich themselves hugely. The problem of development banditryundermines both the legitimacy of the developed world and confidenceon the part of the populace that there is actually a difference between thedeveloped world’s system and the systemic corruption normal in devel-oping nations. It is difficult for most Americans to comprehend what it islike to live in a nation which has never experienced the rule of law, and hasno “social capital”39 to speak of upon which to base a similar economic-political system. Residents of developing nations are hopeful, and want tobelieve in something better. Thus the damage done by development ban-dits is quite serious, as they provide clear proof to local people that thedeveloped world operates the same corrupt way as they do.

The percentage of aid money that is corrupted on its way into devel-oping nations is unknown, although the corruption index40 gives someguideline. Money provided by World Bank, IMF, USAID, and such largedonors as the Soros Foundation, probably has a corruption level near100 percent in many regions.41 This even extends to gifts of aid in the formof goods as simple as blankets, meals, and generators.42 Most of this is en-gaged in by locals. However, a key role is played by corrupted westerners,generally civilians.

Unfortunately, the prosecution of Stein et al. in 200643 is a rare event be-cause of venue problems. This suggests that the ranks of developmentbandits are likely to grow until their ranks regularly experience legalretribution.44 Paid-off officials are not going to prosecute a developmentbandit. Outside of the country in which the crimes took place, there isusually no jurisdiction. Doing something about it will require collabora-tive legislation and treaty between nations making it possible to prose-cute such crimes in a western jurisdiction.45 Additionally, allocation of re-sources specialized to notice, gather evidence, arrest, and prosecute suchpeople is virtually nil today.

PUBLIC RELATIONS WAR: ACCESS CONTROL, LANGUAGE,DENIAL, AND COUNTERATTACK

For some warlords, particularly proxy warlords, the public relations(PR) war is the primary arena of battle. For most it is a major element.The most successful will be quite skilled at manipulating the media. Themethods used are absurdly simple, and can be mastered by virtually any-body with a bit of chutzpah. To start with, all a warlord must do is make astatement and it tends to get reported straight, with little or no commen-tary or analysis accompanying it. This is an odd, and hopefully passing,feature of Western press today, a case of ethics run amok into the field of


near madness. Journalist ethics of our time dictate that when reporting, ajournalist must stay out of the story, and simply report what happens orwhat people say. As a consequence, journalists only feel free to slant or en-ter their stories when dealing with that which is highly familiar to them,that has established positions within the cultural context the journalist re-sides, and that are part of their personal identity politics.

Because of this, if a warlord announces that he is fighting for freedom,democracy, or the rights of “his people” very few will question it. Oncein a while, after years blowing up buses full of civilians, or of hackingoff hands and feet, there may be questions brought up as to his sincerity.However, since remarkably little about atrocities outside of the developedworld gets reported, lazy or simply ignorant journalists need not accountfor what the public doesn’t know when they report on such people. Evenwhere the world knows of heinous acts, with a few photo ops, the presswill run to him once more if he is a famous warlord. Fame and infamyhardly matter in today’s world of media politics, they are virtually in-terchangeable, a fact that is probably quite dangerous to the West in thiscontext.

By the simple ruse of refusing to speak to anyone who asks inconve-nient questions, a warlord can short-circuit the Western press’ questions.By another absurdly simple ruse of saying one thing to the Western pressin English, and something else in their native language, a warlord canavoid being questioned by the English-only press and freely exhort hisfollowers as he likes. There is a joke in the non-English speaking worldthat someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, and someone whospeaks one language is American. There is much truth there, and Amer-icans in general need to start learning what is said in languages besidesEnglish.

Two other basic techniques of the PR war used by warlords are denialand bluster. When asked about child soldiers, opium, bombs, or someother matter, they may simply deny, even if evidence is in full view. Ifquestioned in a situation in which they cannot simply murder or terrifythe unpleasant journalist, they will verbally attack, act put upon, andspeak of the oppression of their people or something similar. Warlordsoften appear adept at pushing the political correctness buttons of West-ern journalists. It would appear likely they make a careful study of ourfoibles to manipulate them. An excellent example of PR warfare is the con-tretemps over cartoons depicting Mohammed choreographed by MiddleEastern dictators in concert with Islamist groups.46 It is astounding howeffective such methods are since the hypocrisy of it is profound.47

We have seen in Pakistan,48 followed by Iraq,49 an innovative strategyfor dealing with the Western press that is working surprisingly well. Bythe simple method of kidnapping and murdering journalists and oth-ers, the insurgency in Iraq has virtually cut off news gathering from


ordinary Iraqis by Western media outlets, as well as minimizing culturalexchange. The purpose of this move is obvious. Journalists were inconve-niently recording for the West that Iraqis were not unhappy enough withthe U.S. occupation, presenting a more complex picture than desired. Inorder to win the PR war, this line of communication had to be cut off orthe insurgency would definitely lose. Just as the Western press does notmake news out of the strategy of refusing to talk to the press, never hasthe motivational strategy behind the Iraq insurgency attacking journalistsbeen questioned. Yet, it should be as obvious that insurgent leaders musthave a reason for everything they do50 as it is that money paid for favorsto a corrupt congressman by lobbyists is a bribe.

In this context, a useful lens for understanding warlords can be foundin literature that discusses the methods of cult leaders from the viewpointof people leaving a cult and conversion.51 Reading one of the cited bookscould prove practically useful to those operating against a warlord sincethe methods and psychology are parallel. Like some cult leaders, war-lords may use brainwashing techniques, a personality cult, and charismato lead. They also like to recruit the impressionable young. Quite a fewwarlords, like many cult leaders, display multiple signs of sociopathic per-sonality disorder such as

superficial emotions and charm, having few or no friends only victims andaccomplices (who often turn into victims), incapacity for empathy, completelack of sense of responsibility for their actions, given to adult tantrums.52

Warlords may exemplify this with the addition of deadly force for coercionas a matter of course.

ADDRESSING WARLORDS

Different types of warlords require different approaches for dealingwith them. When dealing with a proxy warlord, it is necessary to chart hisrelationships to those who fund him. Charting and interdicting his sourcesis generally an intelligence service exercise. It will probably have links andbank accounts across the world, much of it siphoned off for his family andpersonal use. Part of this siphoning is practical. A warlord cannot afford toappear weak under any circumstances. The more of a financial war chesthe has, the more room to move he has around the world. However, thistype of warlord and his organization are more likely to break down withhis death than others.

Make a map of the region controlled by a warlord in two or threelevels—for example, (1) complete control, (2) partial control, and (3)frontier—in whatever way this will make sense. Map the economic re-sources within his territory and flag his relationship to them: coffee, cocoa,


poppies, transport routes, diamonds, etc. Determine how he controls theseresources, what his revenue is from them. An equivalent map should bemade of the region of control by the legitimate government, as well asthose nations surrounding. For those capable of handling the complex-ity, and of charting with enough accuracy to be actually useful, creating adiagram of flow of goods, money, arms, and the key players can be worth-while. The adage, “What you don’t know isn’t nearly as harmful as whatyou know that isn’t so” definitely applies. There are always key players,a food chain of control and economic opportunity for all flow in the econ-omy. But keep in mind that if one player is removed or compromised,another is likely going to take his place rapidly, perhaps within days.

Make plans for where to sell the resources on the legitimate market incooperation with development agencies and legitimate government priorto taking action. This may require creativity at times to find legitimatebuyers for goods. It is imperative that the transition not consist of justwiping out the economy for the people of the area. Simply removingthe economy will tend to upset them, and at minimum result in lack ofcooperation.53 The object should be to either co-opt or take over controlof resources, and shore up the economic prospects of the people of the re-gion in order to help the legitimate government, cutting out those follow-ing the resource warlord. Note, for instance, that many miners in Africahave objectively greater potential for earning income (if they survive) ininsurgencies like the RUF than by working for the previous owners. Riskis higher, but people have always been willing to take outsized risks forsignificant rewards. And people everywhere will eventually choose to dieon their feet than to live on their knees.

Often, it is not practical to completely interdict a warlord’s resourcesif the resources are too distributed. Consequently, take a divide and con-quer approach. Since a military organization functions best when there iscentral control over payments, this is a place to target. If resources can bebroken up so that benefits accrue to lesser leaders in smaller subgroups,this undermines the warlord’s military power. It may then be possible torope in those lesser leaders, one by one, and it may be possible to punishor eliminate an uncooperative new leader. Once a competitive situationis set up within the former warlord’s territory, those looking to controlit for the legitimate government may be able iteratively make deals withthe best of the lot. This course is, of course, fraught with the “fog of war”and all the myriad problems of corruption. Any solution is likely to beincomplete to one degree or another.

Drug supported warlords are a special problem. A great deal has beentried, to little or no effect. The invisible hand of Adam Smith wins, everytime, and each temporary victory brings a new player who is willing tofield more effective weapons and tactics in order to conduct trade. Thus,I believe that the only way to remove the warlord’s source of income is


to eliminate the “risk premium” for the high demand recreational drugsas a matter of national security. This need not be a complete capitulation,restrictions on advertising, sales to minors, and such can be maintained.Social measures that target addiction, and treatment programs paid forout of “sin taxes” will maintain balance. However, there is no other wayto actually eliminate the income of warlords fueled by drugs. Restrictionsact as a price support system in the form of a risk premium, which createsprofits so large that men will always be found willing to take the risk.

Not uncommonly, a warlord’s control region will be a de facto fiefdomcrossing formal national boundaries. This is an excellent strategy for awarlord to take since it allows him to retreat beyond the reach of conven-tional militaries that respect formal borders. Cross-border retreat is notan easy problem to solve. It is advisable that the first step in a campaignconsist of efforts to seal off the border, being careful not to mistake obsta-cles to our forces for impenetrable walls to desperate men.54 Additionally,forces local to the region should never be counted on to actually performas expected, even for payment. Ethnic, religious, and local economic tieswill win out, and allow the warlord to escape. Guerilla warriors have of-ten won by doing what opponents believed impossible. U.S. forces did itagainst the British. Ahmed Shah Massoud did it against the Soviets,55 andOsama bin Laden against U.S. forces. The only thing that really can bedone about border crossing is to document it carefully and send it up thechain of command to get the attention of higher-level decision makers orthe press to force action.

When looking at the warlord’s territory resource map, the areas wherenew and perhaps more tractable leaders will emerge that have taken overa bit of the old territory, is most likely in the region of lesser control for thewarlord. Thus, a move that takes possession of the most central, highestvalue resource of his territory, but leaves other resources available on itsperiphery is likely to cause the desired fracturing of his organization. If heis not dead, starving him for resources is absolutely necessary.

Prioritize a warlord’s resources by income stream value, generally go-ing after the highest value resources first. Interdict his control and takeover the resource and its payment stream for the legitimate government.This should include auditing and controls on the legitimate governmentto ensure it is not simply another set of kleptocrats which will destabilizethe nation long term.

A note of caution regarding administration of former warlord- anddictator-controlled regions. It is common for those from the developedworld to have little comprehension of how vicious and brutal it is or hasbeen for a people who have lived under the administration of corruptofficials.56 Corrupt officials, however, use as their stock in trade the factthat they are much easier for an outside administrating power to dealwith. Corrupt officials study very carefully those who can put them in


a position of power from which to operate their “gatekeeper” shakedownsystem. A gatekeeper system is one in which a person obtains a positionof power that allows them to collect payments in exchange for allowingsome activity to occur. Those from outside should be wary of people whoseem to fit into their system like a hand into a glove. Using such peoplewill damage the reputation of an outside agency.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

To effectively combat a warlord, it is crucial that his financial supply sys-tem be interdicted. This requires fundamentally different strategy whendealing with a proxy warlord who is paid and supplied by a client, versusa resource warlord who is supplied by his control of assets. The primarymethod of dealing with a resource warlord is to take physical control of his re-source assets and manage them on a fair and equitable way for the nation’s people.This type of military-development action could be legitimized on the internationalscene. Interdiction of the financial support of resource warlords is possible,but only by taking physical control of the resource. In some cases of diffuseresources, doing so can be functionally difficult or impossible, particularlyfor illegal commodities such as drugs. In the case of illegal drugs, a systemof licensing and legal distribution could be considered, such as was put inplace to end the prohibition era’s violence in the United States, and it isthe only known method. All other methods simply increase the risk pre-mium on the high demand commodity, resulting in even higher profits forthose willing to take the risk. This attracts ever more violent and corruptindividuals to dominate the resource.

Proxy warlords, who conduct war for a client who pays the bills, arerarely targeted for removal by the international community, intelligenceservices, or militaries of developed nations. Not uncommonly, proxy war-lords may be negotiated with in good faith. However, since a proxy warlord isincapable of bargaining in good faith to eliminate what he is paid for, negotiationwith him is wasted effort. Consequently, it is the supporting power(s) that must benegotiated with. Due to the organization of proxy warlord organizations in partic-ular, imprisoning or killing the warlord himself is a good strategy of negotiationwith the warlord and his supporting power(s). When a proxy warlord dies, hisorganization tends to either fall apart or become more peaceful. At worst,a new leader emerges, but because proxy warlords, by necessity, are usu-ally required to carefully eliminate those too ambitious or too competent,and guard their connection to their support, underlings are unlikely tobe as effective. The more often this happens, the more stressed the client-nation supporter becomes. This method is used by warlords against eachother, to excellent effect, as Osama bin Laden did with Ahmed Shah Mas-soud leaving Osama free to conduct his attacks without fear of probabledeath from Massoud.


In addition to attempting to address pandemic disease that results in break-downs of civil society such as in Africa, programs could be instituted to dealwith orphans who result. Dealing with the orphans is of higher immediate prior-ity. Huge numbers of orphan males in particular are extremely dangerous“feedstock” into the systems that warlords construct. Housing and edu-cating them in Africa, as well as indoctrinating them in a civilization willremove this source of personnel. If these orphans are not taken care of andprovided with real opportunity, they are nearly certain to make war in thehands of warlords.

Formal and publicly enunciated discussion of public relations media warfareneeds to become commonplace. Public relations war is a primary form of war-fare in the modern era. Bring it into the common lexicon, along with spon-soring a basic understanding in the public at large as to how it works andwhy. Primarily, the public and the journalistic community are able to ha-rass the press into providing more insightful coverage of PR war eventsand their implications. At present, astonishingly simple-minded methodsare nearly perfectly effective.

Recognize the problem of development bandits and take steps to allow prosecu-tion for major crimes committed in developing nations in the domicile of the fund-ing organization. In addition, allocate resources to gather evidence, track,and arrest such individuals. They do serious damage to the reputation ofthe developed world’s democracies, and radically undermine efforts toimprove conditions.

As in fighting organized crime, a key to opposing warlords is not so much howdraconian the threat is against them, but their perception, and that of a potentialsuccessor, that they will reliably be caught or killed. The record is clear thatonly in very rare instances is a warlord going to suffer at the hands of theinternational community, and the treatment they receive is probably goingto be as pleasant as the treatment received by major financial criminal sus-pects in the developed world if they receive it at all. The current politicsof dealing with warlords of a destructive type needs to change radically,or else we must face up to the fact that what we do helps them, and accepttheir existence as national and transnational political actors.

Within the ontology of virtual nonstate actors (VNSAs),57 warlords area serious challenge for the developed world to counter. In this time whentechnologies for mass destruction are tilting in favor of asymmetric op-ponents, being ineffective against them is unacceptable. The strategy andtactics of warlords are fundamentally bold tactics of barbarians againstthe civilized. Simple techniques of brutality, lying, and going outside thebounds are quite effective against such naıve opponents as we of the de-veloped world have collectively been. We have often been blinded by theseemingly mad brutality and outrageousness of their actions, while formany warlords rewards have been huge. The punishments and lossesfor the developed world to date have been miniscule, even taking into


account the recent events of al Qaeda. However, there is little reason tobelieve they will remain so. This chapter has attempted to take a step to-ward clarifying their motives and methods so that we can shape policy,strategy, and tactics that are effective. Developing sophistication and ef-fectiveness will not be easy in an open society that values freedom, but itmust be done.

NOTES

1. Col. Dave Hughes and Robert S. McNamara. “Security in the Contempo-rary World,” Congressional Record 112, (May 19, 1966), p. 11114.

2. Troy S. Thomas, Stephen D. Kiser, and William D. Casebeer, Warlords Rising:Confronting Violent Non-State Actors (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005); Maj.Troy S. Thomas, USAF, and Maj. William D. Casebeer, USAF, “Violent Non-StateActors: Countering Dynamic Systems,” Strategic Insights 3, Issue 3 (March 2004).Available at http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/mar/casebeerMar04.asp

3. Greg Campbell, Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s MostPrecious Stones (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002).

4. Ibid.; and for a collection of somewhat gruesome examples from aroundthe world, see Robert Young Pelton, ed. Hot Spots: Travel in Harm’s Way (RedondoBeach, CA: Fielding Worldwide, Inc., 1998).

5. Campbell, Blood Diamonds.6. Philippe LeBillon, “The Political Ecology of War: Natural Resources and

Armed Conflicts,” Political Geography 20 (2001): 561–584.7. Joshua M. Epstein and Robert L. Axtell, Growing Artificial Societies: Social

Science from the Bottom Up (Washington, DC, Cambridge, MA, London: The Brook-ings Institution Press & The MIT Press, 1996).

8. Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works—Understanding the Threat, Re-sponding to the Challenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

9. Sanyika Shakur, Monster : Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (New York:Grove Press, 1993).

10. Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and DavidBrannan, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Arlington, VA: RANDCorp., 2001).

11. Ibid.12. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest

Covert Operation in History (New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2003).13. Byman, Chalk, et al. Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements.14. Jonathan Boggs, Blowback: A Study of U.S Foreign Policy in Afghanistan from

1979–2004 (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2004). Available at http://gseweb.harvard.edu/∼t656 web/peace/Articles Spring 2004/Boggs JonathanAfghanistan blowback.htm(accessed February 11, 2006).

15. Not enough attention has been paid to the methods of recruitment andtraining of such organizations as the Fedayeen. Their precursors are probably theJanissaries of the Ottoman empire. In brief, young boys around the age of 6 aretaken from their families and raised to be warriors who worship the leader.


16. Interview with author, Republic of Georgia, June 2000. In my conversationwith the nephew of a KGB field officer on the commission percentages for a $25million World Bank loan, the Loan “Agent” claimed 20–25 percent. Kickbacks wererequired at each step in the food chain. Roughly 20 percent of the original loanprobably went to actual project work.

17. Campbell, Blood Diamonds.18. Fred Bridgeland, “Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa,” African Affairs 86 (April

1987): 276–277.19. Basil Davidson, In the Eye of the Storm: Angola’s People (New York: Double-

day Anchor, 1973).20. BBC, Key Afghan Players: Who’s Who (BBC, 2005). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/

hi/world/south asia/3706370.stm (accessed January 20, 2006).21. Arnold M. Ludwig, King of the Mountain—The Nature of Political Leadership

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002).22. Campbell, Blood Diamonds.23. Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to

Eastern Europe 1989–1998 (New York: St Martins Press, 1998).24. Keith Laidler, Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar

(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005).25. Campbell, Blood Diamonds.26. Staff, “A Continent Of Orphans” in Global Policy Forum—Republished

from The Economist Global Agenda, London, 2002, http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/aids/2002/1127orphans.htm (accessed January 22, 2006);http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story id=E1 TQGVTJP(accessed January 22, 2006).

27. J Chin and S K. Lwanga, “Estimation and Projection of Adult AIDS Cases: ASimple Epidemiological Model,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 69 (1991):399–406.

28. Staff. “World Not Doing Nearly Enough to Protect Children Affectedby AIDS.” UNAIDS. UNICEF, Department for International Development. NewYork, (February 2006) http://data.unaids.org/pub/PressRelease/2006/pr gpf20060209 en.pdf (accessed March 3, 2007)

29. John Stover, Neff Walker, Geoff P Garnett, Joshua A Salomon, KarenA Stanecki, Peter D Ghys, Nicholas C Grassly, Roy M Anderson, BernhardSchwartlander “Can we reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic with an expandedresponce?” The Lancet 360(9326) (July 6, 2002): 73–77. Also available withoutsubscription: http://www.globalhealth.harvard.edu/hcpds/documents/StoverEtAl HIVInfectionsAverted Lancet2002.pdf (accessed March 4, 2007).

30. David E Bloom and David Canning, “The Health and Wealth of Africa,”World Economics Journal 5 (April–June 2004): 57–81.

31. David E Bloom, Ajay Mahal, Jaypee Sevilla, and River-Path-Associates,AIDS & Economics, ed. WHO (International AIDS Economics Network,IAEN.ORG, 2001) (accessed January 22, 2006).

32. Ibid.33. Ibid.34. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (Leav-

enworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2005) (Originally published 1961); David


Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, FL: HailerPublishing, 2005) (Originally published 1964).

35. Bob Coen, AP & Reuters, Zimbabwe President Mugabe Labels White Farmers“Enemies” (CNN, 2000), http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/04/18/zimbabwe.land.03/ (accessed January 20, 2006).

36. For example, see Pelton, Hot Spots.37. Campbell, Blood Diamonds.38. Staff, Sierra Leone—Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, ed. Bureau

of Democracy, H. R., and Labor (Washington, DC: U.S. State Department, 2003).http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27750.htm(accessed February 2,2006).

39. Alejandro Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in ModernSociology,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (August 1998), 1–24; Robert D. Putnam,Making Democracy Work (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); StephenKnack and Philip Keefer, “Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (November 1997):1251–1288.

40. Staff, 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (Berlin, Germany: TransparencyInternational—The Global Coalition against Corruption, 2005) http://www.transparency.org/policy and research/surveys indices/cpi/2005 (accessed Feb-ruary 18, 2006).

41. Interview with author (see earlier note about my conversation with thenephew of a KGB field officer on the commission percentages for a $25 millionWorld Bank loan). Also, interview between author and an academic at a promi-nent university in the Caucasus (Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2001), who casually relatedthat local Soros Foundation personnel would allocate grants in return for 30 per-cent kickbacks. Additionally, I learned how student stipends of several hundreddollars per month by the Soros Foundation, when professors were paid $25 permonth, resulted in such students passing all courses in return for supporting theirprofessors.

42. The “Generator Mafia” got its start during the aftermath of the Georgiancivil war when aid agencies distributed generators, heaters, and kerosene stoves.The generators were appropriated by certain relatives and friends of Eduard She-vardnadze as theirs, since Eduard had no budget, and he had to rule by dolingout opportunities for graft and corruption to supporters. To put extra money intothe pockets of the “Generator Mafia” during the coldest times of the year, electric-ity would be shut off to large sections of the city to force generator sales to occur.(Author’s notes, Generator Mafia Investigation. Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2000).

43. James Glanz, “Funds for Iraq Spent on Real Estate and a Cessna,” in NewYork Times (online) 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/international/middleeast/02reconstruct.html? r=1 (accessed February 6, 2006).

44. Epstein, and Axtell, Growing Artificial Societies.; Hokky Sutingir, Mon-eyscape: A Generic Agent-Based Model of Corruption. Working Paper WPC2003 (Ban-dung Fe Institute, 2003); Hokky Sutingir, “The Dynamics of Corruption,” Journal ofSocial Complexity 1 (September 2003): 3–17; and Ross Hammond, Endogenous Tran-sition Dynamics in Corruption: An Agent-Based Computer Model (Washington, DC:Brookings Institution, 2000).


45. It should not be construed that these suggestions apply to the usual andnecessary small-time bribes and similar operating procedures necessary for oper-ating within a corrupt regime.

46. Staff, Editorial, “Clash of Civilization—The Dictators behind Those Mus-lim Cartoon Protests,” Wall Street Journal (February 11, 2006), http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007956.

47. Staff, Offensive Cartoons—Media Apologize for Offending Muslims While Ig-noring Anti-Semitic Cartoons in Honest Reporting—Media Critique (February 11,2006), http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/OffensiveCartoons.asp;Tom Gross, Cartoons from the Arab World in Tom Gross—Mideast Me-dia Analysis (February 11, 2006, circa 2005), http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArabCartoons.htm; Gerald Traufetter, Interview with Hirsi Ali in Der Spiegel(February 11, 2006). http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,399263,00.html.

48. Mariane Pearl, and Sarah Crichton, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Deathof My Husband, Danny Pearl (New York: Scribner, 2003).

49. Staff, From Iraq to Philippines, murder is top cause of journalist deathsin ‘05 (New York: Committee to Protect Journalists, 2006), http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2006/killed 05/killed release 03jan05.html (accessed February 17,2006).

50. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works.51. Madeleine Landau Tobias, and Janja Lalich, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds:

Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships (Alameda, CA:Hunter House, Inc., 1994); Steven Hassan, Releasing The Bonds: Empowering Peopleto Think for Themselves (Dansbury, CT: Aitan Publishing Company, 2000); WilliamSargant, Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (New York:Harper and Row, 1971) (Originally published 1957).

52. Tobias and Lalich, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds.53. LeBillon, “The Political Ecology of War”54. Interview with author, September 2002. David Kline spent years with Mas-

soud’s northern alliance as a journalist. He personally crossed the mountains fromTora Bora into Pakistan fleeing the Russian military, and hid under his dirty blan-ket to disguise himself as a rock. He described the crossing as very difficult, sayinghe would not have survived without Massoud’s men to pick him up off the groundand force him to continue. Mr. Kline now lives in San Francisco.

55. Ibid.56. Hyder Akbar, “Come Back to Afghanistan—Teenage Embed, Part 2” on This

American Life, Afghanistan/USA, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, January 31, 2003.Available at http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/03/254.html.

57. Thomas, Kiser, and Casebeer, Warlords Rising.58. LeBillon, “The Political Ecology of War.” (Note: The table shown contains

minor edits by Brian Hanley).

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