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iii

v

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

ALTERNATIVE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES IN 

MEGACITIES: THREATS OR OPPORTUNITIES?

Diane E. Chido

November 2016

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vi

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ix

FOREWORD

Many cities are growing into “mega” land areas 

filled with complex terrain and populations where the 

U.S. military will undoubtedly have to engage. Often, 

states fail to provide basic services to some territories, 

leaving inhabitants disenfranchised. These gaps are 

then filled by social entrepreneurs, often ethnic or religious-based civil society groups—or even organized 

crime syndicates—who effectively identify niche 

needs in the marketplace and fill them more effectively than other competitors, including traditional state 

authorities. Leaders of these groups maintain control 

through various means, including: violence, coercion, 

and service provision; or through tribal, religious, or 

other cultural ties and structures.

In order to understand and predict the emergence 

of alternative governance, and to identify whether it 

represents a threat or opportunity to U.S. interests, we 

must develop a toolkit, which can be based on existing 

sources and analytic methods that only need to be expanded to the city level or weighted and appropriately applied. Such foreknowledge is a force multiplier 

for planning and operating in an urban environment, 

particularly one as dense as a megacity.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

xi

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DIANE E. CHIDO is the President of DC Analytics, 

a research and analysis firm formed in October 2008. 

Since the drafting of this monograph, she has become 

the Security and Intelligence Advisor to the U.S. Army’s Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute 

(PKSOI). She has served as a cultural awareness subject matter expert on the Horn of Africa and is assisting 

in creating training materials for the U.S. Army and 

course curricula in cultural intelligence analysis for 

academic and intelligence community agencies. She 

has also performed extensive research on Sub-Saharan 

African civil-military relations, socio-cultural cleavages, and regional security threats and opportunities. 

Ms. Chido is an adjunct instructor of intelligence studies with the Tom Ridge College of Intelligence Studies and Data Informatics at Mercyhurst University as 

well as a graduate of that program. She teaches intelligence communication, advanced intelligence analysis, 

and advanced analytic techniques, in the classroom 

and online at the graduate and undergraduate levels. 

She has also served as a faculty advisor for student 

researchers on nearly a dozen Department of Defense 

(DoD) contracts with the Center for Intelligence Research, Analysis, and Training (CIRAT). Ms. Chido 

has 20 years of experience in research, including with 

the International Monetary Fund and with the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Program. She publishes widely on intelligence analysis, ethnic conflict, and 

international security topics. Ms. Chido holds an M.S. 

in applied intelligence analysis, an M.A. in Russian 

language, and a graduate certificate in Russian/East 

European studies. 

xiii

SUMMARY

Many cities are growing into “mega” land areas 

filled with complex terrain and populations where the 

U.S. military will undoubtedly have to engage. States 

often fail to provide basic services to some territories, 

leaving inhabitants disenfranchised. These gaps are 

then filled by social entrepreneurs, often ethnic or religious-based civil society groups—or even organized 

crime syndicates—who effectively identify niche 

needs in the marketplace and fill them more effectively than other competitors, including traditional state 

authorities. Leaders of these groups maintain control 

through various means, including: violence, coercion, 

and service provision; or through tribal, religious, or 

other cultural ties and structures.

As the 21st century progresses, the role and structure of government is already evolving from the current Westphalian, nation-state-based system originating in the 17th century to one more loosely based on 

alternative governance structures (AGS), the form 

and function of which we are only beginning to understand. This phenomenon is easy to imagine in fragile states; however, as industrialized nations become 

increasingly polarized by economic inequality; as 

citizens’ trust in the effectiveness and motives of state 

authorities erodes; and as social media tools help AGS 

organize and operate, they are also likely to become 

a greater threat to state authority in the developed 

world.

While examining AGS types, not all have a violent or profit-seeking structure. There are also civil 

society and faith-based organizations providing services that are the traditional responsibility of states, 

which can also (wittingly or otherwise) undermine 

its authority peacefully. This is why it is important to 
focus on the structures that emerge, as opposed to the 

individual groups themselves, to enable identification 

of the varying types of alternative governance arising 

in these immense urban areas before conflict or other 

circumstances erupt that the United States considers 

to be against its national interest.

If the state is unable to predict the emergence of 

such alternatives to its own influence, and always assumes that it must challenge and eradicate them, the 

result will be numerous small-scale violent conflicts 

that undermine regional and global stability and endanger energy, food, and human security. Unless 

states can understand the factors causing these structures to emerge and threaten their authority, they 

will be unprepared to determine whether it is in their 

interest to halt the development of these alternative 

governance models, or to share this market with nongovernmental or sub-state actors in order to actually 

maintain or enhance the state’s own legitimacy.

Within existing or emerging AGS, identifying 

norm-based governance factors such as reputation, 

trust, reciprocity, enforcement of compliance, and 

self-regulation can be keys to the effective communication of tactical or operational goals. In addition, 

the introduction of respected figures that will assist 

in attaining goals that are of U.S. interest is a critical 

method of undermining coercive or other leadership 

whose objectives run counter to U.S. interests.

It can be difficult for outsiders to understand the 

complex social networks, incentives, and motivations 

that underlie AGS, making it nearly impossible to determine with whom to negotiate and what leverage 

might be effective to further U.S. goals. In addition, 

the amount and type of power that members or leaders of such structures wield in actuality, as opposed to 

xiv
xv

assurances, is critical to gauge—especially in a climate 

of shifting alliances. Planning and movement are also 

inhibited by the poor mapping, weak infrastructure, 

and the disordered slums of megacities, all of which 

can be nearly impossible to monitor or access. 

In order to understand and predict the emergence 

of alternative governance, and to identify whether it 

represents a threat or opportunity to U.S. interests, we 

must develop a toolkit, which can be based on existing 

sources and analytic methods that only need to be expanded to the city level or weighted and appropriately applied. Such foreknowledge is a force multiplier 

and an important nonlethal weapon for planning and 

operating in an urban environment, particularly one 

as dense as a megacity.

In addition to social network analysis methods, 

cultural features, such as shared dialect or language 

and a history of opposition to state control or of intergroup conflict, are important factors for understanding the development of AGS. More specifically, with 

enhanced sample sizes and updated information, 

measurable cultural factors can be attributed to residents of targeted megacities. These include Geert Hofstede’s concepts of power distance, individualism vs. 

collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance.

In looking at trends in urbanization, the focus is 

on governance and the factors directly related to it 

from the average citizen’s perspective; in its most basic form, this includes providing security, economic 

opportunity, and other basic services. To this end, a 

number of existing indices can be applied to provide 

a picture of megacities of increasing importance to 

U.S. defense planning, including Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, certain elements of the U.S. Institute for Peace’s Fragile States 
xvi

Index, the Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index, and 

the United Nations (UN) Habitat Program’s Cities 

Prosperity Index. 

These measures, along with cultural dimensions 

and basic demographic, political, and economic data, 

added to critical field-based human intelligence (HUMINT) sources, can provide a set of very basic indicators for piecing together the contextual environment 

in which the selected megacities exist, as well as their 

own prosperity and growth projections. Such an expandable toolbox would be invaluable for U.S. Army 

planners to provide a starting point for developing 

critical pre-knowledge of these locales and what is 

governing them.
1

ALTERNATIVE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES IN 

MEGACITIES: THREATS OR OPPORTUNITIES?

Megacities are growing, they are becoming more connected, and the ability of host nation governments to 

effectively deal with their explosive growth and maintain security is, in many cases, diminishing. Megacities are a unique environment that the U.S. Army does 

not fully understand.1

INTRODUCTION

Steven Pinker reminded us in his 2011 book, The 

Better Angels of our Nature, that: “feuding among 

knights and peasants was not just a nuisance but a lost 

opportunity,” eventually turning, “Warriors to courtiers.”2

 The concept of modern-day “warlords” controlling urban territory, and from whom the United 

States with all its might could not wrest control, came 

into the American consciousness with a jolt in 1993 

Somalia. The videos of Third World thugs attacking a 

modern multinational force trying to provide humanitarian assistance was a shock that Americans of that 

generation will not forget.

Monikers such as “warlords,” “brigands,” and 

“insurgents” connote our distaste for non-traditional 

power structures in far-flung cities that we believe 

should all be run by Rotarian-like mayors and city 

councils. The state of the world today belies this false 

sense of what constitutes “governing.” Urban planners 

suggest that effective governing means providing the 

basic goods and services people need to live “normal” 

lives, such as clean water, food, shelter, and security. 

In many places, cities are growing into massive land 

areas filled with enormous slums where vast numbers 

of people are not receiving these basic goods and ser-
2

vices from their central government, if at all. In portions of these “megacities,” services are not provided 

by traditional means, but by gangs or others who are 

essentially effective social entrepreneurs, identifying 

niche needs in the marketplace and filling them more 

effectively than other potential competitors, including traditional state authorities. These leaders control 

specific territories or populations by various means, 

including: violence, coercion, and service provision; 

or through tribal, religious, or other cultural ties and 

structures.

The impact of such cultural networks cannot be 

discounted in the role played by alternative governance structures (AGS) in megacities. In his 2013 book, 

Revenge of Geography, Robert Kaplan argues:

It is the very impersonal quality of urban life, which 

is lived among strangers, that accounts for intensified 

religious [or other deep personal identifying] feeling. 

For in the village of old, religion was a natural extension of the daily traditions and routine of life among 

the extended family; but migrations to the city brought 

Arab Muslims into the anonymity of slum existence, 

and to keep the family together and the young from 

drifting into crime, religion has had to be reinvented 

in starker, more ideological form. In this way, states 

weaken, or at least have to yield somewhat, to new 

and sometimes extreme kinds of nationalism and religiosity advanced by urbanization.3

This phenomenon could also easily be seen among 

other immigrant populations in any megacity, such as 

the clichéd ubiquity of Italian and Irish adherence to 

Catholicism across New York City, since large waves 

of both groups began coming to the United States and 

continuing today in many communities across the 

country. This reinforcement of identity enabled pae-
3

sani, or Italians of a shared regional group in Italy, to 

eventually grow influence networks into larger economic units of Italians, rather than only segmented 

Sicilians, Napolitanos, or Calabrese, who initially 

fought turf wars against each other in American cities.

As the 21st century progresses, the role and structure of government is already evolving from the current Westphalian, nation-state-based system originating in the 17th century to one more loosely based on 

AGS, the form and function of which are only beginning to be understood.

As Francis Fukuyama, Phil Williams, and many 

others have argued, traditional governance structures are under siege. Jennifer Keister argues that 

misnamed: 

‘ungoverned spaces’ exist and persist because the 

costs of incorporating them are too high, and the benefits of integrating them (and the risks of not doing so) 

are too low.4

 Keister adds: 

Contrary to their popular characterizations, political 

order in these areas has not disappeared: it is simply 

wielded by actors other than the state, such as traditional or religious elites, warlords, community groups, 

and rebel organizations.5

As Williams noted in his 2008 Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monograph, “the sooner we understand 

what may attempt to replace them [AGS], the better 

we will be able to mitigate negative effects on stability 

and security.”6

This evolution will be more rapid and widespread 

in developing areas where people are “living on the 
4

edge,” disenfranchised or beyond the reach of centralized government control and influence. However, as 

industrialized nations become increasingly polarized 

by economic inequality; as citizens’ trust in the effectiveness and motives of state authorities erodes; and 

as social media tools help AGS organize and operate, 

this phenomenon is also likely to become a greater 

threat to state authority in the developed world.

If the state is unable to predict the emergence of 

such alternatives to its own influence, and always assumes that it must challenge and eradicate them, the 

result will be numerous small-scale violent conflicts 

that undermine regional and global stability, and 

endanger energy, food, and human security. Unless 

states can understand the factors causing these structures to emerge and threaten the state’s authority, they 

will be unprepared to determine whether it is in their 

interest to halt the development of these alternative 

governance models or to share this market with nongovernmental or sub-state actors in order to actually 

maintain or enhance the state’s own legitimacy.

Identifying and defining the types of nontraditional governance structures, and understanding 

how, where, and why they emerge, can reduce future 

conflict and increase stability by signaling whether a 

state should challenge, cooperate with, or co-opt these 

structures as a means of enhancing the state’s reach, 

effectiveness, and legitimacy. This knowledge is critical to mission success in locales that U.S. and allied 

land forces may need to be deployed to over the next 

20 years and can serve as a strategic multiplier for the 

U.S. military and its policy planners by:

• Increasing the understanding of emerging areas of potential urban instability and conflict;

• Assisting defense budgetary analysis, resource 

allocation, and force planning;
5

• Facilitating conflict mitigation before violence 

erupts, thereby avoiding costly expenditures of 

both blood and treasure;

• Identifying true social, political, and economic 

centers of gravity among foreign populations 

before forces are committed to deploy in order 

to determine appropriate measures of mission 

success.

GOVERNANCE: A MATTER OF TRUST

When people do not trust the state, the door is 

opened for an AGS to set up operations. A review of 

current literature on governance and legitimacy suggests the primary common factor that ensures popular 

support of authority in a given geographic location is 

trust. This does not mean agreement with the methods 

of governing, but involves a belief in the consistent 

application of laws or expressed social mores across 

the territory (i.e., “truth, justice, and the American 

Way”).

This trust can be earned through the effective provision of needed services, such as security; logistics 

to obtain and distribute adequate food, water, and 

other critical goods; dispute mediation, healthcare, 

and other social services; or it can be earned through 

consistent application of violence or other coercive 

measures. This concept of trust is not equivalent to 

Western notions of “good” governance, only an assurance that the population can plan and organize itself 

and its activities in a clear and predictable manner, 

even under threat of violence, as long as there is some 

consistency in its application.

It is critical to identify the specific sources of 

trust that impart legitimacy on AGS and their leaders, whether benevolent, coercive, or something in 
6

between, in order to understand how to co-opt, support, or undermine that trust to enhance mission success once defined. Conflict is more likely to arise when 

the population does not have this sense of trust, and 

when “laws” or social norms and mores serving in that 

capacity are not applied consistently resulting in chaos and uncertainty. Conflict is, of course, more likely 

in times of transition, whether due to economic, political, or social change; or due to natural or manmade 

disasters. This is the case even under more effective or 

benevolent governance structures, as the population 

is unsettled and unable to conduct its daily affairs in 

an atmosphere of certainty.

Examples of unexpected governance structures effectively creating a sense of trust abound. This would 

include the coercive government of Tito’s Yugoslavia, 

until the fall of the Soviet Union triggered an economic 

disruption that ended the relative economic prosperity and peaceful cohabitation of nearly a dozen ethnic 

groups and resulted in chaos and dissolution with 

well-documented catastrophic results.

Aside from such state examples, unexpected 

governance structures also appeared in the housing 

projects of Chicago, a few blocks from the esteemed 

university. Sudhir Venkatesh vividly describes in his 

2008 book, Gang Leader for a Day, how a Black Kings 

midlevel gang leader effectively governed a society 

apart from and forgotten by the city surrounding it, 

ensuring relative stability, security, and economic 

benefits for the poor residents of a slum slated for demolition. Pinker notes that such structures arise due 

to: “Mistrust of the criminal justice system turned into 

cynicism and sometimes paranoia, making self-help 

justice seem the only alternative.”7

The Taliban even initially gave parts of southern 

Afghanistan a break from the chaos of the civil war 
7

resulting from three primary “warlords” vying for 

dominance for 2 decades. As a junior researcher at the 

Brookings Institution in 1994, amid the outcry against 

the Taliban’s brutality as it roared across Afghanistan, 

the author recalls a small article in the The Washington 

Post noting that the vanguard of warriors were soon 

followed by convoys of trucks bearing food and other 

goods that people had in short supply, and thinking: 

“These guys are brilliant and they will be hard to get 

rid of.”

Some observers have argued that the mistake the 

United Nations (UN) made in Somalia was in not 

engaging the local “warlords” in the process of distributing aid, thus recognizing that they were more 

legitimate sources of power and influence in areas of 

Mogadishu than the central government that had fallen 2 years earlier. Others have suggested that geography precludes some locales from being effectively 

governed by a central authority, and that a clan structure or chains of linked commercial centers are able to 

provide services and stability for larger numbers of 

citizens.

Understanding how AGS arise, operate, and can 

be co-opted or co-operated with—not just prevented 

and eradicated—will be an important part of strategic 

planning for dealing with growing threats in urban 

areas in the developing world, just as some U.S. cities 

try to do at a lower-level with community-led policing 

and jobs programs.

There are common characteristics shared by AGS 

that successfully challenge state authority, such as the 

services they provide, their structures, their modes of 

communication (including propaganda and messaging), and their relationships with residents. 

Like corporations and other organizations, criminal gangs typically have a four-level hierarchical 
8

structure. The youngest, newest, and strongest members act as the armed front on the streets, whether they 

are directly selling drugs, collecting extortion money, 

or fighting armed battles for turf or other objectives. 

The next level is the middle managers—as in a corporation, the business end of the entity—who lead and 

organize the first level in daily and tactical matters. 

The third level is the decision-making circle, normally 

a council of those who have been with the group for a 

longer period and have risen through the ranks. These 

members oversee operational functions and assist the 

top echelon leader or leaders in developing strategies 

and making other significant decisions.

Like any business, the managers and third-tier “advisory board” meet on a regular basis in a pre-ordained 

place to plan and share information. Black Kings manager, “J.T.,” surprised researcher Venkhatesh when 

he invited Venkhatesh to the daily “staff meeting” 

conducted in a Chicago diner at 7:30 each morning.8

The specific activities of such groups on a daily and 

longer-term basis, as well as the amount of freedom to 

work independently or be innovative, depends upon 

the group’s alignment and objectives, (whether profitbased or ideological), and the leadership style at the 

higher levels.

A critical difference in identifying alternative governance types is to determine whether the structure 

is primarily in place for capitalist profit-motivated 

purposes or to meet ideological goals. It is generally 

easier to define engagement strategies with leaders of 

profit-motivated AGS, who are pragmatic and forward 

thinking in terms of expanding profitable opportunities and limiting risks, than with fanatical ideologues 

who are far more focused on radically altering the current status quo instead of building a stable future for 

adherents. 
9

Provision of Services.

Aside from ensuring the availability of sufficient 

resources and maintaining critical trade relationships 

and routes, the primary service guaranteed by a stable 

state is security. If citizens do not perceive that the 

state function responsible is adequately providing 

this key service, whether it be the military in terms 

of national security or municipal policing, alternative 

groups will fill the vacuum and ensure that security 

is restored, but perhaps not in a way the state would 

prefer. At the municipal level, such structures can take 

the form of neighborhood watch groups, which range 

from a network of alert citizens to collectively hiring 

private security, to armed citizens actively patrolling 

and often behaving as vigilantes.

In May 2014, on the highways surrounding Moscow, gunmen called the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 

Gang started putting spikes on desolate stretches of 

roadway; when drivers stopped to check the damage 

to their cars, they were shot dead without even being 

robbed. Despite joint efforts of local police and even 

the Federal Security Service, in September 2014, after 

14 people had been killed in this way, a drag racing 

group called “Smotra” began a vigilante crusade to 

stop these killings and make Moscow’s highways once 

again safe for drivers. Smotra representatives spoke of 

participating in this dangerous mission for their family and the country, larger ideologies than revenge or 

simple security.

These vigilantes wore body armor, drove expensive sports cars, and about 1 in 10 was licensed to 

carry a firearm. They used their sports cars as bait 

and patrolled these areas; but then they began to stop 

motorists and search cars, interrogating and frighten-
10

ing drivers about the dangers on the roads, which disconcerted some residents who might otherwise have 

appreciated the group’s efforts.9

This is an example of a group that formed (like that 

of a “posse” in the Wild West of the United States) for 

a specific purpose: to catch a criminal or group of outlaws, and typically disband once the target or threat 

was eliminated. Before the appearance of GTA, Smotra

was a group of fast car aficionados, who likely disturbed the peace with their activities, but were not a 

criminal gang organized for profit or intent on becoming an alternative to state governance. Unless some 

motive becomes more attractive to Smotra leaders, 

profit for example, the group is likely to retire from 

vigilantism and go back to scaring motorists with their 

fast driving alone once this threat has passed.

However, the majority of gangs in Moscow are 

ethnically-based, either Russian neo-Nazis or Central 

Asian or Southern Russian Muslim groups, such as 

Chechens. These groups have historical animosity toward the state. They feel alienated on the one hand by 

intolerant immigration policies, and on the other by 

disenfranchisement by the Russian population and a 

legal and economic system that displays bias against 

them. In 2014, Russian investigators identified 883 

ethnic gangs across the country, mainly comprised 

of small groups of legal immigrants, who perpetrate 

muggings and small-scale violent acts.10

Chief of Moscow police criminal investigative division Major General Igor Zinoviev noted in 

November 2014 that:

The so-called complex of a mercenary operating on 

a foreign ground is characteristic of them: they have 

no moral limitations, and elders or clerics whom they 
11

traditionally listen to in their home countries and who 

can help reach out to them are not around.11

This phenomenon of social limiters on the behavior of young men is well presented by William Reno in 

his chapter in Ungoverned Spaces regarding challenges 

for al-Qaeda recruitment in Somalia:

As young supporters arrived from other parts of the 

country, they shed the social strictures that governed 

their behavior in their home communities. . . . [t]hus 

young men . . . would be more willing to use violence 

on behalf of their patrons with assurance they would 

not suffer the usual social consequences.12

In the case of megacities, many young people moving 

to cities, ostensibly to find economic opportunities to 

support their families and home communities, can be 

drawn into criminal, ideological, or other forms of AGS 

as they find themselves in a new environment with 

lessened family and community involvement, even if 

they share their new urban space with members of their 

ethnic group or clan. Absent the imposition of traditional community mores, these “displaced” urbanites 

can become highly effective AGS members subverting 

state authority, as they are more willing to commit 

acts that would be negatively perceived or prohibited 

by religious or other moral codes enforced more easily by local religious or family leaders in the home 

community.

In order for the U.S. military to effectively operate as needed in megacities, these structures must be 

understood in terms of: the source of trust; the level 

and type of services they provide; and the networks 

among them, in order to plan and seek allies and opportunities for cooperation with or the undermining 
12

of one group by supporting another. However, as was 

done in order to counter the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan in the 1980s, support of the mujahidin (holy 

warriors of God) engendered a greater threat for the 

future. Longer-term studies of such structures and 

longer-term post-conflict relationship-building activities are required as AGS goals and opportunities 

change.

Trust and Culture.

Within existing or emerging AGS, identifying 

norm-based governance factors such as reputation, 

trust, reciprocity, enforcement of compliance, and 

self-regulation can be keys to the effective communication of tactical or operational goals. In addition, 

the introduction of respected figures that will assist 

in attaining goals that are of U.S. interest is a critical 

method of undermining coercive or other leadership 

styles whose objectives run counter to U.S. interests.

It can be difficult for outsiders to understand the 

complex social networks, incentives, and motivations 

that underlie AGS, making it nearly impossible to determine with whom to negotiate and what leverage 

might be effective to further U.S. goals. In addition, 

the amount and type of power that members or leaders of such structures wield in actuality, as opposed to 

assurances, is critical to gauge—especially in a climate 

of shifting alliances. Planning and movement are also 

inhibited by the poor mapping, weak infrastructure, 

and disordered slums of megacities, all of which can 

be nearly impossible to monitor or access.13
13

Community Attitudes.

Community attitudes toward crime, fault, punishment, and justice also affect the creation and maintenance of AGS. Identifying how a given AGS runs 

counter to these attitudes can provide an opening to 

undermining or gradually changing how these structures evolve. Typically, AGS arise in times of transition, when uncertainty and instability are increasing. 

Even coercive AGS can provide a sense of security and 

normalcy that most residents prefer over chaos. 

In many places, as political “progress” takes place 

in directions seen as positive in the West, new laws 

may run counter to long-held mores, such as loyalty 

to one’s ethnic group or tribe, family, religion, or 

region. This sense of obligation can cause persons in 

both the public and the private sectors to go against

the law without concern or an internal sense of 

operating unethically.14

Expression of Shared Values: Method and Messaging.

Even now in a time of advanced telecommunications, with Islamic terrorist groups effectively using 

social media to communicate and recruit members 

with increasingly sophisticated messaging and videography, all forms of AGS communication must be 

understood. As the pony express and the telegraph 

made their way across the newly colonized western 

United States, Native Americans continued to thwart 

modern communication methods with traditional 

smoke signals and drum beats. 

By the same token, post-9/11, the United States 

was highly successful in disrupting significant financial networks involving witting or unwitting Islamic 
14

charities funding terrorist activities. However, more 

difficult to track cash transactions, hawala (transfer) 

trust networks, or chains of bartered services must be 

taken into account when defining AGS activities and 

methods of financial transaction for U.S. entities to attempt to disrupt or insinuate themselves into them for 

operational or strategic purposes. 

Aside from identifying communication networks 

within AGS in megacities, the content of the messaging is crucial to understand. Current effective terrorist propaganda has become far more sophisticated 

than the proletariat slogans and icons that now seem 

laughable in the Soviet period. On a special segment 

of CNN’s Global Public Square on the Islamic State in 

Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that aired in July 2015, host 

Fareed Zakaria noted:

a lot of the propaganda mixes the violence with scenes 

of camaraderie, friendship. The people in ISIS [sic] 

videos seem to be saying, ‘We did not belong where 

we were but now we have found a home,’ a powerful 

message to the millions of unemployed, disconnected, 

young Muslims across the Middle East and even in 

countries like France and Germany.15

Appearing on the same episode, Jürgen Todenhöfer, a German journalist who spent time in ISILcontrolled Mosul reported:

The amazing thing is that they [ISIL recruits] are completely enthusiastic. They think it’s the time of their 

life. They think that they are part of a historical event 

changing the whole Middle East. . . . There are even recruitment videos for deaf jihadists who wish to join.16
15

Dimensions of Culture as a Predictive Model.

Cultural features, such as shared dialect or language, or a history of opposition to state control or 

of inter-group conflict, are important factors contributing to the creation and maintenance of AGS. More 

specifically, with enhanced sample sizes and updated 

information, measurable cultural factors can be attributed to residents of targeted megacities, such as those 

developed by Geert Hofstede, including power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, and uncertainty 

avoidance. Figure 1 below compares three of Hofstede’s Dimensions of National Culture in four widely 

divergent countries containing megacities to be explored further: the United States (New York City) as 

a baseline only, Russia (Moscow), Pakistan (Karachi), 

and Nigeria (Lagos).

Figure 1. Comparison of Hofsteade’s 

Dimension of National Culture.
16

Power Distance: According to Hofstede, power 

distance refers to “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within 

a country expect and accept that power is distributed 

unequally.”17 High power-distance countries tend to 

operate within a vassal system, such as that prevalent 

in Medieval Europe in which subordinates are dependent for protection or economic or political gain from 

superiors.18

In such cases, favors are exchanged for loyalty, a 

process that can continue for generations in a paternalistic bond difficult to quantify from the outside but 

fully understood by the participants. Such a system 

engenders corruption from a Western perspective 

that actually provides a level of stability and certainty 

until some transitional period when the strength of 

the superior is diminished or the subordinate has the 

opportunity and motive to subvert the system.

Such transition can take place suddenly due to a 

reversal of fortune resulting from a catastrophic event 

or through a gradual, strategic process as took place 

in Europe at the creation of the Westphalian State. 

Knights marauding across the countryside, like modern-day “warlords” or today’s battles for drug turf, 

were economically detrimental to increasingly powerful European kings as villages were destroyed, arable land burned, and peasants killed, thus reducing 

the given region’s overall productivity and economic 

return.

The trick was to entice or coerce a knight to defer 

the right to use violence toward the state, for a larger 

“national” defense was difficult because it could appear weak to other knights or lesser nobles. This required the state to be vigilant in administering violence in a measured and consistent capacity in order 
17

to keep peace and discourage a resumption of revenge 

killings and attacks for plunder. The head of state had 

to ensure that his power was sufficient, to ensure that 

currying his favor was more attractive than subverting it. Pinker calls this process of creating the “Leviathan,” the turning of “warriors into courtiers,” one of 

the most significant developments in the stabilizing 

and civilizing process.19 If the state is unable to maintain this appearance of supreme power, members of 

high-power distance cultures can dissolve into AGS 

based on paternalism.

High-power distance cultures can also tolerate far 

greater degrees of inequality than lower-power distance cultures, so unfair distribution of economic opportunity is considered a fact of life and not imperative to strive to overcome for oneself or for the greater 

good.

As illustrated in Figure 1, if we apply this cultural 

dimension to four megacity host countries, it is clear 

that as the United States has low power distance at 40, 

it is not surprising that rising inequality has become a 

significant political issue that the populace feels empowered to act to reverse. Pakistan has a relatively 

neutral power distance level at 55, which Hofstede 

suggests is inconclusive. Nigeria is much higher at 

80, suggesting that people in that country tend to expect a lot from the state in terms of services and subsidies, and they are likely to turn to other sources of 

governance in their absence. Russia demonstrates a 

very high power distance level at 93, which is not surprising considering the centuries-long imperial serf 

system that eventually reinvented itself as the Communist Party hierarchy and others, indicating democratization will likely take a long time and will need a 

different sort of ruling class to emerge in Russia. While 
18

a severe economic disruption always has the chance 

of creating conflict, cultures with high power distance 

are also likely to be more tolerant of poor national economic performance that affects the lower classes. 

Individualism vs. Collectivism: This cultural factor relates to the extent to which an individual expects 

life decisions and directions to be determined by the 

individual himself or the group to which he belongs; 

whether that is defined as the family, nuclear or far extended; friends or peers; or religious or ethnic groups. 

Expecting democratic values and individual choice 

to be primary in collectivist cultures is a nonstarter 

for peacekeeping and civil society. Coercive AGS 

can be highly effective in collectivist cultures such as 

Pakistan, which ties with China for a score of 14 (not 

shown), as group harmony is seen as more important 

than individual rights, even when maintaining the 

peace can cause great harm to a significant number 

of individuals. This was evident when Chinese civil 

society groups attempted to co-opt power from the 

Chinese state in the 1980s, resulting in the events at 

Tiananmen Square in 1989. From the perspective of an 

American college student in China at the time, CIA 

Analyst Dr. Rob Johnston recalls:

It seemed inconceivable that the citizens of Beijing—10-12 million people—would not intervene on 

behalf of the students. That many people could have 

overwhelmed the PLA [Peoples’ Liberation Army] had 

they chosen to do so. I also assumed that the soldiers 

of the PLA would be reluctant to fire on their own people, partly because the majority of both groups were 

from the same, dominant ethnic group of China, the 

Han, and, in part, because the soldiers represented a 

lower rung of Chinese society then did the students

 . . . I was wrong.20
19

In hindsight, Johnston recognized that:

In China, the protesting students were seen as a direct 

challenge to political authority and . . . their actions 

were viewed as an outright conflict between the future 

elite and the current leadership. The protest itself was 

viewed as a violation of a taboo, upsetting the cultural 

order and the stability of society.21

This view is borne out with China’s low individualist 

score of 20 (not shown), which is not surprising given 

the historical emphasis placed on the harmony of the 

group, as illustrated by Dr. Johnston’s experience in 

1989.

The United States defines itself as a country of 

“rugged individuals,” so a high score of 93 is not surprising, but Russia shares the same score, despite the 

high power distance and its collectivist political history. Pakistan’s highly collectivist score of 14 indicates 

that loyalty to the group (whether it is the family, or 

an ethnic or religious group) trumps merit, which affects everything from commercial and employment 

practices to political elections, leading to a high tolerance of Western-defined corruption easily manifesting 

itself in the official and unofficial governance structures in a megacity like Karachi. Nigeria is a bit more 

individualistic than Pakistan, but is still far more collectivist than the United States or Russia with a score 

of 30, again contributing to a “tribal” political climate 

and widespread corruption.

Uncertainty Avoidance: This cultural factor reflects intolerance for ambiguity within a given culture, often leading to strong traditional beliefs and 

adherence to rules in order to attempt to control daily 

consistency for familiar outcomes, even if the rules are 
20

actually detrimental to the individual’s progress and 

well-being. In such cultures, Western perceptions of 

corrupt systems, even at the state level, can be viewed 

as a mechanism to reduce uncertainty. In situations 

where outcomes are uncertain, corruption may serve 

to secure a more certain result. For example, M.S. Alam 

describes how government officials in passport offices 

in uncertainty avoidant cultures “create the potential 

for illicit gains by causing delays and uncertainty in the 

processing of applications.”22 Salim Rashid observed 

that providing an appropriate bribe while contracting 

for utility services reduces uncertainty and increases 

efficiency in some third-world countries.23

Always a culture of extremes, Russia is the highest 

uncertainty avoiding culture with a score of 95, which 

helps to explain how the imperial and communist 

regimes were able to maintain control of the population for so long with coercive yet predicable policies, 

and through an ideological fervor that equated the 

tsar with God and tied the Party to every individual. 

Pakistan is the next intolerant of uncertainty at 70, 

which helps explain the lean toward the traditional 

practice of Islam and the development of deep

pockets of religious extremism. 

Nigeria and the United States are rather moderate 

at 55 and 46 respectively; this suggests a greater openness to innovation and a lower need for lots of rules. 

To this end, a Nigerian doctor living and working in 

the United States recently commented to the author: 

“Lagos is total chaos. Things have gotten a lot better in 

the past decade but those people have lived with chaos forever, they don’t know how to function without 

it.”24 Despite its collectivist preference for harmony, 

Chinese culture has a high tolerance for uncertainty. 

This is likely influenced by the Confucian worldview 
21

that suggests the world and its history operate on a 

system of recurring cycles that cannot be controlled 

but are also generally predictable. 

Although the Western press is rife with examples 

of the horror and disruption caused by the march of 

ISIL across the Levant, rather than only destroying cities in its path, in some cases it has become an almost 

welcome AGS. Fareed Zakaria reported that in Mosul 

(a city in Iraq with a score of 85 for uncertainty avoidance), ISIL actually provides a level of security that 

has been absent in Iraq since the U.S. invasion, even 

with ISIL-branded police cars and officers issuing traffic tickets. Mosul residents told journalist Todenhöfer 

that under Iraq’s Shiite government they suffered 

from the chaos and are now better off under ISIL. 

Todenhöfer noted, “instead of anarchy they have now 

law and order. And people don’t like [ISIL] but they 

like their security. So they take taxes. They take care 

of the poor.”25 In the same segment, Zakaria opined, 

“while there is an allure to security in the abstract, no 

one likes living under a brutal theocracy.” This juxtaposition of perception and fact is the key to determining whether and how to counter or co-opt AGS.26

Unfortunately, Hofstede’s model is only a starting point for this type of cultural analysis, because it 

was last updated in 2010, thereby extending his original research conducted between 1967 and 1973 with 

a too-small sample of participants from 76 countries. 

Updating his results and weighting the key cultural 

dimensions outlined here, however, would result in 

scores that could determine which select cultures are 

more or less susceptible to the development of viable 

AGS that could threaten the sovereignty of the state. 

Using the current data and weighting all three attributes equally, as noted in Table 1, Russia has the 
22

high score of 94, and in 1917, an alternative governance model developed by Vladimir Lenin did topple 

the existing state and create a new governing architecture for the entire Russian Empire. 

Table 1. Comparison of Select Dimensions 

of National Culture.

The remaining cultures are moderates, but the argument can be made that the next high scorer is the 

United States. Although U.S. sovereignty and stability 

are believed to be secure, there are thousands of AGS 

that co-opt the state’s monopoly on power; and yet 

they exist without interference from and often working with the blessing of the state. These include trade 

unions, civil society organizations, and even Amish 

or closed Mormon communities, all of whom provide 

services to their constituents, often persuade their 

members how to participate (or not) in the political 

process, and do not contribute to the public purse.

Nigeria is the next high scorer at 55, although 

moderately so. From 1966, Nigeria experienced a series of coups d’état by various uncoordinated military 

leaders; but this is in no way similar to the complete 

societal change wrought by the Communist Party in 

Russia, which had erected its own governance structures underground during the empire period. These 

coups were a manifestation of the weakness of state 

institutions, which can still describe much of the 

Countries United States Russia Pakistan Nigeria

Power Distance 40 93 55 80

Individualism 91 93 14 30

Uncertainty Avoidance 46 95 70 55

Average Score on 3 Dimensions 59 95 46 55
23

Nigerian government today, making it too politically weak to effectively manage any AGS that may 

emerge. This series of military coups could suggest 

that Nigeria’s military itself was an AGS, only ostensibly under state control; however, the vicious and violent competition for the top position in the Nigerian 

government indicated personal ambition and sectoral 

infighting within the military, prohibiting any form of 

governance that might have become a viable alternative to a Westphalian state model. 

The lowest scorer, Pakistan (46) is again at the median, which does not provide a clear indication of the 

cultural threshold for any developing AGS that could 

threaten state control. Pakistan’s score is mainly a 

combination of very low levels of individualism and 

tolerance for uncertainty, which suggest that existing 

tribal and family structures, along with strong religious beliefs and Muslim or local mores, already govern individual Pakistanis more than does the central 

government. In that case, AGS emerging in Karachi—

aided by the forces of urbanization and modernity that 

draw those in megacities to seek structures to provide 

the safety of a collective and enhance certainty—are 

likely to lend themselves to a cultural disposition to 

being governed locally by a trusted AGS, but disregard the central government. Pakistan’s mountainous geography already drives a cultural apathy to the 

central government in preference to regional interests; 

much like the U.S. Federal structure, which gives significant power to individual states and shared regional 

interests.
24

WHY FOCUS ON MEGACITIES?

Recent U.S. Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Raymond Odierno explained the importance of studying 

megacities in his introduction to his Strategic Studies 

Group’s 2014 report, Megacities and the United States 

Army: Preparing for a Complex and Uncertain Future, by 

stating:

increasing urbanization throughout the world is making the megacity one of the key features of many potential operational theaters . . . most of the world’s 

population will be in urban areas . . . a problem that 

we must begin to understand and for which we must 

prepare.27

General Odierno also pointed out that: “our Army 

has experience throughout its history of operating in 

urban environments. . . . [w]e have not, however, operated in urban areas with populations over 10 million people.”28 In addition, the report notes that missions are centered around actions to influence people, 

which perfectly aligns with the idea of understanding 

the governance structures that are operating or evolving within megacities to a degree that we can identify 

non-military influence opportunities.

General Odierno’s own team asks rhetorically and 

responds: 

Why would the U.S. Army go to one of these places? 

. . . [u]nderlying that question is an understanding that 

current Army doctrine and historic military judgment 

advocates avoiding urban areas in general for reasons 

of practicality and risk.29

Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen argues 

that violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) will increasingly 

focus on the urban environments of the world’s emerg-
25

ing megacities, and the Naval War College’s Richard 

J. Norton warns that “feral” cities provide breeding 

grounds for criminal and terrorist networks. In response, the Department of Defense (DoD) has turned 

to developing doctrine and operations appropriate to 

these spaces. Central governments have limited presence and control in places “as varied as” Pakistan’s 

Federally Administered Tribal Areas, northern Yemen, and the slum areas of megacities such as Rio de 

Janeiro and Karachi.30

It is easy to focus on VNSAs when considering 

alternative governance in megacities as we typically 

hear more about groups that are expanding influence 

through violence with states’ inability to halt their 

progress, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria or ISIL. In 

addition to ideological violent groups, there are also 

intra- and interstate criminal networks, such as drug 

cartels in Latin and South America and other trafficking groups as well as violent gangs, whose influence 

is checked by the “turf” they control within a single 

section of a city.

While there is interrelation between AGS and 

VNSAs, there is a critical distinction between the 

study of each. Though the VNSAs may be the individuals or groups who establish and maintain AGS, not 

all nonstate actors, especially VNSAs, actually govern. In fact, many insurgent or terrorist groups, such 

as al-Qaeda in Sudan or Somalia, may only be based 

in a given territory and operate entirely separate of it, 

focused on their own targets located elsewhere. 

While examining AGS types, not all have a violent or profit-seeking structure. There are also civil 

society and faith-based organizations providing services that are the traditional responsibility of states, 

which can also (wittingly or otherwise) undermine 

its authority peacefully. This is why it is important to 
26

focus on the structures that emerge, as opposed to the 

individual groups themselves, to enable identification 

of the varying types of alternative governance arising 

in these immense urban areas before conflict or other 

circumstances erupt that the United States considers 

to be against its national interest.

Effects of Mega-Urbanization on Governance.

The movement of the world’s population from 

increasingly rural to urban is well documented, and 

branches of study of the force and consequences of 

urbanization emerge almost daily on diverse topics 

in many disciplines, from environmental sustainability to infrastructure development and resource 

allocation. 

The subject of governance develops as “megacities” 

emerge, and concern rises over alternatives to sovereign national units that engender localized allegiances 

or affiliations that become stronger than the national 

identity. Imagine if the U.S. Federal or even New York 

state structures failed so utterly to provide rescue, 

remediation, rebuilding, security, infrastructure, and 

basic services that 15 years later, by 2016, inhabitants 

of the megacity that is the American commercial center began operating as if they were New Yorkers first 

and no longer identified themselves as Americans. 

What would be the specific failures of state structures 

at all levels that might cause that outcome?

“Wild Forces,” Transition and Instability.

Pinker describes a number of forces he terms 

“wild” that result in societies becoming more violent 

and unstable,31 whereby they contribute to the creation 
27

of Williams’ “dangerous spaces” where AGS are likely 

to emerge.32 These include rootless or idle young men, 

and tribal and traditional cultures based on honor, not 

reason and empathy, as well as a reliance on self-help 

justice or a law-on-the-street honor code. Pinker adds 

that every human society is faced with a conflict of interest between the younger men who seek dominance 

(and ultimately mating opportunities) for themselves, 

and the older men who seek to minimize internecine 

damage within their extended families and clans.33

This phenomenon is beginning to become significant in China with the prevalence of single young men 

as a result of the One Child policy, which has created 

a severe gender gap; single young men without the 

civilizing influence of wives and children are likely to 

pose an increasing threat to the state in both rural and 

urban areas.

Traditional societies, such as the Igbo of Nigeria, 

have developed the age-mate system in which young 

people born in the same year are encouraged to form 

a supporting clique, solving disputes and assisting 

one another throughout their lives. Age-mate groups 

pride themselves on activities that enhance village 

life or build economic opportunity for the entire community, which engenders pride within each group 

that can prevent young male members from creating 

havoc. Movement away from these groups into larger 

city environments is one of the trends that can remove 

their desire to follow village mores; this, coupled with 

decreased economic opportunity, can prevent them 

from becoming good marriage candidates, and groups 

of such young men joining together can increase violence and instability.

As was noted in the section on dimensions of national culture, there are other cultural attributes that 

arise from traditional necessity, such as membership 
28

in a culture of honor often resulting in traditional 

herding communities, for instance, that can be a predictor of violence and instability within society. A 

prime example of this is the Hatfields and McCoys, 

Scottish families that settled in the mountainous area 

of West Virginia and Kentucky in the United States. 

Their famous feud was fueled by this culture 

of honor common among peoples living in hilly or 

mountainous regions with little arable land for cultivation but well-suited for animal husbandry. If your 

source of wealth and status is able to wander off or 

be stolen, unlike something immovable such as land, 

you must be prepared to guard it without question. In 

such cultures, having a hair trigger temperament and 

flaring the threat of violence at any perceived slight 

is critical to maintaining a reputation of not being the 

herder to be trifled with. 

Hilly or mountainous terrain also lends itself to 

AGS creation as such areas naturally develop independent, self-reliant communities in the “hollers” or 

valley areas with natural defense lines. This terrain 

leads to a decreased reliance upon and increased mistrust of any centralized government, especially if it 

means cooperating with long-time enemies in the adjoining valley with whom you have traditionally vied 

for resources. This is a critical issue in mountainous 

regions like Pakistan. 

Self-help or street justice is for alienated people, 

whom Pinker calls “stateless,” even if they are full citizens of the state in which they reside. Due to their minority status, no matter what proportion of the population they comprise, their class, race, and economic 

status causes them to be less or totally unprotected by 

the legal code that applies to the rest of the citizenry. 

The effectiveness of both a “legitimate” justice system 
29

and street justice are dependent upon credibility. This 

form of justice outside the state is a notable attribute 

of the code of honor described above.

Another factor affecting the loss of traditional mores that affects people moving into cities for the first 

time is modernity itself. This can erode traditional 

values centered around the family, tribe, religion, 

and shared traditions, which, once individuals are removed from the cradle of these forces, can be gradually replaced by “individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason and science,” Pinker relates.34 These transitional 

periods for individuals, communities, and states are 

likely to be when violence is most prevalent as social 

forces are realigned.

Measuring Governance in Megacities.

In looking at trends in urbanization, the focus is on 

governance and the factors directly related to it from 

the average citizen’s perspective; in its most basic 

form, this includes providing economic opportunity, 

security, and other basic services. 

To this end, a number of existing indices can be 

applied to provide a picture of megacities of increasing importance to U.S. defense planning. A basic application here includes: Lagos, Nigeria, because it 

is the commercial capital and the port city through 

which the United States imported $11.6 billion in oil 

in 2013;35 and Karachi, Pakistan, due to its location at 

the crossroad of India and China and its state’s contemporary contribution to instability in Central Asia. 

These are compared to two cities in two very different 

developed countries to identify what non-economic 

factors contribute to the development of alternative 

governance: New York City in the United States, and 

Moscow in the Russian Federation.
30

These measures, along with cultural dimensions 

and basic demographic, political, and economic data, 

added to critical field-based human intelligence (HUMINT) sources, can provide a set of very basic indicators for piecing together the contextual environment 

in which the selected megacities exist as well as their 

own prosperity and growth projections. Such an expandable toolbox is intended for U.S. Army planners 

to provide merely a starting point for developing critical pre-knowledge of these locales and what is governing them. These indices or their sub-elements and 

many other data sources, including pre-positioned 

reliable HUMINT collectors, must be combined and 

tested to determine what are the key conditions of life 

and how they are set and manipulated within megacities and their states to develop an early measure of 

alternative governance vulnerability, and to develop a 

lens to identify which should be eliminated and which 

have prospects for enhancing U.S. interests, before or 

during times of conflict. 

The Corruption Perceptions Index36 produced 

annually by Transparency International is a familiar 

governance indicator that shows how much citizens 

trust their leaders to operate ethically; such trust is 

crucial to maintaining popular support of the state as 

a primary governing body. Its results for 2015 indicate 

that, while improving, the other three cases exhibit 

very high levels of corruption compared to the United 

States, as shown in Figure 2.
31

Figure 2. Corruption Perceptions Index 

Comparison, 2000-2014.

The Fragile States Index, until 2013 called the 

“Failed States Index,” produced by the U.S. Institute 

for Peace and Foreign Policy Magazine since 2005, has 

become a ubiquitous and valuable measure that can 

be easily deconstructed and its sub-elements applied 

to myriad challenges.37 Those most likely to be relevant to the study of the rise of AGS include at least the 

following and can be carefully weighted to determine 

how each contributes to the emergence of AGS. They 

are described as such by the Fragile States Index:

• Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance—When 

tension and violence exists between groups, the 

state’s ability to provide security is undermined 

and fear and further violence may ensue.
32

• Legitimacy of the State—Corruption and a lack 

of representativeness in the government directly undermines the social contract.

• Progressive Deterioration of State Services—

The provision of health, education, and sanitation services, among others, are key roles of the 

state.

• Violation of Human Rights and Rule of Law—

When human rights are violated or unevenly 

protected, the state is failing in its ultimate 

responsibility.

• Security Apparatus—The security apparatus 

should have a monopoly on the use of legitimate force. The social contract is weakened 

where this is affected by competing groups.

• Rise of Factionalized Elites—When local and 

national leaders engage in deadlock and brinksmanship for political gain, this undermines the 

social contract.

The Prosperity Index is an annual ranking of 142 

countries by the Legatum Institute, a London-based 

policy think tank and educational charity focused on 

promoting prosperity; its index is based on measurements of both income and well-being, defined by factors indicating wealth, economic growth, and quality 

of life. The most relevant of five sub-indicators to this 

study are prosperity, governance, safety, and security. 

As these factors are quantified using a combination of 

statistical indicators and qualitative information such 

as surveys, they take into account both economic and 

scientific elements as well as the perspectives of the 

people living within the given conditions. Figure 3 indicates lower levels of safety and security than governance in Nigeria and Pakistan, suggesting those states 

may have little time to enhance security provisions 
33

before they lose the remaining trust in the current 

government. 

Figure 3. Legatum Prosperity Index Selected 

Factors, 2014.

The key study related to cities is the Cities Prosperity Index developed by the UN Habitat Program, 

which aggregates five factors: productivity, quality 

of life, infrastructure development, environmental 

sustainability, and equity and social inclusion for an 

overall prosperity score with 0.900 and above indicating cities with very solid prosperity factors. The latest 

data available is from 2012-13, and the scores for that 

period, unfortunately, do not include Karachi. This 

source also provides growth projections valuable for 

projecting social change, as displayed in Figure 4.
34

Figure 4. Rate of Urbanization Projected 

Through 2020.

MEGACITY CASES: KARACHI AND LAGOS

Karachi, Pakistan.

Karachi is Pakistan’s only metropolitan city,38 and 

is broken down into five regions. Karachi is home to 

more than 23.5 million people, covers 3,500 square 

kilometers, and has the highest literacy rates in the 

country, up to 90 percent in the city center.39

Corruption and violence have become hallmarks of 

Karachi’s reputation. The Pakistan National Accountability Bureau has begun addressing corruption by 

prosecuting “mega corruption” cases against national 

political figures, while rampant corruption remains at 

lower-levels in government departments and public 

offices.40
35

Armed groups often use violence in Karachi as a 

negotiating tactic to sway provincial and federal decision-making, which can threaten the viability of the 

ruling coalition government. The armed wings of the 

major political parties, including Muttahida Quami 

Movement (MQM), Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), 

and Awami National Party (ANP), are the main perpetrators of urban violence. The political parties and 

their armed wings clash over city resources and funds 

generated through extortion. Karachi’s ethno-political 

violence is based on the conflict between Urdu-speaking mohajirs (migrants) of the MQM against Pashtuns 

represented by the ANP.41 The border between the mohajirs and Pashtun areas is a likely area to host ethnically based AGS emergence under this militia activity.

Violence overall has increased significantly in Karachi since 2003. Called Karachi’s “bloodiest year,” 

2013 saw 2,700 murders.42 This high level of crime in 

Karachi is not a simple phenomenon. Massive unregistered arms markets coupled with poverty and inequality have driven ethnic, political, and economic 

feuds to increasing violence.43

Karachi exemplifies a city wrought by proxy warfare in what has been called the “New Great Game,” 

characterized by an intricate web of alliances and 

groups at the global, regional, and local levels that result in this spike in the murder rate. The lack of effective policing, mainly due to corruption and preferential police hiring of certain ethnic groups over others, 

has led to the creation of many small militias, which 

either protect a given group or target another.44

Since its official ouster from Afghanistan, the 

Taliban has been steadily expanding its presence in 

Karachi. Known domestically as Tehreek-e-Taliban 

Pakistan (TTP), the TTP has focused on attacking city 
36

police. Militants have gunned down police officers, 

assaulted police stations, and sent suicide bombers to 

assassinate top police commanders.45

Militants of many groups, including TTP, control 

parts of Karachi, including Sohrab Goth, Manghopir, 

and Ittehad Town. Over the years, TTP has made increasingly violent attacks, including one on the Sohrab 

Goth police station on January 29, 2013. Station House 

Officer Ashfaq Baloch of the Manghopir police station 

stated that it is difficult to impose the law in his jurisdiction and that standard operating procedures followed by law enforcement elsewhere in the city have 

to be modified. For instance, elsewhere in Karachi, a 

single officer usually responds to the scene of a killing. 

However, in Manghopir, law enforcement often waits 

for bodies to turn up in the hospitals because it is too 

dangerous to go to the crime scene.46

Karachi law enforcement has devised a map of 

situational no-go areas due to ethnic violence and the 

presence of militants and gangsters, which Karachi 

law enforcement does not enter under any circumstances;47 only the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers serve 

as these sectors’ security presence.48 Other areas on 

the map are no-go areas only for a particular ethnicity 

in times of ethnic violence.49 Municipal law enforcement does maintain a presence in less tense areas.50

The prevalence of violence in ethnically segregated 

neighborhoods has made Karachi one of the places in 

Pakistan that is most susceptible to army intervention. 

In 2011, ethno-political violence led to Karachi’s business, trade, and industrial communities repeatedly 

calling for the army to declare a state of emergency 

and take control of security. Instead of intervening, 

the military pressured politicians to negotiate with 

militants.51
37

Karachi’s uncontrolled urban sprawl also poses a 

significant security problem. The developments taking place in peripheral areas of the city are beyond the 

management capability of the government. Katchi abadis, or shantytowns, contain half of Karachi’s population. These cramped slums have inadequate services; 

including sewage, water, and electricity, in addition to 

a lack of security.52 The Karachi government’s lenient 

policy towards housing regulation contributes to migration to the city from other parts of the country,53

which further reduces governance capability and increases the outskirts of Karachi susceptible to the formation of an AGS.

Karachi’s security situation has serious implications for U.S.-Pakistan relations because the megacity 

has emerged as a hub of militancy and terrorist attacks. The fundraising and recruitment of the TTP is a 

major element of the terrorist presence in Karachi, and 

as these groups consolidate power in the city, they 

could increase the current perception of Pakistan’s 

ambivalence about fighting terrorism within its territory, further straining relations with the United States 

and encouraging intervention in the future.54

High-level interventions by the Pakistan Army 

and Supreme Court have helped to temporarily disrupt cycles of violence in Karachi. On March 11, 2015, 

Rangers raided the headquarters of the MQM party 

in Karachi, arresting 20 party members, seizing illegal weapons, and closing down the office. The United States and Amnesty International have accused 

the MQM and breakaway factions of human rights 

abuses, including torture and summary killings.55

However, interventions such as the raid on MQM 

headquarters do not offer sustainable long-term solutions to Karachi’s violent politics.
38

Lagos, Nigeria.

Although the United States imports 70 percent 

less oil from Nigeria than it did in 2003, in 2013, Nigeria still provided 3 percent of U.S. oil imports. That 

oil flows through Lagos, the commercial capital and 

deep-water port on the Gulf of Guinea. In addition to 

the port and its facilities, Lagos has a diverse economy 

with manufacturing and service industries, banking, 

telecommunications, and some more traditional activities including mining, agriculture, forestry, and 

fishing. It returns about 30 percent of Nigeria’s gross 

domestic product and serves as the primary hub for 

international trade.56

Founded in 1472, Lagos was named by Portuguese 

explorers for its many lagoons, which cause a significant amount of its land area to be unsuitable for 

building or other infrastructure. In 1986, severe traffic 

congestion led to the relocation of Nigeria’s political 

capital from Lagos to Abuja. Lagos’ geography, while 

a source of valuable resources and infrastructure, is 

also one of its most problematic features, much like 

New York City. The DoD’s Megacities Report profiled 

Lagos as:

a loosely integrated megacity . . . composed of continuous urban sprawl primarily made up of buildings 

and informal structures of 1-3 stories, the majority of 

which are connected by informal dirt roads and large 

swaths of slums and shanties that are alternately governed. . . . Most of the slums float in the Lagos lagoon, 

and consist of shacks built to no construction standard. 

Yet, they have a school system, medical facilities, and 

even cell towers. Alternatively governed spaces will 

be more common in developing megacities in the 

future.57
39

Lagos officially became a megacity in 2010 and 

is one of the most densely populated cities in Africa. 

The population is estimated at 21 million, and it is the 

most populous metropolitan area in Nigeria as well 

as the second most populous and fastest-growing city 

in Africa after Cairo. Lagos currently ranks as the seventh fastest-growing city in the world, with 25 percent 

of all Africans being Nigerian.58

Since Nigeria returned to civilian leadership after 

civil war and multiple coups in 1999, the perception 

of corruption has declined steadily; however, due to 

increasing violence by the Boko Haram radical Islamic 

group and the response by the Nigerian Joint Task 

Force that frequently includes brutality against civilians, as well as ongoing environmental degradation 

and economic inequality, since the Fund for Peace 

began measuring state fragility in 2005, Nigeria has 

declined from 84.3 to 102.4, compared to the U.S. score 

for 2015 at 35.3.59

A series of reforms began in Nigeria in 1999 aimed 

at reducing inequality and increasing citizen participation in government at all levels. In Lagos, most citizens credit current Mayor Babatunde Fashola, often 

referred to as the “Mayor Bloomberg of Lagos State,” 

for his high achievement in this area. Less visible signs 

of local government reform include improved basic 

service provision and physical infrastructure. 

In June 2015, the World Bank’s International Development Association granted a $200 million credit 

directly to the Lagos district government. These funds 

were intended to improve public finances to help maintain the state’s recent economic growth and poverty 

reduction efforts and assist in continuing to provide 

social services. The World Bank noted that, “In the past 

decade Lagos State achieved significant economic 
40

growth, improved its infrastructure and services, 

significantly reduced crime, and brought millions of 

people out of poverty.”60

Lagos State Government has also identified local 

stakeholder groups outside the elites with whom to 

implement more inclusive decision-making methods 

for economic and infrastructure development and 

planning. These include town hall meetings with local government officials to which groups from various districts are invited to participate, including market stallholders, landlords, community development 

representatives, and religious and traditional leaders. 

They are encouraged to openly and collaboratively 

discuss draft legislation and development plans before they are approved or implemented. Professor 

Michael Filani reports that:

Traditional rulers serve as spokespersons for the community on issues such as granting lockup permits and 

tenement rates, and they are usually consulted to obtain their endorsement of other important issues. . . . 

[p]ublic expenditure by the local government is monitored by a statutory committee.61

Community groups are represented by both genders 

and even youths. 

While positive strides have been made, Lagos’ 

population density and the various islands that comprise it inherently create opportunities for subdivision easily subjected to alternative governance where 

the population is least served by the state and has 

the least economic opportunity or political power. 

As Nigeria is critical to maintaining stability in West 

Africa, and as Islamic terrorism continues to ravage 

the northern part of the country mainly in the form of 

Boko Haram, and as China’s interest in Nigeria and its 
41

resources and logistical benefits increases, the country 

as a whole is of primary interest to U.S. military planners, with Lagos to become increasingly important in 

strategic thinking.

In northern Nigeria, recent violence has been perpetrated mainly by the Islamic militants Boko Haram

and their offshoots. In the south, aside from criminal 

acts, violence is politically driven, not religious, and 

targets the wealth derived from the oil industry at the 

expense of the environment and lack of economic opportunity for those who live in the oil-rich areas. Although a peace was negotiated in 2009, some former 

associates of the violent Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta (MEND) have resumed activities that include oil pipeline sabotage, kidnapping, 

and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, as they do not feel 

the government has kept its side of the peace agreement by providing jobs and training opportunities for 

former MEND members.

Other types of political violence include the sort 

of post-election skirmishes that took place in northern Nigeria in April 2015. In Lagos, civil disturbance 

is often organized by local politicians who mobilize 

“Area Boys (and Girls)” for this purpose. Such activities do not constitute alternative governance, as these 

are isolated political activities and not structures controlling geographic areas. While the Nigerian Police 

Force (NPF) appears to be ubiquitous in urban areas, 

visiting U.S. officials are frequently asked to assist in 

the provision of community policing and law enforcement training, communications equipment, and vehicles to the NPF and local forces. This lack of resources, 

leadership, and training has led most Nigerians to 

doubt the NPF’s effectiveness, to the extent that criminals operate with impunity, aside from local vigilante 
42

groups that occasionally capture perpetrators and kill 

them on the spot.62

In June 2013, the Lagos City Council announced 

that it had recruited 50 vigilantes to provide security 

from criminals who had been kidnapping and robbing 

local citizens, adding that the Council was so confident in this approach that it would be hiring even 

more for this purpose.63 In January 2015, traditional 

leader Chief Moshood Balogun of Lagos’ Idimuland 

announced a community-policing program in his 

area, which had local residents serving in a surveillance capacity combined with a vigilante group assisting the federal government. The program also calls for 

the purchase of new telecommunications equipment 

to help prevent incidents of sabotage and theft on the 

community’s oil pipeline segments.64

Like the Smotra group in Moscow, as long as the 

vigilantes remain attuned to the specific tasks they 

have been mandated to conduct by the local authorities, this “community policing” might not burgeon 

into alternative governance; but a traditional chief 

employing local vigilantes to protect residents could 

also signal the opening salvo of the development of 

someplace like Idimuland as a separate geographical 

and political enclave moving further away from the 

host megacity and state. Monitoring such events is a 

significant task, but early warning will be the key to 

mission success in case of active missions to protect 

U.S. interests, such as maintaining an uninterrupted 

flow of Nigerian oil.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The subject of identifying the emergence of AGS 

and determining if they present a threat or opportu-
43

nity to U.S. Army planners mirrors the enormity and 

complexity of megacities themselves, which would 

be impossible to treat comprehensively in this space. 

Directions for further breaking down the topic and 

addressing its critical aspects for additional study are 

the primary policy recommendations arising from this 

monograph.

Develop a Robust Alternative Governance 

Vulnerability Index.

As noted in the sections on dimensions of culture 

and measuring alternative governance, the metrics 

presented here are only a starting point for developing 

a predictive model that can be effectively tested and 

expanded to identify a fuller alternative governance 

vulnerability index. The metrics suggested here must 

be enhanced and combined with additional and varied information sources, including reliable HUMINT 

collection as expanded below. Then, each must be rigorously tested for validity and carefully weighted and 

applied to robust case studies augmented with field 

research. In this way, the Army can create a valuable 

indicator and warning model to identify the true social, political, and economic centers of gravity within 

megacities and their populations; detect any early 

shifts in these centers; determine the appropriate responses or monitoring; and finally define appropriate 

measures of mission success long before any considerations of force commitments are made. As Keister 

noted, “The challenges of seeing into such spaces 

also make it difficult to assign blame or locate and 

target those at fault in the event of undesirable outcomes—limiting America’s ability to deter threatening 

activities.”65
44

Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield.

While the U.S. Army has always been good at 

geographic terrain analysis—augmented only in 

the past few decades by highly attuned reconnaissance tools such as aerial photography, satellites, and 

drones—these technological tools are of limited use in 

densely populated megacities with varying structural 

challenges. This makes the development of reliable 

HUMINT critical to developing solid indicators and 

warnings to trigger appropriate missions and define 

their success parameters.

In addition to HUMINT collection to identify power shifts, much like the effective use of native scouts in 

the Army’s support of westward expansion, the use 

of local sources should be used to identify physical 

“turf” boundaries of emergent or nascent AGS and the 

degree of border solidity.

Finally, urban terrain analysis should be applied to 

megacities to determine whether natural or manmade 

geographic features inherently create boundaries 

between AGS. Identify whether the city layout, past 

and likely future growth patterns, or the natural terrain upon which it is located will inherently lend itself 

to alternative governance, or will it unless projected 

growth directions or controls are reconsidered. 

Recognize the Growing Power of the Megacity 

Vis-à-Vis Surrounding States.

As megacities grow and states lose the ability to 

control them for various reasons, our view on their 

significance must increase as well. This was well noted in Richard Lamb’s 2008 DoD study on ungoverned 

spaces and safe havens:
45

In many cases, provincial, local, tribal, or autonomous 

governments—and in some cases, other countries, 

corporations, or organizations—are simply better positioned than the central government to address the 

local conditions that enable illicit actors to operate 

there.66

Army intelligence elements could assist in the development of a robust HUMINT capability in megacities to begin clearly identifying the recruitment targets 

and understanding their social isolation or frustration 

with their current environment in order to infiltrate 

or partner with existing members of an AGS before 

conflicts require direct engagement. In the case of 

states that are failing to provide essential security 

and other services, the national military organizations 

and federal police are likely to be too well aware of 

the shortcomings, and members participating in U.S. 

military partnership activities such as joint training 

or the International Military Education and Training 

program, as well as National Guard pairings, are good 

starting points for developing effective indicator and 

warning information sources. 

Identify and Enhance the Strength of “Civilizing 

Forces” within Megacities.

Across cultures and history, it is commonly women, religious leaders, and elders that exert the most 

influence in measures that reduce violence and enhance governance. Identifying centers of power under 

such leadership could be a signal of an AGS, active 

or nascent, with which the United States might align 

for enhanced governance across the megacity or state. 

This cooperation would be through “smart power” 

offensives, for which Army Civil Affairs might again 
46

partner with National Guard or State Department Foreign Affairs Officers for insights, as well as regional 

HUMINT experts. 

ENDNOTES

1. Colonel Marc Harris et al., “Megacities and the United 

States Army: Preparing for a Complex and Uncertain Future,” 

Strategic Studies Group Report, Arlington, VA: Chief of Staff of 

the Army, Strategic Studies Group, June 2014, p. 3, available from 

https://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/351235.pdf, accessed on June 

6, 2016.

2. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence 

has Declined, New York, NY: Viking, 2012, pp. 74-75.

3. Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography, New York: 

Random House, 2012, pp. 121-122.

4. Jennifer Keister, “The Illusion of Chaos: Why Ungoverned Spaces Aren’t Ungoverned, and Why That Matters,” Policy Analysis, No. 766, December 9, 2014, Washington, DC: Cato 

Institute, p. 8.

5. Ibid., p. 4.

6. Dr. Phil Williams updated his 2008 publication From the 

New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. 

Strategy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War 

College; see Phil Williams, “Here Be Dragons: Dangerous Spaces 

and International Security,” in Anne L. Clunan and Harold A. 

Trinkunas, eds., Ungoverned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority 

in an Era of Softened Sovereignty, Stanford, CA: Stanford University 

Press, 2010.

7. Pinker, p. 106.

8. Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2008, 

pp. 117-123. 
47

9. “‘GTA gang’ kills drivers near Moscow, vigilantes on warpath after criminals,” Russia Times, September 16, 2014, available 

from www.rt.com/news/188152-gta-gang-manhunt-racers/, accessed 

on August 15, 2015.

10. Interfax Information Services, “Moscow Police Official 

Brands Ethnic Gangs Main Problem,” Russia Beyond the Headlines, 

November 7, 2014, available from rbth.com/news/2014/11/07/moscow_police_official_brands_ethnic_gangs_main_problem_41209.html, 

accessed on August 27, 2015.

11. Ibid.

12. William Reno, “Persistent Insurgencies and Warlords,” in 

Clunan and Trinkunas, Ungoverned Spaces, p. 70.

13. Keister, p. 6.

14. James C. Scott, Comparative Political Corruption, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972, pp. 10-13; Joseph Lapalombara, “Structural and Institutional Aspects of Corruption,” Social 

Research, Vol. 61, Iss. 2, 1994, p. 329.

15. German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer on CNN’s Fareed 

Zakaria Global Public Square special broadcast “Blindsided: How 

ISIS Shook the World,” aired July 5, 2015 in the United States.

16. Ibid.

17. Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the 

Mind, New York: McGraw-Hill USA, 1997, p. 28.

18. Bryan W. Husted, “Wealth, Culture, and Corruption,” 

Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 30, Iss. 2, 2nd Qtr. 

1999, pp. 339-360.

19. Pinker, pp. 74-75.

20. Rob Johnston, Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study, Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2005, p. 93.
48

21. Ibid., p. 95.

22. M.S. Alam, “A Theory of Limits on Corruption and Some 

Applications,” Kyklos, Vol. 48, 1995, p. 422.

23. Salim Rashid, “Public Utilities in Egalitarian LDC’s: The 

Role of Bribery in Achieving Pareto Efficiency,” Kyklos, Vol. 34, 

1981, pp. 448-460.

24. Interview conducted by the author with Dr. David 

Overare in Erie, PA on August 28, 2015.

25. Transcript of CNN’s Special Report, “Blindsided: How 

ISIS Shook the World,” originally aired May 11, 2015, available 

from www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1505/11/csr.01.html, accessed 

on July 20, 2015.

26. Ibid.

27. Harris et al., p. 2.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Keister, p. 3.

31. Pinker.

32. Williams, “Here Be Dragons.”

33. Pinker, p. 90.

34. Pinker, p. xxi.

35. Office of the United States Trade Representative Internet 

Resource Center on Nigeria, last update May 1, 2014, available 

from ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa/west-africa/nigeria, accessed 

on July 3, 2015.

36. See the annually produced “Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, available from www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview, accessed on June 16, 2016.
49

37. J. J. Messner et al., “Fragile States Index: 2015,” 11th annual 

ed., Washington, DC: Foreign Policy Magazine, for the The Fund 

for Peace, released on June 17, 2015, available from fsi.fundforpeace.org/, accessed on July 3, 2015.

38. Shemrez Nauman Afzal, “Stabilizing Karachi,” posted 

October 15, 2013, available from spyeyesnews.blogspot.com/2013/10/

stabilizing-karachi.html, accessed on June 16, 2016.

39. Khawaja Amer, “Population explosion: Put an embargo on 

industrialisation in Karachi,” The Express Tribune, October 6, 2013, 

available from tribune.com.pk/story/614409/population-explosionput-an-embargo-on-industrialisation-in-karachi/, accessed on May 4, 

2015; Huma Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi,” Peaceworks 

Report No. 82, Washington: DC, U.S. Institute for Peace, October 

2012, available from spearheadresearch.org/SR_CMS/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Peace-Works-report-on-Karachi.pdf, accessed on April 

27, 2015. 

40. Messner et al., “Fragile States Index: 2014,” 10th annual 

ed., Washington, DC: Foreign Policy Magazine, for the The Fund 

for Peace, released on June 24, 2014, available from library.fundforpeace.org/cfsir1423, accessed on June 16, 2015.

41. Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi.”

42. Huma Yusuf, “The Other Threat to Pakistan,” The New York 

Times, April 2, 2014, available from www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/

opinion/the-other-threat-to-pakistan.html, accessed on May 2, 2015; 

Afzal.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Zia ur-Rehman and Declan Walsh, “Killings Rise in Karachi as Taliban Target Police,” The New York Times, August 

11, 2014, available from www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/world/

asia/killings-rise-in-karachi-as-taliban-target-police.html, accessed on 

May 1, 2015.
50

46. Faraz Khan, “Where law enforcers fear to tread: The entry 

fee for these spots of Karachi may be your life,” The Express Tribune, March 23, 2013, available from tribune.com.pk/story/525035/

where-law-enforcers-fear-to-tread-the-entry-fee-for-these-spots-of-karachi-may-be-your-life-karachi-city/, accessed on May 2, 2015.

47. Khan.

48. Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi.”

49. Khan. 

50. Afzal.

51. Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi.”

52. Hina Mahgul Rind, “Katchi Abadis house half of Karachi’s population,” The News International, November 15, 2013.

53. Farhan Anwar, “Urban sprawl: Rethinking the management of Karachi’s slums,” The Express Tribune, November 25, 2013, available from tribune.com.pk/story/636541/urbansprawl-rethinking-the-management-of-karachis-slums/, accessed on 

June 17, 2016.

54. Yusuf, “Conflict Dynamics in Karachi.”

55. Aditya Tejas, “Pakistan Rangers Raid Karachi Offices Of 

Controversial Political Party MQM, Killing One,” International 

Business Times, March 11, 2015, available from www.ibtimes.com/

pakistan-rangers-raid-karachi-offices-controversial-political-partymqm-killing-one-1843138, accessed on May 1, 2015.

56. Michael O. Filani, “The Changing Face of Lagos: from Vision to Reform and Transformation,” Report funded by Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiatives (Nigeria), 

and Cities Alliance, September 2012, available from www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/Lagos-reform-report-lowres.pdf, 

accessed on August 10, 2015.

57. Harris et al., p. 19.
51

58. “Lagos Population 2015,” World Population Review website, available from worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/lagospopulation/, accessed on April 23, 2015.

59. Messner et al., “Fragile States Index: 2015.”

60. “World Bank Approves US$200 Million to Improve 

Public Finance and Investment Climate in Lagos,” Press Release, The World Bank International Development Association, June 26, 2015, available from www.worldbank.org/en/news/

press-release/2015/06/26/world-bank-approves-us200-million-toimprove-public-finance-and-investment-climate-in-lagos, accessed on 

August 5, 2015.

61. Filani.

62. “Nigeria 2014 Crime and Safety Report: Lagos,” Overseas 

Security Advisory Council, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Crime 

and Safety Report on Nigeria, Washington, DC: U.S. Department 

of State, available from www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.

aspx?cid=15799, accessed on August 3, 2015.

63. News Agency of Nigeria, “Insecurity: Lagos council 

employs 50 vigilantes to fight crime,” Premium Times, June 28, 

2013, available from www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/ssouthwest/139806-insecurity-lagos-council-employs-50-vigilantes-to-fightcrime.html, accessed on May 4, 2015.

64. News Agency of Nigeria, “Lagos Community Inaugurates Pipeline Vandalism Vigilante Group,” Leadership, January 13, 2015, available from leadership.ng/news/401567/lagoscommunity-inaugurates-pipeline-vandalism-vigilante-group, accessed 

on May 2, 2015.

65. Keister, p. 6.

66. Dr. Robert Lamb, Ungoverned Areas and Threats from Safe 

Havens, Final Report of the Ungoverned Areas Project, Prepared 

for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Washington, DC: Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Policy Planning, 2008, available from www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/

pdf?AD=ADA479805, accessed on May 4, 2015.

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

and

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven K. Metz

Author

Ms. Diane E. Chido

Editor for Production

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Denise J. Kersting

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil