Armed Groups: 

A Tier-One Security Priority 

Richard H. Shultz 

Douglas Farah 

Itamara V. Lochard 

INSS Occasional Paper 57 

September 2004 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

USAF Academy, Colorado 
ii
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of 

the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. The 

paper is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. The 

Consortium for the Study of Intelligence holds copyright to this paper; 

it is published here with their permission. 

******* 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Richard H. Shultz, Jr. is director of the International Security Studies 

Program at the The Fletcher School and Professor of International 

Politics. At the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence he serves as 

research director. He has served as a consultant to US government 

agencies concerned with national security affairs. He has also written 

extensively on intelligence and security. He recently published 

“SHOWSTOPPERS: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special 

Operations Forces after Al Qaeda Before 9/11,” Weekly Standard 

9:19 (26 January 2004). His forthcoming book is Tribal Warfare: 

How Non-State Armed Groups Fight (Columbia University Press, 

2005). 

Douglas Farah is senior fellow at the Consortium for the Study of 

Intelligence. For 19 years worked as a foreign correspondent and 

investigative reporter for the Washington Post, covering armed 

conflicts, insurgencies, and organized crime in Latin America and West 

Africa. He has also written on Middle Eastern terror finance, 

including Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror

(2004). 

Itamara V. Lochard is a researcher at the International Security 

Studies Program at the Fletcher School where she is completing 

studies towards a Doctorate in International Security Studies, Conflict 

Resolution and International Organizations. She has worked at the 

International Institute of Studies at Stanford University and in the 

African Studies department at the Center for Strategic and 

International Studies in Washington, DC. 

Comments pertaining to this paper are invited; please forward to: 

 Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 HQ USAFA/DFES 

 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5L27 

 USAF Academy, CO 80840 

 phone: 719-333-2717 

 fax: 719-333-2716 

 email: inss@usafa.af.mil 
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Visit the Institute for National Security Studies home page at 

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

Acknowledgement xv 

Introduction 1 

Post-Cold War International Security Environment 2 

 Integration and Fragmentation 4 

 Fragmentation and Failing States 5 

 Lawless/Ungoverned Territory 8 

Non-Traditional Security Challenges and Armed Groups 10 

 Evolution of the Non-State Armed Group Threat 11 

 A Taxonomy of Armed Groups 14 

 Insurgents 17 

 Terrorists 21 

 Militias 22 

 Organized Criminal Groups 28 

 Enhancing the Power of Armed Groups 31 

 The Direct Impact of Armed Groups 35 

 The Indirect impact of Armed Groups 43 

Profiling Armed Groups 45 

 Understanding Operational Characteristics: 

 A Framework 47 

 Leadership 48 

 Rank and File Membership 49 

 Organizational Structure, Functions, and 

 Resources 49 

 Ideology/Political Code of Beliefs and 

 Objectives 50 

 Strategy and Tactics 51 

 Linkages with other Non-State and State Actors 52 

Key Findings and Future Trends 53 

 Weak States: A Chronic International Problem 53 

 The Geography of Lawless, Ungoverned Territory 59 

 Recognition of the Importance of Armed Groups 63 

 Internal/Transnational Conflicts: A Continuing 

 and Major Source of Instability 64 

 Apocalyptic Scenarios and the Intentions of Armed 
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 Groups 66 

Implications for US Intelligence and Defense Agencies 72 

Notes 77 
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FOREWORD 

We are pleased to publish this fifty-seventh volume in the 

Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for 

National Security Studies (INSS). Richard Shultz, Douglas Farah, 

and Itamara Lochard offered this paper for INSS publication 

because they saw it as complementary with two previous papers 

that we have published: Troy Thomas and Stephen Kiser’s Lords of 

the Silk Route (Occasional Paper #43, May 2002); and Troy 

Thomas and William Casebeer’s Violent Systems (Occasional Paper 

#52, March 2004). We agree. The Thomas, Kiser, Casebeer papers 

establish a systematic framework for the analysis of the broad 

category of violent non-state actors. Shultz, Farah, and Lochard 

add detail to significant elements of that framework. They develop 

a four-category typology of armed groups, demonstrating that one 

must recognize and adapt to the differences among the different 

types of violent actors in today’s international environment. They 

also develop a very promising profiling model for these groups, 

creating effectively a four-by-six matrix for group analysis. And 

they also suggest significant geographic regions of danger where 

these groups can thrive without effective controls. Finally, they 

suggest how the intelligence and operational communities must 

adapt to effectively counter this rising and significant threat. We 

commend this work as further development of important knowledge 

about this key arena of emerging national security threat. 

About the Institute

INSS is primarily sponsored by the National Security Policy 

Division of the Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate, 

Headquarters US Air Force (HQ USAF/XONP), and the Dean of 

the Faculty, USAF Academy. Other sponsors include the Secretary 

of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the Defense 

Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); the Air Force Information 

Warfare Center (AFIWC); the Army Environmental Policy Institute 

(AEPI); the United States Northern Command/North American 

Aerospace Defense Command (NORTHCOM/NORAD); and the 

United States Military Academy Combating Terrorism Center 

(CTC). The mission of the Institute is “to promote national security 

research for the Department of Defense within the military 

academic community, to foster the development of strategic 

perspective within the United States Armed Forces, and to support 

national security discourse through outreach and education.” Its 
viii

research focuses on the areas of greatest interest to our 

organizational sponsors: arms control and strategic security; 

counterproliferation and force protection; homeland defense, 

military assistance to civil authorities, and combating terrorism; air 

and space issues and planning; information operations and warfare; 

and regional and emerging national security issues. 

INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various 

disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for 

defense policy making. To that end, the Institute develops topics, 

selects researchers from within the military academic community, 

and administers sponsored research. It reaches out to and partners 

with education and research organizations across and beyond the 

military academic community to bring broad focus to issues of 

national security interest. And it hosts conferences and workshops 

and facilitates the dissemination of information to a wide range of 

private and government organizations. In these ways, INSS 

facilitates valuable, cost-effective research to meet the needs of our 

sponsors. We appreciate your continued interest in INSS and our 

research products. 

JAMES M. SMITH 

 Director 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 Non-state armed groups pose a major security challenge to the 

United States, even without their acquisition of weapons of mass 

destruction. 

 Armed groups have now developed global capabilities to strike 

at high-value political, economic, population, and symbolic targets 

as well as level strategic blows. They seek not only local but also 

regional and global influence. Al Qaeda demonstrated this capacity 

on 9/11. It forced the United States to radically change its 

antiterrorism policy. 

 Other armed groups seek to have the same strategic impact by 

using the more standard forms of direct violence employed by 

terrorists and insurgents. Armed groups in Iraq are a case in point. 

Their attacks, which rapidly and violently spiraled over the last 

year, hope to put an end to the US reconstruction and 

democratization of Iraq. If successful, this would be a strategic 

defeat for the United States, with all the long-term ramifications 

that would entail. 

 There are also indirect ways armed groups attempt to 

undermine US policy. They do so by destabilizing states and/or 

regions that are of critical importance. For example, in 

Afghanistan, clan militias, as well as regrouping Taliban and al 

Qaeda forces, are committed to a long, drawn-out, and protracted 

conflict. They seek to prevent major political reforms, a central US 

policy goal in the war on terrorism. 

 In other states and regions, collaboration between political 

actors and criminal armed groups undercut stability, the rule of law, 

and political and economic development. The Andean Ridge region 

is illustrative. Large parts of it—both within and/or across state 

borders—have been turned into lawless and ungoverned territory in 

which narco-traffickers, insurgents, and other criminal gangs thrive. 

 There is little to suggest that these direct and indirect

challenges posed by armed groups—insurgents, terrorists, militias, 

and criminal organizations—are a temporary phenomenon. Rather, 

all data trends illustrate just the opposite. 

 First, the number of weak and failed states remains a 

significant and chronic problem. In these regions, armed groups 
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find a hospitable environment with relative freedom from 

government authority and control. 

Second, topographical mapping of these lawless and 

ungoverned areas reveals they cover a massive amount of territory, 

providing armed groups with access to secure bases for training, 

planning, and launching operations locally, regionally, and globally. 

 Third, non-state armed groups and internal/transnational 

conflicts pose the most recurrent cause of instability around the 

globe. And they are growing more lethal due to their acquisition 

and indiscriminate use of highly destructive weapons. Moreover, 

many of these conflicts, particularly those due to ethnic, religious, 

tribal, and communal differences, will remain vicious, long-lasting, 

and difficult to terminate. 

Fourth, the gravity of this situation is further compounded by 

the publicly stated objective of several armed groups to acquire and 

use weapons of mass destruction. 

 Armed groups will not only continue to pose serious and 

dangerous strategic challenges into the 21st century, but also 

provide strategic opportunities that can be exploited to help achieve 

policy goals. There have and will be instances where the United 

States may find collaborating with armed group is in its strategic 

interests. 

 The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan is an example. In the 

latter 1990s, it sought US help in fighting the Taliban, who were 

then closely aligned with al Qaeda. A serious program of assistance 

as part of an overall strategy to degrade al Qaeda would have put it 

on the defensive. Having to worry about its own security would 

have meant less time to plan and execute operations against 

American targets. But no such aid was forthcoming because 

Washington did not grasp the opportunity. 

 To manage, neutralize, or utilize the phenomenon of armed 

groups an appreciable understanding of these actors—as well as the 

threats and opportunities that flow from them—is needed. Even 

today, doubts remain in the US defense and intelligence 

communities over whether any armed group can carry out attacks 

that could have a strategic impact or if armed groups can provide a 

strategic opportunity. 
xi

 Understanding armed groups requires sophisticated tools for 

differentiating between and among them, as well as for constructing 

and monitoring systematic profiles of how they organize and 

function. Such profiles can serve to guide the ways in which states’ 

intelligence and security services plan and conduct operations 

against or in support of them. 

 What are these key operational characteristics? It will not be 

easy to find this information. Some is available, but much is 

hidden. The characteristics can be divided into six categories: 

1. An understanding of the different leaders of the group, 

their roles, styles, personalities, abilities, beliefs, 

rivalries, and insecurities. 

2. The group’s membership, how they are recruited, 

trained, and retained, as well as whether they are 

cohesive or riddled with factional divisions. 

3. The group’s organizational infrastructure—funding 

sources, communications, logistical control, 

propaganda and media resources, security, and 

intelligence capabilities. 

4. Different ideological, political, and cultural codes, 

beliefs, and cleavages. 

5. Operational doctrine, strategy, and tactics. 

6. The extent of linkages with other actors. 

 Such profiles serve as the basis for developing intelligence and 

special operations options—political, psychological, economic, and 

paramilitary—for responding to and degrading armed groups. They 

can likewise be used to determine whether and how to assist other 

armed groups that can help facilitate American foreign policy 

objectives. 

 Faced with a 21st century international security landscape in 

which armed groups will present a plethora of direct tier-one and 

indirect threats and opportunities, the United States should take the 

following steps to meet these challenges: 

• Policymakers and intelligence community managers 

must comprehend both the complex nature of the 
xii

armed groups as well as the threats and opportunities 

that flow from their emergence. 

• Beyond constituting threats, in certain cases armed 

groups may also provide opportunities that, if seized, 

will contribute to the attainment of US foreign policy 

objectives. 

• Major changes are needed in a US intelligence 

community where doubts remain over whether an 

armed group can undermine major American interests 

through attacks that have a strategic impact. That such 

attacks constitute a form of warfare also remains a 

suspect proposition. 

• The organizational cultures of the intelligence agencies 

tasked with analytic and operational responsibilities of 

dealing with armed groups require major revision. 

New cultures must be established that approach armed 

groups as a tier-one priority. 

• Sophisticated tools must be developed for 

differentiating among armed groups, as well as for 

constructing profiles of how they organize and 

function. These tools should serve as the basis for all 

source collection that provides the information needed 

for such profiles. 

• These profiles would serve as the basis for developing 

intelligence and special operations options—political, 

psychological, economic, and paramilitary—for 

responding to and degrading those armed groups that 

threaten the United States. 

• These profiles should also be adapted for use not only 

against armed groups already directly or indirectly 

attacking the United States, but also to identify those in 

nascent stages. 

• Armed group profiles can likewise be employed to 

identify ways in which the United States may assist 

certain armed groups whose success will be 

advantageous to US foreign policy objectives. 
xiii

• Finally, beyond major revisions in the culture of the 

intelligence community there is the need to establish 

new practical requirements to create the requisite 

intelligence doctrine, organization, training, and 

personnel to meet the armed groups challenge in the 

21st century. 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

This monograph was prepared as part of the “Armed Groups 

Intelligence Project” of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence 

(CSI). The Consortium was established in 1979 as a project of the 

National Strategy Information Center, a nongovernmental, 

nonpartisan research and policy center in Washington, DC. For 

twenty-five years the primary mission of CSI has been to identify 

appropriate intelligence practices for democracy. It also has 

promoted teaching and research on intelligence in a democratic 

society at the college and university levels. 

In the aftermath of 9/11, there is broad recognition that the 

intelligence community, despite significant changes, requires major 

reforms to address new challenges. Among the most important are 

those posed by non-state armed groups, to include terrorists, 

guerrillas, militias, and organized criminal gangs. CSI’s Armed 

Groups Intelligence Project focuses directly on this aspect of 

intelligence reform. The Consortium seeks to conceptualize a new 

intelligence model and identify effective intelligence practices to 

respond to major security challenges posed by these non-state 

armed groups. To do so, CSI is conducting research to draw on the 

professional experiences of former senior members of intelligence/ 

security services and former leaders of armed groups on three 

continents. Its findings and recommendations will be drafted later 

this fall. 
xvi
ARMED GROUPS: 

A TIER-ONE SECURITY PRIORITY 

© 2004, Consortium for the Study of Intelligence 

INTRODUCTION

Political violence, conflict, and war since the end of the Cold 

War have repeatedly pitted states against non-state armed groups or, 

in the case of inter-communal strife, multiple non-state armed 

groups against one another. This trend is not new. Various datasets 

that track armed clashes confirm that throughout the post-World 

War II era these types of conflict were numerous.1

 

However, a number of developments in the 1990s enhanced the 

power and capacity of armed groups to attack the state. No longer 

do states possess a monopoly on the use of force within or across 

state borders. Armed groups—defined in this paper as insurgents, 

terrorists, militias, and criminal organizations—have found innovative ways to use force in this arena. To survive and protect themselves, states must change how they deal with this threat because 

the proliferation of armed groups shows no sign of dissipating. Just 

the opposite appears to be the case: armed groups are here to stay 

for the foreseeable future. 

Furthermore, as discussed below, some of these groups have 

undergone a profound transformation and now pose a long-term 

threat of the highest order to the United States. Al Qaeda has already demonstrated the capacity to strike inside America. Other 

terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, have the same potential, having established a significant presence in the United States.2

 And in 

Iraq, the spiraling insurgency following the conclusion of formal 

hostilities, despite the capture of Saddam Hussein, demonstrates the 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

2

direct threat these groups pose to US interests. Other armed groups 

pose more indirect threats. 

Among the revolutionary innovations by armed groups in recent years is the stated intention of terrorist elements to acquire and 

use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the United States 

and others. This apocalyptic scenario is more feasible than ever 

before because WMD are mobile, inexpensive, and do not require 

extensive facilities. The emerging threat from armed groups has 

fundamentally changed the nature of war in today’s world, but nation-states, including the United States, have not treated this development as a tier-one threat and remain inadequately prepared to 

deal with it, both conceptually and operationally. 

If the United States is to develop an effective policy and strategy to counter the threats posed by armed groups today and in the 

decades ahead, it must have a clear understanding of their characteristics. This paper provides an analytical framework for producing 

such assessments: First, it outlines the post-Cold War security context in which armed groups thrive. Second, the paper highlights the 

direct and indirect threats posed by armed groups today and their 

strategic impact on the United States. Third, it proposes an analytic 

framework for constructing an operational profile of an armed 

group. Fourth, the paper identifies trends that demonstrate that 

armed groups will continue to pose direct and indirect security challenges to the United States in the decades ahead. 

POST-COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL 

SECURITY ENVIRONMENT 

Even before the Cold War ended, it was evident that new forces 

and actors were part of an evolving international security panorama. 

By the end of the 1990s, US government agencies and institutes 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

3

generated several studies that highlighted these structural changes 

and estimated their impact on stability and conflict in the 21st century.3

 Non-governmental research centers produced similar studies.4

 Finally, academic specialists in international relations and 

security studies published a plethora of books, monographs, and 

articles exploring the rapidly changing, and often disorderly, postCold War decade of the 1990s.5

A common theme running through these studies is the need for 

conceptualizing a new framework or paradigm that can account for 

a global environment in which the dynamics of change and the 

emergence of new actors have a powerful impact on the state and 

the Westphalian system.6

 There is near unanimity that non-state 

armed groups are proliferating in number and importance. However, there is disagreement over the extent to which these new actors could effectively challenge state power. 

James Rosenau’s Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World provides an incisive description and analytic breakdown of the parameters of this new 

international structure. It consists of the following six developments, each of which accelerated in the 1990s by the rapid advance 

of information age technology:7

• Shifting and increasingly porous borders; 

• New patterns of economic growth and interaction; 

• A changing distribution of power, capabilities, and 

authority; 

• Increasing numbers of weak and disintegrating states; 

• Proliferation of various kinds of non-state actors 

(NSAs); 

• Emergence of new issues and alteration of traditional 

ones. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

4

While Rosenau does not believe that these developments will 

result in an end to the state, he marshals weighty evidence emphasizing that world affairs will no longer be dominated by state power. 

The broad scope of global politics, the arena within which political 

activities occur, and the relationships among actors are all changing 

drastically, says Rosenau, and will continue to do so. 

Integration and Fragmentation 

At the center of this new global milieu lie the interactive and 

seemingly contradictory processes of fragmentation and integration, 

which give rise to new spheres of power and authority. Fostering 

these twin phenomena are technological innovations in transportation and communications. 

Integration, writes Rosenau, is reflected in the internationalization of capital and growth of markets, expansion of regional and 

transnational corporations and organizations, spread of shared 

norms (democratic practices, human rights, environmental protection, free enterprise), as well as the interdependence of issues.8

 

Integration’s antithesis, fragmentation, is the result of a continuing allegiance to traditional or particularistic values and practices (i.e., ethnicity, ethnonationalism, and religious 

fundamentalism), a weakening of state authority, and the growing 

influence of armed groups at both the sub-state and trans-state 

levels. 

Because fragmentation and integration alter the structure of a 

global political setting anchored in the nation-state, other diverse 

sources of power and authority—subsumed under the rubric of nonstate actors—now challenge the preeminence of the state. Bifurcation of world politics is the result. Moreover, a major outcome of 

bifurcation is growing violent discord between one category of in-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

5

creasingly powerful NSA—armed groups—and increasingly weakened states. 

Fragmentation and Failing States 

Since 1945 the number of states has expanded from 51 to nearly 

200. In almost every instance, upon achieving independence, this 

plethora of new governments was granted sovereignty and the imprimatur of legitimacy from the United Nations. However, achieving domestic legitimacy proved much more difficult for many of 

them. Some were able to do so, but a significant number of others 

embarked on the route or process of protracted state failure. According to Robert Rotberg: “The decade plus since the end of the 

cold war has witnessed a cascading plethora of [these] state failures, 

mostly in Africa but also in Asia. In addition, more and more states 

are at risk, exhibiting acute signs of weakness and/or the likelihood 

of outright failure.”9

With the end of the Cold War this process of fragmentation escalated as armed groups increasingly challenged the authority and 

ability of states to rule, using a variety of means including terrorism, 

guerrilla insurgency, and other irregular and unconventional forms 

of organized violence. Several internal wars were the result. 

The following map from Project Ploughshares’ Armed Conflicts 

Report 2003 depicts how the vast majority of these conflicts—

focusing on the struggle for valuable resources, territorial independence, and religious and ethnic autonomy—flourished in subSaharan Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and central Europe 

in the past decade. They also occurred in Latin America and the 

Pacific region.10

The primary cause of these internal wars today can be found in 

the “domestic politics” of the state. The critical factor determining 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

6 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

7

whether a state is viable or failing, according to K. J. Holsti, is legitimacy.11 Strong and healthy states are those that exhibit several 

common characteristics or measures of legitimacy. 

First, there is an implicit social contract between state and society, the latter being comprised of all ethnic, religious, political, and 

economic groupings. In other words, there is agreement on the political “rules of the game.” There is loyalty to the state, the political 

principles upon which it is based, and its institutions.

Second, while legitimacy allows the state to extract resources, it 

also requires it to provide services and a reasonable amount of order, law, and security. Third, a clear boundary must exist between 

public service and personal gain. State power is not a platform for 

personal enrichment. Finally, no group is excluded from seeking 

political influence or receiving a fair share of resources and services 

because of its affiliation. 

In the late 20th century, government legitimacy was eroding in 

many states in the Third World, while failing to take root in a number of post-communist states, according to The Minorities at Risk 

Project (MAR). It assesses the status and conflicts of politicallyactive communal groups in all countries with a population of at least 

500,000. The project “contributes to the understanding of conflicts 

involving...over 285 groups.”12 

Based on this data the Center for International Development & 

Conflict Management recently published Peace and Conflict 2003: 

A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy. It finds that when compared with the highwater mark of the mid-1990s, internal or societal armed conflict was 

somewhat reduced in 2002. That is the good news. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

8

However, it also explains that these trends are fragile.13 In the 

words of the report, “positive trends coexist with counter-trends that 

present major challenges to the emerging global community.”14 

Among the latter are the enduring causes of failing and failed 

states—weakened capacity, deeply divided societies, devastated 

economies, squandered resources, traumatized populations, civil 

societies crippled by war, international organized crime, and black 

market networks.15

Chester Crocker summarizes this situation succinctly: “Selfinterested rulers...progressively corrupt the central organs of government.” And they “ally themselves with criminal networks to 

divide the spoils.” The authority of the state is “undermined... 

paving the way for illegal operations.” In conjunction with these 

developments, “state security services lose their monopoly on the 

instruments of violence, leading to a downward spiral of lawlessness.”16 Finally, “When state failure sets in the balance of power 

shifts...in favor of armed entities [groups] outside the law” who 

“find space in the vacuums left by declining or transitional states.”17

Lawless/Ungoverned Territory 

The “vacuum left by declining or transitional states” results, in 

turn, in the expansion of lawless and ungoverned areas that are beyond the authority of government. This creates safe havens in 

which armed groups can establish secure bases for self-protection, 

training, planning, and launching operations against local, regional, 

and global targets. Terrorist groups, as well as insurgent and criminal organizations, are located in the remote parts of more than 20 

countries. These areas are distinguished by rugged terrain, poor 

accessibility, low population density, and little government presence. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

9

For example, the confluence of such territory in several Central 

Asian states has made that region home to the following armed 

groups: a nascent insurgency in Afghanistan based in the tribal areas along the Pakistan border; Kashmiri insurgents located in Pakistan; the reduced insurgent movement in Uzbekistan; and elements 

of the Taliban and al Qaeda spread across this lawless area. Bin 

Laden himself is apparently hiding in the mountains of the Northwest Frontier province. 

Reports in the spring of 2003 warn of the regrouping of al 

Qaeda and Taliban forces in this territory, and their alliance with the 

radical Islamist party Hizb-i Islami. According to the Afghan ambassador to India, “[t]hese elements think that America will be distracted by the war in Iraq, and that the United States will not stay in 

Afghanistan.”18 The map below highlights this area. 

In South America, about half of Colombia’s national territory, 

abandoned for decades by the central government, is now controlled 

by a range of armed groups, including Marxist guerrillas, drug traf-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

10

fickers, and right-wing paramilitary groups, each pursuing their own 

political and social agenda and the defeat of the state. 

Lawlessness and ungovernability are not confined to remote rural territories. They can also be found in cities located in failing 

states. Urban areas can likewise provide safe havens for armed 

groups. Mogadishu is a case in point,19 as are the Pakistani cities of 

Karachi and Lahore. In the aftermath of the overthrow of the Taliban, many members of al Qaeda redeployed to the safety of these 

cities to coordinate attacks, recruit members, and solicit funds to 

continue their holy war against America. 

NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES AND 

ARMED GROUPS 

For a nation’s intelligence and security services, armed groups 

pose different analytical and operational challenges from those of 

states. Understanding these differences is imperative today because, like their state counterparts, armed groups can now acquire 

the capacity to execute violent strikes that can have a strategic impact on even the most powerful nation-state. This capacity is new. 

This appears to be the case for one type of armed group in particular—inter-national terrorist organizations—as was demonstrated by 

al Qaeda on 9/11. 

In effect, a revolution in terrorist affairs has occurred in the 

1990s. This is analogous to a revolution in military affairs (RMA), 

in which the conduct of war dramatically changes as the result of 

major alterations by a nation-state in military organization, technology, doctrine, and/or leadership. According to Knox and Murray, 

“RMAs require the assembly of a complex mix of tactical, organizational, doctrinal, and technological innovations in order to implement a new conceptual approach to warfare.”20 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

11

Consistent with this definition is the revolution in terrorist affairs carried out by al Qaeda in the 1990s. It had the desired impact 

of fundamentally altering the conduct of warfare. However, this 

innovation in the conduct of war was the work of a non-state armed 

group—a development that terrorist specialists, with few exceptions, appear to have considered not possible prior to 9/11. 

The costs of that surprise attack by al Qaeda, documented below, illustrate this capability. Potential WMD attacks, an active 

goal of several armed groups, could far exceed the strategic impact 

of 9/11. In addition to these direct strategic threats, armed groups 

such as international criminal organizations can also challenge 

states in various indirect ways. 

Evolution of the Non-State Armed Group Threat 

Over the last two decades, NSAs who operate both within and 

across state boundaries have increasingly challenged state supremacy. They can be divided into two principal categories—intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The former includes the UN, its sub-units, and 

regional counterparts. NGOs are far more diverse and far more 

numerous. Today they are estimated to number over 30,000. They 

seek to influence local, regional, and global agendas in ways consistent with their perspective or ideology. NGOs span virtually every 

facet of political, social, and economic life.21

While the image of the NGO is generally positive, those reporting on their growing numbers in the 1990s included in their classification violent armed groups—militias, insurgents, terrorists, and 

criminal cartels—in their classification. However, they downplayed the ability of these NSAs to confront the state through vio-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

12

lent conflict in a major or strategic manner and categorized them as 

ancillary security problems, not first-order or top priority ones. 

With few exceptions, US policymakers, and the security and intelligence organizations that served them, likewise failed to appreciate the growing salience and power of some non-state armed groups 

and were loath to consider them tier-one security threats that could 

undermine major interests or carry out attacks that could have a 

strategic impact. Only states had such power. 

An examination of the National Security Strategy of the United 

States, produced annually through the 1990s by the White House, 

bears this out.22 While terrorist and criminal organizations are included, they are seen as secondary or tier-two/three security problems not requiring a military response. This point was driven home 

by the intelligence assessments of terrorist attacks against the 

United States beginning with the first World Trade Center bombing 

in 1993. Indeed, throughout the decade of the 1990s these terrorist 

strikes both inside the United States and abroad were classified as 

criminal acts, and few intelligence community officials and analysts 

were willing to consider these actions a clear and present danger to 

the United States—much less a form of war. Any attempt to describe terrorism in those terms ran into a stone wall of skepticism.23

The US military in the 1990s likewise considered conflicts involving armed groups as minor contingencies. In fact, they classified them as “military operations other than war” (MOOTW) and 

“peace operations.”24 They were not considered first-order threats 

necessitating the use of regular military power against them. 

This kind of thinking has to change. Armed groups today can 

no longer be classified in this way. However, that said, it is impor-
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13

tant to understand how they differ both from the traditional threats 

posed by states, as well as among themselves. 

To begin with, armed groups represent non-traditional challenges to a government’s intelligence and security services that are 

unlike the conventional ones presented by states. These distinctions 

are important. They affect how a state threatened by an armed 

group understands, targets, and moves to counter it. 

Among the essential dissimilarities between an armed group 

and a state is that the state maintains a formal, physical, and bureaucratic infrastructure. Furthermore, the policies and activities of the 

state, with few exceptions, are unconcealed. It has formal law making powers, and aspires to nationhood by seeking to achieve legitimacy and unity among its population. To accomplish this status, 

states look to establish a core of political values or ideals that their 

citizens embrace. 

Some armed groups, as their ultimate objective, hope to attain 

some or all of these state characteristics. However, when an armed 

group begins to challenge a state through the threat or use of violence, it does not have these geographic, structural, bureaucratic, 

legal, political, or philosophical characteristics. While they may 

have overt front organizations, the activities of armed groups are 

generally clandestine. This is especially true of their violent operations, whether executed within the borders of their state adversaries 

or transnationally. 

Furthermore, while a nation-state may take a democratic form 

and be based on the rule of law, armed groups cannot be democratic 

in ethos or organization, and do not comply with the rule of law in 

settling disputes. Armed groups are illegal organizations that do not 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

14

follow the democratic rules of the game. They do, however, seek to 

take full advantage of and exploit those state adversaries who do. 

Increasingly, armed groups can acquire the potential to execute 

violent strikes that can have a strategic effect against the states they 

confront. While this may once have been true only of armed groups 

challenging weak and failing states, it is no longer the case. Today, 

even the most developed and powerful states are vulnerable to nontraditional security challenges fostered by certain armed groups that 

can take the form of ruthless attacks with strategic consequences. 

Armed groups who employ unconventional and asymmetric means 

in this way can target democratic and non-democratic states alike. 

A Taxonomy of Armed Groups

What constitutes an armed group? How many are there? How 

should they be differentiated from one another and categorized? 

What motivates them? To what extent do they cooperate with one 

another, as well as with states and other non-state actors? Can they 

be identified and countered in their emergent or incipient stage of 

development? Do armed groups provide policy opportunities as 

well as threats to policy? No taxonomy exists that rigorously addresses these questions, even though armed groups are the subject 

of increasing attention worldwide. 

Consider how the Non-State Actors Working Group 

(NSAWG), a unit of the International Committee to Ban Landmines 

(ICBL), divides armed groups into the following categories: “rebel 

groups, irregular armed groups, insurgents, dissident armed forces, 

guerrillas, liberation movements, and de facto territorial governing 

bodies.”25 Not very rigorous! What is the difference between insurgents and guerrillas or irregular armed groups and dissident 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

15

armed forces? And can not a liberation movement be a de facto

territorial governing body? 

In its 2000 survey, the NSAWG identifies approximately “170 

such non-state armed actors throughout the world.” In doing so it 

observes that “[i]n ideology, objectives, strategies, form and level of 

organization, support-base, legitimacy and degree of international 

recognition,” these groups “vary greatly.”26 This is accurate. However, what is interesting about the survey is not just the various 

groups included but those excluded. For example, there are no organized criminal groups; and al Qaeda, a transnational terrorist organization, also does not appear on the NSAWG list. 

Claude Bruderlein, director of the Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, likewise notes that “armed 

groups differ considerably, from Mafia-like militias to religious 

movements and corporate armies,” making a common definition 

difficult.27 He proposes that to qualify as an armed group, the following criteria must be satisfied: 

[First,] combatants are organized according to a unitary 

command structure and...commanders have at least a 

minimum of control over the conduct of the combatants. 

[Second,] the group is engaged in a political struggle...to 

redefine the political and legal basis of the society through 

the use of violence. [Finally,] armed groups are independent from state control.28

Here again, this definition excludes several types of armed groups. 

For example, not all armed groups seek to “redefine the political 

and legal basis of the society through the use of violence.” Clans 

and tribes in places like Afghanistan who seek to maintain the status 

quo are cases in point. And not all armed groups “are organized 

according to a unitary command structure.” This is certainly true of 

al Qaeda, as well as many of the militias in failing states like Soma-
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16

lia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, some 

armed groups are under the influence of a state. Consider Hezbollah in Lebanon, sponsored by both Iran and Syria. 

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) describes armed 

groups—which it calls Para-States—as entities that contest the 

state’s “monopoly on the use of violence within a specified geographical territory.”29 FAS maintains profiles for 387 such organizations. To be included on the list, a Para-State or armed group has 

to have used force, defined by FAS as some form of “direct action 

or armed struggle.”30 Unlike the previous examples, those who developed the Para-State list “cast a wide net” that ranges from 

“criminal enterprises, such as substance distribution networks” to 

“national liberation movements,” as well as those who “engage in 

terrorism.”31

While these efforts to identify and define armed groups are 

steps in the right direction, a more parsimonious taxonomy is 

needed. We propose one that divides armed groups into four categories—insurgents, terrorists, militias, and organized crime. First, 

here is what they have in common. 

One, all armed groups, to varying degrees, challenge the authority, power, and legitimacy of the state. Some seek to do so by overthrowing the government and replacing it, while other armed groups 

attempt to weaken, manipulate, or co-opt the state. 

Second, armed groups, at least in part, use violence and force, 

be it in unconventional and asymmetric ways. It is true that some 

armed groups maintain political and paramilitary wings, and that the 

former may for tactical reasons eschew violence. Still, the use of 

force is a critical instrument for these organizations, regardless of 
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17

how they may seek to mask that fact. Violence is used instrumentally to achieve political and/or other objectives. 

Third, armed groups operate both locally and globally due to 

the developments of the information age, a point elaborated below. 

They are able to expand the battlefield to attack state adversaries 

both at home and abroad. Finally, as noted above, armed groups are 

not democratically based organizations. They do not adhere to the 

rule of law to resolve disputes. Just the opposite is the case. 

These common features withstanding, insurgents, terrorists, militias, and criminal organizations have many important differences 

between and among them. There is no generic or ideal type for any 

of these four variants. This is certainly true in terms of the basic 

characteristics or nuts and bolts of an armed group, which can be 

divided into the following six elements: 1) leadership; 2) rank and 

file membership; 3) organizational structure and functions; 4) ideology/political code of beliefs and objectives; 5) strategy and tactics; 

and 6) linkages with other non-state and state actors. How armed 

groups approach each of these issues will vary across and within the 

four categories of the taxonomy. Below each of the armed groups 

contained in the taxonomy will be defined, and key differences 

among them highlighted. 

Insurgents. Insurgents can threaten the state with complex political and security challenges because of how they organize and 

operate. One specialist defines insurgents as armed groups that 

“consciously use political resources and violence to destroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of 

politics.”32 While a useful starting point, we propose a more comprehensive delineation: 

Insurgency is a protracted political and military set of activities directed toward partially or completely gaining 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

18

control over the territory of a country through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations. 

The insurgents engage in actions ranging from guerrilla 

operations, terrorism, and sabotage to political mobilization, political action, intelligence/counterintelligence activities, and propaganda/psychological warfare. All of 

these instruments are designed to weaken and/or destroy 

the power and legitimacy of a ruling government, while at 

the same time increasing the power and legitimacy of the 

armed insurgent group. 

Within the parameters of this definition, insurgent groups take a 

number of different organizational forms ranging from complex 

political, intelligence, and military dimensions to narrowly structured conspiratorial groups.33 The classic insurgent model is designed to mobilize supporters and establish an alternative political 

authority to the existing government, while employing intelligence 

and military means to attack and weaken the state through escalating violence. The more narrow conspiratorial variation, on the 

other hand, focuses more exclusively on using violence to undermine the will of a government to sustain losses and stay in the fight, 

and not on controlling a particular territory and building a parallel 

political apparatus in it. 

Also affecting the approach taken by insurgents is the area or 

terrain in which they carry out their activities. They can take place 

in an urban and/or rural environment, as well as transnationally. 

Each of these locations will have an impact on how the insurgents 

approach each of the characteristics or elements of an armed group 

identified above—organization, ideology, motivation, leadership, 

membership background. 

Where armed insurgent groups operate, the objectives they pursue, and the organizational approach they adopt will shape the strategy employed. In the classic insurgent model, that strategy goes 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

19

through four stages—pre-insurgency, organizational/infrastructure 

development, guerrilla warfare, and mobile conventional warfare. 

This can extend over a very long time. However, not all insurgencies seek to go through all four stages, and this will affect how they 

employ unconventional paramilitary tactics including guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and sabotage. Often, insurgents receive assistance 

from states and, increasingly today, other NSAs.34 This likewise 

affects the groups’ organizational and operational profile. 

Finally, armed insurgent groups have pursued very different objectives. During the Cold War, leftwing revolutionary and national 

liberation movements employed insurgency strategies. These 

movements took considerable time to establish complex political 

structures as a prelude to carrying out military operations. Their 

overall objective was to overthrow the state and carry out radical 

political and social change. 

Starting in the 1980s this began to change. New types of insurgent movements appeared, based on existing ethnic and religious 

identities. This had a profound impact on the objectives pursued. 

Examples of the former include the Democratic Party (DPK) and 

Patriotic Union (PUK) of Kurdistan, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the armed clans fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and 

the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eel (LTTE). Religious cases include 

the People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and People's Liberation 

Movement (SPLM) of Sudan, various Sikh and Kashmiri factions in 

India, and Hizballah in Lebanon. 

Are there incipient or nascent indicators that can be identified 

by a state before an insurgency rises to the level of a serious threat 

to its stability and security? The answer is yes. And that is true not 

just for insurgents but for each of the armed groups included in the 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

20

taxonomy. However, most states faced with such challenges fail to 

see the early telltale signs and, consequently, do not take the necessary steps to prevent the situation from escalating. According to 

senior-level Pentagon and CIA officials interviewed for the study, 

this is certainly true of the US government, though they expressed 

doubt that such early and preventive steps are possible, given the 

existing organizational cultures in each agency.35 

Nevertheless, these indicators do exist, and they can be observed if the intelligence and security agencies are structured to do 

so. For example, a new group seeking to mount an insurgency must 

take certain steps. First, it must build an organization. If the state is 

vigilant it can see early signs of this such as the departure of a number of individuals from their homes for training and indoctrination 

or the defection of a noticeable number of members from moderate 

political parties. Increasingly radical political proselytizing by 

members of a heretofore unknown political group to draw people to 

it would be another early indicator. 

Reports of people receiving political and paramilitary training 

or identification of non-government training facilities springing up 

inside the state or just across the border would be other signals. So 

would the discovery of small but growing amounts of arms and 

other materials needed for an insurgency. And money raising efforts to purchase these necessities would constitute further supporting evidence of the beginnings of an insurgency. 

These and other early warning signals of the emergence of an 

insurgency—including evidence of linkages between the nascent 

insurgent organization and existing political parties, labor unions 

and other social groupings, and sporadic violence—do not take 

place in the dark. All of these activities, which begin small, are dis-
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21

cernible. Intelligence and security services can discover them at the 

beginning or pre-insurgency stage of development. But to do so, a 

way of thinking has to be bread into the organizational culture of 

the intelligence and security services. 

Terrorists: Terrorism and those armed groups who employ it 

have been defined in a myriad of ways.36 Moreover, since the latter 

1970s “terrorism” has frequently been used pejoratively to discredit 

and de-legitimize. With that in mind, a more operational definition 

is proposed: 

Terrorism is the deliberate creation and exploitation of 

fear by an armed group through the threat and/or use of 

the most proscribed kind of violence for political purposes, 

whether for or in opposition to an established government. 

The act is designed to have a far-reaching psychological 

effect beyond the immediate target of the attack and to instill fear in and intimidate a wider audience. The targets of 

terrorist groups increasingly are non-combatants, and 

large numbers of them, who under international norms 

have the status of protected individuals and groups. 

Terrorists differ from insurgents in several ways. Important 

distinctions can be seen in tactics and targeting. Insurgents use a 

number of political and paramilitary tactics, of which terrorism frequently is only one. Terrorist groups, on the other hand, have a 

more narrow operational approach that increasingly focuses on targeting non-combatants. Through the 1990s, terrorist groups were 

progressively more indiscriminate in their targeting, seeking to kill 

as many as possible from protected groups. 

As with insurgents, terrorist groups in the 1990s were motivated more by ethnicity and religion. According to the RAND-St. 

Andrews University index, approximately half of all known terrorist 

groups were religiously focused.37 Furthermore, not all, but an 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

22

overwhelming majority of these groups are located in the Islamic 

world. 

Another important difference between terrorist and insurgent 

armed groups is the extent to which the former establish linkages 

and cooperative arrangements. During the 1990s, al Qaeda created 

an elaborate set of connections with a significant number of likeminded terrorist groups in as many as 60 countries. In effect, al 

Qaeda established a multinational alliance among armed groups that 

can operate in their originating states as well as transnationally. It 

also developed a sophisticated financial network for collecting and 

transferring money for the organization and its operations.38

As with an insurgent movement, there are incipient indicators, 

identifiable by the state, of a terrorist group’s ability to mount a serious threat against it. However, given that some terrorist groups 

can be quite small, this is difficult. Nevertheless, such groups still 

have to establish a clandestine organization, recruit and train personnel, acquire resources, meet and communicate, and so on. While 

they do so in secret, nonetheless these activities can be monitored. 

As more is learned about al Qaeda’s origins, early stages, and 

maturation, it becomes apparent that early warning indicators were 

there for the US intelligence community (IC) to collect and analyze. 

However, as more that one official from the IC explained to the authors during research for the study, such an approach is not part of 

the IC culture. 

Militias: With the growing number of weak and failing states, 

a third category of armed groups—militias—became more numerous and prominent in the 1990s.39 They appeared to thrive, in particular, in states with ineffectual central governments and to benefit 

from a global black market that facilitates their growth. While indi-
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23

vidual militias received considerable international attention, particularly those in Africa and Central Asia, there have been few attempts 

to define this type of armed group in a systematic way or to identify 

different sub-types. 

What is a militia? Below we propose a broad definition. Based 

on post-Cold War examples, armed militia groups appear to share 

the following characteristics: 

A militia in today’s context is a recognizable irregular 

armed force operating within the territory of a weak and/or 

failing state. The members of militias often come from the 

under classes and tend to be composed of young males who 

are drawn into this milieu because it gives them access to 

money, resources, power, and security. Not infrequently 

they are forced to join; in other instances it is seen as an 

opportunity or a duty. Militias can represent specific ethnic, religious, tribal, clan, or other communal groups. 

They may operate under the auspices of a factional leader, 

clan, or ethnic group, or on their own after the break-up of 

the states’ forces. They may also be in the service of the 

state, either directly or indirectly. Generally, members of 

militias receive no formal military training. Nevertheless, 

in some cases they are skilled unconventional fighters. In 

other instances they are nothing more than a gang of extremely violent thugs that prey on the civilian population. 

Within the parameters of this general characterization, militias 

can vary widely in terms of how they organize, recruit, operate, and 

conduct themselves. Furthermore, the literature on them is by far 

the weakest from an analytical perspective. 

Several militias that emerged since the latter 1980s have been 

brutal in their use of violence, directing it more at civilians than at 

soldiers or other militias. In fact, in conflicts involving militias, civilians frequently are the target. This is especially the case in Africa. Untrained militia groups, often made up of youth who are 

forced to join and compelled to take part in initiation rituals involv-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

24

ing frightful human rights abuses, are guilty of unspeakable crimes 

and atrocities, even against the tribe or clan they claim to represent. 

Consider the situation in Côte d’Ivoire in the 1990s. Both antiand pro-government militias were charged with widespread maltreatment of civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, these 

militias engaged in “systematic and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, [including] summary executions, arbitrary arrest and detention, 

disappearances, torture, rape, pillage, corporal punishment and other 

violent acts.”40 

The same pattern can be seen in armed militia groups elsewhere 

in Africa. They plunder and pillage at will. These militias amount 

to little more than bandits, thriving in ungoverned areas although 

they sometimes try to don a veneer of ideological and political respectability. Examples of this are Foday Sankoh and the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, and his sponsor, Charles 

Taylor, in Liberia. 

In other parts of the world militias have been more disciplined, 

less abusive of the population in general and of their own ethnic 

tribe or clan in particular, and led by men interested in local or regional political power. Afghanistan is a case in point. Still, there is 

no generic Afghan militia. Rather, they include various formations 

comprised of former mujahideen commanders, tribal contingents, 

seasonal conscripts, and foreign volunteers. The combat potential 

of these units varies considerably, ranging in strength from a few 

dozen to several hundred fighters, depending on the ability of their 

leaders and the resources available. To be sure, Afghan militias and 

their leaders threaten both the stability of the country and the current attempt by the United States and international community to 

build a post-Taliban government of unity. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

25

Militias have been central players in the politics of other multiple identity countries as well. This has been true in Lebanon where 

many Lebanese seem to be more loyal to their confessional group or 

clan than their country. This was the case in the latter 1970s, when 

Lebanon plunged into civil war. For the next fifteen years confessional factions and their militias were locked in an intractable political fight in which Sunnis fought Shiites, Maronites fought Druze, 

Christians fought Muslims, and so on. When the civil war ended in 

the early 1990s, demobilizing these militias was not easy. Eventually, it took place, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) began to 

slowly rebuild itself as Lebanon's only major non-sectarian institution. The LAF has extended central government authority over 

about two-thirds of the country. However, Hizballah retains its 

weapons and militia forces. 

Another way militias differ has to do with leadership. There are 

those operating under the control of a recognized and powerful 

leader like the late General Aideed in Somalia. However, clan militias function under a decentralized collective leadership that seeks 

to protect or advance the interests of the clan. Many of the armed 

groups in Chechnya fit this description. There is no one identifiable 

leader. 

Where strong militia leaders exist, “warlord” is often used in 

the media to describe them. As with other terminology employed to 

describe militias, this one also lacks analytic clarity. What is a warlord and how does he operate as a militia leader? One specialist 

describes modern-day warlords as “local strongmen able to control 

an area and exploit its resources and people while...keeping a weak 

authority at bay. Warlord’s motives range from the advancement of 

clan, tribe, or ethnic goals to political ambition, localized power, 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

26

and personal wealth.” Such individuals as General Dostum (Afghanistan), General Aiheed (Somalia), Walid Jumblat (Lebanon), 

Charles Taylor (Liberia), and Colonel Khudoiberidyev (Tajikistan) 

are all prominent examples from the 1990s. 41 But among these 

individuals there are important differences that the generic label 

“warlord” obscures. 

These examples illustrate how widely militias can differ. Thus, 

any attempt to categorize them by how they organize, recruit, operate, and behave requires close attention to the cultural and political 

context in which they exist. 

Militias impact areas beyond the borders of the states in which 

they operate and, in the aftermath of the Cold War, have engaged 

US interests and policy. As a result, Washington had to appreciate 

the complex nature of these disparate armed groups. Doing so, 

however, has been thorny. Not infrequently, the United States engaged in situations bereft of knowledge and suffered the consequences. 

Consider Somalia in the early 1990s. When President Bush 

first deployed troops there it was not to take part in the carnage that 

had ripped that country apart. He sent American soldiers to do 

“God’s work.” Others in his administration referred to the operation as the “Immaculate Intervention.”42 The objective—to feed the 

hungry, heal the sick, and bring order—was purely humanitarian, 

and was to serve as the model for using military forces in the postCold War world. However, to do so required an understanding of 

the Somalia militias and their clan base, an appreciation that the 

United States did not have. The ultimate result was the devastating 

16-hour shootout between elite American soldiers and fierce Somali 

warriors in the urban canyons of Mogadishu on October 3-4, 1993. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

27

The US intervention in Afghanistan following 9/11 is also illustrative. To understand what goes on inside Afghan borders the key 

unit of analysis remains the tribe, even in the 21st century. This 

was the reality Washington faced following September 11th when it 

went to war with the Taliban, a radical Islamist regime that for several years had given sanctuary and succor to al Qaeda. 

Washington aligned with the Northern Alliance, a compilation 

of different tribal factions—Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks—that had been 

fighting the Taliban for years. The Alliance reflected the traditional 

nature of politics and society in Afghanistan, where tribal groups 

and their leaders are central actors. The Department of Defense and 

CIA were unable to incorporate the majority Pashtun tribe into their 

operations. It proved unnecessary, but had more long-term implications that a sophisticated understanding of Afghanistan’s tribal system would have signaled. In the aftermath of the war Washington 

found costly this expedient decision to ride the Northern Alliance to 

a quick victory. In order to stabilize and unify Afghanistan it had to 

bring all of the tribes together, demobilize their militias, and establish a national government of unity. That was tricky given both the 

course of action Washington pursued in the fall of 2001, and its belated understand Afghanistan’s complicated tribal system. 

As with insurgent and terrorist groups, there are identifiable incipient indicators of a militia’s ability to threaten both regional stability and US interests. Information on those indicators, highlighted 

above, can be collected and analyzed. However, to do so requires 

that an intelligence service not only be geared to spot such developments early on, but also have a mature understanding of the culture and traditional setting in which militia groups flourish. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

28

Organized Criminal Groups. The final category of armed 

group is that of organized crime. While certainly not new, it has 

grown in significance as a dangerous threat to individual states and 

the international system. The wealth and power of these organizations has burgeoned over the last 25 years, and several have established international linkages and networks. 

Armed criminal groups today exhibit the following characteristics: First, they possess an identifiable structure and leadership 

whose purpose is to operate outside the law in a particular criminal 

activity. They maintain hierarchical arrangements with clearly demarcated leadership-subordinate roles, through which the group's 

goals are advanced. As such armed groups mature, they no longer 

rely on the leadership of one or a few individuals for their survival. 

Second, these armed groups can take different forms and “operate over time [and space] not just for ephemeral [or temporary] purposes.”43 That is to say, they engage in more than one type of 

criminal enterprise and operate over large parts of a region or globally. 

Third, armed criminal groups maintain internal cohesion and 

loyalty through ethnicity and the family ties of its members. They 

are anchored in a “community, family, or ethnic base.” This provides the armed group with a code of behavior that entails “allegiance, rituals, ethnic bonds...[to] help to engage the compliance 

and loyalty of individuals within the organization.”44 These “ties 

that bind” allow group members to trust one another in ways that 

are very personal, reducing the likelihood of law enforcement infiltrating the group. 

Fourth, criminal organizations employ violence “to promote 

and protect their interests.” It can be directed externally against 
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29

rivals to either intimidate or eliminate them as competitors. Internally, it maintains discipline and loyalty. While criminal organizations vary in the extent to which they employ violence, all do so 

“for business purposes.”45 If violence is the stick, criminal organizations also use the carrot of bribery. The availability of cash, in 

large quantities, is used to corrupt police and other government officials, seducing them to look the other way. 

Finally, each of these characteristics contributes to the feature 

that distinguishes criminal organizations from other armed groups—

they seek to maximize their profit, much like a legitimate business. 

The quest for money and the power that goes with it drives and sustains armed criminal groups. Based on the five characteristics described above, the following definition is proposed: 

An armed criminal group possesses a clandestine or secret 

hierarchical structure and leadership whose primary purpose is to operate outside the law in a particular criminal 

enterprise. Such groups frequently engage in more than 

one type of criminal activity and can operate over large areas of a region and globally. Often, these groups have a 

family or ethnic base that enhances the cohesion and security of its members. These armed groups typically maintain 

their position through the threat or use of violence, corruption of public officials, graft, or extortion. The widespread 

political, economic, social, and technological changes occurring within the world allow organized crime groups to 

pursue their penultimate objective—to make as much 

money as possible from illegal activities—in ways that their 

earlier counterparts could not. 

Major International Criminal Organizations (ICOs) have established linkages with other armed groups, and not just criminal ones. 

One of the more significant developments since the end of the Cold 

War is the increased involvement of insurgents, terrorists, and militia groups in criminal activities. Unable to rely on outside aid from 

state sponsors, which can be fleeting, many insurgent and terrorists 
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30

groups diversify their resource base by becoming involved with 

international criminal organizations. For ICOs, these partnerships 

are equally valuable, widening the scope and profitability of their 

operations. 

A case in point is Hezbollah. Although Iran provides significant assistance, Hezbollah is involved in drug trafficking as another 

way of financing its activities. It provides opium production and 

transshipment protection to criminal organizations in exchange for 

financial and other kinds of support.46 In Afghanistan, various 

armed ethnic groups are involved in similar activities, as was al 

Qaeda.47

Another example can be found in Colombia. Since the late 

1980s, insurgents there cannot rely on financial support from states 

that once backed them. Therefore, some insurgent fronts of the 

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National 

Liberation Army (ELN) generate substantial revenue by taxing and 

protecting criminal enterprises involved in coca cultivation, cocaine 

processing, and drug shipments in the areas they control. It is estimated that this provides the FARC with as much as half of its revenues. And for the criminal groups this collaboration provides safe 

haven in which production can flourish. At the same time, official 

government support for paramilitary self defense groups, which 

control up to one-third of the national territory, waned. Groups 

such as United Self Defense of Colombia (AUC) in recent years 

have turned to drug trafficking for economic support, allying with 

leaders of Colombia’s heroin trade as well as the cocaine cartels.48 

A final example can be found in Africa. Since the late 1980s 

the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) 

and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone paid the 
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31

costs of their armed struggles from mining and illegally exporting 

diamonds through arrangements with international criminal syndicates. The problem of looting and illegal mineral exploitation by 

ICOs, among others, is perhaps best exemplified in the ongoing 30+ 

year war of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC—former Zaire).49

Yet an additional linkage that enhances the power of ICOs is 

the active partnership between political actors—officeholders and 

the staff of the legal-governmental establishment of a state—and 

criminal actors. These arrangements are termed the politicalcriminal nexus (PCN). It consists of varying degrees of cooperation 

among political and criminal participants at the local, national, and 

transnational levels.50

An example of such a nexus is the relationship between Victor 

Bout, one of the world’s largest illegal arms merchants, and different governments and rebel groups across Africa. Bout used the 

states of Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, and Central African Republic 

to register his aircraft. His organization purchased end-user certificates for tons of weapons from the governments of Burkina Faso, 

Togo, and Ivory Coast. And he provided not only small arms, but 

attack helicopters to Taylor’s regime in Liberia, anti-aircraft guns 

and surface-to-air missles to the RUF in Sierra Leone, and sophisticated mines and artillery to UNITA in Angola. Payment for the 

weapons was often in the form of diamonds from the rebel groups.51

Enhancing the Power of Armed Groups 

Three factors enhanced the potential power of armed groups in 

the 1990s: globalization, information-age technology, and networkbased approaches to organization.52 Each provided them with the 

opportunity to operate in ways that their earlier counterparts could 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

32

never imagine. As illustrated below, this is especially true for international criminal and terrorist organizations. While these three factors were touched on previously, they are highlighted here to 

underscore how each affords armed groups the potential capacity to 

attack even the most powerful states either directly or indirectly.

Globalization erodes the traditional boundaries that separated 

and secured the nation-state.53 It allows people, goods, information, 

ideas, values, and organizations to move across international space 

without heeding state borders. Anyone with the necessary resources 

can do so. Modern transportation and communications systems, the 

movement of capital, industrial and commercial trends, and the 

post-Cold War breakdown of political and economic barriers not 

only in Europe but around the world accelerate the globalization 

process. 

Information age technologies are central to globalization. 

These are the networks through which communications takes 

place—instantaneously—on a worldwide basis. Cellular and satellite phones allow contact between the most remote and the most 

accessible locations of the globe. Computers and the Internet are 

the other pillars of the information revolution. “No area of the 

world and no area of politics, economics, society, or culture,” write 

Kegley and Wittkopf, “is immune from the pervasive influence of 

computer technology.”54

To take advantage of globalization and information-age technologies, non-state armed groups adopt new organizational strategies that are less hierarchical and more networked. They follow the 

lead of the business community, which is in the forefront of such 

change. Small and large corporations developed virtual or net-
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33

worked organizations that were able to adapt to the information age 

and globalization.55 

The organizational design is more flat than pyramidal, with less 

emphasis on control from a central headquarters. Decision-making 

and operations are decentralized, permitting local autonomy, flexibility, and initiative. To operate globally, network-based organizations require a capacity for constant communications among 

dispersed units, a capability afforded to them by the World Wide 

Web and cellular networks.56 Globalization, information age technology, and network-based organization not only empower international business, but also armed groups, to expand their activities 

across the world. 

Contemplate the impact on international organized crime. In 

2000, at the direction of President Clinton and as part of the International Crime Control Strategy, a US government interagency working group prepared a comprehensive assessment of the dimensions 

of the threat posed by international crime. The central theme of that 

report, captured in the following excerpt, is that criminal organizations embrace globalization and the information age to expand their 

operations worldwide: 

Law enforcement officials around the world have reported 

a significant increase in the range and scope of international criminal activity since the early 1990s. The level and 

severity of this activity and the accompanying growth in 

the power and influence of international criminal organizations have raised concerns among governments all over the 

world—particularly in Western democracies—about the 

threat criminals pose to governability and stability in many 

countries and to the global economy. International criminal 

networks have been quick to take advantage of the opportunities resulting from the revolutionary changes in world 

politics, business, technology, and communications.57
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34

The threat assessment highlights the impact of globalization, information-age technology, and network-based organization. According to the working group, “[t]he dynamics of globalization, 

particularly the reduction of barriers to the movement of people, 

goods, and financial transactions across borders, have enabled international organized crime groups to expand both their global reach 

and criminal business interests.”58

To do so, ICOs take full advantage of revolutionary advances in 

communications and transportation technologies, notes the assessment. These are central to legitimate commercial activity in the 

1990s, greatly quickening its pace, volume, and scope. And they 

“are daily being exploited by criminal networks worldwide.... Today's fast-paced global markets are easily used by criminal networks. Commercially available state-of-the-art communications 

equipment greatly facilitates international criminal transactions.”59

Before these developments transpired, ICOs did not have the 

organizational capabilities to operate on a global scale. Their “international” activities were more limited in scope, and any cells or 

units they had beyond their central base operated more or less 

autonomously and performed only a few specific functions for the 

criminal organization. In effect, for most organized crime groups, 

“international activities were more regional than global.”60 Now, 

according to the threat assessment, ICOs have adapted their organizations to establish “extensive worldwide networks and [organizational] infrastructures to support their criminal operations.” These 

are “inherently flexible in their operations, adapting quickly to challenges from rivals and from law enforcement.”61

Terrorist organizations follow the same pattern as their ICO 

counterparts, adapting to and taking advantage of globalization, in-
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35

formation age technology, and network-based organization. Most 

notable in this respect is al Qaeda. In a 1997 interview bin Laden 

described his organization as “a product of globalization and a response to it.”62 To be sure, it could not have operated in the 1980s 

as it did in the 1990s. Al Qaeda is a child of globalization. As with 

international businesses, globalization had a transforming impact on 

how and where al Qaeda organized and operated.63 

Unlike hierarchically structured terrorist groups of the 1980s, 

bin Laden established a networked organization of dispersed units 

that prior to 9/11 were able to deploy nimbly, almost anywhere in 

the world. Al Qaeda’s doctrine, configuration, strategy, and technology are all in harmonization with the information age. During 

the 1990s, it created an elaborate set of connections with fronts, 

several likeminded terrorist groups, other types of armed groups, 

and terrorist-sponsoring states. Information-age technologies and 

cyber networks allowed al Qaeda to recruit, communicate, establish 

cells, and attack targets globally. The pattern that emerged was of a 

web of cells and affiliates around the world that could provide the 

intelligence and manpower needed to execute terrorist attacks 

against the United States and other targets. The 1998 East Africa 

embassy bombings and the 9/11attacks are illustrative.64

The Direct Impact of Armed Groups 

The developments outlined above now make it possible for certain armed groups to attack asymmetrically and strike at high-value 

or strategic targets of even the most powerful states. And these attacks can have strategic consequences for the states’ policy. This is 

new and requires states to change their behavior in dealing with this 

threat. Of course, not all armed groups that exist today can reach 
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36

this level of power to constitute a tier-one threat to the United 

States. 

An asymmetrical attack is one that seeks to circumvent or undermine an adversary’s strengths and exploit his weaknesses using 

methods that differ significantly from the adversary’s mode of operations. While asymmetric options are a normal part of all wars, 

armed groups must pay closer attention to this approach because of 

the power differences between themselves and the states they are 

confronting. Given that imbalance, the asymmetrical techniques 

armed groups employ fall into the irregular, unconventional, and 

paramilitary categories of armed violence and warfare. 

States confronted by armed groups often do not understand the 

significance of those challenges and frequently downplay the dangers they produce. Asymmetric threats work, in part, according to 

Colin Gray, by defeating a states’ imagination. He argues that in 

the 1990s the United States was “trapped in a time warp of obsolescent political, ethical, and strategic assumptions and practices.”65 

Evidence of this proposition can be seen in how the US intelligence 

community downplayed asymmetrical terrorist threats and even 

successful operations.66 

This lack of imagination coincided with the attainment by at 

least one armed group—al Qaeda—of the capacity to initiate operations against high-value US targets across the globe. In other 

words, they could undertake an action or series of actions that, if 

successful, struck targets of major political, economic, or military 

importance. A small number of strategic specialists went so far as 

to propose that this constituted a transformation in war and permitted irregular forces to challenge states with strategic asymmetric 
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37

attacks, ones that could cause a significant change in the direction 

of a states’ foreign and national security policies.67

War, said the specialists, was undergoing big changes—

transformation—and entering a whole new stage that they called 

fourth-generation warfare.68 The engine of that change was the 

non-state armed group. Violence by armed groups could now have 

a strategic impact on both weak and strong states. It was this capability, facilitated by globalization, network-based organization and 

information age technologies that provided the potential for armed 

groups to move from second- or third-order ancillary security 

threats to first-order ones for the United States. 

As noted earlier, when states radically alter the prevailing approach to war it is called a revolution in military affairs. Al Qaeda 

was the first non-state armed group to have such an impact on the 

conduct of war, which it demonstrated through its attacks in the 

1990s, culminating with the operation on September 11th. Al 

Qaeda carried out fourth-generation warfare against a major state 

power. Here are its precepts: 

• 4th generation warfare is irregular, unconventional 

and decentralized in approach. 

• Asymmetrical operations are employed to bypass the 

superior military power of states and attack political, 

economic, population, and symbolic targets in order to 

demoralize the psyche of both government and its 

populace. 

• The organization and operations of 4th generation 

warriors are masked by deception, denial, stealth and 

related techniques of intelligence tradecraft. 

• They exploit information-age technologies. The development of network-based terrorist organizations connected transnationally through cell phones, fax 

machines, e-mail, web sites, and the Internet provides 

global reach. 
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38

• Modern transportation technologies have a profound 

impact on this new battlefield. Not only are there no 

fronts but the old distinctions between civilian and 

military targets is irrelevant. 

• Laws and conventions of war do not constrain terrorists as they seek new means, to include WMD, to attack 

civilians and nonmilitary targets to inflict terrible carnage. 

• 4th generation warriors, frequently in the name of 

God, are remorseless enemies for the states they challenge, employing unlimited violence, unencumbered by 

compassion. 

• The organization has a broad financial base, built on 

different pillars that constantly adapt to state pressure. 

Individual donors support the radical agenda, charities 

and NGOs are infiltrated and exploited with and without the consent of the organizations, and “legitimate” 

banks and businesses are used as fronts to hide and 

move the network’s resources.69

In the past, when a state revolutionized the conduct of war, 

other states sought to follow suit and emulate those changes. It is 

conceivable, even probable, that other armed groups will seek to 

learn from and replicate al Qaeda’s conduct of war.70

Al Qaeda’s operations since the early 1990s—both successful 

and unsuccessful—reveal a pattern of attacks that aimed at hitting 

high-value/strategic targets of the United States. Clearly, this was 

the objective in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. 

It came up short, but not by much. The unit carrying out the attack 

placed the truck within yards of the location that would have 

brought the building down. 

Other examples were the attacks on major US warships, also 

strategic targets. There were at least two such operations. The first 

sought to sink the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer, the

USS Sullivans. The operation took place in January 2000 but failed 
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39

because the would-be martyrs overloaded their boat with explosives 

and it sank before reaching the ship. 

The next operation was more successful. Al Qaeda operatives 

nearly sank the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000 with an asymmetrical 

operation in Aden. Had the Cole, also an Arleigh Burke class 

guided-missile destroyer, gone down, the operation could have had 

strategic consequences forcing changes in US counterterrorist policy. After all, the Cole is one of the most powerful surface combatants ever put to sea. It cost one billion dollars to build and 240 

million dollars to repair. However, nearly sinking it was not enough 

to force a radical change in US policy. 

These and other successful and unsuccessful attacks were a 

prelude to 9/11. However, Washington did not understand the consequences of these operations and the need to change counterterrorist policy. Al Qaeda’s attacks were downplayed. The US 

government could not imagine that these strategic strikes could escalate to the level of 9/11 and plunge the nation into war.71

The costs inflicted that day can only be characterized as devastating, with serious strategic consequences. Consider what they 

accomplished. First, approximately 3,000 Americans lost their 

lives. Then there were the immediate and long-term economic costs 

of 9/11. These include costs to New York City, the insurance and 

airlines industries, the economy, and the price of preventing future 

attacks. 

The costs to New York City alone were staggering. There is 

the bill for cleanup of the site and repair or replacement of related 

infrastructure. This includes a replacement cost of $21.8 billion for 

the WTC buildings destroyed in the attack; $4.5 billion to repair 

adjacent buildings in and around the trade center complex; $4.3 bil-
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40

lion to restore damaged transportation facilities and utility lines for 

telecommunications and power; $5.2 billion to replace tenant assets; 

and $1.1 billion for removal of the rubble.72

The costs to the city’s economy are equally high. For example, 

in the year following the attack jobs in the securities industry fell by 

between 17% and 20%. Other industries, including business services, printing, restaurants and hotels were hit equally hard. The 

overall cost in gross city product calculated through fiscal 2002 was 

between 52.3 and 64.3 billion, depending on what was included.73

Moving outside of NYC there was the impact of September 

11th on the insurance industry, the “largest single insured event loss 

in history.” Estimates range from “$30 to $58 billion,” based on a 

combination of property/casualty and health/life losses.74 And this 

does not include the more long-term impact on insurance premiums. 

The effects on the airlines industry were analogous. According to a 

Booz-Allen-Hamilton study, during 2002 the annual revenues for 

the airline industry fell by 35-40%. Not surprisingly, this led to a 

number of bankruptcies, the layoff or furlough of 90,000 employees, a decline in passenger traffic by 22% domestically and 37% 

internationally, and a cut in airline capacity by approximately 

16%.75 

In addition to NYC-related costs and costs associated to specific industries, the overall national economy was also shaken by 

the 9/11 events. Spillovers from the industrial side impacted some 

macroeconomic areas. Although the United States economy was 

already in a slowing down trend, the environment that emerged at 

the end of 2001 spoke of a recession closely associated with the 

attacks on the World Trade Center. For example, general consumer, 

business, and investor confidence took a nosedive and employment 
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41

loss continued to grow. Three years later, economic assessments 

indicate that although the local and industry specific costs were 

relevant, the total economic impact of the attacks was not as high as 

originally forecasted. Nonetheless, one should note that although 

the American economy proved resilient there are specialists who 

believe that future terrorist attacks could actually have an important 

long-term impact on the economy. 

Finally, there are the costs of defending against future attacks. 

While this is also hard to gauge, it is clear that it will be high. For 

example, following the attack the 2002 approved spending for antiterrorism was supplemented by $20 billion. Next, the Homeland 

Security structure was established with a fiscal year 2003 price tag 

of $38 billion.76 Then there is the cost of the war and its aftermath 

in Iraq. 

Al Qaeda is the first transnational armed group to have made 

such revolutionary breakthroughs in terms of its ability to use violence in new ways to level direct strategic blows against the United 

States with strategic consequences. However, an armed group 

could achieve the same strategic impact on US interests and policies 

using more standard forms of terrorist and insurgent violence. The 

insurgents, militias, and terrorists attacking coalition forces in Iraq 

are a case in point. These assaults have seriously and rapidly spiraled since the end of the conventional war in April 2003. Each day 

the headlines report more and more violence carried out through 

mortar and rocket strikes, ambushes, sniper attacks, assassinations 

and suicide operations, all standard non-state armed group methods. 

This escalating killing could have dire strategic consequences 

for US foreign policy not just in Iraq but globally if it is not countered and defused. It is already cutting into public support at home. 
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42

If that support continues to atrophy it could weaken and even put an 

end to the US commitment and its long-term reconstruction and 

democratization program for Iraq. 

If this sequence of events unfolds in Iraq in a way that culminates in a US withdrawal before these objectives are reached, Washington will once more be seen by both friends and enemies as 

unwilling to meet the commitments it makes to others. Thus, armed 

groups will have inflicted a strategic defeat on the United States 

with a host of very serious and long-term ramifications. 

So far, we have examined situations in which armed groups 

constitute direct and strategic threats to US foreign policy. Are 

there also instances, to be sure fewer, where the United States may 

find it in its strategic interest to provide assistance to an armed 

group? We believe the answer can be yes. In the 1990s, two such 

opportunities were on the table. 

First, there was the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Through 

the latter 1990s, the United States eschewed their requests for help 

in fighting the Taliban, who were closely aligned with al Qaeda. A 

serious program of assistance to the Northern Alliance as one part 

of an overall strategy to go after al Qaeda would have put the latter 

on the defensive. Having to worry about its own security and very 

survival would have meant less time to plan and execute operations 

against American targets. 

The second example in the 1990s was the Iraqi resistance. Here 

also requests for assistance generally fell on deaf ears in Washington. The one exception, which was very limited in scope, ended in 

disaster when the United States backed out. Robert Baer, the CIA 

case officer who headed that failed covert program in northern Iraq, 

has chronicled the debacle in his book, See No Evil.

77 Could a seri-
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43

ous program of paramilitary and political assistance to the Iraqi resistance have succeeded against the Baathist regime of Saddam 

Hussein? Perhaps. But Washington policymakers in the 1990s 

were not willing to give that option any meaningful consideration. 

The Indirect Impact of Armed Groups 

In addition to asymmetrical attacks against high-value targets, 

there are other indirect ways armed groups can affect the interests 

and policies of the United States. For example, they can do so by 

destabilizing states and/or regions that are of critical importance to 

the United States. These indirect threats, while not of the same 

magnitude as those described above, nevertheless, can affect important US interests in various ways. 

Take the example of regions where the stability and development of states is undermined by collaboration between the political 

establishment and armed criminal groups. The political-criminal 

nexus (PCN), as noted earlier, represents collaboration between political and criminal actors at the local, national, and transnational 

levels. Where a criminal group has endured and prospered, in most 

instances, it has reached some type of accommodation with political 

authorities.78 

Such active partnerships can undermine the rule of law, human 

rights, and economic development. They can also create ungoverned areas where armed groups can flourish. In some areas, the 

problem of the PCN is chronic, for example in Mexico, Nigeria, and 

Turkey. In other countries and regions—Colombia, Afghanistan, 

the Balkans, and the Caucuses—the problem is more acute, violent, 

and often can dominate political, economic, and social life. 

States offer other benefits to criminal organizations. They can 

issue criminals internationally-recognized diplomatic passports, 
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44

provide end-use certificates to help make illegal arms sales appear 

legal, facilitate the entry and exit of criminal elements to certain 

countries, reducing the risk of capture, and provide banking facilities to organized criminal groups. 

An example of this is Liberia, where the government of Charles 

Taylor helped several Russian organized crime figures carry out 

business and weapons sales across Africa. Among those he dealt 

with were Victor Bout and Lenoid Menin. Bout, in turn, supplied 

weapons and aircraft to the Taliban government in Afghanistan. 

In the summer of 2001, Taylor also allowed senior al Qaeda 

operatives to enter Liberia and purchase large quantities of diamonds, a move that may have allowed al Qaeda to move many of its 

resources out of banks, where they could be frozen, and into an easily protected and convertible commodity.79

These situations constitute security problems because they can 

interfere dramatically with the functioning of state and society, undermining political, economic, and social infrastructure. The instability generated can affect not only the state and region in which it 

takes place, but can also have negative implications for US policy 

interests. In each of the countries and regions identified above as 

having acute PCN problems, the US interests range from important 

to vital. 

This is especially true of Afghanistan, one of the main battle 

grounds in the war against terrorism. The nexus between ICOs and 

local warlords undermines US efforts to establish post-Taliban stability, the rule of law, and economic development. Instead, major 

parts of Afghanistan remain outside the control of the interim government, headed by Hamid Karzai. And in those areas, drug production and trafficking remain serious problems, ones that neither 
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45

the United States nor the UN, in conjunction with the interim government, thus far has been able to establish a coordinated program 

for combating. 

And this contributes, according to the 23 July 2003 report on 

the situation in Afghanistan to the UN Security Council, to an 

“overall security situation throughout Afghanistan [that] remains 

fragile and, in many areas, exhibits signs of deterioration.”80 Moreover, in those areas outside government control al Qaeda terrorists 

said to be aligned with the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar “have 

stepped up their activities.”81

Another example where the development of a political-criminal 

partnership can affect US interests is Russia, a political system in 

transition with a thriving PCN. For Washington, the activities of 

PCNs in Russia are particularly threatening because of the presence 

of WMD. PCNs can facilitate their acquisition by armed groups 

hostile to the United States.82

As in the previous section on direct threats, here also the focus 

has been on how through indirect ways armed groups can negatively affect the interests and policies of the United States. However, it is also worth noting that there can be situations in which 

providing assistance to an armed group would support a more indirect interest of Washington. 

PROFILING ARMED GROUPS 

What are the key operational characteristics of armed groups? 

What do we need to know about each of these characteristics in order to assemble a comprehensive depiction or profile of them? Preventing and countering the challenges of armed groups requires as a 

first step an understanding of these key operational traits. Only then 

can the United States and other states facing the kinds of armed 
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46

group threats outlined in this paper respond with effective countermeasures. 

To gain that understanding it is necessary to construct a systematic profile of how the armed group attacking the state is organized and the ways in which it functions. The development of such a 

profile will provide an understanding of the armed group at both the 

strategic and tactical levels, and should serve to guide the ways in 

which the states’ intelligence and security services plan and conduct 

operations against such unconventional adversaries. 

What follows is a framework for profiling armed groups. It 

may be adapted for use not only against armed groups already attacking the state, but also as a tool for identifying ones in their formative stages. Used in this manner the framework may allow the 

state to take preventive measures, defusing a threat before it reaches 

the stage of serious armed violence. To do so, the intelligence 

and/or security services of the state must think in this way, embracing an ethos that seeks to prevent armed groups from emerging 

rather than only taking action after the attacks have begun. 

For democratic states in general, and the United States in particular, such an approach is highly unusual. It almost never takes 

place. Recall what senior-level Pentagon and CIA officials cited 

above had to say about possibility of the United States taking early 

and preventive steps against armed groups in their formative stages. 

The existing organizational cultures in each agency are not capable 

of doing so. Can America afford to remain aloof to such preventive 

measures in a future where armed groups seek to execute operations 

much more destructive than 9/11? 
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47

Finally, this framework could also be adapted and employed to 

construct a systematic profile of an armed group that the United 

States found in its interest to support. 

Understanding Operational Characteristics: A Framework 

The characteristics of armed groups can be divided into the following six categories: 1) leadership; 2) rank and file membership; 

3) organizational structure and functions; 4) ideology/political code 

of beliefs and objectives; 5) strategy and tactics; and 6) linkages 

with other non-state and state actors. Each of these characteristics, 

defined below, is important to the success of an armed group. The 

order they are listed here should not be construed as signaling their 

degree of significance. All are crucial to success. 

The context or situation particular to each armed group also 

matters. It will influence and shape how the group approaches each 

of these six factors. Armed groups cannot consider these factors in 

the abstract or adopt formulas that have worked for others without 

close attention to the circumstances in which they are waging a conflict against a state, as well as against other armed groups. Indeed, 

the geographic, historical, political, economic, and social milieu

determines how an armed group develops its overall strategy and 

operations. 

Each of these six characteristics generates a series of key questions, the answers to which fill in the details of the armed groups’ 

operational profile. What follows is a delineation of each of the six 

characteristics and an elaboration of the kinds of questions that a 

comprehensive assessment of each should address, in order to craft 

as complete a profile as possible of an armed group. 
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48

1) Leadership

Competent leadership is manifestly indispensable to all organizations, and especially armed groups, which generally challenge 

much stronger state organizations. Leadership is a key ingredient 

for identifying and accomplishing the goals and objectives of the 

armed group. Therefore, an understanding of the roles, styles, personalities, and abilities of its leaders is critical. 

At minimum, the leader(s) of an armed group must devise an 

appropriate code of political beliefs and/or set of objectives, create 

an appropriate organization, and employ the instruments of power 

and influence available in an effective manner. Therefore, in profiling the leadership, the following key questions should be collected 

on and answered: 

• What are the social, economic, and political origins of 

the leaders of the armed group? 

• What is the worldview and political-social perspective 

of the leaders of the armed group? 

• What motivates an individual to become a leader of an 

armed group? 

• How does an individual gain the legitimacy and moral 

authority to achieve leadership status in an armed 

group? 

• How are leaders able to attract a committed group of 

able lieutenants and followers? 

• What role do charisma, personal magnetism, commitment, audacity, and practicality play in leadership effectiveness? 

• What are the different political, organizational, communications, motivational and paramilitary skills and 

capabilities of the armed group’s leader(s)? How do 

these skills contribute to armed group effectiveness? 

• What factors contribute to leadership limitations and 

ineffectiveness? 
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49

• What are the political and other differences among 

leaders of the armed group? How sharp are these differences? How do these differences affect cooperation 

and interaction among members of the leadership? 

2) Rank and File Membership 

In order to offset the advantages and superior resources of government, the leaders of armed groups must be able to identify and 

recruit able and skilled individuals into the organization and to train, 

motivate, and retain them. How do they accomplish these objectives? What methods and approaches do they use? To gain insight 

into these issues the states’ security and intelligence services must 

answer the following questions about the armed groups’ rank and 

file membership: 

• What societal, demographic, and gender elements do 

leaders target for recruitment? Are they from divergent social groupings? Is there an attempt to build 

cross-cutting alliances and coalitions? How effective 

are these efforts? Do political differences among divergent elements of the armed groups’ membership 

create problems for group cohesiveness? To what extent is this the case? 

• Does recruitment focus on activists and individuals 

willing to make a strong commitment to the armed 

group, or is there also recruitment of those who play a 

more passive role in the organization? 

• What kinds of techniques are used to identify, appeal 

to, and recruit individuals? 

• Once recruited, how are individuals trained for specific tasks within the armed group? 

• How are recruits motivated and retained? 

3) Organizational Structure, Functions, and Resources 

Armed groups adopt various organizational models that can differ widely along structural and functional lines. Organization functions to channel the energies and skills of members toward the 
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50

realization of its goals and objectives. Organizations also have to 

acquire resources to support their activities. Organization is the key 

to effective communications, political activities, intelligence operations, and paramilitary actions, all crucial ingredients of an armed 

group’s success. Therefore, an understanding of how an armed 

group approaches these matters necessitates close attention to the 

following issues: 

• What are the scope, location, and complexity of the organization? Is it small and conspiratorial or does it 

have the more complex structure of a shadow government? 

• Is the organization hierarchical or network based? 

• How are decisions made in the organization? Is it centralized or do local units and branches have autonomy 

to act? 

• What are the organization’s functionally specific subunits (e.g., military, intelligence, political, financial)? 

• What kinds of intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities does the armed group have, and how important is each to the leadership? 

• What is the groups’ financial structure and network? 

How does it raise and move money? How does the 

armed group acquire resources to support its activities 

and what kinds of resources does it need? 

• How cohesive is the organization? 

• Does the armed group suffer from factionalism and 

disunity? To what extent is this a problem, and how 

does it affect the functioning of the organization? Is it 

a serious problem? 

• What other weaknesses does the organization have? 

4) Ideology/Political Code of Beliefs and Objectives 

Armed groups may follow a coherent ideology or a more ad 

hoc set of political beliefs and objectives that perform a number of 

crucial socio-political and psychological functions important to the 
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51

effectiveness of the armed group. Whatever form it takes, all armed 

groups—insurgents, terrorists, militias, and criminal organizations—require a set of ideas, beliefs, values, and legends that bind 

the group together. 

During the Cold War armed groups tended to be committed to 

various leftwing ideologies. In the post-Cold War period ethnic, 

ethnonational, and religious ideologies have predominated. In other 

cases, armed groups are motivated by financial and other objectives. 

To assess this characteristic of an armed group the following subjects require scrutiny: 

• What is the ideological, political, or other basis for the 

armed group? 

• To what extent does it offer an alternative set of values 

and a new political-social vision and plan? 

• How effective is it in creating a social-psychological 

sense of unity, solidarity, collectivity, and commitment 

within the armed group? 

• To what extent is it able to rationalize, justify, and legitimize the actions taken by the armed group including the use of violence? 

• How is it used as a tool for recruitment and mobilization? 

• What are its weaknesses and shortcomings?

5) Strategy and Tactics 

Armed groups employ a range of different tactics to achieve 

their objectives. Sometimes these are integrated into a coherent 

strategy. This tends to be more the case for insurgents and terrorist 

groups. Militias and criminal organizations, on the other hand, are 

more likely to employ tactics in an ad hoc and diffuse manner. 

Whatever the approach to strategy and tactics, the following issues 

should be addressed in this part of the armed group profile:
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52

• To what extent has the armed group developed a formal strategy? 

• What types of political and psychological tactics does 

it use? 

• What kind of armed violence is employed and against 

what targets? 

• How effective are these different tactics? How coordinated are they? Is there an overall strategy that coordinates and integrates these various tactics? 

• How flexible is the armed group in adapting its strategy and tactics to meet a dynamic and changing environment? 

• What are their shortcomings and weaknesses in the 

armed groups strategy and tactics? 

6) Linkages with other Non-State and State Actors 

Finally, armed groups often establish linkages with other state 

and non-state actors for a number of tactical and strategic reasons. 

These include acquiring various kinds of resources, be they political, intelligence, financial, or military. Since armed groups are almost always weaker than the states they challenge, they frequently 

seek the assistance and resources of others to level the playing field, 

even though this does not come without costs to the group. With 

respect to the nature and extent of these linkages, here are the key 

questions the state should focus on in this final part of the profile:

• To what extent have linkages been established between 

the armed group under investigation and other state 

and non-state actors? 

• What purposes do those linkages serve? 

• To what extent does the armed group rely on external 

support? What kinds of resources does it receive from 

other state and non-state actors? 

• What must it do in return for this assistance? 
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KEY FINDINGS AND FUTURE TRENDS 

There is little to suggest that threats by armed groups—direct 

and indirect—are a temporary post-Cold War phenomenon. What 

the trend lines and data bear out is that armed groups will continue 

to pose serious and increasingly dangerous first-order security challenges to states, the United States included, into the foreseeable future. The following indicators substantiate this supposition. 

First, statistics on the number of weak states and the concomitant problem of ungovernability demonstrate this is not a temporary 

but chronic international challenge. The number of weak, very 

weak, and failed states is significant. 

Second, topographical mapping of lawless/ungoverned areas 

reveals the extent to which these locales cover significant territory. 

Third, armed groups, of which there are several hundred, are a 

growing topic of analysis and concern. Recognition of armed 

groups as important and dangerous actors on the world stage is 

growing. 

Fourth, internal conflicts, many with transnational dimensions, 

while somewhat fewer than in the latter 1990s, remain a dominant 

cause of violence and instability in many regions of the world according to the experts. 

Fifth, scenarios and government exercises of the impact armed 

group violence can have, especially if it crosses the WMD threshold, likewise reveals the magnitude of this non-traditional threat 

today. And these scenarios are reflective of the stated intentions of 

specific armed groups. 

Weak States: A Chronic International Problem 

A number of organizations have compiled data to assess the 

global trends in governance. This data provides a macro-level view 
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54

of the extent to which weak states and ungovernability constitute a 

chronic international problem that facilitates internal conflicts and 

wars. Of these, the recently revised World Bank’s dataset is perhaps the most multifaceted measurement tool for assessing how 

countries perform in this critical area of development. 

The World Bank defines governance as that set of traditions and 

institutions by which authority in a state is or is not exercised legitimately and effectively. This includes the process by which government is selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the 

government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; 

and the respect of citizens for the institutions that govern economic 

and social interaction. To measure how well or poorly each nation 

governs, the World Bank collected and analyzed data on six indicators.83 These include: 1) voice and accountability; 2) political stability and absence of violence; 3) government effectiveness; 4) 

regularity quality; 5) rule of law; and 6) control of corruption.84 

For each time period covered by the World Bank,85 states were 

assigned a score ranging from 2.5 (highest) to –2.5 (lowest) for each 

of the six governance indicators. These six scores were then averaged to create a single governance measure for every country. To 

better understand the meaning of a 2.5 to –2.5 rating, this aggregate 

governance measure is expressed in percentiles of 0-99, with the 

latter representing the highest level of governance. 

The World Bank divides these governance scores into four sections or quartiles. The highest governance scores range from 75th 

to 99th percentile. The second best quartile includes 50th to 74th 

percentile. Governance ratings equaling 25th to 49th percentiles are 

the second lowest section. And the lowest quartile is comprised of 

scores up to the 24th percentile. We initially labeled these quartiles 
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“good, fair, weak, and very weak” governance scores. However, in 

order to better represent the extremes that exist in the world, the top 

and bottom ten percentiles are further identified as “excellent” and 

“failed.” Thus, “excellent” governance corresponds to a numerical 

score of 90-99; “good” governance 75-89; “fair” 50-74; “weak” 25-

49; “very weak” 10-24; and “failed” 0-9. 

What an analysis of the data demonstrates is that weak, very 

weak, and failed states constitute a significant and enduring challenge for the world community. This can be seen below by comparing 1996 with 2002. The costs of corruption, weak economies, 

deteriorating infrastructures, and poor governance all facilitate this 

state of affairs and the instability and conflict that accompany it.86 

Indeed, those states that have experienced violent conflict and internal war due to an increase in ethnic, cultural, or religious tensions 

serve as breeding grounds for the illicit activities of armed groups. 

The rating for each country is based on its average score on the six 

governance factors. Not every country in every region received a 

score because data was not available for a small number of states. 

For 2002, approximately half of all countries are categorized as 

“weak, very weak or failed.” Furthermore, another one-fifth is 

ranked as “fair.” This means that only about 20 percent of the states 

of the world consistently fall within the “excellent” and “good” 

categories. The World Bank data can be disaggregated by region 

for the periods covered. By doing so, it becomes apparent that significant governance challenges exist in Africa, the Middle East, 

Asia, and Latin America (including the Caribbean). 

Based on 2002 data, of Africa’s 53 states, nine are assessed as 

having “fair” governance, with the remainder falling into the “weak, 

very weak, and failed” categories. Within the region, West, East, 
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56 

2002 Governance Summary by Region 

Region States Excellent Good Fair Weak V. Weak 

 # % Africa 53 38% 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 9 (17%) 22 (42%) 13 (25%) Asia 36 18% 0 (0%) 3 (8%) 6 (17%) 11 (31%) 11 (31%) Europe 42 21% 14 (33%) 10 (24%) 7 (17%) 6 (14%) 1 (2%) LatAmer/Carib 38 19% 0 (0%) 9 (24%) 12 (32%) 12 (32%) 2 (5%) Middle East 16 8% 0 (0%) 1 (6%) 7 (44%) 3 (19%) 3 (19%) N America 2 1% 1 (50%) 1 (50%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) Oceania 13 15% 2 (15%) 0 (0%) 1 (8%) 6 (46%) 0 (0%) 
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1996 Governance Summary by Region 

Region States Excellent Good Fair Weak V. Weak 

 # % 

Africa 53 38% 0 (0%) 2 (4%) 7 (13%) 27 (51%) 10 (19%) 

Asia 36 18% 0 (0%) 3 (8%) 5 (14%) 15 (42%) 6 (17%) Europe 42 21% 11 (26%) 10 (24%) 8 (19%) 7 (17%) 2 (5%) LatAmer/Carib 38 19% 0 (0%) 5 (13%) 10 (26%) 14 (37%) 1 (3%) Middle East 16 8% 0 (0%) 2 (13%) 6 (38%) 3 (19%) 2 (13%) N America 2 1% 2 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) Oceania 13 15% 2 (15%) 0 (0%) 3 (23%) 3 (23%) 0 (0%) 
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58

and Central Africa are all troubled, with several armed conflicts 

taking place. In the Middle East, governance scores for 2002 are 

reported for 15 states. With one exception, they are all grouped in 

“fair” (7), “weak” (3), “very weak” (3) and “failed” (1) categories. 

Almost two-thirds of the states of Asia are ranked by the World 

Bank as “weak, very weak, and failed,” most of which are located in 

the central, southwest, and southeast parts of the region. The 

strongest sub-region is in East Asia with Japan and South Korea. 

Similar to Africa, the weakest states also have the highest rates of 

instability and conflict. 

Although more countries receive “good” or “fair” governance 

scores in Latin America and the Caribbean than in the previously 

discussed regions, approximately 40 percent fall into the “weak, 

very weak, and failed” categories. Not surprising, states such as 

Colombia, which experience high levels of internal conflict, also 

receive correspondingly low governance marks. 

A review of nations categorized as “failed” reveals an interesting pattern. In the past 20 years, the United States has almost exclusively sent troops to countries receiving “very weak” or “failed” 

ratings. Furthermore, in the past 10-15 years, the United States has 

identified most of those countries as safe havens for terrorists. 

These include Afghanistan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of 

Congo, Haiti, the Balkans, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, Sudan, and 

Somalia. 

In sum, the World Bank dataset provides empirical evidence of 

the extent to which “weak, very weak, and failed” states constitute a 

chronic international problem, facilitating internal conflicts with 

transnational dimensions. This macro-level assessment demon-
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59

strates that it is precisely in those types of states that armed groups 

find safe haven free from government authority and control. 

The Geography of Lawless/Ungoverned Territory 

There is growing recognition of the extent to which lawless/ungoverned areas within and/or across the borders of very weak 

and failed states provide various armed groups with a safe haven in 

which they can establish secure bases for training, planning, and 

launching operations locally, regionally, and globally. The darker 

shades on satellite maps below identify six lawless/ungoverned regions. 

These remote territories are not all the same in terms of the 

types of armed groups present. Some regions have each of the four 

identified in this study—terrorists, insurgents, militias, and criminals. In other locations, fewer can be found. What is increasingly 

clear about all of these lawless/ungoverned areas is that they cover 

significant territory, are attractive to a range of armed groups, and 

governments where they are located are unable, on their own, to 

meet the challenges of these illicit actors. They lack the economic, 

military, intelligence, and police power to do so. What follows is a 

brief examination of each region. 

Mexico to Honduras. The first region is the area stretching 

from southern Mexico through Guatemala to El Salvador and Honduras. Narco-traffickers, insurgents, and other criminal gangs are 

all found there. Its close coastline provides easy access to overland 

routes that are used extensively by these armed groups. The area 

could likewise be attractive to terrorists seeking to gain access to the 

United States, serving as a forward operating base. 
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60

Tri-border Area. At least two Middle Eastern terrorist 

groups—Hamas and Hezbollah—are present in the tri-border area 

of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. The rough terrain, lack of government presence, and access to Arab communities in Ciudad del 

Este, Paraguay and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil provide these two organizations with the opportunity to conduct illicit fundraising and 

money laundering, train Islamic extremists, and plan operations. 

Central Asia. As noted earlier, Central Asia has significant territory attractive to armed groups. Today the following are present 

in this region: a burgeoning insurgency in Afghanistan along the 

Pakistan border; Kashmiri insurgents; the reduced insurgent movement in Uzbekistan; and re-grouping elements of al Qaeda. The 

region is also home to a number of criminal organizations. 
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61

Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia (SEA) has the largest portion 

of territory suitable for armed group activities. Present in this region is the al Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiya that since 9/11 has 

carried out several terrorist operations. These include the October 

12, 2002 Bali bombing (killing 202 people) and the car-bomb attack 

on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003 in which 12 civilians died. Other armed groups include separatists who are heavily 

involved in narcotics trafficking in Burma and southern Thailand; 

ethnic insurgents in Indonesia; and arms traffickers who are active 

throughout the territory. Another area in SEA not shown on the 

map that has active armed groups present is the southern Philippines. 
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62

Borneo. Further south is the lightly populated Indonesian region of Borneo and adjacent remote territory. Several armed groups 

are present there. It would be an ideal location for Jemaah Islamiya 

to use as a base and transit point to move operatives to the Philippines, Malaysia, and elsewhere in Indonesia. 

Central Africa. Finally, Africa has several lawless/ungoverned 

areas. Among the regions with the largest concentration of such 

territory is Central Africa. It has several armed groups including 

insurgents, militias, and criminal organizations. Other parts of Africa that are havens for various armed groups not depicted on the 

map below are the Parrot’s Beak area in the tri-border region of 

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia; the lawless borderland between 

Liberia and Ivory Coast; and Somalia. 
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In sum, this topographical plotting of lawless/ungoverned regions makes clear the extent to which these areas cover significant 

territory and can provide armed groups with extensive sanctuary not 

just for safe hideouts but to develop secure bases for training operatives, planning operations, and storing resources. 

Recognition of the Importance of Armed Groups 

Until recently, non-state armed groups were not recognized as 

important players in international politics. However, this is changing. Acknowledgment of armed groups as significant and dangerous actors on the world stage is growing. Increasing numbers of 

research projects and centers focus on them. 

Several were cited above, including the Federation of American 

Scientists (FAS), the Non-State Actors Working Group (NSAWG) 

of the International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL), and the 

Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. 

These are in the forefront of identifying, categorizing, and analyzing 

armed groups as important actors in contemporary global politics. 

And they are only the beginning of what appears to be growing 

awareness that armed groups are no longer minor players in a world 

once dominated by states. 

For example, the Centre of International Relations, a component of the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global 

Issues, has recently initiated an Armed Group Project. Its directors 

note that “[d]espite the salience of non-state armed groups, the academic and policy-making communities have been slow to confront 

them as a distinct problem. Both have focused overwhelmingly on 

states, either as units of analysis, or as building blocks of a policy 

framework.”87

The Project is currently undertaking a “series of research en-
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64

deavors designed to expand knowledge about the phenomenon of 

armed groups” and examine how to encourage them “to comply 

with human rights norms and international humanitarian law.” 

Their research focuses on a number of themes including analysis of 

armed groups’ strategies and instruments; assessment of their organizational structures; and determination of whether and how international norms influence armed groups. The website for the 

project includes research papers, bibliographies, and links to others 

concerned with armed groups. 

Another project that identifies and catalogs armed groups is 

Global Security, which provides online reports on emerging international security challenges to its subscribers.88 It lists armed groups 

according to the geographical region—Europe, Latin America, 

Asia, and Africa—in which they are based. Each is briefly described. Also compiling information on armed groups is the Center 

for Defense Information and the International Crisis Group. Yet, 

other research organizations, too numerous to cite here, focus on 

specific types of armed groups. These include terrorists and criminals. Finally, a number of armed groups maintain their own websites. These provide yet additional sources of information. Links 

for many of these websites can be found in the FAS profiles. To 

date, of all of these efforts, the profiles assembled in The Federation 

of American Scientists’ (FAS) database remain the most inclusive. 

Internal/Transnational Conflicts: A Continuing and Major 

Source of Instability 

Internal conflicts, many with transnational dimensions, while 

somewhat fewer than in the mid-1990s, remain a dominant cause of 

violence and instability in many regions of the world. Numerous 

assessments by experts and quantitative data sets of the continuing 

significance of the clash of ideological, political, ethnic, and reli-
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65

gious beliefs that pit armed groups against one another and against 

states all point in this direction. Two examples are illustrative. 

The first of these assessments was sponsored by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC)—Global Tends 2015: A Dialogue 

About the Future With Nongovernment Experts—and published in 

December 2000. In undertaking this study, the NIC worked with a 

number of leading nongovernmental institutions and experts, including specialists from academia and the private sector. Ten major 

conferences were held in support of Global Trends 2015.89

According to the findings, non-state armed groups and the internal/transnational conflicts they generate pose the most recurrent 

cause of instability around the globe, and these conflicts will grow 

in lethality due to the availability of more destructive weapons and 

other technologies. Moreover, many of these conflicts, particularly 

those due to communal differences, will be vicious, long lasting and 

difficult to terminate. This is because armed groups are not strong 

enough to eliminate the government and the government is just 

strong enough to hang on. 

Global Trends 2015 underscores that weak and failing states 

will generate these conflicts, threatening the stability of a globalizing international system. “Internal conflicts stemming from state 

repression, religious and ethnic grievances, increasing migration 

pressures, and/or indigenous protest movements will occur most 

frequently in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caucasus and Central Asia, 

and parts of South and Southeast Asia, Central America, and the 

Andean region.”90 

The studies and assessments derived from the application of the 

Conflict Analysis Framework (CAF), developed by the Social Development Department of the World Bank are a second example. 
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66

These reports mirror the conclusions found in Global Trends 2015. 

The purpose of the CAF is to enable World Bank teams to assess 

factors causing conflict when formulating development strategies, 

policies and programs. What these studies demonstrate is that violent internal conflict poses an unremitting and major challenge to 

development in many of the states that it classifies as “weak, very 

weak, and failed.” 

Apocalyptic Scenarios and the Intentions of Armed Groups 

Finally, the growing concern that the US government has over 

possible future apocalyptic operations by armed groups is reflected 

in scenarios and simulations it has developed to practice responding 

to the consequences that will result if one of those operations 

crosses the WMD threshold. These scenarios and simulations reveal the magnitude of the damage armed groups can inflict today, 

and the need to prepare for how to respond to such catastrophic 

events. And these scenarios are not mere speculation but are reflective of the stated intentions of specific armed groups. 

Perhaps the most widely publicized example of these exercises 

is “Dark Winter.” In June 2001, with the support of the US government, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the 

Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, the ANSER 

Institute for Homeland Security, and the Oklahoma National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism hosted a senior-level 

crisis game examining the national security, intergovernmental, and 

information challenges resulting from a biological attack on the 

American homeland. 

Such an event could have severe consequences including massive civilian casualties, a breakdown in essential institutions, disruption of democratic processes, civil disorder, and reduced US 
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67

strategic flexibility. Dark Winter is a fictional scenario involving a 

covert smallpox attack on the United States and the challenges senior government officials would face responding to a rapidly escalating epidemic that would follow. Within 22 days, smallpox spreads 

to 26 states. A total of 16,000 smallpox cases are reported, 1,000 of 

which are fatal. Next, the NSC is told during the next 12 days the 

total number of cases will grow to 30,000. They are advised that a 

worst-case condition could result in 3,000,000 cases of smallpox 

and as many as 1,000,000 deaths. 

Dark Winter is an option available to terrorists and other nonstate actors who can gain access to smallpox and other biological 

weapons. It illustrates that the threat posed by proliferation today is 

more diverse, dangerous, and increasingly difficult to counter using 

traditional nonproliferation approaches. 

Other similar programs sponsored by the federal government to 

assess the nation’s crisis and consequence management capacity 

under extraordinary conditions include the TOPOFF exercises, 

which test the readiness of senior government officials to respond to 

multiple terrorist WMD attacks at different geographical locations. 

Scenarios include chemical, radiological, and biological weapons.91 

Several TOPOFF exercises have been held. 

State governments are likewise funding WMD simulation and 

training exercises. For example, in April 2002 the state of Oklahoma sponsored “Sooner Spring,” a simulation involving senior 

state-level political officials, first response agencies and organizations, and representatives from the state homeland security agency. 

The crisis sought to “validate bioterrorism response planning."92 In 

June 2003 the state of Kansas tested the viability of emergency response plans to handle a bioterrorism attack on livestock or crops in 
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68

a simulation exercise called “Silent Prairie.”93 

It is not just the United States that is apprehensive about WMD 

attacks by non-state armed groups. There is also increased international concern over the issue. The BBC reports that globally, fears 

are high that nations with biological and chemical weapons expertise and stockpiles may pass them on to terrorists.94 This led to the 

recent addition of 14 pathogens to the control list of the Australia 

Group, whose 33 members coordinate export control policies on 

items that could be used in chemical or biological weapons programs. These modifications “take into account that a terrorist 

doesn’t need to get the worst of the worst,” said a spokesperson for 

the Group. “All you need is something pretty bad and you can 

cause a lot of harm and a lot of panic. So, the expansion of the list 

is in response to the need to look at the terrorist angle.”95

Reasons for this heightened international concern include the 

danger of states that maintain weapons of mass destruction programs sharing them with armed groups they harbor and/or support.96 As of September 2002 at least 13 countries were currently 

pursuing biological weapons and at least 16 states had chemical 

weapons programs.

97 Theft is another reason for worry. The stockpiles of the former Soviet Union, one of the largest producers of 

WMD, are insecure and have already suffered thefts.98 

These examples of United States and international concern over 

apocalyptic operations executed by armed group are not wild speculation. James K. Campbell and other terrorist specialists note that 

certain sub-state armed groups exhibit “ripeness” for developing 

and using WMD. These include ones espousing radical religious 

ideologies comprised of apocalyptic millenarianism, messianic redemptiveness, or racist/ethnic prejudice.99 Groups that believe their 
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69

actions are sanctioned or demanded by God are less likely to feel 

concern about backlash or be inhibited by mass casualties. Aum 

Shinrikyo, Al Qaeda, and others are evidence that the planning for 

and/or actual use of WMD is a reality. 

Aum Shinrikyo’s ideology, for example, is based on a belief in 

apocalypse violence, as can be seen in its WMD operations. The 

first sarin attack occurred in June 1994 when Aum members 

sprayed sarin gas from a moving vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Tokyo.100 Less than a year later, a second sarin attack was 

launched against Tokyo subway trains.101 Then in May 1995 five 

Aum members used cyanide gas in a subway. Finally, two months 

later they launched a fourth attack by placing chemical devices in 

subway and railway stations.102

Other armed groups have made public statements regarding 

their intention to use WMD. This is another indicator that apocalyptic scenarios by armed groups today are possible. In 1995, 

Shamil Basayev, the most skilled and notorious Chechen paramilitary commander, was asked how he would set about destroying the 

Kremlin, which he referred to as “the seat of satanic power.”103 He 

replied that this would be accomplished by “sprinkling radioactive 

sand” in Moscow.104 Basayev “rejoiced in the fact that developments in the twentieth-century warfare have hugely improved his 

chances of succeeding where generations of freedom-fighting ancestors failed.”105 

On November 23, 1995 a crude bomb of radioactive waste and 

dynamite was left in a Moscow park by Chechan insurgents as a 

warning of their capacity to follow through on Basayev’s boast. 

They did not detonate the device but alerted the media of its 
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70

location. According to Graham Allison in his new book Nuclear 

Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe: 

Chechan separatists have a long-standing interest in acquiring nuclear weapons and material to use in their campaign 

against Russia.... Chechan militants made off with radioactive materials from a Grozny nuclear waste plant in january 

2000; stole radioactive metals—possibly including some 

plutonium—from the Volgodonskaya nuclear power station 

in the southern region of Rostov between July 2001 and 

July 2002; and cased the railway system and special trains 

designed for shipping nuclear weapons across Russia.106

Likewise, in a December 1998 interview, Osama bin Laden alluded to WMD acquisition as part of his Holy War. 

Q: The [United States] says you are trying to acquire 

chemical and nuclear weapons. 

A: Our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did 

that, and certain people responded to this instigation.... 

Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I 

thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be 

a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that 

would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.107

While bin Laden alluded to acquiring and using WMD, al Qaeda 

operatives were seeking to acquire them as early as 1993, according 

to the 9/11 Commission Report. It explains that in that year a top 

bin Laden aide sought to purchase for $1.5 million what he believed 

to be a cylinder containing weapons-usable uranium. “Al Qaeda 

purchased the cylinder, then discovered it to be bogus.”108

This did not deter bin Laden, according to other evidence found 

in the 9/11 Commission Report. For example, a former al Qaeda 

member close to bin Laden, who defected from the organization in 

May 1996, provided details of continuing efforts to acquire 

WMD.109
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Interviews of other al Qaeda members also reveal that the organization was seeking to obtain WMD capability. An October 

2003 memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith reported 

[D]uring a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a 

senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda 

associate that he was asked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons 

and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, 

two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related 

[Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in 

December 2000. Iraqi intelligence was ‘encouraged’ after 

the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training.... CIA maintains that Ibn al-Shaykh’s timeline is consistent with other sensitive reporting indicating that bin 

Laden asked Iraq in 1998 for advanced weapons, including 

CBW and poisons.110

By the time of the 9/11 attacks, Allison writes, the US intelligence community had concluded that al Qaeda had “experimented 

with chemical weapons (including nerve gas), biological weapons 

(anthrax), and nuclear/radiological dispersal devices (dirty bombs).” 

While none of these efforts came to fruition, they nevertheless reveal that bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers were serious about 

WMD.111

Evidence of chemical labs in Afghanistan found in August 2002 

by international peacekeepers further substantiates these statements.112 They discovered 36 types of chemicals, explosive materials, fuses, laboratory equipment, and “guide books.”113 

In addition to al Qaeda, there have also been statements by 

Hamas members demonstrating its desire to acquire WMD. The 

International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Israel reports 

that after the January 1993 arrest of Mohammed Salah, he revealed 

details of his Hamas training, which included the building of explo-
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72

sive devices, electronics, and the development of chemical weapons.

114 George Tenet, then Director of Central Intelligence, in Congressional testimony in 2000, stated: “Hamas is...pursuing a 

capability to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals.”115

Still another indicator demonstrating the feasibility of a WMD 

attack by a non-state armed group is the actual use of WMD by 

armed groups who have not taken credit for such actions. The “Terror Attack Database” of the International Policy Institute for 

Counter-Terrorism, for example, lists seven instances of unknown 

armed groups using anthrax against targets in the United States, 

Pakistan, and Chile following the 9/11 attacks.116 Furthermore, it is 

important to note that although Aum’s use of WMD marked the first 

time an extremist organization had attempted to employ a chemical 

substance in a mass terrorist attack, it was not, however, the first use

of chemical agents by armed groups in order to instill terror, carry 

out blackmail, or cause large-scale economic damage to their rivals.117 

In conclusion, the use of WMD by non-state armed groups is a 

reality. WMD is inexpensive and does not require extensive facilities. In addition, chemical substances have the advantage of mobility.118 In ideology, statements, actions, availability, insecure 

stockpiles, ease of delivery, and lethality, armed groups have all the 

ingredients needed to wage fourth generation warfare using WMD. 

IMPLICATIONS FOR US INTELLIGENCE AND DEFENSE 

AGENCIES 

The findings and conclusions presented in this monograph 

make clear that armed groups have strikingly changed the nature of 

conflict and war in today’s international security environment. Developments in the 1990s, as demonstrated in these pages, enhanced 
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73

the power and capabilities of armed groups to attack the United 

States and other states in ways that constitute direct tier-one security challenges. And these attacks should be considered, when they 

rise to the level attained by Qaeda or by the insurgents, terrorists, 

and militias fighting US forces in Iraq, as forms of warfare and 

treated as such. 

Moreover, there is little to suggest that armed groups are a temporary post-Cold War phenomenon. What the trend lines and data 

all illustrate is just the opposite. Armed groups will continue to 

pose serious and increasingly dangerous security challenges to 

states, including the United States, into the foreseeable future. 

These developments have important implications for American 

intelligence and defense agencies tasked with responsibility for 

handling these challenges. Below are ten steps the United States 

should consider to deal with a 21st century international security 

landscape in which armed groups—insurgents, terrorists, militias, 

and criminal organizations—will present a plethora of direct and 

indirect threats and opportunities. 

• Senior policymakers and intelligence/defense community managers need to recognize the impact of the developments outlined in this monograph which 

demonstrate that in the years ahead armed groups will 

seek to attack the United States asymmetrically to 

strike at high-value targets. And these attacks can have 

strategic consequences similar to and even greater than 

9/11. While not all armed groups can reach a level of 

power similar to that of al Qaeda, it is probable there 

are those who will see al Qaeda’s conduct of warfare as 

a model to emulate and replicate. 

• Policymakers and intelligence/defense community 

managers also have to come to comprehend the complex nature of the armed group phenomena, and the 

threats and opportunities that flow from their emergence as a tier-one security priority. In the 1990s, as 
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74

armed groups proliferated in both numbers and power, 

Washington was inattentive to these developments and 

subsequently paid a steep price. Given that certain 

non-state armed groups exhibit a keen interest in acquiring and using WMD, US policymakers and intelligence/defense community managers can afford no such 

indifference in the years ahead. 

• The escalating role of armed groups in the international 

security environment of the 21st century should not be 

seen as only constituting threats to US interests and security. In certain cases armed groups may also provide 

opportunities that, if taken advantage of, will contribute to the attainment of US foreign policy and national 

security objectives. 

• Such an appreciation of the evolving security setting 

necessitates major changes in the US intelligence and 

defense communities. Those institutions through the 

1980s-1990s assessed armed groups as secondary—

peripheral—security issues and were unwilling to appreciate their growing salience, linkages, and power. 

Even today, doubts remain in these agencies over 

whether any non-state armed group can undermine major US interests or carry out attacks that could have a 

strategic impact. That such attacks constitute a form of 

warfare likewise remains a suspect proposition. 

• Consequently, the organizational cultures of the intelligence and defense agencies tasked with the analytic 

and operational responsibilities of dealing with armed 

groups require major revision. What the various investigations of 9/11 have all revealed is that the organizational cultures of those agencies—the pattern of 

thinking about their central tasks, activities, and operations—are not geared to deal with the emerging strategic challenges of armed groups. New organizational 

cultures must be established in the intelligence and defense communities that approach armed groups as a 

tier-one priority. 

• Armed groups present complex analytic puzzles. Understanding them requires sophisticated tools for differentiating between and among armed groups, as well 

as for constructing systematic profiles of how they or-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

75

ganize and function. These analytic tools should serve 

as the basis for all source collection that will provide 

the information needed to build such profiles. 

• These profiles, in turn, would serve as the basis for developing intelligence and special operations options—

political, informational, psychological, economic, and 

paramilitary—for responding to and degrading those 

armed groups that threaten the United States. They 

could also be employed to identify options for assisting 

those armed groups that provide the United States with 

potential opportunities. 

• These profiles should also be adapted for use not only 

against armed groups already directly or indirectly attacking the United States, but for identifying ones in 

their nascent stages. This will allow the United States 

to take preventive measures, defusing a threat before 

an armed group reaches the stage of serious violence. 

• Armed group profiles can likewise be employed to 

identify ways in which the United States may want to 

assist certain armed groups whose success will be advantageous to US foreign policy objectives. 

• Finally, beyond major revisions in the culture of the intelligence and defense agencies that have responsibility 

for dealing with armed groups, the developments outlined in this monograph have other important implications for those agencies. These include the need for 

each to establish new practical requirements to create 

the requisite intelligence and defense doctrine, organization, training, and personnel to meet the armed 

groups challenge in the 21st century. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

76
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

77

NOTES 

 

1

 Nils Petter Gleditsch, et. al., “Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New 

Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 5 (2002): 623. 

2

 On Hezbollah presence in the United States, see Steven Emerson, 

American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (New York: Free 

Press, 2002); and Annonymous, Terrorist Hunter (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). 

3

 For example, see National Intelligence Council (NIC), Global Trends 

2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernment Experts (December 2000) www.cia.gov/cia/ reports/globaltrends2015/. In the Fall 

2003, the NIC launched the National Intelligence Council 2020 Project, 

a year-long program of dialogues and conferences with experts from 

around the world. Initial products are posted at www.cia.gov/nic/

NIC_home.html. Also see Institute for National Strategic Studies, 

Strategic Assessment 1999 posted at www.ndu.edu/inss/ Strategic%20Assessments/sa99/sa99cont.html. 

4

 For example, see Jaquelyn K. Davis and Michael J. Sweeney, Strategic Paradigms 2025:US Security Planning for a New Era, Institute for 

Foreign Policy Analysis (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1999); and Zalmay Khalilzad and Ian O. Lesser (eds.), Sources of Conflict in the 21st

Century: Regional Futures and US Strategy (Washington, DC: RAND, 

April 1998).

5

 Some examples include the following: Ted Robert Gurr, Peoples 

versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century (Washington, DC: 

United States Institute of Peace, 2000); Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic 

Groups in Conflict (Los Angeles: UC Berkeley, 2000); Mary Kaldor, 

New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Palo Alto, 

CA: Stanford University Press, July 1999); Sudhir Kakar, Colors of 

Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion and Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, February 1996); Charles W. Kegley, Jr. and 

Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trends and Transformations, 9th

edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press, 2004); John Bailey and Roy 

Godson (eds.), Organized Crime and Democratic Governability (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2000); Roy Godson (ed.), Menace 

to Society: Political Criminal Collaboration around the World (New 

Brunswick: Transaction, 2003). 

6

 The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. It 

aimed to end wars over religion and other internal matters by creating 

the nation-state system. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

78

 

7

 James Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring 

Governance in a Turbulent World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 

8

 It is possible for a state to be part of this integration, at least at the 

economic level, without adopting the shared norms identified by Roseau. China would be a case in point. In addition to Roseau see James 

E. Dougherty and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., Contending Theories of 

International Relations, 5th ed. (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001); Michael Doyle and G. John Ikenberry (eds.), New Thinking in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997); 

Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2000),10. 

9

 Robert I. Rotberg, “Nation-State Failure: A Recurring Phenomenon?” 

This paper was prepared for the aforementioned National Intelligence 

Council’s project on the shape of the world in 2020. It is posted at 

www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_home.html. Also see Rotberg (ed.), Why States 

Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 2004). 

10 Project Ploughshares, Armed Conflict Report 2003 

www.ploughshares.ca. 

11 K. J. Holsti’s, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15; Donald M. Snow, Distant 

Thunder: Patterns of Conflict in the Developing World, 2nd edition

(New York: Sharpe M.E., Inc., 1997); Snow, Uncivil Wars: International Security and the New Internal Conflicts (Boulder, CO: LynneRienner, 1996); William E. Odom, On Internal War: American and 

Soviet Approaches to Third World Clients and Insurgents (Durham, 

NC: Duke University Press, 2003); Small Wars and Insurgencies Journal Special Issue: Non-State Threats and Future Wars, Vol. 13, No. 2 

(Autumn 2002); Ted R. Gurr, “Communal Conflicts and Global Security,” Current Security (May 1995). 

12 The The Minorities at Risk Project website allows easy access to this 

dataset and also provides up to date qualitative assessments for each 

communal group www.cidcm.umd.edu/ inscr/mar/data.htm. 

13 Monty Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr, Peace and Conflict 2003 (College Park, MD: Center for International Development & Conflict Management, 2003), 1. 

14 Ibid.,15. 

15 Ibid. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

79

 

16 Chester Crocker, “Engaging Failing States,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2003): 34-35; I. William Zartman, Collapsed States

(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner), chapters 1 and 17; Martin Van 

Creveld, The Transformation of War (Free Press, 1991), chapter 7; 

Robert Dorff, “Democratization and Failed States: The Challenge Ungovernability,” Parameters (Spring 1996). 

17 Ibid., 36. 

18 Scott Baldauf and Owais Tohid, “A Triangle of Militants Regroups 

in Afghanistan,” The Christian Science Monitor, 9 April 2003, 1. 

19 Military operations in cities are taken seriously by many. The following are examples: Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain 

(MOUT), Urban Operations Journal www.urbanoperations.com/; 

Travis M. Allen, Protecting Our Own: Fire Support in Urban Limited 

Warfare (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 1999). Global 

Security maintains an urban operations bibliography at its web site 

www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ops/mout.htm. Also see the bibliography on urban warfare and urban operations at the Naval War College 

web address www.nwc.navy.mil/library/3Publications/ 

NWCLibraryPublications/LibNotes/liburbanwar.htm>. 

20 MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, ed., The Dynamics of 

Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 

21 Figures for states are based on the Correlates of War Project at the 

University of Michigan under the Direction of J. David Singer, in Kegley and Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation 9th edition. 

22 For the most current publication, see The National Security Strategy 

of the United States of America. www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. 

23 This rejection of terrorism as a form of warfare is made forcefully by 

Deputy Chief of CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Paul Pillar’s Terrorism 

and US Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2001). 

24 Department of Army, FM 100-23 Peace Operations (Washington, 

DC: US Government, 30 December 1994); Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-

07 Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War (Washington, DC: US Government, 16 June 1995); John T. Fishel (ed), The Savage Wars of Peace: Toward A New Paradigm of Peace Operations

(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998); Charles W. Hasskamp, Operations Other Than War (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air War College, 1998). 

25 Please see Non-State Actors Working Group www.icbl.org/wg/nsa/ 

nsabrochure.html 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

80

 

26 Non-State Actors Working Group of the ICBL, “Non-State Armed 

Actors Region & Country Survey,” (February 2000). The survey divides armed groups by country and by region. However, it does not 

designate each entry according to the types of groups noted above—

rebel groups, irregular armed groups, insurgents, dissident armed 

forces, guerrillas, liberation movements, and de facto territorial governing bodies www.icbl.org/wg/nsa/library/nsasurvey.html. 

27 Claude Bruderlein, The Role of Non-State Actors in Building Human 

Security: The Case of Armed Groups in Intra-State Wars, (Geneva: 

Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, May 2000), 8-9. 

www.humansecuritynetwork.org/docs/report_may2000_2-e.php. 

28 Ibid.

29 The Para-State data is contained within the Federation of American 

Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program www.fas.org/irp/world/ 

para/. 

30 Ibid. 

31 Ibid.

32 Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism (Washington, DC: 

Brassey’s, 1990), 13. 

33 Thomas H. Green, Comparative Revolutionary Movements (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990); Jack A. Goldstone, Tedd Robert 

Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri (eds.), Revolutions of the Late Twentieth 

Century (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991); Anthony James Joes, 

Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical, Biographical, and Bibliographical 

Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996); Mustafa Rejai, 

The Comparative Study of Revolutionary Strategy (New York: McKay, 

1977); Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Cultural Study

(Boston: Little Brown, 1976); James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991); Paul Berman, Revolutionary Organizations (Lexington, MA: Lexington 

Books,1974). 

34 Daniel Byman, et. al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent 

Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001). 

35 Confidential interviews with Department of Defense and Central 

Intelligence Agency officials conducted in 2004. 

36 See Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer (eds.), Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Guilford, 

CT: McGraw Hill, 2004); Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Paul Pillar, Terrorism and 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

81

 

US Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2001); Eqbal Ahmad 

and David Barsamian, Terrorism: Theirs and Ours (New York: Seven 

Stories Press, 2001); Cindy Combs, Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997); Thomas Badey, “Defining International Terrorism: A Pragmatic Approach,” Terrorism and 

Political Violence (Spring 1998); C. J. M. Drake, “The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection,” Terrorism and Political Violence

(Summer 1998); and Bruce Hoffman, “The Confluence of International 

and Domestic Trends in Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence

(Summer 1997). In addition, there are academic journals devoted to the 

topic including Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Terrorism and 

Political Violence. 

37 The database can be found at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism 

and Political Violence, St. Andrew’s University (UK) www.standrews.ac.uk/intrel/research/cstpv/. 

38 Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) and Douglas Farah, Blood From Stones: The Secret 

Financial Network of Terror (New York: Broadway Books, 2004). 

39 Ralph Peters, Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph?

(Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1999) and Alice Hills, “Warlords, 

Militia and Conflict in Contemporary Africa: A Re-examination of 

Terms,” Small Wars and Insurgencies (Spring 1997). 

40 Human Rights Watch, “Côte d’Ivoire: Militias Commit Abuses with 

Impunity,” Human Rights News (November 27, 2003) www.hrw.org/ 

press/2003/11/cote112703.htm. 

41 Hills, “Warlords, Militias and Conflict in Contemporary Africa,” 40; 

John MacKinlay, “War Lords,” RUSI Journal (April 1998). 

42 Scott Patterson, Me Against My Brother (London: Routledge, 2000), 

51, 61. 

43 Roy Godson and William J. Olson, International Organized Crime: 

Emerging Threat to US Security (Washington, DC: National Strategy 

Information Center, 1993), 4. Also see Bailey and Godson (eds.), Organized Crime and Democratic Governability ; Godson (ed.), Menace 

to Society: Political Criminal Collaboration around the World; Phil 

Williams, “Transnational Criminal Organizations: Strategic Alliances,” 

Washington Quarterly (Winter 1995): 57-72; United Nations Office on 

Drugs and Crime www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized_crime.html; 

Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption 

www.yorku.ca/nathanson/Links/links.htm; Center For Strategic and 

International Studies Organized Crime Project www.csis.org/tnt/; 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

82

 

Jane’s Intelligence Review jir.janes.com/; The Narco News Bulletin

www.narconews.com. 

44 Godson and Olson, International Organized Crime: Emerging 

Threat to US Security, 4, 6. 

45 Ibid., 6. 

46 Magnus Ranstorp, Hiz’ballah in Lebanon (New York: St. Martin’s 

Press, 1997). 

47 Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda. 

48 Alberto Garrido, Guerrilla y el Plan Colombia: hablan las FARC y el 

ELN (Caracas, Venezuela: Producciones Karol, 2001); Thomas Marks.

Colombian Army Adaptation to FARC Insurgency (Carlisle Barracks, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2002); Bailey 

and Godson, Organized Crime and Democratic Governability ; Godson, Menace to Society. 

49 See UN Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources in 

the Democratic Republic of Congo www.un.org. 

50 Godson, Menace to Society.

51 For a discussion of Bout’s extensive operations see UN reports by 

the Panel of Experts for Liberia for Dec. 20, 2000; Oct. 26, 2001; Oct. 

16, 2002 www.un.org: and the Making a Killing: The Business of War,

The International Consortium of Journalists, Public Integrity Books, 

Washington, D.C., 2003. 

52 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt (eds.), Networks and Netwars: 

The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND, 2001. 

53 Rosenau writes that “[w]hat distinguishes globalizing processes is 

that they are not hindered or prevented by territorial or jurisdictional 

barriers. They can spread readily across national boundaries and are 

capable of reaching into any community anywhere in the world.” 

Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier, 80. 

54 Kegley and Wittkopf, World Politics, 272; Kakar, Colors of Violence; Kaldor, New and Old Wars.

55 Harles Heckscher and Anne Donnelon, eds., The Post-Bureaucratic 

Organization (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995). 

56 Peter F. Drucker, “The Coming of the New Organization,” Harvard 

Business Review on Knowledge Management (Boston, MA: Harvard 

Business Review Press, 1998), 3. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

83

 

57 International Criminal Threat Assessment (Washington, DC: The 

White House, 2000), 1. The interagency working group included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency; Federal Bureau of 

Investigation; Drug Enforcement Administration; US Customs Service; 

US Secret Service; Financial Crimes Enforcement Network; National 

Drug Intelligence Center; the Departments of State, the Treasury, Justice, and Transportation; the Office of National Drug Control Policy; 

and the National Security Council participated in the drafting of this 

assessment. 

58 Ibid., 3. 

59 Ibid. 

60 Ibid. 

61 Ibid.

62 Foreign Policy Association, “In Focus—Al Qaeda.” www.fpa.org/ 

newsletter_info2478/newsletter_info.htm. See also Peter L. Bergen, 

Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden (New 

York: The Free Press 2001), 222. 

63 Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda. 

64 Richard H. Shultz, Jr. and Andreas Vogt, “The Real Intelligence 

Failure of 9/11 and the Case for a Doctrine of Striking First,” in Howard and Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism. 

65 Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1999); Gray, A Second Nuclear Age (Boulder, CO: LynneReinner, 1999); Gray, Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History (London: Frank Cass, 2002); Gray, 

“Handfuls of Heroes on Desperate Ventures: When do Special Operations Succeed?” Parameters Vol. XXIX, No. 1 (Spring 1999). 

66 Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After 

the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (December 2002) 

www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html; Gunaratna, Inside AlQaeda; Shultz and Vogt, “The Real Intelligence failure of 9/11 and the 

Case for a Doctrine of Striking First.” 

67 Arquilla and Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars; Peters, Fighting for 

the Future; and Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New 

York: Free Press, 1991). 

68 These specialists sought to determine how non-state actors could take 

advantage of globalization, network-based organization and information age technologies to enhance their ability to attack the state. How 

could these developments affect the terrorist’s capacity to execute stra-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

84

 

tegic level unconventional attacks on the states they targeted? By the 

end of the 1990s the proponents of fourth generation warfare had identified seven integrated precepts that they believed armed groups could 

adopt and employ with strategic effect on the state. The proponents of 

this theory asserted that armed groups that acquired the capacity to operationalize these seven principles in an integrated manner could attain 

the power necessary to initiate strategic level strikes on the state. 69 Al Qaeda’s initial financial base came from donations from 20 

wealthy Gulf-state donors. The “Golden Chain” list of supporters was 

found during a March 2002 raid in Bosnia on an office of the Benevolence International Foundation. Benevolence was one of several USbased charities funneling money to al Qaeda and shut down by the US 

Treasury Department after 9/11. A 1996 CIA report estimated that 

one-third of the 50 Islamic NGOs “support terrorist groups or employ 

individuals suspected of terrorist connections.” Because most of the 

early leaders of al Qaeda had strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, 

the Brotherhood’s financial empire also served to funnel money to the 

terrorist enterprise. Among the Brotherhood banks that have been 

closed because of their support for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups 

are Bank al Taqwa and Akida Bank, both based in Nassau, Bahamas. 

The banks were conrolled by Yousef Nada and Idriss Nasreddin, both 

senior leaders of the Brotherhood, and both designated as terrorist financiers by the United States and the United Nations. The UN also 

ordered the freezing of the assets of the joint business empire run by the 

two men. For descriptions of the al Qaeda financial structure, see 

Farah, Blood from Stones; Steven Emerson, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (New York: Free Press, 2002); Anonymous, 

Terrorist Hunter; United Nations Report of the Monitoring Group to 

the Security Council (Nov. 3, 2003), available at www.un.org. 

70 See Shultz and Vogt, “The Real Intelligence failure of 9/11 and the 

Case for a Doctrine of Striking First.” 

71 Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and US Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: 

Brookings, 2001). During the latter 1990s Pillar served as the Deputy 

director of CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. 

72 “The Economic Effects of September 11th,” Chicago Tribune, 5 September 2002. This PowerPoint study was completed under the auspices 

of the Department of Economics at Penn State University. 

73 Ibid.; William F. Ford, “Economic Impacts of the World Trade Center and Pentagon Attacks (Forum on Emerging Issues),” Business Economics (October 2001); “Revised Forecasts,” AFSA Spotlight on 

Financial Services www.spotlightonfinance.org; “Economic Forecasters See Modest, Steady Recovery,” AFSA Spotlight on Financial Ser-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

85

 

vices (October 2002). www.spotlightonfinance.org/issues/October02/

Stories/story1.htm. 

74 Figures come from Visibillity—the leading litigation management 

solution provider to the insurance industry. 

75 “Economic Impact of 9/11 on the Airline Industry.” See PowerPoint 

presentation at http://acy.tc.faa.gov/jup/jupq_011002/special_guest/ 

wangerman/presentation.pdf 

76 See the Department of Homeland Security www.dhs.gov. 

77 Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the 

CIA’s War on Terrorism (New York: Crown Publishers, 2002). 

78 Godson, Menace to Society. 

79 Douglas Farah, “Conflict Diamonds and Failed States,” Journal of 

International Security Affairs (Winter 2004). 

80 United Nations Secretary General, “The Situation in Afghanistan and 

its Implications for International Peace and Security,” Report of the 

Secretary General to the UN Security Council A/57/850-S/2003/754 

(23 July 2003) www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep03.html. 

81 “The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International 

Peace and Security,” Report of the Secretary-General. 

www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/1b1f74fd1dc62a1c85256d74005b0563?

OpenDocument. 

82 Godson, Menace to Society.

83 Measurements for each governance indicator are based on 25 separate data sources compiled by 18 different organizations, including 

Afrobarometer, Columbia University, DRI/McGraw-Hill, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Gallup International, IMD, 

Latinobarometro, Reporters Without Borders, the World Economic 

Forum, and the World Bank itself. 

84 Voice and Accountability measures the political process to determine 

the extent to which citizens participate in the selection of governments. 

Political Stability and Absence of Violence measures the likelihood of 

destabilization including domestic violence and terrorism. Government 

Effectiveness reflects quality of public service, bureaucracy, and civil 

servants; independence of the civil service from politics; and the credibility of the government policies. Regulatory Quality focuses on the 

policies themselves, measuring the incidence of market-unfriendly 

policies such as price controls or inadequate bank supervision. Rule of 

Law measures the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide 

by the rules of society. These include the incidence of crime, the effec-
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

86

 

tiveness and predictability of the judiciary and the enforceability of 

contracts. Control of Corruption measures the exercise of public power 

for private gain. 

85 The database covers four time periods—1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. 

86 For detailed analysis of the data and its implications see the World 

Bank study: D. Kauffmann, A. Kraay, and M. Mastruzzi, Governance 

Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996-2002 (May 2003). 

www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/wp-governance.html.. 

87 Please see the Armed Groups home page at www.armedgroups.org/ 

home.htm. 

88 See the Global Security website at www.globalsecurity.org. 

89 For a listing of all those involved and the topics of the conferences 

held in support of the study see www.cia.gov/nic/pubs/2015_files/ 

2015.htm. 

90 Ibid. 

91 Thomas Inglesby, Rita Grossman, and Tara O'Toole, “A Plague on 

Your City: Observations from TOPOFF,” Biodefense Quarterly (September 2000) www.hopkins-biodefense.org. 

92 For background see www.mipt.org/pdf/soonerspringfinalreport.pdf. 

93 For background on the exercise see www.mediarelations.ksu.edu/ 

WEB/News/NewsReleases/preparedness60503.html. 

94 Please see the BBC news website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ 

2808901.stm. 

95 Seth Brugger, “Australia Group Concludes New Chem-Bio Control 

Measures,” Arms Control Today (July/August 2002). 

www.armscontrol.org. 

96 Another example is Libya, which produced over 100 metric tons of 

blister and nerve agents at a facility in Rabta between 1998 and 1990. 

Joseph Cirincione with Jon B. Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly 

Arsenals, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (June 2002): 

308. In addition, Iraq stockpiles are known as they used chemical 

weapons extensively in the closing stages of the 1980-88 war with Iran 

and against Kurds in northern Iraq. Furthermore, it has also admitted 

manufacturing mustard gas, and the nerve agents VX, sarin, and tabun, 

as well as the biological agent anthrax and the toxins botulinum, ricin, 

and aflatoxin. For more information, please see John R. Bolton, Under 

Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups

87

 

the Middle East and Central Asia, (16 September 2003). 

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2003/Sep/16-408986.html. 

97 “Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation at a Glance,” (September 2002) www.armscontrol.org. 

98 “In October 2001, the commander of the force that guards Russia’s 

nuclear weapons reported that during that year, terrorist groups had 

twice carried out reconnaissance at Russian nuclear warhead storage 

sites—whose very locations are a state secret.” Furthermore, it has 

been reported that the 40 armed Chechens who seized hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater in October 2002 had considered seizing a 

nuclear reactor with hundreds of kilograms of HEU. This is enough to 

build several nuclear weapons. John R. Bolton, Under Secretary for 

Arms Control and International Security, Testimony before the House 

International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East 

and Central Asia. 

99 James K. Campbell, “Excerpts from Research Study ‘Weapons of 

Mass Destruction and Terrorism: Proliferation by Non-State Actors,’” 

Terrorism and Political Violence (Summer 1997). 

100 Ibid. 

101 Ibid. 

102 Ibid. 

103 Victoria Clark, “Chechens Prefer Total War to Bad Peace,” The Observer. 13 August 1995. 

104 Ibid. 

105 Ibid. 

106 Simon Saradzhyan, “Russia: Grasping Reality of Nuclear Terror,” 

BCSIA Discussion paper 2002-2003, Kennedy School of Government, 

Harvard University, March 2003 (bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication. 

cfm?program=ISP&ctype=paper&item_id=374) in Graham Allison, 

Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New 

York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004), 33. 

107 Interview of Osama Bin Laden by John Miller, Frontline. PBS (23 

December 1998). www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/ 

who/edicts.html. 

108 9/11 Commission, 9/11Commission Report: The Final Report of the 

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 

(New York: WW Norton and Company, 2004), 60. 
Shultz, Farah, and Lochard—Armed Groups 

88

 

109 See 18 March 1997 US intelligence reports on bin Laden ‘s efforts 

to acquire WMD materials as cited in the 9/11 Commission Report, 

479, footnote 3. 

110 Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, “Memo to 

the Senate Intelligence Committee,” 27 October 2003, in Stephen F. 

Hayes, “The US Government’s Secret Memo Detailing Cooperation 

Between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden,” The Weekly Standard, Vol. 9, No. 11 (24 November 2003). 

111 9/11 Commission Report, 28. 

112 “Kabul Terror Lab Said Found at Ex-Saudi NGO Office,” Reuters

(25 August 2002). www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/role/globdem/credib/ 

2002/0825kabul.htm. 

113 Ibid. 

114 “Parents of Slain American Teen File Suit Against Hamas Front 

Groups” International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, (15 May 

2000) www.ict.org.il/spotlight/det.cfm?id=431. 

115 Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, “The Worldwide 

Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security,” Senate 

Committee on Armed Services, 3 February 2000. 

116 “Terror Attack Database,” International Policy Institute for Counter 

Terrorism, www.ict.org.il 

117 Boaz Ganor, Non-Conventional Terrorism: Chemical, Nuclear, Biological,” (25 April 1998) in 2000 WMD Terrorism Chronology: Incidents Involving Sub-National Actors and Chemical, Biological, 

Radiological, or Nuclear Materials. http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/ 

cbrn2k.htm. 

118 Ibid.