Lone Wolves and Al-Qaeda Grand Strategy

2002 Moscow Theater Siege
Photo Credit: Itar-Tass

I'm reading the Mitch Stripling paper on networks that John Robb linked to. The main points are very similar to Martin J. Muckian's excellent essay in this quarter's Parameters. The message in both is that networks can be disrupted by attacking the "hubs," individuals or cells that, as Muckian notes, "[have] special skills or who act as critical communication links or perform non-redundant functions." It's a very good idea, but jihadist decentralization is moving at such a rapid rate that in ten years the network model may become outdated.

The Syrian Al-Qaeda veteran Abu Mus'ab al-Suri is proposing a "jihad of individual terrorism." Unlike Al-Qaeda's current strategy, which at the moment is primarily focused on waging jihad on the "open fronts" of Afghanistan and Iraq, al-Suri wants jihadists to train, equip, and wage war inside their own countries. No trips to Iraq or Afghanistan to train and receive ideological guidance. There are no links between cells and leadership is purely symbolic. His hope is that the jihadist movement can produce a common ideological and tactical template that can be used by either individuals or cells to participate in the global jihad on their own.

Al-Suri, unlike most jihadi theorists, also incorporates insights gleaned from study of Marxist guerrilla theory. It is extremely important to al-Suri that jihadists raise the ideological consciousness of the Muslim "masses," instead of the elites and middle classes that currently compose the backbone of the global jihad. Al-Suri wants to provoke a global revolution of individual terrorists. This may seem paradoxical--how can it really be said that the "masses" are in rebellion without a guerrilla collective? But we can see a framework for spontaneous, individual action in the tradition of Italian Autonomism, particularly Antonio Negri's ideas in Empire and Multitude.

WTO Protests, Seattle 1999
Photo Credit: Seattle Times

Negri's ideas center around fighting what he views as a monolithic neoliberal "Empire" of capitalism through a decentralized "multitude" of autonomous units. His chief contemporary influences are the anti-globalization movement and the global anarchist "black blocs." However, this is just a Marxist conception of network theory. As eclectic and disorganized as the 1999 Seattle WTO protests were, the participants were still part of a general network that planned and acted together.

The logical conclusion of Al-Suri's theory is a shift to "Lone Wolf" terrorism. "Lone Wolf" terror is substantially different and rarer than most forms of terror in both its ideology and practice. To demonstrate this, it's important to look at the four-part theory of terror developed by UCLA political science professor David Rapoport.

In an article titled "Four Waves of Terror," (Anthropoetics 8, no. 1 (Spring / Summer 2002) Rapoport conceived of modern terrorism as a series of waves, each lasting around roughly 40 years. First was the "anarchist wave," of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which anarchists, acting without a common ideology, grand strategy, or individual tactical doctrine employed targeted killings against public figures. By decapitating leadership, anarchists reasoned, they could cause revolution.

French Troops in Algeria

Photo Credit: AP

Following this was the "anti-colonial wave," with guerrilla organizations like the Algerian FLN, the Jewish Irgun, the Vietcong, and aiming primarily at military and government targets, although shock attacks directed at civilian targets. The goal, in this case, was self-determination.

The next step, the "New Left Wave," involved urban guerrilla cells robbing banks, hijacking airplanes, killing select individuals, and hijacking planes. "New Left" terrorists possessed neither the organization of anti-colonial guerrilla networks, nor their public support and military power projection. Their aim was primarily to get use the media to grab attention for themselves and their causes. Rapoport tells us that we are currently in the "Religious Wave," where terrorists fight for theological motives and attempt to cause mass casualties among the civilian population.

As a theory, Rapoport's "Four Waves," has its limits, chief among them his focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. Although the concept of terrorism is relatively new, methods consistent with terror and insurgency have been employed for ages. His analysis also examines terrorism in isolation from societal and technological changes and the decline of state power. However, it's useful to contrast the examples he lists with "Lone Wolf" terror.

Modern "Lone Wolf" terror originates from the American far-right, white supremacist groups, the survivalist/militia fringe. Individuals, equipped with everything from small arms and poisons to massive bombs would strike against the civilian population to create fear and advance political objectives. Because "Lone Wolves" act alone and answer only to their own conscience, they leave no footprints and are nearly impossible to monitor, deter, or bring to justice. The only reason the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski was caught was because because a member of his family recognized his prose style in the rambling anti-technology manifesto he demanded that The New York Times print.

DC Snipers
Photo Credit: PBS

With the exception of 9/11, the most terrifying terrorist attacks in recent American history have been all been perpetrated by "Lone Wolves" such as the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, the DC snipers, and the Anthrax mailer. McVeigh can be considered a "Lone Wolf" even though he acted with Terry Nichols' help--he was unconnected from any mass organization and operated completely below the radar.

The logical conclusion of al-Suri's plan combines the anonymity of "Lone Wolf" terrorism with the ideological cohesion of network war. Cells would employ a shared tactical and ideological template, but act entirely alone. It would not be a network as much of a group of individuals waging separate wars with only an ideological link. We've already seen the effect that lone wolves can have, both in the immense physical damage of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the massive fear and hysteria caused by the DC Snipers.

This dovetails with another worrisome trend: the aggressive decentralization of technology. As former Reagan defense official Fred Charles Ikle noted in his study Annihilation From Within, the technological revolution has weakened the power of the state, giving individuals the possibility of projecting unheard-of power. This is not solely a military trend but a societal one: just as Youtube and Myspace have democratized mass media and given aspiring filmmakers and musicians creative and promotional tools once reserved for film studios and record companies, the power of marginal non-state actors to influence world events has drastically increased.

Ikle believes that the result of this vast decentralization is likely to result in two apocalyptic outcomes. Last-resort weapons once reserved for the state could fall into the hands of armed groups. Another possibility is the military modification of emerging futuristic technologies with "dual-use" capacity, such as biotechnology, robotics, nanomachines, and artificial intelligence. Ikle predicts that non-state actors will find the means of turning these emerging technological advances into weapons of mass destruction. If so, it would not be unusual. Human history is fraught with examples of wondrous inventions converted into weapons of war.

Nanotech Simulation
Photo Credit: Business Week

Armed with destructive technologies, Al-Suri's "Lone Wolves" would, as Ikle notes, be able to achieve the systems disruptions effect of guerrilla networks, without the weaknesses noted by Stripling and Muckian.

However, Al-Suri is not the dominant strategist of the jihadi movement and it remains to be seen what influence his ideas will have; his plan is not a field manual but an intellectual treatise intended to spark discussion in jihadi circles. And the ability of terrorists to employ WMD has long been over-hyped. Despite the ease with which scowling Islamic radicals seem to procure weapons of mass destruction in the movies, real life terrorists have had tremendous difficulty attracting both the scientists and the resources to manufacture and deploy such weaponry. Thus, the thought of individuals employing WMD may seem very far-fetched. But if the current trend of technological decentralization continues, it will dovetail with the decentralization process that Al-Qaeda is currently conducting. The apocalyptic scenario I'm outlining here can't be ruled out.