IS fighters in Raqqa with captured weapons, Jan 2014. AP Photo\/Militant Website. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n
The
\nanti-ISIS coalition is preparing a major ground offensive against ISIS to
\nrecapture Mosul and, eventually, ISIS-declared capital Raqqa. However, any
\narmed victories will come with enormous costs for the locals and are unlikely
\nto bring mid- or long-term stability to the region. <\/p>\n
What
\nwill be won through arms is likely to be kept by further violence afterwards.
\nBut what other long-term strategies could be considered? What lessons do other
\nhistorical struggles against totalitarians offer for fights with more
\ncontemporary violent radicals? Do past struggles provide insights into
\nstrategies other than military response? If so, what is the likelihood for
\ntheir application on the ground today and how? <\/p>\n
In
\nthe Second World War, the 75% of Jews in France, 90% of Jews in Mussolini
\nItaly, all of the Jews in Belgium, almost all of the Danish and Bulgarian Jews, and the few Jews in Poland that escaped the Holocaust
\nwere rescued because
\nlocal populations refused to obey totalitarian henchmen. Most of these Jews
\nsurvived not because they fought with arms or were defended by arms, but
\nbecause ordinary people engaged in individual and collective, sustained and
\norganized, nonviolent noncooperation with Nazi extermination orders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The East German state eventually collapsed because the very force that the Berlin Wall was built to counter\u2014the exodus of people\u2014was let loose<\/p>\n
At
\nthe same time that Jews were being slaughtered by the Nazis but also saved
\nthrough nonviolent means, Norwegian teachers and other workers refused to join
\nstate-sanctioned trade unions, and carried out noncooperation and deliberate
\ninefficiencies in their daily work as a form of resistance against their own
\nfascist political leadership\u2014headed by the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling.
\nNonviolent resisters were arrested and fired from their jobs, and some were
\nsent to the concentration camps in the Artic. They persevered; helped by the
\nunderground solidarity networks. Eventually, faced with this sustained refusal
\nto obey, the Quisling regime had no choice but to give up on the realization of
\na corporative state in Norway.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Almost
\nfive decades later, in 1989, one of the most destructive and repressive
\ntotalitarian systems that ever existed, the Soviet Union, imploded largely
\npeacefully from inside. Its relatively quiet demise was brought about not
\nthrough greater violent power, but as a result of domestic grassroots
\nnonviolent mobilization and the resistance of ordinary people. This nonviolent
\nmobilization and resistance was compounded by the transnational assistance to
\nnonviolent actors, such as the Solidarity movement in Poland, and international
\ncontainment of the totalitarian Soviet threat within its borders. The
\ncontainment strategy, articulated in 1946 by George Kennan,
\nthe minister-counselor at the US embassy in the Soviet Union, aimed to contain
\nthe Soviet Union\u2019s expansionist ideology and hold back spread of its influence
\nthrough defensive alliances as well as nonmilitary \u201clong-range policies,\u201d
\nincluding political, economic, and cultural \u201ccounter-force.\u201d <\/p>\n
One
\nof the linchpin statelets for the Soviet Union\u2019s Iron Curtain, East Germany\u2014propped
\nup by its feared and brutal secret police Stasi, was almost brought to its
\nknees by the beginning of the 1960s. This happened not because of the
\nadvancement of NATO armies or the weakening of the Soviet power, but because
\nmore than 3 million Germans left its territory before the Berlin Wall was
\nerected in 1961. The East German state eventually collapsed because the very
\nforce that the Berlin Wall was built to counter\u2014the exodus of people\u2014was let
\nloose when Hungary opened its borders with Austria in May 1989 and thousands of
\nEast Germans poured through Hungarian and Austrian territories, into the West
\nGerman lands. That exodus was the beginning of the end of the walled territory
\nbehind the Iron Curtain.<\/p>\n
No
\nsingle action by itself can dislodge totalitarians and pave the way for more
\nstable societies, but collective actions, like the multipronged, civilian-based,
\nand nonviolent strategies offered in the cited cases, can prove successful
\nagainst extremely violent groups, including non-state brutal actors such as
\nISIS. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
These
\nstrategies consist of: \u00a0<\/p>\n
–
\nContainment that lets the henchmen rule and erode their own legitimacy in the
\neyes of locals;<\/p>\n
–
\nGrassroots noncooperation against totalitarians, including acts of subtle and
\novert disobedience, deliberate inefficiencies, and underground solidarity
\nnetworks;<\/p>\n
–
\nProtest migration by local people who neither want to join a violent group nor
\nan armed opposition, nor want to remain in place and accept their own
\nexploitation;<\/p>\n
–
\nSetting up temporary relocation zones for those who decide to join protest
\nmigration;<\/p>\n
–
\nTransnational assistance to nonviolent activists and their civil resistance
\nactions in a violence-torn environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Any
\nof these strategies might be criticized as unrealistic or ineffective, but their
\nalternative\u2014an armed campaign\u2014has historically fared many times worse
\nthan its nonviolent counterpart in dislodging brutal regimes, in reducing costs
\non populations, or building stable political and socio-economic environments
\nafter conflict has ended. <\/p>\n
In
\nfact, military might has been successful against only 7% of
\nviolent terror organizations. If nonviolent strategies seem impractical, it is even
\ngreater naivet\u00e9 to think armed solutions can be the answer.<\/p>\n
Traditionally,
\ncontainment is about the establishment of effective checks on the opponent's
\nability for further political and military expansion and its financial and
\nideological strangulation\u2014short of all-out invasion of the territory the
\nopponent holds. However, more importantly, containment is about a preservation
\nof a civic space within the contained area, and denying an extremely violent
\ngroup the opportunity to carry out their atrocities in the midst of violent
\nconflict. <\/p>\n
It
\nwas on the eve of the Final Solution in March 1942 that Joseph Goebbels wrote: \u201cFortunately, a whole
\nseries of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied
\nus in peacetime.\u201d In so many words, the Nazi propagandist was acknowledging the
\nfortuity of open violent warfare for Nazi plans of annihilating an ethnic and
\nreligious group. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The
\ncontainment strategy aims to decrease the chances for such an open violent
\nconflict that advantages an opponent with genocidal and totalitarian instincts,
\nin favor of a stable though possibly repressive peace in the cordoned area. As
\nartificial and tyrannical as this stability is, in the long-term it privileges
\nthe local population and creates a legitimacy crisis for its repressive rulers.\n<\/p>\n
Even
\nthough containment seemingly lets the oppressor rule without physical
\nintervention from outside, its main impact, although intangible at first, is to
\ncreate a fertile ground for the emergence of a genuinely grassroots
\ncounterforce to the oppressor that, for its own long-term survival, must strive
\nto maintain its local legitimacy.<\/p>\n
Why use weapons that ISIS knows so well? German Nazis were, like ISIS, experts in violence.<\/p>\n
The
\ntime and space that is given the oppressor, through containment, to govern and
\nabuse help reveal in the eyes of the local population inherent contradictions
\nin the ruler\u2019s promises and actions. The violent rule is natively contradictory
\nwhen it claims that violence and repression are used for good; war for peace; prosecution
\nand death to protect life; abuses for security; bending law for rule of law. <\/p>\n
These
\nhypocrisies are the source of inherent vulnerabilities in violent totalitarian
\nsystems and groups, and undergird future legitimacy crisis. <\/p>\n
According As A When Michele Amoruso\/Pacific Press\/LightRocket via Getty Images. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n The It also demanded from civilians to sign over car titles and family houses as a security deposit before allowing locals to leave the territory, even for a brief two-week period.<\/p>\n Violent This In At As Similarly, The People In fact, there is a long tradition of protest migration in the Arab world going back to the time of the prophet Mohammed.<\/p>\n There In During In And In While By The These These In While In In ISIS This IS fighters in Raqqa with captured weapons, Jan 2014. AP Photo\/Militant Website. All rights reserved. The anti-ISIS coalition is preparing a major ground offensive against ISIS to recapture Mosul and, eventually, ISIS-declared capital Raqqa. However, any armed victories will come with enormous costs for the locals and are unlikely to bring mid- or long-term stability…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nto
\nVaclav Havel, the Czech anti-communist dissident, the abusive ruler must stay
\ncaptive to his own lies in order to maintain his grip on power. The violent
\nregime \u201cpretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police
\napparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no
\none. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\na consequence, the perceptions of local populations about such rule changes
\nwith time as the contradictions and hypocrisies become increasingly obvious. In
\nthose circumstances, the best weapon against violent regimes is to let them
\nrule as they inevitably mess things up for themselves. More often than not,
\nattacking a violent regime from the outside only gives it an alibi for its own
\nviolence, and ineptitude. <\/p>\n
\nsimilar legitimacy crisis reportedly
\nfuels resentment in Deir ez-Zor and other ISIS-controlled towns and cities, as
\npeople begin to see ISIS corruption, incompetence, and repressive methods
\ndirected not only against \u2018non-believers\u2019 but also against Sunni Muslims. This
\nbehavior contradicts ISIS\u2019 own promises and propaganda.\u00a0 The realization of
\nISIS\u2019 hypocrisies is in fact the main driver behind defections from ISIS. Many
\nwho joined ISIS drawn by the promise of adventure, solidarity in arms, and
\nglory, defected because they felt
\nthat they were used as cannon fodder, while no promised luxury goods (cars or
\nhouses) ever materialized. Instead, these defectors came to see ISIS\u2019
\nindiscriminate violence, and the pervasive corruption within the ISIS ranks
\nthat privileges foreigners over Middle-Eastern fighters. <\/p>\n
\ncontainment is rejected in favor of direct military intervention, the costs,
\neven of a successful violent campaign, reach prohibitive levels. The retaking of
\nRamadi in Iraq from ISIS in December 2015 shows the perils of the armed
\nre-conquest of territory. The human toll, including mass displacements and infrastructure
\ndamage, was so great that there is little
\nchance that the Iraqi government, strapped for cash,
\nwill be able to rebuild, deliver services, or provide effective governance to
\nthe city for months if not years to come. This destruction is a breeding ground
\nfor a continued instability\u2014where the governance vacuum is likely to be filled
\nin by violent (even if pro-government) groups of different stripes, jockeying
\nfor power in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\nDependency and noncooperation <\/h2>\n
\nlegitimacy crisis comes once reality falsifies violent groups\u2019 promises for a
\nrelatively better status quo than the one inherited from its predecessors. Once
\nthis legitimacy crisis widens, the probability will increase for the local
\npopulation to engage in small and subtle acts of defiance and later, in more
\nmass-based, organized acts of nonviolent resistance.<\/p>\n
\ngroups such as ISIS clearly recognize the dangers that a legitimacy crisis
\nmight bring.\u00a0 To reduce the chances of a crisis materializing, ISIS has established
\na service-based governance on the conquered territories, serving more than five
\nmillion people. It has opened welfare institutions, and it runs schools,
\norphanages, and bakeries. It has restored and provides some electricity, health
\nservices, and sanitation. Its Islamic courts resolve disputes between citizens.
\nTo avoid being undermined by accusation of hypocrisies, ISIS has demonstrated
\nthat their members must practice what ISIS preaches. If found guilty of
\nrobbery, adultery, homosexuality or smoking ISIS does not hesitate to punish its
\nown\u2014even in public.\u00a0 Though this might sound surprising given the media
\nreports about ISIS atrocities, the violent group also provides a degree of
\nprotection for the locals, both of their property and life. <\/p>\n
\ntype of work at the basis of society allows ISIS to maintain a relative
\nlegitimacy, at least in the eyes of some local people, as the alternatives to
\nISIS looks even less appealing or competent in ensuring security. <\/p>\n
\nexchange for these services ISIS demands from the people under its rule three
\nthings: absolute obedience to its authority, administrative and military
\nservices if needed, and most importantly, taxes. In fact, ISIS introduced a sophisticated taxation system
\nthat is estimated to bring almost the same if not greater
\namount of revenue to the terror group than it receives from oil sales. It taxes
\nbetween 10% and 50% of income and business activity. 2,5% of tax is levied on
\ncapital assets, 5% fee on bank cash withdrawals, and 20% of tax on spoils of
\nwar, in addition to taxes on land or retail spaces. Residents of the
\nISIS-controlled territory also pay their rulers for electricity,
\ncleaning and water. Even if bombings are able to dislodge ISIS oil production
\nand smuggling routes, this is unlikely to
\nput much of a dent in ISIS coffers as it can continue relying on the local
\nrevenue that it receives from its people.<\/p>\n
\nthe same time, the payment of taxes and the estimated 30,000 local administrators
\nthat make ISIS bureaucracy work, create strong dependency relations with the
\nlocal communities that the violent group must rely on to function. If the
\npopulation changed its patterns of obedience and engaged collectively in acts
\nof noncooperation this would constitute a major threat for ISIS and its
\nlong-term survival on the territory. <\/p>\n
\na violent organization ISIS knows only too well how to deal with armed challenges
\nthat it successfully and harshly suppressed in
\nthe past. Why use weapons that ISIS knows so well? Consider German Nazis who,
\nlike ISIS, were experts in violence. When imprisoned German officers were
\ninterviewed, they noted that it was a relief to
\nthem when the local resistance turned violent, as it allowed German troops to
\ndeploy most drastic and indiscriminate measures to suppress the violent adversary.
\nWhat confused the Germans most was when populations used subtle and concealed
\nforms of nonviolent resistance. Nazis had little, if any, training and
\nexperience in dealing with such elusive defiance.<\/p>\n
\nresistance against ISIS could begin with subtle acts of disobedience (like refusal to send
\nchildren to ISIS controlled schools) and deliberate inefficiencies (potentially done by workers
\nthat ISIS seeks to employ), as well as through building solidarity networks to
\nturn defiance into more open acts of noncooperation (like the business community in the Syrian city
\nof Minbij that went on strike in 2014 and closed down all
\ncommercial activities in protest against ISIS), joined and coordinated by a greater
\nnumber of people. For such resistance to take place, civilians must have enough
\nopen space to operate and organize which can only emerge if containment, rather
\nthan territorial assault, is the prevalent strategy. As the recent outbursts of
\ncivilian-led nonviolent protests in
\nthe rebel-held areas in Syria suggest, even a fragile ceasefire can open the
\ndoor for civilians to organize and act. <\/p>\nProtest migration <\/h2>\n
\nNorth Korean regime is neither afraid of international sanctions, western
\nmilitaries, nor even pressure from its closest ally China. What the regime is
\nmost afraid of is North Korean citizens and their actions. If China and South
\nKorea decided to make their respective borders wide open in order to give the
\nopportunity for millions of North Koreans to escape\u2014no doubt the North Korean
\nsoldiers would likely shoot at civilians though many might have joined the
\nexodus\u2014the regime would not survive; leading to its collapse in the same way
\nand at the same speed as what happened to East Germany. North Korea has mined
\nand militarized its borders, not only to keep enemies out, but, more
\nimportantly, to keep its people in. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nleave conflict zones and escape territory under totalitarian rule. They do this
\nfor personal reasons; to flee persecution and survive. They are victims that
\nseek rescue outside. However, an organized, mass-based migration from territory
\nunder the yoke of violence can too be a bold political move of empowered people
\nmaking a conscientious decision to no longer be passive, and to no longer
\naccept violence or participation in violence against violence\u2014nor do they want
\nto die. These people make a choice for a nonviolent action: migration in
\nprotest against the violence that surrounds them. If done collectively, in an
\norganized manner and en masse<\/em> this can be a powerful political statement
\nand a major disruption for the totalitarians.<\/p>\n
\nare historical examples of protest migration and collective purposeful
\ndisappearance, where communities decided to move, and by doing so, stood up to
\noppression and aggression as their actions increased costs for and placed a
\nsignificant burden on their opponents. <\/p>\n
\nthe first half of the nineteenth century, Algerians under the French colonial
\nyoke left the country in
\nthousands in protest against the rule of non-Muslims, land confiscation, and
\nmilitary conscriptions. The scale of the exodus and its consequences for the
\nsecurity of the region were so great that the French had to take measures to
\nreduce and stop the flow. <\/p>\n
\nthe Japanese occupation of China, whole villages would just disappear before
\nJapanese troops arrived. A contemporary to the Japanese invasion scholar of the
\nChinese history, George Taylor, observed
\n\u201c[s]o well organized are the villages now that when the Japanese approach, the
\npeople evacuate the village completely, bury their food, remove all animals and
\nutensils, and retire into the hills. The Japanese must, therefore, bring with
\nthem everything they need.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nfact, there is a long tradition of protest migration in the Arab world going
\nback to the time of the prophet Mohammed. The popular term – hijrat<\/em> (or hegira<\/em>
\nor hizrat<\/em>) \u2013 deliberate migration \u2013 refers to the flight of the prophet
\nMohammed and his followers from Mecca to escape persecution at the hands of
\ntyrannical tribes. Hardly powerless, the escapees then as they do today, can
\nconstitute a major challenge for the violent groups. <\/p>\n
\nthis is exactly what ISIS is concerned with. <\/p>\n
\nthe fall of 2015, when protest migrations from ISIS controlled territory took
\non a massive proportion, when thousands were leaving the area, ISIS went to great
\nlengths to stem the flow. They released a number of videos and
\ndocuments in which ISIS both appealed to and threatened those who
\nwere thinking about leaving \u201cDarul-Islam [land of Islam]\u201d voluntarily. \u00a0Such an act was called \u201ca dangerous major sin
\n[kaba\u2019ir<\/em>].\u201d To further discourage migration from its territory ISIS
\nadditionally imposed exorbitant \u201cdeparture taxes\u201d on
\nthe locals. It also demanded that civilians sign over car titles and family
\nhouses as security deposits before allowing locals to leave the territory, even
\nfor a brief two-week period. <\/p>\nTemporary relocation zones<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nISIS makes extraordinary efforts to stop
\nthe outflow of people from its territory it is determined to get all major
\npowers involved in open violent warfare against its Islamic fighters. There are
\nno pleas from ISIS to stop the bombing as there are for locals to stop leaving
\nISIS territory. Western strategies of armed intervention are precisely what
\nISIS wants, while no attention is being paid to what ISIS is truly worried
\nabout.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthe end of January 2016, the United States had spent more than $6 billion or
\n$11 million per day on
\nits bombing campaign against ISIS. The Pentagon also requested an additional $7.5
\nbillion for the operations against ISIS in 201\u2014 twice as much as
\nthe sum spent in 2016; a clear indication of the expanding military engagement
\nin preparation for retaking ISIS strongholds. Two US partners alone, Canada
\nand Britain, have each spent approximately $300 million
\nso far on their participation in the bombing raids against ISIS. <\/p>\n
\ncontainment strategy would be much less expensive, freeing a considerable
\namount\u2014counted in \u00a0billions of dollars\u2014on
\na strategy that ISIS is genuinely afraid of: setting up major relocation zones
\ndesignated specifically for civilians from the ISIS controlled territories. Such
\nzones, built by thousands of engineers and run by local civil servants would be
\nweapons-free areas (equivalent of peace zones or peace communities in Colombia, the Philippines or
\nAfghanistan) though protected by coalition troops and local forces.
\nEngineers could reinforce the zones by erecting humanitarian walls
\naround them as a nonviolent strategy to prevent infiltration by gunmen. <\/p>\n
\ntemporary relocation zones need not necessarily be large, if planned well \u2013
\nless than 400 square miles (the area of the size of New York City that houses
\nalmost 8 million people). The zones could be situated in relative proximity to
\nISIS-controlled territory for easy access by civilians; close to the Turkish
\nborder on the Syrian and Iraqi sides, which is under the control of the Kurdish
\nforces. Alternative areas for location of such zones could be sparsely
\npopulated desert regions of southern Syria close to the Jordanian-Iraqi border,
\nfar from violent groups and armed conflict but with access to the transportation
\nroutes. <\/p>\n
\ntemporary relocation zones could become places for democratic self-governance,
\nhoning leadership and self-organization skills by empowered civic actors and
\nfor grassroots engagement free of violence. <\/p>\n
\ncontrast to safe havens, the zones should also be seen as a weapon against the
\nbrutal enemy and not merely a protection against it. Emptying ISIS territory of
\ncivilians \u2013 even if temporarily \u2013 will hollow out ISIS coffers, and ISIS ideological
\nand political control, allowing for a quicker defeat of ISIS with the lowest possible
\nloss of human life, limited destruction to infrastructure, and greater chances
\nfor quicker rebuilding and a more stable environment afterwards. <\/p>\nTransnational assistance<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nstates can take on the major burden of executing containment strategies as well
\nas setting up relocation zones, civil society organizations and the
\ninternational community, including the UN, could plan for delivering major
\ntransnational assistance. Such assistance would aim to support the civilian
\nefforts on the ground to engage in nonviolent noncooperation to violent actors,
\nas well as helping those who would choose a protest migration to leave ISIS
\nterritory.<\/p>\n
\neach case, transnational assistance could be a combination of development and
\nhumanitarian aid and know-how: including skills and strategies for organizing,
\nmobilizing and engaging in lower risk, often subtle and innovative, methods of
\nnoncooperation and nonviolent defiance. This could build off of some of the
\nexisting examples of noncooperation
\nand acts of disobedience in ISIS-controlled cities
\nbefore the conditions are ripe for more overt, mass-based civil resistance
\nactions such as open boycotts, demonstrations or general strikes. <\/p>\n
\naddition, transnational assistance could aid constructive types of defiance,
\nincluding support for building schools and developing appropriate curricular
\nfor children to counter radical Islamic teachings in the conflict zones, or
\nsupporting defected lawyers and judges with developing a network of civic
\ncourts \u2013 even if underground, where people could resolve their disputes and get
\nthe recourse they seek while they boycott Islamic courts. <\/p>\nISIS power and
\nvulnerabilities come from the local population<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nrecognizes the power of civilians under its control more so than the states
\nbent on fighting ISIS. <\/p>\n
\ncivilian power is untapped and disregarded, as people are seen only as victims or
\nthe potential collateral damage of a ground armed invasion. In reality, the
\ncivilian population, and more importantly its behavior patterns, can be the
\nkeys to dislodging ISIS\u2014 while, at the same time, minimizing costs and loss of
\nhuman life, and creating post-conflict environments that are more conducive to
\na more peaceful transition than any that armed strategies are likely to
\ndeliver.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"