Taming the Dogs of War – U.S. Efforts to Control Proxy Forces

Note: The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components.

The United States has long used proxy forces to achieve military objectives. One of the most iconic examples is the Allies’ use of small, two- to four-man teams of highly trained commandos during World War II as on-the-ground coordinators with French resistance groups. Known as Jedburgh teams, these units took their name from Operation Jedburgh, a joint U.S.-U.K. program to assist resistance forces in Europe in conducting guerilla warfare against the Germans.

On June 5, 1944, the day before the Allied invasion, the first Jedburgh teams clandestinely infiltrated behind German lines in occupied France. Once on the ground, the Jedburgh teams began to train and equip armed French resistance groups. Then, the Jedburgh teams and their French partners conducted intelligence, sabotage, and hit-and-run operations against German military targets. Operation Jedburgh successfully diverted German military assets away from the main D-Day invasion battlefronts and hindered the Germans from destroying key infrastructure as they retreated. Based on its success, Operation Jedburgh became the benchmark for future special operations and led to the establishment of the U.S. Army Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets, who specialize in working “by, with, and through” state and non-state forces.

In the modern-day military lexicon, the armed French resistance organizations would likely be considered “proxy forces” for the U.S. and British governments in World War II. While U.S. military doctrine does not specifically define the term, a proxy force generally refers to a local warring party (that is, party that is actively engaged in hostilities against another party) that “receives support from an external state that could be useful for waging armed conflict, such as funding, arms, equipment, advising, training, intelligence, and/or troops.”

Since World War II, the United States has increasingly relied on and provided support to local militias that are combating terrorist organizations or insurgent forces that challenge U.S.-backed governments. Until recently, the United States’s use of proxy forces has been clandestine. That was the case, for example, in Operation Jedburgh, in U.S. support to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, and in the CIA’s support to the contras in Nicaragua. Over the past 20 years, however, the United States has also provided large-scale overt support to proxy forces, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces for operations against the Islamic State in Syria and local Sunni forces in Iraq for counterinsurgency operations, also known as the Anbar Awakening.

Erica Gaston’s “Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria” offers a deeply researched account of many of the United States’s large-scale overt proxy force operations since the 9/11 attacks. Using a series of case studies, Gaston explains that during the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the United States supported indigenous armed groups to help promote local stability and security. The United States hoped that by supporting these armed groups, they would act as security forces, preventing violent terrorist or insurgent groups from operating in the area. The United States could then decrease the number of its own troops in the region. Consequently, these operations involved very large proxy forces (for example, over 103,000 proxy force members in Iraq) and cost the United States many millions of dollars per year. “Illusions of Control” provides readers with an in-depth analysis of the political considerations that shaped these operations and the methods the United States used to try to control its proxy forces.

As Gaston explains throughout “Illusions of Control,” supplying a non-state, irregular force with money and lethal aid can be risky. Proxy forces may not have the same strategic objectives as the United States, may not be ideologically aligned with U.S. goals, and may be less likely to follow the law of armed conflict (LOAC) than would U.S. forces. Additionally, the non-state, local forces may be less capable, motivated, equipped, or well trained as compared to conventional, state military forces. In response to these risks, the United States has established methods to oversee and regulate proxy forces’ conduct, what Gaston calls “control mechanisms.” As Gaston eloquently notes, “[I]t was as if the United States had ‘let slip the dogs of war,’ but in this case had taken steps to tame them.”

For each of her case studies, Gaston provides a detailed description of the historical and political context for the proxy force operation. She then explains the control mechanisms the United States used to influence the proxy force’s conduct and how these control mechanisms evolved over the duration of the operation. Finally, to explain why the United States may have elected to use certain control mechanisms, Gaston analyzes each case study using two academic concepts: principal-agent theory and bureaucratic policy analysis, or the bureaucratic politics approach as it is more commonly called. Ultimately, Gaston concludes that many of the proxy force control mechanisms the United States adopted across all the case studies are better explained as products of bureaucratic politics, rather than as outcomes of deliberate decisions that would fit the principal-agent model.

Gaston begins “Illusions of Control” by identifying four categories of methods a state (the principal) may use to control its proxy force (the agent): rules and standards of conduct (for example, compliance with LOAC or respect for human rights); monitoring and oversight (routine inventorying of proxy force arms and ammunition); incentives and sanctions (decreasing or canceling support if the proxy force violates LOAC); and checks and balances (other groups or institutions overseeing the proxy force so that the United States does not have to). This principal-agent approach presumes that the United States’s choice to use certain control mechanisms was the result of deliberate planning decisions. In other words, the United States determined that each mechanism would effectively influence proxy force behavior and was needed to achieve operational objectives.

Gaston also analyzes each case study using the bureaucratic politics approach, a model developed most famously by Graham Allison in “The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Instead of viewing foreign policy outcomes as rational, well-thought-out decisions, advocates of the bureaucratic politics approach view foreign policy decisions as arising from a bargaining process among decision-makers and other stakeholders in a bureaucracy. Each decision-maker or stakeholder (for example, the secretary of defense or the secretary of state) will take a position on a matter that represents the collective position of their organization, a notion popularized in the expression “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Thus, as Gaston puts it, “[T]he ultimate policy outcome is the result of bargaining between these different stakeholders and should be considered a compromise of these competing views and ‘stand-sit positions,’ rather than any given player’s preference.”

The first two U.S. proxy forces Gaston analyzes are the Sons of Iraq (SoI) or awakening force (sahwa in Arabic) and the Afghan Local Police (ALP), two of the most publicized U.S. proxy force operations in recent history and ones that would influence later operations. Gaston found that while the ALP was less than a third the size of the SoI, it was burdened with a “much greater emphasis on accountability and control.” In addition, the ALP’s oversight and control mechanisms were much more difficult and costly to implement and ultimately less effective overall because of the Afghan environment and the significantly lower number of U.S. troops in the country at the time.

Using the principal-agent and bureaucratic politics approaches, Gaston compares the SoI and ALP cases to determine why the SoI program relied on fewer control mechanisms than the ALP program. Principal-agent theory gives her a partial answer: Because of the greater violence in Iraq, the United States had a greater need for SoI flexibility to operate and a greater tolerance for SoI conduct that deviated from U.S. expectations. But the principal-agent theory could not explain the larger number of ineffective and costly controls placed on the ALP.

Instead, Gaston looks to the bureaucratic policy debates that occurred during the ALP program to identify why the United States may have implemented those costly and ineffective controls. What she found was that those controls appear to have been used to address stakeholder concerns or mitigate perceived risks, rather than as deliberate means to regulate proxy force behavior. For example, due to Afghanistan’s historically tumultuous relationship with militias and warlords, State Department and Afghan government officials insisted that the ALP program include “a number of checks and accountability measures” to ensure “the local defense forces would be ‘monitored’ and ‘tightly controlled’ by both the Afghan government and the international community.” These control mechanisms were intended more to bring the ALP under the control of the Afghan government, which gave President Hamid Karzai political power over the ALP forces, than to regulate the force’s conduct.

In the case of the SoI program, Gaston discovered that less debate and bargaining had occurred, which led to fewer control mechanisms. Due to the dire security situation and robust U.S. military command structure in Iraq, the U.S. government had significantly more power over military decision-making. Consequently, while the Iraqi government raised concerns like those raised by the ALP program, those concerns did not ultimately result in extensive control mechanisms. However, over time the United States gave in to Iraqi demands and implemented control mechanisms that gave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki increased political power over the SoI forces. This progression aligned with the U.S. drawdown of military forces in Iraq and greater Iraqi government influence over military operations. Thus, Gaston argues convincingly that the bureaucratic politics approach better explains the United States’s implementation of the control mechanisms in both case studies.

After the ALP and SoI case studies, Gaston turns her attention to five proxy force support programs in Syria between 2012 and 2019. These case studies include the CIA’s support to Free Syrian Army groups (2012-2017), State Department nonlethal support to those groups (2012-2014), and Defense Department training and equipping assistance to New Syrian Forces for anti-Islamic State operations (2014-2015), a revised New Syrian Army training and equipping program that included Turkey as a partner (2015-2016), and, finally, Defense Department training and equipping of the Syrian Democratic Forces for anti-Islamic State operations (2014-2019). Once again, Gaston applies both the principal-agent and bureaucratic politics lenses when analyzing the implementation of the control mechanism for these five programs. In doing so, she concludes that the United States implemented similar ineffective, costly, and even counterproductive control mechanisms across all five programs. For example, the vetting requirements for both New Syrian Forces programs were so stringent that it was impossible to find any forces that were eligible to receive support, which resulted in both programs failing.

Across the Syria case studies, Gaston notes that the control mechanisms, on their face, appear to be based on the principal-agent theory:

[I]t is not that the controls were completely divorced from the idea of controlling the agent behavior–the role that principal-agent theory would envision for them. Those developing and applying these controls certainly hoped that the vetting and oversight would prevent U.S. assistance from going to bad actors or being used to perpetrate crimes. At the same time, none imagined that the controls were fail-safe, and many thought that they did not justify the amount of staff time and costs involved.

However, Gaston opines that principal-agent theory, which presumes ineffective or counterproductive controls are dropped, is insufficient in explaining why the United States kept ineffective control mechanisms in place and used the same ineffective controls across multiple, separate programs.

Instead, Gaston contends that there is a strong link between control mechanisms the United States used and stakeholder bargaining demands (that is, bureaucratic politics), such as those raised by the State Department, Congress, nongovernmental organizations, and allied countries. For example, in all five cases, there was significant debate within the U.S. executive and legislative branches about the wisdom of arming and training Syrian militias, many of whom shared ideology with or had connections to known terrorist groups. Gaston persuasively argues that the United States used control mechanisms as risk-mitigation measures to address the concerns raised by stakeholders rather than as viable attempts to control the proxy forces’ behavior. In other words, “control mechanisms could enable authorization by appearing to minimize the costs or risks involved, even though the prospects for actually controlling the forces in question were extremely slim.”

Gaston uses two final case studies to highlight how past bargaining can result in control mechanisms being internalized, normalized, or turned into standard operating procedures (SOPs). In 2015, in response to the Islamic State’s expansion of territory under its control into Iraq, the United States created a program to support anti-Islamic State Sunni tribal mobilization forces, which it modeled after the SoI program. In 2018, the United States created another ALP-like force in Afghanistan called the Afghan National Army Territorial Force. In both instances, the United States approved the programs with very little discussion or bargaining within the U.S. government or with external stakeholders. However, both programs contained control mechanisms very similar to the ones used for the SoI and ALP programs. Gaston persuasively argues that the bargaining during the SoI and ALP programs had created “policy scripts and repertoires of standard approaches.” These policy scripts, or SOPs, led to quick approval because the programs automatically included standardized controls that addressed all the stakeholders’ stand-sit positions.

In her final analysis, Gaston expands on the traditional view of the bureaucratic politics approach. She discusses how actors that are external to a bureaucracy, such as nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, coalition partner countries, and foreign leaders, can influence the bureaucratic bargaining process. The traditional bureaucratic politics view limits its analysis to bargaining among members of a bureaucracy. Gaston expands on Graham Allison and Morton Halperin’s position, arguing that the complexity of current foreign affairs demands that the bureaucratic politics approach also consider outside actors. For example, in both the SoI and ALP case studies, the United States and its proxy forces were operating in the sovereign territory of Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. Therefore, it was necessary for the United States to include Iraqi and Afghan government leaders as direct participants in the bargaining process that set the terms of U.S. supervision of its proxy forces. Gaston further notes that even if a foreign leader does not have a formal role in approving or disapproving a program (for example, Turkey, in the Syrian case studies), the leader’s stand-sit position often carries significant weight with U.S. decision-makers.

Gaston also correctly notes that transnational humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and coalition partners, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, can directly or indirectly influence the bargaining process among U.S. officials. For example, humanitarian organizations or allied nations may directly contact U.S. government decision-makers, allowing them to raise concerns and informally influence decisions. Additionally, based on the nature of the coalition (for example, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan), coalition partners may have direct decision-making authority within the coalition’s bureaucratic bargaining process.

Gaston’s argument is compelling. Her extensive research reveals that many of the control mechanisms the United States has implemented in its proxy force operations were generally known to be ineffective and costly. Thus, principal-agent theory does not adequately explain why the United States kept, re-enforced, or increased many of these ineffective control mechanisms. Bureaucratic politics provides a more convincing explanation of the United States’s continued use of those control mechanisms.

Gaston’s premise that the use of control mechanisms as a means of bargaining or compromise necessarily raises other larger policy issues. First, she notes that if the United States is using control mechanisms as risk-mitigation tools, it is unclear how effective those mechanisms are at decreasing the identified risks. For example, the United States may require weekly inventories of the lethal arms provided to a proxy force to prevent the arms from being sold to a terrorist organization. If there are no U.S. troops on the ground to accurately inventory the weapons, however, that control mechanism may not effectively reduce the risk. Even if U.S. troops can inventory the weapons, the inventory does not prevent the weapons from falling into terrorists’ hands; it only identifies missing weapons. The inventory must, therefore, be accompanied by enforceable sanction (for example, suspended weapons transfers), which, for operational reasons, can be very difficult to carry out.

Second, Gaston observes that if the bargained-for control mechanisms are neither effective at mitigating risk nor effective at controlling the proxy force’s behavior, they may create a moral hazard for decision-makers. In other words, are decision-makers justifying and approving risky programs under the false assumption that the control mechanisms effectively mitigate perceived risks? Instead, it may be better for proxy force operations to strictly adhere to the principal-agent theory by using only those mechanisms that effectively control the proxy’s conduct to achieve operational objectives. Decision-makers and stakeholders would evaluate the risks associated with the entire operation without adding ineffective control mechanisms to mitigate individual risks. While this approach may decrease the number of approved proxy force operations, it would ensure that only the most important operations are authorized, with the risks accepted rather than insufficiently mitigated. Ultimately, this remains an unanswered strategic dilemma but certainly an important issue that “Illusions of Control” highlights.

“Illusions of Control” is an excellent book for readers involved with the national security decision-making process, particularly those dealing with proxy force operations. Gaston’s careful analysis of the control mechanisms the United States used during these operations and the reasons why the United States may have adopted them provides extremely helpful insights. While “Illusions of Control” is a dense read, it provides highly relevant information to help prepare advisers, stakeholders, and decision-makers to appropriately develop, evaluate, and approve future proxy force operations.