Coalition against terrorism

There is an interesting subject in the news nowadays. IS (Islamic State) is a jihadist salafist militia operating in Iraq and Syria. It has declared a caliphate spanning vast areas in these two countries. As this is a militia with religious intent, it has tried to wipe out all other religions in the region. This has been partly implemented through the killing of thousands of Kurdish, Shiite, Christian and liberal Muslim people and scaring millions of Iraqis and Syrians to leave there homes in order to avoid IS. To combat this militia, a number of states have joined a coalition against IS. This coalition in its essense is a very unique thing. Under the leading role of the U.S., who was the first to bomb the militia, a range of other countries have joined. These include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, U.A.E., Qatar, Australia, Great Britain, France, Turkey, Belgium, Jordan, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Albania, Croatia, New Zealand, Romania, South Korea and the list goes on (2). In this very simple exercise, I shall try to apply the Rational Actor Model (RAM) and the bounded rational actor framework to the decision of these countries to join the coalition.

The actor models try to explain why the governments (or actors) pick certain alternatives over others. First of all, it is action or non-action. Non-action is impossible due to moral obligations, especially true for the U.S., due to the risks of an incredible refugee situation, more than 3 million Syrians and Iraqis, and due to the following destabilization in the region (1). Therefore, the countries decided that they should take action. The alternative actions against IS were limited:

· Military intervention
· Humanitarian help

Humanitarian help is provided by the UN. Some countries give money, some give equipment and food. Several countries mentioned above also take military action, albeit limited. Air strikes are apparently the most common way of intervening. All countries in the coalition are reluctant to place ground troops in the area. Several countries only support the military intervention by providing ammunition, jet fighters, reconnaissance airplanes or intelligence. This seems to be the result as a very rational and straightforward decision making process.

According to RAM, these actions are founded by beliefs, which in turn are based on evidence. As the amount of refugees is staggering and especially in such a short notice, IS has been growing and acting out increasingly in a few months, humanitarian help is necessary. Hundreds of thousands of refugees got to the barren lands of Iraq and Syria, without water or food. Surely, without any kind of humanitarian intervention, thousands more would die. The belief that without intervention, thousands of people would die, is a great stimulant for the UN to provide help. Another stimulant, especially for surrounding countries, is the assumption that the refugees will flee to these countries. Both beliefs are founded very well on information. Direct information on the refugees is gathered by the UN itself and the thousands of refugees in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran already confirm that the refugees flee their country and not just their region. The information by the UN can be quite accurate and will probably be the most accurate data that exists.

The military interventions have been thoroughly thought through. No standard operating procedure for joining the coalition and supporting military endeavors exists. It is quite possibly something unique of its kind. This is where we see decision making at first hand. With the rational actor model we can give explanations for every single country to join the coalition. Some examples are Turkey, Jordan, U.S. and Iran. Turkey initially decided against joining the coalition as it wants to see the current Syrian regime overthrown. However, due to IS moving dangerously close to Turkish military placements and the continuous inflow of refugees, Turkey has decided that the optimal action would be to deploy ground troops at and beyond its borders in order to protect refugees and Turkey itself (3). Jordan has over half a million refugees in its country and apparently has a lot of intelligence on IS operations (1, 2). In this way, their optimal action was to provide the U.S. with intelligence and some basic equipment (2). The U.S. is sometimes called as the direct originating cause of IS. This has some truth to it as IS was born from the insurgency against the United States occupation of Iraq. As the U.S. established the current Iraqi government and trained military personnel, they have a direct obligation to support that weak, destabilized government. Furthermore, Iran has opted to join the coalition despite its very strained relations with the U.S. because of possible attacks of IS on Iranian soil and possible breathing room on their uranium enrichment program (4).

However, there are some remarks to be made about the interventions through the bounded rational actor framework. The humanitarian help is the standard operating procedure of the UN (which is a good thing of course). It is clearly a way the organization has setup rules and routines in order to respond fast to people in need. This is not an action that has been thought through and decided upon. The gravity of the situation was quickly assessed through some hand rules or political ‘feel’ and then the routine response was set in motion. This is different from the actual gathering of information by the UN and deciding about various alternative actions.

The decisions for military intervention by the coalition is actually a very straightforward action. For policy makers, targeted bombing by aerial strikes is a very easy and seemingly effective way of stopping a militia. In fact, outside of actually deploying massive amounts of ground troops (which is done in very limited ways due to ‘restrictions’), the training of national Iraqi personnel (which is done extensively) and bombing of targets are the only ‘quick’ interventions. The operating procedure can also be seen here. As there are huge amounts of data and impulses coming to the governments to process, these still operate with bounded rationality. First of all, information is gathered either way. Second, the U.S. invites the country for support. This comes to the foreground as a priority to deal with. Central decision making is necessary in this case. But this central actor inside the government can only come up with certain restricted alternatives. Action versus non-action, military intervention and/or humanitarian. As it is a very complex matter it is the ties that certain countries have with the problem that guides them towards taking certain actions. Emotions play a part in this. For example, Iran is reluctant to join as it has strained connections with the United States. Turkey is reluctant to join as it does not want to support the Syrian government in any way.

This way of operating has not included certain other methods that may be more effective. In a very comprehensive article, Chelsea Manning proposed a different strategy (5). Several instances in which neglecting to respond to certain provocative actions by IS, havz actually led to a decrease in IS popularity. On the other hand, strict military interventions on other occasions against these provocations led to an increase in popularity and possible recruitments. IS actually feeds on the operational success by the American military forces. A different strategy therefore would include establishing public temporary borders in the region, an international moratorium on the payment of ransom for hostages, preventions of oil, historical artifacts and valuable treasure sales by IS and countering the narrative in IS recruitment videos. It is clear this strategy is very hard to establish by the countries in the coalition due to their bounded rationality. This kind of strategy is rather looked upon as non-action as we determined not to be possible by any involved government. Because action is, thus, important, the amount of information is limited, making the risks associated with other intervention methods very hard to estimate, and time is limited, joining the coalition to support air strikes by a select few of the countries is the only thing that seems plausible and satisfying, although far from optimal.