Tag Archives: Syria

The Wasp Keepers

This piece by Mark Jacobsen is re-printed with permission from the War Stories Anthology as part of our Future Military Fiction Week for the New Year. The week topic was chosen as a prize by one of our Kickstarter supporters.

By Mark Jacobsen

HAMZA HAD JUST FINISHED PUMPING gas into a fruit truck when he jerked upright and swatted the back of his neck with one palm. He whirled around, eyes bulging, searching frantically for his Wasp before his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed sideways onto the hot pave- ment. The fruit truck was already pulling away. The driver didn’t stop.

Um Hamza didn’t see it happen, but that was how Tariq described it through his breathless sobs, the screen door still banging on its hinges behind him. She had been sitting at her desk composing an email on her phone. When Tariq finished, he threw his arms around her and cried into her neck like a child. Um Hamza set the phone down carefully and sat and stared into the distance, heart beating savagely.

She had lived this moment so many times in her nightmares, both sleeping and waking. How could she not? Even without war, there were so many ways it could come: a neighbor backing out of a driveway, an aspi- rated grape, a toppled bookcase, a tangled bed sheet, an electrical outlet, a few centimeters of water in an unattended bath.

For Um Hamza, it was immeasurably worse. There were government tanks, air strikes, roadside bombs, poison gas, cruise missiles, collapsing buildings,  malnourishment,  disease, kidnappings,  Farsi-speaking  trainers with rocket launchers and machine guns. And of course, there were the masked militiamen who had executed her brother, burned their home, and driven them across the Jordanian border into the Za’atri refugee camp. So when she’d held that warm bundle for the first time in the camp clinic and looked into her son’s wrinkled pink face, all she could think about was his death. For two weeks, depression kept her in bed. Her mother changed Hamza’s diapers, rocked him, played with him and brought him to her for mechanical feedings. Hamza’s seventeenth birthday was like a sentencing. When the card arrived from the Syrian Transitional Authority, she sobbed for hours. It still sat on her desk, a wretched, superstitious totem that she was terrified to destroy. Birthday cake and candles on one side; on the other, a happy, smiling, cartoon bee. FOR YOUR PROTECTION, the card said in Arabic above a QR code and an explanation of “What You Need to Know.” When the Wasp itself buzzed into the olive grove a few days later, she watched it for hours, shaking feverishly. For weeks she wouldn’t let Hamza outdoors without her. She even walked him down to the gas station and back, to his burning shame, their two Wasps buzzing along in trail. It was inevitable, she knew. And she was right.

She put an arm around Tariq’s shoulders and walked outside with him. Her Wasp sat on a sunny spot of the porch railing, recharging. When it saw her it fluttered skyward, an obscene little blot against the blue sky.

As they walked the kilometer down to the gas station, she could see the cars pulling off the highway, the men running. When she came around from the back of the gas station, she saw her husband kneeling on the pavement, muttering to God and rocking their limp boy in his arms. A ring of bystanders stood around them, whispering and praying. Uncle Fouad stood among them, red-faced, yelling into his cell-phone. Something about a fruit truck.

The Wasp lay on the ground, broken, twitching. Hamza must have caught it with his final slap. A machine, gray and small, muscle wire sup- porting insectile wings that were solar cells, coiled around a microproces- sor and communications link and of course the toxin pouch and stinger. She raised a foot to grind it beneath her heel, but then considered how her own Wasp might react and gently placed her foot back on the ground.

She looked back to Hamza. Her beautiful, sweet boy, undiminished by seventeen years of poverty and war. Her boy, who had spent his summer turning wrenches and changing spark plugs with his father and grandfather in the auto shop. Who went door-to-door each Ramadan, on his own initiative, collecting donations for the Islamic Relief Mis- sion. Who once sobbed with guilt when he shot a stray cat with a pellet gun, back when the possession of such things was not a death sentence. Dear, sweet Hamza.

She realized there was a separate group crowding around the doors of the convenience store on the far side of the pumps. She blindly grabbed at Uncle Fouad’s arm. He pulled away from the cell phone for a moment.

She pointed at the store. “What…?”

“It’s your father. They got him too. I’m sorry.”

Her legs gave out, and she sank to the pavement beside her husband. She had held herself together only because she had rehearsed this dreaded theater so many times in her mind’s eye, but this was a blow she had not seen coming.

She touched Hamza’s cold face and began to scream.

 

The police were afraid to approach the bodies, as this was an Occupation strike. There was no telling what might provoke another Wasp attack. They masked their fear and incompetence by blowing whistles and barking orders and making half-hearted efforts to clear out the spectators who were shooting video with their mobiles or AR glasses. One officer ques- tioned witnesses, but his questions followed no logical path and he didn’t bother to write down the answers. No, sir, he didn’t do anything threaten- ing. He was pumping gas. Yes, gas. He was filling up a fruit truck.

Ten minutes after the police came, Uncle Fouad’s phone rang. He

listened without speaking and hung up. He said, “They took out the fruit truck about five kilometers north of here. Three people.”

A murmur passed through the crowd. Another piece in the puzzle.

Above them, their Wasps whirled and danced, glimpsing faces, recording their expressions and judging their body language.

An entourage from the mosque arrived in a rusting blue van. The crowd parted as Hajj Omar disembarked, leaning on a wooden crutch to compensate for the leg he had lost in Homs. A scar divided the right side of his face from top to bottom, running clean through a cloudy gray eye. The crowd fell silent before this presence. He recited the Fatiha and per- formed the final rites for Hamza and Abu Khalid, and then delivered a sermon which became a blistering tirade against the Syrian Transitional Authority and the Occupation.

Um Hamza left before he was finished. She collapsed into bed and cried until sleep took her.

She  woke  after  sunset,  when  Abu  Hamza  climbed  into  bed  and touched her shoulder. She turned brusquely away from him, but he started to cry. Ashamed, she rolled over to touch him. It was dreary sex, sad and distant, a feeble echo of what their marriage had once been. Afterwards they held each other, but even that tenderness lacked intimacy. It was like two strangers holding hands as their crippled plane careened to the earth.

 

She woke to sunlight and quiet. The entire household was still asleep. She brewed a cup of tea, then went outside to pluck some fresh mint from the garden. She marveled at the serenity of the still-waking world. The olive trees were perfection itself: rows of them standing like sentinels, unmoved by even the faintest of breezes. A single black bird flapped across the sky.

She sat beneath an olive tree and leaned up against the trunk and sipped her tea. This is all she had ever wanted, this moment stretched into a lifetime. Cool mornings and olive trees and silence.

Her Wasp took up station over her.

“Good morning,” she said in English.

The Wasp gave no indication it had heard, but of course it had. It heard everything. Saw everything. Even smelled everything. All that data was aggregated and beamed to the United States and Canada and God knew where else, where it was filtered and analyzed and processed in vast server farms. Intelligent algorithms crunched away, drawing connections, matching words and behavior to pattern libraries, then sent their conclu- sions before hordes of young analysts sitting in the blue wash of computer screens. Perfect seeing. Perfect knowledge. And, when the wrong two pat- terns overlapped, perfect death.

He’d been pumping gas. What kind of pattern was that?

She went inside and found a pack of cigarettes in her husband’s jacket. She returned to her shaded spot under the tree and lit up. She smoked three cigarettes while she cruised the social networks on her phone, trying to forget, procrastinating. She’d been a queen in that world, once, back in the heady days when the revolution was young and the future was theirs for the making.

She had been a true believer. She marched with the protestors and shot video and live-tweeted massacres and built a following of more than fifteen thousand people. She made friends with activists and journalists and Middle East experts across the world. When the regime met  their  protests  with  war,  she  redoubled  her  efforts.  And  then, when the artillery barrages and the gunmen came to her village and they fled across the border to the Za’atri camp, she blogged every- thing.

She won prizes. Journalists sought her in person. She struck up an online friendship with a hacker in the Free Syrian Army, and when they discovered weeks later that they were both in the Za’atri camp, the future was written. The pregnancy came first, then a hasty marriage. A few years earlier this would have destroyed her family, but in Za’atri honor and shame were relics. They had never imagined the war would rage for nearly two decades. Never imagined it would end like this, in this frozen horror that was somehow worse than all that had come before. All that history had ground her down to almost nothing.

Her writing output was a lethargic trickle these days, and she was mostly forgotten. Mostly, but not entirely. She still knew people.

She started to compose an email.

It was around five o’clock that evening when Tariq came running to tell her that Wasp Keepers were approaching on the highway. She sent a text to Abu Hamza and Uncle Fouad, who were down at the gas station work- ing, and then went to the bathroom to wash her face and reapply her makeup. When she was finished, she put on her hijab and went out to the porch. The convoy had just turned off the highway. A cluster of dusty children watched mutely from the side of the road, one of them holding a soccer ball under his arm.

The convoy consisted of a mine-resistant  Army truck and a silver

BMW surrounded by a swarm of Wasps. A squat steamroller the size of a Smart Car preceded the vehicles, feeling for IEDs buried in the road.

There were four soldiers, enveloped in so much armor and gear that the only things recognizably human about them were the square jaws ex- posed beneath the black goggles. When the first three dismounted, they went right past her and took up positions on the road. The fourth was a captain.

The captain nodded at her, then looked expectantly back to the BMW. The sole occupant of the car was a Syrian man about her father’s age, dressed in a striped collared shirt and a dusty blue sport coat. AR glasses enveloped his face. He did not immediately get out of the car. His window was rolled down, and Um Hamza could hear that he was on a call, negoti- ating a price. He drummed one hand on the steering wheel and gesticulat- ed with the other. He looked familiar, so while they all waited, Um Hamza discreetly snapped a photo of him and ran a search. The match was instant. The district police chief.

When he was finally finished, he got out of the car and both he and the captain came forward.

“As-salaam aleykum,” the captain said. He raised his goggles and there was a human face beneath, handsome and blonde and blue-eyed. “Ana kteer aasif likhsarit ibnik wa abooki.”

Um Hamza was impressed that this soldier had learned enough Arabic to say that. She also thought that if he offered any more sympathy for her loss, she would rip out his tongue and shove it down his throat.

The captain said that it would be best to visit the scene of the strike, so they walked down to the gas station, their Wasps a snarled cloud above them. The captain took off his helmet as they walked, a gesture Um Hamza knew was calculated to demonstrate trust, as if the mere act of exposing his sunburned scalp could somehow atone for the death of her boy and her father. By the time they reached the gas station they were pale with dust and the sweat ran down their backs. The captain intro- duced himself to Abu Hamza and Uncle Fouad, and then they all sat in plastic chairs in the customer service area adjacent to the auto shop while Tariq served Arabic coffee. When they were finished, he stacked the cups and sat down opposite the captain, glaring murderously at him. Um Hamza’s sister-in-law Noor arrived shortly after with a fruit tray and a bowl of dates. Um Hamza took the plate from her and offered it to the captain, and kept insisting until he finally took a single slice of apple. The police chief waved at her dismissively and lit up a cigarette.

“Why did you come?” Um Hamza asked while Noor poured a round of tea.

“You have some friends who really care about you,” everyone heard in a mechanical Arabic dialect. The captain subvocalized in English as a device on his chest translated.

“For God’s sake, turn that thing off,” Um Hamza said. “Which one was it?”

The captain shrugged and touched the device. In English he said,

“Logan Keesler ran a story. It got noticed in Washington.”

Um Hamza translated for her family. “So they sent you to pacify me?” “I just came to talk,” he said. His eyes were bloodshot and distant. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “You have the right to know why your son was targeted.”

“He was seventeen,” Um Hamza said.

The captain opened a camouflage bag at his side and handed them each a pair of AR glasses. Everyone turned them over in their hands suspiciously before putting them on. The captain said, “We know your family has been in the auto service industry for a long time. A whole chain of gas stations and auto shops before the war, right? You lost everything at the start of the war, but after three years in Za’atri, the three brothers returned home and got back into the business. It’s pretty remarkable you were able to finance all this.”

Um Hamza translated. Fouad glared at the captain.

The captain rose and stepped outside to survey the gas station. He said, “You made some interesting friends.”

They rose to join him so they could see what he was looking at.

A row of beat-up pickup trucks and vans was parked in front of the little masjid where customers  could pray during gas  stops. Gathered outside the door was a crowd of grim, thickly bearded Salafists toting handguns  and  AK-47s.  The  imagery  was  perfectly  positioned  and scaled, but it was black and white and heavily pixilated. While she watched, a younger clone of Uncle Fouad appeared and embraced one of the Islamists. They exchanged kisses on their cheeks.

“They were fighting the regime,” Fouad said in Arabic. “They just came to pray.”

“Understandable,” the captain said without missing a beat. He was probably still receiving machine translations. “But you spent hours with them. And they came a lot. Even after you knew they were pledged to al- Qa’eda, even after they toppled the regime and created their own government and you saw what they were capable of. Your brother Abu Khalid led prayers for them. He sat for hours with them teaching them about Islam. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say he was a spiritual mentor of sorts.”

“He taught anybody who would listen,” Um Hamza protested. “He thought they were misguided, maybe not even Muslim, but he thought the answer to that was more Islam, more truth.”

“And that’s why he smuggled weapons for them?”

Um Hamza broke into tears. The captain knew so much, he knew everything, and yet he understood nothing. It was all wrong, it was all cameras and robots and a string of connected dots that added up to something different from the wretched story they had lived.

She remembered when the Islamists first turned up at their gas sta- tion. Uncle Fouad, as it turned out, had worked some kind of deal with a mujahideen group in the Za’atri camp. They’d needed to smuggle weapons and ammunition into Syria, which meant they needed someone who knew vehicles and logistics. Fouad had acquired startup capital, bought the gas station, and used his contacts on both side of the border to build up a logistics network to import auto parts into Syria. Auto parts, that is, with a few bonus packages in the mix.

It had seemed a small enough thing, the kind of shadow bargaining on which survival depended in those violent days, but that deal took on a life of its own. The gas station got a reputation. Anti-regime fighters converged there, both the moderate types who’d been trained by the Americans in Jordan and the sneering Salafists who were just as likely to kill in- sufficiently pious Sunnis as they were regime soldiers. At first they negotiated business deals. Then they asked favors. Then they made demands. Uncle Fouad said no precisely one time. That experiment ended with Uncle Hatim, the third brother, dead in a ditch after torture by power drill.

That was the partnership Um Hamza remembered. Angry, bearded men. Guns. Terror. Extortion. But the captain walked them through his own narrative of these events, which unfolded before their eyes in a hurri- cane of light and color, the quality of the visuals improving sharply as the years raced by. Here was a full-service gas station that was a virtual safe house for terrorists and a key node in an arms smuggling ring. That’s what the Wasps saw. What the fusion centers assessed. Seventeen years of fear, condensed into one storyline, missing context and everything that comprised the normal fabric of their lives. Yes, they’d made terrible compromises, but hadn’t everyone? What choice did they have?

“But Hamza had nothing to do with this,” Um Hamza said.

“Three months ago your son took possession of an SA-14, an advanced MANPAD for shooting down airplanes. He was to hold it for safekeeping. He stashed it right there, in the back of your parts storeroom.”

Fouad swore in Arabic and wiped his face with one hand.

The transaction unfolded before their eyes, a living recreation of the past. An old gray Mazda pulling up to the pump. Hamza leaning in the window and talking to the driver. The driver extending a wad of bills. Hamza looking around, then signaling the driver to pull into the auto shop. The visuals were flawless. Um Hamza fought the urge to run to him, to embrace him, to plead with him to stop.

“He just wanted money,” Um Hamza said, the tears running down her cheeks now. “He probably didn’t even know what it was.” “He knew. Later he showed Tariq.”

Um Hamza shot a look at Tariq, who shook his head violently. He was crying.

“Yesterday, a customer arrived to claim the package,” the captain said. Here came the fruit truck, rumbling up to the gas pumps belching greasy black smoke. Hamza went to meet it, oblivious to the fact that he had only minutes to live.

The captain said, “It was an active plot. The Islamists intended to use the weapon a few hours later, when the Syrian president returned from Paris. The Transitional Authority acted.”

The captain slowly took off his glasses and tucked them carefully in the bag, as if sobered by the tragedy of what he had just explained. “I am genuinely sorry for the loss of your loved ones, but you brought this on yourselves. This is the life you raised Hamza into. When he came of age, he made some terrible choices of his own.”

“You know nothing about him!”

“On the contrary, we know everything about him.”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like?” Um Hamza cried. “What? ”

“War. ”

“I know about war. ”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Not what you’re doing. I mean war. The things you have to do. The choices you have to make. The consequences if you don’t. The fear. ” She wiped her eyes. “You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. ”

The captain frowned and looked out at the horizon for a long time, as if lost in some terrible memory. Despite all his gear, armor, and the cloud of Wasps ready to make war on his behalf, he looked exhausted beyond his years, even a little fragile. Um Hamza wondered how many times he had had this conversation.

“Just once,” he said softly, still looking to the sunburnt horizon, “I want to find one Syrian who is grateful for what we’ve done for this country. What we’ve sacrificed, the friends we’ve lost. You’ve been at war almost as long as I’ve been alive, and we’ve stopped the cycle. Do you realize how incredible that is?”

“You killed my father and my son.”

“They chose to fight,” the captain said, shrugging. “I don’t get it. I wish someone could explain it to me. How many more decades of war do you want?”

“We want to be free,” said Abu Hamza.

“You are free, as long as you don’t fight. No one dies unless he chooses to. There’s no more strategic bombing, no more ground occupation,   no   more   drone   strikes,   no   more   collateral   damage.   It’s just…awareness. Knowledge. Insurgency is impossible. We’ve freed you from violence, given you the best chance in years for a peaceful new future. I don’t understand why you can’t accept that.”

Peace? she thought, looking at the police chief, who had wandered off and was negotiating some new deal on his expensive imported AR head- set. This is peace?

“I am sorry for your loss,” the captain said “This was a needless tragedy. I hope you’ll think long and hard about the choices that lie ahead. You still have one son. I pray to God that you will choose a future of peace, in sha’ Allah.”

The captain put on his helmet and nodded to the police chief that it was time to leave.

“Thank you for the tea,” he said.

 

That night they sat on the patio, drinking coffee and smoking sullenly. Their Wasps hovered above them in the warm orb cast by the porch light. It would have been safer to stay inside, but it was a pleasant night and they refused to be intimidated. There was something thrilling about sitting in front of those watchful eyes, putting their hatred on open display. In a world where resistance was impossible, even talking was an act of courage. “That police chief,” Fouad said between angry puffs on the nargeelah.

“That fucking BMW.”

He was drunk. Um Hamza didn’t know when or how he’d achieved that feat, as he never drank in front of the family, but he’d done a thor- ough job of it.

“You know him?” Um Hamza asked.

“Yeah, I know him,” Fouad said, the smoke pouring forth from his lips, as if he was trying to excise the very memory of the police chief from his body. “You two haven’t asked the question, but I know you’re dying to. Why the hell is it Fouad that’s sitting here smoking and drinking instead of your father?”

It was true. She had wondered exactly that. Her father had been a simple man, kind and pious and respectable, without a hint of guile. Fouad was the shrewd empire builder who had turned an auto parts supply chain into a profitable arms smuggling network.

“About six months ago, that police chief came by the gas station. The Occupation was sharing all its intel with him. He knew everything. You know why he came by? He wanted a cut. To keep quiet. I told him no.”

Fouad started to laugh, and swung his head from side to side in exag- gerated, drunken disbelief.

“Son a bitch knew how to pay me back,” he said. He raised his coffee cup. “Long live the peaceful new Syria.”

 

Um Hamza knocked gently on the boys’ door. When she heard nothing, she turned the knob. She stood in the doorway, the light behind her illuminating the shape of Tariq asleep in one bed and the tangled, empty sheets on the other. She studied the sheets, marveling at them. Exactly as Hamza had left them when he rose from bed yesterday.

She knelt beside her living son. He was so different from his brother.

Even with all that had happened, Hamza had a natural sweetness to him, a legacy of his grandfather. He loved God. But Tariq hated, and for him life itself was a war. That manifested itself in everything. The rage. The argu- ments. He often came home bruised and bloody, and refused to say where he had been or what had happened. At least twice, he had sent other boys to the hospital. He needed violence the way he needed air.

Sleep effaced all that, wound the clock back to a time before the war had damaged him. Amazing that her child still lurked in there, after all that he had suffered. It wasn’t his fault, being the way he was. He was a good boy, a strong boy who in a better life would have gone on to do such great things. But here…

 

In three years they would receive another birthday card, and another Wasp would find its way into their olive grove. One more node would appear in the Occupation’s vast Syrian intelligence matrix. When that hap- pened, Tariq would die. It might be two days or it might be two years, but the boy who couldn’t help fighting in the streets would most certainly fight the Occupation.

If the Occupation did not end, Tariq would die. But it wouldn’t end. It couldn’t. The least relaxation of control would mean chaos.

She thought back to the captain’s words. The Wasp Keepers had ended almost two decades of war. It was nothing short of a miracle, unprecedented in history. Perfect knowledge. Perfect killing. War that was as intimate as a friend sitting next to you, a friend that would protect you from all harm but would also kill you with a kiss if you let slip any hint of treason.

It was hatefully, intolerably perfect.

And yet there were no winners, not even the Occupation. The captain had understood that. He was exhausted and embittered by a war that, for all his impressive ability to control, had not delivered victory. The things that mattered most were still beyond their reach.

If they could not win, that meant they could still lose. The thought electrified her. After that revelation, everything fell into place.

She kissed Tariq on the head. Maybe she could yet save his life.

There was one thing she could still do. One choice they could all make. It was the single choice that eluded the Occupation’s control, and that terrified them.

The rest of the night passed like a dream. For the first time since childhood, she was free. She went to her husband and gave herself to him, not because he was entitled to it but because she chose to. For a few moments she felt something of what she’d once known with this talented young revolutionary in the Za’atri camp. Afterward, while he slept, she wrote letters. Longhand. Beyond the reach of the Occupation. She left them trifolded on her desk, the names written on the back in elegant Arabic calligraphy.

After that she sat outside beneath her olive tree. It was still, and silent, and the stars wheeled freely in the sky as if there had never been a war and war was something altogether inconceivable. The peace she had always wanted. She recalled memories of Hamza, and of Tariq, and of her husband before the war had changed him. Of her father, leading prayers in the gas station masjid for poor refugees with their battered cars, limping their way northward again after the first lull in the fighting.

 

She sat beneath the tree until the sky began to lighten in the east, and the first cars appeared down on the highway. Then she rose on stiff joints and brushed herself off. One leg had fallen asleep. She hobbled over to the porch, shaking the leg awake again. She had composed the email to Logan Keesler earlier in the night. She sent it now, then propped the phone up on the railing and started a video recording.

She said a few words into the camera. Then she smiled and turned.

Her Wasp stared down at her, a motionless black smear in the sky. The  other  family  Wasps  were  perched  on the  railing,  charging  in the morning sun. Stupid, mindless  things. They knew everything  and they knew nothing.

She reached into the folds of her robe and withdrew the cigarette lighter and the can of hairspray. With one flick of her wrist, her Wasp was a burning point of brightness in the sheet of flame.

It hadn’t yet hit the ground when the other Wasps converged on her. She felt the hot pricks of the stingers, and a moment later the olive grove spun sideways.

Mark Jacobsen is a C-17 Instructor Pilot and Middle East Specialist in the US Air Force, and is currently working towards a PhD in Political Science at Stanford University. When he isn’t writing about drones in Syria, he is building them; as the Executive Director of the Syria Airlift Project  he is developing a new paradigm for swarming humanitarian aid into besieged or hard-to-reach areas. He has one novel available, The Lords of Harambee, about a military peacekeeping force that is ordered not to intervene in a genocide.

Assessing the President’s ISIL Speech as Strategic Communication

This piece was written in response to the Presidential address on ISIL and as part of our Strategic Communications week.

13 years ago America woke up to the Long War. September 10th was a sadly appropriate time for the President to address the continuation of the conflict: ISIL – the message of the speech was that this Long War will continue to be so.

As a piece of strategic communication, the speech laid out something best said by .38 Special:

Just hold on loosely
But don’t let go
If you cling too tightly
You’re gonna lose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in

The president’s intent was to explain the threat of ISIL, then walk the fine line of both destroying ISIL and avoiding the entanglement he sees in America’s thirteen years of ground war. In short, America will destroy ISIL, but America will not be the one to destroy ISIL – America will look to Arab partners, the Iraqi military, and the Syrian opposition, with the support of American advisers and airpower.

Let’s go into the details of looking at this speech, not for the policy, but as a piece of strategic communication.

To Everyone:
ISIL Is a Threat & Will Be Destroyed

While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies. Our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners, including Europeans and some Americans, have joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.

This was considered by many the President’s moment to explain, particularly to the American people, explicitly the threat posed by ISIL, which he did by drawing the thread between opportunity, capability, and intent: the proven brutality and capability of ISIL, the stated aims, and their ability to get people of bad intent to us. This was likely aimed at European audiences as well.

I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are… This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

That message and its purpose probably doesn’t need any explanation.

To Middle Eastern Actors in General :
We’ll Be
Holding On Loosely

This is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region…
…This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partners’ forces on the ground.

Whether we can rely on the emergence of an enemy’s enemies coalition or an inclusive Iraqi government is to be seen, but this speech was likely meant as a final signalling to those in and around this cross-border conflict that the US will not be the one to “contain” this situation, and that the ongoing proxy war may threaten to consume all of them.  The thinking may be that regional actors, once realizing the US will not “swoop in” will turn upon this conflict’s most disturbing symptom rather than each other.

No particular partners are mentioned other than the new Iraqi government, Kurdish Forces, and the vague “Syrian opposition” – the particulars of a specific Syrian opposition group, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and many of the gulf states who choose to playing a part in extending this crisis are left out. This is likely on purpose, requiring no explanations of whose name was said, left out, or why.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

This is a side note to the more general trend, but the division of Iraqi and Kurdish forces should be recognized in the language. This could be a natural result of the bifurcation of the two forces’ effort in fighting and the desire to recognize the enormous contribution of the Kurds or a more subtle political intent.

To Congress:
But We Won’t Let Go

We will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter terrorism strategy.

That the US is now firmly aimed at ISIL and alot of resources, thought not troops, will be aimed in their direction. This not surprise to anyone – more importantly, the president communicated two specific points to Congress: he needed not seek their specific approval, but wanted to engage them & desperately wishes for them to expand their engagement in Syria.

I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL. But I believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger…
…It was formerly al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border.

This is pretty clear – some have speculated the president would seek Congress’s approval. He, fairly safely, presumes to tacitly have it amidst the unclear debate some are having on whether he needs it explicitly. Likely, this is also why he mentioned ISIL’s association with al-Qaida.

Tonight, I again call on Congress, again, to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people — a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost.

Here the President is extending the discussion from earlier discussions on involvement in Syria – this is a point he does not plan on giving up, though in this speech it was buried in the larger narrative of his over-arching strategy. Having previously discussed the brutality of ISIL, he wishes to show how Assad cannot be a partner in their defeat – having already shown the same brutality. Realists would debate this point – but the president illustrates throughout the speech an intent to engage soft power and counter ideology.  This will be something he will continue to push in the future.

To the American People:
Won’t Cling Too Tightly, and Lose Control

The president is trying to establish certain foundational points here with the American people for their support:

As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq…
…I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.

1.) The US will not go full-bore into this conflict, “returning” or being “dragged” back into what they’ve been used to for a decade. This was the great fear when the Syria debate arose, and one the President would like to avoid. This is likely meant to “cut off at the pass” the likely debate of mission creep, or at least hold off discussion and a potential negative consensus if it does happen.

We can’t erase every trace of evil from the world and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm…
…It will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL.

2.) Keeping expectations realistic. The strategy laid-out is, indeed, a long one – and the statement that “we can’t erase every trace of evil from the world” is an acceptance that many more like-threats will come in the future. The President likely wishes to avoid any sense of triumphalism or expectation of a quick victory that will later be dashed and undermine support for the mission.

…any time we take military action, there are risks involved, especially to the servicemen and -women who carry out these missions.

3.) This is to set up the expectation of risk – with personnel in-theater and aircraft overhead, any discussion of this being “low risk” would immediately undermine the mission if/when our people are killed/kidnapped by ISIL or if an aircraft were to go down.  The reality-check on the longevity and risk of this conflict up front may not create the initial surge of support, but will create a more sturdy and realistic appreciation for what we’re doing that may last longer.

To Middle Easterners & Potential Western ISIL “Converts”:
Middle East has America to believe in,
But whole lot of space to breathe in.

As stated throughout the speech—the United States is committed to the region, but the dialogue of “airpower”, standoff “counter-insurgency”, and advisors is to push the narrative that the US will not be occupiers again. This is likely a long-shot attempt to communicate to those on the fence about ISIL or worried about “western imperailism.” Part of that denial of a “imperialist” or “holy war” narrative is also the continued emphasis the United States is placing on ISIS not being “Islamic” and the United States not being at war with Islam. It is unlikely that this message would reach anyone in the conflict zone.

It may, however, be for those in Western Nations or more stable neighbors to the conflict who would follow ISIL’s new social media campaign into the maw of jihad, as Anwar al-Alwaki convinced some westeners to do.

Overall:

Some will argue with the strategy itself, as well as the accuracy/value of allusions to Somalia and Yemen (as I sit here watching talking heads on CNN), but as a piece of stand-alone strategic communication for the plan being put forward, the speech was a straight-forward. It clearly illustrates the reasons the US is engaged with ISIL and the commitment of the US to its own safety, as well as a commitment to allies -willing- to commit to their own safety,

Few communications are more “strategic” than those that come from the Bully Pulpit, and this was a solid piece of that kind of communication. Whether this 80’s classic of “Hold on Loosely, But Don’t Let Go,” is right plan for the US? That is for us to argue and, as time goes on, see.

Matthew Hipple is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content and an officer in the United States Navy. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the US Government, Department of Defense, or US Navy – but sometimes they do.

Fluid Alliances and Unexpected Consequences: Philippine UNDOF Crisis

RP-UNDOFThe recent crisis faced by Philippine Peacekeepers in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) highlights the fluid dynamics in alliances and the unexpected consequences that have precipitated in the wake of the Syrian Civil War.

On the morning of August 28th, approximately 75 Philippine Army troops of the 7th Contingent to UNDOF were surrounded by militant forces, some later identified as Al-Nusra Front fighters, and were ordered to surrender their arms. The Anti-Government Fighters focused their siege against strategic UN positions including Al-Quinaytirah,  the only crossing over the Golan Heights. The situation was exacerbated by the earlier capture of approximately 44 UN soldiers from Fiji manning posts on the Northern sector of the ceasefire zone. The rebels attacking the Philippine positions initially sent an English-speaking Fiji soldier to relay their surrender demands.

The peacekeepers, split into two units spread across the Filipino sector of responsibility, both refused the call to disarm. A fire-fight later ensued at their positions in Ar-Ruwayhinah, located in the southern portion of the Heights.  Despite being armed with only rifles and squad weapons, the Philippine unit was highly experienced – most of the UNDOF contingent belong to the 80th Infantry Battalion – which came fresh off anti-communist combat operations in Mindoro and run through a preparatory workup before deploying in the Golan. The militants arrived in technicals armed with anti-aircraft guns and besieged UNDOF Oupost 68 for several hours before being driven off. At one point, the rebel pick-up trucks started ramming the outpost gate to overrun the defenders and subjected the troops to mortar fire.

Some of the encircled troopers were eventually relieved and withdrawn to more secure positions by a combined Irish-Filipino Mobile Reaction Force equipped with armored personnel carriers from Camp Faroar on the Syrian side of the Heights. Outpost 68 was able to walk out on their own terms after a lull in the fighting and re-consolidated at Mission HQ in  Camp Ziouani near the Israeli border. What was notable is that the Al-Assad Syrian Army fired artillery rounds during the Outpost 68 firefight to help suppress the rebel assault. This may be a result of back-channel discussions stemming from then Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro’s mission to Damascus as early as 2009, when the Manila started contributing troops to the UN mission. But equally likely is the well-established “Cooperation and Coordination” aspect of UNDOF with the warring parties, which was finely-honed when the Mission was first established in the mid-1970s.  UNDOF Command closely communicates at an operational level with both Israeli Defense Force and Assad’s Syrian Army through liaisons. Additionally, this is a strong indicator that the Assad regime is not as unstable as the popular media narrative would indicate. The ability to quickly and effectively deliver indirect fire into the Area of Separation speaks to the existence of intact and professional Syrian Army elements despite the widespread Civil War.

This is not the first time Philippine forces in UNDOF have been under fire. In 2011, approximately 21 troopers and civilian workers were taken hostage but later freed without incident, and another soldier wounded by shellfire during the same year.

The assistance of the Syrian Government during this crisis is in direct contrast to current Western foreign policy, which seeks the unconditional removal of Assad’s regime. Collectively, all the stakeholders in the localized area of the Golan recognize the greater threat that the more militant spectrum of the Syrian rebellion represents, and can cooperate when necessary to achieve the common goal of maintaining stability within the area.

The dynamics of individual Peacekeeping Missions are also subject to the aspects of operational realities and unexpected consequences on the ground.

In the Outpost 68 firefight, the Anti-Government fighters were reportedly adamant about the Philippine troops surrendering their weapons before acceding to a cease-fire, as a matter of honor. It is likely that the rebels also saw this as a means of expanding their Table of Equipment.   Equally on the same point, as well as for more practical reasons, the Philippine troops refused to turn over their weapons, most of which was newly issued and the latest in terms of ordnance available to the country’s Armed Forces. The firefight may have been inevitable from a tactical viewpoint, but the supposed demand by UNDOF Mission Commander Lt. General Iqbal Singha of India that the Filipinos surrender to ensure the Fijians’ safety by “stacking arms” prompted a call for investigation by Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gregorio Catapang Jr. If the allegations have merit, it would be highly ironic given the UNDOF I-C’s very comments to the contingent during the October 2013 UN Day Parade that “Your job is to carry out your peacekeeping tasks and my job is to ensure your security.”

The back-channel discussions between SND Teodoro and the Assad government reflects multi-polar realpolitik. While the Philippines is generally seen as a supporter and beneficiary of US strategy and foreign policy in the Pacific, there is a small wealth of political capital that the Asian nation can use in other regions, where Filipinos are seen as a highly reliable source of skilled and unskilled labor, and generally not viewed as an enabler or facilitator of an increasingly divisive and unclear U.S. diplomatic approach.  Leveraging such capital at the right time and the right crisis can result in short-term gains without materially compromising key allies’ existing relationships nor overtly undermining their initiatives.

Another long-standing issue of concern is the inadequate force-protection capabilities of the peacekeepers themselves. In 2013, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario met with UN officials to air concerns regarding relative troop strength in the Heights and to ensure that the necessary equipment for the “protection and defense of Filipino troops and other UNDOF” were procured by October of that year. The dilemma of adequately arming peacekeepers is well-known and understood, but given the circumstances of the raging Civil War, it is likely that the UN forces will continue to encounter more violent and zealous factions involved in  the turmoil, and must make sound decisions regarding practical limits of the  “Minimum Use of Force” directive.  A larger consideration must be made to enhancing force-protection measures while remaining true to the “peacekeeping” charter. This particular crisis pointed to several shortcomings; such as weapons inadequate to the higher threat level, better intelligence and monitoring of movement within the Area of Separation and a consistent Rules of Engagement  (one unit fought, the other did not) as well as contingency and scenario planning (one unit was relieved, the other had to egress independently  with no support). Otherwise the UN Peacekeeping Force will only perpetuate and not prevent conflicts, as blue-helmets are taken hostage for their political value and their equipment seized to further malicious actor goals.

As a corollary, there’s something to be said about gauging the quality of forces a nation contributes to UN Security Missions. Had it been a less experienced Philippine unit in place than the already-blooded 80th Infantry Battalion, the outcome might have been very different.  It is undoubtedly helpful that the troops had already “seen the elephant” in counter-insurgency operations when the militants started firing.

As a direct result of the deteriorating conditions in the Syrian Civil War, the Philippine Government has announced a complete withdrawal of forces until further notice to both the UNDOF and the UNMIL mission in Liberia, the latter due to the increased health risk of the Ebola outbreak. The Philippines had been contributing personnel to both missions since 2009 and 2003 respectively, and was the nation-in-command for UNDOF in 2012. This doesn’t bode well for many UN security missions – if nations start to withdraw because the global organization cannot effectively manage the numerous efforts underway (at last count 17 Missions world-wide and involving over 100,000 personnel), the spread of a regional crisis progressively engulfing larger portions of the globe could become a grim reality.

Juramentado is the pseudonym for Armando J. Heredia, a civilian observer of naval affairs. He is an IT Risk and Information Security practitioner, with a background in the defense and financial services industries. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, any particular nation’s government or related agency.