Death, Dominance, and State-Building, The US in Iraq and the Future of American Military Intervention is a very detailed argument by MIT Professor Roger Petersen that America’s counterinsurgency and nation building strategies failed in Iraq. His point is that the U.S. was able to temporarily bring down violence during the Surge but failed to maintain the peace nor build a functioning Iraqi state.
The book is laid out like a thesis. First Petersen presents his theory, then has several case studies of different events in Iraq to prove it. He finishes not only with a conclusion but two appendixes on U.S. military strategy. A sign of how in depth the author went is that he takes several chapters to go over his theory. Despite all that the book is very readable unlike many other college level tomes.
The author’s argument is that people operate along a range of roles and that insurgents and counterinsurgents can use different mechanisms and strategies to move them up and down that spectrum to either support or fight against a government. The roles range from national insurgent/militias to local insurgents/militias to resistance supporters to neutral to government supporters to self-defense militias to government security forces. The mechanisms are why people move along those steps and include everything from emotions like anger and resentment to rational choice mechanism like weighing the costs and benefits of taking action. Strategies are what insurgents and the government take to try to win people to their side. Peterson’s theory is rather straight forward and easy to comprehend. There are constant charts and explanations to keep the reader informed of how the theory works in different situations so that the main argument is never lost in the details.
Peterson’s thesis is that the U.S. failed in Iraq because it never understood the basis for the ethnosectarian conflict that emerged after 2003. The U.S. used several counterinsurgency strategies including war fighting, community mobilization, decapitation of enemy leaders and clear hold and build tactics to move Iraqis to the government’s side. The Americans hoped to reach a tipping point where the population would see that the U.S. and the Iraqi government would provide safety so that they would no longer work with insurgents and militias. Most of those strategies were based upon individuals making cost/benefit analysis of their situation. The problem was that the ethnosectarian conflict in Iraq was mostly based upon emotions rather than rational choices. The Shiites for instance, were the oppressed under Saddam and wanted to take over the new state and impose their will over the Sunnis who in turn were afraid of becoming subordinate. The U.S. could offer Iraqis jobs to win them over but that wouldn’t be more important than the anger they felt for the Other.
At the same time the author believes that the Americans did not build a stable state either. One of the basic tenets of a nation and rule of law is that the government controls the means of violence. In Iraq most of the political parties have militias and the security forces are penetrated by them as well. Corruption also undermines the ability of the state to govern and serve the public.
The book argues that each one of the U.S. strategies were able to work in the short term but failed overall. The American were able to assassinate many insurgent leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq in an effort to decapitate the militants. It was able to flip insurgents over to the government’s side through what the author calls community mobilization with things like the Anbar Awakening and the Sahwa that led to a drop in violence. However it wasn’t able to build a state nor keep the peace long term.
Political parties seized the government and used it to for their own ends such as the Shiite Badr Brigade taking over the Interior Ministry and the Sadrists controlling many local police which were both used to cleanse Sunnis from Baghdad and surrounding areas. Billions were spent building up the Iraqi army as well which collapsed in 2014 against a much smaller force of the Islamic State because it was corrupt and politicized.
The case studies included are all very interesting. One is on the Mansour neighborhood which was middle to upper class with professionals and businessmen before the invasion and mostly Sunni. This was a class that the U.S. and Iraqi government targeted to come to their side. Because of their wealth most of the Sunnis left the country due to the rising violence of the Shiite militia the Mahdi Army rather than stay and support the American effort. The Mahdi Army was also able to cleanse most of the Sunnis right under the nose of the U.S. during the Surge and the book goes into great detail into the methodical method they used to accomplish that. The Americans didn’t even see the Mahdi Army as an enemy until the Sunnis were mostly expelled. Peterson believes the Shiites were much better organized through their centralized clergy and mosques they ran along with pre-existing parties like the Sadrists and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq which the Sunnis lacked. This helped the Shiites win the war for control of Baghdad and the state.
Death, Dominance, and State-Building is a very worthwhile read. It is very long and full of information. The theory is understandable and proven through the various case studies included. The U.S. strategies worked in the short term to bring down violence but failed overall to bring peace to Iraq. That’s shown by the success of the Surge but then the emergence of the Islamic State in 2014 plus the dysfunctional state that was created by the 2003 invasion.
Link to all of Musings On Iraq’s book reviews listed by topic
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