The limitations of a decapitation strategy against the enemy

Cipher Brief:

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“Generally, [leadership decapitation is] most effective against the organizations that are extremely hierarchical and don’t have a lot redundancy in their command structure, or that are led by one extremely charismatic individual who holds the movement together,” said Mike Leiter, Cipher Brief expert and former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “The broad sense of leadership decapitation that was pursued against what was once known as al Qaeda senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan was extremely effective.”

According to Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, a critical factor that contributed to the weakening of core al Qaeda was the group’s lack of connection with the local populace in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Certain al Qaeda affiliates, such as AQAP and al Shabaab, receive backing from and maintain strong ties to various indigenous communities and are therefore able to regenerate more effectively even if their leaders are taken out. But the core of al Qaeda failed to amass the same levels of support and consequently has been unable to recover at a comparable rate.

“The strategy of leadership decapitation is more likely to work against a vanguard group that is not socially connected or socially embedded in the local community,” Pape told The Cipher Brief.

“Core al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan fits that model because you have a group, which is composed largely of leaders and a handful of people who are not deeply embedded socially in the local area that they inhabit,” Pape added.

However, while leadership decapitation has played a major role in keeping terrorist groups off balance, it has not necessarily resulted in their complete demise. Osama bin Laden, the emir of al Qaeda, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, ISIS’ second in command, and several other high-ranking terrorist operatives are gone, yet the al Qaeda and ISIS networks remain largely intact. In essence, leadership decapitation – while critical – is often not sufficient to dismantle an entire terrorist infrastructure.
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In World War II US intelligence learned that the Japanese general in charge of their Pacific offensive was flying to a specific location.  Fighter planes were launched against his plane and he was killed.  It did little to change the facts on the ground in the war which still had to be won by taking real estate from the enemy.

The bottom line to winning any war is to make the enemy believe that his cause is hopeless.  If all his hopes are wrapped up in one leader a decapitation strike can be effective.  But al Qaeda and other radical Islamists hopes are wrapped in their interpretation of the Koran. They tend to rationalize losses of leadership as "martyrdom" which they expect in their war.

During the Obama years, the US relied too heavily on decapitation strikes and did not do enough to make enemy fighters lose hope.  Instead, Obama's policy of withdrawal from Iraq and drawing down troops in Afghanistan gave the enemy hope that the US would get tired of the war and retreat.