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Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Lessons Old and New
From Vietnam to El Salvador and now to Iraq, America has had mostly ill-fated experiences in fighting counterinsurgencies. Over the past 40 years, the United States has been frustrated in such operations, seemingly condemned to repeat past mistakes.
“It’s like the 1993 film, Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray plays an arrogant television weatherman fated to relive the same day — February 2nd — and the same unedifying experiences over and over,” said RAND Washington Office Director Bruce Hoffman, who briefly served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad during the spring of 2004 advising on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. “But whereas Murray eventually rights his wayward path and attains true spiritual enlightenment, a similarly decisive epiphany has yet to occur with respect to America’s historical ambivalence toward counterinsurgency.”
Over the past 40 years, the United States has been . . . seemingly condemned to repeat past mistakes. |
Prior to serving in Baghdad, Hoffman had written a study on insurgency and counterinsurgency, looking at what had gone wrong in Iraq and what it might bode for the future. Using primarily interviews with those involved in Iraq, along with secondary sources, the study had noted that the failure of the United States to adequately account for the “political dimension” at the heart of counterinsurgency — in other words, to plan, to implement, and to coordinate post-invasion stability operations — had arguably breathed life into the insurgency. Hoffman’s subsequent experience in Iraq confirmed his analysis.
Yet another inadequacy, Hoffman wrote, has been on the military side of the equation, particularly the inability to acquire actionable intelligence. He stressed the importance of relying on human intelligence in fighting insurgencies rather than on electronic intelligence and signal intercepts.
Even more ominously, Hoffman concluded, the ongoing insurgency in Iraq represents a new form of warfare involving loose networks of combatants who come together for a discrete purpose and then quickly disperse after achieving it. If the insurgency is a harbinger of the future, it has serious implications for how military forces should train, equip, and organize. 
For more information:
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, (RAND/OP-127-IPC/CMEPP)
British Businesses Increasingly Concerned About Terrorist Attacks
The percentage of British businesses expecting to experience some form of terrorist attack jumped from about a quarter in 2003 to more than a third in 2004—a 50 percent increase — according to a new study by RAND Europe and by Janusian Security Risk Management.
Based on a survey of 88 security and risk-management professionals at major British corporations, the study found that the growing concern in the business community is fueled by fears of al Qaeda and by instability in the Middle East. A staggering 93 percent of respondents believe that the war with Iraq has increased the threat of global terrorism.
Major terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul, and Madrid over the last year all added to the sense of threat felt by businesses. But as Kevin A. O’Brien, a study author, said, it is interesting that the “Madrid attacks of 2004 — which targeted the general public — were of greater significance threat-wise to businesses than the November 2003 Istanbul double bombings, which directly targeted the HSBC bank.”
On a positive note, only 16 percent of the respondents felt that security measures introduced since the 9/11 attacks have decreased their organization’s ability to achieve its business goals, with 54 percent feeling that security measures have been beneficial. David Claridge, another study author, noted that such attitudes “dispel the commonly held assumption that security is always a hindrance to businesses.”
U.S. Coast Guard Needs to Accelerate, Expand Modernization Plan, Study Finds
The largest and most complex modernization plan in U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) history began in 1998. Then, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the USCG became the largest organization in the newly formed U.S. Department of Homeland Security and was asked to perform expanded homeland defense duties and other maritime responsibilities in the war against terrorism in addition to its traditional missions.
Will the original plan to slowly but steadily replace and modernize aging assets—known as the Integrated Deepwater System Program, or simply Deepwater—provide the USCG with the right types and number of assets for the challenges it faces in the post 9/11 world? According to a RAND Corporation study, the answer is “no.”
Assuming the USCG intends to perform 100 percent of its mission responsibilities in the future . . . the USCG will need the capabilities of twice the number of cutters and 50 percent more air vehicles than it has been planning to acquire over the next 20 years. |
Assuming the USCG intends to perform 100 percent of its mission responsibilities in the future, unlike during previous years of chronic underfunding, the USCG will need the capabilities of twice the number of cutters and 50 percent more air vehicles than it has been planning to acquire over the next 20 years.
Merely buying more of the same assets may not be the most cost-effective solution, according to lead author John Birkler. Instead, the study recommends a two-pronged strategy. The USCG should meet its mission demands by (1) accelerating and expanding the asset acquisitions in the current Deepwater program and, simultaneously, (2) identifying and exploring new platform options, emerging technologies, and operational concepts that could leverage those newly acquired assets.
First, the acquisition of new cutters and air vehicles can be accelerated from the original 20-year schedule to a 15- or 10-year timetable. Doing so would not significantly change the total acquisition cost but would roughly double annual expenditures. Acquiring the assets sooner would dramatically boost the USCG’s capability in the short term, enabling it to operate its cutters and air vehicles for many more mission hours and to increase the detection coverage area for airborne sensors. However, even more assets would be required to meet long-term needs.
Second, a successful strategy must also include new operational and technological alternatives. For example, stationary offshore platforms could be used as operating bases to leverage the capabilities of a variety of surface and air vehicles. Other options could include using airships or unmanned air vehicles to handle observation patrols for long periods of time, thus cutting the reliance on manned ships and air vehicles.
For more information:
The U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater Force Modernization Plan: Can It Be Accelerated? Will It Meet Changing Security Needs? (RAND/MG-114-USCG).
California Medical Malpractice Law Alters Jury Awards in Uneven Ways
As Congress considers imposing new rules on states that have not already adopted restrictions on malpractice litigation, many proponents of such rules point to California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) as a model for change.
California enacted the legislation in 1975 when the state faced a medical malpractice insurance crisis, with premiums skyrocketing and some medical specialists unable to find coverage. The law was passed in hopes of stabilizing the medical liability insurance market by limiting the size of awards and the frequency of defendant exposure to malpractice claims.
MICRA has two key provisions. First, it limits (or “caps”) to $250,000 how much a plaintiff can recover at trial for non-economic damages — such as pain, suffering, emotional distress, or mental anguish — but does not cap awards for economic damages — such as the costs of medical care or lost wages. Second, MICRA limits the fees that plaintiffs’ attorneys can collect, establishing a “sliding scale” that decreases the maximum allowable percentage paid to attorneys as the size of any trial award or settlement grows.
Plaintiffs who lost the most money under MICRA in absolute terms were often those who suffered the severest non-fatal injuries as newborns or young children. |
When juries in California render malpractice judgments, they do so without knowing the limits imposed by MICRA. Judges then adjust the awards, prior to entering the final judgment, to comply with the state law.
How has MICRA altered the verdicts being rendered by juries in these trials? According to a RAND Corporation study that analyzed data from 257 medical malpractice trials with verdicts in the plaintiffs’ favor from 1995 to 1999, 45 percent of the verdicts had non-economic damage awards that exceeded the MICRA cap and, as such, would have been reduced by the judge following trial. Jury awards in death cases were reduced more frequently than those with non-fatal injuries—58 percent of the time compared with 41 percent.
These reductions dramatically eased defendant liabilities in these cases. Aggregate final judgments (after any mandated reductions) were 30 percent less than what the juries had originally awarded (25 percent for injury claims and 57 percent for death claims). But because of the striking impact on attorneys’ fees caused by MICRA’s limits on awards and fees, the net recoveries (final judgment less attorneys’ fees) of plaintiffs in these cases averaged a more modest 15 percent reduction (see the figure).
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RAND researchers estimated what attorneys’ fees and plaintiffs’ net recoveries might have been in these cases in a “non-MICRA” world without any award cap or sliding scale (the blue bars), assuming also that in the absence of any statutory fee limits, a 33.3 percent contingency fee rate would have been the norm. Under MICRA, as represented by the bar chart on the left, total attorneys’ fees paid in these cases would have dropped 60 percent.
One reason for restricting attorneys’ fees was to lessen the impact on plaintiffs from the award cap; indeed, the substantial reduction in fees paid to counsel wound up offsetting, to varying degrees, the effects of the $250,000 limit. The bar chart on the right shows that without MICRA, according to the study, the plaintiffs would have realized net recoveries of about $280 million. Because of the reduced attorneys’ fees, the net recoveries for plaintiffs dropped only 15 percent to $240 million under MICRA.
But these aggregate numbers hide significant differences in MICRA’s effects on different types of cases. Depending on the type of claim and size of the original jury award for non-economic loss, a plaintiff might have a better or worse net outcome as a result of MICRA.
For example, the net recoveries for plaintiffs with non-fatal injuries who originally had received jury awards of $250,000 or less in non-economic damages increased 19 percent, on average, under MICRA. In contrast, the net recoveries for plaintiffs in death cases whose original awards for non-economic damages had exceeded $1 million fell by an average of 64 percent.
Those with the severest non-fatal injuries (brain damage, paralysis, or a variety of catastrophic losses) had their non-economic damage awards capped far more often than those with injury claims generally. Brain damage cases, for example, were capped 65 percent of the time. Those with the severest non-fatal injuries had median reductions exceeding $1 million, compared with $286,000 for all injury cases.
Plaintiffs who lost the most money under MICRA in absolute terms were often those who suffered the severest non-fatal injuries as newborns or young children. These cases often had reductions of more than $2 million in non-economic awards. However, these cases also involved substantial economic awards (for lifetime medical treatment, attendant and custodial care, and rehabilitation) that were not affected by MICRA and that sometimes exceeded what the jury originally had awarded for non-economic damages. The end result was that the final judgments in these cases remained at relatively high levels even after any reduction.
In contrast, plaintiffs who lost the most money under MICRA in relative terms (i.e., losing the highest percentage of their total awards) were often those with injuries that led to relatively modest economic damage awards (about $100,000 or less) but caused a great loss to the quality of life (as suggested by a jury’s million-dollar- plus award for non-economic damages). Final judgments for these plaintiffs were sometimes cut by two-thirds or more from the jury’s original decision.
Not only would plaintiffs wind up with a much smaller relative recovery in these sorts of claims, but attorneys would also find their percentage-based contingency fees reduced markedly as a result of the post-verdict cap. “As a result of MICRA,” noted lead author Nicholas Pace, “plaintiffs may find it harder to find an attorney willing to represent them, especially when the claim involves a death or relatively small economic losses.”
MICRA appears to have had the intended initial result of limiting defendants’ expenditures, though at the price of altering the jury awards for certain types of claims more frequently and to a greater degree than others. Determining whether such savings have translated into reduced premiums, greater availability of coverage, and a more stable health care delivery system — the California legislature’s ultimate goals for MICRA — requires further analysis.
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