Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

B. HYPOTHESIS 
This policy failure flows from the flawed understanding of the militias in 
academic and policymaking circles. Conventional wisdom regarding the imperative to 
eliminate militias in Iraq rests upon the correct observation that the state is locked in a 
struggle over the legitimate use of force, and therefore over power and authority, with the 
militias, but fails to appreciate that the militia may have more popular legitimacy than the 
state.
17
Recognizing this calls for a reconsideration of policy responses to the militia 
phenomenon. This thesis will argue that while military defeat is tactically feasible, it is 
unlikely to lead to strategic success because the militias have established popular 
legitimacy and military attacks by an occupying power are only likely to increase it. For 
similar reasons, engagement of the militia is likely to be more efficacious. Militias have 
demonstrated an ability to protect their neighborhoods and provide basic services and this 
mutual dependence is unlikely to be overcome in the short term. Therefore a U.S. policy 
of accommodation is likely to increase the likelihood of military success and political 
stability.
18
In much of the developing world weak states cannot consistently make and 
implement the authoritative rules of the game for society. State leaders’ efforts to do so 
are contested by local strongmen, who offer people alternative “strategies of survival.”
Strongmen and state leaders engage in a struggle for power, or to decide who will make 
the rules for society. Although state leaders and local strongmen are fundamentally 
16
Bruce Hoffman, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 
2004), 47. 
17
Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and 
The International System (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers, 1995), 216.; Joel S. Midgal, Strong 
Societies and Weak States (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988), 296.; Peter B. Evans, 
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds. Bringing The State Back In (New York: Cambridge 
University Press, 1985), 390. 
18
This is not a fundamental shift in U.S. policy. Strategies of engagement are used with the Kurdish 
Peshmerga in Northern Iraq and with Sunni Militias in Western Iraq. 

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locked in a battle for control, they very often become mutually interdependent. Local 
strongmen need state resources to maintain their own support bases, but state leaders 
need support from the local strongmen if their policies are to be implemented. Thus 
those in the strongest position to challenge the state’s authority are often also close allies 
of state authorities.
19
Maliki is dependent on the strongmen who lead Shia militias 
because of the sway they hold over the population. The struggles of strongmen that use 
militias to gain greater authority in Iraq raise several questions. What exactly is a militia?
How do militias offer people the elements of a strategy of survival that is more attractive 
than what the state can offer and thus establish popular support, compliance and even 
legitimacy? Who are their constituents, and what are their motives?
Shia militias in Iraq are “quasi-official paramilitary units formed … by forces 
loosely allied to the government.”
20
They are “small, homegrown, paramilitary-style 
brigades being formed by local tribes, religious leaders and political parties,” which 
provide security to the local populace.
21
“[S]ome battle Iraq’s largely Sunni insurgency 
alongside official Interior and Defense ministry troops; others operate without official 
assistance or sanction.”
22
Militias have earned acceptance and legitimacy through 
19
Migdal, 296. 
20
Ahmed Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 
2006), 299. Bradley Tatar, “Emergence of Nationalist Identity in Armed Insurrections: A Comparison of 
Iraq and Nicaragua,” Anthropological Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2005): 179; citing Lenin on 181. Charles Tilly, 
“Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists,” Sociological Theory 22, no. 1, Theories of Terrorism: A Symposium 
(2004): 11; Charles Tilly, “Terror as a Strategy and Relational Process,” International Journal of