Dealing with militias is an extremely complex political and military challenge. It rests on a set of intertwined policies, each with its own difficulties and risks. The first of these is security and military confrontation, and the dismantling of the command network at its various levels. The aim here is to exploit militias' usual dependence on charismatic leadership and their thin institutional character. But it is not that simple: on the one hand because of the heavy security around their leaders, and on the other because of the calculation of the response, the fear that the militia may splinter into small, undisciplined gangs, or surprises such as the emergence of a second rank of leaders fiercer than the first. Modern militias are not static; they too develop an institutional character.
The second pillar of confronting a militia is financial strangulation. Its difficulties lie in the ramification of funding sources and the multiplicity of means of concealment. Militias do not always rely on formal channels that are easy to identify and trace, but on individuals, charitable and social fronts, and illegal activities such as money laundering and trade in basic goods. This policy too is not without hazards, the most important being the fear that the militia will move into the underground economy, trading in drugs and hiring out criminal services, a path repeated by most of the militias we know. Financial strangulation also falls on the militia's social base, giving it the chance to present itself as defending its constituency against impoverishment.
The third pillar of policy is strengthening the central state. This, as we can see, is a radical task, for had the central state been strong there would have been no militia in the first place. Moreover, the task collides with another essential pillar of the militia's existence: its social base. However strong, a militia would not hold out long against a regular army with an air force, heavy artillery, and political backing, were it not for this base, which allows it to hide among civilians, usually welcomed, but sometimes by coercion. No effective confrontation with a militia has escaped strong criticism over the number of civilian casualties, which in turn feeds propaganda against the regular forces.
The four pillars are completed by punishing the principal patron, often a regular state. This moves the problem to a larger dimension that may threaten regional stability or, through intertwined interests, world peace. Carrying it out requires a decisive margin of power in favor of the injured state. The United States, as a superpower, did this with al-Qaeda and its patrons, and even extended the punishment to other states that had no connection with the organization, by way of baring its teeth.
Here two points must be noted. First, the impossibility of fully achieving the policies of confrontation does not mean abandoning them. Second, strong media are the companion lining of all these policies.
We must always remember that the aim of eliminating a militia is a compass on the way to a point of political settlement, a negotiating point which, if reached, would allow conditions to stabilize reasonably.
Here the differences among types of militias and their purposes come to the fore. The essential problem with religious militias is the difficulty of putting a finger on a realistic political point that offers a possibility of ending the conflict. For them conflict is an end in itself; its prize does not belong to this world, and where it does, its greatest justification is terror and the readiness to die, not actual political weight. In other words, granting them their political demand would turn into a bigger problem for everyone around them, and especially for their own social base.
The party confronting a militia accumulates, over time, experience and a way of life that enable it to contain the danger and live with it, and sometimes to construct a set of political interests resting on the existence of that danger. At that point the social base pays the price, deferred and in advance.
