Boko Haram's Path to Victory.

摘要

The Government of Nigeria's corruption and failure to address its people's grievances combined with a wave of Islamic extremism is fueling the rise of an insurgency called Boko Haram. Boko Haram's efforts have been steadily increasing in scale, although the majority of its actions are in Northeastern Nigeria. This paper takes a 'Red Team' approach to developing a campaign plan for Boko Haram. The paper proposes three lines of effort that would give Boko Haram the ability to achieve its objective of separating the North of Nigeria from the South. The first line of effort is to secure funding by controlling the illicit trade network in the North. The second line of effort is to pursue methods to legitimize its struggle using democratic institutions. A significant part of this effort toward legitimization is cohesive information operations. The final line of effort is to separate the government from its people by supporting operations that destabilize the country while providing the services that satisfy the people's needs. These lines of effort have a reasonable chance of success because they capitalize on the Nigerian government's history of mismanagement, heavy-handed response to insurgency, and corruption. The result of this 'most dangerous course of action' is a list of indicators that serve as a warning that Boko Haram is pursuing a similar strategy. The exercise presented here may help Nigeria create stronger countermeasures to Boko Haram's strategy.