Murder on Maneuver: Exploring Green-on-Blue Attacks in Afghanistan

• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17752425
• Author: Elias Nader,Neil Shortland,Casey Hilland,Marek Palasinski,Huseyin Sari
• Date: 01 April 2019
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Murder on Maneuver:

Exploring Green-on-Blue

Attacks in Afghanistan

Neil Shortland

1

, Elias Nader

1

, Huseyin Sari

1

,

Marek Palasinski

2

and Casey Hilland

1

Abstract

Green-on-blue attacks have a devastating psychological, tactical, and operational

effect on military operations in Afghanistan. In spite of this, no empirical research has

offered a data-driven examination of these attacks, leaving a gap that this article aims

to address. By analyzing a large (yet inevitability incomplete) open-source database

developed on these attacks, we present data on the perpetrators and victims of

these attacks. We also investigate whether green-on-blue attacks are related to the

number of civilian casualties in that area; finding that (unlike wider insurgent vio-

lence) they are not. Instead, we find that it is the number of troops present within a

Regional Command that is positively correlated with the likelihood that a green-on-

blue attack will occur. We discuss the implications of these findings with reference

to future issues of force protection.

Keywords

green-on-blue, insider attack, fratricide, counter insurgency, social categorization

theory

1

Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA

2

School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United

Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Neil Shortland, Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowel l, 150

Wilder Street, Lowell, MA 01854, USA.

Email: neil_shortland@uml.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2019, Vol. 45(2) 368-388

ªThe Author(s) 2018

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17752425

journals.sagepub.com/home/afs

Since May 2007, green-on-blue attacks, or “insider attacks,” in Afghanistan have

killed over 140 coalition troops and injured over 180 (Roggio & Lundquist, 2013).

Green-on-blue attacks function as a case-specific version of blue-on-blue attacks or

“friendly fire,” where friendly military forces fire upon each other accidentally. In

the case of green-on-blue attacks of interest here, “green” represents the members of

the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF; or in some cases, an insurgent

imposter) targeting “blue” forces or the members of the International Security

Assistance Force (ISAF). Blue-on-blue attacks primarily involve air-to-ground or

artillery fire and mostly take place during active combat situations (Shrader, 1992).

Green-on-blue attacks, however, usually involve small arms fire and occur on ISAF

bases (Ahmad, 2017). Therefore, it is feasible to form an assumption that while blue-

on-blue attacks are inherently accidental, green-on-blue attacks do not seem to share

the same accidental characteristics.

Within the wider discussion of green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan, there is a

fundamental disagreement between those who state that victims know (and often

work with) their perpetrator (e.g., Bordin, 2011) and those who view such attacks as

predominantly perpetrated by strangers (Sageman, 2013). To further confound the

issue, little open-source data exist on such attacks or their perpetrators, and with the

exception of Armstrong (2013), no theoretical explanations have been forwarded to

clarify the underlying psychological mechanisms at play.

With this in mind, the first goal of this article is to analyze data (collected via

open-source data coding) that focus on green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan: the

perpetrators, the victims, and the attack tactics. Second, beyond the proximate

motivation for these attacks (e.g., personal or insurgent), no research has sought

to identify any environmental indicators for these attacks. As such, this article tests if

wider correlates of insurgent violence (namely, the number of civilian casualties

caused by international forces; see Condra, Felter, Iyengar, & Shapiro, 2010) also

predict the occurrence of green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan.

Literature on Green-on-Blue Attacks in Afghanistan

Green-on-blue attacks emerged as a threat to ISAF personnel in 2007, before surging

in frequency and lethality in 2011 and 2012 and declining throughout 2013 (Long,

2013). Green-on-blue attacks posed a renewed challenge to the efforts for achieving

peace in Afghanistan because these attacks undermined the morale of ISAF troops

and the scope for a combined strategy between ANSF and ISAF. These attacks also

had far-reaching repercussions for the country’s transition to much-needed peace

and stability (Long, 2013). Furthermore, regardless of whether the Taliban actually

orchestrated these attacks, the Head of the Supreme Council Mullah Omar imme-

diately supported them, claiming that the Taliban “cleverly infiltrated” the ranks of

the enemy and released videos praising the heroic perpetrators. The Taliban’s use of

green-on-blue attacks as propaganda, and their strategic re-structuring to encourage

defections, amplified the message that these attacks were becoming increasingly

Shortland et al. 369