Profiling Nasir al-Wahishi: Political Psychology of AQAP

Introduction

This research proposal addresses two basic research questions. The first concerns the general subject of political profiling of current or possible future political leaders. The second is a more specific focus on the case of Nasir al-Wahishi, the proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — often referred to as AQAP. The core research problem is the vexing nature of profiling political leaders: what they are capable of, how they control and motivate those they proselytize to, how to predict which figures people will rally behind, and how to anticipate their future moves.

There is also the broader question of how to deal with "stateless" regimes and groups. Some of these groups are recognized and relatively established — the Palestinians, for example — while others are terrorist or otherwise disparate in nature. Examples of the latter include ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban following their forcible removal from Afghanistan in the years after 9/11. To be specific about what this study aims to accomplish: it seeks to profile Nasir al-Wahishi, ascertain what level of power he holds, what level of power he could attain, and survey the literature that speaks to these questions.

The following sections define the relevant theoretical frameworks, outline the research design, and provide a reference list of scholarly sources demonstrating that this proposal is well-grounded in the existing academic conversation. A substantial body of material has already been gathered and will be explained and developed in the sections that follow.

Literature Review

Perhaps one of the more seminal works reviewed for this literature review is that of Jerrold M. Post. In his book, Post explains political psychology and profiling in general terms and then conducts real-world profiles of figures such as Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein. Post begins by identifying one of the central tensions in the field: the degree to which a world leader's personality shapes the political events surrounding them. He cites the noted author Thomas Carlyle, who espoused the "great man" view of history — the assertion that world history is a march propelled by the actions of the leaders present at the time. Carlyle argued, for instance, that George III and Lord North lost what became the American colonies by virtue of their stupidity and arrogance. The clearest illustration of this view, however, remains Adolf Hitler, whose actions continue to resonate nearly a century after his death (Post, 2003).

Post immediately offers a counter-argument. He contends that leaders who blaze glorious or destructive paths are often simply assessing the opportunities and threats available to them and acting on what they can realistically achieve. Had Hitler been eliminated after World War I, the catastrophe of the 1940s would have unfolded very differently. But because Hitler remained in the picture, Germany was permitted to rearm, and major world leaders attempted appeasement despite the obvious warning signs — he was able to wreak the havoc he did until the noose finally tightened and he was left powerless. Post notes that the withdrawal of American troops in 1918 did not help matters. Moreover, he stresses that Hitler was not unique: his foreign policy was in many ways a continuation of his predecessors', and his ideas and aggressiveness existed in other people and in many forms. What distinguished Hitler was the gumption, passion, and opportunism to exploit the passivity of others (Post, 2003).

Post then charts a middle position between these two extremes, citing the work of Greenstein (1969), which holds that a leader's personality can be especially important — but only under specific circumstances. These include situations where the actor occupies a strategically advantageous position, where there is no clear precedent the leader must follow, and where the overall situation is ambiguous or unstable. The author of this report would offer the example of Barack Obama, whose campaign promises were frequently delayed or abandoned after he took office — arguably because there were reasons, precedents, and constraints he encountered only after assuming power. One could draw a parallel with Saddam Hussein's repeated brinkmanship over weapons inspections, the invasion of Kuwait, and ultimately the U.S. invasion of 2003. Even American presidents sometimes confound personality theorists, as illustrated by some of George W. Bush's statements about Vladimir Putin and Russia around 2007 (Wall Street Journal, 2007; Hiatt, 2005).

These two general theories lead to a fundamental duality in Post's framework: on one side is the academic discipline of political psychology, and on the other are the actual policies that exist — or do not exist — within any governmental sphere. When examining the personalities of leaders, regardless of how much weight one assigns to them, there are three strands of psychological profiling used in practice: cognitive approaches, personality trait assessments, and comprehensive qualitative case studies. Regardless of their overall gravity, recurrent themes in political behavior and power structures are readily identifiable across history (Post, 2003).

When it comes to personality in psychology, many scholars acknowledge upfront that personality is a linchpin of the field. Cottam (2009) notes that personality sits at the "bottom" of the psychological tree because it forms the "roots" of what leads a person to act and think as they do. Mindset, upbringing, and accumulated perceptions guide decisions. Even so, arriving at an acceptable definition of "personality" is far from straightforward — particularly in the case of reclusive leaders or police states, where the available material is tightly controlled and choreographed. Complicating matters further is the sheer variety of theoretical approaches: there are twenty defined personality theories, which fall into nine broad categories — psychoanalytic, neo-psychoanalytic, interpersonal, trait, developmental, humanistic, cognitive, behavioristic, and limited domain (Cottam, 2009).

One method used to understand what makes a person "tick" is cognitive mapping. This subject is covered in a treatise by Michael Young (1996). Although roughly a generation old, the idea of cognitive mapping goes back to the 1970s, when scholars like Shapiro, Bonham, and Axelrod were developing it in its infancy. It is applied in areas such as juror selection, crisis decision-making, and international negotiations — the latter of which carries obvious political implications. Modern iterations of cognitive mapping use computers to help map why people behave and manifest as they do (Young, 1996). Along related lines, Greenstein (1992) explored whether personality and politics can be studied in a systematic fashion, acknowledging obvious limitations — such as counterfactual arguments about what would have happened had Kennedy lived, or whether the New Deal would have occurred had Franklin D. Roosevelt been assassinated in the early 1930s. Patterns and predictions are possible, but they often fail because real-world events and unforeseen facts intervene (Greenstein, 1992). The literature also contains substantial discussion of concept mapping, distinct from cognitive mapping, in the work of scholars like Kinchin (Kinchin, 2015).

Despite the raw complexity of predicting a political leader's performance, many scholars assert that a great deal can be learned simply by observing a leader from a safe distance. David Winter (2005), writing in the Journal of Personality, advances several key claims:

1) Motivation and personality can reliably be measured from a distance.
2) Personality is complex, consisting of several different elements or kinds of variables.
3) Personality exists in social contexts, and past social contexts are embodied in personality.
4) Political behaviors and outcomes can be predicted from personality, but only in contingent "if/then" ways.

Winter acknowledges limitations to assessing political figures from afar. His choice of words is telling: he states that "personality can be objectively and reliably studied without direct access." The operative phrase is "can be" — a qualification whose implications will be addressed later in this report (Winter, 2005). Regardless, who leads remains a vitally important question irrespective of the leader's personality makeup. Decisions can be made by individual leaders, by groups, or by coalitions, and leaders are somewhere in that calculus even when not acting alone. The legitimacy of a decision can be assessed based on who is involved, who is excluded, and how many actors participate overall (Hermann, Preston, Korany & Shaw, 2001).

Other factors may play a prominent role depending on the situation. Birth order, for instance, is rarely significant in countries like the United States — except in dynastic political families such as the Kennedys — but in monarchies it can be decisive. Great Britain is a modern example. In both developed and less-developed countries, there appears to be a pattern whereby firstborn children are more prone to seek and attain political power relative to later-born siblings. Some scholars argue that personality and cognitive makeup are actively shaped by birth order, a line of theorizing that goes back at least to the work of Adler in 1928 (Andeweg, 2004).

One source with direct bearing on al-Qaeda's methods is the work of Suedfeld and Bluck on surprise attacks as a means of generating visceral, emotional responses. Although written more than a decade before 9/11, the attacks of September 11, 2001 are the quintessential example in an al-Qaeda–American context. Suedfeld and Bluck note that the "integrative complexity" of an attack enhances its efficacy — and this has clearly been a core feature of al-Qaeda's operational approach (Suedfeld & Bluck, 1988). It has also been established that while the United States is highly effective at gathering intelligence on nation-states, groups like al-Qaeda are not nation-states. Armed groups in general tend to be decentralized, difficult to analyze, and hard to counter on an informational and intellectual level (Norwitz, 2008). Also relevant is the work of Altemeyer, who studied the psychological profiles of groups holding extremely strident and negative views of other groups (Altemeyer, 2004). Such research bears directly on any al-Qaeda branch or affiliate, since extreme hostility toward the West and toward Christianity and Judaism forms the very foundation of that movement's ideology.