The U.S. military recognizes that it will be required to engage in dense urban areas in the near future, whether under combat, stabilization, or disaster response conditions. The military also recognizes that it is not prepared to effectively operate within such complex terrain and populations. Alternative governance structures, which can be ethnic- or religious-based civil society groups or even organized criminal networks, emerge to provide basic services when the state fails to govern effectively. Leaders of these groups maintain control through various means including violence, coercion, and service provision or through tribal, religious, or other cultural ties and structures.

Developing a flexible toolkit of currently available and vetted resources to understand the alternative governance structures existing or emerging in that environment would provide crucial foreknowledge, which will serve as a force multiplier for planning and operating in an urban environment, particularly one as dense as a megacity.

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About the Author: DIANE E. CHIDO is the President of DC Analytics, a research and analysis firm formed in October 2008. Since the drafting of this monograph, she has become the Security and Intelligence Advisor to the U.S. Army's Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI). She has served as a cultural awareness subject matter expert on the Horn of Africa and is assisting in creating training materials for the U.S. Army and course curricula in cultural intelligence analysis for academic and intelligence community agencies. She has also performed extensive research on Sub-Saharan African civil-military relations, socio-cultural cleavages, and regional security threats and opportunities. Ms. Chido is an adjunct instructor of intelligence studies with the Tom Ridge College of Intelligence Stud-ies and Data Informatics at Mercyhurst University as well as a graduate of that program. She teaches intelligence communication, advanced intelligence analysis, and advanced analytic techniques, in the classroom and online at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She has also served as a faculty advisor for student researchers on nearly a dozen Department of Defense (DoD) contracts with the Center for Intelligence Re-search, Analysis, and Training (CIRAT). Ms. Chido has 20 years of experience in research, including with the International Monetary Fund and with the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Program. She publishes widely on intelligence analysis, ethnic conflict, and international security topics. Ms. Chido holds an M.S. in applied intelligence analysis, an M.A. in Russian language, and a graduate certificate in Russian/East European studies.