What Happens When the Jihadists Go Home?

What Happens When the Jihadists Go Home? By LTC Bob Bateman at SWJ Blog.

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A friend whom I consider smarter than your average bear, upon examining my annotated bibliography of combat stress and trauma, posed the question to me, “What happens when the jihadists go home?” This, folks, is the essence of insight.

War, even for us Clausewitzians (well, actually, especially for us Clausewitzians) is a Hegelian dialectic. There is a thesis, an antithesis, and the interaction of the two result in a synthesis. It is so obvious that it should scream out, that post-synthesis, in an unconventional environment, the byproducts will return to their origins, and their experiences will have secondary effects in their countries of origin. War changes all of us. Noted. But my bibliography dealt only with the US, UK, and France, and in each case dealt also with the states which had sent those men to war with the authority of the nation-state.

I like having friends that make me think...

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