Quote Originally Posted by walrus View Post
Yes, it is possible, in fact essential, to fight any war at all with ideas. They are an essential part of the armoury.

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Which begs the question - where is the similar and complementary effort to demonise Al Qaeeda in muslim eyes and win over the muslim world to our way of thinking??? It appears that only Dr. Kilcullen is trying to do this, and I suspect most of his efforts may simply be undoing some of the harm earlier "policy" decisions has done.
In order for the ideas to war one with another, the users of them must first know what they are. The Cold War was largely a Western event with a long history of similarities between the intellectual mindsets of the opposing sides. In other words, each side already had a pretty good idea what ideas were operative on the other side.

I submit that the current conflict does not have the same easy understanding of the opponent's ideas. Once that understanding grows beyond its current pre-adolescent state (which is a good reason for getting some socio-psycho-anthropological efforts moving towards verstehen), things may change rather radically. In the mean time, calls for IO strategies, strategic communications plans, and other such tools will simply be attempting to engage in a battle of wits as an unarmed combatant.