Panel to HASC: Fighting Islamic State, Al Qaeda Could Take 15 More Years
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Panel to HASC: Fighting Islamic State, Al Qaeda Could Take 15 More Years
Panel to HASC: Fighting Islamic State, Al Qaeda Could Take 15 More Years
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
How Al-Qaeda survived drones, uprisings and the Islamic State
A 124pgs WINEP report 'How Al-Qaeda survived drones, uprisings and the Islamic State', reflecting a one day workshop in March 2017 and with a very strong American content. From the introduction:Link:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/u...s153-Zelin.pdfThe event was organized thematically around four topics: (1) al-Qaeda’s strength from an international and domestic perspective; (2) al-Qaeda’s strongest branch in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham); (3) al-Qaeda’s major branches outside Syria (AQAP, AQIM, al-Shabab, and AQIS); and (4) al-Qaeda’s financial structure. This provided a rich portrait of al-Qaeda’s current stature and the nature of the threat it poses in the broader Middle East as well as in Western countries, including the United States.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-07-2018 at 12:34 PM. Reason: 252,219v when reopened for merging
davidbfpo
Moderator at work
I have reviewed a number of threads on Al-Qaeda and merged six of them. The title was slightly changed from Assessing AQ's future. All prompted by the next post.
davidbfpo
Al-Qaeda’s Resurrection
A CFR Expert Brief by Professor Bruce Hoffman, sub-titled:Link:https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/al-qaedas-resurrection?With the demise of the Islamic State, a revived al-Qaeda and its affiliates should now be considered the world’s top terrorist threat.
(Later) Al-Qaeda has systematically implemented an ambitious strategy designed to protect its remaining senior leadership and discreetly consolidate its influence wherever the movement has a significant presence.
Looking for a short read try the last passage?
davidbfpo
The 'war on terror' has been a 'terrifyingly expensive failure'
A short article from a UK Business News website, the actual title is: 'There are nearly four times as many jihadist militants today than on 9/11, and the 'war on terror' has been a 'terrifyingly expensive failure'. BLUF:On a quick read it appears to be based on a CSIS report published this week.
- There are nearly four times as many jihadist militants across the world today as there were on September 11, 2001, according to a new report.
- Foreign policy analysts say it's yet another sign the war on terror has been a colossal failure.
- There are approximately 230,000 Salafi jihadist fighters across almost 70 countries, according to the report.
Link:http://https://www.csis.org/analysis...ihadist-threat
Link to the website article:http://uk.businessinsider.com/there-...8-11?r=US&IR=T
Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-23-2018 at 08:40 PM. Reason: 302,829v today, 50k up since June 2017
davidbfpo
All wars are necessarily politicized, but President Bush took it to a new level when he justified invading Iraq partially on their non-existent support for al-Qaeda. We couldn't reverse course, because any opposition to the war was drown out by the repeated claim (proven false later) that anyone who opposed it was weak on countering terrorism. After the tragedy of 9/11 no politician could afford to be seen as being weak on terror. Onward we marched to pursue the neo-conservative vision of the End of History, based on the belief that if we converted Iraq into a democracy it would gradually spread across the region. In fact, it is now hard to discern the difference between our global counterinsurgency approach and real counterterrorism operations focused on killing terrorists. Our efforts to remake the Middle East and broader Umma globally into stable democracies has been an expensive disaster that has promoted greater instability. Not only is the U.S. spending itself into irrelevance over the long run as the article states, we have let our conventional military capabilities and readiness decline to a dangerous level based on the nauseating COINdista rhetoric that insurgency was existential threat to U.S. interests, and the possibility of state on state war was non-existent.Originally Posted by davidbfpo
We confused by, with, and through as a strategy, rather than a means. When the means proved inadequate we thought the answer was to throw more resources at the failed means and ways. The argument that by, with, and through is more cost effective is only true if that approach achieves the desired goals. I suspect a more honest evaluation would present a supportable argument that it would have been more cost effective if we just did it ourselves in some cases. We're not going to effectively address underlying causes in most cases, and spending billions on economic development to solve a problem that isn't economically based is another way we bleed out our resources in pursuit of ends that simply don't matter.
Another argument against over reliance on the by, with, and through approach is the moral hazard associated with it. No problem of accepting risk if they're doing it and we're not. In many cases where we rely on a by, with, and through approach we wouldn't be involved if we had to do it, because we know the threat to our interests doesn't justify the investment. Yet, we can continue by, with, and through indefinitely by arguing the turning point is this year (year after year).
Outlined above is our failures, and they are expensive failures. However, if we narrow the metric to assessing our success in disrupting attacks on the homeland and our allies I think that war or security measures has been relatively successful. That requires sustaining a network of willing partners globally that detect and disrupt terrorists (not insurgents) as needed. That war is largely fought in the shadows, just as it was prior to 9/11 at a sustainable level. It must sustainable, because terrorism will never be defeated. It is a viable tactic for the weak, and even the strong if they want to shape an outcome without committing conventional forces. The USSR supported terrorist groups for decades as an element of their statecraft.
Our new defense strategy tells us to reduce spending on counterterrorism sustainable levels, which is different than quitting because we're tired. We can do this smartly, but the probability of being 100% successful is very low. How we react after the next terrorist attack will determine if we can hold the line on reducing the industrial scale counterterrorism efforts we're engaged in now, or if political rhetoric will convince Americans that the attack was due to reduced efforts in Afghanistan, etc. I have great faith in our military leadership to make rational decisions based on our national interests. I have almost no faith in our political leadership to do the same.
Four times as many jihadist militants today than on 9/11: a contrary view
A short explanation by Alex Thurston (who has been cited before IIRC) on why CSIS is wrong.
Link:https://sahelblog.wordpress.com/2018...urrounding-it/
davidbfpo
More accurately, it is the author's "opinion" on why he thinks the report is wrong. He has his own political agenda that he readily admits to. The take away from the CSIS in my opinion is we won't be able to apply sufficient military force to compel jihadists to cease their jihad or deter them from further attacks. They're true believers in their cause, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves if just give them a little economic assistance they'll stop. Therefore, an active defense is probably the most sustainable and effective strategy to mitigate risks to our collective interests. An active defense includes offensive operations, but the focus is on disrupting attacks and eliminating known cells to protect our homeland that of our allies, not on conducting industrial scale COIN, which conflates insurgency with transnational terrorists.
Getting back to the fuzzy math, I agree with the author that the Taliban are not transnational terrorists, they are insurgents who use terrorist tactics. All insurgents do, and I doubt there were any successful insurgencies in history that didn't apply terrorism to some level to control certain elements of the population who didn't willingly rally around their cause. Mao sure as heck used a great deal of terrorism to compel compliance, so much for the siren song of legitimacy. However, back to 2018, the Taliban are not seeking to conduct terrorist attacks on our homeland. Looking at it from the perspective of hard core transnational terrorist networks like al-Qaeda members and subsequent groups like ISIS, and comparing their impact now to 9/10/2001 and prior, my gut tells me there are a lot more now than the few hundred of hard AQ operatives that existed then. They are dispersed globally through Syria, Libya, Iraq, UK, mainland Europe, West Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, etc. Some are transnational terrorists, which are the greatest threat to our security, and others are insurgents.
In defense of the original CSIS report, I think their argument about the expansion of jihadist militants (not necessarily hard core al-Qaeda/ISIS types, but local insurgents) is clearly justifiable. There are many more active jihadists movements around the world now than there were in prior to 9/11. The actual number of militants isn't immaterial, but it is unknowable. What is knowable is the scale of the threat has expanded significantly. Most of these are insurgents seeking to impose their version of Sharia within their country/region.
Last edited by Bill Moore; 12-01-2018 at 07:06 PM.
The Fight So Far
An article from the Director of Strategic Planning for the National Counterterrorism Center.
The Fight So Far (NOV 2018)
https://fortunascorner.com/2018/11/2...g-mike-nagata/
The purpose of this narrative is to encourage a larger and more effective discussion about these investments, practices, and choices.The author argues due to an increase in great power competition, and there will be military force available to fight terrorists kinetically as we have been doing for the past 17 years; therefore, we need to dedicate more effort to non-kinetic means. This can be summed up as counter their narrative, contest their use of the internet, target their resources, and prevent terrorist travel. All of these things are being done now, but maybe more is required. I remain less than optimistic in our ability to counter their narrative. We have a built in cultural bias that these terrorists and the populations they operate in want to be like us, despite that flies in the face of the facts. Our proposed cure is to change their culture, push democracy, capitalism, economic development, women's rights, etc. It was never U.S. hard power that was the driver of modern day jihadist terrorism, but our soft power. The prevailing issue is not economic, but ideological, or more accurately incompatible ideologies. The non-kinetic ideas of denying terrorism freedom of movement on the internet, disrupting their resources and travel are proven to have some effect, even if it isn't decisive. We need to rethink the other non-kinetic approaches.Despite our efforts of the past 17 years, terrorists’ ability to raise revenue and resources, sponsor and broadcast extremist ideologies, recruit fighters, and move terrorist operatives from country to country has significantly grown.
Said more simply, the United States is facing an upward strategic trajectory of global terrorism.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...ners-mlj3lgf87Al-Qaeda is resurgent and seeking to carry out new terrorist atrocities against airliners and airports, the security minister Ben Wallace warned last night.
The terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001 poses a growing threat that is keeping ministers “awake at night”, he told The Sunday Times.
Wallace said intelligence had revealed that al-Qaeda was developing technology to bring down passenger jets. Whitehall officials say that could include miniaturised bombs. Islamists have also plotted to use drones packed with explosives to blow up key targets.
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks