Dayuhan. I know we see this from differing perspectives, so what follows is not so much aimed at you personally, but merely a quick effort on my part to try to explain my perspective more clearly. I realize mine is a minority position.
"Foreign fighters": A node of the AQ UW Network. These are not "radicalized individuals", and these are not "terrorists". These men come from a handful of countries and are for the most part directly related to, in membership or purpose, with nationalist insurgency movements in their respective countries. They travel to fight the US where we are, primarily because they buy into the AQ message that they cannot be successful in their quest to throw off illegitimate governance at home until the break the support of the US-led west to those same governments in particular and the Middle East in general.
They come from Saudi Arabia, they come from Yemen, they come from Algeria, and they come from Libya. They come from others as well. All nations with active nationalist Sunni insurgencies. All nations with governments that arguably do not draw their legitimacy from sources their respective populaces recognize. All Nations that score high on the despotism scales. All Nations that are US allies and partners in our "War on Terrorism." They also come from the imigrant populaces from these states living currently in Western nations. Many of these groups are angered by the treatment of their homelands, and also perceive less than full inclusion in their new homes. I.e. they do not identify themselves as citizens of their current states first.
The strategic key is that we do not need to "fix" any of these countries, but neither should we set ourselves up as a protective buffer between these governments and their own populaces. The "tough love" I speak to is a combination of breaking unconditional aspect of this protective relationship and striking hard conditions. Governments need not be "effective" to be resistant to insurgency: they need primarily to be perceived as legitimate by their own populace, and that same populace needs to have some mechanism that they trust in to effect needed changes in governance. Two simple strategic steps
1. Perceived Legitimacy through the eyes of the governed populace,
2. A trusted mechanism in place that that populace can rely upon to effect governmental changes when they believe it to be necessary.
We delude ourselves to our detriment when we:
1. Blame the growing violence against the US on "radicalized individuals"
2. Convince ourselves that supporting despotic leaders will not result in consequences at the hands of those populaces forced to endure under governments they have no legal means to address
3. When we think that massive military charity in the form of "Population-Centric COIN" tactics will somehow buy/force peace on these insurgent populaces while at the same time protecting the very government over them that they see as illegitimate.
The sad part is the smarter answer is actually far less expensive and far less damaging to our reputation, and far less burdensome on our superb military forces. The smarter answer is also far more likely to produce a positive enduring effect. The kicker though, is that it requires that we relinquish control over the outcome. The "Good Cold Warriors" cannot do that. There world is based in the control of others.
Once we step back from the anomaly of Cold War policies; and re-embrace our founding principles as a nation, much of the current problems will sort out. Self-Determination is a beautiful thing. We demanded it for ourselves; we need to stop working so hard to deny it to others. Islamism is no more dangerous to the world than communism was. Both were just convenient ideologies that spoke to oppressed populaces that worked for driving out illegitimate governments in their time and place. 40 years from now we'll look at the nut jobs ranting about "radicalization" the same way we look back at Senator McCarthy. They didn't understand the role of ideology in insurgency then, and they still don't.
Legitimacy of government in the eyes of the governed; and a trusted mechanism to legally affect governmental change. These two things are, I believe, the strategic keys to COIN. Address them first, and the rest will in short order fall into place. Ignore them and address the symptoms instead, and you are in for a long, painful ride.
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