Studies on radicalization & comments

[Dayuhan]

And, for the record, no one is a bigger critic of the "Global Insurgency" theory than I am. Does AQ use a common cause to get support from many diverse insurgencies to put effort against common objectives? Absolutely. Does that make it a "Global Insurgency"? NO. The effects may be massed, but the solutions remain diverse. The US must trace each line of foreign fighters back to their homelands, and then honestly assess our relationships with the governments there. Not just from our biased perspectives, but from the biased perspectives of that populace as well. At the end of the day it is the perception of the affected populace that controls.

I don't dispute this, but I think you're systematically overestimating the degree of American influence in these environments, and focusing excessively on the assumption that participation in this conflict is a response to American provocation, possibly to the point where equally important factors are excluded from the picture.

From this article: "top five foreign fighter producing cities for that cohort of individuals per capita were: Darnah, Libya; Mecca, Saudi Arabia; Jawf, Saudi Arabia; Dayr al zur, Syria; and Sanaa, Yemen, respectively."

Pay attention to those locations, they will come up again.

I'm well aware of the data, as you know, but I think your interpretation of those data are colored by certain assumptions.

Ok, news flash, this isn't CT, this is COIN. The Saudis have been in nearly continuous LVL 1 insurgency for at least since FDR gave them his blessing of US Legitimacy.

I'm curious, why would you choose that as a starting point? Why not 1744, generally accepted as the start of the first Saudi State? Or 1932, roughly the point at which Ibn Saud consolidated his control of the peninsula and initiated the third Saudi dynasty. I get the feeling that you're overemphasizing the degree to which the Saudi State owes its legitimacy to the US... which in actuality is a very limited degree indeed.

The beauty of doing COIN with in a despotic monarchy is that you can simply label your citizens who dare to challenge your benevolent rule as "Terrorists" and crush them, so it never really begins to look like a classic insurgency. This will however train your insurgents to look for more indirect means to achieve their goals. This is where Bin Laden comes in. He offered an indirect approach. Take down the Western protectors first, and then redirect your energies at home.

Are you suggesting here that despotic monarchies are more effective at suppressing insurgency than democracies are? According to all our COIN precepts, shouldn't the oppression of a despotic monarchy exacerbate insurgency? I'm not sure that experience elsewhere in the world supports the hypothesis that oppressive monarchies are effective mechanisms for the suppression of insurgency... certainly didn't work well for the Shah of Iran. The other plausible explanation, of course, is that a large part of the extremely conservative Saudi population actually prefers monarchy (at least when the monarchs are spreading money around) and that the dissidents have not been able to muster sufficient support to initiate full scale insurgency.

It's also worth noting that AQ was able to recruit large numbers of foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia and the other areas under discussion to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. These fighters were clearly not fighting to reduce Soviet influence in their home country or as an extension of domestic insurgency. The combination of testosterone, boredom, lack of opportunity, and a noble cause were sufficient, and I see no reason to suppose that these same factors are not driving young men to go and fight in today's jihad. It's worth noting that the numbers involved are miniscule percentages of the populations in question. I suspect that a charismatic recruiter with a good pitch and a bit of money could recruit a few hundred Saudi men to go and fight just about anywhere they could claim that Muslims were being oppressed, regardless of whether or not the US was involved.

I could be totally wrong, but what I see (and there are thousands of articles out there, these are just two that popped up at the top of one search) are restless populaces, joined and energized by the modern information age, drawing strength from each other to rise up to resist their own separate conditions of poor governance. Many of these countries, like Saudi Arabia and Yemen, were US allies from the start. Some, like Libya, came to the US late to gain our blessing as an ally in the War on Terrorism and get a US sanction to ruthlessly attack their own insurgent populace in the name of "counterterrorism." And they all send fighters to work under the AQ flag to nick away at the US where ever we might be.

Do you really think Qaddafi needed US sanction to attack his own populace? Seems to me he's been doing it quite capably for many years, including the many years during which the US regarded him as a bitter enemy. While the US may have pulled Libya from the "sponsors of terrorism" list and resumed diplomatic relations, it would be a huge exaggeration to describe Libya as a US ally, and the US certainly isn't providing Libya with any critical support or assistance. I don't see any reason to assume that Libyans who go to Afghanistan or Iraq to fight are doing so because they object to America's support for Qaddafi, because America isn't supporting Qaddafi.

Foreign fighters and AQ participants are very much a mixed group. Some come from countries where Governments depend on the US almost entirely for military and financial aid (i.e. Yemen). Some come from countries that are US allies and receive US aid, but that are not fully dependent on the US (i.e. Jordan, or Egypt). Some come from US allies that are not at all dependent on the US, or have more influence over the US than the US has over them (I.e. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Sates). Some come from countries with a long tradition of hostile relations with the US (i.e. Libya or Syria. Some come from the US itself, and from Western Europe. I don't see how we can lump them together and assume that they are driven by resentment toward US interference in their homelands... in actuality their motivations are more likely to be as diverse as their points of origin, and in many cases the primary driving factors are likely to be testosterone, boredom, and a rather loose sense of religious cause orientation. "Drive the infidel out of Muslim lands" is a compelling line, whether or not you have any particular beef with the particular infidel in question... it worked to recruit fighters to the anti-Soviet jihad, why wouldn't it work as well with the jihad of today?

You wrote this in a previous post:

The fact that we have been deploying our military at an every growing rate to enforce our foreign policy among the same "allied" states that these populaces come from.

Again I have to ask... where exactly are we deploying military forces at an ever-growing rate to enforce our foreign policy on allied states?

I think we flatter ourselves and underestimate our antagonists if we assume that those fighting us are purely reactive, and that we can control them simply by adjusting our own policies. Reaction to US policies - some flawed, some not unreasonable - is a part of the picture, and it's a part that we ignore at our peril. It is by no means the entire picture, and it is equally perilous to focus on that part to the exclusion of all others.

[Tukhachevskii]

I think we flatter ourselves and underestimate our antagonists if we assume that those fighting us are purely reactive, and that we can control them simply by adjusting our own policies. Reaction to US policies - some flawed, some not unreasonable - is a part of the picture, and it's a part that we ignore at our peril. It is by no means the entire picture, and it is equally perilous to focus on that part to the exclusion of all others.

I whole heartedly agree. On a number of threads I have attempted, usually dismally, to impress upon the members of the central role of Islam in Islamism/Islamist violence(political uncorrect notion of course). I decided that I would write a proper article for the Small Wars Journal outlining my conceptual and theortetical basis for such an assertion. However, I came up against two problems; 1) getting hold of the necessary material, either via the library or via my university alumni service, would immediately flag me up as one of them!; 2) most of the material avaliable is through websites whom I would rather NOT give my personal details to. However, while schlepping through the internet to find what research material I could I discovered that someone had beaten me to it and produced a work that I could only hope to ape rather than best. The work is a thesis written as part of the course requirements at the US National Defence Intelligence College in 2007 by a Major Stephen Collins Coughlin. I think it would be to Our Great Detriment if it were more not more widely diseminated. I understand he is in political hot water for his work but from what I hear right thinking individuals in the Pentagon (shock horror, who would have thought it) are rallying around him; finally, common sense prevails.

[Bob's World]

I whole heartedly agree. On a number of threads I have attempted, usually dismally, to impress upon the members of the central role of Islam in Islamism/Islamist violence(political uncorrect notion of course). I decided that I would write a proper article for the Small Wars Journal outlining my conceptual and theortetical basis for such an assertion. However, I came up against two problems; 1) getting hold of the necessary material, either via the library or via my university alumni service, would immediately flag me up as one of them!; 2) most of the material avaliable is through websites whom I would rather NOT give my personal details to. However, while schlepping through the internet to find what research material I could I discovered that someone had beaten me to it and produced a work that I could only hope to ape rather than best. The work is a thesis written as part of the course requirements at the US National Defence Intelligence College in 2007 by a Major Stephen Collins Coughlin. I think it would be to Our Great Detriment if it were more not more widely diseminated. I understand he is in political hot water for his work but from what I hear right thinking individuals in the Pentagon (shock horror, who would have thought it) are rallying around him; finally, common sense prevails.

You wouldn't want to have us radical Christians feeling left out simply because our movement to throw off the poor governance of the Holy Roman Empire is already over.

But if you are looking for allies in making this all about villanizing a particular religion, google some of Ralph Peters recent stuff. He's pretty out there on that limb as well.

No doubt about it though, religious-based ideology works. That's why so many insurgent leaders use it. National leaders as well for the same reasons.

[Tukhachevskii]

You wouldn't want to have us radical Christians feeling left out simply because our movement to throw off the poor governance of the Holy Roman Empire is already over.

But if you are looking for allies in making this all about villanizing a particular religion, google some of Ralph Peters recent stuff. He's pretty out there on that limb as well.

No doubt about it though, religious-based ideology works. That's why so many insurgent leaders use it. National leaders as well for the same reasons.

Sir, if I am out to villianise Islam does that mean that AQ, Hezbollah, JI, MB (et al) are perverting it? Upon whom does the onus of responsibility lie for providing us with a proper strategic appreciation of our foes and their relationship to their "religion"? I seek merely to understand Jihad for what it is not for what we would like it to be. If we don't like the conclusions fine...and as for protestanism, the inquisition etc. I don't think I ever absolved them for their violence but I do find it hard to find scriptural evidence to support such actions unlike our Jihadi friends: yes, the Book of Joshua could be held up but then the Book of Joshua is meant as history- what Joshua did- not what Christians should do. Unlike the Shari'a and the Quran. However, I do not mean to dismiss your concerns/points, I would rather not get into a flame war, but I acknowledge your valid and pertinent concerns. And yes, I do like "most" of what Ralph Peters writes because invective, polemic and controversy are very often the foundations of proper debate and the beginnings of truth.

[Bob's World]

Sir, if I am out to villianise Islam does that mean that AQ, Hezbollah, JI, MB (et al) are perverting it? Upon whom does the onus of responsibility lie for providing us with a proper strategic appreciation of our foes and their relationship to their "religion"? I seek merely to understand Jihad for what it is not for what we would like it to be. If we don't like the conclusions fine...and as for protestanism, the inquisition etc. I don't think I ever absolved them for their violence but I do find it hard to find scriptural evidence to support such actions unlike our Jihadi friends: yes, the Book of Joshua could be held up but then the Book of Joshua is meant as history- what Joshua did- not what Christians should do. Unlike the Shari'a and the Quran. However, I do not mean to dismiss your concerns/points, I would rather not get into a flame war, but I acknowledge your valid and pertinent concerns. And yes, I do like "most" of what Ralph Peters writes because invective, polemic and controversy are very often the foundations of proper debate and the beginnings of truth.

Not a company I will join, but that is both of our perogatives.

Most see ideology as a COG for insurgency; I, like Chairman Deng Xiaoping, see it much more as a Critical Requireiment. A good cat that catches mice. I think the history of insurgency backs this perspective. Often that good cat is steeped in the religion of the populace that a leader is seeking to motivate. That is a smart insurgent leader. But it is not the religion that is likely to be at fault so much as it is the governance over that same populace.

I was debated vigorously on this topic by a religious scholar who had read my paper published here on SWJ regarding the role of ideology in insurgency. He was determined to prove to me that religion was at the core of the problems and touted his "several PhDs" on the topic. Then, in a moment of high irony, accused me of have secular biases due to my background. He was not amused when I suggested that perhaps he may have a religious bias or two based upon his.

Mike (JMM) has made the point on this forum about the difference between information that are "facts", those facts that are "relevant" and those facts that are "material." I believe you are good all the way up through relevant in terms of the role of islam in the current insurgencies in the middle east. But I also believe you fall short of "material." But as I said, the majority position is quick to tout the criticality of Islamism as a causal factor for our current troubles. I've spent a lot of time thinking and studying on this, and I just can't make that connection.

[marct]

Hi Bob,

I am drafting up a paper now that hits this in greater detail, tentatively titled "Changing the Lexicon - A Critical Step in Winning the Battle of the Narrative" that explore dropping the current lexicon rooted in war and COIN; and evoliving to lexicon rooted in MSCA and Criminal Law. Actions will certainly remain "war-like" for a while in Afghanistan, but with the idea that words proceed action, and that changing how we think as well as how we talk will pave the way more quickly to reducing military support and evolving from military prosecution to civilian prosecution of those who act out.

If you'd like, I'll push you a draft in a week or so.

Well, I'd like to see the draft .

Most see ideology as a COG for insurgency; I, like Chairman Deng Xiaoping, see it much more as a Critical Requireiment. A good cat that catches mice. I think the history of insurgency backs this perspective. Often that good cat is steeped in the religion of the populace that a leader is seeking to motivate. That is a smart insurgent leader. But it is not the religion that is likely to be at fault so much as it is the governance over that same populace.

I'm not sure if an ideology per se is a CR (much less a COG); more likely a "belief structure" would be a better term since it could be a set of inter-related, bottom-up belief structures rather than anything coherent. Having said that, I suspect that a coherent belief structure or, at a minimum, one that is capable of translating between and, to a limited degree, "harmonizing" across different belief structures is the necessary condition.

I was debated vigorously on this topic by a religious scholar who had read my paper published here on SWJ regarding the role of ideology in insurgency. He was determined to prove to me that religion was at the core of the problems and touted his "several PhDs" on the topic. Then, in a moment of high irony, accused me of have secular biases due to my background. He was not amused when I suggested that perhaps he may have a religious bias or two based upon his.

LOL - don't you know the Golden Rule of Academia, Bob? If you don't have a Ph.D., you're biased and probably suffering from some variety of False Consciousness .

Mike (JMM) has made the point on this forum about the difference between information that are "facts", those facts that are "relevant" and those facts that are "material." I believe you are good all the way up through relevant in terms of the role of islam in the current insurgencies in the middle east. But I also believe you fall short of "material." But as I said, the majority position is quick to tout the criticality of Islamism as a causal factor for our current troubles. I've spent a lot of time thinking and studying on this, and I just can't make that connection.

There is a concept from physics that I have found immensely useful: potential vs. actual. I can't think of a single religion that doesn't have a potential for violence so, rather than looking at a religion qua religion, I tend to ask how did this get converted from potential to actual? Why, for example, didn't you have Christian insurgencies in the Roman Empire until the 4th century? Why did you have so many of them in the 6th & 7th centuries? etc., etc.

Bob, you might want to take a look at some of Max Weber's stuff on Charismatic leaders and the role of Prophets (check this one out if you haven't already). Most of the times when a religious "field of symbols" is converted from a potential to an actual, it involves the construction of a "vision" that meets current needs more parsimoniously than other expressions.

[Dayuhan]

I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with the views of Ralph Peters, or to a lesser extent those of Maj Coughlin, who I would say have turned to blindness at the other end of the ideological spectrum. Certainly it's possible to say that Islamic Law provides a scriptural basis for jihad, just as a particular interpretation of the Christian scriptures once provided justification for the Crusades. To jump from there to the conclusion that every Muslim is a jihadi waiting to strike would be as absurd as it would be to assume that every Christian is just waiting to go all Old Testament and start smiting unbelievers.

Religion - any religion - or any other committing belief system can be a powerful motivator to violence. Whether or not any given individual member of any given belief system is motivated to violence depends on a whole host of factors, some personal, some external. It is easier, for example, to motivate young single males to violence than it is to motivate females with families, regardless of their religion, their social standing, or their perceived level of oppression. Individuals who are alienated, disaffected, or angry can easily have those emotions directed toward an external target, whether or not they have actually suffered any injustice. As I stated earlier, it is generally not possible to use this kind of manipulation to generate enough support to initiate or sustain an insurgency in the absence of real and immediate motivating issues, but if you're aiming only to recruit a few hundred fighters or a few dozen terrorists, these tactics will serve quite well.

Perceptions of unfairness play an important part in this equation, but it's important to note that perceptions are easily manipulated and may not be associated in any way with reality. Building a perception of unfair or abusive treatment aimed at "the other" or "the outsider" is a common way for leaders to divert attention from their own shortcomings and motivate others to violence.

This means that at any given point the causes of hostility and our capacity to address them have to be realistically assessed, whether looking backward or looking forward. If a previous or proposed action is or will be viewed as unfair or abusive, it is likely to be counterproductive, as it will simply play into the enemy propaganda base. I was personally opposed to the Iraq war largely for this reason: I expected that no matter what our actual intentions were, the war would be perceived as a grab fo Iraqi oil , and that our extended presence in Iraq would be unnecessarily provocative.

On the other hand, we should not fall into the trap of believing either the enemy's propaganda or our own. For example, we cannot address anti-US sentiment in Saudi Arabia by relinquishing control because we haven't any control to relinquish. If in fact our policies in the ME have been aimed at control, as BW says, those policies must have been failures of the highest order, because... well, despite numerous wars and the expenditure of many lives and much treasure, what have we ever actually controlled in the ME? Maybe our own bowel movements, on a good day, but not much more.

We need to refrain from unnecessary provocation, without falling into the trap of trying to redress every real or imagined injustice in modern history: we can't do that in any event and if we try we'll likely end up making an even larger mess. A reasonable course lies somewhere between the extremes, as usual.