Terrorism: What's Coming

[Jedburgh]

MIPT, Sep 07: Terrorism: What's Coming. The Mutating Threat

....These essays were all written as we are engaged in a worldwide struggle against a jihadist terrorist enterprise inspired largely by al Qaeda’s ideology and its tactical successes. There are other conflicts involving the use of terrorist tactics, to be sure, but the authors here agree that Islam’s violent jihadists currently represent the most serious threat to Western security and that they will continue to do so for decades—a struggle that will transcend the present generation.

There is consensus that while al Qaeda does represent a new and more serious threat, much about al Qaeda is neither new nor unique. That is the positive aspect of the long view reflected here. It suggests that this wave of terrorism, like others before it, eventually will pass, although it has years to run. It will be a long war, but ultimately, we should prevail.

Indeed, we have achieved a measure of success in reducing the operational capabilities of al Qaeda central, although even that may be only temporary. Authorities have thwarted many terrorist plots. But, the authors agree, we have utterly failed tosuccessfully address the issue of continued radicalization and recruitment. In this dimension of the struggle, we are not winning.

The current counterterrorist approach is exclusively operational and therefore inadequate. The authors agree that we need a strategy that is multidimensional, that more effectively engages the international community, and that does a better job of preserving basic values, even while changing the doctrines and rules that govern our response. This challenges the official U.S. view that we have a comprehensive counterterrorist strategy and that it is working.

Finally, despite healthy caution about making predictions, there is consensus that whether it is in al Qaeda’s jihad or in future, still-undefined struggles, the employment of terrorist tactics will almost certainly persist as a means of political expression, as a mode of armed conflict. Today’s jihadists have inherited terrorism’s methods from previous struggles. They have added some innovations of their own and demonstrated new possibilities. Their repertoire will be inherited by tomorrow’s terrorists. And all the authors of this volume agree, there will be terrorists tomorrow....

Complete 84 page paper at the link.

The Future of Terrorism

The Organization of Terrorism
Martha Crenshaw

Terrorism & Energy Security: Targeting Oil & Other Energy Sources and Infrastructures
Alex P. Schmid

Observations on the Future of Terrorism
Leonard Weinberg

The Future of Counterterrorism

Cooperation is not Sufficient: A New International Regime is Needed to Counter Global Jihadi Terrorism
Boaz Ganor

Lessons from the Counterinsurgency Era
Gustavo Gorriti

Strategic Counterterrorism: The Way Forward
Rohan Gunaratna

[walrus]

(Sigh) This paper reminds me of very old medical texts, for example those on Cholera, what the symptoms are, what the process of the disease is, how to treat patients, remedies and so on, what the prognosis is for the patients, but leaves out the most screamingly obvious chapter - what causes the disease and how it can be prevented from occurring in the first place!

Terrorism is a tactic - it's a symptom of something. Nothing more nothing less. This paper conveniently glosses this over and attempts like many similar papers to look at means of making the symptoms go away, not treat the disease itself.

That disease, by the way, is simply the existence of a confrontational struggle over something where one side has overwhelmingly powerful forces available to it and the other does not. - Power asymmetry. This means that the weaker side is denied any opportunity of advancing its case save terrorism - stealthy unpredictable random attacks against targets of opportunity in an effort to overcome the power asymmetry.

Look at the causes of some of the terrorism.

While the anarchists and similar revolutionaries of the 1850's were mentioned, no mention was made of the refusal of European nobility and monarchies to accommodate the aspirations of the emerging industrial middle classes, and the ruthless suppression of the same. Is it any wonder that rebellion and revolution was talked about all over Europe at the time?

All terrorism, even if it is later perverted into pure criminality (as was the IRA) is grounded in either a perceived or real injustice, or to put it another way, a threat by a group to the established power structures in a particular nation.

If one takes the trouble to actually read what Bin Laden has said, his motivation purports to be the threat to Islamic fundamentalism of Western values - meaning the power structures of the Islamic religion - hence his call for a removal of Western influence (American) in Saudi Arabia.

The Irish troubles as we have seen, have their roots in religious discrimination.

Latin American troubles have their roots in the appalling disparity of wealth and power between various classes.

The Malaysian troubles had their roots in the ongoing conflict between the Malays and Chinese (We are overdue for another round of Chinese killings in Indonesia, they seem to happen about every thirty years or so).

In the terrorism cases that have been "closed" the terrorism stops when people supporting terrorism find alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that give them some power over their own futures - more power than can be gained by resorting to violence. It follows of course, that half our troubles in Iraq have been caused by our deliberate and willful neglect of this fact

While the paper is well meaning, as is the Institute, it appears to ignore the elephant in the room, the causes of terrorism, and like cholera, unless the causes of the disease are treated, it will continue to fester.

[Tom OC]

I agree with walrus. After reading the paper, I was struck by how restrained the authors were. In the words of one of them, they wanted to avoid the dangers of sociological determinism. While none of them missed the opportunity to display their knowledge of historical detail and make idiographic generalizations, the only reason they gave for avoiding sociological generalization was that the Internet and the media have changed things. Frankly, I don't like this whole "mutation" analogy. If something's anomalous, then there has to be a pattern and trend. If terrorism is a symptom, then there has to be a cause. Discover the pattern, find the cause, fix the problem. Perhaps the authors were blindsided by a mandate to sound like fortune tellers. I tell ya, though. I'm gaining more respect for Gunaratna. I used to think he was a bit alarmist, but he wrote a pretty solid piece here.

[kehenry1]

This means that the weaker side is denied any opportunity of advancing its case save terrorism - stealthy unpredictable random attacks against targets of opportunity in an effort to overcome the power asymmetry.

Look at the causes of some of the terrorism.

Yes, this is an issue. However, I have read Crenshaw's "Organization of Terror" and one of her points was about "self-selecting" terrorists. In other words, they don't necessarily have the same grievances as others, have not tried other methods to resolve any grievances, but generally look for a group or organization to join in order to become part of a "group" and act out their internal issues violently.

That is the "mutating factor". Other groups or individuals latch on to the group simply to be part of it, part of a movement, even if they don't have similar grievances or any at all. They may be drawn to it as a source of excitement or because it is a group they can associate with. Much like how people join criminal gangs.

I think that Adnan Gadahn is an excellent example. He went looking for a group, he was not part of the original "grievance" group. He may have had "grievances", but they were general and not specific to any one ideology. He was looking for something to join and act with.

The question is can we combat these organizations and their ideology quickly enough so that it does not engage as many. We need to work on making it unacceptable in the general community. This is just about the best leverage and influence that you can get. That is why the message must include a moral aspect. That is what is most likely to persuade others not to do it, though there is no absolute assurance.

second issue, we need to recognize communities, like ours on this site, that are outside of the most recognized "communities". It is these types of communities that are "mutating" rapidly, that we have largely left intact and that have the ability to organize "global" activities. News reports and general media don't have the same ability to engage individuals.

However, outside influences can impact electronic communities and vice versa. We need to recognize that and make it part of our plan.

[charter6]

The problem is, though, that the cost of entry to war has been lowered to such a great degree by advances in technology that smaller and smaller groups are progressively able to cause greater and greater strategic disruptions. While the root causes of the dissatisfaction of some terrorist movements obviously need to be addressed, that may not alone "solve" the terrorism problem that is likely to face the West and the state more generally as the 21st century progresses. There are always going to be disaffected elements in any society, further technological advances are likely to further increase the ability of those disaffected societal elements to cause damage disproportional to their size.

When a skilled individual with a $1,000 laptop can wage war on the United States, talking about root causes becomes less relevant to the problem.

[Sean Osborne]

The authors missed the 25-meter target in this report.

I would suggest reading LTC Joseph Myers essay review on The Qur'anic Concept of War in the Winter06 edition of Parameters.

To read the Jihadist asymetric warfighting doctrine, particularly the decentralized individual jihad, find a copy of Da’wat al-muqawamah al-islamiyyah al-‘alamiyyah (The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance) by Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (a/k/a: Abu Mus’ab al-Suri). There is an online english language version. I'd include a link here but I've msiplaced the URL.