Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
Hi Steve,

On the whole, I agree with Gian's comments, although I think the two are different in both "degree and quality". I think you may be falling into a linguistic trap, vis "symmetric vs, asymmetric". They are useful heuristics, especially for communicating with what I assume your audience to be, but I would suggest that you really need to flush them out in a lot greater detail and precision. I think your best bet would be to use a form of set theoretic topology and look at the differences as a "mapping" problem.

For example, you note that



This was certainly how it was rhetorically constructed by both sides. More importantly, however, is what was assumed in those rhetorical constructions, i.e. the assumed answers to basic questions of meaning ("Why am I here?", "What is reality?", etc.). I would suggest that what we are seeing now is that the assumptions are different and, in the case of AQ, the differences in these assumptions are what is coming out. In that sense, it is "asymmetric", but not in the more commonly understood sense of a power differential.

Possibly more important is the lack of a clear, philosophical strategy on our part. Rhetoric of "freedom" and "democracy" just doesn't cut it against the sophistication of Islamic thought. If we look at it in this sense, ten thee is a clear asymmetry in the sense of power differential - they are more powerful than we are, especially with the target audience which, BTW, includes large segments of the American public.

Where I disagree with Gian is that I do see this as a fundamentally different type of conflict - I believe that this is a global war of basic philosophies (not ideologies or religions) which has kinetic components, rather than a global war which has ideological components. To make it even nastier, and it is a corollary of my perception of this as a philosophical war, is that I can see elements of the philosophy that underpins AQ operating in current Coalition policies and practices (an example being the current Blackwater issue).

Another difference that I see is that it is much harder to construct an "Us" in opposition to "Them"; something that was a crucial rhetorical strategy in the Cold War and in all previous conflicts. To my mind, this difficulty stems from a number of sources, but I would argue that the strongest two are the actualization of the 19th century Liberal ideal of "strength through diversity" and the increased (and constantly increasing) globalized density of communications networks.

One of the things that we "know" from history is that periods of rapidly shifting communications and economics create large social movements that Pete Hallowell called "Revitalization Movements" - basically attempts to reconstruct "Golden Ages" that may or may not have ever existed. Most of the key movements in this form for the past 40 or so years have been "religious" (loosely defined). While this has often been constructed as in response to the secularization of society, I would actually argue that it is the result of not having developed and deployed "non-religious" (again loosely construed) TTPs for achieving the same ends (they do exist, but not in the mainstream culture complex of the West).

Anyway, that's my 0.1998 cents (almost par )

Marc
In terms of the "us" versus "them" construct, I'm seeing the same thing that was evident early in the Cold War. There is a bed rock constituency for whom this is very clearly an epochal battle of good and evil. I hang around in a politics sub-board of a sport-focused discussion board associated with one of my alma maters (a large, Southern state school). This is really a useful window for me into "red state" mentality. (Despite the fact that I come from a very blue collar background, I'm mentally cloistered now).

Anyhow, I've been struck by the extent to which the evangelical community in general is convinced that we are now in the end-of-the-world conflict described in Revelations. (Of course, I point out to them that this same claim has been made dozens of times throughout the history of Christianity, but they can't quite grapple with the implications of that).

Anyhow, this group is political influential. And it worries me that their thinking influences U.S. strategy.

By the way, I just finished what I think is the single best book explaining the jihadist ideology: Mary Habeck's Knowing the Enemy. My only critique is that I don't think her policy prescriptions follow from her analysis. They were pretty much the existing strategy--this whole idea that we'll somehow "empower" Muslim "moderates" who will "delegtimize" the jihadist ideology. The reason I don't buy that is that I think the absolute root of the problem is that Islam as a political-cultural system cannot create stable and competitive states in the modern world. But yet the very elements which make it unstable and uncompetitive are central to the religious part of it and thus are non-negotiable.