Small nuances are important
I probably wouldn't use a ring construct myself, as too many would apply Warden targeting to it, or as bad, draw too many similarities between players placed within the same ring. But as I said, it can be helpful, so long as one understands the players it is placing in the rings, rather than using the rings to understand the players...
As to "Defeat" on AQSL. This is a debate that I continue to irritate the "Capture/Kill" gang with. C/K can never be more than a supporting effort to any defeat strategy, and that true "defeat" of a political, non-state UW HQ like AQ comes when you rob them of their base of support by out competing them to take away the rationale for their existence. If you simply remove this HQ without doing so it will be replaced by a new, more sophisticated organization (evolution), and if you take out leaders they are easily replaced as well (and the intel guys rarely do a good job of laying out the pros and cons of keeping a guy in place vice who is likely to replace him, etc. So a huge aspect of Defeat of AQ lies in the "Deter" of the nationalist insurgent movements.
Deter: Not our job to help every f'd up government in the world either suppress or support its populace more effectively. Some governments just really need to evolve or be replaced from within, and insurgency, like forest fire, is a great, though harsh, way to clear out the dead wood, disease, and insects.
No, the primary focus of the US in this deter ring should be to target the perception that the US is responsible in some way for either the government as a whole, or the specific failures of the government that are eating at the populace. This is why the hair stands up on the back of my neck when I see everybody jumping on the SFA bandwagon with a focus on the training and equipping aspect of it. Those should be seen primarily as vehicles to get you access in general to work on the development of professionalism through the conduit of the security forces; all very very carefully tailored in execution to enhance US credibility and influence with the people, while mitigating any perceptions of undue US influence and control over the government. Tricky business this, and no place for well intended, highly motivated armatures that have their focus on the wrong purpose for their action.
Disrupting the network is just good suppressive fires. You can never break it so long as there is a target audience of supportive populaces out there, but you can attrit its effectiveness and need to do so.
A good case study is that of the LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group). This is a nationalist insurgency in Libya that primarily wants to rid Libya of the Qadhafi government. They have their roots in Libyans who traveled to Afg to fight the Soviets, and employ an Islamism ideology to support their movement. They associate with AQ as they buy into their larger purpose of reducing Western influence in the region and return to a purer form of Islam, but also try to distance themselves from AQ as well. They accept AQ support, and were the number 2 (behind Saudi Arabia) provider of manpower to the "foreign fighter node" of the AQ network operating in Iraq.
Many look at Qadhafi's recent recanting of his sins against the West as good, and his pledge to assist the US and UK in their war on terror as a good thing. Looked at just a little harder one sees, that like the Saudis, when he pledges to help with the war on terror, what he is really getting is a green light to brutally suppress his own insurgent populace in the name of "GWOT," in exchange for Western support of his regime, and worse, strengthening the rationale of those same insurgent populaces to target the US in the process.
What the West should do is accept Qadhafi’s offer, but contingent upon him meeting with leaders of key populace groups in his country, to include those labeled as "terrorists" by our intel guys, and opening communications and designing and implementing governmental reforms. Any SFA with Libya should be designed with this in mind and focused far more on enabling the reforms rather than on helping Qadhafi’s attempts to crush the LIFG.
Also, it is critical that we do not anoint or recognize movements such as the LIFG as "AQ." As this strengthens the perceptions of legitimacy, purpose, and effectiveness of the AQSL. BL, is that our goal should be for the Libyan populace, to include LIFG, to see the West as the enabler of good governance rather than an obstacle to the same. All of this must be supported by an overall policy and strategic communications on a grand scheme of reducing Western influence over the populaces and governments of the region.
(Note, any change of governance, be it Qadhafi in Libya, or the Saudis in Arabia, must be in perception and fact an internal affair; and we must support and endorse whomever prevails. If you don't have a ballot box that works, sometimes the only way a populace can trend toward self-determination and greater democracy is through popular insurgency or military coups...messy business, but we've been there ourselves, so should be more empathetic of those who seek to follow our lead)
Many say "Too hard, too idealistic, too much inertia in what we're doing to change."
To those I say fine, you've made your choice; enjoy your GWOT, because you just signed up for a lifetime supply of it.
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