Studies on radicalization & comments

[Bob's World]

Certainly if an insurgency is driven by resistance to Western-supported despotism one would be right to revisit the policy of supporting despots. We found ourselves in that position with a depressing regularity during the Cold War, but that paradigm is not necessarily applicable in every circumstance.

In Iraq and Afghanistan the "insurgencies" (using the term loosely) are not driven by resistance to Western-supported despotism but by a desire to take advantage of a power vacuum left when Western governments removed despots. The Western supported governments in both cases are widely perceived as ineffectual and vulnerable and likely to collapse as soon as Western support is withdrawn, leaving the prize open for whoever has the means to seize it. Western support is perceived (probably accurately) as being unsustainable over the long haul, so the "insurgents" try to erode that support and gain position to take power when it is withdrawn.

AQ, for its own part, may have had its roots in resistance to foreign-supported government and foreign occupation of Afghanistan, but the power in question was not Western. AQ's continuing campaign is based less on resistance to Western-supported despotism than on a desire to impose a despotism more conducive to AQ's goals.

It is in some quarters fashionable to attribute all that happens in the world (at least all that involves violence) to a response to Western actions. In some ways it would be lovely if this were true: if everything everyone did was a response to our actions, we could easily control the responses by modifying our own actions. The world, alas, is a bit more complicated than that, and the non-West is not simply a reflexive responder to Western stimuli. There are people out there with their own agendas and they have both the will and the capacity to proactively pursue those agendas, for their own purposes and quite apart from any knee-jerk response.

First Afghanistan: There was an alliance of northern tribes in insurgency against the illegitimate Taliban government that was installed and supported by Pakistan. We went into that mix to get revenge against AQ and to wrest control of Afghanistan away from the Taliban with out, I assume, fully appreciating the role of Pakistan in their regime. The follow-on insurgency we are dealing with in Afghanistan now has nothing to do with GWOT, and has everything to do with the current Karzai regime that draws its legitimacy from the West/US; and the Taliban insurgency to challenge that; along with a general popular resistance against the western military presence in their country.

In Iraq there was no insurgency and no connection to GWOT. They just happened to be governed by a guy who pissed us off. The insurgency there was purely a response to our invasion.

This is the great irony, the two places we have sent our military to "defeat terrorism" in fact, have very little to do with the root cause of the political factors that gave rise to AQ and also that motivate many nationalist insurgents across the middle east (from places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria) to engage the West in acts of Terrorism.

Until we are ready to stop using GWOT as an excuse to attack the States that we don't approve of; and instead recognize that we are not being attacked by the populaces of our enemies, but are in fact being attacked by the populaces of our allies, we will not may true progress in defeating terrorsim.

This is the critical strategic point that we must address. The West supports a handful of the most oppressive regimes in the world across the Middle East, and it is the insurgent populaces of those countries that attack us; along with the relatives of those populaces who have migrated to western countries.

This is like a magicians trick. No one is seeing the real problem because we are all staring intently at the misdirection.

Yemen is the latest poster child for this. An oppressive despot being promised US aid to oppress and suppress the insurgent segment of his populace that dares to stand up to his autocratic rule all in the name of "GWOT" and because he is an ally. We can only expect more attacks on the west from this policy. We should be cracking down on the government of Yemen, not the populace of Yemen. Once we change our policies and refocus our military efforts accordingly the populaces of places like Yemen will find they don't need what AQ is selling; and they will also have little reason to feel that they must attack the US to be able to get out from under oppressive regimes at home.

[Dayuhan]

First Afghanistan: There was an alliance of northern tribes in insurgency against the illegitimate Taliban government that was installed and supported by Pakistan. We went into that mix to get revenge against AQ and to wrest control of Afghanistan away from the Taliban with out, I assume, fully appreciating the role of Pakistan in their regime. The follow-on insurgency we are dealing with in Afghanistan now has nothing to do with GWOT, and has everything to do with the current Karzai regime that draws its legitimacy from the West/US; and the Taliban insurgency to challenge that; along with a general popular resistance against the western military presence in their country.

Largely agree, though "revenge against AQ" could also be stated as "disruption of State support for AQ and resulting safe haven". I'd also question whether the current conflict qualifies as "insurgency". An insurgency requires a government, and I'm not sure anybody other than us recognizes the Karzai assemblage as that.

In Iraq there was no insurgency and no connection to GWOT. They just happened to be governed by a guy who pissed us off. The insurgency there was purely a response to our invasion.

Agreed, though to an extent the "insurgency", especially in the early stages, could be viewed as less a resistance to a Government than as armed competition to fill the vacuum left by Saddam's removal.

This is the great irony, the two places we have sent our military to "defeat terrorism" in fact, have very little to do with the root cause of the political factors that gave rise to AQ and also that motivate many nationalist insurgents across the middle east (from places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria) to engage the West in acts of Terrorism.

I personally believe that the purpose of the 9/11 attacks was to draw the US into punching the tar baby and initiating military actions that could be dragged into wars of attrition. That was not a response to US actions or policies, but a carefully calculated proactive gambit aiming to simultaneously reinforce the narrative of Western aggression against Muslims (a narrative that was at the time becoming rather weak) and engage the US in a military action that would exploit our rather notorious unwillingness to maintain expensive and unpleasant long term actions. If I'm right, we gave AQ an abundance of what they wanted.

This is the critical strategic point that we must address. The West supports a handful of the most oppressive regimes in the world across the Middle East, and it is the insurgent populaces of those countries that attack us; along with the relatives of those populaces who have migrated to western countries.

Where and when in this conflict have we been attacked by an insurgent populace resisting a Western-supported regime? AQ is not a populace, nor does it represent a populace. They have never managed to draw enough support from any populace anywhere to initiate an insurgency, though they have managed to successfully exploit insurgencies that they did not initiate.

Yemen is the latest poster child for this. An oppressive despot being promised US aid to oppress and suppress the insurgent segment of his populace that dares to stand up to his autocratic rule all in the name of "GWOT" and because he is an ally. We can only expect more attacks on the west from this policy. We should be cracking down on the government of Yemen, not the populace of Yemen. Once we change our policies and refocus our military efforts accordingly the populaces of places like Yemen will find they don't need what AQ is selling; and they will also have little reason to feel that they must attack the US to be able to get out from under oppressive regimes at home.

Have we the capacity to transform the Yemeni government into something functional? I suspect not. We could withdraw support and allow that government to collapse, but the immediate outcome would likely resemble what we see on the other side of the strait, which would benefit neither us nor the populace. My opinion of the Yemeni government is no higher than yours, but we've a rather limited list of options for action, and any or all of them could work out badly.

[Bob's World]

So, when in quick sand, struggle harder?

When in a rip current, swim faster?

When in a hole, dig deeper?

I prefer to subscribe to "If something isn't working, try something else." Coupled with the belief that usually when a guy thinks all his problems are someone elses fault, he is delusional.

Our current foreign policy is suffering from just such delusion. We are so sure of our goodness, our rightness, that we assume that any who dare to reject or resist what we offer or impose upon them to be "threats." They are either with us or against us, right?

I will completely agree that AQ has no populace. I repeat, AQ has no populace. They are a non-state political organization that is conducting a global unconventional warfare campaign. They target and leverage the insurgent populaces of other nations with common grievances to provide the manpower and funding to make their movement work.

You ask:

"Where and when in this conflict have we been attacked by an insurgent populace resisting a Western-supported regime? "

The first World Trade Center attack; the USS Cole, the Embassy bombings, 9/11; all of the foreign figher attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan; etc, etc, etc.

To make matters worse, the despotic governments that these insurgencies are struggling to affect now come to the US with hat in hand as great allies, and ask for money and weapons to use against their own people in the name of "combatting terrorism;" and we laud them as great allies...

We are being played, and we allow ourselves to be played because we fear the economic impact that breaking relations with these countries could cause to our economy. Ironic. Supporting them has trashed our economy even worse that what we feared would happen if we did not support them.

What I fear more than terrorism; what I fear more than the economic disruption that could come from damaged relations with Saudi Arabia, et. al; what I fear as we pursue these fear-driven policies; is that we are doing irrepairable damage to the reputation of the United States of America. That we standing up more for those who oppress more than for those who are oppressed. That we are becoming far less the country we see ourselves as, and becoming the type of country that we have always stood against.

It is time to face our fears and to get our country back on track; and no amount of military effort against the populaces of others will get us anywhere but deeper into the darkness that we fear.

As to having the capacity to "fix" Yemen. Not our job. We don't need to fix these guys, we need to give them some tough love and stop supporting their destructive behavior and demand that they either begin addressing the concerns of their popualces with our help, or ignore them and deal with the results on their own.

The "Good Cold Warriors" in DC think they have this figured out, but they are destroying us by clinging to relationships and methods that just don't bear up to the current age. We must evolve if we want to prevail.

[Dayuhan]

You ask:

"Where and when in this conflict have we been attacked by an insurgent populace resisting a Western-supported regime? "

The first World Trade Center attack; the USS Cole, the Embassy bombings, 9/11; all of the foreign figher attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan; etc, etc, etc.

I can't see any of these as the acts of an insurgent populace. A few highly radicalized individuals, yes, but that's not the same thing.

Certainly one could cite attacks on US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan conducted by Iraqis and Afghans as the acts of an insurgent populace, but attacks by foreign fighters? Again, the acts of a small number of highly radicalized individuals.

To make matters worse, the despotic governments that these insurgencies are struggling to affect now come to the US with hat in hand as great allies, and ask for money and weapons to use against their own people in the name of "combatting terrorism;" and we laud them as great allies...

I can't quite see the Saudis, for one, coming to the US with hat in hand asking for favors... more the other way around. There is dependency in that equation, certainly, but it ain't them depending on us.

We are being played, and we allow ourselves to be played because we fear the economic impact that breaking relations with these countries could cause to our economy. Ironic. Supporting them has trashed our economy even worse that what we feared would happen if we did not support them.

I'm not sure this equation makes sense to me... who is "playing" us, and how? How has supporting anyone in the ME "trashed our economy"? We did that all by ourselves, I'd say.

As to having the capacity to "fix" Yemen. Not our job. We don't need to fix these guys, we need to give them some tough love and stop supporting their destructive behavior and demand that they either begin addressing the concerns of their popualces with our help, or ignore them and deal with the results on their own.

I'm not convinced that they have the capacity to address the concerns of the populace, and I don't think any amount of tough love from us or anyone is likely to create that capacity in less than a generation or two. Certainly we can ignore them, but if the place degenerates into chaos and turns into another Somalia it will be difficult to ignore. I can't say I'm entirely comfortable with the short term choices that have been made, but neither am I sure that I've anything better to offer.

[Bob's World]

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.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob's World,

This is the great irony, the two places we have sent our military to "defeat terrorism" in fact, have very little to do with the root cause of the political factors that gave rise to AQ and also that motivate many nationalist insurgents across the middle east (from places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria) to engage the West in acts of Terrorism.

I sympathize with your frustration my brother, but I question the practicality of addressing so called root causes, especially political factors that gave rise to AQ (and groups like them that arose and have fallen in the past). We all know the problem is painfully complex, so any post is simply one or two thoughts on the subject out of many. “Some” reasons I do not concur with your point above are:

It is imperial hubris for us to attempt to “push” our values upon another country. What you see as illegitimate governments may in fact be legitimate in the eyes of the majority of their population. Just because a few thousand radicals who want to impose Shari’a law upon their fellow men are dissatisfied doesn’t equate to a popular revolt. While not political correct (I know that concerns our lawyers) the “root” cause is not oppressive governments in the Middle East or Western oppression, but rather the interpretation of Islam itself my some (not a majority) of its followers. Jihad existed long before the West had colonies, and the root cause was their religion, which is political. They strived to establish a caliphate by the sword. If we think that the current governments are illegitimate just wait until a caliphate is established and all women are oppressed, education is dumbed down to religious studies, and these nations go backwards in time. It is tricky business for us to determine what is legitimate and what isn’t.

On 9/11 we were attacked by AQ, not by illegitimate governments in the Middle East. Their base was in Afghanistan, and the American people appropriately demanded a harsh response for the murder of close to 3,000 citizens. I’m not sure attempting to reform the government of Saudi would have been accepted by the American people as a practical or appropriate response, and as Dayuhan wrote below the reason for the attack was to draw us into battle to begin with. If we didn’t respond, they would have hit us again.

In my opinion we went in too light, and although our forces assumed great risk they didn’t assume enough risk and we allowed AQ senior leadership to escape into Pakistan. Our mission was to defeat AQ, then the mission morphed into developing a “legitimate” government, but it was only legitimate in the eyes of the coalition, not the Afghan people. The nature of the conflict has changed, it now has very little to do with AQ, and we have created our own mess by trying to rebuild the country, while AQ is establishing safe haven elsewhere. There is a certain beauty to punitive military operations, and that IMO is what we should have done in Afghanistan, go in hard and leave. If they come back we go back. You may find that amusing, but is it more amusing than what we’re doing now?

Attempting to reform the governments in the Middle East, unless you are suggesting we help AQ build the caliphate, will not undermine AQ’s motivation. Are we going to get rid of Israel? Are we going to withdraw from the Middle East completely after we install Islamist regimes?


Posted by Dayuhan,

I personally believe that the purpose of the 9/11 attacks was to draw the US into punching the tar baby and initiating military actions that could be dragged into wars of attrition. That was not a response to US actions or policies, but a carefully calculated proactive gambit aiming to simultaneously reinforce the narrative of Western aggression against Muslims (a narrative that was at the time becoming rather weak) and engage the US in a military action that would exploit our rather notorious unwillingness to maintain expensive and unpleasant long term actions. If I'm right, we gave AQ an abundance of what they wanted.

This was UBL's stated intention in open source documents long before 9/11. They defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan and believed they could do same with the U.S. through a form of economic and political attrition warfare. What a victory if they could defeat the world's two super powers. 9/11 wasn't the first attack, others were conducted in an attempt to drag us into Afghanistan, but I think you would agree that at least initially the fight went very bad for AQ. They didn't truly appreciate the power of our military and CIA or our national commitment (at the time) to crush them. IMO we didn't pursue it hard enough and lost our asymmetric advantage of brute military power against a consolidated enemy trying to fight us head on, BUT when we over stayed our welcome the nature of the fight changed to our disadvantage, the fight AQ wanted, although AQ only plays a small role in that fight now.

It's frustrating, but I'm confident we'll still triumph in the end. Agree with Bob's World that our current strategy is still off track, but we'll eventually get right (probably out of necessity).

[jmm99]

from Dayuhan
.... our rather notorious unwillingness to maintain expensive and unpleasant long term actions.

in light of OEF 2001-2010 and still counting, OIF 2003-2010 and still counting; and their granddaddy Indochine 1953-1973. "Maintain", we will; "like it", we won't.

Good post, Bill Moore - "imperial hubris" vs "punitive raids", an interesting juxtaposition.

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

Jihad existed long before the West had colonies, and the root cause was their religion, which is political... It is tricky business for us to determine what is legitimate and what isn’t.

...If we didn’t respond, they would have hit us again...There is a certain beauty to punitive military operations, and that IMO is what we should have done in Afghanistan, go in hard and leave. If they come back we go back. You may find that amusing, but is it more amusing than what we’re doing now?

I don't find it amusing -- it's one of the most sensible things that's been posted on this board in a while. I know the ancient Chinese (and I think Bob's World) put a lot of stock in threes. Been my observation that most persistent pests are stopped by three hard smackdowns. Hard, not light (as we have tried to do three times now; Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq. hopefully we smacked ourselves hard enough to not try it again...). Gotta be hard (and that will cost less and harm fewer people in the long run) and you have to be able and prepared to deliver three...

...Are we going to withdraw from the Middle East completely after we install Islamist regimes?

Heh. This reality trash needs to cease.

It's frustrating, but I'm confident we'll still triumph in the end. Agree with Bob's World that our current strategy is still off track, but we'll eventually get right (probably out of necessity).

I agree with all that...

[Ken White]

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...

He had the right idea but used some poor methodolgy to try to do what he thought needed to be done.

Lot of that going around...

That's a long way of saying that if you do not think Communism was and is dangerous, you have obviously missed what has happened to this country as a result of the actions and activities of some so-called Communists, their hangers on and collection of useful idiots.

If you do not think facets of Islamic belief, misapplied, are dangerous you may not have lost any good friends to those bizarre beliefs before 9/11, before Afghanistan and before Iraq.

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.

I don't totally agree with that but it too is as right as it is wrong. Question not answered, still, is how do you get that "legitimacy of government?" I have yet to see one that all involved believed was legitimate. In the unlikely event you were to plan and describe one that would be viewed by all as legitimate then comes the hard part. What, precisely, is your trusted mechanism? Even Canada has election fiddles...

And COIN is still a myth, a theory that needs to be parked in a museum...

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan. I know we see this from differing perspectives

No, really? Ah hadn't noticed...

Yes, I know we keep coming back to it, but it's an issue at the core of how we're trying to handle the current mess, and I'm not quite willing to let it go.

The idea that foreign fighters represent an insurgent populace at home is something that needs to be examined, and I'm not convinced that it stands up to examination. After all, an abundance of foreign fighters flocked to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets... were they also representatives of an insurgent populace? Fighting the Russians in Afghanistan seems an odd way of expressing discontent with American influence over the homeland. I'm not sure quite why you would say that foreign fighters indicate insurgency on the home front, rather than a relatively small number of young men driven by a potent mix of testosterone, religious fervor, and lack of anything better to do at home... a mix that has sent young men off to fight in wars of dubious purpose many times in the past (the Crusades might be cited as an example).

I agree with Bill, who said what I was trying to say in a good deal fewer words:

It is imperial hubris for us to attempt to “push” our values upon another country. What you see as illegitimate governments may in fact be legitimate in the eyes of the majority of their population. Just because a few thousand radicals who want to impose Shari’a law upon their fellow men are dissatisfied doesn’t equate to a popular revolt.

Regarding this...

(2) Also specficially address any nation considered an "Ally" or receiveing U.S foreign aid that is also listed as a major human rights violater and is possessed of a populace that is a major provider of AQ foreign fighters / terrorists. Include a plan that cuts aid to each of those countries by 50% per year until such time as they open negotiations with their own populaces to identify and address concerns; as well as to create mechanisms, logical and acceptable to them, to provide a reasonable and certain procedure for the populace to affect changes of governance short of insurgency.

In the case of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, this of course gets us exactly nowhere, because we don't give them any aid and they are not in any way dependent on us. Even if we had leverage, though... how do you think the populace of, say, Saudi Arabia would react if we demanded or even suggested that the Saudis need "a reasonable and certain procedure for the populace to affect changes of governance". I wouldn't expect any appreciation or gratitude. I'd expect them to tell us to mind our own damned business, amid a great deal of suspicion that our intention is to use that mechanism in some devious way to insert of Government that will be subject to our control, a suspicion that AQ will be all to eager to promote and exploit. AQ, after all, is agitating for more despotism, not less.

Whatever our actual intentions, I suspect that the policy you suggest will be perceived, even among its intended beneficiaries, as arrogant imposition, self-interested meddling, or both.

The notion of "dialogue with the populace" is I think hopelessly simplistic. Many of these populaces are extremely fractured and factionalized, and there is nothing even resembling consensus on who speaks for the populace or what policies are desired. What one faction sees as an irreducible minimum demand may be seen by another as an intolerable provocation. The problem in many cases is not that there is no dialogue, but that the dialogue has devolved into a screaming match, or a shootout.

You mentioned Algeria and Yemen... Algeria has an elected National Assembly with over 20 political parties represented. Yemen has what on paper appears to be a quite admirable set of democratic institutions. Of course these institutions don't work the way anyone would want them to. Your suggestion seems to assume that the Governments in question have the capacity to make things work, but don't choose to do it, and that we can force them to make things work by threatening to reduce aid. I doubt that's going to work, because the sad reality is that they have no idea how to make things work, and neither do we.

In Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states I really don't think there's any major popular demand for a mechanism to remove and replace Governments. These are very conservative countries, and there is a pervading fear that establishing such a mechanism would generate intense competition for position, and the result would be chaos. For better or worse, many in that part of the world fear chaos more than they fear despotism.

Certainly there was much discontent in SA during the 90s, driven by the combination of the oil glut and the highly visible US military presence. In many eyes these two phenomena were related: just as Americans tend to blame high oil prices as a conspiracy driven by the Saudis and the oil companies, Saudis tend to blame low oil prices on a conspiracy between Americans and oil companies. Despite prodigious efforts to exploit that discontent, UBL et al were never able to generate anywhere nearly enough support to drive an insurgency. Today the narrative of resentment from those days has dissolved almost completely under a rain of dollars: it's amazing what sloshing a few hundred billion around will do to mellow out a disgruntled populace.

I think it's dangerous to assume that AQ's attacks on us were a reactive phenomenon that was driven by our policies and can be undercut by a change in our policies, and that if we follow that assumption we can easily spend a great deal of effort in policies and actions that are not productive and may be counterproductive.

[Ken White]

The notion of "dialogue with the populace" is I think hopelessly simplistic. Many of these populaces are extremely fractured and factionalized, and there is nothing even resembling consensus on who speaks for the populace or what policies are desired...
. . .
I think it's dangerous to assume that AQ's attacks on us were a reactive phenomenon that was driven by our policies and can be undercut by a change in our policies, and that if we follow that assumption we can easily spend a great deal of effort in policies and actions that are not productive and may be counterproductive.

Two very important truths...

There may be one out there but I know of no nation where the population is monolithic as implied. Not Norway, not Singapore. Not even the Vatican...

As for AQ and a number of other "they hate us for what we are /were/ did..." That's very fallacious thinking. A lot of quite counterproductive effort is undertaken due to standing broad jumps at wrong conclusions...

[Bob's World]

No, really? Ah hadn't noticed...

Yes, I know we keep coming back to it, but it's an issue at the core of how we're trying to handle the current mess, and I'm not quite willing to let it go.

The idea that foreign fighters represent an insurgent populace at home is something that needs to be examined, and I'm not convinced that it stands up to examination. After all, an abundance of foreign fighters flocked to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets... were they also representatives of an insurgent populace? Fighting the Russians in Afghanistan seems an odd way of expressing discontent with American influence over the homeland. I'm not sure quite why you would say that foreign fighters indicate insurgency on the home front, rather than a relatively small number of young men driven by a potent mix of testosterone, religious fervor, and lack of anything better to do at home... a mix that has sent young men off to fight in wars of dubious purpose many times in the past (the Crusades might be cited as an example).

I agree with Bill, who said what I was trying to say in a good deal fewer words:



Regarding this...



In the case of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, this of course gets us exactly nowhere, because we don't give them any aid and they are not in any way dependent on us. Even if we had leverage, though... how do you think the populace of, say, Saudi Arabia would react if we demanded or even suggested that the Saudis need "a reasonable and certain procedure for the populace to affect changes of governance". I wouldn't expect any appreciation or gratitude. I'd expect them to tell us to mind our own damned business, amid a great deal of suspicion that our intention is to use that mechanism in some devious way to insert of Government that will be subject to our control, a suspicion that AQ will be all to eager to promote and exploit. AQ, after all, is agitating for more despotism, not less.

Whatever our actual intentions, I suspect that the policy you suggest will be perceived, even among its intended beneficiaries, as arrogant imposition, self-interested meddling, or both.

The notion of "dialogue with the populace" is I think hopelessly simplistic. Many of these populaces are extremely fractured and factionalized, and there is nothing even resembling consensus on who speaks for the populace or what policies are desired. What one faction sees as an irreducible minimum demand may be seen by another as an intolerable provocation. The problem in many cases is not that there is no dialogue, but that the dialogue has devolved into a screaming match, or a shootout.

You mentioned Algeria and Yemen... Algeria has an elected National Assembly with over 20 political parties represented. Yemen has what on paper appears to be a quite admirable set of democratic institutions. Of course these institutions don't work the way anyone would want them to. Your suggestion seems to assume that the Governments in question have the capacity to make things work, but don't choose to do it, and that we can force them to make things work by threatening to reduce aid. I doubt that's going to work, because the sad reality is that they have no idea how to make things work, and neither do we.

In Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states I really don't think there's any major popular demand for a mechanism to remove and replace Governments. These are very conservative countries, and there is a pervading fear that establishing such a mechanism would generate intense competition for position, and the result would be chaos. For better or worse, many in that part of the world fear chaos more than they fear despotism.

Certainly there was much discontent in SA during the 90s, driven by the combination of the oil glut and the highly visible US military presence. In many eyes these two phenomena were related: just as Americans tend to blame high oil prices as a conspiracy driven by the Saudis and the oil companies, Saudis tend to blame low oil prices on a conspiracy between Americans and oil companies. Despite prodigious efforts to exploit that discontent, UBL et al were never able to generate anywhere nearly enough support to drive an insurgency. Today the narrative of resentment from those days has dissolved almost completely under a rain of dollars: it's amazing what sloshing a few hundred billion around will do to mellow out a disgruntled populace.

I think it's dangerous to assume that AQ's attacks on us were a reactive phenomenon that was driven by our policies and can be undercut by a change in our policies, and that if we follow that assumption we can easily spend a great deal of effort in policies and actions that are not productive and may be counterproductive.

But as the airwaves and print are full of the same steady drum beat of a majority opinion that has us 8 years into a war, and strategcially worse off and an economy in tatters and a national reputation at arguably an all time low to show for it.

I could be wrong, its theory and I have no metrics to prove my case.

There are strong metrics however that the majority opinion is wrong.

(Oh, and 5 minutes of google research on foreign fighers and and insurgent movements will show you the clear connections that I speak to. And I have NEVER, EVER said we should impose our values on others, quite the contrary. In fact, I beat a steady drum that we need to stop the hubris, and stop trying to control every outcome, and to help enable populaces everywhere to enjoy their own self-determination, and that in so doing we will turn down the heat on a global security environment.)