I'm not the first one to suggest that the so-called "Anbar Awakening" is precisely the type of policy that invites blowback (read here for more about blowback) and I won't be the last.

Time will tell if the Awakening is as bad a move as many believe it is. Don' get me wrong, it's an improvment but is it thought out? One of the big problems with this administration is that is lives in the present. It wants only to look good now and doesn't care about consider what will happen down the road (long or short). It used to be that they could spin their error around using the media and their devotees like Fox News and conservative bloggers. now they'll just pass it along to the next administration.

Who ever the next president is will have plenty to deal with coming out of Iraq.

Retuning to blowback, this NYT article highlights one point: Blowback is not an American phenomon.

Here's a snip:

Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.

Makes you wonder if one day, 15 to 30 years down the road, there will be a 9/11-esque attack with roots in the Awakening. Much like 9/11 had root in our occupation of Saudi Arabia in 1990.

I hope the change that is in the air surrounding the 2008 general elections will apply to foreign policy.

Posted by Geoff

Labels: Anbar Awakening, blowback, Iraq, Pakistan

Sorry no links, you'll have to look these up in the library or some other database. A bibliography is available upon request.

Welcome Northampton visitors

After, five years, the memory of 11 September 2001 (9/11) is still present in the American -- and indeed the world -- conscience, although somewhat warped by various ideological lenses. In America, the events of 9/11 still emerge in political debate. It is used as a justification for the war in Iraq and covert and possibly illegal actions as often as it is used as a symbol of government failure. On the five year anniversary, left of center political pundit Jonathan Alter dreamed up an alternative world, parallel to reality, that charts the journey of President George W. Bush from 9/11 to today (Alter, p. 35). He envisioned a world where the US government was functioning in a bipartisan fashion and US popularity abroad was still high. Usama bin Laden (UBL) was killed and his top aides were captured, tried, and executed in a fair and timely fashion. There was a countrywide effort to use less oil -- which was then paid for with the once promised tax cuts. After evidence of torture surfaced, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was forced to resign and was replaced with a Democrat. In this fictional period, the events of 9/11 remained outside of politics. Finally, the push to attack Iraq -- after the non-imminence of its threat is realized and the cost of the occupation is calculated -- is never realized. In the final paragraph, Alter asks his readers to imagine if the opposite of this fictitious scenario was reality, which in Alter's opinion it is.

The unfortunate reality is that we are currently in a fierce but unconventional war against a devout, clever, and plentiful enemy. Our current approach -- the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (or NSCT) -- has made progress, but it has been determined inefficient by many experts. Alternative methods to enhance our nation's counterterrorism strategy are numerous, and improvements or additions are being called for more and more as time goes by. The remainder of this essay will analyze the "War on Terror" and offer selected additions or alternatives to the current strategy beginning with an operational definition of terrorism, a look at its various causes and followed by an overview of our present counterterrorism strategy. Using an array of indices, the next section will identify destructive counterterrorism methods and damaging policies or actions and their effects. Finally, selected alternatives to current methods will be discussed as ways to enhance our overall counterterrorism capabilities in the future. [note: This excerpt is the first half of a larger paper. The portion suggesting prescriptions or alternatives to current policy are not contained below, only the definitions and causes. ~GM]

Definition

For the purpose of this paper, terrorism will be considered in a limited form. While the goal is basically to eliminate the threat of terrorism altogether, from the Globe, once and for all; the reality is that our current counterterrorism strategy only seeks to limit the capabilities and range of terrorist entities to a tolerable level. It is the foremost responsibility of government to protect its citizens; therefore, this strategy and subsequent additions must consider the greatest threats to the nation as its foremost concern. In this spirit, this paper will deal with a precise definition of terrorism. These days there are multiple definitions of terrorism and everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion of the proper definition, "either ill or well informed" (Kegley, p. 7).

An expert from the 1970s classified terrorism in four categories: international (state supported), transnational (achieved by non-state actors), domestic (involving nationals of one state), and state (involving state actions within its borders) terrorism. This is a useful tool or beginning point, but as Kegley notes, the group of four has been morphing into two, or at most three, ever since the 70s (Kegley, p. 9). The globalizing world offers many advantages to an aspiring terrorist such as access to communications, information, and funding on the Internet. This, in response, often makes events of terrorism a global event. In fact, today acts of terrorism that would, under the 1970 model, be categorized in the domestic territory are "statistically rare" (Kegley, p. 9). Therefore, the counterterrorism critique and proposals outlined in this report concentrate on terrorist organizations operating worldwide with aspirations to attack the United States. The threat of domestic terrorism (such as abortion clinic bombings) will be ignored. It should be pointed out that terrorist cells working within the borders of the United States, owning citizenship or not, for foreign agents is not considered domestic. Furthermore, foreign domestic and state terrorism (such as 'narcoterrorism' in Central and South America or oppression from brutal states Iran or like pre-March 2003 Iraq) will be ignored if those events do not affect the United States directly (as 'narcoterrorism' likely does).

Henceforth, terrorism will be generically identified as a global phenomenon that crosses national boundaries and targets civilians and/or symbols in an effort to coerce or influence the politics of a government or similar institution and/or to instill a sense of fear in a given population (Kegley, p. 10). Brian Jenkins finalizes the identification of terrorism for the context of this paper as

...violence or the threat of violence ... frequently directed against civilian targets. The purposes are political. The actions are often carried out in a way that will achieve maximum publicity. The perpetrators are usually members of an organized group. There organizations are ... clandestine, but ... often claim credit for their attacks. ...the acts are intended to produce psychological effects beyond the immediate physical damage. (p. 17-18)

This approach is similar to the stated definition presented in the 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism which labeled the enemy as "...terrorism -- premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents" (p. 1). One noticeable difference from the proposed definition is its function as a protector of the citizens of the US and their interests which is not explicitly stated in the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. This distinction is pointed out here because the author is one of many that believe our actions, internationally and in defense of assets not meeting the criteria highlighted above, in many cases have made us less safe and/or made our allies less safe.

Causes

An unfortunate reality of politics in the United States is that the underlying issues that cause terror are of little consequence. By claiming the moral high ground and demonizing the terrorist, little time or study has been devoted to the cause of this type of violence (Badey, p. 17). This mentality, similar to the label of 'moral clarity' affixed to many conservatives by Peter Beinart (p. 121), robs us of important tools that are of great importance when fighting an enemy such as terrorism, especially when these determined causes are a reaction to unnecessary actions easily addressed by government or a historical error that can be corrected and/or avoided in the future. Anne-Marie Slaughter observes that one reason that we are losing the war on terror is that "...we are treating the symptoms and not the cause" of terrorism ("Terror," p. 51).

Historian Karen Armstrong looks to the past for causes of terrorism resulting from historical events (Armstrong, p. 18-21). In the context of the Middle East, as recently as a hundred years ago, leading Muslim intellectuals, in large numbers, held respect and admiration for the West. This changed in the 1900s in the wake of numerous events such as the broken promises regarding the British and French rule of Syria and Palestine, the creation of the Israeli state, and the extraordinary backing it receives from the US. Formal or tacit support for tyrants such as Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in Iran in the mid 1900s, Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the 80s, and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the Saudi royal family today. These actions resonate in the Muslim world differently than they do in the average American conscience. Generations of Muslims feel as if they are of no importance to or that Islam is threatened by the West (in forms including secularism and religion). They, in turn, look towards Islam. There a few find a militant interpretation of Islam and become terrorists.

Moving ahead, Chalmers Johnson convincingly warns of "blowback" from events similar to those listed previously. "Blowback", put plainly by Johnson in his post-9/11 introduction added to his 2000 work Blowback, "...is another way of saying a nation reaps what it sows." A straightforward manifestation of this is: "[t]he unintended consequences of American policies and acts in country X leads to a bomb at an American embassy in country Y or a dead American in country Z" (p. xi). The historical realities of American foreign policy net a lengthy list of potentially hostile states that have been on the receiving end of US policy. The theory of blowback was confirmed when one of al-Qaeda's primary rationales and recruitment tools was the presence of US forces in the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, all of which are referred to as the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed) during the 1991 Gulf War and thereafter (Scheuer, p.13). Johnson observes that in 2003 the US did remove most of its forces from Saudi Arabia; however, the same troops were relocated in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Republics making the gesture as meaningless as it was late (Johnson, p. xv). It should be said that not all blowback is terrorism. For the intents and purposes of this report it can be said that most terrorism is blowback.

Michael Scheuer uses his considerable credentials and builds on the blowback theory in his analysis of the cause of terrorism. Speaking from a position concerned only with UBL and al-Qaeda as a senior US Intelligence official, Scheuer concludes that a combination of four issues fuel UBL and al-Qaeda (Scheuer, p. x-xi). First, the US military is our only face in the Muslim world, and it will remain so as long as current policies are maintained. Second, these policies and other actions involving Muslims fuel al-Qaeda, not our American values, liberty, or democracy or the Muslim world's failure at modernization. UBL uses this in his messages to justify his and al-Qaeda's actions to the Muslim world. Third, the US addiction to oil -- therefore part of US foreign policy -- causes Washington to support unpopular leaders in many oil producing Muslim countries that Islamic militants like UBL and al-Qaeda seek to destroy. Lack of any progress in finding alternatives to this addiction ensure that this process will persist indefinitely. Finally, the combination of current policies, past events and other real-world realities make the notion that Islam is under attack popular, and perhaps valid. This then makes a call for defensive jihad popular among affected Muslims (Scheuer, p. 17). Scheuer concludes that UBL and most Islamic militants are motivated by "...their love for Allah and their hatred for a few, specific U.S. policies and actions they believe are damaging -- and threatening to destroy -- the things they love."

On a more mental note, Dr. Paul B. Davis projects that the mentality that is present in members of extremists groups has two consistent qualities (p. 22-23). First, a high level of resentment and self-righteousness is present in terrorists It is argued that contemporary terrorists often feel victimized by outside forces and therefore feel justified in victimizing others. Second, the incorporation of fundamentalist/extremist religious doctrine inspires, motivates, and justifies terrorist acts.

There are many causes of terrorism. However two traits exist in most interpretations present above. Those traits are extremist religious teachings and beliefs and foreign policy decision emanating from the West. While one is largely out of our control, the other can easily be addressed and then altered or eliminated.

Posted by Geoff

Blowback is best defined as the resentment created by X on Y, causing some reaction by Y to X.

So assuming the rioting French are mostly Arab. Could this be a problem not of a few youths getting killed running from the cops, but surfacing anger at a western government for its policies (the French) and what is perceived, by Muslims, as western aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan that aims to weaken the Arab world? Protestors protesting the deaths of two youths don't shout "It's Baghdad here" and "jihad" do they? That's somewhat odd. Of course a prominent politician publicly saying essentially, 'bring it on' doesn't work well in the Muslim world, but I sense that there is a bigger picture here.

Posted by Geoff

Nick Thompson wrote a great Op-Ed in the NY Times early last week that I've just now had a chance to blog about (I was on vacation). It basically explores a strategy meant for the Cold War that would be a useful contribution to our current War on Terrorism. Many of its declarations are a common topic of discussion here at American Entropy. Some background first. The X article was a foreign policy prescription from the late 40s. It appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs and was later accredited to George Kennan (aka "X"). Kennan was the State Department’s policy planning chief at the time and wrote anonymously. Kennan's article was obfuscated and distorted from his intended meaning. Alas, he was incorrectly recognized as the father of the containment strategy; a title he denied. His basic argument was that the Soviet Union and its form of oppressive communist ideology was self-defeating; it offered nothing but oppression. Therefore, the United States could simply outlast it. Kennan warned that engaging the USSR and Communism, especially militarily, would offer nothing more than short-term political backslapping in the best case scenario. However, the mid- to long-term consequences were actually benefiting the USSR. An early version of blowback. Obviously our foreign policy in the post-X article years went awry as we escalated tensions with the USSR and Communism: Arms race, Vietnam, Latin America, etc... With that point I hope you see where this all comes together in the current context (the WoT).

Here is a cliping of Nick's NYT piece:

Today we face vastly different challenges from those the nation confronted right after World War II. Our enemy is dispersed; there’s a constant threat of suicide attacks; nuclear weapons can be hidden in suitcases instead of dropped from airplanes. Still, when it comes to overarching strategy, Kennan’s desired but never executed policy from 60 years ago offers profound wisdom for today.

Kennan’s insight was that a long-term, complex struggle wasn’t best judged in terms of winning or losing. Communism wasn’t something we could immediately conquer. The same holds true for Al Qaeda, a movement that, like Soviet communism, offers its subjects oppression and poverty. Time is on our side — particularly if we act in a way that doesn’t inflame our enemies’ pride and anger and win them new recruits.

Kennan’s insistence on a political strategy, rather than a military one, makes more sense now than it did when he published his essay. Applied today, that advice would entail spending more time and money building up our Muslim allies. The Center for Strategic and International Studies reports that only about $900 million of the $10 billion we’ve given Pakistan since 2002 has gone to health, education and democracy promotion. Most of the rest has gone to the military. The Bush administration has recently taken steps to change this ratio. But Kennan, one of the authors of the Marshall Plan, would have wanted the numbers to be closer to the reverse.

A 21st-century rendering of X’s vision of containment would involve the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, an unambiguous renunciation of torture and an abandonment of the notion that our legal and moral norms don’t apply to the current struggle. Kennan believed we gave our opponents a propaganda victory each time we acted in a manner unfitting of our ideals.

“To avoid destruction,” Kennan concluded the X article, “the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.”

We can’t know for sure how his recommended, wholly political version of containment would have fared in the cold war. But we do know that a militant foreign policy didn’t lead to nuclear war and did, eventually, help bring about the collapse of Soviet communism. We also know that a strong offensive policy has yet to succeed against Al Qaeda.

Kennan died two years ago at the age of 101. One of his last public statements was a critique, in 2002, of the looming Iraq invasion. War, he said, was too unpredictable, and this one wasn’t worth it. As he wrote to Lippmann six decades ago, “Let us find health and vigor and hope, and the diseased portion of the earth will fall behind of its own doing. For that we need no aggressive strategic plans, no provocation of military hostilities, no showdowns.”

[UPDATE] I'm not really prescribing a "wait them out" strategy (and I don't know why it was quoted that way, those words don't appear in the post!) but a less confrontational strategy. More targeted special ops work, and less (unilateral) invasions and belligerence.

We were successful in Afghanistan using the Int'l Community, regional connections (including Iran) and special forces. In Iraq, we threw that success out the window and did exactly the opposite (though minor special forces were used). And now we are paying dearly for it.

Radical militant Islam has less to offer than Communism did. But we enable the spread of it with arrogant foreign policy and misguided doctrines. Had we sat back and/or used the Afghanistan model who knows where we would be today. Maybe (likely) not it Iraq and/or not in a worse position than we were in after 9/11.

Posted by Geoff

Labels: FP, WoT

Finally a non-biased think tank (although some of you may say it is a biased think tank because it doesn't back up your belief system) has forcefully stated that reality that military might alone will not win the war in Iraq or more importantly the War on Terrorism. In fact, these enhanced efforts to further militarize the theaters could have (and I would argue have had) an adverse affect on our stated goals. This is an assertion I've mentioned many times in the past and hold on to today more than ever.

From this mornings International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) general press release:

The IISS in the 2007 Military Balance again analyses the challenges of complex irregular warfare, this time assessing the psychological component. Our judgement is that military planning procedures need to incorporate so called ‘influence activities’ as an integral part of pre-deployment preparation for complex warfare missions. Without this deeper perception of the mission environment, operations will lack the necessary ingredient for long-term success.

Reuters reports:

"But Western militaries have shown insufficient capability in their own attempts to carry out information and psychological operations, its annual report, "The Military Balance," said.
...
"The psychological effect at home is one of military success and may generate political support. In the theater of operations the opposite may be true, with every publicly announced kill delivering more willing recruits to the cause."
...
The IISS said more attention needed to be paid to finding out what really mattered to the local population, and using cultural and psychological understanding to undermine support for insurgent movements.

"Units being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are not being provided with the training to enable them to have a real, positive psychological impact on the population in their area of operations," it said.

In short, we need to understand the enemy, we need to appeal to the people, and we need to quit placing military might above politics as soon as possible. We will loose the battle for the hearts and minds and the War on Terrorism if we ignore the realities of blowback and the adverse effects of our foreign policy. You can say that you will not give up cheap oil, or bow to the terrorists, or whatever talking point you want to use...

But I want to limit the recruitment and appeal terrorists have currently. I want to win this war. You are not going to win this war with military might, but you will prolong it. And ultimately you will be an accessory to failure.

Posted by Geoff

I few days ago I posed the question, why did the IDF bomb all of Lebanon, including civilian infrastructure that was in no way strategic, when the immediate threat was Hezbollah and their missile embankments?

I think Israel took a page out of the US book and tried to "shock and awe" the Lebanese into submission for a variety of political goal. If so it has failed again. "This will be a disaster for Israel. Nasrallah will be seen in the world as someone who fired thousands of Katyushas on Israeli communities for weeks and came out unscathed." says Moshe Arens is worried. The man who was Three term defense minister for Israel. If you would have asked anyone who knows anything, they would probably laugh at the idea that Hezbollah would be able to target Israel unabated for 14 days. Had the Israeli military targeted the actual targets in this campaign, Hezbollah's military strength might be all but gone and, most importantly, not firing at Israel. The above link goes into detail about whether or not this criticism if justified, it says that this was not planed in advance. How could this situation not have been planed for? Anyone buying that?

From Hezbollah's view, the Israeli attack was a surprise. They didn't even exclusively bomb Hezbollah and they were caught off guard? Imagine if the Israeli forces had taken out the rocket launch pads? This war would be completely different if not over. They would have been able to severely weaken Hezbollah and opened the door for a UN or NATO backed Lebanese force with a government in Beirut that still - you know - roads, factories, ... If that avenue failed, then take out the Hezbollah positions in Beirut. (note: I realize that bridges and other connections to Iran and Syria are strategic, but there is a line that was crossed here.)

But instead we have a prolonged engagement in the region with rockets and missiles going both ways and the tacit approval by the US to keep it up for another two weeks. It is things like this that create blowback for Western nations. Picture it now, somewhere in the Muslim world there's a terrorist being born.

Posted by Geoff