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Air & Space Power Journal - Spring 2005 

What Kind of War?

Strategic Perspectives on the War on Terrorism

Col John D. Jogerst, USAF

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgement that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature.
—Carl von Clausewitz

After three years of our global war against transnational terrorists, the strategy of the United States and its coalition partners in the civilized world continues to evolve.¹ Ruling regimes that supported terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq have been destroyed. Terrorist movements in the Philippines and elsewhere are under attack. Individual terrorists have been arrested in nations around the world. The United States has published a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism that calls for “a strategy of direct and continuous action against terrorist groups, the cumulative effect of which will initially disrupt, over time degrade, and ultimately destroy the terrorist organizations.”² Yet, the national debate continues over the characteristics of, appropriate strategy for, and ultimate US goal in this war on terrorism.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001, various commentators characterized this conflict as an entirely new type of war.³ The global reach and integration of terrorist organizations, the possibility of their use of weapons of mass destruction, and the absence of a nation-state as an adversary seemed unprecedented. Our National Strategy for Combating Terrorism recognizes that this “struggle against international terrorism is different from any other war in our history. We will not triumph solely or even primarily through military might. We must fight terrorist networks, and all those who support their efforts to spread fear around the world, using every instrument of national power—diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, financial, information, intelligence, and military.”⁴

Applying these instruments of national power in a coherent fashion requires a unified perspective—a definition of the conflict as well as a specific adversary—that applies from the tactical battlefield to the highest levels of US policy making. The academic and popular debate has coalesced around three candidates for such a perspective. One camp sees the conflict as a “clash of civilizations” inherent in our multicultural and globally connected world. Another perceives it as part of the never-ending task in a civilized, global society to root out and destroy evil elements that prey on that society. To a third camp, the current war on terrorism represents a new, wider phase in an ongoing civil war for control of the Arab Islamic world.

Even though careful analysis affirms the validity of the third perspective, the global arena and terror tactics of the insurgents blur our view. Our frame of reference for the war on terrorism has both immediate and long-term implications for US strategy and force planning. Each of these perspectives presents the United States with a very different set of strategic choices.

The Clash of Civilizations

In his article “The Clash of Civilizations?” and subsequent book on the same subject, Samuel Huntington describes the future of conflict not in terms of competition between nation-states for resources and influence, but in terms of friction between the world’s great civilizations.⁵ In the past, members of different civilizations had either no contact or only intermittent contact with each other. Conflicts largely occurred between members of the same civilization who fought for local control of territory, population, or influence. This situation changed with the rise of the great Western empires, whose superior technology allowed them to dominate other civilizations; members of Western civilization also conducted large-scale warfare against each other. The end of the Cold War seemingly brought an end to warfare within Western civilization but also removed restraints on conflict between other members of the now closely connected web of world civilizations.

In this new phase of competition, Huntington expects fundamental conflicts to arise from cultural differences between major civilizations, described as Western Christian, orthodox Christian, Islamic, African animist, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, and Japanese. Conflicts occur on the “fault lines” between these cultures, where matters of basic cultural identity and values replace international geopolitical issues that previously fueled core state conflicts.⁶

Using Huntington’s framework, one sees the conflict between Islam and the West as a continuation of 1,400 years of competition between two expansionist and universalist cultures similar in their missionary views (to the extent that they represent one true faith and have a duty to convert all “unbelievers”).⁷ Their monotheism makes it difficult to assimilate additional deities and leads them to perceive the world in dualistic terms. Although for both, the world is a product of “God’s design,” which they have a duty to fulfill, the Muslim concept of Islam as a way of life subsumes religion and politics, whereas Western Christianity separates the practice of religion from secular state governance.

A variety of forums has endorsed this perspective of the war on terrorism as a clash of civilizations—the fourth world war. Writing in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, Dr. Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University describes this war as a “contest for the free and moderate governance in the Muslim world.”⁸ Speaking before a Restoration Weekend Symposium in 2002, James Woolsey, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), built upon Dr. Cohen’s thesis, summarizing the conflict neatly in cultural terms: “We’re hated because of freedom of speech, because of freedom of religion, because of our economic freedom, because of our equal—or at least almost equal treatment of women—because of all the good things that we do.”⁹ One finds a more scholarly summation of the cultural conflict between Islam and the West in the writings of Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University. In articles spanning the past decade, Dr. Lewis identifies the cause as a fundamental conflict between Islam’s triumphant vision of past conquests and its current political and economic marginalization.¹⁰

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have made similar statements, casting the conflict as an apocalyptic global clash. In an interview that took place in 1999, bin Laden describes his war: “Let us say that there are two parties to the conflict: The first party is world Christianity, which is allied with Zionist Jewry and led by the United States, Britain, and Israel; while the second party is the Muslim world.”¹¹ This consistent message echoes his earlier comment that “this war will not only be between the people of the two sacred mosques and the Americans, but it will be between the Islamic world and the Americans and their allies because this war is a new crusade led by America against the Islamic nations.”¹² The idea of a grand clash of civilizations—a war pitting Islam against the West—serves these groups as a rallying cry. From this perspective, both sides focus on fundamental cultural differences -between Western and Islamic societies and imply that success in this war lies in changing (i.e., defeating) the other.

If we accept this framework for the war on terrorism, we must then define our objectives within that framework. In this clash, each civilization’s goal calls for changing (effectively destroying) or containing the other. These objectives apply whether one takes a realist position (the other poses a threat that must be destroyed or contained) or an idealist position (the other must accept “right” values and norms of behavior). Building a strategy requires us to define the ways in which we employ our available means to achieve the chosen objective—our ends.

Destroying or conquering another culture or group of nations comprising that culture implies changing the ruling regimes that are the expressions of that culture in the international system of nation-states. This stance assumes that we have ruled out physical annihilation of the culture and its population as incompatible with the values of our own culture. New regimes, either sympathetic to the West or directly controlled by it, must then change the societies they rule. History includes abundant examples of how one can change regimes, although in most cases such action does little to alter the underlying culture if the population is preserved. The British example in India is instructive, as is their colonial experience in Iraq. The colonization of the Americas did change the preexisting cultures, but the native population was virtually eliminated and replaced with—or dominated by—Western Christian colonists.

Employing our available diplomatic, informational, military, and economic tools to change Islamic regimes would prove difficult. Our experiment with diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s illustrates the extent of the difficulty. Despite almost unanimous, worldwide diplomatic pressure and a decade of near-embargo, it still took significant military action to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Fighting a war against a “civilization” will require a strategy of confrontation and conquest. Although problematic, the West could in fact wage and win such a war. Certainly, it would be costly and require large numbers of troops, together with high-tech military forces. It would also entail a significant period of occupation to establish control over the population and change its behavior through indoctrination and education.

Even though Operations Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom demonstrated the ability of Western high-tech militaries to win the battles, their aftermath has taught us that ensuring stability and rebuilding societies require a great deal of manpower. Even with substantial effort, it remains to be seen whether the West can win the information battle and undo the effects of years of ideological conditioning in the Islamic schools (madrassas) and the regimen of five daily prayers in the mosques. One has doubts about whether an external informational campaign could significantly change the structure of the closed and self-contained culture of Islam.

Containing the Islamic states presents an even more difficult task. Containment, which implies a boundary within which one controls the enemy, requires building a strong coalition to create and maintain that boundary. The West successfully contained the Soviet Union but only in the face of an immediate threat to coalition nations’ survival and with the legacy of World War II military alliances on which to build. Neither is available today. More than likely, the military potential of the Islamic nations, even including present and future nuclear powers, will never reach the magnitude of the Soviet Red Army.

Economic containment of Islam represents an even greater problem. Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Islamic states play a crucial role in the world economy. Many prospective members of an anti-Islamic coalition depend upon Islamic nations for oil supplies. Saudi Arabia alone possesses about one-quarter of the world’s proven petroleum reserves. The economic disruption in the West caused by losing these resources would make the marshalling of popular support for containment extremely unlikely in the absence of a dire, immediate threat.

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to cast the Islamic nations as a significant threat. Their military forces are small, and their reach is limited. Furthermore, they have a vested interest in supporting the West as a customer for their oil and as the ultimate source of their wealth. In fact, members of the US-led Global Counterterrorist Coalition include Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan.¹³

Most problematically, a containment strategy only postpones the conflict. The essence of containment is stasis—preventing open warfare while either waiting for the adversary’s internal conditions to change or pursuing nonmilitary competition. Without effective military or economic options, we can only wait for an ideological change within the adversary’s population. The self-contained nature and demonstrated cultural stability of Islam indicate that such a wait would be a long one. Meanwhile, containment condemns the adversary population to isolation and misery, strengthens ruling elites by providing an external enemy to blame for problems, and sows the seeds of future conflict.

Huntington’s thesis specifies where wars will likely occur, but it certainly does not mandate warfare. It posits friction along the fault lines between civilizations but does not preclude cooperation across those lines. Several writers have taken Huntington to task on his identification of culture as the driving force for future conflict rather than local issues of political power, economics, and ideology.¹⁴ In fact the US national security strategy explicitly rejects the war on terrorism as a clash of civilizations: “The enemy is not a single political regime or person or religion or ideology. The enemy is terrorism—premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents.”¹⁵

Our National Strategy for Combating Terrorism refines this assertion by focusing on fighting the terrorist networks, thus casting the conflict as a fight between terrorists and all civilized nations. Rhetorically separated from Islamic society as a whole, terrorists are evil, misguided opportunists who exploit popular discontent and use it to fuel their radical agenda. We have no intention of fighting a war of conquest against Islam.

Al-Qaeda versus the West

Although we call this a war on terrorism, wars are fought against specific adversaries—not actions. Our foes in this war are variously identified as “Muslim radicals,” “Islamic extremists,” or more simply, “evildoers.” Commentators identify radical Islam as the breeding ground for these individuals and cite the peaceful tenets of Islam as evidence that terrorists do not represent the Arab or Islamic people, whose governments do not openly support terrorist groups. Authorities in over 90 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, have arrested members of al-Qaeda and associated groups.¹⁶

Jamal Khashoggi, editor in chief of the English-language Arab News in Saudi Arabia, provides one argument from this perspective, pointing out the shame that bin Laden has brought to his prominent family, his lack of standing as an Islamic scholar, and his violation of Islam’s ban on shedding innocent human blood.¹⁷ Nevertheless, according to an abundance of reporting, al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups enjoy widespread support throughout the Islamic world. Steven Emerson—expert on terrorism, director of the Investigative Project, and author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living among Us—testified before Congress that,

using an elaborate network of mosques, schools, “charitable” and “humanitarian” organization[s], and even official diplomatic facilities, Saudi Arabia has for years fostered the growth and spread of a militant doctrinal interpretation of Islam. The ideology of Wahhabism has been exported not only throughout the Middle East but throughout the world resulting in the indoctrination of anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-western hatred among new generations of militant Islamic youth.

Yet, he cautions that

it is imperative to point out at the outset that the terrorism of Osama bin Laden and the extremism of Wahhabism do not equal Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not tethered to terrorism or extremism but rather seek a peaceful co-existence like members of other religious denominations. Rather it is only a small Islamic extremist minority that seeks to impose its views on the rest of the Muslim world.¹⁸

The terrorists themselves offer support for this view of a war against the West. The stated goal of bin Laden and al-Qaeda involves ousting the Western-led globalized system from the “Islamic world” as a way of “correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general, and the land of the two Holy Places in particular.”¹⁹ These comments refer to the loss of territory in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the liberation of Kuwait by Western forces, the continued presence of those forces on the Arabian peninsula, and the downturn in Middle Eastern economic fortunes.²⁰

Bin Laden openly articulates al-Qaeda’s commitment to violence in his “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” released in 1996.²¹ Moreover, an al-Qaeda training manual captured during a raid in Britain graphically reveals that organization’s intentions: “Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They are established as they [always] have been—by pen and gun—by word and bullet—by tongue and teeth.”²² Thus, the terrorists wish to coerce the West into withdrawing from the Arabian peninsula and from Palestine. On a larger scale, they call for the forceful establishment of Islamic governments that reject Western contacts and influence.

If this is the war we face, we must establish a goal of capturing or killing the members of these terrorist groups, as well as deterring them from acts of violence and preventing future recruitment. Paul K. Davis and Brian Michael Jenkins see terrorists as part of a complete system, each element having unique characteristics and avenues of influence (fig. 1). Building a worldwide strategy to defeat terrorists requires dealing appropriately with each of these parts and integrating diplomatic, informational, military, and economic measures. Such action, reflected in the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, will more likely resemble a law-enforcement operation than a war:

 

The United States and its partners will defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries; leadership; command, control, and communications; material support; and finances. . . .

We will deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by ensuring other states accept their responsibilities to take action against these international threats within their sovereign territory. . . .

We will diminish the underlying conditions that terrorist[s] seek to exploit by enlisting the inter-national community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk. . . .

Most importantly, we will defend the United States, our citizens, and our interests at home and abroad by both proactively protecting our homeland and extending our defenses to ensure we identify and neutralize the threat as early as possible (emphasis in original).²³

The US strategy details the kinds of activities and campaigns necessary to defeat terrorists. For military operators, the most significant concept involves an inversion of the normal intelligence-operational relationship. In conventional military operations, enemy forces are generally easier to find than to destroy. Relatively large military formations and their equipment usually operate in clear terrain and emit a variety of signatures subject to interception and location through technical means. One can then marshal superior force to destroy a sufficiently large proportion of the adversary’s combat power and defenses to neutralize unit cohesion and effectiveness. The defeated unit then withdraws, scatters, or is captured.

In contrast, terrorists operate as individuals or in small groups buried within a larger population, producing small signatures easily lost in the noise of a global society. They can conduct their activities by using couriers and move as individuals to avoid generating a signature. Finding them requires an extensive intelligence effort to make the most of what little information the terrorists let slip. Indeed, human intelligence may be the only way to gather actionable information prior to terrorist actions. After locating the terrorists, one can capture or destroy them with relatively little force, making sure to account for all of them; otherwise, they can quickly regroup and carry on their attacks.

Military operations in the war on terrorism will not require substantial increases in conventional forces. Rather, the military contribution should focus on gathering intelligence. We must not underestimate the magnitude of the effort necessary to capture the terrorists’ faint signature, the need for human intelligence, and the critical nature of interagency coordination. Traditional military operations will likely limit themselves to providing mobility and small raiding forces. Major combat would come into play only to deal with large concentrations of terrorists or states that support them. Those military operations should couch their objectives in law-enforcement terms: to bring in every terrorist, dead or alive. We should solicit assistance from other organizations and countries to provide information and undertake development and nation building in areas where terrorists breed.

This perspective stems from the assumption that this war is between terrorists and Western nations, specifically the United States. If so, the terrorists are waging a war against the United States, its ideals, and the inter-national system that supports it. They seek to change specific Western behaviors, win over the world to their point of view, and ultimately destroy Western civilization. However, statements of the terrorists themselves bring this view into question. The leadership of al-Qaeda is well educated and familiar with Western culture. Is it likely they thought the attacks of 9/11 would lead to fundamental changes in Western culture and governance? Or is it more likely they designed the attacks to provoke a Western response that they could exploit to gain support from another audience? Osama bin Laden doesn’t care how his ideological message plays in Peoria. His objectives and target audience lie within the Arab Islamic world. Specifically, a review of the history and rhetoric of Islamic terrorist groups leads one to the conclusion that they constitute an active insurgency waging a civil war. If this is the case, then the fight is between progressive and fundamentalist elements for control of the Islamic world.

Civil War in the (Arab)
Islamic World

The terrorists’ statements and actions are consistent with one of the oldest forms of war—insurgency—but conducted on a global stage. Their objective is not mindless violence, revenge, or profit; rather, they see themselves as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict.”²⁴ Their loosely organized but effective leadership under the al-Qaeda banner follows a defi-nite ideology that influences their strategy and base of support as they work toward their goal of replacing the current governments of the Arab world with an Islamic caliphate.²⁵ The terrorists’ base of support consists of a widespread, well-organized network of individuals, religious and government officials, offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement, and local dissenting groups.

The founders and senior members of al-Qaeda have their roots in Islamic nationalist movements exemplified by the Muslim Brother-hood, established in Egypt in 1928 and closely related to the Saudi Wahhabi fundamentalist movement.²⁶ Founded in reaction to the colonial domination of Islamic nations, the brother-hood seeks to achieve national independence and establish Islamic governments in new nations. It has spawned numerous splinter groups and continues to exploit popular discontent to advance its cause.²⁷ Since the withdrawal of the colonial powers, the brotherhood has directed its efforts against ruling Arab regimes, seeking participation if possible—and acting in violent opposition if not.

A close reading of the terrorists’ own pronouncements reveals their focus on the Arabian peninsula. They reserve their bitterest invective and condemnation for the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Concerning the problems within Saudi Arabia, bin Laden writes, “They [the people] even believe that this situation is a curse put on them by Allah for not objecting to the oppressive and illegitimate behaviour and measures of the ruling regime: Ignoring the divine Shari’ah law; depriving people of their legitimate rights; allowing the American to occupy the land of the two Holy Places; imprisonment, unjustly, of the sincere scholars.” He appeals directly to the Saudi security forces for action, declaring that

the regime had reversed these [Islamic] principles and their understanding, humiliating the Ummah [community of Islam] and disobeying Allah. Half a century ago the rulers promised the Ummah to regain the first Qiblah [literally, direction of prayer; early in his career the Prophet faced the mosque in Jerusalem to pray], but fifty years later [a] new generation arrived and the promises have been changed; Al-Aqsa Mosque [the “Dome of the Rock” in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount] [was] handed over to the Zionists and the wounds of the Ummah [are] still bleeding there. At the time when the Ummah has not regained the first -Qiblah and the rout[e] of the journey of the Prophet (Allah’s Blessings and Salutations may be on him), and despite . . . all of the above, the Saudi regime had stunt[ed] the Ummah in the remaining sanctities, the Holy city of Makka and the mosque of the Prophet (Al-Masjid An-Nabawy), by calling the Christians[’] army to defend the regime. The crusaders were permitted to be in the land of the two Holy Places. Not surprisingly though, the King himself wore the cross on his chest.²⁸

Robert Baer, a 21-year veteran of the CIA and a Middle East expert, captures the dynamic of this insurgency in his article “The Fall of the House of Saud,” arguing that the ruling regime in Saudi Arabia has forfeited its legitimacy. A repressive monarchy that offers no meaningful participation in government to its citizens, the house of Saud lost its credentials as defender of the holy places within Islamic culture because of widely reported corruption, moral lapses, failure to liberate Palestine, and close dependence on the United States. Finally, a combination of population growth, low oil prices, and spending by the royal family has decreased annual per capita income in Saudi Arabia from $28,600 in 1981 to $6,200 in 2001.²⁹ Extravagant spending has become a particularly sore point; one prince, for -example, reportedly spent $4.6 billion on a palace and theme park complex outside Riyadh. The amount of money diverted to support the royal family would make Saudi Arabia the number-one kleptocracy on anyone’s list—the house of Saud makes no pretense that oil revenue belongs to anyone other than itself. State funding consists of what remains after the payment of royal stipends to an estimated 10,000–12,000 princes.³⁰

Al-Qaeda’s appeal within Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world rests on its promise of reform through a return to the fundamental tenets of Islam rather than the protracted work of building representative governments in Islamic nations. Accordingly, bin Laden postures himself as a Middle Eastern Robin Hood, living a modest life of service while “defending the poor and the downtrodden against a distant tyrant and his nearby henchmen.”³¹ In “Islam and the West” and “The Politics of Rage,” Fareed Zakaria outlines the terrorists’ appeal. A growing young Islamic population has become politically and economically frustrated in the face of nonparticipatory governments across the Arab world, widespread corruption, mismanagement of state resources, and a global civilization that supports the status quo. Their message deeply steeped in history, the terrorists offer these youths a return to “traditional” Islamic values and the glories of the thirteenth century, when Arab Muslim armies swept across Africa, Asia, and Southern Europe. They have made the call for renewed Islamic expansion their rallying cry.³²

So, what does all this mean? Insurgents use terrorist tactics in a civil war waged against—and aimed at replacing—”illegitimate” Muslim regimes. As Lee Harris explains, the West’s only importance lies in serving as a prop in the insurgents’ campaign:

The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation—in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—but entirely because they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?³³

This manipulation of symbols and perception is characteristic of an insurgency. Since the insurgents cannot win conventional battles and hold territory, they seek other avenues to achieve victories. Ultimately, they hope to persuade the population to cease supporting the existing government (i.e., destroy its legitimacy) and instead cast their lot with the insurgency.

Government legitimacy, the prize in any civil war, depends upon many factors: an acceptable balance of material well-being and security, meaningful participation in governance, and cultural consistency. The side that best meets these needs will gain popular support. Dr. Gordon H. McCormick of the Naval Postgraduate School uses a government--people-insurgents triangle to illustrate this fundamental conflict (fig. 2).³⁴ Insurgents seek to break the government’s link with the people by demonstrating its inability to govern. Attacks on government officials and supporters reveal the regime’s impotence while strikes on economic targets undermine its ability to provide for the material needs of the population. Many insurgent groups offer competing services—both economic assistance and a “shadow” government—to begin actively replacing the government and strengthen their links with the people. One finds evidence of such activity in widely reported ties between terrorist organizations and Islamic “charities,” as well as al-Qaeda’s origin within charities that not only recruited fighters for the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, but also provided benefits to veterans of that conflict. For its part, the government seeks to separate insurgents from the populace by attacking the former or relocating and protecting the latter. At the same time, the government must address grievances that gave rise to the insurgency.

If the terrorists are insurgents waging civil war within the Islamic world, what is the appropriate strategy—and who must execute it? Defeating an insurgency requires us to identify and destroy the enemy “soldiers” as well as attack the insurgents’ ideological foundations, support structure, and underlying conditions that give rise to and sustain them. Defeating that wider system; destroying the terrorists’ source of new recruits, support, and sanctuary; and returning the enemy’s fighters peacefully to their societies are necessary conditions for victory in this war.

Although a well-studied subject, counter-insurgency is not well understood. Simply recognizing that terrorists are waging a global insurgency yields the most important doctrinal insights: conventional military operations cannot dominate our final strategy for victory, and only within the Muslim world can we win the battle. That is, only the indigenous government can win the struggle for popular legitimacy—not an outside power. One finds detailed US doctrine for counterinsurgency in US Army directives on foreign internal defense, the focus of which is internal defense and development (IDAD)—the full range of measures taken by a nation to promote its growth and protect itself from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. IDAD concentrates on building viable institutions—political, economic, military, and social—that respond to the needs of the society.³⁵

These definitions, focusing on security and development from within the threatened society, must shape every aspect of our strategy. The role of the United States or any external power in an IDAD strategy is to advise, train, and assist indigenous forces in establishing government control within their borders. The critical, unstated assumption in this doctrine is that the supported indigenous government can gain and maintain legitimacy.³⁶ Whereas a short-term perspective focuses on finding and defeating the insurgents, a complete strategy recognizes the primacy of the political, economic, and social aspects of the conflict.

In IDAD, purely military operations should provide a secure environment in which balanced development can occur. Initial US operations in Afghanistan served this function, destroying the Taliban and al-Qaeda armies and forcing them out of the population centers. However, military operations should never become independent actions aimed solely at destroying insurgent combat forces and their base areas. Military operations must remain part of a synchronized effort to gain broader goals.³⁷

The counterinsurgency campaign within the IDAD program takes the form of three over-lapping—sometimes simultaneous—phases. In the first phase, military and paramilitary forces secure the area targeted for consolidation. Again, one assumes that these forces are indigenous troops under the control of a local, legitimate government. They have as their goal the systematic destruction of both the enemy force structure and individual insurgents. Since people usually live in the area to be consolidated, troops must limit their use of firepower to reduce civilian casualties and property damage. The true consolidation effort begins with the second phase, when law-enforcement agencies replace the operational forces after the latter have either destroyed or neutralized the insurgents and their infrastructure. The final phase concerns developmental work—nation building—wherein the local government brings security and prosperity to the populace.³⁸ Extending this doctrine to a global conflict that crosses national, cultural, and economic boundaries represents a challenge because its worldwide nature widens the scope of operations in all areas and complicates interactions between parts of the terrorist system and our strategy.

In order to deal with such complications, most scholars and current US doctrine view insurgencies as complex systems. Doing so requires us to consider the effects of our actions on the insurgents’ organization, on relationships between its different parts, and on relationships between the insurgents and the rest of the world. From a military perspective, we must use a systems approach to integrate the political, social, and economic effects of military action with the wider conflict. The following comments combine military doctrine with the work of Bard E. O’Neill, especially his comprehensive analysis Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare.³⁹

Army doctrine uses seven elements as a framework for analyzing an insurgency: the insurgents’ leadership, ideology, objectives, environment, external support, time phasing, and organization/operational patterns.⁴⁰ O’Neill frames his analysis around the insurgents’ organization and unity, nature of the insurgency, insurgent strategies, environment, popular support, external support, and government response.⁴¹ In either framework, one must examine these characteristics and appropriately extend them to the current insurgency’s global battlefield.

Analysis of the insurgency yields characteristics of each component of the terrorists’ system and then suggests potential terrorist methods of operation, vulnerabilities, and strategies to defeat them. However, one cannot construct individual parts of the strategy in isolation because interactions between the parts of the terrorist system, the global environment, and our own actions may result in a given strategy’s having vastly different effects on different parts of the system. For example, the traditional notion of external support for an insurgency considers a nation-state that provides insurgents sanctuary and resources. In this war, the insurgents’ support consists not of states, but a complex network of individuals, government officials, and organizations—both overt and covert—that offers them assistance and shelter within the open societies of the West or lawless regions of the world. They use global communications, transportation, and financial infrastructure as an integral part of their operations. All of this complicates the task of locating, isolating, and defeating the insurgents.

Destroying any insurgency is a complex, long-term task for which there is no smart weapon, silver bullet, or critical node that assures quick victory. This war presents few opportunities for combat between organized military forces in a defined area with well-separated noncombatants in a distinct rear area. Likely, the military operations that do occur will look like the chaotic and dirty small wars of the past.⁴² More important than these few open conflicts will be the sustained and comprehensive campaign to “drain the swamp” where terrorism breeds—the key to counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, this activity holds little appeal for the Department of Defense since it offers few opportunities to exercise our best technology, generates few requirements for expensive programs, and takes several political election cycles to complete. It also has little room for glorious combat between valiant warriors, requiring skills more akin to those of a policeman walking a beat or a local politician building a community. A quick comparison of the principles of war with those of military operations other than war (MOOTW) (counterinsurgency is considered a subset of MOOTW) from US joint doctrine highlights these differences (table 1).

 Table 1. Principles of war and principles 
of MOOTW

War	MOOTW
Objective	Objective
Offensive  Mass Economy of Force Maneuver	Restraint
Unity of Command Security Surprise Simplicity	Unity of Effort Security   Perseverance   Legitimacy

———
Adapted from Joint Publication 1, Joint Warfare of the 
Armed Forces of the United States, 14 November 2000, 
III-8.

Although it may be beyond our resources and may not be our place to solve the problems facing Muslim societies, we can do much to encourage the Muslim world to solve them internally. Historically, the inability to participate in shaping public policy has commonly led to insurgencies. Yet, democracy and representative government are not incompatible with the practice of Islam. Governments in Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, and occasionally Pakistan demonstrate participatory democracy to varying degrees. Large numbers of Muslims live in Western nations, practicing their religion and taking part in democracy. We must make every effort to encourage these nations and groups to take the lead in the Islamic world and its organizations.

However, our first task is preventing future attacks on America and the rest of the civilized world—isolating the insurgency so as to engage and defeat it on its home ground. Ideally we would like to identify, capture, and kill all the potential terrorists before they attack. However, the widespread, diffuse, and closed nature of terrorist/insurgent organizations makes this impossible. Equally important, we must maintain legitimacy and a solid legal basis for our actions. Most potential terrorists commit no obvious crime until they attack. Evidently, the infamous 19 hijackers of 9/11 entered the United States legally and had broken no laws before that day. If we cannot apprehend the terrorists, then we must deter them from beginning their attack.

But how can we dissuade adversaries willing to kill themselves to attack us? One answer lies in looking at the system that supports and sustains them and then devising and executing a sustained strategy that attacks every part of that system in an appropriate fashion. Most members of the terrorist system, especially those forming its support structure, are not willing to die for the cause and can be deterred by enforcing on them the responsibility they have thus far avoided. Another answer entails denying terrorists any benefit from their actions. Hardening targets directly decreases the damage a terrorist inflicts in return for his sacrifice, and treating captured terrorists as criminals subject to public trial and imprisonment denies them their martyrdom. Perhaps the most important tactic calls for casting terrorist acts in their complete Islamic context. Al-Qaeda has come under strong criticism from Islamic religious leaders for practicing selective and shoddy Islamic scholarship. Death in battle may draw praise within Islam—but not suicide.⁴³

Conclusion

What kind of war is this? The evidence shows that it is primarily a civil war for control of the Arab Islamic world. However, its global arena and the terror tactics of the insurgents blur our perspective. Cultural issues—friction between cultures—are factors in the battle for legitimate governance in Muslim countries. The conflict has not yet taken the form of a clash of civilizations, but it could become one.

In this war, we have supported existing regimes in Muslim countries, both explicitly and implicitly, through the global economy and political institutions. The insurgents—the terrorists—who seek to destroy these regimes have adopted tactics to eliminate that support, thus drawing us in. The terrorists see this connection to the West as a center of gravity and have rediscovered Clausewitz’s comment on the latter: “[for] small countries that rely on large ones, it [the center of gravity] is usually the army of their protector.”⁴⁴ Winning the war on terror requires us to continue to assist friendly regimes in their efforts to eliminate insurgents—not withdraw our support.

Yet, in this civil war neither side holds values or exhibits actions we totally admire. Regardless of the insurgents’ motivation, we cannot allow attacks on the United States. Their choice of terrorism as a tactic and their targeting of US citizens require us to respond. But we need not do so by extending unconditional support to current governments in the Arab world. We must carefully craft our response to fit the realities of this conflict, especially in terms of ending terrorists’ operations in those areas beyond the reach of the Muslim governments while encouraging internal reforms to address legitimate grievances.

Indeed, insurgencies exist because of grievances. Eliminating them will require fundamental changes to existing Arab governments—an essential part of any long-term solution. Effecting such change is a difficult, delicate task that demands the careful weighing of our words and actions. We must target the evil of both terrorists and repressive regimes in terms consistent with their culture. Just as the act of terrorism is not the enemy, neither is Islam. Rather, the enemies are individuals and institutions that use violence to dominate their fellow man. We must avoid a clash of civilizations by encouraging the maturity of the principals.

Islam and the West may have differences, but differences do not lead to conflict until one side challenges the other. In this case, the national strategy of the United States, our fundamental values, the open nature of Western societies, and the global interconnections that bring Western influences into homes around the world have combined to put us in the middle of an ongoing civil war within the Islamic world. The United States has consistently called for promoting democracy abroad and for actively working to bring democracy and the rule of law to every corner of the world—committing itself to change those aspects of other civilizations.⁴⁵ The values and beliefs of the West, borne on the global--information network, have entered virtually every part of the Islamic world.

If in fact this war on terrorism becomes a clash of civilizations, the West will have inadvertently initiated it, and the world’s insatiable demand for the fruits of Western civilization will sustain it. That popular demand makes me confident that the nonnegotiable requirements of human dignity set out in our national security strategy—”the rule of law, limits on the absolute power of the state, free speech, freedom of worship, equal justice, respect for women, religious and ethnic tolerance, and respect for private property”—will triumph in the end.⁴⁶

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Notes

1. As used here, the meaning of terrorism is consistent with the one found in the US State Department’s annual report Patterns of Global Terrorism, drawn from Title 22 of the US Code, sec. 2656f(d): “The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” The meaning of transnational terrorism tracks with the one found in Bard E. O’Neill’s Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 1990): terrorism carried out by autonomous, nonstate actors to distinguish it from acts conducted by groups controlled by a sovereign state (24).

2. Pres. George W. Bush, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (Washington, DC: The White House, February 2003), 2, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2003/02/counter_terrorism/counter_terrorism_strategy. pdf.

3. For a good early perspective, see Elaine M. Grossman, “Is the U.S. Military Ready to Take on a Non--Conventional Terror Threat?” Inside the Pentagon, 18 October 2001, 1. A global perspective, though still focused on conventional military operations, is evident in Eliot Cohen’s article “World War IV,” Wall Street Journal, 20 November 2001. For more detailed discussions, see Lt Col Andrew J. Smith, Royal Australian Army, “Combatting Terrorism,” Military Review, January–February 2002, 11–18; and Colin S. Gray, “Thinking Asymmetrically in Times of Terror,” Parameters, Spring 2002, 5–14. For a general treatment, see T. Irene Sanders, “To Fight Terror, We Can’t Think Straight,” Washington Post, 5 May 2002, B2.

4. Bush, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, 1.

5. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22–28; and idem, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).

6. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, 208.

7. Ibid. This paragraph summarizes much of chap. 9, “The Global Politics of Civilizations.”

8. Cohen, “World War IV.”

9. The Restoration Weekend is an annual conservative symposium sponsored by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group based in Los Angeles. In November 2002, the symposium was held in Palm Beach, FL. James R. Woolsey, “World War IV” (speech, Restoration Weekend Symposium, 16 November 2002, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/ report/2002/021116-ww4.htm).

10. Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” Atlantic Monthly 266, no. 3 (September 1990): 47.

11. Transcript of “Usamah Bin-Ladin, the Destruction of the Base,” presented by Salah Najm (conducted by Jamal Isma’il in an unspecified location in Afghanistan), aired 10 June 1999, Terrorism Research Center, http:// www.terrorism.com/terrorism/BinLadinTranscript.shtml.

12. Osama bin Laden, “Dispatches 1997,” quoted in “A Sampling of Quotations from Osama bin Laden,” Boston Herald, 20 September 2001.

13. US Central Command, “International Contributions to the War on Terrorism,” http://www.centcom.mil/ Operations/Coalition/joint.htm (accessed 19 August 2003); and US Department of Defense, “International Contributions to the War against Terrorism,” fact sheet, 14 June 2002, http://www.state.gov/coalition/cr/fs/ 12753.htm.

14. For a selection of articles on aspects of Huntington’s thesis, see Richard E. Rubenstein and Jarle Crocker, “Challenging Huntington,” Foreign Policy, no. 96 (Fall 1994): 113; Edward W. Said, “The Clash of Ignorance,” Nation 273, no. 12 (22 October 2001): 11; and Seifudein Adem Hussein, “On the End of History and the Clash of Civilization: A Dissenter’s View,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 21, no. 1 (2001): 25–38.

15. Pres. George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, 17 September 2002), 5, http://www.whitehouse. gov/nsc/nss.html.

16. United States Embassy, Tokyo, Japan, “White House Details Steady Progress in Global War on Terrorism,” fact sheet, 1 July 2003, http://japan.usembassy.gov/ e/p/tp-20030703a4.html (accessed 16 August 2004).

17. Jamal Khashoggi, “War against Terror: a Saudi Perspective,” Arab News, 9 October 2001, http://www.arabview. com/articles.asp?article=109 (accessed 25 July 2003).

18. Senate, Testimony of Steven Emerson with Jonathon Levin before the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs: “Terrorism Financing: Origination, Organization, and Prevention: Saudi Arabia, Terrorist Financing and the War on Terror,” 108th Cong., 1st sess., 31 July 2003, 3, http:// www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/073103emerson.pdf. See also Steven Emerson, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living among Us (New York: Free Press, 2002).

19. Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” Al Quds Al Arabi, 1 August 1996, http://www. -defenddemocracy.org/research_topics/research_topics_list.htm?topic=7580&page=2.

20. Dr. Fareed Zakaria, “Special Report: The Politics of Rage,” Newsweek 138, no. 16 (15 October 2001): 36.

21. Bin Laden, “Declaration of War.”

22. Al Qaeda Training Manual (located by the Manchester [England] Metropolitan Police during a search of an al-Qaeda member’s home), http://www.fas.org/ irp/world/para/manualpart1.html.

23. Bush, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, 11–12.

24. Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001 (as amended through 9 June 2004), 260, http://www.dtic. mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.

25. The caliphate envisioned would unite the Muslim world under one temporal and religious ruler—a caliph who serves as the successor to the prophet Mohammed.

26. For a good discussion of the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Osama bin Laden, see Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: Free Press, 2001).

27. Gary Servold, “The Muslim Brotherhood,” in Know Thy Enemy: Profiles of Adversary Leaders and Their Strategic Cultures, ed. Barry R. Schneider and Jerrold M. Post (Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Counterproliferation Center, November 2002), 41–84.

28. Bin Laden, “Declaration of War.”

29. Robert Baer, “The Fall of the House of Saud,” Atlantic Monthly, May 2003, 53–62.

30. Ibid., 56.

31. Bernard Lewis, “Deconstructing Osama and His Evil Appeal,” Wall Street Journal, 23 August 2002.

32. Zakaria, “Special Report.” This five-part special report—”Islam and the West” and “The Politics of Rage”—provides a comprehensive overview of the issues fueling Islamic terrorism and violence.

33. Lee Harris, “Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology,” Policy Review, no. 114 (August/September 2002): 19.

34. The “legitimacy” relationship among the government, people, and insurgents is fundamental to counter-insurgency theory and doctrine. During discussions with the author, several military officers engaged in the war on terrorism mentioned that Dr. McCormick’s triangle gave them critical insight as they developed their missions.

35. US Army Field Manual (FM) 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Special Forces, 20 September 1994, 1-1.

36. Government legitimacy rests in the minds of the people governed. They consent or acquiesce to the government’s rule in return for a combination of physical security, meaningful participation in government decision making, and material reward—in other words, the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that Thomas Jefferson wrote of in the Declaration of Independence. This does not mean that legitimate governments must be liberal democracies or meet each requirement equally. So long as adequate mechanisms exist to satisfy the perceived needs of the governed, the people will regard the government as legitimate. For example, despite the USSR’s repressive nature, its people seemed to grant the Communist government legitimacy until it completely failed to meet their material needs. The current government of China appears to maintain legitimacy by meeting the population’s security and material needs despite providing little meaningful participation in government decision making.

37. FM 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense, 1-18.

38. Ibid., appendix C.

39. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism.

40. FM 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense, 1-8.

41. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism. I have altered the order of presentation to facilitate a parallel presentation with previous information from Army doctrine.

42. For a good definition, see Col C. E. Callwell’s classic text Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 3d ed. (1906; repr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996):

Small war is a term which has come largely into use of late years, and which is admittedly somewhat difficult to define. Practically it may be said to include all campaigns other than those where both opposing sides consist of regular troops. It comprises expeditions against savages and semi-civilized races by disciplined soldiers, it comprises campaigns undertaken to suppress rebellions and guerilla warfare in all parts of the world where organized armies are struggling against opponents who will not meet them in the open field, and it thus obviously covers operations very varying in their scope and their conditions (21).

43. “Suicide Bombings Are UnIslamic, Says Grand Mufti,” Gulf News, online ed., 25 April 2001, http://www. gulf-news.com/Articles/print.asp?ArticleID=15483.

44. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 596.

45. Pres. William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, DC: The White House, May 1997), i; and Bush, National Security Strategy, introduction.

46. Bush, National Security Strategy, 3.

Contributor

Col John D. Jogerst (USAFA; MS, University of Arkansas) is the deputy inspector general for Air Force Special Operations Command. He was the Special Operations Chair to Air University, on the faculty of Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He has also served as a staff director, Headquarters US Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Florida; the commander of 19th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Florida; and a C/MC-130 navigator. A previous contributor to Aerospace Power Journal, Colonel Jogerst is a graduate of the resident programs at Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and Air War College.

 

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Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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