By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on September 30, 2006
The latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report released this week gives a dismal picture of the ‘war on terror.’ The report points out that Muslim jihadists are “increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.” Continuing trends could lead to rising number of attacks around the globe.
The key underlying causes for the spread of jihadism are “entrenched grievances, slow pace of reform, pervasive anti-American sentiment.” The “cause celebre” however is however the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
According to Gen Michael Hayden, the present Director of the CIA, new jihadist networks and cells are growing at a rapid pace and “if this trend continues, threats to the US at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide.”
The NIE report, an assessment of terrorism by American intelligence agencies, also says that “over the next five years, the confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.” Also though democratization “might begin to slow down the spread of extremism the destabilizing transitions caused by political change will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.”
As Bruce Hoffman, a security studies and terrorism expert, recently noted “the oveall conclusion is that we don’t have enough bullets given all the enemies we are creating.”
Politicians and policy analysts disparage academic wisdom and historical lessons often at their and their nation’s peril. The view is that academics live in their ivory tower and history is well ‘just history’ and we need to focus on the future, not the past. Maybe it is time they reviewed their history lessons.
Two thousand years ago a Chinese general and military strategist, Sun Tzu laid down certain rules which are relevant even today. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
The ‘war on terror’ is not being won and the number of jihadists are increasing because right from the beginning the West has been fighting a war without getting to know the enemy. Michael Scheur (aka Anonymous) author of the best seller ‘Through our enemies eyes’ wrote very convincingly of how the enemy knows more about us than we have tried to learn about them.
Blanket over generalization of every Islamist group around the world – whether moderate or radical – as being part of the ‘Al Qaeda inspired global jihadi network’ is counter productive. It shows that neither do we know nor have we tried to find out in detail about our enemy. It also wrongly bands together groups which are very different and not allied to each other.
Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniacal dictator and the Iraqis deserved a better ruler. However, did this secular Baathist ruler have any ties with Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda? The Islamist militia in Somalia was keen on bringing about an Islamic state run under the Sharia but was that enough grounds to covertly provide aid to the corrupt secular warlords; only to keep the Islamists out.
Not only is it necessary to know your enemy it is also important to realize that there is a difference between a traditional form of war and the present insurgency and guerilla war that has become the norm.
During the two World Wars soldiers knew whom they were fighting and also what sort of weaponry would be used. The war being fought now is not a traditional form of warfare but insurgency and covert war. The type of war introduced during the Cold War era in Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua.
War in which a traditional soldier and army is disadvantaged. War in which not only do you not know your enemy but your enemy is playing not to win but to drag you further and further into a quicksand; from which whether you move ahead or retreat you lose either ways.
A war in which the insurgents do not need to win decisively in order to call it victory, but the outside power (colonial or occupying power) needs total victory so as not to call it a defeat.
Ray Aron wrote in 1957 that “Nothing can eliminate the inferiority of the European in this sort of fighting. Human life has a different value in the West, with its low birth rate, than in countries where fecundity remains the same while medicine and hygiene have reduced mortality.”
All is not yet lost. As the NIE points out “should the jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves and be perceived to have failed wee judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.”
We need to know our enemy, need to know why the enemy is popular and adopt and adapt our strategies so that we can counter every advance by the enemy. “Winning the hearts and minds” was and still is a strategy which needs to be encouraged.
Support and help at various levels and fora for moderate Muslims is another strategy. Learning to differentiate between various Islamist groups – moderate to radical – and adopting different strategies for each needs to be a key goal.
President Bush was right in saying that it is a ‘long war.’ Even the jihadists believe in that. The measure of success, however, will be which side has the strength and lasting power to fight this war.