U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy by Jason A. Wittemen

Contemporary U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy:
The Right Recipe or Missing Ingredients?

by Jason A. Wittemen (October 14, 2003)

Last month the United States' war on terrorism entered its third year. To date the U.S. has achieved many successes countering threats to its national security and vital interests posed by Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic terrorist networks. Without question, the use of military force has been fundamental to U.S. accomplishments, and without question, it will continue to play a central role for the foreseeable future. Even so, a preponderance of evidence suggests that the current strategy's predominant tactical reliance on military actions (and similar, complimentary quantitative measures) has come at the expense of insufficiently developing other, more diplomatic, qualitative tactics that must also be implemented in order for the U.S. to achieve a sustainable, long-term victory in the war.

Simply measuring U.S. successes in destroying and/or seizing members of radical Islamic terrorist networks and their material and financial assets cannot determine decisive victory in the war on terrorism. Rather, the U.S. must also concurrently commit its vast resources of man and material towards achieving the dissolution of pervasive ideological support that these terrorists currently receive from the greater Arab and Muslim community, helping them to rebound rapidly and consistently from the military defeats the U.S. delivers ad infinitum.

This argument resonates throughout the criticisms and strategic prescriptions of many renowned counter-terrorism and national security experts, such as Brian Michael Jenkins, Daniel L. Byman, and Audrey Kurth Cronin. Jenkins asserts that the U.S. must amend its current tactics "to include political warfare. . . . aimed at reducing the appeal of extremists [and] encouraging alternative views." He notes that the U.S. used this tactic during the Cold War "with some success," but then imprudently discarded it as its military superiority increased. To succeed in this war, however, Jenkins stresses that the U.S. must revivify its use of political warfare "to discredit . . . [the terrorists' belief system], create discord, provoke distrust among . . . operatives, demoralize volunteers, and discourage recruits."

Byman adds to this his concern that "public diplomacy in the Middle East . . . requires heavy investment in measures that will help woo the next generation of leaders and improve America's image." He stresses the importance of "winning the hearts and minds of the people;" and avows that to accomplish this would mean the end of the terrorists' recruitment and financing base, "and make it impossible for . . . [them] to move and operate in the greater Middle East." Byman realizes however, to actually make this happen will entail "a much bigger campaign . . . than so far embraced, and . . . tools-economic, political, and cultural-that the United States has so far only defined but has yet to wield effectively."

Cronin acknowledges that military force is important as a means of responding to, preempting, and disrupting terrorist operations, but agrees with both Jenkins and Byman that over time, "the more effective instruments of policy are likely to . . . [be] the nonmilitary ones," because "military force is only effective as part of a multifaceted campaign along with social, economic, legal, diplomatic, and political elements." Moreover, Cronin contends that because the U.S. government is not re-prioritizing its "political, economic, and military capabilities-in that order," it is failing "to put into place an effective long-term grand strategy" that can viably win the war on terrorism.

Despite the credible, hard evidence and germane, paradigmatic principles cited by these and other experts, their analyses have not been adequately addressed or incorporated into the U.S.'s long-term strategy. To be sure, several relevant government documents and prominent officials have acknowledged such needs. For instance, the Whitehouse's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism states:

Ongoing U.S. efforts to resolve regional disputes, foster economic, social, and political development, market-based economies, good governance, and the rule of law, while not necessarily focused on combating terrorism, contribute to the campaign by addressing underlying conditions that terrorists often seek to manipulate for their own advantage. And:We will wage a war of ideas to make clear that all acts of terrorism are illegitimate, to ensure that the conditions and ideologies that promote terrorism do not find fertile ground in any nation, to diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit in areas most at risk, and to kindle the hopes and aspirations of freedom of those in societies ruled by the sponsors of global terrorism. Also, Ambassador Francis X. Taylor has said: The United States will . . . continue working to diminish the underlying conditions that allow terrorism to take root and flourish. . . . Poverty, oppression, ethnic strife and regional instability all breed kinds of grievances that extremists can exploit for their nefarious ends. U.S. diplomatic efforts and foreign assistance programs are designed to address these underlying conditions and thereby deny terrorists the fertile ground they seek to plant their seeds of poison. However, the gap between words and deeds remains wide. Whereas statements such as those noted above imply that the U.S. is implementing measures in line with the experts' suggestions, recent government actions--or the lack thereof--tell a different story. For instance, the majority of experts giving relevant testimony at the Third Public Hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States applauded the U.S. for having made great strides in its efforts to defeat radical Islamic terrorist organizations using military force and, to a lesser extent, financial seizures and international law enforcement actions. They also agreed, however, that the broader adversary-the militant Islamic culture and ideology at the roots of such organizations-has not been adequately addressed; and that consequently, as panel member Mamoun Fandy stated, "although we are winning the war against the organization called Al Qaeda, we seem to be losing the cultural war." And as panel member Rohan Gunaratna noted:

As no serious international effort has been made to counter the Islamist ideology . . . the robust Islamist milieu is providing recruits and financial support for Islamist groups worldwide to replenish their human losses and material wastage. . . . The powerful message that Al Qaeda is not Koranic but heretical has not been integrated. As such there is popular support for the Al Qaeda model of Islam. . . . As there is no effort to counter or dilute the ideology of extremism, the military campaign . . . is likely to take decades. The 'deep reservoir of hatred and a desire for revenge' will remain unless the U.S. can start to think beyond the counter-terrorist military and financial dimensions.

Even Ambassador Taylor has had to acknowledge that "Anti-American sentiment in the region, currently at an all-time high, continues to rise [and] the possibility that terrorist elements throughout the world may be further motivated to plan and carry out attacks against American interests [due to recent U.S. military actions] remains high."

Thus, such expert analyses demonstrate that contemporary U.S. counter-terrorism strategy may be encouraging terrorist activity, rather than reducing it because it relies too heavily on military force and too little on the complementary support tactics designed to diminish and reconcile issues that foster adversarial, anti-U.S. postures. Hence, as Susan Eisenhower has pointed out, "to meet the challenges of this 'war' . . . over the long haul, we [(the U.S.)] will have to be smarter, more diplomatic, and better able to prioritize the use of our resources." Only then, as her grandfather President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, will it be possible for all peoples "to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love." Only then, will we truly be able to say that the U.S. is doing everything it can to achieve lasting peace and security in our time.

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