Re: Natkin Doctrine

Thanks Michael, I think those are valuable parts of the debate, however, I believe if the government implemented these 7 points, it would have very little effect on terrorism. I think the "Natkin Doctrine" lays out more of a critique of the tactics of the administration's approach, rather than a strategy for fighting Al-Qaeda style Islamic fascism.

1. I agree that investing in Homeland Security is necessary, We are investing heavily already, and we need to do it better. However, for marginal investment, it's not a big win since you simply cannot secure the borders and prevent terrorism in a free country, even if you increase investment by 10X, you won't decrease the risk linearly.


2. I agree that reducing dependence on oil is a good idea, in fact, I think that a gas tax would be helpful for America in the long run. However, I think it will have no effect on terrorism. Terror-sponsoring nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia will have plenty of wealth forever. The demand for oil is only getting stronger, via China and India, so extricating the US from dependence on foreign oil won't help reduce Islamic terror funding. I don't see how our policies would change significantly in the mideast if Islamic terrorism continues to thrive - in other words, while we could potentially stop supporting Israel, we'd still be left with the problem of a world threatened by Islamic fascists as the major issue with middle east relations.


3. I'm fairly sure we operate exactly like this already - if we have good intelligence, we act on it. One of my main complaints on this blog is there are not good metrics on our successes. We have however, with cooperation of many other nations, foiled many terrorist plots world-wide, apprehended and killed significant numbers of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups leaders, and have a pretty good record of minimizing casualties to innocents.


4. Investing in cultural understanding is fine, but none of these programs will slow the current form of Islamic terrorism one bit - better cultural understanding of Islam is not enough - most of Islam is not supportive of terrorism, and the radical fascists who are will not be affected if we understand them better. We do need to address root causes in the Islamic countries that teach hate, oppress women, commit genocides and suffer under corrupt despotic rule. I don't think the examples you give of Israeli / Palestinian friendship programs are going to be effective (what is actually working in Israel this year is a hard power approach), and I don't think our current system of aid to countries like Egypt and the Phillipines is helpful. We give a lot of aid, but corruption prevents it from helping. Our approach has to be much more aggressive in that we need to change the way the governments work, and eliminate the appeal of fascism.


5. This is a point-of-view argument - that the administration is unilateral, and full of hubris. However, what success we've had to date has been international. Pakistan is our biggest success story, and we've captured terrorists in cooperation with France, Germany, Russia, Spain, in addition the 30 countries who are participating in Iraq. In Sudan, the US is driving the activist role; with Iran, the US is respecting the slow-going European negotiating teams. I don't think a different attitude would reduce the ability of terrorists to operate, primarily because a ton of cooperative anti-terrorist activity is happening today with nations all around the world. They cooperate for two reasons: they depend on the US, or they are just as affected by terrorism as we are.


6. The idea that the Iraq war is not related to terrorism is going to be the big point of contention for the rest of the presidential election. Again, it's strongly correlated with your political viewpoint, it's going to be hard to convince people to change. Here are the basis points for my argument that the war in Iraq is an important part of the war on terror.
   
   My assumptions:
   
   
   
   • Islamic terror is a network of terrorists fighting an ideological battle
   
   
   • Taking out Osama Bin Laden (assuming he's not already dead) would have very little effect on terrorist activity
   
   
   • Addressing root causes is an important long term goal
   
   
   • Fighting the concept of terror (i.e. the meme) requires a compelling countervision
   
   
   • Islamic Terror had a wide range of operation before 2001, I call it the terror crescent stretching from Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Phillipines) through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, down through Egypt, the Arab Peninsula, and into North Africa (Libya, Sudan, Chad, Morroco)
   
   
   • Al-Qaeda thrives in countries where despotic oliogarchs allow Islamic Fundamentalists to thrive in exchange for relative stability in the overwhelmingly poor populations
   
   
   • Iraq had a more westernized society than most of the nations in the terror crescent
   
   
   • Saddam Hussein supported anti-western activities for decades, and was dedicated to developing Nuclear and Chemical weapons. He had used WMD previously
   
   
   
   What do these assumptions mean?
   
   
   
   • Attempting to create a free Iraq is a visionary project that fights the spread of terrorism by creating an example of an Islamic country that breaks away from despotic rule and institutes liberal reforms - women participating in government, democratic elections and increased economic prosperity across a wide range of the population
   
   
   • Geographically, Iraq is valuable terrority in the terror crescent. Progress in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya is of significant long-term strategic value. It is a stage for encouraging reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia
   
   
   • Eliminating Saddam Hussein removed a major source of WMD availability for the next decade from terrorist hands
   
   
   • Iraq clarified the battle lines for other governments, including Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda has stepped up activity in Islamic countries, and governments have had to choose to cooperate in the fight against terror
   
   
   • Al-Qaeda and Islamic terror groups are spending significant amounts of resources planning attacks in Iraq to prevent democracy.
   
   
   • With significant help from Pakistan, our progress in Afghanistan, and more realization from the Saudi's that they cannot live together with Al-Qaeda, Iraq is a keystone. The major refuge for terrorists is now Iran -- we have reduced their range of freedom significantly. Leaving Saddam in power would not have achieved that.
   
   
   
   I absolutely agree with the part about prioritizing resource - but I disagree that Iraq is not part of the war on terror. The prioritizing point echoes one of my biggest problems with the current war on terror - lack of measures of progress. You can't prioritize unless you clearly state goals and decide on metrics. The Bush Doctrine is strong on strategy, and it's implementation has been lacking on tactical feedback.
   


7. This is a wishful point - hoping it won't be partisan, hoping people can rationally react to tragedy and terror. I think it's a burden of government leadership to try to do their best, and yet consistently deal with a horror in a resolute and strong way. The judging of whether it's being handled properly is a political affair, and I doubt the spectrum of beliefs about that is very relevant to actually preventing terrorism and improving the world situation.
   

In summary, the Natkin Doctrine is not a strategy for fighting terrorism so much as a critique of current tactics. A couple of the points (#1, #3), I'd contend are actually being done today. Points #2, #4, #5, #7 don't really affect the way the terrorists operate. Point #6 is a fundamental political question - is Iraq part of the war on terror? If the administration cannot make a good case that it is, then that's a major failure of the Bush Doctrine. As part of an approach to fighting terror, point #6 boils down to "Only do things that work." Of course, it's impossible to know what works and what doesn't until you do it.

The world's largest Muslim country is a democracy

From the Washington Post editorial page (Via RantingProfs)

SIX YEARS AGO the dictator of a large Muslim country was overthrown, touching off days of looting and chaos in the capital. The new regime's promise of democracy was greeted skeptically: Many expected that ethnic divisions would tear the country apart, that Muslim parties would take power and try to impose Islamic rule, or that another strongman would soon take the place of the ousted ruler. But Indonesia has proved the pessimists wrong. This week it successfully staged its third elections of the year; 120 million of its people cast ballots, a turnout of 80 percent. The result was the direct election of a new president who promises to continue the consolidation of freedom in the world's fourth most populous country.

It took roughly six years for this success. Indonesia is still a hotbed for Al-Qaeda and Islamic fascists, however.

A week of progress

Patrick Belton at oxblog has a nice summary of some good news, if you believe the war on Islamic Terrorism is a global affair. Excerpting a summary:

• Nato has agreed to expand its involvement in Iraq


• Syria has agreed to cooperate with the United States and Iraq


• Musharaff has made an overture to Indian PM Singh for a final status agreement on Kashmir


• Nigeria is attempting to create a role for itself in mobilising an African Union response to ending the genocide in western Sudan


• American Marines have trained a counterterror force in Niger to operate against Al Qa'eda-linked militants in ungoverned swaths of the Sahara

Patrick supplies all the links.

All over the map

A good interview with Peter Bergen - CNN's Al-Qaeda expert. A bit depressing in that he finds:

I'm not convinced that they have the capacity to do anything inside the United States. But, I would have given you the same answer on September 10, 2001. What's much more likely than an attack timed for the U.S. election, is a bomb going off in London, or Heathrow airport or something like that.

Yet he places a lot of blame on the Iraq war for energizing Al-Qaeda:

I would say that al-Qaeda was tremendously energized by the war in Iraq. ... Al-Qaeda was on the ropes, and it has given them another reason for existence.

But given a lot of the evidence he cites related to the capture the Al-Qaeda management structure, and the decreasing frequency of Al-Qaeda's direct involvement in attacks he mentions, I wonder how to judge this belief. There's simply no tote board or database which makes it easy to discern.

Update: Bergen wrote a rather positive piece in the NY Times on Afghanistan. Dan Drezner has point/counterpoint.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Social dynamics of terrorist groups

A lot of people worry that fighting Islamic terrorism can only encourage more people to become terrorists. The typical argument is that by fighting in Iraq, we are only creating a larger population of terrorists. However, there is a difference in scale. For terrorists to train in groups requires implicit state support. In a post at Global Guerrillas, John Robb, focusing on the network aspect of terrorism (via Belmont Club), looks at the social dynamics of terrorist groups and the impact on their potential size.

you can have small, operationally secure terrorist groups, but you can't have large, operationally secure cells without a state sponsor.

I think this is right. Without state support (as was the case Afghanistan, and is the case in Iran or Syria), it's very hard for large-group training to take place.

Where's the card deck of terrorists?

It's hard to find data on how many terrorist leaders have been killed or captured by the US and it's allies. If there's a list or graph out there that tracks the structure of Al Qaeda, and who's been captured or eliminated, I can't find it.

Deck of cards anyone? Here's an update on an Iraq-based Al-Qaeda leader we've apparently killed.

Israel's success against terrorism

This article on Israel's fight against terrorism raises the key questions about what it takes to win against terrorists.

That means an ability to endure criticism from abroad and even to risk international isolation, a willingness to define the war on terrorism as a total war, and a commitment to focus one's political agenda on winning, not on divisive or extraneous concerns. Fulfilling those conditions does not guarantee success. But it does make success possible — as Israel is, at great cost, showing the world.

Michael commented to me on Mark Helprin's article below that to do what Helprin suggests means we'd become like Israel. I don't think America is ready for that, and I wonder if something will happen that drives us to it.

Addressing the root causes

Here's an article by Steven Stalinsky, the director of Memri - which translates Arab language news so English readers can better understand Arab viewpoints on terrorism. After detailing many ways in which Egyptian newspapers, academics and pop singers claim that 9/11 involved no Arabs, and was a plot by Jews and/or the US government, he summarizes:

Since September 11, 2001 many have asked "Why do they hate us?" The answer that is almost always overlooked is that the Arab media, along with schoolbooks and sermons, espouses never-ending incitement of and lies about America.

Maybe we should use the $3B in aid we send to Egypt annually for something different. Spend it on our own schools.

Who's winning?

Strategy page has a perspective on the terror war after 3 years. Who is Winning After Three Years? Putting this together with the Helprin article below illustrates a major problem with the administration's approach War on Terror - they are not clearly defining the goals, and they are not articulating where we are succeeding and failing.

In America, when you ask who is winning the war on terror, 50% say the US and allies, 25% say the terrorists. I think the reason that 25% don't answer or don't know is because it's not clear what winning means. Progress is not reported very well, and lacks context. Perhaps this is because no one has bothered to outline the goals and metrics.

Or perhaps the populace really doesn't want to hear about it?

Finally, an alternative approach

Mark Helprin, writing in the Claremont review of books

The aims of this war have been remarkably incoherent and elastic, their character improvised, their direction changed instantly upon encountering an obstacle. Whatever it was in the beginning, the war has become a very grand enterprise, with very limited resources, to transform the entire Islamic World into a group of peaceful democratic states that, relieved of the stress of not being peaceful democratic states, will cease to breed terrorism.

It may be surprising that he advocates a more comprehensive, better defined approach, requiring more resources and sacrifices.

To coerce and punish governments that support terrorism, until they eradicate it wherever they exercise authority. To open for operations any territory in which the terrorist enemy functions. To build and sustain the appropriate forces and then some as a margin of safety, so as to accomplish the foregoing and to deter the continuing development of terrorism. To mount on the same scale as the military effort, and with the same probity, the necessary civil defense. To reject the temptation to configure the defensive capabilities of the United States solely to the War on Terrorism, as this will simultaneously stimulate China's military development and insure that we are unprepared for it. These should be our aims in this war.

Does that sound different that what politicians are saying today? To me it sounds more committed and deeper. I think it counts as alternative.

Terror vs Liberty

Terrorism has been a "meme" long before meme was a Wired term. The point is to get asymmetrical coverage and awareness: to terrorize. Islamic fascism isn't new either, it's just another form of fascism, using terrorism as it's conveyance.

From the meme post below, we completely agree on the last point: how do you tell what's working, how do you fight an idea? I think the current model is to fight the terror meme with a "liberty meme". Democracy as meme. Going and attacking the source of the problem, with soft power in addition to hard power is definitely part of the current operational strategy.

I need some time to craft a good post on this, but I'm convinced that there is a geometry to this strategy. In other words, there is a crescent of terror spanning from southeast asia, through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and down into Saudi Arabia and Africa. Iraq is in the heart of this crescent.

You can look at Iraq in a lot of ways, but one major way is as a base from which to promote democracy and reform. It will work if we can leave the hard power phase, and stick with it using soft power.

The question is how committed are we to both parts of the war? Hard power and soft power. Terror vs. Liberty. Meme vs. Meme.

This week it's Jakarta

Does anyone notice how often terrorists strike, worldwide? Or have Americans tuned it all out? How active is the Indonesian government in stopping attacks? Not very, apparently.

Arab-world Reaction

Memri translates several editorials and comments on the Beslan terrorist attacks from Arab and Muslim papers.

The Terror Debate, again

Greg Djerejian's blog (The Belgravia Dispatch) has an amazing framing of Putin's speech after the Beslan terror attacks. Russia is choosing sides in the debate. What's the debate about? How to go forward. Matt Ysglesias admits that there aren't any easy solutions.

At the same time, in the wake of this sort of outrage there will not only be no mood for concessions, but an amply justified fear that such concessions would only encourage further attacks and a further escalation of demands. I don't see any way out for Russian policymakers nor any particularly good options for US policymakers.

The media and Beslan

The WaPo covers Beslan. Cori Dauber points out that the media doesn't give you the meaning like the blogosphere can.

Constructive Engagement in Chechnya?

Here's a "constructive engagement" approach that may be the best option for Chechnya. In a global war on terror, perhaps this type of constructive engagement is a key to repairing broken nations that get infected with Al-Qaeda / Wahhabism.

Al Qaeda and Chechnya

A must-read summary at Winds of Change. A key point:

However, I should point out that Basayev's ambitions extend far beyond just Chechen independence, so everybody saying that a political solution to the Chechen war or Russian withdrawl from the region is going to solve the issue is going to be sorely disappointed.

Russian Kids and Grandkids

How to explain the tragedy and horror of a terrorist attack against a school? I don't care what motivates the terrorists, but it is important to understand who sponsors this.

Just reading some of the headlines is stunning:

Al-Qaeda Financed Seizure of Russian Hostages - Report

79 Hostage Casualties Identified

646 Wounded Hospitalized in Beslan

Hostage-Takers Use Scores of Children for Live Shield

Arab Mercenaries Identified among Hostage-Takers

More than 150 Killed in Hostage Crisis Aftermath - Report

100 Confirmed Dead in Beslan School

Militant Escapees Flee with Hostages

Just can't let go

My simple answer is that there never are reasonable compromises when it comes to nationalism and religion. Natural resources, ports, religion can't be comprised away, in general. Israel is one example.

At the grand level, nationalistic groups have been breaking away from larger states - see Yugoslavia for a violent example, and the Soviet Union for less dramatic examples. I think it's "cycle of history" stuff - groups get together under dictators, or to protect themselves from foreigners, and then live together for a while until the fight to separate.

Looking at recent history, Soviet communism and Chinese communism see to be at the center of the latest cycle.

A day of terror

Summary of the day's events at: Belmont Club
How relevant will this be to Americans?

News via Blogs

Television news is obsolete. Here's proof:

A blogger translates Russian coverage of terrorists seizing hundreds of school children.

Unclear or Nuclear?

Two articles on the WaPo website:
Evidence on Iran Called Unclear
and (AP bylined)
Iran Announces Plans to Turn Uranium into Nuclear Weapons Substance
From the second article:

The issue of enrichment is extremely sensitive as the international community tries to determine if Iran is using its nuclear program for peaceful purposes only, as Tehran insists, or trying to make weapons.
...
Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment program last year in an effort to build international trust. But that commitment eroded over the subsequent months, and in July, Iran confirmed reports that it had resumed building nuclear centrifuges.

Recall that Iran is not lacking for energy, since it's the second biggest producer in OPEC.

Chechen Terror

I wonder how much Chechen terrorism is connected with Al-Qaeda, or is simply nationalist? Perhaps it's both. In any case, this list of Chechen terrorist attacks in Russia this year shows 15 attacks and at least 230 people dead.