{"id":7110,"date":"2016-12-12T09:41:59","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T15:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=7110"},"modified":"2016-12-12T09:41:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T15:41:59","slug":"multiple-prongs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/12\/12\/multiple-prongs\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple Prongs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Meserole discusses<\/a> the prongs of counter-terrorism on Lawfare<\/strong><\/em>, and why he’s worried that the incoming Trump Administration may snap one off:<\/p>\n

The counterterrorism approach has met with many successes. The original leadership of al-Qaeda is now almost entirely dismantled<\/a>, and Osama bin Laden himself enjoys no more than the small solace of thalassic repose. But in the past few years, the limitations of counterterrorism have come into plain view. In focusing on the tactical level alone, counterterrorism assumes that to defeat Salafi-jihadism overall we need only destroy each and every extant Salafi-jihadist organization. The emergence of successor groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State put the lie to that assumption. If we are to rely on counterterrorism alone, we are destined to play an endless game of global whack-a-mole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a bid to avoid that fate, policy analysts and practitioners have recently shifted their focus to \u201ccountering violent extremism,\u201d or CVE. The goal is not so much to supplant counterterrorism as to supplement it. Whereas the counterterrorism frames the policy response to Salafi-jihadist violence in terms of tactics, CVE does so in terms of ideology and grievance. We cannot hope to defeat Salafi-jihadism, the thinking goes, unless and until we discredit the ideas and concerns that lend it animus. For instance, consider the Aarhus program<\/a> in Denmark, or the Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence<\/a> in Montreal, Canada. The former seeks to de-radicalize and re-integrate violent extremists; the latter intervenes with at-risk individuals before extremism fully takes root. Or consider USAID\u2019s project to bolster community resilience in places like Niger<\/a> and Somalia<\/a>. These programs share an effort to engage Salafi-jihadism through ideas and civic engagement rather than through force alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the signals from the incoming Trump Administration?<\/p>\n

As a candidate, Trump espoused famously few policies, but one of them was his now notorious \u201cMuslim ban<\/a>,\u201d which has since, allegedly, morphed into a \u201cMuslim registry<\/a>.\u201d The precise contours of that policy remain unclear; they may be dropped altogether. But in one sense the details don\u2019t matter nearly as much as the rhetoric, and in that Trump has been crystal clear: he aims to speak openly and forcefully of \u201cradical Islam<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and to take little care, as he utters that turgid phrase, to distinguish qualifier from subject. In that regard, a well-known tweet from Trump\u2019s former campaign adviser, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, could not have been more in keeping with Trump\u2019s main foreign policy message: \u201cfear of Muslims is RATIONAL<\/a>.\u201d Couched in that tweet isn\u2019t just the assumption that all Muslims are the same; it\u2019s that because all Muslims are the same, we must engage them through the security lens of fear, rather than the more diplomatic lens of ideology. If all Muslims are the same, then they must be identified, banned, and fought. What good is a war of ideas if ideas cannot change?<\/p>\n

And so, with Flynn now tapped to be National Security Advisor \u2014 and with Mike Pompeo, who by all accounts holds quite similar views, set to be ensconced at Langely \u2014 the only war left is a war of might.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having a bigot as an advisor is a mistake, because the implied mistaken view of reality means decisions made regarding that reality are doomed to be flawed. Trump should be getting the best people, not those who say what he wants to hear – or those who supported him best during the campaign. It would be interesting to know how he selected his advisors back when he was this “successful” businessman.<\/p>\n

For the conservative reader, I might point out that the CVE approach is classic Cold War tactics in which we took the very ideas on which Communism was built upon and analyzed them, revealing their hidden flaws and biases, followed with publication of these results, along with a modicum of propaganda, much as did the Soviets. A rejection of these tactics, as may or may not occur under Trump, would be a rejection of the very tactics we used fifty years ago against the Soviets.<\/p>\n

\n

As an addendum from my own point of view, there is a key difference between the Cold War and the current war with the terrorists. The former was a clash of economic models, which may be thought of as a clash of interpretations of how the human mind works, at its most basic, and then building up to how to properly manage the business of a country. In contrast, this latest conflict concerns theology<\/em>. I am well aware that most folks the world over think of theology as something concrete, the teachings of one or more Gods, but to me it’s simply the various imaginations of (mostly) men throughout the ages, guessing at what some unknowable supernatural creature might think concerning how we should behave.<\/p>\n

It’s too much to attempt to discuss the socio-evolutionary forces that have shaped the major religions in a blog post, and in any case such a post would only be informed by my casual observations, not by a trained mind. It’s safe to say that religions that do not contribute to the survival potential of a group will either be discarded or transformed until they will contribute. How that can be used, however, as a lever on those who are attracted to violent groups is not at all clear. Economics at least searches for\u00a0a rational basis; theology may have pretensions, but at its base it’s just imagination, perhaps cobbled together with an interior consistency, but the\u00a0connection to reality probably lies only in the previously alluded to socio-evolutionary forces. Allegiance to any theology will mostly be based on upbringing, a recursive process; a few individuals may decide to change theological allegiances, but they are rare examples.<\/p>\n

I suspect an effective CVE will need to provide attention to both the economic and social justice vectors for all individuals concerned. A way forward, and the apprehension that one lives in a just society, are likely two of the tools necessary to persuade individuals that shooting down a Blackhawk merely pisses off the Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Meserole discusses the prongs of counter-terrorism on Lawfare, and why he’s worried that the incoming Trump Administration may snap one off: The counterterrorism approach has met with many successes. The original leadership of al-Qaeda is now almost entirely dismantled, and Osama bin Laden himself enjoys no more than the \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7110"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7125,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7110\/revisions\/7125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}