Terrorism
President Obama’s drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan is a step toward addressing a large gap between US effort in Afghanistan — we are now spending a trillion dollars a decade in immediate costs alone — and the actual importance of Afghanistan. As Richard Haass put it on “Charlie Rose” yesterday, there is a “strategic misalignment” in this policy that will leave future historians puzzled as to why were were so devoted to a sideshow.
As a futurist, I simply don’t see much relationship between what we do in Afghanistan over the next few years and outcomes a couple of decades down the road — and yet we are expending lives and dollars as if something huge is at stake, increasingly against the will of the American people.
The reasons for continuing the war at present levels are not convincing:
- Terrorist havens — Afghanistan is and will be something of a terrorist haven whether we are there or not. A counterterrorism strategy with a much reduced force can ameliorate this, but there are other refuges for al Qaeda, whatever we do in Afghanistan. Additionally, fighting Muslims in Afghanistan in itself bolsters the militant jihadist narrative.
- Afghan society — Afghanistan will be illiberal, corrupt, and cruel by Western standards whether we stay or go. We do not want the worst excesses of the Taliban to return, but that in itself is not worth a full-scale war.
- Regional stability — Afghanistan is a cockpit in which Pakistan, India, Iran, China, and Central Asian nations may collide in various combinations in the future, but that will eventually be true whatever the US does. We can merely tweak the timeframe by a few years. Pakistan’s stability is important to us, but the relationship of that stability to what the US does over the next few years is unclear — and the US role has helped convince the great majority of Pakistanis that the US is their enemy.
- US credibility — Again, we are leaving eventually. Better to do it on our own terms rather than because we are truly exhausted. World public opinion is largely in favor of rapid withdrawal, and elite opinion will be more impressed by sensible strategy than sheer doggedness.
In short, a relatively quick departure seems in order.
(A sidenote: In the short term, Karzai’s erratic threats to turn against NATO forces should remind us of how the Soviet Union ended up in a pseudo-invasion of that country. It didn’t just suddenly swarm across the border; Soviet troops were already fighting alongside the Afghan government against an insurgency. The Soviets came to view their ally with distrust, and the Afghans began to distance themselves from their patrons, and so the Russians moved to replace the government, partly with forces already in place. One can now imagine that circumstances might provoke the US to stage a similar “invasion,” except that we would already have the forces within the borders. At this point, though, we might simply not care, and use it as an excuse to leave even faster.)
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Image: Courtesy ISAFmedia (Flickr)
The AP reported last week that some “Tea Party” leaders and Oklahoma legislators are discussing forming a militia to defend against encroachment by the federal government.
There are other indicators that extremism is finding new purchase.
In February, a man used his light plane to launch a terrorist suicide attack on a government office in Austin, Texas. He appeared to be a troubled man acting alone, but that is the case with many people who are also political terrorists, such as the Fort Hood shooter Major Hassan. Stack invoked politics directly as a motive:
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.
Stack is citing classic insurgency theory as well: trigger an overreaction that fuels a rebellion.
His manifesto is also highly reminiscent of much of the rhetoric emanating from factions of the Tea Party movement, which brings us to the question: is that movement symptomatic of a threat to American stability? There are a number of worrying signs:
- Scale: There has been a right wing of this ilk for decades, but this incarnation seems larger and has more tendrils into the “mainstream.” If even a tiny fraction of turned toward violence, they might number in the tens of thousands.
- Celebration of violence: Tea Partiers have formed ties with “militia” groups that have preparing for violence as their central activity.
- Lack of restraining mechanism: In the past, mainstream media and the Republican Party provided dampers on the spread of right-wing radicalism. Now, extremists can confirm their views with them own media (which includes some corporate media entities as well). And the most of the Republican Party is either silent in the face of extremism, or actively panders to or reinforces it.
- Irrationality: The strong role of anger, and the strange visions of socialism and / or fascism, are also worrying. One could have a perfectly rational (or at least reality-based, if passionate) movement that favored radically downsizing government, but this doesn’t seem to be that movement. Many seem to have headed straight for the black helicopter rabbit holes.
Foreign terrorists can do the US harm; domestic extremism is orders of magnitude more dangerous, as it can undermine fundamental stability.
And the danger does not have to involve violence: a competent and trusted government is rare in the world, and one’s of America’s biggest competitive advantages. Destroying that trust and dismantling that competence would deal a severe blow to American prospects.
Yemen has now joined the list of prominent theaters in the battle against Islamist extremism. This is no surprise to anyone who had noted its place in governance rankings.
Where next? Here’s the basic list: the 20 least-stable countries in the world, with those in play in that battle in red, and others with large Muslim populations in green.
It’s not that simple, of course, as receptivity to extremism varies widely, and recruitment can go on anywhere, as the apparent Nigerian underwear bomber illustrates, again. But this is a starter list of places that might matter in terms of instability, and where global Islamic groups might look to build safe havens.
Other than Bangladesh, they are all in Africa. Some, such as Sudan and Kenya, could serve to expand existing zones of instability. Others could provide new foci: Nigeria forms the border between West and Central Africa, and has about 60 million Muslims. Recent polling data suggests that about 26 million of these are potentially sympathetic to extremist causes.
A Sunni extremist takeover of Pakistan would be an immense threat to the US and hard to counter, Bruce Reidel writes in The National Interest.
Such a takeover
would create the greatest threat the United States has yet to face in its war on terror. Pakistan as an Islamic-extremist safe haven would bolster al-Qaeda’s capabilities tenfold. The jihadist threat bred in Afghanistan would be a cakewalk in comparison. The old Afghan sanctuary was remote, landlocked and weak; a new one in Pakistan would be in the Islamic mainstream with a modern communications and transportation infrastructure linking it to the world.
“A jihadist victory is neither imminent nor inevitable, but it is now a real possibility in the foreseeable future,” he writes. It would require the Taliban expanding eastward, and teaming up with the radical group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Punjab, assisted by harnessing the grievances of Pakistan’s vast impoverished classes.
A jihadist Suni emirate would face significant internal resistance, Reidel writes, including from Shia, who make up a fifth of the population. To counter potential opposition within the army, the new regime would likely create a parallel military force, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“In the end, we would be left with an extremist-controlled Pakistan, infested with violence, an almost completely dysfunctional economy, harsh laws and even-harsher methods for imposing them, and above all a nuclear-armed nation controlled by terrorist sympathizers,” Reidel suggests.
External effects would be severe:
- Pakistan would increase its influence in Afghanistan, with some of the Pashtun areas all but incorporated into Pakistan.
- Afghanistan would be split between Pakistan-backed Pashtun and their Tajik, Uzbek, and Shia opponents backed by Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian countries.
- Iran and Pakistan would face off in Afghanistan, and support separatists movements. Iran would accelerate its nuclear program in the face of the Pakistani threat.
- India and Pakistan might easily come to blows, with anti-Indian extremists in power in Islamabad.
- Israel and Pakistan would be active adversaries, but Israel would have few options for countering the distant Asian state.
- All Muslim countries would face the prospect of a newly energized radical movement using Pakistan as a support and training base.
- The United States would lack military options, and a blockade would be difficult to carry out and hard to sustain.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy)
Al Qaeda has been unusually clear about its interest in nuclear weapons, and in particular those held by Pakistan, recently.
On June 21st, al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan said this about Pakistan’s arsenal: “God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans.”
And within the last month Osama bin Laden “said the jihadists must gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of America, India and Israel,” analyst Bruce Riedel noted. Writes Riedel, “Al Qaeda has told us clearly what the consequences of defeat are – nuclear Armageddon.”
(Image courtesy Nevada Division of Environmental Protection)
In a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, analysts say that Al Qaeda has lashed out at President-elect Obama in a new video because he “challenged its worldview,” with his multiracial, multicultural background.
Mazzetti and Shane wrote, “American antiterrorism officials and other experts dismissed the video as a desperate tactic by a terrorist group that suffered a defeat in the global war of ideas with Mr. Obama’s election.”
They quote Dr. Ronald Walters: ““You’re talking about someone who looks like the rest of the world, and that’s got to be threatening to them.”
(Image copyright FutureAtlas.com and usable with attribution and link)
The Washington Post recently detailed developments in synthetic life: microorganisms guided by completely artificial DNA.
While there are many upsides — artificial organisms might be able to produce cheap biofuels and high-tech chemicals — this technology also has potentially dire security implications.
A biotech watchdog organization, the ETC Group, put it this way:
Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet.
Unlike nuclear weapons, this would not require a vast state-run program. Says the article,
the technology is quickly becoming so simple, experts say, that it will not be long before “bio hackers” working in garages will be downloading genetic programs and making them into novel life forms.
In other words, small groups and even individuals could create immensely dangerous pathogens. (See the movie “Twelve Monkeys” for one such scenario.)
Researchers say that fully artificial cells might be achieved within a year.
Image: NIH
Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress polled 108 foreign affairs experts across the political spectrum about terrorism and related issues.
Asked what country is likely to be the next al Qaeda stronghold, the experts said:
- Pakistan — 35%
- Iraq — 22%
- Somalia — 11%
- Sudan — 8%
- Afghanistan — 7%
The experts also put Pakistan at the head of the list most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists by 2012:
- Pakistan — 74%
- North Korea — 42%
- Russia — 38%
- Iran — 31%
- United States — 5%
The experts were divided about how to change US policy toward Pakistan: about a third favored sanctions against the country, and a similar number advocated increasing US aid.
Pakistan likely tops both lists both because of ideological forces at work within the country, and because it is regularly cited as one of the states most likely to fall apart.
The Post offers credible evidence of an increasing split between Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The local insurgents have tactical, strategic, and even moral issues with the al-Qaeda approach, and clashes between the groups have grown.
This suggests increased likelihood for two outcomes:
- By peeling off the Islamist and global goals of al-Qaeda, it leaves the insurgents more focused on one goal: getting the US to leave. That makes it more possible to end the war with an American departure.
- It lowers the stakes for the US: some level of insurgent success — for instance, Sunni Arabs in charge of some or most of Iraq — is less likely to go hand in hand with al-Qaeda success, and result in a safe haven for Islamic terrorism. An insurgent leader in the article expressly blames al-Qaeda for provoking the occupation of Iraq via September 11th; his concern is clearly his own nation and people, not Caliphatist fantasies.
However, the insurgents are highly fragmented, and a Sunni politician notes that this reduces their ability to counter al-Qaeda. He warns, “If they do not unite, they will be weakened. Then al-Qaeda will manage to make their Islamic state in Iraq, and it will be a sad day for the country and the world.”
The Washington Post reports today on the effect of the Iraq war on the other end of the Arab world, Morocco.
The most salient points:
- Moroccans are being recruited to go off to Iraq by terrorist groups. Extremist recruiters look for men who are particularly outraged by events there and in Palestine.
- Extremist groups across North Africa, from Morocco to Tunisia are finding common cause, partly based on events in Iraq.
- According to a Moroccan expert, “Al-Qaeda has the same strategy as the United States: it wants to win in Iraq so it can transform the whole region. They are fixated on Iraq.”
So al-Qaeda benefits from continued American presence in Iraq. It might also benefit from a withdrawal, if the “few thousand” foreign fighters can play a meaningful role in the aftermath of such a withdrawal.
Either way, every Arab country will be dealing with returning militants who have been trained by the Iraq war, potentially adding to instability.