From two retired generals and strategists: a blueprint for winning the war on terror

It would be folly for the United States and its allies to wait for the results of the 2004 presidential and congressional elections before they lay out a comprehensive strategy against the Web of Terror. The terrorists will not wait until January 20, 2005, and neither should we.

Our grand strategic goal is quite simple: to ensure the security of the United States by thoroughly defeating the Web of Terror. That means drying up the sources of weapons, funding, and manpower for terrorist groups, and denying them territorial sanctuaries. It means stopping nuclear proliferation and dismantling the WMD development programs and weapons stockpiles of rogue states. It means encouraging the spread of democracy in the Muslim world. And it means resolving the Palestinian question in a fair and equitable manner between two democratic entities — the State of Israel and a reformed Palestinian Authority.

We cannot wait to achieve these goals or expect that these changes will happen of their own volition. In some cases, achieving these goals will mean overthrowing regimes, as we did with the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, though the means by which we do so might vary. A case in point could be Iran. Even if Iran officially ends its nuclear weapons development program, it is doubtful that the mullahs will cease arming, training, and funding terror groups around the world. The only serious question remaining, therefore, is how to achieve regime change in Iran, and whether that will be done through support for the growing domestic resistance to the mullahs, diplomatic pressure, military force, or some combination of the three. In other cases, we will have to engage in regime preservation, helping governments secure themselves against Islamist violence so that eventual democratic reform is possible. Nuclear-armed Pakistan, for example, could fall to an Islamist military coup or become a bloody battleground between religious sects, secularists, and foreign jihadists. Pakistan's government, for the long-term benefit of all (except the jihadists), needs democratic reform, but not before it neutralizes the domestic Islamist threat.

The first key concept is the need to press at utmost speed the war on terror to achieve regime change throughout the Web of Terror- supporting states. Another key concept is preemption. President Bush was right to make this a strategic principle of his administration. Preemption's purpose is to put teeth behind the idea that certain actions are utterly unacceptable. Thumb your nose at UN weapons inspectors, and the United States will not risk that it can trust you; it will, in fact, enforce UN threats that the UN itself won't enforce. Sell or transfer nuclear weapons and their delivery systems — cruise missiles and ICBMs — to rogue states or terrorist groups, and America will stop you, by force if necessary. It would be folly to let inaction lead to nuclear proliferation, to wait until a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of al-Qaeda or detonates in New York or London, before we act in our own defense.

Another key concept is simultaneity. We simply do not have the time to take a sequential approach: first Afghanistan, then Iraq, perhaps next North Korea, and so on. Every strand in the Web of Terror needs to be snipped — now. Thankfully, work is being done on many fronts. However, it is not enough and it is not being done anywhere near fast enough. What follows next are the campaigns that must be won.

AFGHANISTAN

To defuse this volatile situation, President Karzai included a section in the Law of Political Parties, decreed in the fall of 2003, stating that political parties could not have military organizations affiliated with them. In addition, he was able to negotiate an agreement among the militias and other armed factions to abide by the terms of the United Nations' disarmament plan.

This is fine on paper, but for the disarmament plan to make any sense, the Afghan national army must be of sufficient size and skill to take over the security duties that the warlords' militias now provide to local populations. Creating a conventional army out of whole cloth is a difficult task at any time; doing so while the Taliban and al-Qaeda are attempting to regain power will make the process in Afghanistan even more challenging. Moreover, we are not sure that we want all of these groups disarmed as quickly as some wish. In the fight against the Taliban and other jihadists in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the militias are as invaluable today as they were in the 2001 campaign that drove out the Taliban and al-Qaeda. To disarm and disband them in the absence of a force that can take their place would be tantamount to granting Mullah Omar a foothold in the country.

The resurgence of the Taliban is what worries us most. In the fall of 2003, the Taliban began trying to make good on its public threat to take over the country by attacking NATO forces and killing aid workers. The Taliban and al-Qaeda also have taken their activities in the "tribal" territories of Pakistan, the areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to include the cities of Peshawar and Quetta.

Pakistan must act — assisted by coalition forces on the Afghan side of the border — to eliminate this al-Qaeda and Taliban presence. Destroying the Taliban and al-Qaeda would remove the greatest threat not only to Afghanistan but to the Pakistani government as well. Pakistan's intelligence service helped create the Taliban and see it into power. Now the Taliban is a potential threat to the Pakistani government in a country where radical Islam has a deep reservoir of public support.

At present, the United States has approximately 11,000 troops in Afghanistan, and along with fighting the terrorists, our government is committed to a necessary program of domestic improvements throughout the country. Currently, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are developing the areas outside of Kabul. Led by Americans, Germans, and workers from other NATO countries, the PRTs are proving to be very effective at planning, developing, and executing the reconstruction projects aimed at improving infrastructure, establishing schools, and restoring legitimate agriculture to attract some farmers away from growing opium poppies. Their operations as well as those of various aid agencies must be expanded — and protected — throughout the country. The Afghans must come to believe that the government in Kabul and its international allies are offering Afghanistan a better future. The key to ensuring a stable, peaceful Afghanistan is to stay the course. Allowing Afghanistan's economic and political development to languish and its security system to deteriorate would be to recreate the conditions that led to the establishment of the Taliban regime. We will likely be in Afghanistan, assisting in its development, for another ten to twenty years. But to defeat terrorism, we have no choice.

The force level we need to maintain in Afghanistan is relatively small, the duties in the long term, relatively easy. The fact that we will be keeping troops in Afghanistan (and other countries) for decades is not to say that the Web of Terror can't be defeated quickly. We defeated the Axis powers within four years of our entry into World War II — and yet we still have troops in German and Japan, sixty years later. So too in the war against terror we must act with a swift sword, as we did in Afghanistan, while recognizing that a longer-term military presence in the country is a necessary burden, and not an intolerable one.

— Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney retired from the U.S. Air Force as assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force and director for the Defense Performance Review. Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely retired from the U.S. Army as deputy commanding general, Pacific, and is the senior military analyst for FOX News Channel.

Tom McInerny and Paul Vallely know well that America is at war today with an enemy every bit as dangerous as Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union: Radical Islam. Like our past enemies, it is driven by a utopian, totalitarian ideology and rejects American-style freedom. But unlike them, it is not confined to particular nations and cannot be defeated solely through conventional warfare against enemy states. Endgame is a blueprint for victory over these tenacious and bloodthirsty foes. It details the new strategy that America must adopt to fight the very new kind of war we're in, and reveals a wealth of inside information -- including the location of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

McInerny and Vallely aren't mere armchair strategists. They're retired generals of the Air Force and the Army who have devoted their lives to defending America. They also serve as military analysts for FOX News, which gives them access to up-to-the-minute reports and inside sources that know everything that's going on within the Pentagon, the CIA, and other government agencies. When other analysts were wringing their hands and whining about "quagmires" in Afghanistan and Iraq, they calmly predicted relatively easy and decisive American victories -- and they were right.

Endgame explores radical Islam's global Web of Terror, showing how Muslim terrorists have established, armed, and funded a large number of terrorist organizations -- al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Jemaah Islamiyah and others - that have committed atrocities across the globe. But their main target, say McInerny and Vallely, is America. They explain why the next major terrorist assault on the United States could be everyone's worst fear: an attack involving weapons of mass destruction. That's why, they argue compellingly, we must act now to destroy the terror masters before they can strike us. Among the revelations in Endgame:

The inside story of how the strategy for the Afghan war developed in the White House and the Pentagon
Why, despite our successes, we have not been nearly aggressive enough in the war on terror
How we must respond to each of the eight countries that make up the principal elements of the international Web of Terror
What America could do to reduce -- quickly and drastically -- the international threat from al Quaeda
Overview: countries in which we should press for regime change, and others in which we should focus on regime preservation
The key to achieving lasting success in Afghanistan
Why some things that were touted in the 1990s as major victories against global terrorism were not all they were cracked up to be
What Pakistan must do in order to prove itself to be our true ally in the War on Terror
Why it was no real surprise that WMDs weren't immediately found by coalition forces in Iraq
Iraq: why the worst thing we could do for the Iraqi people now would be to withdraw our forces from the country
Four reasons why our campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq went so well
Why it was so important for the U.S. to bring down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan -- and not just because it was closely allied with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda
Iran: why it will fall even more easily than Iraq did, and may reform itself without American intervention
What America must do now to aid the democratic forces in Iraq
The little-known reason why so many states in the Muslim world have failed so miserably -- and what the U.S. can and should do to help
Why the stunning American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq should not have been as surprising as they were to international commentators and opinion-makers
Saddam Hussein: three reasons why toppling his regime was the obvious next step in the terror war after the Afghanistan campaign
North Korea: how, aside from selling nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology, it uses its nuke program for extortion
The remarkable lesson that American military strategists have learned in Afghanistan and Iraq
Syria: how it is a domino waiting to fall -- and why it's an ideal place to use America's dominant sea and air power
Why the analysts who say that we should return to the Clintonian idea of counter-terrorism as law enforcement rather than military action are dead wrong
Saudi Arabia: why it desperately needs a decent education system -- but why a quality education system is not enough
A Palestinian homeland: the key to peace in the Middle East and victory over radical Islam? Why this idea is nothing more than a self-defeating, nonsensical dream
The gamble that America should take to try to establish real peace between the Israelis and Palestinians
Refuted: seven reasons why the Iraq campaign was a bad idea
Why we need a reconfiguration of global alliances -- and how it has already begun
What America is already doing to fight and win the ideological battle that is key to ultimate victory in the terror war
Five freedoms that America must champion and make the cornerstone of new international alliances
How our invasion of Iraq has damaged the cause of international terror
Plus: a comprehensive reading list on issues related to the war on terror

McInerny and Vallely know and draw on the gritty, battle-hardened wisdom of the men and women on "the sharp edge": in the rifle companies, artillery batteries, tank platoons, submarines, and destroyers. During a visit to Baghdad, one young soldier told McInerny and Vallely that the war on terror can't be lost on the battlefield; but it can be lost if the will of the American people falters.

This is if anything far too tame. Firstly stop calling it the War on Terror and start calling it the Third World War (aka The War on Anti Western Forces). The principle that those who commit, aid, harbor, arm, or abet terrorist operations will be defeated must be taken to its full fruition up to and including fighting war against major nation states up and including thermonuclear war fought in a manner to win absolutely.

As for the matter of Pakistan, regime change, or outright reintegration with India should not be ruled out since the current regime are overtly involved in military operations with the PRC and overtly aid other anti Western efforts besides terrorism especially those in the ASEAN countries. As for enforcement or involvement with UN resolutions and initiatives I propose a radically different course, one of ending the UN. It has been demonstrated throughout history the unnecessary foreign entanglement especially with so called multi-lateral supranational bodies does more harm than good.

The USA needs to move back to a geopolitical strategy which was in force at the very end of the 19th century and heartily embrace strict bilateralism. The beauty of this is that multiple bilateral relationships with true friends would result in a far more effective de facto international alignment of the like minded than anything like the UN or NATO ever have.

Finally as for Afghanistan, it is urgent that we understand the fact that geopolitical enemies of the USA have it in their interests to maintain the current situation. "Ex" Red Army General Dostum is assuredly not on the side of the West, long term, nor are the many Red Chinese helpers we've allowed into the country. Again, and in bold afront the the effette, world opinion obsessed mantras of the 1945ers of the Western liberal orthodoxy, we should outright ban certain countries' nationals from entering Afghanistan, shoot on sight.

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