Unconquerable Nation: Chapter 4 A Sharper Sword

CHAPTER FOUR A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy

American actions after September 11, 2001, were a response to a catastrophic attack without precedent in the annals of terrorism. Immediate action was required to prevent further attacks. There was no time for lengthy planning. Action and strategy evolved concurrently, which is not unusual in war. It was no different in World War II, when well into the fighting, the allies were still formulating their grand strategy.

America’s strategy in response to 9/11 was initially sketched out in a series of speeches by President Bush and was later elaborated in a number of official documents. On September 20, 2001, the President first spoke of the “war on terror.” Later expanded to the “global war on terror”—GWOT in government-speak—the concept has continued to frame American strategy, although perhaps in a somewhat less expansive form today. There was a conscious effort in 2005 by some national leaders to replace GWOT with GSAVE (for “global struggle against violent extremism”), but President Bush rightly brushed it off as a meaningless phrase.

Although “global war on terror” is direct, concise, and conveys action, the particular choice of words struck me at the time as ominous, but not because of the word “war.” Military force had been a part of America’s counterterrorist arsenal since the mid-1980s, when then–Secretary of State George Shultz fought hard against those in the Pentagon who had resisted the use of military force in any circumstances short of an all-out conventional war that we could win Unconquerable Nation quickly. “We cannot allow ourselves to become the Hamlet of nations, worrying endlessly over whether and how to respond,” he said in his famous 1984 speech at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City.70 The speech marked a turning point in American policy, although the military establishment continued to resist.

In an essay written immediately after 9/11, I argued in favor of framing the U.S. response as war, for several reasons.71 To begin with, it would distinguish America’s response to this attack from previous patterns of response. Until 9/11, U.S. counterterrorist efforts were officially referred to as “combating terrorism,” a term that correctly implies an enduring task. But the response to 9/11 had to be different. While the United States would continue its efforts to combat terrorism, after 9/11 it was necessary to utterly destroy the al Qaeda organization, the entire jihadist network, and the jihadist ideology. Doing so would entail a global effort against a global enterprise and certainly would include the sustained use of overwhelming military force, in contrast to the isolated incidents of targeted strikes applied against terrorism in the past. The use of the term “war” would make it easier to mobilize the necessary national resources. It would enable the United States to seize the initiative rather than wait for terrorist attacks. It would set aside strict requirements of timeliness and proportionality. It would enable us to attack when, where, and with weapons of our choosing. And it would not obviate concurrent law enforcement efforts. Crushing the jihadist enterprise, not payback, would be the objective.

Moreover, as a Vietnam veteran, I was skeptical of fickle public opinion and feckless politicians. Never again, in my view, should American soldiers be sent into combat without a clear mandate from Congress and the American people. A declaration of war, or its close equivalent, was a way to ensure this mandate. “Global war” did not strike me as an overstatement. It was the choice of the word “terror” that gave me pause.

The terms “terrorism” and “terror” both have well-established lineages, but they mean different things. “Terror” entered the political lexicon during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, when extremists in control of the government sent cartloads of condemned counterrevolutionaries to the guillotine in order to strike terror in the hearts of any who dared oppose the new regime. Since that time, the term has been generally applied to actions used by governments or their secret agents, including assassinations, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, concentration camps, the torture of prisoners, summary executions, forcible relocations of entire populations—all calculated to discourage dissent. Historically, terror was a government tool.

During the Cold War, however, the concept of “terror” took on an additional meaning as it was extended to the strategic discourse: A “balance of terror” between the superpowers, both of whom had sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the planet, would deter the use of those weapons. Terror thus came to imply weapons of mass destruction.

“Terrorism” also entered the political lexicon in France, when Napoleon’s chief of police ordered the roundup of terrorists responsible for an attempt on the emperor’s life. The word gained currency during the 19th century, when bomb-throwing revolutionaries, who wanted to obliterate property and terrorize the ruling classes, readily called themselves terrorists. Since then, “terrorism” generally has applied to certain tactics used by those seeking to bring down governments, tactics such as assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, and hijackings.

The use of the two terms implies no moral comparison. Terrorism from below is no worse than terror from above, although government terror has claimed far more victims than revolutionary terrorism has. The tactical repertoires of those engaged in terrorism and of those engaged in terror overlap considerably. The contemporary definition of terrorism makes no distinction with regard to actors.

The distinctions between terrorism and terror began to blur in the 1990s as terrorists became increasingly determined to engage in large-scale, indiscriminate violence. This was the “new terrorism.” The collapse of the Soviet Union and fears about the security of its vast nuclear arsenal, followed by the 1995 terrorist attack on Tokyo’s subways by cult members using a nerve agent, generated growing concerns that terrorists would acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, several countries that had sponsored terrorist attacks against their adversaries abroad were known or suspected to be developing nuclear weapons. The nightmare scenarios of terrorists being armed with nuclear weapons by renegade states or by rogue elements in these countries became a presumption. Iraq was a particular suspect. It had developed and used chemical weapons against its own population and against Iran during the 1991 Gulf War. After that war, arms inspectors discovered that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program that was more advanced than Western intelligence services had known.

The 9/11 attacks clearly fell in the domain of terrorism rather than terror. Why, then, did the President on September 20 use the term “terror”? Was it merely imprecise language, the product of a speechwriter who did not understand the arcane distinctions analysts made between terrorism and terror? Did the sheer scale of the attack push the vocabulary out of the realm of seemingly ordinary terrorism and into the strategic domain where the word “terror” seemed more appropriate? Did the President suspect the involvement of a foreign government? It crossed my mind at the time that we probably were going to war with Iraq.

In the autumn of 2001, I envisioned a narrow campaign to destroy al Qaeda and its jihadist affiliates. This was the enterprise that had declared war on the United States, carrying out attacks on U.S. installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and an American warship in Yemen in 2000; it had attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. The destruction of al Qaeda was justified and necessary, and it had to be the priority.

But Washington, where Mars ruled, had a much broader view of its mission. Propelled by equal parts of fear and hubris, the global war on terror grew in scope. From the start, there was a lot of chestthumping. The United States would not only destroy al Qaeda, offi- A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy 115 cials said, it would settle scores with all the groups that had American blood on their hands. Asked if the United States was going to expand its campaign against al Qaeda to include Hezbollah, a high-ranking State Department official responded, “Just like a wrestling meet. We are going to take them one after another.” In return for the support of other nations, the United States stood ready to assist their local counterterrorist campaigns, which meant adding their foes to the list of our foes. The United States would lead an international effort to raise counterterrorist capabilities worldwide. The United States itself would focus on terrorists with “global reach.” The United States would see to it that terrorists did not acquire weapons of mass destruction. Determined to rid the world of terror, the United States would deal with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. In this global war on terror, President Bush gave nations around the world the choice: You are either with us or against us.

In a long conflict, a strategy can be only theoretical. Application must be specific to the circumstances of each situation. This is especially true in a multidimensional, multifront global campaign against an evolving adversary. New situations require changes in strategy. Events initiated by the enemy or of one’s own making will alter the situation and require new calculations—not mere midcourse adjustments, but significant changes.

The chronology of events since September 11, 2001, illustrates this perfectly. The Taliban were quickly removed, but there is now an escalating insurgency in Afghanistan. The United States then chose to invade Iraq. The invasion succeeded, but armed resistance escalated, demanding the continued commitment of large numbers of troops, causing American and allied casualties and requiring huge investments of money, which dismayed even the war’s initial supporters and which could force the United States to withdraw. How such a withdrawal would take place and what would happen next would, in turn, create a completely new set of conditions. The strategic calculations of 2006 differ significantly from those of 2001. Our actions should be governed not by a strategy leading to a distant, undefined victory, but by a set of enduring strategic principles.

The United States should focus its continuing counterterrorism campaign on the destruction of the global jihadist enterprise. This enterprise remains the principal immediate threat to U.S. national security. The pursuit of the jihadists must be implacable, unrelenting. The terrorist enterprise—its historic center and its affiliates in their current and future forms—must be defeated and destroyed. Its adherents must be dispersed, scattered, divided, deprived of glory, disillusioned, demoralized, and kept on the run, no matter how long it takes. Terrorist operational capabilities have been reduced considerably since 2001, but the jihadists have proven to be adaptable, resilient, and capable of continued action. And as the analysis in Chapter Three suggests

[Immediately after September 11, 2001, I wrote an essay that began to lay out a strategy for countering al Qaeda. The essay grew into a series of briefings, which were delivered to various government agencies in Washington. The briefings were expanded and updated to reflect later developments and in 2002 were published in a RAND monograph. The proposed strategy comprised the following key elements: • The destruction of al Qaeda must remain the primary aim of the American campaign. • The pursuit of al Qaeda must be single-minded and unrelenting. • The campaign against terrorism will take time—decades. • The fight in Afghanistan must be continued as long as al Qaeda operatives remain in the country. • Pakistan must be kept on the side of the allies in efforts to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban and to dilute Islamic extremism. • New networks must be created to exploit intelligence across frontiers. • The war on terrorism cannot be accomplished unilaterally—international cooperation is a prerequisite for success. • This is a war against specific terrorists—the goal is to combat terrorism. • The current U.S. strategy should be amended to include political warfare. • Deterrent strategies may be appropriate for dealing with the terrorists’ support structures. • It must be made clear that terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction will bring extraordinary responses. • Homeland security strategies must be developed that are both effective and efficient. • The war against the terrorists at home and abroad must be conducted in a way that is consistent with American values. _________________ SOURCE: Brian Michael Jenkins, Countering al Qaeda: An Appreciation of the Situation and Suggestions for Strategy, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002.]

their determination is not easily dented. We should not let the initial U.S. successes translate into dangerous complacency. Ideologically, the jihadists are still on the march. Unpursued, they will be able to quickly repair the damage done to their organization and escalate the violence.

At the same time, the United States must continue to encourage and assist efforts to combat terrorism worldwide, making the operating environment more hostile for all groups using terrorist tactics. However, we are not going to take them all down one after another. Circumstances may arise where the United States may even find tactical advantage in dialogue and cooperation. Whether we treat other groups like al Qaeda will depend on their behavior. This puts a deterrent component into the U.S. strategy. It does not make terrorism tolerable. It provides an incentive for groups, including those actively engaged in armed conflict, not to resort to terrorist tactics and not to attack the United States. At the same time, it allows the United States to focus its counterterrorist efforts on the most urgent threat.

And although the emergence of al Qaeda and its jihadist ideology reflects a unique confluence of events, the jihadist enterprise is the prototype for the amorphous and criminal networks that will figure prominently in the 21st century. Therefore, we must seek not only to destroy the jihadist enterprise, but to develop the skills, institutions, and relationships that will be necessary to conduct a global war against non-state actors.

America’s efforts to combat terrorism may be divided into several distinct phases. The first phase began with the recognition of the threat in the early 1970s and was characterized by efforts to build both international consensus on outlawing terrorist tactics and institutional capabilities to respond more effectively. When the United States increasingly became the target of sustained terrorist campaigns in the early 1980s, a thorough policy review led to significant increases in security and a tougher response, including the use of military force—but we were still reactive. With 9/11, we seized the initiative, carrying the battle to the terrorists wherever possible and redefining homeland security, accomplishing a lot but sometimes going too far, riding roughshod over domestic rules, squandering international support. Now we have to arrange our policies and carry out actions in ways that can be sustained and will be supported over the long run.

Historical experience suggests that the jihadist conflict will go on for a long time. It took Germany and Italy more than a decade to effectively suppress the tiny terrorist formations operating on their territory. It took the British a quarter of a century to persuade the IRA to give up its armed struggle, and the IRA was a much smaller organization than the global jihadist enterprise—its operations were confined, for the most part, to British territory. A small number of Basque separatists were able to continue their campaign of terrorism in Spain for nearly 40 years. Insurgencies last even longer. Guerrillas in Guatemala fought for nearly half a century. The insurgency in Colombia is now in its fifth decade, with no signs of ending soon . Even capturing al Qaeda’s leaders could require a lengthy pursuit. They could be killed or captured tomorrow or ten years from now. It took nearly two decades to apprehend Carlos, the overrated terrorist celebrity of the 1970s. Abu Nidal, who personified international terrorism to many in the 1980s, was never apprehended and died of natural causes 20 years later. In 1916, General John Pershing led the U.S. Army into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa, who had waged his own war against Americans. Villa escaped Pershing and was not caught until Mexican gunmen assassinated him 12 years later.

The United States must conserve its resources for the long haul. These include blood, treasure, the will of the American people, and the support of needed allies. This means picking future fights carefully, making security measures both effective and efficient, maintaining domestic support, avoiding extreme measures that alienate the people, and cultivating rather than bullying other countries.

Armed force alone cannot win this war. The real battle is ideological. In the continuing campaign against al Qaeda and the insurgencies raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, political warfare must be an essential part of America’s arsenal. It is not enough to outgun the jihadists. Wemust destroy their appeal, halt their recruiting. It is not enough to kill or apprehend individual members. Al Qaeda’s jihadist ideology must be delegitimized and discredited.

Few Americans understand political warfare, which, in its broadest sense, can encompass every aspect of conflict other than military operations, from assassination to political accommodation. Reversing Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is the extension of politics by other means, political warfare is the extension of armed conflict by other means.

Political warfare is not concerned with advertising American values or winning hearts and minds, an effort that addresses the attitudes of the broader population—the sea in which the jihadist fish swim. We must, of course, attempt to understand the sentiments of the Islamic world, their antipathies toward us and toward the terrorist fanatics who threaten them as well. Where possible, we should try to address these within the limits of our own national interests. But we also must be realistic about our limitations.

There is, today, great ferment among devout Muslims in the broader community about how they should relate to political authority, the application of law, the basis of economic development, the challenge of globalization, the onslaught of Western culture, the problems of integration in non-Muslim societies. Notions of dividing this vast Islamic community into progressive or fundamentalist belief systems or energizing the “moderates” to take on the jihadists fail to acknowledge the complexity and fluidity of the current debates. The United States is seen neither as a qualified commentator nor as a respected source of opinion on these topics.

Political warfare, rather, comprises aggressive tactics aimed at the fringes of the population, where personal discontent and spiritual devotion turn to violent expression. But political warfare does not focus exclusively on enemies who are at large, nor does it end with their capture. It targets those on their way into the enemy ranks, those who might be persuaded to quit, and those in custody. Political warfaresees the enemy not as a monolithic force, but as a dynamic population of individuals whose grievances, sense of humiliation, and desirefor revenge, honor, status, meaning, or mere adventure propel them into terrorism. Certainty of death may not dissuade the most committed zealots, but there are many others in both the process of commitment and supporting roles who can be reached. Political warfare accepts no foe as having irrevocably crossed a line; it sees enemy combatants as constantly calibrating and recalibrating their commitment. It sees every prisoner not merely as a source of operational intelligence, but as a potential convert. Political warfare is infinitely flexible and ferociously pragmatic. It accepts local accommodations to reduce violence, offers amnesties to induce divisions and defections, and cuts deals to co-opt enemies. And while it may be silly to talk about the mindset of the “Arab street,” political warfare could also target the sea of passive supporters who permit the extremists to operate.

The United States, of course, engages in some political warfare now, but its efforts are the uncoordinated by-products of diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, or military operations, and they lack coherence. Moreover, attitudes get in the way. Americans are suspicious of psychological operations beyond the distribution of battlefield leaflets, fearing that propaganda will contaminate the U.S. media or be used to generate domestic support for administration policies. America is a nation of laws, and Americans believe in punishment. We bridle at deals with those who have been our enemies, we object to amnesties, we miss opportunities. Before carefully considering how the United States might exploit a propaganda opportunity, government officials are pressured to make ill-considered remarks in public to make news for short-term advantage.

The U.S. government has many information offices whose staffs are tasked with advertising American values, public diplomacy, placing favorable articles in hostile press environments, and conducting tactical psychological operations, but it has no organization and no strategy for political warfare. We are behind the enemy in this area. As long as we see political warfare as merely advertising American values, as a dangerous deception unbefitting democracy, or as dancing with the devil, we are condemning ourselves to taking down our opponents one at a time in endless combat—a strategy that amounts to stepping on cockroaches. Even as we kill some, the others will multiply.

“Improving our efforts will likely mean embracing new institutions to engage people around the world,” wrote Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in the essay quoted in Chapter Two. “During the Cold War, institutions such as the U.S. Information Agency and Radio Free Europe proved to be valuable instruments for the United States. We need to consider the possibility of new organizations and programs that can serve a similarly valuable role in the war on terror.”73 This is true, but the United States will need more than new organiza- A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy 123 tions and more-effective delivery of messages. It will need a political warfare strategy based on a thorough knowledge of our terrorist foes.

The U.S. strategy against the jihadist enterprise must be broadened to address the entire jihadist cycle, from entry to exit. The cycle begins with radicalization of eager acolytes and ends with their rehabilitation, lengthy imprisonment, or death. The diagram below illustrates the cycle from the outsider’s perspective. First, self-selected volunteers willingly accept indoctrination and recruitment. Recruitment, as we saw in Chapter Three, is itself a multistep process in which recruits must provide proofs of commitment to advance. Going operational —recruiting others, preparing and participating in terrorist operations —is the step that may result in death or capture. But capture does not end the jihad. Interrogation, trial, and captivity, however long, do not quash the jihadist’s commitment—only death can do that. We expect the same of American soldiers who, even as prisoners of war, follow a code of honor that requires them to continue to behave as soldiers at war, to resist their captors, to escape if possible, to continue the struggle. Only death, demobilization, or the end of hostilities ends their efforts.

U.S. counterterrorist efforts focus on only the operational portion of this cycle, the visible tip of the iceberg: from late in the recruitment process to death or capture. Insufficient attention is paid to defeating radicalization, indoctrination, and recruitment at the front end or to developing a coherent strategy for dealing with detainees at the back end. We have concentrated on degrading the jihadists’ operational capabilities by eliminating jihadists, but not by impeding recruiting, inducing defections, or getting detainees to renounce jihad.

This narrow vision is understandable. It reflects the traditional law enforcement approach in which the task of the police is to apprehend criminals and gather evidence for their prosecution. It comes from a narrow military approach in which the armed forces close with and kill or capture enemy soldiers and interrogate them for operational intelligence but do not consider prisoners a possible resource.

More recent and innovative law enforcement approaches do push in the direction of discouraging or deterring crime, while prisons theoretically are concerned with the rehabilitation of criminals; but this does not apply to terrorists. The armed forces historically have employed psychological operations to demoralize enemy soldiers. In past counterinsurgencies, the military has tried to induce defections from insurgent ranks. In some cases, armed forces have even recruited among insurgent prisoners or have directly enrolled those they know to have been enemy combatants to fight in special units. We should do the same with former terrorists.

Reducing jihadist recruiting is essential to reducing the terrorist threat. There are several possible approaches. One would be to remove the sources of discontent by addressing the root causes. Resolving the Palestinian problem; ending conflicts in Chechnya, Kashmir, and the Philippines; reducing poverty while expanding economic opportunities; encouraging democracy; and better integrating Muslim immigrant populations—these are noble causes on their own merit and should be pursued. But although jihadist recruiting exploits these issues, it also specifically includes bringing down the governments of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Jordan; destroying the state of Israel; driving the United States and non-Muslims out of Muslim lands; reestablishing caliphates in the Middle East and among the Muslim populations of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These are obviously demands we can never agree to. As a result, jihadists are prepared for perpetual war against the infidels.

Moreover, there is little evidence linking poverty or political oppression with terrorism. The history of modern terrorism, in fact, suggests otherwise. Liberal democracies—including Uruguay, Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have spawned terrorist movements, with many members coming from middle- and upper-class families and having college degrees. Neither al Qaeda’s leaders and key operational planners, the 9/11 hijackers, nor many other jihadist operatives are products of poverty or oppression. Individual discontents, not the ills of society, determine who joins.

This is not to say that policies don’t count. The United States pays a price for its support of Israel and the House of Saud. The invasion of Iraq upset much of the Muslim community. The photographs of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison provoked deep anger. And if an entire community moves several percentage points in a negative direction, it considerably increases the population of extremists on the tail of the curve where jihadist recruiters operate. They don’t need a million volunteers, only a few alienated souls.

The expansion of jihadist recruiting may reflect not only accumulating social and political grievances or fundamental spiritual revival, but also the proliferation of “sales points”: the physical and virtual places where individuals are exposed to the jihadist message. Marketing, not message, often explains growing congregations. If so, then merely reducing the number of jihadist sales points would reduce jihadist recruiting.

Until the world can be made a better place, it is the actual practice of indoctrination and recruiting that must be cracked. Governments have tried to reduce recruiting by attacking incitement and outlawing oral or written speech that encourages hatred and violence. This provokes hostile reactions in societies that protect free speech, but such restrictions are increasingly being expanded. Governments in these societies can also go after the inciters, expelling foreigners —but not native citizens—who preach violence.

Experience from previous wars and counterterrorism campaigns gives us numerous examples of efforts to impede recruiting, encourage defections, and turn prisoners around. Known recruiting sites can be shut down or so obviously kept under surveillance that they are seen by potential recruits as unsafe. Respected communicators can be deployed to warn of jihadist recruiters and counter their messages. Informants can be recruited to provide information; even their suspected presence obliges recruiters to move with greater care. Recantations and denunciations can be elicited and broadcast. False recruiting sites can make volunteers nervous or be used to circulate repellent material.

Measures that have little impact on civil liberties are preferable. Even if known recruiters cannot be arrested or expelled, authorities can identify and frequently interview them. Making surveillance obvious removes the cloak of clandestinity and can create uncertainties and suspicions. As part of the campaign to reduce Ku Klux Klan violence in America, FBI agents conducted aggressive interviews that informed Klan members that their identities were known, that there were informants in their ranks, and that if trouble occurred, they would be under suspicion.

Preemptive recruiting is another approach. During the Vietnam War, U.S. Special Forces soldiers recruited highland tribesmen and rural villagers to the South Vietnamese side, knowing that if the A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy 127 United States didn’t give them rifles, the Viet Cong would. In the same way today, recruiting large numbers of Iraqis into government security forces at least keeps them employed and, it is to be hoped, out of the clutches of the resistance. Recruitment into government service works best in an insurgency, but there may be other ways to draw off the energies of angry young men, including aggressively recruiting them into special units of the armed forces. A few of those who join might start out intending to infiltrate the “enemy’s camp,” but intense military training and the bonding that comes with it has a way of changing attitudes. It can be no riskier than the past practice of taking into the army young delinquents who were offered the alternatives of jail or joining up.

Educational efforts can also be launched to explain how the jihadists have twisted the religion of Islam. Singapore has enlisted unpaid religious teachers to study the jihadist ideology, identify its distortions, and give lectures at mosques. (This program is described further below, in the discussion of getting detainees to renounce terrorism.)

Yet another approach involves interfering with recruiting. As part of their campaign against terrorists in the 1970s, German authorities deployed hundreds of young undercover agents to likely terrorist recruiting spots. Their mere presence caused the already paranoid terrorists to suspect every new volunteer. Surveillance—real and imagined—at every likely jihadist center since 9/11 has forced jihadist recruiters to be more circumspect.

Luring those in the terrorist fold back to society is another strategic approach. Terrorists say they are all determined to fight to the death, an assertion they underline by pointing to suicide attacks. But the ranks of even the most fervent fanatics include less-committed individuals, even latent defectors who might quit if offered a safe way out. They may come to fear the mad leaders who would happily have them die, yet they also fear what might happen to them in American hands. Dropping out and defection may be more frequent occurrences than we suspect. The images of Abu Ghraib should not be seen as the only alternative to martyrdom.

The Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program during the Vietnam War persuaded more than 100,000 enemy soldiers to defect to the South Vietnamese side by offering them amnesty, cash, job training assistance, and homes.76 Some of the “ralliers,” as they were called, eventually drifted back to the communist side, but overall the program was an economical and certainly less-dangerous way of removing a sizable number of enemy combatants.

When I was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam, we created yet another program, called the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), in the remote areas of Vietnam where ethnic minorities often predominated. We devised the CIDG initially to enhance local self-defense capabilities but also to compete with Viet Cong recruiting. The CIDG grew to a force of over 50,000 fighters, more than a few of whom had once been in the Viet Cong.

These were individuals who did not want to leave their tribal areas and who, as ethnic tribesmen, would not have been treated well in the camps for the ralliers—even less well in the prisoner-of-war camps. But hungry, tired, the tribesmen showed up to join the CIDG, never admitting their prior Viet Cong service but having obvious military skills that marked them as ex-guerrillas. Rather than turning these “irregulars” over to South Vietnamese authorities, the Special Forces camps often took the risk of enlisting them directly into the CIDG and, when possible, bringing their families into the camps as well, hostages to their good behavior. It did not always work, and there were some deliberate infiltrations with terrible results, but many of the enlistees proved to be effective fighters on our behalf.

Although it may be difficult to convert committed jihadists, it is not impossible. Khaled al-Berry did it on his own, as discussed in Chapter Three.77 Faced with a direct terrorist challenge from al Qaeda, the government of Saudi Arabia has cracked down hard, but it also has offered the terrorists amnesty and financial assistance for their families. Only a few have openly accepted, but the program has established that there is another road, and it has given greater legiti- A Sharper Sword: Strategic Principles for Defeating Today’s Enemy 129 macy to the government’s continuing campaign against those who have rejected the offer.

In 2004, Iraq’s interim president first floated the idea of a broad amnesty for the insurgents in that country. The objective, he said, was to split the insurgency between nationalists fighting to evict foreign troops and foreign fighters engaged in jihad. Iraq’s new president revived the idea in 2005, restricting the offer to Iraqi insurgents who turned away from the resistance.

American officials reacted negatively. “We don’t think it’s appropriate to give amnesty to people who have killed American or Coalition forces,” observed a State Department spokesman. It is an understandable sentiment, but one that narrows exit scenarios. Can the fighting end only when the last American soldier in Iraq kills the last Iraqi insurgent?

Political warfare does not end with terrorist captivity. Lacking a strategy, we have competing views of what should be done with suspected terrorist detainees: interrogate them for operational intelligence, detain them for the duration of the war, bring them to trial before military tribunals or civilian courts, hand them over for imprisonment in their countries of origin. But turning detainees against violence should be considered as important as interrogation. Rehabilitation is more important than prosecution, especially if it can be used to discourage jihadist recruiting. Those in custody should be offered the opportunity to quit the jihad, to repent, to publicly recant. We should not let our own desires for revenge or our determination to see justice done get in the way. We must be pragmatic. We are not settling blood debts, we are waging a political war.

The objective cannot be to accumulate ever-growing numbers of detainees, nor should it be merely to reduce the number held. The United States has requested that some countries take back their own nationals among the detainees, but the recipient country must sign an agreement that it will not abuse the prisoners in its custody and that it will permit inspections by a third party. This concern for the detainees’ welfare is legitimate; however, given the U.S. record, it is viewed in other nations as extraordinary hypocrisy. Not surprisingly, thus far there are few takers.

One of our top objectives should be to identify those who never were enemy combatants but were picked up in error and held for long periods. The authorities should avoid any temptation to cover initial errors by obtaining false confessions as a condition for prompt release. We have no right to hold these people, but we should also facilitate their reentry into society, assist them if we can, enlist their assistance if they are willing, and ensure as much as possible that their understandable anger does not lead them directly into the jihadist camp.

Those who truly are jihadists will, of course, require a different approach. The experience of other countries offers a number of examples. Determined to reduce the number of IRA detainees, British authorities compiled evidence to justify the release of those individuals whose family or community backgrounds suggested that they could be moved away from violence. This reduced both the population of detainees and the alienation in the communities from which they came. The British also encouraged (and covertly assisted) paramilitary leaders in exploring their political options.

Italy, a Catholic country, used an appropriate religious term to encourage Red Brigades prisoners to renounce terrorism and cooperate with authorities. Those who did so were called “repentants,” and their sentences were reduced accordingly. The mere fact that some repented dismayed those still at large, and the information the repentants provided was crucial in cracking the terrorists’ campaign.

Other innovative approaches are being pursued today by other countries. In Yemen, Islamic scholars challenged a group of defiant al Qaeda prisoners to a theological debate. “If you convince us that your ideas are justified by the Quran, then we will join you in the struggle,” the scholars told the terrorists. “But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence.” The scholars won the debate, and a number of the prisoners renounced violence, were released, and were given help in finding jobs. Some have since offered advice to Yemeni security services—indeed, a tip from one led to the death of al Qaeda’s top leader in the country.

Turning terrorists around is not easy, and it doesn’t always work. Reportedly, some of those released in Yemen have slipped back into jihadist circles, but we should not expect, nor do we need, 100 percent success.

Saudi Arabia has launched its own campaign by mobilizing some of its most militant clerics, including one whom Osama bin Laden tried to recruit as a spiritual guide of the jihad, to discourage recruitment and reeducate imprisoned jihadists. The program involves teams of clerics and psychiatrists who daily engage individual prisoners in intense religious discussions that can go on for hours at a time. It is almost a mirror of the intense indoctrination that jihadist recruits receive on their way in. If the conversion is considered successful, the individual is released and helped to find a job, or even a wife, but is also kept under close surveillance. At the same time, counselors employed by the government infiltrate jihadist web sites and chat rooms to argue with al Qaeda sympathizers.

It is difficult to assess results. Saudi authorities claim that they have succeeded in changing the thinking of 250 online sympathizers, but how do we know whether they truly think differently now? About 500 jihadists have completed the prison course and been released, but critics charge that 85 to 90 percent might be faking.

With only 36 detainees, Singapore has developed a comprehensive strategy that could provide a model for the United States. In 2003, it approached Islamic religious teachers, asking them to assist in counseling the detainees. The effort grew into the Religious Rehabilitation Group. Unpaid volunteer religious teachers studied the jihadists’ literature, identified specific areas where it contradicted or misinterpreted the Quran, prepared a training manual, and recruited other Islamic teachers to participate in the effort.

The group has provided hundreds of counseling sessions to reeducate and rehabilitate the detainees. The teachers admit it is slow work. Some of the detainees remain obstinate; only a few have been released, and they are required to continue attending classes at the mosque. The program has been expanded into lectures at mosques aimed at insulating the community against the jihadists’ extremist interpretations.

A separate community program in Singapore, set up with government encouragement in 2002, provides support to the detainees’ families. The program will facilitate the reintegration of those detainees who are released. Being aware that their families are being helped is a source of comfort to them, and it creates a better environment for the counseling.

Success in any of these programs may not be validly measured by the percentage of individuals who claim to have abandoned jihadism or the sincerity of that claim, which lies beyond our ability to assess. The same was true of Vietnam’s ralliers and Italy’s repentants. But public recantations, explanations of how people succumbed to jihadist recruiting, descriptions of recruiting techniques, invitations to come in with one’s honor intact—even a few of these can be used to undermine recruiting and create uncertainty in jihadist ranks.

Americans have not done well here. Despite holding hundreds of detainees, some for four years now—including many whose participation in jihad was minor—not one detainee has been publicly turned. One doubts that they are all so dedicated. Is it instead because the interaction is limited to confinement and interrogation, which produces only resistance and radicalization? Would it not be better to try to enlist at least some of them as spokesmen against al Qaeda’s brand of jihad, having them tell their stories to would-be jihadists—explaining their initial illusions, their decision to cooperate with those who see jihad exclusively as war, and their eventual disillusion?

Undoubtedly such personal accounts would be dismissed by many as propaganda, and their authors would be described as turncoats saving their own skins, especially if they were obliged to read prepared testimonials. But if they were allowed to express their own internal conflicts, their words could ring true to those on the same path. And the public debate would be shifted from terrorists versus government spokesmen to terrorists versus former terrorists. The United States could use foreign assistance in this endeavor. It might require setting up a venue other than Guantanamo and Kandahar, perhaps under multilateral supervision, dedicated to rehabilitation.

Hopelessly stupid, all the way down. Doesn't have the first clue what the principle target of political warfare is. It is the bystanders not fully in either camp, not the terrorists themselves. And the goal is not to prevent them from being convinced by the terrorists nor to get them to love us. It is to get those third parties to see their own ends, not ours, furthered by the terrorists being beaten, instead of by them winning or our losing.

The war will not be won in a detention cell, browbeating fanatics. Nor will it be won by offering goodies to fanatics in return for their lies.

The article also in passing speaks in revealingly stupid ways about issues like Palestine and Kashmir, which are unjust causes not noble ones, to which we can never agree, any more than the other more radical ones.

The article is also hopelessly naive about the enemy's political strategy. It does not see how they depend on division in our own countries and resentment of other great powers of our strength in the world. It glibly speaks of avoiding alienating other countries who are in fact politically committed to our defeat. The terrorists depend on the fact they are helping the interests of such countries, against ours.

Yes we need much more intelligent political warfare, no intelligent political warfare does not consist of trying to brainwash prisoners nor trying to coopt thugs by giving them money power jobs and access. Both strengthen the terrorists. The former strengthens them morally, the latter strengthens them practically, and they are fully able and willing to cash both for more recruits, more committed and happier recruits, and more operational ability.

Intelligent political warfare is not directed at the terrorists themselves. It is directed at their human environment. Its purpose is to make them hated, to energize uncommitted third parties to take our side against theirs, to start blood vendettas indeed, not to pretend they don't exist, and to ensure lots of energetic angry people are baying for their blood every day.

It is also directed at the underlying ideological and political relationships not only motivating the terrorists, but exploited by them. It paints the terrorists as ideological competitors, not merely with us, but with local governments and their elites, with existing doctrines and beliefs. It emphasizes that they are heretics and treasonous. None of which is directed at coopting them, all of which is instead directed at coopting their countrymen and their potential recruits. Without trying to make those our agents or get them to agree with us or act as though they were in Mayberry.

Successful political warfare is Ethiopia driving the Islamicists out of Somalia, it is the northern alliance spotting for us straight into Kabul, it is Kurds policing theirs own areas successfully. It is emphatically not torturing detainees to recant, or demanding Iraqi Shia act as though they were in Mayberry and must refrain from hurting their Iraqi enemies.

Intelligent politics is always directed at reducing the potential resources of the enemy and increasing ones own, by targeting neither their direct supporters (direct action, not political action, does that) nor our own. The world does not consist of committed agents of the authorities and committed terrorists. Almost everyone on earth fits neither description.

The terrorists succeed when they play to all the various audiences better than the authorities do. And it is utterly futile to instead try to "win" anything over men in our power in our prisons, already.

The publics to "play" for are -

(1) the domestic opponents of the war who are scared by the terrorists or more afraid of the immorality of the authorities. These are not in the camp of the authorities, and playing for them is a key terrorist goal. It includes the press and at the moment the entire international left.

(2) the foreign powers who want us to lose simply because it would mean a reduction in our power in the world. These cannot be played for by pretending they agree to some pious consensus condemning terrorism in speech. Their interests not their hypocrisy, their deeds not their words, matter. And there must be consequences for choosing the terrorists over us.

(3) the outright pro terrorist governments, which fund them, supply them with arms, given them safe haven, train them, provide intel and operational direction. This includes as leading examples today, Iran and Syria.

(4) the governments of the countries in which the terrorists operate or those they seek to control, but do not yet control. This includes the Iraqi and Afghan governments, the government of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It also includes a score of others important for scale or present conflict - Turkey, Algeria, Indonesia, Sudan, Somalia, etc.

(5) the peoples of the last, which are the most direct front for political warfare, the place where the terrorists expect the most in the way of new recruits and real gains in power.

(6) the people of all the others, as an independent means of leverage with their governments. Yes that means political warfare is directed at e.g. public opinion in say Spain or France, also in Iran. And not as "America is the greatest thing since sliced bread" - that is not political warfare. No, as is, the way to win your next election and defeat your domestic adversary is to take stance X on terrorist related issue Y.

(7) in addition to active management of all of the above, one also requires serious ideological analysis of the root attractions and the strategies of the terrorists themselves. You cannot expect the US to be credible to any of these people. But you can expect the US to use its resources and objectivity to understand the philosophic and political fights involved better than anyone else, and to identify the most promising indigenous intellectual and political forces to sap the strength of the terrorists and outcompete them in local ideological debate. And having identified them, to quietly further their efforts, both intellectually and in resources etc.

And furthermore, for political warfare measures to succeed, it needs to be understood right at the outset that the goal is emphatically not to prevent attacks or reduce violence, nor to "end" the conflict. It is to increase the ranks and political power of those who believe their own interests will be served by the defeat of the terrorists, and to get them to actually succeed in achieving their own ends that conflict with the interests of the terrorists. Which makes powerful enemies besides us athwart the terrorists' path to victory, with strong interests in resisting them.

The goal of the whole thing is to make people all over the world realise they can get rich and powerful stomping on terrorists or they can get poor and powerless being stomped on by us. That this needs to be explained to the sort of cynic pretend realist who wrote this article, is an index of just how stupidly this war is being waged.

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