You're absolutely right! After all he only has 30+ years in the counter-terrorism business. Where as you have...what?
My point is not to flame, but to point out just because you disagree does not make the writer "Hopelessly stupid". It just makes him wrong in your opinion.
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.
Where does he say this?
OTOH He dose say
Destroy the Jihadist Enterprise
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."
And again
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.
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 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.
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.
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.(To repeat: but we should not expect, nor do we need, 100 percent success.)
(Valin says) Say a large number do go back? This can also work to our advantage, by raiseing questions on jihadi web site as to weather these people really have returned to the "rightious path", or are the spies.
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.
Pretty much agree with you.
You may not agree with what he says, but I would recommend downloading the paper or click on keyword Unconquerable Nation, for excerpts of previous chapters.
He doesn't know the first thing about his chosen area of expertise, which is not generally the sign of a mind like a steel trap. I don't doubt he and men like him are directing this war, that is why we are losing it so badly.
The standard I measure him against in knowledge of political warfare is our enemies. And he isn't in their league. He doesn't understand their strategy, so he aims at the wrong target.
He does pretend that browbeating the fanatics already in our detention cells is central to political warfare. This is profoundly stupid. It is a delusion fostered by the desire to use the fact that these men are in our power, to experiment on them and find imaginary "cures" for their terrorist "disease".
He also repeatedly calls for coopting measures that amount to subsiding terrorists as they lie to and infiltrate our own organizations, and ridicules moralising opposition to doing so as unpragmatic. Because he is aiming at the terrorists themselves, all he can think to do is either bribe the ones not in custody or browbeat the ones who are. Wrong target yields wrong tactics, automatically.
Just because someone has written a lot on an important subject, it does not mean anything he says is sensible, and this guy is profoundly wrong about what political warfare is and where it needs to aim.
Moreover, the errors he makes are readily apparent in our own conduct of this war. Abu grab and waterboarding, anyone? The fruits of trying to win by going after detainees are probably more recruits than anything else that has happened since 9-11, and between them probably lost the recent elections.
You quote him talking about how relentless and determined we have to be as though wishing would make it so, when the measures he actually calls for (trying to "break" captives to get plastic banana recantations for propaganda broadcast) as much as anything worked to throw away what determined relentlessness we might have mustered, all for delusional triffles.
Which he would have known if he knew the enemy playbook from Algeria, which they followed so closely they made up parallel bits when we didn't provide close enough excuses.