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| Volume XIII, Fall 2006, Number 3 |
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ABSTRACT
Winning the “War on Terrorism”: A Fundamentally Different Strategy
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| Anthony H. Cordesman |
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Dr. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The latest events in Somalia are yet another warning that the United States, its Western allies and Islamic nations need to change their strategies to win the "war on terrorism." The basic lessons have been the same in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the Islamic world. The present mix of Western action and Islamic inaction cannot possibly win.
Part of the problem is conceptual. The United States and most Western nations may be "politically correct" when they call the current struggle a "long war" or "global war on terrorism," but the reality is very different. Most terrorism is a minor and largely national threat. The real threat is Islamic extremism, specifically neo-Salafi Sunni Islamist extremism. The violent transnational movements that support these beliefs, symbolized by al-Qaeda, are the only serious global threat that uses terrorism. Isolated terrorist movements do need to be defeated, but Irish, Spanish, secular Palestinian, Sri Lankan, Japanese and other such groups are peripheral threats at most. Recognizing this fact, and focusing on it, is critical to any hope of winning the real "war on terrorism." The struggle is religious and ideological, not military or driven by secular values. It is a struggle for the future of Islam, and it is not generic, global or focused on political or economic systems.
As such, the real war on terrorism can only be won within Islam and at a religious and ideological level. This does not mean that improving every aspect of counter-terrorism at the national, regional and global level is not important. It does mean that no amount of outside action by the United States, Europe or non-Islamic states can do more than partially contain the violence. It is only the religious, political and intellectual leaders of Islamic countries and communities, particularly in the Arab world, that can successfully engage and defeat Islamic extremism at a religious, intellectual, political and cultural level.
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