Summary: Today we have a note by Mike Few about our Long War, one of the great public policy issues of America today. We post the work of many experts at the FM website. Usually I post them without comment. Today I’ll add an endorsement. All of Few’s articles deserve attention. This one even more than most. I agree with every line, and strongly recommend reading it.
Know your foe, know yourself, you can face a hundred battles without danger;
if you do not know your foe but know yourself, you will win one and lose one;
if you do not know your foe and do not know yourself, every battle will be lost.
— Sun Tzu’s Art of War (circa 6th Century BC)
Contents
- Understand the Arab world
- Understand al Qaeda
- Events in Iraq are not a surprise
- Be wary of experts
- About Counter-Terrorists
- A Forecast
- A good place to start your research
- About the author
- For More Information
Comment by Mike Few
Made to the post Now that they’re in the game again, let’s ask “who is al Qaeda?”, 9 January 2014
Excellent review by Owen Bennett-Jones. I’ll try to add a couple of additional thoughts.
(1) Understand the Arab world
To understand al Qaeda (AQ), I spent a lot of time trying to understand the Arab world. In the bigger picture, I believe that the Arab world and Islam is undergoing it’s own internal Political and Religious Reformation. This process started almost a century ago as the Ottoman Empire crumbled and the Sykes-Picote treaty (see Wikipedia) drew new lines in the sand and created nation-states.
AQ is an ideology that provides an alternative to government and religion from the current hated norm. Thus, it has not died. It was never dead, and it resonates with some folks.
(2) Understand al Qaeda
If we want to understand AQ, then we must respect the ideology and stop dismissing it as terrorism. Terrorism is merely the form of political violence that AQ is using in order to gain power and maneuver space (Given their size, it is the only option that they have).
Instead, I think that we need to look at AQ in the same vein that we would consider the spirit of the American Revolution, the ideals of the French Revolution, and the initial ideals of the Russian Revolution. Previously (myself included), AQ was dismissed as akin to anarchist in the late 19th century angry at uncontrolled capitalism.
(3) Events in Iraq are not a surprise
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The breakout of fighting in Iraq was predicted. What is currently happening is not a surprise to folks who spent a lot of time in these provinces (It caused many nightmares for me and great sadness).
Over the next year, we can expect the Sunnis to escalate in order to control Northern Syria, Anbar Province, Saladin Province, and Diyala Province in Iraq. The fighting is due to mistakes by both the Assad and Maliki govt’s inability to govern inclusively. Rather, they govern as a means of vengeance.
The question at hand is how much of the ideology of AQ will resonate or immerse into the way the Sunnis choose to govern. Don’t be fooled; these are not ungoverned spaces. They just aren’t governed by nation-states. (See also Kurdistan).
(4) Be wary of experts
Currently, most experts are trying to justify and protect their published thoughts and theories promoting US military intervention in the form of COIN (i.e. their misreadings of the Malayan conflict). The funniest quote that I’ve read is “COIN cannot die because if their is an insurgency, then there must be counter-insurgency.”
This is stupid thinking that has led to trillions of dollars wasted and countless lives lost. Either through hubris or tunnel vision, they’ve lost the ability to think creatively and analytically.
(5) About Counter-Terrorists
Read Nick Turse’s “Spec Ops Goes Global” over at TomDispatch. I’d ask that you try to stay objective.
I have a lot of good friends in that world. I disagree with their missions, but they honestly believe in them. I hope that Nick’s piece will lead to a public discourse on what we as a nation want our Spec Ops doing in foreign policy. They are no longer a small strategic asset used sparingly. They are the main effort. Thus, they cannot operate in the shadows, and we must take ownership for their actions.
(6) A forecast
Unfortunately, unless we see major internal political reform, we can expect the next two decades to continue to be bloody in the Middle East. During this fighting (as with the last two decades in Iraq), we will see massive population displacements. I have no idea what the final lines in the sand will look like.
(7) A good place to start your research
For those interested, all works cited in these books are provided free in English at USMA’s CTC {Combating Terrorism Center at West Point}. I’d recommend anyone that wants to better understand AQ to spend a day reading through the direct texts and draw your own conclusions. The CTC has been a national treasure for many us fighting in the so-called Long War over the last decade. You might find yourself surprised at how much we might agree with some of AQ’s grievances.
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(8) About Mike Few
Mike Few (Major, US Army, Retired) served multiple tours in various command and staff positions in Iraq, and was a former Editor of the Small Wars Journal. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and studied small wars at the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA
Today he focuses on nation-building back home in North Carolina. See his articles at the Small Wars Journal., and these posts at the FM website:
- Tell Me How This Ends: Restoring American Power in the 21st Century (2012).
- As our 9-11 wars end, new problems appear for the US Army (2014).
(9) For More Information
(a) The other post by Mike Few:
- Tell Me How This Ends: Restoring American Power in the 21st Century, 21 November 2012
(b) Posts about our Special Operations Forces:
- The biggest re-branding exercise in the history of the world, 21 August 2010 — A new & darker image for America.
- Killing the leaders of our enemy. Is this the fast track to victory – or disaster?, 25 October 2010
- About the strategic significance of bin Laden’s execution, and the road not taken, 5 May 2011
- The men of US Special Operations Command are heroes. But are their deeds heroic?, 15 August 2011
- The military takes us back to the future. To Vietnam, again and again.. 14 March 2013
(c) The current fighting in Iraq was quite obvious in 2008 — even 2007 — as the endgame, despite the crowing of the COIN folks about their pacification of Iraq. Here are some posts explaining why:
- The Iraq insurgency has ended, which opens a path to peace, 13 March 2007
- Beyond Insurgency: An End to Our War in Iraq, 27 September 2007:
- Iraq, after the war, 20 May 2008
(d) Posts about other subjects discussed
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