Experts Mull Options for Dealing With IS
Cecily Hilleary, Voice of America
The terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have added urgency to the conundrum now facing the U.S. and its allies: What to do about the Islamic State group?
Coalition partners have conducted more than 8,700 strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria, but critics, like Senator John McCain, say air power is insufficient. They are calling for the U.S. to send in ground forces.
"Offensive combat against dug-in foes is extremely difficult,” said James F. Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“You can see how long it has taken for a very large force to take Ramadi, even though there are a lot of Sunni Arabs involved in there, along with the Iraqi military and U.S. airpower. But if you want to generate a momentum, U.S. troops are very good at that," he said.
Sending in troops would send out a powerful message that the U.S. is willing to get its feet dirty, he said.
"We think we can just tell other people to go on the offensive when we're not?” he said. “I mean, who are we? The basic role we have shown ever since World War II is we have to be in the fight. You're not in the fight at 20,000 feet."
Jeffrey envisions a joint European/Arab ground force backed by U.S. military advisers and trainers.
Aim to Contain
Some analysts caution that a ground war would further fan IS's narrative that the caliphate is engaged in a defensive war against Western hegemony.
"American attempts to reorganize the politics of other countries by the sword have foundered on nationalist resistance to outsiders, unreliable local allies, deeply embedded cultural practices, and the inherent crudeness of the military instrument," Barry Posen, director of MIT University's security studies program, recently wrote in The Atlantic magazine.
He argued that airstrikes already have stalled IS expansion, which he said could explain why IS has begun to focus on "theatrical attacks" abroad.
Posen believes the U.S. should establish a no-fly zone over northern Syria, deploy more special-operations forces, step up intelligence operations and intensify strikes on IS oil interests. He also advocates pressuring Saudi Arabia into using its "clout and resources" to counter IS's "poisonous message."
Terror expert and author Jessica Stern argues that the U.S. should take a lesson from George Kennan, the U.S. diplomat who in 1946 argued in favor of "patient but firm and vigilant containment" of Soviet Union expansion.
"ISIS, too, will no doubt eventually collapse as a result of its equally false utopian promises and difficulties delivering even rudimentary human needs, such as health care," Stern wrote in a separate Atlantic essay.
Some analysts say the group may already be floundering. "IS planned for every contingency but one," said Musa al-Gharbi, Managing Editor for the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC).
"They anticipated that a lot of people would either begrudgingly accept their occupation or actively endorse it," he said. "They did not expect to see this mass exodus of Sunni Arabs of their target demographic, in numbers of hundreds of thousands, from areas that were already sparsely populated."
Their flight is a strong counter to the IS narrative of caliphate as a utopian ideal, al-Gharbi said, and it has cost IS dearly in dollars and cents.
"Oil prices have fallen considerably, and so IS is increasingly having to rely on taxation, that is, extortion, from the population in order to keep themselves financially solvent," he added.
Those who are fleeing to Europe — a trip that can run upward of $10,000 or more, said al-Gharbi — are those members of the population who tend to be better-educated and more highly skilled.
"ISIS is not only losing a lot of taxpayers, they are losing the taxpayers who pay the most taxes," al-Gharbi said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State.
Conversely, foreign recruits tend not to have skills that IS needs to run its enterprises and government. For this reason, he believes the West should embrace as many refugees as possible.
Diplomacy Unlikely
Former Ambassador Jeffrey dismissed the idea of negotiation with IS in one word: "madness."
"Definitely outside the realm of practicality," echoed Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Jihad-Intel Research Fellow at the Middle East Forum who recently leaked an IS administrative blueprint to London's The Guardian newspaper.
"Theoretically, ISIS does allow treaties with outside powers, but the terms that they impose are so stringent that I think it would be impossible that they could negotiate with any government," he said.
IS forbids external relations with any state hostile to "Islam's spread," a broad definition that would likely be applied to all Western governments, al-Tamimi said. Further, IS demands that any treaty should serve Muslim interests, not those of "disbelievers."
"Negotiating would also mean having to extend legitimacy to them as a state," al-Tamimi said.
Comments
We still have dragons to slay, and people still want to be liberated from abusive rulers like Saddam, Taliban, ISIL, Assad, etc., but that does not mean they want our form of governance or values. If they do, then we can help them, if not we need to allow them to pursue their own system. I'd the world is trending towards democracy, and that is a big if, then they'll get there on their schedule.
Bill M:
So let's say that we have realized that our shining "secular" city on the hill is, quite understandable, not so attractive but, rather, is significantly repulsive to various more-"religious"/more-"traditional"/less-"modern" populations around the world.
This such knowledge allowing us to understand that these populations have no great, and certainly no "universal," desire or ability to:
a. Abandon their more-religious/more-traditional/less-modern way of life, way of governance and the values, attitudes and beliefs associated therewith. And, accordingly, have no great or universal desire or ability to
b. Replace same with our alien and profane (secular) ways of life, ways of governance and associated values, attitudes and beliefs.
This such more-valid premise suggesting that the job-at-hand is more of a long-term "convincing and converting" job; this, rather than the immediate "liberation" job that we undertook under the false premise that everyone, everywhere, wanted to be like us.
Thus, to suggest that we must adopt a strategy based on this valid "convincing and converting" requirement -- which, in turn, acknowledges the the premise that not everyone, everywhere wants to (or can) be like us?
This, as we formally abandon "liberation" strategies; based on the invalid premise that suggests that everyone, everywhere, not only wants to be like us, but can achieve this transition now/today/immediately?
Please don't confuse my views with the prevailing naive views resident in the State Department. The people should decide what form of government they desire, and there is a logical reason for having a strong and somewhat oppressive government after a conflict to establish order, and then allow that government to evolve over time. The communists and jihadis established governance immediately. In the case of the communists they established shadow governments before securing the area militarily. We don't compete well in the realm of competitive control. Until we do our tactical superiority will fall short of achieving our strategic ends. In fact, I believe our pursuit of establishing a shinny city on the hill was the principal reason we failed to achieve our strategic ends In recent conflicts, we lost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and at the end of the day we usually managed to make the situation worse for them and us. It is long past time for a change in how we conduct business.
Regarding a strategy under which UW, etc, might be pursued -- as discussed by Bill M., etc., below -- this such strategy would seem to need to be based, first and foremost, on a valid premise.
For example, it might be based on the premise that everyone, everywhere -- in the non-western world -- desired, more than anything else in life, to be "liberated" from their oppressive regimes; this, so that these presently-denied populations might enjoy a fully western way of life, a fully western way of governance and the other benefits of modern western values, attitudes and beliefs. This such "liberation" premise allowing that, with this barrier removed (the oppressive regimes), these populations would, immediately and easily:
a. Throw off their old, outdated and now-detested traditional ways of life and, immediately and easily,
b. Adopt, in the place of these, modern western ways.
Such a premise requires, I believe, that the populations are (1) willing and able to make the transition outlined at "a" and "b" above, and -- of equal importance -- are (2) willing and able to fight and die to achieve such a transition.
The above, might we say, was the invalid "the populations are ripe for the picking" premise adopted by the Bush Jr. administration; a premise which has proven not only to be gravely false but which, also and accordingly, has resulted in today's worldwide catastrophic circumstances?
If my above depiction of our invalid premise, and the horrible international circumstances resulting therefrom, is correct, then this would suggest that we -- before we start discussing "strategy," adopt a new premise upon which to base our new strategy; for example and logically: that "the populations ARE NOT ripe for pickings."
Thus, a strategy and way forward that, due to the accuracy of the premise upon which it is based, might lend itself to
a. Our foreign policy, UW, etc., successes. And which might avoid,
b. Worldwide catastrophic results -- such as those now associated with the Bush Jr. administrations invalid premise.
(Note: If "the populations are ripe for the picking" premise is still considered to be a valid premise, then our strategic corrections, of course, would seem to need to be focused more on how to help these populations -- who are both willing and able to make the radical "westernizing" transition that we [and they] desire -- and are willing and able to fight and die to achieve same -- achieve their objective. Otherwise, and as noted above, we must, first and foremost,adopt a more valid premise -- upon which to base our strategy -- and the UW, etc., opeations that are undertaken in such a strategy's name.)
We don't know, but I think Putin respects strength. If he senses weakness he'll push back hard on anything we attempt. Russia generally acts in a way we would consider rational. If we play a strong hand, I think they'll fold. A strong hand means a strong coalition under U.S. leadership that coalition members can trust. That coalition can compel Russia to get on board, but it may require a promise that Russia can keep their naval base in Syria. If Russia doesn't play, then a strong U.S. led coalition will be more than capable of defeating Russia. We will take loses, so we need to determine if the cause is worth the loss of life.
Our slow and lame response to date is what created space for Russia to get involved in the first place. Things are harder now.
Yes to all you wrote and then some. By half-assed UW, I meant we simply trained and equipped a few surrogates to do our bidding against ISIL and called that UW. UW is much more than that. The train and equip SF was directed to do didn't even address the Assad issue, which undermined the credibility of the U.S. with those surrogates. If Outlaw is correct, the CIA is managing that. Neither appear to be comprehensive UW strategies (much less a comprehensive strategy period) with balanced ends, ways, and means. The SF operation, from a distance, appeared to be a stove piped operation directed to achieve limited tactical objectives against ISIL. This ignored the primary motivation of the resistance, which was Assad first. We can't treat a resistance element like mercenaries, we have to identify common interests and seek ways to help them achieve those objectives. This approach was based purely on our interests.
We are better than this, and we (the U.S. government) should know by now how important it is to understand the operational environment, and then use all elements of our national power in a unified manner to shape the environment in a way that acheives our political ends (which hopefully are more than creating the illusion of doing something). I know the SF leaders running this show knew that, unfortunately their civilian masters did not.
I also think a strict UW approach for this fight is too slow. Many of the targets are beyond the capability of these resistance forces to defeat, at least in the short run. This creates too much opportunity for our adversaries to exploit, as we have seen with Russia's involvement. I agree with most that this will not be Russia's best interest, but it still creates problems that simply prolong the issue and there are associated risks with prolonging it.
IMO, if we focus the resistance on expanding their political and propaganda underground apparatus to start setting conditions for the resistance to assume political control of areas liberated by a combination of resistance and conventional forces we may actually achieve something resembling success unlike we did in Iraq or Libya. In both of those cases, the political outcome was an afterthought. Actually, there was a belief that democracy would simply materialize on its own. UW is more than guerrilla warfare, but in the U.S. military we tend to treat it solely as tradional military power via surrogates. Our adversaries develop better UW doctrine than we do, and there is little white space between their political and military elements of power.
While I'm sure sending 50 SOF operators into Syria will improve targeting, targeting is not a strategy. Does the NSS have a comprehensive strategy, or a coyote ugly strategy? A coyote ugly strategy is where you wake up after drinking too much with someone in your bed that you rather not be there. In the strategic realm, it is when a strategist wakes up from his or her illusion to reality, and they want to run away from it.
Bill,
We just need to develop strategy - good strategy is always "hybrid" (I interpret your use of hybrid here to mean not to depend on a single way) - a compete strategy with balance and coherency among ends, ways, and means. Based on our strategic estimate and thorugh assessments "our half assed attempt at unconventional warfare" may be an appropriate part of the ways and means to accomplish our objectives. But I would like reinforce what I think is your point - UW in a vacuum or as a unilateral stand alone operation is rarely likely to succeed just as counter-terrorism operations alone are unlikely to achieve our objectives. We need to achieve the right balance with special warfare, surgical strike, and conventional operations along with diplomacy (coercive and otherwise), economic coercion (if necessary and appropriate) and most importantly a sophisticated information campaign based on WMD -" word, mind and deed," i.e., use of the right words focused on the mind of the target audience (which requires deep understanding of those minds) resting on a rock solid foundation of deeds - all words must be backed up by the right deeds or as the trite expression goes, "actions speak louder than words "(and sometimes non-actions do as well when appropriate for the situation).
This is a typical recommendation from someone who lives in an ivory tower.
"Terror expert and author Jessica Stern argues that the U.S. should take a lesson from George Kennan, the U.S. diplomat who in 1946 argued in favor of "patient but firm and vigilant containment" of Soviet Union expansion." What we call radical Islam has been around far longer than the USSR ever existed, and I see no sign that it will collapse upon itself, even if it promotes false promises. ISIL could collapse if the conditions were right, but with Assad, Iran, Russia, Lebanese Hezbollah targeting Sunnis writ large, that leaves little room for a Sunni uprising to crush ISIL. IMO looking at the situation through a Cold War paradigm is misleading. In short, it is the misuse of history to justify an approach based on a historical event as a parallel event that in reality has few parallels.
al-Gharbi's comments about tens of thousands of Muslims fleeing Syria and Iraq counters ISIL's narrative is true, but in the short run, but the shift to xenophobic politics in the West due to the invasion of refugees may very well push them back into ISIL's or another VEO's camp. However, as AMB Jeffrey stated, "We think we can just tell other people to go on the offensive when we're not?” he said. “I mean, who are we? The basic role we have shown ever since World War II is we have to be in the fight. You're not in the fight at 20,000 feet."
IMO, we need to move past our half-assed attempt at unconventional warfare, and conduct what we are now calling hybrid warfare where we employ conventional forces against hard targets, and use unconventional forces to establish political control over the areas secured from ISIL? Then turn that force on Assad himself if he isn't convinced to step down.