Quarterly Essay 58 Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State (11 page)

As with the first threat, there’s little role for the military in dealing with foreign fighters since this, too, involves mainly border security, visa and passport control, domestic policing, immigration enforcement, intelligence liaison (domestic and international), community resilience and critical infrastructure protection. Some European countries employ constabulary or military forces in these roles, but in the American and British Commonwealth tradition, this is a civilian policing task.

As I’ve written elsewhere, and the British urban theorist Stephen Graham has argued persuasively we’re now seeing “boomerang effects” from the War on Terror. Techniques from Iraq and Afghanistan – big data, biometrics, urban control and surveillance systems, drones and counter-IED technologies – have entered domestic policing (or, rather, re-entered it, since many of these techniques were originally adapted from law enforcement by the military after 9/11). Likewise, the militarisation of police, with heavy weapons, armoured vehicles, communications technology, military-style body armour, drones and training that inculcates the “warrior” mentality, has contributed to clashes in places like Ferguson, Missouri. In the United States, much of this is surplus military gear, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, supplied by the federal government, while much of the rest is a product of the homeland-security–industrial complex that has emerged since 9/11. On the other side, organised crime networks, street gangs and drug traffickers have imported techniques and technologies – bomb-making methods, IED triggers, sniping and mortar systems, urban ambush techniques – from Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a convergence between crime and war. When militarised gangs, using techniques imported from overseas insurgents and terrorists, begin to confront militarised police forces employing counterinsurgency equipment and concepts from Iraq and Afghanistan in the cities of Western democracies, the War on Terror will truly have come home to roost.

This matters hugely to any future strategy. President Bush often argued that “We’re taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don’t have to face them here at home,” or “we are fighting these terrorists with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond so we do not have to face them in the streets of our own cities.” This was unconvincing at the time, and given what I’ve explained of al-Qaeda and ISIS strategy, it now seems unrealistic to think that if the Western coalition were to withdraw from the Middle East and North Africa, terrorists would immediately follow to attack us at home. Given that al-Qaeda’s strategy is ultimately focused on overthrowing the “apostate regimes,” with attacks on the United States a means to that end, and given that ISIS is focused on provoking an Arab–Persian, Sunni–Shi’a war within its region, it seems likely that “ending America’s wars” (as President Obama puts it) would actually bring about a short-term
drop
in terrorist incidents. But the key word here is “short-term.” The problem of US disengagement (apart from the obvious point that pulling US troops out of a conflict doesn’t equate to ending it) is what happens next. A policy of isolationism – or, perhaps closer to President Obama’s vision, one of retreat from onerous overseas commitments that would rely more on regional partners to manage conflicts while emphasising defence at home and light-footprint counterterrorism abroad – would actually multiply medium-term risks.

In the broadest sense, these would come from the damage US retrenchment would do to the international system. Like it or not, the prosperity, security and stability of the United States and its allies (and even many of its adversaries) depend on a system designed by a group of nations led by Washington after 1945. The world system as we know it rests on a foundation, hidden from most people most of the time, that’s nonetheless very real. That foundation is Western diplomacy, backed by Western military and economic power, and shored up by Western (especially US) credibility, global persistent presence and positive engagement. Together, these things underpin a system of international political, economic and military norms, the spread of which has correlated with the greatest increase in human wellbeing in history. This global order wouldn’t long survive if the United States decided to pull up the drawbridge. And the United States would suffer as much as, if not more than, other countries in this scenario, because it’s a major beneficiary of that Western-centric world system.

To me, however, this macro-scale argument isn’t the most compelling reason for dealing with today’s threat overseas. Rather, the most persuasive reason for a forward strategy is that a truly effective domestic defensive strategy would turn (indeed, has already gone a long way to transforming) our societies into police states.

A purely defensive stance, if it is to prevent terrorist attacks from within and without, would have to include some or all of the following: perimeter defences on all major public (and many private) buildings, restrictions on access to public spaces, intrusive powers of search, arrest and seizure, larger and more heavily armed police forces, with more permissive rules for use of lethal force, intensive investigation of individuals’ thoughts, words and actions, citizen surveillance (i.e. neighbourhood informant networks and block wardens), collective responsibility and punishment, preventive detention, functionally unlimited and continuous mass electronic surveillance, pre-emptive disarming of citizens, movement controls, curfews, internal passports, vastly tougher visa requirements, enhanced national identity and biometrics databases, exit visas, expanded currency and trading restrictions, and a raft of limitations to freedom of expression and assembly. It would also, of course, impose limitations on international trade and require increased state spending – essentially, a “terrorism tax.”

Many of these things have been mooted, and quite a few (in relatively attenuated forms) are already in place. But accepting these impositions as permanent, and developing them to the level at which they could actually – in their own right, as the centrepiece of a counterterrorism strategy – protect against the atomised, self-radicalised terrorist threat of tomorrow, would amount to destroying society in order to save it.

Thus, while I respectfully disagree with George W. Bush’s argument for fighting terrorists over there lest we have to fight them here, I also respectfully dissent from President Obama’s approach, which could too easily become a recipe for collectivist tyranny. The United States has robust constitutional safeguards (the Bill of Rights) that make government abuses harder to enact and sustain. Other countries – the United Kingdom, for example, or Australia – lack many of these, and the risk of abuse is comparatively greater. To be clear, I’m noting a tendency rather than a present reality – pointing out the destination we might eventually reach if we continue down the road of a purely defensive, protective strategy. Based on that, I think there’s a strong case for dealing with the threat overseas, to avoid the kinds of restrictions to liberty that a domestically focused strategy would entail. This is where the military’s role is most important, particularly for the last two categories of threat.

The third threat is the effect of the rise of ISIS on other terrorist groups. Baghdadi’s caliphate has created a competitive dynamic that’s having a massively invigorating effect on jihadists globally. As noted, Islamic State has provinces (
wilayat
) in Sinai (Egypt), Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Khorasan (Afghanistan). ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack – and claims increasing numbers of followers – in Tunisia. In the Caucasus, six Chechen and Daghestani leaders pledged allegiance to ISIS in January 2015, and the group has spoken of plans for a
wilayat
there. In Nigeria, Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram, swore
bayat
to Baghdadi in March 2015. Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia, encouraged his followers to join the caliphate and, though other JI leaders rejected that notion, a group known as Mujahidin Indonesia Timur did pledge allegiance to Baghdadi, as have leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group, a JI ally that is the smallest but deadliest insurgent group in the Philippines.

The invigorating effect of ISIS isn’t confined to its supporters. ISIS has already inspired rivals to adopt its tactics, increasing the threat from all extremist groups. This suggests that any fond hopes that the competing strains of global Salafi-jihadist terrorism might neutralise one another (“the enemy of my enemy is my friend”) are unrealistic. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is simply another enemy.

This is one area where military efforts could make a huge difference, through carefully targeted assistance to countries under threat. The mechanisms for this are already in place – and have been since before 9/11 – but they’ve often been inadequately funded, haphazardly executed, or undermined by unilateral strikes that destroyed emerging partnerships. Another lesson from the past fourteen years is that security assistance alone, without comparable efforts on government reform, human rights, rule of law and economic (principally small-business) development, can backfire – as has happened in several African and Asian countries. Making bent cops more efficient, or helping repressive militaries shoot straight, doesn’t bring greater security. But with appropriate safeguards, a properly funded joint civil–military effort – ideally, involving several donor countries – could make a huge difference. Recent developments in Nigeria and Kenya suggest that governments are more open to cooperation in the face of the increased threat – that the rise of ISIS may invigorate friends as well as enemies.

You could argue that this is exactly what President Obama has been describing in speeches since 2013. It’s not. The President’s pitch was about winding down a conflict, but I’m talking about an expanded effort, in conjunction with
increased
military operations, against an escalating threat. To succeed this time around, the approach would need to be funded at a much higher level, it would require a long-term commitment linked to governance and human-rights norms (as was successfully done with Colombia against the FARC), and there would need to be more boots, both civil and military, on the ground. The biggest difference, though, would be the focus on protecting communities, stabilising governments and rebuilding trust, rather than (as too often in the past) relying solely on killing and capturing terrorists.

That would mean far stricter limits on raids and drone strikes, and always – always – preferring operations by, with and through local partners. As shown in Libya, one unilateral strike can destroy an entire government’s legitimacy, undoing the work of years in less than an hour. The single former terrorist captured in the October 2013 raid – Abu Anas al-Libi – was wanted for an attack fifteen years earlier and was already seriously ill with liver cancer. In the event, he died in January 2015, ten days before his trial could begin. It’s hard to see how that outcome justifies the fragmentation of Libya (and the deaths of ordinary Libyans) that resulted, in part, from the raid.

For an assistance program to work, we need to break policy-makers’ addiction to unilateral strikes, lest our obsession with killing terrorists in the short term undo our ability to defeat them through programs that deny them operational space over the long term. This isn’t a criticism of special ops or drones – on the contrary, these are outstanding, war-winning capabilities, which have contributed hugely to effective surveillance and targeting since the mid-1990s. Rather, it’s a criticism of decision-makers (usually, though not always, sitting in safety thousands of miles away, who’ve never heard a shot fired in anger) who succumb to the allure of Predator Porn, misusing these strategic assets – which should be applied sparingly as part of a broader plan – as tactical tools, to substitute for lack of strategic thought, or (worse) who send others into harm’s way in order to make themselves look tough.

This brings us to the final, most fundamentally military aspect of the threat: the catastrophic and largely conventional war that the Islamic State is inflicting on the Middle East and North Africa – primarily Iraq and Syria, but with strongly destabilising effects radiating to Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. This conflict threatens not only to destroy the lives of millions of people, but also to destabilise the world economy by massively disrupting global energy flows, shipping routes, air transportation and telecommunications systems, to create unprecedented refugee flows, to redraw the borders of half a dozen nation-states (with huge loss of life in the process), to drag regional and world powers (Iran, Israel, Russia, Egypt, China, Pakistan, Turkey) into an escalating – potentially nuclear – conflict, to encourage radical violence in scores of countries worldwide, and to enable the aggressive expansion of the Islamic State by means of military conquest. Some of this is already happening, as Israeli strikes into Syria, Arab countries’ armed intervention in Libya, the Saudi–Egyptian air campaign in Yemen – and confrontations in the Gulf of Aden among Iranian, US and other naval forces – have shown over the past several months. But it could get far, far worse if Islamic State continues to consolidate, thereby inciting further interventions that exacerbate the conflict. As I’ve explained, I see this as a purely conventional threat – not a counterinsurgency or counter-terrorism problem – and one with which we need to deal quickly and decisively before it does even more damage.

The counterterrorism strategist Audrey Cronin has argued that “a full-on conventional war against the group, waged with the goal of completely destroying it . . . would be folly. After experiencing more than a decade of continuous war, the American public simply would not support the long-term occupation and intense fighting that would be required to obliterate ISIS. The pursuit of a full-fledged military campaign would exhaust US resources and offer little hope of obtaining the objective. Wars pursued at odds with political reality cannot be won.” I take this objection from such a respected source very seriously indeed. But the hard fact is that we’re already in a full-on conventional war with ISIS – its fighters certainly believe we are – and the longer we refuse to recognise that fact, the worse things will become. As Trotsky reputedly said, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.