From FPRI:
OSAMA BIN LADEN:
THE EDISON OF ISLAMISM
By Lawrence Husick
Lawrence Husick is a Senior Fellow at FPRI's Center on
Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and Co-Director of FPRI's
Project on Teaching Innovation.
Osama bin Laden is dead and buried at sea. Barely 12 hours
after the President's announcement, pundits are comfortably
speaking of the man in the past tense. Many are doing the
same with al Qaeda, as if shooting the man in the head
effectively does the same to his movement. Those who think
so fail to understand the importance of bin Laden's
innovations, or the transformed nature of his organization,
and this lack of understanding may prove dangerous in the
months and years ahead.
Although Osama bin Laden did not invent the incandescent
light bulb, he may yet be remembered as the Edison of
Islamism, inventing al Qaeda, an innovation factory of
terrorism without equal in the modern world. Using his own
substantial personal fortune and funds drawn from diverse
sources in the Islamic world including both real and sham
charities, cybercrime and blood diamonds, bin Laden
transformed the business of holy warrior defending a Muslim
land from infidel invaders to a multinational brand, intent
on restoring a caliphate that never was, and in the process,
overthrowing the nation-states within dar al Islam and
taking on the United States and its political and economic
allies. That he failed was perhaps preordained. That he
managed to shake the world is evidence of the continuing
danger of his innovation.
The al Qaeda of the East African embassy bombings and the
attack on the USS Cole no longer exists. A trillion war
dollars and nearly 50,000 US dead and injured have erased
the training camps and have, for the most part, choked off
recruiting of young Muslims to travel to Afghanistan (though
not entirely to Pakistan). The pre-9/11 command and control
hierarchy, if it ever truly was effective, has been
decimated by captures, missile strikes, and battlefield
casualties. As a military organization, we have neutralized
al Qaeda and have now cut off the head of the snake. Why,
then, should it continue to concern us?
Put simply, we have spent nearly ten years in excising the
al Qaeda tumor, but along the way, we failed to keep it from
metastasizing, seeding dozens of new threats from the Far
East to Latin America. Using the bloodstream of easy
international travel and of the Internet, both ideology and
know-how have spread around the world, allowing groups that
were previously not like-minded or aligned to adopt the
rhetoric and tactics of al Qaeda, and lowering the barriers
to entry for formation of new groups for whom such rhetoric
is a convenient add-on to localized grievances and goals.
For example, by using As Shahab media, Internet "memes" such
as the slow-motion IED attack, "Juba" sniper video, and "how
to" lessons on everything from building a rocket to a
suicide bomb vest have radicalized many fertile young minds
prepared by Imams and others. Broadcast exhortations,
particularly those by bin Laden and his lieutenants urging
the religious duty of jihad and the need to strike at the
West by hitting the "joints of the economy" have culminated
in the "Leverage" campaign of al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) that announced its intention to use a
bombing plot costing $4,600 in order to cause the West to
have to screen every cargo shipment by air, at a cost of
hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Other groups,
including many pre-existing ones, have renamed themselves
with the al Qaeda "brand" despite a weak alignment of
interests or goals.
In the past, we have likened al Qaeda to a venture capital
firm, seeking leverage through small early investments of
capital and know-how in emerging markets. Others have used
the franchising analogy to describe how terrorism has spread
across the globe. What these approaches have in common is
the recognition that to be effective, bin Laden's innovative
approach did not require either his direct leadership or any
transfer of personnel. What bin Laden and his deputies
constructed was a 21st century extension of the classic
insurgent cell organization, in which their transnational
theater of operations both required and benefitted from new
forms of communication and organization that allowed rapid
innovation in doctrine and tactics. For at least the first
six years of the fight, these advances kept al Qaeda ahead
in the innovation race.
It is ironic that the compound that housed bin Laden in
Pakistan may have been the only house in the neighborhood
that lacked both a telephone line and a connection to the
Internet. It is likely that bin Laden recognized that such
communications, so essential to the al Qaeda "business
model" would be used to locate him, and so he reverted to
using face-to-face communication through trusted
intermediaries. Perhaps this is what made him so difficult
to find, but it also attenuated his role in the movement
that he created.
At the end, bin Laden's role was more inspirational than
operational, but now dead, his inspirational role may
increase as the political upheavals of the Arab Spring turn
away from the meager offerings of radical Islam and to more
prosaic matters of jobs and food, both marginalizing and
further radicalizing bin Laden's followers. Only time will
tell whether the leverage gained from terrorism will be
sufficient to sustain the al Qaeda brand that bin Laden
invented.
AFTER BIN LADEN
By Barak Mendelsohn
Barak Mendelsohn is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and Assistant Professor of Political
Science at Haverford College.
Osama bin Laden's death is a devastating blow to al-Qaeda,
but it is not the end of jihadi terrorism. While it is
demoralizing for the whole jihadi camp, it will not
eliminate the motivation to attack the U.S. and is likely to
trigger revenge attacks. But from strategic point of view
the death of bin Laden could mark a critical junction in the
process of demilitarizing the war on terrorism and the
beginning of the end for U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda will survive bin Laden's death. Al-Qaeda and
jihadism will continue not merely because bin Laden's legacy
will keep feeding jihadi terrorism, but because the jihadis'
radical interpretation of Islam still resonates with some
Muslims. But bin Laden's importance for al-Qaeda and the
adverse effects his death will have on the group, cannot be
overstated. His unique centrality is unlikely to be
replicated by any of his potential successors. Although his
operational role greatly diminished since 9/11, bin Laden
was the embodiment of al-Qaeda. He devised the group's
strategy, and was a strong symbol of resistance. Beyond
successful tactical measures to preserve the group and
American strategic missteps, it was the power of bin Laden's
charisma that allowed al-Qaeda to survive tremendous losses
after 9/11 and become a brand name that attracted
individuals and other jihadi groups.
Paradoxically, bin Laden was simultaneously the power behind
al-Qaeda's ascendance and a major cause for its decline.
During the 1990s, at a time when jihadis' confrontations
with the 'close enemy' regimes in Egypt and Algeria failed,
bin Laden offered an alternative course of action. By
attacking the U.S., he triggered a momentous set of events,
and positioned himself and al-Qaeda at the forefront of the
jihadi camp. But bin Laden was also an inept strategist. His
strategy was based on extremely unrealistic expectations
that the U.S. will quickly crumble, and that the Muslim
masses will hurry to join al-Qaeda's ranks. Bin Laden's
fantasy plan, which promised to solve the problems of the
umma, cost the lives of many innocent people as he
encouraged numerous young Muslims to engage in an orgy of
violence, often massacring co-religionists in the name of
God. But bin Laden's strategy did not bring the anticipated
fruits and failed to recreate a Caliphate or bring down even
one single Arab ruler. Instead, in his last days alive, the
Muslim youth bin Laden was counting on were demonstrating
throughout the Middle East, calling for democratic reforms
which he saw as signs of infidelity. His silence since the
Arab Spring started was deafening.
Bin Laden's leadership style magnified al-Qaeda problems.
Bin Laden was a benign authoritarian: while maintaining an
above the fray image, and a holy-like demeanor, bin Laden
mastered the skills to quietly suppress internal opposition.
He kept the organization relatively cohesive even as its
operation became increasingly diffused in response to the
heavy international pressure. After 9/11 bin Laden even
succeeded in bringing critics such as abu Musab al-Suri to
close ranks behind him. However, his strategy pushed al-
Qaeda over the brink and its grave mistakes (primarily the
killing of Muslim civilians) slowly fractured bin Laden's
image. People who once were close associates started
criticizing him publicly.
And yet bin Laden maintained his unique position inside the
jihadi universe and far beyond. Others may prove to be
better strategists but no individual, including his
lieutenant al-Zawahiri, possesses similar aura of
invincibility and appeal among Muslims. Whoever succeeds bin
Laden will find that for his sympathizers throughout the
world bin Laden the leader can only be replaced by bin Laden
the myth and the symbol. Terrorism will endure but strategic
objectives will become even harder to achieve.
His successor will have to struggle with difficult problems
bin Laden managed to postpone due to his stature and allure.
Prominent among these issues will be how to maintain al-
Qaeda's anti-American and anti-Western narrative. Revenge
may prove a useful way to motivate al-Qaeda members and
sympathizers to continue bin Laden's plans and attack the
U.S. and its allies, but without a compelling strategic
vision that will tie such attacks to strategic change, the
appeal of such a campaign will be short lived.
The need to preserve the broader al-Qaeda network will
confound the challenges of bin Laden's replacement.
Franchises that swore allegiance to bin Laden himself may
not accept the authority of his successor. Even if they
chose to remain part of al-Qaeda outwardly, the inclination
of most franchises to focus on local conflicts is likely to
increase, though Western targets in the franchises' theater
of responsibility will probably retain their preferred
status. At the same time, the leadership of al-Qaeda's
branch in the Arabian Peninsula, which in the past couple of
years, eclipsed the central organization, may even present a
direct challenge to the leadership in South Asia in the
post-bin Laden era. Combining the operational opportunity
due to the unrest in Yemen, presence near the birthplace of
Islam, and an intimate relationship with the dead leader,
the leaders of this branch could vie for leadership of the
jihadi movement.
As events in the Middle East highlight the weakness of its
'far enemy' strategy, al-Qaeda will be pressed to produce a
much more compelling reaction than its spokesmen, al-
Zawahiri, abu Yahya al-Libi and Atiyatallah, have offered so
far. The new al-Qaeda leader will not have the privileges
bin Laden enjoyed and he will face much more pointed
critique if he does not provide a strategic direction for
the group. With regimes collapsing throughout the Middle
East, even the greatest supporters of al-Qaeda will feel
inclined to focus on events back home and abandon global
jihad. Examples from Libya and Egypt suggest that some
jihadis may even abandon local jihads altogether and seek
reintegration into their societies. As a result, al-Qaeda
may end up largely irrelevant to setting the future of the
Middle East. Moreover, it could end up increasingly
dependent on Western recruits -- many of whom are ignorant
about Islam -- for continuing its anti-Western agenda. Such
developments, albeit still gravely threatening to Western
countries, will push al-Qaeda further away from its Islamic
roots and from the areas it is mostly concerned with, the
states of the Middle East.
While the strategic threat from al-Qaeda will probably
decline, the motivation for revenge attacks by groups and
individuals in the West will be at its highest level. Lone
terrorists and "homegrown" cells in particular will seek to
avenge bin Laden, and they will be even less discriminate in
their killings. In addition, al-Qaeda affiliates throughout
the Middle East will want to demonstrate their sympathy by
carrying out attacks in memory of bin Laden. Pakistan will
probably suffer (as always) the greatest carnage as multiple
local jihadi groups will seek to take revenge against the
Pakistani state and its citizens.
Over the long run, the prospects of ending U.S. intervention
in Afghanistan have increased considerably. Bin Laden's
death provides the U.S. an opportunity to declare victory
and start withdrawing from the country. The Afghan Taliban,
on the other hand, will find that bin Laden's death released
them from a great liability and could make it easier for
them to severe their links with al-Qaeda; after all the
Taliban have much greater interest in regaining control over
Afghanistan than waging a global jihad. If both sides will
take advantage of the opportunity to wind down the war in
Afghanistan, bin Laden's death will mark a stepping stone in
demilitarizing the global war on terrorism and toward
dealing with terrorism through intelligence and police work.
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
OSAMA BIN LADEN:
THE EDISON OF ISLAMISM
By Lawrence Husick
Lawrence Husick is a Senior Fellow at FPRI's Center on
Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and Co-Director of FPRI's
Project on Teaching Innovation.
Osama bin Laden is dead and buried at sea. Barely 12 hours
after the President's announcement, pundits are comfortably
speaking of the man in the past tense. Many are doing the
same with al Qaeda, as if shooting the man in the head
effectively does the same to his movement. Those who think
so fail to understand the importance of bin Laden's
innovations, or the transformed nature of his organization,
and this lack of understanding may prove dangerous in the
months and years ahead.
Although Osama bin Laden did not invent the incandescent
light bulb, he may yet be remembered as the Edison of
Islamism, inventing al Qaeda, an innovation factory of
terrorism without equal in the modern world. Using his own
substantial personal fortune and funds drawn from diverse
sources in the Islamic world including both real and sham
charities, cybercrime and blood diamonds, bin Laden
transformed the business of holy warrior defending a Muslim
land from infidel invaders to a multinational brand, intent
on restoring a caliphate that never was, and in the process,
overthrowing the nation-states within dar al Islam and
taking on the United States and its political and economic
allies. That he failed was perhaps preordained. That he
managed to shake the world is evidence of the continuing
danger of his innovation.
The al Qaeda of the East African embassy bombings and the
attack on the USS Cole no longer exists. A trillion war
dollars and nearly 50,000 US dead and injured have erased
the training camps and have, for the most part, choked off
recruiting of young Muslims to travel to Afghanistan (though
not entirely to Pakistan). The pre-9/11 command and control
hierarchy, if it ever truly was effective, has been
decimated by captures, missile strikes, and battlefield
casualties. As a military organization, we have neutralized
al Qaeda and have now cut off the head of the snake. Why,
then, should it continue to concern us?
Put simply, we have spent nearly ten years in excising the
al Qaeda tumor, but along the way, we failed to keep it from
metastasizing, seeding dozens of new threats from the Far
East to Latin America. Using the bloodstream of easy
international travel and of the Internet, both ideology and
know-how have spread around the world, allowing groups that
were previously not like-minded or aligned to adopt the
rhetoric and tactics of al Qaeda, and lowering the barriers
to entry for formation of new groups for whom such rhetoric
is a convenient add-on to localized grievances and goals.
For example, by using As Shahab media, Internet "memes" such
as the slow-motion IED attack, "Juba" sniper video, and "how
to" lessons on everything from building a rocket to a
suicide bomb vest have radicalized many fertile young minds
prepared by Imams and others. Broadcast exhortations,
particularly those by bin Laden and his lieutenants urging
the religious duty of jihad and the need to strike at the
West by hitting the "joints of the economy" have culminated
in the "Leverage" campaign of al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) that announced its intention to use a
bombing plot costing $4,600 in order to cause the West to
have to screen every cargo shipment by air, at a cost of
hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Other groups,
including many pre-existing ones, have renamed themselves
with the al Qaeda "brand" despite a weak alignment of
interests or goals.
In the past, we have likened al Qaeda to a venture capital
firm, seeking leverage through small early investments of
capital and know-how in emerging markets. Others have used
the franchising analogy to describe how terrorism has spread
across the globe. What these approaches have in common is
the recognition that to be effective, bin Laden's innovative
approach did not require either his direct leadership or any
transfer of personnel. What bin Laden and his deputies
constructed was a 21st century extension of the classic
insurgent cell organization, in which their transnational
theater of operations both required and benefitted from new
forms of communication and organization that allowed rapid
innovation in doctrine and tactics. For at least the first
six years of the fight, these advances kept al Qaeda ahead
in the innovation race.
It is ironic that the compound that housed bin Laden in
Pakistan may have been the only house in the neighborhood
that lacked both a telephone line and a connection to the
Internet. It is likely that bin Laden recognized that such
communications, so essential to the al Qaeda "business
model" would be used to locate him, and so he reverted to
using face-to-face communication through trusted
intermediaries. Perhaps this is what made him so difficult
to find, but it also attenuated his role in the movement
that he created.
At the end, bin Laden's role was more inspirational than
operational, but now dead, his inspirational role may
increase as the political upheavals of the Arab Spring turn
away from the meager offerings of radical Islam and to more
prosaic matters of jobs and food, both marginalizing and
further radicalizing bin Laden's followers. Only time will
tell whether the leverage gained from terrorism will be
sufficient to sustain the al Qaeda brand that bin Laden
invented.
AFTER BIN LADEN
By Barak Mendelsohn
Barak Mendelsohn is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and Assistant Professor of Political
Science at Haverford College.
Osama bin Laden's death is a devastating blow to al-Qaeda,
but it is not the end of jihadi terrorism. While it is
demoralizing for the whole jihadi camp, it will not
eliminate the motivation to attack the U.S. and is likely to
trigger revenge attacks. But from strategic point of view
the death of bin Laden could mark a critical junction in the
process of demilitarizing the war on terrorism and the
beginning of the end for U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda will survive bin Laden's death. Al-Qaeda and
jihadism will continue not merely because bin Laden's legacy
will keep feeding jihadi terrorism, but because the jihadis'
radical interpretation of Islam still resonates with some
Muslims. But bin Laden's importance for al-Qaeda and the
adverse effects his death will have on the group, cannot be
overstated. His unique centrality is unlikely to be
replicated by any of his potential successors. Although his
operational role greatly diminished since 9/11, bin Laden
was the embodiment of al-Qaeda. He devised the group's
strategy, and was a strong symbol of resistance. Beyond
successful tactical measures to preserve the group and
American strategic missteps, it was the power of bin Laden's
charisma that allowed al-Qaeda to survive tremendous losses
after 9/11 and become a brand name that attracted
individuals and other jihadi groups.
Paradoxically, bin Laden was simultaneously the power behind
al-Qaeda's ascendance and a major cause for its decline.
During the 1990s, at a time when jihadis' confrontations
with the 'close enemy' regimes in Egypt and Algeria failed,
bin Laden offered an alternative course of action. By
attacking the U.S., he triggered a momentous set of events,
and positioned himself and al-Qaeda at the forefront of the
jihadi camp. But bin Laden was also an inept strategist. His
strategy was based on extremely unrealistic expectations
that the U.S. will quickly crumble, and that the Muslim
masses will hurry to join al-Qaeda's ranks. Bin Laden's
fantasy plan, which promised to solve the problems of the
umma, cost the lives of many innocent people as he
encouraged numerous young Muslims to engage in an orgy of
violence, often massacring co-religionists in the name of
God. But bin Laden's strategy did not bring the anticipated
fruits and failed to recreate a Caliphate or bring down even
one single Arab ruler. Instead, in his last days alive, the
Muslim youth bin Laden was counting on were demonstrating
throughout the Middle East, calling for democratic reforms
which he saw as signs of infidelity. His silence since the
Arab Spring started was deafening.
Bin Laden's leadership style magnified al-Qaeda problems.
Bin Laden was a benign authoritarian: while maintaining an
above the fray image, and a holy-like demeanor, bin Laden
mastered the skills to quietly suppress internal opposition.
He kept the organization relatively cohesive even as its
operation became increasingly diffused in response to the
heavy international pressure. After 9/11 bin Laden even
succeeded in bringing critics such as abu Musab al-Suri to
close ranks behind him. However, his strategy pushed al-
Qaeda over the brink and its grave mistakes (primarily the
killing of Muslim civilians) slowly fractured bin Laden's
image. People who once were close associates started
criticizing him publicly.
And yet bin Laden maintained his unique position inside the
jihadi universe and far beyond. Others may prove to be
better strategists but no individual, including his
lieutenant al-Zawahiri, possesses similar aura of
invincibility and appeal among Muslims. Whoever succeeds bin
Laden will find that for his sympathizers throughout the
world bin Laden the leader can only be replaced by bin Laden
the myth and the symbol. Terrorism will endure but strategic
objectives will become even harder to achieve.
His successor will have to struggle with difficult problems
bin Laden managed to postpone due to his stature and allure.
Prominent among these issues will be how to maintain al-
Qaeda's anti-American and anti-Western narrative. Revenge
may prove a useful way to motivate al-Qaeda members and
sympathizers to continue bin Laden's plans and attack the
U.S. and its allies, but without a compelling strategic
vision that will tie such attacks to strategic change, the
appeal of such a campaign will be short lived.
The need to preserve the broader al-Qaeda network will
confound the challenges of bin Laden's replacement.
Franchises that swore allegiance to bin Laden himself may
not accept the authority of his successor. Even if they
chose to remain part of al-Qaeda outwardly, the inclination
of most franchises to focus on local conflicts is likely to
increase, though Western targets in the franchises' theater
of responsibility will probably retain their preferred
status. At the same time, the leadership of al-Qaeda's
branch in the Arabian Peninsula, which in the past couple of
years, eclipsed the central organization, may even present a
direct challenge to the leadership in South Asia in the
post-bin Laden era. Combining the operational opportunity
due to the unrest in Yemen, presence near the birthplace of
Islam, and an intimate relationship with the dead leader,
the leaders of this branch could vie for leadership of the
jihadi movement.
As events in the Middle East highlight the weakness of its
'far enemy' strategy, al-Qaeda will be pressed to produce a
much more compelling reaction than its spokesmen, al-
Zawahiri, abu Yahya al-Libi and Atiyatallah, have offered so
far. The new al-Qaeda leader will not have the privileges
bin Laden enjoyed and he will face much more pointed
critique if he does not provide a strategic direction for
the group. With regimes collapsing throughout the Middle
East, even the greatest supporters of al-Qaeda will feel
inclined to focus on events back home and abandon global
jihad. Examples from Libya and Egypt suggest that some
jihadis may even abandon local jihads altogether and seek
reintegration into their societies. As a result, al-Qaeda
may end up largely irrelevant to setting the future of the
Middle East. Moreover, it could end up increasingly
dependent on Western recruits -- many of whom are ignorant
about Islam -- for continuing its anti-Western agenda. Such
developments, albeit still gravely threatening to Western
countries, will push al-Qaeda further away from its Islamic
roots and from the areas it is mostly concerned with, the
states of the Middle East.
While the strategic threat from al-Qaeda will probably
decline, the motivation for revenge attacks by groups and
individuals in the West will be at its highest level. Lone
terrorists and "homegrown" cells in particular will seek to
avenge bin Laden, and they will be even less discriminate in
their killings. In addition, al-Qaeda affiliates throughout
the Middle East will want to demonstrate their sympathy by
carrying out attacks in memory of bin Laden. Pakistan will
probably suffer (as always) the greatest carnage as multiple
local jihadi groups will seek to take revenge against the
Pakistani state and its citizens.
Over the long run, the prospects of ending U.S. intervention
in Afghanistan have increased considerably. Bin Laden's
death provides the U.S. an opportunity to declare victory
and start withdrawing from the country. The Afghan Taliban,
on the other hand, will find that bin Laden's death released
them from a great liability and could make it easier for
them to severe their links with al-Qaeda; after all the
Taliban have much greater interest in regaining control over
Afghanistan than waging a global jihad. If both sides will
take advantage of the opportunity to wind down the war in
Afghanistan, bin Laden's death will mark a stepping stone in
demilitarizing the global war on terrorism and toward
dealing with terrorism through intelligence and police work.
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
No comments:
Post a Comment