From FPRI:
ON BIN LADEN'S DEMISE
May 16, 2011
In the immediate aftermath of bin Laden's demise, FPRI
published essays by FPRI Senior Fellows Barak Mendelsohn and
Lawrence Husick. We then held a public briefing featuring
nine FPRI scholars and two guest scholars, summarized in a
published report by Tally Helfont. We now offer two new
perspectives by FPRI Fellows - Stephen Gale, Gregory
Montanaro, and David Danelo. The relevant texts and
audiofiles are posted on www.fpri.org.
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201105.fpri.binladen2.html
BIN LADEN'S DEATH AND THE MORAL LEVEL OF WAR
By David Danelo
David Danelo, a Senior Fellow in FPRI's Program on National
Security, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served
seven years as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. In
2004, then-Captain Danelo served near Fallujah with the
First Marine Expeditionary Force as a convoy commander,
intelligence officer and provisional executive officer for a
rifle company. His first book, Blood Stripes: The Grunt's
View of the War in Iraq (Stackpole: 2006), was awarded the
2006 Silver Medal (Military History) by the Military Writers
Society of America. His latest book is, The Border:
Exploring the US-Mexican Divide (2008).
On May 1, 2011, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, a
sold-out crowd of American baseball fans erupted with cheers
entirely unrelated to the play of their hometown Phillies.
The athletes themselves, unable to indulge in stadium smart-
phone chatter, were puzzled to hear boisterous chants of "U-
S-A! U-S-A!" cascading into the infield, until word of Osama
bin Laden's death finally spread to the dugouts.
In war, as Napoleon tells us, the moral is to the physical
as three is to one. Although the French emperor was speaking
of 18th century battles, he could just as easily have been
discussing 21st century policy complexities. Perhaps, upon
reflection for the vagaries of democratic constituencies,
the Gallic conqueror would have expanded the moral variable
in war-particularly, in a democracy-by ten or twenty fold.
Few things in U.S. foreign policy circles are more vexing
than gauging the moral fortitude of the American public for
an extended and open-ended conflict. As author and FPRI
senior fellow Dominic Tierney has observed, the American
people have historically demonstrated a double-minded
pattern of beginning their wars as crusades before deriding
them as quagmires.[1] Generals from Zachary Taylor to David
Petraeus have seen the fickleness of the American public
thwart tactically sound military battle plans. Occasionally,
they are prevented from "finishing the job" by a people
whose fierceness U.S. military officers often find
perplexingly finite.
The will of the people-that ubiquitous Holy Grail of both
the warfighter and policy maker-cannot be easily calculated
as a linear variable. During World War II, Lieutenant
Colonel James Doolittle did not bomb Tokyo because the
action was militarily significant. President Franklin
Roosevelt ordered the operation because showing the American
people Japan could be bloodied was necessary to bolster
their will to fight.
Similarly, the three survivors of Iwo Jima, representing the
six men who had been memorialized in Joe Rosenthal's epic
photograph, were not returned from the Pacific theater and
paraded across the country simply for their own health and
welfare. The will of the people-a spiritual impetus that
took important corporeal form in the purchase of war
bonds-was increased with the physical evidence of success.
Alone, these acts were insignificant, but they did increase
the resolve of Americans to sacrifice until achieving
victory.
Many commentators have criticized the American people for
spontaneously celebrating the successful raid that killed
Osama bin Laden. Talking heads have suggested the images
would backfire; that development opportunities in Pakistan
would be squandered, as though exultation over a mass
murderer's destruction is the same as a penalty marker for
unsportsmanlike conduct. These voices fail to acknowledge a
central truth: while opinions of allies are certainly
important-and, in the complex game of geopolitics, some
matter more than others-international alliances alone do not
win a nation's wars, nor can they exclusively shape the
policy that begins them. The will of the people forms the
backbone of the Republic.
More than any other manufactured or authentic feel-good
moment in the past decade-more than the toppling of Saddam
Hussein's statue in Baghdad, the purple-stained fingers of
Iraqis at ballot boxes, or the smiling faces of Afghan girls
at school ribbon-cutting ceremonies-the raid that killed
Osama bin Laden stands, to date, as the defining moral
victory of America's war on terror. And, like in previous
moral victories, the renewed enthusiasm of Americans will
result in a period of support for President Obama.
Regardless of politics, there is an open-ended question of
how officials responsible for prosecuting the war on terror
sustain this narrative of moral victory in the United
States. The Obama administration has obtained a dividend of
sorts from this successful mission, which must be applied to
one of the many existing policy dilemmas. Withdrawal from
Afghanistan? Ground troops in Libya? Democracy movements
in Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain? How the President chooses to
use the policy dividend derived from killing bin Laden-even
more so than the terrorist's death-will be one of the
defining foreign policy questions of the 2012 election.
For the time being, however, Americans have the resolution
they long sought. Back in Philadelphia, morale at Citizens
Bank Park is as high before the games as it is when the home
team wins. The Star Spangled Banner is sung with greater
vigor, and the volume of applause at the song's conclusion
is higher than it was before bin Laden died. That
enthusiasm may not last, but the country-and the
President-should enjoy it while it does.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Tierney, Dominic. How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires,
and the American Way of War, Little, Brown: 2010.
OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH, OSAMA BIN LADEN'S LEGACY
By Stephen Gale and Gregory Montanaro
Stephen Gale is Chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism; Gregory Montanaro is Executive Director
of FPRI's Center on Terrorism. For related articles by
Gale, visit: http://www.fpri.org/byauthor.html#gale
Osama bin Laden (OBL) is dead! Killed by a US Special
Operations team near Abbottabad in Pakistan. Even though it
took over ten years of often-aborted attempts, it was-and
is-truly a milestone in the US "War on Terrorism." But what
does it mean? What should America and Americans be concerned
about now that OBL has been taken out of the picture? And
what is OBL's "legacy" and how might it continue to impact
the US and the West?
After the almost ten years since OBL became the visible
symbol of Islamic terrorism, the US finally managed to
gather the critical intelligence needed to plan and execute
an action that worked. Throughout those ten years, OBL had
been at the top of the US and the world's "Most Wanted"
list, a position earned, in part, as a consequence of what
we believe his role to have been in the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001.
The story of those attacks has, in those ten years, become
almost mythic. In Western lore, OBL was alternately: the
"mastermind" of the attacks; a coward who might turn into
one of the greatest threats in US history; and the leader of
a group of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared war on
US, Crusaders (read Christendom), and Zionists. For the
ummah-the world's Muslims-OBL was: the archetypical hero,
the man who had everything and gave it up to devote his life
to defending the faith; OR a heretic who distorted the
meaning of the Holy Qur'an to support his dreams of personal
glory; OR the face of an anticipated resurgence and re-
commitment to the words of the Holy Qur'an and to an Islam
in its purest form.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to hear about every
possible perspective on the fall-out from the US action: US
relations with Pakistan; the Afghanistan exit strategy; the
upcoming 2012 elections; the prospects for future terrorist
actions; and so on. Each is clearly important. Each will
also require careful analysis and re-analysis to achieve the
insights required by politicians, the punditry, and media
commentators. But while the world tends to focus on the
political impacts of OBL's death, we must remember that it
is the consequences for terrorism that are the real concern.
Although for years analysts have, for example, used his
communiqu‚s to divine the outcome of elections, OBL's
importance is certainly not a function of his political
influence. Past, present, and future, OBL's power derived
solely from his position as the leader of al Qaeda and a
symbol of the revival of Islam (or, more accurately, his
version of Islam) as a major force in the world.
The effects of OBL's death certainly could have turned out
very differently had it not been for his part in signing the
"Declaration of War" and his role in planning and executing
a series of major terrorist actions. Al Qaeda (and its
leader, OBL) would have been of little more consequence than
any of the other Muslim fundamentalist groups: perhaps
effectual as a voice proclaiming the West's intention of
destroying Islam and calling on the ummah to defend the
faith, but with little chance of having any practical
impact.
No, what brought OBL to the top of the "Most Wanted" list
was the result of his ability to combine his commitment to
Islam (i.e., his version of Islam) with his early training
in construction finance and management. These, together with
his personal wealth, he helped to create al Qaeda, a group
committed to re-establishing the early principles of Islam
and defending the faith from the corruption of the West. Of
perhaps equal significance, OBL was also able to
professionalize al Qaeda by attracting an educated elite as
its core.
It was this, the creation of al Qaeda (The Base), that is
the foundation of OBL's Legacy-that and the power of OBL's
message to the ummah: that the US and the West can be
defeated by the faithful of Islam, by those who submit to
the word of the Qur'an and who are committed to taking
whatever steps are necessary to defend the faith from the
corrupting influence of the US and the West.
In the immediate future, the impacts of OBL's death will
undoubtedly be directly related to operational matters-that
is, to whatever al Qaeda and other Islamist groups see as
necessary in fulfilling whatever OBL's "Last Will and
Testament" contained. In the short run this may be acts of
revenge and retribution. In the long run, however, these
operations will draw more directly on OBL's Legacy by using
"strategic terrorism" -linked sequences of actions-to
undermine and disrupt the infrastructure and vital systems
of the US economy.
What was important about OBL in the past will thus continue
to drive the power of his legacy. It is, as we now know, a
legacy founded far more on his organizational abilities than
on his operational expertise. Even more important was his
role as spiritual leader, as a reminder of the central role
of faith in the struggle, that it is faith that transformed
his legacy from that of a simple guide to terrorist
operations into one that offered a combined operational and
symbolic posture to all of Islam.
It is important to keep in mind that, regardless of our
fantasies about his role as a "mastermind," OBL was only
indirectly involved in al Qaeda's operational planning.
Rather, his role was the stuff of high drama: he spoke to
the ability of Islam to defeat the US and the West by
employing a strategy of warfare based exclusively on the use
of sequences of modest, low cost actions-"strategic
terrorism."
But of even greater long-term import is the effect that
OBL's Legacy will have on Islamic terrorism writ large: by
all repute, the organizational structure that made al Qaeda
a powerful force fifteen years ago is now producing a
qualitative shift in the capabilities of Islamist terrorism
by turning what were once groups with largely regional
objectives into a decentralized worldwide organization
focused on the re-creation and revitalization of the
caliphate.
What kinds of actions-besides those aimed at revenge and
retribution-are likely to be on the drawing boards of the
Islamist terrorist network? Will everything go on as they
have been for the past ten to fifteen years? Will there
simply be a series of sporadic actions for the next couple
of months and then a return to business as usual? Or will
OBL's death be transformative-that is, will it bring about a
major shift in the behavior of the Islamist terrorist
network?
For those elements of the global Islamist network that are
committed to the long-run goals of al Qaeda-that it, to the
defeat of the US and the West and the re-creation of the
caliphate-OBL's death is most likely to signal the close of
the influence of his personal struggle to initiate a
spiritual reawakening within Islam and to ensure that the
methods used to defend the faith were fully aligned with the
Qur'an.
Rather, at this point it appears that this aspect of OBL's
message is "sealed" and that his death will be interpreted
as a call to action.
Al Qaeda's actions thus far are probably best understood as
the initial steps in an attempt to transform the faithful
from a centuries-long culture of patience to a realization
that, to regain a position of strength in the world, Islam
must eliminate the outside influences that have corrupted
the faith. Even more, to achieve the ultimate goal-the
reinstitution of a caliphate throughout dar al Islam that
is organized and governed by the Qur'an and the
Shari'ah-will require a commitment to the struggle of the
Lesser Jihad, a war to defeat the US and the West. But
unlike the wars of the past, this Islamist "army" will be
organized to employ OBL's Legacy- "strategic terrorism."
In addition to the struggle to renew the ummah from the
1990s on, OBL believed that a campaign based on "strategic
terrorism," aimed at the "joints of the US economy," would
produce far more leverage than any standard military
operations. The actions on September 11, 2001, for example,
resulted in more deaths, more destruction, and more
disruption than the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941. Indeed, had the September 11th attacks been
entirely successful and been matched by planned follow-on
actions throughout the remainder of 2001 and 2002, Qaeda's
goals may already been achieved.
In the aftermath of the only modestly successful actions on
September 11th, OBL and al Qaeda needed to develop an
extension of "strategic terrorism" that would carry Islam to
victory. This meant that, for at least the next decade,
OBL's efforts would be spent on multiplying the core
strengths of al Qaeda into a global Islamist network and in
planning for a strategy of action that would vastly improve
the likelihood of ultimate success. In the end, OBL's death
should thus be regarded not as the beginning of the end, but
the end of the beginning: as the point at which al Qaeda
turns thought and prayer into action, and where this global
Islamist network is now free to carry out the entirety of
OBL's legacy.
So, where does OBL's death leave the US and the West? That
is, aside from holding the smoking gun and thus being the
likely target for any immediate acts of revenge, what sort
of posture do we need to take in order to deal effectively
with OBL's legacy?
Assuming, of course, that OBL's death will not mark the end
of the threat of Islamist terrorism, OBL's legacy means
that, at a minimum, we will need to work much harder at
overcoming the "failure of imagination" that was directly
responsible for our inability to prevent the attacks on
September 11, 2001. That is, aside from our current military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan-most of which are only
indirectly related to terrorism-the US will, for example,
need to create the kind of functional intelligence gathering
and analysis capabilities that can be used to disrupt the
operations of the global Islamist terrorist network. Equally
important, we will also need to take steps to protect all of
those currently highly vulnerable facilities and systems
that are essential to the survival of the US and the West.
And even more, we must overcome the failures of our crisis-
mode responses to natural and man-made disasters such as
those that caused many of the disastrous problems resulting
from Hurricane Katrina. In a sense, all of these are
indicators of the power of the legacy: OBL firmly believed
that part of Islam's strength lay in our weaknesses, in a US
that was unwilling and unable to make the organizational and
institutional changes that are essential to a defense
against terrorist actions that are organized as a strategy
of warfare.
What we in the US must keep in mind is that, where an enemy
is prepared to use terrorist actions as the tactics of
choice in warfare-that is, "strategic terrorism"-the best
defense is rarely an excellent offense. On the contrary, an
effective offense is of little value unless it is built upon
on the foundation of a comprehensive defense. From our
perspective, OBL's death should thus also be a signal that
we must reorganize our programs for counter-terrorism and
homeland security, to transform our posture from one based
on piecemeal efforts to one in which defensive and offensive
strategies are integrated and have finally overcome the
tragedy of the "failure of imagination".
Worse still, OBL's death will not be a major transformative
factor for the US and the West unless we are prepared to
develop an analogue to OBL's legacy: that is, a posture of
warfare based on the use of our capabilities as a force
directed at OBL's operational legacy rather than as a force
organized to chase targets of opportunity. And this strategy
should hardly a mystery-particularly where it is directed by
something like a "Security Impact Statement" that identifies
and prioritizes critical targets and assists in the
development of optimal security configurations.
None of this thinking is new. OBL's legacy has been in the
making for years, as has the need for the US to transform
its counter-terrorism and homeland security capabilities.
The objective of this transformation, in fact, requires
little more than the use of much the same procedures that
were successful in previous wars-for example, directed R &
D, improved methods of technology transfer, the
institutional changes required to ensure close cooperation
between the public and private sectors, and further
integration of intelligence gathering and analysis
resources. In this sense, it is very similar to the kind of
transformation that OBL helped to initiate: the shift from
idiosyncratic actions to a strategic force organized for
war. For whatever else is characteristic of OBL's legacy, it
was clearly rooted in his conviction that the actions must
be organized for war rather than as one-off attacks aimed at
grabbing the attention of the media. The success of the US
War on Terrorism is also dependent on the need for this type
of transformation in strategy: from one based largely on
response to one that is founded, first, on a comprehensive
defense and, second, on offensive actions that target the
"supply chain" of the resources used in terrorist
operations.
For the US and the West, the question is whether we, too,
will be able to learn from the lessons of OBL's legacy and
initiate a transformation both in our way of thinking about
terrorism-that is, as the tactics employed in a strategy of
warfare-and our ways of organizing offensive and defensive
campaigns. The needed changes are hardly trivial, but they
are certainly no greater or more complex than those that the
US made during WWII and the Cold War.
More than anything else, however, the US must avoid the
conviction that OBL's legacy will cease to provide the
motivation for terrorist actions in the future and that
there is no need to reorganize our counter-terrorism and
homeland security measures. We have seen the power of his
message in the past and there is no reason to believe that
it will be diluted by OBL's death. Were this to happen,
Americans would once again have been trapped by our past, by
our inability to see terrorism as a strategy of warfare.
And in the words of that ever-so-prescient philosopher Pogo,
were this the case "We would have surely met the enemy-and
that enemy would be us!"
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
ON BIN LADEN'S DEMISE
May 16, 2011
In the immediate aftermath of bin Laden's demise, FPRI
published essays by FPRI Senior Fellows Barak Mendelsohn and
Lawrence Husick. We then held a public briefing featuring
nine FPRI scholars and two guest scholars, summarized in a
published report by Tally Helfont. We now offer two new
perspectives by FPRI Fellows - Stephen Gale, Gregory
Montanaro, and David Danelo. The relevant texts and
audiofiles are posted on www.fpri.org.
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201105.fpri.binladen2.html
BIN LADEN'S DEATH AND THE MORAL LEVEL OF WAR
By David Danelo
David Danelo, a Senior Fellow in FPRI's Program on National
Security, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served
seven years as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. In
2004, then-Captain Danelo served near Fallujah with the
First Marine Expeditionary Force as a convoy commander,
intelligence officer and provisional executive officer for a
rifle company. His first book, Blood Stripes: The Grunt's
View of the War in Iraq (Stackpole: 2006), was awarded the
2006 Silver Medal (Military History) by the Military Writers
Society of America. His latest book is, The Border:
Exploring the US-Mexican Divide (2008).
On May 1, 2011, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, a
sold-out crowd of American baseball fans erupted with cheers
entirely unrelated to the play of their hometown Phillies.
The athletes themselves, unable to indulge in stadium smart-
phone chatter, were puzzled to hear boisterous chants of "U-
S-A! U-S-A!" cascading into the infield, until word of Osama
bin Laden's death finally spread to the dugouts.
In war, as Napoleon tells us, the moral is to the physical
as three is to one. Although the French emperor was speaking
of 18th century battles, he could just as easily have been
discussing 21st century policy complexities. Perhaps, upon
reflection for the vagaries of democratic constituencies,
the Gallic conqueror would have expanded the moral variable
in war-particularly, in a democracy-by ten or twenty fold.
Few things in U.S. foreign policy circles are more vexing
than gauging the moral fortitude of the American public for
an extended and open-ended conflict. As author and FPRI
senior fellow Dominic Tierney has observed, the American
people have historically demonstrated a double-minded
pattern of beginning their wars as crusades before deriding
them as quagmires.[1] Generals from Zachary Taylor to David
Petraeus have seen the fickleness of the American public
thwart tactically sound military battle plans. Occasionally,
they are prevented from "finishing the job" by a people
whose fierceness U.S. military officers often find
perplexingly finite.
The will of the people-that ubiquitous Holy Grail of both
the warfighter and policy maker-cannot be easily calculated
as a linear variable. During World War II, Lieutenant
Colonel James Doolittle did not bomb Tokyo because the
action was militarily significant. President Franklin
Roosevelt ordered the operation because showing the American
people Japan could be bloodied was necessary to bolster
their will to fight.
Similarly, the three survivors of Iwo Jima, representing the
six men who had been memorialized in Joe Rosenthal's epic
photograph, were not returned from the Pacific theater and
paraded across the country simply for their own health and
welfare. The will of the people-a spiritual impetus that
took important corporeal form in the purchase of war
bonds-was increased with the physical evidence of success.
Alone, these acts were insignificant, but they did increase
the resolve of Americans to sacrifice until achieving
victory.
Many commentators have criticized the American people for
spontaneously celebrating the successful raid that killed
Osama bin Laden. Talking heads have suggested the images
would backfire; that development opportunities in Pakistan
would be squandered, as though exultation over a mass
murderer's destruction is the same as a penalty marker for
unsportsmanlike conduct. These voices fail to acknowledge a
central truth: while opinions of allies are certainly
important-and, in the complex game of geopolitics, some
matter more than others-international alliances alone do not
win a nation's wars, nor can they exclusively shape the
policy that begins them. The will of the people forms the
backbone of the Republic.
More than any other manufactured or authentic feel-good
moment in the past decade-more than the toppling of Saddam
Hussein's statue in Baghdad, the purple-stained fingers of
Iraqis at ballot boxes, or the smiling faces of Afghan girls
at school ribbon-cutting ceremonies-the raid that killed
Osama bin Laden stands, to date, as the defining moral
victory of America's war on terror. And, like in previous
moral victories, the renewed enthusiasm of Americans will
result in a period of support for President Obama.
Regardless of politics, there is an open-ended question of
how officials responsible for prosecuting the war on terror
sustain this narrative of moral victory in the United
States. The Obama administration has obtained a dividend of
sorts from this successful mission, which must be applied to
one of the many existing policy dilemmas. Withdrawal from
Afghanistan? Ground troops in Libya? Democracy movements
in Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain? How the President chooses to
use the policy dividend derived from killing bin Laden-even
more so than the terrorist's death-will be one of the
defining foreign policy questions of the 2012 election.
For the time being, however, Americans have the resolution
they long sought. Back in Philadelphia, morale at Citizens
Bank Park is as high before the games as it is when the home
team wins. The Star Spangled Banner is sung with greater
vigor, and the volume of applause at the song's conclusion
is higher than it was before bin Laden died. That
enthusiasm may not last, but the country-and the
President-should enjoy it while it does.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Tierney, Dominic. How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires,
and the American Way of War, Little, Brown: 2010.
OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH, OSAMA BIN LADEN'S LEGACY
By Stephen Gale and Gregory Montanaro
Stephen Gale is Chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism and
Counter-Terrorism; Gregory Montanaro is Executive Director
of FPRI's Center on Terrorism. For related articles by
Gale, visit: http://www.fpri.org/byauthor.html#gale
Osama bin Laden (OBL) is dead! Killed by a US Special
Operations team near Abbottabad in Pakistan. Even though it
took over ten years of often-aborted attempts, it was-and
is-truly a milestone in the US "War on Terrorism." But what
does it mean? What should America and Americans be concerned
about now that OBL has been taken out of the picture? And
what is OBL's "legacy" and how might it continue to impact
the US and the West?
After the almost ten years since OBL became the visible
symbol of Islamic terrorism, the US finally managed to
gather the critical intelligence needed to plan and execute
an action that worked. Throughout those ten years, OBL had
been at the top of the US and the world's "Most Wanted"
list, a position earned, in part, as a consequence of what
we believe his role to have been in the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001.
The story of those attacks has, in those ten years, become
almost mythic. In Western lore, OBL was alternately: the
"mastermind" of the attacks; a coward who might turn into
one of the greatest threats in US history; and the leader of
a group of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared war on
US, Crusaders (read Christendom), and Zionists. For the
ummah-the world's Muslims-OBL was: the archetypical hero,
the man who had everything and gave it up to devote his life
to defending the faith; OR a heretic who distorted the
meaning of the Holy Qur'an to support his dreams of personal
glory; OR the face of an anticipated resurgence and re-
commitment to the words of the Holy Qur'an and to an Islam
in its purest form.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to hear about every
possible perspective on the fall-out from the US action: US
relations with Pakistan; the Afghanistan exit strategy; the
upcoming 2012 elections; the prospects for future terrorist
actions; and so on. Each is clearly important. Each will
also require careful analysis and re-analysis to achieve the
insights required by politicians, the punditry, and media
commentators. But while the world tends to focus on the
political impacts of OBL's death, we must remember that it
is the consequences for terrorism that are the real concern.
Although for years analysts have, for example, used his
communiqu‚s to divine the outcome of elections, OBL's
importance is certainly not a function of his political
influence. Past, present, and future, OBL's power derived
solely from his position as the leader of al Qaeda and a
symbol of the revival of Islam (or, more accurately, his
version of Islam) as a major force in the world.
The effects of OBL's death certainly could have turned out
very differently had it not been for his part in signing the
"Declaration of War" and his role in planning and executing
a series of major terrorist actions. Al Qaeda (and its
leader, OBL) would have been of little more consequence than
any of the other Muslim fundamentalist groups: perhaps
effectual as a voice proclaiming the West's intention of
destroying Islam and calling on the ummah to defend the
faith, but with little chance of having any practical
impact.
No, what brought OBL to the top of the "Most Wanted" list
was the result of his ability to combine his commitment to
Islam (i.e., his version of Islam) with his early training
in construction finance and management. These, together with
his personal wealth, he helped to create al Qaeda, a group
committed to re-establishing the early principles of Islam
and defending the faith from the corruption of the West. Of
perhaps equal significance, OBL was also able to
professionalize al Qaeda by attracting an educated elite as
its core.
It was this, the creation of al Qaeda (The Base), that is
the foundation of OBL's Legacy-that and the power of OBL's
message to the ummah: that the US and the West can be
defeated by the faithful of Islam, by those who submit to
the word of the Qur'an and who are committed to taking
whatever steps are necessary to defend the faith from the
corrupting influence of the US and the West.
In the immediate future, the impacts of OBL's death will
undoubtedly be directly related to operational matters-that
is, to whatever al Qaeda and other Islamist groups see as
necessary in fulfilling whatever OBL's "Last Will and
Testament" contained. In the short run this may be acts of
revenge and retribution. In the long run, however, these
operations will draw more directly on OBL's Legacy by using
"strategic terrorism" -linked sequences of actions-to
undermine and disrupt the infrastructure and vital systems
of the US economy.
What was important about OBL in the past will thus continue
to drive the power of his legacy. It is, as we now know, a
legacy founded far more on his organizational abilities than
on his operational expertise. Even more important was his
role as spiritual leader, as a reminder of the central role
of faith in the struggle, that it is faith that transformed
his legacy from that of a simple guide to terrorist
operations into one that offered a combined operational and
symbolic posture to all of Islam.
It is important to keep in mind that, regardless of our
fantasies about his role as a "mastermind," OBL was only
indirectly involved in al Qaeda's operational planning.
Rather, his role was the stuff of high drama: he spoke to
the ability of Islam to defeat the US and the West by
employing a strategy of warfare based exclusively on the use
of sequences of modest, low cost actions-"strategic
terrorism."
But of even greater long-term import is the effect that
OBL's Legacy will have on Islamic terrorism writ large: by
all repute, the organizational structure that made al Qaeda
a powerful force fifteen years ago is now producing a
qualitative shift in the capabilities of Islamist terrorism
by turning what were once groups with largely regional
objectives into a decentralized worldwide organization
focused on the re-creation and revitalization of the
caliphate.
What kinds of actions-besides those aimed at revenge and
retribution-are likely to be on the drawing boards of the
Islamist terrorist network? Will everything go on as they
have been for the past ten to fifteen years? Will there
simply be a series of sporadic actions for the next couple
of months and then a return to business as usual? Or will
OBL's death be transformative-that is, will it bring about a
major shift in the behavior of the Islamist terrorist
network?
For those elements of the global Islamist network that are
committed to the long-run goals of al Qaeda-that it, to the
defeat of the US and the West and the re-creation of the
caliphate-OBL's death is most likely to signal the close of
the influence of his personal struggle to initiate a
spiritual reawakening within Islam and to ensure that the
methods used to defend the faith were fully aligned with the
Qur'an.
Rather, at this point it appears that this aspect of OBL's
message is "sealed" and that his death will be interpreted
as a call to action.
Al Qaeda's actions thus far are probably best understood as
the initial steps in an attempt to transform the faithful
from a centuries-long culture of patience to a realization
that, to regain a position of strength in the world, Islam
must eliminate the outside influences that have corrupted
the faith. Even more, to achieve the ultimate goal-the
reinstitution of a caliphate throughout dar al Islam that
is organized and governed by the Qur'an and the
Shari'ah-will require a commitment to the struggle of the
Lesser Jihad, a war to defeat the US and the West. But
unlike the wars of the past, this Islamist "army" will be
organized to employ OBL's Legacy- "strategic terrorism."
In addition to the struggle to renew the ummah from the
1990s on, OBL believed that a campaign based on "strategic
terrorism," aimed at the "joints of the US economy," would
produce far more leverage than any standard military
operations. The actions on September 11, 2001, for example,
resulted in more deaths, more destruction, and more
disruption than the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941. Indeed, had the September 11th attacks been
entirely successful and been matched by planned follow-on
actions throughout the remainder of 2001 and 2002, Qaeda's
goals may already been achieved.
In the aftermath of the only modestly successful actions on
September 11th, OBL and al Qaeda needed to develop an
extension of "strategic terrorism" that would carry Islam to
victory. This meant that, for at least the next decade,
OBL's efforts would be spent on multiplying the core
strengths of al Qaeda into a global Islamist network and in
planning for a strategy of action that would vastly improve
the likelihood of ultimate success. In the end, OBL's death
should thus be regarded not as the beginning of the end, but
the end of the beginning: as the point at which al Qaeda
turns thought and prayer into action, and where this global
Islamist network is now free to carry out the entirety of
OBL's legacy.
So, where does OBL's death leave the US and the West? That
is, aside from holding the smoking gun and thus being the
likely target for any immediate acts of revenge, what sort
of posture do we need to take in order to deal effectively
with OBL's legacy?
Assuming, of course, that OBL's death will not mark the end
of the threat of Islamist terrorism, OBL's legacy means
that, at a minimum, we will need to work much harder at
overcoming the "failure of imagination" that was directly
responsible for our inability to prevent the attacks on
September 11, 2001. That is, aside from our current military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan-most of which are only
indirectly related to terrorism-the US will, for example,
need to create the kind of functional intelligence gathering
and analysis capabilities that can be used to disrupt the
operations of the global Islamist terrorist network. Equally
important, we will also need to take steps to protect all of
those currently highly vulnerable facilities and systems
that are essential to the survival of the US and the West.
And even more, we must overcome the failures of our crisis-
mode responses to natural and man-made disasters such as
those that caused many of the disastrous problems resulting
from Hurricane Katrina. In a sense, all of these are
indicators of the power of the legacy: OBL firmly believed
that part of Islam's strength lay in our weaknesses, in a US
that was unwilling and unable to make the organizational and
institutional changes that are essential to a defense
against terrorist actions that are organized as a strategy
of warfare.
What we in the US must keep in mind is that, where an enemy
is prepared to use terrorist actions as the tactics of
choice in warfare-that is, "strategic terrorism"-the best
defense is rarely an excellent offense. On the contrary, an
effective offense is of little value unless it is built upon
on the foundation of a comprehensive defense. From our
perspective, OBL's death should thus also be a signal that
we must reorganize our programs for counter-terrorism and
homeland security, to transform our posture from one based
on piecemeal efforts to one in which defensive and offensive
strategies are integrated and have finally overcome the
tragedy of the "failure of imagination".
Worse still, OBL's death will not be a major transformative
factor for the US and the West unless we are prepared to
develop an analogue to OBL's legacy: that is, a posture of
warfare based on the use of our capabilities as a force
directed at OBL's operational legacy rather than as a force
organized to chase targets of opportunity. And this strategy
should hardly a mystery-particularly where it is directed by
something like a "Security Impact Statement" that identifies
and prioritizes critical targets and assists in the
development of optimal security configurations.
None of this thinking is new. OBL's legacy has been in the
making for years, as has the need for the US to transform
its counter-terrorism and homeland security capabilities.
The objective of this transformation, in fact, requires
little more than the use of much the same procedures that
were successful in previous wars-for example, directed R &
D, improved methods of technology transfer, the
institutional changes required to ensure close cooperation
between the public and private sectors, and further
integration of intelligence gathering and analysis
resources. In this sense, it is very similar to the kind of
transformation that OBL helped to initiate: the shift from
idiosyncratic actions to a strategic force organized for
war. For whatever else is characteristic of OBL's legacy, it
was clearly rooted in his conviction that the actions must
be organized for war rather than as one-off attacks aimed at
grabbing the attention of the media. The success of the US
War on Terrorism is also dependent on the need for this type
of transformation in strategy: from one based largely on
response to one that is founded, first, on a comprehensive
defense and, second, on offensive actions that target the
"supply chain" of the resources used in terrorist
operations.
For the US and the West, the question is whether we, too,
will be able to learn from the lessons of OBL's legacy and
initiate a transformation both in our way of thinking about
terrorism-that is, as the tactics employed in a strategy of
warfare-and our ways of organizing offensive and defensive
campaigns. The needed changes are hardly trivial, but they
are certainly no greater or more complex than those that the
US made during WWII and the Cold War.
More than anything else, however, the US must avoid the
conviction that OBL's legacy will cease to provide the
motivation for terrorist actions in the future and that
there is no need to reorganize our counter-terrorism and
homeland security measures. We have seen the power of his
message in the past and there is no reason to believe that
it will be diluted by OBL's death. Were this to happen,
Americans would once again have been trapped by our past, by
our inability to see terrorism as a strategy of warfare.
And in the words of that ever-so-prescient philosopher Pogo,
were this the case "We would have surely met the enemy-and
that enemy would be us!"
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Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
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