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Can We Defeat Terrorists without Defeating Terrorism?

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 08:08 PM PST

“We are not waging a war against terrorism because
terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a
tactics of war will. Rather, such thinking is a recipe for endless
conflict. ... We are at war with Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and
any comment to the contrary is just inaccurate."

John Brennan,
Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and
Counterterrorism

Now there's an obvious paradox in a man whose own post is
defined by counterterrorism, arguing that terrorism can never be defeated.
Back when the USSR forged its pact with Nazi Germany, the Soviet
propaganda machine propounded that they were not at war with "fascism", as
"isms" could not be defeated. Similar defeatist arguments were used by
Western governments to argue that Communism was another "ism" and Isms
could not be defeated.

Both arguments were of course proven wrong,
because you can defeat an "Ism" by bringing down the system and country
that most exemplifies it, thereby devaluing it as a political or
ideological strategy at least for some time to come. That in turn is
exactly why Muslim terrorism is targeting America, because we exemplify a
society that blends human freedoms, popular representation and free
enterprise. If they can corrupt, destroy or bring down America, they will
have come one step closer to demonstrating that there is no alternative to
accepting Islam.

Brennan argues that terrorism is just another
tactic of war, and that therefore it cannot be defeated. This is wrong on
both counts, as a man who spent so much time in the intelligence and
counterterrorism world should know.

First of all a tactic of war
can indeed be defeated by demonstrating that its use is either futile or
self-destructive. The reason we have never had a nuclear war, is because
any strategy that depended on winning a nuclear war was eliminated by
demonstrating that it was far more likely to lead to self-destruction,
than to victory.

Secondly terrorism is not a tactic of war, it is
a political tactic. Terrorists don't employ terrorism in order to defeat
armies, but to show that the army and security forces are unable to defeat
them or stop their attacks. Their real target is the political apparatus
of the enemy which is forced to make concessions to the political goals of
the terrorists in order to end the attacks. These concessions can be
direct or indirect. An example of direct concessions would occur at a
peace conference, such as the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and
Arafat. While an indirect example would be the American and European
attempt to appease "moderate" Muslims who have the same goals as the
"extremist" Muslims . While the terrorists will usually denounce such
appeasement, this is only done in order to stake out their position on the
left or the right, and thereby achieve even more far ranging
concessions.

Understanding that terrorism is a political tactic is the key
to defeating it. Terrorism gambles that the spines of the enemy
politicians will be weak enough that they will choose to withdraw, appease
and concede-- rather than fight harder and do whatever it takes to win.
Terrorists cannot win against a nation whose political and military
leadership is united with their citizens in their determination to defeat
the terrorists. They can only win by exploiting weakness, and their crimes
are crimes of weakness.

If terrorists had the courage to make war,
they would make war. They don't plant bombs in cafes because they believe
they can actually defeat their enemies in battle. They plant bombs in
cafes because they know that they can't, and that their only hope is to
spread terror through public acts of terror and highly visible atrocities
in order to make it easier for weak politicians to make a fitful effort to
stop them, and then pull back when they realize that their half-hearted
measures alone won't carry the day.

That is why it is impossible to
defeat terrorists, without defeating terrorism. Because the two are the
same. Terrorists depend on the success of their core tactic, that of
terrorizing the enemy. You cannot defeat them without discrediting this
tactic, without demonstrating that it is futile and self-destructive. And
you do that in two ways, first by never bowing to terrorism or its demands
in any way shape or form. And secondly by going on the offensive against
terrorists, by targeting their allies and their affiliated political
movements, and any groups, ethnic, religious or political that support
them.

The terrorists' tactic is to turn up the heat on their
enemies. The best counter is to turn up the heat on them. The terrorists
gain their strength by being on the offensive and forcing their enemies to
take reactive stances, always waiting to defend against every possible
attack. The best counter is to force the terrorists to go on the
defensive, to hit them and keep hitting them so that they are forced to be
reactive, anticipating the next attack.

A major terrorist
organization requires a core of professionals to train new recruits and
run operations. It requires a constant flow of money to fund terrorist
activities. It needs a political arm or sympathizers and fellow travelers
who will conduct their propaganda for them, and make their aims and goals
clear. And finally it needs warm bodies to throw into the fray and
transform into martyrs. Critics usually harp on the last of these as
demonstrating that you cannot simply kill terrorists because they will
just recruit more. Which is true. But such recruits are generally
worthless. Suicide bombings alone demonstrate how worthless even the
terrorist leaders themselves think their recruits are.

But if you
can destroy or severely damage the first three, then you have destroyed or
severely crippled the ability of the terrorist group to operate. If you
destroy its core personnel, you can eliminate the entire group as a
threat. If you can humiliate them by forcing confessions out of them, you
can even discredit the group's "brand" and impede other terrorists from
trying to form the group again in the future.

If you can stop or
black the majority of operations, and discredit or destroy some of the
core personnel, you will discourage the flow of donations to the group
from its backers. Furthermore if you can destroy the political arms and
terrify or take down the fellow travelers, you can essentially isolate the
terrorist group both from its financial backers and its political goals.
The group becomes a dead end, with no real way left to achieve its
objectives. Because terrorism is a political strategy, and if the group
cannot have any way left to effect political change, it becomes
worthless.

It sounds easy, but it's not. The key is
to understand that doing these without any real commitment is almost as
bad as not doing anything at all. Because the terrorists depend on a
certain amount of engagement in order to be able to carry on a running
battle that will bring them attention and money, and that will make the
people feel that further fighting is futile. The terrorists count on being
able to survive repeated engagements by a government too afraid to fight
them with the gloves off... so that they can then claim that force will
not stop them, only concessions and appeasement will end the
violence.

To defeat both terrorists and terrorism, you must be
ruthless. You must destroy them by destroying whatever cover they depend
on. You must cut off their outside aid and political camouflage, put them
on the run and keep them on the run, until they are isolated and immobile,
at which point they can be destroyed. This will require tactics that often
seem ugly to the postmodern mentality that believes that force is only
moral, when it is practiced with perfect purity. But the only thing uglier
than what it will take to defeat terrorists, is their victory.