AQAM
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published a detailed report regarding the past, present and future status of threats posed by Al Qaeda and associated movements (AQAM). This report assumed much and presented a murky foretelling of the possible scenarios that this threat may or may not wield in the coming years. The report prophesized the events until the year 2025 to help formulate a near-term strategy that can address the many issues surrounding the many and varying threats.
The report itself offers no clear solution and there is certainly much guess work involved in the development of the ideas contained within this report. The authors communicated this uncertainty when they wrote " assessing the long-term future of AQAM is fraught with obvious challenges. Rather than trying to do the impossible and explicitly define what AQAM will look like in 2025, this study embraces uncertainty by providing a range of alternative futures for the movement." Due to this immense uncertainty, the conservative mentality of this group suggests that a pessimistic attitude would be adopted and that any future scenarios would be extremely dangerous.
In the list of 5 possible alternatives that AQAM may drift towards, as presented in this report are all feasible to some degree. In my opinion, however, I believe the final option, Paradigm 5 presents the most likely course of action to be experienced. This paradigm suggested that AQAM will eventually collapse by the year 2025, and that certain forces will have eliminated this Islamist movement.
This idea is further defined by the ideas that the common bonds, a strong ideology, will have been sufficiently contained or eliminated to counter any future growth of the movement until that time. Although AQAM will have been removed other Islamist...
It allows for pockets of Islamist militancy throughout the world but posits no unifying ideology or strategy binding together various groups, " (p.39).
The strength and effort dedicated to the counterterrorism fight within the western world suggests that something must change in regards to AQAM. The long hard slog has no doubt weakened all sides of the conflict, and Islamist terrorism is beginning to wane in its violent means. Peace and balance is the new ideals behind many world movements today, and the Middle East is quite drunk with war and violence. Fear tactics are losing their ability to modify the battlefield as less and less interest is garnered towards idealistic movements based on fear and intimidation.
The Islamist world itself is misrepresented by AQAM, as the conflation between this religion and violence has reached insufferable levels of falsity. The West's relationship with the state of Israel and the influence the Zionist movement has on the United States will largely dictate the role that AQAM has in the coming years. This pivotal relationship is the true hallmark of why there is even any interest within this area of the world. Recent energy developments within the geographical boundaries of the United States also suggest that the financial and political interests of 2001 are not appropriate now.
Part 2
The aforementioned report presented by the CSIS also includes a series of strategic shocks, that, when introduced into the scenario, would significantly alter the strategic background of the current situation. These scenarios are mostly exaggerated to a high level of worry, but all do insist that the war is far from over in terms of what can go wrong in the near…
