War on terrorism: causes, impacts, and global policy responses

War on Terrorism

Winning the "War on terrorism"; the Need for a Fundamentally Different Strategy" by Anthony B. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies published September 18, 2006

Cordesman's article is a detailed analysis of the counterproductive nature of the current state of international counterterrorism. The work stresses that the current aggressive actions of the West coupled with the inaction of the Middle East create a counterproductive strategy that intensifies terrorism, rather than reducing it. The first point made by Cordesman is that the West identifies terrorism as a global situation, while in reality there are several smaller regional situations, that have little international effect and that any kind of terrorism that can be correctly labeled as global, in its effect is that that is spurned on by Islamist extremism, which he even more specifically identifies as neo-Salafi Sunni Islamist extremism. The work goes further to state that the struggle is not a military and/or secular one but one that is ideological and religious. This point moves forward to stress that any real progress in a real "war on terror" must be fought from within Islam at an ideological level. The work then moves forward to stress that the importance of this acknowledgement is fundamental to success and that there are extreme limitations to any military intervention, and that without a clear understanding of the forces of the threat there is limited action. The author states unequivocally that the West can only "score limited tactical victories, help local forces contain major terrorist movements, defend home territory and buy time." (2) Additioanlly the author stresses that the West has a bad name, as the meorires of colonialism and ties to Isreal for the West to be the leading force in winning any proverbial war. The West must limit its involvement to an involvement that helps ensure that local entities are the guiding force behind change, at a fundamental level. The author also stresses that without extreme changes in the image of the West, with regard to these and other issues there will be no headway gained in the fight. Cordesman, then focuses on the road to Israeli-Arab peace as one of the only manner in which the West can change its own image as a usurper, interloper and devastating force of destruction of ideology as well as natural resources. The author notes that the desire of Western societies to force instant "democracy" is also counterproductive, as such a system does not give historical precedence to the manner in which Islamic nations have always been governed, for the good or bad. Rapid, economic, social and demographic demands for change are also counterintuitive as they also do not take history into account and need to evolve with the evolution of political and social change. The author proposes that the burden of the "war" is squarely placed within the Islamic nations themselves and that these nations need to not only recognize the threat of extremism but combat it through ideological, social and political changes that pay closer attention to history and identity, failures and successes and refrain from continuing to blame the "west" for all its own failings.

This works stated problem is effectively addressed as it leads the reader to a logical conclusion that the problem of terrorism is ideological, rather than military and secular and that the West and the Middle East in their collective denial of change create even greater conflict and in fact feed the fire of extremism, on the one hand through heavy handed action and on the other through inaction and outside blame. The heavy emphasis of the "war on terror" as one that can somehow be magically resolved by a secular and military intervention from the West is not only irrational but it is counter productive in that it simply reiterates long held hatreds toward the West as aggressive and threatening to the way of life in the Islamic world. The purpose of the article to call both sides to a more logical point of action is very clear and logically detailed through opinion and example.

There is no review of literature within this work as it is an opinion-based work created by an expert in the field. A traditional review of literature could add a great deal to this work as it would further the expressions of the expert by offering similar and contrary opinions to support and rebut the opinions of Cordesman.

Additionally there is no research base to this article, as it is mostly opinion based, with no intention of researching a hypothesis, but rather stating one for the utilization of other researchers and experts to begin from. The work does focus a great deal of direct attention on one single aspect of terrorism as the only global threat, from this standpoint it the work could be considered macroanalytic.