Now that the seven year anniversary of 9/11 is behind us and readers have seen the many commentaries by leading counterterrorism experts, bloggers and journalists, it is time to ask whether after seven years we have a clear understanding and picture of the threat that faces us. The Spiegel, a German magazine, has a good article with short assessments by seven leading thinkers on whether al-Qaeda is still a threat and how the War on Terror is going. I highly recommend reading it here. With experts from the Israel, Singapore, Germany, Jordan, Sweden and the UK, it is clear that even leading thinkers cannot even agree on the same language and terminology much less whether al-Qaeda is still a threat and whether command and control terrorism or leaderless terrorism represents a bigger danger.
So, I now ask readers to offer their assessment of the following:
1) How do you breakdown the jihadist threat? Al-Qaeda is only one group. There are many regional groups, lone wolves et cetera. List the different types of Islamist threat with a brief description of each.
2) Is al-Qaeda more dangerous today than it was before 9/11?
3) What type of threat is al-Qaeda and jihadist terrorism? A strategic threat? An annoyance?
4) Based on the answers to the previous three, are we winning the battle against jihadist terrorism?
My answers will be posted in the next day or two.
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COMMENTS / 8 COMMENTS
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » The Terrorist Threat Environment Today added these pithy words on Sep 23 08 at 2:57 am[...] last post asked readers several questions relating to the threat of jihadist [...]
Jay added these pithy words on 18 Sep 08 at 11:26 pmDefine jihadist.
Define terrorist.
The leading international experts can’t agree because the subject of the question has no definition.
EngTeach added these pithy words on 19 Sep 08 at 1:46 amNon-state actors will become increasingly assertive: pirates off the Somalian coasts and in the Nigerian delta are just two examples. The states were already weak there and in the coming century, you will see NSA’s emerging as a force in relatively developed countries as governments fail to provide even the most basic services.
Someone said the states of America would secede after the terrorists attacks of 2001. Though desirable for some, that is, frankly, far-fetched. But I think OSB or whoever said it, was pointing to the fact that governments increasingly do not feel beholden to the populations they are supposed to represent. Perhaps it can be said that they become nations within nations and so exclude the other groups.
Yours Truly added these pithy words on 19 Sep 08 at 2:43 amThe journalist, Fuad Hussein, sounds convincin’ enough, but with so many heads talkin’, I’m even more perplexed now. Who’s got the most accurate picture?
Jay added these pithy words on 21 Sep 08 at 2:31 am“you will see NSA’s emerging as a force in relatively developed countries as governments fail to provide even the most basic services.”
Won’t those NSA’s effectively evolve into political factions that replace or incur into the providence of the the former state a la Palestine and Lebanon? I don’t get the “nation collapses” bit. I can understand the NSA’s evolving to take up where the failed state left off, but the structure is still the same.
Roy Berman added these pithy words on 22 Sep 08 at 4:37 amThe entire premise of your questions is flawed. Dangerous to who? Threat to who? If you meant to pose the questions in terms of a security threat to the US then you need to say that. Sure, there are Islamist terrorists who want to attack Americans, but it looks to me like there are more out planning attacks in Europe. And there are FAR more Islamist terrorists who cause far more damage in their own countries, who are arguably of no threat at all to the West directly, but do represent a threat to extending Western ideology to these countries.
For example, heavily Islamic but very moderate Indonesia has domestic terrorists who are probably in the Al Qaeda/Taliban vein of wanting to create an Islamic state based on some fantasy quasi-medieval image of Islam. Muslim separatists are active in southern Thailand and southern Philippines as well as China’s Xinjiang province, but violence carried out by these groups (call it terrorism if you want, but the term is becoming increasingly diluted and meaningless) is for a very different purpose than Al Qaeda. Don’t forget that the Chechnyans are Muslim as well, but hardly anybody has ever taken Russia’s attempts to link Chechnyan separatists with global Jihad seriously. Religion is part of what defines the identity of these groups that are trying to secede, but the root cause is more about identity than religion per se.
The campaign to link all of these various entities, regional conflicts, transnational terrorists attacks, domestic Islamic political movements, etc. into some grand unifying War On Terror has always been, and continues to be nonsense. Despite the understandable desire to fit everything into a convenient us versus them, Manichean, black and white model (a la the Cold War, where it was at least a better fit) the world is just more complicated than that.
Chirol added these pithy words on 22 Sep 08 at 2:21 pmRoy: I’ll be making similar points as you just have in my upcoming post.
Jay added these pithy words on 22 Sep 08 at 10:53 pm“The campaign to link all of these various entities, regional conflicts, transnational terrorists attacks, domestic Islamic political movements, etc. into some grand unifying War On Terror has always been, and continues to be nonsense.”
Roy’s wisdom abounds.
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