Non-Military Strategies For Countering Islamist Terrorism: Lessons Learned From Past Counterinsurgencies Kurt M. Campbell and Richard Weitz The Princeton Project Papers The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University he Princeton Project on National Security is a three-year, bi-partisan initiative Tto develop a sustainable and effective national security strategy for the United States of America. Under the stewardship of honorary co-chairs George Shultz and Anthony Lake, the Princeton Project brought together leading thinkers on national security from government, academe, business, and the non-profit sector to analyze key issues and develop innovative responses to a range of national security threats. Through the generous support of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Non-military Strategies For Countering International Affairs at Princeton University, the Ford Foundation, and Mr. David Rubenstein, the Princeton Project has: Islamist Terrorism: • Convened and published the findings of seven working groups that Lessons Learned From Past Counterinsurgencies addressed different aspects of national security – including grand strategy, state security and transnational threats, economics and national security, anti-Americanism, reconstruction and development, relative threat assessment, and global institutions and foreign policy infrastructure; • Held nine conferences in the United States and abroad to explore major issues pertaining to U.S. national security ranging from the use of The Princeton Project Papers preventive force to the role of the private sector; • Commissioned seventeen working papers on critical security topics that Kurt M. Campbell and Richard Weitz hitherto had received scant attention. The Princeton Project culminates with the release of its Final Report by Project co-directors G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter on September 27, 2006. Over the next nine months the co-directors will present their findings at a series of events in the United States, Europe, and Asia. For a copy of the Final Report, to access copies of Princeton Project Working Papers, or to learn more, please visit the Princeton Project Web site www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns. Please direct inquiries to [email protected]. Introductory Observations urt M. Campbell is Senior Vice President, Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Since the tragic attacks of 9/11, strategists and commentators have searched for the appropriate historical KNational Security, and Director of the International Security Program at the analogies and political metaphors to deal with the struggle against international terrorism. One of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Previously, Dr. most interesting suggestions is that the global war on terror resembles traditional counterinsurgency Campbell served in several capacities in government, including Deputy Assistant missions. What is missing in many of these historical comparisons, however, is a comprehensive review Secretary of Defense for Asia and the Pacific in the Pentagon, Director on the National Security Council Staff, Deputy Special Counselor to the President for of what actually occurred in past counterinsurgency situations, ranging from Vietnam to Malaysia NAFTA in The White House, and as a White House Fellow at the Department to El Salvador. We have sought to undertake such a review to determine what insights, if any, might of the Treasury. He was also Associate Professor of Public Policy and International apply to antiterrorist efforts. Our analysis identifies certain areas of comparison meriting further Relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. consideration. In particular, we find that political strategies combined with properly conducted He was an officer in the U.S. Navy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in the Chief military and intelligence efforts can help counter both insurgencies and terrorist movements. of Naval Operations Special Intelligence Unit. He is coauthor of To Prevail: An American Strategy for the Campaign against Terrorism and coeditor of The Nuclear Tipping Point. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Over the past five years, the United States has struggled to develop effective approaches against terrorist San Diego, a certificate in music and politics from the University of Erevan in the threats. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism – the main doctrine defining U.S. policy Soviet Union, and a Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford University as a regarding the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) – affirms the need for both military and non-military Marshall scholar. He is the director of the Aspen Strategy Group. 1 strategies in order to deal with a multifaceted and evolving threat. The U.S. Department of Defense ichard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of Hudson Institute’s (DOD) also acknowledges that “battlefield success is only one element of our long-term, multi-faceted RCenter for Future Security Strategies. He analyzes mid- and long-term campaign against terrorism. The activities employed to date range from training and humanitarian national and international political-military issues, including by employing efforts to major combat operations. Non-military components of this campaign include diplomacy, scenario-based planning. His current areas of research include homeland 2 security, counterterrorism, and U.S. policies towards Eurasia. He also has held strategic communications, law enforcement operations, and economic sanctions.” Yet these efforts positions with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, the Center for Strategic have been clearly secondary to the application of American military power to the problem. Studies, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and the U.S. Department Indeed, much of the debate regarding strategies to manage radical Islamist terrorism has focused on of Defense. Dr. Weitz is a graduate of Harvard College, the London School how the U.S. military can best kill terrorists. For several years, the George W. Bush administration has of Economics, Oxford University, and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science). Dr. Weitz recently published a book for The International Institute for highlighted the number of terrorist leaders eliminated or captured, while the administration’s critics Strategic Studies, Revitalising US–Russian Security Cooperation: Practical Measures have emphasized the continued failure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Such is the focus on (Routledge, 2005). He has written extensively in such journals as The National individual terrorists that President Bush has kept an al Qaeda scorecard and has been crossing out the , , , Interest The Washington Quarterly Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Jane’s leadership’s faces as they are found.3 Intelligence Review, and The Journal of Strategic Studies. Weitz’s commentaries have appeared in the Wall Street Journal Europe, Aviation Week & Space Technology, and many Internet-based publications. He has appeared on BBC News, Voice of This preoccupation with killing terrorists is understandable given the American outrage over the America, Alhurra TV/Middle East Broadcast Network, CTV of Canada, Pacifica destruction wrought by the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, these terrorists make seemingly nonnegotiable Radio, ABC News Now, and additional broadcast media. 1 “This National Strategy reflects the reality that success will only come through the sustained, steadfast, and systematic application of all the elements of national power – diplomatic, economic, information, financial, law enforcement, intelligence, and military . .” (National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: The White House, February 2003), 29. 2 U.S. Department of Defense, The National Defense Strategy of The United States of America (Washington, D.C: March 2005), 6. 3 Toby Harnden, “Bush Keeps Photo Hit-List of Enemies,” The Telegraph, February 2, 2004. 1 demands and constantly pursue new opportunities to harm Americans. These conditions have ensured As such, the link between insurgencies and terrorism is more than conceptual. Insurgencies help sustained popular support for increased spending on defense and homeland security and for using U.S. militarize societies and provide a major source of terrorist recruits. Prominent examples include the military forces in a worldwide campaign against terrorist threats. Yet a strategy focused on capturing wars in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Palestine, Chechnya, and now (especially) Iraq.10 individuals has limited utility when facing the multifaceted challenges posed by the broader Jihadist movement. For one, while the “scorecard” metric tells us how many individuals have been taken out of If the war on terrorism is actually a fight against a global insurgency, can the United States learn the al Qaeda apparatus, it does not tell us how many remain or have recently joined. Further, adherents any valuable lessons from recent counterinsurgency missions? More crucially, are there non-military of radical Islam are not a monolithic bloc; rather, as Steven Metz and Raymond Millen write, they are measures that might yield durable results? By examining a range of counterinsurgency operations part of a “transnational Islamist insurgency which includes a dizzying array of subcomponents.”4 – in particular, the British success in Malaya in the 1950s, the French defeat in Algeria