To keep on doing the same thing while expecting different results is the definition of insanity!

November 20, 2007 By

Counter-Terrorism

Global Geopolitics Net
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

© Copyright 2007 Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta. All rights reserved.

By Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta

USA’s counter terrorism effort in the Global War against Terror is frankly creating more terrorists than it is stopping. If the objective was to reduce the number of terrorists, then it has failed, because the number of terrorists and terrorist incidents is indeed increasing. If the objective was to reduce the territory they cover, then that too has not happened. If the objective was to reduce the terrorists’ influence, then the influence has grown. If the idea was to reduce Islamist religiosity, then that too it has increased. Keeping things static is no fun gun. One has to aim at removing, reducing and eradicating these totally. The main reason behind this is that USA sees this problem in purely military terms. That is why it keeps on using military means primarily and then gets surprised at the results that terrorism is not reducing.

One very good way to check the counter terrorism strategy is to read what their official books say. This book had been released in 2005, but regretfully, it is only now that I finally managed to read the whole thing. I quote from the introduction here:

In August 2005, the United States (US) Army Training and Doctrine Command, Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence-Threats released the Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. The Guide was designed primarily for US military forces, however, other applicable groups such as state and local first responders can benefit from the information contained in the Guide. While primarily written to support operational missions, institutional training, and professional military education for US military forces in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), US domestic first responders will also find the Guide beneficial.

According to the Guide, understanding terrorism spans foreign and domestic threats of nation-states, rogue states with international or transnational agent demonstrations, and actors with specific strategies, tactics, and targets. A central aspect of this terrorism guide comprises foreign and domestic threats against the United States of America in a contemporary operational environment (COE).

But first let me state the issues. I think the type-setter or whoever was making the layouts is colour blind. The book stabbed my eyes 3-4 times in the first few pages itself. Can we keep this down to a low roar please? And you can make out it is an official document by the strange bureaucratic terminology on page 2 and the TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) sprinkled all over the book. I can never understand the attraction that bureaucracies have for TLA’s. See for example this one: contemporary operational environment (COE). What does it mean in plain English? Does it mean today’s surroundings in which you operate? It does not mean anything and frankly it detracts from dealing with terrorism professionally. When you get more concerned and worried about terminology than about the core issues, then you know the recommendations and analysis has something lacking, is too mechanistic, too formulaic, too “check-listy”. And so it proves! They define the COE as comprising of the following crucial variables:

• Nature and Stability of the State
• Regional and Global Relationships
• Economics
• Sociological Demographics
• Information
• Physical Environment
• Technology
• External Environment
• National Will
• Time
• Military Capabilities

This kind of multi-dimensional, multi-variate analysis is so broad, that it is basically rendered completely meaningless. How on earth can you ever define and determine a terrorist threat based upon such vague and much too broad variables? The biggest downside is that this kind of complex analysis becomes stuck in time, because it is only valid for a very short period of time. Terrorist campaigns follow a non linear multi dimensional trajectory, which is impossible to predict.

The book has been written in conjunction with what seems to be the entire US defence forces, as is shown in the introduction. I am afraid their ambition over-stresses their expertise or even coverage. Calling this book as the capstone reference guide to terrorism, is setting it up to fail and fail it sure does.

The fundamental issue is soon clear, as the authors try to define terrorism and then talk about it from the sole perspective of USA’s state oriented spectacles. Unfortunately, this makes it fundamentally difficult to recognise threats oriented towards the US state itself or even religious fundamentalism. For example, this is why the Oklahoma bombing was taken to be an Islamist event rather than a home grown one for a very long period of time. That is also why the case for the Iraq war was so vague and general (what exactly was its the connection to the global war against terror?)

The book talks about targeting terrorist vulnerabilities such as Ideological Support, Leadership, Safe Havens, Weapons, Funds, Communications, Movement and Access to Targets. They have simply set themselves up to fail. Modelling military responses has a long history in the US Military and it permeates the thinking inside out. Take the example of the RMA, revolution in military affairs. This concept has been beaten to death since the Gulf War I, and it ended with a spectacular failure in Iraq. All this happened, because it became very cold and logical. Even Pape, the darling of the left, after his rather skewed quantitative analysis of suicide bombing, developed a quantitative model for winning wars based upon airpower! Can you imagine this? Well, the same thing is happening here.

For example, they try to spend quite a lot of time in Chapter 1 to distinguish between Insurgency and Terrorism, Guerrilla War and Terrorism, and so on and so forth. You just cannot do that, because the terrorists and insurgents move between these classifications all the time. This in turn leads them to wrongful conclusions. For example, looking at Islamist terrorism, they completely ignore the role of the Saudi State in funding and propagating terrorism. Now this is because they try to create a model and only see terrorism from a US centric perspective and therefore, they will fail, because they support the rabid autocratic regimes in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a whole host of other countries.

They do not mention how the Wahhabi institution got its mitts into the state, nor do they explore how the support to the Shah gave impetus to the Iranian revolution. Without knowing and understanding the basics of terrorism, such as these, all the debates around terrorist behaviour (Chapter 2), terrorist organisations (chapter 3) etc. are simply wrong at worst and too simp0listic at best.

For example, they try to apply organisational theory to terrorist groups! It would be very amusing indeed, if it wasn’t so sad. It is a nation, an ideology and a worldwide worldview which is driving the Islamists, not a corporation, which does not fit in easily into these classifications. How about Christian terrorism in Uganda or India? That does not fit in easily either.

The later chapters are much more useful, if rather tactical. Chapter 4 on Assessing Terrorist Capabilities and Intentions and Chapter 5 on Terrorist Targeting of U.S. Military Forces are good, but again, because the fundamental understanding is flawed, the prediction of the potential trajectory of terrorist operations will be less than optimal as well. For example, they talk about USS Cole, but do not discuss the impact of the withdrawal on terrorist ideology. The terrorists won that war! The fact that the USS Cole and all other warships had to “withdraw” meant that it was considered by the terrorists as a retreat! Quite a cheap and cheerful victory for the terrorists, isn’t it? Also, on a purely detailed tactical or operational level, they do not consider the conceptual nature of successor attacks. One sets off a bomb, and then waits for rescue forces to arrive or some reaction to set in, and then sets up another bomb to target the successor events. The amount of carnage is multiplied that way. We have seen this behaviour first in Punjab, then in Kashmir and now it is quite common in Palestine and Iraq.

Chapter 6 talks about the future of terrorism, but I am afraid this chapter also suffers from severe coverage as well as methodological issues. It does not talk about multi-lateral efforts nor about NATO efforts. It does, however, show a gratifying sense of learning from the Indians (about time too!) Then there are appendices, which are quite factual and useful, yet full of very old information.

* Appendix A Terrorist Threat to Combatant Commands
* Appendix B Terrorist Planning Cycle
* Appendix C Terrorist Operations and Tactics
* Appendix D Firearms
* Appendix E Improvised Explosive Devices
* Appendix F Conventional Military Munitions
* Appendix G Weapons of Mass Destruction/Effect.

Mind you, this is just the other end of the spectrum! Here is an example of the how the corresponding other end sees terrorism. Terrorism should never be generalised, despite this article. Each terrorist group and campaign needs to be judged on its own characteristics and has to require an ever evolving strategy and tactics to deal with it. But one generalisation I will allow myself to make, is that if you rely mainly on politics or just military means, you will fail!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

About the Author

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta, currently working on a doctorate at Kings College in International Relations and Terrorism, also holds a Doctorate in Finance and Artificial Intelligence from Manchester Business School. He works in the City of London in various capacities in the Banking Sector. He also lectures at several British Universities.

More of Dr. Dasgupta’s articles can be found on his blog "Piquancy".

Piquancy Blog

Filed Under: Featured, Security, Terrorism, United States

Sri Lankan Tamil Cause: An Uncertain Future

November 14, 2007 By

International Terrorism Monitor—Paper No. 304

Global Geopolitics Net
Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.saag.org

by B. Raman

With the death of S. P. Thamilchelvan, the head of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), under mysterious circumstances on November 2, 2007, the Sri Lankan Tamil cause faces an uncertain future.

2. Thamilselvan, the presumed No.3 in the pecking order of the LTTE leadership after Prabakaran and Pottu Amman, the chief of the intelligence wing of the LTTE, was the only leader not involved in any major act of terrorism either in Sri Lankan or Indian territory. The direct involvement of Prabakaran and Pottu Amman in many acts of terrorism in Indian territory, including in the brutal assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister, in May 1991, would rule out for ever the Government of India having anything to do with the LTTE so long as the perpetrators of Rajiv’s assassination continue to head the organisation and seek to control the destiny of the Sri Lankan Tamils.

3. P. Nadesan, a former Sri Lankan Police officer, whom Prabakaran has nominated as the successor to Thamilchelvan, is not a leader of any calibre. He is essentially a stooge of Prabakaran, who has not given any evidence so far of having an independent mind of his own.

4. As demonstrated by the LTTE’s spectacular raid on the Anuradhapura air base of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) on October 22, 2007, the LTTE’s morale, motivation and capacity for resilience are still strong despite the set-backs suffered by it in the Eastern Province and the damage, which the Sri Lankan authorities claim to have inflicted on its Navy and commercial ships, which were being used for gun-running. Morale, motivation and resilience can keep the LTTE fighting for years, but they alone would not be sufficient for making the Tamil cause prevail. The Tamil cause cannot prevail without a plurality of political leadership in the LTTE, with a vision of what is achievable and what is not.

5. As an insurgent-cum-terrorist organisation, the LTTE is any day far superior to Al Qaeda, but as a political or ideological organisation it is far inferior to Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is a blood-thirsty terrorist leader who has no qualms about killing not only non-Muslims, but even his co-religionists, but one has to grudgingly admit that he has allowed a plurality of leaders to emerge in his organisation so that it does not have to depend only on him for its future successes.

6. That is why many analysts agree that the elimination of bin Laden will not mean the end of Al Qaeda. Other leaders will take over and carry on with its operations. Prabakaran is an extremely jealous political leader, who has not allowed alternate political leaders of any stature to emerge either in the LTTE itself or in the Sri Lankan Tamil community. Thamilchelvan, who might have been able to take over the leadership and keep the LTTE fighting, is gone. Pottu Amman may be a brilliant and dreaded intelligence chief, who knew how to kill with precision, but he has given no evidence of any political standing, which would enable him to rally round the Tamils after the death of Prabakaran. There have been unconfirmed reports that the dynasty bug has bitten the LTTE too and that Prabakaran is trying to groom his son, who grew up in the West, as his successor. Even he won’t be able to mobilise the Tamils.

7. Thus, if the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) succeeds in its projected aim of decapitating the LTTE by killing Prabakaran —either through its own efforts or with the help of Pakistani and Ukrainian pilots— that could mark the beginning of the withering away of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. That has been the fate of all terrorist organisations over-dominated by a single person. That was the fate of the organisation headed by Carlos. After his arrest by the French intelligence in August, 1994, it has withered away. That was also the fate of other ideological organisations such as the Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army faction of Germany. One can also cite many other instances of what happens to an insurgent or terrorist organisation when its leader does not tolerate the emergence of other leaders.

8. The SLAF has valid reasons to target Prabakaran. He has killed more political leaders—-Sinhalese as well as Tamils— than the leader of any other terrorist organisation in the world. He has been responsible for innumerable deaths of innocent civilians. If the Sri Lankan authorities conclude that he has to be eliminated in order to stop the bloodshed, nobody can question their right to undertake a decapitation strike.

9. A successful decapitation strike may not mean the immediate end of the bloodbath. In fact, more blood will be shed by the angry and frustrated followers of Prabakaran in the short term, which may last about two years or so. Thereafter, the inevitable process of withering-away will set in and the LTTE will cease to exist as a terrorist organisation in the medium and long-term.

10. It is in the interest of not only Sri Lanka, but also India and the rest of the international community that the LTTE ceases to exist as a terrorist organisation. The Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka would also want to put an end to the LTTE as a political organisation so that there is no well-motivated organisation which defends the aspirations of the Tamils. If the Sri Lankan authorities succeed in putting an end to the LTTE as a political organisation too, Sri Lanka will be back to the pre-1983 years when a highly chauvinistic Sinhalese majority rode rough-shod over the rights of the Tamils

11. Make no mistake about it. President Mahinda Rajapakse and other Sinhalese leaders are no lovers of Tamils. They may smile and smile, but they would like nothing better than to crush the LTTE even as a political organisation so that the Tamils could be ultimately reduced to the status of the Red Indians of the US.

12. India has a moral responsibility to see that while terrorism ends in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese majority is not able to take the country back to the pre-1983 days. A reversion to the status quo ante can be prevented by preserving the assets of the LTTE as a political organisation, which is able to articulate and fight politically for the interests of the Tamils without degenerating once again into a terrorist organisation shunned by the international community. The elimination of Thamilchelvan reduces India’s options in working for such a political organisation, but this should not discourage India from interacting closely with different sections of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and abroad in order to see that the Sri Lankan authorities do not succeed in extinguishing the Tamil political struggle for their legitimate rights.

13. President Rajapakse is no different from Prabakaran in certain matters. Both live in their own self-created world of illusions. Prabakaran thinks he can still achieve an independent Tamil Eelam despite the attrition of capability and international support. Rajapakse thinks that he can crush the LTTE militarily and impose a dictated peace on the Tamils. So long as Prabakaran is alive, the LTTE will keep fighting like a ferocious animal. It might have lost territory in the Eastern Province, but territorial control is never an important factor for an insurgent or terrorist organisation. We saw in Afghanistan that the loss of territorial control did not mean the end of the Taliban. It has staged a spectacular come-back. Morale and motivation are more important than territorial control. Both remain intact and as strong as ever as one saw at Anuradhapura.

14. If Mr. Rajapakse is an intelligent political leader with a vision and with a recognition of his responsibility to look after the interests of all Sri Lankans—whether Sinhalese or Tamil— he would have accelerated the search for a mutually acceptable political solution, even while maintaining his counter-terrorism operations. He has abandoned the search for a political solution, thinking that a military victory is not far away.

15. Caught between the illusions of two political leaders, the prospects for a negotiated political solution have further receded. It is not only the Tamil community, but even Sri Lanka as a whole, which faces an uncertain future. The calculated inactivism of the Government of India is contributing to a drift, which could prove detrimental to India’s interests. Public opinion in Tamil Nadu should be more active in persuading the Government of India to see that under the pretext of ending the terrorism of the LTTE, the Sinhalese majority does not once again crush the legitimate Tamil political aspirations.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Filed Under: Asia, Conflict, Featured, Politics

CHINA in Hu’s Colours—Part VII and Last

November 1, 2007 By

Global Geopolitics Net
Thursday, November 01, 2007

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.saag.org

By B. Raman

Economic and military strength go together. Without economic prosperity, there can be no military strength and without military strength, there can be no economic prosperity.

2. That was, in short, the theme of the observations of President Mr. Hu Jintao on China’s defence policy in the report presented by him, in his capacity as the Party Secretary, to the recently-concluded 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He described the responsibility of the armed forces as to obey the party and serve the people. He called for national defence with Chinese characteristics and the continued implementation of the concept of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) with Chinese characteristics. However, he did not explain what those Chinese characteristics are or should be.

3. He called for an integrated attempt to make the Armed Forces more revolutionary, modernised and standardised. He also called for the acceleration of the mechanisation and computerisation of the Armed Forces and said they should be made capable of winning IT-based warfare.

4. Mr. Hu said: "We are determined to safeguard China’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and help maintain world peace." No one can object to this formulation provided the term territorial integrity means the integrity of the territory which constitutes China today. The problem which India faces in its relations with China arises from the fact that the Chinese speak of territorial integrity in the historical and not contemporary sense. Their concept of defence of territorial integrity includes not only the territory which is part of China today, but also which was, according to them, part of China historically and had been taken away from China by colonial powers. Under this category come India’s Arunachal Pradesh and certain other territory in the Western sector of the Indian border.

5. While there was no reference to the not-forward-moving Sino-Indian border talks during and in the margins of the Party Congress, Indian media reported just before the Congress, recurring instances of innumerable border intrusions by the Chinese troops. Two of these incidents are of worrisome significance. The first was an intrusion into Bhutan and the second was about the Chinese raising a pro forma objection to the Indian construction of two military bunkers inside Indian territory in Sikkim.

6. Apparently in its ill-advised anxiety to avoid any public airing of concerns before the visit of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress (I), to China and the expected visit of the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to China later this year, the Government of India has sought to play down the implications of these intrusions and to project them as unintended consequences of the differing perceptions about the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

7. One lesson which India learnt from its experience of dealing with China before the Sino-Indian war of 1962 was the folly of treating Chinese transgressions as unintended. There has always been a method in China’s transgressions, which are meant to assert periodically its territorial claims and exercise pressure on India to make territorial concessions.

8. Despite the positive spins put out by the Govt. of India from time to time about the progress supposedly being made in the border talks between the two countries, it is clear that the Chinese are determined to get satisfaction on their claims to what they project as southern Tibetan territory in Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, they look upon the entire Arunachal Pradesh as southern Tibet.

9. Their troops objecting to our Army constructing two bunkers in our territory in Sikkim cannot be dismissed as a minor incident of no consequence. The Chinese have de facto conceded Sikkim as a part of India by saying in 2005 that "Sikkim no longer constitutes a problem between the two countries." A de jure formalisation of this position will come only when the border talks lead to a settlement. Their renewed activism — even if verbal— on the border in the Sikkim area is an indicator that they might reverse their de facto concession on the status of Sikkim, if India does not transfer at least the Tawang Tract in Arunachal Pradesh to them. The Government of India will be repeating the pre-1962 follies if it relapses into the pre-1962 practice of playing down Chinese transgressions and volunteering to provide to the Chinese rationalisations of their transgressions.

10. In my previous articles, I had referred to the projected good behaviour of the Chinese in the months running up to the Olympics, but this has not prevented them from maintaining their campaign against the Dalai Lama and continuing with their policy of calculated border incursions to assert their claims. This underlines the need for our pressing ahead with our policy of military modernisation, improving our infrastructure in the border areas and revamping our intelligence apparatus so that it recovers the China-dedicated capabilities imparted to it after 1962, which have been allowed to rust since 2000.

11. One does not wish for a military confrontation with China. It will not be in the interest of either country. However, if a confrontation comes about, it will be on the land and in the air across the land border and not in the seas. In our eagerness to give a power projection capability to our Navy in the seas to the East of India, the Government should not be remiss in the exercise of its responsibility for giving the Army, the Air Force and the intelligence agencies the required capability for the protection of our territorial integrity. Concluded

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Filed Under: Featured, Geopolitics, History, Political Systems, Politics

CHINA in Hu’s Colours—Part VI

November 1, 2007 By

Global Geopolitics News
Thursday, November 01, 2007

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.saag.org

By B. Raman

In the Chinese perspective, a major success of China’s international relations during the first tenure of President Hu Jintao as the Party Secretary was the close relations established with African countries in order to tap their energy resources and markets for Chinese goods and the China-Africa summit held in 2006.

2. Two more international events of even greater significance in their eyes are scheduled to take place during his second tenure. The first will be the Beijing Olympics of August, 2008, and the second will be Expo–2010, an ambitious international trade fair, which is to be held in Shanghai in 2010. Presently, much of the energy of the Party and the Government is devoted to making the Olympics a spectacular success, which, they hope, will enhance the image of China in the eyes of the international community and the image of the party leadership in the eyes of their people. Any mishap in the handling of the Olympics could damage the standing of not only Mr.Hu and Mr. Wen Jiabo, the Prime Minister, but also the entire Standing Committee of the Party Politburo, which was elected at the recent 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC),

3. Even while working with determination for making a success of the Olympics, the Chinese have already started thinking of ways of making Expo 2010 an equally spectacular success. As they go ahead with the preparations for the Olympics, three concerns keep bothering them:

* Will Western human rights activists try to organise a boycott of the Olympics similar to the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics by the Western countries in protest over the intervention of Soviet troops in Afghanistan? It is in this context that the human rights situations in Darfur in Sudan and Myanmar keep worrying them, because of their close involvement in both countries. While there is little likelihood of the Darfur situation providing a handle to the critics of China in the Western world, if the situation in Myanmar deteriorates badly in the months before the Olympics, this would definitely provide a handle to the critics of China interested in spoiling the Olympics. The Chinese were rattled by the recent demonstration of Buddhist monk power in Myanmar and the dissemination of dramatic images of that power through the Internet and world TV channels. Worried over its possible copy-cat effect on the monks of Tibet, they quickly nudged the military junta in Myanmar to come out of its diplomatic isolation and be more responsive to the concerns of the international community. They should have been relieved when the Junta effectively closed its Internet servers and prevented images of monk power being flashed across the world. The Chinese would be closely monitoring the situation in Myanmar in order to make sure it does not come in the way of a grand Olympics of their dreams.
* Would there be threats to the Olympics not only from Al Qaeda and its associates, but also from the Tibetan activists, the Uighurs, the Falun Gong and others?
* Could China face a situation similar to what South Korea faced after the 1988 Seoul Olympics when the relaxation of restrictions on the political freedoms of the people by the then dictatorship set in motion a train of events, which led to the end of dictatorship?

4. The Chinese are very keen to avoid any frictions in their relations with the US in the months before the Olympics. The co-operation of the US would facilitate the success of the Olympics. The US has the equipment, technology and know-how to prevent any threats from terrorism. The Chinese are aware of the role played by the US and other NATO countries in ensuring the security of the Athens Olympics of 2004. The Americans are already fully co-operating with the organisers of the Olympics in this regard. The Chinese have also reportedly enlisted the services of big names in Hollywood to choreograph a spectacular closing function, which would bring the best of Hollywood before the eyes of the Chinese spectators. They would not like this co-operation from the US to be affected by any misunderstanding.

5. While the US Government and its security agencies have been helping the Chinese in whatever way they can, Beijing is worried over the possible machinations of die-hard anti-China elements among right-wing American intellectuals, Christian missionaries and others. The Chinese do not want to underestimate their capacity for a political sabotage of the Olympics.

6. For the present, the present leadership under Mr.Hu is confident that nothing can come in the way of a successful and spectacular Olympics. Will their confidence be belied? If it is, Mr. Hu could face serious embarrassment, if not trouble, in the party. To be continued.

(The writer is Additional secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. e-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Filed Under: Featured, Geopolitics, History, Political Systems, Politics