The New War Plan
By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
U.S. News and World Report has a piece on the Pentagon's updated strategy for combating the war against radical Islamist militants. For one thing, it's not just a war against al Qaeda anymore, but we knew that.
The terrorist threat against the United States is now defined as "Islamist extremism" --not just al Qaeda. The Pentagon document identifies the "primary enemy" as "extremist Sunni and Shia movements that exploit Islam for political ends" and that form part of a "global web of enemy networks." Recognizing that al Qaeda's influence has spread, the United States is now targeting some two dozen groups--a significant change from the early focus on just al Qaeda and its leadership.
The new approach emphasizes "encouraging" and "enabling" foreign partners, especially in countries where the United States is not at war. Concluding that the conflict cannot be fought by military means alone--or by the United States acting alone--the new Pentagon plan outlines a multipronged strategy that targets eight pressure points and outlines six methods for attacking terrorist network.
With a new plan comes new measures for success:
The Pentagon will use a new set of metrics twice a year to measure its progress in the war against terrorism. Commanders are to report, for example, on successes in locating and dismantling terrorist safe havens, financial assets, communications networks, and planning cells for each of the target groups.
With a new plan comes reorganization:
The Pentagon's Special Operations Command is designated in the new plan as the global "synchronizer" in the war on terrorism for all the military commands and is responsible for designing a new global counterterrorism campaign plan and conducting preparatory reconnaissance missions against terrorist organizations around the world.
Under a draft national security presidential decision directive, expected to be approved next month, the White House would have greater flexibility to resolve turf battles in the government's overall counterterrorism effort.
The new Pentagon directive, General Caslen told U.S. News , has unified the military behind one counterterrorism plan for the first time: "Prior to the release of this document, everybody had their own idea of what the enemy was. Therefore, everybody had their own idea of how to fight it. We had different ideas among the services, among the commands, among the different agencies. Heck, we even had different ideas among the different organizations within this building."
So what are the eight pressure points where the "Islamist extremists" are vulnerable?
Ideological support, weapons, funds, communications and movement, safe havens, foot soldiers, access to targets, and leadership. Each U.S. geographic command is to follow a systematic approach, first collecting intelligence on any of the two dozen target groups that are operating in its area of responsibility and then developing a plan to attack all eight nodes for each of those groups.
Going after bin Laden and Zarqawi are still high priorities, but so are "information operations" and other steps. We'll be hearing much more about this plan when it becomes unclassified. Should've been done a year ago.
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The New War Plan 10 Comments (0 topical, 10 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Does State have a new plan as well? Sounds like the Pentagon is taking on quite a notable diplomatic role. I wonder if they get a chunk of State's budget and org. chart? Maybe State needs to make some offers into the mid-level officer corps.
Ideology, communications, leadership - shouldn't the foreign service handle these? Not that they have, are or could, but in the best of all worlds shouldn't they?
Our tax dollars at work!
PS - "funds" - I do like the idea of turning the IRS audit staff loose in the Hejaz!
"Ideology, communications, leadership - shouldn't the foreign service handle these? Not that they have, are or could, but in the best of all worlds shouldn't they?"
They should. But the State Department seems to have this notion that their job is to represent the interests of foreign nations over America's interests.
calling this war what it is.
You do not declare war on a tactic, you declare war on a country or an ideology (ie the Cold War was all about bringing down communism).
...or an ideology (ie the Cold War was all about bringing down communism)
I think the Cold War wasn't about an ideology, it was about containing and defeating the Soviet Union. We pretty much left non-aligned communist countries alone (like post-50's China, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia). If we had been actively trying to take out every socialist/Marxist/trade unionist government in the world we would have been a lot less focused and effective against the real threat.
Same might be true here. There's plenty of Al Qaeda still out there to worry about, why expand the mission to such a vague set of targets? Doesn't "extremist Sunni and Shia movements that exploit Islam for political ends" encompass just about every local anti-government group across the greater Middle East?
If they'd thought of this "new" strategy a few years ago, Powell may not have been so marginalized while building the "Coalition of the Willing".
I thought the highlighted part below to be pretty funny -
The new approach emphasizes "encouraging" and "enabling" foreign partners, especially in countries where the United States is not at war. Concluding that the conflict cannot be fought by military means alone--or by the United States acting alone--the new Pentagon plan outlines a multipronged strategy that targets eight pressure points and outlines six methods for attacking terrorist networks.
We've taken out al-Qaeda's Afghan havens. We also have gone into Iraq - not only have we removed what was a major sponsor of al-Qaeda, we have now forced them to divert their resources there.
The question Rumsfeld asked quite rightly was, "What next?", and "How do we know we are winning?"
It was a natural thing for Rumsfeld to do after we'd knocked off two folsk who had a history of trying to kill Americans.
I didn't realize that Iraq/Hussein was "a major sponsor of al-Qaeda." Does anyone have good source material on this? I'd like to learn more about it. I thought I remember the Administration and saying that there was no significant link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
That's because Iraq and Al-Qaed weren't linked. Iraq was a socialist state, despised by Osama for its secular views. Don't believe me? Go read the 9/11 comission report. (Of course, now that Iraq is a lawless zone heading toward theocracy, I've little doubt it will become a haven for Al-Qaeda.)
This is, btw, a great example of the kind of revealed biases I admire Red State for uncovering in liberals (like me!) Just goes to show you that if Fox News says it often enough, somebody out there will believe it--of course, being a "red" site, it's not very often readers here go after the same silliness in their own ranks (and that's just human nature).
It sounds quite good. We needed a re-focus and this sounds like a good one.