How many of you grew up playing ‘RISK’? Yes, I see a bunch of hands up… no less than I would expect from a bunch of Samizdata readers. So… with everyone’s mind now in the proper context, I give you the before and after maps of the middle east and central asia created by American Digest.
Many of us have had this image in our minds as we wrote on the current world war over the last few years, but many in the general public have failed to put this together. This is not their fault. It is in the nature of headline news to lose connectedness betwixt events separated in time and space. Afganistan is one story, now fading; Iraq is another story; the war on terrorism is yet another story. Except they are not.
Let us imagine for a moment we are military attache’s from Epsilon Eridani. We know nothing about human politics. We have not evolved for religious belief. But… we do know our warfare. We know our tactical and strategical levels.
Now look at the map from before. Look at the map afterwards. Can anyone imagine a better move to more thoroughly disrupt one’s enemy?
I certainly can not.
Clearly, the thing to do is invade Australia and build our forces until the enemy is weak.
shhh…. I used to regularly win with that strategy 😉
strategical?
Dale & Crosbie, that was my “Thunder from Down Under” strategy, only to be used in the event of my North American adventures going tits up. =P
Intentional word play.
Iran had better watch out: Bush only needs to conquer one more country to get a card.
Clearly, the thing to do is invade Australia and build our forces until the enemy is weak.
South America is another option. There are two routes out for attack.
Don’t take your eye off of Madagascar or Kamchatka! You never know what cards the other person holds and may turn in for a small horde with which to sweep you away.
If this were a game of Risk I would hazard to guess that we have but a few smallish pieces in Iraq (and maybe only one in Afghanistan) and do not have sufficient force to consider the move in question.
Time to turn in some cards?
To burst two bubbles:
– Terrorists are not hindered by borders. There is no surrounding or dividing them unless you’re talking Uday-Qusay, Alamo style.
– The new Risk 2210AD(Link) is better than the old Risk, and South America and Australia are no longer safe havens because of water territories. But (and I’m sure Dale will like this), the Moon just might be the new Australia!
Hmmm, I don’t see the US or UK on that map. But since we now “control” Iraq, the map also points out attacks can come from several directions. That’s bad strategy. It’s better to have one front than be surrounded.
I think I have missed a trick here. The maps seem identical to me – with the obvious exception of Iraq. If the US and UK achieve their desired exit then that will soon revert to red also – returning everything to the status quo ante, only with the red bits redder than ever.
The map is slightly deceptive by painting the arab peninsula as a sea of red. They were hardly united before the Iraq war. If they had picked three colors of red, one each for sunni, shia, and secular arabism, you’d see the tensions better. But I agree taking Iraq is a good strategic move.
Terrorists are not hindered by borders. There is no surrounding or dividing them unless you’re talking Uday-Qusay, Alamo style.
Terrorism as a significant threat requires safe havens, states that will at least tolerate if not actively support the terrorist presence in their territory. The map shows that the terrorists have lost two of their major safe havens (Afghanistan and Iraq) and that all of their remaining safe havens now have almost completely exposed borders.
If you are the government of Syria or Iran, do you feel more or less secure in your sponsorship of terrorism, now that American armored divisions are on your borders? Are American armored divisions on the borders more or less likely to, um, facilitate change of policy, if not regime, in such nations? I think the answers are pretty clear.
Face it, the Iranian and Syrian regimes know that the only think keeping their butts on the seat of power is domestic politics in the US and Europe. If there was a united front against terrorism in the developed world, the mullahs and the Bashads would be history, either now or very soon. We don’t lack the resources to get rid of them, we lack the will.
And if Iran and Syria are shut down as terrorist havens, just exactly where will a significant terrorist threat to the West come from?
Patrick: Check the right side; Afghanistan and Pakistan are now white (respectively, controlled [enough to not lend support at any rate] and allied [likewise]).
Ivan: As Dean said, terrorists are only really effective if they have safe havens and support structures. Taking out terrorist-supporting regimes is effective (that is, it has a significant effect, not that it perfectly removes all terrorism). And also as Dean says, the Syrians don’t dare try anything, for fear of being overrun – the Ba’ath party there isn’t what you’d call popular.
Iran’s a tougher nut, but at least it’s isolated and under pressure, which is an improvement.
Which part of a state structure do you need to buy some box cutters & take some flying lessons?
If the government of a country doesn’t support something, or actively works against it, does that stop the thing in question?
What’s to stop wealthy private individuals with a beef against the West from backing terrorist actions?
I’m not convinced by this state-supported terrorism stuff. I think a lot of the anti-al quaida work is unglamourous & out of sight; the playing around with states is all very nice, may do *some* good, & keeps the public happy (although I do think we should be careful how the arab public percieves it… as I said above, no matter whether it’s govt. supported or not, if the people support you, it’s easy enough to indulge in illegal activity; just try buying weed in South London.).
A_t – you are looking at the tip of the iceberg with the boxcutters and stuff. It takes a lot of planning, recruiting training, and overall organizational/logistical activity to place a set of deep-cover agents in a position to do serious damage. You need a haven for that.
If the government of a country doesn’t support something, or actively works against it, does that stop the thing in question?
Depends on what “it” is. If the US didn’t have a pretty strict policy against Islamist cells functioning here in the US, don’t you think we might have had an attack since 9/11. Don’t you think that the suppression of Islamist cells by most countries has had some effect on restricting Islamist terrorism?
Look at it from another perspective – name a terrorist movement that has posed any kind of real threat that hasn’t had a safe haven. Even in the heyday of European-based terrorism in the ’70s, the Red Army and whatnot were never more than a few isolated cells – because they had no haven.
Jordan and Egypt were ‘hostile’ to the USA? WTF? Does ‘not actively supine’ mean ‘hostile’? If those maps cannot differenciate between Jordan’s, Egypt’s, Iran’s and Taliban Afghanistan’s ‘hostility’ then I am not sure any reasonable conclusions can be drawn from them.
“Look at it from another perspective – name a terrorist movement that has posed any kind of real threat that hasn’t had a safe haven. ”
I think you’re confusing “state haven” with “state support.” Examples like the Phillipines, where their government is allied with us, but many of their citizens support/don’t rat out/ignore the terrorists — which is why they survive. There certainly are governments like the Taliban or Iran that actively support terrorists. But removing them will not nessarily make the problem of terrorists go away, though it may not be a bad idea.
Viewing terrorism through the lens of state actors will unfortunately lead to faulty conclusions. That is one of my primary disagreements with the types who draw maps such as these.
Modern terrorism is definitely a state-less venture. I find the most insightful information on this topic comes from people espousing “4th generation warfare,” such as William Lind, John Boyd or Martin Van Creveld.
If those maps cannot differenciate between Jordan’s, Egypt’s, Iran’s and Taliban Afghanistan’s ‘hostility’ then I am not sure any reasonable conclusions can be drawn from them.
I agree. Jordan’s Prince Abdullah is about as pro-Western (and was in 2000) as a Middle Eastern rule gets. Egypt is a prime example of a government who theoretically supports us against Muslim fundamentalism, but yet such extremism flourishes within their borders.
Brian, I agree that countries like the Philippines can have an internal terrorism problem without any kind of state support or even benign neglect.
However, the fact that some countries are beset by terrorism in spite of official opposition, doesn’t change a couple of things.
As far as I know, significant terrorist movements that carry on in the face of state opposition are directed at, indeed consumed by, their fight with the state of the host country. It wasn’t Filipinos crashing planes into the WTC. The Filiipino Islamists are too busy fighting hte Filipino state. Which is fine by me, as it is the right and proper business of the Filipino state to fight the Filipino terrorists.
The Islamist terrorist movements that beset Western societies in fact have safe havens in a handful of states. I think this is no accident. If you are aware of any terrorist movements that are exporting terror to the West and are not based in a safe haven, let me know.
If the hypothesis holds that the export of terrorism to the West is predicated on safe havens or state support of some kind, then it makes sense to attack the state sponsors (directly, militarily, covertly, diplomatically, whatever). Just because we are attacking the state sponsors doesn’t mean we aren’t taking other measures as well. As Belmont Club points out, the terror networks appear to be staggering under a swarm of attacks.
I’m not saying taking out the state sponsors will be sufficient to destroy the Islamist terror networks, but I believe it is necessary. I don’t see any way that destroying state sponsorship of these networks won’t seriously weaken them.
Uh, Jeff T.,
Hate to burst your bubble but the strategy you suggest was tried in Operation Market Garden (WW2) and found wanting. The reason? The line of advance was obvious. You might want to re-read BHL Hart on the subject. The book is “Strategy” if you have never come across it. Reccommended by all the American War colleges and suggested reading for the lowest of the enlisted ranks. The higher ranks go on to more difficult material.
I hate to say it but Libertarians from Illinois are not generally sound military strategists.
And me? I’m a former Illinois Libertarian. For reasons of military strategy. And now you know the rest of the story.
I agree. In my view, what is much more dangerous than possible state sponsorship is the level of support amongst the populations for groups like Qaeda and the person of OBL. I seem to remember reading somewhere recently that in many of these areas, Bush is considered a bigger terrorist than OBL. In our struggle against terrorism, I think we would be better served by engaging in activities that will try to reduce the levels of popular support for groups and persons like these. If we continue on our current course, it seems likely that we will continue to win all the battles, but will slowly lose the war.
Nothing is ever simple in this sort of thing, but the map is not useless. It shows the critical place of Iraq in the geography of the middle east. It interdicts the supply lines between Iran and Hizbollah. It puts US forces close enough to Iran and Syria to launch surprise attacks (as does Afghanistan).
Terrorists tend to need state help. Note that Iran provided cleansed passports to about 10 of the 9-11 hijackers. That’s a government function – much hard without it. States also have the capability to produce WMDs. Chemical and bio weapons from states are anonymous – effectively untraceable. This allows states to choose to give powerful weapons to terrorists, and of course, allows terrorists to get them.
The golden BB that terrorists want is nuclear weapons. Those are the most destructive and most feared. The raw material is exceedingly difficult to acquire, and once again requires a state to do so.
Ultimately, however, we get to causes of Islamofascism. Iran was the first successful Islamofascist entity, with the takeover of the Ayatollahs. That regime can only last as long as it can repress the citizenry, which it is doing quite brutally.
The Al Qaeda type of Islamofascism is more dangerous. It is similar to communism in using an ideology that is attractive to haters, who are in plentiful supply in the viciously propagandized middle east, and even in the US among prison muslim converts.
Defeating it requires at least a combination of destroying any regime that helps it (including the Saudi regime), and an attempt to push better values (which means regime change throughout the muslim world).
If that fails, it may become necessary to quarantine, totally colonialize Muslim territory, and outlaw the religion, or kill huge numbers of Muslims.
Everyone knows you start in Australia/Indonesia and build your Empire outwards:) It’s like knowing that the most valuable properties in Monopoly are the orange ones that are placed a few common dice throws after “jail”.
to RC Dean:
I agree on the point that having state sponsors is something that terrorist networks desire, and they of course help.
I suppose where I disagree is that I don’t think they’re necessary. Nothing the Sept 11th hijackers did REQUIRED a state. The military estimate of their funding for the operation was 200,000$. That’s a trivial amount of money. While some assistance from Iran and Saudi Arabia no doubt existed, I don’t think it was necessary.
That’s the difference between old terrorists and new terrorists. The training camps in Afghanistan are the way of the past. The hijackers may have attended them, but the knowledge gained there (other than religious indoctrination) did not assist them in their misssion. Al Qaida is very much a “first adopter” of new terror tactics, which is why they are such a threat.
I suppose I am looking into the future. If we somehow “de-terrorify” Saudi Arabia and Iran, I believe that terrorists will scurry like cockroaches around the world. This is not necessarily a critique of doing these things, only a warning that it will not remove the overall threat, something I believe is not generally known.
Julian:
“But I agree taking Iraq is a good strategic move”
You mean in the game or in real life?
“I think we would be better served by engaging in activities that will try to reduce the levels of popular support for groups and persons like these.”
Such as….?
Things make more sense looking at the maps when you take into account the fact that suicidal terrorists and their ideologies have arisen as a response to decades of Arab autocracies.
Taking Iraq and Afghanistan gets us the ability to bomb many incalcitrant regimes in the area without having to ask for overflight from nominally friendly regimes that would perhaps have a problem with any such action. Syria and Iran are directly accessible, and if we ever decide to whack Saudi it’s more polite to do it from the outside. Dollars to donuts we’ll have airbases in Iraq for just such reasons, oh, forever. “Forever” being at least the lifetime of anyone reading this when it was posted. 🙂
And it let’s you put all kinds of uber-un-PC pressure on the entire area via control of the headwaters of the tigris and euphrates, the unspeakable threat Sadaam had over the region, too. Control of Mesopotamia has for thousands of years been the lynchpin to dominating the entire middle east.
“Things make more sense looking at the maps when you take into account the fact that suicidal terrorists and their ideologies have arisen as a response to decades of Arab autocracies.”
hmm… & how do you propose that, now they’ve been ‘taken’, Iraq & Afganistan remain friendly places from which to launch those strikes? I suspect any democratically elected government with full autonomy would probably react very similarly to our current allies & not allow such action. That leaves us with two possibilities:
1. a democratically elected government which is not fully autonomous (ie. the US has a veto over military matters). This is hardly the posterboy for democracy we so wanted, & I suspect locals will either see through the sham & hate the US for it, or will conclude that democracy’s a load of old arse.
2. an autocracy. No problem with going against the people’s wishes, but hmm… isn’t this how you’re saying the trouble got started in the first place?
What’s really needed is a campaign to change the minds of Arabs. Whilst such action may be being taken, I see little evidence that it is.
(& to all those who will go ‘how?’, I don’t have an answer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.)