Seeking Focus

 

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy; Next best is to disrupt his alliances; The next best is to attack his army. The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only when there is no alternative. —Sun Tzu (Sun Zi), The Art Of War (5th Century BC) Samuel B. Griffith Translation (Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 77-78

The United States is readying its response to the attacks on New York and Washington DC; some or all of that response will clearly be aimed at parts of the Middle East or the broader Islamic world. The US sees itself as being at war, and indeed September 11 may have cost more lives than in any single day of warfare in the country's history. Most of the world, including most of the Islamic world, is appalled by the attacks, and the US may well, if it handles matters skillfully, enjoy greater global support for its actions that at any time in recent memory.

There are, however, some dangers. This issue of The Estimate, for obvious reasons, devotes considerable space to the likely course of events. It also seeks to define some of the problems which might lie ahead. The Dossier, "What Kind of War?", is the first of a series, and is devoted to the question of "Defining the Enemy". Other departments deal with other issues. This lead story seeks to summarize and emphasize several points made elsewhere as well.

Initial calls to eliminate terrorism from the world once and for all are both utopian and somewhat delusional. Almost every nationalist movement has used some form of terror in its past, though not terror of such horrible dimensions and such innocent targets. And if one excludes from any emerging coalition every country which has ever harbored another country's subversives, one might exclude countries which could genuinely help. Few countries have a deeper dislike for the Taliban in Afghanistan than Iran, and if the US defines its objectives clearly enough, not only Iran but Russia and China could well prove useful partners. And while they might prefer not to openly cooperate in military action, this is the sort of war that will probably include extensive covert operations, and their assets might be most useful in that field, even if that cooperation is never publicized.

The US has rightly and frequently emphasized that it is not fighting Islam, or Arabs, or the Muslim world. That is, however, precisely the message its adversaries are seeking to convey to Muslims generally. and it is important that the US both counter that message clearly, and also assure the world that in addition to eliminating the source of the attacks upon it, it also seeks to reduce and eliminate the sources of Muslim resentment of American policy generally. The first Bush Administration skillfully parlayed its victory in the Gulf War in 1991 into the Madrid Peace Conference and the negotiations which led to Oslo and the creation of the Palestinian Authority. Victory over Usama Bin Ladin and similar terror groups should be accompanied by pledges to renew efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other outstanding issues (such as the protracted confrontation with Iraq) which have fueled rage against the US and won recruits for the Bin Ladins of the world. At the same time it has the right to remind the world that the rage of Bin Ladin does not stem from the new intifada, that in fact the attacks on the US had required years of preparation and pilot training, while the uprising is only a year old. Bin Ladin's own rage appears to date from the US military deployment to the Gulf in 1990, and some of his followers have their own reasons for hating the US. No superpower can expect unanimous global love and respect, and the US need not seek that; it does need to avoid further alienation of an entire region.

The US does appear to recognize that it must make its intentions clear and avoid rhetoric which could destabilize or alienate the rest of the Muslim world. (An unfortunate use of the word "crusade" by President Bush early in the crisis should not be repeated: the word resonates negatively with even the most pro-Western and secularist Muslims.) It is probably less important to win Arab and Muslim support for military action than it is to win their internal security agencies' quiet cooperation for covert operations against cells in their countries; that is probably an achievable goal. The groups which apparently were behind the US attacks are in fact at least as great a threat to regimes in the region: while they may not have taken as many lives there as in New York and Washington, they actually could threaten the regimes in some countries in a way they could never do in the United States.

In fact, one of the complaints many Arab states have made about the United States over the years is that it has not seemed seriously committed to some of the causes it embraces. It has managed a confrontation with Iraq for more than a decade, but many Gulf Arabs feel that since the US has not shown an ability, or a willingness, to remove Saddam Hussein, it is time to deal with him again. Most have not felt the US was serious about the war on terrorism either, and have criticized US silence about civilian casualties inflicted on Palestinians by Israeli forces using American arms. A clear, focused and well-defined campaign with observable and measurable results would probably be welcomed, at least quietly. The Arab world's leaders tend to subscribe to the Machiavellian dictum that if you must strike at a prince you must kill him; half-measures and symbolic gestures like cruise missile strikes impress them as empty.

That does not mean that the US should expect some countries with volatile domestic constituencies to openly back military operations. Quiet cooperation with their intelligence services would probably be both more feasible and more productive. Some former adversaries — particularly Iran — have interests which coincide with Washington's in Afghanistan, for example, and might be able to provide intelligence assets which could not (and should not) be publicized.

For the same reason that Israel was persuaded to remain outside the 1990-91 coalition, it should also be given a low profile in any new coalition. While Israeli intelligence on terrorist networks may be valuable, only a low Israeli profile will permit some Arab states to cooperate openly. Israeli efforts to paint the Palestinian Authority as part of international terrorism are self-serving, and for the US would be self-defeating: resistance to occupation, is not seen as equatable to the attacks on New York and Washington by the Arab world. A similar situation obtains in South Asia: if Pakistan actually proves willing, as it pledged early on, to cooperate with the West, then Indian involvement should be kept low-profile, though India can provide much solid intelligence about Afghanistan, particularly training camps of the Kashmiri rebels.

Nor should too much be made of occasional anti-American demonstrations in the region, even such outrageous scenes as people celebrating the attacks on the US. These do not necessarily reflect local government opinion, in fact rarely do, as can be seen from the Palestinian Authority's rather heavy-handed efforts to prevent taping of a pro-Bin Ladin demonstration in Gaza. The US has every right to expect quiet cooperation from regional states, however, even those with volatile constituencies.

But coalition-building is a political skill, and the US needs little actual operational military participation on the part of foreign militaries to do its job. (A few regional special operations units might be the exception.) It needs political support and, most importantly, intelligence support, and the latter can be provided quietly.

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