The pernicious effects of talking about a "global war on terror" has been a long-standing personal hobby-horse -- both regarding military operations and the US' broader grand strategy for foreign policy. Until President Bush recently chose to reinvigorate the bogus GWOT-9/11-Iraq linkage for tactical political purposes, we'd seen a gradual and welcome shift in the Administration's global strategy via a steady but rather surrepticious substitution of "extremism" for "terrorism" in public remarks, combined with an increased emphasis on democracy promotion and "soft power" tools. I'm pleased to see some US military leaders address the matter explicitly and hope that the President's tactical reversion to GWOT-speak won't impinge on the improved thinking that Gregson's remarks suggest.
The AG links to Eric Umansky, who quotes from a recent Naval War College address by Gregson, as reported in Inside Defense. Gregson's argument fits nicely within the framework of a "marginalization" strategy I've previously advocated as a replacement for a GWOT strategy. Gregson is arguing that the our strategic objective shouldn't be to wipe out terrorists but rather to reduce their effectiveness -- to marginalize extremists from the "vast majority" of the local populations in the societies in which they operate.
"This war has a popular label and a political label, but it’s not accurate,” said Gregson. “Terrorism is a means of power projection, it’s a weapon, it’s a tool of war. Think of it as our enemy’s stealth bomber. This is no more a war on terrorism than World War II was a war on submarines."
[...]“It’s a collection or a confederation of movements empowered by regional and global fundamentalist extremist insurgents,” Gregson said. “You can borrow an old phrase and say they think globally and act locally.”
[...] “The center of gravity, the decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world,” he said. “Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people.”
[...] Providing doctors, engineers, dentists, veterinarians and other aid to enhance the lives of people living in very troubled parts of the world is “often far more important than projecting some type of force,” Gregson said.
In a similar vein, on vocabulary near and dear to the AG's heart, he should be especially pleased with this bit of news via Jim Henley:
Logan e-mails me that a communication from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace indicates that they will drop the fuzzy, useless term “weapons of mass destruction” henceforth.
On another personal hobby-horse, this time moving from the "global" arena to Iraq, we're starting to read and hear much more differentiation among types of insurgents and their supporters -- not just lumping any and all into "terrorists" or "anti-Iraqi forces." That's not to say anyone, including Iraqis, has a very clear idea who all these various groups are, but the attempts to distinguish among them are welcome -- in both press coverage and in proposals for adjustments to US policies in Iraq. Kingdaddy has been beating the drums for a clearer understanding and description of the enemy(ies), and he rightly points to the pervasiveness of continued bad habits by military spokesmen.
On this issue, definitely check out Kingdaddy's new series on different types of insurgency strategies, together with implications for both US military and homeland security operations. The first two posts, on Lennist revolutionaries and terrorists, are up. As he concludes in the Leninist post:
There is no "Iraqi insurgency." There are several groups, all of whom have seized the opportunity to fill a power vacuum with their own political ambitions. In other words…
- Not every attack on Iraqi police and military recruits is a terrorist attack.
- Not every group fighting the current Iraqi government would approve of suicide bombings that deliberately target civilians.
- Not every group that wants to compel the United States to withdraw from Iraq seeks a revolution in its aftermath.
- Not every alliance of different political factions is sustainable, if "Leninists" (in my broad meaning of the term) lurk within their ranks.
And as we digest the implications of Kingdaddy's final bullet point, let's not forget Brad Plumer's insistence that we "Don't Forget the Militias!"
I'm with Lt. Gen. Gregson, the AG and Kingdaddy. Insisting that "words matter" isn't simply splitting hairs or shifting political battles from "substance" to Lakoffian "framing" or Orwellian "newspeak." The words we use to digest information and debate "what should be done" not only reflect how we think about a subject. The concepts we use in part dicate the range of options we choose among -- even excluding some options from consideration.
It all gets back to the old adage -- if you're not asking the right questions, you're unlikely to come up with very good answers. Or to put it another way, you'll always have to "think out of the box" if your thoughts are in the wrong box to start with. So I'll celebrate small (terminological) victories.
Cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism
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