It might be helpful to review several points raised by commenters yesterday before going on to describe what I see as the "Best Case Scenario" for the near to moderate term in the War on Islamic Fascism cum terrorism.
First of all, by any measure "there is (already) a solid and ugly huge army of enemies." This pool includes the number, ranging into the 6 figures, of all those Jihadis who have trained in terrorist camps, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, The Palestinian Authority, and the Bekaa Valley, among other locales. Add to this the vastly larger number of young "wanna-be" Jihadis and you are starting to look at significant numbers. In addition, the number of Muslims who subscribe to the most radical schools of Islam and/or are sympathetic to the agenda of our enemies number in the millions; even many Muslims who belong to more "moderate" forms of Islam believe that their goal is to bring Shariah law to the entire world, including the West. This leaves us a very large pool indeed, and since Shariah law is anti-democratic, racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist, and cruel, I consider anyone who desires to change our laws in such a direction to be an enemy.
This does not imply, and I hope my writing did not suggest, "that a military response is the (only) way to go." A military response is of necessity part of any overall approach to Islamic radicalism, but it is not the only, or even the primary approach, we need to take to what is in reality an ideological war.
Secondly, I am fully aware that our enemies will adopt our technology and use it against us. I am convinced, and I believe our experiences in Iraq and the Israeli experience in Southern Lebanon, support the idea, that the lag time for adoption of new technology will increase for those who are parasitic to the technology, rather than for those who develop the technology. Just as one example, our troops have the kind of facility with networks and electronic weapons that comes naturally to those who have spent thousands of hours playing MMRPGs throughout their adolescence. It will be a very long time before our enemies can approach that level of familiarity with such technology in real time. This is similar to the edge our fighter pilots have in combat over adversaries who have minimal time in flight training.
Third, the will to win this war is certainly our weakest spot; it impacts on the will to use our technology and I hope to address this in at least a partial way in this post and perhaps the next.
Fourth, questions of our cultural tendencies toward suicidal behavior via the courts or a reluctance to use force when necessary will be addressed as well, and relate to questions of will, though not always in the ways most obvious. For example, it is an extremely rare Democratic or Republican Mayor in this country who would eschew the revenue generated by cameras at stop lights; this is a non-partisan adoption of a surveillance society that is already well underway. Many areas in New York already have cameras on corners (London is even further along) and on the roadways; the surveillance society is already here. I am merely extrapolating.
Now, as to the Best Case Scenario; the future depends more than anything else on one factor:
The BCS depends most crucially on Iran being prevented from acquiring a nuclear capability. Once Iran has a bomb, the level of anxiety throughout the region will increase dramatically; the outcome will become much more problematic. I will address that soon enough.
For now, lets posit that Iran fails to get a bomb. Perhaps a combination of financial pressures, civil unrest, Iranian bumbling, judicious sabotage, and luck lead the Iranian Mullahs to the conclusion that in order to preserve their well being, they will need to open up their economy and rejoin the civilized world. They will not easily abandon their terrorist proxies and there will almost certainly be ongoing terror attacks, but mass murder will become a much less likely outcome of such attacks. Once Iran gives up its quest for a bomb, the Saudis and Egyptians, Turks, and various Emirates relax and quietly return their Sunni bombs back to Pakistan.
Once Iran has become domesticated, the unrest in Pakistan begins to go from a slow boil to a simmer. Enough radical Imams, al Qaeda relics, and Taliban remnants have been killed in the Waziristan area to convince the tribal leaders, well lubricated with Western (American) cash, to turn toward easier pickings. Europe is ripe for Shariah and Jihad and the energies once devoted to destabilizing Afghanistan and Iraq turn North and West. Pakistan, as a result, becomes slightly more stable and the Pakistani military agrees to institute greater safe guards over their nuclear weapons.
At home, the lack of a successful attack with mass casualties causes the greater population to relax even more than has been the case up to now, but the government and police remain vigilant and different plots are broken up periodically, often with the help of the American Muslim community which recognizes that their well being is intimately connected with America feeling secure. The capabilities of domestic terrorists remain limited and the dramatic decrease in Muslim immigration post-9/11 leaves Jihadis better options than America. The pressure to enlarge the "surveillance society" wanes and civil liberties are protected. The decrease in anxiety over the war and the diminution of fears overseas allows people to slowly drift back into a pre-9/11 mindset, while the lack of a terrorist nuclear capacity protects innocents around the world. At the same time the price of oil continues its long downward slope as new sources of energy come on-line and energy efficiency becomes ubiquitous. Once again, the lower price of oil mitigates the abilities of the Saudis and Iranians to support the export of terror.
China has also become increasingly tied to the United States and taken up some of the slack in order to guarantee their markets and access to oil and cheap energy until their own domestic energy industry is secure and mature. They have no interest in offering their high technology to terrorist supporters since they have a tremendous stake in a stable world order. They have managed their internal pressure for democratic change by slowly lifting some of the restrictions on information and political activity; not enough to threaten the party but enough for the people to have much more of a say in their policies. Trade between the mainland and Taiwan goes a long way to lowering the danger from that area of the globe, as well.
Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa remain the scenes of the greatest Jihadi ferment, but for the world at large, Islamic terror returns to nuisance levels and the threat of Islamic ascendancy fades. Without the energy derived from successful mass murder and televised atrocities, the Jihadis lose their elan and appeal and the contest between modernization and Islam is decisively won by the modern world.
Notice that even in the BCS (with thanks to Tom Barnett), terrorism is a constant threat; however, because it no longer arises from state supported terrorist groups with fixed bases and has less availability of the most dangerous WMD, it is no longer an existential threat to the United States. Israel will continue to face genocidal enemies and Europe will be at very high risk with consequences that are hard to clearly imagine but are unlikely to be beneficial to the Europeans, to our traditional alliances, or for the world.
This scenario, of necessity, is extremely schematic and can be criticized from many points of view, but I do think that the very best we can hope for in the foreseeable future is a world with diminished risk of nuclear and biological terror, with significantly diminished risk of traditional military conflicts in the most dangerous trouble spots, and a gradual diminution of Islamic Jihad fervor and prevalence, as more and more Muslims decide to join the Modern World.
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