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catastrophic ideologies
James J.F. Forest
Director of Terrorism Studies
The Combating Terrorism Center
At west point
Threat Convergence Summit, 30 November 2006
The views expressed herein are those of the author
and do not purport to reflect the position of the United
States Military Academy, the Department of the Army,
or the Department of Defense.
http://www.ctc.usma.edu
Importance of ideology
We face a hostile ideology - global in scope. . . ruthless in purpose
and insidious in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to
be of indefinite duration.
Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People
by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and
the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes.
. . . War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of
politics by different means.
Karl Von Clausewitz
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the
result of a hundred battles.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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Ideologies of violence
A Spectrum of Ideologies
Threshold of
catastrophic
violence
Nonviolent
Protests
Groups that want to
change the world, but
reject the need for
violent means
Apocalyptic
Terrorism
Groups that want to
change the world,
and see a need for
violent means
Groups that want to
destroy the world,
for various reasons,
possibly with WMD
Ideologies of violence
 Ideologies offer a combination of intellectual and
emotional appeal
 Violence is seen as necessary for achieving political, social,
economic and/or religion change
 Terrorist ideologies vary:
 Nationalists and Ethnic Separatists (e.g., Anti-colonial groups,
Chechens, PLO, Tamil Tigers/LTTE, Basques/ETA, Kurds/PKK)
 Left-wing (e.g., radical Communists revolutionaries)
 Right Wing (often target race and ethnicity; Nazi, Aryan nations, etc.)
 Religious (e.g., Christian militias, Islamic jihadists, Shia revolutionaries,
Zionists, etc.)
 Others: Anarchists, Environmentalists, Animal Rights
Extremists Apocalyptic cults, etc.
Salafi-jihad ideology
Al Qaida and
affiliated groups
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Salafi-jihad ideology
• Islam is the one and only way of ruling mankind that is acceptable to God
• Pluralism, the idea that no one has a monopoly on truth, is a falsehood,
and liberal democracy (rule by man’s laws) is against God’s will.
• Muslims should use force to establish a more just society. (Mawdudi)
• Jihad is the only source of internal empowerment and reform in the
Muslim world. (Qutb, Maqdisi, et al.)
• Muslims must resist the influences of Western institutions and traditions
that have poisoned mankind (Qutb)
• We have a global conflict between Islam and the West. Islam is under
siege and only we (the Jihadis, the “pure” defenders of Islam) can lift it.
Salafi-jihad ideology
“The world is truly messed up, and only Islam is the answer - therefore we
(Jihadis) must do all that is necessary to tear down the existing order and
replace it with one built on Islam.”
• We must mobilize the entire Muslim community to join our global jihad
• We must overthrow corrupt, incompetent “apostate” regimes in the
Middle East and replace them with governments that rule by Sharia law
• This requires defeating their powerful Western patrons (OBL, Zawahiri)
• Then we must re-establish the Islamic caliphate to rule over the entire
Muslim world
• The violence we inflict upon our own people, governments, and
resources is 1) necessary, 2) religiously sanctioned, and 3) really the
fault of the West, Israel, and apostate regimes.
Radicalization
3 Categories of Academic Theory
1.
Aspects of the Self
What influences an individual’s
decision to embrace an ideology of
violence and join a terrorist group?
2.
Social & Group Dynamics
What social and group dynamics
influence terrorists’ actions?
3.
Conditions and Facilitators
- Why do ideologies resonate?
- What local circumstances allow
terrorist groups to thrive and grow?
- What factors facilitate radicalization,
and where?
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Enablers of ideological
resonance
Expectations
Demands
Grievances
+
Limited opportunities/power
to bring about change
without use of violence
Frustration
Humiliation
Resentment
Hopelessness
Sense of Crisis
• Local political, economic and social conditions:
– Chaos/capacity (weak/failing states, zones of competing governance)
– Socio-demographics (youth bulge, unemployment, lack of integration, etc.)
– Authoritarian/repressive regimes; desire to address a power imbalance
(AQ/Hizb as symbols of “resistance” - empowering the disenfranchised)
– Ethnic/Socio-cultural fissures (Tamils, Chechens, Kurds, Basques)
– Pre-existing belief in superiority of race, religion, tribe, etc.
– “Holy land” geographical issues, historical irredentist claims
• Global issues:
– Israeli-Palestinian conflict (incl. as symbol of universal Muslim oppression)
– Perceptions of U.S. relations/bias/imperialism/double standards
– Globalization/Westernization of cultural values “threatening our way of life”
Enablers of ideological
resonance
Popular Support
The role of local and global enablers of resonance . . .
What social, political, religious or other factors could
move this threshold toward greater acceptance of
catastrophic terror?
Threshold of
catastrophic
violence
What factors might constrain
acceptance of catastrophic
terror?
Nonviolent
Protests
Apocalyptic
Terrorism
http://www.ctc.usma.edu
constraints of ideological
resonance
Socio-Political Constraints
• Lack of acceptance about need for violence
• Failure to build ideology on pre-existing belief structures, cultural values, etc.
• Behavior of group’s leader seen as too extreme (or perhaps not extreme enough?)
• Grievances not widely shared
• Popular support vs. potential to disgust potential supporters
Religious Constraints
• Fringe/overly radical interpretation of religious texts (e.g., cults like Aum Shinrikyo)
• Lack of acceptance of proposed religious justification for violence (al Qaida claims
strategic justification, but do they truly have theological permission to kill Muslims?)
• Violence prevents individual Muslims from conducting their own jihad as Qu’ran
requires
So what?
Our counterterrorism approach is insufficient
CounterTerrorism Strategy: DIMEFIL
Diplomacy
Intelligence
Countering a group’s operational
capabilities and (to some degree)
their will to conduct terror attacks
Military
Economic
Financial
Information
Deals exclusively with ideology and
context, motivations behind violence
Legal/Law Enforcement
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So what?
Must do more to counter catastrophic ideology
and enablers of resonance
CounterTerrorism Strategy: DIMEFIL
Diplomacy
Intelligence
Military
Focus on governance and security,
but also need to shape the sociopolitical environment to constrain
ideological resonance
Economic
Financial
Information
Legal/Law Enforcement
Reduce the appeal and legitimacy
of Salafi-Jihad ideology
Know your Enemy . . .
Identify the ideology’s leaders and their core arguments
Most influential
living Jihadi thinkers
•
•
•
•
Maqdisi
`Abd al-Qadir
Tartusi
Abu Qatada
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Battlespace of the mind
Discredit the Salafist-Jihadi ideology
•
Salafi scholars, particularly Saudi clerics, are best positioned to discredit the
movement.
•
Jihadis lose credibility among mainstream Muslims by attacking women,
children, the elderly; tarnishing the image of Islam among non-Muslims.
•
When innocent Muslims are killed, they are robbed of their chance to conduct
their own personal and spiritual jihad as called for in the Qu’ran.
•
Jihadis lose support by creating political and social chaos in the Muslim world
(fitna) and by damaging the sources of a nation’s wealth (such as tourism and
oil).
•
Theirs is an extremely radical interpretation of an otherwise peaceful religion,
and followers of this interpretation are more cultish than part of a religious
movement.
– “Qutbis” are followers of a man’s ideas, not the Koran
Discrediting the ideology
Popular Support/Political Considerations
Apocalyptic cults have limited
ideological resonance; implications
for strategic communications effort
against al Qaida?
“AQ & others who follow the
Salafi-Jihad ideology are
members of a destructive
cult (Qutbis) not a religious
movement”
AQ1
AQ2
Nonviolent
Protests
Apocalyptic
Terrorism
http://www.ctc.usma.edu
Counter the Enablers of
Ideological resonance
Offer a compelling counterideology
•
Is democracy an adequately compelling counterideology? If not, what is?
– The spread of liberal democracy will address some - but not a majority - of the
underlying causes of terrorism
– Our policy of democratization is seen by many Muslims as a man-made
religion, the antithesis of Islam, thus our commitment to spreading it
throughout the world may be adding fuel to their fire. Must use caution.
Strengthen constraints to ideologies of catastrophic terrorism
•
Convince Jihadis that their methods are an ineffective and
counterproductive means for social change
– Because of the resilience of our society, economy, political system, etc., you
are guaranteed not to achieve your objectives, regardless of the frequency or
magnitude of your catastrophic terror attacks.
Ideologies & resonance
Questions?
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Ideologies & resonance
[ backup slides ]
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Enablers of ideological
resonance
Religious beliefs are a particularly powerful enabler of violent ideologies
because they add a spiritual dimension and:
•
Explain the state of the world, particularly why believers are continuously persecuted,
oppressed, discriminated against, etc..
•
Explain how and why violence may be condoned and necessary
•
Are often theologically supremacist - meaning that all believers assume superiority
over non-believers, who are not privy to the truth of the religion
•
Are exclusivist - believers are a chosen people, or their territory is a holy land
•
Are absolutist - it is not possible to be a half-hearted believer, and you are either totally
within the system, or totally without it (and only the true believers are guaranteed
salvation and victory, whereas the enemies and the unbelievers are condemned to some
sort of eternal punishment or damnation, as well as death)
•
Overall, religious ideologies embrace polarizing values in terms of right and wrong, good
and evil, light and dark - values which can be co-opted by terrorist organizations to
convert a "seeker" into a lethal killer
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WMD and ideology
Total Destruction
Biological
Nuclear
Ideology may indicate likely preference for
certain type of CBRN
Radiological
Chemical
High-Yield
Explosives
Low
Lethality
Non-Lethal
Weapons
Spectrum of Violent Ideologies
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Apocalyptic
Vision