Conceptual Territories Of War On Terror-1

Conceptual Territories of War on Terror By Brig (Retd) Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan, PhD Pakistan

“The Romans are sure of victory, knowing well that they have to do with men who are not their equals. And they can not, as we must allow, deceive themselves; for their exercises are battles without bloodshed and their battles bloody exercisesi.”----Josephus The mortal world is threatened by terror. War on terrorism has emerged as a trite phrase of 21st Century that is applied so often with such variations that it forced some scholars to conduct its autopsy but of course with little success. Some even question whether an enemy that does not have any border, a regular system of forces, constitutional order and legitimacy among the comity of nations deserves to be declared a war against because the declaration of war brings some concomitant rights to them under Geneva Convention. The organizations that dot the headlines on major electronic media channels quite often are al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban, mainly represented by TTP (Tehrike-Taliban Pakistan) though there are some more cooperating splinter groups which are pursuing parallel agenda. They manipulate advantage of terrain, merge with local populace to seek shielding effect, fling religious appeals, operate latest technologies, weapons procured from black market and connectivity means---thanks to rapid globalization of scientific advances, engineered by the powers that are boomeranging on them after terrorist lay hands on these for war waging purposes. The obtaining conundrum of violence that simmers on my country’s borders and Afghanistan nearby engulfed this arena since 1979 in two phases. The Soviets executed the first phase, which captured Afghanistan and relinquished it when Mikhael Gorbachev advocated his policy of ‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’. The West claims, Soviets were made to withdraw from Afghanistan when Russia saw USSR geostrategic phantasmagoriaii becoming inevitable. As if it was not enough, US moved into the trap it had laid for the Source:www.casr.ca/ft-strikes-inside-pakistan

Soviets despite warnings, even from a Russian general, of her impending drift into ‘quick sand desert.’ For the West, as a preemption strategy in the wake of 9/11 catastrophe, this move was essential, as once ‘holy warriors’ had now turned their guns on US and its allies. The tug of war goes on. Market states of consent led by US and UK are sweating, bleeding and attempting to eliminate terror. As a consequence there is instability in Pakistani border with Afghanistan that hoards aliens including Arabs, Central Asians and

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Afghan Taliban who are perceived to be using it as a staging area for attacks on US and coalition targets which fall in “the global zone of percolating violenceiii”. Since US attack on Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, had the endorsement of UN, Taliban in Afghanistan find vigorous multinational opposing forces through relief in line operation with far superior technology and battle field arsenal. In five Central Asian Republics that emerged out of former USSR, insurgency simmers with varying intensity that also spills over to Caucasus as well as to Chinese province of Xingjian, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Recent killing of several hundred Uighars by Chinese troops reinforces the belief that she is inclined to treat them with zero tolerance. Uighars are long seeking independence from the mainland China. Central Eurasia is also witnessing some of the worst competition to bag Caspian region black gold bonanza worth over 3-4 trillion dollars. All Central Asian-Caucasus pipelines, earlier destined through Russia are switching the orientation. The West claims that it would allow the world to benefit when no single power would have monopoly over them. The construction of Baku-Tbillisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and South Caucasus (gas) Pipeline has virtually shifted entire recoverable oil and gas flow from North (Russia) to the West through Turkey. Russia is bewildered, whether to call it diversifying energy routes or monopoly has been substituted by intriguing ‘diversity’. US securing of operational bases in Uzbekistan and now in Kyrgyzstan, Russian presence through out the former Soviet Union space as politico-military compulsion and India achieving wedge and flexing muscle from its base in Tajikistan with Chinese nuclear installations at Lop Nor in Xingjian at stone throw distance certainly speak for the New Great Game that is undeniably shaking the fragile fiber of peace in perilous ways. Dr. Makni is of the opinion, “Quite relevant to US future role as the sole super power versus others, the projected print also becomes vivid for the geo-strategists. With greater degree of alacrity, Zbigniew Brzezinski has made focus on Central Eurasia but not without plausible criticism by others. He labeled Eurasia as the chief geo-political prize for America. Though he largely draws from Mac kinder, Mahan and Henry Kissinger, his assertions are direct and free of expedienciesiv.” Merely by such scheme of the things, PakistanAfghanistan-China-Central Asian territorial confluence at FATAv/Wakhan corridor makes it a geo-strategic pie to take a bite from, safeguarding or abetting respective national interests in the light of Richelieu’s model(….national interests as its ultimate purposevi). It thus encourages some analysts to conclude that there is more to the theory offered by likes of Phillip Bobbitt that war on terror, irrespective of any ideology, race or civilization consideration, is struggle between the terrorists or the market states of terror and the market states of consent at the dawn of new millennium. A cursory look at the Crescent of Instability that stretches from Andean region of Latin America across Sub Saharan Africa, Near East, Caspian, Caucasus, Central Asia and beyond to northern South Asia enables extrapolative deductions. “Unless employment conditions change dramatically, youths in weak states will continue to go elsewhere--externalizing volatility and violence.vii” The challenge market states of consent face are not only colossal but most complicated as well because it has no dimensions of classical warfare. Terror has no territory, appreciable battle field, tangible stocks of supplies,

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logistic life lines, a prince, king or a general to negotiate, sign treaties or surrender instrument. It infects global societies, scores hits at will where ever the counter terror mechanism is found ambivalent or slack. “In twenty first century, terrorism presents a different face. It is global, not national; it is decentralized and networked in its operation like a mutant nongovernmental organization (NGO) or a multinational corporationviii….” While war on terror rages in relatively well defined arenas in Iraq and Afghanistan, the thrust or center of gravity of conflict is shifting to the latter that appears all set to push the blazing fires to Pakistan. Pakistan Army’s valorous performance has logically shattered the terrorists’ arrogance to fight with impunity though Army had immense reservoir of patience to treat them as misled sons of soil. Recent offensive against the militants in FATA, Malakand and Swat areas has assured the nation and its allies that militants can be defeated if not wiped out in a single blow. The upper hand gained by Pakistan Army is naturally a stop gap measure where as civil government has to launch strategies to explore lasting solution through initiation of political dialogue ultimately. Unfortunately, presence of a Metternich or Castlereagh to tackle complex situation in Pakistan would remain our fond dream because the country did not have any leader of the caliber akin to its founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Gloating over the recent killing of the most dreaded TTP leader, Baitullah Masud and cross fire murder of some of his first tier leaders in ‘succession’ dispute, Pakistani Minister for Interior made loud but erroneous claimix beyond permissible level of optimism to have broken the back bone of terrorists. Not only the nominated successors have survived but they have managed smooth transition of TTP leadership with no less a brutal successor. Killing of an al Qaeda or Taliban leader may create a wave of transient optimism but it would remain a tactical if not petty gain. Strategically, their organizational capability to plug the vacuum is hard to dent. The bad news is that the challenge (terrorism) war-gamed by credible agencies proves that at the world level it would survive, albeit with partial losses after gigantic counter war on terrorism. In my reckoning, I am not prepared to grant even the partial losses because the size of reservoir, terrorism draws strength from, is contingent upon the performance of the states where the ‘youth bulge’ would occur. To name a few, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria and Ethiopia are prominent. “….All will retain age structure with large proportions of young adults, a demographic feature that is associated with the emergence of political violence and civil conflictx”. Unfortunately those states generally are faced with menace of ‘collapse’. In other words the Crescent or Arc of Instability that is likely to see maximum youth bulge is least developed with rampant poverty, hunger, corruption and injustice. On the other hand most of the developed countries on the periphery or in proximity to the areas of instability are set to face the phenomena of diminishing as well as aged population. In an otherwise ideally peaceful and stable global environment, the developing countries with pronounced ‘youth bulges’ had chance of the century to trade off their dripping miseries with human workforce-deficient developed countries. However, the prospects hit rock when terror is all set to snatch the same youth bulges to deploy them as explosive missiles. Yet another hypothesis that terrorists are likely to gain capability in NBCW (nuclear, biological and chemical warfare), the scenario emerges even more deadly and horrendous.

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War on terror is already being labeled by some analyst as an inevitable clash of civilizations, attributing ‘terrorism’ to a particular ideology and plethora of self serving objectives. Perhaps none is true but irony of fate is that it would heighten geopolitical tension among emerging market states of consent to the extent that fall out is likely to weaken Euro-Atlantic alliances, causing impetus to the energizing of the regional alliances in Central Eurasia, the region that is skirted around by Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan when three of them are nuclear powers of different gradations. Yet more tragically, ongoing war on terrorism in predominantly Muslim countries is fast introducing an element of polarization that affords an opportunity to 21st Century ‘Goebbels’ to paint it as Christianity’s onslaught on Islam; which perhaps has little truth in it. Western societies are remarkably open and are eager to listen to Muslims if we presented lustrous example of the lustrous religion through our deeds. It is this character of their openness that those societies, likely to make recourse to some religion through self-inspiration have embraced Islam by dozens despite our recent image set back. These conversions were generally their solo effort without help of any suitable demonstrator for Islam. Had there been one, the acceptance and understanding about Islam would have been manifold. The war aim of US and UK is to create an environment of opportunities for the societies lagging behind unlike nation states perceiving obligations to their welfare. Their war objectives are to protect them from ‘terror’ of any kind, deny terrorist access to NBCW and capture of any nation state to turn it into market state of terror that brutalizes their own societies as well as their foes. The crux of the debate is that non-state actors of terror would emerge clear winner if they manage to push a wedge among the societies as well as among the states of consent that would have made otherwise a unified stand against them. Phillip Bobbitt is of the opinion that, “The outcome of these wars will determine whether the constitutional order---the market states---will be composed of the states of consent or the states of terrorxi.” The preceding discussion is based on certain constants. The success or defeat would be extensively ridden by several corollary factors, not adequately addressed so far. US need to address causes of rampant anti-Americanism that had been exacerbating with passing of each day. Dawn of Mr. Barrack Obama era is silver lining on the dark cloud but he has inherited tremendous baggage to clear. Countries that are the favorite resorts of the ‘terror’ unfortunately are the one which have been graded as possible ‘state collapse’ cases. There appears a natural tendency to deny those studies but prudence demands that their warning be used as a spring board to commence tackling internal fault lines. What is haunting those societies is not the threat of terrorists alone but poverty, hunger, lawlessness, injustice, corruption, nepotism and barring an odd one, dysfunctional government institutions. Interestingly Pakistan has a major share to ponder as hard as the other states need heeding to. Absolute clarity on these issues thus emerging would prove who are really the Romans? ([email protected]) (First appeared at www.presscode.gr on 26 August 2009)

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i

. Lynn Montross, “War Through The Ages”, (Harper & Row Publishers, New York, Evanston and London, 1960), p.43

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. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chess Board: American Primacy and its Geo-strategic Imperatives”, (Basic Books, 1997), p.96 iii

. ibid, p. 53 iv

. Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi(DR.makni), Brig(Retd)/Dr, “ The New Great Game: Oil and Gas Politics in Central Eurasia”, (Raider Publishing International, New York, Swansea and London-2008), p.128 v

. FATA stands for ‘Federally Administered Tribal Areas’. vi

. Henry Kissinger, “Diplomacy”, (Simon & Schuster : London, Sydney, New York, Tokyo, Toronto-1995), p. 17 vii

. Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World; US National Intelligence Council Report-2008 (accessed at www.dni.gov/NIC_2025_project.html) viii

. Phillip Bobbitt, “Terror and Consent: The War For the Twenty First Century”, (Penguin Books-2008)-p.84 ix

. The News International, 23 August 2009, p.8 x

. NIC Report, op cit, p.22 xi

. Bobbitt, op cit, p.95