October 21, 2009

Counterterrorism vs. Counterinsurgency

By: AF Editors

Can you put that in layman’s terms? Which one has a better chance of working?

Option 1: Counterterrorism. Robert Pape:

Fortunately, the United States does not need to station large ground forces in Afghanistan to keep it from being a significant safe haven for Al Qaeda or any other anti-American terrorists. This can be achieved by a strategy that relies on over-the-horizon air, naval and rapidly deployable ground forces, combined with training and equipping local groups to oppose the Taliban. No matter what happens in Afghanistan, the United States is going to maintain a strong air and naval presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean for many years, and these forces are well suited to attacking terrorist leaders and camps in conjunction with local militias — just as they did against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001.

Option 2: Counterinsurgency. John Kerry:

I do not believe that a counterterrorism strategy all by itself without a sufficient level of counterinsurgency will work because if you don’t have a presence on the ground that’s effective, it– it’s almost impossible to collect the kind of intelligence that you need to be equally effective in your counterterrorism…

And, obviously, one of your components of counterterrorism is avoiding collateral damage, civilian casualties. So knowledge and– and relationships and intelligence are really critical components of that kind of a mission. I think there’s a lot I’ve learned about how we can recalibrate that part of it but that’s not the whole mission. Counting the numbers of troops is not going to define our success here.