Changing US Security Strategy

Anthony H. Cordesman

doi:10.5771/9781442225343

Summary

More than a decade into the “war on terrorism,” much of the political debate in the United States is still fixated on the legacy of 9/11. US politics has a partisan fixation on Benghazi, the Boston Marathon bombing, intelligence intercepts, and Guantanamo. Far too much attention still focuses on “terrorism” at a time the United States faces a much broader range of threats from the instability in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Islamic world. Moreover, much of the US debate ignores the fact that the United States has not actually fought a “war on terrorism” over the last decade, as well as the US failures in using military force and civil aid in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2013
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-2533-6
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-2534-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 104
Product type: Book Titles

1. TABLE OF CONTENTS No access
2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY No access
1. 1. The “Non-War” Against “Non-Terrorism” in Afghanistan No access
  2. The “Non-War” Against “Non-Terrorism” in Iraq No access
  3. Stability Operations and Armed Nation Building Rather than a “War on Terrorism” No access
1. The Human Costs No access
2. The Dollar Costs of Overseas Operations Costs No access
3. The Dollar Costs of Homeland Defense No access
4. Incoherence versus Transparency, Money versus Effectiveness No access
1. 1. Al-Qa’ida No access
  2. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula No access
  3. Al-Qa’ida in Iraq No access
  4. Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb No access
  5. Al-Shabaab No access
1. Defining Insurgency, Civil Conflicts, and Instability as Terrorism No access
2. Terrorist Threats versus Threats of Civil Conflict, Insurgency, and Regional Instability No access
3. The Top Ten Terrorism Movements are Largely Movements Involved in Insurgency and Broader Civil Conflict No access
4. Misstating the Level of Terrorism in Iraq No access
5. Terrorism or Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan No access
6. Absurd Undercounts for Syria No access
7. Reporting on Overall Patterns No access
1. 1. The Need to Understand and Deal with Complexity No access
  2. A Poll of Tensions within Islam as a Case Study No access
2. 1. Critical US Strategic Dependence on the MENA Area No access
  2. Patterns of MENA Instability by Country No access
1. Reshaping the Conceptual Structure of US Strategy No access
2. 1. The “End State Fallacy,” No “Good” or “Bad Side” and “Doing It Their Way” No access
  2. Strategic Triage No access
  3. Strategic Patience No access
  4. Use a Net Assessment Approach No access
  5. Create Integrated Civil-Military Plans, Budgets, and Evaluation Efforts No access
  6. Keep up the Focused Counterterrorism Effort but Reevaluate It, Rationalize it, and Make it Transparent No access
  7. A Country-by-Country Focus Through the US Country Team No access
  8. 1. Key Shifts in US Strategy, Planning, Operations, and Assessment No access
    2. Key Shifts in US Partnering and Cooperation with Allies No access
    3. Key Shifts in US Partnering and Cooperation with Host Countries No access
    4. Key Improvements in the Way the US Conducts Operations No access
3. Carefully Targeted Partnerships Need to be Real, Not Rhetoric No access
ANNEX: LOOKING BEYOND TERRORISM, INSURGENCY, AND MILITARY THREATS: ILLUSTRATIVE DATA ON THE OTHER SOURCES OF REGIONAL INSTABILITY No access Pages 85 - 103
ABOUT THE AUTHOR No access Pages 104 - 104