How to contain radical Islam

The best global strategy for the US may be the one that won the Cold War

By Commander Philip Kapusta and Captain Donovan Campbell  |  July 27, 2008

A recent piece published by The Boston Globe points out the similarities between the United States’ fight against communism during the Cold War and the current struggle against radical Islam . The article, by Commander Philip Kapusta and Captain Donovan Campbell, is titled “How to Contain Radical Islam: The best global strategy for the US may be the one that won the Cold War”. Kapusta and Campbell base their assessment of the global setbacks currently experienced by the US military in the War on Terror on one underlying problem: the US has yet to formulate a holistic strategy to guide the prosecution of the war. Their new policy, dubbed “neocontainment” focuses on the war of ideas, and further, isolation of the most dangerous ideas from main stream Islam. They propose a strategy based on the Cold War era NSC-68, a National Security Council report which encourages the building of “stable, moderate nations on the periphery of the arc of instability”, as opposed to (arguably) self-defeating military confrontations.

While Kapusta and Campbell emphasize the strategic importance of stabilizing Lebanon and Pakistan, the fundementals of Neocontainment, namely development of economic infrastructure, are exactly what The Neutral Development Project stands for. Sinse we were founded in 2006, we have advocated a policy of providing constructive alternatives to those most at risk of being dragged into harmful political or religious conflict. 

Here is an exerpt from the article:

…The path dictated by NSC-68 was not a straight line to the collapse of the USSR, but the strategy proved remarkably effective. Communism expanded outside of its containment zone in a few instances, but, for the most part, the United States and its allies successfully implemented the indirect approach recommended by NSC-68. When the once mighty Soviet empire imploded in 1991, it was almost precisely as NSC-68 had predicted.

Strikingly, if one replaces “communism” with “Islamic extremism” and “the Kremlin” with “Al-Qaeda,” NSC-68 could have been written in 2002, not 1950. Like communism, Islamic extremism lusts for political power, in this case through the restoration of the caliphate and the imposition of Sharia law on all peoples. Indeed, language from NSC-68 rings eerily true today - it described the Soviets as “animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own.” Al Qaeda and its ilk are the latest in a long line of narrow ideologies that claim to provide the only true answer to life’s existential questions. And as with Soviet communism, the idea has a geographic nucleus.

Our task now is to envelop this nucleus with prosperous, stable countries whose inhabitants are free to choose their own beliefs. Working from the outside in, the United States must partner with nations on the periphery to help them build a stronger middle class, enhance their education systems, improve basic health, and lower government corruption. We must help elected and unelected governments to allow greater empowerment of their citizens, whether through a slow march toward representative government or expanded economic opportunity for all classes.

Lebanon in the Middle East and Pakistan in Central Asia are some of the best countries in which to begin and expand this work. In Lebanon’s complex political landscape, Iran and Syria support the Islamist Hezbollah party-cum-militia, while the United States backs the secular Lebanese government. Another Islamist movement, Fatah al Islam, enjoys a nebulous connection to Al Qaeda. We should be using our country’s massive financial resources to allow the Lebanese government to outspend its competitors by a factor of 10, showering much-needed aid on the Lebanese people, and thus de-legitimizing their opponents and debunking their ideology. Instead, the government cannot meet its basic responsibilities, and extremist movements are increasingly seen as the only institutions capable of bettering lives.

In Pakistan, the extremist cancer in the northwestern provinces continues to grow despite $5.5 billion in direct US military aid. Pakistan’s dangerously unstable new civilian government lacks the capability and will to challenge Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the region. Instead of focusing exclusively on military operations along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, America must broaden its scope to encompass other priorities: tension with India over Kashmir and education reform. Only after a comprehensive Indo/Pakistani border settlement will Pakistan shift its military energy from south to north. In the interim, it will placate us with occasional forays into the frontier provinces, but such adventures will never be decisive. We must also help Pakistan provide a counterweight to the hundreds of Wahabi madrassas spreading virulent extremism. As long as these fundamentalist institutions remain the only option for much of the country’s poor, Islamic extremists in the tribal areas will enjoy a virtually inexhaustible manpower pool. In the long run, 5,000 secular teachers for Pakistan’s middle schools will do more for America’s national security than will 50,000 AK-47s for the country’s army.

A clear new containment strategy will help us recognize the importance of engaging with such nations at pivotal points before they slide into repressive autocracy (Pakistan in 2001) or all-out chaos (Afghanistan in 1989).

It is popular to blame these failings on the attention and resource deficits created by the Iraq war. But they are just as much the result of the black-and-white mentality that governs our approach to foreign affairs - liberal democracy or nothing. In working with periphery states, we must be willing to accept outcomes that are less than perfect. Indeed, we must be willing to accept ruling regimes that may not like us at all. We are not trying to create mini-Americas scattered across the globe; we are looking to foster stable, free countries whose people will have little interest in the repressive ideology of our enemies.

On occasion, extremist governments hostile to the existence of the United States (Hamas in the Gaza Strip) will enjoy broad popular support, but preemptive wars must become a thing of the past. We cannot say that we value freedom and then seek political change through force when the choice of the people produces regimes not to our liking. However, the military can, and must, be used to target individuals bent on terror aimed at American interests. Furthermore, if a nation enables attacks on our homeland, as Afghanistan did under the Taliban, then we must use all necessary means to defend ourselves. On rare occasions, this will require full-out war and post-invasion reconstruction….

Read the entire article here.

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