Is our presence around the world encouraging / creating terrorism?

COL Lee Flemming
Sir, I am sure a lot of people have been discussing this issue because it has been the national security biggest challenge the USA had to deal with in the past 20 years.
While it could sound appeasing to fight terror organizations in their nests, results will always be mixed. In today's hybrids conflicts (you can destroy enemy military assets with a missile but a drone will only have a very low impact on their ideology, if not the opposite effect - Elie Tenenbaum) it's hard to implement a strategy effective to solve every problems. However, let us not fall in statistics out of their contexts (missions from 1993 to 2005 had been very different, same as our enemies) and assume that correlation proves causation.

We can note there's several factors at work here. The Taliban isn't conducting as many suicide attacks in Afghanistan pre-2001 since they own the country. In Iraq, Saddam had managed to quell Sunni Wahhabism through a brutal dictatorship. Once those repressive governments fell, that opened the flood gates for religious radicals seeking jihad since a fight was now on their back door.

The proximity of the desired target population for terrorism (Westerners) fueled the rise in attacks. We'd also note an increase in terror attacks following the US withdrawal from Iraq despite troop levels in the area dropping dramatically. It's the same concept as picking target priority. Pape's argument is that terrorists only fight countries that are engaged in geopolitical disputes. However, in 2007 bin Laden demanded that the US convert to Islam or he would wage jihad against us. Daesh stated in their Dabiq magazine that they would conquer the world for Islam and raise their flag over the Vatican. This is where Pape's argument falls flat. He's discounting the long-term goals of jihadists for their responses to immediate enemies who they need to defeat first to establish legitimacy and ensure the survival and spread of their ideological views. Expending resources to kill Venezuelan Catholics is great, but they got bigger fish to fry first.

Terrorism has increased because terrorism is theater, and globalization has given these radicals an audience, where even 100 years ago, hardly anyone would have heard about these conflicts. What's more, 100 years ago our society could stomach doing what was necessary to get rid of an ideological enemy. This solution is war in its purest form, not the surgical tip-toeing we do today, but the destruction of the society which holds those views. We have tried to humanize a process which is inherently inhumane, but the sad fact remains that the only society that has ever pacified this religious group was the Mongols, and they stacked heads in pyramids. Consider that in 1938 only 7% of Germany was Nazi Party members. Today, according to the Gallop Center for Muslim studies, 36.6% of Muslims in the Middle East feel that 9/11 was at least partially justified. The peaceful majority in both instances has been irrelevant. Even in the UK, 1 out of 3 Muslim males in university feel that death is an appropriate punishment for apostasy. What's more, we're allied with the Saudis and their own internal politics are so riddled with Wahhabists that even the royals are unable to address the growing radicalism without risking revolt. Keep in mind while our society is able to empathize with a suffering population that they see on TV, the opposite is largely not true for the people in the Middle East and this puts us at a distinct disadvantage.

I briefly looked over this and immediately noticed it appears to cherry pick the data by only showing the period between 1993 through 2005. To truly show a correlation of troop presence to terrorist activity against US citizens, I would like to see post 2005 and pre 1993 as well. Also, the article speaks initially to two so called "facts". One of which included "95% of suicide terrorist attacks are targeted at occupying foreign militaries." How does that explain the targeting of Christians in Iraq (or Iraqi citizens themselves)? What about the attacks in Pakistan by extremist element trying to influence the Pakistan government? I could come up with more examples but essentially I really don't think the premise of this article is accurate.

COL Lee Flemming
To a degree, I would say yes.

Increasing our presence in hostile countries can create further hostility, especially when we are in occupation of what some may define as under educated, and unstable regions. Local propaganda will encourage locals to retaliate against our presence, why? Because we're in their country and they want us out. We believe we are in the right and so do they. If a foreign nation were to increase their presence here, we would do the same and retaliate.

Here's a thought: instead of picking ONLY those terrorist acts that FOLLOW our troop increases, what about looking at ALL major terrorist action? OF COURSE it's going to look like we're "causing" or "provoking" terrorism if you only look at what happens AFTER we move.

In order to follow this line of thinking we would have to also assume that attacks by muslims in France, Sweden, Thailand and others is also because of their military presence and nation building efforts. Muslims were probably mad at the Italians for their military might when they attacked the Achille Lauro back in 1985.

Now, I'm no great thinker of thoughts, but it seems to me that they really don't need an external excuse to carry out terroristic acts. They give themselves plenty of reasons and excuses to do what they do.

Which came first: The attack or the counter attack? There is magic in words. Alakazam, and an attack is launched. The next battle is one of words: Who attacked first. I am tempted to pin that dishonor on the attack of 9/11, thereby justifying the response. Others may attribute another incident that "inspired" the attack of 9/11. From there, as the chart depicts, the war of terror escalated. What the chart fails to depict is which came first, the rise in engagement or the rise in terrorism? We need a finer timeline to distinguish that.

Just a gut reaction is that yes, the presence of the US Military is a major irritant to people around the world. Drone strikes that kill innocents have got to be affecting people like the truck driver in Nice, the Paris shooters and others.

Walt

It isn't just our presence around the world, but the fact that the rest of the world knows it has us stretched thin at home. It is time we started taking care of ourselves a little more and not be a babysitter to the rest of the world. The increased U.S. attacks alone show that we should be concentrating on securing our borders and not multiple countries around the globe.

As we attempt to attrit the Centers of Gravities of our enemies, they respond with an external expansion of attacking the soft underbellies of society.