In the midst of the chaos, the declaration of war placated the terrified masses. Our governments and military leaders, trained to tackle conventional enemies, flooded our 24hr news cycle with predictions of unimaginable calamity, soon to be unleashed by Al Qaeda – the greatest threat to western civilisation since the Soviet Union.

The storyline was simple. George Bush suggested: we are the good guys, and they are the bad guys. Osama Bin Laden became the global supervillian, plotting to overthrow the world’s superhero – the US – via suicide bombings and suitcase nukes. Our populations were stripped of civil liberties in preparation for the impending onslaught, and our young men were sent overseas, to fight the terrorists on their own doorstep.

33 Laws of War, Rule 1: Declare war on your enemies

It appeared that we had answers to the fundamental questions – who, what, when, where, why:

• Who: Al Qaeda – an international Sunni Islamist movement founded in 1988, led by bin Laden, and hell-bent on inflicting jihad on the Great Satan and its allies.
• What: A loose, weakly-linked collection of like-minded Jihadists, using tactics of coordinated terrorism to cause military, economic and civilian casualties.
• When: From now until the end of time.
• Where: Chiefly located in the Middle East, with sleeper cells dispersed within Western nations. Or in short: here, there, and everywhere.
• Why: the Western world has corrupt values; to restore an Islamic caliphate, rid the Muslim world of non-Muslim influences, and implement Sharia globally; they hate the freedoms of the West.

There are ongoing debates about the veracity of each of the points above, but let us assume that they are accurate. It appears that we have identified our enemy. We have recordings of bin Laden in which he sets his objectives and rattles metaphorical sabres. We have seen the destruction he inspired in New York, Madrid, Bali and London – and to a far greater scale on the battlefields of the Middle East. We think we know how his strategy, but do we? He is a politician after all.

Is it possible that, due to the cycles that confine them, our governments (less than 5years) and media (less than 24hrs) are unprepared to tackle the threat that we face?

The ideology of Samson and the Kamikaze

Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ Down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (Judges 16:30).

Al Qaeda are religiously/ideologically driven, therefore, willing to fight forever using suicide as tactic of war. The last major group to use this strategy were the Japanese during WWII, where – man for man – kamikaze pilots easily outfought the US .

Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800.

Obviously, historical accounts contradict each other – according to the Japanese, the kamikaze accounted for 80% of the losses faced by the US – nevertheless the kamikaze were successfully trained with the following ethos.

When you eliminate all thoughts about life and death, you will be able to totally disregard your earthly life. This will also enable you to concentrate your attention on eradicating the enemy with unwavering determination, meanwhile reinforcing your excellence in flight skills.
(A paragraph from a kamikaze pilots’ manual.)

Would the Japanese have surrended without the threat of Allied nukes? Following WWII, the implementation of Article 9, and the dilution of the bushido mindset suggests that we correctly recognised the danger posed by the concept of suicide attack. It is simple game theory; the same theory that underpinned the Mutual Assured Destruction policy of the Cold War. As shown, by the fact that you are not reading this during a nuclear winter, the MAD strategy works. But – and here’s the kicker – it only works against those who are afraid of being destroyed. Would you say that Al Qaeda and bin Laden are afraid of being destroyed? On the contrary, like samurai they welcome physical destruction above any perceived spiritual destruction. As you have been told several times, Al Qaeda are not a historically-conventional enemy. Only a fool can declare the suicide attack strategy as cowardice; senseless maybe , evil perhaps, hateful certainly, but cowards do not fly planes into skyscrapers.

We are not the Spartan 300

A few years ago, the film ‘300 ’ was see by many critics to be a metaphorical depiction of the war we face against terror. Leonidas and his 300 symbolised the fight against barbaric men born in the lands central to the current War on Terror – the Persian empire in 480BC spanned: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan. In reality though, the comparison – which seems to be a précis of Western foreign policy – is deeply flawed by ethnocentrism. Just because we identify with Leonidas, it does not mean that we are him. Merely looking at the numbers, firepower and strategy suggests the opposite: George Bush is Xerxes and the West is the overconfident and proud, larger army, clumsily attempting to win the battle against the small group of unconventionally-minded soldiers, without paying attention to the larger war.

Leonidas believed in ‘mutually assured destruction’, but his method for achieving that destruction were not immediately apparent to Xerxes. The Spartans welcomed death, only willing to return with their shield or on it. The Spartan 300 had an objective far larger, resolute and more ambitious than the proud Persians were willing to admit. Pride came before their fall.

Like Xerxes, our strategy accounts for the who, what, when, where, why of enemy, but underestimates the potential of how they intend to achieve their aims. We seem to forget that our enemy has done a strategic assessment of us too:

• Who: The West; a group of the richest liberal states.
• What: One superpower, and several allied states.
• When: < 5 years for our governments; < 24hrs for our media.
• Where: In identifiable, static, nation states with large, expensive military groups engaged in conflict in the Middle East.
• Why: Because if you are not with us, you are against us. Because we love our freedom. Because we will not be humiliated.
• How: Shock and awe; Technological superiority; Expensive conventional warfare, designed to avoid civilian casualties, and minimise military losses; Unilateral engagement.

Al Qaeda has a strategic advantage

They know what we are capable of, what we are not capable of, and via our media – they know what we are thinking; they know our strategy. Al Qaeda are stateless – they reside in minds – we cannot fight them with nukes, and they know that. We are blind to their strategy, which exists on a longer term and is far more ambitious than our Western ideology may be able to cope with.

Steven Levitt – the freakanomics guy – had an article a while back, questioning whether the terrorists really intend to create terror. His post and comments came up with several strategies that could quite easily reduce a Western democratic state to its knees – in the sense that the values of democracy and freedom would be destroyed overnight. The most interesting was the suggestion that a group of 12-or-so terrorists, armed merely with cars, guns and ammunition, could drive around countries shooting civilians in a unpoliceable and panic-inducing way, that could only be tackled with freedom, democracy and economy-crippling marshall law. Western civilisation as we know it would be broken.

Why has Al Qaeda not done this? Perhaps such a strategy would be incompatible with jihadist jurisprudence, or, perhaps the group is biding its time, watching our military flounder and our economy falter.

The West has not won; we have much to do

We are in an economic crisis. Our civil liberties continue to be curtailed. The West is changing into something unimaginable when the twin towers fell. As many commentators are suggesting, Western civilisation may never be the same.

Could we have underestimated the true strategy of bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Despite the media-induced fear, we have not had many terrorist attacks – the US has not been attacked since 9/11. But we know that there are people within the West, that would happily commit suicide for their cause. We also know that the actions of our governments abroad have radicalised many minds. Is it possible that the current situation that the West faces is part of the strategy of Al Qaeda? Is it possible that, like 9/11, they will use our financial system against us? Is it possible that, during the economic abyss into which we are sinking, the sleeper cells will wake up and attempt to accelerate our descent? Do not believe that the enemy is stupid. In this long war, we are already looking for exits to avoid the ongoing guerilla warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, but can’t seem to find any.

One thing is clear, our enemy has targeted our weaknesses – we are doing things that would previously have been unacceptable; we are changing. Our enemy on the other hand, seems to be succeeding in the face of our military and economic power. We have targeted their strengths.

The ‘who, what, when, where and why’ of our enemy has not changed and has grown stronger. Our ‘who, what, when, where, why’ has weakened.

We have won many battles, but are we prepared, or even able, to win the war? I’ll be examing this in due course, but i’ll leave you with a quote from the man who announced the ‘End of History ‘.

The term “war on terrorism” is a misnomer, resulting in distorted ideas of the main threat facing Americans today. Terrorism is only a means to an end; in this respect, a “war on terror” makes no more sense than a war on submarines. – Francis Fukuyama

ps: When assessing your own strategy, or that of your opponent, it is essential to ascertain how objectives will be achieved.