Dr. Sebastian Gorka. |
Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War
By Dr. Sebastian Gorka
Regnery Publishing; hardcover; $27.99
Since September 11, 2001, America has been at war. And that's about all anyone can say with certainty about a conflict that has cost 7,000 American lives and almost $2 trillion. As long as the most basic strategic questions, such as who the enemy is and why we are fighting, remain unanswered, victory is impossible.
America’s fight against radical Islam could soon be over, and a top secret plan from the Cold War is the key to our victory.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka is a counterinsurgency expert who is a professor at the Department of Defense’s National Defense University. He served on President Donald Trump's staff in 2017, hosts a new radio show on AM 970 The Answer, and is a frequent contributor to FOX News.
In Defeating Jihad, Dr. Gorka explains how America can win the war on terror by delegitimizing the enemy in the eyes of its followers, a strategy that won the Cold War. It would end the era of Jihad forever.
"At first it may seem peculiar to just dust off one war plan - and a 'cold' one at that - and apply it to today's threat." writes Dr. Gorka. "But this isn't simply an unimaginative exercise in repetition. To begin with, understanding how we analyzed that threat and eventually defeated it is a valuable exercise in itself. Few people know anything about how America really planned the fall of communism in the 1950s and how far-ranging and sophisticated a strategy we had right at the beginning of the Cold War.
"Secondly, the similarities between the threat we faced then and the threat we face now are numerous and remarkably deep, and therefore it is all the more important to know what we did as a nation at the start of the Cold War and how we can profit from it today in the post-9/11 world.
"Later we look in more detail at how the Long Telegram and NSC-68 should shape the plan to destroy our jihadist enemies today, but for now consider this passage from (George) Kennan's original secret cable:
"'In summary, we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with [the] U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi [,] that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken...'
"Kennan was writing about the USSR, but this description of a fanatical enemy incapable of living in peace with America applies word for word to the jihadist organizations behind all the major terrorist atrocities from 9/11 to the San Bernardino massacre."
This war is eminently winnable if we take off our ideological blinders and apply basic strategic principles. That means accurately naming the enemy, understanding his plan, and drawing up a strategy to defeat him. Our enemy is not "terror" or "violent extremism." It is the global jihadi movement, a modern totalitarian ideology rooted in the doctrines and martial history of Islam.
Dr. Gorka takes his cue from the formerly top-secret analyses that shaped the U.S. response to the communist threat as he produces this compelling profile of the jihadi movement and a plan to defeat it.
"The threat of global jihadism will not 'run out of steam' if we ignore it," writes Dr. Gorka. "As an infamous communist once said, the question therefore is: What is to be done? What is the role of America, the vanquisher of the previous globalist totalitarians of fascism and communism? For guidance, we should turn to the exemplary work of George Kennan and Paul Nitze - Kennan's Long Telegram, analyzing the postwar Soviet threat, and Nitze's top-secret NSC-68, which proposed a strategy for winning the Cold War.
"Kennan's original classified telegram is easily summarized. The Soviet Union poses an existential threat to the United States because it is based upon the inherently undemocratic ideology of communism, which denies that Western democracy and communism can peacefully coexist. One must destroy the other. The USSR can never be our partner, only a deadly foe. It is not interested in peace or stability, because it sees its mandate as universal and unstoppable. According to the Kremlin, all the people in the world must eventually live under communism. The further spread of communism must be stopped, and the ideology must be undermined from within.
"If George Kennan had been a senior diplomat in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad during the rise of ISIS in 2013 and had been asked to explain what was happening in the Middle East, his reply would have been practically the same as the Long Telegram. Only the names would be different. ISIS and the broader global jihadist movement pose an existential threat to the United States because they are based upon the inherently undemocratic ideology of takfiri jihad, which denies that Western democracy and Islam can peacefully coexist. One must destroy the other. The jihadists can never be our partner, only a deadly foe. They are not interested in peace or stability, because they see their mandate as universal and unstoppable. According to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his Islamic State, all the people in the world must eventually live under the Islamic caliphate. The further spread of jihadism must be stopped, and the ideology must be undermined from within.
"The fact that 'jihadism' can be substituted for 'USSR' in that threat analysis from seventy years ago without any loss of accuracy demonstrates what a serious threat the strategic masters of global jihad have created with the ideology of takfirism. The danger America faces today is simply another form of global totalitarianism, this time a religiously expressed one."
Dr. Gorka, one of the foremost authorities on fighting terrorism, and this book is a vital source of information as President Trump redefines the War on Terror.
No comments:
Post a Comment