Thursday, June 18, 2015

Terrorism

Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America
Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
ढाका में मोदी ने कहा, हमें traditional युद्ध करना आता है, सैनिक भेजो, टैंक भेजो, फाइटर प्लेन भेजो, लेकिन दुनिया को terrorism से कैसे सामना किया जाता है वो नहीं आता। True, it is a new strain of virus.

कुछ solutions हैं।

  • State building ---- जिस तरह मच्छर पानी न बहने वाली तालाब ढूँढती, उसी तरह आतंकवादी ऐसे देश ढूँढ़ते हैं जहाँ failed state हो। 
  • Cooperation between States ---- दुनिया के देशों को information sharing करनी होगी। Otherwise if each country is a silo of its own, you give the terrorists a lot of room to play. 
  • Information Technology ------ The leaders like Bin Laden might choose to go "dark." But generally speaking terrorist cells rely a lot on electronic communication. There has been much contention on this. Even in countries like America there has been a lot of talk about how civil liberties are being curtailed and citizens are being spied upon. Perhaps there is a happy medium somewhere where you rely mostly on machine reading until you have something substantial and only then you get humans involved. Like with Gmail, the email service serves you ads. But it is machine reading, and you don't feel violated. 
  • Social network mapping ------ All terrorist groups rely on social networks. Smaller and tighter the group, more reliant they are on their social networks. So when you nab a few, they lead you to others. 
  • Political grievances have to be proactively addressed. Not because terrorism is and should work. But if there are legitimate concerns, they are legitimate. And they should be addressed. Not as a matter of negotiation with the terrorists or as a step in being blackmailed, but independent of all that. 
  • The "frontline" is where you have small, agile, well trained operatives who engage in direct action. Mistakes have been made in drone attacks, but they are also one of the tools on the frontlines. 
  • Ideological fights on social media. 
  • Larger debates in society, at universities, in old media, on TV, in newspapers. Point by point rebuttals. 
Terrorists rely on the war of asymmetry because they know that is the only way they have any chance. आमने सामने आएंगे तो asymmetry गायब हो जाएगी। 

That is why you have to fear the ISIS more, because they are breaking many of the rules of the traditional terrorists. Terrorists prefer not to hold territory. 

Terrorists rely a lot on out of the box thinking. That goes along the lines of asymmetry. So you have to keep on your toes and constantly be trying to figure out what their next moves might be. It is a game of chess. 

Ultimately you just have to drown them out with plentiful information. Wireless broadband and cheap Android phones for the masses ----- I think that is the number one thing. Hundreds of millions of Muslims sharing cat videos makes ISIS irrelevant. You drown out the terrorists with everyday boring stuff. I happen to think that is the most potent weapon. 

I have said this many times. I think of the War On Terror as being on par with the Cold War. It will conclude after there is a total spread of democracy across the Arab/Muslim world.

India is the new Britain, because ultimately this is about the ideology of democracy. The oldest and the largest democracies belong together. America and India need each other.

Terrorism is "cutting edge" like Climate Change ---- they both require global coordination. No one country can tackle either. 

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