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Asswipes who want to provoke us with violence cannot be deterred with good reliability by the threat of primitive retaliation. All-too often retaliation is what they want to provoke, after all.
Years ago I proposed a schedule for withdrawal from a war of occupation which featured a deterrence element against violence; the troops would be scheduled to withdraw piecemeal over time, but for every one soldier killed or wounded in action a fixed quantity of soldiers would be sent as reinforcements. Any 'freedom fighters' claiming to fight against occupation would face the dilemma that fighting against occupation would actually prolong or even greatly grow the occupation.
I think something similar could be done against errorists, particularly errorists who are linked to a non-elusive party like daesh:
We could simply pass a law (effective for 10 years) which compels us to send aid to the enemies of the errorists for every of our citizens killed by errorists abroad or anyone killed by errorists in our country.
1,000 small arms with munitions and accessories
100 4wd cars
100 missiles and one missile launcher
10 mortars with a thousand rounds (and more auxiliary charges) each
10 instructors who train the new users for six months
For one severely injured person:
500 small arms with munitions and accessories
50 4wd cars
50 missiles and one missile launcher
5 mortars with a thousand rounds (and more auxiliary charges) each
5 instructors who train the new users for six months
Both would be to be delivered (very publicly) within two months. Stocks would be purchased from other countries if the own stocks would otherwise drop below a defined minimum level for collective defence. Such purchases could be pre-arranged just in case, in order to meet the two-month deadline.
Additionally, the law could include a lump sum delivery as answer for failed every errorist strike.
I suppose we could skip many "counter-terrorism security" expenses and would still be safer than with the status quo policies.
S O
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Please accept my sincere condolencies. - If we liberate Mosul or Raqqa - in fact, local sectarian/nationalist fractions will - errorists will go to Africa or Yemen or Afghanistan. But if we do absolutely nothing against dictators like Assad (as we do...), AQ goes local and only goes stronger. Because unprotected Sunni population persecuted by local government is what they need most, like fish needs water. - In current model of operation it is probably really impossible to deter. Daesh/IS has adopted model in which every single local idiot can attack anywhere anybody and if he just do 2-3 things they prescribed before, his idiotic attack is "regular" Daesh/IS operation in the end. Professionally trained cadres of IS (see work of NYT journalist Rukmini Callimachi) you can hunt, deter and everything, but self-recruited local idiots are totally uncontrollable and unpredictable. I fear this will end badly, and I mean badly in political way. - BTW, with failed attack on Christmas fair by teenagers nail bomb several days ago, there was opportunity to step up deffensive measures...
ReplyDeleteYou think too West-centric.
DeleteDaesh is so full of strategic idiocy that it has defeated itself by amassing too many enemies already. We (the West) don't need to do anything - their failure is guaranteed anyway.
Errorism without link to a territory-controlling civil war party (such as we had before with the AQ brand) is more difficult to deter, but the basic idea still works:
Pledge € 10 million in funds for missionary work in favour of Christianity and against Muslim faith for every person killed, € 5 M for every person injured severely.
The basic idea is to create a direct link between their action and a most unintended consequence instead of falling for the provocation and behaving exactly as intended.
There are some issues with this approach.
ReplyDeleteLike how this might encourage a false flag attack by the errorists' enemies if they think they would get away with it and receive the weapons themselves.
So maybe some extra vigilance and punishment for those attacks should also be included.
Another issue might be that in a three-way war, it might be more complicated to decide to whom to give the weapons to. Both of their enemies?
But the overall idea sounds good! Very surprising I've never heard something like this before in this context.
A govenrment with the rule of law would only be compelled to react this way if
Delete- the errorist organisation takes credit
- a due process at court rules that the errorist organisation was involved (when prosecuting a suspect)
So essentially daesh could not take credit for anything it would do to us without very demotivating consequences.
This leads to the question, to whom exact you want to send the weapons: The Kurds? The Assad Regime? The Iraqi Army? Schiite Militia? Whoever you choose, the weapons would have strategic impact on other levels. For example: If you strenghten the Kurds, the Turkish will have to react, and so on.
ReplyDeleteAnd false flag operations can be camouflaged and especially taking credit for attacks could be very easily faked. Bomb somthing and put a fake credit for it in the internet, nothing is easier.
And whoever you give this weapons, it will have serious consequences and reactions by other, non terrorist parties.
The terrorists stand not alone with everybody against them, all the other parties which are enemies of the terrorists have other enemies too and fight each other too.
Actually, Germany already supplied weapons and munitions to the Kurds.
DeleteLook, there's a common mistake people make when judging proposals. It's OK to be aware of downsides, but a proposal for improvement doesn't need be perfectly flawless. It only needs to be a net improvement.
I consider the widespread primitive "strike back" attitude as much more flawed than such a deterrence.
Moreover, anyone who would launch a false flag to have weapons delivered to some civil war party surely would do the same to have the errorists bombed directly, right?
DeleteThe supplying of the kurds with german weapons was a great mistake which will result in the long term in negative consequences and further destabilisation.
DeleteMost people - especially politicans - did not understand the long range effects of their doing, the side effects and what will be the result of their acts in the long term.
The alternative to supplying weapons is not to bomb the terrorists, but to change our politics here in our country, to reinstall border controlls, to prevent illegal immigration and to see this terrorist acts as what they realy are, absolut irrelevant to our society.
Me must neither bomb the terrorists nor to deliver weapons, we must change our political and social culture here in our country.
No intervention in syria / iraq for example would be much more better than all kind of bombing and weapon supplying - because the situation their is too complexe and too dynamic and we should invest our spare money therefore in very different things, for example in aggressive / offensive propaganda against the terrorists, into aggressive /offensive information warfare, cyberwarfare, border controll, and in a definitive stop of the illegale migration to europe.
That does not mean to stop helping refugees, to the opposite. But we can help them much more and much more efficient in other countries because the costs for the help there are much lower.
The war against terrorists is a war about the minds, the will, about information, a war about culture, it is not a war about weapons supply or bombing.
For example, Kurdish YPG in Syria is now in a way allied to U.S. (on Eastern front), in a way to Russia (on Western front) and in Aleppo-Sheikh Maqsoud neigborhood they fought against Syrian opposition just like Iranians/Afghani Hazaras/Pakistanis/Lebanese/Palestinians and other "Syrian" Assadist did, and hand in hand with them. - You may support YPG nationalist to deter IS in Raqqa and various national branches of PKK can use these weapons against almost anyone in Syria, Iraq or Iran in the end, or sell them through webshops like those magnanimously donated G3 rifles in Iraq (you know this story, I assume). Or they can use them even against US SF soldiers taking part in Eufrates Shield operation, if Moscow conference without American presence early this week indicates same bigger realignment. Historically, they are Assads allies in the first place. - Right, proposal shouldn`t be flawless, but if IS/Daesh in fact doesn`t planned for most attacks in Europe, because there has been only ideological/propagandistic link between IS network and mostly selfrecruited perpetrators, you really cannot deter. We need protected Sunni Arab population and moderate tribal Sunni militia hunting errorists just like in Iraq "Awakening" did, before Obama "fixed" it.
DeleteWith suspect now death, we will never know for sure what really happened.
ReplyDeleteMy German source said to me that BKA web was attacked yesterday. One DDoS attack came from ME, second apparently from Russia.