BOYD ON AL QAEDA'S GRAND STRATEGY

Col. John Boyd (he died in 1997) is considered one of America's best military thinkers. His thinking dramatically influenced the plan of attack in the first gulf war. Boyd's thinking also serves as a good basis for a deeper understanding 4GW (fourth generation warfare).

Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat.

The dynamic of Boyd's grand strategy is to isolate your enemy across three essential vectors (physical, mental, and moral), while at the same time improving your connectivity across those same vectors. Here's more detail:

• Physical isolation is accomplished by severing communications both to the outside world (ie. allies) and internal audiences (ie. between branches of command and between the command organization and its supporters).

• Mental isolation is done through the introduction of ambiguous information, novel situations, and by operating at a tempo an enemy cannot keep up with. A lack of solid information impedes decision making.

• Moral isolation is achieved when an enemy improves its well being at the expense of others (allies) or violates rules of behavior they profess to uphold (standards of conduct). Moral rules are a very important reference point in times of uncertainty. When these are violated, it is very hard to recover.

Our progress so far
When we evaluate our progress in the war on terrorism based on Boyd's measures of isolation, the following is seen:

• Physical isolation. America has been physically isolated from many of its allies due to its rush to war in Iraq. It also has demonstated (via the slow process by which news of Abu Ghraib reached the President and Congress) that internal communications have been disrupted. The destruction of al Qaeda's training camps and visible communications systems have resulted in a degree of isolation. However, the network-based organizational structure of al Qaeda and its ability to manipulate the media to send messages to supporters has mitigated this effort.

• Mental isolation. The rapid emergence of new threats (al Sadr, al Zarqawi, and Fallujah) and the myriad of geographically dispersed attacks that require response (from Spain to Saudi Arabia -- from Basra to Mosel) have served to isolate the US on the mental plane. It is also very difficult, due to ambiguity of information, to determine who the enemy is (this is true in Iraq and across the world from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia). The bulk of the early effort to continuously attack al Qaeda has subsided as the US concentrates on Iraq -- our early gains have been squandered.

• Moral isolation. The excesses at the Abu Ghraib prison demonstrate a classic violation of moral codes of conduct. The evidence indicates that the US intentionally (in that there was a climate of urgency that permitted it) violated these rules due to desire to gain information needed to fight guerrilla groups in Iraq. Another example of moral isolation is America's insistance on the right to self-defense, at the expense of the rest of the world. There has not been any evidence that al Qaeda sponsored operations have drastically violated any internal moral codes. However, the proliferation of groups associated with al Qaeda have resulted in attacks (for example: attacks on Shiites in Pakistan and Iraq that are against al Qaeda policy) may serve to isolate al Qaeda if their actions are adopted by the main organization.

A vision statement for this conflict
From this analysis it is clear that the US is, as the result of this war, more isolated than our enemy. However, Boyd suggests that the best corrective action is for the US to articulate a grand unifying vision for this war. A "with us or against us" approach and unilateral military action is not productive (it drives isolation). A better vision statement (we should have a contest for this):

The United States will commit all of the resources at its disposal to help nations everywhere preserve those values that we all hold as vital to our future success."

Comments

[Bruce]

there is not war on terrorism. Just a criminal grab for resources. I know it's your specialty, but war is NOT the answer.

[John Robb]

I think you are confusing the war in Iraq with a war on terrorism. By almost every indicator of success in the war on terrorism shows that Iraq is helping the terrorists more than it is helping the US.

[Bruce]

Personally, I don't. The culture at large, guided by the administration, however does. But to look at the larger picture, it is an enterprise to use force (war, and it's concomitant suspension of law, i.e. to operate extra-judiciously) to bend the rest of the world to U.S. will. This, in my view, is detestable. It IS terrorism. You can't do it and fight it. There is no logic to stand on there, and no moral standing either. You could say Iraq is a microcosm of the larger exercise in global tyranny.

[Patrick]

"America has been physically isolated from many of its allies due to its rush to war in Iraq."

Simple refutation: Is there a single act our 'allies' would help us with were it not for Iraq war? There are none. Many 'allies' were covering their own interests wrt Oil-for-Corruption contracts with Saddam.

" It also has demonstated (via the slow process by which news of Abu Ghraib reached the President and Congress)"

Bizarre comment, inasmuch as internal investigations were started as soon as it came to light in January 2004, three months before it became public. There is no indication this internal DoD matter moved any slower than it ought to have. It's also questionable Congressional oversight has added anything of value here, it's merely added some grandstanding.

" that internal communications have been disrupted."

Ahem, both in the Pakistan front, where we took out dozens, if not hundreds of Al Qaeda operatives this year in conjunction with Pakistan Govt, and in Iraq, where we are operating with the Iraqi authorities closely, we've had excellent and rapid
Example: From humint to predator to attack - can happen in a matter of hours. It's how we took out Zarqawi terrorist cleric al-Shami last week. Other examples abound.

" The destruction of al Qaeda's training camps and visible communications systems have resulted in a degree of isolation."

What an understatement! Not just training camps, but majority of the leadership, an entire state-sponsored safe haven, and this summer, the AQ communications expert, and his hard disks with treasure trove of AQ data.

" However, the network-based organizational structure of al Qaeda and its ability to manipulate the media to send messages to supporters has mitigated this effort."

True, but then we need to consider some media - like Al Jazeera - as not merely tools but WILLING PARTNERS of the terrorist networks. Al Jazeera routinely showed up at the 'crash sites' of terrorist attacks in Iraq, far too often for it to be a coincidence. They boradcast the AQ messages, some perhaps with hidden meaning for the networked AQ 'affiliates' globally. And they use their ideological/religious viewpoint to keep Jihadist ideology alive in the mid-east. They are acting as the press office for al qaeda and the global Jihadist front.

Terrorism is NOTHING without the media.
When media is part and parcel of it.

JMHO.

[Patrick]

"However, Boyd suggests that the best corrective action is for the US to articulate a grand unifying vision for this war."

First, what's wrong with the vision that President Bush outlined in September 2001?

"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. "
- President Bush, September 20, 2001

Perhaps because the word "Islamic extremist Jihadist" terrorists is not in the label?

The 'vision' you cite is one that, if uttered by a 'neo-con' would instantly vilified as an
example of American imperialist over-reach:
"all of the resources at its disposal" - including military? ... "to help nations everywhere preserve those values that we all hold as vital" -- what values? democracy and freedom? what specifically are our core values? capitalism? baseball? ... Is this not a 'go everywhere, do everything' to remake the world in our image?

The problem with that is that it is unconnected to our own security.
It is more useful to talk of joining our interests and our ideals in the statement. This is the neo-Wilsonian view that Blair and Bush both have put on the GWOT ... As Bush said in May 2004:

" We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul, a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free rein. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology, pursued with consuming zeal, and without conscience."

Note that Bush (correctly IMHO) labels the ULTIMATE THREAT AS A POLITICAL IDEOLOGY. Not a religion. (Good, last thing we need is to fall into 'holy war' trap.) Not a tactic (ie car bombs). But a political ideology, one that has evolved as a violent, reactionary response to modernism, western democratic values, and freedom. So, obviously, the vision is one of POLITICAL DEFEAT for our foes, and SUCCESSFUL ADOPTION of our values in the Muslim world:

"Our actions, too, are guided by a vision. We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East, as it has advanced and changed lives in Asia, and Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and Africa. We believe it is a tragedy of history that in the Middle East -- which gave the world great gifts of law and science and faith -- so many have been held back by lawless tyranny and fanaticism. We believe that when all Middle Eastern peoples are finally allowed to live and think and work and worship as free men and women, they will reclaim the greatness of their own heritage. And when that day comes, the bitterness and burning hatreds that feed terrorism will fade and die away. America and all the world will be safer when hope has returned to the Middle East. "

This is more complex and specific than the broader vision you cite. But the narrowing also makes the connection to our national security explicit. We want the mideast to be democratic not just because we want their lives improved and freedom expanded, but because we don't want them training the next generation to hate and kill us for the sake of a sick ideology.

This victory-through-democratization approach lines up with broader security assessments that consider most threats, even beyond GWOT-related, as coming from 'failed states'. Democracy and freedom is the best and only long-term path to get states out of the 'failed state' trap.

[Patrick]

"The evidence indicates that the US intentionally (in that there was a climate of urgency that permitted it) violated these rules due to desire to gain information needed to fight guerrilla groups in Iraq."

Actually, the evidence indicates the opposite. The violations at Abu Graib specifically were not within any bounds of policy at any time, they were on subjects/prisoners who were not even subject to interrogation, they were done by MPs who were not interrogators. The Schlesigner report clarified that - in some ways it makes the actions more senseless, but fault was in bad apples and poor oversight/training/staffing, not in interrogation policies.

Quote from CNN story on it:
"In most cases, the abuse was not carried out with the purpose of achieving intelligence from prisoners, he said. "There were freelance activities on the part of the nightshift at Abu Ghraib," he said."

In the bigger scheme of things, you have to compare the context and response in the bigger scheme of things. In response to violation of standards, the US military is punishing its own soldiers, punished well before a single henchmen under Saddam is tried and convicted of vastly more horrific tortures and murders, committed against hundreds of thousands (indeed the whole nation of 25 million) over 20 years. The killing fields have been unearthed, but few in the Arab world have expressed outrage or remorse that a man like Saddam wasnt condemned sooner or more forcefully. And why would they? similar Governments in Syria, Libya, Iran, etc. hang on to power.

The real assymmetry in this war is the asymmetry in moral outrage. Turkish, Egyptian, and Iraqis are beheaded by terrorists in Iraq - Muslims all - and yet the Arab world cant find the heart to roundly condemn this in no uncertain terms, as they would if these Muslim victims happened to be Hamas leaders struck by the IDF. The US is holding itself

Yet what standard is the Muslim world held to? The extremist Muslim clerics in the Arab world haven't yet figured out if it is acceptable to murder civilian Nepalese cooks or not. Some of the terrorist-friendly
while the Shia Hawza (Al Sistanis)
has condemned all the terrorist acts against civilians, whatever the religion and nationality of the victims.

Peaceable Iraqis are supportive and appreciative of the coalition effort and are aghast at the terrorist tactics. Iraqi Govt/Allawi support was polled at around 61% in August. When American contractors were kidnapped, one said:
"A neighbor, who identified herself only as Um Ibrahim, said ... "These are kind people who have come to rebuild Iraq," she added. "Why did this happen to them?" "

Or the report 2 weeks back in Najaf:
"ABOUT 1000 protesters marched through Najaf's old quarter today to demand that Moqtada Sadr and his aides leave this holy city ravaged by fighting between the radical cleric's followers and US and Iraqi troops."

Army Col. Michael Linnington, who commanded a 101st Airborne Division brigade in Iraq ... "In all of these interactions I had, 99 percent of the Iraqis I met with were happy for American presence, concerned with improving the quality of life for their citizens, and dedicated to the future prosperity of their country."

Within Iraq, the 'silent majority' oppose terrorism and outlaw militias, and are highly supportive of Iraqi Government and security forces defeating terrorists. And over 75% strongly want democracy to work. This dynamic played out for example in Najaf, where the locals deeply resented al-Sadr's Mahdi army and his abuses (eg his secret court where many were murdered).

Al-Arabiya GM Al-Rashed comments on the Russian seige and murder of innocents: “Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims,” he wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless “we admit the scandalous facts,” rather than offer condemnations or justifications. “The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us,” al-Rashed wrote.

So the battle is joined in Arab and Muslim culture, between moderation and extremism. Most of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Govt are condemning the terrorist acts; many in the Arab world are joining them. The United States effort to build democracy in Iraq is forcing the Muslim and Arab world to face the consequences of their own culture.

[prodigalsunn]

Americans are the most dim witted people of which (george w-hat the f is going on Bush) is the opitomy. Really I have no clue how you became the worlds only superpower????.

I really feel sorry for your country, at the same time anger and scorn for your government.

firstly who gives america the f right to tell the world how to live hey, you fuck-wits had segregation abolished only 50-60 years ago.

how the fuck can you talk about democracy and freedom when your fucken faggot society still implements the death penalty and actually allows familys of victims to watch it, hahahahaha is this a joke someone call zarqawi this is right up his ally.

also your constitution allows everyone to carry a gun please sign me up for this taliban style democracy.

your country is a whore who will suck anyones dick for money and oil, and you need to get your head out of your asses if you think that you speak for democracy and the west.

Also you faggots are the only country to have used atomic weapons not on military but innocent civillian towns, why becuase you are pussies who cant fight there enemies on the ground and don`t give me this fucken bulshit about respect for american life you are plan and simply fucken pussies, oh and when you tried to fight on the ground in vietnam and saw how shit your military was and still is you ran away like the cowards you really are.

where the fuck do you get off telling the world how to act and behave when it`s you fucken counrty that has caused 99% of the worlds trouble after the cold war, buy the way of wich bin ladden and his cronies you know by know are a product of somthing you created so im glad that it has come back to bite you.

america is a fucken joke and belive it or not 90 percent of the worlds population hates you and your fucken country, what because some of the western governments actually sucked bushs dick and followed that retard into war, that the people of that country like you, think again buddy, you and your little bitch israel are the worlds two most hated and isolated countries on the face of the earth, just so you know im not a muslim and i live in the west and im not anti semetic i just hate dievant countries and yours along with israel and saudi arabia are the real axis of evil.

so fuck all you fucken faggots you may be a superpower because of your wealth, wich is due to foriegners who actually bought into you american dream fucken bulshit and inncidently became american slaves for your imperilist agenda, oh wait you listen to the u.n hahahah you cant be imperialist.

Fuck even then you ignored the world and now you have the fucken nerve to actually come crawling back to the united nations when once again your pussy aramy can`t finish the job and ask for help - get fucked ( please note: this is no way a slur on the men and women who have died in the war but when you sign up to learn how to murder the saying applies you live buy the sword you die buy the sword).

Now i laugh because the enemy you have made is not that of a state a group or even and ideology, it is of a religion, what are you going to do, try and convice the people of that religion that they should listen to america istead of alla (who is there god), ha america is doomed just like the great empires that came before it.

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

Patrick: "Actually, the evidence indicates the opposite. The violations at Abu Graib specifically were not within any bounds of policy at any time, they were on subjects/prisoners who were not even subject to interrogation, they were done by MPs who were not interrogators."

You are going to have a hard time convincing many people of that:

Specialist Armin J. Cruz, who was convicted of such abuse, was not an MP - he worked for Military Intelligence.

The "hooding" technique is a standard military interrogation and psychological torture practice taught by the US Military to foreign military students at places like the former School of the Americas, and was used by the UK military in Northern Ireland.

[Rof]

Certainly agree with Bruce.

War against terror is a contradiction in terms.
War is terror= terror against terror.

The poem by ***** fits well in such a context:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The title and rest of the poem you will need to find for yourself

[WBYeats]

The poem is called The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.

It's a compelling set of images -- we seek something we can be part of and despair when we are left on our own. Hamlet's "To be[long] or not to be[long]" is the same idea. That's why Bin Laden's war is a war over who belongs to whom, or who is represented by what.

Thus his targeting of icons and anything else we identify with -- through his cooptation of the spectacle, a core element of western (including Islamic) culture.

To those who listen for branches snapping:

Transcript of bin Ladin's speech

Al-Jazeera 30/10/04

Following is the English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape aired by Aljazeera on Friday 29 October. In the interests of authenticity the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.

To begin: Peace be upon he who follow the Guidance.

People of United States, this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar in human life and that free men do not forfeit their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain why did not strike - for example - Sweden.

And we know that freedom haters do not possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who do not sleep under oppression.

We want to restore freedom to our Nation and just as you lay waste to our Nation so shall we lay waste to yours.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real cause and thus the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and I shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken for you to consider.

I say to you Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike towers.

But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the America/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a difficult way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American 6th fleet helped them in that.

And the whole world saw and heard but did not respond.

In those difficult moments many hard to describe ideas bubbled in my soul but in the end they produced intense feelings of rejection of tyranny and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressors in kind and that we destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

We have not found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half of which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth.

This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Senior to the region at a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries. All of a sudden he was affected by these monarchies and military regimes and became jealous of their remaining decades in their position to embezzle the public wealth of the Nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act under the pretences of fighting terrorism.

In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors and did not forget to import expertise in election fraud from the regions presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration.

And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the Commander in Chief of the armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone at a time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers we were given three times the period required to execute the operations. All praise is due to Allah.

Aljazeera

[boydboid]

I think you've mistakenly applied Boyd's thinking here. On the whole, OBL et. al. really haven't done a good job converting people to their insurgency in terms of their major objectives (overthrow of Middle Eastern countries, isolation of Israel, destruction of the USA). In the USA, SUVs and Krispy Kreme donuts kill more Americans in a month than Al-Qaeda has in four years.

Turning your argument on its head, Al-Qaeda's problem is that it can't make up its mind quickly, let alone soundly, as required by Boyd's strategy. Their observation and orientation are fundamentally flawed leading to flawed decisions and actions.

Whereas, the U.S. military (an organization that knowns a lot about Boyd and maneuver warfare) has shown considerable brilliance in their rapid dispatch of the Taliban and Saddam's regime. The part of the Boyd equation the USA is missing is the speedy correction of the faults/defecits of the regimes they overthrow: see alligators, swamps, the draining thereof. Were they to more rapidly rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan there'd be less cause for the potential insurgents to be violent and even less reason for any locals to offer them support.

[John Robb]

Boyd was a fan of Belisarius because he was able to win bloodless victories. Killing people isn't the objective, pscyhological victory is. Al Qaeda began its campaign using classic terrorism, with which it failed to achieve a decisive psychological victory. However, it did have an impact (as I mention above in my brief). The insurgency has since adapted its techniques to a more potent form of warfare. Its decision loops extremely fast.

[boydboid]

No, I don't agree. Latest action (11/9/04) in Fallujah shows that even with a lot of advance warning, the insurgency got bottled up, and then they were throttled.

Per the brief above, it's farcial to claim that an insurgency or a terrorist group, based in the planetary boondocks, with little ability to use so much as a cell phone, and with plenty of criticism leveled at them from their co-religionists is less isolated than a country with the world's largest economy, extremely dense networks of economic, political, and non-governmental cooperation at every scale of human organization.

Can't see the new and improved potency argument either.

Likewise I can't see the insurgency has extremely fast loops argument. It took an intact Al-Qaeda years to plan 9/11. The U.S. rousted the Taliban and sent Al-Qaeda scrambling with a few weeks of planning. Frankly, 9-11 showed how stupid Al-Qaeda was, they thought they could hit these targets and getting nothing more than some measured and proportional retaliation. Ha! Who's the shocked one now?

[Tim Keller]

If you want evidence of American isolation, take a look at the latest Nelson Report. Word from the inside is that President Bush has a policy of denying access to those who bring bad news from Iraq, he only wants to hear about school openings & whatnot. He's literally isolating himself.

Tim

[matthew]

patrick says terrorism is nothing with out the media..if i blew up ur moms house wouldnt that still be sum thing to ur family even if wave 3 news diddent have live coverage..

[Mark Hord]

One of the above posts mentioned Fallujah as an example of how the US is really winning but I think that argument totally ignores several key concepts in asymetric warfare.

First, the tactic of providing a false facade - who is to say that was not the tactic in Fallujah? No sooner had we "won" in Fallujah than there were uprisings elsewhere. And, with every day the resistance seems to become stronger and more sophisticated in their attacks. Fallujah gave the insurgents political ammunition in that it discredited the US claims as peace-makers - "we must destroy the city in order to save it."

Second, the US cannot define what "winning" is. The only measure that seems to matter is body count. But enemy body count really only proves how committed your enemy is to his cause - he is committed enough to die for that cause. And, from Fallujah we should come to the conclusion that a whole lot of them were willing to die for their cause. And that is no indicator of success for the US.

Third, even if body counts were an indicator, it tells us nothing about how many escaped the city in order to recruit and fight again. While, in the process leaving behind a lot of disabled and dead American soldiers.

Fourth, the stakes. The enemy has far more to lose than the US. The US can always pack up and go home and spin it as a political success. The insurgents have nothing to gain stopping their attacks. The advantage in the will to fight is much stronger with them while an increasing number on our side wonder what we are fighting for in Iraq. It may be obvious to some what the war is about but to a great many it is not. The US has lost its moral edge in that respect and no amount of technology or firepower can overcome a moral deficit.

There seems to be little clear exit strategy and there seems to be little in the way of being able to measure what winning looks like. Saying we want to end all terrorism in the world by war is tantamount to saying we want to end murder by killing. It is an impossible goal with questionable means that forfeit the moral highground we cannot afford to lose.