Conceptual Territories of War on Terror

By Brig (Retd) Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan, PhD

Pakistan

“The Romans are sure of victory, knowing well that they have to do with men who are not
their equals. And they can not, as we must allow, deceive themselves; for their exercises
are battles without bloodshed and their battles bloody exercisesi.”----Josephus

The mortal world is threatened by terror. War on terrorism has emerged as a trite phrase
of 21st Century that is applied so often with such variations that it forced some scholars to
conduct its autopsy but of course with little success. Some even question whether an
enemy that does not have any border, a regular system of forces, constitutional order and
legitimacy among the comity of nations deserves to be declared a war against because the
declaration of war brings some concomitant rights to them under Geneva Convention.
The organizations that dot the headlines on major electronic media channels quite often
are al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban, mainly represented by TTP (Tehrik-
e-Taliban Pakistan) though there are some more cooperating splinter groups which are
pursuing parallel agenda. They manipulate advantage of terrain, merge with local
populace to seek shielding effect, fling religious appeals, operate latest technologies,
weapons procured from black market and connectivity means---thanks to rapid
globalization of scientific advances, engineered by the powers that are boomeranging on
them after terrorist lay hands on these for war waging purposes.

The obtaining conundrum of violence that

simmers on my country’s borders and
Afghanistan nearby engulfed this arena
since 1979 in two phases. The Soviets
executed the first phase, which captured
Afghanistan and relinquished it when
Mikhael Gorbachev advocated his policy of
‘perestroika’ and ‘glasnost’. The West
claims, Soviets were made to withdraw from
Afghanistan when Russia saw USSR geo-
strategic phantasmagoriaii becoming
inevitable. As if it was not enough, US
moved into the trap it had laid for the
Source:www.casr.ca/ft-strikes-inside-pakistan

Soviets despite warnings, even from a Russian general, of her impending drift into ‘quick
sand desert.’ For the West, as a preemption strategy in the wake of 9/11 catastrophe, this
move was essential, as once ‘holy warriors’ had now turned their guns on US and its
allies. The tug of war goes on. Market states of consent led by US and UK are sweating,
bleeding and attempting to eliminate terror. As a consequence there is instability in
Pakistani border with Afghanistan that hoards aliens including Arabs, Central Asians and

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Afghan Taliban who are perceived to be using it as a staging area for attacks on US and
coalition targets which fall in “the global zone of percolating violenceiii”.

Since US attack on Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, had the endorsement of UN, Taliban in
Afghanistan find vigorous multinational opposing forces through relief in line operation
with far superior technology and battle field arsenal. In five Central Asian Republics that
emerged out of former USSR, insurgency simmers with varying intensity that also spills
over to Caucasus as well as to Chinese province of Xingjian, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Recent killing of several hundred Uighars by Chinese troops reinforces the belief that she
is inclined to treat them with zero tolerance. Uighars are long seeking independence from
the mainland China.

Central Eurasia is also witnessing some of the worst competition to bag Caspian region
black gold bonanza worth over 3-4 trillion dollars. All Central Asian-Caucasus pipelines,
earlier destined through Russia are switching the orientation. The West claims that it
would allow the world to benefit when no single power would have monopoly over them.
The construction of Baku-Tbillisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and South Caucasus (gas) Pipeline
has virtually shifted entire recoverable oil and gas flow from North (Russia) to the West
through Turkey. Russia is bewildered, whether to call it diversifying energy routes or
monopoly has been substituted by intriguing ‘diversity’. US securing of operational bases
in Uzbekistan and now in Kyrgyzstan, Russian presence through out the former Soviet
Union space as politico-military compulsion and India achieving wedge and flexing
muscle from its base in Tajikistan with Chinese nuclear installations at Lop Nor in
Xingjian at stone throw distance certainly speak for the New Great Game that is
undeniably shaking the fragile fiber of peace in perilous ways. Dr. Makni is of the
opinion, “Quite relevant to US future role as the sole super power versus others, the
projected print also becomes vivid for the geo-strategists. With greater degree of alacrity,
Zbigniew Brzezinski has made focus on Central Eurasia but not without plausible
criticism by others. He labeled Eurasia as the chief geo-political prize for America.
Though he largely draws from Mac kinder, Mahan and Henry Kissinger, his assertions
are direct and free of expedienciesiv.” Merely by such scheme of the things, Pakistan-
Afghanistan-China-Central Asian territorial confluence at FATAv/Wakhan corridor makes
it a geo-strategic pie to take a bite from, safeguarding or abetting respective national
interests in the light of Richelieu’s model(….national interests as its ultimate purposevi). It
thus encourages some analysts to conclude that there is more to the theory offered by
likes of Phillip Bobbitt that war on terror, irrespective of any ideology, race or civilization
consideration, is struggle between the terrorists or the market states of terror and the
market states of consent at the dawn of new millennium.

A cursory look at the Crescent of Instability that stretches from Andean region of Latin
America across Sub Saharan Africa, Near East, Caspian, Caucasus, Central Asia and
beyond to northern South Asia enables extrapolative deductions. “Unless employment
conditions change dramatically, youths in weak states will continue to go elsewhere---
externalizing volatility and violence.vii” The challenge market states of consent face are
not only colossal but most complicated as well because it has no dimensions of classical
warfare. Terror has no territory, appreciable battle field, tangible stocks of supplies,

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logistic life lines, a prince, king or a general to negotiate, sign treaties or surrender
instrument. It infects global societies, scores hits at will where ever the counter terror
mechanism is found ambivalent or slack. “In twenty first century, terrorism presents a
different face. It is global, not national; it is decentralized and networked in its operation
like a mutant nongovernmental organization (NGO) or a multinational corporationviii….”

While war on terror rages in relatively well defined arenas in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
thrust or center of gravity of conflict is shifting to the latter that appears all set to push the
blazing fires to Pakistan. Pakistan Army’s valorous performance has logically shattered
the terrorists’ arrogance to fight with impunity though Army had immense reservoir of
patience to treat them as misled sons of soil. Recent offensive against the militants in
FATA, Malakand and Swat areas has assured the nation and its allies that militants can be
defeated if not wiped out in a single blow. The upper hand gained by Pakistan Army is
naturally a stop gap measure where as civil government has to launch strategies to
explore lasting solution through initiation of political dialogue ultimately. Unfortunately,
presence of a Metternich or Castlereagh to tackle complex situation in Pakistan would
remain our fond dream because the country did not have any leader of the caliber akin to
its founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Gloating over the recent killing of the most dreaded
TTP leader, Baitullah Masud and cross fire murder of some of his first tier leaders in
‘succession’ dispute, Pakistani Minister for Interior made loud but erroneous claimix
beyond permissible level of optimism to have broken the back bone of terrorists. Not
only the nominated successors have survived but they have managed smooth transition of
TTP leadership with no less a brutal successor. Killing of an al Qaeda or Taliban leader
may create a wave of transient optimism but it would remain a tactical if not petty gain.
Strategically, their organizational capability to plug the vacuum is hard to dent.

The bad news is that the challenge (terrorism) war-gamed by credible agencies proves
that at the world level it would survive, albeit with partial losses after gigantic counter
war on terrorism. In my reckoning, I am not prepared to grant even the partial losses
because the size of reservoir, terrorism draws strength from, is contingent upon the
performance of the states where the ‘youth bulge’ would occur. To name a few,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria and Ethiopia are prominent. “….All will retain
age structure with large proportions of young adults, a demographic feature that is
associated with the emergence of political violence and civil conflictx”. Unfortunately
those states generally are faced with menace of ‘collapse’. In other words the Crescent or
Arc of Instability that is likely to see maximum youth bulge is least developed with
rampant poverty, hunger, corruption and injustice. On the other hand most of the
developed countries on the periphery or in proximity to the areas of instability are set to
face the phenomena of diminishing as well as aged population. In an otherwise ideally
peaceful and stable global environment, the developing countries with pronounced ‘youth
bulges’ had chance of the century to trade off their dripping miseries with human
workforce-deficient developed countries. However, the prospects hit rock when terror is
all set to snatch the same youth bulges to deploy them as explosive missiles. Yet another
hypothesis that terrorists are likely to gain capability in NBCW (nuclear, biological and
chemical warfare), the scenario emerges even more deadly and horrendous.

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War on terror is already being labeled by some analyst as an inevitable clash of
civilizations, attributing ‘terrorism’ to a particular ideology and plethora of self serving
objectives. Perhaps none is true but irony of fate is that it would heighten geopolitical
tension among emerging market states of consent to the extent that fall out is likely to
weaken Euro-Atlantic alliances, causing impetus to the energizing of the regional
alliances in Central Eurasia, the region that is skirted around by Russia, China, Turkey,
Iran and Pakistan when three of them are nuclear powers of different gradations. Yet
more tragically, ongoing war on terrorism in predominantly Muslim countries is fast
introducing an element of polarization that affords an opportunity to 21st Century
‘Goebbels’ to paint it as Christianity’s onslaught on Islam; which perhaps has little truth
in it. Western societies are remarkably open and are eager to listen to Muslims if we
presented lustrous example of the lustrous religion through our deeds. It is this character
of their openness that those societies, likely to make recourse to some religion through
self-inspiration have embraced Islam by dozens despite our recent image set back. These
conversions were generally their solo effort without help of any suitable demonstrator for
Islam. Had there been one, the acceptance and understanding about Islam would have
been manifold.

The war aim of US and UK is to create an environment of opportunities for the societies
lagging behind unlike nation states perceiving obligations to their welfare. Their war
objectives are to protect them from ‘terror’ of any kind, deny terrorist access to NBCW
and capture of any nation state to turn it into market state of terror that brutalizes their
own societies as well as their foes. The crux of the debate is that non-state actors of terror
would emerge clear winner if they manage to push a wedge among the societies as well
as among the states of consent that would have made otherwise a unified stand against
them. Phillip Bobbitt is of the opinion that, “The outcome of these wars will determine
whether the constitutional order---the market states---will be composed of the states of
consent or the states of terrorxi.” The preceding discussion is based on certain constants.
The success or defeat would be extensively ridden by several corollary factors, not
adequately addressed so far. US need to address causes of rampant anti-Americanism that
had been exacerbating with passing of each day. Dawn of Mr. Barrack Obama era is
silver lining on the dark cloud but he has inherited tremendous baggage to clear.
Countries that are the favorite resorts of the ‘terror’ unfortunately are the one which have
been graded as possible ‘state collapse’ cases. There appears a natural tendency to deny
those studies but prudence demands that their warning be used as a spring board to
commence tackling internal fault lines. What is haunting those societies is not the threat
of terrorists alone but poverty, hunger, lawlessness, injustice, corruption, nepotism and
barring an odd one, dysfunctional government institutions. Interestingly Pakistan has a
major share to ponder as hard as the other states need heeding to. Absolute clarity on
these issues thus emerging would prove who are really the Romans?
(makni49@hotmail.com)

(First appeared at www.presscode.gr on 26 August 2009)

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i
. Lynn Montross, “War Through The Ages”, (Harper & Row Publishers, New York, Evanston and London, 1960), p.43
ii

. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chess Board: American Primacy and its Geo-strategic Imperatives”, (Basic Books,
1997), p.96
iii

. ibid, p. 53
iv

. Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi(DR.makni), Brig(Retd)/Dr, “ The New Great Game: Oil and Gas Politics in Central
Eurasia”, (Raider Publishing International, New York, Swansea and London-2008), p.128
v

. FATA stands for ‘Federally Administered Tribal Areas’.

vi

. Henry Kissinger, “Diplomacy”, (Simon & Schuster : London, Sydney, New York, Tokyo, Toronto-1995), p. 17
vii

. Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World; US National Intelligence Council Report-2008 (accessed at
www.dni.gov/NIC_2025_project.html)
viii

. Phillip Bobbitt, “Terror and Consent: The War For the Twenty First Century”, (Penguin Books-2008)-p.84
ix

. The News International, 23 August 2009, p.8

x

. NIC Report, op cit, p.22

xi

. Bobbitt, op cit, p.95