Mullen urges new methods of deterrence

[fatman17]

Mullen urges new methods of deterrence


* US military chief says development, education delegitimise terrorists’ ideology

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The US needs to develop new ways of looking at deterrence for the 21st century, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday.

During a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Admiral Mike Mullen said he wanted to take the lessons of the past in nuclear deterrence and apply them moving forward, according to the American Forces Press Service.

He said the world faced a complex and adaptive network of radical and violent ideologies that bound disparate individuals, movements, organisations and even states.

“While not all extremist groups share the same goals or ideology, they do retain sufficient autonomy to make their own strategic choices, which in my mind makes them vulnerable to some form of coercion, and perhaps even deterrence,” he added.

Mullen said Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban and al Qaeda could be deterred by the threat of retaliation in one form or another under this idea, adding that another form of deterrence may be far more effective in countering threats. He said small extremist groups or individuals could be deterred, but it would require a long-term effort and a new form
of deterrence.

“Attacking the humiliation, hopelessness, illiteracy and abject poverty, which lie at the core of the attraction to extremist thought will do more to turn the tide against terrorism than anything else,” the JCS chairman said. - where have we heard this before?

“We can continue to hunt and kill their leaders, and we will. But when a person learns to read, he enters a gateway toward independent education and thought,” Mullen continued.

Delegitimisation: He said that education, development and good governance delegitimise the terrorists’ ideology, adding, “Replacing the fear they hope to engender with the hope they fear
to encounter.”

“Now that is a deterrence of truly strategic nature,” he told the audience, adding that it was very much possible.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

About time !
'Soft Power' is nearly as important as 'Hard Power' as an instrument of statecraft.
Wonder why the American establishment scarcely articulated this POV earlier. It might have been relevant even in the Viet Nam era.

 

[Chogy]

Aid in Afghanistan of this type has been going on for a long time.

Sadly, the corruption in Afghanistan is totally ruining efforts along these lines. Supplies and materiel are stolen for black market sales. Intellectual aid (farming, sanitation, education) fall on closed ears. All the Shuras and the Provincial leaders want is $$. Hard currency. Not help.

 

[CardSharp]

Aid in Afghanistan of this type has been going on for a long time.

Sadly, the corruption in Afghanistan is totally ruining efforts along these lines. Supplies and materiel are stolen for black market sales. Intellectual aid (farming, sanitation, education) fall on closed ears. All the Shuras and the Provincial leaders want is $$. Hard currency. Not help.

I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it... and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.

-Steven Weinberg

 

[gambit]

About time !
'Soft Power' is nearly as important as 'Hard Power' as an instrument of statecraft.
Wonder why the American establishment scarcely articulated this POV earlier. It might have been relevant even in the Viet Nam era.

No...It would not. Failed understanding of the Vietnam War.