As I look at the problems in the world I can see that we are struggling to win the war against guerrilla militia, simply because you don’t know who your enemy is and who your friend. I think we need a whole new strategy against these terror groups.

Fighting face to face is a rare sight in the wars the west faces these days, so brute force isn’t the only option for governments any more. To be successful in the present and future wars we face we need to know who our enemy is and why they hate us, or want to fight us.

When I look at, for example, extreme islamists groups, such as the Taliban or Al Qaeda, we can not win by just taking over a country and hunt them all down (which I would call the ‘Bush’ approach).

Nope, we only can ‘win’ by disturbing their organization. Like every other organization a terrorist group needs firstly money, revenue so to speak. The terrorists groups in Afghanistan get their revenue from the production of drugs crops. Furthermore, an organization needs an infrastructure of communication and logistics. Probably the most important asset a terrorist organization needs is people. Without the willingness of people to blow themselves up, you can’t really be taken serious as a terrorist group. Last but not least is the support of the local people. Without this support guerrilla warfare gets a lot more difficult for terrorists.

Now we know what a terrorist organization needs to survive, we can disfunctionize the whole organization.

Firstly, we need to cut their income by giving the local people an alternative for the drugs production, finding and destroying drug storage places and identifying the corrupt people who support their cause by donating money.

Next, closing down or controlling the borders and important roads will disrupt supplies of weapons, bomb making material and drugs. Also infiltrating the communication networks of the organization (such like what happened in Colombia with FARC) will further disrupt the organization. Here we are dividing the organization in smaller cells, which we can wipe out one by one (divide & conquer) while maintaining the communication advantage over the organization.

The last, but most difficult, thing we need to do is to get the vote of the people. This can be achieved by investing in the people of Afghanistan. Providing them with a better life (in the near future) will provide us with the support we need to stop the success of the organization. By doing this you can disrupt the recruiting flow of people and the support for the organization. This makes it very difficult for extremists do gain more ground.

Tags: divide & conquer, Fighting against guerrilla militia, guerrilla, military strategy, new warfare, organization, terrorists, View on Politics