As I mentioned below, the “What would ISIS not want us to do?” is not a good heuristic, because by asking it you implicitly accept their world view. I’m reminded of a (probably apocryphal quote from a WWII general), something like “Every Japanese soldier you encounter believes it is his duty to die for his country, your duty is to assist him in the performance of his duty in whatever way is most practical.”
The Mongol Calvary under the command of Genghis Khan unexpectedly runs away. The enemy can’t figure out why but doesn’t worry about the Mongol’s motivation and starts pursuing . An hour later, at a spot carefully prepared last night, the Mongol cavalry turns around and catches the enemy on ground that maximizes the Mongol advantage over its enemy.
Their fundamental mistake wasn’t pursuing; that was merely a symptom. Their fundamental mistake is that they either had no plan of their own, or abandoned that plan. Because had they not pursued, the Mongols would have harried them with regular raiding skirmishes, a tactic they excelled at.
Pursuing-or-not-pursuing is playing the game according to the rules your opponent has set. Your first act should always be to change the rules.
If the Mongols are running away in panic you should pursue since pursuers normally have a big advantage, if they are running away as part of planned strategy you should not.
What you should or should not do is better determined by whether or not it helps win the war than whether it helps win a battle. If pursuing causes your unit to leave the territory you should have been defending, the mere accident of another of their units stumbling across the undefended territory could lose you the war, without any planned strategy on their part.
It is insufficient to know their plans. You have to know your own.
I used the statement “What would ISIS not want us to do?” for rhetorical force, the actual heuristic I emphasized was to figure out our actual goals and then the best means of achieving them.
As I mentioned below, the “What would ISIS not want us to do?” is not a good heuristic, because by asking it you implicitly accept their world view.
For better or worse Gleb doesn’t go into the ISIS worldview about the importance of Muslims immigrating to the caliphate and Western armies coming to fight ISIS in Dabiq.
As I mentioned below, the “What would ISIS not want us to do?” is not a good heuristic, because by asking it you implicitly accept their world view.
I think part of the problem here is that it is difficult to discern how rational ISIS is as an organization. It is some combination of militia group; millennialist cult; and breakaway state. (It’s interesting that it has changed its name a couple times.) As best I can tell, the overall game plan of ISIS is—generally speaking—to follow in the footsteps of the most fundamental religious doctrine it can, and have faith that this will result in their eventual success. Under such circumstances, I don’t think it’s very useful to “avoid playing into ISIS’s hands.”
This may be a more useful consideration if the enemy was some kind of James Bond super-villain who was carefully scheming at every stage. Even then, you never know if the other fellow really wants something or if he is only pretending to as some kind of ruse or feint.
The problem is that their game plan is likely to be something more or less along the lines of, “Start a war between Islam and the rest of the world. Since our religion basically teaches that we are inevitably going to conquer the world by force, we will be guaranteed victory in such a war.”
The religion is false, so they would not win such a war. But it would be an extremely bad thing if it happened at all, regardless of whether they win. So playing into their hands is probably not a good idea anyway, even though they are wrong.
“Start a war between Islam and the rest of the world. Since our religion basically teaches that we are inevitably going to conquer the world by force, we will be guaranteed victory in such a war.”
I agree with this to a large extent.
But it would be an extremely bad thing if it happened at all, regardless of whether they win. So playing into their hands is probably not a good idea anyway, even though they are wrong.
Assuming that’s true, it’s still not like the situation where your adversary is an evil genius so that doing what he wants you to do is likely to be helping him succeed in his evil goals. In this situation, it’s not worth it to put much stock in whether the West is playing into Isis’ hands.
But it would be an extremely bad thing if it happened at all, regardless of whether they win.
It depends how far they get in their war, it seems to me.
ISIS (or any enemy, for that matter) doesn’t need to be led by evil geniuses in order to know how to set a trap for the West to fall into. With 9/11, Al Qaeda set a perfect trap for the U.S. to be blinded by pain and rage (having the simpleminded W. in office certainly helped) and, as a result, the U.S. engaged in what from the White House looked like a righteous campaign for the liberation of oppressed masses, but to those masses looked like a meddlesome intrusion into their already complicated lives. In this case (in every case, actually), I think it’s absolutely essential to consider what our enemies are counting on us to do.
ISIS (or any enemy, for that matter) doesn’t need to be led by evil geniuses in order to know how to set a trap for the West to fall into
No, but it would (edit: arguably) help quite a lot.
With 9/11, Al Qaeda set a perfect trap for the U.S. to be blinded by pain and rage (having the simpleminded W. in office certainly helped) and, as a result, the U.S. engaged in what from the White House looked like a righteous campaign for the liberation of oppressed masses, but to those masses looked like a meddlesome intrusion into their already complicated lives. In this case (in every case, actually),
What is the evidence that Al Qaeda’s intention with the 9/11 attacks was to goad the United States into invading Afghanistan and later Iraq?
The text in question is allegedly called “Al Qaeda’s Strategy until Year 2020.” My search met a dead end at the website of the newspaper Al Quds al Arabi. I don’t read Arabic, and that newspaper doesn’t show digital archives for 2005, which was the date when Makkawi’s writings were first made available to the general public. Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan wrote a book on the subject, but Google Books doesn’t give a complete view of it.
The text in question is allegedly called “Al Qaeda’s Strategy until Year 2020.” My search met a dead end at the website of the newspaper Al Quds al Arabi. I don’t read Arabic, and that newspaper doesn’t show digital archives for 2005, which was the date when Makkawi’s writings were first made available to the general public. Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan wrote a book on the subject, but Google Books doesn’t give a complete view of it.
Ok, well your second source states the following:
The immediate question on the above is how much of these strategic theses of al-Qaeda actually predate events, or whether they constitute a ‘moving target’ that takes as much from the unfolding of events as it purports to steer them.
It would be interesting if an individual who was known to be a senior Al Qaeda official were known to have written BEFORE the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq that they had a plan to goad the US into such invasions. But without this kind of evidence, your claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
The problem with that solution is that it is either impossible, or implies genocide.
As Socrates says in Plato’s Gorgias, “Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power-he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private-but can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power?”
Great power or not, it is in fact true that anyone can do those things if he wishes, so as long as people are alive, one cannot take away their ability to do those things. So as I said, your solution is either impossible or implies genocide.
As I mentioned below, the “What would ISIS not want us to do?” is not a good heuristic, because by asking it you implicitly accept their world view. I’m reminded of a (probably apocryphal quote from a WWII general), something like “Every Japanese soldier you encounter believes it is his duty to die for his country, your duty is to assist him in the performance of his duty in whatever way is most practical.”
Asking “what does my enemy want me to do” is very useful when you are trying to predict how the enemy will respond to your possible future moves.
Yes. It’s completely useless, however, as the basis for making your future moves.
Reversed stupidity isn’t intelligence. Counterstrategy isn’t strategy.
The Mongol Calvary under the command of Genghis Khan unexpectedly runs away. The enemy can’t figure out why but doesn’t worry about the Mongol’s motivation and starts pursuing . An hour later, at a spot carefully prepared last night, the Mongol cavalry turns around and catches the enemy on ground that maximizes the Mongol advantage over its enemy.
Their fundamental mistake wasn’t pursuing; that was merely a symptom. Their fundamental mistake is that they either had no plan of their own, or abandoned that plan. Because had they not pursued, the Mongols would have harried them with regular raiding skirmishes, a tactic they excelled at.
Pursuing-or-not-pursuing is playing the game according to the rules your opponent has set. Your first act should always be to change the rules.
If the Mongols are running away in panic you should pursue since pursuers normally have a big advantage, if they are running away as part of planned strategy you should not.
What you should or should not do is better determined by whether or not it helps win the war than whether it helps win a battle. If pursuing causes your unit to leave the territory you should have been defending, the mere accident of another of their units stumbling across the undefended territory could lose you the war, without any planned strategy on their part.
It is insufficient to know their plans. You have to know your own.
I used the statement “What would ISIS not want us to do?” for rhetorical force, the actual heuristic I emphasized was to figure out our actual goals and then the best means of achieving them.
For better or worse Gleb doesn’t go into the ISIS worldview about the importance of Muslims immigrating to the caliphate and Western armies coming to fight ISIS in Dabiq.
But he nevertheless makes conclusions as if he has.
No, he makes conclusions based on imaging what would be good for ISIS to do to expand it’s powerbase.
I think part of the problem here is that it is difficult to discern how rational ISIS is as an organization. It is some combination of militia group; millennialist cult; and breakaway state. (It’s interesting that it has changed its name a couple times.) As best I can tell, the overall game plan of ISIS is—generally speaking—to follow in the footsteps of the most fundamental religious doctrine it can, and have faith that this will result in their eventual success. Under such circumstances, I don’t think it’s very useful to “avoid playing into ISIS’s hands.”
This may be a more useful consideration if the enemy was some kind of James Bond super-villain who was carefully scheming at every stage. Even then, you never know if the other fellow really wants something or if he is only pretending to as some kind of ruse or feint.
The problem is that their game plan is likely to be something more or less along the lines of, “Start a war between Islam and the rest of the world. Since our religion basically teaches that we are inevitably going to conquer the world by force, we will be guaranteed victory in such a war.”
The religion is false, so they would not win such a war. But it would be an extremely bad thing if it happened at all, regardless of whether they win. So playing into their hands is probably not a good idea anyway, even though they are wrong.
I agree with this to a large extent.
Assuming that’s true, it’s still not like the situation where your adversary is an evil genius so that doing what he wants you to do is likely to be helping him succeed in his evil goals. In this situation, it’s not worth it to put much stock in whether the West is playing into Isis’ hands.
It depends how far they get in their war, it seems to me.
ISIS (or any enemy, for that matter) doesn’t need to be led by evil geniuses in order to know how to set a trap for the West to fall into. With 9/11, Al Qaeda set a perfect trap for the U.S. to be blinded by pain and rage (having the simpleminded W. in office certainly helped) and, as a result, the U.S. engaged in what from the White House looked like a righteous campaign for the liberation of oppressed masses, but to those masses looked like a meddlesome intrusion into their already complicated lives. In this case (in every case, actually), I think it’s absolutely essential to consider what our enemies are counting on us to do.
No, but it would (edit: arguably) help quite a lot.
What is the evidence that Al Qaeda’s intention with the 9/11 attacks was to goad the United States into invading Afghanistan and later Iraq?
Various journalists have analyzed the writings of Al Qaeda strategist Muhammad Makkawi a.k.a. Saif al-Adel, concluding that:
“His goal, for at least five years, had been to goad America into invading Afghanistan...”
“September 11 constituted the first step: dragging the United States into the Arab region in preparation for an extended war of attrition.”
What exactly did he write and when?
The text in question is allegedly called “Al Qaeda’s Strategy until Year 2020.” My search met a dead end at the website of the newspaper Al Quds al Arabi. I don’t read Arabic, and that newspaper doesn’t show digital archives for 2005, which was the date when Makkawi’s writings were first made available to the general public. Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan wrote a book on the subject, but Google Books doesn’t give a complete view of it.
Ok, well your second source states the following:
It would be interesting if an individual who was known to be a senior Al Qaeda official were known to have written BEFORE the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq that they had a plan to goad the US into such invasions. But without this kind of evidence, your claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
In which case they’re going to keep making attacks so the solution is to destroy their ability to do so.
The problem with that solution is that it is either impossible, or implies genocide.
As Socrates says in Plato’s Gorgias, “Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power-he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private-but can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power?”
Great power or not, it is in fact true that anyone can do those things if he wishes, so as long as people are alive, one cannot take away their ability to do those things. So as I said, your solution is either impossible or implies genocide.
Kill a single person, yes. Carry out an attack like the one in Paris, no.