Strategic Tradeoffs on Counterterrorism Posted by Jacob Stokes

Over at The Best Defense, a buddy of Tom Ricks, retired navy submariner John Byron, poses an important strategic question:

As we continue to get nowhere in Afghanistan (a war to end terrorism) and have no end in sight, isn't it time to explore the contrast between the successes of the law-enforcement approach to potential acts of terrorism in the U.S. and the dubious efficacy of our military efforts to do the same?

On one hand, we rooted out the Taliban and removed Al Qaeda's safe haven. On the other, we've certainly made many more terrorists worldwide than we've eliminated in the Middle East. And what of the alternative uses of the incredible sums of money we are spending to help our friend Hamid Karzai: how much better would it be to apply even a fraction of this sum to counter terrorism directly in the U.S.?

Strategy is choice-taking. We've chosen to fight terrorists where they might live in a future time rather than where we do live now. Is this the sound strategic choice? …How about the trade-offs between military action [abroad] and direct counter-terrorism at the target sites.

This tradeoff sees essentially no debate. What’s the reason for this? I think one of the main reasons we almost never weigh the relative effectiveness of the two approaches is that it’s almost impossible to measure how much safer we are per dollar spent. To know the safety gained for our blood and treasure, we’d have to prove a negative. That is, we’d have to get a good sense of how many terrorist attacks were defused and what kind of damage they would have done. Without an understanding of how many plots have been foiled by our efforts, it’s anyone’s guess as to the value of our counterterror spending.

The effectiveness measurement issue is as much of a problem for domestic counterterror operations as it is for operations aimed at “disrupting, dismantling and defeating” terror networks overseas. Given that we don’t have exact or even good measures of the benefits, we ought to look at costs and then make informed guesses about what we’re achieving.

On the overseas operations, I think if you agree with Byron that our efforts to fight terrorism aboard have spawned more terrorist than we’ve killed, one could certainly argue—for the 5,400-plus lives lost and more than $1 trillion spent on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—that we’re not getting a lot of terror-fighting value for our resources. Compare that to the case of the Times Square bomber, who our domestic counterterror apparatus apprehended 53 hours after the initial attack.

There are a lot of moving parts to this, to be sure. For example, how much are our counterterror operations abroad enabling the success of our operations at home? And I’m not claiming that our domestic counterterror apparatus is perfect–it’s not. But this trade-offs discussion—could the resources we’re using to fight terror abroad be more effective fighting terror at home?—deserves more attention.

Comments

[m3 ds]

That's a good question by John Byron!A biggest serious concern is today in our country is Counter-terrorism.As he said that the operations should be taken in a manner at disrupting,dismantling and defeating terror networks world wide.

[evaporator]

Inside your BLOG learned a lot, thank you and share your success and happiness. Note silently in the distance a view of your friends.

[birkenstock]

Strategic Tradeoffs on Counterterrorism.

[Don Bacon]

"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?

"I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there—ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists. . .The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex." --Colin Powell