BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

BOKO HARAM
The long-term follow-on challenge, as stated by Paul Cobaugh of Narrative
Strategies, is the prospect that even if we defeat IS militarily, we’ll still
lose the war against extremist Islamic ideology because its adherents view
the conflict as a holy war; in this jihadist ideology, we are killing Muslims
defending their faith. If we don’t employ our own narrative that explains the
fight in our own, credible terms, we leave the narrative battlefield with the
extremists uncontested.
Dr. Ajit Maan, the president of Narrative Strategies, recently stated that
if we do not plan for the defeat of IS and, physically and ideologically, for
the transition to stability, one extremist organization will replace another
until the population’s legitimate problems are addressed; but that will take
time, and we have to be able to seize opportunities when they arise. Our
narrative shouldn’t “counter” a particular group but should offer an alternative
future and vision that can be touched, seen, and heard simultaneously
on the ground.
So, for the Islamic State overall, the challenge for strategists and policy
writers is to plan and coordinate the strategic win, encourage people to envision
an end to IS, and plan a replacement reality so that a new group does
not fill the gap. This will help strategists and narrative managers visualize
the group as a temporary thing, as opposed to a problem we will struggle
with forever. Seeing an end to IS ensures we do not build a dependence on
the terrorist group’s long-term existence that will translate to a future lack of
response when a more nimble, more deadly group emerges.
For the future, I recommend three actions, detailed below. The first is for
intelligence, the second is for security, and the third involves ideology:
• Expansion of intelligence-community research into both single threat
indicators and cluster indicators for mapping networks and spotting
potential threats.
• Expansion of security forces from observation and interdiction to
include outreach and direct negotiation with at-risk people or groups.
German security forces exemplify this approach by contacting a person
before he or she becomes a threat to the public. Through this outreach,
potential perpetrators learn that they are under watch for possible terrorism
involvement and concomitantly learn their options. Such outreach
by security forces drives away the threat before it can culminate in an
actual strike.
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