George W. Bush and his neocon buddies love to hype the “WAR” on terrorism and talk tough. Their basic premise is that we must “fight” terrorists using military force rather than that wimpy law enforcement stuff. This is neither new nor news. John Kerry made this point, unsuccessfully, during his ill-fated 2004 Presidential campaign. Opening a can of military whoop ass on terrorists resonates in the hearts of red blooded Americans, but it is largely patent nonsense. Once you get past the rhetorical excess and political posturing, it turns out that the U.S. military really does not have much of a role to play in combating terrorism.

It is not a lack of desire. The problem is that the capabilities inherent in the military do not match up with organization and behavior of terrorists. The U.S. military, even the most highly classified special operations forces, are not good at precise, limited use of force. Compounding the challenge is that the groups responsible for most of the terrorist mayhem do not sit around established military bases marching in formation wearing nifty uniforms. And they do not spend a lot of resources on building and maintaining extensive physical infrastructure. If they did, then they would be toast. Those are the types of fat targets the special operations warriors are gifted at whacking. But those rarely present themselves in the real world.

I am revisiting this issue in light of a recent article by neocon extraordinaire, Reuel Marc Gerecht, who is a true believer of the military-response nonsense. Gerecht writes:

It seems to me you are trying to take us back to a pre-9/11 world where we add up the body count from terrorist attacks and if the death toll is lower than, say, the number of people who die from “lightning, or by accident-causing deer, or by severe allergic reactions to peanuts,” then we should just calm down and avoid the use of force since we never know what the baleful collateral effects might be. Do you remember the famous Larry Johnson op-ed in The New York Times the summer before 9/11 that used such reasoning? Take a look at that astonishing op-ed and then go to page 81 of WRW where I found the above line. Dealing with terrorism–dealing with rogue states that use terrorism and are developing nuclear weapons –will surely require us in the future to prepare for war, and may actually require us to bomb, perhaps even invade another country. Obviously, no one should want to do this, but to walk away from the challenge of terrorism by downplaying its potential to wreak havoc and by playing up the fear of unforeseen consequences from American military action is to invite our enemies to escalate.

Typical of Reuel, he has trouble getting facts right. I have never argued we should not use force against terrorist targets. But unlike Reuel, who has no experience in this area, I have spent the last 14 years working with U.S. military special operations forces who have the actual mission of combating terrorism. I know what their authorities are, what their plans are, and what their capabilities are. It is not a lack of desire on the part of our soldiers, at least the special operations forces, that has limited their involvement in counter terrorism operations.

There are several factors that, together, conspire to keep military forces, even the highly regarded special operations forces, from taking action against terrorist targets. Getting timely, operational intelligence is the first hurdle. Notwithstanding the vow to get Bin Laden dead or alive, for example, the killer sheik remains on the loose along with his deputy, Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri.

Even if you locate the targets, there is the problem of getting there. In the fantasy world of Jack Bauer and Hollywood, the military mounts up and charges off. They grab a plane, fly away, and land unchallenged in some obscure airfield where they fire shots without a care. In the real world, however, there are the complications of distance, time, geography, and sovereignty. If the target is in Somalia and our strike force is in the United States, for instance, then you are looking at a minimum of 18 hours in flight to get forces to the target. But just because you know where someone is on Monday, October 1st, does not mean they will be in the same place on October 2nd.

The success (and even that is arguable) we have achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan is not typical and is teaching our military forces some bad habits. We do not have to bother asking Maliki or Karzai for permission to hit suspected terrorist targets. So far our forces have a green light. Our military forces, complete with airlift and logistics support, are already in place and can get to most targets within a few hours. Despite these advantages, our operations against terrorist targets have not been accompanied by a significant decline in insurgent violence. In fact, after our forces killed the Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Al Zarqawi, in June of 2006, the level of violence by terrorists continued to increase for the subsequent six months.

Unfortunately, conducting military operations in the rest of the world, even with highly classified special operations forces, is not easy and rarely occurs. The biggest problem is getting the permission of the local government to let U.S. forces come into the country. When Peruvian terrorists took hostages at the Japanese embassy in 1996, U.S. military forces were on alert in Panama and ready to assist. In fact, British and German special operations forces as well were on alert and offered to help. The Peruvians rejected all outside assistance and handled the matter themselves.

Another dimension of the military’s role in battling terrorists is reported by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein. His article, Red Tape Snarls Pentagon Counterterror Plan, describes the turf war between the State Department and the Pentagon on the employment of Military Liaison Elements in Africa. Jeff interviewed me for this story. Stein reports that I said with reference to the US military going after targets in Africa:

There are no targets there. . . . They are deluding themselves. The threat does not exist” there.

This is not an accurate quote. I told Jeff there were no viable targets in Africa that lent themselves to action by U.S. military forces. The threats that do exist–and there are real terrorist threats in Africa–will be most effectively handled by intelligence and law enforcement assets.

The threat of terrorism, particularly for the U.S. military, has become a raison d’etre in the same way that the Soviet Union fueled budgets and weapons systems during the cold war. But with this critical difference–the Soviets actually had a five million man Army, thousands of ships, intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear subs, and a genuine first strike capability. All of the terrorist groups in the world, even if they combined their forces, do not begin to approach the scale and scope of threats the west faced during the Cold War.

At some point we need to recover common sense in dealing with terrorism. The threat is genuine but not ubiquitous. No terrorist organization in the world has demonstrated the ability to project and conduct sustained operations outside of their geographic support base. This means that coordinated, sustained pressure to disrupt financing, training, and recruitment will pay significant dividends in reducing the scale and scope of terrorist activity.

In 2004 and 2005 the level of international terrorist activity soared to unprecedented levels. There were significant and sustained mass casualty attacks–most attributable in one fashion or another to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda sympathizers. But during the last two years (2006-7) we have seen a significant decline in mass casualty terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Although U.S. Government statistics for 2006 reported an increase in attacks over those recorded in 2005, a close look at the data shows that most of the attacks caused little harm to persons or property. Strong police reactions to terrorist attacks in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in 2005 significantly degraded the ability of Islamic radicals to sustain operations.

When the history of the Bush Administration’s “war” on terrorism is written, two critical shortcomings will emerge–the failure to sustain operations in Afghanistan and completely dismantle Al Qaeda and the failure to create a coordinated counter terrorism strategy that employed the vast resources of the Federal Government. The Bush Administration has talked a good game but, in terms of execution, it has fumbled the ball.