For your Saturday morning cup o’ joe read, I thought I would direct you to Jihadology: How the Creation of Sovietology Should Guide the Study of Today’s Threats. It is an interesting article over at Foreign Affairs, and I particularly appreciate its approach to our history of dealing with Soviets as a competent and coherent policy stance. The article begins:
In 1945, the United States faced a dire threat. The rising power of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism in Eastern Europe — and, soon enough, worldwide — represented a new enemy that imperiled postwar hopes for a peaceful and prosperous world. The United States was poorly equipped to comprehend, let alone respond to, this emerging global danger. The federal government had few experts who spoke Russian or had a deep knowledge of Russian history and culture; universities were barely better off. The field of Soviet studies emerged as a response and became the catalyst for a network of area studies programs that would soon follow.
Today, the United States faces a similar challenge in understanding the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Much like the Soviet Union, militant Islam represents not just an army but an idea — and one that fights in novel and highly unorthodox ways.
Despite the existence of a successful historical model, the U.S. government does not seem to have absorbed the useful lessons from the creation of Soviet studies programs in its efforts to study this new threat. Sovietology was — especially in its first decade — a vibrant intellectual enterprise that contributed to scholarly disciplines, public debate, and top-secret government discussions. A look at this field’s success is essential to shaping how the U.S. government defines and studies the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.
The emphasis upon the similar nature of the threats of Islamic fundamentalism and the Soviets is important: an “idea” can often prove a far more formidable enemy that a political state, and requires intensive study and understanding to competently combat it. This is particularly clear in our two wars right now. Counter-insurgency and anti-guerrilla tactics are dependent on our interaction with the people in Iraq and Afghanistan on the ground, and as such, our armed forces are on the front lines in a dual sense: they face the physical threat and combat the idea in the hearts of the people. This is no small task, and the great success that our brave men and women have accomplished is a profound testament to the natural sympathy and understanding that informs the American heart. But the charity of our military operations regarding the peoples of these countries cannot alone defeat Islamic fundamentalism, and should be girded by a vigorous, searching intellectual endeavor on the part of the American people at large.
This article is well grounded in the history of our nation’s combat of the Soviet “idea,” and makes practical suggestions on how we should operate regarding the idea of Islamic fundamentalism. I commend it to your attention.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Though I am in no way disregarding the dangers of Islamic Fundamentalism, doesn’t it seem that there are now two fundamentals or ideas waging a war over the Muslim people? The classic fundamental of the Qur’an: to kill the infidel and all he represents. Then it seems that a new idea has emerged: a peaceful passive aggressive Islam, that Islam is not just a killing religion (which it is technically) but a religion that can exist trying to “spread their word,” so to speak, without violence. Obviously you have examples of both, terrorists and the Muslim population throughout the world that doesn’t help or participate in terrorist activities.
One argument is that Islam is starting to become modernized and is losing some of it’s fundamental commandments, if this is the case the danger is much less. Though it is true that I don’t believe we’ll see the end of radical Islam in our lifetime especially from the countries completely rooted in it.
However, I do think that a period of peace where they weren’t killing people all the time would bring forth a much stronger surge of radical Islamics, but that is a personal theory. And lastly, the article was fantastic I will read it again after work but the first time through I thought it was very beneficial.