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Rand, a major contractor of the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence
community, said Washington must learn to quickly detect and foil Islamic
insurgencies. The report said the prospect of defusing an insurgency in its
early stages is 90 percent. The chance of halting a full-scale Al
Qaida-inspired revolt, however, was said to be 50 percent.
"Thus, the United States needs the ability to interpret indicators and
warnings so it can act in the early stages of the insurgency," the report
said.
Titled "War by Other Means: Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities
for Counterinsurgency," the report acknowledged the U.S. military's success
against Al Qaida in Iraq. But Rand suggested that Iraq and other U.S. allies
in the Middle East were harboring larger insurgency movements than reported.
The report said U.S. forces are unable to train
enough Iraqi security forces to battle the insurgency in Iraq.
"U.S. forces are unable to train enough local forces of sufficient
quality quickly enough to counter fast-moving Islamist insurgencies," the
report, funded by the Defense Department, said. "The U.S. Army, Marine Corps
and Special Operations Forces must improve their ability to organize, train,
equip and advise local military forces."
Rand said the development of Iraqi and other foreign police forces must
be conducted by professional trainers, rather than military troops. The
report said as Iraqi security capabilities improve, the U.S. military should
concentrate on "border and coastal surveillance, technical intelligence
collection, air mobility, large-scale logistics, and special operations
against high-value targets."
The report played down the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Rand said large-scale U.S. intervention and occupation in the Muslim
world could be counter-productive, and urged a shift toward training local
security forces and improving government.
"Violent extremism in the Muslim world is the gravest national security
threat the United States faces," David Gompert, the report's lead author and
a senior Rand fellow, said. "Because this threat is likely to persist and
could grow, it is important to understand the United States is currently not
capable of adequately addressing the challenge. It would be a profound
mistake to conclude from it that all the United States needs is more
military force to defeat Islamist insurgencies."
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