Rand: U.S. alone can't stop Islamic insurgencies
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 Free Headline Alerts
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military cannot cope with the worldwide growth of Islamist insurgencies, according to a new report.
The Rand Corp. said the U.S. military has failed to produce sufficient Iraqi forces to battle Al Qaida and Shi'ite militias. The report said the insurgents, similar to those in other countries, were expanding faster than the U.S. ability to train and organize government troops, Middle East Newsline reported.
"The United States would need to add thousands of deployable civilian professionals and billions more in targeted foreign aid to meet counterinsurgency needs," the report said. "However, such requirements could be halved if U.S. allies and international organizations matched U.S. efforts."
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."