I. Introduction

It has been over three years since the events of September 11^th have brought the United States Government to declare a “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).[1] However, the “Global War on Terrorism” label only serves to distract from the actual nature of this war. This is a war beyond the scope and type of war waged in the first two world wars and the Cold War. The characteristics of this war are not of nation-states in conflict but rather of nation-states against the power of a global swarm: a self-organizing, networking enemy from the strategic to tactical level. Indeed, this is the first global network centric warfare. As such, to properly understand this new war – the World War IV – one needs and requires a new framework for understanding the environment and the dynamics by which this war is being fought.

This paper proposes a new conceptual framework for understanding the Global War on Terrorism (referred in this paper as World War IV, with World War III being the Cold War) by bridging Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” and Thomas Barnett’s theory of Core-Gap states with an emphasis on social level of analysis. Rather than being a research paper, this paper seeks to further the discussion on the issue of the Global War on Terrorism by framing the war within a more theoretical and conceptual framework and to help build a cohesive conceptual understanding of the war.

This paper emphasizes cultural distinct and “disconnected” social groups rather than distinct “civilization blocks” or “disconnected” states as the source of Islamist terrorism. As a synthesis of the Huntington and Barnett perspectives, the framework presented here helps explain the “networked” characteristics of the war. The enemy is neither a state nor a group but a global social movement compromised of different societies (or social cleavages) – from Muslim Gap states and “disconnected” Muslim societies – networking together under a common religious mandate.

The second part of this paper goes into deeper length of treating the war as a special type of social movement and applies the Huntington-Barnett framework on three selected case studies: the Van Gogh Murder in Amsterdam, the First Palestinian Intifada and the Iraqi Insurgency. The last section of this paper will pose several possible policy options based on the conceptual framework presented here. It is the author’s hope that this paper will positively contribute to the discourse regarding the nature of this conflict.

II. The Clash of the Core-Gap Societies: Between Barnett and Huntington

Moving Away from the “Global War on Terrorism” Label

The Bush Administration’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism clumsily describes the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), as exactly that, a literal war against the verb “terrorism”: “The enemy is terrorism—premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”[2] Thus, the war by this definition is against a political tactic. The reason for this label is, of course, political. Who can argue against the targeted killing of civilians?

While labeling the conflict as a “Global War on Terrorism” makes for good political rhetoric, the dominant use of this phrase among academics and policymakers obstructs the ability to create an accurate framework for understanding the conflict and good policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that this paper shall describe the conflict here as, building upon Elliot Cohen and Norman Podhoretz, World War IV (WW4), after the Great War (World War I), World War II and the Cold War. [3] The first two world wars were examples of traditional Western wars with clearly defined nations-states and clear beginnings and cessations of violence. The third world war, the Cold War, was a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union that did not use military force directly, but was more of a test of global influence and will power. This current war, the WW4, is a war that transcends nation-states and traditional Western norms of war. It is also a war made possible only in this current age of globalization. Because of this, WW4 requires an entirely new set of assumptions and a new framework which will be outlined and argued here.

A New Conceptual Framework

The framework in this paper is based upon three principal points:

1.      The need to look beyond the traditional levels of analysis of international relations -  personal, state and system level – and to take into account local and transnational social cleavages. [4]

2.      Instability today is principally caused by the lack of “global connectivity” in certain countries and societies, resulting in local and regional crises and conflicts.

3.      Islamist global guerilla movements have conflated these crises and conflicts as a global conflict against Islam and the Ummah by the “Other.”

It should be briefly mentioned that this paper’s use of Islamist global guerilla will serve as an intentionally broad umbrella term that includes what has been distinguished by others as being militant Salafi-Jihadist, Islamist, fundamentalist, et cetera.[5] The definition of Islamist global guerilla is intentionally broad as to keep the conceptual nature of this paper. It is defined to include a multitude of Muslim ideologies defined as having:

-         Duty to participate in the use of jihad al-asghar (lesser jihad), as a violent defensive struggle, against the kuffar (which is defined as nonbelivers and non-true Muslims)

-         Seeks to create a transnational and connected religiously purified Muslim community

-         Goal of establishing a modern caliphate uniting the Ummah – either nationally, regionally or globally - under a single, unified social, political and religious system

As mentioned in the introduction, this framework is derived from a synthesis of Thomas Barnett’s theory of connectivity and Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations. Here, this paper will briefly overview these two theories then show how the two intersect.

1. Barnett’s Theory of Connectivity: Brief Overview of the Core and the Gap

Thomas Barnett declares that the amount of global “connectivity” in the world defines security issues in the international environment. It is the amount of connectivity (connectivity being the stuff of globalization) a state possesses – in the transnational flow of trade, media, finances, information, culture et cetera – that distinguish between a peaceful, integrated “Core” state and a hostile or unstable “Gap” state. (Indeed, the term globalization and “connectivity” are nearly synonymous to Barnett, and is treated similarly in this paper.) As Barnett states, the “new world must be defined by where globalization has truly taken root [the Core] and where it has not [the Gap].”[6]  In short, the level of strategic regional and global security is directly linked to the level of globalization. There is no difference.

He describes such connected Core states as within a Kantian democratic peace: “Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder.”[7] As shown in Figure 1, Barnett outlines the following regions as part of the “Gap”: the Caribbean Rim, virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Core versus Gap States[8]
Gap states are highlighted, the rest are Core states.

Thomas Barnett argues that the vast majority of post-Cold War U.S. military deployments have focused on maintaining stability in these Gap states and regions (see Figure 2). Yet, long term stability is achieved, not by military force and peacekeepers only, but through ensuring “Mutually Secured Dependence,” where states are tied by all dimensions of globalization.[9] As Barnett succinctly states, “If the Core seems to be living the dream of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace, then the Gap remains trapped in the Hobbes’s far crueler reality.”[10]

Figure 2. Core-Gap World Map - Highlights Major U.S. Military Responses from 1990-2000[11]

 2. Huntington’s Cultural Factors

While Thomas Barnett presents a long term “big picture” framework for understanding the source of instability in the world, it cannot alone fully describe the nature of World War IV. It does not explain why certain peoples in certain regions are engaging in a confrontation against the members of the Core. In other words, if the international security environment is defined by those in the Gap and those in the Core, why were the majority of the 9/11 hijackers from Saudi Arabia, and not shamans from Indonesia or Orthodox Christians from Belarus?[12]

The essential variables that need to be added to Barnett’s framework are those of religious and cultural factors. While Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilization” goes to the extreme in treating cultural regions as nearly monolithic socio-political blocks (that is, civilizations), Huntington does well in thrusting cultural, religious, social, and historical factors as variables in the equation that influences the foreign policy orientations of states and non-state organizations. Indeed, Huntington must be acknowledged as prescient in declaring the revival of religions, particularly non-Western religions, as remerging as an important cultural and political force in the world.[13]

***

3. Huntington-Barnett with a Social Level of Analysis: Gap Societies?

This paper agrees with Barnett on the instability of regions lacking “global connectivity” and Huntington’s emphasis on cultural and religious factors as important variables in international politics along with his concept of “civilization faultlines.” Barnett creates a framework for understanding all global and local conflicts in the long term, while Huntington emphasizes culture as the central factor.

Barnett and Huntington’s frameworks are not mutually exclusive and this paper builds on their scholarship and research to explain the nature of World War IV. Both Huntington and Barnett rely on system – Civilization vs. Civilization, Core vs. Gap – and state level of analysis. But where does one place non-state groups like Al-Qaeda, Al Takfir Wal Hijra, Hizb ut-Tahrir and their support structures and sympathizers? Additionally, how does one explain the presence of such groups in the Core states of Western Europe or within the Western Civilization?

An elegant solution to this problem is applying social cleavages as another level of analysis complementing the state and system level of analysis. Organizations like Al-Qaeda to Hizb ut-Tahrir are not just “terrorist groups” or “Islamist extremist,” but groups that represent a worldwide social movement that transcend nation-states, Core or Gap states or civilization blocks. Thus, there is a need to focus on different social groups inside Core and Gap states that are disconnected from the larger society and how they relate to other states and societies globally.

The almost monthly reports of raids on militant Islamist supporters and Islamist terrorist groups throughout Europe demands attention that must be paid to areas beyond the Islamic “civilization” and beyond the Gap states. At the month of this writing, the German police recently raided over 30 mosques, homes and offices and arrested seven for raising EUR 1 million for Muslim terrorist groups abroad.[14] Additionally, French police arrested five people suspected of “mobilizing Muslims to go to Iraq through Syria to fight foreign forces.”[15] A month earlier, Swiss police detained “five Islamic extremists” for distributing bomb making instructions.[16] Indeed, the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, the major think-tank for the Norwegian military, recently declared that at least 15 mass causality attacks planned by Islamist terrorists – that is, Islamists global guerillas in this paper’s parlance – have been foiled by European security officials.[17]

By analyzing societies and social groups where likely supporters of Islamist global guerilla and related groups exists, we bring into focus the fact that Western Europe is a major center of Islamist groups and emphasizes that World War IV is more about the “disconnectedness” of particular social groups, rather than the interests and motivations of nation-states. Borrowing again from Barnett, these alienated segments of the European Muslim diasporas are “Gap” societies (or “disconnected” societies), not fully integrated to their new country nor globally to the world. These groups can become part of a “Gap” society by choice and may perhaps be driven by the perception of oppression and marginalization by the greater society at large. This paper argues that it is this particular segment of Muslims living in “Gap” societies – be it within the Core or Gap states – is the main pillar of the militant Islamist social movement.

The next section will develop this concept further as applied to World War IV and will be followed by briefly analyzing three case studies that apply the Huntington-Barnett framework emphasizing social level of analysis.

II. Defining the World War IV

As the enemy in World War IV is not a state, but a network of Gap societies and groups, the method of warfare is different beyond the traditional norms of war which generally involve state to state warfare. Instead of “national strategic interests” and “security concerns,” social issues, ideology, culture and religion take the center stage as important motivations. This section will expound on the Huntington-Barnett framework and link to the issue of how the nature and conduct of this war differs from traditional Western warfare.

Social Movement as the New “Total War”: Integration of Religion, Social Justice, and Violence

Under a Global Swarm of the Global Guerillas

Martin Van Creveld, a renowned military strategist, wrote that: “Attacked by swarm of gnats, all the conventional forces could do was flounder about in helpless flurry, destroying their environment and themselves.”[18] Van Creveld aimed to describe the future warfare at the tactical level, but this description extends itself to the organization, strategic and operational structure of this war as fought by the enemy. The enemy is not just composed of networked terrorists groups, but is a grand social movement composed of a loose network of organizations and groups acting as social justice groups, religious groups, militias and everything in between. [19]

Indeed, in World War IV we are facing a threat of being engulfed by small “gnats” (global guerillas) working together to bring about mass terrorist attacks. We are in the midst of a “global swarm.” These “gnats” are a combination of and intertwined with militia, ideological, social justice and political groups – networking together from their desperate local and regional conflicts and uniting under a common ideology. Reflecting the globalized and networked nature of this “swarm,” this paper argues that the enemies in this war should be called “Islamist global guerillas,” to borrow a term from John Robb, rather than simply “terrorists” or “Islamists.” [20]

What is wrong with terms like Islamists or terrorist? The term “Islamists” indicates the religious tone of the war, but confuses the goals of the enemy as merely religious, when the circumstances are far more complex and global. Terrorism, as explained earlier, is merely a political tactic. This war is not about using terrorism as merely a political tool. The U.S. and its allies are not at war with Basque separatist groups and the like, but fighting a diverse range of “Islamist Global Guerrillas” who feel enacted by a sense of a religious mandate, an “Islamist Mandate,” to engage in war.

Beyond Traditional Western Warfare

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general from the nineteenth century, is regarded one of the most influential figures in Western approach to warfare. Clausewitz helped define the concept of “trinitarian war”: the interrelationship between the government, the people and the army, where “the government wages wars with an army on behalf, or at the expense, of the people.”[21] This has been the norm of modern Western warfare, as seen in the first two World Wars and in World War III (Cold War).

Originally published in 1991, Martin van Creveld’s prescient The Transformation of War forecasted the raising reemergence of non-Western warfare outside the trinitarian and Western norms of war. The traditional approach of Western warfare, with its foundation in the nation-state system and its monopoly on violence, professional state-state military and laws of conduct (such as the Geneva Convention) would be challenged by groups such as “terrorists, guerillas, bandits, and robbers” motivated mostly by “fanatical, ideological-based, loyalties.”[22]

The Islamist global guerilla groups easily fit van Creveld’s vision of future warfare. They are non-hierarchal and non-state groups, waging a war as part of a greater social movement rather than simple organized state-led violence. Beyond abandoning the “trinitarian” and state-to-state warfare, this is war where the enemy employs a new “combined arms” strategy beyond the traditional means of Western warfare. In traditional military usage, the term “combined arms” is defined by the U.S. Department of Defense as “The full integration and application of two or more arms or elements of one Military Service into an operation”[23] – such as the integrated and coordinated use of infantry, tank, precision bombers, and reconnaissance under one unified command. As war on the social level against the states and other societies, we see “combined arms” taking not only a purely military dimension but the integration of a full spectrum of human concerns – political issues, social issues, cultural issues, religious issues, etc – under the banner of a unifying ideology. In this case, this ideology is religious in nature.

The use of social, cultural and religious issues as important dimensions of the war has its roots in the religious nature of this war – that is, religious and “Islamic” as defined by the enemy. Islam, as Oliver Roy notes, was “born as a sect and as a society, a political and religious community,” but without rigid institution or clerical system.[24] The Islamist global guerillas have extended, if not also corrupted, this aspect and history of Islam to call for a rigid system of controlling all of society under their interpretation of Islam; they seek to embrace religion as a totality inseparable from any social sphere.[25] This is in stark contrasts with the Peace of Westphalia that helped bring about the separation of the Christian church away from the state in the West. In the West, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most famous example in emphasizing this characteristic of Islam, with its statement of recognizing “Islam as a total system” and the “final arbiter of life in all of its categories”[26] The most well-known statement by the Muslim Brotherhood was its founder’s, Hassan al-Banna, proclamation that “Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation and a nationality, a religion and a state, spirit and deed, holy text and sword.”[27] Indeed, other Muslim scholars, such as Sayyid Qutb, have criticized the West for its corruption of Christianity with its “schizophrenic” separation between the secular and the sacred, between the church and state.[28] In contrasts to Christianity today, he declares Islam as a “system [that] extend into all aspects of life; it discusses all minor and major affairs of mankind.”[29]

Indeed, by actively uniting and linking all human activities to a single religious belief, it is easy to see how local conflicts affecting Muslims can be exploited to be seen as an attack on the entire global Muslim community – the Ummah.[30] This combined with the concept of jihad al-asghar (lesser jihad) explains the confluence of local conflicts involving Muslims – Chechnya, Palestinian Issue, Moro in the Philippines – to being seen as a global conflict against Muslims.[31] As mentioned by Jason Burke, the movement seizes real events and real social problems and articulates them “with a reference to a particular religious world-view.” Such a movement shares some resemblance to the liberation theology, a Marxist-inspired school of thought once widely popular among Latin American Catholics that advocated a revolutionary and activist role of the Catholic Church for oppressed people everywhere.[32]

In this decentralized social movement, there are no exact sources of “center of gravity” (COG) as it is understood in the traditional military term. As defined by the U.S. Marine Corp, the “center of gravity” is the “sources of strength” and “may be mental, moral, physical strength, power, will or will.”[33] This war has many points of focus – in terms of actors, political and religious goals and means of conducting war at the political, religious, ideological and cultural plane. In other words, separate groups of people, feeling the despair from their environment, have been united by and under a religious mandate. Yet, this religious mandate is not a center of gravity in the traditional sense – there are no primary persons or sources of authority that have claimed to give this mandate.

BOGOBOGO

Figure 4. Building a Net-Centric Movement: From Local to Global

The relationship between social conflict and the fanatical organizations that exploit these conflicts are not only self-reinforcing, but help export and spread instability in the region and internationally (as illustrated above in Figure 4). In the primary link, each local conflict begins to be linked to a cause (Islamist jihad) and is transformed into being seen as one of many conflicts (reaching towards secondary linkage). This conflation of the socio-political and socio-economic issues with the Islamist movement reaches a point where, in some cases, it is difficult to distinguish between what are social problems and what is part of the war. Indeed, war strategists would recognize this as a form of “Fourth Generational Warfare,” as based upon a paper by William Lind et al in 1989:

“The distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between ‘civilian’ and ‘military’ may disappear.”[34]

By bringing together social issues, political issues and violence, it is impossible to distinguish where the battlefield is and who the combatants are. This level of reinforcing connectivity extends itself to the regional level, even down to the same organization involved in a singular conflict. For example, while Hamas has the stated goal for the destruction of Israel, it also has been an active institution of social justice and welfare providing services that the Palestinian people desperately need.[35] Therefore, Israeli military action against Hamas becomes not only action against Hamas’ violent-wing but against an advocate of Palestinian social justice.

Three Brief Case Studies

The three brief case studies that will be analyzed below involve the diverse situations involving political violence affecting the Middle East and Europe: the Van Gogh Murder, the First Intifada and the Iraqi Insurgency. While not a thorough treatment of each event, the case studies will serve to show the relevance of the Huntington-Barnett framework at a social level of analysis. The diversity of the case studies also serves to demonstrate the flexibility of the Huntington-Barnett conceptual framework to interpret these events under a single framework.

First Brief Case Study: The Van Gogh Murder

On November 2, 2004, a controversial Dutch filmmaker named Theo Van Gogh, a descendent of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, was shot and butchered in an apparent attempt of decapitation by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-born Muslim of Moroccan descent.[36] Van Gogh was pined with a letter stab into his chest. The letter called for instigating jihad against “unbelieving fundamentalists” and forecasting the defeat of Jews, Hirsi Ali (prominent Dutch MP), United States, Europe and Holland.[37] Van Gogh was a prominent and controversial critic of Islam in the Netherlands and was initially thought to be assassinated by a lone religious fanatic. Further investigation and arrests reveals that Bouyeri was part of a wider network – called the Hofstad Network – which targeted prominent Dutch politicians for assassination; planned for the bombing of a Dutch nuclear power plant and Dutch parliament; had a mole in the Dutch intelligence service; and had connections with individuals that helped carried out the Madrid March 11^th bombings (M-11).

Based on the reports of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, this paper will apply the Huntington-Barnett framework to add an additional level of understanding to the murder of Theo Van Gogh by the Hofstad Network.[38]

While most of the September 11^th hijackers had direct links to Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who carried out the murder of Theo Van Gogh, and the other members of the Hofstad network were mostly second generation European-born Muslims of North African descent.[39] With the September 11^th attacks, one can say that men from Saudi Arabia brought down the World Trade Center. In the Netherlands, as mentioned by Oliver Roy, noted French scholar on Islam, "the guy who killed Van Gogh was Dutch."[40] The Hofstad Network members were not from the Gap states, but were born and raised in the Netherlands, a Core state.

As a homegrown Islamist terrorist group, the Hofstad Network demonstrates that sources of instability can establish themselves in the Core states. Taking a look at the social level, one can argue that the members of the network were from “Gap societies” – in this case, Muslims of Magreb or Middle Eastern descent – who felt marginalized and oppressed by the greater Dutch society. Indeed, the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment speculates, based on the letter left stabbed to Van Gogh’s body, that the motivation for the attacks was “anger with tougher immigration policies, criticisms of Islam, and counter-terrorism efforts in Holland, in combination with rage against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.”[41] The motivation for the attack was local (Dutch government policies) and global (international political events) and reflects conflation of separate attacks against Muslims communities as a major assault against the Ummah.

[42]

As shown on figure 5, the Hofstad Network was in contact with a range of groups and individuals, including those with connections to the M-11 bombings and the Casablanca bombing. The network had contacts with others in – not only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – but also in Spain, Belgium and Switzerland. This reinforces the notion of the existence of a network of militant Islamist supporters within the Muslim immigrant community in Europe.

Applying the Huntington-Barnett framework we are able to highlight the following regarding the Van Gogh Murder:

-         Huntington’s Civilizations: Majority of the recruits were from a particular cultural group, Dutch citizens who were second generation Muslims of North African descent, who felt targeted for their group identity.

-         Barnett’s Core vs. Gap: Majority of the members belong to a cultural group that was not fully integrated with the greater Dutch society – they were a “Gap” society, so to speak – leaving them vulnerable to be exploited by various Islamist global guerilla ideology.

-         Transnational Social Group: While the members in the Hofstad Network where part of a small social group – Dutch citizens who were also second generation Muslim immigrants – they identified themselves as not only being oppressed by the Dutch government in their home country, but also felt oppressed globally by the perceived attack on Muslims in Iraq by the United States. They identified themselves as part of a transnational social group – defying geographical borders – and sought contacts from any groups that similarly sought to defend the Ummah from global attack by nonbelievers.

The Hofstad Network and the murder of Theo Van Gogh exemplify the complexity of World War IV and the Islamist global guerillas. It is a good example of what the Huntington-Barnett framework seeks to describe. The agents in the war are not necessarily from the Gap states – or as often referred to as the “Arc of Instability”– of the Muslim Middle East and Near East, but rather from individuals, groups and societies that perceive themselves as being disconnected or seek to be disconnected from the greater whole.[43] While being disconnected from the greater society, they also reach out to like-minded groups, building networks, contacts and a movement.

Second Brief Case Study: The First Palestinian Intifada

The first Palestinian Intifada in 1987 demonstrated the ability to embrace and harness different political tools – from street violence to media to humanitarian organizations – to defeat a militarily and financially superior state backed by the United States. While early on the Intifada was written off as renewed street violence by frustrated Palestinian youths, it quickly grew into a national and international movement for the Palestinians. The First Intifada, of courses, differs greatly from what the Huntington-Barnett framework is seeking to describe – that is, World War IV. Yet, we will use the Intifada here to both demonstrate the flexibility in the application of the Huntington-Barnett framework and to draw parallels to World War IV that will help further our general understanding.

Indeed, the First Intifada holds many similarities with the Islamist global guerillas of World War IV. They are both composed of decentralized, networked disparate groups united by a single ideology –Palestinian nationalism on one hand and Islamists aspirations on the other. The First Intifada demonstrates the use of what this paper terms the “new combined arms” by the full integration of political violence with humanitarian and social justice issues making it difficult for the opposing force to take the counteroffensive effectively.

The Palestinians were able to firmly establish their image as underdogs internationally; this aided in shifting the Israeli-Palestinian issue from an existential political issue – that of the possession and control of land – to a social justice issue. Connecting with humanitarian organizations and the international media, the Palestinians were able to foster the growth of an organic and dynamic network of organizations tied together under the Palestinian banner:

Studies of volunteer work cooperatives, student associations, youth groups in refugee camps, and other grass-root organizations repeatedly show that these mobilizing frameworks for collective action evolved gradually, from discrete, small-scale cooperatives responsive to the practical needs of Palestinians…into networks linked through representative of the various PLO factions to the overall nationalist movement.[44]

The Palestinians were successful against the Israelis politically by using the Intifada within the greater context of social justice, human rights, etc – not just as an armed conflict between two actors over political interest, which characterizes traditional view of war. Within the Huntington-Barnett framework, one can see a disconnected society globally – in this case, a society disconnected due in part to their lack of statehood – linking outwards with other groups to create an international social movement in pursuit of social justice for the Palestinian people.

As noted by Thomas X. Hammers: “As the Intifada continued, it became apparent the Israelis were on the defense across spectrum. The Intifada leaders stressed that they were succeeding where the combined armies of the Arab states had been defeated repeatedly 40 years earlier.”[45] What was the result? The First Intifada is credited with forcing change in Israel’s political environment in regards to Palestinian and leading to a series of negotiations which culminated with the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian agreement on granting limited Palestinian autonomy.

Third Brief Case Study: The Insurgency in Iraq

While the first Palestinian Intifada illustrated the power of a broad spectrum of networked groups effectively leveraging the international media to restrain Israeli militarily and politically, the Iraqi Insurgency demonstrates the power of a full-blown “global swarm”; it is an example of a broad convergence and interplay of ethnic, religious, political, ideological and financial interests, as depicted in Figure 6. John Robb, a former counter-terrorist expert from the U.S Department of Defense, has conducted extensive research in this area and is indeed the first major researcher to interpret terrorism as a dynamic infrastructure system, as well, as conceptualizing terrorist attacks as an attack on a system.

The circumstances of the Iraqi Insurgency are more complex and with more diverse actors than more conventional Islamist Global Guerillas like the mujahideens in Afghanistan and Bosnia, the Hoftstad Network, the Chechen Network, the 9/11 hijackers et cetera. More conventional factors and forces such as Iraqi nationalism encouraging an insurgency for liberalization against U.S. forces and neighboring states seeking to exploit a weak neighbor and over-stretched U.S. forces are strong contributors to the insurgency.

[46]

While the motivation and background of the actors in this insurgency are very diverse, the members of the insurgency - those that are Islamist global guerilla - still fall within Barnett-Huntington framework. There are several levels of disconnectedness in the insurgency. Geographically, Iraq and its surrounding neighbors are part of the Gap states, which represents a challenge to the stability of the Iraqi state and society. Former senior Ba?athist and radicalized Sunni Muslims are part of formerly privileged social groups that are now disconnected from the greater Iraqi society. They are attempting to transform the Iraqi state and society rather than integrate with it.

The involvement of Al-Qaeda and its supporters in Iraq are akin to the Islamist global guerillas that ventured to Afghanistan during 80s, Bosnia during the Yugoslav Wars of Independence, and the secessionist movement in Chechnya. As mentioned by Barnett, Al-Qaeda at its heart is an organization against increasing the amount of ?connectiveness? with the West and the rest of the world. [47]

III. Conclusions

In an essay titled “The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head,” James F. Moore, a Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School, triumphantly declares the establishment of a superpower counterweight against the United States. Moore sees “a new form of international player, constituted by the ‘will of the people’ in a global social movement.”[48] This grand social movement is composed of “millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights” united in a “worldwide peace campaign” movement.  Moore cites MoveOn.org to the World Resources Institute as example of some of the influential agents in this burgeoning movement.

For all of Moore’s cheering of a grand social movement of social justice from those from the liberal end of the spectrum, it is the Islamist global guerillas that have gained the spotlight in the creation of a global social movement. It is a social movement that has transformed the international security environment; shifted the conversation of international affairs; launched the “Global War on Terrorism” that has defined the Bush Administration; and, brought the United States and its allies to Iraq. The impact of the social movement Moore speaks of seems almost inconsequential by comparison.

Like the anti-globalization movement, which is in fact actually “globalized” and networked, the Islamist global guerilla movement are also resisting “connectivity” and integration with globalization yet are closely connected and networked as a whole. As presented in this paper, the global guerillas are part of “Gap” societies that have failed and resisted integration with the Core society and states, while also uniting as a unique social, religious and political amorphous bloc.

In fighting World War IV, the Bush Administration has pursued a “Big Bang” strategy of shrinking the Gap region with Iraq as the first domino to transform the societies, the cultures and the politics of the Middle East. It is an unparalleled gamble of U.S. resources, hard and soft power, capital and American lives. Even with the encouraging protests on the streets of Beirut, it may be years before the world can see dividends from this strategy, if it even works at all.

The Bush Administration is correct in analyzing the war as a socio-political issue rather than strictly a military issue, yet it ignores the wider theatre of the war and misguidedly over relies on military force. Disconnectedness is not only in the Middle East, but in the Southeast Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, Central Asia, Western Europe and elsewhere. We must find and seize opportunities to shrink the Gap of disconnected societies, rather than think of Gap nation-states and of using military might. It is hoped that this paper presents a conceptual theoretical framework that encourages conversation on this issue of “disconnectedness.”

We must encourage the successful integration of these disconnected social groups with the wider society in Core states and the liberal, globalized society at large, especially for Muslim diaspora in Western Europe. The United States and its allies must push to shrink the Gap in Europe, Southeast and elsewhere by helping integrate the Muslim diaspora in Europe and help Muslims in countries who feel neglected and repressed by their and other governments.

As World War IV is a war fought by an enemy that is a social movement, there maybe no clean cessation of violence in the near or distant future. There will be neither a ceremony on the USS Missouri nor a televised collapse of an “Evil Empire.” This war will be a continuous one perhaps for generations with the degree of violence rising and ebbing in connection with the social situation of Muslims in “Gap” societies. Conflict in some regions may escalate to the point of guerilla warfare, such as in Iraq, to less intense conflicts like that in Israel or wane to the level of ETA, the Basque terrorist group in Spain.

For those looking at the long term view of terrorism, it must be emphasized that terrorism will most likely not be an existential threat to the United States nor to its Western allies. This is not a war of survival. The only exceptions to this rule is the threat of the extensive possession and use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by the Islamist global guerillas and an Islamist overthrow of a state essential to the interests to the United States and its allies, like Saudi Arabia or the nuclear-armed Pakistan. Thus, counter WMD proliferation should be the immediate focus of the U.S., not sending its Marines off to fight terrorists groups in places like the Philippines and the like. Next, states under possible threat of an Islamist overthrow must be strengthened by the U.S. either through security cooperation or positively affecting the states’ domestic policies to deter Islamism. If the U.S. and its allies can effectively minimize these two threats than WW4 can be fought with time at its side and with a shaper focus on shrinking the Gap.

To borrow from both President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, the end game for the war is not necessarily to absolutely “win” but to make it manageable.[49] Similarly, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker has said that “Some people see war and peace as a light switch. When the lights are off, it's peacetime. When the lights go on, it's wartime. I see more of a dimmer switch. We'll see the intensity wax and wane, but there will always be some level of conflict going on.”[50] Let us hope that the United States and its allies dim that switch, least it may be a long hard slog.

[1] While the term existed for many years, the Bush Administration has no doubt embraced the term “Global War on Terrorism.” Indeed, in 12 March 2003, President Bush established a series of “Global War on Terrorism” service medals for exemplar service in the armed forces. More information can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030312-6.html. Additionally, in a monograph published by the U.S. Army War College in December 2003, Jeffery Record takes special issue against the term “Global War on Terrorism” suggesting that use of the term hampers the ability to strategically understand the nature of the war. The monograph, Bounding the Global War on Terrorism, can be found online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=207.

[2] United States, White House, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 2003, 1, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/ 02/counter_terrorism/counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf (Accessed 04 April 2003).

[3] Eliot Cohen of SAIS, James Woolsey of the CIA, and Norman Podhoretz of Commentary are credited with first using the term World War IV as an alternative naming to the “Global War on Terror.” For more information see: Norman Podhoretz, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win," Commentary, September 2004, and Elliot Cohen, “World War IV,” Wall Street Journal, 20 November 2001.

[4] For an overview on the three traditional levels of analysis see Laura Neack, The New Foreign Policy, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

[5] For a more nuanced treatment of such various groups see Oliver Roy, The Political Failure of Islam, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994) and Jason Burke, Al Qaeda- Cast a Shadow of Terror, (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2003).

[6] Thomas Barnett, “The Pentagon’s New Map,” Esquire, March 2003, http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm (Accessed 17 November 2003).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map, (New York: Putnam Publishing Group, 2004), 122.

[10] Ibid, 161.

[11] United States, Defense Department, Office of Transformation, “Transformation Trends,” 16 December 2000, http://www.afei.org/transformation/pdf/TransTrends_02_12_16.pdf (Accessed 17 November 2003).

[12] United States, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Staff Report, Monograph on 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, 21 August 2004, 1, http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Ch1.pdf (Accessed 15 December 2004).

[13] Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 95-101.

[14] DPA, "Police arrest seven Islamists and raid 30 associated sites," Expatica, 13 April 2005, http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=19103 (Accessed 13 April 2005).

[15]  No Author, “Five Islamists arrested in France,” UPI, Via Factiva.

[16] Bettina Stadelmenn, "Swiss Seize Five Suspected Extremists,” Associated Press, 04 March 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4841589,00.html (Accessed 12 March 2005).

[17] Hans de Vreij, "At least 15 foiled terrorist attacks in Europe since 9/11,” Werelddomroep, 18 February 2005, http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/currentaffairs/region/westerneurope/ter050218?view=Light (Accessed 04 March 2005).

[18] Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, (New York: Free Press, 1991), 30.

[19] This notion of self-networking organizations are not new. Events from the “Battle of Seattle” (WTO protests in Seattle) to the popularity of “Flash Mobs” demonstrate the flexibility and effectiveness net-centric organization. For a thorough study see: John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, RAND, http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/ (Accessed 07 October 2004).

[20] John Robb, whose research is relied upon for this paper and its “Iraq Insurgency” case study, worked with the Department of Defense as a counter terrorist expert. Robb’s current research on the GWOT can be found at: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/.

[21] Van Creveld, 50. Note: The use of the term “trinitarian warfare” should not be confused with Clausewitz’s concept of “remarkable trinity.” For more information regarding this common confusion, see Edward J. Villacres and C. Bassford, “Reclaiming the Clausewitz Trinity,” Parameters, Autumn 1995.

[22] Van Creveld, 197.

[23] United States of America, Departmento of Defense, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 30 November 2004, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/c/01080.html (04 September 2004).

[24] Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, (Cambridge: Harvard University press, 1994), 12.

[25] While Roy is more nuanced in his treatment of the difference strains of what is referred to as “Islamist global guerilla” in this paper, Roy discusses the issue of “totality” in pages 35-59.

[26] Ibid, 15

[27] Daniel Pipes, “Fundamentalist Muslims Between America and Russia,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1986, http://www.danielpipes.org/article/279 (04 February 2004).

[28] Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), 89.

[29] Sayyid Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, (New Jersey: Islamic Publications International, 2000), 32.

[30] Ummah is the term given to describe the international community of Muslims. It is similar to the term “the Fellowship” to describe the Christian community.

[31] For a comparative to the Islamic concept of jihad al-asghar within the Abrahamic religions, see the Judaic concept of milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war) and the Christian concept of Just War as described in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.

[32] For a brief overview of liberation theology see Michael Dodson, “Liberation Theology and Christian Radicalism in Contempory Latin America,” Latin American Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1. (May, 1979), 203-222.

[33] United States, Department of Defense, Marine Corps, Marine Corps Planning Process, 24 September 2001, MCWP 5-1, Page 13 https://www.doctrine.usmc.mil/signpubs/w51.pdf  (Accessed 04 September 2004).

[34] William Lind and others, “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine Corp Gazette, October  1989, 22-26.

[35] Ziad Abu-Amr, “Hamas: A Historical and Political Background,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Summer, 1993), 5-19.

[36] Matthew Campbell, “Jihad wrecks Dutch race harmony,” Sunday Times, 07 November 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1347473_1,00.html (Accessed 12 December 2004).

[37] Antony Deutsch, “Netherlands braces for 'jihad’,” Associate Press, 06 November 2004, via Factiva.

[38] The full report is available to the public at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment web site at http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2005/00376.pdf.

[39] Nesse, 13.

[40] Carla Power, “New Imams,” Newsweek, 17 January 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6804109/site/newsweek/ (Accessed 23 February 2005).

[41] Nesse, 20.

[42] Based on: Petter Nesse, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, “The Slaying of the Dutch Filmmaker: Religiously motivated violence or Islamist terrorism in the name of global jihad?,” FFI/Rapport-2005/00375, 02 February 2005, http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2005/00376.pdf (Accessed 26 February 2005).

[43] The phrase “Arc of Instability” was originally referred to as the “Arc of Crisis.” This term was coined by Zbigniew Brzezinski during his time as the National Security Advisor under the Carter Administration and entered the popular mainstream in the 15 January 1979 in Time Magazine’s cover story, The Crescent of Crisis.

[44] Ian S. Lipstick via Thomas X. Hammes, “The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation,” Marin Corps Gazette, September 1994.

[45] Hammes, 8.

[46] John Robb,“The Bazaar of Violence in Iraq,” http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/images/Bazaar.html (Accessed 03 October 2004).

[47] Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map, 83.

[48]James F. Moore, “The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head,” 31 March 2003, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jmoore/secondsuperpower.html (Accessed 05 April 2004).

[49] During the U.S. 2004 presidential election season, Kerry stated that the GWOT should be reduced down to an “nuisance” – that is, a manageable low-level threat, while Bush commented that the war may never end and can only be reduced in its level of violence. For Bush’s comment, see Mike Allen, “Bush Tones Down Talk of Winning Terror War,” 31 August 2004, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47707-2004Aug30?language=printer (Accessed 02 September 2004). For Kerry’s comment, see No Author, “Bush campaign to base ad on Kerry Terror Quote,” 11 October 2004, CNN.com, http://cnn.allpolitics.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Bush+campaign+to+base+ad+on+Kerry+terror+quote+-+Oct+10%2C+2004&expire=-1&urlID=11907880&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FALLPOLITICS%2F10%2F10%2Fbush.kerry.terror%2Findex.html&partnerID=2001 (Accessed 20 May 2005).

[50] No Author, “Changing and Fighting, Simultaneously,” 30 October, 2004, National Journal, http://www.army.mil/leaders/leaders/csa/articles/2004Oct30.html (Accessed 03 January 2005).