2: Long War
Win the Long War Other Information:
For the foreseeable future, winning the Long War against violent extremist movements will be the central objective of the
U.S. We must defeat violent extremism as a threat to our way of life as a free and open society and foster an environment
inhospitable to violent extremists and all those who support them. We face an extended series of campaigns to defeat violent
extremist groups, presently led by al-Qaeda and its associates. In concert with others, we seek to reduce support for violent
extremism and encourage moderate voices, offering apositive alternative to the extremists’ vision for the future. Victory
requires us to apply all elements of national power in partnership with old allies and newpartners. Iraq and Afghanistan remain
the central fronts in the struggle, but we cannot lose sight of the implications of fighting a long-term, episodic, multi-front,and
multi-dimensional conflict more complex and diverse than the Cold War confrontation with communism. Success in Iraq and Afghanistan
is crucial to winning this conflict, but it alone will not bring victory. We face a clash of arms, awar of ideas, and an assistance
effort that will require patience and innovation. In concert with our partners, we must maintain a long-term commitment to
undermining and reducing the sources of support for extremist groups, and to countering the ideological totalitarian messages
they build upon. We face a global struggle. Like communism and fascism before it, extremistideology has transnational pretensions,
and like its secular antecedents, it draws adherents from around the world. The vision it offers is in opposition to globalization
and the expansion of freedom it brings. Paradoxically, violent extremist movements use the very instruments of globalization
– the unfettered flow of information and ideas, goods and services, capital, people, and technology– that they claim to reject
to further their goals. Although driven by this transnational ideology, our adversaries themselves are, in fact, a collection
of regional and local extremist groups. Regional and local grievances help fuel the conflict, and it thrives in ungoverned,
under-governed, and mis-governed areas.This conflict is a prolonged irregular campaign, a violent struggle for legitimacy
and influence over the population. The use of force plays a role, yet military efforts to capture or kill terrorists are likely
to be subordinate to measures to promote local participation in government and economic programs to spur development, as well
as efforts to understand and address the grievances that often lie at the heart of insurgencies. For these reasons, arguably
the most important military component of the struggle against violent extremists is not the fighting we do ourselves, but
how well we help prepare our partners to defend and govern themselves. Working with and through local actors whenever possible
to confront common security challenges is the best and most sustainable approach to combat violent extremism. Often our partners
are better positioned to handle a given problem because they understand the local geography, social structures, and culture
better than we do or ever could. In collaboration with interagency and international partners we will assist vulnerable states
and local populations as they seek to ameliorate the conditions that foster extremism and dismantle the structures thatsupport
and allow extremist groups to grow. We will adopt approaches tailored to local conditions that will vary considerably across
regions. We will help foster security and aid local authorities in building effective systems of representational government.
By improving conditions, undermining the sources of support, andassisting in addressing root causes of turmoil, we will help
states stabilize threatened areas. Countering the totalitarian ideological message of terrorist groups to help further undermine
their potency will also require sensitive, sophisticated and integrated interagency and international efforts. The Department
will support and facilitate these efforts. The struggle against violent extremists will not end with a single battle orcampaign.
Rather, we will defeat them through the patient accumulation of quiet successes and the orchestration of all elements of national
and international power. We will succeed by eliminating the ability of extremists to strike globally and catastrophically
while also building the capacity and resolve of local governments to defeat them regionally. Victory will include discrediting
extremist ideology, creating fissures between and among extremist groups and reducing them to the level of nuisance groups
that can be tracked and handled by law enforcement capabilities.
Objective(s):
|
