RAND Study Says U.S. Should Greatly Expand Efforts to Undermine Support for Terrorism
Source: RAND Corporation

To defeat the global jihadist movement, the United States should move beyond the boundaries of conventional counter-terrorism and seek to undermine support for Islamic terrorism within Muslim nations, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

The report says this type of campaign enabled the United States to help nurture opposition to Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, culminating in the overthrow of ruling regimes and the collapse of the Soviet system.

The study by RAND, a nonprofit research organization, says a successful campaign against Islamic terrorism requires: attacking the ideological underpinnings of global jihadism; severing ideological and other links between terrorist groups; and strengthening the capabilities of front-line states to counter local jihadist threats.

The report says that if the jihadist ideology “continues to spread and gain greater acceptance in the Muslim world, it will produce more terrorists to replenish the ranks of al-Qaeda and related groups. If the ideology is countered and discredited, al-Qaeda and its universe will wither and die.”

Conventional counter-terrorism alone is not enough to defeat al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups, according to the two-volume report titled “Beyond al-Qaeda.” The first volume is subtitled “The Global Jihadist Movement” and the second volume is subtitled “The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe.”

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Religion and spirituality, Social and cultural issues, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.