Why Reasoning with ISIS is a Useless Concept

[The Reaper]

As someone stated earlier, the main product of Islamic nations is unemployed young men with little or no future.

Unemployment is very high, and prospects are very low.

The foreseeable future is bleak and without promise.

Islam promises a quick entry into heaven, and all of its rewards.

The West seems to be living the good life and laughing.

Does it surprise anyone that many young men are eager to embrace this death culture and to commit heinous crimes in the name of their religion?

How do we dissuade them from this choice?

How do we attack those who cannot be deterred without creating more recruits (or at least, enablers) to their cause?

How do we keep them from coming here?

Can we kill our way to victory?

These are not easy questions.

TR

[MR2]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Does it surprise anyone that many young men are eager to embrace this death culture and to commit heinous crimes in the name of their religion? No

How do we dissuade them from this choice? Give them a FastPass

How do we attack those who cannot be deterred without creating more recruits (or at least, enablers) to their cause? Create two paths and slaughter each and every one who takes the wrong path - relentlessly and forever

How do we keep them from coming here? By eliminating many of our freedoms

Can we kill our way to victory? Only if we are willing to go Attila upon them

These are not easy questions.

TR

No they are not.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by MR2

No they are not. Can we kill our way to victory? Only if we are willing to go Attila upon them

I'm down with this, when do we start?

[The Reaper]

I would say that given the catch and release program of our government and our allies, and the catch and kill policy of our enemies, the days of combatants taking prisoners should be at an all time low.

TR

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

As someone stated earlier, the main product of Islamic nations is unemployed young men with little or no future.

Unemployment is very high, and prospects are very low.

The foreseeable future is bleak and without promise.

Islam promises a quick entry into heaven, and all of its rewards.

The West seems to be living the good life and laughing.

Does it surprise anyone that many young men are eager to embrace this death culture and to commit heinous crimes in the name of their religion?

Absolutely not.

How do we dissuade them from this choice?

Provide an alternative opportunity and a deterrent

How do we attack those who cannot be deterred without creating more recruits (or at least, enablers) to their cause?

Maybe allow(if not outright encourage) Algeria's DRS veterans and Mediene(who sounds like he is on the way out) to set up as an Arab faced PMC.

They seem to have been pretty effective in the short-to-medium term in reducing the threat in Algeria, albeit at a fairly high cost in some categories.

Maybe it will take a Soviet/Eastern approach to disassemble the threats.

False flag insurgent roach motels, pseudo operations, etc. and once the immediate kinetic threat has been reduced, focus on dictatorial macro economic policies to increase median income, standard of living/quality of life, while ruling with an iron fist like an Arab Lee Kuan Yew but with necessarily harsher civil liberties/freedoms.



How do we keep them from coming here?

Border security, border security, border security.

Turning the US border into a macro/national gerrymandering tsunami is simply catastrophic.

US immigration policy should be like professional sports free agency. You don't win the game by recruiting bottom of the barrel losers, you win by recruiting motivated, educated, like-minded winners.

A rational foreign policy would help deter and mitigate threats.

Avoid foreign entanglements unless absolutely necessary. And if you can't avoid them, execute with absolute decisiveness.

Can we kill our way to victory?

I think you can kill your way to tactical victory, but it becomes more difficult at the operational level, and nearly impossible at the strategic level.

Breaking the cycle of tactical vendetta is easier than breaking the cycle of strategic vendetta.

These are not easy questions.

TR

One of the ideas I've been mulling over is the theoretical viability of a multi-leveled diplomatic corps.

The existing diplomatic infrastructure remains for state to state diplomacy.

And a new thinner layer of diplomatic infrastructure is added specifically targeting Non State Actors in ungoverned spaces.

The high speed guys disrupting insurgent networks over the last 13+ years utilized interagency/international fusion cells.

Should there be interagency(maybe international) Non State Actor fusion cells that last as long as the NSAs are deemed to be a player/threat?

Developing and executing foreign policy responses directed at NSAs in ungoverned spaces.

I would think a bunch of retired or very senior SF fellas working in small interagency fusion teams would be pretty useful in developing and executing effective strategic responses to NSAs like ISIS.

Develop NSA focused courses for SWCS in partnership with DOS FSI, FBI Academy, etc.

Running and gunning is for the young(er) fellas. And even though we've seen a lot of lifestyle and quality of life improvements allowing for folks to physically work harder for longer, I can't help but think about the accumulated knowledge of senior SF fellas(and folks from other trades like law enforcement) who've got decades of accumulated experience as well as decades of useful life left in helping to better shape the longer term future.

While I agree they are not easy questions, and the answers are even harder...I would think an effective answer will probably include a bunch of current or prior service SF fellas in their 50's-60's.