For the next seven days, UN Dispatch, The Washington Note and On Day One will host an online discussion about international terrorism and offer recommendations for how the next United States president can meet these challenges. Leading this discussion is an international panel of experts on terrorism, counter-terrorism, international law, and national security. We are honored to have Steve Clemons as a moderator and co-host on The Washington Note.

Our panel of experts (full bios here) include:

Peter Bergen, New America Foundation

Paul Cruickshank, NYU Center on Law and Security

Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch

Stephanie Kaplan, Woodrow Wilson Center

Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute on Near East Policy

Alastair Millar, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Eric Rosand, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Yosri Fouda, Al Jazeera

On Day One is a social media site sponsored by the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Campaign that asks everyday people to offer their ideas about what the next president should do, figuratively "on day one." In preparation for this discussion, we solicited On Day One users for their ideas on how the next president should take on the threat of global terrorism and many people responded by suggesting that if the United States does more to alleviate poverty in the developing world the terrorist threat could be mitigated.

But is terrorism actually linked to poverty? Is it linked to other externalities, like grievances with American foreign policy, perceived humiliation, nationalist political objectives, radical ideology --- or all of the above? Which is most dominant? Which is most underestimated in current approaches to terrorism?

I certainly believe there are links between poverty and terrorism, but particularly in terms of the West's so-called Global War on Terror, I believe more important are other variables such as the ones mentioned in the prompt, e.g. perceived humiliation, grievances w/ U.S. foreign policy, radical ideology etc.

For instance, certain of the key 9/11 hijackers were reasonably middle (or lower-middle class) young adults residing in European cities. And while others on this E-mail chain far more knowledgeable than me might correct me, the 15 or so Saudi hijackers (of the 19 total) I don't recall having had hugely impoverished backgrounds, though certainly they were not enjoying the fruits of the petro-dollar gusher as are their local elites.

Still, I'd think, these terrorists were not the hugely impoverished peasants inhabiting the border-lands of South Waziristan and Afghanistan, say. (Incidentally, to mount "A Team" style sophisticated attacks in the West, almost as a tactical 'gating-item', once must enjoy a modicum of education and 'Westerness' to evade heightened security measures, pointing to those most dangerous potential terrorists not necessarily being those mired in the worst of endemic 3rd world poverty).

Meantime, and putting aside the famous example of Mohammed Atta and Co., one might query too whether the Madrid train bombers (mostly young Moroccans) or the July 7th London attackers (mostly home-grown and by the accounts I'm familiar with not desperately poor either), were primarily driven to action by poverty. I suspect not, but for avoidance of doubt, please note this is not to argue a key part of our overall anti-terror strategy mustn't include economic development initiatives in critical areas like the Maghreb, Pakistan, etc, as doubtless poverty alleviation (not least given the demographic boom through MENA and South Asia of younger citizens) will become an increasingly critical challenge for policy-makers in the coming years/decades. I view poverty therefore as a tremendously unhelpful variable in all of this, but not necessarily a primary cause.

Indeed, I'd argue in this Internet and global cable age where IDF airstrikes in, say, southern Lebanon inflame televised opinion in the Islamic World from Tangier to Jakarta, it is more foreign policy actions of various powers, particularly those stoking feelings of humiliation, that create the impetus for (mostly) young Muslim males to join the jihadi cause. This said, local autocracies frustrating freedom of expression are a major part of this toxic brew as well, of course.

Related, I believe there is a 'hard-core' of ideological true-believers for whom radical ideology--and radical ideology alone--provide the requisite motivational impulse towards terror (say restoration of the much discussed caliphate). But I believe there are a good number of 'fence-sitters', some perhaps even tempted towards the faux romance of terrorism by boredom and feelings of alienation while residing in the West, who end up pursuing violent tactics not as much because of ideology per se necessarily, but 'hot topics' like the foreign policy of the U.S., which in turn lead to occasional feelings of perceived humiliation, leading them towards acts of terrorist horror.

Last, I would say the most underestimated cause (per the question prompt) is very likely the occupation of Islamic lands by foreign powers. This has historically been a major cause of Palestinian terrorism (see, over the years, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP etc), and see too Chechnya, Lebanon (Hezbollah notably), and more. This being said, the transnational al-Qaeda variety of terrorism has sought to conflate festering conflicts/occupation/humiliation--and then somewhat fuse same w/ 'purist' ideology--so as to thereby be immunized some to the ebbs and flows of localized disputes, the better so there appear to perennially be 'near' and 'far' enemies, the scope of the jihadist playing field is global, and progress in the Middle East peace process, say (were we ever to see any again), would not be a reason to lay down arms.

Poverty, in and of itself, does not lead to terrorism. But it can be part of the problem, as the case of disenfranchised Muslim communities in Europe make clear. In the words of one European official I recently interviewed on this issue, "poverty is rarely one of the key radicalizers, but unemployment can be, especially when combined with engaging in criminal activity and being exposed to a radical narrative." Radical ideologies are better able to take root when discrimination and the lack of opportunity for economic growth are put in terms of a global narrative that weave personal experiences in the suburbs north of Paris together with the plight of fellow Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine or Iraq to personalize far away conflicts and paint a global, ideological struggle. That global narrative is where foreign policy becomes one part of this larger tapestry as well, especially when presented through a radical ideological lens. To my mind the ideological component is the most critical and overlooked component here.

As several studies have demonstrated, organized radicalization and recruitment (let alone training and the provision of funds and weapons) has long been central to the formation of a terrorist--that is, someone who is not only angry but willing to act on that anger in a violent manner. Today, that organizational function is in some cases carried out more passively via exposure to ideas and, perhaps more critically, a sense of belonging to a group of like-minded followers, on the Internet. But even among the increasing number of "homegrown" terrorists, European officials stress the importance of pre-existing personal vulnerabilities that serve as "push factors"as well as exposure to "radicalizers" - in person or online - over a period of time.

No single psychological profile describes the wide variety of "push factors" that make individuals vulnerable to the kind of radicalization that can eventually lead them to become terrorists. One study, by Tel Aviv University researchers Shaul Kimhe and Shmuel Even, developed a series of prototypical categories that combine both clinical and social psychological causes among Palestinians who resorted to terrorism. A telling corollary to their primary findings, however, is that whatever the typology of the potential terrorist--"religious fanatic," "nationalist fanatic," "avenger," or "exploited"--every type requires "a social environment that is supportive of such an attack; media that disseminates the information among the supportive population; spiritual leadership that encourages such attacks; and financial and social assistance for families of suicide terrorists after their death." Together, these conditions create a "comprehensive social environment [that] may be referred to as the 'culture of suicide terrorists' that has been created within Palestinian society." [See here.]

Social preconditions by themselves do not make a suicide bomber. While poverty, humiliation, occupation, personal suffering, shame, or loss of a loved one can all be powerful radicalizing factors, they almost always require an organized element to channel that anger and frustration -- actively and in person or passively on the Internet -- into a desire to kill and maim random civilians (as opposed, for example, to a desire simply to kill oneself). It is for this reason that groups subscribing to a radical ideology invest so much time, effort and money in media campaigns aimed at radicalizing and directly or indirectly recruiting future members.

I am not aware of any empirical data that shows a causal link between poverty and terrorism. If there was such a link then we would see poor people and communities more involved in committing/planning terrorist attacks than the current data shows. Poverty by itself simply does not have the direct radicalizing effect on individuals.

In fact, the majority of empirical studies on terrorism provides little indication of correlations between socioeconomic factors such as poverty, inequality, and unemployment and the incidence of terrorism. For example, the data in Alan Kruger and David Latin's global study of the origins and targets of terrorism lend little support to the notion that poverty leads to terrorism, instead suggesting that limited political rights and civil liberties tend to be the most influential in inciting people to terrorism and country-level economic factors such as poverty and high unemployment, tend to be most relevant in determining the targets of terrorism [see here (pdf)]

As analysis of the home-grown terrorist problem in Europe reveal, the reasons that may push certain second and third generation Muslim youth toward violence are generally not specific enough and include traits shared by a larger population that deals with similar situations in very different ways. In fact, as Matthew alludes to, the process of radicalization is a complex interaction of factors, external (such as poverty, perceived humiliation, radical ideology, and American foreign policy), social (e.g., social identification mechanisms or social network dynamics) and individual (e.g., psychological characteristics or personal experiences), which do not necessarily lead to violence and not every radical becomes a terrorist.

The challenge for the US and other government and non-government stakeholders is to better understand the mix of factors that are relevant to the particular country/region and develop policies and work with the right mix of government and non-government actors to try to address these factors. Given the heightened sensitivities surrounding any program aimed at countering the radicalization process that has the "Made in America" label on it, however, it is important for the US to work with (or under the cover of) partners, such as the UN, whenever possible (and certainly more than it currently does) in developing and implementing programs in the wide range of necessary fields (e.g., social/economic/political).

Any serious study of the facts has found that the more relatively educated people are the more likely they are to engage in terrorism, and the more money people have, relative to their peers, the more likely they are to engage in terrorism, defined as violence against civilians by non-state actors.

And so, projects to increase levels of education and income around the world are likely, on average, to create more terrorists, which is not an argument against education or poverty alleviation, but simply one of the rare cases where social "science" can make something of an accurate prediction about future outcomes.

I agree with the other panelists that no link can be demonstrated between poverty and terrorism. This is not to say that socio-economic conditions have no relevance whatsoever. The economic success of the American Muslim community (two thirds earn over $50,000) is one of the reasons why American Muslims have become so well integrated into American society. The fact that 22% of young British Muslims are unemployed does contribute towards feelings of alienation.

I'm currently in London looking into violent extremism in the UK. The dynamics over here have direct implications for the national security of the United States. In 2006 authorities thwarted an Al Qaeda plot by British-born Muslims to bring down up to seven airliners leaving Heathrow for North America. The threat has not gone away. Britain probably has more Al Qaeda supporters than any other western country, two thousand of which now pose a security threat according to MI5.

Many British Islamist terrorists have had relatively privileged upbringings. Here are just a few examples: Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7, 2005 London bombings earned a decent salary as a primary school teacher; Shehzad Tanweer, another 7/7 bomber use to cruise around in his father's Mercedes; Omar Sheikh, the British militant who orchestrated the murder of Danny Pearl attended LSE; Omar Khan Sharif, the British militant who attacked a nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2003 attended elite British schools; Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the alleged ringleader of the 'Airlines' plot, came from a solidly middle class background. One of his brothers is an IT consultant, another a property developer and a third a probation officer (!) at Britain's Home Office.

The evidence from the UK suggests that political grievances and radical-Islamist indoctrination, not socio-economic conditions, have been key to terrorist recruitment. Youngsters who are more affluent and educated are more likely to be motivated by political arguments. The British Muslims that have joined Al Qaeda have all become convinced that the United States and Britain are at war with Islam and that it is their religious duty to fight back. Here, Matt Levitt is right to point out the importance of 'organized radicalization.' In Britain a number of radical clerics, such as Abu Hamza al Masri and Omar Bakri Mohammed, operated relatively freely until recently, posing as knowledgeable Islamic scholars. The invasion of Iraq in 2003, whatever the rights and wrongs, helped make their arguments resonate more strongly.

We seem to have reached the consensus that poverty--along with other grievances such as political oppression and cultural alienation--are not reliable indicators of future terrorist activity. Given the prevalence of these conditions throughout the Muslim world, the "root causes" approach overpredicts the level of terrorist activity that we should expect to observe. As Quintan Wiktorowicz notes in Islamic Activism, "[w]hile grievances are ubiquitous, movements are not." The question remains, then, why almost seven years after 9/11, does the root causes debate still shape the counterterrorism discourse?

From a policy perspective, the approach is a seductive one: if we can identify the causes of terrorism, then we can eradicate the conditions that allow terror to take root. At one time or the other, policymakers on both sides of the aisle have found comfort in this formulation. As Peter mentions, this does not mean that global poverty reduction or similar measures shouldn't be a goal of U.S. foreign policy, but the expectation that they will reduce terrorism may be misplaced.

The second part of our discussion on terrorism issues rolls on today with two On Day One user generated ideas suggesting that the next president treat counter-terrorism more as a challenge for law enforcement than a military objective.

It would seem that counter-terrorism responsibility has fallen mainly under the purview of the military. Are there advantages, though, of limiting the military's role in counter-terrorism and treating it more as a law enforcement issue? Are our laws--or international law--capable of meeting the challenges posed by international terrorism? Are there specific legal reforms that might benefit law enforcement without sacrificing on civil liberties? And if the military is going to take the lead, how should our service branches reform to meet these new challenges?

The question is not whether our counter-terrorism strategy should be military or law enforcement centric, but rather how to develop and deploy a truly inter-agency strategy that employs all elements of national power to defeat a transnational adversary operating in an era of globalization.

The military is actively engaged in counter-terrorism, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq where it is fighting wars against asymmetric enemies, but I would dispute the assumption that counter-terrorism responsibility has fallen mainly under the purview of the military. At the same time, while acts of terrorism are themselves criminal activities, employing a counter-terrorism strategy that sees terrorism as more of a law enforcement issue is also off the mark. Both the military and law enforcement communities plays critical roles in counter-terrorism, but a truly effective counter-terrorism strategy is one that is intelligence-heavy and leverages that intelligence to inform a plan than employs all elements of national power, with a focus on non-kinetic tools and authorities.

Indeed, I think it's safe to say that the effort to combat terrorism at a tactical level is where we are best, employing our military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to conduct operations, make arrests, raid safe havens, etc. It is at the level of strategic counter-terrorism, that is strategic communication, the battle of ideas, and counter-radicalization, that we are just now making strong strides forward (see our previous discussion chain). For example, highlighting al-Qaeda's bankrupt ideology is now a cornerstone of the U.S. strategic communications message.

Recognizing the relationships between our various foreign policy interests also points to the need to leverage all our authorities in a strategic counterterrorism effort. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Dell Dailey made this point in a lecture at The Washington Institute in December entitled An 'All Elements of Power' Strategy for Combating Terrorism. "In today's interconnected world, it is impossible to draw neat, clear lines between security interests, development efforts, and our support for democracy. American diplomacy must integrate and advance all of these goals together."

That said, I do think we are in need of some legal remedies to our current legal system. Some of these are tactical, like passage of a new Export Administration Act (EAA) that would empower the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security to conduct arrests and engage in undercover operations more easily (the last law, now somewhat outdated too, lapsed in 2001 and BIS has been operating under emergency authorities granted by the President under IEEPA).

But two immediate legal issues come to mind. First, the need to find a solution to the need to hold terrorism suspects and how to try them. As my colleague Mike Jacobson has pointed out, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada are among the countries grappling with the question of whether certain terrorist suspects should be handled in legal settings outside of the criminal justice system.

Second, the "material support" statute should also be revisited. As a series of partial convictions and hung juries in recent "material support" cases demonstrates, obtaining convictions under the current law is difficult. In some cases, prosecutors have opted not to charge defendants with providing material support to terrorists, charging them instead with other criminal activity.

The bottom line, however, is that while post-blast prosecutions hold perpetrators accountable and provide victims a sense of justice, it is not clear than in an era of ideologically-driven terrorism they provide much of a deterrent to other would-be terrorists and their supporters. Law enforcement and military action have their place within the larger counter-terrorism toolkit, but so do intelligence collection and operations, robust diplomacy and international engagement, international training and capacity building programs, financial and economic pressures and opportunities, and more.

I agree with Matt that the notion that U.S. counterterrorism policy is largely under the purview of the military is a false one. It relates, I think, to the partisan charge that the Democrats possess a "pre-9/11 mindset" when it comes to counterterrorism. Throughout the past seven years, the military has been the public face of U.S. counterterrorism efforts (the consequences of which merit their own discussion thread). But behind the scenes the same-old, pre-9/11 intelligence and law enforcement efforts have been crucial to foiling plots at home and across the globe. The twenty-or-so jihadist plots that have been rolled up since 9/11 came as a result of time-honored police and intelligence work, the success of which was sometimes predicated upon strong international cooperation. It is time to put the myth of the pre-9/11 mindset to rest.

That we need to use all of the tools in the toolbox is not a new argument. But in the context of this question, I think it is important to emphasize the heterogeneity of the global jihad and what that means for those who accept a multi-faceted approach. The global jihadist movement is not a monolithic, unitary actor that requires the same set of policy prescriptions across the board. A diverse set of actors (the al-Qaeda vanguard, regional groups, start-up cells) reside under its umbrella with varying degrees of cooperation between and among them. For some segments of the movement, the problem is primarily an intelligence and law enforcement issue. For other segments, namely the vanguard in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the military has and will continue to play a leading role in containing and reducing the jihadist threat.

In Stephanie's answer to the second prompt, she writes: "It is time to put the myth of the pre-9/11 mindset to rest" with which I think I mostly concur--save with some reservations about the level of attention both the Clinton and early Bush Administration paid to the growing al-Qaeda threat, but she then nonetheless writes: "For other segments, namely the vanguard in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the military has and will continue to play a leading role in containing and reducing the jihadist threat".

I was curious who the "vanguard" is? Are we speaking of UBL and Zawahiri? If so, why would the military necessarily be best positioned to deal with them? I suspect many of the most precious high-value targets (think [9-11 mastermind] Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was apprehended in Rawalpindi by the [Pakistani Intelligence Service], I believe with some CIA involvement) could well be hiding in major cities like Karachi or Peshawar (perhaps in even more fantastical disguises than Radovan Karadzic's!), rather than the badlands of South Waziristan. And even if there, wouldn't highly focused counter-intelligence efforts--backed up by discrete military action as/if necessary--be the best way to locate and capture these terrorists?

How do our noble Marines expending blood and treasure on 'clear hold build' in eastern Afghanistan advance the ball on this front, rather than 'over the horizon' forces poised to strike/apprehend select High Value Targets's, intelligence assets (both foreign and local) at the ready through the region, as aided by diplomatic efforts (to include 'triangulation' among India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, assorted financial assistance/pressure, police training initiatives etc). Or, stated differently, why is a militarily intensive & likely decades long nation-building effort with tens of thousands of American forces apparently a 'no-brainer' now across both major U.S. political parties when it comes to Afghanistan, particularly if much of the "vanguard" has decamped to Pakistan? (It seems Obama and McCain are only arguing about numbers and where the troops will come from, with both in favor of a "surge" in Afghanistan.) Is the seemingly perennial effort of weaning away Pashtun tribes from Taliban influences a vital national security interest of ours, do we think? If so, why? As Zbigniew Brzezinski recently put it: "We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made...Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper." I suspect others like Chuck Hagel and Sam Nunn might well agree.

For the group, and I guess somewhat related, I'm not sure others responded to the first prompt's particular prong asking what people believe is the most "underestimated" contributor to terrorism. I hazarded it was the occupation of Muslim lands. Are there any other views, with thanks for your indulgence if the answers are obvious and/or the questions appear off-topic?

Regarding Matt Levitt's point, perhaps I'm only emphasizing what he eloquently said on needing a "truly interagency strategy." And his response had the added benefit of helping ensure we steer clear of any polemics by not falling into (the often so silly) politically charged debates about Democrats only wanting to treat terror as a law enforcement issue, with Republicans just cow-boying around solely with military/unilateralist/preemptive strategies. While these are mostly caricatures and straw-men, still, it's worth highlighting that we've had nearly 200,000 service men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq day after day, for years now. That is the major use of our military today. Both are supposedly there to help us meet our objectives in the Global War On Terror. Are they, or are they instead perhaps ultimately going to make the problems even worse? Let us at least provide our men and women in uniform a succinct strategic objective for their massive labors and sacrifices? What is it?

In response to Greg's query to me: Briefly, I don't assume that Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri are hiding in urban areas (but, of course, I have no intelligence upon which to base this assumption). So your question underscores my point precisely: the military is not the lead counterterrorism agency in urban areas, where so many segments of the jihadist movement thrive. And that is why the pre-9/11 mindset is a canard.

For what its worth none of the AQ leadership are in urban areas. That was a very costly mistake for them. Since 2004 they are all in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas [of Pakistan.]

How can you be sure of this?

No leaders of al Qaeda have been killed or captured in urban areas since 2004. Before that many were-Khalid Sheik Mohammed, al Shibh, Abu Zubayda, etc. Since then Al Qaeda leaders who have been killed or narrowly avoided being killed have been on the receiving end of Hellfire missiles in the tribal areas.

As a lawyer, I will adjudge this at best circumstantial evidence, but take your point.

I also wanted to respond to the idea that somehow we are making the same mistake in Afghanistan that the Soviets did. This is a real misreading of history. The Soviets killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and they turned a third of the population into refugees; some 6 million fled to Iran and Pakistan.

Our policies in Afghanistan are failing and require a complete rethink but no matter how many problems we have encountered there (and in Pakistan) it is not because we are repeating the same mistakes as the Soviets who imposed a brutal, totalitarian war on a population who, in the main, loathed them with a passionate intensity.

We are not repeating history in Afghanistan. We are making our own mistakes, which may be rectifiable.

Regarding the question of military strategy and al Qaeda: Al Qaeda believes it is at war with the United States and her allies and on 9/11 al Qaeda killed thousands of American civilians and attempted to decapitate the government; acts of war by any standard.

We are not, therefore, as some of our European friends would have it, engaged in some sort of global police action against violent jihadists. We are, in fact, in a war with them, but as in all wars, all instruments of state power- diplomacy, intelligence, propaganda etc.-- are needed to defeat al Qaeda.

Having established that we are indeed at war with al Qaeda, the real question, as Clausewitz would suggest, is what kind of war are we engaged in? And t hat is where the Bush administration has made a number of errors, the deepest of which is to argue that the war against al Qaeda is similar to the wars against communism and fascism.

This is nonsense, of course, as the al Qaeda threat is orders of magnitude smaller than Mutually Assured Destruction or the triumph of Nazism in Europe. (For the Bush administration painting the conflict in such existential terms had the side benefit of casting Bush as Churchill and anyone who had the temerity to question him as the reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain.)

The second mistake the Bush administration made was to conflate all sorts of organizations and movements from Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda into a global enemy thereby falling into bin Laden's rhetorical trap that there really is a global jihadist movement arraigned against us rather than disparate groups of Islamists, some violent, others not, with their own local agendas who often despise each other intensely.

The third mistake was to say that you are "either with us or against us." A much smarter approach would have been to say is that "if you are not with them you are with us." This is the approach we finally adopted in Iraq after vast amounts of blood and treasure had been spilled over the course of the first four years of the war. On Uncle Sam's payroll now are tens of thousands of militant Sunni Iraqis who two years ago were shooting at Americans.

It is self-evident that "winning" the GWOT--by which I mean turning terrorism into a second-order threat--will take every instrument of state power, including the military one, but that is not sufficient. We have to consider what kind of war are we in and what kind of strategy will it take to prevail.

Belatedly the Bush administration is adopting some of the policies that make sense to defeat al Qaeda and lower the temperature in the Muslim world--restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, engaging with Iran, coopting Sunni militants in Iraq. Historians are likely to conclude that these measures came too late to salvage the reputations of Bush or Rice. And there the next administration has an opening: to set a course that is based not on an ideological interpretation of the threat but approaches it with the kind of realism that the Bush administration has finally begun to adopt.

I agree with almost everything Peter writes below (particularly his "second" mistake, the clever subtlety he flags in his "third mistake", and then too his last paragraph-to which I'd add the need to effectively engage with Syria too).

A small quibble however.

I'm not sure that Zbigniew Brzezinski's statement that "We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made...Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper" means he (or I) are grotesquely misreading history. No one is saying we are employing a brutish, ham-handed Soviet approach to the Afghan campaign. The question is still legitimate (no one in this conversation seems to want to take it on, and so we risk missing the forest for the trees on the 'military' prong of the second prompt) whether multi-year (or even possibly decades long) nation building efforts in each of Iraq or Afghanistan are ultimately beneficial to the U.S. national interest, or the Global War On Terrorism (an increasingly silly phrase, in my view), or whatever supposed strategic objective we are pursuing in the region. I think this is what Brzezinski is really probing around, keeping in mind too Afghan's historic aversion to foreign interlopers and their perhaps less than universal alacrity to comply w/the democratic diktats emitting from the soi disant wholly enlightened Karzai government.

I've beaten the horse dead already, so won't go on, save to say I have spotted Peter of late on CNN agreeing with the consensus view more troops are needed in Afghanistan, although he says they must be the "right"" kind of troops. While I certainly agree with him that National Guardsman from Alabama don't fit the bill, we alas don't really have a teeming Colonial Corps deeply schooled in the ways of the Pashtun at the ready, and I'd like to suggest that before we as a nation (and indeed NATO Alliance, or which many of the members are already highly skeptical of this mission) sign off on deepening our presence in Afghanistan--even with the best of whatever counter-insurgency specialists we have avail--we should at least accompany this clarion call with a mission statement to warrant same. Ideally, a highly convincing one, of which I've not yet seen or heard, though others may disagree.

Peter allows that "our policies in Afghanistan are failing and require a complete rethink". Perhaps if his schedule permits he can share with us more about how and why in this forum so that we might fall into informed discussion regarding better going forward options. Given he's spent much time in theater it would doubtless be a highly valuable contribution to our discussions.

The question about more boots on the ground is a relatively easy one to answer.

None, or few, of those new boots will come from NATO allies and if they do come they will come so freighted with national caveats and domestic political considerations that will make them largely ineffective. So they will have to come from the U.S.

Why are more needed? Well do the math: Afghanistan is a country ideally suited to guerilla warfare with its high mountain ranges and it is a third larger than Iraq and its population is some 6 million or so greater, yet the numbers of soldiers and policemen in Iraq are more than three times larger than in Afghanistan.

Iraq has more than 600,000 Iraqi members of the security services and some 150,000 American soldiers in addition, while Afghanistan has 150,000 local soldiers and police and some 60,000 US and NATO troops. You can't bring security to the country with those low numbers of soldiers and police. And without security you can't have reconstruction. And so what Afghanistan desperately needs is more American Special Forces and other advisors to build up the size of the Afghan army and police which right now are way too small to secure the country.

The New York Police Department numbers some 40,000 cops. Afghanistan right now has 70,000 cops for the whole country, which is wracked by a violent insurgency in all of its eastern and southern provinces and increasingly in its central provinces and is, to boot, the center of the world's heroin trade. So more American soldiers on the ground--the right kind of soldiers--and a far better strategy are required. I can't get into that strategy as that is a much a longer answer unsuitable for a post, but part of it, of course, is securing the population, which can't be done right now with the "economy of force" as Admiral Mullen so aptly puts it that is now in place in Afghanistan.

By the way, what Greg describes as Afghanistan's historic aversion to interlopers has, indeed, a long history, but there is one incredibly important caveat: that is relevant to this discussion.

An ABC News/BBC poll released in December 2006 shows that despite the disappointments that Afghans have felt about inadequate reconstruction and declining security on a wide range of key issues, they maintain positive attitudes. It is classic counterinsurgency doctrine that the center of gravity in a conflict is the people. And the Afghan people, unlike the Iraqis, have positive feelings about the U.S.-led occupation, their own government and their lives. The conclusions of the ABC/BBC poll are worth quoting in some detail:

"Big majorities continue to call the U.S.-led invasion a good thing for their country (88 percent), to express a favorable opinion of the United States (74 percent) and to prefer the current Afghan government to Taliban rule (88 percent). Indeed eight in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S., British and other international forces on their soil; that compares with five percent support for Taliban fighters...Fifty-five percent of Afghans still say the country's going in the right direction, but that's down sharply from 77 percent last year. Whatever the problems, 74 percent say their living conditions today are better now than they were under the Taliban. That rating, however, is 11 points lower now than it was a year ago."

All of these positive poll numbers are continuing to slide downwards but the fact is that the "historic aversion" to outsiders was simply not the case in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. So if we start delivering tanglible security and reconstruction Afghans will actually welcome our presence.

With all due respect (and I sincerely mean this, not meant just as the requisite boiler-plate), I find Peter a tad too cock-sure in how he portrays more boots on the grounds as a total no-brainer ("well, do the math"). I understand the importance of boots on the ground for stability operations, indeed in the pages of my blog urged for supplementing our forces in Iraq back in the day, before the decision was belatedly made on the surge (once finally implemented after the myriad criminal ineptitudes of the Rumsfeld era, I disagreed with the wisdom incidentally, as it was not accompanied by a serious regional diplomatic strategy, so that we were merely forging tactical, localized security improvements but missing the wider strategic lens the situation demanded, and indeed still does today).

With all due respect (and I sincerely mean this, not meant just as the requisite boiler-plate), I find Peter a tad too cock-sure in how he portrays more boots on the grounds as a total no-brainer ("well, do the math"). I understand the importance of boots on the ground for stability operations, indeed in the pages of my blog urged for supplementing our forces in Iraq back in the day, before the decision was belatedly made on the surge (once finally implemented after the myriad criminal ineptitudes of the Rumsfeld era, I disagreed with the wisdom incidentally, as it was not accompanied by a serious regional diplomatic strategy, so that we were merely forging tactical, localized security improvements but missing the wider strategic lens the situation demanded, and indeed still does today).

This is something of my issue with Peter's note too. Yes more troops=more stability (at least in the short term), but to what end? Peter says he "can't get into that strategy as that is a much longer answer unsuitable for a post", and perhaps so, but if we are involved in nation-building efforts in Afghanistan via 'clear, hold, build' in the wilds of Helmand Province, supposedly to align Pashtun tribes (say the large Alizai Tribe) with the Karzai Government--it behooves us to at least define better for what long-term objective we are doing so?

Forgive me if this is mawkish, but let's make this more basic, if a tinge emotive: what do you tell the mother of a fallen Marine her son died for in Afghanistan, now well half a decade plus since UBL has fled the scene? To stress, the leaders of 9/11 are no longer there, after all, and peasants in southeastern Afghanistan who prefer neo-Talibs to Karzai won't be the ring-masters of the proverbial "next 9/11", I don't think (for reasons I alluded to in an earlier exchange).

There have and will always be groupings in Afghanistan (and across the frontier in Pakistan) that are sympathetic to Islamist tenets--even some more 'purist' and 'backwards' than that of the central government's 'approved' degree of requisite Islamic conviction/decorum, alas--and no amount of our young Captains trying to tee up assorted Jirgas will change this, I'm afraid. Nor can we transform Afghanistan into a Euro-style democracy with autobahns connecting Kandahar to Jalalabad, and looping back West to Herat. (Sadly, our own infrastructure, as Felix Rohatyn and others don't tire of reminding us of late in the pages of the FT, is crumbling, and quite badly).

Combine this with what I indeed referred to as Afghan's 'historic aversion to interlopers' (and I've found in life not to always put too much stock in polling data, so am less enthused seemingly than Peter about those results he quotes below, not least given the apparent trend-line), I'm simply not persuaded we might not feel ourselves increasingly adrift strategically in Afghanistan in the coming years--surge or no surge. This is particularly true as, scratch a mid-level European NATO planner, I suspect, and they probably can't help wondering how an alliance meant to defend Western Europe from the predatory inclinations of the Soviet Union has transmogrified into an alliance requesting that young Germans and Danes and Spaniards engage in nation-building efforts half-a-world away from the post-historical pleasures of a good meal in Brussels.

After all, if we are there to prevent a "safe haven" by this logic we fall in to Fred Kagan and ilk la-la land and should be militarily nation-building across the border in Pakistan too. Again, horrific plots are more likely to be getting planned in the Parisian banlieu or slums of Hamburg than tiny villages in Helmand, I'd think, save those HVT's still hiding in the region, whom we should of course be going after with all the mechanisms our national power--albeit mostly non-military save special mission ops to apprehend them, I'd think, rather than tens of thousands of men involved in a counter-insurgency that I believe does not necessarily, to this day, have the benefit of enjoying a coherent strategic overlay convincingly explicating why they are there and to what concrete ends.

Al