The Global Counter Insurgency
The Global Counter Insurgency
America’s New National Security and Foreign Policy Paradigm
by Jonathan Morgenstein & Eric Vickland
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Sixty years ago, George Kennan penned his landmark Foreign Affairs article that defined American foreign policy for the next half century. Seminal security policy decisions such as the creation of NATO, the blockade of Cuba and the Berlin airlift were all components of the policy of Containment. Today, a radical Islamic ideology seeks our destruction, yet we lack a unifying doctrine on which to base our foreign policy. Al Qaida and its ideological compatriots represent a worldwide insurgency based on religious extremism. At its core it is a political struggle with political aims and in order to defeat it, we need adapt our means to the nature of the struggle. We are not fighting a war on terrorism. We are fighting a global insurgency against an extremist brand of Islam.
To achieve victory in this conflict, we require a comprehensive paradigm that will address global asymmetric threats. We propose that doctrine be based upon a Global Counterinsurgency and that it become the guidepost for all major US Foreign Policy, in much the same way that George Kennan’s anonymous proposal became the focal point for US foreign policy during the Cold War.
