Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Former U.S. commander: Changing conditions key to battling Islamic State

Retired general to lecture tonight at UNLV about America’s ‘New 100 Years War’

John Allen to speak at UNLV

Hassan Ammar / AP File

John Allen, then a U.S. special presidential envoy, center, leaves the Arab League headquarters in October 2014 after meeting with the League’s Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby in Cairo, Egypt. A retired U.S. Marine general, Allen is now a fellow with the Brookings Institution. He’s scheduled to deliver a Brookings Mountain West lecture, “The New 100 Years War? Causes of Regional Instability and the Rise of the Islamic State,” at 6 p.m. March 1, 2017, at UNLV’s Greenspun Hall.

The leading factor behind the rise of the Islamic State and other Salafi Jihadi terrorist organizations isn’t religious radicalism, retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen contends.

It’s desperation and hopelessness in the human condition— the kind so profound that someone would agree to plant a roadside bomb for several hundred dollars, nearly a year’s income in a short period versus eking out desperate life as a subsistence farmer.

Allen’s assessment is bolstered by 38 years of experience in the military, including as commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and United States forces in Afghanistan from July 2011 to February 2013.

He says there are common denominators among nations that become ripe for terrorist organizations. They lack participatory governments, have inadequate or corrupt judicial systems, fail to provide adequate educational opportunities and suffer from economic problems that contribute to a poor quality of life.

“We just experienced 15 years of fighting, and there’s no end in sight,” he said. “Even though the Islamic State is ultimately going to be destroyed in a physical sense, until you kill the idea of these organizations, you’re not finished with them. And you can’t kill the idea if you haven’t changed why terrorist organizations are attractive to people who are trying to eke out a life in desperation in so many places in the world.”

The solution, he says, is to form a U.S.-led group of nations committed to improving the human condition in countries where terrorism is flourishing or that are in jeopardy of becoming radicalized.

“It’s about helping these people,” he said. “We’ll fight them forever if we don’t. And every one of these poor farmers who goes off to join a band that we kill, two or three others now must take vengeance on us. So this is a downward spiral forever, and we’ve got to get out of it.”

Allen, now a fellow of the Brookings Institution, will expand on those thoughts tonight during a presentation at UNLV titled “The New 100 Years War? Causes of Regional Instability and the Rise of the Islamic State.” The event, scheduled for 6 p.m. at Greenspun Hall Auditorium, is free and open to the public.

On Tuesday, Allen sat down for an interview with the Sun.

John Allen is now a fellow with the Brookings Institution.

John Allen is now a fellow with the Brookings Institution.

Can you give us a short preview of your presentation?

My own experience is with organizations like Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia. At the five-year point after 9/11, I was in the Anbar province (in Iraq), at the 10-year point I was in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, and at the 15-year point I was leading the global coalition for the president to counter ISIL — so 15 years, three different places, three different wars, three different enemies. And the point is that if we don’t get after resolving these causal factors and helping governments to govern, we’re going to be fighting forever.

It seems to me that it’s what this administration intends, but fighting forever is not the solution. So I’ll propose what I call the near-, distant- and deep-horizon strategies, which build capacities in countries to change the human condition, which permits the radicalization, and to do it as a coalition of nations led by the United States.

How are you feeling about the way the Trump administration has approached terrorism thus far?

I think elements of this administration project the appearance of being xenophobic, and in particular Islamaphobic. And we’re (the administration’s) proposing that the solution should be the eradication of Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth and uniting the civilized world to do it? We haven’t used terms like that in a generation. The civilized world? So say if Norway doesn’t want to join us in eradicating Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth, does that mean they’re not civilized? We’re setting ourselves up for some very difficult times when we ought to be looking a generation into the future toward how we can change the human condition in many of these countries, which if we start today, 30 years from now we can make a difference.

Your solution involves creation of a U.S.-led coalition, yet we have a president who’s made threats about withdrawing from NATO, which is an indication that he may not be interested in building coalitions like that.

Much of the world is either alarmed by or confused by the rhetoric coming out of the White House and new Cabinet officials are having to calm these concerns. For example: (Secretary of Defense) Jim Mattis reinforced American extended (nuclear) deterrence recently in South Korea. So in a world where northeast Asia was concerned, he tamped down the concerns. Then, you’ll recall that (Japanese) Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe was having dinner with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago when North Korea fired its most recent ballistic missile. It prompted the president to say the right thing, which was we stand 100 percent behind our Japanese ally. So I think as Mr. Trump is experiencing that his campaign rhetoric has had a head-on collision with the realities of the world today, and he has appointed some extraordinary people to key positions in government who are able to project American foreign policies in this new administration. And now we can move on to some very serious, responsible American foreign policy.

How do you feel about the president’s call for an additional $54 billion in defense spending?

Our equipment’s worn out pretty badly from nearly 15 years of constant use. We’ve got some modernization programs that are hugely expensive but will continue to give us a technological edge over our enemies. So we need help.

What I do question, though, is that the $54 billion came out of other departments, if I understand correctly. If we cut the State Department by 30 percent, that’s a concern. The United States exerts its influence as a great power around the world today initially through diplomacy. It is the power of our economy, No. 1, and the strength of our diplomacy that gives us great influence around the world today. And then, as is necessary, we employ the potential coercive use of the military ultimately to protect our interests and back up our diplomacy.

But the leading edge of American influence isn’t the B-2 bomber. The leading edge of American influence is our diplomats who are out there every single day — by the way, who are unarmed and whose lives are at risk in many parts of the world.

Do you agree that the nuclear arms arsenal should be expanded?

When Vladimir Putin talks about the Russian doctrine — that if Russia is forced to fight they are forced to escalate the conflict to de-escalate the conflict and in the course of doing so they expect to employ nuclear weapons — when you shake your nuclear fist in the face of the United States, we have to take notice. We also have to think about what that means across the totality of the American deterrent. And I think the president is doing that, which I applaud.

What do you think of President Trump’s attack on the mainstream media?

There’s no question that today the Fourth Estate has never been more important in our modern era than to help the American people understand what’s going on in Washington the best it can, and to hold people accountable. That’s why I applaud the efforts that are being made in the White House Briefing Room to hold the press secretary accountable for what’s being said. I applaud the investigative journalism that’s being done to understand the role of Russian influence, potentially.

What are you hoping to hear from President Trump’s address to Congress?

I’d like to hear an unambiguous message that all Americans are important to this presidential administration, and that it’s no longer about the election, it’s no longer about the victory lap, it’s about getting on with the governing of the United States of America. What we need this president to do is say unambiguously that all Americans are precious to him, that he utterly and completely condemns hate and hateful acts.

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