You misunderstood me. The only deterrence that works is killing enough of them that they're no longer a threat. Not much different than state actors.
The big difference is that AQ is located in 60 different countries. There will be no negotiated settlement on the USS Missouri. We didn’t have to kill most of the Japanese or Germans to win WWII. In this one, we will have to wipe these vermin off of the face of the earth.
You misunderstood me. The only deterrence that works is killing enough of them that they're no longer a threat. Not much different than state actors.
PMJI, guys, but you are both correct, after a fashion. As I follow these discussions on FR and elsewhere I am dismayed that so few people seem to be able to grasp the "big picture" we presently confront. I'm not referring specifically to you guys - your exchange simply provided an opportunity to interject a few observations.
So many doggedly seize on whichever narrow slice of reality relates to their agenda and completely ignore aspects which don't fit their template or storyline.
That's enough generalities - time for a few specifics about the reality we face:
1. There is a worldwide resurgence of radical, conquest-minded Islam. This is nothing new, but has occurred repeatedly over the last fourteen-hundred years. There are literally dozens of al Qaida-type terrorist organizations, those "non-state actors" - al Qaida is only one of many. Previously, however, they lacked access to WMDs.
2. These non-state actors may be inherently dangerous, and deterrence certainly doesn't work with them, but in order to rise above a deadly nuisance status they must have the support of nation-states and their governments. Those nation-states provide them with sanctuary, money, training facilities, diplomatic cover for travel, money-laundering, communications, etc. and access to the science, technology and precision fabrication capabilities necessary to acquire and deploy WMDs and WMD-level stockpiles of conventional weapons.
3. These sovereign nation-states are our enemies, but they understand perfectly that any direct attack on us will result in their destruction. The non-state terrorist groups serve as their proxies and provide them with plausible deniability for attacks on us.
4. No matter how many terrorists we kill there remains an almost inexhaustible supply of cannon-fodder for the terrorist groups and their nation-state puppet-masters to draw upon. We are playing the asymmetric-warfare version of "whack-a-mole" when we really need to "drain the swamp" by replacing the hostile nation-state regimes which aid and shelter them with regimes which won't. Killing Osama bin Laden and the entire al Qaida leadership won't end the threat - others will rise to fill the void as long as the hostile nation-state support system remains in place.
5. Iran and Saudi Arabia are the sources of the modern world-wide terrorist threat. Lesser players such as Pakistan, Syria, etc. are important, but Iran is the grand-daddy of modern Islamic terrorism (with Jimmy Carter as the midwife) since 1979, and the Saudis have followed closely by massively funding the ideological efforts via madrassas, etc. This is basic "Axis-Of-Evil" stuff, and it is real.
6. The point of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was to set the stage for changing this reality by destabilizing and ultimately replacing these regimes and remaking the Middle East. Whether we kill Osama or Saddam Hussein specifically aided al Qaida in the 9/11 attacks is much less important to the overall solution to this threat than is disrupting and destroying the murderous clandestine network of nation-state/non-state players who are waging asymmetric warfare against the West. These hostile nation-states, when faced with destruction, are, unlike their terrorist proxies, amenable to deterrence.
And, in accomplishing this goal it is essential to remember that the dominant pieces in this global chess game of terror and conquest are the nation-states. They are the Knights, Bishops, Rooks and Queens, with Iran and Saudi Arabia as the Kings - the terrorist organizations, al Qaida included, are merely their pawns. Pawns which are expendable. To win the game, the war of civilization, we must checkmate the kings.
It truly bodes ill for Western civilization that our putative leaders and self-styled intelligentsia cannot honestly and forthrightly frame the issues and make the necessary arguments in our public discourse.