AQ & NIWO Evolved

CSIS has produced the definitive open source report on the current state of Al Qaeda. Rick "Ozzie" Nelson -- a retired naval officer with significant counter-terrorism experience -- co-directed the study, which does an excellent job of explaining how the movement has transformed in the past decade. The Internet's virtual safe haven has played a major role in this evolution, as radicalization no longer requires face to face interaction. Additionally, in keeping with its historical roots, AQ continues to parasitically leach onto tribal and ethnic conflicts globally, contributing to the rise of affiliates which are arguably stronger than the core today. If you don't have time to read the entire document, the summary is good and the way they have parsed AQ into three components is spot on.

Consistent with recent counter-piracy efforts and AQ pre-911, if we continue to leave current and emerging AQ safe havens unmolested, the affiliates will continue to grow in scale and effectiveness. These sorts of IW problems can be nipped in the bud surgically when they are manageable, or left to metastasize until practically any form of intervention becomes unpalatable.

Regardless, US Naval units and personnel will continue to support and execute critical operations against AQ's network in a variety of ways - some of them quite openly, but many others in the shadows, where they belong. OPNAV's Navy Irregular Warfare Office has also evolved the past few years, taking a broader approach to countering irregular threats -- in some cases too broad. From my admittedly biased perspective, NIWO hasn't always been very friendly to IW. I attribute this in part to some of the very conventionally oriented leaders who have been assigned there in the past. It's a stretch to take mainstream senior officers with little experience in irregular warfare or CT (including operations outside the maritime environment) and expect them to understand the complexity of this type of warfare. Fortunately, the current NIWO Director has recent operational level experience in challenging IW environments, such as Pakistan. NIWO is launching a new blog here, which I look forward to following.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.