Over the past seven weeks, I've had a chance to experience what it would be like to work in a research institute / think tank and overall, I've enjoyed it. I like doing research, though I can't see myself doing it forever. I can tell that Stevie has access to more information than I do when he does his research, the databases are fairly comprehensive, but I think he has developed contacts within the government and/or military that are able to fill him in on some of the finer details of the counter-terrorism world. This would be the big advantage of working in the field for as long as he has. I think in order to write well about current events, to have any accuracy with which to evaluate or guess how things will turn out, one has to have more information than what is reported in the newspapers and the journals. I think it is unfortunate that most of the published papers that come out on terrorism and similar issues are often out of date or incomplete simply by the fact that they are academic and don’t have access to government sources. I mentioned that I think Stevie has more contacts that he will admit, but, at the same time, I don’t think he is privy to any classified information from the intelligence agencies. This is another reason that I have decided that I don’t think I want to work in academia. I fully appreciate everything that I have learned from this experience and I think it has taught me a great deal about how to write a substantial research paper and, perhaps more importantly, how the academic community operates itself.
On an even greater level, this internship has shown me a new area of study that I had little experience in before. Counter-terrorism has always been in the back ground of my studies, but I primarily focus on transnational security. This is certainly an aspect of transnational security, but not a major focus. To date, I have dealt more with counter-insurgency, which is similar, but handled in a very different way. The fact that I have been focusing on the US is very significant as well. Transnational deals with military threats to the US, but not with asymmetrical aspects. I have been focusing on the home grown threats to the US, which, in my opinion, are very small. We have some worry about immigration, illegal and legal, that bring extremist ideals into our country, but overall, there are very few instances of truly home grown terror. Even the attacks that we have seen have usually been half baked and fairly ineffective. As of today, we have yet to see a native born suicide bomber from the US. The day that we do will be a critical turning point for terrorism in the US. Britain has had this happen before, as well as a number of other countries throughout the world but the fact remains that, despite the fear American have of a homegrown attack, they are not as likely as they are in Europe, Israel, or somewhere in the Middle East.
Working at the ICT has taught me a few things about and what we need to look at in terms of how to protect ourselves from violence. The first thing we have to do, and something that we already do very well, is keep integrating our minority populations into society. I think part of this is the overwhelming sense of nationalism that we experience as Americans. A recent immigrant to the US does not typically think of themself as a Pakistani living in America with a US passport, they think of themself as a Pakistani-American and an American citizen. Because they can integrate into society so well, though, they are less likely to throw away the life that they can give their family by adhering to radical principles and ideologies. Even the Muslim Brotherhood, which is present in America, is less concerned with violence and terror than with creating organizations that can provide development assistance to needy people in the Middle East. There have been instances, such as the Holy Land Foundation and some of their umbrella organizations, that funnel money to Hamas and Hezbollah in violation of US policy, but most of those monies go to the charity arm of the organizations. Unfortunately, this allows more money to go to the military arms and that is, of course, a threat to regional stability, but I also think that some of the work that they do is important. I think it’s too bad that the Israel is unable to do more of this for them and thus defuse the power of the terrorist supporters by providing them with what they need. In all honesty, Israel is probably the worst country to provide this in terms of it being accepted and being seen as some sort of underhanded plot to overthrow the PA or exert a greater influence than they already do, but I certainly think that someone has to fill that void and the longer they keep NGOs out of Gaza, the harder it is going to be to uproot Hamas. We specifically speak of two different components to CT strategy: Motivation and Capacity. It is easy enough to reduce capacity. Border fences and checkpoints do that very well, but eliminating motivation is incredibly hard. I feel like US CT strategy keeps that in mind, even if they don’t do it very well. Israeli strategy is more concerned with simply destroying capacity. That’s the rub, too. If you institute programs that try to reduce motivation, the odds are that you are not doing everything you can to reduce capacity by funding projects and allowing for local funds to go towards enabling that capacity rather than the projects that we are funding. Also, like I mentioned with the fences and checkpoints, restrictions on the civilian population are great for limiting capacity but only succeed in increasing motivation. I think the only other way to reduce motivation is to get the population into a position where they have too much to lose to attempt an attack.
This strategy only works in areas of the world like the Middle East, Chechnya, Colombia, and other developing countries. The attack yesterday in Norway is a great example of what we just can’t really prevent. Oklahoma City and Northern Ireland are others. How do you reduce the motivation of a crazy radical living among you that has a good job, maybe a family, but just believes so strongly in a political structure or religion that they can throw away everything that they have in exchange for influencing the opinions of others. I think that the only way we can begin to combat these are by extending community outreach programs. It has worked in the Muslim American communities in the US (more than 40% of all attacks that are diverted are the result of someone in the community coming out and telling local police or the FBI).
All of this knowledge that I have just written about is new to me. I have a much better understanding about how a modern democracy operates a successful CT strategy and I think this is really going to help me in whatever career I decide to follow. I am hoping for something in the IC community or some branch of the DOD. Terrorism is a huge, hotbutton issue within the government and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. It is helping to give me a much more rounded view of the security field in general and will make my resume that much more appealing. Especially since I’ve spent some time editing papers for Dr. Ganor. I have been told that he will be personally writing my letter of recommendation because he was very impressed with my work on his articles. The contacts that I’ve made here can’t hurt either. Half of getting a job is knowing the people that can get you through the door and, while most of these people work in Israel, they know people in the States and work with them regularly. In this field, there is also a lot of moving about and the US is always a popular destination because we pay so much more than anyone else. So, all in all, I have had an excellent experience with this internship and I would highly recommend it to anyone in future programs if I were you.
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