2017-01-19 By Ed Timperlake and Robbin Laird

President-elect Trump has promised to destroy ISIS. President Obama is leaving office having had to confront ISIS, and whatever one thinks of his efforts, the results are clear: ISIS remains alive and well.

But before the new regime takes office, some cautionary notes can be taken from the just about to be past one – namely Obama ended up doing a lot of Bush-like activity which he clearly never intended to do upon taking office. And if Trump wants to avoid being the third Administration in succession to sink in the morass of the Middle East, it is essential to first ask what would declaring victory look like.

Part of the challenge is rooted in that ISIS is a brand, inside a religion and not just a terroristic military movement. It is a brand defining radical Islamic rejection of Western values and of the Western way of life.

It is very difficult to defeat a brand but how do you take it off the shelf? How do you make it marginalized? How do you reduce its shelf life?

You define victory as marginalization.

First, you marginalize ISIS in the world of ideas.

ISIS is a brutal force which asserts that only themselves have the right to rule in the Middle East and beyond. We can call them extremist; but that is not enough. We need to engage in the battle of ideas as well for it is Western secularism and tolerance which is the enemy, not “Jews” or “Christians,” Shiites or Sunni; it is about power dominance via exploiting ideological purity and mobilization of the “faithful” to achieve the purity of rule desired by the ISIS leadership and followers.

Information War is a crucial instrument in battling ISIS.

IW is but part of both a strategic vision and a tactical engagement.

There is a word describing German Army doctrine employed in their advance into neutral Belgium in World War II that resonates to this day: “Schrecklichkeit”. The word means “terror” or “frightfulness” a doctrine employed by the advancing German Army to subdue any opposition. ISIS are current truly world-class bad guys, as fanatical as the Khmer Rouge and their Killing Fields. They are using the brutality of the horror of psychological terror as a weapon to their advantage in their 21st Century way of war. This is just like Khmers and the WWII German Army.

In many ways, President-elect Trump is the first Information Warrior elected as President. Turning those skills into shaping IW against ISIS and exposing them for what they are is a crucial challenge, which requires focused attention and funding. Part of the reason for the defeat of the Soviet Union was Radio Free Europe and its key role in fighting against the Imperial Communist Regime. We need to formulate a IW strategy which of course includes an ability to fight with the online forces of ISIS as well.

Second, you marginalize ISIS financially.

A key dimension to a fight to victory is to focus on money and corruption. One of the authors was part of a Congressional Delegation to the Middle East in the late 1990s and met with Hanan Ashrawi,  a Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar, shortly after she had resigned as Palastinian Authority Minister of Higher Education.

Dr. Ashrawi has a PhD from the University of Virginia, and is a Christian whose Physician father was one of the founders of the PLO. She provided a key insight in her breaking with Yasser Arafat over his dictatorial tendencies and the reel of corruption. She pointed out that often Western strategy only focused on the religious dimension involved in the problems of war and peace. In fact, often the total greed and corruption of some Islamic leaders is a major motivational influence to fomenting conflict and positioning themselves for wealth.

Taking her insight into a victory circle can mean not only cutting off ISIS revenue, from their taking over Oil Wells to robbing banks but treat their leaders as a global criminal enterprise in addition to a global terror organization. In doing so the U.S. and Allies need to prioritize on enforcing what is analogous to US RICO and Drug forfeiture asset seizure. So one marker of a victory is the global defunding and seizure of money and assets of those in support of ISIS.

An additional insight into huge corruption inside a theological Islamic-run state was raised during a session held at the Holocaust Museum in the Fall of 2014. The meeting focused on the moral threat from ISIS and one of those who spoke was Sarah Ahmed. Sarah Ahmed is a remarkable persons and a true hero. She is a Muslim assistant to Canon White known as the Vicar of Baghdad. And like Canon White she is in a city, Baghdad, where many are targeted for death because of their religious beliefs. She was fearless in speaking out about the impracticality of having a dominant religious leadership running a nation. Her comments highlighted the role, which Islam can play not just as a religion in the Western sense but as a political vehicle used by some for simply power, and personal greed.

http://sldinfo.wpstage.net/conducting-an-information-war-against-islamic-extremists/

With the new administration focusing on US as a global force for energy self-sufficiency the additional point about money is the growing independence, which the U.S. and many of its allies have against Middle Eastern oil. President-elect Trump clearly has in mind expanding the energy independence of the United States from the Middle East, which expands U.S. options in dealing with the Middle East as well and the ISIS contaminant.

Third, you deploy forces to strike and kill any concentration of ISIS that you can find and kill.

It is impossible to eliminate the presence of ISIS on the face of the earth, but you can certainly provide a constant and vigilant strike force to undercut their concentration of force.

You also make it clear that you will deploy global forces, which will seek out and destroy any concentration of ISIS forces.

Here the new President-elect is significantly added by the expanding capabilities of the US and allied sea bases to show up off short and provide lightening strikes.

Forces can be moved around the point of attack to enhance unpredictability while reducing the vulnerability of needed ground forces by relying on insertion forces, leveraging the sea base.

The kill and you tube video approach of our terrorist opponents becomes a lot more difficult if you can not find the Americans until they descend upon you with intent to kill.

Put bluntly, the new President will have the means to change how the battle is fought which need not repeat the mistakes of the last decade of land wars.

Insertion forces are a key tool set and with the changes in how amphibious task forces operate and with the coming of a whole new capability associated with the USS America, the sea base is adding to its capability for the insertion of force into a vector of assault, destroy and withdraw.

Changing the nature of the force being used against ISIS and reshaping the operational compass against a mobile force which likes to pop up across the region can meet its match – there is no place you can hide that we can not come and find you and kill you.

Fourth, we need to NOT go down the path of nation building and putting Western hostages and Forward Operating Bases and Airbases within easy reach of ISIS terrorists.

Training of friendly forces clearly has a role but not as a thinly disguised large scale presence force which can never win nor go away until defeat is assumed but not declared.

Ramping up the air and seabase operational capabilities – indeed investing in them as well – is crucial not just for the war against ISIS for ramping up relevant capabilities for the deterrence of peer competitors like Russia and China. Investing in ISIS specific operations to the expense of higher end warfighting capabilities is simply a prescription for Russian or Chinese expansion of capabilities vis a vis an America investing in and fighting in an endless “stability” operation as the way to defeat ISIS.

President Trump is part of a pattern of change in the West with a new British Prime Minister in place and a new French President to follow later this year. If it is Fillon, then there will be a community of interest to sort out a new working relationship with Russia. This means in part holding Russia accountable for Syria and for working to end the hemorrhage of refugees from the region.

Fifth, a key element of working for victory over ISIS is coming to terms with Russia in supporting the effort in the Middle East. And Russia may find themselves in a rather uncomfortable position as the Iran problem boils over into confrontation with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Sixth, Israel will certainly be expanding its activities in self-defense and being actively engaged in countering radical Islam, whether of ISIS or Iranian origin. ISIS and Iran are hardly birds of a feather, but the ability to ramp up the air war and sea-based strikes against ISIS will not be lost on Iran. And will reassure Israel that the United States is willing to act decisively in the region.

In the end, a complete victory against ISIS may be impossible, but inflicting a decisive defeat is not. But such a defeat should not come at the cost of bogging down in the stability operations of the Bush years and the airpower trickle campaign of Obama.

Cutting the Gordian knot of endless engagement is crucial; modernizing insertion forces that can strike at any concentrations of ISIS force is crucial as well.

It is about dramatically stopping their influence and impact from a force which claims to be a state and reducing them to an impoverished fleeing band seeking refuge, and having nowhere to go on the globe where they are welcome.

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article appeared on Breaking Defense with the title: Is Trump, Information War, Key to Defeating ISIL?

Is Trump, Information Warrior, Key To Defeating Daesh (ISIL)?

If you wish to comment on this article, you can do so either on Breaking Defense or on the Second Line of Defense Forum:

http://www.sldforum.com/2017/01/defeating-victory-isis/

This is the third of a three part series by Danny Lam on the way ahead for the “One China Policy.

2017-01-15 By Danny Lam

When Chiang Kai Shek’s Republic of China (ROC) retreated to Taiwan in 1949, few Kuomintang (KMT) officials could have foresaw the extended stay in Taiwan, whose people they regarded as traitors and Japanese collaborators — Taiwanese having lived mostly peacefully under Japanese rule for close to a half century.

Taiwan as a former Japanese colony retained features to this day that are distinctly Japanese in origin, including the system of real property: measured and administered in Japanese derived units.   Many administrative systems at the local level are traceably Japanese.   Taiwan under Japanese rule was by no means an entirely negative experience, with many public works projects completed by the colonial administration and by Chinese standards, good public administration.

Opposition to the Japanese by Taiwanese nationalists was far less than that faced by the KMT.   Nationalist had no formal presence on Taiwan prior to the Japanese surrender of 1945.   When the KMT remnants flooded the island in 1949, came as ruthless occupiers.

Not surprisingly, the incoming ROC-KMT was regarded as oppressors by Taiwanese: replacing one set of oppressors (however benign), with another group of defeated KMT officials, soldiers, etc.

President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s first woman President.

Thus, it is not surprising that when the KMT successor generation under President Chiang Ching-kuo relaxed controls and democratized, that the opposition coalesced around the pro-Taiwan Independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) despite the KMT’s iron grip on the instruments of power.

Taiwanese have now seen several changes and iterations of government through free elections, with the Presidency and Legislative Branches of government regularly changing hands between the KMT and DPP.

And surprise, things have largely stayed the same.

The ROC remains the formal name and organization for Taiwan, and there has been no serious effort at formal secession to become the Republic of Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the world has changed.

While the ROC is no longer explicitly competing with the PRC for formal international recognition as the government of “all China” as they did under Chiang Kai Shek, the institutional mechanisms and structures supporting that competition remains fully operative.

Taiwan invests hundreds of millions to maintain formal diplomatic recognition with a handful of states notable for their irrelevance.   Relations with a majority of the world’s most influential states are conducted “unofficially” as “economic or cultural” ties, and Taiwan is locked out of a majority of international organizations.   Efforts to alter the international status quo by the KMT and DPP, by governments from Presidents Lee Tenghui, Chen Shui-bian, Ma Ying-jeou have been proven to be ineffective.

At the heart of the failure by successive Taiwan regimes to change the international status of Taiwan is the persistence of the ROC / Chiang Kai Shek foreign policy goal of seeking formal recognition of ROC as it primary goal to the exclusive of all others. From George Kung-chao Yeh to the present day, Foreign Ministers of Taiwan have placed a premium on symbolic acts by foreign nations such as permitting the display of the ROC flag at the expense of substance.

The epitome of this colossal foreign policy blunder was the effort under President Lee Tenghui to join the UN and get a visa for a “private” visit to the United States, which rather than increasing the “space” for ROC, reduced it even as President Lee’s goal was achieved.

When President Lee visited Cornell University, he went out of his way to violate the negotiated understanding with the U.S. to limit the political fallout from the visit, resulting in sterner and strident protests by the PRC for violation of the “one China” policy than necessary. The Lee visit damaged relations with the U.S. for decades, resulting in the downgrading of relations with ROC that persist to this day including lowering Taiwan’s access to sophisticated weapons systems.

President Tsai can reflect on the policies under her predecessors and change course beyond the symbolic act of not acknowledging the 1992 consensus.

Without a “clean out” of the foreign policy deadwood and reformulation of ROC on Taiwan’s foreign policy with new ideas, there is limited scope for the U.S. and Allies to improve Taiwan’s standing even as the threat from the PRC have become the major issue of our time.

The time has come for Taiwan under President Tsai to fundamentally rethink their place in the world and how to break the pattern of the past — that if unchecked — will more likely than not, lead to Taiwan’s absorption by the PRC in due course.

Formal declarations or moves toward independence as the Republic of Taiwan is an unworkable outcome that will result in a regime that will not have any improvement in international standing, and, risk a war with the PRC that Taiwan can lose.   Similarly, improved status for the ROC with its present foreign policy is unlikely to happen.

There is an alternative.

The ROC on Taiwan can unilaterally create a new domestic political system that meets the goal of ending the ruinous war for formal recognition of ROC with the PRC, and yet, at the same time, improves the ability of other states to improve their working relationship with Taiwan without any formal recognition of the ROC that they pledged not to under the “one China” policy with the PRC.

President Tsai’s ROC can unilaterally rewrite their constitution to replace the present Provincial Government of Taiwan with a new Province of Taiwan government that will be delegated all the powers of the ROC.

That is to say, all powers including taxation, administration, foreign affairs, justice, and defense except it is only limited to territories defined as within the Province of Taiwan.

Once that is done, the ROC can then vote themselves out of existence (or to become a vestigial organ like the appendix) with a constitutional amendment that ROC President (like the Governor General of the Crown) will only act on the advice and consent of the newly established Province of Taiwan, and have the power to override the legislative, judiciary and control branches of the government.

All but the President of the Executive branch of the ROC will be placed in suspended animation with officials and legislators except the ROC President tendering their resignation and not replaced.

The ROC President is appointed by the Province of Taiwan and serves at the pleasure of the Province.

In effect, ROC will no longer exist for practical purposes and serves very much like a symbolic head of state.

This strategy will enable the ROC to exit from explosive issues like its 9 dash line claims in the South China Sea, and a host of issues related to ROC claims.

It will enable “diplomatic” relations to be conducted directly by the Province of Taiwan via their Provincial Representative Offices abroad.

The issue of ROC being a competing “China” to the PRC is entirely sidestepped and the U.S. and Allies will have a fig leaf to plausibly argue that extensive relations with the Province of Taiwan in no way challenge the “one China” policy.

There is a viable way ahead to allow Taiwan to expand its global role without the debilitating dominance of the PRC manipulation of a “one China policy.”

Editor’s Note: If you wish to comment on this article, please go to the following:

Changing the Terms of Reference for Taiwan: Expanding the Strategic Options