Countering the Terrorist Threat
Perhaps more than any other challenge the United States currently faces, countering the threat of violent Islamist extremism will require the support of allies and partners. As the United States confronts this challenge today and in the years ahead, it will need to collaborate with as many nations as possible (and with nonstate actors where governments are extremely weak, uncooperative, or simply nonexistent) to gather and share intelligence. It must also work closely with allies that possess significant counterterrorism and counterinsurgency capabilities in order to hunt down terrorist operatives and prevent weak nations from becoming sanctuaries, and bolster the capabilities of unstable nations or territories so that they can address internal threats themselves.
The importance of the third task — often referred to as “building partner capacity” — has been emphasized repeatedly over the past several years, as the United States has struggled to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while simultaneously conducting other counterterrorism operations across the globe and preparing for an era of persistent irregular warfare. Although this type of indirect approach is intended to conserve resources by preventing nascent threats from fully materializing and by putting at-risk nations in a better position to combat sources of instability on their own, the United States’ ability to train, advise, and equip foreign security forces is limited, while the demand for these services appears to be limitless.
One way to address this gap is to adopt a more “layered” indirect approach that both improves and leverages the capabilities of US allies. Here, the United States and core allies such as Britain and Australia would work with Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and others (all nations that have significant experience combating terrorist and insurgent groups and have achieved some notable successes in these areas) to enhance their ability to conduct their own training and advisory missions.
These allies could then assist the United States by expanding their efforts to build partner capacity in weak, vulnerable, and failing nations. In this case, primary tasks for the United States would include: coordinating closely with its allies to determine where they are best suited to conduct these missions; jointly designing, funding, and providing logistical support for and then monitoring these missions; and helping to equip nations receiving support with the tools they need, such as small arms, body armor, communications equipment, rotary wing transport, and civilian vehicles, as well as patrol and riverine craft where necessary.