Pros And Cons Of The Battle Of Ideas

There is a slew of ideas on how to mitigate terrorism, each with its own benefits and limitations. From a U.S. stand point they have identified eight priorities in an attempt to mitigate future terrorist operations, both internal and external to the U.S. These are outlined in the 2016 National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror and are as follows: (1) thwart attacks and protect our communities; (2) stop recruitment and radicalization at home; (3) keep terrorists out of America; (4) take the fight to the enemy; (5) combat terrorist travel and cut off financial resources; (6) deny jihadists access to weapons of mass destruction; (7) block terrorists from returning to the battlefield; (8) prevent the emergence of new networks and safe havens; and (9) win the

This will be one of the slowest methods, but I think has the best chance of succeeding. We know that the war against terrorism is fundamentally an ideological struggle with a myriad of environmental, political, social, and personal ques in the background. In order to successfully stop a terrorist group, we must remove that initial ideological catalyst, thus undermining the group’s legitimacy. This must be done through education and through dialect between the U.S. and foreign nations. This dialog must help establish public pressure on groups to stop conducting violent actions, especially against civilians. Horgan notes that Michael Baumann makes a similar argument for this as he states that “the group becomes increasingly closed. The greater the pressure from the outside, the more you stick together, the more mistakes you make, the more pressure is turned inward” (Horgan, 2008). It is the pressure from society and the public to stand up against these groups that will truly shape their futures, not necessarily out military prowess. This has been done in several instances over the last 10 years with some success being