Massacres in Paris and San Bernardino have underscored the slow progress in the ISIL War. The Islamist army’s defeats at Kobane and Sinjar barely register. Nor is it remembered that last summer Generals Dempsey and Odierno cautioned that the war would be a long one, lasting decades. Yet, many Americans and Europeans expect the war to be wrapped up in a year or two.
Focusing on ISIL is misleading. ISIL, al Qaeda, and affiliated groups are not the center of the problem. They are fearsome eruptions from underlying problems in population pressure, militant ideology, and political failure. ISIL and al Qaeda could disappear tomorrow but new groups would arise in the region and lone wolves would continue to strike worldwide. The wars may last thirty years, or more.
Population pressure
Surging commodity prices and better healthcare in recent decades have brought tremendous economic growth, but also startling population increases. The population of Saudi has quadrupled since 1975; 46% of the population is under 24. The Egyptian population has almost tripled since 1975; 52% of the population is under 24, 69% under 34. The population of Jordan has tripled since 1975; 75% are under 34.
The same population bulge is present in almost all Islamic countries from West Africa to Central Asia. The business world may look upon these statistics and see opportunities. Islamist militants see opportunities, too.
These young people, many of them reasonably educated, face bleak futures. Jobs are few and the better ones are reserved for the children of political and military elites. The promise of political participation was on the horizon a few years ago but repression and turmoil took over.
The population bulge contains a number of young people of military age and more of them will be reaching military age for years to come.
Militant ideology
Young people come of age at times with specific ideas, expectations, and passions. The age of reason in the late 18th century gave expectations to young people of Europe, as did the revolutionary age of the 1840s. Communism promised a new order to several generations. Fascism did the same before bringing ruin to a continent. In each case, an old order seemed doomed and a new one assured, if only they acted.
Several branches of Islam, especially Salafism and its parent, Wahhabism, teach hostility to the West and any deviation from a self-proclaimed orthodoxy. Many adherents come away with a resolve to fight an inner war against temptations from the West, others are attracted to the more traditional kind of warfare.
The Saudis subsidize mosques and schools around the Islamic world to build popular support for the Kingdom. They also support Deobandi schools in Pakistan which drew from anti-western sentiment that flared in the sub-continent’s colonial era. An austere militant ideology has been permeating the umma for decades.
Young Muslims look upon their political leaders as corrupt and incompetent – a ruinous combination that brought contempt and unrest even before the Arab Spring was crushed. Many ruling families are surreptitiously aligned with the West and dependent on the for military help. Some, including Saudi Arabia work clandestinely with Israel, all the while professing their sympathy with Palestinians.
War myths excite young people in almost all parts of the world, attracting them to military service, valorous deeds, and the glory of victory. Myth contrasts markedly with the experience of most Muslim armies. European armies destroyed indigenous forces rather quickly and brought Muslim lands under their rule. More recently, Israeli and American armies have devastated Arab armies, often in a matter of days.
A notable exception are the guerrillas of the Afghan-Russian War and their younger kinsmen who fought the Americans in Iraq. Most notable today of course is the ISIL army that scatters the forces of decadent leaders and now strikes deep into Europe and America. Mujahideen guerrillas and ISIL soldiers alike drew from an Islamist creed mixing faith, war, and youthful spirit.
Political failures
Unlike the guerrilla forces of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, ISIL fields a conventional army – disciplined infantry, operating in large formations, holding territory, and relying on logistical networks. ISIL bands display impressive unit cohesion and confidence in their commanders and objectives.
If there were armies in the Middle East with similar cohesion and confidence, ISIL would have been driven from the field in short order. As it is, however, regional armies are plagued by corruption. Soldiers look up the command system and see officers who attained high positions through connections and bribery, not merit, and who then use their offices to squeeze money from soldiers and supply depots.
Soldiers look to their right and left and see not fellow country man with shared pasts and expectations, but members of disparate tribes – often antagonistic ones with varying customs and leaders. Their officers cannot be trusted to command in wartime, their fellow soldiers cannot be relied upon in battle.
Poor performance usually brings reform to armies – Prussia amid the Napoleonic Wars, Britain after the Crimean War. It is a forlorn hope that reform will come in the Islamic world. The Iraqi PM introduced reforms but they were rejected by the Council of Representatives, whose members are parts of corrupt networks running through army and state. Halting progress against ISIL has been based on numerical advantage and relentless American airpower, not professional indigenous forces.
It’s increasingly clear that introducing American and/or European ground troops is not a good idea. It would underscore militant narratives of the West’s desire to humiliate and subjugate the Islamic world – a recruiting bonanza for ISIL and al Qaeda. Further, it would encourage forces notionally aligned with the West to fight this new invasion force, or to sit back and let westerners do the fighting.
What to expect
Given the Islamic world’s population, ideology, and armies, we must expect the ongoing wars to be slow and with uncertain outcomes. If militant armies are defeated one day, they will become underground movements. They can then continue to spread into other parts of the world by means of the Internet, recruiters, and returning veterans.
The Islamic world is breaking apart, from Mali and Libya in Africa to Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central and South Asia. Aid programs and pressure to reform cannot halt this fragmentation. ISIL and al Qaeda will establish themselves in numerous lawless areas where state control has collapsed – if indeed it was ever there. Militant bands will hold large swathes of territory from West Africa to Central Asia, often with support from restive indigenous peoples.
Attacks in western countries, inspired by ISIL and the like, will continue for years to come. Shootings, bombings, and massacres such as those that have taken place in Chattanooga, Boston, Paris, London, Madrid, Montreal, and San Bernardino will be more common, despite increased surveillance and security.
Generals Dempsey and Odierno got it right. The war will be frustratingly long, likely outlasting many of us. Europe, it will be remembered, went through a Thirty Years War – and a Hundred Years War as well. The Muslim world is embarking on its own protracted bloodletting.
©2015 Brian M Downing