United States' Role in Combating Militant Islam in France.

摘要

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, U.S. strategy has been codified into a long-term approach of advancing effective democracy with four short-term objectives of preventing terrorist attacks, denying WMD proliferation, denying terrorist sanctuary and support, and denying terrorists bases for launching terror. But these efforts do not aggressively seek an important long-term goal: denying Islamist demagogues access to the vulnerable population from which they seek to recruit. By pursuing this objective, in a manner tailored to each of its global allies, the United States can strategically impact this fight. France, with its considerable, vulnerable Algerian population is but one country where this approach can be applied. Section 1 explains why the United States' National Strategy for Countering Terrorism was crafted with the clash of civilizations theory as its foundation. This section goes on to frame society's conflict not as simply a fight against terrorists, a war with Islamist ideology, or a clash of civilizations, but rather as a clash of systems. In doing so, it offers a framework for understanding that within the systems that breed 'alienation and despair' reside the vulnerable populations who are the center of gravity in the War on Terrorism. Radical Islamists look to this population for recruitment and operational sustainment. The second section explains why the U.S. National Strategy for Countering Terrorism's limited definition of the War on Terrorism results in limited objectives that do not adequately target the vulnerable populations that the jihadists seek to co-opt. The third section examines France's Algerian population and identifies why the current French socioeconomic system makes them vulnerable to exploitation by Islamists. The fourth section identifies recommended measures to address France's systemic flaws and suggests means by which the United States can influence France to take steps to fix them.