NSI has just released a new edited volume (PDF here) that should be of interest to COMOPS Journal readers.  Entitled Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies, it contains the latest thinking on the subject, including a chapter on narrative by yours truly.  The contents are listed below.

Foreword (Brig. Gen. John N.T. “Jack” Shanahan)
Preface (Diane DiEuiliis)
Executive Summary (Laurie Fenstermacher)

Section 1: Current Insights into Violent Extremism

• Not All Radicals are the Same: Implications for Counter-Radicalization Strategy (Tom Rieger)
• Countering Extremist Violence (Marc Sageman)
• Understanding the Role of Narrative in Extremist Strategic Communication (Steven R. Corman)
• Tracking the Spread of Violent Extremism (Dipak Gupta)
• Violent Extremism in Algeria: A Quest for Identity from Colonization to Globalization (Latefa Belarouci)

Section 2: Prevention of Violent Extremism

• Forecasting Terrorism, Predicting its Nature, and Driving Innovative Responses: “At-Risk Group Identity” as a Pivotal Concept for Understanding Political Violence (William D. Casebeer)
• A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam (Tawfik Hamid)
• Prevention of Violent Extremism: “What Are The People Saying?” (Alexis Everington)
• Countering Violent Extremism: Shifting the Emphasis towards the Development Paradigm (Ziad Alahdad)
• Partnering with Muslim Communities to Counter Radicalization (Hedieh Mirahmadi & Mehreen Farooq)
• The Role of Non-Violent Islamists in Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization: The European Debate (Lorenzo Vidino)

Section 3: Delegitimizing/Minimizing Popular Support for Violent Extremism

• The Mechanics of De-Legitimization (Cheryl Benard)
• Exploiting Al-Qa’ida’s Vulnerabilities for Delegitimization (Eric Larson)
• Arab Satellite Television and Popular Culture (Evelyn A. Early)
• The Role and Impact of Music in Promoting (and Countering) Violent Extremism (Anthony Lemieux & Robert Nill)

Section 4: Pursue and Protect/Risk Management/Deradicalization

• Using Citizen Messengers to Counteract Radicalism (Qamar-ul Huda)
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of De-Radicalization Programs: Towards A Scientific Approach to Terrorism Risk Reduction (John Horgan & Kurt Braddock)
• Battling the “University of Jihad:” An Evidence Based Ideological Program to Counter Militant Jihadi Groups Active on the Internet (Anne Speckhard)
• Mediation and Civil Wars Involving Terrorism (Karl DeRouen & Paulina Pospieszna)
• Deterrence, Influence, and Violent Extremist Organizations (Paul Davis)
• Coercing Violent Non-State Actors (Troy Thomas)

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Friend-of-CSC Steve Tatham has co-authored a new book with Major General Andrew Mackay entitled Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict.  I have not yet seen the book, but it will be on my reading list.  All proceeds from book sales go to Help for Heroes, a charity benefiting wounded veterans.  Info from the flyer is below is included below, for your reading enjoyment.

Whilst geopolitics, economics, religion and ethnicity all play crucial roles in starting and sustaining conflict this book advances the idea that it will be people’s behaviour, and the West’s ability to understand, interpret and influence that behaviour which will become the defining characteristic of resolving future armed disputes. This seminal study draws directly on the authors’ operational experiences in Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Includes a chapter by behavioural scientist Dr. Lee Rowlands and an introduction by the BBC Radio 4 “More or Less” presenter Tim Harford. The foreword is by former ISAF commander General (ret.) Stanley McChrystal.

UPDATE January 21, 2012

Steve reports that an official launch of the book last night at the Royal Institute in London was well attended, including by special guest former UK Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox MP.  You can listen to a BBC Radio interview about the book here.

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The CSC has released a new white paper entitled A New Cultural Path for Indonesia’s Islamist PKS? by Mark Woodward, Ali Amin, Inaya Rohmaniyah, and Chris Lundry.  The executive summary is as follows:

With the commencement of Indonesia?s transition to democracy, following 32 years of rule by the military dictator Suharto, political space has opened for dozens of political parties to form and regularly contest elections. The Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (the Prosperity and Justice Party, PKS) is an Islamist party that emerged following the first post-1999 democratic elections, with roots that extend to the pre-Suharto era. Although Indonesia has a history of Islamist political parties that goes back to the founding of the nation, since democratization they have never garnered much support, despite Indonesia?s nearly 90 percent Muslim population.

Political parties are interested in mobilizing the highest number of supporters in order to create legislation that reflects the parties? ideological underpinnings. Often these same ideological underpinnings are tempered in order to broaden the support base of a given party. We show that PKS has faced a dilemma. Sticking with a rigid interpretation of its Islamist foundation alienates some voters who may be sympathetic to a less rigid platform, therefore broadening the party?s base and increasing its electoral success may include tempering its ideological strictness. On the other hand, as a strict Islamist political party, its core supporters are those who agree with its rigid ideological stance. Tempering this stance may alienate the hard core of supporters.

We show that there is increasing tension in the PKS leadership between the two camps over the issue of base broadening. The “justice” faction favors stricter Islamist ideology, and the “prosperity” faction favors tempering the Islamist message in order to draw more electoral support. This tension became manifest during the PKS national convention in February 2011. The convention was held in Yogyakarta, an autonomous region in Central Java that is considered the home of traditional Javanese culture (including mysticism – anathema to the PKS position on religious practice, and a sultan who is traditionally viewed as a caliph). The notion of “culture” in the context of the PKS meeting, therefore, was a fulcrum for party leadership, with the “justice” cadres on one side, and the “prosperity” cadres on the other.

It may be that the apparent embrace of culture is simply a result of the party?s gradualist approach to change. This makes it possible for party cadre to advocate and practice “deculturalized” Islam while their leaders state publically that PKS is “open to culture” and not opposed to traditional practices.

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The CSC has released a new white paper entitled The Tariq ibn Ziyad Master Narrative by Jeffry R. Halverson.  The executive summary is as follows:

Master narratives provide important insights into the cultures and societies that analysts and diplomats encounter on a daily basis. Understanding how those narratives are utilized by factions hostile to the interests of the United States can be the difference between successful diplomacy and international catastrophe. Given the current geo-political climate, master narratives employed by Islamist extremists are among the most important. Many of those narratives are recorded and analyzed in the book, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). This paper addresses an additional master narrative employed by extremists, albeit less frequently than those included in the book.

The Tariq ibn Ziyad master narrative relates the conquest of Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) by the Berber commander, Tariq ibn Ziyad, in 711. The master narrative posits a champion archetype (Tariq) as a conquering hero who ventures to a new land, strikes down the infidel tyrant (King Roderick), and ushers in a kingdom of righteous and just rule. The master narrative, as it is utilized by extremists, typically exists in a radically simplified form. It ignores many of the inconvenient details of history that problematize the message of the extremists, such as the role of Tariq and Musa?s Jewish allies.

The Tariq ibn Ziyad master narrative is viewed an exemplary model for jihadist action against “infidel” or “apostate” dictators and governments, especially in the West. Due to the historical connections of the narrative to North Africa, the master narrative is most commonly found among Islamist extremists in that region, such as al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQLIM).

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• The Pharaoh
• The Jahiliyyah
• The Battle of Badr
• The Hypocrites
• The Battle of Khaybar
• The Battle of Karbala
• The Mahdi
• The Infidel Invaders (The Crusaders and The Tatars)
• Shaytan’s Handiwork
• 1924
• The Nakba
• Seventy-Two Virgins

The last chapter of the book explains how master narratives are strategic, what goals they serve, the stock of story forms and archetypes they contain, and five strategies through which their functions might be countered.

For more information, including detailed chapter descriptions, a sample chapter, additional resources, and ordering links, please visit this link.

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The following is a summary of some arguments  from my new book, Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash’arism, and Political Sunnism, published by Palgrave Macmillan.  It offers an explanation of why fundamentalist literal interpretations of the Qu’ran have so much influence in contemporary Islamist extremism, and why extremists’ views about what the Qu’ran says can be so difficult to challenge.

Mohammed Arkoun has described the notion of the “unthinkable” in Islamic thought, referring to the expansive realm of the intellectually forbidden. In recent decades, this realm has been greatly fortified.  But among the pre-modern casualties of the “unthinkable,” there was a surprising fatality, the discipline of Sunni theology (‘ilm al-kalam). Through a complex confluence of events, kalam fell into steady decline during the waning of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate and into virtual extinction as an active discipline by the fifteenth century (CE), replaced by a distinctly creedal enterprise.

Theology is the systematic, rational, defensible articulation of religious beliefs about God, revelation, and the cosmos. Therefore, when I describe the demise of Sunni theology I am referring to theology in this technical sense and not the disappearance of particular axiomatic religious creeds, called ‘aqidah (“creed”). Nor am I referring to Islamic philosophy, a separate discipline known as falsafah.

Among the leading factors behind the demise of kalam was an anti-theological school of thought that opposed the classical theological enterprise as it responded to a range of sociopolitical concerns, principally from the seventh to tenth centuries (CE).  This movement, known as the Athariyya, stressed strict adherence to the literal outward meanings of the sacred texts. For the Atharis, human reason cannot be trusted in matters of religion, thus making theology a sinful (even satanic) and dangerous exercise in human arrogance. Following the demise of kalam, Athari thought has flourished and, I argue, contributed in important ways to the reformulation of Islamic political theory in the twentieth century commonly known as “Islamism.”

This new Islamic polity borrowed heavily from modern European political ideologies and centered on the so-called “Islamic state.” In this book, I propose a new definition of Islamism, articulated in great detail, as the marriage of Athari-imposed creedalism and the modern-nation state. The turmoil and bloodshed that the Muslim world endured in the early centuries, out of which the dominant schools of Sunni theology (e.g. Ash‘arism and Maturidism) eventually emerged with important resolutions, is now being forced to play out once again, with the most dangerous elements emanating from those factions opposed to theology as a satanic force and a deserving prisoner of the “unthinkable.”

For more from this title, please visit Barnes & Noble or Amazon

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Executive Summary

Ideology is often ignored or deemed irrelevant to strategic communication because it is an old, possibly leftist, idea that is associated with academic social critique. It is treated as something that lives in the heads of individuals, driving them to radical action. From this point of view the concept is not really practical because by the time someone has adopted an ideology, it is too late.

We advocate a different view of ideology, as a system of ideas about how things are or ought to be that circulates in social discourse. This is a more practical view because it treats ideology not as an idea stuck in someone’s head, but as something that is subject to influence through strategic communication. To be effective in these efforts we must understand culture and narrative, and have a clear grasp of what ideology does.

Ideology has four functions. We illustrate these with detailed examples. Naturalizing means turning socially constructed, politically-motivated, and fluid ideas into taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs, and meanings. Doing so makes them seem fixed, objective, and “naturally occurring.” Obscuring is denying or hiding contradictions in ongoing systems of meaning, making them seem to be seamless, coherent, and unified worldviews. Universalizing means presenting the interests or concerns of those in power as the interests of all group members. And structuring involves creating rules and resources in a social system that preserve an ideology.

Adopting this point of view we can see that the way to resist ideology is to interfere with its functions. To undermine naturalizing we can focus on challenging assumptions, beliefs, and meanings behind an ideology. To fight obscuring we can target contradictions, pushing them into the open. To target universalizing we can engage subgroups and their leaders, politicizing the differences in interests that ideology tries to smooth over. And to resist structuring we can place stress on the structures and/or promote alternatives that might replace, undermine, or circumvent them. We provide several examples of each of these ideology countermeasures.

Of course these same methods are used by extremists against us. This makes it imperative that we avoid at all costs giving adversaries ammunition with which to challenge our assumptions, target our contradictions politicize our groups, and breach our structures.

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Two new counterterrorism journals have recently launched that should be of interest to COMOPS Journal readers. The first is Perspectives on Terrorism. It is a new journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative, with a mission to ” support the international community of terrorism researchers and scholars especially through the facilitation of collaborative and cooperative efforts.” The site is updated weekly with commentary and analysis from leading scholars in the counterterrorism field. Recent posts include:

• Abu Yahya’s Six Easy Steps for Defeating al-Qaeda by Jarret Brachman
• Singapore’s Muslim Community-Based Initiatives against JI by Muhammad Haniff Hassan
• Al-Qaeda’s Propaganda Advantage and How to Counter Itby Brigitte L. Nacos
• Arab Prisons: A Place for Dialogue and Reform by Nicole Stracke
• Global Poverty, Inequality, and Transnational Terrorism: A Research Note by James A. Piazza

The CTC Sentinel is a new publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. This new monthly journal, published in PDF format, is “devoted to understanding and confronting contemporary threats posed by terrorism, insurgency and other forms of political violence.” The inaugural issue includes the following reports:

• Abu Mus`ab al-Suri’s Critique of Hard Line Salafists in the Jihadist Current By Brynjar Lia
• Countering Terrorist Use of the Web as a Weapon By Bruce Hoffman
• Al-Qa`ida Losing Ground in Iraq By Mohammed M. Hafez
• Al-Qa`ida’s Resurgence in Pakistan By Bruce Riedel
• The Saudi Process of Repatriating and Reintegrating Guantanamo Returnees By Christopher Boucek
• Leading Egyptian Jihadist Sayyid Imam Renounces Violence By Jarret Brachman
• Securing Yemen’s Cooperation in the Second Phase of the War on al-Qa`ida By Gregory Johnsen
• Southern Thailand Insurgency Fails to Achieve Popular Support By Peter Chalk

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