Understandably, France will intensify its ongoing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) whether there are any measurable outcomes or not. As the French should, in light of what’s happened.
But while France has always been, and will continue to be, a close ally and fellow NATO member, there is a certain strangeness to sounds of war footing in the United States that raise complex political and economic challenges. Not that Americans shouldn’t be concerned about what just happened in Paris; and not that we should ignore the global terror projection activities of ISIS even as it was (as we thought) preoccupied with several different fronts in the Iraq-Syria battle space. Convenient ignorance or isolationalism can’t be a total option in this case, lest we end up with another situation similar to pre-World War II Third Reich expansion. We turned a blind eye to sinister developments in and around Germany during the 1930s for a long minute, as did a blunderingly naive Anglo-French coalition, and look where that got us.
{mosads}Engagement, then, is the proper response. There are obvious pros to that: The pure butchery of such an act can’t go unanswered. Militarily, there must be an eye for an eye; psychologically, French citizens need the reassurance that it won’t happen again or that, at least, they have a government that can muscle up when it must. For a frightened Western world, it’ll be time to really put arsenal where its mouth is, to tighten any loose ends on its current strategy of containment through air superiority and advisers-on-the-ground coordination.
Still, questions arise as to the extent of that engagement or how far it should go. What that means becomes even more complicated during a presidential campaign. Republicans are certainly yearning for an aggressive response, Democrats nervously attempting to manage what’s in front of them. “This is the war of our time,” was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) first reflection on news of what happened in Paris, which felt something like a familial flashback. “We’re at war with jihadists,” argued former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) during a Saturday night debate that was lucky if as many average viewers watched it as journalists. President Obama — anxious not to have his legacy marred by total war of any sort — is showing no public or private stomach for escalation, and very careful not to let the word “war” slip out while he does that.
It brings us to an intriguing inflection point in the war that’s hard to call a war because of its asymmetrical nature. But, should we escalate, we should keep the consequences in mind moving forward.
We’ve been here before, making wild and oftentimes indiscriminate fly-swatting gestures in a region soiled in bloody conflict. Did that make anything better? Does it ever (really) make anything better? Evidence supports the notion that it doesn’t. We get the instant gratification of dark Middle Eastern nights getting lit up by NATO nation bombs, but the targets always find a way to subsequently brush themselves off.
What’s the long-term strategy? Faced with terror organizations that either have little to lose or don’t mind blowing it all up, Western powers continue putting their eggs in the remote bombing logic rather than a strategy that bears larger, sustained and generations-long benefits for the nation-states where they’re based. One problem that comes to mind is pointed out by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi in his recent documentary “ISIS in Afghanistan.” Quraishi stresses that disciplined, consistent regional funding advantages in which the group can pay its soldiers $700 per month compared to the paltry $300 per month salaries for Afghan soldiers makes a big difference in which side recruits the most. Deliberate Western ignorance of sexual abuse of boys, entrenched house arrest-style treatment of women, deep persistent poverty and racial disparities in the Western countries themselves won’t help the situation any — if you’re unwilling to address those core issues, then why even waste time, manpower and money waging war in those regions?
Here we go … again. And, so, we’re right back where we started, right? Thanks to Paris, G-20 countries huddling in Turkey will be busy weighing their response options rather than discussing practical solutions to fundamental issues that created the situation. More time will be spent arm-twisting hesitant players like Turkey itself into more cooperation on ISIS or haggling Russian diplomats into submission rather than essential conversation addressing root causes. Because the combined Western government response will be so one-dimensionally focused on who can drop the biggest boom, little energy will be spent on the preventive front end. A crucial refresh on climate change scheduled in Paris in two weeks will be overshadowed by the security needed to keep its participants and the city safe. Yet, we really need a discussion on how much impending water scarcity (exacerbated by unyielding climate catastrophes) will actually worsen ISIS-like threats if we’re not moving quickly enough. And because we’re now on a renewed war-footing, we just don’t get it. All of the above is exactly what the perpetrators want.
Ellison is a veteran political strategist and a contributing editor at The Root. He is Washington correspondent for The Philadelphia Tribune, a contributor to The Hill and the Sunday Washington insider for WDAS-FM in Philadelphia. He is also host of “The Ellison Report,” a weekly public-affairs magazine broadcast and podcast on WEAA 88.9 FM in Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter @ellisonreport.