Rendering №7

The article published on the website of the newspaper "The National Security" on September 10 is called "Three wars on terror".  The article carries a lot of comment on the theme of one of Barack Obama's earliest acts as president was to discard the phrase "war on terror," yet he has been waging just such a campaign these past four years -- with a skillful mix of subtlety and ferocity. The author of the article compares different politics strategies for the better comprehension.

Analyzing the situation it is necessary to note that in addition to the killing of Osama bin Laden, many other operatives in the late terrorist capo's organization have found themselves on the receiving end of commando raids or Hellfire missiles, from Waziristan to Yemen -- and beyond. Then the author of the article points out Obama's counter-terrorism strategy has extended to other malefactors as well, from madmen like Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army to the Libyan state terrorist, Moammar Qaddafi. John Arquila compares ex US president George Bush and Barack Obama through their international politics and the methods of war on terrorism - Qaddafi was taken down when Obama engineered and enabled a NATO air campaign that began by preventing a slaughter of innocents in Benghazi, then went on to effect regime change in Tripoli -- in a far less costly manner than was undertaken in Iraq by George W. Bush. He points out that the difference in the approaches taken by two most recent presidents that really speaks to there being two different wars on terror. John Arquila gives the following example - Bush chose to attack other nations in his attempt to create a less permissive international environment for terrorist networks. Obama has decided to take the more direct approach: going straight after the networks. Giving appraisal of the situation it’s necessary to pint out the main characteristics of Bush’s politics - Bush's strategy proved exceptionally costly and highly problematic in Iraq, and even his initial success in "going small" in Afghanistan was all too soon overtaken by a stalemate-inducing impulse to send large numbers of troops there. On the other hand Obama's concept of operations, on the other hand, has been working well, and will never break the bank or exhaust our military.

Making point about 9\11, John Arquila notices that there was an earlier war on terror, crafted by Ronald Reagan and his close advisers in the mid-1980s,  that began subtly and skillfully. For the better understanding the reason of beginning of Reagan’s war on terror, the author reminds the accident in the weeks and months after the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 242 Americans, when Reagan and his team became deeply concerned about the terrorism problem. Than the history-marking event is mentioned - the signal success of this first war on terror came in a campaign against the Abu Nidal Organization -- the al Qaeda of the ‘80s -- which was conducting terrorist hits for hire on behalf of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Concluding facts about Reagan’s the writer points that despite this success, and for all of Reagan's enthusiasm and Shultz's support, little else came to pass. There are signs of such situation - this was because many senior military leaders worried about the ethics of Reagan's war on terror -- specifically that the use of paramilitaries and special operators would lead to what then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger called an "unfocused revenge approach" that would lead to the deaths of innocents. It’s open secret that the Pentagon preferred more conventional uses of force -- like the massive air raid on Libya in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin discotheque frequented by GIs. The correspondent quotes William Safire’s statement “"the battle for Reagan's strategic soul," and nothing like the clever coup against Abu Nidal was ever repeated”. In comparison with Reagan’s campaign, Barack Obama has, as noted above, done much better by hewing close to the concept that Reagan initially embraced. But, as was the case with Reagan, there is now a similar battle going on for Obama's strategic soul. 

The author concludes with the suggestion that in the battle for Reagan's strategic soul, the conventional thinkers won out because they convinced him that there was far too much of the "dark side" in the  plan. In the battle for Barack Obama's strategic soul, the "overwhelming force" approach has not yet carried the day - and with luck it won't.

As for me, I’d like to say that our modern society should try to be more resilient to political violence. It is obviously impossible today to establish the peace in the Afganistan, Iraq and countries of North Africa. I think it is obvious that nowadays the USA is unable to struggle against terrorism, as they try to stanch the best from this situation, positioning themselves as peacemakers. If they really want to solve this international problem, they should expel the political pressure as well as find the compromises with other countries for not allowing the spreading of terrorism.