Difficult to answer. Conventional wisdom says no with the sweeping rise of ISIS, proliferation in lone wolf attacks, as well as, various disparate attacks systematically taking place all over Europe and in the United States. It seems that the strategy of terrorist groups and individuals waging a war of Jihad against soft targets are not complying with the current administration 's strategy of leading from behind. Other than the political talking heads who have made the case that ISIS is in retreat (during an election year mind the reader) one may choose to consider all the aforementioned terror attacks to form an educated opinion rather than traditional metrics. The use of traditional metrics to measure success or failure depended on such
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Gathering and analyzing such fragmented intelligence in 21st century warfare, specifically in the age of the internet and social media communications, has required governments to fashion nimble and arguably invasive strategies that include dragneting communication mediums. The public has rejected this model. The loss of human intelligence has also hindered the War on Terror. This was a problem prior to 9/11 with an over emphasis on technical surveillance collections while dismissing human source assets. Again, this issue resurfaced with the collapse of Yemen and ceasing of diplomatic and consular operations with the United States. When U.S. personnel evacuated Yemen, so to did our ability to collect and disseminate intelligence from ongoing terrorism operations. No American ground assets, no ability to monitor terrorist plots – potentially those as far as …show more content…
There is not a lot of efficiency in the government, but when forces are appropriately marshaled, good things can happen. The use of the JTTF is one such example. Following 9/11, Congress suggested that the FBI should be split into two separate organizations – criminal law enforcement and counter-terrorism. A wise decision was ultimately made to keep the organization in tact, albeit with some internal restructuring. I think the decision was smart because, as we see in many terrorism investigations, criminality and terrorism are often intertwined. Looking at it from two separate organizations would be counterproductive and futile. I use this illustration to suggest that by addressing a long term objective, such as the War on Terror, standing up a new, large institution may only offer more bureaucracy and separation, but by streamlining existing competing organizations, rather, into a nimble combative and intelligence fighting force, we might be in a better position to monitor our successes, as well as, make the necessary internal changes more quickly. According to Apostolou, which I agree, bureaucracies are slow at adaptability and flexibility, something 21st century terrorist organizations are alternatively very good at. We are pretty good at creating organizations to fix public problems,
Gathering and analyzing such fragmented intelligence in 21st century warfare, specifically in the age of the internet and social media communications, has required governments to fashion nimble and arguably invasive strategies that include dragneting communication mediums. The public has rejected this model. The loss of human intelligence has also hindered the War on Terror. This was a problem prior to 9/11 with an over emphasis on technical surveillance collections while dismissing human source assets. Again, this issue resurfaced with the collapse of Yemen and ceasing of diplomatic and consular operations with the United States. When U.S. personnel evacuated Yemen, so to did our ability to collect and disseminate intelligence from ongoing terrorism operations. No American ground assets, no ability to monitor terrorist plots – potentially those as far as …show more content…
There is not a lot of efficiency in the government, but when forces are appropriately marshaled, good things can happen. The use of the JTTF is one such example. Following 9/11, Congress suggested that the FBI should be split into two separate organizations – criminal law enforcement and counter-terrorism. A wise decision was ultimately made to keep the organization in tact, albeit with some internal restructuring. I think the decision was smart because, as we see in many terrorism investigations, criminality and terrorism are often intertwined. Looking at it from two separate organizations would be counterproductive and futile. I use this illustration to suggest that by addressing a long term objective, such as the War on Terror, standing up a new, large institution may only offer more bureaucracy and separation, but by streamlining existing competing organizations, rather, into a nimble combative and intelligence fighting force, we might be in a better position to monitor our successes, as well as, make the necessary internal changes more quickly. According to Apostolou, which I agree, bureaucracies are slow at adaptability and flexibility, something 21st century terrorist organizations are alternatively very good at. We are pretty good at creating organizations to fix public problems,