A new report is calling on the United States to significantly change its approach to fighting terrorists and extremist groups, warning success on the battlefield will never be enough to stop the spread of extremist ideology.
The report, released Wednesday by the bipartisan Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, says that after nearly two decades and an estimated $5.9 trillion spent fighting terror groups in the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. and its partners must prioritize prevention over military solutions.
“Terrorism is a symptom, but extremism — an ideology calling for the imposition of a totalitarian order intent on destroying free societies like ours — is the disease,” the report warns. “The United States thus finds itself trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of crisis response.”
“Even modest preventive investments — if they are strategic, coordinated, and well-timed — can reduce the risk that extremists will exploit fragile states,” it adds.
The task force’s findings come as the Islamic State terror group, whose ideology attracted tens of thousands of fighters to flock to Syria and Iraq, appears to be in decline.
Its self-declared caliphate, which once spread over large swaths of Syria and Iraq, has been reduced to a small collection of tents and damaged buildings on a patch of land in the northeastern Syrian village of Baghuz.
Officials with the international coalition fighting IS estimate several hundred of the terror group’s “most hardened” fighters remain inside. But commanders with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces say the terrorists are surrounded, and that while it may take several more days, their defeat is inevitable.
Rather than see the collapse of the IS caliphate as an end, though, the task force says the liberation of the final stretch of territory should be seen as an opening to refocus U.S. priorities in the fight against terror.
“What we need is a sense of urgency,” the task force’s co-chairs — former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean and former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton — said in the report.
“The threat that it (IS) could reestablish itself in another fragile state underscores prevention’s importance,” they wrote, adding other countries increasingly share the same view. “We should harness this emerging consensus.”
The task force argues that a large part of the U.S. focus must shift to failed or failing states where the government services and institutions are no longer able to provide for its citizens.
Extremist attempts to establish control “resonate only in societies where the existing state has failed its people,” the report warns.
But rather than try to impose solutions, the report recommends the U.S. work to find partners on the ground who are, at the least, committed to governing responsibly.
The report also calls on the U.S. to streamline its approach, noting that while numerous agencies already are funding prevention-based initiatives, such efforts have been “disjointed, piecemeal, and intermittent.”
And it calls for the creation of a so-called Partnership Development Fund, a “new international platform for donors and the private sector to pool their resources and coordinate their activities.”
Task force members admit progress in the fight against terrorism and extremism will not come overnight, but they warn the failure to adopt a prevention-driven approach could have devastating consequences.
Already, they say, the number of annual terror attacks have increased fivefold since 2001, while the number of Salafi-jihadist fighters has more than tripled over the same period, operating out of 19 countries across the Middle East and Africa.
U.S. military and intelligence officials have likewise warned that Islamic State, while losing control of almost all the territory it once ruled, still has up to 30,000 fighters and followers across Syria and Iraq, while al-Qaida also has managed to strengthen its position in Syria, while maintaining close ties to affiliates in Yemen and elsewhere.
So, too, there are concerns that U.S. intervention has either backfired, or at the most, produced only short-term gains against terrorist and extremist groups, citing examples in Iraq, Libya, Mali and Yemen.
“”The United States thus finds itself trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of crisis response,” the report states, adding however, that a commitment to a prevention-based approach will pay off.
“Every dollar invested in efforts to prevent conflict saves $16 in spending on reconstruction, crisis management and the military,” the report says, pointing to recent analysis by the World Bank and the United Nations.