John Arquilla, an associate professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, addressed the Morning Forum of Los Altos Feb. 17 on “How we could lose the war on terror.”
An active, informed populace is key in the fight against modern terrorism, Arquilla said.
Arquilla is firm in his belief that we need to be able to deal with intelligence networks.
Unless we and our allies get together to build a network, we might miss out on what terror networks are doing, he said.
If we lose the war against Iraq, it might be because we went after a nation instead of going after a network. The United States decided to be the leader and use a “you are with us or against us threat,” thus fueling the discontent of our former allies and friends.
“This is not the way that networks are created and sustained,” Arquilla said.
He said there is a special urgency to work together, to start things in a smarter way, to work with others. Arquilla said homeland security is a bankrupt concept because we cannot carve out a firewall against which we can be safe, and we can’t prevent transnational movement of viruses, weapons, etc.
How do we get intelligence to network? The answer is before us, Arquilla said. There are 13 agencies in government now, plus subsidiaries. Arquilla wondered how many knew each other.
Arquilla mentioned a tactical Web page created by students used by American soldiers in the field in Iraq. When soldiers observed a Taliban convoy of 100 vehicles, they conveyed the information to their colleagues close to the action which led to the destruction of those vehicles. “That’s networking, and that’s moving information quickly,” the professor said.
Arquilla added that there are no technological fixes for these problems, and that people are vital to the success of the war on terrorism.
Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. For more information or to attend the lecture series, write to Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.
