The first major reason is quantity vs. quality. Al Qaeda was forced to rely on loosely organized operatives and training provided by someone in the region. There were no 'training camps' or locations potential operatives could go to receive a 'formal training'. ISIS is different. They have developed a land hold and created camps. They are not looking for a high number of attacks; instead ISIS is looking for well planned, well executed attacks. The next major way threat is an asymmetric advantage. This is when a "weaker party" uses "violence as a political tactic against a more powerful adversary". When ISIS carries out an attack, from Nice, France to Orlando, Florida fear is instilled in many American's hearts. They are not posing a threat like a state would. Instead they are threatening the day to day lives of citizens. These attacks have inspired many across the region the join the movement, which is the third major threat to American security. The "strong horse theory" is when people support or join the strong horse, and not the weak horse. ISIS, a descendent of Al Qaeda in Iraq, is a strong horse in the region now. They have developed a peace of land with the characteristics of a state, and are representing radical ideals. This appeal will draw more and more people in, and is how the threat will continue to grow. The final threat is a result of growth, and is what happens moving forward. People have begun to fear the ideology, not so much the group of the people involved but the set of beliefs themselves. This has effectively changed the way people thinks and posses a massive risk.
I firmly believe that ISIS is a threat to America because of the reasons above. They need not kill thousands like Al Qaeda to send a message. They have begun to change the way we live our lives, they are altering our beliefs and how we view certain areas of the world and the cultures within. This change is not healthy. These fears are also relevant in our election cycle. Looking at the two candidates, one is labeled for their lack of response and the other is critiqued for using these fears to their advantage. Americans fear being attacked, we fear another shooting in a night club or being forced to stoop to the level of thieves and murderers in order to solve the issue. We fear Muslim immigrants entering the country, and we fear the government watching our every technological move. While these fears are generalized and do not apply to hundreds of millions of Americans, they exist. The existence of these fears is threat enough against the United States.
I would agree that the existence of fear poses a significant threat to the United States. I would also add that terrorist organization thrive off of our fear, it precisely what they seek to achieve. ISIS based on what you have presented above presents a ontological security problem more so than Al Qaeda. Individuals all over the world fear doing things normal to their daily routine such as taking public transportation to work, worrying about the monitoring of personal electronic devices, going to concerts, and much more. All of these daily occurrences, arguably, were not nearly as big of threat pre-9/11. The ontological security threat continues to grow each day that ISIS and terrorist organizations alike remain alive.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that ontological fear is the key fear present now (even though I forgot to mention that it was ontological fear within my post). I am very curious to see how the nation, and other nations around the globe react to this fear.
DeleteI agree that they are a threat to America, and do pose a risk. You are right that they strike fear into Americans without even having to kill thousands of people like Al-Qaeda did on 9/11. This is something that I think is often not mentioned, and I think it is great that you did. One thing I did want to critique was that Al-Qaeda did have training camps both pre-2002 and post. There were estimates of over 100 camps within Afghanistan (http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/19/inv.afghanistan.camp/)
ReplyDeleteThank you Andrew! I was unaware of the camps that al-Qaeda had (I should have confirmed that prior to writing that). I think the differnce that I wanted to emphasize though, was that the ISIS camps are within their territory, whereas al-Qaeda was forced to operate within other countries sovereign territory.
DeleteI agree that ISIS poses a threat to the American people but I do not necessarily agree that they are fearful from the attacks varying in location from Nice to Orlando. ISIS, the full organization, has not backed an attack in the United States. These attacks in the US have been carried out by those who follow the ISIS doctrine but are not apart of the territory. I agree with your other points of ISIS being a viable threat but do these attacks really instill a large amount of fear in the american people if these are not orders from the ISIS caliph?
ReplyDeleteI think they do install a large sense of fear. When we hear that someone committed an attack in the name of ISIS, we tend to think that the orders came from the caliph. Regardless of whether or not they did, we assume, and the news reports "ISIS struck again" and so on. I think the idea that they may even be able to attack is what Americans are fearful of.
DeleteThis is an interesting take on something that I generally disagree with: the idea that ISIS is a threat to the "American way of life." While I do agree that fear in the form of Islamophobia is absolutely on the rise, I find this to be highly correlated with people who are uneducated about the actual threat ISIS poses. Many of the things we discussed in class (such as the likelihood of picking a "poison Skittle" or the chance of being struck by lightening greater than your chance of being killed by a refugee) indicates why this fear is irrational. However, fear, irrational as I may find it, absolutely exists around these issues. However, I don't think it's threatening US lives the way you indicate. I find that the people's lives who are really changing are Muslim and Arab Americans, not the people who fear them. Freedom and democracy in the society of the US as a whole is not at risk here, rather, the individual freedoms of Muslim and Arab Americans are at risk from those who give in to these irrational fears.
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