The long war’s shift into Africa—on schedule

INTERNATIONAL: “C.I.A. Chief Says Qaeda Is Extending Its Reach,” by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, 14 November 2008.

Detailing the slow but steady shifting of capacity southward into Africa.

Hayden:

He drew a contrast between what he described as growing Islamic radicalism in places like Somalia and what he said had been the ‘strategic defeat’ of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia—the network’s affiliate group in Iraq.

Yes, for now, the center of gravity has sucked back into NW Pakistan, but as I have long predicted, there’s just too many interested local great powers who will work to squash that regional problem over time, making Africa the more inviting target for long-term expansion.

The resistance will, as always, correspond in its geographic expressions with globalization’s advance and deep embrace of regions.

Comments

[Preston Haley]

I think we're already seeing the shift in terrorist and/or geopolitical conflicts near Africa in the recent rash of piracy violence. Here's a link to an article in today's WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122701864743437147.html

[Louis Heberlein]

Looking at the daily results, I see a transformation in the Afghanistan conflict rather than deterioration. We are entering a phase where we encourage our Afghan and Pakistan buddies to draw in tribal groups, including some Taliban buddies, which accept moderate national and regional interests over narrow traditional hot button concerns. Even the original Taliban expansion was designed in part to end such wasteful conflct.

As far as the African theater and prirate focus, the timing and circumstances seem right. We have a new president with a credible African cultural heritage, but enlightened to modern ideas. Also, the 'terrrible' prirate crisis lets us invoke the Halls of Montezuma tradition of correct foreign missions for US military. Maybe the drone programmers can listen to the music while changing the good old programs from watching for bad guys planting IEDs and shooting RPGs from buildings to monitoring boat traffic, and blasting the suspicious ones that don't cooperate.