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[Question] Are there any examples of successful military counter terrorism? (lemm.ee)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/narrow

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A pattern I've seen in countries dealing with terrorism is that they try and kill or arrest all members of a terrorist organization. I'm trying to find an example where terrorist cells were destroyed by military force and I can't find any- it seems the most successful endings are through diplomacy and humanitarian relief to the communities that are vulnerable to radicalization.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

terrorism is a politically defined term, it's definition and target changes over time and places.

what one calls a terrorist, another calls a hero.

what one country calls a "special operation", is terror to another.

what one country calls a terrorist organization, another country calls "allied ethnic groups" &c et cetera :/

your question is not as simple as it sounds

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I suppose a better phrased question might be "what examples are there of a major military power winning an asymmetric war against ideologically or practically motivated non-state actors"

Essentially let's see "freedom fighters" and "terrorists" as the same thing for this question.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

define "winning"!

keeping a relatively harmless tension with a weakened organization may be what a state may consider a "win".

why would 'current rulers' efface their source of propaganda for the next twenty elections?

p.s. : would you consider the recent resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict an appropriate response to your question?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Actually you pinged on a good point - really it could come down to what the "counter terror" side defines as victory. One example that comes to me is the US in Afghanistan- we really didn't have a solid definition for victory other than a vague "destroy al-Qaeda" so we ended up there for 20 years and every bomb we dropped just radicalized more people.

For transparency, I wrote this question thinking about the Palestine Israel conflict. Israel's stated objective is to completely destroy Hamas, but that feels oddly familiar

As far as the Nagorno-Karabakh, I'm not familiar with that conflict, but I did a little peak and the news is saying it's back up. :/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

for Nagorno-Karabakh, and its comparison with Palestine, this was an interesting podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/podcasts/the-daily/armenia-nagorno-karabakh.html