Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change. Michael Vlahos’ work highlights a national ethos infused by a sacred narrative of divine mission.

Hence non-state wars with America become a mythic narrative for them. Our engagement actually helps them realize identity – and we become the midwife. This book offers another path to deal with non-state challenges, one that does not further weaken us.

Full video interview at WilsonCenter.org and on CNN

This deep association leads to a narrow approach to conflict relationships, built around an Us vs. Them distance from the enemy, in which their submission is achieved through “kinetic effects” and their subsequent redemption through our good works (reconstruction). Vlahos contends that America’s difficult engagement in the Muslim world demonstrates urgently that different operational approaches and tactics (like “counterinsurgency”) are not enough.

Why are terrorists and insurgents we fight so formidable? Their strength – and our vulnerability – is in identity. Clausewitz knew that geist (spirit) was always stronger than the material: identity is power in war. But how can non-state actors face up to nation states? The answer is in globalization. This is the West’s 3rd globalization. Two centuries of intense mixing has torn down old ways of life and created a growing demand for new belonging.

There is also a decline in US universalism. America’s vision as history’s anointed prophet and manager is now competing head-to-head with renewed universal visions. Like Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages our globalization begins to subside. We may be in the later days of American modernity. We can see this worldwide, as emerging local communities within states and meta-movements find their voice – through conflict and war.

Identities struggling for realization are always the most powerful. Add the diffusion of new technology and new practice, and even the poorest and seemingly most primitive group can now make war against those on high. They are successful because of a symbiotic fit between old states and new identities.

Increasingly, old societies no longer find identity-celebration in war – while non-state identities embrace the struggle for realization. Hence non-state wars with America become a mythic narrative for them. Our engagement actually helps them realize identity – and we become the midwife. This book offers another path to deal with non-state challenges, one that does not further weaken us.

“Egypt’s peace with Israel was being paid for every year,” he said. “If you look at it that way, that helps explain why the US has been locked into this important financial transfer year after year after year, but also Egypt became something of a substitute for the loss of Iran and being one of the anchor of core countries in the Arab world, maybe the core country, this was seen as a great triumph for US foreign policy, so we were almost immediately heavily invested in maintaining what we call ‘stability’.”
“These views are my own and do not reflect the views of the US Government,” Michael Vlahos added.

Source: RT

Strategy Conference- Dr. Michael Vlahos, Panel II

More than 150 experts from the military, academia, research labs and think tanks gathered at the Army War College April 7-9 for the 21st Strategy Conference to think and debate about the changing nature of war. The conference, Defining War for the 21st Century was designed to stimulate intellectual discourse, to foster informed policymaking processes, and to develop effective U.S. strategy in the post-September 11 world, in order to clarify the issues, outline the debates, and generate strategic options.

Dr. Michael Vlahos took part in Panel II – How Do We Know That We Are at War?