Photo By Maj. Ebony Calhoun | Former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala David Planty, addresses leaders from U.S. Army...... read more read more
Subscribe
WASHINGTON - U.S. Army Central hosted the first Senior Strategy Session on the Arabian Peninsula and Levant with support from the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies April 5-9, 2015.
USARCENT operates in what can arguably be called the most dynamic and perhaps provocative area in the world. This year’s S3APL brought together some of the region’s leading strategists and academics to exchange perspectives on what makes the Middle East such a complex region.
“The original intent was that this would be a forum for Lt. Gen. Terry [Commanding General, USARCENT] and his counterparts, the land force commanders from the Arabian Peninsula and Levant sub-regions, to discuss topics that were relevant to their [strategic] agenda,” said Pete Clymer, deputy branch chief of Arabian Peninsula and Levant International Affairs, USARCENT. “As a result of the situation in the region, we were not able to engage the intended audience. However, we did have several countries participate. Seven countries sent general officers in the form of defense attaches or other senior officers to represent their countries here.”
During the five-day exchange, thirty representatives from the Department of the Army and seven partner nations received presentations from experts from Department of State, George Washington University, the National Defense University, and other agencies. Topics varied from military support during humanitarian disasters to the impact of oil production on stability in the Middle East. All participants agreed that these were compelling discussion points. However, several attendees mentioned the most salient presentations addressed terrorism and its influence on the nature of conflict today.
“There are many different conflicts in the Middle East. It’s not only Da’esh or ISIS. It’s not only the Al-Qaeda affiliated organizations,” said Dr. Murhaf Jouejati, professor, NESA. “In that onion, there are many, many layers. We have only touched some of them this week.”
During his lecture on the nature of terrorism, Dr. David Ucko, professor of strategic studies at the National Defense University asserted that the challenges extremism poses to the current political and military environment are unique and increasingly convoluted.
“Insurgent groups will use terrorism as one of many different actions of strategic components. They have the political standing. They may use subversion. They use maybe the provision of government services. Maybe they might have an education section that essentially educates the next generation,” said Ucko. “The reason they can do all of this is because they have a certain political following. They’ve managed to sell their ideology as a response or solution to grievances that arise within that particular population. That allows them a certain ability to operate openly in society.”
Throughout the exchange, members from several delegations echoed Dr. Ucko’s remarks stating that the problem of terrorism has no single source of motivation; therefore you cannot look at the problem of terrorism from a singular view.
The answer of how to effectively counter the threat of Da’esh and other extremist organizations would not be reached during this conference. However, participants and the event organizers, alike, felt that the foundation for confronting terrorism requires an ongoing exchange of ideas and the type of dialogue experienced in forums like this one.
“There were some tough problem sets discussed. Tough issues. There are no easy solutions because if there were easy solutions,” said Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, Deputy Commanding General, Operations, USARCENT, in his closing remarks.
“We continue the dialogue. We use this conference as yet another forum to build relationships. Because this relationship building will help us eventually understand more to tackle some of these problems in the future.”
Clymer, lead organizer for this event, was very pleased with the outcome of this seminar.
“What the people received and the interaction that we got from them was exactly what we were looking for, it was a success,” said Clymer. “We want to use this as the base to build the other ones [future S3 APL conferences] on. Over the period of the next year, we want to advertise that and make sure that our partners in the area of operations know that it’s going to happen so they can plan to come.”
| Date Taken: | 04.10.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.13.2015 13:40 |
| Story ID: | 159835 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON, DC, US |
| Web Views: | 95 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, US Army Central and partners tackle the problem of violent extremism, by MAJ Ebony Calhoun, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT