Confronting 'Thrill-Kill Cult' of ISIS

Review by Bill Doughty

An examination of the roots, branches and seeds of ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh can be found in two new approaches to the study of Islamist-jihadist theology: Fawaz A. Gerges's "ISIS: A History" (2016, Princeton University Press) and Malcolm Nance's "Defeating Isis: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe" (2016, Skyhorse Publishing) including a foreword by Richard Engel, NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent.

Both books reveal how Salafi-Jihadists arose from Sunni and Shia strife, and each author offers advice on how ISIS can be defeated, a "complex task that requires political and social strategies that deny the group the oxygen that sustains it," according to Gerges.

Gerges shows "the world according to ISIS" and how jihadism evolved from Zarqawi to Baghdadi. The evolution accelerated as wars in Iraq and Syria created a crisis in Sunni identity; that led to a breakdown in respect for countries' borders.

"Following a rapid rise and concomitant territorial conquests, the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), ISIL, (Islamic State of Iraq and wa-Sham or Levant), or by its Arabic abbreviation, Da'esh, has for now, by default, taken operational command and leadership of the global jihadist movement, eclipsing Al-Qaeda Central (AQC), which attacked the U.S. homeland on September 11, 2001. At the time of writing, ISIS controls a wide swath of territory in Iraq and Syria, as large as the United Kingdom, with a population estimated at roughly between six million and nine million people. Additionally, ISIS controls a sectarian army numbering more than thirty thousand combatants, in part through an amalgamation of local armed insurgents in Iraq and Syria and foreign recruits."

Fawaz A. Georges

Gerges says we must confront the ideology "frozen in time and space" from centuries ago that binds the groups of radicalized Sunni Muslims.

"It is easy to dismiss the Salafi-Jihadists ... as monsters, savages, and killers. It is also tempting to belittle their religious fanaticism and messianism as un-Islamic. This type of moral and ethical condemnation overlooks a painful truth: that an important Sunni constituency believes in the group's utopian and romantic vision of building an Islamic state, even though many might not condone its gruesome violence. Other Sunnis have lent a helping hand to ISIS because they see it as an effective bulwark against the Shia- and Alawite-dominated governments in Baghdad and Damascus respectively, as well as their Iranian patrons. Through its rapid emergence in the aftermath of the civil strife that has gripped the Middle East since 2011, ISIS has managed to effectively tap into a crisis of Sunni Arab identity in Iraq, Syria and beyond."

Both authors agree on how ISIS got its start – in the "social rupture" and "repercussions" caused in Iraq in 2003. According to Gerges: "The U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, combined with the subsequent social turmoil and prolonged and costly armed resistance, led to the dismantling of state institutions and the establishment of a political system based on muhasasa, or the distribution of spoils of power along communal, ethnic, and tribal lines."

In "Defeating Isis," Nance writes:

"The invasion of Iraq was not just an exhausting failure, unsuccessful in stamping out insurgency and terrorism; it actually created he entire legion of terror and tyranny that we know as the Islamic State. Had the invasion not toppled the existing social, political, and tribal structure of Mesopotamia, there would be no ISIS to fight. Al-Qaeda might well have died slowly in the mountains of Pakistan. Today, however, the global jihadist movement under the aegis of a newly minted ISIS has reinforced their ranks and even provided the old-guard al-Qaeda with enough recruits to conduct terrorist acts across such a widely diverse number of regions that the world is adjusting to the circumstances in what is becoming the 'new normal.'"

The origins and subsequent atrocities of jihadism – including suicide bombings, such as the attack on USS Cole (DDG 51) in 2000 and attacks of 9/11/2001 and since, as well as gruesome beheadings and burnings of prisoners alive – are extremely uncomfortable to read and think about.

I was reminded of the excellent Frontline specials on ISIS, including "The Rise of ISIS" and the latest, "Contronting ISIS" with correspondent Martin Smith. "Warning: tonight's program contains graphic imagery of war and extreme violence."

Watch Frontline and you'll want to dive deeper into how and why the war is leading back to Mosul, for example.

An AV-8B Harrier with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) takes off from the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) Aug. 8, 2016 for a precision air strike against ISIL targets in Sirte, Libya. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Zhiwei Tan)

Gerges's insightful narrative is well-written and heartfelt. He examines the effects of not only a power vacuum but also a thought vacuum due to millenarian, end-of-the-world tribal thinking. "Formal separation of mosque and state is essential in order to end the instrumentalization of religion for political purposes by both religious and secular politicians."

Freedom-worshipping philosopher Voltaire

At just over 500 pages, Nance's book is encyclopedic in presenting the who, what, when, where and why of Da'esh. How to defeat the terrorists? Nance's recommendation is: Target the ideology as well as the entrenched warriors, and do so surgically with continued creative use of Special Warfare and airpower.

Da'esh's nasty lack of civility, love of authoritarian male domination, tyranny over dissent, and hate-based superstitious ideology succeed when people fail to apply critical thinking skills. Nance concludes:

"The French philosopher Voltaire once remarked, 'Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' ISIS is the epitome of this commentary. The absurdity of their cult ideology has caused the deaths of tens of thousands and subjugated millions under their rule. If the war to defeat ISIS could be fought with just the strength and moral fiber of Lt. Kasabeh [Jordanian pilot burned to death in a cage] and Ruqi Hassan [assassinated for writing the truth about life in 'the fantasy of the caliphate.'] then the outcome would be the swift and utter destruction of this cult. Yet for all of the social power ready to be harnessed, a grand war promises not even the slightest chance of success until the ISIS cult's murderous mayhem is reframed, redefined, and revealed as the apocalyptic thrill-kill death cult that it is. Redefining and fighting this ideology with a single, damning word, "cult," is more accurate, readily consumable, and believable than hoping that ISIS will somehow contain itself or self-destruct."

Gerges concludes that ISIS is only the latest brand of Islamist extremist philosophy, what Peter Bergen calls "binladenism." Gerges writes: "Ideas are the first line of defense against the Salafi-jihadist nihilistic ideology and the final nail in its coffin. Without this revolution in ideas, the narrative and brand of Salafi-jihadism, of which iSIS is the most recent iteration, will continue to prevail in the Arab-Islamic world."


MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Sept. 24, 2016) Boatswain's Mate Seaman Noah Cheeks, from Follansbee, W.Va., dons a cranial during flight operations aboard USS Ross (DDG 71) Sept. 24, 2016. Ross, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is providing multi-warfare defense support to Charles de Gaulle carrier-based operations in the Eastern Mediterranean against identified ISIL positions in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Theron J. Godbold/Released)

'Killing Game'–ISIS & Augmented Reality

Review by Bill Doughty

Radical jihadist movements like ISIS, al Qaeda and Boko Haram attract young people with mental problems–men and women who are subject to addictions and delusions, drawn to hatred, with access to guns, bombs and other weapons, according to author Mark Bourrie, "The Killing Game: Martyrdom, Murder and the Lure of ISIS" (2016, HarperCollins). 

Canada's Bourrie helps us get not only an international perspective but also the historical and scientific context of homegrown terrorism while dissecting the family dynamics of turncoat terrorists.

The international perspective is timely in the wake of recent rampages in Nice, Orlando, Brussels, Baghdad, Bangladesh, Somalia, Turkey and Afghanistan by ISIS-inspired killers.

Today at least 80 people are dead in Kabul after a jihadist suicide bomb attack, and ISIS claimed responsibility.

Recruitment of terrorists has deep roots in history.

Great Britain helped the Confederacy recruit Canadians to fight in the U.S. Civil War. During the Spanish-American War young men from Canada fought in the Spanish Republican Army because they looked "to fascism for solutions to their personal problems and economic messes..."

Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler on 28 November 1941

Similarly, foreign fighters were attracted to Nazi Germany, according to Bourrie, especially in the last years of World War II. "Hitler and his murderous henchman Heinrich Himmler had a strange fascination with Islam. It was, and still is, reciprocated."

Today, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) and related extremists use sophisticated ways to reach, teach and recruit young people worldwide. They employ new media, promote video games and develop apps, pushing their message of hate and violence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other platforms. When it comes to ISIS, or ISIL, "No other organization ... set out to find brutal ways to kill and novel ways to publicize atrocities."

"So much of ISIS's war-porn propaganda is directed at ... bored young people who aren't engaged by the consumer ethos of their own society and who feel that adventure is passing them by. They want to step into the video games that have become so important to them and be the heroes that they play on the small screen. As Abu Sumayyah al-Britani, a British fighter with ISIS, posted on Twitter, war is the ultimate in virtual reality."

According to Bourrie, young people grow up playing violent games so routinely that they are "desensitized to the sight of killing."

This affects–and effects–parts of the brain.

Bourrie notes that researchers in China studying the impact of Internet addiction have found that excessive online gaming leads to depression, irritability and impulsiveness and can affect the structure of the brain.

"Anyone who can tap into the minds of young people and connect with their desires and insecurities can exploit them," Bourrie writes. "ISIS's brand of religion, with its simple answers to complex and disturbing modern questions, appeals to people in shattered societies."

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Fear leads to an attraction to authoritarianism. After World War I, "Mussolini offered a return to the Roman Empire. Hitler offered Germany domination of Europe. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS's leader and self-styled caliph offers the return of the glory days of Islam, when armies ravaged what was left of the eastern Roman Empire."

Bourrie reminds us that millions of Americans struggled to give meaning to the attacks of September 11, 2001, "just as they struggled to turn Pearl Harbor into a crusade against fascism and militarism" in 1941.

How can Western nations prevent ISIS recruitment of mentally unstable, deluded or sociopathic young people in their societies?

Can young would-be terrorists be deprogrammed and reeducated? One of the most important keys lies in the Muslim community, Bourrie writes:

"Radical Islam is vulnerable to several counterattacks. The most potent comes from persuasive, learned Muslims who can argue back against ISIS's simplistic and violent interpretation of Islam. This is already happening, but more Muslims need to get involved, and they need the media skills to be able to face ISIS on the Internet. Moderate Muslims also need to ensure that their mosques and social groups aren't dominated or hijacked by radicals. At the same time, authorities in Canada and other Western countries should back these people up and do more than just arrest terror suspects. They need to look at the way European states work with the families of extremists and develop a ... system that provides effective intervention and support for the relatives of people drawn to extremism. Right now, some Muslims feel intimidated by the extremists. They need protection so they can speak out."

Canada's Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Brian Dickson

He says, "There needs to be even more international cooperation to share information and fight jihadi recruitment." And he says marginalization of Muslim communities is not the answer; hatred is not the answer. He includes a quote from Supreme Court of Canada's Chief Justice Brian Dickson about the dangers of hate speech:

"Hatred is predicated on destruction, and hatred against identifiable groups therefore thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both the target group and the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is a most extreme emotion that belies reason; an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation."

Hate begets hate. People who fear and hate, for different reasons, cause death and destruction every day. Only a small percentage of violent deaths in the United States are caused by violent Islamist extremists. 

Remembering victims in Nice, France.

Bourrie reminds us of mass murders by white supremacists in Charleston, South Carolina (9 African Americans gunned down); Oslo, Norway in 2011 (77 people, mostly children, murdered); and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 2001 (when Timothy McVeigh assassinated 168 men, women and children). An attack in Munich, Germany yesterday killed 9 people and occurred five years, to the day, of the Norway massacre.

But it's sobering to consider the scale of hatred and killing in the name of Islam worldwide in recent decades, especially in the last few years. Wikipedia publishes a list, which as this gets posted hasn't been updated with the most recent attacks–including today's horrific suicide bombings in Kabul, reportedly part of ongoing Sunni-Shiite hatred.

Bourrie concludes:

"It's my view that we're seeing the beginning of a general war in the Islamic world. It may be fought simultaneously, or the fighting may move from one country to another. Internal forces will tear apart Saudi Arabia and continue to threaten the regime in Iran. Shiites, backed by Tehran, push against Sunnis backed by the Saudis. The regime in Egypt, the most populous country in the region, survives because the army still has the ability to suppress Islamism, but time may be running out for Egypt's generals."

Meanwhile the radical jihadists and other extremists continue their spew of propaganda, trying to entice young people with promises of sex, glory, kittens and personalized iPhone covers. "One fact ISIS propaganda never mentions is that–if the fates of known Western fighters are any indication–ISIS fighters don't usually live long." 



Kudos to Patrick Crean Editions and HarperCollins for the disconcerting cover with blazing blue eyes, remarkably similar to the face of a great folk singer who is the antithesis of hatred and is instead dedicated to understanding, hope and love–James Taylor ("You've Got a Friend" and "Fire and Rain")–which makes the impact of the cover that more powerful.



Here's to "understanding, hope and love" in the real world and in augmented reality now and in the future.

ISIS and The Why

Review by Bill Doughty

A new book about the self-proclaimed Islamic State explains who and what is behind the violent jihadists – when, where and how they came to power and, perhaps most importantly, why they exist.

The Why is one of the most intriguing insights in "ISIS: The State of Terror" by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger (2015, HarperCollins).

As with some other ultra-fundamentalist groups, the terrorists of ISIS/ISIL, like al Qaeda and the Taliban, have a persecution complex and see the world in polarized good-and-evil, black and white terms.  They believe in the need to purify the world before armageddon and the apocalypse – "the final hour" or "end times."

"ISIS has begun to evoke the apocalyptic tradition much more explicitly, through actions as well as words ... While Muslim apocalyptic thought is diverse and complex, most narratives contain some elements that would be easily recognized by Christians and Jews: at an undetermined time in the future the world will end, a messianic figure will return to the earth, and God will pass judgment on all people, justly relegating some to heaven and some to hell."

Jessica Stern

In Chapter 10, "The Coming Final Battle?," the authors explain the concept of belief in the Mahdi (The Guided One), expected to appear before the Day of Judgment, according to some believers (83 percent of people in Afghanistan; 72 percent in Iraq, as reported by the Pew Research Center).

Stern and Berger write, "For both Sunnis and Shi'ites, the Mahdi's role is, in part, to end the disunity of the Muslim community and to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ, who is understood to be a prophet in Islam." In a fascinating cover profile of ISIS in the March 2015 issue of The Atlantic, Graeme Wood discusses the Prophetic narration that claims Jesus as "the second-most-revered prophet in Islam," who will return to "lead the Muslims to victory."

Why the extreme and gory violence, including crucifixion and beheadings?

The answer may be in what author Mark Juergensmeyer calls "ancient religious rites of sacrifice" and martyrdom. In his pre-9/11 book, "Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Terrorism" (University of California Press, 2000), Juergensmeyer mirrors arguments made by the authors of "ISIS" fifteen years later: Persecution complex, belief in moral superiority, and a call for sacrifice resulting in a form of martyrdom.

"There is some evidence that ancient religious rites of sacrifice, like the destruction involved in modern-day terrorism, were performances involving the murder of living beings. The later domestication of sacrifice in evolved forms of religious practice, such as the Christian ritual of the Eucharist, masked the fact that in most early forms of sacrifice a real animal – in some cases a human – offered its life on a sacred chopping block, an altar. In the Hebrew Bible, which is sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, the book of Leviticus gives a detailed guide for preparing animals for sacrificial slaughter. The very architecture of ancient Israeli temples reflected the centrality of the sacrificial event. The Vedic Agnicayana ritual, some three thousand years old and probably the most ancient ritual still performed today, involves the construction of an elaborate altar for sacrificial ritual, which some claim was originally a human sacrifice. This was certainly so at the other side of the world at the time of the ancient Aztec empire, when conquered soldiers were treated royally in preparation for their role in the sacrificial rite. Then they were set upon with knives ..."

Juergensmeyer shows the similarity of beliefs in Osama bin Laden's interpretation of Islam, Timothy McVeigh's association with Christian Identity White Supremacy, and Shoko Asahara's Aum Shinrikyo cult's armageddon terrorism. There are uncanny links to persecution complex, blind belief and various forms of millenarism through homegrown and international terrorist groups. Our former enemies in World War II also held messianic beliefs and feelings of persecution which may have fueled atrocities in that war.

While evidence shows that most Muslims around the world reject ISIS, there is a danger, according to the authors, in ignoring the strong beliefs held by "true believer" jihadist extremists, who think behavior such as beheadings, slavery, and sexual assaults and other cruelty toward women is ordained, based on their faith and interpretation of a written word or "law."

If that helps explain The Why, what about The How in dealing with the people rallying behind the black and white flags? How should we combat the threat of ISIS/ISIL? 

Graeme Wood takes a pessimistic view:

"Ideological tools may convince some potential converts that the group's message is false, and military tools can limit its horrors. But for an organization as impervious to persuasion as the Islamic State, few measures short of these will matter, and the war may be a long one, even it fit doesn't last until the end of time," he concludes.

Stern and Berger provide suggestions including ostracism and an outright siege to let them rot, countering through social media, not taking the bait when provoked, and insisting on a nuanced educated conviction in our approach – not interpreting things in black-and-white. 

"Empathy is the antidote to human cruelty," they advise.

So is education, science, reading and critical thinking.

'United States of Jihad' & Homegrown Terrorists

Review by Bill Doughty

San Bernardino terrorists Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook at airport security.

The journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden nearly twenty years ago in 1997, four years before 9/11 – and who accurately predicted the location of bin Laden's hideaway more than a decade later – assesses the level of danger of neighborhood jihadists in his latest work, "United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists" (2016, Crown Publishers).

Peter Bergen's conclusion may surprise some Americans.

Bergen's work – which includes insights into the Boston Marathon attack by the Tsarnaev brothers, the killing of Omar Hammami, the hunt for and death of Anwar al-Awlaki, and the Malik/Farook attack in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015 – grips the reader with its sense of immediacy and Bergen's mastery at nonfiction storytelling. 

The book opens with "Americans for ISIS," describing teenager Mohammed Hamzah Khan's attempt to join the Islamist "caliphate" with his younger siblings. Other highlights include behind-the-scenes insights into deranged characters Major Nidal Hassan, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and David Headley.

Bergen examines the phenomenon of "lone wolves" as well as leader-led jihadists.

The roles of Navy SEAL Team 6 and CIA come up several times in the war against what Bergen calls "Binladenism." Bergen documents the success in tracking down and exterminating overseas terrorists. But, here comes the surprise: radical islamists were not the greatest threat to Americans on U.S. soil in 2015, he reports.

"Americans have also long tended to overestimate the threats posed by jihadists while underestimating the sources of other forms of terrorism, generally defined as any act of violence against civilians motivated by ideology. Since 9/11, extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right-wing credos, including white supremacists, antiabortion extremists, and antigovernment militants, have killed around the same number of people in the United States as have extremists motivated by al-Qaeda's ideology. As we have seen, by the end of 2015, forty-five people had been killed in jihadist terrorist attacks in the United States, while right-wing racists and antigovernment militants had killed forty-eight."

As an example, Bergen relates terrorist attack by Dylann Roof last year at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which Roof killed nine African Americans vainly hoping "to start a race war." He reminds us of the historical terrorism in our country, including "an astonishing 112 hijackings in the States during the 1970s."

Yet, the fear of ISIS for some is all-consuming, even impinging on some Americans' "pursuit of happiness." The influential philosopher Epicurus (Thomas Jefferson called himself Epicurean) reasoned that people's greatest desire should be the pursuit of a life of happiness, and that the greatest barrier to that pursuit was fear.

So what about our fears? Bergen writes:

"Americans' persistent fear of terrorism can be explained partly by the disparity between expert and lay evaluations of risk. In the words of Clinton Jenkin, a psychologist writing in the peer-reviewed journal Homeland Security Affairs, 'Experts view risk as the likelihood of actual harm based on mortality estimates, whereas lay perceptions of risk are based on a number of qualitative (and subjective) characteristics.' The average person's perception of risk, he explains, is influenced by 'the voluntariness of exposure,' how much control we feel we have, how great we judge the potential damage, how unpredictable the situation seems, and so on. Since terrorists can strike anyone, anywhere, in a random and dreadful manner, we tend to fear them more than we fear far more common and predictable causes of death. In any year since 9/11, Americans were twelve thousand times more likely to die in a car accident, for instance, than in a domestic terrorist incident."

Bergen continues to put fear and Americans' actual risk in perspective:

"The extent to which our government and the media participate in this endemic paranoia is damaging in that, apart from doing the terrorists' job for them, which is to terrorize, it helps to crowd out the far more serious issues the planet faces. Climate change is far less telegenic than ISIS. More to the point, homicide is the fifteenth leading cause of death for Americans. The scale of this death toll resembles both a national security problem and a public health issue. Around 70 percent of American homicides are accomplished with firearms, according to an authoritative study by the United Nations; some eighty-eight thousand Americans died in gun violence between 2003 and 2010. This means that in the years after 9/11, an American residing in the United States was around five thousand times more likely to be killed by a fellow citizen armed with a gun than by a terrorist inspired by the ideology of Osama bin Laden. It's probably more or less inevitable that most Americans will die of cancer or a heart attack, but why is it even plausible that Americans in high schools, colleges, movie theaters, and churches should die at the hands of young armed men?"

Kerry Cahill and Nader Hasan

He concludes his book with a hopeful profile of Kerry Cahill (whose father, Michael, was killed by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood) and her bond of friendship with Nader Hasan, cousin of the terrorist assassin, who reached out to her. 

Nader Hassan's Nawal Foundation is dedicated to American Muslims speaking out against terrorists and terrorism. Kerry joined the foundation after bonding with Nader over homemade baklava and a children's book ("Mouse Soup" by Arnold Lobel, author of "Frog and Toad"). "Mouse Soup," Bergen writes, "had been Michael Cahill's favorite book to read to them as kids."

Accelerating Change: How to Survive and Thrive

Review by Bill Doughty

The Navy operates in an age of acceleration in a "post-post-Cold War" era. Scientists show we're moving headlong from the Holocene into the Anthropocene, where human population growth, globalization, climate change, and loss or biodiversity are forcing change at exponential speed, and where the United States, China and Russia continue to compete for influence and resources. Meanwhile, Islamist extremists like ISIS coalesce and threaten thanks to social networking and cell phone technology.

That's some of the scene Thomas L. Friedman sets in his latest, "Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). Friedman is author of "From Beirut to Jerusalem," "The World Is Flat," "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," and "That Used to Be Us."
Globalization affects the interconnected economies of the world. Carbon (now above 400 ppm) causes changes in the atmosphere and biosphere. And Moore's law explains how technology grows exponentially. Combined, these forces bring us to either a precipice or a new beginning – a chance for the United States and the world to "reimagine how we stabilize geopolitics," according to Friedman.

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/author Thomas Friedman speaks to a packed auditorium
 in Ingersoll Hall, Naval Postgraduate School, June 24, 2016. (Photo by Michael Ehrlich)

"It's important to remember that America is such an important player on the world stage that even small shifts in how we project power can have decisive impacts. And it's this combination of shrinking American power in one part of the world plus the reshaping of the world more broadly by the accelerations in the Market, Mother Nature, and Moore's law that defines the era we are in today, which I call the post-post-Cold War world. It is a world characterized by some very old and some very new forms of geopolitical competition all swirling together at the same time. That is, the traditional great-power competition, primarily among the United States, Russia, and China, is back again (if it really went away) as strong as ever, with the three major powers again jockeying over spheres of influence, along golden-oldie fault lines such as the NATO-Russia frontier or the South China Sea. This competition is propelled by history, geography, and the traditional imperatives of great-power geopolitics, and is reinforced today by the rise of nationalism in Russia and China. It's contours will be determined by the balance of power between these three big nation-states."

As evidence of exponential acceleration of change, Friedman presents the work of Will Steffen published in Anthropocene Review, March 2, 2015, that concludes, "We are now in a no-analogue world." The danger is in how we've (1) breached, (2) almost breached or (3) are about to breach "nine key planetary boundaries": climate change, biodiversity, deforestation, geochemical flows, ocean acidification, freshwater use, atmospheric aerosol loading, introduction of novel entities, and stratospheric ozone layer.


The latter boundary – ensuring the ozone layer is appropriately thick enough to reduce the threat of harmful UV radiation – is a success story and a sign of hope, according to Friedman. "After scientists discovered an ever-widening ozone hole caused by man-made chemicals – chlorofluorocarbons – the world got together and implemented the Montreal Protocol in 1989, banning CFCs, and, as a result, the ozone layer remains safely inside its planetary boundary of losses not greater than 5 percent from preindustrial levels."



Both Mother Nature and humankind can innovate and be highly adaptive, Friedman contends. Nature evolves through natural selection. Humans have the capability to learn, control and adapt their behavior if they have the knowledge, wisdom and will.

In growing acceleration within societies, we see examples of rapid changes. Typewriters are antiques (to be collected by Tom Hanks). Cassette players are now used as a quaint plot devices in movies like "Guardians of the Galaxy." The Confederate Flag came down in South Carolina after the shooting in Charleston in 2015. In recent years the U.S. military changed its attitude about lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people and their rights to equality. The future will reward resiliency and entrepreneurial adaptability.

Those who will survive and thrive during and after the great acceleration are those who embrace innovation, science and education, based on a bedrock of truth and trust, says Friedman. The future belongs to lifelong learners willing to constantly better themselves and unwilling to accept the average or mediocre.

"We have to make our newfound power of one, the power of machines, the power of many, and the power of flows our friends – and our tools to create abundance within the planetary boundaries – not just our enemies. But organizing ourselves to use them that way will require a level of will, of stewardship, and of collective action the likes of which we have never seen humanity display as a whole. Every day there are new breakthroughs in solar energy, wind power, batteries, and energy efficiency that hold out the hope that we can have clean energy at a scale and price that billions can afford – provided we have the will to put a price on carbon so these technologies can rapidly scale and move down the cost-volume curve. As environmentalists have often noted, we have been great at rising to the occasion after big geopolitical upheavals – after Hitler invaded his neighbors, after Pearl Harbor, after 9/11. But this is the first time in human history that we have to act on a threat we have collectively made to ourselves, to act on it at scale, to act before the full consequences are felt, and to act on behalf of a generation that has not yet been born – and to do it before all the planetary boundaries have been breached."

While Friedman is optimistic, he's also realistic. Rapid acceleration and globalization is a double-edged sword.

"Globalization has always been everything and its opposite – it can be incredibly democratizing and it can concentrate incredible power in giant multinationals; it can be incredibly particularizing – the smallest voices can now be heard everywhere – and incredibly homogenizing, with big brands now able to swamp everything anywhere. It can be incredibly empowering, as small companies and individuals can start global companies overnight, with global customers, suppliers, and collaborators, and it can be incredibly disempowering – big forces can come out of nowhere and crush your business when you never even thought they were in your business. Which way it tips depends on the values and tolls that we bring to these flows."

Recent headlines and scandals about online misbehavior show the challenge to leaders in the accelerating world Friedman describes.

"It turns out that social networks, cheap cell phones, and messaging apps are really good at both enabling and impeding collective action. They enable people to get connected horizontally much more easily and efficiently but they also enable individuals at the bottom to pull down those at the top more easily and efficiently – whether they are allies or enemies. Military strategists will tell you that the network is the most empowered organizational form in this period of technological change; classical hierarchies do not optimize in the flat world, but the network does. Networks undermine command-and-control systems – no matter who is on top – while strengthening the voices of whoever is on the bottom to talk back. Social media is good for collective sharing, but not always so great for collective building; good for collective destruction, but maybe not so good for collective construction; fantastic for generating a flash mob, but not so good at generating a flash consensus on a party platform or a constitution."

A U.S. Navy EA-6B Prowler refuels in Operation Inherent Resolve mission March 20, 2017,
an extended fight against ISIS. (Photo by Senior Airman Joshua A. Hoskins)

Speaking of double-edged swords and "collective destruction"... Misplaced values in the name of what some call a deranged interpretation of Islam and the Koran is at the heart of radical extremists like Daesh/ISIS/ISIL and similar groups that form a "diffuse movement," one that can best be defeated by other Muslims standing up to the death cults, Friedman shows. Till then, the rise of the terrorists has created a "new balance of power."

"During the Cold War, if you wanted to assess the global balance of power you would likely look at the annual survey "The Military Balance," published by the London-based International institute for Strategic Studies, and self-described as the most 'trusted military data on 171 countries: size of armed forces, defense budgets, equipment.' That book would tell you the relative strengths of their armies, navies, and air forces (their hard power), and their 'soft power': the relative strengths of their economies, their societal appeal, and the degree of entrepreneurship in their culture. And if you added up all those numbers, you would have a rough measure of the balance of power between different nation-states. Not anymore. Assessing today's balance of power requires a much wider lens."

Trees grow tall in suburbs in Minnesota, anchoring Friedman's optimism.

Getting to that wider lens requires us to not act like the proverbial frog being slowly boiled and lulled into unconsciousness (put a frog in boiling water and it jumps out; put it in cool water and gradually raise the temperature, and the frog might not act till it's too late). "We are hardwired to consider nature limitless because for so many years nature seemed so limitless – and we were so relatively few and so relatively light a force upon it; how could it be that we cannot devour as much as we want." 

Friedman tells a great story about his encounter with a parking lot attendant (and blogger) at the beginning of "Thank You for Being Late." Throughout the  book he enlightens us with topics as diverse as in Syria, artificial intelligence, Madagascar, Hadoop, generative design, and Brandi Carlile, among dozens of others.

He concludes this book with a personal and heartfelt story about his "anchoring" roots, symbolized in the trees he remembers in his hometown of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

"Those trees and I had both grown up and out from the same topsoil, and the most important personal, political, and philosophical lesson I took from the journey that is this book is that the more the world demands that we branch out, the more we each need to be anchored in a topsoil of trust that is the foundation of all healthy communities. We must be enriched by that topsoil, and we must enrich it in turn."

During a recent visit to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, geobiologist and author Hope Jaren ("Lab Girl") invited us to think about how plants – seeds, roots, trees, etc. – are depicted and reflected in books. Of course that came to mind in reading the last few pages of Friedman's latest must-read. Highly recommended.

For more on how the Navy must operate in a rapidly accelerating world, branch out and read the CNO's "Design for Maritime Superiority."

AHA Moment: 'Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now'

Review by Bill Doughty

"Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2015 HarperCollins).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA) says there is a war going on within Islam: "a war between those who wish to reform ... and those who wish to turn back to the time of the Prophet."

Those who wish for reform, while not uniform in their thinking, reject a culture of fatalism and death. Reformers want a culture where blasphemy, heresy and apostasy are not punishable by death – where anti-modernity, martyrdom and murder are not celebrated – where belief in an afterlife does not conflict with being alive here on earth. Where freedom is sacred.

Martyrdom is a common thread in radical jihadists' attacks against the United States and U.S. military – from the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon to the USS Cole terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen; from attacks in Africa and Europe to suicide bombings in the Middle East and on U.S. soil on 9/11.

Two believers in a cult of death, with apparent influence of ISIL, massacred innocent Americans earlier this month in San Bernardino, California.

In the wake of that horrific act of violence, Commander in Chief President Barack Obama addressed the nation. He spoke of ongoing airstrikes and taking the fight to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as IS, ISIS and Daesh – without starting another extended ground war. He also offered perspective and advice similar to that of the reformers.

In part, the president said:

"We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want.  ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world – including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology. Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate. 

"That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity."

Obama's words and ideas in support of moderates are reflected by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Power of Reason

True reform must come from within, says Ali.

AHA: "I believe that each human being possesses the power of reason as well as a conscience. That includes all Muslims as individuals. At present, some Muslims ignore their consciences, and join groups such as Boko Haram or IS, obeying textual prescriptions and religious dogma. But their crimes against human reason and against human conscience committed in the name of Islam and sharia are already forcing a reexamination of Islamic scripture, doctrine, and law. This process cannot be stopped, no matter how much violence is used against would be reformers. Ultimately, I believe it is human reason and human conscience that will prevail."

She identifies three types of dissident-reformers: those in the West, those within the Islamic world, and a growing number of Muslim clergymen.

Dissidents in the West: "These individuals are not clergymen but 'ordinary' Muslims, generally educated, well read, and preoccupied with the crisis of Islam." For example, Zuhdi Jasser of American Islamic Forum for Democracy in Phoenix, Arizona, launched "Jefferson project" calling for "the separation of mosque and state."

Nasrin

Citizen reformers and dissidents in the Islamic world: Taslima Nasrin, for one, calls for a "uniform civil code of laws that is not based on religious dogmas, and that is equally applicable to men and women." AHA: "The rule of civil law rather than sharia law will ensure all citizens are treated as equals, regardless of their private religious affiliation."

Clerical reformers: AHA differentiates between true reformers and those who condemn the violence of ISIS and Al-Qaeda while working behind the scenes to nevertheless impose sharia. She writes: "Independent thinking, outside of the shackles of orthodoxy, is necessary for a civilization to flourish."

Like Fighting the Cold War

Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls for using Cold War strategies to counter radical extremist ideologies, attacking the ideas as was done against Communism decades ago. "...by ignoring the ideas that give rise to Islamist violence we continue to ignore the root of the problem."

"Just as critics of communism during the Cold War came from a variety of backgrounds and disagreed on much, today's critics of Islam unreformed are not in agreement on all issues."

AHA calls for assistance and "where necessary, security" for those calling for a reformation of Islam.

"The dawn of a Muslim Reformation is the right moment to remind ourselves that the right to think, to speak, and to write in freedom and without fear is ultimately a more sacred thing than any religion," AHA writes.

Voltaire

She says Islam needs a Voltaire, the French historian and philosopher who witnessed the birth of freedom in the West and saw it take root in a secular democratic nation: the United States.

Locke

She also calls for a John Locke – someone like the English scholar who will call for truth and knowledge over blind belief.

"In Locke's formulation, protection against persecution is one of the highest responsibilities of any government or ruler."

Voices and Rights of Women

Reformation ought to begin with "half of humanity," AHA says. "Today, more than two hundred years after Voltaire and three hundred years after John Locke, the rights of women are in retreat throughout the Muslim world." In some corners of the world people still tolerate and practice female genital mutilation, death sentences for rape victims, forced marriages for girls before the age of ten, and torture and death for women adulterers.

She sees civil rights as "a beacon" into the 21st century. Reformers question ideas that are considered by some to be unquestionable.

Should we tolerate intolerance? Should we live in fear? Should we accommodate hate? Should we accept political correctness over freedom of speech?

AHA says that we must not bend to fundamentalist sensitivities or demands; instead, reformation calls for accommodation to Western ideals of freedom.

Ten years ago Asra Q. Nomani called for the equal rights of women, including equality in mosques. ("Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam," 2005, HarperCollins. "While we challenge the status quo, we are busy creating a new reality," Nomani writes.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, bestselling author of Infidel.

For her part in the new reality, AHA compares the internet in this century to the printing press 500 years ago. Books helped bring about the Reformation in Europe.

While terrorists are using new technology, the communication network across the Muslim world is reaching millions of more peace-loving people and helping turn the tide through freedom of expression. Among the peace-lovers, she includes Malala Yousafza, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning student; "here, surely, is the authentic voice of a Muslim Reformation."

AHA: "The Muslim Reformation is not fiction. It is fact. Over the past few years, dozens if not hundreds of developments have convinced me that, while Islam's problems are indeed deep and structural, Muslim people are like everyone else in one important respect: most want a better life for themselves and their children."

Reading Reasoning Reforming

Ali and Booklist senior editor Donna Seaman in February 2015.

Reading is at the root of reformation, rationality and reason. Education leads to freedom of thought. The first step in resolving a problem is studying and understanding it – in other words, being well read.

The last voice in "Heretic" is from reformer and dissident Iyad Jamal al-Din, a cleric from Iraq who says the choice is fundamentalism as represented by radical jihadists like ISIS or "man-made, civil enlightened law."

AHA concludes: "To repeat the words of al-Din: 'We must not embellish things and say that Islam is a religion of compassion, peace and rose water, and that everything is fine.' It is not. But the fact that such words can be uttered at all is one of the reasons I believe the Muslim Reformation has begun."

As for those who have declared war on the West:

USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) launches Tomahawk cruise missiles in strikes against ISIL in 2014. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Carlos M. Vazquez II/Released)

The U.S. military, with ally partners, is engaged in Operation Inherent Resolve to attack and defeat the Islamic State In the Levant.  Even those of us on the sidelines can be part of the battle against radical fundamentalist ideology, albeit indirectly.

President Obama's weekly radio message yesterday focused on combatting ISIL, as reported by Jim Garamone on defense.gov:

"American service members are doing their parts to root out and kill the ideology. 'Our men and women in uniform are stepping up our campaign to destroy ISIL,' the president said. 'Our airstrikes are hitting ISIL harder than ever, in Iraq and Syria. We’re taking out more of their fighters and leaders, their weapons, their oil tankers. Our special operations forces are on the ground — because we’re going to hunt down these terrorists wherever they try to hide.'

"It is not limited to Iraq and Syria. 'In recent weeks, our strikes have taken out the ISIL finance chief, a terrorist leader in Somalia and the ISIL leader in Libya. Our message to these killers is simple — we will find you, and justice will be done,' Obama said.

"But the most important thing Americans can do is 'stay true to who we are as Americans,' he said. 'Terrorists like ISIL are trying to divide us along lines of religion and background. That’s how they stoke fear. That’s how they recruit.'"

If defeating radical jihadists relies on turning away from fear and hate and embracing our commonality, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says we can begin by rejecting fatalism, martyrdom and a cult of death:

"The next step in dismantling the ideological foundation of Islamist violence will be to persuade Muslims raised on an alluring vision of the afterlife to embrace life in this world, rather than actively seeking death as a path to the next."

A U.S. seaman directs an E/A-18G Growler to the catapult on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the U.S. 5th fleet area of operations, May 28, 2015. The Theodore Roosevelt is supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, which includes strike operations in Iraq and Syria as directed.
(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Josh Petrosino)