Unconventional Warfare in the Southern Philippines Essay

Unconventional Warfare in the Southern Philippines - Essay Example Any effort to defeat terrorism must look at the underlying causes to be effective. This paper gives a brief background discussion on several causes which impel people to resort to terrorist methods in order to fully understand how some counter-terror operations are successful while others are not, despite massive logistical support given to these operations. It also gives an astounding example of tentative successes against terror groups such as the ones operating in the southern regions of the Philippines which is located in Southeast Asia. There are obvious lessons to be learned there which can hopefully be replicated elsewhere. Presently, there is no accepted international legal definition of terrorism. Countries may have their own laws against terrorism but a common feature of all these laws is that terrorism is considered as a criminal act. As such, it is punishable by the harshest sentence possible that can range from long prison terms, a life sentence or even capital punishmen t. The layman's definition of terrorism is that of an act or a series of acts designed to sow extreme fear in the population. It is actually a form of coercion backed up by the threat of physical violence. Discussion Most terror groups today belong to network-type of organization. This kind of set-up allows for each tiny group (a terror cell) composed of just a few people to operate in a manner independent of the main organization which makes it difficult to track down other terror cells. There are varied reasons why people resort to terrorism and among them are the following: a feeling or perception of being marginalized within the larger society, to fight against injustice, for political autonomy, religious freedom or ethnic recognition. With this list in mind, it is too easy to see that military means alone cannot defeat terrorism if the underlying causes that had caused it to rise in the first place are not adequately addressed by the government. This paper is a reflective essay on a military assessment article written by Sgt. Major William Eckert, an American military service member of the Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) in the Philippines. His article described how the US military in cooperation with the security forces of the Philippines (the Philippine military and the police forces) have achieved a good measure of success in the fight against terrorism which could be used as the model for other forces operating elsewhere in the world's global hot spots. In his own words, the battle against terrorism in this Asian country is a war for peace and prosperity. It has also gained the attention of senior military leaders impressed by its decent gains (Eckert 1). In essence, Sgt. Major Eckert's position paper is a claim that the battle against these terrorists is a battle of ideas. In other words, the only effective way to defeat terrorism is fight its idea (which serves as its recruiting tool by exploiting real or imagined grievances) with a much better idea – that the way to prosperity is to maintain peace by addressing the perceived inequalities felt by the minority Muslim populace within much larger predominantly Catholic Philippine population. The most-telling result or achievement of