Home
THE SECURE FREEDOM STRATEGY
A Plan for Victory Over the
Global Jihad Movement
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ‘SECURE FREEDOM STRATEGY’
The United States is in mortal period from a false friend: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The
peril emanates from the totalitarian legal-religious-military-political code the Saudis call Shariah
and their assiduous efforts to impose it worldwide. The danger is enormously exacerbated by the
almost-complete failure of American officials at every level of government to acknowledge, let
alone act to prevent, the Saudis' true agenda.
For over thirty-five years, the United States has been at war with enemies sworn to its
destruction. It did not seek enmity or hostilities with them. Both are the product of forces that
long predated the establishment of this country, to say nothing of its adoption toward the end of
the 20th Century of policies towards the Middle East or other regions.
For much of this period, the U.S. government has pursued various strategies – including
selective military engagements, benign neglect, willful blindness and outright appeasement – that
have in common one very low common denominator: They all ignore the aforementioned
realities and, as a practical matter, have exacerbated them.
The “Secure Freedom Strategy” offers corrective actions, starting with a clear-eyed
understanding of the enemy we confront – namely, an international, ideologically driven Global
Jihad Movement and its enablers – and the essential elements of an effective strategy for
countering it. This alternative approach is modeled after the successful strategy President
Ronald Reagan pursued to defeat Soviet communism, embodied in his National Security
Decision Directive (NSDD) 75.
Its key components include:
• Understanding the Enemy’s Threat Doctrine: First and foremost, the United States
needs to achieve a realistic understanding of the enemy and its doctrine. That requires, in
particular, clarity concerning the ideology its adherents call shariah, the jihad it impels
and the various ways in which such warfare is being waged against us.
The term “shariah” as used in this paper is intended to denote the authoritative and
authoritarian corpus juris of Islamic law as it has been articulated by the recognized
shariah authorities since at least the 10th Century. This use of the term shariah, therefore,
does not refer to an idiosyncratic, personal or purely pietistic observance of Islamic law
which may or may not conform to the entirety of established Islamic doctrine. As used in
this document, the descriptor “shariah-adherent” does not apply to the latter, but rather
to Islamic supremacists who engage in jihad or support those who do in furtherance of
the political goals of their ideology.
This jihadist doctrine is being advanced by both violent techniques and by means other
than terrorism. We must, accordingly, be prepared to deal kinetically where necessary
with the perpetrators of violent jihad and no less effectively with what the Muslim
Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad” – its stealthy, subversive effort to “destroy Western
civilization from within…by [our own] hands.”1
• Establishing Our Objective: Next, the United States must enunciate a national commitment
to – using a phrase President Reagan employed as the object of NSDD 75 – “contain and
over time reverse” shariah-driven Islamic supremacism, including establishment of the
Caliphate. The rising tide of shariah and its manifestations here and abroad make
abundantly clear that Western civilization, indeed America, cannot coexist with the Global
Jihad Movement.
• Reestablishing ‘Peace through Strength’: Just as President Reagan did in his day, the
contemporary hollowing out of the U.S. military must be reversed as a matter of the utmost
priority. The perception of American weakness only reinforces our shariah-adherent
enemies’ conviction that the time has come for intensifying jihad operations. It is also
emboldening other adversaries, including Russia, China and North Korea.
• As the United States is not confronting just terrorist organizations, or even their statesponsors,
but prospectively “peer competitors,” the rebuilding of American military power
must be balanced across the spectrum of nuclear, missile defense, conventional and special
operations forces. We must also continue to develop asymmetric capabilities (e.g., in space
and cyber space) while correcting our most egregious vulnerabilities to these enemies’
asymmetric attacks (notably, electromagnetic pulse, cyberwarfare, counter-space,
economic/financial warfare, smuggled weapons of mass destruction, etc.)
• Counter-Ideological Warfare: As in the Cold War, America’s ability to challenge and
neutralize its enemies’ animating ideology is at least as important as the task of countering
their kinetic threats. Once we are clear about the nature and centrality of the shariah
doctrine to the existential danger we currently face, the need for a serious and effective
counter-ideological strategy becomes self-evident. Putting such a strategy into practice will
require, first and foremost, identifying the Muslim Brotherhood for the explicitly jihadist
organization it has always been and is now. Continuing to treat its operatives and
organizations (overt and covert) in America and overseas as “partners” because we are told
they “eschew violence” is a formula for our incremental destruction. Wherever and as soon as
possible, these foes should be neutralized as political forces. At a minimum, they must be
denied access to U.S. government agencies, funds, arms and, via television cable packages,
household subscribers.
• Intelligence Operations: We must take a page from the playbook developed during the
Reagan administration by then-Director of Central Intelligence William Casey and use
covert means wherever possible to counter, divide and undermine our enemies. To the
traditional intelligence techniques should be added aggressive use of psychological operations,
cyberwarfare and, where necessary, clandestine and special operations.
• Economic Warfighting: As with the Reagan NSDD 75 plan, there must be a central
economic/financial warfighting component to a new American strategy for defeating our
time’s existential enemies. This component would include: constricting the principal source
of revenues for the jihad – vast petrodollar transfers from Western nations to OPEC states;
reversing the present practice of accommodating and even encouraging shariah finance, a
technique employed by civilization jihadists to penetrate and subvert our capitalist system;
and exposing shariah-inspired sovereign wealth funds as instruments of financial jihad.
• Cyber Warfighting: Cyberspace is the new battlefield of asymmetric warfare where attacks
across domains and technologies by the Global Jihad enemy as well as peer adversaries must
be countered with 21st century capabilities drawn from the best and brightest in the civilian,
intelligence, and military worlds.
With this foundation, it should be possible to effect the necessary second step: the adoption by
the nation of a true warfooting that will bring to bear the popular vigilance and support that will
make it possible for the Secure Freedom Strategy to be fully executed.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
A Plan for Victory Over the
Global Jihad Movement
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ‘SECURE FREEDOM STRATEGY’
The United States is in mortal period from a false friend: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The
peril emanates from the totalitarian legal-religious-military-political code the Saudis call Shariah
and their assiduous efforts to impose it worldwide. The danger is enormously exacerbated by the
almost-complete failure of American officials at every level of government to acknowledge, let
alone act to prevent, the Saudis' true agenda.
For over thirty-five years, the United States has been at war with enemies sworn to its
destruction. It did not seek enmity or hostilities with them. Both are the product of forces that
long predated the establishment of this country, to say nothing of its adoption toward the end of
the 20th Century of policies towards the Middle East or other regions.
For much of this period, the U.S. government has pursued various strategies – including
selective military engagements, benign neglect, willful blindness and outright appeasement – that
have in common one very low common denominator: They all ignore the aforementioned
realities and, as a practical matter, have exacerbated them.
The “Secure Freedom Strategy” offers corrective actions, starting with a clear-eyed
understanding of the enemy we confront – namely, an international, ideologically driven Global
Jihad Movement and its enablers – and the essential elements of an effective strategy for
countering it. This alternative approach is modeled after the successful strategy President
Ronald Reagan pursued to defeat Soviet communism, embodied in his National Security
Decision Directive (NSDD) 75.
Its key components include:
• Understanding the Enemy’s Threat Doctrine: First and foremost, the United States
needs to achieve a realistic understanding of the enemy and its doctrine. That requires, in
particular, clarity concerning the ideology its adherents call shariah, the jihad it impels
and the various ways in which such warfare is being waged against us.
The term “shariah” as used in this paper is intended to denote the authoritative and
authoritarian corpus juris of Islamic law as it has been articulated by the recognized
shariah authorities since at least the 10th Century. This use of the term shariah, therefore,
does not refer to an idiosyncratic, personal or purely pietistic observance of Islamic law
which may or may not conform to the entirety of established Islamic doctrine. As used in
this document, the descriptor “shariah-adherent” does not apply to the latter, but rather
to Islamic supremacists who engage in jihad or support those who do in furtherance of
the political goals of their ideology.
This jihadist doctrine is being advanced by both violent techniques and by means other
than terrorism. We must, accordingly, be prepared to deal kinetically where necessary
with the perpetrators of violent jihad and no less effectively with what the Muslim
Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad” – its stealthy, subversive effort to “destroy Western
civilization from within…by [our own] hands.”1
• Establishing Our Objective: Next, the United States must enunciate a national commitment
to – using a phrase President Reagan employed as the object of NSDD 75 – “contain and
over time reverse” shariah-driven Islamic supremacism, including establishment of the
Caliphate. The rising tide of shariah and its manifestations here and abroad make
abundantly clear that Western civilization, indeed America, cannot coexist with the Global
Jihad Movement.
• Reestablishing ‘Peace through Strength’: Just as President Reagan did in his day, the
contemporary hollowing out of the U.S. military must be reversed as a matter of the utmost
priority. The perception of American weakness only reinforces our shariah-adherent
enemies’ conviction that the time has come for intensifying jihad operations. It is also
emboldening other adversaries, including Russia, China and North Korea.
• As the United States is not confronting just terrorist organizations, or even their statesponsors,
but prospectively “peer competitors,” the rebuilding of American military power
must be balanced across the spectrum of nuclear, missile defense, conventional and special
operations forces. We must also continue to develop asymmetric capabilities (e.g., in space
and cyber space) while correcting our most egregious vulnerabilities to these enemies’
asymmetric attacks (notably, electromagnetic pulse, cyberwarfare, counter-space,
economic/financial warfare, smuggled weapons of mass destruction, etc.)
• Counter-Ideological Warfare: As in the Cold War, America’s ability to challenge and
neutralize its enemies’ animating ideology is at least as important as the task of countering
their kinetic threats. Once we are clear about the nature and centrality of the shariah
doctrine to the existential danger we currently face, the need for a serious and effective
counter-ideological strategy becomes self-evident. Putting such a strategy into practice will
require, first and foremost, identifying the Muslim Brotherhood for the explicitly jihadist
organization it has always been and is now. Continuing to treat its operatives and
organizations (overt and covert) in America and overseas as “partners” because we are told
they “eschew violence” is a formula for our incremental destruction. Wherever and as soon as
possible, these foes should be neutralized as political forces. At a minimum, they must be
denied access to U.S. government agencies, funds, arms and, via television cable packages,
household subscribers.
• Intelligence Operations: We must take a page from the playbook developed during the
Reagan administration by then-Director of Central Intelligence William Casey and use
covert means wherever possible to counter, divide and undermine our enemies. To the
traditional intelligence techniques should be added aggressive use of psychological operations,
cyberwarfare and, where necessary, clandestine and special operations.
• Economic Warfighting: As with the Reagan NSDD 75 plan, there must be a central
economic/financial warfighting component to a new American strategy for defeating our
time’s existential enemies. This component would include: constricting the principal source
of revenues for the jihad – vast petrodollar transfers from Western nations to OPEC states;
reversing the present practice of accommodating and even encouraging shariah finance, a
technique employed by civilization jihadists to penetrate and subvert our capitalist system;
and exposing shariah-inspired sovereign wealth funds as instruments of financial jihad.
• Cyber Warfighting: Cyberspace is the new battlefield of asymmetric warfare where attacks
across domains and technologies by the Global Jihad enemy as well as peer adversaries must
be countered with 21st century capabilities drawn from the best and brightest in the civilian,
intelligence, and military worlds.
With this foundation, it should be possible to effect the necessary second step: the adoption by
the nation of a true warfooting that will bring to bear the popular vigilance and support that will
make it possible for the Secure Freedom Strategy to be fully executed.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
