Norton Publishes Review of Sebastian Gorka’s Defeating Jihad

Augustus Richard Norton, Professor of International Relations and Anthropology at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a review of Sebastian Gorka’s book, Defeating Jihad: the Winnable War. Gorka serves as Deputy Assistant to United States President Donald Trump and he is also a member of the Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG) headed by Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist.

Norton’s review was published in June 2017 by the Middle East Policy Council.

From the text of the review:

At best, Gorka claims to draw on the historical documents to offer a strategy against jihadist terrorism. Whereas Kennan offered a detailed and nuanced analysis of Soviet ideology, objectives, strengths and weaknesses, Gorka offers only a very amateurish assessment of the Islamic State. NSC 68 announced the Cold War doctrine of containment with a detailed plan for confronting the Soviet Union on a variety of axes. In contrast, Gorka advocates a smattering of ideas, none of which are developed in any detail. What should the United States do? Deploy the truth, he answers. In contrast to the Obama administration, which was “influenced by [unnamed] malevolent actors” who censored any talk of religion, we must call the enemy by the right names: jihadists, takfiris, radical Islamists. Donald Trump, like Gorka, claims that using terms like “radical Islam” will enhance U.S. efforts against the Islamic State, whereas Trump’s two immediate predecessors prudently avoided any suggestion that that the United States was at war with Islam. Gorka argues that, to counter the information and propaganda campaign of the Islamic State, we need a “[massive] strategic-level counterpropaganda campaign from inside The National Security Council.” The United States also needs to support its allies, including by providing covert funding for an informational-warfare campaign and sending U.S. troops to advise and support allies’ efforts against the jihadists. Finally, the government needs to educate the American public and build up its capacity for gathering human intelligence within the United States. Both suggestions raise important constitutional questions under the First and Fourth Amendments that pass unacknowledged by Gorka. Defeating Jihad is pocked with errors and exaggerations. For instance, Gorka claims that Soviet control over its allies and satellites was unquestioned; this is patently untrue. He states that, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Washington started nation-building, also untrue. In reality, the United States shifted its focus to Iraq and neglected Afghanistan. He misidentifies common Arabic terms, such as al-sham, widely understood to refer to Syria or Damascus.

Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of both International Relations and Anthropology at the Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies. He is also a Visiting Professor in Politics of the Middle East at the University of Oxford and a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.