West 'must adapt' to modern terror

WESTERN security and defence institutions must be fundamentally restructured to defeat the unique threat of organised terror networks, according to a former US general who oversaw coalition campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WESTERN security and defence institutions must be fundamentally restructured to defeat the unique threat of organised terror networks, according to a former US general who oversaw coalition campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The war against terror and Islamic extremism was a battle against ideology that was increasingly fought in cyberspace, not just on the streets of Baghdad, former four-star general John Abizaid said yesterday.

But time was on the side of the coalition allies, he said, adding the ideology of "bin Ladenism" had stalled.

"One of the reasons that the ideology of bin Ladenism isn't growing is because it doesn't offer anybody anything," he told a defence seminar in Canberra. "It's very, very dark, it's very narrow, it's very negative and people understand that."

General Abizaid said the emergence of non-state institutions as a principal security threat required major reforms to national security structures and thinking.

"We absolutely, positively must reform our national security structures, internationally and nationally to deal with the problems of the 21st century," he said.

"We are dealing with an enemy that uses the virtual world in a way we've yet to come to grips with."

A "huge cultural gap" needed to be bridged between the Middle East and the US, Britain and Australia, he warned. "Part of the problem is the five-second sound bite doesn't lend itself well to the type of conflicts of the 21st century," he said.

There was not enough serious debate at the political level to make people understand what was at stake and that military might by itself would not lead to victory," General Abizaid said.

"Military power in a counter-insurgency, counter-terror mode at best buys you time," he said. "There's no capital to conquer, no army to destroy, just the hard, hard work of stability that needs to go on."

As he was speaking in Canberra, John Howard and Kevin Rudd were at Sydney's Holsworthy barracks bidding farewell to the latest contingent of Australian Army commandos headed for southern Afghanistan. The mostly Sydney-based soldiers will boost Australia's troop deployment in Afghanistan to about 1000.