Operation Iraqi Liberation and later Freedom has been shrouded in moral disputes, while the occupation of Afghanistan is counting its amount of terrorists or not real terrorists killed. These two missions influence the practical ways of the army and I would like to focus on these practical implementations of the war on terror. I will try to make this article accessible for the non-military know it all, but still supply with it enough information to provide some basic know-how on how the army acts in these situations and the consequences these actions have.

The war on terror requires the Western military to incorporate three tactics: peace keeping, conventional warfare and special operations. These three can not be separated anymore, like they used to be during the 90's. The forces that are trying to keep the peace in a country, are at the same time invading enemies territory and liquidating suspects within that country in one overall operation: the fighting of the terrorists. To keep the peace in a country where you are waging war sounds counter productive and Iraq and Afghanistan have proven that it often is.

This effort has mostly lead the military to a focus on area control. Which means taking over an area from a base outside of the area, forcing out or eradicating all terrorists within this area and then building up a base within this area. These separate terrorists will then be not in that area any more and the locals will be happy to live in the pax that has been formed. This leads to a very single way of thinking: 'My enemy's enemy is my friend'. Within both Afghanistan and Iraq there are numerous parties though, who can't be clearly split in terrorists and locals. Once the military finds a party that can be their enemy's enemy, they embrace these forces and don't consider the local reaction to these newly appointed leaders. For instance a chief who does not have authority over all the land that the military have assigned to him. If there is a terrorist or other local aggressive reaction to the new pax that has been formed within the area that was presumably under control, the military tries to smoke all these reactionary forces out and because of the mixture of all different groups this leads to indiscriminate killings. All body bags end up to be terrorists and the pr of the military pulls over a veil, while the soldiers don't understand why these locals are attacking them, once they have freed them from the terrorists.

To tackle the local aggressive reaction to these military operations, the military have resorted to new types of defensive and attack mechanisms. These mechanisms consist of new usage of types of armored vehicles and rockets, which are focused on urban areas and home made defenses and bombs. I will give three examples of this new usage of weapons and defense systems: the reintroduction of the M72 LAW, the acquisitions of the Bushmaster and the cooperation of the Finnish company Patria Oy with the German company IBD Deisenroth Engineering.

First the reintroduction of the M72 LAW. This weapon was introduced by the US Army in Vietnam, as their main anti-tank weapon. It is light and easy to carry, but is insufficient against the modern tanks of the 21st century, so the military had put this weapon aside and focused on heavier anti-tank weapons. But in the heavy fighting in cities by the US Marines and special forces, the M72 LAW has found a new life. It is now massively used against civilian buildings and vehicles, to blast out enemies.

Secondly the acquisitions of the Bushmaster, which is surpassing in demand the amount of Bushmasters that can be built. The Bushmaster is an armored vehicle developed to meet the toughest conditions in Australia. In the first period of the war on terror, armies mainly used overall jeeps and the US Army used the Hummer. Both the US Army used the Hummer and the other armies the jeeps as civilian friendly peace keeping vehicles, because of their looks. The US Army thought the Hummer was also armored heavily enough to be used in the line of fire. This was contradicted by Hummers that went up in smoke, while other armies found that their 'peace keeping' forces were in the line of fire and the jeeps were to fragile. That's where the Bushmaster came in, since the Australian army had the 'luck' to drive around with safe vehicles that can still be regarded as relatively civilian friendly and well armored. Other armies noticed this and asked their governments to buy these Bushmasters too.

And third: the cooperation of the Finnish company Patria Oy with the German company IBD Deisenroth Engineering. I can quote the Patria site on this:

'The initial part of the program focuses on passive IED (Improvised Explosive Device) protection solutions, by AMAP™- I, and integration of the AMAP™– ADS (Active Defence System).'

Note the passive IED; another way of referring to home made bombs, terrorist mines, or whatever you want to call them. This collaboration was published in September 2007 and hints a reaction to demands from the army. The vehicle that this system will be put on is the Patria AMV which is in active usage at the moment in the war on terror. Most likely the armies had trouble with these passive IED threatening their Patria vehicles, so they demanded an upgrade. Or Patria wants to be ahead of the game and knows what the armies are coping with and demanding.

These examples are not the only ones on the commercialization of the war on terror. The bases from which the military try to control an area have been set up outside of urban areas have been built and are being provided for by non-governmental American corporations. This includes the camps of non American forces, for instance the Dutch camp in Afghanistan. By being camped outside of the urban areas the troops don't bother the locals, but they remain in this way alien to the local population. From these bases they attack or patrol the area and within these camps they enjoy the luxuries the army can provide with these corporations: relative safety, air conditioning, nostalgic food and a little recreation. The life in the base is very contra dictionary to the life outside of the base, where people live in poverty and home made bombs threaten the forces patrolling and fighting in the area. This all leads to a feeling of 'us' and 'them'. Especially the behavior of children within the areas where the war on terror takes places has been noted in Iraq as hostile and delusional towards the soldiers fighting against the terrorists.

The war on terror is dragging on, even though the democratic machines in the West are slowly reacting by questioning if the amount of effort put into this war is worth the results. For the military a mission must be completed, otherwise the machine is not working. The only way out is to find an enemy's enemy who is reliable enough to control the country to the satisfaction of the Western powers, once the own military is gone. As proven in Vietnam, this is not always that easy. For the corporations it is a good time to cash in on these new tactics and as long as the military can focus on a certain way of fighting, the corporations will focus on how to provide products to support these military.