One website and twenty million students to change the world

Malala Yousafzai's speech to the UN ended with: "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education First." (12 July 2013). I suggest we can honor that sentiment, and change the world, much faster with e-learning mobile Internet devices, than pens and books.

The Australian government is proposing to fund civil society organisations to counter extremist websites and social media). I have suggested this be expanded to provide e-learning in developing nations, particularly for school teachers and community leaders.

As Australia is seen to be closely aligned with the USA, it might be better to have the project funded by the Australian government, with Australian e-learning expertise, but based in Indonesia, with Indonesian teachers.

It could be in partnership with institutions such as State Islamic University of Sultan Syarif Kasim II, which I visited in 2012.

The $18m the Australian Government is proposing to spend to counter terrorism is not sufficient. I suggest be increased to $100M per year, with the aim to have twenty million on-line students. While that might sound a lot of money, it is much cheaper than supporting a military expeditionary force of hundreds of personnel and the wear and tear on billions of dollars of equipment, for an indeterminate period, fighting terrorists.

As an example the current Operation OKRA has 600 personnel in the Middle East. This consists of an Air Task Group (ATG) with 400 personnel, six F/A-18F fighter aircraft, a E-7A Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft and a KC-30A Tanker Transport, also a Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) with 200 personnel. This level of resources could pay for a lot of education and, in the long term, provide a more effective counter to terrorism.

USA Alone Cannot Defeat Islamic State

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Amin Saikali, author of "Zone of Crisis: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq" is speaking on "The Middle East: Is the ‘Islamic State’ vanquishable?" (there will be a podcast later). Professor Saikal argues that the so-called Islamic State (IS) cannot be defeated by the US-led air campaign. He says a land based imilitary operation will be required and this would be preferably undertaken by local forces, not the USA and its western allies. He also points out that IS promotes itself as a continuation of the Caliphate abolished with the formation of modern Turkey after WW1. But there is still a romantic notion of restoring power to the region. Professor Saikal argues that the appeal of a Caliphate can be countered by the formation of modern democracies respecting human rights. To an outsider it may seem madness that anyone would support a totalitarian theocracy, but it might be more appealing than current totalitarian governments.

In my view an areas where Australia could contribute is in combating IS on-line. There are some suggestions this may be happening with an Australian Cyber Offensive, but also can include more subtle information campaigns. These are important skills our military forces need to learn, in any case, for future conflicts.

Can Islamic State Be Defeated?

Professor Amin Saikal will speak on "The Middle East: Is the ‘Islamic State’ vanquishable?" at the Australian National University in Canberra,6pm, 29 January 2015.

The rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS) on vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq, and the US-led military response to it, have introduced another complex dimension to an oil-rich but already very volatile Middle East. The old correlation of forces in support of maintaining the status quo, especially following the Iranian revolution more than 35 years ago, has been changing.

A set of new alignments and realignments along multiple regional fault-lines, including sectarian divisions and geopolitical rivalries at different levels, has come to redefine the region and possibly change its traditional political and territorial contours. IS has confronted all the regional states, from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a common enemy. Yet, it is the United States and its Western allies that have taken the lead in launching a military intervention to ‘degrade and eliminate’ IS, despite lacking a laudable past record in this respect. This raises a number of questions. Should the problem of IS have been left to the regional actors to handle?

Whilst IS may be containable, can it be defeated? Even if IS is eliminated, what guarantee is there that another extremist group won’t replace it? Can IS become a franchise, as al-Qaeda has? What is the possible best way to deal with religious extremism in the Middle East? What can be expected of the on-going air campaign against IS in terms of its consequences for the region, and the US and its allies? This conversation will focus on these questions in an attempt to unpack the nature of the mess that is the Middle East – a region so turbulent and yet so rich from which the world cannot simply disentangle itself.