Asian Transnational Security Challenges

“The Council for Asian transnational Threat Research (CATR) has its roots in the initial months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Although the United States initially received widespread global support for what the Bush administration called the global war on terror, over time, as the US war on terror expanded its reach beyond al-Qaida’s safe haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, allies and partners began to question some aspects of the US approach. Regional experts criticized the disproportionately military response to what they regarded as a threat with primarily political, social, and economic roots and the focus on religiously-motivated jihadists that overlooked other, largely secular, but no less dangerous, violent extremist movements. The regional view of the landscape of transnational threats in Asia extended well beyond al-Qaida, involving loose networks of violent groups that traded resources and know-how, but did not necessarily have a central leadership, common motivations, or a shared agenda. To understand and cope with this threat landscape would require a multilateral and nuanced approach, in which states across Asia could work in partnership with the United States to develop comprehensive responses to an increasingly complex threat environment.”–DTIC abstract.