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Transformation Through Training Issue No 7 July 2015 27 hence any legitimacy in drawing parallels with historic manifestations of Islamic terrorism has been dismissed. Indeed an appetite has developed for analyses of it as exceptional and that it can only be destroyed by war. Understanding the threat in reverse as a global insurgency that cannot be contained never mind destroyed by war would enable the emplacement of an architecture that engages not the theology of Islam or the nature of its militancy but the political reality of what is merely an alliance against the Jahili world. To propose that home-grown terrorism does not exist and that manifestations of it are of an inherently foreign lineage is a bold statement but from the perspective of countering it a new one and one in which the dynamics and importance of allegiance are readily apparent. With Islamic State now an international singularity with legions from Khandahar to Marrakesh and Al Qaeda a network of increasingly para-militarised webs the onus on the British government needs to be reversed from one of de-radicalising individual Muslims and countering charges of home-grown terrorism to protecting its Muslims wholesale in essence a shift from the apprehension of specific perpetrators to the defeat and marginalisation of the insurgents strategy and the undermining of the ideological effect that entices British Muslims to the banner and political zealotry of foreign princes. Basically the nature of the insurgency has graduated from a singular threat to that of a community threat and through cross-pollination from a national threat to an ummaic threat. Islamic terrorism has taken on a life beyond that designed to counter it and metamorphosed beyond the parameters of counter-terrorism. The horror of the latest manifestation is that it is designed not to terrorize people but perversely to win their hearts and minds. Countering the threat to the UK from foreign forces hence involves recognizing that Islamic State and Al Qaeda have evolved beyond the concepts of current analyses. United they command the hearts and minds of millions of people across the globe today and far from the product or consequence of foreign policy over the last two decades or the proliferation in failing states have a much deeper and intricate history. The success of Islamic State and Al Qaeda and the threat to the United Kingdom is not so much their ability to tear down borders and establish frontlines or position on the apex of the see-saws of major powers - it is their capacity to encompass the annals of a peoples history. The Home-front Because Al Qaeda and Islamic State have moved so far beyond the paradigm of terrorism per se the rise of militant Islam in the UK has largely gone unnoticed and as a consequence taken place under the radar of counter-terrorism forces. Artificial parameters on variations of Islam and levels of radicalization have left the security forces fighting a legion of ghosts. Without addressing this and the further politicisation of British Muslims the risk is a move by the militants from deploying terrorists to employing them a move from the phenomenon of British terrorists to British terrorism. If this process is allowed to complete the ability to engage the threat will be reduced beyond the control of civil forces and centred on grievances that ultimately either do not exist or that involve apocalyptic demands - an insurgency that transcends any counter-terrorism measures and that by the very nature of its violence and stance will at some point require direct military action. Although the negative consequences of military action in Northern Ireland have left enduring legacies for the British and that as a result of it the deployment of the army is often seen as a last resort the precedents for not utilizing the armed services of the Crown in the Home- Front War are few and far between particularly if applied in an indirect manner and that the mandate is to defragment the threat and counter any insurgency as opposed to any terrorism. In short due to their experience and that the state needs to be seen to be protecting its people a role has unfolded for the Armed Services that is not just unprecedented but unique in the history of modern Britain - in not just leading efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslims abroad but in leading them at home replacing the supplementary efforts of police led counter-terrorism doctrine with military led counter-insurgency measures that proactively target the populations most vulnerable to the militants and where the skills of disaggregation denying ground interdicting links exploiting local actors and returning entire communities to modes of normal interaction are key. PART II British Terrorism the Plurality of the State The Generational Struggle The Prime Ministers calls for a less tolerant society in the context of values and a generational struggle against Islamic extremism have not only contributed to a culture of political conformity that has escalated confrontation but a counter- terrorism strategy that has become dependent on it. One reason for this is that in an attempt to foster mainstream beliefs an attempt by the government to manufacture a collective of secular values has undermined both the foundations of British democracy and the inclusive pluralistic traditions of