James J. Lee, AFJ STAFF Ralph Peters is the author of the new book "Never Quit the Fight," to be published on July 4th.

Wars fueled by religious beliefs will dominate much of this century, said Ralph Peters, a leading writer on war and military affairs. Unlike many Washington pundits who say the U.S. is fighting a “war of ideas” with its terrorist enemies, Peters said religious conflicts playing out in the Middle East and in other Muslim nations have given birth to a much more dangerous enemy to U.S. troops – the suicide bomber.

“We face enemies who regard death as a promotion,” Peters told an audience attending Power & Limits of Jointness, the Armed Forces Journal annual conference in Washington, D.C., on May 31. “It may be clumsy, but it’s incredibly effective as a strategic weapon.”

But many inside the Beltway have a hard time understanding what motivates men of belief whose religious convictions tell them to kill, he said.

“Analysts at the DIA and the State Department by education they are secular humans and don’t understand the transcendent power of belief. But don’t rule out religion as a strategic factor,” he cautioned the mix of civilian and military conference attendees.

Globalization, which was supposed to spread economic prosperity and bring disparate cultures together, has had the opposite effect, Peters noted. “The Internet is the greatest tool for spreading hatred since the printing press was invented,” he said.

One reaction to globalization and to the exporting of U.S. culture has been the rise of localism, or what Peters described as “the return of the tribe,” in such places as Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and even continental Europe. “Yugoslavia was not an aberration. That is the future of Europe,” said Peters.

European-drawn borders will continue to generate violent conflicts in the Middle East, just as they did in Yugoslavia, Peters predicted.

“Even though they are in a snit, Europeans put U.S. in Iraq,” Peters said. “This is a European problem the Americans are fighting.”

Still, he remained cautiously optimistic for a successful outcome in Iraq, where he says the stakes are incredibly high. “A half-ass success in Iraq would be a huge success. They need a win. Even with a pseudo-democracy, confidence will build.”

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