Stormsmith wrote:Spain, along with the UK and Australia went into Iraq, but left after 10 or 11 years, IIRC
Australian troops are still active in the region. Some units were withdrawn from Iraq but that is just regular rotation of units. They get deployed, operate for a period of time, then the unit is withdrawn. We don't often replace like with like so I can see how a withdraw of an armoured cavalry unit followed by the deployment of a drone unit or a flight of combat jets in another area rather than more armoured cavalry in the same location might appear to be 'leaving'. But we haven't left.
There are frequent attempts at terror attacks within Australia. Most get foiled before they can launch their attack. The authorities foiled two attack attempts just a week or two ago. It takes constant vigilance. Threats and terror attacks won't convince us to leave the ME and other places that they might operate. In fact it has the opposite effect. Defeating ISIS and similar groups becomes more important.
The European response seems quite muddled. They participate in military adventures in the ME, withdraw when someone gets hurt, expect the Islamic radicals to go away and leave them alone, let in far more refugees than the security institutions could possibly cope with, and when the radicals attack, the Europeans then go all Islamophobic.
So what can the Europeans do about it?
1: continent wide security organisation.
2: stop unauthorised immigration such that security institutions can have a change of vetting immigrants and weeding out the insurgents.
3: accept that they will have to send forces to the ME, Africa etc, to fight Islamic radicals. The Islamic radicals will attack regardless of sending military forces to the ME or not doing so. They are expansionist. So may as well go there and prevent them from dominating all the other Muslims in the area. That stops groups like ISIS from establishing a secure power base.
4: recognise that there are people all around the world who also are fighting off the wave of radicalism. EG: India, Thailand, Philippines, China., etc. Instead of being xenophobic, Europeans could try talking with these people and building copration.