Flypaper theory (strategy)

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In military strategy, the flypaper theory is the idea that it is desirable to draw enemies to a single area where it is easier to dispatch them and where they are far from one's own vulnerabilities. Perhaps the best description of the benefits of the strategy was given by U.S. Army General Ricardo Sanchez, who is commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq:

This is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity... But this is exactly where we want to fight them. ...This will prevent the American people from having to go through their attacks back in the United States.[1]

The desirability of the strategy depends upon how many new enemies are created by using it, how many of them are drawn to the "flytrap," and how easily they are dispatched. Critics of the war in Iraq argue that the war has indeed drawn terrorists to Iraq, but that this merely causes destruction there and does not avert terrorism in the West.[2] The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has called this possibility the Class of '05 problem.

[edit] Application to the Iraq War

According to a report from the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), foreign fighters comprise about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents in Iraq. Other studies dispute that figure.