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CIAO DATE: 05/05
Spring, Number 1, March 2005
Thinking Creatively in the War on Terrorism--Leveraging NATO and the Partnership for Peace Consortium by Russel D. Howard (PDF, 8 pages, 161.3 KB)
"The New Terrorism" is a term commonly heard since September 11. Several terrorism experts have written on this topic, including Walter Laqueur, who wrote a book titled "The New Terrorism," and Gideon Rose, who authored an article by the same name. The 9/11 Commission Report addresses the "foundations of the new terrorism" and Matthew Morgan has an article in Parameters titled "The Origins of the New Terrorism." RAND has a book out on "Countering the New Terrorism" and I have a chapter in one of Reid Sawyer's and my books titled, "Understanding al Qaeda's Application of the New Terrorism—The Key to Victory in the Current Campaign." So much, in fact, has been written about the new terrorism that the term has real meaning and, at least in academic and operational circles, is generally understood.
The efficiency and effectiveness of state, societal, and international responses against Islamic radicalism and its by-product, terrorism, are grossly insufficient. The post-9/11 environment has witnessed an escalation rather than a diminution in threat. While the pre-9/11 environment witnessed an average of one attack every year by Al Qaeda, the post-9/11 era has brought an attack by Al Qaeda or its associated groups once every three months. In some theatres, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Saudi Arabia, the attacks are more frequent. Our knowledge and understanding of Islamist groups have grown several-fold in the wake of the September 11 attacks. As a result of several hundred debriefings of Al Qaeda detainees, communication intercepts, and recoveries from Afghanistan and other safe havens, we now know many of its structural and operational details. Nonetheless, the traditional concepts and tools we are using to fight terrorism have proved inefficient and ineffective against the new wave of terrorism. After a reappraisal of the threat, this article will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and strategies for combating terrorism.
In most liberal democratic states it is the responsibility of the police forces to cope with "internal" threats, including terrorism, since in such states terrorism is invariably defined as a criminal act rather than a manifestation of insurgent political violence. In many such instances, the resultant quantitative and qualitative overtaxing of law enforcement capabilities to keep the peace has led to calls by sections of the public, as well as by the legislative and executive branches of government, to expand both the legal and operational means available to combat terrorism, and to boost civilian agencies' capacity to deal with terrorism in proportion to the perceived threat. The deteriorating situation in Ulster in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1972 and beyond is an illustrative case in point. Although there have been cases of successfully transmogrifying police forces into military-like formations, the best-known and arguably most frequent example of augmented state responses to the threat posed by insurgent political violence movements is the use of the military in the fight against terrorism and in the maintenance of internal security. While it is imperative that the threat of a collapse of national cohesion due to the overextension of internal civil security forces be averted, the deployment of all branches of the armed forces against a terrorist threat is not without its own pitfalls.
This article is aimed at providing a cultural perspective on contemporary terrorism. I will examine not domestic terrorism, but rather the form of terrorism we are confronted with today: terrorism with global reach, terrorism without borders and any conceptual limitations, terrorism that defines death and destruction as achievements in themselves.
In my view, the ideological terrorism (such as the Red Brigade and the Baader- Meinhof Gang) that plagued many Western societies in the 1970s and 1980s, the nationalist and ethnic discontent that has been and continues to be the greatest inspiration for terrorists, and the religiously motivated forms of terrorism all have a cultural aspect. Still, I will not focus particularly on any of these types of terrorism, but I will rather try to find out what is culturally distinct about today's brand of global terrorism and which solutions, if any, can we find in the realm of culture that will help us in the struggle against terrorism. This is not because I underestimate the many and various manifestations of terrorism, but because I am interested in today and tomorrow more than in yesterday. I am also particularly interested in this new type of terrorism because I think that contemporary forms of terrorism are more cultural in origin and nature than ever.
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 marked the start of a new period in modern history. This period is one characterized by instability, unpredictability, and the reshaping of complex systems, including both traditional and new types of challenges and threats. Of particular significance in the last and most dangerous category is, beyond any doubt, the emergence of terrorism as a truly global threat. It has to be kept in mind that terrorism, as an independent and self-reproducing socio-political phenomenon of violence, can be seen throughout the history of human civilization. However, in the twenty-first century, terrorism has evolved into a major geopolitical factor, capable of causing a systemic crisis at the global level.
The dramatic attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, besides its tragic consequences in terms of the loss of human lives and material damage, constituted a wake-up call for the international community regarding the spectacular dimension and the new form that international terrorism had assumed. After that event, huge efforts on the part of national and international actors were directed towards defeating this global peril. Yet one aspect of the fight against terrorism seems to be overlooked: the connection between terrorism and organized crime.
The magnitude of the organized crime phenomenon in southeastern Europe, the presence of well-established networks, and the huge profits obtained through organized criminal activities—especially drug trafficking, the financial backbone of most criminal organizations—all make organized crime and narcotics dealing very attractive activities for terrorists and terrorist groups. Given the efforts of the international community after September 11th to freeze the funds and assets of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-related terrorist groups, it is very likely that we will witness an increase of these groups' involvement in organized crime activities in order to raise new funds. However, raising money for mounting new attacks, or for maintaining their infrastructure, recruiting and training new members, etc., although very important, are not the only reasons for terrorist groups' participation in organized crime. Equally important are the well-organized networks that are already in use by criminal groups, which could be exploited by terrorist individuals or organizations for extending their infrastructure; recruiting new members; moving people, equipment, and funds without being detected; and establishing new instruction bases.
In 1999, I visited Belgrade one month before the start of Operation ALLIED FORCE as a guest of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hear the perspectives of key officials on the possibility of a conflict between Yugoslavia and NATO. While there, I heard Yugoslav officials offer the singular perspective that NATO would not use force, and that threats to do so were used only to get the regime of Slobodan Milosevic to respond to diplomatic efforts by the United States and the European Union. On a basic level, there was simply a refusal to recognize that the threat of attack from NATO was real.
This past September and October, I visited Iran as the guest of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to get an idea of where key Iranian officials stood regarding the possibility of a war with the U.S. over its nuclear energy program. It is true that Iran's religious leadership is conservative on external and internal affairs, and gives considerable weight to the opinions of government hard-liners on foreign and security policy, but they also listen to moderate officials who want peace. Indeed, moderates even have the ear of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the final arbiter on all matters of state. As Ali Jafari, of the Institute for Political and International Studies, stated, "The Guide provides audiences for all who can contribute on important issues." Unlike Yugoslavia, a true diversity of opinion exists among officials on the nature of the current crisis with the U.S. and, to some extent, the EU. Iran certainly is not the fundamentalist, Islamic monolith that it is portrayed to be.
The recent spate of deadly terrorist attacks in Russia has plunged the country into what President Vladimir Putin has rightfully described as a "total war" against the networks of terror. This article will analyze the trends in this war, and will conclude that the logical outcome of the ongoing escalation in number, scope, and cruelty of terrorist attacks in Russia will be an act of catastrophic terrorism. The horrendous hostage-taking drama in the North Ossetian town of Beslan—in which more than 330, including 160 children, were killed—clearly demonstrates that ideologically-driven extremists have already passed the moral threshold between conventional terror acts and catastrophic terrorism.
One trend that has gained particular prominence in current discourse on international relations is the increasingly active role of non-state actors. It has been asserted that these actors' spheres of operation are gradually shifting from the domestic and regional to the global level. Their actions are becoming sufficiently large in scope to transform the dynamics within a region and to change relations among regions and great powers, as well as relations among the great powers themselves. Thus, much current debate is directed at the role of non-state actors in international relations. After the events of September 11, 2001, special attention has been given in this discourse to one type of non-state actor in particular: international terrorism.
A crucial step in the study of international terrorism is clarifying the terms in which it is formulated and defined in current debate within the field of international relations. From our vantage point, any analysis of these conditions must focus primarily on the regional level, which avoids making the problem overly universal and allows us to distinguish between the specific features of various regional contexts. In this article, we will analyze the conditions that have shaped a specific regional discourse, giving particular attention to international terrorism and using Central Asia as an example. We have chosen this region for two reasons. First, having been essentially on the periphery of much of present-day international relations, Central Asia has been drawn directly into the fight against international terrorism because of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. A second reason is that the actions of Central Asian countries are a demonstration of securitization in formulating approaches to international counterterrorism.