Foreign Policy: The Great Superterrorism Scare

Foreign Policy
Fall 1998

The Great Superterrorism Scare _*

By Ehud Sprinzak _**

As an unprecedented fear of a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction spreads throughout the American security establishment, federal, state, and local governments have ramped up efforts to prevent or respond to such a “superterrorist” assault. President Bill Clinton’s budget for 1999, pending congressional approval, devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to superterrorism response and recovery programs. If the proliferation of counterterrorism programs continues at its present pace, the bill could add up to tens of billions of dollars in the coming decades.

But as horrifying as the prospect of a superterrorist attack may be, the relatively low risks of such an event do not justify the high costs now being contemplated to defend against it. Not only are many of the countermeasures likely to be ineffective, but the level of rhetoric and funding devoted to fighting superterrorism may actually advance a potential superterrorist’s broader goals: sapping the resources of the state and creating a climate of panic and fear that can amplify the impact of any terrorist act.

Why have terrorism specialists and top government officials become so obsessed with the idea that terrorists will soon attempt to bring about an unprecedented disaster in the United States? A close examination of their rhetoric reveals two assumptions behind their thinking:

The Capabilities Proposition: Anyone with access to modern biochemical technology and a college science education could produce enough chemical or biological agents to devastate the population of London, Tokyo, or Washington.

The Chaos Proposition: The post–Cold War world swarms with shadowy extremist groups, religious fanatics, and assorted crazies eager to launch a major attack on the civilized world—preferably on U.S. territory.

There is, however, a problem with this logic. Although the capabilities proposition is largely valid—albeit for the limited number of terrorists who can overcome the production and handling risks and develop an efficient means of dispersal—the chaos proposition is utterly false. Terrorism, in fact, involves predictable behavior.

Terrorists who threaten to kill thousands of civilians are aware that their chances for political and physical survival are exceedingly slim. Their prospects for winning public sympathy are even slimmer. Terrorists take time to become dangerous, particularly to harden themselves sufficiently to use weapons of mass destruction. And the number of potential suspects is significantly less than doomsayers would have us believe. Ample early warning signs, such as disseminated ideologies and lesser illegal activities, should make effective interdiction of potential superterrorists easier than today’s overheated rhetoric suggests.

The World’s Most Wanted

Historical evidence and today’s best field research suggests three potential superterrorist profiles: Religious millenarian cults, such as Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo, that hold faith in salvation via armageddon; brutalized groups, whose only option may be to exact a horrendous price for a recent or imminent genocide; and small socially deranged groups.

If a close examination reveals that the chances of a successful superterrorist attack are minimal and the candidates are so few, why are so many people fixated on capabilities and chaos? For one, vested interests abound. The threat of superterrorism is likely to make a few defense contractors very rich and a larger number of specialists moderately rich as well as famous. It will also guarantee funding for years to come for a multitude of new government teams and security experts. Furthermore, people love to be horrified. Suspense writers, publishers, television networks, and sensationalist journalists have already cashed in on the superterrrorism craze. Unfortunately, all terrorists—even those who would never consider a chemical- or biological-weapons (CBW) attack—benefit from such heightened attention and fear.

Counterterrorism on a Shoestring

The flourishing mystique of chemical and biological weapons suggests that angry and alienated groups are likely to manipulate them for conventional political purposes. But such activity should not prove excessively expensive to counter. The security package below foregoes costly recovery initiatives and stresses low-cost intelligence, consequence management and research. Although tailored to the United States, this program could form the basis for policy in other countries.

International deterrence: The United States must relay a stern, yet discreet message to states that continue to support or conveniently disregard terrorist organizations within their territory: Any use of weapons of mass destruction by their clients against the United States will constitute just cause for massive retaliation, whether or not evidence proves for certain that they ordered the attack.

Domestic deterrence: Congress should tighten existing legislation against domestic production and distribution of biological, chemical, and radiological agents and devices. The FBI and local law enforcement agencies must be given the latitude to investigate cases of clear and present CBW danger. And a public-education campaign should both emphasize the danger and illegality of nonscientific experimentation with chemical and biological agents and reduce public hysteria by presenting this new threat as another facet of conventional terrorism.

Better intelligence: Domestic analysts should be able to reduce substantially the risk of a CBW attack if they monitor radical group behavior. Thus, CBW intelligence must be freed from the burden of proving criminal intent.

Smart and compact consequence management teams: In addition to FBI agents, local police, detection and decontamination experts, and public-heath specialists, these teams should include psychologists and public-relations experts trained in reducing public hysteria.

Psychological research: To help us understand better the considerations involved in the use or nonuse of chemical and biological weapons, well-trained psychologists and terrorism researchers should conduct a three-year, low cost, comprehensive project of interviewing former radicals.

Reducing unnecessary superterrorism rhetoric: Although there is no way to censor the discussion of mass-destruction terrorism, President Clinton, his secretaries, elected politicians at all levels, responsible government officials, writers, and journalists must tone down the rhetoric that is feeding today’s superterrorism frenzy.

The true threat of superterrorism will not likely come in the form of a Hiroshima-like disaster but rather as a widespread panic caused by a relatively small CBW incident involving a few dozen fatalities. Terrorism, we must remember, is not about killing. It is a form of psychological warfare in which the killing of a small number of people convinces the rest of us that we are next in line. Although the threat of chemical and biological terrorism should be taken seriously, the public must know that the risk of a major catastrophe is extremely minimal. A restrained and measured American response to the new threat may have a sobering effect on CBW mania worldwide.

Setting the FBI Free

When members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo went shopping in the United States, they were not looking for cheap jeans or compact discs. They were out to secure key ingredients for a budding chemical-weapons program—and they went unnoticed. Today, more FBI agents than ever are working the counterterrorism beat: double the number that would-be superterrorists had to contend with just a few years ago. But is the FBI really better equipped now than it was then to discover and preempt such terrorist activity in its earliest stages?

FBI counterterrorism policy is predicated on guidelines issued in 1983 by then–U.S. attorney general William French Smith: The FBI can open a full investigation into a potential act of terrorism only “when facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United States.” Short of launching a full investigation, the FBI may open a preliminary inquiry if it learns from any source that a crime might be committed and determines that the allegation “requires some further scrutiny.” This ambiguous phrasing allows the FBI a reasonable degree of latitude in investigating potential terrorist activity.

However, without a lead—whether an anonymous tip or a public news report—FBI agents can do little to gather intelligence on known or potential terrorists. Agents cannot even download information from World Wide Web sites or clip newspapers to track fringe elements. The FBI responds to leads; it does not ferret out potential threats. Indeed, in an interview with the Center for National Security Studies, one former FBI official griped, “You have to wait until you have blood on the street before the Bureau can act.”

CIA analysts in charge of investigating foreign terrorist threats comb extensive databanks on individuals and groups hostile to the United States. American citizens are constitutionally protected against this sort of intrusion. A 1995 presidential initiative intended to increase the FBI’s authority to plant wiretaps, deport illegal aliens suspected of terrorism, and expand the role of the military in certain kinds of cases was blocked by Congress. Critics have argued that the costs of such constraints on law enforcement may be dangerously high—reconsidering them would be one of the most effective (and perhaps least expensive) remedies against superterrorism.

References

John Deutch’s “Think Again: Terrorism” (Foreign Policy, Fall 1997)

Brian Jenkins’ “Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?” (Orbis, Autumn 1985)

Jenkins’ “The Limits of Terror: Constraints on the Escalation of Violence” (Harvard International Review, Summer 1995)

David Kaplan’s The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996)

Robert Kupperman’s “A Dangerous Future: The Destructive Potential of Criminal Arsenals” (Harvard International Review, Summer 1995)

Walter Laqueur’s “Postmodern Terrorism” (Foreign Affairs, September/October 1996)

Jerrold Post and Ehud Sprinzak’s “Why Haven’t Terrorists Used Weapons of Mass Destruction?” (Armed Forces Journal, April 1998)

Ron Purver’s “Chemical and Biological Terrorism: New Threat to Public Safety?” (Conflict Studies, December 1996/January 1997)

Brad Roberts, ed., Terrorism with Chemical and Biological Weapons: Calibrating Risks and Responses (Alexandria: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, 1997)

Endotes

**: Ehud Sprinzak is professor of political science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This article was written under the auspices of the United States Institute of Peace where he spent the last year as a senior scholar with the Jennings Randolph program. Back.