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Foreign Policy
Summer 1999
Is Europe Soft on Terrorism?
By Bruce Hoffman*
This abstract is adapted from an article appearing in the Summer 1999 issue of Foreign Policy.
Madeleine Albright made no effort to hide her frustration. The State Department had been unambiguous in classifying the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which Abdullah Ocalan heads, as a terrorist organization and therefore Ocalan himself as a terrorist. But when Ocalan ended up in Europe, neither the Italian nor the German governments took advantage of opportunities they had either to prosecute or extradite him to Turkey. “I was very disappointed,” Albright told Congress, “....Instead of determination this opportunity was greeted with handwringing and vacillation.”
Albright’s frustration over the Ocalan affair taps into a growing irritation with Europe’s seeming failure to counter the threat of terrorism with the same level of commitment as the United States. In Washington, Osama bin Laden, “bioterror,” “cyberhackers,” and “homeland defense” are topics of the day. When Europe discusses terrorism, improved diplomatic and trade relations with Iran, mounting fatigue over the sanctions imposed on Libya, and a general determination to put the entire Ocalan affair behind them seem to dominate the agenda. But as tempting as it may be to make unfavorable comparisons between Europe’s generally softer approach to terrorism and America’s typically more hard-line stance, a closer examination suggests that the European way of doing things might yield more effective results in the long run. It would be misleading to see Europe’s comparatively more conciliatory position on state-sponsored terrorism as reflecting a laissez-faire attitude toward indigenous or regional threats. On the same day that President Mohammed Khatami arrived in Rome on the first state visit by an Iranian leader to Western Europe in 20 years, France announced the arrest of six leading members of the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, or Basque Homeland and Freedom)-including the head of its military wing. And two weeks before the 1998 World Cup soccer games were due to begin in France, coordinated police sweeps across five European countries—Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland—led to the arrest of nearly 100 terrorists and suspected terrorists and, it was claimed, the smashing of at least three important terrorist logistical support networks.
The American problem with terrorism has historically been international in nature; the opposite has mostly been the case in Europe—hence, two inevitably very different perceptions and indeed responses toward the problem. Moreover, whereas the United States tends to regard counterterrorism as something akin to a moral crusade, Europeans are far more skeptical of blanket approaches and rigid policies and instead adopt what they see as a more practical and, in their minds, more productive approach.
Those who would criticize Europe should also keep in mind that, thus far, America’s hard-line policies have not borne much fruit. The 1986 air strikes against Libya had precious little impact on Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. Libya’s alleged role in the 1988 in-flight bombing of Pan Am 103 deflates the dubious claim that the air strikes halted Qaddafi’s support of or involvement in international terrorism. Moreover, the fact that it took eight years for Qaddafi to turn over the two agents reputedly behind the bombing belies the utility of trade embargoes as an effective instrument of coercion.
Indeed, economic measures have proved singularly disappointing in pressuring any of the state sponsors of international terrorism identified by the State Department to renounce their behavior in public. Even seasoned U.S. government counterterrorism experts reportedly have begun to question the utility of sanctions. So far as the application of military force goes, the benefits of last August’s cruise missile attacks against Afghanistan and Sudan must be questioned in light of the lionization of bin Laden by Muslims and others throughout the world that has followed in the attack’s wake.
There is no single, universal solution to the problem of terrorism—be it either the domestic or international variant. The divergent approaches—if endowed with a degree of planning and policy coordination that does not yet exist—might in fact complement one another and could therefore produce unexpected results. A sort of “good cop, bad cop” arrangement, with Europe pursuing engagement with terrorist state sponsors and the United States standing ready with the threat of military force and economic sanctions, may succeed where previous ad hoc approaches have failed. Indeed, such an arrangement may already tacitly be in evidence with Iran.
The United States would do well to glean lessons from the current European experience on how to cope with these and similar problems in the future. How the 15 nations that comprise the EU organize their security in a borderless continent, choreograph the exchange of intelligence and other data among national police forces without undermining the rights of their citizens, and coordinate national law enforcement policies to counter a common menace will likely yield valuable clues. In short, it is perhaps time for the United States to listen and learn rather than to hector and push.
References
Gawdat Bahgat’s “Iran and Terrorism: The Transatlantic Responses” (Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, April–June 1999)
Peter Chalk’s “EU Counter-Terrorism, the Maastricht Third Pillar and Liberal Democratic Acceptability,” (Terrorism and Political Violence, Summer 1994)
Chalk’s West European Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: The Evolving Dynamic (London: Macmillan, 1996)
Richard Clutterbuck’s Terrorism, Drugs and Crime in Europe: After 1992 (London: Routledge, 1990)
Bruce Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)
Juliet Lodge’s “Internal Security and Judicial Co-operation Beyond Maastricht” (Terrorism and Political Violence, Autumn 1992)
David Martin and John Walcott’s Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of American’s War Against Terrorism (New York: Harper & Row, 1988)
Fernando Reinares, ed., European Democracies Against Terrorism: Governmental Policies and Intergovernmental Cooperation (Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1999)
Endnotes
*: Bruce Hoffman is the author of Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) and director of the Washington office of the RAND corporation. Back.