Counter Terror (Part 1)

Building A Counter-terrorist Policy that Works

What do we mean by ‘works’?

• Dimensions (multilayered & intertwined):
• global
• regional
• national
• communal
• Sources & threats are dealt with successfully
• Changed input
• Community ethics that disavows the use of terror tactics
• Positive inter-religious communication
• Global cooperation to control finances to not sustain terrorism
• Something that we can actually implement
• Something that is smart - politically, culturally & religiously sensitive

Brief overview - US:

• Kaplan (2006): “Examining counterterrorism culture”

OK…..

• It deals with the problem as we know it…..
• TERRORISM + WMDs + FAILED/ROGUE STATES =     THREAT
• It fits with our aims and capabilities… actually it mixes and matches what we need at a given time and in a given setting (i.e. place/locale)
• It is really smart: (develops a consensus on how to deal with the threat, aware of the problems particular to terrorism in which state repression is similar to fighting the mythic hydra; see Defeating the Jihadists, by R. Clarke et. al (2004)
• Culturally and religiously sensitive
• Transnational and cooperative
• Deals with state terror as well (where the state has had a history of making war against its citizens, as those are the particular environments where terrorism is most likely to develop - as normal political/social paths for change are blocked through state repression); and with links to war (e.g.: the spat between Russia & Georgia - the West should push against attempts to make this into a cause for war)
• Knows what the ‘endgame’ (i.e. when it’s over, how does it look like?) happens to be

What should be the ENDGAME?

• EVERY government in the system is committed to and has the capacity to combat terrorism within its borders – AND it does so
• Our expense in $ and resources dramatically decline over time because of our success
• It is not just the ‘end of terror’ but the coming of a different set of methods and relationships by which grievances are processed & resolved – you might call it PEACE. This is the result of decreasing community support for terrorist acts by decreasing the causes for grievances, and offering the community a different set of incentives, such as:
• non-violent ways to increase one’s self image
• remove what is perceived as foreign occupation
• help with economic recovery

For the dynamic between community support/acceptance and terrorist activities, see for example NY Times articles:

• “Many Iraqis Look to Gunmen as Protectors”
• “In the Land of the Taliban”

And the Israeli-Palestinian-Lebanese war (BBC): “Human shield deters Israel strike” 

What are the aims of global counter-terrorist policies?

Objectives & means:

• Destroy networks, cells, leadership
• Law enforcement, military means, legal and diplomatic
• Deny assets and resources
• Law enforcement, legal, diplomatic and economic means
• Diminish underlying causes & conditions
• Economic, legal, political and social means

Additional resource: 

Zuhur (2005): “A Hundred Osamas: Islamist Threats and the Future of    Counterinsurgency”

The bulk of Bush administration’s counter-terror policy, see the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism NSCT 2003, falls on defeat & deny, with least emphasis on diminish

The latest counter-terror strategy from the White House (2006), puts the highest priority in the short term on the deny dimension, with a focus in the long term on advancing effective democracy internationally. The actual goals fall more under changes within the US and its relationships with allies and international norms in dealing with terror.

(8) Terrorism - aimed at:
There is a distinctively new terrorism, existent most pronouncedly in al-Qaeda, that is not ‘politics by other means’ or a form of bargaining that seeks political concessions or status:

• It seeks elimination, death, destruction, and at its worst employs suicide methods. The spread of WMD empowers this.
• It achieves its strength and versatility through the toleration by some nations and the direct support of others.
• This terror is global in reach and seeks new allies aggressively. It is well financed.
• It challenges the assumptions built into the Westphalian system of states (i.e. governments are supposed to have central control over their population - globalization exploded this assumption)

Note: not all groups are the same: e.g. Hamas ≠ al-Qaeda --> for different groups we need to develop different counter-terror policies

Evaluating policy outcomes

(for more details, see Rohan Gunaratna’s testimony to the US  National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United  States, July 9, 2003)

Afghanistan campaign yields some serious successes:

• Leadership: @ 70% captured or killed, top people – Khalid Sheikh Mohommad; Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Omar al-Faruq, etc.
• Trained Regulars – 10-20,000 passed thru camps…3,000 captured; same number killed??
• Assets: US: $130 + million locked down, another $200-250 million worldwide
• Capture of videos, books and materials yields exceptional picture of status of plans, WMDs desires & capacities, strategies (see also the events in the UK, Aug. 10, 2006). Of great importance, the capture of terrorist financing that would have gone in part in paying for scientists to produce WMDs
• BUT, as you defeated the organization……..
• The group has become a movement, OR, the movement that was there, of which al-Qaeda is but its most pronounced example, has come to maturity, and bin Laden gains inspirational value
• (see PBS - Frontline; NSCT 2006)

Downside problems…..

• Defeat of Taliban & portion of al-Qaeda means LONG-TERM Afghan dependence, and it’s still unclear whether the US will give enough support to make democracy stick
• (see NY Times articles: Rubin, E.: “In the Land of the Taliban,” Oct. 22, 2006; & Rubin, E.: “Taking the Fight to the Taliban,” Oct. 29, 2006)
• Osama at large has huge inspirational value
• al-Qaeda & affiliates actually more deadly in number and lethality of terror attacks 3 yrs after the end of the Afghan campaign than before it
• (see BBC articles: “Concern over UK troop casualties” and “NATO commander awaits ‘acid test’”; PBS Frontline: “Return of the Taliban”)
• We may not know how much $$ we need to lock down to control terror financing
• Europe: counter-terrorism becomes intertwined with immigration (socio-economic and political change for immigrant population; debates on levels of assimilation - see current debates in the UK on Muslim women’s veil:
• BBC - “Debate about veil is healthy”; “‘No discrimination’ in veil row”
• AlJazeera: “Anglican leader backs wearing of veils”)

Effects of the War in Iraq

Whatever your own assessment of the Iraq war, it has backfired with regard to the war on terror in at least three ways:

• Drew down and compromised the mobility and efficacy of US military
• Provided both a new ‘safe haven’ for area terrorists, but also fertile recruiting ground.
• Put US ‘prestige’ in a self-trap mode (i.e., great powers can’t leave a situation where they were challenged)
• Huge propaganda victory for al-Qaeda in “third areas”
• (see Bush Administration’s response to the perceived loss in the ‘battle of ideas’ - creation of new 24h news media outlet, to “correct messages”. See BBC news: “Pentagon boosts media war unit” and “US ‘losing media war to al-Qaeda’”)

Weapons of Mass Destruction

• Clear concern that global proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons was a threat to all, but most especially to the US.
• We will not permit any nation who has not yet done so to develop these weapons.
• Commitment to this position is so strong we will engage in pre-emptive strikes or war to eliminate these threats.
• (see NSCT 2003; NSCT 2006)
  

Blocking the Terrorist Pathway to the Bomb

Steps on the Pathway: NTI
Source: http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/path.asp

The ‘state’ problem

• Failed State: has no central authority and thus terrorists and international criminals operate unchecked. 
• Afghanistan; Somalia; now Iraq??
• Rogue State: has a demonstrated hostility to western international law and often its states; seeks WMD.  
• Libya; Iraq; Iran; Syria; N.Korea; Cuba.

What ‘correlates with’ the rise of State Terror:

• Past grievances with selective interpretation
• Watching referent groups achieve goals via force (certain ‘contagion’)
• Society predisposed to believing myths, esp. regarding their own grandeur
• Fractioning economy where goods are seen in zero-sum terms
• Lack of a trans-communal ethic (no national ‘melting pot’ ethos) or leader
• Manipulation of ‘bystanders’

Counter-terrorism: aims X means

What are the strengths and weaknesses we can identify on these dimensions?

What are the strengths and weaknesses we can identify on these dimensions?

Finally, how to assess the threat level?

• Should we have an EMP control system, for example? (Gaffney; Wikipedia)
• A new border control system?
• (see the latest US legislation for controlling the US border with Mexico by building a fence)
• A national registry of each of our retina, beyond the database for foreigners entering the US?

Suggested readings:

• RAND Corp.: Riley, J.: “Border Control” (2006)