Discouraging Terrorism Some Implications of 9/11 (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Discouraging Terrorism: Some Implications of 9/11
Discouraging Terrorism: Some Implications of 9/11
Pages 5-32
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From page 5... ...
In considering these obstacles, the panel decided that it would not be responsible to spin out a list of what terrorists value and a corresponding list of threats to destroy or take away what they value. Accordingly, the panel devised a strategy that we regard as taking seriously the abbreviated charge but also taking into SOME IMPLICATIONS OF 9/1 1 5
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From page 6... ...
This very blending macle our task formiciable, because contemporary terrorism and what terrorists value are bred by multiple causes and, correspondingly, no single preventive solution can be realistically envisioned. Furthermore, the historically novel combination of elements In current terrorist activitiestheir clandestine networks of organization, their capacity to use new technologies, and the particular ideologies they live by call for a reexamination of warlike conflict and ways of dealing with it.
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From page 7... ...
Then we consider the nature and vuInerabilities of the specific organizational forms of contemporary terrorism, and in what sense these might be targets for making terrorist activities fail. Then, moving toward even more remote and general causes, we consider the political, demographic, and economic contexts of terrorism.
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From page 8... ...
However, contemporary terrorism looks very different from many other warlike situations and, as a result, creates limitations on deterrence as we have come to understand it anct calls for adaptations in our thinking.
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From page 9... ...
Compellence usually requires a deadline or some coercive action until the adversary complies. Giving in to deterrence can also have a face-saving aspect; neither the Soviet Union nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
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From page 10... ...
In contrast, the contemporary terrorist situation involves an asymmetry rather than a mutuality. On their side, the United States and its allies are clearly interested in deterring terrorist actions of all sorts.
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From page 11... ...
In a word, deterrence is not much In the vocabulary of terrorists. Depending on its type of ideological framing, terrorist activities tend to be cleaned as attacking a general source of evil in the world, as defined by an anti-American or anti-Western mentality; as a means to gain certain political ends (withdrawal of troops, end of support for Israel)
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From page 12... ...
Consider, for example, the airing of the explanation in some Muslim countries that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 1l, 2001, were a Jewish plot designed to mobilize the might of the West to attack the Arab countries; consider also the widespread accusation that the videotape showing Osama bin Laden boasting about the destruction on September I! was a Western fabrication.
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From page 13... ...
. In many cases, however, direct threats to take away or destroy what terrorists value are not viable because they are not believed or because they cannot be readily carried out.
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From page 14... ...
made other calculalions. The facts that the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan and Al Qaecia was wounded no cloubt constitute a credible warning to other states harboring terrorists and perhaps terrorists themseIves—that the United States is willing to act and that it has a destructive capacity to destroy what terrorists value by killing them or otherwise rendering them ineffective.
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From page 15... ...
But at the same time, they can also serve to help make the threats credible to terrorist organizations in their midst, because these states have greater credibility in their communications with them than their adversaries do. To be sure, this strategy is an uncertain one with many possibilities of slippage, both because such states usually have limited affection and trust for the Unitec!
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From page 16... ...
The conclusion to be drawn from these arguments is that the contemporary terrorist situation, as it has evolved, enforces a certain indirectness in the use of deterrent measures that involve threats meant to supplement- but stopping short of a brute force policy of rooting out and destroying terrorists at any opporh~nity. As indicated, direct threats still have a place, but they are not likely to be effective on their own.
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From page 17... ...
Furthermore, the paths and processes by which any given individual becomes a terrorist are idiosyncratic, both in terms of when and how he or she becomes alienated from some important aspect of life and in terms of when that alienation transforms itself into participation in terrorist activities (Keller, 1979; Library of Congress, 1999; Sprinzak, 1998~. The precise supply of terrorists is unknown, and while recruiters know of some fruitful sources—for example, those who have attencled schools and mosques that preach virulent anti-Americanism and militant and fundamentalist Is tam the actual process of recruitment is highly uncertain, as it is for any extremist social movement (Lofland, 1966; Erickson, 19811.
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From page 18... ...
In addition, the societies from which terrorist groups arise or operate are made up of a diversity of social groups (intellectuals, religious believers, political interests) who constitute potential "sentiment pools" that are sources of support or lack of support for extremist groups and terrorist activities (see Snow et al., 19861.
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From page 19... ...
This characterization should be taken as a simple psychological explanation of some terrorist activities, but Sprinzak has highlighted the intrinsic concern with audience as a key ingredient In the terrorist mentality. Enemy Societies Another audience is that of enemy societies.
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From page 20... ...
Hope for terrorists is also kept alive by the prospect that minorities within enemy countries may constitute a political force favoring terrorism (Crenshaw, 1997: 154-155~: In some cases, the support [for terrorism] is linked to ethnic or ethnonationalist divisions within a society that leave a minority community feeling threatened by a majority community, or seeking a separate solution.
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From page 21... ...
It is possible that the mass media couIct develop voluntary understandings among themselves to limit sensationalism in reporting terrorist events. Also essentially beyond outside control are the internal dynamics of how terrorists communicate with one another, except, again, for the modest impact that surveillance and infiltrators may have.
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From page 22... ...
As such they are like other aspects of terrorism relatively unfamiliar to those who study organizations, who have focused more on formal organizations, such as corporations, hospitals, universities, civil service bureaucracies, voluntary organizations, and organizations developed to direct the activities of social movements. As a result, there are only some, mainly indirect insights about terrorist organizations from the literature on formal organizations.
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From page 23... ...
However, host states usually know about, tolerate, protect, or promote terrorist organizations for their own political purposes. This knowledge means establishing relations with terrorist organizations, taking an interest in and perhaps influencing their activities, thus forcing the terrorist organizations to observe and perhaps play along with various state-related realities.
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From page 24... ...
However, the world has experienced many other lands of secret, network-based organ~zations, and a base of knowledge about them and their operations has accumulated. Among these organizations are spy networks, gang rings such as the Mafia, drug-trafficking organizations, Communist cells, sabotage operations undertaken clur~ng wartime and during the cold war period, and extremist social and political movement organizations.
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From page 25... ...
HISTORICAL GIVENS OF CONTEMPORARY T E R R O R ~ S M Before moving to demographic, economic, and social condit~ons, we mention three broad contextual features of contemporary terrorism. None of these features concerns policy areasthat is, things one can or wants to do something about but they constitute the broadest possible contexts for understanding terrorism as a historical phenomenon.
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From page 26... ...
Considerations such as these give credence to the assessment that terrorism is a form of extortion from the strong by the weak. The reason why contemporary terrorism is more than a nuisance is found in the second broad conditioning factor to be mentioned technology.
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From page 27... ...
No single political formula applies to this scene of great diversity—though anticapitalism, antiimperiaTism, and antimodern~ty themes are frequent and, correspondingly, no simple political formula for dealing with them emerges. In fact, a recent exhaustive survey of counterterrorist activities undertaken by the United States ~ncludes "negotiation of international agreements, military strikes against state sponsors of terrorism, and the creation of decontam~nation teams, changes in immigration procedures, advances in surveillance, and an increase In the severity of penalties associated with terrorist attack" (Donahue, 2001: 2~.
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From page 28... ...
The lesson that emerges from this historical sketch is that the United States, in dealing with regimes in countries where terrorism has developed, ought to work as closely as it can with those regimes, but it should resist the temptation strong as it is, because of the terrorist threat simply to repress radical terrorist groups, because of the likely counterproductivity of simple ancI brutal repression (see Crenshaw, 1999; Post et al., 20021. The history of extremist groups in general indicates that a combined policy is preferable repressing illegal and violent activities while simultaneously fashioning some kind of place in 28 DISCOURAGING TERRORISM
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From page 29... ...
Nevertheless a few general observations can be made. Terrorism is a strategy of the weak against the strong, and the broad array of terrorist activities in the past half-century gives broad credence to that view.
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From page 30... ...
This research suggests the possibility that in a population in which many families have many children, the level of rebelliousness in the society may be higher than elsewhere. The demographic sources of disadvantage combine with the economic realities that many of the Muslim nations are among the poor nations of the worm, and that the distribution of wealth in them is among the most regressive (Un~ted Nations Development Programme, 20021.
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From page 31... ...
· Whenever possible, policies should be directed toward distancing and alienating relevant audiences from terrorist organizations and activities. The incorporation of potentially extremist political groups into the civil society of actual and potential host societies is especially important.
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From page 32... ...
In the long run, preventive strategies should include improving these conditions In countries vulnerable to terrorist organizations ancL activities, as a means of diminishing the probabilities of their emergence and crystallization.
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