Coping with Terrorism
Should a state respond to terrorist attacks with force or seek to address root causes through political dialogue?
October 1998
ome experts view terrorism as the antithesis of politics, as a profoundly threatening assault on the state that demands a forceful security response. Others argue that terrorism is a form of political communication, one that seeks to discredit a particular political system and warrants a political response.
According to the latter view, politically marginalized groups or individuals use terrorism to engage the state apparatus in some form of "dialogue," whether the state likes it or not. An act of terrorism says, "You cannot ignore us," explains Paul Arthur, a former senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and professor of politics at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
Rescue workers carry a woman over the rubble of a building destroyed during the terrorist bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in August. (AP/Wide World)
In the case of Northern Ireland, the government's shift away from a security response to terrorism to a political response—its willingness to engage in political dialogue, to examine the roots of the problem, and to search for political solutions—finally led to the recent peace agreement there, Arthur says. A security response to terrorism is the easiest for a state to undertake. "However, the consequences of a security response cannot always be, and rarely are, anticipated," Arthur says. Such a response often galvanizes terrorist movements or drives sympathetic elements of a society to support it.
Arthur and Ehud Sprinzak, a former Institute senior fellow and professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discussed "Counterterrorism Strategy: Lessons after Nairobi, Dar es-Salaam, and Omagh" at an Institute current issues briefing on August 26. The event was moderated by Robert Oakely of the National Defense University, former director of the Office of Combating Terrorism at the State Department and former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Somalia, and Zaire.
As the sole remaining superpower, the United States is seen by some terrorist groups in the Arab world as the enemy of tradition and hierarchy, the apostle of globalization and social forces that undermine traditional Islamic societies, Arthur said. As long as those groups see themselves as victimized by the United States and all it stands for, they are unlikely to engage in political dialogue, making that option difficult for a target state to initiate. "But when the United States hits back, as it did in Sudan and Afghanistan, using potentially provocative military action, understandable though that response was, it is violating the sovereignty of other countries, threatening civilian populations, and intensifying anti-American sentiment," Arthur cautioned.
Arthur stressed that the United States needs to build coalitions among its allies in the United Nations in order to effectively combat terrorism collectively. "The United States is dangerously isolated today," he warned. The U.S. Congress could help remedy the situation by constructively handling this country's more than $1.5 billion debt to the UN, he concluded.
Nature of Terrorism
Above (left to right):Robert Oakley, Paul Arthur, Ehud Sprinzak, and Harriet Hentges.
Sprinzak noted that terrorism is a form of psychological warfare. "Terrorists are not in the business of killing large numbers of people, they are in the business of killing a small number of people and instilling in every one of us the fear that we are next in line." A small number of terrorists can change history, as happened in Israel when terrorist bombings and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin disrupted the Arab-Israeli peace process. The terrorist threat to the security of a state is potentially great, Sprinzak said, and it is therefore a serious mistake for governments to underestimate it.
Historically, terrorism occurs in waves. There is an attack, everybody focuses on terrorism, but then there is a long period of quiessence and terrorism drops out of public awareness, Sprinzak said. "This presents serious problems for policymakers, who respond to pressure." In certain historical periods when the threat of terrorism is intense, states must make an effort to remain focused on terrorism and to provide the resources necessary to combat it. "Otherwise, you are going to be surprised by terrorist attacks again and again," Sprinzak said.
The United States has wrongly focused its attention in recent years on preventing terrorist attacks with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, he said. Although many experts disagree, Sprinzak argued that terrorists like Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden are not likely to use weapons of mass destruction. "They can get the results they want with a car bomb," he said.
Dealing with bin Laden
Sprinzak rejected the notion of political dialogue with the terrorists who were behind the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania. The bombings appear to have been the work of bin Laden's Islamic fundamentalist network, the Al Qaeda movement. Sprinzak argued that bin Laden is a threat to the United States and "he has to be defeated." He urged the United States to bring political pressure to bear on Pakistan, which neighbors Afghanistan, to help in such an effort.
Oakley replied that the network of extremist Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan "doesn't belong to bin Laden, it doesn't belong to anyone. Bin Laden is able to take advantage of it because he has money, but you can?t exaggerate the importance of a single individual. If something happens to him, somebody else will take his place."
Bin Laden operates out of Afghanistan, a country that was completely fractured by the war against the Soviets, and Pakistan, which struggles with a difficult social, political, and economic legacy from the Afghan war, Oakley said. During the war, Afghanistan became home to several thousand Muslims who helped fight the Red Army. When the war ended, they did not or could not return to their countries of origin, and they now participate in a number of terrorist organizations that form shifting alliances, Oakley said.
He pointed out that it would be difficult for the United States to enlist Pakistan's help in curbing terrorism in the region because eight years ago we cut off all assistance to that country because of its continued development of a nuclear weapons capability. "The fact that we did so created an unforeseen situation in which it is very difficult for them to work with us and very difficult for us to get them to work with us. They have no incentive to cooperate."
