Continued from last week
Q: The truth of the matter is that the real difference between us and the terrorists is that we love life but they relish death and feast on it without any sense of guilt or remorse.
What are the causes of terrorism?
- There is no single explanation for terrorism: There are too many types of terrorists for one explanation to work, yet… There are so few terrorists that terrorism is a micro phenomenon that further defies monocausal explanations
- Lethal cocktail that leads to the emergence of terrorist acts: Disaffected individual, Enabling community
- Recent change is that online communities can now serve that role in some capacity: Legitimizing ideology
Does terrorism works?
- It is impossible to answer the question of whether terrorism works unless you can find out what terrorists want to achieve: Terrorists have primary and secondary motives. Primary motives include the achievement of autonomy or secession by nationalist groups or the replacement of secular law with religious law by religious groups: Primary motives are generally not common across all groups: Secondary motives are common across all kinds of groups
- The three R’s: Revenge – Sometimes personal, more often revenge for the community with which the terrorist identifies: Terrorists see themselves as playing David to the state’s Goliath; and see the state as the aggressor. Renown – Publicity is a central objective, but also glory for the individual and the cause: Committing a terrorist act can enhance social status for individual attackers, whereas for a terrorist leader it can lead to national and global renown
Reaction: Terrorist attacks demonstrate the existence of a resistance and its strength: State reaction does the same; the scale of the state reaction may be more important than the details. Terrorists have been much more successful at achieving the three R’s than their primary motives. Motivations that have motivated soldiers are not that different than the motivations of terrorists.
The U.S. and terrorism
- Declaring a war on terrorism plays directly into terrorists’ hands. This makes it easier for terrorists to commit revenge with our troops there and it creates more actions for which revenge is desired: The U.S. gives them renown and reaction, we elevate their stature by our actions: The goal of defensive warfare is to deny an adversary the objectives he seeks, by declaring war on terror the U.S. is making the achievement of the terrorists’ objectives more possible: Unfortunately, the U.S. has insisted on learning from its own mistakes, rather than those of others from the past
- Mistakes of the U.S. “War on Terror”: Declaration of war on terrorism will be seen as major mistake, one cannot (and should not) declare a war on a tactic: Conflating U.S. enmity with Saddam and Osama led to disastrous policy choices: Failing to mobilize the international community effectively after 9/11 was a major mistake: Failing to educate the American populace about terrorism and the assessment of risk was a major missed opportunity: The U.S. should readjust its goals to contain the threat from terrorism rather than making a war on it:
This policy should be guided by 6 principles: (1)Have a defensible and achievable goal (cannot eliminate terrorism, but can contain it) (2) Live by your principles (the example of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and the treatment of POWs) (3) Know your enemy (intelligence assets are key) (4) Separate terrorists from their communities (since they are dependent on that support) (5) Engage others with you in this campaign (both international community and moderates in key countries) (6) Have patience and keep perspective (the U.S. is not more endangered now than during the Cold War)
Being tough on terrorism is not the same as being effective; the worry is being labelled “soft” on terrorism. The U.S. should focus on what is effective instead of what looks tough
Observations from recent project on democracies and counterterrorism
- Three general observations: Governments’ counterterrorist practices improve with time. There is no silver bullet (military, intelligence, or otherwise). Governments that combined carrots and sticks were most successful
- Discriminate use of force was/is key to effectiveness
- Conciliatory measures: the mobilization of moderates was essential to success
Of the three parts of the lethal cocktail of terrorism, states (and the U.S.) have the most potential influence on communities, not disaffected individuals or ideologies, and should plan accordingly.”
Regardless, we made sure that the terrorists did not ruin our dinner. The truth of the matter is that the real difference between us and the terrorists is that we love life but they relish death and feast on it without any sense of guilt or remorse.
J.K. Randle
