Counterterrorism E-Book

Ronald Crelinsten

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Understanding Terrorism
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 494

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Terrorism has emerged as one of the most problematic issues facing national governments and the international community in the 21st century. But how is it possible to counter terrorism in a world in which governance is still dominated by the nation-state? Are we seeing new forms of terrorist activity in the wake of 9/11? Are pre-9/11 approaches still valid? How can we combat and control diverse threats of multiple origin? Who should be responsible for countering terrorism and in what circumstances?

In this incisive new book, Ronald Crelinsten seeks to provide answers to these pressing questions, challenging readers to think beyond disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries. He presents an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the difficulties and obstacles related to countering terrorism in democratic societies. The counterterrorism framework that he develops in this book reflects the complex world in which we live. The different approaches to counterterrorism provide the organizing theme of the book and help the reader to understand and to appreciate the full range of options available. The book:

• 
  
• includes a host of contemporary examples and further readings;
  
  
• compares and contrasts pre- and post-9/11 approaches;
  
  
• critically evaluates the post-9/11 ‘war on terror';
  
  
• moves beyond a purely state-centric focus to include non-state actors and institutions;
  
  
• combines hard and soft power approaches;
  
  
• considers prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

Counterterrorism will be an indispensible guide for students, researchers, practitioners and general readers wanting to broaden their knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of counterterrorism today.

Leseprobe

Counterterrorism

Counterterrorism

RONALD CRELINSTEN

polity

Copyright © Ronald Crelinsten 2009

The right of Ronald Crelinsten to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2009 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5849-0

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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction.

Terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11

1

The context for counterterrorism: a complex security environment

2

Coercive counterterrorism

3

Proactive counterterrorism

4

Persuasive counterterrorism

5

Defensive counterterrorism

6

Long-term counterterrorism

Conclusion.

A comprehensive counterterrorism strategy

Notes

Select bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Louise Knight, commissioning editor at Polity Press, who invited me to write this inaugural book for Polity’s new series, “Understanding Terrorism.” Thanks, too, to Emma Hutchison, who took over from Louise when she went on maternity leave; Clare Ansell, production editor; and Leigh Mueller, copy editor; as well as the entire Polity team.

Anonymous reviewers, both at the proposal stage and at the manuscript stage, provided very useful comments and suggestions that helped me improve the focus, the structure, and the content of the present work. Of course, all errors or omissions are my own.

Portions of the following works were revised, updated, or expanded for use in this book:

Ronald  D.  Crelinsten,  “Counterterrorism  as  Global Governance: A Research Inventory,” in Magnus Ranstorp (ed.), Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Direction (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 210–35.

Ronald D. Crelinsten, “Analysing Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Communication Model,” Terrorism and Political Violence 14(2) (2002): 77–122.*

Ronald D. Crelinsten and Iffet Özkut, “Counterterrorism Policy in Fortress Europe: Implications for Human Rights,” in Fernando Reinares (ed.), European Democracies Against Terrorism: Governmental Policies and Intergovernmental Cooperation (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 245–71.

Ronald D. Crelinsten, “The Discourse and Practice of Counterterrorism in Liberal Democracies,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 44(3) (1998): 389–413.

Ronald D. Crelinsten, “Television and Terrorism: Implications for Crisis Management and Policy-Making,” Terrorism and Political Violence 9(4) (1997): 8–32.*

Ronald D. Crelinsten and Alex P. Schmid, “Western Responses to Terrorism: A Twenty-Five Year Balance Sheet,” in A. P. Schmid and R. D. Crelinsten (eds.), Western Responses to Terrorism (London: Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 307–40.

* The periodical Terrorism and Political Violence can be accessed at the publisher’s website, www.informaworld.com.

Introduction. Terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11

Terrorism is a specific form of violence, one that is characterized by its communicative function.1 Whether used by state or nonstate actors, in the interests of government or against the interests of government, the victims of terrorism function as signs in a propaganda war. The bomb attacks, the hijackings, the assassinations, the torture, the disappearances, the massacres, all function to convey messages to audiences beyond their immediate victims. The selection of victims is both symbolic and instrumental. In the case of selective assassination, kidnappings, or bomb attacks, the victims are often repre sentatives of the State or some power elite. In the case of disappearances or torture, they are often members of social or political movements that are dedicated to reforming the State or altering the power structure. In the case of international terrorism, they are often citizens of states that are power-brokers within the world order or some smaller sphere of influence, or representatives of their governments. In all these cases, the victim is chosen because of whom she or he represents and because their victimization will resonate with specific audiences, either in generating fear or exhilaration, or in affecting allegiances and behavior. Even in the case of the most indiscriminate violence, such as machine-gunning of tourists in airports, the car bomb in city streets, the suicide bomber in a mass transport system, the massacre of villagers, or the attacks of September 11, the lack of discrimination between combatant and noncombatant, between involved and uninvolved, between active supporter and passive sympathizer, between innocent and guilty, has a symbolic function. What one analyst has called the “politics of atrocity”2 is designed to attract widespread attention through the shock value of the attack. The gruesome beheading of hostages in Iraq is a more recent example of this kind of shock terrorism.

This victimization of noncombatants or innocents for the purposes of gaining public recognition for particular causes or imposing specific demands on third parties has been a feature of political life at various times and in various places for centuries, although it has not always been called “terrorism.” While originally linked with the revolutionary terror of the French Revolution, and therefore the action of states, in its modern variant “terrorism” became a common word in public discourse in the late 1960s, when Palestinians turned to hijacking airplanes and Latin American guerrillas turned to kidnapping diplomats. In the ensuing decades, terrorism has been used by nationalists seeking new nations or wishing to secede from existing ones, by revolutionaries seeking to overthrow governments and to establish new regimes, by governments seeking to destabilize other governments or to control their own nationals either at home or abroad, and by fanatics and zealots pursuing a variety of social and religious causes. In the 1990s and culminating with the September 11 attacks in 2001 by Al Qaeda, terrorism has become a global phenomenon that transcends national and even hemispheric boundaries. The US-led war in Afghanistan destroyed the command and control center of Al Qaeda and led to its decentralization and dispersion. This, in turn, led to the outsourcing of terror attacks to sympathetic or like-minded affiliates in countries throughout Southeast Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, including Indonesia (Bali), Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. With the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a lightning rod for terrorists and extremists was created in the center of the Middle East, and with the 2004 Madrid bombings and the 2005 London bombings, Europe became a major sta ging area for Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks by disgruntled or alienated citizens inflamed by internet images and propaganda.3 The US-led “war on terror” has also become a master narrative that subsumes and simultaneously disguises many other conflicts, both domestic and international, whether Israeli/Palestinian, Russian/Chechen, Chinese/Uighur,4 Kashmiri (India/Pakistan), or Spanish/Basque. One analyst argues that Central Asian states “have exploited the context of the global ‘war on terrorism,’ as well as the fear of Islamic extremism, to justify and intensity their suppression of dissent, without much concern about international condemnation.”5

Used as a stand-alone strategy, terrorism is often considered the weapon of the weak: the insurgents or nation-builders who lack the material resources and the mass support necessary for sustained guerrilla warfare, armed insurrection, or a full-scale war of national liberation, or the government that lacks the necessary legitimacy to govern within the rule of law and the democratic forum of public debate and open dissent. Used as one tactic in a larger strategy of armed conflict or within a wider array of violent and nonviolent political action, terrorism is prized for its economy: kill one, frighten 10,000; actions speak louder than words; propaganda by the deed. Because its aim reaches beyond its immediate victim and because it is planned in secret and enacted without warning, terrorism commands attention while demanding few resources and manpower. Even what one analyst calls the “wholesale terrorism” of states6 requires less infrastructure, management, and resources than do police forces and military organizations which follow the rule of law, whether domestic or international, and remain accountable to political authority and, in the case of excesses or systematic abuses, to criminal justice.

The definition of terrorism is fraught with difficulties.7 There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism, although the United Nations has tried for a long time to achieve consensus among its Member States. One of the main sticking points has been the resistance by post-colonial states and other Third World states, including many Arab ones, to universally condemning the practice when conducted by groups resisting oppression or occupation. The well-known cliché, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” encapsulates the problem. A common approach in international legal conventions has been to avoid defining terrorism altogether and to focus on terrorist tactics alone (see chapter 2). Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a definition that confines terrorism to acts against civilians and noncombatants.8 The problem here is that this merely shifts the debate from what constitutes terrorism to what constitutes innocent civilians and noncombatants. One analyst has suggested, for example, that “in societies highly integrated with reciprocity, . . . there is no accepted notion of individual innocence. All in-group members are responsible to the group, and share responsibility for the actions of others within it. . . . If there is conflict, all members of the out-group are enemies worthy of discrimination.”9

In this volume, and in accordance with the centrality of communication in terrorist threat and violence, terrorism will be conceived as a form of violent communication or coercive persuasion. In defining terrorism, therefore, a behavioral approach will be taken rather than a motive-based or perpetratorbased approach. A “behavioral approach” means that terrorism will be conceived as a tool of coercive persuasion in a wide variety of power relationships, not just that of the insurgent who contests the power of the State. The definition will focus on what terrorists do, rather than who they are (perpetratorbased approach) or why they do what they do (motive-based approach). This is because defining terrorism in terms of who is acting or why they are doing so opens the way to selective definitions that are truncated for ideological, political, or epistemological reasons. The bulk of the terrorism literature focuses exclusively on insurgent terrorism and many works, though admitting that state terrorism exists and may even be the more pervasive and the more deadly form of terrorism, then proceed to exclude state terrorism from their object of study.

A narrow focus on insurgent forms of terrorism separates the nonstate actor from the larger context within which he acts and, in particular, from the behaviour of state actors. Moral condemnation of outrageous acts of violence can blind the researcher and the policy maker to the place of terrorism in a wider range of options available to the non-state actor. Because other options exist, the choice of terrorism is viewed as an irrational choice, a symptom of pathology. What then passes as scientific discourse is really polemics, where conceptual typologies become catalogues of pejorative labels. The muddled state of definitions in the field of terrorism stems directly from this narrowing of conceptual frameworks to just those actors whose goals we find unacceptable. By defining terrorism by the context in which it occurs rather than as a tool of political communication which can be used in a wide variety of contexts, we preclude the possibility of anything more than a superficial understanding of a narrow aspect of the phenomenon.10

Viewed as a particular kind of coercive/persuasive tool, it becomes apparent that terrorism can occur in the context of criminal activity (crime), as much as within a political or a war context (insurgency/revolution). It can also be committed by state agents as much as by insurgents or political criminals. In fact, the use of torture has often been justified as a necessary weapon against insurgents and terrorists and has played a central part in terrorist regimes that have evolved from counterterrorism or counterinsurgency campaigns.11

Using this behavioral approach, terrorism will be defined as:

the combined use and threat of violence, planned in secret and usually executed without warning, that is directed against one set of targets (the direct victims) in order to coerce compliance or to compel allegiance from a second set of targets (targets of demands) and to intimidate or to impress a wider audience (target of terror or target of attention).

What this definition makes clear is that there are multiple audiences to the terrorist act and that not all these audiences experience fear or terror. The act of victimizing captures the attention of a variety of audiences and allows the terrorist to communicate more specific messages tailored to each one. The message need not be articulated in words; it can be symbolic (conveyed by the target selected, for example) or simply shocking (conveyed by the indiscriminate nature of the attack or the importance of the person targeted). This is classic propaganda by the deed. The attacks of September 11, for example, were not accompanied by any specific demands, though some were articulated later in the videotaped statements of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, but the symbolism of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon being struck – and possibly the US Capitol – and the horrific toll of lives lost, including the passengers and crews of four planes, conveyed a complex set of messages that were clear to everyone. If terrorism is seen as a particular form of violent, coercive communication, then one can escape the ideological trap surrounding its definition. If freedom fighters use terrorism as part of their strategy, then they are terrorists; if counterterrorists use terrorism as part of theirs, then they are terrorists as well. The question then turns to why different actors, nonstate or state, use terrorism, and this leads, in turn, to a consideration of context.

To fully understand terrorism and how it emerges and develops within a society, however defined, it is important to analyze the targets, tactics, motivations, and modus operandi of terrorist groups. This is the who, what, why, and how of terrorism. It is also important to look at those people, groups, communities, or institutions – whether subnational, national, international, or transnational – with which the group interacts. This is one aspect of the wider context within which such groups operate. It is also imperative to look at what the members of the group were doing before they got into terrorism, what social and political climate existed then, and what kinds of control measures were used to deal with social and political protest during that time. This is the temporal dimension of that wider context within which any group operates. In other words, the spatial and temporal background of terrorist activity must be analyzed in order to fully grasp the context from which any terrorist group emerges and within which it operates. Part of this spatial and temporal background is the set of institutional measures taken in response to ongoing or previous social and political activity, including violent forms such as terrorism. An important element, therefore, in understanding terrorism is an appreciation of the forms that counterterrorism takes. This includes understanding how particular forms of terrorism can lead to the emergence of particular forms of response.

The danger that terrorism poses to democratic values and the way of life that they permit stems not just from terrorist threats and violence and the vulnerabilities that terrorists exploit, but from the ways in which societies think about them, talk about them, prepare for them, respond to them, and recover from their impact. One analyst goes so far as to suggest that the US “war on terror” poses a greater threat than the terrorism it is trying to combat.12 This striking assertion highlights the fact that discourse and action are intimately related. How people talk about problems, frame them, and concept ualize them often determines what they do about them. Conversely, the way people deal with problems can often limit the ways in which they perceive them, restricting their imagination and narrowing their options. These conceptual and ideological filters can make it more difficult to understand a problem in all its facets.

For example, since the attacks of September 11 and the ensuing “war on terror,” counterterrorism has come to be viewed primarily in military terms. This has led to emotional and polemical debates about the very fundamentals of democratic life as they relate to the nature of the terrorist threat and how to deal with it.13 When critics of this militarized approach to counterterrorism voice concerns about the rule of law and protection of human rights, they are often met with the disdainful reproach: “you’re so September 10!” This is sometimes coupled with the remark, “you just don’t get it.” What critics of the “war on terror” supposedly “don’t get” is that “we are at war” with an “implacable foe” who cannot be reasoned with or deterred by threat of retaliation, who is out to kill as many of us as possible, and who must be eliminated in order for victory to be achieved. This might take a very long time, even generations, and until we succeed, things like due process, rights for detainees, limits to interrogation techniques, judicial control and oversight, and counterweights to executive power are luxuries at best, and serious impediments to the effective prosecution of the war on terror at worst. In the words of US Justice Department spokeswoman Kathleen M. Blomquist, “The United States cannot afford to retreat to a pre-September 11 mind-set that treats terrorism solely as a domestic law enforcement problem.”14 During the 2004 US presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry was excoriated for suggesting that counterterrorism is primarily a question of law enforcement. After the 2006 London bomb plot to explode airplanes with liquid explosives was exposed, an anonymous Bush Administration official continued to argue that the Democrats “do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these [jihadist] forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work.”15

The idea that “September 10 thinking” “treats terrorism solely as a domestic law enforcement problem” can be considered a discursive tactic similar to the rhetorical device of setting up a straw man. Counterterrorism before the 9/11 attacks was actually not confined solely to domestic law enforcement. The argument that “we are at war” reflects the “new terrorism” thesis16 which suggests that terrorism today is fundamentally different from what it was previously.17 Before 9/11, terrorism was primarily seen as a form of crime; after 9/11 it has been transformed into a new form of warfare. This war discourse can be called “September 12 thinking” to distinguish it from the “September 10 thinking” that it invents as a foil for its arguments. “September 12 thinking” views terrorism and counterterrorism post-9/11 from within a particular framework, but it also confines pre-9/11 thinking about terrorism and counterterrorism within a different framework that is seen to be passé, obsolete, and out of date. As such, “September 10 thinking” is an invention of “September 12 thinking” – a kind of projection which creates a straw man to argue with and criticize. They are two sides of the same coin, which represents narrow, conceptual models that distort the nature of the phenomenon to be dealt with and limit policy options.

It is true that counterterrorism before September 11 did privilege the rule of law, but it also emphasized international cooperation, policy harmonization across domestic and international jurisdictions, and, indeed, the rule of law, respect for human rights, and the primacy of law enforcement over the military option.18 The latter was always included in the counterterrorism toolbox, but usually as a last resort and, in the case of aid to civil power, under the control of civilian authority. The use of force was often a tool of last resort in prolonged hostage sieges, for example.19 International humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions, was not usually a part of the discourse since a war model of counterterrorism was not the norm. When international humanitarian law was discussed, it was usually in the context of explicitly excluding it as irrelevant to counterterrorism.20 Since 9/11, international humanitarian law has come under increasing scrutiny as critics of the “war on terror” attempt to develop a legal framework for a primarily military approach to counterterrorism.21 It is true that during the 1980s and, in particular, the Reagan years, a precursor of “September 12 thinking” did exist22 and sometimes prevailed. An example was the 1986 US bombing of Libya. However, its military character was limited in scope and usually was a part of an overall “hard-line” approach. A common characteristic of this early discourse, for example, was an insistence on no negotiations with terrorists under any circumstances.23

Despite the militarized discourse and practice associated with the post-9/11 “war on terror,” counterterrorism can actually take many forms. The polarization between “September 12 thinking” and “September 10 thinking” is a shortcut representation of the ideological divide that characterizes much contemporary discussion of counterterrorism. This ongoing ideological debate forms a kind of backdrop to any attempt to understand the complexities and challenges that countering terrorism faces in today’s world. Each side highlights the strengths of their favored approach, while emphasizing the weaknesses of the other side. This introduces a background of distortion – a kind of white noise – for anyone attempting to understand counterterrorism and to formulate policy in this important domain. Figure I.1 depicts this by presenting an adaptation of the classic illusion of the vase and two faces that alternate as each other’s backgrounds. The vase represents our understanding of counterterrorism in all its facets, while the two faces represent the polarized discourse on the nature of terrorism and how to combat it, as represented by the dichotomy between “September 10 thinking” and “September 12 thinking.” As we focus on the counterterrorism vase, our mind’s eye suddenly becomes aware of the polarized discourse in the background (the faces). This then becomes the focus of attention for a while, only to be supplanted once again by the vase as one continues to try and comprehend the complete picture. Many assumptions about the subjects that people study are not really conscious, even though they inform the way they talk about them and the way they define and conceptualize them. Although the goal of social science is to be objective, even scientists and researchers cannot always prevent their feelings and emotions from affecting how they think about difficult issues and challenging problems. This is certainly true of the study of terrorism and counterterrorism.

Figure I.1    Seeing counterterrorism through ideological filters: the polarized discourse revolving around 9/11

Not all counterterrorism experts or terrorism analysts fall on one side of the divide depicted in figure I.1, and both kinds of thinking existed before the attacks of 9/11 and persisted thereafter. The dichotomy between “September 10 thinking” and “September 12 thinking” can be characterized as another version of the more traditional dichotomy between hard-line and soft-line counterterrorism policies. Policy disagreements before 9/11 were certainly intense at times. Yet the post-9/11 period and the ensuing “war on terror” have been characterized by profound disagreements over the kind of threats we are faced with, the kinds of responses required, the institutions which should be responsible for this response, and the timeframe within which an effective response can be accomplished. Table I.1 summarizes the main differences across the most important variables.

“September 10 thinking” emphasizes legal approaches to counterterrorism, privileging the rule of law, international cooperation, and understanding the root causes of terrorism. While the military option is considered an indispensable part of the overall counterterrorism arsenal, it is seen as a tool of last resort, whose use must be legitimized and carefully controlled. The range of terrorist threats is seen as wide and diverse and the importance of understanding root causes and local contexts is recognized. Diplomacy and negotiations are considered important counterterrorism tools, particularly in the international arena. As far as state sponsors of terrorism are concerned, the preferred strategy is deterrence and containment. “September 12 thinking” emphasizes the military approach to counterterrorism, privileging the use of force and legitimizing it by changing the legal rules of the game if necessary, unilateral action by those capable of acting if others refuse or are incapable of cooperating, a heightened focus on state sponsorship of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) / chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) terrorism, particularly in the context of identifying rogue (axis of evil) and failed states, the supplanting of deterrence and containment by a doctrine of preemptive defence, and a singular emphasis on one form of globalized terrorism: Salafist–Jihadist terrorism of the Al Qaeda brand. Both approaches, taken alone, make sense in certain contexts and situations. Both exhibit serious limitations in other contexts or can trigger unintended consequences in particular situations.

The main aim of this book is to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the full variety of counterterrorism approaches that exist and the kinds of variables that underlie their differences. This will involve moving beyond the polarized discourse represented in table I.1, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of each side’s favored approach, as well as considering other options that neither side emphasizes. The result will be a comprehensive survey that helps the reader to see through the ideological filters that often color people’s understanding of counterterrorism and to grasp the complete picture that neither side permits. In keeping with the overall series of which this book is a part, the idea is to help the reader to understand the complexities and challenges related to countering terrorism in the contemporary world and to appreciate the full range of options available. The contrast between “September 10 thinking” and “September 12 thinking” can aid in understanding how conceptions of terrorism and its place in today’s security environment can determine the particular approach taken to counterterrorism and the institutions that are marshaled to combat it.

Chapter 1 looks at the wider security environment within which terrorism exists today. This will provide the broader context for examining counterterrorism. It is an important first step, since it helps to understand the full range of security threats in today’s world and how terrorism fits into the larger security framework. The following five chapters examine different types of counterterrorism.

Chapter 2 analyzes the two most commonly used models of counterterrorism: the criminal justice model and the war model.24 Each model allows the state to exercise its monopoly on the use of violence, but each places strict limits on how this violence is to be used. The debate about whether the September 11 attacks by Al Qaeda constituted criminal acts or acts of war will be used to illustrate the tendency for these two models of counterterrorism to blur into each other.

Chapter 3 considers proactive approaches to counterterrorism that are concerned primarily with stopping the terrorist before s/he takes action. This is sometimes called preventive counterterrorism or simply anti-terrorism. It can include a wide variety of activities, ranging from risk and threat assessment and target hardening to preemption. However, the primary focus of the chapter will be on the intelligence function, blocking terrorist financing, and the particular challenges that countering secret activity poses for the police, the security services, and the military. More “defensive” preventive aspects will be examined in chapter 5 (see below).

Chapter 4 looks at the communicative dimension of counterterrorism. Propaganda, psychological warfare, hearts and minds campaigns, and the idea of providing incentives for terrorists to abandon violence and seek nonviolent paths instead all refer to this notion of counterterrorism as a form of communication. The chapter begins by examining two forms of “coercive persuasion” – deterrence and preemption – and then turns to the use of “soft power” or the propaganda dimension of counterterrorism. As such, it looks at political, social, cultural, and religious aspects of terrorism and counterterrorism and the importance of psychological operations (psyops).

Chapter 5 focuses on the kinds of preventive or protective measures that can be taken to minimize the risk of terrorist attack or to mitigate the impact of attacks that are carried out. Issues include target hardening, critical infrastructure protection, crisis management, emergency preparedness, consequence management, contingency planning and gaming, civil defense, and the promotion of citizen resilience in the face of terrorist threat and attack. Defensive models of counterterrorism treat terrorism, even of the mass-casualty variety, as one of many threats to public health or like any major disaster or catastrophe, whether man-made or not. Emphasis is placed not only on making it harder for terrorists to strike in the first place, but also on the social and psychological consequences of terrorist attack and how to minimize them.

Chapter 6 focuses on the kinds of counterterrorism initiatives that do not promise quick fixes, but play out in the long term. This includes the realm of “root causes” and the more structural factors that can create a suitable climate for the promotion and use of terrorism by ideologues and zealots. So much counterterrorism is focused on the short term, simply because the electoral horizon of most governments is so short, usually not exceeding five years. Structural factors usually play out over much longer periods than that – what the French historian Fernand Braudel calls “la longue durée” or the long term.25 The chapter will focus on the kinds of long-term strategies that hold out promise for changing the environment in which terrorism thrives, as well as the difficulties and challenges that these strategies face.

The Conclusion brings everything together and evaluates the extent to which a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy can be achieved that would provide a framework for security in the twenty-first century while preserving the values that underlie democratic and global governance.

CHAPTER ONE

The context for counterterrorism: a complex security environment

During the Cold War, the world of terrorism and political violence was viewed through the bipolar lenses of East vs. West, Communism vs. Capitalism, Evil vs. Good. Definitional and typological complexities were papered over by Cold Warriors intent on forcing all conflicts into a Procrustean bed of a Soviet-sponsored, international terror network intent on destabilizing and subverting the West.1 This resulted in several distinct trends in the terrorism literature, particularly during the 1970s and early 1980s:

•

a tendency to focus exclusively on international and transnational terrorism and to ignore domestic terrorism or to cast it in a transnational light. This often involved stripping national conflicts of their social, political, and cultural contexts so as to more easily characterize the conflict as the result of Soviet influence;

•

a tendency to ignore right-wing terrorism and to focus exclusively on left-wing terrorism. This was facilitated by the first trend, since many left-wing terrorist groups either cooperated internationally/transnationally or else used an internationalist rhetoric, claiming common goals with comrades and brethren throughout the world in their common fight against Western (US) imperialism and colonialism;2

•

a tendency to focus primarily on insurgent terrorism and to ignore state terrorism, particularly of the variety used by Western- and particularly US-sponsored “authoritarian” regimes. This may be why the state terrorism of the Shah of Iran, for example, was tolerated (and, it may be argued, facilitated, through technology transfer and police training) – until the Khomeini Revolution put an end to it in 1979 and replaced it with another form;3

•

a willful blindness to any evidence of a US-sponsored terror network intent on destabilizing and subverting the Eastern bloc and creating market opportunities in the Third World.4

While the United States focused primarily on international terrorism, mainly because United States nationals were prime targets, the Soviet Union focused primarily on the danger of domestic terrorism. Much of the Cold-War-era terrorist literature took on a Manichaean flavor with titles such as . The enemy was clear and academic analysis often tended to cast itself in a cheering mode for increasingly militaristic policy solutions to the terrorist problem. Academic studies of terrorism came chiefly from the disciplines of political science and psychology, though history and law, as well as other disciplines such as communications, also made contributions.