Terrorism: Implications for World Peace
Paul Wilkinson
Terrorism: the Concept
Alex Schmid and Albert Jongman have produced impressive evidence [1]
of the extent to which a minimum consensus definition of terrorism has become
accepted among the international community of social scientists who study
conflict. Equally significant is the development of a whole body of
international resolutions, conventions, and agreements dealing with aspects of
prevention, suppression and punishment of acts of terrorism [2],
in which there is near universal acceptance of the terminology used to describe
the form of behaviour to be condemned or prohibited. Contemporary international
academic, diplomatic, and juridical debates no longer become bogged down in days
of definitional debate. The major disputes that arise concern culpability for
specific attacks or for sponsoring or directing them, and over the kind of
international measures that should be taken in response.
Terrorism is neither a political philosophy nor a movement, nor is it a synonym
for political violence in general. It is a special means or method of conflict,
which has been employed by a wide variety of factions and regimes. It is
premeditated and systematic, and aims to create a climate of extreme fear or
terror. The modern word terror and terrorism are derived from the
Latin verb terrere, to cause to tremble, and deterre, to frighten
from. Terrorism and terrorist did not come into use until the
period of the French Revolution in the 1790’s. The term was used by Edmund
Burke in his polemic against the French Revolution, and came to be used to
denote those revolutionaries who sought to use terror systematically either to
further their views or to govern, whether in France or elsewhere.
A key feature of terrorism is that it is directed at a wider audience or target
than the immediate victims. It is one of the earliest forms of psychological
warfare. The ancient Chinese strategist, Sun Tzu, conveyed the essence of the
method when he wrote, ‘kill one, frighten ten thousand’. An inevitable
corollary is that terrorism entails attacks on random and symbolic targets,
including civilians, in order to create a climate of extreme fear among a wider
group. Terrorists often claim to be carefully selective and discriminating in
their choice of targets, but to the communities that experience the terrorist
campaign the attacks are bound to seem arbitrary and indiscriminate. In order to
create the wide spread sense of fear he seeks, the terrorist deliberately uses
the weapons of surprise and disproportionate violence in order to create a sense
of outrage and insecurity. As Raymond Aron observes:’ an action of violence is
labelled “terrorist” when its psychological effects are out of all
proportion to its purely physical result…. The lack of discrimination helps to
spread fear, for if no one in particular is a target than no one can be safe’
[3]
It is this characteristic which differentiates terrorism from tyrannicide
and individual political assassination
As Hannah Arendt has observed, the belief that one could change a whole
political system by assassinating the major figure has clearly been rendered
obsolete by the transition from the age of absolutist rulers to an age of
governmental bureaucracy [4].
In all but a handful of regimes today real power is wielded by the
bureaucratic elite of anonymous or faceless officials. Arendt provides a
powerful explanation for the fact that the age of bureaucracy has coincided with
burgeoning of political terrorism. Terrorism has become for its perpetrators,
supporters and sponsors, the most attractive low-cost, low-risk, but potentially
high yield method of attacking a regime or a rival faction. The bomb plot
against Hitler, had it succeed, would have been an act of tyrannicide not
terrorism. Who could deny that Hitler was the linchpin of the Nazi system? Is it
possible to find an analogous case today where the removal of an all-powerful
dictator would dramatically change the system? Some have argued the Saddam
Hussein is one such case, but others have suggested that if he were assassinated
he would be succeeded by a powerful Ba’thist general of comparable brutality.
The concept of terrorism used in the contemporary academic literature is
essentially political. What about the use of terrorism in the name of religious
causes? Or in the pursuit of criminal gains? It is true that militant religious
fundamentalists have often throughout history waged holy terror as part of a
holy war, and there is much concern about the rise of contemporary fanatical
Islamic fundamentalists groups such as Hizbollah, Hamas, and Al-Gama’a Al
Islamiyya. and Al-Qaeda. But the major reason why moderate Muslim leaders and
secular movements see these particular fundamentalist groups as such a threat is
precisely because their revolutionary Islamic agenda aims not merely at the
purifying of religious practice but at the overthrow of existing governments and
their replacement by fundamental theocracies. Hence these movements are
inherently religious and political. The worrying trend whereby powerful
criminal gangs, such and the Italian Mafia [5] and the Latin
American narco-barons [6] have adopted some of the tactics and
weapons of terrorist groups, does pose grave problems for the relevant
law-enforcement authorities. But it does not detract from the value of the core
concept of political terrorism. In reality the overwhelming majority of
perpetrators of contemporary terrorism use the weapon to influence political
behaviour.
Typology
It is important to note the above defining criteria of political terrorism
are broad enough to encompass states’ use of terror as well as that performed
by groups. Typologically it is useful to distinguish state from factional
terror. Normally, in the literature, a state’s use of terror is referred to as
terror, while sub-state terror is referred to as terrorism. This distinction is
employed throughout this chapter. Historically, states have conducted
terror on a far more massive and lethal scale than groups. They have employed
terror as a weapon of tyranny and repression and as an interment of war. Another
important distinction can be made between international and domestic
terrorism: the former is terrorist violence involving the citizens of more than
one country, while the latter is confined within the border of one country,
sometimes within a particular locality in the country. This distinction is
useful for analytical and statistical purposes. However, in reality, it is hard
to find an example of any significant terrorist campaign that remains purely
domestic: any serious terrorist campaign actively seeks political support,
weapons, financial assistance and safe haven beyond its own borders.
Once we move beyond these very broad categories it is useful to employ a basic
typology of contemporary perpetrators of terrorism based on their underlying
cause or political motivation.
Nationalists terrorists
These are groups seeking political self-determination. They may wage
their struggle entirely in the territory they seek to liberate, or they may be
active both in their area and abroad. In some cases they may be forced by police
or military action or by threat of capture, imprisonment or execution to operate
entirely from their place of exile. Nationalist groups tend to be more capable
of sustaining protracted campaigns and mobilizing substantial support than
ideological groups. Even those nationalist groups that can only claim the
support of a minority of their ethnic constituency (e.g. IRA (Irish Republican
Army) ETA (Basque Homeland and Liberty)) can gain political resonance because of
their deep roots in the national culture for which they claim to be the
authentic voice. There is no sign that groups of this kind are disappearing from
the terrorist scene.
Ideological Terrorists
These terrorists seek to change the entire political social and economic
system either to an extreme left or extreme right model. In the 1970’s and
1980’s studies of ideological terrorism focused on the extreme left, because
of the preoccupation with groups such as the Red Army Faction in Germany and the
Red Brigades in Italy. Yet, as Walter Laqueur observes in his magisterial
general history of terrorism [7], the dominant ideological
orientation of European terrorism between the world wars was fascist. And it is
neo- Nazi and neo-fascist groups that are behind so much of the racist and
anti-immigrant violence in present day Germany and other European countries. The
Red Army groups so active during the 1970’s and 1980’s have now largely
faded away, the victims of their own internal splits, determined law enforcement
by their respective police and judicial authorities, and changing political
attitudes amongst young people in the post-Cold War era. However, in Latin
America and parts of Asia and Africa extreme left organizations using terrorism
remain a significant challenge to governments.
Religio-political terrorists
The most frequently cited examples of this type of terrorism are groups
such as Hizbollah and Hamas. Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network is clearly
religio-political. At its core his agenda is political though it is dressed up
in language of Islamic holy war [8].
But it is important to bear in mind that militant fundamentalist factions
of major religions other than Islam have also frequently spawned their own
violent extremist groups. Striking examples can be found among Sikhs, Hindus,
and Jews, and there is a well documented link between certain Christian
fundamentalist groups and extreme right-wing terrorism [9]
in North and Central America.
Single Issue terrorist groups
These groups are obsessed with their desire to change a specific policy
or practice within the target society, rather than with the aim of political
revolution. Examples include the violent animal rights and anti-abortion groups.
State-sponsored and state-supported terrorists
States use this type of terrorism both as a tool for domestic and
foreign policy. For example, when the Iranian regime sent hit squads to murder
leading dissidents and exiled political leaders they are doing so for domestic
reasons, to intimidate and eradicate opposition to the regime. However, when the
North Korea sent its agents to mount a bomb attack on the South Korean
government delegation on its visit to Rangoon, the communist regime was engaged
in an act of covert warfare against its perceived ‘enemy’ government in the
South, designed at furthering their foreign policy aim of undermining the
Republic of South Korea. State sponsors may use their own directly recruited and
controlled terror squads or choose to act through client groups and proxies.
They almost invariably go to some lengths to disguise their involvement, in
order to sustain plausible deniability. The ending of the Cold War and the
overthrow of the Eastern European communist one-party regimes and the former
Soviet Union certainly removed in one fell swoop the Warsaw Pact’s substantial
network of sponsorship and support for a whole variety of terrorist groups. But
this does not mean that state sponsorship has ceased to be a factor in the
international scene. Countries such as Iraq, Iran, and Syria, are still heavily
involved [10]. Others, such as Libya appear to have been
attempting to distance themselves from past major involvement in state sponsored
terrorism. The post-Cold War environment has made such sponsorship potentially
far more costly because of the likelihood of strong US sanctions being imposed.
Effectiveness and motivation
How effective has terrorism been as a weapon for attaining political objectives
since 1945? History shows that terrorism has been more effective as an auxiliary
weapon in revolutionary and national liberation struggles. Most of the key
modern theorists and leaders of revolutionary insurgency, such as Mao Tse Tung
and Che Guevara, have recognised the dangers of depending on terrorism and have
come down against giving it a major role in the struggle for revolution. The few
cases where terrorism played a major part in bringing about sweeping political
change arose in a limited number of colonial independence struggles against
foreign rule. Included in this group would be the circumstances surrounding the
end of the Palestinian Mandate after the terrorist campaign of the Irgun
(National Military Organization) and Stern (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel)
and the British decision to withdraw fro the Suez Canal zone base together with
the campaigns which lead to the British to withdraw from Cyprus and Aden, and
the French to withdraw from Algeria. In all these cases special conditions
existed which made terrorism a more potent weapon: (i) due to humanitarian and
judicial restraints the occupying power was unwilling to carry through draconian
measures to wipe out the terrorist organizations; (ii) in each case there were
inter-communal power struggles within the colony which rendered peaceful
diplomatic settlement and withdrawal difficult if not nigh impossible; (iii) the
terrorists who succeeded in these conditions (as in Aden up until 1968) enjoyed
massive if not solid support from their own ethnic groups, and this created an
almost impenetrable barrier for the intelligence branches on which the
government security forces depended on for success, and a vast reservoir of
active and tacit collaboration and support or their terrorist operatives. Even
taking into account the influence of terrorism as an auxiliary tactic in
revolutionary and independence struggles and in the rise of fascism between the
First and Second World Wars, the overall track record of terrorism in attaining
major political objectives is abysmal.
But if this historical assessment is correct we are left with the thorny problem
of explaining why, at the beginning of the new millennium political terrorism
remains such a popular weapon among a wide range of groups around the world.
There are at least four hypothesis that may help to provide an answer to this
question. They are by no means mutually exclusive: (i) some terrorists may be
poor students of history and may continue to believe the they can repeat the
success of groups such as EOKA (National Organization of Cyproit Fighters in
Cyprus and the FLN (National Liberation Front) in Algeria, not realising that
their own situations are not truly colonial in this sense, and therefore not
comparable; (ii) some may fully recognise the severe limitations of terrorism as
a means of attainting strategic goals, but may see sufficient tangible
short-term rewards from terrorism, such as huge publicity, the gaining of
ransoms, securing the release of fellow terrorists from gaol etc., to make it
worth while to use it as an auxiliary weapon; (iii) some may be motivated by the
expressive value of the activity rather than the instrumental/operational
value, and may wish to continue the campaign primarily because it is a relative
quick and easy way to express their hatred of their opponents and the justice of
their cause; and (iv) some may be addicted to the business of terrorist
operations and material gain from extortion and racketeering and may be unable
to kick the habit . Politically motivated terrorism is generally justified by
its perpetrators on one or more of the following grounds: (i) any means are
justified to realise an alleged transcendental end (in Weber’s terms, [11]
‘value rational grounds’; (ii) closely linked to number (i) is the
claim that extreme violence is intrinsically beneficial, regenerative, cathartic
and enabling deed regardless of the other consequences; (iii) terrorism can be
shown to have ‘worked’ in the past, and is held to be either the ‘sole
remaining’ or ‘best available’ method to achieving success (in Weber’s
terms, ‘instrumental rational’ grounds), (iv) the morality of the just
vengeance ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ and (v) the theory of the
‘lesser evil’ which assumes that greater evils will befall us or our nation
if we do not adopt terror against our enemies.
The Significance of 11th September
Prior to 11th September the conventional wisdom was that the use of terrorism
was endemic in low intensity conflict around the world but that it rarely, if
ever, posed a strategic threat to the security of a major powers or the
international community. Some specialists in the study of terrorism did point
out examples of the use of weapon of terror having a strategic impact on
international politics, for example in the hastening the withdrawal of colonial
powers from countries such as Cyprus and Algeria or derailing the peace process
between the Israelis and Palestinians [12]. Others warned of
the dangers of terrorists obtaining and using a weapon of mass destruction, but
these warnings were largely ignored [13].
11th September 2001 changed these conventional attitudes towards terrorism
dramatically and irrevocably. Only a simpleton could fail to recognize that
these attacks had enormous strategic consequences for both the United States and
the international community. At the time of writing we are still too close to
these tragic events to make a proper assessment of their wider impact and
long-term implications. It is possible, however, to identify some of the most
significant consequences:
The scale of the loss of life caused in the World Trade Center attacks,
unprecedented in the history of sub-state terrorism, led the US President,
Government, and the vase majority of US citizens to view them as an act of war
rather than as crimes of terrorism;
President Bush decided to respond by declaring a global war on terrorism, not
only against the perpetrators of the 11th September attacks but also against
other terrorist groups described as having ‘global reach’. This obviously
had huge implications of US foreign and security policy.
When President Bush took office he and his advisors created the impression that
the new administration would be placing its main emphasis on domestic issues,
reducing foreign entanglements, and avoiding new ones. This ‘Fortress
America’ approach has been completely reversed since 11th September. America
has embarked on a policy of global activism and military intervention
unparalleled since the early days of the Cold War, and extending to a new
doctrine of pre-emptive military attack which the Bush Administration seems
determined to implement in order to secure ‘regime change’ in Iraq.
President Bush, with the support of Prime Minister Blair, and other close
allies, has enthusiastically and with a remarkable degree of success, sought to
create an international coalition against terrorism. A remarkable feature of
this coalition is that it includes two major powers traditionally deeply opposed
to US global activism, Russia and China. It is clear that Moscow and Beijing
both view the activities of Bin Laden’s terrorism network, al-Qaeda, which
perpetrated the 11th September attacks, as a grave threat to their own national
security. President Putin’s demonstrated willingness to provide substantial
assistance to the US in the struggle against al- Qaeda, including permission to
overfly and use bases in Russia’s sphere of influence, has led to much closer
relations with the US, leading to Russia becoming a full member of the G8 and
strengthening its trade and financial ties with America.
Perhaps the most remarkable changes in the strategic environment caused by the
11th September attacks were the swift toppling of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan, which had provided al-Qaeda with such a valuable safe haven and
base, and the decision by General Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan, to reverse
his country’s policy of support for the Taliban, a policy which had helped
them to seize control of most of Afghanistan. Moreover, against most
predictions, the interim government in Afghanistan, set in place through the
aegis of the UN, appears to have survived and is beginning the painful process
of rebuilding Afghanistan’s shattered economy.
What is ‘New’ about the al-Qaeda terrorism? And why does it still pose a
serious threat?
It would be foolish to try to assess the impact of the 11th September attacks
and their significance for international relations without taking into account
the responses of the United States, other major states, and the wider world. Yet
it would also be foolish to ignore the ways in which al-Qaeda, the perpetrators,
have changed the nature and severity of the terrorism threat itself.
Al-Qaeda, ‘the Base’, a global terrorist network largely created by Bin
Laden, can justifiably be characterised as the Archetype of the ‘New
Terrorism’ [14]. Unlike the more traditional types of
terrorist groups it is transnational in its fullest sense: it has a
universalistic ideology aimed not only at forcing the US to withdraw its forces
from the Arabian Peninsula and to stop supporting Israel, but also at toppling
the governments of Arab and other Muslim states it accuses of collaborating with
the US and its allies, and its ultimate aim is to establish a pan-Islamic
Caliphate. It is not dependent on any single regime or government for its
survival and financial resources. It has a presence in at least 50 countries.
Its activists are drawn from a wide range of Muslim countries, and some
originate from the Muslim diaspora within Western societies.
Secondly, in addition to its central leadership and coordinating committees on
military, legal, media, and other matters, al-Qaeda has a world wide network,
of operational and preparative cells and affiliated organizations capable of
being activated at any time and carrying out terrorist attacks on their own
initiative. It is because of this that, despite the major setback of losing its
safe haven in Afghanistan, the global network is still capable of continuing the
terrorist campaign. This has been clearly demonstrated by a series of terrorist
attacks, including a number that have been thwarted by the authorities. The use
of overseas support networks and international terrorist attacks are of course
nothing new in the history of terrorism. What is new about the al-Qaeda network
is the scale of its diffusion around the world, and, as demonstrated in the 11th
September attacks, the meticulous long-term planning and terrorist tradecraft
the network has been able to deploy [15].
Last, but not least, there are major differences between the more traditional
terrorist groups and al-Qaeda regarding the nature and scale of the violence
the latter employs. Through its suicide airliner attacks on the World Trade
Center al-Qaeda has been responsible for the most lethal acts of terrorism by a
sub-state group in history. It is no accident that Bin Laden’s network should
have been the first sub-state group to have carried out mass destruction
terrorism. Bin Laden has called upon his followers and ‘dutiful’ Muslims
everywhere to kill as many Americans as possible. Brian Jenkins, one of the
pioneers of modern terrorism studies, once stated ‘terrorists want a lot of
people watching, not a lot of people dead’. Sadly, for groups such as al-Qaeda
and its affiliates this no longer holds. Hence, while such deadly terrorist
cells, aimed and equipped at causing carnage on a massive scale, are still at
large, the threat to the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and other
designated ‘enemies’ of the Bin Laden network remains an ever-present
reality. Moreover, it is important to note that al-Qaeda has carried out,
planned, or attempted terrorist attacks in a wide range of countries, including
Singapore, Pakistan, India, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Italy, France, Kenya,
Tanzania, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. It is also very clear that a terrorist group
like al-Qaeda which sets out to kill as many civilians as possible, would have
no compunction about using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons
if they manage to weaponize the appropriate materials. Hence, the threat of CBRN
terrorism has been brought a step closer by 11th September attacks.
Is ‘traditional’ terrorism in decline? Does it continue to pose a serious
threat?
It should be fairly obvious from the preceding discussion that al-Qaeda and its
affiliates constitute a particularly intractable and dangerous challenge to
governments and the international community. Indeed, the author shares the
widely held view of specialists in terrorism studies that Bin Laden’s network
poses the most serious threat to innocent life in the history of terrorist
groups. But what of the ‘traditional’ groups? Are they being eclipsed by the
new terrorism and forced to retire from the scene? Sadly there is no real
evidence of this. The roots of the ethnic, ideological and religious conflicts
which spawn such terrorism show no signs of withering away, and in the eyes of
practitioners and sympathisers terrorism appears an attractive low-cost, low
risk and potentially high-yield weapon which they are unwilling to forgo.
One positive development is that at least in a few of the cases the terrorism
appears potentially corrigible, because a combination of political initiatives,
diplomacy and peace processes can sometimes even resolve highly intractable
conflicts. For example, against all predictions the Northern Ireland peace
process, though extremely fragile, is still surviving and terrorist killings in
the Province have been dramatically reduced [16].
Another remarkable example where a peace initiative has made a
breakthrough is the Norwegian inspired initiative in Sri Lanka, which has led to
a ceasefire between the Tamil Tigers and the government security forces and to
peace talks, following a conflict which has cost over 64,000 lives.
Unfortunately there are many deep-rooted conflicts, which seem stubbornly
incorrigible, for example between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the
Indians and Pakistanis. In these situations terrorism not only helps polarize
the conflict. In both of these cases terrorist attacks could all too swiftly
escalate into full-scale wider inter-state war with a significant risk that
weapons of mass destruction could be used by the belligerents.
Conclusions
Certain conclusions follow from this brief analysis:
-
Both ‘new’ and ‘traditional’ terrorism
pose a significant strategic threat to nation-states and to international
peace and security generally.
-
Because there are many different kinds of
terrorism with a potentially international reach in the contemporary world
it is a dangerous illusion to believe that they can all be eradicated by
‘the war on terrorism’ or by some simple military or political solution.
-
In view of the risks of terrorism triggering wider
wars or escalating to the level where weapons of mass destruction are
employed, it is vitally important to develop far more effective and
widely-supported conflict resolution and peace-building initiatives as well
as methods of more effectively preventing and combating terrorist violence.
Conflict resolution methods
alone will not eradicate the terrorist violence of incorrigible groups fuelled
on hatred and revenge. But by significantly reducing the underlying causes of
deep-seated conflicts, giving politics and diplomacy a chance to succeed, they
can save thousands of lives.
Paul Wilkinson
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References
[1] Alex P.
Schmid and Albert J. Jongman et al, op cit.,pp. 1-32.
[2] For a
useful collection of these measures, see Robert Friedlander, Terrorism:
Documents of International and Local Control, Dobbs Ferry: Oceana
Publications Inc, 1970-1984
[3] Raymond
Aron, Press and War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966, p.170.
[4] Hannah
Arendt, ‘On Violence’ in Crises of the Republic, Penguin Books, 1973
p.141 FF.
[5] Alison
Jamieson, The Modern Mafia, Conflict Studies, No 224, Research Institute
of the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, London, 1989
[6] Richard
Clutterbuck, Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare, London: Routledge, 1990, pp
89-114.
[7] Walter
Laqueur, Terrorism, London: Weidenfeld and Nichdson, 1977.
[8] Rohan
Gunaratna, Inside Al- Qaeda, London: CSTPV-Hurst Series on Political
Violence, 2002, Chapter 2.
[9] See
Jeffrey Kaplan, ‘Right-Wing Violence in North America’, in Tore Bjorgo
(ed.) Terror from the Extreme Right, London: Frank Cass, 1995.
[10] See Patterns
of Global Terrorism 2001, Washington DC: US Department of State, 2002, pp.
63-68 for a discussion of recent and current evidence of state sponsorship.
[11] See
E. Shils and H.A. Finch (trans. and ed.) Max Weber on the Methodology of the
Social Sciences, Glencoe, IR: Free Press, 1949.
[12] See
for example Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism, Boston: Little, Brown,
1987, and Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and the Liberal State, second
edition, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1986, and the latter’s Terrorism
Versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, London: Frank Cass, 2000.
[13] See
for example, Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and the Liberal State, op cit,
Chapter 13 ‘Potential Threats’
[14] For
an excellent analysis of the ‘New Terrorism’ see Walter Laqueur , The New
Terrorism, London: Phoenix Press, 2001.
[15] See
Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda, op cit. for a discussion of these
features.
[16] For a
discussion of politics and peace processes as possible pathways out of
terrorism, see Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State
Response, op cit, pp 78-93.
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