Two fascinating articles on terrorism that I happened upon today.
The Economist tackles the question of means to defeat terrorism head on in an excellent column.
Taking on terrorists: Is military force the best means to defeat terrorist groups?
This is why I love the Economist. Because the open, honest, empirical debate is more important than presuming the conclusions.
"Many studies have asked how terrorist groups are born; relatively few have described how such groups are best put out of business. A recent effort to do the latter, by RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, is therefore welcome. It considers the fate of some 650 groups (defined widely), between 1968 and 2006, asking in particular what put an end to them. In the process it casts some useful light on a hoary old question of counterterrorism: whether military force or smart policing is the more effective method for tackling terrorists and insurgents.
Proponents of military force have quite a bit to cheer at the moment. Most notably there is the success of the military surge in Iraq in tackling al-Qaeda and other insurgents (other changes, such as a shift in allegiance of Sunnis, have helped too). In Sri Lanka, in January, President Mahinda Rajapakse formally scrapped a cease-fire agreement that had been signed in 2002 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The campaign against the separatists has been growing more intense, with the government forces claiming that the Tigers will be defeated next year. On Friday August 15th Sri Lankan soldiers said that they had killed 26 rebels in fighting in the far north of the island.
Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, has similarly pursued the military option against the FARC, managing to kill thousands of the group's members, including several leaders. In March Colombian forces (with American training and a heavy dose of intelligence work) bombed a jungle camp in Ecuador, killing Raul Reyes, an important figure in the movement, and recovering computers containing valuable information. Then in July Colombian forces freed Ingrid Betancourt, a former candidate for president, and 14 others who had been held hostage by the FARC for several years. Mr Uribe had resisted calls for negotiations to secure their release.
According to RAND, some 20% of the insurgencies it considered have been ended through the use of overwhelming military might. But such force seems to tell only in particular situations. Where opponents are large, organised like armies and occupy territory, military methods are likely to be more effective. Insurgencies, however, are a specific set of conflicts, comparable to civil wars where hundreds or more have died on both sides involved.
When it comes to terrorist groups more broadly, military might is less useful. As the RAND study points out, the vast majority of terrorist groups have fewer than 100 members. It considered groups ranging from the tiny, such as the Oklahoma City bombers, to the massive, such as Aum Shinrikyo, the movement responsible for a nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subway in 1995. For isolated cells and other groups, conventional military weapons are unwieldy and often ineffective. The think-tank says that military action put an end to only 7% of the terrorist groups that it looked at.
RAND concludes that police sleuthing and more intelligence work are often more useful methods when tackling smaller groups and organisations—perhaps including al-Qaeda—that operate in the shadows. Of the 268 terrorist organisations that folded, the most common reason was a change of method in favour of a political process. This happened in 43% of cases and was mainly possible where groups had specific goals that might be accommodated. A similar number of groups—some 40%—were dismantled with the help of police and intelligence work.
The think-tank, which regularly conducts research for the Defence Department, therefore suggests that the current American strategy against terrorism is flawed. The report’s authors urge a 'fundamental rethinking' of policies against al-Qaeda, arguing that America's campaign should no longer be waged as a 'war on terror' but instead conducted as a 'counter-terrorism' mission. The authors say that 'there is no battlefield solution to terrorism', saying intelligence and policing should get more attention."
Jarkata-based journalist Anies Baswedan makes a case for his claim that terrorism is interest-based, primarily, and religious, cultural, and ideological, secondarily, in his interview with the World Press Review.
Clash of Civilizations or Calculation of Interests: An Interview with Anies Baswedan
"What exactly do you mean by 'a calculation of interests' in Muslim-Western conflicts?
The choice to engage in violence or peace isn't the projection of any ideological, cultural, or religious factors, but instead, a strategic calculation, or a calculation of interests. A group opts to use violent approaches or peaceful methods depending on each approach's incentives or disincentives. Who is considered the enemy and what confrontational method will be used is often determined more by a calculation of interests than of ideology, religion, or culture.
For example, let's consider relations between what we commonly refer to as the Afghan mujahideen and the United States. These various Afghan opposition groups were allies of the United States while fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's. At that time the United States considered them freedom fighters or heroes. Now, however, some of these same groups are fighting against the United States, the new occupying force, and are therefore indiscriminately called terrorists.
It is the perspective of each party, how it sees its challenges, interests, and positions, that influences whether it becomes allies or enemies with the other.
Does this mean the clash of civilizations is nonsense?
I think it's a forced terminology. What really happens is a polarization, and it has occurred in many forms throughout the history of mankind. There are polarizations in culture, ideology, race, and religion. Polarization has become an innate part of life itself.
Samuel P. Huntington's clash of civilizations is too forced—as if there is a specific religious/cultural conflict between the Muslim world and the West. There isn't. Throughout history, conflicts pitted as clashes between civilizations weren't solely about religion. For example, the Crusaders also had interests in land and politics.
What about ideological or religious motives behind Muslim-Western conflicts? Do you deny such motives?
I don't deny them. Ideological or religious motives, of course, exist. However, they only occur at the micro, or individual level. Religion or ideology is just a tool that is hijacked to recruit and motivate people and to create solidarity with the perpetrators to whom it gives an air of legitimacy. These conflicts are presented as ideological or religious campaigns in order to inspire followers, legitimate the war as a 'just war,' and attract allies, etc.
That is why we need to use rational strategic analysis to enable us to acknowledge potentially violent conflict that is about to arise, so we can find a way to prevent it. But if we only employ a cultural framework (an approach that sees the psycho-religious-cultural variables influentially shaping the actions of a person or a group), we would walk in circles, without ever learning how to solve the conflict.
Don't you think that hijacking ideology, culture, or religion for such strategic interests shows that they could be lethal weapons?
Exactly. Ideology, culture, and religion are all excellent weapons for creating solidarity because of their transcendental and messianic values. But as weapons, they are used for external interests, not for themselves. When the external interests are achieved, they might be used for other strategic interests, which, in the case of geopolitical change, could turn allies into enemies.
What do you think about the future of Muslim-Western relations?
Today, the situation is fascinating. Islam grows and exists in prominent civilizational centers, such as in the capital cities of America and Europe. As a minority, Muslims there have to express their religious nature and negotiate Muslim values through the language and structures of the host country, becoming part of its civilizational treasure. The same thing is also experienced by Westerners that live in the Muslim world. It is in the hands of these ambassadors that the future of Muslim-Western relations lies, for they are in the privileged position of being fully a part of both Muslim and western societies."
Different forms of terrorism are going to be motivated differently, but I think terrorism is likely based upon interests that are often viewed through religious, cultural, and ideological lenses, depending on the group, which are often rationalized versions of all kinds of irrational passions, fear, hatred, and envy, primarily, of terrorist groups with other political and cultural groups they believe threaten their interests, viewed through such lenses, especially those with overwhelming power, dominance, or hegemony in affairs that affect their interests.
Meaning, terrorism may very well be a calculation of interests. I think, at some level, it is. But I don't think that a calculation of interests should be confused with a primarily rational calculation of interests. All calculations have some relative degree of rationality associated with them. But most terrorist impulses have heavy doses of irrational calculation associated with them. Hence both the uglier impulses - murder and mayhem - and the general failure of such tactics to accomplish their ends - the reliable accomplishment of political goals they claim. While terrorist groups will frequently claim victory, generally it is the efforts of peacemakers that ever actually accomplish any of the ends remotely associated with the goals of terrorist groups, if and when those goals are ever accomplished. The peace agreement in Northern Ireland and independence for Ireland and autonomy for Northern Ireland are often cited (often by those sympathetic with terrorist groups' ends) as evidence of success of those terrorist movements. The irony, of course, being that not only did political negotiations, not violence, lead to anything approaching the political goals of terrorist groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland, but the roads of violence were generally long roads with no tangible benefits gained until peaceful negotations took place.
The most notorious calculation of interests of terrorist groups and any person or group with power, hence, is to never admit defeat, even when various uses and abuses of power clearly lead to counterproductive results.
That is but one of the many reasons that Lord Acton accurately concluded that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. After a time, power becomes an end in itself even when it abrogates important and even not-so-important freedoms and even when it fails, often for very long periods of time and history, to accomplish its goals.
The long term consequence of such behavior is to undermine the credibility and the ends of the various political actors, terrorists being the most notoriously irrational of such actors.
Thus, terrorism becomes a irrational and flawed calculation of power to advance interests, generally, with such calculation being heavily shaped by religious, cultural, and ideological outlooks which rationalize the irrational, mistaken, and often very ugly passions and outlooks which animate its use.
Such irrational and flawed calcuations of the use of power are not isolated to terrorists. They are, in fact, common in liberal democratic governments and societies, as well as in illiberal and undemocratic governments and societies. Terrorism represents one of the more extreme, murderous, and uglier versions of such irrational calculations. But irrational and ugly rationalization and calculations for power are all too common in liberal democratic socieities, is the truth. That does not equivocate terrorism with the legtimacy of liberal democratic governments. Liberal democracy which better supports the freedom and self-governance of liberal democratic citizens is the most legitimate form of government in the history of humanity, that I am aware of. What that observation does acknowledge is that irrational calculations for power to advance interests - the central motivating force for terrorism - are common even in countries and cultures which better value freedom and democracy. Deepseating fears about freedom and its by far stronger empirical consequences for cultures and individuals tragically motivate large swaths of people in liberal democratic cultures as much as the murderous efforts of terrorist groups. Doing so ignores and undermines the without question better consequences of liberal democratic values - freedom and self-governance - and societies.
But, like terrorism, it does so to rationalize the irrational and ugly impulses of liberal democratic as well as illiberal or less liberal and undemocratic or less democratic citizens and all of those who believe power can accomplish more than it can.
Wiser and more reasoned minds and hearts have always and will always embrace liberty and eschew power, as much as possible, as a function of the consequences of the use of aggression and power as much as the moral or ethical legitimacy of liberal democratic values and governance.
And terrorism is but one of the many irrational, tragic, and ugly rationalizations of power for ends that it almost never accomplishes.
Our goal must be to end this rationalization, in liberal and democratic socieites as much as in illiberal and undemocratic circles, including terrorist circles, and to embrace freedom and self-governance and the stronger personal and governing values that they represent.
It is only with such respect for freedom and self-determination in our own governance, as well as active tactical efforts to coordinate political, military, and law enforcement efforts to combat terrorist groups and bring them to justice, when possible, and kill them, if necessary, and to enlarge the sphere of free, open, engaged, and non-violent political, religious, and citizen activity that terrorism will ever finally be ended.
Terrorism is an irrational, ugly, but real response to the failure of liberal democracies to take seriously and honestly enough the liberal democratic values that underpin them. The ugly rationalizations of power at the expense of freedom and self-government in liberal democracies fuel the rationalizations of power, murder, and repression of repressive groups and governments, including terrorist groups, and will continue to do so until liberal democracies begin to take seriously freedom and not power as the legitimate basis for their security and governance.
Greater real security generally follows greater freedom, as an empirical matter as much as for any intrinsic reasons to favor liberty of its own accord.
The challenge for liberal democratic societies, today, is to embrace those values and let go and transcend the fears and rationalizations of power that animate illiberal and undemocratic impulses and fuel the rationalizations for repressive governments and groups, including terrorist groups.
To the extent that we do, we will successfully end terrorist activity. To the extent that we do not, repression, terrorism being only one version of that impulse, will continue to haunt us.
It is good to know that some people take the thinking about this problem seriously.
