Terminate Terrorism

Framing, Gaming, and Negotiating Conflicts

Karen A. Feste

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317250708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

This book looks at recent, high-profile anti-American terrorism crises: the Cuban skyjacking epidemic; the Tehran hostage-taking; the Beirut kidnappings; and Al Qaeda suicide bombing. It then explains how they come to an end using a framework of conflict resolution concepts: conflict ripeness and stalemate, turning points, negotiation readiness, and interest-based bargaining combined with shifts in decision-making strategies.

Chapter One
Confronting Terrorism

Anti-American Violence

Terrorism has emerged as the world’s “most salient and worrisome form of combat” and will likely remain so indefinitely, according to Smelser (2007, 3). Nash (1998), in his expansive, narrative encyclopedia of twentieth-century terrorism, predicted this development a decade earlier. Even before the international system transitioned into its post–Cold War power constellation, Clutterbuck (1977, 3) had declared terrorism to be the conflict for our time. A number of analysts view terrorism not as an abnormality, but as part of politics with its own logic and dynamics: a rational strategy used by the weak to air their grievances and confront the strong. It constitutes a form of war—mass violence attacks designed to achieve political goals through the greatest public exposure, drawing attention to their cause (Crenshaw 1990; Pape 2003, 2005; Neumann and Smith 2005, 2008). A twenty-year update of The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (2007, 109) adopts this perspective in describing the reasons why groups employ these combative techniques: “They do not use terrorist and guerrilla tactics because they are cowards afraid of a ‘fair fight’; insurgents use these tactics because they are the best means available to achieve the insurgency’s goals.” Essentially, terrorists seek to bargain with their enemies by committing acts of unconventional violence, for war is a form of bargaining—an interactive process of power moves intended to readjust a party’s position of strength in order to enable domination over its opponent and forge settlement in its favor.

Political terrorism acts—skyjacking, hostage barricade, kidnaps, bombings, shootouts, suicide attacks—are complicated attempts by violent individuals to communicate messages deeply important to them. Terrorists, states Corsi (1981, 49), “are involved in a drastic crossing of majority norms. This crossing implies the judgment that a given cause is sufficiently ‘right’ to justify extreme behavior . . . in which terrorists intend to create a dangerous and emotionally charged situation for themselves and others.” They engage in strategic, not senseless, violence to threaten others through extortion and blackmail and to create a bargaining situation to achieve their goals.

A campaign of terror, while it may appear as random, senseless violence, aims at a specific target for a specific purpose. Terrorist strategy is designed to weaken the other, substantially more powerful, side striking at its vulnerabilities in order to rearrange particular power balancing in a way that gives terrorists some significant, coercive capacity to impel the absolutely stronger (but weakening) party to give in to its demands. If capitulation is beyond the realm of possibility, a more modest goal, namely forcing the opponent into concession-making compromises, takes hold. An overarching purpose of terrorism is to force a power dependency relationship in order to ensure a conflict settlement in line with its perpetrator’s demands. The stronger party, cognizant of the instrumentalism behind terrorists’ acts—aggression designed to anger and engage a sparring reaction from its intended target, hoping its victim will actually overreact to give terrorists a sense of justified victimhood that may widen public support and expand the recruitment of members to their cause—tries to prevent any political pressure of this nature. For this reason, response to early attacks may be met with quiet but intense resistance approaches (clandestine operations away from the public eye) to apprehend perpetrators and put them in custody, or even a conflict avoidance approach, choosing not to react by open confrontation, but to seek ways to halt operations through intelligence and surveillance methods, a deliberate policy reaction by the target to ignore terrorists’ probes. If terrorists are persistent—filled with resolve, gaining confidence, and backed by growing political support achieved by a series of successful attacks designed to intimidate its target—the targeted opponent is likely to assume a defensive pose, erecting barriers to prevent further attacks, and installing deterrence mechanisms to reduce violence and enhance security. When defensive measures are deemed inadequate to meet the challenge, the government may take on an offensive posture, seeking actively to destroy the terrorist threat (through various forms of punishment, ranging from sanctions to direct military attack). At that point, the conflict transforms into a terrorism versus counterterrorism bargaining situation. Each side fights to achieve its desired objectives.

An act of political terrorism—violence designed exclusively to cause physical harm to unsuspecting persons and/or to destroy property, often of symbolic value in a society, carried out by individuals or small cadres as a mechanism for expressing grievances against the policies or actions of a government—involves a complicated communication and bargaining strategy by the perpetrators. Terrorism is intended to generate massive fear among citizens of a state. The fear is supposed to threaten the public and rattle their political awakening. Terrorism is also intended to threaten a government by creating blackmail-like pressure on decision makers to change their policies. Its purpose is securing government attention through coercive power techniques as a way to enter political discourse and affect policy choices. Attention-grabbing violence is a strategy for building awareness and reducing the perceived omniscient power of some despised political authority. As a security threat, it is the opposite of the nuclear one: little nuisance shots instead of a big bang. These acts are meant to affect a large audience in a given population, in essence, revealing the “theatrical” nature of terrorism. The Hollywood effect and the importance of the media in this communication process cannot be overemphasized. Individuals or groups that engage in such violent acts make a judgment that a given cause is sufficient to justify extreme behavior, including the willingness of perpetrators to be placed in physical jeopardy, creating a dangerous, emotionally charged situation for themselves and others.

Solving the problem of global terrorism is a complex policy issue that requires a variety of initiatives to bring it under control. Among these are the following: strategies of resistance—the defensive and offensive tactics that set up barriers against vulnerabilities (enacting antiterrorism laws and arresting perpetrators, engaging in combat against terrorist forces, or passively reacting by trying to avoid conflict engagement); strategies of reform—policies addressing root causes presumed to precipitate and explain violence such as poverty, a stagnant economy, and corrupt political rule (promoting foreign aid packages for economic growth and democracy training programs in countries at risk); and strategies of revitalization—international law and global security initiatives (creating multilateral treaties designed to curb terrorism, structuring international communication-information exchange mechanisms, and building strong counterterrorism alliances).

The U.S. Global War on Terror was designed to incorporate these features. “The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism” (September 2006), updated from the original February 2003 statement, outlines a program to prevent attacks by terrorist networks, deny weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, advance democracy as an antidote to terrorism ideology, and create structures to help ensure long-term success. But the policy (modified by the Obama administration) continues to face serious challenges: terrorism remains a central security problem that demands attention— siphoning significant levels of financial resources and technical talent—amid an atmosphere of public fear and political uncertainty. Neither the war in Afghanistan nor the war in Iraq has stopped terrorist violence, slowed the development of terrorist recruitment, or seriously dented the popular appeal of al Qaeda’s ideological message. Attacks outside the American homeland directed against U.S. (or, more generally, Western) interests continue. Political violence in countries where regimes have close ties with the United States—Egypt, Pakistan, and the Philippines—has been commonplace.

Directed strategies of resistance—fighting against terrorist groups to defeat them— rarely achieve intended objectives, according to a major research study by Pape (2005), whose comprehensive work on worldwide suicide bomber campaigns between 1980–2003 shows that targeted governments tend to concede to terrorists’ demands. Groups find it advantageous to use terrorism tactics because they succeed in bringing about political objectives, most often the goal is forcing an outsider to withdraw from territory it had claimed and ruled, often for generations. Such violence has also produced favorable results for terrorists in another way: Palestinians got a voice and a place at the settlement table only after engaging in a spate of terrorist activities against Israelis, who always choose to respond combatively in the manner of violent resistance. In this case, terrorist violence led to negotiations between the disputing parties; a powerful military response by the target failed to stop the drive toward this end.

Alternative strategies of resistance—setting up barriers to protect targets from attacks—fare better at one level, stopping or slowing terrorist attacks originating from special, identifiable sites, but produce other unexpected, negative consequences. Installation of metal detectors in airports and embassy fortifications, have not halted violence but merely moved it elsewhere where targets are more vulnerable, according to Sandler and Enders (2007). The introduction of metal screening of air travelers in the United States in January 1973 had an immediate, enduring effect of decreasing the number of U.S. hijack incidents, but this innovative technology intervention was also associated with an increase in hostage-taking incidents as terrorists reacted to barriers by switching their mode of attack to softer targets. Attacks against protected persons (diplomats accorded immunity by international law) fell as screening mechanisms were placed in embassies (after their introduction in airports), but more assassinations and attacks against embassy officials occurred in nonsecure venues.

Another resistance strategy, the passive approach of conflict avoidance—seeking to stop violence by ignoring the opportunity to engage perpetrators in combat, hoping the nuisance will go away—has also led to a dead end. The policy seemed to be in effect during the Clinton administration throughout the 1990s. During this period, violence was not halted; it escalated. President Clinton, in speeches and talks with journalists that followed various incidents, was careful neither to accuse particular political groups nor to incite public opinion about the growing terrorism problem. For example, at a press conference the day after the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 (six people dead and nearly one thousand injured), he was asked whether this was a terrorist incident, and he replied, “I’m not in a position to say that now. . . . I cannot answer your question yet.” A few days later, when queried once more about the event, he said, “I don’t want the American people to overreact to this at this time.” In March 1993, prompted again about terrorism after arrests were made, Clinton said, “I don’t think that you should assume anything until you hear the statement today . . . [we’re] trying to get as much information together as possible to give you later. . . . ” And, in an exchange with reporters, he said, “I think it is very important not to rush to judgment here, not to reach ahead of the facts.” In April and June 1993, his response was consistent, and similarly evasive. Clinton’s remarks after the Oklahoma bombing on April 19, 1995, adopted exactly the same line in remarks to reporters. Following the attack against Americans in Saudi Arabia in November 1995, an event that killed five and injured sixty people, the familiar script was repeated. His approach changed a little after the June 1996 Saudi Arabian attack against U.S. soldiers in Khobar Towers that killed nineteen and wounded five hundred, when he remarked, after stating “let’s wait until we see what the facts are,” that the United States needed to figure out how to enhance prevention and what could be done to detect explosives. Still, there was no hint of retaliation or conflict engagement.

After the August 1998 attacks on two American embassies in Africa, in Kenya and Tanzania, resulting in more than two hundred deaths with more than five thousand people injured, most of them non-U.S. citizens (a total of twelve Americans lost their life in these acts of violence), Clinton adopted a more militant tone, emphasizing terrorist pursuit and bringing the perpetrators to justice for their crimes. He ordered retaliation strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan aimed at facilities held by al Qaeda, which was identified as source of the attacks. But the retaliation policy was short lived. Fourteen months later, on October 12, 2000, the USS Cole, an American navy destroyer docked in a Yemen port, was hit in a terrorist explosion (killing seventeen sailors and wounding thirty-nine). Despite verbally expressed outrage over the incident, Clinton ordered no military response or other punitive actions. The president was a lame duck by this time; after eight years in office and the early November election that resulted in leadership turnover from Democratic to Republican Party control, Clinton may have been reluctant to embark on a conflict adventure that would influence policies of the incoming administration in the mid-January 2001 turnover. Once the new Bush administration assumed power, there was no further reaction to the terrorist event. A conflict avoidance strategy followed by the United States throughout the decade of the 1990s failed to achieve desired ends: the terrorism problem did not disappear.

Attacking terrorism under the rubric of strategies of reform by paying attention to its root causes—based on the ever-popular frustration-aggression thesis that terrorists act out of their own miserable circumstances in less-developed societies—has not been productive either. President George W. Bush’s plan, announced in 2002 at the UN International Conference on Financing for Development, to channel billions of dollars in aid to countries committed to ruling justly, investing in their people, and encouraging economic freedom, was based on research by Burnside and Dollar (2000) who concluded that foreign aid promoted economic growth so long as the recipient government had solid fiscal, monetary, and trade policies in place. Easterly, Levine, and Roodman (2004) challenged this finding in their research, showing that aid may not promote growth in good policy environments. Further, U.S. foreign aid patterns actually confounded evaluation of the policy. Massive financial support packages to Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey, for example, are designed to support the global war on terrorism, not necessarily to contribute to the domestic economic development within these states, putting a different emphasis on how funding is distributed. In addition, some of the largest U.S. recipients of foreign aid—Egypt, Pakistan, and the Philippines—have been frequent sites of terrorist activity. American largess has failed to tackle terrorism’s roots. Political tensions run high, suggesting the reform strategy notion, at least in current manifestation, is not effective. Piazza (2006), analyzing various types of terrorism events across countries over the 1986– 2002 period, concluded that social and economic poverty are not causal agents of unconventional violence; terrorists may be angry and discontent, but their state of mind stems from a particular desire for political power and control, not just a comfortable life.

Finally, with respect to revitalized global security initiatives, international laws against terrorism and collective engagement in combating it directly have not produced the expected results. Analyzing historical data from 1968 through 1988 on the relationship between terrorism incidents and UN resolutions and conventions against skyjacking, hostage-taking, and diplomatic immunity violations, Enders, Sandler, and Cauley (1990) discovered that none of the international conventions, UN Security Council or General Assembly Resolutions, had a significant impact (in either the short run or the long run) in reducing terrorism. They explain this puzzling outcome by suggesting that collective action may on occasion carry burdening private costs for individual state signatories who, consequently, may choose not to abide by the stated provisions. The United Nations Security Council counterterrorism resolutions against Libya, Sudan, and Afghanistan in the 1990s helped apply pressure on regimes that lent support for terrorist operations, though, as Cortright and Lopez (2007, 9) state, their role in mobilizing world public opinion against state-sponsored terrorism was not significant.

Since September 2001, the Security Council’s mandated global campaign by all UN members to deny financing, travel, or other assistance to terrorists or those supporting them, has led to considerable expansion of UN committees and professional staffing devoted to fighting terrorism. But inefficiencies and contradictions of UN counterterrorism efforts have reduced their measure of effectiveness, conclude Cortright and Lopez (2007, 10–11), who admit as well that a global counterterrorism strategy will be a difficult, long-term process for “preventive strategies pose enormous challenges for multilateral organizations.” Drawing a sharper conclusion, Sandler and Enders (2007, 294), updating their original twenty-year (1968–1988) study to include data of terrorist acts and UN countermeasures through 2005, found that international conventions and resolutions to outlaw attacks against diplomats, hostage taking, and bombings had no impact.

In sum, policies designed to curb terrorism through strategies of resistance, strategies of reform, or strategies of revitalized international cooperation have not been able to achieve the primary objective to reduce the international threats of terrorism to the United States and its Western allies.

Are there other ways to resolve the problem? Miller (2007) examined thirty-four terrorist organizations across the ideological spectrum (national-separatist, left-wing, right-wing, and religious-motivated groups), and compared five policy options for governments dealing with them: do nothing (conflict avoidance), make conciliatory moves (including negotiati...