US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda

Signalling and the Terrorist World-View

Joshua A. Geltzer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135197414
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'armée et de la marine

This book examines the communicative aspects and implications of US counter-terrorist policies towards al-Qaeda.

Recent US counter-terrorist strategy has been largely based upon projecting certain perceptions of America as an actor to those drawn to al-Qaeda, and this book investigates in what ways, and to what extent, US officials believed that the signals sent by what America did and said could influence the behaviour of the terrorist and would-be terrorist. The study then draws on a growing understanding of that audience to analyse how those drawn to al-Qaeda were and, indeed, still are likely to be influenced by the perceptions of America that Washington's policies generated. The study's central argument is that, given al-Qaeda's unconventional strategy and the particularities of the world-view characterising those drawn to the group, America's counter-terrorist signalling proved largely counter-productive to America's objective of undermining al-Qaeda's strategic narrative, instead serving in many ways to validate it.

Firstly, this book seeks to reveal the significant and largely unexplored role that signalling has played in US counter-terrorist policy towards al-Qaeda. Second, it tries to capture the objectives, strategy, tactics, ideology, and other defining features of the world-view characterising those drawn to al-Qaeda. Third, it strives to combine those two lines of inquiry by applying the al-Qaeda world-view to a critical analysis of the signals sent by US policies. Finally, the book aims to offer broad policy implications that demonstrate how an informed understanding of the world-view of those drawn to al-Qaeda can be employed to revise and refine American counter-terrorist signalling.

This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy and public diplomacy, counter-terrorism, strategy and international security.

Joshua Alexander Geltzer has a PhD in War Studies from Kings College London, and is currently a juris doctoral student at Yale Law School.

1
Introduction

Al-Qaeda as audience

On 4 November 2002, many of America’s top counter-terrorist officials sat clustered at the Counterterrorist Center in Washington, DC, peering at a grainy image on a wide screen. They watched a jeep rumble along an empty highway, steering through a desolate part of the Yemeni desert. A moment later, the jeep erupted in flames, struck by a Hellfire missile launched from a Predator drone. In an instant, the six passengers became charred corpses scattered along the road. All six were suspected al-Qaeda operatives, and one was Qaed al-Harethi, believed to have masterminded al-Qaeda’s October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

President George W.Bush had reason to be pleased. Not only had the American missile eliminated six suspected terrorists, but intelligence reports indicated that the attack had ‘created shock for al Qaeda…and awe among leaders of key Arab nations’.¹ The President’s rejoicing is instructive: ‘We’re talking to them in a way they can understand,’ Bush remarked, apparently repeating the line often.²

Evidently, in Bush’s eyes, the Hellfire missile had done more than just obliterate its terrorist targets; it also had sent a signal or a message of some kind. But to whom—and what had it said? To whom did Bush believe that America was talking—and what was that way they can understand?

Al-Qaeda as audience

The Bush administration’s counter-terrorist policies aimed at al-Qaeda —which included primarily actions but also, to some degree, rhetoric—were explained and justified on many grounds by the officials responsible for crafting them. Actions clearly have intended practical effects, and rhetoric is often mere ‘cheap talk’.³ Moreover, both actions and rhetoric are received by, and often intended for, multiple audiences.⁴ Yet, one aspect of American counter-terrorist actions is their communicative content: their role in cultivating or perpetuating certain perceptions of America by conveying signals or messages.⁵ Similarly, one audience set for American counter-terrorist actions and rhetoric consists of the terrorist and would-be terrorist, who are known to be out there watching and listening carefully—and who, therefore, might well be affected by what American leaders say, even if their rhetoric is crafted partly with other audiences in mind, and by what American leaders do, even if signalling is but one aspect underlying their actions.⁶

This book examines the communicative aspects and implications of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorist policies towards al-Qaeda. It investigates in what ways, and to what extent, American officials believed that the signals sent by what the United States did and said could influence the behaviour of the terrorist and would-be terrorist. The book then draws on a growing understanding of that audience to analyse whether and how those drawn to al-Qaeda were and, indeed, still are likely to be influenced by the perceptions of America that the Bush administration’s policies generated. The book’s central argument is that the Bush administration’s counter-terrorist signals were generally counter-productive to Washington’s goal of undermining al-Qaeda’s strategic narrative, instead serving largely to validate it.

The decisions to engage in terrorism, to remain involved with terrorism, and to disengage from terrorism are complicated choices made for many reasons, including social, cultural, emotional, religious, psychological, political and strategic ones.⁷ Strategic communication, often narrowly equated with public diplomacy, is generally directed at a broad audience in the hope of minimising or eliminating the grievances that contribute to the social, emotional and political sources of terrorism.⁸ But that is not this book’s primary focus. Here the emphasis is on the strategic roots of terrorist decision-making and behaviour. While much has been made of the so-called root causes of terrorism, scholarship increasingly has viewed terrorism, at least in significant part and for significant actors, as a strategic choice—especially in the case of al-Qaeda, whose members appear less influenced by the social dynamic that characterises many Palestinian terrorists and more influenced by a deliberate decision to undertake a strategic terrorist campaign.⁹ More broadly, ‘[r]ather than viewing Islamists as grievance-stricken reactionaries, recent research has reconceptualized Islamic activists as strategic thinkers engaged in cost–benefit calculations’.¹⁰

Counter-terrorism today, both as an area of policy-making and as a field of study, reveals increasing concern with countering al-Qaeda’s narrative, which is seen as better presented and, at least in much of the Muslim world, more credible and popular than the one being promoted by America. Al-Qaeda’s narrative has many components, including, perhaps most prominently, a set of political, social and religious grievances, as mentioned above. One crucial component of that narrative which has received relatively little attention is al-Qaeda’s presentation of a detailed and allegedly viable strategy. It is not enough for al-Qaeda to demonise America; for its credibility, the group must offer a strategy against America that can convince those sympathetic to al-Qaeda’s stated grievances that the group’s strategy of terrorism is an effective way to work towards the amelioration of those grievances. While engaging in terrorism is partly a social and emotional decision, it is, at least for crucial members of al-Qaeda’s ranks, a strategic one as well.

A central element of any counter-strategy, be it counter-terrorism or a more traditional, symmetric form, is the convincing portrayal of the strategy being opposed as ineffective or futile. The same is true of America’s counter-terrorist strategy towards al-Qaeda. As the influential Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser David Kilcullen argues, ‘a strategy-based approach focused on defeating insurgents’ strategy’ is crucial to the campaign against al-Qaeda, which he sees as consisting mostly of a global insurgency.¹¹ Similarly, Lawrence Freedman writes, with regard to terrorist attacks, that ‘demonstrating their futility is an essential part of a counter-terrorist strategy’.¹² As will be set out in far greater detail in a later chapter, the overarching impetus driving the communicative aspects of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorist policies was the intention to reveal al-Qaeda’s strategy and the campaign based on that strategy as doomed to fail. After exploring those aspects of American policies and their underlying assumptions, this book goes on to argue that, in fact, many of the communicative aspects of American counter-terrorist policies, at least in the perception of the terrorist and would-be terrorist, actually vindicated al-Qaeda’s stated strategy, thus proving counter-productive to America’s efforts. Indeed, in some instances, even policies that were effective in the short term as practical measures were counter-productive in their more enduring communicative implications.

In the language and actions that constituted the Bush administration’s counter-terrorist policies towards al-Qaeda —from presidential press conferences to the release of national security strategies to the wars undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq—there were ‘operating assumptions’ at work as to how those words and deeds would be interpreted by, and would in turn influence, those drawn to al-Qaeda, of whose presence as an audience America seemed—or, at least, should have seemed—highly conscious.¹³ Communicators, implicitly or explicitly, ‘need some conception of their audience’ from the outset: ‘[S]ignallers’ behaviours are based on their estimates of how perceivers will interpret their messages.’¹⁴ In this case, those perceivers were the terrorists and would-be terrorists broadly labelled here as ‘al-Qaeda as audience’, of whom the Bush administration had a conception at times conscious and at times unconscious. This understanding is not meant to suggest that terrorists and would-be terrorists constituted the only intended audience for American policy-makers, or even the dominant one—but they certainly constituted a crucial audience, as will be shown.

Too little effort has gone into elucidating and analysing America’s ‘unexamined assumptions’ about how its counter-terrorist language and actions will be interpreted by and will influence its audience—in other words, ‘the problem of anticipating and envisaging an audience, from the perspective of the communicator’.¹⁵ This book investigates and evaluates the Bush administration’s underlying assumptions about the understanding of, and responses to, American policies on the part of those drawn to al-Qaeda. It offers theoretical grounding before turning to America’s counter-terrorist actions and rhetoric. The book explores the Bush administration’s background assumptions for acting and speaking as it did, investigating what conception of al-Qaeda as audience might make sense of those assumptions. What is meant here by a conception of an audience is both the way in which utterances and actions are understood by that audience (e.g. if I say or otherwise signal for you to ‘Stop that’, do you actually understand that I mean for you to desist?) and the effect that such language and deeds will have on that audience (will saying or signalling ‘Stop that’ actually lead you to desist, even if you understand precisely that I hope for you to desist?). Prying apart those two elements can be exceedingly difficult, even for the audience involved, but certainly for an observer studying that audience; but to ascertain why I think that saying ‘Stop that’ will influence you in certain ways, based on a mix of how you understand it and how you will be affected by it, is a vital and manageable question, and the one to be tackled here as America’s counter-terrorist communication is ‘“read” through the perceptions of its audience’.¹⁶

After these American assumptions are laid bare, the book provides an understanding of al-Qaeda’s objectives, strategy, tactics and world-view, then draws on that understanding to evaluate the accuracy of America’s background assumptions. Finally, the book’s conclusion explores possible sources of the Bush administration’s misconception of al-Qaeda as audience and offers policy implications for how America might more profitably speak and act with regard to those drawn to al-Qaeda so as to undermine, rather than validate, the crucial strategic component of al-Qaeda’s narrative. The conclusion then identifies four overarching conceptual conclusions and discusses the extent to which the American government might, in fact, be able to adopt a more effective approach to counter-terrorist signalling.

In covering that ground, this book makes one central argument. It asserts that, given al-Qaeda’s unconventional strategy and the particularities of the world-view characterising those drawn to the group, the Bush administration’s counter-terrorist signalling proved largely counter-productive to America’s objective of undermining al-Qaeda’s strategic narrative, instead serving in many ways to validate it.

Structure of the book

The rest of this introduction lays out the methods and sources employed in this book. The next chapter tackles the book’s conceptual framework, discussing some clarifications and potential objections before exploring in detail the notions of America as communicator and al-Qaeda as audience, and then turning to the communicator–audience relationship as well as to the relevant channels of communication. Both communicator and audience are shown to be collective entities, broad yet distinct in nature, of the type with which mass communication theory is accustomed to coping. The chapter then proceeds to distinguish between the nature of words and of deeds as forms of communication. The two-sided nature of communication, as understood in political psychology as well as in communication theory, is established, and the audience-driven character of argumentation is explored. The nature of a strategic argument, in particular, is shown to have significant bearing on conceptualising American counter-terrorist signalling.

Chapter 3 elucidates the dominant themes of the communicative content of American counter-terrorist policies and suggests why the Bush administration deemed such signals effective or useful. The chapter begins by summarising relevant American counter-terrorist policies, then establishes that Washington did, in fact, view its counter-terrorist actions as significantly communicative and its counter-terrorist rhetoric as directed, at least in part, towards the terrorist and would-be terrorist. The persistent uncertainty regarding that audience is revealed, and the lessons learned by the Bush administration from the Clinton administration’s experiences with al-Qaeda are discussed. The chapter then articulates and presents the Bush administration’s basic framework for counter-terrorist signalling, which involved demonstrating the futility of al-Qaeda’s campaign and strategy through ten elements: taking action, signalling a change, using force, demonstrating capability, showing resolve, exhibiting relentlessness, intimidating state sponsors, promoting democracy, visibly hardening defences and showing success.

Chapter 4 then swings the book’s focus from an explication of the communicator to an analysis of the audience, by setting forth what is labelled as the al-Qaeda world-view. The chapter delineates among al-Qaeda’s military/political, economic and ideational strategies, showing how each is intended to contribute to securing al-Qaeda’s objectives of expelling American forces from the Arabian Peninsula, overthrowing current regimes in the Middle East, reviving the Islamic caliphate and altering America’s relations with Muslims worldwide. The chapter proceeds to examine al-Qaeda’s tactics, ideology, view of history, view of the enemy and current assessment of the group’s campaign, before concluding by indicating gaps in current knowledge and understanding of the group and those drawn to it.

Informed by that analysis, Chapter 5 examines the policies and assumptions explored in Chapter 3 from the perspective of those drawn to al-Qaeda. America’s counter-terrorist signals are shown to have ranged from the wasted to the downright counter-productive, with many serving to validate, rather than undermine, al-Qaeda’s strategic narrative. The chapter begins by demonstrating that the Bush administration learned lessons from the Clinton administration’s experiences with al-Qaeda that do not, in fact, cohere with a proper understanding of those drawn to the group. The ten elements of the Bush administration’s approach to counter-terrorist signalling are discussed in turn. Rather than being deterred by America’s demonstrably active pursuit of counter-terrorism, those drawn to al-Qaeda found confirmation of the group’s strategy of provocation. Instead of seeing the USA as fundamentally changed, those drawn to al-Qaeda saw success in goading America into assuming greater prominence in the Muslim world. America’s demonstrations of force were viewed by those sympathetic to al-Qaeda as evidence of America’s indifference to Muslim civilian casualties. Washington’s attempts to exhibit capability fell short for an audience looking to an asymmetric strategy and inspired by religious faith. Rather than being impressed by America’s attempts to show resolve, those drawn to al-Qaeda found evidence of the group’s success in luring American forces into vulnerable deployments abroad. America’s efforts to convey relentlessness actually provided al-Qaeda with the publicity that the group seeks. As the USA strove to intimidate alleged state sponsors of terrorism, those drawn to al-Qaeda instead interpreted American policies as an assault on Islam. Rather than advancing the cause of democracy promotion, America’s overt efforts in that regard undermined local reformers and tainted their cause. Instead of discouraging those drawn to al-Qaeda through the construction of a visible, layered defence, America fulfilled the group’s hope that the USA would expend vast resources in its attempt to secure itself. In sum, America aimed to provide evidence of its own inevitable triumph over al-Qaeda—but, instead, provided reasons for those drawn to al-Qaeda to find potential and viability in al-Qaeda’s own campaign and strategy.

Chapter 6 restates the book’s central argument, then suggests eight possible sources of the Bush administration’s misunderstanding of al-Qaeda as audience: history, psychology, relative power, domestic political considerations, a dominant ideology, national character, the overruling of an experienced bureaucracy and the assumption of separable audiences. The chapter then offers ten policy implications regarding how Washington might more profitably speak and act in a revised and improved counter-terrorist campaign. Next, the chapter proposes four overarching conceptual conclusions: that policy-makers must remain conscious at all times of the communicative implications of potential policies, must be aware of the nearly constant presence of multiple audiences, must avoid relying on introspection in gauging an audience and must be prepared for the possibility of losing control of one’s narrative. Finally, the book concludes by discussing the feasibility of Washington implementing a sounder approach to counter-terrorist signalling.

S...

Table of contents

• Contemporary security studies
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Communicators and audiences
• 3 America’s counter-terrorist communications
• 4 The al-Qaeda world-view
• 5 The view of the audience
• 6 Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index