Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Responding to the Challenge

Ian Bellany

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780415570657
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134115259
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

There is a widely held belief in the imminent probability of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons of mass destruction being used by terrorists against civilian targets. This edited volume critically assesses the suggestion that one safeguard against this possibility would be to strengthen existing international prohibitions against state- level acquisition of such weapons.

A glimpse of the possible potential of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction has been seen through the actions of the Tokyo Aum group, and through the use of chlorine by insurgents in Iraq. However, the extent of the real threat posed is as yet unclear, and safeguarding against it in developing countries will not be easy. This book assembles specialists in each category of WMD in order to examine the potential of expanding the three 'classical' arms control treaties in order to combat the threat posed by smaller terrorist groups, and draws conclusions as to the strengths and weaknesses of this suggestion.

Part I
General

1
Material dangers

Ian Bellany

Following the advice of P.M.S. Blackett (in his case concerning large-scale nuclear war), the absence of any actual large-scale terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction means that in order to make any progress in understanding the topic some sort of theoretical approach is necessary (weapons of mass destruction are taken to mean nuclear, radiological, chemical or biological weapons). That is to say the complexities of the world as it is have temporarily to be substituted by simple models that attempt to replicate the essentials of the real world situation (Blackett 1961). As such, the simplifications inherent in the models do not mean that the models are no good for drawing conclusions, but that there is a limit to the weight of interpretation that can be put on the models. Indeed, as a simple example, the comparative rarity with which weapons of mass destruction have been employed in any setting means gaps in information and disagreement between sources regarding even their warlike properties. The models in question are quantitative and qualitative, with only the former bearing much relation to the ‘operations research’ sort of theoretical models Blackett had in mind. The limitations of the qualitative models will normally be self-evident, those of the quantitative models are spelled out in the context of discussion.

Definitions

But we begin by asking what terrorism is. Blackett is probably right when he also says that clear-cut definitions have little place in the beginnings of a scientific subject, and if the question of terrorists and their access to WMD qualifies as a scientific subject then it is sensible not to become too vexed about precise definitions. But this is a large ‘if’. Vagueness about what constitutes terrorism matters politically a great deal. And some sort of working definition is surely needed so that model building can begin, provided some flexibility in application can be accepted. Terrorism, seen here, is a method of employing organised armed force with unusually little regard for humanitarian considerations to achieve, normally, political cum religious cum warlike ends, and which relies for its effectiveness on creating a pressing fearfulness in the minds of target persons for their lives or the lives of those close to them, or their property. It will normally be more effective when directed at civilians who unlike the military have no special training or ready means of defence (poorly trained military on the other hand might easily become subject to terror attack). As a method of fighting wars declared and undeclared, open or covert, and as an extension of politics it is part of the military repertoire of most, possibly all, states and of both sides in internal war situations, and comprises virtually the entire repertoire of the terrorist, sub-state groups that are the topic of this piece.

Second, for practical reasons that will become clear when we come to build arguments on the foundations of data, we can at least provisionally distinguish between two types of terrorism as practised by sub-state groups, domestic terrorism and international terrorism. According to the US State Department, one source of data on terrorist activity, terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. And the term international terrorism means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country. According to the definition of another data source, the US consortium of the RAND Corporation and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (RAND/MIPT), domestic terrorism is defined as incidents perpetrated by local nationals against a purely domestic target. International terrorism means incidents in which terrorists go abroad to strike their targets, select domestic targets associated with a foreign state, or create an international incident by attacking airline passengers, personnel or equipment. In fact, slightly disconcertingly, RAND/MIPT in practice seem to treat as international all acts of terrorism that do not fall within their definition of domestic.

These definitions are spelled out simply because they are convenient for the statistical section of this chapter. For instance, there is a not unreasonable argument to the effect that all terrorism is international to a greater or lesser extent, or is becoming so (Falkenrath 2001:164), and indeed this argument tacitly lay behind some of the US Congressional criticism of the 2003 State Department data and its analysis. The outrages of 11 September 2001 in the United States seem to have been perpetrated chiefly by nationals of one state (Saudi Arabia) organised by a group based in another (Afghanistan). Nearer the other, domestic, extreme, Irish terrorist attempts to expel Britain from Northern Ireland have been organised, and directed at targets, mainly within Northern Ireland itself, which is a part of the United Kingdom. But some IRA (or PIRA) attacks took place in Germany against British military targets there, and groups of US citizens played an important part in keeping the terrorists in funds. And it is certainly true that terrorists whose target state is X might deliberately extend their attacks to X-related targets in Y, where defences and other countermeasures, say, may be weaker. Of course, more subjectively, governments facing a difficult domestic environment arising from terrorist attacks might seek political easement by emphasising the international nature of the problem they were facing.

But it would be a mistake to abandon statistical enquiry on such grounds any more than data-based studies of war allow themselves to be stymied by the long-mooted argument that all wars are to a greater or lesser extent international, and civil wars do not therefore exist. The distinction (domestic/international, civil/international) is a useful one even if it cannot always be made in a hard and fast manner, and here we are relying on the judgement of those coding the RAND/MIPT data, whilst at the same time recognising the difficulty as another possible source of error in the interpretation of the data.

At the inter-state level, which is not our main concern here but which we are not quite free to ignore, there is a spectrum of terror-related activity. At one extreme, virtually captive terrorist groupings perhaps based overseas can be used as biddable tools to project the military power of states when targeting foreign enemies. This may be because the state sponsor in question is too weak along other more standard dimensions of military capability or because the sponsor values the deniability and limitable liability inherent in this type of force projection. One example was US intervention in Nicaragua in the 1980s via its sponsorship of the Contras whose guerrilla methods certainly included acts of terrorism. At the other extreme of state involvement, Britain for instance by early 1942 was employing direct terrorism in the form of area strategic bombing against Germany, internally reasoning uneasily that a terrorised, i.e. increasingly frightened and intimidated civilian population, would withdraw their political support from the regime.¹ Much the same was true – in spite of official denials – of the US air campaign against mainland Japan. After the notorious British-led bombing raid on the German city of Dresden in February 1945, a city virtually bereft of normal military targets, US Secretary of State for War Henry Stimson publicly claimed that it had never been US policy to inflict ‘terror bombing’ on civilians and that US efforts were confined to military targets. But the US Army Air Force director of intelligence General McDonald on making enquiries at Stimson’s behest found that the USA had been ‘drawn in’ to a policy (in McDonald’s words) of ‘homicide and destruction’ (Parker 1997:170), exemplified presumably by the March 1945 B-29 attack on Tokyo using incendiary bombs which killed 80,000 persons indiscriminately. Terrorism is therefore a method of fighting, directly employed even by states but normally with some reluctance, often behind a screen of denial, and frequently with a bad conscience at its anti-humanitarian qualities. It is a method of war-fighting comparable in this sense to the employment of weapons of mass destruction against places where there are large civilian population concentrations – the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in a sense an extension of the Tokyo raid by other means. And everyone has heard of the ‘balance of terror’ during the Cold War. It is not a method of war-fighting (except perhaps when poorly trained or poorly motivated armies are the target) likely to be openly resorted to until other methods have been found deficient. Partly of course this may be a matter of utility – whilst the atom bombing of Japan ‘worked’, as did the more recent ‘shock and awe’² combined land and air attacks on the feebler units of the Iraqi army in 2003 by the US-led coalition, it is not in the least clear that the area strategic bombing of Germany had the desired effect on German morale. Partly it is a matter of legitimacy. Electorates and parliaments where they are a factor, and the publics of friendly states likewise, may withhold support from this type of warfare (in particular when practised against civilians) on moral, humanitarian grounds.

Terrorists, on the other hand, or terrorist groups, of an autonomous or near autonomous kind, which are the subject of this enquiry, resort to terrorism without, it would seem, a bad conscience and without always having tried other warlike methods first. This is not to insist that terrorists are interested always in killing or maiming as many civilians as possible. Terrorists might deliberately limit the damage they do in proportion to their fear of the longer-term consequences of a failure on their part to do so. Excessive destruction might forfeit such sympathy as may exist for their cause and/or stir their target governments to unusually vigorous countermeasures. Where this is the case, terrorists might demonstrate their strength comparatively safely by targeting military as opposed to civilian targets, although the military targets whether personnel or installations will normally be attacked when off-guard or stood down in some way. It would seem to follow that terrorists conducting such ‘limited’ campaigns would have little interest in weapons of mass destruction. Up to a point this may be true, indeed the employment of such weapons might be seen as signalling that the terrorists had crossed the Rubicon and now ceased to care about what damage they did. On the other hand, possessing such weapons would allow even groups cautious about killing to carry out impressive demonstration attacks, say after having issued a warning. It would also allow them, especially after a convincing demonstration that they could possess such weapons, to issue hoax warnings of attack. And demonstration attacks would allow strategically minded terrorists to follow a policy of compellence, threatening implicitly or explicitly to follow up a demonstration attack with something more substantial unless the target showed signs of meeting the terrorists’ demands. Incidentally there is no evidence of any trend over time of a coarsening attitude of terrorists to their choice of target. Statistical evidence relating to international terrorism (RAND/MIPT definition) over the period 1968 to 2006, shows the proportion of serious (death-dealing) incidents involving attacks on military targets has remained fairly steady at about 12 per cent of the total.

The stated opposition on the part of many leading states to terrorism is usually couched in high-minded language exactly comparable to that used by Stimson and McDonald in 1945 when referring scathingly to area strategic bombing. But underneath there is surely the more complex reason that terrorists and especially autonomous and free-standing terrorist groups represent in the long run a challenge in principle to the monopoly enjoyed by states over organised violence, both as between states and within them. It is arguably a feature of democratic societies when engaging in war, even a ‘war on terrorism’, often to line up behind a popular, not necessarily mendacious of course, version of the reasons why for public consumption rather than the sort of underlying reason normally discernible to historians.

Terrorists and weapons of mass destruction

But we turn now to a superficially puzzling phenomenon. Terrorist groups have as a matter of record, as we shall see, scarcely resorted at all in practice to weapons of mass destruction (WMD – shorthand for non-conventional weapons, i.e. nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological). In spite of this, apprehensio...

Table of contents

• Routledge global security studies
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I General
• Part II Chemical and biological
• Part III Nuclear
• Index