Contemporary State Terrorism

Richard Jackson, Eamon Murphy, Scott Poynting, Richard Jackson, Eamon Murphy, Scott Poynting

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135245153
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

This volume aims to 'bring the state back into terrorism studies' and fill the notable gap that currently exists in our understanding of the ways in which states employ terrorism as a political strategy of internal governance or foreign policy.

Within this broader context, the volume has a number of specific aims. First, it aims to make the argument that state terrorism is a valid and analytically useful concept which can do much to illuminate our understanding of state repression and governance, and illustrate the varieties of actors, modalities, aims, forms, and outcomes of this form of contemporary political violence. Secondly, by discussing a rich and diverse set of empirical case studies of contemporary state terrorism this volume explores and tests theoretical notions, generates new questions and provides a resource for further research. Thirdly, it contributes to a critical-normative approach to the study of terrorism more broadly and challenges dominant approaches and perspectives which assume that states, particularly Western states, are primarily victims and not perpetrators of terrorism. Given the scarceness of current and past research on state terrorism, this volume will make a genuine contribution to the wider field, particularly in terms of ongoing efforts to generate more critical approaches to the study of political terrorism.

This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, critical security studies, terrorism and political violence and political theory in general.

Richard Jackson is Reader in International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is the founding editor of the Routledge journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism and the convenor of the BISA Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group (CSTWG). Eamon Murphy is Professor of History and International Relations at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. Scott Poynting is Professor in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.

1 State terrorism in the social sciences
Theories, methods and concepts

Ruth Blakeley¹

Introduction

The governments of many countries have used repression against their own and external populations. This has included terrorism. Yet there has been relatively little research on state terrorism within the discipline of international relations and even less on state terrorism by liberal democratic states from the North (Blakeley 2008; 2009). Some scholars even argue that political violence by states should not be classified as ‘terrorism’. I begin by exploring the core characteristics common to existing definitions of terrorism. I show that states should not be precluded as potential perpetrators of terrorism because those core characteristics are concerned with the actions involved in terrorism, rather than the nature of the perpetrators. I then set out the key elements that must be present for an act to constitute state terrorism. I show that a defining feature of state terrorism, and that which distinguishes it from other forms of state repression, is its instrumentality because it involves the illegal targeting of persons that the state has a duty to protect in order to instil fear in a target audience beyond the direct victim(s). In exploring state terrorism in relation to other forms of repression, I show that state terrorism always violates international law because of the methods used to instil terror. Last, I outline the main challenges involved in identifying state terrorism. These relate primarily to questions of agency and motive. Measures that can be taken to overcome these challenges are then proposed.

Defining state terrorism

For an act to be labelled ‘state terrorism’, its constitutive elements must be consistent with those of non-state terrorism. There is no consensus on how terrorism should be defined. Indeed, as Andrew Silke notes, most works on terrorism begin with a discussion of the various associated definitional problems of the term (Silke 2004: 2) and the failure of scholars to reach agreement (Badey 1998: 90–107; Barker 2003: 23; Cooper 2001: 881–93; Duggard 1974: 67–81; Jenkins 1980; Weinberg et al. 2004: 777–94). There are nevertheless a group of core characteristics that are common to competing definitions. They relate to the act of terrorism, rather than the nature of the perpetrator. State terrorism receives so little attention primarily because many scholars focus on terrorism by non-state rather than state actors. Some do not even accept that terrorism by states should be equated with terrorism by non-state actors. Walter Laqueur, for example, has argued: ‘There are basic differences in motives, function and effect between oppression by the state (or society or religion) and political terrorism. To equate them, to obliterate them is to spread confusion’ (Laqueur 1986: 89). He further argued that including state terror in the study of terrorism ‘would have made the study of terrorism impossible, for it would have included not only US foreign policy, but also Hitler and Stalin’ (Laqueur 2003: 140).

Laqueur’s position shows that his analysis of terrorism is actor-based, rather than action-based. Even if the motives, functions, and effects of terrorism by states and non-state actors are different, the act of terrorism itself is not, because the core characteristics of terrorism are the same whether the perpetrator is a state or a non-state actor. Laqueur’s argument also serves to entrench the supposed moral legitimacy of state violence. He claims that those who argue that state terrorism should be included in studies of terrorism ignore the fact that: ‘the very existence of a state is based on its monopoly of power. If it were different, states would not have the right, nor be in a position, to maintain that minimum of order on which all civilised life rests’ (Laqueur 2003: 237).

Bruce Hoffman has made similar claims. He argues that failing to differentiate between state and non-state violence, and equating the innocents killed by states and non-state actors would ‘ignore the fact that, even while national armed forces have been responsible for far more death and destruction than terrorists might ever aspire to bring about, there nonetheless is a fundamental qualitative difference between the two types of violence’. He argues that this difference is based upon the historical emergence of ‘rules and accepted norms of behaviour that prohibit the use of certain types of weapons’ and ‘proscribe various tactics and outlaw attacks on specific categories of targets’. He adds that ‘terrorists’ had by contrast ‘violated all these rules’ (Hoffman 1998: 34).² This argument would only stand if it could be shown that states did not violate these rules, as set out in the Geneva Convention. The reality is that they do. Any monopoly of violence that the state has is neither a justification for excluding state terrorism from studies of terrorism, nor, more importantly, for affording states the right to use violence in any way they choose (Stohl 2006: 4–5). Indeed, even in situations where, according to international law and norms, states have the legitimate right to use violence (jus ad bellum), it is not always the case that their conduct (jus in bello) is necessarily legitimate.

A helpful starting point in identifying the core characteristics of terrorism is the definition offered by Eugene Victor Walter (1969), for whom terrorism involves three key features: first, threatened or perpetrated violence directed at some victim; second, the violent actor intends that violence to induce terror in some witness who is generally distinct from the victim, in other words, the victim is instrumental; and third, the violent actor intends or expects that the terrorized witness to the violence will alter his or her behaviour. Paul Wilkinson’s widely quoted definition echoes Walter’s. Wilkinson argues that terrorism has five main characteristics:

It is premeditated and aims to create a climate of extreme fear or terror; it is directed at a wider audience or target than the immediate victims of the violence; it inherently involves attacks on random and symbolic targets, including civilians; the acts of violence committed are seen by the society in which they occur as extra-normal, in the literal sense that they breach the social norms, thus causing a sense of outrage; and terrorism is used to try to influence political behaviour in some way.

(Wilkinson 1992: 228–9)

The emphasis here on the random nature of the terrorist attack may give rise to the assumption that states do not commit terrorism and instead can only commit acts of repression. Such arguments posit that states often try to suppress their opponents; if individuals oppose the government and are victims of state repression as a result, they are not really random targets. People know what they need to do to avoid state violence and need not, therefore, be terrorized if they are compliant. This argument is easily dismissed because it is implied that states can and will repress every single one of their opponents, precluding the possibility that their attacks are random. The reality is that even targets of state terrorism are selected fairly randomly from among all opponents, with the purpose of making an example of them to others. When states target opponents, the intention is not simply to terrify other opponents but to ensure that compliant citizens remain compliant. This highlights the importance of the distinction between state terrorism and repression. The difference lies in the instrumentality of state terrorism. There is a specific logic of not only harming the direct victim, but exploiting the opportunity afforded by the harm to terrorize others. That this instrumentality was captured by Wilkinson meant his definition contained all the core characteristics outlined by Walter. Equally important, in line with Walter, terrorism is defined according to the actions carried out, rather than who the actors are, meaning that the state is not precluded as a potential perpetrator of terrorism.

In an attempt to establish an agenda for research on state terrorism in the 1980s, Christopher Mitchell, Michael Stohl, David Carleton, and George Lopez, incorporated Walter’s core characteristics into their definition of state terrorism. They argued:

Terrorism by the state (or non-state actors) involves deliberate coercion and violence (or the threat thereof) directed at some victim, with the intention of inducing extreme fear in some target observers who identify with that victim in such a way that they perceive themselves as potential future victims. In this way they are forced to consider altering their behaviour in some manner desired by the actor.

(Mitchell et al. 1986: 5)

While this argument is not far removed from Wilkinson’s definition of terrorism, it retains one of the elements established by Walter that is missing from subsequent definitions (for example, Barker 2003: 23; Ganor 1998); namely, that the threat of violence is sufficient for a state to be perpetrating terror. I would add the caveat that a threat would only be sufficient in a pre-existing climate of fear induced by prior acts of state terrorism. As Ted Robert Gurr argues, a threat would not be adequate unless it was part of a pattern of activity ‘in which instrumental violence occurs often enough that threats of similar violence, made then or later, have their intended effects’ (Gurr 1986: 46).

Drawing on existing definitions, and specifically Walter, I propose that state terrorism involves the following four key elements: (a) there must be a deliberate act of violence against individuals that the state has a duty to protect, or a threat of such an act if a climate of fear has already been established through preceding acts of state violence; (b) the act must be perpetrated by actors on behalf of or in conjunction with the state, including paramilitaries and private security agents; (c) the act or threat of violence is intended to induce extreme fear in some target observers who identify with that victim; and (d) the target audience is forced to consider changing their behaviour in some way. With the exception of Walter’s definition, the definitions discussed argued that the change in behaviour in the target audience was to be political. In line with Walter, I do not make the same claim because states have frequently used violence to terrorize a wider audience so that they subordinate themselves to the wishes of the state. Those wishes may, of course, include lending political support to the state, but those wishes may also involve citizens labouring in the interests of elites. This was frequently the case in colonial states, where imperialists used terror to coerce citizens into working, often as slaves, to extract resources (Blakeley 2009). The strength of Walter’s criteria, therefore, is that changes in behaviour other than political behaviour are not precluded. As already implied, the key ingredient that distinguishes state terrorism from other forms of state repression is its instrumentality.

International law and state terrorism

Before discussing the importance of the target audience in more detail, a few words on state terrorism in relation to international law are warranted. State terrorism has not been codified in international law as an illegal act. It nevertheless involves acts which violate international law, with the aim of terrorizing others through those illegal acts. A case of state terrorism, as such, was never put to the legal test, although acts that violated international law and were intended to terrorize were tried as war crimes. In this regard, state terrorism can be defined with reference to the illegality of the acts it involves, even though we cannot argue that state terrorism itself is illegal.

State terrorism involves the deliberate targeting of individuals that the state has a duty to protect to invoke terror in a wider audience. The deliberate targeting of civilians, either in armed conflict or in peace-time, violates principles enshrined in the two bodies of international law that deal with the protection of human rights: international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). Human rights are those rights which all citizens share under international law, both in peace-time and during armed conflict. The most fundamental of these liberties are: the right to life; the prohibition of torture or degrading treatment or punishment; the prohibition of slavery and servitude; and the prohibition of retroactive criminal laws (ICRC 2003). Targeting armed, enemy combatants is legitimate in warfare, but certain acts are nevertheless prohibited. These prohibited acts include: killing prisoners of war; subjecting them to torture; and other degrading treatment or punishment (ICRC 1949). Where the laws prohibiting such acts are violated, states may also be guilty of state terrorism, as I will show. IHL also deals with the thorny question of which acts are permissible in warfare where civilian casualties are likely to ensue. The targeting of civilians is prohibited, both by IHL and IHRL, in times of war and peace. It is acknowledged in IHL, however, that civilian casualties are likely to be a secondary effect of certain actions deemed to be legitimate in armed conflict. IHL is therefore concerned with ensuring that maximum effort is made to protect civilians when such operations take place, and with ensuring that any risks taken with civilian life are proportional to the acts being carried out. This is far from straightforward, as the use of strategic aerial bombardment shows.

Military planners will argue that the aim of aerial bombardment is to attack strategically significant targets. This can, but does not always, include the targeting of a civilian population with the intention of terrorizing to provoke a political response. Terrorizing the civilian population is not necessarily always the primary objective of an air campaign, but it can be a welcome secondary effect. For example in Operation Desert Storm, the US-led campaign against Iraq in 1990–91, civilians were never intended as direct targets. According to the Gulf War Air Power Surveys (an analysis carried out by the US Air Force following the Gulf War), ‘there was widespread agreement from the outset of the planning process that directly attacking the people of Iraq or their food supply was neither compatible with US objectives nor morally acceptable to the American people’ (Keaney and Cohen 1993: 3, chapter 6). The target categories drawn up by the planners also indicated that civilians were not intended as direct targets (Keaney and Cohen 1993: 3, chapter 6). The authors of the Gulf War Air Power Surveys claim the air campaign had not only been ‘precise, efficient and legal, but had resulted in very few civilian casualties’ (Keaney and Cohen 1993: 3, chapter 6). A Greenpeace International study estimated between 5,000 and 15,000 civilians were killed as a direct result of sorties flown against strategic targets in the war (Arkin et al. 1991: 46–7). The Greenpeace report highlights the catastrophic human impact of the air campaign, caused by the devastation of the Iraqi infrastructure and the intense environmental degradation caused by the bombing (Arkin et al. 1991: 5). This destruction was a result of the intensity of the air campaign. As Greenpeace reported: ‘In one day of the Gulf War, there were as many combat missions flown against Iraq as Saddam Hussein experienced in the entire Iran–Iraq war’ (Arkin et al. 1991: 6).

There was, however, no indication in the Gulf War Air Power Surveys that measures were taken to minimize the secondary effect of terrorizing the population, which would undoubtedly ensue from aerial bombardment of targets deemed to be legitimate, especially given the extensive nature of the bombing campaign. The opposite was true. There was a view among a number of those involved in the planning of the air campaign that harming the morale of the civilian population would be a welcome secondary effect of the targeting of Iraq’s electricity generating capacity. For example:

As for civilian morale, some of the air planners, including General Glosson, felt that ‘putting the lights out on Baghdad’ would have psychological effects on the average Iraqi . . . By demonstrating that Saddam Hussein could not even keep the electricity flowing in Baghdad, it was hoped the Ba’th Party’s grip on the Iraqi population could be loosened, thereby helping to bring about a change in the regime.

(Keaney and Cohen 1993, vol. ii, part ii, chapter 6:19)

Aerial bombardments that killed between 5,000 and 15,000 civilians, and that were sufficient to cripple the entire electricity-generation capacity of modern cities such as Baghdad and Basra, were likely to have resulted in considerable levels of fear among the civilian population. This was not seen by the planners as an illegitimate secondary effect, but instead as a welcome means by which to undermine the regime. Indeed, it was hoped that the population would be sufficiently ‘psychologically affected’ (a euphemism for ‘terrorized’) that opposition to the regime would increase. Rather than try to prevent the terrorizing of the population, those involved in planning the air campaign actively encouraged it, even though this was illegitimate, according to IHRL.

Some IHRL treaties permit governments to derogate from certain rights in situations of public emergency threatening th...