Attacking Terrorism

Elements of a Grand Strategy

Audrey Kurth Cronin, James M. Ludes, Audrey Kurth Cronin, James M. Ludes

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780878403479
• eBook ISBN: 9781589012448
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The definition and understanding of "terrorism" is in a state of unprecedented evolution. No longer are acts of terrorism rare and far-flung. Following the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. citizens have had their eyes opened to a new world where this nightmare stalks the daily news and is never far from consciousness.

Attacking Terrorism brings together some of the world's finest experts, people who have made the study of this rising menace their life's work, to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges and opportunities of the campaign against international terrorism. Part one, "The Nature of Terrorism," provides an overview and foundation for the current campaign, placing it within the political and historical context of previous threats and responses. Part two, "The Responses to Terrorism," looks at the range of policy instruments required in an effective strategy against terrorism.

The contributors to this volume bring finely honed analyses and nuanced perspectives to the terrorist realities of the twenty-first century—history, analyses, and perspectives that have been too often oversimplified or myopic. They bring a new depth of understanding and myriad new dimensions to the crisis of terrorism. And they reach into aspects of counterterrorism that broaden our grasp on such important tools as diplomacy, intelligence and counterintelligence, psycho-political means, international law, criminal law enforcement, military force, foreign aid, and homeland security, showing not only how these tools are currently being employed but how often they are being underutilized as well.

Attacking Terrorism demonstrates that there are no easy answers—and that the road toward victory will be long and arduous, frightening and dangerous—but as Audrey Kurth Cronin states in her introduction, "As the campaign against international terrorism unfolds, a crucial forward-looking process of strategic reassessment is under way in the United States, and this book is intended to be a part of it."

PART I
THE NATURE OF TERRORISM

one
SOURCES OF CONTEMPORARY TERRORISM

Audrey Kurth Cronin

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, academics, policymakers, commentators, and pundits have speculated on the origins of the terrorist attacks against the United States. Common themes in these appraisals are bewilderment at the motivations of the terrorists, speculation about the conditions that would produce or permit such acts, and loose assertions regarding prescriptions for correcting the causes.¹ This groping for an answer is understandable in the context of the attacks, particularly as the United States and its allies attempt to calibrate responses for the long term. Yet although the extent of the destruction caused by al-Qaeda is unprecedented,² these questions are not new; attempts to understand the sources of terrorism are many and have yielded important lessons regarding the nature of the current threat.³

In this chapter I focus on understanding the sources of contemporary transnational terrorism by examining the phenomenon from four levels of analysis: the individual, the organization, the state, and the international system. These four analytical “lenses” provide clarity and intellectual coherence to what is in reality a complex and intricately intertwined series of factors. Many popular and scholarly explanations draw mainly from one of these analytical frameworks and slight the other three. Understanding the causes of terrorism actually requires simultaneous consideration of all of them. Still, human beings think in structures and sequences (sometimes without even realizing it), so I use this heuristic device in this chapter to highlight implicit assumptions, demonstrate the limitations of some explanations, and encourage a more comprehensive approach.

Most people understand that the causes of terrorism are complex and that there is no single variable that leads inexorably to terrorist acts. Few realize, however, the degree to which consistent intellectual frameworks influence most analyses. Terrorism is a multidisciplinary challenge: The study of sources of terrorism requires the ability to translate between the fields of criminology, comparative politics, economics, history, international relations, psychology, sociology, theology, and arguably others. Moreover, it is not just a matter of interdisciplinary differences. There also is an important intellectual bias related to levels of analyses on which causes are evaluated. Revealing those analytical frameworks illuminates areas in which the policy community and academia are failing to communicate effectively, to the disadvantage of both and to the detriment of the long-term campaign against twenty-first–century international terrorism.

I use the four levels of analysis to draw from insights gained in the scholarly literature to shed light on the threat facing the United States and its allies today, as well as to suggest lessons that are relevant to effectively employing the counterterrorism policy instruments examined in the second part of this book. Although I do not offer an inclusive survey of all the research that has been done, I strive to explain how the range of perspectives in existing literature on sources of terrorism can enrich policymakers’ thinking and highlight oversights or oversimplifications that in some cases may be distorting their choices. I also demonstrate that a set of inaccurate or incomplete assumptions about the causes of terrorism often provides the impetus for policy prescriptions. These assumptions should be reexamined to improve the likelihood of success. Effective counterterrorism is not possible if we do not start with an accurate and comprehensive analysis of the sources of terrorism.

Background: Dissecting the Sources of Terrorism

It would be a mistake to underestimate the challenges of this undertaking. Although much has been written about political violence, for example, there is no definitive study of the causes of terrorism.⁴ There are many reasons for this research gap.

First, it is virtually impossible to control enough of the potential variables involved to isolate and study only a few. Hypothesized causes of terrorism are legion and have differed across time: Terrorism is at least partly a reaction to the particular political, economic, and historical context within which potential terrorists exist.⁵ Although an examination of these separate situations can be extremely informative, and much insight has been gained through the use of case studies, specific domestic or international contexts are virtually impossible to duplicate and may or may not be relevant in other contexts. Some writers have even argued that the causes of terrorism are impossible to generalize,⁶ although this claim is a minority viewpoint in the field. There are numerous benefits to be gained in studying the various contexts of terrorism, as long as the lessons learned in each case study are not oversimplified and applied unthinkingly across contexts.

Second, looking at the conditions under which terrorism can arise is examining only part of the equation. Terrorism is not exclusively a response to external conditions; it also is a result of the strategic decisions of political actors.⁷ Human beings are not laboratory rats that react reliably and repeatedly to the same external environmental stimuli in the same way. The actions of regimes, which also respond to terrorism in a broad variety of ways, likewise elicit a reaction from individuals and groups. The action/reaction relationship between counterterrorism and terrorism is very important but often slighted in devising state policy. It is crucial to realize that policy decisions and actions may affect the nature, severity, and form of the threat, which in turn may affect future policy decisions, and so on. Sorting out the cause and effect in this relationship can be a conundrum in examining a historical case study—much more so when the dynamic relationship is in the process of unfolding.

Third, different types of terrorism may be caused (or enabled) by different factors; right-wing terrorism, for example, may have different roots than does left-wing terrorism, or ethnonationalist/separatist terrorism or religious terrorism. Much more work needs to be done in this area. Many observers have argued—especially with respect to religiously inspired terrorism, for example—that it is dangerous to an unprecedented degree and will manifest different preferences and behaviors over time.⁸ In any case, there is reason to doubt the similarity of the origins. Comparative case studies of terrorism provide many interesting insights; finding consistent explanations for terrorism across cultures, time, geography, ideologies, however, while also accounting for individual personalities and preferences, is challenging indeed.

The preferences of the analyst are a fourth factor. Explanations of the causes of terrorism often have reflected the subjective views of the observer, projecting political, sociological, or economic explanations on phenomena that are similarly related to the politics of the observer. Neither policymakers nor academic researchers are immune to this problem (although the latter may be more aware of it). This phenomenon is most evident in the oped pages of every major newspaper since September 11: Ideologically biased tracts typically amplify the preexisting opinions of the authors. This tendency also is evident in the writings of some academics. Objective analysis about a phenomenon that is so deliberately designed to elicit an emotional response is hard to achieve and is a standard that only a few experienced and long-established experts have reached.

Another reason the causes of terrorism are difficult to isolate is that in some cases they may be as simple and as complex as the persuasive power of the political or ideological passion behind the movement, as well as the receptiveness of a given population to the “message.” Terrorism is a fundamentally political phenomenon, driven by political motives and oriented toward political ends. Sometimes, in an attempt to be objective or scientific, the power of passionate ideas can be slighted. Few thinkers predicted, for example, that fascism and communism would achieve such a dramatic following in the twentieth century. Explaining the variances in human passions, the power of ideas, and the resulting and often surprising actions taken by human beings in response is a daunting task that is not confined to the study of terrorism.

The sources of terrorism are many, complex, and often unpredictable. The phenomenon seems to be almost developmental in nature, with elements of innate and environmental factors.⁹ Efforts to draw direct correlations between single variables and terrorism are virtually certain to fail. In any given case there is a complex causal chain from societal conditions to the formation (usually) of a group, to the carrying out of an act. Along the way, some of the steps in that process may be accidental or opportunistic. Analysts often seem to be talking past each other, focusing on or ignoring certain stages; generally, in any given case study no single stage is definitive. The best that can be achieved is to search for patterns among cases, environments where terrorism is more or less likely to be enabled, political movements or leaders that are more or less likely to inspire use of the tactic, and—most important for our purposes—policy instruments that are more or less likely to discourage that use.

There is no more compelling or important question today than the sources of transnational terrorism. The coalition of states that are now arrayed in a long-term campaign against “terrorism with a global reach” must carefully calibrate its response to the threat to be effective in reducing that threat over time. As difficult as the task is, examining and analyzing terrorism’s causes is a crucial starting point toward developing sound responses. Faulty premises can lead to tragically flawed policy. Without a clear understanding of the sources of contemporary terrorism, or at least recognition of the assumptions that are being made, the United States and its allies run the risk of failing in their effort to respond to the attacks and may even exacerbate the causes.

Level One: The Role of the Individual

As one would expect, a study of the causes of terrorism that focuses on the role of the individual considers the factors that affect individual human beings and their behavior. Individual terrorist behavior has been studied in some depth since the mid-twentieth century, in direct correlation with the growth of behavioral science and its methods in the United States. The questions raised by an individual-level analysis of the sources of terrorism are at the intersection of the fields of psychology, sociology, criminology, and political science. The issues include, on one hand, external factors that lead a person to choose to engage in terrorist activities, as well as, on the other hand, innate characteristics that give some people more or less proclivity to become terrorists. For practical purposes, four major areas of terrorism research are of broad interest at this first level: studies of the psychologies of individual terrorists, studies of the “profiles” of terrorists (and future terrorists), studies of the conditions that encourage or enable individuals to resort to terrorism, and examinations of the distinctive characteristics of terrorist leaders and their followers.

There is a popular tendency to believe that terrorism results from the psychological pathology or aberrant behavior of individuals. Some of our most eminent policymakers have perpetuated this perception—sometimes deliberately, sometimes not.¹⁰ Although there is wide agreement that killing innocent noncombatants is against the teachings of virtually all long-established legal and religious traditions, this view considers the source of such behavior to be the inability of potential terrorists to reason normally. Their decision to carry out abhorrent acts is assumed to be the result of personality disorders (such as narcissism or paranoia), mental deficiencies, or impulsive behavior. Others regard terrorism as arising from the self-aggrandizement and glorification of leaders or the arrested psychological development of followers. Implicit in this view is the argument that if the West can neutralize delusional individuals—either leaders or followers—then the most important sources of contemporary transnational terrorism will diminish sharply. The policy prescription is to apprehend or kill perpetrators and capture or kill their leaders—not only to bring the criminals to justice but also to wipe out the sources of deviant behavior.

Academics have done a great deal of research in this area in the past, although much work remains to be done.¹¹ Particularly interesting questions have included discussion of the degree to which terrorist behavior is a result of rational choice—where decisions to use terrorism reflect the careful cost/benefit analysis of the perpetrator—or a reflection of psychological forces over which the terrorist may have little control. The latter would include emotional scarring in childhood, an inordinate desire for action, frustration over issues of identity, personal feelings of inadequacy, and so on.¹²

With regard to the question of psychological abnormality, the popular perception of inherent psychological deviance is wrong. Although the data set of terrorists available to study admittedly is quite small, there is predominant agreement among specialists in the field: Psychological pathology does not seem to be present in higher rates among terrorism perpetrators than it is among members of the general public. It is understandable to want to separate the terrorist from the rest of “normal” humanity, but despite the widespread temptation to speak of “senseless” violence engaged in by “crazy” terrorists, there is strong evidence that they are surprisingly “normal” in their psychological characteristics and behaviors prior to engaging in violent acts. Even suicide bombers, about whom there has been considerable research, apparently exhibit normal psychologies overall.¹³

What seems to be aberrant is the channeling of the frustrations or talents of psychologically normal people i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Meeting and Managing the Threat
• Part I: The Nature of Terrorism
• Part II: Policy Instruments In the Campaign Against International Terrorism
• Conclusion: Toward an Effective Grand Strategy
• Contributors
• Index