Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism

Coercion or negative sanctions are found to have little effect [on terrorism] and, in important instances, are even counterproductive." In other words: fighting terrorism by war is no use, it does not even have a deterrent effect. On the contrary, the employment of massive military power makes it easier for terrorists to justify their attacks, to find broad support, and to recruit new followers. This notwithstanding, I will offer an alternative way to cope with terrorism, using George F. Kennan's concept of containment. This is the link to our effort to effectively fight the terrorist threat: it is a battle too for the loyalties and convictions of people. Usama bin Ladin is not the problem; given the growing threat perception of an Islamic motivated international terrorism, he is just a complication. The problem is a growing willingness to engage in terrorist attacks—even by apparently well integrated and secularly educated immigrants' children of the second generation. The convictions of people constitute the strength of a social movement. And besides its horrific violent aspects, terrorism is a social movement intended to achieve social or political change. Without broad support, terrorism loses its potential. This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/ vol2/iss1/2 25 Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism Dr. Andreas M. Bock, Ph.D. "Coercion or negative sanctions are found to have little effect [on terrorism] and, in important instances, are even counterproductive."1 That is something we could have learned from current history as well as everyday experience: from the French answer to the FLN in Algeria, or the South African response to the anti-apartheid movement;2 from the spiral of violence we experience in Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, and of course from the attacks on American and European cities. It is as simple as Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it: "Retaliation against a suicide bomber only gives rise to more suicide bombers."3 In other words: fighting terrorism by war is no use, it does not even have a deterrent effect. On the contrary, the employment of massive military power makes it easier for terrorists to justify their attacks, to find broad support, and to recruit new followers. This notwithstanding, I will offer an alternative way to cope with terrorism, using George F. Kennan's concept4 of containment.5 I believe that Kennan detected the essence of the threat that Soviet communism posed to the U.S. and to Europe after the Second World War: "It is the shadows [...] that move the hearts."6 By this he meant that not the Russian military capabilities and their alleged intention to go to war whatever the cost posed an eminent and threat to the free world, but the possibility of a conversion of the young post-war governments to (Soviet) communism. Kennan was one of the first to realize that in the aftermath of the Second World War the U.S. and USSR fought a battle for "the loyalties and convictions of hundreds of millions of people."7 The aim of his containment strategy was not to block Soviet communism by military force but by psychology: to reawaken the self-confidence of the European peoples.8 And the major means to do so was the Marshall Plan: targeting the economic reconstruction of Europe and Russia,9 not the military rearmament of a potential ally, i.e. the European states, against the USSR.10 This is the link to our effort to effectively fight the terrorist threat: it is a battle too for the loyalties and convictions of people. Usama bin Ladin is not the problem; given the growing threat perception of an Islamic motivated international terrorism, he is just a complication. The problem is a growing willingness to engage in terrorist attacks—even by apparently well integrated and secularly educated immigrants' children of the second generation, as Olivier Roy puts it: Bock, Ph.D.: Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2010 Journal of Strategic Security 26 Britain has been astonished to discover that the terrorists responsible for the London bombings on 7 July were British citizens, born there and apparently well integrated. One was even a convert to Islam. Yet that fits the profile of most of the second generation of al-Qa’ida terrorists that emerged at the end of the 1990s. Most of those active internationally have a westernised background; they were born in Europe or moved there to study or work. All had a secular upbringing. None were educated in madrassas (religious schools), except for brief periods in the case of the 7 July suicide bombers. In fact they went to ordinary state schools and pursued modern studies. Moreover almost all of them became born-again Muslims in the West.11 The convictions of people constitute the strength of a social movement. And besides its horrific violent aspects, terrorism is a social movement intended to achieve social or political change. Without broad support, terrorism loses its potential. Terrorism's Weakness: Dependence on Support Basically, terrorism is political and anti-statist in its nature.12 This description entails an explanation why terrorism obviously always means the use or at least threat of horrible violence.13 Terrorism is a strategy of "relatively weak groups,"14 which for different reasons (seemingly or effectively) lack the possibility to reach their aims by other means. Terrorist groups are based on radical ideas or ideologies that question the established social order. Their claims are by definition inconsistent with the social systems they are arrayed against. The claim of ending the apartheid in South Africa was absolutely inconsistent with the existence of the South African apartheid system as such; the aim of transforming the German economic-political system into a communist one is absolutely inconsistent with the German Grundgesetz that codifies the German political basic order as free and democratic, and the economic order as a market, i.e. capitalist economy. The desire—legitimate (like in the case of ANC) or not—to implement the particular sociopolitical convictions,15 even if there is no legal or regular possibility to do so, is one of the reasons for the emergence of terrorism. Whether these terrorist organizations become an eminent threat to a society or a social order depends on the dimension of support the organization can win. In order to reach a political aim, public support is required (no matter if it is voluntary or enforced). That is why terrorist attacks need to draw great attention and move the people within the political system, against which Journal of Strategic Security, Vol. 2, No. 1 http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol2/iss1/2 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.2.1.2 Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism 27 they turn, to really support their aim. By means of terror, people (members of a government or eligible voters)16 are to be forced to behave in a certain way, to make certain decisions. And the more terrible the attack, the more devastating the violence, the greater the public attention and the greater the change for the terrorist organization to reach its desired (public) effect: "Do X (for example: change your policy concerning country Y), otherwise we won't stop the attacks against your Zs (for example: citizens)!"17 Therefore terroristic violence always appears to be indiscriminate violence. It is "directed at persons who are threatened not on their own accounts, but with a view to influencing further persons, in particular those with power, official or otherwise, to affect the political arrangements."18 This is a "communication strategy:"19 violence is not an end in itself, but "a kind of a signal, to communicate something to a multitude of men."20 The bigger the support an organization enjoys, the bigger its capability to threaten a society. Of major importance here is that terrorist groups depend on broad support—sympathy, money, or volunteers, sometimes from sympathizing states, that too provide money, weapons, and training facilities and safe havens and give the claims of the terrorist group a voice on the international stage it otherwise lacks. Terrorist groups have to operate "underground," given that non-state violence is prima facie illegitimate violence.21 Activities planned in and carried out underground are demanding: they need and consume a lot of rare resources, like time, money, goods and manpower; and most of all, they are dangerous. These activities are constantly in danger of being discovered—and therefore disrupted. Therefore, as an underground organization, terrorist groups are in a situation of permanent scarcity, but have no secured and reliable access to the resources they need; they cannot, for example, advertise for the "job" of an assassin or a bomb engineer, establish regular trade relations to gather weapons and technology they need, or withdraw into a safe area.22 All of this—and here we have come full circle—depends heavily on supporters (people and states) that provide it. A prime example for the crucial dependency of terrorism on broad support is the so-called "German Autumn" caused by the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1977.23 The RAF perceived itself as a social revolutionary organization that aimed to change firstly the political economical order in West Germany and secondly in Western Europe to a communist social order. The means the RAF used were terror, kidnapping and arbitrary killing of officials of the political-economic establishment and bombings against German society. Even if the RAF regarded the officials of the system as potential and, from their point of view, legitimate targets, the organizaBock, Ph.D.: Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2010 Journal of Strategic Security 28 tion carefully paid attention not to harm any member of the proletariat.24 As some workers were injured by a series of bomb attacks on the Axel Springer publishing house, the RAF not only blamed the capital, i.e. the associates of the publishing house for not clearing the building after getting several hints by phone,25 but emphatically apologized for doing so.26 The reason for this is simple enough: the RAF considered the proletariat or the workers in Germany as the audience of its message, i.e. as allies in its fight to change the system. The bombings, kidnappings and killings were just tactical instruments to provoke the state to exaggerated reactions and, by doing so, to alienate the workers from the state and initiate a proletarian rebellion: That is the dialectic of anti-imperialist combat: that through the [...] reaction of the system, the escalation of the counter-revolution, the transformation of the political state of emergency into a military state of emergency, the enemy becomes apparent [...] and, by the means of its own terror, alienates the crowd, intensifies the antagonism, to necessitate the revolutionary battle.27 The problem was: the RAF received no support from the German workers. There were only isolated sympathizers but no broad, no reliable support from the middle of the society. Even the fact that the German Democratic Republic supported the RAF's self-proclaimed revolutionary fight against the "class enemy" in the West28 could not alter the factual insignificance of the RAF. But measured by its own aims, to initiate a revolution in Germany that would literally set fire to the whole of Western Europe, the RAF totally failed. Conversely, German society demonstrated its stability. Fighting Fire with Fire? After 9/11 the U.S. declared a "war on terrorism" toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, established special interrogation centers not only at Guantanamo Bay but also in Iraq and Afghanistan, and spent an enormous amount of money on defense and anti-terror measures: Journal of Strategic Security, Vol. 2, No. 1 http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol2/iss1/2 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.2.1.2 Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism 29 President Bush's defense budget request of $481.4 billion—an 11 percent boost over last year—pushes U.S. defense spending to levels not seen since the Reagan-era buildup of the 1980s. In addition, the president is seeking a projected $141.7 billion in emergency supplemental funding for 2008 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for broader anti-terrorism efforts—bringing the total spent in those arenas since 2001 to $661 billion, eclipsing in real terms the cost of the Vietnam War.29 To test the appropriateness of the instruments of the "war on terrorism" we only have to ask one simple question: Has the world become more secure? Obviously not. The Taliban recaptured parts of Afghanistan, Iraq turned into an open training and recruiting center for "offspring" terrorists, and—this is most fatal—we have to ascertain a growing willingness to engage in anti-Western terrorism. Even so, the RAF failed with its concept to mobilize the mass of workers, the underlying strategy was right (from the viewpoint of the terrorist organization): to use the harsh and maybe excessive state reaction as evidence for the legitimacy of its actions and a trigger for growing support and—in the case of the RAF—revolution. Unlike the RAF, several terrorist organizations are able to benefit from the vicious circle of violence and counter-violence. This is true for so differing organizations and groups like the ANC, FLN, Hizbollah30 or al-Qa’ida. Besides the differences, that cover motivations as well as aims, means and (il)legitimacy,31 they have in common that they gained and, in the cases of Hizbollah and al-Qa’ida, still gain broad support from the state reaction. The same applies to the Islamic terrorism we currently perceive as the biggest threat. The 2006 Lebanon War ended with a political defeat of Israel,32 or, as Zaid Al-Ali expounds on opendemocracy.net "Hizbollah has already won."33 It succeeded in defending Lebanese territory and itself in spite of Israel's massive military efforts. However, most of all, Hizbollah won because Israel's attacks killed hundreds of civilians that not only increased public support for it but also helped Hizbollah recruit new fighters. Of importance here is not the question of which side legitimately fought the war, but which side can use the emotional effects—the pictures of destruction and of dead bodies—for its purposes.34 A terrorist organization can gain broad support, whether the idea or ideology it stands for (or it claims to stand for) responds to an important need the addressees have. The German workers felt no need to be liberated by the RAF from the "lodger of capitalism."35 But bin Ladin obviously responds to a—and this is really alarming—growing feeling of discriminaBock, Ph.D.: Containment Revived: An Alternative Way to Cope With Terrorism Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2010 Journal of Strategic Security 30 tion in the Muslim world. A feeling that is inter alia fed by the Palestine conflict. Palestine is part of the collective consciousness of the Muslim world; part of it is propaganda, part is hypocrisy. That notwithstanding, the Palestinian conflict is proof of a biased international system: of a political disaster that left hundred of thousands of people stranded— hopelessly and impecuniously, compliant victims to organizations that offer money and a better life—and has remained unsolved for decades. A second example, that also circulates through the Muslim world as evidence not only for a biased international order but as brutal discrimination of Muslims, is the UN sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, beginning in 1990 and continued until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The sanctions were imposed on the regime following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, banning financial resources and all trade except for medicine36 and, in some circumstances, food. Under U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the sanctions were initially intended to bring about a change of system in Iraq, but later, under U.S. President Bill Clinton, only the complete disclosure of the Iraqi weapons program was settled for. The dimension of the humanitarian cataclysm is dubious to date. Estimates of direct casualties of the sanctions reach up to "One million Iraqis, mostly children."37 The sanctions made people suffer for a regime and its politics they were obviously not responsible for; Saddam's Iraq was a dictatorship characterized by the powerlessness of the subject. Second, the U.S. and Europe armed Saddam's regime, providing him with weapons and technology to fight the so-called mullah-regime in Iran.38 It is examples like this, together with references to current coercive measures, applied in the "war on terrorism," that enable Usama bin Ladin not only to justify al-Qa’ida's assaults, but also to construct the threat of Western crusade against Islam as a whole. In an interview, recorded by al Jazeera on 20th October 2001, the second week of the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, bin Ladin made connections between the sanctions on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and a new crusade: "What about the people that have been killed in our lands for decades? More than 1,000,000 children died in Iraq, and they are still dying [...] this is a war which, like previous wars, is reviving the Crusades."39