1. Introduction

Prior to 11 September 2001 terrorism was only one among a large and growing number of US security concerns. Since then the "war on terrorism" has become the predominant organizing theme of US security policy, at least in its declaratory aspects. With regard to budgeting, it is the primary rationale for a planned 40 percent real increase in US defense spending, 1998-2007.

Presently the war on terrorism involves 10 federal agencies in addition to the Defense Department. The total federal budget for anti-terrorism activities and homeland protection (exclusive of missile defense) exceeds $70 billion a year. About half of this sum is focused on activities overseas. The Defense Department's share of the total is approximately $30 billion -- which underwrites, among other things, significant counter-terrorism operations in 14 countries. Activities by nations other than the United States and by global agencies are equally broad and disparate. The State Department estimates, for instance, that 200 intelligence and law enforcement agencies are presently involved in the anti-terrorist campaign and 150 countries are participating in efforts to disrupt the financial base of the al-Qaeda network.

A world transformed; a discourse disabled

In terms of its strategic impact, America's "new war" calls to mind the Cold War practice of containment, which shaped US policy and world politics for 45 years. Among the new war's effects:

• It has already transformed the strategic landscape of Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa. And,
• It has fundamentally altered the dynamics in two of the world's most persistent conflicts -- the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

In addition, it is leading the United States toward war with Iraq and into counter-insurgency campaigns in the Philippines, Indonesia, Georgia, Yemen, and Colombia.

On a global scale, the new war is substantially affecting flows of foreign aid and investment, the transfer of military goods and services, the character and focus of counter-proliferation efforts, the implementation of sanction regimes, and the status of efforts to support human rights and advance democratic governance. It even has given ballistic missile defense efforts a new lease on life and has provided a context in which Russian (if not Chinese) objections to National Missile Defense and the US abrogation of the ABM Treaty have been quieted, at least temporarily.

While the "war on terrorism" is transforming US policy and reshaping the global strategic environment, US public and expert debate regarding the campaign -- its goals and methods -- has been feeble. Likewise, the evaluation of progress in the war and examination of the new programs and spending meant to support it has been mostly circumspect and superficial. This evinces the fact that US policy discourse itself suffered a serious blow on 11 September.

The Cold War doctrine of containment was the product of four years of intense policy debate before it gained hegemony and calcified in reaction to the Korean War. By contrast, the idea of comprehensively rewriting US policy in terms of a "war on terrorism" jetted to prominence like a plume from the wreckage of 11 September. A predictable result of this (and the subsequent evisceration of policy debate) is that America's response to terrorism lacks both clarity and cohesion. Notably,

• The discussion of the terrorist threat remains vague and evocative. Threat assessments have been more journalistic and speculative in character than analytical. And,
• Counter-terrorist activities -- while numerous, varied, and energetic -- evince little in the way of an integrative strategy. America's response to the 11 September attacks proceeds at a fever pitch, but it does not add up to a coherent program.

Circumscribed as it presently is, the US discourse on terrorism and counter-terrorist policy offers little protection against initiatives that are ineffective, inefficient, and counter-productive. Absent a revitalization of US policy discourse, we can expect that the unplanned and inadvertent outcomes of America's anti-terrorist efforts will vie in significance with the intended and desirable ones.

The prerequisites of effective policy
There are three imperatives for improving the discourse on terrorism and counter-terrorist policy:

• First, the present terrorist threat must be better specified and "contextualized" both historically and politically;
• Second, critical attention must be focused on evaluating the full range of counter-terrorism activities as a strategic program. Current practice needs to be evaluated in terms of competing and alternative goals, options, instruments, and strategies.
• Third, the counter-terrorism program and strategy must themselves be viewed in context as part of a broader security agenda and practice. How does the counter-terrorism campaign relate to other important US security policy objectives? Addressing this question would also help establish criteria for evaluating defense programming and budgeting decisions.

A more sober and systematic approach to dealing with the challenge of terrorism would bring to the fore a number of lapses in current policy. Prominent among these is the failure to fully appreciate and pursue opportunities for international cooperation in combating terrorism.

Although the United States has mobilized significant international support for its campaign, the campaign itself has remained Washington-centric. The effort has proceeded principally on a unilateral and bilateral basis, not a multilateral one, with Washington assuming the role of the campaign's chief architect and engineer. Aspects of the campaign and American leadership have become matters of polarizing dispute between the United States and some of its partners, especially in the Arab and Muslim world. The deleterious impact of this is hard to exaggerate: Effectively limiting the influence and power of al-Qaeda (and the broader Jihadist movements) depends, more than anything else, on not only avoiding an "Islam versus the West" overlay, but actually winning the intensive cooperation of Arab and Muslim states. In more general terms: to the extent that the "war against terrorism" seems to serve exclusive national interests or detracts from other legitimate security concerns, global cooperation will be undermined. The long-term success of the campaign against terrorism -- its net effect -- requires a more determined effort to explore and develop cooperative, multilateral approaches.

The remaining sections of this essay suggest in greater detail the prerequisites of a revitalized US discourse on terrorism and counter-terrorist policy. In turn they examine: shortfalls in understanding the present threat, shortfalls in the formulation of a counter-terrorism program, the failure to adequately examine the road to 11 September, and the failure to seriously consider or attempt a "cooperative security" approach to meeting the challenge of terrorism.

2. Understanding the threat

It was not terrorism-in-general that attacked the United States on 11 September but the al-Qaeda network in particular -- a specific formation with a distinctive organizational structure, modus, and strategy. Attention to its distinctive features is critical to the development and evaluation of a program of counter-measures.

Effective policy development and evaluation also require that al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and similar "new terrorist" organizations be located historically and politically as part of the evolving international system. For instance, counter-terrorism policy must recognize that:

• Al Qaeda and its affiliates are embedded in much larger "jihadist" social, cultural, and political movements. Although fragmented, these movements exercise significant influence among the world's Muslim populations. The depth and extent of these linkages vary from country to country, and they are sustained by a variety of issues, many of them country-specific. Understanding these linkages is a key to forecasting and limiting the influence of al-Qaeda. This understanding can also help shape anti-terrorism policy in ways that minimize possible negative repercussions.
• Terrorist organizations often figure in webs of interstate and civil conflicts that involve more than the issue of terrorism -- as is obvious in the cases of Kashmir and the Middle East. This complicates anti-terrorist action because it raises the risk of interstate competition, conflict contagion, and escalation. Appreciating these risks is essential to developing policy options that minimize them.
• The new terrorism emerged as part of a larger set of related problems associated with the cold war's end and with accelerated economic globalization. This "problem cluster" encompasses:
  • the proliferation of failed and fragile states,
  • the post-Cold War rise in communal violence,
  • the uncontrolled profusion of light military weapons,
  • the failure to reintegrate large numbers of demobilized military personnel and guerilla veterans,
  • the increased transnational flow of refugees and illicit materials, and
  • the spread of underground economies and black markets.

These related problems do not "cause" terrorism, but they significantly affect its character, scope, influence, resource base, and freedom of action. Attending to these problems can substantially limit the growth and power potential of the new terrorism.

Viewing al-Qaeda and similar formations historically also provides critical lessons about the limits and risks of proxy warfare, arms transfers, and military assistance programs. Significant attention has been focused on the problem of state support or toleration of terrorist organizations. More relevant to the emergence of al-Qaeda and the legion of "Afghan Arab" guerillas, however, is the common practice of states pursuing their national objectives through the provision of arms and support to "third party" military establishments, insurgent movements, ethnic militias, and other armed irregulars. Under some conditions, this diffusion of military power can have serious inadvertent consequences, as the Afghan case suggests. It is a problem exemplified by the threat to US assets and forces presently posed by Stinger anti-aircraft missiles originally provided by the United States to anti-Soviet Afghan guerillas. An essential part of threat abatement is reviewing the protocols governing foreign military assistance and relationships. Developing a historical perspective on al-Qaeda and the Afghan crisis will help illuminate this review.

In summary: specifying the terrorist challenge and contextualizing it is essential to the development of a strategy and program that can effectively combat the current threat and reduce the potential for future ones to arise.

3. Developing a coherent counter-terrorism program and strategy

As important as seeing and gauging the threat correctly is the need to address it systematically. As noted in the introduction, the post-11 September anti-terrorist effort is multi-faceted and multi-national involving a dizzying array of agencies and measures worldwide. Since 11 September US policy has been largely guided by a simple moral compass. This is an essential, but insufficient instrument. What is notably lacking is a well-articulated strategy -- a concept and plan that might unify disparate efforts and reconcile them with the full range of important national goals. Strategy is like a map that can facilitate movement through complex terrain and toward a desired end. Without it, the effort against terrorism will be, at best, scatter-shot and inefficient; at worst, it will be ineffective and perhaps counter-productive or even self-defeating.

Without a strategic vision it is hard to gage the progress of the anti-terrorist campaign, except in the most myopic ways. What defines a real success or a serious reversal? How do we know when we have won the war or even if we are winning? How do we distinguish between wasted or counter-productive effort and sound investment? These questions are fundamental, but impossible to answer outside the context of a strategic discourse on combating the present danger.

Among the factors weighing against the development of a well-integrated and coherent counter-terrorism strategy and program is the competition among disparate bureaucratic, parochial, and political interests. Normally, under conditions of scarcity, this competition might stimulate and serve a debate on strategy which, after all, concerns the allocation of scare means among competing ends. In the present circumstance, however, the sense of public emergency has removed many resource and other constraints. The executive branch enjoys extraordinary freedom of action and has been able to mobilize $70 billion a year in new security spending, despite a downturn in the economy. Also relaxed have been the typical public reservations concerning unilateral action abroad and the use of force. In this context, the development of a thoughtful and far-sighted strategic discourse requires special intervention.

Public policy is seldom led by a well-integrated or fully coherent strategy. Indeed, this may be unachievable in any complex, vibrant, pluralistic polity. Nonetheless, strategic discourse plays a vital role by informing choice and enabling evaluation. It brings to the fore issues of scarcity, priorities, short- and long-term goals, and inadvertent effects. It brings options and choices into public view, illuminates the tension between competing goals, and fosters a fuller consideration of the risks, costs, benefits, and opportunities associated with different paths of action.

With regard to building a campaign against terrorism, there are multiple options to consider:

• Effective action against the new terrorism might combine direct and indirect measures. Direct measures are those aiming to uncover and engage terrorists, their activities, and their supporters. These include active efforts at detection, disruption, apprehension, interdiction, and emergency response. Direct measures also include passive or routine efforts at screening and protection. Indirect measures would address the conditions that facilitate the growth, activity, power, and influence of terrorist organizations.
• An effective counter-terrorism program might employ a variety of military and non-military instruments. The former include covert, special, and conventional operations as well as military cooperation and assistance efforts. Non-military efforts would include intelligence, law enforcement, civil protection, and emergency response activities. Indirect non-military measures might include arms control, conflict resolution, development assistance, and "nation building".
• An effective counter-terrorism program would also have national and international (or global) components. Some actions would be undertaken on a unilateral basis, others multinational, and others global. New international and global efforts may entail the need for new partnerships and for new "international regimes" (if not new institutions).

Each of these sets of options poses the same question: How should the United States choose among, balance, and integrate the available measures and instruments for dealing with terrorism? This would be the subject matter of a strategic discourse on terrorism. And while a firm and final answer may not be possible, exploring the question will provide the nation and its leadership with better criteria for assessing the results of the campaign.

4. The road to 11 September: largely unexamined

The events of 11 September themselves suggest the first, essential step toward developing an effective counter-terrorism strategy: a thorough and dispassionate examination of the circumstances leading to the catastrophe. This bears directly on the effort to find an appropriate balance among the various types of counter-terrorist measures. Given the singular gravity of the attack, one would think that - a year later -- the investigative faculties of the nation would be fully engaged. But examination of the multiple failures of intelligence and protection that litter the road to 11 September has been temperate and constrained -- as though there was little to be learned. In fact, there is quite a lot worth examining.

During the years between the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the 11 September assault, the United States spent almost $3 trillion on defense and intelligence activities. Even before the 1993 attack, increased US military activity in the Persian Gulf had generated new concerns about the potential for terrorist attacks on the US homeland. So, on the eve of 11 September 2001, the United States was well armed with numerous official studies of the problem in its many aspects -- airline security shortfalls, the need for improved human intelligence, lapses in monitoring the transit of international criminals, gaps in the INS system, and the vulnerability of various high-value US assets to terrorist attack. These studies originated at intelligence and congressional research agencies, federally funded research and development centers, and even a vice-presidential commission. They not only identified the security gaps that, in retrospect, al-Qaeda successfully exploited on 11 September, but also suggested a variety of remedial steps -- all to no avail.

For years prior to 11 September, US intelligence and law enforcement agencies also had the benefit of significant contacts with high-ranking current and former al-Qaeda principals, some functioning in the role of agency assets. And, of course, the United States has enjoyed long and intimate military and security relationships with Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia -- nations that were, in some sense, points of origin for the 11 September attacks.

On the morning of 11 September none of America's prodigious military capability, reach, and influence counted for much. Despite 8 years of strategic warning and 8 months of more immediate warnings, the United States was utterly unprepared for the attack. Of course, there is no prospect of erecting an impermeable barrier against terrorism. Surprise is an ineluctable feature of living and acting as part of a complex, dynamic system. Nonetheless, organizations can and do routinely act to limit their chronic exposure to surprise and to soften its impact when it occurs. Their success in this depends on their adaptiveness -- a capacity for learning and change that involves more than any finite set of intelligence or protection activities.

The prelude to 11 September was a decade-long failure in system adaptiveness. This is indicated not so much by the fact that al-Qaeda succeeded in its assault as by the fact that so many relevant cautionary concerns, warnings, and remedial proposals were left to gather dust. Also indicative of the failure in adaptiveness is the fact that so much of America's defense capability and planning proved irrelevant. The failure in system adaptiveness is now confirmed and compounded by the reluctance to examine the road to 11 September.

5. The path not taken: cooperative security

Several characteristics of the new terrorism strongly favor a "cooperative security" approach to combating it -- that is: an approach founded on international consensus and managed through multilateral institutions and regimes. The decentralized and distributed (or transnational) character of the new terrorism, for instance, requires that counter-measures be coordinated globally, but rooted locally in many nations. Especially important is the participation of nations in and around zones of instability.

The new terrorism is relatively autonomous of state control, although its root system penetrates many nations. In the case of the older, state-dependent terrorism, coercive measures targeting sponsor states could often desiccate terrorist activity. In combating the new terrorism, however, a broader, more cooperative approach is also necessary. In order to counter the new terrorism, numerous nations must mount and coordinate intensive efforts to discover and uproot terrorist networks over which they exert little or no influence. They must tighten border controls, police remote regions, screen financial transactions, and freely share sensitive intelligence with other states. And some nations will have to run exceptional domestic political risks. This type of investment and effort cannot be coerced.

Several dynamics can work against achieving the type of cooperation necessary for defeating the new terrorism. Obviously, should the campaign against terror be perceived as the privileged instrument of a few states, others will resist it. The campaign must be detached from the advance of any one nation's (or alliance's) exclusive interests or power position. Less obviously: different states, facing different constellations of security problems, will prioritize the problem of terrorism differently. The fact of scarce resources and varied circumstances will pull even allied nations in different directions. Likewise, the net impact of any course of action will vary from state to state; each will experience its own unique mix of risks, costs, and benefits.

Thus, it is not only difficult to achieve and maintain the requisite level of international cooperation in combating the new terrorism, but the campaign itself can easily become a matter of polarizing dispute among states -- even among putative allies. A cooperative security solution to this dilemma would (i) ground the campaign in international consensus, law, institutions, and regimes -- bolstering these as necessary, and (ii) build cooperation on terrorism by also addressing the larger cluster of problems of which it is a part. In this perspective, cooperation is broadened and deepened by adopting a systemic approach to combating terrorism.

The vital insight that the cooperative security paradigm brings to the battle against terrorism is that transnational criminal organizations, such as al-Qaeda, depend on and exploit the gaps or seams in international society. They live and breed in the interstices. Failed and fragile states constitute major gaps in international society; so do chronic regional and civil conflicts. The devolution of military power from national to subnational groups -- abetted by arms diffusion and mercenary activity -- can open gaps in international society, creating fertile opportunities for organizations such as al-Qaeda. So does any activity that erodes consensus and cooperation in the management of the global commons. This phenomenon is most evident in war, which is always a boon to internal and international criminal activity.

Mass international criminal organizations like al-Qaeda require for their success the existence of relatively lawless "spaces" and spheres of activity; at minimum they require serious lapses in social and international consensus. This insight should inform the development of an anti-terrorist campaign. Among other things, it underscores the importance of building real international consensus regarding the goals, means, and modes of the campaign. And it also calls attention to the importance of "stability goals". "Nation-building" must be part of the effort. At minimum, the campaign must avoid measures and outcomes that contribute to undesirable instability. Considering the case of the war in Afghanistan, for instance: The post-Taliban return to "warlordism", the incidence of post-Taliban reprisal killings and attacks, the resurgence of opium production, and the country's continuing humanitarian crisis are not incidental to the effort against terrorism. They go to the heart of the threat generation process and should register on the counter-terrorist agenda as issues of great concern.

Citation: Carl Conetta, Terrorism, World Order, and Cooperative Security: A research and policy development agenda, Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo #24. Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, 09 September 2002.
http://www.comw.org/pda/0209coopsec.html

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