A Word From Afar: The Strategic Utility of Terrorism (and why jihadism is losing)
A Word From Afar is a regular column that analyses political/strategic/international interest.
One of the axioms of counter-terrorism is that the nastiness of the atrocity is inversely proportional to the terrorist’s chances of success. That is to say, the
worse the act, then less likely that terrorist strategic objectives will be achieved. This applies as much to Islamic
extremists confronted with the inexorable progress of Western (and Eastern) secularism riding the wave of globalisation
of production, consumption and exchange as it did to Marxist-Leninist movements in Europe and North America in the 1960s
and 1970s. But the issue is a bit more complicated than that. Given the recent upsurge in terrorist attacks in Pakistan
and Iraq and the recent uncovering of plots in the US, UK, Norway and Denmark (among others), the strategic utility of
terrorism is worth considering.
Terrorism is an irregular (or unconventional) warfare tactic. It is not a strategy in and of itself, nor is it a form of
warfare, but instead is a tactical means employed to a strategic end as part of a larger warfare approach. As such,
terrorism has a subject, an object and a target, and they are not the same. Although it appears to be an offensive
strategy and has been used offensively at a tactical level, it is by and large a defensive tactic. The objective is to
get the adversarial subject to desist in what it is doing that is inimical to the terrorist interest. The subject is
dual in nature: the adversary and its popular support base, on the one hand (e.g. the US government and citizenry), and
the (potential) terrorist support base, on the other (e.g. Islamicists and the larger Muslim community). The target is,
of course, the hapless victims of an act of politically motivated violence whose purpose is more symbolic than military.
Terrorism is used against highly symbolic targets in order to erode the will of the adversary to pursue a given course
of action while steeling the conviction of the terrorist support base. It does so by promoting pervasive an ongoing fear
and dread amongst the adversarial population while giving supportive groups reason to encourage continued violent
resistance. Terrorism can be used as part of a moderate-militant strategy in order to create space and provide leverage
for negotiated compromises. This was seen with the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland and may in fact turn out to be the
strategy employed by non-jihadist Taliban in Afghanistan today. In practice, though, the outcome is often the reverse of
what is intended; Israel’s “hardening“ under repeated terrorist attack is a case in point, although it must also be
noted that it the PLO paramilitary campaign (in which terrorism was an integral component) played a significant role in
eventually bringing Israel to recognise it as a legitimate political actor (Israel, for its part, owes its existence in
part to the terror campaign of some of its founding fathers organised in groups such as Irgun and the Stern gang).
Terrorism can occur in two circumstances and comes in three different guises. The circumstances are terrorism during war
and terrorism in peacetime. The guises are state terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism (where terrorists act as proxies
for militarily inferior states), and non-state terrorism (such as today’s jihadis). If acts of terror are not committed for political purposes, they are not genuine terrorism but criminality taken to
extremes (say, Mafia firebombing or assassination campaigns). This may seem like a semantic distinction but it is
important because terrorism as a form of warfare is effective only in pursuit of an ideological project, in pursuit of
an alternative conception of the “proper” social order, as opposed to the more immediate and material objectives of
criminals or psychopaths. Since wars are ultimately political events, terrorism is a political tool.
Terrorism during war is designed to erode the morale of the enemy. It can be used against military targets to weaken the
morale of the fighting element and to show the steadfastness, resolve and determination of the perpetrator (such as the
Kamikaze attacks, or suicide bombings against military targets in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan). Terrorism can also be
used in wartime against civilian populations to erode the will of the support base of a given regime. The nuclear
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden are classic instances in this
regard (as were the V2 bombings of London), in which the psychological impact on the adversarial subject far outweighed
the military-strategic importance of the targets. Moral and ethical considerations aside, for the military planners
involved the ends justified the means (specifically, the “lesser evil/greater good” criteria).
That brings up an important point. Generally speaking, the state has been the primary terrorist organisation throughout
history. In fact, most instances of state terrorism are directed at their own people in peacetime, in what is known as
“enforcement terrorism” whereby the state imposes its ideological project by force on an unwilling citizenry. The reason
why state terrorism is so prevalent in history is that it works. Its purpose is to infantilise and atomise the body
politic so people feel powerless and unable to control their own destinies (think of a child’s nightmare). Under such
conditions the main recourse for the subject population is a retreat into the private sphere, the disruption of
horizontal solidarity and resistance networks, and generalised acquiescence to the cruel powers that be. During wartime,
that ensures defeat of the subject population. During peacetime that allows dictatorial regimes to implement their
ideological projects free from the interference of civil society: Chile under Pinochet is a case in point, as are the
USSR under Stalin or Cambodia under Pol Pot (the examples are many and not limited to either side of the ideological
divide).
State-sponsored terrorism is most often directed at the enemy support base rather than its military forces or
leadership. The Lockerbie aircraft bombing is a case in point, as is Iranian sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas attacks
on civilian targets in places as disparate as Lebanon, Israel and Argentina (Iran denies any connection to the military
campaigns of Hamas and Hezbollah, and specifically refutes the claim that it was involved in anti-Jewish bombings in
Argentina in the 1990s. The Argentine government believes otherwise). Pakistani support for Kashmiri separatists and
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), and reported Venezuelan support for FARC rebels in Colombia are other examples of
state-sponsorship of terrorist organizations engaged in insurrectionary struggles. Here the objective is to place enough
distance between the sponsor and the perpetrator so as to allow for “plausible deniability” that forces the targeted
adversary to either escalate out of proportion to the event or acquiesce (if not respond in kind).
It should be noted that the utility of state-sponsored terrorism has diminished since 9-11 because states are now more
inclined to fix blame directly on the sponsor as well as the perpetrators, which has diplomatic as well as military
implications. The prospect of a “return to sender” response has consequently kept surrogate or proxy terrorism at the
lower end of conflict in terms of numbers and intensity, even if concerns are raised about North Korean or Iranian
facilitation of weapons of mass destruction to irregular groups. To date this has not happened and the real focus
remains on state-to-state WMD technology transfers rather than on transfers to non-state actors. Even so,
state-sponsored terrorism remains a strategic option, as the 2008 Mumbai attacks demonstrate.
Contemporary non-state terrorism has two forms: 1) in its insurrectionary form it is used to advance a group’s political
project within a country as part of a counter-hegemonic project (for example, the use of selective terrorism by
revolutionary or nationalist groups seeking to overthrow status quo regimes or foreign occupation). Because the group
wants to cultivate popular support for its ideological project, the use of terrorism in such instances tends to be more
selective and focused on military targets or symbols (and members) of the regime elite and/or its foreign allies.
Terrorism committed by non al-Qaeda allied Taliban, or the activities of Hamas and Hezzbollah can be seen in this light;
2) the transnational grievance form is used to thwart homogenising international projects and processes that are deemed
inimical to existing social mores and constructions (which can include unwanted immigration from ethnic “others” as well
as political or corporate interventions).
Whether secular or ethno-religious, such terrorist groups can be self-identified as anti-imperialist or more localised
in scope. The al-Qaeda project is an example of the former, whereas the Janjaweed anti-African campaign in Darfur is
couched in localised terms (although there is an underlying resource motive clearly at play). Both types of non-state
terrorism also use the “sucker ploy” approach in their operations. This is a maneuver whereby a terrorist provocation is
staged that elicits an adversarial response that is out of proportion to the initial act (say, an air strike called in
on an entire village because a guerrilla ambush or suicide bombing was staged in it), thereby swaying popular sentiment
towards the terrorist cause. Some analysts claim that 9-11 was a sucker ploy played out on a grand scale, and that it
worked.
Yet non-state terrorists are not the ultimate determiners of their own fortunes. Their chances of strategic success rest
less on their own capacity to wreak symbolic political violence in pursuit of their objectives but on the nature of the
regimes that are the subjects of their activities. Strong authoritarian and democratic regimes, defined as those with
majority support and the political will and military-intelligence capability to defeat irregular warfare groups that
practice terrorism, will always prevail in such contests. The combination of mass support, military capability and
willpower is the decisive part of the asymmetric equation. Russia is a good example of a strong authoritarian regime
confronting terrorists; China is another (the issue of who authoritarian regimes define as “terrorists” is another
matter entirely). Strong democracies have similar strengths. For all its excesses and political flaws, Israel again is
emblematic, but the UK response to the IRA irregular warfare campaign and India’s response to LET provocations are also
illustrative. For their part, all of Europe and Turkey have the requisite combination of will, capability and support to
defeat jihadism in all of its forms (fears about the Islamicisation of Europe notwithstanding).
Conversely, weak authoritarian and democratic regimes are highly susceptible to politically motivated terrorism, be it
state-sponsored or non-state in nature. Weakness is here defined as a lack of majority support and/or leadership will to
defeat the terrorist project, whether or not there is a military-intelligence capacity to do so. Under such
circumstances even allied assistance may be insufficient to defeat a well-organised and ideologically committed
terrorist campaign. The will to do so has to come from within, and it must be come from the majority. That is what makes
Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen, a number of Sub-Saharan African states, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia itself more
vulnerable to insurrectionary or grievance terrorism. The question is not so much one of counter-terrorism capabilities
as it is of internal support and will. Not surprisingly, several of these states employ state terrorism as part of
“counter-terrorism” campaigns against dissident groups (be they armed or not).
That is the crux of the matter when it comes to judging the strategic utility of terrorism in the contemporary context.
Weak quasi-democratic regimes like Afghanistan and Pakistan are examples of highly vulnerable subjects of terrorism. To
a lesser degree, immature democracies such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are vulnerable to destabilisation
by well-organised terrorist campaigns. Conversely, virtually all of East Asian regimes, authoritarian or democratic,
have the necessary ingredients to defeat non-state terrorists, be they sponsored or self-organised. They same can be
said for the Antipodes, even if Australia and New Zealand differ significantly in their approaches to the current
counter-terrorist campaigns. Latin America has also managed to combine the requisites for a successful counter-terrorism
strategy (especially if the threat is Islamicist, which is culturally alien to the region), although there remain in the
region a small number of indigenous irregular groups that continue to practice isolated acts of terrorism in spite of
their lack of popular appeal. The US may still be the ultimate jihadist target, but it is also extremely difficult to
penetrate on anything but a small scale. Mexico, on the other hand, is currently engaged in a vicious internal war
between the federal government and drug cartel paramilitary fronts that use terrorism as a matter of course. Although
funded and armed by criminal organizations its has a political element in that lower class resentment of the Calderon
government’s right-wing policies provides ideological and physical cover for criminal terrorists in several Mexican
states.
Broadly speaking however, in terms of probabilities of success, terrorists today are confronted with a strategic
landscape that, outside of Central Asia and the Middle East, appears to doom them to defeat. For example, rather than
gaining traction and a larger foothold in international affairs, Islamic internationalists are losing ground. The
transnational jihadist movement has found itself increasingly forced to retrench in failed states such as the Sudan,
Somalia and Pakistan, where they can be encircled and cut off from sources of re-supply and financing (although is a
matter of will and cooperation by the anti-Islamicist coalition). Improved intelligence cooperation and development of
professional counter-terrorism forces has greatly disrupted Islamicist funding and resource networks as well led to the
arrest or killing of numerous cadres. That might explain the move away from “hub and spoke” operations (modeled roughly
along Che Guervara’s “wildfire” guerrilla strategy) to highly decentralised and often individual, “Lone Wolf” attacks
(such as that at Fort Hood), the increasingly “indiscriminate” nature of attacks in places like Iraq and Pakistan (in
which potentially sympathetic elements of the local population are targeted), as well as growing international success
in uncovering plots before they are executed (which is as much a function of government-supportive local communities as
it is of good intelligence).
That raises the question of US counter-terrorism efforts under the Obama administration. It is clear that the W. Bush
administration’s heavy-handed approach led to mixed results at great cost to US prestige and reputation. So a change in
strategy was necessary, and is one that is still in the process of being crafted. Yet, given the culture wars, economic
and social woes, and ideological polarisation that divide the US, coupled with popular lack of interest in, or
commitment to foreign wars, it is increasingly an open question as to whether the US has the popular staying power and
committed political leadership to defeat its irregular adversaries at home and abroad. That in turn impinges on its
allies’ commitment to the cause. This is the variable that is the jihadis best hope of long-term success, and it is not only Islamicists who may see opportunity in perceived US weakness.
That is what makes the US approach to counter-terrorism a matter of global import. There lies the rub, because
counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in failed states is as much an issue of contextual understanding by foreign
forces as it is of their will and capability in the face of uncooperative local regimes. So far, the US has struggled to
adequately deal with the non-kinetic aspects of counter-terrorism operations. It specifically has moved more slowly than
other nations in developing a “behavioral clue” approach to early detection of terrorist plots, one that focuses more on
patterns of behavior rather than on ethnicity or religious affiliation when triangulating on suspects. It should be
noted that counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, although often overlapped, are not synonymous and hence
are not reducible to one general response. Thus, the “ink blot” (secure and expand) counter-insurgency strategy used in
Iraq and being implemented in Afghanistan is not specifically focused on counter-terrorism operations, and as of yet
does not have the focused behavioral clue component that allows for early detection of discrete terrorist plots (which
is a function of reliable intelligence flows).
The bigger picture is thus: Even if in global retreat and no longer an existential threat to Western and Eastern
interests, the Islamicist campaign still has not seen the full crest of its wave. In other words, although the Jihadist
defensive war against globalised modernization has been lost, episodic atrocities will continue so long as there is
residual ideological support for it, weak states that provide safe haven to it, and a lack of unified will to address
its underlying causes on the part of the “civilised” world.
Paul G. Buchanan is a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore, Paul
G. Buchanan studies issues of international politics and security. An earlier version of this essay was posted at www.kiwipolitico.com collective.
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