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February 26, 2009

Lucy Russell, Global Studies Programme - Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Bronze Contributor (14)

Yasser,

I assume that when talking about terrorism as a global problem, you are referring to Al Qaeda and its international networks. After all Al Qaeda was the first ever organised multinational terrorist organisation to exist, according to Rohan Gunaratna in his book “Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror”.

The book addresses the strengths of Al Qaeda and underlines that first and foremost it has its grip on ideology and thereby motivates its supporters and sympathisers. Al Qaeda’s members are indoctrinated with a specific mindset based on their strict interpretation of Islamic principles, they have conquered their fear of death and believe they will be rewarded for their martyrdom.

NATO, as you underline in the article, has the necessary military capacity and experience and could play a vital role in a global framework to combat such international terrorist networks. However, using NATO as a response to the threat of such a global terrorist network may well be one way forward but it is not enough. The international community has only responded to military and financial threats (e.g. through the US-led war in Afghanistan and freezing suspect bank accounts), but not to the ideological challenges, which are the root cause of the problem. Al Qaeda is overflowing with volunteers and the more people who die for the cause, the more who seek to join. So a military attack on the organisation’s manpower is not the answer.

More strategies are needed to address the core problems: namely the disillusionment, lack of representation and marginalisation in society of potential Al Qaeda recruits. Some possible additional paths (to a military one) to take could be diplomacy in key regions where Al Qaeda is believed to be active (e.g. Chechnya or Kashmir) or a public challenge to the misinterpretation of the Koran.

February 27, 2009

Member deleted

There are a lot of issues that are involved here. A challenge to the misinterpretation of the Koran would be very intereting including a challenge to the role of the various Churches. In states like India, etc. In other words, preach secularism after thou has found it yourself. Without that - it is difficult to envisage any end to global terrorism, of which the al-quaeda remains merely visible via its acts of direct violence. The various churches remain invisible via their acts of indirect violence - but the violence remains. I can vouchsafe for it given the rather rabid reactions of the Roman Catholic Church and then the Baptist Church, etc. to a work on International Terrorism. In any other state - they would have been proverbially strung by the tree. Given the plethora of their servants via particular congolemerations - the al-quaeda and other such outfits in the future remain a reactionary force. Global governance minus secularism: some one must be sorely troubled by secular modernity and the al-quaeda is not one who began being troubled. Of course, street-walking as secular modernity given a boot at the first instance. The need is to reassert modernity. Fanatcism (ideological or religious or their combination) is not modern. Let us get a few things clear and one would encourage NATO on a global governance path. The al-quaeda did not cause the Irish Troubles - now did they or the ETA or the Red Brigade, etc.? Yet elements from those vintages including the abuse of universities as the breeding grounds (should LSE be mentioned tentatively, amongst many other institutions including those in the US of A?) from as mush a threat to civility and civilised life as do third world politicians who expect rewards from the non-al-qaeda formations because they ostensibly come from a more 'developed' region? India continues to exhibit that illness that NATO would again need to address vis-a-vis global governance!

February 27, 2009

Yasser Abumuailek, Deutsche Welle, Silver Contributor (39)

Ms. Russel,

Indeed you're correct in your assumptions that I refer to organised terrorist networks operating globally, which Al Qaeda is the only existing example until now. However, and in the worst-case scenario, other groups with different agendas and ideologies might also spring next to Al Qaeda, and hence my generilsation. NATO can establish itself as a key instrument in combating global terrorism, in most due to its great mobility, logistical know-how and the military capacities with the supporting political influence.

However, I do not believe that NATO or any other organisation is able to counter the ideology of Al Qaeda or even launch an awareness-raising campaign in the regions believed to be the source of Al Qaeda recruits. Established structures with defined processes that draw upon the experience of many experts in religion, media, diplomacy, economy and inter-cultural dialogue is needed to provide NATO with the necessary elements to win the battle for the hearts and minds of those people targeted by Al Qaeda. These structures, in my opinion, will require great pooling of resources and will take time to establish and embed.

Based on my personal experience as a Muslim Palestinian who lived for more than 12 years in the Gaza Strip, and had seen the effects of similar groups to Al Qaeda (like Hamas for example), I can tell you that the fight for the hearts and minds of the people is not going to be an easy ride for NATO or any other organisation.

I will try to write something about this, and hopefully it would get published here. Thank you for reading the article and for posting such an insightful comment.

February 27, 2009

Marek Swierczynski, journalist at TVN24, Diamond Contributor (1102)

Once again I am astonished to read that NATO in its current state could become the main engine for combating terrorism worldwide. Respected contributors who claim that, can you specify where has NATO proven its ability to combat terrorism so far? As to providing stability in post conflict areas: a small scale operation like Kosovo was a moderate success but where are we now in places like Afghanistan? As to political mandate: NATO wasn’t even asked to deal with more serious challenges, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and probably never will be asked, because some nations are “more equal” than others. The idea on NATO becoming a world-policeman is ill-designed to me, as is NATO currently going through a crisis and is unable to unify its members around the already taken missions, let alone dealing with more complex ones. This does not mean NATO can not be used in fighting terrorism, but only as a tool, providing concrete capabilities and maybe some political influence, but the Alliance has to come to terms with itself first before it transforms into worldwide terror whip.

February 27, 2009

Kelly Kathryn O'Hara, University of Queensland, (5)

To argue that a NATO empowered with the principles of global governance would project its role as a global leader capable of triumphing in the War on Terror is an interesting line of enquiry, however it seems to assume a certain understanding of terrorism itself, one that is arguably couched in a traditional logic of symmetrical warfare.
Certainly NATO has a great deal of military expertise, although it is still largely a product of the cold-war and in terms of legitimacy its ability to inspire consensus on international norms surrounding terrorism is bounded by its Western complexion. Aside from the problem of seeking to win an ambiguous war with no definable end, there is question of how appropriate a regional state-based military alliance is against non-state actor security threats. Perhaps it would be useful to return to the definitional problem of what is a terrorist. Douglas R. Burgess Jr. offers a fitting legal comparison to pirates, hostis humani generis, and suggests one way forward would be the defining and proscribing of terrorism as a crime with international jurisdiction
(http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/JulyAugust-2005/feature_burgess_...).

February 27, 2009

Anna de Brux / HILLBLOGGER3, NAIAG affiliate, Bronze Contributor (13)

The idea of terrorism as a global problem is an evident truth. The need to organise at a global level follows swiftly from this. How to organise is much more difficult and in theory NATO could become the global leader in combatting terrorism, but there are several pre-conditions that make the idea difficult to achieve.

Off the top of my head these include:

1. NATO has no decision making capability at this level it does only what its members allow and any decision will be by 100% consensus. In order to arrive at a point wherby NATO is the leader we have to first persuade 27 nations (and shortly 29 nations) that this is the right way forward.

2. Acts of terrorism are perpetrated on sovereign territory even though the terrorist may be a non-state player. This means that nations have a strong incentive to deal with terrorism at a national level to satisfy thier electorate. This effect works/creates resistance at a national level to giving the lead to an international organisation.

3. NATO is NOT a global organisation. Technically, it is strictly limited to the North American and European area. And it is safe to say that many parts of the world "regard" these areas as oppressive. Huge areas of the world will find it difficult to accept such a limited leadership - and here I speak of South America, China, India and Russia.

4. Terrorism uses, as foot soldiers, those who have nothing to lose. This means the poorest of the poor. To reduce recruitment to this potential army will take economic support and this is clearly NOT WITHIN the purview of NATO.

5. Terrorism builds also on religious fanaticism. It is amongst Moslem religious fanatics that the leadership for terrorism has its roots. NATO is or may be seen by these fanatics as a predominately Christian organisation even as we know that this is this is not true, i.e., as Turkey, the US and Europe, countries that count huge Moslem populations, however the perception is still there. I doubt we will persuade the Moslem and Hindu diaspora that NATO is the right global leader.

That all seems rather negative; that said, I fundamentaly agree with Mr Yasser Abumuailek that this problem needs to be dealt with at a global level. I also agree that NATO, if the idea is SOLD WELL, can indeed be a powerful voice in the combat. But realistically, I believe the solution for leadership tends more towards the UN.

Like all international institutions, the UN is powerless and can only do what the members allow. If we want global leadership, then the UN is the only global body. It then becomes a question of persuading the larger nations that they need to give the role and the means to the UN. One of the follow-ons could be for the UN to ask another international body to lead on defence aspects - and here, NATO would be a good candidate.

To back up what I am trying to say in the last two paragraphs, I would point to the potential looming failure of the NATO security operation in Afghanistan. NATO clearly won the war. They held the security line for several years, BUT they are loosing the long term stability and reconstruction phase. Not because the military is failing, but because the reconstruction is too slow -- living standards are improving too slowly and so an Afghan man can provide more for his family by joining the insurgents than by staying at home and waiting for reconstruction.

I think the idea that the US will spend 150M$ per year providing some 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, whereas the same money could provide ONE million Afghan soldiers has the kernel of the solution to the problem. Creating a one million man Afghan army could be the beginning of the defeat of terrorist recruitment in Afghanistan, i.e., on the very basic economic front alone, it certainly would help alleviate the economic problem facing the Afghan man and his family. As we all know, it is not with military force that we will win, but by creating prosperity so that people do not want to become fanatics or to risk their lives by being terrorists.

February 28, 2009

Bernhard Lucke, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Platinum Contributor (531)

I think this paper by Yasser Abumuailek confuses the reasons and symptoms of terrorism.

Terrorism is a fighting style. Its definition is not finalized: you may count radiactive bombs in Iraq, Napalm in Gaza, or torture in hidden concentration camps as (state) terrorism. This depends on the point of view.

The misguiding concept of Bush's "War on Terror" had mainly one goal: to legitimize the actions of the American military, and to de-legitimize its opponents.

The only way to combat terrorism would be tackling the political issues which are at the root of the conflicts. NATO could play a vital political role there, but there is so much disagreement between its members that this is unlikely to happen.

March 2, 2009

Ivan Kalburov, Leiden University, Silver Contributor (48)

Let me congratulate Yasser for the courage to speak about the global governance and the war on terror. I would like to make two comments about his argument, and after that one suggestion for future thinking on this issue.

First, Terrorism cannot be seen as armed conflict (if we do not count the unique case of Afghanistan where state and terrorism were constructed as identical). Therefore even if NATO had proven experience in this (and it does not) it would be inappropriate. The same holds true for military approaches to fighting terrorism. The proper word here should be 'tackling', not 'fighting', although the latter can be part of the former. To use a classification by Renee de Nevers, anti-terrorism can be: prevention of terrorist acts; denial of weapons and safe havens; counter terrorism; consequence management. As these are quite complex, I will not elaborate further, I will only note that NATO is ill-equipped in some of them. However I have to agree that it has potential far exceeding that of the US military forces in consequence management.

Second, as it was outlined in previous comments, NATO will have hard time taking the global lead in this area as actors such as Russia, China, and most likely the US itself (as we know it under the Neo-Conservative administrations) will have their own approach and interests.

In this respect it is worth mentioning a useful differentiation of approaches in anti-terrorism made by Prasad Rane: The War Model (US) and the Criminal Justice Model (EU). These two can be seen of extremes of a continuum, with NATO being somewhere in between. At this point the international community focuses on the first one, but this is unsustainable without employing the mechanisms of law-enforcement and engaging in winning the hearts and minds. Here, I think NATO lacks both legitimacy (as it is the main source of deadly kinetic force) and mechanisms (as its civilian component is still in embryonic phase).

So maybe we should indeed reconsider the global leadership in anti-terrorism. While it is good to be brave and think of possible international fora to take the lead, one needs to be cautious and first look at the diverse mechanisms in tackling terrorism, be it home-grown, or imported. And before all to have in mind that Taliban Afghanistan and the the current insurgency from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan is among the rare cases where terrorism can be identified with particular groups of people and specific geographic locations.

In this light, it would be interesting to hear opinions on how the EU with its rich soft power mechanisms, international legitimacy, and crisis management capability can contribute to the current international anti-terrorist efforts. What do you think ?

March 4, 2009

Simona Lipstaite, College of Europe, Bronze Contributor (16)

It is indeed important to bear in mind the difference between the US approach to fighting terrorism (as a "war") and the EU criminal justice method as outlined above. There is little that the EU can do to contribute to global anti-terrorist efforts except under the aegis of the UN.

This is so, firstly, because of the complex decision-making processes which take place inside the EU itself. Member states are still struggling to come up with harmonised anti-terrorist policies and instruments, largely due to the lack of will to surrender state power under the EU's third pillar (Justice and Home Affairs). Even the rather recent creation of the position of the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator meant relatively little, as the Coordinator has almost no resources, support staff or de jure influence. EU counter-terrorism cooperation has, notably, increased and become more fruitful with partners such as the US, but there is only so much that can be done as long as the two sides of the transatlantic hold such different interpretations of what terrorism is.

If the first issue is the lack of will, the second is of course the question whether the EU (or, indeed, NATO) is or should be in any position to lead or contribute to the international war on terror in terms of resources. In short, the answer seems to be no. The EU already has problems in conjuring up enough resources or enough expert staff to be able to run its ESDP operations, both civil and military, and contributing more to international counter-terrorism efforts would be an even more difficult and unlikely feat. On the other hand, the EU has recognised the growing problem of global terrorism in its European Security Strategy of 2003, but has, yet again, largely simply reconfirmed its preparedness to go primarily through the UN.

Considering NATO, if one is to go by the prescriptions of article V and the precedent which was set in offering support to the US' actions after 9/11, it would indeed be possible to use the organisation as an important actor in counter-terrorism. However, most NATO countries are the same EU countries mentioned above, countries which look towards multilateralism through the UN as their main channel of legitimising and exercising hard power. Taking away the willingness of the EU countries to act though NATO regarding this issue, we are once again left with the US and the remaining partner countries, and once again seem to reach the conclusion that NATO is nowhere near as unified, capable or willing to take the lead in the global efforts against terrorism as Mr Abumuailek's article suggests.

March 4, 2009

Member deleted

As stated by Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, the editors of the celebrated book “Power in Global Governance”, the importance of power for global governance is greatly underestimated and sometimes even completely disregarded. This is also the case in Yasser Abumuailek’s elaboration on the NATO’s ability to become the global leader in combating terrorism, which would very much profit from considering the aspect of power.
The choice to include the determining factor of power or not, leads to completely different pictures of the concept of global governance and fundamentally changes the outcome of research. When blanking out power, global governance is barely about the creation and maintenance of institutional arrangements through consensual relations and voluntary voice, as described by Abumuailek. When considering power, the picture becomes much more diverse, since it then is a question of how global life is organized, structured and regulated. Barnett and Duvall believe that this does not only change the understanding of global governance, but one also has to reconsider basic normative assumptions of international relations theory. When considering the variable of power, global structures, processes, and institutions shaping fates and life chances of authors around the world have to be regarded. Therefore, the legitimacy of governing arrangements and the rules of participation have to be called into question by asking who gets to participate, whose voice matters, and whose vote counts. So it is not only important, if an institution is efficient, but also if they are fair and legitimate.
Here the question of NATO’s legitimacy comes up, which has already been answered by the other contributors. NATO has no sense of global legitimacy, since it consists of states being immensely privileged in terms of economic power and influence on the processes of global governance, especially compared to the countries considered to be the germ cells of terrorism. The vast majority of the international community’s members do not have the opportunity to participate in or exert influence on NATO’s decision-making, since they are not even members of that organization. Therefore, NATO is rather unsuitable for taking the lead in a global operation against terrorism.

Taking this into consideration, I can agree with Marek Swierczynski on the fact that NATO certainly can be useful in fighting terrorism, but only as a tool applied by another institution of global governance.
A difficulty that has to be paid attention to when employing NATO or other military actors is, that they tend to represent a realist view on power and problem solution, while they blend out other dimensions of power. The realist tradition advances a rather pessimist view of human beings, which they regard as selfish, and believes war to be inevitable. This is expressed by the military’s habit of always planning and training for the worst case and by the "trust is good, control is better" credo of their internal structure. The promotion of national interest as well as the preservation and increase of power are the main priorities in realist international interaction.
As argued by J. Lewis Rasmussen, even though realism is and was the dominant way of explaining and predicting international behavior, it is no longer singularly capable of interpreting the forces that determine political relations among nations and other relevant actors.

The type of power preferred by realists and being the embodiment of military might is hard power - the application of force or inducement to make someone do something he would otherwise not do, also described as carrots and sticks. A member of the international community can have the power to command submission, since it has the means to threaten another member with its military might or the economic power to buy someone over with economic incentives. As stated by Joseph Nye, former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and founder of the concept of soft power, in some cases one actor can influence the behavior of another actor without commanding it. Instead of coercing others, one could also try to apply co-optive or soft power. If one person follows another without fearing a threat or expecting a reward, it must be caused by an intangible attraction. Soft power works with another kind of incentive then sticks or carrots, it provides the attraction to shared values in order to engender cooperation. When associating hard power with the employment of military force or economic inducements, the methods of soft power reach from agenda-setting and manipulating political choices to the use of pure attraction. While commanding power leads to controlling what others do, co-opting power changes what others want.
This also has to be considered in the dealing with terrorism. Even though extremists are not to be convinced of the U.S. soft power by its political values or great culture, soft power can be the key to convincing moderate Muslims of having similar goals with the U.S. Since al Qaeda does not only operate in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, but 60 countries all over the world one needs to win over the public in order to combat terrorism and this is not to be achieved by strategic warfare. So Lucy Russel is right when stating that a military attack on Al Qaeda manpower is not the answer. As proposed by Ivan Kalburov, the aim should indeed be to tackle terrorism, not to fight it, though the latter can and has to be part of the former.
As Nye puts it: “[...] Nearly five centuries ago, Niccolò Machiavelli advised princes in Italy that it was more important to be feared than to be loved. In today’s world, it is best to be both. To defeat terrorism, the United States [and the NATO] must learn to combine soft and hard power more effectively. [...]”
Taking this into account, one might not barely question if NATO has the legitimacy for that mission, but also if it is in the possession of the assets necessary to combat terrorism.

I believe that the world is not in need of a common framework to combat terrorism, but a common framework of global cooperation that includes all members of the international communities and disposes of the necessity to employ militant violence in order to make one’s voice heard. Global governance should indeed be a product of cooperation, but this cooperation should include all state and non-state actors and not barely global organizations. I agree with the author that initiative should be taken as soon as possible, though not by the employment of military action, but rather by the application of soft power and diplomatic efforts.

The approach suggested by Kalburov that the EU should engage in combating terrorism is to some degree supportable. While the EU has as little global legitimacy as NATO – and that for the same reasons – it has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to resolve conflicts by the implementation of diplomatic efforts. On the other hand, the EU is already involved in anti-terror missions without being able to secure the goal of its anti-terrorism agenda as set out in the Declaration on Combating Terrorism on March 25th, 2004. Hence the EU should aid others in the mission against terrorism, but is not qualified to be the exclusive leader of such a venture.

Thus it is evidenced that both NATO and the EU are rather unsuitable for being the global leader in fighting terrorism and it can be assumed that most other international actors are also, due to the lack of legitimacy and assets. So one probably has to leave the task to the United Nations, whose missions are provided with a higher degree of legitimacy, since it represents all members of the international community that can - at least in theory – exert influence on the decision-making process. Due to its’ legitimacy and the assets provided by all states, the UN is the institution of global governance, which is most entitled to the role of the global leader. If anyone, it should be the UN applying NATO as a tool in combating terrorism. Though this is not likely to happen, since the NATO members use the organization as an alternative way to enforce their interests, if a member of the Security Council blocks the establishment of a resolution, as done in the case of the Kosovo conflict. Therefore, even greater importance has to be attached to the legitimization of a military intervention by a UN resolution. The UN has to be supported by all state and non-state actors in becoming the actual leader – not just the one in theory - of global governance. In order to do so, it has to be aimed for improving both efficiency and fairness of the UN by for e.g. drawing away a part of the decision-making power from the Security Council. The suggestions brought forward by the former Secretary General Kofi Annan could be very helpful for that.

May 26, 2010

Amarjyoti Acharya

One agrees in principle that the principles of global governance can help NATO combat terrorism. Terrorism is not merely an attack upon a state's sovereignty. There are just too many attacks on a state's sovereignty - even from those who may hold its highest office. Sovereignty defined in the Weberian notion of the state leaves the United States firmly out since it is not a Weberian state in the strict sense and allows its citizens to arm themselves. Now patridges are not so much in number and US citizens barely are seen hunting for the locusts. Their right to arm themselves mean many things.
Second, the stuck-like-a-pig Jesus as symbolic of the "western" culture ensures that many do want to turn (and ideally it should be so) their followers into that very image. Eurocentrism as one disease is less worse than Christiancentrism - and which is doubly worse.

Combating terrorism would first need the Western states to shed their stuck-like-a-pig jesus hero-wroship while they go on fighting the rest of the world as if the rest of the world had stuck that guy on a wooden cross - like a pig! No one is even interested. This failure on the part of many states does vouchsafe for a few things: primarily the failure to recognize that the world is a multi-polar place and made up of other cultures who may not and many do not think so highly of a some chap who is stuck-like-a-pig and is worshipped - and those most responsible for doing that to him are from the western hemisphere - even if he was some celebrity in his times!

This reverence for one and ridicule for the other is a common phenomenon and if the "western" world can recognize this and live with it - and co-exist with people who look at such stuck-like-a-pig Jesus person with ridicule - one gathers that much in the world would be solved - as far as religion is cited as a site for terrorism and even war.

March 19, 2012

Rina

Fire is highly ubpderictanle. Forest fires depend on certain weather conditions (e.g. high winds, lack of rainfall, ect) and it might be difficult to plan exactly when and where the exact conditions will exist. I guess you could just toss a random road flare into a random pile of brush each day, but every time you do that you increase the chance that someone sees you and you wind up sitting in prison wondering where it all went wrong. In a similar vein you run the risk of having the fire successfully extinguished before it gets very far, which will also spark an arson investigation which could put L.E. on your case and impede future (more effective) terrorist attacks. And even if the fire gets going, it's difficult to prove that YOU (your organization or whatever) actually did it. Now that I think about it, the only way it really works well is if you start the fire, leave plenty of evidence, and make sure you get caught (they're willing to die for the cause anyway). My .02? If you want to do a G.G. style attack you get a far better bang/buck ratio taking out a key point in the power grid. In any case, I think a good terrorist wants to keep his or her head down until they're fairly certain you have a decent shot of doing some damage and letting everyone know that the event was not a natural disaster.