Perspective on the Threat of Terrorism by Dr. Christopher Bolan

Micah Zenko at the Council on Foreign Relations observes that based on the most recent USG official statistics on global terrorism for 2011, "the number of U.S. citizens who died in terrorist attacks [is comparable to those] crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year."  So the inert television and chairs sitting around your house are every bit as threatening to your physical safety as the sum total of all terrorist organizations actively operating world-wide.

In confronting this objectively miniscule but emotionally-compelling threat, the USG has undertaken the most extensive reorganization and expansion of its national security apparatus since WWII; conducted massive military interventions and enormous nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq at tremendous costs in American blood and treasure; and authorized ever-more intensive assassination campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen that include American citizens as 'legitimate' targets.

The 'global war on terrorism' was a flawed strategic framework from its inception appealing primarily to the appreciable fear of the American public in the wake of the horrific attacks of 9-11 and eschewing an objective assessment of the scale and nature of the threat.  Terrorism as a tactic of the weak will always be with us.  It will never be eliminated.  This report demonstrates that this threat has clearly been reduced to a manageable level.  The Al-Qa'ida organization that attacked us on 9-11 is a shadow of what it was.  Targeted attacks on its leadership and support networks wherever they operate can most effectively and efficiently be facilitated by close cooperation with local law enforcement, intelligence, and as needed, special operations forces.

In these times of fiscal constraints and 'tough choices', U.S. citizens and taxpayers should demand a reality-based discussion of the military, security, and intelligence forces needed to defend critical American national interests here and abroad.  Our political and military leaders should lead this rational debate.  Nevertheless, many politicians, defense lobbyists, and those working in the national security and foreign policymaking apparatus (both government and civilian) will be tempted to employ hyperbolic exaggeration of the threats confronting us as a justification for continued U.S. interventions across the globe.  The rise of China as a conventional military and economic competitor and the potential for Iran to develop nuclear weapons are prime candidates to replace terrorism as the next great  security 'threat' demanding exorbitant expenditures of America's treasure and resources.  Let's at least insist on a rational and fact-based debate over these issues.

The author is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War College.  The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Army.

Comments

[Seanmcbride]

The Global War on Terror=The Global War on Amalek. One really needs to understand the neoconservative agenda. The Global War on Terror is the product of a narrow messianic ethno-religious nationalist movement that has nothing to do with the American interest.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think as the lethality of weapon systems increase and the costs of wars - in human and material terms - increae, terrorism could become a major way of states fighting one another.

[turcopolier]

Babak

"terrorism could become a major way of states fighting one another." Yes, but that is not new and it is only one pf many ways of war. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

I am not saying it is new, but that it could become the dominant form.

[Chris Bolan]

Perhaps, but politicians and pundits alike must largely advance their public arguments in the language of national interests.

[Alba Etie]

I was always more of afraid of the draft dodging VP Cheney and my civil liberties then I ever was of al Qaida ..

[turcopolier]

Babak

I think not. This kind of thing is decisively effective against the weak and the weak minded but few others. pl

[Walrus]

Democracy as a system of secular humanist Government is a relatively new phenomenon - the "great experiment" is only 236 years old by my reckoning.

Against that we have a monarchical autocratic "priest/king" system which has been a feature of human organisation from about 3000BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia all the way to the demise of the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns in 1919 and the Ottoman Empire in 1922.

When studying this phenomenon it is not difficult to speculate that American democracy and its secular humanist variants currently practiced in Europe and elsewhere are brief abberations that will not survive concerted attacks aimed at a) concentrating military, economic and political power and b) controlling the education and access to information of the masses.

To those that say "it can't happen here and now" I say that human experience is against you. The rise of politically powerful middle classes can be easily explained by the requirements of the industrial revolution for large quantities of relatively skilled workers and informed lower and middle managers.

A post industrial tyranny, enabled by computer technology, has been a persistent feature of Science Fiction since at least 1955 and the predictions of that genre have a habit of being realised. The blurring of the demarcation between policing and military activity, together with the awesome capability of current and future weapons systmes and surviellance technologies and the refusal of the military industrial complex to retreat, togehter with the cheese paring interpretations of the Constitution in the last Twelve years should be of obvious concern to you.

..and the good guys don't always win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian_dialogue

[Jackie]

Alba Etie,
My thoughts exactly. I've never been afraid of a terrorist attact, whatever a "terrorist" might be. I'm sure we have some "terrorist" here in Kansas City, Kansas, but not of the al Qaida variety.

[Morocco Bama]

Something had to take the place of the Cold War, except when the War On Terror ends is much less definitive.

[Joe]

If we get money out of politics, politicians would worry about other things than how to waste government money on their big donors. All election money should be supplied by the state. If we did this there would be no war on drugs and no war on terrorism. Politicians would be able to govern instead of trying to find their next donation.

[JohnH]

I agree with Dr. Bolan that "U.S. citizens and taxpayers should demand a reality-based discussion of the military, security, and intelligence forces needed to defend critical American national interests here and abroad."

Were such a discussion to percolate, the well entrenched, deep pocketed special interests whose careers and prosperity depend on security business as usual would cause something to happen to stoke Americans' fears and sense of victimization.

Israeli political are tried and true masters of fabricating threats and exploiting fear and a sense victimization. Their neo-con brethren are their collaborators and have been known to act (Iraq). Liberal interventionists have honed their skills at goading Americans into hare brained action at the drop of a allegation of potential human rights abuses (Libya).

And then there's the special case of Iran, which is probably more valuable to the security establishment as a much exaggerated threat than as a defeated enemy.

[mbrenner]

It is stunning that it takes a professor at the U.S. Army War College to say these things while the entire political class and foreign policy community views such sentiments as almost seditious. That is our real tragedy. This self mutilation, this corruption of our public life, this wholesale, almost cavalier abndonment of the liberies and principles that have sustained us is the writing on the wall. One can discern the outline of a tragic fate - but we lack the perception and courage to see it.

[YT]

Prof. Brenner,

In regione caecorum rex est luscus.

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

[Ursa Maior]

Dr. Bolan's fate in the next months will be a good indicator of the current system. One can only hope these days that there will be no repercussions against him for speaking so openly.

[Basilisk]

"Something had to take the place of the Cold War,"

Regrettably, that may be true. Whether it was purposeful or not I couldn't say, but it is clear enough that once launched the the "Global War on Terror" (no matter how we rename it) is self-sustaining. There are those whose careers are tied to the "terrorist threat." It cannot go away, it would have too large an impact on employment.

It's so much better than the Cold War, it never has to end. There has always been terrorism as a tactic of the deprived (or depraved) and there always will be. Ergo, job security, don't you see?

[David Habakkuk]

Babak Makkinejad,

I hope not. But I do find myself wondering whether some of those who are so busily throwing stones have stopped to ask themselves whether they may be living in glass houses.

In relation to Israeli terrorism against Iranian nuclear scientists, I do not know whether the possibility of ‘blowback’ is something that the Israeli government needs to be worried about. Likewise, I do not know whether the fact that it is increasingly regarded as a bunch of thugs should be of any concern to it.

The apparent insouciance of Obama and his associates about the potential implications of the use of cyberwarfare against Iran does seem to me breathtaking. From one of David Sanger’s articles:

“They approached the Iran issue very, very pragmatically,” one official involved in the discussions over Olympic Games told me. No one, he said, “wanted to engage, at least not yet, in the much deeper, broader debate about the criteria for when we use these kinds of weapons and what message it sends to the rest of the world.”

The notion that it constitutes ‘pragmatism’ to grasp for grasp for a short term advantage in an unnecessary and probably futile attempt to prevent any enrichment of uranium by Iran, without taking any thought at all about the longer term implications, seems extraordinary.

(See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/sunday-review/mutually-assured-cyberdestruction.html )

[David Habakkuk]

JohnH,

On the ‘liberal interventionists’, there is a very good dissection by Daniel Larison of proposals by Nick Kristof of the NYT for interventions in Syria and Sudan.

Nowhere in Kristof’s column, Larison observes, ‘is there any mention of what American interests are at stake in these countries, and he does not consider the possible consequences or costs of the courses of action he recommends.’

The insouciance about the likely implications both for oneself and others is indeed breathtaking.

(See http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/nick-kristof-and-liberal-interventionism-run-amok/ )

[Morocco Bama]

My sentiments exactly, Basilisk.

[Paul Deavereaux]

Dr Bolans new duty station.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/images/eareckson_shemya-island.jpg

[William R. Cumming]

From the long term viewpoint, technology has empowered the individual and combined with Globalization the non-state actor has new freedom of maneuver IMO to disrupt nation-states. So whether destructive "individualism" will continue to plague the modern world it remains a threat. Ever wonder why Ian Fleming made James Bond hold of a liscense to kill? Perhaps those who are knowledgeable about certain technologies and their engineering will eventually be licensed by states or international organization. Highly recommend the BBC series "The Last Enemy" available by streaming and DVD.

And of course the next two weeks may well contain discussion of the terrorism of the SCOTUS team as they continue to impose their viewpoints on the USA often with total ignorance of economics, politics, national security, or whatever but that is our way. As far as I know NO member of SCOTUS has ever served on active duty in the Armed Services but could be wrong.

[Chris Bolan]

UM & PD: So far, so good. Thanks for the photo...looks like I'd have a good bit of time for additional reflection on these issues :=)

[different clue]

Sounds like the "War On Drugs".

[Babak Makkinejad]

There is a very sensible article by Dr. Kissinger @ http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/syrian-intervention-risks-upsetting-global-order

[Babak Makkinejad]

Infantile, isn't it?

And as US goes so does EU:

"We will sanction Iranian oil even if we have to ride bicycles."

To me, all of these indicate the depth of anger in US and EU policy circles against Iran and an equally high determination to restore the US-EU position to status quo ante 2003.