The Case for Deterrence in the Anti-terror Campaign
Weston S. Konishi
June 2002
Introduction
As the U.S.-led war on terrorism approaches the one-year mark, the United States is facing increased criticism in Europe and elsewhere for applying excessive military force against the enemy. Critics point to the rhetoric emanating from Washington, such as President George Bush’s famous “axis of evil” statement, as further indication that the United States is eager to wage “the first war of the 21st century.” The implication is that the United States has been quick to use overwhelming military force when a more measured approach to the terrorist problem would suffice.
Yet, a review of the U.S. response to terrorism since 1983 demonstrates that the United States has applied excessive restraint rather than excessive force toward terrorist threats in the past. September 11 proved to U.S. policymakers that such restraint failed to deter terrorists and protect the nation from future attacks. As a result, the United States has adopted a deterrence strategy that involves overwhelming military force aimed both at terrorists and states that harbor terrorists.
Classic deterrence relies on the ability to convince potential adversaries that acts of aggression will result in greater costs than benefits. It is uncertain whether classic deterrence can succeed against asymmetrical threats such as terrorism. However, such a strategy is worth trying if over time it proves to limit a rapid escalation of terrorist activities.
Examining the Previous U.S. Approach to Terrorism
In the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan, allied forces led by the United States have demonstrated overwhelming military power against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In the roughly 20-year period of U.S. confrontation with terrorist groups in the Near East, however, this represents an anomalistic response. The United States has never before deployed similar levels of troops, weapons or resources to combat terrorist elements in the past. That, of course, is partly because of the unprecedented magnitude of the September 11 attacks. But it is also the way the United States viewed and dealt with asymmetric threats such as terrorism that affected its past responses to terrorist acts.
Prior to September 11, Washington regarded terrorism primarily as a law enforcement issue and did not fully appreciate its importance as a national security concern.[1] As terrorism was considered subordinate to regional security threats such as North Korea, the Middle East, or the Balkans, only a limited range of resources was provided for counterterrorist measures. This was particularly striking in the disparate ratio of intelligence resources devoted to activities other than the infiltration and monitoring of global terrorist networks. Even when the so-called war on drugs warranted resources for intelligence and covert operations, similar investments were not made in the area of counterterrorism. For instance, up to September 11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assigned only 1,000 agents to handle counterterrorism issues as opposed to 2,500 who were assigned to narcotics issues.[2] The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not have a sufficient number of analysts assigned to counterterrorism as well. It was as though counterterrorism was not a high priority on the list of national security issues and, as such, did not merit the same human, technological or financial resources that were devoted to traditional defense concerns.
Furthermore, because of the perception of terrorism as a law enforcement issue, typical responses by the United States in the face of terrorist acts were primarily legal, not military. Terrorists were often arrested and tried but, in most cases, the United States did not launch major military operations against terrorist interests in foreign nations. This meant that the U.S. approach toward terrorism was fundamentally reactive, employing crime-solving techniques to prosecute individual terrorists rather than taking military action against terrorist groups that represented major threats to U.S. security.[3]
To be fair, law enforcement authorities in the United States had, for many years, some success arresting terrorists and thwarting their activities at home and abroad. But the increasingly ambitious nature of terror plots should have signaled that global terrorist networks were overrunning the capacity of U.S. law enforcement agencies to safeguard the nation.
[1] As Kurt M. Campbell and Michele A. Flournoy write: “Indeed, the fact that asymmetric threats were on the rise had become a common refrain among U.S. national security experts over the past decade, but it did not sink into our collective consciousness or fundamentally change our national security concerns—until now” (66).
[2] In contrast, the Bush administration announced in June 2002 that it would increase the number of FBI agents assigned to counterterrorism duties from 1,000 to 2,600 agents.
[3] Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of operations in the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA, states in an interview: “Basically, over the last three administrations, we have had a law enforcement response to the problems of terrorism—we’re going to catch the perpetrators and arrest them—which doesn’t do very much to deter future acts of terrorism.” Frontline: Target America. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/lessons.html
Fortsetzung: The Case for Deterrence in the Anti-terror Campaign
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