Annex 6. Remarks on Terrorism at the Opening of the 14th NATO Review Meeting

    Terrorism experts, such as Bruce Hoffman at RAND, have been warning about a new form of terrorism and the possibility of mass destruction attacks on the U.S. (and the West in general) since the early 1990s.

Clearly neither these warnings nor various reviews of the vulnerabilities of our society and of the air travel system specifically were adequately heeded.

The Enemy?

    As terrorism experts saw it, and still do, the new terrorists have different motives than the ones we grew up with, such as the PLO and the IRA. These older groups used terrorism to secure specific political ends - a Palestinian state and Catholic rule of Northern Ireland. They sought negotiations to achieve these ends. They aimed at limiting casualties to 10s or at most 100s because they understood that deaths of great scale would cause a political backlash.

The new terrorists, though, have a different outlook. They have no stated or apparent political aim other than to cause as much harm as they can inflict on the U.S. and the West. They are motivated by deep hatred of Western society and of the U.S. specifically. Osama bin Laden (OBL) is the archetype of this kind of terrorist. As he put it succinctly in 1998:

"To kill Americans and their allies - military and civilian - is an individual duty of every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

These terrorists are focused on "spectacular" acts, with maximum damage to the West. There is little question in my mind that they would use a nuclear weapon if they could get their hands on one. We can be fairly confident that they want to continue a campaign of mass terror against the U.S., but also targets in Europe and Asia.

The new terrorists are a party to a virtual civil war within Islam - a war between extremists and moderates. This began in earnest when the extremists took control in Iran in 1979. The extremists despise everything associated with Western society and culture, which they view as corrupt and worse than decadent. They do not value pluralism and prefer theocracy to democracy, human rights and tolerance. They are contemptuous of Western values and support for what they regard as corrupt regimes in the Middle East. These include not only Israel, which they frequently excoriate, but also Arab governments with close ties to the West, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

This civil war is not limited to Islam. There are extremist Jews, some of whom are violent. The assassin of Yitzhak Rabin was such a person. Militant white supremacist groups in the U.S. often refer to scripture as justifying their acts against a corrupt and decadent U.S. society.

This means our policies should not focus on religion per se. True adherents are not violent and do not support violence. The extremists who are our problem are fanatics who embrace rather than reject violence. They are the antithesis of the religion they purport to represent.

Sitting in Europe the past week, I've heard a lot (mainly on BBC phone-in shows or TV) about how we have to be sympathetic to the causes of terrorism and to understand that many people have real grievances with U.S. foreign policy. The fact that so many people from all over the world call in to say this is itself impressive. But, if my analysis of the enemy is correct, it is not possible to remedy the causes, because the terrorists' motives are so fundamental - mainly cultural, not political. It may be that there are things we can do to slow the supply of foot soldiers, however, and this should certainly be a focus of our policy.

What to Do?

    Going after the new terrorists is a very tough problem. To paraphrase Mao, the terrorist fish swims in a sea of people. That's our problem. We have to be able to focus, laser-like, on the extremists. But our strategy will take a long time to succeed. Since we cannot expect to destroy or kill all terrorists, our policy is going to have to have both an offensive and defensive part.

The Offensive Tool Kit

    The offensive tool kit needs to be orchestrated in a way that will drain the sea the terror organizations swim in, so that we can degrade their sustenance and destroy them. This cannot be done quickly. Like the Cold War, it could be a decades-long effort.

International cooperation and coalitions. The problem is so pervasive and complex as to defy solution by the U.S. alone. The invocation of Article 5 shows that our European allies want to be part of this effort. Moreover, there is a strongly shared basis for this: All Western countries are potential targets of attacks, including moderate Muslim regimes. They have strong incentives to cooperate with the U.S. if a policy can be found for all (or most) to sign up to. Thus we should be looking at a broader coalition that includes many moderate Islamic states.

Diplomacy. Thus diplomacy will be the most important tool, especially in and with the support and cooperation of Muslim countries. Our own diplomatic abilities have generally withered under the yoke of financial stringencies imposed by the Congress. Our allies in Europe can be a real help. Some have stronger ties to Muslim countries than we. And the Muslim countries have even stronger ties with other Muslim countries than any of us.

Intelligence. If an operation the size and complexity of the September 11 attacks can happen without warning, we have an intelligence problem. This is clearly a failure of all of us. If you had known, you would have told us. It seems that every review of U.S. intelligence capabilities in the past 30 years has called for more human intelligence. It obviously is hard to infiltrate this group. We all need to try to get the most out of our technological assets. Sharing among us all needs to be stepped up.

Image. The U.S. has a severe image problem in the Muslim world. A good hard look at ways to improve our communications is in order. We also need to see whether there are sources of hate mongering that can be silenced. The broader the coalition and the more our partners are seen as true partners, the better start on this problem we will have made.

Police. Much of the effort to find the top leadership of the OBL (and other) organizations and to wrap up the network will be police work. In addition to arresting and imprisoning terrorists, we need to target the financial flows that provide the lifeblood of the terror groups. We also need to understand how new foot soldiers are recruited and trained and figure out how to interdict that. International police and justice cooperation already exists. We should review our capabilities in light of the special needs of "draining the sea" to be sure we are getting the most out of them.

Development Assistance. Poverty, hunger, and poor health, especially when seen as a consequence of U.S. policy, help sustain the supply of foot soldiers. The U.S. needs to reverse its decades-long downward slide in international development assistance, both that it provides itself and that which comes through the international agencies. We have a right to be sure it is effectively delivered, however. The key is to improve the poor public policies and delivery of public assistance throughout the Islamic world, but especially in the Middle East and the Gulf.

Counter-proliferation. The greatest danger we face is that extremists could get nuclear capability. The single most important thing we can do to improve our security is right now to buy and secure as much of Russia's stockpile of nuclear weapons and material as it is prepared to sell.

Military Power. I don't see how the struggle against terrorism can be won with military force alone. I also do not see how it can be won without it. The more international cooperation we can secure, the less we will actually need to employ our forces.

• Military capability backs up our diplomatic efforts. Countries that assist terrorists already know that the U.S. and its allies could attack them. The very existence of our forces and occasional brandishing of them may be enough to coerce cooperation. If not, we will have to strike.
  
  
• Such military action should destroy elements of terrorist capability that can be identified and taken out. If countries hosting this capability cooperate and take out the capability themselves, our forces won't be needed. We might need to assist some countries that cannot do the job by themselves.
  
  
• There may be an urgent, near-term need for military action in the event that the terrorist forces are readying additional attacks. If we can discover such plans and capabilities outside our countries, we must attack now.
  
  
• In the longer term, our defense plans and programs will need to be adjusted to accommodate the war on terror. The same will be true for all of you. More spending is almost certainly needed.
  
  

The more precise and discriminate the attacks can be, the better. The political backlash from military attacks will make our task of draining the sea that terrorists swim in all the harder.

The Defensive Tool Kit

Passive Defenses. The U.S. has already started to button down obvious societal vulnerabilities, especially the air transit system. Previous reviews of air transit vulnerabilities provide plenty for us to go on. This is fine to reduce near-term risks, especially if we are not sure whether further attacks are planned in the near term. Focusing on airliner attacks is not enough. It could easily be a case of closing the barn door after the horse got away.

Active Defenses. Since the Cold War, our active defenses against air, sea and missile attacks have been reduced as the threat to our homeland from the Soviet Union was reduced. All of our defensive capabilities need to be rethought now in light of September 11. This includes missile defense, but it obviously can't be limited to that alone.

Conclusion

    If my analysis is correct, the U.S. is about to enter a prolonged struggle against international terrorism, especially the "new" terrorism that I described at the outset and that engendered September 11. The U.S. and its allies stood together in the Cold War struggle. NATO has endured the decade since as a strong institution. The invocation of Article 5 certainly has demonstrated the intention of our allies to stand together now. But the question we must grapple with in the next few days is, what is the role for this organization - NATO - in this struggle? And how will NATO fit into the larger coalition that will have to be built?

Jim Thomson, President and CEO of RAND Corporation.

(Presentation was given in Berlin on 19 September 2001)