Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Terrorism is defined in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d) as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Terrorism falls into the spectrum of low intensity conflict, relying upon the methods and strategies of unconventional warfare in targeting businesspeople, tourists, and other civilians to gain exposure, pressure governments, and extort concessions.

It is important to differentiate among state terrorism, state‐supported terrorism and sub‐state terrorism.

“State terrorism” refers to the use of terror by a government, using the resources of the state—including the police, judiciary, military—against its own citizens to quell domestic opposition to its policies, as exemplified by the “dirty war” in Argentina during the 1970s and early 1980s in which an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 regime opponents were killed or disappeared. “State‐supported terrorism” refers to situations where states provide logistical, financial and training support for a terrorist organization. In 1998, the U.S. Department of State designated Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism. Sub‐state terrorism refers to acts of terrorism perpetrated by non‐state actors.

In considering sub‐state terrorism, one can distinguish between five principal varieties:

Social revolutionary terrorism, also known as terrorism of the left, includes those acts perpetrated by groups seeking to overthrow the capitalist economic and social order and was typified by the European “fighting communist organizations” active throughout the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., the Red Army Faction in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy), though social revolutionary groups have been active around the world, including the Shining Path in Peru and the Japanese Red Army Faction in Japan.

Religious extremist terrorism is characterized by groups seeking to maintain or create a religious social and political order and has included groups representing established religious doctrines as well groups representing “new religions.” Traditional groups include Christian, Jewish, and Islamic extremists, while new religions include groups like Aum Shinrikyo, responsible for the 1995 subway sarin attack in Tokyo, Japan.

Nationalist‐separatist terrorists, also known as ethno‐nationalist terrorists, includes those groups fighting to establish a new political order or state based on ethnic dominance or homogeneity. The Irish Republican Army, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka, the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) in Spain, and the various groups representing Palestinian causes are prominent examples.

Right‐wing terrorists comprise those groups seeking to maintain an extant political order or to return society to an idealized “golden age” of the past. Examples include neo‐Nazi terrorist groups and groups espousing fascist ideology.

Single‐issue terrorism, as the label suggests, represents groups acting on a single issue, such as the environment or animal rights.

The era of modern terrorism was ushered in by the dramatic slaying of Israeli athletes by the Palestinian group Black September during the globally televised 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. While terrorism prior to 1972 principally had been a domestic phenomenon, the Munich attack emphasized the expansion of tactics and targets to include exploitation of global mass communications networks and international aviation, internationalizing terrorism.

The relationship between terrorism and the media has been extensively studied (Nacos, 1994), and has been found to influence the tactics and strategies of modern terrorist groups. According to one estimate (Jenkins, 1985: 12), 95% of all terrorist attacks are designed to maximize exposure and influence through the media. The hijacking of airlines (“skyjackings”) was particularly prevalent during the 1970s and early 1980s, as were hostage taking episodes. All received extensive media coverage.

The terrorist threat to the United States has traditionally come from two distinctly different strains of political terrorism: the leftist social revolutionary terrorists of Western Europe, attacking representatives of the United States as symbols of capitalism and Western militarism in the form of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); and the national‐separatist and religious fundamentalist groups of the Middle East—especially those connected with the liberation movements in Palestine—who attack U.S. forces and civilians first as supporters of Israel and second in connection with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The German Red Army Faction (RAF) was responsible for numerous bombings of U.S. military installations. U.S. forces have also been targeted in Italy by the Red Brigades and in Greece by the Revolutionary Organization “November 17.” Apart from bombings, European social revolutionary groups have been engaged in assassination and kidnapping attempts against U.S. military and NATO leaders stationed in Europe.

While terrorism committed by the European leftist groups against U.S. targets in Europe remained fairly localized, terrorists operating out of the Middle East, especially those organizations supported by states hostile to U.S. interests, such as Syria, Libya, and Iran, have operated on a more global setting, taking advantage of air travel and modern mass communications to pressure the United States and its allies into withdrawing support for Israel and diminishing U.S. and Western influence in the region.

America's first prolonged experience with terrorism began in 1979 with the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and the ensuing hostage crisis in which U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days. U.S. airliners have been susceptible to skyjackings, such as the 1985 Trans World Airlines (TWA) flight 847 skyjacking by Abu Nidal terrorists resulting in the deaths of 2 Americans, and bombings, the most spectacular of which was the 1988 bombing of PAN AM flight 103 by suspected Libyan terrorists.

Terrorists operating out of the Middle East frequently target U.S. military personnel. PLO splinter groups were responsible for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 86 and wounding 100, and the car‐bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut airport, resulting in the deaths of 241 U.S. servicemen. U.S. servicemen were targeted by Libyan terrorists in the 1986 bombing of a nightclub in Berlin, Germany. Following the Persian Gulf War in 1991, U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia have become targets of Islamic groups heavily opposing U.S.‐Saudi Arabian cooperation and the continued presence of U.S. forces on Saudi Arabian soil. The bombing of the Khobar Towers military residence in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, resulted in 19 deaths and 500 wounded.

Evidence suggests changing trends in terrorism as the twentieth century draws to a close. First, there is a trend toward fewer, but more lethal acts. Second, there are fewer claims of responsibility being made for attacks, perhaps reflecting the growing prevalence of religious extremist terrorism and transnational terrorism. Third, the collapse of the Soviet Union has raised concern that poorly guarded nuclear, chemical, and biological materials might find their way into the hands of terrorists. Finally, international terrorists have for the first time attacked targets within the territorial United States with the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the subsequent conspiracy to bomb several other New York City landmarks by Middle East terrorists. The U.S. has also experienced its most devastating case of domestic anti‐government terrorism with the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, resulting in 168 deaths.

To combat terrorism, the United States' counterterrorism policy follows three general rules: the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists; the U.S. will treat terrorists as criminals and pursue them aggressively; and the U.S. will apply maximum sanctions upon states supporting terrorism and encourage other states to do so as well (U.S. Department of State, 1996:iv). Accordingly, the U.S. has responded to the threat of modern international terrorism with a multi‐tracked approach, including diplomatic and legal efforts and military interdiction and deterrence. The United States is a party to nine major multilateral conventions that define states' responsibilities toward countering terrorism. Among them are treaties protecting diplomatic personnel and the safety of civil aviation and maritime navigation; outlawing the taking of hostages; the physical protection of nuclear materials; and the marking of explosives for identification.

Following the passage of the “long arm” anti‐terrorism statute in 1984, the Department of Justice has been empowered to arrest foreign nationals who have committed acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens for trial in the U.S. court system. Fawaz Younis (1987) and Mohammed Al Rezaq (1995) were arrested abroad by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and successfully tried in the U.S. The Department of Defense and U.S. military forces have played a mixed role in support of the United States' counterterrorism policy. Delta Force, the United States' secretive military unit specifically designed to counter terrorism, was founded during the Carter Administration (1976–1980). Modeled on the British Secret Air Services (SAS), Delta Force is comprised of elite commandos skilled in hostage rescue and incident interdiction. However, Delta Force's first deployment, Operation Eagle Claw (1980) to rescue the U.S. diplomats held hostage in Iran, proved a disastrous failure. Delta Force was joined in 1980 by a Navy counterpart, Seal Team 6, also tasked primarily with hostage rescue.

In addition to hostage rescue, U.S. military forces have been used to retaliate against states which have sponsored terrorist attacks against U.S. targets, such as the 1986 bombing raid on the Libyan capitol Tripoli in response to Libyan involvement in several dramatic acts of international terrorism in 1985 and 1986.

In a triumph of timely intelligence and coordination with the U.S. military, the aircraft carrying the hijackers of the Achille Lauro was intercepted by U.S. warplanes and forced to land at a U.S. Air Force base in Italy in October, 1985. The standoff at the airport between Italian and U.S. forces claiming jurisdiction over the captured terrorists, however, emphasizes the difficulties of pursuing U.S. counterterrorism policies abroad.

This entry is being updated.

Bibliography

• James M. Poland, Understanding Terrorism: Groups, Strategies, and Responses, 1988.
• Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman, Political Terrorism, 1988.
• Martha Crenshaw, The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Strategic Choice, in Walter Reich, ed., Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, 1990.
• Jerrold M. Post, Terrorist Psycho‐Logic: Terrorist Behavior as a Product of Psychological Forces, in Walter Reich, ed., Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, 1990.
• R. Kingston, The American Approach to Combating Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, Autumn 1992, pp. 102–106.
• M. Gunter, Countering Terrorism: The Reagan Record, Conflict Quarterly Spring 1994, pp. 7–10.
• Brigitte L. Nacos, Terrorism and the Media: From the Iran Hostage Crisis to the Oklahoma City Bombing, 1994.
• Jerrold M. Post, E. Shaw, and Keven G. Ruby, From Car Bombs to Logic Bombs: Information Systems Terrorism, in John Harrald and G. Shaw, eds., Disaster and Emergency Management: International Challenges for the Next Decade, 1998.
• U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1997, 1998

Terrorism was a matter of growing international concern during the last three decades of the twentieth century, but following the 11 September 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., it became the paramount issue of U.S. foreign policy. On that day Middle Eastern terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners. They seized the controls and crashed two of the planes into the World Trade Center and one plane into the Pentagon. Passengers fought to regain control of the fourth plane, which then crashed in Pennsylvania, missing any symbolic targets but killing all those on board. These attacks, unprecedented in the annals of terrorism and unparalleled in American history in the magnitude and concentration of casualties, provoked an equally unprecedented declaration of war against terrorism.

Terrorist tactics themselves are nothing new. Political intrigues and wars throughout history have involved murder, hostage taking, and sabotage. Deliberately savage and cruel, even by eighth-century standards, Viking berserkers spread terror throughout the British Isles. Muslim assassins provoked terror among Christian crusaders and Arab leaders in the twelfth century. Julius Caesar, King Richard the Lionhearted, and Miguel de Cervantes were all held for ransom.

The word "terror" entered the political lexicon during the French Revolution's "reign of terror" and in the twentieth century was associated with oppression by totalitarian governments. The term "terrorism" emerged in the nineteenth century when bomb-throwing revolutionaries who wanted to obliterate property and terrorize the ruling classes acknowledged themselves to be terrorists. Revolutionary terrorism continued into the early twentieth century and reemerged following World War I. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, terrorism often accompanied armed struggles for independence, especially in Algeria and Palestine.

The Emergence of International Terrorism

Terrorists continued to use the tactics of their historical predecessors: setting off bombs in public places, assassinating officials, kidnapping individuals to demand political concessions or ransom payments. But a new phenomenon, international terrorism, began with a series of spectacular attacks in the late 1960s. In 1968, Palestinians hijacked an El Al jetliner and flew it to Algeria, where they demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners. This began a wave of hijackings to obtain political concessions. In 1969 urban guerrillas in Brazil kidnapped the U.S. ambassador, later releasing him in return for the release of fifteen comrades imprisoned in Brazil. The tactic quickly spread throughout the world. In the following twelve months, diplomats were kidnapped in Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Jordan.

In February 1970 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) sabotaged a Swissair flight to Tel Aviv, killing all forty-seven persons on board. In September 1970 the same group hijacked three airliners bound for Europe and diverted them to Jordan. In May 1972 three members of the Japanese Red Army, a group allied with the PFLP, attacked passengers at Israel's Lod Airport, killing twenty-five and wounding seventy-six. And in September of that year, members of Black September, another Middle Eastern group, seized nine Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Five of the terrorists and all nine of the hostages were killed in a disastrous rescue attempt by German police. The three surviving terrorists were traded for hostages aboard a Lufthansa flight hijacked the next month.

International terrorism emerged from a confluence of political circumstances and technological process. In the Middle East, Israel's defeat of the Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the inability of Palestinians to mount an effective resistance movement in the territories newly occupied by Israel pushed them toward the use of terrorist tactics. Their mentors were the Algerian revolutionaries who in the fight for independence had carried their own terrorist campaign to France itself. For the Palestinians, anyone anywhere in the world who supported Israel's continued existence became a potential target, greatly broadening the theater of operations.

Inspired by the success of the Cuban revolution but unable to replicate its success, Latin America's guerrillas moved their struggle from the countryside into the cities. They replaced traditional guerrilla warfare with bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings, which guaranteed them national and international attention. Spectacular action took the place of patient political mobilization. At the same time, the Vietnam War sparked a new wave of revolutionary fervor that spread through the universities of Europe, Japan, and the United States. Mass protest movements spawned small groups on their extremist fringes that were determined to pursue a more violent struggle. These extremist groups emulated the tactics of their ideological counterparts in Latin America and the Middle East.

Changes in the technological environment during the 1970s also facilitated international terrorism. Jet air travel offered terrorists worldwide mobility and, with it, opportunities to strike targets anywhere. Television and the deployment of communications satellites offered terrorists almost instantaneous access to a global audience. By choreographing dramatic incidents of violence and hostage situations in which human life hung in the balance, terrorists could guarantee worldwide press coverage for their acts and their causes. The diffusion of small arms around the world and of increasingly powerful explosives and sophisticated detonating devices took terrorists far beyond the capacity of the early bomb throwers. Modern technology-dependent societies offered numerous vulnerabilities, from power grids to jumbo jets.

The relationship of all these incidents to one another was not self-evident at the time. Beyond the similarity in tactics, there was no obvious connection between a kidnapping in Uruguay, a bombing in Germany, and a hijacking in Africa. Why should actions carried out by persons who called themselves Tupamaros, Montoneros, the Red Brigades, or the Japanese Red Army be addressed within the same analytical and policy framework? International terrorism was an artificial construct useful for policy purposes. While recognizing the diversity of the terrorists and their causes, it identified their actions in the international domain as a mutual problem for all nations.

The Targeting of America

Concern about international terrorism on the part of the U.S. foreign policy community was driven by two overlapping issues: the use of tactics that fell outside the accepted norms of diplomacy and armed conflict and the spillover of terrorist violence into the international domain. The latter was particularly important, since the prominence of the United States in world affairs and its involvement in many contentious areas made Americans and American interests frequent targets. Hundreds of terrorist attacks have been directed against the United States, its diplomats, and its diplomatic facilities.

Major incidents have included the kidnappings of U.S. diplomats in Latin America in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the multiple hijacking to Jordan's Dawson Field in 1970; the attack on arriving American passengers at Israel's Lod Airport in 1972; the terrorist seizure of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, and the subsequent murder of two American diplomats in 1973; the terrorist takeover of the U.S. consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1975; the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran; the suicide bombings of the American embassy and U.S. marine barracks in Beirut in 1983; the bombing in 1983 of the American embassy in Kuwait; the kidnappings of Americans and the protracted hostage crisis in Lebanon, which lasted from 1984 to 1991; the hijackings of TWA flight 847 and of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985; the Libyan terrorist campaign in 1986; the sabotage and crash of PanAm flight 103 in 1988; the assassination plot against former President George H. W. Bush in 1993; the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; the suicide bombing of the American military residential facility in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996; the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; the suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in 2000; and the attacks in 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The attacks in the 1980s increasingly involved truck bombs, huge amounts of explosives on wheels, often driven by suicide drivers. These attacks manifested a fundamental change in terrorism. Traditionally, terrorists wanted a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead. Wanton violence was seen as counterproductive. But with the replacement of ideological causes by ethnic hatreds and religious fanaticism, large-scale, indiscriminate violence became the reality. Terrorists wanted a lot of people dead. But while truck bombs increased death tolls, they could not easily push the number of victims above several hundred. The terrorist solution was multiple attacks. In 1994 terrorists plotted to sabotage twelve U.S. airliners in the Pacific, and the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Africa as well as the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon involved multiple targets. These large-scale operations have also led to fears that terrorists will incorporate chemical, biological, or possibly even nuclear weapons in future attacks.

Defining Terrorism

It is clear that efforts to combat terrorism depend on international cooperation, but international politics has complicated attempts even to define international terrorism. Discussions in international forums have inevitably bogged down in futile debate. Some see terrorism as an alternative mode of warfare used by nations or groups that lack the conventional means of waging war, not as something to be outlawed. Some, believing that the ends justify the means, seek to exclude from the definition anything done by those engaged in wars of liberation. Others have wanted to broaden the definition to include acts of violence and other repressive acts by colonial, racist, and alien regimes against peoples struggling for liberation.

The United States has tried to define terrorism objectively on the basis of the quality of the act, not the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of their political cause. The rationale is that all terrorist acts are crimes, and many would also be war crimes or "grave breaches" of the rules of war even if one accepted the terrorists' assertion that they wage war. Terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence, sometimes coupled with explicit demands and always directed against noncombatants. The perpetrators are usually members of an organized group whose purposes are political. And the hallmark of terrorism—actions that are carried out in a way that will achieve maximum publicity and cause major alarm—introduces a distinction between the victims of the violence and the target audience. Indeed, the identity of the victims may be secondary or even irrelevant to the terrorist cause. "Pure terrorism" is entirely indiscriminate violence.

The U.S. position never won universal endorsement, but ultimately, the international community has come to achieve a rough consensus on terrorism. Although the community of nations could not reach an agreement on a precise definition, it did denounce terrorism as a form of political expression or mode of armed conflict and managed to construct a corpus of conventions that identified and outlawed specific tactics: airline hijacking, the sabotage of commercial aircraft, attacks on airports, attacks on diplomats and diplomatic facilities, the taking of hostages, bomb attacks on civilian targets, and so on. This tactic-by-tactic approach gradually extended to cover virtually all the manifestations of international terrorism.

Crime or Warfare?

A continuing U.S. policy issue has been whether terrorism should be considered as a crime or a mode of war. The question is not merely one of a choice of words. The two are different concepts with entirely different operational implications. If terrorism is considered a criminal matter, the appropriate response is to gather evidence, correctly determine the culpability of the individual or individuals responsible for the incident, and then apprehend and bring the perpetrators to trial. This has been the primary approach taken by the United States, and it has received wide international acceptance. To enhance this approach, the United States extended the jurisdiction of American courts to cover all terrorist acts against U.S. citizens and facilities anywhere in the world, thereby giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation legislative authority to investigate terrorist crimes and apprehend terrorists anywhere. Although not all nations accept this assertion, a number of terrorists have been turned over to U.S. authorities for prosecution in the United States.

Public trials of terrorists keep terrorism firmly in the realm of crime, strip terrorists of their political pretensions, and allow the United States to make a public case against those terrorists still at large. Dealing with terrorism strictly as a criminal matter, however, presents a number of problems. Evidence is extremely difficult to gather in an international investigation where some countries might not cooperate, and apprehending individual terrorists is extremely difficult. Moreover, the criminal approach does not provide an entirely satisfactory answer to a continuing campaign of terrorism waged by a distant group, and it does not work against a state sponsor of terrorism.

If, on the other hand, terrorism is viewed as war, there is less concern with individual culpability; only proximate responsibility—for example, the correct identification of the terrorist group—need be established. Evidence does not have to be of courtroom quality; intelligence reporting will suffice. The focus is not on the accused individual but on the correct identification of the enemy.

The United States has at different times taken both approaches, and recently began to orchestrate the criminal and military approaches, combining conventional evidence gathering and intelligence reporting to indict and prosecute terrorists, then combining that with information gained at trial to support further indictments, which were then utilized to justify military action.

The Development of Counterterrorist Policy

U.S. policy on terrorism has been largely driven by events. Indeed, policy is rarely created in the abstract. It responds to events that create a requirement to do something. Policy is reactive, an accumulation of statements and actions that then become precedents. And it is constantly evolving. Ask some official to explain the reasoning behind a certain policy and, if he knows his history well enough, he will cite the exact incident that prompted the reaction. This is especially true of a diverse, multifaceted phenomenon such as terrorism.

Much of the early U.S. counterterrorist policy focused on dealing with hostage incidents—hijackings and kidnappings. In addition to increasing security at airports, the United States sought to improve international cooperation in returning passengers and aircraft and prosecuting or extraditing the hijackers. Gradually, use of this tactic became less frequent, but it never disappeared. In the cases of kidnappings of American diplomats by urban guerrilla organizations in Latin America, the United States initially took the position that the host country must do whatever is necessary, including yielding to the kidnappers' demands. As kidnappings continued, however, resistance grew and the policy moved toward one of no concessions. That policy was sealed in blood in March 1973 with the murder of two American diplomats by members of Black September who demanded, among other things, the release of the convicted assassin of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The no-concessions policy has remained one of the pillars of the U.S. response to terrorism, although at times creative ways to bend it have been sought.

The same hard-line policy was applied to embassy takeovers. Improved security made such takeovers more difficult and governments were increasingly willing to use force. Faced with declining prospects of achieving their demands and growing risks of capture or death, terrorists gradually abandoned the tactic in the 1980s.

American presidents have learned that hostage situations can be politically perilous. Frustration over the inability of the United States to rescue or negotiate the release of American hostages held for more than a year in Iran probably contributed to President James Earl Carter's defeat in the 1980 presidential elections. Six years later, the revelation that the United States, in contradiction to its own no-concessions policy, had secretly sold weapons to Iran in return for the release of American hostages in Lebanon deeply embarrassed the Reagan administration.

Since the late 1970s, the question of how to deal with state sponsors of terrorism has been a major policy issue. Under pressure from Congress, the U.S. Department of State identified Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, and Cuba as state sponsors of terrorism, a list that has changed little in the past quarter century. In 2000, the National Commission on Terrorism recommended that Afghanistan be added to the list and that both Pakistan and Greece be identified as countries that were not fully cooperating with the United States, a suggestion that provoked howls of protest.

Middle East conflicts have motivated most of the major terrorist crises, and most of the states identified by the United States as state sponsors of terrorism are in that part of the world. The region's secular extremists and, increasingly, its religious fanatics have seen themselves as being at war with America. America's steadfast support for the State of Israel has angered many, but even U.S. attempts to broker agreements between Israel and the Palestinians have provoked reactions by hard-liners who oppose any accord. America's close relationship with the shah of Iran, overthrown by Islamic revolutionaries in 1979, was a further source of antagonism. Some Muslim fanatics have come to see the American commitment to the principles of freedom, democracy, and equality and what they regard as a subversive and libertine American popular culture as a dangerous influence to be eradicated. The fanatic terrorists' beliefs require them to strike violently at the American presence and influence, and no reconciliation is in sight. One continuing foreign policy challenge for the United States has been to keep efforts to combat terrorism from appearing to be a war on the Arab world or Islam. The United States opposes the violent tactics of terrorism, not any system of beliefs.

Countries identified as state sponsors of terrorism are subject to economic sanctions that deny U.S. assistance and prohibit trade with the United States, but sanctions are only effective if they are universally enforced. International compliance has been patchy at best, although Syria's blatant involvement in a 1986 plot to plant a bomb aboard an airliner departing London led to further European sanctions against that country. Largely to appease an angry United States, Europe went along with some sanctions against Libya in 1986, and suspected Libyan involvement in the sabotage of PanAm 103 in 1988 and a French airliner in Africa in 1989 resulted in more stringent sanctions being imposed until Libya agreed to turn over two Libyans suspected of involvement in the PanAm incident to a tribunal in The Hague. U.S. sanctions on Libya remained in effect for other reasons. To ensure more universal compliance, the United States has sought to have the United Nations impose sanctions. In 2000 Afghanistan became subject to UN sanctions for its refusal to turn over known terrorists.

Additional sanctions were imposed on Iraq as a consequence of that country's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the subsequent Gulf War. However, the issue transcends Iraqi sponsorship of terrorism and involves that country's suspected secret efforts to manufacture chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Sudan entered into productive discussions with the United States in mid-2000 and became a possible candidate for removal of American sanctions.

Sanctions, however, have been criticized as blunt, ineffective instruments—the modern economic equivalent of medieval siege warfare. They inflict more suffering on ordinary people than on the governments in which the people have no say, and efforts have been initiated to develop more precisely targeted sanctions that hurt rulers, not the general populace. Nonetheless, economic sanctions have stunted economic development in these countries and probably have moderated, if not reversed, the behavior of their governments, although that would be hard to prove.

Military Force and Its Limits

The United States has used military force in response to terrorism on a number of occasions. U.S. forces bombed Libya in 1986 in response to a Libyan-sponsored terrorist attack in Germany and indications of further attacks being planned; an Iraqi intelligence facility was bombed in 1993 in response to Iraqi involvement in the thwarted assassination attempt on former President Bush during a visit to Kuwait; and, in response to terrorist attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998, U.S. forces bombed terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons.

While terrorists themselves offer few lucrative targets for conventional attack, military action may still be useful. It can disrupt the terrorists' operations, forcing them to move their camps, tend to their own security, and worry about the possibility of further strikes. It can also be used to reinforce diplomacy. Military force serves as a warning to states that sponsoring terrorism is not without serious risks. It demonstrates resolve and it clearly signals that the country initiating it regards terrorism as a very serious issue. It also carries with it an invitation to states to cooperate.

Military force may also be viewed in some cases as necessary for domestic political purposes, not as a cynical ploy to garner political support or distract the public from other issues, but as a way to demonstrate to an alarmed public that something is being done. The British suffered terribly during the Battle of Britain, and their ability to take the punishment without a complete collapse of morale depended in part on the fact their British forces were fighting to destroy the enemy. The absence of military action could reinforce feelings of national impotence that could, in turn, lead to popular support for draconian measures to ensure security that might imperil civil liberties.

The opportunities for military action against terrorism, however, are limited. It is necessary to focus and carefully calibrate the response; otherwise, the use of force becomes capricious. A military response, moreover, must be delivered soon after the terrorist incident that provokes it. It has been difficult to sustain military operations beyond the first strike. The United States may have wanted the terrorists to fear that it might attack them again, but in fact it never did. That may change in light of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

Questionable Alternatives

There were possible alternatives to the policies that have been chosen. The United States might have tried to pay less attention to the issue of terrorism, putting it lower on the foreign policy agenda, deliberately adopting a more phlegmatic posture and using less bellicose rhetoric. But given the spectacular nature of terrorist attacks and the public outrage they provoke, it would have been extremely difficult to sustain a deliberately phlegmatic policy.

The United States could have followed a more flexible policy in dealing with hostage situations, as did some European nations. However, the private sector's practice of routinely paying ransom for company executives kidnapped abroad suggests that compliance only encourages further kidnappings. And research suggests that it is the ability of the local government to apprehend, convict, and punish kidnappers and destroy their gangs, whether they are politically motivated or common criminals, that determines the frequency of kidnappings. Politically motivated kidnappings have declined. The United States could have adopted a policy of assassinating foreign terrorist leaders, as Israel did in 1972. While this policy may have led to the removal of some effective terrorist leaders, it has had little discernible effect on the level of terrorism aimed against Israel.

The United States did not have to officially designate state sponsors of terrorism and automatically impose sanctions, thus depriving itself of more flexible forms of diplomacy. As noted earlier, the record of sanctions is at best a mixed one. The United States could have rejected the use of military force altogether, relying instead exclusively on a criminal justice approach. However, few other nations extend the jurisdiction of their courts and send law enforcement officials abroad to investigate terrorist crimes against their citizens.

Persuading other nations to support sanctions, America's use of military force, and the rendition of foreign terrorists to the United States for trial have all required vigorous American diplomacy. The willingness to impose sanctions and use military force, as well as offer assistance in other areas, has in turn reinforced that diplomacy.

The Fruits of American Policy

American policy has historically been pragmatic. Efforts to combat terrorism were just that. American diplomats paid little attention to root causes and conflict resolution, lest counterterrorism efforts become mixed up with judgments of causes. At the same time, the United States has devoted considerable effort to resolving the Middle East conflict, helping to bring about an end to the violence in Northern Ireland, and intervening to prevent ethnic cleansing and other atrocities in the Balkans that, if left to fester or produce vast new semi-permanent populations of refugees, could have become new sources of terrorist violence.

Progress has been made. Intelligence has improved through unilateral efforts and improved liaison with other intelligence services. An international legal framework has been created and international cooperation has increased. Countries would rather not be identified as state sponsors of terrorism. The volume of international terrorism, as it is defined by the United States, has declined, and certain tactics have declined significantly. All this could have been seen as a measure of success on 10 September 2001. However, the terrorist attacks on the following day—attacks on American soil that caused far more casualties than all of the previous terrorist incidents put together—overshadowed any sense of achievement.

11 September 2001

The 11 September 2001 attacks have provoked a more formal expression of belligerency—a presidential declaration of war on those responsible for the attacks. The declaration clearly indicates the intention of the United States to use military force again and again at times and places and with means it deems appropriate. More terrorist attacks against Americans, abroad and in the United States, are possible. Exactly how the continuing campaign will be conducted, whether allies of the United States will participate, and what effect it will have are unknown at this time. Whether the counterattack will divide the nation politically remains to be seen.

Within the shadow of this tragedy, however, lie opportunities for even greater international determination and cooperation, if not to end terrorism once and for all—an unrealistic objective—at least to significantly reduce its practice. Whether such determination and cooperation materialize will depend on whether the rest of the world sees this event as an attack on the United States or as a threat to the international system as it exists.

Bibliography

Bass, Gail, et al. Options for U.S. Policy on Terrorism. Santa Monica, Calif., 1981.

Evans, Ernest. Calling a Truce to Terror: The American Response to International Terrorism. Westport, Conn., 1979.

Heymann, Philip B. Terrorism and America: A Commonsense Strategy for a Democratic Society. Cambridge, Mass., 1998.

Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York, 1998.

Jenkins, Brian Michael. International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict. Los Angeles, 1975.

——. International Terrorism: The Other World War. Santa Monica, Calif., 1985.

——. Terrorism: Policy Issues for the Bush Administration. Santa Monica, Calif., 1989.

Lesser, Ian O., et al. Countering the New Terrorism. Santa Monica, Calif., 1999.

Long, David E. The Anatomy of Terrorism. New York, 1990.

Pillar, Paul R. Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C., 2001.

Simon, Jeffrey D. The Terrorist Trap: America's Experience with Terrorism. Bloomington, Ind., 1994.

U.S. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism. Washington, D.C. Published annually.

— Brian Michael Jenkins