War on terror just about to begin?

Since the early 1990s, the world has seen an upsurge of religiously inspired terrorism. It is easy to see that the number of casualties has increased as compared to the previous time periods. Modern terrorism has indeed become spectacular and more indiscriminate. In the course of the so called war on terrorism, however, some misunderstandings have emerged especially about the large number of casualties. This not only makes it harder for the public to assess government policies but also, in the worst case scenario, affects the policy outcomes.

First and foremost, understanding modern terrorism is difficult if it is believed that religious terrorism is merely a Muslim phenomenon. Despite what many think is obvious, it would be a vain effort to look for a strong causal link between Islam or any major religion and indiscriminate killing of civilians. Terrorists are, however, for the most part not lunatics. They can use many different legitimizing ideologies but their activities can always best be understood and contained by trying to understand the rationale behind their actions.

The key to understanding the reasons for the increasing number of casualties is to analyze the audience that the terrorists address with their lethal activities. The reason that, for example, the IRA has been unwilling to inflict large civilian casualties is not that they are Catholic Christians or that they lack the military capacity. Instead, the IRA’s constraint has depended on the need not to alienate its core constituency. Terrorist groups need a community that gives them legitimacy and enough recruits.

Unlike the IRA, however, Al-Qaida correctly believes that there are enough relatively deprived and disaffected Muslims who accept the Al-Qaida narrative of the legitimacy of their cause and the roots of the Muslim world’s problems. While the majority do not support their tactics, there is large enough minority that will not be deterred by the killing of many civilians.

If there were no constraints, most terrorist groups would strive for maximum casualties because it can have the greatest political effect. What is special about the era that began in the early 1990s is that Muslim terrorists are the first group to function without strong audience constraints and with the capacity to inflict mass casualties.

The best anti-terrorism policy is then to introduce audience costs and to reduce the terrorist groups’ capacity. Preventing the spread of WMDs is a move in the right direction to reduce the capacity, but audience costs have not been a great concern, apart from the amusing media campaigns to improve the US image in the Middle East.

If improving disaffect individuals’ living conditions in Muslim countries is also deemed an unrealistic policy goal, the remaining strategy to create audience costs would be to support more peaceful interpretations of Islam. Whether it is feasible or not is still unclear as there are no large scale precedents to follow. Attacking and containing the enemy will, however, not produce the desired policy outcome if no positive alternative is offered to the wider audience that the terrorists depend on for recruits and support. Armies have never been very good at this. Now that the US goal is to dramatically reduce its military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the decisive fight against terrorism is just about to begin.