The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

and despair over political repression and economic stagnation. Since terrorism is a tactic serving an ideology, defeat- ing it requires targeting the ideology that nourishes it through political, economic and psychological means. Unless the roots of the movement are targeted, the under- lying grievances will continue to produce new terrorists, even as others are killed or captured. The Bush administration also mistakenly assumed that terrorists could not carry out major attacks like 9/11 with- out the help of states. This fallacy produced the tenacious view, absent any evidence, that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Today’s Islamist terrorists do not depend on state sponsorship, which has declined sharply in the last decade, as states have recognized the high risk of Western sanctions and the threat terrorism poses to their own regimes. Limited Utility and Backlash Effects of Military Force The Bush administration’s lack of understanding that ideology is the ultimate target in combating terrorism, and that terrorists usually do not depend on states that can be attacked by military force, has led to exaggerated belief in the use of military power. While armed intervention accomplished the worthy goal of ridding Afghanistan of the hated Taliban regime, that was a uniquely easy target. By contrast, U.S forces have not captured Osama bin Laden, and the lack of a sustained follow-through to that effort because of the Iraq war increases the odds that Afghanistan will once again become a haven for terrorists. That example should show us how difficult it is for American military forces to capture highly mobile and clandestine terrorists. Iraq, where U.S. forces are fighting a murky combination of insurgents and terrorists, thus far without much success, confirms this lesson. Elsewhere in the world, terrorists exist clandestinely in many states, often in urban areas, where they are usually beyond the reach of U.S. military force. Moreover, the use of conventional military force and high-performance weapons against terrorists and insur- gents, especially in urban environments, carries a high risk of civilian casualties and backlash. Anger over heavy civil- ian casualties in the war in Iraq has already intensified anti-U.S. emotions in the Arab and Muslim world. Civilian deaths have also weakened support for the principle that terrorism against non-combatants is never acceptable and that terrorists should be treated as crimi- nals. This principle was gaining wide international sup- port as recently as the 1990s, but public opinion in the Muslim world now blurs the distinction between inno- cents killed by terrorists and innocent “collateral casual- ties” killed by American forces. This plays into the hands of the terrorists, and the U.S. is blamed for the violence, not the terrorists. Terrorists understand this dynamic better than we do. They use tactics to expose civilians to U.S. firepower, and they enhance their support and legitimacy by posturing as “warriors for Islam” and “freedom fighters.” Arab media, like Al-Jazeera, are all too willing to exploit civilian deaths caused by U.S. forces to inflame popular emotions and create sympathy for the terrorists. All this undermines the principle that all terrorism, whatever the motivation, should be beyond the pale. Since military force is often ineffective in eliminating terrorists and tends to strengthen their ideological cohe- sion and popular appeal, we should use it only in excep- tional circumstances. For example, force might be neces- sary in the rare case of an imminent terrorist attack that cannot be preempted by diplomatic, intelligence or law enforcement measures, or in the equally rare case of an act of state-sponsored terror for which there is no other effective response. Good Intelligence Requires Expert, Independent Analysis The 9/11 Commission Report revealed many weak- nesses in U.S. intelligence. At the top of the list for reform are improved collection of terrorism intelligence, better intelligence analysis (untainted by political pressure) and greatly improved sharing of intelligence among agencies. However, expectations of vastly improved collection of human intelligence that will invariably provide advance warning of terrorist attacks are unrealistic. So is the perennial claim that the U.S. could use covert action much more effectively. Of course we need to try harder, but there are limits to our ability to penetrate terrorist net- works with human agents, and to obtain tactical warning of impending terrorist attacks. The most cost-effective investment in better intelli- gence would be funds for greater area and language exper- tise, not only for collectors of secret intelligence and ana- lysts, but for State’s Foreign Service officers. Many ana- lysts believe that Foreign Service reporting is the best sin- F O C U S 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4