I offer the following observations as a point of departure for a discussion of a central international issue of our time.

A recent book by Will Marshall (With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty) characterizes the Global War on Terror (GWOT) as an ‘over-militarized response to terrorism’. Perhaps, from this point of view, the larger lesson of Iraq is that in post-colonial times, the cost of unilateral military occupation is too high, however powerful and determined the occupier. Even skilled media manipulation cannot disguise this reality indefinitely.

As Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations recently observed (as quoted by Bob Herbert in the New York Times on June 29, 2006): “… Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”

Accordingly, is it not time for international political theory to conclude with greater certainty that, moral issues aside, soft power and multilateralism are more effective than wars of occupation? Do we not need to reflect further on the consequences of over-militarized responses to terrorism?

There remains, of course, a role for national military forces in counterterrorism – for example, to guard vital facilities and transportation routes and to maintain order and safety (and restore calm) in the event of a terrorist attack. Multilateral military forces are also needed – for example, to deal with failed states or, as a last resort, with viable states that provide a haven for terrorist operations (as was the case with Afghanistan). That said, the first obvious cost of an over-militarized response to terrorism is that it trumps diplomacy and international relations (and may as well overwhelm much of domestic public policy).

Terrorism and militarism in combination have all but overwhelmed public discourse in North America, including the issues with which I have been concerned for the whole of my working life (environmental protection and sustainability). In the face of terrorism and the GWOT) of environmental issues only climate change and peak oil remain of interest to the wider public (primarily, I suspect, because of their obvious affinity with Middle East politics).

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A response to terrorism can only be judged ‘over-militarized’ in relation to the possible non-military responses to terrorism. First and foremost among these is effective policing. Much, of course, has been done in this regard, but much has not been done. I would contend that policing and crime prevention, which is from time to time dismissed by the Bush administration as an inadequate, even an effete, response to terrorism is far and away the most important aspect of counterterrorism.

Yet even today only 5% of cargo containers entering the United States are inspected. Nor has much been done to make it more difficult to access explosives or military-style weapons within the United States. No jurisdiction to my knowledge, for example, has considered a ban on the types of readily attainable fertilizer that can be readily fashioned into massive bombs.

Not all kinds of fertilizer can be turned into bombs. Ammonium nitrate, one kind which can be used to make a bomb, is only used on a limited number of crops, yet no one has seriously explored the impact on agriculture of simply doing without it. Obviously, many things can be converted to bombs, but a few are more dangerous and widely available than this one (and the gasoline that goes with it). A more effective approach to counterterrorism might eliminate some possible components and leave others legally available only to those with police-issued permits.

As well, military assault weapons are still widely and readily available in the United States. Random shootings, as was demonstrated several times recently, can create a terrorizing effect. Yet U.S. police forces have only minimal control over the availability of weapons that could sow a significant level of terror.

Nor is there sufficient protection in many nations for potential terrorist targets. Everything cannot be protected, but too little has been done to protect targets that carry large risks, including nuclear plants, chemical plants, tunnels and dams. All of this is policing, as is the careful monitoring of suspects and the control of money movements between nations. The latter effort requires more than what was purportedly recently revealed by the New York Times and then made far more visible by the Bush administration’s politically partisan response to the alleged revelations.

International political theory might consider the additional policing initiatives that might be undertaken worldwide for less than the cost of the war in Iraq. This effort would, in my view, reveal one reason why it is a commonplace that war should only be considered if all domestic and diplomatic options are exhausted.

We have also learned from terrorist events in London and arrests in Toronto that the spread of terrorism may require neither international financing, nor international organization. It can be nearly spontaneous so long as there is a pervasive culture of jihad and a widespread sense of persecution of and within a definable group.

The leading communicators of this culture of jihad are, arguably, television and the Bush administration, both of which pay little attention to anything else. Some attention is unavoidable and necessary, of course, but one senses that little thought has been given to how that ‘unintentional spreading effect’ might be lessened. Clearly the war in Iraq, for example, has contributed to the group sense of persecution unnecessarily and massively.

An over-militarized approach to terrorism is then, arguably, self-defeating for the obvious reasons, but also because it is inevitably accompanied by an elaborate and widely trumpeted rhetoric of justification, revenge and aggression towards groups with whom millions of people identify. Military action, as distinct from policing and other approaches, all but demands from some of them a military or quasi-military response. That response cannot come from nations given the asymmetry of power in the present confrontation. In the age of jihad it will come from small groups. In this sense, hegemony and power imbalances themselves may help to foster terrorism.

Global integration and some forms of modern technology unavoidably provide terrorist opportunities of all kinds, but unwarranted military action, especially unilateral action by a hegemonic power, may help to assure that those that would seek to exploit them will have listeners.

The actions and words of both Bush and bin Laden are thus arguably mutually reinforcing. Taken together they promote the spread of terror. If the ‘GWOT’ and the ‘Struggle against the Crusaders’ perpetually dominate the global media, some people will be eager to join the battle. Unfortunately, terrorism needs only to recruit a very small number of active adherents. Counterterrorism is far more labor intensive however it is conducted.

Thus an effective response to terrorism within the media and cultural realm may be as important as policing and it is in this media and cultural realm that the response to terrorism has been especially inept. Repeatedly and loudly declaring lunatics living in isolated regions of Pakistan to be the most important and dangerous persons in the world provide those persons with great appeal to the powerless everywhere. Today’s global media obsessions and terrorism are mutually reinforcing and much more could be done to reduce that effect.

There are obvious things that could be done and many things that are done that should not be. Inflaming public fear by manipulating terror alerts in the lead up to elections only invites potential terrorists to wish they could be part of creating such an effect. Terrorism thrives in a climate of heighten tension. Needless to say actual terrorist events must be reported and there are no easy answers here, but much more reflection is necessary regarding the emphases and reporting style of global media and the effects of the obsession with the risk of terrorism on terrorism itself.

Also of interest to an inquiry into the possibility that we are seeing an over-militarized response to terrorism are global socio-economic factors and their possible effects on terrorism. I can remember arguing with friends who had opposed the U.S. bombing and invasion of Afghanistan that perhaps this action could be justified if the regime that protected the perpetrators of 9/11 was replaced by a regime that was a regional model of democracy, stability, economic development and social justice. Given its lack of resources and the depth of its poverty, a reasonable level of development success in Afghanistan would be noticed throughout the region.

I mistakenly assumed that this was what was intended because it seemed so plausibly sensible. As I swallowed my customary quasi-pacifism and made these arguments in the wake of 9/11, the Pentagon was busily planning a different war rather than thinking very much about making Afghanistan a model of the sort I imagined it could be. Ten or more times what it would have cost to transform Afghanistan was expended on the attempt to conquer Iraq. In the process the United States and those that participated also confirmed every negative stereotype of the West that bin Laden and his ilk had ever uttered.

Afghanistan was left primarily to those Western nations that had the wisdom and moral wit to stay out of Iraq.

Needless to say, there is not a one-to-one relationship between economic development and social justice on the one hand and terrorism on the other. Many of the individuals that have committed terrorist acts have come from educated and prosperous backgrounds. It is not poverty alone that directly induces the nihilist impulse, but high unemployment would seem to provide those that would opt for terror with easier recruitment opportunities.

More than that, many terrorists come out of highly repressive societies, such as Saudi Arabia, that have great disparities of wealth and poverty. In these societies opposition to the regime is already very near to suicidal in the first place, being a terrorist is not much more risky.

Another factor in recruitment is likely a collective sense of powerlessness and identification with those oppressed by such regimes, regimes not so wrongly seen to have been historically enabled by the West.

Other factors likely in the suicide-recruitment psychological mix are hopelessness, a profound sense of alienation and a deep need for personal dignity. Such feelings can arise out of a sense of rejection, a lack of self-worth, a sense of stigmatization, or a need to feel that one is part of some great global cause. The sense that one’s co-religionists are systematically oppressed on a global scale is part of this mindset fed by widespread poverty amidst vast wealth in the Middle East, a decades-long state of war between Israel and Palestine, and now by the Iraq war and the open use of torture.

In the socio-economic and political realm, as in the realm of culture and communications, it is fair to say that little has been done to undermine the underpinnings of terrorism.

There is much for international political theory to consider. Would more effective and equitable global governance help to reduce the appeal of terrorism? Conversely, does hegemonic power and radical power asymmetry foster terrorism? Would greater democracy and/or greater social equity and/or economic opportunity in the Middle East significantly lessen terrorism’s appeal? Can wars ever help to diminish terrorism’s appeal and if so in what circumstances? Does globalization contribute to its appeal or to opportunities to engage in terrorist acts and if so how and how might that outcome be altered? What, in this regard, of the globalization of media and its usefulness to terrorist recruitment be diminished?

I don’t pretend to have the answers to these questions, but I am very much interested in seeing international political theory address them. I welcome any comments.

Robert Paehlke