Terrorism: The 21st-Century War - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2001 by Llewellyn D. Howell

WELCOME, George W. Bush, to the presidency and the 21st century. It's a new world with many corners turned at the onset of a new millennium. Among the most critical of corners is in the conduct of war.

The major changes haven't been linked with particular counts of years, whether millennia or centuries. Firing from cover was a monumental change in tactic for Western armies that arose in the mid 18th century following encounters with savages in the colonies. Armored ships and vehicles entered the picture a century later in the American Civil War. In the mid 20th century, atomic weapons intruded on the primitiveness of human fighting by initiating the use of mass destruction in international conduct.

Today, the fast pace of technological change, an increasing level of knowledge in every imaginable party and group, easy access across borders made more porous for the purpose of international trade and investment, and a rapidly increasing global population combine to shift not merely the tactics and strategies, but the very nature of war itself. The weapons of choice have become backpack bombs, computer and biological viruses, and chemicals. Military units are no longer divisions and battalions, but teams of two or 10. Terrorism is the next highest stage of war.

Armies once were needed not only to wield the weapons of war, but to occupy the land of the enemy, like the Germans occupied much of Europe for a time or the Japanese occupied China and Korea. Modern war won't involve occupation. Americans will never occupy China or Russia, and no one will occupy America. The U.S. couldn't occupy Vietnam, and NATO forces can't really occupy Kosovo, even with a mostly friendly and appreciative population. The tactic of choice is now the dramatic explosion or chemical attack that generates fear and destroys economic functions. The objective is no longer to kill or capture or bring down the government. Instead, it is to undermine, panic, hinder, or get simple revenge.

The shift to terrorism as the means of conducting war in the 21st century poses a dramatic problem for which we are still unprepared. A war by a country's armed forces can be responded to by another nation's armed forces. There is a matching of military power measured in men, weapons, and technology. How is an act of terror to be matched? More importantly, how is it to be prevented? The best defense for the moment seems to be the errors and simple clumsiness of the terrorists themselves.

The origins of conventional war were always in governments. In the 21st century, even individuals can wage war, and the most frequent use has been by small groups, whose power is multiplied exponentially by the change in the nature of weapons. Their power also lies in the lack of a defense. Armies, no matter how well trained or equipped, can't search every truck, car, and individual entering the U.S., let along cordon off the vast stretches of American border that are open and untended.

Most critical, on the defensive side, is that modern states cannot apply the old aphorism that "the best defense is a good offense." The enemy of the state could be any one of 5,000,000,000 individuals. The nationality, sex, color, or religion of the enemy can never be consistently known, although Muslims, Arabs, the unshaven, and others are profiled. Governments sometimes directly back terrorists, but often do not out of concern that the weapons of terrorism could be turned on them. Given the wide and increasing availability of the weapons of terrorism, the critical variable in defense is determining intent. The key ingredients in Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City were low-tech ammonium nitrate and a rental track. These are the weapons of modern war. What made them weapons was what was in McVeigh's mind. The U.S.S. Cole was heavily damaged and nearly sunk and 17 Americans were killed by two men in a small boat who seemed friendly until the moment of impact. What were their beliefs that compelled them to sacrifice their lives?

There has been growing attention to defense in the U.S. against terrorism over the two decades since the American embassy was seized in Tehran, Iran. Training in counterterrorism by government agencies and even commercial businesses has expanded greatly in recent years. Counterterrorism measures include the sensitive acts of infiltration, interception of mail and phone calls, and the sharing of information about the characteristics and behaviors of profiled individuals and groups.

The trends in the impact of terrorism are not heartening. A study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution (June 2000) by Walter Enders and Todd Sandler shows convincingly that, although the numbers of terrorist incidents have declined, those that are still occurring are even more deadly. Each incident is now much more likely to result in death or injury than those of the 1980s, more than making up for the drop in frequency. The authors also note that there has been a dramatic shift from politically based acts to religious-based terrorism. The origins of this war are not in easily identified governments and nation-states, but in group ideologies, cult beliefs, and religious dogma. Terrorists frequently target office buildings, marketplaces, and transportation facilities, shifting away from defended, secure installations.