Book Review: FIGHTING BACK: WHAT GOVERNMENTS CAN DO ABOUT TERRORISM by Paul Shemella

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Book Review India, Volume 38, Number 4, April 2014

What does it take to win a war? Leadership, soldiers, strategy, weapons or finance? What explains the inadequate accomplishments of the states, some with enormous resources at their disposal, vis-a-vis terrorism? Are we confronting an enemy which simply can't be defeated? Or philosophically speaking, are we, with an aim of defeating terrorism, merely fighting against ourselves, trying to overcome our inadequacies? Post-2001 period has seen a wave of literature on terrorism and its associated evils. And while most claim to know the reason of our failures, few seem to have a clue to achieving success.

Fighting Back, in the words of its editor, is a product of a modest search for a textbook that presents a dynamic, acquired knowledge about how governments can respond to terrorism. It aimed to achieve two purposes. Firstly, a limited one, to serve as a textbook in the 'Civil-military responses to terrorism' seminars of the Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey. And secondly, to broadly help the US government officials develop the best means to help other governments develop the capacity to fight terrorism successfully. While the first of the twin objectives appears to have been fulfilled, it is not clear whether the counter-terror policy of the United States has been influenced to any extent by the words of wisdom contained in this 400-pages book. States operate strangely and none knows how their policies are framed.

From the surface, this book appears as one that prescribes a hardcore approach to mitigating terrorism within the civil-military cooperation paradigm. Chapters in the first two of the three sections of the book suggest ways to target terrorist networks, terrorist financing, cyber terrorism, maritime terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction. They also prescribe ways to build effective counter terrorism institutions, establish inter-agency decision-making, and adopting the right tools and strategies for combating terrorism. At the same time, the book also speaks other soft approaches of fighting terror – taking for example the image of an onion whose terrorism 'core' must not smashed to pulp along with the entire onion, but how the layers, the moral resources of the civil society, must be mobilized to isolate the core. Editor Paul Shemella writes in the chapter on 'Defusing Terrorist Ideology', "Anyone attempting to counter ideological support for terrorism must realize that such efforts can succeed only from within the ideological community itself."

That, in a way, makes this an off-beat book, rebelling against the common refrain “desperate times call for desperate measures” that dominated the post-9/11 world. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that the United States was "at war" with terrorism. Since then, numerous scholars have been at pains explaining both Powell's mistake as well as his actual intentions. The book does right to clarify, "The so called war on terrorism is not a war at all, it is a political context that can be won only at the political level." Perhaps two additional chapters on terrorist recruitment and de-radicalization were needed to set the debate on a firm footing in favour of a balanced approach to fighting terrorism. Also necessary was a chapter on the definitional aspects of terrorism, to supplement the existing attempts to initiate a debate on terminologies such as Islamic, Islamist, Jihadi, Islamo-fascist, and Salafist terrorism.   

The third section of the book that deals with six case studies is probably its weakest link, not so much for the lack of scholarship, but due to the enormous amount of information these need to present within a limited space. However, even within these limitations the chapters do make important points on the inadequacies of state institutions in responding to terror incidents. For example, "pointing at the lack of inter agency cooperation" the chapter on the Mumbai terrorist attacks says "the terrorist attacks on Mumbai need not have occurred at all." Similarly, the Madrid train bombing chapter points at Spain's "inept crisis management" as the government went on an overdrive to blame the Basque separatist organisation, the ETA, even as the blasts bore unambiguous signs of an Islamist terror. This chapter, in particular, goes beyond the usual brief of analysing the attacks to include an excellent summary of the processes of radicalization of the involved terrorists.      

Building international consensus against terrorism has continued to remain one of the key problems of fighting the menace. The book in its conclusion notes, "no government has the capacity to develop and execute successful strategies on its own; generating them will require allies, regional partners, and friends to assist one another in building the robust institutions needed to pursue long term campaigns against terrorism in all its forms."

It took five years following the 9/11 attacks to adopt the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy at the United Nations. Even then, individual countries promoting terror against others continue to escape international attention and sanctions. Apart from the failed states which invariably turn into terrorist safe houses and launch pads, the deliberate strategy of using terror as an instrument of state policy is wreaking havoc in many parts of the world including South Asia. And yet, these very countries continue to be partners of the United States in the global war on terror. It is difficult to foretell an end to terrorism under such circumstances.

The editor writes, "It may not be possible to rid the world of terrorism as a tactic for extremists, but democratic governments are obliged to do whatever they can to protect their citizens." Terrorism as a threat to nation states will continue for foreseeable future, so also the need to evolve responses to meet the challenges. Each passing year and each terror attack would bring in new techniques of sabotage underlining the need to evolve new ways of meeting the threat. And yet, in this ever-expanding and evolving threat-response paradigm, certain principles would remain unchanged. For all times, success of countries against terrorism would remain directly linked to their combined and networked capacities to manage discontent. The extent of responsiveness ingrained to the principles of governance would be the hallmark of any success against terrorism. Paradoxically, even with these investments – intellectual as well as financial –  terrorism would not disappear, but would certainly lose its attractiveness as a career option for a large number of men continue to swell the terrorist ranks.

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-2983/2014/april/4/addressing-a-complex-issue.html