IR3001 week 7 lectures

1. IR3001 week 7 lectures Trans-national Actors I:Terrorism

2. How has Terrorism been Defined? • US Department of Defence: “The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological” • Home Office proposal: “serious violence against persons or property, or the threat to use such violence … for political, religious or ideological ends” (including damage against property) • Walter Laqueur: “Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective when innocent people are targeted”

3. Problems of Definition • Core: “The use or the threat of the use of violence in order to achieve political aims” • Are terrorists only non-state groups? • authoritarian regimes using methods; state sponsorship • Is it legitimate for states to violence without moral restraint? • Non-combatants: is targeting non-combatants legitimate ? • Hamas tries to justify targeting Israeli civilians because they are all ‘conscripts’… • Threats: do threats alone terrorise? • “Terrorists want a lot of people watching, but not a lot of people dead” (B. Jenkins) • True of left-wing terrorism, it was not of right-wing terrorism, and ‘religious’ terrorism • Visibility is a key aim of political impact, and use of fear

4. Terrorism and Ideology… • Conceptual difficulties • Guelke: definition has become so elastic it can include anything… • Who defines what legitimate violence is, and using what criteria? • Political Manipulation • The label terrorist makes a political group illegitimate and an acceptable target for violent repression • Nelson Mandela’s ANC was labelled terrorist • A freedom fighter can later be a terrorist • E.g. Bin Laden – Afghan resistance to USSR vs. al-Qaeda • Most states secured their existence using terrorist means at some point! E.g. Decolonisation…

5. Ethics and Violence: Questions for Security Studies • Are “freedom fighters” unpalatable but necessary? • Algerian FLN secured independence from France • Arafat’s PLO put Palestinian dispossession on the international agenda • The Irgun secured British withdrawal from Palestine and creation of Israel • Asymmetrical violence: terrorism as “the weapon of the poor”? • What other means of setting the agenda and affecting change do they have? Controversial! • Ethics of violence as a political tool: ties in to wider debates on security • Democratic accountability: if you support a government the actions of which cause death & destruction, are you a ‘fair’ target?

6. Terrorist movements in recent history • Left-wing groups: Red Army Faction (Germany), Red Brigades (Italy), Action Directe (France), Japanese Red Army (Japan), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Colombia) • Right-wing groups: Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, The Order (USA), Combat 18 (UK) • Some groups are better defined by the territorial disputes they are engaged in: PLO (1970s), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine vs. Kach and Kahane Chai (Israel and United States), or IRA/PIRA vs. Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, LTTE (Sri Lanka)

7. Ideology, Targeting & Tactics: • Left-wing groups, mostly Marxist-Leninist • symbolic strikesagainst the leaders of capitalist class to ‘raise consciousness’, and lead a socialist revolution. • usually domestic actions, limited casualties • always claim responsibility for actions (‘educational’ aims) • Right-wing groups: predominantly Neo-Fascist or Neo-Nazi, sometimes linked to religious groups • ‘strategy of tension’ in order to provoke a clamp-down on civil liberties, preventing socialist revolution. • Mostly indiscriminate targeting, bombs in public places (without warnings) • 2 August 1980: bomb in Bologna Central Station killed 85 and wounded more than 200. • Do not claim responsibility for actions, nor justify them • collusion with security services? (e.g. Bologna bombing) – useful to conservative political forces?

8. Traditional Responses to Terrorism I Security/Intelligence: • police and security organisations - • infiltrate organisations to gather intelligence • infiltrate and monitor related non-violent organisations • intercepting communications & mass surveillance • ‘target hardening’: making state objectives harder to hit • usually results in targeting of ‘soft’ objectives… • ‘hard line’: often first phase of state response, with security forces legally/illegally using means of violence • e.g. ‘pre-emptive neutralisation’, Israel’s policy of ‘targeted assassination’ in the Occupied Territories • this usually provokes escalation of conflict

9. Traditional Responses to Terrorism II Legal & Political: • security-driven responses are usually not sufficient and often counter-productive • put in place legal instruments facilitating ‘defection’ • political negotiation or reform concerning underlying issues has been key to resolving conflict • 1. bring terrorists to negotiating table; • 2. drain support from sympathisers as their grievances appear to be addressed (=’mainstreaming’ politics) • e.g. Red Brigades in Italy, IRA/N. Ireland, PLO in Palestine, ETA in Spain

10. Terrorism and (Organised) Crime • Terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay are not benefiting from Geneva Conventions because they are ‘criminals’, not ‘soldiers’…Thus, what is the relationship between crime and terrorism? • Terrorism is illegal… But is it immoral? • Terrorist groups frame themselves as fighting an unjust ‘system’. • Occasionally they are convincing (Apartheid)… • Crime to fund activities? arms smuggling; drug trafficking; or racketeering… • E.g. Provisional IRA, GIA (Algeria), Sendero Luminoso (Peru), FARC (Columbia) • Sometimes, criminals use terror tactics…Narcoterrorism - terrorist-type attacks against anti-narcotics police. E.g. Pablo Escobar's (Medellin Cartel) in Columbia.

11. State sponsors and ‘rogue states’ • State terrorism: Judge B. Garzón • “…a political system whose rule of recognition permits and/or imposes a clandestine, unpredictable, and diffuse application, even regarding clearly innocent people, of coercive means prohibited by the proclaimed judicial ordinance." • Is authoritarianism terrorism? • State-sponsored terrorism: The funding and/or supplying of terrorist groups by states. • Iran: ‘exporting the revolution’ in the 1980s, Hezbollah • USA: Overthrowing Mossadeq in Iran; supporting Pinochet in Chile; Grenada; sponsoring the Contras against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; etc. • Rogues States and WMDs: a state that refuses to play by the rules of the game? Current definitions emphasise sponsoring of terrorism and WMDs…

12. Islamist Terrorist Groups • Groups: e.g. Al-Jihad (Egypt), GIA (Algeria) Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas (Palestine) • ‘Salafist’ (reform): need to rebel against unjust authority; reinvent classical theories of jihad to make violence permissible • Violent action meets ‘consciousness raising’ of marginalised groups • to promote Islamic law, and an egalitarian society • often radicalised into violence by repression • Al-Qaeda is unusual in its targeting of US soil: a new globalisation of the Islamist agenda? (Roy) • like left-wing groups, Islamists claim responsibility for actions & issue communiqués justifying them

13. Dilemmas of the War on Terror • security, intelligence, & military crackdown as core response: e.g. Afghanistan • Enormous pressure to show ‘strength’ in response to 9/11… • Ignores the political grievances of these movements… • Despite the successful European experience of political solutions! • Can terrorism be defeated by force, does it create new recruits? • Political initiatives: US: traditional and cultural diplomacy to secure allies (9/11 exhibition) • Legal: Civil liberties • E.g. USA: Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay and torture scandals • Dilemma of choosing between ‘personal freedom’ and ‘security’… • ME authoritarian states have been encouraged to crack down on any opposition they consider terrorist!

14. Dilemmas of the War on Terror II • Economic • threats and incentives in the security council to secure support for the war in Iraq • Lack of support in the Global South could mean trade and aid disaster • Postwar Iraq contracts to supporters! • No fundamental change in economic relationship with ME… • What are the reasons for this ‘new wave’ of terrorism? …Responses to ‘imperialism’? U. Beck ‘NGOs of violence’ – protest movements questioning monopolies in security, power, wealth etc.

15. Conclusion: Implications for conceptions of Security • Core security concern post-9/11: has led to multiple wars… • …and redefinitions of security priorities with the UN • How do we define priorities for global security, who does it? • Does this fundamentally challenge the primacy of the state in realist IR (a small group changed everything?) or reinforce it (The US is the hegemon – does not need to UN to respond, and can do as it pleases?) • Is the ‘Liberal Peace’ a liberation, or hegemonic? • Does our distaste for terrorism mean that we should question violence as means to secure political goals more widely?