By Wes Meltzer Political Science 240: Introduction to International Relations Midterm: Question No. 2
The United States' preferred self-selected identity is one of a military power, because, the logic runs, that is what made the United States "great". Yet, in fact, what transformed the U.S. into a power of such magnitude was because of the economic growth (relatively and absolutely) with the investment from the Marshall Plan, after the war. Since then, the driving force has always been an economic force; and it is, in fact, the threat to the economy posed by international terrorism that I believe is the most significant threat today to American national security.
The question immediately arises: Why the threat to the economy and not to morale or political stability? I believe firmly, just like Robert Keohane and the other neoliberals, that national security is greatly affected by our ties economically to other countries. That is to say, our national security is the protection of life and property from negative foreign noneconomic interference, i.e. armed takeover of Minnesota or Texas by neighboring states. With that in mind, the best way I see to deter Mexico or Canada is not really through retaliation--perhaps their intent is to harm rather than to conquer--but by giving them an interest in the economic health of Minnesota and Texas. Terrorism, which I will define for the purpose of this discussion as the systematic attempt through symbolic acts of violence by nonstate actors against civilians to create fear in a nonmilitary population, similarly, is not deterred by threat of retaliation, in international or domestic 'flavors', because it is not rational in the way that traditional realist theory says that it is, or should be. How, then, could threat of retaliation or attack prove effective in deterring terrorism? Their interest is explicitly in destabilizing, economically and politically, and far more than any conventional war it is possible for them to achieve their disastrous ends.
Having concluded that terrorism is indeed a threat to national security, why is it the principal threat? Let us create a hypothetical scenario, for purposes of illustration. If a terrorist attack were to take out all of California, to somehow activate the San Andreas fault and knock it into the ocean, would it be our lost military forces and productive capacity of the military-industrial complex we would feel that day, or would it be the lost economic powerhouses driving American growth (the Silicon Valley, the Los Angeles industrial corridor, etc.)? Clearly, the latter. We must also consider probability: How likely is, say, one of the 190 states to attack us, compared to one or more of the thousands of patently anti-American terrorist groups? Arguably, given their larger number and the relatively low cost of terrorism to terrorists, we are far more likely to see terrorism than war.
I think this is best illustrated as an example of the failure of realist policies and doctrine in a post-Cold War world, where indeed the greatest threat is not other states but international terrorism. It is not a new phenomenon--ask the Basques, or North Irish, or Egyptians, or Israelis, or East Timorese, or Kashmiris... Realist theory tells us, focus on states sponsoring terrorism; and yet, as in Iran, it is not even a credible minority acting to foment terrorism there. Yet it is no more reasonable to work with the Marxist theory that it is the oppression of the South's worker force by the North's exploitative bourgeoisie and powerful. It is ironic that ETA, the IRA and al Qaeda are formed of the wealthy educated sons of rich states, and that there are no major African or South American terrorist threats. These theories simply do not deal well with the patent uncertainty and peculiar nature of terrorism.
There are other theories which may posit a solution lying at the periphery of the international relations field, especially cosmopolitanism and constructivism. Unfortunately, they are no more helpful in dealing with the problem at hand. The cosmopolitan explanation for terrorism would be the lack of horizontal identity that creates a sort of netherworld in which international terrorists can exist outside the system of vertical identity and sovereignty without interference from states, and the solution to create such a system of competing horizontal as well as vertical identities; this, however, is not a whole solution in and of itself as it does not deal with the fundamental question of how to stop terrorism but rather how to delegitimize terrorists (an entirely separate question) by removing their ability to exist as players 'outside the system' as it were. Even simpler, the constructivists would tell us that the United States is not threatened by terrorism per se but by terrorism practiced against it by actors who it deems threatening, to include Middle Easterners and anti-government activists. I think the constructivist approach entirely ignores the fact that terrorism kills people. Certainly, while it may be that Americans are threatened by Middle Easterners practicing terrorism, if middle-class British Protestant men started bombing targets in the U.S. we would find that threatening as well; if ever a kind of terrorism arises which does not kill people, I will consider their argument as more helpful to solving the problem of terrorism.
But what is this panacea, a solution in which one may see a way out? Why, the liberal path. Kant is, here, unfortunately mistaken in the suggestion that monetary wealth and stability will result in peace, but it is interdependence which may act as a candle to see our way past terrorism in the darkness. We must give them dialogue, give them identity--and by them, I mean the people of the world--and give them lateral as well as vertical institutions through which to seek remediation. Here, I suggest an appropriation of that aforementioned cosmopolitan idea of horizontal identity and institutions--in short, a system by which one's voice could go laterally rather than vertically, and bypass the potentially oppressive bottlenecks in the state-centric vertical identity. If we take away, thus, the foundations for that hatred which foments terrorism, by giving even the disaffected a voice with which to change the world through peaceful discourse, then I think we can say we have ended a terrorist threat.
"But," the realist interjects here, you are suggesting that the U.S. give away its military threat, its capacity to deter, and instead talk to irrational actors? "No," he says, you must crush it mercilessly where you find it, crush those states who support it, and strengthen yourself further! We may not be so trusting of those who hate us! In turn, I would tell him as I do you that if we act to deter future terrorism by crushing modern terrorism and their disaffected sponsor states, then all we do is further distance ourselves from the rest of the world, inspiring terrorism from previously hospitable places.
The Marxist says that the solution is to hand power over to the disaffected, that it is the exploited who can and should wield power. It is unjust, we are told, that there is an imbalance of economic and political power, and terrorism is but one manifestation of the struggle to right the wrong. To him I say, you are right that it is the feelings of exploitation and powerlessness in the South that causes terrorism; but the North should hardly redistribute power, for that would merely who is powerless and disaffected. Instead they must open avenues, institutions even, by which the South may empower itself.
I do believe that, with the support of institutions and the acceptance of horizontal as well as vertical identities, we can eliminate the threat that terrorism poses to the United States' economy, as the principal threat to its national security in the modern world.