Terrorism

Ch. 6 Military force and terrorism

• Describe the variety of military forces sates employ and how technological developments have changed them.
• Define the characteristics of terrorism and how it differs from conventional warfare.
• Understand the concept of weapons of mass destruction, including the different types of weapons, the science behind them, and the attempts to prevent their proliferation.
• Explain the relationship between states, their economies, and their military forces.

Options for state leaders: One set of levers represents nonviolent means of influencing other states, such as foreign aid, economic sanctions, and personal diplomacy ( less tangible means include the use of norms, morality, and other ideas).

·         A second set of levers— the subject of this chapter— represents violent actions. These levers set armies marching, suicide bombers blowing up, or missiles flying. They tend to be costly to both the at-tacker and the attacked. Military force tends to be a last resort.

·         Beyond defending their territories, states develop military capabilities for several other purposes. They often hope to deter attack by having the means to retaliate.

·         They may also hope to compel other states to behave in certain ways, by threatening an attack if the state does not comply.

·          

Territorial Capabilities and Counterinsurgency:

·         Armies are adapted to occupying a foreign country. Military forces with armed foot soldiers can occupy a territory militarily.

·         Foot soldiers are called the infantry. They use assault rifles and other light weapons ( such as mines and machine guns) as well as heavy artillery of various types.

·         Artillery is extremely destructive and not very discriminating: it usually causes the most damage and casualties in wars.

·         Armor refers to tanks and armored vehicles.

·          In open terrain, such as desert, mechanized ground forces typically combine armor, artillery, and infantry.

·         In close terrain, such as jungles and cities, however, foot soldiers are more important.

Counterinsurgency: has received growing attention in recent years because of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is central to all 12 wars currently in progress worldwide. Counterinsurgency warfare often includes programs to try to “win the hearts and minds” of populations so that they stop sheltering the guerrillas. In some ways, because counterinsurgency warfare is as much about political gains as military strategy, it is the most complex type of warfare.

·         While battling armed factions of an insurgency, a government must essentially conduct a public relations campaign to persuade the population to abandon the movement,

·          while providing public services ( such as education and welfare programs) to show a government’s responsiveness to the population.

·         A government must be strong militarily, but cannot be too brutal in the application of force, lest more of the population begin to support the guerrillas.

Counterinsurgency campaigns are costly and labor- intensive. For example, the U. S. Army’s counterinsurgency manual suggests that 20 troops should be deployed for every 1,000 citizens to be protected from insurgents. Few states can afford such campaigns for long periods of time.

·         A common tool of guerrillas, insurgents, and the governments fighting them are land mines, which are simple, small, and cheap containers of explosives with a trigger activated by contact or sensor.

·         As many as 100 million land mines remain from recent wars; they injure about 25,000 people a year ( a third of whom are children); although they are cheap to deploy, it costs about $ 1,000 per mine to find and disarm them.

Navies-Controlling the Seas:

·         Navies are adapted primarily to control passage through the seas and to attack land near coastlines.

·          Controlling the seas in wartime allows states to move their own goods and military forces by sea while preventing enemies from doing so. In particular, navies protect sealift logistical support.

·         Navies can also blockade enemy ports. For most of the 1990s, Western navies enforced a naval blockade against Iraq.

·         Aircraft carriers— mobile platforms for attack aircraft— are instruments of power projection that can attack virtually any state in the world. Merely sending an aircraft carrier sailing to the vicinity of an international conflict implies a threat to use force— a modern version of what was known in the 19th century as “ gunboat diplomacy.”

·         Eight other countries ( France, India, Russia, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Thailand, and the United Kingdom) maintain smaller carriers that use helicopters or small airplanes.

·         Surface ships, which account for the majority of warships, rely increasingly on guided missiles and are in turn vulnerable to attack by missiles ( fired from ships, planes, submarines, or land). Because the ranges of small missiles now reach from dozens to hundreds of miles, naval warfare emphasizes detection at great distances without being detected oneself— a cat- and- mouse game of radar surveillance and electronic countermeasures.

Amphibious warfare: Marines ( part of the navy in the United States, Britain, and Russia) move to battle in ships but fight on land.

·         Marines are also useful for great power intervention in distant conflicts where they can insert themselves quickly and establish local control.

Air Forces: Controlling the Skies Air forces:

·         strategic bombing of land or sea targets; “ close air support” ( battlefield bombing); interception of other aircraft; reconnaissance; and airlift of supplies, weapons, and troops.

·         Missiles— whether fired from air, land, or sea— are increasingly important.

·         Air forces have developed various means to try to fool such missiles, with mixed results.

·         Traditionally, and still to some extent, aerial bombing resembles artillery shelling in that it causes great destruction with little discrimination.

·         This has changed somewhat as smart bombs improve accuracy.(Laser guided bombs and GPS navigation)

In cases of low- intensity conflicts:and guerrilla wars, especially where forces intermingle with civilians in closed terrain such as Vietnamese jungles or Iraqi cities, bombing is of limited utility.

·         although it was extremely effective in Afghanistan in 2001.

·         Israel also used extensive bombing in its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Israel found, however, that Lebanese guerrillas were able to jam some of its radar systems with rudimentary electronic devices, creating difficulties for the Israeli military.

The increasing sophistication of electronic equipment and the high- performance requirements of attack aircraft make air forces expensive— totally out of reach for some states. Thus, rich states have huge advantages over poor ones in air warfare. Despite the expense, air superiority is often the key to the success of ground operations, especially in open terrain.

·         air power may be less useful in small- scale warfare, states continue to build their air forces in the event of more large- scale conflicts.

Coordinating Forces: Logistics and Intelligence:

·         All military operations rely heavily on logistical support such as food, fuel, and ordnance ( weapons and ammunition).

·         Military logistics is a huge operation, and in most armed forces the majority of soldiers are not combat troops. Global- reach capabilities combine long- distance logistical support with various power- projection forces.

·          These capabilities allow a great power to project military power to distant corners of the world and to maintain a military presence in most of the world’s regions simultaneously.

·         Only the United States today fully possesses such a capability— with worldwide military alliances, air and naval bases, troops stationed overseas, and aircraft carriers plying the world’s oceans.

·         Intelligence gathering also relies on various other means such as electronic monitoring of telephone lines and other communications, reports from embassies, and information in the open press.

·         Some kinds of information are obtained by sending agents into foreign countries as spies. They use ingenuity ( plus money and technology) to penetrate walls of secrecy that foreign governments have constructed around their plans and capabilities.

Space forces: are military forces designed to attack in or from outer space. 8 Ballistic missiles, which travel through space briefly, are not generally included in this category.

·         Only the United States and Russia have substantial military capabilities in space.

·         The far more common uses of space by the military are for command and coordination purposes.

·         Satellites are used extensively for military purposes, but these purposes thus far do not include attack. Satellites perform military surveillance and mapping, communications, weather assessment, and early warning of ballistic missile launches.

·         Satellites also provide navigational information to military forces— army units, ships, planes, and even guided missiles in flight. Locations are calculated to within about 50 feet by small receivers, which pick up beacons transmitted from a network of 18 U. S. satellites known as a Global Positioning System ( GPS).

·         Handheld receivers are available commercially, so the military forces of other countries can free- ride on these satellite navigation beacons.

·         Poorer states can buy satellite photos— including high- resolution pictures that Russia sells for hard currency.

Evolving Technologies: The resort to force in international conflicts now has more profound costs and consequences.

·         Great powers in particular can no longer use force to settle disputes among them-selves without risking massive destruction and economic ruin.

·         Greater distances between feuding states.

·         These technological advances undermine the territorial basis of war and of the state itself. The state once had a hard shell of militarily protected borders, but today borders offer far less protection.

Electronic warfare: ( now broadened to information warfare) refers to the uses of the electromagnetic spec-trum ( radio waves, radar, infrared, etc.) in war— employing electromagnetic signals for one’s own benefit while denying their use to an enemy.

·         Electromagnetic signals are used for sensing beyond the normal visual range through radar, infrared, and imaging equipment to see in darkness, through fog, or at great distances.

·         These and other tech-nologies have illuminated the battlefield so that forces cannot be easily hidden. Electronic countermeasures try to counteract enemy electronic systems such as radar and radio communications.

Cyberwar: disrupting enemy computer networks to degrade command and control, or even hacking into bank accounts electronically— were developed by NATO forces during the 1999 Kosovo war. Though mostly not implemented, these strategies will probably figure in future wars.

Stealth technology: uses special radar- absorbent materials and unusual shapes in the design of aircraft, missiles, and ships to scatter enemy radar. However, stealth is extremely expensive ( the B- 2 stealth bomber costs about $ 2 billion per plane) and is prone to tech-nical problems.

Military historians refer to a period of rapid change in the conduct of war as a “ revolution in military affairs.” These periods usually combine innovative applica-tions of new technology with changes in military doctrine, organization, or operations.

Terrorism:

Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately and indiscriminately. Beyond this basic definition other criteria can be applied, but the definitions be-come politically motivated: one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.

·         More than guerrilla warfare, terrorism is a shadowy world of faceless enemies and irregular tactics marked by extreme brutality.

·         Traditionally, the purpose of terrorism is to demoralize a civilian population in order to use its discontent as leverage on national governments or other parties to a conflict.

·         Related to this is the aim of creating drama in order to gain media attention for a cause.

·         The classic cases of terrorism— from the 1970s to the 2001 attacks— are those in which a nonstate actor uses attacks against civilians by secret nonuniformed forces, operating across international borders, as a leverage against state actors. Radical political factions or separatist groups hijack or blow up airplanes or plant bombs in cafés, clubs, or other crowded places.

·         States themselves carry out acts designed to terrorize their own populations or those of other states, but scholars tend to avoid the label “ terrorism” for such acts, preferring to call it repression or war.

·         In fact, no violent act taken during a civil or international war— by or toward a warring party— can necessarily fit neatly into the category of terrorism. Of course, because war is hard to define, so is terrorism; warring parties often call each other terrorists.

State- sponsored terrorism: refers to the use of terrorist groups by states— usually un-der control of the state’s intelligence agency— to achieve political aims.

Counterterrorism:

·         Policies to combat terrorism can be placed along a spectrum involving more or less force in confronting terror-ism and terrorist organizations. On the nonviolent end of the spectrum are calls for economic development.

·         In the middle of the spectrum are policing activities. These involve efforts by domestic police, usually in cooperation with other countries’ police forces, to appre-hend or kill terrorists while breaking up terrorist organizations.

·         At the other end of the counterterrorism spectrum is organized military conflict. States may undertake small- or large- scale conflicts to counter terrorist organizations.

Weapons of mass destruction: comprise three general types: nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

·         They are distinguished from conventional weapons by their enormous potential lethality, given their small size and modest costs, and by their relative lack of discrimination in whom they kill.

·         When deployed on ballistic missiles, they can poten-tially be fired from the home territory of one state and wreak great destruction on the home territory of another state.

·          Until now this has never happened. But the mere threat of such an action undermines the territorial integrity and security of states in the international system.

·         Of central concern today are the potentials for proliferation— the possession of weapons of mass destruction by more and more states.

·         Weapons of mass destruction serve different purposes from conventional weapons. With a few exceptions, their purpose is to deter attack ( especially by other weapons of mass destruction) by giving state leaders the means to inflict great pain against a would- be con-queror or destroyer.

·          For middle powers, these weapons also provide destructive power more in line with that of the great powers, thus serving as symbolic equalizers.

·         For terror-ists, potentially, their purpose is to kill a great many people.

Nuclear weapons: are, in sheer power, the world’s most destructive weapons. A single weapon the size of a refrigerator can destroy a city. There are two types: Fission weapons ( atomic bombs or A- bombs) are simpler and less expensive than fusion weapons ( also called thermonuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs, or H- bombs).

When a fission weapon explodes, one type of atom ( element) is split, or fissioned, into new types with less total mass. The lost mass is transformed into energy according to Albert Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc2, which shows that a little bit of mass is equiva-lent to a great deal of energy.

Two elements can be split in this way, and each has been used to make fission weapons. These elements— known as fissionable material— are uranium- 235 ( or U- 235) and plutonium.

Fusion weapons are extremely ex-pensive and technically demanding; they are for only the richest, largest, most technologically capable states. Here two small atoms ( variants of hydrogen) fuse together into a larger atom, releasing energy. This reaction occurs only at very high temperatures ( the sun “ burns” hydrogen through fusion). Weapons designers use fission weapons to create these high energies and trigger an explosive fusion reaction.

·         In the post– Cold War era, megaton weapons have become irrelevant, since they are too powerful for any actor to use productively and too difficult for terrorists or small states to build.

·         Heat can potentially create a self- sustaining firestorm in a city. Radiation creates radiation sickness, which at high doses kills people in a few days and at low doses creates long- term health problems, especially cancers.

·         Radiation is most intense in the local vicinity of ( and downwind from) a nuclear explosion, but some is carried up into the atmosphere and falls in more distant locations as nuclear fallout.

Ballistic Missiles and Other Delivery Systems:

The main strategic delivery vehicles are ballistic missiles; unlike airplanes, they are extremely difficult to defend against.

·         Ballistic missiles carry a warhead up along a trajectory and let it drop on the target. A trajectory typically rises out of the atmosphere— at least 50 miles high— before descending.

·         In addition, some missiles fire from fixed sites ( silos), whereas others are mobile, firing from railroads or large trailer trucks ( making them hard to target).

·         The longest- range missiles are intercontinental ballistic missiles ( ICBMs), with ranges of more than 5,000 miles.

·         short- range ballistic missiles ( SRBMs), with ranges of well under 1,000 miles.

The cruise missile is a small winged missile that can navigate across thousands of miles of previously mapped terrain to reach a target, with the help of satellite guidance.

Through the Missile Technology Control Regime, industrialized states try to limit the flow of missile- relevant technology to states in the global South, but with limited success. Short- and medium- range missiles ( with ranges of up to about 2,000 miles) apparently are being developed by Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and possibly Argentina and Brazil. In 2009, Iran alarmed the West by testing a missile that could reach Egypt, Israel, and parts of Europe.

Chemical Warfare:

The 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention to ban the pro-duction and possession of chemical weapons has been signed by all the great powers and nearly all other states, with a few exceptions including Egypt, Syria, and North Korea.

Biological weapons: resemble chemical ones, but use deadly microorganisms or biologi-cally derived toxins. Some use viruses or bacteria that cause fatal diseases, such as smallpox, bubonic plague, and anthrax. Others cause nonfatal, but incapacitating, diseases or diseases that kill livestock.

·         1972 Biological Weapons Convention, signed by more than 100 coun-tries including the great powers.

·         The superpowers destroyed their stocks of biological weapons and had to restrict their biological weapons complexes to defensive research rather than the development of weapons.

Proliferation: Proliferation is the spread of weapons of mass destruction— nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and chemical or biological weapons— into the hands of more actors.

·         Some realists, who be-lieve in the rationality of state actions, are not so upset by this prospect, and some even welcome it. They reason that in a world where the use of military force could lead to mu-tual annihilation, there would be fewer wars— just as during the arms race of the Cold War the superpowers did not blow each other up.

·         Other IR scholars who put less faith in the rationality of state leaders are much more alarmed by proliferation. They fear that with more and more nuclear ( or chemical/ biological) actors, miscalculation or accident— or fanatical terrorism— could lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction on a scale unseen since 1945.

·         The leaders of the great powers tend to side with the second group.

·         They have tried to restrict the most destructive weapons to the great powers. Proliferation erodes the great powers’ advantage relative to middle powers.

·         Nuclear proliferation could occur simply by a state or nonstate actor’s buying ( or stealing) one or more nuclear weapons or the components to build one. The means to pre-vent this include covert intelligence, tight security measures, and safeguards to prevent a stolen weapon from being used.

·         The Non- Proliferation Treaty ( NPT) of 1968 created a framework for controlling the spread of nuclear materials and expertise. 30 The International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA), a UN agency based in Vienna, is charged with inspecting the nuclear power industry in member states to prevent secret military diversions of nuclear materials.

The term nuclear strategy refers to decisions about how many nuclear weapons to deploy, what delivery systems to put them on, and what policies to adopt regarding the circum-stances in which they would be used.

·         The reason for possessing nuclear weapons is almost always to deter another state from a nuclear or conventional attack by threatening ruinous retaliation.

·         This should work if state leaders are rational actors wanting to avoid the huge costs of a nuclear attack.

·         But it will work only if other states believe that a state’s threat to use nuclear weapons is credible.

Possession of second- strike capabilities by both sides is called mutually assured destruction ( MAD) because neither side can prevent the other from destroying it.

·         The term implies that the strat-egy, though reflecting “ rationality,” is actually insane ( mad) because deviations from rationality could destroy both sides.

·         Several treaties in the 1970s locked in the superpowers’ basic parity in nuclear capabil-ities under MAD. The 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile ( ABM) Treaty prevented either side from using a ballistic missile defense as a shield from which to launch a first strike.

·         The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties ( SALT) in the 1970s put formal ceilings on the growth of both sides’ strategic weapons. More recent arms control agreements regulated the substantial reduction of nuclear forces after the end of the Cold War.

·         A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ( CTBT) to halt all nuclear test explosions was signed in 1996 after decades of stalemate. It aims to impede the development of new types of nuclear weapons.

Defense has played little role in nuclear strategy because no effective defense against missile attack has been devised. However, the United States is spending billions of dollars a year to try to develop defenses that could shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The program is called the Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI), “ Star Wars,” or Ballistic Missile Defense ( BMD).

Military Economics: Choices about military forces depend on the connection between a state’s military spend-ing and its economic health. Both the long- and short- term effects of military spending are magnified by actual war-fare.

·         War not only stimulates high military spending, it destroys capital ( people, cities, farms, and factories in battle areas) and causes inflation ( reducing the supply of various goods while increasing demand for them).

·          Governments must pay for war goods by borrow-ing money ( increasing government debt), by printing more currency ( fueling inflation), or by raising taxes ( reducing spending and investment).

·         Short- term stimulation can result from a boost in military spending. Another potential benefit is the acquisition of territory ( containing resources and capital).

·         Another potential economic benefit of war is to stir up a population’s patriotism so that it will work harder for less pay.

·         But overall, the economic costs of war usually far sur-pass any benefits.

Military hierarchy and discipline make armed forces function as instruments of state power— at the price of brutality and loss of individual freedom.

Civilian supremacy: This is the idea that civilian leaders ( who are either elected or appointed) are at the top of the chain of command. Civilians, not military officers, decide when and where the military fights. The officers, by contrast, are given control over how the military fights.

·         The interaction of civilian with military leaders— called civil- military relations— is an important factor in how states use force.

·         Military leaders may undermine the authority of civilian leaders in carrying out foreign policies, or they may even threaten civilian su-premacy if certain actions are taken in international conflicts.

·         If tensions become too sharp between a civilian leadership and their military forces, a coup d’état ( French for “ blow against the state”) can result.

·         A coup is the seizure of political power by domestic military forces— a change of political power outside the state’s constitutional order.

·         The outcome of a coup attempt is hard to predict. If most or all of the military go along with the coup, civilian leaders are generally helpless to stop it.

·         If a coup is successful, military forces themselves control the government. These military governments tend to be the most common in poor countries, where the military may be the only large modern institution in the country.