THE EMPIRE RARELY STRIKES BACK

THE EMPIRE RARELY STRIKES BACK
By Fernando Reinares
Fernando Reinares is professor of political science and director of the terrorism studies program at the University of Burgos in Spain.

Reprinted from Foreign Policy
January/February 2002

The United States rarely responds to international terrorism with military force. Indeed, although foreign ter­rorists attacked American citizens, facilities, or interests more than 2,400 times between 1983 and 1998, the U.S. government responded with overt military action only three times. So why have retaliatory deci­sions been adopted now, following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Cer­tainly, none of the previous terror­ist incidents were as catastrophic or generated as much fear among the public. But is the sheer magnitude of the latest assaults and their location enough to explain America’s “new war” on terrorism?

    Former U.S. intelligence officer Michele L. Malvesti sheds light on this question in her article “Explain­ing the United States’ Decision to Strike Back at Terrorists,” appear­ing in a recent issue of the London-based quarterly journal Terrorism and Political Violence. Malvesti, currently a doctoral candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, iden­tifies key factors that lead U.S. pol­icymakers to adopt a strategy against international terrorism supplemented or supplanted with military interventions abroad.

Prior to the September 11 attacks, the only terrorist acts that elicited a U.S. military response were Libya’s bombing of a West German nightclub in 1986, Iraq’s plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait in 1993, and the bombing by Osama bin Laden’s operatives of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Relying on public statements by presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Malvesti identifies four features common to these incidents that appeared necessary to spark a military reprisal. First, the perpe­trators must be clearly identified; second, the perpetrators must have previously committed acts terrorism against the United third, U.S. interests must be the primary focus of the attack; fourth, U.S. citizens in particular must be targeted.

However, these four criteria were present in 61 additional terrorist incidents, none of to an overt U.S. military retaliation. So Malvesti offers five characteristics. First, the act must be already and irreversible. Second, the must target not just U.S. but the American government in particular. Third, the party must be identified immediately. Fourth, the must exhibit a publicly defiant attitude toward the United States. And finally, perpetrators must be militarily and politically a retaliatory strike.

By her own admission, Malvesti disregards internal factors affecting the decision to deploy military force-such as public opinion-and her model excludes actors and institutions involved in the American political process. Even more critically, however, Malvesti ignores sense of hierarchy among her explanatory variables. Indeed, if current campaign is any indication, her last factor appears most crucial. The United States seems to military force against international terrorism only when the perpetrators and their supporters appear relatively weak.

Afghanistan, for instance, considered an acceptable target for American rage due to the theocratic Taliban regime’s willingness to host Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network. Of course, Afghanistan also happens to be poor, internally fragmented, internationally isolated, and militarily weak. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia— a wealthy country and key player in the global oil market—would never qualify as a potential target for U.S. military retaliation. Little matter that this sultanistic regime has for years spread a peculiar Islamic fundamentalist creed, based on Wahhabism, filled with anti-Western feelings. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has tolerated the financing of a global terrorist network from within its own banking system. This double standard, once per­ceived among friendly and unfriendly audiences around the world, particularly in Arab coun­tries, -only complicates the legit­imization of a U.S. military response, already shaky due to intelligence failures in proper tar­geting and collateral damage inflicted on civilian populations.