After spending five posts explaining how counterinsurgency is difficult, and another five describing the techniques needed to master this tricky kind of warfare, it may surprise you to hear that counterterrorism, the sine qua non of US national security since the 9/11 attacks, is relatively easier. In fact, for those already familiar with small, violent, secretive criminal organizations, counterterrorism may almost seem prosaic.
As explained in earlier postings on revolutionary warfare, the primary difference between insurgency and terrorism is the choice of targets. For Maoist and Leninist guerrillas, the primary target of violence is the regime, and the primary target of persuasion and coercion is the populace. Terrorists switch these targets around, attacking civilians in the hope of coercing the government. Since I'm describing terrorism and guerrilla warfare as ideal types here, I have to acknowledge that, in reality, guerrillas frequently target civilians for reprisals and intimidations, and terrorists often try to kill or kidnap government officials. However, terrorists worldwide have increasingly emphasized attacks on civilians. The most striking evolution in terrorism is the increasing number of civilian casualties per terrorist attack. Terrorists have also grown more inventive in the kinds of horrors they manufacture. Rather than hijacking airliners, terrorists now crash them, full of passengers, into buildings. Rather than killing soldiers, they kill children. The strategic logic of American white supremacists, radical Islamists, Chechen separatists, and apocalyptic millenarians all tend in the same bloody direction.
Just as insurgency strategies shape the organizations that execute them, terrorist strategy compels terrorists to adopt a particular, recognizable shape. Having deliberately chosen the most abhorrent form of violence, terrorist groups need to be very particular about whom they recruit. Newly-inducted terrorists need to be dedicated to the cause, and other members of the organization need to monitor and reinforce this commitment. Since terrorist acts are quite easy to plan and execute—the Oklahoma City bombing required minimal chemical and electronic skill, and raw components as easily acquired as fertilizer and a U-Haul truck—the organization does not need to be large. In fact, size can be the enemy of operational security, so terrorists prefer to operate in smaller cells, in which each member has a specialized role (planning, logistics, recruitment, etc.).
To increase efficiency while keeping the overall organization small, divisions of the terrorist group often specialize. There is usually a central planning directorate, but the control it wields over the activity of individual cells can vary widely. The leadership of Al Qaeda in 2000 wielded direct control over terrorist operations; now, the leadership offer advice, support, and resources only. Particular cells can specialize in assassination, bombing, recruitment, finance, and other activities.
Unless the terrorists have a reliable source of outside money, they often resort to criminal enterprises to finance their main activity, terrorism. Crime sharpens skills, keeps members on their toes, and can even feature in the terrorists' own propaganda. Some terrorist groups even create political front organizations, comparable to those that guerrilla groups erect to maintain a friendlier face to the outside world. Some terrorist organizations, such as the original Ansar al-Islam group in Northern Iraq, can be completely indifferent to the notion of a "political front," while others, like Hamas, can pour a great deal of energy and attention into their non-violent activities. (Unlike guerrillas, terrorists do not operationally link the activities of their political cadres and armed insurgents. Hamas' charitable organizations are not the same as the "Viet Cong Infrastructure" of the NLF.)
In the last few paragraphs, you could easily replace the word terrorist with organized crime syndicate, since similar strategic demands create similar organizational structures. Governments fighting both terrorists and syndicates face the same challenges, particularly when these groups operate on an international level. Since they both occupy the shadows of many societies, terrorists and Mafiosi even collaborate with one another, buying weapons, information, safe houses, and other resources from one another. At the very least, terrorists and criminal syndicates make arrangements to keep their criminal activities from accidentally colliding.
Terrorists, like Mafiosi, have learned the value of operating outside the borders of any one country. Many criminal schemes operate in more than one country simultaneously: for example, an identity theft ring recently stole bank card and PIN numbers from Northern Californian gas stations, and then used this information to withdraw money from ATM machines in Romania, the Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries. Similarly, terrorists learn how to keep governments off-balance and exploit opportunities in particular countries by spreading the planning, equipping, training, and executing phases of terrorist attacks across national borders. Most infamously, preparations for the 9/11 attacks occurred in the United States, Germany, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
The same strategic logic of measure and countermeasure operates with criminal syndicates and terrorists alike. After American law enforcement agencies gained headway against Hispanic gangs, these groups learned how to recruit and plan in unexpected ways, operating outside US borders and within American prisons. Terrorists shift the media and content of their communications to stay ahead of their enemies. In both cases, a government's successes can rebound against it in the same way that fighting infectious diseases can have an unintended boomerang effects. The most vicious terrorists and criminals survive eradication efforts, who have benefited by learning the methods the authorities used to eliminate their rivals.
Terrorists are different from even the most violent criminals in one key respect: their dedication to a particular revolutionary outcome. Mafiosi merely want to accumulate money and prestige; terrorists want to engineer the downfall of the political order. When criminals might move operations elsewhere or choose to "go legit," terrorists remain dedicated to defeating a government—a goal which is always distant, given the terrorists' limited size, resources, and political appeal.
Terrorists also feel a greater need to explain themselves than criminals do. Terrorists like the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and Abu Sayyaf are in the uncomfortable situation of killing the very people they claim they want to liberate. Consequently, terrorists try to be in constant communication with both the government, whom they are trying to coerce, and the population, to whom they are trying to justify the worst forms of violence. Terrorists use violence to send a political message, but they worry that it might be misinterpreted by either audience. Consequently, the Red Brigade published long, boring political tracts; Osama bin Laden issues unauthorized fatwas; white supremacists circulate The Turner Diaries among their adherents.
Given the similarities and differences between terrorist groups and criminal syndicates, you can understand the debate over whether counterterrorism is primarily a law enforcement or a military function. If you see more similarities, you'll emphasize police and legal methods. If you see more differences, you'll choose a more militarized approach.
As you might expect, the real answer is a combination of law enforcement and military measures. As we've already seen in the case of another species of counterrevolutionary warfare, counterinsurgency, military power alone is insufficient. The choice between military and non-military measures in counterterrorism depends on which aspect of counterterrorism you're talking about. When you need to gather intelligence about the terrorists and destroy their organization, you'll employ the services of intelligence agencies, police forces, and the courts. When you need to deter or thwart a particular terrorist operation, you'll look to a different set of people in uniform. This division of labor is not all that different from the different roles assigned to investigatory and SWAT units within a police department.
You might already see how counterproductive some of the Bush Administration's approaches to counterterrorism can be. The NSA wiretaps have their analog in the electronic surveillance of organized crime figures. Unfocused sweeps are just as likely to catch terrorists as drug dealers. In both cases, signal intelligence (SIGINT) can never replace what human intelligence (HUMINT) provides. If you want to detect an imminent terrorist attack, or capture a shipment of cocaine entering the United States, which is a more reliable source of intelligence, the guarded and often coded conversations among people who already suspect their phones are tapped, or the informant inside the terrorist or criminal organization?
The civil liberties issues are also much the same. Criminal syndicates inflict a great deal of harm on American society, including robbery, murder, drug addiction, fraud, counterfeiting, and corruption. The lives that organized crime damages or destroys each year are at least as large as the number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks. However, the American political and legal systems have somehow managed to successfully combat organized crime while still preserving the US Constitution. When American officials have overstepped, there's usually the overheated rhetoric behind these misdeeds. In its worst moments, "The War On Drugs" has led to excesses like property seizures of those unlucky enough to be related to or living with drug dealers, draconian sentences for petty drug possession charges, and a system of prosecutorial awards that sometimes distorts legal proceedings. The demonology behind these excesses—a universe populated by kingpins and thugs—even uses the same terminology. (Click here, , and here for critiques of The War On Drugs from very different political perspectives, and here for an analysis of the limitations on the military's effectiveness in combating narcotics.)
You may also see how pointless some military strikes against terrorist groups can be. Capturing or killing an important leader like Khalid Sheik Mohammed might damage ongoing terrorist operations, but the organization normally replaces that person without too much effort. (Since terrorists operate at a very small scale, they've already considered what to do if they lose a key member.) While you might kill terrorists at a rate that might challenge the organization's regenerative capacity, many terrorist groups will defy efforts to destroy them through overwhelming force. Al Qaeda lost many members in the US invasion of Afghanistan, but the survivors have effectively adapted in ways that have made it harder for the US military to "find, fix, and finish" them.
Capturing an important member of a terrorist group opens much broader possibilities. That person's conscious or unwitting revelations about the terrorist organization can prove far more valuable than just the "neutralization" of an individual leader, financier, recruiter, or technician.
Military strikes have almost no deterrence value with terrorists. A member of Al Qaeda, the Provisional IRA, the Army of God, or Aum Shin Rikyo has already defined his revolutionary struggle as an apocalyptic battle against intractable evil, a conflict in which any kind of violence is potentially justified. Many terrorists have already accepted that they will die at the hands of their enemies, perhaps in the very near future. Air strikes only reinforce this worldview. While an individual terrorist might have moments of doubt, his compatriots are usually willing to use everything from gentle persuasion to violence to silence these concerns. If terrorists have epiphanies, they're usually very private ones.
As I'll discuss in later posts about counterterrorism, there are scenarios when military action is clearly justified and necessary. However, people in the counterterrorism business have to be wary of taking action for reasons of vengeance alone. Every military operation has its price, measured in intelligence sources and methods revealed, accidental deaths among innocent bystanders, further opportunities for the enemy to develop countermeasures, potential diplomatic backlash, loss of personnel and equipment, and serious embarrassment if the operation fails. Emotional gratification alone is not an argument for striking back—particularly since the terrorists may be trying to bait you into a heedless, counterproductive response.