TERRORISM,VIOLENCE AND SOCIETY

TERRORISM:MOTIVATIONS AND CAUSES

In addition to commenting on post-Cold War terrorism in general, Prof. Wilkinson puts forth some very specific views on terrorism in the Middle East, threats from the extreme right, and issue-specific terrorism as well. He concludes with five principles "which have the best track record in reducing terrorism".

Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the COMMENTARY series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.

Despite the end of the Cold War and the faltering beginnings of a peace process in the Middle East, terrorism still remains a serious threat in many countries, not surprisingly, given that the underlying causes of the bitter ethnic and religious struggles which spawn terrorism pre-dated the Cold War, and most of these conflicts remain unresolved.

While the former Soviet Union sponsored terrorism on an opportunistic basis, the idea that all international terrorism was concerted by the KGB during the Cold War is clearly an over-simplification. The overthrow of the communist dictatorships did remove an important cluster of state sponsors of terrorism. However, one of the main attractions of terrorism to its perpetrators is that it is a low-cost but potentially high-yield weapon, and it is generally possible to find weapons and cash from alternative sources, including militant supporters and sympathizers in your own home base and those living and working in prosperous countries in the West, as well as from racketeering, extortion and other forms of criminal activity, and in some cases, alternative state sponsors. Moreover, the end of the Cold War has also had a major negative effect on political violence: the removal of communist one-party rule has unleashed numerous long-suppressed, bitter ethnic conflicts.


WESTERN EUROPE

In Western Europe it is the historic separatisms of Irish republicanism in Northern Ireland and Basque nationalism in Spain that have spawned the most lethal and protracted terrorism. In Northern Ireland the IRA and Loyalist cease-fires are still holding, and the British and Irish governments and the Social Democratic and Labour Party leader, John Hume, deserve credit for their efforts towards peace. But the cease-fire is still extremely fragile, and it is going to be very difficult indeed to convert it into a lasting and honourable peace. The declared objectives of IRA/Sinn Fein and the Unionists are as far apart as ever, and the terrorist para-militaries still have their stocks of weapons and explosives. In Spain ETA has been greatly weakened by improved Franco-Spanish police co-operation, but the terrorists show no signs of giving up.
EASTERN EUROPE

In the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe the removal of communist dictatorship has taken the lid off many simmering ethnic rivalries and hatreds. The most horrific example of mass terror being used as weapon is Bosnia. Less well-known in the West are the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia. The recent attempt by the Russian Army to suppress Chechen separatism is a dramatic reminder that the Russian Federation itself is full of ethnic groups that bitterly reject Moscow's right to rule them.



AFRICA

The most tragic examples of conflicts in which mass terror has been used are to be found in Africa. In Rwanda it has been seen on a genocidal scale, causing hundreds of thousands to flee or to face massacre at the hands of their tribal enemies. Typically, ethnic wars of this kind are waged by armed militias and are marked by extreme savagery towards the civilian population, including the policy of "ethnic cleansing" to terrorize whole sectors of the civilian population into fleeing from their homes, and the use of massacre, rape and torture as weapons of war.

Ethnic conflict is the predominant motivation of political violence in the post-Cold War era. It is important to recognize that the concept of the "security dilemma", conventionally applied by realists solely to relations between states, applies equally well to the rivalries of ethnic groups. When one group looks at its neighbours and decides to enhance its weapons and security forces in the name of self-defence of the group, neighbours are likely to see such moves as a threat to their own security, and will set in train the enhancement of their own power, thus very probably triggering the conflict they sought to avoid.

International spillover of such conflicts in the form of terrorist attacks in other countries will vary according to political and strategic circumstances. Where an ethnic group believes it may be in danger of being suppressed or driven out of its base area, and especially when it has militant supporters with access to weapons and explosives based in foreign countries, an international terrorist campaign is far more likely. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries ethnic conflicts in the Balkans did generate a considerable amount of "spillover" terrorism. Sikh, Tamil and Kashmiri extremists have also developed a substantial overseas infrastructure for terrorism and its logistic support. Conflicts in the Caucasus and in Central and Southern Africa, though highly lethal and protracted, have not shown these tendencies.


MIDDLE EAST

The area of conflict which has generated the most significant and ruthless spillover of terrorist violence since 1968 is, of course, the Middle East. This may seem surprising in view of the astonishing breakthrough in negotiations between Israel and the PLO, the agreement on the Declaration of Principles in September 1993, the agreement between Israel and Jordan, and the continuing efforts by Israel and Syria, encouraged by the USA, to resolve the prolonged dispute over the Golan Heights. Nonetheless, if one defines the Middle East as including Algeria and Turkey, both of which have spawned conflicts involving considerable terrorist violence, including some international spillover, this region remains the most dangerous source of terrorist challenges to the wider international community, accounting for over 21% of all international terrorist incidents worldwide in 1992, and over 23% in 1993.

Middle East Terrorism

There are four basic motivations for terrorism in the Middle East.

1. Bitter opposition by Rejectionist Palestinian groups to the agreement between Mr. Arafat and the Israeli government. These groups see Arafat as a traitor who has betrayed the cause of Palestinian self-determination. Moreover, the dominant hard-line opposition to Arafat and Israel now comes not from the old secular Marxist revolutionary groups like George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but from the Islamic fundamentalist movements — Hamas and Islamic Jihad — driven by religious fanaticism as well as ethnic hatred for Israel. The Palestinian Islamic groups are rapidly winning mass support in the Occupied Territories at Mr. Arafat's expense. All indications are that they are likely to intensify their use of terrorism against Israeli targets within the Territories and within Israel's own borders, as the Peace Process moves forward, in a desperate effort to derail it. Most of this terrorism is likely to be mounted in Israel and the West Bank. But the recent bombings in Buenos Aires and London against Israeli and Jewish community targets, involving a massive loss of life in the case of the Buenos Aires attacks, provide tragic evidence that the Islamic fundamentalist Rejectionists, their main state sponsor, Iran, and their militant sympathizers abroad are willing and able to wage international terrorism in an effort to destroy the peace process.

2. In almost every Moslem country there are groups of extreme Islamic fundamentalists, inspired and actively encouraged by the Islamic revolutionary régime in Iran, ready to wage Jihad against pro-western Arab régimes, with the aim of setting up Islamic republics in their place. As demonstrated by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria and the Islamic Group in Egypt, these groups are not confined to Shia populations. The primary targets of these groups' campaigns are the incumbent régimes and their military, police and officials and the intellectuals identified with the régime.

3. However, the Islamic fundamentalist challenge is not directed solely at incumbent régimes in the Moslem world. Frequently they widen their range of targets to include westerners within their country. For example, the GIA in Algeria has deliberately targeted French citizens in Algeria since September 1993, because they allege that France is providing covert support and assistance to the Algerian military régime, and is historically responsible for the situation in Algeria. But, as the GIA's hijack of the Air France Airbus A300 on Christmas Eve 1994 demonstrates, the Islamic terrorist groups are also prepared to take their terrorist war to France itself. There is little doubt that the terrorists fully intended to crash the Airbus over Paris. France is, of course, not the only foreign target of such groups. All these groups are bitterly anti-American and hostile to all the Western countries.

There is a further highly dangerous aspect to the threat of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism against Western targets. The findings of the FBI and the judiciary in America indicate that the group responsible for blowing up the World Trade Centre building in February 1993 was operating as a type of independent or freelance group of Islamic fundamentalists, inspired and encouraged by their spiritual mentor, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, but not directly controlled by a state sponsor or other known major terrorist player. "Amateur" or "freelance" groups of this type pose a particularly difficult problem for the intelligence and police agencies, as they have no known political identity, no identifiable organizational and communications infrastructure and no previous track record. Moreover, as they are able to recruit fanatical members from the expatriate community, including those who have lived and worked in the host country for some time, the possibility exists of many such groups emerging spontaneously in western countries with substantial Moslem minority populations, such as the USA, Canada, France, Britain, Germany and Australia.

4. The Middle East is also the major region of state sponsors and supporters of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Libya. The position of the USA as the sole remaining superpower and the desire of President Assad of Syria to improve relations with America to gain better diplomatic leverage in the Middle East peace process have undoubtedly helped to mute Syria's terrorist efforts for the time being. But Damascus has not discarded this weapon: it is still giving safe haven to a variety of groups which it might be useful to unleash at some future time. Meanwhile, Iran remains far and away the most important state sponsor. As mentioned above, it is the leading sponsor of Islamic and Palestinian Rejectionist groups, and provides them with weapons, funds, training and intelligence. Nor are their sponsorship activities confined to the Middle East and Western Europe. They have been extremely active in Pakistan and Turkey, for example, and have been linked to the car bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires on 17 March 1992, in which 29 people were killed and 242 injured. In addition to using terrorism as a weapon to back Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian Rejectionism, Iran has over a considerable period targeted Iranian dissidents abroad. Iranian operations have been linked to the murders of dissidents in France, Germany and Switzerland.

The Iranian régime also continues to uphold the fatwa, issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, condemning Salman Rushdie to death for his alleged blasphemy against Islam in his book The Satanic Verses. A government-backed Iranian foundation has offered a reward of $2 million for the killing of Rushdie. Meanwhile attacks on publishers, translators and bookshops involved in disseminating Rushdie's works continue, and it would be foolish to assume that any country is immune from attempts to carry out such threats.

Iraq remains potentially the most dangerous of the other state sponsors, though its efforts to persuade the international community to lift UN sanctions against Iraq and its preoccupation with internal reconstruction in the wake of the Gulf War have recently muted its activities in this direction.

Demise of left-wing terrorism.
Extreme left ideological motivation for terrorism has undergone an almost complete eclipse in Europe. The West German authorities had already broken the back of the Red Army Faction by the mid- 1980s; the Italians have totally defeated the Red Brigades; and France and Belgium suppressed Direct Action (AD) and the Combatant Communist Cells (CCC) respectively. The only NATO countries with a serious domestic challenge from extreme left terrorism are Greece (17th November and ELA), and Turkey (DevSol). The demise of these groups was undoubtedly hastened by the growing professionalism of the response of the intelligence and police services and judicial authorities in the countries concerned, by imaginative modifications of temporary anti-terrorism law, such as the Pentiti legislation in Italy, and by the discrediting of Marxist-Leninist systems and their overthrow of 1990.

However, it is a mistake to write off the continuing influence of extreme left ideologies on revolutionary movements elsewhere. For example, the Shining Path movement in Peru undoubtedly sees itself as the true heir to Maoism and aspires to being the vanguard of a communist evolution in Latin America. Despite its setbacks since the capture of its founder, Guzman, the movement still poses a serious threat to life and economic and social wellbeing in many parts of the country, and is serving as a model for other violent groups in neighbouring countries.

The Shining Path is a peculiarly inappropriate name for a movement which has killed and injured thousands of its countrymen. But its lethality pales in comparison with the mass terror of the brutal Cambodian communist movement, the Khmer Rouge. Although it has suffered many major setbacks since the start of the UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia, it is still fighting the Cambodian government forces in the northwest of the country, and is still able to use the border with Thailand and covert collaboration and smuggling activities with corrupt Thai generals.







Threats from the extreme right

The threat of violence from the extreme right has been present in many countries for decades. Neo-fascists and neo-nazi groups have been active in the United States, Canada, South Africa and Central and South America, as well as in Europe and the former Soviet Union. In South Africa extremist groups such as Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) still constitute a threat to life and social and economic wellbeing, and have shown themselves capable of political assassinations aimed at destabilization.

In Europe the problem of the resurgence of extreme right-wing violence has become a far more serious threat than ideologically motivated violence from the extreme left in the past few years. For example in Germany, the widespread disillusion with mainstream political parties, the strains of reunification on the economy, high levels of unemployment and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants have created a climate in which violent right-wing extremism thrives. In 1992 there were over 2,000 attacks by extreme right groups, causing 17 deaths and over 2,000 injured. The German Interior Ministry estimates there are some 75 extreme right groups active in Germany with 65,000 activists, roughly 10% of whom have a record of violence. Between 1991 and 1993 the extreme right groups killed 30 people. In September 1993 Chancellor Kohl rather belatedly condemned the rise of these groups and their violent actions, and said they were as much of a threat to democratic society as extreme left-wing terror had been in the 1970s and early 80s.

Extreme right violence from skinhead and racist thugs has also been on the increase in other parts of central, Eastern and Western Europe, from Russia in the East to Britain in the West. In Russia, Zhirinovsky's extreme right Liberal Democratic Party, and similar groupings, have the potential to generate violence on the streets. Nor is it safe to assess the danger from the extreme right purely in electoral terms. Pin-stripe neo-fascist parties have done surprisingly well in elections in Italy, Austria and several other continental countries, but in Britain, where the electoral performance of the extreme right has been abysmal, the incidence of racist attacks has grown dramatically, with a doubling of racist incidents recorded by the police over the past five years. Violent attacks motivated by extreme right ideology are likely to increase over the next few years in many countries where conditions are conducive. However, extreme right- wing terrorism is likely to remain indigenous, and shows no signs of developing a significant international dimension.




Issue-specific terrorism

Issue-group extremists are another growing source of terror violence. Recent escalations in attacks against medical staff, clinics and hospitals by anti-abortion campaigners in the USA, and against research scientists, laboratories and commercial premises by animal rights campaigners in the UK, are indications of the kinds of motivation involved. Although issue-group extremists aim at changing specific policies or practices rather than the whole socio-political system, their potential for endangering life and social and economic wellbeing should not be underestimated. For example, they have shown considerable sophistication in tactics, such as the use of product contamination and computer sabotage. Issue-group motivated terrorism shows every sign of increasing in the heavily urbanized pluralist democracies, with their complex and vulnerable systems of communications, transportation, electronic funding transfers, etc.


Likely target groups

On the basis of a statistical analysis of trends in targeting by international terrorist groups over recent years, it is not difficult to assess the most likely targets in coming years. Over half the attacks on property/facilities are likely to involve business or industrial premises, roughly 10% are likely to involve diplomatic premises, and about 5% will involve other government premises and military facilities.

It is important not to rely too heavily on terrorism incident statistics, as they do not bring out the qualitative differences in the effects of specific terrorist attacks. For example in the international terrorism figures for 1993, the single event of the World Trade Centre bombing accorded North America the highest number of victims wounded by international terrorist activity in any region of the world. Yet this does not accurately reflect the characteristic distribution of terrorist victimization internationally.

In view of the fact that attacks by terrorist groups have become increasingly lethal over recent years, it is wise to plan for a continuing trend towards massive car and truck bombings in crowded city areas, and "spectacular" terrorist attacks, for example on civil aviation, airport facilities or military or diplomatic facilities, designed to capture maximum attention from the mass media, to cause maximum shock and outrage and to effect some terrorist demands.

Conclusion

Faced with this scenario of future terrorism, what are the prospects of European states achieving radical improvements in their measures to combat terrorism up to 2010 and beyond? The true litmus test will be the Western states' consistency and courage in maintaining a firm and effective policy against terrorism in all its forms. They must abhor the idea that terrorism can be tolerated as long as it is only affecting someone else's democratic rights and rule of law. They must adopt the clear principle that one democracy's terrorist is another democracy's terrorist. The general principles which have the best track record in reducing terrorism are as follows:

no surrender to the terrorists, and an absolute determination to defeat terrorism within the framework of the rule of law and the democratic process;

no deals and no concessions, even in the face of the most severe intimidation and blackmail;

an intensified effort to bring terrorists to justice by prosecution and conviction before courts of law;

tough measures to penalize the state sponsors who give terrorist movements safe haven, explosives, cash and moral and diplomatic support;

a determination never to allow terrorist intimidation to block or derail international diplomatic efforts to resolve major political conflicts in strife-torn regions, such as the Middle East.

In many such areas terrorism has become a major threat to peace and stability, and its suppression therefore is in the common interests of international society.

To conclude on an optimistic note, one major aspect of advanced technology gives the democratic governments a potentially winning card in their battle against terrorist organizations. Whereas developments in terrorist weaponry and the vulnerability of modern complex societies help the terrorists, the development of sophisticated fine-grained computers and terrorism databases provide superb assets for the intelligence war against terrorism. If these developments are matched by greatly enhanced international intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism collaboration, they can lay the foundations of long-term success over terrorist organizations.






THE FUTURE OF TERRORISM

Possibly, we will see a relative decline, perhaps even extinction, of what we traditionally considered "ideological" terrorism: namely, the phenomenon that brought terrorism to the global stage via hijackings and bombings beginning around 1968, perpetrated by such groups as Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, Japanese Red Army, etc. The end of the Cold War has resulted in the drying of the well of support for anti-Democratic/anti-Capitalist, Marxist-based ideologically motivated political terrorists. Although there are a few of these ideologically motivated groups still active (particularly in Peru), the world will see these groups become extinct one by one, though possibly not without each one perpetrating one last paroxysm of violence before they disappear.


At the end of the Cold War, ideological terrorism lost its support and raison d'etre, however, the "depolarization" of the world has allowed several ethno-religious conflicts, some centuries old, to manifest themselves in terrorism, insurgency, regional instability, and civil war. Ethno-religious terrorism will not die away, and could respond to several future stimuli. Examples of these stimuli include: an increasing US presence in the Middle East and Pacific Rim, Western development of the Caspian oil reserves, and flourishing Western technological development (and attendant cultural exposure) in the Middle East and Pacific Rim. Former Soviet Republics (especially Transcaucasus) might grow less stable as outside influences increase (economic, political and technological/media), Russia's ability to suppress insurgency lessens, economic conditions in those republics decline, and political power becomes a commodity for corruption and organized crime. As stability weakens in Central Asia, and Islamic fundamentalism gains political power the result of "protest votes" in governments from Turkey to Indonesia but especially in Central Asia, relations among countries in the region could become more strained.

However, I believe relative to the above two other forms of terrorism (ethno-religious and ideological), single-issue terrorism will rise disproportionately, especially with US domestic terrorism, including groups oriented around or against technology (e.g. neo-Luddites). In the post-print age, groups, even nationalities, will organize themselves without geographic constraints, bringing diaspora together and uniting issue-oriented groups and religions through the course of globalization, which will paint clearer pictures of who and what has the ability to affect and influence masses of people. This, coupled with the general evolution of state sovereignty (in which many super- and sub-state organizations, including corporations, could challenge the state-centered international system), will likely drive terrorism and guerrilla warfare into being more broadly rejectionist: attacking more than just the general legitimacy of states, but also Non-Governmental Organizations, Multi-National Corporations, etc. Furthermore, access to weapons and methods of increasing lethality, or methods targeting digital information systems that attract wildly disproportionate effects and publicity, will allow terrorists to be "non-affiliated" with larger, better financed subversive organizations or state sponsors. This could result in terrorist cells that are smaller, even familial, and thus harder to infiltrate, track, or counter. Terrorism will be increasingly networked, with smaller and more self-sufficient cells, and will globally integrate parallel to digital global integration, and will permeate geographic boundaries and state sovereignties just as easily.

Also, keyed in with the rise in single-issue terrorism will be the rise in "true" guerrilla movements within the US: that is, movements that seek the destruction of the US government, rather than movements that seek to influence government, a particular policy or population. This also includes movements that are geographically centered, rather than cellular and sparse, operating in rural areas rather than urban centers.




THREATS AND POLICIES IN TRANSITION

In a May 1998 commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy, President Clinton announced his approval of two important Presidential Decision Directives (PDDs). PDD-62 and PDD-63 address counterterrorism and critical infrastructure protection respectively, and are the result of a series of related presidential and congressional initiatives that reflect changing national security policies and priorities.

Over the past several years, the U.S. has been reshaping its perspective of future national security threats to the continental U.S. (CONUS). Once largely focused on deterring strategic nuclear attacks from hostile superpowers and major regional conflicts abroad, this policy evolution is the product of integrated analyses of potential threats from terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the vulnerabilities attendant to increasing economic and societal dependence on information technologies. Such analyses were prompted by events such as the bombing of New York's World Trade Center, the chemical attack on the Tokyo subway system, the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal building, and outside "hacking" into DOD computer systems.

The result, captured in the recent directives, is an increased recognition of the need for a coordinated approach to homeland defense against a variety of novel attack modes. It thus provides a broader context for the DOD role in dealing with potential use of WMD in the United States, addressed in our February paper. This paper reviews key elements of these initiatives and how they came together in PDD-62 and PDD-63. In particular, we focus on the policy and organizational framework established by the new directives, addressing the strengths and weaknesses of the new arrangements and obstacles to their success. In the conclusion, we suggest some guideposts for how to focus activities and avoid setbacks in this complex and difficult policy area.

Recent Initiatives

Counterterrorism. The U.S. Government has viewed terrorism as a national security concern at least since the late 1960s, when intercontinental airline travel and global media brought the spectacle of terrorist hijackings to America's living rooms. Counterterrorism policy was first formalized with President Reagan's National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 207, issued in 1986 and based on the findings of Vice President Bush's 1985 Task Force on Terrorism. NSDD-207 reaffirmed and institutionalized federal jurisdiction over terrorism in two categories: the Department of Justice through the Federal Bureau of Investigation for domestic terrorism, and the Department of State for international terrorism.

In 1995, PDD-39 ("U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism") was issued in response to the worst terrorist act on U.S. soil – the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. PDD-39 built on NSDD-207 and outlined three key elements of a national counterterrorism strategy:

Reduce vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks and prevent and deter terrorist acts before they occur (threat/vulnerability management);
Respond to terrorist acts that occur, end the crisis or deny terrorists their objectives, and apprehend and punish terrorists (crisis management);
Manage the consequences of terrorist acts, including restoring essential government services and providing emergency relief, to protect public health and safety (consequence management).
The Directive further elaborates on agencies' specific roles and responsibilities with respect to each element of the strategy. Reflecting the need for greater interagency coordination, PDD-39 charged the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate interagency terrorism policy issues and to ensure implementation of federal counterterrorism policy and strategy.

The World Trade Center bombing brought home the point that foreign terrorists were capable of operating in the U.S. In Oklahoma City, the plausibility and presence of "home grown" terrorism was also confirmed. Both cases demonstrated the need for effective intelligence and greater attention to consequence management (including the potential for mass civilian casualties).

Critical Infrastructure Protection. Executive Order 13010 (July 1995) created the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) chaired by General Thomas Marsh, USAF (Ret.). Creation of the PCCIP reflected recognition that the growing integration of information technologies into public and private infrastructures such as power generation, telecommunications, finance, and transportation is producing not only greater efficiency and economic growth but also greater vulnerabilities to disruption.

The President created the PCCIP to bring together government agencies with infrastructure-related responsibilities and private organizations and corporations who own or control the majority of the systems comprising critical infrastructures. The PCCIP's mission was to assess threats and vulnerabilities associated with the various critical infrastructures, formulate strategies for protecting and assuring infrastructure functions and operation against physical and cyber attack, and recommend an implementation plan for the strategies. The PCCIP submitted its report, Critical Foundations, in October 1997.

The PCCIP divided its work into five sectors, based on the common characteristics of the industries and technologies:

Information and Communications Systems
Energy (including electrical power systems, and gas and oil transportation and storage systems)
Banking and Finance
Physical Distribution Systems (including air, sea, and land transportation)
Vital Human Services (including water supply systems, emergency services, and continuity of government).

As described in an Administration White Paper, the essential finding of the PCCIP was that "our economy is increasingly reliant upon interdependent and cyber-supported infrastructures, and non-traditional attacks on our infrastructure and information systems may be capable of significantly harming both our military power and our economy." The PCCIP found that the threats and vulnerabilities associated with electronic, or "cyber" attack, are poorly understood. The capabilities required for a damaging cyber attack are inexpensive and readily available with a broad range of potential attackers, and the complexity and interdependencies of critical infrastructures are extensive and difficult to measure. Thus, old tools for threat and vulnerability analyses are ill suited for assessment of risk to cyber attack or the potential cascading effects of cyber or physical attacks. Furthermore, the tools that exist and the capabilities being developed across the threat spectrum – from risk mitigation to crisis response to consequence management – lacked coordination to create and maintain national awareness of problems and solutions.

The PCCIP recommended organizational changes to enhance interagency coordination and a revised program of research and development to review, coordinate, and deploy technologies that already exist, and to refocus R&D investment priorities on technology requirements derived from risk assessments. The PCCIP organizational recommendations are presented later.

Nunn-Lugar-Domenici and WMD Response. A number of studies and plans have focused attention on the need for U.S. capabilities to mitigate the consequences of a WMD attack in both domestic preparedness and force protection roles. In 1996, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici (NLD) Act (also known as the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act) was enacted as Title XIV of the FY97 Defense Authorization Act. Seeking to enhance domestic preparedness and response capabilities, this legislation provided funding to improve the capabilities of federal, state, and local emergency response agencies to prevent and, if necessary, respond to domestic terrorist incidents involving WMD.

DOD responded to the Act in May 1997 by establishing the "Domestic Preparedness in the Defense Against WMD Program," directed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD, SO/LIC). This program seeks to provide DOD support for preparedness and response capabilities at the federal, state, and local levels through assessments, exercises, nationwide training support, the establishment of contact networks and Chemical/

Biological "Hotlines" and databases, loans of equipment, and military assistance to law enforcement. The Domestic Preparedness Program directs DOD efforts only in WMD consequence management and does not change Posse Comitatus laws that prohibit DOD agencies from conducting law enforcement operations. The DOD has set as its goal assessing the requirements and providing training to the 120 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by the end of 1999.

Concurrent with the PCCIP report and implementation of the NLD Act, the Defense Science Board addressed the theme of asymmetrical threats in a 1997 report on "DOD Responses to Transnational Threats." We reviewed this report in our February 1998 paper of the same title. The DSB Report advocated the use of DOD assets in the spirit outlined by the NLD Program and recommended the DOD remain the lead executive agency with stewardship of the Program. The DSB Report also advocated using the National Guard in a more central domestic preparedness and response role.

Subsequently, the Deputy Secretary of Defense directed development of more detailed plans for including the Reserve components in WMD response. The National Guard and Reserve Component WMD Response Plan, announced by the Secretary of Defense in March 1998, outlined a menu of capabilities, constituted from National Guard and Reserve components, designed to assist local first responders. These capabilities include teams for Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection (RAID), NBC Reconnaissance, and NBC Patient Decontamination.

Development of the Guard and Reserve WMD response capability is based on a five-year plan. The first year begins with a pilot program placing one RAID element in each of FEMA's ten geographic regions. Complementing the 10 RAID elements will be 28 NBC Reconnaissance and 64 Decontamination elements drawn from the existing Reserve component force structure. The plan calls for an initial operating capability to be ready after FY1999 and full operational capability after FY2000. A Reserve Component Consequence Management Program Integration Office was established to identify and task DOD capabilities needed to implement this plan.

Yet another initiative is the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, chartered by Congress in late 1996. This "Deutch-Specter Commission" (named after Chairman John Deutch and Vice Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter) was established to focus on the potential terrorist threat to CONUS from the proliferation of WMD and how well federal agencies are prepared to prevent or respond to such crises. Established in early 1998, this Commission has yet to complete a final report.

Presidential Decision Directives 62 and 63. The results of separate analyses on counterterrorism, WMD domestic preparedness, and the vulnerabilities of information and related infrastructures were brought together at the federal level in PDD-62 and PDD-63.

In PDD-62 ("Combating Terrorism"), the President sought to reaffirm agencies' counterterrorism roles and strengthen the interagency coordination process through creation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism. PDD-62 also re-emphasized the role of consequence management as an element in an effective counterterrorism strategy and specifically addressed the threat of bio-terrorism. Most notably, it called for a stockpiling of vaccines and antibiotics for public distribution in the event of attack.

In PDD-63 ("Critical Infrastructure Protection"), the President set out to establish a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan and set a five-year goal for being able to protect critical national infrastructures. PDD-63 designated responsibility for specific infrastructure sectors and functions to lead federal agencies, as follows:

Information and communications Department of Commerce
Banking and finance Department of the Treasury
Water supply Environmental Protection Agency
Surface and air transportation Department of Transportation
Emergency law enforcement services FBI
Emergency fire services FEMA
Continuity of government services FEMA
Public/emergency health services Department of Health and Human Services
Electric power Department of Energy
Oil & gas production and storage Department of Energy
PDD-63 further designated lead agencies for responsibility of special functions as within their normal missions (e.g., DOD for national defense, CIA for foreign intelligence, etc.).

In addition, implementing many of the PCCIP's organizational recommendations, the President created or reaffirmed:

The Office of National Coordinator of Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, a member of the NSC staff, to focus on critical infrastructure protection, foreign terrorism, and domestic weapons of mass destruction, including biological weapons.

The Critical Infrastructure Coordination Group (CICG), chaired by the National Coordinator, and composed of sector liaison officials, lead agency coordinators, and other relevant officials, responsible for implementing PDD-63 directives.
The Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO), within the Department of Commerce, to provide support to the National Coordinator's work with government agencies and the private sector in developing and implementing a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan. The office will also help coordinate a national education and awareness program, and legislative and public affairs.
The National Infrastructure Assurance Council (NIAC), a panel of major infrastructure providers and state and local government officials, to enhance the partnership of the public and private sectors and provide guidance to policy formulation for the national plan.
The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) within the FBI to warn of, and respond to, cyber and physical attacks on the infrastructures; promote information sharing between various departments, agencies, and the private sector; and to coordinate a response to hacker attacks, investigate threats, and monitor reconstitution efforts. The NIPC was established before PDD-63 and incorporates the capabilities of its predecessor, the FBI's Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center (CITAC).
PDD-63 directed that each lead agency appoint a senior official (or "Sector Liaison") to sit on interagency councils and develop (within 180 days) a plan for protecting its respective critical infrastructure sector from physical and electronic attack. The Directive also mandates the National Coordinator and the CICG assemble these agency plans, along with analyses of interagency dependencies, into a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan. The plan should establish vulnerability mitigation procedures and declare milestones for accomplishing: vulnerability analyses and remedial plans; warning, response, and reconstitution mechanisms; education and awareness plans; research and development agenda; intelligence collection recommendations; expanded international cooperation; and legislative and budgetary requirements.

The Directive mandates that this National Infrastructure Assurance Plan be implemented to accomplish an initial operating capability by the year 2000. By no later than May 2003, the Directive mandates that the U.S. will have achieved a maintainable ability to protect the nation's infrastructures from any significant degradation other than interruptions of infrastructure service that are "brief, infrequent, manageable, geographically isolated and minimally detrimental to the welfare of the United States."



Assessing the Initiatives to Date

Recent initiatives, taken together, seek to establish a robust, responsive system of interagency coordination to identify federal capabilities and integrate them into missions for counterterrorism, WMD domestic preparedness, and infrastructure assurance. Perhaps the biggest impact of these initiatives falls on U.S. counterterrorism policy. Previous policy addressed themes such as deterrence, interdiction, and hostage rescue. Now, WMD or infrastructure attacks in a terrorist mode (whether by terrorist groups or governments hoping to achieve plausible deniability) seem to be the most severe scenarios motivating the new approach.

Official perceptions of the threat are changing. What kind of threat the U.S. might face has now been focused on domestic WMD attacks. In addition, national security officials are considering different sources and locations of the threat. There is now greater concern for domestic security, and investigations into asymmetric strategies suggest that potential adversaries may choose covert action within CONUS (involving the use of WMD or cyber attacks) as a preferred tool of their national policy rather than conventional military capabilities which face overwhelming U.S. superiority. These perspectives differ from previous concerns about nuisance-level, state-sponsored terrorists and the safety and security of U.S. citizens or facilities abroad. Finally, concerns about the targets of potential threats are being adjusted to reflect wide-ranging dependencies on information technologies in areas vital to economic stability, military capabilities, and day-to-day functions of society.

While the changes in threat perceptions embodied in the above initiatives are certainly legitimate, a caveat seems in order. It appears that a growing perception of U.S. vulnerabilities may be driving perceptions of the threat. High vulnerability doesn't always mean high threat, though there is often concern that vulnerabilities tend to generate threats that will exploit them. However, the potential threats to national security from terrorist use of WMD by their very nature will be more difficult to observe and measure than conventional military threats. Assessing potential cyber threats will be even more difficult since the tools for disruption of information-related systems are widely available, and the threat is difficult to characterize. While intentions have always been difficult to discern, emphasis on capabilities and movements has, in the past, provided observables for indications and warning. These observables are usually not present for terrorist or cyber attack. Thus, assessing vulnerabilities may prove easier than measuring threats.

Implications for DOD. Support for domestic disaster relief and law enforcement have long been secondary or collateral DOD missions. Recent initiatives appear to broaden and deepen these commitments. Focus on the potential use of WMD in CONUS is a major driver, since DOD's ongoing R&D efforts to detect and defend against nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons use against deployed forces in the field now have an important domestic role. In addition, the potentially disastrous effects from the use of WMD in CONUS seem to reinforce the perspective of DOD as a source of ready resources to be called upon in such an emergency. As a result, DOD faces new policy, organizational, and resource issues.

On the whole, DOD elements may not want additional missions associated with domestic preparedness. Both the Guard and Reserves, especially in the Army, are looking for closer connectivity to active forces. The Reserves, for example, may express concern over potential growth in the National Guard in areas (such as civil affairs) largely assigned to them. The National Guard, for its part, wants to retain its major combat units and avoid being pigeonholed in constabulary-only missions. In fact, both the Army National Guard and Reserve remain suspicious of any hint (legitimate or otherwise) that the active Army is attempting to relegate them to noncombat missions.

These issues aside, DOD appears reasonably well positioned to support these initiatives if adequately resourced. The recent establishment of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency combined technical support for nonproliferation, nuclear weapons, chem-bio defense, counterproliferation, force protection, and defense technology security. Previously narrow counterterrorism policies have broadened into a "force protection" mission which (when combined with missile defense) is now in turn described in Joint Vision 2010 as "full dimensional protection." Protection of DOD information infrastructures has been a DOD priority for several years (especially so following the SOLAR SUNRISE incident), with major responsibilities assigned to military departments, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the National Security Agency.

The reliance of the Defense Information Infrastructure on national and commercial sources of power and telecommunications, and its vulnerability to cyber-related threats, are major factors driving DOD into closer collaboration with domestic agencies and the private sector. Since DOD has long been active in telecommunications security through the National Communications System (a federal interagency organization), PDD-63's assignment of the Information and Communications Sector responsibility to the Department of Commerce has raised some questions. Congressional overseers wonder if PDD-63 charges Commerce with an inappropriate national security mission. Nevertheless, the role of Commerce reflects the broad economic impact of telecommunications and the necessity for private sector involvement, both of which this agency brings to the table. Moreover, while DOD has an important stake in national information infrastructure protection, it is not clear DOD is or should be interested in or equipped for the lead role in national policymaking.

At the same time, a broad range of policies and strategies now need to be considered. The Director of NSA recently suggested in congressional testimony, for example, that cyber attacks by foreign governments could potentially be categorized as weapons of mass destruction. If so, perhaps some kind of deterrent strategy could be formulated. However, while a legitimate question, it potentially defines only one piece of the threat spectrum and presumes the connection to a foreign government can confidently be made. The more difficult zone, it appears, will be the cyber threat from an uncertain source with serious but not necessarily catastrophic results. Here, only preventive defensive measures combining warning, detection, tracking, and mitigation (including redundancy) are likely to be successful in minimizing the effects of cyber attacks. While perhaps deterring or lowering the success rate of some attacks, the problem of how the U.S. should respond to more coordinated and/or malicious attacks affecting national networks remains a vexing one and will require the integration of intelligence, law enforcement, and defense perspectives.


The initiatives will also likely complicate DOD's perception of CONUS defense and highlight the complexity of DOD activities potentially involved in this mission. CONUS defense is beginning to look like more than "aerospace" and "land" defense, incorporating multiple DOD capabilities including the intelligence and special operations communities, WMD/NCB expertise, missile defense, engineers and technical/information systems managers, and a mix of active duty and Reserve component personnel. Those units involved in nuclear, chemical, and biological detection and decontamination, and information assurance, in particular, could have operational responsibilities both in CONUS and abroad. DOD also will likely review the assignment of broader homeland defense responsibilities among the Unified Commands, perhaps even before the scheduled 1999 Unified Command Plan review. However, the potential ambiguity in discerning foreign and domestic threats and peacetime and wartime activities reinforces the interagency character of these initiatives – a reminder that not all activities related to national security will necessarily be assigned to DOD.

At a higher level, necessary attention to issues related to CONUS defense may generate potential tension with other missions such as power projection. The two missions are, of course, related: as the U.S. military establishment becomes progressively more CONUS-based, the ability to project military power abroad becomes crucial to our military response options. A WMD attack against CONUS-based power projection capabilities could severely degrade our ability to respond during an overseas crisis. However, some high-cost capabilities required for each of these missions may not be applicable to the other, and political-military decisions concerning the use of U.S. forces abroad seem certain to become more complex as more plausible threats to CONUS enter the picture.

The resource implications for DOD also remain to be determined. A comparison with Cold War spending for strategic nuclear deterrence is one way to conceptualize the resource challenge. Spending on this low-probability but high-consequence mission previously averaged roughly 9-15 percent of annual Cold War defense budgets. This amount is now reduced to about three percent; however, the potential threats to CONUS are changing – prompting the need for greater DOD support to domestic security and (some would argue) perhaps even missile defense. So, how much DOD can or should invest in CONUS defense without an increase in its topline budget remains an open issue, especially since the Department is already behind in the modernization of conventional forces.


Obstacles Ahead

Bureaucratic Complexity. The level and complexity of coordination required in these initiatives is perhaps the biggest challenge. Interagency coordination is no small task, even among agencies accustomed to participating in the national security community. Bring into the mix agencies with little experience in national security activities, states, and territories, and a private sector reluctant to address their own vulnerabilities in a public forum, and the degree of complexity becomes evident. Counterterrorism alone involves the integration of no less than 40 U.S. agencies but is at least recognized as a federal responsibility. Critical infrastructure protection, on the other hand, requires the active participation of the private sector, which owns or operates (under close regulation) nearly all of the relevant assets.

Furthermore, efforts of the new sectors, committees, groups, and councils dictated by PDD-63 for vulnerability assessment could be weakened if their products are not adequately integrated. Critical infrastructures are complexly intertwined and mutually dependent, hence the accentuated vulnerability. In PDD-63, respective infrastructure assessments are not integrated until after they reach the CICG, when they are handed to the CIAO and then "integrated" into a National Infrastructure Assurance Plan. Integration must ultimately be an end-to-end effort, and a heavy burden will fall to the National Coordinator to focus on a variety of scenarios that recognize the complex interdependencies of critical infrastructures and measures to protect them.

Resource Requirements and Oversight. Although some aspects of these initiatives are included in the President's budget (e.g., ongoing support for existing capabilities, plus $94 million in new spending for stockpiling vaccines), the future resource implications are unclear. In crosscutting interagency matters, establishing a baseline of current expenditures, identifying and costing relevant goals and measures of merit, and deciding how much is enough are especially difficult problems. Three examples highlight the challenge.

The first example involves counterterrorism programs. PDD-62 states that it promotes a more systematic approach to counterterrorism by "bringing a program management approach to U.S. counterterrorism efforts." Currently, the NSC and FBI coordinate counterterrorism policy issues, and the Office of Management and Budget assesses competing funding demands. Federal expenditures for unclassified terrorism-related activities were estimated at $7 billion in FY1997. However, no agency establishes funding priorities for terrorism-related programs across agencies' budgets or ensures that agencies' stated requirements have been validated against threat and risk criteria. The General Accounting Office thus concluded that there is no assurance against gaps or redundancies in counterterrorism activities or that the priorities of a national strategy are being met.

A second example concerns the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the "Drug Czar"). This office often faces challenges because of its limited coordinating authority. While it controls some central funding, much more is contained within and executed through other departments and agencies. Since agencies are balancing multiple policy objectives, expressions of presidential policy in a specific area do not always overcome a reluctance by government bureaucracies to spend their own budgets executing someone else's priorities. On the surface, it appears PDD-62 and PDD-63 delegate even less power to the National Coordinator than that held by the Drug Czar.


A final example, involving DOD expenditures on "information assurance," illustrates the difficulty of establishing a baseline of current expenditures. When recently asked by Congress the amount being spent in this area, DOD was unable to produce a credible estimate. Among the reasons: the current terminology did not necessarily conform to earlier coding of databases, and these activities are buried within larger C4-related programs. DOD has responded by organizing a Defense Information Assurance Program within the office of the ASD/C3I, and sorting out the baseline of current expenditures will be its first order of business.

These examples suggest the challenges ahead developing a baseline of activities and resources related to PDD-62 and PDD-63 and establishing mechanisms for their effective oversight. Beyond these challenges for the Executive Branch, a highly complex, distributed, and potentially disjointed process of congressional oversight on these matters can also be anticipated.


Conclusion

The recent Presidential directives deal with a very difficult set of policy issues that affect individual freedom and economic growth as well as national security. On the one hand, better awareness of existing vulnerabilities to terrorism and WMD, and now critical infrastructure dependent on information technologies, has been a stated goal of many of the initiatives outlined above. In this regard, the initiatives have already had some success. On the other hand, the level of commitment in these initiatives is not clear. The initiatives move to change policy and establish coordinating mechanisms, but it remains uncertain how far these changes will extend. A real strategy has not yet been offered, nor have solutions to bureaucratic obstacles.

Agencies will take time to develop their plans, (probably more than the six months provided by the President's schedule), with months more for integration and approval of a strategy. After this initial process, the requirement for closer integration of assessments and/or different assessment methodologies will likely need to be recognized. In addition, this learning process will churn up a variety of policy, organizational, and resource issues across federal agencies, and between the federal government and private sector. With few exceptions (such as the existing capabilities available through FEMA, the National Guard, and/or the National Communications System), the WMD consequence management and infrastructure protection capabilities envisioned in PDD-62 and PDD-62 are several years away .

We cannot expect 100% defense against these threats – particularly against ad hoc terrorism as witnessed with the Oklahoma City bombing. On the other hand, government has an obligation to take reasonable actions to prevent and defend against such threats and reduce their potential impacts. Recognizing total prevention or preemption is impossible, PDDs 62 and 63 stress enhanced vulnerability mitigation and consequence management. At the same time, effectiveness in dealing with threats to widespread vulnerabilities is difficult to measure, especially when those threats are unfamiliar or not easily quantified; efficiency and rapid accomplishments are not to be expected. How much to do will likely emerge as a future issue. For now, it is important to recognize the progress that the Administration has made in these initiatives and establish realistic goals for the future. We see four key priorities:

Developing the interagency processes to allow for an effective National Coordinator and establish a resource baseline for PDD-62 and PDD-63 related activities;
Better discriminating vulnerabilities – physical and cyber – and potential threats, including improved intelligence capabilities to deal with threats before they become incidents and policies to reflect a range of potential responses;
Further developing national-level programs and exercises to coordinate and demonstrate capabilities for WMD and cyber crisis response and consequence management; and
Extending concern for the robustness of critical infrastructures into regulatory structures and other domestic policies affecting private sector decision-making.
These priorities are simple enough to preserve focus and rough enough to allow continual invention on how they should best be pursued. While there will no doubt be many pitfalls along the way, and reasonable people may disagree about details, the new policy and organizational framework provided by PDD-62 and PDD-63 seems an important step toward managing, rather than solving, problems that are essentially insoluble.




Biological Terrorism

Some of the germs of first choice for warfare you'll have heard about: Smallpox, Anthrax, Ebola, Plague, and there are many, many more.

There have been naturally occurring outbreaks of Ebola in Africa, and plague, in India in recent years. The most serious outbreak of smallpox that we know of, happened in Yugoslavia in 1972 and we'll hear about that a little bit later. But it's important to remember that the germs used for weapons are engineered to be far more potent than the naturally occurring strains.

Weapons-grade smallpox has never been deliberately or accidentally released, but anthrax has, and that was in Russia in 1979. There is no fully effective vaccine available for the anthrax strain used in weapons and the fatality rate is thought to be close to 100% for those who inhale the anthrax spores directly. Anthrax infection starts with flu-like symptoms and over a period of days progresses to severe breathing problems, shock and then death.




Bibliography

 Berrett, William E. "The Book of Mormon Speaks on War." In A Book of Mormon Treasury. Salt Lake City, 1959.
 Blais, Pierre. "The Enduring Paradox: Mormon Attitudes toward War and Peace." Dialogue 17 (Winter 1984).
 Firmage, Edwin Brown. "Violence and the Gospel: The Teachings of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon." BYU Studies 25 (Winter 1985).
 Firmage, Edwin Brown, and Christopher L. Blakesley. "Clark, Law and International Order." BYU Studies 13 (Spring 1973).
 Garrett, H. Dean. "The Book of Mormon on War." In A Symposium on the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City, 1986.
 Oaks, Dallin H. "World Peace." Ensign 20 (May 1990).
 Packer, Boyd K. "The Member and the Military." IE 71 (June 1968).
 Roy, Denny; Grant P. Skabelund; and Ray C. Hillam, eds. A Time to Kill: Reflections on War. Salt Lake City, 1990.
 Walker, Ronald W. "Sheaves, Bucklers, and the State: Mormon Leaders Respond to the Dilemmas of War." Sunstone 7 (July-Aug. 1982).




WEBSITES AND LINKS


 www.google.com
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 www.redcross.org
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 www.wikpedia.org
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 www.worldterror.com
 www.encarta.com
 www.violence.com
 www.mincava.umn.edu
 www.imbd.com
 www.merriam-webster.com
 www.takingwithkids.org
 www.terrorism.com
 www.acs.org
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 www.royalsociety.com
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 www.bbc.com
 www.asiasociety.com
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