Contending cultures of counterterrorism: Transatlantic divergence or convergence?

International Affairs

Volumn 81, Issue 5, 2005, Pages

  Rees, Wyn ^a   Aldrich, Richard J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 27444444066     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00494.x     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Susan B. Glasser, 'Review may shift terror policies', Washington Post, 29 May 2005.
2. The Pentagon document finalized in March was entitled the 'National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism'; see Linda Robinson, 'Plan of attack: the Pentagon has a secret new strategy for taking on terrorists - and taking them down', US News and World Report, 1 Aug. 2005.
3. Lucian Pye, 'Culture and political science: problems in the evaluation of the concept of political culture', Social Science Quarterly 53, 1972, pp. 285-96.
4. A. Johnston, 'Thinking about strategic culture', International Security 19: 4, Spring 1995, pp. 32-64;
5. J. Snyder, The Soviet strategic culture: implications for nuclear options (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1977).
6. Errol Meidinger, 'Regulatory culture: a theoretical outline', Law and Policy 9, 1987, pp. 355-86.
7. Joanna Spear, 'The emergence of a European "strategic personality" and the implications for the transatlantic relationship', Arms Control Today 33: 9 Nov. 2003, pp. 13-18.
8. Caroline F. Ziemke, 'The national myth and strategic personality of Iran: a counterproliferation perspective', in Victor A. Utgoff, ed., The coming crisis: nuclear proliferation, US interests, and world order (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), pp. 88-9;
9. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in time (New York: Free Press, 1986).
10. On the unconscious life of administrative elements, see Howell S. Baum, The invisible bureaucracy: the unconscious in organisational problem-solving (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
11. Dan Reiter, 'Learning, realism, and alliances', World Politics 46: 4, July 1994, pp. 490-526;
12. Dan Reiter, Crucible of beliefs: learning, alliances and world wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996);
13. Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at war: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam decisions of 1965 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
14. An interesting use of the concept that crosses the international-domestic divide is that of intelligence culture; see Philip H. J. Davies, 'Intelligence culture and intelligence failure in Britain and the United States', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17: 3, Oct. 2004, pp. 495-519.
15. Neil C. Livingstone, 'Proactive responses to terrorism: reprisals, preemption and retribution', in C. W. Kegley, ed., International terrorism: characteristics, causes, controls (New York: St Martin's Press, 1990), pp. 219-27;
16. Grant Wardlaw, Political terrorism: theory, tactics and countermeasures (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 121-7.
17. On the confluence of American idealism and national interest, sec Christopher Thorne, 'American political culture and the end of the Cold War', Journal of American Studies 26: 4, Dec. 1992, pp. 316-30.
18. On recent lineages of exceptionalism, see David Dunn, 'Myths, motivations and "misunderestimarions": the Bush administration and Iraq', International Affairs 79: 2, March 2003, pp. 279-97.
19. The best summation of American approaches in recent decades is Timothy Naftali, Blind spot: the secret history of American counterterrorism (New York: Basic Books, 2005).
20. The idea of connections between the Soviet Union and state-sponsored terrorism was strongly promoted by Claire Sterling's book, The terror network: the secret war of international terrorism (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981), but the thesis is now regarded with some scepticism.
21. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American democracy, 3rd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 227.
22. Revelations about Central America had resulted in a 'scrub order' which required high-level and somewhat laborious approval for the CIA recruitment of agents with an unsavoury past, typically with strong terrorist connections or associations with human rights violations. The rise of a 'play it safe' culture during the 1990s is documented in Robert Baer's See no evil: the true story of a ground soldier in the CIA's war on terrorism (New York: Crown, 2002).
23. See also Paul Pillar, Terrorism and US foreign policy (Washington DC: Brookings, 2001).
24. Although Richard Clarke, America's Counter Terrorism Coordinator in the 1990s, has contrasted the seriousness with which the Clinton administration treated the threat from international terrorism with the lower priority attached to it by the Bush administration prior to 9/11, there are also underlying continuities. See Richard A. Clarke, Against all enemies: inside America's war on terror (New York: Free Press, 2004).
25. This somewhat counterintuitive observation is persuasively argued in Naftali, Blind spot, pp. 117-65.
26. See in particular the 1990s critique of America's reluctance to intervene penned by Richard Haas, The reluctant sheriff (Washington DC: Brookings, 1994).
27. Haas, now President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has recently rethought his position in the light of Iraq and now advocates caution in The opportunity (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 2005).
28. President Bill Clinton, Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 24 Sept. 1996.
29. The extensive cooperation among the British, Dutch and German security services against IRA activities in continental Europe during the 1980s is an example of this previous pattern.
30. French efforts have placed particular emphasis upon magistrates and their close cooperation with the intelligence services; see Jeremy Shapiro and Benedicte Suzan, 'The French experience of counterterrorism', Survival 45: 1, Spring 2003, pp. 67-98.
31. In explaining the action taking by the EU, de Vries has chosen to emphasize initiatives in criminal justice. See speech by Gijs de Vries, European Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 'European strategy in the fight against terrorism and co-operation with the United States', given at CSIS, Washington DC, 13 May 2004, at http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/CSIS_Washington. 13_May_2004.pdf, accessed 3 May 2005.
32. Oliver Roy, 'Eurolslam: the jihad within', National Interest 71, Spring 2003.
33. The references to 'newness' are innumerable. See e.g. Bush's comments on 'the new and changing threat' and the 'new and very complex challenge' in his foreword to 'National Strategy for Homeland Security', Office of Homeland Security, July 2002, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/book/nat_strat_hls. pdf, accessed 15 June 2005.
34. Bruce Hoffman, Inside terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Victor Gollancz, 1998).
35. See also Ian O. Lesser, Bruce Hoffman, John Arquilla. David F. Ronfeldt, Michele Zanini and Brian Michael Jenkins, Countering the new terrorism (Washington DC: RAND, 1999).
36. Bruce Hoffman has used the persuasive analogy of a capital investment company. Others have talked of franchises. See Bruce Hoffman, 'The leadership secrets of Osama Bin Ladin: the terrorist as CEO', Atlantic Monthly, April 2002, pp. 26-7.
37. The first to engage with the 'newness' problem was Thomas Copeland in his timely essay 'Is the "new terrorism" really new? An analysis of the new paradigm for terrorism', Journal of Conflict Studies 11: 2, Fall 2001, pp. 2-27.
38. On the wider issue of new threats and old lessons, see C. M. Andrew, 'Intelligence analysis needs to look backwards before looking forward: why lessons of the past can help fight terror of the future', History and Policy, June 2004;
39. Robert Jervis, 'An interim assessment of September 11: what has changed and what has not?', Political Science Quarterly 117: 1, 2002, pp. 37-54.
40. 'Interview with Gijs de Vries on terrorism, Islam and democracy', 6 Sept. 2005, at Euroactiv.com http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-136245- 16&type=Interview, accessed 12 Sept. 2005.
41. This thesis is most clearly explored in Roger Scruton, The West and the rest: globalization and the terrorist threat (London: Continuum, 2002).
42. The Pentagon boasts a wide variety of special forces, while the CIA also has its own soldiers in the form of the Special Activities Division (SAD). They operate differently.
43. Ann Scott Tyson, 'US pushes anti-terrorism in Africa', Washington Post, 25 July 2005.
44. Robert Kagan, Paradise and power: America and Europe in the New World Order (London: Atlantic Books, 2003).
45. European Commission website, http://europa.eu.int/comm/echo/indcx-en.htm, accessed 12 May 2005.
46. Michael Mandelbaum, 'Foreign policy as social work', Foreign Affairs 75: 1, Jan.-Feb. 1996, pp. 70-85.
47. The initial dialogue with Libya over WMD was developed by the overseas intelligence services of the UK and Libya; see Julian Coman and Colin Brown, 'Revealed: the real reason for Libya's WMD surrender', Daily Telegraph, 21 Dec. 2003.
48. This was accompanied by private explorations of options. In 2002, Bush's deputy National Security Adviser had commissioned a paper which looked at options for regime change in Iran, citing WMD issue as the driver.
49. Dafna Linzer, 'Review finds Iran far from nuclear bomb: estimate of progress contrasts with administration statements', Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2005.
50. On the issue of values, see Alex Danchev, 'How strong are shared values in the transatlantic relationship?', British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7: 3, Aug. 2005, pp. 429-36.
51. The DoD has absorbed about half of all emergency funding since 9/11: Center for Defense Information, 'Security after 9/11: strategy choices and budget tradeoffs Jan. 2003', pp. 10-11, at http://www.cdi.org/mrp/security- after-911.pdf, accessed 3 April 2005.
52. Hurricane Katrina has confirmed what many commentators have feared, namely that American domestic agencies remain ill-coordinated and, four years after 9/11, the United States is still not capable of dealing effectively with a mass-casualty event
53. Leading a terrorist group was liable to a sentence of at least 15 years, while financing its operations was liable to a punishment of at least 8 years. There are close parallels with the Italian 'deep-freeze' approach of long sentences for terrorism, adopted in the late 1970s.
54. See in particular the discussion of multinational 'Alliance Base' activities run out of Paris, described in Dana Priest, 'Help from France in key covert operations', Washington Post, 3 July 2005.
55. George Tenet in 9/11 Commission hearing, transcript of 24 March 2004 session; Edward J. Markey, Boston Globe, 12 March 2005;
56. Shaun Waterman, 'Egypt: US hands over terror suspects', Washington Times, 17 May 2005.
57. Stephen Grey and Ian Cobain, 'Suspect's tale of travel and torture: alleged bomb plotter claims two and a half years of interrogation under US and UK supervision in "ghost prisons" abroad', Guardian, 2 Aug. 2005.
58. Jean-Paul Brodeur, Peter Gill and Dennis Töllborg, eds, Democracy, law, and security: internal security services in contemporary Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). The process began as a Europe-wide response to the Leander case brought by the European Court initially against the Swedish security service.
59. The matter has been complicated by arguments over the relative advantages of long-term observation of suspects versus capture and interrogation; see Jimmy Burns, Stephen Fidler and Demetri Sevastopulo, 'Different approach to tackling terrorism exposed', Financial Times, 12 July 2005.
60. Philip Sherwell and Sean Rayment, 'Britain and American clash over tactics', Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2005.
61. There were many alternative views, even within the Pentagon, and no effort can be made to catalogue them here. However, they were accentuated by anxieties in the State Department and CIA about the prominence of the Pentagon - often expressed as the 'eight hundred pound gorilla problem'.
62. Anonymous [Michael Scheuer], Imperial hubris: why the West is losing the war on terror (New York: Brassey's, 2004).
63. George Tenet, 'The worldwide threat 2004: challenges in changing global context', statement to the Senate Committee on Intelligence, 24 Feb. 2004, www.cia.com.
64. Guy Dinmore, 'US shifts anti-terror policy', Financial Times, 31 July 2005. Rice and Zelikow have worked closely together over a long period and in 1997 co-authored a book on the final collapse of communism in Europe.
65. Susan B. Glasser, 'Review may shift terror policies', Washington Post, 29 May 2005.
66. Recently the Saudi government commissioned a study of Saudi foreign fighters making their way to Iraq. It found that it was the invasion of Iraq that was prompting jihadists to volunteer, and most had not been in contact with radical organizations before 2003. See Patrick Coburn, 'Iraq: this is now an unwinnable conflict', Independent on Sunday, 24 July 2005.
67. Susan B. Glasser, 'US figures show sharp global rise in terrorism', Washington Post, 27 April 2005.
68. Interview with General Bryan D. Brown, Special Operations Technology 3: 4, 7 June 2005.
69. Robert Fox, 'GWOT is history. Now for SAVE', New Statesman, 8 Aug. 2005.
70. Alec Russell, 'Don't mention war on terror, say Bush aides', Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2005.
71. Renae Merle, 'Pentagon funds diplomatic effort: contracts aim to improve foreign opinion of United States', Washington Post, 11 June 2005.
72. Javier Solana, A. secure Europe in a better world (Brussels: Office of the High Representative for CFSP), at www.ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms/Data/docs/ pressdata/en/reports/76225.pdf, accessed 6 Feb. 2004.
73. Michael McClintock, Instruments of statecraft: US guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism, 1940-1990 (New York: Pantheon, 1992).
74. See also Larry E. Cable, Conflict of myths: the development of American counterinsurgency doctrine and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 1986).
75. Some diplomats fear that the new strategy may remove the State Department's control over foreign security programmes in favour of the Pentagon, while the CIA worries about the Pentagon's interest in expanding its human intelligence capabilities. Interviews, Washington DC, June 2005.
76. Edward Alden, 'Globalisation cited as threat to US security', Financial Times, 11 Feb. 2003.
77. Martin Wolf, Why globalization works (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004).