Why Europe Would Benefit from Repatriating its Foreign Fighters from Syria and Iraq - Part II

Impact of Non-Repatriation on Europe’s Security Environment

Part one of this article analysed the security implications for Europe of foreign fighter repatriation from Syria and Iraq. It concluded that fears of a drastic deterioration of Europe’s security environment are overstated, and the risk emanating from returnees manageable. Part two discusses the impact of non-repatriation, showing that policy alternatives outsourcing the problem increase the terrorist threat for Europe.

By Livia Margna

If not repatriated, European foreign fighters remain either incarcerated in camps or prisons in the conflict zone where they could eventually stand trial, or on the run. Those on the run have the possibility to continue fighting in Syria, hide on site, try to sneak back home, find refuge elsewhere, or move to another conflict. Whatever situation non-repatriated foreign fighters find themselves in or choose for themselves bears significant consequences for European states’ and other countries’ security.

The most fierce foreign fighters remaining in the conflict area are likely to regroup when the opportunity arises, rejoin the residual Islamic State troops or allied terrorist groups, and re-engage in the materialisation of an ideology which is far from being defeated. Insights from the Afghan war inform us that foreign fighters inhibited from returning home are likely to continue their engagement for jihad. [1] Others could try to sneak back to Europe. Chances are that they remain undetected and can thus neither be brought to justice nor be rehabilitated. [2] Moreover, when unmonitored they pose an increased threat, not only to the security of their home countries, but also to the states through which they transit.

Some of those who leave the conflict theatre do so to relocate to third countries, either to seek refuge there or fight in other conflicts. A relocation to third countries, however, shifts the insecurity associated with foreign fighters to states that are not at fault for their radicalisation and often have less resources to mitigate threats than their European counterparts. It also creates new hazards for Europe. First of all, it negatively affects geopolitical stability. [3] Relocatees can incite new or exacerbate existing conflicts in their new homes by spreading extremist ideology, fostering radicalisation and recruitment for jihadi causes, and importing military skills. Secondly, the retreat to so-called safe havens neither threatening prosecution nor surveillance allows indoctrinated foreign fighters to regain strength and reorganise, and potentially even establish sleeper cells which could eventually be activated to attack Europe. [4] Thirdly, even if foreign fighters genuinely relocate to third countries to find refuge and rebuild peaceful lives, their illegal status could force them into an underground existence, rendering them susceptible for the recruitment efforts of globally acting crime networks. [5]

A significant number of European foreign fighters remaining in the conflict zone are currently incarcerated. In February 2019, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) claimed to hold 800 male European Islamic State fighters in prisons, as well as 700 women and some 1500 children in camps. [6] Further Europeans are in the hands of other paramilitary groups in Iraq and Turkey. The past, however, has repeatedly shown that incarceration of foreign fighters in the conflict region does not take them out of the threat equation as they are often unexpectedly freed or released. Turkey, for example, has already unilaterally released some of its European Islamic State prisoners because of their home country’s reluctance to take them back. [7] The Islamic State, on the other hand, has a long history of liberating its incarcerated members by staging prison attacks. Furthermore, many foreign fighters, predominantly women and children who never assumed violent roles in the war and might not have gone to Syria voluntarily, are detained in overcrowded camps known for their ‘appalling and sometimes deadly conditions’ [8] or are, due to a lack of alternatives, hiding. With their husbands and fathers dead or imprisoned and with nowhere else to turn, individuals are pushed ‘to seek assistance elsewhere, which often leads them right back into extremist circles’. [9] Hence, depriving them of assistance is not just a humanitarian offence, but might promote the alienation, radicalisation, and manipulation of hundreds of low-risk individuals, thus turning them into a potential future security threat.

Moreover, policy alternatives to repatriation nurture the terror threat from Islamists in the long-term by fostering anti-Western narratives. Denying support to European foreign fighters and their families in destitution, non-intervention in cases where they face torture or the death penalty, implementing discriminatory citizenship revocation practices disproportionately affecting individuals with an immigration background, [10] and tolerance or even execution of extrajudicial killings – as in the case of France and the United Kingdom [11] -- nourish the narrative depicting Muslims in the West as second-class citizens to whom the principles of human rights and international law are only selectively applied. Thus, by signalling ‘that an individual is no longer seen as part of the society’ [12] states arguably increase the animosity towards Western societies that motivated many Muslims to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State which had successfully co-opted this narrative into their recruitment propaganda. Moreover, it could further radicalise those foreign fighters who are not terrorists but see themselves treated as such, as ‘labelling them [terrorists] may irritate rather than dissuade the fence-sitters’. [13] Refusing assistance and repatriation thus ‘add[s] fuel to fire’ [14] and could even ‘incite possible acts of retribution’. [15]

Denying European nationals in Syria and Iraq the possibility to return thus not only shifts the problem to other countries. It also creates new threats for Europe which are much harder to pre-empt, as not only controlling and monitoring but also prosecuting, deradicalising, and rehabilitating alleged terrorists is virtually impossible from afar.

In liberal societies, terrorism cannot not be fully eradicated. We have to live with the fact that attacks have become part of our everyday lives. Yet, this does not mean that threats cannot be mitigated and extremists be deradicalised. Politicians denying their citizens who participated in the Syrian war to return, however, do the exact opposite. Instead of containing extremism by repatriating and consequently monitoring foreign fighters, they allow it to spread uncontrolled and thus create more threats. Hence, European states would benefit from bringing back their nationals as soon as possible.

 

Sources

[1] Pokalova, E. (2020). Returning Islamist Foreign Fighters – Threats and Challenges to the West. Washington DC: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2] Jenkins, B. (2019, June 6). Options for Dealing with Islamic State Foreign Fighters Currently Detained in Syria. CTC Sentinel, 11-23. Retrieved from International Institute for Counter-Terrorism Herzliya: https://www.ict.org.il/Article/2403/Dealing_with_IS_Foreign_Fighters_Detained_in_ Syria#gsc.tab=0

[3] Reed, A., de Roy van Zuijdewijn, J., & Bakker, E. (2015). Pathways of Foreign Fighters: Policy Options and Their (Un)Intended Consequences. The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Kiley, S. (2019, October 13). Europe Never Really Dealt with its ISIS Fighters. A Reckoning is Coming. Retrieved from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/30/opinions/trump- europe-isis-threat-intl/index.html

[7] Sariyuce, I., & Mackintosh, E. (2019, November 14). Turkey Begins Deporting Suspected ISIS Fighters to US, UK, Germany. Retrieved from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/14/europe/turkey-deports-isis-fighters-us-uk- germany-gbr-intl/index.html

[8] Human Rights Watch. (2019, July 23). Syria: Dire Conditions for ISIS Suspects’ Families. Retrieved from Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/07/23/syria- dire-conditions-isis-suspects-families, p. 1.

[9] Pokalova, p. 135.

[10] Pokalova.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Reed, p. 13.

[13] Hegghammer, T. (2013). Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting. The American Political Science Review, p. 13.

[14] Hussin, S. (2019, April 8). Deradicalisation and Rehabilitation: Way Forward for Returnees. Retrieved from RSIS Commentary: https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/10356/82781/1/CO19065.pdf

[15] Reed, p. 13.

Why Europe Would Benefit from Repatriating its Foreign Fighters from Syria and Iraq - Part I

Impacts of Repatriation on Europe’s Security Environment

In many European societies, the Islamic State’s loss of its last stronghold, Baghuz Fawqani, on 23 March 2019 reignited the fierce debate on whether states should repatriate their foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq. While Europe has faced the challenges associated with returnees from the Levant since the early years of the Syrian war, both politicians and citizens worry that high-risk individuals could now come back en masse. Nevertheless, these societies were deeply shocked by recent terror incidents involving returnees in Manchester, Paris, and Brussels. They fear that the surviving Islamic State fighters would travel home to continue jihad there, bringing an explosive mix of extensive terrorist training, traumatic war experiences, and deep-rooted hatred against the West in their backpacks. Therefore, most decision-makers have shown reluctance to support repatriation and have instead implemented policy alternatives outsourcing the problem. This Security Distillery article critically examines and dismantles their main arguments, while shedding light on the self-harming implications proffered by them. In order to do so, the first part of this article discusses the impacts of repatriation on Europe’s security environment while the second part, published in a week’s time, analyses the impacts of non-repatriation. Having rebutted the constituting rationales of the repatriation opponents, it concludes that allowing foreign fighters to return is most in line with European states’ security interests.

By Livia Margna

Between 2011 and 2016, more than 5,000 adults from the European Union (EU) travelled to Syria to fight with opposition forces against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. [1] Most joined the ranks of jihadist organisations, first and foremost those of the so-called Islamic State. [2] Around 1,800 European foreign fighters are believed to be dead, and up to 1,700 have already returned home. [3] Until now, around 2,000 adult EU citizens and an unknown number of their children are estimated to have neither died nor returned. [4] From a legal point of view, most states have no obligation to facilitate their return. [5] While some states such as Germany, France, and Belgium have repatriated young children, only a few instances of European states repatriating adults exist. [6] The majority of states have instead implemented a mixture of policies outsourcing the problem.

Wreaking havoc in several European cities, – including the November 2015 attacks in Paris claiming 130 lives – earlier returnees had demonstrated their hazardous potential. Compared to the previous waves of returnees, the individuals still remaining in Syria and Iraq are believed to be even more prone to follow the Islamic State’s call to continue jihad on European soil. The network they established, the training, and status they acquired in conflict, so the argument goes, are likely to be misused at home for radicalising others, inspiring lone wolves, and potentially establishing sleeper cells, providing logistic support for attacks or even plotting attacks themselves. Given the high number of European foreign fighters remaining in the conflict zone, most states thus argue that the aggregated threat constituted by them renders repatriation unacceptable. A closer examination of the issue, however, reveals that the overall situation is less alarming. While the attacks perpetrated by returnees prove that their threat is real, repatriation opponent’s threat assessment is in many regards overstated, overgeneralised, and undifferentiated, and thus prone to misrepresent the actual risk.

Firstly, it is unlikely that the returns would be as numerous as expected, even if repatriation was arranged. Lessons learnt from previous conflicts involving foreign fighters, [7] the considerable discrepancies between estimates and actual returnees in the early years of the Syrian war, and the imagery of European nationals burning their passports show that a significant number have no intention to return, and instead would continue to fight or settle down in the Levant or elsewhere.

Furthermore, repatriation opponents do not take into account that returnees are a heterogeneous mass consisting of individuals of different ages, genders, and backgrounds who differ from each other in their motives for departing and returning, as well as in different degrees of radicalisation and combat experience. European citizens remaining in the conflict zone range from fighters to defectors, from indoctrinated youth to new-born babies, and from female enslavers of the Yazidis to teenage housewives. [8] Highly indoctrinated and potentially dangerous individuals are likely to be among them, but so are many who never assumed violent roles. Other prospective returnees were never fully committed to the cause or lacked the determination to defect, [9] while some are disillusioned, disappointed, or even traumatised and ready to leave the war experiences behind. Even those who assumed violent roles are not a homogeneous group. The willingness to fight abroad does not necessarily translate into the willingness to conduct attacks at home, even if returnees continue to glorify jihad when back: ‘Most Islamists consider confined insurgency more legitimate than international terrorism’. [10] Thus, it can be concluded that only a few might hold intentions to engage in terrorist activities at home, while the vast majority is unlikely to do so. [11]

This assumption is consistent with the current understanding of foreign fighter recidivism rates. While the counts should be used with caution, they nonetheless allow us to identify trends in foreign fighter’s aggregated attitudes. Hegghammer’s seminal study on recidivism rates of Western foreign fighter returnees between 1990 and 2010 estimates that at most one in nine return to attack, while admitting that the real figure may be closer to one in 20. [12] An analysis of Islamic State-attributed attacks in Europe shows that most were not committed by returnees, but individuals inspired by the terror group’s propaganda. [13] Moreover, the few individuals who plan an attack at home are rather unsuccessful. As of March 2015, 10 of 11 attacks plotted in the West and involving returnees were thwarted. [14] This is surprising, given that due to their combat experience foreign fighters are usually portrayed as highly capable of staging attacks. According to Byman, however, battle experiences gained in a civil war does not translate into the skills necessary to execute sophisticated terror attacks. [15]

Repatriation opponents often argue that they would be unable to deal with returnees due to a lack of capacities and resources. It holds true that past terror incidents on European soil involved returnees who were well-known to intelligence agencies but fell off their radar due to insufficient means and poor cooperation between security services. [16] Learning from these failures, however, European states have increased both their soft and hard power capacities. Thus, they augmented their counterterrorism budgets and improved inter-agency and inter-state information sharing, [17] homogenised EU policies towards adult returnees, strengthened the prosecution, [18] and accumulated experience in deradicalisation and rehabilitation of extremists. Hence, instead of leaving foreign fighters in an environment prone to alienate them further, repatriation allows European states to turn them away from violence.

Repatriation also offers opportunities that can be utilised to enhance domestic security. Disengaged foreign fighter returnees could become highly influential in discouraging others from following their path. [19] In the past, disillusioned returnees often showed a willingness to cooperate with security services for counter-terrorism purposes. [20] Moreover, disengaged returnees are valuable sources of information, both as witnesses in lawsuits against their former fellow fighters and as informants helping intelligence agencies to improve their understanding of terrorist groups. [21] In turn, such insight – for example on recruitment processes – can render counter-terrorism efforts more effective.

In summary, fears of a drastic deterioration of the security environment caused by an influx of returnees ‘are not so much wrong as they are overstated’. [22] A residual risk can indeed not be fully eliminated; however, given its limited extent and the substantial capacities of European states to mitigate it, it is manageable. Furthermore, it is partly offset by the positive influences disengaged returnees can have on the security environment. Moreover, if not repatriated, the threat posed by foreign fighters remaining in the conflict theatre or in third countries for European societies is arguably higher and more long-term, and in any case harder to mitigate. This is shown in the second part of this article which will be published in a week’s time.

Sources

[1] Barret, R. (2017). Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees. New York: The Soufan Center.

[2] Coolsaet, R., & Renard, T. (2019). New Figures on European Nationals Detained in Syria and Iraq. Brussels: Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations.

[3] Jenkins, B. (2019, June 6). Options for Dealing with Islamic State Foreign Fighters Currently Detained in Syria. CTC Sentinel, 11-23. Retrieved from International Institute for Counter-Terrorism Herzliya: https://www.ict.org.il/Article/2403/Dealing_with_IS_Foreign_Fighters_Detained_in_ Syria#gsc.tab=0

[4] Ibid.

[5] Pokalova, E. (2020). Returning Islamist Foreign Fighters – Threats and Challenges to the West. Washington DC: Palgrave Macmillan.

[6] Agence France-Presse. (2019, June 11). Repatriate or Reject: What Countries Are Doing With IS Group Families. Retrieved from France24: https://www.france24.com/en/20190611-repatriation-families-islamic-state-group- jihadists-children.

[7] Reed, A., de Roy van Zuijdewijn, J., & Bakker, E. (2015). Pathways of Foreign Fighters: Policy Options and Their (Un)Intended Consequences. The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague.

[8] Jenkins.

[9] Ragazzi, F., & Walmsley, J. (2018). The Return of Foreign Fighters to EU Soil – Ex-post Evaluation. Brussels: European Parliamentary Research Service.

[10] Hegghammer, T. (2013). Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting. The American Political Science Review, p.13.

[11] Reed.

[12] Hegghammer, pp. 1-15.

[13] Pokalova.

[14] Byman, D. (2016). The Jihadist Returnee Threat: Just How Dangerous? Political Science Quarterly, 69-99.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Dworkin, A. (2019). Beyond Good and Evil: Why Europe Should Bring ISIS Foreign Fighters Home. Berlin: European Council on Foreign Relations.

[18] Ragazzi.

[19] Reed.

[20] Pokalova.

[21] Jenkins.

[22] Byman, p. 71.

Black Lives Matter

Dear Security Distillery Readers,

We would like to pause from publishing our usual content for a day in order to discuss the brutal white supremacy that has been plaguing our communities, and the actions we can take to be active change-makers.

Last week on May 25, 2020 George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. After the handcuffed Floyd fell to the ground, a police officer named Derek Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Three other officers (Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao) watched as Floyd gasped for breath, eventually saying “I can’t breathe” and “They’re going to kill me”. [1] In the video, witnesses can be heard crying and begging the policemen to stop, to do something. [2] As the three policemen stood by, Floyd died under Chauvin’s knee. [3] His murder has served as yet another reminder that the legacy of systemic and personal racism against Black Americans lives on, and that police brutality continues to be a particularly heinous expression of that legacy.

Floyd’s murder has proven to be a breaking point for communities already mourning the losses of other innocent Black lives, such as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbury. [6] In the last week, protests have erupted across the US and the world, demanding the fundamental restructuring of a system that relies on white supremacy and enables police brutality. [4] Ironically, the response to these protests has often been increased state violence, including the use of tear gas and rubber bullets, the violent arresting of protestors, the deployment of the United States National Guard, and the imposition of strict curfews. [5]

While the history and conditions of the US lend themselves to exceptional violence and lethality, the spectre of white supremacy and systemic racism looms internationally. The battle for racial equity and social justice is a global one. While the rage you may feel against the American system is certainly justified, it is likely that echoes and reflections of the same core issues exist in your community as well. In the UK, 51% of young people in jail are people of colour (POC), despite only making up 14% of the overall population. [6] In France, police have been repeatedly caught using racial slurs against North Africans, and in 2016, they stangled a young man named Adama Touaré to death. [7] In country after country, we see state-sanctioned violence disproportionately targeting Black citizens and POC.

Dominant narratives across Asia, Africa, South America, and Oceania reveal how Western standards of mannerism, beauty, and cultural practice have moulded how individuals come to view themselves. From India and Nigeria to South Korea, much of the post-colonial world has been sold the lie that fair skin is key to professional success [8], marriageability [9] and improved social status. White supremacy has fueled a lucrative global industry of fairness products and services, and its profit depends on anti-Blackness. The European colonial project dehumanised indigenous populations as “savages” and weaponized racial politics to justify their oppression. The wounds of that narrative continue to fester long after independence.

Racism is not a relic of the past: the systemic inequities that plague the world are a result of historical and contemporary laws and actions around the world. This is why the protests demanding an end to racial violence in the US have resonated in so many other countries. Individuals, regardless of status or nationality, must reflect on their actions and acknowledge how they profit off black and indigenous  [10] whilst retaining racist beliefs. Uprooting injustice necessitates the participation of every member of society, regardless of age, gender, race or nationality as the threat of inequality is pervasive, vicious, and homicidal to current and future generations. International support of the Black Lives Matter movement is imperative: the condemnation of white supremacy in the US may act as a proxy and a spark for the global fight against racism and the industries that profit from its continuation.

For those seeking to get involved, we have put together a condensed list of resources, including places to donate, sign petitions, and accessible educational tools. A few resources are linked below, and the full list can be found as a downloadable PDF by clicking here.

●      Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis

●      To help bail out protestors in cities across the US

●      To provide food/medical supplies/general aid to the protestors via local mutual aid funds (Thanks to @thegirlwithfood on Twitter for the links)

●      To support BLM by raising ad revenue through this video if physically joining a protest or donating money is not possible

●      Master Resources (including gofundmes, petitions, fundraisers, and more) (thanks to @AM1R4HSCAVE on Twitter for these links):

○      https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

○      https://blackliveswillalwaysmatter.carrd.co/#

Sincerely,

Emma Lin Hurlbert, Margaret Born, and Smera Jayadeva

Sources

[1] McLaughlin, Eliott C. “Three Videos Show the Final Moments of George Floyd’s Life.” CNN, June 1, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/george-floyd-three-videos-minneapolis/index.html.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Michaels, Samantha. “Breonna Taylor Is One of a Shocking Number of Black People to See Armed Police Barge into Their Homes.” Mother Jones (blog). Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/05/breonna-taylor-is-one-of-a-shocking-number-of-black-people-to-see-armed-police-barge-into-their-homes/.

[5] McCarthy, Tom. “Police Criticized over Heavy-Handed Response to Peaceful Protests across US.” The Guardian, June 2, 2020, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/02/police-criticized-heavy-handed-response-peaceful-protests-across-us.

Seligman, Lara. “In Crisis Mode, Trump Again Leans on the Military.” POLITICO. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/01/trump-deploy-federal-assets-protests-294298.

[6] Cockburn, Harry. “Over Half of Male Young Offenders Are from Black or Minority Ethnic Backgrounds for First Time, Report Reveals.” The Independent, January 19, 2019. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/crime-records-young-offenders-bme-record-level-uk-prisons-children-jail-stc-yoi-a8750611.html.

Maxwell, Kevin. “Sorry Cressida Dick, but as a Black Former Detective I Know Just How Racist the Met Still Is.” The Independent, July 11, 2019, sec. Voices. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/met-police-cressida-dick-no-longer-institutionally-racist-racism-black-officer-a9001176.html.

Novara Media. “The UK Is Not Innocent – Police Racism Has a Long and Violent History Here Too.” Accessed June 2, 2020. https://novaramedia.com/2020/06/01/the-uk-is-not-innocent-police-brutality-has-a-long-and-violent-history-here/.

“Population of England and Wales.” Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest.

[7] Amrani, Iman, and Angelique Chrisafis. “Adama Traoré’s Death in Police Custody Casts Long Shadow over French Society.” The Guardian, February 17, 2017, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/17/adama-traore-death-in-police-custody-casts-long-shadow-over-french-society.

Diallo, Rokhaya. “When Will France Admit That Police Racism Is Systemic? | Rokhaya Diallo.” The Guardian, March 2, 2017, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/02/france-police-racism-hashtag-activism.

[8] Parameswaran, R., & Cardoza, K. (2009) ‘Melanin on the Margins: Advertising and the Cultural Politics of Fair/Light/White Beauty in India,’ Journalism & Communication Monographs, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 213–274.

[9] Nagar, I. (2018) ‘The Unfair Selection: A Study on Skin-Color Bias in Arranged Indian Marriages’, SAGE Open, Vol. 8, No. 2

Thapar, R (1996) ‘The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics,’ Social Scientist, Vol. 24, No. 1/3., pp. 3-29.

Holmlund, C. A,  (1991) ‘Displacing limits of difference: Gender, Race, and Colonialism in Edward Said and Homi Bhabha's theoretical models and Marguerite Duras's experimental films’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol.13, No. 1-3, pp. 1-22

[10] Rogers, R. A., (2006) ‘From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation,’ Communication Theory, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 474-503

The mysteries of Pyongyang and a forgotten enemy: Kim Jong Un's biological arsenal

Recent allegations of Kim Jong Un’s death have triggered old questions regarding succession within the Kim dynasty and sparked new controversies regarding North Korea’s approach to nuclear weapons. However, these issues have been raised in the middle of a global crisis, namely the COVID-19 pandemic. This article will move the focus from North Korean nuclear weapons to biological weapons capabilities, after introducing the present situation of the country, and will assess its potential for production and use of those weapons.

By Chiara Artico

Over the last month, the news of Kim Jong Un’s alleged death has been bouncing back and forth in the media all over the world. In fact, North Korea’s Supreme Leader had very suspiciously missed a key anniversary on 15 April 2020 [1]. Eventually, the Supreme Leader’s appearance in public on 1 May 2020 silenced the speculation. Nevertheless, some reasonable doubts remain since the credibility of the released footage showing him inaugurating a fertiliser factory cannot be verified [2].

The alleged death of North Korea’s leader sparked a long-standing debate on who his successor would be if he died soon. His health conditions (obesity, smoking, alcohol use, family history of heart diseases) will, sooner or later, represent an issue for his succession [3]. In fact, the dynasty lacks an heir. Kim Jong Un is supposed to have three children, the eldest of whom should be 10 years old, not old enough to take over power [4]. The alternative scenarios range from his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, to Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae. However, it is almost certain that, regardless of the person in power, North Korea would maintain the existing status quo in regards to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) [5]. Nevertheless, despite the sanctions imposed by the United States (US) and the United Nations (UN) on the country’s nuclear policy [6], these are not the only type of WMD.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems extremely important to analyse another, often overlooked category of WMD: biological weapons. As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), ‘biological weapons are microorganisms like virus, bacteria, fungi, or other toxins that are produced and released deliberately to cause disease and death in humans, animals or plants’ [7]. It is undeniable that the voluntary employment of a weaponised biological agent by any actor in the international arena would cause inconceivable harm. As stated by William C. Patrick III, an expert on germ warfare in service for the US, ‘a single gallon of anthrax, if suitably distributed, could end human life on Earth’ [8].

In a report published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 2017, it was stated that North Korea not only has an interest in sustaining a biological weapons program, but also the capability. Taken into account the difficulties in gaining credible information on the totalitarian regime, there are several elements that confirm the concerns of North Korea being a potential producer of biological weapons. It is believed that Kim Il Sung started the program in the early 1960s, after falsely attributing outbreaks of cholera, typhus, and smallpox in the country to biological attacks by the US during the Korean War (1950-1953) [9]. More recently, Kim Jong Un repeatedly denied the existence of such a program, even claiming that it is the US that wants to engage in biological warfare using anthrax against his country [10]. Despite these statements, indicators suggest that North Korea has at least 13 different pathogens at its disposal [11].

Furthermore, North Korea is assumed to have several institutes adequate to produce dual use equipment, that is equipment to be used for both civilian and military purposes. For example, in 2015, official state media released images that showed the Pyongyang Biotechnical Institute, whose structures raised concern among experts precisely as regards dual use. Moreover, it appears that non-compliance to the security standards of these structures should not be considered as an indicator of the non-existence of weapons production. In fact, it was claimed that North Korea has been using human subjects in testing this technology, as further proof of the impossibility to adhere to human rights standards when evaluating the danger that North Korea might pose [12].

Even more important than the availability of the pathogens and the capabilities of producing them in large scale, is the capability of weaponising them. Here is where evaluation difficulties show up. So far, we have outlined some issues that, even with a shadow of a doubt, are reasonably true and known about North Korea. Less certain is the extent to which the country possesses the ability to weaponise the biological agents. Weaponisation demands the capacity to stabilise the agents to make them suitable for dissemination [13]. At first glance, this might seem complex. However, it is assumed that ‘any country having pharmaceutical, cosmetic, or advanced food storage industries will have stabilization facilities similar to those that could be used for biological weapons’ [14]. It remains unclear whether the country would be able to weaponise all 13 different agents since these need different processes and quantities for large-scale production. As stated in the Belfer Center report, some experts assert that North Korea is not yet ready for mass production of biological weapons, but the possibility cannot be ruled out completely [15]. Once the biological agents are weaponised, they would need to be delivered.

Different means of delivery are suitable to different biological agents, depending on several structural factors. The potential categories include missiles, drones, sprayers, and even human vectors [16]. In recent years, Pyongyang has invested in the development of long-range ballistic missiles. In July 2017, the regime first tested the Hwasong-14, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), followed a couple of months later by its bigger brother, the Hwasong-15. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Missile Defense Project elaborated the following two infographics, which perfectly convey the scope of North Korea’s delivery capabilities [17].

The last factor to consider is the potential motivations for North Korea to actually use biological weapons. According to the security experts interviewed by the Belfer Center, North Korea would prefer to use them for tactical purposes, for instance at the beginning of a conflict to seriously damage the enemy’s society and army, sparing its own soldiers [18]. This might also explain why the North Korean army is vaccinated against smallpox [19], a disease which was declared eradicated from our society in 1980 [20] Moreover, Kim, Philipp, and Chung argue it is alarming that ‘North Korea’s broad objective is to “drive out the aggressive forces of the U.S., terminate the dominance and interference of foreign forces… and fight for the unification of the motherland through the unite [sic] of our nation [the Korean peninsula].”’ [21]

For all these reasons, it is evident that the North Korean biological programme might represent a huge threat to international security. Warnings came not only from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2003 [22], but also from the international security experts of the last three US Presidents, who even described North Korea’s biological weapons program as ‘a global threat’ [23]. Given the power and influence that this might confer to North Korea, it is likely that, as explained regarding its nuclear program, a change of top authority would not entail a change in the approach to such a topic either. After all, Depetris leaves it clear: “balance-of-power dynamics, regional politics, diplomatic relationships, and core security interests are more important than individuals” [24].

 

Sources

[1] Madden, Michael (May 2, 2020) ‘Kim Jong-un and the brutal North Korea rumour mill’. [Online] Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52511812. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[2] BBC NEWS (May 2, 2020) ‘Kim Jong-un appears in public, North Korean state media report’. [Online] Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52508437. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[3] Terry, Sue Mi (April 26, 2020) ‘What happens if Kim Jong Un dies? No one knows’. [Online] Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/26/what-happens-if-kim-jong-un-dies-no-one-knows/. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[4] ISPI Online Publications (April 27, 2020) ‘Mistero a Pyongyang. La scomparsa di Kim Jong Un’. [Online] Available from: https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/mistero-pyongyang-25907?fbclid=IwAR2BB0cMB3a9eUXOABhqpHoZnx37JluGCPA5c6sC-5Z6xwvH5Egg7It7eso. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[5] Terry (2020) ‘What happens if Kim Jong Un dies? No one knows’.

[6] Depetris, Daniel (April 25, 2020) ‘What If Kim Jong Un Dies?’ [Online] Available from: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/04/what-if-kim-dies/164910/. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[7] World Health Organization (n.d.) ‘Biological weapons’ [Online] Available from: https://www.who.int/health-topics/biological-weapons#tab=tab_1. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[8] Baumgaertner, Emily and Broad, William J. (January 15, 2019) ‘North Korea’s Less-Known Military Threat: Biological Weapons’ [Online] Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/science/north-korea-biological-weapons.html. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[9] Kim, Hyun-Kyung; Philipp, Elizabeth and Chung, Hattie (2017) The Known and Unknown - North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program. Available from: https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/north-koreas-biological-weapons-program-known-and-unknown. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[10] The Guardian (June 12, 2015) ‘North Korea accuses US of targeting it with anthrax and asks UN for help’ [Online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/12/north-korea-anthrax-united-states. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[11] Kim, Philipp and Chung (2017) The Known and Unknown - North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] GlobalSecurity.org (n.d.) ‘Biological Warfare Agent Delivery’ [Online] Available from: https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_delivery.htm. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[15] Kim, Philipp and Chung (2017) The Known and Unknown - North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Missile Defense Project (June 14, 2018), ‘Missiles of North Korea’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies. [Online] Available from: https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/. Last modified March 4, 2020. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[18] Kim, Philipp and Chung (2017) The Known and Unknown - North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program.

[19] Ibid.

[20] World Health Organization (2001) ‘Smallpox’ [Online] Available from: https://web.archive.org/web/20121023143819/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/index.html. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[21] Kim, Philipp and Chung (2017) The Known and Unknown - North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program, p. 13.

[22] CIA (2003) Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions. Available from: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/archived-reports-1/july_dec2003.htm#5. [Accessed 27 May 2020]

[23] Baumgaertner and Broad (2019) ‘North Korea’s Less-Known Military Threat: Biological Weapons’.

[24] Depetris (2020) ‘What If Kim Jong Un Dies?’.

Conversing COVID - Part I, with Matthijs Lok

An Interview Series on the Political Implications of the Pandemic

By Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk

For this interview series, Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk speak to experts from different backgrounds on the political implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in their respective fields. From their living rooms in France and The Netherlands, they will explore the (geo)political, security, and societal consequences of this pandemic. This interview series marks the launch of a new type of content for the Security Distillery, one which we hope can provide informative and entertaining analyses of an uncertain and evolving development in global politics.

In this first episode, we are interviewing Matthijs Lok, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the European Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. He recently wrote a piece in which he examined the coronavirus from a historical perspective [1]. As this is the first interview of a larger series, we think it is important to first look at the pandemic from a historical point of view, but also to bridge the gap between social sciences and humanities.

On 6 May 2020, the historian and political writer Timothy Garton Ash asked in the Guardian: ‘What kind of historical moment will this turn out to be, for Europe and the world?’ [2] What do you think, Matthijs?

     It seems like a lot of people around me are optimistic about the future, although these people tend to have a background in social sciences. As a historian, you tend to be a little more suspicious of how large historical events turn out, so I’m a bit more sceptical. I think the “corona crisis” is a reinforcement of existing trends, rather than a rupture with the past. Authoritarianism, nationalism, and other undemocratic developments that were already taking place seem to be enhanced. Even though some people think of it as a time of solidarity, we have seen friction within the EU between the Netherlands and Italy, for example [the Dutch were initially  hesitant about proposed financial aid to southern European countries, which sparked criticism]. Regarding nationalist developments, it seems like there is an emphasis on national self-sufficiency, rather than international cooperation or cosmopolitanism. This trend had already emerged before the crisis if you look at United States President Donald Trump’s policies or the trade war with China, but now we have witnessed nationalist reflexes in countries like Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. This reinforcement of national self-sufficiency has not led to the exclusion of specific groups, but it can become that way.     

You mentioned that you are  not as optimistic, being a historian. Do you see similarities between the corona crisis and any historical event in particular?

     We have seen moves towards nationalism and self-sufficiency after big crises before. The eighteenth  century, for instance, was very much a time of commerce and free trade. After the French Revolution, which turned out very different from how the participants expected, you see a surge in nationalism and a focus on economic self-sufficiency, while the belief in international trade experienced a setback. Another period it makes me think of is the end of the nineteenth  century, which was a period of globalisation. However, World War One caused another move towards national self-sufficiency. I would not compare the corona crisis to World War One, but generally speaking, you can see that crises can result in a more inward focus.

On the other hand, the corona crisis shows that some problems that seemed to be unsolvable can be solved. I’m thinking of “overtourism” in European cities such as Venice, Paris, and Amsterdam. At the same time, it seems like we are rushing less in our daily lives  and the fact that we are travelling less can have a positive impact on the environment. Besides, it seems to have caused a revaluation of the public sector, especially the health, education, and law enforcement sectors.     

You said that problems that were deemed to be unsolvable are being solved. But one could argue that they were solved and replaced by new problems and maybe even new threats. How has our perception of security threats changed since the start of the crisis?

     I find it interesting to look at how people experience this crisis. When people look at the news they might think, ‘This situation is radical and unique.’ This is what you think when you are the midst of a crisis, while later on, historians will say that it was not that special after all and that there was actually a lot of continuity. Old problems and threats will reappear, but in a new form. We will just look at them from another perspective.

On the other hand, we are currently not talking about threats such as terrorism. There was a knife attack in south-eastern France on 4 April 2020, supposedly with a terrorist motive [3]. It hardly made it to the headlines, in the Netherlands at least, while it usually would have.

What worries me a little bit is that we are currently only looking at  one single threat – this one giant enemy – and forgetting to look at other problems. Even though this reflex is understandable, there are other medical, but also societal problems. The crisis has a huge economic impact – think about the high unemployment rate in the United States. But there are also mental health issues and it can have a large impact on children. Besides, it might not be good that a very small group of medics seem to be running the country. But this is where historians come in: they can show us that we should not focus on one threat and that there are more problems, by putting it in a historical perspective.     

Earlier we talked about the tension between northern and southern European states over solidarity and financial aid. In 2013, you wrote an article for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in which you discussed how the euro crisis had caused the East-West divide in Europe to be replaced by the North-South divide [4]. What are your observations on this divide during the corona crisis?

     Firstly, I think the East-West divide is still there as well, as we can see for example with Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, and generally the self-proclaimed “anti-liberal” regimes. The strengthening of authoritarian rule in this context of emergency is not a surprise though. This is what this kind of crisis does: it reinforces the state’s power.

However, the North-South divide is also becoming deeper. My observation is that things have changed, especially since Brexit, and ‘the South’, with its now relatively larger population, has gained political weight and become more powerful.

Furthermore, countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, and France have been regarding themselves as the heart of the European development for a long time, but today they might even become the periphery of this project. And I think we can place the blame in part on those countries themselves, because often      they have not understood the other member states’ perspectives, considering the position they were defending as the right one, until it turned out to be a minority.

The French government, for example, seems aware of the risk of becoming the odd one out and of the need to build alternatives to the French-German driving force. It is, therefore, assigning a growing importance to the development of new allegiances, such as with the Netherlands, in order to keep its position.     

How will we look back at this event in fifty years?

     Some people have almost become apocalyptic or religious about the perception of time, thinking that it will be either heaven or hell. But I think this sense of uniqueness will disappear in the coming months or years. It will find a place in our memories, people will talk about it to younger people who didn’t live through it, students will write their theses on it. I think it will be seen as less of a watershed than we do now.

We have talked about the past and future, let us go back to the present. On 1 May 2020, several humanities scientists wrote an article in NRC Handelsblad arguing that we need to involve historians more with policy responses to the crisis [5]. What lessons can we learn from historians and history?

     Historians can put the crisis in perspective. People tend to focus on one problem, forgetting about other problems, which is of course understandable when people lose their loved ones. However, historians can help to remind us of the other aspects of society. At the same time, historians are very well aware that things are not self-evident and can change radically. Hence, they can show us that this is an extraordinary, but not necessarily a unique situation. From historical events, we can hopefully learn that we do not need the national reflexes of self-sufficiency.     

What are your key observations in this pandemic? 

     The corona crisis is bringing both new issues and opportunities. On one side, besides the health crisis, trends such as nationalism and authoritarianism are being reinforced, which threatens the European project while emphasizing the shift of influence from the West towards Asia. However, societies are resilient and can take advantage of this situation to create new possibilities, like we are doing with IT. Those opportunities can also stem from the emergence of a suitable intellectual context, especially for academics, for new reflections on our societies.

Notes

[1] Lok, Matthijs (2020). ‘A Sublime Historical Event: The Corona Pandemic is also a Crisis in Our Perception of Time’. Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study. https://nias.knaw.nl/food-for-thought/food-for-thought-a-sublime-historical-event/.

[2] Garton Ash, Timothy (2020). ‘A better world can emerge after coronavirus. Or a much worse one’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/may/06/better-world-coronavirus-young-europeans-democracy-universal-basic-income.

[3] No Author (2020). ‘Romans-sur-Isère: France launches terror probe after knife attack’. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52165522.

[4] Lok, Matthijs (2013). ‘Zuid-Europa is nieuw Oost-Europa’. NRC Handelsblad. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/09/14/zuid-europa-is-nieuw-oost-europa-1293034-a724362.

[5]  De Graaf, Beatrice, Lotte Jensen, Rina Knoeff, and Catrien Santing (2020). ‘Historici moeten ook meedenken, juist nu’. NRC Handelsblad. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/05/01/historici-moeten-ook-meedenken-juist-nu-a3998484.

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the interviewee and do not reflect those of the Security Distillery, the IMSISS consortium or its partners and affiliates.

Proliferation and Protracted Conflict in South Asia: How has the Nuclearisation of South Asia impacted the conflict and regional stability?

The testing of India and Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities in May 1998 marked the beginning of a period of nuclearisation and proliferation in South Asia. This is an ongoing process as seen with India’s completion of the Nuclear Triad in 2018, allowing for nuclear deterrence by land, air and sea,[1] as well as Pakistan’s growing development of tactical nuclear weapons which can be deployed on the battlefield. [2] The consolidation of the two states’ nuclear arsenals is significant due to the addition of nuclear capabilities in states which are currently involved in a protracted conflict, having engaged in four large scale military conflicts since partition and independence in 1947. The consolidation of nuclear weapons and continued hostilities in the region presents two key questions that must be considered. How has nuclearisation been used in relation to the protracted conflict and more importantly, has nuclearisation in India and Pakistan effectively created regional stability or further injected instability to the regional conflict?

By Steven Mulholland

Protracted conflict is by definition a conflict which ‘resists the most serious attempts at resolution because of the deep-rooted issues over critical resources, meaning, justice and power.’ [3] The lack of reference to proliferation as a basic feature of protracted conflict in the definition is significant because it assumes that protracted conflicts are already inherently difficult to resolve prior to nuclearisation. This assumption is quite clearly supported in the context of India and Pakistan. Three major conflicts in 1947, 1965, and 1971 occurred between the two states prior to nuclearisation, with no solution being achieved over the major issue of the Kashmir State, perpetuating tensions and instability. The nuclearisation of India and Pakistan and its continued proliferation of weapons has naturally created a division of opinion as to how proliferation impacts the protracted conflict and the region’s stability as a whole. I argue that proliferation has increased instability in the region and further entrenched the protracted conflict.

It should be noted that advocates for nuclear deterrence have argued that India and Pakistan’s nuclearisation would have a positive impact on the protracted conflict, citing the argument that nuclear deterrence would effectively prevent the large-scale conflicts seen in the region, by making ‘war terribly expensive and creating a source of constancy amongst nuclear opponents.’ [4] This argument has been supported to an extent by the nature of India and Pakistan’s operation under a more restrained nuclear policy than the Cold War dynamic between the USSR and US. This dynamic is a result of developing a minimal deterrence system [5] that allows for second strike capabilities, further increasing the costs of conflict in the region.

But of course, the Kargil War in 1999 that occured one year after nuclearisation, refuted the deterrence argument in terms of preventing large-scale conflict. Supporters of deterrence argue that India and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would not have been consolidated enough to provide a substantial deterrence at the time. However, the conflict did prove that known nuclear capabilities did not make the prospect of conflict too costly, and that the two states were willing to deploy military forces in the Kargil region regardless of the nuclear threat. The conflict more accurately showed how nuclearisation contributed towards the escalation, because of ‘both sides possessing a different understanding of nuclear deterrence theory.’ [6] In the case of Pakistan, nuclearisation is perceived as a means of finally being able to respond to Indian military might in conflict. In contrast, India perceives proliferation as a means of deterring conflict and preserving the balance of power with both Pakistan and China, a key military ally of Pakistan.

Supporters of deterrence have also neglected the fact that the conflict in the region is not limited to large-scale outbreaks. The vast majority of disputes in the region have been on a much smaller scale, as seen with the border mobilisation in 2002, India’s use of ‘surgical strikes in Azad Kashmir in 2016’, [7] and the most recent dispute in 2019 over an Indian Air Force pilot taken into Pakistani custody after being shot down in Pakistani controlled Kashmir. It also neglects the fact that small scale attacks, especially the ‘Pakistani-sponsored attacks on the Indian Parliament in 2001 and Mumbai in 2008’, [8] have been made possible by nuclearisation providing a form of protection against a more aggressive military response or retribution by India. This argument is particularly salient when examining Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, which refuses to commit to a no first use policy. Their policy assumes that a low threshold for a nuclear response creates an umbrella of protection that can be used to carry out ‘sub-conventional attacks’ [9] on India. The doctrine is significant in suggesting that proliferation in the region has become a justification and allowance for conducting small-scale action in the region as opposed to serving as a successful deterrent.

Overall, it is impossible to make the claim that the proliferation of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan has not had an impact on the protracted conflict in the region. However, it can be asserted that the nuclearisation of South Asia has become a significant detriment to the conflict. Instead of providing regional stability through effective deterrence on both sides of the conflict it has failed to prevent large-scale conflict and has served as a means of carrying out and perpetuating small-scale conflict. The presence of nuclear capabilities has only entrenched the protracted conflict and created further instability in the region.

Sources

1.  Narang, V (2018) ‘India’s nuclear strategy twenty years later: From reluctance to maturation. India Review,’ Vol. 17 No.1. pp. 159-179.

2.  Gul, Ayaz (2019) ‘Pakistan Equips Military with Tactical Nuke-Capable Missiles,’ Voa news.https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/pakistan-equips-military-tactical-nuke-capable-missile

3.  Coleman, Peter (2003) ‘Characteristics of Protracted, Intractable Conflict: Toward the Development,’ Peace and Conflict, Vol.9. Pp. 1-37.

4.  Noreen.S &  Khan T.M (2016) ‘An Analysis of Indo-Pakistan Nuclear Doctrines,’ Al-Idah, Vol. 33. pp. 50-68.

5.  Basrur. R (2013) ‘China, India and Pakistan: models for an intermediate stage towards disarmament?’ Australian journal of international affairs, Vol. 67 No.2. pp.179-189.

6.  Leghari, Farooque & Moorthy Ravichandaran (2015) ‘Nuclear Deterrence: A complete failure at Kargil,’ Research on Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 5. No. 15. Pp. 105-108.

7.  Hindustan Times Correspondent (2016) ‘India’s surgical strikes across LoC,’ Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-s-surgical-strikes-across-loc-full-statement-by-dgmo-lt-gen-ranbir-singh/story-Q5yrp0gjvxKPGazDzAnVsM.html

8.  Brewster, D (2015)  ‘Murky waters, dangerous currents: India, Pakistan, China and the coming nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean,’ Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, Vol.11 No.2. pp. 1-5.

9.  Brewster, (2015) ‘Murky waters, dangerous currents: India, Pakistan, China and the coming nuclearisation of the Indian Ocean,’ pp. 3.

Where is cyber disarmament?

A decade ago, malware Stuxnet took over the control system for uranium enrichment in Iran and caused hardware to malfunction. A virtual entity caused damage in the material world and demonstrated that futuristic cyber weapons are real. This was not, however, the first case when critical infrastructure (CI) was physically destroyed in a cyber attack. More importantly, the attack did not result in human casualties, so the damage was not enough to politically trigger cyber arms control. Even today, after 10 years of accelerating development and innovation, cyber arms exist — while cyber disarmament does not.

By Anna Romanova

In the cyber domain, finding the balance between security and non-proliferation of armaments has been problematic so far. The general debate seems limited to the definition of a cyber weapon, which diverts attention from real threat assessment. There is a belief that “cyber” always stays virtual. Stuxnet showed that this assumption is incorrect. States rely on heavily computerised control systems to operate transportation, communications, power grids, chemical and nuclear plants, medical aid, and water delivery. In 2000, an attack against the Australian company Hunter Watertech caused liters of raw sewage to spill into parks and water bodies [1]. In 2003, safety monitoring systems on a power plant in Ohio were disabled for five hours by a computer worm [2]. In Texas, right before a major storm, warning systems were switched off when an attack caused dozens of false alarms [3]. AURORA, an experiment by the United States Energy Department, successfully simulated a cyber attack that physically damaged elements of the electrical grid [4].

However unprecedented, neither Stuxnet nor the attacks before it harmed any humans, but this was not a guarantee. Spilt sewage puts local communities at health risk, and a destroyed dam can cause a devastating flood. A power shortage can kill patients in hospitals who rely on sophisticated equipment, while airplanes and trains can collide if navigated incorrectly. People can die if unprepared for a tornado, and the Chernobyl catastrophe demonstrated the disaster of a switched-off security systems at a nuclear power plant. In the long run, persistent lack of access to essential supplies and services can result in social unrest, suicide, the spread of diseases, and crime.

Confusion regarding the scope of cyber warfare prevents constructive assessment of the threat. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary General Hamadoun Toure called for a cyberspace peace treaty in 2009, which was backed by Russia and China [5]. However, the treaty concerned acts of using information and ideology to undermine other states [6]. The weapon of cyber warfare is technology — not information. The treaty was predictably blocked by liberal democracies, as it entails control over the Internet and the use of censorship, which is unacceptable in some states. Also, such an approach should not make actual cyber weapons seem benign. Between 2016 and 2018 water systems in Yemen were damaged through conflict and caused a cholera outbreak, killing 2,200 people [7].

A non-proliferation treaty would create a dialogue to clarify categories and definitions. All previous attempts, however, faced the same obstacles. Disarmament is linked to overcoming a security dilemma. Considering the lack of clarity and consensus, incentives to enter the treaty look weak at best. The former director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, Theresa Hitchens, claimed that states with more intelligence about cyber vulnerabilities are less likely to share this information with others [8]. So, how can one build trust in cyberspace? In fact, every obstacle is also an opportunity. Critical infrastructure is complex and extremely difficult to protect, therefore static defensive deterrence is not acceptable for a majority of states. The illicit market for cyber weapons is bigger and more difficult to control than for any other weaponry. Finally, the same technology can be used for non-lethal crime and destructive attacks.

Several commitments could be mutually beneficial and simultaneously tighten control over state-on-state offensives. States can agree not to store and create backdoors in manufactured goods and to share knowledge about vulnerabilities. Additionally, they can pledge not to allow their territories to be launch pads for cyber attacks [9]. With efficient information sharing in place, protection against domestic criminals may come from abroad. Lastly, as most of CI is owned by the private sector [10], this is an opportunity for them to step in where states are hesitant. CI operators could collaborate to lobby a treaty aimed to control cyber weapons and ensure business continuity.

In any case, reaching consensus over the treaty is realistic and long overdue. Cyber weapons are meant for targeted destruction, but they will be indiscriminate when it comes to human loss. It is practically impossible to control who drinks from certain water sources, who will be affected by radiation or drowned, or who will be on a specific train or plane. And while indirect civilian casualties are difficult to identify and count, they do not matter less.

Finally, even if development and deployment of cyber weapons takes a long time, destructive retaliatory attacks may happen simply as a proof of capability. This way, the most indiscriminate form of warfare will start, where the military are calling the shots and civilians suffer in masses.

SOURCES

[1] Collins, S. & McCombie, S. 2012, "Stuxnet: the emergence of a new cyber weapon and its implications", Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 80-91.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Rosenberg, E. and Salam, M., 2017. Hacking Attack Woke Up Dallas With Emergency Sirens, Officials Say. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/dallas-emergency-sirens-hacking.html [Accessed 25 April 2020].

[4] Carr, J. 2013, "The misunderstood acronym: Why cyber weapons aren't WMD", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 69, no. 5, pp. 32-37.

[5] Gjelten, T. 2010, "SHADOW WARS: Debating Cyber 'Disarmament'", World Affairs, vol. 173, no. 4, pp. 33-42.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Gleick, P.H. 2019, "Water as a Weapon and Casualty of Conflict: Freshwater and International Humanitarian Law", Water Resources Management, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1737-1751.

[8] Weber, R. 2018, "Former UN disarmament official offers plan for mediating cyber tensions among major powers", Inside Cybersecurity, [Online].

[9] Gjelten, 2010.

[10] Weber, 2018.

Pervitin: how drugs transformed warfare in 1939-45

From 1939 to 1945, the Third Reich astonished Europe with its Blitzkrieg on all battlefronts. Its military efficiency has since then been a leitmotiv of history studies. This has been traditionally attributed to its technological superiority and optimisation, as well as its innovative strategies. Indeed, everything was accurately calculated, from the weight of the firearms to the offensive timings. The Wehrmacht would not leave anything to chance. However, there is one more trick to consider: performance-enhancing drugs [1]. These drugs were used as a strategic tool in both camps throughout the Second World War for their invigorating and exciting effects. This article will address how drugs played a pervasive role in the success and failure of Nazi Germany, from the breakthroughs in Poland to the defeat of the regime [2].

By Fabiana Natale

Brief overview of a modern drug

Throughout the war, the Germans consumed Pervitin [3], a methamphetamine, which produces higher energy, while reducing sleep needs and hunger [4]. While those effects would already represent sufficient tactical reasons to distribute this drug among soldiers, its psychological influence also made it very valuable. Indeed, it is said to spark a great enthusiasm, as well as a feeling of confidence and omnipotence [5].

While methamphetamine in crystalline form was produced for the first time in Japan, Pervitin was developed by Fritz Hauschild [6] and patented in Germany in 1937, by the Temmler group [7]. Considered as an energy-booster, its consumption was perfectly legal until 1941.

Norman Ohler, the author who shed light on Pervitin consumption

As Pervitin was legal, it was broadly advertised in Germany, with billboards strewn throughout the capital from 1938 until its regulation in 1941, when its consumption became more obscure.

Since then, the topic remained overlooked until 2015, when Norman Ohler published Der Totale Rausch, translated in English as Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany. First intending to write a novel on the abuse of drugs in Nazi Germany, he ended up conducting research that would offer a whole new understanding of warfare tactics during Second World War. [8] Based on military archives and interrogations of Theodor Morell, Hitler’s doctor, he revealed how a whole nation became dependent on Pervitin [9].

A successful substance in Germany

In 1938 Temmler started commercializing Pervitin and, wishing to compete with Coca-Cola, entrusted Mathes & Son, an advertising agency, with its marketing strategy [10]. In a context of national strain, this advertising resulted in a widespread success. Between the recovery from the First World War and the economic crisis, and the mobilisation for the Second World War, the population welcomed the energising substance with open arms. It was cheap, helped people work, spread euphoria through the country and was not considered a drug. Basically, it only seemed to have beneficial effects [11]. Sometimes even mixed with chocolate, pervitin appeared as harmless [12].

Weaponisation of performance enhancers

Furthermore, the drug was not only popular among workers. Adolf Hitler himself was introduced to drugs by Morell [13]. And it was the whole Wehrmacht, the German Army, that was fuelled with Pervitin [14]. 

Indeed, after having performed tests on students, Otto Ranke, director of the Institute for General and Defense Physiology at Berlin's Academy of Military Medicine, suggested that methamphetamine compounds could improve the soldiers’ performance [15]. Introduced in the daily rations and consumed up to twice a day, the drug gave the soldiers supernatural capabilities. Fearless and cheerful, they could spend more than three days without sleeping and walk up to 60 kilometres without interruption. This allowed for the fast invasion of Poland in 1939, the Blitzkrieg through the French Ardennes in 1940, and the Balkan Campaign of 1941, fought without rest for 11 days [16].

“When they started laying in the snow to let themselves die, I decided to give them Pervitin. After half an hour, they spontaneously started telling me they were feeling better” [17]. With such testimonies from military commanders, the archives studied by Ohler reveal how pleased they were with the positive effects of Pervitin and how they asked for more provisions. [18] The drug was distributed to all soldiers, with its manufacture exceeding 35 million doses of three milligrams just in April and May 1940. For tank troops for example, “there was a clear order to use Pervitin”, often in the shape of Panzerschokolade [19]. However, it was in particular the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, that was the most interested in the increased attention span it ensured for the pilots and named it the “pilot’s salt” [20].

A late and approximate regulation

Yet the drug, beside the unbelievable performances it allowed, obviously brought side effects. Indeed, early reports found in the archives mentioned adverse effects such as exhaustion, heart pain, and circulation problems [21]. This instigated further study that led to the identification of Pervitin as an intoxicant by the Reichsgesundheitsführer Leonardo Conti, the Reich’s health top official, and to its prohibition in 1941 [22].

Such a decision falls within the anti-drug rhetoric that Hitler and his party had disseminated since 1933, which had first led to a large national withdrawal, meant to reduce the German economic dependence from pharmaceuticals and to tackle an alarming addiction problem. It seems though, that just a few years after the development of this national no-poison philosophy, the NSDAP had, out of deliberate inconsistency or simply ignorance, led to a new national dependence. 

However, making the new substance illegal in 1941 did not have much consequence. One could no longer purchase it without a prescription; nevertheless, consumption did not decrease much, not even among civilians [23].

In particular among the ranks of the military, the prohibition was totally ignored. As a matter of fact, military officials seemed to find its distribution legitimate, especially due to the short-term benefits it was providing the army [24]. In fact, its consumption actually increased during the Operation Barbarossa from June to December 1941 [25]. At this point, one could even wonder whether the new legislation was actually meant to avoid large scale dependence. Perhaps was it meant to limit civilian consumption in order to ensure the Wehrmacht supply?

Physiological and strategic adverse effects

From 1941, the Reich knew that Pervitin brought side effects and risks of addiction. However, even when soldiers were dying because of heart failures or committing suicide due to the psychotic phases, the methamphetamine continued to fuel the country until the end of war. 

The primary concern was related to dependence. Indeed, providing soldiers with daily doses inevitably made them, and their performance, dependent on Pervitin. Heinrich Böll’s written testimonies, for instance, reflect this concern for supply. He was enrolled in the Wehrmacht and during his time on the battlefield, he sent letters to his family back in Germany. In one of them, sent in May 1940, he asked "Perhaps you could obtain some more Pervitin for my supplies? [...] It makes miracles” [26]. He needed it to ensure his physical performance, and benefit from its psychological effects, importantly, maintaining a state of euphoria despite the atrocities of war [27].

And if having a whole population addicted to a drug is, for obvious reasons, not optimal, a major issue appeared with shortage and withdrawal. Indeed, the German population and army experienced the symptoms we know today such as nausea, hallucinations, and diminution of cognitive capacities, anxiety and depression [28].

And despite Conti’s attempt to limit the use of Pervitin, he could do nothing to prevent abuses. The situation escalated over the years and soldiers died increasingly from cardiac failure, suicide, or military miscalculations. The control had just slipped out of their hands. Comparably, Morell’s interrogations reveal how Hitler’s own drug addiction led to poor strategic choices, [29] allowing enemy victories such as the Normandy landings. 

Hence, Germany’s secret weapon, that had allowed the Wehrmacht to shine in the first years of war, backfired and became a reason for the decline and the fall of the Third Reich. [30]

Sources

[1] Gelis, N (2019) “La Pervitin, catalyseur du Blitzkrieg? [½]”, [online] available at https://les-yeux-du-monde.fr/histoires/41384-la-pervitin-catalyseur-du-blitzkrieg-1-2, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[2] Herzog, D (2017) “Hitler’s Little Helper: A History of Rampant Drug Use Under the Nazis”, [online] available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/books/review/blitzed-drugs-third-reich-norman-ohler.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[3] Snelders, S (2011), “Speed in the Third Reich: Metamphetamine (Pervitin) Use and a Drug History From Below” in Social History of Medicine, Vol 24, No 3, pp 689-99

[4] Hurst, F (2013) “The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth”, [online] available at https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/crystal-meth-origins-link-back-to-nazi-germany-and-world-war-ii-a-901755.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[5] Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

[6] Meyer, U (2005), “Fritz hauschild (1908-1974) and drug research in the 'German Democratic Republic' (GDR)” Pharmazie, Vol 60, No6, pp. 468-72.

[7] Cooke, R (2016), “High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history” [online] available at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/blitzed-norman-ohler-adolf-hitler-nazi-drug-abuse-interview, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[8] Ibid.

[9]  Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

[10] Ohler, N (2018), Nationalsozialismus in Pillenform: Der Aufstieg des Stimulanzmittels Pervitin im „Dritten Reich“ : Springer, p72

[11] Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

[12] Alemanianazi, Las drogas en la Alemania nazi, [online] available at https://alemanianazi.com/las-drogas-en-la-alemania-nazi/ last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[13] Herzog, D (2017) “Hitler’s Little Helper: A History of Rampant Drug Use Under the Nazis”, [online] available athttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/books/review/blitzed-drugs-third-reich-norman-ohler.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[14]  Constant, A (2019), “« Alliés et nazis sous amphétamines » : pervitine et benzédrine, drogues de combat”, [online] available at https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2019/08/20/allies-et-nazis-sous-amphetamines-pervitine-et-benzedrine-drogues-de-combat_5501050_3246.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[15] Pruitt, S (2019), “Inside the Drug Use That Fueled Nazi Germany’, [online] available at https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-drug-use-that-fueled-nazi-germany,  last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[16]  Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

[17] Unknown (2013), “Les soldats nazis dopés à la méthamphétamine pour rester concentrés”, [online] available at https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/06/04/soldats-nazis-methamphetamine-drogue-heinrich-boll-hitler_n_3379664.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[18]  Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

[19] Dokoo (2016), “Panzerschokolade - Crystal Meth bei der Wehrmacht | Doku”, [online] available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNBmbOMdZnE, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[20] Garber, M (2013) “'Pilot's Salt': The Third Reich Kept Its Soldiers Alert With Meth”, [online] available at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilots-salt-the-third-reich-kept-its-soldiers-alert-with-meth/276429/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[21] Barba, D (2018), “Les junkies d’Adolf Hitler”, [online] available at https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/capture-d-ecrans/capture-d-ecrans-15-janvier-2018, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[22] Andreas, P (2020), “How Methamphetamine Became a Key Part of Nazi Military Strategy”, [online] available at  https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[23] Fuhrer, A (2019), “Ein Volk unter Drogen: Speed-Pralinen für die Frau, Weckamin für den Soldaten”, [online] available at https://www.focus.de/wissen/mensch/geschichte/nationalsozialismus/volksdroge-pervitin-wie-im-rausch-eroberte-die-wehrmacht-polen_id_10101532.html, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[24] Andreas, P (2020), “How Methamphetamine Became a Key Part of Nazi Military Strategy”, [online] available at  https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[25] Unknown (2018), “Archivi tag: Pervitin”, [online] available at https://team557.wordpress.com/tag/pervitin/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[26] Lucchetti, M (2019), Le armi che hanno cambiato la seconda guerra mondiale : Newton Compton Editori.

[27] Mastrobuoni, T (2015) “Oppiacei e anfetamine, le armi segrete di Hitler”, [online] available at https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/2015/09/09/news/oppiacei-e-anfetamine-le-armi-segrete-di-hitler-1.35222009, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[28] Andreas, P (2020), “How Methamphetamine Became a Key Part of Nazi Military Strategy”, [online] available at  https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[29] Unknown (2018), “Archivi tag: Pervitin”, [online] available at https://team557.wordpress.com/tag/pervitin/, last accessed March 4th, 2020.

[30]  Ohler, N (2015), Der Totale Rausch : Drogen im Dritten Reich : Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

Politics of Planetary Emergency

For decades, organizations like The Climate Mobilization have argued that, ‘entering emergency mode is the critical first step to launching the comprehensive mobilization required to rescue and rebuild civilization’ [1]. By using language historically reserved for war, insurrection, or terrorism, climate activists hope to inspire a sense of urgency in governments that have been dragging their feet on making the necessary policy changes. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many in the world lived in blissful ignorance as to what exactly a state of emergency would entail. Its effects on government, society, and our day-to-day were difficult to imagine in the absence of any lived experience. COVID-19 has changed that entirely: as an international community we have learned a powerful lesson in just how quickly everything can change. Now that we are witnessing the real implications of a global emergency, should we still endorse its use in relation to the climate?

By Margaret Born

Emergencies are urgent threats that demand rapid, sweeping action. They justify a suspension of norms at every level, from behavioural changes in a citizen’s daily routine to otherwise unconstitutional expansions of government control. They demand securitisation, a process by which ‘an actor (governments) claims an existential threat (pandemic) to a valued referent object (citizens’ lives) in order to make the audience (citizens) tolerate extraordinary measures that otherwise would not have been acceptable’ [2].

The great advantage of a state of emergency is the swiftness with which it allows governments to act. The central frustration of climate activists is the refusal of states to commit to the scale and pace of change necessary to curb the effects of climate change and maintain the habitability of Earth. If anthropogenic warming is framed as an existential threat and the state does not take the steps necessary to address that threat, then it is failing to protect its citizens.

As of yet, environmental budgets have been woefully insufficient to the task at hand, and a state of emergency could inspire an immediate windfall. On March 26, 2020, less than two weeks after the US government declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency, Congress approved nearly $2 trillion USD of stimulus funding in order to minimise economic downturn [3]. Based on its current budget of $6.1 billion USD, that kind of commitment could fund the Environmental Protection Agency for over 300 years [4]. The state of emergency instantly rallied the political will necessary to commit massive amounts of funding towards the pandemic and could potentially do the same for climate protection initiatives. Considering the magnitude and ubiquity of its eventual impact, it would stand to reason that states might rally the same resources to combating climate change in a state of emergency.

In the absence of existential threat, most democracies defer to the preferences of citizens and private companies in day-to-day behaviour. Environmentally detrimental habits of overconsumption, pollution, and waste are slow to change because that change is not typically regulated by the government. The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded sweeping behavioural change with increasingly severe consequences for those who refuse to adhere to them. In Italy, non-essential companies that remained open despite lockdown orders were forcibly closed down and had their owners formally charged with fines and/or prison sentences [5]. Enforcing stricter social norms for the environment could bring about the social changes necessary for effective climate change mitigation, as it has for those necessary to minimise the spread of the virus.

The prospect of rapid, sweeping environmental change would make a state of emergency and the securitisation it necessitates appealing -- but, we must ask at what cost are these changes wrought? A video of ten police officers forcibly dragging an unmasked man off of a public bus in Philadelphia, USA recently went viral [6]. The potential physical brutality of law enforcement points to the dangers of the deal we make when we allow securitisation’s implementation of extraordinary measures: are we willing to relinquish our agency in exchange for greater protection from an existential threat?

If the emergency is grave enough, many are willing to sacrifice personal freedoms to address it. Extreme measures can be tolerable as long as they are limited in time. In the case of COVID-19, the end of these enforced limits is in sight: researchers are working at breakneck speed to develop a vaccine [7], and based on the pattern established in China, proper containment could limit the worst of the pandemic to a matter of months [8]. Climate change, on the other hand, would require decades of concerted effort to mitigate. In the words of Mike Hulme, it would be a ‘quasi-permanent state of emergency’ [9].

With the perspective we have gained from the COVID-19 pandemic, these considerations can ultimately be reduced to one fundamental question: are long-term limits on our autonomy an acceptable price to pay for action on climate change?

Sources

 [1] ‘Climate Emergency – The Climate Mobilization’. Available at: https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/climate-emergency/ (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[2] Politics, security, theory - Ole Wæver, 2011 (no date). Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.dcu.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1177/0967010611418718 (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[3] Coronavirus Outbreak Timeline Fast Facts - CNN. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/health/wuhan-coronavirus-timeline-fast-facts/index.html (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[4] US EPA, O. (2019) EPA FY 2020 Budget Proposal Released, US EPA. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-fy-2020-budget-proposal-released (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[5] More than 50,000 people in Italy charged with breaking quarantine rules - The Local. Available at: https://www.thelocal.it/20200320/more-than-50000-people-in-italy-charged-with-breaking-quarantine-rules (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[6] News, A. B. C. (no date) Philadelphia police drag man without mask off public bus, prompting policy change, ABC News. Available at: https://abcnews.go.com/US/philadelphia-police-drag-man-mask-off-public-bus/story?id=70104383 (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[7] How Will the Coronavirus End? - The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/ (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[8] Reuters (2020) ‘China reports no new coronavirus deaths as cases decline’, 7 April. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-toll-idUSKBN21P034 (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

[9] Hulme, M. (2019) ‘Climate Emergency Politics Is Dangerous | Issues in Science and Technology’, 9 December. Available at: https://issues.org/climate-emergency-politics-is-dangerous/ (Accessed: 24 April 2020).

Germany's intelligence blind eye towards right-wing extremism: the National Socialist Underground terror attacks

By Emma Van Heeswijk

Recent far-right extremist attacks in Germany, like the attacks in Hanau on the 19th of February this year and the attack in Halle in late 2019, have started a new debate [1]. The media regularly reports about new right-wing extremist movements and far-right ideologies that are on the rise. However, others argue that the latest attacks in Germany are not as surprising as they may seem. The case of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) which took place almost ten years ago gives an idea of the German intelligence systems’ struggle to investigate potential violence stemming from right-wing extremism in its early stages.

In May 2013, Munich held the highest-profile trial in Germany for the disclosure of the neo-Nazi terror network, the National Socialist Underground (NSU). They were responsible for ten racially motivated murders, two bomb explosions in Cologne, and several robberies between 1998 and 2011 [2]. These events were a nation-wide shock, but should not have come as any surprise – as multiple NSU commission reports later revealed [3]. It was only after the NSU released video material and claimed responsibility for the ten murders that the security service made the connection between the attacks and the network [4]. Following this, the state established a parliamentary inquiry committee to look into alleged ‘systematic failures’ of the domestic intelligence service of the Federal Republic (the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV), and the federal police (the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) [5].  The trial questioned the role of the BfV and the causes for its failure to identify the threat, however many questions remain unanswered [6]. This article examines the question ‘to what extent did the terror attacks led by the NSU constitute an intelligence failure by the German intelligence system?’

The manifestation of several interrelated errors within the security system explains how German intelligence failed to connect the dots and stop the NSU attacks. Sandow-Quirks defines intelligence as, ‘a cyclical process by which information, broadly defined, is acquired, processed, evaluated, stored and used as the basis for action [7].’ With multiple failures evident within the intelligence cycle, I argue that the handling of the NSU attacks represents a major intelligence failure on the part of German intelligence

COMMUNICATION CHAIN DYSFUNCTION

The lack of communication within the domestic intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany (BfV) contributed to a failure in effectively processing intelligence data. In their report, the commission of inquiry into the NSU attacks observed that the failure was not down to poor or insufficient collection of raw data, but rather bureaucratic dysfunction within the system [8]. The intelligence service was well aware of the existence and violent potential of right-wing terrorists [9], especially  after the discovery of a garage containing high explosives rented by Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. The trio had been known to the police as members of the so-called Thuringia Home Guard [10], a militant neo-Nazi collective, since the 1990’s [11].

After the Cold War, the German Federation implemented a separation of powers between the domestic federal intelligence agencies and the federal police [12]. This was a structural control mechanism to protect citizens and prevent excessive personal information sharing between the agencies [13]. It is important to note that Germany has no overarching domestic intelligence agency; the responsibility of intelligence collection is split among the different states within the country. This structural separation inhibits intelligence data sharing. The terrorist trio operated within several German states, however information from investigations into the murders of migrants was not adequately shared [14]. Consequently, the police never drew any connection between the murders even though they were all committed with the same Ceska 83 pistol [15]. The intelligence structure and the restriction of information sharing in Germany both hinder the ability to make proper connections between investigations [16].

SOURCE PROTECTION: INTELLIGENCE AGENTS AND THE NSU NETWORK

The interaction between the domestic intelligence service and the right-wing network offers greater understanding as to why German intelligence did not follow up any investigations regarding the NSU. Whether intelligence agents purposely or unconsciously supported the NSU network is a matter of debate. The commission reports show that information from informants and covert actions had been leaked from the BfV to the NSU network [17]. One murder case in 2006 stands out significantly and sheds dubious light on the role of the intelligence agents. The victim was shot in an internet café in which Andreas Temme, a domestic secret service agent was present [18]. The agent did not notify the police of his presence at the murder scene and later on, after being tracked down by the police, denied having witnessed the murder [19]. If the intelligence system fails in profiling their own informants and agents’ motives and does not properly vet their backgrounds, as in Temme’s case, then information risks being misused, hidden and in some cases falsified [20]. In other words, the problem goes further than communicational errors. The intertwining of the BfV and the radical right network was counterproductive. Alrich and Richterova concluded that the European national accountability bodies, whose role is to ensure the objectivity and accuracy of the intelligence services, have performed poorly during the past decade [21]. The failure of intelligence oversight to sufficiently check the backgrounds of the secret service agents constitutes another error in the cycle of failure regarding the NSU attacks.

FAILURE OF PERCEPTION

The German political agenda in the 21st century resulted in the underestimation of right-wing terrorism and thus ineffective policy formulation. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 led to a shift in the German intelligence structure. Threats were redefined and accordingly prioritised [22]. When it was revealed that the attacks launched by Al-Qaeda were planned  in Hamburg, Germany was put under the spotlight and accused of failing to spot a potential Jihadist terrorist threat [23]. Germany joined the War on Terror after 9/11, publishing several BfV reports that underlined their increased perception of Islamist radicalisation as a serious threat [24]. In 2004 the BKA and BfV established the ‘Common Terrorism Defense Center’. Its main purpose is to collectively investigate and share files regarding Islamic extremism and jihadist terrorism [25]. At that time, there was no corresponding intelligence-sharing mechanism focused on right-wing terrorism. The BfV in 2004 even concluded that, ‘Right now, there are no recognizable far-right terrorist organisations or structures in Germany’ [26].

Investigations into the ten NSU murders were not connected before 2011, when the terrorist trio was discovered. Investigations into the murders had almost exclusively focused on the key characteristic ‘migrants’ and the ‘victims’ alleged ties to organised criminal groups such as the ‘Turkish Mafia’ [27]. As a result of those discriminating misperceptions, the threat of radical right-wing militancy receded into the background. Although it was well known at an early stage that the terrorist trio had significant radical beliefs and access to explosives, it seemed unimaginable that they could become a threat.

CONCLUSION

The first error within the German intelligence system can be found in a lack of coordination between the BfV and the BKA [29].  The second concerns the failure of intelligence accountability and the role of the covert agents within the radical right-wing network. They did not merely hinder investigations, but seemingly contributed to the success of the NSU. The third error appeared at the stage of analysis and the inability of the security service to effectively recognize and prioritize threats.

The secret service can be viewed as a single entity, whereby an error in one aspect does not necessarily cause an entire intelligence failure, if the other parts of the security service are properly functioning. In the case of the NSU terror attack, it would be reasonable to argue that an intelligence failure was unavoidable, but not every failure was rooted in intelligence. Rather, several malfunctions within the security system, including the irresponsibility of policy and decision-makers, came together in time and place and therefore constituted a huge, systemic failure of intelligence.

Sources

[1] Caniglia Mattia, Winkler Linda and Métais Solène (2020) ‘The rise of the right-wing violent extremism threat in Germany and its transnational character,’ ESISC.

[2] McGowan, Lee (2014) ‘Right-Wing Violence in Germany: Assessing the Objectives, Personalities and Terror Trail of the National Socialist Underground and the State's Response to it,’ German Politics Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 196-212.

[3] Von Der Behrens, Antonia (2018) ‘Lessons from Germany’s NSU Case,’ Race & Class Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 84–91.

[4] ‘NSU-Bekennervideo’ (2015) YouTube video, posted by ‘ZOB,’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bLdBWtCzD4

[5] Von Der Behrens, ‘Lessons from Germany’s NSU case’

[6] Hardy, Keiran (2019) ‘Countering right-wing extremism: lessons from Germany and Norway,’ Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 262-279.

[7] Sandow-Quirk Mary (2002) ‘A failure of intelligence,’ Prometheus Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.131

[8] Betts, Richard K. (1978) ‘Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable, ’ World Politics, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 61–89; Shulsky, Abram N., and Gary James Schmitt (2002) ‘Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence,’ Third, revis ed. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books., pp. 63

[9] Von Der Behrens, Antonia (2017) ‘Summary of Political, Social and Legal Aspects of the Case against the National Socialist Underground (NSU)’.

[10] In German: Thüringer Heimatschutz

[11] Virchow, ‘Der »NSU« Und Der Staatliche Sicherheitsapparat,’ pp. 147.

[12] This is governed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in § 2 para. 1 and § 8 para. 3 BVerfSchG.

[13] Virchow, ‘Der »NSU« Und Der Staatliche Sicherheitsapparat,’ pp.145.; Glossar online "Trennungsgebot", Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/de/service/glossar/_lT

[14] Hillebrand, Claudia (2019) ‘Placebo Scrutiny? Far-Right Extremism and Intelligence Accountability in Germany,’ Intelligence and National Security Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 38-61.

[15] Von Der Behrens, ‘Lessons from Germany’s NSU case’ 

[16] Schultz, Tanjev. (2018) ‘NSU: Der Terror von rechts und das Versagen des Staates,’ Droemer eBook, pp. 63.

[17] Hillebrand, Placebo Scrutiny? Far-Right Extremism.

[18] Von Der Behrens, ‘Lessons from Germany’s NSU case’  

[19] Schultz, Tanjev, NSU: Der Terror von rechts.

[20] Förster, Andreas, et al. (2014) ‘Geheimsache NSU. Zehn Morde, von Aufklärung keine Spur,’ pp.121.

[21] Aldrich, Richard J. and Daniela Richterova (2018) ‘Ambient Accountability: Intelligence Services in Europe and the Decline of State Secrecy,’ West European Politics 41, no. 4, pp. 1011.

[22] Heuer, Richards J.  (2005) ‘Limits of Intelligence Analysis’ Orbis Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 80

[23] Schultz, Tanjev. NSU: Der Terror von rechts, pp. 63.

[24] Hillebrand, Placebo Scrutiny? Far-Right Extremism.

[25] Translated from German: Gemeinsames Terrosismusabwehrzentrum (GTAZ). Bundeskriminalamt.  https://www.bka.de/DE/UnsereAufgaben/Kooperationen/GTAZ/gtaz_node.html

[26] Verfassungsschutz, Bundesamt (2004) Radikalisierungsprozesse und extremistische Milieus. Ein Symposium des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz Köln.

[27]Von Der Behrens, Antonia (2017) ‘Summary of Political, Social and Legal Aspects of the Case against the National Socialist Underground (NSU)’; Virchow, ‘Der »NSU« Und Der Staatliche Sicherheitsapparat,’ pp.145.; Glossar online "Trennungsgebot", Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/de/service/glossar/_lT

[28] Koehler Daniel, edt. (2017) ‘Right-Wing Terrorism in the 21st Century: The National Socialist Underground and the History of Terror from the Far Right in Germany,’ Journal of Terrorism Research Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 89-91.

Intelligence Oversight: Bringing Accountability to Failure or Dodging Political Blame

Ever since figures such as Snowden and Assange exploded onto our televisions in the early 2010s, we have become increasingly obsessed with the ethics of intelligence. The end of the Cold War ushered in a new age of scepticism towards the practises of intelligence gathering, analysis and execution. Modern discourse on the subject is increasingly distrustful of the state and ever critical whenever intelligence failures occur. To say nothing of the ever pervasive conspiracy theories surrounding events such as 9/11, whenever attacks occur in the West a series of legitimate questions emerge. Could it have been prevented? Who is to blame for failing to prevent such an attack? Is it an uncomfortable truth that intelligence failure is inevitable and will necessarily result in public endangerment from time to time?

By Alasdair Revie

Accountability in the intelligence process is often advanced as an absolute positive force, with those who advocate for it often pointing to evidence which states that, the more accountable an intelligence community is, the more effective its oversight procedures are. However, when the question of accountability is raised, several more questions necessarily follow. For example: to whom should the intelligence services be accountable? In the case of the United Kingdom, the apparatus of intelligence is purportedly accountable to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), made up of nine parliamentarians. Yet, an analysis of whether the ISC is an example of true accountability and the effects of increasing the liability of the intelligence community to it, yields interesting results.

The ISC inquiry into the 2002 Bali bombings is illustrative. This inspection concluded that ‘MI5 made a ‘serious misjudgement’ and failed to ‘assess the threat correctly’...,’[1] while simultaneously noting that there had not been enough evidence available to prevent the attack. [2] Thus, the government responded by redefining threat level assessments in order to ‘make them more informative to customers’. [3] This reassessment was the suggestion of the Security Service review rather than the ISC, with “customers”, meaning the public, being a revealing choice of words. Hence, we have a case wherein the observations of the ISC, the proper mechanism of intelligence oversight, have been overshadowed by a solution which opts to pander to the “customer”. It may have been the case that the alternative solution was more agreeable to the government than attempting to address fundamental concerns with MI5's ability to correctly appraise threats and gather intelligence. However, this outcome has serious consequences for the accountability process, and lends itself towards the concept that British intelligence oversight procedures may be more of a political apparatus than a performance enhancing procedure.

Furthermore, when parliamentarians are presented with the opportunity to address the role and performance of the ISC through its annual report, it is rare to find a demand for an increase in accountability. Mark Phythian notes that during the 2006-7 debate on the ISC's annual report ‘...just nine MPs were called to speak, six of whom were members of the ISC. An additional six MPs, one of them an ISC member, made interventions during those speeches.’ [4] This is despite the fact that in 2000, and again in 2007, the ISC was denied access to the annual report of the Intelligence Services Commissioner on the grounds that the information within was too sensitive for parliamentarians. [5] Thus, there appears to be a lack of will on the part of parliament to empower themselves, where their role in intelligence oversight is concerned. This once again implies that without public - and therefore political - demand for accountability reform, the measures designed to prevent lapses in the intelligence process will not adapt of their own accord.

So, perhaps one can rely on the public to hold the intelligence consortium to account given that the principles of many Western democracies already assume this role of the electorate regarding government as a whole. Hastedt's analysis of this topic identifies two key circumstances which he claims must occur in order for the voter to play a role in intelligence oversight. Firstly, the notoriously clandestine activity of intelligence agencies and which inconspicuous figure is responsible for said activity must be evident to the public. Further, the public must prioritise voting on the basis of something being done about it. [6] The short answer as to whether or not this is a reliable and effective method for ensuring robust oversight procedures is no, [7] however it would be recommended to read further into the work of Hastedt in order to receive his long-form and rather more nuanced response. Accordingly, what can one possibly conclude from these observations?

It is easy, when addressing intelligence oversight, to leaf through mistake after mistake, ignoring the silent victories of every unrecorded terror attack or cyber breach. However, it is also important to bear in mind that it took a scandal on the scale of the Iran-Contra affair in order to see the creation of an independent inspector general to oversee the intelligence community in the United States. Thus, we must acknowledge that any organic evolution in the procedures of intelligence oversight remains unlikely. So too is an outcome in which government responds to intelligence failure in an apolitical manner. After all, both governance and intelligence are highly political animals; an unsatisfying and somewhat cynical conclusion perhaps. However, the question of what can be done about this remains open and, as in many things, identifying and exposing such issues can be the first step in finding a solution to them.

Sources

[1] Phythian, Mark. “The British Experience with Intelligence Accountability.” Intelligence and National Security 22, no. 1 (2007): 75–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684520701200822.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Government Response to the Intelligence and Security Committee Inquiry into Intelligence, Assessments and Advice prior to the Terrorist Bombings on Bali 12 October 2002, Cm 5765, February 2003, para.10 in Ibid.

[4] Phythian, Mark. “‘A Very British Institution’: The Intelligence and Security Committee and Intelligence Accountability in the United Kingdom.” The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, December 2010, 698–718. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195375886.003.0042. 

[5] Ibid.

[6] Hastedt, Glenn. “The Politics of Intelligence Accountability.” The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, December 2010, 718–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195375886.003.0043.

[7] Ibid.

Why Torture is Ethically Unjustifiable (II)

Part 2

In 2014, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) published a report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Detainee and Interrogation Program (DIP)[1] The report presents ‘overwhelming’ and ‘incontrovertible’ evidence of torture used against CIA detainees between 2001 and 2009.[2] This, however, should come as no surprise knowing that the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) include simulated drowning (waterboarding), sleep deprivation up to 180 hours, debilitating stress positions, and threats to rape family members among other methods.[3] Although EITs merely amount to a euphemism for torture, proponents claim that such methods are simply ‘enhancing interrogation’ and crucial to obtain information from uncooperative detainees in order to prevent imminent terror attacks.[4] The following questions thus remain: What is considered torture? and Does torture work?  As consequentialists take an opposing stance to an absolute ban on torture, it is important to emphasize that they only do so on the condition of its efficacy. After all, as stated in part one of this essay, torture would not increase the collective utility if it does not deliver the required results. The answer to both questions lies in the field of neuroscience. 

 By Maarten Visser

What is Considered Torture?

An authoritative point of reference is the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT),[5] which forms the design of numerous national legislations. The CAT defines torture as ‘an act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.’[6]  Although this definition offers a valid starting point, it contains shortcomings – especially with regards to torture for intelligence purposes (interrogational torture). To begin with, it fails to identify the unique relation between captive and tormentor, in which the former must have total inability to protect himself or fight back against the latter. Hereby, Michael Davis suggests that the torturer often knows much more about the victim than the other way around and, therefore, usually also has intellectual or psychological dominance.[7] However, this sense of control is neither necessary nor sufficient. Another inadequacy of this definition is its limitation to acts, while ‘not acting,’ such as the withholding of medical treatment, can also constitute torture.[8] Furthermore, it overlooks the fact that interrogational torture requires total absence of consent of the victim.[9] In order to address these shortcomings from the CAT definition, I will  define interrogational torture as the intentional infliction, by act or omission, of severe pain or suffering, whether mental or physical, on a defenceless and non-consenting person over whom a state actor as physcological influence, in order to obtain information.[10] 

Nonetheless, the fundamental question of torture’s continuum remains: how severe must physical and mental pain or suffering be in order to qualify as torture? After all, torture once constituted an aggravated form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.[11] Evidently, the answer to this question is complicated. It can be argued, however, that the judgements found in the 2002 Torture Memos, which tend to justify the DIP seem highly inaccurate: they are narrowing the scope of torture to pain and suffering that result in long-term psychological harm, organ failure, impairment of bodily function or death.[12] This is not to say, however, that EITs are not capable of resulting in these long-term consequences. The repeated waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah offers a striking example. Aside from the convulsions and vomiting caused by his treatment, following one of the sessions, Abu Zubaydah became completely unresponsive with bubbles rising out of his mouth.[13] George W. Bush stated in 2010 that “medical experts” had assured the CIA that EITs could not cause any “lasting harm”.[14] These “medical experts,” though, have yet to be identified.

Although pain and suffering are complex phenomena, they are not impossible to measure. Ronald Melzack and Warren Torgerson made significant claims that pain is more than purely a physical sensation.[15] More specifically, pain is a highly subjective multidimensional experience whereby affective dimensions (such as fear, anxiety, and distress) and sensory dimensions (aching, stinging, burning, etc.) are interdependent and equally essential components.[16] Furthermore, according to Paul Kenny, there is an incorrect utilitarian assumption that pain and suffering not only differ qualitatively, but also quantitatively.[17] There is strong evidence that suffering from sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, certain stress positions, or humiliating treatment, does not differ substantially from physical torture in terms of the underlying mechanism of traumatic stressors and their long-term psychological outcomes.[18] This ultimately means that pain and suffering require a broader and more refined interpretation than the implications from the 2002 Torture Memos. 

Does torture work?

Most of us have experienced a jetlag or other kinds of intense fatigue. It would then not be the easiest task to focus and pay attention, let alone reproduce exact information from several years ago; the only desire is to sleep. We all have some sense of how it would be if people keep you awake for 180 hours. Alongside the fact that sleep deprivation can severely damage brain function, experience shows that people will say anything the torturer wants to hear if subjected to such extreme conditions.[19] 

Scholars make the distinction between interviews and interrogations, the latter demonstrating a more coercive nature.[20] Through coercion, captives are more likely to be presumed guilty or given misleading evidence.[21] EITs primarily consist of harsh confrontation alternated with prolonged isolation of the captive. Psychological studies have shown that the desire to escape isolation and agonising guilt-presumptive interrogation techniques are common factors in the provision of false statements.[22] Accordingly, the SSCI findings conclude that EITs largely produced false and fabricated information.[23] For example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), who was waterboarded at least 183 times, provided predominantly false information which ultimately caused the imprisonment of two innocent individuals.[24] Moreover, intelligence that led to Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti (an Al Qaeda member who gave information leading to the killing of Usama Bin Laden) did not come from any of the three detainees who were waterboarded.[25] In fact, KSM told the CIA that Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti had moved away and completely ceased his involvement in Al Qaeda, neither of which were true.[26]

It is an all-too-common mistake to believe that telling the truth will ultimately stop torture; in fact, just talking does. To address this claim, it is important to emphasise the asymmetrical power relationship between interrogator and captive, and, more specifically, the distinct motivations of each. Shane O’Mara illustrates these motivations with reference to the Pavlovian condition.[27] The captive who desperately wants to escape extreme stress recognises stimuli in the brain that signal periods of safety during these events. In a torture situation, the safety signal for the captive in a torture situation would be the act of speaking: when the captive speaks, the torturer stops torturing, whether the captive is telling the truth or not.[28] Therefore, it is evident that torture does not reliably produce truthful information. 

Another argument for the ineffectiveness of torture is that extreme stress and pain affect memory and manipulate the brain. The parts of the brain that regulate memory and stress are highly interdependent and reciprocal.[29] As previously stated, pain and suffering are multidimensional experiences which invoke prolonged and extreme stress. These stressors have a damaging effect on the frontal lobe, the area of the brain that controls cognitive functions such as communication and memory. In this respect, O’Mara argues that frontal lobe disorders frequently result in confabulation.[30] Furthermore, it has been suggested that the use of misleading or false information by the interrogator as part of EITs can lead to memory distortion of the captive.[31] In this essence, Misty C. Duke and Damien Van Puyvelde emphasise the distinction between suggesting accurate and truthful evidence to a captive on the one hand and deceitful or inaccurate information on the other. The former might contribute to detecting deception and building a productive relationship with the captive, whereas the latter may lead to faulty intelligence and consequently, leave interrogators astray.[32]

Conclusion

Torture is demeaning and violates the fundamental existence of human beings as bearers of dignity with the utmost unimaginable cruelty. For this reason alone, as mentioned in part 1 of this article, torture is ethically unjustifiable. Even a threshold deontological approach is completely unwarranted because “ticking bomb” scenarios are more myth than reality. Once torture is permitted it will have a corrupting effect on governmental institutions, as the vast amount of evidence of deceit and the covering of tracks contained within the SSCI report attests. Above all, torture is not proven to work as a reliable source of accurate intelligence. The CIA’s EITs provide a striking example of this. The techniques used, have proven to be deleterious, and their heuristic nature is extremely obstructive to the captive’s cognitive and neurobiological functioning. These techniques that supposedly enhance intelligence collection do exactly the opposite – they hinder interrogation. 

Sources

[1] U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, S. Rpt. 113–288, at http://www.intelligence.senaat.gov/publications  

[2] Ibid., 4 and 160-161.

[3] Ibid., 4 and 12.

[4] Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat Responding to the challenge (London: Yale University Press, 2002).

[5] Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly. 10 December 1984.

[6] Ibid., article 1, paragraph 1. 

[7] Michael Davis, “The Moral Justifiability of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment,” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 19 no. 2 (January 2005): 164.

[8] Mathew H. Kramer, Torture and Moral Integrity: A philosophical enquiry. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 32-33.

[9] Ibid., 51-53. Kramer’s criticism is not directed to interrogational torture. 

[10] I used the VAT definition as starting point.

[11] Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Article 1, paragraph 2. Adopted by General Assembly. 9 December 1975. 

[12] U.S. Department of Justice. Memorandum from Jay S. Bybee to Alberto R. Gonzales, Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C.§§ 2340-2340A, 1 August 2002 at www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/documents/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf

[13] SSCI Report, xii and 44.

[14] George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Random House, 2010), 169.

[15] Ronald Melzack and Warren R. Torgerson, “On the Language of Pain,” Anaesthesiology 34, no. 1 (1971): 58 and Donald D. Price “Psychological and Neural Mechanisms of the Affective Dimension of Pain,” Science 288 (2000). 

[16] Ibid., 1770. 

[17] Paul D. Kenny, “The Meaning of Torture.” Polity 42, no. 2 (2009): 149.

[18] Metin Basoglu, Maria Livanou, and Cvetana Crnobaric, "Torture vs Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment: Is the Distinction Real or Apparent?" Archives of General Psychiatry 64 (2007): 283. 

[19] Shane O’Mara Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (London: Harvard University Press, 2015), 149.

[20] Elizabeth F. Loftus, “Intelligence Gathering Post 9/11,” American Psychologist, 66 no. 6 (2011): 533.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Duke and Puyvelde, “What Science Can Teach,” 316-317.

[23] SSCI Report, xi.

[24] Ibid., 83.

[25] O’Mara Why Torture Doesn’t Work, 101.

[26] Ibid. 

[27] Ibid. 

[28] Ibid., 103.

[29] Ibid., 51.

[30] Ibid., 104.

[31] Duke and Puyvelde, “What Science Can Teach,” 323.

[32] Ibid.

Why Torture is Ethically Unjustifiable (I)

Part 1

On several accounts, US President Donald J. Trump announced his desire to reinforce the so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)[1] on detainees suspected of terrorist offences. He requested to "fight fire with fire" when it comes to countering terrorism, because ‘he absolutely believes that torture works’[2], and said: “I’d bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”.[3] Similarly, Brazilian President, Jair Messias Bolsonaro portrays torture as a useful instrument  (“Eu sou favorável à tortura”), and told the Brazilian people: “We shouldn’t just torture. We should torture and kill” (“Nós não devíamos só torturar. Devíamos torturar e matar”).[4] These notions on torture, from the most powerful, are not just astonishing; they are also incorrect. Divided in two interdependent essays, I will demonstrate not only that torture is in complete opposition to the moral liberal vision in which human beings possess an inherent dignity, but also that in-depth psychological and neuroscientific evidence successfully rejects the idea that torture works. In this first part of the essay, I will discuss the philosophical concepts that form the foundation for the contemporary debate on the use of torture. 

By Maarten Visser

Suppose you have a terrorist in custody who planted a bomb in your city, set to detonate in twenty-four hours. There will be disastrous consequences, killing thousands of innocent people, unless you find the location of the bomb. Should it be morally permissible for you to torture the terrorist in order to obtain the needed information? 

This invariably applied imaginary scenario is known as the “ticking bomb dilemma” and forms the basis for the torture debate in normative ethics between consequentialism and the theory of deontology. In short, consequentialists hold the view that the morality of an action is completely determined by its consequences. The purpose is to choose the action with the overall happiest ‘or least unhappy’ net outcome. In contrast, deontologists expect an ethical person to act out of a profound moral duty (deon is the Greek word for duty). This responsibility recognises factors which make it morally unacceptable to perform a certain act, notwithstanding the overall consequences.

The ticking bomb dilemma seems to support the consequentialists side of the argument. There appears to be a solid moral justification to torture the terrorist, because it would contribute to the overall security of the city’s population utility. Torturing one terrorist for the sake of thousands of innocent people – at least, that is what Jeremy Bentham thought. Bentham, one of the founders of the doctrine of utilitarianism,[5] argued that torture under these extreme circumstances is ethically permissible, because it would result in a greater quantity of happiness: “[...] the public has so great an interest in his doing that the danger of what may ensue from his not doing it is a greater danger even that of an innocent person’s suffering the greatest degree of pain that can be suffered by Torture.”[6]  In this particular context, Bentham also emphasised the aspect that victims have it within their power to stop the torturous act simply by complying with the torturer’s demands.[7]

To all of this, Immanuel Kant might make the following reply: ‘There are certain moral duties so fundamental that they rise above any calculated outcome in any given ticking bomb scenario.’[8] Kant’s absolutist deontological theory argues that it is morally wrong to treat a person as a mere means to the overall happiness of the collective. In other words, there are certain categorical and universally shared rights and duties that prevail utilitarian considerations.[9] After all, torture infringes upon the intrinsic dignity of human beings in a manner that a moral agent could not reasonably condone. But does this really disregard the utilitarian notion of counting the numbers? It can be argued that the utilitarian still has a strong case, because violating one’s dignity, that of a terrorist, could potentially save thousands. 

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the described scenario is a hypothetical one. The dilemma's “disastrous consequences” argument is as strong as its absurdity: Several scholars defend either degree of permissibility of torture with the utmost creativity and imagination. Scenarios in which terrorists threaten entire cities and nations with ticking nuclear devices are common practice.[10] In contrast, Ron E. Hasner makes significant claims that such scenarios are not just unlikely, but rather unrealistic and, above all, have never actually occurred.[11] Although proponents of the CIA’s Detainee and Interrogation Program claim otherwise, there is no evidence that any of the 39 Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib detainees subjected to the EITs came anywhere close to being an actor in a ticking bomb scenario.[12]

Nonetheless, numerous scholars and policymakers use these examples to justify the use of torture in a milder form (‘torture light’) or in exceptional cases. Professor Sir David Oman, for example, describes a situation in which a parent sits in front of their child’s kidnapper. Time is running out and the silent and ‘smug’ perpetrator is the only one to know about the child’s whereabouts. Oman claims that the parent might have the moral duty to torture the kidnapper. Because, as John Stuart Mill (Bentham’s protégé) would say, “not acting has also consequences”.[13] It would certainly be fairly easy to sympathise with the parent’s actions, but can they therefore be considered as moral? Kant would think not, and many with him. Article 1 of the German Constitution, for instance, states: “human dignity shall be inviolable”.

Another important deontologist argument against torture is that of the ‘slippery slope’. In addition to the desired results, the permissibility of torture inevitably brings other undesirable consequences. These can include the use of progressively more extreme techniques and the torture of the innocent. The Khaled el-Masri case provides a clear example hereof. On 31 December 2003, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen was wrongfully abducted while on vacation in Macedonia, having been mistaken for a suspected member of Al Qaeda named Khalid al-Masri. He was interrogated for twenty-three days and then brought to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan where he was interrogated further and subjected to EIT’s – el-Masri was drugged, shackled, stripped naked, beaten, and sodomized – for nearly five months.[14]

The scenario of the ticking bomb is misleading for another reason. The debate often neglects a third indispensable ethical theory, known as ‘virtue ethics’. This Aristotelian philosophy claims that justice gives people what they deserve.[15] Michael Sandel argues that the utilitarian ticking bomb scenario depends on a non-utilitarian notion that the terrorist is a cruel person and deserves to be punished.[16] Sandel makes an essential point here. After all, the given utilitarian scenario completely overlooks the possibility that saving thousands of lives could also justify torturing an innocent person.[17] What if not torturing the terrorist but beating and sodomizing the terrorist’s five-year-old daughter is the means to obtaining the required information. It is suspected that even the hardened ‘utilitarian’ would now consider the use of torture to be ethically unjustifiable. 

Despite an international ban, torture is common practice and easily vindicated worldwide, within both democratic and non-democratic societies. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at Kant's emphasis on human dignity and consider Kantian norms as guidance to stop people from thinking they can use other people as a means. In the second part of this essay, I will demonstrate that the consequentialist justification of torture is based on the false assumption that torture is an effective method to gather information. 

Sources

[1] In the second part of this essay I will demonstrate that EITs fall within the scope of torture.

[2] Dan Merica, "Trump on waterboarding: ‘We have to fight fire with fire’." CNN (2017). https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/donald-trump-waterboarding-torture

[3] Tom McCarthy, "Donald Trump: I'd bring back 'a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding'." The Guardian 7 (2016). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/06/donald-trump-waterboarding-republican-debate-torture

[4] Augusto de Franco, “Por que podemos afirmar que Bolsonaro é um autocrata” Dagobah Inteligência Democrática http://dagobah.com.br/por-que-podemos-afirmar-que-bolsonaro-e-um-autocrata/

[5] Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism and both terms will be used interchangeably throughout this essay.

[6] Jeremy Bentham (University College, London), cited in Warren L. Twinning and P.E. Twining, “Bentham on Torture,” Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 24, no. 3. (1973): 313.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 1982), 1-14.

[9] Ibid.

[10] See in this context: Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (London: Penguin Books, 2009), 38 and Ginbar, Why Not Torture Terrorists? 26.

[11] Ron E. Hasner, “The Myth of the Ticking Bomb.” The Washington Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2018): 88-89.

[12] Ibid., 91.

[13] David Omand and Mark Phythian, Principled spying: The ethics of secret intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 66-67.

[14] U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, S. Rpt. 113–288, 128 and James P. Pfiffner, Torture, As Public Policy: Restoring U.S. Credibility on the World Stage (London: Paradigm Publishers, 2010), 107.

[15] Sandel, Justice, 9.

[16] Ibid., 39-40.

[17] Ibid.

Men, machines, and beliefs: immutable tenets of Strategy

Strategy-making is a process that encompasses a wide range of interdependent variables, from cultural to technological factors. It reflects the way a polity imagines itself and its opponents. It is true that historical contexts are unique; thus, Strategies have varied – in terms of objectives, means, and enemies. Nonetheless, it is worth investigating if immutable tenets shape the Strategy function. Indeed, this inquiry constitutes an insightful analysis to unveil patterns in the way societies, given limited resources, think and use force for political aims. The cases of early theories of air power, the annihilation logics of Germany’s colonial policy in Southwest Africa, and US drone warfare against terrorists provide rich observations to test the existence of recurrent features in Strategy.

By Jacopo Grande

1. The function of Strategy: searching for immutable tenets

Polities interact within a geometry of cooperation and conflicts, whose underpinning function is that of Strategy. This is the process of thinking and using organised force for political aims [1], given limited resources [2]. But it is also the way in which polities imagine themselves, their threats, and enemies.        
When observing the War on Terror and its recent long-distance decapitation drone warfare, the securitisation of Southern European borders against migrants, or the Syrian government’s strikes targeting its own population, the mechanics of strategy-making prove to be vital in exposing recurrent patterns in terms of men, machines, and beliefs that contribute to choices. Hence, unpacking the function of Strategy constitutes a valuable analytical process. It is key, in fact, to uncover the complexity of international relations and security, since its variables, all intertwined and reciprocally dependent, capture single fragments of the logics of war-making and statecraft [3].
Strategy-making has ancient origins [4], whereas circumstances constantly evolve and wars are always fought. Therefore, it is worth assessing strategy’s immutable features, elements which are not subject to change despite transforming societies, technologies, and conflicts. This assessment will be conducted through three case studies: early air strategies of the 20th century (A), German colonial practices in 20th century Southwest Africa (B), and American drone warfare (C), to demonstrate that time, mutual interactions, and the culture-technology continuum are immutable factors of strategy-making.

2. CASE STUDY (A)
Machines, prophecies, and civilians: selecting targets

The first case exposes the intimate connection between culture, technology, and target selection, drawing on early air power strategies. H. G. Wells [5] envisioned the splintering of New York by a German bombing fleet of airships in 1908 and a few years later, the world witnessed Wright brothers’ first motorised flight [6]. As soon as the airplane had been imagined, even before its actual use, there was much speculation about its potential military use and prophecies of destruction in the next war were asserted in public debates and tabloids [7]. The conquest of the air has opened a new dimension of warfare, [8] erasing the boundaries of traditional battlefields, since aircrafts can easily pass behind armed forces on the ground and aim directly at the heart of the enemy: industrial capability, or civilians’ morale [9]. Therefore, the line between soldiers and non-combatants has been expunged in the new totalised warfare [10], and civilians reduced to ‘machines behind the machines’ [11] in the ruins of Guernica, Dresden, and Tokyo [12]. Despite weaponry reaching the nuclear stage, this evolutionary pattern is not alien to the function of technological advance for military use – the longbow prevailing over the sword, or the breech-loaded rifle over the musket [13]. Yet, what has truly changed with airpower is the identification of enemies. They are no longer embodied solely in the armed forces, but also in the unarmed people; those, as considered supporters of the war effort, are now turned into targets [14]. Under air raids, rushed preparations for the next strike took place in Britain and likewise in Germany during World War II, which have shaped fears and architectures [15], making conflict part of a domesticized war-peace continuum [16]. This suggests that considerations about targets are central to Strategy and that such targets are defined within the parameters of culture and technology. Furthermore –  as examined through the second case study – those categories are senseless if Strategy falls short of its temporal dimension.

3. CASE STUDY (B)
Automated scripts for victory surrogates: mass killings and concentration camps

The second case study aims at acknowledging the dimension of time in Strategy. Namely, time plays a core role in terms of planning and then employing a strategy; indeed, time affects the way wars are waged. Yet, the temporal factor is often overlooked in the conclusive phases of conflicts: when Strategy proves unable to address the aftermath of war, it is certainly defective.

German colonial policy at the beginning of the 20th century constitutes an interesting case for examining time and Strategy. Here, the relationship between organisational, cultural, and tactical aspects of Strategy [17] proves to be central in explaining the victory, but helpless in understanding its consequences.
Southwest Africa was confronted with uprisings of the local Herero population between 1904 and 1907, and the Reich responded assertively. The Germans started killing rebels and civilians through mass starvation, and then via a mechanised process of annihilation enabled by concentration camps [18]. The imagined equivalence between national pride and state security – and an innate sense of inferiority resulting from an uncomfortable geography [19] – combined unavoidably with the Bismarckian structure of governance [20] based on the unchecked power of the executive branch and the military. The organisational military doctrine, easily paired with the Clausewitzian obsession with decisive victory [21]. When classical European battles proved to be useless to defeat local warriors, German soldiers resorted to a victory surrogate – the actual disappearance of the enemy [22]. The Strategy adopted in that scenario resulted from cultural assumptions, historical experiences, and the shock of an asymmetric confrontation with the opponent: concentration camps functioned as lethal bureaucratic devices of disappearance and mechanised annihilation, and eventually ensured victory [23]. Yet, the validity of such a triumph should be tested against its consequences: in strategy-making, planning the aftermath of conflict should represent the measure of a victory because victory is a complex negotiation, not a single event [24]. Destruction, occupation, and the end of hostilities alone are insufficient to claim that victory, since it results from various actors’ mutual interactions, like any phase of Strategy. Hence, the last case study focuses on the interactive dimension of Strategy.

4. CASE STUDY (C)
Altar of technology: roots of the US drone warfare

The third case study is US strategic evolution and aims at highlighting how Strategy is an interactive and history-driven process. Indeed, various actors, cultures, and beliefs, contribute to the process. Since 2001, the US has conducted operations in Somalia through the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). In 2011, the US implemented a targeted-killing strategy employing drones to hit al-Shabaab camps and militants; the same pattern has been repeated in Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan [25]. Strategic bombing and decapitation techniques [26] appear to be merged in the new American way of war [27]. This has been framed as the risk-transfer approach [28], based on technological superiority and massive fire power such as substitutes for manpower [29].

Past experiences and beliefs are the main factors in shaping this Strategy: the trauma of Vietnam, resulting in the increasing aversion for human casualties on the ground, has contributed to a distance-striking mentality. This mindset has been reinforced by the success gained through superior air power in the Gulf War. Moreover, the societal background built on the ideals of the American War of Independence mixed with its capitalist path, namely wealth accumulation and the pursuit of happiness as the paramount common good [30], have combined with the assemblage of Congress, the American public, and the industrial-military complex [31]. Hence, piloted Predators flying over the Middle Eastern sands are the embodiment of a tormented effort to reduce the human component in war [32], demonstrating how the US strategy-making process has been heavily affected through interactive beliefs and legacies.

5.  Architecture of Strategy, and its immutable tenets

Strategy is a complex function whose variables range from technology to geography, from history to cultural assumptions, ideologies, and resources [33]. Those factors are interdependent and operate within evolving historical contexts, but immutable tenets do exist in strategy-making processes.

Firstly, Strategy requires interactions which occur amongst different categories of actors. Group A and B may decide to wage war against each other or to settle an agreement, or both; at the same time, one group could experience internal disunity. This suggests that the process of thinking and making Strategy is a land of negotiated meanings [34], objectives, sub-interests, and marginal gains [35]. As a result, the elaboration of strategies is a fight per se, for no monolithic polities exist.

Secondly, there is a culture-technology continuum that implicitly affects the way wars are fought, against who, and by what means. There are minds behind machine guns [36], but simultaneously the available weaponry enables the belligerent parties to prefer certain solutions to others, such as surgically targeting a militant, or hiding an improvised explosive device (IED) near a road. Past traumas (such as the trenches in France, or historical legacies of colonialism) and imagined mythologies [37] (like the narratives of pride and power of the German Reich) all contribute to precise strategic postures, which are learnt and automated into the polity of reference, independently from evolving killing technologies.

Thirdly, there is no Strategy without time: when deciding which resources allocate for what aims, any consideration refers to a precise time-frame and has consequences behind the execution phase. Therefore, questions about success and the aftermath should be raised. The ruins and scars following the conflict are crucial to measure a victory and to assess if it is just a zero-sum game, a further unbalanced form of violence, or, if a long-lasting peace is the utmost good, the only one to be worth fighting for [38].

Strategy is a complex function, whose variables are interdependent and dimensions various. Nonetheless, this study, through the examination of historical cases diverse in time, context, and culture, seeks to isolate eternal tenets in strategy-making processes. Such an analysis is extremely valuable to unveil recurrent patterns in the ways societies think, plan, and wage war. Understanding the interplay between culture, technology, targeting, competing beliefs, and time, in fact, is the only guidance we have to navigate uncertain times and unpack the depth of today’s security challenges.

Methodology note

Due to the various facets of historical scenarios, an investigation directed at identifying immutable elements of Strategy must be conducted through a qualitative research approach. Namely, it is worth comparing thick-description cases [a] in space and time to highlight subtle differences, recurrent patterns [b], and imperfect categories that simplify reality. According to this methodological necessity, the prophecies of early air power at the beginning of the 20th century, Germany’s colonial practices in Southwest Africa (194-1907), and the distance-fighting strategy of US drone warfare against terrorist organisations (2003-2019) have been purposively selected as suitable units of observation [c]. Therefore, this research design is useful to avoid quantitative thin theories [d], while providing analytical leverage [e] and reinforcing the explanatory model [f].

[a] Denzin, N. K. (2001), ‘Thick Description’. in Applied Social Research Methods: Interpretive interactionism. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

[b] Heuser, B. (2010), The Evolution of Strategy. Thinking war from Antiquity to Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[c] Bryman, A. (2016), Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[d] Coppedge, M. (1999), ‘Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics’. Comparative Politics, Vol. 31, Issue 4, pp. 465-476.

[e] Gschwend, T. and F. Schimmelfenning (2007), Research Design in Political Science. How to Practice What They Preach. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

[f] King, G., Kehoane, R., and Verba, S. (1994), Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 205.

Sources

[1] Heuser, B. (2010), The Evolution of Strategy. Thinking war from Antiquity to Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3

[2] Kagan, K. (2006), ‘Redefining Roman Grand Strategy’, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 70, No. 2, p. 333.

[3] Gat, A. (2006), War in Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 36 ss.

[4] Heuser, Evolution.

[5] Wells, H. G. (1940 [1907]), The War in the Air. London: Odham Press Limited.

[6] Hingham, R. (1972), Air Power: A Concise History. London: Macdonald & Co. Publ.; and also, Collier, B. (1974), A History of Air Power. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

[7] Seed, D. (2012), Future Wars. The Anticipations and the Fears. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press; Kennet, L. (1991), The First Air War, 1914-1918. New York: Mcmillan.

[8] Douhet, G. (1983 [1921]), The Command of The Air, [Ferrari, D. (trs.), Il Dominio dell’Aria]. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program.

[9] Hart, B. L. (1925), Paris, or the Future of War. London: Chatam.

[10] Gilbert, F. (1971), The End of the European Era: 1890 to Present. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

[11] Spaight, J. M. (1930), Air Power and the Cities, London: Longmans, Green and Co., pp. 138-139, quoted in Page, A. (2019) Architectures of Survival. Air War and Urbanism in Britain, 1935-52. Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 210.

[12] Heuser, B. (1998), Nuclear Mentalities? Strategies and Beliefs in Britain, France and the FRG London: McMillan; Heuser, Evolution.

[13] Howard, M. (1961), The Franco-Prussian War: the German invasion of France, 1870-1871. London: Hart Davis; and also, Showalter, D. E. (2004), The wars of German unification. London: Arnold.

[14] Pimlott, J. (1988), ‘The Theory and Practice of Strategic Bombing’, in Colin McInnes and G. D. Sheffield (eds.), Warfare in the Twentieth Century. London and Boston: Unwin Hyman.

[15] Grayzel, S. R. (2012), At home and under fire: Air raids and culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[16] Page, Architectures of Survival.

[17] Howes, P. (1998) The catalytic wars: a study of the development of warfare 1860-1870. London: Minerva.

[18] Hull, I. V. (2005), ‘The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904-1907’, GHI Bulletin, No. 37, pp. 39-44; Hull, I. V. (2011), ‘German military culture and the colonial war in Southwest Africa, 1904-1907’, in Wayne E. Lee (ed.), Warfare and Culture in World History. New York, NY: New York University Press.

[19] Boemeke, M., Chickering, R., and Förster, S. (eds.) (1999), Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1814. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[20] Jones, M. (2011), ‘Strategy as character: Bismarck and the Prusso-German question, 1862-1878’, in Sinnreich, R. H., and Lacey, J. (eds.), The shaping of grand strategy: policy, diplomacy, and war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[21] Bond, B. J. (1996), The Pursuit of Victory: from Napoleon to Saddam Hussein. Oxford: Oxford University Press; and also, Heuser, Evolution.

[22] Hull, ‘German military culture’.

[23] Ibid.; Boemeke et al., Anticipating Total War.

[24] Martel, W. C. (2011), Victory in war: foundations of modern strategy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Ikenberry, G. J. (2001), After victory: institution, strategic restraint, and the rebuilding of order after major wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Bragança, M., and Tame, P. D. (2016), The Long Aftermath: Cultural Legacies of Europe at War, 1936-2016. New York: Berghahn Books.

[25] Bergen, P., and Rowland, J. (2013), ‘Drone Wars’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 7-26; and also, Serle, J., and Purkiss, J. (2017), ‘Drone Wars: The Full Data’, [online] available from https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data, accessed on 6th March 2020.

[26] Gardner, L. C. (2013), Killing Machine: The American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare. New York: New Press.

[27] Walker, D. M. (2018), ‘American Military Culture and the Strategic Seduction of Remote Warfare’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 5-21.

[28] Shaw, M. (2005), The New Western Way of War. Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq. Cambridge: Polity.

[29] Parker, G. (1998), The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[30] Lewis, A. R. (2011), ‘The American Culture of War in the Age of Artificial Limited War, in Wayne E. Lee (ed.), Warfare and Culture in World History. New York: New York University Press, p. 195.

[31] Ibid., p. 191; also, McNeill, J. R., and McNeill, W. (2003), The Human Web. A bird’s-eye view of Human History. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Co., pp. 288-289.

[32] Gregory, D. (2011), ‘From a View to a Kill. Drones and Late Modern War’, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 28, No. 7-8, pp. 188-215; Miller, Greg (2012), ‘Drone wars. Are remotely piloted aircraft changing the nature of war?’, Science, Vol. 336, No. 6083, pp. 842-843; Miller, Grace (2017), ‘Boom/[S]he is not: drone wars and the vanishing pilot’, War, Literature, and Arts, Vol. 29, pp. 1-17; Holmqvist, C. (2013), ‘Undoing War: War Ontologies and the Materiality of Drone Warfare’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies,  Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 535-552.

[33] Lee, W. E. (2015), Waging War. Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[34] Geertz, C. (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essay. New York: Basic Books.

[35] Heuser, Evolution, p. 492 ss.

[36] Lee, W. E. (ed.) (2011), Warfare and Culture in World History. New York: New York University Press, p. 1.

[37] Ehrenreich, B. (1997), Blood Rites. Origins and History of the Passions of War. London: Virago Press.

[38] Heuser, Evolution, p. 505.

How to deradicalise an extremist: challenges and limitations

On November 30th, 2019, 28-year-old Usman Khan stabbed five people at the north end of London Bridge. While this is one of multiple attacks Londoners have suffered, something about this attack sets it apart from others, grabbing the attention of the media [1]. The attacker, Usman Khan, had previously been convicted of terrorism-related offences and had undergone two deradicalisation programmes during the 8 years he spent in prison [2]. This placed deradicalisation under the spotlight, reminding the international community of the importance of understanding the challenges and limitations of these programmes. This new Security Distillery piece will provide an insight into the adversity these programmes face through the example of the Pontourny Centre, a French deradicalisation centre that has generally been regarded as a failure [3]. Only by understanding what went wrong in previous deradicalisation efforts, it is possible to enhance the effectiveness of the newer programmes.

By Cecilia de Diego Manrique

The term deradicalisation has been considered a problematic concept. This is because, in contrast with disengagement, it involves an attempt to transform not only an individual's behaviour, but also his or her beliefs [4]. Hence, underlying the concept of deradicalisation is the assumption that there are wrong and, consequently, right systems of thoughts.

Given the subjectivity of the concept of right and wrong, the broad diversity found within deradicalisation discourse is understandable.  Indeed, the only aspect that allows us to refer to deradicalisation programmes as a category is their similarity of objectives. Thus, it is possible to distinguish two main general goals of these programmes: to ‘create the circumstances under which individuals become more open to alternative viewpoints; and (...) to externally bring the radicalized individual to more moderate viewpoints’[5].

Inside this broad category is our subject of study, the Pountourny Centre (officially called “Centre for Prevention, Integration, and Citizenship”), created by the French government in September 2016 in a rural castle near the Loire Valley. It consisted of a ten-month deradicalisation programme designated for French citizens between the ages of 18 and 30. 

Before the establishment of the Centre, the French government had already encountered the first challenge of deradicalisation programmes: how to measure success. In the French case, an independent team of psychologists came up with a  “psychometric test” aimed to determine the extent to which the participants´way of thinking was evolving [6]. The Centre never got the chance to yield final results, since after only 5 months of the experiment the nine participants decided to abandon the programme (presumably as a result of the continued protests against the Centre that were being held by the citizens of the village), which marks the largest failure of the programme. Not much is known about what happened with the participants because, as tends to occur with deradicalisation programmes, only short-term results are available. In this case, all we know is that after leaving the programme three of them started calling themselves “the rigorist Salafist gang” and another one was arrested for the crime of “apology for terrorism” [7]. The lack of access to long-term information on the life of previous participants prevents a better understanding of the effects that deradicalisation programmes have over time.

Furthermore, taking part in the programme was completely voluntary. This raised concerns at the outset, since it implies that the French government assumed that an individual could recognize that he or she was submerged in a radicalisation process and would react to it by searching for help, which is a large assumption to make. Its voluntary character contrasts with similar programmes, such as the British Chanel Project, which relied on police, local authorities, or local communities to identify those individuals who were exhibiting alarming behaviours and enlist them into the programme [8]. Whether the deradicalisation programmes should adopt an active role in the enrolment of participants is subject to debate. However, it is important to acknowledge how the decision can limit the scope of the programme.  From the twenty-five spots that were available at the Pountourny Centre, only nine of them were filled.

To deal with the subjectivity issue that characterizes the concept of deradicalisation, the French government decided to emphasize disengagement instead of deradicalisation [9]. As a social worker of the Pountourny Centre stated: “You can’t tell someone, ‘What you think is bad, here’s good information’” [10].  Trying to focus on 'disengagement from violence… rather than denying the validity of the grievance'[11] is usual in these programmes. The British Chanel Project followed the same path, clarifying among the objectives of the programme that the intention was not to prevent individuals or groups from expressing extreme opinions [12]. While the debate between disengagement and deradicalization continues,  the Pountourny Centre serves as an example of the difficulty that entails translating concepts into actions.

Each part of the programme promoted French nationalist elements that could have been interpreted by the participants as propaganda and the imposition of a secular counter-truth [13]. The daily life of the participants was based on therapy, group conversations on democracy, religion and laïcité (secularism), and lessons on French history, philosophy or literature. Apart from these activities, they were expected to wear uniforms and sing La Marseillaise, France's national anthem, every morning.

One could attribute part of the programme´s failure to France's underestimation, as a secular country, of the theological component of radicalisation. This follows the theory of Angel Rabasa, a Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, that sustains the existence of a distinction between the deradicalisation programmes in Muslim-majority countries (centered on the interpretation of Islam) and the ones carried out by Europeans governments, which tend to see radicalisation in terms of a social problem of integration of Muslim communities [14].  France dealt with the theological element indirectly by introducing a Muslim Chaplain into the programme, who had individual conversations with the residents. Nonetheless, as has occurred in other programmes, the participants regarded the Chaplain as untrustworthy due to his affiliation with the government. The distrust participants have towards the government is a reason that some countries, such as the United States, have decided to maintain a political distance by providing deradicalisation grants to selected organisations, rather than setting up their own programmes [15].  

Then who should have a role if there is distrust? Apart from the Chaplain, the Pountourny Centre enlisted a team of  25 social workers, psychologists  and special educators.[16]  The employee make-up contrasts with other, more successful programmes, in which ex-members of radical groups played an important role. A unique example is the Indonesian initiative of introducing former JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) personnel as central figures of a deradicalisation programme. Thanks to their past experiences inside JI, these individuals were regarded as authority figures by the participants, increasing the effectiveness of the conversations. Additionally, the involvement of ex-terrorists in the programme afforded the Indonesian government a level of insight they would probably not have been able to reach through other avenues [17]. Hence, the inclusion of individuals with whom the participants can relate might be a potential solution.

While the Pountourny Centre failed to accomplish its objective, it constitutes an example of how not to deradicalise an extremist. Therefore, it provides us with an opportunity to learn from the mistakes, as well as recognise the limits of deradicalisation programmes. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of gaining long-term information on previous participants of these programmes to enhance research on deradicalisation results. It is not the time to lose faith in deradicalisation measures, but to work to improve them.

Sources

[1]The Guardian (2019) ‘London Bridge attack: victim named as Jack Merritt – as it happened’, 30th November. [online] available from:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2019/nov/30/london-bridge-attack-police-search-property-in-stafford-latest-updates, accessed on 20th February 2020.

[2] Lewis, Helen (2020) ‘Why Extremists Need Therapy’. The Atlantic, 11th February.

[online] available from:  https://accounts.theatlantic.com/products/?source=nav,  accessed on  15th February 2020.

[3] Crowell, Mady. (2017). ‘What Went Wrong With France's deradicalisation Program’, The Atlantic, 28th September. [online] available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/france-jihad-deradicalisation-macron/540699/, accessed on 10th February 2020.

[4]  Daugherty, CE (2019), 'deradicalisation and Disengagement: Exit Programs in Norway and Sweden and Addressing Neo-Nazi Extremism', Journal for deradicalisation, vol. Winter, no. 21, pp. 219-260.

[5] Dechesne, Mark (2011). ‘deradicalisation: Not Soft, but Strategic,’ Crime, Law and Social Change Vol. 55 No.4, pp. 287-292.

[6] Crowell, Mady. (2017). ‘What Went Wrong With France's deradicalisation Program?’, The Atlantic, 28th September. [online] available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/france-jihad-deradicalisation-macron/540699/ accessed on 10th February 2020.

[7] Souris, Elena and Spandana Singh (2018) ‘Want to Deradicalize Terrorists? Treat Them Like Everyone Else’ Foreign Policy, 23 th November. [online] available from:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/23/want-to-deradicalize-terrorists-treat-them-like-everyone-else-counterterrorism-deradicalisation-france-sri-lanka-pontourny-cve/ , accessed on 13th February 2020.

[8] Rabasa, Angel, et al. (2010). Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists, RAND Corporation.

[9] Crowell, Mady. (2017). ‘What Went Wrong With France's deradicalisation Program?’ The Atlantic, 28th September. [online] available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/france-jihad-deradicalisation-macron/540699/, accessed on 10th February 2020.

[10]  Ibid.

[11] Kruglanski et al. (2011). ‘Aspects of deradicalisation,’ Institute for the Study of Asymmetric Conflict. 12 January.  [online] available from: http://www.asymmetricconflict.org/articles/aspects-of-deradicalisation/, accessed on 25th February 2020.

[12]  Rabasa, Angel, et al (2010). Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists, RAND Corporation.

[13] Souris, Elena and Spandana Singh (2018) ‘Want to Deradicalize Terrorists? Treat Them Like Everyone Else’ Foreign Policy, 23 th November. [online] available from:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/23/want-to-deradicalize-terrorists-treat-them-like-everyone-else-counterterrorism-deradicalisation-france-sri-lanka-pontourny-cve/ , accessed on 13th February 2020

[14] Rabasa, Angel, et al (2010). Deradicalizing Islamist Extremists, RAND Corporation.

[15] Crowell, Mady. (2017). ‘What Went Wrong With France's deradicalisation Program?’, The Atlantic, 28th September. [online] available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/france-jihad-deradicalisation-macron/540699/ accessed on 10th February 2020.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Horgan, J. & Braddock, K. (2010). ‘Rehabilitating the Terrorists?: Challenges in Assessing the Effectiveness of De-radicalization Programs’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 267-291.

On the Rhetorical Construction of the War on Terror (II)

Part 2

The second article in this two-part series seeks to build on the assertion that declaring “war” on terrorism is a flawed strategy in the struggle against terrorism, and explores one explanation for the use of such rhetoric, rooted in securitisation theory. It argues that rhetorically constructing the struggle against terrorism as a war is a useful strategy if one wishes to legitimate the use of extrajudicial force. By adapting legal precedent set during past exceptional circumstances to place detainees both beyond the US criminal justice system and the protections of the Third Geneva Convention, the United States demonstrated how to successfully securitise terrorism. Whether this was the conscious purpose of the declaration of the War on Terror is open to debate.

By Oisin O’Reilly

My previous article explored the pitfalls of rhetorically constructing the struggle against terrorism in terms of conventional warfare.[1] As a strategy for actually dealing with terrorism, it leaves much to be desired. However, in this article, I wish to show that “defeating terrorism” is not necessarily the only possible object of such a rhetorical move. This is because constructing a rhetorical war-footing is a sensible strategy if one’s aim is to sanction or legitimise the use of extrajudicial force by state security forces. Specifically, when a government has a policy of classifying terrorists not as criminals, but as “enemy combatants”, then that policy has the effect of allowing the use of military force (as opposed to the justice system) in dealing with them. In the case of the “War on Terror”, as declared by President George W. Bush following the September 11 2001 attacks (9/11), B.M. Leiser plainly states the rationale behind this reclassification:

...the detainees being held at Guantanamo [Sic.] are not awaiting criminal trials. They are considered to be enemy combatants. Consequently, the rules of criminal procedure simply do not apply to them. [2]

There is more than one legal distinction being made here. In a US Department of Defense Memorandum William J. Hynes II defines “enemy combatant” as: ‘an individual who, under the laws and customs of war, may be detained for the duration of an armed conflict.’ [3] This category is then split further into “lawful” and “unlawful” combatants. The former, when captured, become prisoners-of-war (POWs) and are protected by the Third Geneva Convention. The convention states that POWs ‘must at all times be humanely treated’, must be protected ‘particularly against acts of violence and intimidation’, and all ‘measures of reprisal’ against them are prohibited. [4] Unlawful combatants however, do not receive those protections and are instead under the jurisdiction of military law. Each of these conclusions derives from observations by the US Supreme Court in Ex Parte Quirin (1942), a case dealing with German saboteurs during the Second World War, and which now constitutes the principal legal foundation for the treatment of Guantanamo detainees and other suspected terrorists [5]. This established that, in addition to their capture and detention, unlawful combatants were ‘subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful’. [6] Following 9/11, the distinction between enemy and unlawful combatant all but disappeared in US military and legal discourse. A key consequence of this was that it allowed the Bush Administration the legal leeway both to detain prisoners indefinitely, and to subject them to treatment far below the standard of human dignity that the Geneva Conventions demand for even those who are not officially prisoners-of-war [7].

            We have here a specific case of war-language used with the intention of sanctioning extrajudicial means of dealing with terrorism. Other commentators have picked up on how war-language is used more generally to restrict rights and liberties. In her address to the American Bar Association, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson spoke on the effect of war-language on politics:

European leaders believe that the language of war inflates those who are in fact terrible criminals, through committing acts of terrorism that deliberately kill civilians, and that the context of being ‘at war’ makes it more acceptable to erode standards of civil liberties and human rights. [8]

Although Robinson agrees with and even justifies the war-footing the US set itself upon in response to 9/11, she goes on to warn:

...there are costs to using war terminology in countering terrorism, and those costs can be severe - particularly to credibility and legitimacy in trying to foster democracy and freedom in the world. [9]

Robinson makes sure not to imply that the erosion of civil liberties had been the purpose of the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric, and it is, of course, difficult if not impossible to tell whether these effects were an intended or unintended effect of US policy. For the purposes of this article however, it is not necessary to prove intent. The declaration of the “war'' on terror legitimised the reclassification of terrorist suspects as “enemy combatants” rather than criminals. By doing so, the Bush administration demonstrated how to use language to legitimise the use of extrajudicial force in a Western democracy. Regardless of whether or not this was the administration’s intention, the important thing to note is it worked and could conceivably work for any other state willing to do it. Although there has been no shortage of criticism of the war on terror from nearly every corner of civil society both in the US and the rest of the world, the fact of the matter is that, 18 years and two US presidencies on, there are still at least 40 people being held beyond the reach of the US and international legal system in Guantanamo Bay [10].

In conclusion, if one does not mean to defeat terrorism but instead to use the threat of terrorism to sanction granting extraordinary and extrajudicial powers to government, then the use of ‘war-terminology’ is a sound strategy to legitimise such a move. It is worth pointing out here that the case outlined above is a textbook example of securitisation. If we re-analyse the rhetorical move from criminal to enemy combatant in this theoretical framework, it is clear that the US has been remarkably successful in framing the issue of terrorism as a security threat, therefore ‘requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure.’ [11] By justifying such extraordinary measures in response, the US has effectively taken the issue of terrorism out of the realm of normal politics - a key feature of securitisation theory. This article has demonstrated how easily securitisation can occur even through a simple legal interpretation.

Sources

[1] https://thesecuritydistillery.org/all-articles/on-the-rhetorical-construction-of-the-war-on-terror [Accessed: 16/03/2020]

[2] Leiser, B.M. 'The Catastrophe of September 11 and its Aftermath' in Primoratz, I. (ed.) (2004) Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[3] Sciullo, N.J. (2012), "On the Language of (Counter)Terrorism and the Legal Geography of Terror" in Willamette Law Review 48(3) : 317-342.

[4] Third Geneva Convention, Article 14. (1949) Available at: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.32_GC-III-EN.pdf [Accessed: 16/03/2020]

[5] Sciullo, 2012

[6] Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 30 (1942) Available at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/1/ [Accessed: 16/03/2020]

[7] Halliday, F. (2010), Shocked and awed : how the war on terror and Jihad have changed the English language. London: I.B. Tauris. 67

[8] Robinson, M. (2006), "Law, Language and Principle in the 'War on Terror'" in Human Rights 33(1). 18

[9] Ibid, 22

[10] Savage, C. (2018), 'U.S. Transfers First Guantánamo Detainee Under Trump, Who Vowed to Fill It', The New York Times, May 2nd 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/politics/guantanamo-detainee-transferred-trump-al-darbi.html [Accessed: 16/03/2020]

[11] Buzan, B., Waever, O. & Wilde, J.d. (1998), Security: a new framework for analysis, Lynne Rienner Pub, Boulder, Colo;London. 24

On the Rhetorical Construction of the War on Terror (I)

Part 1

This article aims to problematise the notion of declaring a “war on terror” from a linguistic perspective. While terrorism as a tactic is broadly understood and may be countered in specific instances, the rhetorical act of declaring a global war on terrorism and subsequently viewing terrorism through the prism of conventional war throw up a host of issues which are here explored. Above all this article shows that, as a counter-terrorism strategy, the construction of the struggle against terrorism as a conventional war is deeply flawed and essentially counterproductive.

By Oisín O’Reilly

At the time of publication it has been approximately 18-and-a-half years since the United States declared the “Global War on Terrorism,” and hence there are currently young people in that country’s armed forces fighting a war that began before they were born. This realisation begs the question, what exactly are they fighting for? The natural answer, and the one given by US President George W. Bush all those years ago, is that the objective of the “war on terror” is to defeat terrorism [1]. The aim of this article is to problematise the notion of “defeating terrorism” and to question the strategic value of declaring the war on terror.

Defining terrorism is an essentially political problem. If “terrorist” as a label is to have unequivocally negative connotations, then any group or individual at risk of acquiring that label has an incentive to avoid this by tweaking the definition. This issue is best exemplified by the struggle in the United Nations to create an acceptable definition:

The United Nations has been trying to define terrorism for some thirty years, and has given up in its quest for a definition that everybody can agree upon. A major problem is that Western governments wanted to make sure that state agents could never be considered terrorist, while Islamic countries wanted to make sure that national liberation movements in the Middle East and Kashmir could never be considered terrorist. [2]

The lack of definition is enough to make the object of a “war on terror” questionable. Isaac Taylor does not attempt to strictly define terrorism, yet he remarks that, somehow, we seem to know it when we see it [3]. While there is no “ideal type” terrorist organisation upon which to base a definition, all such groups are non-state actors who adopt tactics based on committing acts of violence against civilians in a way that spreads fear. As Jenny Teichman put it succinctly, ‘we will look pretty silly if we do not mention terror in our account of terrorism’ [4]. There is a divergence among terrorist organisations when it comes to the purpose of this fear: to extract political concessions, to seek revenge, for theological purposes, etc. We are thus limited to stating that terrorism amounts to attacks on civilians by non-state actors for the purposes of spreading terror, usually in order to extract political concessions from a state.

Terrorism, thus construed, is really more of a tactic than any other type of phenomenon - one which can be used or not used depending on the situation. If we now re-analyse the proposition to “defeat” terrorism in this sense then it is clear that such a proposition is, in a way, semantically clumsy. Terrorism is not the type of thing capable of being defeated like, for instance, an opposing combatant, army, or state. If terrorism is a tactic to be discretionarily used, then it makes sense to speak of adopting a counter-tactic in order to “defeat” it in the particular instance in which it is employed. For comparison, if laying mines at sea is a tactic then a counter-tactic might be minesweeping or degaussing the hulls of ships. What does it mean to defeat terrorism in the general sense, however? The question is pressing given that such a thing necessarily must be the objective of a general “war on terror”.

We can look at this question in two ways. In the first case, conditions are such that no one is motivated to commit any further acts of terrorism, making it obsolete. In the second, terrorism is successfully countered in every instance or stopped before it can happen, making it impossible.

Paul Pillar in Terrorism and US Foreign Policy argued that it is naive to think that we can create a world where grievance, alienation, and every other motivation for terrorism is absent [5]. A more optimistic stance would see the structural causes of grievance and alienation systematically addressed. However, such an approach is unlikely to be implemented so long as the world remains on a rhetorically constructed warpath against terrorism. Jingoistic policy towards terrorism all-too-easily leads to what is normally referred to in counterterrorism literature as “the kinetic approach”: ‘aggressive, offensive measures to eliminate or capture’ the members of terrorist organisations and their supporters [6]. Mark Malan argues that in the case of Islamist terrorism in Nigeria this kinetic approach has been ‘consistently brutal and counterproductive’, succeeding only in mobilising sentiment against the security forces as people come to fear the police and army more than Boko Haram [7].

In the second case, we must consider the effect on society were we to create the conditions wherein terrorism is impossible. Given that many governments around the world have reacted to Islamist terrorism by legislating reduced freedoms, increasing the size and scope of security apparatuses, and sanctioning the extrajudicial use of force, it is likely that a world where terrorism is simply impossible would simultaneously be a world with few or none of the freedoms we take for granted in a liberal democracy. Even if such a world were desirable, it remains that fully eliminating terrorism is beyond our present capabilities and failure to recognise this can have counter-productive effects. If the goal of counterterrorism is set at “eliminating terrorism for good,” then every successful terrorist attack becomes a demoralising setback. If a terrorist’s goal is to damage public morale, then setting our aspirations unreasonably high has the effect of amplifying the morale-damage a terrorist can inflict [8]. In reality, this is not the actual aim of the “war on terror”. Rather than actually seeking to end all terrorism forever, the war declared in the aftermath of 9/11 was specifically against Al-Qaeda, their affiliate groups, and those who sheltered them. This dissonance only heightens the absurdity of the rhetorical war-footing. Given that there are groups of actors whom the war actually targets, it was unnecessary in the first place to rhetorically escalate to a general war on terrorism. We can conclude from this analysis that seeking to outright “defeat” terrorism is an ill-thought-out strategy, the end of which is neither desirable nor reasonably attainable.

I have sought to problematise the discourse surrounding the War on Terror here in order to make clear what much of the world has learned the hard way over the past two decades: that neither the metaphor nor the strategies of conventional interstate warfare are suitable to the struggle against terrorism. As the conflict nears its third decade it would be prudent for policymakers and their speech-writers to remember this lesson.

Sources

[1] Cable News Network (2001) ‘Transcript of President Bush's address’, CNN.com, 21st September 2001. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/ Accessed 01/03/2020

[2] Govier, T. (2002), A Delicate Balance: what philosophy can tell us about terrorism.  Boulder: Westview Press.

[3] Taylor, I. (2017), "Just war theory and the military response to terrorism" in Social Theory & Practice 43(4) : 717-740.

[4] Teichman, J. (1989), ‘How to define terrorism’ in Philosophy 64 (250) : 511

[5] Pillar, P. (2003), Terrorism and US Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

[6] Roberts, N. and Everton, S.F. (2011), "Strategies for combating dark networks" in Journal of Social Structure 12 (2), p3

[7] Malan, M. (2017), "Kinetic responses to global terrorism: Lessons from Africa" in African Security Review 26(4), p349-350

[8] Pillar, 2003.

Why is the US negotiating with the world’s deadliest terror organization?

Data presented in the Global Terrorism Index 2019 shows that Afghanistan replaced Iraq in 2018 as the country most impacted by terrorism, and that the (Afghan) Taliban now holds the title of the world’s deadliest terror group. This information is significant as Iraq has been the country most impacted by terrorism for the past 15 years, and the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has been the deadliest terror organization since 2014. However, in 2018 alone there has been a 70% decrease in deaths caused by ISIS terror attacks, while conversely we have seen the same increase of deaths attributed to the Taliban. The Taliban also executed what are by far the two deadliest attacks in 2018 with 466 and 330 casualties respectively. The third most deadly terror attack on the other hand was claimed by an ISIS related branch: “only” killing 150 people in Pakistan. With the exception of the Pakistan attack, the top ten deadliest attacks in 2018 were all executed in Afghanistan with the Taliban claiming responsibility for seven of them. [1] Still, at the time of writing, the US is negotiating with the Taliban trying to reach a peace agreement. This article, thus, seeks to address the situation in Afghanistan and the little-discussed absurdity that the US now is bargaining with the world’s deadliest terror organisation. 

By Frida Ekren

The Afghan Taliban is a fundamentalist Sunni Islamist militant organization established in Afghanistan in 1994 as a response to the civil war that started two years earlier. Mullah Mohammad Omar led the group largely consisting of fighters from the mujahideen (“holy warriors”) who had been fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan just a few years earlier (1979-89). The group’s aim was to govern Afghanistan on the basis of Sharia law, a goal they accomplished in 1996 after popular growth led them to finally capture the capital. The Taliban thus governed Afghanistan in accordance with Sharia law until a coalition led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) overthrew them from power when they refused to extradite Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks. Despite controlling  90% of Afghan territory, only three states (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) actually acknowledged the Taliban government at this time. [2]

After losing power in 2001, the Taliban reorganized and started an insurgency from Pakistan to fight and delegitimize the new Afghan government, the United States (US), and NATO forces. Pakistan has supported the Taliban economically, militarily and with recruits since the latter’s creation, and played an important role in the re-emergence of the Taliban after 2001 by providing them with safe havens in Pakistan [3]. This insurgency developed into an 18-year-long civil war which still rages.The death toll of the war is difficult to determine because no comprehensive account of the death toll from the war existed until the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began counting in 2008. According to estimates made by the “Costs of War Project” at Brown University, however, about 157,000 people have been killed as a direct result of the war,  43,000 of whom were civilians. Many more have been injured. [4] In 2006 the Taliban-led insurgency escalated drastically [5], and thus after 2007 insurgent or militant forces have been responsible for the majority of civilian casualties [6]. Today, the Taliban has de facto control of approximately 15% of the country, and well over half of the remaining territory is contested. Moreover, about half of the Afghan population― around 15 million people― live in areas that are controlled or actively operated by the Taliban. [7]

The drastic increase in the number of attacks by the Taliban in 2018 is arguably due to the US-Taliban peace talks which are now taking place. This strategy seems, at the time of writing this piece, to have given the Taliban leverage in the negotiations ― possibly pushing the US to accept terms that they otherwise would have not. Even though terrorism can seem random and unplanned, it is a means for the weaker party in a conflict to convey a political message. In this case, the Taliban utilises terrorism to target what they see as an illegitimate government and its allies. Highlighting this observation is the fact that the Taliban seek to target mainly military and police personnel, in order to undermine and destabilise the current government. Thus, deaths of Afghan security forces constitute 59% of all deaths in 2018. Through this deadly campaign, the Taliban have managed to seize control over several strategic cities leading to territorial expansion beyond their traditional stronghold in the South. [8]

Approaching the Taliban to begin a peace process has been the number one priority for Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani in recent years. [9] Moreover, a survey conducted by the Asia Foundation shows that 88.5% of Afghans support peace talks with the Taliban [10]. At the time of writing, the US and Taliban have reached an agreement regarding a seven day partial ceasefire. US President Donald Trump is thus accepting the Taliban’s offer to reduce the level of violence in Afghanistan for a week, and in return, the US and Afghan security forces will do the same. [11] If successful, this agreement is meant to be a first step towards broader peace talks that would include an arrangement where the US pulls out large parts of its troops, and in exchange the Taliban would make guarantees regarding security and eventually talks with the Afghan government. [12]

President Trump initiated talks with the Taliban in 2018, and there is now cautious optimism regarding a peace agreement. However, this is not the first time that there have been attempted ceasefires and peace negotiations with the Taliban. The Trump administration held talks with the Taliban as recently as 2019, but Trump called them off after a suicide attack in Afghanistan killed a US service member. [13]

There is no doubt that a peace agreement would be warmly welcomed by most parties after 18 years of war in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it does raise some questions: what happened to the (official) American principle that, ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’? [14] Furthermore, if it is a change of US policy that we are witnessing, why were peace negotiations not an option with ISIS? Both the Taliban and ISIS are Sunni Islamist militant groups which seek to create a state governed by Sharia law, and both groups use terrorism as a way to convey their message, thus killing thousands of innocent people. Why are the terrorist acts conducted by the Taliban seemingly more acceptable than those of ISIS?

Policy makers and scholars within the field of counter-terrorism have for decades ‘pledged never to talk to terrorists’. [15] In the US context, then-President George W. Bush set the bar in 2003 as he declared that, ‘The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. You can’t talk to them. You can’t negotiate with them.’ [16] This principle is further backed by academia, with many scholars arguing that, ‘Negotiations on the underlying political demands of terrorists are unlikely to resolve the conflict and may simply incite more terrorism’. [17] The reasoning for this argument is that entering talks with terrorists will legitimize terrorist groups, their goals and the means they apply to achieve them. Still, we have seen former terrorist organisations, or organisations allegedly linked to them, legitimised as political organisations and integrated into the political state structures. Examples of this are seen with Sinn Féin (allegedly linked to the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) in Ireland, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Columbia (FARC) in Colombia, the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) (allegedly linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ) in Turkey and Bildu (allegedly linked to Basque Country and Freedom (ETA)) in Spain. Even though some scholars argue that negotiations are useful because it gives “terrorists” non-violent means of communication, we are still left with the question of why the US wants to negotiate with the Taliban and not with other groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, for instance. [18]

As Kate Clark, the co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, points out, a withdrawal of US troops might tip the military balance in the Taliban’s favour. [19] Thus, we an Islamic state which applies Sharia law can potentially be established, suppressing womens’ rights and other human rights such as freedom of speech and girls’ right to education. These are values that the West holds dear and have spent time and resources to ensure across the globe. Why is the West seemingly willing to accept such a situation in Afghanistan and not in Syria or Iraq? Has the level of violence in Afghanistan pushed the US into a corner with no other choice than to talk with the Taliban? The numbers do not imply that this is the case however, as ISIS still killed more people at its height in 2016 [19], than the Taliban did at their peak in 2018. Could it then be that President Trump is agreeing to terms not profitable for the US to gain a short-term victory in the re-election year?

There is no simple answer to these questions, which moreover, would undoubtedly require a much longer article. However, I think one key aspect to answering these questions is the international orientation of ISIS terrorist activities. Despite threatening to attack western countries, and indeed attacking western targets in Afghanistan [21], the Taliban have never encouraged or executed terror attacks in the West or the US. [22] ISIS on the other hand encourages Muslims around the world to join their state-building project and to execute  attacks in the West. Naturally, this strategy directly affects Western security and interests. The Taliban on the other hand, aims to establish a Sharia-governed state within Afghanistan and thus they do not affect Western interests to the same degree that ISIS does or did. This distinction calls to attention several questions: Is the West willing to accept terrorism executed by the Taliban because it does not affect “us”, and thus, we can leave it to be “their” problem? Is Afghanistan too distant for us to care? Have almost two decades of war created a feeling of apathy in the West towards the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan? At the same time, what are the prospects of peace in Afghanistan if we are not willing to negotiate with “terrorists”? And lastly, at the very baseline of this issue lies again the question of how useful it is to designate a group as terrorists – is it a helpful term or only a tool for policy-makers to legitimize the use of extraordinary measures? This article does not aim to answer these questions, but to point out the fact that the Taliban´s heightened violence is not being addressed in Western media and that it may be time to bring them to light once more.

Sources

[1] The Institute for Economics and Peace (2019). “Global Terrorism Index 2019: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism”, Sydney, November 2019. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2019/11/GTI-2019web.pdf , accessed 03.02.2020.

[2] Stenersen, Anne, Gunhild Gursli-Berg, Gunnar Filseth & Bjørn Johannessen (2018). “Taliban” in Det Store norske leksikon. Available from: https://snl.no/Taliban , accessed 03.02.2020.

Center for International Security and Cooperation (2018). “Afghan Taliban” in Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University. Available from: https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/afghan-taliban#text_block_16833 , accessed 03.02.2020.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Crawford, Neta C. (2016). “Update on the Human Costs of War for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001 to mid-2016”, Watson Institute at Brown University. Available from: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2016/War%20in%20Afghanistan%20and%20Pakistan%20UPDATE_FINAL_corrected%20date.pdf , accessed 06.02.2020.

— “Afghan civilians”, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan , accessed 06.02.2020.

[5] Stenersen et. al.

[6] Crawford

[7] The Institute for Economics and Peace (2019). “Global Terrorism Index 2019: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism”, Sydney, November 2019. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2019/11/GTI-2019web.pdf , accessed 03.02.2020.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Center for International Security and Cooperation (2018). “Afghan Taliban” in Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University. Available from: https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/afghan-taliban#text_block_16833 , accessed 03.02.2020.

[10] Akseer, Tabasum, et.al. (2019). “Afghanistan in 2019 a Survey of the Afghan People” by The Asia Foundation. Available from: https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019_Afghan_Survey_Full-Report.pdf , accessed 05.02.2020.

[11] Qazi, Shereena (2020). “US-Taliban truce begins, raising hopes of peace deal”, Aljazeera, 22.02.2020. Available from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/pact-taliban-reducing-violence-start-saturday-200221094340829.html

[12] Aljazeera (2020). “Afghan war: US, Taliban close to 'reduction in violence' deal”, 13.02.2020. Available from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/afghan-war-taliban-close-reduction-violence-deal-200212103425423.html

[13] Romero, Dennis, Dan De Luce, Mushtaq Yusufzai & Ahmed Mengli (2019). “Trump says he's canceling Afghan peace talks, secret meeting with Taliban leaders” in NBC News, 08.09.2019. Available from: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-says-he-s-canceling-afghanistan-peace-talks-secret-meeting-n1051141

[14] Toros, Harmonie (2008). “ ‘We Don’t Negotiate with Terrorists!’: Legitimacy and Complexity in Terrorist Conflicts”, Security Dialogue vol. 39, no. 4, August 2008. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237967555_We_Don't_Negotiate_with_Terrorists'_Legitimacy_and_Complexity_in_Terrorist_Conflicts

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Borger, Julian (2020). “Pompeo touts partial ceasefire with Taliban in push for election-year troop reduction”, the Guardian, 13.02.2020. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/12/afghanistan-taliban-partial-ceasefire-us

[20] The Institute for Economics and Peace (2018). “Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism”, Sydney, November 2018. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf , accessed 05.02.2020.

[21] Stenersen, Anne (2009). “Are the Afghan Taliban Involved in International Terrorism?”, in Combating Terrorism Center vol. 2, no. 9, September 2009. Available from: https://ctc.usma.edu/are-the-afghan-taliban-involved-in-international-terrorism-3/

[22] Pape, Robert (2019). “How to Partner With the Taliban”, Foreign Policy, 26.08.2019. Available from: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/26/how-to-partner-with-the-taliban/