Terrorism is fast becoming one of the defining features of the world we live in. Although Americans naturally associate terrorism with the events of 9/11 and Al Qaeda, terrorism is rapidly evolving into a much wider and longer-term threat.
- Terrorism has become the preferred weapon of international groups who would destroy the existing order, represented by America and other wealthy Western countries. It is increasingly used as the tactic of choice in local civil wars, sectarian or ethnic conflict, or revolts against vulnerable political and social institutions. Like the communists, fascists and preachers of third-world liberation before them, the terrorists offer nothing in place of what they destroy but chaos or a harsh, exclusionary utopia.
- Terrorism is made increasingly dangerous by the ability of terrorist entrepreneurs to tap into a metastasizing international support network -- people, expertise, financing, weapons, training -- all too often connected to international crime.
- Terrorism sustains its energy, like a hurricane over open warm waters, with the failings and corruption of weak or despotic states. On the moral level, it is fueled by repressive regimes and the angers and resentments those states breed. On the physical level, it finds refuge and bases of operation in countrysides and cities. It taps into the capacities of government officials and agencies with tragic results, whether by petty bribery of Russian airport security or the close connections of the mujahadeen with Pakistani intelligence.
- Terrorism flourishes in a global environment of interconnectedness, of open physical and virtual borders, of the explosion of information instantaneously available, of literacy and education reaching a larger and larger number of people. Yet the environment that amplifies the reach and destructive power of terrorists is the same environment that offers the potential of the 21st century as an era of greater personal freedom, growth and prosperity -- both for Americans and for an expanding portion of peoples around the world.
Over the past three years we have learned that the US cannot retreat into its shell to protect its homeland. Even if all the wealthy nations succeed in protecting themselves internally from direct attack, we live in and benefit enormously from a globalizing, interdependent world. Our own societies suffer from the violence, dislocations, destruction, and insecurity in the regions of terrorist origin.
This is not simply the risk of disruption in key supplies, such as oil, or difficulties in some overseas investments or trading relationships. Throughout the wealthy nations, the very basis of our national economic and political systems -- of our liberal democracies and competitive markets -- would be seriously eroded.
Over the past three years we have also learned that the US cannot simply put terrorists out of business by capturing individuals or by bringing overwhelming force to bear in places where terrorists are found. Terrorism is becoming an international ideological current, with numerous nationalistic manifestations. It has taken on a life of its own and can neither be quickly smashed nor decapitated.
Just as America did in the early stages of the Cold War, we should be preparing to use all our resources across a number of fronts in an extended struggle. And as in the Cold War, our most important assets will most often be political, not military. They are derived from the strength of our liberal political and economic system: its values, its credibility, its example, and the extent to which the rest of the world looks to America for leadership in managing our collective defense.
It is past time that America reclaimed the tradition of liberal internationalism which served us well through the last half century, whether the inhabitant of the White House was a Republican or Democrat. The Bush Administration explicitly rejected that tradition. Yet their policies and actions are visibly foundering as a sustainable strategy, other than as measured to date by the lack of terrorist episodes within the US since 9/11.
The extent of the strategic mistakes made by our leaders will only become fully evident as time moves on, but the inherent weaknesses and dangers of the Bush Doctrine are already apparent in both Afghanistan, despite the encouraging recent elections, and in Iraq.
The case against the Bush Doctrine and the misguided priorities of the Administration has been made in part, although not yet very powerfully. And as for a clear alternative, it has been sadly missing, other than the wishful thinking of immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
The lack of an alternative is due in great part to the inevitable dynamics of an election campaign conducted mostly in sound bites with journalists focused on a stream of high-pitched but short-term controversies, and in the context of a war in Iraq with escalating violence, an extremely fluid political situation, and the prospect of major combat operations by US forces.
With the reelection of President Bush and the further strengthening of one-party government in Congress, political voices that challenge the Administration's approach will find it difficult to be heard for some time to come. No coherent alternatives are likely to emerge from the politically weakened moderate Republicans who might otherwise be natural sources of opposition.
It will be left to the Democrats, and whatever allies they can muster from the Right, not only to make the case for why the Bush Doctrine is the wrong strategy that risks our country's future. It will also be our duty to spell out a clear picture of how America should be responding over the long-run to the growing terrorism threat.
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