Global Alert: The Rationality of Modern Islamist Terrorism and the Challenge to the Liberal Democratic World

IN 2001, IMMEDIATELY after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. president George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and declared: “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”¹ It is likely that this declaration, made while America was still feeling the shock of the worst terrorist attack in history, was meant by the president to illustrate the severity of the threat to his people, and to communicate his determination to do everything in his power to root it out and guarantee their safety. Yet President Bush was scorned and criticized by political rivals and scholars alike, who rightly pointed out that it is impossible to declare war on terrorism, as it is not an entity but a phenomenon.² In fact, terrorism is a violent modus operandi for achieving political ends, which targets civilians. Various entities—organizations, movements, and states³—utilize terrorism to accomplish their political goals.

The common denominator of all terrorist goals—no matter the ideology from which they are derived—is their politicization. An analysis conducted by Martha Crenshaw found similarities in the way various terrorist organizations calculated their desired ends and the means to reach them, in light of changing circumstances and operative possibilities.⁴ Yet their goals—be they regime change, the removal of a foreign oppressor, the fair redistribution of wealth, a change in the social status quo, or the establishment of a global caliphate governed by religious doctrine—always remained political in nature.

At the same time, the violent modus operandi that since the middle of the previous century has developed into what we have come to know as modern terrorism is not “just” a strategy of political violence. Rather, it is a strategy of indirect action aimed at achieving political goals. “Personal terrorism,” the precursor to modern terrorism, attempted to change a regime or its policy by pressuring or assassinating a key decision maker or his close allies. In contrast, modern terrorism does not necessarily aim to directly change political reality. Instead, it strives to indirectly effect change by manipulating entities—the media, public opinion, and outside actors such as a third state or the international community—that can in turn bring about the change it desires. Consequently, it is the operative goal of modern terrorism to sow panic and terror among its “target audience,” and not merely to cause the maximum damage or number of casualties. Although a terrorist attack may be fueled by an appetite for vendetta and sated by murderous or exceptionally cruel acts, lethality is not essential to the goals of modern terrorism. Instilling pure terror in the victims and their community is the only true, necessary variable in its strategy.

In other words, modern terrorism is an indirect strategy of psychological warfare designed to terrorize—and terrify—the terrorists’ targeted population.⁵ In its modern guise, terrorism generates fear, which is translated into political pressure on decision makers that is meant to induce them to submit to the terrorists’ political demands if they want to end the threat of terrorism.⁶ For this indirect strategy to be effective, the modern terrorist organization must plan and execute terrorist attacks that match or magnify the anxiety and dread of individual members of the targeted society. To do this, the organization must be well acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of the targeted country, the processes at work there, its political groups, rivalries, and cohesiveness, and its aspirations and goals. The terrorist organization succeeds in doing this by personalizing its terrorist attacks⁷—that is, by leaving the lasting impression on as many people as possible that, judging from the attacks’ characteristics, they or their loved ones might be next, that their lives were spared by mere chance, and that next time their luck might run out.

Consequently, terrorist organizations prefer popular venues and crowded destinations—public transportation hubs, airports, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and nightlife spots—at the times when these are most apt to be thronged by the greatest number of people; they adapt their modus operandi accordingly. Doing so conveys the desired message that “the victim of this attack could have been me or someone I love; danger lurks around every corner.” In this way, modern terrorism not only generates fear for fear’s sake but also undermines people’s confidence in the ability of decision makers and security forces to guarantee their safety and the normalcy of their lives.

To reiterate: fear is a means to an end. Modern terrorists try to translate this fear into political pressure on decision makers to change their policy in a way that suits the terrorists’ interests and goals. This strategy is most tangibly illustrated by the perpetration of severe terrorist attacks prior to democratic elections in a targeted country, in an attempt to directly influence voting patterns and bring about a change in government and policy. An example is found in the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Israel proximate to the 1996 election, in which the Labor Party administration was replaced by a Likud Party administration. Similarly, a deadly attack was perpetrated on election day in 2008 at a voting booth in an Israeli city.⁸

Stated differently, the target(s), symbolism, and timing of an attack are often chosen so as to intensify their demoralizing psychological effect. At times, so, too, is the modus operandi itself. For sheer savagery and inhumanity, kidnapping and decapitating a victim and broadcasting the deed in the media or online constitutes a force and fear multiplier; for this reason, terrorist organizations prefer it to a simple act of killing. For example, on January 23, 2002, Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, an American, was kidnapped in Pakistan and subsequently beheaded. His “pseudo-sentencing” and brutal murder were videotaped, and the video immediately and extensively disseminated on the Internet. Suicide attacks have a similar effect, intensifying fear more than do “common” bombings; though the two types of attack might cause identical casualties and damage, nothing matches the psychological effect imprinted by a perpetrator who is not only willing to die for his cause but for whom death is the highest aspiration. In other words, brutality and a perceived willingness for self-sacrifice—both of which contradict Western logic—have an exponential effect on the generation of dread among Western audiences.

For this process to take place—that is, for modern terrorism to accomplish its goal of exerting political pressure on decision makers—terrorists must do more than merely continue their onslaught. They must create the impression that there is an exit strategy from their campaign of attrition against the targeted state and its citizens. As long as at least some of the targeted public believe that the terrorists are willing to compromise, or that the political cost of complying with their demands is not severe and constitutes neither an existential risk nor a strategic threat, it is likely that the political pressure on decision makers to fully or partially yield to the terrorists’ demands will intensify. On the other hand, when a society has been set upon by terrorist organizations that refuse all compromise, or whose demands are deemed a severe or existential threat, that society will be far less likely to yield to the terrorists’ demands. In other words, excessive zeal in implementing the strategy of modern terrorism is liable to backfire.⁹

In order to succeed, then, modern terrorism must intensify personal fear and anxiety to the point that it overpowers concern for collective safety and national security. Furthermore, modern terrorist strategy must convey the message that personal safety and collective safety are mutually exclusive, and that personal safety must be the top priority. For example, terrorist organizations with a separatist or otherwise territorially inclined agenda must make their enemy believe that failure to comply with their demands endangers citizens’ safety and well-being, so that even those citizens who believe that the disputed territory is essential to national security decide that the personal cost they are being asked to pay to safeguard national security is too steep. Of course, collective national security is intangible and theoretical, whereas personal safety is immediate and very tangible. Through personalization, terrorists make the cost to personal safety palpable, thereby leveraging it to achieve at least some of the terrorist organization’s political goals.

It is important to reiterate that the terrorization of a target population is thus an indirect modus operandi, which relies not only on actual violence but also on mediating factors such as a competitive, free media and public opinion to achieve its political ends.

It is also important to remember, in this context, that terrorism is usually part of a larger “system,” in which terrorist activity, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and various other types of political violence are employed over time in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to isolate the effect of terrorism alone, as distinct from other violent acts. However, in some cases, a change in policy may be the direct result of one significant terrorist attack or of a series of closely timed terrorist attacks. This was the case in 1983, when a decision was made to remove foreign troops from Lebanon following the October 23 terrorist attacks on a U.S. Marine base and on French forces there, which killed 299 American and French soldiers and wounded hundreds more. Alternatively, terrorism may achieve a hoped-for change in policy only after years of attacks, which erode the resilience of the targeted state’s public and decision makers. For example, in 2005 Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to unilaterally withdraw Israeli forces and civilians from the Gaza Strip in 2005—a decision he may well never have reached had it not been for incessant terrorist and guerrilla attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets there. Similarly, in 2000, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak decided to withdraw Israeli forces from southern Lebanon after a fifteen-year presence there that had been dogged by ceaseless Hezbollah attacks.

A terrorist attack is often a localized incident causing limited and even negligible damage. Most of the terrorist attacks committed around the world to date have caused few casualties, if any.¹⁰ When compared with other causes of mortality, terrorist attacks are no more than a tactical threat to any specific country, or to modern society as a whole. In most of the countries constantly beset by terrorist attacks, where terrorism has ceased to be a minor nuisance, the number of casualties from terrorism is lower than the number of casualties from traffic accidents or disease and illness.¹¹ What transforms terrorism from a tactical into a strategic threat is the fear it causes, and the translation of that fear into the desired political outcome. For this “fear effect” to materialize, terrorism’s message must be conveyed to the target audience. Modern media outlets are the most effective means of delivering this message. The presence of an uncensored, competitive media guarantees that the message will not only be delivered but will also be amplified. A localized terrorist attack that is conveyed visually on television and in cyberspace, broadcast over radio, and described in print usually has greater resonance than any other type of incident involving casualties. Terrorist attacks provide the media with background stories and tales of suspense, heroism, and tragedy that resonate with the primordial fears of every citizen. They serve the interests of the media by elevating its ratings: the more sensational the report, the more unconventional the point of view, and the more gruesome the description, the greater the news consumer’s apprehension, and the greater his or her need for more news. Thus, media coverage promotes the interests of modern terrorist organizations, which in turn boost the interests of the media.¹²

Of course, terrorist activity can also take place without unallied media coverage. Most modern terrorist organizations possess the ability to disseminate information through their own independent media outlets—e.g., Internet sites, blogs, video and audio tapes, newspapers, and radio and television stations—without relying on local or international news networks.

Terrorist organizations have several target audiences to which they strive to communicate different messages:¹³ their population of origin, which they purport to represent; the targeted population; and the world’s population. The message aimed at the terrorist organization’s population of origin is meant to encourage and raise morale. It states, “We may be the weaker party in this conflict, but we can still surprise the enemy at any time, in any place, and cause him great losses. We will take our revenge, we can deter the enemy, and we will force him to make concessions. Together, we can win this war.” It urges the population of origin to join the terrorist organization, contribute to its activities, and provide its members with funds and shelter.

The second audience sought by terrorist organizations is the targeted population. The message conveyed to this audience is the mirror image of the previous one: it is meant to demoralize, spread fear, confusion, and anger, and cultivate distrust in the power of the state to provide even a minimal measure of security, or to guarantee the safety of its citizens’ lives and property. It is meant to disrupt citizens’ daily routine and petrify them into social introversion and segregation. It is meant to undermine the self-image of the target society no less than that of its individual members, and to create or magnify internal political rifts. And it is meant to deter the state and society from taking operative measures against the terrorist organization, even as it cultivates the realization that the only viable way to regain tranquillity and security is to comply with the terrorists’ demands.

The third audience sought by terrorist organizations is the world’s population: citizens of countries not involved in the conflict. Terrorist attacks are meant to draw global attention to the root causes and circumstances of the conflict, as the terrorists wish to portray them. Terrorist attacks can also lure an attacked state into causing collateral damage among the terrorist organization’s civilian constituency. When an attacked state is obliged to use countermeasures against the terrorist organization, and that organization is embedded in a crowded civilian area (as is usually the case), the terrorist organization then presents any ensuing civilian casualties as proof of the immorality of the enemy state—and hence as justification for its terrorist attacks. Terrorist organizations represent themselves as “underdogs” fighting regimes that offend every democratic norm, infringe upon liberal values and personal freedoms, and hold international standards and humanitarian law in contempt. The message sent to the world is designed to garner the empathy of the citizens of uninvolved states and deter them from supporting the targeted state. When the empathy of this third audience reaches critical mass, it is translated into pressure on decision makers in uninvolved countries to use different means—persuasion, threats, or sanctions—to force the targeted state to concede to at least some of the demands of the terrorist organization or, alternatively, to prevent the targeted state from taking operative measures to defend itself from the terrorist organization.

The so-called Goldstone Report—issued by the UN commission established in 2009 to examine Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead—is an example of such a process. Israel embarked on Operation Cast Lead on December 27, 2008, to stem the continuous mortar and rocket fire of Hamas and Palestinian terrorist groups at the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot and the kibbutzim and moshavim bordering the Gaza Strip. Israel was broadly and internationally lambasted for its twenty-three-day operation; the criticism reached a crescendo in the Goldstone Report, which determined that the operation had been disproportionate and indiscriminate, and that Israel had deliberately caused the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Subsequently, on April 2, 2011, Justice Goldstone published an article in the Washington Post titled “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes,” in which he retracted his conclusion that Israel had deliberately harmed civilian targets. However, the damage had already been done. During the time elapsed, the Goldstone Report had become a convenient platform for international criticism of Israel, including by various UN institutions.¹⁴

Because terrorism’s strategy wields the mediating elements present in any liberal democratic regime against it, the very core of modern terrorism is linked to the democratic form of government.

He concludes, “Because these liberal constraints preclude a maximally effective counterterrorism strategy, democracies are supposedly susceptible to appeasing terrorists, which creates incentives for them to attack this regime type.”¹⁵ According to this model, democracies thus face the following dilemma: strengthening state counter-terrorism capabilities automatically decreases that state’s liberal democratic values, yet preserving the state’s democratic and liberal values makes the state a target of terrorist organizations. In fact, in three separate papers, Eubank and Weinberg found that terrorist attacks are more likely to occur in democratic states.¹⁶

However, Abrahms disagrees with these positions; he explains that “in fact, democracies make for inferior targets because their ostensible liabilities are actually counterterrorism assets.”¹⁷ He adds that “a commitment to civil liberties restrains democracies from overreacting to terrorist provocation. This limits the likelihood that democratic governments will squander the support of the three constituencies—moderates, the international community, and their own publics—essential to prevailing.”¹⁸ Lastly, Abrahms states that liberal and democratic countries create intolerance toward civilian losses, which leads to greater motivation to confront terrorism.¹⁹

Michael Freeman, on the other hand, writes that “democracy will be unlikely to affect perceptions of occupation, unlikely to reduce the perceived threat from the West to Islamic identity and culture, unlikely to compensate for the economic failures of modernization and unlikely to offer a more legitimate political ideology than religious extremism to jihadis.” He adds that “because these are four of the main grievances that give resonance to the ideology of global jihad, spreading democracy to undermine these causes will probably be an ineffectual and possibly counterproductive strategy.”²⁰

A review of these and other schools of thought regarding the nexus of terrorism, counter-terrorism, and democracy reveals that regardless of the school of thought to which one adheres, media and public opinion are an asset to terrorism no less than to counter-terrorism. The following section outlines how terrorist organizations exploit liberal democratic apparatuses to further their goal of inflicting fear and anxiety on the public; through the media, the terrorists hope to affect public opinion, which in turn will cause government to change its policies and, hence, reality.

There is no doubt that modern terrorist organizations succeed in sending disparate messages to multiple audiences thanks to the competitive free press and new media, which utilize modern information technology to simultaneously broadcast images, sounds, and the printed word in real time, without censorship, and in limitless quantity across the globe. However, the media are not the only element vital to the strategy of modern terrorism; public opinion, another cornerstone of modern democracy, is equally important to its success.²¹ Without the public’s opinion—formed in part thanks to the media—the strategy of modern terrorism could not be carried out. If terrorism succeeds in intimidating a population but falls short of provoking political pressure on decision makers, if public channels of influence on decision makers are blocked, if the government is insensitive to its citizens’ opinions, or if the prevailing political culture does not allow for public opinion, then the link will be severed between the terrorist attack and the process of political influence it was meant to spark. A liberal democratic political culture, in which the expression of public opinion thrives, is therefore vital to the strategy of modern terrorism.

The liberal freedoms that form the basis of the normative system in democratic states—freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of movement—also provide terrorist organizations with room to maneuver, even as they severely limit the state’s ability to respond to and confront the threat of modern terrorism. The principle of free speech, a cornerstone of liberal democracy, guarantees each individual the right to freely express himself and criticize the government without fear. Terrorist organizations exploit this principle to win the hearts and minds of their supporters, and to recruit and mobilize them to action using incitement, including ambiguous or even direct calls for violence. They also exploit freedom of speech to intensify the effect of their attacks by accompanying them with threats and ultimatums, and by spreading false alarms. Freedom of assembly allows terrorists to form organizations, parties, charities, and other political and apolitical associations, which serve as fronts for their activities and create a seemingly legitimate facade behind which to hide. This enables some terrorist organizations to act simultaneously on two levels: the covert, illegal level of terrorism and the overt, legitimate level of politics. Under its legitimate guise, the terrorist organization disseminates its messages, recruits activists, raises funds, and gains local and international justification for its activities. Freedom of movement enables terrorist organizations to transport their operatives for any reason—including to perpetrate an attack. Furthermore, advances in civilian ground and air transportation and their increasing volume give terrorists access to countless potential targets of attack. Disguised as civilians, terrorists reach tourist destinations, public transportation hubs, shopping and entertainment centers, or any crowded location with the ease that liberal democratic societies afford intra-city, inter-city, and international travel. Lastly, freedom of movement is often exploited to prepare attacks—that is, to transfer money, forge documents, cache weapons, and transport operatives.

Modern terrorist organizations also take advantage of other values of liberal democratic states, not only of basic civil rights. For example, the freedom of information practiced in liberal democratic states enables terrorist organizations to gather the intelligence necessary to plan and execute attacks. Free access to public records, files, and other information from government agencies, as part of an ongoing trend of e-governance, as well as the availability and sophistication of online search engines, gives terrorists unprecedented access to vital open sources intelligence (OSINT) that once could be acquired only at great risk of exposure, if at all. Equal rights, the right to privacy, and freedom of religion severely limit the counter-terrorism activities of security forces in a liberal democratic state by restricting the possibility of wiretapping the telephones, cordless devices, computers, and fax machines of suspected terrorists. All of these rights also limit the ability of a state to monitor suspects who work out of a place of worship or under the guise of a religious activity, to search the property and personal belongings of suspects, or to selectively screen suspects based on national, social, or religious identity (namely, “profiling”), even when a common denominator indicates the risk of terrorist affiliation.

In a liberal democratic state, an individual’s right to his body, dignity, and property also effectively prevents security forces from using force or humiliation during questioning, even when under time constraints or when the information being extracted could stop an attack about to be perpetrated (a so-called ticking bomb). These rights and values also prohibit the use of collective punishment, which may be effective under certain circumstances, but at the cost of harming uninvolved civilians. Lastly, the value placed on human life by liberal democracies is also exploited by terrorist organizations: they use liberal democracies’ sensitivity to casualties among their citizens or as part of the “collateral damage” of counter-terrorism activities to both intensify the effect of the terrorists’ own attacks and to increase domestic and international criticism of counter-terrorism measures.

The virtues of the modern liberal democracy therefore make it a very comfortable platform for the foundation, development, and flourishing of modern terrorist organizations and their highly effective strategy. Of course, nothing that such organizations do undermines the importance or moral superiority of the democratic regime and liberal values. Neither does it mandate the use of all or even some of the effective counter-terrorism measures that impinge on liberal democracy’s virtues. However, it does highlight the magnitude of the dilemma facing liberal democratic states challenged by modern terrorism. Unfortunately, this challenge is sometimes undermined or disregarded.²²

What are the main dilemmas facing the liberal democratic society that wishes to implement these three important guidelines while confronting terrorism—dilemmas that are accentuated by that society’s fundamental civil liberties, values, norms, and liberal narrative? One is the “democratic-governance dilemma,” and the other is the “liberal-democratic dilemma.”²⁴

The development of the modern state is in many ways the product of individuals’ desire to create social frameworks that enhance their ability to defend themselves against both domestic and foreign security risks. Consequently, a citizen’s most basic expectation of a liberal democratic state is that its elected leaders will do all they can to guarantee his safety, well-being, and property.²⁵ It is precisely this expectation that is exploited by terrorist organizations, whose attacks are geared to generate public pressure on the state to reestablish security. In the heat of the moment, a public threatened by terrorism expects and even demands that its decision makers take extreme measures, regardless of liberal democratic values, moral inhibitions, and financial considerations, to stop the terrorism. For example, within hours of the attacks on 9/11, listeners expressed their shock on live radio, asking “Why don’t we nuke them?”²⁶ They did not trouble themselves with petty details such as who “they” were, who was responsible for the attacks, or what the repercussions might be of “nuking them.” In their minds, all that mattered was that the United States commit itself to using its military might to bring the perpetrators to justice and provide its citizens with better security in the future.

Similarly, during waves of terrorist attacks in Israel, the public has raised a hue and cry against decision makers, repeatedly demanding that they “let the IDF win”²⁷—as if the only thing preventing the army from waving a magic wand to solve the problem of terrorism were political considerations and other “inhibitions.”²⁸

This illustrates the democratic-governance dilemma: in a liberal democratic state assaulted by terrorist attacks, decision makers must satisfy their constituents’ immediate need for a restored sense of security, while ensuring that they not undermine the sovereignty of their country’s government. This dilemma can be exacerbated not only by public pressure but also by the decision makers’ perception of what the “people’s will” is following a terrorist attack. This perception can be distorted if the public expects the government to take a tougher stand or, conversely, a more moderate stand, than it usually does. The democratic-governance dilemma is acute because decision makers confronted with responding to a terrorist attack realize they may be removed from office if they fail to do what is expected of them. In many liberal democratic states that are exposed to an ongoing terrorist campaign, ignoring the public’s wishes is political suicide.²⁹ Furthermore, if the main reason for avoiding one counter-terrorism measure or another is grounded in ethical considerations, decision makers must consider the possibility that they will be replaced by a political rival with fewer moral inhibitions, who is willing to promise the public a “magic bullet” solution even if it undercuts liberal democratic values. In other words, defending the values of the liberal democratic state may be the undoing of democracy. The democratic-governance dilemma is therefore a challenge to find the right balance among gaining the people’s trust, maintaining legitimacy, and preserving the ability to govern.

This leads to the liberal-democratic dilemma, which also serves modern terrorists well: the more inclined a decision maker is to safeguard his state’s liberal democratic values, the larger the berth given the terrorist. Conversely, a decision maker who is willing to compromise liberal democratic values to combat terrorism verifies the terrorists’ claim that they face an immoral, illegitimate regime. This dilemma is perhaps one of the greatest problems that decision makers in liberal democratic states face. When confronted with continual terrorism, they must sometimes sacrifice counter-terrorism’s effectiveness to preserve liberal democratic values; yet in extreme circumstances, they may be called upon to restrict civil liberties to effectively safeguard their citizens.

As articulated by Irwin Cotler, confronting terrorism means striving to fulfill the most basic human right in a state: the right to life.³⁰ Sometimes, in preserving the right of citizens to live in security, a decision maker must make painful choices. In such cases, the decision maker must strive to limit harm to citizens’ liberties to the extent possible and ensure that if such harm is inevitable, it remains circumscribed and affects only the most minor of liberties, constituting little more than a nuisance. Decisions of this sort should be made in only the most acute cases, after all other alternatives have been explored and rejected; they should be declared temporary; and they should be subordinated to judicial supervision. Decision makers must use liberal democratic values as their moral compass, and be wise enough to recognize their obligation to the safety of their citizens yet sensitive enough to balance greatest effect with least harm. In fact, it is not possible for decision makers to ignore the liberal-democratic dilemma when combating terrorism, even temporarily; soon enough, harsh reality will force them to acknowledge it.