With our recent posting about realism I thought it would be appropriate to repost the first thing ever posted on this blog. I originally posted this entry on April 11th, 2004.

Here is it is:
"Is All Terrorism State Sponsored?"

This is a rarely expressed but vitally important question in this election year. The Bush administration’s answer to this question is the link between 9/11 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration wants to sell G.W. Bush as the great leader who guided us through the unimaginable of 9/11 and then led us to victory after victory in the "War on Terrorism."

Many on the left casually suggest that George Bush II invade Iraq to finish the job left unfinished by George Bush I and to avenge the attempt on George Bush I’s life. However, I believe that such accusations do not give the current administration enough credit for honest intentions - at least with respect to the "War on Terrorism." I believe that however misguided their foreign policy may be, it is based on a broad world view rather personal grudges.

Realism: A State Centric World View

The Bush administration’s foreign policy clique - variously called The Chickenhawks, The Vulcans, or the Neo-Cons - are adherents of a theory of international relations known as "realism" (in this usage, not the opposite of naivete or idealism). Realism is based on three major assumptions. 1) States (like the USA, France or Iraq) are the dominant influences on world affairs. 2) States make decisions as "unitary actors" that is, they make decisions as if they were single individuals. For example, it makes sense under this assumption to say "France wants XYZ" or "The United States wants ABC" without much consideration of internal conflicts within the governments or societies in those countries. 3) States seek to increase their power relative to other states in the most efficient way available.

In this view of world politics, non-state actors like the UN, Multi-national corporations, Non-governmental Originations (like Red Cross, Amnesty International etc) play only a supplemental role and in most cases are either irrelevant or tools of some powerful nation-state. This applies to terrorist groups as well. From the realists’ perspective, in order for Al Qaeda to be a threat to the United States of the first order, it must be a sponsored tool of some powerful government. According to this view, most effective way to stop terrorism is to wage war against the states that sponsor it. Attacking the terrorists themselves is treating the symptom. Attacking Iraq, and other states, is getting to the root of the problem.

This world view may have encouraged Bush administration officials to believe any report - no matter how incredible - of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11. In the realist world view, it is inconceivable that such a complex, coordinated and effective attack could be carried off without the full support of a foreign government. Of all the governments in the world that would have had a motive to support such an attack, Iraq stood out as the most likely. Richard Clarke’s report that G.W. Bush strongly pressed him to find a connection between Iraq and the World Trade Center attacks is consistent with the idea that Bush was influenced by the realist viewpoint.

The bottom line is that for the Bush administration the "War on Terror" is mainly a series of conventional wars against nation states. The U.S. will invade a succession of "rogue states" until all states recognize the perils of sponsoring terrorism.


An Alternative Viewpoint:


This state-centric view of the world is at odds with an increasingly accepted alternative view based more on economic activity and individual (rather than national) interests. According to this more individual centered view, there is no such thing as a "national interest." Every policy a national government adopts results in gains and losses for every individual citizen. Few policies make everyone better off without costs. For that reason, understanding a country’s foreign policy requires understanding the personal interests of its leaders and their key supporters. This alternative view also argues that organizations of individuals other than national governments can have enormous influence on world affairs. Those who ascribe to this view would ask, "which is more influential on the world stage, North Korea with world’s the 3rd largest army or a large multinational corporation, like General Electric, Siemens or Mitsubishi?"

In this individualistic view Al Qaeda is the violent, murderous version of a multinational business cartel.

In this view, waging war against nation-states in the traditional sense of massive military invasions is not going to address the problem. Even if non-governmental actors, like multi-national corporations or terrorist groups, benefit the protection of nation-states, they exist separately from those governments. That is, non-governmental actors can survive and even thrive despite the total defeat of sympathetic rogue states.

Applied to Al Qaeda this view suggests that Al Qaeda could continue to exist and be an effective threat to the United States despite the conquest and occupation of any number of "rogue states". Al Qaeda’s function depends on its leaders’ ability to communicate amongst themselves and their ability to raise and spend money. None of these basic functions depends on the power of a rogue state's government. Conquering the territory upon which Al Qaeda erected their training camps does nothing more (or less) than evict the terrorists and force them to find new homes. It does not eliminate the basic problem, that a loose network of people with murder on their minds can kill people by the thousands. Remember, the Oklahoma City bombing killed hundreds of people and was pulled off by a couple of right-wing extremists working out of a garage in Michigan!

The bottom line in this view is that the "War on Terror" should be more like the "War on Drugs" or the "War on Poverty" than a conventional war between nations. This is not to say that no military action is necessary at all. However, it does mean that full scale invasions and long term occupations are likely to be ineffective and very costly.