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

By Boaz Ganor

Global Alert describes the motivations that lead to modern Islamist terrorism and the different stages in the execution of a terrorist attack. Challenging the certainty that liberal democratic values offer an antidote to radicalism, the book exposes the exploitation of democratic institutions by terrorists to further their goals and confronts the difficulty democracies face in fighting terrorism, especially when international humanitarian law does not account for nonstate actors in armed conflict. Global Alert especially focuses on the "hybrid terrorist organization" model, which calls for a new international doctrine to neutralize its threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9780231538916

Book preview

GLOBAL ALERT

COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM

AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

Bruce Hoffman, Series Editor

This series seeks to fill a conspicuous gap in the burgeoning literature on terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and insurgency. The series adheres to the highest standards of scholarship and discourse and publishes books that elucidate the strategy, operations, means, motivations, and effects posed by terrorist, guerrilla, and insurgent organizations and movements. It thereby provides a solid and increasingly expanding foundation of knowledge on these subjects for students, established scholars, and informed reading audiences alike.

Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism

Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger, Jewish Terrorism in Israel

Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West

Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Resistance

William C. Banks, New Battlefields/Old Laws: Critical Debates on Asymmetric Warfare

Blake W. Mobley, Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection

Guido W. Steinberg, German Jihad: On the Internationalization of Islamist Terrorism

Michael W. S. Ryan, Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America

David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell, Counterinsurgency in Crisis: Britain and the Challenges of Modern Warfare

Bruce Hoffman and Fernando Reinares, editors, The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s Death

BOAZ GANOR

GLOBAL ALERT

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

Columbia University Press / New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York   Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press

Chapter three first published, in slightly different form, in William C. Banks, ed., Shaping a Global Legal Framework for Counterinsurgency: New Directions in Asymmetric Warfare

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). By permission of Oxford University Press.

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-53891-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ganor, Boaz.

Global alert : the rationality of modern Islamist terrorism and the challenge to the liberal democratic world / Boaz Ganor.

pages cm. — (Columbia studies in terrorism and irregular warfare)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-17212-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53891-6 (ebook)

1. Terrorism—Islamic countries. 2. Terrorism—Religious aspects—Islam. 3. Terrorism—Prevention. I. Title.

HV6433.I74.G36 2015

363.325—dc23

2014029475

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at [e-mail].

Cover design: Noah Arlow

Cover image: Geoff Spear

References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. INTRODUCTION TO MULTIDIMENSIONAL WARFARE:

Defining Terrorism, Redefining War

2. THE CHALLENGES AND DILEMMAS FACED BY LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES COPING WITH MODERN ISLAMIST TERRORISM

3. THE PROPORTIONALITY DILEMMA IN COUNTERING TERRORISM

4. STATE INVOLVEMENT IN TERRORISM

5. THE HYBRID TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

6. IS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY THE SOLUTION TO TERRORISM—OR IS IT PART OF THE PROBLEM?

7. THE RATIONALE OF MODERN ISLAMIST TERRORISM

8. THE PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF AN ISLAMIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATION’S RATIONALE

9. UNDERSTANDING THE RATIONALE BEHIND DIFFERENT TYPES OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

10. THE RATIONALE OF THE MODERN ISLAMIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATION:

Hamas as a Case Study

11. CONCLUSION

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK IS dedicated to my wife, Amit Ganor, and my children, Lee, Tom, and Dan, as an expression of my love and gratitude for their understanding and support through all the years of my professional work and especially during the writing of this book. The book is also dedicated to my parents of blessed memory, Shulamit and David Ganor, who instilled in me the passion for learning, research, and writing.

It would be impossible for me to thank all of my colleagues who advised and guided me during the research phase of this book, but special thanks are due to Marsha Weinstein, who translated and edited the book with exceptional skill and professionalism, and above all to my assistant and dear friend Stevie Weinberg, director of operations at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), who played a valuable and central role in preparing the book for publication.

I would like to thank my friends and acquaintances who supported the publishing of this book—Shabtai Shavit, former head of the Mossad and chairman of the ICT board of directors; Congressman Peter King, member of the Homeland Security Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence; Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, former head, Counter-Terrorism Unit, Paris District Court, and former leading French magistrate for investigating counterterrorism, France; Fernando Reinares, professor of political science, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, and senior analyst on international terrorism, Real Instituto Elcano Madrid, Spain; and Brian Jenkins, senior advisor to the president, RAND Corporation. In addition, I want to thank Columbia University Press and editor Anne Routon, as well as Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare series editor Bruce Hoffman.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Uriel Reichman, founder and president of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya—my academic home—whose distinct academic vision and initiative prompted his constant support of all my academic activities throughout the past two decades, both at the ICT and in personal endeavors. I also am grateful to Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, who granted me the Chair for Counter-Terrorism at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy, as well as my dear friends Daniel Jusid Man and Daphna and Gerry Cramer.

INTRODUCTION

TO EACH AGE its challenges. Barely over half a century ago, the international community grappled with fascism; less than half that time ago, it seemed that communism would be the scourge to end all scourges. The formation, dismantling, and re-formation of nations and nation-blocs of the past century and a half have been accompanied by changes in the way wars are fought, and in where and how they are fought. Although terrorism is not a modern phenomenon, it has in the modern age continued to don and slough off various incarnations: from state terrorization of civilian populations during World War II, through the anti-colonial campaigns of the Viet Minh and EOKA, to the anarchistic and nationalistic terrorism of the Red Brigades, IRA, and PLO. Recent years have seen an increase in the religious-ideological terrorism of Islamist-jihadists, whose manipulation of supportive civilian populations so as to wield violence against other civilians whom they regard as infidels represents a perfecting of modern terrorist strategies. Islamist-jihadist terrorism—a plague that has spread to almost every corner of the world—creates painful dilemmas for the peoples and decision makers who confront it. Its rapid, shape-shifting advance has sometimes confounded efforts to comprehend its origins, motives, and aims. Its sophistication in exploiting liberal values poses challenges and difficulties for the Western world, and for liberal democratic states in general, in attaining effective and balanced counter-terrorism policies. It is this gap in the understanding of Islamist-jihadist terrorism, as an offshoot and development of modern terrorism, that Global Alert wishes to bridge.

Chapter 1 begins the work of bridging the gap in understanding current trends and challenges in countering Islamist terrorism by providing a historical perspective on modern terrorism, as opposed to traditional warfare. It proposes a definition of terrorism, which takes into account the difficulty that the international community has so far had in reaching consensus on such a definition. It also reviews the reaction of today’s terrorists—Islamist terrorists among them—to liberal democracy, including their warped interpretation of modern liberal democratic governance and attempts to undermine it to achieve their aims.

Chapter 2 expands on terrorism’s exploitation of liberal democracy and explains the main dilemmas that this generates for the liberal democratic state plagued by terrorism. The chapter also describes the tango danced by terrorism and the liberal, free media, and explains how terrorist organizations spin their actions to send different messages to different target audiences.

The tension created by the effort to devise efficient counter-terrorism strategies while preserving liberal democratic values gives rise to yet another dilemma, that of the proportionality of the response to terrorism. Chapter 3 addresses the conundrum of proportionality by first taking up the thread of analysis presented in chapter 1, this time in light of international humanitarian law. Developed to provide a frame of reference—and liability—for the excesses and atrocities of twentieth-century war, international humanitarian law now struggles to define and address the infractions against it committed by terrorists. Chapter 3 proposes a solution to this dilemma, beginning with a redefinition of state and non-state actors, combatants and non-combatants. The chapter presents and thoroughly explicates a unique equation for assessing and planning proportional responses to terrorist acts, for use by civilian and military decision makers—even in the field.

Chapter 4 tackles what is usually a less conspicuous aspect of the terrorist threat: state support for terrorism. It parses this support into its ideological, financial, and military components, and explains the advantages and disadvantages to both the terrorist organization and the state sponsor of terrorism in maintaining a state/non-state relationship. Iran, which supports Hezbollah and other Islamist terrorist organizations, is presented as a case in point.

It takes no great leap for a terrorist organization to go from accepting state sponsorship and its attendant obligations to wielding political power as part of a state apparatus, even as it continues to affect policy and politics by deploying political violence. The metamorphosis from classic to hybrid terrorist organization is explored fully in chapter 5. The chapter first explains how a hybrid terrorist organization thrives simultaneously in the social-welfare, political, and military spheres, then illustrates this explanation with an analysis of Hezbollah and Hamas, two consummate hybrid organizations, and shows how these and other similar terrorist organizations utilize statecraft to expand their sphere of influence, without relinquishing terrorism.

Once a terrorist organization has begun to function as a political entity, however, it must also grapple with the constraints and considerations that it has heretofore manipulated. As chapter 6 reveals, the hybrid terrorist organization cannot forever exploit liberal democracy and governance without also being tainted by them. In exploring the increasingly sophisticated interaction between liberal democracy and modern terrorism, and between specific liberal democracies and Islamist hybrid terrorist entities, chapter 6 asks whether liberal democracy is the solution to the problem of terrorism—and if so, why and how. The chapter concludes with a review of recent U.S. counter-terrorism strategy as a possible response to the motivations and capabilities of increasingly complex terrorist organizations.

Chapter 7, at the heart of the book, explains the rationale that motivates terrorist organizations in general, and Islamist terrorist organizations in particular, and that fuels their determination to preserve their operative capability. Far from being irrational or depraved, terrorists are rational actors who employ cost-benefit calculations in determining when and how to exert their influence. Though incongruous to the West, their considerations are sometimes marked by an internal logic that emanates from their ideology and goals. This chapter and chapter 8 present an in-depth analysis of the root and instrumental causes and goals underlying Islamist terrorism. To understand Islamist-jihadist terrorism in general, and the phenomenon of suicide terrorism in particular, it behooves Western decision makers steeped in liberal democratic values to take a step back and begin to view the impetus for terrorism from the perspective of the terrorists themselves.

Chapter 9 demonstrates the rationale behind terrorism by explicating why and under what circumstances a terrorist organization may choose to use a given tactic. This chapter promotes a greater understanding of the rational cost-benefit calculus of the modern Islamist terrorist organization, which is so very necessary to decision makers who are charged with keeping their states safe from terrorism. It also stresses that terrorist organizations are learning organizations, which constantly adapt to changes on the ground in a race against their state rivals to retain primacy.

Hamas is an evolving example of this, as indicated by the timely explication in chapter 10. Hamas typifies both hybrid and Islamist terrorism, and has proven to be unparalleled in its flexible adjustment to a volatile region—and to counter-terrorism measures. The chapter describes Hamas’s root and instrumental goals, methods, and decision-making processes, and elucidates the challenges it faces as it tries to both persevere in its armed resistance—the impetus for its founding—and to govern. The chapter also examines how Hamas has been affected by the Arab Spring revolutions, the infiltration of radically extreme Islamist-jihadist elements into the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, and Israel’s real-time responses to its vulnerabilities. In a canny twist, the chapter concludes with the observation that Hamas, too, now faces dilemmas of governance, no less than does its nemesis, Israel. Chapter 11, which concludes the book, summarizes its main arguments and presents concrete recommendations, based on lessons learned.

Global Alert provides a fresh perspective on an entrenched problem, one that the twenty-first century has inherited from the twentieth century, and that shows no sign of abating. By revealing the fundamental building blocks of the terrorist organization, as well as the rationale behind Islamist terrorism, the book offers theorists, scholars, and decision makers an opportunity to truly understand what is currently a pressing threat to Middle Eastern stability and international security. Any attempt to curtail, if not vanquish, this threat must begin with just such an understanding.

Viewed in the context of modern terrorism, and particularly in light of recent terrorist events in the United States, the United Kingdom, and West Africa, Islamist terrorism cannot help but be seen as a problem that has exceeded the geographic boundaries of the Middle East. While this book is founded on the extensive experience of the State of Israel in countering both nationalist and Islamist-jihadist terrorist organizations, its perspective is applicable. Israel is a laboratory in which counter-terrorism efforts have been honed through painful trial and error.

Thus, although a first glance may not uncover the relationship between centralized hybrid terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and the penny-ante groups and offshoots of a decentralized (and, some claim, devolving) Al-Qaeda Central, a closer look reveals that global and local jihadist terrorism is increasingly following in the footsteps of classic Middle Eastern terrorism. In the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions, this has been borne out by the growing involvement of al-Qaeda offshoots and followers in local politics—either directly or via Salafist front organizations and parties—in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria. As the adage states, All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Global Alert makes no predictions, but asks the reader to take a closer look.

1

INTRODUCTION TO MULTIDIMENSIONAL WARFARE

Defining Terrorism, Redefining War

TERRORISM IS A dynamic, mutable phenomenon. It adapts to changes in the abilities and limitations of terrorist organizations, as well as to changes in their interests and motivations and those of their patrons and benefactors. A terrorist organization is a learning organization.¹ In order to survive, on the one hand, and realize its goals, on the other, it must study both itself and its enemy country. In looking inward at itself and its community of origin, the terrorist organization must recognize its advantages and disadvantages, identify the obstacles confronting it, and set short- and long-term goals. It must be very familiar with the community of origin that it purports to represent, and able to accurately identify that community’s aspirations, needs, and expectations from it. In examining its rival, the terrorist organization must identify the enemy country’s characteristics, strengths, and, primarily, its weaknesses, which can be exploited.

The learning process leads terrorist organizations to change their characteristics and tactics over time; this, in turn, has affected trends in terrorism. Specifically, modern terrorist organizations have adapted their methods and strategies to a liberal democratic enemy: they have learned to exploit the latter’s institutions, values, and inhibitions, and to manipulate its ethos to gain legitimacy. In so doing, they have striven to create a global environment that is hostile to countries that must cope with terrorism, turning liberal democracy and international humanitarian law into a double-edged sword pointed at the heart of Western democracy. This trend is analogous to the evolution of the modern battlefield.

This chapter traces the evolution of modern warfare, including the rise of a new type of adversary: the hybrid terrorist organization. It then elucidates what terrorism is, in light of this development, distinguishing it from other types of warfare and explaining why it is imperative that the liberal democratic world arrive at a shared definition of terrorism. Lastly, it explains the precarious relationship between terrorism and liberal democracy, as illustrated by the equivocal attitude of jihadist terrorists toward democracy—an attitude that is affecting how war is fought today.

HOW HAS MODERN WARFARE EVOLVED?

Classic warfare—that is, a war between two or more states—was conceived as symmetric warfare, waged on a military battlefield, with each party aiming to defeat the military capabilities of its opponent(s). Armies sought to impose this defeat by using their firepower to deprive their rivals of their fighting capabilities.²

In the mid-twentieth century, warfare strategies began evolving, concomitant with a wave of terrorism. This modern terrorism deliberately spread fear and anxiety among the population of enemy states, with the intention of reducing those states’ motivation to continue fighting. To this end, modern terrorism strategy fought its enemies in the media, as well as on traditional military battlefields.

Recently, modern terrorist warfare has evolved even further. States are now fighting a new breed of terrorist organization: the hybrid terrorist organization. Hybrid terrorist organizations typically have at least two parts: a military arm and a political arm. At times, a hybrid terrorist organization may develop a third part, which is charged with winning the hearts and minds of its community of origin by providing social welfare services and free or subsidized religious and education services. In Islamic rhetoric, such activities are known as "da’wa."³ When a state is combating a hybrid terrorist organization, it must fight not only on the military battlefield, and not just in the media, but also by challenging the organization’s legitimacy and calling its charitable deeds into question, sometimes in national courts and at international tribunals.

In other words, this new breed of warfare is multidimensional. It requires states to fight simultaneously in three arenas: the military arena, the psychological arena (e.g., through the media), and the legal arena. In multidimensional warfare, the military fights on the battlefield, the foreign office or ministry of foreign affairs wages a battle of public diplomacy in the media, and legal experts defend the state’s legitimacy in court. Today, a state can find itself facing a paradox, whereby it has won the military battle but lost the media war, or won the military battle and the media war, but lost its legitimacy in court. States confronting terrorist warfare must neutralize the terrorists’ ability to conduct attacks; remove the terrorists’ motivation to attack; and refute the terrorists’ legitimacy while maintaining their own and defending their right to fight the terrorists. Yet, given the chimerical nature of the hybrid terrorist organization, one of the most prevalent problems facing states engaged in asymmetric warfare against them is an inability to fully grasp the nature and challenges of this new type of war. To win a multidimensional war in the twenty-first century, a state must be able to coordinate and win in all three arenas, and do so simultaneously.

Further complicating modern terrorist warfare is that it is fought by rivals of unequal strength: specifically, by liberal democratic states and terrorist organizations. This has come to be known as asymmetric warfare.⁴ States have access to a military, to intelligence, and to security and police agencies; they can raise substantial funds for and dedicate considerable resources to fighting the enemy, and their direct firepower cannot be matched by any terrorist organization, no matter how sophisticated and well equipped. In contrast, terrorist organizations have more-limited resources and fewer arms; some use improvised or standard explosives to confront a state’s artillery, or shoulder-mounted anti-tank or anti-aircraft platforms to fight the enemy’s drones and fighter jets. On the face of it, this asymmetry is reminiscent of the biblical tale of David and Goliath—a further challenge to the legitimacy of a powerful state fighting a weaker, terrorist organization.⁵

In reality, it would be more accurate to describe the struggle of a democratic state against a terrorist organization as one of reverse asymmetry, in which Goliath is chained and bound by liberal democratic values, a commitment to civil liberties, and national and international laws that preclude the use of effective action against terrorism while permitting the use of only a fraction of the state’s military, intelligence, and operational capabilities. In the scenario of modern multidimensional and asymmetric warfare, Goliath is confronted by a David gone berserk, unbound by any prohibition, a David who accepts no norm, convention, international law, or restriction, and who makes deliberate, cynical use of those prohibitions and restrictions. By using civilians as human shields, by fighting from behind or within protected facilities such as places of worship, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, and aid facilities, the terrorist organization perverts the liberal democratic state’s self-imposed restrictions. It thereby maximizes the effect of its violent activities, catches its adversary by surprise, and pushes it to unwittingly, unjustifiably contravene the norms and values to which it is (also) bound by international humanitarian law.

In this way, terrorist organizations effectively render impotent the military advantage, firepower, and resources of the states they fight. As the state restrains itself to avoid causing collateral damage, the terrorist organization baits it, causing it to inflict just that type of damage even as it magnifies its own military and operational capabilities.

Given this reverse asymmetry and the difficulty of comprehending the multiple dimensions of the hybrid terrorist organization, it is necessary to carefully choose how to conceive of, and name, what is happening to modern warfare.

WHAT’S IN A NAME? THE PRIMACY OF TERMINOLOGY

Terminology plays a very important role in counter-terrorism policy. For many years, scholars used the term low-intensity warfare to describe terrorism. However, this term is no longer relevant—both because of the complexity of multidimensional warfare and because modern terrorist attacks cause mass casualties, as illustrated by the horrific attacks in New York on September