Is Terrorism A `clear And Present Danger?

It is difficult to pinpoint an event which can truly be said to mark a change in epoch, an event which acts as a clear dividing point between one era and the next. The al-Qaeda attacks which shook the United States on the morning of the eleventh of September are, however, one such event whose epochal nature is beyond all doubt. Western society, and indeed the world as a whole, had lived with organised terrorism for over a century prior to theses attacks but in a mere few hours on that September morning, we experienced not simply a terrible atrocity committed against innocent civilians but a complete realignment in the way in which we as a collective group perceive, think about, analyse and fret over the phenomenon of terrorism. The danger posed by terrorism is, it will be argued, no more or less severe than at any other time in the twentieth century. The terrorism we are most concerned with today - that undertaken by radical Islamist groups - is driven by a more potent ideology than that held by terrorist organisations in the past but this merely serves to make us more afraid, it does not necessarily mean that we are actually in greater danger from terrorism than ever before. Yee-Kuang Heng argues that 'Risk and threat occupy different positions on a conceptual spectrum of dangers.' What this means in the context of terrorism, therefore, is that we feel more at risk from terrorism and that we are more afraid of it now than we previously were but the phenomenon itself actually poses no more or less direct danger to us than previously. In essence, the material impact of terrorism remains, for the time being at least, unchanged, but fear of terrorism has increased. Terrorism is a clear and present danger in so far as it does exist and does have the ability to cause harm but its impact has, thanks largely to the spectacular nature of the 9/11 attacks, been overstated. It is necessary when making the argument - as this essay does - that terrorism is less of a danger than we fear it is, to firstly qualify such an attestation by acknowledging the very real threat that terrorism does pose all around the world. Whatever the nature and aims of a terrorist organisation, it is a very real fact that they do cause physical harm to individuals in pursuit of political goals and it would be extremely difficult to try and convince the victims of a terrorist attack that terrorism was not a clear and present danger. David Fromkin, for instance, writes that 'gangs of politically motivated gunmen have disrupted everyday life, intruding and forcing their parochial feuds upon the unwilling attention of everybody else' statement which very aptly captures the imposition of terrorism upon the world. We don't want it. We don't ask for it. Yet we are forced to endure it. When this imposition of force upon civilians results in maiming and death, it becomes very difficult to deny that terrorism is a clear and present danger. What is more, the terrorism with which we as a society are now primarily concerned with - Islamic terrorism - poses us with more severe challenges than its predecessors. Audrey Cronin has argued that with the 9/11 attacks 'the world was facing the resurgence of a far more malignant type of terrorism, whose lethality was borne out in the increased death toll from incidents that increasingly involved a religious motivation' and that 'with a premium now apparently placed upon causing more casualties in each incident, it was feared that the incentives for terrorist organizations to use so called "weapons of mass destruction" would be greatly increased.' What Cronin argues is essentially true, but it does not mean that terrorism is now a more significant threat than ever before. Instead it merely means that we fear it more, especially the possibility of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons. The impact of terrorism upon the world is still far more limited than our imaginations make it out to be. To understand why terrorism is less of a danger than we imagine it to be, it is worth considering the limitations of its impact upon our society. Firstly, the number of casualties resulting from terrorist attacks across the globe is, in comparison with the number of people dying as a result of other types of violence, regrettable but very small. Audrey Cronin illustrates the number of casualties from international terrorist incidents in graphical form and it is interesting to note that during the time period which is graphed (1968-200) there is not a single year in which the number of fatalities from terrorist attacks ever reaches 1000. By way of comparison, Britain's Department for Transport produces annual reports into road safety. The following is an extract from the summary of the 2010 report: 'In 2010, there were a total of 208,648 casualties of all severities in road accidents reported to the police... There were 1,850 people killed... and 22,660 were seriously injured,' The fact that nearly 2000 people died on Britain's roads in 2010 alone compared with there never having been a year in which more than 1000 people globally died in terrorist attacks lends a degree of perspective to the level of danger posed by terrorism. It is not, however, the deaths which terrorism causes which are the practice's main goal or indeed its most potent effect but rather the pressure which is brought to bear on people in positions of power as a result of these fatalities. Mark Juergensmeyer writes that 'although these groups cannot kill on the scale that governments with all their military power can, their sheer numbers, their intense dedication, and their dangerous unpredictability have given them influence vastly out of proportion with their meagre military resources.' Terrorism is, therefore, a clear and present danger to individuals in the most minor way possible. The real danger it presents, however, comes through its ability to steal the political discourse by utilizing fear and prompting political change. It is to this link between terrorism and fear to which we now turn. Fromkin writes that 'Fright can paralyze the will, befuddle the mind, and exhaust the strength of an adversary. Moreover, it can persuade an opponent that a particular political point of view is taken with such deadly seriousness by its few adherents that it should be accommodated,' It is this ability to sow fright amongst a population which is terrorism's greatest strength. As discussed above, there is a real physical danger which results from terrorism but this is negligibly small. The real 'clear and present danger' posed by terrorism is, instead, its ability to cause fear and panic. It is not what terrorists do which is of greatest concern but rather what we choose to imagine they could possibly do. Walter Laqueur argues that 'terrorism`s prospects, often overrated by the media, the public, and some politicians, are improving as its destructive potential increases.' Laqueur's argument highlights two important aspects of the danger posed by terrorism. Firstly, that it is often overestimated in terms of the actual physical harm it does - as discussed above - and secondly, that we fears its potential not what the harm terrorists can currently do. Apocalyptic premonitions of terrorists gaining weapons of mass destruction panic decision makers and the public alike far more than the capabilities that terrorists have so far shown themselves to be possess. It is what we don't know about terrorist groups which causes fear and what is worrying is Alan Krueger and David Laitin's attestation that 'the [US] government lacks both classi?ed and unclassi?ed data to make critical policy decisions.' Blindness, when dealing with terrorists, limits a government's decision making capability and feeds back into the cycle of fear established by the actions of the terrorists. If fear is allowed to drive policy making, that can be the point at which the danger posed by terrorism is the most real, if not always the clearest to perceive. David Kilcullen draws attention to the point that over the last decade, the war in Afghanistan has been hailed as the "good war" or the "necessary war" simply because it was in direct response to a perceived terrorist threat. Little consideration was given to the cost of such a war in comparison to the option of doing nothing, and a war fought out of fear or anger could hardly hope for much chance of success. The greatest danger posed by terrorism, therefore, is not the physical damage the individual acts themselves can cause, but the fear they create and the rash political decisions they force us as a society to make. In all, terrorism can be perceived as a 'clear and present danger' but not in terms of the physical damage it can cause. Although it is obvious that terrorism is a very real threat in a physical sense, the small numbers of casualties and limited damage it can achieve makes this particular impact a regrettable nuisance. The very real threat posed by terrorism, however, comes from its ability to cause fear within a society, thereby leveraging far more power than its relatively meagre capabilities should allow. It is a danger not because it harms us, but because we fear it will. It is a danger not because it over throws governments or engages us in wars but because it makes us do these things ourselves. Fear, not operational capabilities, makes terrorism such a clear and present danger. Words: 1,581

Cronin, Audrey, 'Transnational Terrorism and Security' in Michael Brown (Ed.), Grave New World (Georgetown, 2003)

Fromkin, David, 'The Strategy of Terror', in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 53, No.4, (July, 1975)

Heng, Yee-Kuang, War as Risk Management: Strategy and Conflict in an Age of Global Risks (Oxford, 2006)

Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the Mind of God (London, 2001)

Kilcullen, David The Accidental Guerrilla (Oxford, 2009)

Krueger, Alan and Laitin, David, 'Misunderestimating Terrorism, in Foreign Affairs, Vol.83, No.5, (Sept/Oct 2004)

Laqueur, Walter, 'Post-Modern Terrorism', in Foreign Affairs Vol.75, No.5, (Sept/Oct 1995)